The Real Story Behind Vail's Lift Lines
Crowds at the bottom of one of Vail’s chairlifts this past weekend.
If you’re an enthusiastic skier, there’s a solid chance that you’ve seen pictures and videos of the endless crowds bottlenecked at the bottom of Vail’s chairlifts this past weekend. The inordinate swaths have been featured on seemingly ever ski-related Instagram account and online forum. Agitated skiers and riders abound in the comment sections and discussion boards, launching unhindered attacks on the corporate system that has come to dominate the ski industry.
These skiers and riders are referring to Vail Resorts, which operates the Epic Pass, and Alterra, which operates the Ikon Pass. In the last few years, Vail Resorts and Alterra have embarked on ambitious buying sprees, respectively grabbing hold of dozens of resorts across North America. As it stands now, virtually every major resort in North America has established some association with one of the two major mountain collectives. Many regional ski areas are quickly following suit. The season passes created by these corporations group once-independent ski resorts into a network, allowing skiers expanded access to terrain all across North America at a far more affordable price. It’s for this reason that many major resorts are seeing overflowing parking lots and never-ending lift lines, as was the case at Vail this past weekend.
It’s a financial no-brainer for these resorts to join the conglomerates. Firstly, the aggregate revenue from Vail Resorts and Alterra has yielded significant infrastructure improvements, including new chairlifts, expanded snowmaking capabilities, and additional on-mountain amenities, such as restaurants.
Secondly, the network also provides an insurance policy against the ski industry’s greatest threat: bad weather. Resorts that suffer from poor weather seasons — an occurrence that will only become more frequent with global warming — are protected financially by the wealthy corporations managing them. This means that even though Squaw Valley is lacking in snowfall this year, revenue from a powder-filled season at Snowbird will save Squaw in the long run.
The same protection is afforded to local ski areas that are no longer financially viable independently. Backing from Vail and Alterra keeps these local mountains afloat. Moreover, the affordability of the pass system incentivizes more skiers in the region to buy a pass and therefore visit their local ski destination, thus allowing the local ski areas to generate additional revenue on their own.
These small mountains serve as feeder resorts into the corporations’ flagship resorts. For the avid East Coast skier whose resort has fallen under the Vail Resorts or Alterra umbrella, a trip to a coveted ski destination out west is now more affordable and logistical because he or she can use the same pass from their local mountain. Powderhounds similarly appreciate the collective nature of the pass, as they now have resorts in every region they can chase to when a storm cycle passes through. Locals, meanwhile, are benefiting from the cheaper skiing afforded by the pass at their close-to-heart resorts. This means that, inevitably, there is going to be a massive influx of passionate guests to both big and small ski resorts all across North America.
At face value, the corporate ski model and the pass system is a win-win for seemingly everyone. Corporations and their investors are happy about increased profits, while enthusiastic skiers are happy about more affordable skiing and the greater ability to ski at different resorts across the continent.
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. After all, we’re talking about monopolies here.
Firstly, the most visible consequence of this corporate movement is the lift lines. The aforementioned influx in visitors is overwhelming even major ski destinations. There’s simply not enough room for so many eager skiers. Parking lots are full, and lift lines are insufferable. The problem is exacerbated on the weekends or when there’s a powder dump, as was the case at Vail in those horrifying images.
I can attest to this based on my experience in Utah this past year. Parking lots at Park City were regularly filled by mid-morning. The canyon road up to Snowbird and Alta was clogged by bumper-to-bumper traffic. At Snowbird on a powder day, we stood for forty-five minutes in line waiting to tackle Mineral Basin’s exhilarating fall lines into Mineral Basin. There’s an irony to this all: Vail Resorts’ slogan is “the experience of a lifetime,” but the ski experience for out-of-town skiers, locals, and powderhounds is being completely ruined.
The biggest loser, however, is the beginner skier. Single-day ticket prices have risen uncontrollably in correspondence with the advent of the pass system, leaving the potential first-time skier with a difficult decision: break the bank or don’t go skiing at all. For a sport whose growth has become flat, this business model — making more money off of a decreasing number of skiers — could spell economic ruin for the ski industry in the long run.
However, the greatest issue of this corporate movement in the ski industry lies in the effects of monopolization.
I’ll use myself to demonstrate these effects. My local resort is Hunter Mountain, a decent-sized mountain that attracts skiers from New York City, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, and upstate New York. Each year for the last ten years, I’ve gone on a weeklong ski trip to Utah with my family and friends. Just this past year, Hunter was bought out by Vail Resorts. Meanwhile, Park City — a family favorite in Utah — is also on the Epic Pass. It makes sense, therefore, for me to buy the Epic Pass so that I can ski more affordably at Hunter and Park City.
But this is where things get tricky, and where the maligned transgressions of monopolization materialize. Utah is home to ten ski resorts within an hour of Salt Lake. Snowbird, Deer Valley, and Solitude — all Ikon resorts — are favorite spots amongst our group. If we buy the Epic Pass, we lose our ability to choose which one of our beloved resorts to attend for the day during the week. But if we don’t buy the pass, then we’re stuck paying for unbelievably expensive day tickets. This limitation of choice is, in principle, an attack on the democratic foundations of our country, and it’s the reason why megacorporations have been heavily regulated or broken up throughout the last one hundred years of American history.
While this is a first-world problem for me, it has real, humanistic consequences for small communities and their members. Although some local resorts have been uplifted by Vail Resorts and Alterra, those who have tried to holdout have been suffocated into closure due to an inability to sustain themselves on the lower prices they must set to compete with other local resorts wrapped into the networks. Moreover, local cultures, famously distinct for each region and mountain, are being replaced by the oft-chastised corporate culture of Vail.
The worst part of these local consequences, however, is the effect on workers who have been the backbone of these resorts for decades. In resort towns such as Stowe, Vermont and Big Sky, Montana, recent additions to Vail and Alterra respectively, housing prices have skyrocketed as the corporate model has arrived in these towns. Many employees are being forced to move down-valley — leading to longer and less functional commutes — or into cramped, dormitory-style living arrangements established by the corporations. Think of the old ski bum who has been running your favorite chair for decades, or the lady making your favorite beef chili in the lodge for as long as you can remember. It’s these individuals who will suffer the most from this troubling development in the ski industry.
The trend is redolent of any other corporate takeover of an industry. Vail Resorts is a publicly-traded company, while Alterra is backed heavily by private investors. These companies have a responsibility to their shareholders, so they will continue to consolidate and dominate the ski industry. It’s illogical to surmise that they, or any other company, will prioritize humanity over money.
I was so drawn to this issue not just because I am a skier, but because this development is a microcosm of what’s transpiring in American economics today. Multinational corporations like Amazon, Apple, and Facebook are dominating industries. Just like Vail Resorts and Alterra, they’ve eliminated freedom of choice, and they’ve placed a premium on money over people, diminishing local communities and their members, crushing small businesses who refuse to jump on the bandwagon, and neglecting the basic rights of laborers who sustain the company. Other American industries will keep moving in the same direction as the ski industry until the human condition is placed before corporate greed.
