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VAIL SUCKS
- Thread starter thebigo
- Start date
Yes, true, according to friends in town who are friends of the family of the deceased.
drjeff
Well-known member
Just curious how the glade situation at Ragged was this past season?
I know on his recent Storm Skiing Podcast interview, which sounds like Stuart recorded with Erik after the season was over, Erik mentioned that it hadn't been the best season for the glades at Ragged because of them often being slightly on the warm side of storm tracks.
And again, Vail certainly dropped the ball with their operational choices for the NH resorts this past season. Heck, even Rob Katz owned that in his recent speech at I believe it was the National NSAA meeting (might of been a different industry meeting though), that Vail made some poor choices in how they operated many of their resorts. Thats not in dispute at all. Mother Nature could of been kinder to many Central and Southern New England Resorts this past season.
Heck, I know in my own yard in Northern CT, we had multiple large storms (1 to even a 2 footer) that roughly a week later, if not sooner, had all melted away due to warm temps, and often rain just a few days after the snow fell
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Edd
Well-known member
Not a Ragged expert but I went late January and skied several glades.
Wow, just wow.
Newpylong
Well-known member
They were open on/off, never great. We missed many of the big storms.
I seem to recall him passing the buck quite squarely on external factors in that interview, but that was just my recollection.
drjeff
Well-known member
To me it sounded like he was very proud of the effort that his snowmakers and groomers, and entire ops team did this past season. Saying that his crew layed down a thick base and moved on to another trail, and that late season, when some PSIA (If I recall correctly) big whigs showed up, that they said that it was the best snow surface that they had skied on this season. Didn't sound at all like he was passing the buck. Just a mix of prasing his crew, as well as acknowledging that Mother Nature often had Ragged a little South of the all snow track for some storms this past season.
And that is simply my point. Regardless of how good or poorly (in Vail Resorts case in NH this past season) the snowmakers and grromers were allowed to perform by their management, Mother Nature wasn't always very generous in the types of storms that she gave to some of Central and most all of Southern New Enlgand many times this past season. Had Mother Nature been more generous in those areas, yes, without a doubt the operational short comings that Vail higher up management created and allowed to happen at their NH properties still would of been an issue, even if Mother Nature had helped boost the trail counts both earlier in the season and then kept them higher throughout the season
In my opinion we had a pretty typical winter in the northeast. When your in the northeast it's bullshit for a ski resort to blame the weather. They have to be prepared for a typical winter like we had which most resorts outside of Vail were.
ss20
Well-known member
I am honored to own the definitive Killington book- Killington: A Story of Mountains and Men. One of my favorite passages in the book is that entering one of the seasons in the mid-80s, Preston Smith told his mountain ops group that the new philosophy they would adhere to was that they would no longer wait to make snow if winter failed to cooperate, they'd make snow expecting there to be little natural snow. And since then every ski area in the country has followed suit.
It's really like Wildcat turned back the clock 40 years.
Exactly
This isn't Colorado or even Vermont. It's New Hampshire we are talking about. There isn't a single ski area in the state that averages 200" of snow a year; not even Wildcat. They say they do, but the reality is it's probably closer to 160 and the very best season in the past ten was 218". Most of these places average 120 or less.
There is zero point in trying to put some of the blame on Mother Nature in New Hampshire. It's never great.
No one else was making excuses. Vail constantly does.
machski
Well-known member
Dr Jeff, curious what your take is on their Crotched operations last year. I would say in that case in particular we can see the damage Vail did to total NH skier days. As in, they were shut two days a week (outside of Holidays) and most nights. So, how many skier days did this cost NH? How many Epic pass holders went to elsewhere or didn't ski because of their inept operations at Crotched? It's 50 minutes to my house and because of the truncated ops, I didn't ski nearly as often as I had planned there. The lack of night skiing nights really killed my plans and total skier days myself in NH.
drjeff
Well-known member
Didn't hit Crotched this past year. Was awful what Vail numerous operational choices that they made prior to last season, and often carrying over from the season before, did there. Just complete lack of reality by the various higher ups, often based not in the Northeast, but out in CO, with far too many managerial important sounding titles linked to their names did to Crotched, and frankly all of their NH properties last season (One could say that they attempted to run Sunapee closer to normal, but failed in crowd management and snowmaking efforts until they brought crews in from some of the VT areas mid season to try and put on band aid on a wound that needed a full tournaquit that they created. No clue on how this affected Epic passholders going elsewhere or not going.
Time will tell if the seeming change on operational philosphy they talked about towards the end of this past season for next season, and both Rob Katz's and Kirsten Lynch's owning of the problems their operational decsions created, will make a dramatic difference this coming season or not.
If early pass sales are ahead of this time last year, I would hope that they get things right for crowd management and "normal" operations.
And while Rob Katz is certainly a polarizing figure in the ski industry, probably right up there with Les Otten, a couple points he did make recently that are true, is that the majority of the days of the season, a ski area operates far below its capacity, as well as the fact that even though this past season had the highest skier vists ever recorded, that number has basically been flat for 20 years, and that's not a sign of a growing industry, which is what just about every ski area wants. And that going froward those 2 issues (making better use of existing capacity more days of the season and attracting new folks into the sport (this is where he thinks the DEI push now offers great potential on many fronts.
I hope his take on increase daily existing operating capacity utilization isn't what his take on how Crotched, and some other of the former Peak properties was last season, which was to decrease the opearung days per week and hours per day in some cases. That would be a huge fail
Well, in this case it was SkiNH saving face for Vail. SkiNH reported a decrease in skier days and made the connection to the weather.
If I were an Epic Passholder that was a Crotched Local THIS would piss me off. IIRC Vail made this decision WELL into ski season and provided folks little to no notice.
I'm not sure why anyone would trust a word Katz says. It's all lip service to pump up shareholders.
Edd
Well-known member
The performance of Wildcat, specifically, was outrageously bad this year. It was one notch above just closing the fucking mountain permanently. That the GM still has a job indicates that he just wasn’t given proper capital to run the mountain I guess, I don’t know. Is that why the same GM still has a job?
They couldn’t run a single bar at any point during the season? Gunstock ran two on weekdays.
They couldn’t run a single bar at any point during the season? Gunstock ran two on weekdays.
Edd
Well-known member
Summit of the HSQ. Bare bones, but great views inside or out, of the lake. Every time I went there I stewed over why I can’t go to Wildcat’s pub, my favorite ski bar ever. On the weekends, Gunstock had three bars open, with the third floor of the base lodge. Zero at Wildcat. Fuck Vail, I hope they fail as a company.
Newpylong
Well-known member
I think you misunderstood or I was not clear. I was referring to Katz passing the buck, not Barnes. What would Barnes have to pass the buck on? As always Ragged pounded the shit out of the place and provided a good product year long, dealing with the same weather and labor market that the Vail Resorts in NH had to contend with.
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