WICed Fest

Hey WICed Festers!

As summer draws to an end, I wanted to reach out about WICed Fest 2021 especially considering all the chaos in the world right now.

Let me be clear, the current plan is to hold WICed Fest 2021!

The working idea for 2021 was to do our best to get out West this year.  Montana was tossed up as an option because it’s somewhere most of us haven’t been and somewhere most of us want to go. I’m pursuing that option as much as possible.

If Montana doesn’t work out, we’ll resort to our usual pursuit of a location in New England (typically Vermont).

• Unfortunately, timing and geography are the problems I’m running into at the moment.
  Timing is an issue because we don’t know what the future holds in terms of travel-related restrictions due to COVID.
• Geography is a problem because we have people coming from at least four states – New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland.  Every state has different travel restrictions about both who can come to their state, quarantine requirements, and then we face quarantine requirements on the way home.
  As an example, Vermont requires me to quarantine for two weeks once I get there (they require all non-Vermonters to do so), and New York requires me to quarantine for two weeks when I get home.  That obviously makes a snowboarding trip pretty hard to plan.

The rules for the rest of the states in question vary:

• Montana currently has zero travel restrictions. 
• New Hampshire has similar guidelines/requests as Vermont but it’s not law.
• Maine is allowing New York residents without quarantine but Maryland, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island residents would require quarantine (or a negative test within 72hrs prior to arrival).

The bottom line is that it’s tough as hell to plan something right now while keeping everyone safe and not requiring anyone to take a full month off of work.

I’m going to continuously keep an eye on all of this information with the Montana trip as a priority and the New England trip as a back-up (or even a second trip for those that can’t make Montana).

I’ll keep you apprised of what’s going on but know that I’m working behind the scenes and doing the best I can to get a trip planned. 

As much as it saddens me to say, we all have to realize that there is a very real possibility that WICed Fest won’t happen in 2021.  I’m hoping that is not the case, but we have to be realistic about the situation.  I’ll do whatever I can to make something happen though!

Feel free to reach out with any suggestions you have.

Other than that, I hope all is well and that you enjoy the rest of the summer!