Within weeks of announcing a pending acquisition of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area to Alterra Mountain Co., the ski area decided to price gouge its loyal customers by announcing they will charge a $20 parking fee per car during weekends and holidays via a reservation system. If you buy an A-Basin renewal pass next year for $599 and ski 20 times during weekends and holidays, this adds $400 to your annual skiing cost for a total of $999. That’s a 67% price increase in one year, even though the U.S. inflation rate is currently only about 3%.

A-Basin management says the purpose of this is to alleviate parking shortages and “preserve the experience.” This is pure nonsense, since they could accomplish the same result with a free or near-free reservation system.

A-Basin has about 34 weekends per season, consisting of 2 days each for a total of 68 days. Assuming that an average of 1,500 parking spots are filled out of their 1,700 inventory each day, then the incremental revenue accruing is $2,040,000 per year. Add to this whatever holidays they charge for as well. Since the costs of administering a reservation web site is pretty minimal, this is pure profit margin.

Unfortunately, this is yet another example of corporate greed at its finest and a continuation of the destruction of affordable Colorado skiing perpetrated by Alterra and Vail Resorts. The real irony of this is that most Colorado ski areas owe their existence to U.S. Forest Service lands that we the people own. It’s time for our federal government to assert itself by conditioning lease renewals to ski operators by not allowing them to raise ticket prices, annual passes and fees above the rate of annual inflation.