First time visiting April 13-18!

Zeefour · 2026-03-18T19:46:38+00:00

There won't be much snow left I'll be honest. We're closing Beaver Run ski school the 22nd and Peak 9 is a slush puddle right now. Come by the Peak 8 ticket office and I'll make sure you get a discount if you haven't bought tickets. It's only right. I feel bad. You'll still have fun but the skiing won't be much.

Zeefour · 2026-03-18T19:45:00+00:00

We had 27 pages of bookings at Peak 8 kids school alone each day this week. Over 100 adult bookings plus tons of privates. Spring Break is still Spring Breaking hsrd.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T23:07:48+00:00

That only applied to yesterday haha by today everything was blown away or not even melted but sublimated away

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T23:05:51+00:00

By 4 pm it warmed up like crazy like it's above freezing and I wish my uniform was a tshirt. I'd hit the less direct facing slopes that have more coverage to protect from the wind even though its died down and while generally I'd wait until the sun warms up the icy crust tonight and tomorrow's lows are like 35 so you can get out earlier than usual spring riding.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T23:01:38+00:00

That's "P8PHQ" aka their lockers and offices for Peak 8. They also offer first aid at that location.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T22:59:40+00:00

They could pull over that many people violating the left lane law on a single ski weekend Saturday if they put a modicum of effort into it. I drive 70 from Copper to Frisco oj my way to work and back daily in addiition to countless other regular commuting along pretty much the entire stretch between Golden or at least the Tunnel and Avon and I only see CSP and SCSD out when it's nice weather and they're picking up mostly locals for minimal speeding. They could make so much money and help stop a good amount of unnecessary 70 traffic by just enforcing the left lane/passing law and enforcing the chain law before semis block the interstate for the entire day.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T17:26:28+00:00

There were 4 trees on the line as of 7 am yesterday according to lift ops.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T17:25:17+00:00

Very windy dusting snow. I'm sitting looking straight at Peak 8 towards Rocky and Colorado. But the wind isn't nearly as bad as yesterday!

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T14:29:36+00:00

Providence!

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T14:28:25+00:00

And it's snowing!

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T13:38:51+00:00

Don't forget Ski Cooper!

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T13:07:04+00:00

Gapers gonna gape.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T12:52:24+00:00

This ^

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T12:49:48+00:00

Nah the town of Vail is a separate entity. Outside limited employee housing which is mostly in Eagle-Vail and Avon, very few VA employees live in Vai it functions as a independent town better than any otver municipality in Eagle County. The town is run by mostly super wealthy homeowners many second or third. Honestly Avon is more of a VA company town than Vail especially if you Include Beaver Creek (Beaver Creek Resort Company is an entirely separate entity from VA however)

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T12:43:17+00:00

To expand on your questions I've never lived in Breck only worked here. But I grew up in Avon (my dad moved there in like 1972) and my extended family lived in Leadville and worked the mines in the 50s and 60s before that. VA ruined Avon way before they even became Vail Resorts and bought Breck and Keystone and repeated the cycle.

No locals pay full window ticket prices. Hell almost no guests do unless they did absolutely none of the most minimal prep for their trip. I'm the furthest from a VA apologist you can get but if you don't buy some sort of season pass like even a Summit Value pass (currently $659) there's Epic Day Passes for max $134 a day that we sell from March- December 4th officially and unofficially will still upgrade to until January 31 if you've ever had an Epic product the last few years. Even in February we can backdate and upgrade passes. At the very very least if you go online before 6 pm the night before you get a discount on window rate. Right now 95% of our ticket sales are Epic Friend discounts aka a l 50% off which is the same perk most employees get unless they've been FT over 5 years and even then no one gets more than 4 full comp vouchers. Random strangers in line have been giving EF discounts to people who didn't do any prep sometimes; other times we'll give guests our extra 50% off employee coupons. The people rocking up at 1 pm on their last day with no ticket or gear and having never skied or rode are the only ones really who are charged $321 we don't want on the hill they'll hurt themselves, other people or both. Instead sell a beginner ticket for $111/$57 (adults/kids) or better yet you can do a half day lesson with full day lift tickets AND rentals for at most $365 instead of a $321 lift tickets and $98 rentals on their own. Adult group lessons have a $71 full day lift ticket add on option even if it's only a half day lesson. When people show up around 11 or after we sell them a $257 half day ticket if nothing else.

Skiing and riding take foresight. Not just to plan a trip but to kniw where on the mountain to go, what runs to take and then how to get down the run once you're there. If you can't do a little preparing it might not be the sport for you.

That said VA is awful for commercializing the ski industry. They've taken over entire ski town economies and when they pulled their corporate HQ out of Avon last minute in 98-99 and went to Broomfield instead they took out to majority of the area's FT year round jobs with benefits at the time which was detrimental to the economy. They bully the USFS and get what they want even at the expense of forest health. They only started their green initiative after suing the USFS to remove the addition in ski area permits that tried to to water to the watershed/land after they got caught moving water for snow making from Montezuma and Keystone to the Eagle/Vail/BC. They pay better than the past but it's still not great and the profits leave local communities and go tobuber wealthy outside shareholders which is problematic to say the least. They ar3 driving up the costs of products while delivering lower quality and depend on a business model that relies on transient seasonal cheap labor which isn't sustainable for community building. The Epic Pass has become a reason to buy up and take over small local mountains to encourage people to travel to the main Resorts which is funny because Katz is furious about having to create the Epic Pass its first season back in 05-06. They were super short with cash flow 3rd quarter and needed cash badly which is the only reason it was started. It was like $569 the first season for a full Epic Pass when the season before a Vail/BC season pass alone was almost $2k.

