Moon Palace Golf Spa Resort
Moon Palace Golf Spa Resort
Mountain Creek is a ski resort located in Vernon Township, New Jersey, on Route 94, owned and operated by Intrawest. Mountain Creek originally began as two separate ski areas, Great Gorge and Vernon Valley .
History of Mountain Creek
Great Gorge Lippoway
Great Gorge Lippoway was founded in McAfee, an unincorporated area of Vernon Township, in 1965 by a group of three families who worked at the Milton Snowbowl in Milton, New Jersey. The founders sold $1,000,000 bonds to help cover the costs of the construction and land acquisition.
The original Great Gorge featured a few trails on what is now known as Mountain Creek's Bear Peak, with three double chairlifts manufactured by the Borvig Corp of nearby Pine Island, NY and installed by Dolomite Ski Construction, also of Pine Island. The base lodge was designed by Alexander "Sandy" McIlvaine, who also designed the lodges at Stratton Mountain in Vermont and Squaw Valley Ski Resort in Olympic Valley, California.
The trails of Great Gorge were designed by Austrian ski trail designers, Otto Schneibs and by Luis Schafflinger. Within a short time, Great Gorge expanded to the current South Peak (then known as Great Gorge South) and in 1971, they expanded to what is now Granite Peak (then known as Great Gorge North). This expansion was part of a masterplan that included an Olympic ski-jump and training facility. In 1971, Playboy opened their $20 million, 700-room Playboy Great Gorge Resort (now Legends Hotel and Resort) on 1,000 acres (4km²) of land a mile away from Great Gorge.
In late 1971, Great Gorge was foreclosed by their lender after a number of seasons that brought little snow to the resort. This reduced revenue and left them with little money to operate and to pay off their debts. The lender then sold Great Gorge to Vernon Valley.
Vernon Valley
In 1968, a new ski resort, known as Vernon Valley, opened adjacent to Great Gorge, to the north. Rather than invest time and effort into carefully designing their ski area, the investment group cut a number of trails straight from the top to the bottom of the mountain. Shortly thereafter in 1968, state wildlife officials demanded that the owners of Vernon Valley be evicted after the improper use of land leased to them by the state, causing much embarrassment to the investment firm. After the foreclosure of Great Gorge, it was sold to Vernon Valley, who merged the two areas forming Vernon Valley/Great Gorge (VVGG).
In 1974, VVGG was purchased by Great American Recreation, under the leadership of Eugene Mulvihill Sr. Under Great American, VVGG invested in a large amount of snowmaking equipment, which allowed the new resort to avoid the unpleasant fate of the original Great Gorge. VVGG, which claimed 53 runs and the largest snowmaking system in the country. In 1978, VVGG opened Action Park, an amusement park with over 75 rides and attractions including over 40 water slides, bungee jumping, go karts, bumper boats, mini golf, concerts, and shows.
The following years saw success for VVGG. During the 1980s, Coblestone Village was built, which included restaurants and shops including the "Vernon Valley Brauhaus" brewery. The decade also saw the development of Great Gorge Village, a condo development with hundreds of luxury housing units, and The Spa at Great Gorge, a 4-star luxury resort and spa complete with an 18-hole golf course and a number of indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Great American's developments along with VVGG became known collectively as the Great Gorge Resort. VVGG continued to upgrade their skiing operations, installing a number of new lifts, including a triple chairlift in 1981.
In the early 1990s, VVGG suffered poor attendance and poor management which led the Great Gorge Resort on a downward spiral. Great American Recreation, which was fined by the SEC in 1984 after pleading guilty in 1984 to five counts of fraud, theft and conspiracy related to the unauthorized operation of an insurance company, was traded publicly on the NASDAQ, under the symbol GRAR. The stock was traded through shady investment fronts and behind the scenes. Mulvihill and his partners were alleged to have skimmed profits and cut inside deals. Eventually, the stock collapsed and in 1995 and GAR filed for bankruptcy. For a few years, the resort operated with no insurance policy, which led even fewer patrons to come. In 1996, a number of large lawsuits stemming from the resort having no insurance policy led Action Park to close its doors. Eventually, money became so tight that in 1996, Great Gorge North and South were unable to operate, and only Vernon Valley operated. The resort was never able to get out of bankruptcy and finally, in 1997, the Great Gorge Resort shut down all of its operations. In 1998, the assets of Great American Recreation were sold.
