what $3/ gallon gas will do for '05/'06 season
September 10, 2005
47 posts
22 users
9k+ views
I think Snowshoe will be in serious trouble this winter.
Everyone knows Snowshoe is already a bit far (and a pain once you leave I-81) to drive for a weekend for most, but the gas prices may be the straw that breaks the hyped up resort's back.
7S/Wisp/Whitetail and ski resorts close to major airports will benefit.
Sounds like some more wishful thinking by a SS hater.
I drive to SS from Cincinnati. It is 720 mile round trip. My Subaru gets 25+ MPG. If gas is up $1 over last year it will cost me $28.80 more per trip. That's not going to keep me from going. I can pack lunch to work for a week instead of eating out and that will pay for it. Also don't be surprised to see some discounts and promotions from SS. Earlier in the summer they were giving away gasoline cards.
Don't count out the Shoe! When everyone else is talking about skiing in November/December and March/April they will be delivering.
It's funny how the negative Shoe chatter drops when the Shoe drops the ropes.
I have to agree with some of the hype...SS has the longest runs, the most terrain, the biggest "base" village...but you have to acknowledge that the drive is heinous for just a weekend gig. The prices are astronomical. Last year I hit the place just for a day, not buying into the lodging/lift packages that they had available...a day pass was 65 bucks. How do they justify that? Alta, Utah is in the forties..think I paid 45 last year. Jackson Hole is cheaper than Snowshoe. Huge, multi thousand acre resorts with more lifts, more grooming, nicer staff, many more ski patrol staff safety etc etc etc with a day pass 20 bucks cheaper than SS.
Snowshoe knows it has a good thing going. They realize that they have the most to offer in the Mid Atlantic. So they charge a premium for it. It's free enterprise and that's a privelage that all Americans have the opportunity to take part in. Personally, I don't see myself ever making a conscious descision to ski SS again. Not saying I won't show up if invited, but not under my own valition. It's just too expensive for what they have and the drive it takes. 6 hours is a good chunk of time. I can be in SLC, Utah in about the same amount of time, skiing on the same day of arrival.
Steve
Forget gas at three bucks a gallon; wait until you get your heating bill.
I'd say with Katrina, we are likely to see a serious slowdown in economic growth, to the point of a possible recession, maybe with stagflation thrown in for yucks. That's going to have an impact on all resorts throughout the country, regardless of how any one of us behaves.
And if another hurricane threatens and/or hits the Gulf, you'll be looking at 4 dollar gas by this winter. Refined products are in a crisis situation right now and there really isn't a cap to how high prices can go. If everyone keeps driving every weekend to Snowshoe, that's only going to make things worse.
I like skiing as much as the next person, but there's much more going on than the ski season right now.
Doing our calculation: if gas goes to $3.50/gal it will cost us $40 more for the round trip to SS. Not cheap but not sufficient to stay away. And I think DWW has it right; Snowshoe will be offering all sorts of promotions to get people to the mountain. Already there are offering special low rates if you book your vacations before November 1. I have a call into our usual booking gal to see exactly what the difference will be or if SS is just blowing smoke. If it's decent, I'll just book all of our trips up front and save a few bucks.
Imagine how much it'll cost to run snowmobiles, snowcats/groomers, tractors, snowblowers, snowplowers, generators, shuttle buses, and whatever runs on gas around SS. Not sure if things will run as normal as before.
I don't think lift ticket prices have been set yet. Bet they're doing the calcs right now... and fuel and energy are going to be factors.
my point is that for WEEKEND skiing the SS my be hit hard by this final inconvenience (annoying drive & expensive gas) and that the less than 4 hour resorts will benefit.
My concern is not the price of the fuel but whether or not we will find enough fuel to go where we want, when we want. I remember the first gas shortage in 74. I had to wait in lines for hours to get enough gas to get out of Pittsburgh for the weekend. Then there was the late 70's and again in the 80's. What will be the real problem will be the supply. My opinion is that the demand is outstripping or will soon exceed the domestic supply. When that happens, it will definetly affect our skiing plans, promos or not.
