Time to renew! Keep in mind that resorrt swap feature for Wisp, HV, 7S and LM. Those 4 alone pay for the pass itself.
https://www.snowshoemtn.com/plan-your-trip/tickets-and-passes/winter-season-passes/ridiculous-pass
The 12 and under ski free thing is a big draw for me. Pretty sure I will pick up a pass.
Reisen wrote:
The 12 and under ski free thing is a big draw for me. Pretty sure I will pick up a pass.
That drew my eye as well. One 2 day trip for a family of 4 and you have basically broken even.
wgo wrote:
How does the resort swap work?
Resort Swap
Through the Resort Swap partnership, Snowshoe Unlimited Season Pass holders are provided one free full day lift ticket at other participating resorts and 50% off any additional lift tickets at those resorts. Just present your 2016.2017 Snowshoe season pass at the ticket window of any participating resort, and they'll hook you up with your ticket to any of these awesome mountains:
Seven Springs (PA)
Wisp Resort (MD)
Hidden Valley (PA)
Laurel Mountain (PA)
**Resort swap may not be redeemed on Saturdays or during holiday periods (Dec 28, 2016- Jan 1, 2017; Jan 13 - 16, 2017; Feb 17 - 20, 2017).
Reisen wrote:
The 12 and under ski free thing is a big draw for me.
Wow. And a couple $30 buddy passes. Snowshoe is making skiing cheap again. I'm guessing they'll be opening additional terrain to put all these people? Wishful thinking!
Bonzski wrote:
Wow. And a couple $30 buddy passes.
Those are Kelly and Laura passes ..... haha ..... free wine at Mtn Lodge
Blue Don 1982 wrote:
Time to renew! Keep in mind that resorrt swap feature for Wisp, HV, 7S and LM. Those 4 alone pay for the pass itself.
https://www.snowshoemtn.com/plan-your-trip/tickets-and-passes/winter-season-passes/ridiculous-pass
Yes, the Regional Resort Swap is key!
For a while, it looked as if it was disappearing for 2016-17. In late summer/early fall 2016, a staff member told me it was gone (in answer to my email). Later, before the snow flew, the RRS was reinstated. Glad to see that it's been announced NOW instead of leaving us guessing. A no-brainer for me. Here's to Snowshoe's Ridicullous Pass and the Regional Resoprt Swap! Thanks for the post, Blue Don 1982.
Woody
AndyGene wrote:
Bonzski wrote:
Reisen wrote:
The 12 and under ski free thing is a big draw for me.
Wow. And a couple $30 buddy passes. Snowshoe is making skiing cheap again. I'm guessing they'll be opening additional terrain to put all these people? Wishful thinking!
Yes. They call it Silver Creek.
Haha, true! Less crowds, better snow because it doesn't get skied off as quickly.
Blue Don 1982 wrote:
Bonzski wrote:
Wow. And a couple $30 buddy passes.
Those are Kelly and Laura passes ..... haha ..... free wine at Mtn Lodge
Yes indeed!
Thanks for hte heads up! I'm going to have to make sure I don't to forget to buy mine when I'm in Whistler next week!
I've never taken advantage of the resort swap (homewoner) but I should. Whish resort would you recommend?
I sure do miss the days of discounted lift tickets at the other Intrawest resorsts. The benefitr really pushed me to their other resorts whcih I thought was very smart marketing but no more. I have no incentive now to go to another Instrawest resort.
This is the best deal in the region. A testament to this is I live in Pittsburgh but have been buying this pass the past few years. I make my money back on the resort swap. I try to take one or two trips down to Snowshoe as well.
The icing on the cake this year was the kids skiing free. I've been taking my kids to ski locally, but next year we'll probably do two days down there. They'll make money on lodging and food that will exceed whatever the lift ticket prices were.
How long is the deal on for before they start jacking up the prices? And what's this about $30 buddy passes? I knew about the resort swap and always use that. Unfortunately our entire ski season was a bust this year due to SO's surgery. We won't get to use our passes once but hopefully next year it'll be snowier anyway.
SkiBunny wrote:
How long is the deal on for before they start jacking up the prices? And what's this about $30 buddy passes? I knew about the resort swap and always use that. Unfortunately our entire ski season was a bust this year due to SO's surgery. We won't get to use our passes once but hopefully next year it'll be snowier anyway.
Sorry to hear about your SO's surgery and the season, SkiBunny.
The answers to your questions appear in the link included with the original post. The process looks less hectic this year, with 8 days to purchase at the lowest price.
