How is Mom doing?

Mom is running now, it was another electrical issue.

Fucking lift is up & down like a $2 whores pants. I checked the web site than drove up yesterday only to see that the web site was full of shit. I left in disgust. Today a co worker checked the web site then went up to go skiing and still the web site was full of shit. I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't drive 45 fucking minutes to get there after taking a day off work.

do they not have phones in South BC?

Sure they have phones but if you expect the fucking lift to be running why would you bother to call. Do you call before you go to the hill every day? Not fucking likely.

On the plus side they did offer a free hot chocolate for people who bought a day pass for $62. If you are a local you got fuck all.

Beaver,

I apologize to you and your co-worker for the problems we've been having, but Paradise WAS running this morning, it just went down again because of a power supply issue related to Fortis. There's nothing we can do about it when this sort of thing happens, it happens completely outside of our control. It's been frustrating.

We try to stay on top of the snow report and the website, but there is unfortunately a gap sometimes. Laird and his crew's first priority is the safety of people on the chairlifts, and the snow reporters in the base office don't usually find out until a bit later. There are measures being made to improve communication to the snow reporters so that this situation doesn't happen again.

If there's anything I can do for you or your co-worker, just email me at ryan at redresort.com and I'll try to help you out. Just try bear with us as we're trying to deal with the problems now.

WTF with Fortis

Red seems to use them as a scape goat every time ML goes down. This is BS. It's the old worn out lift system thats the problem. NOT FORTIS. Does cominco or any of the other large power users go down for the count. NO, The resort I use the term "resort" loosly has used this for the last three years, hmm that would be when the current owners took over.

ML is a worn out hand me down from Wistler. It's done, worn out.

Case in point. you have half of the new condos sitting at 60% sold. Revy went of the hook on there sales, any thing to do with a decent lift system and the owners putting the cash into the hill???

The other side of the coin is I hope they can make the golf course happen, so maybe they can replace ml with a 6 pack.

Let me get this straight... an insulator on a fortis pole fails in the wind causing two phases to slap together which then causes a fortis transformer to fail; which then fortis replaces with a smaller unit that might run the load... How is this Red's fault? Besides it was Paradise that went down yesterday due to the power supply. Motherlode is fine.

Revelstoke may have sold their new condos quickly, but they are in the deep for millions of dollars. They spent tens of millions on marketing, so obviously you're going to get condos sold quickly.

However, will you be able to make money off the condos immediately? Nope. There are some of us that think that Revy is going to run into trouble sometime in the near future with their lending partners.

Wouldn't that be utterly $%#@ wonderful... around 2800 skiers per hour... no need to worry about wasting a major portion of the day skiing powder.

Yeah, I agree.

If anything, Motherlode's eventual replacement will be a fixed grip quad just like Silverlode, to keep consistiency and a better spare parts pool. That's my view of it.

Lets hope it's faster than sillyload. A half hour from lodge to summit is a bit much.

Maybe similar to Silverlode, albeit not bottom drive, I'm sure. Perhaps going with bottom drive on Silverlode was a mistake. Would seem to limit it's eventual relocation options.

That slow ride over the upper flats is a real drag. I say make the thing the parking lot lift once we are parking across the highway.

Sometime a thing might be brown because it isn't green; sometimes it might be brown because its a PIECE OF SHlT, sometimes its brown for both reasons:

http://www.nsaa.org/nsaa/environment/the_greenroom/index.asp?mode=greenroom&mode2=full&caseid=364&topic=T09

The state of the lifts at Red this year is a joke. You guys continue to jack up prices, yet don't provide better amenities. The new Silverlode is a complete joke and serves one purpose: condo access. It has created a dangerous situation for people skiing/riding off of Motherlode who now have to contend with beginners getting off the Silverlode chair onto Easy Street.

Then there's Motherlode. Wow, it sure is great to spend 25 minutes going up about 2400 vertical feet. On a good day when the lift is actually running. Katkov still insists that we don't need a high speed lift. Yes, yes we do. People are not going to come from around the world to wait on slow lifts that break down periodically. Not when Revelstoke just installed brand new state of the art high speed lifts and has more snow. If Motherlode was highspeed, it would disperse people in the morning, and in the event that Paradise broke down, it wouldn't be a big deal since Motherlode would be less than 10 minutes to go up.

Katkov can continue to feed us bullshit (he's done a good job so far), but sooner or later (I'm hoping for the former) he's going to have to face reality or go out of business.

The golf course is a complete farce. Another bullshit plan Katkov is trying to force down the throats of the locals.

We need a real marketing plan with some brains running the business, not some idiot Americans. We have the terrain, the snow and the grooming. Now we just need someone without their head shoved up their ass to run the place and upgrade the lifts.

One last thing...$400 000+ for condos at Slalom creek? Are you fucking kidding me? :shock:

Tell us what you really think speedy.

Speedy,

I never like to hear people complain, so, I hope I can actually .. calm you down.

Running a ski resort is one of the most difficult enterprises one can do. Condos, even though they have somewhat of an undesirable image, are the hill's lifeline.

Having snow, terrain and grooming is not enough - a great majority of the big ski resorts have a major metropolis nearby that they can count on for a large chunk of their skier visits - Red does not have this, and cannot fund a capital expenditures (upgrades, et. al.) fund from skier revenue. So, the condos, as much as you hate them, are going to be the driving force behind building a new lodge, lifts and other amenities.

Yes, we have had a bad year in terms of lifts, but it can certainly be worse. The lift upgrades are coming, and I apologize if they aren't happening fast enough for you. Everything is part of a long-term master plan that will make the mountain and the community grow naturally and in a stable financial state.

After all, you do want the resort to be there 10-15 years from now, don't you? Revelstoke may not be, as I believe their real estate alone is unable to fund their "build it and they will come" mass-spending plan, because of the current state of the market, and they can't afford a multi-million dollar shortfall.

That's all I can say about it, and I just hope that I can actually answer some of your concerns. This is definitely an awkward state in this particular era of the mountain, but we are just getting on our feet.

I'm the co-worker Beaver mentioned earlier, and ya, I did drive up last Thursday after checking the website at 8:30 to see that you anticipated full operation, only to find the Motherload was still shut down. Yes, I should have phoned, and I will in the future, but I've got to think that somebody knew before then that it wasn't going to go, and it would have been nice if the site had been updated. It was finally updated at 9:15. When you've only got the morning to ski you've got to be up there when the lifts open. Live and learn.

That said, this is my first year at Red after moving from Edmonton and right now I'm just happy to be able to ski on a regular basis with good snow and no lineups. The terrain kicks ass and it's nice and quiet, that's why I moved here. Give me a couple of years to become a jaded Kootenay powder skier and then I'll start complaining about the state of the lifts like the long time locals.

If they get this place too up to date it's only going to get busy, that's good for the economy but bad for the powder days!