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The "Sugarbush Thread"

cdskier

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Edited. I didn’t plan to use them until that weekend. Anyway, don’t want to argue with locals. Just think it’s a bit disingenuous and poor business. Take care!!

I’ve attached Win’s email from March 13th, two days before the closed for the season.
What locals? I think ducky is the only local that's been posting on this topic about the quad packs so far...

And what does what was said on March 13th have to do with what happened on March 15th? This was an incredibly unique and fluid situation. As of that Saturday night when I went out to dinner they were fully expecting to open the next day (groomers were out working the first shift already). While I was having dinner word came out that Alterra was shutting things down and overruled the local decisions to stay open. By the time I finished dinner, all the groomers had been called back in and basically stopped work mid-shift.

There's a lot of passholders that lost out on part of the season as well. There's a lot of employees and local businesses around the mountains that suddenly had no work and had to shut down. Everyone was impacted by this. I doubt anyone expected us to still have all these issues now. No one expected the weather to not cooperate to get enough snow down in November. Quad pack holders are making it sound like they're the only ones that lost out and are somehow owed more than what was offered. Yes, it sucks. But this is an unprecedented situation.
 

mikec142

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I don’t know if it’s fair. We bought quad passes specifically for March 14 and 15. They closed weeks earlier than usual, have been closed for the past 249 days (since March 15), are still closed and yet we only have 36 days until the quad passes expire. On top of that, Winn sent us all an email on March 13th encouraging us to buy tickets. If I was a local, OK - might be able to squeeze a day in December but we are not (plus 14 day quarantines).
I feel for you. I have one unused quad pack ticket from last year. I also have one unused one from the year before as well. I also have 3 days of unused Ski VT tickets from last year.

But I believe that you are conflating two issue. First is you bought quad packs sometime from September to November. Win's email that you posted gave the best information that he had at the time. If you had bought day tix for the weekend of 3/14-15 they would have been refunded if you couldn't use them. It's two separate issues. Getting credit for unused quad packs vs. getting a refund for unused day tix purchased after his email. You had from opening day until March 14th to use the quad pack tix.

My family and I knew things were getting weird in late February. But we still went about our days as normally as possible. We went out to dinner (ate inside) on March 13th with two other couples. Our kids went to indoor parties with their friends on March 14th while we had friends over for dinner the same night. We knew things were about to change, but we certainly didn't think we would be on lock down with no in person school, working from home, etc. We certainly didn't foresee being in essentially the same place 8 months later.

My point is that you're making it seem like there was an intentional effort to screw people and I think that's unfair. People are doing the best they can. When SB made the decision to honor unused quad pack tix until 12/24 I thought that was gravy. I'm pretty sure that very few folks thought that the world would basically come to a stop.
 

Sully

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Nov 18, 2020
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C'mon, you can't really blame anyone for the way shit went down in March. Maybe I'm interpreting what youre saying incorrectly, but it sounds like you feel like Win "promised" you the mountain would be open as usual, and that he tricked you into not using your tickets. I don't know where you were, but where I was in NY, no one knew what was going to happen from one day to the next.
Yes, you are correct in your misinterpretation.
 

Sully

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I feel for you. I have one unused quad pack ticket from last year. I also have one unused one from the year before as well. I also have 3 days of unused Ski VT tickets from last year.

But I believe that you are conflating two issue. First is you bought quad packs sometime from September to November. Win's email that you posted gave the best information that he had at the time. If you had bought day tix for the weekend of 3/14-15 they would have been refunded if you couldn't use them. It's two separate issues. Getting credit for unused quad packs vs. getting a refund for unused day tix purchased after his email. You had from opening day until March 14th to use the quad pack tix.

My family and I knew things were getting weird in late February. But we still went about our days as normally as possible. We went out to dinner (ate inside) on March 13th with two other couples. Our kids went to indoor parties with their friends on March 14th while we had friends over for dinner the same night. We knew things were about to change, but we certainly didn't think we would be on lock down with no in person school, working from home, etc. We certainly didn't foresee being in essentially the same place 8 months later.

