Should Wealthy Skiers Get to Pay for Early Access to Powder?

(Photo: Heath Korvola/Getty)

Should Wealthy Skiers Get to Buy Access to Powder Before the Lifts Open?

Published: Feb 13, 2024

Rising predawn to chase powder is sacred in ski culture, but an increasing number of resorts are offering early-access programs for people who can afford them

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My Great Awakening

The powder snow of Japan is so light, so iconic, it has a name: Japow. Born of cold Siberian air streaming over relatively warm ocean water toward Hokkaido, Japow has inspired face-shot aficionados to fly halfway around the world for it. I have been to Niseko and, like the airborne snow crystals sent into a frenzy with every turn, was blown away. Last January, a friend skiing there told me about an offering that reserves the first hour of that incredible snow for VIP customers. I couldn’t believe my ears, so I looked it up.

The travel website Japan Snowtrip Tips says: “Trust us, it never felt so good to have a line of shocked powder junkies collectively stare-a-hole right through us as we came cruising back to the lift covered in blower pow from empty early morning Hanazono slopes, only to slide right past them, hop on the chairlift and do it all over again (three times) before anyone else could access the goods.”

The subject was Niseko Hanazono Resort’s first-tracks powder-skiing program, an add-on to its guided backcountry and sidecountry tours. The cost? About $750 lets your group of four chew up fresh powder for an hour before the lifts open, followed by another six hours of guided skiing. I pictured myself as the seething sucker waiting in the lift line.

Two things in skiing are sacrosanct: cherishing powder and honoring the commitment of the ski-bum (snowboarders included) lifestyle. The first because powder is rare and sublime. The second because all true devotees are ski bums or ski bums at heart. This program was an affront to both.

This matters because skiing, already expensive and out of reach for many, is becoming increasingly so, and now, with most of these programs, wealthier people have first dibs on one of its greatest joys.

I knew my hometown area, Aspen Mountain, had a program that had started informally nearly 40 years ago when ski instructors let clients tag along before the lifts opened to practice their skills for certification tests. About 20 years ago, I participated in another version at Aspen, free for anyone who wanted to ride the lifts early. During the 2020-2021 season, the program became an exclusive pre-lift-opening powder and fresh-corduroy experience. I thought the program was an “only in Aspen” thing. The Niseko news made me furious—and curious.

On a powder day in early 2023, I arrived at the Aspen Mountain gondola early enough to be among the first dozen in the lift line. As our gondi bucket rose above Copper Bowl, I looked intently down to see it almost completely skied out already. The joyful anticipation ebbed into gloom. Aspen Mountain’s pay-extra-for-powder group, which can be up to 180 people, had already had 45 minutes to ski Copper.

I grew up when those in the know who had a great desire to ski powder rose early and raced to the lifts to be first in line. Powder days have always been a heady reward for hearty devotion. With this new approach, though, something significant is being taken from the regular skier and rider.

Why does this matter? As with any love affair, the explanation is complex. It matters because the sport, already expensive and out of reach for many, is becoming increasingly so, and now, with most of these programs, wealthier people have first dibs on one of its greatest joys. Many skiers are unaware of the proliferation of these first-access add-ons, but some in the know aren’t happy about the concept, and a few have even made pleas to a U.S. senator to halt a similarly conceived program called fast tracks, whereby skiers can cut lines during normal lift hours.

The preferential powder forays are expanding. Recently, Aspen Skiing Company announced it will now offer pre-opening guided powder tours through its AspenX luxury brand for groups of up to ten on the locally hallowed ground of Highland Bowl, at Aspen Highlands. The AspenX website notes the tour as $2,500 per person (four-person minimum) with a gourmet breakfast included. The experience is currently offered only on Wednesdays and Fridays and is not available on peak-season dates.

Jeff Hanle, Aspen Skiing Company V.P. of Communications and a passionate skier, told me in an email that the skiing business is fun but challenging. “Running ski areas is an expensive and capital-intensive undertaking, so we look for opportunities where you can test new programs and diversify our business to offset headwinds,” he said. When I asked how he would feel about these programs as a 25-year-old powder hound, he said, “Building these potential ancillary offerings for customers does almost nothing to change the experience of the customers who don’t sign up for them.”

