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Mountain News: Vail Resorts takes on competition with Epic $579 pass

VAIL, Colo. – Ten years ago Winter Park Resort introduced mayhem in the ski industry with its decision to heavily discount its season ski pass.

VAIL, Colo. – Ten years ago Winter Park Resort introduced mayhem in the ski industry with its decision to heavily discount its season ski pass. This step caused operators of other ski areas catering to the huge number of skiers from the Colorado’s Front Range urban corridor to similarly discount their prices.

Now, Vail Resorts has upped the ante. It has drastically reduced the price of admission at Vail and Beaver Creek, its top resorts, with a new pass called the Epic Season Pass. The cost of $579 for the season provides unrestricted access to Vail and Beaver Creek, but also Breckenridge, and Keystone, plus California’s Heavenly Mountain.

Before, the company had offered a season pass to Breckenridge and Keystone, with 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek.

Seen as a business proposition in the highly competitive ski industry, the new season pass is expected to have two big waves. The first wave is to make life difficult for other ski areas which compete for Front Range skiers, and particularly Copper Mountain and Winter Park, which are both operated by Intrawest, but also several smaller ski areas, including Loveland and Eldora.

Vail Resorts officials discounted the effect to the Front Range market. John Garnsey, chief executive vice president of the Vail Resorts Mountain Division, said the company expected to sell an additional 12,000 passes for next winter in Colorado. Denverites won’t want to shell out another $150 for unrestricted skiing at Vail and Beaver Creek, instead of just 10, Garnsey told the Vail Daily.

Even so, Vail town officials are greatly concerned about increased traffic from Denver on I-70. The town already has a severe parking problem, although much of that problem is because of the growing number of so-called “locals,” and not skiers from Denver and other Front Range cities.

Andy Daly, a former executive of Vail Resorts and now a town councilman in Vail, said 12,000 additional passholders would mean a 10 per cent increase in cars. “I think the parking situation is one that we can’t leave to, ‘Well, let’s see how it works, and if we can sell more passes, then we can address it.’”

But the new ski pass will ripple broadly across the ski industry, especially at resorts catering to destination guests who stay for one or more nights.

The new pass is clearly intended to give Vail Resorts a competitive advantage against Intrawest, Aspen Skiing Co. — “and everybody else,” adds Jerry Jones, a four-decade veteran of the ski resort sector with experience in the Aspen, Summit County and Vail markets.

The essential strategy, he believes, is to get people to commit to one of the Vail Resorts ski areas early. In some cases, the customer may use the pass 60 times. But, as is the case of the existing discounted passes, many customers buy season passes and then barely use them.

Either way, this provides increased income for the ski area operator —including use of the money for the months between when it is purchased and when the skiing product is offered.

But the core of the strategy is to get more people, and then figure out other ways to make money from them.

“You have to have the people to make the money, and Vail has more ways to make the money than almost anyone else: rooms, food and beverage, ski school, and rental and retail stores all over the place,” Jones says.

“If they (the customers) are at Copper, Vail Resorts doesn’t make any money. But if they’re here, you are making probably $150 to $200 a day off them.”

Jones called the pricing strategy “gutsy.” The only downside, he said, is that once you’ve rolled back the prices, it’s hard to raise them.

He downplayed the extent to which the reduced season passes will hurt Aspen. “How many people from New York and LA who fly private jets care about having an unrestricted $500 pass?” he asked. “I think it has very little effect on Aspen — probably very little effect on Steamboat and those areas that are out there by themselves and are total destination ski areas.”

However, said Jones, the new season pass may allow Heavenly to swipe some business from Squaw Valley in the Tahoe area.  

 

CB subsidizing more flights

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Crested Butte is restructuring its direct flight program in an effort to better appeal to destination skiers.

The ski area operator and its partners from local governments, who levy a sales tax to subsidize transportation, had taken a heavy hit in revenue guarantees two years ago when airlines too frequently carried fewer passengers than is necessary to meet costs. The subsidized flights were primarily to Texas markets and also Denver.

This year, Crested Butte took a breather, offering fewer flights, but hopes to return next winter with a substantially revised program to a variety of new cities, including to Delta Airlines headquarters in Salt Lake City, and also Chicago, Atlanta, and other major markets.

Nearly $2 million will be offered to airlines, to ensure they don’t lose money on the new flights. To make this possible, the ski area operator, Crested Butte Mountain resort, will pick up a large portion of the tab, $1.2 million, should the planes not fill to at least 75 per cent of capacity.

