Vermont Skier Visits Down Significantly Due to COVID-19

[HowieT2]

Vermont committed economic suicide. The more popular NY and PA hills were sold out every weekend and even the less popular places reported busier than every ticket sales and good financials - the lodges even seemed fairly busy too selling food, even if a lot of people were eating outside. The guy at my ski shop was saying how this is the best year they have had ever, they are basically sold out of everything.

Huge missed opportunity on Vermont's part. Short season last year, restricted travel, lodging, and food this year, that must be pretty rough as the article notes.

Now PA allegedly had a travel restriction for part of the season too but a lot of people didn't even know that it existed, nobody even mentioned it really.. I know a few people on the DC forum were talking about not coming to PA but I don't think the southern PA hills could have handled more people anyway, and the poconos lots were full of Maryland, NJ, and NY plates. But there are definitely a lot of people that avoided Vermont for alternatives.

I don't get the point of travel restrictions, if the disease is already spread around the world/country, why does it matter? And how the ski areas were singled out as being some huge covid risk when really there is zero chance of spreading disease while skiing - they should be encouraging not discouraging safe things to do - better to go skiing than go to a party. Just seems like politicians on a power trip

At least in the mrv where I was, there have not been business closures, certainly not on the scale you are implying. my go to ski shop reportedly had a good year revenue wise. I was told they were busier midweek than usual, but less on the weekends. Sugarbush was no ghost town.
I wonder what the losses were in nh compared to vt. I’d be surprised if the ski resorts in nh and Maine didn’t have some losses this season as well.
if the loss reported in the articles is 100m out of 1.9b, that’s not so bad considering. It could be that the non epic/icon resorts suffered more than the pass mountains did. If that’s the case, I’d be more concerned with the effects of the passes than the pandemic quarantine.

 

[cdskier]

Vermont committed economic suicide. The more popular NY and PA hills were sold out every weekend and even the less popular places reported busier than every ticket sales and good financials - the lodges even seemed fairly busy too selling food, even if a lot of people were eating outside. The guy at my ski shop was saying how this is the best year they have had ever, they are basically sold out of everything.

Huge missed opportunity on Vermont's part. Short season last year, restricted travel, lodging, and food this year, that must be pretty rough as the article notes.

Now PA allegedly had a travel restriction for part of the season too but a lot of people didn't even know that it existed, nobody even mentioned it really.. I know a few people on the DC forum were talking about not coming to PA but I don't think the southern PA hills could have handled more people anyway, and the poconos lots were full of Maryland, NJ, and NY plates. But there are definitely a lot of people that avoided Vermont for alternatives.

I don't get the point of travel restrictions, if the disease is already spread around the world/country, why does it matter? And how the ski areas were singled out as being some huge covid risk when really there is zero chance of spreading disease while skiing - they should be encouraging not discouraging safe things to do - better to go skiing than go to a party. Just seems like politicians on a power trip

I'm not sure I understand your argument about NY mountains being sold out every weekend. That doesn't prove anything. They were operating with reduced capacity even in NY so it shouldn't be a surprise they sold out weekends. It isn't like these places were never busy in the past and suddenly were this year. And in VT many of the mountains that required reservations were regularly sold out on weekends as well.

At least in the mrv where I was, there have not been business closures, certainly not on the scale you are implying. my go to ski shop reportedly had a good year revenue wise. I was told they were busier midweek than usual, but less on the weekends. Sugarbush was no ghost town.
I wonder what the losses were in nh compared to vt. I’d be surprised if the ski resorts in nh and Maine didn’t have some losses this season as well.
if the loss reported in the articles is 100m out of 1.9b, that’s not so bad considering. It could be that the non epic/icon resorts suffered more than the pass mountains did. If that’s the case, I’d be more concerned with the effects of the passes than the pandemic quarantine.

I think ski shops probably did fairly well. It is the lodging and restaurants in the MRV that I'd be more concerned with. We know property owners were largely visiting, but the question is whether other people were as well. So I'm not sure how the lodging here in the MRV fared this season. I suspect their visits were down a decent amount. And certainly the restaurants took a hit. There's no doubt about that. Sure I can really only think of one that is closed (Localfolk never opened), but some of the others are hanging on by a thread and just hoping they can continue to survive until things open up more (this is based on discussions I've had with local restaurant owners here in the MRV so it isn't just conjecture on my part).

