Mammoth Mountain closed on a stormy day in mid-March last season, but this time it was not a weather-hold. Chair lifts stopped spinning and skiers went home. Though she didn’t know it yet, Rachel Rainey had just worked her last shift at the restaurant that has supported her skiing lifestyle for the past 17 years. And that was just the beginning of the economic challenges she would face.
The World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic. The NBA canceled their season and Tom Hanks announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Places with ski resorts like Blaine County in Idaho and Gunnison County in Colorado were early hotspots. Most North American ski areas closed their operations indefinitely and in the days that followed, residents sheltered-in-place. Ski towns asked visitors to stay away. Small businesses shuttered.
Rainey was also in the middle of moving at the time. Her rent increased just as she was filing for unemployment. Now more than nine months later, Rainey still does not have a job and unemployment benefits have run out. The small weightlifting gym she owns has been closed for five of the last nine months. The federal payroll protection program gave her just $500 in July. Debt is piling up.
“The situation is getting desperate,” she said, her voice trailing off.
Soon after getting laid-off, Rainey found another restaurant job and was expected to start working at the beginning of the winter season, but that restaurant was shut down too. Over the summer she cleaned vacation rentals part-time, but that work has also dried up since the state banned non-essential travel and closed short-term lodging in response to alarmingly low ICU capacities across the state.
Mountain communities have faced plenty of challenges over the years—economic inequality and high rent, climate change and drought and wildfires, overtourism, and sometimes a lack of tourism. The ski town workforce, who often work multiple jobs to make ends meet, are finding it harder than ever to afford the cost of living.
Stores along Elk Avenue, in Crested Butte, Colorado. Photo: Eric Gowan
“The pandemic has amplified things that have been ongoing issues in a lot of ski towns,” said Heather Hansman a former editor at Powder Magazine who is currently writing a book about ski bums. “Everything is getting crunched on all sides.”
Outside Magazine columnist Marc Peruzzi wrote that pandemic mitigations could be good for ski culture—thinning crowds, preserving powder stashes, and bringing back the brown bag lunch and après ski tailgates. He hopes that skiing could become “a classless luxury” again, but any kind of luxury seems increasingly far from reality for the people who are trying to survive in a ski town.
Some small businesses did not survive the spring shutdowns. At least five restaurants in Mammoth Lakes, including the one Rainey worked at, closed permanently. And with reduced capacities in lodging and restaurants, many residents who work in tourism-based economies are unemployed or working fewer hours.
For most of the unemployed ski town workforce who were laid off in March, state unemployment benefits have long ago run out and federal pandemic relief programs under the CARES act expire on December 26. At the time of this reporting lawmakers have just agreed on another stimulus bill, but it will be at least a few weeks before the money reaches people and the aid is significantly less than the last round of government financial relief.
Even with ski areas currently open for the season and a vaccine rolling out health officials warn the worst is yet to come. With the upcoming holiday season, the U.S may see a “surge upon a surge,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a briefing in early-December.
As the ski season begins to ramp up many communities are limping into the time of year that drives the industry’s economy. Mammoth Lakes reported more than $3 million in transient occupancy taxes in its highest grossing month ever in January 2020, but the town is estimating $1 million less in tourism tax revenue for this upcoming January, for example.
In early 2020, the majority of U.S. ski areas lost critical spring break visitation that generally accounts for 20% of annual revenue, according to a National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) report. That period is only is surpassed in revenue by the Christmas holiday, which is looking grim. NSAA estimates that the pandemic has already cost the U.S. ski industry at least $2 billion, with projections reaching as high as $5 billion including the 2021 season.
Even so, many outdoor destinations had their busiest summer ever and retailers that sell equipment like canoes and kayaks, and hiking, camping, and fishing gear have reported record sales and supply shortages.
But it’s the hospitality industry that’s really suffering in states with high cases of the coronavirus and strict mandates like California, which has just gone into lockdown again closing restaurants and tourism lodging among other restrictions—even as ski areas are allowed to operate chair lifts.
There are no reports specific to ski town workforce, but employment in the leisure and hospitality industry is down by 3.4 million jobs nationwide, according to a recent U.S. Department of Labor report. And the restaurant industry, which is a lucrative job for ski town workers, is down 2.1 million jobs since February.
In Crested Butte, Colorado, Kyleena Falzone says that when she had to lay-off 140 employees from her restaurants the Secret Stash and Bonez, it was one of the hardest days of her life. That night she went home, laid in bed for a few minutes, and then got up and got back to work. She knew her community was hurting, and rather than wait for government assistance, she wanted to feed people.
