powderfreak

Is that your experience (just curious)? When did you start your company? I never look at it as adult party time (not my style, I'd rather converse with strangers on a weather forum on a Friday night I guess)... but I'll be honest my life picture probably looked like a country song lyrics lol. I just need a place to live, someone to share life with, a dog, and I value being able to spend a considerable amount of time outside in the mountains above most else. Maybe I was brainwashed by the "do what you love" bullshit but I definitely made my defining decision after college when a long time girlfriend and I had finished with Economics and Accounting degrees, but she was moving back to Boston to work in a bank and I just couldn't do it. I used to post on these boards from the North Shore of Mass back in like 2006 at times, lol. Ended up splitting up and I stayed in VT, got into marketing at a ski resort, skied 100 days a year for a decade, and sort of followed the path from there. I never saw myself in a 4,000 square foot house wearing a suit and tie (college girlfriend definitely did), but that's probably classic for this generation who was told to avoid the rat race and go for peace of mind. I figure I'm doing all the activities in the mountains on the daily that my body may not be able to do whenever retirement would come, ha.

Good to know I'm not alone. I have friends that are planning to have kids in the next 5 years at my age, and I have friends who have 10 and 12 year olds. Who knows.

I know what I’m doing tonight, thanks! Ha.

Bumpin’ uglies like it’s Prom Night.

Yeah that’s a whole other thing. Getting close to shit or get off the pot time with kids. Wife turns 30 this year and I’ll be hitting mid-30s... that kid decision yay or nay is barreling at us fast. Think that needs to be figured out before moving, who knows. And LOL about not being able to get to town from Bromley. You are pretty close anyway aren’t you? Bromley ski area is like right on that road out of Manchester IIRC from my SVT ski days.

You see anything frozen today? We had like an hour of wet snow up at 1,500ft at like 34F around 1-2pm.

Ha, I know two friends who switched from service industry to real estate right when COVID hit. They saw it early and started taking courses online. What you described is the situation I’m in. I was single and moved to Stowe in my early 20s...saw the market was real depressed around that time right after the 2008 crash and realized mortgage payments might even be less than my monthly rent, as odd as that was. Once you figure that out it’s like, why the hell am I giving my landlord the same amount of money but getting no equity in return? The place I got, the dude was just straight up hard for money, and would take anything over nothing. No one was buying condos or townhomes in that time frame, so I offered quite a bit less than asking price and he took it and ran. The problem is now a decade later, I’d be interested in a house but likely would need to move like at least 30 minutes out towards the NEK due to the exploding real estate market...and I really enjoy living in town and 7 minutes from the ski resort. So tough call.

It’s like Stowe in the 1950s lol. But yeah when Phin puts it that way, it’s a little scary buying that much sight unseen ha. Regardless of how much coin you have, unseen in person is a gamble.

Makes sense, that was a steal for that square footage, property, view, etc. Well done dude.

Yeah, we saw a big Vail bump too once they bought the resort. All the sudden Epic Pass holders in Boston and NY got real interested in weekend places in Stowe...more than usual. They can own a place in Vail/Breck/Park City/etc and own in Stowe and then just use their pass at all of their homes! lol. They fly their private jets from White Plains to MVL.

I still can’t believe the price you got that for. That price is a starter home in Stowe and Waterbury isn’t far behind. I could sell my 1,200 square foot townhome for like half the price of that estate lol.

We bought our townhome after the 2008 crash, cheaply when the housing market imploded. We will double that investment at least. But our chances for straight homeownership in this area are going to be quite hard.

The market is insane right now. People buying everything in sight.

Yeah haha, once you get it, it clicks hard. I think way back in the day (1930s) they were looking at Mansfield and figured out that the East side had a shitload more snowpack than the west side, so that’s where they started cutting the first trails. They cut the original and fabled Nosedive in what is the deepest most consistent snowpack on the NE aspect. They weren’t dumb lol. Like someone probably went around in March and was like this side has 8 feet on the ground while the other side is melting out. Let’s put the trail here. To me it is the perfect combo... get bright sunny mornings to ski during the coldest part of the day, then the ridge shadow protects the snow from direct sunlight during the warmest time of the day in the afternoon.

