Northstar Mountain Biking - Lift Served 2012

If they gave you $20 off the single day rate of $46 for having a 2012-13 ski pass for Northstar, I'd probably do it. But since they only give you $20 off the $329 season mountain bike pass, I'll be climbing the hills under my own power. It's better for the legs for skiing and no waiting in liftlines.

I will try to get free day of lift-served mountain biking at Kirkwood this summer from 2011-12 Tahoe Cards and may shuttle Downieville and/or The Flume. So I'm not a total purist, I'm just not sure about paying Northstar $46 for a few lift rides and to check out their trails.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philpug 

I agree with you. If you have a Epic Pass, IMHO the MTB should be a $99 or $199 (max) upgrade. I would be dollars to donuts that less than 20 people will buy the pass at $309 but more than 50 would upgrade. 

I guess it depends on how good their trails are. I'd pay $300 for a trail pass, but only if there were a lot of high quality trails. I'm not sure what a Whistler pass costs, but I'd guess that it's in that range (and I think a day pass is quite a bit cheaper), but they have the trails and sell them by the thousands.

I've already got season passes to Bromont and Burke and am in for more than $300.

Aspen's season pass is much more expensive, but summer is included.  Bike haul at Snowmass is $5/day or $39/season.  Snowmass is a little behind the curve for trail building since they switched lifts to the Elk Camp Gondi.  But they have Gravity Logic building some nice trails now and hopefully they catch up in the next couple of years.

I'd love to have lift served biking on Aspen Mountain, but the powers that be,  think it's too steep and it would be carnage?  I think they missed the boat?

I still ride up the front on my birthday every year, but it's a grunt.  3260ft/4.9miles and most of the vert is in the first 2 miles. 

It's funny how skiing down the road in winter it seems flat, but riding up in summer, it's steep as hell!

I thought biking was included with the 2012-2013 pass, no?  I have been planing a trip up there, thinking that I'd have it for free...

I guess the "Free Summer Access" is for lift access only, and not mountain biking.  Just got off the phone w/ a representative and sounds like a day pass w/ an Epic 2012-2013 ski ticket is $16.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philpug 

If it was $16.00 for the MTBing..I would be up there at least once a weekend...But why the huge price discrepancy? 

Not following, discrepancy between what?  I was under the impression that mt. biking was included with the Epic pass.  After reading this thread I called the season pass office and they said that a mt. biking day pass for 2012-2013 Epic pass holders is $16.  I think that this is a pretty good deal.  I live in South Bay and try to save the car and gas for skiing, but I'll definitely try to make it up a few times if the $16 is correct.

I called Northstar to confirm daily mountain biking rates with Tahoe Local Pass. I'm assuming it's the same with Epic Pass, but did not ask. The $20 off is only if you buy a season mountain biking pass ($309 vs. $329). No discount for passholders on $46 daily mountain biking rate.

The reason I called was I was thinking about going Sunday because it looked like they closed after this weekend based on this page http://www.northstarattahoe.com/info/summer/summer_trail_report.asp but if you look at this link http://www.northstarattahoe.com/info/ski/the-mountain/mountain-hours.asp?category=mountain-summer.mtnbike.two you see that they only are changing from 7 days a week to Friday to Monday plus Labor Day. They are open through Oct. 7.

I'm still not going to rush up there to spend $46 for mountain biking when I can ride for free from Tahoe Card at Kirkwood and also found very nice, new trail to waterfall less than 1/2 mile North of Heavenly gondola that I can ride to from my family's cabin. If I want to spend money mountain biking, I rather do it on a Downieville Shuttle.

Thanks tseeb, wish I knew about this trail when I camped at Zephyr Cove few weeks ago.  I may PM you about the details on how to get to the trail.