21-22 Vail/Stevens Pass Monitoring reports

Thought I would start a thread to monitor Vail's performance this season, or lack thereof.  And of course, ski conditions.      There shall be no soup reports as I don't plan on spending a dime over my off peak season pass until Vail's performance improves or they sell to someone who will return it to it's glory.

They've only had Brooks and Skyline open for the first two days of the season due to lack of staffing.  My first day will be tomorrow, taking skins and planning on the lift situation to not be improved.  Thanks to Covid I get to spend the winter as a local, but sure wish our place was closer to another mountain this year.  Feel free to help me document the season, and let's all hope they perform above our very low expectations.  Prost!

I'll be very interested in reading your report. It's also nice to know that the Terrain Park is back on Brooks. I am holding off on Stevens until they get Tye and Hogs open

12/17 report
Arrived late due to work, around 10:15 to a light Friday crowd, no real lines for 4 hours of skiing, even with only 4 lifts operating, Hogs, Sky, Brooks, and 7th.  Snow was nice packed powder and your could find freshies if you know where to look. Will be curious to see if they have enough lifties to open more terrain for the weekend. Almost impossible to know before you go.

Today's Vail suck news is that they only plan to run "up to 3 lifts" for night skiing. I loved having most of the front side to ski at night, and even encouraged some friends to get a pass for night skiing.  Why does Vail hate skiing so much?

Met a fellow kneeler named Pete, if you're on here, it was great to meet you. Short day, preseason legs.... 
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12/20. Hoping others might fill in the weekend reports, but will continue until Vail figures this place out.

Monday report, lots looked pretty full but lines were mercifully not bad.  Still no Tye or Big Chief, lots of skinners heading that way, will likely join them tomorrow.  7th Heaven lift was staffed with Patrol loading chairs, figure that's not a good sign.  7th skied nice and was the best way to avoid the hords on the groomed.

Definitely need another storm to open the backside, maybe 2, but can't see any reason other than staffing keeping the other front side lifts from operating.  Tye was moving most of the day, so maybe soon??
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Out of curiosity just looked at the lift ticket prices for Vail/Stevens Pass and I had to go out side and puke.    

Then don't look at Crystal's prices, you might not survive.

Thanks Frank.   Not more than a few years ago age wise I could ski for free at Timberline and Whitefish but the new managements have crap canned that and if one looks around the west anymore skiing with an affordable lift ticket is a joke even for military and old timers.   There are still a few cool places to visit but I could only say in a pm. 

I have been waiting for Tye and Kehrs to open before heading up to Stevens for the season. Well it looks like I might have a long wait. A couple of my ski buddies went up today and found out the reason they are not running any more lifts is because they don't have enough employees. Now this is something that they ran into last year also, so they should've been prepared for this. Some other ski forums that I frequent and mentioned that in other parts of the vail empire the same problem exists. A lack of employees to run the lifts which result in the crowds on the ones that are running. Some of the comments are downright nasty. I did email Stevens Pass guest services a couple of days ago asking them what's up and of course I have heard nothing. Things are not looking good at Stevens.

12/21/21 Quickfoot, that is correct, ski patrol was staffing 7th Heaven lift again today.  They said they have Tye ready to go, just no bodies to spin the lift. Lines weren't too bad.  Took a tour up Kehrs around 10:30 when lines picked up a bit, then hit the lifts again during lunch. No real obstacles on Kehrs to being open, other than staffing. Surprised that they haven't even run a cat up there to pack it down though.  Wondering if they plan on opening it at all this season. 

They won't post any info on operations, so I expect a riot when the first real Saturday crowd shows up. Not going to be pretty, and I feel sorry for the staff that will take the abuse. Pretty unbelievable.

Hmm.  is the wage so low that it is offensive or sadly has the era of the ski bum vanished.

the dark side of the airbnb era that no one likes to talk about. I feel for the lost boys of the next generations. I dont know what the answer is to getting lifties to work when they cant afford to live remotely close to the mountain. Id man a lift a couple days a week if the mountain was community owned!! Its sad to see the changes at stevens, but the snow will continue to fall (hopefully) and I am grateful for any time i get to spend on my skis. 

If you are old enough you can still ski free at Crystal Mountain, Mammoth Mountain and White Pass.

Stevens Pass is advertising lifty positions for $15/hr. You can get more than that flipping burgers without the need to drive an hour and a half each way in the snow. Lynnwood McDonalds is paying $16.50/hr.

