Budget Pass Boom

Starting at 419 Swiss francs (about US$515), the Swiss-born Magic Pass now unlocks year-round unlimited access to nearly 100 ski areas in Switzerland, France, and Italy. The addition of 17 more ski areas for 2025-26 marks the program’s biggest leap since its 2017 launch. Gstaad’s recent entry into the cooperative irked some larger Swiss neighbors, who called it price dumping, but illustrates a continent-wide shift toward volume-driven, affordable, multi-destination access. Pre-sales for the 2025-26 pass have already topped 300,000 units, according to Seilbahnen International. 

That appetite for affordability echoes the continued growth of Indy Pass on this side of the pond. The $369 pass (adult base pass rate, general public) capped sales in early March after another record renewal period, and its upcoming low-cost, learn-to offering aims to hook new skiers and riders with three days of bundled tickets, lessons, and rentals for $189. With the Learn-to-Turn Pass, “Indy Pass will attempt to move the needle on skier development by keeping it cheap, simple, and widely accessible,” said founder Doug Fish. Indy anticipates strong participation from Northeast and Midwest resort partners. 

Joining the value lineup is Snow Partners’ new Snow Triple Play card, which offers three total days of access at 15 ski areas in the northeastern U.S. and Eastern Canada for $199. COO Dave Belin calls it a bridge between high-commitment season passes and high-cost window tickets, a middle ground for budget-conscious casual skiers and riders.

While volume and prestige still shape multi-resort pass strategy, with prices climbing again it may pay to keep affordability and flexibility in focus.

Nederland’s $200-Million Eldora Gambit

In an unconventional mountain resort ownership play, the town of Nederland, Colo., (pop. 1,500; annual budget $3.2 million) is working to buy Eldora Mountain Resort from Powdr for somewhere between $100 million and $200 million, according to town estimates. The plan is to fund the deal with municipal revenue bonds, paid back entirely by Eldora’s own income and Ikon Pass revenues, while building a $10 million reserve for low-snow years. Early projections show little free cash for the first decade, until subordinate bonds are paid off, but the town hopes to net $2 million to $5 million a year after that.

Powdr, which purchased Eldora in 2016, would stay on for two years during the transition, after which “303 Ski”—a group of former Vail Resorts and Powdr executives—would take over daily operations. The deal would also bring Eldora’s roughly 700 winter employees onto the town payroll, and annexation could add $1 million to $2 million in summer sales tax revenue. 

As the Colorado Sun’s Jason Blevins detailed in a July report on the deal, skepticism abounds. Locals still remember fighting off Eldora’s expansion plans a decade ago, and some bristle at the idea that annexation could bring more summer traffic to the valley. Others doubt the town’s capacity to run a capital-intensive, for-profit ski area, pointing to its decision in 2023 to shutter its police department. Longtime industry leader Andy Daly called the model “disruptive” in a good way—but warned that without deep capital commitments, Nederland risked falling behind in a competitive market.

Federal approval is another hurdle. The Forest Service must agree to transfer Eldora’s special use permit, a process that includes vetting the new operator’s finances and technical chops. Supporters say the experienced management team and Powdr’s two-year bridge bolster credibility. Critics, like one 25-year Eldora regular who likened the deal to “Eldora buying Nederland,” fear a “train wreck.”

If the deal closes, it will mark Colorado’s first sale of a major resort to a non-corporate owner since 1997, and a rare case of a multi-resort operator selling to a single-hill buyer. Whether it becomes a model for community-driven resort ownership or a cautionary tale will hinge on Nederland’s ability to manage debt, keep locals happy, and keep Eldora competitive in a market dominated by Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Co. 

Kottke Conclusions

The National Ski Areas Association’s (NSAA) Kottke End of Season and Guest Experience Report puts 2024-25 skier visits at 61.6 million, the second-highest total ever and 6.6 percent above the 10-year average. Visits rebounded in the Midwest (+21.4 percent) and Pacific Northwest (+10 percent), and the season ran a week longer than last year on average, with fewer midseason closures. Participation was up for a fifth straight year, with 3.1 percent of Americans (an estimated 10.7 million people) skiing or riding.