Falzone crowdfunded $100,000 and used the donations to supply out-of-work residents with fresh food from the farmer’s market. She also hired back some of her staff and served free community dinner for 83 nights at the Secret Stash.
“We were hit really hard, really fast,” Falzone said. “All the tourists had to leave, all the hotels and restaurants shut down.”
In April, counties with ski areas had some of the highest per capita rates of infection in the country. Tourist-facing workplaces like restaurants and bars were considered high risk by the CDC and most closed temporarily.
As the curve flattened and businesses slowly reopened for summer, many restaurants moved operations outdoors. But winter presents significant weather challenges for business operations in a ski town. Crested Butte’s restaurants are currently restricted to 50% capacity indoors, but Falzone is watching cases rise nationwide and sees what could be coming.
“I feel like I’m in the middle of the island and the lava is slowly coming toward us,” she said.
Even after a busy summer, Falzone was only able to rehire about half of her staff. With reduced capacity there is only so much work to go around. Some of her employees were forced to leave in search of work or because they can’t afford the cost of living in Crested Butte anymore.
There is, however, a new kind of economic boom in many mountain towns.
Popular scenic areas have experienced a staggering increase in demand for housing as pandemic-related migration is doubling growth, according to an Oregon Office of Economics analysis. Mountain towns have become so-called Zoom Towns, as people who can work-from-home are fleeing urban environments for the great outdoors.
Real estate has reached record highs in many places with ski resorts like Truckee, California; Bend, Oregon; and Missoula, Montana. In Mammoth Lakes, California, sales were so high this summer there’s little inventory left, Mammoth Sierra Properties relator Danica McCoy said. There are currently just a few condos for sale and no homes listed for less than $1 million. Every property that comes on the market is seeing bidding wars.
“It’s insane,” McCoy said. Those who view the relatively lower prices of rural areas are driving up the market while the people who live and work in Mammoth are going to the food bank. “There is something that is definitely broken,” she said.
In Jackson, Wyoming, where the wealth gap is the biggest in the country, real estate has reached record-breaking demand this year, shattering previous year-end volume with $1.5 billion in sales in the first nine months of 2020. Jackson, like most ski towns, already has an affordable housing problem, Clare Stumpf, a board member for the Shelter JH housing advocacy group, said. “The pandemic has laid bare the inequities that exist here.”
Wealthy owners who enjoy their tax-free vacation homes in the Jackson Hole Valley have fled to the region to shelter-in-place. Some rental owners are capitalizing on high markets and selling, while others are finding tenants who are willing to pay higher prices.
Crested Butte’s Secret Stash Pizza, in the Before Times. Photo: Gowan
“Evictions have been off the charts,” Stumpf said. “People who can work from home have a higher budget than someone who works in Jackson.”
The state has some of the least restrictive coronavirus mandates in the country, so restaurants and bars are open despite the widespread virus and a hospital that is nearly full. There are jobs, yet housing continues to be the biggest problem for people in Teton County who already spend a third of their earnings on housing.
Jackson resident Elizabeth Hutchings says she was forced out of her rental unit when the owner increased the rent by 30 percent. She and her housemates couldn’t afford the rent hike and decide to move out.
Now in mid-December, the hardest time of year to find housing in any ski town, Hutchings says the housing crunch feels like “an intense frenzy.” She is working two restaurant jobs and has a few leads on housing, but she still doesn’t know for sure where she will be living when she has to be out of her place at the end of the month.
Hutchings moved to Jackson three years ago for a park service job and fell in love with the area. In the past she’s lived in her Subaru and commuted an hour to make it living more affordable. Hutchings says she still finds the skiing and climbing lifestyle fulfilling enough, though she wonders how long the equation will work.
“Someone told me when I first came to Jackson that, and I think this is true of all ski towns, Jackson is a place you have to fight for,” Hutchings said. “You will have joyful and amazing time here, but when you don’t want to fight any longer you leave—It wears you down.”
Back in Mammoth, most of the town is shut down, but the lifts are still spinning and a few early storms have brought just enough snow to keep residents happy. Even with the economic hardship and a virus that is surging, the mountain is always there.
Despite everything, Rainey says she’ll wax her skis and slide around, feel the wind in her hair. “Skiing is the best medicine for me,” she said. “At least there is skiing.”
