Intrawest pass price dropping in Colo

EMSC

EMSC

Well-known member
Colorado ski deals stretching into next season
The Associated Press
Posted: 03/29/2009 04:39:38 PM MDT

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo.—The price of the Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus is going downhill.

To get skiers and snowboarders to open their wallets in a tough economy, the pass for unlimited riding next season at Copper Mountain and Winter Park resorts, plus six days at Steamboat, is on sale for $399—$40 less than its debut price last season. The resorts are all owned or operated by Intrawest.

Meanwhile Vail Resorts is offering its Epic Pass, good for next season at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado and Heavenly in California, for $579. That's the same introductory price as last season. A-Basin is owned by Dundee Realty Resort Development.
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Copper parking lots have been mostly full, but little crowding on the hill for the most part this year (unlike in some recent past seasons). Good for me. I'm most likely heading back to the now cheaper pass mentioned while Breck gets slammed. I suspect Vail Inc is stealing some away having 5 local resorts on offer (plus Heavenly). I wonder if Intrawest needs to make a marketing deal with someone else to compete better (Loveland? CB? Monarch? Eldora of all places? etc..).

Now that even Squaw has caved in in Tahoe, that leaves Utah as one of the very few competitive (lots of areas in proximity) local's that has NOT switched to reasonable pass pricing. Captive audience places with ridiculous pricing not with-standing (JH, Sun Valley, Telluride, etc..) :stir: :stir: .
 
The funny thing is: if you know a year in advanced that you are going to ski more than 7 days in CO it is worth buying the Epic pass or the Colorado pass as the lift tickets per day at Vail are like $97. I know you have to buy the pass in person, but is it necessary to be a CO resident? My friend bought his right when he moved out there, and he still had a missouri drivers license.
 
rfarren":34vunhdr said:
The funny thing is: if you know a year in advanced that you are going to ski more than 7 days in CO it is worth buying the Epic pass or the Colorado pass as the lift tickets per day at Vail are like $97. I know you have to buy the pass in person, but is it necessary to be a CO resident? My friend bought his right when he moved out there, and he still had a missouri drivers license.
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Or, with the Intrawest pass, you only need to ski 5 days to pay for itself at walk up prices. Though as a local you can by 4 packs for most any of the front range accessible resorts for around $150 too (sold in the fall). Since nearly every front range ski shop sells at least one or the other resort chain's passes, it'd be too tough for them to police (hundreds of thousands get sold in total between all the resorts). So you generally cannot buy NEW passes online (except the more expensive Epic pass). You can buy renewal passes online though, so basically you have to show up one time/yr in person at the local ski shops.
 
that leaves Utah as one of the very few competitive (lots of areas in proximity) local's that has NOT switched to reasonable pass pricing.
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But day ticket prices are MUCH lower than in CA or CO. Not sure what the relationship is there. But no question for a destination visitor SLC is overall a cheaper destination than anyplace in Colorado, even with one of the cut-rate passes. For the Utah locals, I'm not sure how the market works. My guess is that for the diehards LCC is so far superior to the competition that they will pay up for a pass to one or both of those areas. For the price-sensitive, some areas have 5 and 10-pack passes at reduced rates.
 
Tony Crocker":1qs3nyed said:
But day ticket prices are MUCH lower than in CA or CO. Not sure what the relationship is there. But no question for a destination visitor SLC is overall a cheaper destination than anyplace in Colorado, even with one of the cut-rate passes.
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As much as my family loves skiing around SLC, I'm not sure the tix are cheaper than Colorado if you compare apples to apples -- ie, either compare walk-up prices both places, or prices if you work the deals both places. Even w/out the season passes, you could ski the Vail group this year for around $60- 75 a ticket if you bought in advance for multiple days - which as I recall compares favorably to the PC group's tix when bought in SLC stores. We skied Copper for around $50/ day using coupons you can buy on ebay for a few $$$, and we'll be skiing Winter Park for less than that. A-Basin always has some kind of deal so you can ski for $40- 50/ day. If SLC has better deals than that, I haven't found them.

Where I do think you can save some $$$ in SLC is on housing, especially during holidays and peak periods, if you're willing to stay in the city, rather than slope-side. I get the impression that prices don't escalate nearly as much in SLC as in say some of the Summit County towns like Frisco or Dillon, presumably because of the larger housing base of the city, much of it catering to the business trade, which doesn't run on the ski schedule.
 
Speaking of season pass deals, Tahoe powderhounds should check out Kirkwood's 7-Wood pass: $329 excluding only 5 days during Christmas "zoo week" and Sat/Sun of MLK and President's weekends. http://www.kirkwood.com/main.asp?pID=229

With regard to johnnash's comments, I agree the lodging savings of staying in SLC are what keeps the overall cost well below nearly any Rockies destination. Needless to say I just can't see staying up at Park City despite great dining and apres-ski. Those areas represent 14 of my lifetime 116 Utah ski days, which is about what they deserve IMHO.
 
I was thinking about going passless next season and getting more variety and out of state, but Kirkwood 7-day with only 9 blackout days is tempting. I can get it for $299 and would ski more Saturdays if I had it. There are still places I have not skied at Kirkwood and I never hit the best powder. This year it looks like I'll end up with 14 days at Kirkwood, 12 on my $229 pass 6-day pass and two Saturdays that cost me about $45 each.

I had my first day so far this year north of Heavenly on Monday when my friend and his son and my son skied Diamond Peak on $10 Tahoe Card tickets. We got our money's worth as I ended up with 24.5K vertical between 10 and 3:15, mostly on groomers as it did not soften up until late so it was mostly high-speed intermediate groomers and the terrain park. It was a long drive home at 240 miles.

The drive to Kirkwood from San Jose is under 175 milesand takes 3 hours and 15 to 30 minutes as long the Carson Spur is open. It's OK if you are not doing both ways on the same day and you can avoid the CHP. I was able to beat the $282 ticket for driving 44 mph in chain control after my first Kirkwood day this year using a "Trial by Declaration". Either my story was better than the cop's or he did not bother writing one.
 
Yes, that Kirkwood 7Wood is $299 on snowbomb.com for a limited time. I will be content with the $576 Mammoth MVP.
 
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