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Epic race - life time pass

35K views 339 replies 54 participants last post by  2hellnbak 
#1 ·
#3 ·
By the time you pay for travel and lodging, you've spent 20 years of epic passes already. Probably more.

That would drive me crazy, because if I paid to visit each mountain, I would want to stay for a few days at least... Now you have to worry that 10 others are doing 1 mountain per day...
 
#6 ·
By the time you pay for travel and lodging, you've spent 20 years of epic passes already. Probably more.
Fuck lodging! If one town has one resort only, fly/bus in and out the same day, take the redeye to the next resort. Stay in hostels. The key would be getting to resorts on their opening days.

I wish the resorts in AB/BC did something like this for the Rocky Mountain Passport. I'd be on that shit!
 
#10 ·
We'll it will be 3 of us. $1050/ticket/ea to Zurich. 10 days with a rental VAN and sleeping bags $700. The resorts are covered on epic pass so no lift tickets. For about $50/day eating poor, I'm gonna budget $1000 for food. That's under $5000. Right now I pay $2070/ year for my passes.

In 3 years I'll more than pay for the trip and have many more years of epic passes ahead of me for 3 people. Plus I get the fun of the trip and experience of the euro riding.

Should be fun.
 
#12 ·
If you really end up doing this you gotta keep us updated. :eusa_clap: :thumbsup:

If it were me, I'd be hella nervous about spending $5K on a very rushed tour of 26 mountains. With all the thousands upon thousands of people getting the Epic Pass there has to be more than 10 people going to try to hit every opening day, so at that point it's anyones game.
 
#11 ·
We will miss a couple of competitions in early December but fuck it.

Park city is 6.5 hours away. Tahoe is like 14. I can hit those all in a 6 day round trip from here.

Michigan is a shit drive of like 20 hours.

Breck, keystone, abasin, BC.... Easy.

Eldora is the one I'm really looking forward to.
 
#13 ·
I think I may wait and see where the race is at in mid December. By that point I should have all the US mtns covered. We have trips to Tahoe and park city planned already in early dec. if no one has done it yet, I'm buying tickets to the closest/cheapest airport in Europe for 3.
 
#20 ·
I don't think this is true... The people that are eligible already have epic passes, and have the means to pull this off. I suspect most of the winners are going to be people with a fair amount of disposable income already...
 
#23 ·
I was poor for most of my life. I have no problem eating on $50/day for 3 people total. Water, A loaf of bread and peanut butter is no problem.

I'll let you know if I manage to do it. I'm not rich by any means and I'm not a poor college student or mountain worker either. $5000 is still a lot of money in my book but $2000 a year x the rest of our life for our passes is a lot more. If I see that no one is doing it then I'm going for Europe. Until then I'll spend the gas money to see the canyons and go back to Tahoe in early December.

Our lives pretty much revolve a around snowboarding so this is an acceptable expense. We travel a shit load and are pretty good doing it on the low $ end.
 
#29 ·
I was poor for most of my life. I have no problem eating on $50/day for 3 people total. Water, A loaf of bread and peanut butter is no problem
It's not that you have a problem doing it, just that it's not entirely possible. Your budget of $5000 is unrealistic. If you really want to pull this off, make another 5 grand available to you. If it turns out you won't need it -great, but you don't want to find your family stranded on another continent and cut your trip short because you're not really making it on bread and water in alpine winter.
 
#26 ·
You need to do your resorts 1st that is for sure, as i believe they open ahead of the EU resorts, but planned correctly and flying into the correct place in Europe would be the key i think, the opening dates should all be available soon, so that will help, but you could in theory of completed all 26 before xmas...

If you need any help with planning routes finding info on dates etc for Europe give us a shout, sure we can be some help this end with more info...

Between 3 of you if all can drive, then you could be driving through the night and sleeping between resorts, so sleeping bags in the back would work...

HOWEVER, be careful with some of the strange laws we have over this way, the french can be particularly brutal on drivers...!!! So i would suggest hiring in France, and driving from there as the vehicle should be better equipped, and flying into Paris would be cheaper than flying into Austria or Switzerland as an example... Motorways are really good here and you could do from Paris to Switzerland in under 12 hours, so literally start the same day you land almost...!

Hiring would involve all of you declaring your licenses so you can all drive, and you would need to agree with the hire company in advance for EU use and not country limited...!!!
 
