• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

Superpasses: more crowds?

machski

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
3,701
Points
113
Location
Northwood, NH (Sunday River, ME)
A 40 minute wait for the tram, on a refreeze, basically spring, midweek day is absurd.

Jackson has increased its skier visits almost 40% in two years. Your memories are wrong.

5 tram wait at 8:30am this past Sunday. It was almost 8 by the time the mountain opened. That is an hour and a half wait.
Unfortunately, Trams are not high capacity lifts even if you can stuff over a hundred people in a box at a time. And unfortunately, it's the only way to the very top so it more than likely draws big crowds for first runs. I feel for you, but again I circle back to the fact that JHMR (and Snowbird for that matter) have put a ton of capital investments in over the last decade. The resorts didn't do this just to please the few of you who have been or are now "locals.". That wouldn't produce the ROI they are looking for. So the fact they have done these investments publicized those investments and happen to be many skier and rider's top destination "proving grounds" didn't have anything to do at all with attracting people to the mountain. The fact JHMR has had some of the best snow in the country the last 2 seasons hasn't helped your situation either as that is increasing folks wanting to hit their "dream" mountain when it is good as well.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using AlpineZone mobile app
 

jimk

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 1, 2012
Messages
1,790
Points
113
Location
Wash DC area
I defer about crowds to AdironRider as a local at JHMR. But all I know is last week wasn't too bad. My visits in 15 and 18 are very anecdotal memories, but they were weekdays around same time (late Feb/early Mar) and many chairs had significant lines those visits. Not so last week. Last Monday 2/24 was a 6" new snow day, about 2" wind drift on Tuesday at JHMR.

BTW, all skiing is great skiing. I've been skiing Snowbird quite a bit the last month. There have been a couple 45 min drives up the canyon. But maybe only one day worse than that and I went elsewhere.
This thread needs some photos:razz:
Grand Targhee
pug gang GT justin best2.jpg

Jackson Hole
pug gang brad summit.jpg
 
Last edited:

abc

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2008
Messages
5,801
Points
113
Location
Lower Hudson Valley
jimk, you definitely have selective memory filtered by rose colored lens, I'm afraid.

Targhee in clear weather? That's exceptional. It's not called the Grand Foggy for no reason!
 

jaytrem

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
1,987
Points
83
Only twice. No idea what it looks like either.

I guess I lucked out with a blue bird day there. But I've been to Big White (aka Big Whiteout) 3 different years and still have no clue what the top of the moutain looks like.
 

machski

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
3,701
Points
113
Location
Northwood, NH (Sunday River, ME)

abc

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2008
Messages
5,801
Points
113
Location
Lower Hudson Valley

Edd

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 8, 2006
Messages
6,537
Points
113
Location
Newmarket, NH
Does that means Sugarbush will see the exact opposite when it goes to unlimited next year?

Well, Sugarbush will be unlimited so I highly doubt that will be the result.

Edit: Read your post wrong, I think. Yeah, of course they’ll get slammed.
 

WinS

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 25, 2017
Messages
668
Points
63
Does that means Sugarbush will see the exact opposite when it goes to unlimited next year?

I do not think any of us yet fully understands what is occurring as more people buy a multi-resort pass instead of day tickets. We have been seeing a decline in the number of people walking up to the window and buying a ticket and a growing number of people buying passes. This has been a trend for awhile even before Ikon was introduced here. So does that cause more crowding? We will see.
 

bdfreetuna

New member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Messages
4,300
Points
0
Location
keep the faith
I do not think any of us yet fully understands what is occurring as more people buy a multi-resort pass instead of day tickets. We have been seeing a decline in the number of people walking up to the window and buying a ticket and a growing number of people buying passes. This has been a trend for awhile even before Ikon was introduced here.

Wonder if $139 window rate has anything to do with that lol
 

hovercraft

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
628
Points
63
I do not think any of us yet fully understands what is occurring as more people buy a multi-resort pass instead of day tickets. We have been seeing a decline in the number of people walking up to the window and buying a ticket and a growing number of people buying passes. This has been a trend for awhile even before Ikon was introduced here. So does that cause more crowding? We will see.
What’s so hard to understand? Raise the day rates, lower the season pass by 30% conservatively. The pass can be used at 30 plus other mountains and people are surprised that the mountain gets more visits. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.... SB will be more crowed just like all the other mountains that are in the Epic or Ikon systems. Let’s get real here. It’s part of the new price of admission!
 

BenedictGomez

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
12,119
Points
113
Location
Wasatch Back
SB will be more crowed just like all the other mountains that are in the Epic or Ikon systems. Let’s get real here.

SB will actually be worse. As you're alluding to, we have enough data now already to understand how this works.

I'm coining a new term here, the "Sacrificial Mountain", which are the unlimited IKON & EPIC hills. They're necessary to "move" IKON pass sales, and those are the places that get jammed to the rafters.

Examples of core IKON geographical "Sacrificial Mountains" are: Copper, Mammoth, Solitude, Sugarbush, etc..
 
Top