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Ikon Pass Extends Dates with Offering Double Renewal Discounts and Adventure Assurance

Wasatchman

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Which major ski resorts do people think will be down in numbers the most in terms of percentage?

I'll throw a couple out there

Whistler Blackcomb- yes they get Vancouver skiers, but they still have typically drawn in a ton of destination/international skiers that will be way down this year. They've also alienated casual local skiers due to high priced day tix. Their numbers were way down last season, so less to drop versus a poor season last year but I still think their skier visits get absolutely hammered given how big international travel is for them.

Deer Valley - I would guess by far highest percentage of visitor versus local skiers of any resort near SLC, noting a season pass cost of $2500 and well over double the next most expensive resort in the area!! Add in a tough economy that may make even the most avid local fans of DV consider having to slum it elsewhere in Utah. @Started at 53 is going to be loving it next season, that place may be a veritable ghost town.

Jackson Hole - definitely a solid group of local skiers, but popularity as a destination has seemingly exploded in recent years. So I would expect massive drop.
 
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Which major ski resorts do people think will be down in numbers the most in terms of percentage?

I'll throw a couple out there

Whistler Blackcomb- yes they get Vancouver skiers, but they still have typically drawn in a ton of destination/international skiers that will be way down this year. They've also alienated casual local skiers due to high priced day tix. Their numbers were way down last season, so less to drop versus a poor season last year but I still think their skier visits get absolutely hammered given how big international travel is for them.

Deer Valley - I would guess by far highest percentage of visitor versus local skiers of any resort near SLC, noting a season pass cost of $2500 and well over double the next most expensive resort in the area!! Add in a tough economy that may make even the most avid local fans of DV consider having to slum it elsewhere in Utah. @Started at 53 is going to be loving it next season, that place may be a veritable ghost town.

Jackson Hole - definitely a solid group of local skiers, but popularity as a destination has seemingly exploded in recent years. So I would expect massive drop.
Good call on all three. Jackson for sure with the tram and gondola being the two main modes of transportation to the peaks. Most "destination" resorts are going to feel it the most.
 

Unpiste

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Good cal on all three. Jackson for sure with the tram and gondola being the two main modes of transportation to the peaks. Most "destination" resorts are going to feel it the most.
This is definitely something Squaw/Alpine have going for them. Yes, the Funitel is responsible for a lot of Squaw's uphill capacity, but I already avoided it unless I really needed to be right at the top ASAP.

That said, short of both areas being fully open next winter without restrictions, I have a hard time seeing crowding not being an issue. My biggest worry, in terms of ski experience (and relative cost of each day), is that I'll only be allowed to ski a fraction of the days I usually would.

The there's the ski lease to figure out. (Best I can see is that enough members drop that we can do room reservations. Not sure how else it could even work until things are, hopefully, back to normal.)
 

fatbob

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Destinations most visitors fly to will be the most FUBARed. So JH hit harder than DV (though DV is probably pretty high on fly ins, I suspect a lot of their crowding has included SLC locals rotating through the Ikon resorts over a season). Aspen probably harder hit than Vail though the "premium" money may mean it holds up more. Tahoe I can see changing much less.
 

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Destinations most visitors fly to will be the most FUBARed. So JH hit harder than DV (though DV is probably pretty high on fly ins, I suspect a lot of their crowding has included SLC locals rotating through the Ikon resorts over a season).
SLC locals can get to JH pretty easily too.
 

raytseng

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SLC locals can get to JH pretty easily too.
Lodging though is the new risk in the same flavor as air travel. Even if hotels are "open", for many, staying in a hotel is a con and risk now, not a luxury.
I know Utah folks are super outdoorsy, but I don't think thaaat many are set up to do vanlife in winter.

Same in Tahoe which is fueled by sfbayarea weekend warriors, the lodging risk is going to change peoples' decisions and reduce skitrips. If you're thinking daytrips, once you've crossed the ratio of more hours spent on the road than on the slopes, you're now really on a road trip not a ski trip!

