ski_it;c-39013 wroteSo we upgraded & they said new passes are 3-4 weeks out. In the meantime, bless their little hearts, they cancelled our Peak passes. I got scanned only twice Sunday. Good thing. Both times it went "BONK-K-K" but the liftie didn't flinch. Mentioned it to someone on a lift & they said that Peak-Epic expects you to go get a day ticket everyday.
Epic passes don't have a hole in them like the Epic so we were looking into pass holders.
Didn't see any I particularly liked. I wish I had one of those jackets with the sleeve pocket. Then we were talking to someone who said Epic reneged and will let Peak customer service or their ski shops punch a hole in your card. Don't try it yourself or it could kill the RFID. So if you trust them & want to use a lanyard....
Then I heard something along the lines of that Epic will not allow any Peak employees, including instructors to upgrade to Epic and that all reciprocal ticketing, if any, is up in the air this season. Apparently they do not want them taking their mtn ski teams to Epic resorts basically for free. Have I got that right Dr. Jeff?
I haven't heard about that. I'll ask my instructor/coach friends this weekend.
I know that when my kids race coaches go to races at away mountains, that the coaches get comp'd a ticket when they sign in at the race registration area. Also I know that in the past instructors have "gone on the dime" of private full day lesson clientele, if they (the client) wants a lesson at a different area or a client wants to have a lesson at Mount Snow with an instructor from another area.
The comp'd employee (and comp'd reduced cost spouse/family passes they can be eligible for) have always presented some "risk" in the era of mulit resort passes, that the employee will leave, and then it gets down to how much time and effort will a supervisor spend to notify human resources and the pass office to invalidate their employee pass if they didn't meet their stated work obligations.
I know from a conversation on the lift with a friend of mine this past weekend who's an instructor with about 10yrs at the mountain, that he has to be on-site and at the lesson line ups all 3 sessions each day for groups or private lessons a total of 24 days this season to meet his employee pass obligations. His teenage son, who is a 1st year instructor, assisting the more senior instructors in the snow camp program (ages 4 to 6) has to do 28 days this season for to meet his employee pass obligations.
My patroller and ambassador friends, if I recall correctly, have also mentioned that their employee pass obligation number of days worked is around 25 days.
The race coaches tend to end up working 30-35 days a season, both at Mount Snow and other mountains for away races over the course of the season which for them is the first weekend of December through typically the 3rd weekend in March. With many of the coaches in particular, there's frankly just not a lot of extra time to even try and attempt to utilize their passes on some type of trip elsewhere with their season length coaching commitments. And the most common "trip" I hear that many of them take during a season, that isn't involved with some type of coaching/PSIA instruction clinic, is mid week powder day trips to places like Magic, Mad River Glen or Jay Peak
