The Buzz: Surly snowriders

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The removal of a weekday pass option for the upcoming winter ski season at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort has some avid local skiers and snowboarders calling for the blood of at least one JHMR official, namely company president Jerry Blann.

Absent from the bevy of pass options for the 2008/2009 ski season, unveiled by the resort last week, was the Monday through Friday Weekday Wrangler pass, a popular choice among some who either work weekends or prefer to avoid the Saturday and Sunday spikes in visitor use of the resort.

On the same day JHMR announced information on season passes, some valley residents upset at the removal of the weekday pass anonymously launched a website entitled NotAFanOfJerryBlann.com.

The website features a cigar-smoking, fat, red devil imposing himself onto a skier, and contends that, in an already expensive pursuit, the decision to remove the weekday pass was an unfair one.

One of the people behind the website, snowboarder Dan “Jiggy” Janjigian, said the site had received as many as 1,000 visits since it launched last week. He estimated that about half of those hits were directed there through an online discussion board hosted by Teton Gravity Research, a Teton Village-based, action sports film and lifestyle apparel company.

Meanwhile, he and other members of Facebook had established an interest group on the social networking website to organize sympathize
rs.
“I feel that it’s a betrayal to the locals,” Janjigian said. “But in the end, it’s not about Jerry Blann; it’s about us. He’s just the face of the organization.”

Concerned about their identities publicly attached to the Facebook group, Janjigian and his coconspirators dissolved the group the same day it was established – but not before accruing, according to Janjigian, as many as 50 members, among them some JHMR employees.

“Most of the people I’ve talked to are in full agreement with us,” said the snowboarder, who admitted that he gets a ski-pass discount through his employer.
Spokesperson Lisa Watson said JHMR had received overwhelmingly positive feedback on this year’s season pass options, which include a reduced “loyalty rate” for 2007/2008 pass holders and no increase over last year’s August rate for new pass buyers.

“This is the first time in the history of the resort that passes have gone down in price,” Watson said Monday. JHMR is in the process of contacting previous pass holders to explain pass options, including Weekday Wrangler skiers, though it is not a reaction to the critical website,  Watson said.

“We went through as a team the process of restructuring our passes,” Watson explained. She said the Weekday Warrior pass was relatively low-selling and pointed out that a 128-day, full-mountain pass at August prices is only a few dollars more than a Weekday Warrior pass purchased during the season last year.

While previous years have seen season passes go on sale the week they are announced, JHMR this year gave nearly two weeks notice.

Watson said season pass sales have been on the rise the last two seasons, during which time the mountain had no aerial tram for the first time in 40 years.

The new “Big Red,” a larger, swifter design by Swiss firm Doppelmayr, is expected to begin shuttling skiers to the top of Rendezvous Mountain by the resort’s opening day.
PERMALINK:
The Buzz: Surly snowriders | Planet JH News Article: General News

Leave a Comment