It is also worth mentioning that according to someone in the know, the Big Bear Resorts serve close to 40% minorities, including about 15% Asian. The Big Bear Resorts are excellent feeder hills for Mammoth Mountain.
-
For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.
Intrawest sells to Aspen and KSL
- Thread starter SBrown
- Start date
It is also worth mentioning that according to someone in the know, the Big Bear Resorts serve close to 40% minorities, including about 15% Asian. The Big Bear Resorts are excellent feeder hills for Mammoth Mountain.
My impression, with limited insight, is that there was a very strong meeting of the minds and synergy when the principals at KSL and Mike Kaplan, his key people along with the Crown family began to think this through. How that all shakes out, nobody but they know, and it's pretty much under wraps. Heck they have not even closed on these deals yet. I do think that it's logical to have a person [or people} in a role like this one that Perry is taking on, to in effect be the mountain operations guru. I'm also guessing, but not blindly, that KSL views Aspen SkiCo as the gold standard as an operator/owner, so that it you were every going to pull best practices and sprinkle them around, it might be there.
Nobody is going to put this out there, particularly before the deal is done, but there might be some evaluation going on to think about shedding some areas, and how to evaluate that process. Maybe make them very turn key, and uncouple them from either Intrawest or Mammoth. Just guessing. On the flip side, there could be some work going on looking at further acquisitions, and that might involve some ski experience and input. If you look at the KSL website, for example, they have no real ski experience on their team. They are a PE firm. So adding a permanent consultant, or ski people to work the joint deal is logical, to me.
There are a lot of decisions to be made, moving forward. It may also be perfect timimg for ASC, as it might be that they don't need somebody in Perry's former role, and they have a lot of people ready to step up. There's also been no talk, that I'm aware of, of how Kaplan fits into the New venture. Sounds like the lions's share of his time will be running ASC, which is a big job. And big in that community.
I had a conversation two weeks ago with a ski industry friend, who has some savvy, gray hair, and plenty of ski battle scars. We were actually talking about Saddleback in Maine being sold, which will be a small scale interesting one to watch. He was surprised to see that deal. However, he quickly asked me what I thought the "ten year plan" was for the KSL/ASC venture. I have no idea.
It's a good question. Presumably KSL is in this as a PE player only. Though they have a huge interest in the sport. That would normally suggest a finite timeline to maximize the value of their investment, and the value for those who've invested in the funds that have bought these properties. Call it a "Liquidity Event", sounds more professional than "Flipping it." In a normal world, you flip it to another PE form, or you take it public at some point. In non ski business, it might be a 5-6 year horizon.
So is ASC in this, and is the the Crown Family looking at this as an investment, and feeling that they and their team can add value to these properties to really maximize the value? Do they want to own some of these properties for the long haul, and essentially acquire them from the partnership {or will it somehow be structured that way from the start?}. For example, might they want to own Steamboat for the long haul? Mammoth? There's a pretty big peanut gallery in the business that has little or no idea, and obviously some who are very quiet who are on the inside.
Will the prinicpals of KSL and/or ASC and the Crowns want to own something like CMH for the duration? Take it out of this deal? Have it be like a toy? Or leave it in?
It seems clear that Aspen SkiCo is going to remain outside of the deal The four Aspen properties will not be folded in.
There are a lot of different ways that this can go. Do they want to keep a mountain in WV? Do they plan to buy a couple of the former CNL properties? Might they go very high end, and acquire another two or three big brand names?
All that I do hear is that this is a different relationship that a normal PE partner funding any venture. We have already seen that KSL will hang in much longer to get their investment where they want it to be. How long have they owned Squaw? With all of the issues there. this is far from ready to harvest, I imagine. Conversely, they bought a chunk of W-B from Intrawest, and cashed out fast, at a very nice return when Vail bought it.
My guess is that we hear of things once they are done, and set in cement. Not when they are being contemplated. I think these folks want as little rumor mill as possible.
