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Thread: WOOT WOOT! Nukin' in Missoula
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01-28-2023, 11:03 PM #4301
It is bizarre (and entirely consistent with their management style) that they didn't announce to the folks in the Griz line, that they were not loading it due to high wind (hey Freak, remember when that tree fell across the lift cables a hundred feet in front of us?) and potential frostbite (and they were unsure whether they would run Griz at all), while beginning to load the Transporter (cringe, what a weak name).
Once the new lift started loading, the guy in front of me in line got a text from his dad, who'd gone to SB lodge, and learned at the office about the delay in opening, that certainly LaVelle, and likely Griz would not open today. At that point I, and the guy I'd been waiting with, went over to the new lift, and after about ten minutes was on the chair. We shuffled by the folks waiting for Griz, and I told some folks what we'd heard.
Then I skied a few laps on Snowpark, until the lines there got long, then vanished, then I knew that Griz must be loading. So I skied deep un-tracked wind buff down the East side of TV, and saw that there was no line on the Transporter, and a line on Griz, so I did a few more laps off the East side of TV, before finishing with a couple runs off of Griz. Great day at the bowl.
While I have often refuted the utter bullshit some people have posted about Snowbowl's operation, I have never shied away from calling them on their absurdity, and actual failings. It is a source of entertainment that they do so many things so very wrong. I am glad to hear when customers are so offended by the operation that they want to go elsewhere, there are too damn many skiers coming up the road, and I'm fine with the place without all the "improvements" that transplants seem to crave.
I have never been an employee of Snowbowl; I used to work in trade for season passes; I have held season passes at a very busy mainstream ski resort with a paved road; I have a sense of humor, and that's why I can see this as both funny and apt:
As for thinking one is a legend, well everyone loves their own opinions, so much so, that they post them on the internet, and roundly chide those who disagree.
If you want to run a ski area, first have a successful lucrative career, gaining the funds to buy a rinky-dink operation, spend millions improving the place over decades, take on roles in various departments, everywhere from mowing the lawn in the summer, to getting certified as a ski instructor and teaching lessons, stay in the black financially while more than doubling the skiable acreage, and then you have place to tell the guy, who's done all of that, how to run his business. Until then you are just a customer with an opinion at a business that has more customers than they have room to fit in their parking lot. They are not desperate for your business, people are literally lining up to give them money.Last edited by Rasputin; 01-28-2023 at 11:24 PM.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -אלוהים אדירים
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01-29-2023, 02:01 AM #4302
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01-29-2023, 12:50 PM #4303
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01-29-2023, 01:30 PM #4304
Just look at their webcams. Oh wait their webcams don't work. So just look at their social media updates. Oh shoot they haven't updated their inconclusive morning posts and have disabled comments on Instagram. Well, just call them on the phone. Oh damn their voice message is from pre-season December 9th. So just drive up there and see for yourself, duh.
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01-29-2023, 02:01 PM #4305
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01-29-2023, 02:25 PM #4306
What I don't really get about snowbowl is that, with every other small ski hill I've been to, there's just general stoke about skiing. At any hill, large or small, there's gonna be hiccups in the operations. Some more avoidable than others. But small ski hills thrive on positive energy, and at pretty much every small ski hill I've been to, management's #1 public facing task was spreading that positive energy. There's different ways of going about that, but at a bare minimum, there's some level of communication, both to spread the stoke and to head off any discontent with the inevitable hiccups in operations.
Snowbowl, in my experience, does approximately zero of that. There's no stoke flowing from management. The general vibe is "fuck you. Come skiing, I guess." Which is a bummer.
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01-29-2023, 02:41 PM #4307
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01-29-2023, 02:48 PM #4308
Oh, I figured it out: make sure you are doing https not http. The redirect isn't working on my phone. Whatever.
Toast, that quote sums everything up perfectly.
I see why Brad got out of medicine. He wants to keep doing things like it's still the 80s. If you tried to practice medicine like it was the 80s, you could lose your license. Continuing Ed must be terrifying to him.
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01-29-2023, 11:52 PM #4309
Lolo Peak, Great the way it is.
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01-30-2023, 11:24 AM #4310
I got nothing to add about Saturday except that I was able to ski both some of the deepest snow I've ever skied at the Bowl, and also the most unbelievably windsuperduperfucked snow I've ever experienced anywhere. It was truly impressive how impossible it was in spots.
