Slate Article on the Duopoly of Skiing and Riding

[thetrailboss]

The Two Warring Companies That Ruined Skiing

The past two decades have seen mountains all over succumb.

slate.com

 

[drjeff]

Things I believe more than an article in Slate......

Ski Blades are the greatest advancement in snow sliding sports of all time.....

 

[jimk]

I'm in the camp that loves the mega passes. They came about just as I was nearing retirement and eager to ski a wide variety of big mtns around North America, and I have. I did not live near one of the nice places that went from quietly great to now noisily mobbed. So I never knew any better. Besides, since I'm retired I can ski weekdays and late season and beat a lot of the problems discussed in the article. This is not to say that everything is milk and honey. I lived through the madhouse traffic and parking of last season in UT, but the great snow made it worth it. If the snow sucks this year and it's still a madhouse and crowded I might have to rethink my opinion

 

[deadheadskier]

Love / hate relationship with multi-mountain passes. I haven't had a single mountain pass that I skied at pretty much exclusively since I was a Stowe local 20 years ago. A couple of years since I had Ragged and Gunstock passes only , but those were supplemented with Fox44 and SkiVT cards. But most of the years since I left Stowe I've had multi mountain passes; ASC, Peak, Epic and recently Indy.

There's probably only 5 mountains in the East that if forced to, I could ski there exclusively and be mostly satisfied. Killington, Sugarbush, Stowe, Sunday River and Sugarloaf. Those are the only places that have the terrain variety, snowmaking capabilities and season lengths to satisfy me. None of these are easy day trips for me, so I'm glad I have multi mountain passes to choose from. I was very satisfied for many years with the Peak pass as the combination of Crotched, Attitash and Wildcat matched the experience of what one of those other 5 mountains provide individually in terms of terrain variety and season length while being convenient to get to as a NH resident.

I think a bigger issue than multi-mountain passes is having ski areas be part of publicly traded companies. Such companies end up being more loyal to shareholders than customers in the form of operational cuts. Happened with Intrawest and ASC in the past and happens today with Epic. It's just the nature of the game. My company in healthcare went public in 2018. We are not as customer focused as we were when we were a private company trying to make a name for ourselves. With Vail / Epic in NH, the season length was cut by 3-4 weeks in the state and early season snowmaking efforts have been more conservative at all of their areas except perhaps Crotched. Joe skier obviously cares about cheap more than product because all of these areas are busier than ever. Better for the shareholders and the masses, worse for the diehard 30+ day a season skier. I imagine if iKon went public, those skiers would start seeing similar operational cuts as Epic skiers have seen.

The one other area that I also don't like with multi-mountain passes is the coinciding outrageous day ticket prices. It just makes it really difficult to ski off pass. I give Epic credit for offering affordable Epic Day Passes. I wish iKon offered something similar so I could regularly get to some of their areas again to either meet friends or show my kids some place new.

 

[thetrailboss]

Things I believe more than an article in Slate......

Ski Blades are the greatest advancement in snow sliding sports of all time.....

"Right on cue man, right on cue. Haters going to hate!"

 

[thetrailboss]

Love / hate relationship with multi-mountain passes. I haven't had a single mountain pass that I skied at pretty much exclusively since I was a Stowe local 20 years ago. A couple of years since I had Ragged and Gunstock passes only , but those were supplemented with Fox44 and SkiVT cards. But most of the years since I left Stowe I've had multi mountain passes; ASC, Peak, Epic and recently Indy.

There's probably only 5 mountains in the East that if forced to, I could ski there exclusively and be mostly satisfied. Killington, Sugarbush, Stowe, Sunday River and Sugarloaf. Those are the only places that have the terrain variety, snowmaking capabilities and season lengths to satisfy me. None of these are easy day trips for me, so I'm glad I have multi mountain passes to choose from. I was very satisfied for many years with the Peak pass as the combination of Crotched, Attitash and Wildcat matched the experience of what one of those other 5 mountains provide individually in terms of terrain variety and season length while being convenient to get to as a NH resident.

