What’s New With Muli Resort Season Passes

Once upon a time, ski resorts made a chunky portion of their annual revenue on very expensive season passes. Overall ticket sales might be as much as 50% of a resort’s annual revenues, with season passes comprising as much as 50%. To encourage the purchase of those expensive season passes, resorts would team up with other local, and something not so local, resorts and offer a few reciprocal free days. Taos might add a few free days at Arapahoe Basin, and Arapahoe the same at Taos. As resort ownership shifted from families to corporations, things started to change.

Selecting A Multi Resort Season Pass

There’s been more shuffling in the corporate ski resort industry in the past few years than in a game of three-card monte. So lets get you up to speed. We’ll start by circulating the wagons around with the issuers of the two big multi-resort season passes: Epic and Ikon.

Epic is easy. It’s the pass created by Vail Resorts Inc. Vail Resorts is a public company managing 21 resorts, and working on completing the acquisition of Peak Resorts, which owns or operates 17 ski resorts. By the time you read this, the acquisition is probably complete.

Vail Resort Properties

Colorado

• Beaver Creek
• Breckenridge
• Crested Butte
• Keystone
• Vail

Sierras/California

• Heavenly
• Kirkwood
• Northstar

Wasatch

• Park City

Midwest

• Afton Alps
• Mount Brighton
• Wilmot Mountain

ACQUIRED PEAK RESORTS

• Boston Mills, Ohio
• Brandywine, Ohio
• Hidden Valley Ski Area, Missouri
• Mad River Mountain, Ohio (operator only)
• Paoli Peaks, Indiana
• Snow Creek, Missouri
• Alpine Valley Ski Area, Ohio

Pacific Northwest

• Stevens Pass

New England

• Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire
• Okemo, Vermont
• Stowe, Vermont

ACQUIRED PEAK RESORTS

• Attitash Mountain Resort, New Hampshire
• Crotched Mountain, New Hampshire
• Mount Snow, Vermont
• Wildcat Mountain Ski Area, New Hampshire

Midwest

• Mount Brighton, Michigan

ACQUIRED PEAK RESORTS

• Big Boulder, Pennsylvania
• Ski Roundtop, Pennsylvania
• Whitetail Ski Resort, Pennsylvania
• Liberty Mountain Resort, Pennsylvania
• Hunter Mountain, New York
• Jack Frost Ski Resort, Pennsylvania

Canada

• Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia

Australia

• Perisher, Perisher Valley, Australia
• Falls Creek, Bogong High Plains, Victoria, Australia
• Hotham, Mount Hotham, Victoria, Australia

Vail Epic passes, depending on the type, offer unlimited skiing at all or some of their resorts. Their Epic Pass offers unlimited and unrestricted skiing at all their owned resorts. Their Local Pass does something similar. The lower-priced Local Pass offers unlimited, unrestricted skiing at Breckinridge, Keystone, and Crested Butte in Colorado. The same for Okemo and Mount Sunapee in New England. The same for their midwestern resorts Wilmot, Mt Brighton and Afton Alps; and Washington State’s Steven’s Pass. The Local Pass throws in unlimited restricted skiing (blacked out holidays) at Park City, Stowe, Heavenly Valley, Northstar, and Kirkwood. Vail’s premier resorts, Vail, Beaver Creek, and Whistler Blackcomb can be skied for a total of 10, holiday restricted days.

Both passes throw in extra days at Sun Valley in Idaho and Snowbasin in Utah. Five days for the Epic Pass and 2 days for the Local Pass. Five days each at Hakuba Valley and Rusutsu in Japan. The Epic Pass adds in seven (7) days at Telluride, and seven (7) total days across the Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (Fernie, Kimberley, Stoneham, Kicking Horse, Nakiska and Mount-Sainte Anne. The Epic Pass also throws in ski days, with restrictions, at 19 European resorts at Skirama Dolomoti (Italy) Les 3 Vallees (France), and 4 Vallees (Switzerland).

