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Bid Farewell to Free Ski Resort Parking (Vol. 1)

Welcome to the first in a series of PeakRankings newsletters! In this series, we’ll round up the best news and deals from the ski industry.

The Scoop 👓

Earlier this month, Brighton, Utah became the latest ski resort to move to paid parking for all of its lots.

On the surface, this may seem crazy. Lift tickets are already between $95-$121 for adults and teens 13 and up, and the resort is now asking an additional $20 from a large portion of their clientele. And we know you’re not thinking about parking illegally  along the Brighton access road to avoid the fee, which comes with a hefty $150 ticket if caught.

So…what gives? Well, it turns out there’s a bit more to this story.

These guests probably didn’t realize it would be the last time that many of them would ever park at Brighton for free.

The Cause 💥

Utah’s Cottonwood-area ski resorts—including Brighton and Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and Alta and Snowbird one ridge over in Little Cottonwood Canyon—have struggled considerably with traffic and insufficient parking in recent years. It has gotten to the point where cars have lined up at 5am to secure spots at the resorts, leading to standstill traffic before most people wake up.

Solitude took action by starting its $20 paid parking policy in 2019, and then Alta and Snowbird followed suit last season, with the former mandating paid reservations on Fridays/weekends/holidays and the latter moving to a mix of paid and free parking.

But at least at Brighton, there is also a catch to this policy: carpools of three or more do not have to pay to reserve a spot. In addition, parking will be free with no reservations after 1pm (although this is essentially standard across ski resorts with these types of policies).

This exemption for carpoolers makes Brighton’s policy feel less like a “we did it just because we can 🤷🏻‍♂️” move than some of the policies implemented at other resorts (neighboring Solitude also waives the fee for carpools of 4+). Traffic is serious problem, and this move will hopefully reduce the number of cars driving up the road and reduce jams.

Traffic jams like these have become weekend and holiday mainstays across several Colorado, Utah, Tahoe, and Vermont ski resorts.

And Utah isn’t the only region to see parking reservation policies implemented with carpool incentives. With demand for ski resorts increasing substantially in recent years, driven in part by the Epic and Ikon multi-resort passes, traffic flow issues have become mainstays across every destination region of the United States.

Stowe, Vermont and Arapahoe Basin, Colorado have exempted carpools of four or more from paying since implementing weekend paid parking last season. While not free, mountains like Breckenridge, Colorado also give discounts for carpoolers.

What This Means For You - Even If You Never Ski/Ride Brighton 🎿

Ultimately, we can probably expect paid parking reservations to become even more of a mainstay across the ski destination world. But hopefully, this also means fewer cars up dangerous mountain roads, a serious move towards carpools and public transportation, and less time spent waiting in horrendous traffic jams.

(Cottonwoods resorts still have to deal with the UTA bus cuts, but that’s a story for another time.)

Any questions/thoughts? Respond to this email and we’ll get back to you!

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