The "Sugarbush Thread"

[Kingslug20]

Im going tomorrow regardless..cant...paint...anymore...

 

[slatham]

Great point on the friends and family. The Ikon pass advertises the friends and family discount as some kind of great benefit when in reality it's useless at Sugarbush. They've set their window rate at $180 (highest in the east I believe) - which makes Ikon discount tickets $135. Hardly a bargain when there is only a few days on the calendar that are more than that ($139) with the majority between 110 and 120. So Sugarbush has found a way to participate in the letter of the program but not necessarily the spirit.

Understand they are probably doing it for crowd management but not really a useful benefit for the full-time Sugarbush skier who wants to bring their friends and family up for a day at the mountain.

Two major negative side affects of Ikon/Epic - friends/family not skiing together because they are on different passes, or because they simply can’t afford the “discounted” day rate of $125 and up. Really disappointing. Personally I think they should scale the discount based on demand. So less of a discount on a holiday, a bit more on a non holiday weekend, and still more on a weekday.

 

[WinS]

I personally think that all decisions at Sugarbush this year are coming from John Hammonds team with input from his trusted friends like Win. I have not heard any scuttlebutt to the contrary and I have asked around. It looks like they sink or swim with whatever they choose to do. The only exception was that they were given the direction to go with App Altura wanted to use. The snowmaking is an existing problem, the power company and weather is not under thier control.

My only concern about Altera is the legacy of what thier pass structure has created. cheaper passes and sugarbush as a base mountain is a no brainer for opening the flood gates. This is exactly what happened at Snowbird and Crystal and I can only hope it does not happen here. Once the snow starts falling, what are the crowds going to look like. We will see.

The other thing that I am sure they did not plan on is the cost barrier that will exclude friends and families from coming up. I have seen it this year in dramatic fasion. None of my friends and family will come up because they will not pay over $100 in advance to ski a mountain that may have questionable conditions or massive crowds. Not worth it to them. I truely think that pass holders that have had passes at one mountain for over 10 years should get a break so that they can have these people come to ski with them. Just my opinion. Actually the opinion of many.

There is nothing worse than an ex CEO meddling, so I normally limit by advice to when asked. However, I am going to share some thoughts on the snow report. I believe the new web and app limit the words that are possible as did the old ones, but I think improvements can be made. There is a new snow reporter, and she is located here not Denver, so there should be a way to get more useful information in the report. I normally ski first thing but today I had a call and can attest that is did not get softer. Yesterday, a useful tip would have been that Spring Fling got a late groom, so it would be the best to hit first. I saw that from my home and had some great runs. Today it was hard packed as it set up after an early groom and hard to get an edge in. Plan to pass that along. I think the whales on Pushover and Slowpoke will groom out nicely [when they do it. I do see that Sunrise is set up to turn on tonight and based on the forecast I would presume they will finish up GH trails and then move over to Snowball and Racer‘s Edge and then mid-mountain Birdland and Murphy’s. Just an educated guess though. The Summit Chair at ME is opening tomorrow, so it will be great to be able to ski Elbow and Rim Run finally.

 

[shadyjay]

Whales on Pushover..... that is DEFINITELY something that should be mentioned in the snow report. Especially since the app doesn't show grooming status on trails. A mention of no easier route open from the top of Gate House may be important information to pass along.

I did get a good laugh on Monday's report when it said things were going to "soften up". It was in the 20s down here in CT on Monday. Given the freeze/thaws and lack of natural lately, I think I'm going to delay my visit up there until early March. I can't imagine going to Mt Ellen and not being able to lap some of my favorite runs off Summit/NRE. In lean snow years in the early 90s during the Christmas/NYE holiday, Lincoln Peak had minimal trails open (picture what was open on GH side this year + Downspout + Spring Fling... that's it), while Mt Ellen had pretty much all of its snowmaking-capable trails open. Mt Ellen was the early/late season mtn too, so you started with Summit and worked down.

 

[MadPadraic]

The other thing that I am sure they did not plan on is the cost barrier that will exclude friends and families from coming up. I have seen it this year in dramatic fasion. None of my friends and family will come up because they will not pay over $100 in advance to ski a mountain that may have questionable conditions or massive crowds. Not worth it to them. I truely think that pass holders that have had passes at one mountain for over 10 years should get a break so that they can have these people come to ski with them. Just my opinion. Actually the opinion of many.

