VAIL SUCKS

[Cobbold]

Yes, but as the saying goes "it takes TWO mistake to make a disaster"!

Though it's possible the two mistakes are both Cummings, by not having someone to take over the work of the guy he fired/laid off/whatever.

They made a mess of killington for a time being, still have some negatives from screwing some of the original killington investors out of their annual pass.

 

[thetrailboss]

Yes, but as the saying goes "it takes TWO mistake to make a disaster"!

Though it's possible the two mistakes are both Cummings, by not having someone to take over the work of the guy he fired/laid off/whatever.

That's what I think happened.

If Snowbird was doing better, I would be more understanding of him, but he has really effed things up.

 

[thetrailboss]

They made a mess of killington for a time being, still have some negatives from screwing some of the original killington investors out of their annual pass.

Yes, I use that as an example. He pissed everyone off there and then got bored and moved on. I am hoping that the same happens with Snowbird. His Dad tried REALLY hard to keep John OUT of running Snowbird, in part because of his major eff up with the PCMR lease. But after the old man died Snowbird slowly moved over to John's control. He has really pissed a lot of people off with cutting employee pay and benefits (they already had a bad reputation as an employer), charging for parking, implementing the stupid parking reservation system, and selling out to IKON. Now with a bad snow season a lot of these issues are going to come to a head.

 

[drjeff]

I’m out of the loop, what happened?

Short version, some likely middle to higher level management person at Powdr Corp, forgot to submit a letter of intent to renew, for another 20yrs, the lease for the land that basically all of the terrain that made up what used to be known as the Park City Mountain Resort, short of the immediate base area, and renew it at a ridiculously low rate of something like 100k a year, for over 3000 acres of terrain that most of the ski area was on.

The land owner was the Talisker Corp, who among other things had some business with Vail Resorts, and at that time was the owners at operators of what used to be just known at the Canyons resort next to PCMR.

The deadline passed. Talisker said you missed the deadline, the old, honey of a deal lease is no more, the offered a much more realistic, higher lease term. Powdr whined. There was a bunch of back and forth threats including Powdr taking out its lifts on the Talisker owned land that Powdr leased, back and forth, and finally once Powdr knew they lost, Vail came in and bought both the Canyons and the leased PCMR land as well as the Powdr owned PCMR base area land

 

[Cobbold]

Yes, I use that as an example. He pissed everyone off there and then got bored and moved on. I am hoping that the same happens with Snowbird. His Dad tried REALLY hard to keep John OUT of running Snowbird, in part because of his major eff up with the PCMR lease. But after the old man died Snowbird slowly moved over to John's control. He has really pissed a lot of people off with cutting employee pay and benefits (they already had a bad reputation as an employer), charging for parking, implementing the stupid parking reservation system, and selling out to IKON. Now with a bad snow season a lot of these issues are going to come to a head.

From what I hear, Cummings is an idiot son of a billionaire, who thinks he is smarter than any one else.

 

[thetrailboss]

From what I hear, Cummings is an idiot son of a billionaire, who thinks he is smarter than any one else.

That is exactly right. Big ego.

 

[thetrailboss]

Short version, some likely middle to higher level management person at Powdr Corp, forgot to submit a letter of intent to renew, for another 20yrs, the lease for the land that basically all of the terrain that made up what used to be known as the Park City Mountain Resort, short of the immediate base area, and renew it at a ridiculously low rate of something like 100k a year, for over 3000 acres of terrain that most of the ski area was on.

The land owner was the Talisker Corp, who among other things had some business with Vail Resorts, and at that time was the owners at operators of what used to be just known at the Canyons resort next to PCMR.

The deadline passed. Talisker said you missed the deadline, the old, honey of a deal lease is no more, the offered a much more realistic, higher lease term. Powdr whined. There was a bunch of back and forth threats including Powdr taking out its lifts on the Talisker owned land that Powdr leased, back and forth, and finally once Powdr knew they lost, Vail came in and bought both the Canyons and the leased PCMR land as well as the Powdr owned PCMR base area land

Right. The whole thing led to a protracted lawsuit. Vail ended up winning in court. Not after both companies spent a ton on legal fees. It was a pretty black-and-white case – – you did not renew the contract by the deadline end of story. Additionally, Ian Cumming stepped in and negotiated the sale because his son had effed it up so badly.

Some people think that the reason why Ian bought Snowbird was so that his family would at least have some presence in Utah and to try to save face. There is no doubt that Ian spent a lot of money on improving Snowbird and he always made it clear that it was HIS resort and not John’s and not POWDR’s. Since his death that has slowly changed.

And POWDR was always Ian’s money since John had none. If you do your research you find out pretty quickly that almost all of POWDR’s resorts are leased and not owned. That is because they just did not have the resources. Killington is example one. However, since Dad has died all of the sudden they have a ton of money for new lifts and shiny things such as at Killington.

 

[Cobbold]

Po

Right. The whole thing led to a protracted lawsuit. Vail ended up winning in court. Not after both companies spent a ton on legal fees. It was a pretty black-and-white case – – you did not renew the contract by the deadline end of story. Additionally, Ian Cumming stepped in and negotiated the sale because his son had effed it up so badly.

Some people think that the reason why Ian bought Snowbird was so that his family would at least have some presence in Utah and to try to save face. There is no doubt that Ian spent a lot of money on improving Snowbird and he always made it clear that it was HIS resort and not John’s and not POWDR’s. Since his death that has slowly changed.

