When Vail bought Canada’s famed Whistler Blackcomb ski mountain, locals were nervous. Now, after a record season of visitors, they’re enraged.

Three years after being acquired by big ski conglomerates, Stevens Pass and Crystal Mountain faced their biggest test yet: COVID-19.

Vail Resorts has announced a 20% decrease in their Epic season passes for the 2021-22 ski season, and that also includes their Epic local passes at all their Midwest ski areas. A little bit of good news for those skiers that like to mainly ski local.

Following a tough 2020-2021 season that forced all U.S. resorts to adjust on the fly, skiers and riders who purchase an Epic Pass for next season will get a 20% price break.

Skiing, despite the cold, the travel and the high cost, offers an attraction few sports can rival. In a word: "Freedom," said Henri Rivers, of West Babylon.

After the majority of the 470 ski areas in the United States closed in mid-March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Ski Areas Association reported skier visitor numbers dropped 14% compared to the 2018-19 season. It was a blow to the resorts, the towns they call home and a multitude of businesses that serve the industry with everything from gear and accessories to hotels, shuttle companies and more.

It used to be you’d have to go out west for a top-notch upscale ski vacation, but fortunately, that is no longer true. With a major transformation over the past 10 years, Stowe Mountain and the Spruce Peak Village will truly give you everything you are looking for in a ski vacation.

Cold feet: This was my biggest concern.

Millions of Americans would love to bust out of pandemic isolation and go skiing.

In the spring, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, Colorado’s Summit County — home to the sought-after mountain destination of Breckenridge — enacted one of the strictest stay-at-home lockdowns in the country.

Vail Resorts Inc., one of the largest financial contributors to Colorado’s cloud seeding program, has dropped out this year, leaving a major hole in the program’s budget.

The good news is that Vermont’s ski resorts plan to be open this winter. Offering the fun of skiing and snowboarding is still the focus, but the mountain experience will look different due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

With snowflakes already falling at high elevations and lifts scheduled to open just weeks from now, many of us are dreaming of mountain escapes, imagining that first run of the season.

Vermont's ski resorts employ about 13,000 people, a quarter of them year-round, and the $1.6 billion industry typically brings in $925 million in direct spending, plus the $675 million resorts spend on vendors according to Ski Vermont. The current pandemic, however, has been anything but typical, and across Vermont, ski resorts are taking different approaches for how to open for the upcoming season.

It took less than a week after Vail Resorts announced its operating plans for Stowe, Okemo and Mount Snow and all its North American resorts  (including a new skiing-by-reservation system) for more of Vermont’s independents to come out with statements about their operations.

Vail Resorts will require Epic Pass holders to reserve their days at each of the company's resorts for the 2020-21 ski and snowboard season.

As summer draws to a close, Vermont ski areas are broadcasting high expectations for opening this winter. 

Yeah, we get it: With the rounding down of summer and the beginning of cool nights, the first signs of changing colors of autumn—and soon even the first snowfall—here in the high country of Colorado, where I sit writing from my home at 9,000 feet, it usually heralds optimism and stoke. 

Vail Resorts (VR) will not reopen lift operations for skiing and snowboarding in 2020 at Falls Creek and Hotham in Australia following the Victorian government’s introduction of Stage 4 restrictions for Melbourne and Stage 3 restrictions for regional Victoria, which will be in place for six weeks.

If Vermonters want to see a ski season this winter, they’ll need to stay the course when it comes to COVID-19 precautions, say voices in the industry.