10 years is both arbitrary and an extremely high bar. However, they really should get creative and solve this for the good of the industry.

 

[thetrailboss]

10 years is both arbitrary and an extremely high bar. However, they really should get creative and solve this for the good of the industry.

This issue as well as the high-cost barrier for entry into the sport. Win's SB had a product to address the latter.

 

[cdskier]

However, I am going to share some thoughts on the snow report. I believe the new web and app limit the words that are possible as did the old ones, but I think improvements can be made.

So just for reference I took a look at Stratton's website right now (which seems to be on the same Alterra web platform best I can tell as they both pull the snow report info via a JSON feed from the same underlying database) and they are putting a heck of a lot more text on their snow report page somehow (granted a lot of that is info on special deals and promotions similar to what SB used to do on in their report in the past, but at least it seems to indicate there's somehow a way to put more text than SB is doing now). It is also formatted much nicer which makes it much easier to read. When you click "continue reading" on Stratton's page, it just expands the text box on that page as opposed to on the SB site when you click "read more" it pops up an annoying popup box with the text.

 

[slatham]

The old sugarbush snow reports were awesome. “Firm and Fast” was often used, accurately. On natural snow trails “know before you go”, “Thin with exposed water bars”. I even saw the rarely used phrase “dust on crust” in reference to anything not groomed. They weren’t quite as detailed as last weeks MRG report on the opening of the double, but still......

 

[Hawk]

10 years is both arbitrary and an extremely high bar. However, they really should get creative and solve this for the good of the industry.

I am approaching 20. Most of the people I ski with are 30 plus. Most of us spend upwards of 5 grand a person per year not to mention the hundreds of converts we have brought before this whole cheap pass thing came around. To say this is becomming disappointing is an understatment.

 

[nhskier1969]

So just for reference I took a look at Stratton's website right now (which seems to be on the same Alterra web platform best I can tell as they both pull the snow report info via a JSON feed from the same underlying database) and they are putting a heck of a lot more text on their snow report page somehow (granted a lot of that is info on special deals and promotions similar to what SB used to do on in their report in the past, but at least it seems to indicate there's somehow a way to put more text than SB is doing now). It is also formatted much nicer which makes it much easier to read. When you click "continue reading" on Stratton's page, it just expands the text box on that page as opposed to on the SB site when you click "read more" it pops up an annoying popup box with the text.

I mentioned this issue right when Win sold SB. Website is stale, too corporate. You can't treat each ski resort like a Best Buy website, insert name here on the bottom of site. Ski resorts websites need more of a local feel, kinda like the old site.

 

[Shredmonkey254]

I am approaching 20. Most of the people I ski with are 30 plus. Most of us spend upwards of 5 grand a person per year not to mention the hundreds of converts we have brought before this whole cheap pass thing came around. To say this is becomming disappointing is an understatment.

This is our 17th year. Tonight we were talking about quitting the sport, but then said “who are we kidding”... We are responsible for 3 families moving to the valley. My sisters family was thinking of coming up to visit this weekend, but changed their mind after learning of the new deal. A small loss for the mountain, the town and us too. Couldn't agree with Hawk more!

 

[Kingslug20]

Worth a visit tomorrow??

 

[Johnny B]

The old sugarbush snow reports were awesome. “Firm and Fast” was often used, accurately. On natural snow trails “know before you go”, “Thin with exposed water bars”. I even saw the rarely used phrase “dust on crust” in reference to anything not groomed. They weren’t quite as detailed as last weeks MRG report on the opening of the double, but still......

Hey everyone! JB from Sugarbush here, resident PR man. I'm overdue to get involved on here and help answer questions when I can. I think I got so used to Win always doing it I forgot all about these forums!

