The most recent Alta blog broke down skier traffic increases this year

[KustyTheKlown]

that’s the single busiest route at Jackson, for the exact reason you mentioned. It’s a ridiculous run to cite for evidence of crowding, and that photo isn’t even that crowded

 

[AdironRider]

I don't get why you are so confident Jackson is not crowded. You didn't actually ski the gaper slalom that photo represents. You have me, who lives (and works) here and skis 100 days a year, numerous photos of said crowded mountain, and other visitors saying so as well. I am just one in a sea of other loud voices. This is happening at all the independents, Big Sky, Aspen, it is the same story.

There was a 10 minute wait for Thunder today. Monday, mid march, on a refreeze day. This should be ski on lifts anywhere, but no longer here. It is getting ridiculous. PS, they ran out of parking AGAIN yesterday.

You do not have mountain CEO's writing op-eds in the paper about crowding if crowding does not exist.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

I’m not saying it’s not crowded. I haven’t been to Jackson this year, or in years.

But abc citing lines for the tram and a crowded run from the gondola to thunder is absurd. The tram has always had a weekend line, and weekdays. Always, it’s the nature of a two car tram lift. And the run from the gondola to thunder is easily the most trafficked route at Jackson. That run from the gondola was choppy and crowded and generally shitty five years ago. It's just a major connecting route.

So those both feel like weak cherry picked evidence for the hypothesis

I take your word for it more readily bc you are local. Something about a tourist complaining about other tourists rubs me wrong

 

[AdironRider]

I don't think it is cherry picking when the most popular stuff is borderline unrideable. What was a 2 car wait consistently on weekends and pow days is now a 4 car tram wait. That means you get in a max of 4-5 runs a day on that lift. That is absurd at any mountain, let alone one hundreds of miles from the nearest metro area.

I think you would be amazed at how everything here has changed outside of the physical mountain itself. That still is the best in the country hands down terrain wise.

 

[BenedictGomez]

There was a 10 minute wait for Thunder today. Monday, mid march, on a refreeze day. This should be ski on lifts anywhere, but no longer here. It is getting ridiculous. PS, they ran out of parking AGAIN yesterday.

You do not have mountain CEO's writing op-eds in the paper about crowding if crowding does not exist.

This weekend Deer Valley (also IKON pass) was sending out pictures on FB from up on the mountain looking down on the jam-packed parking lot, trying to impress upon people to not show up at Deer Valley expecting to park. Take some form of public tranny or their shuttle.

It immediately struck me as odd that a mid-March weekend would be as crowded as Christmas or PDW, and I cannot imagine that's a normal phenomena. Given the nature of human procrastination, my bet is a TON of locals all said, "hey, we havent used our Deer Valley IKON days yet and the season closes in a few weeks".

 

[Zermatt]

I don't get why you are so confident Jackson is not crowded. You didn't actually ski the gaper slalom that photo represents. You have me, who lives (and works) here and skis 100 days a year, numerous photos of said crowded mountain, and other visitors saying so as well. I am just one in a sea of other loud voices. This is happening at all the independents, Big Sky, Aspen, it is the same story.

There was a 10 minute wait for Thunder today. Monday, mid march, on a refreeze day. This should be ski on lifts anywhere, but no longer here. It is getting ridiculous. PS, they ran out of parking AGAIN yesterday.

You do not have mountain CEO's writing op-eds in the paper about crowding if crowding does not exist.

I skied Jackson all weekend and Monday morning. Got first tram every morning then stayed away (although yesterday was still walk on trams at 10:30 when I left and the first tram wasn't even full).

I don't understand the obsession with Thunder lift and why everyone skis there when the rest of the mountain was empty. I did not wait in a line all weekend for more than 2 minutes. On Sunday I skied 18,000 vertical before 10:30...then left for an hour to sort out my cancelled flight and skied another 19,000 before 2pm.

One thing was certain, the locals were mostly clueless a**holes. Not even they could get the whole story straight and certainly had no real data to substantiate any of their claims other than it was crowded in February.

