Essentially suicidal reputationally if Alterra forced full lift capacity and people got sick as a result. I'd be absolutely stunned if they weren't consistent on all the lifts.
It's going to Winter Park this summer that made me wonder, in addition to those suspect posts from Alterra in the newspaper article and on their websites. Winter Park is full on Alterra now, and it was not being "consistent," unless it was consistently risky. (See my previous posts on this, about their gondola line - as first hand eye witness, close up.)
But summer and winter are two different things, hopefully. The summer is more a trial run, learning experience, not the real money maker. So I hope you are right.
I do know I've been to that other Alterra destination, Copper Mtn., twice this summer, scouting and hiking. And the second time, just this week, things had improved markedly - organization details more worked out, more employees starting to be informed, better signage and more spaces roped off in well thought out ways; and more uniform masks and distancing practices.. Glad I went back.
As I walked around the place again and talked to people, I felt a growing sense of relief and security. There was some confusion and misinformation still, but things seem to be going better there, real progress, more than I had imagined would happen from my first scouting trip there, and from phone calls just a week or two ago.
A bit of a correction to the first Copper trip I posted about: I misspoke. The first time, in the early morning there seemed to be an employee & friends breakfast party in the "Coaster Cabin," the relatively new (in the last year or so?) terminal, warming space and ticket office for the mountain rollercoaster that, unbeknownst to me, ran this last season and will this winter, just west of the American Flyer Lift, for folks who want alternatives to skiing. As I walked past this cabin and gathering, to hike on the mountain last time, that breakfast party was crowded with unmasked employees, crammed into that small space with early morning food and drink - little to no distancing. (Yikes.) So much so, that not having ever seen that "cabin" before, I mistook it for a combination breakfast/lunch shop, coaster terminal and warming hut. I mean, it was really crammed full of breakfasting people, mostly employees!
It turns out there was just a maybe routine (or a few times?) employee breakfast gathering going on of some sort, with folks carrying in coffee, doughnuts and breakfast dishes from the nearby lodge to the on mountain "Coaster Cabin," as they have named it. And that place does not serve coffee and snacks or light meals to the public. It does not sell food at all. That was just what the employees were doing there that day, and not sure how often. Come skiing season, no food in that place at all, I was told. Just a gathering place for mountain coaster riding, tickets, getting on the ride, resting and waiting to ride again. And by then, I presume, people there will be masked up and distancing, the full routine.