advice for Colorado
- Thread starter johnnash
- Start date
Feel free to apologize for impugning my sources. =;Marc_C":3uoh10su said:
Marc_C
Active member
There was no impungement involved - just a request for a definition of "recent". When I posted a link to that photo on another discussion forum, there was disagreement from some folks who had been to Vail in the past month, claiming even coverage but too thin to open to the masses. One person even said "BS - that photo was from October."jamesdeluxe":iu7u7lwk said:
berkshireskier
Active member
Publicly traded stock of Vail Resorts (Symbol: "mtn") is trading down from a high of 48 in October to 38 recently. Lack of snow is NOT helping business or the stock price!! See chart below:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MTN+ ... N;range=3m
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MTN+ ... N;range=3m
Both Vail Resorts and Aspen Skiing Company showed their customers that they don't care about them with their pricing practices this holiday season. Vail raised their one-day ticket to a record-high $116 and Aspen Skiing Company upped theirs to $108 during the holiday period. If conditions were "great" then maybe you could justify that, but when conditions are unacceptable that's just a bad practice. In the case of Vail only 20% of the mountain was open and the "famous" back bowls were 100% closed. I spoke to more than one visitor at Snowmass who brought this up on the chair ride and they all unanimously added they won't ever come back They felt cheated.
Sadly, I don't know anyone that discounts tickets purely for low percent of terrain open, especially during the holidays. We see the discounts with limited lift/terrain open in early/late season, but that's due to the time of year, not because of what's open.
I actually have a cynical attitude about this. I say keep jacking up the prices for Christmas week since most of that clientele doesn't seem to care. Use the $ for improvements, keeping the mountain open later in the spring, etc. And as MarcC noted, it won't matter to the season passholders.
I actually have a cynical attitude about this. I say keep jacking up the prices for Christmas week since most of that clientele doesn't seem to care. Use the $ for improvements, keeping the mountain open later in the spring, etc. And as MarcC noted, it won't matter to the season passholders.
johnnash
New member
After driving back from Wolf Creek to Vail Friday morning, I skied a few last runs at Vail. Since it was so late, I just skied in the area I could access most quickly, which turned out to be Lionshead, since the Riva Bahn was shut down due to some kind of fire. The conditions were highly variable. The best conditions I found were comparable to average skiing around DC -- machine groomed over hard pack. Not ideal, but for those of us in the MASH, about par for the course. Other runs would not even have been open at resorts around DC -- exposed soil all the way across the run, making it impossible to avoid, and one short black run with a surface so hard that you couldn't set an edge -- you just focused on staying upright while you skidded along!
And in an ironic twist, we awoke pre-dawn Saturday to drive back to the Denver airport, and discovered we were in the middle of a snowstorm -- totally unforecast! At some points driving slowly behind snowplows on I-70, we wondered if we'd make our flight. Fortunately, we had allowed ourselves extra time (just because we tend to be pretty cautious, not because we expected this!), so made the flight OK. The snow was quite heavy west of Vail pass, then not nearly as heavy on the east, and had pretty much petered out by the tunnel. The reported snowfall at different reports reflects this -- 7-9 in. at Vail and BC, much less at Keystone and Breck. I didn't check, but I doubt Loveland got more than a dusting. As I mentioned in earlier reports, I suspect a few inches like this will make it dangerous to ski some of the bump runs at Vail, since it will hide the rocks in the troughs, but at least it's a start. Hope they get a few more like this soon! :snowball fight:
And in an ironic twist, we awoke pre-dawn Saturday to drive back to the Denver airport, and discovered we were in the middle of a snowstorm -- totally unforecast! At some points driving slowly behind snowplows on I-70, we wondered if we'd make our flight. Fortunately, we had allowed ourselves extra time (just because we tend to be pretty cautious, not because we expected this!), so made the flight OK. The snow was quite heavy west of Vail pass, then not nearly as heavy on the east, and had pretty much petered out by the tunnel. The reported snowfall at different reports reflects this -- 7-9 in. at Vail and BC, much less at Keystone and Breck. I didn't check, but I doubt Loveland got more than a dusting. As I mentioned in earlier reports, I suspect a few inches like this will make it dangerous to ski some of the bump runs at Vail, since it will hide the rocks in the troughs, but at least it's a start. Hope they get a few more like this soon! :snowball fight: