MCP Sets La Parva Power Pass Access for 2024 Winter Season

No access yet on Ikon or Mountain Collective Passes

Two weeks after purchasing La Parva ski area, parked high in the Andes adjacent to and interconnected with its Valle Nevado resort, Mountain Capital Partners (MCP) has set 2024 access at the mountains for its 2024-25 season passholders: seven combined days on the Power Pass or Power Pass Select. Here’s what access looks like across the portfolio:

Still to be determined: whether La Parva will join Valle Nevado, long an Ikon and Mountain Collective pass partner, on those two products.

“Our first priority has been integrating Valle Nevado and La Parva, and then integrating both of them on our own season passes,” MCP representative Stacey Glaser told The Storm. “So, while we haven't yet been able to work on Ikon or Mountain Collective, I think we'll begin discussions with them soon.”

Mountain Collective and Ikon Pass holders can still access Valle Nevado this summer, but they’ll have to buy a lift ticket to cross over to La Parva (or interconnected and still independent El Colorado). Access varies between the two products, and this past season’s Mountain Collective pass will not get you into Valle. Last winter’s Power Passes have also expired for South America access, so you’ll have to throw down for next winter’s pass to get the seven days this year. Here’s how Valle Nevado access breaks down across the various passes:

Both ski areas are scheduled to open on Friday, June 21, and may crank the lifts early if conditions permit (Corralco, a smaller ski area 300 miles south of Valle/La Parva, opened for the season on May 18 after early snowfalls). Yesterday, MCP’s Arizona Snowbowl announced that it would stay open into June for the first time, granting MCP the honor of being the only ski company to run resorts on two continents in the same month this year (so far; we’ll see if Vail pulls off the unlikely Australia/Keystone combo in October).

While Valle Nevado and La Parva remain, for now, distinct brands with varying access for U.S. skiers (depending upon their pass arsenal), it’s clear that MCP intends to treat them as one continuous ski resort. When he joined me on the podcast to announce the acquisition, MCP managing partner James Coleman outlined plans that could blow the borders out to 10,000 acres within the next few years. That would make Valle Nevado-La Parva (VNLP), larger than Whistler (8,171 acres), which is currently the largest ski area in the Western Hemisphere (though I believe Europeans would refer to this as “un neighborhood ski center”).

Today’s announcement is a good excuse to look more deeply at MCP’s purchase of La Parva, and what the acquisition – and South America more generally – could mean for the company, for its passholders, and for North American skiers who just don’t want to stop going when the calendar flips to summer: