Scotsman is forgetting that Crystal axed a good chunk of their spring skiing this year and won't be open from 4/18-5/27 and then I believe weekends- and GV-only until they decide enough is enough some time in July. 47 days my foot...
I moved here in 2006 and didn't buy a pass my first winter ("focusing on school", "transitioning to city life", and other such terrible excuses). Rode 25+ days, mostly at Stevens, but a few at Baker and Whistler - in hindsight, I should've bought a pass. Picked one up the following spring for Stevens (college passes were $299 + tax and you could use next year's for the remainder of the current season once they went on sale) and have been renewing my pass there ever since (albeit, at non-college rates for the last 4 years). I got a taste of Alpental and Crystal my sophomore year in college but couldn't afford multiple passes until after I'd done a summer internship before my last year in college. I bought the LTD pass for the 2010-2011 season, back when lines at Alpental on the weekends were out of control, upgraded to an Unlimited the next year and have been holding both an Everyday pass to Stevens and Unlimited pass to Snoqualmie for the past 4 seasons.
Despite how horrible last winter was, I got 15-16 days in at Stevens, but a meager 2 at Snoqualmie. Stevens worked hard with their limited snow to keep things open and I was impressed, so I renewed there (plus the renewal rate was quite cheap) as well as Snoqualmie ($82 is less than 2 day tickets last season would've costed me). This year Stevens let me down - they were absolutely slammed on the weekends this winter. I think everybody saw the sad state of Snoqualmie last year and decided that Stevens was their place to ski. But I have no interest in getting up at zero dark-thirty to drive 2 hours on US-2 to ski 0" of new, as was required many weekends this year. Once you're on the hill, the crowds aren't all that bad (provided the backside is open), even on days where the summit and satellite lots are completely full. It helps that Stevens has a lot of accessible "sidecountry" terrain that you can get to more or less all the time with a short hike from the ropes. But with the changes they're making to next year's pass system ("Premier" vs. "Select", limited quantities, etc.) I just can't justify renewing there, esp. at the increased price. I've gotten a ton of mileage out of my Big S Unlimited pass this year - dozens of excellent days at Alpental and a handful at Hyak, Acres (when the power was out) and West (Wildside Wednesdays, mostly). Next year I plan to renew my pass to Snoqualmie @ the Gold level, pick-up an advantage card to Stevens and continue to fork over cold, hard ca$h for a handful of days at Baker/Mission/WP/wherever.
It doesn't hurt that the Summit is consistently 50 mins away from my desk at work and about an hour from my doorstep at home (traffic notwithstanding). Plus, they offer plenty of night skiing for those rainy days you feel like shredding pow for a few hours after work instead of crawling with traffic in the rain (or those mornings you feel like getting in some turns before heading back down to pilot the desk for the afternoon).
