So much for overcrowding due to Ikon pass.

[4aprice]

Awesome, got there one time it was open, didn't have ski equipment. What is it 7 climatic zones you drive through on the way up? Remember it was like 90 in Tucson at the time

Avoiding the IKON crowd at Mt. Lemmon Ski Valley. View attachment 226603

 

[dbostedo]

I know that in all the years that I have been skiing at Liberty in PA, I had never seen rental lines that snaked almost all the way to the parking lot.

I have been in some nearly 2 hour lines at Liberty for rental gear on weekends, back in the 2010-2015 time frame I think (that's 2 hours to get to someone who can start to help with the gear)... but I don't think those went close to out to the parking lot... that must have been miserable for folks. Given that historical busy-ness, I guess it wouldn't take much to make it even worse.

 

[Andy Mink]

Awesome, got there one time it was open, didn't have ski equipment. What is it 7 climatic zones you drive through on the way up? Remember it was like 90 in Tucson at the time

It is a beautiful drive and worth it even if you don't come up here to ski. I'll post some pictures in the Arizona later today.

 

[4aprice]

I hate this comparison because it is disingenuous on the price and financial constraints. If you're talking pricing you can't ignore the epic day/Ikon session pass options, which makes the money and price per day about the same as light passholders.

There isn't truly a financial barrier for the 4 day family. You only get bit once by that. The real barrier is the forced commitment and for people to be in the know to plan ahead and commit you are going the 3 or 4 days this season at a network resort and actually go.

You are paying a lot to retain the time option to decide to go/not go.

My home mountain in the Pocono's is on Ikon but they are still selling their own products including 3 packs, beginner packages etc. I've also seen an increase in bus traffic (think ski clubs and schools) again this year after a couple of quieter years due to the pandemic. There are still ways to make it happen. Oh yea night skiing is also much cheaper as well.

I have yet to see that much of a difference with Ikon on board. Rental lines have snaked out of building long before there was any mega pass and the parking lots were as full before Ikon as they are now. The only thing missing is the ticket lines because they want you to purchase before you arrive and pick up your RFID from a kiosk.

 

[Miller]

I hate this comparison because it is disingenuous on the price and financial constraints. If you're talking pricing you can't ignore the epic day/Ikon session pass options, which makes the money and price per day about the same as light passholders.

There isn't truly a financial barrier for the 4 day family. You only get bit once by that. The real barrier is the forced commitment and for people to be in the know to plan ahead and commit you are going the 3 or 4 days this season at a network resort and actually go.

You are paying a lot to retain the time option to decide to go/not go.

I see that you are in SF area, so I am assuming you are skiing in Tahoe. Your ski season probably started in November/December and will end in April. For person that lives in Mid-Atlantic our local ski areas did not really open until January, which has been the norm recently. It just recently opened all the way up two weeks ago. For the most of December and January it seemed to rain or warm up every weekend. They will probably shut down in the next two weeks.

When you add in the other kids events that are also important, the opportunities to get out an ski here become even less.

The cost of an Epic Local pass is the same whether I live in Colorado, Vermont, or Washington DC. I have written to Vail and let them know that there should be a Pennsylvania pass for those people who don't necessarily live in colder climates. Their response was something like, "Our Epic pass provides great value, as you are able to ski any of are other Epic resorts for the remainder of the season." Which is BS. Lodging and travel for a family of five. So they will not ski this year or maybe once. What does that mean, the next generation (my nieces and nephews) will be more unlikely to ski when they are older meaning their kids won't necessarily grow up skiing either.

I have been working on and off at a ski shop for the past 30 years and I am pretty passionate skier. I am the guy in the neighborhood who is constantly asked questions about how to take up skiing here. I tell people about the value of the Epic Pass, seasonal lease programs or Jr. Trade in Programs for kids, that make it less expensive and easier to make last minute decisions to go skiing, where you can brown bag lunches, and good ideas.

But 80% of the time I get pushback that the initial investment is still too expensive.

