March 14, 2018 Steamboat

We parked at a parking lot used by the locals and workers, with a free shuttle to the terminal and a short walk to the lifts. We rode the gondola to 9000' and skied down to Sundown express and then rode up to 10,400'. From here there are10 groomed runs to the base of the Sunshine express. This area warms quickly on a cold groomed surface. This is also the area we enjoyed on our last powder day here a couple of years ago. We worked our way "lookers left" and followed the sun. Very few folks were going off piste on the lower part of the hill. Upper terrain that was groomed was in nice shape, but lack of a solid snow pack provides the ski shops some business.

We usually use the "singles line" at the base of lifts, but there was a lack of anyone employee-wise directing people in the the lines to fill the chair seats - very frustrating. There were always at least 3 employes at the base chatting, but the lift lines were a mess. Also, once you got off the lift, we only saw one employee providing tourists with any info on the mountain near a large mountain billboard, and the signage on how to get from point A to point B was poor. What is crazy is that I always have a list of lines that are groomed marked on a ski trail map for the areas we want to ski. But I like to ask if I need some advise. This was the "kids" holiday, i.e. spring break, from Texas, so we saw a lot of folks skiing/boarding at speed with little to no control. Again, surprisingly, we saw very few " slow" or "no straight lining" banners or employees keeping an eye on things. We have been skiing in several states at different resorts. I make this point because we are at "resorts" that are tourist destinations, and there is a big difference on how the management runs "the business". Not whining, just surprised at the lack of customer service which was too bad because the skiing was pretty good given the snow pack.