US Ski Tickets 2005-2006

[billski]

Here are the top 50 in the US. I'm not counting private clubs/resorts with membership fees.

http://www.iabsi.com/public/ski/2005-06.htm

 

[thetrailboss]

These are only representative resorts...it would be difficult to locate and list every resort I imagine. Regardless, are you calculating the average cost per vertical foot?

Awesome data though :beer:

 

[billski]

These are only representative resorts...it would be difficult to locate and list every resort I imagine. Regardless, are you calculating the average cost per vertical foot?

Awesome data though :beer:

My criteria is the top-priced, single-day ticket, open-to-the-public areas in the nation. How are you defining "representative resorts"?

 

[billski]

Criteria

My criteria is the top-priced, single-day ticket, open-to-the-public areas in the nation. I looked at all the states. How are you defining "representative resorts"?

It's been my experience having skied at approximately 50 distinct resorts that the sophistication/complexity/challenge of the trail network is roughly a direct function of the veritical. This is why it is included. A 1,000 vertical at Butternut cannot compare to a 3,400 vertical at Jackson Hole, to show an extreme example. This saves me from having to figure out the miles of trails. Longest trail length statistic is usually a red herring.

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

Alta $49 really sticks out.

 

[thetrailboss]

I mean that there are over 500 or so resorts and I'm assuming of course we're not looking at all of them.

 

[billski]

top 50

I'm only showing you the top 50. I have about 100 total, but it got boring quickly after that and didn't add anything interesting to the data set.

I also did most of Mass. just because it was close, didn't bother with CT, and ony a couple "biggies" in NY, although I've skied all over that state. Michigan has some pretty awesome snow, long winters and huge numbers of people who imbibe, but their verticals are so un-challenging, that no one but a local would go. I was also looking for places that people would be motivated to travel to "from away". Besides, no one is paying me to do thi, and I'd rather be earning turns.....

 

[riverc0il]

i am BLOWN AWAY by the bottom ten. wawa, pats, and butternut at 48, 47, and 46 respectively but just above that bolton, magic, pico, and ALTA all weigh in at only 49 and MRG only a buck above that! who pays 48 to ski WAWA boggles my mind, it does.

moving away from the bottom 10 on your list... gunstock, ragged, and burke all weigh in at 52 but burke is FAR superior to either at the same price point. beyond comparison superior.

as you move further up the list, things at least get more comparative and understandable (until you get to the top 15!!!). some others that stick out pretty harshly: ascutney at $56? i have never skied there and this is a pretty good reason why, value for the dollar just isn't there. waterville at $55 is also a sore thumb if you recall just two or three years ago they offered $39 any day!!! sunapee at $58 is simply beyond words to me. look at all the fine quality areas that are cheaper than sunapee, there is just ZERO value in that lift ticket price by comparison. the 69'ers of VT are an interesting lot (haystack no longer part of mount snow, btw). interesting how CO and VT really top out the list with more than 2/3's of the top 15.

in another thread where this topic was brought up, i was going to suggest a statistic comparing natural snow to dollar. i did a few test percentages and it did not add up as a reliable stat, imo. however, trailboss hit on an excellent idea comparing lift ticket price to vertical feet. or even better, skiable acrage, or even trail count or some combo of all three (any of them by themselves can be misleading such as sunday river with vert feet, mount snow with acrage, or kmart with trail count, but seen together side by side as a % of dollar spent would be truly interesting. excel could easily do the math once the figures are plugged in... but that's the geek in me shining through).

great work billski!

 

[awf170]

saddleback 2,000 ft vertical and $39 tix... Insane
http://www.saddlebackmaine.com/

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

excel could easily do the math once the figures are plugged in... but that's the geek in me shining through).

great work billski!

That's a great idea Oil, get to work on it. I can't wait to read it.

 

[billski]

i am BLOWN AWAY by the bottom ten. wawa, pats, and butternut at 48, 47, and 46 respectively but just above that bolton, magic, pico, and ALTA all weigh in at only 49 and MRG only a buck above that! who pays 48 to ski WAWA boggles my mind, it does.

moving away from the bottom 10 on your list... gunstock, ragged, and burke all weigh in at 52 but burke is FAR superior to either at the same price point. beyond comparison superior.

as you move further up the list, things at least get more comparative and understandable (until you get to the top 15!!!). some others that stick out pretty harshly: ascutney at $56? i have never skied there and this is a pretty good reason why, value for the dollar just isn't there. waterville at $55 is also a sore thumb if you recall just two or three years ago they offered $39 any day!!! sunapee at $58 is simply beyond words to me. look at all the fine quality areas that are cheaper than sunapee, there is just ZERO value in that lift ticket price by comparison. the 69'ers of VT are an interesting lot (haystack no longer part of mount snow, btw). interesting how CO and VT really top out the list with more than 2/3's of the top 15.

in another thread where this topic was brought up, i was going to suggest a statistic comparing natural snow to dollar. i did a few test percentages and it did not add up as a reliable stat, imo. however, trailboss hit on an excellent idea comparing lift ticket price to vertical feet. or even better, skiable acrage, or even trail count or some combo of all three (any of them by themselves can be misleading such as sunday river with vert feet, mount snow with acrage, or kmart with trail count, but seen together side by side as a % of dollar spent would be truly interesting. excel could easily do the math once the figures are plugged in... but that's the geek in me shining through).

great work billski!

