And so it begins.... 20-21 snowmaking season starts

[Sbooker]

Big Bear opens for passholders only Nov. 18-19 and to day ticket reservations Nov. 20.

You can thank me now. We will be traveling to Florida Nov. 16 - Dec. 1 and to Argentina for the eclipse Dec. 10-18.

I envy your ability to travel.
How did you go with your travel insurance for your South America trip?

 

[Sierra Lady]

Mammoth OPENING DAY UPDATE. With continued cold temps and even more fresh snow in the forecast, we are stoked to announce we will be opening for the season one day early on Friday, November 13th. Weather permitting, we plan to operate Broadway Express (1), Stump Alley Express (2), Face Lift Express (3), Unbound Express (6) with a small terrain park set up, and Discovery Chair (11) on Friday.

And today’s update said G1 to McCoy would be operating starting Friday, too. Scenic rides only to the summit.

 

[tseeb]

Mountain High was going to open today, but an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
https://www.mthigh.com/site/connect/blo ... index.html
LA Times reported that 4 employees tested positive.
https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/20 ... -to-follow
I hope closing before (or after) planned opening is not a trend, but number of cases in CA which had been doing better than most of our country, are rising.

Better news at https://snowbrains.com/nevadas-lee-cany ... -expansion

 

[Tony Crocker]

How did you go with your travel insurance for your South America trip?

The tour company did want to see that travel medical insurance policy, and I'm sure that it will be fine as it was good enough for skiing in Antarctica.

Getting into Argentina in the first place was the heavy lift. We had a private arrangement all set with 14 people including tseeb and his wife. But entry into Argentina on an individual basis is not happening and we officially cancelled those arrangements yesterday.

We have other acquaintances in San Jose who were going on an extensive package tour run by AstroTrails for two weeks in both Chile and Argentina. The big tours were cancelled but after 5 months of negotiation:

Astro Trails now has confirmed agreement from both regional and national authorities in Argentina to operate two projects for the solar eclipse in December. Flights from Europe and the US are now operating. The itineraries are limited but include Buenos Aires and either Neuquen or Bariloche with observation near Piedra del Aguila. We are accepting reservations now and need to finalise numbers quickly so we can fix the internal transportation. Details on https://www.astro-trails.com/patagonia- ... s-dec-2020

So Liz and I being eclipse junkies signed up for this new tour of 6 days total in Buenos Aires and Bariloche plus the eclipse. We have been warned that we will be in a "travel bubble," doing everything as a group. That's not the way Liz and I usually travel, but in the age of COVID that's what's necessary this time. We were also able to score FF mileage flights to Buenos Aires.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Thanksgiving is here and it's not looking good for CO, UT, CA.

I have just updated a file for early season base depths and percents open going back to 1988 for Front Range Colorado. All of the open areas are below average for Thanksgiving. Steamboat and Winter Park are not open at all because they can't open enough terrain for social distancing. Copper is not open to the public either. These 3 areas still plan to open next week.

The more serious issue is that the OpenSnow guys all say the next 2 weeks will be dry. There will be one more Northwest storm, then nothing for the entire western US for awhile.

Combine the above two situations with capacity restrictions for social distancing, which are probably variable according to how many lifts/runs are open. I would conclude that if you're not a local daytrip skier you should avoid CO, UT, CA until after the holidays. Wolf Creek is the conspicuous exception, but I'll bet it will be slammed Dec. 26-31.

Patrick and other Canadians are free to :-({|= now. Western Canada is off to a fine start and there will be lots of elbow room up there without us contagious Americans around.

 

[Sbooker]

Thanksgiving is here and it's not looking good for CO, UT, CA.

I have just updated a file for early season base depths and percents open going back to 1988 for Front Range Colorado. All of the open areas are below average for Thanksgiving. Steamboat and Winter Park are not open at all because they can't open enough terrain for social distancing. Copper is not open to the public either. These 3 areas still plan to open next week.

The more serious issue is that the OpenSnow guys all say the next 2 weeks will be dry. There will be one more Northwest storm, then nothing for the entire western US for awhile.