And, I'm still not seeing this as a war with Vail, competing on some look a like of the Epic Pass. Will they have common pass options? Sure, I assume so. Will they gut their pricing to do so? Doubt it. Different goals and drivers. And no stockholders.
Tony's points about Mammoth , and Big Bear are spot on. I have hear a lot of friends who were looking into the Intrawest deal make the comment that that is a "very strange family of ski properties." You could not pick two more different than CMH and Snowshoe, WV.
I think they will largely be high end destination, but they are also going to be owning some giants that feel a bit different. Mammoth for sure. Big Bear is BIG. Based on skier visits it would be the biggest in the East. So, great point. These folks are not going to cast it away. Nor, IMO, will they do the same old, same old. Or repeat the plans, vision and promises of others. 2 Million skiers is. big number. They are no doubt going to capitalize on it.
interesting to watch......or it will be as it comes together, and we see some moves take place.
Nobody is going to put this out there, particularly before the deal is done, but there might be some evaluation going on to think about shedding some areas, and how to evaluate that process. Maybe make them very turn key, and uncouple them from either Intrawest or Mammoth. Just guessing. On the flip side, there could be some work going on looking at further acquisitions, and that might involve some ski experience and input. If you look at the KSL website, for example, they have no real ski experience on their team. They are a PE firm. So adding a permanent consultant, or ski people to work the joint deal is logical, to me.
There are a lot of decisions to be made, moving forward. It may also be perfect timimg for ASC, as it might be that they don't need somebody in Perry's former role, and they have a lot of people ready to step up. There's also been no talk, that I'm aware of, of how Kaplan fits into the New venture. Sounds like the lions's share of his time will be running ASC, which is a big job. And big in that community.
I had a conversation two weeks ago with a ski industry friend, who has some savvy, gray hair, and plenty of ski battle scars. We were actually talking about Saddleback in Maine being sold, which will be a small scale interesting one to watch. He was surprised to see that deal. However, he quickly asked me what I thought the "ten year plan" was for the KSL/ASC venture. I have no idea.
It's a good question. Presumably KSL is in this as a PE player only. Though they have a huge interest in the sport. That would normally suggest a finite timeline to maximize the value of their investment, and the value for those who've invested in the funds that have bought these properties. Call it a "Liquidity Event", sounds more professional than "Flipping it." In a normal world, you flip it to another PE form, or you take it public at some point. In non ski business, it might be a 5-6 year horizon.
So is ASC in this, and is the the Crown Family looking at this as an investment, and feeling that they and their team can add value to these properties to really maximize the value? Do they want to own some of these properties for the long haul, and essentially acquire them from the partnership {or will it somehow be structured that way from the start?}. For example, might they want to own Steamboat for the long haul? Mammoth? There's a pretty big peanut gallery in the business that has little or no idea, and obviously some who are very quiet who are on the inside.
Will the prinicpals of KSL and/or ASC and the Crowns want to own something like CMH for the duration? Take it out of this deal? Have it be like a toy? Or leave it in?
It seems clear that Aspen SkiCo is going to remain outside of the deal The four Aspen properties will not be folded in.
There are a lot of different ways that this can go. Do they want to keep a mountain in WV? Do they plan to buy a couple of the former CNL properties? Might they go very high end, and acquire another two or three big brand names?
All that I do hear is that this is a different relationship that a normal PE partner funding any venture. We have already seen that KSL will hang in much longer to get their investment where they want it to be. How long have they owned Squaw? With all of the issues there. this is far from ready to harvest, I imagine. Conversely, they bought a chunk of W-B from Intrawest, and cashed out fast, at a very nice return when Vail bought it.
My guess is that we hear of things once they are done, and set in cement. Not when they are being contemplated. I think these folks want as little rumor mill as possible.
And, I'm still not seeing this as a war with Vail, competing on some look a like of the Epic Pass. Will they have common pass options? Sure, I assume so. Will they gut their pricing to do so? Doubt it. Different goals and drivers. And no stockholders.
