Vail buys Okemo, Sunapee, Crested Butte

The funkiness of people who have settled in Crested Butte comes thru in this article in the local paper with the title "This is (still) not Vail and you still get to be CB real."

http://crestedbuttenews.com/2018/06/this-is-still-not-vail-and-you-still-get-to-be-cb-real/

". . .
Let’s be honest: It is business. Vail bought a ski business. They didn’t buy you, so I don’t get some of the panic. To take the Vail executives at their word—as most of us do in this small town until proven otherwise—they like what Crested Butte is. They like the slightly outlaw, individualistic feel and plan to offer that as an alternative to their growing clientele. In business parlance, the corporate ski area wants to capitalize on the value of the Crested Butte brand. It is real, quirky, a bit more duct tape than fresh fur. It is Patagonia instead of Bogner. It is the Grateful Dead instead of Kenny G. It is Body Bag and Funnel instead of the Back Bowls. The Vail VP rightfully pointed out they already own a Vail in the portfolio and don’t need a mini-Vail that is hard to get to. Real is the key. If someone treats you as a prop in this authentic ski town, my guess is they’ll get a harsh dose of authenticity.
. . ."

"Patagonia instead of Bogner"

Bahaha! Yeah, maybe they were already fooked.

That one makes it sound already dead to me.

marznc wrote

The funkiness of people who have settled in Crested Butte comes thru in this article in the local paper with the title "This is (still) not Vail and you still get to be CB real."

http://crestedbuttenews.com/2018/06/this-is-still-not-vail-and-you-still-get-to-be-cb-real/

". . .
Let’s be honest: It is business. Vail bought a ski business. They didn’t buy you, so I don’t get some of the panic. To take the Vail executives at their word—as most of us do in this small town until proven otherwise—they like what Crested Butte is. They like the slightly outlaw, individualistic feel and plan to offer that as an alternative to their growing clientele. In business parlance, the corporate ski area wants to capitalize on the value of the Crested Butte brand. It is real, quirky, a bit more duct tape than fresh fur. It is Patagonia instead of Bogner. It is the Grateful Dead instead of Kenny G. It is Body Bag and Funnel instead of the Back Bowls. The Vail VP rightfully pointed out they already own a Vail in the portfolio and don’t need a mini-Vail that is hard to get to. Real is the key. If someone treats you as a prop in this authentic ski town, my guess is they’ll get a harsh dose of authenticity.
. . ."

Oh jeez.I'm more core than the gapers. I"m more authentic. I'm, hardee har har, Patagonia. Person who wrote that is probably a temporary refugee from the 1% lifestyle, or cashed in on a million dollar home on either coast and bought themselves a quaint million dollar shack in CB, bought a dog  and a mountain bike and ten pairs of skis, and spends every afternoon walking to the post office to check if the trust fund check came in. "The Crested Butte brand". Really. Gave it away on that one.

I was in Crested Butte last year. Nothing about that place screamed "core" or "dirtbag" to me. There are a ton of multi-million dollar houses in that valley. It seemed like a similar experience to Telluride for me (granted, it was a shit snow year and nothing good was open). Town was okay, but to act like it was vastly different from any other mountain town in the west seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Unless you're in some real off-the-beaten path Western town (not many left... Cooke City or Red Lodge Montana maybe?), you're still in the Patagonia world of upper tier assholes (don't be confused, though. I like Patagonia, and I aspire to be an upper tier asshole).

Vail buying Crested Butte seems normal to me. Vail is Vail. They'd buy everything if they could.

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Vail is Vail. They'd buy everything if they could.

Maybe a long shot, but still I hope they don't get their hands on Smuggs before I move north in 6 years.

That interconnection would be sick Harvey

Back in the 90’s it was all duct tape, loose Mormon girls and rowdy, steep billy goat skiing while being high on mushrooms.

Good lord, what happened to the dirt bag ski bum?

And as for that loose Mormon gal, I really wish I had a time machine to go back and smash that naughty. Mmmm

Harvey wrote

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Vail is Vail. They'd buy everything if they could.

Maybe a long shot, but still I hope they don't get their hands on Smuggs before I move north in 6 years.

You planning to move to NoVT?

Smuggs will get assimilated and interconnected in the next yr or so.  Smuggs is the reason Vail won’t buy Jay / Burke as it would cause anti trust issues.  When that gets interconnected I’ll have to seriously consider a Epic Pass as Smuggs is a much shorter drive than Stowe for me.

Not moving to VT.  Somewhere north of Albany.

