Letter: Questioning Squaw Valley’s policies

To the community,

Here is a chronological list of events concerning Squaw Valleys’ refusal to grant any type of credit to us regarding the 2013-14 ski season. We have contacted them every year since their refusal to no avail.

We purchased our season tickets in September of 2013. In October of 2013, Sue was diagnosed with a debilitating spinal condition that would require extensive surgery and rehabilitation and would require care giving by myself as her condition needed constant attention and help in her daily activities. We contacted Squaw Valley in November 2013 and told them of the situation and asked what should we do. We were told that we needed to document all medical procedures and submit them with a letter from our primary doctor and invoices from the performing surgeon and hospital.

We followed these instructions to a tee and delivered them personally to a staff member at Squaw. Our season passes were never activated, nor did we ask for a refund, only a credit toward the 2014-15 season. After contacting them to see the status of our account, we were told that they would not be willing to do anything for us in any form, even though we followed their written instructions.

We then began in 2014, a series of letters stating our case to their director of services and also to CEO Andy Wirth. No responses were received.

At this time I had a conversation with a friend and told him of our dilemma and our dissatisfaction with Squaw’s decision. He told me of a friend of his who had basically the same situation as ours and he had received a full credit minus a $50 fee. That really sent my blood pressure through the roof. We had resigned our selves to the fact that corporate greed was more important that good customer service and satisfaction. I honestly felt that their stance was that “we’ve got your money and we aren’t willing to offer any relief.”

We were just frustrated and irritated by their arrogance and attitude and threw our hands in the air. We’ve never been one to give in, so in 2016, we sent a registered letter to CEO Andy Wirth thinking that he never saw any of our previous correspondence and he would do the right thing. We were wrong. He never responded.

At this point we just decided to call it a day and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not ski Squaw or Alpine again. Then we read the rant about Squaw’s attitude about their employees, customers, and future plans to develop and then sell the resorts without regard to the people that live and recreate here, and we decided that we had a story to tell about Squaw Valley to the area residents and visitors. Instead of doing the right thing, they choose the low road and did nothing.

Pete and Sue High, Tahoma