CaptainObvious......How? Genuinely I'm asking how they'll ruin whistler. I've skied at a shitload of the Vail resorts and not once felt like they even touched the mountains. Aside from maybe some "Epic" shit on the mountain, like free photo spots, little race courses (also free), and maybe more marketing material to get you to try and buy more shit.
I feel like there is so much "anti-establishment" hate just for the sake of hate. Everyone jumps on the fuck corporate bandwagon without even knowing why they're jumping on the bandwagon besides it being cool.
Why is this not viewed as a move that will introduce stability in smaller resorts and accessibility in larger resorts? The homies up north who fork out their money to get a pass to Whistler now have the option to come to Colorado....Utah....Nevada.....California....Michigan....jesus tittyfucking christ you can ski all over the place and save some nickels (as compared to what it would cost if you wanted to travel a la carte)
I don't. fucking. get it. Besides the lifties bitching because they won't be allowed to smoke week behind the shack anymore.
I know I'm going to get a shitload of hate for saying all that, but whatever. Prove me wrong and make me understand. I'm open.
Ill give you the three common examples I have from my doorstep.
1. Northstar was owned by Booth Creek for years. Same pass got you into Loon/Cranmore, Bear Mountain, Sierra at Tahoe and Snow Summit. Pretty good deal.
Skiing at Northstar back then was kinda cool. It was this funky resort with high speed lifts, a great terrain park, and a bit of a chill vibe. I actually liked it growing up.
Then, holy shit. Vail bought it. Ritz Carlton. Massive new lodges. 20$ beers. Ice rink. parking was moved back another mile. New on hill lodges that would make Trump swoon. The Village expanded to this insane shit. They put in a half pipe and named it after Shaun White even though he never went there anyway, A bunch of long term employees were either let go or told to take a paycut (granted KSL did this at Squaw/Alpine as well, so it's not just vail), hired people to fucking hand out speeding tickets, and what did all of that do? Now the only people who go to Northstar are either square ass Bay Area dingdongs who buy it for the cheap-ish season pass (the cheap pass comes with a zillion blackout dates, but whatever) and don't care about steeps (northstar is nicknamed flatstar for a reason) or families who spend way too much during a 6 day stay, or shitheads who want to tell people at work how cool they are for having gone to Northstar and spent too much for their 6 day trip.
The vibe there is completely changed. It doesn't have the same people working for it, nor the same people going to it. No locals really like it, and the traffic getting in is absurd.
Meanwhile, Heavenly went from a funky in-town resort surrounded by casinos that gave it this strange las vegas dirty vibe that was fuckin cool, and now it's had full 'vailification' to it where all the funk was removed for ritzy glammy bullshit that doesn't add anything to the resort but ambiance, making it seem worth it to the jonesy people that their money was well spent.
Kirkwood has somewhat stemmed away from the Vail Resorts thing because they haven't hardcore invested in it quite yet. It's still feeling like it should, steep, kickass resort with the most pow in the region, and arguably the best terrain, but expect in time that Vail will ruin the town of Kirkwood, buy up the whole lot of everything there, charge way too much, tear up the funky in liu of ritzy, and make it some gaudy place like it does to everywhere it touches. Kirkwood's employees were hurt horribly by that acquisition from what I understand, and it made it a bit less attractive as a place to work, so they bus in extra heavenly employees now and again to make up for the fact that it's too expensive to live in Kirkwood when you make min wage, and Vail's employee housing deals are a joke.
Sierra at Tahoe, which was split from its northern brother Northstar @ Tahoe (which has now been renamed Northstar California - what the fuck is that about?) has actually benefitted from Northstar leaving it seems. It's still owned by Booth Creek, still has some funk to it, still gets shitloads of locals, the pass is like 300 dollars with no blackout dates. it gets shitloads of snow and has some great terrain. I'd buy a Sierra pass over an Epic pass any fuckin day at that rate, and forego the glizy fuckshit and focus on the shredding of pows.
Vail Resorts is like the asshole in monopoly who keeps hitting 200 on go right from the start and keeps buying up all the shit before anybody else can, then somehow puts fucking hotels on everything.
Is it how you win the game? Yes... but nobody else has fun.
