Crystal Mountain Becomes Alterra

[Huskier]

Makes a man start redfinning the northport area even harder.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh. It's mine I saw it first

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[BaseFloopy]

Just make sure to do your homework re: smelter plumes, etc.

[Fishskisurf]

Has anyone emailed re: the current (over) regulation of blvd resy checkpoints and its effects on uphill traffic and into the parking lot flow? having to be thru by 7:30am on a no new snow day will make for 4am alarms and 5am departures from pugetropolis on powder days in the future.

I appreciate them taking the reservations seriously, although curious if offenders are getting the boot or tow? A crystal employee flew up and scolded the guy parked next to us in b lot...he apparently didn't have a res, blew thru when they tried to stop him and they said you can stay but we'll tow, or leave and park below F lot. The employee was firm but left without forcing him to leave, and the guy didn't move his car from what I saw.

On hill lines haven't been bad.
Clear to me though Alterra shouldn't have put Crystal back Unlimited on full Ikon, and their pass is still yet too cheap given it's at capacity every weekend.

[Huskier]

Just make sure to do your homework re: smelter plumes, etc.

*inhales deeply* Mmmmm Welcome to flavor country!


^^ yeah that's pretty obvious. And the crowds aren't apparently a deterent. I.e, no amount of gridlock, lines, or general shittiness is going to stop people from coming. Completely inelastic demand.

It also seems like a big part of the volume is a massive uptick in casuals. Lots of mandarin being spoken in the gondola. Lots of "what's the easiest way down?". Snoqualmie tickets were a whopping $80 a few days ago...I don't get it.

Our only hope as weekday skiers is RTO.

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[ptavv]

A friend of mine who works for Crystal corporate told me the gservice email gets read by the customer service team and the broader trends and themes get rolled up and presented to the leadership team

I'm as pessimistic as anyone else it'll make a difference but here's what I wrote:

I wanted to add my voice to what I’m sure is a chorus of complaints by now about the parking and traffic management that’s been happening this season.

This past Sunday I Ieft my house in Tacoma 6:55 and didn't park in D lot until 10:10. I’ve skied at Crystal routinely since 2019 and intermittently in the years before that. I knew when I left my house I wasn't going to be at the front of B lot but the traffic disaster that unfolded was largely created by the way you have chosen to enforce the parking reservation requirement this season (I say this as a person with 5+ years driving to and from Crystal dozens of times per winter who deals with complex interlocking systems for a living).

On the one hand I’m admiring of your commitment to strictly enforcing the reservation parking mandate with what is clearly a lot of social capital and manpower, but on the other hand the way that it is playing out for people who do make reservations is that the enforcement is stealing a substantial amount of all of our time.

This past weekend seemed different than prior weekends — there was no person at the bottom of the Blvd pulsing traffic up, but it was in many ways as bad or worse. There seemed to be a person about 1/2 or 2/3 of the way up the Blvd scanning plates (I'm 99% sure, because he was parked in one of the only spots on the Blvd with cell reception) and blocking/pulsing downhill traffic around himself.

Then at the entrance to F lot there was another Crystal employee with a STOP/SLOW sign and she was stopping people who didn't have parking reservations and directing them into F lot (and I assume, back down the Blvd?). Past this was a complete absence of traffic and cars were parking in the lots at a slow, sedate pace due to the earlier bottlenecks.

That’s all fine as it goes, and again — it's an impressive commitment to enforcement of the reservation parking mandate — but it slows transit to the checkpoint to an absolute crawl (to say nothing of the delays as people crawled past the fellow on the Blvd blocking the downhill lane) as the people who get turned around whine and argue and don't move promptly and then do a 7 point turn to get out of the uphill Blvd lane. This is why it’s so upsetting to people who play by the rules — we’re all having our time stolen in order to punish the minority who do not make reservations.

Unifying the scanner and the turnaround task to the actual parking lots would unwind the self-created bottleneck and move people to the parking lots quickly, where discussions about whether or not someone has a reservation can take place without impeding everyone else. There seem to be quite enough security guards patrolling the inside of Campbell Basin Lodge and the Mountain Commons Lodge for people drinking unauthorized alcoholic beverages to staff this in the morning. Moreover, people who refuse to leave could be warned that they would be towed, booted, fined, or given a trespass citation and dealt with while customers were able to continue moving up to the lots and park.

This is just an off the cuff suggestion from a person with a lot of experience dealing with complex systems and I’m sure you all have a different set of incentives and imperatives than I’ve chosen, but in the strongest terms as one of your customers who plays by the rules I beseech you to understand that the system you’ve set up is infuriating everyone and burning whatever goodwill you could build by strictly enforcing the parking reservation policies.

[ptavv]

Does anyone know Crystal's actual policy for uphilling inbounds prior to the resort opening in the morning? Timing isn't mentioned at all on their uphill status page and every person I've spoken to in CS has been clueless. I'm pretty sick of the traffic standstills (waited an hour in traffic prior to and on the Blvd yesterday for a not so busy mountain) and want to get out there early to do some uphill laps prior to the resort opening but don't want to take the risk if I get flagged off by Patrol.

You can uphill (on the approved uphill route) whenever the yellow beacon lights aren't flashing. There are beacons on the lift shack of Chinook, next to the big map on the wall at the Gondola loading area, and on the lift shack for Discovery. You need the dumb little yellow card, though it's now handed out by customer service instead of the patrollers, so it's more of a check the box exercise than making you interact with someone who can make sure you're smart enough to put pants on without instructions.

If you want to skip all that you can skin up to East or Platinum peaks without any in-bounds nonsense. Skiing Solar Slab back to the base is usually pretty nice if you're early before it gets all manky in the sun.

[Fishskisurf]

Good to hear it's read, I'll send them my .02 shortly.
I saw a scanner or at least a few camera's up on a pole a few hundred yards below F lot on the uphill side of the blvd. I'm guessing the two guys in the road by F lot work in tandem (one holds the iPad, scanning for who's coming up sans-reservation off that plate scanner just below them) and directs the other guy with the stop/slow sign, to flag down the sans-reservation cars.

Cones in the road, a few guys standing in the middle, the probably all too frequent non-reservation car that either doesn't know, or wants to argue, is cluster f'ing up the road for the rest of us.

[bfree]

The website doesn't mention anything about towing. It just says the first time parking without reservation is a $40 fine, second time is $80, third time is $120.

Those fines need another zero on the end of them and then this would all resolve itself over time, no gatekeeping needed.

(Of course towing would be effective too, but that isn't practical at scale in a remote location)

[ptavv]

there were three tow trucks roaming around up there on Sunday

also two Pierce Co Sheriff SUVs parked by the lodge at end of day

those fees are a total joke… after enduring 3 hours to get to the lot 99% of people would just consider the day $40 more expensive at that point

[rpearce1475]

So are there mornings where they allow it prior to opening then? Or is it just a "check and see" situation? I've done Solar Slab before but always prefer to tour in bounds if it's early morning and I'm solo

[greenmachine]

What’s with the new parking deal . Did they fucking change it again? $[emoji637][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]] for advanced parking or free within [emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]] days . Even for pass holders ? Such a stupid fucking game


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[BaseFloopy]

Ikon survey was in my email this morning.

I managed to keep profanities out of the free-form text boxes, but it was difficult and now I need a nap.

[CrystalMountainSkier]

Heard Crystal ordered a new lift for this summer. Anyone heard anything? New Rex would be nice. Could also be new Discovery.

[BaseFloopy]

From liftblog:

https://recruiting.paylocity.com/rec...ystal-Mountain

[CrystalMountainSkier]

Suppose it could be Kelly's Gap Express finally.