Mountain Collective Expands

http://www.themountaincollective.com/

For 2013-14 it will add Snowbird, Whistler and Mammoth to the 2012-13 group of Squaw/Alpine, Jackson, Aspen and Alta. Alta/Snowbird count as one so only 2 free days between them. Nonetheless an impressive deal for $349.

Still to be clarified is that season passholders of the each area in question will get half price tickets at the other resorts. In Mammoth's case the regular $680 MVP does NOT have Mountain COllective privileges but a "Premier MVP" for $90 more does.

Ben and Adam have a spreadsheet analyzing Mammoth MVP vs. Mountain Collective. If visiting no other areas, less than 9 days at Mammoth calls for Mountain Collective. 9 or more days at Mammoth but visiting NO others on the list calls for the basic MVP. Visiting ONE other area calls for the "premier MVP" if skiing 13 or more days at Mammoth (otherwise buy Mountain Collective). Visiting TWO other areas calls for the "premier MVP" if skiing 15 or more days at Mammoth (otherwise buy Mountain Collective). Visiting THREE or more other areas calls for buying Mountain Collective PLUS basic MVP if skiing at least 9 days at Mammoth.

Usually admin has this kind of info in his news, but I don't see it there yet.

Where did you see/hear 680 for MVP? Nothing on Mammoth site yet. Is that new passholders only?

I did the same calculations last night (although not on a spreadsheet or anything official, just quickly in my head) and came to the same conclusions for purchasing the Mountain Collective pass on top of the MVP. However, I think the numbers are off for how many days you need to ski Mammoth to make purchasing the MVP worthwhile, given that you already have the Mountain Collective.

With the Mountain Collective pass, you get two free days at Mammoth, and all additional days at Mammoth are 50% the daily walk-up rate. If you assume the average day ticket price is $100 (and I suspect it would actually be lower since I'm more likely to ski Mammoth during the early and late-season value periods and do my pre-booked travel during the middle of the season), you need to ski 14 additional days (beyond the 2 free days) at Mammoth to make purchasing a MVP worthwhile, for a total of 16 days at Mammoth.

If you're doing 3 or more additional areas 14 (not 9 as I said in the first post) is the correct number of days at Mammoth needed to buy the basic MVP in addition to the Mountain Collective. For the either/or situations visiting 0, 1 or 2 other areas other than Mammoth I think Adam's spreadsheet is correct.

My situation, with 25 days at Mammoth in 2010-11, 7 days in 2011-12 and a minimum of 15 this year, the Premier MVP (because of my Snowbird timeshare) looks like the right move for me. A complication is that I have been buying Snowbird 10-packs in the summer, which are topped off the following summer if I ski less than 10 days. I will be inquiring at the Snowbird ticket office how I can transition to the half price program with the Mammoth Premier MVP.

Tony Crocker":268cj1oa said:

If you're doing 3 or more additional areas 14 (not 9 as I said in the first post) is the correct number of days at Mammoth needed to buy the basic MVP in addition to the Mountain Collective.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify for people making purchasing decisions, that's 14 paid days at Mammoth--you get 2 free with Mountain Collective--so it would require 16 total days at Mammoth to justify the MVP, and that could potentially be increased to 17 or 18 depending on whether you ski more during the value seasons.

I'm actually leaning towards no MVP for next year. For my specific situation with certain employer benefits and free vouchers from doing volunteer work, it would likely take me at least 35 days to spend $680 at Mammoth next year. I'm highly unlikely to get that many days, plus I'm going to make an effort to travel much more with the Mountain Collective pass. Still, it concerns me that I'd have to go to the ticket window every single day to get a new ticket. It might be worth an extra $150-200 to not have to deal with that, and also not have to think about whether purchasing a day ticket is worthwhile on marginal days.

Staley":ze1x8q76 said:

Still, it concerns me that I'd have to go to the ticket window every single day to get a new ticket. It might be worth an extra $150-200 to not have to deal with that, and also not have to think about whether purchasing a day ticket is worthwhile on marginal days.

Click to expand...

If you have a Mountain Collective you don't need to go to the ticket window every day.

Your first day, you must go to the season pass office where you are given essentially a season pass for the resort in question. You can fill out a credit card authorization form there as well. If you do so, then every day after the first 2 that your pass gets scanned, your CC is billed automatically. At least, that is how it worked at both Jackson and Alta this year for me. I would be surprised if the other resorts didn't have a similar system.

The pass has expanded again. Today they announced the inclusion of Banff/Lake Louise.

I notice the 3rd free day at one resort is no longer offered for 2014-15. Nonetheless, it's one more addition to the the best deal for quality skiing IMHO. The addition is a good weather hedge too. Lake Louise and Sunshine had record high snowfall in the 2011-12 season that was a disaster for many US resorts.

skiace":1o7kpymc said:

I would be surprised if the other resorts didn't have a similar system.

Click to expand...

As we know now, Snowbird didn't quite get their IT act together for 2013-14. Passholders from other areas like me had to go to a ticket office every day to buy tickets. The same was true for Mountain Collective people who initiated their MC at Snowbird. If your first LCC day was at Alta, then the rest of your days at either Alta or Snowbird were direct-to-lift. We inquired ahead and made sure Liz' first day started at Alta.

I was lucky that my first day using Mountain Collective in UT last season was at Alta. It still seemed like Snowbird had trouble scanning the pass which was in plastic-covered pocket on sleeve that is prone to fogging.

This new addition should work well for me since I will be less than 60 miles from Lake Louise on trip planned for Feb/Mar 2015. While a nice and free bonus, I don't think it will add as much value as when Kirkwood was added to my Tahoe Value Pass in Feb.2012 and I ended up with 8 days there.

For 2014-15 I can now ski free:
2 days at MCP resorts plus I got a third day at Jackson for renewing early
Kirkwood and Northstar, any day non-holiday except Saturdays
Heavenly, any day non-holiday
Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Canyons and Vail - two days total for renewing early
Plus I get half price at MCP and Vail CO and UT resorts after using my free days

Not sure if this belongs here or on South American pages, but Valle Nevado says they are part of Mountain Collective "Program". It's part of the rotating ads on their home page that also includes one with a claim of run with 5500' vertical. Details at http://www.vallenevado.com/en/mountain-collective-pass/ includes "Mountain Collective pass holders receive 2 free lift tickets during Valle Nevado’s 2014 season, and “top-tier” pass holders at all participating resorts receive 50% off daily lift tickets. Skiers who wish to book an all-inclusive hotel stay at Valle Nevado can forfeit the 2 free tickets and receive 15% off package stays."

I didn't see anything about this on MCP home page which list resorts for 2014-15, but it is in the FAQs as "only valid for the 2014 summer". See https://themountaincollective.zendesk.c ... ollective-

I went to their website after getting an e-mail claiming 2.5 feet of new snow. It's hard to find snow conditions on their website, but it looks like they claim 45 cm (18 in) of packed snow on runs and 385 cm (151.5") for season. See http://www.vallenevado.com/en/information/?20140908

The Valle Nevado MCP benefits have been known since early this summer.

Snowfall/snow report info is erratically but at least occasionally posted on the VN website. Not as reliably as Portillo, but far better than the limited info from Las Lenas or the nonexistent info from Chillan.

By North American parallel I would have expected Valle Nevado on the Epic Pass and Portillo or Las Lenas on the MCP.