bch2014

BOS, BDL, and NYC finish slightly BN for June.

ORH and PVD slightly AN. 

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Look at this monsoon anomaly that's transiently sending clusters up the central Valley of California ..  nice. Not sure y'all been following the world, but California pretty much won't be inhabitable in 30 years without some seriously stream-lined desalinization tech and implemented distribution infrastructure.   No problem - it'd take the GDP of the United States for 50 years to pay for the f'er but it could be done.  

https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=local-Cen_California-comp_radar-24-1-100-1&checked=map&colorbar=undefined

If a TC were to ever get caught in that trajectory ... something like that is really what California needs - or perhaps not.   Not sure how the geography would handle a 20 inch, "Mitchian" rain-out scenario when dry compaction has choked off all the macro-pores in the ground.  

 

Or, ya know, we could stop farming almonds and other water-intensive crops there.

10 minutes ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

What's a 401k?  My former employer dropped that during the last recession and never started a new one.  Not uncommon in my field either.

What is your line of work? Does your company offer some other type of retirement plan?

Just curious-war for talent is so fierce right now.

27 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Bad day in the markets.  Anybody who long-term invested in stocks in the past year or so is now in the red I’m sure.

I don’t have a 401(k) but I can’t imagine those are looking as good as they were a year ago.  I just wonder if tomorrow is a bounce or a bleed out?  It’s not gonna be good if we go into the fall with food prices inflating higher and oil staying high.  A lot of  poor folks will be making hard decisions about heat or eat.  

Definitely a bad day for the market... That said, I will continue to put 12% of my paycheck into my 401k (which is an 85/15 stock/bond mix-I'm 26-so weighted heavier to equities) every two weeks-not really sure what the more appealing investment is in the long-term so I can live with my decisions.

That said-definitely a different situation for those who are close to retirement/already in it. Good thing for those folks is that social security is indexed to CPI (+they've got tons of equity in their homes). 

Looking at the final numbers for April… BDR and CEF were the only major stations to finish BN. RUT also finished BN.

Across the border in NY, LGA, NYC, and ALB were all BN.

The more south and west you went, the worse it got compared to normal.

Interestingly, the fatality rate in VT and NY is very similar (both low by national standards). Massachusetts is the safest state in the country to drive in-despite lots of talk about how crazy its drivers are...

https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/states/statesfatalitiesfatalityrates.aspx

17 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

Palisades/Squaw reporting 28" in the last 24 hours (and 57" in the last seven days).

Kirkwood hasn't updated yet.

Mammoth 15"

Kirkwood in at 24" in the last 24 hours and 44" in the last seven days.

11 hours ago, powderfreak said:

This is wild… is this true?  The Sierra saw this little snow in two months from Jan 15 - Mar 15…. And then has more forecast the next two days?

 

Palisades/Squaw reporting 28" in the last 24 hours (and 57" in the last seven days).

Kirkwood hasn't updated yet.

Mammoth 15"

Flew from JFK to BOS last night (was $150 cheaper than Amtrak) and it was a very, very windy landing. 

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

MTN Leadership.  The brand took a beating and they know they need to change it.  The snowmaking issues were largely if not all staffing issues.  I think most of the problems were staffing issues to be honest, we had them at Stowe too.  The vaccine mandate didn’t help at all either.  That more acutely hit Operations staff than any other department.  Snowmaking just isn’t safe if you are running low team numbers out there… need full crews because if something goes sideways it happens fast.  Need control room staff, staff on hill, etc. It’s very labor intensive and those needs just could not be met sometimes.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they pivot off the super cheap pass a bit. I’m sure the volume over yield model may be shaken a bit but who knows.

The labor force thing is mind blowing country wide right now. I know Vail was giving options of $3,000 bonuses and free housing if you would move from a ski area closed for the season in March to one’s operating till late April or May.  For transient season labor that’s an appealing option.

I do think the cheap passes have helped skiers get into the sport. 

For every person I know among my core skier friends from growing up in the northeast who is mad at Vail, I know another from Houston and Dallas who have bought their first season pass and are doing multiple trips to Keystone/Breck (whereas maybe they used to just drive to Taos for a week).

39 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I've heard grumblings that they want to pivot but being as large a ship as they are, it takes time.  They got into it deep in most mountains this winter in the East.  I still think the institutional knowledge retained at the non-Peak Resorts ski areas allowed for a better season (ala Stowe, Okemo, even Sunapee).  

Yesterday though was big news in the ski industry and the labor market is just getting weird.  The VR company minimum wage is going to $20/hr ahead if next winter as the first pivot point.  VR was first to announce $15/hr last winter and Alterra answered with the same... and locally I know Smuggs did match that in most jobs,  but the independents won't be able to match $20 IMO.  Businesses in town are going nuts right now too... going to need to keep pace with a very limited labor pool.

