Schif

Special access for pass holders? Maybe this can make up for the season passholder party I've missed for the past 4 years

How was the Epic Mountain Express? I saw a lot of those little busses and vans last year but didn't' know of anyone to actually use the service.

Seems like slim Pickens and I have a broken arm but I'll likely put in a short session Saturday.

I suppose I can chime in on this TR for a bit. Travel for those interested was on SAS (Scandanavian Air). Newark> Stockholm> Geneva. Then we booked a "mini bus" that would take us to the mountains. Turns out it was a full sized and completely full motor coach. Lots of traffic, but not terrible, pretty comfy ride. The only issue was that there was a transfer in the town of Moutiers. It's pretty much just a train/bus station town and we had an hour to kill since the traffic meant we missed the connection. Tried to eat at a restaurant, but in a small French town service is 100% on their schedule so we bailed after 10 minutes of trying to get a waiter to actually want to wait on us. At this point I wandered the town in search of a grocery store I found on the map. Slightly harder to find in person and I ended up running around like a mad man grabbing beer, wine, champagne, snacks, apples, and a huge hunk of cheese. A mad dash back to the transit station ensued with a backpack full of booze and a case of glass bottles and a bag of apples in my hands. Made the connection by the skin of our teeth. Bus dropped us off in the middle of Meribel, and it was a short walk to the Chalet. We were on the "3rd floor" which really meant going up a steep driveway from a hilly road, then up 2 flights of steps to the main entry, then another flight, then there was an elevator to get you to our floor, and when you opened the door you were faced with an interior flight of stairs which brought you up to the main floor of our 2 floor penthouse. This was obviously fun with bags and gear. Gorgeous place though and the views were sweet. After a long day of travel, the group popped a few bottles of wine and we made our way to L'igloo for some pizza and more wine. L ' IGLOO (2) (meribel-restaurants.com, and turned in ready to get up and get the first ski day in.

Not from today, but a teaser for an up coming Trip Report

I don't really want to drive out to Roundtop, but uphill has me 5% interested.

Making me want to run up tonight now. Definitely in for Sat and Sun

Temper your excitement on April...

Do either Epic or Ikon offer the rest of this season too?

My understanding is that one crew of two people can run just about any train now. Even if there are two locomotives they are hooked up so that they are controlled by the first one. There's also a new trend of putting two locomotives in the middle of a mile plus long train that are controlled by the one in the front as well. So in that situation there could be a crew of two running 4 engines, two of which are 3/4 of a mile behind them.

I'm banking on a Thursday night this week. @MattEDGE expressed interest too.

Tomorrow will be a wake up, forecast check, webcam check, and we will see. Sunday for sure

I'm in the middle of watching a documentary on Max about these guys. They seemed pretty harmless for a cult until the whole Kool-ade thing.

I cannot imagine a less "ski trip" drink than that

A lift ride rumor is where I first heard about the Super Safari Summit Six Pack Supreme. So never say never.

I listened to it last night. I never really heard anything too groundbreaking in the podcast. Just pretty standard executive talk. He kept saying that their mission statement was "Create guests for life", which makes sense. It's all about the experience and the resort and making you feel like you're on vacation there. Day tripping skiers are not their target audience. One of the really interesting things I got from it is that KSL is split in two entities which I did not know. KSL Capital, which owns a stake in Alterra, and KSL Resorts which I believe owns the actual operations. KSL Resorts has the mandate to diversify their properties, which is where Blue and Camel come in. So I find it unlikely that they would transfer ownership to the other KSL's subsidiary. To me this means that unless strategy changes, we won't get unlimited Blue on an Ikon Pass any time soon. More interesting things I took away from the podcast 1. Black Bear 6 cost something like $14 million dollars. Gives me an idea of how much lifts cost. They are also planning on adding a big video board to that chair at the bottom. 2. Cameltop has been closed for quite a while. They are planning on utilizing it for corporate events. Seems like corporate events are a huge part of what they are going after. He mentioned the Cintas uniform company having an outing where they worked in the conference rooms all day and then went snow tubing at night. I would bet expense accounts got a workout at the bar as well. 3. Paid parking is here to stay. When pressed on it, he talked about the fact that they have no plans to reconsider that, and referenced the size of the property and the high cost it takes to operate.

The pricing is definitely giving me pause. One part of my brain says," just buy it" And the other part says, "build a spreadsheet to examine the cost/benefit vs other passes". Snowboarding/skiing is absolutely my favorite activity and I would really miss it and miss the parking lot if I didn't have a pass. That being said the price is getting so high that the value proposition isn't really as appealing. Devils advocate though, the price of everything has jumped. Wages, electric, steel for pipes, replacement parts for lifts, you name it. This is a pricy business and they can't give it away for free. There really isn't a good answer. My brain still prices a ski day in the Poconos between $50-70 and that's just not true anymore. The days of getting on the snow without a pass for under $100 are over so the pass makes more sense in that context.

@PSUFrankenstein offers car wash services in the free lot. Just tires and maybe a little splash on the doors though.

This weekend it will be Sunday only unfortunately. I need a RAW session soon though.

I actually did the payment plan last year. Not a huge upfront spend which was nice.

Glad you got to experience Tussey, what do you think of that wooden quad with the post in the middle?

I'm really jealous of you midweek guys

Shoveling here in Philly was more about pushing the slush into the storm drain. I just hope it sticks around at Blue until the weekend

Fixed it for you

Speaking of hi-vis. If Saturday does turn into a 60 degree day would anyone be interested in a double dip, ski and then bike?