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Another monster has landed.
I don’t know how many ski areas the size of Venus there are in Europe, or how many plan to join the Ikon Pass, but the answer to that Jeopardy question appears to be “what are a fuckton?”
The latest improbably large ski area from this improbably small country (is there any land in Switzerland that is not dedicated to skiing?) to join Ikon is St. Moritz. Which, like most Euroski facilities is not one ski area but like nine or possibly 13 (Corviglia/Piz Nair, Corvatsch/Furtschellas, Diavolezza/Lagalb, Pontresina/Languard, Zuoz, Samedan, La Punt, Maloja, and S-Chanf), depending on how you count them. The total skiable acreage is a mystery, since Euros measure ski terrain in kilometers, a meaningless metric to my dumb American brain (Ikon’s website says 190 acres, but that’s, like, the size of Butternut and can’t possibly be correct). The number of lifts is uncountable, even though they are itemized right here on these trailmaps (Ikon’s website says there are 58). All I can really say is wow that’s a lot of skiing:
Pontresina/Languard, Zuoz, Samedan, La Punt, Maloja, and S-chanf are all teeny-tiny, like putting Brattleboro ski hill alongside a Killington trailmap. I’ve included their maps, which are all rather delightful, below the paywall.
All of those ski areas – however many they are – will join the Ikon Pass as a single “destination” for the 2024-25 ski season. Ikon Pass holders will have seven days to use between them; Base Pass holders will have five days with no blackouts; Ikon Session Pass holders can keep moving because their crappy product won’t work in these here hills. Here is Ikon Pass’ 2024-25 lineup with the addition of St. Moritz (Alterra has noted that Arapahoe Basin access may change once they take ownership of the mountain later this year):
Ikon’s addition of St. Moritz is the latest in a surge of European and Swiss ski areas to join a U.S.-based multimountain pass. The news follows Vail Resort’s planned acquisition of Crans-Montana announced in December, and comes just after Andermatt-Sedrun (which Vail already majority owns), Managing Director Mike Goar teased the company’s potential acquisition of the monster Verbier ski resort. St. Moritz is Ikon’s second Swiss destination (along with Zermatt), and sixth in Europe overall (joining Grandvalira, Andorra; Kitzbühel, Austria; Chamonix, France; and Dolomiti Superski, Italy, each of which contains between three and 12 individual ski areas).
St. Moritz is the first new Ikon Pass partner since Camelback and Blue Mountain, Pennsylvania joined the coalition last September (Arapahoe Basin, which Alterra announced in February it would purchase, has been on the Ikon Pass since 2019).
Alterra also announced today that tier one prices will increase by up to $110 on April 18. Here are current Ikon Pass rates:
Here’s a bit more about this new Ikon destination, and what its addition means for passholders, for the world of U.S.-based multimountain passes, and for European and North American skiing in general:
Source link : https://www.stormskiing.com/p/st-moritz-switzerland-joins-ikon
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Publish date : 2024-04-04 07:00:00
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