Skiing has changed a lot and it doesn’t really matter whether it has changed for better or worse. The point is that it has changed, and that the changes have cost the industry customers, goodwill and money. The failure of ski area managers to explain — and fully understand themselves — the ramifications of more snowmaking, detachable quads and other economic aspects of ski area operation, has led to the increase in the cost of lift tickets without bringing ski areas much-needed financial relief.
Even more important is that the rising cost of going skiing has drastically changed who is going skiing (the demographics) and the kind of creature comforts this shift demanded.
Forty years ago (before interstates and jets), a good portion of the skiing population was young, energetic and not too fussy. On a Friday afternoon, they’d collect on some remote urban street corner (try that today), drive seven or eight hours to get to a ski area, stay at a dormitory or some other low-cost hostel, ski on whatever nature had to offer and on Sunday afternoon reverse the process.
There were luxury accommodations and restaurants, but they were few and far between. Right after World War II, the only luxury resort was Sun Valley with the Sugar Bowl and Stowe far distant seconds. Aspen sort of joined in when it opened in 1946, but in its early years as a resort the town was always considered a bit tatty.
This began to change — almost imperceptibly — in the late 1950s. For some reason, Sugarbush comes to mind (remember Mascara Mountain?) when it came to making a direct appeal to the well-to-do, although Vail did a much better job of it when it came along a few years later. But looking back, what was more telling was when even small areas put up base or day lodges instead of warming huts, installed doubles instead of tows and Pomas and skiers began to stay at hotels and condominiums — or concubiniums as the late Fred Iselin used to call them — instead of staying at dorms and other low-cost accommodations.
These improvements were made to widespread applause. What no one took into account, yours truly included, is the added cost of all these improvements and that there was no end to them. Grooming at most areas used to mean stamping the (rope) tow line (the stampers got a free tow ticket) and filling in the worst of the ruts. Today a $150,000 machine (not counting attachments) does the job, there’s a skilled operator running the machine and even relatively small areas have two or three of them.
What is surprising is how few professionals made an issue of the cost of these developments, and more important, what it would mean to the future of the industry. To the contrary, appealing to the youngest upper crust seemed to make all the sense in the world. I remember in the mid-60s, one of the more prominent ski publications boasted that the average income of its readers was higher than those of the New Yorker.
There’s nothing wrong in making a pitch for the highest income levels (there was always something upwardly mobile about skiers), but someone should have noted that there were fewer of them than the almost-rich and the barely well-to-do. It wasn’t only that pricing structure was slowly squeezing out the less pecunious, although that was an important part of it, but that the regulars had an attitude about the hoi polloi with their slightly dated clothing and equipment. For too long the industry didn’t take notice because all of us were going to be wealthy (weren’t we?).
I can hear it now: You should see our books. We’re not charging too much! Compared with … (you fill in the blank) … skiing is a bargain. We’re offering more skiing than we ever did before. Lift ticket costs are not the problem. Our main problem is snow, etc. and ad nauseam.
All true to a certain extent, but beside the point. What area management forgot is that the customer is always right, regardless how area management feels about that, and that goes double for something as discretionary as skiing. Blaming weather forecasters, the press or some other segment in the industry — aside from being too late — draws attention to the problem, it doesn’t solve it.
Not that there weren’t plenty of warnings. Skier growth was in decline several years before the price of lift tickets became an issue. That both manufacturers and areas were setting revenue records despite declining unit sales and slowing area attendance should have set off some bells. Only when the industry was in deep crisis did anyone do anything — like the Kinsey thing — and then, not surprisingly, it did the wrong thing. Until it was far too late, there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow has arrived.
But the financial aspects are only part of the problem. The industry has managed to take the sense of accomplishment out of skiing. For all but the gifted, it used to take two or three seasons to achieve competence. Now, because of groomed slopes, better instruction and improved equipment, it takes less than a week. I’m all for that, but there’s been no equivalent expansion of possibilities at the top of the ladder.
On the contrary. We’ve done everything possible to discourage any feeling of adventure in skiing. Is it really essential to pound every flake in place, to outlaw out-of-bounds skiing, ban telemarkers or snowboarders, to make every trail into an interstate, to cut every tree and eliminate every bump that might be dangerous. I’m not suggesting that we break legs at the rate we did 40 years ago (if for no other reason that cost of medical attention has grown even faster than the price of lift tickets), but it seems to me that we somehow have to break the stranglehold that mediocrity has on our sport.
It should not be surprising that too many people who used to go skiing now go elsewhere for their winter jollies. To be a skier used to mean something (among other things, we were the ones with tans in winter). Not anymore. Ski managements of all kinds need to compete against rather than take a snooty view of Caribbean snorkeling or bareboat chartering, cruise ships, Disney World and other 75-degree plus forms of recreation not available 20 or 30 years ago.
But before the industry can do that, it must get its own house in order. As a starter, the economics of skiing — from rentals to detachable quads — need a thorough review. The pros and cons of every form of competition should be intensely examined. And, the First Amendment notwithstanding, the industry urgently needs someone who can clap a hand over the mouth of anyone who complains about an alleged problem without also coming up with a reasonable and workable solution. If nothing else, the quiet would be beautiful.