There are a few things to keep in mind here:
1) It is difficult to measure "skiable terrain" between east and west. Since much of west skiing is above treeline, bowls, etc. they readily provide measurement in terms of acres of skiable terrain. Almost no eastern area measures by acres since they are predominantly below treeline. An appropriate measurement would be miles of skiing. But that statistic gets abused too much when they start double-counting trails that merge with each other. Eastern areas don't consistently report miles of trails the way the west reports acreage.

2) Observations. I have just completed adding uphill lift capcity figure skiers/hour. Interestingly, there is a direct correlation of price to uphill capacity and almost NO correlation of price to vertical.

3) This will all be in a spreadsheet when I'm done so we can crank it. Of the top 80 I have right now, the median and the average both come in at $55. You can't come to any conclusion on a specific area, until you sort this list several ways and see how it compares. I am mining more data as we speak and will update the page in a day or so.

4) We went for almost 5 years in a row to Ascutney, shortly after they were bought out by a NYC couple. It's a great place to take our very young family (newborn to age 6). For me, the value was definitely in the vertical and lack of crowds, and it was really inexpensive then. Ascutney has always had financial problems. For a while even the base hotel was getting rundown. They had a pretty modern and fast lift infrastructure, but had trouble competing with other nearby areas like Okemo who had a huge marketing budget.

I skied at Saddleback many years ago, a pleasure and a delight, even though I really froze my *** off. It was like a private reserve, even though the lift capacity is slim, they didn't need it. Coulda used a heated gondola though. It's really cold at that mountain. They have such low overhead that they can support that price. Besides, it's hard to draw people to such a "remote" place, where there's nothing to do on mountain and all the beds in town are overrun by snow-machine operators.

5) This list is brought to you by someone who does a lot of day-tripping and wants to maximize the buck. Clearly, if you start looking at multi-day deals, it gets much better. A 3 or better day ticket at Stowe costs you only $34/day (the marginal rate) for days 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. This is a consistent theme. I also ran into at least 4 areas that weren't even selling single day tix.

6) Nearby places like Wa-wa take a similar approach, but try to get you to buy in bulk (3dom pass, seasons pass, etc.).

The whole notion in (5) and (6) is the longer a resort can keep you there, the longer they can shake money out of your pockets. Profit margins on condo rentals, dining, shopping, hot coca, alcohol, e-coli burgers is enormous compare to lift ticket margins. It's not a lot different from BestBuy, where they sell you the camera at near cost and make up for it with huge margin accessories.

Simply put, they don't make much off the day-trippers.

Having said all that, since I have a short attention span for an single mountain (I have always been a "wanderer") I spend a great amount of time ferreting out lift discount. I find them all over the place. I have started publishing for my ski club a list of whatever discounts I stumble upon each week.

I just ran numbers on 2 days skiing and rentals for my family of 5, of which only two own equipment. Even ran it buying 2-day multi. For 2 weekend days at Stowe, it will be $724 and I haven't even bought a single e-coli burger. I can do the same 2-day vacation, 1 day at Burke, 1 day at Bolton for $330 (er, uh, yes, I found discount tix for these

You can figure out where I'm taking my intermediate-skilled family....

Glad you enjoyed it and I appreciate the observations.

 

[billski]

excel could easily do the math once the figures are plugged in... but that's the geek in me shining through).

great work billski!

That's a great idea Oil, get to work on it. I can't wait to read it.

It's already in Excel. Running the numbers will be easy once its complete. I'm still in data entry mode. When it's ready, I'll post the file for downloading and you can have at it. Until then, consider what you see "advance information"

 

[riverc0il]

one more observation that you hit on billski but i wanted to further develop. it almost seems like an inverse relationship between high saturday lift ticket prices and season pass prices. several locations that have high lift ticket prices for what they offer (WaWa, ASC, Booth Creek, etc.) all have very low season passes. whereas places with a good value and a lower ticket price (the cannons, burkes, mrg's, altas, etc.) all have much higher season prices than the areas with more expensive day ticket prices. i wonder how that would look on a graph? :lol: not that this research is for naught, it is EXCELLENT, but i wonder if the ski industry has already done this type of research and doesn't want us to see it :-?

 

[billski]

For me, "rack rate" price isn't keeping me away from any of these area, but it does make me hunt *real* hard for bargains and will also limit the length of my stay.

