CO & OR Governors Say Ski Areas Could Reopen by Memorial Day

Seems like A-Basin is enough of a shitshow when they are one of two areas open. It would be hard to prevent crowds when they are only place open after everyone in CO has been closed for over 7 weeks. And since they are on a state highway that needs to remain open for trucks that can't use the tunnel, with a lot of places to park or drop people off, it would be much harder to prevent people from going there compared to Mt Baldy.

In other news Bachelor and Timberline could re-open. See https://www.wweek.com/outdoors/2020/05/ ... to-follow/ which does not have any details on reopening dates.
 
Tseeb's link above is broken. This one works: https://katu.com/news/local/oregon-reop ... ing-resume

Timberline's update: https://www.timberlinelodge.com/coronavirus-updates Since Timberline operates most of the summer, I think it's safe to say it will reopen sometime in the next few weeks. Logistics are similar to Baldy: Daytrippable from Portland, so no need to offer services at Timberline Lodge.

Mt. Bachelor's page contains no reference to yesterday's governor announcement: https://www.mtbachelor.com/conditions-report/
Bachelor SHOULD reopen but given POWDR Corp's track record I would be pleasantly surprised if it happens. I'm guessing Tseeb would join me for a road trip there.

Anyone who reopens will need to do something similar to Baldy, not allow anyone into the parking lot without a season ticket or an advance reservation. A-Basin I suspect will require advance reservations for everyone because there are so many Ikon passholders.

Within a month I'm likely to take a road trip to Florida to visit Liz, who is taking care of her mother. With friends I can visit in Colorado and Kansas I could easily swing by A-Basin if the timing is right. But the earliest possible opening May 23 is normally well past the date Pali and Zuma are closed for wet snow instability. This will result in qualitatively less interesting skiing than my 3 days at Baldy. I'd be much more excited about Bachelor reopening.
 
ABasin and others attempting to open highlights the difference between attitudes in the US and some other countries. It certainly appears your nation has a 'roll the sleeves up and get back to normal activities' mentality.
Here in Australia where we have a whopping 6875 confirmed covid cases and 97 covid deaths in a country as geographically large as the USA and we're still very much 'closed'. Some state government authorities here have suggested there is a low likelihood that our ski areas will open this season - which starts at the end of June and runs until the end of September.
I can't help but feel the right pace of the resumption of normal activities may lie between the two extremes that is Australia and the US. Time will tell I guess.
 
I believe any ski area trying to re-open this year (including Baldy) are really just doing it as a publicity stunt. In Baldy's case, I think it was a combination of marketing and frustration with the system allowing 'golf courses to open, so why cant we'. There is very little profitability to re-open the lifts this time of year, especially with limited to no lodging and/services. And no, they're not really doing it "for the public".

*Timberline would be somewhat of an exception.

Opening A-Basin would be a big mistake, IMO. I think the risk far outweighs the attention they're attempting to get.

I'm not sure how I feel about the risks at Bachelor, but again... bottom line, this is more about the novelty than anything else.
 
Australia case counts and deaths are so low that it should be able to reopen with aggressive contact tracing and quarantine of those exposed. I think that’s what’s happening in NZ. You will also have to continue keeping us pesky foreigners out.

So I think Aussie and NZ ski areas could open, but they would be unavailable for Patrick to keep his streak going. :-(

The US is still way behind the curve with testing, so lots of guesswork here. I’m at Adam’s in San Diego now. Beaches here are open to walking, running, swimming, surfing but not to sitting/loitering in one place. Parking lots are mostly closed.

FYI last week I saw a news clip of Bondi Beach in Sydney reopening.

tseeb":14cj4hr2 said:
"Palmer lift — a summer-season mainstay — sustained excessive ice damage over the winter and isn’t yet ready to go."
Timberline at this time of year and later is close to a complete waste of time without Palmer. Timberline faces south and the lower lifts are relatively flat. Without salting, you would barely be able to move.
 
Tony Crocker":2b4sjj64 said:
Australia case counts and deaths are so low that it should be able to reopen with aggressive contact tracing and quarantine of those exposed. I think that’s what’s happening in NZ. You will also have to continue keeping us pesky foreigners out.

So I think Aussie and NZ ski areas could open, but they would be unavailable for Patrick to keep his streak going. :-(

The US is still way behind the curve with testing, so lots of guesswork here. I’m at Adam’s in San Diego now. Beaches here are open to walking, running, swimming, surfing but not to sitting/loitering in one place. Parking lots are mostly closed.

FYI last week I saw a news clip of Bondi Beach in Sydney reopening.

I'll happily sub for Patrick if our hills open to the public. First priority is to see if our state borders open before I can book flights to Canberra or Sydney.
 
EMSC":1v9u3kt2 said:
Beartooth basin plans to open as planned...
May 30

I sent Timberline an e-mail inquiring about the Palmer lift.

As for A-Basin, I'm sure they will be ready with a plan if the state permits. But for now, here's the latest comment on the subject from a poster on Al's Blog:
The chance of reopening has moved from the 23rd and is now after the 25th, which is just in time to pass the long weekend, seems like the clock is being run out. Lucy is yanking the football again.
With a very average season in terms of snowfall, A-Basin wouldn't be that likely to get much past a week into June.
 
Timberline re-opening tomorrow, but it does sound like it will only be Stormin' Norman and Magic Mile lifts. They opened for reservations at 9 AM and according to post at https://www.pugski.com/threads/timberli ... ost-484137 they were all gone at 9:02.

