F Vail

Campgottagopee · Nov 13, 2021

When High-End Developers Came for the Last Aspen Ski Bums

In an excerpt from her new book ‘Powder Days,’ Outside contributing editor Heather Hansman looks at how the famous Colorado resort town is emblematic of a national trend, where corporate resorts and a skyrocketing housing costs are driving out all but the most affluent

www.outsideonline.com

Harvey · Nov 13, 2021

Ripitz said:
The problem I have is that they are not just participating in the eastern ski business they are dominating it.

The reason Vail cut the price on the Epic Pass is because they were confident one of three things would happen. Or maybe all of them:

Each individual would eventually spend more in total on skiing
Their mountains would get more crowded and they didn't care about that
They would have so much of the market they be able to dictate pricing

@Stu and I disagree about this all the time. About whether or not it's good for skiing.

Skiing has not become cheaper. The cost of snowmaking has not gone down. Costs are being shifted. Half of Mount Snow weekend/holiday skiers now have to pay $15 or $30 to park. Mt Snow PMB heads up: the LOWER you get your cost/per day/per lift ticket the more you are go to spend on parking or burgers or beer or whatever.

raisingarizona · Nov 13, 2021

Campgottagopee said:
When High-End Developers Came for the Last Aspen Ski Bums

In an excerpt from her new book ‘Powder Days,’ Outside contributing editor Heather Hansman looks at how the famous Colorado resort town is emblematic of a national trend, where corporate resorts and a skyrocketing housing costs are driving out all but the most affluent

www.outsideonline.com

The death of true, dirt bag ski bum culture is definitely a change I’m not happy about. I’m glad I got to do it before all of this. It happened so fast. It’s kind of crazy.

Ripitz · Nov 13, 2021

raisingarizona said:
The death of true, dirt bag ski bum culture is definitely a change I’m not happy about. I’m glad I got to do it before all of this. It happened so fast. It’s kind of crazy.

Long live the dirtbags!

raisingarizona · Nov 13, 2021

Ripitz said:
Long live the dirtbags!

I know of a few “last great mountain towns” still out there. The catch is that they don’t have a ski resort though. You gotta be ready to earn those turns!

Brownski · Nov 13, 2021

raisingarizona said:
The death of true, dirt bag ski bum culture is definitely a change I’m not happy about. I’m glad I got to do it before all of this. It happened so fast. It’s kind of crazy.

Ripitz said:
Long live the dirtbags!

You know I agree. Other than that this thread has taken some odd turns. Since we’re full on political now… never mind. Fuck it. Go check out Venezuela’s ski culture if you don’t like ours.

Ripitz · Nov 13, 2021

raisingarizona said:
I know of a few “last great mountain towns” still out there. The catch is that they don’t have a ski resort though. You gotta be ready to earn those turns!

Stanley ID and Cooke City MT always come to my mind.

MarzNC · Nov 13, 2021

Harvey said:
The reason Vail cut the price on the Epic Pass is because they were confident one of three things would happen. Or maybe all of them:

Each individual would eventually spend more in total on skiing
Their mountains would get more crowded and they didn't care about that
They would have so much of the market they be able to dictate pricing

Are you thinking about the 20% decrease for 2021-22? I would add that VR was scared that people who were put off traveling to destination resorts in 2020-21 had found that skiing locally without having to fly turned out to be quite a lot of fun. That could mean that a family who was budgeting for a trip out west on Epic every year might decide that every other year might be enough. Epic paid off in 2008 because it was cheap and the volume was much higher than even Katz hoped it would be. It was a gamble that paid off when VR was is quite weak financially. EpicMix turned out to be popular too.

There is a regional Epic pass for the northeast and Tahoe. There are a few local passes in the midwest. That leaves a lot of potential Epic pass customers in the rest of the country who have to travel a fair distance to make it worth getting the Full Epic or Epic Local (no holidays).

An indication of not caring that much about crowding on the slopes is that VR opted to not make use of reservations on Saturdays or typical blackout dates.

Based on reading Chris Diamond's books, it seemed that ASC didn't know how to operate in the west based on what worked in the northeast. It feels to me like VR doesn't understand the northeast and mid-Atlantic customer base well enough because of the history of Epic resorts in the west. The transition for the three midwest former family-owned ski resorts went much better. But VR vastly improved lifts and other aspects of those mountains pretty quickly.

For that matter, had Peak Resorts really transitioned enough to understand the mid-Atlantic (Hunter, PA)?

Ripitz · Nov 13, 2021

Brownski said:
Go check out Venezuela

Great surfing

Low Angle Life · Nov 13, 2021

Brownski said:
You know I agree. Other than that this thread has taken some odd turns. Since we’re full on political now… never mind. Fuck it. Go check out Venezuela’s ski culture if you don’t like ours.

I mean if you really want this to devolve to shitposting...