Tony's points about Mammoth , and Big Bear are spot on. I have hear a lot of friends who were looking into the Intrawest deal make the comment that that is a "very strange family of ski properties." You could not pick two more different than CMH and Snowshoe, WV.
I think they will largely be high end destination, but they are also going to be owning some giants that feel a bit different. Mammoth for sure. Big Bear is BIG. Based on skier visits it would be the biggest in the East. So, great point. These folks are not going to cast it away. Nor, IMO, will they do the same old, same old. Or repeat the plans, vision and promises of others. 2 Million skiers is. big number. They are no doubt going to capitalize on it.
interesting to watch......or it will be as it comes together, and we see some moves take place.
This touches upon my point that Mammoth's near 1.5 million high point in skier visits in 2005 and 2006 was in fact about the same as the prior high point in 1982 and 1986. SoCal demographics have changed radically in the past 30 years. The plurality is now Hispanic, and since most of them hail from tropical cultures (Mexico, Central America), it's going to be an uphill battle getting appreciable numbers interested in snow sports. Mammoth/Big Bear should be marketing like crazy to the growing Korean and Chinese communities in SoCal. The diversity of SoCal younger generation demographics is quite evident at Big Bear and perhaps even more so at Mt. High.
But Mt. High's already meager well water sources were further crippled during the drought, which is still ongoing from a ski standpoint in SoCal. Big Bear Lake's mostly recycled snowmaking seems to be drought proof, as its water consumption was never curtailed even during the worst of it in 2014. So Big Bear's domination of the local SoCal ski market (75+%) seems well entrenched for the foreseeable future. In the early 1980's, I'd guess Snow Summit had no more than 25% of the SoCal ski market despite its already evident snowmaking superiority. Bear Mt. was a separate ski area, then one of the bit players mostly dependent on natural snow.
This is why I think there's fairly good chance that the Intrawest properties will be added to the Mountain Collective rather than following the Epic Pass model. The Mountain Collective model would not make it necessary to gut the Aspen and Steamboat season pass prices.
Snowshoe (450K skier visits) and Blue Mt. (750K!) may look like "Mt. Atlantic anthills" on an absolute scale, but both are the leading areas in their regional markets, just like Big Bear is here. Put those areas into Mountain Collective and a rather substantial number of skiers have an incentive to take their destination trips to Aspen, Steamboat, etc. And of course those incentives could be sweetened or customized for those areas' passholders with a couple of free days, free tickets with lodging packages, etc.
Last edited:
What I find interesting about the above article is that ASC is partnering with KSL and others in a $600million Snowmass base development. That is a very huge amount of development.
Currently Snowmass is one of the least crowded (even on a powder day) of any major US resort but a huge base development could change things. For starters I imagine that the 50+ year old reasonably priced lodges that are a short walk to lifts will be replaced by something more luxurious and expensive.
Remember it's Blue Mountain...Collingwood Ontario. All you do if fall off the Niagara Escarpment. Tremblant has and is still being promoted to the Brits as a vacation/ski week place. Also they have the Ski la Gap for the rich Brits to send their kids over for part of their Gap Year.
Right now Blue and Tremblant are on the MAX PASS. I see a lot of them in the lift line at Tremblant, so I know they are Blue Mtn people coming for some elevation.
I need to get up to Tremblant to hear what the locals are saying. I was up in June, but not many around and not much talk at that time.
Right now Blue and Tremblant are on the MAX PASS. I see a lot of them in the lift line at Tremblant, so I know they are Blue Mtn people coming for some elevation.
I need to get up to Tremblant to hear what the locals are saying. I was up in June, but not many around and not much talk at that time.
