Uhhh - We've seen this before - It's Les Otten's business plan - butt they are making money.Highway Star wrote:This is crazy.boston_e wrote:Looks like the plan is indeed to have Stowe as part of the Epic pass...
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So a Stowe season pass will be $859.00.
Wonder how Killington will respond?
We've all seen some crazy stuff in the eastern ski industry, and this one is right up there.
I personally know a good number of Killington skiers who have bought epic local passes for trips out west. Clearly they will be visiting Stowe more, even if it's just for a couple day trips. Lots of people in Burlington, Montpelier and the northern Vermont region ski, but they go other places than Stowe because of the pass prices. Clearly there will be many more regional people buying Epic passes. Boston is about 3:30 from Stowe - many Boston people buy Epic passes. Many of them will be taking weekend trips or mini-vacations to Stowe, or looking for a seasonal rental or share house (there aren't many). They are going to have serious, serious, crowding problems.
I'm wondering what Vail's play is here. Are they also going to go after Smuggler's Notch? Will they dramatically increase lift capacity, say by replacing the Lookout Double with a detach lift? Lift between the quad and gondi? Expand south into the basin where the Bruce trail goes? Or the basin east of Spruce? Could they get a new lift in this summer to increase capacity?
There are going to be some more pretty big moves happening before this all settles down.
Nothing new here - Stowe will get new lifts, get less day visitors, get more pass holders, ( they allready have $ 25 burgers and $ 15 Martini's ), and nightly lodging rates will go through the roof.
Is that better or worse than it is today? Depends - are you a townie that can't afford a $5,000 family pass but now it's half that? Do you own a crappy hotel? Do you own a shop on the road? Did you like to go there a couple days a year because it's too far to be the home mountain?
Let's not forget - the chess move for Powdr is that the old man owns The Bird ( has not announced pass prices yet ) - I'd still take K/Bird over Stowe/Vail/Whistler any day of the week.......