Combine the above two situations with capacity restrictions for social distancing, which are probably variable according to how many lifts/runs are open. I would conclude that if you're not a local daytrip skier you should avoid CO, UT, CA until after the holidays. Wolf Creek is the conspicuous exception, but I'll bet it will be slammed Dec. 26-31.

Patrick and other Canadians are free to :-({|= now. Western Canada is off to a fine start and there will be lots of elbow room up there without us contagious Americans around.

Something told me this Christmas could be a bit iffy. Luckily I made the decision to stay in Oz this year.........

 

[Tony Crocker]

Are Aussies restricted from traveling to Canada?

 

[snowave]

I hit Brundage on Friday, and it was pretty good. Groomer coverage was better than I expected with a 2 ft base, hardly any thin spots. Plenty were going off piste, but I didn't. They are closed for a couple days to determine if they want to reopen full time or just weekends, for now.

Lift lines were generally 5-10 min. on the Bluebird express... masks required and enforced. It wasn't terribly busy, as it was passholders only, but part of the reason for the lift lines are this is the first year they are scanning all passes, and then they weren't quadding up the chairs.. so plenty of people going up double or triple.

In regards to the weather.. we are getting a dusting today, but yes overall it looks very dry through at least mid December. In fact, longer range precip. anomalies show this continuing into January, as that gigantic high pressure stands strong over the Epac. Hoping that is not the case, but it seems these big blobs of warm water/high pressure over the north central and eastern pacific are getting stronger and more persistent when they set up. I don't have to tell CA that.

 

[tseeb]

Thanksgiving is here and it's not looking good for CO, UT, CA.

The more serious issue is that the OpenSnow guys all say the next 2 weeks will be dry.

Combine the above two situations with capacity restrictions for social distancing, which are probably variable according to how many lifts/runs are open. I would conclude that if you're not a local daytrip skier you should avoid CO, UT, CA until after the holidays.

What if you haven't skied since 3/14 (my longest break from skiing in 40? years) and this is as good as it gets before the three Vail Tahoe areas on my pass shutdown for the winter? I have reservations for Heavenly 12/2 and 12/3 and a family cabin a mile away that should be checked out as last use was in early Oct by my sister who may not have shut it down properly.

I would try to catch Kirkwood's opening day on 12/4 on my way home, assuming I could make reservation on Wed PM from Heavenly. This is even though my County wants a 14 day quarantine if you drive more than 150 miles from home. My wife would prefer that I stay home and may ask me to sleep in guest room when I return, but I'm still thinking about it as it looks like I could get away from rental refurbishment that I've been working on for over a month and a half.

 

[Sbooker]

Are Aussies restricted from traveling to Canada?

We're prisoners in our own country.
We are allowed into some others - like Japan for example. But we're not allowed out for leisure travel. And even if we were the 14 days hotel quarantine when returning would rule the trip out. Hopefully we can travel to NZ in August. I'm assuming travel generally will be back on by this time next year.

 

[Tony Crocker]

What if you haven't skied since 3/14 (my longest break from skiing in 40? years) and this is as good as it gets before the three Vail Tahoe areas on my pass shutdown for the winter?

Tseeb obviously is a daytrip local from his South Tahoe cabin. He'll be amused by my TR from today, which has an explanation.

I try to make ski decisions on a cost/benefit basis. The standards are modest but still real for daytrip, but the bar is raised if I have to drive 10 hours round trip and pay for lodging. And the standards are very high if I have to get on an airplane.

Still, this season is going to be different with standards relaxed to some degree. I would have been tempted by Snow Summit's passholder opening Nov. 18 even though it was one 1,150 vertical WROD, but I was in Florida. Garry went and it was a junkshow. That WROD was serviced by TWO high speed quads, lots of flying bodies even with one party per chair. Lift lines were also substantial so Garry bailed after 5 runs.

 

[Marc_C]

https://www.sfgate.com/coronavirus/amp/No-day-tickets-at-ski-resorts-say-state-public-15768056.php

 

[EMSC]

Day tickets are not actually forbidden in Cali (yet - re-read your link). And Cali can only touch Cali.

