Millenials aren’t skiing enough?

Just read through this thread and all I can say is wow, what a thread!

Hi, My name's Ethan, and I'm a Millennial. Damn, I hate that word. Something about it has a negative ring, to me anyway. I don't like being categorized as a millennial. Ask any of my friends and they'll say I act like an old man, or "share old man qualities" more nicely put.

I also love skiing. Most of you know about Woodstream

I am also a college student, technically. I go to SUNY Delhi which is a technical school in rural Delaware county, only a half hour from Plattekill and Belleayre. A very small number of people on that campus actually ski at either mountain, but there's a few, and there great people. I get a Plattekill pass every year.  I'll have an associates degree in Electrical/mechanical technology (AKA Mechatronics) this spring. Honestly, I'm not sure it was worth the time and small amount of money it cost me. If it wasn't for the generous scholarships I had, there's no way I would have done it. It's just too expensive.

I also Work for myself doing residential construction work whenever I have the opportunity. This past summer I was very busy, and I've been busy a lot of weekends this fall, and I'm busy now on my January break. I'm currently re-moddeling an entryway on an old brick house to make it a more open and inviting floor plan.  I love where I live and I don't plan on going far or giving up skiing unless something astronomical magically happens.

brooklynrob wrote

 Millenials, like Gen X, are going to cities because that's where the jobs are, and so that itself is ending up in less skiers -- just less people in rural areas of the country with ski mountains.

This is only 50% true, and I hate this mentality. If you're looking for that poshy 9-5 desk job in a cubicle making 100K a year starting out with your BA in Media Arts then yes. If you're willing to be a doctor or a nurse, you can do well just about anywhere. I live in CNY and I know plenty of healthcare professionals who are doing fine among other professions. I also know a lot of people living near the poverty line, and many of them are content with that. What my generation is missing is a willingness to get our hands dirty. I personally love to work with my hands. If you're willing to work like an asshole, get dirty, take risks, smoke 4 packs of cigarettes a day, drink plenty of beer, and take pride in what you do, you will never go hungry. You can actually do really REALLY well, and you won't have to worry about retirement, because you'll die before you get that old.  You may have to make some sacrifices at first but who cares, that's all part of the experience. A large portion of our labor force has either retired or moved up in the work world, and there are fewer and fewer people to replace them.  

 I'm totally willing to be that guy, and I know from my work experience, I will always find meaningful work that I also enjoy weather it's working for myself or someone else. I like working like an asshole, I like where I live (near the mountains, sort of) I like building my reputation through the work I do in my town, and I also like skiing among many other activities.

Yea I missed all this when I was skiing the trees at Gore Mountain.

Ethan post that pic of Woodstream nighttime snowmaking from your IG.

Harvey wrote

Ethan post that pic of Woodstream nighttime snowmaking from your IG.

I lost hope in humanity. Then Ethan snow came.  
https://youtu.be/HVZrmdHffZo

Johnnyonthespot wrote

I lost hope in humanity. Then Ethan snow came.  
https://youtu.be/HVZrmdHffZo

Plus 1. Awesome post Ethan. The snowstorm looks good too

Johnnyonthespot wrote

I lost hope in humanity. Then Ethan snow came.  
https://youtu.be/HVZrmdHffZo

LOL, I Actually understood most of what he was saying my friends must be right.

You'll do well in life. They don't make 'em like you anymore.

JasonWx wrote

also back in the day, we weren't saddled with a smartphone bill, netflik bill, spotify, hulu etc

Back in the day, people would have had land line bills instead of cell phone bills and were shelling out $10-15 per CD rather than $100/year for Spotify and paying $4 per rental at Blockbuster instead of a dozen per month for Netflix blah blah blah. Basic utilities and services of the modern era are a complete wash vs. what they were 20 years ago, IMO. The money is the same but people pay for services instead of products but it washes out... there is no effective increase for these types of services. In fact, it could be argued that Spotify for $100 per year is a MUCH better deal than shelling out a few hundred per year on CDs like I did when I was younger. Then again, quality isn't quite the same as it used to be due to changes in the industry so many that isn't the best argument lol.

But lift tickets have more than doubled since then. I remember back after graduating college (2000) that I could ski Cannon for $39 full price and even less via discounts. Now walk up rate is $80. Many mountains are over $100 walk up rate (saying that discounts are available and no one pays walk up rate is not valid because that hasn't changed, discounting was happening back then too). Lift tickets have more than doubled since 2000 but inflation has not doubled since then. And the buying power of a dollar has decreased since wages have not kept pace with inflation. So we have a combination of lift ticket prices rising faster than inflation and the buying power of money being less. Us die hards figure out ways to make it work. But you need to work up to being a die hard, you can't enter the activity knowing how to work the system.

