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Keeping Snowsports Alive, Reversing A Trend: Part One

Numbers DownEver since we officially started UnofficialAlpine.com, back in 2008, our mission has been the same. We want to create a community of skiers and riders that have a passion for sliding on snow. Over the years, our readership has grown immensely, and our coverage has grown to cover 5 mountains. But we’re deeply concerned by the trends in the industry overall. The graph spells it out too clearly. In the late 70’s there were roughly 735 resorts in the US. By last season, that number was down to 470. Although the decline in skiers and riders is more difficult to track, in simplistic terms, the Boomer generation is getting out of the sport much more quickly than Generation X and Y are entering the sport. Why is that happening?

Question

All of the above would be the correct answer, except we probably need to add in several more choices to have a completely correct answer. It’s a complex issue, but it’s one that some of us worry about.

Some of us just need to be on the hill. It’s likely that our parents took us out to some local hill with a rope tow until we developed the passion for snow, and we did the same for our kids. For the better part of 40 years, I have spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter vacation skiing with my family. It’s what we do, and we know that many of you do the same. We hope our kids will get the same opportunity for generations to come.

We don’t have all of the answers on global warming. It’s not to say that we all can’t do our part, but it is certainly a bigger problem than we can address in a couple of posts on a ski blog! But we believe we can have an impact on choices A, B, and C, especially because we believe they are all related.

More and more, resorts are becoming more about the “out of boot” experience, and not just about sliding on snow. More and more, ski hills are owned by real estate developers instead of skiers and riders. More and more, there are fewer options available for where to go skiing and riding. More and more, those options are getting either further away from home, or they are getting too expensive for middle and lower class families.

While this is of great concern to those of us that grew up skiing and riding, it seems to be of little concern to the few mega-corporations that own most of the ski areas in the US. We’re not just talking about KSL here, which is actually a relatively small player in the industry. The mega-corporations are okay with selling a million cheap season passes, because they’re more concerned about selling real estate, and not to the local skiing population. They’re more concerned about selling a vacation experience to anyone that is willing to part with large sums of money. Evidently, it’s pretty lucrative, as the expansion of Vail Resorts over the last few years has proven.

ConsolidationWhat does that mean for us? To our benefit, it often leads to cheaper season passes, and those passes work often work at several resorts, scattered across the region, or maybe across the world. But overall the experience of sliding on snow is becoming more and more expensive and more and more exclusive. The costs of rentals, lessons, team programs, and food and beverages has soared to bolster the income of resorts that can’t cover costs with lift tickets and pass sales. When the investors still insist on a return for their investment, resorts simply curtail the number of operational lifts or shorten the season to maximize profit.

The snow industry will not survive if every resort looks the same, skis and rides the same, and offers the same short season. Pretty soon, the only thing that will separate the mega-resorts is the “out of boot” experiences. Who will win that race? Will it be the resort with the mega-indoor water park or the one with a full mountain roller coaster? At what point will the resorts become just another cruise ship experience, where the focus is on the all you can eat buffet, shopping and an occasional “on mountain” excursion?

We know what’s missing. We believe that the survival of the snow industry depends on maintaining a stratification of ski areas or resorts throughout the US. In the last year, community ski areas have been a hot topic. My bookmark list is full of articles on the topic, and we’ll be sharing those in Part 2. But the Community Ski Area Survey, sponsored by the Mountain Rider’s Alliance, SkiEssentials.com and the Antelope Butte Foundation, last year made a couple of very important points:

• More than 70% of the 1400 respondents learned to ski or ride at an area with a vertical of less than 1600 feet. Of those, more than 60% learned at an area that was a “mom and pop” owned ski hill

• Only 10% of the respondents learned to ski or ride at a mega-resort with a vertical of 2500 or more than 12 lifts

We don’t see that trend changing any time soon. The average price for a day ticket now tops $100, and a lesson and rentals will easily add another $200. Are people willing to pay that much to try out the sport? Apparently some people are, but will it be enough to keep the sport alive? We think it’s unlikely. The snow industry needs to make sure that, as skiers and riders, we have as many options as possible for accessing the sport. We believe there are three essential “layers” of snowsports areas required to keep the sport alive.

