Who
Sam Weintraub, Founder and CEO of PeakRankings
Date Recorded
Oct. 5, 2026
About PeakRankings
PeakRankings rates ski areas, plans trips, makes killer YouTube vids, and Instaposts and Facebooks (those are verbs, right?). Like me, they seem to have given up on TwiXXer. Please give them all the follows, but especially check out the trips page:
Why I interviewed him
Sunday evening, PeakRankings published an article headlined “Epic vs. Ikon: Which Pass Should You Buy Before Prices Go Up?” It’s an excellent breakdown of the two biggest ski passes by price, access, and region.
I’ve known Sam for a while. He started PeakRankings around the time that I started The Storm. We both found momentum during Covid when everyone was at home making macaroni replicas of their cats and injecting themselves with bleach. Good times. But everyone was bored enough to pay attention to a couple of ski media startups.
I don’t remember how we connected, but it turned out that Sam lived in the next neighborhood over, and one night we grabbed a few beers and talked skiing and ski media. Sam is younger than I am, and has been far more tuned-in and aggressive in his evolution from ski-ranking site to Insta/YouTube god (102k my dude!), to uniter-of-souls-via-ski-trip in our Age of Loneliness. He’s been generous with his time, insight, and advice, and we (my editor/wife and I), have learned a lot from Sam about deeking the algorithms.
One thing I’m very deliberate about is not over-relying on one source. Everyone in skiing is busy all the time, and over-communication is fatiguing for me, for them, and for listeners and readers. But as soon as I read the pass article, I emailed Sam – who I’d seen several times already over the past few weeks – to see if he could jump on and help us break everything down. He could, and he crushed it.
Resources
Epic Pass prices are set to increase Oct. 7, and Ikon will go up Oct. 8. Those are both probably fake deadlines and you can usually get those same rates for at least a day afterward, but don’t assume that will be so. Anyway, here’s what the major passes cost now:
You can view all the rosters here (scroll right to view). Here’s a nifty chart showing Epic and Ikon price changes over the years:
If you want to view all the Big Dumb Charts I screenshared showing differences in pass partners by size and region, here they are.
All of these charts are on a Big Dumb Google Sheet, otherwise known as The Encyclopedia Bro-Tannica, otherwise known as the U.S. American SnoSportSkiing Masterchart. Yes I know they look like shit. Yes I know I need to migrate to something better. But what you see as you click through the tabs at the bottom is seven years of data entry fusing into something like an encyclopedia of American skiing. It’s just my worksheet, and I made it public because why the hell not? But like Joel from Open Snow said on my pod years ago, I move very slowly, but I’m always moving forward.
Transcripts
There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.
Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.
Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.
Zoom
Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the founder and CEO of PeakRankings. Sam Weintraub is my guest. Sam, welcome to the storm. I know you’re a few blocks away from me, but I don’t have a good in-person setup. How you doing today?
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Sam Weintraub: Good, thanks for having me, Stu. I know, we gotta figure it out, um, we’ll do maybe, like, a round 2 in the… I can just walk right over, um, I think it’s, like, 5 blocks away, it’s just up, um, Metropolitan Avenue, I don’t know if anyone.
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Stuart Winchester: Yah.
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Sam Weintraub: Oh.
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Sam Weintraub: watching or listening to this knows Brooklyn, but…
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: So, you put on… this was a last-minute thing, and I really appreciate you coming on last minute here, Sam. So, you wrote a great article yesterday. Well, I don’t know who wrote it. PeakRankings released an article yesterday.
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Stuart Winchester: called Epic vs. Icon, which pass should you buy before prices go up? So…
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Stuart Winchester: At a very high level, let’s just talk Epic versus Icon and the price dates and lay those out for everybody and, uh, and what, what your baseline thought is on each pass from an affordability, from an access standpoint.
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Sam Weintraub: Yeah, so, I mean, what’s really interesting is in the 2020s, Epic and Icon have…
00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:04.000
Sam Weintraub: really started to take different market positions. So…
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Sam Weintraub: If you look back at, like, 2019, 2020, they were around the same price.
00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:12.000
Sam Weintraub: But…
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Sam Weintraub: I think both of them were still trying to figure out where they were, because…
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Sam Weintraub: I believe, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, I believe it was 2018, the first year that you could buy both the Epic and the Icon Pass. The Icon Pass used to have a predecessor called the Max Pass, and…
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Sam Weintraub: it wasn’t really, um… I don’t remember the specifics of the Max Pass, but it wasn’t really as comprehensive as the Icon Pass is, in terms of destination offerings especially, um, that the Icon Pass is today.
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Sam Weintraub: And so, I think, long story short, what happened was it became clear that the Icon Pass just had much more of a destination, like, fly-to-destination roster, and that.
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Sam Weintraub: continued to increase over the…
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Sam Weintraub: course of the 2020s, um, you know, the Icon Pass started adding more and more destinations, and it just got to the place where now, if you go almost anywhere, um, with potentially the exception of Colorado.
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Sam Weintraub: Tahoe, and Whistler, um, the Icon Pass is just going to offer more compelling.
00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Sam Weintraub: Ski resorts when it comes to things like terrain quality, when it comes to snow quality in a lot of cases, especially in Utah, because you get in on Icon, even if you’re thinking of Park City as its own destination, which it really does deserve to be in a lot of ways because it’s so big.
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Sam Weintraub: uh, it gets, like, half the snow of the Cottonwood Mountains that are just west of it. So, ultimately, what we’ve arrived at, and I think the market.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:04.000
Sam Weintraub: I think, and I say I think because I know Icon doesn’t release its past numbers, but I believe what has happened is that.
00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:06.000
Sam Weintraub: Icon is just…
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:16.000
Sam Weintraub: you know, become more of a premium in terms of its pass offerings. Um, and Epic, you know, I believe it was 2021, they…
00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:35.000
Sam Weintraub: decided to drop all their pass prices by 20%, and they never caught back up with Icon. So now they’re actually more of the value play. Um, and that’s also reflective in some of their packaging. So, if you look at the Epic Local Pass, which is the competitor to the Icon Base Pass.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Sam Weintraub: those are, like, the products that come with holiday blackouts. So those are the ones, um, and I…
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Sam Weintraub: I think you probably have…
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Sam Weintraub: some of these sources as well, right, Stu? But I believe that, like, somewhere between 80…
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Sam Weintraub: to 85% of people who buy these passes get the base pass rather than the full. Um, is that correct?
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:04.000
Stuart Winchester: That’s my general sense. You know, I’ve never been given an exact number, but yes, I’m hearing the same estimates.
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Sam Weintraub: Yeah, so with that being said, if you look at the Epic Local Pass versus the Icon Base Pass, the Epic Local Pass has a lot more leniency when it comes to those holiday blackouts. So if you look.
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Sam Weintraub: I believe at there are certain mountains in Colorado that are destination worthy. I believe Keystone.
00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:33.000
Sam Weintraub: I think Breckenridge, I would have to double check on that, Crested Butte, um…
00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:45.000
Sam Weintraub: Mount Snow, Okemo, those don’t have holiday blackouts, even if you have the Epic Local Pass. If you get the Icon Pass, you maybe have Copper, Eldora, Winter Park.
00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:59.000
Sam Weintraub: those don’t have holiday blackouts, but everything else, if you have the Icon Base Pass, has holiday blackouts. So, the Epic Local Pass is a lot more flexible, and it’s less punishing than the Icon equivalent.
00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:14.000
Sam Weintraub: And I think, you know, when you take a look at the price discrepancy, the Epic Local Pass is, uh, around $200 less than the Icon Pass. You’re getting a product that is just much better in terms of the value. So…
00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:30.000
Sam Weintraub: So I guess just to sum it up, long story short, Epic is more of a value oriented pass at this point. And it’s great if you want to go to a veil owned mountain. That ecosystem is, you know, like a very useful one.
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Sam Weintraub: a lot more than just the pass access. There’s… there’s other things that are streamlined, like…
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Sam Weintraub: If you care about having an app that you can, you know, use at North Star and Stowe and Stevens Pass and Park City that has the exact same UI, you want to use your phone as a pass rather than a physical.
