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Dispatches OUT OF RANGE
Mountain News: Four-resort
pass part of long-time trend
Compiled by Allen Best
DENVER, Colo. — The fundamental
story in the ski industry for the last
15 years has been how companies will
compete with Vail. The new Mountain
Collective pass announced last week by
Aspen, Jackson Hole, Alta and Squaw
Valley can be seen as a response.
Costing $349, the pass offered two free
days at each of the four resorts, after which
pass holders are entitled to purchase lift
tickets at a 50 per cent discount.
Rick Kahl, editor of Ski Area Management,
called it a “really smart move” on the part
of the four ski area operators.
“You have these sort of iconic ski
areas on the same ticket. It’s a relatively
inexpensive way to ski two of the four, and
if you ski three of them, you’re in fat city.”
It’s also an obvious response to the
Epic Pass offered by Vail Resorts. That
pass, which costs $659 for the full national
benefits, allows buyers unlimited skiing
at the four ski areas owned by Vail in
Colorado plus Arapahoe Basin, a close ally,
and the three ski areas now owned by Vail
in California.
Inside the ski industry, the Epic Pass
has been seen as a home run for Vail
Resorts. It has allowed the company to lock
in customers the summer before, evening
out income — and delivering revenue even
in low-snow years, such as last winter.
The idea of discounted season passes
didn’t originate with Vail, however. That
distinction goes to Idaho’s Bogus Basin.
With a big ski area and too few skiers, the
ski area saw that less could be more: lower
season passes caused more people to buy
them, and a net increase in revenue.
Colorado’s Winter Park next adopted
the discount strategy, and then Vail Resorts,
which only a few years prior had expanded
from its origins in Vail into a publicly
owned company that swallowed two
other ski areas in Summit County. Since
then, many ski companies have toyed
with passes that offered discounts, allowed
greater variety, but created brand loyalties.
The Sierra Sun traced the origins of
the new pass to a conversation last winter
among chief executives of Squaw Valley,
Aspen and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.
The Vail Daily talked with Will Marks,
who analyzes Vail Resorts for JMP Security.
He said he believes the new Mountain
Collective pass will have a minor impact
on sales of the Epic Pass. But he said he
does believe that discounted pass products
are the wave of the future within the ski
industry.
David Belin, a ski industry analyst for
RRC Associates, a research and consulting
firm, said he believed the new pass was
crafted carefully so as not to cannibalize
any of the resorts’ client bases.
“They are leveraging each other’s
customers to generate interest,” he told the
Aspen Daily News.
Similar pass programs have also existed
among smaller ski areas. For decades, the
very small ski areas in Colorado have
offered something called the Gems pass,
which offers discounts.
More recently, Colorado’s Monarch
Mountain has assembled a friends-withbenefits
package that now has expanded to
31 ski areas, including five smaller ski areas
in Europe, along with nine in Colorado,
five in New Mexico, and others in Arizona,
Michigan, California, Wyoming and Utah.
Also: Revelstoke and Red Mountain in
British Columbia.
HORSE POOP AND OTHER COURTESIES
OF THE TRAIL
BANFF, Alberta — Trail etiquette is on the
mind of people in the Canadian Rockies,
In the Rocky Mountain Outlook is a letter
from a bicycle rider, who laments the
lack of common courtesy. Users need to
recognize that it’s a multi-use and multiuser
trail, writes Cecil Lafleur of Canmore.
In Jasper, the complaint was different.
Horse riders should do what dog-owners
have long done on their trails, which is
to stop and pick up after their waggytailed
pals, said a self-identified newcomer,
writing in the Jasper Fitzhugh.
JASPER TO CELEBRATE STARRY,
STARRY NIGHTS
JASPER, Alberta — Organizers of the
Dark Sky Festival planned for October
in Jasper National Park are looking for
a correspondent who can report on the
festival’s activities.
The inaugural festival was held last year
in Jasper, which has been designated by the
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada as a
dark sky preserve. A website for the event
notes that while the park has exceptionally
dark skies, meaning that stars can be seen,
it’s also accessible by highways. See www.
jasperdarkskyfest.com
WHITEFISH DESIGN FIRM MAKES
OUTSIDE’S LIST
WHITEFISH, Mont. — From the stories
in ski town newspapers in the West, you
might think that Outside Magazine found
groovy employers in each and every one
of them to put on its list of good people
to work for.
One of them was ZaneGray Group,
located in Whitefish. It’s a design and
marketing firm, and mid-day skiing or early
morning single-track rides are very much
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www.piquenewsmagazine.com | August 23, 2012 | 37