Ski Resort Response to COVID-19

kbroderick · Aug 27, 2020

BenedictGomez said:
I don't think it's a terrible idea. Obviously it has inherent limitations, but I get the logic.
Makes more sense for, say, New York State than Rhode Island obviously.

What I've never understood, however, is why Vermont thinks, "active cases per million" needs to be normalized to Vermont's data. I dont know if I'm missing something obvious, but I fail to see the logic there. I also dont know what they mean by, "known metrics", and AFAICT, they never explain it, which seems pretty important.

At any rate I'll be able to go to Vermont again in a few days, because the Vermont model has a significant recency bias which is pretty obvious to figure out if you know your counties' data per day, and our "bad data" for my county was from last week.

On the "by-county" thing, it's probably the last-bad solution they could come up with that had any reasonable chance of implementation. It also meets an important goal: allowing travel to/from upstate New York without lumping the city into the same bucket. At this point, that seems less important, but when the city rates are significantly higher, it allows some level of protection (if the rules are enforced, of course).

I suspect the normalization to Vermont's rates is a "well, allowing travel there shouldn't make things worse"-type theory. Or it may be political in the form of "we're gonna get raked over the coals if we say people doing as well or better than us are a danger to local residents."

sull1102 · Aug 27, 2020

JimG. said:
You may get your wish. But I hope Vermont has a good year selling cheddar cheese and maple syrup because the VT economy isn't going to survive if the "bad" people from "hotspot" areas stay away.

I already concede that I will defer my K pass to 21-22 and ski in NY only. So VT won't be getting a dime from me.

Does this make you happy?

This!!!!! I feel like these people that are hardcore stay out of my state are forgetting that they rely on people from MA/NY/NJ/CT to power their economy. It’ll be fascinating to watch what happens this season and next if VT stays the course. Vermonters alone cannot keep all the state’s mountains in business for a full season.

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gittist · Aug 27, 2020

Maine has a 2-week quarantine for everyone except for NY, CT, Vt, NH, and NJ. Prior to that it had no exceptions but part of the way through summer and the economy was tanking Queen Mills let NH and VT in without quarantine or testing. The she let NY, NJ, and CT in. Her comment was their positivity rates were low...I guess all the NY, NJ and CT people that were susceptible to COVID already had it so the new infection numbers were dropping?

I honestly hope that the federal government doesn't pass any more relief bills and leaves it up to the states to take care of themselves. Why? Because we all have insurance to help the few out that have 'claims'. Insurance doesn't work when EVERYONE has a claim at the same time. Besides some of states have created self inflicted wounds and expect someone else to pay for it. BS!

Oh well I hope to go skiing in VT and NH this winter and that everyone stays reasonable healthy.

BenedictGomez · Aug 27, 2020

kbroderick said:
I suspect the normalization to Vermont's rates is a "well, allowing travel there shouldn't make things worse"-type theory. Or it may be political in the form of "we're gonna get raked over the coals if we say people doing as well or better than us are a danger to local residents."

Both of those are very clever theories to explain something that's, well, weird; but your second "political" answer gave me an idea for a third possibility, also political.

By smoothing the data to a singular "Vermont number" rather than also using Vermont county data, you can make the entire Vermont travel ban far more restrictive.

For instance, Chittenden County has higher COVID19 than many counties in the northeast, yet it doeskin make it "okay" for people to travel to Vermont if they're going to Burlington, even though there's less COVID19 where they live in MA, NJ, CT, NY etc... than there is in Chittenden County, because State of Vermont is using the normalized (much lower COVID19) VT figure rather than the Chittenden figure.

BenedictGomez · Aug 27, 2020

sull1102 said:
Vermonters alone cannot keep all the state’s mountains in business for a full season.

Yup, and that's an understatement; few Vermonters ski.

tumbler · Aug 27, 2020

BenedictGomez said:
Yup, and that's an understatement; few Vermonters ski.

And the ones that do ski do not spend money in the lodges and bars. Those are for the asshole out of staters.

drjeff · Aug 27, 2020

Vail's plan is out for the season:

https://www.epicpass.com/info/reservation-details

Passholders only through the 1st week of December, and reservations for each day made up to a week in advance, with passholders having the ability to pre reserve up to 7 days more than a week in advance depending on the type of pass they have.

Some indoor dining. No bars. And various seating plans for different types of lifts are some of the quick take home points I got at 1st glance

cdskier · Aug 27, 2020

drjeff said:
Vail's plan is out for the season:

https://www.epicpass.com/info/reservation-details

Passholders only through the 1st week of December, and reservations for each day made up to a week in advance, with passholders having the ability to pre reserve up to 7 days more than a week in advance depending on the type of pass they have.

Some indoor dining. No bars. And various seating plans for different types of lifts are some of the quick take home points I got at 1st glance

The reservations one is big. Here's another one:
To maintain physical distancing on our chairlifts and gondolas, we will only be seating related parties (guests skiing or riding together) or: two singles on opposite sides of a four-person lift; two singles or two doubles on opposite sides of a six-person lift; or two singles on opposite sides of our larger gondola cabins.

drjeff · Aug 27, 2020

cdskier said:
The reservations one is big. Here's another one:
To maintain physical distancing on our chairlifts and gondolas, we will only be seating related parties (guests skiing or riding together) or: two singles on opposite sides of a four-person lift; two singles or two doubles on opposite sides of a six-person lift; or two singles on opposite sides of our larger gondola cabins.

