VAIL SUCKS

[abc]

This shit keeps up and i may ditch epic next year...supporting this company is a waste of time...

Good for you either way.

I don't "support" corporations. I pay for a product and expect to receive what's promised.

I'm not an early season skiers. Also, the weather is not that great this season so far. So I'm somewhat indifferent to the Vail fiasco. That said, I suspect I'll join the bitching late in the season when they shut down perfectly good mountains with lots of snow on the trail.

That, would pretty much nail my decision to not renew my Epic pass. (btw, I'm not on auto-renew).

 

[IceEidolon]

I totally understand skiing somewhere besides Magic, but I sure wouldn't have picked a Vail NH mountain as the substitute! If this keeps up next year Magic might be able to advertise more snowmaking terrain than Wildcat. I know Sunapee is the best of the three but still.

 

[snoseek]

Vail should consider fat sign on bonuses and extend that to current employees if they want to avoid a potential disaster to both the rest of their season and ultimately their stock price. They won't, but they should

 

[Geoff]

So my Outback is in the shop getting an oil leak fixed under extended warranty and they gave me a Forester as a loaner. Where should I day trip tomorrow? Sunapee is a 2 1/2 hour ride. Mt Snow is 3 1/4. I see snow guns on the Carinthia web cam. Do I assume that Mount Snow will have cranked up a bunch of fan guns? I can’t imagine Sunapee has the compressor power to blow more than one trail at a time. With a loaner, pay parking without paying should work fine.

 

[ThatGuy]

So my Outback is in the shop getting an oil leak fixed under extended warranty and they gave me a Forester as a loaner. Where should I day trip tomorrow? Sunapee is a 2 1/2 hour ride. Mt Snow is 3 1/4. I see snow guns on the Carinthia web cam. Do I assume that Mount Snow will have cranked up a bunch of fan guns? I can’t imagine Sunapee has the compressor power to blow more than one trail at a time. With a loaner, pay parking without paying should work fine.

After the warm temps and the freeze today I’d say Snow has the best chance of decent resurfacing.

 

[abc]

With a loaner, pay parking without paying should work fine.

Not following...

 

[Geoff]

After the warm temps and the freeze today I’d say Snow has the best chance of decent resurfacing.

To repeat an earlier post, how do you find out where they’re making snow?

 

[drjeff]

So my Outback is in the shop getting an oil leak fixed under extended warranty and they gave me a Forester as a loaner. Where should I day trip tomorrow? Sunapee is a 2 1/2 hour ride. Mt Snow is 3 1/4. I see snow guns on the Carinthia web cam. Do I assume that Mount Snow will have cranked up a bunch of fan guns? I can’t imagine Sunapee has the compressor power to blow more than one trail at a time. With a loaner, pay parking without paying should work fine.

Can pretty much guarantee that all 10 of these pumps in the pump house near the base of Carinthia are working full bore right now, and for close to 24hrs now, putting over 8k gallons a minute of water up to the summit valve house for snow.

Standard recovery plan in most of the fan gun trails on the main face as well as the air/water guns on Long John and Cascade 1st. Sometimes more depending on how many GPM they're running the guns at.

Wouldn't be surprised if they give phase 1 of this recovery a 48hr run to put some of the base lost the last week back, and hopefully not have to go back to that terrain again before MLK Weekend

 

[drjeff]

To repeat an earlier post, how do you find out where they’re making snow?

Not so easy these days...

They have been mentioning some of the trails where they're currently making snow on in the 1st paragraph or 2 of the snow report the last couple of weeks

Definitely miss the snowmaking icons on the lift and trail report though

 

[Geoff]

Not following...

Rental car. I don’t care if some parking lot attendant at Mount Snow puts a “ticket” on it. It’s not like they’re going to chase down a rental registered to a Subaru dealer in Massachusetts.

 

[RichT]

"Beat up" is an understatement. High-volume trails like Belt and Hell Gate and Mossy had big incursions of brown snow down to mud in places, and some vital connectors like the end of White Cloud where it meets mid-station were all but gone by early Sunday. I'd rather they got that shored up first if there's a decision to be made there.

Hunter has enough power to turn on just about every gun at once! I've seen it many times in my 35 yrs skiing there.

 

[Geoff]

View attachment 52611
Can pretty much guarantee that all 10 of these pumps in the pump house near the base of Carinthia are working full bore right now, and for close to 24hrs now, putting over 8k gallons a minute of water up to the summit valve house for snow.

Standard recovery plan in most of the fan gun trails on the main face as well as the air/water guns on Long John and Cascade 1st. Sometimes more depending on how many GPM they're running the guns at.

Wouldn't be surprised if they give phase 1 of this recovery a 48hr run to put some of the base lost the last week back, and hopefully not have to go back to that terrain again before MLK Weekend

So I should expect at least 3 or 4 ways down that aren’t golf balls and sheet ice? One of them the novice wrap-around trail. Focus on intermediate stuff?

 

[drjeff]

So I should expect at least 3 or 4 ways down that aren’t golf balls and sheet ice? One of them the novice wrap-around trail. Focus on intermediate stuff?