One main issue, that tram is outdated technology. It holds 600 people per hour max and that doesn't include loading and unloading time. Nobody would ever build something like that again. It doesn't even fit in the upper bays so you have to wait for the insanely slow docking system to unfold. 100 people every ten minutes is likely more like 95ish every 12 minutes.

 

[kingslug]

I only take the tram once..to get a waffle. When I was there conditions where amazing, snowed almost every day and yes it was crowded but I just got on the front of the gondola line 1/2 hour early and hung out. Then just went ..wherever. Some lifts where crowded but not bad, maybe 10 minutes. Apre side was empty as well as the Teton, but yes it is more crowded than 20 years ago when I started going. Still going to go..Top 3 places for me, Alta/Bird JH...

 

[NYDB]

I skied Jackson all weekend and Monday morning. Got first tram every morning then stayed away (although yesterday was still walk on trams at 10:30 when I left and the first tram wasn't even full).

I don't understand the obsession with Thunder lift and why everyone skis there when the rest of the mountain was empty. I did not wait in a line all weekend for more than 2 minutes. On Sunday I skied 18,000 vertical before 10:30...then left for an hour to sort out my cancelled flight and skied another 19,000 before 2pm.

One thing was certain, the locals were mostly clueless a**holes. Not even they could get the whole story straight and certainly had no real data to substantiate any of their claims other than it was crowded in February.

One main issue, that tram is outdated technology. It holds 600 people per hour max and that doesn't include loading and unloading time. Nobody would ever build something like that again. It doesn't even fit in the upper bays so you have to wait for the insanely slow docking system to unfold. 100 people every ten minutes is likely more like 95ish every 12 minutes.

sig worthy. LOL you should be an IKON ambassador

 

[abc]

I only take the tram once..to get a waffle. When I was there conditions where amazing, snowed almost every day and yes it was crowded but I just got on the front of the gondola line 1/2 hour early and hung out. Then just went ..wherever. Some lifts where crowded but not bad, maybe 10 minutes. Apre side was empty as well as the Teton, but yes it is more crowded than 20 years ago when I started going. Still going to go..Top 3 places for me, Alta/Bird JH...

I only went up on the tram once also, of my 4 days there. Though the reason has less to do with line than with the general lack of visibility up top during those few days.

Of the one time I did go, because my buddy had never been up, it took a full hour! (that's 5 box, plus loading/tram travel time).

The lack of visibility has a lot to do with the crowding in some lifts. With the top in the cloud, Thunder and Sublet are the main concentration of advance terrain in decent condition. So for people who go there for the first time to ski expert terrain, it's either committed to do them sight unseen, or stick with Thunder/Sublet, both had 10+ minute wait. How many of those laps with 10+ minute wait do you feel like doing?

Jackson has tricky geographies. A big part of the mountain's runs faces south. So the lower mountain are OFTEN hard pack and skied off. Doing the Hogback when the bumps resembling eastern condition, for a good long 1000' vertical, is anything but fun. Even the intermediate side of the mountain, Casper and Teton, can be hard (surface condition). Regardless, the lines were long on those too when we were there.

I and my buddy had the option to leave early. That's what we did. We cut our stay one day short and gone to Deer Valley instead.

Ironically, the snow condition on expert terrain were good, in both places. But DV don't have the bottleneck lifts like Jackson has. So we had more option to go where the crowd isn't, which makes for a lot more runs with minimal waiting.

Like I said, I'll stay away from Jackson until the initial IKON novelty fades. If I'm going to wait in line 10 minutes each lap, I can do that at Whistler.

 

[raisingarizona]

It mostly faces the east. Jus sayin.

 

[raisingarizona]

I only take the tram once..to get a waffle. When I was there conditions where amazing, snowed almost every day and yes it was crowded but I just got on the front of the gondola line 1/2 hour early and hung out. Then just went ..wherever. Some lifts where crowded but not bad, maybe 10 minutes. Apre side was empty as well as the Teton, but yes it is more crowded than 20 years ago when I started going. Still going to go..Top 3 places for me, Alta/Bird JH...

The tram gets you to the upper gate.

Maybe they should have left the poma lift in Rendezvous Bowl?

