How Corporate Consolidation is Killing Ski Towns 

There are not enough 80’s movie style ski offs to save their towns from big corporations.

the employees pay for parking??? LOL. Another thing not mentioned about finding housing is that you won't get approved if you don't make 2x or 3x the cost of rent.

I grew up in Frisco, Colorado, it's one of the hub towns for these resorts. I saw all of this happen, everyone thinking the epic pass would bring so much more to our small town's economy. Then vail pressured local governments to eminent domain acres of land and set living density maximums that only applied to everyone else, making it so building anywhere near the ski resorts as a private citizen was illegal unless you were vail. Nothing takes "free" out of "free market" like monopolies i guess.

I spent two years in Whistler Blackcomb right when Vail purchased the resort. I was stunned by the systematic abuse of workers. I'll never forget when I started my first job at Whistler, I asked my employer (Black Tie Ski rentals) why I wasn't getting enough hours, I need to make a living, they replied "We hope you have some savings to rely on". Living there was both amazing and ruthless. Housing was a nightmare, many people going homeless. Many people sharing rooms/beds and living on top of each other. Grocery prices were out of control. I'd move back there in a heartbeat if it was viable, but living like a Ski 'BUM' was not worth it.

The one place that has figured this problem out is Jasper National Park. The townsite in the Rockies only allows people to buy a house there if they have a job in the town. Even though there is a lot of demand to live there for the ski resort Marmot Basin in the winter, or the trails, hot springs, and wildlife in the summer, it's not possible for investors to buy up land unless they actually live and work there. So the homes stay affordable for the townsfolk who make it such an awesome place to visit in stark contrast to places like Whistler, BC.

I'm a high schooler in Crested Butte and I've spent my entire life here. I work two jobs in the winter season, three in the summer season, and then during the off seasons the entire town empties out completely. At the restaurant I work at, wait times during spring break were easily 2+ hours for a table, but the next week, it was half empty the entire night. The restaurant closes twice a year cause there's nobody there, and then the summer comes and it's even worse, wait times sometimes exceeding 3 hours for a table, all of the tourists coming and destroying the surrounding nature and ecosystem, and then yelling at workers when they learn how long the wait is. I've seen customers throw menus at the host, threaten to punch servers, and then go back to their multimillion dollar homes that sit empty for most of the year. The town used to be a place where you would walk down the street and know everybody, but now its full of tourists and you don't know anybody. There's so little housing available that we have to wait in hours-long lines to get our mail at the post office because there are so few people working there. It used to be a nice, cozy little town, but now its a disaster

I was born and raised in Crested Butte. My family used to live in town along with lots of local neighbors. Once Vail bought it up though, we and many others were forced out. Almost no one lives in the actual town of CB now and nearly the entire workforce is teenagers. Calling it a ghost town in the off seasons is no exaggeration. Pretty much every house and apartment in CB and the surrounding neighborhoods are second, third, or fourth homes. It's been really depressing to watch my beloved hometown be gobbled up by corporate ski resorts and second homeowners. The worst part is, I'll never be able to live there again because of the prices.

You should cover how it's impossible in ski towns to rent apartments because air BnBs have decimated availability. Ski resorts struggle every year houing their employees

Over 10 years ago, my childhood dream of living in a quaint Colorado town came to an end as the entire western mountainous regions transformed into exclusive playgrounds for the affluent.

I'm from Truckee, a ski town in Norcal that was mentioned early on in the video, and I can't say how much I appreciate someone talking about this. Vail is definitely the most extreme example of the issue, but the trend we're seeing all over the country to Vail-ify these communities is really horrible. I was born here, and I've lived here nearly my entire life (I left for a while for college but decided to come back) and the shift I've seen in my town over the last few years has been really disheartening. There are a few more things I'd like to mention about this (although the video does a great job of breaking the problem down): 1. Ski resorts and their social media encourage people to drive in incredibly unsafe conditions for the 'fresh pow'. Northern California has received record snowfall this year and the drive from the San Francisco bay area to where I am requires driving across Donner Summit which is an incredibly treacherous trip in bad whether (if you've heard of the Donner Party before this pass is where they got trapped, if that gives you any idea of what it's like). You end up with a lot of people who are not experienced driving in blizzard conditions trying to come up to ski, getting into crashes, and forcing Caltrans to close the highway which disrupts things like food deliveries into my town. 2. The traffic to get to the ski areas can build up so much that it gridlocks all the communities around them. Vail has a transport system, Palisades Tahoe and Northstar (our biggest resorts) do not, so the morning ski traffic is ridiculous. For context, one day that this happened it took my coworker 45 minutes to get to work and her commute normally takes about 5 minutes (Truckee is about a 30 minute drive from both these resorts without traffic, they are not close to us). 3. Degradation of the environment, entitled attitudes, and disrespect towards service workers in the community. Some people who are on vacation like to act like everyone else should know they're on vacation too. They get to demand whatever they want and treat the space around them like shit. It's definitely not everyone and locals can be just as awful, but at least in my community there's a lot of resentment towards vacationers (or as most people call them: Tourons and Cityits) because of some entitled tourists that treat us like we're below them. Again, it's the minority of people but just a few loud, horrible people can make everyone a little bit bitter. Anyways, I just wanted to share a little more about what it can be like to live in a town near these ski resorts. There's a reason why so many people work their asses off for very little money to live here, it's a beautiful place with really cool, down to earth people. If you choose to visit a ski resort, just pick up after yourself and try to be polite to people. Most of us want you all to be able to enjoy the cool stuff here just as much as we get to :)

One of my favorite phrases from those working in Colorado’s ski towns is, “The help doesn’t live here.” I experienced this first hand while working at a dispensary in Aspen. I had to commute from Glenwood Springs. Hell, some folks would even commute from as far away as Rifle. Even then though, my wife and I could hardly make ends meet. At the time we had a 1 year old, but we couldn’t afford childcare. My wife worked nights and I worked days while we played hot potato with our daughter. By the way, according to Zillow the cheapest house in the Roaring Fork Valley right now is $670K. The projected monthly mortgage payment is shy of $4K. As a single person you’d have to make well over 25 an hour just to keep that roof over your head, but that doesn’t account for all the other expenses in life.