Make me really think HARD over whether I really want to use the roof rack, or take it off entirely.
If it comes to that, supply will increase. You shouldn't worry about that as a long term trend, but in the short term it's entirely possible. There's going to be a massive push for heating oil this winter, setting up for a potentially horrific price at the pump next summer.
I think you'll see a lot of the refineries in LA use the insurance money and disaster relief to expand capacity. Long term, we're either going to need to upgrade our refined products import facilities or build new refineries. One or the other or both will happen. Just not in the next 12-18 months.
Your right, there's definitly a shortage of $2.29/gal fuel but don't worry, there's plenty of the $3.75/gallon variety
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Make me really think HARD over whether I really want to use the roof rack, or take it off entirely.
How tough is it to just place it when you're using it, taking it off for the rest of the time? It's a little hassle, but if squeezes 1 or 2 miles per gallon, that's 30 more miles per tank. Make for easy math, you can figure about a gallon per tank saved.
Taking a very light average driver of 1000 miles a month, average it to be 25 miles to the gallon, forty gallons a month. 15 gallon tank, that's almost 3 tanks a month. A gallon saved per tank turns into 9 or more dollars a month. 5 months until the Mid A season really kicks off, you have saved a half day lift ticket at least.
My math is really loose and off the cuff, but it would probably round out close to that of a more conscious mathmatician. Of course this is a lot of random thought and speculation...my racks are off though.
Steve
I'm waiting to see what happens within the year but if the prices don't significantly alter it'll be diesel for me thank you very much. Hybrids are a false economy and hydrogen fuel cells too far in the future.
I read a pretty interesting article a few weeks ago about some guys who came up with a way to generate petroleum grade oil from waste timber. Right about now it would actually be competetive, I think they said it would have to be high $60's/barrell to be on a par. The idea of it is that basically they are speeding up the natural process of creating oil. Interesting stuff.
Actually, for the rack I have, it isn't -that- easy to just take it off as I don't have factory rails and the Q-clips do impact the door rubber.
Swimmer, I was, however, more thinking about whether to use it for ski transport at all. Loaded up, at speed, it costs me far closer to 10mpg than 2mpg.
Yeah comprex, been carrying mine inside for a while now. Ski's seem very happy, kids don't like hanging onto the roof rack tho, claim it hurts their hands.
Snowshoe and resorts 4+hour or more to drive will suffer because most people don't make these decisions with calculators, they use emotion.
Shelling out $3+/gallon makes one's gut not want to do a super long weekend drive regardless of the actual dollar amount
Don't worry Warren, it's another opportunity for her to wear her helmet
and your skis will love you for it.
Higher lift ticket prices would effect me more than an extra $40 in gas to get to SS. I have four kids (and a Wife) which means I need six lift tickets. If SS raised their ticket prices by $5, it would cost me $120 more for a four day weekend.
Besides, after spending a zillion dollars on SS's overpiced lodging, the extra $40 in gas doesn't seem that painful. See $1,000,000,000,040.00.
The high cost of gas won't keep me away from the slopes, even if I have to ride my bike there.
SCWVA ... I'm with you about the beaucoup bucks spent at SS but you might want to check out this season's lodging rates. I just called our gal at reservations and the rates have gone waaaaaay up. I'm in shock. I think this is our last year at Snowshoe, it's really getting up there in the Stratton price category and way over rated for a relatively dinky ski resort. I can see us spending more time at Wisp/7Springs etc. Better to fly west and ski -real- runs.
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I'm waiting to see what happens within the year but if the prices don't significantly alter it'll be diesel for me thank you very much. Hybrids are a false economy and hydrogen fuel cells too far in the future.
