VAIL SUCKS

[2Planker]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Vail. But the idea we don't have enough patrol is just not correct. And i get my updates every day, because I patrol there now.

Whoa there big fella.....
Never said that you don't have enough. Just that for you (& AT) the #'s are down from the last 2-3 years

 

[Wolfman]

Whoa there big fella.....
Never said that you don't have enough. Just that for you (& AT) the #'s are down from the last 2-3 years

Sorry i thought you meant the comment about trails not being open cuz of patrol.

Yeah there aren't as many was there were. But that's before my time

 

[thetrailboss]

God I hope not. Sugarbush is already beyond max capacity.

The downside of a discount multimountain pass.

 

[2Planker]

Sorry i thought you meant the comment about trails not being open cuz of patrol.

Yeah there aren't as many was there were. But that's before my time

Enjoy your time there.
Truly a special place to ski everyday !
Hopefully Vail can pull things together.
I did 2 stints there. First under Jim Bilotta then came back to train Brian Heon & crew

 

[thetrailboss]

The non stop complaining with out giving any consideration to the environment of Covid, labor shortage or extreme lack of snow. By no means am I a fan of Vail but they do somethings right. I can only speak of Stowe as that is my home mountain. People complaining that they weren’t making enough snow, (not my experience), not enough trails open, (not my experience), not running lifts when they should be, (not my experience) a recent post dealing with another mountain ” Less trails=less maintance=more stock price”. That might have been done for a good reason. One member on the forum seems to think so. I have no idea if it was a good decision or not but that is an example of fly specking everything they do and finding something wrong with it. Again I am not a fan of Vail I would rather have AIG still owe Stowe but to say that Vail hasn’t done anything right at Stowe isn’t accurate. I am sure the majority of complaints on this thread are legitimate and it feels like it’s a big pile on at times.

I appreciate the frank response. Sounds like you are not being impacted at Stowe. The biggest issue, as I understand it there, has been crowding and lack of parking for the crowds. Stowe applied for a permit to expand the parking lots and the Town denied it. I imagine if you are not impacted by the parking or crowds that you either ski midweek or get there early. Either way, glad it works out.

A lot of the anger in here has been directed to the operation of three specific resorts in New Hampshire. Two of them, historically, were somewhat destination resorts with a well-established following. The other is an area that is a bit bigger than a mere "feeder hill" and had created a niche for itself as a go-to place for the Boston suburbs by offering good snowmaking, extended night skiing hours, and a decent price (Crotched). The operations of those resorts have been drastically limited. Not because of lack of snow, not because of COVID outbreaks, but by conscious decisions regarding management and operations. For example, paying less for labor than competitors in the area. Another example is laying off the local management who had the institutional knowledge to make these operations successful. An app cannot replace that knowledge and experience. And one last example is not maintaining, or updating, critical infrastructure such as Attitash's problematic Triple or Wildcat's tired snowmaking system. Those issues are not at all dictated by mother nature or a virus. Those are decisions made by management. Perhaps sacrifices were made at these areas so that your home mountain, Stowe, can operate relatively smoothly. It is also important to note that AIG (or whatever the entity was) had invested HEAVILY in new lifts and snowmaking infrastructure at Stowe before turning the keys over to Vail. That's a nice bonus.

 

[Wolfman]

Enjoy your time there.
Truly a special place to ski everyday !
Hopefully Vail can pull things together.
I did 2 stints there. First under Jim Bilotta then came back to train Brian Heon & crew

Yeah it's cool as hell. This season is a cluster though.

 

[2Planker]

Yeah it's cool as hell. This season is a cluster though.

Just wait.... It should get a lot better from here on out.
The Cat in April is so sweet. Used to be, we'll see how long they go this year

I actually got married up there on May 1, and the place was still OPEN. Saved me a $1000 for renting the lift

 

[Kingslug20]

Which one? C&W, CBRE, Equity, Colliers?

Hines..we ran all of morgan stanleys bldngs..until they went cheap and hired cbre

 

[abc]

a stowe homer shouldnt even be happy with this situation unless they are one of the lucky or retired people who can ski weekdays. if i was a long time stowe homeowner who used my place on the weekends and holidays, because my family needs to work and be in school during the week, i would be furious that my home mountain that used to be a truly premium product is now fuckin bargain bin. traffic down 108 to 100 on Saturday mornings. fuck that shit.

I used to go to Stowe a couple weekends each year. But even before Vail took over, I noticed increasing crowds year by year. Each year, there's a different "reason". There were the years when Canadian invasion when the Canadian dollars were high as a kite. Then whatever else... but the traffic got worse each year, parking harder...

Then of course it went off the top when Vail bought it. It had became a PITA to ski there. I think I only tried one year. Then jumped ship to Ikon. I mean, went to Sugarbush instead.

But to be honest, I'm not sure what Vail could do differently in Stowe. The crowding is a "signature" of Vail. All of its "flagship" resorts are crowded. Its really a "love it to death" problem. It isn't an issue of neglect.

