# Hey VAIL give us back our LOCAL resort



## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

Out of curiosity I thought I’d start this post, now that Vail has been the owner of these resorts for two years. 

Do tell or better yet post some pics of your lift lines and any other b.s. you can think of. The pics I’ve seen and stories I’ve read seem to all be resorts owned by Vail, it leads me to believe that there may not be the manpower shortage as much as the “cooperate just get by with the least amount of people as possible” mentality. 

As far as one of my local mtns Stevens Pass has dropped the ball with not even a simple letter to its customers explaining the resorts issues, that is until they received my email the other day. Just a few things I mentioned to them that may sound a lot like your local mtn, is the length of the lift lines, poor to no grooming, only a third of the mtn being open (their website says 6 chairs opened but 2 of those “chairs” are magic carpets), and at NO discount. My buddy sent me a copy of Stevens post on Facebook and it read like they were answering my email to the general public, but in the need it was just blah, blah, blah. Last year their excuse for not having the entire mtn opened was that they were avi blasting for safety but on everyone of those days not once did we hear one explosion.

I read some reviews of a resort back east and those reviews sounded like they were from the Stevens Pass Facebook page, customers with decades (like myself) of season passes threatening to go elsewhere. With Mt BAKER only being another half hour longer drive it looks like my money will be going to the privately owned resort next year.

Ive posted this several times, but this is what I’m talking about 🖕🏻Stevens


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Never going to defend Vail BUT resorts in the PNW are all seeing record crowds and line regardless of ownership. Not only the boom to the industry but the Portland and Seatle areas have gone crazy and you can't blame the resorts for that. And with the absolute puking thats happened over the last 7 days, theres a lot of terrain they absolutely should keep closed for safety reasons. Closed lifts suck but after this storm cycle you really can't complain, it is an extremely dangerous snowpack in the area.

Stevens was a small locals resort back in the day but when your local resort is now local to one of the major metro areas in the country, local no longer has the same meaning. We all will continue to dream and reminisce over the days werewe didn't have to get to the mountain at7 just for parking but those days are just gone. 

We have increasing population, massive increase in popularity and most importantly no new supply. That's is the biggest issue with the industry, there's no real expansion, we aren't building new ski resorts so we're just [packing more and more people in to the same sized area as 20 years ago.


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

I’ll agree with the amount of people moving to the PNW (which absolutely sucks), but as far as the danger of all the snow we’ve received of late is BS. I’ve been riding the PNW for almost 40 years and have never seen the resort closed for this length of time, they might have one or two chairs shutdown but you can also hear the bombs going off for a later opening I.e. more fresh runs. The fact is they pissed off their senior groomers/patrollers and they left.

I find it funny that these resorts backed with all of Vails money are the ones having the issues, Mt Baker opens everyday, even the world record year. The Baker crew are all about doing what needs to be done to open, during the record year one of Bakers patrols was digging out the fourth Riblet with a shovel on chair 6.

As I stated in the email to Stevens I guarantee they have several employees sitting behind a desk, espresso machine, guest service counter, grill, etc that could easily load chairs. Make people bring their own lunches, ask strangers where shit is located and bring your own coffee then OPEN THE DAMN CHAIRS. For starters they know they don’t have enough parking for all of the people on the slopes, so stop the bus services from the parking lots 35 miles away in Sultan and the one on the east side, first come first serve no different then buying sporting/ concert events.

Stevens had plans years ago for a three chair, one lodge expansion which was supposed to be completed in 2017 I believe. Not sure what happened but I know the granolas were trying to stop the expansion and maybe the lack of cash, but now with Vail’s account get it going.

As I mentioned I’ve been boarding for almost 40 years and I’m not getting any younger, so these most recent years of absolute poor management really piss me off. Must be nice having a business where you could literally charge any ticket price, close half the mtn, and have to hike uphill just to reach the end of the lines and STILL turn 100’s of people away for the love of boarding. 

Are you a Stevens employee? Your reply sounded very similar to the replies we get from Stevens, excuses, excuses, excuses


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Brutal. But you will see lines like this at most resorts these days


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> I’ll agree with the amount of people moving to the PNW (which absolutely sucks), but as far as the danger of all the snow we’ve received of late is BS. I’ve been riding the PNW for almost 40 years and have never seen the resort closed for this length of time, they might have one or two chairs shutdown but you can also hear the bombs going off for a later opening I.e. more fresh runs. The fact is they pissed off their senior groomers/patrollers and they left.
> 
> I find it funny that these resorts backed with all of Vails money are the ones having the issues, Mt Baker opens everyday, even the world record year. The Baker crew are all about doing what needs to be done to open, during the record year one of Bakers patrols was digging out the fourth Riblet with a shovel on chair 6.
> 
> ...


No I'm not remotely associated with Stevens at all, I live in Portland and ride Hood. BUT the fact that you're getting similar responses from multiple unrelated people should be a sign... I get it because I have all those same frustrations, I'm just also willing to accept the reality of the situation and look at each issue individually.

Hood is not owned by Vail and has literally every one of the exact issues you are struggling with at Stevens the last few years. Huge crowd increases, lift lines, massive price increases, staffing issues, lack of expansion to meet new demand. 

Staff: All resorts on Hood are still DESPERATELY trying to hire and at increased wages. One literally was begging for people to just come up and volunteer over Christmas days because they couldn't hire in exchange for free lift tickets. Staffing is not a vail or Stevens issue.

Lift operations: None of the upper lifts at ANY of the resorts on Hood haven't opened at all this year. YES even Baker closes lifts during active storm cycles. It's always frustrating but trust me, resorts, even Vail WANT lifts open and running. As for them not being open about the terrain, I'm pretty sure their website actively will tell you exactly how much of the mountain is open and what lifts are open.

Again if you've been around for 40 years i get the recent industry is just a completely different beast from the past but that's the industry as a whole, not Vail or Stevens. That's one of the things that sucks about getting old, things inevitably change and become more crowded.


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Please tell me Stevens is not crowded at night now


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

CocaCola Kicker said:


> Please tell me Stevens is not crowded at night now


Not only is it crowded but they will only be turning the Hogs Back chair for night operation.


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Damn is that permanent? I have fond childhood memories of brooks at night


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

Honestly, I dunno. The lines as mount snow and Okemo have been no worse than other years over Xmas, though the snow is sub par so maybe that’s keeping people away too


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## GregT943 (Apr 1, 2019)

Alterra bought our mountain, Sugarbush, 2 years ago and unfortunately we have noticed a big difference in a negative way. Having almost nothing open this far into December is unacceptable and ridiculous. Looking an hour south and seeing triple the amount of trails open at Killington is infuriating. They haven't even attempted to make up a BS excuse. Service, grooming, snow making, everything has declined in quality. We now have a mountain being run by people who don't even ski/snowboard. I wish the mountain remained private.


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

CocaCola Kicker said:


> Damn is that permanent? I have fond childhood memories of brooks at night


Here’s a copy of what Stevens posted on Facebook


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## Snowdaddy (Feb 2, 2018)

Obviously a plot by you-know-who…


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Vails very clear that they are a real estate company that focuses on ski resorts. Their priority is residential/commercial property leasing & sales as well as income from these investments (Disney model of high margin captive food/entertainment etc) unfortunately this means ski operations is in support of these ends and not the core business priority of Vail.

This includes snow making which has always been one of the most expensive parts of ski resort operation is closely managed to the bottom line. Because vail has effectively moved their model to “pre sales” of 2.2m lift ticket packages and they have also locked the majority of real estate into condo ownership models which are also guaranteed income they have an exact figure they are willing to invest per resort in mountain function and are not going to lose money on staff or production regardless of snow fall.

at the end of the day it’s always worth looking at the core priorities of a companies income strategy to understand what you are going to get from them. For vail you’ll get a classic western resort experience targeted at wealthy casual skiers. Lots of services that support that type of customer. You’ll also get cheap entry to alot more resorts then most other options as they are banking on you buying food/drink/lodging/entertainment.

So at the end of the day the trade off is lower quality mountain operations and bigger crowds for less expensive access to more resorts, vail also will most likely keep your resort open where as many locally owned mountains struggle financially and are often at risk of closure.

Final though Vail and it’s competitors target big mountains within 2 hours of major metros, if you are a hardcore boarder these mountains are going to crowded regardless as Millenial and Gen Z are focused on experiences rather then material goods, if you want lower lines and more boarding fade towards mountains that are a. Further away b. Have less base area infrastructure c. Are on stand alone passes


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## Eivind så klart (Aug 30, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Never going to defend Vail BUT resorts in the PNW are all seeing record crowds and line regardless of ownership. Not only the boom to the industry but the Portland and Seatle areas have gone crazy and you can't blame the resorts for that.


Same thing here also, to much people. They increased parking capacity to fit 700 more cars at my tiny local resort this season. Doesn’t matter that lift Lines already was insane last season, money money money! Resort riding here is a no-go during holidays and weekends. Strictly for weekdays, BC for weekends and holidays.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Eivind så klart said:


> Same thing here also, to much people. They increased parking capacity to fit 700 more cars at my tiny local resort this season. Doesn’t matter that lift Lines already was insane last season, money money money! Resort riding here is a no-go during holidays and weekends. Strictly for weekdays, BC for weekends and holidays.


If one can afford it I really like the combo of either a epic/ikon pass and a Indy or MC pass (or local mountain) keeps cost down as a east coaster for out west trip or two and gives an alternative for crowded weekends. On the upshot I’m used to when season passes for 1 mountain we’re 1200-1800 bucks so the two passes together are still cheaper


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## lifeisgold (Mar 1, 2020)

Hate how many of these posts I see and nobody mentions the obvious. Europe handles a hundred times more skiers every season... 100! It's not some sort of exaggeration over 300 million skiers ski in the Alps in a given season and they don't really have lift lines. 

The answer isn't less skiiers it's more terrain. Instead of everybody fighting to stop actual people participating in their sport I wish there would be some concentrated push to expand lifts and terrain. We're giving them customers so it should be in these resorts interests.

Stop fighting to make your mountain more exclusive or more for your particular group of friends (neighbors)
1. It doesn't work - thank God we're in a very free society in America. People want something (and they can lay out the money) they'll get it.
2. It's somewhat selfish. Just because you're closer to this particular mountain doesn't mean only you should be the one to enjoy it. If large companies have made it accessible to millions more credit to them. We should however be forcing these companies to make a better product.


Of the two problems too little skiers is much more problematic for the sport as a whole. My neighborhood in the East alone over 30 resorts have closed.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

lifeisgold said:


> Hate how many of these posts I see and nobody mentions the obvious. Europe handles a hundred times more skiers every season... 100! It's not some sort of exaggeration over 300 million skiers ski in the Alps in a given season and they don't really have lift lines.
> 
> The answer isn't less skiiers it's more terrain. Instead of everybody fighting to stop actual people participating in their sport I wish there would be some concentrated push to expand lifts and terrain. We're giving them customers so it should be in these resorts interests.
> 
> ...


Spending 2 winters in a small west coast resort it’s amazing how many bitter folks there are out here. Most aren’t “locals” but instead folks who moved here within the last 5-10 years because they wanted the mountain life and are now pissed that costs are going up due to increased popularity/job mobility. 

Ski towns absolutely need to figure out housing for service staff but it gets my goat every time I hear someone complaining that other people had the same idea they did. It’s like middle schoolers getting pissed when a band gets popular, do people not understand that many many humans would like to live in beautiful mountains next to awesome activities?

The final item I can’t identify with is the horror by many at the idea of commuting. Perhaps it’s the northeastern in me but my job has always been 30-60 minutes from my home seems odd how it’s not an accepted part of mountain town life. 

At the end of the day the market will sort itself out, resorts need staff and based on that they will figure out higher pay/housing/perks but it’s going to be a bumpy few years as towns/resorts evaluate if the new population surge is permanent


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Thats a brutal night skiing lineup. Stevens used to be known for good night skiing


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

Elevation212 said:


> if you want lower lines and more boarding fade towards mountains that are a. Further away b. Have less base area infrastructure c. Are on stand alone passes


Agreed. While more terrain opening would reduce lines, it doesn't seem like that's a priority to Vail. I moved deep into the mountains last summer. No more Vail for me! Last season was a real shit show at my local Vail resorts. I miss all the snow making, but I don't miss anything else. There's nothing like that mom and pop vibe. There's a difference when all the staff shreds and is passionate about the mountain.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

WigMar said:


> Agreed. While more terrain opening would reduce lines, it doesn't seem like that's a priority to Vail. I moved deep into the mountains last summer. No more Vail for me! Last season was a real shit show at my local Vail resorts. I miss all the snow making, but I don't miss anything else. There's nothing like that mom and pop vibe. There's a difference when all the staff shreds and is passionate about the mountain.


yup it’s a balancing act for me, when in the east my family and I go to Berkshire east, low line, decent snow making, little base infra, cheap season passes and a good youth dev program. Trade off is its smaller then going another 30-45 into VT but it’s worth it for me to run the same 5 runs 10 times then 5 different runs 1 time each. For vacations I target Jay peak or sugarloaf, adds an hour onto my drives but worth it to get larger mountains with less lines by blowing past Sunday river, Stowe etc

i will say most bigger resorts that have gone epic/ikon have other mountain options in the same area, they are generally just smaller/jankier options


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

lifeisgold said:


> Hate how many of these posts I see and nobody mentions the obvious. Europe handles a hundred times more skiers every season... 100! It's not some sort of exaggeration over 300 million skiers ski in the Alps in a given season and they don't really have lift lines.
> 
> The answer isn't less skiiers it's more terrain. Instead of everybody fighting to stop actual people participating in their sport I wish there would be some concentrated push to expand lifts and terrain. We're giving them customers so it should be in these resorts interests.
> 
> ...


Generally, concur but...monied US recreationalist folks, want to be pampered and seen, yet they are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions. Which then puts the resorts in a CYA position. The monied folks that are core and willing to take responsibility for their actions are the BC enthusiasts. However, there is also sub-class of the nouveau bougie who don't know what they are getting into yet appear to have the shit (including resort and BC folks).

Many things are changing...however the small hills have always depended on the locals, who willing volunteer at the hill in exchange to participate in the fun. Whereas the vacationing/tourist will pay the $. Thus, I'd imagine that the big corps...don't recognize nor appreciate the locals and their participative assets. They are merely following their snout to the cash trough and yet fail to appreciate the locals that are wondering around in the hills...having fun and not paying them a dime.

I am a local and volunteer at the hill for a discount on a pass. Last year spent maybe $20 for coffee at the resort for the entire season. And each year move more toward...using the lift to access BC lines. Btw, Baker is a local private corp...that is operated/managed by a family and is supported by the local community.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Generally, concur but...monied US recreationalist folks, want to be pampered and seen, yet they are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions. Which then puts the resorts in a CYA position. The monied folks that are core and willing to take responsibility for their actions are the BC enthusiasts. However, there is also sub-class of the nouveau bougie who don't know what they are getting into yet appear to have the shit (including resort and BC folks).
> 
> Many things are changing...however the small hills have always depended on the locals, who willing volunteer at the hill in exchange to participate in the fun. Whereas the vacationing/tourist will pay the $. Thus, I'd imagine that the big corps...don't recognize nor appreciate the locals and their participative assets. They are merely following their snout to the cash trough and yet fail to appreciate the locals that are wondering around in the hills...having fun and not paying them a dime.
> 
> I am a local and volunteer at the hill for a discount on a pass. Last year spent maybe $20 for coffee at the resort for the entire season. And each year move more toward...using the lift to access BC lines. Btw, Baker is a local private corp...that is operated/managed by a family.


fair point, I’ve got a bit of experience with crested butte, last season boot packers who gave 7 days got free passes for the season (not sure if that’s still happening this year) This year my cousin is giving 7 days of lessons over Xmas, he’s getting paid and a free pass. I’m not sure about other vail properties but it seems like there are still some opportunities for that sort of trade of work for pass.

in regards to the macro housing problem the only way the rich patrons will react is if there services are impacted. I don’t think we’ll see it this year as every industry has employee shortages so mountains will get a pass as it’s a “macro” problem. If it continues in the future I’m assuming the money will go to the resorts that figure out staffing and that will drive the behavior of vail etc


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

lifeisgold said:


> Hate how many of these posts I see and nobody mentions the obvious. Europe handles a hundred times more skiers every season... 100! It's not some sort of exaggeration over 300 million skiers ski in the Alps in a given season and they don't really have lift lines.
> 
> The answer isn't less skiiers it's more terrain. Instead of everybody fighting to stop actual people participating in their sport I wish there would be some concentrated push to expand lifts and terrain. We're giving them customers so it should be in these resorts interests.
> 
> ...


Exactly. For example Stevens on the East coast would be the furthest thing from a "local" resort. The fact some people are still trying to cling on to what Stevens was 30 years ago when Seattle was small and Skiing and snowboarding were a niche activity is to completely miss reality.

HOWEVER there is a major difference between the Alps and Europe and the US in ability to expand. The Alps are huge open expanses with tons of opportunity. The US doesn't have that. East coast resorts are on tiny hills already utilizing most ridable terrain. West Coast resorts are often volcanos using all the terrain with no room to expand. And then on top of that most of the areas are on very intensely protected National Land where resorts can't even get permission to expand.

The US is near capped on the amount of terrain we will ever have, and in fact we're losing a lot of it to climate change. We can either be old and curmudgeonly or accept the reality and do what we can to enjoy what we have.


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Time to split


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## Etienne (Apr 2, 2021)

Those pictures are crazy. I would just never sit in these kind of line, I'd rather hike/split back up 😱

Sidenote: in France (and I believe most of the Alps), most resorts, especially the big ones, have invested massively in lifts to kill the lines and succeed at it except for very special points at peak hour. Problem is, at full capacity the slopes are now way too crowded, to the point of seeing a rise in accidents… and traffic jam back to major cities on WE are still here too. We'll never be happy 😅


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

lab49232 said:


> ......
> 
> The US is near capped on the amount of terrain we will ever have, and in fact we're losing a lot of it to climate change. We can either be old and curmudgeonly or accept the reality and do what we can to enjoy what we have.


This +100
In fact, there are small "mom & pop" resorts that are, or have, closed due to lack of snow. It seems that most of the smaller areas are not positioned in optimal locations to be as resilient to climate change as some of the bigger mountains with higher terrain. I can't remember the name of the area I read about a month ago in Idaho that was a small area that was having a really hard time trying to stay open.


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## GregT943 (Apr 1, 2019)

deagol said:


> This +100
> In fact, there are small "mom & pop" resorts that are, or have, closed due to lack of snow. It seems that most of the smaller areas are not positioned in optimal locations to be as resilient to climate change as some of the bigger mountains with higher terrain. I can't remember the name of the area I read about a month ago in Idaho that was a small area that was having a really hard time trying to stay open.


Plenty of small operations in the North East have closed over the past 10-15 years for this reason. If it wasn't for snowmaking there would be some years where no North East resorts would even open, this includes the "bigger" resorts out here.


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## SushiLover (Sep 17, 2020)

After this year I'm done buying any mega passes (epic or ikon). I'll start visiting and supporting those smaller "mom and pop" resorts.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

SushiLover said:


> After this year I'm done buying any mega passes (epic or ikon). I'll start visiting and supporting those smaller "mom and pop" resorts.


Check out the Indy pass in the east or mountain collective in the west, if you’ve got the time these passes are a great way to visit multiple independent mountains, some day I’d love to tour the mountain collective list of resorts


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## SushiLover (Sep 17, 2020)

@WigMar I'll be at Vail from 1/8 to 1/15 with my in-laws. I'm using one of my days to go visit Ski Cooper. Let me know if you're down to meet up there. I'm flexible to whichever day you want to ride.


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## SushiLover (Sep 17, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> Check out the Indy pass in the east or mountain collective in the west, if you’ve got the time these passes are a great way to visit multiple independent mountains, some day I’d love to tour the mountain collective list of resorts


That's a great idea. I'll check that out. Appreciate the info.


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

SushiLover said:


> @WigMar I'll be at Vail from 1/8 to 1/15 with my in-laws. I'm using one of my days to go visit Ski Cooper. Let me know if you're down to meet up there. I'm flexible to whichever day you want to ride.


Sounds good! I'll drop you a message sometime.


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## seatosky (Dec 16, 2020)

Powdertrax said:


> Out of curiosity I thought I’d start this post, now that Vail has been the owner of these resorts for two years.
> 
> Do tell or better yet post some pics of your lift lines and any other b.s. you can think of. The pics I’ve seen and stories I’ve read seem to all be resorts owned by Vail, it leads me to believe that there may not be the manpower shortage as much as the “cooperate just get by with the least amount of people as possible” mentality.
> 
> ...


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## seatosky (Dec 16, 2020)

We're sick of Vail in Whistler as well. Mountain ops were cut back almost immediately after they took over followed by longer lines and slower starts in the mornings. They priced day trips out of reach for most people that live in nearby Vancouver so no one can say longer lineups were a sudden result of more people skiing--it's not physically possible to add that many beds that fast. They kind of run the place like an airport hotel...

Also this: https://make-whistler-great-again.ca


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

Vail completed ruined Wilmot around here. They bought it, they are so cheap with snow making they had to close in the middle of the holiday break because they waited too long to build up a base. Every other hill in SE Wisconsin is about $500 for a season pass. Vail decided to only charge $359. I don't think it's a money thing for them, I think it's a profit thing. They had all their passes on sale cheap this year, including the one that lets you ski locally in Wisconsin then go out West to their resorts there. They have really just turned Wilmot into a place to tease people about going out West. It's really sad, it was a nice family owned resort for a long time. They spent a bunch of money on custom signs and decorating the place, then turned around and completely failed at making snow. I don't even think Alpine Valley considers them much competition anymore, because most of the people who go to Wilmot just do it to go out West. 

They are complete evil and they will drive a family owned, small midwestern resort into the ground just to try and make more money out West. I have developed a fear of them buying any more ski hills around here. Most of them are family owned and really nice. Like their Facebook pages just have a really nice friendly, vibe to them (Cascade Mountain's is great, feels like they are just your friend talking to you about the hill instead of trying to get you to buy stuff).


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

You nailed it, they want you to buy Sodas and burgers in Wisconsin and then want that $389 to make you feel like you are saving on a 5-10k family vacation once a year to the rockies


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Im getting brain damage from looking at the stevens picture repeatedly. My childhood is gone  I need to move to one of those remote areas


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

CocaCola Kicker said:


> Im getting brain damage from looking at the stevens picture repeatedly. My childhood is gone  I need to move to one of those remote areas


I feel you, I lived in Seattle from ‘05-‘07, South Lake Union was full of parking lots and mechanics and my rent for a 2B across from the cathedral on First Hill was $800 a month


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

I guess I’m not the only one


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

They’re trying to get 25000 signatures, they‘re currently at 17,223 not 3500


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

Do you think Vail will care? It would be cool, but I've got doubts.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> I guess I’m not the only one
> 
> View attachment 160836


Reads petitions

"this is, of course, if you are even able to park and not told you cannot access the ski area due to limited parking."

Checks other non Vail resorts in the PNW this morning on a weekday: Lots full at 9:00 pm. Timberline road closed regularly well before lifts start turning.

"Avalanche mitigation cannot be used as an excuse for a lack of terrain opening as other ski areas nearby with more challenging terrain issues and similar avalanche conditions, have been successful in opening up most of their terrain."

Checks other resorts: 0% of the upper mountain on Hood has yet to open this season at any of it's resorts due to weather and avalanche safety.

"To offer a patroller, who needs avalanche and medical training, a mere $14 an hour is offensive."

Checks Mt Baker: All wages are under $16 for standard jobs and their patrol is VOLUNTEER despite requiring medical training (which they do provide)

It's a frustrating time to be sure but the idea that the problems laid out in the petition are a direct result of Vail, it's VERY Karen. Now all that being said, Vail does suck, but so does the petition.


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

So I guess the ski/snowboard industry will just go to the rich as it once was, all they have to do to minimize the crowd, parking problem, etc by asking $200 for a days lift ticket.

Sorry just being a Karen


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Split boarding


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> So I guess the ski/snowboard industry will just go to the rich as it once was, all they have to do to minimize the crowd, parking problem, etc by asking $200 for a days lift ticket.
> 
> Sorry just being a Karen


In the US, kind of, ya. At least until the new outdoor popularity wave decreases. Welcome to capitalism where demand and money control the market. If you can't increase supply (which we can't) you have to increase cost to balance the market.

