Last Day at Stowe 2/17

We spent our final day at Stowe Mountain Resort this past Friday alongside Scott Reeves. What turned out to be an enjoyable day started out by recharging our cards and gearing up to meet Scott at the quad. We took some runs around the mountain with Mike Manley, Scott, and a representative from HKD snowmaking equipment. They were observing the current equipment and discussing what was likely going to be replaced or discarded at the end of the season. Deciding between 10, 20, and 30 feet towers was the main objective of running through the trails with the rep, as well as giving an effort to observe as much that was going on the mountain as possible. Dangerous conditions, safety hazards, and interacting with guests were all a part of combing through each run. We came in at 11 for the daily meeting between all the mountain operation managers like usual, and got to hear about the preparation taking place for the upcoming holiday weekend. Every employee on the mountain is impacted during President's Day weekend and ensuring that they were all ready was the main focus of that particular meeting. Afterwards Scott informed us he was booked with meetings and let us have the rest of the day to ride by ourselves, which was great. The snow was soft and we took full advantage of our passes taking runs until we were all agreeably tired. I'll never forget the time I got to spend at Stowe, and definitely look forward to riding there sometime in the near future. Every employee we ran into and got to interact with was pleasurable, and we were able to take away helpful information from each department we spent time in. In addition, Mike Manley was a great help and consistently had answers to all of our questions, as well as the rest of the mountain ops staff.

Stowe 2/10,2/11

This past weekend at Stowe I had the opportunity to work with lift attendants on Friday, and the customer service department on Saturday. Friday consisted of working at the Midway Gondola, and the new FourRunner quad as well as spending a small amount of time at the Sunny Spruce quad towards the end of our day. Dom and I spent the first half of the day with Kelly at the Gondola, it wasn't terribly busy this particular morning so we pretty much got an overview of how their system works and how they keep the line moving. She showed us the top area of the lift where all the moving parts are and where the motor's reside and gave a a brief explanation of how it all worked, along with an overview of the controls they have in the operating booth and which buttons do what for certain situations. At eleven we attended the mountain operations meeting in the administrative office where they went over the typical daily tasks and discussed upcoming events, trails that needed to be groomed and a few other specific bits of information.

After the meeting we spent time at the new quad and got an explanation of the new RFID rechargeable ticket system that Stowe's implemented at all their lifts. Whoever's maintaining the checkpoint can see a skier's information once they pass through the gates at any given time. All their basic information is displayed as well as the number of runs they've taken and at which lifts they've stopped at. We essentially got the same treatment at each lift we visited, learning the controls, what their policy is for certain situations and so on.

On Saturday Wes, Dom and I worked with the customer service department. We met Heidi in the morning at the Mansfield lodge, where I worked with Gretchen for a majority of the day, while Wes and Dom worked over at the Spruce Peak customer service desk until our lunch a little after noon. Customer service can definitely be a demanding job and I got to experience it first hand with Gretchen. She has to have an answer for every question that comes her way, or at least be able to point people in the right direction to solve their questions. I was able to answer basic questions, give people directions to resort services, inform people about trail conditions and pricing and things along those lines. The most I took away from watching Gretchen was her ability to think on her feet and come up with solutions to people's often involved or confusing questions in an effort to get them back to what they came there to do, go skiing or spend time with their family. Everyone I had the opportunity to work with this past weekend treated us really well and were open to sharing everything they knew with us, and I appreciated each employee's positive attitude towards us both days.

Stowe 2/3-2/4

Over the weekend me and Wes worked in the rental shop at Stowe and learned the ropes of how Stowe handles their rentals. They were incredibly efficient in their process and moved people in and out of the small shop really fast. Once we were taken step by step through the process we figured out where they could use us most during our time working for them. We spent most of our time sizing people for boots and renting helmets before they would get their ski's or boards. Stowe has a reputation for providing a high quality experience, and with that comes a high priced lift ticket. In order to make sure people get the full experience for the price of their ticket its important that they get their equipment as quick as possible so they can get out on the hill. They do this through an organized system of codes and colors so that the process of getting boots and tuning the ski's can move efficiently as possible. I learned a lot about quick service and how hectic things can get in a rental shop, but it was a great experience overall. The employees were pleasant and outgoing with us and I enjoyed working for them. Tom was a great guy and I appreciated his attitude towards us through everything. As an added bonus I had an unexpected encounter in the rental shop with Mike Gordon the bassist from Phish, my all-time favorite band who I've seen about 15 times thus far in my life. It was essentially the icing on the cake of a pretty enjoyable weekend working at Stowe, and I'm looking forward to working on the lifts next week.