Q&A With Indy Pass
We talk independent resorts and the current state of skiing with the current head of Indy Pass and Entenabi Systems.
Better Trail: Tell me about your journey into the world of independent ski areas.
Erik Mogensen: My happiest memories are growing up skiing with my family in Buffalo, New York. When that ski hill closed, it was devastating. In the wake of that closure, we tried to go to a slightly more corporate place, but it wasn't the same experience. Later, I got into teaching skiing and went to work at bigger and bigger places. I spent time in Chamonix, but really, no matter where I went, nothing could ever match the feeling I got from that indie resort early on. My childhood experiences of all those trails, coming back to the same place year after year with my family, and having that freedom and independence as a 10-year-old to just go ski—it was invaluable. I’d just be told to be back at the car by a certain time. But the more I got into skiing, the further and further skiing came from those early experiences. So eventually, I realized that we've got to put a stop to this. I think it's one thing to sit around and complain about Vail and complain about the big things. But it's another thing to try to fix it.
Better Trail: When you say “put a stop to this,” it strikes me that what you’re talking about is stopping the growing corporatization of ski resorts. This dynamic isn’t necessarily new. It’s been ramping up since the 1980s when ski areas began consolidating. Today, really, only two companies are in charge of the vast majority of the big resorts nationwide: Vail and Alterra. But at the same time, hundreds of independent, less publicly visible ski areas dot the country.
Erik Mogensen: Totally. Indy Pass alone covers more than 230 ski areas. And if you go out and ask the average person what comes to mind when they think of a ski area, they’re going to say, “Aspen, Vail, Mammoth Mountain, Palisades Tahoe, Breckenridge,” that kind of thing. They’ll mention the big, corporate resorts. So, even though there may be hundreds of independents out there, I don’t think there’s a lot of equality in the system as we know it.
BT: I think you’re right. Why do you think we ought to build in that equality? Why are independent ski areas so special?
Mogensen: I think that there's a place in society for smaller businesses. Like local hardware stores or restaurants, local ski areas provide a different and often better experience. There are also fewer barriers to entry when you have more places that cost less money as opposed to a few places that cost a lot of money.
I think skiing is a particular flash point because people are very nostalgic about it. People have these memories of skiing, say, at Bridger Bowl in 1950, or whatever their local hill is, plugging their crock pot in, and being with their family. It’s a stark contrast to the ski culture we see today, especially at the big resorts charging $299 for a day pass. Skiing, in a lot of ways, is like going to that old movie theater on a small-town Main Street. There's nostalgia there. So, I think people are particularly disturbed when we can so acutely feel those changes.
BT: Along with the corporatization and consolidation of ski areas, the industry’s seen significant shakeup from the major ski passes like the Epic and Ikon. Vail started this off with the Epic in 2008, and Alterra followed suit in 2018 with the Ikon. Both allow access to tons of resorts across the country for a price that’s often cheaper than a single resort’s season pass. How have these big ski passes changed the game? How has this contributed to the ski resorts of today?
Mogensen: Some people call it “pass wars,” but I like to call it “pass manipulation,” because they’ve essentially manipulated the cost of the pass to be so low and put the day pass tickets unreachably high. As I said, a day pass at a Vail-owned resort can run around $300. To be clear, these passes have done some good things for some people. You can go see 34 different resorts for 1,000 bucks. But the reality is that most people who buy the passes don’t do that, and that’s why they can’t reap their value.
For as much opportunity as those passes have created for skiers who get out every weekend, they've really hurt the casual skier. The person who only gets out once or twice a year is much less likely to go now because they didn't buy that pass. Now, they're expected to show up and pay $299 a day at the ticket window. So, while it’s been good for lots of intense skiers, I think these passes have created a price barrier for the more average, recreational skiers. [Indy Pass started at a base rate of $279 last year.]
BT: This is where Indy Pass enters the mix. This seems like a direct reaction and pushback toward not only these big passes that run the show these days but also this consolidation of ownership in ski resorts. Tell me a little more about what Indy Pass is and why it exists.
Mogensen: Indy Pass is an affiliation between many different independent resorts. It started with 34, and now, it’s at 234. That's pretty remarkable. It provides an option and a motivation for people to go places that they wouldn't go otherwise. So, if somebody has a pass and they're driving through Montana—you know they're going to Big Sky or something—they could look at the map and go, “You know what? We're going to shoot down to Antelope Butte quickly,” or “We're going to go over to Snowbowl in Missoula.” And so it helps divert some of that traffic and gives people a reason to go to a different place. And when people go to those different places, they're like, “Wow, Snowbowl was cool. It's funky. It has a sick bar. The views were great.” Quite often, they're really surprised how much they like it.
Indy Pass has become a tool for these independent ski areas to fight back against the mega-passes. Most of those mega passes are sold six months before the ski season even starts. These mega-operators force this large portion of their customer base—one of them recently announced that 75 percent of the people that come to their ski areas are on a pass product—to decide that they’re going to go to these certain resorts next year. So, these small ski resorts don't even have a chance at that point. Indy Pass provides a flexible option to compete with the options that have, at this point, essentially been forced upon us. I mean, it’s often like: “Are you going to pick Ikon or Epic?” It’s black or white. Well, guess what? Now, there's something else. It's out there to show people you don't have to have an Ikon or Epic pass to go on great ski trips.
