Next Level Ops Report: The Summer of Town
Hi friends,
I have been so silent this summer. Eerily silent for me.
I haven't written, I haven't spoken, I haven't participated in the festivities of summer. It's been a summer of hard work, a summer of perseverance, a summer of change for all of us.
You might have seen my team and I in Town - working on rock walls, concrete and earthwork - cutting trees, chipping trees, planting flowers. For Ops, this was the summer of Town, with the mountain all but abandoned.
At first, we were slow to learn how to work on flat ground. Cautious about what people in Town would think of our work. Shy. Demure, even.
I was determined to bring the spirit of the mountain down to Town this summer. We brought our joy and our teamwork and, hopefully, smoothed out some of the roughness around our edges. We came looking for your approval and support as we took on this next big Adventure in construction.
Although I have worked in construction for many years and managed many big projects, this one has been different. The mounds of paperwork, engineering documents, architectural drawings, meetings and subcontractors have consumed my days. And this, of course, on top of getting ready for ski season.
So now, as the mornings grow colder, the leaves begin to change and the air has that hint of winter on the way, I thought it was finally time to update you on our Ops summer.
Town and Mountain.
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
We actually started the Adventure Center project before last ski season even came to a close, but the mucky, messy spring made things slow going.
First, we had a lot of tree clearing to do.
Cutting trees isn't an easy business, especially when you are trying to save certain ones. We moved methodically through the site as we did our final layout, determining which trees could stay and which ones had to go.
The ones that needed to be removed were taken down and thanked for their service.
Then came stumping. Site clearing. Loam removal.
Surveying.
Surveying.
And more surveying.
With the mini golf course first on the docket, we prepared the ground and staked out what we could for their team.
When the mini golf crew first arrived, things were...corporate.
Decisions seemed to require ten different people in ten different offices, and I don't think either group was entirely sure what to make of the other.
But as the project moved along, we started working together.
Our team jumped in whenever they needed help. We shared machinery. We solved problems together. We shared some laughs. Eventually their boss came out to work alongside everyone, and I think they discovered that our natural mountain hospitality was a bit of a breath of fresh air.
By the time they had to head back to Michigan, they had fallen in love with the Valley - the natural beauty, the people and this strange little place we are lucky enough to call home.
JUST STACK SOME ROCKS
Since we started designing this building last summer, there was one thing I always knew I wanted.
A rock wall.
Not a perfectly manufactured, everything-is-the-same-size kind of rock wall. I wanted a real New England farmer's rock wall. The kind that looks like it has always been there. Like maybe someone cleared that field 150 years ago, piled the rocks along the edge and we just happened to build an Adventure Center next to it.
Simple enough.
It's just stacking some rocks, right?
I planned two weeks.
Nope.
Three months later...we just finished it.
And when I say we, I really mean our Snowsports managers.
They built that wall.
All summer.
Turns out, making a rock wall look like it was casually stacked by a farmer 150 years ago takes a tremendous amount of very deliberate work.
Which rock fits here? Nope. Turn it. Nope. Different rock. Bigger rock. Smaller rock. Backfill. Move that one again. Stand back and stare at it. Decide it isn't right. Move it again.
And again.
And again.
For three months, rocks consumed their lives.
They talked about rocks. They searched for rocks. They moved rocks. They rejected rocks. They reconsidered previously rejected rocks. They went home thinking about rocks and came back the next morning to think about rocks some more.
I am fairly certain our Snowsports managers have thought more about rocks this summer than snow. Who would have expected that?
But finally, three months after our little two-week project began, the wall is finished. It winds through the site looking, hopefully, like it has always belonged there.
And now our authentic New England farmer's rock wall is ready to tie into...
An ADA ramp for the accessible mini golf course.
I'm not sure the farmers ever had to do that.
FLAT WORK ON FLAT GROUND
Next up was the concrete slab for the maze.
Now, after the amount of concrete we poured on Exhibition last summer, you might think we would consider ourselves concrete experts.
Nope.
This was a whole different ball of wax.
Flat work.
On flat ground.
Site prep took some time because of the natural clay in the ground, but pour day itself?
A walk in the park.
Seventy-six yards of concrete. Trucked in, poured and trucks back out of the jobsite in about four hours.
Four. Hours.
Seventy-six yards of concrete probably would have taken us 37 hours to pour on the mountain.
I guess flat ground isn't so bad.
Every time we pour concrete, I love it a little bit more. This time I discovered that my new favorite hobby is putting the broom finish on a slab.
It's sort of like one of those little Zen gardens... Except the sand turns into concrete. And you don't get to try again.
WE FOUND A MOUNTAIN
With the maze slab behind us, we began digging the cellar hole for the Adventure Center building.
Easy, right?
Giant hole.
Flat land.
No mountain roads. No machines climbing Exhibition. No concrete trucks trying to make their way uphill.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well...
When we got near the bottom elevation of the foundation, we found a rock.
Not just a rock.
A MOUNTAIN.
It was far larger than the 330 and looked suspiciously like the peaks of the Tripyramids - narrow at the peak and spreading wider and wider as we uncovered it.
I think we may have discovered a future 4,000-footer that simply hasn't popped out of the ground yet.
An undiscovered mountain in New England's Appalachian range.
For a little while, we joked about keeping it. Maybe we could just build the Adventure Center around it? A natural wonder in the basement. Perhaps a rock-climbing wall for children?
Unfortunately, our newfound mountain was sitting exactly where our building needed to go.