Tony's spot-on in pointing out that it's really just Aspen and Steamboat that are priced outside of the Epic price scale right now. I'm curious how well the full-price Aspen and Steamboat passes have been selling. Aspen, in particular, seems like it must see pretty limited sales... you need to ride something like 25 days at Aspen to make it a better deal than the Mountain Collective (more than 25 if you have kids that can benefit from the free kids MCP or if you're traveling to other MCP destinations). And the discount to locals working for chamber of commerce members means a lot of the captive market will be paying less anyway. Seems like a full, unlimited Aspen/KSL/Cali4nia/Intrawest pass could expand sales pretty nicely while maintaining a price point a bit higher than the full Epic Pass... quite possibly enough to make up for leaving some money on the table with Steamboat & Aspen locals. But I also agree that expanding the MCP or putting together some other sort of joint offering are likely possibilities, too.
Agreed re: the demographics... both Big Bear and Mountain High have done great work in outreach to diverse SoCal, but it's an uphill battle. Re: the shift from 25% of the Socal Market in the early 80s to 75+% now... has the market grown significantly, or has Big Bear's growth been primarily at the expense of other areas in the region? Given how often Mountain High West has to bus people from the East parking lots, it seems like it must be doing significantly more business than it did before the two hills were brought under common ownership. But that increase would likely be cancelled out by decreases in visitation at North and East (since they're so rarely open anymore). Kratka, Green Valley, and whichever of the little Big Bear areas clung on into the 80s were bit players, right? So if total skier days are similar, I guess Summit & Bear took significant market share from Waterman, Baldy, and maybe Snow Valley?
Mostly the latter IMHO. Snow Summit always was ahead of the curve on snowmaking, but the pipe into the lake and 100% coverage were built with the profits from the still best IMHO 1978-79 season. http://www.bestsnow.net/scalhist.htm But through the 1980's Snow Summit's mostly intermediate topography still made it a secondary choice for more advanced skiers, who preferred (and some of us old farts still prefer) Baldy and Waterman's trees and steeper terrain when there is adequate natural snow. However if you look at that chart you'll see we get good natural snow years (blue or green) only about 1/3 of the time and it has been 7 years since the last one. 2016-17 had above average snowfall but also had 13 days of rain, by far the most in the 40 years I've been skiing
The big change in the 1990's was the rise of snowboarding. Younger new entrants coming from a surfing or skateboarding background soon resulted in SoCal visitation being as much as 3/4 snowboarders. Snow Summit's smart management soon devoted its snowmaking capacity to building world class terrain park features and hosting one of the first Winter X Games. So now the athletic younger crowd is attracted to Big Bear terrain parks more than Baldy/Waterman bumps and trees.
Mountain High peaked around 500K visits during the banner 1998 and 2001 seasons. This has to have crashed a lot. While East has near comprehensive snowmaking coverage, Mt.High rarely uses it anymore because they don't have much water and they need all they have to keep maybe 1/3 of West going through warm/dry spells.
2016-17: East open 4 weekends, West closed March 26
2015-16: East open 2 weekends, West closed Feb. 29
2014-15: East never opened, West closed after President's weekend, reopened first weekend of March only
2013-14: East never opened, West closed after President's weekend
2012-13: East partially open 3 weekends, West closed late March
2011-12: East open 5 weekends, West closed April 8 and ran one more weekend
2010-11: East open 12 weekends, West closed April 24
2009-10, the last good natural snow year: East open Dec. 12 - March 28, West closed May 2
2016-17 in terms of snow in SoCal was a bit better than 2011-12 but worse than 2010-11. I think the degrading of Mt.High's snowmaking from about 2013 onwards is clear. During bad years in the 2000's East would still be open 6-7 weekends and West would usually close near the end of March. East was formerly an independent ski area Holiday Hill, comparable in scale and probably visits to West, purchased by Mt. High in 1981. North was formerly Ski Sunrise, always a marginal ski area, purchased by Mt. High in 2004.