Kennedy -- I'm curious why you say hybrids are a false economy. I have several friends with hybrid vehicles, and the mileage they get makes me sick (compared to the mileage I get in my ol' SUV). They don't require plugging into the wall -- so they're not draining electricity that was produced uncleanly. Do you think they're a false economy because they have batteries that will eventually need to be thrown out? Or because they still use gas? Or because some manufacturers (like Lexus) are exploiting the hybrid nature to increase horsepower vs. efficiency?
I can only see good things coming from hybrid vehicles, especially as an interim step towards alternative energy sources.
Kennedy - Actually hybrids work very well in city driving because of the regenrative braking they recapture energy this way unlike most other systems that radiatively transfer the braking energy backing into the environment ... and they transfer energy efficiently to traction motor/battery as well. Do you not know that the reason trains use diesel-electric hybrid systems is because it is more efficient than other systems?
In 1979 when I was in high-school I was very interested in hydrogen power and hydrox fuel cells and build a small pilot-plant for making hydrogen from solar electricity tnat produced enough volumetric gas to run a small fuel cell for several hours. The problem with this technology is one of safe hydrogen storage ... the gas cylinder is not very safe but there are some inovative ways to store hydrogen in solid form. In fact, when you visit Snowbird you may see a SUV parked in the parking lot that runs off of Hydrogen. The guys that built it are into this power source and it will only take petroleum prices to rise around $5/gallon for this power to make sense.
Biodiesel is a good candidate for this country, given its large agricultural infrastructure. Peanut oil or any kind of vegetable oil when purified and rectified makes for a very good diesel oil and this is actually used somewhat in Europe now. Again, gas prices should rise to above $5/gallon and then this kind of fuel becomes viable.
Sorry my engineering side is comming out ... but to tell you a tale, when I studied energy in engineering school back in 1985, we learned that the price of energy in the USA was not correct ... it was less than the cost of extraction plus the cost of environmental impact in terms of dollars. Our actual costs of energy are now becoming more realisting with $3-$3.50 per gallon perto costs... when it hits its real cost of $5/gallon other alternatives will become viable and I think this a good thing.
So actually I am in favor of higher gas costs and hope that it indeed reaches $5/gallon for regular. Only then will we be on the path to actual energy sufficency and reality.
Well at least in MD I can fuel up w/ E85. That will cover at least half of my gas each way.
Yo, Crush. You hit the nail directly on the head. We had to have the fuel costs reach a certain level for alternatives to become feasable. Just look at the rest of the world and you see that our gas prices, even at $4-5/gallon is still competitive. The problem is that in the states, we don't rely on mass transportation as is done in Europe and other places. Soon, very soon, alternatives will be the commonplace instead of the exception.
Don't get me wrong, I know how many more miles per gallon hybrids get and I know how they work. I feel, and the math is there to prove it, that they are a false economy because the delta in cost between a hybrid and a car of similar size is several thousand dollars. Figure out how many gallons of gas that extra money would buy you, not even allowing for the additional interest on the difference in cost, and in order to just break even on a hybrid you need to drive something in the region of 80 - 90k miles. For a car that size that is getting close to life expectancy in my mind. The other thing that makes me wary is that fact that they are an unknown quantity long term. What is the long term maintenance on one of those.
Diesel on the other hand still delivers very high fuel economy, reliability is not an issue, the difference in cost for fuel itself is non existent, difference in initial cost is non existent and under the new tax guidelines that are coming out diesels will be included for tax credit. Plus if you're really stuck you can run them on canola oil with only a 10% loss in power but better engine life.
I drove nothing but diesels in Europe and they are not the sluggish, noisy smelly diesels of old. I drove a Mercedes E300 (definitely not mine) about 2 years ago that hauled A and was quiet as a mouse.
