The Skier's Dilemma

[cuervoblaco]

I'm here to discuss, from my perspective, what could be the end of the skiing experience as we know it. And it's not the perpetual cycle of rising temps and dwindling snow that are threatening the future of the culture, although I believe that this is also a pressing concern. I'm talking of something more immediate. Something that even on days with the best of conditions can hinder the experience. What I believe is the biggest danger to the ski community at this moment is the relentless effort from corporations to squeeze every single dollar possible out of ski resorts across the country.

I recently spent a week in Crested Butte (my first time) over winter break where I spent a watching more snow fall from the sky than I have ever seen in my life. It didn't stop snowing for the entire week we were there. Waiting in line for our first chair of the trip, I couldn't wait to ski what is considered some of the steepest terrain on the continent. After chatting it up with some locals in the line, I was amazed to hear that over 50% of the terrain on the mountain (all the parts I was looking forward to skiing) weren't open. How could this be? The mountain had been getting dumped on for the past week on top of what was already the best snow base in the state.

As was explained to me, the closures had nothing to do with the snow pack and everything to do with the uninhabitable cost of living for the common man in CB. Almost the entire backside of the mountain was closed because there simply weren't enough people to work the lifts. Obviously, this due to the fact that no one making a liftie wage can afford to live anywhere near your typical resort.

I'm writing this post to start a discussion for what can be done to solve this catastrophic issue. I am not coming from the perspective that the tourists need to fuck off and leave the mountain to the locals, as we can all agree that there is too much money on the table for that to be a possibility. What we can agree on is that it's only getting worse, making the skiing experience more gloomy for tourists and locals alike. I would say that people on Newschoolers understand this situation better than anyone, both its inevitability and its consequences, as most of us have probably experienced this problem firsthand. I'm interested to see what users of this site have to say as to what can be done.

 

[Kyguyy]

Employee housing. Not shitty housing either.

 

[Static]

Cb is like 100% open right now.

 

[cuervoblaco]

Cb is like 100% open right now.

That's great to hear. Not saying that this is an issue exclusive to CB. Blue sky at Vail is consistently closed in peak season for the same reason

 

[Christian_Bale]

Cb is like 100% open right now.

It's still an issue though. Not the first time I've heard of this happening

 

[WoFIowz]

Ehhhh pay staff more or at least make comparable to the cost of living. The big name resorts certainly have the funds to do so. They choose not to.

 

[yungspliffy]

I think AirBnB/vacation rentals in general play a role. That system has fucked up the housing situation in any travel destination that has limited space - aka every resort town. Think about how many properties are being rented short term to tourists instead of long term to locals because its more profitable. AirBnB allows landlords to take advantage of this in such a simple, accessible way. Idk much about how zoning laws work but there needs to be some quota on how many residential properties can be allowed to do this in a given area. Here in Tahoe it is insane to see how many homes are just in and out, new renters every week. More spots being used for vacation rentals = less spots available for long term housing = higher rent listings. supply and demand

 

[cuervoblaco]

I think AirBnB/vacation rentals in general play a role. That system has fucked up the housing situation in any travel destination that has limited space - aka every resort town. Think about how many properties are being rented short term to tourists instead of long term to locals because its more profitable. AirBnB allows landlords to take advantage of this in such a simple, accessible way. Idk much about how zoning laws work but there needs to be some quota on how many residential properties can be allowed to do this in a given area. Here in Tahoe it is insane to see how many homes are just in and out, new renters every week. More spots being used for vacation rentals = less spots available for long term housing = higher rent listings. supply and demand

I think this is a very valid take. Deep down though I believe this issue lies in the hands of Epic/Ikon resorts. Not much you can do to restrict people from wanting to rent out their houses on Airbnb at any price they want, especially when people are willing to pay.

 

[yungspliffy]

I think this is a very valid take. Deep down though I believe this issue lies in the hands of Epic/Ikon resorts. Not much you can do to restrict people from wanting to rent out their houses on Airbnb at any price they want, especially when people are willing to pay.

Epic/Ikon creates the culture for it by selling 2 million passes, yes absolutely. But local governments could definitely step in in the interests of their locals

 

[Chunderface]

I think this is a very valid take. Deep down though I believe this issue lies in the hands of Epic/Ikon resorts. Not much you can do to restrict people from wanting to rent out their houses on Airbnb at any price they want, especially when people are willing to pay.

There actually is. Denver requires the owner of a property to use the property as a primary residence at least half the year. Breaking this rule is actually a crime here, not just a ticket or fine.

