Next season’s Epic Passes on sale, and Stowe is on board

Priced at $859 for next year, the full Epic Pass allows unlimited skiing and riding at all Vail-owned resorts: Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado; Park City in Utah; Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood at Lake Tahoe; Afton Alps in Minnesota; Mt. Brighton in Michigan; Wilmot Mountain in Wisconsin; Whistler Blackcomb in Canada; and Perisher in Australia.

The Epic Pass also allows limited access to Arlberg in Austria; Les 3 Vallées, Paradiski and Tignes-Val D’Isere in France; Skirama Dolomiti in Italy and 4 Vallées in Switzerland.

A child Epic Pass is $449.

If you buy an Epic Pass before April 9, you get six “buddy tickets” automatically loaded onto your pass, for friends and family to use.

Blaise Carrig, Vail Resorts’ senior adviser, told the Stowe Reporter in February that Stowe would join the Epic Pass family. He chuckled at skepticism from locals accustomed to paying roughly $2,000 for season’s pass that, next year, they’d be able to pay less than half that, and have access to some of the most storied resorts in North America, as well as their hometown resort.

Carrig said it’s just part of Vail’s business model, and having new resorts like Whistler and Stowe join the fold have no impact on the Epic Pass price. Stowe day ticket prices, now upward of $120, aren’t likely to come down, though.

“The resorts we’ve acquired, we go in and institute the Epic Pass, and get rid of theirs,” he said. “We sell the Epic Pass everywhere. We have them in all 50 states and something like 90 countries.”

Kirsten Lynch, chief marketing officer of Vail Resorts, added, with the addition of Whistler and Stowe, “the Epic Pass now provides our guests with true worldwide access that includes 45 iconic resorts, including coast-to-coast skiing in North America.”

In addition to the full-fledged $859 pass, there are other options. The $639 Epic Local Pass allows unlimited access to Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapahoe Basin with limited restrictions at Park City, Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood, plus a total of 10 days at Vail, Beaver Creek, Stowe and Whistler Blackcomb, with holiday restrictions.

The child version is $339.

The Epic 4-Day includes a total of four unrestricted days valid at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, Whistler Blackcomb, Park City, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood, Arapahoe Basin and Stowe, plus four free days at Afton Alps, Mt. Brighton or Wilmot Mountain. The four-day pass is $419 for adults and $229 for children.