Crystal Mountain Reverses Course, Now Only Requiring Parking Reservations for 2021-22 (UPDATE)

A view of Crystal’s Mount Rainier Gondola from the summit in January 2021.

UPDATE 1/3/2021 5:55pm PT: Crystal is no longer instituting its lift reservation system and will instead implement a parking reservation system, to start January 15 and be in effect on weekends and holidays only. More details will be released next week. It is unclear if this system will be a completely different one or a supplement to the parking policy Crystal has already announced.

Background

In the final hours of 2021, Washington’s Crystal Mountain sent us an email announcing important access changes for the remainder of the 2021-22 season. Starting January 8, 2022, the resort will require reservations to access the mountain, with bookings available through the Ikon Pass page starting 9am PT on 1/4. The resort says this policy is being implemented due to the popularity of the resort and to offer the best guest experience possible.

This policy applies to all passholders, including those with the Crystal Local, Hall, Anytime, and Ikon passes. Guests will be able to reserve a total of seven days at a time. Exceptions will be made for the following guests: those with reservations for ski school, ski team, kids programs, RV parking, Crystal Mountain Express buses, advanced lift ticket holders, and Ikon Pass Friends & Family tickets with an associated Ikon Pass holder reservation.

To allow as many passholders on the mountain as possible, there will be no tickets available on weekends that reservations are full. The resort says that all remaining weekend ticket inventory for the month of January has been discontinued effective immediately.

More details on this policy and violation consequences can be found here.

Our Take

Crystal has already discontinued unlimited access on the Ikon Base Pass and implemented a new parking reservation system to address overcrowding on the mountain, but it seems these moves weren’t enough to mitigate crowds for the mountain, which is currently our highest ranked resort in Washington state and has rapidly gained popularity as the Seattle area has grown. Notably, this policy will be in effect all seven days a week, so even weekday visitors will need to make a reservation.

With the rapid rise in COVID-19 Omicron cases in recent days, it’s hard to separate this decision from the reservation policies of 2020-21, which were chiefly made with public health concerns as the main rationale. However, one should consider a few circumstances unique to Crystal before concluding that other resorts will follow suit with their own lift access reservation policies. This is not the first time Crystal has taken unprecedented crowd-limiting measures; the resort instituted a ticket-capping policy for the 2019-20 season before COVID-19 even started. Moreover, the resort has suffered from serious crowding problems in recent years, with a low carrying capacity on its flagship Mount Rainier Gondola compounding the problem. And although it doesn’t necessarily mean the mountain didn’t have the circumstance in mind, Crystal didn’t even mention COVID-19 in its email announcement for this policy.

It seems that with this new round of restrictions, those who draw the short end of the stick are Crystal Mountain passholders, including those who bought full Ikon passes. These guests likely threw down the extra premium for a pass to enjoy unlimited or flexible access, and this new policy throws a wrench in that ability. We imagine many of these pass purchasers were also enticed by priority access to parking, given their exemption from Crystal’s new paid parking policy. We wouldn’t be surprised to see some angry pushback from these loyal visitors—many of whom bought passes that they believed would be unrestricted—in the coming days.

It seems that Crystal is doubling down on its Enumclaw shuttle—riders of which are exempt from reservations—with this policy. The ride from this Seattle suburb to the resort takes nearly an hour—quite the trek. Personally, we believe the shuttle will be appealing to those who live directly in the Enumclaw area but passed over by most others.

Considering a trip to Crystal this season? Check out our comprehensive mountain review. Additionally, check out our Washington state rankings.