Dec 28, 2019: AVOID BEAR, NEEDLES, SKYESHIP

[ME2VTSkier]

About the lifts, definitely a case of unfair second guessing, but given these problems will never go away, it needs to be part of their planning going forward.

Well no doubt. A tree comes down, and it wasn't even in the middle of a storm, when one would expect such things.

[Guy in Shorts]

Hands down today beat the pants off Dec 28 last year were we started the day with only the Snowshed Double running and only got in one run. This year we got in three runs before sensing the impending power outage fled the mountain. Nice shorts weather day. Enjoyed turning the chunky monkey grooming into a nice batch of death cookies. December 28th sets the low bar for the season two years in a row.

[Big Bob]

About the lifts, definitely a case of unfair second guessing, but given these problems will never go away, it needs to be part of their planning going forward.

Well no doubt. A tree comes down, and it wasn't even in the middle of a storm, when one would expect such things.

Living in a rural part of NH I used to lose power a lot. Not anymore. Years ago the NH PUC ordered PSNH, which is now Eversource, to step up their tree trimming program and trim back further from the lines. They also mark diseased trees and cut them down before they fall on the wires and cause outages. Way cheaper to do this before the meters stop turning and the revenue dries up. We still have large outages, but shorter and less frequent. Some of the lines on the mnt are owned by Killington and repaired by GMP. It may be harder to trim back on state forest land however.

[skiadikt]

yup sh*t happens. you can try your best but sometimes you can't plan for everything. unfortunately for the mtn and everyone in attendance, it happened on one of the busiest days of the season instead of a non-holiday weekday. most of the folks we interacted with seemed to take it in stride. when i left, drove a few of the stranded from bear to snowshed. they didn't seem too perturbed and were just happy to not have to wait in the shuttle line.

thought the mtn did a reasonable job under the circumstances. communication could have been better but then again when everything is shut down, it's hard to get those folks there. between the last 2 days, suspect the mtn took a bit of financial hit. certainly not the big holiday success they were hoping for.

as for the conditions, i expected bad and it "delivered". probably the worst of the season but didn't seem to dampen the holiday throng who i guess are used to crap conditions and long lift lines at their home areas.

[tyrolean_skier]

Killington lost a lot of money today because anyone that got stuck got a voucher for a lift ticket or $25 beast bucks on their pass if pass holders.

Wish Spyderman had sent out a group text to let us know that the lifts were running again as I would have gone back to Bear and Needles because the last run I did at Bear the snow was starting to soften up and it probably skied great later in the day.

[ski]

Yep. Post of the Day !

C'mon, someone at Killington needs to use a lick of common sense.

[hillbangin]

Ugh.

https://vtstatepolice.blogspot.com/2019 ... t.html?m=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



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[Big Bob]

yup sh*t happens. you can try your best but sometimes you can't plan for everything. unfortunately for the mtn and everyone in attendance, it happened on one of the busiest days of the season instead of a non-holiday weekday. most of the folks we interacted with seemed to take it in stride. when i left, drove a few of the stranded from bear to snowshed. they didn't seem too perturbed and were just happy to not have to wait in the shuttle line.

thought the mtn did a reasonable job under the circumstances. communication could have been better but then again when everything is shut down, it's hard to get those folks there. between the last 2 days, suspect the mtn took a bit of financial hit. certainly not the big holiday success they were hoping for.

as for the conditions, i expected bad and it "delivered". probably the worst of the season but didn't seem to dampen the holiday throng who i guess are used to crap conditions and long lift lines at their home areas.

As far as communication is concerned, their radios also went down when power was lost

[RustyK]

Got out after the power issue.

Watched a woman wiz by me on bitter and go straight into the woods. It was that kind of day.
Amazing she only broke a leg.

Skier girl quit after the north ridge. I did the bar challenge again. Met up with GTG and George for some Bear turns. Better marble surface that the rest of the place.

Bear bar had a great duo band there. GIS is correct. This was still much better than the last December 28th.

Great Pickle Happy with Jamie.

Mike also posted his message on FB
Yesterday morning a tree fell and knocked out our power at approximately 9:40am. Additionally, it knocked out our radios which hindered communication between staff making it difficult to get information to guests in a timely fashion. Green Mountain Power fixed the problem and restored power by early afternoon. By 11:00am we were able to reopen Skyeship Gondola Stage 2. Then around 12:30pm, we reopened Skye Peak Express Quad and the rest in the affected area followed suit. The rest of the mountain ran as usual and looking ahead to today, we anticipate normal lift operations. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. When the lifts went down, we dispatched as many shuttles as possible (big and small – whatever we could get) to move people out of both Skyeship Base and Bear Mountain. The challenge is we don’t have enough buses available to meet such high demand. Our team prides itself on always improving and we will debrief on this situation and work to improve on the process for the future.

I hope that helps.



Thanks,

Mike

Michael Solimano

President & General Manager

Killington/Pico Ski Resort Partners, LLC

[ME2VTSkier]

I don't get the radios being down in today's day and age of battery backups/automated generators. Shouldn't be that hard to come up with a solution for that.

[Bubba]

Mike’s response on Facebook to that very same point.

We have a generator for our radio system as it is critical infrastructure as you mention. The issue is the power surge blew out some of the infrastructure and it took some time to repair.

[Dickc]

Hey, to all who can ski this season, let me repeat what I posted a few days ago:

A bad day of skiing beats a good day at_____ (You fill in the blank).

In my case it would be a good day of back surgery recovery!

[Mister Moose]

Hey, to all who can ski this season, let me repeat what I posted a few days ago:

A bad day of skiing beats a good day at_____ (You fill in the blank).

In my case it would be a good day of back surgery recovery!

Made a few turns for you Dick - come back soon!