I was in vail last month I noticed the prices are high, I think a day pass at vail was 200+. I have the epic pass so I don’t remember for certain. The more popular mountains here - killington, Stowe, loon aren’t that high yet but they are approaching that level slowly.

The warm/cold cycles here kill the snow. The freeze/thaw. This winter has been a bit of an anomaly but it’s been crazy warm (50s and 60s some days with many 40° days) and very very cold days well into the negatives, with not much snow.

When it does snow a decent amount, alot of times it starts or ends as rain and ruins any powder. Even when it’s straight powder, it might be on top of a sheet of ice. Nonetheless when a good forecast shows up, we all lose our shit over at r/icecoast and there’s a battle between good and evil in the comments sections (optimists vs pessimists).

Long story short, you can get great skiing here, when you know where to look sometimes. When it’s not great, it can be good. When it’s not good, you’re still skiing. And the ski culture is overall pretty good once you know where to go. Especially for kids that are learning.