When I started in the industry back in 2007, as weird as it is $20/hr was like pretty decent mid/upper management wage even (with OT and bonuses you'd get $50k to manage)... and starting was $7/hr.  Wages stagnated and even two years ago an entry level liftie or parking attendant was doing $10/hr.  Now it'll be $20/hr.  Many of us keep reaping the benefits of the upward wage rise as they need to keep wage separation from higher levels and starting wages, so we all keep winning when starting wages go from $12 to $15 and then $20 in three winters.  For the same job responsibilities somehow many are getting anywhere from 15-25% more at manager level and lower down its going to be near 40% more money in just two winters.

From Stuart Winchester (great guy who writes well about the ski industry)...

"It’s getting weird out there. My first inkling that ski season might go sideways was a series of cross-country autumn drives in pursuit of my secondary passion, college football. In the windows and scrub-grass highway partitions of every gas station and Burger King, the signs. Help wanted. $17 an hour. Sometimes more. Empty lobbies. Drive-thru only. Lines impossible, as though an asteroid were inbound and everyone was snagging a Burrito Supreme en route to their woodland bunkers.

Caterwauling into the midst of this weirdest labor market in memory came Vail’s 99-cent Epic Pass, available next to gumball machines nationwide. Three years ago, this strategy may have driven season-pass prices nationwide into the basement, as flummoxed competitors tried to hold market share and appease hey-what-about-us passholders. But as we all know, three years ago may as well have been 50. Covid upended our world, and took the low-wage worker with it. Across Vail’s empire, from Stevens Pass to Park City to Paoli Peaks to Alpine Valley to Crotched to Attitash, not enough people showed up to blow snow, run the lifts, manage the parking lots, or groom the hillsides. “And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids-who-saw-the-opportunity-to-stand-in-the-cold-for-$11.25-an-hour-and-said-nah-I’ll-just-go-work-at-the-gas-station-for-like-double-that-Brah-but-thanks.”

By the time Vail instituted a $2-an-hour bonus in mid-January, it was too late to save the season across Vail’s Midwestern portfolio, where most of its properties had slashed hours and operating days, or in New Hampshire, where traffic, mechanical, and staffing woes rumbled in like aftershocks all winter long. Vail’s mistake was not in discounting Epic Passes, which drove the little white cards into the bootbags of 20 percent of America’s skiers, but failing to meet the moment in the strangest labor market since World War II.

Yesterday, Vail CEO Kirsten Lynch laid out an aggressive plan that reorients the company away from its McDonald’s-in-the-mountains reliance on low-wage labor and into a career-track organization invested in its employees’ welfare on and off the mountain. Here are the highlights:

• $20-an-hour minimum wage for all North American resort employees for the 2022-23 season, $21 for Patrol (including unionized Patrol), maintenance technicians, and certified commercial vehicle drivers

• A commitment to “aggressively pursue building new affordable housing on land we own”

• A career-track program that creates a Yellow Brick Road from, say, bumping chairs to management positions and more

• An enormous expansion of the human resources team to decrease reliance on Vail’s hated HR app

• A flexible work policy that allows corporate employees to live and work in any community where Vail Resorts operates

This ambitious plan, launched alongside Vail’s second-quarter earnings release and (presumably) just ahead of its 2022-23 Epic Pass unveiling, lands in a complicated world, for Vail and lift-served skiing, yes, but also for America as a whole. Mountain-town housing is in air-raid-siren crisis. Inflation is rising. Skiing can’t decide if it wants to be the most or least exclusive sport in America. Covid is still circling. American workers are more assertive than they have been in decades.

In the midst of these complications, Vail still posted positive business results yesterday: net income, skier visits, and total lift revenue all increased over the previous two seasons. Still, it was clear that Vail could not weather another season in which its narrative was overwhelmed by debacles like the meltdown at Stevens Pass. “We think a critical question is will Vail defend its moves and tweak its business model, or consider a more substantial pivot to balance pressures in its communities and protect the luxury experience?” Bank of America research analyst Shaun Kelley wrote last week. There are a lot of ways Vail could have pivoted: pull Epic Pass prices back skyward, tweak the pass suite to better manage skier traffic, better define mountain capacity, invest in labor, or some combination of the above.

As usual, Vail dropped a plan that was more comprehensive and ambitious than most of us could have imagined. Initial reception has been strong. “…this [plan] sends a meaningful message that Vail is serious about improving its company and the on-mountain experience for its guests,” Kelley wrote this morning. The Epic Liftlines Instagram account, which had racked up 48,500 followers on themes of worker’s rights and overcrowding, announced that it was going into hibernation in a post captioned “WORKERS WIN!”

Who wants to pivot? The MTN leadership, or the Hunter mountain ops staff (with regard to making more snow on expert terrain next season)?

Yeah, I saw that announcement. It will certainly help make Vail the employer of choice (at least on a wage basis) in many of these mountain towns. As you said-it might ruffle feathers in the community... But if you're MTN leadership-I'm not sure what other choice you had (other than to raise wages)... Damned if you do, damned if you don't in the eyes of some. 

I'm sure you have intel on this-but I'm just not sure how Vail plans to keep pass prices so low with so many cost increases coming down the pike.. Whether its labor, energy, or CapEx, things are just getting more expensive. My company (large CPG) has taken ~15% pricing across our portfolio this year as we face labor pressure (paying $8,000 signing bonuses for line workers at manufacturing plants in East Tennessee, to give a bonkers example) and commodity pressures (not only crude oil-things like palm oil, sugar and corn also up big).