And POWDR was always Ian’s money since John had none. If you do your research you find out pretty quickly that almost all of POWDR’s resorts are leased and not owned. That is because they just did not have the resources. Killington is example one. However, since Dad has died all of the sudden they have a ton of money for new lifts and shiny things such as at Killington.

powdr Corp leases killington? I did not know that, thought they owned it lock stock and barrel

 

[Cobbold]

Right. The whole thing led to a protracted lawsuit. Vail ended up winning in court. Not after both companies spent a ton on legal fees. It was a pretty black-and-white case – – you did not renew the contract by the deadline end of story. Additionally, Ian Cumming stepped in and negotiated the sale because his son had effed it up so badly.

Some people think that the reason why Ian bought Snowbird was so that his family would at least have some presence in Utah and to try to save face. There is no doubt that Ian spent a lot of money on improving Snowbird and he always made it clear that it was HIS resort and not John’s and not POWDR’s. Since his death that has slowly changed.

And POWDR was always Ian’s money since John had none. If you do your research you find out pretty quickly that almost all of POWDR’s resorts are leased and not owned. That is because they just did not have the resources. Killington is example one. However, since Dad has died all of the sudden they have a ton of money for new lifts and shiny things such as at Killington.

So you think snowbird is getting worse each year?

 

[thetrailboss]

Po

powdr Corp leases killington? I did not know that, thought they owned it lock stock and barrel

SP Land (or something like that) owns the real estate and state lease. POWDR operates the areas.

SP was leading very-long awaited and delayed base area project.

 

[thetrailboss]

So you think snowbird is getting worse each year?

The infrastructure has improved. Service has worsened indeed.

 

[thebigo]

Yesterday they were telling us Tuesday or Wednesday for polecat, now they are telling us Saturday. The polecat is now scheduled to open for the season on January 9, a full two weeks after the rain event.

 

[drjeff]

Yesterday they were telling us Tuesday or Wednesday for polecat, now they are telling us Saturday. The polecat is now scheduled to open for the season on January 9, a full two weeks after the rain event.

I get that the delay issues are awful. In defense of the folks who work hard to make snow, it's not like they've had a ton of COLD weather, with extended stretches of GOOD snowmaking temps since the Christmas Day washout.

Mother nature has also played a roll in things when it comes to trail roll outs the last few weeks, and this generally zonal, West to East weather pattern we've been in for the last 10 days or so, and likely will be in for another 10 days or so, certainly is keeping the good snowmaking temps way up in Canada, as well as the storm track, especially over the next week or so, down through the mid Atlantic states.

We can all blame Vail for plenty this season. That isn't in question. One does have to give them a bit of a pass when mother nature isn't giving good wet bulb temps for extended runs though

 

[Mainer]

I’m guessing wildcat is waiting for attitash to get their shit together. If you keep opening trails and your sister mountain Right down the street with much better snowmaking has been neutral for weeks, it doesn’t look good. Im pretty sure attitash has no staff because they waited too long to hire, there is snow blown everywhere on Attitash. Just need to groom it out. There is a labor shortage in the valley, when u can make the same money or more inside, why bump chairs in the cold.

 

[thebigo]

There is no shortage of snowmaking at attitash, at this point weather is not a factor. There are massive whales everywhere, some have been waiting weeks to be pushed out and skied. The shortage is grooming. I would guess the truth behind upper polecat is either a mechanical failure on one of the groomers or a call out.

I moved my day around to do some polecat lunch runs with the kids, bear was getting old and there is no time for the triple during lunch. We will report back on the polecat situation this afternoon.

 

[jimmywilson69]

Webcams are starting to appear at least in PA. Would love to know the reasoning behind their delay.

hunters is offline...

 

[skiur]

SP Land (or something like that) owns the real estate and state lease. POWDR operates the areas.

SP was leading very-long awaited and delayed base area project.

Powdr also owns the land and real estate over at bear.

 

[thetrailboss]

Powdr also owns the land and real estate over at bear.

That's news to me. It was SP Land that took over the real estate when ASC went under. POWDR was brought in to run the resort.

 

[thebigo]

Guns were running everywhere today at the cat: summit, upper polecat, cat track, middle wildcat and bobcat. I don't recollect them ever blowing top to bottom at once in the past. Assuming they keep this up and push the large whales out, snowmaking terrain should be close to 100% by mlk weekend. I would guess they move from upper polecat to upper catapult tomorrow. Not sure i can fully explain it but today felt different, more like years past - albeit a month late.

Going to grab some lunch runs tomorrow at bear, hoping to see guns blasting and whales getting pushed out. Some movement at the yankee, getting ready for the weekend, would also be good.

 

[snoseek]

Guns were running everywhere today at the cat: summit, upper polecat, cat track, middle wildcat and bobcat. I don't recollect them ever blowing top to bottom at once in the past. Assuming they keep this up and push the large whales out, snowmaking terrain should be close to 100% by mlk weekend. I would guess they move from upper polecat to upper catapult tomorrow. Not sure i can fully explain it but today felt different, more like years past - albeit a month late.

Going to grab some lunch runs tomorrow at bear, hoping to see guns blasting and whales getting pushed out. Some movement at the yankee, getting ready for the weekend, would also be good.

I'm so happy to read this!