Tahoe ski season to begin amid rising prices
TRUCKEE, CA (CBS13) -- When there's snow, the people will go and Lake Tahoe is no exception. After an early November snowstorm, multiple resorts in the area have already pushed their opening day up to the second weekend of the month.
"We don't have all our ski gear yet but we're excited, building snowmen and ready for the cold and a lot of winter fun," says Lillian Archer, whose family came up from San Francisco early.
But the early season excitement masks some underlying questions ahead of the winter season, especially around those pertaining to the workers that make the resorts go. At Northstar Lodge, they're having a job fair.
"We're hiring for a lot of different positions at the resort from front of house to back of house," General Manager Michelle Morikawa explains.
The Lodge is staffed to service the needs of its timeshare guests but it's not at 100 percent.
"Our talent pool has gotten a lot bigger we've expanded into a lot of different areas we haven't in the past," she follows up.
That's due to a variety of factors. Lake Tahoe's housing crisis has spiraled into seasonal workers increasingly commuting from Reno or Carson City. But with gas prices soaring, the squeeze is being put on those employees from both ends of the spectrum.
"We're open to hearing some recipes for a secret sauce on that," joked Morikawa.
Instead, employers have focused primarily on workplace culture as well as benefits and incentives. Such things attracted executive assistant Sophia Kleinfelder to Northstar Lodge.
"I've been job hopping for quite a while but this is a position where I wanna stay stuck for a bit," she mentioned.
But even still, as a young professional in Lake Tahoe, finding a job that can make the area livable is a challenge.
"It is incredibly difficult," said Kleinfelder. "To find anything with the hours you are looking for in a commute you can make with gas prices as they mentioned earlier. It is in the back of everyone's mind but the hope is you don't have to. So I think places like here with stability is a very good benefit."
At the mountain resorts, proactive measures toward employee experience have paid dividends.
"We are 100 percent staffed at our three resorts in Tahoe and that wasn't the case a year ago," said Tom Fortune, COO at Heavenly Ski Resort. "Affordable housing is like at the very top of our list in terms of priorities."
But skiers and riders are still staring down rising lift ticket prices. At Heavenly and its partner resorts, multi-day passes are becoming the norm to avoid being at the mercy of mother nature.
"Skiing is like farming," Fortune said. "When our customers commit in advance it provides a much more stable business environment for us."
With daily lift tickets averaging out to over one hundred dollars in the Lake Tahoe area, consumers are moving to those passes to get the most bang for their buck.
"We buy a season pass it so it feels like the more we ski the better value it is," Archer explains.
And as to whether or not these rising prices or a possible looming recession will deter prople from coming to the mountains, operators say there isn't much to indicate a dip in traffic.
"We've seen ever since COVID that people want to go out and travel and we're still seeing that trend," says Morikawa.
