NEWS | SKI AREA NEWS

What’s the cheapest way to ski as many different areas as you can on one pass? Since 2019, the Indy Pass — a single pass that offers two free days at partner resorts around the country—has been adding on ski areas. For the 2022-23 season, the Indy Pass is counting close to 100 ski areas passholders can access for $299, including Vermont’s Bolton Valley Resort, Jay Peak, Magic Mountain and the resort formerly known as Suicide Six. That number is likely to grow, considering there are approximately 470 ski areas in the U.S. Vail Resorts owns 37 ski areas. Alterra owns 14. POWDR owns 10. Boyne Resorts own 9.

New this season, the Middlebury Snow Bowl (above) joins Indy as an Allied ski area. What that means is if you have a Snow Bowl season pass ($439 for adults), you can buy an Indy Pass at 30% off. And if you have an Indy Pass, you can buy Snow Bowl day tickets at half price.

In addition, the Indy Pass is now good for two days at cross country ski areas, including Vermont’s Rikert Nordic Center and the Woodstock Nordic Center, New Hampshire’s Jackson and Waterville Valley Cross Country Centers, and a handful of areas out West.

That’s what you will have to pay to park at Stowe Mountain Resort this coming winter if you want to ski on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Last season, Vail Resorts started charging $30 for parking at the premium lots at Mount Snow. Now, in response to complaints about traffic and parking at Stowe, Vail Resorts is working with an outside vendor to set up the parking payment system there too. There are exceptions: if you have four or more in the car, you park for free. Parking is also free at the Toll House lift area and at the Stowe Cross Country Center.

A new rope tow at Cochran’s Ski Area, new snowmaking and grooming for a sprint course at the Prospect Mountain cross-country area in southern Vermont, a new airbag for Killington Mountain School’s jump facility, lift tickets and beginner rental gear for the Bromley Outing Club: These are just some of the things that the Killington World Cup Foundation 2022 grants will help fund.

In June, the foundation announced $289,000 in grants will go to 31 non-profit organizations around New England. Over the last four years the foundation, which was made possible by the Homelight Killington World Cup, has donated nearly $2 million to youth programs and sports infrastructure The 2022 grants range from $1,500 to $25,000.

Many of this year’s grants went toward programs that can help people access the sport. One grant will help grow the program for the Share Winter/Association of Africans living in Vermont. Another grant went to the New England Nordic Skiing Association (NENSA)’s Nordic Rocks program, which gets school children on Nordic skis.

A number of adaptive programs received grants as well, including Adaptive Sports Foundation, New England Disabled Sports, the STRIDE Foundation and the Kelly Brush Foundation.

On June 5, Killington was still going strong with skiers and riders bashing the bumps on Superstar. Once again, the Beast of the East outlasted the rest for the longest ski season in the East. But no one was counting those days as “skier visits.” Those had already been tabulated.

Nationwide, the number of skier/rider visits hit an all-time high this past season at 61 million. That beats previous records of 60.5 million that were set in 2010-11 and 2007-08.

Vermont’s numbers also tracked higher, though not in the record-breaking numbers reported nationally. During the 2021-22 season, the 20 areas that are members of Vermont Ski Areas Association reported 3,762,047 skier days, up from 3,532,186 in 2020-21 and 3,664,326 in 2019-2020. (Note: A “skier day” counts a visit, not a unique skier.)

Those visits were not all to the big multipass areas. “We saw a 68-percent increase in skier/rider visits,” says Mike Hussey, the general manager of the Middlebury Snow Bowl. While Vermont saw skier/rider visits reach as high as 4,670,903 visits in 2014-15, and close to that in the two prior years, the move by many resorts to the new RFID ticket scanning machines may account for more accurate reporting in recent years, VSAA acknowledges.

The weather this past season and late openings at many resorts may have also held back those numbers. Vermont areas averaged 116 operating days this past season, versus 111 last season and 110 during the Covid-shortened 2019-20 season. The previous 6 years, the average was over 130 days.

In fact, if you divide skier visits by the number of operating days, the 2021-22 season was slightly better than the 2018-19 season (the last season to break 4 million), with 2021-22 averaging 32,431 visits per operating day and 2018-19 coming in at 32,425 skier visits per operating day.

The 2021-22 season was the second-lowest in average snowfall in the past decade, with only 142 inches reported. The only year that was worse was 2015-2016 which averaged 107.

“Even under the best of circumstances, running a ski area is not for the faint of heart,” said VSAA Executive Director Molly Mahar. “Things outside your control like uncooperative and ill-timed weather and regulatory delays are everyday occurrences.”

As for the upcoming 2022-23 season? If the 9 percent, year-todate increase in Epic Passes sold as of this June is any indication, next season could be even busier.

The oldest ski area in America is getting a new name. In 1936 Bunny Bertram bought 30 acres of land on Hill 6 – a hill so steep one person said it would be ‘suicide’ to ski it. Suicide Six has, in recent years frequently used the name “S6 Recreation Area” instead. In June it announced it was looking for a new name, out of respect for victims and their families and a new awareness of mental health.