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Resort skier limits

Marshall

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In normal seasons, do resorts maintain maximum skier number limits on the hill? Any idea what the approx. maximum daily skier capacity is for Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, JHMR, Snowmass, Steamboat and Telluride is?
 

chopchop

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The only mountain I know that does this is Powder Mountain. Last season the daily tix limit was 1500.

More discussion on this thread:
 
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raytseng

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Yes, there are engineer provided actual recommended max skier limits that has been calculated.
However the constraints are usually due to Parking and Transit so that hard limit is never reached in practice before people can't get in. If you're interested you'd have to dig into the MasterPlans to see the engineering reports. I'm seen somewhere that from a pure engineering/safety standpoint the theshold of 1.5 hrs to egress skiers out with all lifts running properly is the max skier capacity.

So the real "soft" limit that is well under the engineering safety limit, is up to the Ops manager. I've only seen the stop sales option get exercised when there's an Ops problem (e.g. half the mountain is shutdown due to power or something like that). For the specific mountains you mentioned, turning people who are able to show up to the window with money in their hand is not a known practice.
 

New2

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Powder Mountain is definitely an outlier. Most resorts don't limit sales. Maximum daily carrying capacity at the resorts you list are, very approximately, in 5 digits.
 

graham418

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I thought Deer Valley limited their daily ticket sales as well. I think it was 7000 - 8000 per day
 

Gary Stolt

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Powder Mountain is definitely an outlier. Most resorts don't limit sales. Maximum daily carrying capacity at the resorts you list are, very approximately, in 5 digits.

I've skied Powder Mountain many times. I believe that the skier limit is a sales tool. They do not suffer from long lift lines - one reason it is a hidden gem.
 

Philpug

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Most resorts limit the amount of skiers on the hill by the amount of daily tickets they sell plus pass holders. ;)

We were at A-Basin for one of their busiest days ever, Mothers Dad a few years ago. They were parking cars miles away down at Keystone and shuttling them in (not uncommon for them when they had that relationship with Vail Corp). Skiers were parking up and down the highway and climbing down the rock faces from above switchbacks. The beginning of the Pali line was closer to the Molly Hogan than the actual Pali lift.

I have seen Northstar parking cars at the Airport in Truckee with traffic lines alteh way back to the Rt.80 on ramp. Not too dissimilar to the backups that Squaw/Alpine can get.
 

Sibhusky

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It's not an issue here. :duck:The record day had 2.9 skiers per acre. An average day is one acre per skier.

That being said, the parking lot has been full enough that they've created an app to let you know it's full. They do keep making the lots bigger and adding more frequent runs to the Snow Bus. And moving and adding lifts. The Marketing Department has a lot to answer for. :nono: I used to ski Christmas week. Traffic is up 50% from when I moved here.
Screenshot_20200614-161841.png
 
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Jim McDonald

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375,000 skier visits? That's a quiet weekend at Naeba! :roflmao:
 

Core2

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I guarantee parking limits capacity at most mountains which is probably a good thing.
 

Wilhelmson

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I have heard of days when they they reached some mandated capacity cap. They probably arrange a limit with nfs, state, municipality and building/ safety inspectors.
 

MAP

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A hidden gem? Can't hide gems like that for long. Limiting tickets is definitely a selling point which makes for some nice skiing days. Not only are the lift lines short (basically non-existant or in some cases you might even have to wait 3 chairs) but people tend to fan out and actually use the whole mountain. On the other hand their lodging is PACKED, so maybe the ticket limits are needed, but of course buildings are cheep and they never seem to be short on staff if they wanted to build some more seating area.
 

KingGrump

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I thought Deer Valley limited their daily ticket sales as well. I think it was 7000 - 8000 per day

That would be an acceptable number for the cap. Unfortunately, it's more like 10K. The old cap was around 6K.
 

Ken_R

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In normal seasons, do resorts maintain maximum skier number limits on the hill? Any idea what the approx. maximum daily skier capacity is for Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, JHMR, Snowmass, Steamboat and Telluride is?

I dont think so

Screen Shot 2020-07-11 at 1.19.24 AM.png

Screen Shot 2020-07-11 at 1.22.38 AM.png
 

Ken_R

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@Ken_R Where and when were THOSE photos taken? Not a time I would have wanted to be there, I'd guess ...

First photo is A-Basin last season and the second is Vail also last season. When? Dunno exactly but powder days to some degree for sure.
 

Phelmut

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Pretty sure all resorts cap sales at 50k on the weekdays, 75k on the weekend.
 

