Ski-Blog.com

October 23, 2007

Eagle Valley Blog Reports on Big Storm

Caroline at Eagle Valley reports on the latest Storm to come through:

With new snow being frequent and deep, there’s no way that the early season this year will disappoint. A storm over the 19th and 20th dumped 12″ at Aspen and 20″ at Beaver Creek. Though the weather is set to warm up in the valley this week, it will undoubtedly stay cold in the high elevations, and with such a thick base already, will make a complete melt unimaginable.

“Winter is officially here after a weekend storm dropped 20+ inches at the top of Beaver Creek Mountain. With Opening Day, November 21, less than one month away, now is the time to get out your skis or board and get ready for the 2007/08 season.”

Check out the blog. I am adding the blog to my sidebar. I would post to Caroline's myspace blog, but it certainly isn't skiing related, but is hysterical. She dropped me a not about 6 months ago when she was doing design work and I was able to help her set up the servers, databases, and software for the site.

Anyway, check out the link and the site.

Posted by Justin at 01:15 PM | Comments (1)

August 26, 2007

Aspen Raises Ticket Prices to $87

The following article posts some info on new price increases at Aspen:

Aspen Skiing Co. created headlines last week by announcing it would charge $87 for a one-day lift ticket this upcoming season, surpassing the previous high of $85 charged by Vail last season.

As a newspaper guy, I enjoyed contrasting how the news was played nationally versus how it was played in the hometown paper:

Seattle Times? "Nation's priciest ski ticket (so far): $87 a day at Aspen"

Aspen Times? "Skico unveils modest pass price hikes"

Can Vail top $87 a day? Don't rule it out (especially if it's going to be buying The Canyons in Utah, more on that later). We seem a lock for the $100 lift ticket within the next three to five years, and I'll predict right now that it'll generate considerable mainstream media coverage when it happens.

The thing is, though, in many ways skiing is cheaper today than it was 10 years ago. For less than five of those $87 lift tickets you can buy a season pass that'll give you ten days of skiing at Vail or Beaver Creek and unlimited access to Breckenridge, Keystone and A-Basin. Now, of course you have to physically be in Colorado to buy that pass, but Vail Resorts also sells a "Perfect 10" ticket on the Internet that last season cost around $400 for 10 days of skiing at Vail Resorts properties. Again, pretty darn cheap.

Last week we also talked about the Tahoe Six Pack (six great days of skiing for $249) and Monarch Mountain's $299 pass that also gives you free or heavily discounted access at 10 other ski areas.

Now, to be fair, there aren't a lot of deals for Aspen.

I guess short of getting some comps for Aspen, I won't be skiing there any time soon. But then again, upper middle class fathers of three are probably not their demographic either since at $87 a ticket, most of us cannot afford to ski there. Gonna have to hit the lottery pretty quick.

Posted by Justin at 06:44 PM | Comments (1)

Interesting Take on Aspen's Lack of Rental Properties

A recent letter to the editor in the Aspen Daily News makes a good point about the spiral of escalating real estate prices at Aspen:

This resort town desperately needs more hot beds to revitalize and support the shops in the commercial core. Your stores and your community are suffering due to the increase in real-estate prices that are causing landlords to ask for higher rent and many residential properties are being removed from the rental pool. If you don't provide more hot beds that will bring new and more visitors to this town, then you will create a situation where this town and its citizens may not be able to support themselves. As real estate prices continue to rise and the existing residential real estate gets sold at higher prices, the rental income cannot and will not support the investment made by the purchasers. As these units change hands, they are being gutted, rebuilt and for the most part they are being taken off the rental pool. The new owners can afford to carry their investment without the income.

Property values continue to rise because of a lack of new building. So wealthier and wealthier folks are all that are able to buy at Aspen and they immediately gut places doing remodels. They don't want to or need to rent their units, so these former rental units are off the market. The rising real estate prices also cause a rise in commercial rents for businesses.

But if units, instead of having renters packing them throughout the year, are now in the hands of folks that no longer rent them out and who also only spend a couple of weeks a year at the resort, there are gradually fewer and fewer people in town at any given time. This decreases revenue for locals that own businesses who are already stung by rising rents for their businesses. Effectively this guts the commercial core because folks can no longer afford to live at Aspen and their businesses no longer make money. This is a scary trend as the baby boomer population continues to age and retire.

