After getting a late start to the ski season, Crotched Mountain resort has angered some season pass holders by cutting back its operating schedule to five days a week and dropping its Midnight Madness hours, just as other New Hampshire areas owned by Vail Resorts have faced difficulties this season.
“Mother Nature has been historically stingy with natural snow and consistent snowmaking temperatures, and we’ve had to contend with significant hurdles in regard to the COVID pandemic and staffing,” wrote Crotched Mountain general manager Susan Donnelly in a December 30 posting on social media. “We will continue working toward solutions to these challenges and will reassess our operations strategy as the season progresses.”
Crotched, in Francestown, didn’t open at all until Dec. 26 – two weeks after nearby Pats Peak and almost a full month after Wachusett Mountain in Massachusetts – and then suffered a last-minute shutdown for what it said was lift maintenance on Dec. 28, in the middle of school vacation week.
Donnelly’s Dec. 30 announcement that Crotched would not open on Mondays or Tuesdays in coming weeks and always close by 9 p.m., which ends the Midnight Madness program that had long drawn enthusiastic fans, triggered more than 200 comments on Facebook, mostly from angry or confused customers.
“This is BS! If this had been known before, I would have not put my daughter in ski team there and kept her at Pat’s. At least they can operate a mountain,” wrote a typical comment.
Adding to the concern, Wildcat and Attitash ski areas issued public apologies via Instagram and other outlets just before Christmas about the lack of open trails on the two mountains, which are much larger than relatively small Crotched. The statements also cited weather and staffing problems caused by the pandemic.
Crotched, Wildcat and Attitash were among the resorts bought by Vail in 2019 when Vail purchased their owner, Peak Resorts. Vail already operated Mount Sunapee Resort, which is located on land owned by the state of New Hampshire.
In recent days complaints have arisen about another Vail property in Washington state, Stevens Pass, which was so slow to open that pass holders have threatened lawsuits and started an online petition, demanding redress.
Vail recently announced that it has purchased three ski areas in Pennsylvania, giving it a total of 40 ski areas in three countries, including its namesake, Vail Resort in Colorado.
Crotched Mountain Ski Area in Francestown has an unusual history. It began in the 1960s to serve disabled people from the nearby Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center and operated as a traditional ski area for decades, at one time merging with an area on the adjoining mountain. It shut in 1990, one of many small, independent resorts that didn’t survive a wave of consolidation, and seemed likely to join scores of “lost” ski areas on hillsides around New England.
But Crotched Mountain was reborn in 2002, when Peak Resorts bought it and rebuilt the entire resort, cutting new trails, installing new chairlifts and constructing a new lodge and associated buildings. This was perhaps the biggest redevelopment of a closed ski area in state history.