My email to crystal

SirFryanator

SirFryanator

Active member


Dear Crystal Mountain Main office,

I have skied at crystal most of my life. I raced through the CMAC program, but quit last year because it was too intense for me. After doing this, I realized that I was a much better skier than I was before I entered the program, and started skiing the backcountry more often. The backcountry was a serene place where my friends and I could relax and ski powder all day. This lead up to my least favorite decision you made: building a lift in the backcountry.

The backcountry was not meant to be lift-serviced. Doing this means that nobody would have to ride Buff Trail back to Miner’s basin, or ski down Northway to the bus. The whole concept of “backcountry” would be taken away. This could also be a serious liability issue. The skiers who may not be as skilled will see the lift down there on the map and say, “I heard this has good snow. Let’s go here.”

I am afraid for Crystal’s backcountry reputation. But what I am even more concerned with is Crystal’s inability to build a terrain park. I know what you say about a terrain park: it’s a liability. But to tell you the truth, I think building the lift in the backcountry is even more of a liability. I have an idea to separate the serious park skiers from the less-skilled skiers who don’t know what they’ve gotten into: park passes. Other mountains have them. For an extra $2.50 a day, or for a seasons pass adding $15 onto the price can show who wants to pay for park, and who won’t ski there. The youth of Crystal, with some adults, get what they want, and the adults get what they want too. It will raise sales. The park skiers mostly go to Snoqualmie and Stevens. Crystal will be by far the best mountain in WA, and possibly much of the west coast if a park is built.

I hope you take my opinion to heart.

-----------------------------

How's that?

They never even responded.
 
yeah i've done the same thing and they never responded. send them the same letter again asking for a reply or something, when i did that they finally sent me something back

dont be looking for any changes though, the management sucks up there but i heard theres someone local who wants to buy it????
 
Boyne won't sell, we make them way too much money, and they've got too much invested now.

Are you talking about the northback lift? I'm not sure if they are putting that in still, atleast not in the next 3 years.

The lift that goes near eastpeak would be sweet though.
 
I sent six emails to Crystal this season, most of which were replied to with "Snoqualmie and Stevens will serve you all the terrain park you could want." This was my final email this season:

Dear Crystal Mountain,

I write to you because Crystal Mountain’s revenues have been down the past couple seasons. Everybody realizes this. And it seems that everybody except the Crystal Mountain management knows the reason: Crystal Mountain does not have a terrain park. Crystal does not appeal to the younger generation.

Crystal has always catered to families and older skiers; so you ask, why would a terrain park benefit Crystal? Consider the typical ski family. You have a dad who likes the backcountry, a mom who likes the groomers, and kids who like the park. The dad obviously likes Crystal because of the backcountry, but the mom can find groomers at any mountain, and the kids hate Crystal because there is no park. Where are they going to ski? They’re probably going to go to another mountain because even though the dad likes the backcountry, it’s not worth the kids’ constant complaints about the lack of a park.

Now, of course, the logical argument is that terrain parks are a liability. But do the math. A study conducted by the NSAA (National Ski Areas Association) in 2004 found that 60% of skiers and 77% of snowboarders are under age 25. If Crystal Mountain gets a conservative 3,000 riders each weekend day that pay $50 for a ticket, Crystal’s weekend revenues come to $300,000. If there are sixteen weekends in a season, that’s $4,800,000 per season. Now let’s say that even though 60% of skiers and 77% of boarders are under age 24, Crystal gets lucky and only loses one quarter of the riders under 25 because there is no terrain park. If you subtract 15% of Crystal’s revenue, that’s a loss of $720,000. You can hire a lawyer or two for $720,000.

But, you argue, Crystal won’t actually lose many young riders by not offering a park. Unfortunately, this just isn’t true. Young people like to be in style. And park skiing is what people see at the X-Games, the Olympics, in the movies. Crystal has great backcountry, but the youth does not want to primarily ski the BC. Trust me on this, I’m an incredibly dedicated skier in this age group.

As a member of the Sturtevants team, I know that several of my co-riders tried incredibly hard to stop Sturtevants from doing a ski demo at Crystal this year in response to Crystal’s inability to build a park. Obviously, Sturts still did the demo, but I think some of the management realized that Crystal might not be in their key demographic.

I write this lengthy email not as an angry customer, but as a dedicated ski lover who truly wants to ski Crystal Mountain to be great. With a little effort, Crystal could be the best mountain in the Northwest. Please, please consider these points.
 
jeez, this again? I've said it a billion times before, I hope crystal never EVER gets a park. Keeps that whole crowd away from the mountain which is a really nice break.

Remember those threads complaining about stupid people in parks? Little kids and old ladies and shit. You really wanna bring ALL that shit down to your mountain? It would ruin crystal.

As for park passes, all that does is take away part of the mountain that other people couldn't ski any more, and that wouldn't go down well with a lot of people.
 
