2019-20 Vail resorts passes

[Green08]

I read that and think the opposite - it’s super appealing and exactly why Loveland’s early close, at least from a conditions perspective, is so frustrating. I’ve driven by Loveland so many times looking at the Ridge loaded with snow to land at A-Basin with everything (Zuma, Pali, East Wall) but the main Lenawee terrain closed. I can’t see Beavers staying open when the water is running under Pali and they close that terrain for wet slab avy risk.

The ability to ski the higher (above 11k) east facing ridges that may (?) be reliably avalanche controlled, meaning no risk of wet slab avalanches, would be a late season game changer, especially with the crowd mix that shows up at A-Basin these days.

The BML beach scene is of course the best, but terrain-wise A-Basin goes to nothing in a blink, not that sloppy manmade groomer slush isn’t a blast.

But the problem with late season is the loss of the good high alpine terrain while it’s still loaded, and A-Basin doesn’t cover that at all.

I would have figured that with everything at A-Basin topping out above Chair 6 and the T-Bar it would be better with more north facing terrain.

The “ghost town” thought was more how the infrastructure changes at that point in the season will severely cut back on the usual crowds and skier types who visit Breck. It may be true that the Breck high Alpine skis better in May. But, I would think the appeal would be way down for most, with needing to be bussed, download, pay for parking, and nothing like the BML or A-Basin parking lot scene.

The appeal of skiing in May often is as much about the scene and vibe as it is about the limited good conditions still available. Without a “scene” I am not sure if Breck can make the public case to be king of Spring.

 

[Green08]

Regarding new pass changes.

It seems Snowbasin is trying to learn lesson from the Ikon Base. 2 days may keep things from being over run. But, two days plus PCMR access on the Epic Local makes for a SLC visit with some variety.

Keystone Plus has 5 days at CB. Summit Local has no days at CB. Odd, co spidering you would think the bigger pass would include “everything, plus more” of the cheaper option.

 

[raytseng]

I would have figured that with everything at A-Basin topping out above Chair 6 and the T-Bar it would be better with more north facing terrain.

The “ghost town” thought was more how the infrastructure changes at that point in the season will severely cut back on the usual crowds and skier types who visit Breck. It may be true that the Breck high Alpine skis better in May. But, I would think the appeal would be way down for most, with needing to be bussed, download, pay for parking, and nothing like the BML or A-Basin parking lot scene.

The appeal of skiing in May often is as much about the scene and vibe as it is about the limited good conditions still available. Without a “scene” I am not sure if Breck can make the public case to be king of Spring.

I've skied kirkwood on a bonus weekend where perhaps 100 people showed up. Agree, in the spring the ghost town effect is very sad, as you walk through the the base area with 90% shuttered operations and 1 bar and 1 cafeteria with just 1 station despite the mtn conditions.
You can't wait to say forget it, let's get out of here and head over to where something is happening.
It's a network effect, if locals show up and reach a critical mass, it'll maintain that critical mass. If it falls below a critical mass then it just falls off a cliff in stoke.

 

[Monique]

Um, no. Breck has a terrible recent record for inbounds avalanches on open terrain.

Here's the CAIC report for the 2014 slide on Whale's Tail that caught 6 people on open inbounds terrain:
https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?acc_id=517&accfm=inv

Then, it happened again this year in the same spot.

I wonder when we'll see the CAIC report for the four caught in an inbounds avalanche on open terrain in the exact same spot this year.

These two skiers were caught this year:
https://www.summitdaily.com/news/a-...-bounds-avalanche-at-breckenridge-ski-resort/

And these three snowboarders were also caught:

11 people caught in inbounds slides on open terrain on the same slope in just over five years. It's just dumb luck nobody has been killed.

What Vail Resorts is very good at is spin and minimizing the press coverage so folks still think they are going to Disneyland. "No injuries" so no big deal, right?

doh. my signature is once again correct...

 

[Seldomski]

I don't know if this is new this year, but day tickets bought after March 5 can count toward pass for next season:

https://www.epicpass.com/info/tiyt.aspx

To qualify, participants need to:

• Have purchased a ticket to ski on or after 3/5/19
• Not be a Season Pass holder for the 2018/2019 season
• Pay in full for a 2019/2020 Season Pass - no $49 down
• Only credit one lift ticket to each pass
• Turn in qualifying ticket before May 27

Probably doesn't work for many, but it happens to apply to my case.

Just posting to follow up... I successfully applied 1 day lift ticket to my and my wife's epic local pass just now. It was a discount of $102 and $90 respectively. Purchase was by phone. There wasn't a way to do this online.