John O

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Pretty sure all resorts cap sales at 50k on the weekdays, 75k on the weekend.

Sorry, I can't tell if this is uninformed or a joke. Both because you think there'd be a capacity limit that would be applicable to "all resorts" when it seems obvious that it would be dependent on resort capacity which would be extremely variable, and also because of the numbers you're throwing out which are far, far higher than any resort (in the US at least and I see you're in NJ) ever sees.
 

raytseng

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I already mentioned it above that all resorts have Engineered Actual Numbers, so am providing more examples here.

The engineering numbers are in the Master Plan engineering documents, if you really want to be precise about it. Go look up these documents and see exactly how professional engineers have studied all of the aspects of a resort, using engineering principals to arrive at real numbers. It's not like Planning a resort, stadium, or amusement area is somehow a brand new concept, they have been around for decades and Planning as a concept is centuries old, so there are best practices and industry specific terms that cover these things. Just like how if you are to construct a building, you don't just wing it by going to home depot and getting some lumber, there are centuries of knowledge on established architectural and construction practices that guide a modern project.

Typically the Master Plan is logged with governmental agencies as these are public areas for safety and use requirements, and so you can obtain them, (but not necessarily all are online)

Below quote is an example from Vail's 2018 master plan on the Engineered Limits (chap 2) which recommends Vails number to begin managing guests from the engineering standpoint is 19,900. There is much much more operational details on how they got that number and other aspects and details of capacity discussion in subsequent chapters if you're into that kind of stuff.

Later they talk about in this Plan, the CCC limit for Vail’s was determined to be approximately 23,160 guests. It also mentioned you can surge up to 25% over CCC on extreme peak days, so that would gives you an upper bound of 23160 *1.25= 28,950. When the manager decides to start pulling the capacity control levers whether at 19,900 or possibly earlier or later then prescribed, of course, comes down to exact human in charge on that special day.

THere are more ski resort for that particular forest land in that same planning site.
1 . CO M F O RTA B L E CA R R Y I N G CA PAC I T Y Comfortable Carrying Capacity (CCC) is defined as a level of utilization for the ski area (the number of visitors that can be comfortably accommodated at any given time) that guarantees a pleasant recreational experience, without overburdening the resort infrastructure. It is commonly referred to as “comfortable carrying capacity,” “skier carrying capacity,” “skiers at one time,” and other ski industryspecific terms. Accordingly, the design capacity does not normally indicate a maximum level of visitation, but rather the number of visitors that can be “comfortably” accommodated on a daily basis. The calculation of the CCC of a mountain is a complex issue and is an important planning tool for the resort. Related skier service facilities can be planned, including on-mountain seating, mountain restaurant requirements, sanitary facilities, parking, and other skier services with proper identification of the mountain’s true capacity. The CCC figure is based on a balance of the uphill capacity of the lift system and the downhill capacity of the trail system.

2 . MANAGE-TO PROCESS The Manage-To process allows Vail and the Forest Service to manage for health, safety and welfare considerations, and a high-quality skier experience based on calculated planning numbers (threshold). Manage-To is a flexible process developed by Vail, the Town of Vail and the Forest Service to evaluate impacts to ski area operations at Vail when skier numbers exceed 19,900, and outline steps to manage skier numbers on subsequent days if it is likely that the subsequent day’s skier numbers may exceed the Manage-To threshold.
Vail will consult with Forest Service representative at the end of any day that exceeds the threshold to evaluate health, safety and quality welfare considerations of the day’s operation. Manage-To actions may be implemented as warranted by the review of the subject day’s operational impacts. There are a variety of Manage-To actions available to Vail, which help manage skier numbers. The following list is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an all-inclusive list or mandatory steps.
• Restrictions on employee and dependent passes
• Stop issuance of complimentary tickets
• Manage ticket pricing
• Restrict student and merchant passes
Vail will rely on evaluation of current operations and conditions, its prior experience, and best judgment to determine which Manage-To action or actions, if any, to implement for management of skier volume on subsequent days.


To the OP, here is what I could find from searching for your list of resorts.

Of course if they actually did some development from this quote, the current CCC would likely be higher than these old timestamps. The Plans often quote how the CCC will increase with improvements, but there may be other regulations or permitting that would imply other thresholds/limits. You'd have to read the chapters to really get the details and nuances.

Remember multiply by 1.25 to get the occasional peak limits.

The 2015 Snowmass Masterplan states CCC is 12360

The 2014 JacksonHole states CCC is 7690

Steamboat 2019 Plan states CCC is 13050

Telluride 2016 Plan states CCC is 6550
 
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