How bad is your hill after Vail buys it?

hoodratz47

Active member
Looking for before and after thoughts on it. We all know the behemoth of Vail will never stop till it buys up all the ski areas or out competes them
 
i’m not an afton local but when they bought them out the food got shitty and expensive and so did the lift tickets. I can’t fucking stand those cards they use when it’s a medium sized resort for the midwest. on the positive side afton’s parks actually look better than they were a while ago.
 
I mean Stevens was probably getting fucked by someone one way or another but it’s not like people are hyped on it.
 
they jacked up the prices and moved the park. then the community & locals bullied them to move the park back :)
 
First off, they killed the super affordable Drifter Pass during the peak of Covid 19 last year. And if that’s not scummy enough..

They jacked prices of all amenities, AND made it so you have to make a reservation just to sit down at a table with your beer/food.

No more physical trail maps.

Cant buy shots of liquor anymore. Or more than 1 beer at a time.

They downsized all the terrain parks a lot.

And there’s plenty more. Just ask anyone that frequents Hunter NY!
 
Fuck that

14360776:KilaTsunami said:
First off, they killed the super affordable Drifter Pass during the peak of Covid 19 last year. And if that’s not scummy enough..

They jacked prices of all amenities, AND made it so you have to make a reservation just to sit down at a table with your beer/food.

No more physical trail maps.

Cant buy shots of liquor anymore. Or more than 1 beer at a time.

They downsized all the terrain parks a lot.

And there’s plenty more. Just ask anyone that frequents Hunter NY!
 
Vail seems to give literally 0 fucks about Kirkwood. They bought them, jacked up the price of food, finally put them on the grid... and keep them open less often. Other than that, fuckin nothing. I mean I didn't see them pre Vail so I could be wrong. But it seems like they are severely neglected compared to Heavenly and Northstar. Maybe this is for the best though. Shitty lifts, but hey it's still Kirkwood.

**This post was edited on Dec 9th 2021 at 1:01:41am

**This post was edited on Dec 9th 2021 at 1:02:36am
 
Not my mountain but have to share cuz it's hilarious.

Independent ski area Snow Trails killing it per usual with the snowmaking the moment it gets cold enough.

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Below is Vail owned Mad River "mountain" lololololol not even snowmaking and it's cold af outside. But they can advertise!

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And their cams don't work lol (tried on phone chrome, and desktop edge browsers).... Suspicious!

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Surprised y'all give a fuck about food prices. I wouldn't buy shit either way if it was $10 or $20. I just live off pocket snacks, haven't bought resort food in years
 
Always get skimadriver and mad river Glen confused

14360840:HypeBeast said:
Not my mountain but have to share cuz it's hilarious.

Independent ski area Snow Trails killing it per usual with the snowmaking the moment it gets cold enough.

View attachment 1021576

Below is Vail owned Mad River "mountain" lololololol not even snowmaking and it's cold af outside. But they can advertise!

View attachment 1021578

And their cams don't work lol (tried on phone chrome, and desktop edge browsers).... Suspicious!

View attachment 1021579
 
14360848:mrk127 said:
Surprised y'all give a fuck about food prices. I wouldn't buy shit either way if it was $10 or $20. I just live off pocket snacks, haven't bought resort food in years

Buy the chili at wolf creek. No. Don't argue. Buy it. Then thank me. Well thank the cook. It's amazing.
 
I'm not a Whis local so I won't speak too much about how much worse things may or may not be now ... but Whistler park is gone and now there's only a park on Blackcomb. The park was great all the times I skied there last season but I do miss the whistler rails
 
14360848:mrk127 said:
Surprised y'all give a fuck about food prices. I wouldn't buy shit either way if it was $10 or $20. I just live off pocket snacks, haven't bought resort food in years

Ayy though, Sierra at Tahoe, top of Grandview my dude would hook it UP with the onion rings. It was like $7 - passholder discount which was alright imo. Hella good onion rings too. But since I have an Epic pass this year I'm gonna be packing lunches.
 
14360776:KilaTsunami said:
First off, they killed the super affordable Drifter Pass during the peak of Covid 19 last year. And if that’s not scummy enough..

