What ski passes to buy or should we skip it? (Skiing out West)
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Anonymous
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Family of 5 that loves to ski. 14 year old, loves terrain parks, cliffs, trees - anything challenging. The rest of us can do blacks and double blacks (not gracefully), love trees (not super steep), and are not as hardcore.
We have Ikon passes this year and did Steamboat and Mammoth. Both amazing trips. Kids don't have as much time off next year so really only looking at the Fairfax County Break (December 21st-25th) and the end of March that we can use passes. I've priced out Ikon, Epic, Mountain Collective. Are there any independent mountains I am missing and can just skip buying a pass? Or do those not exist anymore? We are looking only out West. I'd also love something that is easy to get to. I loved Steamboat because you can fly directly there. Mammoth was just sooo hard to get there. Flights, long drives. Thinking Salt Lake City and doing Alta, Snowbird and Snowbasin, but then I think about driving up the canyons to get to Alta and Snowbird and it makes me not want to do it. We skied there many times before those mountains were on Ikon, and it was so easy. Now not so much. Anyway... if anyone has any great ideas, I'd appreciate it. |
Anonymous
| You can just buy day passes |
Anonymous
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The FCPS calendar doesn't have a lot of weekends to get away - whether a drive to the NE or something longer out west.
Easter, and therefore Spring Break, is super late, well past the usual spring skiing date. Although the snow pack will be there, ski resorts close bc their staff is already back in S America, bears emerge from hibernation, the low crowd turnout don't justify the cost keep it open, etc. Having said that, we went with Epic Local. Since the buddy passes came with it, we'll use those for spouse and 1 of the 3 kids as needed. Snow and good skiing (MidAtl, NE, Rockies) are a crabshoot so hope for the best. |
Anonymous
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I have not purchased/used it, but there is also Indy Pass. As you can guess from the name, they focus on smaller, less-known and independently-owned areas. I think there is a per-resort limit on visits.
That said, window prices are insane so if you think you are likely to ski Dec 21-25 and the end of March, you probably would still come out ahead buying a pass -- particularly if your kids are young enough to qualify for less expensive children's passes (or you choose Ikon, which has a young adult price too). We used to purchase the Epic Tahoe Local pass, which covers Northstar, Heavenly and Kirkwood when we had family living in the Sierra foothills. It was cheaper than the full Epic pass (I assume this is still true) and we knew we would be doing our major skiing around Tahoe. Finally, two years ago we purchased four-pack tickets from Winter Park, which worked out to $125/day/person for a long ski weekend. Of course we were limited to skiing at Winter Park/Mary Jane. Maybe other resorts offer something similar? |
Anonymous
| Darn we missed the deadline for the 10 buddy passes. Now I see why that is a good deal! |
Anonymous
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Read the fine print. There are black-out dates with Epic, but you can pay an upcharge to nullify those dates (ie Christmas week).
You'd have to do the math in terms of flight/lodging/4WD rental car/days you'd ski ...to see if it makes sense. Massanutten is on Indy and that's an easy place to go for the day, plus they just put on a high speed lift. The problem with Indy is they sell out fast, as in I bet they're already sold out for the 2024/25 . The cap it. |
Anonymous
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OP here. Indy is sold out. Wish we could have done that.
Looking at Crested Butte. Lodging seems reasonable over Xmas weeks. No blackout date on Epic Local unless I am missing something. Epic Local is nice in case kids want to go to Whitetail during week. Can fly into Montrose on Southwest. |
Anonymous
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We did Mountain Collective for next year because my kids really want to go to Snowbird and it did not seem to pay to get an Ikon pass if we are just going to do a couple long weekends (hopefully 5 days total). We will likely do one weekend at Alta/Snowbird and maybe a second long weekend at Big Sky since we have friends with a house there.
We will separately buy the kids a two-day Epic pass that works at the local mountains. |
Anonymous
| Op. Agree Mountain Collective is perfect for those trips. So torn on Snowbird. I love the mountain but getting there is stressful. |
Anonymous
PP here, since I am just going for a few nights, I am splurging on a 4WD shuttle service to Snowbird and will stay at the mountain - I told my kids this is a one-time thing, staying at the mountain there is crazy expensive. You might want to look into Snowbasin, the skiing is great and the drive is much easier than the drive to Alta/Snowbird. We stayed in Ogden when we skiied Snowbasin. Ogden is super cheap and is a nice little city and with fun restaurants. |
Anonymous
Buddy passes are pretty useless. I think I have only ever used one once for a friend. Unless you have a lot of friend who fail to plan ahead they rarely get used. |
Anonymous
Lol...you clearly don't ski. Single day lift ticket at these places can be $250+ and are for the fools who don't plan ahead. It is always smarter to buy a season pass if you plan on skiing more than 4-5 days. |
Anonymous
agree - I think the buddy passes are a discount off of the window ticket rate so not a great deal |
Anonymous
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You can also buy a 4-5 day pass at a discount. That gives you some flexibility and could be cheaper than a full pass. This season I had an full Ikon pass but also got a 4 day Epic pass for a trip to an Epic resort.
If your want Alta-Bird I think you need Base Pass plus at a minimum, and full pass for blackout dates (price isn't that much of a difference between them). I'd also look at Mountain Collective. I had that pass for several years - it's 2 days free at each resort and 50% off additional days. The break even is lower than Ikon because it's less expensive. |
Anonymous
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I do Mountain Collective because I don't want to deal with blackout dates. I can only get in a few quick trips with a buddy (I have young kids), so getting 2 days at each resort is totally fine.
For SLC, we've rented vehicles off Turo that come equipped with snow tires + ski rack or roof box. There's a bunch of SLC Turo hosts that specialize in vehicles for safely driving the Canyons. I find that to be a really good option. Just take out Turo's overpriced insurance, since your credit card will not cover you on Turo. You may also be able to add a rider on your personal auto insurance for Turo. For example, I think USAA covers Turo if you purchase an addedum rider to your existing policy. It's cheap, IIRC - there's some posts on Reddit about this. |