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Pro and cons of ski areas staying open when no one is skiing!

jimk

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 1, 2012
Messages
1,790
Points
113
Location
Wash DC area
I can't blame a ski area for closing when conditions are miserably wet or dangerously cold, windy, icy, etc. In fact, down here in the mid-Atlantic they sometimes don't open if a once or twice a decade fresh snowfall is so deep (2-4 feet) that staff can't get from their homes to the mountain.

But the normal expectation is that ski areas will almost always operate shy of truly life threatening conditions. One time I went on a company ski trip to a ski area in PA in the early 1980s. Organizers got two busloads of participants. I was stoked to show coworkers that I knew something about the sport. Organizers called the ski area the day before about a rainy forecast and got the word that the ski area would be open next day. It rained like heck overnight and next day, but the show went on and when we arrived at the ski area it was unexpectedly closed. Someone at the ski area had made a command decision that morning to close for the day. Even though it would have been a lousy day, our group was pissed because we'd all expended a vacation day from work and there was no refund for the bus costs. After about an hour of milling around the ski area lodge we loaded back into the busses and went home. It was a three hour bus ride each direction. Some folks killed the time by boozing it up, but I just didn't feel like doing that at ten o'clock in the morning. Hopefully, this kind of scenario is a thing of the past with all the instant info sharing that goes with smart phones and social media these days.

I have skied in the rain literally 100s of times over the last 50 years. Not that I love skiing in the rain, but you do what you have to do, esp when you're young and dumb. It is a frequent winter event in the mid-Atlantic ski season. Also, when doing a trip to New England that lasts only 4 or 5 ski days I am going to ski through anything. In late Feb 2011 me and two friends skied at Suicide Six on a rainy weekday (photos from that day below). We skied for about 4 or 5 hours and rain came down harder and harder, but the snow surface remained halfway decent. There were a few other customers out there too. We eventually got soaked and by the time we quit we were the only three people on the mtn besides staff. Suicide Six holds an amazing place in American ski history (first rope tow 1934) and the base lodge had some interesting historical exhibits.
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