 

[billski]

one more observation that you hit on billski but i wanted to further develop. it almost seems like an inverse relationship between high saturday lift ticket prices and season pass prices. several locations that have high lift ticket prices for what they offer (WaWa, ASC, Booth Creek, etc.) all have very low season passes. whereas places with a good value and a lower ticket price (the cannons, burkes, mrg's, altas, etc.) all have much higher season prices than the areas with more expensive day ticket prices. i wonder how that would look on a graph? :lol: not that this research is for naught, it is EXCELLENT, but i wonder if the ski industry has already done this type of research and doesn't want us to see it :-?

You can be nmad sure that every resort, except perhaps Middlebury and Cochrans has run these numbers. I'm certain they all have spreadsheets that look very exhaustively at all these variables. You can be sure that MBAs (and I are one) are driving the pricing show. The business is highly competitive.

Another measure is to see how many beds (lodging) are in the area. If you look at the "value" areas - Burke, MRG, Cannon, Saddleback, etc. you will see very few beds nearby. Again - they longer they have you, the more they can pick your pockets and turn away the daytrippers. The "value" areas depend on day trippers.

They say that the real big money is made in "real estate". Glad I'm a wanderer....


I think we should come up with our own categories for each area, just like the mutual fund industry does - the "value", "index", "growth", "hedge" resort, you get the idea...

 

[billski]

graph

one more observation that you hit on billski but i wanted to further develop. it almost seems like an inverse relationship between high saturday lift ticket prices and season pass prices. several locations that have high lift ticket prices for what they offer (WaWa, ASC, Booth Creek, etc.) all have very low season passes. whereas places with a good value and a lower ticket price (the cannons, burkes, mrg's, altas, etc.) all have much higher season prices than the areas with more expensive day ticket prices. i wonder how that would look on a graph? :lol: not that this research is for naught, it is EXCELLENT, but i wonder if the ski industry has already done this type of research and doesn't want us to see it :-?

Once the raw data is in, it is very easy to publish graphs to a web page and I'll commit to doing that as well.

 

[billski]

bugout

your eyes are gonna when you see who's tops nationwide in uphill lift capacity. Guess.

Killington and Vail tie for #1 at approx. 53,000/hour each.

Stratton has huge uphill capacity for its size, 30,000 as does Mt Snow at 36,000 and Okemo at 32,000.

Sugarloaf, sugarbush, Park City are all in the 20's.

Believe it or not, Stowe is way down in the crapper at 15,000 (before this year's Spruce upgrade.)

"VALUE" areas like Magic, Mad River, are in the 3's.

Beloved areas like Burke and Wildcat are around 2,000 as are Tenny and believe it or not, Ski Ward (how do they COUNT??)

The whole list will come tommorrow.

 

[SKItheBOAT]

where did you get that information...some of it is incorrect. The steamboat lift tickets are $74 regular and $76 for holiday season rather than the $60 you have in that list. I didn't check any others, just know steamboats because i live out here.

 

[trackbiker]

billski and RivercOil, you both make many excellent points. I look forward to seeing your results. I'm sure that a lot those MBA's who set those prices will be looking at your report as well! Some of them may even learn something!
Some important points that you both brought out are:
1. Multi day tickets and packages are often MUCH less expensive than day tickets. For example;
a. Last season skied at KMart. Three adults, three days lift tickets, one lesson each, and three nights in a one bedroon condo for $750.00.
b. Skied Plattekill with my son. Stayed at a partner hotel so my son skied for free. Total price for one nights lodging including breakfast and two lift tickets about $160.00
c. Skied 22 times last year. Not including my sons ski club nights, I bought about 36 tickets total. Paid for TWO full price tickets, one time for two people.
2. Rating the overall value of any ski area is hard to do! Verticle? Miles of trails? Acreage? Natural vs. Manmade snow? Lifts? It's sort of like setting up the BCS ranking program! And we all know how well that worked!
I skied all 450 verticle feet of Big Boulder one Sat. night last year and had one of my best ski outings all season for $17.00! OK maybe not THE best, but for $17.00 maybe the best value.

 

[riverc0il]

billski is doing all the work, i am just throwing in some commentary here

1. Multi day tickets and packages are often MUCH less expensive than day tickets. For example;
a. Last season skied at KMart. Three adults, three days lift tickets, one lesson each, and three nights in a one bedroon condo for $750.00.

see, this type of forumula doesn't add up to a frugal day trip skier because you are looking at free lodging as a 'bargain.' that price breaks down to $250 per person for three days skiing which equals out to a lift ticket full price plus a lesson for three days with lodging thrown in for free. this type of setup is very important for people driving long distance (looks like you are from PA and can not day trip to new england easily, so that works GREAT for you). but for myself, last season, i got in over 30 days skiing at ski areas for less than that price. this season i will likely get in over 40 days again for less than that price. granted that is not paying full price for pretty much any skiing during the year due to early season discounts, special days, bulk purchases, and season pass. but still, ski areas often justify high weekend lift ticket prices by point out their cheap multi-day ski and stay packages, and for someone that just wants to ski cheap, being offered (what is essentially) free lodging just to pay an inflated and very expensive lift ticket rate doesn't add up!