You may already know I am not a fan of listicles, as some other ski blog really overdoes that. But 10 days ago, an article titled “Epic Fail” appeared in Slate Magazine. It’s subtitled “How a corporate duopoly ruined skiing“. That headline got my attention. More importantly, that article was forwarded to me by a dozen different friends, indicating it’s not just me that thinks it’s a problem. It’s becoming more and more of a general consensus that Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company have changed the world when it comes to skiing and riding. The reality is, it’s not ALL their fault…hence, a listicle at Unofficial Alpine.
Now before we get any farther, none of this should be taken as “Unofficial Alpine does not appreciate the people that work at the mountain day & night to make it all happen, especially in this season where almost all skiing is being done on manmade snow.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We are out there every day, loving every little bit of what part of the mountain is open. I constantly high five employees, thank them for their efforts and distribute Alpine Meadows schwag. We appreciate each and every one of you.
Those are the numbers we have lived with over the past week. Yes, it is ugly when you look at it in bold print. For people that have spent their lives coming to Tahoe for the holiday week, those are the sort of numbers that would have convinced you to make alternative plans.
During the first drought of my skiing life, way back in 1976, I had the most awesome mother ever. When Tahoe looked dismal, she took the time to figure what it would take to make a trip to Mount Shasta, and later a trip to Mount Bachelor. Looking back, that is quite a feat for a single mom to pull that together during pre-internet times. What a mom.
Yet, here we are, against the odds, people still arrived in Tahoe, even with it being a dismal snow year. While the parking lot never filled at Alpine Meadows, it did at the place next door. We were fortunate to have very manageable lift lines, the place next store did not. No, it was only very crowded by that limited terrain that was available. The comfortable carrying capacity of the slopes was definitely exceeded, keeping Ski Patrol busy all day, and mountain ops busy all night pushing snow back where it belonged. So what gives?
#1) Pass Sales
The CEO of Vail Resorts announced this week that they had pre-sold more than 2 million Epic passes for this season. That is an astounding number. Because Alterra Mountain Co is a privately held company, they do not publicly release pass sales numbers each season. But we do know they are trying their best to keep up with Vail Resorts. We can only make some guesses as to where Ikon pass sales are at. The all important area is the “4 hour drive time” radius, as that is what makes for a “do-able” day trip or weekend trip for skiing.
The last credible number I have heard for number of Ikon pass sales within that window was 120k. That was pre-COVID. Some sources have suggested that number is now closer to 200k. Those are some huge numbers, especially compared to pass numbers sold before the existence of the Ikon pass, and even more so, before the merger between Alpine Meadows and Native American Women Valley. Sources have estimated that number to be somewhere around 30k for combined pass sales at both mountains.
That is quite a jump. It’s especially alarming when you consider that the actual mountain capacity is somewhere around 22k on a good day when both mountains are 100% in operation. We are not there this season, not even close.
Hypothetically, consider that if somewhere around 10% of passholders are wanting to go skiing in the worst of years, no matter what the conditions…you know somewhat ski crazy, like myself. In the old days, that would have been like 3000 people showing up this week. That works. Given current pass sales, ten percent showing up this week is between 12k to 20k people. Given the very limited terrain available, that is very problematic.
I do miss the days when buying a full pass meant you could enjoy the holiday weeks, which were often less busy than all other weeks. That is no longer the case. The nature of investment driven businesses is to demand continuous growth each year. This is not sustainable, especially in a world with fickle weather. Something needs to change.
#2 The Ikon Tourist
It’s a real thing. Both the Epic pass and the Ikon pass have developed a whole new category of skiers, and in this case we are concerned with the “ikon tourist”. They bought the pass because it gives them the ability to ski at 134 ski areas in 96 countries. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but I am using numbers that I have heard Ikon tourists stating while riding the Summit lift. There’s several varieties of the Ikon tourist, but they are all playing the same game. They may be playing Ikon Bingo, where life’s only goal is to visit more Ikon resorts than their buddy at work, their uncle that skis tiny midwest resorts, or that rando they met on an internet ski forum. Here’s a sample of the Ikon Bingo card:
Not every one is playing Ikon Bingo. Others are playing the Ikon Sticker Game, where stickers are placed on their Rocket Box, letting people know they are cooler than you. Here’s one sample:
I am not an Ikon tourist, far from it. I used to travel for skiing quite a bit, when my son was competing on the freestyle circuit. But I discovered that there is no place like home. I am married to my home mountain, and she is a fantastic mountain. I know her hidden secrets and how to deal with her in a great season, and in a not so great season. There’s no Rocket Box on my car. There’s just one sticker on my car, an Alpine Meadows sticker. (Yes, I do feel guilty when I go to Mount Rose. I like Mount Rose, but I am happy to return home to Alpine Meadows.) While I don’t play bingo, nor collect stickers, many of you know I’m a sucker for tracking my stats and earning badges on the Palisades app. Guilty as charged.