For a complete comparison click ____________.

Origins of Alterra Mountain Company

The next big kahuna in the multi resort season pass space are the folks behind the Ikon Pass. The Ikon Pass has more eclectic origins. It may be easiest to look at the four major contributors, essentially the owners, of the Ikon Pass major ski resorts: The Aspen Skiing Company, Henry Crown and Partners, KSL Partners and Altera Mountain Company.

The Aspen Skiing Company

The Aspen Skiing Company (aka “Ski Co”) owns and operates Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass and Buttermilk. The ownership history is rich and includes Twentieth Century Fox, their controlling shareholders Rupert Murdock and Marvin Davis. Today it’s owned by the Crown Family from Chicago. Their business is Henry Crown and Company.

Henry Crown and Company

Fun fact: what does Aspen and the Empire State building have in common. They were both owned by Henry Crown. Henry Crown also owned General Dynamics. Today, much of the family holdings are in Henry Crown and Company. The business invests in a variety of companies and industries including sports teams (Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees), ski resorts (Aspen Skiing Company), banking (JP Morgan), industrial (General Dynamics), and real estate (Rockefeller Center). The one we care about here is the Aspen Skiing Company. They own it.

KSL Partners

KSL is a private equity fund focused in the travel and leisure industry. They own, operate, lend to, and manage resort properties. They’ve raised and invested around $10 billion. As an investment vehicle, KSL had the experience and chops for going after large resort properties and resort companies. Historically, KSL Partners was not primarily focused on ski resorts, although along the way they acquired Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows; and a minority interest in Whistler Blackcomb. However, a bunch of their executive team including their Chairman, CEO and their head of strategy used to work for Vail Resorts. So when the time and opportunity aligned they were ready to leap.

KSL Partners & Henry Crown and Company Buy Intrawest

Remember Intrawest? They owned a bunch of resorts including Blue Mountain (Ontario), Snowshoe Mountain (West Virginia), Steamboat Ski Resort (Colorado), Stratton Mountain Resort (Vermont), Mont Tremblant Resort (Quebec), Canadian Mountain Holidays (Alberta), Winter Park (Colorado), and Deer Valley Resort (Utah).  Mammoth Mountain (California), Copper Mountain (Colorado). They also had once owned Mammoth Mountain (California), Black Whistler Blackcomb (British Columbia), Copper Mountain (Colorado), Les Arcs 1950 (France) and Panorama Mountain Village (British Columbia).

Flush with raised capital in 2017 KSL and Aspen Skiing Co went on a buying spree. They purchase Intrawest, then mammoth Resorts (Mammoth Mountain, June Mountain, Snow Summit and Bear Mountain) and Deer Valley. Then they aggregated all the non-Aspen Skiing Co properties into the newly created Alterra Mountain Company. Then the Aspen Skiing Co mountains and a bunch of others agreed to participate in their newly created multi-resort season pass, called Ikon. Now they’re Vail Resorts biggest competitor.

Alterra Mountain Company

Altera Mountain Company Is owned by KSL Capital Partners and Aspen/Snowmass.

Altera resorts include:

Colorado

• Steamboat
• Winter Park Resort

California

• Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows
• Mammoth Mountain
• June Mountain
• Big Bear Mountain Resort

Canada

• Tremblant
• Blue Mountain
• CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures

Wasatch

• Deer Valley
• Solitude

New England

• Stratton

Northeast

• Crystal

West Virginia

• Snowshoe

Aspen Skiing Company resorts include:

Colorado

• Aspen Highlands
• Aspen Mountain
• Buttermilk
• Snowmass

Altera also added 14 partner destination to participate in their Ikon Pass. Click here for all locations and restrictions.

Powdr Corporation

Once upon a time Powdr owned Park City and was rumored to be looking at expanding their ski resort holdings. The family that owns Powdr also owns Snowbird, although Snowbird is not listed as a Powdr asset.

