What Will Skiing And Snowboarding Look Like

  • 3 years ago
  • 1

3 Key Trends That Will Define Skiing and Snowboarding in the 2020-21 Season

We have seen dramatic changes to almost every area of our lives over the past year. From our shopping habits to our nighttime socializing to our children’s schools, coronavirus has transformed our travel plans, the ways we interact with businesses, and our visits with friends and family.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the winter sports of skiing and snowboarding are also shaping up quite differently in the 2020-21 season than they have in years past. The good old days of simply booking a lift package, heading up to the mountains, and enjoying fun on the slopes have given way to a variety of new and reactive approaches — all aimed at delivering the winter fun we love while keeping us and our fellow resort-goers as safe as possible.

Let’s take a closer look at three key trends that are defining skiing and snowboarding this winter — and what they mean for passionate fans of these classic winter sports as we head into the 2020-21 skiing and snowboarding season.

 

Physical distancing requirements at most (if not all) resorts.

Depending on where you were planning to spend your ski weekend, you’re likely to face at least some manner of social distancing restriction. This may mean fewer lift passes being issued and fewer people on each lift, in order to ensure safe distancing. Most resorts, including both Deer Valley and Park City, are also mandating face coverings.

To an enormous extent, the nature of the requirements and, indeed, whether the resorts will even be open at all this season varies from one region — and one resort — to another. Even while newspapers were predicting that the pandemic would put Scottish ski resorts in “pole position,” some resorts in Scotland were reporting that they might not be opening at all.

Fortunately, both Deer Valley and Park City Mountain resorts are planning to open this year and are simply following CDC guidelines and making common-sense changes for the safest skiing and snowboarding experience possible. If you’re heading up the mountain this season, your

best bet is to check with the resort you’re planning to attend. Make sure they’re open, ascertain how their reservations are being handled, and see what restrictions you need to be aware of. Most of the time, tickets can — and should — be purchased online. And be flexible; things change fast with COVID-19.

More grab-and-go meals, fewer full-service bars.

The good news is that skiing and snowboarding are already well-positioned to make the best of a bad situation with COVID. After all, both are non-contact sports that take place outdoors and tend to involve a lot of distance between participants. Skiers and snowboarders are also used to taking precautions.

“People must be flexible and honor the social contract for skiing and boarding that requires you to take precautions to protect yourself and others,” a spokesperson for the National Ski Areas Associations Ski Well, Be Well campaign said. The campaign offers guidance for both resorts and individuals on how to stay healthy while still enjoying the slopes this winter.

One thing that many resorts are doing is eliminating opportunities for spreading the coronavirus, including crowded full-service bars. While some resorts are eliminating bars altogether, others are limiting them to table service, or offering more outdoor seating.

The Deer Valley ski resort in Park City, Utah is currently offering evening dining reservations at its Goldener Hirsch Restaurant with limited capacity, and take-away options from the restaurant and grocery cafe the rest of the time. Like just about every resort, Deer Valley is also requiring masks, limiting the number of skiers on the slopes, and restricting lift tickets. On the same mountain, the Park City resort is going to all-cashless transactions while requiring masks indoors, in line, and on chairlifts and gondolas.

Whatever your resort is doing, you should be prepared for more grab-and-go dining and less socializing this winter and again, be flexible with your plans and patient with the resort staff as they do their best to keep everyone safe while providing the most dynamic and comfortable experience possible, under the circumstances.

 

The end of nighttime ski-lodge afterparties … for now.

There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding skiing and boarding this season, but there’s one thing that’s not uncertain — big, raucous gatherings are irresponsible, at best, in a time of pandemic. Which is why the ski-lodge afterparty is a thing of the past, at least for the time being.

While there’s nothing better than warming up cold hands and feet around the fire or in the hot tub after a long day on the slopes, that will simply have to be done in more select company this year than previous winters.

Naturally, the same resorts that are enforcing social distancing in lift lines and at restaurants are also putting limits on how many people can be in their public spaces, but even if you’ve got a private room or cabin, having a bunch of other skiers over at the end of a long day is inadvisable.

Though a lot of this may sound like bad news for winter sports enthusiasts, we should all take a moment to think about how fortunate we are. Skiing and snowboarding may look a lot different this year than they have in the past, but for many of us, they’re still a great way to escape the pressures of a difficult year.

“There’s a strong appetite, a high intention, to go skiing and boarding this year,” according to Dave Belin of the market research company RRC Associates. Part of that is because skiing and boarding are forms of “dispersed outdoor recreation,” which 93% of people say they feel safe doing, per a national survey conducted by RRC. But part of it is also due to the precautions that the resorts are taking — and the continued success of the skiing and snowboarding season depends on our patience with those precautions, and our ongoing commitment to one another.

Both Deer Valley and Park City Mountain resorts are limiting daily capacity for the foreseeable future, with Park City offering priority access to season pass holders. Deer Valley is restricting access to pass holders altogether, and, according to their website, they “do not expect walk-up single day tickets to be available during the winter season.” For now, their in-person ticket office is closed, but Deer Valley, Ikon, and Ikon Base passes can still be purchased online.

 

 

 

Join The Discussion

Compare listings

Compare