Uh oh. Fast Tracks at Powdr resorts is coming

[MissySki]

IIRC, Boyne did a pretty piss-poor job of piloting it. They set up a separate line, didn’t tell anyone about it beforehand and just started letting random kids from the local academy cut the line to “test” the program. Maybe they let day trippers add it onto their day pass(?), but I’m pretty certain there was no notice to season pass holders. Seems like it was set up to get pushback and fail from the start. At least Powdr is releasing it to everyone, and giving notice before the season starts…and if it doesn’t work, I’m sure they’ll drop it.

I’m not sure who was involved in it there tbh. It did also seem like adults from what I’ve seen on other forums from some who participated in it. They kind of framed it that they were asked to be in the pilot, so maybe it was just a certain group of families from that academy too or who were well connected at the resort? They said it was really cringeworthy to be in though lol, I can only imagine. Agreed it doesn’t sound like it was implemented well at all. I guess they had signs up to specify what was happening and that it was only a trial, but I imagine that being a very unpleasant surprise to other guests.

I find some of the racer kids think they can try and pile in and cut everyone regardless of regular lines too. Especially early season, and that doesn’t go over well either. It sure irritates me!

 

[givethepigeye]

Nobody here likes line-cutters, but if they are paying for a ski lesson's by the hour we cut them some slack.

It's not about inequality; it's about being sh*t on.
By cutting into my line, you are making me wait longer. Respect the line!

Fast Pass purchasers will respect “the line“. They are just in a different line iwhich you choose not to participate and the lift operator offers.

 

[Lauren]

I’m not sure who was involved in it there tbh. It did also seem like adults from what I’ve seen on other forums from some who participated in it. They kind of framed it that they were asked to be in the pilot, so maybe it was just a certain group of families from that academy too or who were well connected at the resort? They said it was really cringeworthy to be in though lol, I can only imagine. Agreed it doesn’t sound like it was implemented well at all. I guess they had signs up to specify what was happening and that it was only a trial, but I imagine that being a very unpleasant surprise to other guests.

I’m not sure how how people got involved with it…I always assumed it was people from Gould Academy that were closely connected with the resort, but they may have gone with a more general audience. I do remember learning about the trial for the first time while in line one of those weekends…I was definitely annoyed. With many people not knowing about it beforehand, I can only imagine the backlash those people got in line! That does sound cringeworthy!

 

[François Pugh]

Fast Pass purchasers will respect “the line“. They are just in a different line iwhich you choose not to participate and the lift operator offers.

Sophistry. The line the're in cuts in front of my line and makes me wait longer. How stupid do you think I am? Or better yet, how stupid do the resorts think skiers are?

 

[Scruffy]

The uproar is not about someone getting to the top faster than others. It's about a loss of a social construct that has existed since lift lines were born, at least here in NA, no need to bring up European chaos lift lines. No matter how you got a lift ticket; paid full boat, season pass, discount, gift, whatever; no matter what color skin, gender, race, religion, etc; once you got to the lift it was first come first serve. Everyone politely played by those rules. Ski patrol and lessons were of course the agreed upon exception, for obvious reasons. This is a corporate sponsored loss of this social construct, no less.

In golf, you can't just play through the group in front of you. You have to ask politely, and you may be denied.

In any line que to any venue you don't just walk up to the front of the line and jump in.

These social constructs help us all get through this life a little easier. Else there'd be total anarchy and fist fights left and right.

We live in a rude culture as of late; it wasn't always that way. These little losses are like tiny cuts cutting away at the fabric of society that hold us together.

The fact that this hasn't been too big a deal at one or two example mountains, or that airlines have done this forever, or that people can pay for a lesson they don't need just to get line advantages, or that skiing is privileged persons sport anyway, so just STFU and take it, are all straw men here.

 

[crgildart]

Enhance your calm John Spartans.. If you look at the fine print (I didn't but heard rumors) some of the trams and summit lifts will NOT have a Fast Pass lane. Perhaps someone who actually researched this can chime in with those details..

Louder for those in back.

This made my morning! Thanks for that CSG!

Again, yes it's definitely paying more to push others back a spot behind you but hardly Rosa Parks level oppression..

 

[Wade]

Using a fast pass to cut a line is something that feels a bit conflicting for me.