A full day adult lift ticket costs $129. That's more than they pay a lifty for an 8 hour shift.

The 12/23 report has been delayed due to depression. Today was pretty bad, arrived to stuck vehicles all over the lots, minimal plowing of course.  Got about 5 runs in 2 hours using the singles line. Only Brooks, Skyline, and Hogs running with a full holiday crowd. It would have been Epic if everything was open, alas just an Epic fail.  Busted my ass on the US2 walkway for the icing on the cake.

Talked to several on the lift that paid $109 for that ride and were bailing due to lines and the stormy conditions.

May not be many future reports from me, I may give up and just buy day tickets at Mission or WP.

 

If you come to white pass give me a shout and I will show you what i know about powder skiing there and touring if you have that in mind.

I went up for night skiing Christmas Eve. The place was empty. The snow was great. Only Skyline, Hogs plus Daisy were running.  The lifties were friendly.  I got behind a mile long string of cars coming home going 30 miles an hour, bummer. It was still worth it because of snow was so good.  They were plenty of leftovers from the dayshift.

Thanks for the offer @Filbo,  I'll let you know if we make it down there.  Pretty much learned to ski there and know a lot of the out of the way places, but always happy to learn more and just ski with a new friend.  

Yes, @Quickfoot, Christmas Eve was good.  We hit it from 10-3 and mainly did laps of Skyline/7th.   I think I can be pretty happy this season as long as the snow is good and 7th is spinning.  Otherwise get bored pretty quick not being able to hit Tye or Big Chief bowl.   Will continue to hike some to get to those goods, but that's not what we bought our passes for.

More scuttlebutt from the chair rides and talking to Patrol.  Word is they usually have 70 lifties and only have 20 so far.   Another employee said they had about as many managers as staff, and they don't ski,  nor come out of their offices much.  Sad times indeed at this place.  

There is a petition on change.org dealing with how lousy of a job they'll is doing at Stevens. It is worth reading and signing.

www.change.org/p/vail-resorts-hold-vail-resorts-accountable

There were about 1200 signatures as of 730 Tuesday evening
 

 It was at 750 earlier today when the wife and I signed, over 2700 already. To put that in perspective, bring back the bike park had a little over 400.   

​​​​​Saw reports that that GM Pettigrew was shoveling snow top of Skyline. First rule, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.  Should be manning a booth at job fairs.


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I signed this morning and its over 3500 already...hope this gets some momentum and we can give vail the boot somehow. I love daydreaming about a community owened ski area...i would load lifts for a few nights a week!! Bring back the soul of stevens! We are powder skiers and we want to ski powder!!!

I don't have much skin in this game: haven't bought a seasons pass for any area in over a decade. I do buy a lift ticket at Stevens once or twice a season on a powder day to ski the trees way out left  from S Cross. Sounds like that might not happen this season. Has there been any attention paid by the local media to this issue? That might light a fire under Vail's ass.

Night skiing at Stevens Thursday 
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse at Stevens, it did. When I left home the Internet said Hogsback, Skyline, and Daisy would be running for night skiing. When I got there only Hogs and Daisy were running. It was the same story, not enough staff to run more lifts.  The line on Hogs was tremendous, I was making about three laps an hour. It didn't mellow out until about 8 o'clock. This is definitely false advertising.  I am sending emails to spguest service @ vailresorts.com and two commentsatvailresorts.com which is the only email I can find for corporate vail.  The last time I emailed Stevens I got back a generic copy- paste reply about their main concern is the safety of our guests blah blah. So I will probably get the same reply but at least I'm sending something. The change.org petition to hold vail responsible now has 19,000 signatures if you haven't signed please do.

www.change.org/p/vail-resorts-hold-vail-...ea-a717-652493a8f0df
 

12/31
just drove up this morning to tour Yodelin,  but found they were using it for overflow. Was hoping word was out and people staying away.  

I wonder how many unhappy customers today won't be returning after finding 2/3rds isn't open.  It's starting to get press, should be a story on Kiro pretty soon.  Colorado Sun is reporting similar problems at VR there.

Came home, going to tour Nason Ridge behind the house. Best snowpack in years and guaranteed solitude.

What if you owned a business and discovered you could reduce your staff by almost 50% and also reduce property use by the same or even more, yet still have the normal or above normal amount of customers because they have pre-paid or are willing to still pay for your product and service.  Would a petition complaining about quality of your product even be of interest since your profit margin is now better than it ever was?