Kratka, Green Valley and Snow Forest are lost ski areas but their visits even during the 1970's were modest. Mt. Waterman was closed from 2002-2007 due to management/ForestService issues and during the 4 drought years 2012-2015. It was open 3 weekends in 2016 and 7 weekends in 2017. When open Waterman averages maybe 200 skiers per day and is completely under the radar after being open so little during the past 15 years.
When I started skiing, Snow Valley was considered a major player. Snow Valley does somewhere in the 50-100K range of visits now. Baldy did 50K visits during a great year in 2004-05 when it was open from late October to May 15.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2015
- Posts
- 6,341
I like the adding to the Mountain Collective theory - it is a way of being all things in the market you can be a feeder resort or a destination resort and you both get benefits from the cross marketing. Not sure how the non KSL Aspen properties will feel about a revenue share diluted by lots of KSL chaff but maybe there is an agreement that can be reached.
AFAIK Aspen Ski Corp is the founder/main driver of the MCP so it will be interesting to see in the future if Aspen's 4 mountains, Mammoth, Alpine Meadows, Squaw stay with the Mountain Collective Pass or go to the Max Pass.
The Max Pass head office is one and the same as the Denver head office of Intrawest, so it will be interesting to see if Steamboat, Winter Park, Tremblant and other Intrawest properties stay with Max Pass or go MCP.
The Max Pass head office is one and the same as the Denver head office of Intrawest, so it will be interesting to see if Steamboat, Winter Park, Tremblant and other Intrawest properties stay with Max Pass or go MCP.
Aspen is separate from the joint venture properties. That being said, we are still waiting to see what the strategy is.
Mike
Mike
Didn't Waterman try some artificial (plastic) snow in the 70's? I love Baldy but it's completely unreliable. Some skiable (even plastic) runs - especially down to the parking area - might really help. Maybe it's time to try. Who wants to buy Baldy for me, have me design appropriate plastic snow and we'll package another Socal resort for KSL? (See, no thread drift, we're still talking about a KSL acquisition).
Eric
Mt. High just put out a press release that the wet (though not all that snowy) winter of 2016-17 recharged their wells, so they can make 3x as much snow as in recent years. They specifically mentioned having East open more. So perhaps Mt. High goes back to where it was in 2010-11 and 2011-12. This is still a long way from what Big Bear can do, routinely 70+% open on both mountains from just before Christmas to the end of March in average (meaning mediocre) snow years.
Interesting data & perspectives--thanks! I suspect the improved freeway system and massive growth of the Inland Empire also contribute to Big Bear's rise over Waterman & Baldy... Big Bear's effectively much closer to a lot more people now than it was in the past. Is there much of anywhere populated in the LA Basin where Waterman or Baldy is a shorter winter drive than Mountain High?
Thread drift? Never!
That's great news for Mountain High. Their blog post doesn't mention the wells, but brags about the full reservoirs. Seems maybe a bit premature to count on the reservoir water, especially if this ends up being a big fire season. But maybe the fire helicopters don't actually make much of a dent in overall supply (to me, it all just seems like "lots of water" with no good sense of perspective).
From a skier's perspective, I can definitely see your point about Big Bear covering so much terrain from Christmas through March. From a business perspective, though, I suspect Mountain High's approach of blowing as much snow as fast as they can in November/early December and then riding it out probably makes good sense. My experience, at least, is that the crowds only show up through February, or maybe after a big storm. On sunny spring weekends at both Mountain High and Snow Summit, I've never encountered a line.
Seems like if Mountain High can string together a couple profitable seasons in the next few years, they (along with Stevens Pass) are ripe to be acquired either by Vail or the hypothesized third big conglomerate. The combination of Stevens + Whistler/Blackcomb + the other Epic destinations would likely be a gamechanger in the Seattle market, and even though Mountain High won't likely be fully competitive with Big Bear, I think it'd be enough to substantially boost Epic sales in SoCal. Kapuscinski's been CEO at Mountain High for something like 21 years... cashing out and retiring must be kind of tempting. I think KSL/Aspen probably stay away, though--Mountain High wouldn't really do anything for them aside from blocking competitors, and that sort of anticompetitive behavior might trigger expensive enforcement action from state or federal regulators.
