Is this the Best North East Ski Pass Combo for 2022/2023?

Hey everyone, welcome to the show. I know it's rare to see me not on the mountain. Well, there are a couple of skis in the background, but anyway, in this video, I want to give you what I think is the best multi-resort season pass combination for this coming 2022, 2023 season in the Northeast. Okay, this is specific to the Northeast and this will work especially well if you live in the New York City metro area, which is New York City and the surrounding counties and cities in New York and New Jersey. So like Westchester County or Newark in New Jersey, et cetera, it has a population of 20 million people. So it is a huge population center here in the Northeast. So that's 20 million people that could potentially get a lot of value out of what I'm about to show you. And you're going to get even more value out of this if your schedule allows you to ski or ride on weekdays. But first of all, if you're not subscribed to this channel, do subscribe because we're going to be skiing every week this season and putting out videos. And we got myself, Jake, who you know, and also Jan, a new member of the team, although you saw him in a few videos last season. But anyway, he's from Europe. He had instructors that beat perfect technique into him. So he'll be doing some of our tutorial videos and stuff. So do look out for some awesome videos coming this season and you need to be subscribed to see them. So this is the Epic Northeast Midweek Pass. This costs $410. I actually got it for a little bit cheaper because I bought it earlier in the season. Now, if you can't ski on weekdays, you can alternatively go for the Epic Northeast Value Pass. That's $545. And that gives you weekends as well as weekdays. Now, these passes give you access to 21 resorts in the Northeast. And most notable are these four, Mount Snow, Vermont, Akimo, Vermont, Stowe, Vermont, and Hunter, New York. Now, Mount Snow is significant because it is the closest Vermont resort to New York City. In my opinion, it isn't my favorite because there are a lot of blue runs and not that many blacks. And the blacks that they do have only run half the height of the mountain on the north face, but it is a fun mountain with a good atmosphere, even if it isn't the most difficult. And if you like park, they have extensive parks at Mount Snow. Then we have Akimo. This is a great mountain for its glades and its difficult trails. It's comparable in size with Mount Snow and it has three peaks. It's quite far up into Vermont, so you see less of the NYC crowd here, but it is well worth a trip. Now, Stowe is another one that is pretty famous. Sorry, I don't have any footage because I've never been there before, but it is way up into Vermont. It's actually over five and a half hours from New York City, so maybe this is a once per season kind of deal. Then finally, we have Hunter Mountain, and this is one of the three Catskills Ski Resorts, which are the closest resorts to New York City. You've got Hunter, Bel Air, and Wyndham. And it is less than two and a half hours from the city. It's a bit smaller than resorts you'd find in Vermont, but definitely enough there for a day's skiing, especially if you get good conditions. Now, an alternative to the Epic Pass is the Icon Pass, which gets you access to 48 different resorts across America and actually some internationally as well. However, it costs $869 for just the Icon Base Pass because they don't have a specific Northeast version, so you're forced to buy the entire pass. Now, probably that's not gonna work for most people, but I'll show you what's on offer from the Icon Pass. There are, again, like the Epic Pass, four notable resorts in the Northeast, and they are Killington, Stratton, Sugarbush, and Wyndham. Now, Killington, known as The Beast, is probably the best ski resort in the Northeast, in my opinion. So even though I got the Epic Pass, I will definitely go there at least once in the season and just buy a day pass. The other resorts don't really stand out that much, though. So Stratton competes, I guess, kind of with Akimo. It's kind of near there and sort of similar, similar size. Although personally, I would say Stratton probably isn't as good as Akimo. Sugarbush, kind of like Stowe, it's way up there in the North of New York, very close to Canada, probably like a once-per-season kind of deal if you live down near New York City. And Wyndham competes with Hunter as one of the closest options to New York City. And to be honest, I probably like Wyndham a little bit more than Hunter, although it could be just because I've had better conditions when I've gone there, but who knows? So unless you think you're gonna be going to Killington like five or 10 times this season, the Epic Northeast Pass is gonna be a better deal, and especially if you can ski on weekdays, because that's $135 cheaper than the just regular Epic Northeast Pass, and then it would make it half the