PARK CITY (and all) SKI PATROLLERS DESERVE MORE.

So PCMR finally updated their website to indicate that the Patrol Strike is impacting operations. Don't think I saw that there yesterday... or even this morning. Guessing that the threats of lawsuits and the hemorrhaging of brand reputation finally made them do it... Or did I just miss it before?

Of course the real solution is settling the strike but at the very least, they're starting to acknowledge that they're hurting... or at least covering themselves for potential additional class action suits?

Vail has some time to recover before pass renewal season starts, but past experience is the best indicator of future performance and I’m guessing they keep shooting themselves in both feet. This is a PR disaster.
Hope the gofundme is keeping the trollers close to whole in the meantime.
Question - is vail still a public company in 3 years? I’d bet no.

Maybe in addition to the strike skiers should boycott $220-300+ per day lift tickets that have drastically outmatched inflation.

The entire corporate ski industry has turned into a country club golf atmosphere.

A question for the PCMR locals who have been around before and after Powdr fucked up their lease renewal…

Mt Bachelor aka Mt Brokenchair is my home hill. Powdr has it up for sale. Vail and Alterra are the two obvious suitors.

I have heard 3rd hand that PCMR has been (up to now) run much better under Vail than under Powdr.

Anybody care to opine?

I sorta think I’d rather be Ikonic than Epic (for the broader array of resorts) but Mt Brokenchair is so fucked up that maybe even Vail would be better?

[/digression]
TIA

I don't think this has been posted here yet (apologies if it's a repeat)--NYTimes article on the strike, gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/t...smid=url-share

Comments were worth a read when I looked, Vail not looking good.

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Originally Posted by Harry

I can vouch for RegCT. He was a legit pro patroller at Big Sky during the years I lived there.

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Any friend of Jono...

https://youtube.com/shorts/o78HdG-8J...VSdEsDJeONbVtx

Best New York Times article comment… “Vail can’t even get corporate greed right”

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Originally Posted by TBS

A question for the PCMR locals who have been around before and after Powdr fucked up their lease renewal…

Mt Bachelor aka Mt Brokenchair is my home hill. Powdr has it up for sale. Vail and Alterra are the two obvious suitors.

I have heard 3rd hand that PCMR has been (up to now) run much better under Vail than under Powdr.

Anybody care to opine?

I sorta think I’d rather be Ikonic than Epic (for the broader array of resorts) but Mt Brokenchair is so fucked up that maybe even Vail would be better?

[/digression]
TIA

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From my understanding and word of month within the industry Alterra is much better than Vail. Alterra is much more inclined to leave existing management and emps in place. Which in the case of mt flatchelor sounds like it might not be ideal. However Vail is guaranteed to run a mountain according to their front range corporate bs and there’s zero chance of that being a positive development. Of all the towns in Oregon, Bend is completely unrecognizable to me compared to 20 years ago these days, it’s basically an outdoor magazine advertisement. Which must be highly enticing for either of the big 2. My guess is that Alterra buys it as there’s no real estate at the base of the mountain which is Vails number one priority

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Originally Posted by Trackhead

Maybe in addition to the strike skiers should boycott $220-300+ per day lift tickets that have drastically outmatched inflation.

The entire corporate ski industry has turned into a country club golf atmosphere.

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the only people skiing pcmr are people who booked vacations months ago or bought an epic pass months ago. No one is shelling out (maybe a few) for lift tickets and no one is bailing on non refundable flights, hotels and epic passes after they have planned this vacation for months.

From the NY Times article:

Vail Resorts bought Park City in 2014 and combined it with a neighboring ski resort called Canyons the following year. The Canyons ski patrol unionized in 2001, and when the two ski patrols merged, Park City patrollers voted to join the union, which is now part of the Communications Workers of America.

Per Goggle; The Canyons at Park City (PCMR) ski patrol union joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in 2016.

Don't want to muck up the thread, but I believe the issue of pro union or anti union for a ski patrol is a legit topic and
deserves to be discussed.

In my experience, the larger the corporation and farther removed upper management is from the workers, the more necessary a
union is. And Vail is certainly the largest and most corporate operator in the industry.