But there are a lot of Ikon tourists these days. On any lift ride shared with a stranger, they are likely talking about which Ikon resort they are going to next vacation, or how many resorts they went to last season. It’s not my jam, but it is definitely happening. Conditions don’t matter if all you’re doing is checking off another box on your list.
#3 Short Term Rentals
Short term rentals are the scourge of ski towns. Sure there are some positives. It makes it easier to find a place to stay when you’re planning a vacation in Tahoe. It allows some people a way to afford a second or third home in Tahoe by having somebody else underwrite the expense.
But then there are the negatives. Short term rentals price locals out of the housing market, as they can bring more income than a long term rental. Short term rentals drive up the cost of real estate as sellers factor in the potential for profits into their selling prices. Locals can’t afford to rent, nor can they afford to buy. Soon enough they are commuting from far off lands like Portola or Spanish Springs. Eventually, they move on to other job markets. Local employers must then raise wages to find workers, and then you’re paying $20 for a burrito in Tahoe City. That’s the way it works.
How does that relate to busy holiday weeks? It’s the lack of flexibility in cancellation policies. People made their holiday reservations back in July, never realizing that the very limited cancellation options would come back to bite them. Once they realize they are stuck with the reservation, they are packing the car and going skiing, good or bad.
Back in the day, motels would allow you to cancel a few days in advance…
#4 The El Niño Factor
Because of just a couple of good El Niño powered ski seasons, that warm pool of water has taken on this mythical image of being the savior of all ski seasons. It’s all people have been talking about on Reddit, various online ski forums and even on some weather discussion pages.There’s even entire ski movies about El Niño.
People started talking about the possibility of an El Niño before last winter even ended. The hope was that we would see even more snowfall that last year’s record snowfall. Skis were purchased. Passes were upgraded. Reservations were made for every major holiday weekend throughout the season at 7 different Ikon destinations.
But the truth is, an El Niño year is no guarantee for a great year for snow in the Tahoe basin. According to Daniel Swain, my favorite weather guru, only about 50% of El Niño years turn out wetter than average. The other 50% turn out drier than average. What is true about most El Niño years? They bring warmer than average storms with higher than average snow levels. That is something we are all too familiar with so far this season.
It’s my goal to not add to the El Niño hype this season, or any season.
#5 The Shiny Boxes
The B2B Gondola (aka Gondumbla, Windola or Shiny Boxes) continue to be a huge draw to Palisades Tahoe and Alpine Meadows. More than ever, the general public seems to be drawn to bigger and better lifts going everywhere, whether they make sense or not. New lifts have become a part of the “arms race” between the major players in the pass wars. Just in the last year we have the B2B at PTAM, a big new gondola at Steamboat and new trams at Jackson Hole and Big Sky. Those resorts not building shiny boxes, they are building bigger and better chairlifts….six packs with bubbles, eight packs with bubbles and heated seats. It’s Doppelmayr that is winning the arms race.
Some didn’t come for the skiing, they came to ride the B2B, and you don’t really need snow for that. As we have mentioned before, it’s a great place for a picnic lunch with a view.
#6 Social Media Doesn’t Always Give An Accurate Representation Of What’s Up
There was a time when there were very few resources to get an accurate picture of what current ski conditions are looking like. When I was growing up, it was calling the snow phone at my favorite ski area or catching the ski report on the Thursday evening news. Reports were alway limited to just some number of inches and the phrase “packed powder.”