This article was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Monica Prelle is a freelance journalist based in Mammoth Lakes, California. @monicaprelle. Top photo: Eric Gowan
I live in a ski town in VT and from what I can see, it does not appear to have been hit too hard. I obviously do not know the personal stories of all the residents, but I do not believe any restaurants have closed and there still seems to be heavy tourist traffic. A couple new restaurants have even opened up. I have also seen first hand what the article mentioned about real estate – every house around me that had a ‘for sale’ sign did not have one for long.
It’s interesting and I ponder often how long the migration to ‘zoom towns’ will last. Once everything is ‘back to normal,’ will these people go back or stay? On one hand, I would like the solitude back and for my local trails to be less crowded, but on the other hand I think there is potential for a lot of rural communities that surround ‘adventure towns,’ that previously seemed like they were dying out, to thrive again with the influx of people establishing roots.
I hope for the best of all these towns across the US and the people that call them home.
Ski towns are a microcosm of the US. Unchecked greed, some will say capitalism, ultimately leads to what the article describes. The thing with a ski town is there are no corners to hide. In the US, you can shift to another career or gig work in a different field or move. I fear that eventually the whole country will end up just like the ski town once all means are exhausted.
I live in a mountain town in Colorado. Close enough to commute to Colorado Springs if you wanted to, but 3000 feet higher up the canyon. We are seeing the same situation with real estate prices rising and rentals hard to find. But this is not new. The seasonal nature of employment here, the demand for space in a small area and subsequent prices have always made mountain living a tough nut to crack. Friends in Jackson, WY face the added burden of a town surrounded by Federal land and no place to grow. You can go over the pass 35 minutes to Driggs, but you’re dependent on getting over it in the winter.
I recently spoke to a 50-something local who grew up and is running their family’s 3rd generation business here. She told me: “Growing up, you knew you were going to have to live further away in the next county and work your way back to affording a home in this town. It was just understood this was an amazing place and a lot of people wanted to live here.”
I think that’s always been a reality in most resort areas or places that are beautiful and have developed enough infrastructure to support a community. I’ve chosen to live in urban and suburban areas when I would have preferred the mountains, but with an idea I was building the possibility of something better. If you were able to pull off the dream from your youth on, congratulations!; most of us had to delay the gratification. It’s just the way life is.
Finally, my area has survived Covid better than a lot because we rolled out restrictions based on county data, rather than blanket declarations. When I look at California’s Governor and what he has done there, I can’t help feeling a lot of unnecessary damage is being done to businesses.
Blaine County, Idaho (home of Sun Valley) is very much in the same boat. It’s super exhausting to work and work to claw your way into a lifestyle you love and then watch it all get priced back out of reach by Covid refugees who thing $1.5 million for a house is so cheap compared to L.A. or Seattle. Not to mention the strain we’ve had on our infrastructure with the influx of new permanent residents needing municipal services, trail space, and treatment from our hospital with its one ICU bed for the whole county!
N. in Western Ma.
As a contract painter, once the Pandemic hit this area, the work dried up. But after 50 years of working I was ready to retire anyways, so my wife and I wanted to downsize from our home that we had for the past 23 years. The problem with that was, and still is, is the flood of people trying to move out of the cities drove the house buying market out of sight for the folks that live in this area. One Real estate rep told us that most of the houses in Brattleboro, Vt. are being bought sight unseen by people from NY City and you’re going to have to bid 40K more than the sellers price if you wanted the house.
As the article states, living in a ski town has always been precarious — it’s just being amplified by the forces of dog-eat-dog capitalism for the working class, all while the upper echelon laughs all the way to the bank with their cushy investments, real estate assets, and triple-figure salaries.
I used to love that third-rate cities and rural areas “weren’t cool,” in the sense that most of my friends moved to the coasts and could barely afford their rent while I was enjoying my life without much worries about being priced out of the market. Now, this is a major concern and really sucks, as pretty soon you won’t be able to live anywhere half-way nice, regardless of it being rural or developed.
Thing is, if you can ride out this crisis, the rich and mobile who’ve swamped remote ski towns en masse will eventually move back to the cities, in my opinion. Not all of them, but the ones who thrive on being in the “scene” and enjoy the privileges that come with big city living for the well-connected.
I don’t see these people enjoying the solace and slower pace of life of ski towns and second market cities — like SLC, Denver, Reno, etc. — once things go back to a new normal. They’ll get FOMO for their old lifestyle. Their income could definitely reshape the face of these rural areas, but at the expense of pricing out long-time residents permanently.
