The 2020-2021 Ski season thread

[radarman]

I'm just hoping and praying for 2010/2011 which will render this moot.  Plenty of fine skiing to be had without crossing state lines if we all have snow.

[powderfreak]

4 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Agreed, no one was at the resorts logging the names and addresses of the leaf peepers. But that is what is supposed to be happening for ski season. 

But I gotta defer to PF here, he is the literal expert on this topic of VT ski resort policies and plans.  

Yeah I guess I look at it as the leaf peppers had to stay somewhere and sign it when they checked in.  Air B’nB operators were supposed to get and retain the records (I have no idea if they did).  They had their information taken by the restaurant to eat in it... yes if they daytripped and just went hiking on the mountain then they wouldn’t have given information to anyone, true.

It was always pushed back on the consumer but I’m speaking strictly consumer behavior, I just personally don’t see it changing because of this continuation of the quarantine requirements.  What I do think we see is a continuation of the people who want to be responsible/respectful and follow the guidelines get the short end of the stick because they are still less likely to come (same as summer)...but the people who just don’t care continue to come.

Not passing any judgement, it’s just the rule follower loses in this situation, IMO, as they watch their neighbor go on their vacations without a care in the world.  Like the ol’ “nice guy finishes last” saying, while the bad boy has all the fun and games.

I’m still against it as I don’t see any evidence of tourism spreading COVID...but I do have to abide by the rules as set out.

[bch2014]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Since April too, ha.

I still think the crowds are coming, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong.  I don’t know how I’d approach it if I still lived in Albany, NY... but I don’t see consumer behavior changing from what fall foliage and summer brought.  Vermont apparently still did 80%< tourism business summer/fall while requiring 99% of the population to quarantine for 14-days.

Yeah, I mean you’d know better than me, but the idea of Vail pulling my pass for skiing at Stowe without quarantining when I can ski Hunter, Wildcat, Attitash, etc with no threat of adverse action... Will make me ski NY + NH more than VT.

[PhineasC]

I still can’t get over people from Coos needing to quarantine due to “high rates of COVID.” Just a crazy mentality. 

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, bch2014 said:

Yeah, I mean you’d know better than me, but the idea of Vail pulling my pass for skiing at Stowe without quarantining when I can ski Hunter, Wildcat, Attitash, etc with no threat of adverse action... Will make me ski NY + NH more than VT.

The ski resorts won’t pull your pass, they are just a middleman for the gov’t at this point.  Like the lodging properties, they just want you to sign or check the box and take on the liability.  It’s essentially like a COVID waiver in addition to your assumption of risk waiver everyone signs when they get a pass.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

I still can’t get over people from Coos needing to quarantine due to “high rates of COVID.” Just a crazy mentality. 

Probably 1 person who lives up near you has it and it trips their percentage trigger, lol.  I think it’s worse in low population areas because one family gets it and that county is triggered as a percent of population.

[radarman]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

I still can’t get over people from Coos needing to quarantine due to “high rates of COVID.” Just a crazy mentality. 

By the metrics VT uses Coos county is awful.  You're like 9x the rate per million you'd need to avoid quarantine.   Based on like 31k people in Coos, they're saying you have 116 or so cases and you can only have like 12 to be in the green.

[powderfreak]

1 minute ago, radarman said:

By the metrics VT uses Coos county is awful.  You're like 9x the rate per million you'd need to avoid quarantine.   Based on like 31k people in Coos, they're saying you have 116 or so cases and you can only have like 12 to be in the green.

Yeah the lower population counties take very little to hit that point.  One big Thanksgiving dinner outbreak will do it for Coos County.

[HoarfrostHubb]

I’m still running a school group at our local hill.  Parents will be driving and will be responsible for their kiddos.  It is just a way for them to get some cheap sessions. 
We are concerned our son won’t be able to work as many hours doing lifts.  He is kinda banking on the $$$ for his spring semester 

[PhineasC]

9 minutes ago, radarman said:

By the metrics VT uses Coos county is awful.  You're like 9x the rate per million you'd need to avoid quarantine.   Based on like 31k people in Coos, they're saying you have 116 or so cases and you can only have like 12 to be in the green.

Never knew it was so dangerous here.

I talked to a nurse who works at the hospital in Berlin and she said she hasn't seen a single COVID case yet.

[cny rider]

Question for the Vermonters in the know:

My brother lives in Waterbury and we always celebrate Thanksgiving together, either in Saratoga or out here in Otsego County.

Is he going to be able to travel to NY and return without quarantining?

 

[powderfreak]

42 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Never knew it was so dangerous here.