 

[yungspliffy]

There actually is. Denver requires the owner of a property to use the property as a primary residence at least half the year. Breaking this rule is actually a crime here, not just a ticket or fine.

Thats dope and good to hear actually. But Denver has far more housing than CB or comparable resort towns//isn't somewhere a resort employee could live

 

[Chunderface]

Thats dope and good to hear actually. But Denver has far more housing than CB or comparable resort towns//isn't somewhere a resort employee could live

For sure for sure. I'm just saying the problem with short term rentals is a cancer to ski towns, and there is a remedy. I guess passing a similar law in a ski towns would mean fighting a bunch of legislators who are funded by the folks making bank off short term rentals. The situation is fucked.

 

[Static]

Anything that artificially reduces the col is corporate welfare. Like suggesting the government step in and and steal from all the neighbors to build houses then vail could pay less, the tourists could pay less and we could keep people in an exploitable position 9 months a year.

**This post was edited on Mar 10th 2022 at 8:24:10am

 

[keagan.karstens]

Wouldn’t be surprised if vail replaced all of their lifties with robots, they have the money for it

 

[Static]

And you guys are a little late to the party blaming strs, they've been a thing for 40 years. The new boogeyman is remote workers, and your str restrictions won't do a thing about them.

 

[dshiland]

This isnt just an issue on the ski industry. As young 20 something people try to move put of their parents houses to desirable places be It small beach towns mountain community it's hard because of what you said. Landlords realizing they can make more in short term rentals then with long term renters at affordable rates. It's tough and scary for the future generations. I predict it's only going to get worse before it gets better sadly.

I think AirBnB/vacation rentals in general play a role. That system has fucked up the housing situation in any travel destination that has limited space - aka every resort town. Think about how many properties are being rented short term to tourists instead of long term to locals because its more profitable. AirBnB allows landlords to take advantage of this in such a simple, accessible way. Idk much about how zoning laws work but there needs to be some quota on how many residential properties can be allowed to do this in a given area. Here in Tahoe it is insane to see how many homes are just in and out, new renters every week. More spots being used for vacation rentals = less spots available for long term housing = higher rent listings. supply and demand

 

[corona]

And to think that just a single lift ticket sold would pay a $15/hour wage for a day and have some left over. 3 lift tickets sold would open up a lift for a day.

 

[Farmville420]

As far as I can remember mount snow in the past like 10 years has only raised lift tickets from like $75 to $110 roughly, which is a lot but nothing catastrophic. Season passes however have gone from like $1000 to $500 with vail. I’m not gonna lie, lift lines on weekends were always insane, even before vail, I genuinely haven’t seen vail making lift lines at snow dramatically worse. Parking is the same but the real issue I see is the housing market. I met a bunch of people skiing this season and learned that it’s all people working remotely for companies in like New York or California and just renting a house for the season. I literally cannot find a single Airbnb or hotel to stay at in any reasonable mountain in Vermont, day trips are the only possibility. Like money aside I literally cannot find a single hotel with availability. I understand our west this isn’t the same situation but definitely something I’ve noticed

 

[stefan_mahl]

Guess we in Europe are pretty lucky in this case, especially in the Austrian and South Tyrolean Alps. Almost every ski-resort is linked to a village down in the valley. There are also other industries beside tourism, for ex. crafts, agriculture and so on - which means there are quite some people calling this place their home. Seasonal staff is mostly working as ski-instructors or in the hospitality businesses. I didn't hear of any resort yet which closed lifts because of the lack of staff. I really hope it stays like this.

 

[Farmville420]

My temporary solution is to have the government step in and mandate blackout dates. Look I’m all for everyone skiing at an affordable price, it’s beautiful, but unfortunately mountains don’t have the infrastructure to make it enjoyable, so honestly I think they should start doing a Sunday pass, a Saturday pass, and a midweek pass. And you shouldn’t be able to hold more than 2 at the same time, and you can’t have Saturday and Sunday. I know that is an insane idea but let’s be real, making skiing affordable comes with a price, if it’s not money it’s gonna be time…. We are seeing that now, how many weekends have you been at those big Colorado resorts getting half a days worth of skiing because the lift lines were absurd? Wouldn’t it be better to literally cut the crowd in half and ski one good day? That’s my theoretical idea but I’m sure people won’t like it but eh, not really sure what else to do

 

[mrk127]

Employee housing. Not shitty housing either.