As to whether CWA is instigating the work stoppage to further their agenda, that's questionable, but debatable. In the end it is
the local members voting whether to walk or not.
CWA certainly sees itself as a progressive organization out to unionize America. Right or wrong, that's an opinion probably
formed by personal experiences.
As to who gets hurt the most ? Having gone through multiple work stoppages, it's not the company (in my perspective). You
never make up for lost wages. Although with "GoFundMe" nowadays and the industry differences this might be different then my
experiences.

Full disclosure: I was a CWA local 1298 member for 29 years.
I fully support the PCMR professional ski patrol in their struggle.

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Originally Posted by old goat

The question is, who is paying for the strike now and who will pay if the patrollers make significant gains.
A) The shareholders
B) The executives
C) The customers

I'll give you all 3 guesses and tell you it's not A or B. Good luck.

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In order for C to be true Vail needs to be selling an inelastic product or it needs to be selling its product for significantly less than the alternatives. And no economist is arguing that skiing is inelastic. This is a common misconception though that I often hear whenever people discuss workers making more. Companies are not guaranteed their profit percentage.

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Originally Posted by NBABUCKS1

the only people skiing pcmr are people who booked vacations months ago or bought an epic pass months ago. No one is shelling out (maybe a few) for lift tickets and no one is bailing on non refundable flights, hotels and epic passes after they have planned this vacation for months.

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Agreed and that's part of model. Day tickets aren't supposed to be sold, but their price needs to be such that they drive people to buy epic passes instead and that in turn drives people to other "epic" mtns where vail can drive revenue & show usage.

My family got caught up in that when wife's dad used to have annual conference in Beaver Creek late 2010s
Epic passes were less than 3/ 4 days of tickets so we had them fir a few years.
Skied Sunnapee, Mt Snow, Hunter, etc because we could. I even skied PCMR for first time in decades when I was out & saw how they incorporated ParkWest/Wolf mtn/Canyons

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NBABUCKS1

the only people skiing pcmr are people who booked vacations months ago or bought an epic pass months ago. No one is shelling out (maybe a few) for lift tickets and no one is bailing on non refundable flights, hotels and epic passes after they have planned this vacation for months.

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Probably true but not everyone fits that customer mold. I just paid $400 for two tickets at Snowbird with my kid. We travel a bit to ski and those prices are hard to accommodate. Epic/Ikon don’t work for where we live and time we have. We drive, stay in a truck camper. My dad did the same for us growing up, but back then, adjusted for inflation, tickets were far far less.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TBS

A question for the PCMR locals who have been around before and after Powdr fucked up their lease renewal…

Mt Bachelor aka Mt Brokenchair is my home hill. Powdr has it up for sale. Vail and Alterra are the two obvious suitors.

I have heard 3rd hand that PCMR has been (up to now) run much better under Vail than under Powdr.

Anybody care to opine?

I sorta think I’d rather be Ikonic than Epic (for the broader array of resorts) but Mt Brokenchair is so fucked up that maybe even Vail would be better?

[/digression]
TIA

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As long-time visitors to PCMR and The Canyons my perspective is that the 2 resorts were much more fun and were distinct individual experiences under their previous owners. Now they are just one huge pile of the same exact thing with the same Vail culture.

As aging more and more casual skiers the main impact we noticed was less grooming on both sides. Vail does the bare minimum to get a couple of major groomed runs off of each lift.

I did some thinking about Vail buying Bachelor last week and I don't think they will. The townies from Bend demand a lot from the resort, and Vail probably won't want the PR nightmare of managing every little issue that comes up with the collection of outspoken people there that want it run a certain way. Alterra would be a lot better. Given the current labor situation I think it's even less likely now.

BTW, as a shout-out to patrollers on the Canyons side, they did a great job getting my wife down off of North Bowl on 9990 with an ACL injury years ago. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by neufox47

In order for C to be true Vail needs to be selling an inelastic product or it needs to be selling its product for significantly less than the alternatives. And no economist is arguing that skiing is inelastic. This is a common misconception though that I often hear whenever people discuss workers making more. Companies are not guaranteed their profit percentage.

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It's the customers getting hurt now--the people who booked vacations and are getting screwed by PC. Pass prices will go up. This time next year the share price will be up. The execs probably sold their stock well ahead of the strike and will buy it back at its low. Companies may not be guaranteed their profit percentage but in the skiing business, as in many businesses these days, consolidation has led to megacorps that don't compete on price. Look at the price gouging that companies recently engaged in under the guise of "inflation".

