It's too crowded, no one goes there anymore

[123ski]

Way past the 90s.

Stop trying to blame superpasses or this or that for Colorado's or SLC's massive crowding issues. Both cities are booming, and both cities attract a young outdoorsy Outside magazine demographic in these booms . There are simply too many people in both places, and it gets worse by the week.

Season pass prices that are dropping in relation to inflation isn’t helping either. BCC needs a resort in Cardiff (I know, I know), Provo needs the original 7 peaks resort that was supposed to go in in the 80s (look it up) and something in AF canyon. Thousand peaks should be turned into a resort. Could also support something in the oquirrhs and something near Grandview.


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[rideit]

Season pass prices that are dropping in relation to inflation isn’t helping either. BCC needs a resort in Cardiff (I know, I know), Provo needs the original 7 peaks resort that was supposed to go in in the 80s (look it up) and something in AF canyon. Thousand peaks should be turned into a resort. Could also support something in the oquirrhs and something near Grandview.


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Paging David Witherspoon, David Witherspoon to the white courtesy phone...

[goldenboy]

That was aimed at Benny being perplexed by crowds in CB, not at anything in your post.

Yeah, sorry. Didn't make my response clear, more to Benny than you.

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[Bunion 2020]

Season pass prices that are dropping in relation to inflation isn’t helping either. BCC needs a resort in Cardiff (I know, I know), Provo needs the original 7 peaks resort that was supposed to go in in the 80s (look it up) and something in AF canyon. Thousand peaks should be turned into a resort. Could also support something in the oquirrhs and something near Grandview.


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With climate change and the aging population the ROI isn't there. 7 Peaks? Do you mean Heritage Mountain?

https://www.deseret.com/2005/4/7/199...e-old-facility

[Benny Profane]

You really are good at stating the obvious and arguing with people about shit everyone already knows.

I can tell ya one thing though, it still isn't as shitty as Connecticut.

You mean Salt Lake City? Fuck, what an ugly hole. Hartford could be better.

[123ski]

With climate change and the aging population the ROI isn't there. 7 Peaks? Do you mean Heritage Mountain?

https://www.deseret.com/2005/4/7/199...e-old-facility

Yeah - it eventually became the 7 peaks water park


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[TBS]

Horrendous lift lines today at Mt Bachelor - this is at 1030
Took 15 minutes for a single to get through


Not an Epic or Ikon resort

[AdironRider]

Isn’t a new resort going in out by Park City?

[ncskier]

Isn’t a new resort going in out by Park City?

I think plans were announced for a quasi resort on the Jorndanelle side on some private land. Other then being too low, faces the wrong direction and barely gets any natural snowfall, it looks like a winner.
I do believe somewhere near Layton, the bass family perhaps had strung together some truly high alpine private land together. Last time I heard the acreage had been for sale for like 30-40 million. It may have even sold.
Perhaps the time of mega development and selling condo model should be dead, but why not another Silverton type model where you string a couple of lifts. The beds are in the valley. So just concentrate on keeping expenses low and running a mountain resort.

[123ski]

I think plans were announced for a quasi resort on the Jorndanelle side on some private land. Other then being too low, faces the wrong direction and barely gets any natural snowfall, it looks like a winner.
I do believe somewhere near Layton, the bass family perhaps had strung together some truly high alpine private land together. Last time I heard the acreage had been for sale for like 30-40 million. It may have even sold.
Perhaps the time of mega development and selling condo model should be dead, but why not another Silverton type model where you string a couple of lifts. The beds are in the valley. So just concentrate on keeping expenses low and running a mountain resort.

The land you are speaking of I believe was purchased and is being turned into a private ski area.


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[123ski]

Horrendous lift lines today at Mt Bachelor - this is at 1030
Took 15 minutes for a single to get through


Not an Epic or Ikon resort

Lol that looks less crowded than Mineral Basin on a Friday


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[Bunion 2020]

Perhaps the time of mega development and selling condo model should be dead, but why not another Silverton type model where you string a couple of lifts. The beds are in the valley. So just concentrate on keeping expenses low and running a mountain resort.

