It's too crowded, no one goes there anymore

[ridinshockgun]

social media hype around pow days

This ^^

Ski Industry marketing creates a lot of hype too, with staged photoshoots giving the idea that this is the experience you get whenever you go skiing.

[muted]

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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Yellowstone was unique in a lot of their issues, I wouldn't think most resorts would ever have similar problems. Until Wasatch Peaks blows up their accountant to cover their asses, then I'll reconsider.

[The SnowShow]

This ^^

Ski Industry marketing creates a lot of hype too, with staged photoshoots giving the idea that this is the experience you get whenever you go skiing.

At some point, don’t people catch on and realize you’re not going to go to Vail on a powder day and have that kind of experience?

[nortonwhis]

At some point, don’t people catch on and realize you’re not going to go to Vail on a powder day and have that kind of experience?

You can still pretend to the people in your office who dont ski that it was #epic all day...

[Woodsy]

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.

There was a bunch of talk about it right before I left now I cant find anything on it
Obv Dated with Jenny Wilson in former positions:

"Oquirrhs ski resort proposed
Ski-industry watchers like prospect of a first-ever resort on west side

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Step aside, Alta and Snowbird. A west-side ski resort is coming.

In the rolling canyons southwest of Magna, Kennecott plans to tap the greatest snow on Earth to create the Oquirrh Mountains' first ski resort.

While the copper company and land developer has set no timetable for the project, officials say the snow conditions and slopes are promising for Deer Valley-like terrain just seven miles west of Highway 111 in a region known as Soldier Flats.

It's not a matter of if, says Jim Schulte, Kennecott's vice president of long-range planning, but when.

"It's certainly skiable terrain," Schulte said, "and a lot of it."

Salt Lake County leaders stood at the site of the proposed resort Tuesday - during a tour of Kennecott's wider west-bench development plans - and gazed up at north-facing peaks streaked with crimson leaves and fresh patches of snow.

From a base elevation of 6,200 feet, the Oquirrh resort would rise to 9,350 feet. By comparison, Snowbird soars from 7,760 feet to 11,000 feet, and Park City goes from 6,900 feet to 10,000 feet.

One crest at Kennecott's planned resort overlooks the "Little Valley" flats, where the company plans to build more than 10,000 homes as a secluded mountain community above Magna.

The resort is part of Kennecott's grander vision for the west bench. South Jordan's Daybreak was just the beginning. The company plans to develop 41,000 acres of hillside neighborhoods and businesses. That's enough to cover the valley's east side from 1100 North to 14600 South, stretching from 900 East to the east bench.

What excites ski-industry watchers is the prospect of a first-ever resort on the Salt Lake Valley's sprawling west side.

"They could easily do it," said Nathan Rafferty, president and chief executive officer of Ski Utah, a marketing association representing Utah's ski and snowboard industry. "I don't know that it's the kind of resort that would compete with the Snowbirds, Altas and Deer Valleys of the world, but it would be something that would benefit Salt Lake."

Rafferty said the resort, by attracting west-siders, probably would complement, rather than compete, with the rugged and revered Wasatch ski areas. But Kennecott officials hope for a bigger hurrah and its location should help - at least with tourists.

"It's the closest ski resort to an international airport in the world," Schulte said, noting that it would rise just 18 miles from Salt Lake City International Airport.

Kennecott continues to study snow depths at the proposed Oquirrh Mountain resort, which probably would include two ski areas in Soldier Flats - one visible from Little Valley, the other secluded to the south.

While Schulte wouldn't go into details about the snow depths, he said the early measurements appear "pretty attractive."

Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson joined her colleagues Tuesday for lunch in the rocky basin below the proposed resort. She marveled at the terrain.

"You would create a niche," Wilson told her Kennecott guides, "that we don't have."

Vertical feet
How they compare - base to summit

Oquirrh resort 6,200 9,350

Snowbird 7,760 11,000

Park City 6,900 10,000

Sources: Kennecott, Ski Utah"

And yes i think cheaper multi resort passes have made skiers around the country as lazy, entitled, and picky as many of my friends were in Utah " I only ski when we get more than 8 inches of snow"
so less traffic on underreported or meh days HUGE traffic on the good days.

[Bunion 2020]

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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Yeah, just about every large ski area goes through those same pains. Usually the 2nd or 3rd owner is the one who breaks even or makes money. Y/C is well past that point. There IS that kind of $$$ and demand for at least 1 type of that operation.

