I was there on Saturday and while the fog was thick at times the snow wasn't awful. I brought my Metal Ax and carved from 11-6 without waiting for a lift once. I was wet, but warm enough. My quads are still recovering as it was my first time out this season. The day ended on a very sour note however:
As I often do after a long day (I leave home at 6AM to get there and return the same night around 1 AM with my group) I went to the bar for some hot grub prior to departure. While waiting for my chicken to come up there was a musician playing loudly and the encores kept coming; he did play a decent version of Poncho and Lefty. A friend and I were frustrated with the volume because we were trying to have a conversation - I had chosen to sit at the far end of the room to avoid this issue. At one point an intoxicated patron of the bar, and clearly a Spirit Mountain employee, joined the performer on stage and demanded that everyone (less than a dozen total on that night) in the bar clap. My friend and I were busy eating and had already clapped several times so we kept eating. At this point the drunk called us out and threatened to come over and beat us up if we didn't clap. He continued by adding that he was willing to take it outside if necessary. I'm 6'4" and my friend isn't small either so neither one of us is afraid of a drunk; but we were in shock that this was happening and nobody did anything to stop him. Shortly after this same drunk accosted an underage member of my group in very inappropriate ways, but walked away when he realized he was hitting on a high school girl; she was very freaked out, but I assured her I had watched the whole thing and had her back.
Why would management allow anyone to have an open mic in the bar? Why didn’t the bar tender or other managers who saw what was going on stop him?
I have been a patron of Spirit Mountain for 30 years. I have personally spent thousands on lift tickets and season passes over those years. My groups have brought tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of new skiers and snowboarders to them. This incident and the lack of response from the sober employees that witnessed these incidents that night have me questioning if I will ever return. Giant’s Ridge has moved up on my list.