The thing is, few people post social media photos of skiing the WROD or picking your way through rocks and brush on the edge of the trail. That all changed when Palisades Tahoe opened up Siberia Ridge for hiking access a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly my social media feed was filled with images of double backies off of the Kangaroo Kicker and bros skiing real snow.
Then there’s the marketing feed:
Sure the skiing was that good that day for a run or two. But showing the run empty, with no other traffic is probably not giving you an accurate representation to expect as a visitor during the holiday week. Then again, that’s probably why you found this blog. We tend to lay out how it really is.
#7 F.O.M.O.
December of 2021 and December of 2022 were both legendary for the amount of snow that fell in Tahoe. If you were here for either of those, you know the snow was deep. It just kept coming and coming. If you were here, you might have just assumed it would happen again. You wouldn’t want to miss out on that again would you? That fear of missing out is real.
Maybe you did miss it last year, because you had already committed to that family Christmas get together in Texas. While others were enjoying a game of golf on New Years day, you were glued to your phone looking at pictures of snow in Tahoe. You also had a fear of missing out. Here you are now, just hoping that storm next Saturday is the “big one” so you can go back to the office and share your own pictures.
#8 Holding On To “Work From Home”
The COVID pandemic of 2020 changed the world, maybe forever. Going to the office became a thing of the past. Working from home and home schooling became the norm. During the following year, a whole bunch of people figured out if they could work from home, they did not have to live in the city or the suburbs anymore. As long as they had a solid internet connection for Zoom meetings, they could move to Tahoe and work from home, work from the ski lodge, or even the ski lift.
That contributed to the Tahoe housing crisis as much as short term rentals, if not more. It’s also decimated some cities that were office building centric. Some industries have continued to thrive with remote workers, while other industries have “clawed back” their workers into the office because “teamwork makes the dream work”. Those that were forced back into an office likely have kept the Tahoe house and they are intent on being here as much as they can possibly be here.
I get it. I like being here too. I started making my plans to move to Tahoe back when I was about 14 years old.
#9 Parking Reservations
Let’s be clear here, I am no fan of parking reservations. So far, they have had a minimal impact on me or most of my friends. As of yet, it has not been a problem to secure a parking reservation for free at Alpine Meadows. I have the process simplified and it just takes a few minutes out of lunch each Tuesday to make new reservations. It’s been easy since there is limited demand so far with a slow start to the season. Ask me again after we have a big storm and suddenly there is a parking reservation panic.
But to the family that is driving up from for the day on a weekend or holiday day, there is some relief to having a parking reservation. Not having to shove the kids into the car at 4am in Sunnyvale so you can get the the Palisades lot by 7:30am is a whole new ball game for daytrippers in particular. I have personally seen the families dragging in from the parking lot at 10:30 hauling a load of gear in their RTIC gear wagon arriving with bellies full of breakfast at Jax, ready to go skiing. They gave up skiing last year after getting shut out the second time. Now they are back, because parking reservations are the cat’s pajamas.
#10 It’s Not Just Palisades & Alpine Meadows
It’s all of Tahoe that is up to its eyeballs in tourists, currently being loved to death. At least this year, the holiday week has been nice enough to enjoy a multitude of sports. I’ve done a couple of bike rides myself. There’s people hiking the Five Lakes trail, the local restaurants are packed, and people are out and about looking for something to do. What visitors really want is snow to play in, and that is in short supply. Here’s a view from Tahoe Meadows on Mount Rose highway this week. It’s one of the few areas with enough snow for sledding:
In summary, there’s a lot of people that want to be in Tahoe during the holidays. Getting through the big holiday period is just something you have choose to do. That’s why I just go skiing every day during the holiday, even knowing it will probably be a mad house.
We have now made it through the longest holiday period. Things will ramp down a bit this week, leaving us with a short break before Martin Luther King Weekend, then President’s Weekend, that World Cup thingy, various ski and skate weeks. Yep, early season skiing is over. Ski ya out there.
