Rising Snowbowl prices add to resort controversy

Arizona Snowbowl became No. 1 in North America for the highest-priced ski lift tickets with day lift tickets reaching $309 this season.

New controversy arose after Snowbowl's drastic price increase in January. Weekend day lift tickets averaged above $200 during January and February, and the $309 ticket broke country records. Meanwhile, the resort reports ski lift operation closures daily and has yet to reflect company profit increase in employee wages.

The resort recorded a seven-day snowfall total of 76 inches on Jan. 21, attracting a large number of skiers and snowboarders who paid the high prices to experience the resort’s first major snowstorm of the season.

Angelina Grubb, the marketing coordinator at Arizona Snowbowl, said the resort uses demandbased pricing to manage the number of riders on the slopes and ensure guests have the best time on the mountain.

“Our prices are deeply discounted for those who purchase online and in advance, and as more people buy on select dates, ticket prices will begin to increase as Arizona Snowbowl’s method for determining lift ticket prices is based on demand,” Grubb said.

While advance ticket purchasing offers large discounts, it does not guarantee ideal snow conditions. Guests cannot always know when the next winter storm will hit, so demand-pricing prevents some from riding the mountain on sudden powder days.

Snowbowl has received backlash on social media since the price increase in January, with commenters complaining under the resort's Instagram posts about the rising prices and closure of lifts which provide access to the upper half of the mountain.

One commenter said she drove over three hours to ride on the mountain but found out everything was shut down due to high wind. Another said they paid $1000 for a season pass, but the expert terrain is “never open” because of the Arizona Gondola’s closure.

Leo Pratt, a first-year ski lift operator at Arizona Snowbowl and a senior at NAU, said working at Snowbowl has always been on his bucket list. Like many other employees at the resort, Pratt said one of his motivations for seeking employment was the free employee season pass.

Pratt is often assigned to work the gondola and said he noticed frequent closure of the lift due to wind hold, a safety precaution which temporarily halts lift operations because of high winds.

A wind hold at Snowbowl often lasts for a few hours and sometimes for the remainder of the day. On Jan. 21, the gondola was placed on hold for over two hours. The weekend before, it was shut down for a full day.

The resort does not offer refunds on the date a ticket is issued for. Guests may exchange their passes for store credit, but the resort does not guarantee full operations of its services, citing inclement weather or other unforeseeable interruptions as the reason.

Pratt said he empathizes with guests who buy a ticket for the Scenic Gondola ride and come to find out it is closed during riding hours.

“A lot of people will be coming from Phoenix or even farther,” Pratt said. “So, they can't really just come back whenever.”

The Arizona Gondola lifts riders 2,000 vertical feet up the mountain, providing the only access to 16 out of the 21 advanced runs on the ski hill.

Due to inconsistency with gondola operations, advanced season pass holders lose access to expert terrain. Snowbowl does not offer partial refunds to pass holders for any closure, except for a governmentordered closure of the entire resort or an ownership decision to close the resort, which happened at the start of the pandemic

John Keegan is a 30-year veteran skier at Snowbowl and continuous season pass holder. Keegan skied competitively for around 5 years in Freeride World Tour events predominantly in North America during the late ‘90s. He has skied on over 60 mountains, but he said he calls Snowbowl his home mountain.

Keegan said he is dissatisfied with how the resort manages season pass holders' access to the mountain. He said the resort restricted guests from coming up the mountain because parking lots are full, even though cars are coming down the mountain. This prevents pass holders from riding the mountain, even though they are already paying customers.

“They should just go if a car comes down, a car can go up,” Keegan said. “Just better managing of season pass holders and ski team members and their ability to go ride.”

Customers are not alone in their concerns with Snowbowl’s operations.

Linnea Taylor is a former employee of Snowbowl who worked as a children’s ski school instructor during the 2021-22 ski season. Part of the reason Taylor said she left was because of how the corporation treated its employees.

