Opening day at Jack Frost

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

10 minutes ago, poconoceancity said:

No

it is nice there. However the surrounding area not so much.

@saltyant used to work at Eagle rock 

[Schif]

29 minutes ago, Shadows said:

I know a good building cleaning company....wink wink

He could care less about how clean the buildings are but I'll chat him up about it next time I see him. Now if you can clean fairways and greens, you're in. 

[poconoceancity]

1 hour ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

@saltyant used to work at Eagle rock 

Ski instructor?

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

1 minute ago, poconoceancity said:

Ski instructor?

Liftee

[C1erArt]

Friday radio station day. Got there early so parking and getting my ticket wasn’t too bad. Headed over to East Mountain first thing. Snow was in great shape (at one point, from the lift, I heard someone yell “it’s like butter“).

 

They had a corral set up and crowds weren’t too bad even when I left at 11:30, The second lift was ready but they never started loading it. The slope crowded up a little faster than usual, but on the plus side, Challenge was in great shape all morning. Some of the other slopes tended to get scraped off a little. Very little cover right now.

 

Was up at Sunday River skiing there for the first time last week on the Ikon pass. The slopes were pretty nice but the glades and double blacks were in rough shape. Kind of an interesting set up with a lot of little mountains spread out. Also on the bright side, it looks like Saddleback is going to reopen next year.

 

Think I’ll wait until the six pack is running before hitting up blue again.

 

 

 

[C1erArt]

Was out first thing this morning, Monday, February 3. Nice and sunny, with frozen cord. After it warmed up a little bit skiing was a lot easier. Rivershot was in pretty rough shape from all the traffic over the weekend, and I don’t think there is enough base to properly groom it out. but Floyd’s wasn’t too bad, and Challenge in great shape all day.

 

They groomed out the fresh snow we got yesterday afternoon pretty much everywhere except the left side of Exhibition.

 

That was the run of the day, with nice baby bumps on the first slope with fluff on top. Left about 1, and the temperature was in the low 50s. Spring skiing, but it never got slushy.

 

 

[poconoceancity]

1 hour ago, C1erArt said:

Was out first thing this morning, Monday, February 3. Nice and sunny, with frozen cord. After it warmed up a little bit skiing was a lot easier. Rivershot was in pretty rough shape from all the traffic over the weekend, and I don’t think there is enough base to properly groom it out. but Floyd’s wasn’t too bad, and Challenge in great shape all day.

 

They groomed out the fresh snow we got yesterday afternoon pretty much everywhere except the left side of Exhibition.

 

That was the run of the day, with nice baby bumps on the first slope with fluff on top. Left about 1, and the temperature was in the low 50s. Spring skiing, but it never got slushy.

 

 

Do you feel like the grooming isn’t as good this year? Today was my 2nd non holiday weekday morning and it doesn’t seem as flawless as previous seasons.

[RidgeRacer]

Do you feel like the grooming isn’t as good this year? Today was my 2nd non holiday weekday morning and it doesn’t seem as flawless as previous seasons.

If you want perspective come to Blue.

[JFskiDan]

33 minutes ago, poconoceancity said:

Do you feel like the grooming isn’t as good this year? Today was my 2nd non holiday weekday morning and it doesn’t seem as flawless as previous seasons.

I see lots of FB complaining about grooming and lifts at JFBB, which, i dont know, is the FB stuff because they are getting more traffic now being Epic?  Historically their grooming has always been real good. I dont really remember many bad days of grooming there, but sort of whats going on there just seems to be a continuation of things i saw years ago, which is what prompted my exit. 
 

but, like ridgeracer is eluding to grooming is bad more than its good at Blue. 
 

seems like both establishments dont really care about the product they deliver to the end user. Sometimes Blues shit is down right dangerous. Problem is, we just keep showing up and buying passes, they continue to sell overpriced day passes. 

Edited February 3, 2020 by JFskiDan

[C1erArt]

IMHO when the grooming has been subpar this year it is because there is not enough base to dig deep enough to do a good grooming job. This is the worst year for warm temps and rain that I can remember. But still most trails at JF are in great shape, just the high traffic steeper ones are showing the strain.

 

A couple of lifts had dirt showing today if you cut the corner getting off.

 

I don’t think Epic has increased their traffic at all, if anything it is down over previous years, although I have the luxury of not skiing weekends anymore so I miss the busses and crowds.

 

 With the changing climate, putting in a 30 year investment into a new or refurbished lift is pretty sketchy economics. Glad that Saddleback in Maine found investors to fund their lift replacement. The Balsams ski area in Dixville NH is still trying to get funding.

 

 

 

[Kyle]

Edelweiss and little boulder lifts out for the rest of the season as well. 

[theprogram4]

its like a chairlift massacre this season in PA

[Kyle]

1 hour ago, theprogram4 said:

its like a chairlift massacre this season in PA

Seriously. Basically to ride freedom now you have to go up tannebaum lift, skate over past little boulder lift, pick up freedom under the first rail line OR skate back uphill to get to the top OR you have to ski all the way out to the Merry Widow lift and head to freedom that way. 
 

they also seem to be in absolutely no hurry to build on Love 

[JFskiDan]

1 hour ago, Kyle said:

Edelweiss and little boulder lifts out for the rest of the season as well. 