 

[deadheadskier]

Keep in mind that Vermont was a very different place when the rules were made. Vermont had extremely few COVID-19 cases compared to the rest of the country and, in particular, the Northeast.

also, the theory was that, even if Vermont had the same number of cases as elsewhere, the mere act of traveling encourages the spread of the disease compared to staying home.

There's certainly a case to be made for the traveling argument in regards to disease spread.

Look at Maine. They had many restrictions, but they weren't particularly enforced. 53k cases and 750 deaths so far. Compare that to New Brunswick where travel restrictions were heavily enforced. 1700 cases and 32 deaths so far.

 

[thetrailboss]

There's certainly a case to be made for the traveling argument in regards to disease spread.

Look at Maine. They had many restrictions, but they weren't particularly enforced. 53k cases and 750 deaths so far. Compare that to New Brunswick where travel restrictions were heavily enforced. 1700 cases and 32 deaths so far.

Right. And, for better or worse, look at Vermont's demographics: very skewed towards older people. COVID is particularly bad for that demographic. So Health Officials in Vermont had to protect that group. Additionally, there are not very many hospitals in Vermont so that is a concern.

I get that for most of the board that Vermont is the destination weekend playground. Most folks here live in Southern New England in the metro areas. But people do live in VT and it is important to consider that. Obviously I am biased with family, including my now older parents, living in Vermont.

I get it that we are all sick of COVID. It sucks. But people dying from largely a preventable virus is really bad. Folks out here are giddy as hell that the Utah mask mandate ends today. That said, almost all government buildings, the airport, and most businesses are requiring masks. Go figure. Folks don't want to be told what to do. I am pretty disgusted as to how this pandemic event has shown how divided this country is and how downright selfish a lot of people are.

 

[PAabe]

Yes ultimately what Vermont does is up to vermonters. I was happy to follow the rules and ski NY (although I would be less happy if I had a VT pass). Just kind of a shame they missed out on what was a very good year for ski areas in neighboring areas.

And when I meant high ticket sales in NY and PA earlier, I do mean it, not just long lift lines - places that were sold out like Blue and Gore were just as crowded if not more on the slopes as normal years. Some of the less popular places like Montage, Laurel Mountain, Blue Knob, Spring Mountain - came straight out and said this is the best business they have done in a very long time

 

[icecoast1]

I'm not sure I understand your argument about NY mountains being sold out every weekend. That doesn't prove anything. They were operating with reduced capacity even in NY so it shouldn't be a surprise they sold out weekends. It isn't like these places were never busy in the past and suddenly were this year. And in VT many of the mountains that required reservations were regularly sold out on weekends as well.

NY capacity restrictions were more when the mountains had limited terrain, once things were wide open, they were essentially zilch. And although it's true these places were busy in the past, they certainly didn't see a huge decrease in visits this year like Vermont did. And some may have even done better. I noticed a lot more people out on the hill this year that wouldn't have been out midweek in the past, people "working" from home or kids that would normally be in school, etc.

 

[ne_skier]

The busiest day I've witnessed at Belleayre took place this season, ~15-minute lines at Superchief and ~5 at 7 and Tomahawk. Didn't dare go down to the gondola.

 

[PAabe]

15 minute+ lines at montage, laurel mountain of all places which are typically considered crowded if they are not ski on. Wise choice of going to laurel that day, neighboring 7 springs was like full on Instagram style Epic liftline disaster I heard. People at Laurel, recently back from the dead with their singular lift, kept saying they could not believe how many people were there all season - apparently that place has not seen a crowd like that in decades.

Gore had significant lines for many lifts when I was there which is unusual midweek I think and the gondola of course was a disaster

 

[BenedictGomez]

One has to wonder..was the "cure"...better than the disease...

It wasn't.

Because in the young cohort of < 50 years old which makes up the overwhelming preponderance of ski visits, COVID19 is likely to be nothing worse than a bad flu.

But you cant actually SAY that publicly if you're an elected official, or you'll get the self-righteous, "if we save even one life" theorem thrown back into your face.

What SHOULD we have done with hindsight being 20/20 vision? We should have vaccinated people > 70 years old almost immediately without all-encompassing COVID19 safety date based on the knowledge that the vaccine was effective, because the reality is the likelihood of an immunological or vaccine-related adverse event being more deadly than COVID19 in the elderly cohort is absurdly remote. I'm sure there were many brilliant medical minds who understood this early on, but again, politics > saving lives. People in the Trump Admin & the FDA were more concerned with CYA than saving as many lives as possible.