Add in ridiculous college loans for recent college grads and lack of good paying job opportunities and I can see why fewer younger folks are not converting from skiing with the family to continuing beyond the family and college. It could be a feedback loop... fewer younger people are skiing so prices are rising due to less volume which in turn makes it harder for people to ski.

brooklynrob wrote

Harvey wrote

A bit off topic, yes, but...  

Today was cold as fuck.  At Gore there was lots of terrain and good snow.

The place was busy and people were skiing, not just hanging in the lodges.

Some dedicated skiers. I think I saw millennials too.

Given the conditions out west it's entirely possible that despite the cold Gore may have the best skiing in the country right now (I'd otherwise suggest that's Sugarloaf right now given the dumps they've gotten but my buddy who has a place there said that it's effectively too cold to ski, and that's saying a lot for a bunch of Mainers; it's running 10 degrees colder than Gore from what I've been seeing).

Happy to see Gore having a solid start to the year - special place.

My vote is for Killington, although Stowe must be good. Gore was in great shape a week ago, so must be much better today. But, dear lord, this is dangerous cold. The ice fisherman must be rejoicing. Along with their wives. "He's finally going to get drunk outside instead of on the couch! Hurray!"

I read that SLC is having its worst year in 30 seasons. I was going to go out there late January, but, I ain't leaving the east in this situation. They just opened Pali the other day at ABasin, and my buddy promptly goes out and destroys a ski off of it. They need snow, but we need the temps to break 15.

Ethan make no mistake you are an outliner, as I am. And I dont think its because our generation refuses to get its hands dirty, theres just not the job base, in quantity, to support it.

Look at the quantity jobs they have vanished, and I'll use the Mid Hudson Valley as an example.

IBM use use to support 10's of thousands throughout Dutchess County, Star Expansion (who's buildings you can see on the Thruway between Woodbury and Newburgh), which was a fasteners manufacture use to support a large local job force (also where my parents started, my father a non-college educated worker in their data center/mainframe building in the 1970's), Channel Master, Imperial Scrade, Hydro Aluminum, GE, a near endless list of manufactures and companies that supported good paying suburban jobs that simply don't exist anymore, that by the mid 2000's all but vanished.

Then apply that to the Erie belt of Utica, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo. Think of how their populations declined, the suburban sprawl collapsing, the families that use to ski there moving on to places much further from the north.


And to bring this back around to the start of this thread, this is why participation is down because while certainly its possible for some, like myself of my generation or Ethan to live in proximity to something we love, the economic realities that use to support suburbia, in quantity, don't exist in anymore.

evantful wrote

the economic realities that use to support suburbia, in quantity, don't exist in anymore.

What do you mean by this? Are you suggesting that we are running out of good jobs and that jobs are not not paying as well or something else?

I mean where I live, there's theoretically a lot less wealth than Long Island or HV. Yet you've got got everything from rich doctors in Cooperstown to college professors at SUCO, Hartwick, Delhi, to farmers, and they all have their own idea of what comfortable lefeatlye is, and many of them are doing fine. Basically, the ones who keep their shit together are doing fine, and obviously not everyone keeps their shit together so that's that. My only point is that if you're willing to take advantages of the resources around you and take a little pride in where you live you can do very well even in a less than prviledged area.  I have plenty of millennial friends who hated this area and wanted to move somewhere new and exciting and now their working a shit job making shit money and not doing a lot of the things they used to do while they pay off student debt and living in a shitty apartment.  I'm not saying everyone's like that but I see it happen a lot.

I meant to write for younger generations.

Im suggesting, or rather stating, that employers that use to provide solidly middle class jobs in pay, in large quantities, don't exist in my region anymore to support a young work force. The demographics of the region support this statement, in the last 20 years there has been a massive outflow of young workers, who were born in the area and are unable to stay.

So then what does a young buck like me do to find a good job? I can always just keep working for myself doing home improvements Nothing wrong with that.

Theoretically my degree is Mechatronics is highly employable in the manufacturing industry because of automation taking over manufacturing processes so there's that.  Two totally different fields of work I'm talking about here but between the two I will somehow manage to survive (and buy ski tickets and alcohol)  Always good to have a plan B

Ethan Snow wrote

evantful wrote

the economic realities that use to support suburbia, in quantity, don't exist in anymore.

