WASATCH STOKE, CONDITIONS, OBSERVATIONS and ASSORTED DRIVAL 20-21

[altasnob]

Curious if any of those Euro ghondis Buster points out were paid for by government money versus private ski resort money? Assume the ski resorts picked up the tab for all of those. Been to Fiesch and it basically goes straight up the mountain to a car-free village. Much different than a long ghondi up LCC.

[Buster Highmen]

The Swiss subsidize trams, even farmers lifts which provide some unknown killer skiing.

Typically, the trams are built with a combination of public money and private funds, then transferred to a private entity. That's how the La Grave gondy was built.
See the SkiArena project as well.

The project for the Andermatt-Sedrun ski area merger, which started in 2015, cost roughly CHF 130 million. CHF 82 million was covered by the SkiArena itself; the canton of Uri provided CHF 5 million and Grisons CHF 3 million as à fonds perdu grants. An additional CHF 40 million was provided in the form of low-interest repayable NRP federal loans.


https://www.andermatt-swissalps.ch/e...hf-130-million

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/26/y...rt-market.html

Admittedly, LCC is different, 6 miles is a hell of a long way. There are lots of public gondolas built by Leitner for example all over the world that service cities .

http://gondolaproject.com/category/i...uoc-cable-car/

The issue of access points is just a design issue. More stations could be integrated into a cable car system.

But the furthest distance is convincing Americans of the facts that support the claim that the environmental impact of gondolas and trams is less than a bunch of private cars.

[123ski]

There are many that move skiers from areas with at most a runout up into the actual ski zones.
Schruns: Kropfenbahn, Zamangbahn.
Klosters: Gotschnabahn
Madrisa: Madrisabahn
Fiesch
Betten
Morel
Eggbergen
Biel-Kinzieg
Klewenalp
Stoos
among lots of others.

I would have thought the goal was to get more people out of their cars and less CO2 output.

As DTM points out, the gondy alternatives still have slightly more total CO2 output than the bus because they include cars in each. If cars were discouraged by tolls, that might address the environmental goal.

Whatever the real goals may be, if it is just more people accessing LCC, the environmental benefits may just be a fake rationale.

It would be nice to be able to get up there rather than sit in line at 6:30am. It's a mess now.

Come on, MOST of those lifts you can ski back to the bottom and are more akin to skilink than anything else.

The stechelberg tram is a true human transport with zero skiing that I can think of.

We also aren’t talking about a ton of traffic on that tram.


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[Buster Highmen]

Come on, MOST of those lifts you can ski back to the bottom and are more akin to skilink than anything else.

The stechelberg tram is a true human transport with zero skiing that I can think of.

We also aren’t talking about a ton of traffic on that tram.


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Not Madrisa unless it's January. Everyone downloads that thing.
Not Stoos. It's a cliff.
Not Rigi/Weggis. No runs at all.
Not Niederbauen
Not Gitschenen
Not Morel
Not Gimmelwald. Most Murren users download too.
Not Biel-Kinzieg.
Corvatsch? No one skis the bottom, people download.
Airolo? People download.
Disentis? People download.

I could go on.

Point being, there's lots of trams in the Alps that are used for downloading and the rest listed previously have one runout that is only used in the snowiest parts of the year, but most users download. The 'lack of use' argument is flimsy if not flat out wrong in the Alps.

Now granted that the culture of alpine cows and dairies which motivates these lifts and their subsidies is different than LCC. So Europeans are more used to cableways and subsidizing them. That is a cultural issue, not an engineering issue.

One potential argument against a cableway is capacity. When there's more than 50 days a year with 10000 cars fighting their way up and down 210, that's a capacity problem.

There's a cable car system in Soelden that carries 4500 people per hour up 3000 vertical, but it's not 6 miles long. So maybe capacity is the blocker.

Right now it's a mess. I do not think busses will fix the problem and special bus lanes will just provide more opportunities for the entitled to fuck shit up more.

Again, I think a laudable goal is minimizing CO2, and the more cars that can be discouraged from driving up and down 210, the better.