In retrospect, there may have been a way to game this for maximum benefit, like buy a 1 day lift ticket + a 2 day ticket instead of buying a 3 day ticket and getting 1/3 that shared price off.

 

[nay]

I would have figured that with everything at A-Basin topping out above Chair 6 and the T-Bar it would be better with more north facing terrain.

The “ghost town” thought was more how the infrastructure changes at that point in the season will severely cut back on the usual crowds and skier types who visit Breck. It may be true that the Breck high Alpine skis better in May. But, I would think the appeal would be way down for most, with needing to be bussed, download, pay for parking, and nothing like the BML or A-Basin parking lot scene.

The appeal of skiing in May often is as much about the scene and vibe as it is about the limited good conditions still available. Without a “scene” I am not sure if Breck can make the public case to be king of Spring.

I think this is true re: scene and vibe, but then look around Pugski and on social media at people going after big Spring lines in the backcountry as the snowpack has stabilized, especially as the best lift served terrain closes.

A-Basin’s north facing terrain does really well this time of year, but once the big melt is on the off-piste rots and gets dirty so it’s all about the groomers.

That means top to bottom skiing, but it doesn’t contrast terribly well with the coastal areas like Mammoth who salt their groomers and have a much bigger mountain to work with. Lenawee Face is fun - a lot of fun - but it’s hardly what we think of as high alpine skiing.

I’ll be really interested to see how Breck holds up, including the scene. Breck is a year round town - I have a hard time thinking it lacks vibe.

Then again, I ski Peak 10 in the summer, so my stoke meter may be slightly askew.

 

[raytseng]

Just posting to follow up... I successfully applied 1 day lift ticket to my and my wife's epic local pass just now. It was a discount of $102 and $90 respectively. Purchase was by phone. There wasn't a way to do this online.

In retrospect, there may have been a way to game this for maximum benefit, like buy a 1 day lift ticket + a 2 day ticket instead of buying a 3 day ticket and getting 1/3 that shared price off.

Probably another option and, traditionally is if you go into the season pass office before you leave the resort, and stretch out your negotiation muscles there. That's were a human could probably have made that work in your favor for even better options. There are so many differences in pricing: window/ buddy/swaf/ slightly to very advanced/ group pricing; and not all these tickets are associated with an identity or credit card. The human in the pass office does have the power to adjust and punch in the credit value towards an epic pass and may have given you today's window price if you had a multiday. They also have some extra leeway power to close pass purchase if they have you in person right there and versus on the phone.

The real gaming the system is if you find someone in the parking lot who bought a fullpriced window ticket; then somehow use that ticket to straw purchase your next year's pass. [since this is utilizing lost or wasted value for yourself], just like the skibums of yore who around 2pm start asking departing people if they have day tickets they're no longer using.

 

[Monique]

I guess it depends on how much time you want to spend / must spend optimizing cost vs doing other things with your life. Sounds like @Seldomski got a pretty good return for effort involved.

 

[raytseng]

True,
The super clever ways is probably a waste of time.

Just bringing up that traditionally was the best deal was to do it in pass office before you leave which is same usage of time and effort vs. doing it over the phone.

This is where you have the most negotiation power to apply your sunkcost money.
The lunchtable flyers and posters at the resort always had better pass deals and what was not published or generally available: (traditionally todays ticket+extra ski day this season).

I agree about optimizng time and value, but if you intended to take the deal, going home without checking in is throwing away that extra power.
If they flipped the script and said, $30 extra charge to do this over the phone later; does that change the perspective?

Either way it's all small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. Just mentioning it because this deal was mentioned, and so my point is this is advice for (first time) Epic passholders who intend to take the deal (the regular straight up deal), to consider stopping in before they leave and just ask how much of my multiday can I apply if I do this today right now vs. doing it afterwards on the phone or getting creative with 1day+2day passes.

 

[Seldomski]

@raytseng Maybe some of that would work, but the restrictions they list are basically to verify that you bought the ticket for yourself. For me it was easy for them to verify, since I did everything online and tied the lift tickets to old RFID cards I had. If you had a 1 off lift ticket, I think they will either verify you used the same CC for both purchases (pass and lift ticket), or whatever name/birthday was on the 1 day ticket with a photo ID.

The intent is to get people who did NOT have a pass last year AND skied late season a little prod to get one this year. It worked for me... it effectively gave me one free day of spring skiing (provided I am buying a pass next year regardless). Nowhere near as good a deal as Ikon (i.e. unlimited skiing at some destinations late season if you buy next year's pass), but it is something.

I did try to do this (buy pass at discount) before even using the lift tickets. But they wouldn't allow it - they needed to see that the ticket was used.