Once upon a time, in the snowy mountains of remote south-west Montana, there was a thing called “five-dollar day”.
Even then, $5 bought something rare: a full day of skiing. The deal was tempting enough to inspire my friends and me to drive 44 miles (70km) from Bozeman along a narrow, winding highway – toward what would emerge as one of the most expansive and epic ski locales in the US: Big Sky Resort.
If you want to ski the same slopes this weekend, it would cost you $285 (though prices change regularly because of the resort’s “dynamic pricing” model). Prices at other resorts across the US have similar astronomical prices. A ski pass in Vail, Colorado, this weekend would set you back $338 and one in Park City, Utah, $333.
This, of course, does not include transportation, equipment rentals, lodging, lessons, parking and on-mountain meals and beverages.
All this is to say that, in the last decades, skiing in most of the Rockies has fractured into vastly different worlds. To understand how that evolved, you have to look not just at prices – but also at skiing culture.
Showdown, Montana, is located in the tiny community of Neihart, and is the oldest continually operating ski area in the state. It’s a small 640-acre (260-hectare) gem with three chair lifts, a learning conveyor and a hometown vibe. The day lift ticket rate is $70.
When George Willett and Ted Cogswell purchased the ski area in 1973, adult lift tickets cost between $4.50 and $5 a day.
“When I started, I skied in blue jeans and a sweatshirt and other people did too,” says Willett, who with his wife, Margie, has experienced a wealth of ski hill history over the years. “Now, you see one guy out of 500 with blue jeans on.”
Back then, Showdown’s customer base was largely working class. “Most of the people went to work every day,” he said. “And so I think the rate was commensurate with what people could pay.”
Willett remembers slim years for snow and finances – and naturally, both at the same time. These were times when staff moved snow from forested areas and the parking lot with toboggans to patch over bare terrain on the ski hill – a practice known as “snow harvesting”.
Asked what turned skiing into the expensive sport it is today, Willett says: “It really wasn’t a turning point. It was a gradual progression – all through technology. The equipment got better. Boots got better. Bindings got less risky.”
Technology, while improving skier safety and performance, has also led to advancements in resort operations. Both have reshaped who can afford to participate.
Today, Showdown is owned and operated by Willett’s family with his daughter Katie Boedecker at the helm. Snow harvesting is something most ski hills do at some point, says Boedecker. But acquiring snow-making equipment isn’t always an option for everyone.
Sometimes it’s not an option because of cost. And sometimes it’s not an option because of the complexity of acquiring water rights, or because the terrain isn’t conducive to underground infrastructure.
But, perhaps most relevant to the skiing consumer, all of this technology can affect ticket prices.
“The majority of us need a place that is not too expensive but can afford to keep the lights on,” says Willett.
And keeping the lights on is important because “skiing is the most fun you can have with your clothes on”, says Willett. “Just remember that.”
Avery Patrick, Willett’s granddaughter, also has ownership in Showdown and helps operate the place. She says that they had their best season last year ever with 75,000 skier visits, and that day lift pass rates go up about $2–$5 annually to keep up with the costs.
I ask her why french fries in the cafeteria cost $9, and her answer speaks to the trade-offs that many ski hills make to stay in business: charging more for discretionary items like french fries keeps ski pass rates affordable.
As an alternative to the expensive cafeteria food, people are welcome to bring their own lunches. They can eat wherever they want and “make themselves at home” with one exception: “We did have to finally outlaw crockpots. People used to bring crockpots. It was a thing.”
In the cafeteria, I spotted a sign: “FREE OATMEAL. ALL DAY, EVERYDAY. MADE WITH LOVE.”
“We put as much love as we can into that oatmeal because we appreciate our guests and we appreciate them spending their hard-earned dollars up here,” says Boedecker.
At Showdown, affordability isn’t just a pricing strategy, it’s a culture. Rituals that Boedecker has implemented, such as the Tunnel of Love – in which staff stand by the exit at the end of the day and thank guests for coming – speak to her compassionate management style.
Willett’s ethos echoes Boedecker’s, and while he sees the benefits of gaining outside investors, he also understands that small ski hills risk losing their “humanness” when corporations get involved. “There’s some good ideas and some bad ideas,” he says.
In Montana, it’s nearly impossible to talk about skiing without Big Sky Resort entering the conversation. Founded in 1973 by Chet Huntley of NBC’s evening news and now owned by Boyne Resorts, Big Sky spans 5,850 acres, with 40 lifts and 300 trails – making it the third-largest ski resort in North America.
Today the culture surrounding Big Sky Resort is defined by hotels such as the One and Only, where rooms can run as high as $2,500 a night, and by the Yellowstone Club, whose members include Mark Zuckerberg and Melinda French Gates.
Big Sky is an outlier in low-key Montana, and some reactions to it reflect that: “Bozeman and Big Sky have become a wealthy person’s playground,” says longtime Bozeman local Mike Kasic.
Brad Niva, CEO of the Big Sky Chamber says it plainly: “Big Sky wouldn’t be Big Sky if we didn’t have Big Sky Resort.”
Jim Anderson is a former ski school director at Showdown. And, for the last 25 years, he has worked as a part-time PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) trainer and private lesson teacher at Big Sky Resort.
He sees the consequences of growth clearly, saying: “If any locals don’t like Big Sky, I think it’s because it has become so expensive and crowded, it’s kind of priced them out of skiing there. It’s their home mountain and now they can’t afford to ski there anymore.”
In that sense, Big Sky embodies the central contradiction of modern skiing: the better it gets, the fewer people can afford to experience it.
Still, Anderson loves the skiing itself: “Some of the skiing there is as raw and real as you can find in the United States. With their high-speed lifts, I can ski an unbelievable amount of vertical in one day. It’s a skier’s mountain.”
For committed skiers like Anderson who appreciate premier slopes, the cost of the daily lift ticket can be quickly reduced by purchasing any one of a number of season passes at ski hills around the state.
For the more casual skier, there are myriad deals and discounts: early bird, bundled, buddy, beginner, business, tribal, military, veteran, senior, super-senior, kids, college, family and employee.
At Showdown, I meet Heather Nack-Culbreth, 50, enjoying a home-packed lunch at Top Rock warming hut. Nack-Culbreth discovered her love of skiing at the age of seven at Bridger Bowl through Ski PE, a program offered by Montana schools and hosted by local mountains that provide kids with deep discounts on lessons, rentals and lift passes.
Her parents chaperoned her PE class. “That way they got to ski too,” she says. “Even then, in rural Montana, it was an expensive sport.”
“Different people prioritize different activities in their lives,” says Nack-Culbreth, who doesn’t ski at expensive resorts. “Maybe we don’t take a crazy trip. Maybe we don’t make purchases that other people make. We choose skiing.”
The Guardian
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