Jason Blevins, the reporter for the Denver Post, continually and repeatedly seems to get this detail wrong.
Henry Crown, his family and the various entities own Aspen SkiCo, which is the four ski areas in Aspen {Aspen aka Ajax, Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass}. For simplicity the Crown Family and HCC are the same.
They are NOT rolling Aspen SkiCo, or any of these ski operations into the new combined entity. It gets complicated because KSL is a partner in some development at Snowmass. Nothing to do with the actually skiing, though.
So HCC is the entity that is partnering with KSL on Squaw, Mammoth, Intrawest, Deer Valley and who knows what more to follow. It is NOT "Aspen."
Blevins and others referring to it as Aspen has never been accurate. It's the OWNER of Aspen {the ski operations, not the town!}that is partnering with KSL. HCC, not Aspen.
It further gets complicated when a guy like Dave Perry leaves Aspen to become one of the senior guy of the new entity, essentially the ski area/operations guru. The whole thing has a lot of COO's, GM's, etc. It's a good deal for Dave. He lost out on the President's job at SkiCo to Mike Kaplan, years ago and has kept plugging away.
So Aspen SkiCo is NOT part of this, in terms of any ownership. I would look for them to be close partners in any marketing, and combined passes, etc. To the customer, I bet SkiCo will eventually look very much like the others.
My own personal opinion.......again, not totally uniformed {sorry I can't betray confidences on here....never do}, is that they bought Deer Valley because it is a "Gem", and it fits with this high end vision. They do not intend to screw it up. Will they look at everything? Probably.
Do they gain more, or lose more by having snowboarding? Do they gain more by limiting the numbers on the hill, or lose? By "gain", I mean keeping high end clientele who treasure the place, will bring their friends, and who will spend for the experience. Not every skier is seeking "deals." By "lose" I mean alienating those same people.
My guess is no change to either. And I would not be looking for any price cuts.
Just a hunch.....
BTW, in case you missed it in the fine print, the Crown family are the biggest private holders of GeneralDynamics stock. This is a seriously wealthy family, who happen to love Aspen. Henry is the patriarch. Good people.