{"id":973,"date":"2025-03-24T11:15:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T12:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypaytril.com\/?p=973"},"modified":"2025-03-26T15:44:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:44:30","slug":"why-no-new-u-s-ski-resorts-have-been-built-in-the-past-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypaytril.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/24\/why-no-new-u-s-ski-resorts-have-been-built-in-the-past-40-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Why No New U.S. Ski Resorts Have Been Built in the Past 40 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
The United States is home to over 480 ski resorts, offering mountains of various locations, shapes, and sizes. What you may not realize, though, is that essentially all of these resorts were built over five decades ago.<\/p>\n
But wait a minute\u2014skiing and snowboarding have exploded in growth in the 21st century, so why haven\u2019t there been any serious new resorts since the 1980s? And has the industry changed enough in recent years that this trend might reverse itself? In this video, we\u2019ll cover the compounding barrage of factors that made new ski resort development essentially impossible starting in the early 1970s, and then we\u2019ll go through the attempts since then and whether they\u2019ve made any headway.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But before we take a look at what stopped ski resorts from being built in America, we have to cover how their development started in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Skiing in America began as a niche activity introduced by Scandinavian immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Early adopters practiced the sport in snowy regions like the Northeast and the Sierra Nevada, where rudimentary skiing facilities began to appear.<\/p>\n
Woodstock, Vermont, became a pioneer for American skiing, hosting one of the first ski clubs in the country in 1903. Several other small hills spurred up in the following years, including Colorado\u2019s Howelsen Hill, which is the oldest continuously operating U.S. ski resort today. Skiers relied on basic rope tows and natural snow, making the experience both rustic and labor-intensive. And while a few names that we all know today emerged by the 1930s, including Stowe, Sun Valley, and Alta, skiing remained a small-scale pastime pursued by local communities rather than a mainstream recreational activity.<\/p>\n
The United States’ involvement in World War II was a turning point for skiing\u2019s popularity. The creation of the 10th Mountain Division, an elite group of mountain troops trained to fight in snowy terrain,\u00a0helped elevate skiing from a niche hobby to a widely recognized activity. Soldiers trained in Camp Hale, Colorado, which is due south of present-day Vail, where they honed their skills in skiing, mountaineering, and wartime survival.<\/p>\n
After the war, many veterans of the 10th Mountain Division became ambassadors for the sport, founding or managing ski resorts across the country. Resorts like Aspen and Arapahoe Basin owe much of their early success to these veterans’ passion and expertise. Furthermore, wartime infrastructure projects\u2014such as mountain roads and railways\u2014helped make once-remote mountain regions accessible for future resort development.<\/p>\n
Other economic factors helped too. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the post-war boom gave rise to a new American middle class with more disposable income and leisure time. While skiing was once considered a sport for elites, it now began to attract a broader audience.<\/p>\n
As skiing grew in popularity in the 1950s, the mountains kept getting easier and easier to reach. Improved highways and the growing popularity of air travel made it easier for people to reach remote mountain destinations that were previously way too impractical to get to. At the same time, ski technology evolved rapidly. Innovations in ski lifts, snow grooming equipment, and safer ski gear transformed skiing into a more accessible and enjoyable activity. Chairlifts became the new norm, whereas in decades past, visiting a resort had involved rope tows and surface lifts. This made it much more practical to build bigger and taller resorts than in years\u2019 past. Resorts including Mammoth, Squaw Valley (now Palisades Tahoe), and Taos Ski Valley emerged as leading destinations during this time, drawing both seasoned skiers and beginners alike.<\/p>\n
By the 1960s, the ski industry was booming. This period saw an explosion of resort development, driven not only by skiing’s popularity but also by lucrative real estate opportunities. Many resorts were built as part of broader ventures, with developers selling condominiums and vacation homes alongside ski passes.<\/p>\n
Public land leases also made large-scale ski resort construction feasible.\u00a0 The Forest Service worked with developers to open vast tracts of land for skiing, leading to the creation of resorts that are well-known today like Vail, Park City, and Jackson Hole. A whopping 118 U.S. ski resorts that are still operating today opened in the 1960s, nearly doubling the amount from the previous decade.<\/p>\n