I think a bigger issue than multi-mountain passes is having ski areas be part of publicly traded companies. Such companies end up being more loyal to shareholders than customers in the form of operational cuts. Happened with Intrawest and ASC in the past and happens today with Epic. It's just the nature of the game. My company in healthcare went public in 2018. We are not as customer focused as we were when we were a private company trying to make a name for ourselves. With Vail / Epic in NH, the season length was cut by 3-4 weeks in the state and early season snowmaking efforts have been more conservative at all of their areas except perhaps Crotched. Joe skier obviously cares about cheap more than product because all of these areas are busier than ever. Better for the shareholders and the masses, worse for the diehard 30+ day a season skier. I imagine if iKon went public, those skiers would start seeing similar operational cuts as Epic skiers have seen.

The one other area that I also don't like with multi-mountain passes is the coinciding outrageous day ticket prices. It just makes it really difficult to ski off pass. I give Epic credit for offering affordable Epic Day Passes. I wish iKon offered something similar so I could regularly get to some of their areas again to either meet friends or show my kids some place new.

One big observation is that by and far folks on the east coast are not having nearly the same level of crowding as we are in UT and CO. The notable exception is Stowe. As I've said (way too much), in a five-year span we went from traffic issues only on snow days and major holidays to now every weekend. Big Cottonwood was always a solid option after a storm with little or no traffic. Now everyone needs a parking reservation--and if you are on IKON only, that will cost you at least $25.00 per day.

So from my POV, it is easy to see why folks in NE are really excited about EPIC and IKON in particular. By and large you don't have the negative impacts that we have here.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

i feel like we beat this topic to death multiple times a year

slc is uniquely fucked by having a booming metro like 20 miles from 6 ikon resorts and 2 (?) epic resorts. the issue is just as attributable to proximity to a rapidly growing metropolis as it is to the mega-passes.

mountain collective > max pass > ikon has allowed me to ski a lot more and at a lot more places than was ever possible before. ive always been a weekend and holiday skier, and in my experience the crowds have generally been tolerable. i avoid epic because it seems that they are much worse at customer service and crowd management.

i am also squarely in the demographic the article describes as the ideal multi-pass holder. millenial northeastern urbanite with a bit of expendable cash.

 

[4aprice]

Here we go again with the subject for snow enthusiasts that keeps on giving and giving. Makes for some entertaining reading on these message boards for sure. What are we, about a decade in to these multi mountain pass products? Up front here I am a satisfied user of said products and plan to continue as long as they are available.

Biggest complaints I read and hear are from people who are local to, or have second homes at the resorts. Most seem to pine for "old days" when pretty much everything was independent and access to their particular resort was much more limited. There seems to be a lot of resentment as well in many locations. A little strange in areas that mostly rely on tourism as their major industry but we see it as well in the summer at the beach's where the natives are actually proud of their hatred of "outsiders".

The corporate ownership issue seems to me to be a double edge sword. I certainly understand many peoples distrust of the corporate world. But it takes a lot of capital to run these resorts and outside of a few individual wealthy people (or the state in NY's case) who outside of the corporate world has the finances to run and maintain these facilities? For all the complaints about about Vail and Alterra one thing they do seem to do is (maybe not on everyone's preferred timeline) maintain, replace, upgrade and even in some cases expand.

One thing we hear very little of are ways to maybe improve the system. DHS' s suggestion above to Alterra is a good one. I personally would have no problem a reservation and capacity limit at certain areas like the capacity of a stadium or arena. Only issue with that is it would have to be on some sort of a sliding scale depending on the amount of lifts and terrain open, not easy to run.

One more idea I have thought over is some sort of a blackout area around the resorts sort of like the old rule the NFL had for home games that were not sold out. In this case the purpose of the blackout area (by zip code or billing address) would be to keep locals from using the product as a locals seasons pass and make it more of a travel tool. Salt Lake is certainly the poster child for this but Denver and Tahoe are certainly there too. But I would suspect that would go over like a lead balloon in those same areas, after all even with the "low cost passes" plenty of people park out on SR 190 to just to avoid the parking fees at Solitude.

