‘The Storm’ Talks Lift Tickets with Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz
Please leave your tinfoil hats at the door
What this is
In 2018, Vail Resorts launched the Epic By Nature podcast, hosted by then-CEO Rob Katz. The pod went into hibernation when Kirsten Lynch took over as CEO in 2021, then returned with Katz earlier this year. I joined Katz on a recent episode to discuss the state of lift tickets. You can listen here:
Katz has been focused on rebooting Vail Resorts’ faltering day-ticket business since returning as CEO in May, after the company reported that 2024-25 “visitation from uncommitted lift ticket guests was below expectations” and that this slump had had an “outsized impact” on Vail Resorts’ three percent overall skier visit decline in a year in which the rest of the U.S. ski industry had recorded a 1.7 increase.
The company’s first big lift ticket initiative, announced in August, was half off window prices every day at every resort for friends of Epic Pass holders:
The second effort to rationalize lift ticket prices for non-Epic Pass holders came earlier this month, with Vail offering up to 30 percent off at a dozen North American destinations for anyone who bought at least 30 days in advance:
Vail Resorts Cuts Lift Ticket Prices 30-Plus Days in Advance at 12 Ski Areas
OK I’m going to try something new today. Instead of wandering into the philosophical backrooms of pre-industrial Euro violence or the merits of couches or claims that maps aren’t real, I’m going to get right to the news. Not because I’m out of ideas, but because I’m in New Hampshire and I want to go skiing this morning. This is the view from my room:
Since we are living through a cynical cultural moment, in which everything is a conspiracy until proven otherwise and not hating everything is profoundly uncool, I want to outline the process behind how this interview happened.
Thanksgiving week, a Vail Resorts communications staffer reached out to ask if I was interested in an embargo around a big announcement. An “embargo” means that the company will give me news before it is available to the general public, so long as I promise not to tell anyone about it prior to a set date and time. This is a common practice in all sectors of American journalism, and I have worked with most of the major ski area operators in a similar fashion. These arrangements benefit both sides – I don’t have to scramble to churn out a story the moment it’s announced, and the company ensures that the outlet they’re working with will cover the issue. There is never any sort of quid pro quo agreement that I will cover the news in a certain way - the company provides the facts and I use those facts to write my story, which they do not see (or ask to see), in advance of publication.
Once I agreed to the embargo, which was in regards to the 30 percent-discount offer, the Vail rep ran through the program and asked my opinion of it. I told her I thought it was a nice next-step to build on Epic Friends, especially since it helped build the primacy of the Turn In Your Ticket program, which lets skiers flip part of their ticket cost into a down payment for next year’s Epic Pass and softens the fact that even 30 percent off of window rates at most Vail ski areas was still a lot of money. She then asked if I would like to join Katz on the Epic By Nature pod to react to the program, and to talk about lift tickets more generally. I told her I’d be happy to do so, and she sent me an advanced draft of the press release and coordinated a day and time to record the pod.
In advance of the podcast, I had a follow-up call with a different Vail Resorts communications rep, who helped clarify some questions I had around the discount program. These were fairly technocratic queries: why discount tickets at only these 12 ski areas? How will Vail nudge skiers who buy these toward the Turn In Your Ticket program? Why 30 days and not, I don’t know, 21?
And that was it. A couple of days later, we recorded the podcast. Vail did not provide questions in advance. They did not edit my answers. The podcast they released cut one question Katz had asked me about what sorts of stories elicit the most reaction from my readers, and I told him that it was anything I write about passes, and also that Brohammers often got all bent when I expressed my preference for chairlift safety bars. That sort of editing is also common practice, and I often cut chunks from my own podcasts, mostly to streamline the conversations. I assure you that there was nothing terribly interesting in my answer, and I probably would have cut it as well.
In short: Vail asked for my honest thoughts and I provided them. It hurts my soul to include this explanation, but I am continually surprised with how few people trust the journalistic process, how en thrall America is to conspiracies, how reflexively the ski community negatively reacts to nearly anything Vail does. I can’t comment on Vail Resorts’ motives behind inviting me on the podcast, but I can tell you that everything I do in The Storm’s name is done with the same standards of journalistic integrity. That is to say, my only fealty is to the truth. Without it, this newsletter would have no value. Had Vail asked me for an endorsement or requested that I talk about this in a certain way (which they did not), I would have declined. But Katz just wanted to talk lift tickets, and so we did.
What we talked about
Love of ski areas; why I started The Storm; the biggest change in skiing in the past decade; thoughts on the escalating costs of lift tickets; why I thought Vail was running out of ideas; why I like the combo of Epic Friends and 30 percent off; how Turn in Your Ticket helps people “not feel dumb”; and considering how the new skiers that Vail is trying to bring in with discounts will fit onto the mountains.
