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Courtesy Vail Resorts vail.snow.com
Headline RSS FeedVail Resorts’ Epic Pass is looking like epic brilliance after economic turbulence
September 28, 2008 —
Vail’s collective jaw was ajar over Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass program for a few days this past spring. The announcement of the absurdly affordable $579 season pass left locals agog, perplexed, and in some cases apoplectic: especially when locals discovered that the pass was UNRESTRICTED – good for skiing even during Vail’s always-popular Christmas, Thanksgiving, and President’s Day weekends.
“What about the parking!” cried our local gadflies. Nothing in Vail politics is more exciting, more full of vitriol, than the issue of parking, and soon the Town Council chambers were clouded with powder smoke from the broadsides being fired back and forth over the Epic Pass’ effect on the town’s winter parking.
In quieter circles, whispers circulated over the kind of client the Epic Pass would bring to town. What about the expensive jewelry shops and retail stores in the Vail Village? Will bargain-hunting Front Range skiers and snowboarders drop a grand on a charm bracelet? Will knuckle-dragging college students spend $4,500 on a custom-made, Italian ski jacket?
One town figure was so bold as to call Front Rangers, “riff-raff,” during the Epic Pass blow up.
Months later the economy’s downward spin has approached panic levels. National politicians are talking about how to bail out Wall Street, while local politicians are talking about how to take care of Bridge Street. Most of the uppity Bridge Street stores count on Wall Street money – and more than a few of the coins dropped by the taxpayer in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan will likely end up in the cash registers of the Bridge Street retail shops.
I don’t know if T. Boone Pickens is a skier, but the oil tycoon reportedly lost more than $30 million last week. I imagine that might cut into one or two of his vacation decisions this coming winter. People like him have lost similar amounts, and upper-crust Vail is likely to see the trickle-down effects of the failing trickle-down economy over the coming months.
All this makes Rob Katz look less like a fat cat and more like a wise cat after he took the helm of Vail Resorts, cranked up their environmental agenda, and announced the Epic Pass. As the Mountain West luxuriates in the political attention surrounding our battleground states this election year, people like Katz seem to be exactly the kind of up-and-coming, forward-looking CEOs who provide a mean, green alternative to the greedy moneylenders at the center of the Wall Street collapse.
With his foresight, Vail and Beaver Creek are likely to be filled with happy, bargain-hunting skiers this winter and beyond. Considering the alternative – empty streets – I’m sure even the most elitist of Vail’s business owners will be happy to welcome a few Front Rangers into their shops: and anyway at this point they’re probably less likely to bounce a check than the Wall Street suits who formerly populated our diamond-studded retail stores.
2 Comments on "Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass is looking like epic brilliance after economic turbulence"
Reid — September 28, 2008
Ain't that the truth. I was one of those locals chomping at the bit to purchase the Epic Pass. Unrestricted for $549, duh! Back in April, I told my friends, " I'm getting a pass, and if V.R.I. thinks there won't be parking issues from Front Range guests and locals alike, they're sorely mistaken." I also told people, "maybe the big wigs at V.R.I., who have done all of the research, know something we don't, I guess we'll find out". Guess the big wigs knew what was going to happen, and like Tom states, it is a brilliant marketing plan to get any and every skier to visit our Happy Valley. Touche Vail Resorts. Reid
Mike — September 29, 2008
This word, "ajar" -- I don't think it means what you think it means. Maybe you meant "agape."
Photo by Dan Davis trekkerphoto.com
On the hunt, part II
September 22, 2008 —
A few yards ahead of me a gray-brown ghost moved through mossy timber. He was huge, with a wide six-point rack, but he made not a single discernable noise as I watched him glide away and walk into even thicker timber, well out of my range.
I don’t know how they do it.
I had been close, very close to that bull elk, but since I don’t have a bull tag the old stud need not have worried. The females of his species escaped me this past week as well, because although I was close, I was never in a position suitable for a shot.
Hunting, as I pointed out last week, can be tough – but it also delivers some of the most sublime moments in life. Walking among a group of elk seems to light the primal flame, to ignite some of the more ancient senses, so that even without bringing one home I had a supremely enjoyable “Part I” of hunting camp.
I also had time to consider the question I asked last week about whether or not humanity “gives back” to the planet from which we so avidly borrow resources, and I think I have an answer.
We don’t, by any kind of moral code, necessarily need to give back. We do, however, need to consume at a rate lower than that of our resources’ replenishment. What I’m saying here is that no matter your stance on environmentalism, sustainability is an absolute necessity to long-term human survival.