 

[BodeMiller1]

Tripled revenue since 2009. $980, 000,000 to 3 billion?



Ended 2022? That's pretty good.

 

[thetrailboss]

One more idea I have thought over is some sort of a blackout area around the resorts sort of like the old rule the NFL had for home games that were not sold out. In this case the purpose of the blackout area (by zip code or billing address) would be to keep locals from using the product as a locals seasons pass and make it more of a travel tool. Salt Lake is certainly the poster child for this but Denver and Tahoe are certainly there too. But I would suspect that would go over like a lead balloon in those same areas, after all even with the "low cost passes" plenty of people park out on SR 190 to just to avoid the parking fees at Solitude.

I have thought of this idea as well.

BTW the Town of Brighton is going to require paid reservations now to park on SR 190.

 

[deadheadskier]

One big observation is that by and far folks on the east coast are not having nearly the same level of crowding as we are in UT and CO. The notable exception is Stowe. As I've said (way too much), in a five-year span we went from traffic issues only on snow days and major holidays to now every weekend. Big Cottonwood was always a solid option after a storm with little or no traffic. Now everyone needs a parking reservation--and if you are on IKON only, that will cost you at least $25.00 per day.

So from my POV, it is easy to see why folks in NE are really excited about EPIC and IKON in particular. By and large you don't have the negative impacts that we have here.

All true and the primary issue in Stowe is the same as Utah and Colorado. Probably Washington State too. One way in.

Unfortunately you were destined to experience these increasing problems in Utah no matter what. 2010 population was 2.77M. 2023 3.4M. Same goes for Colorado. Population of 5.04 in 2010. 2023 5.9M. Both have occurred with no major upgrades to the roads to ski country.

In the Northeast, population growth has been more modest and there seems to be more primary road upgrades going on. Definitely the case here in NH. 93 through Manchester is much improved and that expansion will extend to Concord over the next ten years. Route 3 is currently being expanded. Route 16 has had major improvements as well in Dover to reduce traffic. 95 in Maine is getting expanded through Falmouth. Easier to do all that here vs out west due to topography.

 

[4aprice]

All true and the primary issue in Stowe is the same as Utah and Colorado. Probably Washington State too. One way in.

Unfortunately you were destined to experience these increasing problems in Utah no matter what. 2010 population was 2.77M. 2023 3.4M. Same goes for Colorado. Population of 5.04 in 2010. 2023 5.9M. Both have occurred with no major upgrades to the roads to ski country.

In the Northeast, population growth has been more modest and there seems to be more primary road upgrades going on. Definitely the case here in NH. 93 through Manchester is much improved and that expansion will extend to Concord over the next ten years. Route 3 is currently being expanded. Route 16 has had major improvements as well in Dover to reduce traffic. 95 in Maine is getting expanded through Falmouth. Easier to do all that here vs out west due to topography.

Oh just wait. They are just starting work on Floyd Hill on I-70. That ought to mess things up good for a while. Remember "Epic liftlines and Ikonic traffic"

 

[deadheadskier]

Yeah, my days of doing the I70 thing are long over. If I go to CO again, it will be places you can fly to local airports; not commuting from Denver.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

im doing aspen via denver. so much more affordable. one annoying drive up. will live.

 

[AdironRider]

One big observation is that by and far folks on the east coast are not having nearly the same level of crowding as we are in UT and CO. The notable exception is Stowe. As I've said (way too much), in a five-year span we went from traffic issues only on snow days and major holidays to now every weekend. Big Cottonwood was always a solid option after a storm with little or no traffic. Now everyone needs a parking reservation--and if you are on IKON only, that will cost you at least $25.00 per day.

So from my POV, it is easy to see why folks in NE are really excited about EPIC and IKON in particular. By and large you don't have the negative impacts that we have here.

