Ski Area Reality: Corporatocracy Strikes Again

As the news spread on Wednesday morning that Vail Resorts had purchased Kirkwood Mountain Resort, there was, naturally, a genuine concern for one the future of the one of the most iconic ski areas in the American West. As someone who made a personal decision a few years ago to stop supporting a corporate-owned ski resort (Heavenly) and start buying my pass at one of the last independent ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area (Kirkwood) – the fact that Kirkwood is a better mountain for all the right reasons didn’t hurt either – this news affected me, but it did not shock me.

In the past few years, all but two of the major resorts in Lake Tahoe have been gobbled up, acquired, purchased, whatever you want to call it, by the coporatocracy, which is methodically tightening its grip on the entire ski industry. Squaw was purchased by KSL, which then bought Alpine from JMA, which still owns Homewood; CNL owns the assets to Northstar and Sierra; MTN, which is Vail Resorts’ listing on the New York Stock Exchange, owns Heavenly, manages Northstar and now manages Kirkwood. The acronymic takeover of Lake Tahoe’s ski resorts is a confusing trend, yes, but it’s also a disturbing one that deserves more careful analysis.

Go here to read the entire blog posted by Jeremy Evans on Riders Mountain Alliance. Evans, of South Lake Tahoe, is the author of In Search of Powder: A Story of America’s Disappearing Ski Bum. He can be reached at jeremy@jeremyevans.org.