Great Gorge Village, the Spa at Great Gorge and the Spa Golf Course remained with Eugene Mulvihill Sr., and renamed Crystal Springs Resort, and VVGG ski area and Action Park were sold to Intrawest, a Canadian skiing company, owner of ski resorts in North America.
Mountain Creek
After purchasing the resort, Intrawest renamed it Mountain Creek and invested millions of dollars into the refurbishment of the resort. Intrawest removed 11 of the 13 lifts, replacing them with a high speed 8-passenger open air "Cabriolet" gondola, and two high-speed detachable quad lifts, all built by Doppelmayr. The Great Gorge Lodge, which hadn't operated for the past few years and hadn't been refurbished in nearly 30 years underwent a major renovation, and was renamed Mountain Creek South. Intrawest launched Mountain Creek in time for the 1998/99 season.
Intrawest also resurrected Action Park, which had been closed since 1996. Intrawest removed Action Park's motor world, which featured go-karts and speedboats, as well as the bungee jumping tower and skyshot rides. Water World underwent millions of dollars in renovation and reopened as Mountain Creek Waterpark and operated by Palace Entertainment.
Intrawest drafted a master plan for the resort, whose centerpiece was a residential and shopping village, a staple of Intrawest resorts. Included in the village plans are a conference center, hotels, condos, townhouses, shops, and restaurants. On the mountaintop was to be a golf course surrounded by hotels and condos. This mountaintop development was scrapped however, as the land that it was located on was sold by the State of New Jersey to Mountain Creek's previous owners, Great American Recreation, with a deed restriction that stated that the land was to be used only for passive recreation, such as fishing, hiking, and camping. Intrawest therefore sold the land back to the state for 7 million dollars and permission to expand skiing on portions of the mountain where it was previously prohibited.
On October 10, 1999, the 31 year old McIlvaine designed base lodge was destroyed by a fire. This event occurred only a few months before the 1999/2000 ski season would begin. To continue operations, a temporary complex of prefabricated tents with integrated trailer bathrooms was built by Sprung Instant Structures. Mountain Creek publicly stated they had intended to replace the temporary complex with a permanent structure for the following 2000/2001 ski season. For whatever reasons, those plans were put on hold. The temporary complex is still in use during the 2009/2010 ski season. There is a new lodge in the design phase, but Intrawest and the Township of Vernon have not approved any plans.
In 2002, Mountain Creek opened the first phase of their master-planned resort village, Black Creek Sanctuary, a luxury townhouse community built on the site of Action Park's Motor World. In the winter of 2003, construction began on The Appalachian, a luxury condominium/hotel property built in the parking lot of Vernon base. The hotel opened for the 2006/2007 ski season.
The Chevy U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix was held at Mountain Creek in both 2004 and 2005. The centerpiece of this event was Mountain Creek's Superpipe, one of the only superpipes in the east.
Mountain Creek opened their 2007/2008 winter sports season with a few notable changes to the trail map. The eastern side of the Vernon Peak (including the Great Northern, Khyber Pass, Independence Pass, Indian Pass, Bridge Run, Sayonara, and Half Moon trails), which used to be home to their freestyle terrain park, was converted into intermediate slopes. The ‘Superpipe’ trail is all that remains of snowboarding specific terrain on the Vernon Peak. The entire Mountain Creek South area (South Peak and Bear Peak) houses the new terrain park, displacing the previously intermediate and advanced trails. All slopes off those peaks are single diamond trails with additional ratings for the kind of freestyle terrain from small to extra large. Additionally, a long intermediate trail off the Granite Peak called Granite View, was removed from the trail map entirely. Minor changes were also made in the dining structure; including that the red one-time use rental lockers were moved outdoors and replaced with a more compact bag-check station.
Future of Mountain Creek
Intrawest plans to build hundreds, perhaps thousands of resort condo-hotel units with extremely well appointed amenities. Their first condo-hotel property opened on July 31, 2006 and welcomed its first guests and residents. Plans were to build numerous buildings housing condo-hotels, luxurious five-star mountain lodge hotels, conference
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