As summer draws to a close, Vermont ski areas are broadcasting high expectations for opening this winter.
Covid-19 continues to claim about 1,000 U.S. lives each day. The U.S. unemployment rate was 10% in July, and businesses are operating in a state of unprecedented uncertainty.
But ski areas are used to having no idea what conditions they’ll face in winter, their most critical time of the year. So they’re planning to adapt, said Adam White, director of communications for the Vermont Ski Areas Association.
Vermont businesses are subject to new Covid regulations that can arrive unexpectedly from the governor’s office, such as closing and opening rules for business sectors and the state’s Aug. 1 mask mandate.
One of the directives that keeps changing are the quarantine rules that govern the actions of visitors from key markets, such as the Boston area, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Those rules are critical to the success of the coming ski season.
“It’s hard for anybody on the outside to predict as far as the regulations go,” White said. “One of the advantages the ski industry has is we do have to be able to shift gears. Things like weather have made us nimble.”
Ski areas are communicating to the public and their customers that they’re putting safety first, and if there is snow, there will be a way to ski.
Vail plans to open all its resorts, said Jaimie Storrs, a Vermont-based senior communications manager for Vail Resorts, which owns Stowe, Mount Snow and Okemo. Vail CEO Rob Katz published an open letter July 29 to ski communities that emphasized safety, saying Vail will encourage face coverings in all public places, indoor and outdoor.
“We’re not going to rush into anything,” Storrs said. “But it is going to get cold, it is going to snow, and we’re going to make a ton of snow, and we’re going to go skiing and riding this year.”
Jay Peak, 4 miles south of the Canadian border, has a bigger problem than the Covid-19 infection rates that govern Vermont’s quarantine rules for people from certain nearby counties. About half the resort’s visitors usually come from Canada, and the border has been closed since the pandemic began last spring.
While some officials say the border could open Sept. 21, Jay Peak President Steve Wright said there appears to be little appetite among Canadians for cross-border travel. Wright is creating a budget based on a worst-case scenario of continued closure. Jay Peak also has 176 hotel rooms and a conference center. Vermont law limits hotel occupancy to 50%.
“The state’s heat maps, and the occupancy restrictions on our hotels, will probably have an impact on visitation up this way for sure,” Wright said. “We’re building operational scenarios around that.”
Many ski areas have evolved over the past few years into four-season resorts, and several operated lifts and trails this summer. Mad River Glen, which is working on a $3.2 million base lodge renovation and a new ski school this summer, plans to run chairlifts this autumn for foliage tourists, said General Manager Matt Lillard.
Lillard said there will definitely be skiing, at least for season passholders and members of the cooperative that owns the small ski area. The details will be determined by what happens this autumn.
“We’ll be committed to skiing in whatever format we can through the process,” Lillard said. “Even if that means we’re just running lifts and bathrooms for Vermonters or local passholders and shareholders. Even if it’s a losing proposition.”
Mad River Glen features an oddity that serves well in the Covid-19 era: a single chairlift. The ski area will limit occupancy on its double chairlifts this winter to singles or to family groups.
Killington and Pico expect to open, said Courtney DiFiore, a communications manager for those resorts, which are owned by the Park City, Utah-based Powdr ski company. “We don’t have details on what the ski season will look like just yet,” she said.
The Women’s World Cup ski race, scheduled for late November at Killington, has been canceled, the resort said last week. The International Ski Federation, National Ski Associations and local organizing committees in Canada and the U.S.A will restrict the Alpine Skiing World Cup tour to Europe through early December this year, the resort said.
Stratton, owned by Alterra Mountain Co. in Denver, also plans to open, said spokesperson Andrew Kimiecik, who gave no details.
“It is still too early in the season to have specifics,” he said.
Geoff Hatheway, who owns Magic Mountain ski area in Londonderry, told skiers and riders in a letter on the company website that the upcoming season is partly in their hands.
“The first thing we can all do is help keep the good Northeast coronavirus case and death numbers as low as possible by following CDC guidelines for mask-wearing and social-distancing,” Hatheway wrote.
Hatheway expects to restrict skier visits to 50% of capacity and 25% for the lodge.
“Until a February vaccine, it will be about our hearty skiers and riders looking to get on the hill no matter the weather or conditions, perhaps changing into boots in the parking lot, and eating outside on the weekends with takeout from the base lodge or our new on-hill snack shacks,” Hatheway. “It will still be fun, but highly focused on the sport of skiing and riding, and a bit less of that crowded après-ski scene.”