Riding is a privilege, not a right (sadly). And you can't force people not to ride with rules and also can't expect companies to give up money by turning away higher paying customers. It's the same with camping and natural parks. Have you tried getting into many of the big ones now? I spent a week at Rocky Mountain National Park before Covid, lines to get in were insane. If you weren't there at opening they closed the entrance due to no parking. Demand for outdoor recreation has exploded, it's great but sucks at the same time.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

I had passes to every WA resort last season except Baker, and none had the issues Stevens had. Stevens didn't have the issues it has today before Vail bought it. A lot of their experienced staff quit due to poor treatment and it shows.

Crystal and Snoqualmie both have all of the same challenges that Stevens does as far as crowds from Seattle, but both have managed that so much better there's no comparison. Baker has always been great and charge like half of what the other resorts do. There's really no excuse.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Powdertrax said:


> So I guess the ski/snowboard industry will just go to the rich as it once was, all they have to do to minimize the crowd, parking problem, etc by asking $200 for a days lift ticket.
> 
> Sorry just being a Karen


it’s an interesting point, In my recent memory I can think of multiple conversations about how mountains are out of control with $150 a day lift tickets. Now we have reasonable cost options to get out to a ton of resorts and are pissed that they aren’t being run like a $150 a day effort. I’m not endorsing Vail but it does seem like a challenging tight rope to walk


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## GregT943 (Apr 1, 2019)

Vail is a corporation, they exist to maximize shareholder profits. What's good for the consumer isn't always what's best for the shareholders. When consumers stop spending money at Vail resorts, Vail will change the way they operate, until then they will operate in whatever way maximizes profit and is best for the shareholders. They have record numbers of people visiting their mountains, and they are clearly minimizing operating costs, and their stock price hit an all time high this past November. They have no incentive, and will not change until the market forces them to.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

First off, some of the problems aren't Vail or ski/snowboard specific. My kids have had several instances this year, where teachers were not available to teach classes (at school). Labor shortages are hitting the whole economy. If you don't have enough ski patrollers, then terrain doesn't get opened up. If you don't have the lifties to open/operate the lifts, then you get crazy lift lines and limited terrain, etc, etc, etc. 

Vail/Epic Pass (IIRC it was called the Summit Pass back then) seemed awesome ~20 years ago when I started riding. I got unlimited days at Breckenridge, Keystone and A-Basin and 10 days at Vail/Beaver Creek and cost around $400. As a "local" who was getting in ~40 full days a year and kept my resort spending to a minimum, they were losing money on me, so you can see why they operate the way that they do. If Vail catered to people like me, they'd be out of business, so they actually operate in a manner that makes them unappealing to somebody like me. 

I've seen Vail's (former?) CEO quoted as saying something along the lines of "Skiing is for the rich." He's made comments like that more than once as well as other elitist/snobby comments. Vail wants the guy that's going to spend $10k+ on a family vacation at one of their flagship resorts. The season pass is just Vail's bait to catch that $10k fish. If that means Vail's pond needs to be overcrowded to catch that $10k fish, then everybody else can just suffer. 

For you guys new to Vail resorts, start looking for another mountain. From what I've seen they like to keep the riders segregated - ie they'll use the fun police to chase high level riders off blue and green runs. Slow signs all over the freaking place, etc. Really sucks if you want to progress or teach others. Of course Vail doesn't want you teaching others, they want you to pay them for the privilege of sticking your kids/friends/significant other with a low level instructor with too many students or you can pay out the arse for private instruction.


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

The other thing people don't really mention is that epic sliced pass prices this year... So that kid that was working at a resort to get a pass can now just work at a restaurant in the area, make enough to buy a pass, and actually have the time to ride once in a while. 

The pass is the entrance fee, there's definitely going to be more of a system where there's going to be upper tiers of passes or pay to skip the line features as we've already seen. 

@Jimi7 is totally right.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Park City on New Year’s Eve day. 










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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Splitboarding


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## 16gkid (Dec 5, 2012)

Jkb818 said:


> Park City on New Year’s Eve day.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


WOW


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

16gkid said:


> WOW


Ya I didn’t stand in that line but I was there that day. I saw two guys shoving each other over a chairlift. I left the mountain kind of sad.


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## kalev (Dec 17, 2013)

Just to add to the conversation, I think people's expectations of skiing / riding have changed a lot over the last 30 years. People romanticize about the independent mom & pop ski hill, but then complain endlessly about having to ride a fixed grip 2 person chair because it takes forever. They want high-speed 6 pack chairs, world class grooming, terrain parks, snow making so the hill can open in November etc. - but all for a discount. 

So in steps Vail ...


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

That's true. I've been happy to get back to old chairs again really. Sure they take longer, but there's way less people on the hill because the chairs spread them out better. Grooming is still pretty good at my local mom and pop areas, but they don't blow any snow. If Vail spoiled me at all, it was with snowmaking at Keystone. Natural snow is pretty awesome though.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

WigMar said:


> That's true. I've been happy to get back to old chairs again really. Sure they take longer, but there's way less people on the hill because the chairs spread them out better. Grooming is still pretty good at my local mom and pop areas, but they don't blow any snow. If Vail spoiled me at all, it was with snowmaking at Keystone. Natural snow is pretty awesome though.


Agreed, I'm all for slow chairs. I'm no longer in my 30s anyway, so I need the break to recuperate. Plus I can spend time talking to the kids and teaching them some of the nuances of the mountain while we're on the chair. IMHO, there is something about being on a slow 2 person lift while getting blasted by artic winds that makes you appreciate the experience of being on the mountain. 

Mary Jane putting a 6 person high speed lift on Timberline ruined what used to be some of the best terrain in Colorado. Putting 5x the number of people into the same space really just screws things up.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Agreed, a slow lift definitely improves the experience with regards to conditions. 


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

[emoji51]










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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jkb818 said:


> [emoji51]
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I always want to know what people think can be done in these situations. Do they think resorts can expand terrain for crowds, do they want to create a barrier to keep people from coming to the mountain and if so do they really think that's going to only keep other people from riding but not them? 

The whole resorts are just too crowded and too expensive, make it cheaper and get rid of crowds is just a comical statement when you actually hear it.


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## 16gkid (Dec 5, 2012)

Damn not even weekdays are safe?!


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> I always want to know what people think can be done in these situations. Do they think resorts can expand terrain for crowds, do they want to create a barrier to keep people from coming to the mountain and if so do they really think that's going to only keep other people from riding but not them?
> 
> The whole resorts are just too crowded and too expensive, make it cheaper and get rid of crowds is just a comical statement when you actually hear it.


My solution was to get work done and did some yoga. I experienced no lines. 


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

lab49232 said:


> I always want to know what people think can be done in these situations. Do they think resorts can expand terrain for crowds, do they want to create a barrier to keep people from coming to the mountain and if so do they really think that's going to only keep other people from riding but not them?
> 
> The whole resorts are just too crowded and too expensive, make it cheaper and get rid of crowds is just a comical statement when you actually hear it.


Stevens Pass has plenty of terrain. They don't have the people required to open it.

There is the concept of "perceived value" that is very powerful.

One of the smartest things I've ever heard about working was a guy in tech who said the time to start looking for a new job is the second management takes the free soda away. This guy didn't even drink soda, but he knew it was an indicator of a negative shift in management philosophy.

When a small company starts, people quickly realize that if they pool some of their money they can buy things like lunch and soda in bulk, so everyone chips in a few bucks each month and a few Costco runs later, there's "free" soda and snacks. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. People working long hours can eat a quick snack if they need to - saves them hassle, money, and time going out to eat or preparing food.

As the company grows, new management will inevitably roll in and look at things like "free soda" as pure expense - rather than a shared cost for mutual benefit, it's a "gift" management is giving to employees that can be taken away to save money. This represents a shift in thinking from "we, the company" to "*us*, the company management and *them*, the company workers." So when the soda goes, that's the canary that shows the company culture has shifted from a collaborative shared community to a purely profit-driven one. It's no longer fun - it's adversarial workers-vs-management and time to leave.

Ski resorts run smoothly with minimum wage labor because people who are ski patrol, lifties, etc. LOVE the sport and figure working at a resort is the best job to have to be able to ride as often as possible. It costs Vail next to nothing to give those people the opportunity to do that. Many people happily volunteer for free as mountain hosts for a few perks and to support their local mountain if they feel like it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.

When you start doing things like taking away the fun cool perks like riding breaks that make it desirable to work for minimum wage in freezing temperatures to maximize profit, and exploiting cheap foreign labor that are essentially indentured servants in order to cut costs, firing lifties for doing things that they've done for 50 years without incident, refusing to bump up experienced ski patroller salaries a few bucks an hour, you _immediately_ breach that unspoken contract that hey, even though the pay sucks, this is a cool job and we're all in this together. And people rightfully are _immediately_ unwilling to put up with any amount of bullshit to make a few extra bucks for a faceless corporation that doesn't give a shit about them or the culture that developed around a local mountain that made it great.

Why do people work for minimum wage at ski resorts? It's not for the money. It's because they want to be part of a community and an in-group that are all really great riders and skiers that do cool shit and have a great time. They want to live in an RV in the parking lot and drink and smoke with their friends all night and ride as much as possible and escape having to be in a soul-sucking corporate job for a winter or two.

Vail understands none of this and thinks they can remove what makes those jobs fun and appealing and still have people lining up to do them for peanuts. They can't. You can't have people enforcing bullshit rules and slow lanes and making terrain parks designed to drive away the unprofitable park rats in favor of the rich families who see snow on the road and think "Let's spend $1000 and go skiing this weekend, we haven't done that since last year" and attract the bums who make fully opening a resort possible.

That's not to say Vail can't keep going like this. They're not going to go out of business because there are more than enough people out there willing to shell out whatever Vail is asking for lift tickets - they're more profitable than ever and I'm sure that's not lost on them. But they've destroyed a culture _I_ think is awesome in the name of profit. They obviously don't care.

But there are plenty of things that can be done, if they valued the sport over the money. Those things would make the resort less appealing to rich families who go skiing a few times a year and buy the overpriced food in the restaurant and spend 10k at Whistler.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

drblast said:


> Stevens Pass has plenty of terrain. They don't have the people required to open it.
> 
> There is the concept of "perceived value" that is very powerful.
> 
> ...


One more time for the people in the back

Staffing issues are not a Vail issue.............

But just to add one side point: Perhaps you missed it but I am one of those people who spent years working at a resort just so I could ride. And if you really think Vail treats their workers far worse than other resorts, you're VERY mistaken. Again this is only in comparison to other resorts, the ski industry as a whole all of em take advantage of their employees, much like every other industry and why theres a what?

Nation wide shortage of employees across all jobs, not just Vail resorts or Stevens Pass.

So again when we see mass crowds at many resorts across the entire country, what's your solution, what do you expect Vail to do that you think other resorts are doing?

U.S. Ski Resorts Are Hiring Thousands of New Employees — and Paying More Than Ever


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Dang what mtn is that


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

CocaCola Kicker said:


> Dang what mtn is that


Park City


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> One more time for the people in the back
> 
> Staffing issues are not a Vail issue.............


Paying ski patrol less than what you can make at Target probably isn’t a great way to recruit. Also first-hand experience is that my wife has been offered jobs from Vail twice and they never even followed up to give her the offer letter. So there definitely are things they could improve upon. 

https://www.deseret.com/platform/am...s-vail-minimum-wage-starts-gofundme-pcmr-utah


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

lab49232 said:


> One more time for the people in the back
> 
> Staffing issues are not a Vail issue.............
> 
> ...


To all the folks standing in the lift line...ya'll cain't b bougie...get a frick'n job...there's money to be made...ya gotz debts to pay...yup u gonna pay up the arse in inflation and increased interest rates...that'll be a free experience, wud ya think ur some trustafarians  
The boomer perspective lol


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jkb818 said:


> In a state that rarely sees labor disputes, Park City ski patrollers enter 47th bargaining session with ‘action fund’
> 
> 
> As the busiest time of the year for Utah’s ski areas comes to a close, Vail-owned Park City Mountain Resort still hasn’t successfully negotiated a contract with its ski patrol union.
> ...


And? Again you have to point to where Vail would be DIFFERENT compared to other ski resorts. There's a global labor shortage, due in large to wages and working conditions across ALL industries, Vail is not unique in this. What do you think ski patrol rates are at other resorts?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/17/strikes-great-resignation/

The point isn't
"is Vail shit"

it's

"How is Vail more shit than all the other employers" and how is Vail being shit causing worse lines at Vail ski resorts than at others

In reality we're all angry at capitalism, the US economy and frankly population growth and interest in the outdoor adventure market. And we all need a scapegoat... Does Vail suck, absolutely, is the ski industry and your resort shit because Vail owns it, absolutely not.

To put it a different way, if we dissolved Vail tomorrow, all assets sold to different, smaller groups. Do crowds start shrinking, do resorts start magically handling crowds better? Do we suddenly have a ton of people looking to work at ski resorts that don't want to now? No, and therein lies the truth to the entire situation.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> I always want to know what people think can be done in these situations. Do they think resorts can expand terrain for crowds, do they want to create a barrier to keep people from coming to the mountain and if so do they really think that's going to only keep other people from riding but not them?
> 
> The whole resorts are just too crowded and too expensive, make it cheaper and get rid of crowds is just a comical statement when you actually hear it.


I agree, you can't have it both ways...

OTOH, Vail/Epic does piss me off. I've mentioned how their CEO talks down the "common man," yet they price their passes to appeal to the common man. So I don't like Vail because I think that's pretty shitty way to view the world and your customers. Not only that, but they've ruined world class resorts with the fun police IMHO. Peak 9 at Breckenridge used to one of my favorite places to ride, but Epic just kept putting up "SLOW" signs and putting more and more fun police out there to enforce the slow signs. 

I'd assume a big reason you're seeing "excessive" bitching about Vail here is a lot of seasoned riders have probably experienced what I've experienced; really great resorts they used to ride have been ruined by corporations chasing the almighty buck. Of the bigger resorts in Colorado, Copper is really the only one I have any interest in riding anymore - maybe Vail. Now that I think about it, the lines at Copper were getting out of control before the pandemic. 

In Colorado, the Epic and Ikon passes draws so much traffic thru the Eisenhower and Johnson tunnels, that you're really taking your chances of sitting in traffic for an extra hour or two if you dare ride the Western slopes in Colorado. Sunday traffic was backed up from the tunnels to Silverthorne and I'm not sure how bad it backed up it was east of the tunnels.

That said, while there are things I miss about the Vail resorts, in the end all I need a sufficiently long enough and steep enough mountain and some snow. Luckily, in Colorado there are still plenty of smaller resorts that can provide that have great terrain without all the headaches Epic brings to the table, but some of them slam you pretty good on season pass prices.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

I'm not going to say anything about Vail other than what is happening over the past few years at Stevens Pass, compared to every other resort in WA, which for the last few years I've spent many days at. Stevens is, by FAR, the worst managed resort, and the difference between now and when Vail bought it is night and day. It started before the pandemic - the pandemic brought additional challenges but other resorts have risen to the challenge and Stevens, and by extension Vail, has not.

Vail could be managing other resorts just fine. I don't care. They've ruined Stevens Pass and that's my complaint. It's laughably bad, gross incompetence. And I'm not particularly pissed about it because I get up at 5am to go ride first chair at Crystal and I'm fine. Crystal has actually been as good or better to ride the past couple of years except for some overcrowding hiccups that they've managed quite well by either limiting the resort to season pass holders on weekends or with a reservation system or combination of those things. They're not perfect but they do at least seem to care about not packing the mountain to the brim and keeping a decent experience for everyone.

Vail just oversold a bunch of season passes for firesale prices and is opening half of Stevens Pass. The lifts are hardly even running there, and it's an even bigger problem this year than last year. It's not that they're overcome by events. The Vail management at Stevens Pass is grossly incompetent.

To answer your question lab, Crystal has managed overcrowding significantly better than Stevens. They've made a combination of changes to pricing, added a (free!) bus to reduce traffic and parking problems, implemented a reservation system and parking system to encourage carpooling, somehow manage to keep all their lifts running and avy control done despite a worker shortage and pandemic, they communicate with customers regularly about any changes they make and actually adapt to customer feedback. So those are the things Vail could do but hasn't.


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## DaveMcI (Aug 19, 2013)

Vails secretary's secretary called, and said no.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Interesting interview from the COO of Park City









Park City Mountain COO Mike Goar - January 6, 2022


Park City Mountain COO Mike Goar explains the challenges the resort has faced over the busy holiday weekend and the outlook for getting the mountain and restaurants open.




www.kpcw.org






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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

I think we’re doing pretty good considering Snoqualmie has only had three open days. Also Covid has made every employee that used to come from South America and other countries stay home. I understand peoples frustrations but whining doesn’t help during a pandemic and they’re doing the best job they can I think we should start a petition against the Department of transportation for failing to have the road open so we can enjoy our mountains shame on them


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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

lab49232 said:


> And? Again you have to point to where Vail would be DIFFERENT compared to other ski resorts. There's a global labor shortage, due in large to wages and working conditions across ALL industries, Vail is not unique in this. What do you think ski patrol rates are at other resorts?
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/17/strikes-great-resignation/
> 
> ...


You are spot on! I’m tired of everyone whining. Snoqualmie has had three open days. I’ve gone to Crystal 4 times, only one was successful. Everybody’s pissed and whining there as well. Sometimes you have to work with what you got and you’ll be a happier person that way, but if you expect perfect every time well you might as well stay away from me


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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

lab49232 said:


> Reads petitions
> 
> "this is, of course, if you are even able to park and not told you cannot access the ski area due to limited parking."
> 
> ...


I agree with you, tired of Karen’s. The petition is laughing stock to Vail. What a waist of time. (In Lake Tahoe and Utah Alta area and it seems even worse there, so everyone needs to chill out and give them some time to figure out staffing. Back in 2007 I remember all sorts of chaos at Stevens and they made it through no problem, but this time they have coronavirus and it’s not easy. Keep positive have patience it’s still really early in the year


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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

kalev said:


> Just to add to the conversation, I think people's expectations of skiing / riding have changed a lot over the last 30 years. People romanticize about the independent mom & pop ski hill, but then complain endlessly about having to ride a fixed grip 2 person chair because it takes forever. They want high-speed 6 pack chairs, world class grooming, terrain parks, snow making so the hill can open in November etc. - but all for a discount.
> 
> So in steps Vail ...


You are right on !


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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

Powdertrax said:


> So I guess the ski/snowboard industry will just go to the rich as it once was, all they have to do to minimize the crowd, parking problem, etc by asking $200 for a days lift ticket.
> 
> Sorry just being a Karen


The way inflations going $200 won’t even buy you a burger and a beer


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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

drblast said:


> I had passes to every WA resort last season except Baker, and none had the issues Stevens had. Stevens didn't have the issues it has today before Vail bought it. A lot of their experienced staff quit due to poor treatment and it shows.
> 
> Crystal and Snoqualmie both have all of the same challenges that Stevens does as far as crowds from Seattle, but both have managed that so much better there's no comparison. Baker has always been great and charge like half of what the other resorts do. There's really no excuse.


There’s no excuse are you kidding me. Go ski somewhere else, I’m sure you’ll find plenty to bitch about their


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## Jay o (Jan 7, 2022)

drblast said:


> Stevens Pass has plenty of terrain. They don't have the people required to open it.
> 
> There is the concept of "perceived value" that is very powerful.
> 
> ...


I’ve been working at Stevens on and off for 25 years. I’ve seen four or five different owners. If you think ride breaks suddenly just disappeared you’re absolutely wrong. My ride brake privileges were taken away back in 2002. That’s when I took a long break from the mountain and bitched a lot. They also offered me $.10 raise for coming back the following season. If you think they have changed since then you are wrong. People don’t realize how many drunks and crackheads worked at Stevens Pass the last 10 to 15 years I am so grateful that there is a reset happening now and I hope that we get better staff and all the people from other countries that have helped fill all the jobs will come back after this virus is behind us. I miss all the kids from Argentina, Brazil and all of South America that filled a lot of the jobs that are not going this year. These employees kept the mountain open. They can’t even get into America right now so why don’t you go make a petition against Biden or the virus even better


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Joined 40 mins ago and already 7 posts in support of vail. 

Impressive.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jkb818 said:


> Interesting interview from the COO of Park City
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ugh ignore the Stevens spam employee.

Good interview. I view it as similar to the serving industry, everyone should experience working in it to learn just what the backend is like and you'd have a lot less complaining. It's amazing just how intense and difficult ski resort operations are and if you don't actually know, it's easy to get frustrated. it was always "it's 30 degrees why cant you make snow" or "the ice storm was like two days ago why aren't all the lifts open" There's very simple real answers and justifications that if you don't know may seem like ineptitude but in reality are simply not possible or extremely difficult.

Also for anyone trying to use Crystal as your shining example of crowd control in comparison, Crystal has kind of been the textbook case study in crowd struggles for the last 3 years. They made national headlines for their crowding issues that stranded thousands down the highway for miles back in 2020. Did everyone suddenly forget that? it was only then they tried to make changes to adapt and still haven't figured it out. They literally just changed their crowd management policies twice in the last 2 weeks because it's an issue. If you're comparing Crystal crowds to Stevens as justification for hating Vail you're lying to yourself.

Also haven't large areas of Crystal been closed for significant portions of the season as well? They had the inbounds avalanche kill someone earlier, when the area was closed, heck their upper mountain is closed today. The weather this season has been unreal in the PNW. We went from bare ground in December to over 100 inch base to in an inch of freezing rain to blizzards that closed every pass and all the resort to 3 inches of rain all over the course of less than a month. 

If you wanna complain about food service, quality, cost. if you wanna complain about fun police, established slow zones, or the like. if you wanna complain about employee attitudes for Vail, I'm here for it. When you start saying Stevens is handling the weather and staffing and increased skiier demand worse than non Vail resorts, you're just using them as a scapegoat for what are industry wide issues and frustrations.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

If you haven't ridden Crystal and Stevens both in the last two years, you're just guessing. Crystal is just better. Stevens the past two years has been one awful decision after another. Stevens was my home mountain for years because it was worth the extra half hour drive over Snoqualmie and my kids are older and we've outgrown Snoqualmie. Now I get up an hour earlier and drive two hours to Crystal instead. I'm not alone here; there has been a mass exodus of Stevens devotees to other resorts.

Crystal changing things multiple time over the past two weeks is a good thing - people complained, they listened. I would have preferred in this case that people hadn't complained because the reservation system they had in place last year was just fine and I never had a problem picking up a slot when people would cancel last minute, but meh. At least they're trying.

I'm not a complainer. I've happily paid for my entire family's season passes to Snoqualmie and later to Stevens despite the crowds, ride in the rain, buy overpriced drinks and meals to support the resorts I go to, and bring snacks for the lifties. No resort is perfect. I recognize some problems are universal and can't be helped, but I'm also former military and there are only so many excuses I'm willing to hear before I call a spade and spade. A lot of these excuses are just that and nothing more, especially when _every other resort in the state_ is rideable despite these problems.

Just look at the Stevens Instagram vs. any other resort here the past couple of years. Either the Stevens customers are a very special breed of overwhelmingly cranky people, or something is going very wrong over there.

Again, if you're living in WA and ride everywhere here the difference is completely obvious, and a massive shift from 3-4 years ago. The angry customers and worker strikes didn't just spring up out of nowhere. It's the small things that lead to big problems - the problem is not how Stevens right now is handling weather, it's that many of their experienced ski patrollers have quit for various reasons and they can't do avy control or run all the lifts. That's a systemic issue, and you could see it coming a mile away, which is why I switched to Ikon last year so I could ride Crystal on weekends instead.

None of this is me complaining about Stevens this year - I don't go there anymore. But it's in no way surprising they're having trouble based on trends.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

Also let me call out Baker and Snoqualmie and Crystal for doing lots of great things - Baker keeps ticket prices low and a local feel, Crystal has excellent service and ski patrol and the mountain is always a blast to ride and they've really upped their park game in the past few years, and Snoqualmie is probably the best run resort given proximity to Seattle, next to impossible crowds and rainy conditions. That's quite a challenge to manage all that and they do it really well.