On the snow report...It's something I've overseen at Sugarbush for nearly a decade now. I think we can all agree that the old app and snow report layout we had built with our last website worked great. We've always worked to be pretty transparent in our report, and we had a lot of extra stats and details other resorts didn't. With our move to this new app and website, there are definitely some limitations compared to what we used to be able to do. Believe me when I say we've been working hard with Alterra to make improvements where possible. In fact, hopefully pretty soon, you should see some nice layout changes to the main conditions page, removing extraneous icons and info like wind speed (it's never accurate!) and adding in what we feel is more important stuff like easy to locate snowfall totals. While we can't create links or do any sort of formating in our narrative right now (for what it's worth we are NOT on the same version as Stratton - various Alterra resorts are in different phases of the snow report system. I believe Big Bear is on the same version as us), we are working to add some "hot links" up near the top of the report to things like Uphill Travel, Health Guidelines, and an Operational Updates page we're building. Bit by bit, we'll work to improve the report with the resources we've been given. The app is obviously a priority too (for now I recommend you always click the info button in bottom right and view the snow report on web tab).

From an actual narrative and language standpoint, I agree the verbiage needs to improve. It's an ongoing training whenever we get a new snow reporter. I always welcome feedback on the snow report (or anything else for that matter)! Just shoot an email over to communications@sugarbush.com anytime you want to connect. Or I'll work to check the forums every now and then.

Now how about some damn snow?!

 

[cdskier]

Welcome John! Good to have you on board here in these forums!

 

[SkiTheEast]

Thanks alot John! Appreciate you jumping in here... we're definitely some well intentioned Sugarbush lovers so you'll have no shortage of suggestions.

 

[pinnoke]

Welcome Johnny B!

 

[Smellytele]

Glad to hear about the uphill link as I can never find all the info. Can see the uphill maps but then can never find the way to actually get to the registration for it that the maps mention.

 

[jaybird]

Seems that in times of low snowfall, it is often the snow report and reporters that end up taking the blame. That's just nuts. Anyone with a browser or window should know by now that there has been sparse natural and thaws have wreaked havoc.The trail report is generally informative as relates to grooming .. but with only 30 trails open, not much a reporter can do to sweeten your coffee.

It is what it is .. ski it by 10:30 or forget it.

 

[Hawk]

Jay, I don't think that peole are blaming the snow reporter for the weather. It's just this era of super fast tech and information that is to blame. People look at the apps and actually plan and live their day based on what it says and actually depend on it. Seems old school people like you and me that just go out no mater what and just ski are few and far between. It's the world that we live in now.

 

[slatham]

Hey everyone! JB from Sugarbush here, resident PR man. I'm overdue to get involved on here and help answer questions when I can. I think I got so used to Win always doing it I forgot all about these forums!

On the snow report...It's something I've overseen at Sugarbush for nearly a decade now. I think we can all agree that the old app and snow report layout we had built with our last website worked great. We've always worked to be pretty transparent in our report, and we had a lot of extra stats and details other resorts didn't. With our move to this new app and website, there are definitely some limitations compared to what we used to be able to do. Believe me when I say we've been working hard with Alterra to make improvements where possible. In fact, hopefully pretty soon, you should see some nice layout changes to the main conditions page, removing extraneous icons and info like wind speed (it's never accurate!) and adding in what we feel is more important stuff like easy to locate snowfall totals. While we can't create links or do any sort of formating in our narrative right now (for what it's worth we are NOT on the same version as Stratton - various Alterra resorts are in different phases of the snow report system. I believe Big Bear is on the same version as us), we are working to add some "hot links" up near the top of the report to things like Uphill Travel, Health Guidelines, and an Operational Updates page we're building. Bit by bit, we'll work to improve the report with the resources we've been given. The app is obviously a priority too (for now I recommend you always click the info button in bottom right and view the snow report on web tab).

From an actual narrative and language standpoint, I agree the verbiage needs to improve. It's an ongoing training whenever we get a new snow reporter. I always welcome feedback on the snow report (or anything else for that matter)! Just shoot an email over to communications@sugarbush.com anytime you want to connect. Or I'll work to check the forums every now and then.

Now how about some damn snow?!

Thanks John. I actually came here this morning to comment on how todays narrative was much improved!

Weather pattern has some potential - certainly colder with numerous shots of snow coming up. But no clear indication yet of what we really want, which is a dump! But there are hints at something going into MLK weekend, which would be interesting given how last winter really kicked-off with MLK snows.