Skiing in the Pandemic

[StayWarm]

At Loveland.

The lessons I took last season were midweek. The lift line was 6 or 8 deep, so there wouldn't be a lot of benefit to bypassing that. But I didn't a sign for ski school.

With the potential for delays, they may handle it differently this season. We'll see.

Will be curious to hear your experience with the lesson at Loveland! I've been up there ~10 times so far this season, and haven't seen a dedicated lessons line, but maybe lessons can skip in via the ski patrol entry? Otherwise, you get a lot fewer runs for your money during the lesson.

I noticed that you stuck with Lift 2 -- did you check out Ptarmigan or Lift 6? When I went up on one of the holiday Saturdays, the lines were absolutely unmanageable on both, but Sunday last week we did well on Ptarmigan and Lift 3, while Chet's was mobbed. We really need a couple more good storms so that they can open up Lift 8 and get folks more spread across the mountain.

 

[vickie]

Lift 6 was a little busy, but not bad. Ptarmigan was busy off and on. I was bored with that one run and was going to head up Ptarmigan, but my legs were tired so I decided to save it for my next visit. Much of what I'm doing (maybe all season) is practicing -- trying to incorporate -- changes from lessons. Terrain doesn't matter so much as long as I don't get bored and zone out on form.

And once they open up Lift 8, Chet's will become manageable.

 

[snowski/swimmouse]

If you're out and about, yes surely test. But I've basically been home for nearly ten months now seeing only two friends and occasionally their husbands who are also super careful and still we're usually distanced. At this point I've never seen a need to test and am too concerned about my vulnerability to go anywhere that will change that!!!!! Finally last week I skied Tues, Wed & Thurs both masked and with usual facially ski coverings over that. I booted up at the car, have a season pass and rode the lifts alone, never entering a building there either. Once I went above the green slopes the folks from the gulf coast couldn't handle blue anyway. (I haven't been in a grocery store, drug store or a bank since the beginning of April.) Most weeks the only time I've left my home is to pull up in front to pick up dinner and they drop it in the other side of the car.

 

[Christy]

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/jan/10/schweitzer-mountain-resort-shuts-down-twilight-ski/

I can't imagine a more difficult place to get compliance than in northern Idaho. Except maybe for southern Idaho.

 

[Bonnie2617]

Hi! I'm new here and saw your post and was wondering if you had any takeaways from skiing at Belleayre? We are going for the first time from NYC this week after our Hunter trip was cancelled (mountain closed) and wondering how crowds might be etc. Looking to gain confidence on easy slopes right now (was flattened by a snowboarder at Hunter last year from behind who didn't see/pay attention to the signs to slow down at the end/bottleneck of a crowded run and would love to not repeat that!) . Any tips/info would be great!

I was at Belleayre today and had a great time. Got there around 850 and had a good parking spot. The mountain wasn’t too crowded - could get on lots of lifts without much of a wait. And whenever it’s busy, I usually head over to the Tomahak lift or lift 7 and can get on quickly. We went in for lunch around 1245 at the Discovery lodge and lots of tables were open. Got food outside at a food truck. There was no line there and my burger and fries were quite tasty.

They were blowing snow on some new trails, so looks like their trail count will continue to grow.

They have a lot of easy trails — especially compared to Hunter. I was at Hunter on Saturday and the mountain was crazy. Stood in line on Lift B for like an hour. Ugh

 

[SkiBam]

I think there are 8 resorts around Montreal and MSA at Quebec City that will not be having night skiing for the next 4 weeks. No sliding nights at Tremblant and no tubing in St. Jovite. Curfew.

I like the message on the Tremblant site: "Maintaining operations is based on joint compliance with sanitary measures."

In other words....do it right, or we might get shut down!!