Big Bear's effectively much closer to a lot more people now than it was in the past. Is there much of anywhere populated in the LA Basin where Waterman or Baldy is a shorter winter drive than Mountain High?
Baldy is ridiculously close to Ontario and all of Socal. Mountain High is reasonably close. Bear is either a long drive or an impossibly long drive depending on traffic. I haven't been to Waterman. The issue is snow quality. Bear has the best man made snow and grooming I've ever skied. That's why it is a valuable asset.
Eric
Baldy is under one hour from the entire San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire regions and an hour and a half from most of the rest of LA and Orange Counties. Mt. High is about an hour and a half from the San Fernando/San Gabriel Valleys and about an hour from the Inland Empire. Big Bear is 2 hours minimum from anywhere but the Inland Empire and at least half an hour farther than Baldy or Mt. High from almost anywhere in SoCal. So Eleeski is absolutely right about snow quality. Snow Summit/Bear Mt. dominate despite being far less convenient. And on a busy weekend that drive to Big Bear can be a real ordeal. It's nearly always better to come home via the longer back road through Redlands in 2.5 hours because the traffic coming down the front road is a crawl.
Sorry, I don't see a Vail-type company touching Mt. High with a 10-foot pole as a buyer unless they know of a way to get much more water. For half of those 3+ months that BOTH Big Bear areas are 70+% open with world class grooming restoring snow surfaces, Mt. High has one of its areas closed completely and the other one half or less open with crappy surfaces from cramming too many bodies onto too little real estate. I won't even consider going to Mt, High unless both sides are open to spread people around. The scenario I describe above applies to the average yellow seasons on that chart. About 1/3 of seasons will be better and another 1/3 will be worse.
Terrain wise I actually like Mt. High better than Big Bear when everything is open. The problem is that when everything is open at Mt. High, most of Baldy is too. And for advanced skiers Baldy is on a completely different level vs. the other SoCal areas.
Good point. If the wells aren't recharged the initial round of snowmaking from the full reservoirs in November/December will be better but the maintenance from January onwards will still be deficient vs. 2011 and prior. This by the way is exactly what happened at Mammoth in 2014-15. They started with full reservoirs in November but could not recharge them from wells at a normal rate because of the three prior dry years.
Sorry, I don't see a Vail-type company touching Mt. High with a 10-foot pole as a buyer unless they know of a way to get much more water. For half of those 3+ months that BOTH Big Bear areas are 70+% open with world class grooming restoring snow surfaces, Mt. High has one of its areas closed completely and the other one half or less open with crappy surfaces from cramming too many bodies onto too little real estate. I won't even consider going to Mt, High unless both sides are open to spread people around. The scenario I describe above applies to the average yellow seasons on that chart. About 1/3 of seasons will be better and another 1/3 will be worse.
I think that's true, but if you're looking at the core of the season, Big Bear averages 85% open mid-January to mid-March. During most of the seasons below the green level, Mt. High will have less than half as much terrain open as Big Bear.
Terrain wise I actually like Mt. High better than Big Bear when everything is open. The problem is that when everything is open at Mt. High, most of Baldy is too. And for advanced skiers Baldy is on a completely different level vs. the other SoCal areas.
Last edited:
I didn't realize the road up to Baldy was that good/quick. I thought I'd read a trip report this past season about spending hours on the poorly-plowed road... but I guess I'm probably confusing it with Waterman.
I hear what you're saying, and I agree that Mt. High is never going to be a world-class destination resort. And I agree that without more water (and assuming that recent years represent a new normal, rather than an aberrant drought/warm spell) it'll permanently lag Big Bear. But is it so categorically different from Afton Alps, Wilmot, & Mt. Brighton?
