No reservations needed…a win for passholders at Alpine Meadows

It’s the announcement that we have been waiting to hear. Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows COO Ron Cohen announce today that, for now, there is not a plan to implement a reservation system for the 20-21 season at Alpine Meadows or the Valley With No Name. It’s a total win for passholders, local skiers and ski bums like me.

Here’s the official announcement:

For those of us that just want to go skiing and riding, it’s a breath of fresh air. Most of the pundits were expecting that SVAM, and Alterra Mountain Company, would follow in the footsteps of Vail Resorts and implement a reservation system for the upcoming season. It’s the first time that I can say that a decision was made based on what was best for most of us, instead of catering to the needs and desires of the occasional visitors, the ones that do happen to spend a lot of money. We strongly applaud that decision.

Who Wins?

The winners here are passholders and people that want to go ski or ride a lot. We go pretty much every weekend or every day, and don’t want to be bogged down by the need to monitor reservations.  Also it’s a win for the locals that only want to ski a few hours in the morning before heading into work. Powder days that happen to fall midweek may still be accessible.

The other winner will be resort managers. For years, the question has always been how to even out operations so that all weeks are reasonably busy, rather than having three peaks a year where everyone is trying to come at once. With more people living in the Truckee-Tahoe area, expect to see more people skiing mid-week. Because people may not be able to buy an advance day ticket during peak periods, some travelers will choose alternative weeks for their once-a-year week in Tahoe.

This is also a big win for all of those families that have kids involved in ski or snowboard team at SVAM. On most weekends, these people are a rather large part of the population at the ski area. It would be a very muddy to figure out how to tie that in with a reservation system while still being fair to passholders that dont have kids in those programs.

Who Loses?

The losers are non-passholders that are waiting to just show up for a big powder day, or the family that got a last minute deal on a VRBO and needs to buy day tickets. There will be no walk-up day tickets available for this season. One would also assume that there are no “same day” tickets available to purchase online. Unless you are a passholder, spontaneity will be out the window for this season.

Booking a vacation during a peak season will be more difficult for non-passholders. Walk-up tickets are not going to be available, and there will be limits on the numbers of reserved tickets sold during peak periods. Additionally, expect that there will be fewer “undated” tickets available. These are the sort of tickets that might be made available to partner hotels and businesses. Often those tickets are sold at a discounted rate to guests. It makes sense that SVAM needs to keep tighter controls on how many people might show up at the mountain on any given day. Other ski areas have solved the issue of those discounted tickets by the distribution of one-time use discount codes that can be issued to hotel guests to use when reserving tickets online.

What Else Might Change

There’s still a lot we don’t know about how everything will work. I’ve already seen commentary on social media this morning indicating that people are upset that there will be no way to monitor crowds at SVAM without a reservation. I don’t believe that is true, but you can’t make everyone happy.

Time and time again, I have said that the amount of parking at Alpine Meadows is a great way to limit the number of skiers on the mountain. As long as all of the terrain is open, when the upper lots are full, the mountain never feels all that crowded. If White Wolf is used, it’s still okay. When Deer Park fills, we start noticing how busy things are getting. Those rare times when Hidden Valley (the rafting lot) is used, I’m thinking about going home.

The shuttles going back and forth between the Valley With No Name and Alpine Meadows can also put a significant burden on the mountain as well. This would be a great year for SVAM to not have a shuttle between the two mountains. Make people choose which mountain they are starting at, and stay there for the day to keep operations more manageable. You can ski or ride the other side the next day. Nobody needs access to that many lifts in one day.

On a similar note, this would be a good year for SVAM to put a hold on busses from Truckee or other areas that have been utilized to reduce parking and traffic issue at both mountains. Those same busses add to overcrowding at the mountain during peak periods. Let’s let the parking lot do the job of managing mountain capacity.

There’s still plenty to wonder about…lockers, teams, food services, lift queues, etc. We’re still 2 months from the start of the season and we are sure that all of those questions will be answered. Thanks again to everyone at SVAM that is working hard to make it all work for us!

I don’t know about you guys, but my level of excitement for going skiing again is building. It was pretty depressing to have things end so abruptly last March, and with the COVID crisis continuing to run, somewhat out of control, it’s nice to see that there is at least some light in the tunnel. We do know a lot more about this virus that we did last March. It is possible that if all of us are smart, that we can mitigate the risks to a point where ski areas will be allowed to operate and sliding on snow will put a happy on our face again.

Update: Several other Ikon ski areas also chimed in with their plans today. Mammoth will also be attempting the “no reservations” model this season. Being a “Skier B”, that’s all that really matters to me. It’s worth noting that there are some Ikon partner mountains that will be requiring reservations for the upcoming season, so that is worth checking out before you make plans for travel.