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Too Big to Vail: The Downfall of the North American Mega Resort | The Inertia


Locals at Vail Resorts-run mountains like Stevens Pass and Whistler are starting to say, "enough is enough," pushing back against lift lines and low wages.




www.theinertia.com


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Seems like Loveland is down some ski patrollers too. I'm just not seeing as many of them and there is terrain that looks ready to open but remains closed, but that could be due to a shortage of lift operators too or a little of both. 

Getting back to Vail/Stevens, yeah everybody is short workers, but if you sell 2.1 million season passes and have the biggest resorts with most amenities, etc, then you're the one the labor shortage is going to hit the hardest. OTOH, if paid 20-50% less for your pass than you would have at another mountain that has less terrain and amenities, etc - well something has to give. 

Let this be a lesson to those tempted by the Epic Pass - yeah it seems like a great deal and you get access to all these "great resorts," but if sounds too good to be true, then maybe it is. Or another way to look at is, Breckenridge wants $200 for a lift ticket, so if I get 3 days in on the Epic Pass, then I came out ahead. Also to somebody who isn't particularly fit and doesn't ride often, the lift line can be a welcome break. Think off all the skiers/riders you see taking breaks on the slopes - I imagine the lines don't bother them as much as the hardcore riders. Clearly Vail's model isn't broken or they wouldn't be doing as well financially as they are.


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> Seems like Loveland is down some ski patrollers too. I'm just not seeing as many of them and there is terrain that looks ready to open but remains closed, but that could be due to a shortage of lift operators too or a little of both.
> 
> Getting back to Vail/Stevens, yeah everybody is short workers, but if you sell 2.1 million season passes and have the biggest resorts with most amenities, etc, then you're the one the labor shortage is going to hit the hardest. OTOH, if paid 20-50% less for your pass than you would have at another mountain that has less terrain and amenities, etc - well something has to give.
> 
> Let this be a lesson to those tempted by the Epic Pass - yeah it seems like a great deal and you get access to all these "great resorts," but if sounds too good to be true, then maybe it is. Or another way to look at is, Breckenridge wants $200 for a lift ticket, so if I get 3 days in on the Epic Pass, then I came out ahead. Also to somebody who isn't particularly fit and doesn't ride often, the lift line can be a welcome break. Think off all the skiers/riders you see taking breaks on the slopes - I imagine the lines don't bother them as much as the hardcore riders. Clearly Vail's model isn't broken or they wouldn't be doing as well financially as they are.


I'm willing to bet those people are still taking breaks on the hill and complaining about the lines lol


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

I’ve just come to the realization that I need to really be selective of the times I go to my local epic resort. I supplement by going to a place that’s even closer to me that has 350 feet of vertical but zero lines.  I don’t see anything going back to the way things were pre-covid. Having the privilege to work remotely was way cooler when millions of others didn’t have that same ability. Jus sayin...


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

drblast said:


> If you haven't ridden Crystal and Stevens both in the last two years, you're just guessing. Crystal is just better. Stevens the past two years has been one awful decision after another. Stevens was my home mountain for years because it was worth the extra half hour drive over Snoqualmie and my kids are older and we've outgrown Snoqualmie. Now I get up an hour earlier and drive two hours to Crystal instead. I'm not alone here; there has been a mass exodus of Stevens devotees to other resorts.
> 
> Crystal changing things multiple time over the past two weeks is a good thing - people complained, they listened. I would have preferred in this case that people hadn't complained because the reservation system they had in place last year was just fine and I never had a problem picking up a slot when people would cancel last minute, but meh. At least they're trying.
> 
> None of this is me complaining about Stevens this year - I don't go there anymore. But it's in no way surprising they're having trouble based on trends.


Facepalm.... Nobody has said Stevens hasn't gone to crap over the last few years. I said the points being brought up in the stupid petition and the main frustrations people are venting about in the OP have nothing to do with Vail owning it. People remember old school mom and Pop Stevens and it's not that anymore, it wasn't that already when they sold to Vail. As Seattle exploded, as outdoor recreation exploded Stevens exploded and that just makes it not as fun as it use to be. That's not a Vail issue, thats a product if the industry such as:

Inability to hire: Nation wide
Terrain opening difficulties: Region wide
Ski Patrol pay rates: At or above industry average
Overcrowding: Industry wide problem and nowhere near as bad as other resorts in the area

So again we can be sad the mom and pop ski resorts are gone, but thats not something a stupid petition and a bunchj of complaining is going to solve. Stevens booming popularity makes it less desirable for sure. It was the advantage it had over Crystal along with a shorter drive. So yes it makes sense for people to ride Crystal more now, but not because it's owned by Vail.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

ridethecliche said:


> Too Big to Vail: The Downfall of the North American Mega Resort | The Inertia
> 
> 
> Locals at Vail Resorts-run mountains like Stevens Pass and Whistler are starting to say, "enough is enough," pushing back against lift lines and low wages.
> ...


Wow, I didn't know that lessons have gotten that expensive. I remember lessons at Copper (Ikon) being pretty pricey. Luckily my wife and I both instructed in the past, so we sidestepped that expense. 

So at Breck a group lesson costs $265 (7-14 yr old). 5-8 kids/class = $1325 to $2120/class. I'd say Vail is making more than enough to pay the instructors a good enough wage to have enough instructors on hand. Hell, I'll go up and teach if they pay me 25% of the income from the class and Vail still makes a fat profit. I guarantee I'm a better instructor than the "instructors" Vail usually put out there. I'd even be willing to get recertified.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Facepalm.... Nobody has said Stevens hasn't gone to crap over the last few years. I said the points being brought up in the stupid petition and the main frustrations people are venting about in the OP have nothing to do with Vail owning it. People remember old school mom and Pop Stevens and it's not that anymore, it wasn't that already when they sold to Vail. As Seattle exploded, as outdoor recreation exploded Stevens exploded and that just makes it not as fun as it use to be. That's not a Vail issue, thats a product if the industry such as:
> 
> Inability to hire: Nation wide
> Terrain opening difficulties: Region wide
> ...


But Vail's pricing, etc makes the problems Stevens is experiencing worse than they would have been (most likely).


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> Wow, I didn't know that lessons have gotten that expensive. I remember lessons at Copper (Ikon) being pretty pricey. Luckily my wife and I both instructed in the past, so we sidestepped that expense.
> 
> So at Breck a group lesson costs $265 (7-14 yr old). 5-8 kids/class = $1325 to $2120/class. I'd say Vail is making more than enough to pay the instructors a good enough wage to have enough instructors on hand. Hell, I'll go up and teach if they pay me 25% of the income from the class and Vail still makes a fat profit. I guarantee I'm a better instructor than the "instructors" Vail usually put out there. I'd even be willing to get recertified.


My sister took a group lesson at Jackson hole and it was absurd. We kinda cut a lot of corners on our trip so she could swing it and she's coming back from an injury so taking a lesson at a big mountain was a confidence booster for her but holy shit it was like 450. Full day though and they got a meal voucher but holy shit.


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

CocaCola Kicker said:


> Splitboarding


I could show pictures of crowds in the "backcountry" that, while nothing like those pictures in the resort, would be a major bummer for people expecting uncrowded slopes and parking. There are just so many people wanting the same thing and many of them are in the backcountry also.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

deagol said:


> I could show pictures of crowds in the "backcountry" that, while nothing like those pictures in the resort, would be a major bummer for people expecting uncrowded slopes and parking. There are just so many people wanting the same thing and many of them are in the backcountry also.


And likely a lot of these new folks in the backcountry have zero Avy education. Therefore risking others lives.


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> And likely a lot of these new folks in the backcountry have zero Avy education. Therefore risking others lives.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Scarcity heuristic. A lot of the folks that are more experienced are going further into the BC than before because they want to avoid the crowds and 'their routes' are being taken up by the newcomers.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> But Vail's pricing, etc makes the problems Stevens is experiencing worse than they would have been (most likely).


As in? You mean their Epic Pass cost? It's right in line with industry standards, Ikon/Alterra (which includes Crystal) is only about $200 more but it also offers more resorts and more snow. The pass is still way more than the $600 I paid for my pass at Hood, same with all ski resorts on Hood actually. Are we saying we want Vail to raise prices on Epic passes to price people out of the sport? Seems like that's what we all hated about Vail to begin with. It's a tough line to find




Jimi7 said:


> Wow, I didn't know that lessons have gotten that expensive. I remember lessons at Copper (Ikon) being pretty pricey. Luckily my wife and I both instructed in the past, so we sidestepped that expense.
> 
> So at Breck a group lesson costs $265 (7-14 yr old). 5-8 kids/class = $1325 to $2120/class. I'd say Vail is making more than enough to pay the instructors a good enough wage to have enough instructors on hand. Hell, I'll go up and teach if they pay me 25% of the income from the class and Vail still makes a fat profit. I guarantee I'm a better instructor than the "instructors" Vail usually put out there. I'd even be willing to get recertified.


This part is an interesting debate in economics, especially capitalism. A beginner lesson snowboarding is really pretty much the same no matter what resort you go to. Same labor, same quality, its basically a snickers bar. But resorts charge different rates for the exact same product but that's largely going to be driven by demand and thus the cliental right? People are obviously paying what each resort is charging, otherwise they'd drop prices.

However while the resorts may charge more to keep operations at an equillibrium (demand for lessons meets their supply of instructors and time to provide lessons) The labor/skill itself of each instructor is the same. So the industry has established a pretty standard pay rate across the board across all resorts. Should one resort pay instructors far more just because the resort itself has more money when the job the employee is doing is the exact same? Supply and demand drive cost of goods that's just standard economics but wether a person should recieve extra compensation for the exact same service is one more of morality. 

Vail isn't down employees because it's behind the market in compensation. They start at $15 an hour offer full benefits, they're at or exceeding industry averages for compensation across the board. However if they were to pay well beyond what any other resort is paying and possibly entiece some extra workers. is that a precedent they should set as a company? Morally obviously yes but capitalism isn't morality so it becomes an interesting topi.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

ridethecliche said:


> My sister took a group lesson at Jackson hole and it was absurd. We kinda cut a lot of corners on our trip so she could swing it and she's coming back from an injury so taking a lesson at a big mountain was a confidence booster for her but holy shit it was like 450. Full day though and they got a meal voucher but holy shit.


Ouch - $450 for a private or group lesson???


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

For $450 I’d want Travis Rice teaching me lol


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

deagol said:


> I could show pictures of crowds in the "backcountry" that, while nothing like those pictures in the resort, would be a major bummer for people expecting uncrowded slopes and parking. There are just so many people wanting the same thing and many of them are in the backcountry also.


Yup, I'll never forget when I was in Jackson Hole 2 season ago. Cars parked bumper to bumper along ever spare inch of road within a mile of backcountry access spots. People really don't comprehend how high demand is for outdoor recreation. It's not Vail creating it, it's not because the Epic Pass was on sale, it's just incomprehensible demand for mountain time.


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

ridethecliche said:


> Scarcity heuristic. A lot of the folks that are more experienced are going further into the BC than before because they want to avoid the crowds and 'their routes' are being taken up by the newcomers.


I've seen this myself. Some group vacationing from Louisiana followed my group up into some serious terrain. We were prepared with proper gear and experience and these guys were able to boot-pack up the skin-track into some fairly dangerous terrain. This was several years ago and that is far more common these days

edit to add: also along highways that go over passes near ski areas, I know we have all seen it: moguls on back-country ski runs. Berthoud Pass & Loveland Pass in CO are best example I know of.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Too bad Deer Valley doesn’t allow snowboarding. With their model you never deal with this madness. But not allowing snowboarding is likely part of how they offer such a better experience. Cut out half the potential visitors.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> As in? You mean their Epic Pass cost? It's right in line with industry standards, Ikon/Alterra (which includes Crystal) is only about $200 more but it also offers more resorts and more snow. The pass is still way more than the $600 I paid for my pass at Hood, same with all ski resorts on Hood actually. Are we saying we want Vail to raise prices on Epic passes to price people out of the sport? Seems like that's what we all hated about Vail to begin with. It's a tough line to find


I was saying that the Epic Pass costs less - bigger resorts and more resorts for the same or less than what the mom & pops offer. Do I want Epic to raise prices??? It's hard to say, but what appeared to be a good thing for the sport way back when has had alot of downside. 



lab49232 said:


> This part is an interesting debate in economics, especially capitalism. A beginner lesson snowboarding is really pretty much the same no matter what resort you go to. Same labor, same quality, its basically a snickers bar. But resorts charge different rates for the exact same product but that's largely going to be driven by demand and thus the cliental right? People are obviously paying what each resort is charging, otherwise they'd drop prices.
> 
> However while the resorts may charge more to keep operations at an equillibrium (demand for lessons meets their supply of instructors and time to provide lessons) The labor/skill itself of each instructor is the same. So the industry has established a pretty standard pay rate across the board across all resorts. Should one resort pay instructors far more just because the resort itself has more money when the job the employee is doing is the exact same? Supply and demand drive cost of goods that's just standard economics but wether a person should recieve extra compensation for the exact same service is one more of morality.
> 
> Vail isn't down employees because it's behind the market in compensation. They start at $15 an hour offer full benefits, they're at or exceeding industry averages for compensation across the board. However if they were to pay well beyond what any other resort is paying and possibly entiece some extra workers. is that a precedent they should set as a company? Morally obviously yes but capitalism isn't morality so it becomes an interesting topi.


It's a little more complicated than that. $15/hr may be standard in the industry, but you can't live in Summit County Colorado on that. $15/hr might be great for some Podunk little mountain in Tennesse or Indiana, but living in Summit on $30/hr would be challenging. I think it isn't just the ski industry that doesn't want to set a precedent that they'll pay extra to fix a labor shortage, I think it's the whole "ownership class" that doesn't want to pay extra to fix a labor shortage. The truly wealthy probably figure they'll still remain profitable and can just wait out the working class and eventually we'll have to return to work.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

I’m sure if an epic pass cost $2500 this issue would get corrected very quick. For that price if I could have less crowds, shorter lines, better snow conditions as a result, easier parking and maybe throw in fair food prices I’m all in. 


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> Ouch - $450 for a private or group lesson???


Full day group but it turned out to be two people. The other person was from Texas and quit after half the day so it ended up slightly better but damn.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

ridethecliche said:


> Full day group but it turned out to be two people. The other person was from Texas and quit after half the day so it ended up slightly better but damn.


Texans....

I saw tons of people giving up at Loveland over the weekend - walking down the mountain. $450 for what turned out to be a semi-private lesson isn't bad, but $450 with a group of 4+ is a rip off.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> I was saying that the Epic Pass costs less - bigger resorts and more resorts for the same or less than what the mom & pops offer. Do I want Epic to raise prices??? It's hard to say, but what appeared to be a good thing for the sport way back when has had alot of downside.
> 
> 
> 
> It's a little more complicated than that. $15/hr may be standard in the industry, but you can't live in Summit County Colorado on that. $15/hr might be great for some Podunk little mountain in Tennesse or Indiana, but living in Summit on $30/hr would be challenging. I think it isn't just the ski industry that doesn't want to set a precedent that they'll pay extra to fix a labor shortage, I think it's the whole "ownership class" that doesn't want to pay extra to fix a labor shortage. The truly wealthy probably figure they'll still remain profitable and can just wait out the working class and eventually we'll have to return to work.


For Vail resorts in summit county and destination areas absolutely it draws in far more crowds and has been a negative. But there's not a lot of people vacationing to Stevens pass or Mad River, OH. Those are locals who bought an epic pass instead of a Stevens pass. Now they can fly to Aspen for a week instead of riding their local hill and not have to pay for lift tickets that were otherwise too expensive to ever justify a trip to. 

And since other local resorts ot Stevens are also on similar priced mega passes it's not like aStevens season pass as Epic is inherently better than Crystals wand its Ikon

And yes location and cost of living should change pay in areas. But like we both have now pointed out, that's not a product of any one company it's a product of the US economic policy. No ski resorts in Summit county are paying $30 an hour, so should Vail randomly choose to when nobody else is? 

I dont want it to be the solution, I want everyone who wants to enjoy snowboarding to be able to, but it's becoming more and more apparent that's just not possible so maybe it is a "money chooses who gets to" which is just gonna make more people mad at places like Vail for something they actually can't help.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> For Vail resorts in summit county and destination areas absolutely it draws in far more crowds and has been a negative. But there's not a lot of people vacationing to Stevens pass or Mad River, OH. Those are locals who bought an epic pass instead of a Stevens pass. Now they can fly to Aspen for a week instead of riding their local hill and not have to pay for lift tickets that were otherwise too expensive to ever justify a trip to.
> 
> And since other local resorts ot Stevens are also on similar priced mega passes it's not like aStevens season pass as Epic is inherently better than Crystals wand its Ikon
> 
> ...


In the case of Summit County, Vail practically owns the county. We are way too capitalistic to have any solution other than money rules. The big mountains all seem to be offering an option to pay to get on the mountain before everybody else or to cut the line, so obviously the solution to the lines/crowds is more money, more money and more money.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

Ikon is the expensive pass that is pricey enough to start limiting people buying it. This is the first year I haven't bought a season pass for the rest of my family, because they're not going to go enough to justify the Ikon price. An Epic pass at 20% off would have been an easy call but I saw these problems coming and knew it wasn't going to be worth it.

There are clear differences between the Ikon ($$$$$) and Epic ($$) approaches so we really don't have to guess what happens. Crystal fans were mad that the only pass that let you go there on weekends this year was $1000 and said boo Ikon. Epic fans were happy about the reduced prices but very unhappy about the result this year. It's a pick your poison kind of thing. Ikon is for the rich people and die-hards, Epic for everyone else.

What was lost here is that you can't just buy a season pass to the local resort like you used to. The mega passes either mean the price of entry to the sport goes way up for anyone who wants a season pass but doesn't care to travel around the country, or you get a decent deal on a now much more crowded resort.

A season pass for me is pretty much my entire annual entertainment expense so I'm much more willing to pay top dollar and have 60-70 days on a not-crowded mountain and be able to spend my annual winter snowboard trip week somewhere cool without paying extra for lift tickets. But the barrier to entry is wayyyy higher now. It costs me $225 to bring my kids to Crystal on days they have off from school, so obviously we're not doing that much. They're gonna go a lot to justify a season pass, or hardly at all. I'd love to get them passes so I can bring everyone on a week long snowboard vacation, but I can't afford to do that anymore.

So my family is already being priced out of snowboarding and instead of spending 7-10 days on the mountain with them, it's gonna be 2 or 3 this season. And if it were cheaper, I doubt they'd want to go and fight crowds anyway. They already hate getting up early to get a parking spot.

Now, that's the reality and physics of the situation and there's just no way to go when supply is constant but demand is up. Sucks, but you have to draw the line somewhere and it's either money, limiting access via reservations or not selling day tickets, or some combination. The interesting thing about expensive Ikon is that giving that away as an employee perk becomes more valuable.

Let's say trends continue and Epic is the $600 "budget" pass and Ikon is $1800 a season - saying "come work here and get a free pass" is gonna be much more attractive to a miminum wage liftie at Ikon resorts especially if that keeps crowds down enough so that they're more fun to ride.

Alternatively, you could keep things cheap but have a reservation system to limit crowds, and make employees exempt so they could ride any time. That accomplishes about the same result as a "slower lift" would - runs that aren't packed with people. But doing that would mean you couldn't sell passes as "unlimited," which is disingenuous anyway when "unlimited" means unlimited access to a piss-poor crowded resort. Kind of like an all-you-can-eat buffet where 70% of the trays are empty.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Idle Lifts, Bare Slopes, Stunted Operating Hours: Vail Must Do Better


And also stop paying employees in onions and potatoes




www.stormskiing.com





More positive press for Vail [emoji23]


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

The real problem is that season pass holders have always been a fail safe for a resort. If the year is really bad for the resort, they are going to get guaranteed income from their season pass holders. Imagine a year so bad things are closed for the entire holiday season because of weather. Season passes are guaranteed income, they already sold those season passes no matter how long the season is or if they were open or closed on peak times.

I think Vail has realized they don't need to rely on those bellwether season pass holders who will buy a season pass to save the resort's year (from a business perspective). And from a business standpoint it makes sense. I go to AV like two or three times a week with my season pass, I broke it down, it's like $10 a lift ticket at that point on an average season. If you are at capacity you don't want to give your capacity to someone like me who has a season pass, you want to give it to someone who will buy lift tickets for a family, buy food, then get tired after two hours of riding and go sit in the bar for the next 4 hours while the kids finish up. 

The big money resorts are going to be focusing on profits, which means screw the season pass holders who abuse the season pass (i.e. regulars). The smaller hills are probably smart enough to know this isn't going to go on forever and they don't want to piss off their regulars. They are solid customers who will pretty much always be there to buy a season pass no matter how bad the economy gets, how bad the season is, etc. But these big corporations like Vail will destroy the next two years of business as long as the next quarter looks good (they'll always "figure it out later" lol)


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

[emoji2957]


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Driving up this morning the traffic was about as bad as I've ever seen it, especially considering the road conditions were fine. 9 mph on for long stretches of i-70 and the side roads were even worse. But Loveland was relatively empty - no lift lines to speak of, parking to spare, etc. Loveland is opening up lifts and terrain. 


I don't know what Breck and Keystone looked like today, but I'm guessing it was another shyt show. And we flew home - no traffic issues what-so-ever. I suppose all that "Epic traffic" got stuck on the other side of the tunnel, so we just cruised home easy peasy. If the traffic is any gauge, looks like Epic just way oversold passes - that said they may not have expected such high demand for passes and I doubt they could forecast the reluctance of workers to return to entry wage jobs.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

drblast said:


> Ikon is the expensive pass that is pricey enough to start limiting people buying it. This is the first year I haven't bought a season pass for the rest of my family, because they're not going to go enough to justify the Ikon price. An Epic pass at 20% off would have been an easy call but I saw these problems coming and knew it wasn't going to be worth it.
> 
> There are clear differences between the Ikon ($$$$$) and Epic ($$) approaches so we really don't have to guess what happens. Crystal fans were mad that the only pass that let you go there on weekends this year was $1000 and said boo Ikon. Epic fans were happy about the reduced prices but very unhappy about the result this year. It's a pick your poison kind of thing. Ikon is for the rich people and die-hards, Epic for everyone else.
> 
> ...


Ironically, in the past Epic has talked like they want to be the ones pricing people out of the sport. I don't know if something has changed with Epic business plans or what, but from a pricing standpoint, it looks like they've done a 180*. 

Maybe the silver lining in all this is that Epic will attract huge crowds to their "world class resorts" with their pricing and that will keep the other mountains less crowded until all the newbies to the sport start hitting other mountains.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Whole lotta “lift holds” and “maintenance” issues today at park city. Bluebird day with only 3 inches last night. Comments on their Twitter feed are pretty humorous.



https://mobile.twitter.com/PCMtnAlert




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## Etienne (Apr 2, 2021)

Meanwhile in France, on a pow Saturday, on a year where everyone is frustrated after one year without lifts...

This could be trolling, but the reality is a bit more sad. The joint at the top of this lift has transformed into a freaking "caviar bar", the two pipes and superfun snake run are gone, while the resort (Courchevel, just on the other side of the lift same ski area, same pass) has seen a -20% in pass sales over the last five years and is unlikely to come back over the next decade.

The most popular freeride YouTube channel (Winteractivity) is mainly shot there, I've seen Candide Thovex on its own just for training there, but it's not enough. Day skiers from nearby cities are virtually gone and most of the enthusiast crowd has flee to other resorts (e.g. Val Thorens, which is on the same area/pass, same prices).

My point being, bad marketing decisions for short term profit have super long lasting consequences. Once people settle on other resorts (if not other sports...), it is super hard to buy back a reputation. I'm not seeing good things for Vail owned resorts in the next decade...

(Sorry for the long slightly of topic post, but I've been quite interested in this thread!).


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## Etienne (Apr 2, 2021)

Just to add a bit more comparison, here are some prices in France:

Chamrousse (small-medium, 30mn from Grenoble): 33€/day, 600€/season.
La clusaz (large-medium, 30mn from Annecy): 43€/day, 750€/season,
3 Vallées (4 extra large resorts mega-area, 2h30 from Lyon, 2h from Grenoble): 59-66€/day (1 resort-all resorts), 1100€/season (all resorts).

