Why Mountain Collective Remains Un-Killable
Aspen's O.G. is more than a blackout-free Ikon Junior | 2024-25 season preview, part 5
On a springtime evening a dozen years ago, Aspen, Jackson Hole, Alta, and the ski area then known as Squaw Valley gathered with clutched beers in a Cooper Avenue basement bar. Above town, the dying Ajax snowpack, browning and thin, splintering like a snowy Pangea in the lengthening days, mirrored their collective mood.
“What are we gonna do about this Vail character?” said Aspen, his beer standing untouched on the reclaimed spool table before them.
“Yeah, and that stupid Epic Pass?” said Jackson, tugging on his “I look better shirtless” T-shirt.
“Five years ago, their season pass cost like two grands,” said Squaw. “Now it’s like 650 bucks, and that’s including my buddy Heavenly, and they just bought my pal Kirkwood. Northstar too.”
“I thought you and Heavenly were on the outs?” asked Alta.
“Nah, nah, we squashed that,” said Squaw. “Made them stop bragging about being in two states. Now we gotta squash this Vail Apricot Pass or whatever you calls it.”
“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do,” said Aspen. “We’re gonna all gang up on our own pass.”
“Like a season pass?” asked Jackson.
“No, no, we’ll just give ‘em two days at the each of us.”
“And a bunch of mountains, right, like how you have your choice of Vail or Breck or Beaver Creek or Keystone or all those Tahoe joints on Epic?” asked Alta.
“Nah, just the fours of us.”
“So it will be like, a lot less expensive than the Epic Pass, right?” asked Squaw.
“Nah, nah, I’m thinking we set the price at like 349 bucks.”
The foursome clinked bottles and drank themselves into the Fourth of July, so pleased were they with their brilliant plan: Eight days of skiing at four ski areas that sat a minimum of five hours apart. That oughta show ‘em. How could an unlimited Epic Pass that covered four of Colorado’s largest ski areas and three of the five largest resorts around Tahoe possibly compete with this genius product?
I guess it was a start, but had The Storm existed at that time, I would’ve said some version of “that’s cute, but until you come up with something that convinces suburban families from Minneapolis to buy your pass and travel across the country to use it, you’re still just a novelty act.”
The Mountain Collective should’ve died many times since. It should’ve died after Whistler and Stowe left for Epic in 2017. It should’ve died when the Ikon Pass debuted with far more access to most of the same mountains and a whole bunch of others in 2018. It should’ve died when Alterra said “enough already with this stupid thing” and pulled Mammoth and Palisades and Sugarbush off in 2022.
But the Mountain Collective didn’t die, because the Mountain Collective can’t be killed.
Yesterday’s post characterized the Ikon Pass as the dinosaur king of skiing, the unquestionable supreme species of its time. Mountain Collective, then, is the shark. Stealthy, strong, moving ever-forward. The big dinosaurs all got roasted by Chicxulub 66 million years ago. Upon impact, sharks, already 124 million years strong, peered up at the flying magma and mile-high tsunamis roaring toward shore and said, “Eh. When’s lunch?”
The sharks are still here today. And they all have Mountain Collective passes (the breakage is huge), because survivors know survivors when they see them, and survivors stick together.
When the first Ikon Base Pass dropped with five days or more of access to 49 partner mountains for $599 in 2018, Mountain Collective cost $409 and delivered access to just 23 ski areas, 21 of which were members of both passes. Mountain Collective lacked blackouts, but the full Ikon Pass ran just $899 early-bird that first season. The Mountain-Collective-is-about-to-get-got narratives saturated the Talkosphere (sometimes referred to as “social media”). But six years later, Mountain Collective delivers access to more ski areas than ever (32):
How did this happen? How did Ikon Junior survive? How, in spite of losing Whistler, Mammoth, Palisades, Telluride, Stowe, Sugarbush, and, at one time, Snowbasin and Sun Valley, did this quirky little frequency product keep from shriveling beneath the shockwaves of colliding Epic and Ikon passes, even as Mountain Collective has raised prices every year?
In short: strategic and opportunistic partner additions in previously under-represented regions such as B.C., Quebec, and Europe; a serendipitous devaluing of the Ikon Base Pass as it shed or failed to land Collective mainstays Alta, Jackson, Aspen, Sun Valley, and Snowbasin; a tight-knit group of mountain leaders who enjoy assembling three times per year outside of the Ikon microscope; and an ever-growing price gap between Ikon and MC:
This year, Mountain Collective added Sunday River, Maine; Megève, France; and Bromont, Quebec. The pass hangs on, for now, to Alterra’s newly acquired Arapahoe Basin. No partners left after Thredbo, Australia quietly exited last year. Some compelling potential partners are swinging into orbit. Absent an Alterra ultimatum for its partners to choose Mountain Collective or Ikon, this shark is likely to keep swimming for many more years. Here’s a look at what’s changed with Mountain Collective headed into season 13, where the pass could expand next, and why this remains a fantastic arrow in the traveling ski quiver.