I guess the big question is, did these lifts just break?  Should they have been running prior to this?  Was peak greasing inspections?  Im not a vail fan, but im also not a fan of lifts failing with people in them at the same time. 
i cant imagine vail didnt do their due diligence when buying peak, but it sure does seem like they keep finding things that dont work so well. Most lifts at boulder are antiques though.  

[Kyle]

Just now, JFskiDan said:

I guess the big question is, did these lifts just break?  Should they have been running prior to this?  Was peak greasing inspections?  Im not a vail fan, but im also not a fan of lifts failing with people in them at the same time. 
i cant imagine vail didnt do their due diligence when buying peak, but it sure does seem like they keep finding things that dont work so well. Most lifts at boulder are antiques though.  

I had this same thought, if whatever is wrong with them is “terminal” for the season, how were these lifts passing inspections? And when we’re they being inspected?  I find it hard to believe that 3 lifts “broke down” all in the same season. 

[C1erArt]

We were using JF A lift in December until they opened up Rivershot and the East Mountain lift was available.

[EdBacon]

I can't speak to the lift issues, but as per the passes increasing visits: these big conglomerate multi passes aren't meant to boost visits at each area, they're meant to spread, and thus minimize risk. If resorts in one part of the country are having a bad snow year, its now offset by business elsewhere. Basically, the more season passes Vail sells to *all* resorts the more insulated they are from bad seasons in one part of the world or another, hence their desire to expand their portfolio. JFBB season pass holders aren't going to buy into a system where Vail invests in JFBB, they're just subsidizing their system and hedging Vail's risks elsewhere. 

Edited February 4, 2020 by EdBacon

[Shadows]

2 minutes ago, EdBacon said:

I can't speak to the lift issues, but as per the passes increasing visits: these big conglomerate multi passes aren't meant to boost visits at each area, they're meant to spread, and thus minimize risk. If resorts in one part of the country are having a bad snow year, its now offset by business elsewhere.

This is what I dont get about national stuff. Each location is still a business. 

[EdBacon]

Just now, Shadows said:

This is what I dont get about national stuff. Each location is still a business. 

Basically Vail just cares about how many passes are sold in total. If JF never opened again, and Vail considered that an acceptable loss to funnel more people onto Epic cards then they would do it. 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

And independently owned ski resorts like Jackson hole and Abasin get on multi passes like the Ikon to increase revenue and visitors.  

[Shadows]

Because people in CO care about frost? So jfbb goes out of business and then next year vail doesnt have those resorts to attract more epic buyers? What's the point 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

11 minutes ago, Shadows said:

Because people in CO care about frost? So jfbb goes out of business and then next year vail doesnt have those resorts to attract more epic buyers? What's the point 

JFBB isn’t going out of business. The JFBB passholders have been visiting hunter and mount snow and some have visited western Vail resorts...even a few to liberty and roundtop.  Sounds like JFBB are being run more efficiently. 

[JFskiDan]

5 hours ago, EdBacon said:

Basically Vail just cares about how many passes are sold in total. If JF never opened again, and Vail considered that an acceptable loss to funnel more people onto Epic cards then they would do it. 

I agree with your first sentence, but disagree with the rest. If i was still skiing frost, and it was going to vaporize the following year, there is no way i would still be on an epic pass. Where the fuck would i ski on weekends when im in the poconos?  The half open BB?  Drive to hunter 30 times?  (No carpooling with skitoolive either)

@poconoceancity, if JF was to close, what would you do?  Stay on the Epic pass, or move on to Blue/Toe/Montage?

closing any resort wont funnel more people onto the epic pass. JF and BB are really two different resorts. They could probably litter some more trails at JF with park features, and get the park crowd over to JF, but tell the JF crowd to go ski BB?  Thats probably not gonna work. 

[EdBacon]

I need to go find the statistics. But there isn't any evidence beyond anecdotes to show multipasses increase ridership in any significant manner. People still ride their local mountains and maybe divert vacations to resorts that are now on their pass. The point of these things is to spread risk around. The more season pass holders Vail or Alterra or whoever can suck up,  the better. It means they have another revenue stream if there's a bad season somewhere else. Why buy JFBB, or any Mid-Atlantic mountains? I have no idea. We always have bad seasons. But I think from Vail's point of view that's another chunk of Epic pass holders they've acquired. They didn't so much buy the physical plant as they bought the JFBB passholders. 

What that means for us I don't know. I know that's an exaggeration that Vail literally does not care what happens to the mountain. Obviously they have to keep things running to keep those passholders around. But what I'm trying to express is that Vail doesn't see the mountain itself, just the passholders as a commodity which can often mean the people running the business lose touch with the different communities on each mountain. I'm not stoked on the outlook when I'm comparing their first year running things to previous years. Granted, this year the weather has been some of the worst outside the 2011/2012 season. Still, the relatively slow pace of opening terrain, and only having two terrain parks built at BB, a mountain literally nobody cares about except for the park rats is just not a good look. We don't know how much the lift issue was deferred by Peak either. 

[EdBacon]

edit: I want to find some numbers. The best I can show is that mountains on mega passes saw something like 8-9% of visits using those passes (not as a local season pass). But its hard to say that those numbers are a total increase since visits increase y-o-y in any case, and you have to assume none of those using the mega pass wouldn't have visited without. So there is an increase but its not a huge influx of people.

Anyway here is some data: comparing Sugarbush which is on the Mountain Collective/Max/Ikon Pass system, and MRG which as you know is totally independent. Skier visits between the two pretty much track the same, and seem to be more weather dependent than anything. 

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by EdBacon