It would take the proximity to a population center/airport, a town in the valley large enough to have those beds and that town would require some sort of a summer draw to fill those beds greater than just during ski season. Silverton had a lot of those things already available.

Not saying it is impossible, far from it. Its called a smaller ski area, most are struggling because everyone wants BIG/MEGA. We need to adjust our desires.

[SB]

There are many of the BIG skis areas I would love to visit, mainly to say I have been there and tasted the goods.

However, I have been looking at the smaller areas that are not so crowded or a bit further off the beaten path.

I have done this in my whitewater boating, as my age increases I find myself floating the easy runs I passed over in my impetuous youth. The scenery, friends, easy times all have more meaning to me now.

I recall 30 years ago in the Last Dollar Saloon looking on the wall and seeing the bumper sticker. Call some place Paradise and kiss it good bye.

It rings true still.

Plake had the right idea.

[Canada1]

A few thoughts.

Capacity planning is a dominant issue for most of these resorts, and moving to multi resort pricing has shown that these resorts are prioritizing cash flow predictability over user experience (and maybe even profits).

You see, all hospitality-operations strategies must answer the same questions, which I can dive into later, but the ultimate problem is this:

Demand for services must be met as it arises because it cannot be inventoried.

Demand variability creates alternating periods of idle workers and idle facilities vs customer wait times.

Therefore, management must trade off the cost of idle resources vs the potential cost of customer dissatisfaction due to long wait times and overcrowding.

So the real questions that we should be asking are as follows. Once we know these answers we can begin solving the problem. I believe I know the answers to these and have several solutions, but I’d like to discuss these first:

1) Have the resorts prioritized maximum capacity over customer satisfaction?

2) have the resorts prioritized consistency and predictability of cash flows over customer satisfaction?

3) is customer satisfaction directly correlated with wait times in the ski industry?

4) what else is customer satisfaction highly correlated with?

5) can management control some aspects of supply and demand? If so, which ones?

6) what is the optimal combination of supply and demand-management strategies that provide for maximum capacity at a ski resort, while operating within a specified acceptable level of wait times and crowding for customers?


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My families season passes are with Vail Resorts. Since they pried Park City from Taliskers mismanagement, the dynamic has shifted. Most of the skiers I ride up chairs with are pass holders from some little midwestern or eastern area. They can target trips based on where the snow is, and unfortunately we have had good winters. This means the weekend following major storms have become tough. This weekend I saw lines I haven't seen since we left Colorado to escape the crowding. We've had the occasional insane line at the base, but never on the mountain. I know it was a perfect storm of crazy dangerous snow closing the resorts on the SLC side and making a lot of our resort closed while every tourist in the state come over to escape the cottonwoods closures, but it killed the fun.

The solution blows up their model What they need to do is what Deer Valley has done. After X number of skiers are on the mountain, we are closed to new visitors. Seeing the pictures of the lift lines in vail, and experiencing the chaos at Tombstone this weekend assures me they know the problem, but want to keep that revenue stream coming despite the crap experience it creates on occasion.

[ncskier]

It would take the proximity to a population center/airport, a town in the valley large enough to have those beds and that town would require some sort of a summer draw to fill those beds greater than just during ski season. Silverton had a lot of those things already available.

Not saying it is impossible, far from it. Its called a smaller ski area, most are struggling because everyone wants BIG/MEGA. We need to adjust our desires.

I was talking specifically about slc. I think between pc and Ogden bass or Holden had thousands of high alpine holding in a great area for snow and elevation.


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[Woodsy]

Are resorts still claiming that user days are flat?

