Question for Single Mountain Season Pass Holders

[Benny Profane]

But, isn't the whole point low prices? It's an offer I can't refuse. Jack it up, and I think twice

 

[Benny Profane]

ABasin is doing very well after dropping the Epic pass. They're happy

 

[Ripitz]

don't change the culture of the mtn.

Just an observation from my time in Big Sky, when I worked at the Huntley Lodge in the Mountain Village. Before the mega pass and Airbnb it was a true destination place. Guests would come and spend a week and you had the opportunity to get to know them and help them with their mountain experience. You could recommend other restaurants and bars knowing they would come back to yours. You could give them local info on “secret” stashes that kept them coming back for more. Some of them would return another year to say I’m so glad your still here! The hospitality aspect has changed immensely. People now ski for a few days and move on to another mountain on the list. Before Airbnb and VRBO you could get a condo for a month for $600. Now that gets you two nights if you are lucky. There’s no affordable long term housing anymore. They don’t spend money in the restaurants because they cook at their rental. Not saying it’s bad, just that it’s changed. Good for the hit it and quit it crew but not for a lot of other people that call a mountain town home.

 

[ADKmike]

Driving home from Lake Placid this past Sunday I called my friend who had ORDA pass last several years. Has an epic this year. He was over in VT...asked him how it was...he said good, but too crowded. He asked me how whiteface was. I said, great, skied on to the LWF chair most of the time. That pretty much sums it up for me. Part of a mega resort pass that brings the masses...no thanks. Crowded enough on weekends as it is. I guess I'm used to the old days at whiteface before social media showed everyone in the metro NY area that there is big skiing in NY and not just VT. For the record, I'm from Jersey, part of that metro NY crowd(sort of - we have the summer effect at the beach which is more where I'm at)...except I was skiing whiteface when it was "why would you go there it's icy" back in the day when everyone I knew went to VT. Let them keep those big passes and consolidated resorts stuff on the other side of the lake. I'll go visit other parts of the northeast if I wanna deal with that from time to time, but regularly - no way.

I'm glad I got to experience skiing as a kid in the late 80s through the 90s and even into the early 2000s...I'm sure the 70s were awesome too but I wasn't around for that...I'm scared of what will happen in the future due to consolidation and social media impacts on ski culture and skiing in general...hopefully find a new way to continue the culture in a modern form - have my own kid now who I want to experience skiing with and hope it doesn't become culture-less. Uniqueness of a ski town/mountain matters...local ski culture matters...hopefully it can continue and not get washed out.

 

[GoreSkiMom]

I have been grateful for the ORDA pass this season that does not require reservations. That would be a headache. We often comment on how decadent it is to be able to ski Gore or WF. Belle is a little less on our radar. So I am with Harvey, I like to ORDA pass as is and I have no interest in a megapass unless I decide to travel out west and the numbers make sense, post-pandemic.

 

[poindexter]

I like the Gore passes as-is, as I don't ski anywhere else but Gore and Whiteface in the east, and enjoy being able to come and go without reservations. Pre-pandemic, we traveled elsewhere for a ski trip once a year, so having other mountains included would have been great, as multi-day passes at Vail etc. are really expensive. However, I don't think I would trade the added inconvenience of crowds and reservations at Gore for that.

 

[x10003q]

No the Ikon mountains were stupid crowded last season, and then there was that awesome lift line one day at chair 5 at Vail you may have seen a picture of.

Hey, personally I love these passes, bought one or two for years. But, they are really screwing up the experience at a lot of hills, so much so that a lot of managers are probably thinking twice about joining up if they don't have to.

I guess it depends on how you define crowded.

I skied Jackson Hole last year (2020) during Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues of Presidents' Weekend and the longest we waited was about 8 minutes one morning to get out of the base on the Bridger Gondola. The rest of the time the waits on the upper lifts were 5 min or less and the trails were pretty empty. It snowed 38" Fri/Sat/Sun. My avatar is from that weekend.

I have had a season pass at Stratton for the last 5 years and have been visiting Stratton regularly for the last 25 years. There is no major difference in crowding since IKON. Holiday periods are horrifying at Stratton, just like they have been for 25 years. The mountain actually skis less crowded since they replaced the SnowBowl FGQ with a HSQ.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

I didn’t say they were rich, just that they spend tons of money on skiing.

That is a key difference. I think I'm in the 2nd part of the sentence. I also think that people who spend lots of money on skiing are also locked in to one area, e.g. cottage, racing.

Passes will never go away. It's easier for someone to part with money once than ask for it time and again. The break even point for buying a pass is about 9 days' worth of lift tickets.

Side note, I see financing as asking for money once.

 

[tirolski]

We often comment on how decadent it is to be able to ski Gore or WF.

Y’all want to show us a good time? Asking for some friends.

 

[Epicone]

My guess epic pass goes up 30 bucks this year, most years it’s between 30 to 50, ikon/epic pass has made casual skiers, less casual and more hard core, I went from casual to more hard core, if skiing is really growing like some say, the country will have to develop more ski areas or expand the ones we got or both, Like super passes you have more options, options Are a nice thing, the next five years will be interesting in the ski industry, does alterra/vail make it thru COVID in present form, do they expand again? Does vail expand in mass, ct, Rhode island? What does vail do in New York?