[Trefin]

Right now it's a mess. I do not think busses will fix the problem and special bus lanes will just provide more opportunities for the entitled to fuck shit up more.

Again, I think a laudable goal is minimizing CO2, and the more cars that can be discouraged from driving up and down 210, the better.

We need more resort area or to limit capacity, I think this year was the max resorts could handle comfortably on the weekends.

The need to choose whether to expand or limit, increasing traffic is a good way to enable obscene lines especially with Alta now making Collins beginner friendly


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[bigdude2468]

We need more resort area or to limit capacity, I think this year was the max resorts could handle comfortably on the weekends.

The need to choose whether to expand or limit, increasing traffic is a good way to enable obscene lines especially with Alta now making Collins beginner friendly


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We should not try to draw any conclusions based on last season. The number of people riding per car was down 50%. Personally I know a number of skiers that always took the bus but drove alone instead. Alta employees were driving alone instead of taking an employee shuttle. The exact numbers (per a parking lot employee based on the census they take) was 1.2 per car, the previous year it was 2.4. Car pooling was discouraged.

Skiers per chair was way down. While standing in the Collins line a few times per day I would count the passengers per 10 chairs and it was very consistent. The most was 23 per 10 chairs, the least was 17 but very close to 20 so a reduction of 50%. I think we also saw an influx of Eastern skiers as UT set an all time record for skier days and at least Vermont had a terrible year due to restrictions on out of state skiers. Also anecdotally but the line of people buying lit tickets at Wildcat base were longer than I have ever seen. Lines that ran all the way back to the GMD deck or to the paddle tow loading area, I never saw that before. I am sure we also had an influx of skiers that had the ability to work remotely. At Alta I think we suffered due to no reservations needed. Snowbird required parking reservations, Park City required reservations as did many resort, Alta did not. All of the above contributed to the horrendous lines and people deciding that they had to arrive early which screwed the parking. I think we have to see how it is in a semi normal season before drawing conclusions.

The elephant in the room with transit improvements is the two resorts in LCC have not expanded terrain in recent years and I don't know that Alta has the ability to expand at all other than additional chairs in current terrain.

[123ski]

We should not try to draw any conclusions based on last season. The number of people riding per car was down 50%. Personally I know a number of skiers that always took the bus but drove alone instead. Several Alta employees that I know drove alone instead of being in an employee shuttle. The exact numbers (per a parking lot employee based on the census they take) was 1.2 per car, the previous year it was 2.4. Car pooling was discouraged.

Skiers per chair was way down. While standing in the Collins line a few times per day I would count the passengers per 10 chairs and it was very consistent. The most was 23 per 10 chairs, the least was 17 but very close to 20 so a reduction of 50%. I think we also saw an influx of Eastern skiers as UT set an all time record for skier days and at least Vermont had a terrible year due to restrictions on out of state skiers. Also anecdotally but the line of people buying lit tickets at Wildcat base were longer than I have ever seen. Lines that ran all the way back to the GMD deck or to the paddle tow loading area, I never saw that again. I am sure we also had an influx of skiers that had the ability to work remotely. At Alta I also suspect we suffered due to the no reservations needed. Park City required reservations as did many resort, Alta did not. All of the above contributed to the horrendous lines and people deciding that they had to arrive early which screwed the parking.

The elephant in the room with transit improvements is the two resorts in LCC have not expanded terrain in recent years and I don't know that Alta has much ability to expand at all.

Agree fir the most part, but season before was almost as bad. In fact, the first time I saw a 3+ hour tram line was 3 years ago when ikon came online.

Snowbird hits capacity around 4500 skiers. That used to happen a few weekends a year, mostly holidays. It now happens nearly every weekend (except holidays when ikon is blacked out). That is a fact.


Alta/Bird do need to address the challenges caused by ikon somehow. Either cap the number of redemptions or open more terrain.


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[schindlerpiste]

While I rarely ski inbounds on weekends, I think that IKON should be blacked out every Sat and Sun. Weekends should be reserved for season pass holders and day passes. That would solve a lot of the congestion problems. Last year, I skied 10 days at Alta and didn't see a line more than 5 mins long.