??? Idk why the mega resorts can’t figure this out

 

[Notaskibum]

just build more housing, it's not rocket science

 

[jompcock]

??? Idk why the mega resorts can’t figure this out

because they haven't been legally forced to and not doing so means more profit ???

 

[clindblomskier]

it sucks especially for those who live in a place where touring isn’t really viable, at least a lot of skiers out west can access good snow and terrain without the need for a resort. It’s been pretty hard to see my local hill in Virginia not opening lifts despite 1 foot dumps of snow because they’re understaffed

For a lot of us in the east resort skiing is the only skiing we can do

 

[bigcandybar]

Employee housing. Not shitty housing either.

Or if all the condos weren’t turned into Air B n Bs. So many of my friends got pushed out of town this past year. Smh

 

[skierman]

Oh look, another 13-year-old who just learned about corporations.

 

[Stuuuuuuuuuu]

I love that I got 2 vrbo ads while reading this thread

 

[cuervoblaco]

just build more housing, it's not rocket science

Seems like the silver bullet, right? At least for CB, they are unable to build anymore major developments because there isn't a large enough water reservoir to support any more people.

 

[IsaacNW82]

In the early 1970's, the US had a population of ~210 million and built ~2 million houses per year. Recently, those numbers are more like ~330 million people and ~1.3 million homes built per year. New home-builds are picking up again but this kind of stuff takes decades to work. There simply aren't enough homes. People are moving more now (partly due to remote work and COVID) and that really accelerates the problem in resort towns.

A lot of the root cause of this is restrictive single family zoning (no apartments, town homes, duplexes, etc), laws like Vermont's act 250 (need a special permit for more than 5 residencies on a new build), and frankly NMIBYism preventing high density housing country-wide. A great example is notoriously expensive Seattle, which for many years was 75% zoned for single family housing. Housing demand is relatively inelastic and restricting the supply drives up prices.

Restricting short term rentals might help a little bit but it really just seems like a new boogeyman. A quick peruse of Crested Butte airbnb suggests that the short term market is really quite expensive as well. They also have quite a bit of single family zoning btw. You really just need more housing, and for the resorts, I hope they figure out quickly that building good employee housing is not only the right thing to do, but also probably a good business decision. If you can afford a grand hotel and a base village, you can build employee apartment buildings/townhomes/whatever too.

 

[cuervoblaco]

In the early 1970's, the US had a population of ~210 million and built ~2 million houses per year. Recently, those numbers are more like ~330 million people and ~1.3 million homes built per year. New home-builds are picking up again but this kind of stuff takes decades to work. There simply aren't enough homes. People are moving more now (partly due to remote work and COVID) and that really accelerates the problem in resort towns.

A lot of the root cause of this is restrictive single family zoning (no apartments, town homes, duplexes, etc), laws like Vermont's act 250 (need a special permit for more than 5 residencies on a new build), and frankly NMIBYism preventing high density housing country-wide. A great example is notoriously expensive Seattle, which for many years was 75% zoned for single family housing. Housing demand is relatively inelastic and restricting the supply drives up prices.

Restricting short term rentals might help a little bit but it really just seems like a new boogeyman. A quick peruse of Crested Butte airbnb suggests that the short term market is really quite expensive as well. They also have quite a bit of single family zoning btw. You really just need more housing, and for the resorts, I hope they figure out quickly that building good employee housing is not only the right thing to do, but also probably a good business decision. If you can afford a grand hotel and a base village, you can build employee apartment buildings/townhomes/whatever too.

It certainly is something that these corporations need to think about from a business perspective. It's not going to be long before they start losing money from this issue. The current model clearly isn't sustainable and I hope they have people working on it as we speak

 

[patagonialuke]

The particular scenario you ran into at CB was a bit of an outlier, in that we went from having absolutely no base to getting nearly all of last season's snow total in about a week and a half. So patrol went from having no snow to mitigate to having a season's worth to deal with on a mountain with extremely varied, avalanche-prone terrain. More importantly in terms of lift ops, Omicron was infecting just about everyone in the valley, so a major factor during that period was all the liftees getting covid and having to quarantine. They managed to get all the lifts running a few weeks later, but they did indeed have abnormally low lift staffing for a few weeks. As patrol was able to slowly open more terrain, they were choosing which lifts to staff and just not staffing the others, which is not normal here. Thankfully, it's now been back to normal since late January, though having the High Lift being hike-to only was actually pretty rad...

