An Older Guy with New Tricks

Joe Whyte will turn 76 in May, but he's still willing to make changes to make his annual trip to Snowmass, Dec 6 - 12, 2007, successful. For some reason that doesn't appear to be rational from the point of making money, United and Delta are selling seats from Philadelphia into Aspen for around $200 next winter, whereas seats into Denver are over $300. Since the Silvertree Hotel picks up at the Aspen Airport, Joe sent an e-mail to all of his people letting them know about this air deal. He'll sell them the land package and they will go out and get their own airfare. He took 80 people to Snowmass in December of 2006 and his goal is 106 in 2007. More than 50 people have already purchased their air in just 5 days, and this is prior to United loading their bigger planes into Aspen and before Frontier has even announced or loaded their potential flights into Aspen. It looks like Joe is on target to expand this trip to 100+ people this December. As Mike says, "Buy seats on the planes, not stock in the carriers."

Day 64 2006/07 season

After 63 days of skiing this season, was I crazy enough to go off the Cliffs under Chair 4 at Vail? The answer is yes. While I did not take the biggest line, I made it over and landed it and came up in one piece. I did this so that I could shoot a video of Andrew Thomas, 14, from Bloomfield, MI who talked his parents into letting him make the jump.

Some luck is required when traveling

The Little Mountain, Ltd group was supposed to leave Cleveland on Northwest Airlines on Saturday, April 7th to fly from Cleveland to Minneapolis to Eagle for a trip to Snowmass. Late Friday afternoon, their flight out of Cleveland on Saturday morning was "canceled due to crew work limitations." After several hours on the phone with the NW, the group was accommodated on several other flights on AA and UA and everyone made it to Snowmass by Saturday afternoon.

These folks fared better than another NW flight that was supposed to depart Las Vegas on Saturday morning, April 7th. According to national news reports, while the passengers were boarding the plane, the pilot having a conversation on his cellphone and was yelling obscenities and allegedly cursed at a passenger. The flight was canceled and people were re booked on other flights.

The moral of these two stories: no matter how much advance planning you do for a trip, be it for yourself or for a group, some luck is required for it to all run smoothly.

Air is starting to be loaded into the resort airports for next winter. Already, group space on many Saturday flights is gone. If you aren't randomly the first person to get through to the airlines' group desks the minute that the inventory becomes available, then everyone else is boxed out for the year. However, I had friends who just booked 5 frequent flyer tickets from Denver to Hawaii on April 9th for travel on April 13th, which looks to be a high travel spring break period. Sometimes there is what appears to be no rhyme or reason to booking airline seats.

A skier's lunch?

After a hard morning of skiing at Snowmass with several members of the Space Coast Ski Club, it was time for lunch at the Cafe Suzanne at the base of Elk Camp. This skier recharged his batteries with some vitamin water, ibuprofen and a beer. I'm not sure if this lunch is recommended by the USDA, but but this guy looks happy.