I agree with prior posts the parking/shuttle thing at certain resorts is going to be a huge problem and can't be the same. Perhaps though that is problem #214 on the resort's todo list to mitigate, but something customers need to consider for their pass/trip decisions. (if people are going sue over having to take a shuttle pre c19, for sure shuttles with c19 is going to change peoples experience).
 
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Ski&ride

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Lodging though is the new risk in the same flavor as air travel. Even if hotels are "open", for many, staying in a hotel is a con and risk now, not a luxury.
Yes and no.

Lodging is a risk. But it’s not nearly as much a risk as flying.

If it comes to that, I can see Tahoe hotels (to a lessor extent, JH) can also reduce the risk potential further by implementing a different pricing strategy. It’s easy enough (and not too costly) to allow “blocking” the room for the day prior to the weekend for a small extra fee, as mid-week booking is relatively slow anyway. Especially to offer it to weekend worriers who stay at least a minimum 2 night stay (which is quite a common thing here in the east) or longer.
 

raytseng

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Fair point, and good thoughts. Everything is a gradient so even the lower risk cons will have an effect on at least some people's decisions. I personally view staying in some foreign room a pretty significant risk given the extended time exposure and unconscious (I'm drooling and snarfing this pillow with the AC going and so on) vs flying for fewer hours with people in a tube at least conscious alert and masked up . I think our predictions on magnitudes and which factors will be significant are going to be pretty low confidence, it being so far in the future and unprecidented. Similarly my thoughts on which mitigation ideas will be effective and affect skitrip decisions and skier volume are low confidence as well. It will matter not just in the practice but also in convincing people they are effective. How they sell and market their actions will be just as important as what they are actually doing.

Still there's percentages of people who will go about their previous routines as if things were normal no matter the news, evidence, or even laws; percentages of people who won't take risks even with reassurances and mitigations, and percentages of people on the fence and in the middle.
 
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Tony

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FWIW, AMC has at least one golf course open, another tomorrow, and has announced opening lift served mountain biking on June 12th, so that bodes well for when the snow flies in autumn.
What's AMC, besides a movie theater chain? I searched and found Appalachian Mountain Club, but don't think they have any golf courses or lifts. I'm assuming it's somewhere in Southern CA. Does my Ikon pass work there or give me a discount?
 

David Chaus

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Big Sky may be one of the most affected, actually. I had always heard it was pretty much empty before the last couple years with Ikon; it was plenty busy when I visited in Feb and March (before and after the Jackson Gathering). Smaller city and airport, with fewer direct flights from larger population centers, and more remote than most destination resorts. A lot of people are going to have to decide how they feels about taking not one, but two flights, both ways, and how confident they are that the accommodations will be cleaned and sanitized.

And they may have to disable the bubble on Ramcharger. Maybe limit the tram to only small groups that are staying in the same accommodations?
 

Jwrags

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Lodging though is the new risk in the same flavor as air travel. Even if hotels are "open", for many, staying in a hotel is a con and risk now, not a luxury.
I am not sure why lodging would be considered such a big risk, assuming the hotel is cleaning the rooms properly. Maybe eating at the breakfast buffet would be out of the question but I would consider a cleaned hotel room pretty safe.
 

socalgal

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What's AMC, besides a movie theater chain? I searched and found Appalachian Mountain Club, but don't think they have any golf courses or lifts. I'm assuming it's somewhere in Southern CA. Does my Ikon pass work there or give me a discount?
I'm thinking AMC =Alterra Mountain Co.
 

raytseng

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I am not sure why lodging would be considered such a big risk, assuming the hotel is cleaning the rooms properly. Maybe eating at the breakfast buffet would be out of the question but I would consider a cleaned hotel room pretty safe.

