And why we have the epic pass
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My husband usually buys the ikon but knew this year he was likely to just go once. He bought an early 4 day pass for $400.00.
The crazy thing is those prices were for midweek and Mammoth does dynamic pricing.
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@mom60 thats why so many people were complaining at Mammoth on the Monday we were there last week after the storm on Sunday. It took a long time just to open the lower mountain and the upper did not open. Not a big deal for us on Ikon passes, but if you pay $200 plus to ski for a day you want to get your money’s worth.
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I think we’ll see more dynamic pricing and pushes to pre-purchase passes (either season or multi-day). Resorts want to make sure to get as much money as possible up front, less risk of skiers opting to not ski. In a low snowfall year, it is easy to see why the do it.
Telluride is giving all kinds of deals now, including on lodging and dining, because of the losses during the patroller strike.
I still remember looking at a board in the ticket sales booth at Aspen. It had to have been in the 80’s when you could still get tickets at most of the areas for about $25-35/day by using coupons or buying bulk tickets at the grocery stores. The Aspen tickets were listed as:
1 day - $110
2 days - $205
3 days $300
7 days was something like $695
I just didn’t understand why someone didn’t just buy a season ticket if they were going to pay $700 to $1000 for tickets. Of course, the people paying that much weren’t poor like me and didn’t care.
Another time I had a whole bunch of coupons for Vail and they were either for $50 off or to get tickets for $50. I was trying to give them to people at the ticket booth (I only needed 2 coupons to buy my tickets and probably had 15 coupons) and they wouldn’t take them! I think they thought there was a ‘catch’ but no, they were just not available at Vail but I think I got them at a hotel or ski shop or restaurant outside of Vail.
Those deals no longer available!
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Headed to Northstar in a few days. Big storm coming. Not my younger s and family are thinking of cancelling b/c of travel conditions with the little ones.
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I hope it all works out. I had to look up Northstar (California?). Safe travels!
Tahoe and Mammoth are predicted to get several feet of snow from the storm coming next week. Hope everyone is still able to make the trip to Northstar. We skied Northstar las year and loved the resort. I have skied Tahoe many times over the past 50 plus years, but had never skied there before.
Hoping the storm will move east to Big Sky since we leave for Montana in 10 days and the snow has not been great at Big Sky.
Looks like we can get out there. The question will be if we can get back.
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Years ago my friend and I were driving to Incline Village and we got stuck on the hwy to Tahoe. We sat for hours until they turned everyone around. We ended up back in Sacramento because every motel was full. We had to buy chains the next morning before we started back up. We were lucky the dads and kids had gone up by plane and weren’t in the car.
We have rented a 4 wheel drive but I also bought chains, just in case! If we don’t use them we can return them. Last time I did this we used them!
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@jym626 H has a 4WD Tundra which is what we take skiing. He has chains, but has never had to put them on the truck. We drove to Mammoth last month and the end of our drive it was snowing very heavily with many stopping to put on chains. H made it through with just 4WD and so did our SIL in his Tesla with no chains. H said if the conditions are ever so bad that they want him to put chains on he would rather wait to drive. Our truck has gone over most of the high peaks in Colorado during snow storms with no issues.
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Hope the ski trip goes well…and everyone makes it there…and back home!
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Challenge is, there is someone scheduled to come into the house we rented right behind us, so we can’t stay an extra day unless we find somewhere else to stay. Not yes sure whether leaving early is better as the snow is currently predicted for both those days. Good news is we can crash at our older s’s place if need be, if we leave early.
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If you can’t get out, it’s likely they can’t get in!
Colorado (especially Steamboat) is also expected to get a big dump later this week. Everyone is very very excited (as we really need the water; snow pack is about 50% below average)
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When I lived in NY (pre-kids, 1988) my father and I took a ski trip to Aspen with his ski club. We almost didn’t get out of the teeny Aspen airport in the snow, and we were dismayed to learn that the airport would be closing at 11pm. At the last minute, storm lulled enough for us to fly to Denver (en route to Newark) - phew.
I thought about that (that the others couldn’t get in) but the cleaning people have to get in, and they are local. So we have to leave.
@jym626 Just checking to see if you are at Northstar and how you are doing with the storm.
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Just read about an avalanche near skiing areas of Lake Tahoe - hoping @jym626 checks in - isn’t that the area they were going??
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Thank you for checking. We were supposed to stay til Weds morning but left Sunday late afternoon. It’s pouring and cold (2 days almost nonstop so far) here in the Bay area but at least we are safe. MY DIL shared this. Puts a little levity into this mess:
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