But just as fast as it exploded in growth, essentially all major ski resort development came to a halt with what felt like the snap of a finger. After six notable debuts in 1972 and 1973, serious future developments were suddenly nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n Due to increased popularity, innovations in technology, and development-friendly government agencies, many ski areas opened in the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the early 1970s, new ski resort development slowed to a crawl, with an almost overwhelming compound of factors driving the change. The first and most obvious one of these was the saturation of conspicuously prime locations following the rush to build in the two decades prior.<\/p>\n By 1973, a lot of the best locations for ski resort development in the U.S. had already been claimed. The previous decades capitalized on accessible mountain ranges with favorable snowfall, suitable terrain, and proximity to population centers. Prime areas in Colorado, Utah, California, and Vermont had long been developed, leaving fewer viable locations for new large-scale resorts.<\/p>\n One factor was the slowdown in highway construction during this time period. The resorts built during the mid-20th century were strategically positioned to take advantage of infrastructure like highways and public lands, and with fewer new interstates being built, much of the remaining undeveloped terrain was either too remote or lacked the consistent snowfall needed to sustain a profitable operation.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many of the best locations for a ski area based on snowfall, terrain layout, and public access had already been developed by the 1970s.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But while the saturation of the best locations helped slow down resort development, it was nothing compared to the slate of environmental regulations that appeared around this time. In the late 1960s, public opposition to large-scale construction on public lands increased dramatically. Many of the largest ski resorts in the U.S. lease land from the U.S. Forest Service, but obtaining new leases for development suddenly became exceedingly difficult.<\/p>\n A major turning point was the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970. NEPA introduced stringent environmental review processes for projects involving federal lands or funding, requiring detailed assessments and approval from numerous agencies. While the act was incredibly impactful in its aim to safeguard natural resources, the additional layers of bureaucracy\u2014such as Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and public comment periods\u2014made it far more challenging and time-consuming to develop new ski resorts. Projects that previously required a single permit might now need approval from dozens of agencies, ranging from the Forest Service to the Environmental Protection Agency. For developers, this created significant delays and increased costs, often derailing projects entirely.<\/p>\n Additionally, laws such as the Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1972, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976 further complicated resort development. The CWA restricted alterations\u00a0to rivers, streams, and wetlands, making it difficult to construct resort infrastructure such as roads, snowmaking reservoirs, and base villages. The ESA provided strict protections for threatened and endangered species, meaning any proposed ski area had to prove it would not disrupt critical habitats. This was especially problematic for developments in alpine environments, where species such as the Canada lynx and the spotted owl reside. Meanwhile, the NFMA required the U.S. Forest Service to create comprehensive land management plans, which, on the whole, placed greater emphasis on conservation and recreational balance than the more development-friendly attitudes of years\u2019 past. Given how many resorts had been built through public land leases, this act had huge implications for future large-scale ski area developments.<\/p>\n The 1970s and 1980s also saw a rise in citizen activism and environmental litigation. As new regulations empowered environmental groups, legal challenges under these laws became common, often resulting in years-long court battles that delayed or entirely halted new ski resort projects, even if they\u2019d made it past initial approvals processes. High-profile lawsuits set legal precedents that strengthened environmental protections and expanded the scope of regulations, making it even harder for developers to gain approvals<\/p>\n Beyond federal regulations, state and local environmental laws further restricted resort development. California, in particular, became one of the most difficult places to build a new ski resort due to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which was enacted in 1970. CEQA required environmental reviews similar to NEPA but applied at the state level, adding another layer of bureaucracy. Any ski resort proposal in California had to go through extensive environmental assessments, undergo public hearings, and withstand potential litigation from environmental groups. The process was often prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, deterring developers from even attempting new projects.<\/p>\n These combined legal and regulatory challenges created a near-impossible landscape for new ski resorts to be developed on public land.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n New government regulations, such as the Clean Water Act, sought to protect natural resources. But they made ski area development more convoluted.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But not every ski resort project could be killed by environmental opposition\u2014after all, some privately-owned land parcels were still theoretically feasible to develop, and at least some public lands did have the right topography to pass all the regulatory hurdles. But it wasn\u2019t just the new environmental regulations that were making new ski resort projects harder to justify. By the 1970s, the U.S. economy was not exactly in the place to support developments related to any sort of leisure activities.