Both Whitetail and Liberty have 2016/1017 passes available now online. I don't remember what I paid last season but $469 seems very much in the ball park.
https://www.skiwhitetail.com/winter/purchases/season-pass
I'll likely be getting some sort of pass... not sure if it will be night only though
Is "unlimited" really that? Last time I read the fine print for passes at WG and most NC resorts they black out just about every day I'd be able to actually go skiing.
crgildart wrote:
Is "unlimited" really that? Last time I read the fine print for passes at WG and most NC resorts they black out just about every day I'd be able to actually go skiing.
Don't know about the NC ski areas, but Wintergreen is definitely an outlier because people do not own property at WG annot get a pass that includes Saturdays for any amount of money. The Full Pass at Massanutten does not have any black out dates. Even the Special Value Pass is more than weekdays since Sundays are included, for a little under $250. That's one reason I drive a little farther for local skiing instead of stopping at WG.
I've had the pass the last 2 years and unless something changed there is no catch to the unlimited pass.
Any word on how a Laurel Mountain pass will work for this year?
marzNC wrote:
crgildart wrote:
Is "unlimited" really that? Last time I read the fine print for passes at WG and most NC resorts they black out just about every day I'd be able to actually go skiing.
Don't know about the NC ski areas, but Wintergreen is definitely an outlier because people do not own property at WG annot get a pass that includes Saturdays for any amount of money. The Full Pass at Massanutten does not have any black out dates. Even the Special Value Pass is more than weekdays since Sundays are included, for a little under $250. That's one reason I drive a little farther for local skiing instead of stopping at WG.
Does the "special value pass" include Thansgiving Friday, Christmas week, MKL, President's Day? I'd ve very surprised if any of those are skiable with a special value pass at twice that price. If I had a place to stay at any of these places I'd be game for any pass under $1K a year. The fact that 90% of my ventures are day trips, weekends and holidays only, with only 4 hours of actual skiing makes places with 4 hour flex or buybacks for short sessions my preferred venue. Adding an hour each way to to travel time is a dealbreaker without lodging taken care of.
crgildart wrote:
Does the "special value pass" include Thansgiving Friday, Christmas week, MKL, President's Day? I'd ve very surprised if any of those are skiable with a special value pass at twice that price. If I had a place to stay at any of these places I'd be game for any pass under $1K a year. The fact that 90% of my ventures are day trips, weekends and holidays only, with only 4 hours of actual skiing makes places with 4 hour flex or buybacks for short sessions my preferred venue. Adding an hour each way to to travel time is a dealbreaker without lodging taken care of.
Well, Massanutten is very unlikely to ever get open by Thanksgiving. If they are open by the first weekend of Dec, that's a bonus. The Spec Value pass definitely includes the Monday holidays. Don't remember about Christmas week. My friends from VA Beach had it for a couple seasons. They (parents, teen daughter) would drive over on Sun morning and go home on Mon evening. The reality is that most Massanutten guests are heading home on Mon so they do other stuff besides skiing that day.
I agree that Mnut makes no sense for day trips from the Raleigh-Durham area. But it works well for families who are interested in a few ski weekends, including the holiday weekends. The bonus for my daughter when she was in elementary school was that MLK and Pres Day meant 4-day weekends. We would add a few ski days just before Christmas so even the Full Pass was worth it. At this point, I spoil my friends with kids by providing resort lodging since I own timeshare at Massanutten. But in the early years, staying in a motel in Harrisonburg worked out fine for a non-holiday weekend. Being able to ski with no lift line on a season pass was worth the extra driving for me in comparison to Sugar or Beech.
rbrtlav wrote:
I've had the pass the last 2 years and unless something changed there is no catch to the unlimited pass.
Agreed. I really appreciate the fact that Snowtime passes are truly "unlimited" and are linked with discounts at the dozen or so other "Mountains of Distinction". It's a good deal.
Woody
The added benefit of the season pass allowing an early 30 minutes on the lifts is significant to me. I did not see this in the 'details' provided on the updated site. If anyone gets word on whether this will recur for 2016/17, I'd be very interested.
