Okemo report 12/23 & 12/24

It was pretty good on the 23rd and 24th -- nearly every trail was open and they were all buffed smooth. Unfortunately heavy rains hits the night of the 24th, turning the mountain into slush, and wiping out at least half the snowpack. I did not bother with it on Christmas or the day after. Strangely there were very few people on the mountain either day I went.

If it freezes this week, the mountain is going to be dangerously icy unless they get some fresh snow. Slush can be sort of carved through (think spring corn snow) but after it crusts up overnight it is way too hard to get through, especially on steeper terrain.

The NYT had this a few weeks ago, and it's a nice piece.

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/travel/escapes/02gems.html?ex=1135832400&en=554492b496a287e3&ei=5070

Life is an uncertain and fleeting thing, so make sure you are doing the things you love with the people that matter in your life. The odds are good that if you are reading this blog, that you are in the aforementioned category.

See you guys on the weekend, hopefully under happier times.

Conde Naste spasms over Snowmass

http://www.concierge.com/bestof/ski

Also from the NYT

Ute Mountaineer in Aspen, Colo. By MARY BILLARD

Repeat visitors to Aspen love to stroll by the international temples of shopping - Prada, Ralph Lauren, Fendi - and reminisce about what beloved local institution "used to be" in that spot. In that setting, Ute Mountaineer, a one-stop shop for all things alpine, is a rare indigenous landmark.
The store treats the surrounding Rockies as a year-round romper room for adults, offering equipment for skiing, snowboarding, telemarking, mountain and ice climbing, snowshoeing, trail running, hiking. "Any nonmotorized sport," said Paul Perley, the store's general manager.
Sales people at the store are a good source for gossip about conditions in the Aspen backcountry. Many of them have either just hiked or skied a certain area, or their roommate did, or another customer will chime in with a report on the snow off piste. The store also gets updates from the Forest Service.
Employees, who radiate an annoying glow of vibrant health, are encouraged to check out new equipment and explore the area in the store's "Pay to Play" program. They receive $100 for any outdoor reconnaissance mission, once they write up notes for their coworkers. "We hire people that have a passion for the outdoors," Mr. Perley said. "They may not know every sport, but they are all gear hounds."
There is a lot of gear. When it opened on April Fool's Day in 1977, stock was limited, fleece was still called "pile" and Gore-Tex was barely known. After it moved to a site across from Wagner Park in 1980, it grew into two floors jam-packed with everything from avalanche equipment to detailed local hiking maps to altimeters to trail running shoes. There are now 20,000 items in inventory.
The current "must have" item is the Indigo G-String, which straps skis and boards to the backs of backcountry hikers ($25). It is perfect for tackling the Highland Bowl at Aspen Highlands, which requires a 30-minute hike up a razor's-edge ridge in order to ski a vertical drop of more than 1,500 feet. No way Prada is stocking it.
Ute Mountaineer, 308 South Mill Street, Aspen; (970) 925-2849; http://www.utemountaineer.com/. Open daily, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the summer and winter seasons; 10 to 6 off season.

Every day is a Gift: Okemo Conditions over 12/16-12/18

Friday: we had 6-9 inches of fresh, heavy moisture content snow. The mountain was completely empty as the snow came down in 25F temps. About 40% of the mountain was open, but it was generally unplowed / ungroomed. It's tiring to ski through that thick stuff, but still kind of fun. I skiied for a few hours then came back home, utterly exhausted. Fellow PiLam, O'Donnel, arrived later that night with his friend Steve. We polished off a bottle of Goldschlager and a petit chateaux Bordeaux as he regaled us with "Tales of Weems Greatness", which was sometime during Reagan I, as best as historians can determine.

Saturday: The piste bashers had done their work overnight, grooming a good chunk of the mountain, and about 70% of the trails were open for business. Steve chose to don his ski gear for the day and it was very difficult to keep up with him; he is a fast and athletic skiier. I was only able to stay in his rear view mirror due to some local peculiarities. Intent on squeezing the most value out of the $69 lift passes they had bought (I am a season pass holder) we crammed a ridiculous amount of vertical into 4 hours on the 28F day. My legs resembled the rubbery spine of the French Officer Corps at the end of the day. On the way home, we got to meet our helpful neighbors who pulled me out of a snow gully with a truck & chain. Nice people, these flinty Vermonters. We gobbled down 5 lbs of steak and red wine afterwards, with some lame pretext of a spinach salad to lend a little green color to dinner.

Sunday: The weather warmed up a little bit this day -- it was about 31F and the conditions seemed to be getting faster as the snow lost some of its initial softness. Personally, having learned how to cruise on fast/hard snow, I am more comfortable with these sorts of conditions so I was happy. We continued to explore the rest of the main mountain and tried all the rest of the main runs off the center lift that we had missed on Saturday. Strangely the mountain was a little bit more crowded than the prior day, perhaps due to the $22 Sunday afternoon promotion for VT/NH residents. Still, there were hardly any people there. At this point, most of the mountain is open, which is remarkable for early season skiing, and it does not appear to be in danger of melting due to a warm spell. Every night they are blowing snow strategically on the high traffic trails, as well as steep icy pitches, so the next 10-14 days look very promising.

