Gunstock and Crotched 12/16/2017

[Bostonian]

Date: 12/16/2017

Resort(s): Gunstock and Crotched!

Conditions: At Gunstock packed powder, which Crotched was primarily hard pack under the lights

Report: So today is something I have never done in my life, skied at two different resorts, at opposite ends of the clock and so early in the season! The day began at Gunstock, where they had top to bottom open on two different routes. This year I am not as pleased with management's decision to include the "Fare Gates", as it has created many more issues than solved. I am happy that they though they had 2 and a half routes from the top, and the skiing was really good. Ended up lapping trigger, and gunsmoke all morning. Also celebrated my 5 year in the mug club too! After skiing, I had to do some errands (ie. cleaning our winter ski house), but I did manage to ski to about 1pm! After heading to visit my parents in Nashua, I stopped for coffee in Milford and figured - hell Crotched is only 15 miles away - I will take a few runs! So I got there in a middle of a squall and boom two mountains one day! Here are the photos below!

Love this view:

Tons of snow up top - the new guns help a lot!

Trails are buried where they have blown!

Gunsmoke!

The view of winni!

Riding the Crotch Rocket!

Riding down Meteor!

 

[Edd]

Baller day. What are fare gates?


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[Bostonian]

The RFID gates - similar to what is at Okemo and Sunapee.

 

[Edd]

They are having some problems loading the cards from home. Hopefully they can get it sorted out soon. It’s an issue with vendor software.

I generally like RFID. And the data is valuable for the ski areas.


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[Bumpsis]

Does Gunstock charge extra for the RFID card when you first get it? I know some places do. It's not much but still annoying having to pay a "fee" just to buy a lift ticket.

 

[Edd]

They definitely charge $5 to replace it if you lose it but everyplace does that.


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[Bumpsis]

They definitely charge $5 to replace it if you lose it but everyplace does that.


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Sure, paying for the card replacement I understand, but the question posed is does Gunstock add a $ 5.00 charge to whatever lift ticket you buy, when you first buy it?
If so, that kind of sucks. If I want to have family ski day at Gunstock, I'll be then expected to pay extra $ 20 ( 4 of us) on top of the price of tickets, if indeed they impose that charge on the initial purchase of their lift ticket product. So $ 20 isn't going to break me, but if we choose not come back to Gunstock, I will feel kind of ripped off.

I just recently bought a Quad Pack that Sugrbush is or was offering in November. On top of the actual price of the quad pack, they added a fee of $ 5.00 for the RFID card which will carry the purchased tickets. So, that's an upfront fee for just being able to buy the lift tickets. It did not mind all that much to pay this since the quad pack offered a really good deal - something close to 50% off regular rate, but still, having to pay the extra $5 felt wrong.

The RFID technology doesn't really speed things up for customers, it mostly benefits the ski area. I can't really think how having the RFID card really benefits the customer. If they choose to offer it to perhaps decrease their operational expense, customers should not have to take the extra financial ding in order for the ski area to have a RFID system in place.