When Vail Resorts cashes in!

Last Tuesday, my Epic season ski passes from Vail Resorts (VR) came due. I had already paid $49 to reserve my pass in May, but $860 balance had to be paid. 

That’s right my pass was paid a good two months before I could begin using it on November 17 under the condition of course, that there would be some snow, natural or man-made to slide in. Like me, some 2.5 million pass holders made their big payment too. 

If we assume that between its various pass offerings, the average cost is around $600 a piece, that would mean that, this early in the season, regardless of whether there will be snow or none of it, VR will pocket around $1.5 billion dollars. This is about half of what their total revenue should be for 2023-24. 

This shows the fabulous cash-flow the Colorado based company is extracting from the 37 mountain resorts it operate and how it is sitting on almost $1 billion in cash as of April 30, 2023, even though it represented a 35 decline from the year prior. 

Astounding figures for an industry in the brink of collapse as global warming accelerates!