As you can see, day passes are more than two times cheaper than in the Vail owned resort (to put it roughly), while season passes for one small local resort are at bare minimum the price of an Epic pass. And the Epic pass includes 7 days in Espace Killy and 3 Vallées, which are 350€ each… almost the price of the Epic itself.

I get that you can't be in multiple places at the same time, but still, it's too aggressive of a pricing to be sustainable. Looks like they ware hoping for people to buy the Epic pass and not use it, like you would the gym… but spoiler alert, riding is actually enjoyable.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Etienne said:


> Just to add a bit more comparison, here are some prices in France:
> 
> Looks like they ware hoping for people to buy the Epic pass and not use it, like you would the gym… but spoiler alert, riding is actually enjoyable.


And if everybody decides to show up - too bad, just deal with the lines and crowds. I do think these people will eventually find out about less crowded resorts and may migrate and decide that Epic isn't quite the value that it appears to be.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> And if everybody decides to show up - too bad, just deal with the lines and crowds. I do think these people will eventually find out about less crowded resorts and may migrate and decide that Epic isn't quite the value that it appears to be.



The market will shake out over time, it always does. Some of the more expensive passes will either come down a bit or the big money skiers will move to the higher cost resorts for different experiences. I suspect Epic will remain as it is given the perceived value, there are more casual skiers/boarders then hardcores and they will continue to like the price point in combination with the amount of available locations


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> The market will shake out over time, it always does. Some of the more expensive passes will either come down a bit or the big money skiers will move to the higher cost resorts for different experiences. I suspect Epic will remain as it is given the perceived value, there are more casual skiers/boarders then hardcores and they will continue to like the price point in combination with the amount of available locations


I think part of the resentment toward Epic/Vail is that they displaced a lot of hardcore riders when they snatched up resorts. And 15-20 years ago those pass worked for the hardcore riders, but now I won't go to resorts I once loved riding because of the "Epic Experience."


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Epic passes are just proving the old adage when “if seems too good to be true...”


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> I think part of the resentment toward Epic/Vail is that they displaced a lot of hardcore riders when they snatched up resorts. And 15-20 years ago those pass worked for the hardcore riders, but now I won't go to resorts I once loved riding because of the "Epic Experience."


Its 100% fair, the consolidation in ski mountains is tough, Vail also has shitty practices. I home mountain at a Epic resort and we are experiencing staffing shortages etc. The only thing saving us from massive lift lines is the fact we are 5 hours from any major metro. When I'm not at my current location I choose local resorts as Id rather have a bit less terrain but shorter lift lines. 

To your point about people getting what they pay for I hope this cuts down on the amount of people complaining about $1-2k season passes, you can't have it both ways, cheap means more people and lower services, if you want less crowds and better mountain ops then you need to pay and or drive to get it. I also think folks are going to have to accept that more people want to board/ski and there are only so many places to go. Either the sport can be elitist and price folks out or we are all going to have to deal with more folks sharing the slopes


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Ahhhh it's great to see this still going but boy was this weekend the every bit of proof we have a massive industry issue. 3 different trips, 3 reports from Saturday and Sunday on Mt Hood and the future going forward

Mt Hood Meadows: Privately owned
2021/2022 Season Pass: 30% increase
2021/2022 Daily Ticket: dynamic pricing up on average 35%, tickets must be bought ahead of time to reserve a spot on the mountain.
Distance from Portland: 1.5 hours
Conditions: Clear Roads, no new snow
Lifts turn: 9 am

Trip Report 1: Leave Portland at 6:30 am. Hit parking lot traffic 20 miles outside the resort. 3 hours in reach Government camp, still 10 miles outside the resort. Traffic still bumper to bumper, lots have now closed at all resorts on the mountain. I just pull over in town hike through some trails around town with the dog, grab lunch in town and leave the mountain without riding. at 1:45. Takes 2 hours to get back to Portland. 9 hour trip, zero snowboarding.

Trip Report 2: Buddy leaves his house 45 minutes outside the mountain at 5 am, minimal traffic allows him to hit the main lot of the resort at 6:45. 1 hour nap in the car in the lot, wake up, make breakfast on the camping stove. in the lift line at 8:45 am. Rides until 1, back in car ready to drive at 1:30 pm and leaves to beat the traffic down the mountain. Road is a parking lot from the start at 1:30. 5 hours in make it 12 miles to Government camp. 8:15pm makes it to Sandy, OR.9:15 finally makes it home. Making for a 16 and half hour trip for 3 and a half hours riding. 

This wasn't just one resort, or even just resorts in general. There are numerous hiking areas and sno-parks along this route that all were part of this experience. There are 3 resorts along the path all had lots full well before lifts started. All are family owned ski resorts.... The industry is a sh*tshow. As a person stuck riding weekends, day riding is no longer even feasible on Hood.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> Ahhhh it's great to see this still going but boy was this weekend the every bit of proof we have a massive industry issue. 3 different trips, 3 reports from Saturday and Sunday on Mt Hood and the future going forward
> 
> Mt Hood Meadows: Privately owned
> 2021/2022 Season Pass: 30% increase
> ...


it will be interesting to see if it stays this way after Covid. All outdoor activities are going nuts right now, not just skiing/boarding, try buying a bike or boat or go to a park in the summer. I bet most locations will ride it out another year or two before significantly investing in infrastructure to ensure this is a permanent increase


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Elevation212 said:


> it will be interesting to see if it stays this way after Covid. All outdoor activities are going nuts right now, not just skiing/boarding, try buying a bike or boat or go to a park in the summer. I bet most locations will ride it out another year or two before significantly investing in infrastructure to ensure this is a permanent increase


You can't invest in infrastructure at many of thgese resorts is the issue. Hood for example would need a completely new highway design which would be a multi-year project and is on National Forrest property. Resorts can't build or expand without approval from the National Forrest, and Im sure you can guess how easy that is.

Also of interest. Skibowl on Hood just closed all rentals due to staffing issues. Meadows closed night food service due to staffing. and then Skibowl just posted this:

"Due to staffing constraints and operational limitations, we've been forced to make some adjustments to our operational schedule for both skiing and tubing. Moving forward, on Fridays we will be open for night skiing starting at 3pm (no day riding) and our last Cosmic Tubing session will be 6:45pm to 8:15pm on Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Thank you for your cooperation"

Sorry, but complainign about Vail isn't going to have any effect on industry wide issues. You need either EXTREME over pricing to limit ability to purchase or you need to eliminate demand for outdoor recreation. Start accepting and coping now rather than finding a scapegoat.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Ahhhh it's great to see this still going but boy was this weekend the every bit of proof we have a massive industry issue. 3 different trips, 3 reports from Saturday and Sunday on Mt Hood and the future going forward
> 
> Mt Hood Meadows: Privately owned
> 2021/2022 Season Pass: 30% increase
> ...


Wow, I guess I'll stop bytching about Colorado's I-70 traffic....


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Wall Street taking notice of Vail Resorts’ issues


Since early November, Vail Resorts' stock (MTN) has not been a great performer in the larger travel and leisure universe.




www.vaildaily.com





Wsj has an opinion piece out on vails issues. Their stock just nose dived. They're definitely going to go into damage control mode now. 

Have they even reached a deal with the park city patrollers yet?


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

ridethecliche said:


> Wall Street taking notice of Vail Resorts’ issues
> 
> 
> Since early November, Vail Resorts' stock (MTN) has not been a great performer in the larger travel and leisure universe.
> ...


Nope...you can still make more working at Taco Bell. 


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

“On the other hand, labor-related issues are in general less of a major issue at competitors’ resorts, implying such severe issues may be more unique to MTN. In the past several days in response to this dissatisfaction, there have been letters sent out on social media by MTN’s COO (“this has been the most challenging holiday season I’ve ever experienced”) as well as general managers at several of MTN’s resorts publically apologizing for the diminished customer experience.”


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> Nope...you can still make more working at Taco Bell.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Fucking gross... Patrollers are basically treated like EMS. Sigh.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

So even though this is a industry wide challenge I do think that Vail has dug their hole a bit deeper with being cheap with their employees. I seriously doubt if they were being more generous with their pay they would have such manpower issues. 


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> So even though this is a industry wide challenge I do think that Vail has dug their hole a bit deeper with being cheap with their employees. I seriously doubt if they were being more generous with their pay they would have such manpower issues.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I think the jump in costs and the jump in pay for everything else PLUS the drop in pass price was a disincentive to work for a pass bonus so you could ride. Why work for less money when you can make more, pay for a pass, ride more often, and still take more money home?

So many wealthy people don't want to deal with international travel because it's a mess. If they go out to a resort they're blowing money they would have spent in europe or the bahamas or mexico or etc. otherwise.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Yup...Vail didn’t foresee this challenge nor bother to pivot quickly to correct it. The drop in stock price will get their attention though.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Sit back and grab your popcorn, capitalism and market economics are exploding in front of our very eyes!

the northeast having a awful snow year isn’t helping vails stock either after the bought in hard the last few years to that market. I can’t imagine the wildcat lift collapse is helping either.

the whole us economy is in for a major shake up as workers are demanding a living wage and we are seeing the increased requirement to price in the mitigation of the environmental impact of our items/activities. We’ve kicked the ball down the road on both these fronts for 40 years and it’s time to pay the piper


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Yeah, their drastic cutting of pass prices with the introduction of the NE pass and a really bad year here so far is basically making things worse by having all these people at resorts with very limited open terrain. Compounded further by the fact that there are lots of staff shortages and they're not really doing much snowmaking etc.


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## smellysell (Oct 29, 2018)

This thread makes me love my mom and pop resorts here even more! 

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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

People were getting angry here because we’ve had a lot of snow and terrain wasn’t opening fast enough. 


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> People were getting angry here because we’ve had a lot of snow and terrain wasn’t opening fast enough.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


West coast vs east coast problems,


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

lab49232 said:


> Ahhhh it's great to see this still going but boy was this weekend the every bit of proof we have a massive industry issue. 3 different trips, 3 reports from Saturday and Sunday on Mt Hood and the future going forward
> .....


all new people should read this post before deciding if they really want to invest in this sport.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Thats the problem with Op-Eds. People read them as facts. Vail is by FAR not experiencing worse issues than others. 

Again to reiterate
Mt Hood Meadows: Closed all evening food due to short staff
Mt hood Meadows: Has had 1000% of the upper mountain closed all year (finally opened first day sunday)
SkiBowl: Closed all rentals due to short staff
SkiBowl: Closed all day mountain operations due to short staff. They literally are closed the mountain for staffing.....
President of Vermont Ski Corporation: "Say you work in accounting or in the marketing department, you might be trained to fit ski boots at the rental shop. And then you might go to the cafeteria and scoop soup or make sandwiches or run a cash register"

The list goes on and on. Vail just happens to own a lot of the most popular resorts taht draw the most attention. Nobody cares about mom and pop SkiBowl on Mt hood completely closing due to staffing issues. People seem to forget the ski world outside of Vail, it's interesting.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> Thats the problem with Op-Eds. People read them as facts. Vail is by FAR not experiencing worse issues than others.
> 
> Again to reiterate
> Mt Hood Meadows: Closed all evening food due to short staff
> ...


Vails just the biggest fish, my home mountain Berkshire east can’t make enough snow to start open.

the only mountain I’ve been to this year that doesn’t seem to be having a issue is Telluride and I’m assuming that has a lot to do with $1800 season passes and being a premier destination


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

deagol said:


> all new people should read this post before deciding if they really want to invest in this sport.


It would be nice but won't happen, and theres a ton of people like me. I spent an extra $400 on my pass to be able to ride weekend mornings and holidays, but even with the added cost of those days, the mountain and road infrastructure are unable to accomodate the demand. Leaving many like myself out a lot of money for a service we bought but or unable to access. The purchase is literally worthless for me as I can't justify 10 hours of sitting in stand still traffic starting at 5 am to ride a Saturday morning for a couple hours.


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

lab49232 said:


> It would be nice but won't happen, and theres a ton of people like me. I spent an extra $400 on my pass to be able to ride weekend mornings and holidays, but even with the added cost of those days, the mountain and road infrastructure are unable to accomodate the demand. Leaving many like myself out a lot of money for a service we bought but or unable to access. The purchase is literally worthless for me as I can't justify 10 hours of sitting in stand still traffic starting at 5 am to ride a Saturday morning for a couple hours.


yeah, I hear you. We spent hours in traffic to go ski/ride in what passes for "back-country" these days. Parking at the few trailheads is getting to be "Epic" as well. I wonder how much of this madness it will take before people just start giving up on the sport?


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

PCMR ski patrollers overwhelmingly authorize a strike if talks with Vail Resorts unsuccessful


The membership of the union that represents ski patrollers at Park City Mountain Resort overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike should negotiations with Vail Resorts, the Colorado-based owner of the resort, collapse.




www.parkrecord.com




.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> Vails just the biggest fish, my home mountain Berkshire east can’t make enough snow to start open.
> 
> the only mountain I’ve been to this year that doesn’t seem to be having a issue is Telluride and I’m assuming that has a lot to do with $1800 season passes and being a premier destination


Loveland seems to be handling the problem pretty well - then again they didn't discount their tickets 20%. I bet Vail thought people would be flying again, didn't forsee the labor shortage and thought they could hook people on the Epic experience with cheap passes. Well that backfired big time.....


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> PCMR ski patrollers overwhelmingly authorize a strike if talks with Vail Resorts unsuccessful
> 
> 
> The membership of the union that represents ski patrollers at Park City Mountain Resort overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike should negotiations with Vail Resorts, the Colorado-based owner of the resort, collapse.
> ...


Ouch. $15/hr for a job that requires not only specialized skills, but that you're really good at your specialized skills. I get it, you basically get to have some fun too, but not many skiers can evacuate a injured person off a double black.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> Ouch. $15/hr for a job that requires not only specialized skills, but that you're really good at your specialized skills. I get it, you basically get to have some fun too, but not many skiers can evacuate a injured person off a double black.


Yup. It’s not like every day is bluebird sky’s and powder... You got some grueling weather and pretty early starts


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> Thats the problem with Op-Eds. People read them as facts. Vail is by FAR not experiencing worse issues than others.
> 
> Again to reiterate
> Mt Hood Meadows: Closed all evening food due to short staff
> ...


Most resorts didn't slash their prices and sell record numbers of passes in a move to amass a ton of capital. Now you have a lot more people with a pass in their hand wondering what gives.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

ridethecliche said:


> Most resorts didn't slash their prices and sell record numbers of passes in a move to amass a ton of capital. Now you have a lot more people with a pass in their hand wondering what gives.


Ya, we greatly increased our prices and still sold record numbers gaining ton of capital for the single families that own our resorts and have worse crowding issues than vail and one of our resorts literally just shut down due to short staffing. We have people like myself who have yet to use a single day of their pass despite paying the maximum extra for add on times because we literally can't even access the resorts....

Almost like demand is so high pass cost doesn't matter. Demand is demand, and it far exceeds currently supply across the industry. 
You can debate whats worse, selling lots of cheap passes to people having a bum time on the mountain, or selling lots of crazy expensive passes to people who literally can't even access the mountain. I don't see the debate though 🤷‍♂️


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

You seem to be doing a good enough job debating yourself here so who am I to interrupt!


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> Yup. It’s not like every day is bluebird sky’s and powder... You got some grueling weather and pretty early starts
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I don't know the schedule, but if you work the whole day, that's a long day.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Ya, we greatly increased our prices and still sold record numbers gaining ton of capital for the single families that own our resorts and have worse crowding issues than vail and one of our resorts literally just shut down due to short staffing. We have people like myself who have yet to use a single day of their pass despite paying the maximum extra for add on times because we literally can't even access the resorts....
> 
> Almost like demand is so high pass cost doesn't matter. Demand is demand, and it far exceeds currently supply across the industry.
> You can debate whats worse, selling lots of cheap passes to people having a bum time on the mountain, or selling lots of crazy expensive passes to people who literally can't even access the mountain. I don't see the debate though 🤷‍♂️


I don't know the Portland scene, but in Colorado, we're kinda screwed. I don't see a realistic way to expand the highway (i-70) and even if they were willing to blow mountains apart to do it, that would require shutting the highway down for blasting. Colorado talks about a light rail train to the resorts, but it costs ~$20-30 to drive up and maybe another ~$20 to park, so say ~$10/person for a family of 4 or you and car full of close friends. You really have to get those train ticket prices down to make it work. Even if you can find an economic model to make it work, then you still have to build the thing. And of course, once it's built, that will only attract more people to the mountains...


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

ridethecliche said:


> You seem to be doing a good enough job debating yourself here so who am I to interrupt!


[emoji23] lab always loves a good debate


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> I don't know the Portland scene, but in Colorado, we're kinda screwed. I don't see a realistic way to expand the highway (i-70) and even if they were willing to blow mountains apart to do it, that would require shutting the highway down for blasting. Colorado talks about a light rail train to the resorts, but it costs ~$20-30 to drive up and maybe another ~$20 to park, so say ~$10/person for a family of 4 or you and car full of close friends. You really have to get those train ticket prices down to make it work. Even if you can find an economic model to make it work, then you still have to build the thing. And of course, once it's built, that will only attract more people to the mountains...


Yup pretty much exactly that. And it's the case in most areas. Mountains by default aren't going to have room for massive infrastructure upgrades. Hood has one circular route to navigate all 3 major resorts as well all the now extremely popular sno-parks, all the hiking trails, and the limited backcountry access. That's why despite now being to a point I can no longer access the resort I paid $1,000 for full unlimited access to I'm not going to complain about the resort, it's not a resort ownership/management issue

We also tried offering shuttles, But what's a shuttle going to do? Each shuttle eliminates what, maybe 10-20 cars of that specific ski resorts traffic? That's not going to make a dent, AND when you go to take the shuttle home, those shuttles still have the same traffic to deal with as everyone else,

I agree the West is just screwed until industry interest changes. The East at least has far mores resorts scattered randomly as opposed to out west where all our resorts tend to sit in bubble areas. Here I can go to 3 resorts for the day, all down the same road. When I was in Michigan and New York I could choose between 5-6 resorts for day trips all in different directions. We're all in for a rough time regardless of who owns resorts, it's not easy to accept but it's better to live in reality right?


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> We're all in for a rough time regardless of who owns resorts, it's not easy to accept but it's better to live in reality right?


Acceptance is key for sure. With all things in life.


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## Phedder (Sep 13, 2014)

I'm feeling very lucky right about now. Paid $2k for my pass and I think it's still great value. Tonnes of terrain and no real crowding issues to complain about, obvious holiday and weekend surges but anything longer than a 5 minute lift line is unusually bad.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

video games are the answer...
(half joking)


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## gholt (Feb 13, 2012)

Phedder said:


> I'm feeling very lucky right about now. Paid $2k for my pass and I think it's still great value. Tonnes of terrain and no real crowding issues to complain about, obvious holiday and weekend surges but anything longer than a 5 minute lift line is unusually bad.


What resort? 

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## Phedder (Sep 13, 2014)

gholt said:


> What resort?
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk


Ski Big 3 in Banff. 3 privately owned resorts, so it's our 'mega pass' I guess. Lake Louise, Sunshine Village, Mt Norquay.


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## gholt (Feb 13, 2012)

Wow spendy. I think mine is $1k for snowbasin.

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## Phedder (Sep 13, 2014)

gholt said:


> Wow spendy. I think mine is $1k for snowbasin.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk


I'd happily pay less, it was $1400 when I first got it 5 years ago...


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

I'm in Canada, so I don't know to what extent my experience is even relevant to this discussion, but I have 3 privately owned mountains (Cypress, Grouse, Seymour) and one Vail resort (Whistler) that I regularly visit. Okay, not Grouse, I hate that place. But the other two.

I have the Slopes app on my phone, and because I'm anal AF I use it religiously. One of the things it tells me is the amount of time I spend riding down the hill vs waiting in line and going up the hill. Of the mountains I frequent, Whistler is almost always the best, by a significant amount. Sure there are staffing issues, but that's true on all the mountains. Parks not being built? All the mountains. Lifts closed for no discernible reason? All the mountains. Things not getting fixed in a timely manner? All the mountains. Lesson slots not available or few and far between? All the mountains.

TBH, the mountain I'm the most pissed off at right now is Seymour, for their asinine reservation system with 4-hour slots. Point being, I'm just not seeing anything that would make me wave my fist in the air and curse Vail. Which I've literally done at Seymour, on more than one occasion.


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

Phedder said:


> I'd happily pay less, it was $1400 when I first got it 5 years ago...





Phedder said:


> I'd happily pay less, it was $1400 when I first got it 5 years ago...


My local charges $963 for one resort without any extra days offered anywhere else. I wish they had a crusty locals discounted pass.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Yup pretty much exactly that. And it's the case in most areas. Mountains by default aren't going to have room for massive infrastructure upgrades. Hood has one circular route to navigate all 3 major resorts as well all the now extremely popular sno-parks, all the hiking trails, and the limited backcountry access. That's why despite now being to a point I can no longer access the resort I paid $1,000 for full unlimited access to I'm not going to complain about the resort, it's not a resort ownership/management issue
> 
> We also tried offering shuttles, But what's a shuttle going to do? Each shuttle eliminates what, maybe 10-20 cars of that specific ski resorts traffic? That's not going to make a dent, AND when you go to take the shuttle home, those shuttles still have the same traffic to deal with as everyone else,
> 
> I agree the West is just screwed until industry interest changes. The East at least has far mores resorts scattered randomly as opposed to out west where all our resorts tend to sit in bubble areas. Here I can go to 3 resorts for the day, all down the same road. When I was in Michigan and New York I could choose between 5-6 resorts for day trips all in different directions. We're all in for a rough time regardless of who owns resorts, it's not easy to accept but it's better to live in reality right?


There is a little bit of who came first, the chicken or the egg. If Ikon and Epic didn't exist, then we may not have the volume of skier/boarders that exists now. Inevitably, the big 2 will have price wars to drive up pass sales. These national/international passes look like a deal if you're planning a ski vacation. 

The i-70 corridor is always a mess because you access most the big resorts (including 3 Epics and 3 Ikons) from i-70. I have options off the i-70 corridor, but then I'm just trading a slower drive for a longer drive. Traffic is a lot of the reason I took off a few years from snowboarding. Now I want to teach the kiddos to ski, but one of them isn't that big of fan and if traffic continues to get worse, he'll be less of fan when he's old enough to go ski on his own. OTOH, it seems to stupid to live in Denver and pay the premium it costs to live here and not take advantage of the mountains.


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Jiminy Christmas where is that


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I think I've figured the problem out. It's not a Vail issue, look carefully at the photo; I don't think I see a single snowboarder. These lines are clearly the fault of too many skiers...


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> The i-70 corridor is always a mess because you access most the big resorts (including 3 Epics and 3 Ikons) from i-70. I have options off the i-70 corridor, but then I'm just trading a slower drive for a longer drive. Traffic is a lot of the reason I took off a few years from snowboarding. Now I want to teach the kiddos to ski, but one of them isn't that big of fan and if traffic continues to get worse, he'll be less of fan when he's old enough to go ski on his own. OTOH, it seems to stupid to live in Denver and pay the premium it costs to live here and not take advantage of the mountains.


Yeah, that's a large reason why I left Denver. I felt like it was too much of a chore getting in to the mountains. Growing up there, the mountains were usually pretty accessible. It's definitely been getting worse over the years. I'd shifted my allegiance and started riding Loveland the last few years largely to avoid dealing with the tunnel crowd. Loveland is awesome in its own right, but I did miss Copper. Now I'm driving the same amount of time, but there's no traffic to speak of and I'm not stuck down in that tight river canyon. I'm not going back lol.


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> I think I've figured the problem out. It's not a Vail issue, look carefully at the photo; I don't think I see a single snowboarder. These lines are clearly the fault of too many skiers...