“The whole point is to have direct flights from more markets,” said Ken Stone, the president of Crested Butte Mountain resort, the ski area operator. He explained to the Crested Butte News that the ski area is hoping to get a greater percentage of destination visitors. “We’re out of balance in our customer mix. It’s susceptible to having ups and downs, and having an uneven business level throughout the season.”

Some might wonder if airline seats shouldn’t be offered in response to demand. Stone tells the newspaper that it works the other way around: you need airline seats from new markets to create demand.

At the same time, Crested Butte may cut short its winter flights. While the flights now continue into April, those flights lose enormous amounts of money, said Kent Myers, of Airplanners, a consulting firm. “We lose so much more in April it’s silly,” he said.

Crested Butte also expects to cut back its shuttles from Denver.

 

Vail airport up and coming

GYPSUM, Colo. – So much depends upon what you call it. “It,” in this case, is the airport located in the town of Gypsum, 37 miles west of Vail.

“It” was formally proclaimed the Eagle County Regional Airport in the late 1980s, when it was expanded sufficiently to accommodate major jets, which now routinely deliver passengers for Vail, Beaver Creek and, to a lesser extent, Aspen and Snowmass — but also to the oil and gas industry that is now feverishly at work to the west.

“It” is also called the Vail-Eagle airport by some, or sometimes even Vail’s airport.

But consultants who have been paid $90,000 to create a “brand” suggest something altogether new: Colorado International Airport.

The chief executive of the firm, Jim Adler, said both Vail and Eagle are too limiting. The name Eagle doesn’t mean much beyond Colorado. Much more broadly known is the name Vail, but it is limiting in that the airport serves many other resorts.

Genesis came up with Colorado International Airport because of how “Colorado” among many people evokes images of mountain beauty and outdoor lifestyles. As well, there is the potential for the airport to cater to international flights, with customs officials located at the airport.

The recommendation is not a slam-dunk. Vail, the town, demands that the airport be named Vail. Importantly, so do some of the county commissioners. “The Vail name has huge power and cachet,” said Peter Runyon, a commissioner.

Still at issue is whether the airport deserves to be called international. Less publicly visible, Vail Resorts is working to expand its lucrative business among international travelers who are finding the United States much more affordable than it used to be. Vail does not officially control the airport, but unofficially does so, as it arranges for most of the commercial flights.

The controversy about whether an airport in Gypsum could be called Vail, some local wag suggested a composite: Vail International and Gypsum Regional Airport. If you figure out the acronym of that, you will understand the proposed motto: It’s an up and coming facility.

 

Balancing big boxes

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Steamboat Springs continues its efforts to reconcile somewhat contrary realities. On one hand, it’s growing in population — and rapidly. That is creating a market for the sorts of goods commonly sold across North America at lower prices by big-box retailers like The Home Depot and Target. But a good many people would rather not live in a place that is too much like the rest of America.

The background issue is that plenty of people from Steamboat are driving long distances anyway to buy at the big-box stories — to Silverthorne, 81 miles away, or Avon, 89 miles away. There, local governments are skimming off sales taxes to be used for transportation, bike paths, and other community amenities.

To sort out its future, Steamboat city leaders have retained Economic and Planning Systems, a Denver-based firm. A survey distributed by the firm found Steamboat is mixed about whether big-box chain stores should be allowed within the city.

But some officials, such as City Councilwoman Cari Hermancinski, say that a large-format retail store somewhere in the Yampa Valley is inevitable. “If there’s to be a big box in the west of Steamboat,” she said, describing an area likely to be annexed, “there’s going to be one down-valley, and we’re all going to be driving to it anyway.”

The city, notes the Steamboat Pilot & Today, already has an ordinance that holds any commercial development larger than 12,000 square feet to higher design standards.

Loui Antonucci, the council president, said the growth in retail development can be allowed to happen haphazardly, “or you can try to engineer what you want and try to attract some of those businesses.” A healthy mix of retailers, he added, would stop some of the leakage of money now being spent in other towns.

Also looking into the future, Noreen Moore stressed again the evolving nature of Steamboat’s economy. She noted that 10 per cent of local job-holders are location neutral, meaning that their incomes are not tied to local tourism or agriculture. Instead, they are tied into broader regional, national or international economies.

“Before, if you wanted to do economic development, you asked, ‘How do we get tourists in here?’” said Moore, the business resource director at the Routt County Economic Development Cooperative.   “Now you might add to that, ‘How do we take care of families here and children and safety — and make it possible for people to be able to talk to each other.’”

The city, said Alan Lanning, the manager, is starting a conversation that is expected to yield a three- to five-year economic plan.   

 

Snowfall records drop

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – If not a record season for snowfall at ski areas in the West, it’s been a very, very good winter.