00:55:52.000 --> 00:56:08.000
Sam Weintraub: product. Like, those are all things that, because all of the Epic resorts, with the exception of, like, Vail, or with the exception of Telluride, maybe a couple that are outside the country, um, they’re all owned by Vail. So Vail has a lot more control over those things.
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Sam Weintraub: With Icon, you don’t. Um, but like I said, with Icon, you just have a lot more variety for, like, those dream destinations, um, that you might want to go to.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and for those watching on stormskiing.com or YouTube at Storm Ski Journal, I’ve been putting a bunch of things up on the screen as Sam talks to show the prices. I want to talk a little bit about these… I want to hit that point you made, Sam, about more quality. So these are charts…
00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:38.000
Stuart Winchester: So, if you look at ski areas with over 1,000 vertical feet, Icon has 46.
00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Epic has 19.
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, if you look at Ski Area, it’s over 400 acres. Icon has 42, Epic has 14.
00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, if you look at past numbers, partner numbers.
00:56:51.000 --> 00:56:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me…
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Stuart Winchester: Do a few more here.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay, if you look at, for example.
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Sam Weintraub: This is a really impressive array of charts, too.
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Stuart Winchester: Thanks. I, I think it’s, uh, I, I’m getting some flack for making, doing this, uh, dizzying screen shares, but I’ll try to find a better way to present these. But, uh, number of ski areas in each pass, Icon has 103, Epic has 71. I have a little bit of an idiosyncratic way.
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Sam Weintraub: Sure.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, counting ski areas. Uh, if you look at ski areas outside the US, Epic has, has actually more, actually, Icon’s not on that. So let me fix that chart. Uh, Icon total skiable acres, 83,306. Epic total acres, 40,573.
00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, if you look at the distribution in the U.S, right here on this chart, and India actually has more than Epic as well.
00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:59.000
Stuart Winchester: And… Skier has more than 1,000 vertical feet, Epic has 19 in the US, Icon has 46. I mean, I go on and on. You can see these in my Encyclopedia Britannica, which is this gigantic, stupid chart I have linked from my past. You know, Sam, when you look at the… when you start to look at the prices, right?
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Stuart Winchester: I mean, I…
00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:03.000
Stuart Winchester: I was talking to someone recently who…
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Stuart Winchester: Is a person of means, runs a hedge fund.
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Stuart Winchester: And they needed to buy 5 passes for the year, right? And he’s like, I’m going Epic, because it’s so much less expensive. I mean, this is a guy who…
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Stuart Winchester: you know, could afford 5 Icon Passes. But it’s enough of a difference, it’s like a 30% price difference, and I have these prices up on the screen, and these are the prices now as we record this on October 5th.
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Stuart Winchester: You know, how much of a factor are you finding that that price difference is making in the marketplace, regardless of Icon’s superior roster? FXL has plenty of great mountains, more than most people can get to in a year. How much of a difference do you think that that’s making, and how much of an edge is it giving Vail to keep these.
00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Passes, pass prices lower.
00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:52.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, I mean, for a lot of people, there’s…
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Sam Weintraub: A singular number that matters. And that’s one. A lot of people are buying these passes. If you go on a week long trip, they pay off with just one mountain. So for a lot of people, if you don’t care whether you’re going to Vail or Deer Valley.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Sam Weintraub: or Park City, or Alta. Like, if you’re just going to one of those, then it doesn’t really matter, um, and you don’t have a strong preference as to which one you want to go to. Like, there are great mountains. If you’ve never been out west before, um.
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Sam Weintraub: the thing that could be the distinguisher is the pass price. Like, you could be going, like, let’s say, for example, you wanted to go to Vail. Um, it’s on the Epic Pass. The, uh, Park City, Whistler, um…
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Sam Weintraub: I think that does make a pretty big difference, um, if you really don’t have a strong opinion as to which.
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Sam Weintraub: resort you want to go to. If you just…
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Sam Weintraub: Want to go somewhere regionally, that’s where the past strengths and weaknesses become more of a factor. And ironically, I would say in the New York City area, Epic may actually be slightly more.
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Sam Weintraub: of a desirable pass to have than Icon because Epic has Hunter, whereas Icon, you’re kind of stuck if you don’t want to drive all the way up to Stratton, you’re kind of stuck going to the Poconos. Nothing against that, but Hunter is better than Camelback and Blue Mountain.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: Right.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
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Sam Weintraub: In my opinion.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So, you see the Epic Pass roster here, and one of the big differences, I think, Sam, is, uh…
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Stuart Winchester: when you get outside of North America, which is what these mountains are here. Uh And you look at this is the epic pass roster that I have in the Encyclopedia Britannica and the uh mega pass rosters tab and you have to scroll right. But the, the epic pass is over here on the left and the epic local is here on the right.
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Stuart Winchester: As far as what mountains you can access. And, and outside of the US you don’t get a lot. You do get the, the Japanese mountains, but, uh, you, Vail has included their premium mountains on Epic Local. You get 10 combined days between Beaver Creek, Vail, and, and Whistler. And that’s an amazing deal.
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Stuart Winchester: When you go over to the Icon Pass, not only is it 30% more expensive for the Major Pass, but once you go to Epic or Icon Base, you lose…
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Stuart Winchester: You see, you get a lot more international than you do with, uh, with Vail. Oh, that’s Session Pass, sorry. Um, so you get a lot more international access than you do with, with Epic Local, but you lose a lot of the places that you really want to go to. You lose Aspen, you lose Jackson Hole.
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Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
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Stuart Winchester: You lose Alta, you lose Sun Valley, you lose Snow Basin. Uh, so… it’s… I really like Epic Local for just about anyone, and I believe you made that point.
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Stuart Winchester: yesterday in that article. Let’s talk a little bit about the day passes, Sam. I have been…
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Stuart Winchester: really hard on Altera with Icon Session. I think it’s just a terrible product. If you look at the roster, it only has 49 of…
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Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
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Stuart Winchester: icons. Uh, let’s see how many… 103 total ski areas. Uh, I’m sorry, 53. And it leaves all the best ones out. There are blackout dates, even at ski areas Altera owns. It’s kind of expensive.
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Stuart Winchester: And then on the other side, you have Epic Day, which…
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Stuart Winchester: I can go to the current prices for all these.
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Stuart Winchester: is a really… a lot…
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Stuart Winchester: better deal. It’s getting a little expensive, but you can buy in one to… so, so, Icon Session is 2 to 4 day increments.
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Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
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Stuart Winchester: And there’s blackouts, there’s no non-blackout option. Vail sells their Epic Day Pass in one to seven day increments, and there’s three different tiers of access. I just think this is such a good product, and you can see the current prices here on the screen.
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Stuart Winchester: Just talk about, uh…
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Stuart Winchester: Day passes, and, and…
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Stuart Winchester: how you think that can be used in a skier’s toolkit and which ones that you like.
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Sam Weintraub: Yeah, yeah. So I actually have many, many thoughts on this. First off, what I will say is I truly believe that Icon wants their session pass product to be bad on purpose. They do not want people to buy it.
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Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
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Sam Weintraub: And I’m pretty sure they just haven’t figured out a way to make money on it. Like it’s a loss leader. I think one of the things that I remember having a conversation with the Icon Pass group salesperson, there was one.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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Sam Weintraub: point where I was considering buying, like, 20 passes for a group of people, and the salesperson said that, you know, they could potentially do, like, a group sales deal for the Icon Base Pass, for the Full Icon Pass, but not the Icon Session Pass.
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Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.
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Sam Weintraub: And they just couldn’t afford to discount that pass. And I got the sense it’s just because they’re not making any money on it. And like…
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Sam Weintraub: I think, you know…
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Sam Weintraub: The thing that the Icon Session Pass gives Icon is the ability to advertise that you can get an Icon Pass for as low as… I don’t remember the exact amount, but something like $2.99 for the two-day pass.
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Stuart Winchester: Right.
