By Tony Crespi
A score of day tickets clipped on a jacket may soon become iconic. In times past a stream of lift tickets often began many a conversation. Where did you ski this weekend? Do you ski often? That was times past. Nowadays this may soon become obsolete. Riding the gondola a few years back, a pass holder boldly announced that no day ticket holders should be allowed! Travelling for multiple publications, my ticket dangled boldly announcing my presence as outsider. I felt suddenly excluded. Sadly, while day tickets historically offered painless access to mountain resorts, this seems to rapidly be becoming old school.
Today, mountain access has shifted.
Season passes have always offered uninterrupted opportunities to access lifts and to build memories in a way day tickets cannot capture. While a season pass was once an exclusive domain for dedicated enthusiasts, passes were and are founded on the simple premise of offering some type of unlimited mountain access — or multiple mountain access — for a fixed fee. Historically, though, it limited a skier to one mountain.
New passes offer far-flung destination options.
Passes have always been appealing. My freshman year in college, on Dec. 26 I drove from our family home in southern New England to Okemo Mountain to pick up my first big-mountain pass. After a summer working, I planned a month of skiing while bunking in a local lodge. A week later, a casual friend suggested that in return for driving, I stay in his family’s nearby A-frame.
A month later I returned home two days before classes.
As winters passed, I enjoyed multiple different passes, from Okemo Mountain and Killington in Vermont to Loon Mountain in New Hampshire. In fact, after college I enjoyed a season pass in Colorado. While there were years in which I did not hold a pass as I worked as a ski instructor and coach, season passes remained attractive for many skiers.
As families and corporations — including the ski industry — struggle to cope with the effects of Covid-19, I wonder how many have made the deep dive this winter? As Covid led many to skip travel and put off new skis, and boots last winter, passes remain an opportunity for an escape from reality. With a pass, there’s no need to rush to arrive early or stay late. Urban and suburban ski escapes allow pass holders entry into a larger collective. It sounds club-like, but pass holders truly feel connected to the sport and mountain in a different way.
The downside to a pass involves the upfront expense. While passes once limited skiers to a single mountain, today’s resorts boast multiple acquisitions and alignments to the point that passes can now offer access to many mountains. It’s also clear that a season pass can sometimes offer a reasonable “break even point.”
The Epic Pass offers access to resorts ranging from Okemo Mountain to approximately 65 resorts including Vail and Breckenridge in Colorado, Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, and Park City in Utah. The IKON Pass is similarly dazzling.
What remains true from years past to today is the idea that there is a special feeling of connectedness to a mountain that a skier possesses and that only a season pass affords. Years ago, my old ski friend and veteran weekend warrior Keith Morris told me just that when he joined me for a week at Killington.
