GROOMING
“The fact that we’re
able to do it here
in the east really
excites people.”
– Tom Butler, Sugarloaf
“We do advertise it as advanced skiing because even
though the pitch isn’t overly steep, skiing in untracked snow
is challenging,” Butler said. “You’re skiing the conditions of
the day; it could be really fluffy powder or crusty snow.”
At both resorts, cat-skiing opens up new possibilities
for returning customers and may also attract a new clien-tele.
“When we’re running it, it’s more often than not that
we’re sold out, so we’re running full cats,” said Butler, who
believes the option attracts some new skiers to the resort
because it’s “a little different and a little unique in terms of
in-resort skiing.”
The clientele for cat-skiing represents the full gamut of
enthusiastic skiers of all age groups. Some of the business
consists of group bookings, but in general, Paccagnan said,
“It’s your typical ski day. It could be a small group of four, a
couple or two friends.”
For wilderness cat-skiing excursions, the staffing demands
are more significant, but, considering the potential return,
an in-resort cat-skiing operation requires a relatively small
increase in staff. At Panorama, “We have dedicated cat driv-ers
and we’ve staffed accordingly for that,” said Paccagnan.
At Sugarloaf, “We hired somebody specifically to drive the
cat,” said Butler. “It is patrolled by the ski patrol, so there
are a couple of patrollers who can be dispatched from the
top of the hill; we didn’t hire any added staff for that. There’s
one person down at the warming hut – he’s our meeter-and-
greeter. He just came from the lift service, so we didn’t
hire somebody for the role, but we probably needed to
fill his vacancy.”
One further consideration is the environmental impact
of opening up new terrain to skiers. At Panorama, the bowl
area is part of the resort’s Controlled Recreation Area, and as
such was already covered under provincial regulations.
On Burnt Mountain, “We work very closely with the De-partment
of Inland Wildlife and Fisheries when we start cut-ting
trails so we’re not going to be disrupting any wildlife,”
Butler said. “It turned out that there were a couple of areas
we wanted to start opening up where, even at 3,000 feet,
there are some little ponds that have fish in them, so we left
pretty good buffers around those.”
Cat-skiing is not an option for every resort, but it offers
exciting possibilities for the right location.
“You’ve got to assess who is your client? Is it something
that fits with who you are as a resort? You need to have the
ability to get in and out, but you want to give them the experi-ence
of being out in the middle of the woods, so there’s a fine
balance,” Butler said.
“You look at the cost of the asset; you want the cat to be in
perfect working condition because down time is frustrating,”
said Paccagnan. “Does this business model work, based on a
differentiated value model? It has to be unique, differentiat-ed
and something that the customer would see value in and
want to participate in.”
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUGARLOAF
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