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Sam Weintraub: Like, Icon can say, Icon Pass starting at $299. That is…
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:27.000
Sam Weintraub: probably something that gets some people through the door to their website. I’m not a marketing expert, but that’s something that…
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Sam Weintraub: I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s their strategy. It’s their loss leader. Um, you know how, like, tech companies have, like, the really bad, like, base product, and then the middle product that they recommend to everyone, then the top tier that almost no one gets? Like, icon session, icon base, and then full icon.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Sam Weintraub: follows that recipe almost to a T. But anyway, that in mind, I think that the Epic Day Pass is a much, much, much more compelling product. Um, unfortunately for Icon, uh.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Sam Weintraub: Epic just has the flexibility to offer these products, because they own almost all of the mountains that are on the pass. And, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Epic.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Sam Weintraub: loses money on the partner mountains that it offers the day pass for as well. And, you know, a big part of that you could kind of get a sense of is that even if you get the top-tier Epic Day Pass.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Sam Weintraub: you don’t get access to the partner resorts unless you buy at least 4 days. So, I would imagine what Epic figured out.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:05:33.000 --> 01:05:44.000
Sam Weintraub: is if, like, someone buys a Epic Day Pass, and they want to go to Telluride, they’re more likely to use all those days at Telluride if they get a lower…
01:05:44.000 --> 01:06:02.000
Sam Weintraub: number of days, and so they only want someone to, like, use their days at, like, tech, uh, like Telluride, or like those, um, you know, RCR resorts like Kicking Horse, Kimberley, uh, Fernie, if there is a high likelihood that they use them at the, uh, Vail Owns Mountains as well, where they’re likely profitable.
01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:02.000 --> 01:06:07.000
Sam Weintraub: So I think Vale just really has the economics of this.
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Sam Weintraub: down, um, but that is actually where I wanted to talk about some options that most people who.
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Sam Weintraub: are considering the Icon Session Pass probably don’t even know about. Most of the mountains that are on the Icon Session Pass are also available on like three or most, most, most commonly four packs that you can buy through the resorts.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:31.000 --> 01:06:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:49.000
Sam Weintraub: or the company that owns the resorts as well. Like, for example, and I don’t know if you have… I’m sure you’ve probably looked at the ones that Boeing offers, but, like, for example, I think you could get a 4-pack that you could use at the Northeast.
01:06:36.000 --> 01:06:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:43.000 --> 01:06:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:49.000 --> 01:07:06.000
Sam Weintraub: Boyne-owned resorts, like Loon, Sunday River, Sugarloaf. You could get a four-pack for Copper. You could get one for, I think, Winter Park. A lot of these resorts, they just have their own four-pack options, and those are gonna be much better values than the session pass options.
01:06:53.000 --> 01:06:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:07:06.000 --> 01:07:12.000
Sam Weintraub: Um, so if you’re still considering, like, going to these resorts, and you don’t want to buy an exorbitant day ticket, like.
01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:28.000
Sam Weintraub: Actually, my favorite, one of my favorites is Sugarbush, where you can buy a $99 flexible, they call it a TBD ticket. You not only get a flexible pass to use any day at Sugarbush, but you also get a comp for every one of those.
01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:36.000
Sam Weintraub: one-day passes you buy, you get a complimentary ticket after April 1st to use any day after April 1st. But anyway.
01:07:34.000 --> 01:07:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:51.000
Sam Weintraub: I just think that, like, the Icon Session Pass is a terrible product on purpose, and you can tell by the fact that you can get better deals on many Icon partners by just going to the, like, individual pass products offered by.
01:07:47.000 --> 01:07:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
01:07:51.000 --> 01:07:54.000
Sam Weintraub: many of the ICON partners themselves.
01:07:54.000 --> 01:08:09.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, what’s so funny about this, and this is just a little background for the readers, is I’ll see you tomorrow, I’m sure, at the ICON Pass media event that they host in New York City every day. So, if you’re ever wondering if Sam and I are being objective, I think you just point to this podcast and say yes.
01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:04.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes, yes.
01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:25.000
Stuart Winchester: And, and I’ve told Altera this, and I, I, I think that they could at least take their owned mountains, you know, Mammoth, Palisades, Sugarbush, Winter Park, and, and make, make a version of Icon Session. There’s unlimited on them, as they’ve done with Icon Base and the full icon. You know, Sam, you.
01:08:26.000 --> 01:08:35.000
Stuart Winchester: that… that was a really good point about the Daypacks, by the way, and I made a chart that I can’t find last year, showing that in almost every case, Altera’s owned mountains.
01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:33.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Have a four pack that’s cheaper than icon session and has no holiday blackouts. It was, it’s amazing. So you mentioned that you were trying to buy a group of 20 icon passes. You also part, a big part of peakrankings is you run trips.
01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:40.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah.
01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:41.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
01:08:51.000 --> 01:09:04.000
Stuart Winchester: And what I’ve seen from watching C clubs from afar, and I used to go, shout out to Diamond Dogs, that was my club back in the day, before I got into this and started, uh, doing different places, but the clubs have started to match.
01:09:04.000 --> 01:09:17.000
Stuart Winchester: their trip queue with a pass. So, this year, we’re doing Epic. Buy Epic, because we’re going to Vail, Heavenly, uh, and Lathree Valleys, and, you know, another group, BICOM, we’re going to Revelstoke.
01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:09.000
Sam Weintraub: Hmm.
01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Alta and, uh, you know, Aspen or something. So, do you…
01:09:22.000 --> 01:09:34.000
Stuart Winchester: How do you think about passes, and how do you see people thinking about passes in relation to the trips that you plan, and the way that that sort of influences their behavior throughout the rest of the winter?
01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:52.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, absolutely. So as you alluded to, one of the parts of running peakrankings at this point is we now run a peak house group ski trips. And so we rent out like a huge chalet and we’ll fit, you know, 10 to 20 people in there, depending on where we’re going.
01:09:52.000 --> 01:10:03.000
Sam Weintraub: But you’re absolutely on the money that the pass is a big part of how we plan these trips. So, you know, what we’re trying to do is…
01:10:03.000 --> 01:10:16.000
Sam Weintraub: we try to plan the majority of the domestic trips around a specific Pass product, because we’ve heard from our readers, our watchers, our clients, that they want to go to.
01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:32.000
Sam Weintraub: you know, a region that they can choose one pass, and they can go to all the resorts based off of that pass. Or there are, like, certain small cases, like, for example, for our Peak House Vermont trip to Sugarbush this year, enough people.
01:10:32.000 --> 01:10:46.000
Sam Weintraub: want to check out Mad River Glen, and the lift tickets are cheap enough that they still are willing to pay for one day of tickets at, like, you know, kind of a bucket list place, but in general, people will plan these, like.
01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:50.000
Sam Weintraub: to go on these trips based on what pass they get. And so…
01:10:50.000 --> 01:11:06.000
Sam Weintraub: We do a lot of research maybe like a year in advance at this point. So we released our 2027 roster, I think for the most part in March, 2026. And that was designed so that people could buy their passes.
01:11:02.000 --> 01:11:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:11:06.000 --> 01:11:25.000
Sam Weintraub: and then decide which trip they wanted to go on based off of which passes were available. So, like, if someone was planning to go on our Whistler trip, they would get the Epic Pass. If someone was planning to go on our Utah trip, they would go and probably get the Icon Full Pass, because if you don’t have the Icon Full Pass.
01:11:25.000 --> 01:11:38.000
Sam Weintraub: I’m sure your listeners know this, but it’s kind of a pain to go to the best Utah resorts if you have the Icon Base Pass, and I know we didn’t discuss it in general, but, like, also a little bit Mountain Collective.
01:11:38.000 --> 01:11:42.000
Sam Weintraub: Um, and then there was one trip that, like.
01:11:42.000 --> 01:11:56.000
Sam Weintraub: people actually requested that we do an IndyPass trip this year. So that’s why we’re doing our Indy Inland Northwest trip, where we’re going to 49 degrees north, Silver, Brundage, and Tamarack. Um, and we almost…
01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. Oh, cool.
01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.
01:11:54.000 --> 01:11:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow. That’s awesome. That’s an awesome trip.
01:11:56.000 --> 01:12:11.000
Sam Weintraub: It’s going to be sick. We had almost a little bit of a heart attack when Tamarack was announced on Icon because we were like, OK, hopefully this doesn’t mess up our plans. Also very glad that we didn’t plan IndiePass based Luton Granite Peak.
