VAIL SUCKS

[Smellytele]

To be perfectly blunt, that's a piss-poor terrible attitude and stance. Having gone through multiple mergers over the years I can tell you the ones where the acquiring company tried to assimilate the people in the new acquisition into their culture are the ones that had the most problems and resulted in the lowest morale (among people from both sides of the acquisition/merger). The most successful mergers were the ones where the parent company realized that maybe there were things they could learn from the company they acquired and tried to take the best cultural aspects of each party to the merger.

Sounds like the difference between vail and alterra. Well at least in what they say.

 

[cdskier]

Sounds like the difference between vail and alterra. Well at least in what they say.

It does and I'll be interested to see if what Alterra does in the next couple years matches what they say. Just finished listening to Rusty's latest interview on the Storm Skiing podcast and once again he seems to say a lot of the right things.

 

[xlr8r]

Also keep in mind Sugarbush was purchased by Alterra more recently than the Peak Resorts Acquisition. While I have heard reports of long time employees leaving there since the sale, there have been very few complaints about the operations, staffing, and service this season.

 

[drjeff]

Also keep in mind Sugarbush was purchased by Alterra more recently than the Peak Resorts Acquisition. While I have heard reports of long time employees leaving there since the sale, there have been very few complaints about the operations, staffing, and service this season.

Talk with Dan Egan about that and how the locals feel about how Alterra cut ties with him and his role as basically a Sugarbush Ambassador this season.....

 

[KustyTheKlown]

his role to ski for free and do no real work on a nice salary with benefits.

 

[cdskier]

Talk with Dan Egan about that and how the locals feel about how Alterra cut ties with him and his role as basically a Sugarbush Ambassador this season.....

I think you mean John...

And I've said this before, as bad as I feel for John as he's a great guy, if it came down to a choice between him and cutting Mountain Ops budget, I'd say they made the right choice. Could it have been handled better? Yes. But overall that's a minor issue IMO and had virtually no impact on daily operations of their core business (i.e. skiing).

 

[xlr8r]

Talk with Dan Egan about that and how the locals feel about how Alterra cut ties with him and his role as basically a Sugarbush Ambassador this season.....

As I said, I have heard of longtime employees leaving, and sure some were let go. My point is that Sugarbush still has done a good job with operations despite the turnover, while Vail resorts have not.

 

[ericfromMA/NH/VT]

The no singles lines is a NH thing not a Vail thing. I think all NH mountains got guidance from the state in December that officially stopped the use of singles lines that paired up two singles on opposite sides of a quad. I noticed for the first couple weeks both Sunapee and Crotched were setting up singles lines to pair two singles up, but by January that stopped. Having also skied Cannon and Waterville which also have quads in NH, those mountains also do not have singles lines this season.

I agree on everything else. There is even more to add.
-One of double doubles has also not run at all this season.
-Abenaki was not run midweek until mid season
-Bobcat was not run until February
-Sunapee only having one run open after the huge December dump, when other trails could have opened on natural only.

The fact is that other ski areas planned for this season and succeeded even with the changes needed for Covid. For instance Vail has done almost nothing to encourage people to eat, drink, rest outside, instead of come in the lodge. Lots of mountains have increased deck or patio space, and created take out windows to allow people to buy food drinks without coming into the lodge, or have gotten food trucks to come to the mountain. Vail has done none of that. Vail is not letting its resorts be creative with finding solutions to this ever challenging season. They instead have done the bare minimum.

Ragged had a singles line all year. Its a mountain by mountain thing.

 

[2Planker]

WMV is one of the best ski area's in the country.
We have 2 Vail resorts here and EVERYBODY knows that Vail totally dropped the ball this past year.
Locals, businesses, not to mention all the skies/riders. Basically the whole MWV HATES VAIL.
Very Sad, but also very true.
Best thing that could ever happen for the MWV would be for them to unload both Attitash & The Cat to someone who actually cares about the resorts and the area.
More to come later.........

 

[eatskisleep]

WMV is one of the best ski area's in the country.
We have 2 Vail resorts here and EVERYBODY knows that Vail totally dropped the ball this past year.
Locals, businesses, not to mention all the skies/riders. Basically the whole MWV HATES VAIL.
Very Sad, but also very true.
Best thing that could ever happen for the MWV would be for them to unload both Attitash & The Cat to someone who actually cares about the resorts and the area.
More to come later.........

I hope so too. It really would be the best thing to happen. Local ownership would be great. Or even state like Cannon would be light years past the current management.

 

[thebigo]

Skied wildcat this am, currently tubing with kids at cranmore. The stark contrast between a well run operation and the disaster up the street could not be more apparent. Vail needs to leave our valley.

 

[ericfromMA/NH/VT]

Skied wildcat this am, currently tubing with kids at cranmore. The stark contrast between a well run operation and the disaster up the street could not be more apparent. Vail needs to leave our valley.

what makes the vail places such disaster areas? I'm gonna buy the epix pass I think. thx!

 

[snoseek]

what makes the vail places such disaster areas? I'm gonna buy the epix pass I think. thx!

You should read the thread. Pass is a good deal tbh but you get what you pay for.

 

[2Planker]

what makes the vail places such disaster areas? I'm gonna buy the epix pass I think. thx!

You've got 102 pages to read.

 

[ericfromMA/NH/VT]

You've got 102 pages to read.

I'm up to page 38!

 

[HowieT2]

I think you mean John...

