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Vail Resorts ends printed trail maps at all its locations

Eric@ict

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Yes to boot shims! We found some on eBay for Breckenridge for $1.50 last summer and bought a couple. Turned one into a picture. Kind of miss them now, although I never used them. I always figured I could find the bottom of the hill if I kept my skis point downhill.
 

Wendy

Resurrecting the Oxford comma
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A lazy decision in the guise of “environmental responsibility.” A paper trail map, opened up, gives the viewer perspective on the entire mountain that a trail map image on a smartphone simply cannot. Then there’s the issue of cell phone battery life and cell service, not to mention the threat of dropping one’s cell phone somewhere. Maps fold up easily and fit in small pockets and don’t require batteries. Also, why require somebody to have a cell phone to access a trail map?????

There’s such a thing as environmentally responsible paper products. VR could’ve put the time in for some out-of-the-box thinking and sourced recycled paper and offered creative options for its customers to recycle their maps. Heck, I used to collect trail maps. They were works of art. There even is a coffee table book on trail maps!
 

dbostedo

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I will say, once they started putting trail maps on the safety bars, I used the paper maps much less.
I love trail maps on the safety bars! And at the top of each lift. I tend to use those a lot more than either a phone or paper map.

But I also liked having a paper map at lunch to look at where I've skied and am going to ski, with time and room to unfold it.
 

Philpug

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Plus….trail maps for me used to be souvenirs!
I remember being on family ski trips and sitting around the table after dinner with trail maps out and we would point out the trails we took and the ones we wanted to take the next day. It was a big part of family bonding on the trips.

aaaaand we end up on our phones again.....
They want you to use their app. This is just another way to push you there.
 

Tricia

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I was trying to remember the last time I actually pulled a trail map out to look at it while skiing.
I tend to look for the big trail map at the top of the lift and get some perspective of where I am.
And I've never found the phone apps to be very useful, in part because I can't see without my reading glasses and in part because it often takes time to load the map.


I think the last time I got a trail map was to take it back to a ski house at the end fo the day to talk over where we were going to ski the next day.
 

cosmoliu

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Central CA Coast
I haven't really used trail maps on the hill since my cataract surgery about 4 years ago. It's just too much hassle to get out reading glasses. And those safety bar maps are even less useful to me. Fortunately, in the last 10 years or so I've settled into skiing about 5 hills which I know well enough to not really need a map much anymore. And when I need to, I check out the maps at the top of each lift.
 

Tricia

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I haven't really used trail maps on the hill since my cataract surgery about 4 years ago. It's just too much hassle to get out reading glasses. And those safety bar maps are even less useful to me. Fortunately, in the last 10 years or so I've settled into skiing about 5 hills which I know well enough to not really need a map much anymore. And when I need to, I check out the maps at the top of each lift.
That's me. I just can't be bothered with digging out a map, my reading glasses and fiddling with stuff.
This doesn't mean that I'm for or against vail nixing maps, just that I haven't found myself using them much for a while.
I do like the giant map at the top of the lifts.
 

Joby Graham

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That's me. I just can't be bothered with digging out a map, my reading glasses and fiddling with stuff.
This doesn't mean that I'm for or against vail nixing maps, just that I haven't found myself using them much for a while.
I do like the giant map at the top of the lifts.
Now there will be 10-deep crowd looking at and puzzling over every big map at the top of the lifts.
 

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