01:11:58.000 --> 01:11:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:12:03.000 --> 01:12:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:15.000
Sam Weintraub: in Snow River trip for this year, but…
01:12:14.000 --> 01:12:18.000
Stuart Winchester: You know that India’s confirmed that the Tamarack will be on India this year.
01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:27.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes, yes, yes. So that was an interesting news week, though.
01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:42.000
Sam Weintraub: yeah, basically, um, it is remarkable outside of probably, like, you know, some of the international trips, like Japan, Chile, but domestically, how much, like, you know, the past affiliation of these trips goes into what people.
01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:46.000
Sam Weintraub: want to do, and how they’ve decided what trips they want to go on.
01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it’s really interesting to see how, over time, that macro effect.
01:12:52.000 --> 01:13:08.000
Stuart Winchester: bunches people into, you know, maybe they ski a lot, and they’ve skied all over, but they never skied it like Vail, because they are always Icon Pass. You know, you mentioned Mountain Collective Center. I want to talk about Mountain Collective, and they had a media event in New York City last year, last week as well, and I love Todd, and I want to give him.
01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:07.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:13.000
Stuart Winchester: his credit here. So the Mountain Collective, I kind of think of this as what…
01:13:13.000 --> 01:13:26.000
Stuart Winchester: the icon session should be, like, the tier below icon base, because if you look, I… so on this chart, on the Encyclopedia Britannica, I put the Mountain Collective roster, and I also put.
01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:18.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, yeah.
01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:38.000
Stuart Winchester: every mountain that’s on there that’s also on Icon, so you can see the ones that are on Icon. There’s a lot of overlap. There’s only a few that are on Mountain Collective that aren’t on, uh…
01:13:38.000 --> 01:13:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Icon, and those are Sugarbush and Targhee in the U.S, and Marmot Basin in Canada, and there might be one overseas. But, uh, so if you look at this, the mountains, they do have a mountain collective.
01:13:49.000 --> 01:14:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, are the ones that are not on Icon Base. So, they have, they have Alta, they have, uh, well, Snowbird is on Icon Base, they have, but you get four days, or two days combined at the Aspen Mountains, and you get Jackson Hole, and you get also Big Sky and Taos, which are on Icon Base.
01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:54.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
01:14:06.000 --> 01:14:18.000
Stuart Winchester: you get Snow Basin, and you get, uh… Sun Valley. So you get all these, and the non-collective right now is $729. It was much cheaper, it was about $100 cheaper at its… at its core, uh…
01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Early bird price, so you have Mountain Collective, and then you have Indy, which is just phenomenal, I mean, 254 ski areas around the world, uh, that’s just Alpine, they have a bunch of cross country too, which I can’t keep track of, 2 days at each, uh, and, and the pass is ridiculously cheap, it’s not on sale right now, but.
01:14:34.000 --> 01:14:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Its last price was $419 for a pass with some blackouts, and $469 for one with no blackouts. But talk about these alternatives, Sam, because I think we live in a world where these passes are priced.
01:14:48.000 --> 01:14:57.000
Stuart Winchester: at a rate that you really can get two, right? Because you can get, I think, and I think Indian Mountain Collective pair great together.
01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:57.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, yeah.
01:14:57.000 --> 01:15:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and… and I think, you know, if you have an Epic Local or an Icon Bass, get an Indy Pass, because it’s… it’s gonna get you for less than the price of.
01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Epic or IconPass, access to all these mountains. So, just talk a little bit about these products, and, you know, interesting tidbit, IndiePass told me that their pass sales are up, they hit records. Meanwhile, Epic is going down. So, talk about these alternatives, and how you think they fit in, and it sounds like.
01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:18.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm.
01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:37.000
Stuart Winchester: people are starting to take them seriously, and I think especially Indy was dismissed for many years as having, like, mountains that weren’t worth traveling for, which we both know isn’t true. So, just talk a little bit about these alternatives, and which ones you like, and why.
01:15:32.000 --> 01:15:33.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah.
01:15:37.000 --> 01:15:42.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, for sure. I think having the two mega pass hack.
01:15:42.000 --> 01:15:56.000
Sam Weintraub: up your sleeve is a great option now. Like, having… having… especially Epic and Indy. Indy is great in a lot of regions that Epic is just completely missing. Like, the Northwest, um…
01:15:56.000 --> 01:15:59.000
Sam Weintraub: Some places abroad, like…
01:15:59.000 --> 01:16:02.000
Sam Weintraub: Indy is just a great, you know.
01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:07.000
Sam Weintraub: trick to have in your… your pocket. And… I think, in general.
01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:16:07.000 --> 01:16:13.000
Sam Weintraub: what’s great about the Indy Pass is that you can get.
01:16:13.000 --> 01:16:23.000
Sam Weintraub: like, especially if you have the Epic Local Pass and you are subject to certain blackouts, you can now get, like, the full Indy Pass for not that much more than the Indy Base Pass, which…
01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:36.000
Sam Weintraub: the Indy Base Pass has some of the worst blackout policies of any pass I’ve ever seen in my life, but it’s not that much more expensive to get the full Indy Pass at this point. I think it’s called the Indy Plus Pass. Um, so…
01:16:32.000 --> 01:16:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Yah.
01:16:34.000 --> 01:16:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:47.000
Sam Weintraub: The problem with the Indy Pass is a lot of these mountains are still pretty mediocre compared to the.
01:16:45.000 --> 01:16:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
01:16:47.000 --> 01:17:00.000
Sam Weintraub: roster on Epic Icon and Mountain Collective. Like, most of these are not going to be proper destinations, but they’re gonna be, like, good regional mountains. Obviously, the Inland Northwest is.
01:16:53.000 --> 01:16:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:16.000
Sam Weintraub: One of those exceptions, like it’s got Mount Hood Meadows. It’s Northern Vermont is an exception as well. It’s got some of the best resorts in Northern Vermont. But like one of the biggest problems with Indy is something that, you know, like it’s.
01:17:09.000 --> 01:17:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:17:16.000 --> 01:17:31.000
Sam Weintraub: affordable price tag kind of knocks out. Like, the good news is that, you know, it’s a two-day pass, uh, it’s a two-day, um, part… all of… or to rephrase it, all of the mountains on the Indy Pass are two-day partners.
01:17:31.000 --> 01:17:38.000
Sam Weintraub: But you don’t really need more than two days at most of these mountains. So it kind of works to its benefit.
01:17:38.000 --> 01:17:42.000
Sam Weintraub: The big thing that is a…
01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:47.000
Sam Weintraub: still the biggest drawback, in my opinion, about getting either the Indy Pass.
01:17:47.000 --> 01:18:03.000
Sam Weintraub: And to a lesser extent, the Mountain Collective, but I’ll go through why I say to a lesser extent in a sec for Mountain Collective. But the biggest issue with the Indy Pass is if you want to do a lazy week-long vacation anywhere, you can’t really with the Indy Pass, because it’s only two days of access to all of its partner resorts.
01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:17:52.000 --> 01:17:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
01:17:59.000 --> 01:18:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:18:03.000 --> 01:18:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:18:03.000 --> 01:18:05.000
Sam Weintraub: And I think I…
01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:21.000
Sam Weintraub: I can totally understand why the Indy Pass is getting more popular. Um, I think part of it is because they continue to add more mountains. Um, the second is, I think Eric Mogenson, who is the head of Indy Pass, is really, really good at getting attention.
01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:36.000
Sam Weintraub: Um, and I think he’s done a much better job in terms of like making it known that the Indy Pass exists and in terms of branding, like the fact that the Indy, like, I think the Indy Pass branding in the early 2020s was very, like, it’s…
01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:38.000
Sam Weintraub: Still felt like it was…
01:18:38.000 --> 01:18:48.000
Sam Weintraub: not handled… I don’t want to say professionally, but it wasn’t up to snuff with, like, Epic and Icon. These days, that gap is much, much narrower.
