The National Ski Area Association (NSAA) has recently released their moto for this coming season: Ski Well Be Well. We at Monarch couldn’t agree more. It’s not even that one needs to ski well to be well but just that being outdoors sliding down the mountain is most certainly good for one’s well-being. So Cheers to that. Many thanks to all of you who have expressed your support for what we are doing. Overall, it feels to me like the most of us kind of get what is needed to be done in order for us to get back to this well-being stuff. There has been some push back from a small number of folks who are genuinely disappointed about not being able to bring all their gear, and coolers of food, and whatnot into the lodge. They have been doing it for years and look forward to doing it every year, especially those traveling long distances. I truly empathize with their disappointment. At times I’m at a loss for words as to what to say to them, other than I hear you. Yet, as I have said, it is going to take all of us to sacrifice and compromise so that we can keep this mountain open. In the end, it will feel like a step back in time when the indoor facilities were of much less concern, and the skiing was the primary focus. I get it, we are above all social creatures enamored of sharing time with our friends at restaurants, surfing the internet anywhere in the world, even at the top of a mountain that is twenty miles away from a city. As I have said from the very onset, the part of the skiing experience that is most likely to suffer is the social aspect, the communing with each other before and after playing outdoors. This will be our collective compromise this season. It’s one I am happy to make so these lifts keep running and we get to ski AND be well.