Woody
Anybody skiing midweek in March can find some pretty good deals on this page as well if you don't have a pass, some of these are actually better than the $30 pass.
https://www.snowshoemtn.com/plan-your-trip/deals-and-packages/spring-shebang
Also, if anybody else did auto-renew... are you expecting a charge to your card monday and I assume we are eligible for the buddy passes, even though the contract said we could back out with no stipulations until May 1?
Well, I went ahead and bought two passes. Good deal for myself, my wife, and two under-12 kids. Still not sure how logistics will work out for us next season - we have always bought passes for either Wintergreen or Massanutten, since those resorts are within an hour's drive of Charlottesville. With the Snowshoe pass I am sure we will be out there more, but we are still going to want to ski Wintergreen or Massanutten for day trips. Maybe this means buying another pass to those places, I don't know yet.
wgo wrote:
Well, I went ahead and bought two passes. Good deal for myself, my wife, and two under-12 kids. Still not sure how logistics will work out for us next season - we have always bought passes for either Wintergreen or Massanutten, since those resorts are within an hour's drive of Charlottesville. With the Snowshoe pass I am sure we will be out there more, but we are still going to want to ski Wintergreen or Massanutten for day trips. Maybe this means buying another pass to those places, I don't know yet.
An offer too good to refuse for your situation! That's on the edge of comfort for day tripping for you, but you could do it. Alternative trick is to find affordable places to stay on Sat nights so you could do half dozen weekends? You could splurge on the mountain or maybe the place at base of access road (Inn at Snowshoe) might work? Perhaps you could PM bousquet19? Believe he knows some places. Or see here: https://www.hotelplanner.com/Hotels/8889-in-Snowshoe-WV.html#dir-bar
JimK wrote:
An offer too good to refuse for your situation! That's on the edge of comfort for day tripping for you, but you could do it. Alternative trick is to find affordable places to stay on Sat nights so you could do half dozen weekends? You could splurge on the mountain or maybe the place at base of access road (Inn at Snowshoe) might work? Perhaps you could PM bousquet19? Believe he knows some places. Or see here: https://www.hotelplanner.com/Hotels/8889-in-Snowshoe-WV.html#dir-bar
I've done a fair amount of 6 hr roundtrip daytrips to TL/SS/CV since I have lived in CVille, but I think my family would rebel if I tried subjecting them to that schedule. We'll figure it out - thanks for the link!
This is an amazing - er, ridiculous - deal. I think it's worth it even if I only take a couple of 3-day trips with the wife next year, which will almost certainly happen. What I'm trying to figure out now is how feasible it is to do what JimK suggests - a half dozen weekend trips on my own, driving from DC pre-dawn Saturday morning, staying Saturday night, and driving back Sunday evening. Rentals through Snowshoe seem to require two-night minimums for most of the season. Airbnb and Homeaway don't have that same requirement, though I may have to add a $50 cleaning fee on top of the rental price depending on the listing. This isn't ideal from a pricing perspective but I suspect I'll decide to splurge from time to time.
As far as hotels are concerned, nearby there's the Inn at Snowshoe - http://www.reservations.com/hotel/the-inn-at-snowshoe?gclid=CMHj9feHqdICFcmLswodGtUIEw#available - and Bear Creek Mountain Lodge - https://route66snowshoe.com/lodging/
Does anybody know if these places have two-night minimums for all or part of the season? At the Inn at least, it looks like Saturday night rooms are already booked for the first few Saturdays in March. If that's the case with the weather like it is now, I bet it's impossible to book during the high season.
Another possibility is staying at one of the chain places in Elkins, which looks to be around an hour's drive away. Would be nice to find a reliable place closer that I can book for just one night and without too much lead time. My dream is to be able to decide on a Friday that I want to spend the weekend at Snowshoe and book a place not too far away on Saturday night (sort of like what I can do at Seven Springs with all the chain hotels in Somerset Pa just a half hour away). Maybe that's not possible. Anybody have any thoughts?
dwm8a wrote:
This is an amazing - er, ridiculous - deal. I think it's worth it even if I only take a couple of 3-day trips with the wife next year, which will almost certainly happen. What I'm trying to figure out now is how feasible it is to do what JimK suggests - a half dozen weekend trips on my own, driving from DC pre-dawn Saturday morning, staying Saturday night, and driving back Sunday evening. Rentals through Snowshoe seem to require two-night minimums for most of the season. Airbnb and Homeaway don't have that same requirement, though I may have to add a $50 cleaning fee on top of the rental price depending on the listing. This isn't ideal from a pricing perspective but I suspect I'll decide to splurge from time to time.
As far as hotels are concerned, nearby there's the Inn at Snowshoe - http://www.reservations.com/hotel/the-inn-at-snowshoe?gclid=CMHj9feHqdICFcmLswodGtUIEw#available - and Bear Creek Mountain Lodge - https://route66snowshoe.com/lodging/
Does anybody know if these places have two-night minimums for all or part of the season? At the Inn at least, it looks like Saturday night rooms are already booked for the first few Saturdays in March. If that's the case with the weather like it is now, I bet it's impossible to book during the high season.
