VAIL SUCKS

[snoseek]

Only time i ever entered NH was to ski Tux.
Now NH people are coming over to Stowe..

We always have. Nh vt and maine are one big to me.

 

[chuckstah]

Only time i ever entered NH was to ski Tux.
Now NH people are coming over to Stowe..

Been skiing Stowe forever. Easy day trip from most parts of the state but especially for those near the 93 corridor. Same with anywhere Killington North. The drive to the S. VT areas kinda sucks in comparison.

 

[lobster-catcher]

Helmet stickers for this dumpster fire of an experience.

 

[thetrailboss]

Helmet stickers for this dumpster fire of an experience.
View attachment 53130

Amazing how he cut Epic prices, boosted revenues, and then resigned. Looks like pump and dump.

 

[Kingslug20]

Pretty much

 

[1dog]

Cannon has a hard stop by roughly Patriots Day. They need to close down the mountain and then those staff immediately head to Flume Gorge to open it for the season. The year round staff move back and forth between ski operations and the local state park operations.

Barrons ( Monday, Jan 24th) had post on Vail stock potentially headed $400-$600 based on shrinking ski areas- 15% less than 30 yrs ago - more accessible skiing due to work-from-anywhere changes, and buying 'more valuable assets' like Seven Springs in PA ( $125M)

They still have the avg 10.9 million skiers/riders in US only at 5-6 days a year and believe that could double ( ski days) - doesn't bring in more ticket sales necessarily but it does bump up the large margin F&B potential. I know nothing about the investment firm they interviewed - Durable Capital Partners - he's a newer guy on the Roundtable. Dominating markets seem to have pricing power - even AM raised their base Prime another $20- and did so 4 years ago, another 20%. Article mentioned Alterra did not follow suit on price reduction last year.

 

[abc]

Article mentioned Alterra did not follow suit on price reduction last year.

Businesses choose to handle the disruption of Covid differently. They do what they "think" is right for their business. They may be right, or they may be wrong.

There's no crystal ball. As investors, you either agree with the strategy and buy in the hope the business succeed. Or you sell if you think they made a wrong move that will hurt the business.

 

[njdiver85]

Vail's next acquisition . . . a construction company that specializes is building large multi-story gated concrete garages so they can charge all 2million+ passholders $20 per day to park

 

[ericfromMA/NH/VT]

Whether or not it's been firmly established that Vail does indeed suck, seems like the amount of coverage their operational issues + another year of increased crowding at their resorts will lead to some level of defection from Epic in 2022/2023. Which begs the question: will these people just jump ship to Ikon? Or leave the sport? Ski independent mountains? Some combination?

Best case for Vail but worst case for the industry is that the "just be happy you can ski at all" crowd - getting more vocal on social media by the day - sticks with Epic, procreate, teach their spawn that "this is the way skiing is", and through generations spend even more money in the base lodge and various perks and upgrades. This will introduce the world to a new super gaper more dangerous than previous generations of gapers. It's like really bad science fiction for the ski crowd.

dude you nailed it, and they are well on there way to getting their best case scenario.

I am on a couple epic pass based Facebook accts. here's what many say in the epic pass northeast group:

stop bitching about lines, I'm here at mount snow on a Tuesday and I don't see any lines, vail is great, you guys are exaggerating things.

Mother nature stopped vail from making snow early. Places like (insert any non vail resort close to another vail resort here) that did are stupid.

(early in season): just be happy (insert vail resort name here) has a few runs open, its better than nothing!

Wildcat was always a run down dump that had issues with everything, same with Attitash. Vail inherited a mess, its not vail's fault the snowmaking and lifts don't work stop complaining

Vail made skiing affordable for everyone stop complaining you elitist A holes.

Well, if you aren't at the resort 2 hours before the lifts spin on the weekends you're an idiot, it's not Vail's Fault you were in a 3 mile traffic jam at 8:15 to get to Sunapee last saturday. (lifts open at 8:30)

There have always been huge lines at Mt Snow, Stowe and Okemo, that fact they are now twice as long isn't Vail's fault.

