Powder Mountain, the ritzy ski resort and master-planned community northeast of the Ogden Valley, intends on making some of its 8,464 skiable acres private.

Next year, both the Mary’s and Village ski lifts, located on the southeast side of the resort near mostly beginner and intermediate ski runs, will turn private, as will a new lift on Rain Tree on the northeast side.

The announcement was made Tuesday in the form of a blog post on the company’s website, which was attributed to Powder Mountain CEO Reed Hastings and titled “Powder Mountain Commits to Staying Uncrowded and Independent.”

The announcement first spells out that Powder Mountain “has been struggling financially,” but it doesn’t offer further details.

“In order to pay our bills, we need to sell more real estate, and to do that we are introducing private homeowner-only skiing a year from now,” according to the blog post.

The company intends to sell unspecified parcels of property, ostensibly for steep prices, to help fund “lifts and lodges for everyone.” The plan also envisions “some of our public guests (buying) real estate to access private skiing.”

It’s unclear if the price of daily or season passes, the latter of which are difficult to obtain, will also increase as a result of the company’s financial struggles. Multiple phone calls to Powder Mountain went unanswered.

Currently, single-day tickets range from $159-$203. Adult season passes cost $1,259 for the 2023-24 ski season, while a midweek season pass costs $899, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Powder Mountain, according to the blog post, also will spend $20 million on three public ski lifts next year in the Paradise and Timberline portions of the resort, plus a new lift from the base of Timberline to the top of Lightning Ridge.

“We are fortunate that we can improve our public resort next year and also offer private skiing to help real estate sales,” the announcement reads.

Another intention of the move, according to the announcement, is for the resort to remain “independent and uncrowded.”

Powder Mountain limits the amount of daily and season passes it sells, and it also touts independent ownership, compared to some larger ski resort companies known throughout the country. Hastings stepped down as the CEO of Netflix in January, became a minority owner of Powder Mountain in April and became majority owner with a $100 million investment in September.

The company also slashed the price of night skiing from $39 to $19, according to the announcement.

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