I live in a tourist town on a lake, similar situation with housing. Boomers from California are selling their houses and moving here and driving up prices, investment firms are buying up houses and turning them into vacation rentals essentially killing the local rental market. In 5 years the median house price went from $280k to $600k, rent almost tripled from $900 to $2100 a month. Result, displaced pissed off locals. It’s starting to implode in real time and it’s fascinating, housing prices have dropped by 30% and all new developments have stopped dead.

I feel so bad for people living in tourist hotspots, I feel like this type of thing happens all over the world

We have voted on a law in Switzerland which restricts the number of secondary residences in every town, to say that more people should stay as full time residents versus temporary tourists

Im from here, former Vail mountain employee. Thank you so much for making this. The gentrification of Colorado is so sickening to me. No one I grew up with could afford to live there so for Colorado residents, these new ski town monstrosities are going to reek havok to the already ABSURD cost of living. Go ahead and ask anyone in CB if they’re a Colorado native, or especially native american, and I you’d probably be surprised to see where all the money is coming from. Hint:denim ski pants. 🤠

I’m a long time Vail employee (no longer) and this is so cool to see. I really hope that people who have no connection to the winter sports industry see the connection between the Vail monopoly and our access to the the outdoors. Outside is a publicly shared and non-owned resource. Our only responsibility is to keep it healthy

As someone who is from Vail and worked in Aspen, it's such a shell of its former self. You can't find a room to rent that is under $1500, there is no sense of community because because everyone has to work 2 jobs, if you don't love skiing or hiking, there is nothing but a ton of cocaine issues and DUI's.

It's scary how much you know about something that is my life, employment, and housing. This video even showed my daily coffee shop, the road I walk everyday, and the slopes I have memorized like the back of my hand. This feels surreal.

The biggest issue is really the huge numbers of D bags you’ll find in Vail, Aspen and Tahoe. I believe the concentration is 990/1000 people. Tons of smug, makes it hard to breathe while you’re skiing or keep down that $100 lunch you just had. I just can’t physically hang out with those people very long.

This video is beautifully produced, but that can’t hide the fact that there are a few arguments to be raised against its premise. I live in Stowe, Vermont, where I own a small hotel. Stowe may be the exception in that its businesses are for the most part independently owned. Even before Vail came on board Stowe Mountain Resort had been imagining and creating a village-like experience up on the mountain with its own shops and restaurants, but you’ll spend $10 for a Bud Light in those places. The average person skis on the mountain and then drives down the Mountain Road to eat and sleep downtown, where prices are still high but not astronomical. The video touches upon a lot of issues which also affect Stowe, the affordability problem being the most prominent. It’s increasingly difficult for a middle-class family to live and work in this town. The video’s blind spot, however, is first of all that this trend was started well before Vail swooped in, and secondly, that it treats this issue as if it occurred in a vacuum with no other factors influencing anything. The fact of the matter is that the pandemic changed everything for us. U.S. cities all of a sudden turned into undesirable wastelands (for reasons beyond just the pandemic, let’s say). Homes in high-value rural towns were sold, often sight unseen, for a million dollars or even two or three by people desperate to get out of the cities as soon as possible. Their new owners were, without exception, folks who fared incredibly well in the pandemic economy, fueled by excessive government spending and the fact that our dollars could only roll in a few directions due to the lockdowns. Another problem that’s not even mentioned in the video is short-term rentals. Every other home that’s sold in Stowe now becomes an AirBnB. This takes housing inventory away from normal folks in need of a place to live. This is a tricky problem, and now the cat is out of the bag I’m not sure there’s a way to solve it. Either way, its rapid growth is clearly a sign of an asset bubble, and in fact the short-term rental market in Stowe is crashing as we speak. A third problem is that there’s simply too much red tape to build affordable housing in Stowe. Government regulations play a role, but so does, frankly, the NIMBY attitude of its wealthier inhabitants who’d rather see our land gobbled up by the land trust so they can hike or walk their dog there than for it to be developed so actual people can live on it. I’m all for land preservation, make no mistake, but there are trade-offs to be made in life and our choices have consequences. None of this is to say that Vail hasn’t influenced or even exacerbated any of the above, but the problems in ski towns are clearly more complex than portrayed in this video. Many factors have contributed to a perfect storm in which those who owned their homes here before 2020 are grateful for that fact, but those who buy homes today are either very well off or go elsewhere. For better or worse, it’s changed the nature of our town. All this said, Stowe is still a great place to live and local, independently-owned businesses here are doing extremely well. Happy to live where I live.

I’ve been a skier for 50 years and I will concur with Sam on everything in this video, but he left out a huge problem: once people buy their Epic pass, Vail has their money for the season, and there is no incentive to make snow or groom slopes beyond the bare minimum, because the season pass decoupled lift ticket sales from skiing conditions. For example, in February I was skiing Stowe and the Front 4 were *all* closed the entire week that I was there, as well as many other black diamond and all double black diamond trails, basically only the blues were kept operating. If I were buying my lift ticket on a daily basis, I wouldn’t have bothered with Stowe and would have gone elsewhere, but since I have an Epic pass, I have no financial leverage over the company what so ever, they would be pleased if I _didn’t_ ski. Vail has not only wrecked the ski towns, but is actively wrecking the sport of skiing for anyone who skis at an “advanced” or “expert” level, those skiers aren’t the most profitable, so no reason to accommodate them.