There's always been traffic at Mt. Snaow and Okemo those small town have always had small roads its not vails fault blame the towns they need to build bigger roads!

long lift lines are part of skiing- just be happy you can ski. BE POSITIVE!!!

Are you kidding me? I slog to sunapee almost every weekend with my kids (10 and 12, excellent skiers), get there an hour before the lifts open at 830 and by 11 am the place is so busy its just not worth the lines or the bumper car skiing. 2 weeks ago the line to get food in the cafeteria was LITERALLY OUT THE FRONT DOOR OF THE LODGE. That just shouldn't happen.

I go to Mt Snow, Okemo and Stowe on weekdays only because I just cant imagine the lines and crowds on the slopes on the weekends there will let me actually enjoy myself. Crotched is almost as bad. The trails at the top of that mountain where the rocket drops you simply cannot handle the amount of skiers they get. All the trails up there get scraped off in an hour at most and then its slide on icy hardpack, dodge other skiers as best you can and pray till you get to mid mountain.

I had passes to Ragged the last 5 years and could show up when ever I wanted and not have a traffic jam, could find parking, and the lift lines were never out of control. Holiday, weekends, didn't matter. Trails were consistently excellently maintained and not overcrowded.

skiing should be fun, not an endeavor that takes planning similar to the D day invasion of Normandy just to avoid traffic jams and get parking.

Rant over, I'm off to see what day next week I can take off to ski stowe.

 

[njdiver85]

an endeavor that takes planning similar to the D day invasion of Normandy

I think that about sums up what going to a Vail owned resort on a Saturday is!!! Well done

 

[abc]

Vail made skiing affordable for everyone stop complaining

I hate to say it but there's a lot of truth in that.

"Affordable" means exactly that. People who otherwise can't afford it now can!

So more people, crowds are the direct consequence.

Make a limited capacity product "affordable", you'll reach and exceed the capacity.

 

[Telcb]

I did see where Vail admitted that they inherited quite a bit of deferred or poorly maintained systems in NH. Don't think they mentioned specifics

They didn’t inherit anything. They purchased what they have and should have identified any deficiencies during the due diligence process. Sounds to me like they didn’t/don’t have a plan. I see the same issues mentioned about Vail properties in other parts of the country as well, not just NH.

 

[thetrailboss]

Vail's next acquisition . . . a construction company that specializes is building large multi-story gated concrete garages so they can charge all 2million+ passholders $20 per day to park

That's Alterra's strategy with Deer Valley.

 

[ericfromMA/NH/VT]

I hate to say it but there's a lot of truth in that.

"Affordable" means exactly that. People who otherwise can't afford it now can!

So more people, crowds are the direct consequence.

Make a limited capacity product "affordable", you'll reach and exceed the capacity.

and reduce its value, and make the experience unenjoyable. Brilliant!!!!

 

[pinion]

@ericfromMA/NH/VT I think we belong to the same FB groups hahaha. Spot on with your assessment of their chatter.

They didn’t inherit anything. They purchased what they have and should have identified any deficiencies during the due diligence process. Sounds to me like they didn’t/don’t have a plan. I see the same issues mentioned about Vail properties in other parts of the country as well, not just NH.

No operational plan. Just growth apparently. I was defending Wildcat's "drop ropes at all costs" mentality on FB and somebody responded that Upper Wildcat used to be a snowmaking trail and Peak/Vail destroyed that. Which is partly true... back when WC had 90%+ coverage. And that system SUCKED. Peak improved snowmaking to some core trails but the system still sucks. And this is where the online groups get messy... many different people want many different things out of Vail properties. You want tons of snowmaking at Wildcat? Cool. That's not a super pragmatic use of resources right now. Bigger losses to that particular mountain are lack of snowmaking from the existing system, no Bobcat pod for 2 years, and inconsistent grooming. What I like about this (admittedly long) discussion here on AZ is that I think most of us want consistency from Vail on a per resort basis and that's not what is happening. *queue joke about Vail resorts being consistently bad*

I may edit this later to clarify my points but for now I'm just hitting reply.

