abc
Well-known member
Jackson miscalculated terribly on that count. The herd of skiers came from Salt Lake. They drove in on their SUV and spend the night sleeping in their SUV! Some of them even brought their own food so they don't spend a dime!
-
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!
VAIL SUCKS
- Thread starter thebigo
- Start date
crystalmountainskier
Active member
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 299
- Points
- 43
machski
Well-known member
Yup. Hate to say this, but Jackson is the modern day's Aspen. Everyone wants to live there and be seen there now, whether they ski or not.
abc
Well-known member
Huh? What does summer sales record has anything to do with Alterra?
jaytrem
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2007
- Messages
- 2,160
- Points
- 113
My mother heard of both JH and BS before ikon, so they were too crowded then. I've been to JH on a weekend before Ikon. High speed chairs had very long waits, and forget about the tram. Airport was also the biggest shit show I've ever seen, that's saying something since typically fly out of Newark. Yellowstone NP has also been excessively crowded in recent years, can't blame Ikon for that. I'm sure Ikon didn't help, but Yellowstone and surrounding area is just too well known.
Yellowstone National Park Visitor Statistics ~ Yellowstone Up Close and Personal
Yellowstone National Park Visitor Statistics ~ Yellowstone Up Close and Personal
Jackson Hole Just Had Its Busiest Ski Season On Record
Not only did Jackson Hole Mountain Resort have a stellar ski season in terms of snow (504") but the premiere Wyoming mountain also hosted the most skiers
unofficialnetworks.com
This was the season before Ikon became available...but it sure is convenient for everyone to blame Ikon even though they were already on an upwards trajectory in terms of skier visits and had already been setting new records a couple other times recently before Ikon came along.
Skier visits also set a record at JH the following year (when Ikon was available). They increased about 12% from the 2017/2018 season to the 2018/2019 season (for comparison, the 2017/2018 record was also about a 12% increase over the previous record at JH...and that one was also about a 12% increase over their previous record). So you said you didn't know the actual numbers...well there they are. So the reality is that they were about half of the lowest number you mentioned. And again, they were already on an upward trend in terms of skier visits, so you don't know how much of that 12% is due to Ikon vs other factors. Maybe Ikon was directly responsible for that entire 12%. Or maybe it was only 5%...or 2%. Twice in the past several years before Ikon even existed they set records of 12% increases without Ikon, but when Ikon is released and they again have a 12% increase, suddenly it is Ikon's fault.
I wouldn't be surprised to see similar numbers/stories at other resorts where people frequently blame Ikon as the sole contributor to crowding as well. I'm not saying Ikon isn't a factor, but people that want to purely blame Ikon are just looking for a scapegoat when the reality is there are numerous factors contributing to it.
Bucks t-4 is in the canyon, doesn’t count. Had a few great meals there. Dirtbag ball was fun there too. Big sky has been on the rise for years, when I moved there my mom hadn’t heard of it. The majority of the upper mtn lodging is owned by boyne. The whole of big sky benefits by more people coming.
Jackson Hole has been crowded the last 3 decades. I watched New tgr and warren miller movieS this week. Both had a big Jackson hole segments. That mountain doesn’t need ikon. But it doesn’t cost more to have ikon pass holders, the lifts are already running. Ikon just adds to an already crowded area just like SLC. The whole of Jackson benefits by more people coming. Ikon just makes the crowding worse and pisses off the dirtbags.
But a ski area is a business to make money. Finding that happy medium between happy skiers that come back every year to skiers that say fuck this place it’s way too crowded. That is the mega pass conundrum.
Jackson Hole has been crowded the last 3 decades. I watched New tgr and warren miller movieS this week. Both had a big Jackson hole segments. That mountain doesn’t need ikon. But it doesn’t cost more to have ikon pass holders, the lifts are already running. Ikon just adds to an already crowded area just like SLC. The whole of Jackson benefits by more people coming. Ikon just makes the crowding worse and pisses off the dirtbags.
But a ski area is a business to make money. Finding that happy medium between happy skiers that come back every year to skiers that say fuck this place it’s way too crowded. That is the mega pass conundrum.
abc
Well-known member
Depending on where the skiers are coming from, what's "crowded" for one maybe "quiet" by another.