Is snowboarding slipping in popularity? Skiers stole our shaping and general approach to the mountain. Now they think they're steezy too.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> There is a little bit of who came first, the chicken or the egg. If Ikon and Epic didn't exist, then we may not have the volume of skier/boarders that exists now. Inevitably, the big 2 will have price wars to drive up pass sales. These national/international passes look like a deal if you're planning a ski vacation.
> 
> The i-70 corridor is always a mess because you access most the big resorts (including 3 Epics and 3 Ikons) from i-70. I have options off the i-70 corridor, but then I'm just trading a slower drive for a longer drive. Traffic is a lot of the reason I took off a few years from snowboarding. Now I want to teach the kiddos to ski, but one of them isn't that big of fan and if traffic continues to get worse, he'll be less of fan when he's old enough to go ski on his own. OTOH, it seems to stupid to live in Denver and pay the premium it costs to live here and not take advantage of the mountains.


I'd kill to have the I70 corridor with how bad Hood has gotten recently. This weekend was kind of the final straw, I'm not sure I'll use my pass a single day this year. Maybe I'll call in a day or two from work to get a mid-week session in but other than that... I havent had a season in 15 years I rode less than 20 days but when you're talking 5-6 hours to drive 20 miles even if you leave the mountain at 1pm, it's just not doable. One of the more disappointing realizations of my life to this point but it is what it is, we tried pricing people out, tried reservations, the herd mentality is just all outdoor recreation since Covid and you can't beat it.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

WigMar said:


> Yeah, that's a large reason why I left Denver. I felt like it was too much of a chore getting in to the mountains. Growing up there, the mountains were usually pretty accessible. It's definitely been getting worse over the years. I'd shifted my allegiance and started riding Loveland the last few years largely to avoid dealing with the tunnel crowd. Loveland is awesome in its own right, but I did miss Copper. Now I'm driving the same amount of time, but there's no traffic to speak of and I'm not stuck down in that tight river canyon. I'm not going back lol.



I lived in Colorado Springs, there was a nice back way into breck, wasn’t crowded in the mid 00’, not sure what it’s like today


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> I lived in Colorado Springs, there was a nice back way into breck, wasn’t crowded in the mid 00’, not sure what it’s like today


There is a nice back way into Breck thru Fairplay (Denver, 285 South to Fairplay, 9 North to Breck). From Breck, it's not too far to Keystone, A-Basin or Copper. I'd go thru Fairplay rather than Denver if I was coming from the Springs, but I live in Denver/Metro, so that's just a long way but not any faster. Now that I've been to Monarch, from Fairplay, I'd rather just drive the extra 30 minutes to Monarch. 

Breck isn't what it was ~10 years ago. Breck is heavy on the "Epic Fun Police" now. You can still get a lot vertical feet in because Breck has it, but for me, I get my speed up, start making some nice long carves and then there is a slow zone often with people enforcing it. Then you make your way thru the congestion, get back up to speed make some nice carves and BOOM another slow zone. IMHO, the slow zones cause congestion and only provide the illusion of safety without making the mountain safer, just slower and congested in places. I just want to carve top to bottom or maybe deal with 1 slow zone, but 3-4 slow zones to get down a mountain is stupid. I miss ~'00 Breck and the beautifully groomed runs....


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> There is a nice back way into Breck thru Fairplay (Denver, 285 South to Fairplay, 9 North to Breck). From Breck, it's not too far to Keystone, A-Basin or Copper. I'd go thru Fairplay rather than Denver if I was coming from the Springs, but I live in Denver/Metro, so that's just a long way but not any faster. Now that I've been to Monarch, from Fairplay, I'd rather just drive the extra 30 minutes to Monarch.
> 
> Breck isn't what it was ~10 years ago. Breck is heavy on the "Epic Fun Police" now. You can still get a lot vertical feet in because Breck has it, but for me, I get my speed up, start making some nice long carves and then there is a slow zone often with people enforcing it. Then you make your way thru the congestion, get back up to speed make some nice carves and BOOM another slow zone. IMHO, the slow zones cause congestion and only provide the illusion of safety without making the mountain safer, just slower and congested in places. I just want to carve top to bottom or maybe deal with 1 slow zone, but 3-4 slow zones to get down a mountain is stupid. I miss ~'00 Breck and the beautifully groomed runs....



I haven’t been back since ‘06 but did notice they have now made the bowls I used to hike lift accessible, used to love those treks, I assume they get tracked out pretty fast these days


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

WigMar said:


> Yeah, that's a large reason why I left Denver. I felt like it was too much of a chore getting in to the mountains. Growing up there, the mountains were usually pretty accessible. It's definitely been getting worse over the years. I'd shifted my allegiance and started riding Loveland the last few years largely to avoid dealing with the tunnel crowd. Loveland is awesome in its own right, but I did miss Copper. Now I'm driving the same amount of time, but there's no traffic to speak of and I'm not stuck down in that tight river canyon. I'm not going back lol.


Loveland has everything you need - even have the park up this year. I hope they open the Ridge Cats back up this year, but probably won't happen. If didn't have kiddos, I'd consider moving to Georgetown or somewhere just east of the tunnels (Clear Creek). I miss Copper too, but the tunnel traffic I saw a couple weeks ago is enough to keep me on the east side of the tunnels. Traffic was backed up all the way to Silverthorne at ~2-3pm on a Sunday. And that was on clear day, so US6 was (probably) open. Does it back-up to Breckenridge when they actually have to close US6? It would really ruin a good day at Copper to sit in stop and go traffic breathing exhaust fumes until you hit the tunnel, just praying it's better on the other side.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> I haven’t been back since ‘06 but did notice they have now made the bowls I used to hike lift accessible, used to love those treks, I assume they get tracked out pretty fast these days


I never hiked those bowls, but I heard good stuff so I hit them when they were lift accessible. I assume that ruined them because it was either giant ice moguls or a scraped of sheet of ice. Timberline at Mary Jane got ruined when they went from a slow 2 person chair to a 6 person high speed chair.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Meadows pausing sales of Value and Night passes is latest action to curb peak day congestion | Meadows

Every single lot on all of Mt. Hood, meaning every ski resort lot, every overflow lot, every sno-park lot, all hit capacity this past weekend. I'm all for this attempt to curb issues , love they're trying something, but i just don't see it being enough since the traffic is from a bunch of combined sources.

I think this quote is what puts it in to perspective just how bad it has gotten here "Please don’t park at Teacup. There is no shuttle service and frankly it’s dangerous to park at Teacup, walk across a very busy Highway 35, and hike more than a mile in boots up our access road to our nearest facility"


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

This is pretty normal at park city...











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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> This is pretty normal at park city...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ye crested butte lots are full every weekend and we are 5 hours from any metro


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jkb818 said:


> This is pretty normal at park city...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wait... is this the type of situation Vail resort riders complain about lots being full? You get to go park somewhere else and still ride?

If so Vail riders really are spoiled, I'd kill for this. Main resort lots closed is an absolute guarantee 100% of every weekend EVERY time here from early season to late season. We then overfill all roadside, extra lots, and basically spare inch of pavement with 10 miles of the resort and have people trying to hike a mile up access roads to get to the resort.

When we say lots are full its an actual man sitting there telling you to turn around and drive an hour and half back home, you wasted your day trying to drive to the mountain. Or pull off on the berm if you can find a spot and sit in your car for a few hours until people leave the mountain for the day and try get a spot then.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Wait... is this the type of situation Vail resort riders complain about lots being full? You get to go park somewhere else and still ride?
> 
> If so Vail riders really are spoiled, I'd kill for this. Main resort lots closed is an absolute guarantee 100% of every weekend EVERY time here from early season to late season. We then overfill all roadside, extra lots, and basically spare inch of pavement with 10 miles of the resort and have people trying to hike a mile up access roads to get to the resort.
> 
> When we say lots are full its an actual man sitting there telling you to turn around and drive an hour and half back home, you wasted your day trying to drive to the mountain. Or pull off on the berm if you can find a spot and sit in your car for a few hours until people leave the mountain for the day and try get a spot then.


Vail (and Ikon) tend to buy up resorts with big villiages or attached to a town, so they're going to have some options that don't exist at the smaller ski areas.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Here's Vail's solution to the problem:

*MAXIMIZE YOUR DAY WITH LIFT LINE FORECASTS*
New this season, EpicMix Time displays forecasts of lift line wait times allowing you to spend more time skiing and riding. See what lifts will have the shortest wait times every hour of the day so you can plan your skiing and riding experience.
Leveraging machine learning to improve over time, EpicMix Time provides wait time projections for all lifts using a wealth of historical data and real-time information:

Current lift line time
Historic lift line times
Lift line times at other lifts
Current snowfall
Day of the week
Period of the season
This groundbreaking enhancement is now available at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Park City. Coming soon to Whistler Blackcomb, Crested Butte, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood, Stowe and Okemo.






EpicMix | Epic Season Pass







www.epicpass.com


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## bseracka (Nov 14, 2011)

Stevens in WA definitely does not have additional parking options once the main lots and overflow at the nordic center is full.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> Vail (and Ikon) tend to buy up resorts with big villiages or attached to a town, so they're going to have some options that don't exist at the smaller ski areas.


I wish that was an option out here... Driving through traffic for hours and then be told to turn around and go home is.... to say infuriating is an understatement




Jimi7 said:


> Here's Vail's solution to the problem:
> 
> *MAXIMIZE YOUR DAY WITH LIFT LINE FORECASTS*
> New this season, EpicMix Time displays forecasts of lift line wait times allowing you to spend more time skiing and riding. See what lifts will have the shortest wait times every hour of the day so you can plan your skiing and riding experience.
> ...


This is actually kind of cool. it already exists at lots of theme parks so why don't ski resorts do it. We get to wait in line to try and get to the far side of the mountain to try and see what lift lines are like there and then if its slammed sit through a packed area to go blindly check out a different area. Obviously not a full on solution but a service most large area ski resorts should offer.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> I wish that was an option out here... Driving through traffic for hours and then be told to turn around and go home is.... to say infuriating is an understatement
> 
> 
> 
> This is actually kind of cool. it already exists at lots of theme parks so why don't ski resorts do it. We get to wait in line to try and get to the far side of the mountain to try and see what lift lines are like there and then if its slammed sit through a packed area to go blindly check out a different area. Obviously not a full on solution but a service most large area ski resorts should offer.


I'm sure this technology and "fast passes" will become regular place at most larger resorts. Doesn't really solve the crowded mountain issue or the "Epic Fun Police" and slow zones, but something's gotta give. I'm just glad that Denver/Colorado isn't as screwed as the Oregon scene.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> I'm sure this technology and "fast passes" will become regular place at most larger resorts. Doesn't really solve the crowded mountain issue or the "Epic Fun Police" and slow zones, but something's gotta give. I'm just glad that Denver/Colorado isn't as screwed as the Oregon scene.


Ya, I've been at an amusement park before and after they implemented it and it really did help a lot there. It helps disperse crowds more evenly because humans really are a heard mentality species meaning certain areas always end up super crowded at the same time. No fixing the fun police though, that will always be an acceptable criticism.

Our mountains just kind of doubled down on their "oh it's not actually a problem just normal, or freak circumstances keep giving us crowds it's fine" 

Timberlines public statement:? "This kind of traffic is fairly typical this time of year, and it’s business as usual at the resort. What might be adding to the hours-long traffic lines is folks not being prepared on the road."

Meadows continues to make claims of 5-6 feet of fresh snow created demand, except those 5-6 feet came Monday/Tuesday and then it rained more than 4 inches the rest of the week ruining all the snow so that's just a complete copout. But


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Ya, I've been at an amusement park before and after they implemented it and it really did help a lot there. It helps disperse crowds more evenly because humans really are a heard mentality species meaning certain areas always end up super crowded at the same time. No fixing the fun police though, that will always be an acceptable criticism.
> 
> Our mountains just kind of doubled down on their "oh it's not actually a problem just normal, or freak circumstances keep giving us crowds it's fine"
> 
> ...


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Then Fun Police ruin it for me. I get it, because more than once I've freaked out some family (probably on vacation) who freaked out and froze in the middle of the slope when they saw me flying down the mountain - you know us dangerous snowboarders always wrecking into skiers. That family probably spent more that day than I do in a whole year, so obviously why cater to a weekend warrior who they make next to nothing off of, when they have families spending $5-10k in a week. I haven't been to Copper in a bit, but they didn't have the fun police everywhere the last time I went. Copper just wanted outrageous money for their classes. I figure they netting ~$1k+ per class....


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

bseracka said:


> Stevens in WA definitely does not have additional parking options once the main lots and overflow at the nordic center is full.


They’ll tell you they do, one is 30 miles away at the Sultan Chevron or if you’re on the east side down at the Lake Wenatchee turn out, then just climb on a school bus for that enjoyable ride.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Powdertrax said:


> They’ll tell you they do, one is 30 miles away at the Sultan Chevron or if you’re on the east side down at the Lake Wenatchee turn out, then just climb on a school bus for that enjoyable ride.


At Copper you're busing in from remote lots. I don't mind it so much, but my wife hates it so we haven't been to Copper in years. Buses plus traffic thru the tunnels.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> They’ll tell you they do, one is 30 miles away at the Sultan Chevron or if you’re on the east side down at the Lake Wenatchee turn out, then just climb on a school bus for that enjoyable ride.


Your resort offering shuttles from 30 miles away and you're complaining about it and saying it as if it's a bad thing??? How dare Vail, the audacity to provide additional parking and free shuttles to make up for lot size! That's some next level spoilage right there.


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## bseracka (Nov 14, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> They’ll tell you they do, one is 30 miles away at the Sultan Chevron or if you’re on the east side down at the Lake Wenatchee turn out, then just climb on a school bus for that enjoyable ride.


Glad they finally added shuttle options, I must have missed seeing that announced;


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Well it seems Vail is getting the message. No doubt they have screwed up this season, at multiple resorts. The GM for Stevens was fired and they brought in a local guy to run the area for the season. 
Vail Resorts Fires Stevens Pass GM, Appoints Interim Replacement

I also see that they came to an agreement with Park CIty ski patrol. No doubt they are starting to feel the pressure.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

So I'm stuck at home with the Covid.  I assume it's omicron and it sucks. 

Anyway I got stuck surfing youtube snowboarding videos and went down a rabbit hole of ski/board accidents and/or fights on the mountain - for some strange reason Breckenridge is very prominent in these videos. Either more people are bringing their cameras to Breck or somehow Breck is attracting more out of control newbies and where the [email protected]#$ was Epic Fun Patrol when these a-holes where barreling down the mountain out of control???


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Breck is also by far the most visited resort in the US. Tons of traffic there, which contributes to more of this being captured there. It's a resort I haven't bothered with in decades.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

killclimbz said:


> Breck is also by far the most visited resort in the US. Tons of traffic there, which contributes to more of this being captured there. It's a resort I haven't bothered with in decades.


I didn't know that, but that explains those videos. 

I know the town of Breck has been under a ton of pressure for several years. No housing available for workers. The town can no longer handle the tourist traffic.


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

All of the Front Range ski areas are some of the most visited in the US. Most would probably hit the top ten busiest, and I think just about all of them would be on a top 20.

Housing is a problem at just about every ski town these days. I live vey close to Telluride and the housing problems there (and surrounding towns for that matter) are unreal. The short term rental market has really changed the game. It is probably going to take another 5-10 years to shake that one out.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

killclimbz said:


> All of the Front Range ski areas are some of the most visited in the US. Most would probably hit the top ten busiest, and I think just about all of them would be on a top 20.
> 
> Housing is a problem at just about every ski town these days. I live vey close to Telluride and the housing problems there (and surrounding towns for that matter) are unreal. The short term rental market has really changed the game. It is probably going to take another 5-10 years to shake that one out.


My wife instructed at Telluride for a season or two. I'm not a big fan of the short term rental market. My next door neighbor can turn their home into a "upscale" hotel with no gov't oversight or input from city planners or the community affected??? I support free markets, but there is such a thing as too free. Epic Passes + an explosion in short term rentals is a great formula for too many tourist and not enough staff.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> My wife instructed at Telluride for a season or two. I'm not a big fan of the short term rental market. My next door neighbor can turn their home into a "upscale" hotel with no gov't oversight or input from city planners or the community affected??? I support free markets, but there is such a thing as too free. Epic Passes + an explosion in short term rentals is a great formula for too many tourist and not enough staff.


city planners need to do better, the amount of housing is static for many of these saturated towns, sure the usage is higher but you have a sense of the staff needed. Towns have skated by expecting the long term rental market to handle their staff needs while still driving high property tax luxury real estate growth. There are many example of how other resort towns have built a tax code and zoning laws that build the right amount of high and medium density residential options but that doesn’t spin revenue at the same rate as 5k square foot vacation homes


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> city planners need to do better, the amount of housing is static for many of these saturated towns, sure the usage is higher but you have a sense of the staff needed. Towns have skated by expecting the long term rental market to handle their staff needs while still driving high property tax luxury real estate growth. There are many example of how other resort towns have built a tax code and zoning laws that build the right amount of high and medium density residential options but that doesn’t spin revenue at the same rate as 5k square foot vacation homes


I think certain business models/apps have emerged in the past few years that are circumventing legislation and the local governing bodies let them get away with it. For example, UBER and LYFT are basically taxi companies, but they aren't regulated at all like taxi companies. Just because they say they're a Ride Share company doesn't make it so. I don't know if this a case of our legislators and regulators being paid off or too stupid or too lazy to do their jobs. 

VRBO and AirBNB are allowing people to treat residential properties like commercial rentals. An AirBNB looks a lot more like a "one time" time share. Local govt's should be stepping up and preventing this type of usage of residential homes.


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

I had a pretty good experience yesterday talking with someone in the know. Vail bought Wilmot around here in 2016, apparently Vail Resorts was going around SE Wisconsin making offers on lots of places, they were aggressively going out and trying to buy up smaller resorts.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

I kind of hate Breckenridge (the town) but it's not the town's fault. I ride there occasionally and there are some good things about it. But, it's way to popular. I spoke to a lady who worked for the town and not for the ski area. From what I understood, the town is having to step-in and take over some of the bus routes since the ski area doesn't want to drive them. I could be mistaken, as this was a quick conversation, but when 4:00 hits, there is a mad rush to catch buses to all the outlying parking lots and other things and it's a bit chaotic.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

deagol said:


> I kind of hate Breckenridge (the town) but it's not the town's fault. I ride there occasionally and there are some good things about it. But, it's way to popular. I spoke to a lady who worked for the town and not for the ski area. From what I understood, the town is having to step-in and take over some of the bus routes since the ski area doesn't want to drive them. I could be mistaken, as this was a quick conversation, but when 4:00 hits, there is a mad rush to catch buses to all the outlying parking lots and other things and it's a bit chaotic.


Haha, sounds like a person with a cattle truck or hay wagon and a keg of beer could have quite a profitable happy hour at 4 pm.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

deagol said:


> I kind of hate Breckenridge (the town) but it's not the town's fault. I ride there occasionally and there are some good things about it. But, it's way to popular. I spoke to a lady who worked for the town and not for the ski area. From what I understood, the town is having to step-in and take over some of the bus routes since the ski area doesn't want to drive them. I could be mistaken, as this was a quick conversation, but when 4:00 hits, there is a mad rush to catch buses to all the outlying parking lots and other things and it's a bit chaotic.


The crowds and population explosion have ruined our sleepy little mountain towns.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Remember when tourists used to leave during the off-season? Ahhh that was nice.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> The crowds and population explosion have ruined our sleepy little mountain towns.


Buy a sled and move to a town with no resort and you can still capture a little slice of methy economic depression mountain heaven


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

lab49232 said:


> Your resort offering shuttles from 30 miles away and you're complaining about it and saying it as if it's a bad thing??? How dare Vail, the audacity to provide additional parking and free shuttles to make up for lot size! That's some next level spoilage right there.


First off Vail had nothing to do with the shuttles, they were there years before they bought the resort.

It is a bad thing, they know their mtn can’t handle the amount of people, so their fix is to shuttle 100’s of more people in ? I guess there needs to be a limit to the number of tickets sold daily, like some resorts. A movie theater can only sell a certain number of tickets, but why not sell an unlimited amount online for more profit and then the extra people can sit in the isle or on your lap.

Not spoiled but privileged and only because I worked my ass off for that previlege. I’ve ridden one weekend in the last 30 years due to weekend crowds, I had a job that allowed me to call in sick on every powder weekday, never missed a single year of riding in 38 years and now I retired 10 years early and will be using the shit out of my pass.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> First off Vail had nothing to do with the shuttles, they were there years before they bought the resort.
> 
> It is a bad thing, they know their mtn can’t handle the amount of people, so their fix is to shuttle 100’s of more people in ? I guess there needs to be a limit to the number of tickets sold daily, like some resorts. A movie theater can only sell a certain number of tickets, but why not sell an unlimited amount online for more profit and then the extra people can sit in the isle or on your lap.
> 
> Not spoiled but privileged and only because I worked my ass off for that previlege. I’ve ridden one weekend in the last 30 years due to weekend crowds, I had a job that allowed me to call in sick on every powder weekday, never missed a single year of riding in 38 years and now I retired 10 years early and will be using the shit out of my pass.


It wasn't Vail who put the extra parking in 
Old Stevens used the parking but it was fine and the mountain could handle the crowd
Now it's Vail's fault for running the same extra parking that is suddenly crowding the mountain, but wasn't before hand...


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> It wasn't Vail who put the extra parking in
> Old Stevens used the parking but it was fine and the mountain could handle the crowd
> Now it's Vail's fault for running the same extra parking that is suddenly crowding the mountain, but wasn't before hand...


Is Stevens more crowded now??? If so is it just because of lack of lifts?


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> Is Stevens more crowded now??? If so is it just because of lack of lifts?


Yes, every resort is more crowded now. Thats been one of the main themes of this thread... I will say Meadows changes are making a tiny bit of difference. This weekend while the main lot was filled at like 7:30 am the final satellite lot that will shuttle you to the mountain didn't fill until 9 am!


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

Jimi7 said:


> Is Stevens more crowded now??? If so is it just because of lack of lifts?


Resorts are more crowded than they've ever been, but not THAT much more crowded because parking lots have always been full on weekends. Unless they're invisibly air-dropping people in from cargo planes, I don't think "we're overwhelmed by bigger than ever crowds" is a valid excuse.

Stevens has always had an upper crowd limit and the limit is parking. On weekends the parking lots have always been full by 9. So I'd wake up at 6 and get there before around 7:45, roll into the upper lot above Brooks chair and chill in the car for a bit and watch the lot fill up.

Vail did a couple things when they bought the place and the first was to reduce RV parking. So theoretically more space for the non-RV day crowd. Probably a minor, one-time, permanent increase of the weekend crowd.

Vail also replaced the two-seat Brooks chair with a high speed quad, and moved the terrain park from under the Brooks chair to under Hogsback, which was already the most crowded lift in the resort because it serves all of the beginner and intermediate runs. Hogsback also is the only high-speed quad that allowed you to get to Tye Mill and access the backside of the mountain. The intention was obviously to provide more beginner and intermediate runs at the expense of the terrain park. I don't like that, but I get it - it's business. They also stopped grooming the double black run from the Skyline chair that led to the top of Brooks chair, which meant you now had to ride the Brooks chair to get to the former terrain park runs.

So what _actually_ happened was that hardly of the beginners/intermediates migrated to Brooks, I believe because there are short bottleneck sections that are too challenging there near the bottom. That put three groups (beginner, park rat, advanced riders all headed to backside via Tye Mill) all on the Hogsback chair. Previously the park rats would be solely riding Brooks and Skyline to get to the park. Result was massive lift lines on Hogsback and hardly anybody on Brooks because nobody had a good reason to go over there anymore. That's what happened to me - on crowded weekends I'd lap the park because there were multiple ways to get there and if that's all I did it was still a good day. It really spread out the advanced riders all over the mountain.

If you were an advanced rider at Stevens prior to Vail, you were either on the backside, going up 7th Heaven (mostly skiers) or lapping Brooks. The rest of the mountain has mostly beginners and limited appeal.

Compounding the problem was that the _other_ way to the backside via Kehr's Chair lift wasn't running most of the time. So Hogsback/Tye Mill became the bottleneck to access 90% of the advanced terrain in addition to the most popular beginner/intermediate lift, and Hogsback was a 45 minute wait because of that.

