Even Steamboat is Unaffordable: A ‘cowboy ski town’ where high earners can’t afford a home

ChrisC

ChrisC

Well-known member
Steamboat is definitely one of my least favorite Western Mountain towns (not every place deserves top accolades - someone needs to be in the bottom 1/3).

It is not especially attractive, rather low-facing, west-facing terrain causing Spring conditions early, very little steep terrain, over-rated trees, and definitely some sprawl.

However, even Steamboat has become unaffordable....

With a population of around 13,000, Steamboat has prided itself on its small-town, Western feel. While housing has always been a struggle for entry-level and hourly workers, Steamboat had been viewed as relatively affordable for middle-income professionals compared to other mountain towns, like Vail, Colorado, or Jackson, Wyoming.

“Steamboat has always been known as a cowboy ski town. It’s real authentic,” said Steamboat City Manager Gary Suiter. “And the real estate prices had not gotten crazy like everywhere else. Well, that ended with the pandemic.”

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Most of us know this started long before the pandemic, and I'm not sure Steamboat has been anywhere near "affordable" for the last 20 years. However, I will wholeheartedly agree it become exacerbated in the last few years, significantly. The "old" saying of the billionaires are pushing out the millionaires is more relative now than ever.

I live just outside McCall ID (Brundage Mtn, Tamarack nearby) and it's the same thing here, as well as many other places. I also lived near Driggs, ID (Teton Valley) back in 2013/14... ditto. As the article states, it's all about developing lower income/shorter term housing in these places. And same as in Steamboat, some are for, and some against. Like there, the hospital and ski areas are (largely) spending their own money to build affordable housing for their employees.
 
"Despite offering a salary of $167,000, the city of Steamboat Springs can’t find a head of human resources who can afford a place to live in the remote Colorado community..."

That's more than Amazon pays for most HR positions in Seattle.
 
Supply side issues. Almost no one in small mtn towns wants to live where buildings are going up everywhere, yet that's a major key to keeping prices down. Sometimes its due to land use (eg federal lands prohibit building), sometimes there's just no room (steep mtn terrain in narrow valleys like Vail).

I kinda like the town. The ski area leaves much to be desired though. But I've been in the area summer and winter. It's a relaxed, nice town that is walkable. Though becoming less so as more strip malls get built outside town with restaurants and etc... Plus the hotel that the resort is using for EE housing used be my go-to place pre-pandemic.
 
Well, I don't know.

You likely need a 2 income

I have known A LOT of Telluriders....and they have been successful if you IF get 2 jobs supporting everything. Yes, they live in a condo at the base of Chair 7......or have won a lottery for a HOUSE Or the East Side of town. They live near Tom Cruise.

F-n not easy, but if you get your shit sh-t together - most friends have made it - without an addiction, without alcohol, without everything. A ski town needs to have a professional workforce.
 
ChrisC said:
F-n not easy, but if you get your shit sh-t together - most friends have made it - without an addiction, without alcohol, without everything. A ski town needs to have a professional workforce.
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Last year when I was in Steamboat for my sons ski races plus a couple spring break days, my wife and I had an interesting chat with our very competent waiter. He and his wife were in town only for the winter (they were from Texas) and between them had socked away a sizable sum in that short time frame (nearly 6 figures), but they worked 6 days a week, did not hang out with all the drunk/drug using crowd of local lift bump/wait staff types, had minimal room/board expenses for themselves, etc... Their take was that the vast majority of staff in mtn towns are lazy and/or somewhat incompetent and that they simply would not do what they actually needed to do financially or with their time to be successful.

That said more houses equals cheaper houses.
 
jasoncapecod said:
Keep buying the mega passes..Go Epic....fools
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What is the alternative for the average person that gets the opportunity to ski locally about 15 or 20 days per season? Serious question. Are you suggesting they buy a season pass at their home hill?
 
Sbooker said:
What is the alternative for the average person that gets the opportunity to ski locally about 15 or 20 days per season?
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That depends upon where local is. Living in SoCal Ikon is almost automatic with both Mammoth and Big Bear being on it. 15-20 days on a Base Ikon or Epic Local is a reasonable cost. But it's still annoying to feel constrained on where you can ski by price, in glaring contrast to Europe.
Sbooker said:
Are you suggesting they buy a season pass at their home hill?
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That is also an option, again depending on what that home hill is. I would have extremely high standards in that regard, likely consider it only for AltaBird if living in SLC.
 
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jasoncapecod said:
Keep buying the mega passes..Go Epic....fools
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I do not know if the severe crowd issues of 2021-22 after the price cuts are ongoing at Epic resorts. Overall crowd issues are concentrated mainly in the Denver, Salt Lake and Seattle markets based upon skier visit numbers. Eastern skier visit numbers have been flat for decades, so if eastern Epic resorts are more crowded now they are taking market share from other places in the Northeast.
 
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Here's my gripe, I used to able to go to SLC or Colorado. Stay at central location to the ski areas and ski at various resorts..Those days are over.
Epic bought Hunter Mtn just to milk it for cash. They just do the bare minimum when it comes to snowmaking. They haven't made any capital investments that I'm aware of either. The darn drug dealer owners did a better job ( Sackler Family)..
 
jasoncapecod said:
Here's my gripe, I used to able to go to SLC or Colorado. Stay at central location to the ski areas and ski at various resorts..Those days are over.
Epic bought Hunter Mtn just to milk it for cash. They just do the bare minimum when it comes to snowmaking. They haven't made any capital investments that I'm aware of either. The darn drug dealer owners did a better job ( Sackler Family)..
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So the ‘fools’ have no choice. They can’t buy day passes because of outlandish cost. Mega pass it is.
Do you suggest they give up skiing?
 