I purchased a 4 day Epic Local pass this year to cover any possible days that I might ski locally, but even I think it is crazy that tmy daily cost of a lift ticket will be the same if I am skiing 600 vertical feet with limited terrain or 1500+ in Vermont or Colorado.

...Stepping off Soap Box....

 

[Jerez]

You might be confusing 2 things.
There IS injury insurance, which covers secondary healthcare costs for injuries that occured on the ikon resort while skiing. This is new this year. With the high cost of healthcare for an emergency you will still have a big bill for out of network services and deductibles/copays which this covers. This insurance is relatively cheap at $64 considering that an incident even with primary insurance may still end up costing you unknown thousands out of pocket that you don't have, vs pass money you did have and already spent. Just like the pass itself, this is more beneficial the more you ski (and the worse your primary insurance is)

there is also pass insurance, covering a claim up to your pass price, of which injury is a qualifying event (along with other things including illness and job loss)

For Ikon both of these are through Spot, but I'm unsure of the underlying insurance underwriter or if they vary it depending on the user.

We learned the hard way... last season my granddaughter broke her knee requiring surgery. I didn't know she had a five figure deductible for accidents or injuries. Will be paying it off for years. We bought the insurance this year!

 

[crosscountry]

I was a weekend warrior long before the mega passes. I've got a long list of horror stories I can tell you about long lines in little to large mountains!

I slowly learned the pattern of where and when the crowding is, side step those dates and locations. Though each time I moved to a new location, I had to re-learn all that again. None of those were caused by cheap mega passes.

People forget there're now more people skiing, they're skiing more because they have the time. Not just WFH crowd, though they do count. A bunch of my cohorts finally retired. The pandemic had made many realize they want to live their life rather than wait till later. Some of them had "upgraded" from occasional skiers into season long frequent skiers. So weekday skiers had also increased considerably.

It's long been predicted the baby boomers will eventually retire, which will cause labor shortage. But not much was done in predicting their recreational habits and patterns. Well, the retired baby boomers will have to do "something", right? Why the surprise slopes are more densely populated?

Disclaimer, I'm a boomer who continue to work. But at the tail end of my career, I do have lots of flexibility. So I'm part of your "problem" of skiing a few hours during the weekdays, plus jamming up the weekend queues too! Oh yeah, invading your middle of the country ski paradise from the mega city of the east.

Double the price of the pass, I'd still be there!

 

[UGASkiDawg]

I don't have insider info about exactly how resorts are compensated, but the only way it would really pencil out logically is that it's a zero sum game. There is X amount of money collected pre-season, and the game for each resort is to try to get as big of a piece of that pie as they can get. So yes they are all incentivized to market to people to come ski their mountain, so they get more of the pie, but hte money has already been collected, rain or shine. Yea if one resort has particularly bad weather compared to the others on average for the entire season...there is a possibility they will end up with a smaller piece of that pie.

But mainly...skiers will not be staying home on a dry year...they have already paid for it. Its just game between resorts at that point to compete for the already paid for pie, rain or shine.

I think you have to leave dry year or not out of it. I'm not saying low snow doesn't affect skiing but in the intermountain west there are effectively no "bad" years. There are certainly worse years but I and everyone I know that skis is going to ski even if it's "bad" . Been here 34 years and have never had a year where there wasn't "good" skiing to be had.

View attachment 226553

/Thread

 

[4aprice]

I was a weekend warrior long before the mega passes. I've got a long list of horror stories I can tell you about long lines in little to large mountains!

True. There have always been crowds on regular season weekends

Disclaimer, I'm a boomer who continue to work. But at the tail end of my career, I do have lots of flexibility. So I'm part of your "problem" of skiing a few hours during the weekdays, plus jamming up the weekend queues too! Oh yeah, invading your middle of the country ski paradise from the mega city of the east.

Double the price of the pass, I'd still be there!