[Dantheman]

The elephant in the room with transit improvements is the two resorts in LCC have not expanded terrain in recent years and I don't know that Alta has the ability to expand at all other than additional chairs in current terrain.

Snowbird is 100% going to expand into Mary Ellen and making barely-veiled threats to put a lift up Superior if they don't get the gondola. Alta will likely expand into Grizzly and Patsy. Expansion will attract more skiers and won't make the skiing less crowded, especially mid-storm when lots of terrain is normally closed.

[Hammer-Down]

I am not up to speed on all 155 pages here......but why don't they just limit the number of cars that are allowed up the canyon, period. I know it is a State road, but it is a unique situation in that it is a dead end and can be dangerous. Just figure out the number of cars that can ingress and egress safely and without major traffic backups, and call it done. Infrastructure expansion projects only ever achieve one thing: "Induced congestion". Hundreds of examples of this all over the country, this will be no exception. It is like the DOTs and designers put out these "sky is falling if we don't increase capacity to alleviate congestion" scenarios so they have projects to work on and justify their existence.

[mall walker]

nobody who matters has a moneyed interest in limiting paying ski resort customers? just a guess

[Hammer-Down]

Probably pretty fair assessment MW.......but it's like a football stadium up there. It can only handle so many people. When its full, its full. When the stadium is full they don't let anymore people in. This is the same damn thing....it's called reality. I know the political spin is we need to "safely and reliably get employees up and down".......well they been doing that with reasonable success for decades...this is about the hoards and the sheep.......any barn has a capacity limit. LCC is a barn.

[slatham]

So I am just observing this from afar, reading various reports and watching one of the local TV stations 1/2 hour program on the matter.......

I am surprised that I have heard no mention of using tolls to limit traffic up LLC and help fund whatever solution is selected? With EZ Pass technology there would be no traffic delay, and rates could be changed based on season and demand (so summer hiking access might be free). I believe you can also charge different rates based on type of Ez Pass, so you might be able to distinguish between employees going to work or homeowners accessing property vs others. Or locals vs non-residents and rental cars.

Also, I would think a Gondi would have some level of tourist attraction for non-skiers and/or non-ski season? A bus, not so much.

[jackattack]

Also, I would think a Gondi would have some level of tourist attraction for non-skiers and/or non-ski season? A bus, not so much.

The problem is overcrowding, not a lack of tourists.

[123ski]

Probably pretty fair assessment MW.......but it's like a football stadium up there. It can only handle so many people. When its full, its full. When the stadium is full they don't let anymore people in. This is the same damn thing....it's called reality. I know the political spin is we need to "safely and reliably get employees up and down".......well they been doing that with reasonable success for decades...this is about the hoards and the sheep.......any barn has a capacity limit. LCC is a barn.

Stadium analogy is a good one


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[altasnob]

Stadiums make the vast majority of their money on TV rights, not selling tickets to in person fans.

[123ski]

Stadiums make the vast majority of their money on TV rights, not selling tickets to in person fans.

Still, if there were demand to consistently over fill a stadium - it would be expanded … they wouldn’t simply add more parking


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[DigSki]

Stadiums make the vast majority of their money on TV rights, not selling tickets to in person fans.

So get some cameras pointed at cool zones (obvious ones, not secret ones) and charge to stream it.

Seriously though, how does a final decision on stuff like the gondola actually get made?

[altasnob]

Demand for sporting event tickets is as high as ever, yet there has been a movement to reduce seating capacity, charge more for tickets, and give the reduced ticket holders a "premium" experience. So I guess you can make the same argument for LCC ski areas. But LCC ski areas compete for tourists against ski areas across the west. And ski areas across the west are crowded as fuck. So as bad as people think they have it at LCC, it's no worse than resorts out of Seattle, Denver, and CA. At Crystal (also a dead end mountain road with limited space for expanded parking, similar to LCC), I see the lack of parking and crowds as self regulating. You get up early and get a parking spot otherwise you sit in traffic all morning on the long drive up. Those who get up early enjoy a relatively uncrowded mountain until 11 am when the masses fill in every nook and crevice. As bad as it is at Crystal, I don't see how making it easier for more people to make it to the mountain improving the experience for anyone. LCC the same way.

