Ski Resorts Editing and Proofreading Services

A family buys four season passes in September. By February the resort has opened eleven days, the upper mountain has not run at all, and the terms say passes are non-refundable and no compensation is offered for weather, lift closures or conditions. Everything in that sentence is standard. It is also why the family will not buy passes next year, and why the resort will spend the summer explaining itself.

We edit what ski resorts and mountain operations produce — season pass terms and refund positions, lift ticket and booking conditions, snow and conditions reporting, terrain status and closure communications, lesson and rental documentation, uphill and backcountry access policies, employee and seasonal staff material, and the announcements made after a poor season or an incident. Our editors work on terms bought in September and tested in February.

The season pass terms and the resort's position on a bad winter is the document that decides whether a customer base survives a poor season, and its failure is a blanket non-refundable clause with nothing behind it. Everybody understands that a resort cannot control snow; almost nobody accepts a company that will not say what happens when it does not come. We work through these so the resort states what it will do at defined thresholds — a number of operating days, or a proportion of terrain open by a date — since a commitment with a trigger is worth far more than goodwill promised in general terms; so any credit or rollover is described with its value, its expiry and whether it can be transferred, because a credit that expires in a season the family cannot travel is not compensation; so the closure position separates weather from mechanical failure and from decisions the resort makes for its own reasons, given that customers accept the first and resent the third when they are bundled together; so the conditions report distinguishes what is open now from what is groomed, what is skiable and what is closed for the season; so the pass's blackout dates, parking, and any restrictions are stated on the page where it is bought; so a payment plan's position on a cancelled season is covered; so the insurance option is described accurately with what it does not cover; and so the resort says what it did last time this happened. Terms written this way keep pass holders through a bad year.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including pass terms, sales data and operational documents. We are editors rather than resort operators, insurers or lawyers, and we offer no view on refunds, operations, avalanche safety or any decision. What we can do is say what happens when the snow does not come.