Compounding THAT problem was the backside usually wasn't open until noon, if it was open at all, and I don't think they have fully opened the backside on time with both chairs running in the past two years. So even if you were willing to wait out the crowd to get to the backside, when you finally got over there you had to wait another 45 minutes to get on the only chair lift out - essentially you did one backside run and were stuck. As soon as they'd finally open it up back there the advanced crowd would flood the backside. So if you were an advanced weekend warrior prior to Vail, your day would typically be hit the backside until lunch when it was tracked out, then go lap Brooks in the afternoon and ride the best terrain park in WA. That's been impossible to do for a few years now.

The problem Stevens naturally has is that there's a very fragile ecosystem there that collapses like dominos if one of the elements isn't working. If a majority of the terrain is open and the chairs are running, it runs fairly smoothly even with a maxed out crowd and full parking lots. But one seemingly not-very-used lift not running can mean massive crowds and lift lines as everyone bottlenecks to the only other options left. When that happens once in a while it's a crappy day and oh well, no big deal except for the people who bought day tickets. When it happens every single time you go, you might as well have gone to Snoqualmie because even though there's less terrain there, 90% of it is always open.

Stevens without the Brooks park and the backside available is a _tiny_ resort - many east coast resorts could rival it. Those existed where they were for a reason, and the reason was crowd control and flow. Vail fucked that all up, very badly. And things like terrain park placement is not a staffing issue - it's a management one.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

One thing that I think could definitely improve the experience for the diehards at park city would be to start running lifts earlier in the morning. 9am is just too darn easy for just about anyone to get in line for. Bringing back night skiing would be helpful also. That used to be offered about five or six years ago. 


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Thanks @drblast.  So we can say there is significant mismanagement of the mountain at Stevens. Did Vail bring in a new Ops manager when they took over? Maybe the existing Ops manager was responding to pressure from the higher ups... 

Although parking is a limiting factor, if Epic sells 20% more passes, then doesn't that mean it's likely the people/car count will increase? Ie, my buddy Joe, who would normally buy a 4 pack opted for an Epic Pass this year. Now instead of me and my roommate hitting the slopes every weekend, it's me, my roomie and Joe. And when we take our trip to Breck in the spring, it'll be 3 of us instead of 2. 

Furthermore, if parking is as bad as it sounds, then that just means more carpooling, which also drives up the people/car count. I don't know how parking at Stevens works, but I know at my local mountain if the lot guys want they can cram in an additional ~10% on a busy weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if the same lots can actually accommodate an additional 20% of people on a pretty regular basis.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> Thanks @drblast. So we can say there is significant mismanagement of the mountain at Stevens. Did Vail bring in a new Ops manager when they took over? Maybe the existing Ops manager was responding to pressure from the higher ups...
> 
> Although parking is a limiting factor, if Epic sells 20% more passes, then doesn't that mean it's likely the people/car count will increase? Ie, my buddy Joe, who would normally buy a 4 pack opted for an Epic Pass this year. Now instead of me and my roommate hitting the slopes every weekend, it's me, my roomie and Joe. And when we take our trip to Breck in the spring, it'll be 3 of us instead of 2.
> 
> Furthermore, if parking is as bad as it sounds, then that just means more carpooling, which also drives up the people/car count. I don't know how parking at Stevens works, but I know at my local mountain if the lot guys want they can cram in an additional ~10% on a busy weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if the same lots can actually accommodate an additional 20% of people on a pretty regular basis.


Exactly, lot size only limits cars not people. Season pass sales nationally EXPLODED , Epic, IKON, local mom and pops, price changes really didn't make a noticeable difference between similarly located resorts (IE. That's certainly making for a lot more people crammed in to the same limited parking spots). Crystal, Stevens alternate resort, had to stop selling lift tickets over the weekend altogether and re-implement a reservation system for season pass holders. Bought a season pass but don't get online and make a reservation for saturday before it fill out, your pass doesn't matter. And that was without Ikon dropping their pass price.

That's definitely not Steven's WHOLE crowding issue, or even 50% of it. The PNW got just an ungodly late start to the season this year then just one of the most vicious rotation of relentless storm cycles I can remember which has made terrain and lift management. When that happens during the nationally Covid worker shortage.... You get mass people packed in to limited terrain and terrible user end experiences.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

We had a friend over for lunch yesterday who works for Whistler/Vail. She talked at length about the staffing issues they're going through. Seems it's a combination of both issues--a lack of staff availability, plus blind-stupid corporate cost-cutting measures. For instance, they can't get enough instructors to cover all the private and group lessons they'd like to offer. And they have more than enough customers banging on the doors, wanting lessons. Obviously it is not in Vail's best interest to _not_ staff for this if they could manage it. So that's not on them.

But they also did the thing that all large corps do when taking over another business--cut staff and middle-management, then expect remaining staff to take up the slack. Of course that results in knowledge-domain shrinkage, inability to react quickly to local issues, and bad PR when all issues have to be kicked upstairs to HQ. Not to mention staff burnout and high turnover.

I personally haven't had a real issue with the way things are running here, but my needs are fairly low, and dealing with Seymour and Cypress over the years has set the bar really low for me.

But no question, Vail could do a lot better.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Uh oh 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Exactly, lot size only limits cars not people. Season pass sales nationally EXPLODED , Epic, IKON, local mom and pops, price changes really didn't make a noticeable difference between similarly located resorts (IE. That's certainly making for a lot more people crammed in to the same limited parking spots). Crystal, Stevens alternate resort, had to stop selling lift tickets over the weekend altogether and re-implement a reservation system for season pass holders. Bought a season pass but don't get online and make a reservation for saturday before it fill out, your pass doesn't matter. And that was without Ikon dropping their pass price.
> 
> That's definitely not Steven's WHOLE crowding issue, or even 50% of it. The PNW got just an ungodly late start to the season this year then just one of the most vicious rotation of relentless storm cycles I can remember which has made terrain and lift management. When that happens during the nationally Covid worker shortage.... You get mass people packed in to limited terrain and terrible user end experiences.


I ride a mom & pop - Loveland. Based on my experience so far it looks like Loveland less crowded than last year. I'm noticing less "newbies" and out-of-towners; I'd guess a lot of them jumped on the Epic bandwagon. I am seeing more traffic going up into the mountains, and they're going thru the tunnels to where the Epic resorts are located. So for me although traffic is worse, this Epic thing has worked to my advantage once I'm on the mountain. 

As much fun as it is to slam Epic (who deserves some blame) they just made a bad call on the Epic Pass sale. But lets look at it from their perspective. Epic sees an increased interest in outdoors activities. Epic knows travel is opening up and there is pent up demand to travel. So offering the discounted Epic Pass is great way to suck people into the "Epic Ecosystem." I don't think anybody predicted the nation wide worker shortage, so now Epic is screwed for the season. 
In the case of Summit & Eagle County Colorado, I do think Epic could have and *should have* seen what was coming (Kevin and Avran have been talking about the housing issue for a while). Even if Vail increased pay to say $20+/hr for these job openings and assuming people were willing to work the jobs, there is nowhere to house the workers. Whose going to commute from say the west side of Denver or Evergreen or Fairplay to one of the Epic resorts and even then housing isn't easy to come by in any of those markets. IMHO, Epic is main cause of the problem, so they need to come up with a solution (ie Dorms). 

Like I mentioned before if Epic wants to me to instruct, I'll get recertified and spend weekends up there, but they have to make it worth my while to drive from Denver to Breck and put me up in a room if they expect me to teach the next day. There are tons of qualified skiers/boarders in Denver and the mountain communities if Vail will reach out and make it worthwhile. I've crunched the numbers and there is more than enough money to go around. But Vail resorts would rather make the customers suffer than set the precedent that they're willing to pay for people with specialized skills (ie Ski Patrol). My guess is they'll give a decent discount to pass holders for next season to make up for the boondoggle that has been this season.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Donutz said:


> But no question, Vail could do a lot better.


I think the big rub is Vail made record profits while simultaneously delivering a very subpar product. I'm sure Avran get a chuckle out of Vail's struggles.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> I ride a mom & pop - Loveland. Based on my experience so far it looks like Loveland less crowded than last year. I'm noticing less "newbies" and out-of-towners; I'd guess a lot of them jumped on the Epic bandwagon. I am seeing more traffic going up into the mountains, and they're going thru the tunnels to where the Epic resorts are located. So for me although traffic is worse, this Epic thing has worked to my advantage once I'm on the mountain.


Loveland may be the exception to the rule. Lucky you. Although Loveland is historically the exception to the rule when it comes to Colorado crowds. The 2021/2022 is currently on track to see the biggest growth in the market in history.



Jimi7 said:


> As much fun as it is to slam Epic (who deserves some blame) they just made a bad call on the Epic Pass sale. But lets look at it from their perspective. Epic sees an increased interest in outdoors activities. Epic knows travel is opening up and there is pent up demand to travel. So offering the discounted Epic Pass is great way to suck people into the "Epic Ecosystem." I don't think anybody predicted the nation wide worker shortage, so now Epic is screwed for the season.
> 
> I think the big rub is Vail made record profits while simultaneously delivering a very subpar product.


This is the part I think most people seemed to have missed. Vail got CREAMED by the pandemic last season. The season pass price decrease was partial panic. Vail may have money but in 2019 they we're down over 50% Season pass sales profits were actually down, that's crazy. You take that kind of hit as a public company, you take drastic changes to boost profits or a lot of people lose their job.




Jimi7 said:


> There are tons of qualified skiers/boarders in Denver and the mountain communities if Vail will reach out and make it worthwhile. I've crunched the numbers and there is more than enough money to go around. But Vail resorts would rather make the customers suffer than set the precedent that they're willing to pay for people with specialized skills (ie Ski Patrol). My guess is they'll give a decent discount to pass holders for next season to make up for the boondoggle that has been this season.


This is the crux of the issue. Precedent is set across the industry, and not by Vail. Should Vail as one of the largest players take it upon themselves to change precedent? Can we complain about one company not being the first. There are plenty of ski resorts that don't pay Ski Patrol at all, so how mad can we get if Vail refuses to pay 20% more than all other resorts? I mean someone does need to set precedent to help the industry, asking or expecting a publicly traded company to be the one to do that is a tough ask. 

All in all this is a year I'll give a pass to all resorts for struggling to figure out what to do with the millions of us, but will give extra credit to resorts willing to make the hard choices. Crystal going to a reservation only is awesome that they're trying to keep up. But then again if I was a Crystal pass holder and then a month into the season I was told suddenly my pass doesn't guarantee me access to the mountain, you'd have every right to be upset. It's all kind of a lose lose right now.


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> There are plenty of ski resorts that don't pay Ski Patrol at all, so how mad can we get if Vail refuses to pay 20% more than all other resorts? I mean someone does need to set precedent to help the industry, asking or expecting a publicly traded company to be the one to do that is a tough ask.


Ski Patrol is raising a fuss because they are slowly losing all the benefits they used to have for being in ski patrol. 20, 30 years ago Ski Patrol meant you had the privilege of basically being able to go anywhere, sign on, and board or ski for free. Now some places you visit won't even give you a discount. Ski Patrol used to be a way to volunteer 8 hours a week then go explore and go to a ton of different resorts. Now it's like, you spend money on dues and get a free season pass at your home resort. It's not just a Vail thing, it's getting more and more difficult to justify having to go through that huge book, all the tests, and all the training. I actually legit think the volunteer ski patrol thing is going to come to an end in the next 10 years, nothing to do with Vail. It started out as "come be a volunteer, we'll train you, let you come here for free, and you'll get a ton of perks" to "here's your season pass, pay us dues, also no other resorts are going to give you anything." Ok, maybe you get the NSP store with some stuff marked down from MSRP but a lot of it is a crappy deal anyways, you're better off just working instead of having to volunteer 80 hours to save $15 on a $100 pair of goggles.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> This is the part I think most people seemed to have missed. Vail got CREAMED by the pandemic last season. The season pass price decrease was partial panic. Vail may have money but in 2019 they we're down over 50% Season pass sales profits were actually down, that's crazy. You take that kind of hit as a public company, you take drastic changes to boost profits or a lot of people lose their job.


You're right. Somehow I missed that they got creamed in 2020 (I assume you meant 2020 not 2019).


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

SEWiShred said:


> Ski Patrol is raising a fuss because they are slowly losing all the benefits they used to have for being in ski patrol. 20, 30 years ago Ski Patrol meant you had the privilege of basically being able to go anywhere, sign on, and board or ski for free. Now some places you visit won't even give you a discount. Ski Patrol used to be a way to volunteer 8 hours a week then go explore and go to a ton of different resorts. Now it's like, you spend money on dues and get a free season pass at your home resort. It's not just a Vail thing, it's getting more and more difficult to justify having to go through that huge book, all the tests, and all the training. I actually legit think the volunteer ski patrol thing is going to come to an end in the next 10 years, nothing to do with Vail. It started out as "come be a volunteer, we'll train you, let you come here for free, and you'll get a ton of perks" to "here's your season pass, pay us dues, also no other resorts are going to give you anything." Ok, maybe you get the NSP store with some stuff marked down from MSRP but a lot of it is a crappy deal anyways, you're better off just working instead of having to volunteer 80 hours to save $15 on a $100 pair of goggles.


I think part of it is, "so I'm going to volunteer/work dirt cheap to help some big corporation's bottom line..." - that doesn't sound appealing. It's not just lift lines and crowds, but perhaps just a corporate mentality is taking over the sport and that's sucking a lot of the life out of it for those of us who remember the good old days.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> I think part of it is, "so I'm going to volunteer/work dirt cheap to help some big corporation's bottom line..." - that doesn't sound appealing.


It's exactly this. The only reason Vail employees are the ones complaining as if they're treated so much worse is because Vail is corporate. That's the whole point I've been making. This is literally a case study in how people react differently based solely on perception. 

Vail pays above industry average plus benefits, but is a wealthy corporation so people say theyre obviously taking advantage of us cause thats what corporations do.

Mom and pop shop down the road with the same job, same duties, requirements, hours, etc. Pays less, or not at all, but since it's local and not corporate people love to help out and they feel like theyre doing something good by volunteering to help out. Even though that mom and pop resort is probably just as wildly profitable. 

There's no actual difference in the two situations except for perception. It's late stage capitalism vs socialism in a way.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> It's exactly this. The only reason Vail employees are the ones complaining as if they're treated so much worse is because Vail is corporate. That's the whole point I've been making. This is literally a case study in how people react differently based solely on perception.
> 
> Vail pays above industry average plus benefits, but is a wealthy corporation so people say they're obviously taking advantage of us cause that's what corporations do.
> 
> ...


I suspect the mom & pops aren't wildly profitable. They can't leverage their ski operations the way Vail and Alterra can.


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> I suspect the mom & pops aren't wildly profitable. They can't leverage their ski operations the way Vail and Alterra can.


They aren't, mom and pop is more about liking skiing and snowboarding and wanting to share the sport than it is making money. The industry is extremely volatile, one year you could have record profits and the next you could run at a loss, just because of weather. If you own a ski resort, you could do everything right from a business perspective, then have an absolutely horrible year business-wise. There are a ton of better ways to spend your money. Even a small mom and pop in SE Wisconsin goes for a lot. A little resort with three old chairs at like a 300 foot vertical can go for over a million. If you have high speed lifts in SE Wisconsin you're looking at like 15-20 million for a resort. If I had 20 million to spend and I wanted to make money I sure wouldn't buy a ski resort, I'd put it in investments or something. But owning a ski resort would be more about the fun of running it and sharing the sport, not about money. It's a horrible investment. 

Just imagine buying a place like Breckenridge for God knows how much as a business investment when there are so many other companies and things to invest in. Even a place like Vail has to at least like the sport a bit, owning a ski resort is one of the dumbest things you can invest in from a business perspective. You have to do it because you like skiing. But Vail is so over-leveraged and spread out, if they ever went down who even knows who would buy their properties.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

SEWiShred said:


> They aren't, mom and pop is more about liking skiing and snowboarding and wanting to share the sport than it is making money. The industry is extremely volatile, one year you could have record profits and the next you could run at a loss, just because of weather. If you own a ski resort, you could do everything right from a business perspective, then have an absolutely horrible year business-wise. There are a ton of better ways to spend your money. Even a small mom and pop in SE Wisconsin goes for a lot. A little resort with three old chairs at like a 300 foot vertical can go for over a million. If you have high speed lifts in SE Wisconsin you're looking at like 15-20 million for a resort. If I had 20 million to spend and I wanted to make money I sure wouldn't buy a ski resort, I'd put it in investments or something. But owning a ski resort would be more about the fun of running it and sharing the sport, not about money. It's a horrible investment.
> 
> Just imagine buying a place like Breckenridge for God knows how much as a business investment when there are so many other companies and things to invest in. Even a place like Vail has to at least like the sport a bit, owning a ski resort is one of the dumbest things you can invest in from a business perspective. You have to do it because you like skiing. But Vail is so over-leveraged and spread out, if they ever went down who even knows who would buy their properties.


Vail doesn't really view itself as investing in "ski resorts." They're looking at the whole picture - real estate holdings, vacation packages, bars and restaurants, spa packages, etc. Vail's profit margin on passes has to be small if you think about it - especially with hardcore riders who get in lots of days and lots of laps on those days. But the profit margin on hamburgers and fountain drinks is astronomical.


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## lifeisgold (Mar 1, 2020)

SEWiShred said:


> They aren't, mom and pop is more about liking skiing and snowboarding and wanting to share the sport than it is making money. The industry is extremely volatile, one year you could have record profits and the next you could run at a loss, just because of weather. If you own a ski resort, you could do everything right from a business perspective, then have an absolutely horrible year business-wise. There are a ton of better ways to spend your money. Even a small mom and pop in SE Wisconsin goes for a lot. A little resort with three old chairs at like a 300 foot vertical can go for over a million. If you have high speed lifts in SE Wisconsin you're looking at like 15-20 million for a resort. If I had 20 million to spend and I wanted to make money I sure wouldn't buy a ski resort, I'd put it in investments or something. But owning a ski resort would be more about the fun of running it and sharing the sport, not about money. It's a horrible investment.
> 
> Just imagine buying a place like Breckenridge for God knows how much as a business investment when there are so many other companies and things to invest in. Even a place like Vail has to at least like the sport a bit, owning a ski resort is one of the dumbest things you can invest in from a business perspective. You have to do it because you like skiing. But Vail is so over-leveraged and spread out, if they ever went down who even knows who would buy their properties.


A lot of great points here. One of my favorite things about moral philosophy today, is that because we don't have an old binding set of books to give us moral values, some of them are so odd and contradictory.

Take Vail for example. Imagine for a moment it was a collective non-for-profit. Imagine the heroes they would be, buying up resorts from owners who charge 1000's of dollars for a season pass and giving riders access to 40+ reasorts for a couple 100 bucks. Making it accessible to demographics that never had a chance. Offering military/vets extreme benefits, paying everyone a little bit more than they made before and adding lifts and infrastructure to make the mountains better. Amazing.


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## lifeisgold (Mar 1, 2020)

lifeisgold said:


> A lot of great points here. One of my favorite things about moral philosophy today, is that because we don't have an old binding set of books to give us moral values, some of them are so odd and contradictory.
> 
> Take Vail for example. Imagine for a moment it was a collective non-for-profit. Imagine the heroes they would be, buying up resorts from owners who charge 1000's of dollars for a season pass and allowing skiers access for pennies to 40+ reasorts. Making it accessible to demographics that never had a chance. Offering military/vets extreme benefits, paying everyone a little bit more than they made before and adding lifts and infrastructure to make the mountains better. Amazing.


It's a macro of a deeper moral conflict. Another example; A young boy from the slums somewhere spend 16 hours a day working and saving and finally gets himself through college, then manages to build a company and through his workaholic ethic he grows this company to be worth several million. Still he only spends 5% the rest he saves or reinvest. He's a hero. 

Finally after all these years of work he decides to sell 3/4 of the company. The company's goes public and within a few years becomes worth several billion dollars and he spends his day vacationing. He's he's an asshole. Whatever he does.


If he continues to spend 5% of his money- hundreds of millions of dollars on vacations-
Asshole. If he decides to only spend a 100,000 cheap asshole.

It's a weird moral sets being very rich = bad being good at making your life better/making money=good.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lifeisgold said:


> It's a weird moral sets being very rich = bad being good at making your life better/making money=good.


It is an odd dichotomy.


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## dwdesign (Mar 30, 2011)

This business of ski resort video is a couple years old, but does capture the growth of the Vail Group (among others) in part of the video.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lifeisgold said:


> A lot of great points here. One of my favorite things about moral philosophy today, is that because we don't have an old binding set of books to give us moral values, some of them are so odd and contradictory.
> 
> Take Vail for example. Imagine for a moment it was a collective non-for-profit. Imagine the heroes they would be, buying up resorts from owners who charge 1000's of dollars for a season pass and giving riders access to 40+ reasorts for a couple 100 bucks. Making it accessible to demographics that never had a chance. Offering military/vets extreme benefits, paying everyone a little bit more than they made before and adding lifts and infrastructure to make the mountains better. Amazing.


BTW, there was a "collective" that owned a major resort once upon a time with many of the goals you stated. The City and County of Denver owned Winter Park once upon a time for ~70 years. Like many social experiments, it looked too profitable to keep out of the hands of corporate interests. 

I think the issue is that people see Vail making once great resorts worse. For example, Breck went from a 22 foot half pipe to a 16 footer and did away with their advanced terrain park. The issue with lift lines is another example. Furthermore, I don't know that saying Vail is making skiing/riding more affordable is an entirely accurate statement. I paid less for my Loveland pass than I would have for an Epic Pass. Vail gives people access to numerous resorts for a price similar to what you'd spend for a single resort pass (at least in Colorado, depending on the resort), but in return, you have to accept the "Epic Experience" with the fun police, longer lines, etc. 

A lot of us see Vail trying to push out experienced/advanced riders. Vail's business model is to appeal to vacationers and get the tourist dollars. That's why they own the resorts that they do. It's "annoying" that the mountain I learned to carve on (Breck) pushes riders like myself off the mountain. If "we" are going to complain about these issues with Vail Resorts, we may as well pile on the others that maybe Vail doesn't deserve so much credit for. 

And lets not forget Alterra is just a slightly different flavor of Vail. However, from my perspective, I'd say Alterra does a better job though - ie, I'll still ride Copper.


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> Furthermore, I don't know that saying Vail is making skiing/riding more affordable is an entirely accurate statement. I paid less for my Loveland pass than I would have for an Epic Pass. Vail gives people access to numerous resorts for a price similar to what you'd spend for a single resort pass (at least in Colorado, depending on the resort), but in return, you have to accept the "Epic Experience" with the fun police, longer lines, etc.


Vail owns Wilmot here in Wisconsin. Their pass was only like $350 just to go to Wilmot. Every where else in Wisconsin for a full time season pass was over $500. I think the passes with Vail that let you go out West cost the same as a lot of resorts in WI that just let you go to the one hill. I don't know how things are elsewhere, but Vail was undercutting a lot of smaller resorts that aren't major resorts. But there has always been a kind of joke out here amongst regulars that people buy the Wilmot pass that lets them go out West, they never go, then they come back a year or two later.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

The only way corporate ownership of many resorts is going to make sense for the customer is if the local resorts are being run as loss-leaders and are essentially a marketing expense to sell the mega passes and attract more people to Whistler and Vail. But as soon as that system is in place and Vail/Alterra are the only game in town - they have zero incentive not to continue to cut costs, reduce service, and raise prices. It's a duopoly at that point. I mean, this is essentially the Comcast and Xfinity of the ski industry. It's not going to end well for the die-hard season pass customer that's not ultra-profitable.

And complain all you want, all you will get is excuses and token efforts when publicity gets bad enough. But in ten years nobody will be able to remember how things once were different and the current shit state of things will become the norm.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> BTW, there was a "collective" that owned a major resort once upon a time with many of the goals you stated. The City and County of Denver owned Winter Park once upon a time for ~70 years. Like many social experiments, it looked too profitable to keep out of the hands of corporate interests.
> 
> I think the issue is that people see Vail making once great resorts worse. For example, Breck went from a 22 foot half pipe to a 16 footer and did away with their advanced terrain park. The issue with lift lines is another example. Furthermore, I don't know that saying Vail is making skiing/riding more affordable is an entirely accurate statement. I paid less for my Loveland pass than I would have for an Epic Pass. Vail gives people access to numerous resorts for a price similar to what you'd spend for a single resort pass (at least in Colorado, depending on the resort), but in return, you have to accept the "Epic Experience" with the fun police, longer lines, etc.
> 
> ...