I look at my unit at Brian Head and that is exactly what I did. I bought a former rental unit that was a POS and completely gutted and remodeled it. You think I would rent the place out? Not a chance. And as prices rise, your average owner becomes more and more affluent becuase the sport becomes more and more expensive. If you got the money, why have a trash heap of a condo and why rent the place out to make $2000-3000 a year off of rental income and have somebody destroy your place? And if I am not up there and my place does not have someone in it, it means there are less people buying stuff at the resort. Brian Head is mostly a "daytrippers" resort, but Aspen is not. Daytrippers have other choices that are less expensive and closer.

Posted by Justin at 12:04 PM

January 24, 2007

Skiing for a Family of Four

I want to expand further on the rising cost of skiing and pricing families out of the market. I want to post the real economics of skiing for a family that isn't addicted like I am and doesn't have season passes, their own equipment, and a condo at a resort. I am going to talk specifically about Brian Head, which represents a good "budget friendly family resort", but these costs are fairly representative.

	Cost per Day	Cost for 3 Day Weekend
Lift Tickets	$50 per person = $200	$600
Rentals	$25 per person = $100	$300
Condo Rental	$200	$600
Food (and remember how expensive resorts are)	$100	$300
Gas to and from the resort (rough guess)	each way = $50	$100
	---------	---------
Total		$1900

Now, remember that you can stay at a hotel in town and eat at Taco Bell, so maybe we can cut a few hundred dollars out of the budget for food and lodging. For that matter, you could drive a Prius hybrid and get 45 miles per gallon (however snow really sucks for passenger cars). We start cutting those costs and you are still over $1000 for a three day weekend of skiing for a family of four. You can make the argument that this is on par with Disneyland or the other major attractions. Maybe this seems reasonable. But this is FOR ONE WEEKEND of skiing. I can't imagine going to Disneyland three or four times per year, but I can certainly imagine going skiing more than one weekend per year. Most of that cost is in lift tickets and rentals. If you want to ski Aspen, you better double that number or possibly more. And again, this demonstrates the value of the Colorado Pass, discounts, owning gear, going to small resorts, and cutting costs.

In our case, we own our equipment. A good set of adult skis bought on E-bay runs $250 plus another $150 for bindings and mounting. Boots run $150 for a low end cheap pair, but probably more like $250 for adults and $100-150 for kids. So for each adult, we are talking at least $600-700 for skis, boots, and bindings and these are E-bay prices for new equipment. Kids gear is cheaper so that number is more like $300-400 per kid for their skis, boots, and bindings. So for a family of four, let's say $2000. Then you have coats and ski pants. Plus gloves, face masks, walkie talkies, helmets, hats, long johns. Figure it is at least $300 per person for these items when they are bought on sale in April when things go on clearance. That is another $1200.

Rough estimate is $3500 for gear, plus another $300 or so per year because kids outgrow stuff or you lose stuff. Then you have season passes which in my case run $200 per kid plus $300 per adult. Figure that is roughly $1000 per year. On top of that, you still have to eat and have a place to stay. We have our own condo, so we cook most times (which helps tons).

Prices are going to keep rising unless there is some competition, and honestly I don't know if competition will even help. Skiing already competes with other sports and other entertainment for our budget dollar. If average Americans can't afford the sport without major sacrifices, how do we keep the sport from getting out of reach?

Posted by Justin at 01:30 PM | Comments (1)

December 25, 2006

Interesting Info on Aspen's Green Program

I wrote briefly about Vail and Aspen using Wind Credits to offset their power usage in September. I got an e-mail from Neal Dikeman from Cleantech Blog about an entry he had posted after visiting Aspen:

Then while taking a brief time out from skiing (I am not actually very good) I went in to drink coffee in the sunny lodge of the Sundeck Restaurant on Aspen Mountain. The first thing you notice walking through the front door (besides the massage chair, which I really needed after a day of skiing) is the plaque which bills the Sundeck as one of the first 10 LEEDs buildings in America. Details of the Sundeck Restaurant project here. The total cost was $9.8 mm, or an eye-popping $425/square foot (I assume driven partly by LEEDs requirements, and partly by the top of a ski resort location!). But the part I liked the most was the re-use of 86% of the materials from the previous Sundeck building. Because at the end of the day, despite all the advances in cleantech - the real answer to our energy issues is still the same - Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.

Aspen also fuels its snowcats with biodiesel, from Blue Sun Biodiesel. The best part is they actually publish on their website an interesting description of the impact of the biodiesel use: "In the winter of 2002, ASC experimented with an 80% diesel/20% biodiesel blend. Mechanics noticed that the fuel, which makes snowcat exhaust smell like french fries, radically reduced black tailpipe smoke and that the snowcats ran smoother, a result of biodiesel’s higher lubricity, a quality that also extends the life of mechanical components. Based on our testing, ASC has now switched its entire fleet of snowcats to biodiesel. The cost is about 20 cents more per gallon, a small cost to pay for benefits that include hydrocarbon emissions reductions of 20% and CO and particulate reductions of 10%. The one drawback is that biodiesel typically increases NOx emissions by 2%."