I talked to a nurse who works at the hospital in Berlin and she said she hasn't seen a single COVID case yet.

Ha yeah, it's like one person gets murdered in your county in some meth love triangle gone wrong... and all the sudden you've got the highest murder rate in the state.

Edit: Just looked it up and seems true... the White Mountains as a whole is one of the most dangerous places in NH for violent crime.  Small pockets elsewhere but those wide open spaces...  Be safe out there lol.  Using percentages of population doesn't always seem like a good way to look at things.

 

[ChasingFlakes]

6 hours ago, bch2014 said:

You are not allowed in the state unless you want to lie and/or quarantine for 14 days.

How do they prove if you did a 14 day quarantine, either in your home state or in VT?  Its not like they're going to know if you went to a grocery store in that time..  

From a non-local perspective I'm sure many of us spend hundreds to thousands in Vermont's economy each winter due to skiing, it stinks for everyone involved to miss out on that.  I pay for lodging, food, gas, beer and of course a lift ticket each time I visit in the winter.  Across all of the visitors each winter, that adds up to a big loss.  Granted an infected population doesn't help the economy much either, skiing is such an isolated sport already that I think they can find a better way to make it work in everyone's favor.

 

Edit:  “We have no metrics on who’s following our quarantine guidance" - Tracy Dolan, deputy commissioner of VTs Department of Health.

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Ha yeah, it's like one person gets murdered in your county in some meth love triangle gone wrong... and all the sudden you've got the highest murder rate in the state.

Edit: Just looked it up and seems true... the White Mountains as a whole is one of the most dangerous places in NH for violent crime.  Small pockets elsewhere but those wide open spaces...  Be safe out there lol.  Using percentages of population doesn't always seem like a good way to look at things.

 

Not gonna lie there are some shady looking dudes in Berlin. 

[Skivt2]

5 hours ago, cny rider said:

Question for the Vermonters in the know:

My brother lives in Waterbury and we always celebrate Thanksgiving together, either in Saratoga or out here in Otsego County.

Is he going to be able to travel to NY and return without quarantining?

 

No

[STILL N OF PIKE]

On 11/3/2020 at 4:14 PM, powderfreak said:

Since April too, ha.

I still think the crowds are coming, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong.  I don’t know how I’d approach it if I still lived in Albany, NY... but I don’t see consumer behavior changing from what fall foliage and summer brought.  Vermont apparently still did 80%< tourism business summer/fall while requiring 99% of the population to quarantine for 14-days.

This really is not a big story. Same Rules has been all summer .
 

It’s not really brain surgery to see the loop hole or quasi wink did you quarantine (ya umm ya ) in this is there for the tourism industry Or is really just a don’t ask don’t  tell sorta deal . You say you Quarantined like the folks who made up 80% of the Regular tourism numbers (that also didn’t quarantine ) and some jobs are saved . There was no Sizeable breakouts in VT or NH this summer.
 

For as long as you have been Alive and as long as you will live you could always have had a flu or now flu or Covid that you weren’t aware of. This will be the case after a mediocre vaccine as well .

 You don’t go if your sick or if you were around someone that you are aware was sick recently .
 

Of course, that is just my take 

[#NoPoles]

Bretton Woods had an entire top to bottom trail covered with man-made snow. 

[PhineasC]

3 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Bretton Woods had an entire top to bottom trail covered with man-made snow. 

Was over at Sunday River today and they had made some progress as well. It will soon be gone.  

[mreaves]

3 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Was over at Sunday River today and they had made some progress as well. It will soon be gone.  

May have been a good year for the women’s World Cup ski circuit to cancel its Killington event. 

[bch2014]

Just reserved six days on my Epic Pass:

12/19 Wildcat, 12/20 Attitash and 1/22-25 in Crested Butte.

Annoying that you can't make reservations for pre-12/8 until the week of but who knows what the ski area opening schedule will look like with the warm weather.

[amarshall]

So Ikon keeps sending me $200 off VIP promotions because this was the first year I said nah.  Will season pass holders for individual mountains get priority over IKON?  

[mreaves]

48 minutes ago, amarshall said:

So Ikon keeps sending me $200 off VIP promotions because this was the first year I said nah.  Will season pass holders for individual mountains get priority over IKON?  

At first I thought you were talking about the German weather model.  As bad as it is, it should send us all VIP promotions!

[snowgeek]

A year ago tomorrow skied top to bottom at Killington. Different years, different fears. Slowwwww start to winter!!


.

[snowgeek]

Rut roh.

 

Here we go, from Vermont...