My sister and her fiance worked for Vail staying in their assigned housing and it was an absolutely awful experience. Dorms were treated like a religious school with strict curfew, gendered housing, and managers that could walk and search your room whenever they pleased- mind you most employees were in their late 20's. Because of the prohibitive parking, many people opted to sell their cars and ended up being trapped by the system, unable to afford to leave. It was an awful experience and nearly ended their marriage, they were fired with no reason given after my brother in law broke his arm at work- I wonder why...

I worked and lived in Vail from 2010 to 2016, right up until the 50th anniversary of the resort. It was a helluva time to be there. My second winter there I worked at a private club that the CEO at the time, Rob Katz, would frequent. I remember someone informing me at one point that Rob was entertaining the European CEO of a Vail Resorts equivalent. It felt at the time like I was getting insider trading information. Never acted on it for the record! I feel incredibly fortunate to have lived there when I did. It was also incredibly wild to witness how much the mountain changed the in that brief period as well. A number of chairlifts got upgraded from relatively simple models to ones that dumbed down the loading process with conveyor belts and could carry 6 people instead of 4. Plus, a chairlift from the bottom to MidVail was replaced with a gondola that had heated seats. Seeing Vail spend such money to attract such a specific clientele, knowing what it would do to the “town”, with absolutely no regard for the people on the ground making it all happen was so tough

I am from Telluride, a mountain town in southwest Colorado. My family was pushed out by rising house costs, and corporate greed that continues to get the once bustling community it once had. It’s gotten to the point where surrounding towns have outright been purchased just for the workers to live there, and other towns have become Airbnb hotspots with barely any available housing for lower income families. Seven generations my family has lived in the San Juan mountains, and unfortunately I fear that ends with me. As it’s just too unaffordable, and unrealistic even with the good paying job I have now.

I am from Durango Colorado. A ski town just like the ones referenced during this video. Heavily reliant on our tourist economy. Our local mountain has stayed out of the grasp of Vail, as well as other conglomerates of ski resorts. But it breaks my heart to watch the town I grew up in slowly slip towards mediocrity and soulless corporate acquisition. It’s not helped by rich tourists driving up property prices and making our town unlivable for the locals. It warms my heart to see someone actually addressing this pretty niche issue.

I work as a lift operator in the winter, and Vail bought out our hometown resort here in Ohio. Due to the merge, I was able to work in Colorado for part of the year as well, which was a great experience, but Vail as a company has so many issues. They charge way too much for their passes, the employee housing and scheduling is rough, and employees have to pay for parking and other random bullshit that should be a given. Even their communication sucks, I didn’t know I had the job out west until the week of my supposed first day . I called them daily to see if it was confirmed. Had to pack up and move cross country within days. I work there because it allows me to afford snowboarding, but I don’t want to always be working for Vail. Greedy fucking company man.

I’ve skied all over the western US and lived in CO for 7 years. Personally, I feel CO is the epitome of making ski towns like Disneyland. But there are some places you can avoid this in CO. Go to Monarch, Sunlight, A-Basin, Eldora, or Wolf Creek. Unfortunately none of these really have a town at the base, but these don’t make you feel like you’re at Disneyland at least.

I'm a Norwegian and grew up skiing in our smaller resorts in southern Norway. I recently was on exchange in BC and I took the opportunity to ski some of the great slopes of the west coast. It was an eye opener. The skiing was great, but all the towns felt like being in Disney world, not an actual town. Whistler Blackcomb might be the worst example. Every store and restaurant was a company store, and the prices are so high I don't understand how regular people can afford to go. Skiing was never a cheap sport, but you're pricing out so many people now I can't see how it doesn't jeopardize the future of the sport - not to mention cannibalizing the towns they're in. Hopefully, when Europeans go to these places they take the message home so we avoid the Vailification of our resorts here. I'll take older lifts and less groomed terrain to keep costs low enough to allow people with normal incomes on the slopes, mom and pop cafe's, restaurants and rental joints, and avoid killing the towns they're in. Great video.

Corporate consolidation is killing way more than just ski towns

It seems to me that the obvious solution is either running ski resorts as co-ops or having them owned and operated by the nearest town/municipality. The current system of Vail owning everything, even the housing for workers, sounds disturbingly like the history of company towns in the US.

I applied at a ski resort, as the head of maintenance a number of years ago. I withdrew from the idea after I found out the pay for the position. The person who had all the responsibility to keep the place running,(from the lifts, electrical and computer networking) did not pay enough to purchase a home close enough to live in, and instead was offered "employee housing" I could rent from the company. In my opinion, when that kind of position does not pay enough to purchase a local home, the company is greedy, and not a place I can work.

Thank you for making this!

Vail is awful. My dad is a ski instructor at one of the mountains and the way they've been treating employees is just awful. And they can't unionize either- They can easily fire employees for trying to unionize. The punishment for doing so? Paying the fired employees their paycheck. Essentially, paying them what they would be making anyways. The system is completely broken and Vail is absolutely ruining a mountain I've been skiing on since I was a toddler.

Terrifically well-done video. With my native Colorado destroyed, I pray for the survival of my local hill (Eagle Point Utah) and beloved Montana mom and pop lifts. In Colorado and at Park City, the peaks still look the same, but that is about it. I am glad to be an old geezer and have good memories of what was, as I yet today meditate and search hard for the backcountry stashes and runs.