Especially, in the winter area lodging, you gotta have heating. Unless you are in a pretty temperate area or older motel; the modern building HVAC system is going to be semi-recirculated system that is going to reuse heated air from the building and not all outside air.
So you're sharing the air or air-return throughout the building rooms, especially extended time through the night sleeping maskless. For central air, you cannot install medical grade HEPA filters to the system, high MERV is the best they can do centrally. [An airplane has similar issues, but has huge jet engines providing free excess heat, they could switch to all outside air,but they recirculate mainly for humidity/comfort issues].
Perhaps this would be mitigated if they placed room-sized real-HEPA filter air purifiers in every room.
Air Purifiers are still up for debate whether (1)HEPA level air purifiers is effective at capturing/reducing viral load in the air, and (2) even if they do, whether this is even meaningful mode of transmission specifically for C19, but there is some scientific research and publications for support.
There is a formal guidance from American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) buried in their Building Engineer covid recommendations, which include (among others) to deploy HEPA air purifiers as a minor recommendation (after some more more important actions) but it is in black and white actual advice.

Do I trust random hotel is up to standards with their Building Engineering improvements, even the must-do ones? obviously compliance and followthrough isn't going to be 100%. And just like the "wear a mask" recommendation, there maybe some political/social reasons why every single rec is not just pushed out for wide-publicity, people would panic even more if they had to consume all the risk factors that the experts worry about.

if you buy into this logic and recommendation from actual building experts though, and want to get ahead of the curve and think we're in this for the long-haul; you may want to procure a real HEPA air purifier now; before there is an even deeper run on these as the individual actions to re-open become implemented by more more and more folk....
 
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Pat AKA mustski

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Yes and no.

Lodging is a risk. But it’s not nearly as much a risk as flying.

I disagree strongly. Flying you can wear a mask the whole time, wipe down your basic area, and suck it up for a few hours. The airlines are taking extra precautions and their entire future rides on developing a reputation for cleanliness. Large chain hotels will do the same. Short Term Vacation rentals? No. Just no. It depends completely on the overall cleanliness of the guest before you and on the dedication/professionalism of the cleaning company with whom the vacation rental management has contracted. It also depends on how many other properties they had to clean that day.

I am not sure why lodging would be considered such a big risk, assuming the hotel is cleaning the rooms properly. Maybe eating at the breakfast buffet would be out of the question but I would consider a cleaned hotel room pretty safe.
I agree. I would choose a hotel over a short term vacation rental. If I were traveling this year, I would choosing Westin, Marriot, etc.

Mammoth will be hit pretty hard, I suspect, simply because it is mostly short term vacation rentals with only a few large hotels. It is also dependent on the LA basin, and other SoCal areas as the main clientele. Mono county has also been really loud on the "stay away, don't come here" message which will have created some negative feelings.
 

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I disagree strongly. Flying you can wear a mask the whole time, wipe down your basic area, and suck it up for a few hours. The airlines are taking extra precautions and their entire future rides on developing a reputation for cleanliness. Large chain hotels will do the same. Short Term Vacation rentals? No. Just no. It depends completely on the overall cleanliness of the guest before you and on the dedication/professionalism of the cleaning company with whom the vacation rental management has contracted. It also depends on how many other properties they had to clean that day.


I agree. I would choose a hotel over a short term vacation rental. If I were traveling this year, I would choosing Westin, Marriot, etc.

Mammoth will be hit pretty hard, I suspect, simply because it is mostly short term vacation rentals with only a few large hotels. It is also dependent on the LA basin, and other SoCal areas as the main clientele. Mono county has also been really loud on the "stay away, don't come here" message which will have created some negative feelings.
The area was hit pretty hard with health care issues when all of this went down. So many people in an area with ski town facilities but big town impacts were huge. I talked to a friend who is a health care worker who was overwhelmed.
Crazy times.
 

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Admin note: this thread has diverted from IKON pass information to ski travel in this crazy covid time. Please get back on track, or some posts may be moved to the covid thread.
 

Ski&ride

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Flying you can wear a mask the whole time, wipe down your basic area, and suck it up for a few hours.
You have so much faith in mask protecting you the wearer?