<\/p>\n Building a ski resort from scratch was (and still is) a monumental financial undertaking, and in the post-1970s economy, the return on investment was far from guaranteed. The cost of constructing ski infrastructure\u2014including lifts, snowmaking systems, lodges, and access roads, among other things\u2014could easily reach hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, resorts required expensive year-round maintenance, staffing, and marketing efforts to attract visitors and remain competitive. Even if a proposed ski area managed to get through the rest of the hurdles, securing financing and attracting investors became much more difficult.<\/p>\n During the mid-20th century, many ski resorts were funded as part of broader real estate ventures, with developers relying on the sale of vacation homes, condominiums, and commercial properties to subsidize ski operations. However, by the 1970s, rising interest rates and financial market instability made real estate-driven developments riskier. Without a guaranteed stream of revenue from real estate sales, developers faced an uphill battle in securing financing for new projects.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the ski industry began experiencing rising operational costs, including labor shortages, increasing insurance expenses, and the growing reliance on snowmaking to combat inconsistent snowfall. Snowmaking technology had improved dramatically since the early days of skiing, but the costs of installation and operation remained high. The 1970s and 80s were well before ski resorts seriously considered climate change in their planning and operations, but mountains still needed substantial infrastructure, including reservoirs, pumps, and energy-intensive snow guns, to ensure reliable conditions throughout the season. These costs made it even more difficult to justify building a new resort in an uncertain economic climate.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Significant lift and terrain enhancements have made the U.S. destination ski area landscape much more cutthroat in the past forty years.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But okay, the U.S. economy didn\u2019t stay bad forever, and by the 1980s, it recovered significantly. So why didn\u2019t new major ski resorts get built at that point? Well, ski companies and investors recognized that expanding or improving existing resorts was far more financially viable than building new ones. Established resorts already had roads, lift networks, and lodging, reducing the need for major upfront capital investment. By upgrading lifts, expanding terrain, or adding new amenities, resorts could attract more visitors without the massive financial risk of creating a new ski area from scratch. In addition, working within pre-approved footprints saved them the regulatory headaches of trying to build something from scratch, as many resorts were permitted to operate on significantly more terrain than they actively used.\u00a0<\/p>\n This move to intra-resort development has had a surprisingly large impact on today\u2019s ski scene. Since 1972, the typical destination ski resort has grown exponentially in size, with many of the resort areas you know and love today having opened in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s\u2014despite the original resort itself opening decades earlier. Not to mention, the uphill ride experience has been thoroughly redesigned at essentially every serious destination since the 1970s; every single high-speed chairlift at a North American resort has been built in 1981 or later, and the same goes for most gondolas and aerial tramways. Examples of substantial resort expansions in just the past 15 years include Park City\u2019s connection to Canyons Resort, Breckenridge\u2019s Peak 6 area, and Steamboat\u2019s Mahogany Ridge and Fish Creek Canyon zones. So while we haven\u2019t exactly seen new destinations come into play over the past four decades, that\u2019s not to say the resort experience hasn\u2019t gotten a whole lot better for consumers.<\/p>\n The explosive inward growth at destination ski resorts has also introduced one more significant factor that impedes destination resort development\u2014for any potential newcomers, existing resorts are now far more competitive than they were in the 1960s and 70s. Any newcomer would have to be exponentially larger, with modern lifts and world-class infrastructure, just to have a shot at drawing true destination visitors. Even ignoring the financial and regulatory barriers we\u2019ve already discussed, the sheer scale that\u2019s now required to build a competitive resort from scratch today makes the idea seem a lot more far-fetched than it would have been half a century ago.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Since the 1960\u2019s many of the most popular ski areas across the country have greatly expanded their skiable terrain, such as at Breckenridge.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the near-total halt in new ski resort development after 1973, Colorado\u2019s Beaver Creek and Utah\u2019s Deer Valley stand out as the two notable exceptions, with Beaver Creek opening in 1980 and Deer Valley opening in 1981. Their success can be attributed to a barrage of incredibly favorable circumstances.<\/p>\nPart 2: Saturation of Prime Locations<\/h2>\n
Part 3: Environmental Concerns and New Regulations<\/h2>\n
Part 4: Economic Pressures<\/h2>\n
Part 5: Expanding Existing Resorts As A Feasible Alternative<\/h2>\n
Part 6: The Two Exceptions to the Post-1973 Extinction: Beaver Creek and Deer Valley<\/h2>\n