Our second post of the day is a piece on the weekend overcrowding we have seen this season by guest author “Mark The Skibum”. Thinking that today was likely to be busy, it seemed a natural time to run this piece. Today was not as crowded as expected, so maybe he is on to something! We don’t just accept random submissions, I’ve known the other Mark for quite sometime and can appreciate his thoughts.
TL;DR Be patient, as a self-correction is imminent.
Tahoe has a problem and it’s not just Vail’s Epic Pass or Alterra’s Ikon Pass. The problem is human behavior, and the best course of action is to be patient and let the behaviors change naturally.
It should come as no surprise to readers that 2020 was one of the largest influxes of people into the Tahoe basin ever recorded. As COVID fears have subsided, white collar industries have called workers back into the office to a schedule similar to pre-covid lifestyles. That forcing of office workers back into the standard Monday-Friday 9-5 job, is the largest contributor to the weekend overcrowding we have seen all season.
During to 2020/21 and 2021/22 season, resorts saw record breaking total skier visits, however the parking lots around the basin only reached capacity a handful of times. Weekday skiing was noticeably busier than it had been in the past, with some resorts reporting weekday skier visits doubling and tripling when compared to historical data. At the same time, weekends and holidays actually saw a slight reduction in overall skier visits. This was caused by the ability of the recent Tahoe transplants to make their own schedules and “work” remotely. This freedom let them spread out their ski time across multiple days, or work afternoons only, allowing for 7 days per week of skiing the morning corduroy. The return to office has taken that freedom away.
This season many of the recent Tahoe transplants have moved back to The Bay, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, etc. The folks who were getting 100+ days with ease the last 2 seasons, are now limited to only weekends and holidays. Lucky for them most offices have made Friday a hybrid work day so many can make the trek up Thursday evening each week for 3 days of skiing on the weekend. But going from 7 days/week on snow to only 3 days is a rough transition.
They all bought passes for the same amount as years past, and when you get 100 days on a $1000 pass, it’s a great deal. But being (mostly) white collar workers, ROI or Return on Investment is a concept they are all familiar with. In this case their return on a $1000 investment is greatly decreased by their jobs limiting their total days on hill. Just to get near the same ROI as in previous seasons, they would need to ski 3 days every weekend, all of winter break, all of Presidents week, and all of spring break, plus the Thanksgiving & MLK Holidays. That will get them near 100 days, assuming a season of NOV-APR. Then the unthinkable happened, a massive snowstorm for the second half of winter break caused many missed days on hill. Those days had to be made up sometime to maximize the ROI of the passes.
The first sunny weekend of January, we saw all time record breaking crowds at EVERY SINGLE RESORT in Tahoe. It was not just Palisades Tahoe and Alpine Meadow and not just the Epic pass resorts. The independents struggled too. Sugar Bowl (who limited season pass sales) had traffic on Donner Pass Rd. backed up all the way into Truckee at a standstill. Diamond Peak was parking people at the summer beach overflow parking. Mt. Rose maxed out on parking for the first time ever during a non-holiday. Even with an additional high-speed quad out of the base area, lines on weekends have been long for Rose standards at 5-10 minutes for all chairs accessing intermediate terrain. Lines on weekdays? I haven’t seen one.
The Epic and Ikon passes get blamed for a lot of the problems we have been having on the weekends, but it’s clearly not just their fault. If the problems are existing at all the resorts in Tahoe, the problem clearly is not just the mega passes. The core issues are much more complicated than IKON and Epic passes being oversold. White collar workers are doing what all of us skibums have done for years, enjoying the most days on snow possible and skiing every day they can. It’s not their fault they are limited to weekends and holidays. It’s not their fault that getting 100 days/season is almost impossible with their office jobs.
What is their fault is their choice to come. Their choice to sit in traffic. Their choice to continue to waste their own time for a few good runs. Frankly, none of the proposed solutions I have heard are going to fix the problem. We have to wait for behaviors to change. Some people will get fed up and go back to old habits of skiing just a few weekends each season. Others might quit their jobs and find ways to work remote again to enjoy the happiness they felt the past two seasons skiing midweek. Others might stop skiing altogether.
The point is that trying to force a ‘solution’ doesn’t work when the root of the problem is patterns of human behavior. We have to wait it out, let nature take its course and a homeostasis will eventually be achieved. Will we ever see line free weekends again? Probably not. But we will eventually see a reduction down to sustainable levels.