But your faith is misplaced. Remember, Mask only protects OTHERS from the wearer who maybe asymptomatic carrier!

Plus, to be so religious about mask, you would have to last the many hours, from arriving at the airport, to driving away in the rental car, without eating and drinking! That can be quite “a few” hours! Except, you can’t expect other fellow travelers to do the same. So THEY are spewing their germ around you! Oh wait, did I just mention rental car? Hope the rental company cleaned it as well as the maid cleaned your room!

As for vacation rentals, it’s not that mysterious. All cleaning products kills virus. So, it either looks clean AND SAFE, or it’s NOT clean, and not safe!

Would you even stay in a place that Looks disgusting in the first place?

That said, I’m not a frequent user of vacational rental. So I don’t have much personal experience in the kind of horror story which I sometimes heard.

p.s.
RollingLeaf just posted a link at the same time of my post, AirBnB’s new listing guidelines, which basically a more thorough codified policy of just every step I threw on my post!

I like the “booking buffer” the most. I suspect many hotel chains will likely offer that too. In area that cater to weekend crowd, it basically amounts to skipping midweek bookings. I think it’ll work well.
 
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no edge

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Sticking with the topic, I see it this way... I need to have a season pass. So how can I build-in that requirement to the total expense of skiing for the season plus choose great destinations. I ski in VT so Icon offers two season passes (Stratton and Sugarbush) plus Killington for seven days. So assign an arbitrary value of $375 for each of the two season passes and then $35.00 per day for the Killington tickets ($245) - that's $995 worth of deep discount right in the heart of VT. It seems like a really good deal to me.

Then I can go West for one or two trips... Aspen or Utah maybe go to Bend too.

COVID is a factor, so the Assurance is also nice to have. I am not optimistic about the direction of the crisis The extensive thinking in this thread has been overwhelming. I am still lay awake over global warming.



Full disclosure: I am not going to buy an Icon pass. I have purchased a senior season pass for Jiminy Peak $339 (Saturday blacked out), and I will probably buy the senior week-day pass at Sugarbush for $129 (e). I will also buy the Beast Card to get discounted tickets anytime at Killington throughout the season.
 

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Bottom line is that I very much doubt I'll get much skiing in next season
I’m a lot more optimistic. I think I will ski next season.

For one thing, I can always cross country. So, I may again buy a xc ski pass.

But instead of a downhill pass on top of my xc pass like I did last season, I may skip the downhill pass altogether next season. Unless the situation improves significantly by the time the Epic Pass deadline rolls around. That’s one thing Vail is doing better as far as I’m concern. They’re putting the deadline way out in August. So there’s none of that speculation and agony every 3 weeks!

But then again, all the speculation may spur some buying? Or at least Alterra hope?

Truthfully, it's the optimistic attitudes of others that are my biggest concerns. I think a colossal blunder is now happening with reopening states and I expect deaths to continue at an elevated level for the foreseeable future.
I share with you the sadness that deaths will be “at the ELEVATED LEVEL”. What that translate into practical terms is many more death that maybe preventable will sadly be allowed to happen.

With the reopening, it’s a good time to see which state and/or which area does a good job in handling crowds methodically and in an orderly fashion while maintaining some semblance of social distance. And how each area sees and manages local outbreaks.

I won’t be making any ski plans in states and regions where the officials and the locals are cavalier about the virus. Even areas that attracts too many of those cavalier travelers may not see my travel money.

Bottom line, I will only go to an area with very low local cases. And the local business at tourist destination will have to figure out how to cater to travelers while containing infections.

If I were to buy a pass, it would be because I see positive and encouraging environment in the destinations the pass covers. I have until August to make that decision. That’s plenty of time for all the ski destination to figure themselves out on what image they want to portrait. Just like terrains of a ski area kind to attracts and discourage different kind of skiers, steps in handling Covid-19 virus will also attracts and discourage different kind of visitors to the area.
 

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