BC's Premier wants to shut down provincial borders. What does that mean for Ski Hills

[Shorty_J]

Moreso than in years past?

Also can we not just agree that tourist travel AND local social gatherings are both against current guidelines and neither should be encouraged?

Also the tourists coming in vs. locals leaving argument seems funny to me....sure locals might head out to Alberta Costcos to stock up on cheap ‘essential’ items, but surely the number of people doing that pales in comparison to the number of tourists flowing into town.

Aren't indoor social gatherings actually against the law vs a guideline? They both probably contribute but they're not equal. I'm sure the fact that you have restaurants open contributes as well.

Hell... the article about Fernie explicitly said its from community spread and NOT from travellers coming to the area.

And there's a big difference between a group of guys from 8 different homes going to a resort to ski and party (i was invited on one of these trips and I declined and told them its not appropriate), and 1 family group going to a ski hill for the day together.

A more meaningful measure would be to shut down hotels... or require proof that you all live together to get the rental.

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[Shorty_J]

I

I see groups of older visitors ,that should know better, tailgating at the hill after the day. No masks and obviously not roomates. Theyre the demographic helping to bring it to our restaurants.



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Yeah this is a huge problem. That's the part that should be addressed. See my previous post.

I saw locals doing that at KH as well.

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[gearhunter]

Moreso than in years past?

Also can we not just agree that tourist travel AND local social gatherings are both against current guidelines and neither should be encouraged?

Also the tourists coming in vs. locals leaving argument seems funny to me....sure locals might head out to Alberta Costcos to stock up on cheap ‘essential’ items, but surely the number of people doing that pales in comparison to the number of tourists flowing into town.

Yes, more so then in the past There are way more people in town skiing then in previous years in my opinion. Maybe not everyday, like me, but on powder days? Yup. Parking lots are jammed. And lift lines are long due to Covid protocols. People from AB and elsewhere who would come a few times a winter and rent out their places are either staying here and working remotely or coming more often. The large number of working professionals that have come from various cities in Canada to ski and work and avoid Covid has put a huge strain on an already horrible housing situation. 1000 bucks for a bedroom in a shared house? Really? This is the new normal in Fernie.

Yes we should discourage tourist travel AND local social gatherings?

Yes there are far, far, far more people coming into the Valley than going to Costco in Alberta.

[teamdirt]

Yes there are far, far, far more people coming into the Valley than going to Costco in Alberta.

What’s the difference Tourists bring the virus to you or you come here to where the virus is....

Same shit...

Same risk!

No difference...

[gearhunter]

Hell... the article about Fernie explicitly said its from community spread and NOT from travellers coming to the area.

That was our mayor talking out of her ass and pandering to whomever. I guess it just appeared out of thin air, da Covid, magically and then spread. She can also fuck off.

[teamdirt]

That was our mayor talking out of her ass and pandering to whomever. I guess it just appeared out of thin air, da Covid, magically and then spread. She can also fuck off.

https://www.thegoldenstar.net/news/a...id-19-cluster/

Bc health seems to identify it as community spread

Guess that 1 idiot that took the risk to come to Costco in Alberta thinking it was safe brought it back to the community....

[gearhunter]

https://www.thegoldenstar.net/news/a...id-19-cluster/

Bc health seems to identify it as community spread

Guess that 1 idiot that took the risk to come to Costco in Alberta thinking it was safe brought it back to the community....

We went from some community spread (Jan.21) to full on outbreak (Jan.27), 91+ known cases in January so far. 44 in the last 2 weeks I've been told. Lots of people on quarantine, restaurants and businesses shuttered because they didn't have staff. You'll hear about it in lift lines with people saying hello to each other and bitching about quarantine. Idiots.

For context I believe it was 59 total positive cases for all of 2020 in Fernie.

On 21st, Dr. Ron Clark came out and said "Over 20 per cent of the tests we’re doing now are returning as positive and it’s across quite a wide swath of our population so this is obviously worrisome."

IH came out and immediately said that Dr. Clark was wrong, there was no issue with high numbers. Then not even a week later (on the 27th) IH declared a large community cluster? Doesn't make sense.

