Much has been written on ScubaBoard about the cost of scuba, including instruction, and many of the posts talk about the excessive costs keeping people away. One of my sons had an experience a few days ago that had me making a comparison.
I live in Colorado, one of world's premier locations for skiing. When my children were young, we went frequently. We put the children in lessons regularly, and they became avid, expert skiers as a result. We could easily afford this, even though my wife and I were teachers, a profession not noted for wealth. We are now much older, and as a result of knee injuries, we have not skied in a very long time, and we lost touch with the Colorado ski experience.
This past weekend one of my sons took his wife and two children skiing. They put both children in lessons, just as we did when he was young. Here is the cost breakdown for one of the less expensive of the major Colorado areas. Ski lessons were $250 for each child, for a total of $500. They also needed to buy $200 lift tickets for each of the children, bringing the cost of one day of lessons for those children to $900. He and his wife paid $250 each for their lift tickets, far below the cost of the more expensive areas like Vail. They ate lunch together, and the cheapest item on the lunch menu for the kids was $26. I am not sure what the total cost was for equipment rental. Counting travel costs, one day of skiing for a family of four was nearly $2,000.
Adjusting for inflation, he makes more than my wife and I ever did, but he can't afford that. That is why he has barely skied in the past few years, and why his children will rarely get to go. Again adjusting for inflation, that is many times what my wife and I paid years ago. We could not have skied back then if the prices had been comparable to what they are today.
So is the high cost of skiing keeping skiing from thriving in this economy? Not in the slightest. In order to get to most of the slopes from the Denver area, you have to travel I-70, and the traffic--even on weekdays--is so packed that my son knows of three cases in the past two weeks of friends who gave up after a couple hours on the road, turned around, and went home. My son beat the traffic by going up in the afternoon the day before and spending hundreds of dollars to stay one night in the area. Add that to the cost of his day of skiing. The Colorado ski slopes are packed to overflowing, despite the astronomical costs.
I don't know where all those people are getting all that money, but they clearly aren't among the people starving because of the high cost of eggs. I assume that the overwhelming majority of them have no thoughts of taking scuba lessons, and I am equally sure the cost of lessons is not the reason.
I live in Colorado, one of world's premier locations for skiing. When my children were young, we went frequently. We put the children in lessons regularly, and they became avid, expert skiers as a result. We could easily afford this, even though my wife and I were teachers, a profession not noted for wealth. We are now much older, and as a result of knee injuries, we have not skied in a very long time, and we lost touch with the Colorado ski experience.
This past weekend one of my sons took his wife and two children skiing. They put both children in lessons, just as we did when he was young. Here is the cost breakdown for one of the less expensive of the major Colorado areas. Ski lessons were $250 for each child, for a total of $500. They also needed to buy $200 lift tickets for each of the children, bringing the cost of one day of lessons for those children to $900. He and his wife paid $250 each for their lift tickets, far below the cost of the more expensive areas like Vail. They ate lunch together, and the cheapest item on the lunch menu for the kids was $26. I am not sure what the total cost was for equipment rental. Counting travel costs, one day of skiing for a family of four was nearly $2,000.
Adjusting for inflation, he makes more than my wife and I ever did, but he can't afford that. That is why he has barely skied in the past few years, and why his children will rarely get to go. Again adjusting for inflation, that is many times what my wife and I paid years ago. We could not have skied back then if the prices had been comparable to what they are today.
So is the high cost of skiing keeping skiing from thriving in this economy? Not in the slightest. In order to get to most of the slopes from the Denver area, you have to travel I-70, and the traffic--even on weekdays--is so packed that my son knows of three cases in the past two weeks of friends who gave up after a couple hours on the road, turned around, and went home. My son beat the traffic by going up in the afternoon the day before and spending hundreds of dollars to stay one night in the area. Add that to the cost of his day of skiing. The Colorado ski slopes are packed to overflowing, despite the astronomical costs.
I don't know where all those people are getting all that money, but they clearly aren't among the people starving because of the high cost of eggs. I assume that the overwhelming majority of them have no thoughts of taking scuba lessons, and I am equally sure the cost of lessons is not the reason.
