Vail Fail 2025/2026

Beast Patroller

Vail is good at pointing fingers at others for the issues they encounter instead of looking in the mirror! Understandably a unique lift but take for example the M.R.G. single chair, built in 1948 and restored in 2007. The Ego Alley chair isn’t anywhere near as old but it does serve a purpose. Though it doesn’t transport skier up to the summit it is valuable on busy days by distributing skier out of the base and onto the mountain. It’s also a huge asset on days when the summit lifts can’t run because of high winds. Not all lifts need to be high speed detachables or bubble lift lifts to service the mountain and their guest!

NewEnglandSkier13

Beast Patroller Understandably a unique lift but take for example the M.R.G. single chair, built in 1948 and restored in 2007. The Ego Alley chair isn’t anywhere near as old but it does serve a purpose.

To be fair, that’s not a good comparison. The Single at MRG was essentially a new lift in 2007, with mostly reused towers. Ego Alley was new in 1985 with reused towers, so it is significantly older.

Beast Patroller

Understand but my point is they could do the same with the Ego lift. Essentially the MRG single was a 59 yr. old old lift when it was restored 19 yrs. ago. The issue is resorts and skiers feel that if the lift isn’t some high speed/capacity lift it’s useless and that worth maintaining.

As an example, how good were all the detachable lifts at Mount Snow during the last high winds day? The only lifts running were the surface lifts, the beginners chair & the Heavy Metal lift (both fixed grip). How would you have liked to travel up or already there to either not ski or bought a lift ticket for what they offered? At least with the Ego Alley lift you could have skied the lower half of the front face.

riverc0il

Beast Patroller Essentially the MRG single was a 59 yr. old old lift when it was restored 19 yrs. ago. The issue is resorts and skiers feel that if the lift isn’t some high speed/capacity lift it’s useless and that worth maintaining.

Comparing any mountain to MRG or any lift to the Single is not going to be an apples to apples comparison. Any other mountain would have installed a new double (which MRG did consider). The Single was more of a new lift than the restore. The towers were reused, pretty much everything else was changed. It isn’t the same lift.

I am not familiar with Mount Snow, but the Single is the primary lift at MRG and accesses a significant amount of terrain that cannot be reached from the Sunnyside, including all of MRG’s most famous runs and trees. This seems like a completely different situation. Not saying the closure is justified, I don’t have a horse in that race. But a comparison to the MRG Single misses the mark as criticism of the Mount Snow situation.

NewEnglandSkier13

Wildcat’s snow report is chock full of excuses today!

Beast Patroller

Like I said earlier Vail is good at pointing fingers (and excuses) for their shortcomings!

Bondman

millerm277 “Appalling and is insulting to their customers” Really!? A little bit too strong, I think. Your sense of humor on Vacation?

Beast Patroller

I agree it may not have been the best comparison. My point was the single was an old lift and could have been replaced but they decided to restore it instead. Ego Alley is a 1985 lift and services the lower half of the main face at Mount Snow. It’s value is being used on really crowded days to help move skiers onto the mountain when the lines on the high speed summit lifts are long. It also allows skiers to ski the lower half during the numerous days when the high winds shut the summit lifts down. Vail has deferred maintenance and has slowly mothballed it instead of utilizing it for its positive benefits.

Beast Patroller

Lately there has been interest to resurrect ski areas that have closed, on the verge of closing, or not being managed as they should be and resulting in a decline of service. B.M.O.N.H. started it in 2024 with the owners of Indy Pass taking over and last season saw the beginning return (staying open until May). Over the offseason last year they invested into the infrastructure and the area is thriving. Last year also saw a rebirth of Burke Mtn. and the sale of Killington to private investors who then sunk millions into the area.