01:18:48.000 --> 01:19:03.000
Sam Weintraub: But yeah, I think the Indie Pass, in terms of, like, just getting so many more partners, and more people continuing to get value out of these passes, I also think that the, um, the…
01:19:03.000 --> 01:19:08.000
Sam Weintraub: Manufactured scarcity is probably…
01:19:08.000 --> 01:19:25.000
Sam Weintraub: Working to a certain extent. And the reason I say manufactured scarcity is I don’t think anyone who was following closely thought that the Indy Pass selling out in 37 minutes in the spring was actually going to be the end of the Indy Pass sales. And then when the Indy Pass went back on sale this.
01:19:20.000 --> 01:19:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
01:19:25.000 --> 01:19:27.000
Sam Weintraub: Fall, there was no, like…
01:19:27.000 --> 01:19:43.000
Sam Weintraub: you know, there was an actual deadline that was time-based rather than demand-based. So, you know, with that all being said, those are all marketing techniques. In terms of the actual quality of the IndiePass, it really comes down to.
01:19:43.000 --> 01:20:00.000
Sam Weintraub: if you want an affordable pass, and you’re willing to do, you know, some traveling to get between mountains, it is a great option. Um, like I said, the drawbacks are the fact that the mountains are just not going to be as polished for the most part, or in a lot of cases, as big. Um, and you can’t really do a week-long.
01:19:56.000 --> 01:19:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:13.000
Sam Weintraub: vacation to a lot of these places using exclusively the pass, although I believe you do get discounts on a third day, maybe, maybe more. I think it’s just the third day, though. Um, but you do get discounts on.
01:20:13.000 --> 01:20:18.000
Sam Weintraub: continuing to visit those mountains.
01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:26.000
Sam Weintraub: But yeah, the Indy Pass is great for people who road trip and want to potentially visit multiple different mountains.
01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:41.000
Stuart Winchester: So before you jump over to Mountain Collective, I want to highlight that trip you just said, because I want people to understand that if you are willing to do a little bit of hoofing, it is worth it. So 49 degrees, I think you said 49 North, Silver, Brundage, and Tamarack. Okay, awesome mountains. And let’s just…
01:20:37.000 --> 01:20:39.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah.
01:20:41.000 --> 01:20:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Statistically, look at these, okay? So, 49 North has an 1,851-foot vertical drop, has 2,200-skilled lakers, tons of glades, 301 inches of annual snowfall. Then we go up to Idaho, and Silver Mountain is owned by the same fellow.
01:20:56.000 --> 01:21:14.000
Stuart Winchester: who owns 49 North, and by the way, he put in a high-speed quad based to Summit at 49 North, they’re putting in another new lift this year, and it… it… when I talked to the GM, it doubled their skier visits, so that’s a great place. Silver, one of my favorite ski areas anywhere, 2,200 feet of vert, uh, 1,800 acres, and 328 inches annual s.
01:20:56.000 --> 01:20:58.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Silver is kind of magical because you exit the highway, you sit in the parking lot, there’s a gondola, you take it 3 miles up to the ski area, it’s like being in Europe, and then you just ski up there and there’s no one there, and it’s all fixed grip lifts, but it doesn’t really matter because the skiing is so good. Then you have.
01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:47.000
Stuart Winchester: 1,900 vertical feet, 1,900 skiable acres, 300 inches of average annual snowfall. They just put in a second high-speed quad. They’re really making moves, and they have McCall, a nice little cool ski town down there, which I’m sure you’re probably staying at. And there’s another little rope tow called, uh, or T-bar called.
01:21:41.000 --> 01:21:43.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes, yeah.
01:21:47.000 --> 01:21:52.000
Stuart Winchester: With your Indy Pass. And then, uh, obviously you have Tamarack, which…
01:21:52.000 --> 01:22:07.000
Stuart Winchester: For some reason, it’s not showing up in my chart, I’ll look into that, but that’s… I think they have 3 high-speed quads, and that’s a really great mountain, which is why Icon, I think, added it. So, that’s… you can really get a great trip out of Indy at those price points if you.
01:21:57.000 --> 01:21:58.000
Sam Weintraub: Hmm.
01:22:05.000 --> 01:22:06.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah.
01:22:07.000 --> 01:22:13.000
Stuart Winchester: if what you care about the most about skiing is skiing, so… so sorry to interrupt you, let’s jump to Mountain Collective.
01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:12.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:22:13.000 --> 01:22:20.000
Sam Weintraub: Also, on the little ski hill, I’ll see if my trip lead wants to go there, because I hadn’t even thought of that small one, but that’s…
01:22:17.000 --> 01:22:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think it’s on the… I think it’s on the Access Road to Brundage, but it’s… and it’s also on Indy, so I’m sure they.
01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:23.000
Sam Weintraub: Pretty interesting.
01:22:23.000 --> 01:22:25.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:22:28.000 --> 01:22:32.000
Stuart Winchester: And a rating from PeakRankings.
01:22:29.000 --> 01:22:32.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah.
01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:34.000
Sam Weintraub: But, okay.
01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:34.000
Stuart Winchester: I…
01:22:34.000 --> 01:22:36.000
Stuart Winchester: So, Mountain Collective.
01:22:34.000 --> 01:22:35.000
Sam Weintraub: Go ahead.
01:22:36.000 --> 01:22:45.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes. So, okay. First thing about Mountain Collective is it is just insane that given the economics of.
01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:58.000
Sam Weintraub: today’s ski companies that Mountain Collective even exists. Like, I imagine if it weren’t for a very unique set of circumstances, Icon would never allow this pass to exist. Um, like…
01:22:56.000 --> 01:22:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:22:59.000 --> 01:23:06.000
Sam Weintraub: Mountain Collective, if I remember correctly, has just been around much, much longer than the Icon Pass, right?
01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:14.000
Sam Weintraub: And so, a lot of these legacy agreements, like, the partners who are not on the Icon Base Pass.
01:23:08.000 --> 01:23:09.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s 2012.
01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:26.000
Sam Weintraub: they probably just have these agreements with… with Mountain Collective. They’ve been on Mountain Collective a lot longer than the Icon Passes even existed. Um, but with that being said, Mountain Collective is…
01:23:26.000 --> 01:23:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Hey, Sam, let me jump in there, because I want to point something out. So we went to the Mountain Collective Media event in New York City last week, right? And who was there? Boyne Resorts president, Stephen Kircher. Aspen Snowmass president, Jeff Buchheister. Longtime Snowbird head, Dave Field.
01:23:26.000 --> 01:23:28.000
Sam Weintraub: Great.
01:23:32.000 --> 01:23:34.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes.
01:23:41.000 --> 01:23:54.000
Stuart Winchester: And Alta’s Mike McGowan, who’s retiring in their new GM. When we go tomorrow, I love all these people, but it’ll be, like, their comms head and their PR people. Mountain Collective is, like, their little country club.
01:23:54.000 --> 01:24:05.000
Stuart Winchester: And as long as they keep this country club, they have some leverage over Icon. And this is my narrative, this is what I think, no one’s ever said this so much to me. But when you look at it, it’s like…
01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:01.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
01:24:05.000 --> 01:24:10.000
Stuart Winchester: yeah, you want Big Sky, you want Jackson Hole, you want Aspen… well, Aspen’s sort.
01:24:10.000 --> 01:24:25.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, owns Vaughn Collective and has a stake in ICON as well, but regardless, you see it’s like this little ICON insurance they have to say, don’t mess with us because we do have some leverage and some power here. That’s my take. Anyway, back to you.
01:24:12.000 --> 01:24:13.000
Sam Weintraub: Sure.
01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:39.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, no, I can see how you think about it that way. For all these mountains, well, actually, I just want to extend your point a little bit. With Icon, I think…
01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:24:39.000 --> 01:24:54.000
Sam Weintraub: Altera is just, like, in a situation where they want those partners more, maybe, in some circumstances than those partners want them. That might be overstating it a little bit, but, like, you know, Icon…
01:24:49.000 --> 01:24:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:24:54.000 --> 01:25:09.000
Sam Weintraub: they are being very generous with a lot of these, I think, mountains, and that’s what they’ve gotten basically every destination that is not owned by Vail onto the pass. Um, and so, like, I could totally see.