They jacked prices of all amenities, AND made it so you have to make a reservation just to sit down at a table with your beer/food.

No more physical trail maps.

Cant buy shots of liquor anymore. Or more than 1 beer at a time.

They downsized all the terrain parks a lot.

And there’s plenty more. Just ask anyone that frequents Hunter NY!

To be fair the northeast value pass is damn near close to the drifter pass price and doesn't stop when you hit 30.

They did kill the Night pass at roundtop/liberty/whitetail which priced a ton of locals out.

Ski season in PA gets shorter every time they buy a hill, since they set opening and closing dates instead of trying to open asap.

No fucks given on the terrain parks side. Although if there is a good crew with solid fleet of rails in place the parks should stay at least decent, but will probably consolidate to 1 or 2 trails max especially at small hills.
 
14360840:HypeBeast said:
And their cams don't work lol (tried on phone chrome, and desktop edge browsers).... Suspicious!

View attachment 1021579

They will never fix the webcams, at bmbw in Cleveland they've been broken for over a year now. I have a friend who lives across the street from bm so I get live updates as to when those rats actually turn their snowguns on lol
 
Well before, Big Boulder was literally a 75% (maybe more) terrain park mountain. Vail has since removed 2 of the parks altogether and fired the whole team running shit.
 
14360871:Christian_Bale said:
I'm not a Whis local so I won't speak too much about how much worse things may or may not be now ... but Whistler park is gone and now there's only a park on Blackcomb. The park was great all the times I skied there last season but I do miss the whistler rails

dont quote me but pretty sure they removed the park on whistler for something related to covid. so fingers crossed They’ll bring it back up next year. Whistler was much better before vail tbh
 
14360848:mrk127 said:
Surprised y'all give a fuck about food prices. I wouldn't buy shit either way if it was $10 or $20. I just live off pocket snacks, haven't bought resort food in years

small resorts got cheap ass food so im gonna buy it when I feel like it

hyland charges $3 for a decent portion of tater tots and like $5.50 for chicken strips which aint even bad tbh
 
14360889:TOAST. said:
To be fair the northeast value pass is damn near close to the drifter pass price and doesn't stop when you hit 30.

They did kill the Night pass at roundtop/liberty/whitetail which priced a ton of locals out.

Ski season in PA gets shorter every time they buy a hill, since they set opening and closing dates instead of trying to open asap.

No fucks given on the terrain parks side. Although if there is a good crew with solid fleet of rails in place the parks should stay at least decent, but will probably consolidate to 1 or 2 trails max especially at small hills.

The one year peak had roundtop they opened November 16 or something like that. I doubt vail would even try to open that early now.
 
14360989:donotreply said:
dont quote me but pretty sure they removed the park on whistler for something related to covid. so fingers crossed They’ll bring it back up next year. Whistler was much better before vail tbh

My understanding is that it will be back but only a beginner park. The parks are not what they used to be at WB but still pretty good, but one thing I think we call can appreciate is having cat skinner as a high speed chair now.

Vail certainly does not go the extra mile for locals (shortens season, limits terrain during certain times to cut costs), but it has been liveable and likely more affordable for the Vancouver folks and Seattle kooks in the their Sea Hawk Jerseys
 
14361005:Jems said:
small resorts got cheap ass food so im gonna buy it when I feel like it

hyland charges $3 for a decent portion of tater tots and like $5.50 for chicken strips which aint even bad tbh

yeah this is facts, at my local you can get a BLT with a fried egg for $7.50 I think
 
I love Vail. They bought our park. Paid Andy parry 54 cents a day to just walk around scream into the air about eheath and minimum wage.

They built three halfpipes and now every rail is an urban set up with a 75ft mandatory kicker to make be able to be in the park.

I don't get why everyone hates Vail
 
Who cares about the food none of us buy that shit anyway and they should charge 20+ for a basic ass meal so we get funding for snow making and everything else haha let the tourists pay for our snow making.
 
14361057:Download-My-Apps said:
My understanding is that it will be back but only a beginner park. The parks are not what they used to be at WB but still pretty good, but one thing I think we call can appreciate is having cat skinner as a high speed chair now.