Part of the problem, though, is that instead of moving back to LA/Seattle to be in the “scene”, they’re bringing their scene here… I don’t go to LA and insist everyone ride their mt bike then sit on their tailgate and drink a beer in the sun, why can’t they leave our valley the way it was when they arrived instead of turning every dive bar into a chi chi coffee shop and every affordable house into a cutsie AirBnB no one can afford for a week much less a year?
I work for a company that recently started doing business in the Meridian, ID area. More people leads to more businesses. I often hear these complaints from the local residents that the Californians are ‘bringing their scene’ to the area and reshaping their way of life. I wouldn’t know the extent of it, but my heart breaks for them. It appears to be inevitable – people were eventually going to wake up and go live in places with more space, more open air and more recreation opportunities. I’m hoping it’s cyclical, and fast – and people move back.
That’s not going to happen. They won’t leave, their money will encourage other business to set up shop to serve them and price the original residents out. It’s happening everywhere. I say this as I am “one of them”. Although I try to limit my damage. I have investments, own part of a business, and real estate, although personal, has really bolstered my net worth. Honestly my triple figure salary doesn’t do what it used to. I feel I am somewhat unique in that I lived the life of a dirt bag for many years, hell most of my 20s and into 30s. I wised up at some point and played the game long enough to own a home, cush job, invest, family, etc. but have always been dirt bag at heart, so now I can afford to live like a bum when I want, but still rent a five star place to shower and eat when I feel like it. I just figured after seeing enough friends, acquaintances and fellow workers fall to drugs, poverty, depression and simply run out of choices once they became too old for “kid’s games” I wanted a little more out of life. Too many yuppies who have zero respect and have always had it good will move into your town and not leave and they can afford to change it to their liking, not the other way around. What sucks is you get priced out and just hope they leave, which most won’t. Good luck, I mean it!
The Zoom people are also buying campers and taking up prime space in camping areas, full time, where those of us who only have a couple of weeks off like to go to recreate/recharge/find solitude. They work all day, not even looking outside, yet they impact folks trying to have an outdoor experience for fun. They think they have discovered such a cool lifestyle, but hopefully they will find that they are missing city amenities like reliable internet, superstores and nightlife and will go back to the cities, post-Covid. I know that this is a minor issue compared with housing in resort towns but the solution may be the same. Small towns, like campgrounds, aren’t for everyone, even though it seems like right now everyone is giving them a go. Meanwhile, wear a mask, wash your hands, get vaccinated and let’s get COVID19 behind us!
We have skiing in Missoula — don’t tell anyone! — but we’re not a ski town in the same way the other featured places are. But, as folks have observed above, the problem is endemic to capitalism: income inequality begets affordable housing problems. Even without zoom, the ability to work remotely, and the short flight from here to Seattle, made this a decent place to live/play/raise children for folks who don’t have to be in a downtown office every week.
And to make it worse, I have to say I don’t much share the cautious optimism of some of the other commenters. Yes, a healthy portion of the zoom-town folks will go home after the pandemic, but I’m afraid most of their homes are going to end up as AirBNBs, not housing for people who work here.
The way winter sports function in a ski town are the very definition of everything you don’t want in a highly contagious pandemic like Covid-19. Bring people from disparate parts of the world together to huddle inside in close proximity in nice warm inside environments, perfect for transmitting disease. It only takes one superspreader to take out a whole community. One must thing of the cost benefit of small businesses vs. the health risks to the greater community. The economics of ski towns have been upside down for years now. I think the romantic notion of living the ski-bum lifestyle doesn’t work anymore in today’s economic reality.
From an old ex ski bum. I used to love this sport, still kinda do, but, I have a different feeling about it now. Jjust me, but I would rather skin up with my dog than ride a lift anymore. Why? Because of what’s playing out right now, and it’s directly related to the business model and the market that it attracts and targets.
Years ago as a ski bum I used to believe in serving the rich but now I don’t. I find the whole business model to be degrading and meaningless. Actually, to me it enables inequality and reinforces it.
I used to work 2 jobs just so I could ski and many still do, actually, in some resorts you work 3. To me that’s alarming. I don’t see an unwillingness to work, I see the separation getting larger and larger and I don’t see local leaders doing anything to support the locals. Also, when I say “local” I mean real locals, not second home owners or part-timers, real locals who work the 2/3 jobs and live there year-round.
Anyway, I hope to see change in these areas, ski resort town leaders need to think about the people that make those areas so attractive and it’s not the elites.