I grew up in Australia in a lower middle class suburb of Sydney, and I very much developed a "Jack's as good as his master" ethos that is common in that part of the world. I sometimes still have a tough time asking someone to do something for that I could easily do myself (having a bellman carry my bags when I'm walking right beside him is one that stands out), and it's sort of an underlying theme for me in the way I treat people and the way I expect to be treated. That part of my psyche hates the idea of people being able to pay to cut in line in front of me or anyone else.

As I've gotten older though, my outlook on this stuff has changed. I still want people to be treated respectfully and as more or less equals in personal interactions, but the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that the concept of people having equal access to goods and services regardless of income / wealth is ridiculous. As a result of the line of work I've chosen, the effort I put in, the goals I set myself and the decisions I've made along the way, I do better financially than a lot of people. Equally, there's an awful lot of people that do better financially than I do. Why on earth would I expect to have equal access to services or experiences or to material things as someone who makes 10 times what I make? That part of me believes it is entirely logical that people who are willing and able to pay more for a premium experience should be able to do so.

Businesses are generally formed at some level to create wealth for the owners, and if the owners and managers of a ski area think the fast passes are going to add to their revenues and profits (after accounting for additional revenues from fast pass sales and lost revenues from people who don't want to ski there anymore because fast passes exist), of course they're going to do that.

Whether an area does or doesn't have a fast pass system will make zero difference to whether or not I will frequent that ski area. I probably won't buy a fast pass even if they're offered, but who knows, maybe one day that will seem like a good idea to me. In the meantime, the good news is that for people who find the fast pass concept to be morally or ethically objectionable, there are plenty of other places to ski that don't have it. It sucks if you bought a season pass at a POWDR resort and this is truly a deal breaker for you, but there's probably a decent chance you can get your money back and go ski somewhere else if that's the case.

 

[HardDaysNight]

For many years when Powdr owned it PCMR had a Fast Tracks option. One could purchase it with a season pass or add it to a day ticket. So they have some experience with how it works. Vail did away with FT when they took over PCMR ostensibly because it wasn’t available at the other resorts on Epic so couldn’t be added to the pass.

At PCMR, Fast Tracks (which was available at all the major lifts on the mountain) was used pretty lightly. There was never the slightest bitterness on the part of non-FT customers that I saw, even on the busiest days, and I was on the mountain every day of the season for many years. It is true that the lift mazes were properly organized with volunteers directing traffic rather than the cluster they have become now so wait times weren’t ridiculous.

For me the major advantage of the Fast Track system Powdr proposes is the entertainment value threads like this provide where faux-egalitarians rage against the state of the world.

 

[crgildart]

Megapass and local pass skiers are most definitely NOT a historically marginalized group. We're just might be getting a small sample of what it feels like to really be one every day, pretty much everywhere. Impact depends on how popular the program becomes and who well/poorly managed the lift corrals are enforcing the privilege. If you tell an instructor with a group of students or a patrol with a radio to GTFO as they go past you you're done for the day or season. Telling it to a FTP person with nobody to enforce it but the liftee 50 feet away from the altercation will get interesting..

 

[coskigirl]

Enhance your calm John Spartans.. If you look at the fine print (I didn't but heard rumors) some of the trams and summit lifts will NOT have a Fast Pass lane. Perhaps someone who actually researched this can chime in with those details..

Post #195 on this thread has some.

 

[tromano]

So it seems these line cutting programs have at best had minimal impact, but that is not a rationale for expanding them. I don't see how these lead to better user experience or draw more people to ski at powdr destinations, because it doesn't address the fundamental issue of crowding. The program seems to distract from that.

Better to focus limited resources on terrain expansion, trail layout fixes to reduce pinch points and onslope crowding, and lift enhancements.
Heck even going to paid parking or just raising prices for a season pass would have more of an impact on crowding.

 

[Philpug]

This just shows there is no one perfect system.

 

[Lauren]

So it seems these line cutting programs have at best had minimal impact, but that is not a rationale for expanding them. I don't see how these lead to better user experience or draw more people to ski at powdr destinations, because it doesn't address the fundamental issue of crowding. The program seems to distract from that.

