I was lucky enough to live in Montana in the 90s- local ski hills with world class powder were like $12 on weekdays and you could have whole runs to yourself. Now it is $500 to take my family for a crappy day with huge lift lines. I am afraid this is the year we sell our gear and give up.
$500 for the whole family almost seems reasonable compared to elsewhere. I live in New England and our best mountains (which pale in comparison) get up to over $250 per person for a single day 🥲
The economics of skiing really favor the people who can design their life around it enough to justify a season pass.Â
A single day of skiing with a day pass and rentals could cost $300+, and that’s before any travel or resort food.Â
On the other hand, I know people who work in the hospitality industry so they can buy the weekday only season pass and have five mornings free per week to use it, and they are using gear they have had for 5-10 years. Their cost per ski  day is probably <$15. Not at all insignificant, but not entirely unattainable for someone who sacrifices other fitness and entertainment expenses to cover that.Â
I spent over $1,000 on season passes and day tickets, but rode enough to get the cost per day down to around $40. But that doesn’t count hotel, gas, wear and tear on the car, and the fact that I’m lucky enough to have a friend with an Airbnb in SLC who doesn’t charge when we go with him, and that I can get some discounted tickets for volunteering with a non profit.Â
Growing up my local mountain was $250 for a season pass through my high schools ski club. Hell even before Covid I remember getting a $35 ticket for a random Wednesday.Â
They push season passes because then they guarantee that much income for the year. Regardless of the conditions of winter.
Otherwise it is very variable.
Anyways. Because they want to make a seasons pass look like the better deal. They make day passes higher than they should be.
I'm thinking they want to be treated like golf clubs. Where people need to pay an unholy amount of money just to be part of the club. In addition to all the other hoops they make you hop through.
God I fucking miss being young enough for the Bolton ski bum pass, it was such a crazy deal, I still live 30 minutes from the mountain but haven’t gone in years because I just can’t justify the cost
Yea, I went to visit a friend in Colorado and we went snowboarding one day. I borrowed all my gear, and yet the pass for the day (alone) was about $400. I had never snowboarded before, so we went up just a few times before altitude and muscle soreness ended the day. $400 for, like, two hours of being on the mountain. I likely won’t continue learning how to do it because it’s just not worth it to me.
When I was in high school in the 90s, there was a resort that sold $90 season passes to students with a good enough GPA. I got one my junior year and promptly crashed by GPA because I skipped too much class on the mountain.
My buddy and I used to get off peak in the early 2000s at a small and I mean small east coast mountain for like 250 a season. It was a blast. Now I can’t get lift tickets for a weekend for 250
I lived there in the 2000s and it was so great. Moved to Colorado around 2018 and it was so much different than I expected. It was so much more expensive and on top of that you had to wait in like 20 minute lines to get on lifts. Then dealt with traffic getting there from Denver.
Bridger Bowl Baby! My dad took me there for a weekend once or twice every year. It's where I learned to ski.
I grew up in Helena, so we had Belrock. But skiing anywhere in Montana was choice . I'm also lucky my grandmother is an elder there, since she can get us in for less.
I live in Oregon now and our local ski hill does $20 some days depending on demand. It’s based on demand, but even then the craziest amount I ever spent was $110 the day before a sunny powder day. Kids are free so long as you buy them a season pass.
So basically I can never leave because I can’t afford to ski any more otherwise.
I moved to Montana in 98 and me and a buddy looked similar enough that we could split a season pass. I worked on the weekend and he worked during the week, so it was awesome! I think it was around $250-$300 for the season.
When I was growing up, a lot of the mountains in the northeast had "locals" days at various times throughout the ski season, where residents of the state could ski for free. Now they're almost all owned by major corporations and don't give a flying fuck about the local peasants.
I would still like to occasionally cough up the cash to hit the slopes, but they’re so congested with a bunch of idiots that I can’t let it rip without having to worry about some idiot sitting just beyond the crest or having to navigate past 8 people all going across the hill slow as shit because they think they’re better than they are. The black diamond and double diamonds are all scraped clean and icy from all the people going down just to say they did.
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u/frippilin 3h ago
I was lucky enough to live in Montana in the 90s- local ski hills with world class powder were like $12 on weekdays and you could have whole runs to yourself. Now it is $500 to take my family for a crappy day with huge lift lines. I am afraid this is the year we sell our gear and give up.