People in town are not happy with the way Dr. Clark was brushed off by IH.

Anyway, yah some local asshole from Fernie most likely brought it back into the Valley from Alberta for all I know. Some creepy coal miner or greasy dirtbag licking toilet seats at the Costco...

Personally I know that it came into the Valley from northern BC at the end of November because I got quarantined because of it...

[gwat]

What’s the difference Tourists bring the virus to you or you come here to where the virus is....

Same shit...

Same risk!

No difference...

Same hazard? Yes.
Same risk? No.

The number of locals headed to costco vs. the swarms of people coming to shred pow seem to be on completely different magnitudes.

You can air a 30ft cheezegrater once and chances are you’ll be totally fine.
Air that same cheezegrater a thousand times and chances are you’ll probably fuk yourself up at least once...

[teamdirt]

Same hazard? Yes.
Same risk? No.

The number of locals headed to costco vs. the swarms of people coming to shred pow seem to be on completely different magnitudes.

You can air a 30ft cheezegrater once and chances are you’ll be totally fine.
Air that same cheezegrater a thousand times and chances are you’ll probably fuk yourself up at least once...

Strongly disagree. No difference. Costco is as busy as a store gets. Going to a zone with high numbers of Covid touching carts, products bagging, boxing and being inside with them in a air controlled environment is way higher risk than a bunch of outsiders coming to your ski hill, skiing outside and staying within there bubble....way less direct contacts....

[pano-dude]

Right. But you don't want to wear a mask.

Allrighty then... good for you guys. I wonder if everyone who hasn't stayed in town will all fess up so we get a representative set of data... not likely.

You've convinced me... I'll honour your wishes... no BC for me.

Let's hope you guys can all summon the same level of energy towards getting your locals to behave so we can all get back to normal.

Pano: sorry to hear about your wife's granny, and your mom... that sucks.


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I don't want to wear a mask but I do, thanks for the thoughts of my family. This bullshit sucks for everyone.

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[gwat]

Strongly disagree. No difference. Costco is as busy as a store gets. Going to a zone with high numbers of Covid touching carts, products bagging, boxing and being inside with them in a air controlled environment is way higher risk than a bunch of outsiders coming to your ski hill, skiing outside and staying within there bubble....way less direct contacts....

So none of the pow slayers are going to the grocery store/restaurants/shopping while they are in town?

[teamdirt]

For the most part not really...most people are staying clear...Bringing there own food/drinks and brown bagging.

[Shorty_J]

So none of the pow slayers are going to the grocery store/restaurants/shopping while they are in town?

The only necessity in what you listed is the grocery store.

If someone from out of town is shopping or going to restaurants while in your town, the problem is that you have shops and restaurants open for non essential service.

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[garyfromterrace]

Personally I know that it came into the Valley from northern BC at the end of November because I got quarantined because of it...

Shut your whore mouth! I know for a fact that we are immune to the covids up here and that masks are useless and the pandemic was caused by satanist baby eating democrats from south of the border.

Seriously though, I'm not impressed by our numbers here. We glided through the first 6 months of this with very few cases, now it seems we're struggling to get below 60 new cases/day. Granted it's for the entire northern health region which is massive geographically, but not so population wise. In fact per capita we're not doing great at all. First nation communities around here haven't been doing a great job at all, certainly reasons are cultural and economic but it's no excuse. We also have some pretty big projects going on in our health region (which includes the Kitimat area and north eastern BC), which involves folks from all over flying in - there's going to be fuck ups.

Mask compliance at our ski hill has been close to 100% since opening day (of course there are minor innocent gaffs, and I have mentioned to a couple of people in lift lines to pull up their mask or buff to cover their nose. The mountain spent a bunch of money updating their payment system, re-structuring the lodge interior and seating to make things safer. Further, because there are no organized other sports to speak of, numbers on powder days have been ridiculous and they've been capping day ticket sales. Since xmas break, things have settled down a bit though.