Every day is a Gift.

PS: Road conditions for Aspen are here http://apps.aspentimes.com/roads/

Rental Car Prices

I checked a few web sites for car rental prices. These prices are with taxes etc.

Aspen pickup 1/21 - 1/29

Full size $400
Small SUV $600
Regular SUV $800

Figure an extra $50 for gas for Aspen.

Vail pickup 1/21 - 1/28

Full size $250
Regular SUV $350
Mega SUV $550

Figure an extra $100 for gas for Vail pickup.

I'm thinking a full size car will be fine; we are not really doing any true local travel and there are plenty of taxis and shuttle buses there. Mostly this is for getting groceries etc. When we head into Aspen we should expect to pay $20 taxi tolls to get back to Snowmass if we stay out late partying. (I am budgeting for that a couple of nights)

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Late afternoon update : We've got a Trailblazer (or similar) on hold for us at the Alamo at Vail/Eagle which Waldo and I can pick up and bring to Aspen. We should be able to pick up the late arrivals at Aspen airport assuming all the weather is smooth for the drive over. We got a pretty good rate on the Blazer ($350 with taxes fees etc and including ski racks but not gas). With this I anticipate that we can pick up Doug and Alex at Aspen airport on the arrival day. We won't be able to get to Sardy in time for the SPAM arrival, but save your taxi receipt. So for those who still need to book your flights (Guano & Bagel) there would be some synergy in being able to get into Eagle airport by 10:30 on 1/21 and depart from there on 1/28 -- you would have a ride already lined up. Here is a detail sheet of what is in/out of Eagle

http://vail.snow.com/pb.gh.air.winter.asp

As if skiing in India was not weird enough

http://www.skidubai.ae/

SUV Subtraction

SUV Subtraction

In time for ski season, some rental-car companies are offering modestly sized special deals on SUVs.

Avis, for example, is offering a $50 discount and free ski racks on weekly rentals of SUVs (and $20 off the weekend rate), while Budget is offering up to $20 off on weekends, with free ski racks as well. Alamo has an online-only deal that cuts $50 off a weekly SUV rate and $15 off three-day weekend SUV rentals at cities including Aspen, Colo.; Bozeman, Mont. (near the Big Sky ski resort); and Sacramento, Calif., west of the Lake Tahoe ski area.

With the winter deals, some of the car companies are trying to entice customers to trade up to a higher-price vehicle: For the typical SUV, costs range roughly from $30 to $100 a day, compared with around half that for a compact car, analysts say. Few customers actually reserve SUVs, says Mike Kane of VRCG Inc., a consulting company in Southfield, Mich., so the up-selling is generally done through discounts and upgrades at the counter. SUV renters don't tend to be scared off by high fuel costs from the vehicles' low fuel efficiency, he adds.

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Housekeeping notes

* The T-Shirts arrived - they look fine and all the sizes are correct
* I will look into rental cars ; I think we can get by with a small i.e. cheap one
* The final installment of $3500 was mailed to the Snowmass homeowner today (12/12)
* Please remit payment if you have not already done so

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Completely unrelated, but John Tan pointed out this vital information about 80's icon, Mr T.

http://www.4q.cc/t/index.php?topthirty

Price of Vail lift ticket tops $80

Price of Vail lift ticket tops $80

Among elite ski resorts, higher prices are touted, not hidden
By Robert WellerThe Associated PressDecember 8, 2005DENVER — Businesses usually don’t trumpet having the highest price around, but in the ski business it’s become something to brag about.Vail Resorts announced Wednesday that the top lift ticket price at its Vail and Beaver Creek ski areas will be $81 a day — $3 more than Aspen, its nearby competitor for the high-end skier.“There is a certain cachet” to charging top dollar, Vail Resorts chief executive Adam Aron said.“Vail and Beaver Creek do have the highest lift ticket price in the United States. And yes, we’re actually — as opposed to hiding from that fact — we’re proud of that fact,” he said. “If the resort is capable of successfully charging the highest lift ticket prices in the country, that may be an indicator that it really is the best vacation experience.”Vail’s big-name competitors, from Mammoth Mountain in California to Stratton in Vermont, charge in the low $70s for a single-day peak season ticket. Idaho’s Sun Valley charges $69, while Jackson Hole in Wyoming charges $73. Smaller areas, like Loveland and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado, charge around $50 during peak season.At Aspen, which has had the highest single-day price in many previous seasons, executives said they were happy for Vail to have “the dubious honor” this year.“It can make your brand inaccessible to people,” said David Perry, Aspen vice president for marketing. Still, Perry acknowledged the top price does carry some prestige.“Ferrari is not ashamed to charge half a million dollars for one of their cars,” he noted.Stuart Rempel, vice president for marketing and sales at Canada’s Whistler-Blackcomb resort, said he was not surprised by Vail’s rate increase because the larger, more famous U.S. resorts have been raising prices. Utah’s Deer Valley, for example, this season raised its top rate from $71 to $74.“I think the reason we do significantly more visits than any other resort in North America is because of the value of the product we offer and the price we charge for it,” he said. The peak ticket price at the Canadian resort is the equivalent of $65 in U.S. dollars.Despite the rising price of single-day tickets, the ski industry nationwide has been in a discounting war since 1999, when some Colorado resorts cut season passes to as low as $300 from their standard rate of $800 or more.David Dillon, president of the trade organization Ski Vermont, said the season pass and multiticket deals mean few snowriders pay the full ticket window price. Tourists get lift tickets as part of a travel package or can seek out discounts elsewhere.“There is no reason to pay full walk-up rates for lift,” Perry said. “All you have to do is the tiniest bit of advance planning.”In any case, a lift ticket is only 20 percent to 30 percent of the total cost of a ski vacation, said Jerry Blann, president of the Jackson Hole resort.Aron predicted Vail and Beaver Creek will sell nearly 2.5 million lift tickets despite the high price.Ski analyst Will Marks of JMP Securities was skeptical that raising prices alone would do much for business, although if it would help anybody, it might be Vail, “due to the multimillionaire and billionaire clientele to which the resort caters,” he said.“Vail can justify [it] due to the quality of its mountain and the resort itself, and its traditional customer base,” he said.