With the current dissatisfaction of how Vail is running Wildcat & Mount Snow maybe it’s time for a group (or two) to approach Vail and buy back these two areas and return them back to the glory they once were.

lotsoskiing

Beast Patroller Seems like Attitash is another place they have let go to seed. Half their terrain open

joshua_segal

lotsoskiing As far as I know, no one has been able to run Attitash profitably. In the break up of American ski Corp, Attitash was packaged with Mount Snow. Peak resorts wanted Mount Snow. Vail brought Peak resorts. What they really wanted was Hunter and Mount Snow. What they got was that +15 other ski areas/resorts.

That being said, Vail has never sold off a ski area. I suppose there is always new first, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

obienick

Dumping an area is the antithesis of Vail’s business model and it would signal to investors that their model doesn’t work. This isn’t closing down an underperforming store or closing one with too much shrink.

And as bad as Atticat has become, the midwestern areas are far, far sadder.

Beast Patroller

obienick I agree with you but what’s worse, selling off a resort that’s problematic or run it into the ground? These areas mentioned are worse off than before Vail took over and the shareholders must have heard all the complaining on social media. Just look at all the employee strikes lately! You never heard of this in the past. Personally if I was an shareholder I’d rather cut ties with a area that’s not working out than watch it go down like the titanic! The only reason Mount Snow hasn’t sunk yet is because it’s the closest mountain from L.I. , N.Y.C. , & N.J.! Also , there are a lot of second home owners who are lazy or refuse to go to another mountain close by. We have a home in Wilmington but we now ski at B’East. Stratton isn’t that far away either. Let’s face it Vail bought too many resorts too quickly and they don’t know how to manage all of them properly. They could offload 25 to 50% of their holdings and still offer an attractive package.

lotsoskiing

obienick As a former Ohioan, I lurk on Boston Mills/Brandywine webcams. Looks like they have been hammering there. Alpine Valley, lame as it is, also seems ok, but those places are orders of magnitude less challenging to get fully operational.

trackbiker

At Jack Frost the whole east side of the mountains trails are still not open. That’s the expert side. Peak used to have Big Boulder first to open and last to close. Jack Frost was not far behind to open. This season has had excellent windows and long stretches of snow making weather. Rumor has it they took a lot of the fan guns from the east side and moved them to Hunter and Mount Snow. The locals are not happy. They are not having, to quote Vail, the “Experience of a Lifetime”.
So much for the “value” of a cheap Epic Pass. 🙄

Beast Patroller

trackbiker While I currently don’t ski Mount Snow I find that claim a little hard to believe. When Peaks did the West Lake project they also installed hundreds of new guns along with new piping, & pump stations. Though nothing would surprise me with Vail! It’s a shame to hear that those areas aren’t fully open as there is no weather excuse.

DrJeff

trackbiker

Unless Mount Snow has been hiding them somewhere, it sure doesn’t look like, from having skied all over the mountain most every weekend this season, that they have received anything more fan gun wise other then a demo Demac-Lenko sled mounted fan gun that arrived right around New Years and they have used on at the junction of Charlie’s Chase and Canyon as well as it was running the last few days on Middle (or I guess they call it Upper now) Exhibition. Sure seems like the numer of sled mounted portable SMI Polecats that they have is the same this year, and they definitely haven’t installed any new tower mounted SMI Polecats. The Rumor mill more often than not ends up being false

rgrwilco

trackbiker

I just checked some youtube videos taking this year and compared them to videos posted before vail took over. It seems the polecats are all still there.

Which makes it even worse they have the equipment but don’t use it. I have photos riding east mountain before christmas in worse snow years. not to mention what they have done to the park scene.

Its criminal (in my uneducated opinion) that vail owns the amount of ski areas they do in PA. They own every southern PA area (6 of them) except for blue knob, essentially cornering that market. at least in NEPA we have the option of montage/elk/camelback/shawnee/blue to avoid vail.

newpylong

Taking more Polecats is not going to even help them out, they already have more than enough carriage mounted units to cover everywhere they are needed.

rickbolger

joshua_segal Never? Beware of absolutes. 😉 They did once, 1997, had no choice.

joshua_segal

rickbolger
You got me! Which skiing property did they sell off?

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