[Dantheman]

nobody who matters has a moneyed interest in limiting paying ski resort customers? just a guess

And for the gondi in particular, limiting capacity doesn't get Snowbird an Olympic event.

Probably pretty fair assessment MW.......but it's like a football stadium up there. It can only handle so many people. When its full, its full. When the stadium is full they don't let anymore people in. This is the same damn thing....it's called reality. I know the political spin is we need to "safely and reliably get employees up and down".......well they been doing that with reasonable success for decades...this is about the hoards and the sheep.......any barn has a capacity limit. LCC is a barn.

Spot on. All businesses have capacity limits set by the Fire Marshall. Ski resorts shouldn't be different, and the majority-non skiing public shouldn't have to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to make it easier for ski resorts to operate above their capacity. The public safety aspect could be addressed by more liberal use of road closures. A lot of 6 am-8am closures should probably be 12 am-8 am closures, and a lot of days with mid-day control closures should probably be all-day closures.

276 people died on Utah roads last year. If the goal is to save lives and generate economic ROI there have to be better places to spend $500 million on transportation infrastructure. The more I think about this I'm not anti-gondi/pro-enhanced bus, I'm anti both.

The problem is overcrowding, not a lack of tourists.

That's the point. The gondola will be an attraction unto itself that will create additional demand above the current growth projections. Ski Utah is going to plaster the country and the world with ads to come ride it, even if you don't ski. The State Office of Tourism heavily advertised Utah's National Parks in the '00s and now they're overrun.

Demand for sporting event tickets is as high as ever, yet there has been a movement to reduce seating capacity, charge more for tickets, and give the reduced ticket holders a "premium" experience. So I guess you can make the same argument for LCC ski areas. But LCC ski areas compete for tourists against ski areas across the west. And ski areas across the west are crowded as fuck. So as bad as people think they have it at LCC, it's no worse than resorts out of Seattle, Denver, and CA. At Crystal (also a dead end mountain road with limited space for expanded parking, similar to LCC), I see the lack of parking and crowds as self regulating. You get up early and get a parking spot otherwise you sit in traffic all morning on the long drive up. Those who get up early enjoy a relatively uncrowded mountain until 11 am when the masses fill in every nook and crevice. As bad as it is at Crystal, I don't see how making it easier for more people to make it to the mountain improving the experience for anyone. LCC the same way.

LCC road closures are a major impediment to the normal "just get up earlier" strategy, which is meritocratic and I'm generally a fan of. The fact that all other major resorts are also crowded means you can charge more without losing customers. There's enough inelasticity in the demand that you can probably charge a lot more, lose customers, but actually make more money. Deer Valley already charges $2500 for season passes and $200+ for day tickets for worse skiing and still fills up no problem. Alta and Snowbird could probably charge over $3k for a pass, lose enough customers to bring the traffic levels down to a reasonable level, and still be absolutely rolling in cash. Hell, some people pay $3,000 for a bottle of wine and will come because it's that fucking expensive. Never underestimate the ability of people with more money than sense to overpay for "premium" and "exclusive" experiences.

I say this in full acknowledgement that this would price myself and many, many others out of skiing LCC. Skiing as a middle-class sport has been dying for decades, might as well accept it and move on.

[123ski]

And for the gondi in particular, limiting capacity doesn't get Snowbird an Olympic event.



Spot on. All businesses have capacity limits set by the Fire Marshall. Ski resorts shouldn't be different, and the majority-non skiing public shouldn't have to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to make it easier for ski resorts to operate above their capacity. The public safety aspect could be addressed by more liberal use of road closures. A lot of 6 am-8am closures should probably be 12 am-8 am closures, and a lot of days with mid-day control closures should probably be all-day closures.

276 people died on Utah roads last year. If the goal is to save lives and generate economic ROI there have to be better places to spend $500 million on transportation infrastructure. The more I think about this I'm not anti-gondi/pro-enhanced bus, I'm anti both.



