Exclusive: Mountain Creek drives tourism boost in snowy ski season

The basics:

• Mountain Creek reports strong visitation and revenue during snowy winter
• Snow Partners invested $5M in automated snowmaking technology
• Northeast snowpack running more than 40% above the 10-year average
• Resort expects more than 300,000 visits during the ski season

Joe Hession had a feeling this winter would be a prime ski season at Mountain Creek Resort in Vernon Township. Not because of the effects of a La Niña weather pattern, which typically means the Northeast can expect a winter that’s colder and snowier than average. Or from the buzz created by the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

Hession, the founder and CEO of Mountain Creek’s Montville-based parent company Snow Partners, also said he takes long-range forecasts from sources like the Farmers’ Almanac with “a grain of salt.”

The three-decade plus veteran of the winter sports and outdoor recreation industry simply said, “It’s when the squirrels start to act crazy in the fall.”

Hession noticed more squirrels running around frantically and darting into roadways. He also saw quite a few pumpkins chewed through by squirrels.

His theory originated back during the pandemic. “During the winters of 2020–2021, the animals all started acting a little weirder. And the squirrels I noticed more than anything and that winter was really snowy,” Hession said.

“And then, I talked to one of the old timers up there at the mountain and I said, ‘I’ve noticed this thing about squirrels.’ And he said, ‘The squirrels are one of the best to predict here in New Jersey.’ So, I don’t know if it works everywhere, but in northern New Jersey, very aggressive squirrels in the fall seems to have a long tradition of meaning a snowy winter,” Hession explained.

‘The squirrels are out of their minds’

After the critters found their way into his home last fall in Mountain Lakes and forced Hession, his wife and their three sons out while professionals tended to the problem, he said, “I told the team, ‘We are going to have a snowy winter because the squirrels are out of their minds this year.’”

I don’t know if it works everywhere, but in northern New Jersey, very aggressive squirrels in the fall seems to have a long tradition of meaning a snowy winter.
– Joe Hession, founder and CEO, Snow Partners

The next thing that happened was sort of, well, nuts.

In December 2025, Mountain Creek marked its earliest opening to date and second consecutive year of early operations. The milestone followed a $5 million investment last season in a fully automated snowmaking system, combined with “ideal early-season temperatures.”

At the 900-acre, all-season recreation and leisure resort, there are more than 167 acres of skiable terrain that include four interconnected peaks, 46 marked runs for all ability levels, nearly a dozen lifts to move skiers up the mountain and multiple terrain parks.

Ahead of the 2025–26 season kickoff, Mountain Creek also added two new Prinoth snowcat vehicles to its grooming fleet, as well as installed 12 new fan-style snow guns to enhance snowmaking capacity and efficiency.

The resort said the combination of new grooming machines and expanded snowmaking equipment has helped them open earlier and deliver even better snow conditions this winter. After recording its best openings yet in December, Mountain Creek went on to post a 27% increase in guest count during the holidays. The resort was also up nearly 70% on revenue, Snow Partners shared exclusively with NJBIZ.

The momentum continued into January and February. During the three-day Presidents Day weekend in February, Mountain Creek saw double the visitation from the 2025 holiday.

Weather or not

This year’s ski season has unfolded in an upside-down pattern nationally. While much of the West has struggled with a historic snow drought, resorts across the Northeast are enjoying one of their best winters in years.

Multiple storms and above-average snowfall have left the region buried in snow and running well ahead of typical totals for this point in winter. As a result, mountains have been able to build strong bases and open essentially all terrain even earlier than usual.

As of early February, the average snowpack in the Northeast was about 40.5% above the 10-year average, according to NOAA’s National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center. That’s a level not reached since 2015.

The frequent storms have also helped drive strong interest in skiing and snowboarding, generating more visits to destinations in New England, Upstate New York and the Poconos.

Mountain Creek is the only major ski resort in New Jersey. Hession said the property is on track to exceed 300,000 visits between the start of the season in December and when it winds down in mid-to-late March.

“At the end of the day, weather is the most important factor by so much,” Hession said. “The snow is the best it’s been in years. Not only is it the fact that we’ve got natural snow, but it’s stayed cold and it’s been below freezing for almost a month straight and that creates West Coast-style snow.”

“We always say we try not to take credit in a bad year because we know we’re smart enough not to take credit on a good year,” he said. “The other day we were looking at the conditions and saying, ‘Wow, I wish we could take credit for this.’”

“The weather has definitely been on our side,” Hession said. “There’s a lot to do to prepare for that, but weather is the biggest, most important thing.”

A chilling move

After Mountain Creek’s prior owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017 due to heavy legacy debt – including roughly $26 million owed to the local utilities authority – Snow Partners took over management of ski operations under a 15-year contract.

The following year, Snow Partners began running all the resort’s businesses – including the waterpark, zip lines, downhill mountain bike park, alpine coaster, treetop ropes course attraction, hiking trails, lodging and dining – under a separate agreement.