I have worked in Vail, grew up in Leadville, and lived in Avon/Beaver Creek. And it’s soooooo true VR took over this beautiful place and shoved all the locals down or out. 😢

Thanks for making this… I was born and raised in the (former) ranching town of Steamboat Springs. The resort on the east side of town was added to the Ikon pass a few years back, and the town almost instantly ceased to be itself. Recently, housing has gotten so bad that the city is annexing generations-old homesteading ranches and **exhuming homesteaders’ graves** to make spaces for apartments. All of my childhood friends have been priced out, and my parents gave up just recently on trying to stay and are moving to florida this year. Nowadays the town is about as true to its western roots as Universal Studio’s Hogsmeade recreations are authentic. So much history, culture, and community destroyed by a corporation who never cared about any of it, only the money that could be milked from it.

I live in Vancouver and was lucky enough to grow up skiing in Whistler. I worked as an instructor on weekends through high school and Colledge, but one year into the Vail takeover, all my students dropped after the price hike for lift passes. Never thought I would miss Intrawest...

All of the small towns i remember my dad driving us thru in the fifties along route 66 have vanished. There were so many with nice city halls and churches and stores. soon they were all just gas stations, now they aren't even remembered. dust in the wind.

My dad worked on the national ski patrol in the 70s, and I grew up skiiing when I had the chance. I stopped skiing ages ago and thankfully lost the love for it. The last and only time I've ever skiid at or even been to Vail was about 10 years ago when I was invited, and then saw the day ticket prices and was astonished. The price for parking alone was enough to make me gag! That was years ago and prices have easily doubled. I went skiing when day passes were blow $50 per day (I'll avoid really ageing myself). I live in Denver and when I talk to people outside of Colorado, they often ask how how the snow is and if I ski. I tell them the dark reality of snow sport in this state. It's possible if that's all you do in the winter, and you have a substantial income, and you live very modestly and are willing to put up with far worse traffic than anywhere else. It's really horrible. They cold improve the 70 and put another lane in, but that would be cost, time, and well ethically prohibitive. Considering that that's exactly what most locals in those small towns don't want to have happen. Even then, another lane (thanks to Not Just Bikes) wouldn't solve the problem that it would claim to. I think that in order for things to become more affordable, the sport is going to have to decline in popularity. Another very sad part is someone, or a group of people are climbing that corporate ladder at Vail resorts at the cost of people's lives, livelihoods, and the environment.

I was born in Aspen, grew up and live a couple towns down valley. I still live with my parents because it’s the only way I can afford to live here. My parents can only afford to live here because they bought their house over 20 years ago. I have coworkers who live over an hour away because they can’t afford anything closer. And locals aren’t just being priced out but straight up forced out. Last year a local art gallery in Aspen lost their lease, not because they couldn’t afford it, but because the owner wanted a luxury chain store to increase the value of the building. The gallery found out how much the luxury store would be paying and offered to pay more and were straight up told “we don’t want a local business”. My parents met in Aspen in the 80s and to hear them talk about how it was then compared to now is just crushing

As someone born and raised in Colorado, this is such a cathartic video. Even outside the mountains, this is such a huge problem. It feels like half of Denver is owned by people from California and Florida who make the whole place ridiculously expensive. It's such a massive problem, thanks for talking about it

I remember going skiing with my parents as a child in swizerland every year. Usually for a week, sometimes even two. Kids under 12 got a free ski pass, renting skis and equipment cost 5 CHF/day. We had the priviledge of having a family friend who lives close by so we stayed at their place but even a hotel would've been affordable for a family of 4 at the time. The most expensive thing about the whole vacation was parking and skiing lessons. Some of my fondest childhood memories are from these vacations. Playing in the snow behind the house, running through the snowed-in forest, eating crêpes and drinking hot chocolate at the town market. I even happily learned french at school just to be able to communicate better with the locals as I got older so by the time I was 12 I could navigate the town by myself. After I moved out, got older and got a job I stopped going on vacations with my parents. But I wanted to still go skiing so I went back to that same town. But.. it was kind of sad. A reality check for sure. The mountain train wasnt free anymore. Hell the price quadroupled from 4 CHF for a to-and-from ride to 12 CHF. I have my own skis so that was no additional cost. A ski pass wasnt 90 CHF/week but 250 CHF. The hotel was too expensive for my so I opted for a travelers hostel nearby and even that cost me 180 CHF/day. As a single person with a steady, middle class income, going skiing for a week is a luxury. I'm making roughly the same as my parents when they were my age. I cannot imagine taking an entire family skiing. Every price exploded, most have doubled or tripled, some are even 4-5x higher than during my childhood. But the sadder part is the town itself. A lot of the former houses have become tourist rentals. The small town market was expanded and is now full of shops that have none of the original charm the place once had. There are tennis courts and a golf course now, including the high end hotel resorts for rich people. All smack in the middle of old wood and cobblestone mountain houses. It just doesnt fit in, it looks jarring and off. I still enjoyed my time hiking and enjoying the nature, but I didnt feel at home in the town anymore. Thankfully I was able to talk to some locals after a nice shopkeep asked me about the pins on my jacket (got em as a kid from some town festivals 20 years ago. I still treasure them). It was nice to see at least some parts are still the same. But sad to see so much changed in such a drastic way that even the locals feel helpless and scared about the future...

