As we enter mid-July, Black Mountain still has a major issue at hand after the announced closure and comeback before last season and making it all the way to March: who will take over as owner?
In this article we look at three people and three companies that were submitted by followers on our story the last week.
People
Andy Shepard
Shepard comes with a very good history in restoring former ski areas to their former glory as evidence in what he was able to do at Saddleback. If hired at Black Mountain it would not be a reclamation project of making everything up to code, it would be more improving upon what is already there and competing with the surrounding ski areas. Now Shepard would be a home run hire to take over Black Mountain but the question of if he would want to do it is another one. Shepard stepped back from CEO of Saddleback citing age but is still involved with Saddleback. Would he leave Saddleback and come to Black Mountain? Probably not.
John Schaefer
Schaefer is the owner of both Catamount and Berkshire East which are two of the best in Massachusetts. His resume speaks for itself, and an acquisition of Black Mountain would add to his portfolio. There have been rumors of Schaefer looking at Burke Mountain, but we haven’t found much of anything to confirm it so at this point they are just rumors but this begs the question: Would Schaefer want to double his portfolio? All four of these mountains would remain independent and added onto the pass that Catamount and Berkshire East are on would be Burke and Black Mountain making it a three-state pass. This would be very interesting and open the door to more opportunities for independent mountains to team up on mini passes.
John Henry
Now here’s an interesting one as Fenway Sports Group has no holdings in skiing nor likely wants to venture into skiing. After owning the Red Sox, Liverpool, and investing heavily in LIV Golf would Henry even want to spend money operating a ski area? Black Mountain would probably love it, but it would lose some of that independent feel as they would probably have a much larger budget than they do right now and could improve a lot of snowmaking features. But once again, Henry is likely not to invest in ski areas.
Corporations
Indy Pass
Indy Pass helped operate Black Mountain through the past season and if they took over full time this could be a first for them. Having a major pass like Indy Pass takeover a ski area in trouble could become something of the future if this happens as we just saw that they could keep it going for at least a year this past season. I think they will continue to help out and operate until a buyer is found but Indy Pass will not be the buyer.
Pacific Group Resorts
Pacific Group Resorts owns two mountains in New England that are each already on Indy Pass in Jay Peak and Ragged. Both of these ski areas are well run and Black Mountain could use a guiding hand that isn’t one of the bigger corporations. Black Mountain is also one of the most affordable mountains in the White Mountains region which would fit right in with PGR’s Mission Affordability. There is no doubt that aside from a lift upgrade, Black Mountain would remain mostly the same in terms of feel under PGR.
Boyne Resorts
Boyne owns Loon, Sunday River, Sugarloaf, and Pleasant Mountain in the northeast and adding Black Mountain would fit within that region as it is less than an hour drive to Loon and Pleasant Mountain and under an hour and a half to Sunday River. When looking at this we’re going to look at Pleasant Mountain as a model of what they may do with it. Pleasant Mountain still has an independent feel to it and has a stellar snowmaking system. Black Mountain would probably keep the independent feel and have a massive upgrade in terms of snowmaking as it could be greatly improved. Pleasant Mountain is also receiving a new chairlift and Black Mountain could use an upgrade. Therefore Boyne could also be a positive upgrade over what they have right now.
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