I see gas prices reducing a little but once they are up I have to wonder how far back down they come. As disastrous as this time is you know there are people in oil companies watching the reaction and seeing how much the market will bear. I remember even two years ago everyone was up in a knot because gas looked likie it might breach $2/gallon, then it did we moaned and groaned got used to it now if someone offered you gas at $2 - $2.50 you'd take the arm at the elbow. But even still we pay less than most of the developed countries in the world for gas. Most of Europe pays close to $5, they struggle with it but have a fair degree of acceptance and just have to become more efficient. The simple fact is that the engine capacities in cars here are a luxury, they really are. Until I moved here the concept of regularly driving a car with a 2.4L engine was insane.
Point is hybrids, better than standard engine but not better than diesel.
Kennedy,
I did asimlar analysis about a year ago and came to a simmilar conclusion for my personal car buying. For those in the compact market with cost as the major consideration a conventional motor makes more sense and is more economical. A honda civic Gas powered makes 42 MPG anyway. A prius with its 53 MPG and $5K more initial cost doesnt break even with the civic until 100K miles+. I assumed an average fuel cost of $2.50 for my study period. Right now the conventional unleaded compact casrt are soo cheap (many under $10K) that hybrids arent really that much cheaper in the long run.
For a different market segment e.g. smaller SUVs the hybid may make alot more sence since you are comparing cars of more like price points.
That is pretty much the same analysis I did. Even when you get to the bigger vehicles the additional price tag for hybrid is equally significant so I still wonder at the cost effectiveness. I'm seriously considering a 5 speed TDi of some sort. If we could just get some good imports from Europe or Japan we'd be golden. There is still a misconception here that diesels are bad though.
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The simple fact is that the engine capacities in cars here are a luxury, they really are. Until I moved here the concept of regularly driving a car with a 2.4L engine was insane.
I just don't understand America's obsession with horsepower. For the last 30 years American car companies have pushed horsepower to the consumers and we've just eatin it up. It's hard to buy a car that doesn't have at least 200 hp. And the ironic thing is that those engines will probably never generate that much power in their entire lives. It takes a small fraction of that to power the average car at interstate speeds. You've gotta be accelerating hard, doing about 150 miles an hour or towing 2000 lbs up a steep hill to use that kind of power. Yet car companies still push it as a major selling point and we keep falling for it.
You gotta HEMI?
Crush- great post. I'm with you most the way until you start talking about the "environmental costs" in gas. Market externalities are almost impossible to price because there are numerous "goods" and "bads" that aren't captured by the pricing system. Environmental pollution is a "bad," but what about the "goods" that have arisen due to gasoline? To name one- gas engines replaced horses in cities as the main form of transportation. Cities were riddled with disease because of horse... bathroom breaks, to put it nicely. What about the public goods that emerged from reduced disease thanks to gasoline?
But an even simpler argument is this: most oil analysts estimated (prior to this runup in prices) that if OPEC had never formed a cartel in the early 70s, oil prices would be half of what they are. Consequently, I see the argument that gas prices should be twice what they are washing out when you factor in the OPEC practice of collusion. Just adding those two together you come right back to the gas price we get at the pump.
As an economist, my larger suspicion is that 1) we don't honestly know what externalities cost or benefit us most of the time and 2) even if we were able to properly price them all, the likely result wouldn't be that much different from what we see in the marketplace today. This goes not only for fuel, but for pretty much any product bought and consumed- from the economists' infamous widget right up to jet liners, and everything in between.
Crush- my gut tells me you're correct, hybrid vehicles are a breakeven deal at best.
Hydrogen......the challenges w/hydrogen as a fuel are the same now as they were 20 years ago, storage and the cost of divorcing H from O. In a perfect process it takes two btu's of energy to make hydrogen fuel containing one btu. If the two btu are coming from a fossille fuel, this doesn't make sense. Nuke power anyone? I do believe that in the next 20 years, we'll see 100 times the progress in alternate fuels that we've seen in the last 20. Anyone remember the old TI calculator, big as a VHS tape, adds subtracts multiplies AND divides, for the low low price of 59.95 in 1975 dollars?