It’s simple, but it’s true. And with that deep thought I leave you for another week as I head out into the wilderness for another week off the grid, away from the phone, away from the computer, quietly walking through the woods and letting my mind and feet wander.
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Photo by Dan Davis trekkerphoto.com
On the hunt for Colorado's mighty elk
September 15, 2008 —
There is perhaps no longer-lasting tradition than the tradition of the hunt. It is how our ancestors survived for millennia, long before the modern age of packaged meat and drive-through burgers, and it is a family tradition which still thrives in my family. Even as I write this I am preparing for two weeks of Elk Hunting near Vail.
In Vail’s early days everybody hunted. Rifles and shotguns were fairly common sights on Bridge Street, and tales of the hunt would fill Donovan’s Copper bar in the evenings.
Or so I’ve heard. By the time I got involved in elk hunting I was already 21, and Vail had become much like the rest of the modern world – a place where a mention of hunting is more likely to draw a wide-eyed look of fear, or repulsion, as it is a look of admiration or excitement.
I don’t care what other people think of my hunting, but I will say this: if you don’t hunt, if you’ve never loosed an arrow or pulled the trigger in an effort to bring a wild animal down; or if you’ve never worked a day on a cattle ranch, and seen how a cow becomes a hamburger, then I recommend you become a vegetarian.
It’s not a pretty process. Hunting can be, unfortunately, a very nasty business. Yet that is exactly why I value it. Hunting helps me avoid the illusion that things in this world come easy, or free. When I plug in my iPhone I know it’s powered by coal (see related story here), and when I pick up a burger I know it came from someplace similar to my father-in-law’s cattle operation. I know, when I pull that elk tenderloin out of the freezer, which I butchered myself, exactly where it came from and what it took to bring that meal to my family’s table.
Walking into the supermarket and grabbing a cellophane package of perfectly-trimmed steak is far too simple, far too easy, and it hides a fairly gruesome truth about life on this planet: in order to put energy into your body, it’s gotta come from somewhere else.
If you’re not prepared to understand this on a hand-on level, then you should go vegetarian. I say this because I believe very strongly that people should fully understand the consequences of their actions. Eating a radish is a very, very different thing than eating a hamburger – yet to the modern American it may not seem very different at all.
As I head up on this hunt, I’ll step away from RealVail, from the “grid,” from the cell phone and the computer for almost every day of the next 14 days. I’ll be surrounded by peace and quiet – a strange feeling at first – and I’ll get a chance to look deep into the inner workings of the Holy Cross Wilderness area, a place as primitive as almost anywhere on Earth. I’ll peel back the layers of modern convenience, and gain insight into the most fundamental laws of life on this planet.
When I do so, I find there is a fine balance to life: to eat you must take, but you must also give back.
Human beings do a lot of taking in this world – a lot of consuming. But what are we giving back? It’s a question I don’t know the answer to, but I’ll have plenty of time to consider it over the next few days, and I hope to return with an answer – and an elk – later this week.
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Locals confirm that Vail's climbing spots are clean, well-kept
September 10, 2008 —
I’ll admit that I took the trash talk a little far in my previous blog, but when rubbish is being strewn throughout the wilderness I can’t help but put my mouth into overdrive.
As I reported yesterday, climbers at Rocky Mountain National Park are under fire from Park Rangers who say popular bouldering spots there are being trashed by climbers who fail to clean up after themselves.
Fortunately, local climbers have confirmed that we here in Vail are above such reproach – and we come out looking clean as a whistle (which, as an aside, is an odd phrase, since a whistle isn’t exactly the cleanest item I can immediately think of).
“Around here as far as what I see and what I hear it seems that people are pretty on top of it and if they’re coming across stuff here and there they’re cleaning up after fellow climbers,” said Sean Glackin of Alpine Quest Sports in Edwards.
“Normally climbers are really, really cool about it,” adds climber Aaron Madore. “Everybody packs in, packs out.”
Speaking of packing it in – or packing it in early, I took a few humorous shots at the RMNP Rangers and others in yesterday’s blog which, I hope, were understood as lighthearted and whimsical. The Rangers called me back today and this time I was the one to miss the phone call and, as you can see in the comment section of yesterday’s blog, David Maren of the American Alpine Club was hard at work making the wilderness a cleaner, better place when I tried to call him for a quote on the issue.
Phone tag is still ongoing, but anyway the verdict’s in: a handful of climbers (Front Range riff-raff?) may have made a few errors at Rocky Mountain National, but by and large it seems climbers are environmentally aware, clean, and responsible.
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