11 Moments That Redefined U.S. Skiing in 2021
Skiing proves resilient as investment ramps up, the outdoors boom, and the resort-and-pass shuffle resumes
Welcome to The Storm Skiing Journal’s 2021 year-in-review of skiing in U.S. America*. As with last year’s edition (which focused exclusively on the Northeast), this list is not meant to be definitive or exhaustive, and the items below do not appear in any particular order. I’m sorry that I missed Trevor McHotstuff’s switch 9000 off that 450-foot cliff on Mount Sickness – this is intended to capture the evolution of lift-served U.S. skiing, rather than the progression so doted on at Radbrah Central. The question I am attempting to answer instead: how did the ski areas – where 99 percent of skiers spend 99 percent of their time – and the way skiers access them change in 2021 in ways that are likely to resonate into 2022 and beyond? I welcome feedback and alternate versions. Let’s go:
1) Alterra modifies Ikon Pass access tiers at Crystal Mountain
It was an amazing thing that first year, the 2018-19 debut of the Ikon Pass: $599 for a Base Pass, unlimited Crystal Mountain included. No holiday blackouts. Skip down to Tahoe or Utah or Colorado or Jackson Hole. How does every skier in Washington not buy this? It seemed as though every skier in Washington did, and state highway 410 turned into a 40-mile-long traffic jam for several consecutive weekends following heavy snows in January 2020. The mountain turned off walk-up weekend lift-ticket sales, but it was clear unlimited Base Pass access was unsustainable. When Alterra released its 2021-22 Ikon Pass suite this past March, it shifted Crystal to five days with holiday blackouts on the $729 Base Pass – anyone who wanted unlimited access had to roll with the $999 version. So what? Alterra has adjusted access several times before, bumping Stratton and Sugarbush up to unlimited-with-blackouts on the Ikon Base Pass (from five days with blackouts at each, after Vail added Mount Snow and Okemo to its Epic Local Pass as unlimited-with-blackouts mountains), and removing Aspen and Jackson Hole from the cheaper version altogether. But these ongoing changes signal that Alterra is paying attention to the skier experience and is willing to adjust access tiers to curate a better ski day or make their products more competitive with the Epic Pass. Expect more changes when the company cracks open its 2022-23 pass suite, likely in early March.
