Crystal Mountain Becomes Alterra

[powder_to_the_people]

After I uncorked my fhine whine to Mr. DeBerry, I just received:

We’ve stopped all day ticket sales on peak reservation days. We do have a few days (specifically this weekend) where tickets went on sale long before we knew that Thanksgiving (an otherwise minimally attended weekend) was going to blow up as much as it did. As soon as we saw ticket sales and reservations rising, we cut off the sales of tickets, but there were indeed too many out there as yesterday showed us. We certainly expected more than most Thanksgiving weekends, but it’s difficult to describe how much more demand we’ve experienced when compared to anytime in our history. I can assure you that, nine days into a season full of new challenges and surprises, we’re dialing it in and finding our balance.

Thanks for your patience as we do so. Our peak days are dedicated to passholders first from this point forward and I think you’ll notice the difference.

Perfect. So that means that by the end of the weekend, when pictures of the base area being overcrowded for 5 days straight are all over the internet, Inslee will have reasonable ground to shut the resort.

[The AD]

I wonder what John Kircher thinks of all this...

[PNWbrit]

The scanners may be attached to one database and the reservations on another. That would make the ability to detect a reservation less than synchronous.

I built just such a system for office access for locations around the country that require an online reservation, limit on numbers, manager's consent and submission of wellness/covid19 precautions certification.

It also automatically generates an email requesting feedback/concerns on each particular visit

But we are talking about Alterra who let us not forget accidentally published the page announcing purchase of Crystal before the deal was done.

[ptavv]

how hard can it be to link the scanners to the reservation system. Seems pretty easy to me. They can figure out if I'm using my basic pass on blackout dates or beyond my quota of 5, but not if I don't have a reservation?

This may be rather technically challenging. It's easy to have pre-set dates for types of passes that a scanner will recognize (assuming it knows the correct date), it doesn't even need internet connectivity to do it, just a small-ish database of pass types and restrictions.

A live-updating, ever changing central database for the scanner to check against (not to mention that the Crystal passes and the Ikon passes use two separate databases that don't talk to one another) requires high bandwidth connectivity (to make the query fast) and would be pretty challenging to computer up (can't even just dump the reservation file at 8am or so to avoid its dynamic nature, because on low-use days people can make a reservation from the parking lot).

I'm totally unsurprised that they just do a post-hoc audit and they send nasty grams. Particularly with how many challenges there have been with people thinking they have a reservation when they don't and driving up there (i.e. lots of people are showing up without reservations but in good faith).

The stuff about people coming home from a day of using their reservation, not being able to book a new one, canceling the day they used, then getting a nasty gram? That's 100% on Alterra / Crystal because that is literally one "if" statement in the email generator code that would take less than 5 minutes to write if you had access to the code base.

I built just such a system for office access for locations around the country that require an online reservation, limit on numbers, manager's consent and submission of wellness/covid19 precautions certification.

It also automatically generates an email requesting feedback/concerns on each particular visit

But we are talking about Alterra who let us not forget accidentally published the page announcing purchase of Crystal before the deal was done.

Don't forget that Crystal's in-house reservation system is so non-existant that they're using Eventbrite. I can't imagine there's an API to connect an Eventbrite database to their pass scanners, much less a dynamic real time updating one.

[ptavv]

Crystal was decidedly less crowded today, for what it's worth. My kiddo only made it until 11:45 before she was done for the day, but driving down F-lot was totally empty.

The whole base situation with the firepits being reserved for restaurant patrons and there being nowhere to, oh I don't know, warm up a 5 year old, besides your vehicle, which can't be parked particularly close makes it really hard to get kids stoked on skiing, which sucks.

It's weird that any restaurant in Seattle or Tacoma with sidewalk space or a porch owns more portable outdoor heaters than Crystal Mountain seems to.

[XavierD]

It's weird that any restaurant in Seattle or Tacoma with sidewalk space or a porch owns more portable outdoor heaters than Crystal Mountain seems to.

Well the restaurants are generally owned and operated by individuals who can actually plan and forecast needs based on anticipated demand based on historical data and anticipated sales. Crystal clearly can't do this with actual sales data in hand.

[jacob_dbu]

What if they were to open up a bunch of ticketing locations and just switched all ticketing to "pick it up before you ride". They scan your pass and it automatically checks the reservation database. Then they could easily check if you have a reservation dynamically and boot you if not. It would also be a good way to figure out a safe capacity because if a ticket window can't handle everyone then it's probably too much.

[ptavv]

What if they were to open up a bunch of ticketing locations and just switched all ticketing to "pick it up before you ride". They scan your pass and it automatically checks the reservation database. Then they could easily check if you have a reservation dynamically and boot you if not. It would also be a good way to figure out a safe capacity because if a ticket window can't handle everyone then it's probably too much.

