The ski season is now finished for the year. RAL (the ski field operator) were intending to run for a couple of weeks beyond Labour weekend but a significant loss of snow put an end to that.
The Covid situation has made it a highly disruptive time for the lodge, but luckily a recovery was made for the September / October school holidays, and also a few people made use of the lodge over Labour weekend.
RAL did, however, manage to operate with limits during level 2 so this along with better weather than last year allowed them to work with the limited lifts and eventually managed to get the west T bar in operation. Better weather, less snow, but more ski days.
Hopefully, the west chair and the Delta chair will be operating next season to bring everything up to speed.
Along with the bookable car parking limiting the numbers on the field, RAL have limited the number of seasons passes sold this month all to make the mountain experience better for all next year.
RAL will be reopening for their summer season on 12th December. Restaurant and Gondola operating.
Looking ahead for the lodge, we will be open for the three-week period from Christmas so we will have people at the lodge over that time to host as we have done for a few years now. Anyone intending to stay over that time will need to phone ahead to make sure there is space, and payment this year will be made by direct crediting the club with their payment. The lodge host will be assisting people in doing this when they arrive.
For the lodge sub-committee, we will be looking over the past year and see what we can do differently to make a better lodge experience. The Lodge booking team and our treasurer have been patiently refunding people as cancellations came up and new bookings developed over the holiday period.
I would like to thank Elly for her work with bookings over several years. This now leaves Andy and AJ to manage the bookings at this stage.
Here’s hoping we have a Covid free Christmas and a better year next year.
Brian
Lodge Convenor