Resorts’ unlimited season pass option for 18 to 29-year-olds,
are up 27 percent on both a revenue and unit basis over the
prior year.”
It may be surprising, but for all of this activity, Morgan’s
team of groomers can fit into a Smart car. “Honestly, we just
have two full-timers,” he said. “It’s awesome because even our
park crew is small. We only have an average of 12 to 16 guys
on a year. And everybody is super passionate and hard working.”
This small team has set a high standard for itself.
“For instance, we rebuild multiple times a week and truly
offer some of the more creative set-ups out there. Every weekend
we have kids coming in, they’re regulars, the parents are
up for the weekend in their vacation homes and they’re dying
all week to know what the set-up is going to be. Our Freedom
Park often has 40 features in it.”
“Our Plaza II Park is right outside the main lodge bar, so all
the parents gather there to watch their kids throw down on
training all night. It’s always switched up. We refuse to set it
and forget it.... It goes without saying that it’s beyond appreciated
by all our customers, whether they’re the most core or
they’re the casual.”
Morgan’s fleet of equipment is also modest and includes
two PistenBully Park 400s (“They’ve got some miles on them,”
he said.), along with a BR 350 winch and a BR 275 with a
13’ Zaugg.
The JFBB team, specifically at Big Boulder, happens to benefit
from a forgiving operations schedule which gives them a
lot of room to maneuver. During the winter season, the hills
are open for only six hours on weekdays, which negates the
need for an overnight team – usually – and gives the crew all
day to figure out the rest. On weekends, JFBB are open for 14
hours on Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday.
“Every single day our park is meticulously groomed. Like
I said, with us only being open 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. during the
week, that allows us a lot of daytime build time. We have a lot
of luxury Monday through Friday. Every single day things are
brand new again. That’s no small feat, especially with the
weather swings you get around here.
“The holiday weeks, we have very long days… because the
guys have to shift to an overnight maintenance schedule,”
said Morgan. “We’re really just maintaining; we’re not really
rebuilding those weeks, but there’s never any complaints.”
For those working at JFBB, the season starts as early as possible.
They generally aim for the start of November and keep
things going as long as they can, which is usually sometime
in April.
“We start making snow the very second we’re able,” said
Morgan. “And we make snow on this one hill called Freedom
Park. Once we’re done with that initial snowmaking effort,
we’ll have a park up and running within two days. We always
open with a pretty significant park. I think the last couple of
years we’ve been open, we have 20-plus features on a hill.”
For 14 years JFBB has taken advantage of the snowmaking
window and has been the first ski area in Pennsylvania open,
according to Morgan.
In terms of the preference between fake and real snow,
Morgan says that he doesn’t particularly differentiate.
“It doesn’t matter, especially if you’re making good snow. I
mean, if you’re doing it the right way, it is what it is. Don’t get
me wrong; things can go wrong with temperature swings and
things like that. But ultimately, it’s about the end product. We
also don’t overprocess our snow. We take that very seriously.
If we don’t need to be on it, we stay off of it.”
Neither is Morgan one to store snow. “There’s enough snow
there where once we shift to limited late season operations,
we keep machines off it, we let it bake in and it’s pretty easy to
push it out for cover snow for top to bottom of a run.”
Packed events
JFBB’s annual May Day event caps off the season. “For better
or for worse, it generally coincides with Cinco de Mayo,
which gets the kids extra rattled up. With generally over 1,000
riders through the door that day on one slope, there’s a lot
going on,” said Morgan.
Besides May Day, there are other events as well. Morgan is
pretty happy with the resorts’ record of accessibility as well
as their women-specific initiatives. “I think accessibility and
participation are crucial in this day and age,” he said. “Any age
COVER FEATURE
PHOTO COURTESY OF NORTHEAST RIDERS Freedom Park at Big Boulder
Matt Bothfeld (left) and Alex Caccamo stick their tricks at
Freedom Park at Big Boulder
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHAWN KALATUCKA 28 September 2019 | snowopsmag.com
/snowopsmag.com
