Took a year off due to the plague, what the hell. A new plague is upon us, see photo above…Vail Resorts is awash in bad blood, having screwed a number of passholders out of their pass purchases last year. Seems that if you didn’t at the very least make a reservation of some sort, and then cancel it, you’re out of luck on getting any kind of refund. Despite this miserable treatment of their customers, Vail has somehow (allegedly) managed to sell 40% more passes than last year. No explanation for this, other than they have a monopoly on some ski markets…But Vail doesn’t have a monopoly on jerkoffedness, plenty more to go around in the form of Alterra, who is bringing single day weekend or holiday tickets at Sugarbush Vermont in at some $175 per person. Your only real move is again — buy the pass…POWDR is even worse, testing a Disneyesque move of offering a super hopper line cutter pass for an additional $59 per day, to be tested this season at Colorado’s Copper Mountain, Vermont’s Killington, Oregon’s Mount Bachelor, and Utah’s Snowbird. These are the same people who do the “Play it Forward” and “grocery giveaways” and “$100,000 charitable matching” and who knows what other virtue signaling. I call nonsense on this, particularly on Mt Bachelor and the others located on USFS land, which is supposedly about equal access for recreation. It all rings hollow…so how about something that doesn’t suck…first thing that comes to mind is the Teton Gravity release of In Pursuit of Soul, which is a half hour film lauding some of the independent ski areas found on the Indy Pass. If you’re going to watch any ski film this season, that’s the one to watch, and if you’re going to buy a pass, that’s the pass to buy. Here’s a link to the video. Absolutely fantastic, features about a dozen awesome areas, including Bolton Valley VT, Black Mountain NH, Lost Trail Powder Mountain MT, and Ski Beaver in UT. Ski the Beav! Also has a nice feature about the bootstrap return of Saddleback, Maine, which may bring tears to your eyes….Arapahoe Basin and Wolf Creek Colorado opened this past weekend, so we also got that going for us.