Western side of Mansfield melts out to 3,500ft well before it melts at 1,500ft on the east side lol. Getting direct sun during the warmest diurnal time of day is a killer in the spring. Afternoon shadow FTW when it comes to depth... that’s why I find natural snow on this high east side in like June. Can suck though for spring skiing sometimes.

Oddly seems to be wet snow here at 1500ft at the moment. Wasn’t expecting flakes.

Yeah you get to basic supply and demand too as ski areas close over time. Continued demand and less places to do it means higher prices for all.

I got investigated at Gore when I was 16 by Warren County Sheriff’s office for skiing in the woods. I didn’t duck a rope but Patrol didn’t like skiing off-trail at that time. I got stopped in the base area at Gore and then met with a deputy. The only reason they didn’t charge me was a) apologize profusely for skiing powder in the trees and b) I never ducked a rope so they couldn’t pin me on that.

Ha, it’s really only clubs/bars and restaurants after 10pm. The sports leagues make sense as those have been huge sources of spread in VT. Hockey leagues, bowling leagues, etc. I think they need a more pointed/isolated closure of activities that lead to spread like that rather than a blanket stay at home order. Hopefully ski areas don’t get blamed or we are done too.

Yeah half joking but also there will be a lot of people who find an uncrowded lodge and mountain a better experience...but half the fun is walking into a crowded ski lodge on a Saturday morning and taking a deep breath to relax lol. I still think ski areas find it’s better to have volume in the end. Volume drives ancillary lines of business and is what will drive future interest in the sport. If retention rate is a certain percent of visitors, you want as many to visit as possible. But COVID man, these numbers need to start going down if we want to have a season. There are many in the industry across the northeast that are quite alarmed that we could be going back to March style numbers if we aren’t there already.

Depends on the mountain. But I can bet you every mountain has a limit in place right now, this is not the year for spur of the moment trips...plan ahead with the place you want to visit.

Yeah. Like a Bolton Valley only pass right now (with holiday blackouts too) would cost you $762. Thats not that different than an Epic or IKON pass for tons of resorts.

Yeah I mean that seemed to be the jive I got from people who posted about Keystone, CO opening last weekend. Usually it’s a mad house on opening weekend, but articles written about it gave the impression that many enjoyed that low-key empty experience to the total gong-show that it normally is (if you got a reservation for it). Like they’d rather wait 15 min for a wide open table and plenty of space in a lodge as opposed to the old first come first serve people crawling over others to get to their stuff experience. They also said the slopes were much more empty and felt safer than having thousands of folks bombing down. I think the ski industry might learn or change some things too from this... but the frugal skier usually loses in that case.

Oh they already have. Most of the independents have drastically raised their season pass price up here. And day ticket prices will go up to match the out of whack supply/demand. Very high demand, low capacity to country club level... gets you country club prices eventually. Cost savings wise though there’s less staff for sure to handle less guests. They’ll cut some costs as well, fridge amenities that lost money. Maybe you don’t make enough snow to last till June. You dust and run, vs building 15 foot depths.

I may be completely out to lunch and I’m not saying the ski areas won’t struggle financially... but I don’t think it’s because of traveler restrictions. The ski areas are planning to take maybe 50% or even less of their normal visitors just as a COVID precaution as it is. I bet it’ll be even less given lift capacity of only like parties riding together, capacity of lodges (say 1 person for every 200 square feet including staff), etc. I still think the public is thinking ski area business should be normal all else considered... but these places are planning, staffing, etc for only allowing less than 50% of normal visitations regardless of travel restrictions. Its sort of why I say without restrictions it’s a terrible experience (like this summer at times) where you go on vacation and can’t ski, can’t eat out, etc because of the broader capacity restrictions. And I think we’ll see that too. Frustrations among the public that they are being capped out of doing what they want. Things are being planned to operate at a very low number of visitors relative to normal. Just look at the Keystone images. They capped skier visits low to make a very controlled environment.