I always look at it like this: We're the pass with a purpose. And I think that's really fueled the growth. The pass has grown over 20% every single year, so it continues to compound. Rather than being focused on selling more ski passes, we're trying to find a place for these independents to operate. And I would say that the vast majority of Indy pass holders identify with and support that purpose.
BT: What is the state of the independent ski area across the country as a whole?
Mogensen: It’s tough; there are many challenges. Insurance continues to be extremely expensive. When you’re an independent resort, it’s way more challenging for the underwriters because they can’t spread that risk out across a whole bunch of ski hills like they can with Vail or Alterra. The purchasing power is becoming very difficult, too. For example, when Vail wants to go out and buy Sno-Cats, they can buy a couple hundred at a time. When the resort we’re running—Black Mountain in New Hampshire—needs to buy a Sno-Cat, it buys one. The ecosystem of independent suppliers is starting to break down along with the independent ski areas. Whether it's lift install companies, lift manufacturers, grooming companies, etc., we're starting to see the independent supply chain break down. That all makes it harder to run a sustainable ski area that’s not part of the big corporate players.
BT: I'm also curious to dig into Black Mountain. Indy Pass and Entenabi Systems bought Black Mountain, an independent ski area in New Hampshire, last year, and you’re aiming to transfer it to a community-led co-op model by next season. Tell me about that saga. What happened and why?
Mogensen: This was a pretty historic ski area that’s had 90 years of continuous operation. It’s a special place in a good town. I saw that it was going to close, so I picked up the phone and called the owner. I said, “Look, we have to find a different result.”
I didn't want to buy it. I still don't. Ultimately, Indy Pass doesn’t want to own ski areas. We don’t want to be a competitor to our customers and partners. But, for a number of reasons, we just couldn't get anyone to step up and buy it. I thought I could solve those reasons. We moved half the team here at the end of the year, and we're moving to a new ownership model, which is the co-op model. We'll see. Ask me in 100 days if it works.
BT: How does it feel right now to be in the midst of it, trying to get this thing to work?
Mogensen: It’s a lot of work. There's many moving parts. There's a lot of things to figure out, and many personalities involved. Everybody loves the idea of saving skiing. But putting boots on the ground is a whole different thing. I'm a big fan of “show me, don't tell me.” We could have written up a business plan, made a slide show, and put out a plea: You know, “If you give us $5 million, we can save Black Mountain and blah, blah, blah.”
We decided to spend our own time and money first to show that it can work. It’s having a pretty remarkable effect. People are excited. The visitations are through the roof. We've already surpassed last year’s total revenue. We have a long waitlist of people who want to join the co-op. I think there’s real momentum behind people wanting to take back skiing. To what degree? We'll see. But that's my big thing. I always tell the team that we should spend 90 percent of our time and effort understanding the problem we're trying to solve and 10 percent of our time actually solving it. For me, in this case, it meant moving to Jackson, New Hampshire, from Colorado to be hands-on with the situation.
BT: This all circles back to public land as well. Forest Service Land is home to about 60% of the downhill skiing capacity in the country. A lot of independent resorts are on public land. What opportunities and challenges exist for independent ski areas on public land?
Mogensen: Absolutely. I'm on the board of Antelope Butte—a nonprofit-owned ski area in Wyoming—and we're on a Forest Service permit. Working with that team out of Bighorn National Forest has been a pleasure. They have a deep history with skiing. I think those people are incredible.
But one of the huge issues in skiing is that a lot of these independents don't own the real estate they sit on; it’s public land. That makes it extremely difficult to borrow money for capital improvements because there's no security. There’s always uncertainty if the Forest Service will renew the permit, for example—even though we know by the numbers that it almost always does. Is the bank going to loan $5 million for, say, a new chairlift on leased land? Those kinds of unknowns make it challenging. The public land piece has extreme benefits, but it has extreme liabilities for the independent ski areas.
I think one of the areas in which we can add value is on the legislative side. We need to find a better, more streamlined path for these things to get through. When you look at Vail, for example, it’s had a long relationship with the White River National Forest. It has an entire team of permit specialists and ecologists. It can push things through a lot quicker. And, of course, the money it returns to the agency is far greater than what smaller businesses contribute. So, an independently operated ski area’s experience working with the Forest Service is different from that of a mega-corporation.
I'd love to see some parity built there at some point and some way to have these small ski areas better leverage their long-standing leases and relationships for lending and investment opportunities. Otherwise, we're looking at the same 75-year-old chairlift forever. It’s unsustainable.
BT: In addition to the dynamic between the big corporate players and the independent resorts, there are many other challenges facing the industry, especially climate change. What gives you hope when you think about the future of independent ski areas?
Mogensen: There's nothing like skiing. You can't go out and play golf with your five-and-seven-year-old the way you can go skiing with them. I think skiing will always have a unique place in our culture and society, and there's definitely a push for something new and different. We're hungry for authenticity. For many people, purchasing isn't just about, say, buying a shirt. It's about buying a shirt that's made with some passion and some purpose. It’s the journey, not just the destination. I think that’s going to become increasingly important, and as it does, the independents will have a really good future. And fundamentally, there is a responsibility that if we want these places around, we can't just come one day a year and think they'll be around forever. We're going to have to support them in a meaningful way.
BT: Thanks so much, Erik.
Mogensen: It was great talking with you.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
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