VAIL SUCKS

[2Planker]

Not there, but drooling over the webcam. May get there for Thursday. Vail getting bailed out by Mother Nature... not fair, but I'll take it.

View attachment 53104

Just drove by at Noon. Lot only 1/3, maybe almost 1/2 full, and 1/2 of those are employees.

 

[Mainer]

I blew it, snowing at my house. Drove the 15 minutes to Shawnee. Pissing rain, I’ve skied in the rain a lot this year. Soaked, drove home. Still snowing at home.
The problem with epic and gapers is the Epic mountains around here don’t treat the gapers well. No intermediate lifts at attitash: kachina, double/doubles, Abenaki till a couple days ago. No yankee weekdays. No Bobcat at wc, no tomcat on weekends when it’s packed. Lodges are packed with a bunch of stupid rules and signs. If I was a weekend skier and just skied epic, I probably quit if this was the norm.
I go to all the other mountains in the region, business as usual. The non epic mountains appreciate your business and make you feel wanted. The epic mountains are you are lucky we are open and the pass was cheap. We don’t give a fuck about you. Take or leave it, there will be a bunch of people to take your spot next year. Full parking lots, huge lift lines, half the trails half the lifts. The experience of a lifetime

 

[Kingslug20]

Want to avoid shitshows...ski the runs less travelled...

 

[MogulMonsters]

Does anyone know if you need to groom your trails every night (even if they are not being skiied?) to keep them in good shape? For the life of me i can not understand why Attitash is grooming Bear Peak when the lift is broken and they have a terrain that they could be pushing out on the Attitash side.

 

[IceEidolon]

Possible reasons, mostly not very good ones: Vail tracks a metric that's easier to achieve on the groomed areas, they made bad snow and are trying to recondition it/till out cookies, they're training someone and don't trust them on open terrain, nobody told night shift what trails to groom, someone making decisions about the grooming plan expected lift service over there, they need access for work or because there's an agreement to groom that area.

Most of the reasons I can think of don't put Vail in a good light.

 

[snoseek]

Those trails off the summit are absolutely nit groomed. More on the grooming later...

 

[thetrailboss]

The epic mountains are you are lucky we are open and the pass was cheap. We don’t give a fuck about you. Take or leave it, there will be a bunch of people to take your spot next year. Full parking lots, huge lift lines, half the trails half the lifts. The experience of a lifetime

My fear, which is reality at some places, is that Vail is setting a very low bar. Other areas get shittier because, "hey, we're not as bad as Vail." POWDR comes to mind.

 

[thetrailboss]

All ski area combined pay less than two tenths of one percent of the Forest Service's annual budget.

With slopes limited, do Stevens Pass skiers have recourse? | HeraldNet.com

Lift ticket fine print bars a class action lawsuit, saying passes are non-refundable. But those might not be the last words.

www.heraldnet.com

True, but it is STILL a revenue source for an otherwise cash-strapped government agency.

 

[thetrailboss]

Whether or not it's been firmly established that Vail does indeed suck, seems like the amount of coverage their operational issues + another year of increased crowding at their resorts will lead to some level of defection from Epic in 2022/2023. Which begs the question: will these people just jump ship to Ikon? Or leave the sport? Ski independent mountains? Some combination?

Best case for Vail but worst case for the industry is that the "just be happy you can ski at all" crowd - getting more vocal on social media by the day - sticks with Epic, procreate, teach their spawn that "this is the way skiing is", and through generations spend even more money in the base lodge and various perks and upgrades. This will introduce the world to a new super gaper more dangerous than previous generations of gapers. It's like really bad science fiction for the ski crowd.

I meant to respond to this yesterday. I know that AZer's will leave. But AZer's are not the target Epic market. It will be interesting to see how the general public responds--the one/two vacation period skiers and riders. The 10 day a year crowd. Will they just shrug and renew? As a publicly traded company we will be able to see what happens. I am still in disbelief as to how bad Vail's operations have become and yet the markets don't seem to give a shit. That said, I see that the stock price is the lowest it has been in a year. Maybe they are catching on. I see the YTD is 44 points down.