But the sports’ demographic profile keeps aging: skiers and riders over 55 accounted for 24 percent of visits, while the under-25 share slid to 33 percent, markedly below the NSAA Growth Committee’s 40-percent target. In the vein of growth, lessons per area increased 3.3 percent, but still remain below the 2022-23 post-Covid high. Guests also remain overwhelmingly white (86 percent), male (62 percent), and high-income (74 percent from $100K+ households), underscoring the gap between the participant base and the U.S. population. Interestingly, the share of skier visits made on a season pass declined for the first time in a decade, down from 51 percent to 49 percent, suggesting, if not a shift in consumer, a shift in consumer behavior. 

For a dive into the Kottke’s guest experience findings, see “A Worrisome ‘New Normal’” (p. 51).

Early SIA Data: Nordic Heats Up, Alpine Softens

A Snowsports Industries America (SIA) Participation Highlights Report preview shows overall U.S. snowsports participation up 2.4 percent year-over-year. According to SIA, though, the growth was uneven. Alpine skiing slid 1.8 percent, and snowboarding 1.2 percent. Winners were cross-country skiing (+5.8 percent) and snowshoeing (+5.7 percent), with alpine touring also posting solid gains. Average days on snow ticked up across most disciplines, echoing NSAA’s Kottke finding that average days per pass holder had increased for the first time in four years. 

SIA’s full report lands in September.

Liability Whiplash in the PNW 

In June, the Idaho Supreme Court reversed its own 2023 decision in Milus v. Sun Valley, restoring long-standing assumption-of-risk protections for ski areas. The earlier ruling had briefly expanded operators’ duty of care and sent some shivers through the industry, drawing amicus briefs from the NSAA and others. The about-face was welcome news for operators, but it came with a caveat: the court introduced a “reasonably prudent person” negligence standard when fulfilling statutory duties, language that could invite more legal challenges in the future. State lawmakers, who shelved a clarifying bill while the rehearing played out, are now weighing statutory changes that would further enshrine liability protections for ski area operators.

Across the border in Oregon, the trend is going the other way. Safehold Special Risk, a longtime ski insurer, announced in June it will pull out of the state by year’s end, leaving MountainGuard as the only insurer for at least 14 ski areas. Safehold pointed to mounting losses in a state that refuses to enforce liability waivers, where jury awards can be both unpredictable and enormous. A bill that would have reinstated the enforceability of waivers passed out of the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee this summer, but died without a floor vote when the legislature adjourned.

The incidents are a study in how two neighboring states can look at the same risk landscape and choose entirely different approaches, serving to highlight how much liability law can potentially shape the viability of ski area operations.

PFAS: The Wax That Won’t Quit

New Hampshire legislators are the latest to eye a ban on ski-waxes containing PFAS, aka “forever chemicals.” Research this winter found measurable PFAS in slope soils and water at three New Hampshire and Vermont ski areas, mirroring the findings of similar studies in Europe. Recent crackdowns against PFAS have been seen across various industries and states, and many PFAS-containing ski waxes are already being phased out.  Beginning in 2023-24, FIS began enforcement of its ban of all fluorinated waxes to reduce environmental contamination and the risk to human health. While compliance is a challenge, maybe it’s time for resorts to help speed the shift by promoting the use of PFAS-free waxes. 

Can an Algorithm Land a 1440? 

At X Games Aspen 2025, an experimental Google Cloud “AI judge” assessed airtime, trick difficulty, and execution in real time during superpipe events. The broadcast roll out was somewhat clunky. And the AI judge’s scores didn’t count, but organizers say the test proved accurate enough to commercialize the platform (now spun off as Owl AI) for other sports. Purists fret that creativity could get coded out (and bias coded in), but backers see the tech as a transparent, multilingual scoring win.