Fernie, and The Dark Art of Ski Resort Profitability

Last week I went to Fernie, a pretty well known and popular ski hill a few hours east of Rossland, to catch up with Barrett, a friend and patroller from Broken River who works at Big Sky ski resort in the northern winters. Since then I've been trying for a while to think of a neat way to summarise the differences between Red Mountain and Fernie. It's not as simple as the comparison between here and Silver Star, where the feel of two ski fields and towns are about as different as they come. Today, however, during my many hours of solo chairlift time, I think I may have settled on the existential nugget at the root of our differences.

Fernie is what Red Mountain would be like if the operators of Red Mountain demonstrated even the remotest interest in making money.

Making money in the ski industry is not easy, but all the successful business plans have one common feature: They involve beginner and intermediate skiers from out of town. Why? Well, the alternative is to try to make money from locals and advanced skiers. Generally, there simply aren't enough locals near most ski hills. And once you've separated them from their money, they are broke and you have to wait twelve months before they've prepared their wallets for another ski-field-based-viking-pillage-fest. Advanced skiers, on the other hand, are mostly smelly wierd people who will own more toques (it’s Canadian for “beanies”) than socks, and whose most valuable possessions are their beards. There are a fair number of them scattered around the world, but you can rely on them to do everything within their power to avoid spending any money at the ski hill. They will soar to new heights of ingenuity and plumb new depths of indignity to avoid paying for a ski pass, let alone lunch. The only thing they will reliably spend money on is beer.

Beginners and intermediates from out of town, on the other hand, are plentiful, usually have genuine jobs that pay actual money, and are often accompanied by kids, who can be counted on to complain until money is spent on their behalf. And the best part of people from out of town is that once they've spent their money they leave, and can be replaced with fresh people from out of town with bulging wallets and a persistent sense of emptiness that only paying for things can fill.

These two markets create the central conflict that often lies at heart of a ski area. The locals, bolstered by the seasonal population of ski bums, want to maximise the radness of their ski area. But radness doesn't pay the bills, and the ski hill usually has to spend its resources accommodating visitors who usually value convenience, accessible skiing and good facilities over difficult terrain, cheap tickets, and a ski patrol who won't mind if you hurl yourself off something large and unwise.

Red Mountain and Fernie started out in much the same way. Red was a club ski field that built their first chairlift in the 40s, Fernie a small commercial field that started in the 60s. Both catered to the locals and provided rad skiing as affordably as possible. Both got bought out in the 90s (well, Red was 1989, but close enough), and that's where their stories diverge. Red was bought by a group of locals who kept the basic character of the ski hill the same. It still provided hard skiing, good snow, and a laid back vibe. Fernie, on the other hand, got bought by a massive resort consortium that started major developments including new lifts, more on-mountain accommodation, more groomed runs, and a baffling assortment of uniforms for their staff.

The result is that Fernie is like the skiing equivalent of milk that has just started to go off. Mostly, it's milk: Clean wholesome goodness that almost everyone will enjoy, ensuring a steady supply of beginners and intermediates from out of town to keep the hill’s finances healthy. But underneath that there’s the sour hint of something more potent – bits and pieces of good steep terrain, a few crusty lifts, the occasional patroller with food in their beard, and some locals who ski hard.

Compared to this, Red Mountain is like sour cream. It’s delicious if you like that kind of thing, is closely connected with tacos, and is not the kind of product you can get rich selling. Despite being recently bought out again by an investor from San Diego, Red Mountain still shows a breathtaking disregard for the concept of commercial viability. As an example, the current fashion that attracts people to your hill is fast lifts. Getting from the bottom of the hill back to the top is now a priority that people will pay for. Red’s lifts (which are mostly if not all second hand) are slow. How slow? About as slow as their website. Sure, there are some beginner and intermediate groomed runs here, and some condos near the resort, but all of this seems to be just a token effort to make it look like they’re trying to make money. This hill is great, and I’m super glad I came here, but I would not recommend it to new skiers or families looking for a fun and easy vacation. When I arrived, the hill was way too hard for me to take full advantage of, and after a few months of skiing here I’m still regularly schooled by the terrain. There are big chunks of this hill which I certainly won’t ski this season, and maybe never will.

So, Fernie was fun, and it was good to see Barrett again (even if he has shaved off his voluptuous beard). I could spend a season in Fernie and have a good time, and I wouldn’t even have to do that much laundry, but after skiing here I’d feel like I was missing something.

Oh, and I didn’t find my childhood pal Parri Gregory.