 

[BenedictGomez]

There's certainly a case to be made for the traveling argument in regards to disease spread.

Look at Maine. They had many restrictions, but they weren't particularly enforced. 53k cases and 750 deaths so far. Compare that to New Brunswick where travel restrictions were heavily enforced. 1700 cases and 32 deaths so far.

So, I looked at the tourists per year data for each of them, which took less than 30 seconds on GOOG, and Maine gets about 620% more tourists per year, so true that up to about 199 deaths for New Brunswick and granted it still looks better. But there's so much more that goes into it that I dont know that "strictness" was N.B.'s saving grace. For instance, I bet Maine gets 2000% more visitors per year from COVID19 hotspots like NY/NJ than New Brunswick does, etc.... Things like that matter. It can literally take years to really digest all this date & try to make sense of it all.

 

[BenedictGomez]

I am pretty disgusted as to how this pandemic event has shown how divided this country is and how downright selfish a lot of people are.

Amen. Both sides of the aisle have politicized COVID19 for various reasons to the detriment of all of us, and it is truly vulgar.

 

[BenedictGomez]

And when I meant high ticket sales in NY and PA earlier, I do mean it, not just long lift lines - places that were sold out like Blue and Gore were just as crowded if not more on the slopes as normal years. Some of the less popular places like Montage, Laurel Mountain, Blue Knob, Spring Mountain - came straight out and said this is the best business they have done in a very long time

Oh, there's not doubt. Because the people like us who were actually responsible & decided to follow Vermont's rules in a humanitarian spirit even if we thought they were completely moronic, had no choice buy to ski the Poconos this year.

 

[Domeskier]

Oh, there's not doubt. Because the people like us who were actually responsible & decided to follow Vermont's rules in a humanitarian spirit even if we thought they were completely moronic, had no choice buy to ski the Poconos this year.

PA's rules were pretty onerous for out of state skiers, too. At least they let you test out of quarantining.

 

[PAabe]

I got the impression that the PA restriction was ignored to a degree even greater than the VT one. It was mostly just the governor trying to make it a thing. Nobody asked and it didn't seem like anybody cared about out of state people coming to ski, especially since PA skiing is mostly day trippers. I know it did keep at least a few people away but certainly not to the extent of VT.
I was glad that NY did not have restrictions for neighboring states. I would have loved to see PA reciprocate on that officially.

 

[Harvey]

I'm not sure I understand your argument about NY mountains being sold out every weekend. That doesn't prove anything. They were operating with reduced capacity even in NY so it shouldn't be a surprise they sold out weekends

Gore skier visits were up. Down on weekends due to limits, up on weekdays, for a net rise.

I'm guessing that this had something to do with Vermont's policy, redirected demand. I wouldn't be surprised if NH had a good year too.

Below average number of ski days (23), but overall a great year in NY for me. Most pow days ever (7), 18 days I'd call excellent and the rest were good.

Haven't been to VT, I'm in middle of my vax schedule, hoping to get to Big K before the snow is gone.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Haven't been to VT, I'm in middle of my vax schedule, hoping to get to Big K before the snow is gone.

If you got PFE or MRNA, 10 - 11 days post 1st shot you've achieved most of the immunogenic potential you're ever going to achieve (about 90% of the 95% protection), so fear not if you're already at that point.

 

[abc]

If you got PFE or MRNA, 10 - 11 days post 1st shot you've achieved most of the immunogenic potential you're ever going to achieve (about 90% of the 95% protection), so fear not if you're already at that point.

Except the pesky business of Vermont's "regulations".

In terms of safety, skiing is safer than the time one spend in the vaccination center!

 

[Harvey]

If you got PFE or MRNA, 10 - 11 days post 1st shot you've achieved most of the immunogenic potential you're ever going to achieve (about 90% of the 95% protection), so fear not if you're already at that point.

Somebody PM'd me (a Killy passholder) and told me that if I've had covid (I have) I am within VT rules to go.

 

[drjeff]

As the ski season winds down, not just across the East, but across the entire country, I think it's fair to say that the fears that many had that ski resorts would become COVID super spreader hot spots, just wasn't the case. And the sport in general seemed to show that outdoor activities could be safely done, with some relatively minor things like mask wearing and use of social distancing. And that's a great thing for the industry

 

[BenedictGomez]

Somebody PM'd me (a Killy passholder) and told me that if I've had covid (I have) I am within VT rules to go.

Makes sense to me, and it's encouraging something regulatory about COVID19 makes sense for a change.