Heck of a Deal
September 18th, 2009Posted in Skiing Everywhere
Travel and other obligations will keep this blog off the air until ski season really starts, but thoughts of skiing are never far from the center of my universe.
I just returned home from several weeks in Colorado and was catching up on the local newspapers when I spied a piece in which the reporter bought hook, line and sinker Grand Targhee’s spin the value of their season passes. Any junior high English teacher would have bounced that piece back for a serious re-write. Comparing Targhee’s pass prices to passes only at Aspen, Whistler, Park City, Squaw Valley, Big Sky and Jackson Hole is really lame. I was heartened to see a local reader took the time to write a letter to the newspaper to factor in the the number of lifts the season pass buys access to and the number of acres the pass holder gets to ski. Yeah, I know, picky, picky. You can only ride one lift at a time and a skier’s line only takes up a couple of feet of width , but still…
My point here isn’t to trash a bad article or Grand Targhee’s efforts to put a good face on their product, it is to remind everyone about one of the best deals, possibly in the history of resort skiing, that is available again this year down in Colorado. Vail Resorts is again offering their Summit, Colorado and Epic Passes at incredible prices. $399 gets a pass holder unlimited and unrestricted access to Breckenridge, Keystone and Araphoe. Add $40 more to get a pass that also included 10 days of skiing at Vail and Beaver Creek. Spring for the $599 Epic Pass and you get unlimited, unrestricted skiing at all the above resorts, plus Heavenly Valley (yeah, HV is not exactly just down the road, but to ski it for free does make the drive, or flight, a bit tempting if the storms are pounding the Sierras).
So Targhee’s pass at $575 provides 5 lifts and the Epic pass at a mere $24 more provides rides on, Holy %#$@!, 135 lifts! Plus you get to explore 23,600 acres of terrain, as opposed to Targhee’s 2000. For only $24 more. Sounds like a deal to me.
Anyone thinking of spending 10 days or two weeks skiing some place other than their home hill can’t do much better than grabbing one of Vail’s pass deals and then work hard at finding a lodging deal. ( I know a B&B plan the gets two of us nice digs and breakfast for $20 a night in Breck, just a mile from the lifts- and that’s for both of us, not pp!) Call this the skiers’ stimulus plan.
One thing that is never a deal is the price of skiing at Jackson on a season pass. Odd, since so much of their secondary marketing and rep is based on the skiing done by TGR wannabee kids to whom the pass price is poverty inducing. Shameful.
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