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Superpasses: more crowds?

Edd

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I heard Wildcat has 6” of fresh with 1 foot drifts and very few people there.


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cdskier

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Where the hell did you grow up, next to the New Jersey Devil's cave in the middle of the Pine Barrens?

I grew up in rural NJ (even had a RR address) and even we had cable in 1984.

Oh it was available in my area (Bergen county just a few miles outside of NYC). It just wasn't something my parents saw a need to spend money on. Based on some other responses here, I'm not alone in this. I had a number of friends that didn't have cable either. Stop assuming just because you had it that everyone else did too or that you had to live in the middle of nowhere in order to not have had it. Bottom line is it wasn't a necessity and information was nowhere near as readily available or easily accessible as it is in today's "always connected" world.
 

1dog

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Some of you are completely incapable of remembering life pre-internet. Long live the Dewey Decimal System![/QUOTE]

Dewey was a socialist - as for the pre internet - there was a more romantic theme about a ski weekend - at least until you go there - now, we cancel up to the last nano- second.
 

Zermatt

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Oh it was available in my area (Bergen county just a few miles outside of NYC). It just wasn't something my parents saw a need to spend money on. Based on some other responses here, I'm not alone in this. I had a number of friends that didn't have cable either. Stop assuming just because you had it that everyone else did too or that you had to live in the middle of nowhere in order to not have had it. Bottom line is it wasn't a necessity and information was nowhere near as readily available or easily accessible as it is in today's "always connected" world.

Exactly this. My parents could easily afford cable but it was so foreign to them the thought of paying for TV was just not happening. It wasn't until the early 90s they finally caved in.
 

ScottySkis

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Exactly this. My parents could easily afford cable but it was so foreign to them the thought of paying for TV was just not happening. It wasn't until the early 90s they finally caved in.

I wanted my MTV I requested that to my dad caved in in early 1990s

We had awesome Atenta on our house in long Island 30 miles from the city before cable was installed.
 

BenedictGomez

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Oh it was available in my area (Bergen county just a few miles outside of NYC). It just wasn't something my parents saw a need to spend money on.

That's entirely different. You grew up in a wealthy county, a 9-iron from Manhattan, you most certainly had affordable access to cable TV, the fact you specifically didn't was literally your parents life-choice, but your house was in a small minority. Doesnt change the fact the crap existed for the masses. This is getting ridiculous. You didnt even grow up rural like I did, you were a city kid. If you came out to where I grew up in Jersey, you probably would have asked me where the Indians live; and we all had cable.
 

cdskier

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That's entirely different. You grew up in a wealthy county, a 9-iron from Manhattan, you most certainly had affordable access to cable TV, the fact you specifically didn't was literally your parents life-choice, but your house was in a small minority. Doesnt change the fact the crap existed for the masses. This is getting ridiculous. You didnt even grow up rural like I did, you were a city kid. If you came out to where I grew up in Jersey, you probably would have asked me where the Indians live; and we all had cable.

A small minority? In 1980 only 22% of households with TVs had cable. It wasn't until 1987 that we crossed the 50% threshold of houses with TVs that had cable. Even in 1999 it was only up to 68%. Meanwhile 90% of the adult US population uses the Internet today and 81% have smartphones. But sure, keep arguing that information was just as easy to get back in the 80s and 90s as it is today...
 

EPB

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A small minority? In 1980 only 22% of households with TVs had cable. It wasn't until 1987 that we crossed the 50% threshold of houses with TVs that had cable. Even in 1999 it was only up to 68%. Meanwhile 90% of the adult US population uses the Internet today and 81% have smartphones. But sure, keep arguing that information was just as easy to get back in the 80s and 90s as it is today...
But how many people who could afford to go skiing, or be fanatical skiers had cable?

I was born in the late 80s, but my parents had cable before I was born (and the house, which was built in the early 80s, was likely outfitted with cable lines from the jump). My parents and I are by no means early tech adopter types in our peer groups, but we've run in upper middle class circles since before I was born.

Obviously, we won't know the exact answer, but I suspect these numbers would be significantly higher if you could screen out those who didn't or couldn't afford to ski.

