Ski areas change their names for all types of causes. Palisades Tahoe, California; Saskadena Six, Vermont; and Snowriver, Michigan ditched monikers that had aged poorly: Squaw Valley, Suicide Six, and Indianhead, respectively. Boyne Highlands, Michigan became “The Highlands,” principally to keep away from decades-long confusion with close by Boyne Mountain. And Boyne Resorts restored the Nice Mountain identify to its latest property, then generally known as “Shawnee Peak,” 34 years after a Pennsylvania resort operator had modified the unique identify to match his Poconos ski space. Right here’s a have a look at all the U.S. ski space identify adjustments prior to now two years:
The final one on that checklist is official as of immediately: the North Carolina ski space generally known as Wolf Ridge will change into “Hatley Pointe” beneath its new homeowners, Deb and David Hatley. The resort introduced the identify by way of this video, made public immediately:
The resort’s new website can be reside. “We wish to give the mountain a brand new period and a brand new life,” Deb Hatley instructed The Storm in Could. That is at the very least the second identify change for the ski space, which was generally known as “Wolf Laurel” by way of at least 2005.
The identify change, nonetheless, is a footnote in comparison with the large renovations underway on the mountain. The video options Deb Hatley seated among the many gut-renovated base lodge. The dimensions and power of the challenge echoes the full overhaul of Timberline, West Virginia in 2020. A declining mountain, stripped to its bones and reborn with a full-service restaurant and VIP season passholder lounge. Fashionable, interesting past the snowboarding itself, virtually grand. A ski resort, reasonably than a easy ski space.
From a snowboarding perspective, the video underscores the extent of the top-to-bottom snowmaking upgrades, with 16-inch pipe strung up the incline. Right here, Hatley, a self-described novice skier, reassures us that she understands the primary and solely factor that issues to a Southeast ski space: snowmaking.
“Our temps are marginal, and we actually need to capitalize on these colder climates and colder weeks and days,” she says within the video. “And in order that’s a extremely large piece that we’re redoing, and I consider that persons are going to note and actually admire it.”
There’s nonetheless loads to do, after all, however pumping up snowmaking output was essential for a ski space that didn’t handle to make it out of February alive this previous season. The upper-mountain Ridge Lodge, burned to the bottom in 2014, must be rebuilt. The Hatleys intend to revive the dormant terrain and lifts – a double and a quad – round that lodge, and to improve the frontside double chair, probably with a high-speed carry, Deb instructed The Storm in Could.
These initiatives will take time. What the Hatleys can implement quicker is a cultural shift to a extra boutique, service-oriented expertise.
“The service aspect of issues is, I really feel, going to be considered one of our largest strengths,” Deb says, alluding to the Hatleys expertise operating high-end resorts. “That’s one thing that is embedded into our tradition of our firm, and one thing that we’re going to be actually coaching the long run employees right here on this place as to, you realize, you’re right here to serve these folks.”
A lot of the rough-and-tumble ski business is allergic to such express appeals to snowboarding’s fluffier aspect. Hearty bearded bros pounding a tailgate breakfast of PBRs earlier than powder-bounding off a 60-year-old double chair for seven hours is the ski-hero archetype of the second. Nevertheless it does probably not seize the game’s zeitgeist. Snowboarding is usually households, principally intermediates, principally three-laps-and-a-lunch-break Saturdays. Hatley will get this.
“They are not simply right here to go and ski and snowboard down a mountain,” she says. “They’re additionally right here to create unforgettable experiences with their household and their children. And that is one thing that I am large about. It is one thing that issues so much to me, and that is like, the guts of myself is making somebody really feel very particular and appreciated and considered at any time when they arrive to an area.”
This type of message performs very nicely within the Southeast, the place a lot of the surviving ski areas are stapled to a bigger, year-round resort. For the previous a number of years, Wolf Ridge has been a shrinking, under-invested property that might hardly ever hack out a three-month ski season. The ski space has closed in February four times since 2018, and solely made the primary week of March within the different two seasons. That isn’t a sustainable enterprise, particularly within the Epkon period, when Charlotte skiers can hop a 7:05 Delta flight, contact down in Salt Lake at 9:25 within the morning, and be snowboarding Snowbird or Park Metropolis by lunchtime.
Hatley Pointe is a reset, on the model and on a stale enterprise. I’m positive some locals will likely be nostalgic for the previous identify, with its wily connotations of beastly, thrilling nature. I’ll miss it too. However most will overlook “Wolf Ridge” the second they step into that new lodge and perceive that “Hatley Pointe” alerts a brand new, sustainable period for a tricky enterprise in a tricky local weather.
North Carolina snowboarding doesn’t get a lot consideration nationally, however it’s an extremely essential ski market. It’s the ninth most-populous state in America, a rising Solar Belt energy with a rising upper-middle-class inhabitants. Georgia, the eighth most-populated state, and one with zero ski areas, sits simply south. Regardless of this large regional inhabitants, North Carolina is residence to simply six lively ski areas:
Beech and Sugar Mountain have aggressively modernized, putting in a combined eight new chairlifts since 2015. That type of funding is just not attainable with out passionate skiers dumping their paychecks into the money register. The market exists to help a model of Hatley Pointe that resembles – and even surpasses – its opponents. The ski space owns a good vertical drop, satisfactory terrain, and an unimaginable location – just some miles off Interstate 26, a brief drive from Asheville. It has good bones, because the builders say, however bad skin – crummy snowmaking, two dormant lifts plus a 52-year-old SLI double chair and a 1988 Doppelmayr quad. It’s high-quality for rookies, however most will rapidly lose curiosity and hop a flight west.
To outlive long-term, Hatley Pointe must evolve into a spot that skiers covet as a homebase between their journeys west. Which means fashionable services on the hill and off. The Hatleys’ first strikes are promising. Anybody who calls this bump residence – or is contemplating it – ought to really feel actually good about what they’re seeing to this point.
