Mt Snow Trip Reports 2019-2020

yardsale

many condo board meetings took place in the valley today. Normally, the Mt. Snow general manager would make appearances at these meetings - but under Vail, she declined all such requests to speak at these meetings this year from what I understand. As a result, there are many rumors floating around the valley. Wondering if Dr. Jeff has any incite to what I am hearing all over the place now:

Vail is calculating their skier capacity based on occupancy of their lodges and properties. For example at Mt. Snow, you add up the main base lodge plus Carinthia plus Sundance lodge plus Bull Wheel plus common space in Grand Summit plus others and that is your skier capacity for Covid19. It was suggested that number is 5000. And on a busy weekend day, the typical capacity at Snow was around 12000. Reservations protocols are still being worked out.
Due to temporary foreign worker restrictions, Vail plans reduced lift operations because they just don't have the labor force. At Mt. Snow, the foreign worker employee number is approx 300 employees that they now have to fill. The rumor is they will run just 1 lift on each face due to the labor shortage. Thus on the main face, just bluebird, with no Canyon, G Summit or Tumbleweed.
The local bus service, Moover, will not service a handful of condo complexes, meaning those folks are driving to the Mt.
There is zero inventory of seasonal rentals. There are very few properties listed for sale. Sales have been exceptionally brisk during the past 3 months with properties being bought site unseen. Average days on market is around 20 for the valley. In the last 3 weeks, many properties have sold within 5 days. People want to be out of Northeast cities and are coming to VT and residing in VT equal to or greater than they are residing at their primary home. Work from home and remote learning for kids are driving this.
Rumor is that Vail expects a spread out of skier visits over 7 days - expecting many will avoid weekends but will flock to weekdays - based on their pass sales numbers.
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Without coming out and addressing these issues, Vail invites the rumor mill to go into overdrive.
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newpylong

Have to run Tumbleweed or the Sundance lodge cannot be utilized.

yardsale

Sundance lodge is weekends only (last year) Tumbleweed ran 7 days a week. I would guess it won't be 7 days a week this season.

DrJeff

Kind of feels like a rudderless ship in a storm right now.

Lots of rumors, that often conflict, lots of "I don't know" when you ask employees.

A definite change in communications from the Mountain (and not in a good way in my opinion)

slatham

Keep in mind some of the “I don’t know” is because the State of VT has not come out with their guidance and guidelines for the upcoming season. All the plans you’ve heard from VT areas are subject to what the State of VT ends up doing.

yardsale

Keep in mind some of the “I don’t know” is because the State of VT has not come out with their guidance and guidelines for the upcoming season. All the plans you’ve heard from VT areas are subject to what the State of VT ends up doing.

Yes, very true. But the cap on daily skier visits rumor is a big one if true... going from 12000 to 5000.

And the loss of foreign workers happens no matter what the state of VT says on travel.

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