And I've said this before, as bad as I feel for John as he's a great guy, if it came down to a choice between him and cutting Mountain Ops budget, I'd say they made the right choice. Could it have been handled better? Yes. But overall that's a minor issue IMO and had virtually no impact on daily operations of their core business (i.e. skiing).

agreed. and I would add, that situation may not have been a totally Alterra thing. The new boss is a local and has worked at SB his entire life.

 

[Whitey]

I think you mean John...

And I've said this before, as bad as I feel for John as he's a great guy, if it came down to a choice between him and cutting Mountain Ops budget, I'd say they made the right choice. Could it have been handled better? Yes. But overall that's a minor issue IMO and had virtually no impact on daily operations of their core business (i.e. skiing).

Good lord you are a fraud. Does "consistency" mean nothing to you? You say this just hours after you replied to my post that in a major acquisition there may come a time where you have to "tear the bandaid off" and if people aren't assimilating to the new company and its ways - it's time to go. And I wasn't even advocating that course per se, I was noting that a case could be made for this approach and maybe we shouldn't just assume it could only be because "Vail sucks". But you had to get on your soapbox about your amazing expertise. In case you're trying to forget that post, here it is:

"To be perfectly blunt, that's a piss-poor terrible attitude and stance. Having gone through multiple mergers over the years I can tell you the ones where the acquiring company tried to assimilate the people in the new acquisition into their culture are the ones that had the most problems and resulted in the lowest morale (among people from both sides of the acquisition/merger). The most successful mergers were the ones where the parent company realized that maybe there were things they could learn from the company they acquired and tried to take the best cultural aspects of each party to the merger."

After you responded with this I was going to note that you are either a complete fraud who either doesn't actually have the experience you claim to have or you are just really bad at your job (or you were just a bean-counter or an admin on your "mergers" and you don't have any experience with operational integration). But I didn't feel like getting into an on-line flamewar so I left it alone. But your rank hypocrisy leaves me no choice now.

It's just the same old sh1t, repackaged. SB is your home mountain and so everything they do is wonderful and justified. Even their snow is purer and better, probably whiter too. They can do no wrong, even under new ownership.

 

[deadheadskier]

I'm not sure John Egan, celebrity ski instructor and mentor moved the needle much at SB. He was basically what Billy Kidd was at Steamboat.

Who likely has moved the needle is their mountain operations director Patrick. They hired him away from Vail where he had been doing a great job at Wildcat for many years.

Patrick would have been a far more experienced and better choice to have promoted to GM at Wildcat or Attitash. Instead they moved over a Risk Manager from Mt Snow to run Wildcat and hired some kid with a couple years experience at a bump in Indiana to run Attitash. Disastrous performance by both, but they were overmatched.

 

[cdskier]

Good lord you are a fraud. Does "consistency" mean nothing to you? You say this just hours after you replied to my post that in a major acquisition there may come a time where you have to "tear the bandaid off" and if people aren't assimilating to the new company and its ways - it's time to go. And I wasn't even advocating that course per se, I was noting that a case could be made for this approach and maybe we shouldn't just assume it could only be because "Vail sucks". But you had to get on your soapbox about your amazing expertise. In case you're trying to forget that post, here it is:

"To be perfectly blunt, that's a piss-poor terrible attitude and stance. Having gone through multiple mergers over the years I can tell you the ones where the acquiring company tried to assimilate the people in the new acquisition into their culture are the ones that had the most problems and resulted in the lowest morale (among people from both sides of the acquisition/merger). The most successful mergers were the ones where the parent company realized that maybe there were things they could learn from the company they acquired and tried to take the best cultural aspects of each party to the merger."

After you responded with this I was going to note that you are either a complete fraud who either doesn't actually have the experience you claim to have or you are just really bad at your job (or you were just a bean-counter or an admin on your "mergers" and you don't have any experience with operational integration). But I didn't feel like getting into an on-line flamewar so I left it alone. But your rank hypocrisy leaves me no choice now.

It's just the same old sh1t, repackaged. SB is your home mountain and so everything they do is wonderful and justified. Even their snow is purer and better, probably whiter too. They can do no wrong, even under new ownership.

You're comparing 2 things that have nothing at all to do with one another. Not once did I say you keep every single person in a merger. I simply said you don't just automatically assume the acquiring company's way is better and everyone needs to fall in line with the way they do things. You also have absolutely no knowledge on the specifics around why John's position was not retained after the Alterra acquisition of SB. And once again, as great a guy as John is, he was not integral to the daily operations of the resort. Letting him go did not cause the actual skiing product to be impacted (unlike the decisions that Vail made that have resulted in a 102 page thread about all the various things that HAVE directly impacted the skiing experience at several of their resorts).

And if you think I've never been critical of SB's decisions (either under new ownership or previous ownership), then you have certainly missed a number of my posts over the years.

Calling me a fraud is just hilarious. Get over yourself. I gave personal first hand experience (never claimed it was "expertise" or that I was in charge of any mergers) over what I have seen that works well and what doesn't work well.

 

[ericfromMA/NH/VT]

I was at Wildcat last Saturday virtually everything on the middle of the mountain is yours and yours alone if you want it.
And the cover was still really great - though that might have changed by now. Hope you get a great day.

why is it people are not using those middle mountain runs? To me looks like the best part of the mountain and they are blues for the most part...

I'd think they'd be jammed with everyone who dosent want to ski the greens and/or can't quite ski the blacks. I can ski the blacks and I'd still put a ton of time on them.

FWIW i have never skied wildcat, but will make a couple trips there next season.

Thanks!