My point is that you're making it seem like there was an intentional effort to screw people and I think that's unfair. People are doing the best they can. When SB made the decision to honor unused quad pack tix until 12/24 I thought that was gravy. I'm pretty sure that very few folks thought that the world would basically come to a stop.
No. That’s not my point. My point is that they should give us more time to use the passes.
 

hovercraft

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Feb 2, 2015
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If these people go every year on st patty’s day and they can use their ticket from last year they aren’t buying another for this year.
I guess you can look at it that way. Being a small business owner I look at the value of a long term guest. In our case I have a season pass at another mountain but we still like going to Sugarbush in the spring. With this policy of giving us about three weeks to use the tickets in a COVID environment we decided we will not go back to Sugarbush again. So in this case they lost way more then one sale this year.
 

MisterMagoo

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Hey HC,

Sugarbush is not a business as much as it is an entire community w/ many different stakeholders. We’ve got folks that visit all season and some that only visit every few years - the distinguishing factor is that it’s a community of like-minded people that believe in the resort, believe in the valley, believe in arguably the best skiing experience around and believe in keeping the mojo that makes it all so special. What we’ve got is so much more than just a small business like you have.

I could repeat what others have already said about pass holders, employees, etc. But if you really feel that you’re done w/ Sugarbush, then that’s your loss. But let’s be honest, that’s on you, not the mountain.
 

Powder Whore

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Nov 4, 2020
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It seems pretty cut and dry to me? Quad pass lost about a month of skiing last season. It was replaced with about a month of skiing this season.
 

Keelhauled

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Dec 13, 2015
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Hey HC,

Sugarbush is not a business as much as it is an entire community w/ many different stakeholders. We’ve got folks that visit all season and some that only visit every few years - the distinguishing factor is that it’s a community of like-minded people that believe in the resort, believe in the valley, believe in arguably the best skiing experience around and believe in keeping the mojo that makes it all so special. What we’ve got is so much more than just a small business like you have.

I could repeat what others have already said about pass holders, employees, etc. But if you really feel that you’re done w/ Sugarbush, then that’s your loss. But let’s be honest, that’s on you, not the mountain.
...it's also wholly owned by a multi-billion dollar Denver conglomerate bankrolled by private equity investors. You can pretend it's "not a business" as much as you want, but for better or worse the industry is always answerable to turning a profit, and Sugarbush is no exception. I'm sure the folks at Alterra HQ are looking for a return on their purchase, valley and community be damned.

Nice advertising copy, though.
 

hovercraft

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Hey HC,

Sugarbush is not a business as much as it is an entire community w/ many different stakeholders. We’ve got folks that visit all season and some that only visit every few years - the distinguishing factor is that it’s a community of like-minded people that believe in the resort, believe in the valley, believe in arguably the best skiing experience around and believe in keeping the mojo that makes it all so special. What we’ve got is so much more than just a small business like you have.

I could repeat what others have already said about pass holders, employees, etc. But if you really feel that you’re done w/ Sugarbush, then that’s your loss. But let’s be honest, that’s on you, not the mountain.
Your response is laughable on so many levels I’m not even sure where to start. What I will congratulate you on is living in an “entire community” where the first orgasm was created. Way better then my small business could ever achieve. ......
 
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tumbler

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This has gotten painful to read of self entitled d-bags that think Sugarbush owes them something. You didn't buy a membership in a club. And when you are here on your special annual trip for your 2 ski days a year you are probable berating a lift op about why the didn't groom Middle Earth for you. Go to Killington.

Can we get back to bitching about snowmaking?
 

slatham

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Changing subject. With terrible CAMs to begin with and now best one down, where exactly are they making snow? From the golf club view it does not look like Spring Fling or Gate House seeing any?
 

tumbler

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You can see from the golf course cam they are running up top on Jester. Use the app, the cameras work better on that and you can zoom in. Switch to summer setting. Except for the one that is broken
 

cdskier

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Changing subject. With terrible CAMs to begin with and now best one down, where exactly are they making snow? From the golf club view it does not look like Spring Fling or Gate House seeing any?
On the mobile app you can still get to most of the cams. And yes, the Super Bravo cams and Gate House cams confirm that it doesn't look like anything being made on the Spring Fling trail or in the base area by Super Bravo or Gate House...definitely bizarre to not take advantage of those cold temps down low while you have them. You can always go back up high later.
 

Castlerockrisk

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From my house the only activity I can see is on upper organginder and jester at south and possibly elbow at North. All the trails are white but only sporadic white spots at lower elevations, it looks like 1.5/2” above 2000’ feet.

Kmart opens tomorrow
 
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