And I am aghast at how the industry has seemingly ditched getting new people into the sport. I had a friend ask me for advice on good places for their kids to learn to ski. Prices were astronomical and simply embarrasing. They opted for Beaver Mountain and had a great time at a decent price. But cost is a major barrier and it seems that the industry is more focused on the "now" which means competing with Vail. I think this is shortsighted.

Except for small independent areas, from what I am seeing is that Vail's impact is very bad for the industry. The skiing experience no longer matters.

 

[thetrailboss]

Oh boy! Sunapee posted a warning about running out of parking on weekends on Facebook and the locals ain't happy.



I laughed at the comment about Sunapee copying Loon's logo.

 

[JimG.]

I'm a half way decent skier... now. But I haven't always been one. I wasn't born with skis attached to my feet. So there was a long period of time I didn't ski all that well, got in over my head etc. (the famous saying of you don't know what you don't know) It's a process.

Unlike many others, I choose not to forget what it was like, and don't look down on those people even though I'm no longer like that.

It sounds like you think the folks who criticize "gapers" were born with skis on their feet and never had to go through being beginner/novice/intermediate skiers.

Those folks have either forgotten or genuinely think they have always been hardcore experts.

 

[snoseek]

My fear, which is reality at some places, is that Vail is setting a very low bar. Other areas get shittier because, "hey, we're not as bad as Vail." POWDR comes to mind.

On the flip side I feel like alot of areas around here have upped their game hoping to catch some of the epic refugees. I've not been to pats peak this year but word on the internet is their operations are running full steam. I predict places like pats, cannon, cranmore ect see increased pass sales next year. Vail is inadvertently helping these areas and creating opportunity.

 

[trackbiker]

I meant to respond to this yesterday. I know that AZer's will leave. But AZer's are not the target Epic market. It will be interesting to see how the general public responds--the one/two vacation period skiers and riders. The 10 day a year crowd. Will they just shrug and renew? As a publicly traded company we will be able to see what happens. I am still in disbelief as to how bad Vail's operations have become and yet the markets don't seem to give a shit. That said, I see that the stock price is the lowest it has been in a year. Maybe they are catching on. I see the YTD is 44 points down.

And I am aghast at how the industry has seemingly ditched getting new people into the sport. I had a friend ask me for advice on good places for their kids to learn to ski. Prices were astronomical and simply embarrasing. They opted for Beaver Mountain and had a great time at a decent price. But cost is a major barrier and it seems that the industry is more focused on the "now" which means competing with Vail. I think this is shortsighted.

Except for small independent areas, from what I am seeing is that Vail's impact is very bad for the industry. The skiing experience no longer matters.

I agree that they are not looking towards the future. People keep talking about how cheap passes are making it more affordable. The problem is new beginners do not buy season passes. Once they look at the cost of single day tickets and rentals they decide to take up something else in the winter. Also there are the few times a year skiers who historically have not bought season passes. Many of these people will not buy the season pass and will just give up skiing.
I've ridden lifts with several people who bought the Epic Pass and are not on any ski forums. I met them at non Vail areas where they paid for a day pass despite having an Epic Pass because of the crowds at the Vail areas. They all said they definitely would not buy an Epic Pass next year. Some will buy Epic next year despite the how bad Vail was this year because they will by the BS coming out of Broomfield and the fact that it is cheap. But a lot will not. We will see.

 

[millerm277]

I meant to respond to this yesterday. I know that AZer's will leave. But AZer's are not the target Epic market. It will be interesting to see how the general public responds--the one/two vacation period skiers and riders. The 10 day a year crowd. Will they just shrug and renew? As a publicly traded company we will be able to see what happens. I am still in disbelief as to how bad Vail's operations have become and yet the markets don't seem to give a shit. That said, I see that the stock price is the lowest it has been in a year. Maybe they are catching on. I see the YTD is 44 points down.