I'm still waiting for the Nevada side of Heavenly to be fully open with the California side closed within the next few weeks of the season and with plenty of cars headed to Mt Rose & Diamond peak from the calif lodging (or maybe the bay area folks will all just stay at the casinos). I have a friend in Soda Springs and the reports from him should be great entertainment when it gets to that - and I mean its all but assured at this point in Cali. He's big into backcountry himself so he won't care much about the resorts, but will care about the clogged trailheads that result.

 

[ShiftyRider]

Good lord you're easily fascinated, I can't imagine what nonsense you'd post if one state had a drinking age (or age of consent LOL) different than its neighbor...

 

[tseeb]

Nevada side of Heavenly is scheduled to open Friday along with Kirkwood. See https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/ ... on-friday/ for details. Story also includes that Kirkwood will open with two non-beginner chairs; one is Timber Creek high-speed quad, but it's low intermediate, and the other one is Solitude, low-speed and usually avoided by me as it stops a lot and with a longer ride time gives you a little more than half of the vertical of not-running, and probably stripped at top by 100 mph Thanksgiving E-winds, Cornice

Don't assume that all of NV is as red as Douglas County, where NV side of Heavenly, Stateline and Minden/Gardnerville are located. From https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/ ... -backward/ "On Oct. 30, The city of Reno urged people to stay at home with the exception of leaving the home for work, to vote, to see a doctor, to obtain medicine from a pharmacy or to get groceries."

I did not go. My wife had strong objections to me doing non-essential traveling for a non-essential (to her!) activity, even though I think I could go to Tahoe and ski three days without much more risk than going to local grocery store and Home Depot. Staying in another room when I returned was not good enough for her. She wanted me to stay at Tahoe, move into the camper (which would mean moving it to my Mom's as my driveway and street are too steep to stay in it) or stay at vacant rental home 6 blocks away that we are refurbishing (which would mean no Internet and only furniture that I brought there). It's also being tented for termites next Tues, which means some prep for treatment to work better on top of the other work we have been doing ahead of and behind contractors.

Plus my youngest sister had a fall and was taken to the hospital on Sun and will be moved to a convalescent facility before going home. She lives with my 90 1/2 year-old Mother who has lost most of her near vision in the last year and also is hard of hearing. While my sister was often more of a problem than a help, at least she was there most of the time. So my other sister and I need to make sure Mom is fed and makes it to her appointments, etc.

I thought about day-tripping to Kirkwood for their opening, which according to EpicMix is 134 miles from home (seems short even as the crow flies - they have Heavenly at 151 miles and our country wants a 14-day quarantine if you go 150 miles from home), as reservations are still available, But it's a long day and $55 of more in gas which seems kind of wasteful for lifts/terrain open. Then 1st cousin who lives in FL called about getting together for a socially distanced beer while he is in the area on a work trip and I agreed to meet him Fri PM.

I have reservations for 12/16-18, but would be surprised if our area allows non-essential travel two weeks from now. Our governor announced today that areas in CA will be locked down (but not really like in Australia) when only 15% of ICU beds are available.

 

[Tony Crocker]

My wife had strong objections to me doing non-essential traveling for a non-essential (to her!) activity, even though I think I could go to Tahoe and ski three days without much more risk than going to local grocery store and Home Depot. Staying in another room when I returned was not good enough for her.

Wow! Isn't your wife immune from her positive reaction to the Pfizer clinical trial vaccine? And won't you as a placebo participant be high priority as it's rolled out publicly?

As for the new California regulations, this is the one relevant to skiing:

The new stay-at-home order, when effective, again prohibits hotel/lodging use for tourism, leisure and other non-essential reasons.

Tseeb should be happy about this because he can stay in his cabin, but many people from the Bay Area would have to daytrip and obviously lots of them won't, particularly with current conditions. Mammoth rates to have a very quiet holiday season.

These restrictions will go into effect on a regional basis if ICU capacity drops below 15% and will remain for a minimum of three weeks. Currently SF is at 25% and the other 4 regions are around 20%. The trend is that the other 4 regions will get locked down in about a week and SF a week later. Mono County is grouped with Southern California.

There are a couple of sensible changes vs. the spring lockdown. All retail will be at 20% capacity so none will be forced to close completely. Beaches, parks and hiking trails will remain open.