 Yet you've got got everything from rich doctors in Cooperstown to college professors at SUCO, Hartwick, Delhi, to farmers, and they all have their own idea of what comfortable lefeatlye is, and many of them are doing fine.

This is where I think we have a break down in communication. Im talking about jobs in mass quantities. In the mid 1980's IBM alone employed over 30,000 people in the Poughkeepsie and East Fishkill area. And more importantly a completely diverse workforce all over the pay scale, but good paying middle class jobs that didn't necessarily require extensive education and the debt that can come with it.

Ethan Snow wrote

So then what does a young buck like me do to find a good job? I can always just keep working for myself doing home improvements Nothing wrong with that.

You can keep doing what you are doing. I'm 31 and came out of college in 2008 just as the economy imploded. My Economics degree, unless I wanted to stay in Manhattan or else where, was all but useless at that point to segway into normal career paths (i.e. corporate finance, etc). I did a lot of odd jobs after a while and started my own business. Its the only thing that has allowed me to stay in the general area of where I grew up and enjoy being.

So what you're doing is fine, because you are an intelligent person and you can make many different situations workable for you.

But for many it does not come as naturally as it does for us, and thats ok, not everyone in society needs to be as savvy, and it doesn't make them any less of a hard worker. And once upon a time those people didn't need to think so much about it because there were good paying middle class jobs to fall back on in the suburbs. And many of those people use to love skiing.

Understood. So you're saying that more education is required nowadays to get a good middle class job? I think I agree with that for the most part. Although there are exceptions. I believe anyone with a strong work ethic can make a comfortable living wothout education getting in the way.

I think you just answered that question in your second post.

Sort of, my main point, in relation to the original topic of the thread (Millennial aren't making up for the loss of Boomers in Skier/Ridership), was that large quantities of younger workers do not live in the suburbs like they once did in the 50's-early 90's.

This is placing them outside of the general proximity of day tripping, moving them away not only from the larger resorts like those in the Catskills, but also away from the 'back yard' feeder hills (i.e. Mt Peter, Thunder Ridge, Mt Creek). (again just using the HV as an example)

It just creates an environment where younger people are less likely to to become consistent participants in the activity due to lack of exposure.



In regards to the education topic, yeah unfortunately I do believe more education has become a barrier to entry for many jobs and many jobs that don't even pay well. Its astounding to go onto Indeed or Monster sometimes and see how many different positions in the HV require a BA of some kind and they are listing hourly wages at around $12-13hr, and in a number of cases they aren't entry level jobs.

I just think back in the 50's-90's it was more common for a hard worker to get a good paying job without education and the need to have the dyanmic savvy to navigate the job field. They could go to work for one of the many companies listed before, show up, work hard, get a good pay check, all the while living and working in the suburbs with reasonably affordable housing.... and go skiing.

Benny Profane wrote

brooklynrob wrote

Harvey wrote

A bit off topic, yes, but...  

Today was cold as fuck.  At Gore there was lots of terrain and good snow.

The place was busy and people were skiing, not just hanging in the lodges.

Some dedicated skiers. I think I saw millennials too.

Given the conditions out west it's entirely possible that despite the cold Gore may have the best skiing in the country right now (I'd otherwise suggest that's Sugarloaf right now given the dumps they've gotten but my buddy who has a place there said that it's effectively too cold to ski, and that's saying a lot for a bunch of Mainers; it's running 10 degrees colder than Gore from what I've been seeing).

Happy to see Gore having a solid start to the year - special place.

My vote is for Killington, although Stowe must be good. Gore was in great shape a week ago, so must be much better today. But, dear lord, this is dangerous cold. The ice fisherman must be rejoicing. Along with their wives. "He's finally going to get drunk outside instead of on the couch! Hurray!"

I read that SLC is having its worst year in 30 seasons. I was going to go out there late January, but, I ain't leaving the east in this situation. They just opened Pali the other day at ABasin, and my buddy promptly goes out and destroys a ski off of it. They need snow, but we need the temps to break 15.

The Telluride snow report is the one that blows my mind. They have only 16 trails open.

They have had 16 inches of snow for the season at Telluride. We have had 2 inches so far! It was 63 degrees here yesterday at 7k and it didn’t even freeze over night last night at the mouth of LCC in Utah. It’s been crazy dry for 3 months now. There may be a pattern change in about a week but I’m not convinced storms will reach this far south.

The east is looking good but Washington state looks betterer. Check out Stevens Pass on Instagram. They are getting buried