Last year had the worst lines I have ever seen at Gore. Mostly the problem was at the base, but it wasn't just before 9am, or before 10am. It was consistent for nearly the entire day except maybe a small break around lunch and after around 2:30. For the most part if you stuck to the other sections you were fine, but there were days when I saw the lines at Topridge, Straightbrook, and High Peaks back up the hill.
As I've said earlier, we did what was necessary to open last year. It worked, considering there were no extended closures in the Northeast. But there were clearly bad effects from it and I'm not going to sugarcoat it, glorify it, or otherwise engage in revisionist history. Also, on weekends, they almost always opened the AE2 at the same time as the gondola, covid or not. Maybe weekdays were different, but I rarely ski at Gore on weekdays, so I don't know.