ski_it
“The Bluebird and Grand Summit Express, however, will start the day on hold - during the deicing process this afternoon our crews recognized that both lifts were struck by lightning during Monday's storm.”
yardsale
interesting that they didnt start to de-ice these until this afternoon. In other words, they didnt even turn them on until this afternoon. I rode up with one woman on challenger who checked in at guest services at 8am and she was told Bluebird was expected at 9 to 9:30. The bubble chairs were in the barn - but no one began to work on it until this afternoon. Canyon and Nitro were clearly prioritized. I wonder how much damage from the lightning strike.
Chuckstah
My list for tomorrow is now shorter. Wildcat or Crotched it is.
NewEnglandSkier13
How much more will it take for more people to just decide to stop skiing at Vail resorts?
DrJeff
I was a Berkshire East today with my kids at a race. My wife was sending me pics of the lines at Mount Snow prior to her giving up about 10.
Communications has gone way done ever since the Vail deal was announced.
The weather the last few days has been horrendous from an ops standpoint, and if one is honest about it, it hasn't been great since the big early December snowstorm, with over 5" of rain, few natural snow events and more days without a reasonable window of decent Snowmaking hours than with. Throw in a December 30th lightning event to add an extra kink into the mother nature mix as well.
Add in a funky, mid week Holiday where the masses have been here more days than I think most anyone thought they would, and it's an ugly combo.
I truly hope that some of the folks at Vail corporate pay some attention to forums like this. There are a bunch of us loyal passholder families, who are some of the mountain's biggest, most understanding fans, that understand that something's when it comes to the weather in particular are beyond your control, but there are numerous other things, that may not be huge in the big picture, but were done before, that built the brand of Mount Snow and kept it going through various owner's.
Time to step up the game
Chuckstah
How much more will it take for more people to just decide to stop skiing at Vail resorts?
I'm out after this season, unless there's a cheap NH option like the Epic Tahoe. I don't have Epic, just forced to ski their resorts this season, as my Peak pass was pre bought and paid for.
jaytrem
In my opinion MS never had a great track record of getting lifts open after any type of storm. Todays mess didnt really come as a surprise to me. We'll see if things get better or worse next year. Not ready to blame Vail yet.
ski_it
A little eye feast for you:
12.31.2019 10:22 at Tumbleweed up to the 2nd tower...hmm 150 yards idk
Ego at 10:30 after walking over from Tumble:
My daughter was trying to get to NF to meet me. 45 minutes later she was 5 yards from the beginning of the Ego corral and gave up.
Comment from this evening: they spent more on fireworks than deicing.
Chuckstah
If I got there and saw that S- show, I'd turn around and leave. To be fair, I have not waited in line more than 2 minutes in my 5 days at Snow, but they were all Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm not really sure why I upgraded my midweek to a full pass, but I guess I'll eventually ski at least Crotched on a few weekend days.
slatham
EPIC FAIL!! Awesome performance by Bromley and Magic during this holiday weather challenge. I can't imagine skiing Mt Snow again other than during an off time period, and obviously with good weather! The independence movement is on.....
And also, why would anyone even consider waiting in that line for Ego Alley!
ski_it
EPIC FAIL!! Awesome performance by Bromley and Magic during this holiday weather challenge. I can't imagine skiing Mt Snow again other than during an off time period, and obviously with good weather! The independence movement is on.....
And also, why would anyone even consider waiting in that line for Ego Alley!
I can’t imagine either why anyone would. I tried to get an “Open the other lift chant” going at NF but only got the Epic crazy stare from the crowd.
ME2VTskier
Both struck by lightning, yet no one seemed to notice? Lol okay then... whatever.
ski_it
Jan 1st. 1/2 hour wait at the Canyon at 9:30. The line was a corral length beyond the corral. Compounded by all the ski schools going up & the chair stopped for 5 minutes. Challenger was on wind hold. So they started the day with 5 chairs if you count BearTrap & Discovery. Not even running Grommet.
They decided to not to run Ego, Sundance or Heavy Metal even though they were running and deiced the day before, Their response to a tweet was they weren’t running because they knew they could start the day with Canyon & Nitro. Thanks Mt Snow, so kind of you Cheapskates.
They relented and opened Heavy at 10. Bluebird loaded at 10:30 to 11.
slatham
Both struck by lightning, yet no one seemed to notice? Lol okay then... whatever.
Struck on Monday and you don't notice until Wednesday? Or is this just lack of communication yesterday? There was lightening - I was half way up the Sun lift at Bromley Monday when I saw a nerve racking flash. Lift closed as soon as I was off.
DrJeff
My son and I hit the full queue Canyon line at 10. Just after they started putting the bubbles on the haul rope (good luck for us as that had about 1/3rd of the Canyon line scampering for the Bluebird!) We loaded Canyon after a 15 minute line. Lucked out at the top of Canyon as patrol dropped the rope to the Northface about a minute before we unloaded Canyon. My son and I were probably the 15th chair on Challenger. Went over to Sunbrook (that quad is still in need of some serious de-icing before it's regularly scheduled mid week spin day tomorrow.... Why they're doing mid-week lift ops schedules today through Friday of this week makes little sense to me!) Went down to Carinthia and lucked out as they just opened an additional queue lane as my son and I came off a nicely groomed Inferno, so we didn't have to wait in that full queue. Back over to the base about 11 where the Bluebird queue was "weekend full" and the Canyon queue had 3 or 4 groups in each lane.
My wife and daughter got so frustrated by the lack of details with the AM snow report that they grabbed their IKON passes and drove the 20 minutes up to Stratton where they tell me all core lifts are open, and crowds are very light and the skiing a touch scratchy, but good.
I understand that mother nature presents logistical issues at times, however it seems that lack of a plan for what seems to be week in and week out bigger crowds at Mount Snow this season is a significant issue that needs to be addressed
xlr8r
Any resort that staffs New Years day as a regular midweek day and not a Holiday/Weekend day is idiotic.
ME2VTskier
And not running the lifts today, that were operating yesterday? I'd be firing some upper-level management, as they don't seem to have a clue.
joshua_segal
“The Bluebird and Grand Summit Express, however, will start the day on hold - during the deicing process this afternoon our crews recognized that both lifts were struck by lightning during Monday's storm.”
Do you know that for sure? I heard that that was fake news. If anyone knows for sure, please post.
slatham
ski_it was quoting from the snow report. They also posted this on social media.
DrJeff
“The Bluebird and Grand Summit Express, however, will start the day on hold - during the deicing process this afternoon our crews recognized that both lifts were struck by lightning during Monday's storm.”
Do you know that for sure? I heard that that was fake news. If anyone knows for sure, please post.
Whether or not they were struck by lightning, I am not sure. I am though 100% positive that a pretty intense thunder-sleet storm with a bunch of vivid cloud to ground lightning bolts passed over the mountain about 3:30PM on Monday. I was walking from the base lodge to my car then, and it reminded me in lightning flashes and volume of the thunder of a significant "Summer type" Thunderstorm
