The ski industry of 2024 is not the one from your mom and pop’s days when lift tickets were just $5 and the only way to get back uphill was by grabbing onto a rope tow and holding on for dear life.
As the industry has modernized, so has the look and feel of many ski resorts and the number of people coming down their slopes. In addition to more people than ever participating in downhill skiing and snowboarding, there are also much fewer ski areas than existed in the 1970s when more than 700 resorts dotted America. These days, that number sits at around 480.
There also has been mass conglomeration within the ski industry as the behemoth Vail Resorts now owns 38 mountains across the country. Its biggest competitor, Alterra Mountain Company, owns 18. Most of those mountains make up the biggest ski areas in the country.
Vail and Alterra have also put a clear emphasis on buying ski areas located in the vicinity of major metropolitan areas, with the two companies now owning a combined nine ski areas outside Denver and Salt Lake City alone.
In Wyoming, the ski industry has remained fairly consistent over the past decade aside from a few new wrinkles.
Ski areas like Antelope Butte Mountain Recreation Area outside Shell and Sleeping Giant Ski and Zip near Cody have placed a particular priority on affordability and getting kids on the hill. Other ski areas like Hogadon Basin in Casper and the Pine Creek Ski Resort outside Cokeville are run by their local governments, allowing them to make turning a profit a less urgent goal.
Fighting Overcrowding
What many of these smaller Wyoming ski areas also offer is a consistent lack of crowds.
Larger ski areas like Jackson Hole have faced this problem head-on in an industry that now has 11.6 million skiers, according to business publication The Hustle.
After initiating a skier reservation system in the 2020-2021 season following the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson Hole has held onto that system for limited circumstances as a precautionary measure and will stop selling ski tickets if a certain capacity is reached, based on the conditions and how many runs are open. This occurred five days last season, Mary Kate Buckley, the president of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, told Cowboy State Daily.
“We do that just to manage the skier experience, to make sure that the lines are under control, and the people when they come, they have a great experience, are not subjected to huge wait times in line,” Buckley said. “To us, the skier experience is so important.”
Jackson Hole remains independently owned after being sold earlier this year to Teton County locals and Jackson Hole board members Eric Macy and Mike Corbat. Buckley said remaining independent is Jackson Hole’s vision for the long-term future.
“They understood the values we want in a ski experience and they really stepped up to take on this huge challenge of owning and managing this resort,” Buckley said.
Multi-Mountain Passes
Many ski areas have also jumped on the trend of multi-resort pass products, which allow people to ski a certain number of days or access many different ski areas across the country, a particular benefit for people who may be traveling west for ski vacations.
Passes like these have caused a noticeable shift in the ski industry, leading to people skiing more days each season and going to a larger variety of places to do their skiing.
“These pass products offer a good value,” Buckley said. “The more you use it, the better the value is. We saw that appealed to people.”
Also appealing to consumers, Buckley said, is the ability to “de-risk” snow conditions by having a multitude of different ski areas to pick from. For instance, if the Rocky Mountain region has a bad snow year but the Pacific Northwest gets dumped on with moisture, people can ski there using the same pass.
But these passes have also led to certain ski areas owned by Vail and Alterra to feel more comfortable upping their daily lift ticket prices, further squeezing out the consumer who only goes skiing once or twice a year. Over the holidays last winter, Vail, Steamboat, Beaver Creek and Park City all featured $299 daily lift tickets.
Jackson Hole participates in two of these multi-mountain pass options: The Ikon Pass and Mountain Collective Ski Pass. Both of these passes put caps on the number of days someone can ski at Jackson Hole, which Buckley said was critical to ensuring the mountain’s continued participation in order to keep crowds down on the slopes.
Jackson Hole only participates in the Ikon’s highest-priced pass options, a decision Buckley said came about out of a desire to keep the focus on the quality of a skier’s experience rather than simply trying to stuff in as many visitors as possible.
“We look at ourselves as a phenomenal destination and thought we should be part of the premium package they offer,” Buckley said.
Some have still criticized these multi-mountain passes for contributing to overcrowding at ski areas.
Jackson participated in a lower price-point option during its first two years on the Ikon from 2018-2020, resulting in what Buckley described as overwhelming crowds, long lift lines and a lower quality of skiing conditions.
“We had no control,” she said. “We saw that enormous appeal the first couple seasons and we were overwhelmed, and we were overcrowded and people had a really disappointing experience here.”
Similar decisions have been made at other ski areas like Arapahoe Basin in Colorado to cap the number of people that can visit their slopes in order to maintain a certain level of quality.
What’s The Rest Of Wyoming Doing?
Nearby Grand Targhee Resort, Wyoming’s second biggest ski area, only participates in the Mountain Collective pass, which limits people to two ski days at every participating resort and an additional third day at a location of their choosing.
There’s also the Indy Pass, which offers two ski days each at more than 230 smaller ski areas across the country. Wyoming’s Antelope Butte, White Pine, Meadowlark and Snow King ski areas participate in this pass, as well Red Lodge Mountain in southern Montana near the Wyoming border.
Hogadon doesn’t participate in any of these passes, but ski area superintendent Chris Smith believes there could be time that it will if the recent trend of more out-of-state visitors hitting their slopes continues.
“We’re just not there yet, I think we will be ready for an Indy Pass at some point in time,” he said.
The biggest selling point to spending a ski day at Hogadon is that it offers much more affordably priced lift tickets than most larger ski areas.
“If you’ve got a family of four it’s not reasonably feasible to go to Vail or Jackson and pay a lot of money,” he said.
Hogadon also has partnership agreements with certain ski areas in Wyoming and throughout the West including Jackson Hole and Snowy Range Ski Area outside Laramie, which allows Hogadon’s season passholders to receive large discounts on tickets for their slopes.
“We feel that’s our biggest bang for the buck,” Smith said. “We sell passes because of the partnership agreements.”
All About The Experience
Expanding the user experience at Jackson Hole has also been a major priority, Buckley said. This has included everything from upgrading its Sublette chairlift this season to improving its lodge facilities, trails, snowmaking, parking and transportation services all to accommodate more people.
“We have invested so we can support larger numbers of visitors,” she said.
Hogadon has also been working on expanding its operations with a plan for a new chairlift in the works in addition to the new lodge and renovated snowmaking system it recently unveiled. It's also one of only two Wyoming ski areas to offer night skiing, which Smith said remains very popular.
“We’re very meticulous about our grooming, our customer service, we have a beautiful lodge now, we have a lot to offer,” Smith said. “People aren’t disappointed when they come here.”
Buckley said Jackson Hole is just as dedicated to its multi-mountain clientele as its diehard locals and fans who ski nowhere else or only ski areas in Wyoming, which is a big reason why the mountain still offers its own season passes and daily lift tickets.
She said the fact that many of the ski area’s lifts are named after Wyoming locations is no gimmick.
“We are so proud to be a Wyoming mountain,” she said. “It’s such a differentiator.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