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

X100

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.

This

[Dantheman]

There was a bunch of talk about it right before I left now I cant find anything on it
Obv Dated with Jenny Wilson in former positions:

Yeah, note the date. 2008 financial collapse killed those plans, but it's really odd that they haven't resurfaced again with Utah's economy and real estate booming.

and picky as many of my friends were in Utah " I only ski when we get more than 8 inches of snow"
so less traffic on underreported or meh days HUGE traffic on the good days.

Unless it's truly miserable conditions LCC and BCC are both full gong show every Sat/Sun regardless of how much it has snowed.

[123ski]

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.

I think a capped reservation system to use your ikon or epic pass is needed. Book in advance or the day might fill up. Also, why is Ikon allowed on the snowbird tram without paying an upgrade fee?


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[123ski]

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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That land was sucked up into a private resort.

A model like silverton could still work though


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[123ski]

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.

This is the issue. Resorts want to increase visits but they haven’t figured out how to distribute demand via midweek discounting, blackouts, price discrimination, caps, etc - so all their marketing dollars cause more and more to show up all at once. This is why a reservation system to redeem your ikon pass would be ideal


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[123ski]

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.

This is the issue. Resorts want to increase visits but they haven’t figured out how to distribute demand via midweek discounting, blackouts, price discrimination, caps, etc - so all their marketing dollars cause more and more to show up all at once. This is why a reservation system to redeem your ikon pass would be ideal



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[Bunion 2020]

You are starting to repeat yourself.

I like this,

It's not a matter of if, says Jim Schulte, Kennecott's vice president of long-range planning, but when.

"It's certainly skiable terrain," Schulte said, "and a lot of it."

[Woodsy]

seriously though, we all saw the Vail pic and I hear you "its all due to epicpass," anybody have any feedback from the other 3 Epic pass resorts right next door?

and 123 I appreciate your in depth financial anal sis but one thing you dont address in this yield management quandary for resorts is something hotels and airlines deal with daily, expiring commodities. If you dont sell a ticket for February 8th, you can never sell it again. Season passes, and their extensions Ikon & epic, etc help mitigate that.
Although hotels and airlines have a limited capacity ( not that that stops us from selling through it all the time)

[raisingarizona13]

Whoa!

What's up with 123's anal Sis?

[mcski]

Isn’t that why Rush got out of the draft?

[angler99]

No.

I do think the areas should put limits on the numbers. If their system is obviously overloading and the quality of the experience is diminished, how is that a good thing?

How would this work exactly? Who gets to decide which passholders and lift ticket purchasers get to ski and who doesn't? What about the family planning a vacation months in advance and paying ahead of time for their hotel, airfare and rental car? If you buy a pass or a lift ticket, you should be able to make the choice of whether you want to ski even if you know it will be crowded.

If you want to limit the number of skiers, use simple economics of supply and demand. Bump up the Epic Pass to $2,000. But why in the world would they do that? It's like being butt-hurt that you bought a Ford F150 and all of your neighbors now have one too. You knew when you purchased that truck that it's the number one selling truck in the world. What did you expect?

The fact is that the biggest day at Vail is what? 25,000 skier or so? If it's safe, give the people what they want, which is to go skiing. By the way, Vail is like 5,000 acres big. How many people go attend an NFL game in a relatively small stadium? 100,000?

If you say the ski experience has been diminished with these large crowds, I can't argue against that and agree with you. But it's not your service to sell. It's Vail Resort's service to sell, and people obviously still want it despite long lift lines and crowded slopes.

However, if enough people agree with you that the experience has been diminished, the number of people buying passes and day tickets will fall and cause a reaction by Vail Resorts. That's just simply and obviously not the case. Give the people what they want, which is to go skiing at a reasonable price for the experience they receive in return.

[muted]

How would this work exactly? Who gets to decide which passholders and lift ticket purchasers get to ski and who doesn't? What about the family planning a vacation months in advance and paying ahead of time for their hotel, airfare and rental car? If you buy a pass or a lift ticket, you should be able to make the choice of whether you want to ski even if you know it will be crowded.