Breeders• Typically local mountains that serve a community and day trippers

• Affordable day tickets

• Limited but affordable lessons

• Limited or no onsite rentals

• Limited advanced terrain

• Basic food and beverage services

• Hardware based terrain parks

• Often supported by community or public funding

• Typical patrons will be there as little as a few times a season to as much as every weekend.


Feeders• Supported primarily by locals, day trippers and weekend warriors

• Affordable day tickets

• Affordable lessons and rentals

• Affordable team programs for kids

• More varied food services

• Developmental terrain park features

• Support the surrounding communities

• Typical patrons will be there 12-18 times per season, but locals may be there more than 100 days per season


 

Destination• Supported primarily by destination skiers staying at the resort

• Visitors arrive primarily by air from other regions or out of the country

• Cheap passes encourage longer stays at the resort

• Focus on longer stays to sell “shared ownership” properties

• Provide a wide variety of “out of boot” amenities to encourage visitors to stay on property

• Offer “world class” experiences in housing, dining and on-mountain services

• The focus on “off season” activities may be greater than skiing and riding as the typical peak ski season extends only from mid-December until early March.


Unless we strive to maintain this stratification, the sport of sliding on the snow is likely to continue into a downhill spiral. Skiing will become something that the rich do as a novelty, taking a few runs a day while staying at their little place in Tahoe, which they own 1/26th of the year. Those of us that can’t afford the price of admission will learn about backcountry skiing or move on to other activities. While that may be acceptable to some of us, for many of us it’s worth the effort to create change.

It’s easiest to just sit back and say change is impossible. It’s not. In Keeping Snowsports Alive, Reversing A Trend: Part 2, we will be taking a look at what other communities are doing to protect the smaller areas. We also have some suggestions about what we can do ourselves to protect skiing and riding for the masses.

 

28 thoughts on “Keeping Snowsports Alive, Reversing A Trend: Part One”

  1. As a Homewood pass holder, I’m feeling very left out that we didn’t rate a mention in your gradient of Breeder, Feeder, Destinations. 😉

    1. All fixed. took out China Peak, where I spent a lot of time skiing at 12 years old, and replaced it with Homewood. When my son learned to ski 20 years ago, Homewood was a Breeder resort.

  2. Interesting subject I believe in this discussion global warming has nothing to do with it (I would prefer to discuss the industry)
    I first started in the mid 80’s as a teen in upstate NY which has a number of breeder and feeder resorts similar to the ones you mentioned and I believe the largest issue with is being profitable with increased costs in practically everything. If you are an insurance company and you know that the resort is going to specialize in serving people who don’t know how to ski and board you realize that despite limited terrain there will be many more accidents and they are likely to include younger clients. It would be interesting to talk to the hills themselves and see if that is one of the leading causes.
    The experience is far better now thanks to the magic words high speed lift. Take a younger person to a mountain without them and tell them that was a normal experience. The new technology needs to be supported by the skiers and with many mtns they can’t afford them so the larger mtns capitalize by having the whole family there.
    My fear is the ultimate gentrification of being able to buy a pass that allows you to skip to the front of the line (a ski guide is the only way now) I believe Northstar tried something like an express lane a couple of years ago.
    Anyway great topic and go Giants

  3. I learned to ski at 200 foot hills in SE Michigan. My kids learned to ski at DSR and TD but also on the free rope tows at Squaw and later with the $5 kids lift tickets at Squaw. There’s no reason a destination resort–although I’m not sure Squaw will ever be a destination resort to the extent that WB and the big Colorado areas are–can’t be a breeder too, if the owners are in it for the long haul and understand the need to maintain the skiing/boarding population. I’m not sure where KSL fits in. Originally they let on that they planned to build and dump, which is what venture capitalists do. More recently they changed their tune and claim they’re in it for the long haul. I’m skeptical.

