Umbrellas in winter? Balaclavas in July? Show us what “off-season” means to you.

Source: Off-Season | The Daily Post

We’re a little lucky here, that we don’t really have much of an off-season…maybe three weeks between the end of the ski season and the start of the summer season; and May and June can be pretty slow as well once the Great Walks end and the uncertainty over first snow begins for another year…

In winter the main street in ‘town’ is fully of cars either heading up to the ski field or trying to head up to the ski field is the road is closed or restricted to vehicles with chains or 4WD (pull up a chair to observe case studies in crowd behaviour!); playing in snow on the side of the road; wandering in and out of the cafes…

In summer, it’s much the same…less but not necessarily no snow…this clip went viral from the Park Facebook page as it snowed heavily on the first day of summer last year…

…but generally summer = as many, if not more, visitors, less clothing and more sun…

Summer 2014 started for us in October with a brill period of beautiful summery weather as the Great Walks opened…the first day that it was so hot we opened all the doors and windows, it started to snow…the biggest dump of the winter and we were back to winter for six weeks…six weeks where five of six Wednesdays it snowed heavily in the Village…six weeks of chaos as we shuffled, cancelled and refund Great Walks bookings…six weeks of the most intense staff training as we brought a 90% new crew up to speed…

The autumn (fall) off-season is a little more stable, consistent but no less intense…it is our main window of opportunity for maintenance, stocktakes, product development, updating brochures, possibly even a little leave, training, strategising, sometimes even just relishing the opportunity to put our feet up for a few minutes and talk ‘stuff’…

…and then the snow falls and it starts all over…

It only works with a great team…proof that paying peanuts doesn’t always get you monkeys…