#27 ·
Thanks for the info Kevin. The EU inclusive is something I would not think about for sure.

I was thinking that the EU resorts opened in early Dec. It will be easier for me to do Europe than Michigan. More personal reward for going to EU.
 
#30 ·
I've done 20,000 KM in like 20 days in an old van, gooning around all my own gear, playing gigs for next to nothing, sleeping on floors and in the van, eating garbage...

So you, whoever the prospective you maybe be - can definitely do this!
 
#31 · (Edited)
Try to find a flight to Lyon, thats the closest international Airport to 3 vallée (be sure you search for the right 3 vallée, including the name of the town ;), there's another place far west in France called like that). From there, it's about 3-4 hrs drive to Verbier and 6-7 hrs to St.Anton in Austria. You'll need to drive through entire Switzerland to get from 3 vallée/Verbier to Austria, most of the time you'll be driving on the A1, the traffic aorta of our country. Try to avoid the stretches between Geneva and Lausanne, and between Bern and Zurich during the week between 4pm and 6pm and on Saturdays, these are the traffic jam sections the little 170km can take you 3hrs+ then.

Rent a car with Europcar, they're by far the cheapest I know of.

Youthhostels in Switzerland cost about 40 $p.P. for a 3 bed room. Closest to Verbier would be Sion, a bit further away Montreux (yes, the smoke on the water Montreux). Sion - Hostels - Swiss Youth Hostels

Switzerland is by far the most expensive country of the three, but also here you can easily stuff 3 guys with 50 $. You won't eat in restaurants, but loaf of bred 3 $ and a pack of 5 (very nice!) Cervelats sausages 5 $ will serve as dinner. Don't eat on the mountain, the food there is insanely expensive. Bring your sandwiches and beer. If you're not fussy with beer, you can buy a half liter can for 1$. Chocolate is very cheep here and has a lot of fat (I lived many years from chocolate, bread, pasta and sausages for 6 $ a day). In France, however, nutrition is very cheep, about half the price. There you gonna get beef for the price of sausages here ;).

A liter gasoline costs 2$. Diesel is even more expensive, so don't rent a diesel car. Be aware, that the French highways are private, so they charge you for using them. My father drives theway from Lyon to Geneva very frequently, so if you want, I can ask him for the exact price of this stretch. Highways in Switzerland are for free, only thing you need is a "Vignette" (40Fr. for 1 year) but I assume, the rental car will have one. If not, you'd need to buy it at the frontier.

Other possibility would be to fly to Zurich and rent the car there. Zurich would be in the middle of your three destinations. Depends on which resort you're going to ride first... Zurich is 120miles from St. Anton and 180miles from Verbier. Guess, on US scale, that's close together.

Er, and be aware, Switzerland is not part of the EU. Own currency. They'll accept Euros in resorts and motorway service areas, but for a bad exchange rate.
Wether or not you rent the car in Switzerland, do the booking over europcar.com and not .ch! Saves you again some bucks (strong Fr.).
 
#32 ·
Speaking of rental cars, be prepared for an extra charge of €50-80 if you pick up at the airport, I think they call them premium fees or something like that. If you're picking the car up at any other rental company lot in the city you will avoid the fee. If you're traveling one way (and you are) be ready to pay €500-900 on top of your rental fees, that's a surcharge for returning the car to the country of origin.
 
#33 ·
Driving 12-24 hours isn't anything at all in my book. We do looooong (>1000 mile/1600km) road trips all year long about 8-10 different times. Once I hit 30 hours I'll stop for a hotel or roadside nap. My wife can drive too. Zurich seems cheapest right now, I'll do round trip from wherever I start at. I'll fly in and go to the furthest resort and work my way back.

Neni, great post, thanks for the info. I'll msg you if we end up over there and maybe you can show my wife how a woman should snowboard, lol.
 
#34 ·
Sure, do that. You'll be driving through CH two times. Depending on the days and how much time you have, I may know some "shortcuts of scenic value", to avoid traffic jams and see some beautiful mountains (the main highway is located in the flat lands, so not, where our country is nicest). Verbier Mont Fort is on my to do list this season :).

BTW: Don't expect heaps of snow in December... the season only starts then, most resorts open mid Dec. But expect bluebirds :)
 
#35 ·
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