Stupid N* and Sierra season pass excludes Sat.
 

Since both N* and Sierra at Tahoe was bought out by Vail, they decided for the 11-12 season that they will exclude Saturdays on their least expensive season pass (college & tahoe value)(not willing to shell out $500 just to shred less than 20 days a season), curious to see what the rest of you guys are going to do?
Suck it up and shell out the cash?
Find another resort? (most likely my current option)

They do the same thing here... It's actually pretty common. Besides, Saturday is the worst day to ride, especially in Tahoe. If there's fresh snow, the mountain is ruined in under an hour and the rest of the day involves dodging herds of gapers.

Vail didn't by Sierra and I'm going with people are going to go elsewhere which is going to change the marketing behind that pass.

Saturdays at Northstar are way too crowded. This is just a way to thin the crowd by keeping away the people who weren't spending much.

Very good points. Considering I have a M-F schedule, ideally Saturday would be my riding day and the rest on Sunday. So looks like I'm gonna have to find somewhere else to ride. Maybe Sugarbowl......

Actually, I found that Northstar works like rush hour traffic jam on Saturdays. The LONGEST wait is the 930am-1030am wait at the bottom of the mountain.

I either get there by 9am. Ride, but NEVER back down to the bottom until it's lunch time. Or get there by 11am and just call it a half day.

Cypress has something similar. As long as it's possible to buy a full-access pass, and as long as the rates are comparable to what they charge at other similar places (Not true at Cypress, unfortunately), I don't see a problem with it. It's no different than off-season or off-peak rates offered to try to spread out usage.

Unfortunately, in the local case, Cypress seems to think they're competing with Whistler and have priced themselves accordingly. Reality is they're competing with Grouse and Seymour and they're not that much better.

I was there in January on a Saturday and the wait almost everywhere was pretty ridiculous. The backside where I thought would be better even had a long wait.

Going to try squaw this year instead.

Squaw is pretty nuts with people. The terrain is so much better though. Back in the day they were experts at getting the lifts loaded. They had a deal where you could pay extra on your lift ticket that you would get your money back if you waited longer than 10 minutes in a lift line. Free money for them. I never waited more than 10 minutes for any lift. Hopefully that trend continues to this day.

Doesn't Sierra have an express lane thing you can buy on your pass? How does that work? Maybe it's not Sierra, I remember reading someone at Tahoe offering an express pass.

Also, I thought Vail owned Northstar and Heavenly, not Sierra?