VAIL SUCKS

[thebigo]

Snowmaking is not the problem. There are whales everywhere at attitash, pushing them out and lifts are the problem. Will post pictures later, still skiing. For all the warts, illusion was awesome today. Early this week would be a good time to get up here.

 

[deadheadskier]

I know money is tight right now and Vail might be hesitant to blow snow at Wildcat (a mountain that is day-trips only). But I'd have way more respect for Vail if they just decided earlier in the year that they weren't going to open Wildcat at all due to funding, and gave passholders the option for a refund. And then Wildcat was just open for backcountry skiing this year, and then next season, when there is money again, Vail reopened wildcat. Instead, Vail is putting in minimal effort, pretending that everything is normal on social media, and annoying Wildcat fans.

Not sure I understand your comment "day trips only"

Also not sure I agree with money being tight. They had $600M in cash on hand 11/30 with another $600M in liquidity available to them.

 

[drjeff]

10AM at Mount Snow and they only have Tubleweed, Heavy Metal and Discovery. That 3 inches sure caused them a lit of trouble. They really do suck.

I can personally attest that after the 3" there was a decent amount of freezing rain that put a serious crust on top.

Lift mechanics had their work cut out for them to de ice everything before they could spin the lifts.

Main base area was crowded. Carinthia, once Nitro opened late morning had good snow and lines under 10 minutes

 

[Cobbold]

Cash is not the problem, the new gm of attitash and wildcat are in over their head, they apparently made wrong command decisions and everything went down hill from there. apparently these new gems have no friends in Mtn ops to help them, feel bad for them, do they get fired? Or is this year all a huge learning experience for them? One other issue, until recently New England had drought issues, my brook running thru my yard just recently filled up, it was a trickle through November, did they have water for snowmaking at attitash and wildcat, would of thought vail had a deep bench for gm candidates but it appears not to be the case. I think since they took over peak resorts they have bounced or gms left for other jobs or retired, seven or eight in total, almost half of all peak resorts gm jobs.

 

[catskillman]

As a Cat skier and patroller for 50+ years, this is absolutely the worst I have ever seen it.
Such a shame that Vail just doesn't care about the lil guy.

Once again, several of us are contemplating another offer to buy the Cat.

If you didn't read it before, NOW it's even more true

View attachment 49934

I read this - interesting.

Powder Burn is written totally about Vail and how they take over towns and operate. Not a company I would like to work for...

 

[jaytrem]

I can personally attest that after the 3" there was a decent amount of freezing rain that put a serious crust on top.

Lift mechanics had their work cut out for them to de ice everything before they could spin the lifts.

Main base area was crowded. Carinthia, once Nitro opened late morning had good snow and lines under 10 minutes

Didn't look like much to me. MS has been pretty lousy at deicing for quite a while now. Stratton, with basically the same weather, always kicks their ass.

No attempt to run Sundance was pathetic. Carinthia wasn't bad. Without the quad, Sundance and Ego, the bubble and Canyon lines were one big mass of people. 1 lift on North Face also not too good.

I would buy into the Covid excuse a little more if they didn't do such a lousy job last year.

 

[abc]

Actually, Vail Corp is sitting at a very sweet spot!

For years, Vail has tried to sell as many season pass as possible. That pre-season sale of passes is basically insurance against any hiccups during the season. Whatever the weather, even if it never snow the whole season, they've already got the money in the bank, so to speak.

So this year, by introducing capacity limits and, according to Vail's marketing material, only selling day tickets when there's spare capacity from pass holders, they entice customers to buy passes in advance instead of waiting to buy day tickets. With that scare tactic of day ticket buyers being shut out entirely, they managed to sell MORE season passes than they ever did!

Making snow and running lifts are really irrelevant for THIS season. The worst that could happen is people don't buy pass NEXT season. For this season? They are sitting pretty. With so much of the revenue already realized, one wonders what's the motivation to even try to do anything apart from the absolute minimum.

OK, they could be sued for non-performance of advance sale. But who's going to do that?

 

[thebigo]

I had just had an absolutely spectacular day at attitash with my kids. My eight year went wire to wire, 9 - 1 with coaches, then 1 to last lift with me. My four year old had a great lesson. The open terrain is in great shape. Big soft bumps everywhere. The coaches and instructors, that do it for the love of the sport, are incredible.

