For the first time since becoming a nonprofit in 2020, we ended the local ski season 'in the black', with all of our recently purchased grooming and rental equipment finally paid off in full. Given this, our all-volunteer board voted and approved a 'snow guarantee' for all Woodmoor Nordic memberships (season passes) for next winter if purchased before 15 November 2024. In other words, if we happen to have a bad local winter resulting in less than 15 days of local skiing, 50% of the purchase price will be 'rolled over' to next season's pass (half off). 15 or more local ski days will be considered a success (and would have cost an individual $300 to ski each day versus the $150 price tag of an individual membership)-- although we'll hopefully get even more than the 35 days of local skiing that we had this winter.
This snow guarantee will only be available for purchases that occur before 15 Nov, which we hope will encourage the earlier membership/season pass purchase. There are 3 additional benefits besides the snow guarantee that comes with the early purchase: 1) It ensures that members can maximize their local skiing by having their season pass in hand and ready for use on our first day of grooming/opening the ski trails, whenever that happens to be; 2) It reduces the stress and workload on our volunteers once the ski season has started and we are busy trying to groom trails and staff the rental shop versus complete membership purchases; 3) It gives our nonprofit an initial operating budget for the upcoming winter so that we can continue to improve the local ski experience for everyone with the purchase of additional rental or grooming equipment.
As before, all Woodmoor Nordic members (season pass holders) will also be invited to join our pre-season ski equipment order (Madshus skis/poles/boots/apparel; www.Madshus.com, and Toko ski wax/tools/apparel;www.tokous.com) which typically occurs towards the end of November or early December, and allows you to buy new equipment ~30-40% below retail prices. Members also get discounted or free (for kids 12 years or younger) ski rentals if reserved in advance.
In the past, many skiers haven't become members until they had an idea of what sort of local winter was in store, which is understandable given our fickle front range weather. However, hopefully this snow guarantee will make it easier to justify the upfront expense of supporting our nonprofit Nordic center with a membership. Local skiers who skied every day we were open this past winter would have paid less than $4/day to ski, not to mention saving numerous hours and fuel sitting in traffic driving up to the larger Nordic resorts.
Enjoy the end of the winter and have a great summer--and consider buying next winters membership early via our website--this next winter might be the one that beats our record of 60-plus local days of skiing!