Mark The Skibum has spent a quarter century skiing in Lake Tahoe. He has spent his entire adult life, up until this season, working full time at ski resorts in many departments, including supervisory positions in resort operations. Despite having a full time job outside of the ski industry he still works part-time as a snow cat operator. He has a BS in Biology with a minor in Psychology from UNR with a large focus being on Human Behavior. He was a member of the 100+ days/season cub every season since 2011 and continues to ski every chance he gets (mostly on weekdays thanks to a flexible job schedule). He is a current IKON pass holder, as well as a passholder at Diamond Peak and Mt. Rose.
Interesting although I don’t agree with the everyone who has to. RTO is trying to get 100 days in. I think it has to do more with biggest snow year since 2017. 2017 had the same or worse weekend traffic to now and way worse lift lines cause palisades/alpine was mismanaged and frequently couldn’t get upper mountain open on powder days so everyone stuck lapping red dog with a 1+ hour line. Truth is Colorado and every state with major cities near ski resorts has the Same problem. Can’t hate on peeps for loving skiing just hope by late March it dies down like it does in normal seasons. That will be the true marker of this theory
Too Long : Did Read – Nailed it! Short terms rentals are also a big contributing factor. Too many people in the basin overall on a weekend. Not necessarily too many passes.
I think there multiple factors involved with overcrowding this season. I feel like short term rentals and a big snow year have have a big impact too. What strikes me about the Other Marks piece is I hadn’t really considered the formerly remote worker angle. Also having graduated with a BA in Bio, applying the homeostasis concept makes sense.
I am thankful that current management is doing way better than management during the big 16-17 year…
I am a so-called ski bum who has spent approximately 5000 days on skis. While I grew up skiing a lot in the Tahoe basin, where I still own the vacation home I inherited from my parents, most of my ski days since 1973 have been spent in the Alps or even more remote and exotic mountain ranges. I have written two books about skiing and have skied in 75 countries, so I have a reasonable amount of experience and a good basis of comparison. (See http://www.skiingaroundtheworldbook.com.) While the Ikon and Epic pass certainly contribute to the problem of crowded weekends in Tahoe and other resorts that offer those passes, the major issue that causes the problem of crowding in US ski resorts on weekends is the lack of vacation time for residents of the US. In Europe, as you may know, most people get 5-6 weeks of paid vacation. That being the case, people who enjoy skiing generally spend part of that vacation doing a couple of weeklong ski holidays. This means that Alpine ski resorts have the skier days much more evenly distributed, the lift companies, restaurants, hotels, etc. take in much more money and hence, the prices of skiing–be it lift passes, meals, or rooms–are much cheaper than in the US. The product, at the same time, is better. Most Alpine resorts have state-of-the-art lifts compared to the museum pieces in the likes of Palisades, Alpine, etc. The Alpine resorts have the capacity to do excellent piste preparation of every descent, whereas most US resorts–even the supposedly wealthy ones–announce a few runs each day that have been groomed, while the others are left ungroomed. The prices in the US are obscene, leaving skiing more and more to the extremely wealthy, whereas it is still a sport that is affordable to the European middle class. In the US, with the pathetic norm of 2-3 weeks paid vacation, most people, unless the are fanatic skiers, use their vacation for the traditional summer holiday and are relegated to weekends and particularly holiday weekends to satisfy their skiing needs and desires. In my opinion, this is the major reason for the problematic situation in Tahoe and elsewhere in the US. Best Regards, Jimmy Petterson
This was a very interesting read, and certainly this Mark has a good understanding of human behavior, and the collateral impact that comes from that behavior.
As someone who has ‘put in her time’ and now retired so can enjoy mid week skiing consistently, I cringe when I see the photos & videos of road congestion & lift line times on weekends.. As people adapt to “return to relatively normal M-F work life” leaving only the weekends and holidays to re-create, they continue to make adjustments to how best to make it work.
For me it’s fun & helpful to read ‘unofficial Alpine’ almost daily to give me the latest info on ski conditions, parking challenges & what to expect ahead.
Thanks to those of you who take the time to write to keep us in the loop and committed to our favorite ski area, Alpine Meadows.
I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts, it’s something I have been thinking about and dissecting all season. I know it’s really tough to read something where someone proposes the best solution is to do nothing, but unfortunately every proposed ‘solution’ has had major unintended consequences. I truly whole-heartedly believe that patience will be our best course of action.
Very insightful and has a useful ideas on current events.
Today is Monday, Presidents Day with no Blackouts and forecast is for great weather. It also is a holiday week for many. And the Men’s World Cup events. The rest of the week, the weather forecast is for cold and wintry. It will be interesting to see how the traffic pans out.