Ski Burke

It’s been a very exciting couple of months here at Burke! As the new ownership group settles in, the Burke Bike Park is open and off to a great start, and we held arguably one of the best mountain bike festivals in New England! All the while, there are a number of projects in the works that will bring some great improvements to the 2012.13 winter season. The change in ownership at Burke has gone extremely smooth and we are all very excited with what our future holds. Our new partners at Jay Peak have been great to work with and all of our customers will benefit from this new synergy.

Memorial Day weekend is behind us and the official start to summer is not far off, and with the change of seasons comes more exciting changes at Burke. Last year at this time we were getting ready to talk about the new Mid Burke lift and the installation of the wind turbine. One would think it would be difficult to top those announcements, but the news last week may just have done that. For those who have not heard, Burke was purchased by a private ownership group last week. The new owners, headed by businessman Ariel Quiros, own a number of other entities (both ski and non ski related) including Jay Peak Resort. Jay Peak has seen unprecedented capital investment in the resort over the past several years led by their President and co-owner Bill Stenger. We are delighted to have such a vibrant ownership team that is locally based and has such extensive experience in the ski resort industry.

So what do these changes mean for Burke? First, there are still many details to work out, this transaction happened very quickly, both the existing Burke team and new owners need to get up to speed. There will likely be no immediate changes in the next few months, summer festivals, lift served mountain biking, and the Tamarack grill will continue to operate as planned. Burke will continue to have its own brand and identity, and likewise for Jay Peak. Improvements for the upcoming winter, including significant upgrades to the snowmaking system and additional marketing are now being discussed. Beyond this season, further improvements and attractions, including additional bed base are seen as important to the success of Burke. We will also be discussing reciprocal pass and ticket deals that will allow the customers of both resorts to take advantage of this new partnership.

The Burke Freestyle team worked incredibly hard all season long and as a result earned a few spots in USASA Nationals at Copper Mountain, CO. This is unusual for the first year skiing on a freestyle team, but our Burkies are a special group of athletes!   Congratulations to Nick, Ryan, and Luke for putting in the extra effort and making us all very proud. Nick and Ryan qualified for Slopestyle and Superpipe competitions held April 4-10, 2012.
 
As I am writing this it is sunny and 60 degrees at Copper- it's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago we were training at Burke and competing all over New England. We arrived Friday April 6 in Colorado only to find that Nick's luggage had been lost by the airline and Ryan had come down with altitude sickness. Saturday we were off to a late start but still managed to train at The Barn at Woodward at Copper, a custom indoor training facility. The boys worked on front-flips, 540s, and misty flips on the trampolines and in the foam pit.
 
Sunday we hit the slopes and started practicing on the Superpipe and Slopestyle course. We put together our runs, got some sleep, and prepared for Monday's Superpipe competition.
 
Monday we were up early for Superpipe on a perfect spring day. The pipe was immaculate and the team threw down. Nick stomped some huge grabs, alley-oops, and even his first-ever alley-oop 360 in the pipe during his runs. Ryan came charging down with some tai-lgrabs, Japan grabs, alley-oops, 360s, and his first-ever switch alley-oop 180 during his runs. We celebrated by free skiing the rest of the day and enjoying Copper's many flawless parks and bowls.
 
Tuesday morning we arrived on the Slopestyle course to find another great day and perfect course. The field was stacked but we still put together some unique runs that caught the crowd's attention. Nick threw down on the boxes and pulled a switch 180 to a huge 180 on the jumps. Ryan pulled his first switch 360 followed by a huge 360 to cap his run off. After the competition we skied until the lifts closed, again enjoying the great views, parks, and wide-open soft bowls up top.
 
Tuesday night the team had another Barn session and worked on flips and corked spins, which we hope to take to the snow next season. Overall it has been an amazing first year and we are already looking forward to December for our season kick-off. A Special thank you goes to Burke Mountain for supporting our new program and all freestyle team members and families for helping make this a huge success.
 
Stay tuned and come join the team to have fun with us next year!
To register or find out more give us a call at 802.626.7324 or email us at info@skiburke.com 

See You Later.....
Although we have given it our best shot, this season was not meant to be, with the continued deterioration of our ski conditions and over ¼” of rain forecast for tomorrow morning between 8:00 am – noon, we will be forced to make today our last day of operation. I would like to thank all of our staff, passholders, and customers for their unwavering support this season which will surely go down as one of the worst ski seasons in the northeast in many decades. Although the conditions were disappointing this season, we are very excited about the ongoing improvements that have been made at the resort and we couldn’t be more excited for next season. In the meantime, we are thrilled about the upcoming NEMBAfest (New England Mountain Biking Association – June 22-24) at Burke with Kingdom Trails. Kingdom Trails and Burke Mountain are consistently recognized as one of the top mountain biking destinations in the country, so if you have not been here in the summer it’s well worth the trip. We hope you were able to make the best of this season and we look forward to seeing you soon!

A Burke Mountain Minute:

Due to the unseasonable weather forecast and record breaking high tempertures, The Sherburne Base Area and trails in the will be closed Monday-Friday of this week (Mar 19-23) with hopes that we can reopen it on next Saturday & Sunday March 24 & 25. The Mid Burke Lodge and trails on the Upper Mountain will remain open daily.  Tickets and food services will be available from the Mid Burke Lodge & Bear Den Lounge for the week. 

What a difference a few weeks can make, my last blog was in mid February and at that point I was looking forward to the second half of the winter but lamenting the lack of snow up until that point. The good news is we did get a second life and some fantastic (by any winter's standard) conditions. I started to prepare a blog during the first week of March to publicize the epic conditions with over 38” of fresh powder in less than two weeks, but a week later that blog was no longer relevant. Unfortunately, the epic conditions were short lived, from late February until early March, when we were suddenly hit with unprecedented spring temperatures that seem to want to now turn to summer temps. There is no doubt that an early spring is now here and if the forecast is true there is little chance we will make it to our planned April 8th closing date.

Spring Fever!

The Burke Mountain Freestyle team was formed early this season to introduce young Burke skiers to the competitive side of freestyle skiing and instill a lifelong love of skiing by fostering a passion for freestyle ski progression. Throughout the winter, Burke athletes have been working closely with Burke freestyle coaches led by head coach Sasha Yakovleff training here at the mountain and competing in various freestyle events.