Vail’s portfolio of resorts has recently jumped from 21 to 38. Vail now owns resorts spread all throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia. In their latest acquisition, Vail has secured all 17 of Peak Resort’s properties. Spanning across the eastern United States, many of which are situated just a couple of hours away from some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.

Resort Location Date Opened Date Acquired Vail Eagle Country, Colorado 1962 N/A Beaver Creek Avron, Colorado 1980 Breckenridge Breckenridge, Colorado 1961 1996 Keystone Keystone, Colorado 1970 1996 Heavenly Lake Tahoe, California 1955 2002 Northstar Placer County, California 1972 2010 Kirkwood Kirkwood, California 1972 2012 Afton Alps Denmark Township, Minnesota 1963 2012 Mount Brighton Brighton, Michigan 1960 2012 Canyons Park City, Utah 1968 2013 Perisher Perisher Valley, Australia 1951 2015 Wilmot Mountain Kenosha, Wisconsin 1938 2016 Whistler Blackcomb Whistler, British Columbia CA 1966 2017 Stowe Mountain Stowe, Vermont 1933 2017 Mount Sunapee Newbury New Hampshire 1948 2018 Okemo Mountain Ludlow, Vermont 1955 2018 Crested Butte Crested Butte, Colorado 1960 2018 Stevens Pass Stevens Pass, Washington 1937 2018 Falls Creek Bogong High Plains, Victoria Australia 1946 2019 Hotham Alpine Mount Gotham, Victoria Australia 1925 2019 Mount Snow Dover, Vermont 1954 2019 Hunter Mountain Hunter, New York 1960 2019 Attitash Mountain Bartlett, New Hampshire 1965 2019 Wildcat Mountain Pinkham’s Grant, New Hampshire 1957 2019 Crotched Mountain Francestown, New Hampshire 1964 2019 Liberty Mountain Fairfield, Pennsylvania 1965 2019 Roundtop Mountain Lewisberry, Pennsylvania 1964 2019 Whitetail Resort Mercersburg, Pennsylvania 1991 2019 Jack Frost White Haven, Pennsylvania 1972 2019 Big Boulder Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania 1949 2019 Alpine Valley Chesterland, Ohio 1962 2019 Boston Mills Chesterland, Ohio 1963 2019 Brandywine Peninsula, Ohio 1963 2019 MadRiver Mountain Zanesfield, Ohio 1962 2019 Hidden Valley Eureka, Missouri 1965 2019 Snow Creek Weston, Missouri 1986 2019 Paoli Peaks Paoli, Indiana 1982 2019

Vail Ski Resort opened in 1962 and was totally happy just being another resort on the hill in Colorado. Sometime between 1962 and 2012, there was a change and Vail decided that they wanted to own all the snow in North America and beyond. What happened ?

what had happened was..

In 1997 Vail, became Vail Resorts and went public. It didn’t originally set out to dominate. It was a slow burn. At first it was just what was near by Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Breckenridge in 1996. This happened right before going public, which I can only believe to have been a strategic decision.

no cause for alarm yet.

But then they came over the California and in a matter of 10 years they had Tahoe pretty much locked down (Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar), while also picking up a few others along the way. But during these 10 years that I’ve just now started calling the Tahoe Takeover, the Epic Pass was born. The Epic Pass is one of the big reasons why Vail is gobbling up resorts these days like Pac Man. But we’ll get back to that, but first let’s talk about why companies are so willing to sell to Vail.

Simply put.

making money with ski resorts is hard

Only about 40-50% of large ski resort’s revenue comes from lift tickets, the other parts of the pie are lodging, rentals, ski school, retail, and restaurants / concessions, and summer festivals and operations. You can imagine that lodging would take up the second largest chunk of that. But a lot of the smaller resorts are not able to provide and upkeep a proper ‘village’. It take a LOT of money upfront, and investments to be able to diversify in this way.

So they have to spend a TON of money long before they are able to make any money. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for small ski resorts to remain profitable. As seasons tend to be getting shorter, and local patrons are wanting constant updates and improvement, and other amenities. The little guys just can’t seem to keep up. In some cases without Vail’s intervention resorts would have eventually stopped their lifts spinning for good.

Vail and the other big players have adopted a model of owning the mountain, they are in the real estate game, from the peak all the way down into the village and probably a few properties down the road. They do a better job at building up these properties in a way that they appeal to those in the family that ski and those that don’t. They make sure there is something for everyone, at all ages.

the epic pass

Ok, sorry for burying the lead here, but those other things are also pretty important. The big deal here is the Epic Pass. If you are unfamiliar the Epic Pass it’s Vail’s all access pass (some limitation apply) of course “all access” depends on the pass. It gives you access to about 67 different resorts worldwide including all Vail properties plus partnerships with other resorts. Vail knows that people that like to ski and snowboard often take trips to other mountains during the winter, even if they live pretty close to a ‘good’ mountain.

Vail wants those coveted vacation dollars. Vacation dollars are different than casual Saturday on the hill dollars. People tend to splurge and spend more money when they are on vacation, they don’t think twice about a $15 burger no fries. (I’m looking at you Kirkwood). Vacationers spend tons on lodging and other recreational activities in Vail’s villages. They know that if they can reel you in at the local level, then they will keep you when you think about traveling, because those days will be ‘free’.

latest acquisition (2019)

In this latest acquisition Vail scooped up 17 more resorts, and now all of a sudden Vail is a pretty big player on the east coast and midwest. Peak resorts spanned Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Wisconsin. Many of these are situated pretty close to some densely populated cities. Combined last year these resorts served up the white stuff to more than 3 million skiers/riders. That’s a lot of Epic Passes.

It seems a bit out of character compared to previous Vail purchases. Mostly because most of these mountains are pretty small, with average vertical drops hovering around 400ft — for comparison. Meadows Ski Resort on Mt. Hood has a 2,700 ft vertical drop. It will be interesting to see what happens at these resorts in the coming seasons (they have guaranteed locals they are gonna leave most things the same this next season). But changes will come for sure. Currently it costs about $35 for an adult lift ticket in Indiana, which seems fair for what you get. Just leaves many people wondering how they are going to justify jacking up prices, or if the possibly ski vacation dollars is enough to justify the purchase in itself.

the money

This point is neither here nor there, but in case you were interested in just how fat Vail’s pockets are. Here’s a semi recent income report (2017). If you don’t want to be bothered by all the fragmented figures in the report. They are generally earning about 1.4 billion dollars a year.

Good ? / Bad ?

No definitive answer here, but there are some things to be considered.

good

resorts are able to stay open (accessibility)

cheaper season passes (for most)

smaller resorts can get much needed improvements

free days at other Vail properties

bad

replacing local mountain feel to something more corporate

higher priced village amenities

loss of market competition

fun facts