Two Saturday’s ago was the fifth-best day in the history of the 49-year-old resort - with 2,600 skiers - and the whole Christmas weekend was busy, according to Rob Ringer, president and general manager.
After 10 years there, he said, “I would definitely say it was the best weekend I’ve seen on Red Lodge Mountain.”
Margaret McCarty, owner of the Village Shop at 118 S. Broadway, which sells high-end apparel and outdoor gear, said the store had its best day ever on Christmas Eve. And that’s for a store that opened in 1975, and its best day came as retailers across the country reported the slowest holiday sales in decades.
Down the block at the Red Lodge Cafe and Lounge, manager Lucie Barnette said the business had “an incredible week.” There was a slowdown in October and November, when the international financial meltdown was on everyone’s mind, but business has been booming since then, she said.
Until recently, most of the license plates on the street were from Carbon County or Billings.
“This last week, every time you turn around you see Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah,” Barnette said.
Ringer, too, has seen a lot of out-of-state skiers recently, but the good news is the bulk of his customers still hail from Billings, which means that people are hearing about the mountain’s attempts to address problems that used to plague the resort.
Last winter, three lifts broke down on opening day and the resort had trouble with the lifts all winter. Over the summer, the resort’s new owner, JMA Ventures, completely overhauled four old lifts, putting in new components and adding detection devices to each support tower. That means that when there are mechanical failures, they can be located immediately and repaired much more quickly.
“Last year, I think, people felt like, 'God, we can’t count on them anymore,’ ” Ringer said.
Also included in the multimillion-dollar upgrade were 17 snowmaking guns that fire up automatically when computers determine that conditions are good for making snow. That has made the condition of the runs much better and more consistent, Ringer said, even if there isn’t much natural snow.
This year, fortunately, there’s been plenty, starting with the 43-inch dump in mid-October.
“That gave us a really good head-start,” Ringer said. So far this season, the mountain has received well more than 100 inches of snow.
Other improvements include a new “magic carpet,” a rubber conveyor belt on the beginner hill that slowly takes novices up a slight grade. It’s much less daunting than the tow rope it replaced.
“If you can stand up, you’re good,” Ringer said.
That was confirmed by 17-year-old Zach Brehm of Billings, who was downhill-skiing for the first time Wednesday.
“It’s pretty slick,” Brehm said. “It sounds like it’s a heck of a lot easier than the old tow rope.”
In the area of “creature comforts,” the mountain has also made progress, Ringer said, ranging from new seat covers on some of the lifts to fresh coats of paint, a new deck and tables at the lodge and $95,000 worth of new rental equipment - mostly skis, boots, boards and bindings.
Ringer said the resort did some out-of-state advertising and sent people to ski shows in nearby states, but the focus has been wooing customers new and old from the Billings area. One result was a 25 percent increase over last year in the sale of season tickets.
Unlike some of the ritzier resorts, Ringer said, Red Lodge Mountain relies for probably 95 percent of its business on people who drive, rather than fly, to the resort.
The recent plunge in gas prices certainly helped, he said, but in hard times he thinks people want to hang onto family traditions, one of which is skiing in Red Lodge for the holidays.
Maggie Everson, a Kansas City resident skiing Red Lodge with her family last week, said she has come to the mountain off and on over the years because her father is originally from Absarokee.
She said Red Lodge Mountain is “really nice because the lines aren’t, like, really long, and you can get right on.”
She’s been to Breckenridge, Colo., Everson said, but she prefers Red Lodge.
“I like it better here because it’s less crowded,” she said. “And the town of Red Lodge is really cute.”
If you go
Red Lodge Mountain Resort hours: Upper mountain, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; lower mountain, 9 to 4.
Full-day lift tickets: $47 for adults, $40 for those 13-18, $17 for children 6-12, $36 for seniors 65-69, free to skiers younger than 5 and older than 70.
Number of full- and part-time employees: 250.
Snow phone: 255-6973.
Red Lodge Mountain Web site: www.redlodgemountain.com.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)