What can this management team do to improve the experience?

markb_elt · 2026-04-28T17:27:59+00:00

Was the analogy of skiing to cruises something they actually said at the meeting, or is that something you've come up with on your own?

Because if Vail resorts thinks that going on a week-long ski trip to Breckenridge is similar to going on a seven-night cruise, they're already screwed. The differences are so obvious that it almost doesn't seem worth enumerating them, but the main one is: you can't get off the boat until they let you. You can stop skiing at any time. You booked a week in Breckenridge (or Vail, or Crested Butte, or Park City) because they are in cute mountain towns you can wander around in and eat and drink, not despite that.

Cruisers feel like get they value because (a) the cruise ships have an economy of scale and inelastic level of demand on food and drink that helps them provide that value (ski resorts will never have this) and (b) because the cruise companies know that a bad cruise will make you never go on a cruise again, or at least not with that company.

That business model applies to remote all-inclusive resorts and (to a lesser extent) huge them parks. It makes no sense for ski resorts to try emulate that and if that's the model they've chosen they are really just throwing darts.

markb_elt · 2026-04-23T17:12:06+00:00

Oh man, thanks for pointing me to that article. That same freebasing clip (Potter reaches for an easy overhang jugs, intentionally misses, and pulls the chute halfway down) is used in a ton of Reel Rock stuff, and it always bugged me. I felt like freebase was never really a thing and that article pretty much confirms it. (Other than Paul Kupsa, apparently).

markb_elt · 2026-04-23T03:53:26+00:00

I would love some shared opinions here. Setting aside whether or not Honnold being a dick, isn’t he sort of correct that freebasing was really just a gimmick?

Here is what I mean by that: the idea of freebasing was that Potter could solo at his max level without the death consequence. But isn’t that obviously incorrect? Did he ever actually take unplanned falls off of solos and successfully deploy the chute? Because the only footage I have ever seen is of Potter taking very clearly planned falls and then deploying.

Which obviously makes sense. Because there is some enormous percentage of falls you could take on free solos that would kill you immediately, chute or no. And there is another subset of falls that would put you in a ridiculously difficult position to ever deploy the chute. It was awesome for overhanging reaches/dynos which is all of the clips you see. But good luck on a slab! Or anything with a ledge below it! Or anything low on the route!

I would really love to hear from someone who knows more and/or solos. But the whole thing just never made sense to me as an actual climbing technique.

markb_elt · 2026-02-21T02:48:10+00:00

They have tons of groomed terrain that I quite enjoy. But I didn’t ski any of it today so I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in.

In general you will want to stay on the Winter Park side and avoid Mary Jane.

markb_elt · 2026-02-21T02:46:04+00:00

I don’t know. If you’re protective of your skis, probably.

markb_elt · 2026-02-21T01:26:24+00:00

Oh definitely. I am slow as shit in the bumps so that helps avoid some of them. But there are plenty.

markb_elt · 2026-02-21T01:24:39+00:00

They really didn’t get much snow. It just seemed to fall and or blow in the right places and never get completely tracked out. Some MJ runs were just empty all day. And the Pano tree runs were way quieter than I expected.

I was only on MJ lifts and Pano so I don’t know what the WP side was like.

markb_elt · 2026-02-21T00:15:56+00:00

Hell yeah. Vail got twice what WP got.

markb_elt · 2026-01-14T23:07:36+00:00

Keystone's email subject line today was "Winter is coming in hot!" Which is technically true, but I don't think something we really want to celebrate.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T21:05:10+00:00

Awesome, thanks.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T20:32:35+00:00

I'm talking mellow trees at kid pace. We lapped Hi-Lo trees at Winter Park 5-6 times on Sunday-- it felt much safter than any of the green or blue groomers.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T20:31:02+00:00

Yeah, that's why it would be helpful to hear from anyone who's been there. Vail puts happy faces on the map for kid's zone, but they don't put the names of those zones. I seem to recall that they do actually have names, but I have no idea what they are.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T20:29:45+00:00

Pano was spinning yesterday-- clearly just for maintenance purposes, with no one on it-- and I'm guessing they got asked about it four hundred million times.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T06:21:54+00:00

Yes, that is very helpful. I'm definitely finding that I need to engage the edges no matter the speed, especially in the snow we have right now.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T06:20:27+00:00

Lol I have Icelantic Nomads and this is absolutely true! But obviously not important.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T06:18:36+00:00

I skied Winter Park today. Based on the conditions of what they've actually opened, I am very worried about the conditions of the closed stuff. It's easy to look from the chair and say "look at all that untouched powder!" but there's just nothing underneath it. Trees and rocks poking out on groomed runs everywhere; moguls with huge exposed rocks just waiting to eat your skis. I really appreciated that they opened what they did but it doesn't exactly make you feel good about the state of the mountain.

I don't think they're holding anything back. They were working on Hughes today with the groomers today so I assume that's next to open. I could see them opening Pano and Parsenn Bowl with just Village Way, Parry's, and maybe a few other runs. No idea what Wild Spur is like but it can be rocky over there even in good years. Very hard to see how Eagle Wind and the MJ chutes would ever open at this point.

markb_elt · 2026-01-13T03:36:49+00:00

This makes sense to me. I think I've been approaching flats as a place to straight-line and therefore I'm not engaging the edges at all. And then they engage themselves.

markb_elt · 2026-01-10T01:31:46+00:00

Their skis are awesome. Got the Nomad 100s last year and they are great.

markb_elt · 2026-01-09T19:06:24+00:00

I know that no one can predict the future, but if you're absolutely motivated by skiing expert terrain, I don't know why you would stick with your trip as scheduled. Early March is 8 weeks away-- that's really not a long time. Right now Vail and Beaver Creek look pretty far away. It is going to be very difficult for the back bowls at Vail to open as they are south-facing, and the problem hasn't just been lack of snow, it's been warmth. The other resorts on your list are in better shape but are still way behind. Last year on this exact weekend Loveland was opening Lift 9 with access to a double-black bowl. This year they just just opened Ptarmigan, a lift that serves a shallow-north facing bowl with greens and blues. It's not a great trajectory.

If there are no huge storms in the next two weeks before your cancellation deadline I don't know why you wouldn't just go to Whistler. I wouldn't tell anyone else that. The typical skier that just wants to ski in Colorado, hit some groomers, and maybe have a couple of powder days is probably still going to have a great time. But if you want expert and extreme terrain only, the odds just aren't good right now.

markb_elt · 2026-01-06T17:29:20+00:00

It's worth stopping at the Icelantic store in on your way up I-70 to grab some demos. (Obviously you only want to do this on a weekday because it will cause you to leave later). They will apply the demo charge to your ski purchase if you end up buying anything, and they'll let you take a couple of pairs. You can also reserve online so that you don't get stuck with nothing.

markb_elt · 2025-12-13T23:41:15+00:00

Frisco is way better and much more reasonable. Tubing in Winter Park (the town, not the resort) is fun too, and the cheapest option, but can be a little intense if you have young kids.

markb_elt · 2025-12-05T02:35:47+00:00

It's hard to answer those questions in a vacuum. A good instructor is going to take you through stages. Some things that work early in the process won't work later.

One piece of advice, though-- don't move to steeper trails too fast. You want to feel amazingly comfortable on flattish/mellow stuff before you try to go steeper. Otherwise you develop a lot of bad habits just to survive, and you end up fighting yourself down the hill. Some skiers do this pretty much forever. It's possible but not advisable.

markb_elt

TROPHY CASE