For everything that a company like vail can do wrong, the sport itself and good snow can cover many mistakes. I am sure I will be pissed off at vail again tomorrow for some stupid decision they make but tonight I am going to enjoy the memories, soak my tired bones in a four pack of moat hell yes and get ready to do it all over again tomorrow. I just hope my daughter is jumping out of her skin again, when I pick her up, to show me some new park trick she learned.

 

[thebigo]

Today:

 

[BenedictGomez]

Actually, Vail Corp is sitting at a very sweet spot!

For years, Vail has tried to sell as many season pass as possible. That pre-season sale of passes is basically insurance against any hiccups during the season. Whatever the weather, even if it never snow the whole season, they've already got the money in the bank, so to speak.

So this year, by introducing capacity limits and, according to Vail's marketing material, only selling day tickets when there's spare capacity from pass holders, they entice customers to buy passes in advance instead of waiting to buy day tickets. With that scare tactic of day ticket buyers being shut out entirely, they managed to sell MORE season passes than they ever did!

It's really not that rosy. From the MTN 10Q filed a few weeks ago:

2020/2021 North American season pass sales. As we approach the end of our selling period, season pass sales for the North American ski season increased approximately 20% in units and were flat in sales dollars

So, while yes, it seems COVID19 made even more people seek out a season pass option, they lost quite a bit of lemon juice from redemption credits.

 

[snoseek]

I have yet to even ski Wildcat this year. I bought the pass mostly to ski there but keep ending up at Cannon or somewhere closer instead. Was looking to go there tomorrow so looked at the snow report and they are still essentially 1 and 2/3 run. Are they even blowing?

In other news Cannon is absolutely killing it this year. Their snowmaking has gotten pretty good these days.

 

[Smellytele]

In other news Cannon is absolutely killing it this year. Their snowmaking has gotten pretty good these days.

I agree, They have 41 trails open. Compared to wildcats meager offing.

 

[catskillman]

An aquaintance was skiing at Hunter yesterday. Was scanned before you can enter the mountain/ticket pickup etc. Was scanned at the 6 pack a couple of times, and then around 1 got an email saying he had not yet showed up for this reservation !

What a mess..

 

[eatskisleep]

Actually, Vail Corp is sitting at a very sweet spot!

For years, Vail has tried to sell as many season pass as possible. That pre-season sale of passes is basically insurance against any hiccups during the season. Whatever the weather, even if it never snow the whole season, they've already got the money in the bank, so to speak.

So this year, by introducing capacity limits and, according to Vail's marketing material, only selling day tickets when there's spare capacity from pass holders, they entice customers to buy passes in advance instead of waiting to buy day tickets. With that scare tactic of day ticket buyers being shut out entirely, they managed to sell MORE season passes than they ever did!

Making snow and running lifts are really irrelevant for THIS season. The worst that could happen is people don't buy pass NEXT season. For this season? They are sitting pretty. With so much of the revenue already realized, one wonders what's the motivation to even try to do anything apart from the absolute minimum.

OK, they could be sued for non-performance of advance sale. But who's going to do that?

Totally agree about their scare tactics. However, they claim more passes sold, but keep in mind they acquired 17 resorts at the start of last season and many people had already purchased passes at those resorts. So if you look at total number of passes: this season, versus last season Peaks + MTN, you may have a very different outlook.

 

[thebigo]

An aquaintance was skiing at Hunter yesterday. Was scanned before you can enter the mountain/ticket pickup etc. Was scanned at the 6 pack a couple of times, and then around 1 got an email saying he had not yet showed up for this reservation !

What a mess..

The emails appear to be specific to hunter. We have canceled and/or failed to get scanned more times than I care to guess.

If you listen to the scanners they have a different sound for different passes. Attempts to scan my pass yield the sound associated with a kids pass >50% of the time, compounded with the <50% of the time they even attempt to scan i would estimate they get a proper scan roughly 10% of lift rides. That is not a problem if you are here all day but for a local planning to ski one hour before the crowds show up, it is bound to yield a number of false no shows.

