The Crystal Conclusion...

I must give my responce to the Crystal trashing. First of all Crystal is owned and run by one man, John Kircher. He is a backcountry skier and hosted the Vertfest and participated with his wife in last years event. He is human and has made bad decisions in the past but has shown the ability to change them when it is brought to his attention. Business must make a profit or they will disappear. Alpine skiers today demand 1st class facilities, high speed lifts, grooming, etc and it is expensive to provide these services.
From my standpoint as a backcountry skier I am thankful to Crystal Mountain for providing me with a well plowed road, free parking, a lodge, rest rooms and a nice bar if I choose to have a beer after a day on the hill.
To me the real enemy to us is the government agencies, Mt. Rainier National Park and the Forest Service. Shame on them for closing their gates as soon as the snow comes and not opening them until the snows are gone. We should be working together to get them to allow us more access to skiing, more sno parks and plowed roads to get there.  How about the north side of MRNP open in winter, Chinook and Cayuse Passes open. Now there are some skiing opportunities!
We have many options, lets quit picking on our allies and start going after our real enemies.

All of what you say is true and your opinion carries much weight considering your position. However, Crystal/Boyne/John should also keep in mind that there is a long standing tradition of family skiing in the PNW, and they should be fostering it instead of running us off by pricing the kids out of reach for many skiing families. They also need to not change the rules in the middle of the game such as the Big Sky season pass benefit.

Indeed, many skiers want first class facilities, but many do not care about such things and simply want to be able to take our families skiing and not go broke in the process.

Next year when the kids prices go way up, I will need to make a decision about where to spend my money, and since I will be paying through the nose for my young kids to ski I won't be spending my money on lodge lunches for 5 people. I suspect there's a much higher profit margin on burgers than on kids passes, but we'll be eating in the truck for sure next season. Nor will I be interested in spending $20 a head and standing in line for a fancy-pants meal at the summit house. I can't do it all, and wouldn't they prefer I buy concessions?

IMHO, smart ski areas make parents WANT to bring their kids to their places of business so that they can create lifetime customers and good will. Many areas have special treatment for children which brings in the parents to spend money on high-profit concessions and full pop lift tickets/season passes. It's just good business and it creates an environment where we want to support the mountain.

Bob has five-cent honey sticks in his coffee bar that my kids always get on the way home. That brings me into his store and sometimes I spend money on other stuff too. Some of the decisions John's made seem clearly aimed at making skiing at Crystal too expensive for 'normal' families. He knows he has a somewhat captive audience, and seems to be willing to take advantage of that which doesn't exactly create a loyal customer base with warm-fuzzy feelings for the operation.

Bottom line; I want to ski at Crystal and take my family there. I also want to feel good about doing so, and not feel as though I'm getting reamed in the process. Please don't hold me hostage by taking advantage of my desire to ski there by making me bend over if I want to include my children. And if you're going to install dramatic price increases, have the courtesy to let your existing customers know so it doesn't come as such a devastating shock.

See you soon for honey sticks, Bob!

I think that you are right on track. If you and many others would point your comments to Crystal something may happen. I would love to see a lower price for kids and not such dramatic increases. Maybe they could be in the form of early season, late season, spring breaks and night skiing. As far as food prices I will eat with you in the parking lot, peanut butter is fine with me.
I learned to ski at Cayuse Pass Ski Area on 3 rope tows. Let's get the Park or the Forest Service to put back in a couple of ski tow areas.

"......Bob has five-cent honey sticks in his coffee bar that my kids always get on the way home. That brings me into his store and sometimes I spend money on other stuff too. ...."

Should also mention the Bob's Huckleberry Ice Cream.....   for the big kids!

.... I would like to see Crystal give preferential parking to Midweek Season Pass holders..... he he...   ... and front of the line privleges if I buy a lift ticket on the weekends..

Most of the time I hit Crystal to be with my friends and drink beer at the Elk.... seems to work fine 99% of the time.  Sometime the snow is good too...   

Once I ordered the Quiche and it was half frozen... ha ha... those ferineners  probably didn't even know what it was...  And it turned out to be some kind of veggie quiche too... I didn't even know what it was....  Yes, a real adventure at the Elk...

Thanks Bob. I'd love to eat with you in the parking lot! You bring the honey sticks and ice cream. I'll bring the beer.

I (and a number of others) have made these points to John/Boyne/Crystal and aside from the fact that they returned the kid's pricing for a very short time to accommodate us loud noisemakers (which was sincerely appreciated for what it was - a short term solution to a much larger issue) I've had little, if any response. What there has been was lackluster and pretty much 'tough shit if you don't like it", IF I were lucky enough to get an email back from them. Even the kids pass pricing turnaround was like pulling teeth. At first it was offered only to those whose kids had had seasons passes previously, but I think they took so much heat they backed off that and I give them credit for calling those of us who'd squawked and being relatively polite about it. I felt really bad for the poor girl who had to call me back the day. She ate John's crow in a big way.