 

[FBGM]

Been a while since I posted on Vail suck fest…

From another forum/Facebook thing I saw that Crotched Mt had only 1 groomer for the entire night. So 1 cat, 1 person, groom as much as you can….

 

[chuckstah]

Been a while since I posted on Vail suck fest…

From another forum/Facebook thing I saw that Crotched Mt had only 1 groomer for the entire night. So 1 cat, 1 person, groom as much as you can….

And one lift mechanic that equals closed Monday and Tuesday. I guess they borrowed one from Sunapee after the one got hurt.

 

[urungus]

Been a while since I posted on Vail suck fest…

From another forum/Facebook thing I saw that Crotched Mt had only 1 groomer for the entire night. So 1 cat, 1 person, groom as much as you can….

Hey, that 1 person also has all day Monday and Tuesday to ply their trade, LOL

 

[FBGM]

Hey, that 1 person also has all day Monday and Tuesday to ply their trade, LOL

That one person after grooming all night probably gets asked if they want to bump chairs all day.

 

[Kingslug20]

And here..lies the biggest problem.
Imagine if Rolls Royce told its customers..sorry..we cant build or service cars very well these days...
But thanx for paying up front.
Yeah..we cut the cost of the car...arent y'all happy about that though...

 

[ThatGuy]

And here..lies the biggest problem.
Imagine if Rolls Royce told its customers..sorry..we cant build or service cars very well these days...
But thanx for paying up front.
Yeah..we cut the cost of the car...arent y'all happy about that though...

I think one of the problems is a decent amount of the people who are skiing Epic this year are not dedicated (10+ day a year) skiers. These people don’t really have a baseline for good operations and Vail is hoping they can keep it that way and get more suckers to buy their bargain pass.

 

[Kingslug20]

I had many employees like this..try to get away with anything they could..then..when caught..would act all contrite...then resume the bs as soon as possible.
That..is Vail

 

[thetrailboss]

Been a while since I posted on Vail suck fest…

From another forum/Facebook thing I saw that Crotched Mt had only 1 groomer for the entire night. So 1 cat, 1 person, groom as much as you can….

That is sad.

This reminds me of another similar situation that I commented about on another thread. I was at Deer Valley yesterday and I thought that the grooming SUCKED. This is VERY unusual. Well, in talking on the lifts with other DVR locals (mainly those that pay $2,000+ for a full pass and are not IKONer's), my observations were correct--DVR did not have enough staff to make snow quickly or groom it. On top of that, COVID ran through the grooming department. On January 30th they still had a huge snowmaking whale sitting on Perserverance (a MAIN run) waiting to be pushed out. As you said about Crotched, the groomers "did what they could" with a fair number of regularly groomed runs going 2 days without grooming (and VERY icy and nasty). Very odd. Grooming was a big marketing point for Deer Valley. Additionally, Deer Valley used to have a line at the door of prospective employees.

 

[pinion]

Grooming was a big marketing point for Deer Valley. Additionally, Deer Valley used to have a line at the door of prospective employees.

Damn. Just bought my DV tix for March 3/4/5 and this sad to hear. I'm not a groomers guy but it's a big part of the DV appeal and not having that quality there currently is mind blowing. I won't mention any of this to the fam and hopefully things work themselves out by March and we can get some "world famous" corduroy on the regular during the trip.

The whole Crotched thing is also sad to hear. Never paid any attention to it until Peak started marketing the midnight madness stuff a few years back, but made a few trips and had a great time. Went twice last year as well and had a great time again, with longer lines and bigger crowds. But a great time nonetheless. Not on my radar this year since the midweek nights I could go they aren't even open.

 

[thetrailboss]

Damn. Just bought my DV tix for March 3/4/5 and this sad to hear. I'm not a groomers guy but it's a big part of the DV appeal and not having that quality there currently is mind blowing. I won't mention any of this to the fam and hopefully things work themselves out by March and we can get some "world famous" cordoruy on the regular during the trip.

I went to DVR yesterday specifically because of lack of natural the last three weeks and my experience with the snowmaking and grooming. There still is a lot of time before your trip so we will get SOME snow I imagine. I did not go off trail as it was pretty beat up. I hope that you got a deal or are using an IKON Pass because the window rate was $229 yesterday and if I paid it then I would be PISSED and demand my money back.

And I was stunned by the number of folks I ran into who were visiting from out of town who told me that they bought BOTH IKON and EPIC. All of them said the same thing: "we skied at Park City yesterday and it sucked, so we came here."

I also nearly fell out of the chair when a young Boston couple who visit DV 1-2x annually using their IKON Passes told me that they had NEVER been to Alta, let alone know anything about it. I told them that our joke out here is that people ski at Park City and Deer Valley to "look at the Wasatch Mountains" rather than actually ski them.

 

[pinion]

And I was stunned by the number of folks I ran into who were visiting from out of town who told me that they bought BOTH IKON and EPIC. All of them said the same thing: "we skied at Park City yesterday and it sucked, so we came here."

I am Ikon (in addition to Epic) solely because the window price of DV tickets + buddy tix discount for the fam. I wish I were joking. Alta/Snowbird days are a bonus.