We typically ski early AM on the weekends and holidays and then head home around 11 am avoiding crowds. I'm also an early bird and early departure on the weekdays that I can get out. For us, it's the deciding point vs. Advantage cards. We typically ski a Snowtime resort 5-10 times a season, depending on a bunch of factors. We've found the tipping point between passes vs Advantage is around ~ 8 trips a season. So most seasons, the economical decision would be an Advantage card, but we opt for the season pass because of the 1/2 early entry. Without the early lift, we would mostly default to the more prudent economic choice for us...
Cheers,
Tim
Interesting, Liberty mentions the First Tracks perk ("Ski 1/2 hr before the lifts open to the public Thursday through Sunday.") but Whitetail does not. I know it First Tracks was important to my friend who used to live near Baltimore since she could only ski on weekends. Would head out early Sat morning to Whitetail and leave by lunch time.
All 3 Snowtime hills do 1st tracks Thu-Sun every week, even holidays (even when opening day is on a Thurs, as it was last season!).
The 3 places have very poorly coordinated websites, with 1 or the other consistently not listing something, or posting it much later than the others. You kind of need to look at all 3 to get the full story at times. WT seems to be most "on top" of updating the web and social media, but not quite always.
Right now, I see the 2016-17 passes listed on RT and WT, but NOT LIberty- they still show last season's info. WT/RT updated the pass info about 3 weeks ago.
Yes, the $469 early price is the same as last year (altho they had a $459 super-early deal then for a short while- they offered them in Feb- I was "in the black" on my pass last year before the 2014-15 season ended!)
Thanks for the follow-up, marzNC and skinavy! I figured it was just a website thing, but you never know...
For some reason, all I'm thinking about this past week or so has been snow!
Cheers,
Tim
My season pass for Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar is $379, admittedly that's an age 70+ Rate. Heavenly is unrestricted. The other 2 are restricted on Saturdays and holidays. I've been biting my tongue, but finally have to say that from this perspective Snowtime doesn't look so good.
Denis wrote:
My season pass for Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar is $379, admittedly that's an age 70+ Rate. Heavenly is unrestricted. The other 2 are restricted on Saturdays and holidays. I've been biting my tongue, but finally have to say that from this perspective Snowtime doesn't look so good.
Can't wait until I can qualify for senior rates. Hopefully the cut off age won't keep going up.
Considering that Massanutten is about $450 unlimited for just one ski area, paying $469 for access to three ski areas that are all within reasonable driving distance of DC seems like a good deal to me. Definitely better than the cost of season passes in NC. Sugar is charging $685 until Oct. 5.
There's no way to compare pass prices between regions that isn't an apples to oranges comparison. Like real estate, when it comes to what can be charged for a season pass, it's location, location, location.
Denis wrote:
My season pass for Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar is $379, admittedly that's an age 70+ Rate. Heavenly is unrestricted. The other 2 are restricted on Saturdays and holidays. I've been biting my tongue, but finally have to say that from this perspective Snowtime doesn't look so good.
Snow making is expensive...and snowtime is fantastic at doing so. I can get to any of these 3 resorts for and evening session without taking off work, might not be worth it to everyone, but to many it is.
Denis wrote:
My season pass for Kirkwood, Heavenly, Northstar is $379, admittedly that's an age 70+ Rate. Heavenly is unrestricted. The other 2 are restricted on Saturdays and holidays. I've been biting my tongue, but finally have to say that from this perspective Snowtime doesn't look so good.
Oh, trust me, I understand exactly how expensive and not-so-valuable this pass is relative to many others. Unfortunately, our lot is stuck here in DC for the foreseeable future and the alternatives for regular skiing are less-than-optimal. Nonetheless, the Snowtime pass is about the best solution for a regular skier in DC, imho. We've attempted to do the WV resorts, but the drive is just slightly too long to make quick excursions possible. As rbrtlav said, the ability to make a late decision for a night session is quite a bonus. Also, using first tracks to kick off a few decent hours before the crowds on a weekend or the odd Friday, yet still make it back to DC to by noon-1 pm, certainly is a nice way to keep in shape for the serious skiing we all enjoy on our ski vacations (e.g., to get the most out of a Max Pass at Sol/Bright/Copper/etc)!
Cheers,
Tim
