Rental Wrap-up

 The season appears to be winding down. Here it is, March 6, and the temperature is headed for the 50s by mid afternoon, The day began with drizzle and showers, which have given way to parting clouds and sunshine.

Average temperatures turn out to be higher than you might expect based on New England legend. Normal daytime highs go above freezing by the end of February in this part of New Hampshire. By March they're climbing through the 40s. We get cold snaps, and normally subfreezing nights, but the strong sun is joined by thawing temperatures at best.

Up north and up high, as well as micro-climates nearer by, will hold more snow, but of course climate change shifts all of those expectations. On our little touring center we are quite likely done for the year.

I mentioned at the beginning of winter that the Covid boom appeared to have ended. We have continued to get inquiries, but looking at our rental categories I note that the touring sector remained fairly strong, but skating ski and snowshoe rentals were way off last year's totals. It's not just because the shallower snow didn't really call for snowshoes, and the snow on the trails seemed to be a little soft for skating a lot of the time. Most renters don't know that. We weren't even getting asked.

As employment numbers have improved, people have less free time. They might still be interested, but lack the opportunity.

Interest in one form or another of locomotion on snow depends on exposure. Skate interest hasn't vanished. Renters might have bypassed us because they assumed that we didn't have usable conditions. Still, I'm surprised to see the steadily rising curve of interest in skate skiing level off so sharply even among the people who did show up here. Maybe their interest was dulled by hearing from a friend who rented the equipment and tried to master the technique with no instruction whatsoever. It can be exhausting if you don't absorb a couple of basic concepts. The experimenter comes away feeling like skating itself is too strenuous to pursue when it is actually no more fatiguing than classical on a nicely groomed surface. Do it wrong, though, and you will flounder miserably. Do it half right and you will still work way harder than you have to, and blame the technique in general rather than your own technique in particular.

You need to be fit to be fast, but you don't need to be fast to have fun. You can skate around at a touring pace without investing hours and hours in training. Or not. 

So now we're in that unclaimed territory in which we don't know whether to cram the ski rental stuff into its corner for the bike season or leave it out to take advantage of any late storm. Bike calls are picking up, and ski interest seems to be ending obligingly. Once the cover bakes off of critical links in our trail system, we can't groom it all anyway.

The Boom is Bust

 Last winter, our shop and ski area saw interest at levels we hadn't seen since the 1980s and '90s. And even in the 1990s the trend was downward. But lots of people had schedule flexibility, and strong incentives to find something fun to do outdoors. 

This winter has not seen anything close to the same level of interest. A fair number of people seem to be looking for new or used gear to purchase, but rental business has pulled back to a moderate level on weekends and holidays. I say holidays, but we've only had the one so far. Christmas Week saw some pretty heavy rental business at the start of the week, but nothing like the frenzies that formed when we had skiable conditions last year.

Weather is a minor factor. The snow has been thin when we have it at all. It's sufficient to keep a few kilometers going for anyone who is really interested, but it's not a big white canvas on which the prospective skier can paint fantasy landscapes of the tour they hope to have.

Last weekend, we laid on extra help to deal with anticipated crowds and let them head home by 11 a.m. because no one had showed up.

We could have sold more ski sets this season if we could have gotten more product. The same goes for snowshoes, although in both categories the inquiries have tapered off.

Just as weather is not climate, so we might get what looks like "normal" weather during an overall shifting trend, so might we have busy days in rental or retail. But the boom has busted, as we knew it would. At least I hope that whoever is in charge of production knows it, because otherwise they will pump out product two seasons too late. On the plus side, it will mean closeouts and discounts like we haven't seen since the last century. On the minus side, the suppliers can't afford to take a hit like that, and it will create in the public's mind the impression that we really could be selling our wares for far less all the time.

We'll cross that snow bridge when we come to it. But remember that I said it.

If you don't care about others, at least think of yourself

 In one significant way, the winter of 2020-2021 was much better than the one we're in now. We had stringent pandemic precautions in place, and people abided by them or they didn't get to come in. We had enough people on staff to deal with the huge volume of rental business. The snow cover wasn't great, which is a new trend in the changing climate, but it was good enough for us to operate. The main issue was crowd control, and we had that well organized.

Last winter, there was no vaccine yet. The consequences of infection could be severe enough that we could make a case and make it stick. No doubt we lost some business, and invited some ridicule, but we're all still here. 

Over the summer, we relaxed our protocols as everyone else did. For a few months we even went maskless, until the Delta surge. When I had a close call with exposure through my position on the zoning board I serve on, we all started covering up again. We didn't go to the full system of baffles we'd used during the uncontrolled phase of the illness. We did not re-institute our mask mandate for incoming customers. But I really appreciated any customers who wore one anyway, and I appreciate them vastly more now.

The omicron variant has created a new realm of anxiety, aggravated by the fact that we now have fewer employees to run the business. Ideally, the staff should be no less than three. Most days we only have two. Because of that, I can't do service work as efficiently during business hours, because I have to drop it to deal with direct customer service needs on the retail floor and in rental, as well as covering the front while the other guy tries to shove down some food.

The other guy -- who actually owns the place -- is also the groomer. Get him sick, and we not only have to close the shop, you also don't get any groomed trails until he's off the disabled list. So, even if you aren't afraid of the illness, think it's trivial, and believe that we should all just snuffle each other's snot and get it over with, remember that your good time at our ski area depends on us being there to serve you. If you get us sick, we may not be dead or dying, but we're not at work.

Mask up, keep your distance, and don't be a jerk. It's called enlightened self interest.