What would you change about your home resort?

[marzNC]

My home "mountain" is a little resort in the Mid-Atlantic called Massanutten. @marzNC is also a regular. Parking at the ski area is free and there are five parking levels. The furthest parking space is probably a 300 meter walk, max, from slope access (I tend to measure in my head using an Olympic size swimming pool for reference, i.e., 50 meters). Yet, folks will insist on pulling right up to the access entrance ("official vehicles only") to undress, dress, boot-up, and drop-off their kids. They will also monopolize the 15 minute parking spaces in front of the general store to do the same (which inevitably takes more like 30-40 minutes). They will never enter the store. I've even seen them trying to do a drop-off in the ambulance access area ("Well, there's no ambulance here.").

I can totally understand why you wish you resort would step up to the plate and manage what sounds like a fairly manageable situation if you don't discount the level of disrespect that seems to be the norm these days

There are times when there is a staff member in the parking lot that has the 15-min parking and the Drop-Off Zone. But they tend to be a bit on the timid side when it comes to getting the "guests" to do the right thing.

Note that on holiday weekends, perhaps at least 50% of the people are on a "once a winter" ski trip. They drive 2-4 hours from large urban areas and stay overnight in resort lodging. Most of the skiers/boarders are intermediates at best. Midweek is a completely different situation.

Even more of a mess when snow has blown over from snowguns, or a rare natural snow storm, has obscured the lines marking the diagonal parking. Especially in Lot 1, which is the shortest walk to the base lodge and the ticket windows and gear rental building.

 

[marzNC]

There are times when there is a staff member in the parking lot that has the 15-min parking and the Drop-Off Zone. But they tend to be a bit on the timid side when it comes to getting the "guests" to do the right thing.

Note that on holiday weekends, perhaps at least 50% of the people are on a "once a winter" ski trip. They drive 2-4 hours from large urban areas and stay overnight in resort lodging. Most of the skiers/boarders are intermediates at best. Midweek is a completely different situation.

Even more of a mess when snow has blown over from snowguns, or a rare natural snow storm, has obscured the lines marking the diagonal parking. Especially in Lot 1, which is the shortest walk to the base lodge and the ticket windows and gear rental building.

Realized it's worth noting that there is not really any slopeside lodging even though Massanutten is a 4-season resort with thousands of beds. It's one of the largest timeshare resorts in the country. About a 3-hour drive southwest of Washington DC/northern VA. What's unusual for the southeast is that skiing was part of the winter scene from the very beginning back in the 1970s. Guests drive from as far as FL and NYC but most are within a 4-hr drive.

A few of the buildings on the mountain at Massanutten that have rooms for guests are walking distance, but the vast majority of people staying on resort are driving to the ski lodge parking lots. The more recent development has been in the valley a few miles away in the last three decades. That's where the indoor/outdoor waterpark and easier golf course are located. A new hotel is being built that will connect to the waterpark. Very different from a destination resort out west such as Jackson Hole, Big Sky, or Snowmass. While a small shuttle bus was made available a few years ago, that's mostly for summer guests. Need to use an app to ride the bus and there is a small fee.

In general, small ski resorts of comparable size in New England in terms of skiable acres don't have the same issues with parking on busy weekends. I would guess that's true for the midwest as well. It's a combination of putting more staff in the parking lot and the fact that most of the guests know what they are doing. For that matter, quite likely to be part of a multi-generational family where the kids started skiing by age 4. I saw that in action during a ski safari in the Berkshires of western MA during Pres. Day week (school holiday all week) a few years ago. Butternut and Catamount are day trip distance as well as weekend destinations for the New York City metropolitan area. Neither has slopeside lodging.

 

[marzNC]

What I think would be helpful at Massanutten would be to have on-snow Mountain Hosts on the busiest days to help direct intermediates to appropriate trails. There are blue routes from the summit, which is now served by a high-speed quad. But there are times when taking the longer and narrower trail is not a good idea for an intermediate.

 

[HuntersEmma57]

Ugh. My home mountain is Whistler so the list is like a mile long. But as with every other Vail-owned mountain, I would start with bringing back more reasonably priced day tickets & restrict them to people with some form of BC ID. It’s pretty sad that the mountain is really losing its connection to the regional community.

2: safety enforcement (a common complaint, I know - it’s something society-wide and not specific to here.)

3: Bringing back the grooming team & schedule from 10-15 years ago would be a huge improvement. Peak to Creek is supposed to be a marquee run and it’s rarely groomed these days. And grooming in general is abysmal.

 

[HuntersEmma57]

If I remember right, Peak to Creek is over 5 miles long. I skied it over 10 years ago and it was not groomed then either. It was late March and the snow had set up pretty hard overnight. Once committed to P2C, there really wasn't a bail out that we could find. Not kidding that the run was so brutal, my kidneys hurt so bad, I could not ski the next day. I missed an entire day of skiing. Grrrrr. I can't believe not grooming the longest run at Whistler is routine! Vail has made nothing better at their resorts and so many thing so much worse.

 

[HuntersEmma57]

My home resort is Powder Mtn, UT. As many know, it is going through massive changes with half the now over half of the 12,500 acre resort being carved out for private skiing and a development called Powder Haven.

COMMUNICATION: Modernization efforts are everywhere. Changes come fast and furious, often cloaked in secrecy, and sprung on us at the last minute. Improved and timelier communications would be appreciated. Full transparency: The new owner is listening and responding, but timeliness remains a sore point.

PARKING: In a sideways fashion, PM did address one of the most injury-prone aspects of skiing -- the deadly slippery, poorly layed out parking lots -- by providing dedicated shuttle buses for our neighborhood down at the base. We rarely drive up the mountain now.

The rest are more commonly shared:

BATHROOMS: The shortage and location of women's bathrooms - most requiring people in ski boots to go up and down stairs. PM still has port-a-potties at two of the more remote lifts. They are often sitting unevenly and the floors are insanely slippery for ski boots with the insides of the port-a-potty containing liberal amounts of wind blown snow. I have had to dig out the toilet seat. ICKY!!! These are the toilet equivalent of expert only terrain.

FOOD: Menus/options are limited and questionable with an overabundance of fusion type cuisines. There are few simple food options for more common tastes and picky eater kids.

LOCKERS and CHANGING AREAS: The lack of sufficiently-sized and well-placed lockers is a problematic for families, in particular. There are no hotels on the mountain so almost all skiers have to drive up and change and boot up in their cars or in bathroom stalls leaving even fewer toilets available.

GROOMING: I do love our wild, largely ungroomed mountains, but when we get a dry spell, more grooming is needed and is sorely lacking at PM. They did not rehire most of the old staff who knew how and where to groom. Some of the early season grooming was actually dangerous with deep and or wide gaps and very poor uneven transitions.

LIMITED BEGINNER TERRAIN: PM is not a beginner's mountain for sure. Much of the easier terrain is no longer accessible to the public. On balance, the beginner's area on the public side was given a big upgrade.

PRICE and AVAILABILITY: The public side is now even less crowded due to a huge jump in lift ticket prices and very limited availability of day passes which often sell out. Storm chasing to PM is hard. PM moved to an intensive focus on season passes. So lines in the ladies room or the lifts are now uncommon. While us folks on the public side can feel like second class citizens at times, in such a grand setting, it's a tough case to make as a complaint.

The on-mountain staff are some of, if not the best paid in the industry. Most of them are thrilled to be there. Powder still a work in progress, be well on the way to being world class -- especially on the private side.