Taylor said she was hired over the phone without her interviewer asking if she had ski experience. Prior to beginning the position and even on her first day of work, Taylor said there was no training.

“I showed up, and they gave me a jacket, and then gave me 14 five-year-olds and told me to teach them to ski,” Taylor said. “I had no idea how.”

She said as a ski instructor last year, she only received full minimum wage pay while she was teaching lessons. Outside of lessons, she received half pay and was required to stay until the end of her shift even if she did not get scheduled for a lesson. She recounted one day she stayed until 4 p.m. without being scheduled for a single lesson: She was paid half-minimum wage for an eight-hour shift.

Taylor said there were a few times she had to teach 15 five-year-olds in one group. It was stressful and unfair to her and the kids, she said.

“A lot of these problems were put on the managers, and they weren’t their problems to solve,” Taylor said. “They did a really good job advocating for us … they also thought that they should have capped the amount of lessons that were sold, but Snowbowl didn’t.”

Taylor said during her time at Snowbowl, instructors were given a 50% discount off lodge food. However, this discount was void from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. — when instructor lunch hours were scheduled.

Current instructors at Snowbowl said this year they were not paid until they get their first lesson of the day. On weekends, they are asked to show up at the base of the mountain at 7:15 a.m., but lessons do not start until 9 a.m. During that time, they do not receive compensation.

On weekends, parents will pay $119 for their kids to attend a two-hour group lesson, but instructors receive less than 30 percent of that cost in their pay. An even greater pay-to-wage deficit occurs with private lessons. A three-hour private lesson costs $349 on weekends, but instructors receive less than 20 percent of that cost.

Pay rates for instructors fluctuate depending on how long the instructor has been working at the resort and the number of hours they work during the season.

“They're not getting any type of bonus,” Taylor said. “The only people who are benefiting from it is the company, not the employees. They have the money to pay more than minimum wage to start with, even without all these absurd ticket prices.”

James Coleman, aka the “Ski King of the Southwest,” is the owner of Arizona Snowbowl. He is the managing partner and CEO of Mountain Capital Partners, a company that manages ski resorts and mountain bike parks across Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Oregon.

Mountain Capital Partners’ purpose is to “give people the freedom to ski.”

The demand-based pricing strategy used at Coleman’s resorts is not unusual in the ski industry.

A recent trend is for ski resort prices to increase each year. During the 2020-21 winter season, only three resorts in North America exceeded $200 for a day lift ticket. In the 2021-22 season, 10 resorts exceeded $200, and the highest-priced day pass for the season was $249 at Deer Valley in Utah.

Now, Arizona Snowbowl takes the lead, setting the record thus far for this winter at $309.

As of Feb. 14, Snowbowl reported 197 inches of snow for the 2022-23 season. The resort advertises an average 260 inches of snow annually. However, the annual snowfall has a high volatility, fluctuating from as low as 50 inches one year to over 300 inches another. Snowbowl uses a snowmaking system to provide consistency throughout the season.

Snowbowl receives a significant amount of snow compared to the rest of Arizona and its high temperatures, but the ski services offered are comparable to similar resorts across the country that charge less.

Snowbowl has 777 skiable acres, 55 runs and 8 lifts. The peak lift-service elevation is 11,500 feet with a 2,300-foot vertical drop — the distance from the top of the resort to the base.

A comparable resort in Colorado, Monarch Mountain, has 800 skiable acres, 67 runs and 7 lifts. The peak summit elevation is 11,952 feet with a 1,162-foot vertical drop. The average annual snowfall is 350 inches compared to Snowbowl’s 260-inch annual snowfall.

Monarch receives 90 inches more of snowfall than Snowbowl on average, but the Colorado resort charges significantly less, with a peak day-ticket price of $139.

Eva Egbert, the Monarch marketing administration manager, said Monarch Mountain uses a dynamic-pricing method based on demand. This is similar to Snowbowl’s pricing strategy.

“Last year was the first year we started feeling limitations on our available parking on busy holiday weekends and Saturday-powder-days,” Egbert said.