Their will-call situation has been an absolute catastrophe with lines that extend so far they have to have people herding them out of the shuttle drop off zone. Like XavierD said above, it is a sensible idea that should be able to be accomplished by a group of motivated high schoolers, but the MBAs running Crystal couldn't manage it.

Though the will-call situation makes me supremely skeptical that they'd have the efficiency to deal with all the pass holders to check reservations. Maybe if they made kiosks where you scanned your pass and it printed a day ticket if you had a reservation it would work.

[Buster Highmen]

They scan your pass and it automatically checks the reservation database.

As mentioned, given the wrong choices, matching the pass database with the reservation mechanism could be really clumsy unless the databases could "talk" with one another.

If, in the perfect world, had they hosted everything on some mysql databases or made some other sensible interoperable choices , that would work.

But the reservation implementation doesn't seem to be thought out.

[jacob_dbu]

As mentioned, given the wrong choices, matching the pass database with the reservation mechanism could be really clumsy unless the databases could "talk" with one another.

If, in the perfect world, had they hosted everything on some mysql databases or made some other sensible interoperable choices , that would work.

But the reservation implementation doesn't seem to be thought out.

Does anything seem to be thought out?

[brown9]

This is depressing. I hope I can get lucky later in the season and things are worked out before the whole thing gets shut down due to inadequate planning and care of the product. Ten day forecast is drier so maybe most kooks will take up golf again and gtfo of “f lot” which should be an omen to our current state.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[oftpiste]

I wonder what John Kircher thinks of all this...

Doubt he gives two fucks. 17 million makes a lot of concerns disappear. He's probably very stoked to have gotten out with a pile of money pre-covid.

[The AD]

Doubt he gives two fucks. 17 million makes a lot of concerns disappear. He's probably very stoked to have gotten out with a pile of money pre-covid.

That's what I'm thinking. He's probably glad to not be steering the ship these days. Does his wife still work there?

[neutrinoone]

Just canceled a res for tomorrow as Sun opened. Go grab it!

[Deebased]

Perfect. So that means that by the end of the weekend, when pictures of the base area being overcrowded for 5 days straight are all over the internet, Inslee will have reasonable ground to shut the resort.

Inslee only fucks small businesses over.

[2Harsh]

Crystal's not the only one with problems. Epic Black Friday fail at Snocrummy.

Summit at Snoqualmie


@SummitSnow411














Regrettably, our season pass launch went far from planned this morning, causing much more than just an inconvenience for many of you that were waiting to purchase a pass. We know the wait and issues with the new online store were extremely frustrating, and for that we are sorry.

[oftpiste]

Went for the afternoon shift at Dweebus yesterday. Arriving at 12:30-ish all the parking was full but A and F lot, including the new (?) lot[s] across the road from F. Our first thought was "this is reduced capacity?"

Crowd was pretty thick and lines medium length but took a minute to get through due to minimized loading. Chinook line was loading on the wrong side and the crowds seemed smaller than the huge number of cars would suggest.

[The AD]

A lot less carpooling than a normal year.

[::: :::]

I had been wondering about that situation

more cars w/ fewer carpools

[frorider]

Lol, maggot. Alterra Mountain Corporation is not small business.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

That’s the joke, Einstein.

[XavierD]

Likely also a lot more folks are driving to Crystal and not using the lifts too. If you thought everyone had gotten into touring before this year, you’d be wrong. Plenty of people who didn’t kill themselves on their brand new mountain bikes have gotten a MyFirstTouring(TM) setup this year too.

[TripleT]

Been away from the forums for sometime, so my apologies if this has been discussed. But it’s important...how the hell do I get my DDK and crew reports now that TAY site gone to shit?!?!

[snoqpass]

Been away from the forums for sometime, so my apologies if this has been discussed. But it’s important...how the hell do I get my DDK and crew reports now that TAY site gone to shit?!?!

Old dudes in Descente suits talking about soup is boring

[neutrinoone]

Likely also a lot more folks are driving to Crystal and not using the lifts too. If you thought everyone had gotten into touring before this year, you’d be wrong. Plenty of people who didn’t kill themselves on their brand new mountain bikes have gotten a MyFirstTouring(TM) setup this year too.

Click Community, Click Forum, Scroll to bottom for Lift Accessed Reports.

[neutrinoone]

Been away from the forums for sometime, so my apologies if this has been discussed. But it’s important...how the hell do I get my DDK and crew reports now that TAY site gone to shit?!?!

Click Community, Click Forum, Scroll to bottom for Lift Accessed Reports.