Bye Bye June?

[ShiftyRider]

He said $20,000 of the funding is earmarked for...shuttle companies including Mammoth Mountain Ski Area

The truth is stranger than fiction.

If I'm following along, the taxpayers have $20,000 to help June motel owners convince a family on ski vacation to spend what? $120 a night at their motel? For each $300 for MMSA (approx. lift tickets for a family)? And the taxpayers drive 'em to the Mammoth Mountain lift ticket window?

This is the same town that wanted to make sure that "Letter of Non-Compliance" went out to MMSA??? Hmmm...

[Jbaysurfer]

He said $20,000 of the funding is earmarked for...shuttle companies including Mammoth Mountain Ski Area

The truth is stranger than fiction.

If I'm following along, the taxpayers have $20,000 to help June motel owners convince a family on ski vacation to spend what? $120 a night at their motel? For each $300 for MMSA (approx. lift tickets for a family)? And the taxpayers drive 'em to the Mammoth Mountain lift ticket window?

This is the same town that wanted to make sure that "Letter of Non-Compliance" went out to MMSA??? Hmmm...

LOL!

MM: Hey June, we're going to close your mountain down!
JLV: WTF?
MC: Don't worry June we'll get ya through this. Here's some money.
JLV: MM, can we pay you to run a shuttle between here and Mammoth?
MM: Depends....how much does the gig pay?

Amusing as it is, I think JLV business owners are backed against the wall. Deals with the devil may be (probably "appears to be" for them) the only way to survive the winter.

Everyone is obviously hoping things will change and that JM will reopen in 2013-2014.

Me? Let's just say, once bitten, twice shy.

[Dingoe_ed]

Job loss by all means is awful situation to endure and I truly feel for all former June employees that have not been reassigned and now dealing with tough decisions as the high cost of winter living will be upon us soon.

As for use of the June area (USFS Lands”, Public lands that we all pay) it’s wide open now. Because the pulley lines are shutdown it doesn’t mean the best skiing in the Joaquin zone has to end. It just takes a little effort and let’s face it if you aren’t hiking for your turns (sitting on a lift), your just lazy and not earning the goods.

Other options:

Silverton is one of the best resorts in the nation. It runs one lift and you simply put the effort in to get to amazing terrain; in other words you get of a mechanical chair and you skin, simple! Remember Mammoth is not great skiing, it uses lifts and well let’s face it you’ve got every city type coming from the west and the fresh is gone faster than a push-up on a hot summer’s day. June known for its glades and fresh can capitalize on what other areas in the western states realized years ago. Take away the lifts and open to the true skiing experience and I’m not talking some rich man’s cat operation or only those city dwellers from the west will score, but the true skiers who are willing to work for the snow. Sure there are overhead cost, but rethinking the operation plan could possible target the willing skiers and if kept small enough it could survive.
Just a though, though cost are still to incur as the USFS permit, Patrol/guide Staff/Avy savvy crew cost, and possible one lift; but if you eliminate all other overhead and services it just may be feasible. No skier ventures into backcountry/slackcountry without food and supplies, so there is no need for food services or any other such nonsense, thus huge savings.

Sure hope the higher ups think out of the box and realize that skiing doesn’t require lifts and without lifts you open to an entirely new business model that could prove to be a win-win for the community and skiers alike.

If not, at least we can still ski the amazing June just skin it!

[Snow D]

Run lifts on weekends only (temp), and let people hike/snowmobile during weekdays to ride... Just dont close it completely as I fear it could turn perm...

[TonyC]

Silverton is a very poor analogy for June. Its lift (FYI Mammoth's original chair 15) rises 1,800 vertical at quite steep pitch and a typical run involves 15-30 minutes hiking/skinning above the top of that lift. You get 4-5 runs a day averaging 2,000+ vertical for which you usually pay well over $100 because it's guided like snowcat skiing. Silverton's low water content snow presents an ongoing challenge in snow stability, but the powder still skis quite well several days after a storm, which Sierra snow often does not.

June's lower Face is steep but is unreliable for snow. To get anything close to a Silverton experience you need to get to the top of J6 or J7 and start hiking/skinning from there. That requires running 2-3 lifts. I think this concept would be an interesting addition to the June experience that would bring in a few more advanced skiers/riders. But the fundamental strength of June is for beginners and that's what needs to be promoted/exploited by anyone who hopes to pay the bills.

[BlackHawk1776]

The strength of June for beginners and bringing them to the mountain takes us back to the fact beginners aren't likely to and don't usually do well with a lift like J1 up and down loading. Which there WERE plans to upgrade that; it sure seems like had that single upgrade happened then perhaps the past 20 years of alleged -1.5million maybe they would be at $0 (break even) or even +$50 at the end of a season. Then if you could throw in some of the terrain to skin to you could garner some advanced skiers, possibly even a few people so into the sport they might have 'known' names and maybe even a camera or two with them to put June 'on the map' in one of those epic ski videos that are all over. With June so close to a film capitol like LA it seems not too far fetched that someone would want to try and make a power video and what a better way to try it for less than a couple of thousand in expenses?

