Last week, it seemed like everyone was celebrating the birthdays of the nation’s presidents by going skiing and businesses in The Valley were at their busiest since December.
“Well-timed, accumulating snow is always a good thing,” Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce director Susan Klein said. “And we got that, just like we did at Christmas.”
“We had a really good week, and thankfully so,” Mad River Glen marketing director Eric Friedman said. The ski area had been suffering from low snowfall and high temperatures, but after receiving nearly 30 inches of powder over Presidents week, all of the trails re-opened and “we’re really in business now,” Friedman said.
According to Klein, most of The Valley’s lodging options were full or nearly full for the late-February weekends, and shops and restaurants happily received the influx of visitors.
“We were slamming,” Big Picture Theater and Cafe owner Claudia Becker said.
The Warren Store owner Jack Garvin noticed that foot traffic was particularly high when the chairlifts were on wind hold up at Sugarbush, but “everyone was in good spirits,” he said. Catering to out-of-state customers, the store held several tastings of local food and wine “to really turn people on to the ever-expanding food products in Vermont,” Garvin said.
Presidents’ week is over, but with more snow in the forecast for this week, “we’re heading into what—for us—is really the heart of the season,” Friedman said.
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