Woodward Camps

Today they may be best known as the owner and operator of the Woodward Camps. Summer and winter camp programs for skateboarding, gymnasts, cheer, scooter, parkour, skiing and snow boarding.

Woodward has six locations. Los Angeles (Tehachapi), Pennsylvania (Woodward – near Penn State), Colorado (Copper Mountain), Lake Tahoe (Boreal), Mexico (Puerto Aventuras), and Utah (Park City).

If your kid aspires to participate in an extreme or hyper competitive active sport, they know Woodward.

Powdr As A Force in Ski Resorts

As a force in ski resorts, Powdr has some catching up to do. It’s a bit unclear as to where this organization will head. Given the high powered nature of their competition, they may be a bit hesitant to do battle with the big boys.

That said, the Cummings family owns Snowbird. They also purchased Human Movement, an events company focused on active entertainment. With Woodward and Human Movement, Powdr may have better insight into what people want to do in the Mountains than anyone else. If they find it involves spending money at ski resorts, they may get back in the game. If they ever get their hands on Alta, new game. Own Mecca and all pilgrims come to you.

From a multi resort pass perspective, 2019 / 2020 Powdr appears to have tossed in its Colorado and Utah resorts into the Vail’s Epic Pass program.

Tahoe Area

• Boreal
• Soda Springs

Colorado

• Copper Mountain
• El Dora

Vermont

• Killington
• Pico

Oregon

• Bachelor

What’s New With Muli Resort Season Passes

Once upon a time, ski resorts were owned by entrepreneurs and wealthy families. Occasionally, the wealthy families grouped together to raise capital and purchase and develop additional ski resorts.

Today many of the best-known ski resorts are owned by large corporations. Public companies, like Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN). Some of Vail owend properties include Vail, Beaver Creek Resort, Breckenridge, Park City, Heavenly Valley, Stowe, Whistler Blackcomb, Crested Butte and Okemo. Alterra Mountain Company (acquirers of Intrawest resorts) resorts include Squaw Valley, Mammoth Mtn, Deer Valley, Steamboat, Winterpark, Stratton and Tremblant. Boyne USA’s resorts include Big Sky, Brighton, Loon and Sunday River. Powdr Corp resorts include Copper, Killington and Mt. Bachelor. These corporations not only own or operate the mountain, they generally own or have rights to adjacent real estate assets (land, properties, hotel, etc.).

These corporations are well capitalized and looking for large investment returns for their owners. Their profit holy grail are not lift ticket sales; it’s real estate profits. Well-capitalized corporations have the financial and people resources to address the real estate industry from a vertical perspective. They can plan, acquire, finance, develop, and manage properties. They can generate revenues and profits doing all or a portion of these.

The recent consolidation of the ski resort industry by players like Vail Resorts, Intrawest, KSL Partners and Henry Crown and Company reflect this strategy. No doubt the big boys are contemplating more deals as you read this.

The lynchpin of this strategy turns out to be skier visits. More visitors require more hotel rooms, homes and condos. This requires more management services. As demand increases, prices for all of these tend to rise. As prices rise, there are additional opportunities for these corporate owners to capitalize. These include public offerings, the creation of real estate investment trusts and asset sales.

Bottom line: resorts want you to visit. To ensure optimum skier visits, these corporations are offering multi-resort passes. These offers are in turn requiring that smaller resorts and unaffiliated resorts (not owned by a corporation) also participate in these offerings. The times couldn’t be better for someone embarking on a Great North American Ski Adventure. For less than the price of a season pass you can now ski at 15, 25 or more resorts.

The largely unrestricted, multi-pass resort options began years ago with Vail Resorts. Prior to Vail, there were regional coalitions and partnerships with between various resorts offering their season pass holders free days at coalition resorts. But it wasn’t unto Vail resort offered a pass for virtually unlimited skiing at all of their resorts (many were among the best known in the industry) that avid skiers could have a multi-resort option across five well-known resorts in multiple states. The Epic Pass made its debut in 2008 and changed the way the industry viewed multi-pass resort offerings.