All these little 'mistakes' and delays and not doing things are really what seem to have lead us here. Who was the idiot that thought it was a good idea to subsidize the air planes coming to mammoth instead of using Bishop's airport which could facilitate larger planes, direct flights, and only an hour drive to the hill? Not to mention that would have saved enough money to replace J1 and then both Mammoth AND June would be open and doing even better than they are now. So there it is, abandon the Mammoth Airport (keep it open-ish for the small planes if it's cost effective) and use Bishop as the main strip, then spend the saved money on a small loan to replace J1 so you can get those beginning skiers onto the hill that is bounding with great terrain. Next open up some of those areas for the really advanced skiers who would be interested in skinning and now we're talking.

[MarmotMountain]

In my humble opinion June doesn't need to be marketed towards beginners. Same goes for the "family" that MM has typically targeted. The history of June during the McCoy years shows that when June was pro-active in catering to the freestyle and competition crowds visits have been up. Embrace that crowd, stop ignoring them. Mammoth has a large ski and snowboard youth team program. On weekends when these kids or USASA has competitions run them over there. Those families with kids in the program have money, the customer base June needs most. Some of those college teams might even decide to base out of June for the winter which would be good for the whole community.

Set up an area with real gates so kids can practice. Expand the freestyle progression side of June's park. Have 2 or 3 halfpipes of different sizes next to each other so people can practice those skills. Big air progression jumps so they can comfortably learn air awareness and new tricks. Basically market June as the place to come and train to improve your skills whether your interests are in Boardercross, Slalom, GS, Halfpipe or Slopestyle. These runs take up room at Mammoth and when events are happening tend to lead to multiple run closures. June has the room. You can still leave most of the beginner runs untouched, just make better use of the areas that are already being targeted for some of these purposes.

Whether people like to admit it or not the Grenade years at June were some of the best years for skier visits at June. Based solely on the hype that an olympic silver medalist and his clan of dirtbag buddies loved June enough to call it home. Grenade Games had some of the best turnout June got during those years, holiday weekends excluded.

There are many families where the dad grew up in the action sports lifestyle, skating and snowboarding. Now these dads are taking thier kids up to the hill with them, target those families. The action sports family. The people who want to ride park all day with their kids, Big Bear and Mountain High are full of these families.

Sell sponsorship rights to the lifts. Neff Headwear is sponsoring an area of Park City this year and creating Neff Land. Basically an area of the mountain where Neff gets to wrap the chairlift in bright colors and create signage and obstacles that reflect the brand image. Wouldn't something like that also work for June? Surely there are some brands that might want to kick in some money each year so they can have some marketing presence on the hill. The end result is two-fold. You have companies that get better regional awareness for their brand and June gets to tell the story of the ski/snowboard community coming together to "save" June. Imagine J6 as the Volcom chair or J2 as the Rossi Experience, for example. Burton sponsors parks around the world, maybe they would take the oppurtunity to expand their presence.

My basic point is that we need to let go of the traditional skier model that has kept ski areas stale for so long and embrace the modern era of winter sports.

[SnowHeart]

Totally agree with Marmot Mountain's post. Those were good, vibrant, and busier times on June Mountain. Also a lot of good free advertising was had from articles written about events in snowboard and skier publications.

[TonyC]

My analysis of June Mt. visitation earlier in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13693&p=242903&hilit=june+skier+visits#p242903

Under Dave McCoy terrain park development was first pushed at June over Mammoth, mainly because snowboarding was still banned at Mammoth in the 1980's. Needless to say with snowboarding being 40% of Mammoth/June visitation that's ancient history.

Mammoth is now considered by much of the ski press as the #1 area in North America for terrain parks. So it's unlikely they want to give up any of that reputation to June. The Grenade Games were in mid-April of 2005 - 2008, probably June's closing weekend. Visitation at June was high in 2005 and 2006 and down the next 2 years, just like Mammoth's due mainly to snow conditions. I would agree that hosting mid-season park special events at June makes sense, when they would potentially only add to overcrowding at Mammoth.

[TheSnowman]

The Grenade Games - were held the weekend after the public closing. To much of a party for the sheriffs of mono county...

[onegoodturn]

Set up an area with real gates so kids can practice.

The last few years the kids would come over on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. They would rope off either Gunsmoke or Schatzi and throw up gates, film the kids and have coaches out on the course.

Was that good for June or not? I know more than one person that was a bit pissed that they were closing down one of their favorite runs so the Mammoth Kids could practice.

Grenade Games??? Long live the Grenade Games... You were fine as long as you walked there and back to the village.

[SnowHeart]

June Mt , kids, ski racing is a good thing. Originally June Mt had a wonderful race team of its own. Several of them are now working in the ski profession. And, at least one is still competing successfully in free style skiing nationally, as well as I think, in Europe. It was so neat to see a new June Mt Team established last year. Now they will be forced to train at Mammoth.

[Sierra Lady]

Today on Sierra Wave News:

Forest Service reviews MMSA plan for June Mountain