As someone who has lived in all of these towns, and now Gunnison....very well done. VR has always sucked, but when I moved to Vail in 1995, skiing was actually more expensive. I drove for CME, and those shuttles cost more back then. A season pass was well over $1000. I'm not sure what the perfect ski town looks like.....but worst part of most of these towns is lack of community. In my decade of living in Vail, I had more than 30 total roommates.....not a single one of those people still live in the mountains. What we've seen in the last couple of years in real estate prices, it's made it to where housing is a major issue that affects all aspects in an extremely negative way.

Like many of these commenters, I have had the same experience. I grew up in Silverthorne. We moved in when it was halfway between the bust side of a boom town and a world-class vacation spot. It was beautiful. I remember wading the Blue River, hiking Ptarmigan in the snow, neighbors plowing off a nearby lake for a skating rink, climbing Buffalo in the summer, and afternoon thundershowers crashing over the Gore Range most summer afternoons. Silverthorne is not a ski town, but pretty much all of Summit County has now been devoured by the sprawl of A Basin, Breck, Copper, and Keystone. We had to leave, and now I don't have a chance in hell of ever moving back to my hometown. It's been taken over by absentee landlords, the plague of short-term rentals, and multimillionaires on their second or third homes. But not only am I financially prohibited from moving back, the town I knew simply doesn't exist anymore. You can't sustain a community when the majority of both employees and visitors are seasonal. There are fewer and fewer locals left to anchor the place to anything. That also means more and more of the votes come from the gentrifiers who have no interest in preserving a community. In addition, special districts in Colorado let you vote based on property ownership. So many zoning, taxing, and service decisions are taken by people who don't even pretend to maintain a residence in the county. I can't ever get that back. My best option is to move into a town that hasn't yet become the next Aspen, but in doing so I'm only contributing to the hollowing-out of someone else's hometown. It's a tragedy.

A professor at my university is actually doing research on the gentrification of rural mountain towns by mostly rich individuals. Pretty interesting. Hoping I can get involved in it.

One thing to keep in mind - that recent huge increase in housing costs was seen in many places outside of cities, even in suburbs, and it was due to Covid and changes in where/how we work.

I live in Teton County Wyoming. The two corporate ski areas (Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Grand Targhee) have changed Jackson Hole and Teton Valley in exactly the ways you've described.

What a depressing, but well-done video. In the search for authenticity and a transcendent alpine experience, the task is getting more and more difficult. I'm super grateful to live in a small Canadian ski town and value the authenticity beyond measure. I only hope it lasts.

As you can tell by the comments this hits home for a lot of us. You’re seeing some towns try to introduce bans on short term rentals only to get voted down. I’ve seen employee housing developments get killed in zoning battles. Mountain traffic is getting worse (I-70 anyone?). There’s not a good workable solution either.

I live in a remote but popular Alterra Ski resort, Mammoth Lakes, in California. We are experiencing the same crises with some seasonal workers resorting to living in their vehicles. Would have loved to have this video include the impact on locals that serve the community rather than tourists. Teachers, firefighters, nurses, etc. I am a mental healthcare provider and lost my housing a year ago. I’ve had to provide therapy to my patients through video as I bounce around from staying with family 6 hours away, house sitting, and occasionally crashing in my office so I can provide “in-person” service while waiting for affordable housing to come available. After this historic winter 10% of our buildings have been red tagged for structural damage from snow, displacing more people. The outlook is grim.

Saw this coming to Tahoe 30 yrs ago after going to corporate Vail, used to park next to the lifts and hill but when they built villages in the parking lots and you have to park so far away it’s a shuttle ride to eat the lunch you brought yourself!

As someone that lived/worked in a BC, Canada ski town this is a huge issue. Only through work did i find somewhere affordable to live because they had their own accommodation. It was a winter town for skiing and a summer town for golf (I was there in the summer) and if you tried to find affordable long term housing it was next to impossible, like I knew someone that waited close to 2 years to finally find it. I'd love to live there but don't even know where to start with finding long term housing

Crested Butte Ski Bum here. You've done a great job of laying this narrative out that we are watching unfold right in front of us. Im a videographer as well and would love to help tell our story on a larger platform if you need more footage or help.

One of the worst effects of this kind of takeover is the destruction and removal of locally owned businesses. I grew up in one of these towns that was purchased by Vail and seeing local coffee shops and restaurants being shoved out to make room for Starbucks and other shitty national chains is heartbreaking. I've since stopped skiing as much as I did as a kid, due to cost and moving to other parts of the country but man... It sucks seeing the "corporitization" and capitalism of it all just tear everything out for greed.

I worked at Winter Park CO in the late 90s and into the early 2000s. This ski area is owned by the City of Denver and was really the first ski area in the state. Unlike a lot of the big resorts it was on a lot of US Forest Service land. It didn't have a lot of room for stores, hotels and condos. Thus the town itself stayed small. We didn't make much above minimum wage, though we got some raises because of a labor shortage. It offered a 4 buddy pass. 4 people could get a season pass for $200.00 each. It was a huge hit in Colorado but, killed our part time workers as they no longer had to work for a pass. Like most of the ski area jobs, rent ate everyone's check. We were lucky in that we didn't have to pay for parking and there was an employee shuttle. Though it wasn't fancy, the skiing was great and we had passes to other ski areas. Lunch time we often had soup or sandwiches for lunch but, we also had BBq grills and would do that a few times a week too. Sadly it was in need of money, badly. W.P. had the oldest lift in the state and parts had to be custom made because they were no long available on the market or the lift maker. The city opened up the idea of selling the area but, that was stopped by an outcry of people and the Mayor of Denver. People didn't want W.P. to become another Vail or Aspen. So, a deal was struck with InterWest. At the time a very large golf/ski resort company. With golf/ski resorts from the East Coast to the West Coast. Arizona to Vancouver Canada. It put money into the resort, bought new lifts, upgraded the facilities. They also killed the fun. No more BBqs at the lifts during lunch, restricted the skiing. They also got hold of some land and built of course, expensive condos. But no employee housing close by. I haven't been back to W.P. in years but, I heard that the Forest service gave up some land and some ranches down the road sold out. Looking at Google maps and Zillow, a lot of expensive condos and houses are now in the area. I heard that InterWest was bought up by Aspen. I moved on to Big Sky Ski Resort in Montana. It was an old fashion ski town for a while. They had three dorms for employees on the resort. They are gone now and multi-million dollar condos took their place. I will give credit to Boyne and The Yellowstone Club. They bought up some old hotels and built some dorms down in the valley and have shuttles. I don't know what they charge for rent. But Big Sky is just another Vail now.