That's the point. The gondola will be an attraction unto itself that will create additional demand above the current growth projections. Ski Utah is going to plaster the country and the world with ads to come ride it, even if you don't ski. The State Office of Tourism heavily advertised Utah's National Parks in the '00s and now they're overrun.



LCC road closures are a major impediment to the normal "just get up earlier" strategy, which is meritocratic and I'm generally a fan of. The fact that all other major resorts are also crowded means you can charge more without losing customers. There's enough inelasticity in the demand that you can probably charge a lot more, lose customers, but actually make more money. Deer Valley already charges $2500 for season passes and $200+ for day tickets for worse skiing and still fills up no problem. Alta and Snowbird could probably charge over $3k for a pass, lose enough customers to bring the traffic levels down to a reasonable level, and still be absolutely rolling in cash. Hell, some people pay $3,000 for a bottle of wine and will come because it's that fucking expensive. Never underestimate the ability of people with more money than sense to overpay for "premium" and "exclusive" experiences.

I say this in full acknowledgement that this would price myself and many, many others out of skiing LCC. Skiing as a middle-class sport has been dying for decades, might as well accept it and move on.

If snowbird/Alta billed itself as the only place in the country with 500” of snow, 3,000 vertical feet, steep terrain, quick access AND no crowds - it could easily charge $3,000+ for a season pass and I’d happily find a way to pay for that.


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[altasnob]

The government can't force a private business to raise prices. These ski areas are all run by Harvard MBA bean counters who set their prices at the point to generate maximum profits. Are they always correct, probably not. Crystal skiers came up with the same they should charge more solution and got what they wanted for next season. Crystal is the only ski area owned by Ikon who is not unlimited on the base pass, forcing people who want to ski unlimited at Crystal to get full Ikon. I really doubt the extra $300 for a season pass will do anything for crowds, and instead will just make Ikon a bit more profit.

[123ski]

The government can't force a private business to raise prices. These ski areas are all run by Harvard MBA bean counters who set their prices at the point to generate maximum profits. Are they always correct, probably not. Crystal skiers came up with the same they should charge more solution and got what they wanted for next season. Crystal is the only ski area owned by Ikon who is not unlimited on the base pass, forcing people who want to ski unlimited at Crystal to get full Ikon. I really doubt the extra $300 for a season pass will do anything for crowds, and instead will just make Ikon a bit more profit.

That is simply not true.

Alta doesn’t haven’t a single pricing expert on their team, let alone a Harvard MBA.

The quality of their survey last year, asking (for the first time ever) if they should get rid of ikon and how much pass holders would pay to offset that revenue - likewise was not a sophisticated conjoint or even a simple van westendorp pricing study - so they likewise don’t have a consulting firm doing that work for them either.

And to your point about crystal. base blackout days were the emptiest weekends of the year at snowbird.


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[DigSki]

Crystal skiers came up with the same they should charge more solution and got what they wanted for next season. Crystal is the only ski area owned by Ikon who is not unlimited on the base pass, forcing people who want to ski unlimited at Crystal to get full Ikon. I really doubt the extra $300 for a season pass will do anything for crowds, and instead will just make Ikon a bit more profit.

How the heck did they get that to happen? I'd love to see it happen for Solitude too. I feel like it could work really well for Solitude because Brighton / Alta / Snowbird are close enough in price to the full pass to be a real consideration. Right now the base pass gives them mostly unlimited skiing and is 1/2 the price of other local mountain passes, so it's kind of a no brainer

Also, not to shit on your point but there are other Alterra properties that are not unlimited:
- Deer Valley not unlimited on either pass
- Steamboat not unlimited on base

[Hammer-Down]

Before the pandemic Crystal was having crowding issues, on mountain and parking. They stopped selling lift tickets on the weekends to limit capacity. Restricting the Ikon is another step in limiting capacity. LCC should just drastically limit capacity and call it a day. Spending over half a billion dollars to induce more crowding doesn't even pass the straight face test. It is complete idiocy.