When is a sea­son ski pass not exact­ly a sea­son pass? It’s when a pan­dem­ic of his­toric pro­por­tions prompts a resort com­pa­ny to impose a reser­va­tions sys­tem restrict­ing the num­ber of peo­ple it will allow on its mountains.

That’s what Vail Resorts has done this year, some­thing its Col­orado com­peti­tors have elect­ed not to do. (Not yet, at least.)

Vail Resorts sent a 6‑minute video with chief exec­u­tive Rob Katz to pass-hold­ers this week in which he answers a few ques­tions. In it, he con­cedes the Epic Pass and Epic Local pass won’t be sea­son pass­es this year in the tra­di­tion­al mean­ing of the term. Pass-hold­ers do get first dibs on reser­va­tions, but there’s no guar­an­tee they will be able to secure reser­va­tions for all the days they hope to ski.

Relat­ed: Vail Resorts to require reser­va­tions, and only Epic Pass hold­ers can save spots at start of season

“A sea­son pass used to mean that I could ski as much as I want, all sea­son,” Katz said in the video, which was post­ed on the company’s Snow.com web­site. “This new reser­va­tion sys­tem adds lim­its to that.”

Win­ter Park and Steam­boat offi­cials this week announced that they are not requir­ing reser­va­tions “at this time,” imply­ing that that could change. Vail Resorts — whose Col­orado hold­ings include Vail, Beaver Creek, Breck­en­ridge, Key­stone and Crest­ed Butte — is tak­ing the oppo­site approach. Katz left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty that, depend­ing on “how things play out,” the reser­va­tion sys­tem could be lift­ed at some point dur­ing the season.

“But it would be a lot eas­i­er to remove the reser­va­tion sys­tem than to put one in mid-sea­son,” Katz said. “We want to be pre­pared, be safe, and pro­vide peace of mind to our guests.”

Katz said for most days of the sea­son, capac­i­ty lim­its prob­a­bly won’t be reached.

RELATED: When Col­orado ski resorts plan to open this sea­son. Plus, how much snow­fall is expect­ed this winter.

“The reser­va­tions sys­tem is real­ly in place for peak days,” Katz said. “The issue is, we can’t always pre­dict a peak day. So this reser­va­tions sys­tem becomes a tool to help us man­age that capac­i­ty, and be out front in our approach to help keep you safe all sea­son long.”

Katz con­ced­ed that raised an obvi­ous ques­tion: What exact­ly will those capac­i­ty lim­its be?

“I wish I could pro­vide a sim­ple answer,” Katz said. “Capac­i­ty restric­tions at our resorts will be based on the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics of the resort, the avail­able ter­rain, his­toric vis­i­ta­tion lev­els and mod­el­ing of what vis­i­ta­tion will look like this sea­son, as well as how we see the resorts oper­ate with the new COVID-19 restric­tions that we’ll have to put in place.”

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