 

[IceEidolon]

@ericfromMA/NH/VT Wildcat

From here it sounds like Vail needs to commit to having a minimum core snowmaking team at season start, have the upper mountain water supply fixed, and have the system tested and ready to rock for November snowmaking. Going forward and depending on where there's power, having, say, one first string trail and one second string trail upgraded to auto guns is a great way to let your crew focus on tricky upper mountain/manual stuff while increasing system utilization. But that all requires Vail put money into things other than flashy new lifts, and Peaks and previous owners didn't exactly leave behind a solid foundation to expand from - doing more than dropping auto fans on a trail probably means replacing pipe, too, and there's more $$$.

 

[eatskisleep]

I hate to say it but there's a lot of truth in that.

"Affordable" means exactly that. People who otherwise can't afford it now can!

So more people, crowds are the direct consequence.

Make a limited capacity product "affordable", you'll reach and exceed the capacity.

They also made it unaffordable for those that just want to ski a day here and there, or a handful of days. Now they have to buy a sEpitic Pass.

 

[FBGM]

Your turn Vail

 

[FBGM]

dude you nailed it, and they are well on there way to getting their best case scenario.

I am on a couple epic pass based Facebook accts. here's what many say in the epic pass northeast group:

stop bitching about lines, I'm here at mount snow on a Tuesday and I don't see any lines, vail is great, you guys are exaggerating things.

Mother nature stopped vail from making snow early. Places like (insert any non vail resort close to another vail resort here) that did are stupid.

(early in season): just be happy (insert vail resort name here) has a few runs open, its better than nothing!

Wildcat was always a run down dump that had issues with everything, same with Attitash. Vail inherited a mess, its not vail's fault the snowmaking and lifts don't work stop complaining

Vail made skiing affordable for everyone stop complaining you elitist A holes.

Well, if you aren't at the resort 2 hours before the lifts spin on the weekends you're an idiot, it's not Vail's Fault you were in a 3 mile traffic jam at 8:15 to get to Sunapee last saturday. (lifts open at 8:30)

There have always been huge lines at Mt Snow, Stowe and Okemo, that fact they are now twice as long isn't Vail's fault.

There's always been traffic at Mt. Snaow and Okemo those small town have always had small roads its not vails fault blame the towns they need to build bigger roads!

long lift lines are part of skiing- just be happy you can ski. BE POSITIVE!!!

Are you kidding me? I slog to sunapee almost every weekend with my kids (10 and 12, excellent skiers), get there an hour before the lifts open at 830 and by 11 am the place is so busy its just not worth the lines or the bumper car skiing. 2 weeks ago the line to get food in the cafeteria was LITERALLY OUT THE FRONT DOOR OF THE LODGE. That just shouldn't happen.

I go to Mt Snow, Okemo and Stowe on weekdays only because I just cant imagine the lines and crowds on the slopes on the weekends there will let me actually enjoy myself. Crotched is almost as bad. The trails at the top of that mountain where the rocket drops you simply cannot handle the amount of skiers they get. All the trails up there get scraped off in an hour at most and then its slide on icy hardpack, dodge other skiers as best you can and pray till you get to mid mountain.

I had passes to Ragged the last 5 years and could show up when ever I wanted and not have a traffic jam, could find parking, and the lift lines were never out of control. Holiday, weekends, didn't matter. Trails were consistently excellently maintained and not overcrowded.

skiing should be fun, not an endeavor that takes planning similar to the D day invasion of Normandy just to avoid traffic jams and get parking.

Rant over, I'm off to see what day next week I can take off to ski stowe.

This is actually Rob Kitty Cats alias on this site.

 

[Lotso]

They also made it unaffordable for those that just want to ski a day here and there, or a handful of days. Now they have to buy a sEpitic Pass.

BINGO!!!! That is what is most sad here. I used to enjoy trying out different areas, but now those days are gone, except for the little indy areas that still don't soak you for day tickets. This is a terrible direction for the industry.