For sure. I'm quite comfortable skiing at Tremblant. Mask compliance seems high. You CAN go indoors to boot up, though I'm quite ok with doing this at the car. If only I didn't have to go to the bathroom after the hour-long drive to get there, I could boot up and head straight for the lift. I think we're very lucky we're still able to ski so following all the rules seems a small price to pay. Everyone is well aware the government could shut down skiing at any time.

Judging by the hill across the way it seems they're turning off the lights about 7:30 so people still have some time to play - not that I do much night skiing anyway. Actually I was commenting that it's likely a pathetic reflection on my life that an 8 pm curfew means absolutely nothing and doesn't bother me in the least!

 

[newboots]

I was at Belleayre today and had a great time. Got there around 850 and had a good parking spot. The mountain wasn’t too crowded - could get on lots of lifts without much of a wait.

This is great to hear? How was the snow? Not too icy?

 

[newboots]

Actually I was commenting that it's likely a pathetic reflection on my life that an 8 pm curfew means absolutely nothing and doesn't bother me in the least!

We aren't quite the party animals we once were!

 

[marzNC]

Next Friday, I start private lessons with the instructor I met last season. I'll go at least once before then to try out the locker situation and get my timing down so I'm ready for a 9 AM lesson. Later on, if I find out I can actually get parking late morning, I'll probably opt for afternoon lessons instead.

No idea how things will go at Loveland once the colleges start up classes again, but at my home hill (northern VA) there were more people in the afternoons midweek than recent years. I think some local families with season passes are getting out mid-afternoon. Happened to be a pretty good week from a cold and snowmaking standpoint so that was a factor too.

I used to always schedule lessons in the mornings. But am finding there are advantages to early afternoon lessons this season. Especially if I know I'm going to ski the next day or two.

 

[marzNC]

Group lessons stand in the line. I don't know if private lessons have privileges or not.

EDIT: never mind

 

[StayWarm]

EDIT: never mind

Most lessons at Loveland after the very beginner level happen in the main base. There is one steeper run in the Valley (teaching area), but on the weekends at least it's mostly used by the ski teams.

 

[StayWarm]

I remember a few months back people were wondering if there might be options for half-day reservations. Last week, Copper Mountain announced that they were doing just that:

As a loyal passholder, we want you to be the first to know about updates to our parking reservation system. Starting today, Friday, January 8th at 9am, we will be increasing the number of available parking reservations and adding a second reservation time slot for weekends and peak days. In addition to our daily morning reservations, there will be a 12:30 p.m. timeslot offered for reservations in the free Alpine Lot on weekends and peak days. Guests with a 12:30 p.m. reservation can arrive after 11:30 a.m. and can remain in the parking lot until 10 p.m. For more information and to make a reservation, please visit our parking reservation page.​

​

The No Show policy will also pertain to 12:30 p.m. reservations, so please make sure to cancel your reservation by 6 a.m. on the reserved date if you are not planning to visit on that day. Click here for more info.​

​

A friendly reminder to check back every Monday morning at 9 a.m. as we add more reservations for the upcoming 14-days, and each morning for any last-minute cancellations.​

​

The Alpine Lot is the free lot that requires you to ride a shuttle, which I've been avoiding doing, but I think it's a good update to their policy. There are no half-day options for the paid lots.

 

[marzNC]

Massanutten (small hill in northern VA) has the lodge open. The locker room on the ground floor has free cubbies for shoes and that's mostly all that people are putting there. Only really used on Saturday. Paid lockers available too. A few people put boot bags on top of the lockers. Many people rent at the resort. Locals and season passholders are booting up at their cars, which is pretty common. Never gets that cold in the southeast.

There are a few tables on the main floor that can be used for a quick warm up. The top floor is for property owners and resort guests only (usually a different area), the bar & grill area is for customers only, there are well space tables on the ground floor to eat Grab-and-Go food. Not supposed to bring in any personal food & drink.