Quite a day. Glad I made the call for the Transporter immediately upon arrival.
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01-30-2023, 12:58 PM #4311
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01-30-2023, 01:23 PM #4312Registered User
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Posts
- 163
The parking lot was empty yesterday, and runs under LaVelle looked like a blank canvas. Good times in the cold!
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01-30-2023, 09:15 PM #4313
I think Snowbowl is Brad Morris's hobby-experiment and he likes to tinker with things, and likes to play with it like a toy set without costing himself money. He is a generally amiable, highly intelligent, and wholly inscrutable character. He goes about things the way he prefers, and is not primarily concerned with the advice of the public. Some customers can't accept this about him, and how it effects the operation. Not everyone is a people person, and not every business owner wants their business run by the customers. Brad gets personal satisfaction out of running the business the way he chooses. People get frustrated when they don't accept that immutable fact.
I guess I've been around long enough to find all the misadventures of the operation as being like elements of a sit-com. I don't get bummed out by it, because I don't expect to be in control of it. Brad may not meet your expectations of bringing the stoke, but he does get up early, every morning to make a daily snow report message in which he is sure to say "Hope to see you up at The Bowl!" He's does it every day, has for many years, never hands off the duty to anyone else, and if you go skiing there, you very well may see him, because he's not just the owner, but a skier who puts in a lot of days.Last edited by Rasputin; 01-30-2023 at 09:53 PM.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -אלוהים אדירים
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01-31-2023, 09:00 PM #4314
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01-31-2023, 11:24 PM #4315
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02-01-2023, 08:24 AM #4316
I don't personally get bummed about it because I don't personally have to deal with it anymore. But I have a lot of friends in missoula that have to deal with it, and they're certainly bummed. Like a friend talking about her women's ski clinic, with 300 women that rolled up to the hill this weekend only to find the mountain was closed because the power was out. Because Brad didn't see fit to tell anyone. Or another friend that parked the better part of a mile up the road on the powder day, only to find that no lifts were spinning because of wind.
And then when people bitch about it on snowbowl's Facebook page, Brad deletes their comments and bans them. You can defend them till you're blue in the face, but there's no getting around the fact that snowbowl is a terribly, terribly run business.
Brad doesn't need to be good at communication. He just needs to realize that he's utterly useless in that department and hire somebody to do it for him.
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02-01-2023, 09:59 AM #4317
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02-01-2023, 10:36 AM #4318
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02-01-2023, 04:08 PM #4319Registered User
- Join Date
- Jan 2020
- Posts
- 81
The comments function on their IG account have also been shut off after all the negative feedback last weekend.
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02-01-2023, 04:47 PM #4320Registered User
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
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- 1,703
Lots of cars today, no real wait for chairs before noon. However, as I drove down there had to be 30 cars or more driving up. Parking was close to full as I left.
Heads up for Fri-Sun. Mogul competition, Friday is practice, comps are the weekend. I'd expect parking and the base area to be problematic (I was told this schedule by a coach).
I skied like shit today. First 3 runs and each had a crash in which I either released a heel or went head over heels. I couldn't find my balance and headed home early before I hurt myself.
Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk
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02-01-2023, 08:55 PM #4321
But he doesn't need to realize anything, he keeps doing what he thinks needful, or interesting, and he keeps getting bigger crowds, regardless of how many folks are offended by, or frustrated at his way of management.
This has been an inside joke among SB employees for decades.I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -אלוהים אדירים
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02-03-2023, 10:54 AM #4322
It got up to 42 at the bottom of Griz yesterday, much of the snow was effected, we'll see how badly today.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -אלוהים אדירים
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02-03-2023, 12:43 PM #4323
If their business model is so good, why do they still close during the week after Presidents' Day Weekend?
Ps, popped my covid cherry. I'm doing ok, just chills and aches. If you were in the bar Wednesday around lunchtime, you might wanna test yourself.
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02-03-2023, 08:33 PM #4324
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02-04-2023, 09:20 AM #4325Registered User
- Join Date
- Jan 2022
- Posts
- 1,623
Snowbowl is at least partially on the Lolo NF operating under a special use permit right?
So, it’s a little more complicated than “dude runs it how he wants to”.
If people don’t like it there is a Supervisors Office managing the permit that has a mailbox.
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