Bachelor posted the following on Facebook:
Mt. Bachelor is thrilled to offer 2019/20 passholders (Outplay 365, Full Season, Midweek, 12-Day, 4-Day) an opportunity for spring turns before we wrap the winter season and open the mountain for uphill travel. Midweek passes will be active all 9 days. No day tickets are available.

What does a reopening look like? 9 days of snow sliding fun from Saturday, May 16 through Sunday, May 24. Limited to 500 PASSHOLDERS ONLY per day. Daily reservations and check-in prior to parking are required, no food & beverage or lodge services besides bathrooms (which we will clean hourly). Maximum two (2) guests for chair, facemasks, eyewear, and gloves are required in lift lines, boarding and on chairlifts - no exceptions. All guests are expected to follow new safety and physical distancing guidelines in place to maintain the safety of our staff, guests and community.
 
"You will not be allowed to ski without both your reservation and your pass. If you are party of 2 people, we suggest you print out the confirmation page twice, one for each person.

Please only book if you intend to come. Reservations are limited; do not take a space from someone else if you won’t be skiing or riding."

I thought I may as well practice trying to a get reservation to go skiing even though I'm not likely to drive 17 hrs to ski blue runs. Maybe somebody with a plane and an Ikon pass would give me a ride if I let them use the second reservation.

Website couldn't handle the traffic. I went to https://store.arapahoebasin.com/#/spring-skiing at 7 PM MDT and got following errors:

The specified CGI application encountered an error and the server terminated the process.

Then HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

Also got 500 - The request timed out.
The web server failed to respond within the specified time.


A few minutes later they updated page to say We are experiencing a high amount of traffic, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please hold tight as we are actively working on the issue.
 
Latest update says Due to high demand the online store is currently down and we are not able to take reservations. We will have a new system up and running by Tuesday, May 26. Please check back midday for more information.
 
Note to tseeb: If you're going to drive that far, I think you'll find Beartooth Basin far more interesting. And no pressure for tickets AFAIK.

A-Basin is on the way for me driving to Florida via other stops in Kansas and Missouri. I am not surprised by the system crashes as the supply/demand equation for A-Basin is probably worse than for the Oregon areas. So I'm not that optimistic about getting to A-Basin. Maybe next week when I'm in Colorado will be a bit less crazy than this week.
 
Crystal Mountain also re-opening on June 1. See https://www.crystalmountainresort.com/t ... ing-skiing

While Crystal is 'only 13.5 hrs and under 900 miles from home, and RV friendly, I doubt that I will be going that far in the next month. I left my City for the first time since 3/14 yesterday having some essential business to take care of in Santa Cruz Mountains, then Santa Cruz. We bought take-out Thai and planned to eat it overlooking Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, but all the parking along coast was blocked off forcing everyone to park in neighborhood. We found a 10 minute spot with a view of Monterey Bay and ate our Thai food while drinking beer from a local brewery we bought through the window of my SUV.

I thought I saw that Beartooth doesn't want people to go there that are not from MT or WY. Would my camper make it there? I know Going-to-the-Sun road has overhanging rocks that prevent RV travel. Even the six miles of CA Hwy 9 I drove yesterday between Felton and Santa Cruz would be tough to stay in your lane in an RV. Beartooth is about an hour longer drive than A-Basin and the shortest route has the advantage of visiting Yellowstone in the Summer, which I've never done. But it's not on my pass and probably mostly above my wife's comfort zone.
 
Going-to-the-Sun road is in Glacier National Park near Canada. Beartooth Pass is out the NE exit from Yellowstone. Unfortunately the northern half of Yellowstone is still closed so you must drive up the pass from the northern Red Lodge side. Beartooth Pass is 10,947 feet, by far the highest road that far north but does not have overhanging rocks.

Patrick and I skied Crystal July 1, 2012, probably in conditions that will be similar to the next two weeks: http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards ... hp?t=10255
Crystal details: https://www.crystalmountainresort.com/t ... skiing-faq
Everyone, Ikon passholder or not, is in the same boat for making a reservation. If you get one and you don't have some kind of prepaid ticket, then you pay for your ticket. Reservations are for a time window like Baldy. That's probably because access to the Green Valley skiing is via a gondola, sort of like chair 1 being Baldy's access to the skiing on Thunder.

A-Basin's demand is so high that its IT can't handle a sequential reservation system. So they shifted to a lottery system. The May 27 lottery was 3-5PM May 26. All other days will have lotteries between 7-9PM two days in advance. There is a lot of unease on the PugSki A-Basin thread: https://www.pugski.com/threads/a-basin- ... ost-487617

On one hand, Al at A-Basin is doing what he can, not making much $$ from this and deserves to be cut some slack. OTOH:
nay":130u532j said:
Do you really want a glimpse into skiing 20/21? The global skiing model is now built on unrestricted access purchased through commitments to mega passes. Oops. Sometimes a technology problem is just masquerading as a commitments you can’t keep problem.
With the exception of A-Basin the rationed reservation model has worked OK for late spring season for us nutcases. But what happened at A-Basin is what we have to look forward to if this level of rationing is required during winter months in 2020-21. It may be a golden age for the under-the-radar q/jamesdeluxe areas. I'm good with driving to those type areas if that's what it takes for a quality ski experience.
 
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