interesting reading. As a Hudson Valley boy, little areas were the stuff, and some (reading the discussion of Plattekill) still retain the vibe and are appreciated for it. Just went to Belleayre for the first time in 15 yrs and the lodge still has that woodsy feel, but the food is as overpriced as everywhere else and so it doesn't deliver (on the feel - it's supposed to reek of hamburgers so you know how good they are, BTW. The skiing was excellent. But it's not a little area, at least not anymore).
Anyone recall Cortina, or even better, Ski Minnewaska and the epic winter of 77-78 ? After which the place closed and later burnt down along with the rest of the owner family's buildings on the mountain ? Hippies and joints but the patchouli and the weed were fresh, count on it. (I remember this girl... ahh, but I digress...)
Now I enjoy the snow quality at the higher-priced locations in the area. I realize that -everything- is more expensive, lawyers have their heads further up everything, wankers will demand Disneyfication if you choose to cater to them, and climate change is absolutely brutal in terms of predictability (read: need for snowmaking - I love watching the f*ing freeze line vibrate up and down right over our location (just south of the Catskills) when it was solidly 40 mi south 15 yrs ago). This is just my layman's inference, I'm not in the biz, just a customer for the last 45 yrs.
That said, I fear for the future of the industry because in the midst of the declining curve of climate opportunity to run the business, the pricing is going up insanely. 12 yrs ago we went to Tahoe and sampled Northstar, Squaw, Heavenly and Homewood - 3 majors and a minor (which was awesome and my pick for a "working mountain" (working on skillz) if I lived there, at ~$50). The majors topped out at $90 at Heavenly, I believe with the Snow Bomb card. Today they make me laugh at $120 or more, but f*ing worse, the Catskills are now seeing $90 prices. (Kudos BTW to VT and NH where I see smaller areas (with presumably more reliable snow) still hitting a $50-$60 mark - awesome.)
I don't have the answer to the question, is this what delivering that on-snow experience costs, with reasonable margins, vs. is this pricing the market will accept for the "lifestyle experience" being offered ? (I remember not knowing whether to puke or laugh when Rossignol proclaimed that it was going to be a "mountain lifestyle company", I assumed that was the Europeans' attempt at implementing American marketing and "branding" trash.) Implicit there is a question about whether these places that used to be mid-market on the scale of the Northeast, are now subordinating themselves to control by marketing theorists, who in turn are prescribing that their marketing sweet spot should be people who aspire to display their class status by engaging in "upscale" purchasing, i.e. paying "upcharges" (a premium) to show that they're socioeconomic winners who can afford to separate themselves from the lower classes ?
Regardless of whether the prices are actually necessary for the business to survive delivering an objectively valuable on-snow experience, or are the effect of the reemergence of socioeconomic class in the recreation market, the de facto effect is a de-democratization of the sport of skiing - it will become accessible to fewer and fewer people, particularly since the economy never really recovered after 2008 for the broad public, under the Obama and now the Trump administrations - downward social mobility starts with downward pressure on income and blossoms with lack of access to amenities of middle-class life (it's not entitlement since our ancestors and we worked for, built, and earned it).
There will always be a market for recreation for the rich, let them have their $160 lift tickets and their $20 hamburgers. For the rest of the American public who actually keep the place running, there needs to be downward pressure on price by tuning the expectations about the atmospherics of the area to what actually matters (clean bathrooms, heat, lockers and fresh paint in a lodge with enough room for the weekend lunch crowd, quality basic food that isn't the source of the resort's margins, functioning parking, competent staff) and placing the energy of the business behind the on-snow operation. If that is objectively so expensive these days that price won't move, then I can't say anything more, I don't know the inside of the industry. I'll repeat my observation though that if current trends continue, the industry will shrink (since the fantasy income curve of the last 40 years of bubble economies is already over and the pool of "winners" in that game is rapidly shrinking - nothing beats a broad comfortable middle class to be the rising tide that floats all boats).