Let's be real, we as skiers have to be the worst customers out there. Everything we want is counter productive to the places we love actually making money. We want cheap season passes, we often bring our own lunches (how dare the place we love make money on food!), we want low crowds (directly counter productive to a place we like staying in business), and we don't want them to develop lodges/restaurants in the area that are going to attract casual vacationers that actually spend money.
Good points imo and kind of comical in anot so funny sort of way. Its a catch-22 in many ways as we want to see the reasons for a growing ski community, expanding resorts, and more of them in general but at the same time we don't want to live with the reasons that justify them.
Even if land itself and resources, utilities, and environmental restrictions were more easily hurdled and obtained, you still need to first have a known money machine of enough people (skiers) to make it profitable. And while we may find many areas crowded (even zoo like) on weekends and holidays (certainly like that of the Pocono resorts) a lot of them are quite light (even rather empty relatively speaking) during the week. And that is mostly the season tix lower spending crowd. Then combine that with rainy days (on weekends too) and days when temps are too bone chilling cold. I have to say I just don't know if a ski resort is the cash cow we might think it is. Certainly we have the so called "destination" resorts that are profitable and some as many you know are very profitable. And a lot of that profit is fed by other means vs the skiing itself of course.
How does a non destination resort survive? or how many can in the same area? and how can it be expected the opening of another will? Again,... what we tend to see on weekends does not exactly tell quite the whole story.
Lousy expensive food, over crowded lodges, overcrowded runs, long lift lines, often rundown facilities, etc, etc...and we/I think how we need a place with less crowds and better facilities to handle them. And perhaps it would draw more customers. But will it really? are there enough customers to truly support more resorts? Especially in places like the Poconos where the seasons are relatively short and the downtime due to weather can be quite high some years. I hate skiing here but the Poconos are the only practical places (for me and my fam) to drive to without having to plan a weekend. So as much as I hate the crowds I look forward to it cause its all I got. I want to see more hills here then there are so I don't have the zoo like weekend crowds can be tamed a bit. But based on what I see during the rare weekdays I get to go, I honestly don't know if its its truly supportable if there were more.