Awesome piece as always. Unfortunately, the issue is simply the cheap IKON pass. Palisades is just a world class resort and they have under-priced the experience (in terms of the IKON pass). As a result, they are delivering a crappy consumer experience (due to crowds and traffic). I absolutely love Squaw and always will, but we all acknowledge that the experience just sucks compared to what it was 10 years ago. No matter how much we talk about housing and parking and other solutions, there is only a single solution- we need less people on the mountain. People should read about what A-Basin has done. They have limited ticket sales and skier days are down 40% yet profits are up. Ultimately, the only solution is for Palisades to recognize that it is the premium product that it is and price the experience (ie a season pass) accordingly. They need to pull out of IKON and offer a season pass for ~$3k (in line with what it used to be, inflation adjusted. Yes, this would price out some families unfortunately, but that it what it should cost for a world-class mountain and the world class experience (less crowds and less traffic) that would be the result. They could likely make more money and their consumers would be ecstatic about the experience. There really is no other solution. I appreciate that some people will hate that this prices them out of the market, compared to the $800 IKON pass but you cannot compare the two products. $800 IKON pass offers you an over-crowded, crappy experience overall. $3k would offer you an off-the-charts experience that both Squaw and Alpine can deliver. Alterra ultimately could make this work, but they would need to take a leap and swim against the tide.
Absolutely!!
You are 100% right!!! I’ve been saying the exact same thing to anyone who will listen. The skier experience has been ruined due to a business model that is now solely focused on selling a high volume of cheap tickets in advance of the ski season.
Palisades/Alpine passes are too cheap. Face it, we’ve become much more in demand & the price of a pass has plummeted. In the pre-Ikon days it took 22 days to break even on a pass. Now it takes 6. Like some of the other big name areas on the Ikon, Alta & Jackson Hole come to mind, Palisades should limit basic use to 5 days. For locals, probably most readers of this site, we’d need to pay more. Unfortunate truth.
I’ve often said: inexpensive pass, good snow, no crowds – pick two. Now it seems you don’t even need good snow – the White Ribbon of Death will do (especially if you’re obsessed with counting days or runs no matter how dreadful the conditions).
I’ve enjoyed reading the posts, as for me, I’m waiting for some snow before braving the parking lot. No snow, not a problem I can solve, I’ll do something else. Keeping my fingers crossed 🤞.
🏂⛷️👍
I’d add fat skis to the list. Skiing, especially off piste, has become much easier to more people.
I don’t “do” lists either but appreciate this article, as always informative and with just the right amount of irreverence, and I also appreciate the link to the Slate article, which for sure is worth a read. I posted the Slate article to social media with the tagline “Equity funds and the joie de vivre culture of skiing don’t mix.” Yes, it was meant as an understatement.
I am that guy who skied Alpine with much joie de vivre decades ago and read this blog daily with a mix of curiosity and nostalgia for life in California, or at least life in the California in which I grew up, where trips from our Bay Area home to Tahoe were a regular occurrence. I’m the guy who lives most of the year in a beach neighborhood in Baja California and whose home in the U.S. is in Flagstaff, AZ, a university town with a nearby high-elevation ski hill that – shhhhh! – somehow so far has avoided takeover by the hedge fund juggernaut and the attendant nightmares I’m reading about in this blog and in the Slate article. Yes, the resort is just 2 1/2 hrs from Scottsdale, a very affluent suburb of Phoenix with hundreds of thousands of residents, among the now nearly 5 million residents in the rapidly growing Phoenix metro area, so yes, there are traffic jams and crowded conditions and parking lot crunches and so forth. After all, this is the 21st century. But buy ahead online, and you can ski mid-winter – yes, on a base of scarcely more than a foot right now per Open Snow – for $49. https://www.snowbowl.ski. Try that at your local hedge fund ski resort.
And this type of pricing was available last year too, when the base was 6′-8′ and at times more. Wait to the last minute last year, however, and the price topped $150. Earlier in the current season, the resort, which opened before Alpine Meadows did this year, was so in search of skiers that it was offering ski passes for just $19. Plus, there are barbecues and music and, dare I say it? still some quantum of joie de vivre as sunny-outlook Arizonans ski and ride down the 2,200′-vertical hill.
