Opinion | Smith: Time to sell Vail Mountain
The ski mountains owned by Vail Associates should all be sold in order to arrest the decline in the on-snow experience, a decline that is directly related to the public ownership model.
To maintain and increase value to its shareholders, Vail, like almost all public companies, must increase its top-line revenue, its net earnings and increase its gross margin to increase its stock price. One part of doing this is to lock down mountain operating costs, which Vail has done very well but at the expense of us skiers.
For example, there was 120 inches of snow the first week of December 2024, yet Vail staggered the opening of the area to be timed with Christmas. In December 2025, with no snow, almost the same number of runs were open as the prior year.
This cost-saving, staggered opening practice has gone on for many years. Vail defers employee start dates. Wages are restrained so the community uses its tax base to subsidize housing. Many on-mountain restaurants remained closed until Christmas, and then several were shut down a month prior to the season’s end. Vail manages snowmaking on a rigid schedule, no matter what the skiers need. There were no operating snow guns above Chair 4 after Dec. 5. I know, I was watching.
Chronic dirt patches on many runs, like lower Flapjack, never see snowmaking or snow transported to cover these problem areas. Several of my friends who joined me the second week of December no longer come. Building extra lift capacity is a tax-favored method of investing in the mountain, but the massive increase in skiers means more terrain should be available to accommodate them without on-slope crowding.
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In turn, that means more grooming is needed. Even in the face of an increasing number of skiers, Vail reduced its groomer fleet by half roughly six years ago. Groomers can’t keep up. While many premier European mountains groom every run every day, very few runs are groomed daily, and a lot of it is to maintain the roads. There are thousands of acres of ungroomed runs which are a joy to ski for a day or two after a snowfall. After that, this acreage is largely empty.
How many of you have ridden up Chair 9 and seen 100 skiers on the groomed Slot while Milt’s Face, Headwall, etc., are empty? Restaurant food is mediocre and beyond expensive. Vail cannot achieve its growth, gross margin and net revenues without skimping on what it takes to make a world-class mountain world-class. A private buyer does not have to deal with the demands of the stock market. There can still be a healthy profit and increased operating cost to improve the mountain experience. Vail Associates needs to step aside so we all can have a better chance at the mountain experience that we expect.
Geoff Smith
Vail
