The 11 ski areas in the White River National Forest — including those operated by Aspen Skiing Co. and Vail Resorts — paid a record amount in ski-area fees to the federal government for the 2021-22 season.
The ski areas paid a combined $23.76 million for use of public lands in their operations. That was $4.26 million, or 22%, more than the $19.5 million paid cumulatively for the 2020-21 season, when business sagged at ski areas due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last season, the ski industry mounted a strong bounce back.
“The [higher fees] are not a surprise because the industry across the country had a record year or a near-record year,” said White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams.
Last winter provided a “reasonable” snow year, he noted, and people were eager to travel again after being bottled up the prior winter.
David Boyd, public information officer for the White River National Forest, noted that this year’s fee total exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
“This year’s [total] is the highest total ever collected on the White River in one year,” he wrote in an email. “Previously it was fiscal year 2018 (for the 2017-2018 season) at $23 million.”
The National Ski Areas Association, an industry trade group based in Denver, estimated that skier visits hit 61 million last season. The Rocky Mountain Region resorts reported a record high 25.2 million visits. A skier visit is the purchase of a lift ticket or use of a pass for any portion of the day.
The Forest Service previously provided information on the ski area fees paid by individual ski resorts but stopped that practice earlier this decade after Vail Resorts complained about the disclosure — Vail contended its competitors could glean proprietary information based on the fee amount. Since then, only the lump sum paid by the 11 resorts gets released. Local and regional journalists objected to the change in policy to no avail.
The federal government uses a complex formula to determine what to charge ski areas that use public lands as part of their operations. It factors in the percentage of public lands used at a ski area, chairlift capacity and a portion of revenues from facilities and services on the public land. Revenues for on-mountain restaurants that are on national forest are factored into that equation, for example, while revenues from restaurants that are on private land do not. Lift ticket sales and ski school lessons also factor into the bill, Fitzwilliams said.
The Forest Service conducts an audit of every ski area’s fee every five years to make sure the amount paid is accurate.
Aspen Skiing Co. has special-use permits for 7,778 acres of national forest at its four ski areas — Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass and Buttermilk. Ski areas don’t technically lease from the feds, but pay a fee for use — similar to what outfitters and timber harvesters pay.
SkiCo uses the most public land at Snowmass Ski Area, at 4,997 acres. At Highlands, it uses 1,620 acres and at Buttermilk, 835 acres.
Aspen Mountain is a hodgepodge of private mining claims and national forest — only 326 acres of public lands are used there. That will increase with the expansion into the Pandora’s terrain in 2023-24.
In addition to SkiCo’s four ski areas, the other resorts in the White River include Sunlight Mountain Resort, Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin.
The record fee collection also reflects increased activity at the resorts during summer, Fitzwilliams noted. Several resorts have added summer activity centers, such as the Lost Forest at Snowmass.
“There’s more complete, year-round use of the mountain,” Fitzwilliams said.
The forest supervisor said he believes the amount the ski areas pay for use of public lands is equitable. He added that the ski areas finance their improvements on the public lands that are used, and they’re also charged for specialists’ time in assessing changes or additions to their special operating permits.
“If you make a comparison to other fees we collect, it’s a fair amount,” he said of the ski-area fees. “The only bad thing is it all goes to the U.S. Treasury.”
The fees collected by the White River National Forest don’t stay in the forest as proponents prefer. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado hopes to change that. He is co-sponsor of a bill that would allow national forests to keep a percentage of funds collected from private ski areas for use of public lands. The bill — the Ski Hill Resources for Economic Development, or SHRED Act — faces an uncertain future. Bennet sent a tweet July 17 that said the legislative proposal passed the House Natural Resources Committee that week.
“Sen. John Barrasso and I are working in the Senate to get this done,” Bennet tweeted. Barrasso is a Republican from Wyoming.
Bennet’s office didn’t respond to a request Thursday for an update on the effort.