Jimmy - This is so much fun like it takes me back to the cafeteria at GWU ! Yeah this one professor Dr. Ali Cambel (former engergy adviser to Pres. Kennedy) told us that at one time Nuclear power was planned to be so prolific in terms of energy delivery that power companies would probably not even charge for it because it would be so cheap .... wow that would have been interesting!
Oh remember Cold Fusion lol? Damn that would have been nice ....
Roger Z - Oh what I meant by environmental costs is not a negative thing, it just takes a certain amount of money to "pick up" after extracting, delivering and using energy. Like for Coal to electricity you must consider the cost in digging equipment design (diesel engines) to avoid too much particulates, cleaning up after the strip or drag mining, transporting the fuel via say rail, the coal buning plant design (equipment to reduce thermal and atmospheric polutions) etc blahhh blahh ... the cost gets hidden from the fuel costs because of little games the gov't and energy companies play shuffling things around. So maybe the excess costs show up not in price/gal but in giving an energy company a break in the costs of drilling on federal land, etc ... indirect stuff.
Ah! So what you mean are things like tax credits and stuff like that, that help to keep costs below what they should be? If so, I apologize. I'm in a planning program right now and every chance the professors get, they start harping on "market failures." Their incessant talk about it has created a nervous tick in me, sorry about that.
Everything I've read suggests oil is king for a reason - you can't beat the cost. It's cheap to get out of the ground (saudi arabian 'light sweet crude' is said to be clean enough to put in your engine... perhaps a slight exaggeration but still the pt is taken), cheap to process, transport and deliver to the customer. Everything else is NOT AS CHEAP. Sure we ignore many environmental factors but ALL or most others have factors too we'd ignore -- some complicated and probably barely understood (for example suppose we could convert some percent of all sunlight hitting the earth to electricity what would that do to the enviro which is dependent on solar power to keep things going?)
Still we can't live on oil forever (at this nearly free price point!) but unfortunately most (if not all?) of the alternatives depend upon it somewhere in the process (transport to materials, fertilizers, etc...)
SO we need oil -- we are built on it.
As for skiing -- well most of the US electic grid power generation is not dependent on oil but its close cousin COAL. So in that rising fuel costs will make coal more expensive to retrieve, process & transport, I'd say snow making will go up in cost for resorts this year. Food at resorts & equipement in ski shops -- that'll go up if the oil prices "stick" too -- that stuff costs money to ship and there are hidden components in manufacturing too (materials, industrial process, etc..), that are all oil related.
Transport to the slopes will cost each of us more although I'd imagine most of this can be offset with by smart management to local resorts -- so that means more carpooling to the slopes with friends... not a bad thing overall really.
BUT that doesn't take into account flying which should be more expensive all around for the out west/europe ski traveler.
Ultimately it means less disposable income - and that means less entertainment, and less skiing... how many days? Hard to say...
Still I think we'd all agree - it's insidious!
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Jimmy - This is so much fun like it takes me back to the cafeteria at GWU !
...."hey E, check that cutie over there. Man she's not wearing any underware...." sounds more like the cafe at GWU than a discussion of the merits of nuclear energy 
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[...."hey E, check that cutie over there. Man she's not wearing any underware...." sounds more like the cafe at GWU than a discussion of the merits of nuclear energy
.. ooooo yeah ... I think her friend, the one with the big (.)(.) is smiling at me ;-)
So now that we are hopelessly off subject... will higher oil prices affect the price of silicone? A debate for the GWU reminiscers...
I noticed there is a luxury train to White Sulphur Springs. Is there transportation to Snowshoe from there? Much less hassle than a car, cheaper, and scenic
Hmmm.....let's see what mode of transportation from White Sulfer Springs to the shoe??? How about a 73 chevy pickup with a gun rack in the back? In all seriousness though, there used to be a rail line heading north that way, but the right of way was incorporated in to the rails to trails program. You can mountain bike it though.
