With very little help from Mother Nature, our local resorts have had their work cut out for them. More expenses (snow-making) and slightly less visitors.

Yet, they haven't given away their daily lift ticket. Today, a lift ticket at either Park City or Deer Valley goes for a hefty $145! Sure, Vail visitors are a bit less lucky with the resort's $169 price tag.

I wonder what kind of thinking goes behind these exorbitant prices. Today, Park City has about 18 percent of its runs and terrain open, while Deer Valley, that is significantly smaller has just half of its runs open to the public.

All this seems very expensive to me. Yeah, I guess that's what you do when you think very, very short term with a “captive audience”, but this might carry some “unintended consequences”.