Nathan Rafferty says last winter with its record snowfall and number of skier visits was a once-in-a-generation ski season.
“Over on this side, we saw 600 inches of snow,” Rafferty said. “Alta set an all-time record at 903 inches. Their previous all-time record was below 800. So just incredible, longest season on record. And then all that snow translated into a huge number of skier visits. 7.1 million skier visits are up 22% from our previous all-time record which was the year before. So, when it snows like that, and we open as much as we did early on and stay open so late, it's not surprising that we had just an amazing year.”
Utah has increased the number of skier visits by a million in just 10 years. While the advent of multi-resort passes like the Epic and Ikon have made a difference, he says Utah is growing.
“We went from a small state to a mid-sized state, and for the first time ever, external growth, migration, in-migration into Utah, is outpacing births,” he said. “We used to grow as a state because we had so many babies, and that's just not the case anymore. You know, we're in a changing landscape here in the state of Utah. Our economy's just on fire. Instead of a strong economy we had, they labeled us as having an elite economy.”
In fact, Rafferty says the ski industry dropped $2.6 billion into the economy last year, which translates into about a quarter of a billion dollars in state and local taxes. The ski industry also helps create about 25,000 jobs.
“All the things that we enjoy - all the trail systems and parking and infrastructure upgrades and awesome parks, you know, that really helps us as locals enjoy some of these great things that our visitors help us pay for, he said.”
With both Big Cottonwood Canyon resorts now requiring parking reservations as well as Alta and Park City, Rafferty says Ski Utah has created a parking blog on its website, to help riders know whether reservations are needed, the cost of parking and what it takes to get free parking. You can find the link on our website, kpcw.org.
As far as the proposed gondola into Little Cottonwood Canyon stands, Rafferty believes it will get built sooner than later and while lawsuits tend to be filed with any large, controversial transportation improvement project, he believes UDOT has done its due diligence and any lawsuits will be limited and short.