I really dig the move to biodiesel, but have a major problem as I wrote about in the previous article with Aspen paying their ticket clerks $9.25 an hour, yet being willing to pay that extra $.20 a gallon for biodiesel. Do the math on $9.25 an hour times 40 hours per week ($370 less taxes) times 4 weeks in a month ($1480 a month). And also keep in mind that most of these jobs are only part-time. It is a mixed bag for me. I am always one to say that before you worry about global issues, have your own house in order. That means pay your workers enough and have affordable housing for them before you save the world. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't minimize your impact on our natural resources. It just means that I am not going to get all ga ga about being environmentally conscious until wages and housing are also addressed. But putting that aside for a moment, it is awesome that Aspen is reusing their old materials and using biodiesel and wind credits.

It is tough for me to be an "environmentalist" or think like the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club opposes snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks at Snowbowl because it uses reclaimed water in Flagstaff, yet they also opposed Aspen using water from Snowmass Creek to make snow at Aspen. The environmental movement doesn't want skiing to exist (see AZ Snowbowl) or wants to stop things like snowmaking that allow the industry to exist. They have opposed expansion projects at Snowbasin and most other projects including the new Village at Wolf Creek that Colorado Wild and the Sierra Club oppose. In addition, the Sierra Club opposes nuclear power as an alternative to coal based power, saying, "Switching from dirty coal plants to dangerous nuclear power is like giving up smoking cigarettes and taking up crack." But that does not make them wrong about things like reuse and recycling. It does not make biodiesel less of a great idea. It does not make wind power a bad idea either. And Aspen doing these things is good for all of us.

I hope that the ski industry is able to adopt policies that allow for moderate expansion, upgrades, improvements, and growth so that we can get more people to enjoy the sport I love and enjoy the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. The biggest problem in skiing that I see is that due to the scarcity of resources and the high cost, the sport is unattainable for anyone but the upper middle class and above. Simple supply and demand dictates that if there are more lifts and more areas and more space, prices would be lower resulting in more skier visits. But this goes contrary to the exclusionist image that the industry wants. They want the sport to be more expensive and fewer people to be able to do it. I don't have all the answers, but I know this, the people working at resorts make next to nothing and your average middle class American cannot afford to ski because of the high prices, part of which results from lawsuits like the one at Arizona Snowbowl funded in part by the Sierra Club. Going green is great, but not at the cost of worker wages and housing and not at the cost of making the sport even more exclusionary with higher and higher prices.

Posted by Justin at 09:20 PM | Comments (2)

September 03, 2006

But Foreign Labor is Only Used to Keep Aspen Affordable, Not to Increase Profits

Aspen keeps their costs low so that they can pass along the savings to low income folks through low lift ticket prices:

The super-early price reflects the discount available to employees of Aspen Chamber Resort Association-member businesses. Without the ACRA discount, the "early-bird" price is $1,649.

The cost of the Premier Pass - the one that's good for unlimited skiing on all four local mountains - is going up $50 from last year's super-early, ACRA-member deal. And last season's price for the Premier Pass was up $50 from the prior season. The cost of the pass has gone up in each of the past four seasons.

The price of the two-day and one-day passes are increasing, too, as is the cost of a Classic Pass.

The single-day, walk-up lift ticket rate will peak at $82 this season, up from $78 last winter. The daily rate generally gets a great deal of attention, in comparisons among various ski resorts, but Aspen Skiing Co. executives have long said that comparatively few people actually buy single-day tickets, opting instead for multiday deals that bring the price down.

The Skico unveiled this season's lift ticket and pass prices on Tuesday.

Pass prices generally go up annually, but the Skico pays particular attention to the price of the Premier Pass with the early-bird and ACRA discounts. That's the one most locals purchase, according to David Perry, company senior vice president.

"We give it the most scrutiny, I think, and try to keep it reasonable for locals," he said.

So if you work at Aspen making $10 an hour (the prevailing wage) for 40 hours per week during the five month season, you would earn approximately ($400 per week x 20 weeks) $8,000. If you don't work at the resort and are just another local, you can simply shell out $1600 for a season ski pass, which works out to 20% of your income for the 5 month ski season. Basically, you either work at the resort, mooch someone elses pass, or better have some serious savings or rich relatives if you want to be a ski bum.