If you want to limit the number of skiers, use simple economics of supply and demand. Bump up the Epic Pass to $2,000. But why in the world would they do that? It's like being butt-hurt that you bought a Ford F150 and all of your neighbors now have one too. You knew when you purchased that truck that it's the number one selling truck in the world. What did you expect?

The fact is that the biggest day at Vail is what? 25,000 skier or so? If it's safe, give the people what they want, which is to go skiing. By the way, Vail is like 5,000 acres big. How many people go attend an NFL game in a relatively small stadium? 100,000?

If you say the ski experience has been diminished with these large crowds, I can't argue against that and agree with you. But it's not your service to sell. It's Vail Resort's service to sell, and people obviously still want it despite long lift lines and crowded slopes.

However, if enough people agree with you that the experience has been diminished, the number of people buying passes and day tickets will fall and cause a reaction by Vail Resorts. That's just simply and obviously not the case. Give the people what they want, which is to go skiing at a reasonable price for the experience they receive in return.

This is not a great take overall, are you an accountant at Vail or just a human who likes to ski? And the F150 comparison doesn't make sense. Powder MTN and DV limit ticket sales, so if you want to know how they do it, research them.

[Bunion 2020]

Thanks, I don't ski at Vail or a Vail resort.

I did spend 4 days there once. It was interesting but not an experience I would care to repeat.

[brutah]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think ski resorts see huge lift lines as an issue, they just see the dollar signs....

If i'm Rob Katz, I'm stoked about those lines at Vail. When those lines start affecting your bottom line then they might do something about it, but a long lift line looks like success to me. $200 day tickets + packed lift lines = winning in the ski industry. If you don't like it, don't ski there. Plenty of small ski areas all over the country that almost never have lift lines, even in colorado.

[angler99]

This is not a great take overall, are you an accountant at Vail or just a human who likes to ski? And the F150 comparison doesn't make sense. Powder MTN and DV limit ticket sales, so if you want to know how they do it, research them.

Just a human that likes to ski that doesn't discriminate against others that like to do so as well, even though I wish for the days of no crowds and deep snow at the resort. I guess I knew at the time it would never last. I'm also a guy against people telling others how to operate their business when it seems to be doing well. Certainly not an accountant, nor do I work for Vail Resorts, but I did take some basic economics courses in high school and college that seemed to make a lot of sense at the time.

[brutah]

This is not a great take overall, are you an accountant at Vail or just a human who likes to ski? And the F150 comparison doesn't make sense. Powder MTN and DV limit ticket sales, so if you want to know how they do it, research them.

Oh not a fan of the truth? Do you think Pow Mow does the same numbers as Vail?

I don't Pow Mow has ever sold out of day tickets even though they say there's a "limit," and yes, DV does regularly on holidays, but they're only limiting day tickets. They don't turn away season pass holders as is being suggested above. You want to limit people on the slopes? increase the cost, which I think is the shittier of the two evils here.

Either way, everyone here is criticizing the most successful ski resorts in the industry..... I don't think limiting skier numbers is in the cards. Like I said above, long lift lines look like success in the ski industry. You want a different experience go ski cooper

[Benny Profane]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think ski resorts see huge lift lines as an issue, they just see the dollar signs....

If i'm Rob Katz, I'm stoked about those lines at Vail. When those lines start affecting your bottom line then they might do something about it, but a long lift line looks like success to me. $200 day tickets + packed lift lines = winning in the ski industry. If you don't like it, don't ski there. Plenty of small ski areas all over the country that almost never have lift lines, even in colorado.

Katz caught major shit from a lot of rich people last week, by email, text, phone, or maybe one on one. He has some explaining to do to all of his "clients".

[brutah]

Katz caught major shit from a lot of rich people last week, by email, text, phone, or maybe one on one. He has some explaining to do to all of his "clients".

Katz caught a lot of shit from plenty. But MTN stock is still steady rising, so I think he's going to be just fine. The stock rose 2.4% today after all that bad publicity over the weekend so I'm guessing he's not that concerned over the bad publicity of long lines.....

[Benny Profane]

I don't know. At that level, it's a service business. And when the rich get bad service, they leave. He needs that income.

Maybe there will be a few more Yellowstones after what's been happening. I'll bet those bluehairs at DV aren't to happy about the Ikon rabble crowding things up.

Again, Powder Mountain may have some sort of solution with limited sales. But I sense they aren't into profit.

[hutash]

For what it's worth...