Well Filbo, it works great in the short term, we'll see how loyal people are when they don't get value for it.  I really want them to figure it out, it's a 30 minute drive for me, I don't want to go somewhere else. But I'll skip a pass next year, get the Indy Pass again and travel more with our camper.  

With Crystal going back to reservations, it's really going to put pressure on Baker, White, and maybe Alpy/Sno.   We need them all functioning to spread out.  Sure we can tour more but I prefer to storm ski  inbounds and tour more in stable and spring conditions.

Lots of news stories the past few days, but no immediate improvement, 1 lift running tonight.

Will be asking for a refund, already filled with ATG.

Vail's business model is based off climate change, and is pretty forward looking: get people to buy in before the season so people take at least some of the risk of low snow years and amortize regional problems across the globe. The idea that they're throwing away a $100m investment on a single year cash grab just doesn't ring true. I don't think stevens is a good resort for that model but that's another topic really.

Woah, so I hadn't look at this before but they bought 19 resorts in 2019, 4 in 2018, 7 from 2010 to 2017... basically, they what quadrupled in size in a year? and they're having some serious growing pains the following two seasons, no duh. They really should have seen it coming and made a series of dumb choices since, but it smells more of ignorance and optimistic growth than maliciousness.

On the upside, lift lines are way down IME, parking is a lot easier and all the pissed off grumpies stay home. I'm quite enjoying the de-twittering of the pass.

Vail sucks, why try to legitimize their greed oriented behavior with what their global mind set you think is.  Back in the day when they were growing their Vail World they had their  new construction project burned out by pissed off Colorado skiers who saw they could not deal with the corporate mind set.   That act of malicious retort phazed them not in the least since they are multi-million dollar power mongers.   It just cost them a little more to get it all back with their lift ticket prices that are on sale now. 

I'm not sure what the point of that story is? It probably cost them nothing more than some time, insurance would have covered the damage. It would have been passed onto the other property owners in the insurance group, which is probably local businesses. Lets not burn down stevens in protest... Or do, I guess, I don't use the lodges anyhow.

I'm not defending vail, I'm saying it seems strange to position vail as some evil corp making obviously stupid, short term choices when they're going to come out on top here. If I'm going to fail at something, I'd like it to be a good battle, but that's just me I guess. Underestimating the opposition seems like a really bad strategy.

My guess is unless they get more people to work, it'll be handled the way the low snow year was; a pro rated deal after the season closes on next years pass. However, I don't expect that so I'm going to get my days in. There are only so many more ski years left, I'm not going to waste one fighting a lost cause.

I don't think anyone here cares why I think this is a lost cause, but you might want to read the contract you signed before disputing the cc charge. That looks like it'll be a breach of contract, and vail can cancel your pass w/no refund, not that I think they will. I don't think they're a dumb evil corp, just a dumb one.

Last Feb. I we hiked up the ridge on a powder day and caught up with ski patrol checking their bomb lines.  Tye and backside were closed and Steve's official word was that it was due to avie danger.  Before we dropped into Sidewinder and onto the closed runs on Tye, we asked the ski patrol why Tye was closed, they said "have a great run, we are not concerned about avie danger today at all", with a wink and a nod.  They really didn't want to say what they really wanted to say.  I emailed SP at that time and I listed off the litany of issues; sani cans not service for weeks, no plowing in the lots,  closed lifts for no legit reason, opening really late on any powder, on and on.  If you would have told me that day, that next season with a 122% snowpack in Jan., during one of the coldest sustained 2 to 3 week storm cycles bringing some of the best snow in memory, that SP wouldn't even be able to open Tye or Big Chief, let alone the backside??  I remember thinking, there is no way they can do this next season.  Think about it??  Last year they were at least able to open and operate the backside.  This year on certain days, they can't even open 7th or Brooks or Daisy?  All this while they have sold thousands of more Epic passes.  Vail is a real estate company that institutionally and systemically has no interest, will or commitment to running the Stevens Pass ski area to the standards that all of us are accustomed.  I first skied at Stevens Pass as a child.  It's an extremely disturbing revelation that I have taken for granted they way ski areas have operated in my 50 plus years of skiing.  Spoiled all these years?  I guess so, but I have never experienced anything like this in all the years of skiing anywhere that I have skied.  EVERY OTHER OWNER HAS BEEN INTERESTED, CAPABLE AND COMMITTED TO RUNNING THE SKI AREA.  PERIOD!!  

This discussion pretty much sums up the entire situation