Very well said. I'm right there with you, only I've taken it a step further and purchased a place out west and will escape from east when I shed those corporate shackles. in just under a year and a half.

 

[dbostedo]

I see that you are in SF area, so I am assuming you are skiing in Tahoe. Your ski season probably started in November/December and will end in April. For person that lives in Mid-Atlantic our local ski areas did not really open until January, which has been the norm recently. It just recently opened all the way up two weeks ago. For the most of December and January it seemed to rain or warm up every weekend. They will probably shut down in the next two weeks.

When you add in the other kids events that are also important, the opportunities to get out an ski here become even less.

The cost of an Epic Local pass is the same whether I live in Colorado, Vermont, or Washington DC. I have written to Vail and let them know that there should be a Pennsylvania pass for those people who don't necessarily live in colder climates. Their response was something like, "Our Epic pass provides great value, as you are able to ski any of are other Epic resorts for the remainder of the season." Which is BS. Lodging and travel for a family of five. So they will not ski this year or maybe once. What does that mean, the next generation (my nieces and nephews) will be more unlikely to ski when they are older meaning their kids won't necessarily grow up skiing either.

I have been working on and off at a ski shop for the past 30 years and I am pretty passionate skier. I am the guy in the neighborhood who is constantly asked questions about how to take up skiing here. I tell people about the value of the Epic Pass, seasonal lease programs or Jr. Trade in Programs for kids, that make it less expensive and easier to make last minute decisions to go skiing, where you can brown bag lunches, and good ideas.

But 80% of the time I get pushback that the initial investment is still too expensive.

I purchased a 4 day Epic Local pass this year to cover any possible days that I might ski locally, but even I think it is crazy that tmy daily cost of a lift ticket will be the same if I am skiing 600 vertical feet with limited terrain or 1500+ in Vermont or Colorado.

...Stepping off Soap Box....

Just to be clear, a 4 day pass is an "Epic Day Pass". "Epic Local" is a full season pass with some resort limits. There is no such thing as a "4 day Epic Local pass". Just didn't want folks to be confused.

Plus, locally, window tickets have not shot up NEARLY as much as the big resorts out west. I was paying, I think, $80/day on weekends at Whitetail pre-Epic. Right now if I didn't have an Epic pass, and wanted to ski at Whitetail tomorrow, it's $99. So a not insignificant increase, but it's not crazy.

In comparison, Timberline, WV, is independent of the megapasses, and is $90 tomorrow (and $95 if you don't have an RFID card yet). It's probably got better snow/conditions, but it's also a much longer drive for a lot of people.

 

[raisingarizona]

Kingman full time? More open land for MTB trail building?

There's a lot of opportunity there so yeah, that's where we are headed and the cost of living is going to make our lives so much better than here in Flagstaff. Flag imho has lost it's value with how crowded the ski area and Sedona has become. We are paying too much to be here.

We are working on a huge shuttle run that would start up at nearly 8k in the Hualapai Mountains and drop right back into the historic downtown.
Check it out!

Loading…

www.gofundme.com

 

[blackke17]

I guess I should apologize for enjoying the heck out of my $299 Ikon Base Pass.

same price my brother and nephew had to pay to ski one day at Park City!

 

[Andy Mink]

It is a beautiful drive and worth it even if you don't come up here to ski. I'll post some pictures in the Arizona later today.

Quick trip report here.

 

[k2rider]

There's a lot of opportunity there so yeah, that's where we are headed and the cost of living is going to make our lives so much better than here in Flagstaff. Flag imho has lost it's value with how crowded the ski area and Sedona has become. We are paying too much to be here.

We are working on a huge shuttle run that would start up at nearly 8k in the Hualapai Mountains and drop right back into the historic downtown.
Check it out!

Loading…

www.gofundme.com

I saw that. I'm down in Prescott but have followed your posts for years on MTBR.

I only go to Snowbowl once or twice a year and always midweek so the crowds and cost have not effected me. Headed to Utah on Monday to chase the storms coming in for a couple weeks.