Most of the questions Vail Resorts executives got from major shareholders March 9 were about the weather — or lack of it.
CEO Rob Katz characterized the West’s warm winter and weak snowpack as an “aberration,” so he’s not expecting long-term impacts to pass sales.
“People tend to look at this — in terms of how many times they may have used their pass — as also an aberration. It's not really that they don't love skiing. It's not that they're not as connected to the sport, just that the weather didn't show up this year like they may have hoped,” Katz said on the company's FY2026 Q2 earnings call. “I think everyone also knows that [this season] doesn't really change the likelihood that next year could be an amazing season.”
He still acknowledged that this was “the most challenging winter across the Rockies that we have ever experienced.” He explained that Vail’s ski areas in Colorado and Utah, including Park City Mountain, had between 70% and 80% of terrain open at the end of February.
Katz said conditions in the Rockies make it hard to tell if other business decisions are working for Vail. But discounted buddy passes included with the Epic Pass — Epic Friend Tickets — are showing promising numbers.
“On the three lift ticket initiatives that we launched: Epic friends — a ticket type that performed — [it] was up, when every other ticket type was down,” he said.
Skier visits this season are down 12% compared to this time last winter, and that translates to lost revenue.
Not including taxes, debt payments and asset-related costs, Vail reported $421 million in resort earnings compared to almost $460 million this time last year.
The weather conditions are leading Vail to soften its expectations for the rest of this fiscal year.
Investors asked if the reduced earnings forecast was related to geopolitics, but according to Katz, it’s entirely weather-related.
Vail Resorts’ EpicPromise foundation is a financial supporter of KPCW.
