Powder Grab: The Ski Industry’s Forgotten Coup
The Lever · 2 hours ago
by John LaConte · Business
Skiing, more than ever before, has become a pastime for the elite. Single-day lift tickets at popular resorts now regularly exceed $300, prices that haven’t fallen even as ski slopes in the West suffer through a historically dry season. That’s likely because many resorts have already locked skiers into season passes costing $1,000 or more up front, regardless of weather conditions.
Two main operators, Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company, run dozens of resorts nationwide, allowing them to raise prices with impunity. The companies have also consolidated resort-adjacent lodging, food, retail, and transportation into captive-market moneymaking machines that can cost visitors thousands of dollars per day.
Vail Ski Resort in 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Ciaglo)The resulting mountain destinations have become 21st-century company towns, decimating public lands and punishing employees who complain of profit gouging with not just termination, but banishment from the slopes.
Costs have gotten so bad that it seems like hardly anyone can afford to ski these days. Last week, Vail Resorts announced a drop in skier visits and projected revenue amid the season’s “worst-case weather scenario.” While, as a private company, Alterra doesn’t release its revenue figures, it, too, appears to be struggling; the company’s CEO just abruptly announced he’s stepping down.
What people don’t realize is that this consolidation and profiteering didn’t have to be this way. Most ski resorts operate on vast swaths of public land — massive mountainsides owned by American taxpayers and overseen by federal regulators, at least theoretically.
And the government once nearly intervened, thanks to an all-but-forgotten scandal that triggered public outrage and heated hearings in Washington: In 1975, two Colorado ski resorts wanted to raise ticket prices from $10 to $12.