price of the Icon Pass. But I did say that this was a two-part system, and that is because there is another little-known pass that can deliver you some great value at three resorts in New York State, and that is the Ski 3 Frequent Skier Card. Now, don't get confused with Ski Big 3, okay, that's something up in Canada. It's like Banff, Lake Louise, and Mount Nauke or something. I'm probably butchering that pronunciation. But no, Ski 3 is for three resorts in New York State that are all owned by the Olympic Regional Development Authority. They are Whiteface Mountain, Gore Mountain, and Bel Air Mountain. Now, Whiteface is the biggest, and it also has the longest vertical drop of any resort in the USA east of the Rockies. It's also where the 1980 Winter Olympics were held, and it is the furthest from New York City at about four hours, 40 minutes from the city. Then we have Gore Mountain, which is the size of some of the more medium-sized mountains in Vermont, like, say, Okemo. It has some interesting terrain. I've only been here once early in the season, so none of the glades were ready yet, not enough snow. So really only half the mountain was open when I went, so I'd really like to go back and check it out. And I was with my daughter last time, so I'd like to go back with the bros and ski some of the harder runs. And this one is sort of in the middle of these three, so it's about three hours, 50 minutes from New York City. It's pretty close to Lake George. In fact, if you go here, you wanna stay in a hotel, you can stay in hotels by Lake George. That's pretty convenient. And then we have Bel-Air, which, like I said before, is one of the three Catskills Mountains. So along with Hunter and Wyndham, it is the closest to New York City. But from what I've observed, it doesn't get as busy as the other two because once you get off the highway, you actually have to drive quite a bit further on country roads to get to Bel-Air if you're coming from the city. So most people from the city seem to just stop at either Hunter or Wyndham and don't go all the way on to Bel-Air. But it does have some good trails and it's also heavily wooded, so you get some really good woodland glades in between the trails. It can be really great, especially if you've got fresh snow. Now, you could get a Ski 3 Season Pass, but that would cost over $900. Not cost-effective, especially if you're already buying the Epic Midweek Pass. Remember, we're trying to go for the biggest variety of resorts that we can here. So what you can do instead is just pick up a Ski 3 Frequent Skier card at the beginning of the season for $59 and you then get half price midweek passes and 25% off weekend tickets. That means that if you buy this for $59, as soon as you ski just one weekday at half price, you've pretty much almost made your money back and the next time you ski, you will be in profit. So these two passes together cover you for seven of the best mountains in the Northeast. Four with pretty much unlimited access and three with half price off weekdays, 25% off at weekends. The standard window rate at Gore Mountain is $109, so you would be getting that half price on a weekday at $54.50. So that is my combination of passes for the upcoming 2022-2023 season. It's gonna cost you $469 at the beginning of the season if you buy it now. Longer you wait, the more expensive it gets, although on Black Friday, they normally have some deals as well. Let's say I ski five days at the Ski 3 Mountains, that's $275. We then add that on to the cost and that works out at $744 total, which is still $100 cheaper than the Icon Base Pass and it gets you access to seven of the best mountains instead of just four of the best mountains. But guys, all of this is subjective. It depends on whether you can ski midweek or you have to ski on weekends and holidays and also whether you only want to go to the very biggest and best resorts or whether you're actually happy to settle for something smaller, closer to home, et cetera. So it's very subjective. There's gonna be a lot of different opinions. Also, one big caveat of the Epic Pass is that it's owned by Vail Resorts and most of the resorts on the pass are owned and operated by Vail. Maybe they all are, actually, no, maybe not. I don't know, but all of the big ones certainly are. And Vail Resorts, they've got a bit of a reputation. Some people say they actually buy ski resorts and then ruin them. Personally, I don't think it's that bad, but I would prefer to not go to Vail Resorts, to be honest, and go to the more independent ones like Killington, et cetera. However, the price is just too good, guys. I'm sorry, I had to succumb to it. So let me know what you think in the comments below. Look out for new videos coming out every week. Our entire three-man team has this combination of passes, so we will be skiing at those seven resorts primarily this season. Look out for new videos. And if you're watching this, you are Generation Snow.