Not flat but peaked about 10 years ago and fluctuate a certain percentage
with the pics coming out of vail and all the comments from Utah friends about lines I went looking this AM and came here to find this thread

http://www.nsaa.org/media/303945/visits.pdf


This is interesting as well participants have gone up and down but last year was most ever, avg visit per par participant has remained very flat.
http://www.nsaa.org/media/378733/participants2019.pdf
sorry I cant save as an image and not sure how to embed pdfs

with all the new up hill tech, these long lines have no real basis in demand across the board for resorts

[Buster Highmen]

Not flat but peaked about 10 years ago and fluctuate a certain percentage
with the pics coming out of vail and all the comments from Utah friends about lines I went looking this AM and came here to find this thread

http://www.nsaa.org/media/303945/visits.pdf

The way I read the above, the rockies visits are on a solid increase. PNW is snow dependent

This is interesting as well participants have gone up and down but last year was most ever, avg visit per par participant has remained very flat.
http://www.nsaa.org/media/378733/participants2019.pdf
sorry I cant save as an image and not sure how to embed pdfs

with all the new up hill tech, these long lines have no real basis in demand across the board for resorts

[skysos]

So, to summarize...

- Flat skier visits, but Epic and Icon pulling season pass dollars and visits away from smaller resorts
- Better equipment leading to powder-day frenzy and more concentration on lifts that serve advanced terrain
- Social media effect pushing people toward powder days and bigger name-brand resorts
- Population growth in metro areas leading to crowding for nearby resorts
- Cost to ski top name-brand resorts is now much lower per day on Epic and Icon than it was 20 years ago

I really think Icon and Epic will hurt the ski industry in the long run. The fact that skier visits haven't grown even though the average cost to ski on a pass is much lower shows that. It's eroding the unique cultures at many resorts and killing the ability for people to get started in the sport without having to purchase a season pass.

[DBerd]

There is no #$@&ing way ski days have not dramatically increased. This has to be some sort of weird industry gas-lighting to justify the increasingly terrible customer experience. Every resort in the Puget Sound region is absolutely slammed on weekends powder day or not. Fixed chairs being replaced by high speed quads now by 6 and 8 packs. Economies booming, population is booming and resorts have decided that more people at lower ticket prices maximizes profit via all the add-on purchases of fodd/beer and lodging.

[Buster Highmen]

Hold on, for the Rockies, someone tell me skier visits are not increasing.

[muted]

So, to summarize...

- Flat skier visits, but Epic and Icon pulling season pass dollars and visits away from smaller resorts
- Better equipment leading to powder-day frenzy and more concentration on lifts that serve advanced terrain
- Social media effect pushing people toward powder days and bigger name-brand resorts
- Population growth in metro areas leading to crowding for nearby resorts
- Cost to ski top name-brand resorts is now much lower per day on Epic and Icon than it was 20 years ago

I really think Icon and Epic will hurt the ski industry in the long run. The fact that skier visits haven't grown even though the average cost to ski on a pass is much lower shows that. It's eroding the unique cultures at many resorts and killing the ability for people to get started in the sport without having to purchase a season pass.

I'd add the smart phone and 'new' flexible schedules. Being able to 'work' on the hill gets a lot of middle-aged and middle class dudes doing midweek laps for a couple hours, answering emails when needed. Remote workers now can push their work to night time and skiing during the day. I remember when a 10am phone call on a powder day would mean I'm going to the office until 10:30am.

Also subsidized direct flights that happened in the last 10-20 years starting from the east coast to SLC, Bozeman, etc I'd guess has really fucked things over for locals.

[ncskier]

I'd add the smart phone and 'new' flexible schedules. Being able to 'work' on the hill gets a lot of middle-aged and middle class dudes doing midweek laps for a couple hours, answering emails when needed. Remote workers now can push their work to night time and skiing during the day. I remember when a 10am phone call on a powder day would mean I'm going to the office until 10:30am.

Also subsidized direct flights that happened in the last 10-20 years starting from the east coast to SLC, Bozeman, etc I'd guess has really fucked things over for locals.

It’s this way with hunting and fishing also. All I hear about are declining numbers, but there is hardly a boat ramp or parking spot for some public hunting areas come October and November. I swear no one I know seems to work very much.


