For many skiers, the days of strolling up to the hill and buying a lift ticket are winding down, as the industry tries to hedge its bets against crummy snow conditions by locking in sales weeks or even months ahead of time.
Season passes have been around for decades, but the industry has leaned harder on them as a share of revenue following an industry-shaking decision in 2008 by Vail Resorts, Inc. to introduce a cut-rate season pass that gave skiers unlimited access to its resorts. At the time it had five, but it now has 41 mountain resorts, primarily in North
