Mountain Manual / Chapter 8
Lean staffing protects payroll but leaves less room for surges, complex operations, and disruption. Generous staffing can improve service and resilience but must be supported by revenue.
Lean staffing protects payroll but leaves less room for surges, complex operations, and disruption. Generous staffing can improve service and resilience but must be supported by revenue.
Match the crew plan to open terrain, operating machinery, guest volume, and the day's objective. Review it as the mountain changes.
Deferred maintenance can protect today's cash while raising operational exposure. Preventive work costs more now but can reduce the chance that a critical system interrupts the guest day.
The right policy depends on asset condition, redundancy, cash reserves, and the consequence of failure. A single essential lift deserves a different risk posture than a backed-up system.
Revenue includes the transactions guests make across the mountain. Costs include the labor, energy, maintenance, services, and obligations required to operate. Net income is what remains after the full day is reconciled.
A strong cash balance can hide a weak operation after a capital sale or before large obligations. Read daily net income together with cash, assets, and future commitments.
Profitable projects can still fail if cash goes negative before their benefits arrive. Keep enough liquidity for payroll, operations, repairs, weak demand, and weather variability.
Before an investment, compare expected marginal profit with payback time and the lowest cash balance along the way. Survival is a constraint, not merely another metric.