Dam shame it’s come down to this

Attachment 509326

Years ago, talk on the street was " if it's tourist season, why can't we shoot 'em?". Vail Inc. didn't get the joke.

CK

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Originally Posted by old goat

It's the customers getting hurt now--the people who booked vacations and are getting screwed by PC. Pass prices will go up. This time next year the share price will be up. The execs probably sold their stock well ahead of the strike and will buy it back at its low. Companies may not be guaranteed their profit percentage but in the skiing business, as in many businesses these days, consolidation has led to megacorps that don't compete on price. Look at the price gouging that companies recently engaged in under the guise of "inflation".

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Why do you think the stock price will be up in a year? Seriously. There is no guarantee sales or margin will go up. They are fucking this up and pissing customers off, when they report a serious drop in pass renewals the stock will likely go down. Fuck, it’s likely going to go down in anticipation of lower returning sales.
Also, there are restrictions on executives selling and buying stock and they are required to disclose the sale/purchase in a scheduled manner. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MTN/...-transactions/

Vail clearly does compete on price and value. It’s fucking luxury recreation; if they price it past perceived value people won’t buy it. I’m guessing a lot of families who are split on skiing vs beach for Christmas vacation will be choosing Cabo next year.

Do you really think the executives are just hanging out in Denver right now laughing and smoking cigars while counting their cash?

They’re probably not laughing. But yes to the other stuff.

It pretty pathetic that I'm considering buying MTN as a hedge against real world experiences, but there is a tipping point where it's a lose lose, so finding a good entry has been difficult.

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Originally Posted by XavierD

Why do you think the stock price will be up in a year? Seriously. There is no guarantee sales or margin will go up. They are fucking this up and pissing customers off, when they report a serious drop in pass renewals the stock will likely go down. Fuck, it’s likely going to go down in anticipation of lower returning sales.
Also, there are restrictions on executives selling and buying stock and they are required to disclose the sale/purchase in a scheduled manner. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MTN/...-transactions/

Vail clearly does compete on price and value. It’s fucking luxury recreation; if they price it past perceived value people won’t buy it. I’m guessing a lot of families who are split on skiing vs beach for Christmas vacation will be choosing Cabo next year.

Do you really think the executives are just hanging out in Denver right now laughing and smoking cigars while counting their cash?

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As I see it, the main drawback to this thought is that an awful lot of Epic pass holders don’t know about this strike and probably weren’t at PCMR to see the fuck ups. I have seen a number of social media post from people that knew saying that most of the people they’ve talked to at other Vail resorts have no idea about this shitshow.

Just sayin’.

I think a common thread on this board is just how out of touch most of us are with what the average 3.5 day a year skier actually thinks.

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Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

As I see it, the main drawback to this thought is that an awful lot of Epic pass holders don’t know about this strike and probably weren’t at PCMR to see the fuck ups. I have seen a number of social media post from people that knew saying that most of the people they’ve talked to at other Vail resorts have no idea about this shitshow.

Just sayin’.

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My brother has a condo at PC... he'll be going there in a couple weeks. Didn't have a clue about the strike when I asked him.

So what/is the actual tourist vibe over the past week? The local bars selling more alcohol?

^^^This is a big part of the problem. EPIC & IKON "skiers" that only ski a week each year. The mega's have done an absolutely amazing disservice to "the industry", which is another thing I hate to call the sport we all love.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be buying more than one pass of any type. I have two season passes to my locals, and the Indy. Indy is great, but it has it's drawbacks, and I just can't bring myself to buy any of the other big passes, because I just don't/can't support the consolidation that really just benefits property owners and developers. At the end of the day, I'm not even sure many of these corporations care about skiing at the end of the day, and they sure as hell don't care about whether or not it'll be affordable to anyone but the 2%'ers within the next decade...if that.

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Originally Posted by Meconium

So what/is the actual tourist vibe over the past week? The local bars selling more alcohol?

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Per my IG feed, they were not stoked.

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Originally Posted by XavierD

Why do you think the stock price will be up in a year? Seriously. There is no guarantee sales or margin will go up. They are fucking this up and pissing customers off, when they report a serious drop in pass renewals the stock will likely go down. Fuck, it’s likely going to go down in anticipation of lower returning sales.
Also, there are restrictions on executives selling and buying stock and they are required to disclose the sale/purchase in a scheduled manner. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MTN/...-transactions/

Vail clearly does compete on price and value. It’s fucking luxury recreation; if they price it past perceived value people won’t buy it. I’m guessing a lot of families who are split on skiing vs beach for Christmas vacation will be choosing Cabo next year.