Podcast notes
On Katz on The Storm Skiing Podcast
Katz has joined me on The Storm Skiing Podcast twice. Most recently in August:
Podcast #211: Vail Resorts Chairperson & CEO Rob Katz
Who Rob Katz, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Vail Resorts
And in 2022:
Podcast #71: Vail Resorts Executive Chairperson of the Board Rob Katz
Who Rob Katz, Vail Resorts Executive Chairperson of the Board
On the variety of ski areas in Michigan
Michigan is home to the second-most ski areas (44) after New York (49). For logistical purposes, the ski areas of the Upper and Lower Peninsulas are nowhere near one another – Mount Bohemia is a 10-hour drive from the Detroit airport. But anyway, it’s a fantastic ski state, with mega-lake effect bands off of Lakes Michigan and Superior. Here’s a list:
On the NSAA’s season pass data
I referenced National Ski Areas Association data that documented how season passes now account for half of all skier visits. That data comes from the Kottke end-of-year Demographic Report. The rate at which season passes have evolved from niche product to mainstream is pretty shocking:
On ever-more-expensive day tickets
A look at Vail Resorts’ peak walk-up lift ticket rates at a selection of its owned resorts from 2017 through this winter:
On the cost of a week of skiing at Vail Mountain compared to other global destination ski resorts
I randomly threw out an estimate of $5,000 for a family of four to ski Vail Mountain for a week. To check this, I imagined my own family of four – my wife, my teen daughter, and my 9-year-old son – comparing costs for a week of skiing at Vail Mountain and several other international ski areas that I mentioned throughout the podcast. The price difference is absolutely stunning: Vail Mountain lift tickets, at current rates, would cost us $8,498 to ski Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, more than $6,000 more than it would cost us to ski at some of the most famous ski areas in Europe and Japan over that same span:
I mean, there is just no way to justify choosing Vail over any of those other places, and I love Vail Mountain. But even a family with considerable means is likely to balk at those prices. I’d say that Vail probably doesn’t want this getting out, but it’s all right there on the internet.
The bottom line of that chart includes current rates to ski Vail Mountain over Presidents Week, from Friday, Feb. 13 through Thursday, Feb. 20, when the 30 percent-off advanced rate would apply. Those are a lot more reasonable, but still far, far more than the rates for big ski areas in Europe and Japan.
On Vail Resorts’ rapid growth
This chart really trips me out – Vail was really a minor player in skiing up until very recently:
On Turn In Your Ticket
I really believe that Vail’s Turn In Your Ticket program is one of the coolest things going (skiers can credit up to $175 from a single day’s lift ticket toward a 2026-27 Epic Pass), and I’ve been hoping for years that the company would better promote it. They’re in the process of doing that, though it still seems to be the fourth or fifth thing I see when I Google “Epic Pass Turn In Your Ticket,” and the search results come up as a “Lift Ticket Promotion” or, worse, Epic Pass “Policies.” But I don’t know how the robots work and maybe they kick out something different for everyone.
On the earnings quote
I referenced this Katz quote from Vail’s end-of-fiscal-2025 September earnings report:
“Our immediate priority is increasing guest visitation to our resorts, which is essential to driving growth in revenue and free cash flow.”
Which I totally understand, but I wish that statement had been followed by a commitment to improving the on-the-snow experience through an institutional over-commitment to snowmaking. I laid this out in more detail the other day.
On discount programs at Ikon, MCP, and Timberline
I mention a bunch of really cool pass discount programs happening throughout the industry:
The Ikon kids pass discounts I mentioned are only available in the spring, but for the past several years, Alterra has offered $100 off passes for children ages 5 to 12 with the purchase of an adult pass. That put early-bird prices at an incredible $269 for Ikon and $199 for Ikon Base:
Mountain Capital Partners, which owns nine active U.S. ski areas and several in Chile, does even better, offering any kid 12 and under a free season pass, with no adult purchase required.
I referenced Timberline, West Virgina’s novel lift ticket, which costs one price upfront, and then credits skiers some cash back for skiing mid-week, starting late in the day, sticking to beginner lifts, or skiing fewer than four hours. Here’s a breakdown of how Timberline’s credits work – the initial cost is $104 for adults, and $69 for kids 12 and under, seniors over 60, and military personnel:
Perfect North Slopes, Indiana, which has owned Timberline since 2019, rolled out a similar pricing mechanism at Swiss Valley, Michigan (at a $64 starting price), after purchasing that ski area earlier this year. I recorded a podcast with Swiss Valley GM Jamie Stafne Wiseman recently, and she goes in depth on the program (she also grew up at the mountain, which her parents founded in the 1960s, and talks us through the resort’s improbable growth and eventual decision to sell). I’ll release that pod soon.
On Epic Military
The Epic Military Pass really is the best deal in skiing:
On me being a “guru”
For whatever reason, the word “guru” has always conjured for me some sort of forest monster with horns and armor and a nose that could only be classified as a “snout.” Maybe like those creatures from Where the Wild Things Are, which look scary as hell, but turn out to be some sort of wilderness frat so deep into the Keg Stand Olympics that when a random 10-year-old floats up on a raft they declare him their king. And that seems absurd unless you’ve ever been immersed in a group of Bros with nothing to do with their day other than collectively drink 100 beers and see what happens (in other words, tailgating). And by that definition I’ve certainly had my moments of guru-ism, but I don’t think that’s what the Vail people were going for here so I’ll just say I had no input into the headline and therefore take no responsibility for anything implied therein.
So, where did you ski in NH today?
Appreciate your podcasts and articles always informative.
Have Indy pass this year and we hit ragged, Tenney and waterville last weekend, my oldest missed the first two but tagged on Cannon last Sunday. Enjoyed all.
One frustration - Knowing limited trails would be open I checked everybody’s website to see what was available. It’s frustrating that so many skie areas don’t place their snow report with trails open right on the front page. Guess I’m just used to Wachusett here in Mass always having that updated daily.