AIG owns Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

[handmade34]

I just had a quick phone conversation with my daughter who works at the Mountain. Talk is that they are planning to sell the resort. She mentioned that AIG employees get a discount to ski and she doesn't much like their company, but on the other hand she said many of the non-AIG customers are taking out their frustration on her and the other employees(she doesn't work directly for AIG) She mentioned that someone even left a big pile of dog droppings at the office door with a nasty note... just thought this was an interesting aside about how people are generally feeling these days.

[SpiralHawk]

1. The hills are alive

with the sound of republicon-inspired DEBT and FAIL freakery

[Atman]

2. I posted this yesterday. Here is a link to the story...it's not just Stowe.

It was pretty much ignored. I've noticed that on the rare occasion that I mention snowboarding or skiing, quite a few DUers get irate and call me *gasp* rich for being able to partake, then they go on tirades about how the don't care about rich people's problems. They completely miss the fact that most "ski" resorts are open year-round and employ hundreds of people -- who are not rich in the slightest -- and contribute vast amounts of money to area economies.

As for the mountain, we spent this past weekend at Stowe, and it was definitely the talk of the town. At least three or four different conversations with people on the lifts/gondola centered around AIG. Read the article at the link. The real "problem" with AIG is industry-wide, because they not only own other resorts, they carry the insurance for 70% of the ski areas in the United States.

All that said...the new Spruce Peak area is phenomenal. And we own it! Yay us, but I think I'd rather have my billions of dollars back.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5316480&mesg_id=5316480

.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Yeah, give me my billions of bucks back, too

But snowboarding is definitely cool, and skiing and snoeshoeing and all that stuff which is all -- thankfully -- generally non-Republicon Homelanderish FAIL freaky, and more Americanish

[handmade34]

5. great pictures of Stowe

Thanks, I miss Vermont and my kids. Ya, they all work there so they can afford to ski and snowboard (the last one at UVM works there on break). And per your original post, I hike, not ski, and a number of peaks in Vermont are above the treeline. I have always thought that the public should own mountains and ocean fronts and grand open spaces, etc...

[Quantess]

7. Many skiers and snowboarders are working class people who make winter sports a priority.

They'll even work at the resorts so they can ski often. Single, young adults, mostly.

[Atman]

8. The guy who got me into it works 70 hours a week to pay for his ski pass.

He works a manufacturing job at fairly low ($15 or so an hour) wage; he tells me that the first 40 hours go to the household expenses. He works 30 hours of OT (or whatever they'll give him) in order to pay for his lift tickets and gas money. Last year he finally replaced his 12 year old skis at a year-end-closeout. He is as "working class" as they get.

Me, I'm a salaried professional, but my wife and I have to set our priorities similarly, if on a different scale. And I have to reiterate the point about the economies of these small Vermont towns. The "village" of Stowe really is one of the most developed tourist areas of Vermont, yet it is still a village. It's basically a smallish strip of motels, inns, spas and restaurants whose very existence depends upon people driving to the mountain to ski it, hike it, mountain bike it or even paint a picture of it. If that mountain shuts down (which I am not for a moment expecting will actually happen), it takes entire communities with it, just as a GM plant closure creates ghost towns in Michigan.

Vermont is generally a remote, sparsely populated place with a harsh winters and little in the way of industry beyond skiing, cheese and maple syrup. Take away the skiers and snowboarders, hikers and bikers, and "subsistence antiquers" and mom-and-pop syrup stands up 'n down the mountain roads will disappear with them.

Skiing (not so much snowboarding, obviously) tends to have an elitist reputation, largely because of the huge expense. A one-day lift ticket at Stowe on a non-holiday weekend is $84. That's without the $12 hamburgers and $6 beers, and the cost of at least a tank and a half of gas. But many critics tend to forget that the resorts themselves are no different than other "regular" resorts -- the people working at the places and the towns that support them tend to be very working-class folks. There are a surprising number of year-round jobs at major mountains, as many of them now cater to other markets in the summer with roller coasters, water parks, mountain bike trails, etc.

Then again...the REALLY major resorts owned by major corporate backers tend to hire cheap seasonal labor from Argentina and other other-hemisphere skiing locations, not necessarily locals.

.

[Quantess]

9. I don't know...what makes skiing more expensive than snowboarding?

Most snowboarders prefer to get a lift to the top, same as skiiers. The equipment is about as costly. Snowboarding, for me, has been vastly more expensive than skiing, due to my broken wrist on my very first day snowboarding last year. And I haven't been back! That was in Bend, OR. I borrowed a season lift pass, but I think it's about $40 to $45 for a day pass. Bend had the booming-est real estate boom market in Oregon, until real estate plummeted.

I'm not sure that skiing and snowboarding is quite as "elitist" in the Pacific NW as you describe it in VT... But then, I do a lot of things people consider "elitist", even though I don't make much money. I would guess the average wage of a skier or snowboarder around here would be $15 or $20 per hour. Of course I could be way off, but I know people who make restaurant wages who won't give up their winter sports.

I had a Swedish friend who worked at Whistler in British Columbia. The mountains are taller there than in Sweden, so you know she wasn't working there for the money.

[Atman]

10. I'm not saying skiing is more expensive; snowboarders tend to be younger and cheaper.

You can pick up a entire snowboard package at Sports Authority for a few hundred bucks. You can't find decent skis --- never mind adding boots and bindings -- for that kind of money. Plus, since snowboarding tends to be more aggressive, younger people tend to get into it.

Personally, I never pay full price for a lift ticket. I follow the ski club "Awareness Days" calendar and never pay more than $25-35 for a ticket. Even at Stowe, because of the ski club, a two day lift ticket cost me only $67 (a regular 1-day ticket is pushing $90 at Stowe). And I usually bring a cooler with my lunch and my own beer.

Stowe, though, is a bad example. It really is a town, not a mountain (the mountains that comprise "Stowe" are actually Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak). It has a well-developed tourist area with very, very expensive hotels and spas, and four-star dining. A lot, if not most, of the Vermont ski resorts don't have anything more than a rustic lodge or two at the base. For every Stowe or Stratton there are a couple of Raggeds and Burkes -- excellent skiing and snowboarding with friendlier, smaller, local crowds. Not "elitist" at all. I was just referring to the common misconception about winter sports. That it's somehow only for the wealthy and therefore that we shouldn't care what happens to an AIG ski resort.

.

[cali]

11. Stowe, Stratton, Sugarbush, Killington, Mt Snow

are all in the same category. Ragged is in NH. VT is pretty well split between those and the Smuggs, Jays, etc. Burke is sort of anomolous within the state's ski areas- though I love it.

And you can buy skis and boots at swaps and sales for a few hundred bucks- good equipment too.

I buy a Smuggs bash badge each year- and ski a couple of times at Burke and/or Jay. I agree that packing lunch is definitely the way to go- and it's much better.

[GP6971]

4. They've owned it for years

Don't know if they still do, but they also owned The Lodge at Smuggler's Notch and The Toll House Inn down the road.

Oh.....and in 1968 they bought their first corporate jet....a Pan AM Falcon which replaced their Lockheed Loadstar.

[Atman]

6. Stowe took the AIG logo off their Web site recently.

I don't know when it happened, but it had to have been fairly recently because I visit the site frequently and just noticed it a couple of days ago. At the bottom where it now says "Partners" with the rotating corporate sponsorship logos, it used to simply be an AIG logo. Hmm. I wonder why they didn't want people to know?

.