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Greek Peak Bets Wetter Is Better

By Mountain News Staff
July 11, 2006

The project includes a hotel and indoor water park, the first for any of New York state's ski resorts.

New York has the most ski and snowboard areas in the nation - more than 50 - that annually attract upwards of 4 million riders. Some of those resorts have names as formidable as the Olympics peaks Whiteface Mountain and Gore Mountain in the Adirondacks.

But those hills are mostly empty of riders in the seasonal bookends to winter. Other state ski areas boast convention centers and some have golf courses and perhaps some limited outdoor activities, such as mountain biking.

Greek Peak, whose summit elevation is 2,100 feet with a vertical drop of 952 feet with 29 trails, is situated in the Central New York region and draws skiers from Syracuse, Binghamton, Ithaca and other regions of Central New York and New York's Southern Tier. It has also, for years, been a draw for weekend ski trips by bus for riders from nearby Pennsylvania as well as New Jersey and New York City, approximately four hours away.

The resort has approximately 113 days in its ski season annually - 252 shy of a full year.

Greek's goal is to create a year-round family destination -and perhaps capture those winter visitors in the other months, said Al Kryger, president of Peak Resorts Inc., who is also a managing member of Greek's development offshoot, HLI Management LLC.

Indoor water parks attached to hotels are the resort industry's hot-of-the-moment trend, born and bred in Wisconsin's The Dells destination resort.

New York state's first indoor water park opened earlier this year, in Lake George, adjacent to - and owned by - a Six Flags theme park.

Kryger, a 48-year veteran of the ski business, said he has constantly been looking for ways to expand Greek Peak's reach into the outer months of winter. Work on the project has been ongoing in recent weeks.

"We've started all the site work, the roads onto the site," Kryger said this week. "We had to move 72,000-square-yards of soil from one side of the project to the another. That's in progress."

In recent years, Kryger's company created Hope Lake, with a 22-acre resort lake - which also feeds Greek's snowmaking machinery - housing and a clubhouse near the ski area, to lure homeowners and day-trippers.

The indoor waterpark, with a wave pool and six tube and body slides and other water ammenities, would extend that even more, HLI executives hope.

The hotel doubles as condominium complex with quarter-share timeshare units, similar to offerings from the new Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid.

Further out in the development of Hope Lake Lodge, a 71-par championship golf course is penciled in, along with a conference center.

by Bob Niedt

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Comments

	Congrats to all of you. Looks like its comming together. Al, you've worked awfully hard to make this happen, my sincere good wishes to all of you. Jim
	Posted by: Jim McIlroy McIlroy Assoc. | July 15, 2006 09:22 AM

	Al, Congratulations to you and your troops at Greek Peak. Always an innovator, an inspiration to many in the biz..
	Posted by: Brian Brooks Avalanche Skiwear Inc. | July 17, 2006 06:27 AM