Ice Coaster's video: Pedigree Weekend 2023 Part1 - Perseverance OR No Power Plenty Powder

Pedigree Weekend has traditionally been the weekend I look forward to most all year. Its a two (or sometimes three) day event where we close all the Pedigree locations and head up to a mountain and ski, demo next year's equipment, eat, drink and have fun for a few days with all of the people that we work with over a busy stressful season. The past four years we have been unable to have Pedigree Weekend due to Covid, weather and more. With my old boss Jeff retiring a few years ago and my taking over his role, I felt it was important to do whatever I could to make Pedigree Weekend a thing again. To introduce the fun of Pedigree Weekend to the next generation of Pedigree employees. I took this thing from start to finish and managed to get everything set up for our trip. We were going to close all of our stores and almost 150 of us were going to head up to Jiminy peak for a couple days. All of the ski reps would bring their toys from next year and we'd get to try them out. We drag a few gas grills out onto the snow near the lift and BBQ great food all day. There is a catered, sit down dinner and we do a big raffle with tons of awesome stuff (skis, snowboards, etc.). In addition to all of this, the snow gods seemed to be smiling upon us as the biggest storm of the year was bearing down on Jiminy the exact days we were going to be there. Forecasts were calling for anywhere from 18-24". It seemed too good to be true. Of course, it was. There was so much heavy snow that the entire area lost power. The lifts would not be spinning. As a matter of fact, Jiminy Peak was closing for the day. We had this entire party set up and it seemed like Jiminy could tell us to GTFO at any moment. They didn't, though. They were so amazingly accommodating, I can't thank them enough. We had the entire lodge to ourselves, the entire patio that looks out onto the snow along with a few fires. Keep in mind, Jiminy is closed for the day at this point. It was just us and the few employees that actually made it into work that day. We were basically left to our own devices. We set up our BBQs, the reps set up tents, we demoed skis, some people hiked up the snowfield in front of the patio and did a bit of learning how to ski, others headed to the park and played around in there. Some people just hung out and ate and drank all day. A few people took over one of the maintenance cabins and set up a card game, complete with cigars and scotch. A few of us more "motivated" people actually hiked to the top of Jiminy. It was not easy and I definitely took a few breaks but I made it to the top and was rewarded with some of the best, untouched, fresh snow I've ever gotten to ski. We had to scramble because with no power and no staff they couldn't provide the catered meal for 100. We managed to pull it together and in about three hours we set up and executed a dinner for 100 people. Partially thanks to the one F&B worker from Jiminy who was actually there that day and managed to get us cans of sauce and pasta to cook; partially thanks to the boss man Tommy, Nordica Dave, Rene, Kim and everyone else who slaved over a hot grill all day. We set up two rep's tents inside the lodge and strung lights through them which we ran out the window. We powered it all using one of the rep's vans so that was we had enough light that we could have the dinner and do the raffle. In the end, those of us who made it up (and it was a lot of us) kept a good attitude and made a potentially bad situation really, really good. The day was a great one with tons of memories that won't soon be forgotten. Oh yeah and then after the dinner and a heavy night of "festivities", nearly everyone was asleep at 2:30am when the fire alarm was accidentally tripped as they were trying to get power back up. There are many fun stories about how we each dealt with that situation. Imagine being blacked out after a night of drinking only to be awoken in a room you're not familiar with while a painfully loud noise is blaring. You go into the narrow, "The Shining-like" hallway which is pitch black, aside from the strobe light that keeps flashing every few seconds with the cripplingly loud alarm sound. It literally felt like I was in a horror movie and the light would flash revealing some horrible demon. We were notified that it was a false alarm and I fell back asleep instantly. Then the following day the power came back on and we were all treated to one of the best powder days that any of us had seen in a while, and this time the lifts were actually working. All in all, it was a pretty stressful situation but one that we managed to pull off despite a really rocky road. Thanks to everyone who came out, the biggest thanks to Jiminy Peak for being such awesome hosts to us for a few days. I'm happy to have been able to introduce Pedigree Weekend to the next generation and I think its here to stay.