Liz and I think it will be a good time to be in Argentina rather than L.A. County for awhile. It's fairly likely Wednesday was my only December ski day. Big Bear would need to open to my usual standard of about 50%, and I don't see that as a good possibility in December with the current persistent weather. My best guess is that we hit the road for points north around January 4 after the holidays are over.

 

[tseeb]

Wow! Isn't your wife immune from her positive reaction to the Pfizer clinical trial vaccine? And won't you as a placebo participant be high priority as it's rolled out publicly?

No sure how you got that my wife received vaccine and I received placebo when study is double-blind. She had bruising from first injection, but other than that neither of us had any reaction to our two injections. We had nothing like experience at https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/02/health/c ... index.html

And while Washington Post opinion piece I posted earlier (here or on skitalk.com?) at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html published Nov. 9 said we would get priority. When I asked person at Kaiser running vaccine study about it via email, they had person who had handled our injections and blood draws call me and say they knew nothing more about it. I am trying to verify policy with NIH, using date error I found on their website as an opener.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... eline.html says there are 118.5M ahead of me for vaccine (same as my 90 year-old Mom) and 268.7M ahead of my wife. I move up to 23M in line based on a diagnosis of asthma.

These restrictions will go into effect on a regional basis if ICU capacity drops below 15% and will remain for a minimum of three weeks. Currently SF is at 25% and the other 4 regions are around 20%. The trend is that the other 4 regions will get locked down in about a week and SF a week later. Mono County is grouped with Southern California.

My county's health department has stay-at-home unless on essential business beginning Sunday 12/6 at 10 PM through 1/4 and I just heard So CA will start stay-at-home at midnight tomorrow. My county's 'order' covers 28 days of Vail's Core Season (12/8-4/4). If it is extended to 30 days, I become eligible for a 100% pass refund.

I'd prefer to use my pass 10 days a month Jan-Mar and more days in Apr. But I have to make a decision by tomorrow whether I want Vail pass protection to cover the 7 days I reserved (the default - I have reservations 3 days mid-week mid-December plus first 4 days of January) vs. the entire Core season. Their policy https://www.epicpass.com/info/epic-coverage.aspx is complicated. Maybe there is a lawyer or someone else reading this that can advise me.

 

[Tony Crocker]

SAHO ICU bed % available as of December 5, 2020 for the 5 regions:
Northern California 24.1%
Bay Area 21.7%
Greater Sacramento 21.4%
San Joaquin Valley 8.6%
Southern California 12.5%
For regions under 15%, the Regional Stay Home Order goes into effect Sunday, December 6, 2020 at 11:59 PM.

At 11:59PM tomorrow (Dec 6), the Southern California region "Stay Home” order will go into effect. Mammoth Mountain will continue to operate for skiing and snowboarding during this time as permitted by the State of California. We recognize, as does Governor Newsom, that outdoor recreation is essential to Californians’ mental health and we will continue to provide skiing and riding for our guests.

Mammoth Lodging Collection properties will be limited to homeowners and critical infrastructure services during the length of the order.

I do not see that tseeb is covered by the Epic Coverage since Vail's Tahoe resorts are not closed. The fact that he has a private residence there certainly would not help his case.

Did either of you get antibody tests to confirm suspicions of the placebo like Liz and I did? I agree that Lucia's reaction sounds very mild. The eclipse chaser we know from San Diego in the Moderna trial was laid out for 24 hours with a fever.

For Ikon, we get a pro-rata refund based upon days Mammoth is closed (we chose the one vs. all resorts option). When Mammoth becomes worth the drive, hopefully Garry will be reaching out to a couple of his friends who own condos there.

 

[Sbooker]

2020 can't finish soon enough.
I understand it is only guess work at this point but do we think next season is going to be largely back to normal? I had plans to have a few months off work and a few months on skis next season but I'm now having doubts that will be practical.

 

[ShiftyRider]

Maybe there is a lawyer or someone else reading this that can advise me.

As yer attorney* I advise you to consider...

- on the plus side I think you have an Ikon Pass as backup
- on the minus side I think you have luxury lodging that's kinda far from those Ikon hills

LOL, Holiday Inns* notwithstanding, I've ridden the lift with you, Tony, Patrick, prolly three others on here.

P.S. Which hill did you choose for Ikon Adventure Assurance? (I picked S***w/Alpine)