Every corporation owning multiple mountains is following suit. Smaller, destination resorts are picking a team to play on. Things are looking very good for the skier looking to ski at lots of resorts or grab an unrestricted ticket at a destination mountain at half the price of what the season ticket used to cost.

I was an early Epic Pass holder and owned the pass in 2012 when Vail added Kirkwood to the mix. It’s hard to explain the excitement that generated, but let me try. I was holed up in my sister’s home in Minden, NV, a few mile South of Carson City. Vail owned Heavenly Valley and Northstar at the time, as well as its Colorado Resorts (Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone). Heavenly held sentimental memories for me. My cousin was married to Chris Kurasa, an early owner of Heavenly, and I had spent time skiing with him in Lake Tahoe and at Mammoth. Heavenly is a great mountain, especially when it has lots of snow. You can get really good massages and sushi at NorthStar. I was contemplating spending a few days in Colorado to break up the Heavenly experience. In January of 2012 rumors about Vail buying Kirkwood became pretty intense. I remember thinking, it would be awesome if Vail pulls it off: they’d certainly at Kirkwood to my Epic Pass. In February Vail and Kirkwood announced their deal and I was skiing Kirkwood. I remember having to go into the ticket office, show my Epic Pass and get issued a day ticket for Kirkwood. Inefficient, but amazing. Kirkwood was free to me to ski. There was something powerful about the ability to ski Kirkwood, Heavenly or Northstar with a single pass. From meeting friends who could show up at any of these resorts, to picking the mountain that had the very best conditions after a dump.

Vail wowed me and their innovation had me considering them every year. For the 2013/2014 season I was planning on skiing out of Salt Lake City and looking at options. I was looking at pass options in March. The Alta/Snowbird pass was well over 1,000. Vail was in a battle with Park City to acquire their lease to their mountain. I waited, and Vail ended up acquiring Park City and adding them to their Epic Pass. I would not have chosen to ski the Canyons. But with Park City added, what the heck. I could grab a few discount tickets to the resorts in big and little cottonwood.

Here’s the bottom line on these multi-pass ski resort passes. They are generally worthy of consideration when:

1. You want to visit a lot of ski resorts and a number of them are included in the multi-resort pass
2. You have a single geographic area in mind, you’re on a budget, and the multi-pass offers two or more options worthy of skiing and your other options don’t

The Multi Resort Passes

We’re breaking the multi-pass resort options generally fall into two categories: national and regional. Any pass triest try to offer resort priovileges across more than five states or a single country getw national status.

In general, these passes change frequently and prices can move around depending when they are purchases. Our comparison grid compares resorts. We suggest that once you’ve found a pass with resorts you plan on skiing you go to that passes website for current pricing and privileges.

Benefit Categories Used Muli-Pass Ski & Snowboard Options 

Destinations

These are the resorts, and occasionally a benefit for heli skiing, that the pass covers. Passes often put destinations into different passes. The break down might be geographical, numerical or a combination.

Restrictions (sometimes referred to as Access)

These are the limitations at the Destinations. Limitations include things like number of days and blackout periods. Blackout periods are usually the major holidays like Christmas, Easter, and President’s weekend. Some of the passes even offer unlimited access at resorts turning the pass into the equivalent of a season pass for those resorts. That’s right, a season pass for multiple resorts at a discount price.

Other Benefits

“Friends and Family” discounts. These are usually a percentage discount 10 – 50% for a certain number of days for your friends and family.

Discounts for lodging and rentals.

Discounts at participating resorts when your free Access is used up. For example, a pass may offer 50% off a regular ticket once your free days have been used.

Click here for the 2019 / 2020 Multi Resort Season Pass Comparison.