However (again) they appear not to have responded to anyone (including me) about the Big Mt. pass benefit (in case you don't know they changed the rules making the benefit pretty much worthless after many of us had bought passes last spring under a different set of rules). Their actions (kids pricing, rule changes etc.) and responses (few and perfunctory with the one exception) make me feel like they couldn't care any less about whether I do business there. That's crappy customer service at its finest. At least buy me dinner and kiss me before you **** me! Then at least maybe I'll try to enjoy it.

Frankly, with five of us (and yeah, I know it's my problem for having a big family blahblahblah) I'd prefer to patronize the food concessions than to eat in the lot (even with you!). It's WAY easier for me to walk into the lodge (or my favorite old summit house, RIP) and order up a dog than schlepping kids back to the car, figuring out what to put in the cooler at 5am while loading everyone's gear (and probably forgetting something important), trying to keep everyone warm while they're eating, schlepping back to the base yadayada.

At Big Mt. where I've taken the tribe a couple of times, the kids tickets were CHEEEEEEP, and the burgers at the summit house are big, fresh, tasty and $5. We ate there EVERY day even with a ski-in condo full of food at the base. Both times we've been there I've departed feeling really well taken care of - like they really cared about our experience and wanted to please their customers - and feeling like everything was a really good value. THAT's how a business creates loyal customers who are happy to return over and over again.

My contention remains that John/Boyne/Crystal are really NOT doing anything for their own bottom line by forcing us normal (read middle-class-non-destination-resort-oriented) families to choose between skiing their with the kids or feeding them in the lodge. Seems simple to me, but I don't run a ski area. I think I'm safe to say there are probably a good number of people who feel similarly. It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, though they know I'll go there anyway because they've got the goods and we're a captive audience if we want to enjoy said goods. IMHO it's not OK for business where I've already spent nearly $3000 (and I haven't even gotten anything for it yet) to treat me that way just because they can.

Can you imagine spending that kind of $$$ ANYWHERE and not having your emails responded to and being treated like you're just another problem when you bring up an issue with the product for which you pay in advance? Most business simply don't survive with that attitude.

To me the real enemy to us is the government agencies, Mt. Rainier National Park and the Forest Service. Shame on them for closing their gates as soon as the snow comes and not opening them until the snows are gone. We should be working together to get them to allow us more access to skiing, more sno parks and plowed roads to get there. How about the north side of MRNP open in winter, Chinook and Cayuse Passes open. Now there are some skiing opportunities!
We have many options, lets quit picking on our allies and start going after our real enemies.

Bob,
In the summer I was able to participate in a meeting with Steve from Alta Crystal, Lance from the Outing Club we met with the varoius agencies you mentioned-Dave Uberagua MRNP Superintendent, Ewe Nearing-White river MRNP Supervisor, Sno Parks Leader-Kathy, Karen the USFS Supervisor for the White River corridor.
The discussion was to see if we could encourage the Park to open the gate to at least the Mather Wye (the junction on 410 in the Park that leads to White river campground). The road is typically plowed one lane for maintenance to get into the White River Ranger station.
We claimed that the since the road is maintained already why not open it to the public to extend the experience in the park. It would afford those a view of the mountain by Big Bertha that cannot or do not have the energy to hoof it all the way in to that location. Our contention was that the road is to low in elevation for decent snow and the sno-park should be higher up 410. The park battled back that the what is wrong with a river view?
There was some response from the Park that there is no funding in a dwindling budget to afford the maintenance of the road, rangers to scout and have safety measures.
The resistance was pretty obvious, so no matter what we said that would not be a viable option. Even if I pulled a sack of 3 million dollars from under the table it appeared it would not sway the park. There are other issues than money it seems to me.
The decision was to do a better job of maintaining the sno-park at the bottom of the boulevard. Better plowing so Crystal's plows don't put a huge berm and make it impossible to park at the sno-park. I think many people do not know there is a sno-park where Crystal access road meets 410.
If the sno-park is not successful this season they will probably stop operations there in the future.
What is weird is that other options were discussed involving some of the forest service roads
local between Greenwater and Crystal. Baffling was the discussion by the Park to potentially open some of the roads that lead to Mowich! And they seemed very serious. Uhhh...remember you didn't have the funds to keep 410 open?
There was a chance to dive in and call them on this matter, but I resisted to keep at least that option available in future discussions.
So, long story and the only result was maintaining the existing sno-park and looking at other options instead of 410 access.
We need to follow up on this meeting, what we need is people interested in being involved, that would include letters to Dave Uberuagua MRNP Superintendent, and future meetings.
I applaud the Park for showing up and listening to our small interest group, but change can only come in numbers, letters, calls, and help etc...

Whew...that is the short story.

I feel for Oftpiste and others with family's who have to invest large funds to get their kids into lift skiing. They are the future of the sport and I hate to see it limited to the upperclass citizens. I learned to ski on my own when lifts were $5 and working in a bakery to purchase my own gear and tickets, bumming rides from others parents. That would be a lot of donuts to pay for the new children's pricing.