 

[marzNC]

Even on days when the parking at Alta fills up completely by 10am or so, the statement is made that spaces would probably be available after 1:30pm. Parking is a combination of the lot at Wildcat, the two lots at Albion, and spaces along the road in the Town of Alta. Wildcat is usually full by 9am when the snow is good or on Saturdays.

Must admit the approach that Alta is using without any sort of reservations seems to be working better than I expected. Took a while for people to get used to what to expect. However, Utah snow levels are pretty low for the season so far so that's another factor.

What I heard was that the goal was to keep the numbers below about 65% of the historical max. Since Alta has had RFID since 2007, they have plenty of usage data available that can be broken down by time periods.

 

[santacruz skier]

Northstar at Tahoe - no indoor dining at all. A couple grab and go places from lodges with "window" only openings.
Lockers are $12-$20 depending on size and signs everywhere any left items in the area (snow boots, backpacks, etc) will be removed. There are no benches anywhere to sit inside and boot up. Some boot up while in the bathroom. I stood and leaned against the locker to put my boots on. The other times I booted up at the car. If I'm staying at the Northstar house, I would boot up there, but I was staying in Tahoe City.
Lift lines extremely organized and mask compliance was great. There are two ways to get up the mountain from the village; the gondola or a quad chair so that was an easy decision. Took the gondola one day as quad was not operating. I need to split my black crows to get in the slot and staff is not allowed to assist with this (or anything else). That's fine but I almost missed my gondola car ....
Overall, I was quite pleased.
I'm due to go to Heavenly for my timeshare week soon and may cancel as the state of Nevada has different mandates than CA. Therefore, all those maskless bandits will be skiing Heavenly. In addition, we are extending our stay at home order. Timeshare owners are not considered renters so would be allowed but the entire Bay Area (this strangely enough includes Santa Cruz and Monterey) is under a stay at home order.

 

[Christy]

However, Utah snow levels are pretty low for the season so far so that's another factor.

I would think that is a big factor in keeping things sane. Here, the difference between crowds/hassle on a day where there is new snow vs a day where there hasn't been new snow even just in a few days is huge.

 

[marzNC]

I would think that is a big factor in keeping things sane. Here, the difference between crowds/hassle on a day where there is new snow vs a day where there hasn't been new snow even just in a few days is huge.

I think that's pretty much true in any region. Even in the southeast there are more people who head to the slopes where there is an inch or two of snow, especially when it actually snows in the metropolitan areas that are 2-4 hours drive from the mountains where the ski hills are located.

 

[MissySki]

We obviously aren't getting much in the way of real snow in the Northeast right now, but Sunday river has been blowing like CRAZY for weeks now. I've never seen so much snow blown in such a short period, it's quite impressive. Wondering if that is drawing the crowds though. This weekend the lines were packed, I mean really really long lines. Not to be a broken record, but I sure do appreciate my line skipping privileges on weekends in the core part of the day right now. I know how to work the mountain to avoid lines even when I don't have this perk, and that still wouldn't have been good enough in most cases this weekend besides I think one lift that I heard stayed relatively dead.

This weekend is a holiday and that means blackouts. Looking forward to this since it was less crowded over Christmas week during blackouts than afterward for those of us who were there. So maybe this is why, but not sure. There are lots of people with silver passes at Sunday river and then the Ikon base passes would be blacked out too and they supposedly are limiting day ticket sales.

 

[Christy]

I think that's pretty much true in any region. Even in the southeast there are more people who head to the slopes where there is an inch or two of snow, especially when it actually snows in the metropolitan areas that are 2-4 hours drive from the mountains where the ski hills are located.

I always had the impression that New England folks ski no matter what, that they aren't snow snobs that will sit the day out because it hasn't skied for a few days. But maybe that's just the tough and accomplished women here.

 

[santacruz skier]

I always had the impression that New England folks ski no matter what, that they aren't snow snobs that will sit the day out because it hasn't skied for a few days. But maybe that's just the tough and accomplished women here.

Not to mention the frigid temps they'll get out in .......