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Vail to buy Stowe?

mbedle

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Dumping and no crowds mid week. Hopefully this is a good sign for midweek skiing there this season. Another observation I noticed this weekend is the complete disconnect between the ski area and Spruce Peak. You can not find anything on the ski area property mentioning Spruce Peak. They even took down all of the signs on the cross over lift. They also updated the websites with Stowe now being promoted as a destination resort (as compared to the mid western areas).
 

KustyTheKlown

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i didn't ever expect there to be midweek crowds as a result of epic pass. the overwhelming majority of people, and specifically epic pass holders in boston, ct, nyc, nj etc, have regular flatland jobs. there aren't enough college students and people with weird work schedules, who also have epic passes, to make a significant weekday impact. even Vermonters with passes still have jobs.

i do expect holidays and weekends to be notably shittier than in the past.
 

mbedle

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i didn't ever expect there to be midweek crowds as a result of epic pass. the overwhelming majority of people, and specifically epic pass holders in boston, ct, nyc, nj etc, have regular flatland jobs. there aren't enough college students and people with weird work schedules, who also have epic passes, to make a significant weekday impact. even Vermonters with passes still have jobs.

i do expect holidays and weekends to be notably shittier than in the past.

That makes sense. I was thinking more of the college age crowd and the large amount of seasonal employees that have more flexible schedules and that may be able to afford to ski there more often.
 

KustyTheKlown

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sugarbush/mt ellen/mrg college pass for $375 remains a way more attractive option for UVM students than an epic pass. Bolton is also super cheap for them. jay and burke have a good college pass, as does killington. epic is all about the weekend warriors and ski travellers.
 

cdskier

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super whack that stowe is gonna pull passes for skiing closed terrain

Is it really that difficult for people to follow the rules? Unless stowe's ski patrol is super conservative when it comes to dropping ropes, then I have no problems with pass pulling for skiing closed terrain. I would probably start with only a short term pull (a day) and only pull longer for repeat offenders. But I think people need to have more respect for patrol and their decisions on terrain opening.


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KustyTheKlown

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bullshit. trail closures are for the general tourist public. if you are competent enough to ski the trail, then you shouldn't have you pass ganked for skiing it. it's about good judgment and knowing the mountain and how to read the snow and the terrain. and for patrol, its about sizing up the offender and determining if they were using good judgment or not. this is one reason i appreciate sugarbush, they open everything and mark it well and caveat emptor. nanny state ski patrol, no thanks. its especially lame at places like loon where they close a completely good to go trail because of a little bit of exposed water. just mark it and let the people ski! it worked to my advantage tho, lapping calf deep powder all morning on sunday.
 
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Smellytele

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sugarbush/mt ellen/mrg college pass for $375 remains a way more attractive option for UVM students than an epic pass. Bolton is also super cheap for them. jay and burke have a good college pass, as does killington. epic is all about the weekend warriors and ski travellers.

Some of the colleges have free passes to some areas. Castleton has free passes to k. St mike's used to have them for smuggs. Uvm might have them free to somewhere


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deadheadskier

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I went to UVM in the late 90s and two of my housemates went to St. Michael's. Back then no place offered a free pass. Stowe was the most expensive, but it was still around $350 where as the others were in the $200-300 range

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thetrailboss

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Some of the colleges have free passes to some areas. Castleton has free passes to k. St mike's used to have them for smuggs. Uvm might have them free to somewhere


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Doubt that. Neither Dartmouth nor Middlebury, who own their own ski areas, give free passes to their students.
 

KustyTheKlown

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castleton and st mikes are small schools. uvm has too many students to be giving out free passes. but i'd wager way more of them ski at sugarbush/mrg than stowe.
 

Scruffy

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Just don't ski up to the patroller at the bottom of the trail and your fine, isn't that every east coast New England ski areas policy.

Fixed it for ya. Don't do that out west, Western Canada, or Europe; consequences are much higher, for you, and the ski patrol; but I assume you know that ;-)
 

benski

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Fixed it for ya. Don't do that out west, Western Canada, or Europe; consequences are much higher, for you, and the ski patrol; but I assume you know that ;-)

No. I poached a skied off trail in Innsbruck that directly from one lift too another. What else could they do?
 

KustyTheKlown

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the point is that poaching trails in the east will most likely not kill you or the people tasked with rescuing you. you may end up in something unskiable and need to walk out, but you aren't setting off avalanches and falling into infinite crevasses
 

ironhippy

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Out west you can be arrested for ducking ropes, you can also stumble onto slopes that are actively being bombed for avalanches.
 

SnowRock

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My point re: pass pulling and in speaking with others was that it simply seemed way more aggressive than the approach Mt Mansfield Ski Patrol had in the past based on my experience. No local but have skied there 10-15 days a year going on 7-8 years and plenty of times early season, it always appeared to be more of a liberal, be smart policy... even in discussion with patrol riding the quad watching people poach lift-line last season. I'm not one to really push things in the skiing closed terrain department, but there have been times up there where even I joined in the action.

More importantly, up to 20+ over the past two days. Hopefully some folks are out getting some. Really hoping we keep cold through Christmas... back up Dec 27th.
 
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