In my eyes, this adds to the experience for those that purchase the pass, and doesn't take away from those that don't (at least according to the reports of people at mountains that already have it). I think the second part of that statement is still up for debate...and why we're on page 17 of this thread.

 

[Wade]

So it seems these line cutting programs have at best had minimal impact, but that is not a rationale for expanding them. I don't see how these lead to better user experience or draw more people to ski at powdr destinations, because it doesn't address the fundamental issue of crowding. The program seems to distract from that.

Better to focus limited resources on terrain expansion, trail layout fixes to reduce pinch points and onslope crowding, and lift enhancements.
Heck even going to paid parking or just raising prices for a season pass would have more of an impact on crowding.

I think you're assumption that the reason for doing this to address user experience or crowding is flawed. POWDR is doing this because they think they will generate more revenue from it.

 

[tromano]

In my eyes, this adds to the experience for those that purchase the pass, and doesn't take away from those that don't (at least according to the reports of people at mountains that already have it). I think the second part of that statement is still up for debate...and why we're on page 17 of this thread.

If it enhances the experience of a few by reducing their wait time in line, the it must reduce the experience for those who had to wait longer in line to make room. So in terms of experience metrics its purely zero sum. That is to say no impact. However its an opportunity cost impact which is a loss.

If you want to look at it as winners / losers problem then you might argue that the winners are so happy for cutting the line and saving time and the losers don't care weren't in a hurry anyway. So satisfaction may go up.

However there is plenty of reason to believe that some of the losers are going to basically going to not want to deal with the situation and may opt out, or may act out against the fast passers in lift lines. Thuse leading to reduced satisfaction for all.

 

[tromano]

I think you're assumption that the reason for doing this to address user experience or crowding is flawed. POWDR is doing this because they think they will generate more revenue from it.

The powdr Co_preident said they were doing this to enhance user experience. See the link above.

Eta:
“Unlike our counterparts in other areas of the hospitality and event industry, the ski industry has yet to embrace the concept of providing options for guests to upgrade their experience,” says Wade Martin, co-president at Powdr. “We are exploring the opportunity to solve for our guests greatest pain points by becoming one of the first adventure lifestyle companies to provide upgrades that maximize the on-mountain experience.”

 

[mdf]

I think you're assumption that the reason for doing this to address user experience or crowding is flawed. POWDR is doing this because they think they will generate more revenue from it.

he powdr Co_preident said they were doing this to enhance user experience. See the link above.

Eta:
“Unlike our counterparts in other areas of the hospitality and event industry, the ski industry has yet to embrace the concept of providing options for guests to upgrade their experience,” says Wade Martin, co-president at Powdr. “We are exploring the opportunity to solve for our guests greatest pain points by becoming one of the first adventure lifestyle companies to provide upgrades that maximize the on-mountain experience.”

Well, to enhance the user experience for those paying to upgrade. Not for everyone.

 

[Andy Mink]

adventure lifestyle companies

( I was hoping for a puking emote.)

 

[Slim]

Already a thing in Europe. Difference is -- even at the highest surge -- you're still paying less than 100 euro a day for a lift ticket. And you can often score tickets for a third of that midweek.

Thing is -- at least with surge pricing -- once you're on the mountain everyone is treated the same. We don't need more and more mechanisms to create animosity between skiers on the hill just so corps can squeeze out a few more bucks.

Exactly. I can see the attraction from a business standpoint for the resort owners, but as a skier and human, it just rubs me the wrong way so much.

I work on an elementary school playground, and spend my time telling kids to: “share and be fair” “Take turns, don’t cut ahead of others”

Now, just because someone has more money, they get to be special and jump the line?

One of the things that makes long lines (like when a lift is broken down) more bearable, is the shared sense of “we are in this together”.

Ever notice how a unusual weather event or power outage brings out all the neighbors on your street? And the camaraderie and Co-operation that ensues?

With these measures, skI resorts are actively breaking down this social aspect of skiing.

Yes, we ski for the sport of skiing, but if it is busy enough to have lines, it is busy enough for the social aspect to be a major component of your experience that day.

I was already considering quitting Ikon Pass after this season, this is one more push to go to backcountry skiing , indy (pass) resorts, and Europe.

 

[crgildart]

Just curious, how many folks opposed to this are happy that Deer Valley and others still don't allow snowboard riding?