Colorado has enjoyed reasonable season passes for a long time so less value here but in the northeast Vail/ikon have made season passes and multi mountain access a thing, there was no Colorado pass of the east at scale.

It will be in the eye of the beholder but epic/ikon has made snow sport an easier economic model then the old world of $1500 season passes to a single mountain


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

drblast said:


> The only way corporate ownership of many resorts is going to make sense for the customer is if the local resorts are being run as loss-leaders and are essentially a marketing expense to sell the mega passes and attract more people to Whistler and Vail. But as soon as that system is in place and Vail/Alterra are the only game in town - they have zero incentive not to continue to cut costs, reduce service, and raise prices. It's a duopoly at that point. I mean, this is essentially the Comcast and Xfinity of the ski industry. It's not going to end well for the die-hard season pass customer that's not ultra-profitable.
> 
> And complain all you want, all you will get is excuses and token efforts when publicity gets bad enough. But in ten years nobody will be able to remember how things once were different and the current shit state of things will become the norm.


I hope you're wrong, but I can already see how Breck has gone downhill and Copper is still great, but definitely more crowded and corporate feeling (but not as corporate/"family oriented" as Breck and Keystone). A lot of the die hards I know just don't do the big resorts anymore. Abandoning Ikon/Epic resorts works in Colorado, but I'd imagine that sucks for people in the midwest or ice coast.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Abandoning epic kind of sucks when you live in Park City unless you’re a skier you can go to Deer Valley and never have to worry about lift lines again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

Jimi7 said:


> BTW, there was a "collective" that owned a major resort once upon a time with many of the goals you stated. The City and County of Denver owned Winter Park once upon a time for ~70 years. Like many social experiments, it looked too profitable to keep out of the hands of corporate interests.


There are two ski resorts in New Hampshire that are still owned by the state (Gunstock and Cannon). The other resorts in New Hampshire constantly bitch about their tax dollars going to subsidize the competition. Ironically, the "live free or die" state also owns all the liquor stores.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

easyrider16 said:


> There are two ski resorts in New Hampshire that are still owned by the state (Gunstock and Cannon). The other resorts in New Hampshire constantly bitch about their tax dollars going to subsidize the competition. Ironically, the "live free or die" state also owns all the liquor stores.


There really is no winning, from reading this thread folks want a low cost, non crowded resort that has amazing terrain and snow while being in close proximity to metros.


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

I don't get it, my hill season pass price went up a lot and the vail resort was a lot cheaper, and I gladly paid because I figured it'd be less busy there.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

SEWiShred said:


> I don't get it, my hill season pass price went up a lot and the vail resort was a lot cheaper, and I gladly paid because I figured it'd be less busy there.


I’m with you but I understand with tight budgets why epic is appealing


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Elevation212 said:


> There really is no winning, from reading this thread folks want a low cost, non crowded resort that has amazing terrain and snow while being in close proximity to metros.


You forgot we're also mad at Vail for being overly expensive and charging too much but also angry with them for making passes too cheap and available to everyone.


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## smellysell (Oct 29, 2018)

smellysell said:


> This thread makes me love my mom and pop resorts here even more!
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk


Damnit, I should have kept my mouth shut! Tapatalk Cloud - Downlaoad File PXL_20220122_181812816.LS.mp4

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> I’m with you but I understand with tight budgets why epic is appealing


Vail has a very specific target market in mind - the 5 day a year skier who books a trip on a holiday and drops a ton of money on concessions, hotels, lessons, and rentals. For that market, the pass makes sense, and hey maybe it gets them out for an extra day or two during the season when they can buy more lodge beer and food. 

Vail does not want people who ski 30-40 days a year. Those people are net losers, because those folks don't spend as much (more likely to bring own beer and/or food, not stay on resort, etc) and Vail is not making any money on the pass if somebody uses it that much. When you consider it from that perspective, Vail's decisions make a lot more sense.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

easyrider16 said:


> Vail has a very specific target market in mind - the 5 day a year skier who books a trip on a holiday and drops a ton of money on concessions, hotels, lessons, and rentals. For that market, the pass makes sense, and hey maybe it gets them out for an extra day or two during the season when they can buy more lodge beer and food.
> 
> Vail does not want people who ski 30-40 days a year. Those people are net losers, because those folks don't spend as much (more likely to bring own beer and/or food, not stay on resort, etc) and Vail is not making any money on the pass if somebody uses it that much. When you consider it from that perspective, Vail's decisions make a lot more sense.


Yup, that's how business works. Businesses like customers who give them money, not customers they lose money on. And resorts, Vail owned or not, are businesses. And we need those businesses to make money if we want them to continue to provide us access to resort riding.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

easyrider16 said:


> Vail has a very specific target market in mind - the 5 day a year skier who books a trip on a holiday and drops a ton of money on concessions, hotels, lessons, and rentals. For that market, the pass makes sense, and hey maybe it gets them out for an extra day or two during the season when they can buy more lodge beer and food.
> 
> Vail does not want people who ski 30-40 days a year. Those people are net losers, because those folks don't spend as much (more likely to bring own beer and/or food, not stay on resort, etc) and Vail is not making any money on the pass if somebody uses it that much. When you consider it from that perspective, Vail's decisions make a lot more sense.



Precisely, they want you to buy a condo as well and plan your vacations around their different properties because you already have the ski pass.

What do you think a mountain that caters to the 30-40 day avid skier would realistically need to charge to stay afloat for passes if that was their primary income source? The old school 1200-1800? More with inflation?

My local hill which has 13000 in very and runs 3-4 lift is charging 400-500 for a season pass I’m sure a bigger scaled mountain would have to be a lot higher


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

Depends on how efficient the mountain is and what they are satisfied making. Mad River Glen is a non profit looking to break even. They charge under a grand for a pass. On the other hand, they have minimal snowmaking.

There are mountains that cater a bit more to passholders who ski a lot. Killington seems to be one of those, as are some of the smaller mountains in New England. I feel like most Ikon mountains are a bit better at catering to frequent skiers.


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## bseracka (Nov 14, 2011)

Epic stepping up their game by declaring lift lines phone free zones. Vail Resorts Introduce 'Phone Free Zones' to Reduce Lift Lines - SnowBrains


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

easyrider16 said:


> Depends on how efficient the mountain is and what they are satisfied making. Mad River Glen is a non profit looking to break even. They charge under a grand for a pass. On the other hand, they have minimal snowmaking.
> 
> There are mountains that cater to passholders who ski a lot. Killington seems to be one of those, as are some of the smaller mountains in New England.


They also support segregation and ostracize our sort. I say good day to you mad river glen!

Ye so a non profit that relies on primarily natural conditions and less then modern equipment is a bit less then a grand. So most mountains where the owners want to make some scratch are going and compete with other general use mountains is going to have to be well north of 1500

I wonder if a country club approach would play as a business model. Could you take a Killington or a Copper and turn it into a finite membership mountain to appeal to folks who want no crowds but still close for people who live in cities like Boston/Denver


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

bseracka said:


> Epic stepping up their game by declaring lift lines phone free zones. Vail Resorts Introduce 'Phone Free Zones' to Reduce Lift Lines - SnowBrains


How the fuck is this supposed to help lift lines? I have literally _never_ seen anyone holding up loading because they suddenly had to get on their phone. Checking your whatever while waiting _in _the line doesn't affect anything. Is this just an attempt to prevent people from recording the line-ups?


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> I wonder if a country club approach would play as a business model. Could you take a Killington or a Copper and turn it into a finite membership mountain to appeal to folks who want no crowds but still close for people who live in cities like Boston/Denver


Place called Hermitage tried it on what used to be haystack mountain. $75k buy in, $10k annual maintenance fee. Didn't last long before it went tits up.

There is Yellowstone in Montana, but the buy in there is $400k with upwards of $40k in annual fees.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> They also support segregation and ostracize our sort. I say good day to you mad river glen!
> 
> Ye so a non profit that relies on primarily natural conditions and less then modern equipment is a bit less then a grand. So most mountains where the owners want to make some scratch are going and compete with other general use mountains is going to have to be well north of 1500
> 
> I wonder if a country club approach would play as a business model. Could you take a Killington or a Copper and turn it into a finite membership mountain to appeal to folks who want no crowds but still close for people who live in cities like Boston/Denver


There are private mountains, but the cost is crazy. The model is more like a time share, except you're timesharing a mountain. There is always the option to rent Cats or Heli ski, but then you need to be able ride expert terrain.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> There are private mountains, but the cost is crazy. The model is more like a time share, except you're timesharing a mountain. There is always the option to rent Cats or Heli ski, but then you need to be able ride expert terrain.


I’m considering doing Heli at silverton in March, would be my first time, if I’m comfortable in the expert terrain at crested butte should I be good to go?


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## smellysell (Oct 29, 2018)

easyrider16 said:


> Place called Hermitage tried it on what used to be haystack mountain. $75k buy in, $10k annual maintenance fee. Didn't last long before it went tits up.
> 
> There is Yellowstone in Montana, but the buy in there is $400k with upwards of $40k in annual fees.


Pretty sure Yellowstone club is way more than that, but don't quote me. 

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk


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## 16gkid (Dec 5, 2012)

I think next season I'm finally gonna get away from Vail and try Ikon for the season, the fuckery level is too damn high


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> There are private mountains, but the cost is crazy. The model is more like a time share, except you're timesharing a mountain. There is always the option to rent Cats or Heli ski, but then you need to be able ride expert terrain.


I’m living in crested butte, even here most folks who are serious have sleds and only use the resort in early season/heavy dump days


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

16gkid said:


> I think next season I'm finally gonna get away from Vail and try Ikon for the season, the fuckery level is too damn high


My dream would be to buy a van and a mountain collective pass, travel the country. Now just need to get the wife and kids on board


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

smellysell said:


> Pretty sure Yellowstone club is way more than that, but don't quote me.


Could be, man, I just looked it up on the internet. I have no first-hand knowledge, unfortunately.

I know MRG isn't popular on here for obvious reasons, but their co-op model is definitely interesting. The resort is owned by a group of "shareholders" who are basically skiers that visit the mountain regularly and pay for a share. There is a requirement that shareholders either buy a pass or spend a certain amount of money at the resort each year. Shareholders elect the board that runs the resort. As a result, there are rules in place that limit pass sales to keep skier density low. I think it's a great model for keeping a local mountain local.

How the Co-op Works - Mad River Glen, Vermont


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Elevation212 said:


> I’m considering doing Heli at silverton in March, would be my first time, if I’m comfortable in the expert terrain at crested butte should I be good to go?


I've never Heli skied, but if you can ride Crested Butte, then you should to handle just about anything.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

easyrider16 said:


> Could be, man, I just looked it up on the internet. I have no first-hand knowledge, unfortunately.
> 
> I know MRG isn't popular on here for obvious reasons, but their co-op model is definitely interesting. The resort is owned by a group of "shareholders" who are basically skiers that visit the mountain regularly and pay for a share. There is a requirement that shareholders either buy a pass or spend a certain amount of money at the resort each year. Shareholders elect the board that runs the resort. As a result, there are rules in place that limit pass sales to keep skier density low. I think it's a great model for keeping a local mountain local.
> 
> How the Co-op Works - Mad River Glen, Vermont


I like it. I hope they can make it work.


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

Elevation212 said:


> I’m considering doing Heli at Silverton in March, would be my first time, if I’m comfortable in the expert terrain at crested butte should I be good to go?


I've done it. You should be fine. the terrain I was able to get to was actually inferior to "in-bounds" there, but worth it for the experience of riding a heli. Also, I got a window seat (based on body weight and balancing it from side-to-side). As you know, that's not a normal ski area. Only place I have been that I heard avy charges going off below where I was, something spooky about that and I don't even flinch when I hear them go off in normal places in the distance like some do


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

smellysell said:


> Pretty sure Yellowstone club is way more than that, but don't quote me.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk


I went on a 5-day river trip this summer with a guy from MT who worked at Yellowstone Club. The impression I got is that this place is for A-list celebrities and the like. Very famous (one a football star and one a very famous musician) were mentioned as being horrible skiers. When you have that much $$$, it doesn't seem to matter.



Elevation212 said:


> This is America….


it's a world-wide phenomenon, from my experience.


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## kalev (Dec 17, 2013)

Elevation212 said:


> I wonder if a country club approach would play as a business model. Could you take a Killington or a Copper and turn it into a finite membership mountain to appeal to folks who want no crowds but still close for people who live in cities like Boston/Denver


There's a couple of places in Ontario that are private clubs - have been running for years. Approx. $30K buy in and then $10K per year. They're small hills, but they basically are like golf country clubs where everyone has champagne in the lodge after and gossips. Doubt there's any chance it would work for a larger resort.



easyrider16 said:


> I know MRG isn't popular on here for obvious reasons, but their co-op model is definitely interesting. The resort is owned by a group of "shareholders" who are basically skiers that visit the mountain regularly and pay for a share. There is a requirement that shareholders either buy a pass or spend a certain amount of money at the resort each year. Shareholders elect the board that runs the resort. As a result, there are rules in place that limit pass sales to keep skier density low. I think it's a great model for keeping a local mountain local.
> 
> How the Co-op Works - Mad River Glen, Vermont


My local hill (which is admittedly small) is volunteer run / not-for-profit, and gets some subsidies from the town / district. Early bird adult passes are approx. $400. The local schools bus the kids up there every week to ski / ride. I think models like this are the way forward to preserve some of the grass roots of skiing and to keep regular kids engaged with the sport.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

The private hill concept isn't new and it's less rare than some people think. There's a number of them spread across NA. Holimont in NY is another one. They're all tiny ski hills for the most part because again, ski resorts are a business, and an expensive one to operate, so it has to be a place where you can get enough money from memberships, but also not lose too much money from vacationers.

The amount a mid-major to large sized ski resort would need to charge to keep revenue about the same would be beyond excessive. You have to remember you're talking lodging sales, concession sales, rental sales etc etc etc. Small local private mountains wouldn't be drawing tourists from far off ror overnight stays, needing equipment and so on, so they have much less revenue to account for in their membership fees. How much money does visitor travel account for at a place like Killington, I can't begin to imagine but there's no way you're making up the millions upon millions it would be by selling private memberships to it.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

deagol said:


> I went on a 5-day river trip this summer with a guy from MT who worked at Yellowstone Club. The impression I got is that this place is for A-list celebrities and the like. Very famous (one a football star and one a very famous musician) were mentioned as being horrible skiers. When you have that much $$$, it doesn't seem to matter.


So super rich guys that are horrible skiers get access to the best skiing has to offer. That's just great...


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> The private hill concept isn't new and it's less rare than some people think. There's a number of them spread across NA. Holimont in NY is another one. They're all tiny ski hills for the most part because again, ski resorts are a business, and an expensive one to operate, so it has to be a place where you can get enough money from memberships, but also not lose too much money from vacationers.
> 
> The amount a mid-major to large sized ski resort would need to charge to keep revenue about the same would be beyond excessive. You have to remember you're talking lodging sales, concession sales, rental sales etc etc etc. Small local private mountains wouldn't be drawing tourists from far off ror overnight stays, needing equipment and so on, so they have much less revenue to account for in their membership fees. How much money does visitor travel account for at a place like Killington, I can't begin to imagine but there's no way you're making up the millions upon millions it would be by selling private memberships to it.


I think for killington to work it would have to be a portion, like if they took Pico and made that a club while the rest maintained the current business model. It’s kind of how I feel Vail & beaver creek work where Vail get a the masses and beavers priced more as an exclusive


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> So super rich guys that are horrible skiers get access to the best skiing has to offer. That's just great...


This is America….


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

Jimi7 said:


> So super rich guys that are horrible skiers get access to the best skiing has to offer. That's just great...


I believe they have houses that are second (or third) homes that are part of the development. I hate how money determines almost everything in this life, as far as access, privilege , etc...


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

deagol said:


> I believe they have houses that are second (or third) homes that are part of the development. I hate how money determines almost everything in this life, as far as access, privilege , etc...


I’d say effort is the only other equalizer. Get a sled/uphill/drive and you can get the best lines in the world (though I suppose living in those areas is it’s own trick)


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

More positive press! Vail Corp is crushing it this season. 









Stowe Locals Detail Their Frustrations with Vail Resorts


“I think the biggest problem that Vail has right now is they’ve got an awful lot of pass holders and not enough bodies to provide the level of service they traditionally have provided. Whether that…



unofficialnetworks.com






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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

I'd love to start a local "resort" that was just a terrain park. Run by volunteers, tow rope or something to start. Make it totally unappealing to the ski resort crowd.

The "country club" idea doesn't have to come with ridiculously high membership dues.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

deagol said:


> I believe they have houses that are second (or third) homes that are part of the development. I hate how money determines almost everything in this life, as far as access, privilege , etc...





Elevation212 said:


> I’d say effort is the only other equalizer. Get a sled/uphill/drive and you can get the best lines in the world (though I suppose living in those areas is it’s own trick)


Sleds aren't cheap, consistently sledding backcountry for turns is actually EXTREMELY expensive. Access is expensive regardless of effort.

But are we back to "snowboarding is too expensive and it's crap that the rich get access" instead of "Vail's season passes made snowboarding too accessible"? It's hard to keep track 

Or maybe it's just the planet is overcrowded and we just have to accept that we praised outdoor recreation for years and now everyone finally caught on.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> Sleds aren't cheap, consistently sledding backcountry for turns is actually EXTREMELY expensive. Access is expensive regardless of effort.
> 
> But are we back to "snowboarding is too expensive and it's crap that the rich get access" instead of "Vail's season passes made snowboarding too accessible"? It's hard to keep track
> 
> Or maybe it's just the planet is overcrowded and we just have to accept that we praised outdoor recreation for years and now everyone finally caught on.


You nailed the issue, I’ve ridden all over the country, if you are willing to compromise you can avoid lift lines. Drive an extra hour, go to a smaller mountain, get up early and be in line for first chairs to stay ahead of the crowds up hill or pay for a more expensive lift pass, or just accept that epic mountains near metro are cheap but with longer lines. Unfortunately there are a lot of folks who would rather not accept that there are trade offs to everything.

In regards to sledding I was comparing the cost of sleds to buying a private place at Yellowstone to be clear, it’s not cheap for sure but if you figure you can get 8-10 years out of a sled at 10-15k a sled you are paying close to season pass prices per annum. Of course their are costs of gas and back country gear but if you are willing to go backcountry only (and you have a truck) you aren’t completely out of the realm of what a season pass and frequent trips to mountains (with a few meals on the mountain) would run you


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

drblast said:


> I'd love to start a local "resort" that was just a terrain park. Run by volunteers, tow rope or something to start. Make it totally unappealing to the ski resort crowd.
> 
> The "country club" idea doesn't have to come with ridiculously high membership dues.


More like a motorcycle club....


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> More positive press! Vail Corp is crushing it this season.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think their issue is similar to what's going on in US healthcare right now. You cut more and more staff to increase productivity/profits and you get to a point where you're stretched so thin that any little hiccup can really throw a wrench in things. In this case it wasn't a little hiccup, but a big huge one.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> I think their issue is similar to what's going on in US healthcare right now. You cut more and more staff to increase productivity/profits and you get to a point where you're stretched so thin that any little hiccup can really throw a wrench in things. In this case it wasn't a little hiccup, but a big huge one.


Also the challenge of being the overlord for so many damn resorts. It’s a recipe for disaster.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

deagol said:


> star and one a very famous musician) were mentioned as being horrible skiers. When you have that much $$$, it doesn't seem to matter.


They just use a body double to ski well for them.


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

Jimi7 said:


> So super rich guys that are horrible skiers get access to the best skiing has to offer. That's just great...


No way, man. The best mountains to ride don't have lifts.


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## bseracka (Nov 14, 2011)

And more epic insult to injury news; epic offering discounted weekday tickets… when the mt is closed 🤑








Vail Resorts Property Posts About Cheap Weekday Tickets, But They Aren't Open On Weekdays This Season...


The faithful skiers and snowboarders of Alpine Valley in Geauga County, Ohio are just a little bit confused by a recent Facebook post from the resort. Alpine Valley is not open Monday-Thursday this…



unofficialnetworks.com


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

More glowing reviews 









For Skiers, a Winter of Discontent


With resorts having trouble hiring and employees calling out sick, visitors have been frustrated by idled lifts, limited services and closed terrain. Some of the biggest complaints have come from Epic Pass holders.




www.nytimes.com






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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

drblast said:


> I'd love to start a local "resort" that was just a terrain park. Run by volunteers, tow rope or something to start. Make it totally unappealing to the ski resort crowd.
> 
> The "country club" idea doesn't have to come with ridiculously high membership dues.


Yes, these do pretty well in the midwest, mainly because you can use even a 200 foot hill, throw in some runs, and load it with features and it's enough for the park rat types and skiiers and yuppies won't go to a hill that's all terrain park and is short. Tyrol Basin in Wisconsin is a pretty good example, Raging Buffalo in Illinois is another (it's actually snowboarders only, skiers are not allowed). High speed lifts are extremely expensive to buy, install, and maintain, tow ropes are pennies on the dollar. A terrain park type small hill with a tow rope could easily be ran as a $40 lift ticket place and still make money.



Jimi7 said:


> I think their issue is similar to what's going on in US healthcare right now. You cut more and more staff to increase productivity/profits and you get to a point where you're stretched so thin that any little hiccup can really throw a wrench in things. In this case it wasn't a little hiccup, but a big huge one.


US Healthcare is so messed up right now because there's an employment group that can shuffle healthcare workers around to different hospitals for significantly more pay, so everyone quits their full time job to join this staffing thing where they get paid a ton of money, like three times as much, for the same job. Then there's a staffing shortage of full time workers, and the staffing company says they have people to fill the roles immediately, but it's going to cost a lot more than a full time employee. And then the staffing company makes bank, the healthcare worker makes bank, and the news gets to talk about how there's a staffing shortage. Everyone wins except us.


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## easyrider16 (Sep 28, 2020)

That's what happens when you put for-profit companies in charge of health care.


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## bseracka (Nov 14, 2011)

Epic discounting next years passes for Stevens’ guests. We’ll never know, but curious timing given the recent hard look they’re getting from the Washington state attorney general’s office









Vail Resorts offers discounts at Stevens Pass, calling challenges ‘unique’ compared to 36 other resorts


In an acknowledgment that a season pass just isn’t getting customers what it used to, Vail Resorts has discounted next season’s Stevens Pass ski pass to $385 for customers who purchased one this season.




www.vaildaily.com


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

I have the answer to Epic lines. We visited Angel Fire NM today. Literally no lines all day long. OTOH, there's no snow (20" base) and I did more base damage to my Supermodel in one day than I did in the previous ~15 years of ownership. They're working on opening a Blue Run. All greens all day long.  

We're staying in Taos, NM. Reminds me of Winter Park 20 years ago.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

There are some local places too far for a day trip for me that are cheap, excellent, and uncrowded even on a weekend.

You have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get to them but they're great. Kinda shocked they still exist but elated. Curiously they're not suffering from any staffing or grooming shortages either.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> I have the answer to Epic lines. We visited Angel Fire NM today. Literally no lines all day long. OTOH, there's no snow (20" base) and I did more base damage to my Supermodel in one day than I did in the previous ~15 years of ownership. They're working on opening a Blue Run. All greens all day long.
> 
> We're staying in Taos, NM. Reminds me of Winter Park 20 years ago.


Ya, NM isn't exactly a mecca for snowsports  but Taos is on my bucket list. They're always kind of snow starving at both Angel Fire and Taos though, they're one of the sunniest ski areas in the country (behind maybe only Bend?)



drblast said:


> There are some local places too far for a day trip for me that are cheap, excellent, and uncrowded even on a weekend.
> 
> You have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get to them but they're great. Kinda shocked they still exist but elated. Curiously they're not suffering from any staffing or grooming shortages either.