Ah... As usual... the oil lobby makes it so you can't even take anything other than a gas guzzler anywhere... Without a car in DC, I have no options
From Snowshoe website:
Traveling by Train
The Amtrak company runs the American railway system. Their website,
www.amtrak.com, provides more detailed information.
The closest station to Snowshoe is the following:
- White Sulphur Springs, WV: 1.5 hours away.
Traveling to / from White Sulphur Springs can be accomplished by the following:
- Limo Trans Car Transportation Service. 866-350-2319.
Approximate cost are as follows:
- White Sulphur Springs to New York: $72 one way
- White Sulphur Springs to Washington DC: $33 one way
Other Amtrak stations nearby to Snowshoe include the following:
- Staunton, VA: 2 hours. Amtrak code: STA
- Charlottesville, VA: 3 hours. Amtrak code:CVS
- Richmond, VA: 4 hours. Amtrak code: RVR
- Hinton, WV: 2.5 hours. Amtrak code: HIN
Check out the Hot Deals tab on the Amtrak website. This site offers promotion codes which you can enter when you book your ticket and it will generate a discount for you.
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I have to agree with some of the hype...SS has the longest runs, the most terrain, the biggest "base" village...but you have to acknowledge that the drive is heinous for just a weekend gig. The prices are astronomical. Last year I hit the place just for a day, not buying into the lodging/lift packages that they had available...a day pass was 65 bucks. How do they justify that? Alta, Utah is in the forties..think I paid 45 last year. Jackson Hole is cheaper than Snowshoe. Huge, multi thousand acre resorts with more lifts, more grooming, nicer staff, many more ski patrol staff safety etc etc etc with a day pass 20 bucks cheaper than SS.
Snowshoe knows it has a good thing going. They realize that they have the most to offer in the Mid Atlantic. So they charge a premium for it. It's free enterprise and that's a privelage that all Americans have the opportunity to take part in. Personally, I don't see myself ever making a conscious descision to ski SS again. Not saying I won't show up if invited, but not under my own valition. It's just too expensive for what they have and the drive it takes. 6 hours is a good chunk of time. I can be in SLC, Utah in about the same amount of time, skiing on the same day of arrival.
Steve
could not agree with you more.
Snowshoe is not interested in day skiers and therefore day skiers will pay a steep price - unless you get a season ticket early. That is one way they deal with crowd control, which so many on this forum complain about. Lower window prices will significantly increase weekend and holiday crowds. Large resorts out west don't have a crowd issue - and therefore can sell alot more low priced tickets. If you are willing to go to Snowshoe some time other than MLK or Presidents Weekend (which it seems many on this forum base thier judgment of the resort) you will find some good bargains, low crowds and excellent sking conditions. You may even get a free lift ticket (early season and late season). Like with anything and especially with Snowshoe - move against the crowd and you will be rewarded.
JimK,
Amtrak is great if you don't actually have to be somewhere in a hurry. I've always enjoyed taking the train (try the rack of lamb it's better than most restaurants!).
You can always rely on Amtrak to be late
I always plan my trip in between the major holiday weekends and it doesn't really matter that much, it's still super crowded on the basin side at the weekend. Ticket price of $65/day is insane. Thats about what Vail costs. I don't want to hear about night skiing being included in that either because lets be honest who wants to ride up there in 12 degree weather at night across whatwould inevitably be a block of ice. I like the shoe a lot but I don't think I'm going this year.
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The simple fact is that the engine capacities in cars here are a luxury, they really are. Until I moved here the concept of regularly driving a car with a 2.4L engine was insane.
I just don't understand America's obsession with horsepower......................... You gotta HEMI?
NASCAR?
I predict that about the greatest change is that I will return to my college days habit of demanding that people who are going to the slopes with me kick in some $ for gas. That is about it.
I currently don't do so.