At Steamboat Ski Area, it is a record — at least compared to recent years. More than 450 inches of snow have fallen, surpassing a record set in the winter of 1996-97. However, it’s unclear whether this is the snowiest winter ever, even in ski area history. There, as in many other places, snowfall totals are recorded for different periods of time and, in some places, at different locations.

By one measuring stick at the Jackson Hole Mountain Record, more than 500 inches of snow has been recorded through mid-March — the most ever through that date. By other measuring sticks, reports the Jackson Hole News & Guide, it was shaping up as either the second or third snowiest winter for the resort, which has operated since 1961.

Elsewhere in Colorado, Aspen has about 400 inches of snowfall for the season. That’s not a record, but within striking distance of a season record, should spring become particularly snowy.

At Wolf Creek, traditionally one of Colorado’s snowiest ski areas, it’s a good year, but not yet a record. As of Monday, 492 inches of snow had fallen since last September. Wolf Creek has a long ways to go to match the 592 inches that fell during the winter of 1978-79. However, the ski area will remain open through April, and could reopen in May.

But at Telluride, the prodigious snowfalls of mid-winter have slackened to virtually nothing in March. “Just a dusting, I think,” said Marta Tarbell, editor of The Telluride Watch.

Winter started off similarly with a whimper. In Steamboat Springs, the temperature hit 65 degrees on Nov. 20, too hot even to allow snowmaking. Soon after, explains the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the pelting began: 26 of 31 days in December with some measurable snowfall, and the third most snowfall on record, followed by more steady snowfall through January and February.

There was some of the “lightest, deepest powder I’ve ever skied in 68 years of skiing,” fourth-generation Steamboat resident Ray Heid told the Pilot & Today.

 

Art museum possible

VAIL, Colo. – Vail and its neighbour, Beaver Creek, have two very good performing arts venues, one outdoors and the other indoors. But the valley lacks an art museum — something that a hotel developer has hinted he can solve, perhaps in a partnership with the well-regarded Denver Art Museum.

Mark Masinter, a partner with Ross Perot Jr. in the Dallas-based Open Hospitality Group/Hillwood Capital, wants to redevelop the town’s 1,150-space LionsHead Parking Structure. The plan calls for two hotels, under the W and St. Regis brands, plus condominiums, a conference centre, stores and — not least — even more parking spaces. Not surprisingly, the price tag is not cheap: $600 million, according to current estimates.

Masinter told the Vail council of conversations with the Denver museum about a smaller museum in conjunction with the development.   Museum officials down-played the “conversation.”

But Kent Logan, who knows something about art, thinks there’s logic to the idea. Most of the Denver museum’s art is in storage at any given time, noted Logan, a retired investment banker who lives in Vail. Two years ago, he and his wife, Vicki, committed to give $60 million to the Denver Art Museum. They maintain a highly regarded private museum at their home and are also involved in Aspen’s museum.

 

Revelstoke keeping lights on

REVELSTOKE, B.C. – Last year an effort was launched in the Australian city of Sydney to draw attention to climate change. On one evening, at 8 p.m., several million people turned off all lights not needed for safety.

This year, the campaign, called Earth Hour, has spread across the globe, with Phoenix and Chicago participating in the United States, and elsewhere in the world Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Warsaw, Poland.

The hour of hushed lights this year is scheduled for 8 .m. on Saturday, March 19. A great many Canadian cities and towns are participating, including Whistler, Jasper and Vancouver. But Revelstoke’s city officials, says the Revelstoke Times Review, have decided against making any response. No reason was cited.

 

Recycling lags in West

ASPEN, Colo. – Aspen city officials are calculating how they can nudge the recycling rate upward. About 16 per cent of solid waste is diverted into recycling, which is far higher than the rate in Colorado, but well below the national rate of 30 per cent.

Why is the land of Denver and John Denver so so-so? The Aspen Daily News explains that it is, relatively speaking, a place of wide-open spaces, which means that it costs less to dump trash. Even in the Roaring Fork Valley, one of Colorado’s priciest neighbourhoods, the cost is $50 a ton at the landfill. It can be three times as high along the East Coast.

In the neighbouring Eagle Valley, nobody keeps track of the recycling rate from Vail and outlying towns, although one knowledgeable figure estimates 10 per cent.

In Wyoming, however, the story is much, much higher. Teton County — which his nearly synonymous with Jackson Hole — last year diverted 32 per cent of trash, concrete and construction debris from the landfill.   That’s twice as good as Aspen, probably three times as much as Vail.