  4. Yes, those may indeed be the 4 threats to the snow sports industry. But only one, climate change, poses a threat to snow and hence snow sports like skiing and boarding. And that’s due to existence of alpine touring, which has significantly gained in popularity these past few years due to a variety of reasons, perhaps most prominently improved equipment. Of course alpine touring — for reasons I won’t go into here I’m not fond of the term “backcountry” — was the original form of skiing, dating back something like 8000 years to its origin in central China. And its purpose was not for sports but for transportation, hunting and warfare during the portion of the year when snow covered the terrain. So there’s always, barring loss of snow, that possible option to ski lifts, aka the “uphill transportation business”. Naturally, skiers and riders are not going to achieve the vertical footage they do with lifts (or via snowcats and choppers). But there are compensating benefits, so it becomes a quality vs. quantity thing. Unfortunately, beneficial programs like Disabled Sports — the winter snow sports portion of its programming accounts for the bulk of its services and customers — of course will greatly suffer in direct proportion to the fate of the resorts.

  5. Thank you for reporting on this issue. With skier participating flat and the big resorts squeezing out the smaller, community/mom and pop ski areas, the future of our sport is in real trouble. I’m looking forward to part two.

  6. Thanks for the coverage of this issue. I just want to note that there was a third sponsor for the survey you quoted which was the Antelope Butte Foundation. We’re working to reopen Antelope Butte in northern Wyoming which would probably be considered somewhere between a breeder/feeder mountain due to the low number of ski areas in the region.

  7. Mark , Thank you for bringing this important discussion into the main stream. Even the corporate mega resorts are acknowledging the challenges created to there operational model in the ski industry if the Mom and Pop Feeder Breeder resorts fail to survive. The greatest way for the core skiers to help small ski areas to survive is simple. GO SKIING!! If every regular pass holder of the mega resorts made an effort to pick three or their nearby Mom and Pop Ski Areas that are in there region, picked up a relative or a neighbor and took them skiing a huge impact would be felt. A small stone in a little pond can make big ripples. Certainly a very complex equation to figure out the way to save our industry from collapse in the face of the technological age where many of our youth would rather sit in their warm houses and play virtual ski or snowboard games. Technology may prove to be one of our largest threats to compete against. There are so many other ways that people of todays age can choose from to occupy “free time”. I look forward to following this conversation

    1. Is coppervale still operating? I skied it back in the early 70’s while going to Lassen College. It scared the bejeeezus out of me. Lassen had ski classes as a P.E. class (which I never took), but after skiing the hill, I thought, if you could master this hill, you could ski anywhere. Wow, a blast from the past. I learned to ski at Lassen National Park, and at a little-known area up in the hills above Doyle, which had the only snow-maker in the Sierra (1976), run by an ex-member of the Austrian ski team, and his wife, an ex-member of the Canadian ski team, who were more than happy to give “free tips” on how to ski properly. $5 for a ticket to ride their rope tow, powered by a Chevy 327 V-8. Mark, these were the places that made us into what we are today. “The passion to ski, and to always progress to a higher level.” Your article is so “right on”. WE are the “Soul of Skiing”. No ski area owns the rights to this. See you on the hill!!!!!!!

  8. Mark, shouldn’t you have relied on the experts in the industry to report on this? Let them handle it because they know what they are doing? JK of course.
    Well conceived topic and report to stimulate again more discussion and insight.
    Cost is probably the greatest detriment to the ongoing success of the industry. The operating capital required in today’s market of yes, detachable lifts, insurance, snowmaking, employees, etc, as well as other off mountain amenities drive operating costs so absurdly high that unless an operator finds another stimuli for revenue, i.e. real estate component, they will always fall short on covering expenses.

    Aside from the lawsuit brought by the former SV Board of Directors, aka the Cushing heirs against Nancy, falling revenues and increased operating costs were the main reason why Squaw was sold to KSL.

    There’s an old adage taken from Formula 1 racing. Know how to make a small fortune in F1? Start with a large one.

    The days of wealthy individuals owning and operating a ski area with this mantra and for the pure love of the activity, are now a faded memory destined to become historical artifact.