Others feel differently. Mikey Wechsler, a legendary Aspen local who skis 160 to 170 days per year (he says he has only missed four skiing days over the last 20 seasons), told me, “I’m pissed! Isn’t skiing elitist enough already? Bottom line is, some things should be earned. You want first tracks? Get up early and be first in line!”

Long gondola line in Aspen, Colorado — Lots of energy and a long gondola line accompany a snowy day at Aspen Mountain, Aspen, Colorado. (Photo: Courtesy the Aspen Daily News)

Is Anyone Keeping Count?

I acknowledge that skiing as a sport exists in rarified air and that ski towns have bigger problems, like a workforce commuting many miles due to unaffordable housing, than issues of first tracks. But we are also talking about communities of people who fell in love with skiing and built their lives around it.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that pay-for-powder programs are all over the place. I did not find any comprehensive lists, but an internet search revealed many options, at a variety of prices. With ski-area consolidation led by Vail Resorts Inc., Alterra Mountain Company, Boyne Resorts, and Powdr Corporation, if first-tracks programs prove profitable for one resort area, it makes sense they will spread to others. A few examples:

In Colorado, Steamboat’s website promises that you can “be among the first to claim freshly groomed slopes with this add-on to your pass or full-day lift ticket” through its First Tracks program, which offers early access to certain lifts and terrain for a limited number of people. Expect to pay between $55 and $75 a day over the regular lift-ticket cost of $127 up to $290 or so.

At Big Sky Resort, in Montana, the First Tracks Tram Guide program, “designed for the most adventurous skiers,” allows for one hour of pre-opening guided skiing and the rest of the day showing you “the ins and outs of Lone Mountain with limited instruction but full stoke.” First Tracks costs $1,450 for a group of one to three. (An unguided option, for an hour of pre-opening skiing in terrain that is not avalanche prone, is listed on the Big Sky website as available for $35—a good deal.)

Newly joining the fun is Winter Park Resort, Colorado, for the 2023–2024 winter season. The website says: “Early Ups is a season pass or daily lift ticket add-on, offering an opportunity for intermediate and advanced riders to be the first on the mountain.” Early Ups cost $599 extra with your season pass or $49 to $69 on top of a daily lift ticket, with a limited quantity available.

These days, Aspen Mountain’s First Tracks program is available only to three groups: AspenX Mountain Club members, clients in private lessons and guided tours, and Aspen Skiing Company hotel guests. The hook on The Little Nell hotel (owned by the Aspen Skiing Company) website goes: “With luck, instead of corduroy, you’ll be navigating your way down through waist-deep powder.”

Jeff Hanle told me that the initiation fee at The AspenX Mountain Club is $275,000. Aspen Skiing Company-owned hotels are expensive: for example, Saturday night over Presidents’ Day weekend at The Little Nell is $3,579, and an all-day private lesson might set you back $1,041. But if you join the club, rent a room, or book a private lesson, First Tracks are part of the package.

It is important to note that a similar program at the Aspen Skiing Company-owned Snowmass ski resort ten miles away is available for free on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays by reservation. The program offers fresh powder and corduroy skiing before the lifts open, and is for advanced intermediate skiers and snowboarders aged 11 and older.

Breckenridge and Keystone, Colorado, have first-tracks programs that require staying at their properties, and a number of resorts, including Crystal, Washington; Big Bear, California; Blue Mountain, Pennsylvania; and Deer Valley, Utah, offer three early-on days a season for Ikon Pass holders but do not have programs per se.

The most selective program might be at Alta Ski Area, in Utah, the state boasting “the greatest snow on earth”—a phrase used by a Salt Lake Tribune ski editor in 1960 that became a state trademark. An Early Bird program is offered on a very limited basis to advanced skiers with established relationships with instructors. A private lesson at Alta costs $900 per full day (or $450 for a half day, $300 for two hours), and only with an instructor’s recommendation can a person register for an Early Bird hour ($172).