What I'm not too pleased about are the out of province plates I'm seeing in the parking lot. Though my sample size is small (there was just the one time I paid attention on the walk back to the lower parking lot), I did see 3 plates from the yukon, 2 from quebec, 3 from alberta. I didn't key the cars but I wasn't too impressed... who knows though maybe they had good reasons to be there... I probably should have keyed them just to be safe.

[garyfromterrace]

I don't want to wear a mask but I do, thanks for the thoughts of my family. This bullshit sucks for everyone.

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Good. My wife has deep roots there and knows lots of older folks that would be considered high risk just because of their age. I have good friends who live there. It sucks, but better to be part of the solution than the problem.

[XXX-er]

key all the cars and let god sort it out

we did real good

until we didnt

its cuz of fucking exponents G

[unclebill]

There is a solution and I suspect we're not far from it now. And its a real simple way out for the politicians, just shut it all down. As the rhetoric heats up, talking about keying vehicles even if in jest or anything that suggests possible violence just makes it that much simpler. Don't think there not paying attention to what's being said here.

[garyfromterrace]

There is a solution and I suspect we're not far from it now. And its a real simple way out for the politicians, just shut it all down. As the rhetoric heats up, talking about keying vehicles even if in jest or anything that suggests possible violence just makes it that much simpler. Don't think there not paying attention to what's being said here.

Right you are, Bonnie Henry follows this thread along with the northern BC Stoke Conditions thread intently. She also lurks me on FB and is one of my Instagram followers. Local kids flock around me at the ski hill looking for sage advice on safe backcountry travel and angulation technique while racing super G. C'mon uncle Bill (if that's your REAL name), get real.

[Shorty_J]

Local kids flock around me at the ski hill looking for sage advice on safe backcountry travel and angulation technique while racing super G.

This part is probably true.

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[XXX-er]

someone handed me a free beer in the plot and everybody was waving at/talking to G like he was the mayor or sumthin

[garyfromterrace]

This part is probably true.

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Hyperbole!

someone handed me a free beer in the plot and everybody was waving at/talking to G like he was the mayor or sumthin

They're nice to me because I probably owe them money.

[Shorty_J]

Oh you're just being humble.

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[XXX-er]

i'm pretty sure he owes me money

[Peyto]

There is a solution and I suspect we're not far from it now. And its a real simple way out for the politicians, just shut it all down. As the rhetoric heats up, talking about keying vehicles even if in jest or anything that suggests possible violence just makes it that much simpler. Don't think there not paying attention to what's being said here.

The more I think about this issue, and as shitty as it is, the more I realize how irresponsible it likely was to open resorts. I think it's fairly well established that without non-essential travel no resorts (yes, even Banff) can operate anywhere near full capacity. Yet both BC and Alberta opened them up while still having half-assed travel advisories.

[splitlit]

First of all, the number one contributor to spread is indoor social gatherings. I think we can all agree on that, our health authorities have states as such and there's plenty of data to back that up. You can also use Alberta as an example where limiting those gatherings has actually had a substantial decrease in number of cases.

Second, skiing in itself is not going to spread covid, especially given all the masking/not sharing gondolas and various other protocols. The most concerning thing to me while skiing is eating indoors (even though things have been spaced out very well), which is why I enjoy my lunch on the lift. During the whole escalation and de-escalation of cases in Alberta, our ski resorts have been open and operating with few issues. Yes some people will get covid, that's unavoidable. What is avoidable is that someone going to a party and getting 20 other people sick (ie. Big White). That's the biggest problem... compounded with the fact that the demographic that's likely to spread the virus is the one least affected by it. So I simply don't understand this obsession with closing ski resorts down.

Third, what do you do with all the business fallout from closing such an important revenue generator, especially in a small town. In Ontario, resorts have been closed and they're screaming to be open because they're losing millions and have laid off almost everyone. You have to look at the whole economic picture ie. how many people are going to lose jobs, how many businesses will go under etc. So its funny to hear "close this down" or "ban travel". Very straight forward when it doesn't affect you.

Four, while I appreciate the sarcasm, even talking about keying someone's car is fucked.