Depending on what the limits on capacity will be at each resort, while certainly a different thing, I am not sure that this will change the wait times for most lifts, as much a people think they will. The random person who skies by themselves, is likely to be much more affected by this than say the couple, or families, or group of friends who drove together to the mountain that day

snoseek · Aug 27, 2020

So as a midweek wildcat skier I'm probably ok right? Just gotta keep up with my reservations? I pretty much am looking to ski mondays through thursday.

icecoast1 · Aug 27, 2020

Is there anything preventing someone from just making reservations everyday in case they end up deciding to ski, not showing up and preventing people from being able to get a reservation? Or is it just an honor system?

machski · Aug 27, 2020

snoseek said:
So as a midweek wildcat skier I'm probably ok right? Just gotta keep up with my reservations? I pretty much am looking to ski mondays through thursday.

I would say you should be ok. Sounds like you can make as many week of resrvations as your pass allows (confusing but I think this is in reference to the epic days type passes that only have a limited amount of days on them). The crappy part is if you want to say take two, one week trips out west. You can lock only 7 priority days at a time well in advance. They are rolling, meaning as soon as you use a priority day, you can lock up a new one again but no guarentee there will be room for you on your second planned trip after you burn down the first one's reservations.

I did notice one caveat, the partner areas currently are not in the reservation system for Epic (Sun Valley, Telluride to name a few). So unless those resorts establish there own or make some deal with Epic for Epic passholders to have to reserve for them through Epic, your days there are wide open.

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cdskier · Aug 27, 2020

icecoast1 said:
Is there anything preventing someone from just making reservations everyday in case they end up deciding to ski, not showing up and preventing people from being able to get a reservation? Or is it just an honor system?

Well there's a limit on how many you can make...you can only have 7 "priority access" days reserved at a time and for "standard" reservations you can only make them for that current week.

Then there's also this:
"We reserve the right to restrict the ability of the pass holder to make future reservations if the reservation system is being abused or manipulated in any way."

machski · Aug 27, 2020

icecoast1 said:
Is there anything preventing someone from just making reservations everyday in case they end up deciding to ski, not showing up and preventing people from being able to get a reservation? Or is it just an honor system?

Not directly but they are leaving room to penalize abusers:

Q: What if I do not ski or ride on the day of my reservation?
A: If you no longer plan to use your reservation, you may cancel the reservation by 12:00 am of your planned ski date. The earlier you cancel your reservation, the more likely that a fellow skier or rider will be able to use your spot to enjoy the mountain. You will be able to cancel your reservation by going online at epicpass.com or on our resort sites in your "My Account" profile.

We reserve the right to restrict the ability of the pass holder to make future reservations if the reservation system is being abused or manipulated in any way.

If you are feeling sick or experiencing symptoms, please cancel your reservation and do not visit our resorts for the safety of our guests and employees.

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BenedictGomez · Aug 27, 2020

cdskier said:
The reservations one is big. Here's another one:
To maintain physical distancing on our chairlifts and gondolas, we will only be seating related parties (guests skiing or riding together) or: two singles on opposite sides of a four-person lift; two singles or two doubles on opposite sides of a six-person lift; or two singles on opposite sides of our larger gondola cabins.

This will not protect you in gondolas. While COVID19 is a new virus, the science of viral dispersion is not. AVOID.

cdskier · Aug 27, 2020

BenedictGomez said:
This will not protect you in gondolas. While COVID19 is a new virus, the science of viral dispersion is not. AVOID.

Agreed...I really don't understand the logic of 2 singles being on opposite sides of a gondola. That literally accomplishes nothing.

BenedictGomez · Aug 27, 2020

cdskier said:
Agreed...I really don't understand the logic of 2 singles being on opposite sides of a gondola. That literally accomplishes nothing.

Accomplishing nothing would be better, what Vail's doing is actually worse.

This is a terrible idea, but if you're going to try to dupe your customers into thinking this is safe, the 2 singles should be on the same bench, but split apart. That's a terrible idea too, but Vail's idea is worse.

machski · Aug 27, 2020

BenedictGomez said:
Accomplishing nothing would be better, what Vail's doing is actually worse.

This is a terrible idea, but if you're going to try to dupe your customers into thinking this is safe, the 2 singles should be on the same bench, but split apart. That's a terrible idea too, but Vail's idea is worse.

It's the same idea hotels are using with elevators to be honest. Granted, you are likely in a gondi a few minutes longer than an elevator, but most gondis have some type of front/back windows or roof vent you can open where as an elevator, you stick with whatever hvac system it has. But yeah, I'd avoid the box where I can just as a general rule this season.

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Smellytele · Aug 27, 2020

No vail resorts for me this year.

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Edd · Aug 27, 2020

Smellytele said:
No vail resorts for me this year.

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Can you do better, I wonder? Won’t everyone be doing this?

Ski Resort Response to COVID-19

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