Eaglecrest Ski Area is fighting an uphill battle to win back season-pass holders after last year\u2019s record-shattering short season. So far, it\u2019s losing.<\/p>\n
Despite cutting prices during its annual PFD sale in an attempt to \u201cget season-pass holders back,\u201d the ski area still fell short of its already lowered expectations, Eaglecrest General Manager Matt Lillard said. The sale ended earlier this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fully expected to be down,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were hoping to be down 25 percent. As of right now, we\u2019re down 35 percent from where we were as of last season.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a typical season, season passes and multi-visit cards account for about 70 percent of Eaglecrest\u2019s winter revenue, according to Lillard. The remaining revenue is generated primarily by day-ticket sales, which \u201cat most other ski areas\u201d account for the most revenue. Eaglecrest, too, may have to count on these sales for the majority of its revenue if it isn\u2019t able to start selling more season passes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line can be just as good,\u201d Lillard said.<\/p>\n
The problem is that the same thing plaguing the season-pass sales may affect the day-ticket sales as well. It is ultimately going to come down to snow. \u201cIt always does,\u201d Lillard said.<\/p>\n
If last year\u2019s five-day season wasn\u2019t enough to scare skiers away from buying season passes, forecasts predicting a warmer-than-average winter are only making matters worse for the ski area this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year already plays into it,\u201d Lillard said. \u201cPeople were going to be gun shy anyway, but then you add in the El Ni\u00f1o hype, and that\u2019s a big scare. But even a warmer winter doesn\u2019t mean less snow.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s right about that, according to Rick Thoman, climate science and services manager for the National Weather Service Alaska Region. For instance, a warm winter in Fairbanks is still well below freezing. Here in Juneau, however, \u201cthe margins are a little tighter,\u201d Thoman said. Since the average winter temperature in Juneau is not far from freezing, it can only get so much warmer before snow becomes rain.<\/p>\n
Thoman said that Southeast has a \u201cgreatly enhanced chance\u201d for a significantly warmer winter and, in some areas, a wetter winter this year. \u201cThe big question is what form that precipitation will come in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lillard has compiled a list of various seasons past with comparably strong El Ni\u00f1o cycles to prove his point. The list includes the 1997\u20131998 season, during which El Ni\u00f1o was stronger than it is this year, according to Thoman. Lillard pointed out that Eaglecrest was open for 82 days that season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is no where near a guarantee that this is going to be a bad year,\u201d Lillard said. \u201cEven a forecast of 10 to 20 percent less snow is still better than last year. Last year was an anomaly. It\u2019s not going to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thoman agreed it was an anomaly. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt about that,\u201d he said. It was the worst season in Eaglecrest history, and the lowest snowfall that the NWS has recorded in the 38 years that it has been monitoring the ski area. Like Lillard, Thoman also pointed out that El Ni\u00f1o alone doesn\u2019t determine whether Eaglecrest will have a good season. \u201cIt\u2019s just one piece of the puzzle,\u201d he said. But it\u2019s too early to know how exactly this season will turn out.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because it was bad last year doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t be bad this year,\u201d Thoman said. \u201cJust because you threw five heads in a row when you flip a coin doesn\u2019t change the odds the next time you flip it, it\u2019s still 50\/50. But last year certainly was an anomaly. And just because it\u2019s a warm winter doesn\u2019t mean there won\u2019t be skiing at Eaglecrest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eaglecrest Ski Area is fighting an uphill battle to win back season-pass holders after last year\u2019s record-shattering short season. So far, it\u2019s losing. Despite cutting prices during its annual PFD sale in an attempt to \u201cget season-pass holders back,\u201d the ski area still fell short of its already lowered expectations, Eaglecrest General Manager Matt Lillard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4244"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}