A visitor enjoys the powder after exiting a side-country gate at the top of Niseko United, Japan. — A skier earns her turns in seemingly endless powder after exiting a side-country gate at the top of Niseko United (four resorts on one mountain), Japan. This group hiked for powder, though Niseko does have an early-access program. (Photo: Daniel Brenner)

The Evolution

If these preferential programs seem to have been put in place almost without notice, it is because progress was relatively slow and benign, and the initiatives were generally not targeted to regular or local skiers and snowboarders.

The evolution began with the traditional ski lesson. Sixty years ago, the goal of ski schools was teaching people to ski. This process was good for skiers, which was good for ski areas. It created loyal customers and sold more lift tickets.

While ski schools still operate by this tenet, what they originally offered, at some point, developed into a luxury amenity. As Dick Dorworth, skiing icon and former director of what was then called the Aspen Mountain Ski School, wrote in his 2010 book, The Perfect Turn, “If truth be told, a substantial to a majority of all day private lessons are paid for not because the student is interested in polishing skiing skills, but so that lift lines can be cut.” On powder days, Dorworth added, many instructors are hired “as a means to…[get] on the lifts earlier than the general public.”

Ski and snowboard schools are important revenue centers. In this light, it might be more surprising that it took managers this long to convert some of their better instructors into First Tracks “guides” to boost the status of “ski school,” increase enrollment, and jack up prices.

Powder is precious. Untracked powder is rare, and sun, wind, and ski tracks quickly degrade it. There are unwritten rules for skiing it: don’t poach someone’s line, don’t traverse, don’t sideslip, and for crying out loud don’t fall and mess it all up!

As Hanle noted, economic adaptation is becoming increasingly important for resorts today. Iveta Malasevska, PhD, a senior researcher at Eastern Norway Research Institute, writes in “Ski Economics: Using Dynamic Ticket Pricing to Increase Ski Slope Revenues,” published on Scientia June 7, 2023: “[T]he skiing industry faces many challenges…. These include shorter winters and the decline in natural snow cover (potentially due to climate change), as well as a global decline in the number of new active skiers, especially in younger populations.”

She continues: “Several ski resorts in Switzerland and the USA have now implemented dynamic pricing … such that higher prices can be charged to those customers willing and able to pay more.” Malasevska likens this differential pricing to that of airlines for business travelers and passengers in coach.

Hanle in his email said that while people don’t book hotels, take private lessons, or join the AspenX Mountain Club solely because of First Tracks, innovative programs do create new revenue streams. “Some of these offerings are ways to potentially diversify our business to continue to fund increases in employee housing, industry-leading employee benefits, new lifts, new customer amenities or experiences, better customer service and technology, restaurant upgrades, increased pay for our teams, and other growing needs.”

I asked the opinion of Philip K. Verleger, who earned an economics PhD from MIT, has held positions at the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Treasury, and is a former longtime Aspenite and observer of the scene. (Now in Denver, he still writes letters to the editor at Aspen newspapers.) He said, “I think the airline analogy is wrong. First-class airline passengers do not change the product for other passengers. On the other hand, the first to ski on a powder day changes the product consumed by the second.”

He agreed that premium pricing for early powder skiing could have a demoralizing effect on regular skiers and the ski-town communities they live in. “It is a strategy that will likely cut base revenues while requiring higher and higher prices [for add-on amenities]. The resorts will ultimately lose.”