Do you really think the executives are just hanging out in Denver right now laughing and smoking cigars while counting their cash?

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I agree. I was commenting this weekend that I'm amazed that the purely recreational skiers are willing to subject themselves to the shenanigans (parking reservations, 7am arrivals, hours of standing in line, insane food/beverage prices, etc).

We had the family conversation that maybe next year this pair of weeks is time to ditch town.

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Originally Posted by axebiker

At the end of the day, I'm not even sure many of these corporations care about skiing at the end of the day, and they sure as hell don't care about whether or not it'll be affordable to anyone but the 2%'ers within the next decade...if that.

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MTN isn’t a ski company. They’re a hotel/hospitality company that owns some ski resorts.

Unfortunately, I don't IG. https://townlift.com/2025/01/data-re...during-strike/

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Originally Posted by east or bust

MTN isn’t a ski company. They’re a hotel/hospitality company that owns some ski resorts.

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I think you quoted the wrong guy. I mentioned nothing about MTN.

Old goat has it wrong. XavierD has it right.

MTN doesn't compete with other ski areas. MTN competes with activities other than sliding on snow. Activities like gaming, hockey, soccer.

MTN has a high PE ratio and is in the business of delivering a discretionary recreational product to customers. When seasons passes renewals drops (as they have over the past 2 years) that business model of a big cash float up front looks quite vulnerable

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

As I see it, the main drawback to this thought is that an awful lot of Epic pass holders don’t know about this strike and probably weren’t at PCMR to see the fuck ups. I have seen a number of social media post from people that knew saying that most of the people they’ve talked to at other Vail resorts have no idea about this shitshow.

Just sayin’.

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I get that not everyone reads everything, but there was a feature in the NYT this morning on it, as well as coverage on CNN, CNBC, etc. outside local coverage in SLC and Denver. I’ve seen it come up on social media from communities who are skiing-adjacent at best. We saw a drop in returning pass purchases following the 21-22 season disaster. Issues in 21/22 weren’t just limited to park city, but did result in some very public commitments to increasing labor compensation. We could see that happening again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

As I see it, the main drawback to this thought is that an awful lot of Epic pass holders don’t know about this strike and probably weren’t at PCMR to see the fuck ups. I have seen a number of social media post from people that knew saying that most of the people they’ve talked to at other Vail resorts have no idea about this shitshow.

Just sayin’.

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Agreed. All of the PC rooms in town were booked this holiday. All the people who won't come back next year in protest will most likely be 100% replaced by other ignorant Epic pass holders.

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Originally Posted by axebiker

I think you quoted the wrong guy. I mentioned nothing about MTN.

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I mean, in a thread about a dispute between Vail Resorts and PCSP what do you think would be inferred by “these corporations?”

I hope all the PC refugees were enthused on the Cottonwoods driving experience and don’t return. My honest opinion? Book a vacation at a shitty resort and don’t be surprised it sucked. I’m really kinda surprised to hear folks here had their vacations ruined. Seriously, anyone that has read this board for a while should’ve realized a long time ago Park City sucks.

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Originally Posted by east or bust

MTN isn’t a ski company. They’re a hotel/hospitality company that owns some ski resorts.

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Eh, they’re a ski area company that gets some hotel revenues. Lodging is 2-3% of mountain revenues

MTN is actually a real estate company that owns things like ski areas and golf courses to help them sell real estate.

This investor preso is a pretty interesting flip through…

https://investors.vailresorts.com/st...6-2d33ca11354d

Their prices have outpaced inflation
Subscription model
75% of lift revenues from pre season passes
25% of total revenue from rentals, lessons and dining
Ebitda (profits) was up year over year despite much lower snowfall
Making a push on gear rentals - average customers skis like 5 days per year but over 1/2 own their gear
Alotta interesting nuggets
Lots o’ slides

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Originally Posted by Woolly the Mammoth

MTN is actually a real estate company that owns things like ski areas and golf courses to help them sell real estate.

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Huh? Real estate is <1% of earnings.