5 Mountains, 3 States, 1 Pass

May 5, 2014 at 16:14
by Northstar California Resort  


Five world-class resorts today announced the Free-Ride Unlimited Pass, which includes unlimited summer mountain bike access to Vail Mountain and Keystone Resort in Colorado, Lake Tahoe’s Northstar California and Kirkwood Mountain Resort in California, and Utah’s Canyons Resort in Park City.

New for the 2014 summer, the Free-Ride Unlimited mountain bike season pass provides access to a combined total of more than 155 trails descending more than 11,000 vertical feet serviced by ten chair lifts. For a limited time through May, riders can purchase the Free-Ride Unlimited Pass for $329.

“The Free-Ride Unlimited Pass offers tremendous diversity, value, and flexibility for bike enthusiasts of any ability level,” said Andrew Buckley, director of resort and skier services at Northstar California. “The option to tour five bike park offerings in three states with unique riding conditions is a first in our industry. Whether riders prefer jump-and-flow trails or true core downhill, the experience the pass offers is unparalleled.”

Free-Ride Unlimited pass holders have access to the best of mountain biking—from the legendary trail perfection of Vail and the 100-plus miles of singletrack of Keystone in Colorado; top-ranked trail ingenuity at Northstar and big-mountain scenery of Kirkwood at Lake Tahoe, California; to Canyons Resort’s access to the first and only IMBA Gold-Level Ride Center in Park City, Utah. “Riders can discover each mountain’s unique experiences both on and off the trails this summer,” Buckley stated. World-class mountain biking complements each of the five resorts’ multitude of summer options such as kayaking and boat tours, hiking and zip line adventures, spa and yoga, horseback riding, shopping and dining, golf and tennis, concerts and more.

Free-Ride Unlimited Pass purchasers have unrestricted access to all five mountains throughout summer. Additionally, pass holders will receive four Bike-with-a-Friend discounted tickets, each valid for a day of riding at the five mountains. Bike-with-a-Friend tickets are automatically loaded onto each Free-Ride Unlimited pass, and can be used for family and friends. For additional information and purchasing, visit participating resorts’ locations or websites; or purchase via phone.

Canyons Resort: CanyonsResort.com 1-888.CANYONS
Kirkwood Mountain Resort: Kirkwood.com 1-209.258.7277
Keystone Resort: KeystoneResort.com 1-800.328.1323
Northstar California Resort: NorthstarCalifornia.com 1-800.GO.NORTH
Vail Mountain: Vail.com 1-970.SKI.VAIL


About Vail Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: MTN)
Vail Resorts, Inc., through its subsidiaries, is the leading mountain resort operator in the United States. The Company's subsidiaries operate the mountain resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood in the Lake Tahoe area of California and Nevada; Canyons in Park City, Utah; Afton Alps in Minnesota and Mt. Brighton in Michigan; and the Grand Teton Lodge Company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Company's subsidiary, RockResorts, a luxury resort hotel company, manages casually elegant properties. Vail Resorts Development Company is the real estate planning, development and construction subsidiary of Vail Resorts, Inc. Vail Resorts is a publicly held company traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: MTN). The Vail Resorts company website is www.vailresorts.com and consumer website is www.snow.com.

