To The Editor:
With interest, I read the article titled “The Sugarbush experience” by Hadley Laskowski that appeared in last week’s edition of The Valley Reporter. Generally, I ski a lot -- two years ago I logged 102 days, and last year I hit 73 days before the mountain shut down because of the pandemic. I have not skied this year, however, because I’m not comfortable with the situation at the mountain.
In her article, Ms. Laskowski chronicles her day of skiing last weekend at Sugarbush. She writes, “As seen by the license plates, people had come from far and wide to enjoy Vermont’s most recent snow dump. . . .” Hmm. Did these people, who came from “far and wide,” comply with the state’s quarantine requirement? In any event, Ms. Laskowski continued, "The parking lot jitney was rolling and picking up eager skiers, who packed into the open-air trailer like sardines.” Okay, so now we know that we have people who have come from far and wide packed into a jitney “like sardines.” Hmm. That sounds questionable.
Ms. Laskowski went on to say, "At Sugarbush, passes don't work until the resort's online affidavit has been signed. It asks skiers and riders to attest that they understand and will comply to Vermont's quarantine guidelines.” So now we know that all these people, who have come from far and wide, have attested to their compliance with the state’s quarantine requirements. Does this mean that they actually have? Well, Ms. Laskowski gives us good reason to doubt that is the case. After telling us that a liftie asked her if she wanted to ride alone, she wrote, “Oh, it doesn’t matter to me.” She then went on to say, “Soon I was on the quad with a stranger, who sat at the opposite end of the chair. He was a snowboarder, a product design engineer from the Philadelphia suburbs, up for the weekend."
We’re in the midst of the worst pandemic we have suffered in over 100 years, and we’re working hard to contain it. Except, not really.
David Tanzer
Waitsfield