Interestingly, the gondola craze made its way even to remote Arizona. Snowbowl replaced an aging, 3-seat fixed grip lift called Agassiz that got you to the 11,500′ top of the hill in about 15 minutes and had a mid-mountain off-ramp like Weasel Pass (now known as TLC) with an unusual detachable lift with two 6-seat chairs then an 8-seat gondola in a repeating pattern. The lift, not-so-creatively named “Arizona Gondola,” cut the trip time by more than half, so not it takes 7 min to the top. I’m guessing they added the gondolas for use in summer, when the resort offers sightseers a ride to the top (à la PTAM’s Shiny Box as a sightseeing attraction), because it is not often that one would feel a need to duck into a gondola to avoid bad weather at latitude 35 – indeed, the opposite potentially is true. Packed with 8 skiers I could see Arizona’s shiny boxes turning into hot boxes under the blazing Arizona sun. I choose the chairs.
Here’s to hoping Alpine and Tahoe get the “big one” or big ones soon so the snow gets better and your ski season can kick into high gear, the Alpine Bowl lift will open, and you who read this blog can escape the reported hair-raising mix of slow-pokes and time-trial wannabes as you enjoy the mountain. Feliz año nuevo!
$20 Burrito in Tahoe City? How about a $27 dollar pretzel at The Chalet located in Alpine Meadows. Or perhaps a Rogan Josh Lamb Curry bowl at the Arc located at Gold Coast for $31. The tourists are captive and the price gouging has reached new levels. Maybe Jerome Powell can step in with a solution. The lost leader business model of selling low priced IKON passes is enhanced with grossly inflated food, beverage, equipment rentals, and lodging prices…Packing the ski resorts with hungry/thirsty tourists who are willing to pay for parking and buy A-Z at Alterra owned businesses with inflated prices will float the corporate boat.
Downhill slide!
Yes, Hal Clifford saw this coming way back in 2002.
Within the Alterra owned resorts, two of them handle Ikon differently. At Crystal and Deer Valley an Ikon pass gets you 5 or 7 days. For unlimited skiing you have to buy the dedicated area pass for at least $2K.
As for skiing current conditions I’ll pass. Mammoth was much more enjoyable last July and early August than it is right now.
And that is kind of backwards…it’s the Ikon pass that should be the expensive pass.
As an Alpine Meadows pass holder since 1989, Squaw has always been an adversary relationship. Now we have the B2B to further complicate things. Troy selling out White Wolf to KSL was the final straw in a war of attrition. Props to Troy for hanging on so long, I will be forever grateful for his efforts. Alpine Meadows 4 Ever!
Mark great 10 points I would like to add #11.
Infrastructure,
When “Sweet Pea” was the mountain manger he would tell us who work at AM he needed to utilize all the available infrastructure aka LIFTS.
When KSL”Killing Sierras Locals” rode into town the lift status changed dramatically.
We all can remember that early season lifts included Kangaroo to spread out the crowd. As I was reminded the other day by a fellow worker from the 70s and 80s at one time the summer trail crew cleared Kangaroo of all rocks and debris from the run and planted grass. Yes there was talk of grass skiing in the summer and with improved snow making you could open up The Roo with less base for ski teams to train, ski school to hold instructor clinics and the Adaptive volunteers to train also.
I can remember at times in the 80s and 90 early season conditions had Kangaroo as the top of the mountain.
Who remembers Monday Motivational races…boy us locals loved the Roo for some great times.
But no Alterra spent 40 million on the B2B .
If they had spent a fraction of that at the Roo for new fan guns and maybe up grade the lift to a 3 seater they could disperse the crowds away from this years pinch points and make the experience safer and more enjoyable.
I can’t wait to see what NAW valley does when the YAN lifts need replacing. Sun Valley is already ahead of the game and replacing there 6 YAN lifts now.
Remember YAN stands for “Your Airborne Now ”but not if you don’t have or can get replacement parts. Sadly that day is coming. What will Alterra do?
Infrastructure now needed.
Season passes are underpriced?? You have got to be kidding me. I’ve been skiing since 16 which makes it about 50 years. Yes the business model needs to be rethought and redone but raising prices to two to three grand a year to go skiing is just plain ridiculous in my humble opinion. Give us locals a discount. We will ski weekdays and let tourists have the weekends and crowds. Problem solved.
Ahh, the Sno-phone…..sigh…….(530) 581-8374…..honey, time to get up.
“I am married to my home mountain” That is a beautiful statement!