Posted by Justin at 08:42 PM

More on Wages for Employees at Aspen Skiing Company

Again, it is evil and wrong to shop at Walmart, but totally OK to vacation at Aspen. It seems that Aspen cannot hire enough college kids from the US, so this last year they relied on over 350 Foreign Workers, here on temporary work visas.

Like ski bums of bygone days, they are often college students who come into town for a little work, and maybe a little partying, for a season. But these workers are often from the Southern Hemisphere - Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa - whose summer breaks coincide with Colorado's ski season.

For summer resorts, it's more likely workers from the Czech Republic or Romania serving up coffee or cleaning sheets. The Aspen Daily News reports on this foreign army of workers in its Mountain Business Journal. "If you got rid of the foreign workforce in Aspen, there wouldn't be anybody working there," said Norman, Okla., immigration attorney Jon Velie, who helps a number of clients obtain visas to work in Aspen. "There's a handful of Americans, just not enough to fulfill the need."

Aspen Skiing Co. hired nearly 350 foreign workers last season - that's about one of every 10 SkiCo employees - who came in on H-2B short-term worker visas and J-1 foreign exchange visas. "We've tried to (fill those jobs domestically)," said Jim Laing, SkiCo's vice president for human resources. "We've not been able to. And we've been able to substantiate that with the U.S. government. ... We have to substantiate the need. We actually run ads domestically, with all the applications being sent to the Department of Labor to show that we don't have enough applicants to supply the demand that's out there."

Other ski areas across the state hire hundreds more. Each year, the federal government hands out 66,000 H-2B visas, divided equally between winter and summer seasonal employment. Employers gobbled up those visas so quickly, last year the government exempted thousands more workers who had held the visa for more than three years.

Aspen Skiing Company has lots of pet "PC" projects that do not include living wages for their employees.

ASPEN (AP) - The Aspen Skiing Co. is supporting a lawsuit seeking to require the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The Supreme Court agreed in June to take up the case brought by a dozen states and others including the Sierra Club. Aspen Skiing Co. filed a friend of the court brief supporting the petitioners Thursday.

And then there is this about Vail following Aspen's lead in buying "wind credits":

Vail Resorts Inc. will buy enough renewable energy to cover electricity use for all of its ski areas, hotels and headquarters, making it the nation's second-largest corporate user of wind power behind Whole Foods. The "green" energy will cover power use at its five ski resorts, its lodging properties, including RockResorts and Grand Teton Lodge Co., all 125 retail locations operated through Specialty Sports Venture and its new corporate headquarters.

"Companies need to start diversifying their energy sources," said Vail CEO Rob Katz, who made the announcement at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science along with Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo. "We view sustainability as integral to our company's future success." Vail, which recently moved its headquarters to Broomfield from Avon, will buy about 152,000 megawatt hours of wind-power credits from Boulder-based Renewable Choice Energy.

Vail will not actually be powered by wind. Instead, the credits will pump more wind energy into the nation's electric grid, reducing the amount of coal and natural gas used. The publicly traded company would not disclose the cost.

Here are the jobs posted for Aspen Skiing Company at their website:

• Child Care Attendant: Starting wage - $9.27/hr
• Lift Attendants: Starting wage - $9.25/hr plus a possible $1500.00 end of season retention bonus if you finish out the season.
• Guest Services Hosts/Hostesses: Starting wage - $9.50/hr
• Retail/Rental Clerk: Starting wage - $9.38/ hr
• Ticket Seller Clerk: Starting wage - $9.38/ hr
• Mountain Photo Sales Clerk: Starting wage - $9.38/ hr
• Cafeteria Server or Waiter/Waitress (Informal): Starting wage - $9.21/ hr (Does not guarantee 40/hrs./wk.)

So guess what, when you pay $9.25 an hour to folks to live in a town where they cannot afford to rent an apartment, the only takers you get are immigrants. In some elitist circles, we call this movement of jobs from highly (or lowly) paid US workers to cheap foreign labor "OUTSOURCING". Gone are the days of ski bums. Wages are so low, even the ski bums won't take them. Yet the folks at Aspen can still get all kinds of Liberal Kudos for being environmentally friendly. Because Spotted Owls and Global Warming and Al Gore have families to feed unlike the underclass of marginally employed workers that serve us our coffee at the resorts. But Aspen supports wind energy and reducing greenhouse emissions. Sure, they have to import workers because pay is so low, but they pay lawyers to file briefs against the Bush Administration's environmental policies.

Posted by Justin at 08:13 PM