They can isolate the park though, and the only reason it seems like we dont have crowds is because we've got high speed lifts going all over the damn place

Little funny fact: John Kircher(GM at Crystal) was one of the first people to buy libtech's skinny ass snowboards. Now why would he want a park ski? He probably was the only person that was able to get em through proforms too, lucky bastard.

Also, I hope you're emailing Tiana and not guest services?
 
I mean the "park crowd". I want to be careful to not make it sound like I'm stereotyping people who ski/snowboard park, but the fact is there are certain types of people that I don't necessarily prefer to have on my mountain, and its nice to go to a mountain where these people avoid because of the lack of a park.

These people are *typically* (but not always) snowboarders with only a few years experience, who like to ride park exclusively, and can't do much in the park, and are usually not the friendliest/smartest people ever.

Again - no intention of stereotyping a group here. We all know the midget loves everyone.
 
so just keep them all in a park on quicksilver and then they stay there all day, mabey they can even drag some other people in with them leaving the good snow for me.
 
yeah its funny a tread comes up on this every few months but 8th ace that was a pretty good email to send them. if you get a response be sure to post it.

if i remember right they plan on making the quicksilver lift a high speed chair. that lift services what 2 runs? if they stuck a park on there it would keep everyone in the park over there pretty much away from everyone else. theres really no reason to go on that lift unless there was a park. it would be kinda cool to hit the park too after a run down 3-way or the backside of the king lol
 
In regards to those park types:

Most find their ways to crystal atleast once in their first few years of riding, and most believe they can dominate the mountain, not only because they think they're the shit in the park, but because snoqualmies blacks are equivlant to crystal's greens. I've seen plenty of those park types sitting atop high campbell wondering how the hell they got themselves in that situation, and how they hell they are gonna get down.

I'm not sure where im headed.. maybe im just suggesting people are stupid, no matter what mountain your on. Or maybe im saying crystal's park riders will have more respect for the rest of the mountain? meh
 
Nope. there'll just be more of them sitting at the top of Campbell.

I know I, for one... when I go to crystal. I don't get humbled by the mountain, the mountain gets humbled by me.

You really want more of me down there?

(we're coming down for closing day, since we haven't been there this year since OPENING day)
 
let them faggots try to build a park, it will suck. but it will still keep lots of people away from snoqualmie. i dont care if your backcountry gets blown up either, i want to see hella old dudes up there with there asian business partners skiing way out north... fucking up your powder,ss ssss sssss
 
haha bro, trust me, you don't primarily see park rats shredding Niagras or Brain Damage at Crystal. It's already old dudes with a few of us young big mountain skiers who are hitting the BC.
 
it's a lot more "family oriented" rather than trying to get into the newschool scene. It's tough to not ski flat slope, I know.
 
but Southback already gets skied out before Northback. The Northway lift is going to destroy both backcountries. Hiking the king is fine, but i really don't want to have to hike past Threeway to hit untracked lines. And I'm sick of going to Snoqualmie for park skiing.
 
Alright, I finally recieved a reply to the email (near the top of this thread) that I sent to Crystal a few weeks ago. Here's their response:

Lance, thanks for your comments. Every ski mountain in the Northwest did poorly last winter (04-05) due to the widespread drought. It was tragic. I don’t think any of the other areas opened their terrain parks or pipes at all. Crystal was open a lot more days than anyone else, and that was only 74 days. Still, we’ve been successful every other year for the past 10 years, so your revenue information is not factual and your concerns about Crystal’s financial health are unfounded.

We don’t plan to have a terrain park. We don’t want or need one. That’s just the way it is. Enjoy Crystal for what it is. Our natural terrain is awesome. If you really must have a terrain park there are several other nearby resorts that have good parks, so you certainly have freedom of choice. We are going to keep on doing what we like to do, enhancing the lift access and trails to some of the best natural terrain in the Northwest. It’s worked fine for us since we opened in 1962 and in fact just gets better and better. If skiing and riding real mountains is what you want to do, you’ll want to come to Crystal.

I disagree with you about the appeal Crystal has to the younger generation. I see thousands of people in their teens and twenties here every week. Our parking lots are full most weekends. In fact, we’ve had to turn cars away on occasion because of full-capacity parking lots. Families and kids love to ski here. Crystal may not appeal to you and your particular circle of friends, so you undoubtedly choose to go somewhere else more trendy and stylish. That’s your choice. Obviously some members of the young generation are easily bored and don’t want to ski genuine mountains. Whatever. Young skiers and riders come to Crystal to ski the amazing backcountry and enjoy the variety of inbounds terrain, and these skiers and riders will become some of the best in the world as adults. Maybe they aren’t trying to get in the X-Games or feel the need to show off in a park. Maybe they don’t care about stuff like that. Maybe they just love the mountains in the winter and the fun and freedom of skiing and riding at Crystal.

