Powder Mountain ski and snowboard resort, over the past decade, has cultivated a reputation as being somewhat unconventional.
Its latest machination will do little to change that.
During weekends in February — the busiest days of one of the busiest months on the ski season calendar — the Eden-area resort will close its 4,200 acres of lift-accessed terrain to everyone except season passholders. On those weekends, Powder announced Tuesday, single-day tickets will not be valid. The closure dates include Feb. 1-2, 8-9, 15-16 and 22-23.
“Powder has always been independent and done things a little differently,” general manager Kevin Mitchell said in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune. “At the same time, we’ve introduced a lot of change in the past year. At its core, this new offering is about preserving what makes Powder, Powder while innovating in a way that brings value to our passholders and stays true to who we are.
“Any time you do something outside the norm, you’re hoping that the idea connects with the audience. If uncrowded lift lines on massive skiable acreage are your thing — we’ve got that.”
Powder began cultivating its reputation as a unique winter playground after a group of four tech entrepreneurs bought the large and largely overlooked resort in 2013. They experimented with holding what Fortune billed as “TED meets Burning Man” conferences for the ultra wealthy on the mountain. That didn’t stick. Neither did the Montessori school or the science center they presented to county officials.
What did take hold, however, were limits on season pass sales. At first, they were a minor inconvenience. As esteem for the resort grew and ski areas closer to the Salt Lake Valley became more crowded, though, the waitlist for 2,000 or fewer passes ballooned by some estimates to more than 6,000.
(Alex Goodlett | The New York Times) The Village chairlift at Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah, March 11, 2024. Starting this year, the Village chairlift will be reserved for homeowners who also pay a hefty annual fee.
The pass caps lasted one season under Reed Hastings. The retired Netflix co-founder bought shares in the resort in March 2023 and took over controlling interest that September. Shortly thereafter he began to enact his own forward-thinking plan for Powder.
Hastings announced in December that starting in 2024-25, the resort would implement a novel public-private operational model. Under the new model, some lifts that had been public would be made private, available only to homeowners within the affluent on-mountain community dubbed Powder Haven. The restrictions applied just to the lifts, however. If they wanted to badly enough, nonresident skiers or snowboarders could still access the private terrain — they’d just have to hike in and, sometimes, out of it.
In addition to that change, Powder announced in March that it would be doing away with the caps on season passes and would be raising rates. For most, it was a small price increase. For a few, though, such as seniors 75-older, the cost went from free to $1,049. Earlier this month, Powder also informed visitors it would charge for parking in all lots on weekends starting this season.
Hastings said his vision for the mountain is to keep it uncrowded and preferably public but also profitable. Figuring out how to do that requires some tinkering, and apparently everything is on the table. Along with all the other changes this season, Powder’s longtime slogan “Always Uncrowded” has quietly been replaced by “Escape the Masses.”
“When we say ‘Escape the Masses,’ we mean it,” Hastings said in a statement. “This new offering is about preserving the core value of the Powder experience, providing passholders with unique access to the mountain on the very best days.”
Some may question whether it’s a savvy business move to shut out mostly out-of-state skiers during a month in which they traditionally flock to Utah, particularly over the long Presidents Day weekend. Mitchell, the general manager, acknowledged that February is “peak season.” He also disclosed that historically about half of Powder’s visitors in February buy lift tickets online or at the ticket window. This season, the average advance price would be $177 per day, though that could rise thanks to the ski area’s implementation of dynamic pricing.
Yet it’s precisely because it’s such a big sacrifice on the resort’s part, Mitchell said, that he believes people who have or who are considering buying a season pass will see the value in it.
If not, his team will go back to the drawing board.
“We’re going to listen to our passholders on this,” Mitchell wrote. “We anticipate this is something they’re going to really appreciate, and [we] have every intention of making it an annual offering. If that’s not the case, we’ll adjust.”
In addition to season passholders, the resort will be open on February weekends to Ski Utah Passport holders. Closures will only occur Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets will still be sold for night skiing, which is held off of the Sundown lift from 4-9 nightly. A night ticket costs $19.
Sales of single-day lift tickets and ticket packages at Powder will begin Wednesday.
Update: Oct. 15, 11:26 a.m. • Ski Utah Passports will be accepted at Powder during February weekends.