The Lone Peak Tram climbs to the summit of Lone Peak at 11,166 feet at Big Sky Resort — The famous Lone Peak Tram takes skiers and riders to the top of the 11,166-foot Lone Peak, at Big Sky Resort in Montana. (Photo: Craig Moore/Cavan/Getty)

Emma Whitelande skiing the Wall in Snowmass, Aspen, Colorado — Emma Whitelande, a freeride coach, has some fun on the Wall at Snowmass, Colorado. Snowmass offers free early access on powder and fresh corduroy on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays by reservation. (This photo was taken independently of that program, and the Wall is not offered in it.) (Photo: David Clifford)

White Gold

Powder is precious. Untracked powder is rare, and sun, wind, and ski tracks quickly degrade it. There are unwritten rules for skiing it: don’t poach someone’s line, don’t traverse, don’t sideslip, and for crying out loud don’t fall and mess it all up! Some skiers risk their lives for powder. According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, in the 2022–2023 ski season alone, ten skiers and three snowboarders were killed in avalanches outside ski-area boundaries in the U.S. On January 22 of this year, a local rider went out alone after a snowstorm and died following an avalanche in the backcountry near Ophir, Colorado, and on February 11 a backcountry skier was lost to injuries sustained in a slide in the Crested Butte region.

People spend thousands of dollars for a week of helicopter skiing. After everything in-bounds is tracked up, backcountry enthusiasts wake before dawn and arduously follow headlamp beams over steep, rough terrain in freezing temperatures for pristine turns at sunrise. Many a local has risked trouble for choosing a powder day over work.

A powder day is part of ski-town cultural identity. It’s about experiencing the wilder side of the sport on snow in its natural state. For many it’s a reward for sacrificing a “normal” life in the “real world” for one devoted to mountain sport, first, and serving tourists, second. It’s compensation for struggling to make ends meet in expensive resort communities.

The anticipation of a powder day might begin with a glance at a long-range weather forecast. Then a day or so beforehand, your phone signals a winter-storm warning. Gear is checked, alarms are set. The next morning, if the dump materializes, the “six-inch rule” applies. Appointments and meetings—canceled. If a shop is closed during normal business hours, most know why. Breakfast is haphazard: a banana wolfed down in the kitchen, a bagel slipped into a parka pocket for later.

Lift lines form 45 minutes before the 9 A.M. opening. The buzz from waiting skiers is as palpable as the vibration of cell phones as friends call for on-site updates. My adrenaline surges at first glance at the amped-up crowd. People don’t pretend to be polite and you would not dare cut the line. The most exaggerated ski stories ever are told boldly in powder-day lift lines. These comers are hardcore experts who won’t put up with much, including waiting for straggling pals. As locals have said forever, “No friends on a powder day.”

There is nothing more divine to serious skiers than perfectly untracked snow, and the quest for it takes effort and acquired knowledge. Even at lift-served areas, locals spend years scouting secret powder stashes, studying weather patterns and wind conditions to predict where on the mountain the deepest snow will pile up overnight. Guided first-track programs, taking place on certain sections of the mountains before regular operations commence, circumvent such acquired know-how and traditions.

Winter mountain panorama in the French Alps with freeride skier skiing down the slope on fresh powder snow — Nothing beats blue skies and ripping through a wide open slope of untracked powder. (Photo: Ibex.media/Stocksy)

The Sky’s the Limit

Katie Ertl, a devoted skier and Senior Vice President of Mountain Operations for Aspen Skiing Company, recognizes issues with first-track programs from both sides. In discussing the topic, I suggested the snow-sports industry might be walking a thin line with commercial first-tracks programs and asked if reserving powder for selected groups might ever be formalized in Aspen and elsewhere. What if, for instance, a group visiting town for a hedge-fund convention hypothetically offers to pay $25,000 a head to “rent” the legendary Highland Bowl for a day?

“Great question.” She paused. “There is a risk of those kinds of conversations happening. But I hope as long as there are people like me and the other long-term people here who value the community and community relationships, it won’t.” Hanle also stated in his email to me: “No, we don’t see that type of program in the future.”

I observed to Ertl that the advent of preferential powder programs may already have been a turning point. “What would be the fallout if Aspen Skiing Company announced it was canceling the First Tracks program for AspenX Mountain Club members?” I asked.

She laughed. “That would not go well.”