Thank you for making this. I had the opportunity to go through the hiring process as a rookie ski lift operator in Whistler all through last year. I ended up turning it down because of Vail's requirements. Paying for a background check, as well as not having your own space. Seriously, bunk beds for the privilege of working up there? Plus, the non-refundable damage deposit. It wasn't worth it.

Thank you for making this. I grew up in Eagle and my parents have lived there over 25 years. I worked as a private instructor with Vail Resorts for 1 season in college and it was eye opening. It cost me more money to have that job that I earned from it. Most days I would drive ~20 miles each way to the resort, spend about 30 minutes getting dressed out of a shared locker, and wait 30 minutes in an office in case a lesson was scheduled. I would repeat getting undressed/dressed again at noon in case a half-day lesson was scheduled. I'd get home at least 8 hours after I left and only would get paid for the 1 hour I was waiting in and office. When I did teach a lesson, I was still paying for my own ski equipment, which had to be relatively new/expensive, I had to buy my lunch from the resort's lodges while with guests, which is still pricey with an employee discount, and I had to handle any medical expenses, which are fairly common in skiing, because I had no benefits. A private lesson would last up to 6 hours and cost over 1000 dollars for a guest, a half-day cost north of 800. The price didn't include admission to the resort, guests were paying purely for my time spent instructing for which I was paid 12 dollars an hour. Before I started the job I saw working at a resort as a rite of passage even though I knew beforehand it wouldn't be my career. Almost everyone I knew growing up spent their careers in the industry and though it wasn't easy and everyone had off-season jobs they were able to own houses and raise families. This was all before Vail Resorts existed though and I didn't realize how quickly these opportunities disappeared until I worked for them. Frankly I'm astonished that there's still people working as instructors. I'm still grateful to have grown up where I did. Skiing is a wonderful experience that everyone should be able to have but it hard to recommend the profit milking corporate venture that is Vail Resorts.

Ive lived here in Colorado all my life but its not even worth it to go snowboarding sometimes. Passes are through the roof, traffic can be a nightmare, and our once quiet state is just overrun with people moving here and tourists flooding the area. Worst of all is the people who can't drive in the mountains, rain, or snow

Grew up working in the industry. First job at 15 was a ski instructor and kept that job until about 23. Eventually I ended up in VAIL where it seems like the resort/towns peaked. Everyone loved working and living there, eventually I moved and always felt like I wanted more of Vail. So, I moved back after 3 years and in those 3 short years the resort and surrounding cities changed drastically. Rarely did I meet someone who loved working and living there, vacation homes destroyed the ability to employees to afford rent. The demographic of workers there also changed from those who loved nature and high-level skiing to those who want to party and low-level skiers further driving homeowners not wanting to rent homes to employees. I lived in someone's basement in Edwards for $1800/month after utilities where the actual homeowners where some of the most disrespectful people I ever met. Loved the first 5 years I spent in the Vail Valley, expensive but the ability to still live comfortably. Now this is not possible unless you come from a very wealthy family.

As someone who worked for Vail Resorts at Breckenridge and lived in Employee housing you nailed this video on the head!!!

Sam continually convinces me, that he is from Colorado, with all the times he mentions the state or cities in it.

This hits close to home ... literally :( I'm from Park City Utah. I grew up there. My little town will NEVER be the same. It started with American Ski coming in and buying up my home resort, Park West (Wolf Mountain). Then Veil came to buy up the town. Now even Deer Valley got bought out and is a super corporate mess. At one point or another, I worked for all those resorts / companies. They are wrecking my town :( I could write endlessly about how things are bad now and getting worse every year. Everything that made my mountain home a magical place is long gone or on the way out. Executive level decisions made in a corporate boardroom hundreds of miles away do NOT and CANNOT have the best interests at heart for the town, the place, or most importantly for the people :( I look from a distance with a tear in my eye. It's sad that it's changing. It's sad everything that made my town great is going away.All I can do is be grateful. I grew up in a truly special place. I got to see and do and experience things that most people never will. I am from a little ski town, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. It's changing fast, and not for the better. All good things must come to an end :(

Wendover Productions is a fantastic channel! Such smart and nuanced coverage of complex topics, and a rare example of a RU-vid channel that isn't constantly badgering for likes and subscriptions. I love what you do! Keep up the excellent work!

I'm a European but lived in Telluride during highschool, staying with family friends. As a kid I didn't realize how bad the situation was, but now looking back it's surprising how I didn't notice.

A small correction at 7:00: Okemo, Sunapee, and Crested Butte were not part of the Peak Resorts buyout. They were owned by Triple Peaks, which Vail bought in 2018, when the Muellers decided they wanted to retire. The Peak Resorts acquisition didn't happen until 2019. (Also, technically, Sunapee is owned by the state of New Hampshire; what Vail bought out was the operating lease, rather than the property itself.)