Why so much better in Jackson Hole? The landfill tipping fee is only $50, but it is located 90 miles south of Jackson, near Pinedale. That adds on transportation costs, although it may speak to a greater environmental ethic in Jackson Hole,

In Colorado’s Grand County, meanwhile, officials are unsure of what to do next. Although it’s closer to Denver, ironically it’s also more geographically isolated. As such, the cost of getting bottles, cans, and newspapers to market caused the recycling operation to shut down operations in the Fraser-Winter Park area. The Sky-Hi Daily News reports it would take a $306,000 subsidy to continue recycling in four towns.

However, operating the landfill also involves a huge subsidy. Last year, the county swallowed a $5.5 million debt.

 

Moly mine foes gain a big bat

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Opponents of a molybdenum mine being planned on the outskirts of Crested Butte now have a heavy-hitting bat in hand.

The Red Lady Coalition, an opposition group, has retained DLA Piper. It is the world’s largest legal firm, more importantly, one with a high profile in Washington D.C.

The firm is providing its services for free. Chairman of the firm is George Mitchell, former majority leader in the U.S. Senate. Among the figures employed in the firm’s Regulatory and Legislative Affairs Group are both Dick Gephardt and Dick Armey, both former majority leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives. Gephardt was a Democrat from Missouri and Armey a Republican from Texas.

“We will explore all appropriate avenues — both legal and political to make sure that the Red Lady retains its character as one of the country’s treasured natural landmarks,” said Lisa Dewey, a partner in DLA Piper.

The Red Lady is the nickname for Mt. Emmons, the mountain located immediately to the west of Crested Butte. It is within that mountain that the molybdenum deposit owned by U.S. Energy is located.

Opponents told the Crested Butte News that DLA Piper’s “vast public policy experience and extensive capacity in environmental litigation will help ensure that the case of the opponents is presented credibly and effectively before Congress, but also the Forest Service and other federal agencies, as well as state and local governments.”

Crested Butte town authorities are also gearing up for a formal proposal. The town in 1978 adopted regulations that address impacts to the municipal water supply. The mine would be in the watershed that supplies the town’s water.

 

Superfund designation a stigma

MONTEZUMA, Colo. – The heyday of the Pennsylvania Mine is now more than a century old, but it’s still causing problems in Summit County. At this point, reports the Summit Daily News, some people are thinking that a Superfund designation may be necessary.

The mine is located along Peru Creek, near the town of Montezuma, and several miles upstream from the Keystone ski area and resort. Mining of silver, gold and other minerals began in the 1870s but petered out in the 20 th century.

The problem is that the mining exposed rocks that allow water to run over them, picking up heavy metals such as zinc. Such acid-mine drainage is a problem in many areas of hard-rock mining of the West.

If this was a problem before, it became much more so last summer after an intense rainstorm apparently changed the way water flows through the mine. Since then, zinc concentrations downstream have doubled. Downstream at Keystone, the surge of tainted water killed hundreds of trout that had been stocked in the Snake River.

A listing under the nation’s Superfund legislation could attract federal money, but water specialist Lane Wyatt tells the newspaper’s Bob Berwyn that there are also downsides.

One downside to Superfund designation is that it attaches a stigma. French Creek, which flows through Breckenridge, was literally turned upside down by dredges in an effort to recover gold dust. However, Breckenridge did not want the notoriety of being the site of a Superfund cleanup. As such, the cleanup is occurring far more slowly.

 

Hut would offer extreme terrain

TAYLOR PASS, Colo. – A backcountry ski hut designed to serve expert backcountry skiers is being proposed near Taylor Pass, in the area between Aspen and Crested Butte. The hut would be included in the Alfred Braun Hut System.

The hut would link the other Alfred Braun huts above Aspen and the Friends Hut, which is located closer to Crested Butte. But, reports the Crested Butte News, the hut is envisioned as a staging point for exceptional high country skiing. “It will serve an awful lot of wild snow,” says Hawk Greenway, manger of the Braun huts.

Existing huts in the Braun system similarly accommodate eight to 10 people, with privies out back and, similar to the newer huts of the 10 th Mountain Division, are equipped with photovoltaic panels to provide minimal lighting.

The Crested Butte News reports mixed feelings about a new hut. While the increased numbers of people in the backcountry worry those who think it should remain a place of solitude, they also see backcountry visits as healthy for people.

Meanwhile, another backcountry hut is being proposed between Leadville and Vail that would serve the other end of the market, people with minimal skills and strength that want to enjoy the backcountry skiing experience. The hut would be close to Vance’s Cabin, near Tennessee Pass. However, planning commissioners in Eagle County tabled the proposal, saying that the 10 th Mountain Division had showed “want” but had not proven “need” for the hut.