Lone Peak: the Harvard of ski mountains. Your Big Sky season pass card? the Harvard ID of season passes.
MY FRIEND ANNA showed me her new Harvard University ID. I was impressed. Not everyone possesses the brains for America's oldest school of prestige. She officially belonged to an elite organization of higher learning, and it took considerable achievement to simply hold that ID in her hand.
Like exchanging pictures of our children, I felt obligated to show her my photo ID too. After all, I was also a committed member of an elite organization. But the ID wasn't in my wallet. It was attached to my ski pants.
A season pass to any mountain is a membership to an experience of higher learning. With my Biggest Skiing in America ski pass, I pass ticket sales and head right into the near wilderness where few but wildlife and weather assemble. I gain access to a mountain summit in minutes that would ordinarily take a day to climb. I graduate to a view that most people only see from an airplane. I learn lessons in endurance, environmental studies, and snow science. This unbendable plastic card enrolls me in the largest lift-served ski hill in the US. Every time I flash it, I take part in something bigger than myself.
Photo IDs help tell our stories: College credentials show academic prowess, licenses tell body sizes and home towns, passports prove a life well traveled. And season passes are badges of our true passions. They're also a science lesson that the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, and that means winter is underway in Big Sky.
Since Anna studies remotely, she is also a Big Sky local. She’ll experience higher learning this winter, twice over. But now that the ski lifts are turning, she really only needs one ID.
- Victor DeLeo
Harvard University acceptance rate: 6%. Biggest Skiing in America acceptance Rate? 100%, SAT scores and college essays not required. Check out how you can gain admission with a season pass, and get the most important ID you'll ever own.
You can learn a lot about Victor and Anna by going through the IDs in their wallets (Not only is Victor a good blood-donating samaritan, but it looks like he's a beer lover as well!), but their most valued IDs hang on their ski pants.