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[Dantheman]

I think plans were announced for a quasi resort on the Jorndanelle side on some private land. Other then being too low, faces the wrong direction and barely gets any natural snowfall, it looks like a winner.
I do believe somewhere near Layton, the bass family perhaps had strung together some truly high alpine private land together. Last time I heard the acreage had been for sale for like 30-40 million. It may have even sold.
Perhaps the time of mega development and selling condo model should be dead, but why not another Silverton type model where you string a couple of lifts. The beds are in the valley. So just concentrate on keeping expenses low and running a mountain resort.

The Jordanelle thing is Mayflower Mountain Resort: https://liftblog.com/2019/08/13/mayf...-2021-opening/ They're planning to put 5 lifts on 400 acres. Indeed, it's low and has very limited north-aspect terrain; the skiing will mostly exist to access Deer Valley. It will also be private, AFAIK.

The Layton/Bass family thing is Wasatch Peaks Ranch near Snowbasin: https://liftblog.com/2019/11/22/wasa...21-22-opening/ It will be a sizeable ski area, but is planned as a Yellowstone Club-style private resort.

There are currently plans to massively expand Nordic Valley (https://nordicvalleyproject.com/), but I'll be shocked if it ever comes to fruition. The peak elevation is lower than the base elevation at Alta. I'm convinced it's some flavor of pump-and-dump scam.

I'm honestly shocked that there are no serious proposals to build something in the Oquirrhs. There's huge swaths of privately-owned high-elevation land that even hardcore enviro-nazis wouldn't oppose putting lifts on, Kennecott owns shitloads of water rights, and the far west side of Salt Lake County is growing rapidly. There have to be tons of people out there who are sick of the LCC/BCC junkshow and would flock there. It would be assuredly popular with people in Tooele and Grantsville as well, and would probably even pull some people from the east side.

[ncskier]

The Jordanelle thing is Mayflower Mountain Resort: https://liftblog.com/2019/08/13/mayf...-2021-opening/ They're planning to put 5 lifts on 400 acres. Indeed, it's low and has very limited north-aspect terrain; the skiing will mostly exist to access Deer Valley. It will also be private, AFAIK.

The Layton/Bass family thing is Wasatch Peaks Ranch near Snowbasin: https://liftblog.com/2019/11/22/wasa...21-22-opening/ It will be a sizeable ski area, but is planned as a Yellowstone Club-style private resort.

There are currently plans to massively expand Nordic Valley (https://nordicvalleyproject.com/), but I'll be shocked if it ever comes to fruition. The peak elevation is lower than the base elevation at Alta. I'm convinced it's some flavor of pump-and-dump scam.

I'm honestly shocked that there are no serious proposals to build something in the Oquirrhs. There's huge swaths of privately-owned high-elevation land that even hardcore enviro-nazis wouldn't oppose putting lifts on, Kennecott owns shitloads of water rights, and the far west side of Salt Lake County is growing rapidly. There have to be tons of people out there who are sick of the LCC/BCC junkshow and would flock there. It would be assuredly popular with people in Tooele and Grantsville as well, and would probably even pull some people from the east side.

I had no idea wasatch peaks ranch was planning on building next year. Call me a skeptic, but I’d be surprised. Yellowstone club has had more than its share of issues over the years.


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[toast2266]

Not flat but peaked about 10 years ago and fluctuate a certain percentage
with the pics coming out of vail and all the comments from Utah friends about lines I went looking this AM and came here to find this thread

http://www.nsaa.org/media/303945/visits.pdf

Seems like the Rockies are modestly increasing, midwest and southeast are decreasing, and other areas are flat-ish.

But I think impressions of busy-ness are thrown off because good days are significantly busier. Flexible work schedules, cheap passes to distant resorts, relatively easy / cheap access to those distant resorts, and the social media hype around pow days all makes people flock to resorts in record numbers when conditions are good. But I also think a lot of those people are more inclined to skip days with average conditions, leading to skier visits being relatively low when conditions aren't prime. So overall, the numbers don't show a massive upward trend even though there are plenty of days that are probably far, far busier than past years.

It'd be really interesting to see the day to day skier visits at a place like Vail or Snowbird. I'd bet the mean is modestly increasing, but peak numbers are increasing at a faster rate.