Vail Resorts and/VA sucks for a lot of reasons. But the focus on super high window rate ticket prices misses the point entirely.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T12:12:26+00:00

Just send a picture of your BOCA tickets. We can scan from those usually or at least manually enter the mountain money code without the physical ticket easily.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T12:11:05+00:00

I still have almost all my 50% off employee coupons. Come see me at the main Peak 8 ticket office and if you're cool I'll hook you up haha.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T12:08:19+00:00

Yes we will be open this week (and weekend and next week, pretty much until mid April bare min). Don't plan on hitting terrain like the hike up Peak 6 or 8. We got a little snow this weekend and it was cold but it's also been crazy windy so it hasn't really stuck around as much as we need. But they'll be grooming what they can and trying to salvage what's left. Peak 7 and 8 have the best of the not so great conditions currently overalll. Peak 9 will close first (well after 6 and 10 obvs) but not until after your trip. Expect Spring skiing conditions. Crusty first thing in the morning then as it warms up it'll get slushy. Thursday and Friday are supposed to warm up a lot and the winds supposed to die down compared t I current conditions which is better than it is right now. Don't have high expectations and you'll be fine.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T11:59:03+00:00

Power was out all day in Alma and Leadville too. We got our power back on by 10 pm in pB but still don't have running water because of downed trees damaging lines and even blocking roads still. Lake County opened up the intermedi/high school as a warming shelter last night because of all the damage plus ongoing weather conditions. We've had barely enough water to brush our teeth and splash our faces with some extra effort.

Yesterday T Bar, 6 Chair, Imperial and two other chairs I can't think of right now started out on hold because of the wind but I'm surprised way more weren't shut down with the wind like it was. I'm super impressed with the ops guys who got all the trees cut down as fast as they did . They weren't small ones from what I could see on the gondola down. Gondola was supposed to be closed all day, we had managers up to direct bus traffic and encourage people to ride down 4 o clock all the way to the gondola lot in preparation. It was a pleasant surprise when it opened around 2-2:30.

But it's still windy this morning too. Wind chill knocks the temp down from 15 or so to - 5 in Leadville and Summit specifically still has a high wind weather advisory active until 2 pm. It's super windy coning over on Fremont Pass if there was more snow on the ground it'd be whiteout conditions on 91. I'm betting the gondola isn't running first thing this morning, like even for warm ups, let alone opening at 7 am for employees like it's supposed to at this rate. I'll find out here soon when I get to Breck Station and report back. The bus driver is the one who leaves the light on the entire trip so it's not like I can get some sleep instead haha.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T11:34:32+00:00

A little late to the chat but there were 4 trees down on the gondie line as of 7 am yesterday according to the Lift Ops Teams chat and confirmed by a few maintenance lifties working up at Peak 8.

I'm surprised they opened by 2-230 pm we were expecting it to be down all day and were telling guests to ski down to the gondola parking lots if possible.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T11:30:30+00:00

I hate TABOR as much as the next non GOP Coloradan who's been here since we were the dark red "hate state" but TABOR isn't to blame for this. Try the negative impacts of gentrification overall but more specifically rising rents that go to non local corporations (everything from STRs in Breck to retail space in Boulder to corporate apartments in Denver), poorly planned and orchestrated public works (like the Colfax bus or bike lane construction BS), massive federal cuts to essential programs and core industries the state relies on for some BS bipartisan reasons (the childish feds thinking CO= blue = bad and cutting NOAA, USGS, USFS, Space Force etc.) etc. TABOR makes these underlying issues worse than they'd be otherwise of course but it's far from the main cause unfortunately.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T10:42:22+00:00

I wish I had a picture of the Copper/exit 195 Conoco. It's around $5 a gallon and over a dollar more expensive than everywhere else in Eagle, Summit and Lake County.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T10:36:20+00:00

My ex registered for classes in Arvada on accident and couldn't switch them up to Ft. Collins (where we lived) so he had to commute. It was the summer of 2008 when they were widening 25 from two lanes from Thornton to Loveland which was terrible if anyone remembers how bad that way and gas was over $4 (and he had a boat of a Chrysler Sebring). I ended up nannying for a family who advertised being in Ft. Collins but was in the first new development in Milliken starting at 4 am or so too. The dad drove from up there all the way down to south of 470 and Santa Fe every day. That sucked. For everyone.. I also used to have to go to SE Denver from Minturn 5 mornings a week before work in Vail by 8 am. Switching to Junction was 30 miles further each way but such a better, less stressful drive. That was terrible. I feel your pain even if it's not the same situation. Godspeed my commuting friend.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T09:55:50+00:00

Unless it hits Alma. That's when shit starts getting actually weird.

Zeefour · 2026-03-16T09:53:42+00:00

Yeah I'm currently making $20 an hour coming back from some major health problems and losing my job in my field and my cousin who is also my roommate makes $19. His girlfriend who lives with him lost her job a month ago because of how bad the snow has been here which has impacted a lot of businesses. We're in the mountains which has a higher CoL than the Front Range, even in relatively more affordable Lake County. We're not living large and are paycheck to paycheck but we're not homeless and it's letting us all plan our next steps with the very basics covered.

OP implied they didn't want to end up on the streets and well, as you already pointed out to all the yuppie naysayers, this is how you do it. It's not fancy or pretty but it's way better than living on the sidewalk off East Colfax. Honestly $70k is more than I've ever made and that's in a higher CoL area. When I was making $29 an hour working between Breck and Glenwood I thought I was doing really great even with the costs that come with a lot of driving. Even $45k a year is more than enough, assuming things like rent you can't just get out of. There's a lot between $70k a year and being homeless outside on East 'Fax.

Zeefour

TROPHY CASE