01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:25:09.000 --> 01:25:26.000
Sam Weintraub: Of, um, like kind of where you’re coming at from that perspective. Um, but it is amazing to me that there hasn’t been like some massive squabble that’s come through where Icon’s been like, hey, you have to choose between Icon or Mountain Collective.
01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:31.000
Sam Weintraub: Um, and you can’t be on both. Like, there have been some other situations like that.
01:25:28.000 --> 01:25:34.000
Stuart Winchester: In 2022, they did pull their mountains. They pulled Palisades, Mammoth, and Sugarbush, their last three.
01:25:31.000 --> 01:25:44.000
Sam Weintraub: They did. Yes, yes, yes. They did. They did pull the mountains that they own, but they didn’t force any of the ones that they didn’t own off of the mountain collective pass. And that is really interesting to me.
01:25:36.000 --> 01:25:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.
01:25:44.000 --> 01:25:48.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, basically, with Mountain Collective, what is…
01:25:48.000 --> 01:26:02.000
Sam Weintraub: really interesting about this pass is it’s another one where you do have to do some work a lot of the time to actually use it, but you get access to, like, to, like, world-class resorts, rather than Indy, which, you know.
01:26:02.000 --> 01:26:17.000
Sam Weintraub: There are some great mountains on there, but you don’t have people saving up their, you know, you don’t have people saving up to go on vacation and getting on a plane a lot of the time to go to those mountains and dreaming of them for their entire lives.
01:26:17.000 --> 01:26:25.000
Sam Weintraub: With Mountain Collective, you really do have dream resorts on here, for the most part. Um, I would say that…
01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:26:25.000 --> 01:26:38.000
Sam Weintraub: what is interesting about Mountain Collective is if you really know how to use the pass, you can absolutely just go to one place and get your money’s worth. So, for example, if you buy Mountain Collective.
01:26:38.000 --> 01:26:54.000
Sam Weintraub: well, actually, I’ll start with, if you go to certain regions, you will be at mountains that are so close to each other, like, high-quality mountains that are so close to each other, that you can basically use the pass as, like, a near-week or week-long, uh, vehicle.
01:26:54.000 --> 01:27:01.000
Sam Weintraub: for visiting them. Um, and the first case for this is… I would actually start with… with Western Canada. So…
01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:27:01.000 --> 01:27:17.000
Sam Weintraub: if you go to Banff, um, you get 2 days at Lake Louise, and you get 2 days at Banff Sunshine. What’s really interesting about Mountain Collective is the days at Lake Louise and Banff Sunshine are not shared between the two of them. If you get an Icon Pass.
01:27:17.000 --> 01:27:26.000
Sam Weintraub: The days are shared. So if you have an icon base pass, you get five days with blackouts on Lake Louise.
01:27:26.000 --> 01:27:27.000
Sam Weintraub: um…
01:27:27.000 --> 01:27:42.000
Sam Weintraub: Banff Sunshine and Mount Norquay, the third of which people probably aren’t going to as much, but you get five days between the three of them with blackouts. If you go to, if you go to that same region with the Mountain Collective, you don’t get Norquay.
01:27:42.000 --> 01:28:01.000
Sam Weintraub: which a lot of people probably will be okay with, um, but the two much better mountains, Lake Louise and Mammoth Sunshine, you get two days at both of those, and there are no blackouts, so you could also buy… I believe you get 50% off a third day at those resorts, and that’s where Mountain Collective actually becomes.
01:27:51.000 --> 01:27:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:28:01.000 --> 01:28:15.000
Sam Weintraub: a massive hack if you do your due diligence on the economics. The fact that you can get 50% off a one-day Lyft ticket, especially when those Lyft tickets can come out to over $200 in some cases, like.
01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:21.000
Sam Weintraub: You can still get a better deal by doing five days at.
01:28:21.000 --> 01:28:35.000
Sam Weintraub: you know, a resort using Mountain Collective than by getting, like, the Icon Pass, because even if you buy a one-day lift ticket to Banff and Lake Louise, despite having the.
01:28:35.000 --> 01:28:44.000
Sam Weintraub: like, despite having fewer free days or complimentary days on the IconPass, you still are… are fewer…
01:28:44.000 --> 01:28:50.000
Sam Weintraub: complimentary days than the Icon Pass, you’re still saving money, and you’re… you’re… you’re…
01:28:50.000 --> 01:28:55.000
Sam Weintraub: saving hundreds on Lyft tickets with the additional that you’re spending. And so…
01:28:55.000 --> 01:29:10.000
Sam Weintraub: there’s that, there’s also, um, Alta and Snowbird in Utah. So those two days are separate, or those two mountains are separate on Mountain Collective as well, whereas if you get the full Icon Pass, they are combined, and if you get the Icon Base Pass.
01:29:10.000 --> 01:29:27.000
Sam Weintraub: Alta access isn’t even included at all. Um, so you can basically stay in the Cottonwoods, you can do 2 days at Alta, you can do 2 days at Snowbird, and if you want to do any more, you can get 50% off the lift ticket. And then you’ll also have Snowbase nearby, if you’re staying in Salt Lake City, and you want to visit.
01:29:12.000 --> 01:29:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:29:27.000 --> 01:29:43.000
Sam Weintraub: like, more than just Alto and Snowbird. So, basically, Mountain Collective is… if you want to just, like, go to some of these mountains, and you’re willing to put in the… the math to… to get your money’s worth.
01:29:43.000 --> 01:29:52.000
Sam Weintraub: Mountain Collective, even if you end up buying some lift tickets, can be a much better deal than the icon equivalent for access to these places.
01:29:52.000 --> 01:30:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, Sam, I know you gotta run. Let’s… leave us with this. I want your opinion on the Snow Pass, because we’re both in New York Metro, and I think if you’re in New York Metro, the Snow Pass is great. And back to, you know, buying two passes. If you buy a Snow Pass or a Snow Triple Play, you can.
01:30:07.000 --> 01:30:16.000
Stuart Winchester: a mountain collective. I think that’s the math. So they have a little partnership, and so you can combine these passes, and if you look at… here’s triple play and, uh…
01:30:09.000 --> 01:30:11.000
Sam Weintraub: Mm-hmm.
01:30:16.000 --> 01:30:26.000
Stuart Winchester: and snow passes, two days each. And in New York Metro, it’s great. It’s big snow, it’s Mountain Creek, then you go up Bel Air, Gore, Whiteface. What’s your take on.
01:30:26.000 --> 01:30:43.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, so I mean, I think it’s generally good. The one thing I was going to say about Mountain Collective that I actually know anecdotally, obviously I don’t have raw numbers behind anecdotes here, but anecdotally, I know people who have decided not to get the Mountain Collective Pass.
01:30:43.000 --> 01:30:44.000
Sam Weintraub: Because it’s just…
01:30:44.000 --> 01:31:00.000
Sam Weintraub: It’s really not a good fit for people who live in like the New York City area. It’s it lacks a lot of those Vermont partners that you get with the icon pass. And so, you know, I think the snow pass.
01:30:48.000 --> 01:30:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
01:31:00.000 --> 01:31:12.000
Sam Weintraub: to a certain extent, it actually serves a lot of those resorts that the Mountain Collective Pass is very, very weak in. So, to a certain extent, I think this is a good thing. Um…
01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:15.000
Sam Weintraub: The thing…
01:31:15.000 --> 01:31:21.000
Sam Weintraub: that is good about the Snow Pass is the affordable price. Um, it is very, very affordable compared to, like.
01:31:21.000 --> 01:31:36.000
Sam Weintraub: the Icon… obviously, we’ve already talked about the Icon Session Pass, like, I’m pretty sure some versions of the Icon Session Pass are more expensive than this entire Snow Pass. Um, but, like, the thing about the Snow Pass that I’ll be looking out for is…
01:31:30.000 --> 01:31:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:36.000 --> 01:31:54.000
Sam Weintraub: do they continue to try to, like, take some of Indy’s partners? Um, I don’t see them… right now, I don’t see any Icon-affiliated… full Icon-affiliated partners on here. I see some Icon, um, bonus mountains. I think Jiminy Peak and Cranmore are on there.