    1. Here’s an excellent example of how much more experts in the ski industry know than common folk.
      From Mon Oct 27 Sierra Sun
      “Ski areas are not all about snow,” Wirth said. “It is substantially broader than that.”
      http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/northshore/13525578-113/ski-tahoe-percent-lake
      Ok genius, then why is called “snow” skiing? Why the need for artificial “snow” making equipment? Why are they “snow” skis? Can the slopes open to skiers without snow? ,,,and on and on.
      And this guy is a leader??? Bwaahahahahaha

  9. So if we get more flights to Reno, it will snow?
    Wait a minute ski areas don’t need snow.
    The ski experience isn’t really about skiing?
    Well why don’t they spin lifts in the summer?
    Where is that marketing guru? I would love to
    get her take on this no snow needed skiing.

  10. Gonna have to say the same as Dan, but about Sugar Bowl. You’re here in Tahoe too. How can you mention Boreal and DSR and forget about the best mountain on Donner Summit? 😉

    Sugar Bowl looks fits your profile of a Feeder mountain to a T. I’ll try to ski 100 days there this winter, that should do it.

  11. This article brings back memories at Purgatory in Durango, Co. 1973, age 5, rope tow, one lesson, then skiing the whole mountain with my parents in a matter of 2 days! Life long skier after that. We must keep the smaller mountains alive folks!!

  12. Great post – as a transplanted New Englander (31 yrs now), I can say the breeder hills are where we went to ski. Ward Hill and Nashoba Valley were as close as the movies (almost ), lit up at night for the after school crowds of badly equipped happy locals in jeans and hooded parks. All of these hill fed the larger hills in VT and NH. Ward and Nashoba are still there, but take a look at this and shed a tear: http://www.nelsap.org/ Many of these hills have ceased operating since I left the greater Boston Area – and the trend continues – keep up the great work !!

  13. Thank you so much for this insightful article! My local hill, Mount Sunapee Ski Resort, is facing the increased threat of expansion by the current ski area operators/managers (also Okemo/Crested Butte and the lease holder CNL Lifestyle Properties). The operators purchased 659 acres on the back side of our mountain and are now seeking state approval to cut through old growth forest to connect onto their private land. When they made their original proposal they included a building envelope for condominiums but got so much resistance that now they claim the expansion is only to improve the ski experience. However once they are onto private land how could the state possibly retain oversight? What will happen when the lease expires and they have connected trails and infrastructure such as snowmaking and lift lines? This mega resort management company doesn’t care. They just want to sell real estate. Sadly, they have local businesses convinced this will help our local economy because they haven’t disclosed all of the “boot-off” amenities that they will inevitably offer. People won’t be leaving the hill to shop locally or stay in our small B&B’s, everything they could possibly need will come with their ski and stay package! Anybody that has any doubt what these developers are all about should check out this then and now photo of Okemo. http://www.newenglandskihistory.com/thenandnow/Vermont/

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  15. The sixties and seventies, he’ll even the eighties we didn’t have cable television. We watch the Olympics and had national pride. And curiosity about the goings on of mountain sports.
    Plus the cost was within reach. We did not have high tech clothing or skis. But we had fun because we went as a family and drank hot chocolate then drove home.
    The difference between then and today is night and day.
    Plus today’s youth are expecting sunny days with comfortable tempatures. A video experience in the real world. Then they ask for their participation award.
    We skied for fun all day, they ski for the Selfie and are done.

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  17. Funny enough in breckenridge the ski area owners Vail Resorts appears to be simply selling off the large building plots to others and hasn’t built a condo here in years. They have spent a lot on summer amenities though. Its that lift thing I suppose

  18. We installed a 100 foot rope tow in our back yard in 1959. It was on a north facing lope and when it snowed the snow did not melt until spring. All of the kids in the neighborhood came over and we skied daily. We are talking like 20 kids. Pretty soon adults joined in. Then a ski patrol. Then a nurse. We had formed a community ski area with all volunteers and it worked. This lasted until 2000 when my folks sold the house. I can’t guess how many kids learned to ski in our back yard in those 41 years. I would think a few hundred. These kinds of community grass roots ski areas need to come back and get kids interested in the sport. It can be done!

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