Hitting the slopes? Take a pass
Ski passes make sense on pricey holiday plans
Skiing has always been a pricey vacation activity — but today, it’s difficult to know whether one’s holiday investment will pay off. You reserve a room months in advance, buy your lift tickets, maybe make reservations for good apres ski eats and show up at the mountain only to find that it’s brown instead of white.
Yes, many resorts are experts at snow-making. But as dedicated skiers and snowboarders know, there’s nothing like fresh powder.
But now there’s a relatively new way of hedging your vacation bets.
In just the past couple of years, all of the major North American ski resorts have partnered to offer broad-ranging ski passes. Buy one and you’ll have the option of skiing at dozens of resorts in a season, mostly out in the American West, but also on the East Coast, in Canada, and in the case of one of the passes, in Europe and Australia. So if the snow happens to be better at, say, Canada’s Revelstoke than it is in Taos, N.M., passholders aren’t out in the cold (pun intended). They simply can head to the resort where the schussing will be sweeter.
Most importantly, each of the passes will pay for themselves in just five to nine days of skiing, depending on which mountain you choose. Let’s take Jackson Hole as an example: a two-day ski pass there will be $235 in advance and $265 at the resort. Jackson Hole is part of the Mountain Collective Pass, which costs $489 so you’ll be nearly halfway toward paying that off if you use it for those two days of skiing there. So if you’re planning on hitting the slopes for more than one week this season, passes are most definitely the way to go.
The Mountain Collective pass (www.mountaincollective.com) is the cheaper of the two passes. That being said, it has restrictions: you can ski for only two days in each area. After that, passholders pay 50 per cent of the daily lift ticket price. That means if you’re heading to Aspen/Snowmass, which is one of the resorts on the pass, you likely won’t get to all four mountains in the course of your stay, unless you pay extra.
Still, the MC pass is a compelling choice.
“It is for fans of big mountain skiing,” says Everett Potter, a contributor to Snow Magazine. “This is for skiers and snowboarders who like challenging, difficult terrain.”
Along with Aspen/Snowmass, the pass covers such mighty mountains as Revelstoke, Snowbird, Telluride, Jackson Hole and, new in 2017-18, Sugarbush in Vermont and Snowbasin, which is near Ogden, Utah.
The Epic Pass was created by the Vail Resorts group, and it has no restrictions on how many days it can be used, which may make up for its higher price tag ($899). Like the Mountain Collective Pass, it has no blackout days, and it covers a raft of resorts — 15 in North America (including Vail, Stowe, Whistler/ Blackstone and Park City), 30 in Europe and two in Australia. “The Vail Resorts tend to be more pampered skiing,” said Potter. “They have all the bells and whistles — lots of grooming, lots of restaurants, lots of staff to assist on the slopes, stellar kids’ programs and more.”