However, the housing shortage here (and many similar places) is a major issue. CB put a pause on new STR licenses this past year and has a few affordable housing developments in the works, as well as a massive development plan for the Mt. CB area, but that bigger development has been debated for literal decades (it's finally made some progress this past year). Between the rise of STRs and remote work in the past two years, it seems like the town of CB and Mt. CB have finally realized they really need to do something about the lack of reasonable LTR housing here (and I'm saying this as someone who's been forced to move twice in the past year since our LTRs got sold).

All that said, Vail could've avoided (or at least decreased) the liftee staffing issue if they (1) paid better, like every other business is these days, and (2) invested in some employee housing. The combination of getting paid less than McDonalds and having to live 40 min away from the mountain is not exactly appealing to those looking for a fun winter job. They have some employee options on the mountain and in Gunnison, but it's clearly an area where they need to invest more. And while I hope this past holiday's debacle convinces them to do so (their staffing & overall experience issues did get some notable nationwide flack), I frankly am not getting my hopes up, given their lack of willingness to invest in things that don't instantly make them more money or that they can't easily promote as "improvements" to the "Epic Experience."

We'll see if they change anything. Vail / Epic got a lot of bad press earlier this year, but my guess is that they'll think it blew over quick enough and forget about it. So, unfortunately, it'll probably be up to local gov to help find a balance of commercial real estate and things like deed-restricted housing, which is a major challenge. Finding affordable housing in mountain towns is inherently never going to be easy, especially with the real estate market as crazy as it is right now, but my only hope is that the past year or two makes these sorts of towns realize how important striking a balance is.

 

[caveman31]

Cb was pretty much all open today

 

[yungspliffy]

A lot of you saying to just build more housing as the solution. I don't want to see resort towns turn into construction sites and get any more big and developed than they already are. plus it wouldn't even work in many locations due to natural obstacles. Employee housing complexes are a different story and we definitely need to see that at any resort that has the money and resources that Vail/Ikon does. But overall local housing near a resort is limited by nature, and should be for that matter. If you want to pay rent, taxes, contribute to local small businesses, etc. then you get the privilege of access to beautiful world class skiing within 15 minutes of your house. Having a large percentage of that limited housing dedicated to rich fucks who want to have a bachelor party instead just pisses me off. I don't think building more housing really solves the problem

 

[hunternay_10]

I'm here to discuss, from my perspective, what could be the end of the skiing experience as we know it. And it's not the perpetual cycle of rising temps and dwindling snow that are threatening the future of the culture, although I believe that this is also a pressing concern. I'm talking of something more immediate. Something that even on days with the best of conditions can hinder the experience. What I believe is the biggest danger to the ski community at this moment is the relentless effort from corporations to squeeze every single dollar possible out of ski resorts across the country.

I recently spent a week in Crested Butte (my first time) over winter break where I spent a watching more snow fall from the sky than I have ever seen in my life. It didn't stop snowing for the entire week we were there. Waiting in line for our first chair of the trip, I couldn't wait to ski what is considered some of the steepest terrain on the continent. After chatting it up with some locals in the line, I was amazed to hear that over 50% of the terrain on the mountain (all the parts I was looking forward to skiing) weren't open. How could this be? The mountain had been getting dumped on for the past week on top of what was already the best snow base in the state.

As was explained to me, the closures had nothing to do with the snow pack and everything to do with the uninhabitable cost of living for the common man in CB. Almost the entire backside of the mountain was closed because there simply weren't enough people to work the lifts. Obviously, this due to the fact that no one making a liftie wage can afford to live anywhere near your typical resort.

I'm writing this post to start a discussion for what can be done to solve this catastrophic issue. I am not coming from the perspective that the tourists need to fuck off and leave the mountain to the locals, as we can all agree that there is too much money on the table for that to be a possibility. What we can agree on is that it's only getting worse, making the skiing experience more gloomy for tourists and locals alike. I would say that people on Newschoolers understand this situation better than anyone, both its inevitability and its consequences, as most of us have probably experienced this problem firsthand. I'm interested to see what users of this site have to say as to what can be done.

From the people I have talked to that work At CB, they’re not updating lifts, they’re catering more to tourists than daily skiers which means that they open blue lifts before the tbars even when the high lifts have more than enough snow, they don’t pay well and they treat employees like shit, but hey you get a free ski pass that you can’t use bc they don’t have enough workers and you have to work everyday, and forced to download instead of skiing down the learning run on the hill.

in summation, FUCK VAIL FOR RUINING MY FAVORITE MOUNTAIN