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BenedictGomez

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A small minority? In 1980 only 22% of households with TVs had cable. It wasn't until 1987 that we crossed the 50% threshold of houses with TVs that had cable. Even in 1999 it was only up to 68%

Now do affluent northeasterners who come from skiing families.

You know, so your "data" isnt co-mingled with people farming Oklahoma, which is what you posted.

In 1987, the vast majority of reasonably well-off people in the northeast who wanted cable could have cable.
 

KustyTheKlown

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cool argument.

snowbird was very crowded yesterday (Sunday), but it was a beautiful day after two and a half days of full closure from a whopping storm, so it’s not a surprise. anyway, it was never anything like the co or Jackson pics I’ve seen, and after 1:30 it was basically ski on for singles

Alta today was so fun and basically empty and it started dumping at 1:30 and continued steady to 8 pm. I’m sure they won’t report more than 2-3” but that refresher will make tomorrow ski awesome
 

cdskier

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Now do affluent northeasterners who come from skiing families.

You know, so your "data" isnt co-mingled with people farming Oklahoma, which is what you posted.

In 1987, the vast majority of reasonably well-off people in the northeast who wanted cable could have cable.

How many people in this thread alone also said they had no cable in the 80s? It would be one hell of a coincidence if this "small minority" that we're supposedly part of happen to be so over-represented in a northeast ski forum.

Additionally, "want" has nothing to do with "need". There's a lot of things I could afford to buy. Doesn't mean I buy them if I don't perceive a need. And cable tv simply wasn't viewed as a need by as many people as you seem to think it was (even among supposedly affluent northeastern skiers).

Never mind the fact that simply having cable tv still didn't make anywhere near as much information so readily available in seconds as it is today. The "information age" has absolutely had an impact on how people make plans and decisions in general. It isn't difficult to believe there's a chance it has had an impact on skier habits as well as DHS theorized...
 

drjeff

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We could probably just pause this thread for a few days, and then pick back up this weekend...

Holiday weekend, fresh snow on the way on Thursday. Decent forcast for the weekend....

Bring on the long line pics!!

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Smellytele

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Right where I want to be
I lived 35 minutes out of Boston (Salem, NH) and cable was not available on my street until 87. My parents got it in 88.

On a side note why do people in New England never mention the county they live in while others along the east coast do?
 

EPB

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I lived 35 minutes out of Boston (Salem, NH) and cable was not available on my street until 87. My parents got it in 88.

On a side note why do people in New England never mention the county they live in while others along the east coast do?
Good question. After living in NJ for a little while now, there are just too many towns to keep track of. They seem to comprise smaller land areas than in MA save for inside 128 (e.g. Brookline). In the NYC metro alone, there's northern NJ, parts of central NJ (?), Long Island, north of NYC in NY, and parts of CT. Simply too many places to remember. It's much easier to say what county you're from. We also have county highways down here - not something I remember from growing up in NH and MA.

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deadheadskier

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I think the key proof that access to information has had an impact on ski area traffic is the booking and cancellation behavior of skiers now vs then. And that goes for any weather dependent destination. People are booking and cancelling far more last minute than ever before. Hell, in my resort managemnt classes at UVM in the late 90s I remember this being taught by my college professors and also commonly brought up by industry leaders who would guest lecture. They all said this was a changing reality that made it more difficult to forecast business and resulted in having to be more dynamic in their pricing.

Why? We were entering the "information age."

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NYDB

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We could probably just pause this thread for a few days, and then pick back up this weekend...

Holiday weekend, fresh snow on the way on Thursday. Decent forcast for the weekend....

Bring on the long line pics!!

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yeah sunday should be insane at the big resorts.

I think the temps might make people skip or at least sleep very late sat AM
 

machski

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This. I was going to comment the same thing. It's was the 1980s and 1990s, not the 1680's and 1690's, we weren't relying on Galileo during the Clinton Administration. LOL
Yes, but we all didn't have phone's we could pull up live radar and keep track ourselves at all times of day in the 80's and 90's. Tracking it on our computers only became a thing in the 90's.

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