Updated October 9, 2025
Multi-resort passes were supposed to make skiing accessible.
Instead, they crushed local hills and jacked prices to the moon.
Here’s how we ended up paying more to ski less…
The “Ski Pass Revolution”
When Epic launched back in 2008, it sounded like the future. One pass, unlimited access and better prices than locals were paying for a single-mountain season ticket. Skiers called it a game changer. And for a few years, it really was. You could road-trip across states, hit a dozen world-class resorts and still come out ahead.
Then the numbers changed. Fast.
The first hikes looked small. Fifty bucks here, a “holiday blackout” there. But while the pass price crept up, the day tickets exploded. Suddenly the same resorts charging over $250 a day were telling you that you’d be crazy not to buy in early. Resorts even bragged about “record visitation” like that was good news for anyone standing in a 40-minute lift line.
The pitch shifted from “ski anywhere” to “book your reservation early.”
Suddenly, that dream of freedom started to come with the creeping feeling that you’d been upsold into a cage. Every new acquisition press release meant fewer independent hills and more corporate control.
Now the same handful of companies decide what skiing costs, where you can do it and how crowded it’s going to be. What started as a revolution for skiers turned into consolidation for the fat, greedy shareholders. And we all paid for it, one lift line at a time.
The Death of the Local Hill
Every skier starts somewhere. For most of us, it wasn’t Whistler or Aspen. It was a scrappy little hill with one slow chair, a rope tow and a lodge that smelled like fries and wax.
Those places built the sport. They made skiing possible for normal people. And one by one, they’re disappearing.
When Epic and Ikon expanded, they didn’t just sell passes. They started buying up everything in sight. A small hill used to be able to survive on a loyal local crowd and a few school programs. Now it’s competing against a mega resort down the road offering “unlimited access” and free parking for anyone with a corporate pass.
You can see what happens next. The local hill loses weekend traffic, cuts night skiing, then quietly announces it’s closing “for the season.” The regulars scatter. Kids who might’ve fallen in love with skiing never even get the chance.
I grew up riding places like that. They weren’t fancy, but they felt like home. You knew everyone in the lift line. There was always someone to chase on the hill. Now those places are getting wiped off the map because they can’t survive a price war with billion-dollar companies.
The passes didn’t just make skiing expensive. They took the heart out of it.
Ticket Prices Gone Wild
Remember when a lift ticket felt expensive at seventy bucks? Now some resorts are pushing three hundred dollars a day like it’s normal. That’s not inflation. That’s strategy. Jack the day rate so high that everyone feels forced into a season pass, even if they’ll only ski five days a year.
It’s not about making day tickets unaffordable by accident. It’s the business model. You either lock yourself into a mega-pass months before you even know what kind of winter it’ll be, or you pay walk-up prices that make Disneyland look like a bargain.
I’ve stood in those ticket lines and watched families turn around because they couldn’t justify dropping a thousand dollars for a weekend. It’s brutal. The mountains did not get better either. We just got upsold into lines and fine print. But the numbers tell the story better than any rant, so here are the day rates riders are staring at this season…
Epic and Ikon Day Pass Rates
| Resort | Network | State | Peak window price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vail | Epic | CO | $250–$279 | Holiday weeks at the top end |
| Beaver Creek | Epic | CO | $239–$269 | Similar to Vail on peak dates |
| Breckenridge | Epic | CO | $229–$249 | Dynamic by day and event |
| Park City | Epic | UT | $219–$239 | Cheaper midweek outside holidays |
| Heavenly | Epic | CA | $209–$239 | Lake Tahoe holiday spikes |
| Northstar | Epic | CA | $209–$239 | Similar to Heavenly |
| Kirkwood | Epic | CA | $189–$219 | Storm weekends trend higher |
| Whistler Blackcomb | Epic | BC | USD $170–$210 | Shown in USD. CAD varies by FX |
| Stowe | Epic | VT | $199–$229 | Holiday pricing applies |
| Okemo | Epic | VT | $169–$199 | Cheaper outside Christmas week |
| Mammoth | Ikon | CA | $199–$239 | Holiday and spring peak days |
| Palisades Tahoe | Ikon | CA | $209–$239 | Storm cycles push the top end |
| Steamboat | Ikon | CO | $219–$249 | New gondola era pricing |
| Winter Park | Ikon | CO | $169–$199 | Weekends trend higher |
| Snowbird | Ikon | UT | $199–$229 | Alta Bird holiday premium |
| Stratton | Ikon | VT | $149–$179 | Northeast holiday swings |
| Snowshoe | Ikon | WV | $119–$149 | Variable by conditions |
| Jackson Hole | Ikon | WY | $229–$249 | Ikon partner. Strict peak pricing |
| Aspen Snowmass | Ikon | CO | $239–$269 | Ikon partner. Premium window rate |
| Most Epic and Ikon flagships now sit near $200 to $280 on peak days | ||||
Luxury For The Few
If you have money, the mountain rolls out a carpet. Paid parking near the lift. Early load programs. Private lanes. The rest of us stand in the slow line. Same snow. Very different day.
I still get good days. We all do. But the vibe has changed. The parking lot used to feel like a crew of dirtbag skiers in beat-up Subarus. Now it looks like a dealership promo for luxury SUVs. Everyone’s chasing the same few powder stashes and every season it costs a little more to be there.
If you’re lucky enough to have the money and time, yeah, you can still have a great season. But what they don’t say is that your pass only works because ten smaller hills had to die to make room for it.
The irony is that the Epic and Ikon season passes are still the best deal for any locals who ski a lot. The problem isn’t the pass. It’s what’s been done with it.
What Can You Do About It?
If all this sounds depressing, that’s because it is. But there are still ways to fight back — or at least ski smarter.
The easiest fix is to go where the corporations aren’t. Local hills, mom-and-pop spots, the tiny lifts that still take cash instead of scanning an app. They might not have six gondolas or sushi at the mid-mountain lodge, but the lifties still know your name and a day ticket doesn’t cost a car payment.
Book a Flight!
If you want real snow and value, start looking overseas. Japan’s day passes usually sit between $40 and $70 USD, even at big-name spots like Niseko or Hakuba! Smaller resorts are half that.
Europe’s not much different. In France, Austria, or Italy, you can ride world-class terrain for $60 to $100 a day, and a weeklong lift pass often costs less than two days at Vail. I’m not kidding.
Add cheap local food, decent lodging and trains that actually work, and it’s hard not to feel robbed back home. I’ve done trips in Japan and the Alps that cost the same as a week in Colorado — flights included. The only thing more painful than the exchange rate is realizing how badly we’re getting played.
Vote with Your Wallet
So what can you do back home? Support your local hills. Ride midweek. Split passes with friends. Travel when you can. And if you see another “record profit” press release, maybe skip that resort next season.
At the end of the day, skiing’s supposed to be about snow, not shareholders. We can’t buy that feeling back, but we can choose where our money lands.
Final Thoughts
Skiing has never been cheap, but it used to feel worth it. You saved, you drove all night, you got there and it felt like freedom. Now it feels like someone’s figured out how to bottle that feeling and sell it back to us.
Powder laps are still perfect. The turns still hit. That part never changes. But it’s harder every year to shake the feeling that we’re the product now.
But – I’ll keep showing up, same as you. Because when it’s good, it’s still damn good. Just don’t let them convince you this version of skiing is progress. We built this thing, they just learned how to charge for it.
Agreed. They bought my local hill just to shut it down. Boycott?