The real reason skiing sucks now is because two companies—Vail & Alterra—control the entire sport. They’ve jacked up day passes at Park City by 263% since 2011. Now you get packed trails, pricey meals, and an empty wallet… and execs get rich.
Skiing & Snowboarding used to be about freedom. Crisp mountain air, fresh powder, and the sound of your skis or snowboard cutting through the fresh snow—it was a sport rooted in simplicity, community, and a shared love of the mountains and sliding over frozen water. But over the past decade, ski resorts have been hijacked by corporate greed, and no company has had a bigger hand in this than Vail Resorts. What was once an independent, authentic culture of locals and ski bums has turned into a corporatized Disneyland on snow, where the price of entry is obscene, the experience is hollow, and the soul of skiing is being crushed under the weight of shareholder profits.
The Rise of Vail & Alterra: A Monopoly in the Mountains
If you’ve been skiing for more than a few years, you’ve felt the shift. Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company have swallowed up dozens of independent ski areas, creating a duopoly that effectively controls the industry. Vail alone owns 41 resorts worldwide, including iconic spots like Park City, Vail Mountain, Breckenridge, and Whistler Blackcomb. Alterra controls another 17 major destinations through its Ikon Pass, including Aspen, Mammoth, and Jackson Hole.
The strategy is simple: buy up resorts, lock skiers into season pass products (like the Epic and Ikon passes), and then bleed them dry once they’re inside the gates. Since Vail took over Park City in 2014, the cost of a single-day lift ticket has skyrocketed from around $96 to over $269 in 2024—a staggering 263% increase in just a decade. This isn’t just inflation; it’s corporate greed, plain and simple.
The result? Skiing has gone from a lifestyle sport accessible to passionate locals and working-class families to an exclusive playground for the ultra-wealthy. If you’re not dropping four figures on lift tickets, you’re stuck in the purgatory of long lift lines and overcrowded runs. And if you can’t afford a pass? Tough luck.
Crowded Slopes, Empty Wallets
Part of the pitch for products like the Epic Pass and Ikon Pass was that they would make skiing more affordable. For a few hundred bucks a year, you could theoretically ski multiple resorts across the country. But the catch is that now everyone is doing it.
The result? Absolute chaos. On any given Saturday at a Vail-owned resort, you’ll face:
✅ Hour-long lift lines
✅ Trails jammed with beginners and overconfident skiers alike
✅ Limited powder because it’s all tracked out by 10 a.m.
✅ A dangerous mix of packed crowds and inexperienced skiers
Instead of improving infrastructure to handle these crowds, Vail has opted to cut corners. Staffing is minimal, maintenance is lagging, and customer service is non-existent. Resorts are often understaffed, lift maintenance is neglected, and the on-mountain experience is clearly an afterthought.
Food and drinks? Forget about it. Expect to drop $25 for a burger and $15 for a beer. You’d think for the price of admission, you’d get a decent meal—nope. You’re basically getting stadium food at Michelin-star prices.
Destroying Local Culture
Beyond the financial squeeze, Vail’s corporate expansion has gutted the heart of mountain town culture. Ski towns used to be tight-knit communities of die-hard skiers and snowboarders—locals who worked service jobs during the day so they could hit the slopes in the early morning. Now, those same locals can’t afford to live near the resorts.
Vail has pushed housing costs to astronomical levels, driven by the influx of vacation homeowners and Airbnb investors who capitalize on the seasonal flow of tourists. In places like Vail, Park City, and Breckenridge, affordable housing is nonexistent, forcing resort workers to commute from an hour or more away—if they can even find a job that pays enough to survive.
Meanwhile, small, independent businesses—local ski shops, gear rental spots, and independent bars—are getting squeezed out by corporate-owned retail and overpriced chain restaurants. The old-school ski bum lifestyle? Gone. Now it’s hedge fund bros in Arc’teryx jackets and finance execs on powder boards.
The “Maximizing Shareholder Value” Model
Vail’s corporate strategy is to maximize shareholder value at all costs. CEO salaries and stockholder dividends are prioritized over the actual skiing experience. Rob Katz, the former CEO of Vail Resorts, cashed out $118 million in stock options in 2019. Meanwhile, Vail raised season pass prices and cut employee benefits.
Every time Vail acquires a new resort, the same cycle plays out:
- Slash operating costs and staff levels.
- Hike up pass prices.
- Offer less to the customer while increasing profits.
Vail has mastered the art of building a product that encourages loyalty without ever improving the experience. It’s the ski industry’s version of Big Tech—get users hooked, reduce quality, and let them keep paying because they have no other options.
Can Skiing Be Saved?
The mountain community is at a crossroads. Independent resorts are becoming an endangered species as Vail and Alterra continue to buy up any mountain not already under corporate control. But there’s still hope.
Some smaller resorts are holding out, maintaining the spirit of old-school skiing. Places like Bridger Bowl, Whitefish, and Mad River Glen are still locally owned and operated, refusing to sell out to the Vail machine. These mountains are now havens for skiers & shred heads alike looking for authenticity—a place where lift tickets are reasonable, lift lines are manageable, and you can still strike up a conversation with a liftie who isn’t just there for a seasonal gig.
Skiers themselves are also starting to push back. Grassroots efforts to organize against Vail’s monopolistic behavior are gaining traction, and more skiers are opting to boycott Vail-owned resorts in favor of independent mountains. Ski co-ops and locally owned passes, like the Indy Pass, are giving skiers a way to resist the corporate takeover.
The future of ski resorts will depend on whether skiers & snowboarders are willing to reclaim the sport from corporate control. Vail and Alterra have turned skiing into a luxury product—but the mountains, the snow, and the passion of the ski community are still there. If skiers can rally around independent resorts and support local ownership, there’s a chance to restore the soul of the sport before it’s too late.
Skiing & Snowboarding used to be about freedom. Let’s take it back.