Skied Hunter today for the first time this season (I’m an Indy pass holder) for “social reasons.” I know the mountain well-as I’ve been a pass holder there for two seasons previously-yet still came away not wanting to ski there again.

The quality of skier seemed even worse than usual (to the point of being nervous I was going to get hit on the slopes-can’t imagine what a non-expert would think), the grooming/surface management terrible (have they ever heard of tilling a slope?), and finally, key snowmaking terrain was closed. It’s the first weekend of March and K-27, Clair’s, and Racer’s Edge all closed… If Hunter doesn’t have its best expert terrain open, I’m not sure I understand the value proposition over Windham, Belleayre, and Plattekill. 
 

Further evidence that Vail=Fail.

21 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Aside from maybe a brief burst of moderate to heavy snow tonight, close the shades until after 3/10....the pattern still does look quite good after that point though. I'd be surprised if we don't have another legit threat. May not pan out, but hard to see not having a threat or two.

The 12z GFS looks pretty good for NNE for the 3/7-3/8 event. Definitely a net gain for the ski areas at the very least if taken verbatim.

Lots of the more recent runs seem to be trending the Friday system to be drier than previously modeled... The GGEM is still the coldest model-but others seem to support a drier trend-especially for SNE and the tri-state area.

19 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Need the GGEM to work out... turns the late week rainer into a snower.

EURO stays just north of us.

And GFS is just a monster thaw with big snow well north, ha.

Le Massif jack on the GFS.

CMC flattened out the Friday system quite a bit. Hopefully the trend continues.

4 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

What are some legendary NNE March snow patterns of the past? I seem to recall coming up to BW in March 2006 I think and it snowed every day to what seemed like 3 feet. May be off a year there. 

March-April 2007 is a classic. 
 

March 2018 was also quite good more recently.

Looks like 2-4 for the NYC-Boston corridor on the 12z GFS. More for South Jersey/Cape/SE MA.

31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Conditions at Waterville got heavier later in the day once the precipitation tapered off and the sun even came out.  Temps warmed up above freezing and the snow fell out of the trees.  Again though, great conditions for testing all-mountain skis and having interesting conditions for brands to showcase their boards made for eastern/western conditions made for a great day. 

Some lower angle but wide-open glades were fun in the wet snow...surfy.  Temps were 33-35F at this point as the snow fell/dripped out of the trees.

Basically a 1,600 vertical foot high speed quad was the only lift we rode... and a ski area really wins my heart with 1500-2000ft laps off a high-speed lift.  That's a huge plus in terms of maximizing ski time and not sitting on a lift.  For whatever reason, I love longer vertical foot gains in short periods of time.  Lapping that is fun regardless of terrain... but there were a few good steep rollovers in there.  Lower Bobby's Run was something we did several times.  Tracked out crud and push piles, mixed with moguls is fantastic ski test terrain.

 

I know @MarkO has talked about a smaller local slope nearby there as he has a cabin in the area... I'd love to know if that's what we saw across the valley.  In the photo above there's that small three trail ski area across the valley. It made me think that's the one Mark talks about.  Fun to see a different neighborhood.

Overall, fun day, diverse conditions, and WV has some vertical that is lap-able from a single base area (seems good for kids, can't get lost, end up at bottom regardless) on a high speed quad.  There are some ancillary lifts that would be good on crowded days, along with another high speed servicing learning terrain in the middle of the mountain.  Aesthetically pleasing layout for the overall size of the hill; laid out well.

The mountain in the background of your photo is Snows Mountain. https://www.waterville.com/press-releases/2017/2/18/reopening-snows-mountain-one-of-new-hampshires-ski-areas
 

MarkO’s ski area is Campton Mountain, which is closer to the exit 28 on 93 https://www.camptonmountain.com

-12 here in Westfield, VT right now. 

6 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

the magic of tower 16…But I bet andre’s and north glade are waist deep.

Trend in almost all the glades was super scraped to rock at the top, with good snow as the crowds dispersed lower down in the glades. Definitely better than most things I’ve skied in the east this season though.

Trails that skied well were UN, Kitzhubel, and Northwest Passage.

One of the coldest ski days of my life atop the flyer at Jay. Wind is ripping out of the north.

Just pulled into Jay. Snow covered roads from Bellows Falls north and steady snow from St. J north. 

Heading up to Jay tomorrow night to ski Saturday and Sunday. 
 

Will only have Cochran’s, Northeast Slopes, Ascutney, and Suicide Six left after this for VT ski areas. 

1 hour ago, LaGrangewx said:

Will be at Arapahoe Basin tomorrow. Deciding between Taos or Wolf Creek for Saturday. Both received 2-3 feet of super light fluffy pow yesterday. Rumor has it Taos may open Kachina. Will report back over the weekend. 

I've skied both. Ski Taos if you're an expert, Wolf Creek if you're an intermediate.