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62 Comments
  • 33 2
 bikers, meet vail resorts. they are here for your souls
  • 9 2
 If they start pumping money into said resorts, it is well worth it.
  • 6 0
 "If" being the key word there...
  • 2 0
 Don't worry, they will. I'm surprised it took them this long to bring the Epic Pass idea over to summer
  • 1 0
 yeah thats for sure...there is nothing to ride a kirkwood on a dh bike...
  • 10 0
 To bad I live near none of these parks. Good deal though. Wonder if Mountain Creek will ever do something like this on the east coast.
  • 4 1
 Doesn't mean you can't go.
  • 2 0
 I'm going to Canyons and Jacksonhole, and I live in San Diego.
  • 1 0
 Go to the pass in Jackson!
  • 12 2
 Vail might be world class for skiing, but for lift access mountain biking, not so much.
  • 5 2
 At least they won't get PCMR. whew.
  • 3 4
 I never would've thought such a douchy place would be any good for mountain biking.
  • 8 1
 Vail doesn't have any good lift access riding. Plenty of good XC around Vail without the need for a pass. Winter Park (Trestle) is the bike park you want to hit in Colorado. Steamboat has been getting better lately and plans for growth look good there. Haven't hit Keystone is years, not sure on that one.
  • 1 0
 I live an hour from Vail and I've never even thought of going there for lift access. Keystone is okay, but doesn't stand out in my mind. Crested Butte is SUPER fun, Winter Park, Steamboat.... worth a vacation to. But not Vail.
  • 2 1
 I ride Vail 4 days a week, the DH trails are great....if you know where to look. If they put some money into it, it COULD be the best in the US, easily. By far the best dirt and mountain potential in CO.
  • 4 0
 I have always thought Vail could have a world class bike park. Especially with the size of the resort and all the resources there. Would like to see them put some effort into it. Don't see why they or maybe even Copper Mountain (since Woodward is there) don't push into the bike park realm.
  • 2 0
 I work at Copper, they have ZERO interest in mtn biking. Rumor around here is some work at Vail this summer, and supposedly big money coming in in 2015, once they have all the goofy ziplines and crap setup.
  • 3 0
 Not so sure on Vail but Winter Park is great. Granby, Steamboat, Crested Butte, and Keystone are all worth a visit too
  • 3 0
 Vail's bike park is dogshit
  • 1 0
 I think Winter Park has a few really awesome trails, but as a whole park I actually prefer Keystone. Overall the trails are much gnarlier and to me more fun there. And like others have said, you gotta know where to go at Vail. The best trails aren't on the map...
  • 6 0
 Keystone and Northstar are definitely legit. Canyon's is small, but getting there. Never been to Kirkwood or Vail. This seems like a great deal. I could theoretically travel to all of these resorts by car.
  • 3 0
 Canyons is so fun! I go there every summer, and the riding is spectacular!
  • 3 0
 Wonder if any other mountains of vail resorts has a trail crew, cause northstar certainly doesn't, trails are always haggard there
  • 3 0
 @BigRedNorcoRyder I hear you man. I didn't make it up last year. Did they at least maintain Livewire? For me, if they maintain Livewire and keep the holes and breaking bumps away, it makes Northstar worth it. However, it not, I probably won't get a season pass.
  • 1 0
 Kirkwood needs A LOT of work... They have some lifts, they are slow, and the entire place can be comfortably ridden on a 6" bike
  • 2 0
 Live Wire does receive regular work -- I've ridden it every week during the summer for years -- but it also gets more traffic than any other trail there. Honestly, I like that Northstar is rough. There wouldn't be much point in bringing a DH bike there otherwise. Excited for the additional resort options this year.
  • 2 0
 dont get me wrong rough trails are fun but there is way better bike parks in the country over northstar, like mammoth for instince
  • 3 0
 Back in the early 2000's Keystone and Vail both had good DH. Keystone just
let their existing stuff go to shit over the years. Vail essentially pulled the plug on DH after the World Cup was last their. Ripped out the DH course (which was pretty damn amazing) and got real pissy about DH riders all together. Not enough spandex I guess!
Just sayin'...
  • 5 0
 Does this really compete with the trestle pass, which also includes days at angel fire, for $70 less?
  • 1 0
 It does for me. I live between California and Colorado.
  • 1 0
 This is sick! Canyons has a rad full time trail crew building and maintaining stuff all summer, those guys work hard and love what they do. Stoked to check out the other resorts this summer now that my pass will work there!
  • 1 0
 If they would put more money into northstar I know for a fact it would be sick and stopped spending the ENTIRE summer building a silly little section called the gopro feature and went out and built some more trails like the upper faster sections of gypsy for anybody that has ridden them.. They were pretty frickin awesome last summer
  • 5 0
 Gotta love being 30 minutes away from canyons! Park is legit and FUUUUUUN
  • 1 0
 Agreed.
  • 2 0
 There is no possible way Keystone has "over 100 miles of singletrack"!!!! Hahaha. Maybe if you count all the roads, sidewalks, paths, and hallways!
  • 5 1
 Holy crap... a summer version of the Epic Pass? EPIC!!!
  • 1 0
 So I'm guessing you're not one of the ones who thinks that the ski connect is being built on a foundation of dead babies.
  • 2 0
 Ski Link was the worst idea ever and Talisker's aim is to try to develop as much backcountry land as possible, without any regard to the surrounding area. They bought up massive amounts of land and they will develop all of it only for the use of the wealthiest gapers... look at Deer Valley and The Colony... absolute crap. At least some thought was put into Ski Connect and it is a cool idea to travel from PC to Brighton/Solitude and from there to Snowbird/Alta but I could do without it.

