MEADOWS BLOG

Hi Mr. Dave,

Yeah Hoo! Thank you, thank you! I was anxious to hear if you were going to be open this weekend and cha ching, you are!

I am really looking forward to Saturday. I am no "fair weather" snowboarder and come rain or shine, I will be there! The snow was great last weekend and I am looking forward to the same!

Thanks to YOU and the Meadows crew for making our experience a great one and for an awesome Spring Second Season!

See you Saturday!

Hey Dave, I snowboarded on Sat. and it was great. Do you know what the head count was for Sunday and the total for the weekend? This has been a GREAT YEAR..What amazes me is that peolple begged for meadows to stay open for spring skiing and you have granted all of us that courtesy, but people are giving one excuse after another as to why they werent there this past weekend, or that your announcement to stay open was to late. Come on people, enough of the complaining and just be thankful. If it doesnt work this coming weekend Dave, just close for the season. Otherwise people will start taking advantage of your generosity. Thanks for a great year..Also its really cool to see Patricia who runs the Buttercup lift being faithful and still coming up to work on the weekends for all of us to enjoy the spring snow..She rocks:)

Dave's reply: Thanks for your comments and questions. We had 1,658 on Saturday and 520 on Sunday for a total of 2,178 for the weekend :(

We really need people to call their friends and family and organize to meet for a fun time at the Meadows together. Look at last Saturday, if 1,658 people each called 3 or 4 friends prior to the weekend think how many people would have come? The conditions were awesome and so many people missed out.

It looks like the weather is going to be great this coming weekend. We'll see if people are more interested in golf than skiing...

Thanks for recognizing Patricia. I'll pass that along to her. Whenever a guest takes the time to name out an employee like this with a compliment it really makes a difference. Thank you. - Dave

Dave,
Thanks for the second chance! I was unable to make it this last weekend but I am planning a HUGE gathering for this Saturday!! Congratulations on an epic season that just keep getting better!!!

Seems like there are 11 parks with one jump in each park. You should consolidate them to one area. I always see Meadows in magazines but those jumps are never open to the public. More time should be put into the public parks and less on wack dawgs jumps! It's sick to watch,but we want to have fun as well.We can all throw 900's and 450's on the up-flat-down-flat-up-flat-down.Meadows parks were doing better in 1999.Let your park crew set the rails and the cat drivers can build the jumps. Also,new funboxes are needed and a little more diversity than having every jump strait on. Check out Mammoth and Boreal. They have actual snowboarders building and grooming their parks.

I am stuck out of the country untill for the next week, but if you open on the 20th and later I garentee I will be there everyday you open!

Thanks for all you are doing so far, I really hope you stay open!

GSM.

I'll be there on Saturday. Can't swing Sunday as Mother's day will keep me out of town. Your hard work, and the dedication to service of your staff is most appreciated. Spring sliding at Meadows is where it's at - here's to another four weekends of fun!

Hey,

Another question about park stuff. Last weekend there werent any rails set up, is the park crew going to work to set up some rails?

Dave's reply: Funny you raise this. I just sent out an email to the people in charge of that asking that they get it together on Friday for the weekend. There were some rails out but not enough. Thanks! - Dave

I have had the same feelings about the 7 different park, each with a different name. There should be one name, one theme. Unless you were a mountain expert you would not know if you were in ball park, zoo, bully park, scud park? It is soooo confusing. One constant theme with signs. Sell the naming rights to a sponsor! And at least have a numbering or labeling system. Also, the park crew tends to ignore maintenance of everything except for the biggest features. There are never lips on any of the jumps right below cascade, which tend to drive away your intermediate or beginner snowboarders and skiers. The ones riding the super huge jumps on vista and cascade all either work here, have purchased their season passes, and I would venture to guess that in the twilight of the season those are the people you are not making money from. Keep it consistant across the board, and please please please have ONE theme for your parks next year!

Mammoth has the Unbound, Boreal has Jibassic Park, Bachelor has the Air Chamber, Whistler calls it Nintendo (at least thats something) and what is Mt. Hood Meadows park known as? I would say outside the park crew, nobody would be able to answer.

See you Saturday for what could be the last weekend. Hopefully not however....

Dear Dave,

As a fellow business owner, I am personally appalled at how openly you discuss on these forums your need for your buissiness to make money. I find myself wondering what your profit margin has been since you owned Meadows. Perhaps you wouldn't mind publishing those in a blog as well, so we can all make the decision if you are making enough money to stay open as long as conditions permit. It seems to me you have no shame that"keeping your customiers satisfied" is definently not your #1 priority. Income, it seems, is your priority, as you've openly discussed. This is an appropriate viewpoint for many upper class individuals from, say, Summit County, but rather inappropriate on Mt. Hood, whose communities thrive on Oregonian's neighborly conduct and commitment to recreational sports. You should be thinking a little bit more about the workers you lay off early, the hours that get cut when you close at 3 (when it stays light till 8!), and the people who'd like to go night skiing cause they work all day. Also, haven't you considered the numbers of people who don't come because the HRM is closed, jumps are plowed, and everything feels likes it already closed? There is so much more work that could've taken place at Meadows this year. The beautiful benches, savors for a snowboarder, didn't show up until APRIL this year...where were they? And where were all those great rails????? In addition, it would be nice if you had clocks in ALL the lift huts. All in all, there was a real lack of attention to detail, the things we notice on a daily basis. I continually get into a bathroom stall with no toilet paper. If the restraunts would stay open AFTER the ski day, I would have had dinner there at least once a week. I think I saw the taco place open once.

I'm a season pass holder and made it up to Meadows 45 times this year. I've found the staff to be quite unapproachable, and often downright rude. Perhaps this is due to the fact that they are vastly underworked/underpaid and can't support themselves working at Meadows. Dave, things could be so different! Perhapsyour employees are carrying on your outlook. By Dave's example, people don't need to extend consideration if they don't get paid for it.

I hope next year, Dave, you start looking at what you can do to make Meadows better for us. It's the little things that count....and being open always helps too.

Dave's reply: Thanks for expressing your opinion - it's interesting. I just returned from a meeting in Hood River. After the meeting, I was grabbing some lunch at Ground Cafe and was stopped by a guy on the sidewalk who wanted to express a few things. He said that he had been a season passholder for many years and historically had been pretty "critical" of Meadows. He said that he was very pleased with everything this winter, especially the staff and how we treated our customers all year. That's his opinion, you have yours.

I'm not going to get into a big debate with you - I hear and understand where you're coming from. We're not publishing our financial statements (we're not a government or publically held company) and I'm not embarrassed that Meadows is a private company who has owners who expect a reasonable return on their investment. Our management team and I do our best each day to balance the need for that with meeting the expectations of our guests - I'll leave it at that. You have done us a favor by pointing out some specific things you would like us to look into and change and I sincerely thank you for taking the time to communicate those things to me. - Dave

this is gonna be my first time to meadows.. i am stoked that you are gonna be open... its always nice to ride on my b-day(also mothers day) thank you for stayin open, i like to think it was just fer me LOL JK JK