So...the mountain had to go.
And just like during the T-Bar build, we got to call our friend Colin.
Time to blast.
I thought blasting on the mountain was underwhelming?
Boy, try blasting on flat land.
Twenty minutes of prep and away that rock went.
No hauling drills uphill. No dragging blasting mats up a treacherous work road. No machines clinging to the side of Exhibition.
Nothing.
It happened so fast, Marketing barely had time to make it down for the photo shoot.
Flat ground strikes again.
Next up, we will pour the foundation of the Adventure Center itself, along with 27 footings for the aerial course.
Right now, when I stand there and look across the jobsite, I see open holes, a half-finished mini golf course, equipment everywhere and a giant rock wall running through the middle of it all.
And I wonder if it's hard for everyone else to see what I see.
Because right now?
It looks chaotic.
But then I remember that the T-Bar looked pretty chaotic in September too.
So... that's probably a good sign?
OPS COMES TO TOWN
Maybe the biggest adjustment this summer wasn't learning how to work on flat ground.
It was learning how to work where everyone could see us.
Mountain Ops can be a little...rough.
Our clothes are sometimes a little tattered. Our mouths can be a little too loud at exactly the wrong moment. We spend our days covered in grease, mud, concrete, hydraulic fluid, dirt and whatever else the mountain decides to throw at us.
Normally, though, we are hidden in the shadows.
We make a product, hand it over to the Operators, and duck back behind the curtain before the lights shine on us.
This summer?
There was no curtain.
We were right there.
In Town.
ALL. SUMMER. LONG.
And suddenly I found myself looking at myself and our team through a completely different set of eyes.
Are our uniforms clean enough?
Wait...is everyone actually WEARING their uniform?
Who scratched their name off their uniform???
Gosh darn it, those overalls have holes in them.
Again.
Third pair this summer.
Note to self: Do not wear pants with holes in them in Town. Not a very polished look.
Guys... the music is too loud.
People want to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee by the pond. They do NOT want to rave with their espresso.
For the love of the Chief, DO NOT RIDE IN THE BUCKET OF THE SKID STEER.
And FUDGE.
Fudge is the word.
When you hit your thumb with a hammer in Town, FUDGE is the ONLY acceptable word.
I guess I was nervous.
These are my people. My team. The people I spend every day working alongside, suddenly working out in the daylight for everyone to see.
And I wanted you to like them.
Not a polished version of them. Not some carefully manufactured version of Ops that we created because we were working in Town.
Them.
The people who will stop what they're doing to help somebody else. The people who will loan a machine, teach someone a new skill, solve a problem that isn't theirs, work until dark because something needs to get finished, and laugh through most of it.
Maybe with pants that have a few holes in them.
Hopefully wearing their uniforms.
Hopefully wearing pants.
So... How did we do?
MEANWHILE, ON THE MOUNTAIN…
Although the mountain has felt somewhat abandoned this summer, in truth, the maintenance work never really stops.
It has just happened in bits and spurts. On rainy days. On days when we couldn't work in Town. On busy vacation days when we probably shouldn't have been anywhere near Town.
Pipe welding. Mowing. Lift NDT. Line work. Hydrant replacement. Weed whacking. Electrical work on towers and buildings and in pump houses.
All of it keeps moving forward.
This summer, though, it has felt less like the normal symphony we play and more like a quiet hum in the background.
We have load tested Lower Meadows, completed our hydrant survey, sent pumps and motors off for repair, NDTed hundreds of grips and rebuilt tens of dozens of sheaves. Fixed the rot at Schwendi Hutte, built a roof over the public locker room entrance, spent hundreds of hours on erosion control.
The work is getting done.
But the leaves are changing fast.
And there is always more we want to get done.
Always.
Soon, Town will have to give Ops back to the mountain.
Snowmaking will begin. Lifts will turn. Cats will push snow. The quiet hum on the mountain will become the symphony again.
And this strange summer of flat ground will come to an end.
HOPE
In the end, I guess I have been silent because I am both anxious and hopeful at the same time.
I am still worried that you, my friends, haven't embraced the whole vision of the Adventure Center we designed.
Because when I look at the drawings, and now when I stand in the dirt and begin to see pieces of it taking shape, I don't just see a building.
I see a place for children and grandchildren.
A place for families to gather and explore.
I see a beautiful barn situated in a field, a design honoring the timelessness of New England architecture. Rock walls in a field. Cupolas on the roof. Stone. Wood. Warmth.
Tucked into a Valley.
Surrounded by forests and mountains.
Hiding from the world.
Maybe that's why I cared so much about that silly rock wall.
Maybe that's why we spent three months building something I thought would take two weeks.
Because I don't want the Adventure Center to feel like something we simply dropped into Waterville Valley.
I want it to feel like it belongs here.
And I am hopeful.
Hopeful that, in time, the Valley and its families will love this place.
Hopeful that children will play here and someday bring their own children back.
Hopeful that new families will discover the beauty of Waterville, explore our trails and fall in love with this little corner of the world the same way so many of us did.
And maybe, most of all, I am hopeful that this was the summer we changed the narrative.
The summer Ops came down from the mountain.
The summer we had no curtain to hide behind.
A little loud.
A little dirty.
A little rough around the edges.
But here, working in the middle of Town, trying our very best to build something worthy of this place.
I hope this was the summer the mountain embraced the Town.
And the Town embraced us back.
M
- Marissa P., Operations Manager