I don't disagree on the Ikon shitshow, it really changed Jackson as well, but SLC does have some other elements going against it.

1) Its exploding population wise, and there are a lot of skier transplants just like you that are part of that growth.
2) The geography of the area leads to massive bottlenecks in the canyons with only one way in and one way out. To say there wasn't traffic on weekends pre-ikon is a bit of a stretch.
3) While not unique to SLC, the State and the ski areas have tried to implement a myriad of different solutions, from One Wasatch to others, and pretty much all of them get shot down by a minority of green minded political types or nimby backcountry skiers.

At the end of the day, this started with ASC, and the multi-mountain pass has made skiing more affordable for more people than any other pass offering in the history of skiing. I think people forget passes to one mountain used to cost thousands of dollars in the eighties (so like 4k plus in today's dollars), to ride slow as hell double chairs with hour plus wait times. Say what you want about Vail, but you cannot argue that the product is inferior now to days of yore.

 

[4aprice]

im doing aspen via denver. so much more affordable. one annoying drive up. will live.

They've just started the work on Floyd Hill so it shouldn't be a problem yet, but when they start what they are calling the "flyover" bridges at the bottom by the US 6 interchange, look out. The tie ups now remain the usual suspects like Georgetown Hill, the tunnels and metered traffic, Of course something goes wrong in Glenwood Canyon and it's a long detour around.

 

[deadheadskier]

One simple (but expensive) way to improve egress into resorts and move along road traffic is having paved and well lined parking lots.

I never really thought about this until I saw the benefits at Gunstock. They paved and lined their main lot this fall. It was dirt prior. The speed in which they were able to park cars this past weekend was probably double that of when it was a dirt lot. It probably translates to more cars fitting as well.

 

[AdironRider]

That is a good point. For a while now lots of ski towns and areas (cough cough Jackson as just one example) have been trying to force everyone onto a bus or some other terrible parking situation (ala the dirt example) when the reality is skiing is going to have a majority of their clientele drive. There is a ton of gear, kids aren't riding a bus in ski boots easily, etc. You need to be able to provide the infrastructure to accommodate vehicles in an efficient manner.

 

[cdskier]

One simple (but expensive) way to improve egress into resorts and move along road traffic is having paved and well lined parking lots.

I never really thought about this until I saw the benefits at Gunstock. They paved and lined their main lot this fall. It was dirt prior. The speed in which they were able to park cars this past weekend was probably double that of when it was a dirt lot. It probably translates to more cars fitting as well.

Paved and lined is all well and good in theory until it starts snowing and you can't see the lines. Sugarbush added a line last year marking the halfway point of one section so people could properly park without being too far forward or backwards in order to get 2 cars back to back in that section. I'd estimate that most of the winter you couldn't see said line. I thought it was a great idea when I first saw it (when the ground was bare), but it didn't work out as well as I thought it would in reality once you hit mid-winter with regular snowfall.

I still support paving and at least attempting lines though. I just wouldn't count on the line part helping as much as we'd hope it would unless someone does a superb job clearing snow in the lot all the time.

 

[BenedictGomez]

There are roughly 50% more people in America in 2023 than there were just ~40 years ago in 1980. I'm often surprised when this topic comes up how few people realize this, that the population has boomed so quickly. And this is thought to wildly undercount illegal immigration, so it's probably even worse. Our population growth, much of it through immigration has been explosive. The reality is, there's no room at the inn if America wants to maintain the same type of uncongested life we used to have.

Congested roads? It's just going to get worse. Especially given as folks have mentioned, the eco-nuts dont really want solutions, they just want to be perceived as self-righteous people who are better than you. Often I find there really isnt even a solid environmental case to be made for blocking something, they just want a cause to "fight". It's sort of like their religion, or at least their hobby. The recent lift upgrades blocked at Park City are a decent example. Their arguement was fast lifts will increase crowding and traffic, and that's bad for mother nature. Completely ridiculous. But it worked.