It's about 9 miles on a fairly gradual road from Claremont to Mt. Baldy Village at 4,000 feet. Of the remaining 4 miles to the ski area, 2+ are steep hairpin turns, which can definitely become a cluster if people get stuck and/or the road is icy. But if you get in there super early in the morning and/or leave on a nice weather day it's usually very easy.
Waterman is 32 miles of typical mountain road driving above La Canada, similar to the San Bernardino to Big Bear drive. La Canada is much closer than San Bernardino to the L.A. Basin, so it is more convenient for many people. However 20+ miles of that drive are above 4,000 feet and almost no one lives up there, so the road does not have the highest priority for plowing and getting open after storms. Baldy's hairpins are tougher driving, but they are so much shorter that they generally get plowed on a timely basis.
I doubt those areas have regional competitor with 75% market share and a sustainable business "moat" on the ability to make snow.
Mt. High "permanently lags" Big Bear even when the wells are producing decently as in the 1990's. The wells are just not in the same league as Big Bear Lake as a water source. FYI I found that Mt. High's peak was 570K visits in 2001. Snow Summit bought Bear Mt. and extended its snowmaking expertise there in 2002. So Mt. High is now competing with twice the size of ski area with the snowmaking superiority as before 2002.
I'm always hesitant to call recent history "a new normal." But that chart does show we are in the longest stretch in SoCal ski history without an excellent natural snow season. 2016-17 would have been one of those years with a normal rain/snow mix, but it had 13 rain days vs. the 40 year average of 4 and prior record high of 9. Big Bear's climate is drier but somewhat colder than Mt. High's. So you could argue that the longer term weather trend favors Big Bear. During the past 7 seasons Big Bear and Mt. High have had similar natural snowfall while during the 30+ prior years Mt. High probably averaged 50% more.
On observation I'd like to share.
When/if Squaw, Alpine, Mammoth, Big Bear and June Mountain are all on one pass, it would certainly cut into Epic Pass (Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar) sales in California
When/if Squaw, Alpine, Mammoth, Big Bear and June Mountain are all on one pass, it would certainly cut into Epic Pass (Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar) sales in California
I'm not sure I agree with that. The SoCal and NorCal markets are distinctly different. Mammoth/Big Bear completely owns the SoCal market, both before and after the Aspen/KSL deal.
NorCal skiers know about Mammoth, but almost none of them actually go there during the winter because it's a 3-hour drive beyond Tahoe. Even on the July 1-4 holiday with Tioga Pass open, Squaw was overrun despite the far superior skiing available at Mammoth. People with a base in South Shore will probably stick with Epic as Heavenly is right there and Kirkwood not that far. NorCal skiers/riders have zero interest in Big Bear and barely know about June.
Where does someone live/have a ski house that adding Mammoth to a Squaw pass moves the needle vs. Epic? Minden/Gardnerville are an extra hour closer to Mammoth but Heavenly and Kirkwood are the most convenient areas for them.
I think quite few Tahoe skiers get Epic Local plus Mountain Collective, and will be happy with that arrangement unless/until Aspen/KSL decide to change that situation.
Sponsor
Members online
- Dwight
- crgildart
- Juliopi
- Eleeski
- az29okg
- mikes781
- C-Ski
- dbrford
- blackke17
- AltaSkier
- Noodler
- ctsnowplow
- pchewn
- Rich McP
- precisionchiro
- Rod9301
- Stev
- Plai
- smv
- ev_steve
- Wade
- butleri
- Aeolian
- HardDaysNight
- Dr.T
- DerKommissar
- Jim McDonald
- glencoe
- Methrensah
- connersw
- Drahtguy Kevin
- bennettc14
- altabrig
- jyl
- salvatore
- Larry
- dbostedo
- Mattadvproject
- scrubadub
- JMD
- Jms990
- MonkeyL
- bad influence
- jmills115
- GregK
- Phelmut
- DanoT
- cem
- chris_the_wrench
- BeiJiHu