In the long run, the enthusiasts direct a lot of the less die-hard skiers and word of mouth. Most of my family and friends, the 3-10 day a year crowd, ask me where to ski, where to get a pass or find a deal, when to go, etc. My dollars as one person who rarely spends much on-mountain besides lunch and beers, don't matter much. The 20-30 people who's vacations I wind up having a big influence on? I'm fairly certain those hurt a bit if I suggest going elsewhere. That kind of bleed of business and reputation damage happens over time and can take a long time to fix.

Same goes for when those people go somewhere and have a bad time. You screw up my day skiing, eh...lost a day and 3 hours of driving. You screw up their vacation weekend that cost into the thousands of dollars (lodging, tickets/passes for everyone, rentals, lessons, etc), they're never coming back, and they're complaining about it to all their coworkers and the like. I'd count more than a few of things posted in this thread as likely to have left people with that experience this season.

And I am aghast at how the industry has seemingly ditched getting new people into the sport. I had a friend ask me for advice on good places for their kids to learn to ski. Prices were astronomical and simply embarrasing. They opted for Beaver Mountain and had a great time at a decent price. But cost is a major barrier and it seems that the industry is more focused on the "now" which means competing with Vail. I think this is shortsighted.

Except for small independent areas, from what I am seeing is that Vail's impact is very bad for the industry. The skiing experience no longer matters.

Easy, I've pretty much just been sending all those people towards those smaller independent areas for learning, Indy Pass, etc.

 

[thetrailboss]

On the flip side I feel like alot of areas around here have upped their game hoping to catch some of the epic refugees. I've not been to pats peak this year but word on the internet is their operations are running full steam. I predict places like pats, cannon, cranmore ect see increased pass sales next year. Vail is inadvertently helping these areas and creating opportunity.

Absolutely. In terms of the other big players, Boyne has done a great job with promoting Brighton out here.

Love Pats. What a great place!

 

[thetrailboss]

In the long run, the enthusiasts direct a lot of the less die-hard skiers and word of mouth. Most of my family and friends, the 3-10 day a year crowd, ask me where to ski, where to get a pass or find a deal, when to go, etc. My dollars as one person who rarely spends much on-mountain besides lunch and beers, don't matter much. The 20-30 people who's vacations I wind up having a big influence on? I'm fairly certain those hurt a bit if I suggest going elsewhere. That kind of bleed of business and reputation damage happens over time and can take a long time to fix.

Same goes for when those people go somewhere and have a bad time. You screw up my day skiing, eh...lost a day and 3 hours of driving. You screw up their vacation weekend that cost into the thousands of dollars (lodging, tickets/passes for everyone, rentals, lessons, etc), they're never coming back, and they're complaining about it to all their coworkers and the like. I'd count more than a few of things posted in this thread as likely to have left people with that experience this season.



Easy, I've pretty much just been sending all those people towards those smaller independent areas for learning, Indy Pass, etc.

"I am coming for you, you influencer! You are a mere mortal and no match for VAIL."

 

[thetrailboss]

Park City criticism of PCMR, Vail Resorts epitomized by story of a cold, $9 hot dog - Park Record

A comment to Park City leaders about a hot dog purchased at Park City Mountain Resort has suddenly become emblematic amid an intense wave of criticism about the operations at PCMR directed at the resort and its owner, Colorado-based Vail Resorts.

www.parkrecord.com

 

[jaytrem]

Absolutely. In terms of the other big players, Boyne has done a great job with promoting Brighton out here.

Love Pats. What a great place!

Was there on Sunday for the first time. They seem to have an abundance of employees. Quickly got the feeling that they really know what they're doing.

 

[thetrailboss]

Was there on Sunday for the first time. They seem to have an abundance of employees. Quickly got the feeling that they really know what they're doing.

Their GM has been there for over 20 years.

 

[kickstand]

Park City criticism of PCMR, Vail Resorts epitomized by story of a cold, $9 hot dog - Park Record

A comment to Park City leaders about a hot dog purchased at Park City Mountain Resort has suddenly become emblematic amid an intense wave of criticism about the operations at PCMR directed at the resort and its owner, Colorado-based Vail Resorts.

www.parkrecord.com

I know this is stupid and completely unrelated, but I love that the guy who wrote the hot dog story has the last name Hamburger.