F Vail

I thought it was KSL (an Alterra partner), not POWDR, that had a minority interest in Whistler.
 
TonyC said:
I recognized your screen name from the late EpicSki Forum (perhaps my greatest personal beef with Vail is its demise at their hands in 2017) and thought you were involved with Ski Forums for a long time.
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Being active in ski forums is not the same as spending time reading about and/or discussing the industry. I didn't get Chris Diamond's first book, Ski Inc., until a few years ago. That was well after EpicSki disappeared from the Internet. I wasn't skiing more than a week out west until after 2009. Too busy being a parent of a kid in elementary school in NC.

So far, I've never had a reason to get an Epic Pass. Ikon and the MCP, or Indy, is what I get to go exploring beyond my home mountain in northern Virginia, Massanutten.
 
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TonyC said:
From afar my impression was that local hills outside Minneapolis, Detroit and Chicago were spruced up and improved by Vail. Vail has been criticized for years about "being the 800 pound gorilla," homogenizing resorts, squeezing out local businesses. But this is the first year I've seen issues of competence in operations. That has historically been one of Vail's strengths. These current critiques of Vail are much more like the critiques of POWDR in the 2000's.
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Those acquisitions (Afton Alps, Mt. Brighton, Wilmot) were very different than when VR added the resorts owned by Triple Peaks and Peak Resorts. The first three "urban" resorts were independent family-owned resorts that needed capital investment. VR budgeted millions to replace lifts and renovate base lodges. By the end of the first year of operations under full VR management, the locals were pretty happy. There are local passes still available for those locations, so people don't have to buy a more expensive Epic pass if they only want to ski local.

Triple Peaks only had two locations in the northeast. It's pretty clear that locals who have been skiing Okemo for a decade or two haven't been too happy at how the situation has been evolving. Those who are Sunapee fans are probably happier because that mountain needed improvements and VR and moved forward on a few projects. Sunapee terrain is on land owned by the State of NH, so no one expects changes to happen fast.

The resorts owned by Peak Resorts in the northeast are quite a different story. Yet again a different situation for the original Peak Resorts in the midwest. The Washington DC and northern VA folks hadn't really gotten over the sale of the Snowtime resorts (Roundtop, Liberty, Whitetail) to Peak Resorts when they situation changed even more with the take over by VR. DCSki is one of the regional ski forums that I've been active on since before I posted on EpicSki. DC folks are not happy with Epic Northeast or Epic. Ikon and Indy are far more popular as multi-resort passes.
 
I'm pretty sure the person slipping in the bg is also the excellent skier with the camera in her face at :29 seconds. No doubt she's on the media team.
 
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tirolski said:
Just guessing it wasn’t staged but ...
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Fair to say that the DCSki folks who live in Pittsburgh are pretty nervous about the fact that VR bought the three ski areas/resorts that have been the local hills for a few decades. While there have been complaints about the former owner, they have been paying attention to what happened with the former Snowtime resorts that are local for folks in DC/noVA. Peak Resorts weren't popular, but the complaint level settled down after the first season.
 
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Q*bert Jones IV said:
I'm pretty sure the person slipping in the bg is also the excellent skier with the camera in her face at :29 seconds. No doubt she's on the media team.
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Different color of blue but ya could just change yer coat.
If they got time for folks playing shenanigans they just might be better off to focus time on customer service.
There’s a chance it could help.
 
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