 

[Cobbold]

Totally agree about their scare tactics. However, they claim more passes sold, but keep in mind they acquired 17 resorts at the start of last season and many people had already purchased passes at those resorts. So if you look at total number of passes: this season, versus last season Peaks + MTN, you may have a very different outlook.

According to vail last earnings report they sold 1.4 million passes, some are epic one day pass up to seven day epic passes, some are regional passes, some are the military passes at 150 each, how many are local epic passes, how many are full epic passes, no matter how you slice that’s a lot of money sitting in their bank account for a couple of months, my guess they invested a lot of this in short term commercial paper and made another 25 to 50 million. What’s hurting vail is the food beverage sales on the Mtn, how much are they down? Who knows, but all ticket sales this year are full price, like everywhere else, so that’s helping, except for the buddy/swf tickets. It’s a challenging year but all the resorts are in the same boat, for example was just at big sky couple of their restaurants, one being high end not opening this year, the Kitchener lodge by the 8 pack wasn’t open, what’s the loss revenue to boyne on that? While their is a lot of hate for vail on this forum, most of irrational if you ask me, but that’s just my opinion. Vail did drop the ball at wildcat and atitash this year, it seems based upon how the rest of the resorts are doing just specific to atitash and wildcat. My guess vail missed with these two gms, can the new gms be saved? Who knows? But the worst of the resorts is wildcat, don’t won’t to hurt any of my New Hampshire brethren’s feelings, but based upon peak resorts 10k from a few years ago, wild cat did 66 k skiers that year, mad river in Ohio did 180 k skier visits. while we always want our resorts to going full tilt all the time, right now wild cat for what ever reason is crapping the bed. Yesterday a forum poster, post that he skied at atitash yesterday and had the time of his life, and will ski their again today. From talking to people on the lift at Mt snow, okemo, Stowe, high percentage of people have no idea, vail owns them, hell one employee at Stowe I talked to didn’t realize vail was a ski resort, thought it was just the corporate name of her employer. Until I bought my epic pass and became a ski groupie, old groupie lol, I couldn’t care less who owned what Mtn, or ran what Mtn, I just wanted to show up, ski, drink a few beers and then drive home. Most people from my talks on the chairlift couldn’t name rob Katz as the ceo of vail resorts if their live depended on it. My point is most people only care about the product that day they are skiing, does that mean lots of people are pissed at wildcat?, yup, but it’s aimed at wildcat, not vail, not mr. Katz. Are their people on the chairlift blaming vail, sure, but 3/4 of the people on the chairlift are probably wondering why 1/4 are blaming vail. Just my thoughts, one example, at least half the people I talked to riding the lifts at big sky had no idea boyne resorts owned big sky, nor did they really care one way or another., skiers are their to ski not to analyze the ski industry. Ps apologize for any typos, which i am sure our numerous.

 

[FBGM]

What is the new GM for Wildcats name? I’ll see if I can find his e-mail. Vail standardizes all emails and I did my year with them. My email format was the same as the GMs.

Sounds like a massive amount of emails straight to the man is needed. He gets enough, he will answer someone.

Also, has anyone just walks to his office yet? Go see what the deal is face to face. Get some answers? If not, I would suggest doing so.

 

[kingslug]

Very good advice..This forum will not reach him...That will.

 

[Mainer]

Wildcat is actually doing a better job since the start of Christmas week. Opened the green lift, reopened polecaT, opened magic carpet. Running tomcat even though it accesses the same terrain at the quad. All attitash has opened is Morningstar which has had snow blown on it for Most of last month. Attitash has amazing snowmaking, they refuse to open a mid mountain lift for Christmas week. If you have a Facebook account, comment under their picture. They are checking them and responding

 

[RichT]

What is the new GM for Wildcats name? I’ll see if I can find his e-mail. Vail standardizes all emails and I did my year with them. My email format was the same as the GMs.

Sounds like a massive amount of emails straight to the man is needed. He gets enough, he will answer someone.

Also, has anyone just walks to his office yet? Go see what the deal is face to face. Get some answers? If not, I would suggest doing so.

Here ya go!
Joshua Klevans
linkedin.com/in/joshua-klevans-a85bb982