01:31:50.000 --> 01:31:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Bonus. Mm-hmm.
01:31:53.000 --> 01:31:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:31:54.000 --> 01:31:58.000
Sam Weintraub: Um, but are they… are they on the snow pass, or just triple play?
01:31:57.000 --> 01:32:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Just triple play. Yep. But Butternut is on, uh, is a bonus mountain and on Snowpass. Where’s Butternut?
01:31:58.000 --> 01:32:00.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah.
01:32:03.000 --> 01:32:18.000
Sam Weintraub: Okay, yeah. So I think what’s gonna be interesting is… and I’ll just leave you with this. What’s gonna be interesting is seeing, um, how the Snowpass continues to evolve. Um, if they can… if they can, like, take some partners from Indy.
01:32:18.000 --> 01:32:34.000
Sam Weintraub: That will be fascinating because Indy is in a situation right now where they seem to have a monopoly on non like Epic or Icon affiliated resorts. But we’re already seeing a bit of a turf war with Snow King. And I know you had.
01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:32:34.000 --> 01:32:51.000
Sam Weintraub: um, you know, someone from Snow King on your podcast, and it sounds like, from that perspective, that could either be an anomaly, or that could be a harbinger of things to come. Um, I get the sense there are some partners with Indy who are not the most.
01:32:52.000 --> 01:32:57.000
Sam Weintraub: you know, pleased with how certain things have gone. Um, if…
01:32:57.000 --> 01:33:05.000
Sam Weintraub: Snowpass ends up adding, like, Cabar Fay Peaks or Mission Ridge in the coming years, that would be a really interesting development.
01:33:04.000 --> 01:33:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. All right, Sam, I could do this all day, but I know you got to run. So I will see. I’ll see you a bunch of times this week, I’m sure. So thank you so much for doing this last minute. I really appreciate your insight. Tell people how to.
01:33:09.000 --> 01:33:11.000
Sam Weintraub: Yeah, yeah.
01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:27.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes, you can go to peakrankings.com or you can find us on YouTube at PeakRankings or you can find us on Instagram or TikTok also at the handle PeakRankings.
01:33:27.000 --> 01:33:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Right on. Alright, let’s do this again soon, Sam. That was a lot.
01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:33.000
Sam Weintraub: Yes. Thanks so much, Stu. Take care. Bye.
01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:33.000
Stuart Winchester: All right. Take care. Bye.
01:33:36.000 --> 01:33:38.000
Stuart Winchester: All right.
01:33:38.000 --> 01:33:43.000
Stuart Winchester: That was Sam Weintraub, founder of PeakRankings. Sam’s a good dude.
01:33:43.000 --> 01:33:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, Sam and I started our deals, I know we didn’t really get into peakrankings, but Sam and I started in the same year, uh, although he might have started actually…
01:33:53.000 --> 01:34:08.000
Stuart Winchester: I think it was right… it was either right before COVID or during… we’ll get the story from him. So, let’s do a little, uh, reader react today, since I didn’t do it yesterday, because I was rushing between podcasts. So, let’s get some react first to…
01:34:08.000 --> 01:34:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Jay Doherty, the general manager of Mount Southington, Connecticut, who was on the podcast last Friday. Michael Bernstein says, Stu, thank you so much for finally covering Connecticut and pronouncing Southington correctly.
01:34:23.000 --> 01:34:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Still annoyed you dissed on Connecticut Pizza a few weeks ago.
01:34:28.000 --> 01:34:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, man. Oh, yeah, I’m gonna pause right there. So, I… the pizza thing. All right, I grew up in the Midwest, and that’s where Domino’s and Little Caesars are based.
01:34:38.000 --> 01:34:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And so to me, pizza is like thicker, thick crust, a little smaller.
01:34:44.000 --> 01:34:52.000
Stuart Winchester: So I moved to New York in 2002. I’ve been here a long time, okay? And everyone’s like, oh, New York pizza, New York pizza, and I’m like.
01:34:52.000 --> 01:34:58.000
Stuart Winchester: it’s, like, 1mm thick, and it’s awkward to pick up, and it’s, like, I don’t like doing the weird sandw.
01:34:58.000 --> 01:35:14.000
Stuart Winchester: And also, when you get New York pizza, you go in to these pizza places, and it’s been sitting under a heat lamp for, like, 4 hours, and then they put it in to heat it up in the oven. I just think the whole thing is a little overhyped, but just so you know, my wife…
01:35:14.000 --> 01:35:29.000
Stuart Winchester: who is a native New Yorker, calls Little Caesars, or I’m sorry, Domino’s, which I order sometimes with my son, because my kids like it. She calls it not pizza. So, uh, don’t worry, I am… I am reminded every time I mention pizza, Michael, that.
01:35:29.000 --> 01:35:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, that my take is… is an outlier. So, continuing… He’s mad that I dissed on Connecticut Pizza. I know you just do, quote, lift-served skiing, but Southington’s weeknight racing is huge for the ski industry.
01:35:41.000 --> 01:35:57.000
Stuart Winchester: CISL, which is the Connecticut High School League, is great for skiing. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, they race close to 300 kids on an almost roller derby style four wide course. It’s worth seeing. None of these kids will be FIS racers or even race D1 in college.
01:35:57.000 --> 01:36:15.000
Stuart Winchester: These kids race because they get to ski after school, ski with friends, but most importantly, they’re the next generation of skiers to get their kids skiing, love the storm, rep Connecticut more. Michael, I will, I appreciate your support of the storm, in spite of my bad pizza takes.
01:36:15.000 --> 01:36:31.000
Stuart Winchester: And I will. I do plan to cover Connecticut more. I’ve skied at all the ski areas there. I just… the first connection I could make was with Jay. So I’ll do my best to connect with the rest of them. Rick Payer, longtime supporter of the Storm. Coverage of small New England area. I love it.
01:36:31.000 --> 01:36:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Thank you, Rick. Thank you for being a paid subscriber to the Storm Skiing Journal and podcast. Let’s take a look at the reaction to…
01:36:38.000 --> 01:36:47.000
Stuart Winchester: my podcast with Holiday Valley’s chairlift, or Holiday Valley’s Dennis Eshbaugh, he’s a good friend of the storm. Allison says.
01:36:47.000 --> 01:37:02.000
Stuart Winchester: And I published this one on Saturday. And by the way, I’m reading comments from the article that accompanies these on stormskiing.com. Allison says, our ski group in Cleveland makes it up to Holiday Valley at least two to three times a year for day trips. We always have a good time.
01:37:02.000 --> 01:37:16.000
Stuart Winchester: While not on any ski passes, HV also has a great deal where you get two free lift tickets if you book a midweek night at their in-property. Their group lift rates are very, also very reasonable, and another way to get around paying full price.
01:37:16.000 --> 01:37:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Thank you, Allison. Thank you for being a paid supporter of the Storm Skiing Journal podcast. I’m wondering what you think of my hoodie, you know, in your Cleveland.
01:37:25.000 --> 01:37:28.000
Stuart Winchester: I know I’m unnecessarily alienating a state of, like.
01:37:29.000 --> 01:37:44.000
Stuart Winchester: 15 million people with my, uh, Michigan decor. All right, but thank you, Allison. That’s, uh… it’s good to hear the Cleveland folks getting up to Holiday Valley. River Rogue says, Stuart, Dennis Eshbaugh is an impressive guy. We need more like him. Couldn’t agree more.
01:37:44.000 --> 01:37:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Taugenberg sadly sits and rots. Ugh. Any updates you have would be greatly appreciated. I also drive by the carcass of Four Seasons. Visually, it looks like the ski hill is a small percentage of the property and might increase the value of residential development.
01:37:58.000 --> 01:38:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Liability might be a major factor in not reopening. Microsoft is building the largest chip fab in the country in the flatland north of Syracuse and bringing in many related businesses. This could inject a lot of money into the Syracuse areas that haven’t seen expansion in decades.
01:38:13.000 --> 01:38:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Perhaps someone will see opportunity and value in Toggenberg, but I suspect it’s being strangled in the legal battle with New York State.
