Took one for the team and went skiing at DV on Saturday. The lead in weekend to the President week. DV posted 34” of new snow for the week and 7” new overnight.
Over the years, we had probably had over 100 ski days at DV since 1981. The last time we skied DV was during the 2014 when we spent the season at the Bird.
As Ikon pass holders, we had to reserve tickets online prior to our arrival at DV. To say the reservation web site sucks would be an understatement. I can only conclude from that experience that they really don’t want Ikon pass holders there.
Moving along to the physical world. Driving in, parking and the shuttle were very well organized and pleasant. No changes and no surprises.
We took our skis and boots upstairs and that is when the everything went south. I am a New Yorker and spent my fair share of time in Grand Central. Let me tell you, Grand Central during rush hour has nothing on Deer Valley. The place is just packed wall to wall with people. Both inside and outside. I have never seen so many pairs of cheap rental skis in one place. I see skiers with current year Bogner jacket walking around with cheap a$$ rental skis. WTF. I guess they must have their priorities. And it is definitely not skiing.
The locker room was awash in humanity. Too many people. Not enough benches for booting up. Not enough room for people to stand. The basket check lines were about 20 minutes. Coin lockers were also available. I am sure there are not enough of those to go around given the holiday horde.
After a quick boot up, we took our skis and had trouble getting near the lift corral. Masses of skiers milling around aimlessly on every square foot of available space in the area between the lodge and the lift corral make getting to the lift corral very difficult. I have never witnessed a scene like this at any resort in my entire life. SAD. VERY SAD.
We have spent many holiday weeks skiing resorts both east and west with Andrew. This is by far the most obscene crowding I’ve ever witnessed.
Back to skiing. Both Mamie and I headed for the single line on the Carpenter chair. The lift maze was very well organized. The maze was full and extended passed the ropes. It looked like a 15 minute wait. OTOH, the single line moved really quick. My wait was about 2-1/2 minutes. A very pleasant surprise.
After getting off the Carpenter chair, we headed over to the Sterling chair. There is no skipping the Sterling chair if one wants to ski Bald mountain. The lift corral was packed. Well beyond the ropes. But it was a very organized chaos. Probably about a 20 minutes wait. We headed for the singles line again. My wait was about 1-1/2 minutes. Impressive.
Did about 6 runs off the Sultan and Mayflower chair. The Sultan maze was about 5 minutes. Not bad for a holiday weekend. The Mayflower was ski on with most chairs going up empty. Most of the black runs we skied were empty. The blue section had a few more skiers on them, but not what I would call crowded. Most skiers were skiing in control. Only saw two idiots straight lining the runs.
So far, the skiing has been very nice. Nice enough for me to forget the cluster**** of the base area.
We went into Silver Lake Lodge for lunch. The lodge felt the same. A bit crowded but not terrible for a holiday weekend. The big disappointment was when I found out they eliminated the carving station, my favorite. So it’s the usual burger and Bratwurst. Decent but nothing to write home about.
After lunch, we headed over the other side to ski the Daly Chutes off the Empire chair. Unfortunately, the Qunicy lift went down. The only other way up that side of the resort was via the old and slow Red Cloud triple. The crowd at the Red Cloud lift was insane. Easily about 25/30 minutes. Again, the singles line to the rescue. Got on the chair after about 5 minutes wait.
Skied over to the Empire chair and found another full corral. Skied into singles line and was rewarded with a chair after about a minute. Did eight laps on Empire using the singles line. The wait for the singles line ran anywhere from ski on to 1-1/2 minutes. Quite surprising considered it was a full maze every time.
The locker room at the end of the day was an unholy mess. Just imagine the cluster that occurred over a three hours period in the morning compressed into a single hour. Damnnnnnn.
I walk away from the locker room, shell shocked. Totally amazed how f*** up things can get.
In order to support the increased cap and still provide an “acceptable” experience to their clients. DV will have to at least double the sizes of the base area facilities. Locker room and public staging space outside the base buildings.
Lift capacity wise. Almost every major lift had a full corral. Which generally translate into a 15 minutes wait. Not what I would call a premium resort experience.
Over all the skiing experience was very good. The new snow skied well. The grooming crew did a great job laying out a good surface at the start of the day. But by 10 AM, it was trashed beyond belief due to the nature of the new snow. The trails were rutted and bumped up. I loved it. My favorite type of groomer. But then some on this forum have accused me not noticing the bumps on bump runs. However, if I am truly an intermediate groomer zoomer, I would be royally pissed. I would demand they send out the grooming crew at two hour intervals.
I guess at this point, most will blame the crowding on the Ikon pass. To my surprise, that was not my conclusion at all. Both Mamie and I rode single for most of the day. We spoke to lots of people. What we found is that most DV skier are not there on the Ikon pass. Out of all the chair rides for the day, I meet one, exactly one family on the Ikon pass. Most are paying some form of retail and/or package deal. We actually had to explain the Ikon pass to a few of them. WTF. I guess you really can’t fix stupid.