Another possibility is staying at one of the chain places in Elkins, which looks to be around an hour's drive away. Would be nice to find a reliable place closer that I can book for just one night and without too much lead time. My dream is to be able to decide on a Friday that I want to spend the weekend at Snowshoe and book a place not too far away on Saturday night (sort of like what I can do at Seven Springs with all the chain hotels in Somerset Pa just a half hour away). Maybe that's not possible. Anybody have any thoughts?
I'm 37 now, but I did this back in my early-mid 20's. Either with my wife, or by myself, I would get up at like 3am on Saturday morning, drive the 5 hours to Snowshoe, ski Saturday, crash in a cheap local motel, ski Sunday, then drive back Sunday afternoon. A couple of thoughts:
- I was storm chasing, and we didn't have the 4WD SUV we have now, so sometimes I had to rent or borrow from friends / family members. Several times I picked up people stranded in 2WD cars on the way up the mountain.
- Some of the places I used to stay are now closed.
- It looks like the Boyer Motel is still open:http://www.boyerstation.com/Motel/ . It was exactly like what you'd expect from the pictures. Think snow blowing under the door in a storm and stained towels.
- I also stayed at the BrazenHead Inn:http://brazenheadinn.com . It's not 5 stars, but considerably nicer, probably three to four times the price, but also closer to Snowshoe.
- I also stayed at the Marlinton Motor Inn:http://marlintonmotorinn.com . It was somewhere in between. Decent drive, but affordable, and way nicer than the Boyer Motel.
- Occasionally some places wanted two night minimums, but would often waive them as we got close to the weekend. I would just call around, and often book a place Friday for the next day.
- My best Mid-A ski days were a result of this storm chasing. Snowshoe got hit with 3 feet from a storm in March one year, and I skied liftlines all day (including Bear Cave). I still have a fantastic memory of driving west through the mountains, not far from 81, barely at the break of dawn. My wife was sleeping next to me in the rented SUV, and looked as beautiful as the snow-laden trees outside, with the flakes gently falling. I'll remember that moment until the day I die.
Was wondering about the Marlington Motor Inn. As long as it is clean it could fit our needs. It's about a 45 minute drive from the Inn to the parking lot across from the Depot, right?
wgo wrote:
Was wondering about the Marlington Motor Inn. As long as it is clean it could fit our needs. It's about a 45 minute drive from the Inn to the parking lot across from the Depot, right?
That sounds about right. I looked it up on google maps, and they have it at 25 miles, and 37 minutes. It's been a long time since we stayed there (10-12 years), but I don't remember having the same issue with dirty linens and moldy carpet like I had at some of the other local motels. Of course, this is coming from a guy who has slept in the back seat of a car at ski area parking lots out west (turning on the car every couple of hours to warm it up, and sleeping in his ski gear for warmth).
I also used to do Snowshoe as a day trip occasionally on a Saturday or a Sunday, but that was exhausting (9 hours of driving plus a day of skiing).
I actually enjoy day trips to SS or TL/CV - three hours each way is not too bad, and for whatever reason the drive always seems to go quickly. This assumes the weather is not crazy bad, or course. I've done Blue Knob as a day trip - that is about a 9 hour round trip for me. The things we do for this sport we love...
Many thanks for your thoughts and recommendations, Reisen.
I'm not opposed to a day trip from DC to Snowshoe, but I'd probably need to have a partner to split the driving. I've done solo day trips to Seven Springs (7 hrs roundtrip) and thought at the time that was right on the edge for me. Snowshoe adds another 2 hours to that. This would have been doable for me in my 20s, but it seems like asking for trouble now at 35.
Guns are blazing 9 PM on Sat night.
Blue Don 1982 wrote:
Guns are blazing 9 PM on Sat night.
Snowshoe kept them running through the night and all day Sunday. Made for a great day.
Were they making snow all over the mountain, and not just on "connecting trails and loading areas"? If so, that is a good sign.
All over. The afternoon I saw Spruce, Skipjack, Ballhooter, Hootenanny and Cupp.
wgo wrote:
Cool. How did Lower Shays look?
Closed. It has ~80% coverage....I doubt it will reopen this season unless mother nature drops a late surprise.
Blue Don 1982 wrote:
Bonzski wrote:
wgo wrote:
Cool. How did Lower Shays look?
Closed. It has ~80% coverage....I doubt it will reopen this season unless mother nature drops a late surprise.
Trail report says its open.
