What’s amusing about the rationalizations is the lengths that resort spokesmen will go to to deny the obvious. When Solitude gets multiples of the usual number of visitors, when cars are parked miles down the canyon road at a resort that typically doesn’t fill its normal parking lot, when lift lines extend into distances no one has ever seen before, it’s obvious something has changed. And no, it’s not just that it’s a good snow year. Solitude averages almost 600 inches of snow a year. You think we haven’t seen good snow years before? Dozens of them is the actual answer! It’s because of the Ikon pass, it really is as simple and obvious as that.
Alterra bought certain of the resorts it now operates. It’s entitled to run them how it sees fit. If that includes packing every square inch of terrain with customers that’s their prerogative. Just don’t insult our intelligence by pretending that you’re not doing so and that nothing has changed and that the mountain experience is being carefully “curated” for our benefit. Bullshit!