Megapass allows people to "sample" their mountain "for free". Whether they come back depends on all sort of factors.
I've been going to Jackson for years. I'm familiar with the crowds in Jackson. I'm willing to put up with it. But I invited a friend from Colorado to join me one year on her IKON pass "for free". She didn't care for the crowd and never went back even though it's only one day drive for her. But she's been back to Big Sky since, even though it's a 2 day drive for her.
The "happy medium" determines the type of visitors the mountain draws. Most of Vail's mountains are "too crowded" for my taste.
I'm also more willing to brave the crowds in Alterra mountains because I like the terrain better in general. (I get an Epic pass once every few years because I have friends who are year-after-year Epic pass holders) But in any case I'm not the kind of skier most big resorts value as I'm not bringing a whole family!
abc
Well-known member
Thanks for the data. It clear up a lot of things.
I ski Jackson almost every year. I personally don't noticed substantial change in overall crowding level. But the pattern of crowding I can't help but to notice. I've been warned weekends are often crowded so I typically try to time it to be there during the week, though I don't always succeed mostly due to work schedule of my friends in the region.
It's the weekend crowd that exploded on the first year of IKON that got the Jackson locals all up in arms. The bitching I heard from locals on that 1st year of IKON colored my impression. If even half of that 12% increase came all during the weekends, it would be felt very negatively.
A buddy who went along with me got snared in a crazy busy weekend (crowd level resembling northeast weekend!). She never went back. For anyone normally ski in the west, that level of crowd is pure madness. I can understand how the Jackson locals felt (even though they should be familiar with maddening crowds in the summer)
machski
Well-known member
Since we seem to be on a Jackson discussion, you also cannot discount the non Ikon areas out there are both investing heavily on hill. Grand Targhee had to pull back a bit from their planned breadth of expansion due to pushback but are still looking to make major upgrades and expand terrain. Snow King is completely transforming itself this season with the new Gondola, moving it's learn to ski/ride to the summit with the Gondola providing the link and opening the backside bowls officially with the new chair back there.
Obviously the region is a huge draw. Sure some can drive to Jackson relatively easy (SLC) but why would you drive hours when you can drive 30-45 minutes (okay, could be hours up the canyons depending). Ikon may have made it an easy incentive for SLC to chase snow if Utah is dry. Otherwise.....
Any plans for Jackson to add more lift capacity? 700k+ visits seems like quite a bit for the number of lifts they have, especially coming out of the base. I count 13 with a couple just seemingly just transfer lifts near the Hobacks.
Contrast that to Killington with a similar amount of skier visits and 17 chairs with multiple base areas.
Contrast that to Killington with a similar amount of skier visits and 17 chairs with multiple base areas.
crystalmountainskier
Active member
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 299
- Points
- 43
The head of JH said on the Storm Skiing Podcast Sublette and Thunder are slated to be replaced in the next 5 years with high speed quads. She also mentioned planning for a Lower Faces lift starting in the Moose Creek area and ending near the bottom of Sublette.
Kinda interesting that they don't label on the map which lifts are high speed vs fixed grip
machski
Well-known member
Its kind of amazing how some of these large areas out west have but a single base portal onto the mountain. The worst is probably Steamboat for that in my mind. Big Blue will help, but it will still be all accessed from a single base portal.
abc
Well-known member
"Otherwise...". Come to think of it, the mad crowd of that 1st year of IKON was also a year when Jackson got multiple mega dumps!
Still, for people in Salt Lake, a weekend to Jackson is much the same as people going to Killington, Stowe, or going to Sugarloaf. Different mountain, different terrain, different snow pattern... a vacation! To ski something significantly different than the home mountain, "for free"!
Every way you look at it, Jackson is not the same as Snowbird.
ss20
Well-known member
Yeah I brought that up in a post sometime in the past year. Tons of resorts in the West with just one or two base areas....compared to the big Eastern resorts, all of which have at least 3 many with 4 or 5+.
When I went to Crystal in mid-December last year on crappy snow there were 10-15 minute lift lines at peak times to get out of the base with the parking lots 1/3-1/2 full. That must be awful during peak season. They put in a low capacity gondola to help get people out of the base maybe 10 years ago that they want to upgrade already with more cabins. I couldn't imagine what it was like before that was installed.
