Vail makes majority of their money by getting season pass holder cash and then capitalizing on on-mountain purchases. At least they did a couple of years ago when I did a report on them and their 10K financial statements. They were selling something like 675,000 passes.
They get people in NY, PA, Michigan, etc. to buy the local pass then use it out west and spend gazillions on lodging and food and rentals. It was a smart move. Those people were gonna go out west once a year anyways - why not guarantee they go to your resorts?
They do the same with Australians and Canada/USA. So a lot of those people do have passes, just not local passes.
snowfinderJerries are cash cows and most likely do not hold a pass. If they get a bad taste skiing they are unlikely to return to that resort thus losing $ for the resort. So most mountains allow them be Jerries, dangerous and reckless. On the flip side of that you have skiers that know how to ski and most likely have a pass. Meaning that the resort already has their money and they have nothing else to gain from them. What does this all mean? Means all you have to do is ski in a full pizza at 50 mph by patrol or yellow jackets to be in the clear. Make sure to toss the helmet up with the nice gap to really sell it.