Far from being unpopular, Crystal is consistently voted Washington’s Favorite Ski Area in KING-5 Best of the Northwest polls year after year. I went on newschoolers.com. I read all the Crystal forums, I think, and except for a little bit of whining about no park, I read raves about Crystal’s natural mountain terrain and how everyone on the forum wants to go ski the backcountry.

Don’t fool yourself. Sturtevant’s loves Crystal. It is very prestigious for them to have their Demos up here because it’s the best mountain with the best skiers in the Northwest who also shop for their gear at Sturtevant’s. Get a clue, the little boycott didn’t work because there’s nothing wrong with Crystal – it’s the best and biggest ski area in Washington and for good reasons. That’s why so many Sturtevant’s employees and managers and owners and customers are here every week. The sponsored ski and snowboard team’s whining and protesting isn’t going to have any effect on our friendship with the good folks at Sturtevant’s. Why start a war? If you don’t like what Crystal has to offer, go somewhere else that has what you want. It’s as simple as that. Peace.

I do appreciate the time and thought you’ve put into your comment and I hope that I have helped to explain Crystal’s point of view.

Take care, have a fun summer and we may see you on top of the King next season.
 
I think that person has something stuck realy far up their ass. that is such a great way to get a customer: we dont need you, we dont like you now go away if you dont like what we have.

If I was that person's boss they would be fired by now. such great customer relations. you should tell them that if they had a park then they would get some of the riders when there is no powder. because I know I will never go down there if it has snowed less then 6 inches in the last 24 hours. And a park will alow the riders who should not be in the BC a place to go so they dont ruin the rest of the mnt.
 
Yeah that dude really sounds like an ignorant dick, i used to really like skiing crystal, the mountain is great and all but their customer service is terrible
 
Uh, I dunno. Everything he said was well put, to the point, and thats it, wasn't being a dick at all.

The point's already been made LONG ago that they don't want a park, won't ever have a park, and don't need a park, so why do you you kids keep going on about it?
 
http://www.skicrystal.com/1604.html?page=1604&SESSION=dbd4f7cd6c3d8ed9bbd02635cf4c3da1&s=0

I just got the email,

here's what they said:

Thanks Matt. I appreciate you taking the time to express your views.

We’re all life-long Crystal skiers here. We love this place and want what’s best for it. All the potential plans in the MDP (Master Development Plan) will get a lot of consideration from every angle to make the best possible decisions. We’ll take every care to improve and not detract from the great terrain we have here. One thing we don’t plan to do is build a terrain park. We don’t want or need one. That’s just the way it is. Enjoy Crystal for what it is. Our natural terrain is awesome. If you must have a terrain park there are other nearby resorts that have parks so you certainly have freedom of choice. We are going to keep on doing what we like to do, enhancing the lift access and trails to some of the best natural terrain in the Northwest. It’s worked fine for us since we opened in 1962 and in fact just gets better and better. If skiing and riding real mountains is what you want to do, you’ll want to come to Crystal.

For details on Crystal’s MDP check out this link: http://www.skicrystal.com/1604.html

Thanks again for your comments. Hope you’ve had a great winter…take care this summer, have fun and we’ll see you next season!

----------------

that wasn't too jerk-like, but it was pretty retarded. They probably didn't even look at the email.
 
I see where they are coming from, and unless newschool skiiers and park riding snowboarders don't take a good portion of the market away, they have good reason not to change.
 
But freestyle skiing is getting bigger and Crystal's target crowd is getting older. I'd imagine in five years they won't be able to afford not to have a park, even with Big Sky and Brighton's revenues helping Crystal.
 
Well you could perhaps say the same thing about Alta and Taos because they do not allow snowboarders, but in the late 80s into the 90s, snowboarding exploded, but they still didnt allow it. It would have seemed wise to allow the surging trend, but they stuck with their plans. They seemed to have done just fine, especially Alta.

Crystal doesn't want a park. The mountain pulls in one hell of a business, even without a park, therefore they do not see the need. It just isn't in their plans and desires; they have natural terrain and racers, and they want to keep it that way.

If they did build a park with such little ambition to do so, would it even be worth it?
 
Seems to me the mountains with good parks (i.e. Snoqualmie) had to close because NOBODY was coming up, where as on the last days of Crystal it was still packed. Your logic is ALL wrong, you need to let this be my friend.....
 
My point is that Crystal is one of the best mountains in North America. No doubt. But when it's the only mountain I have access to without spending more money than I need to, and I would like it to have everything a mountain could offer, like whistler. Except not as big.
 
i could see how that would be. unfortunately, if they have no desire to start building a park, then they have no desire to build a park (and the one that they would build would be shitty).

Now if crystal had gone about saying they have an excellent terrain park, but didnt, like stevens, then that is a different matter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top