Once Snow Partners showed it could manage the properties and keep revenue flowing, the company negotiated a controlling interest in late 2018, taking full responsibility for the ski area and other resort functions. The move allowed the 60-year-old resort to emerge successfully from Chapter 11 with a stabilized financial and operational structure.

Long history

A Vernon native, Hession grew up visiting the resort as a kid. His first paid job came in 1994 at age 15 when he was hired as a parking attendant at what was then known as Vernon Valley Great Gorge.

After being promoted to rentals manager two years later, Hession continued to take on roles of increasing leadership under its Intrawest corporate ownership, which acquired Mountain Creek from Gene Mulvihill in 1998.

While attending the State University of New York at Geneseo, Hession continued working weekends at Mountain Creek, where he was promoted to food and beverage director, then lodging director, then director of mountain operations and finally general manager by the time the resort was sold to an ownership group headed by Mulvihill in 2010.

Full ownership was assumed in 2015 by the Koffman family, who had been part owners with Mulvihill before his passing in 2012.

Hession decided to leave Mountain Creek after 16 years to co-found a resort management and investment firm focused on modernizing ski area operations. Through Snow Partners, Hession and his team work on operational strategy, guest experience, technology integration, and instruction programs with partner resorts across the U.S. and Canada.

Amid the restructuring, Mountain Creek’s then-CEO Joff Koffman reached out to Hession for his industry knowledge and personal connection to the resort.

At the time, Hession said, “Our hope is to bring an element of stability to the resort, and to get things back on track. We’re committed to our people, our guests and this community. We want Mountain Creek to play a vibrant part in each of their lives.”

Heading indoors

Snow Partners’ other businesses include Big Snow at American Dream in East Rutherford.  The 180,000-square-foot facility opened in December 2019 as the first indoor ski and snowboard park in North America to operate year-round with real snow.

Hession said, “We continue to love being part of the American Dream mall. We love the group there and that business continues to do well.”

Besides being a destination for amateurs and recreational skiers, Big Snow is used by ski and snowboard teams and competitive racers to practice. Hession noted it’s also “the return to snow for the U.S. Ski Team after an injury.”

“If there are other mountains not open, they’ll actually fly them to Jersey to get their training,” he said.

When Shaun white snowboards in Central Park…

Snow Partners also developed SnowCloud, a cloud-based resort management platform focused on business operations, like ticketing, e-commerce, CRM, guest services and reporting. According to Hession, the program is used by more than 30 resorts across the U.S.

Additionally, the company’s Terrain Based Learning program to inspire confidence and improve first-time ski and snowboard experiences is used at more than 80 ski areas worldwide.

Its latest acquisition, ski bike manufacturer SNO-GO, came in January 2023.

Hession believes “there’s no marketing like snow in your backyard.”

“So, when Shaun White decides to go snowboarding in Central Park, that’s where all the sudden someone is like, ‘You know what? I’m going to try this for the first time,’” Hession said.

“And it makes us realize we’re going to see some guests that are not used to skiing and snowboarding and people who haven’t ever tried it before,” he said. “Because we always try to give an amazing experience for first timers, we’ve realized this an opportunity … that we really need to make sure that when a first timer comes to the resort it’s not about teaching them to ski, it’s introducing them to the lifestyle that skiing and snowboarding really is,” he said.

“I think the industry for a long time spent too much effort teaching people the sport instead of giving them a great experience,” Hession said.

Getting social

He went on to stress the importance of “great programming” on the mountain, lodging and dining on site.

“And making sure that every kind of touch point that a guest has fits the specification that they’re looking for,” he said. “In today’s world of social media, it’s so important that they come up and have great opportunities to get in all the gear, get their snowboard, get their skis and get out there on snow. But also take tons of photos, put them on TikTok, Instagram and make stories. We really embrace that.”

“In a year like this, it’s an opportunity to get people that might not have been motivated without the snow, and it gives us a huge opportunity to introduce them to what we’re really all about,” he said.

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Mountain Creek typically sees a boost in visitors from the Winter Olympics, Hession said. “I do think it gets people wanting to go out and do it,” he said of skiing and snowboarding. “And, if they’re watching the Olympics and then see snow in the backyards … I think it drives visits. And that’s a beautiful thing, because the Olympic spirit is all about real people.”

However, Hession said weather is “the linchpin.”

“The last [Winter] Olympics was ’22. That winter was good, but not like this winter. So, it’ll be interesting to see what that does,” he said.

Peak performance

Since Snow Partners took over Mountain Creek, it has invested in a series of upgrades and improvements aimed at strengthening operations and guest experiences, especially around snowmaking and technology.

Hession said he’s “really glad” they invested $5 million in a state-of-the-art automated snowmaking system on Vernon Pike. The new system allows snow production to turn on automatically whenever conditions are right, allowing the resort to have improved snow consistency, earlier openings and consistent coverage throughout the season.

