For Some Resorts, Multi-Mountain Passes Mean Crowded Slopes and Longer Lift Lines

Update The popularity of IKON and Epic passes have ski resorts cutting off weekend sales at the windows and warning crowds on social media to stay home. Last month, the Crystal Mountain Resort announced it would no longer sell ski-lift tickets at its windows on weekends, a startling move in an industry that has historically sought volume and the high margin returns from single-day lift ticket sales. The resort, in the shadow of Washington’s Mount Rainier, has been plagued this season with overfilled parking lots, long lift lines and mountain roads choked with skier vehicles. The crowds were brought on by a cycle of big storms, yes, but also the crush of skiers who hold Ikon Passes, which grant riding privileges at Crystal all season long.

“It’s a very imperfect science, pairing demand with snow and terrain,” said Rusty Gregory, chief executive of Denver-based Alterra Mountain Co. , which owns Crystal. “Each resort has to do what’s right for its conditions and its skiers. ” Crystal, which will continue honoring Ikon passes and lift tickets that have been purchased in advance, is not an outlier.

The recent introduction of multi-resort passes have pushed more skiers to more places, making once-sleepy mountains more crowded. Resorts that are within driving distance of major metropolitan areas, in particular, are coping with powder day throngs not seen before. Private-equity-backed Alterra kindled an intense round of consolidation among ski resorts when it was formed in 2018 as a rival to Vail Resorts, a public company that owns Vail, Whistler-Blackcomb and Park City, among others. Vail was already selling several forms of its Epic Pass when Alterra introduced the Ikon Pass soon after its formation.

The dueling passes, both backed by large balance sheets and aggressive marketing, ushered in a new age for skiers. The two passes now cover every major ski resort in North America in some form. Skiers who once may have taken a single trip to Colorado or Utah, plus a weekend or two at a mountain within driving distance, all via single-day lift passes, now find value in multi-resort passes that can be fairly comprehensive for as little as $700. As single lift ticket prices at many resorts now approach $200, passes continue to grow more popular.

Vail announced in December it had sold more than 1. 2 million passes for this winter, an increase of 22 percent. Alterra doesn’t make its numbers public, but the company said it sold more than 250,000 passes for last winter, and sales for this season, Mr.