 

 

CROSS STATE TRAVEL INFORMATION

 

The State of Vermont has suspended its leisure travel map and implemented a mandatory quarantine for anyone returning or traveling to Vermont.

 

Leisure Travel

 

Due to raising COVID-19 case counts across the Northeast, effective on November 10, 2020, the State of Vermont has suspended its leisure travel map and implemented a mandatory quarantine for anyone returning or traveling to Vermont.

 

A regional map will continue to be maintained on the Agency of Commerce and Community Development and the Department of Financial Regulation websites for informational purposes only. The regional map will continue to be updated weekly on Tuesdays.

 

The regional map is populated with raw data from Johns Hopkins University and uses multiple factors to determine how many active cases are in each county. Read the complete methodology for how active cases per million residents is being calculated. The aggregated data by county is also available.

 

Awwwww

 

 

.

[PowderBeard]

Damn, should have just gotten a pass to Berkshire East/Catamount/Bousquet for an extra $150 this spring. They are really planning.

 

"A lot of effort is going into building 100 winter timber framed ‘cabanas’ that will fit a group of 6. These units are being manufactured at Catamount, using wood responsibly harvested from our Warfield House farm, and milled at Hall Tavern Farm in Charlemont. Fifty will end up at each mountain, respectively, providing up to an additional 300 extra seats at each space. 

These units will have heat, a table and provide space for a family. We are still working on allocating these units to customers each day, but we will announce that process in the coming weeks. The lodges will operate per state guidelines at reduced capacity. Berkshire East will see the addition of new outdoor gathering spaces and patios that will be fun and very logical once you see it. "

[radarman]

22 hours ago, PowderBeard said:

Damn, should have just gotten a pass to Berkshire East/Catamount/Bousquet for an extra $150 this spring. They are really planning.

 

"A lot of effort is going into building 100 winter timber framed ‘cabanas’ that will fit a group of 6. These units are being manufactured at Catamount, using wood responsibly harvested from our Warfield House farm, and milled at Hall Tavern Farm in Charlemont. Fifty will end up at each mountain, respectively, providing up to an additional 300 extra seats at each space. 

These units will have heat, a table and provide space for a family. We are still working on allocating these units to customers each day, but we will announce that process in the coming weeks. The lodges will operate per state guidelines at reduced capacity. Berkshire East will see the addition of new outdoor gathering spaces and patios that will be fun and very logical once you see it. "

After months of wavering,  I just bought a weekday pass to the Beast/Catamount/Bosquet after reading this post.  My intention had been to buy one for Magic this year, but too much uncertainty.  At any rate, Milltown Capital (aka the Schaefer fam) has really put in tremendous work these last few years.  And I've skied with em and stayed at the Warfield.  They're a real asset to Western MA.  Happy to support.... usually in the form of day tix, but considering what we're up against the pass makes sense this year.  Plus the idea of cabanas and outdoor bbq's is appealing.  They have the Alvah Stone managing the food service, which was a stroke of genius IMO.  

[PowderBeard]

Well all the travel advisories and Vermont couldn't save it from itself. Super spreader Halloween and bowling events. Over under on how long until bars/restaurants/anything athletic is shut down again?

[radarman]

15 minutes ago, PowderBeard said:

Well all the travel advisories and Vermont couldn't save it from itself. Super spreader Halloween and bowling events. Over under on how long until bars/restaurants/anything athletic is shut down again?

Monday Dec 14th?

[Baroclinic Zone]

Shawnee updates

https://www.shawneepeak.com/news/november-update-mountain-projects/

[GCWarrior]

18 hours ago, radarman said:

After months of wavering,  I just bought a weekday pass to the Beast/Catamount/Bosquet after reading this post.  My intention had been to buy one for Magic this year, but too much uncertainty.  At any rate, Milltown Capital (aka the Schafer fam) has really put in tremendous work these last few years.  And I've skied with em and stayed at the Warfield.  They're a real asset to Western MA.  Happy to support.... usually in the form of day tix, but considering what we're up against the pass makes sense this year.  Plus the idea of cabanas and outdoor bbq's is appealing.  They have the Alvah Stone managing the food service, which was a stroke of genius IMO.  

I have been skiing at Berkshire East since I was a young child.   Since Jim and Jon took over the operation from their father the mountain has seen so many changes for the better.  Not only have they turned Berkshire East into a great 4 season resort but they do a ton for the local community.  Very good rates for school groups continues to be one of their big points of emphasis.  They even went out and responded to local criticism and lowered their season pass prices a couple years ago.  It is very much appreciated that they are going to provide added shelter for their skiers.  They honestly don't have to go through these measures but it shows how much they care about providing a great guest experience.