I'm glad that in Austria (Vorarlberg) and Bavaria, the operating staff as well as ski instructors are still locals. This is probably because there are no ski-towns but instead ski-villages. Additionally, there are often passes that let you ski in a whole bunch of smaller resorts. For example, the 3-Täler-Pass, which is basically a 3-valley pass, allows you to ski in 39 independent resorts all confined to 3 valleys and it costs about 500$. Most of the accommodations and restaurants are privately owned and not by one big company.

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.

I use to live in Steamboat Springs but had to leave do to prices pushing up out and forcing us to leave. Thank you for covering this!

This is why I live in CO and don't ski. It's become a prohibitively expensive, bland experience. "Hey wanna pay hundreds of dollars on equipment and eye-gouging passes to sit in traffic all morning so you can ski for a few hours surrounded by crowds of people and spend the rest of your money overpriced pizza and beer? Then spend a few more hours in traffic on the way back? You're only moderately likely to suffer a serious injury!" Way better to hike and camp for free.

Corporate consolidation is how you end up with $180 single day lift tickets, crappy service, and unlivable towns.

Kind of weird being a Denver native who grew up really poor. So many people have moved here, people with the means to relocate across the country for work. They always find it weird that I've never been skiing/snowboarding and even make me feel bad about it. They kind of forget that it's not something a single mom of 6 can really afford. I'm a bit older now so maybe I'll give it a try.

We've suffered a similar fate in Bozeman, Montana. It's made worse by the fact that we have not one, but two large ski resorts within an hour, Big Sky an hour away and Bridger Bowl 20 min away. We also have an entrance to Yellowstone park an hour away as well, which draws a completely different, but equally temporary seasonal crown in the summer. Plus, it's a college town. Myself and other college students can barely afford to make ends meet as house and rental prices have skyrocketed.

They should eliminate "offseason" as the towns have done in the Alpes. They have begun advertising hiking, mountain biking, sightseeing and outdoor holidays. Atm Alpes are all-season towns; and as somebody who has been skiing for over 20 years. It shows the last 10 years they have changed the tourism to be all year round. Because of this. It has even gotten me into Mountain Biking also. They need to do this as well, as Snow will be a rare sight in 20 years. The North Americas are also making it too expensive.... In Europe, it's much more affordable.

My parents always talked about how incredible vail was and I finally went recently and it’s was insaine how expensive it was. Every meal, every action, every location, was not only commodified, it was prestiged to such a high level I nearly starved to save as much money as possible. This is happening across the country because of the two companies buying every mountian it’s so sad to watch

excellent program, I live in Whistler and our community ski hill became a Vail Resort in 2016, with it comes good and bad, I decided to stay and live with the bad and enjoy the good.

Great video. Primary focus was on Vail but let’s not forget Alterra is equally or more destructive.

My parents took me skiing every year when I was a child. Sometimes twice a year. As a child I had NO idea this was such a privilege. Most of the other kids around me went skiing too. As an adult now, I can't imagine being able to afford to take my entire family to one of these resorts once not to mention twice a year. I'm assuming like everything, skiing was probably more affordable in the 80's and 90's, even if it was still a luxury. It's like everyone has forgotten the middle class exists.

This is happening in my home town. My grand parents have to keep a sign in their yard that says “we are not selling for any amount of money. Don’t ask.” Because at least once a week some one (different each week) would have an agent stop by and ask to buy their house for ungodly amounts of money. Seems like a nice problem to have but if you’ve lived on the same plot of land in the same 1 bedroom house for 80 years you probably care more about the land than money.

Im not very old (26) but in my short lifetime ive seen a crazy change in skiing and ski towns. My family and i talk about it every winter. Growing up we would go skiing 15-20 days a year and it was always relaxed and not packed unless it was christmas week. Prices werent cheap but they werent too bad. For me i started noticing it around 2015. But now its crazy. Huge lines to get up the canyon. Crazy packed lift lines. And prices are doulbe and a half what they use to be. Ive barely been able to afford to ski more than a few days the past few years. I cant fork over 2K every single winter just to fight huge crowds. It makes me sad.

i remember driving through beaver creek in colorado trying to find the trailhead to get to turqouise lakes (i never found it) but was so overwhelmed by how much it seemed like a tourist destination it really is crazy. i could never even imagine going to vail just looking at it driving by on the interstate it looks like a depressing place in colorado. the backcountry of colorado is still largely untouched go further into the mountains and you wont see anyone

My grandfather was a 10th Mountain Vet. He was offered 2 condo plots at Aspen for $5K but didn't have the money or interest at the time. Went on to ski until he was 88 years old, and I use his skis in his memory

My hatred for Vail knows no bounds. I remember when CO skiing was so much simpler. They started a precedent that small resorts are up for grabs by mega-corporations and that snowball just keeps on rolling

Super cool vid! Did not know about this (Vail). Happy to learn Ski Santa Fe (my local ski area) is independently owned.

Going Skiing this coming weekend in Crans Montana (Switzerland) which was purchased by Vail last year and now this video popped up nice coincidence.

I grew up in Colorado still live here. Grew up skiing telluride, and Crested Butte. These days I don't even snowboard or ski anymore due to these changes. I started this sport at 12. I watched all these towns become "just for the rich". Not even the blue collar workers in the U.S. can afford housing in these towns. The rich buying and pushing everyone out. This video hits the nail on the head.

