Dear Vail Resorts,

I’m writing to thank you for all that you have done to improve the skiing experience at Breckenridge.  My wife and I drove up on Saturday morning from Denver. We really enjoyed sitting in traffic for an hour on I-70 and another 40 minutes on highway 9, because it gave us a chance to take in the sights.  Really though, I shouldn’t be thanking you for that experience, since you can only really control what happens at the resort.

Luckily, when we arrived, the Gondola parking lot was full, so we got to park in the Gold Rush lot, which only cost $10.  From our car in the lot, we enjoyed the brisk 1 block morning walk to the bus stop.  We also enjoyed waiting 10 minutes for a bus to take us across the street to the gondola.

Pretty awesome that you installed this new gondola, it’s really nice that I no longer have the choice of starting my day at Peak 9.  The views from the gondola are amazing, especially all of the new $1000/sq. ft. condos you have built along the route, and they are selling so well!  I really feel like I’m getting a deal with the $10-$20 parking fee that is supposed to pay for the new gondola. Obviously, you built the gondola for the convenience of all of the people in the pay parking lot, not to increase the value of the properties that you are building on the gondola’s not-so-direct route to Peak 8.

Once at the base of Peak 8, I was glad that I could wait in line for 20 minutes for the Colorado Superchair.  Since there’s no good way to get to Peak 9 anymore, I’m thrilled that you elected to build the Imperial lift as a quad to service a small number of expert skiiers, instead of replacing Lift E, the double that is now the best route to Peak 9.

Finally, after an hour of hassle from the parking lot to the mountain, we were ready to ski.   Woohoo. Of course, the lift lines were brutally long because you restricted our passes for Vail and BC for the weekend so that the out-of-towners could enjoy fucking up alternating in the lift lines without having us there to “help” them.

When we were done with our day, I was pleased to learn that we would have to take two buses from Peak 9 to get back to our car.  Phew, for a second, I thought that I might not get to see every inch of the back roads of Breckenridge. Fortunately, there were not enough seats on the bus and you were kind enough to cram us in so tightly that an abrupt stop would have resulted in me, my wife and friends going through the windshield.  The view out of the front of the bus was outstanding and we kept our helmets and goggles on in case  we ended up going for an unplanned flight.

Actually, Vail Resorts, it stinks that we arrived early on Saturday.  Sunday morning was even more fun, because the pay lots were completely full so we got to park in the “free” lots on airport road.  You call these lots “free” but really you are paying us in the improved fitness that we will have after walking 3 blocks from our parking spot to the conveniently placed bus stop.  I know you are thinking, “wait, it’s at least four blocks to the bus stop”.  Not so, Vail Resorts, because, in your infinite wisdom, you were only running a small number of buses, so the line to get on a bus was at least 2 blocks long.  As a result, we didn’t have to walk nearly as far to get into line!  Very clever.

In summary, I would like you to know how grateful I am that you made all of these enhancements to our skiing experience.  We are sad that eventually you will have milked the resort for every conceivable real estate opportunity and you will sell the albatross skiing operations to someone who will have to vastly underfund it to make any money.  By then though, your stock will have gone through the roof, which is what all of us hoped would result from your custodian of our natural resource.

Thanks again,

Brant Jaouen