Moonshine Ink, a news outlet local to the Lake Tahoe area, is reporting that Homewood Mountain Resort is planning on becoming a semi-private ski resort in the near future.
I encourage you to read the entirety of the article from Moonshine Ink here. It’s fantastic.
To summarize, Homewood Mountain Resorts, one of the lesser-visited ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area, is planning on transitioning to a semi-private ski resort over the coming seasons.
JMA Ventures President Art Chapman, who runs the resort, has stated that Homewood simply can’t compete with the likes of Palisades Tahoe and Northstar on busy holiday weekends.
He claims that traffic back-ups caused by the large number of Ikon and Epic passholders flocking to Tahoe from The Bay Area prevent skiers from being able to reach Homewood.
^Homewood trail map
From Moonshine Ink:
“The fact is today with all the Ikon passes, if you go to Highway 89 on a Saturday afternoon you will see traffic backed up all the way from Squaw and Alpine into Truckee. You can’t even get to Homewood,” Chapman said. “Commuters coming from the Bay Area can’t get past Squaw and Alpine and get to Homewood unless you are through the Mousehole at 7:30 in the morning.”
Homewood isn’t firm on what their future business model entails, but Chapman believes that the current model isn’t working. He says that Homewood will slowly pivot to a season passholder only model, and eventually get rid of day passes entirely.
From Moonshine Ink:
“When the new hybrid model is fully implemented, day tickets will end and, besides skiers who own one of the new Homewood residences, passes will be available only to locals who live in one of the six or seven major West Shore homeowners associations. Chapman declined to name specific HOAs and is unsure at this time if the pass program will be extended to smaller HOAs.”
Some locals are speculating that Homewood could transition to a completely private resort similar to the Yellowstone Club in Montana.
Their fears are fueled by the fact that Homewood’s new residences have hired Discovery Land Company for marketing and sales.
Discovery Land Co. is the firm that developed the Yellowstone Club.
Again, I highly encourage you read the entirety of the article by Moonshine Ink.
They do an incredible job on the story. It’s well-worth the read.
I’m a little bit torn on this subject. First off, I should disclose that I’ve never skied Homewood. That admittedly takes away some of my credibility to comment on the subject, but I will say this- I’m not for any public ski area transitioning to private.
It sucks that Homewood is being pinched by the mega-passes, but there has to be another way to drum up business than going private.
There just has to be, right?
I just hate to see (from what I’ve been told) a gem of a ski area fall to private money interests. Skiing should be for the people. Not the rich.
All Images Credit: Homewood Mountain Resort