Sbooker said:
So the ‘fools’ have no choice. They can’t buy day passes because of outlandish cost. Mega pass it is.
Do you suggest they give up skiing?
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Give up skiing? Of course not!!!
Ski only independent or state run areas
New York State runs 3 quality areas with reasonable walk up prices.
 
jasoncapecod said:
Give up skiing? Of course not!!!
Ski only independent or state run areas
New York State runs 3 quality areas with reasonable walk up prices.
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Oh. I didn’t know that. I assumed pretty much all US ski hills were unaffordable for the average working class person from a day ticket perspective. I just looked at Ski Granby Ranch and a day ticket for the next week is over $150USD. Sundance is $138USD plus tax.* It seems some markets don’t have affordable options.
How much are the day tickets at the 3 ski areas you refer to?

*Even these second tier places are crazy when you compare it to roughly $70USD for a day ticket to Val D’Isere or Chamonix or Saalbach.
 
NYS sells for $59 and frequent skier card. The card gives you 25% off on weekends and holidays and 50% off weekdays.. Walk up at Whiteface , the 1980 host of the Olympics , is 124 ..so 25 or 50% off that...I skied last weekend at Belleayre a 1200vrt mountain for 78$.. Whiteface is 124
Gore is 114 and Bell is 104...without the discount card.. Bell is 2hrs from my house..or 2.5 hrs from NYC..
 
jasoncapecod said:
NYS sells for $59 and frequent skier card. The card gives you 25% off on weekends and holidays and 50% off weekdays.. Walk up at Whiteface , the 1980 host of the Olympics , is 124 ..so 25 or 50% off that...I skied last weekend at Belleayre a 1200vrt mountain for 78$.. Whiteface is 124
Gore is 114 and Bell is 104...without the discount card.. Bell is 2hrs from my house..or 2.5 hrs from NYC..
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Seems decent value considering I assume NY would have near the highest cost of living on the continent?
 
Skier markets are different. The interior Northwest areas accessible from Spokane still have reasonable day tickets, though most are independent. The Indy Pass has been growing rapidly in recent years to attract visitors to second and third tier areas. On an absolute scale, those interior NW areas can be quite interesting. During the pandemic season of 2020-21 James, ChrisC and I all took road trips through many of those places.

I don't know that local cost of living is a big driver of ski ticket pricing. It's overall supply and demand. Colorado has historically been the most expensive and it was the first region to get into the multiarea season pass model (Epic, and RMSP preceded Alterra because the non-Vail areas had to offer a combined pass to compete).

California was next most expensive in the West, and Dave McCoy used to price Mammoth day tickets a couple of bucks below Heavenly and Squaw. At Tahoe as recently as 2017 visitors could buy a Tahoe Six-Pack usable during a week at the major resorts. That was what most of the SkiTalk forum people used in 2012. They were at Tahoe this past week, and since most of them are on Ikon they did not schedule any days at Epic resorts.

Utah was historically cheap, especially with discounted tickets at Salt Lake ski shops. Park City dropped out of that when Vail took over, and the others are gone now too, with most of them affiliated with Ikon. The day tickets are not quite as high as CA and CO, but have increased rapidly, with some crossing the $200 mark, ironically including the reputed independent and less "corporate" Powder Mt.

In CA, CO and UT you take a big step down in quality if you eschew both Ikon and Epic, and in those states the independents may have high day ticket prices too like Powder Mt. Jason has a valid point that this scenario in the Northeast applies much less.

A handful of high visibility areas limit Epic or Ikon affiliation to 5 or 7 days and thus force locals to buy expensive (can be as much as $2,000) passes to that specific area. These include Jackson, Sun Valley, Deer Valley and Aspen, probably Telluride too and if so ChrisC can confirm.

Seattle is a region highly stressed by overcrowding in recent years. Crystal has world class terrain and was purchased by Alterra in 2018. Its parking and lift capacity were soon so strained that Crystal was removed from unlimited Ikon for a couple of years, though it will go back on full Ikon next season, with Base Ikon being limited to 5 days, similar to Steamboat. For Seattle skiers Stevens Pass, about half the size of Crystal, is on Epic but Whistler is the big lure of the Epic Pass there.
 
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Tony Crocker said:
A handful of high visibility areas limit Epic or Ikon affiliation to 5 or 7 days and thus force locals to buy expensive (can be as much as $2,000) passes to that specific area. These include Jackson, Sun Valley, Deer Valley and Aspen, probably Telluride too and if so ChrisC can confirm.
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My brother has to buy ‘Transferable’ season passes because of employee droupout. It's very expensive - $2400 or so.

But you cannot recruit employees if they do not have a pass. Business Cost.

The only one who benefits is me - because typically there is a pass transferable to me in March / April.

We have even bought employee housing. Ugh. Hopefully I don't break up with my brother?! I'm in a financial marriage with him. SF tech money gets transferred Telluride some years.

Ski town costs are very high.

But a lot of his friends have made it there.
2 live at the base of Chair 7 - condos built by the Town of Telliride. It's based on income and longevity.

And the town has even built houses up for lottery. 1 friend won.

And I do know friends who funded houses with drug proceeds in the 80/90s. Oh no.
 
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