Will you be there this weekend? I may head down Thu - Sun
Open mouth, insert foot! Wow, they are committed to stretching the season!
Yeah I'll be there.
Bonzski, Blue Don,
If you had to guess, would you think that the weekend crowds will be more typical of mid-season or late season? May be able to get out there one day this weekend but would probably avoid Saturday if it seems likely to have mid-season crowds.
wgo wrote:
Bonzski, Blue Don,
If you had to guess, would you think that the weekend crowds will be more typical of mid-season or late season? May be able to get out there one day this weekend but would probably avoid Saturday if it seems likely to have mid-season crowds.
Based on feedback from guests I'd say mid season. Bonz told me it was pretty busy last weekend as well.
wgo wrote:
Bonzski, Blue Don,
If you had to guess, would you think that the weekend crowds will be more typical of mid-season or late season? May be able to get out there one day this weekend but would probably avoid Saturday if it seems likely to have mid-season crowds.
I was told they were near capacity last weekend but the lift lines didn't reflect that. I suppose many either didn't show or decided not to ski much. As of last Friday this coming weekend was booked less (~60%) so I think you're looking at a betweener crowd. Weather is shaping to be nice.
Was at SS this Fri-Sat-Sun. Bare spots as expected on warm Friday, but we still had a blast at Silver Creek. Not as gloppy as we'd thought it'd be. Got over to Cupp and Shay's on Saturday. Spitting sleet and snow in the early norning, then cloudy, then sunny in the afternoon. Surface began to harden up around 4:00 p.m. Sunday's temperature was, I think, mid-20s at the rope drop. We skied the main basin until leaving around 2pm. They worked hard to patch, groom and touch up with snowmaking.
All in all, we had better skiinng on all 3 days than I'd expected. Hardworking MountaoinOps paid off at SS yet again.
For Ridiculous Pass buyers, you'll need to select the 12-and-under option at purchase. The person need not be your child, but you will need to provide the name and approx. birthdate. (They'll fix the date later if you goof.) I bought my pass for 2017-18 at The Depot on Sunday. (Couldn't get online to work)
Woody
Reisen wrote:
- It looks like the Boyer Motel is still open:http://www.boyerstation.com/Motel/ . It was exactly like what you'd expect from the pictures. Think snow blowing under the door in a storm and stained towels.
- I also stayed at the BrazenHead Inn:http://brazenheadinn.com . It's not 5 stars, but considerably nicer, probably three to four times the price, but also closer to Snowshoe.
- I also stayed at the Marlinton Motor Inn:http://marlintonmotorinn.com . It was somewhere in between. Decent drive, but affordable, and way nicer than the Boyer Motel.
- Occasionally some places wanted two night minimums, but would often waive them as we got close to the weekend. I would just call around, and often book a place Friday for the next day.
- My best Mid-A ski days were a result of this storm chasing. Snowshoe got hit with 3 feet from a storm in March one year, and I skied liftlines all day (including Bear Cave). I still have a fantastic memory of driving west through the mountains, not far from 81, barely at the break of dawn. My wife was sleeping next to me in the rented SUV, and looked as beautiful as the snow-laden trees outside, with the flakes gently falling. I'll remember that moment until the day I die.
Thanks for the info on the local motels! We have also struggled to find an acceptable place that will let us stay just a single night. Love the description of your early morning drive in the snow with your wife... What a wonderful memory.
If you are coming from the north down 219, I've stayed here.
Clean and cheap. Not the Ritz but clean. About 35 min drive from there to the shoe.
I'm planning to do the Reisen Saturday-Sunday trip from DC this weekend. I've booked a room at the Bear Creek Lodge https://route66snowshoe.com/lodging/
Price is $90 (tax incl.) for Saturday night and the Lodge is ~10 miles/20 minutes from Top of the World. I made the booking today. I'll report back on my experience next week.
Stayed here a few years back. Not the closest, about 45 minutes, but it's a pretty eclectic place with good breakfast.
http://www.mountainquestinn.com
Plus they have themed rooms. What could make a ski trip better than staying in a Safari room?
$299 price was extended to March 5. Guess they are hoping those who go the first weekend of March will consider buying a Ridiculous Pass for next season.
Looking thru the archives here and it appears that a few years back Snowshoe season pass holders were eligible for a $250 credit at other Intrawest resorts. Was this promotion only available for the one year?
wgo wrote:
Looking thru the archives here and it appears that a few years back Snowshoe season pass holders were eligible for a $250 credit at other Intrawest resorts. Was this promotion only available for the one year?
That is correct - 2 years ago. A few in my group did a few days in Stratton that year.
Resort swap and Intrawest credit was like a gold mine for me. Skied Stratton for free + all 4 free swaps (BK was on the list that year).
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