Previously, Mountain Creek relied on a more traditional, manually controlled network of snow guns, hydrants and pump systems.

“We have a lot of debate over where to spend our resources,” Hession said. “We got through COVID and then we found ourselves in a position where we can invest pretty heavily into the mountain, and we’re trying to figure out where we want to invest and what is most important. And I think we’ve always agreed that snow is the most important thing for us. We need to have great snow.”

As a “regional, mostly day visit location,” Mountain Creek tends to draw guests from Long Island, Brooklyn and Staten Island, Hession said.

“And all of northern New Jersey – north of [Interstate 78] – is a really good Mountain Creek customer and guest,” he said. “But, if you live below the Route 80 corridor in New Jersey, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to the Poconos … and we always say if you’re from Westchester [County] or Queens, you go to Hunter Mountain. And if you’re from Manhattan, you go to Wyndham.”

Something for everyone

“We also have a really great ski community, which most people don’t realize. It’s a really good locals group that resides in northwest New Jersey and New York state up in Orange County.”

“We sell essentially 80% of our visits before the winter even starts … And the skiers we have, we have a lot of families. A lot of those visits will be schools and school groups, too. One of the things we take a lot of pride in is that we teach so many people to ski here in New Jersey.”

“I think its really important for the kids in so many ways – social resilience and it’s great, core memories. We’ve very thankful that we get to be part of that. And hopefully they become lifelong skiers,” he said.

“What’s great about skiing and snowboarding is there’s so many different flavors … so we get an interesting spectrum of people at the resort,” he explained.

“Some kids are very focused on jumps, rails and X Games-type stuff. I always joke that we might be the number one babysitter for the local area because people buy season passes and drop their kids off every single day. We try to be good ambassadors for those kids and give them some boundaries,” Hession said.

“And then we just opened the Hawk’s Nest at Mountain Creek this year, which is more of a high-end experience,” he said. The private lounge at Red Rail Lodge includes private areas, crafted breakfasts and lunches and specialty bar service.

“We also have programs like Chill, which is all about getting inner city kids out for snowboarding, and Hoods to Woods, which is another great program that takes the same idea kids from inner cities and gets ’em out on snow,” Hession said.

When summer comes around

During the warmer weather months, the resort brings in at least another 200,000 guests to its waterpark, according to Hession. “That’s our biggest attraction in the summer. There’s not really another waterpark like it in the world,” he said.

He noted that the waterpark is “obviously famous” because it was once Action Park.

In its heyday from the 1980s to the early 1990s, the waterpark was notorious for its extreme and often unsafe rides that earned it nicknames like “Accident Park,” “Class Action Park” and “Traction Park.” Action Park closed in 1996, replaced two years later with the rebranded, modernized Mountain Creek.

In recent years, Snow Partners has focused on redesigning attractions at the waterpark for enhanced safety and user experience.

“It is just really a fun place between the Colorado River ride, the Cliff jumps. Last year we brought back the Cannonball Falls and Tarzan Swings, which are super fun. We completely rebuilt them from the ground up,” he said. “It’s the same location, same look and feel, but all brand new slides and everything’s completely rebuilt.”

“We’ve been spending a lot of time in the waterpark on site lines and visuals and adding attractions and then the infrastructure,” he explained.

“When you’re operating a resort, it’s not always the glamorous things. It’s not always lifts and snowmaking. So, we’re putting about $2 million into bathroom redesigns this spring and summer,” he went on.

Overall, Mountain Creek “thrives” when it hits between 700,000 to 750,000 visitors across all four seasons, Hession said.

Economic engine

Given the number of guests Mountain Creek draws to its skiing, waterpark and mountain biking attractions, the resort is considered a regional anchor that drives hotel occupancy, restaurant patronage and spillover visits to surrounding destinations.

The resort has been recognized several times as a top workplace by NJ.com and Jersey’s Best. It employs about 80 workers on a full-time, year-round basis and another 800 to 900 seasonally.

When U.S. Rep Josh Gottheimer, D-5th District, swung by the resort as part of his “Josh on the Job” tour in November 2022 to promote small businesses and tourism, he praised Mountain Creek as “a vital part of the Sussex County and Greater Highlands eco-economy.”

Gottheimer – who helped welcome guests and scanned ski passes – also called it “a spectacular destination for families and a great job producer in Northwestern New Jersey, and a perfect example of all the Greater Highlands has to offer.”

“Businesses like Mountain Creek are critical to boosting eco-tourism across North Jersey, creating jobs, and supporting our local economy,” he said.

In 2024, New Jersey attracted 123.7 million visitors – a 2.7% year-over-year increase. Visitors spent a record $50.6 billion, up 3.1% from a year prior, according to the state Division of Travel and Tourism.

Sussex County outpaced the statewide growth metrics, with a 4.4% increase in visitors from 3.10 million to 3.24 million between 2023 and 2024. Visitor spending climbed 4.5% to $585 million.