Vail certainly does not go the extra mile for locals (shortens season, limits terrain during certain times to cut costs), but it has been liveable and likely more affordable for the Vancouver folks and Seattle kooks in the their Sea Hawk Jerseys

Even the beginner park was funky as hell and I miss spring skiing in whis :(, they even destroyed the half pipe people started digging last season ?
 
14361114:Lonely said:
I love Vail. They bought our park. Paid Andy parry 54 cents a day to just walk around scream into the air about eheath and minimum wage.

They built three halfpipes and now every rail is an urban set up with a 75ft mandatory kicker to make be able to be in the park.

I don't get why everyone hates Vail

Is any of this true? ?
 
14360717:Jems said:
i’m not an afton local but when they bought them out the food got shitty and expensive and so did the lift tickets. I can’t fucking stand those cards they use when it’s a medium sized resort for the midwest. on the positive side afton’s parks actually look better than they were a while ago.

probably an unpopular opinion but I liked Afton even after Vail bought it out, some reasons:

- the computer systems were down A TON so you could not buy a ticket and be fine skiing for the day.

- they funneled a lot of money into revamping the terrain park and even shipped rails in from Keystone to set up in the park which was sick af.

- They also got a new dedicated park crew and talking to those guys was sick cause they were really into it and always had fun sets. It honestly felt like the park scene at Afton got a huge revamp and I remember posting up there more often cause of it. There where hella comps and local jams that went on too- it was fun af.

- Yurts, the Burrito bus (which was gas for about 2 seasons), revamped chalets, a bar at the terrain park, ect.

Like yeah it kinda lost its local charm and granted I haven't been there in probably half a decade but I remember it really not being that awful when I went back there. It felt like Vails expectations with the hill were realistic when they went in because they just focused on the park and re-did the facilities but ran it the same.
 
The fine folks at Wilmot seemed to really dislike their new overlords. They had ONLY JUST made the transition so Vail's presence seemed so awkward and out of place there
 
Ruined Wildcat. Used to be first to open last to close but not anymore beancounters don't want to do that even though that place has to have the lowest overhead imaginable for good terrain.

I now ski Cannon and Waterville on my pass instead.

Probably 50-50 if they fucked it up. In Tahoe Northstar and Heavenly aren't really any different. Kirkwood got fucked and they will close with 2 months of base b/c the beancounters can't sell day passes.

Stowe would be no different on the icon going to Vail did nothing negative really it was the same shit right before. The years I had a pass there it was on the Mountain Collective was great though as I got a dope West Coast trip with that thing each of them. So didn't really benefit from the added hills. Sunapee unaffected Okemo same. I don't go to Mt Snow a lot but I guess they just fucked it up with the parking shit.
 
Kirkwood got dumbed down parks, no more airbag in the spring. And worst of all they close early every year with plenty of snow on the hill.
 
topic:hoodratz47 said:
Looking for before and after thoughts on it. We all know the behemoth of Vail will never stop till it buys up all the ski areas or out competes them

Vail bought Crested Butte a couple years back and it actually has opened up more terrain than previously available. That being said they don’t pay lifties near as well and it hurts to see the money I spend in CB go somewhere else. Crested butte might be one of the exceptions with vail not the standard
 
14360720:Casey said:
I mean Stevens was probably getting fucked by someone one way or another but it’s not like people are hyped on it.

Stevens ticket prices are now hot garbo and the lines are borderline comically long. Good thing all the sweet spots are out of the majority of the publics reach anyways because who likes hiking amirite?
 
Found some old SS from end of last szn sooooooooooooo

Freedom Park, one of the most iconic rail lines on the EC, is now gone for no reason. The trail was literally perfect for what it was and they have no plans on replacing it along with the broken lift they still haven't fixed. The trail would be absolutely horrible to just "ride"

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Last season they shut down the mountain when it was completely covered. COMPLETELY COVERED. In PA its usually a miracle to see less than 30 dirt patches on your way down. Boulder closed mid-late March when every trail was COVERED into MAY. MAY. IN PENNSYLVANIA. (tried hiking when they closed, had pussy patrol "guarding" the mtn)

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**This post was edited on Dec 10th 2021 at 2:05:42pm
 
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