 

[raisingarizona]

I only take the tram once..to get a waffle. When I was there conditions where amazing, snowed almost every day and yes it was crowded but I just got on the front of the gondola line 1/2 hour early and hung out. Then just went ..wherever. Some lifts where crowded but not bad, maybe 10 minutes. Apre side was empty as well as the Teton, but yes it is more crowded than 20 years ago when I started going. Still going to go..Top 3 places for me, Alta/Bird JH...

The tram gets you to the upper gate.

Maybe they should have left the poma lift in Rendezvous Bowl?

 

[AdironRider]

I skied Jackson all weekend and Monday morning. Got first tram every morning then stayed away (although yesterday was still walk on trams at 10:30 when I left and the first tram wasn't even full).

I don't understand the obsession with Thunder lift and why everyone skis there when the rest of the mountain was empty. I did not wait in a line all weekend for more than 2 minutes. On Sunday I skied 18,000 vertical before 10:30...then left for an hour to sort out my cancelled flight and skied another 19,000 before 2pm.

One thing was certain, the locals were mostly clueless a**holes. Not even they could get the whole story straight and certainly had no real data to substantiate any of their claims other than it was crowded in February.

One main issue, that tram is outdated technology. It holds 600 people per hour max and that doesn't include loading and unloading time. Nobody would ever build something like that again. It doesn't even fit in the upper bays so you have to wait for the insanely slow docking system to unfold. 100 people every ten minutes is likely more like 95ish every 12 minutes.

The Tram is the only real good way to ski south of the resort OB, at least if you want to ski the signature stuff like Cody. There is apparently some permitting issue with the amount of people that can be on top of the mountain at once. When they were rebuilding it they could only put in a double chair (now the sandwich lift Marmot) for the same reason. That could all be BS like how they have to close April 7th for "elk migration" with a 100"+ base but that is their story and they are sticking to it.

If you can't understand why people ski Thunder I don't know what to tell you, some of the best terrain on the mountain is off that lift, AND it is a critical connector to the other good terrain unless you take said Tram.

You were not skiing this weekend or skiing refrozen crud on AV/Teton if you did not wait in a line for longer than 2 minutes so quit embellishing. I would not travel all this way to ski the equivalent of frozen granular at Pico. Next time you visit you should explore the upper mountain more and I think you'll get it and why locals are complaining.

 

[abc]

One main issue, that tram is outdated technology. It holds 600 people per hour max and that doesn't include loading and unloading time. Nobody would ever build something like that again. It doesn't even fit in the upper bays so you have to wait for the insanely slow docking system to unfold. 100 people every ten minutes is likely more like 95ish every 12 minutes.

And some people were calling the fixed grip Sublet chair outdated too! It limits the number of people it can deposit on the Lareme bowl.

On the other hand, quite a lot of people are considering that a good thing.

 

[Zermatt]

The Tram is the only real good way to ski south of the resort OB, at least if you want to ski the signature stuff like Cody. There is apparently some permitting issue with the amount of people that can be on top of the mountain at once. When they were rebuilding it they could only put in a double chair (now the sandwich lift Marmot) for the same reason. That could all be BS like how they have to close April 7th for "elk migration" with a 100"+ base but that is their story and they are sticking to it.

If you can't understand why people ski Thunder I don't know what to tell you, some of the best terrain on the mountain is off that lift, AND it is a critical connector to the other good terrain unless you take said Tram.

You were not skiing this weekend or skiing refrozen crud on AV/Teton if you did not wait in a line for longer than 2 minutes so quit embellishing. I would not travel all this way to ski the equivalent of frozen granular at Pico. Next time you visit you should explore the upper mountain more and I think you'll get it and why locals are complaining.

I understand why people ski Sublette and Thunder, I don't understand why you'd wait for the lines last weekend to ski that terrain. Ungroomed trails were very slow to warm up and I assume the only soft snow was on north facing slopes. We skied those lifts in the morning and they were empty. By 1030 we moved on. I came to ski, not wait in lift lines so I moved around the mountain accordingly and had a blast.

 

[abc]

Ungroomed trails were very slow to warm up
...
I came to ski, not wait in lift lines

Some come to ski the same eastern condition.

Others come to ski softer snow, or western terrain. Those may choose to endure the lines to ski what they want rather than just ski.