Deer Valley announced their pricing for the upcoming ski season. That’s normally not big news, but this year, the walk-up rate for a day pass has bumped to $289. With tax, it’s a total price of $315.
The $300 price point has been something the industry has avoided because it sounds like a whole lot of money and would give the impression that skiing is something available only to rich people. Snowbowl, a resort outside of Flagstaff, Arizona, broke the $300 ceiling last year for the first time. They hit $309 (there may have been sales tax on top of that). They use a dynamic pricing system and had received a huge powder dump. So the price went up.
The headline number out of Deer Valley is kind of jolt, but that is the peak season, walk-up rate. Most of the season, the walk-up rate is $259, or around $282 with tax. That’s not peanuts, but it seems better. And there are the early and late season days that are under $200. On top of that, if you are dumb enough to be paying the walk-up rate, maybe there ought to be a penalty. There are so many package deals, on-line discounts (OK, $10 isn’t really going to make a difference) and so on. I have no idea how many of those full rack rate tickets they sell, but not everybody has a season or Ikon pass in their pockets.
A season pass is expensive. The full season adult pass is up to $3,151 (tax included) this season. For retired people who ski every day, the Senior pass is discounted to $2,350 (tax included). If you ski a lot, and you live here so you can, your actual cost per day becomes reasonable. Over at Park City Mountain resort, the Epic Local pass is cheap, and unless you have to pay for parking, your cost per day of skiing is about the cost of lunch at Kimball Junction’s fast food theme park. So it’s hard to get too worked up about the walk-up rate.
Except, it puts skiing out of reach for a wide swath of people. For people who are just exploring the sport, or somebody who really can’t ski 80 or 100 days a year, it’s a big barrier to entry. As my generation ages out of skiing, which I see happening in my own ski group, are there young people filling it in? Are there enough young families out there able to plop down $1,200 per day for a family of four on the slopes?
Apparently there are.
High cost isn’t driving people away. We all whine about how crowded it is, and how bad the parking is. The state has decided to put a half billion or more into toll booths and a gondola in Little Cottonwood canyon to deal with the traffic overload. So while a $300-a-day lift ticket seems shocking, it looks like the reality is that skiing is not particularly price sensitive, or at least has a sufficient number of adherents with enough disposable income that crowding is more of an issue than pricing customers out. So we ration skiing on the basis of price, and still have an overcrowding problem.
Last weekend I was trying to make the left turn out of my driveway onto the main road. Midweek, I barely slow down to make the turn. Weekends, I have to stop and wait for a break in the traffic. The stream of traffic pouring out of the mountains seemed endless. While I sat there, I took note of the vehicles in that line-up. The typical rig was a new three-quarter ton pickup towing a huge camper trailer. Each piece of that outfit was around $100,000. There often was a second truck towing a flatbed with a couple of $20,000 side-by-side ATVs on the back. Some people use this road to avoid Highway 40 with its endless construction delays, so there were also some huge boats in the mix. The average ticket for the combination of the trucks and associated toys had to be well over $150,000. It was a miles-long parade of installment debt. In the winter, the same crowd is driving by with trailers full of high-end snowmobiles that could run close to $20,000 each.
There’s no easy way to equate the cost of that recreation to a day of skiing, or a day of mountain biking on a bike that can break $10,000 without really trying. Within the group of expensive campers, I have to assume there are more than a few skiers, and I certainly know a lot of skiers who have motorhomes and other recreational vehicles. The bottom line is that we like our outdoor fun in whatever flavors we choose. And if paying up for the Duramax diesel, the full season pass, or titanium widgets makes that fun more convenient, a whole lot of people seem perfectly willing and able to do it. When it comes to recreation, price really doesn’t appear to be an issue — except for those who are just priced out completely.
Let the good times roll.