The Disney-fication of Skiing

While you may think that this is going to be yet another post about waterparks, mountain roll coasters and fake alpine villages, it is not. It’s about equal access to mountains and recreation. POWDR introduced its “Fast Tracks” access program at four of its premier mountains this week. Buying an additional Fast Tracks daily ticket, in addition to your regular season pass or day ticket, gets you access to an express lift line at the mountains most popular lifts. For the 21-22 season the Fast Tracks program is offered at Killington, Mount Bachelor, Copper Mountain and Snowbird.

The initial estimates for the cost of a Fast Tracks ticket is about $49 per day. That said, individual mountains are allowed to set their own prices. Those prices will also be adjustable, based on demand, just like most ski area tickets these days. Signs with QR codes around the mountain will make it easy to add the feature on the spur of the moment. So when you get to the bottom of the Peruvian chair and the line is to the moon, you can simply scan the QR code to charge the upgrade to your platinum American Express card and move to the front of the line.

If you’ve visited Disneyland, you already know that feeling of waiting in that 2 hour long line in the hot sun for the Matterhorn, only to have the Robertson family from Palm Springs swoop in waving their Fast Pass tickets and taking your bobsled. Disney began it’s Fast Pass program in 1999, which curiously is about the same year I stopped going to Disney parks.

POWDR is not really paving the way when it announced paid premium access for the upcoming season. Several other mountains have offered premium access plans of one sort or another over the years. In California, Mammoth Mountain offer its “Black Pass” membership program, which allows the wealthy of Southern California to bypass lines. It also offers some premium dining service and other niceties that allow the elite to avoid contact with us mere mortals. Whenever I am at mammoth Mountain, I always make it a point to jump into the Black Pass lane at Chair 3, as a small sign of protest…also because that line is never monitored at Chair 3. The Black Pass is a slightly different beast, as it is only available as an annual membership, offered for this season at $12,000. While that may seem expensive, there’s a waiting list.

Mountains that have tried premium access plans as a daily add-on have had mixed success over the years. While a few mountains have made it work, others abandoned it after a short trial. Intense backlash from everyday skiers and the “big hammer” of social media outrage has caused most mountains to give up on the potential revenue stream.

The press release from POWDR is a mind boggling read. Somehow, the marketing staff somehow believes that this will make everything better for those of us that are frustrated with long lines.

“Unlike our counterparts in other areas of the hospitality and event industry, the ski industry has yet to embrace the concept of providing options for guests to upgrade their experience. We are exploring the opportunity to solve for our guests greatest pain points by becoming one of the first adventure lifestyle companies to provide upgrades that maximize the on-mountain experience.”  – Wade Martin, co-president, POWDR

This is not the first bone-headed move by POWDR. This is the same company that “forgot” to renew their lease for the land under Park City Mountain Resort in 2011. Eventually, POWDR was forced to sell PCMR to Vail Resorts when they could not renew the lease after it expired. Doh!

The public reaction to the announcement has been less than stellar. I knew that something big was afoot when my Twitter feed exploded on Monday. There’s already petitions at Change.org to requesting that Killington, Mount Bachelor, and Snowbird cancel plans for the Fast Pass program. Each petition already has thousands of signatures. What’s even more astounding is that an Oregon senator Ron Wyden has gotten involved, writing a strongly worded letter to POWDR Corp, requesting that they reconsider the plan.

I am writing to express concerns about the new Fast Tracks upgrade pass policy that POWDR announced it will implement at Mt. Bachelor and a number of its mountain resorts this year. Mt. Bachelor operates the ski resort on public lands via a U.S. Forest Service Special Use Permit, and as such, the public deserves fair and equitable access to those public lands. Given the serious concerns this policy raises about equitable access to the public lands on which Mt. Bachelor operates, I request that POWDR abandon its plans to adopt this new pass system. – US Senator Ron Wyden (OR)

And that brings up an interesting point. Much of Alpine Meadows also operates on Forest Service lands and one would think that we should also have equal access. But we don’t. Alpine Meadows, and our neighbor to the north, Olympic Valley, have their own version of the Fast Tracks access program. Just sign up for the North Face Mountain Guide program and you and three friends can get a guided tour of the mountain, which includes line cutting privileges. On weekends and during peak season, you will pay only $1030, or about $255 per person for the privilege. Of course, the guide will only get a small portion of that fee, so you would want to include a tip! I’m guessing that the inclusion of a “free” North Face hoodie or flannel allows OVAM to say that they are not charging money for the premium access.

Fun Fact: POWDR Corp. owned Alpine Meadows from 1995 until 2007. Locally, POWDR still owns Boreal and Soda Springs.

So what do I do when the lines get long at Summit or Sherwood? It’s easy, I just find another lift to ride. I would rather do a bunch of short rides on a secondary lift than wait in a long line. There’s plenty of adventure to be found, even on Yellow or the mighty Roo. For those days when the mountain is absolutely going to be crazy, I’ve nearly always had backup passes to smaller mountains. Homewood is a popular option for many, but it is not in my rotation. An excellent powder day at a small mountain without a crowd is always more memorable that a big powder day with big lines at Alpine Meadows.

If you want to take a deeper dive into POWDR and the Fast Access program, Stuart Winchester takes an entertaining look into the subject in his post “Thanks For The Thousand Dollars, Now Go #$&@ Yourself.” It’s everything I would have written had I not been stuck in a metal tube at 550mph between OGG and SMF on Tuesday.

We had a nice little break in Maui, where I celebrated a milestone birthday. Andy and Colleen also happened to be in Maui and our vacations overlapped for two days. We shared some time at a favorite beach and a sunset dinner at Fleetwoods in Lahaina.

Winter Is Coming

A few small storms are brushing just north of us, leaving traces of snow here and there while I was enjoying the beach in Maui. The pattern is looking a bit more active toward the end of October, when we may see the first AR events of the year. Again, we can’t hope for too much early rain and snow as there is still a lot of work to be completed at the Alpine Meadows base area. Andrew P. sent this shot of the current state of things this morning:

I can’t wait for ski season to begin. Today, I am thankful that Alpine Meadows is not still a part of the POWDR, with a Fast Pass access offering, or Vail Resorts, who reduced pass prices by 20%, increasing pass sales by 42%.