Washington — Many Seattle skiers and riders are worried about this ski season. Flooding damaged access roads to several ski resorts, including Stevens Pass. The Governor of Washington said that the repair on US-2 West, the most convenient way to reach Stevens, could take months. The alternative is to go the East way, which makes it about a four-hour drive for Seattle residents, not factoring in traffic. However, Stevens Pass says it won’t issue refunds because it believes it will operate.
In a social media post by Stevens Pass, they revealed that it still plans to operate this season. Regarding guest access, plans call for repairing US-2 East in the weeks ahead. There’s no word on the press release for the west side, which is how most from Seattle access the ski resort.
Here’s the point of contention: Stevens Pass stated that lift tickets are refundable, but season passes (i.e., the Epic Pass) are not. The reasoning is that they anticipate operating this winter.
Typically, when a ski resort’s social media post has over 1,000 comments on Facebook and Instagram, it means one of two things: either there’s a giveaway, or people are pissed. This time around, it was the latter.
Meanwhile, the Ikon Pass is offering guests the chance to defer their season passes to next season. Crystal, which is now open, has already stated that they will have limited capacity for the next month or so.
The Epic Pass Policy
There will be a debate over whether Section D of the Epic Pass terms and conditions applies to this situation. In subsection b, it references a “resort closure event” that occurred due to a “natural disaster.” A key question could be whether it applies to a ski resort that had yet to open for the season, even if it was open during similar time periods in prior years. In addition, does it apply when lifts are operating, but an access road is partially cut off? Based on the wording they used, I’d go with that not being the case.
My Thoughts
To start, I think Stevens Pass has among the best communications teams in the Vail Resorts portfolio. However, I feel like they missed the mark.
There’s still a lot to determine regarding accessibility, and announcing this was premature. You have to have your ducks in a row for an announcement like that, and I believe there’s still a lot to figure out about access to make that declaration regarding passes. Frankly, I wouldn’t even mention the refund policy until a definitive schedule for road repairs and ski resort operations had been established.
One idea for Vail is to let them defer the pass. Then, once the details are clear, offer a discounted pass for the smaller season that’s now likely.
Image Credits: Zoshua Colah, Stevens Pass
