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Video: How corporate consolidation is killing ski towns.
- Thread starter ski diva
- Start date
That was really interesting. Thanks for sharing!
I've never been to Vail, but Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe is very similar in that all the money goes to Vail resorts. I've spent plenty of money at Heavenly Village even without skiing Heavenly (I prefer the much cheaper Sierra-at-Tahoe about 20 min away that doesn't have nearby lodging, so it's easy to stay in South Tahoe, which has an insane amount of motels).
The limited Epic Pass I bought for next year at $575 is cheaper than the pass that's only for Sugar Bowl at $769 for equivalent access but more than a pass only for Sierra-at-Tahoe at $399 for equivalent access (two of my favorite independent resorts--Sierra is probably one of the least expensive around).
A big contributor to deciding on a pass this year was the 20% off lodging with an Epic pass. I live a 3.5 hour drive (in ideal conditions) from ski resorts, so I do prefer to go for a weekend than a day. While Heavenly and Northstar (two of the three Tahoe Vail resorts) aren't ones I go to normally, we will be trying them out next season. And if I only like Kirkwood, it's still not a bad deal, as only five days of skiing will make the price worthwhile. Originally we considered just one pass and using the discounted "buddy tickets" for the other person, but if we went six days, a second pass was still cheaper.
This is primarily about Colorado and Vail Resorts, but Tahoe has major housing issues due to the fact that well-paid Bay Area tech workers have been buying up Tahoe properties for years. It was a huge issue during COVID's height, as the area's infrastructure is meant for only a fraction of the housing to be occupied. Remote work has also driven up housing prices further out from the Bay Area, as commute time became less of a consideration.
I know there are a few divas who live in the Tahoe area and can give a better perspective than I can (as one of those Bay Area yuppies, myself).
I've never been to Vail, but Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe is very similar in that all the money goes to Vail resorts. I've spent plenty of money at Heavenly Village even without skiing Heavenly (I prefer the much cheaper Sierra-at-Tahoe about 20 min away that doesn't have nearby lodging, so it's easy to stay in South Tahoe, which has an insane amount of motels).
The limited Epic Pass I bought for next year at $575 is cheaper than the pass that's only for Sugar Bowl at $769 for equivalent access but more than a pass only for Sierra-at-Tahoe at $399 for equivalent access (two of my favorite independent resorts--Sierra is probably one of the least expensive around).
A big contributor to deciding on a pass this year was the 20% off lodging with an Epic pass. I live a 3.5 hour drive (in ideal conditions) from ski resorts, so I do prefer to go for a weekend than a day. While Heavenly and Northstar (two of the three Tahoe Vail resorts) aren't ones I go to normally, we will be trying them out next season. And if I only like Kirkwood, it's still not a bad deal, as only five days of skiing will make the price worthwhile. Originally we considered just one pass and using the discounted "buddy tickets" for the other person, but if we went six days, a second pass was still cheaper.
This is primarily about Colorado and Vail Resorts, but Tahoe has major housing issues due to the fact that well-paid Bay Area tech workers have been buying up Tahoe properties for years. It was a huge issue during COVID's height, as the area's infrastructure is meant for only a fraction of the housing to be occupied. Remote work has also driven up housing prices further out from the Bay Area, as commute time became less of a consideration.
I know there are a few divas who live in the Tahoe area and can give a better perspective than I can (as one of those Bay Area yuppies, myself).
TiffAlt
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Their take is that it is all too easy to blame Vail without actually looking at every issue. Are there problems? Of course. Can some of them be traced back to Vail? Absolutely. But pointing the finger at just them is short-sighted and to our detriment, especially considering that towns across the country, even those that are EPIC or IKON pass-less are facing many of the same issues.
sibhusky
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I put it down to the march of technology, given a little extra push by Covid.
We moved here 20 years back when the town just barely had internet. Fortunately, right before we actually moved, our address got DSL. When we first owned the land, we would have had to rent space in town for my husband to work. So, you might say we were the leading edge of the wedge for white collar jobs. The town history is trains and logging.
It continued, however, to be sort of a backwater until about the last 5 years. They got fiber downtown at some point and Starlink and wireless internet in the surrounding area. All of a sudden, you could have business conference calls and decent uploads. And....then Covid come along. And people were working remotely. So they moved away from cities and closer to their playgrounds, whether that was a ski area or maintain biking or whatever. With them, metropolitan amenities also came - better restaurants, theaters, museums. Maybe not Broadway or MOMA, but not bowling alleys.
Many of these towns are surrounded by vast areas of federal and state lands, the reason they were playgrounds in the first place. That also means limited land available for building huge, quick, developments. Add that to the fact that people that moved to these places wanted out of cities and congestion and you've got a recipe for a lack of affordable housing.
This dynamic is without any regard for Vail and "corporate consolidation". Vail just happened to be doing this at the same time. Maybe it made it a bit worse for Vail (a fake town created decades ago), but it's happening all over. Our ski area (an independent) brings a fraction of the visitors Glacier National Park does and the park has been there over 100 years. So the park can't be blamed. It's technology. Air travel, internet (information travel in a way). People can get to and live in places they couldn't in the past.
We moved here 20 years back when the town just barely had internet. Fortunately, right before we actually moved, our address got DSL. When we first owned the land, we would have had to rent space in town for my husband to work. So, you might say we were the leading edge of the wedge for white collar jobs. The town history is trains and logging.
It continued, however, to be sort of a backwater until about the last 5 years. They got fiber downtown at some point and Starlink and wireless internet in the surrounding area. All of a sudden, you could have business conference calls and decent uploads. And....then Covid come along. And people were working remotely. So they moved away from cities and closer to their playgrounds, whether that was a ski area or maintain biking or whatever. With them, metropolitan amenities also came - better restaurants, theaters, museums. Maybe not Broadway or MOMA, but not bowling alleys.
Many of these towns are surrounded by vast areas of federal and state lands, the reason they were playgrounds in the first place. That also means limited land available for building huge, quick, developments. Add that to the fact that people that moved to these places wanted out of cities and congestion and you've got a recipe for a lack of affordable housing.
This dynamic is without any regard for Vail and "corporate consolidation". Vail just happened to be doing this at the same time. Maybe it made it a bit worse for Vail (a fake town created decades ago), but it's happening all over. Our ski area (an independent) brings a fraction of the visitors Glacier National Park does and the park has been there over 100 years. So the park can't be blamed. It's technology. Air travel, internet (information travel in a way). People can get to and live in places they couldn't in the past.
