Closing too early costs a lot

Whether some of us like it or not, Park City, first and foremost, is a ski town. Many of its inhabitants depends on the ski industry for their living. Yet, our two ski areas don't seem to care much about this reality. They run their business as they see fit.

This spring, both decided to shut down operations on April 7. At the same time, ski areas that are comparable in notoriety and volume (Vail-Beaver Creek and Whistler-Blackcomb,) exceeding the 2 million mark in skier-days, just like Park City Mountain and Deer Valley combined, respectively closed on April 21 and 23.

I call this “normal” closing date a win-win for the locals. A win-win for those who still wanted to enjoy some spring skiing, some extra revenue for those businesses that could have tapped into some extra Easter business activity and some more taxes collected for both the City and the County.

That wasn't the case for Park City, which ski areas closure date fell smack into the beginning of the local kids school spring break. Nice! The perfect win-lose scheme that doesn't buy brownie points for our two resorts.

One might object “these closing dates where known since sometime in the summer, why do you complain about?” Well, we simply were too trusting and complacent. This might change when next year's dates are announced.

So far, only Deer Valley has set its closing date, on Easter Sunday, April 12. Do I hope that Vail Resorts will pick April 19 or 26 for Park City? I just wish, I guess...

Let's also admit that the Park City Municipal Corporation, Summit County, Utah, the Park City School System and the whole Chamber Bureau were not paying attention that time. Instead, they should have been watching and have vociferously raised the issue because of the dollar-and-cent consequences of a premature closing date.

Now, this early closure date goes beyond the above-mentioned reasons. It paints Park City as being a “lesser” resort than its Vail or Whistler “siblings” by attaching to it a shorter season.

Once more, as the ski runs still look perfectly skiable from my house at the tail end of April, I just wanted to vent my frustration at two ski resorts that don't seem to care much about Park City.