Also check out:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10241318/from/RL.1/

Wacky stuff

Weird wacky stuff....skiing in India

http://www.paintedstork.com/photography/albums/auli/index.html

Okemo conditions (Dec 3 & 4)

Okemo was relatively desolate this weekend, as only the hardy skiiers ventured out for early season skiing. It was cold, roughly 25F each day, and they were blowing snow on a number of trails. There wasn't that much open, maybe 30 trails, because last weeks warm spell had wiped out the Thanksgiving weekends Alberta clipper dump. Still they did have some trails open for top to bottom cruising. Conditions were machine groomed large grain crystals. It seems like a good idea to sneak onto trails that have fresh blown snow on them...until you actually try going through the stuff which has the texture of mashed potatoes left out for a day...it has to be blown and then churned up to be useful. One thing about having the mountain to yourself -- you tend to ski way too fast, piling up 10,000 vertical an hour, and lapping the main lift if you fly. The problem is that skiing fast tends to put more strain on my whole body as more energy has to get absorbed by the muscles, joints and ligaments/tendons. My back stiffened up on the ride home.

Which sort of brings up the whole cost structure...skiing is expensive in the East because structurally all this stuff takes lots of energy and resources. For relatively few people one has to

run lifts (same cost no matter how few people are there)
maintain ski patrols and snowmobile emergency units
light and heat all the various mountain huts (ever multiplying too)
maintain a snowmaking pond
blow snow (lots of electricity/compressed air)
carry liability insurance
conduct advertising (somewhat discretionary admittedly)

I'm sure there's more when I think about it -- but I can't imagine any of these Eastern resorts are really making money in early season given these fixed costs. And this is still with with day passes clocking in north of $60 !

PS: I'd agree with most of this list, although I'm no expert.

http://away.com/skiing/ski_best_for.tcl?Top_Ski_Resorts_for_Expert&id=293365

Flying Straight to the Slopes

Flying Straight to the Slopes

By CONOR DOUGHERTY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 2, 2005; Page W9

This winter, skiers will be able to log more time on the slopes and less in the air. Even as airlines cut back routes elsewhere they're boosting service to several major ski resorts, including more nonstop and jet flights.

Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming will have 144,000 seats on arriving planes this ski season, up 12% from a year earlier, while Montrose Regional Airport, which serves the Telluride Ski Resort in Colorado, has nonstop flights from six big metropolitan areas including New York (via Newark, N.J.) and Los Angeles, up from two in the 2000-2001 ski season. Yampa Valley Regional Airport, which serves Colorado's Steamboat Ski Resort, also increased flights, and technology will soon cut the required wait between plane landings to around two minutes from as long as 15 minutes.

Why the generous airline schedules? Many ski areas have subsidized service for years, because airlines have a hard time turning a profit flying to mountain airports, where inclement weather and short runways make flights tough. Telluride recently added a 2% sales tax on lodging and restaurants and uses it to subsidize air service, while Jackson Hole's business community pays from $800,000 to $1 million a year to carriers, including American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

The resorts offer the airlines a revenue guarantee, in which the ski communities essentially pay for unfilled seats. As resorts have become better at predicting their passenger loads -- and thus spending less for unfilled seats -- they have been able to add new flights.

Some ski resorts, though, are a bit behind. Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in California still doesn't have commercial air service, so skiers like Kenn Bicknell, a San Francisco librarian, have to fly one hour to Los Angeles and then drive five hours to the resort. "If I could just jump on a plane, I could go the same morning I want to go skiing," he says. Mammoth says it plans to add air service from Los Angeles next year.