01:38:21.000 --> 01:38:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Ironically, the Lab Song Group has achieved its goal of buying TOG to shut it down. The opposite to how Dennis Eshbaugh operates.
01:38:29.000 --> 01:38:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Currently, I’m recovering from a nasty viral illness that caused a syncopal episode. Oh, man, I get those. And during a 2AM nature call, it may keep me from skiing this season.
01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:56.000
Stuart Winchester: I hope not. Now, the kudos, you’re the only source of scary news that is trustworthy and incredibly comprehensive. I started reading you when you launched and prospered with the addition of the paywall and became a successful business. I wish you all the best and keep the articles coming. Dick Cavey, Cazenovia, New York, as a really nice and thorough comment.
01:38:56.000 --> 01:39:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, there, Dick, and I have a lot of thoughts on that. First, thank you for your kind words on the storm. I appreciate your support for a long, long time. The, the, in case you’re not tuned into this, what he’s referring to with Toggenberg is there are three ski areas.
01:39:13.000 --> 01:39:25.000
Stuart Winchester: along the interstate corridor south of Syracuse that are substantial skiers. There’s a bunch of little ski areas scattered around that have surface lifts, but the three substantial ones were Toggenberg, Song, and Labrador.
01:39:25.000 --> 01:39:27.000
Stuart Winchester: And in 2021.
01:39:27.000 --> 01:39:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, the fellow who owns Song and Labrador bought Toggenberg and shut it down.
01:39:33.000 --> 01:39:40.000
Stuart Winchester: And New York State, the Attorney General, has been… filed an antitrust…
01:39:40.000 --> 01:39:44.000
Stuart Winchester: sued against… I’m not using the legal terms right, but they… they sued them for antitrust.
01:39:44.000 --> 01:39:46.000
Stuart Winchester: He’s fighting it.
01:39:46.000 --> 01:40:00.000
Stuart Winchester: To us, Lab and Song are fighting it. But basically, New York State’s case was, it’s anti-competitive behavior to buy a ski area, buy one of your competitors, and intentionally shut it down. Which I agree with, and…
01:40:00.000 --> 01:40:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Laban Song’s argument was, okay, there’s not enough.
01:40:03.000 --> 01:40:17.000
Stuart Winchester: room for three ski areas in central New York. Greek Peak is also a little ways more down the highway, and Greek Peak had owned Taugenberg as the one who sold it to Lab and Song. So, now you have a situation where.
01:40:17.000 --> 01:40:19.000
Stuart Winchester: You have live and song.
01:40:19.000 --> 01:40:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, you know, their competitor, Taugenberg, has been shut down for 5 years. I don’t… I’m not aware of super substantial investments that have been made at Lab & Song, which was sort of implied.
01:40:30.000 --> 01:40:31.000
Stuart Winchester: When…
01:40:31.000 --> 01:40:44.000
Stuart Winchester: TOG was shut down. Okay, you know, with more money coming into these other sea areas, we’ll be able to invest in them more. Uh, I’ve always found the argument extremely suspect, and the bad part about TOG is…
01:40:44.000 --> 01:40:56.000
Stuart Winchester: is Peter Harris, the fellow who owns, uh, Lab and Song and Tog. He, uh, he stripped all the snowmaking equipment off, as far as I understand. Uh, the lifts are still there. I doubt they’ve been maintained.
01:40:56.000 --> 01:40:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, the lodge is still there, it’s, it’s, you.
01:40:59.000 --> 01:41:11.000
Stuart Winchester: it’s been gutted. So, yeah, it’s really sad. Four Seasons is a little bit different thing. I think that the reason that worked is because that was on inherited property, and he was dealing with.
01:41:11.000 --> 01:41:18.000
Stuart Winchester: I wrote an article on this last year. Four Seasons was a small scare, one of the smallest chairlifts in the country, it was, like, 100 vertical feet.
01:41:18.000 --> 01:41:20.000
Stuart Winchester: And it was really fun, it was really neat.
01:41:20.000 --> 01:41:38.000
Stuart Winchester: But he only did 10, 000 skier visits a year. He was telling me his insurance was 50 grand. So, so do the math. That’s 5 a skier at a place that charges like 15, 20 bucks for a lift ticket and, you know, offers really affordable season passes. So, uh, the longtime owner who had inherited the land.
01:41:38.000 --> 01:41:47.000
Stuart Winchester: shut it down last year, and he’s selling it to developers, and the lift is listed for sale. Oh, and actually, I have some…
01:41:47.000 --> 01:42:02.000
Stuart Winchester: some other feedback. There’s someone who had wrote that they want to buy Four Seasons lifts for $69,000, and he wanted to put it up in his backyard. And here’s what’s really cool about… about these reiterations, is that, uh…
01:42:02.000 --> 01:42:08.000
Stuart Winchester: The people who listen to this, a lot of scary people listen to this. So I got this text.
01:42:09.000 --> 01:42:13.000
Stuart Winchester: From Laszlo Veta.
01:42:13.000 --> 01:42:14.000
Stuart Winchester: And Laszlo…
01:42:14.000 --> 01:42:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Laszlo is the owner of Platykill, and he texted me after that crazy dude in Virginia who asked if he should buy this lift and install it and how much it would cost. I had no idea. Laszlo says in a text to me after that, he said, just listen to your podcast.
01:42:30.000 --> 01:42:46.000
Stuart Winchester: They can install that lift for about $250K. It’s small, and it’s been maintained. We installed our own haul double purchased from Bel Air State Auction. It can be done if you stay the course. Not sure how a private ski area in a backyard fits regulations.
01:42:46.000 --> 01:43:04.000
Stuart Winchester: But I bet pretty minimal. Public ski areas are regulated because they are public people movers. If that lift was long enough to fit our mountain, it could be put up, put in for 1 million if we did it all ourselves. But in fact, our lift took four years to rehab and install. It is 15 towers, 200 horsepower, and 3, 300 feet long. He’s talking about the double chair at Platykill.
01:43:04.000 --> 01:43:16.000
Stuart Winchester: one of my favorite chairlifts anywhere, it’s an old hall double from, uh, from Bel Air, but the lift he was talking about that was at Four Seasons is… it actually started out life.
01:43:16.000 --> 01:43:18.000
Stuart Winchester: At Holiday Valley, New York.
01:43:18.000 --> 01:43:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And I talked about this with Dennis Eshbaugh.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, when he came on the podcast, because he sold that Lyft to them. So, that Lyft…
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Stuart Winchester: the Four Seasons bought it in 2004. It was a Borvig double that had been at Holiday Valley for many years as well. So, it was… it was really cool to see.
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Stuart Winchester: you know, that that lift might have a third life, and a bunch of the lifts that started at Holiday Valley have had third lifes, and the article that accompanies Dennis H. Spall’s podcast on stormskiing.com includes a breakdown of all those. Alright, that will be our show for today.
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Stuart Winchester: This week is a little weird. I’m not sure if I’m gonna get another show to you, because I have a lot of appointments and events.
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Stuart Winchester: but I’ll see what I can do. If nothing else, I got some really, really good stuff coming for you next week. I don’t want to jinx it, so I’m gonna… I’m gonna keep those names to myself for the moment, but…
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Stuart Winchester: I…
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Stuart Winchester: Please go to stormskiing.com, subscribe to the Storm Skiing newsletter that will get you everything that the Storm publishes, podcasts and written content as soon as it is out. It takes a little while for the pods to publish to the various podcast services, but they’re available right away at stormskiing.com.
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Stuart Winchester: The very best way to support my mission of independent ski journalism is to upgrade to a paid subscription at stormskiing.com that will give you everything below the paywall and the ability to interact with the podcast, uh, as those fellows just did, uh, I’m sorry, fellows and gals just did.
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Stuart Winchester: in the comments section in, uh, on the article that accompanies those on StormScan.com.
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Stuart Winchester: You can also get a Storm shirt, hoodie, or hat at stormskiing.myshopify.com. I know we need a better URL, we’re working on it. Please follow the Storm on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok at stormskijournal.
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Stuart Winchester: Until next time, stay well, stay safe. I am Stuart Winchester, and I will talk to you again very soon.