As someone who’s grown up in Colorado, this problem has more or less spread to the entire state as a whole, and now its getting harder and harder to live anywhere in Colorado, and i wish we could find a solution so that for us who’ve grown up here, moving out of our parent’s home doesn’t mean leaving Colorado behind

For my family, the Edge Card that Whistler Blackcomb offer is still better. It is a weird multi-day pass with some discounts (use to have food discounts but they cut those) that is only available to Canadian citizens and residents or residents of Washington State, which is an interesting way to attract the domestic market to stay domestic and not go to the states, Europe, or Japan for skiing. I found Whistler Blackcomb was better before Vail bought it but after they bought out their previous owners at Intrawest. The mountain staff seemed to care more, the prices were slightly better, and the edge card offered season pass deals everywhere. It is a pity to see a famous, historic Canadian mountain resort that helped Vancouver host the winter olympics be bought by Americans. I recall back then seeing the Chief Operating Officer of the company (based there and traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange) cleaning tables at one of the mountain restaurants, and chatting with staff, locals, and visitors.

I lived in Vail '72 - '77. Absolutely loved it. Best mountain I've ever skied at. I COMPLETELY understand your excellent analysis, as I lived through it, eg. lived in a crappy trailer in Minturn; lived in a tent during 2 of the summers I was there. Still, there was an actual community there - we lived in or close enough to town that we'd party with friends IN town. I still remember being on the hill for the 4th of July in '76, watching the fireworks below. The hot, ski bunny I met there (that became my wife and the mother of my children), and I knew we could not stay there because of the lack of opportunity for financial stability there. I went back there a couple of times in the 90s,and was sad to see what it'd become. Oh well. That's our corporate capitalistic system at work. We kill that that we love so much.

As you say it’s a devils bargain. It has happened in many Australian seaside towns too with many of the same characteristics, only minus the snow; another new factor has been accommodation services such as Airbnb which has turned these places into semi-ghost towns during the ‘off-season’. Traditional rentals and housing has all but disappeared and prices have skyrocketed. It’s not just tour guides and hospitality workers and many longtime residents who get pushed out or away, now you can add school teachers, police, nurses, firefighters, office workers, construction, forestry and agricultural workers, in fact most non-tourism/non-experience industry workers now can’t afford to live in these places. In these places, and with some regularity in the press business owners complain about two things: finding labour and wages being too high and yet the workers are in a no win situation - low wages don’t pay high rents and most will never be able to save a deposit to buy, unlike their parents and grandparents and slowly towns die. I live in a town with a large regional university and due to the conversion of housing to Airbnb style accommodation many of its students can’t now find affordable accommodation. And the town governments, what are called local councils in Australia are seeing their residents and therefore their revenues plummet leading to problems in the ability to provide local infrastructure and services, e.g. maintenance of roads, etc.

I used to drive my flatbed semi thru these towns in the winter... it was insane how touristy it was, reminded me of driving thru the communities in southern Arizona during the winter times. Seemed like a fake boomtown that was only set up "for a limited time only."

Housing prices in summit sky rocketed during Covid just like they did across America even at non ski resort towns. 2020 it was insane to watch. Especially living here. Your graph shows that but you didn’t mention that reason of people getting free money while not having to work or how so many were able to work remotely so moved to mountain towns. It made housing for locals difficult due to owners selling like crazy due to the Covid price spike.

I live in Crested Butte and things are getting unsustainable. Skiing is such a great outdoor activity but we are loosing the community. The thing that made it great.

In my master's program, I took a policy analysis course, and one of the case studies was Crested Butte. After a month of research, I ended up writing a paper on how NIMBYism and zoning laws are destroying any potential for even the locals to continue living there, but honestly, the situation doesn't really seem salvageable. The only way to fix things is to hope that tons of talented, experienced people decide to put people ahead of profits, because the current situation is basically inevitable in the modern free market.

Grew up in Crested Butte. I hardly recognize the town I once called home. Crazy how it's changed since I was a kid.

I grew up near Whiteface in New York. A great ski resort and because of the Olympic legacy it’s run through the state, meaning it’s avoided a lot of the corporate issues a lot of ski resorts deal with.

Sam/Wendover, I live in the Vail Valley and work for one of the towns (not the resorts). I think you perfectly summed up what’s going on. I’d love to give you and your crew a tour if you’re ever in the area. Appreciate all you do!

Thank you for making this! I lived in a small town down-valley of Aspen CO, and because the priority put on out of town wealthy people, the housing market in our town skyrocketed. Now it's really difficult for any middle class or lower people to find/afford a home in the valley. These corporations need to start focusing on the people they impact the most.

I lived near and ski resort and was able to ski several times a winter as a kid. I got a ski pass discount for being on my high school ski team. Being able to ski several times a year was critical to me getting good enough to really enjoy the sport. I would love to teach my kids to ski but there is no way I could afford to at todays prices, its not just the lift tickets costs there is also the gas, parking, lodging and food costs. I usually sleep in a Van when I ski because the hotels are outrageous but its kind of hard to get you're family to sleep in the Van. I still ski once or twice a winter but the high cost has forced me to snowshoe/cross country ski most of the time. I hate living in a big city, I'd love to live in a ski town I wouldn't need to make alot of money I just need to make enough to not be in poverty but the jobs you find in a ski town are mostly part time minimum wage not nearly enough to get a small house in town. I hate how so many things in this country only the rich can do more and more the averadge person is expected to just work.

Swiss skier here: I live in Zermatt, it's a famous huge ski town. Our village never dies out. In spring there's still alot to do .

Having transitioned from being a downhill skier through college to now, paying my own bills, being mostly a cross-country skier who has done some touring, in-track, and skate skiing in the Rockies, I think I can imagine what downhill skiing used to be like before it became so corporate.