Small ski area resurgence
December 23, 2004
Perhaps one reason for the re-emergence of small local areas is that many of the no-frills, bargain areas are no longer cheap. Consider that a weekend one day ticket at Mad River Glen is $50, Magic Mountain is $49 and Alta (no Bird) is $47. They are value-priced compared to other larger areas, but they are not cheap.
Cochran's is still going strong and still turning out World Cup winners. Jimmy Cochran just recently got World Cup points. He is in the third generation. This little hill has produced ~100 US Ski Team members, a couple dozen Olympians and an Olympic Gold Medal. Few skiers outside VT have ever heard of it.
http://www.cochranskiarea.com/
Home to the First Family of U.S. Alpine Racing.
I remember watching Bob and Barbara Ann racing in Sapporo in '72. IIRC Bob had a kicking run going in the Slalom or GS, but hooked a gate and fell. Could have been two gold medals that year.
I was chatting up one our reservists from Logan, UT, today and he waxed eloquently about a little place called Beaver Mountain. It has a respectable 1600 feet of vert. and the same powder as Park City yet no one knows about it and it's cheap. Adult lift tickets go for $30 and cheap lodging can be found in nearby Logan, which has a nice university.
http://www.skithebeav.com/main.htm
Quote:
...he waxed eloquently about a little place called Beaver Mountain...
beaver mountain! this is where i learned to ski! my grandparents lived in logan for many years. unfortunately i havent been back in quite some time. but i understand the beav has changed little over the years. if there was a "small resort" like beaver anywhere near here i just might get out the skis and leave the snowboard behind occasionally. that mountain would look pretty impressive alongside snowshoe or seven springs.
I like the article. Personaly I judge leisure time affordability on the movie ticket basis. Sking is still affordable on a $ per hour basis compared to say a movie theatre.
This is a great example of the fact that rasing prices for basic buy in costs like lift and lodging prices is only going to reduce buisness in the long run. By lowering those initial buy in costs you cause more people to come to the resort and stay longer. In the end you make even more money on your really profitable areas like food and other services. It seems so many segments of the vacation / leaisure industry are geared to extracting the maximum ammount of $ in the least ammount of time over a short term that they are missing out on larger opportunities. I am sure many of the smaller areas are very profitable for this reason.
Speaking of making money on other services I went to buy a bottle of Gatorade at Whitetail on Sunday. $3.29 for a small bottle. A regular large bottle is at worst $1.89 at your average gas station and about $1.30 at a food store. I'm sorry but if it was $2 I could live with it but $3.29 is ridiculous. I put it back, there is no way I'm going to support that kind of gouging.