Smuggs is so my kind of place.  Vail will probably rip out those Hall lifts and change the vibe. I could survive without the interconnect.

raisingarizona wrote

Back in the 90’s it was all duct tape, loose Mormon girls and rowdy, steep billy goat skiing while being high on mushrooms.

Good lord, what happened to the dirt bag ski bum?

And as for that loose Mormon gal, I really wish I had a time machine to go back and smash that naughty. Mmmm

HA! Sounds like your Mormon girls used to hang out with the nurses from Quebec

Quebec nurses? Oh dang, that sounds awesome!

Harvey wrote

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Vail is Vail. They'd buy everything if they could.

Maybe a long shot, but still I hope they don't get their hands on Smuggs before I move north in 6 years.

There is no disguising that time frame.

Let me guess.......daughter finishing 6th grade this month?

Two things coincide... HS graduation and retirement.  May be insane or not possible financially (meaning college cost), that is TBD.

College tuition is out of control. Increases in the past 30 yrs is something around 10x the general inflation rate.

endoftheline wrote

College tuition is out of control. Increases in the past 30 yrs is something around 10x the general inflation rate.

http://www.ginandtacos.com/2018/05/15/shell-gaming-part-i/

First of a three part blog entry that explains much of the reason, obviously from the more liberal, college professor, we should level the playing field for first generation Americans, perspective. Read all three.

If anyone cares, here's an article that came out about how people in Crested Butte think about the pending sale to Vail Resorts.

http://mountaintownnews.net/2018/06/10/6081/ - June 10, 2018

” …

In Crested Butte, a community that takes its non-conformity seriously, the announcement of the sale was met with a shrug by many but, at least in a few cases, displeasure. If the community has always had to maintain a business relationship with mainstream America, it has assertively remained aloof in that relationship. Vail Resorts is the epitome of mainstream America, a public company with stock traded on Wall Street. It’s exactly what many people fled.

Others see Vail as a deep-pocketed operator with an obvious track of success. The hope in this camp of optimists is that Vail will buff a good but sometimes frayed skiing product into exactly the sort of ski area appealing to the mainstream.

…”

endoftheline wrote

College tuition is out of control. Increases in the past 30 yrs is something around 10x the general inflation rate.

Which is the same time period that consumer credit has become all pervasive in our society, including home equity lines, many used for the children's tuition, and easy to get and impossible to default on student loans.

https://www.mensjournal.com/features/king-of-the-hill-how-vail-resorts-conquered-the-ski-industry-w469851/

campgottagopee wrote

https://www.mensjournal.com/features/king-of-the-hill-how-vail-resorts-conquered-the-ski-industry-w469851/

That's a well known article but I found this one from 2013 provided more insight into Rob Katz's thinking about the future of Vail Resorts.  Also has a story about him skiing Vail's Back Bowls with the owner/CEO of Vail in 1992.

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/katz-leads-vail-into-the-future/

Remaining out front

When the whole world was going crazy for Facebook and Twitter, Vail Resorts figured out a way to tailor social media to the mountain experience.

Vail Resorts’ move to include radio frequency identification technology in its passes set the company on the path toward its wildly popular Epic Mix program. The company realized that technology could open doors into information sharing like never seen before at a ski resort – a realization that came mostly after company executives, including Katz, began using Twitter and Facebook. That’s what spawned the idea to merge social media and RF technology together, Katz said.

“We want to be number 1. Well, to be number 1, you’ve got to be out front and you have to do things other people aren’t doing,” Katz said. “But that means, that comes along with change and I think what I have felt certainly in my tenure, is a willingness to push. Push for new things , push in new directions. And, you know, everyone doesn’t always agree with them when I first talk about them, when the company first talks about them, and not everything we do will always work, but if you’re not trying anything, you’re not going to lead.”

Katz has no plans to stop leading Vail Resorts into the future. He said he’d like to see the company double in size in the next 10 years. He wants the pass program to also grow, as well as add more technology upgrades such as energy efficiency in snowmaking.

“We’re not that far away from some technological improvements where it’ll cost a fraction of the energy – cost both in terms of using the resource and also in terms of the dollars – where snowmaking can actually be a much more constant benefit,” he said.

And while growth in on his mind, Katz reiterates that it will always be logical and deliberate.

“We want to grow into things where we feel we can add value, not just monetary value, but guest value – and I think, so far, I think we’re doing that,” Katz said. “And the areas where we don’t (add value), I think you’ll see us back off. If we don’t think we can create a new paradigm of some sort, then we won’t do it.”