Ahh the joys of living in the middle of nowhere where cost of living isn't an issue, how I miss it! This whole urbanization of the population is killing me, and ski resorts as well. Should be interesting if the work from trend home continues if we see a small exodus from cities but I'm doubting it.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

lab49232 said:


> Ahh the joys of living in the middle of nowhere where cost of living isn't an issue, how I miss it! This whole urbanization of the population is killing me, and ski resorts as well. Should be interesting if the work from trend home continues if we see a small exodus from cities but I'm doubting it.


The problem of course is that decentralization lowers some costs but increases others. For instance, rent and real estate prices will go down in urban centers if people can flee to the suburbs or even the boonies. But rents and real estate will go up in those areas. In addition, a lot of businesses get the benefits of scale from operating in a densely populated area. Lower the density and it becomes more expensive (actually less profitable) for those businesses, resulting in price increases.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

This sums things up pretty well for my neck of the woods.









Guest opinion: Vail Resorts’ strategy — take the money and run


Well, I finally made it up to the Canyons side of PCMR recently after hearing outrageous stories of long lines an limited terrain. It is true, it is a corporate cluster up there. With all…




www.parkrecord.com






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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

Donutz said:


> The problem of course is that decentralization lowers some costs but increases others. For instance, rent and real estate prices will go down in urban centers if people can flee to the suburbs or even the boonies. But rents and real estate will go up in those areas. In addition, a lot of businesses get the benefits of scale from operating in a densely populated area. Lower the density and it becomes more expensive (actually less profitable) for those businesses, resulting in price increases.


^ concur and living out in the sticks is all fine but your transportation cost will go way up. And I seriously doubt that gas, tires and insurance will be going down.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

wrathfuldeity said:


> ^ concur and living out in the sticks is all fine but your transportation cost will go way up. And I seriously doubt that gas, tires and insurance will be going down.


No doubt but depends on your gig/wanderlust. I live in CB half the year and we barely touch our car out here compared to the NE


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Got a theme song for this thread


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

drblast said:


> There are some local places too far for a day trip for me that are cheap, excellent, and uncrowded even on a weekend.
> 
> You have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get to them but they're great. Kinda shocked they still exist but elated. Curiously they're not suffering from any staffing or grooming shortages either.


Angel Fire didn't have any staffing issues that I could see. I bumped into a guy working there (a greeter?) who moved from Colorado. Anyway we chatted for a bit and Angel Fire seems like it'd be a super chilled out place to work. No crowds. However, you're ~45 minutes from Taos and ~2 hours from Sante Fe and ~4-5 hours away from real snow (in Southern Colorado).


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

wrathfuldeity said:


> ^ concur and living out in the sticks is all fine but your transportation cost will go way up. And I seriously doubt that gas, tires and insurance will be going down.


Surprisingly this hasn't really been the case from my experience. For one, outside NY and maybe Chicago (Who make up more than half of the total public transit use in the entire country), the US public transit system is a joke. A huge portion of it is city busses which our society not only hates but socially looks down upon use of. Hell I didn't move to San Francisco because the job offered wasn't conducive to public transit and car ownership there would have been too expensive. Car ownership and usage in cities remains super high, even in a bike mecca like Portland.

So I drive daily in Portland. When I moved here my insurance premium ballooned, insurance companies view city living as high risk. I'm paying $4 a gallon in gas, I drive in bumper to bumper traffic getting the worst possible fuel economy, it can take 20-30 minutes to drive 5 miles

Now switch to when I was in the sticks. I was 25 miles from the nearest grocery store/sustainable town. I could get there driving 60 mph at peak fuel efficiency in the same amount of time it takes me to drive 5 miles in the city. And the gas there as of today according to my parents is $3.10. Then when you add in the added stress of city driving vs rural/highway on your vehicle, i was actually spending less on transportation back then. We also took less trips to the grocery store, you'd shop for a full week at a time, now in Portland I'm at the store nearly every day which I also hate as it's such a time suck.

theres a reason city dwellers switch to fuel efficient small cars while rural life still allows you to drive SUVs and large trucks.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

There are some mountain towns that have decent public transit. The Breckenridge, Frisco, Keystone area in Summit is pretty accessible by bus. When tourism spikes, at times, it can be easier to get around by bus at times.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> There are some mountain towns that have decent public transit. The Breckenridge, Frisco, Keystone area in Summit is pretty accessible by bus. When tourism spikes, at times, it can be easier to get around by bus at times.


crested butte and telluride as well, very easy shuttle from gunny to cb is a nice touch


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Having moved from Denver to the sticks, just outside of Telluride, I can say it has been mostly a wash expense wise for me. The only thing that is most notably more expensive was utilities. Insurance went down a little. Gas, groceries, about the same. Natural gas and electric did have a noticeable bump. Water is more expensive by a ton, but that is because it is a small little guy providing water for our subdivision. If we were on the main carrier in the area that would be a lot less expensive than in the Denver metro. Keep hoping they will buy him out. Sounds like it will happen in the next five years. 
As far as public transit goes, there isn't much. Telluride as mentioned does a decent job once you are there. As long as you are staying in the Telluride, Lawson Hill, Mountain village area it is pretty good. Head down valley or to Ophir, not so much. Can't say that I am going to leave the area any time soon, that is for sure.


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

The cost of living for these places goes significantly up if you can't find an equivalent job to what you have elsewhere. Having a job is still the #1 driver of where most people can and do live.


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## Elevation212 (Apr 21, 2019)

f00bar said:


> The cost of living for these places goes significantly up if you can't find an equivalent job to what you have elsewhere. Having a job is still the #1 driver of where most people can and do live.


The remote worker boon has jacked up a number of towns, here in crested butte long term rental properties that were formerly available to local workers are being gobbled up by remote workers and the town has not invested in any medium or high-density options instead opting for high property tax luxury vacation homes. Its going to take some time for planning counsels to react to the zoom boom


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

killclimbz said:


> Having moved from Denver to the sticks, just outside of Telluride, I can say it has been mostly a wash expense wise for me. The only thing that is most notably more expensive was utilities. Insurance went down a little. Gas, groceries, about the same. Natural gas and electric did have a noticeable bump. Water is more expensive by a ton, but that is because it is a small little guy providing water for our subdivision. If we were on the main carrier in the area that would be a lot less expensive than in the Denver metro. Keep hoping they will buy him out. Sounds like it will happen in the next five years.


To be fair, moving to outside of Telluride isn't exactly the same as moving to the sticks for most of the US  You're talking one of the most sought after and highly valued areas of rural land. Move from Denver to eastern Colorado and my guess is cost of living changes a lot more.

It does all come down to job hence why when I brought up the subject I mentioned with people switching to remote work, meaning many people who moved to the city for their high paying office job now able to live wherever and keep their previous job in a downtown highrise.

I made about 30K more this year than the normal income in my MI home. But I'm spending $100 on brunch every Saturday while they're making eggs and bacon at 6 am then heading out to fish all day. If I could take my current income and move back there I'd live like a king. I'd also have about 5 ski resorts all viable for day trips. But alas I did not become one of the lucky ones who got to drop the office from their routine...


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

You are correct it does come down to the job. I was able to move to full time remote two years before the pandemic hit. So we went all in, bought a house and moved to SW Colorado. It is remote, regardless of Telluride or not. Around 4k people live in San Miguel Country where Telluride resides. The two neighboring counties are about the same. Not a lot of people. It's great. Even if your throw in Montrose and La Plata counties, I don't think you get over 100k people. The nearest big city is Denver at 5 1/2 hours away from where I live. Albuquerque and Salt Lake City are six hours. That pretty much stops the weekend warriors from showing up. Most people are coming for at least three days and usually it is five to a full week. Plenty of tourists, but not the Summit county weekend crush you get from Denver. 

Yes, keeping my big city job does give me a huge leg up on most people around here. The fact is if we didn't find what we did, when we did for housing, we'd probably be priced out already. Property values around here have shot up, and as I have mentioned housing is a very real problem around here. 

Telluride is the main area around here, but Purgatory and Crested Butte are not unreasonable day trips. I rarely go to those place just because Telluride is so good. Plus the backcountry in the area is almost limitless. Which if anyone knows me I do a lot of. The 800cc chairlift has opened up whole new areas to explore with little to know traffic. Loving the hell out of it.


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

So this thread will have a followup called 'Hey remote workers, give us back our local resorts' at some point.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Guest opinion: Subpar experience at PCMR is unsustainable


Vail Resorts and Park City Mountain Resort are in the midst of delivering a miserable experience both to locals and visitors.




www.parkrecord.com






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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

The remote worker thing has definitely had an impact. I did it before covid and was quite pleased with it. The sudden rush of people moving to small towns around ski areas has definitely had an impact. The short term rental operations had already killed a ton of housing for workers, and now people like me are coming in and either buying or paying high rents taking more off the market. It is a problem. I will say the home I bought, was probably out of reach for most regional workers, and it was never a rental. Still, just the fact that we bought and moved in, contributes to the rising prices around here. I get it. I also do try to be involved in the community where possible.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

More positive press.









Vail Resorts broadsided in Park City as range of PCMR grievances brought to City Hall


A group of Park City residents delivered a broadside against Park City Mountain Resort owner Vail Resorts on Thursday evening, bringing a list of grievances to City Hall ranging from the operations of the resort to a Provo firm’s plans for a major development at the base area.




www.parkrecord.com






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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Vail Corp is crushing it 









Vail Sold a Record Number of Passes. What Happened Next Was a Disaster.


Employees fear the corporate behemoth bit off more than it could chew, while pass holders cry foul about overcrowding and reduced hours




www.outsideonline.com






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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> Vail Corp is crushing it
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ironically, I think they'll just offer a discount for next year's pass to the affected pass holders.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1500527180526145536

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1500527180526145536
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


If that's the line, can imagine the how crowded the trails are???


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> If that's the line, can imagine the how crowded the trails are???


I was just looking at pictures of a line just as bad where people have to park at the high school to load onto a shuttle before they can even get to the resort. The line before the line possibly before another line. [emoji1787]


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> I was just looking at pictures of a line just as bad where people have to park at the high school to load onto a shuttle before they can even get to the resort. The line before the line possibly before another line. [emoji1787]


Insanity.


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## CocaCola Kicker (Jan 30, 2019)

Splitboarding


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

Jkb818 said:


> I was just looking at pictures of a line just as bad where people have to park at the high school to load onto a shuttle before they can even get to the resort. The line before the line possibly before another line. [emoji1787]


The worst part is, most of these people are new to the sport and think this is normal. Lines where I'm at aren't that bad, but I'll have 3 minute lines on a 370 foot hill on a Friday and weekend people think it's amazing it's so empty and the lines are so short. At least if gas and food gets expensive they'll stop. If oil doesn't go down airfare is going to go up too. Most airlines buy in bulk at a fixed price early on so it's not going to be felt until next season though, if it does end up like that.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

I'm king of the "everything is way too crowded" but it's also important to note every time these videos and pics come out, those aren't middle of the day steady lines for the lift. They're base area lifts at the start of the day when the mountains just trying to open and distribute people across it.

On a similar not we're starting to see what resorts are doing to manage crowds next season, Crystal took themselves off the Ikon unlimited pass AND raised season pass prices by a whopping $700... Looks like pricing out is the option


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> I'm king of the "everything is way too crowded" but it's also important to note every time these videos and pics come out, those aren't middle of the day steady lines for the lift. They're base area lifts at the start of the day when the mountains just trying to open and distribute people across it.
> 
> On a similar not we're starting to see what resorts are doing to manage crowds next season, Crystal took themselves off the Ikon unlimited pass AND raised season pass prices by a whopping $700... Looks like pricing out is the option


They have to price out. If you can ~double the pass price and eliminate 1/2 the crowd, then it's a win-win for Crystal. I feel bad that our sport is pricing people out, but something has to give.


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Jimi7 said:


> They have to price out. If you can ~double the pass price and eliminate 1/2 the crowd, then it's a win-win for Crystal. I feel bad that our sport is pricing people out, but something has to give.


Ha! Cut the crowds by half, I love your ever going peak optimism. it MAY reduce about 10% of crowds but even then likely not. The goal for resorts will be to eliminate the need for reservation pass holder only weekend days. The real result is going to be far more expensive weekday riding as pass holders cost per day will be up, and weekends will still be completely filled in by the hoard of people in Seattle getting in the industry average 3 days of riding per year. 

But ya, I'm not calling them out for price raises. I've said that throughout this thread. You've got an ever growing demand for a fixed supply, not many options. It will become more of an issue for resorts operating on public land where you get an issue of pricing people out of using taxed public land designed to be maintained for everyone to be able to be a part of. The world needs a plague...... Wait


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

lab49232 said:


> Ha! Cut the crowds by half, I love your ever going peak optimism. it MAY reduce about 10% of crowds but even then likely not. The goal for resorts will be to eliminate the need for reservation pass holder only weekend days. The real result is going to be far more expensive weekday riding as pass holders cost per day will be up, and weekends will still be completely filled in by the hoard of people in Seattle getting in the industry average 3 days of riding per year.
> 
> But ya, I'm not calling them out for price raises. I've said that throughout this thread. You've got an ever growing demand for a fixed supply, not many options. It will become more of an issue for resorts operating on public land where you get an issue of pricing people out of using taxed public land designed to be maintained for everyone to be able to be a part of. The world needs a plague...... Wait


LOL - We just tried the pandemic thing and failed on so many levels....


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

Jimi7 said:


> They have to price out. If you can ~double the pass price and eliminate 1/2 the crowd, then it's a win-win for Crystal. I feel bad that our sport is pricing people out, but something has to give.


If the economy tanks, which it will, luxury items like taking the family out skiing/snowboarding are the first to go. Not only is it going to get more expensive to get to the resort, but the resort's price is going to go up because of the cost of electricity going up. All the food and supplies the resort needs is brought my diesel trucks, they need to heat the buildings, and it takes a lot of electricity to run all these lifts, lights (if you have night skiing), etc. I don't think we are gonna have to worry about overcrowding for too many more seasons. 

These casual people who go a few times a year are gonna be the first to bail on the sport. People are assuming the demand is gonna keep growing, the cost of living is gonna go up a lot this next year. Just ask yourself how many people were planning on $4/gal gas 6 months ago. 

I actually think the sport is going to take a massive hit in the next year or two and the resorts that are neglecting their regulars and season pass holders are gonna be begging for them back. 

I don't like getting political here, but the fact remains you have an administration who thinks we're in a "transition" phase from fossil fuel to green energy and that we need to pay more for energy to stick it to Russia (even though raising the price of a country's top exports doesn't seem like it'd hurt them much). Regardless of what you think on those issues, those policies are not gonna make cheap energy for years, until either the USA abandons the idea of green energy or green energy is successful. But the next few years is gonna be basically trying to make a $50,000 Tesla look like a viable alternative to whatever car you have that you fill up with petroleum fuel. So don't expect gas under $3 for the next two or three years.

I expect lift ticket and season pass prices for next year to go up a good 15% to 25% due to inflation and rising energy costs. To be honest I've already been scared out of Colorado. I usually go with my little bro to Winter Park, before COVID it was like $80 a day with the buddy pass. Now it's $219 unless you get a discount and buy way in advance. I can get a weekday only season pass at a local resort for the cost of two or three days riding in Colorado, and I'll use that season pass like crazy. But my point is that as things get more expensive, people reel back and enjoy cheaper activities. I'd love to go back out West, but if I can buy a M-Thurs season pass at Cascade and then pick up another one somewhere else, and use it all winter long once or twice a week, it's just not worth going West no matter how amazing it is. And a lot of people are gonna start downsizing their trips as costs go up. People who usually make trips out West won't be doing it and downsizing, and people who make trips to smaller local resorts won't be doing it and downsizing, probably to another hobby. And when you can shove an iPad with Minecraft and YouTube in a kid's face and keep them entertained, if you're a parent struggling for cash suddenly that sounds far more appealing than going skiing/snowboarding. 

Don't forget Vail owns a lot of these resorts because the industry was really hurting before COVID, so Vail made low ball offers all over the place and a lot of places took it up. What we're going through as an abnormal surge, even if these new people want to stay in this sport a lot of them aren't going to be able to afford it soon.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

SEWiShred said:


> I don't like getting political here, but the fact remains you have an administration who thinks we're in a "transition" phase from fossil fuel to green energy and that we need to pay more for energy to stick it to Russia (even though raising the price of a country's top exports doesn't seem like it'd hurt them much). Regardless of what you think on those issues, those policies are not gonna make cheap energy for years, until either the USA abandons the idea of green energy or green energy is successful. But the next few years is gonna be basically trying to make a $50,000 Tesla look like a viable alternative to whatever car you have that you fill up with petroleum fuel. So don't expect gas under $3 for the next two or three years.


You've got that part about higher oil/gas prices backwards. The administration and NATO/Europe in general has put a halt to buying from Russia and that has resulted in higher prices. Russia is definitely feeling it, but I doubt it'll be enough to make a difference. Hell, that's just more fuel for their war machine...


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

SEWiShred said:


> Don't forget Vail owns a lot of these resorts because the industry was really hurting before COVID, so Vail made low ball offers all over the place and a lot of places took it up. What we're going through as an abnormal surge, even if these new people want to stay in this sport a lot of them aren't going to be able to afford it soon.


Since this is the only part of your Let's go Brandon obsessed rant that was factual.... The surge in outdoor recreation has been driven by a couple factors and it is abnormal. Covid created lots of demand for outdoor activities with everything shut down. Some of this demand is still from that, the question is when will that growth slow or stop, and will any of it retract? The general consensus in the industry so far is "not really". Again you have an ever growing population which creates a natural and unavoidable demand for every resource, and ski resorts are a finite resource

The other part is the part you got so completely wrong it doesn't seem possible. The vast majority of the US population that would normally be part of the industry have become far FAR more wealthy and prosperous. The poor recorded the largest gain in wealth in history, American households added trillions of dollars in wealth in 2020. People are working remotely more often saving tons of money, pay rates are skyrocketing as more people are getting higher wages from the same job as compared to a few years ago. This are all peak indicators that the average American household is set up to spend record levels on tourism and recreation for the forseeable future.


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## SEWiShred (Jan 19, 2019)

lab49232 said:


> Since this is the only part of your Let's go Brandon obsessed rant that was factual.... The surge in outdoor recreation has been driven by a couple factors and it is abnormal. Covid created lots of demand for outdoor activities with everything shut down. Some of this demand is still from that, the question is when will that growth slow or stop, and will any of it retract? The general consensus in the industry so far is "not really". Again you have an ever growing population which creates a natural and unavoidable demand for every resource, and ski resorts are a finite resource
> 
> The other part is the part you got so completely wrong it doesn't seem possible. The vast majority of the US population that would normally be part of the industry have become far FAR more wealthy and prosperous. The poor recorded the largest gain in wealth in history, American households added trillions of dollars in wealth in 2020. People are working remotely more often saving tons of money, pay rates are skyrocketing as more people are getting higher wages from the same job as compared to a few years ago. This are all peak indicators that the average American household is set up to spend record levels on tourism and recreation for the forseeable future.


No need to kill the messenger, man. 

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1500587991965782018
Also kinda think you don't understand how inflation works. Yes wages and stuff are going up, but the cost of things is going up too. Just look at how much it costs to eat out at a restaurant now compared to two years ago. Maybe educate yourself on what happens in times of inflation, pre-WW2 Germany is a really good example of hyperinflation, so is recent Venezuela. Everyone makes more money but everything costs more, you're not really getting anywhere. 

The last few years interest rates were very low, great for financing homes and cars. Energy was cheap. It's not going to be like that going forward. 

Also you need to learn how to catch people who are lying with statistics. It's very easy to say air travel and tourism is up in the last two years, but it's being compared to the middle of a pandemic.








Airline industry - passenger traffic worldwide 2004-2022 | Statista


In 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the estimated number of scheduled passengers boarded by the global airline industry amounted to just over 2.2 billion people.




www.statista.com





It's super easy to lie with statistics, here's how you say unemployment is making a record improvement








I recommend Standard Deviations by Gary Smith as a good way to see how easy it is to lie to people with statistics and data








Gary Smith - Standard Deviations


Buy Standard Deviations




www.garysmithn.com





It's all you man, I don't like to get political here because people just like to call names and be rude. Not like I'm blaming anyone or being mean to anyone. But it's just my two cents, if someone is telling you we have record growth and they're citing peak covid unemployment and comparing it to now they are lying.


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## Jkb818 (Sep 28, 2019)

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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

@lab49232, @SEWiShred - you're both right. The big question is, will inflation eat up all the gains being made by "average" Americans? That one will have to wait and of course the gov't likes to monkey around with inflation figures, so there's another stat that's of dubious value.


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## Jimi7 (Jan 14, 2020)

Jkb818 said:


> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


You sure that's not Vail??? Looks a lot like Vail....


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

Jkb818 said:


> I was just looking at pictures of a line just as bad where people have to park at the high school to load onto a shuttle before they can even get to the resort. The line before the line possibly before another line. [emoji1787]
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk





Jkb818 said:


> I was just looking at pictures of a line just as bad where people have to park at the high school to load onto a shuttle before they can even get to the resort. The line before the line possibly before another line. [emoji1787]
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Welcome to Stevens Pass Washington, two shuttles from both sides of the pass


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## Powdertrax (Jan 28, 2018)

lab49232 said:


> I'm king of the "everything is way too crowded" but it's also important to note every time these videos and pics come out, those aren't middle of the day steady lines for the lift. They're base area lifts at the start of the day when the mountains just trying to open and distribute people across it.
> 
> On a similar not we're starting to see what resorts are doing to manage crowds next season, Crystal took themselves off the Ikon unlimited pass AND raised season pass prices by a whopping $700... Looks like pricing out is the option


You poor folk can’t ride


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## smellysell (Oct 29, 2018)

Closed tomorrow, looks like a hike the lift line sort of afternoon... 

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/6226e195ac6b9/screen-20220307-205326~3.mp4


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

Powdertrax said:


> You poor folk can’t ride


Huh?



SEWiShred said:


> Also kinda think you don't understand how inflation works. Yes wages and stuff are going up, but the cost of things is going up too. Just look at how much it costs to eat out at a restaurant now compared to two years ago. Maybe educate yourself on what happens in times of inflation, pre-WW2 Germany is a really good example of hyperinflation, so is recent Venezuela. Everyone makes more money but everything costs more, you're not really getting anywhere.


Thanks for the advice and elementary description but luckily I kind of majored in all this, and forecasting and purchasing for the outdoor recreation market is kind of my business currently.

It's funny you pointed out that we have an artificial and unsustainable growth in demand for the ski industry (which was accurate) but then start quoting the inflation for food and staple items while completely omitting the fact that those are also artificially (for long term) being affected by oh I don't know a global pandemic and basically WW3. But no it's definitely Brandon's goal to make renewable energy that's at fault and going to make everything worse.

1: The push for changes in energy is not a death sentence or even harmful to the ski industry. It's actually one of the main focuses of the entire industry. You somehow think all of us missed that it would somehow lead to us pricing out customers ability to afford the product because gas.... Ya, no.

2: Your focus on the energy market misses out on the fact that those people likely to participate in the ski industry are those most capable of absorbing increased energy costs. Real world example, you know what uses gas, like A LOT of gas? Like unsustainable and ridiculously asinine amounts of gas? Boats. You know what industry is experiencing beyond record growth, the boat market. Hell one company I know just sent a message to all their reps limiting them to 5 boat sales for the next season because they literally can't build enough fast enough to keep up.

3: Every single forecasting model for outdoor recreation is painfully bleak for the next 3 years IF you're looking to avoid crowds. If you could see production numbers for the upcoming seasons, it's unfathomable. And look I'll give ya that some people, farmer Joe, and the like, who may get hit by some inflation and energy cost raises. But farmer Joe and the luxury ski recreation participants have almost no overlap and that's a point you just seem to completely miss.


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## gholt (Feb 13, 2012)

Snowbasin just released their preseason prices for next year almost up 20-25% for preseason prices.

Up 850 to 1050 from last year before taxes. 









Season Passes | snowbasin


Shop 2021-22 season passes at Snowbasin Resort in Utah for skiing and snowboarding.



www.snowbasin.com





Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk


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## kalev (Dec 17, 2013)

awww Vail made our national news

Skiers, snowboarders complain of refund headaches with Vail Resorts


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

This article discusses a lot of the finer points some of us has been making along with real participation numbers

Who Gets to Ski?


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

Paywalled


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