That's a safe bet. Plus with tomorrow having a minimum of a 2nd groom since things froze up last night, the quantity of golf balls should be minimized and converted into machine groomed loose granular over a solid surface where the resurfacing hasn't happened yet

 

[deadheadskier]

Vail's whole strategy is to try and get one or two trips a year out West from East coasters like us. If they can get us out West to one of their premier resorts Vail's odds of generating more revenue greatly increases as they own lots of hotels and restaurants at their premier resorts. They own very few hotels and restaurants in the East, so it's easy to see why they are letting their small resorts back here go. They don't make much money off them and instead Vail uses the East coast resorts as a tool to get you out West. This strategy is clearly backfiring amongst the majority of us who ski the East and Mid Atlantic.

Now factor in Covid and the various staffing issues around the mountains because of it and this early season has turned into a disaster. Vail wants you out West especially during the holidays but Keystone over New Years week only had 30% of their terrain opened with the resort's snowfall at 100% of it's historical average. Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, and Vail were all around 50% opened and they all had enough snow to be well over 75% opened during New Years week.

We made the best of it and will pretty much have a good time no matter what if we're skiing but I could certainly understand how Vail's customers would be extremely pissed, especially if your trip over the holidays was to Keystone.

The problem is that since taking over in the NorthEast, the number of Epic Pass holders heading west to ski is tiny. Around 8% according to a friend who was high up in data analysis for Vail. Numbers are a bit higher for Mid Atlantic skiers.

Granted, the numbers will probably improve as the pandemic fades, but how much who knows. Say it improves to 20% in the Northeast. If you are delivering a crap product to the 80% of your base who either can't afford to or are disinterested in traveling West to ski, the market share is gonna drop. Maybe (hopefully) catastrophically.

I just don't think they understand just how important snowmaking is everywhere in the East. It was an aspect of the sport that has greatly improved over the past 40 years. Now that Vail is going backwards in that regards, people are going to get more and more frustrated. This is especially true when they look around and see the competition is not struggling so badly.

 

[Tonyr]

Its

Ide like to know what makes them think that if no one wants to work for this pay this year..when will they ever want to?
They apparently want to play chicken...with labor..see who gives in first.
And..if they want people to come out west..where they seem to have the same problem..then how will that work?

It's not just pay, it's the lack of employee housing, vaccine requirements that eliminate from an already tight labor pool, and people calling out sick with Covid.

I'd say 25% to 30% of the stores in Vail Village were closed over Christmas time which is the busiest time of the year for retail. It was a ghost town Christmas Eve in Vail Village, we were shocked. We also had dinner reservations canceled on two separate occasions due to lack of staff and Covid outbreaks.

As far as the last question goes your absolutely right, the Western experience they want you to have is lacking now just as much as their watered down East coast experience and it's not good path to be going down......

What is concerning to me and may be a tell is Vail couldn't pay their employees on time in California at the end of the year and blamed it on a bank holiday. That is total BS, banks and brokerages don't close the last day of the year. Atleast none of the major one's do. I'm wondering if this "cash crunch" will have an effect on what they can open across the country as the season moves on. I sure hope not.

 

[Tonyr]

A

The problem is that since taking over in the NorthEast, the number of Epic Pass holders heading west to ski is tiny. Around 8% according to a friend who was high up in data analysis for Vail. Numbers are a bit higher for Mid Atlantic skiers.

Granted, the numbers will probably improve as the pandemic fades, but how much who knows. Say it improves to 20% in the Northeast. If you are delivering a crap product to the 80% of your base who either can't afford to or are disinterested in traveling West to ski, the market share is gonna drop. Maybe (hopefully) catastrophically.

I just don't think they understand just how important snowmaking is everywhere in the East. It was an aspect of the sport that has greatly improved over the past 40 years. Now that Vail is going backwards in that regards, people are going to get more and more frustrated. This is especially true when they look around and see the competition is not struggling so badly.

Agreed, a bad product in the East, Atlantic, and Midwest isn't going to make you rush out to visit their Western resorts.

 

[2Planker]

Rental car. I don’t care if some parking lot attendant at Mount Snow puts a “ticket” on it. It’s not like they’re going to chase down a rental registered to a Subaru dealer in Massachusetts.

They certainly could tow it like Stowe does

 

[Kingslug20]

Stowe should not have a housing problem as you can live within an hour affordably..
Its pay..snowmaking is a brutal job...
They better figure this out...this shit wont last too many seasons...

 

[snoseek]

Stowe should not have a housing problem as you can live within an hour affordably..
Its pay..snowmaking is a brutal job...
They better figure this out...this shit wont last too many seasons...

I don't know what you're definition of affordable is but the act of commuting an hour each day to and from is expensive.

 

[Geoff]

This doesn’t align at all with what I’ve been hearing. My stepdaughter manages a retail store on the main drag in Vail Village close to the covered bridge and the parking structure. Her store smashed every sales record last week. Like 2x what the store has ever done in December. Her boyfriend is a waiter & bartender at a nearby high end restaurant. Same thing there. All the local businesses are paying really well to hire strong staff and they’re printing money.

Which is of course why Vail is having problems staffing the low end jobs. Anyone any good is making much better money. The customer base is spending like crazy.

I'd say 25% to 30% of the stores in Vail Village were closed over Christmas time which is the busiest time of the year for retail. It was a ghost town Christmas Eve in Vail Village, we were shocked. We also had dinner reservations canceled on two separate occasions due to lack of staff and Covid outbreaks.