I asked Alta Ski Area’s communications manager, Andria Huskinson, the same theoretical question, whether a group or convention could ever reserve a parcel of powder at Alta. “No!” she said. “That will never happen here. Our board has a different philosophy. We are about creating value through preserving the magical skiing experience for everyone, not by creating exclusivity.”

skiers on a powder day at Buttermilk, in Aspen, Colorado — All smiles on a powder day at Buttermilk, in Aspen, Colorado, known for its open, consistent-grade slopes. (Buttermilk does not have an early-access program.) (Photo: Hal Williams)

This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land

Many resorts operate at least partially on leased public lands. According to the U.S. Forest Service, as of 2017, 122 ski areas, or about 60 percent of the total downhill skiing capacity in the U.S., are doing business on national forest lands.

In 2021, when Mount Bachelor announced its Fast Tracks program, a variant on early-access programs in that it did not allow pre-opening runs but lets the purchaser cut lift lines and thus get extra powder laps, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, responding to concerns from constituents, objected. In a public letter dated October 13 of that year—addressed to John Cumming, chairman of the board and founder of Powdr, the corporation that owns Bachelor, Snowbird, Copper Mountain, Killington, and other resorts—Wyden wrote, “My concerns with this policy … are rooted in the understanding that a two-tiered system of access to public lands based on financial ability is antithetical to equity in the outdoors, leaving those who cannot afford to pay for the pass being literally sent to the back of the line.” Wyden asked that Powdr abandon the policy.

To me, first access programs are a hollowing of the soul of snow sports that were born of renegade mountain spirit.

Stacey Hutchinson, vice president of communications and government affairs at Powdr, said in an email that Cumming responded to the senator directly (and not publicly). On October 15, 2021, Powdr posted a letter to the community acknowledging questions, especially in the Mount Bachelor community, about the program. The letter noted that a similar program had been in place at Copper Mountain for what was then just under 20 years, and it stated in part, “We remain highly confident based on our experience with similar products that Fast Tracks will be a valuable product for those that wish to participate and it will not compromise the experience of other guests.” The program was implemented.

“Fast Tracks is about providing options that help skiers and riders shape their own experience at a price point that works for them,” Hutchinson said. She also noted that overall there are a variety of resort offerings, and some “come with price premiums and others with price discounts.”

Ben Kraja, then managing special-use permits for the U.S. Forest Service, responded to the concerns at Bachelor and locally at Snowbird in an October 14, 2021, Salt Lake Tribune article, saying that policy and permit requirements “exist to ensure equal access and nondiscrimination in programs and services provided to the general public. So in this instance, the Fast Tracks program is equally available to everyone for that price. So as long as they’re not discriminating about who they’re selling that Fast Tracks pass to, then they’re within policy.”

Personally, I think this policy would make more sense and offer hope if it seemed to consider that average household earnings are not uniform across races and genders, or if the sport were not already so expensive.

Rider at Jay Peak, Vermont — A rider finds magic in a glade at Jay Peak, in northern Vermont. The resort (which does not offer early access) is known for its glades, chutes, and snow. (Photo: Courtesy Jay Peak Resort)

What’s Left?

I asked Dick Dorworth, former Aspen ski-school director, for his thoughts on the emergence of first-tracks programs. He quoted a line by Bob Dylan: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears obscenities.”

To me, these programs are a hollowing of the soul of snow sports that were born of renegade mountain spirit. Skiing and snowboarding at their best unify us in the joy of riding on glorious snow. Allocating parts of this experience based on the ability to pay for it separates us by design. The last sentences in the Hanazono Resort post on Japan Snowtrip Tips show the divide: “Take our advice. Have the last laugh.”

The joke is on the rest of us waiting in line.

The author, Roger Marolt, on Aspen Mountain — The author, Roger Marolt, in Copper Bowl on Aspen Mountain in 2007 (Photo: Jeremy Swanson)

Roger Marolt is a fourth-generation Aspenite, son and nephew of Olympic ski racers, and brother to twins who ski 8,000-meter peaks around the globe. He earns his first tracks on Aspen Mountain the hard way, by waking up early and trying to get there before his wife of 31 years and three grown children do.

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Lead Photo: Heath Korvola/Getty

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