Stone: Oh no, Skico slips
Letter to the editor
I recently read that a ski area in these United States was selling a one-day lift ticket for $309. And — what a blow to my hometown pride! — it wasn’t Aspen.
No, indeed —this $309 day-pass was for the privilege of skiing at Arizona Snowbowl. (And, no, I’ve never heard of it either.)
To be clear, I am sure this Snowbowl is a very nice ski area. I am just embarrassed — abashed, ashamed — that it wasn’t our own gaudy, glitzy hometown mountain that first broke the $300 barrier. I mean, come on, Aspen, get in the game!
This is like having the Kansas City Chiefs knocked out of the playoffs by the Warren G. Harding High School junior varsity. (No disrespect intended, Arizona Snowbowl, but, really, come on …)
The reason given for this brave price “strategy” was that they’d had six feet of snow over the previous few days, and you can’t just show up on the best powder day of the year — maybe of the century — and expect to ski for the usual rock-bottom price.
You want a better deal? Buy tickets way in advance — and take your chances on the snow.
And that suggestion, plus the $300-plus price tag, leads me to offer a humble suggestion: Aspen Lift Ticket Futures! Just like buying pork-belly futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which (and I quote) allows “meatpackers to hedge the volatile pig market.” And who doesn’t want a juicy slice of the volatile pig market?
It’s simple: You buy your Aspen lift ticket days, weeks, months in advance, with the price pegged to the Dow Jones Average: One percent of the Dow at the moment of purchase. Then you watch the weather and hang on tight, watching fortunes made and lost as the price rises and falls.
Just like pork bellies.
As I write this, that Dow-pegged price would be exactly $338.92 (rounding up, of course). Which would put Aspen right back where it belongs — at the very top of the heap.
Andy Stone
Missouri Heights