After all, everyone knows decomposing fetuses make for a terrible foundation.
  • 3 0
 For a while I was employed by those wealthiest of gapers. They paid for a good portion of my worthless college degree. Utah's economy does well from them. I realize the connect has a lot of bad things about it, but most the people I hear complaining about it learned to ski at a resort, not in the back country. They also moved to PC or Salt Lake in their 20s, and then 3 years later they call themselves locals and whine about how much PC is growing and no one can afford to live there anymore.
  • 1 0
 Just to be sure, I said Ski Link was horrible and worthless, not Ski Connect. The resorts actually put care/time into planning Connect out and it's completely on their own land and it's not in areas considered as good BC terrain.

I agree that rich gapers are important to the tourism industry here but that doesn't mean the state has to bend over backwards for every stupid whim of the corporations that give zero shits about everyone else. I fail to see the connection between spotting a horrible attempt at resort expansion and where people learned how to ski or when you moved to the area. (learning how to ski in the BC is a very weird prerequisite for being able to criticize resort expansion... how many learn to ski IN the BC?? haha) Personally I think it's awesome there are groups of people who care enough about the land to put unnecessary expansion projects through heavy scrutiny. However it sounds like the majority of people you chat with about this are absolute douche bags.
  • 1 0
 Whats the difference between the ski connect and ski link? I thought they were the same. The "douchebags" you mentioned turned me off the subject and I haven't looked into it very deeply.
  • 2 1
 Also, I literally have "friends" that think all the resorts should be shut down and only back country skiing should be allowed on public lands. I thought the whole point of public was that every one could use it. They might make an exception for Alta, but only if you can prove that you are a good skier and have personally killed a snowboarder.
  • 1 0
 Hahaha that's outrageous. Ski Link was going to connect The Canyons to Solitude via a massive gondola. Talisker was buying out Utah Senators/Congressmen in an attempt to bypass the U.S. Forest Service (who opposed Ski Link) so they could buy up 30 acres of public land. The route was going to go through a lot of forested area which they were going to clear out (30ft. spanning out on each side of the path if I remember right), and it would have shut off that land to public use, which was bad because it was an area that people constantly used for BC access. Ski Connect is connecting all the resorts but now it's all on each resort's land (no public land being lost) and the lifts are located at spots that only clueless idiots would go to for BC ripping.

There's still a cry from the local organizations like Save the Canyons because of watershed/erosion/pollution issues of construction these lifts but the resorts seem to have a good understanding of all that... maybe.
  • 4 0
 Hahahahah, They called Kirkwood a MTB resort!!! Cool idea though.
  • 1 0
 since intrawest is taking over tamarack resort kinda, throw Tamaracks trails on there and it might be worth it. then at least you would be able to ride between colorado,utah and california in idaho!
  • 3 0
 i didn't know Kirkwood had a bike park. word.
  • 1 0
 I went there about 5 yrs ago and it was a pretty small trail network with the lift running only on the weekends. It was fun but not ideal for dh riding… mostly heavy pedaling single track with no jumps and features. I did hear they recently put in a lot of time and investment into upgrading the entire operation. Northstar is a very short and worthy drive away from Kirkwood… sooooo much fun.
  • 1 0
 A buddy and I rode Kirkwood one day when N* was closed last summer... Wasn't worth the extra hour drive : /
  • 1 0
 I thought vail quite throwing money at the mountain biking scene after that kid died a year or so ago? They're know for their zip line called adventure ridge now?
  • 2 0
 Winter park and crested butte... thats all that needs to be said
  • 2 0
 hell yea! getting mine soon. kirkwood bike park is a joke.
  • 2 0
 Their trail map looks depressing. Did they even have one good, fast, flowey trail that you wanted to lap?
  • 1 0
 When did Kirkwood happen? EPIC!
  • 1 0
 anybody know when northstar is supposed to open up?
  • 1 0
 June 6th plan on going on the 21st myself.
  • 1 0
 Adam Billinghurst, your on
  • 1 0
 had no idea you could ride bikes at Kirkwood. wow.
  • 1 0
 any discounts for winter pass holders?
  • 1 0
 There is a discount for the summer pass if you have next year's 14/15 winter pass.
  • 1 0
 If vail buys mammotjh and throws it in on his pass I'm in
  • 1 0
 no whistler??
  • 2 0
 whistler is not owned by vail and thank god for that, vail is just trying to take over the ski industry







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