March 6, 2009 Crystal - My O MY

I couldn't agree more w/ hankj, re: not taking ANY crap from ANY ski area employees, EVER. It's simply bad precedent, and too many people allow it to happen.

There are many Crystal employees who are consistently pleasant and professional. That said, there are others - and unfortunately they are often in high viability positions such as patrol - who are flat-out douche-bags. I recently skied Snowbasin, UT. The universally customer friendly, service centered, approach to making the skier's experience a positive one was so very different from the give-a-shit attitude evidenced by Crystal Mgt, and some employees. I suspected that it might be my own jaundiced view of Crystal's service-with-a-sneer, until my fourteen year old son commented on "how nice everyone was compared to Crystal." If bad behavior were met w/ the approach the hankj advocates, and which I have practiced for years in all areas of the service industry, it would be far less common.

I chose to forego buying a season pass at Crystal for just this reason. I will never buy another season pass at Crystal until there are some very big changes in the way they do business. My guess is that I have bought my last Crystal pass.

I thought this would get ugly............Myself, I never ran into anything but helpful patrol all week.Hey,Ski patrol never closed anything for a movie....But if you asked them about opening they were very helpful.....However,I did see Brandon..aka..Yo Mama' strongly defending his stashes......Keep up the fight Brandon,I think it's working .................Warren Miller is gone now,but some lucky skiers that were up in High Campbell early are gonna be in his movie.....I hope its me! It was a great week at Crystal and good job ski patrol handling that movie thing

just to be clear I'm not concerned w/ area closures and most ski area employees are very nice. I very, very rarely run into issues. But too much bad behavior is tolerated and I didn't pay good money to have it directed at me. If that's ugly so be it.

I suspected that it might be my own jaundiced view of Crystal's service-with-a-sneer, until my fourteen year old son commented on "how nice everyone was compared to Crystal."

I heard this today form my 14 year old as well, completely unsolicited. Where? A little ski are at the end of Big Cottonwood canyon....

I do hope they're listening, because I don't think so many people would be so concerned about it all if they didn't love the place.

zap: my roommate apologizes for probably stealing your line this past thursday...

as most of have commented, it only takes a small minority of incidences/people among an otherwise friendly and professional bunch to give the wrong impression... somehow crystal seems to make that happen more than other places...? in contrast to some other folks, the closures do piss me off. however, it would make a world of difference if they were better about posting closures online and at the ticket booths, so you know what you're getting into, and providing discounts when areas are closed. even $5-10 would be adequate - it's the though that counts, right? and it just doesn't seem like they think about the little guy that much...

Here is a little shot from the  Freeride Semi's on northway peak, thats my boy. Sorry if you had to stay out of his way,  off north way peak


Here are some of the other gents


I should get a digital movie cam some day