Let’s get something out of the way: Resort skiing is an expensive sport. A carload of specialized gear, a full tank of gas, a $20 burger and $6 Coors Light at the lodge. It starts to add up quickly — and that’s before you even get on the mountain. It’s no wonder that some feel like there’s a tradeoff between a day on the mountain and a month’s rent.
But here’s the thing. Used gear is easier to acquire than ever before. Most of those mountain lodges — the ones with the $20 burgers — also have microwaves. And skiers who plan ahead can ride chairlifts for some of the lowest prices in decades.
Until the early 2000s, ski area operators shouldered the risk of their snow-dependent business. When the snow piled deep, lift tickets sold quickly. When it didn’t, operators tightened their belts.
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The introduction of discounted season passes in the early 2000s shifted more of the financial risk of resort skiing over to the skiers. By committing $600 to $1,000 for a season pass months before lifts start turning, skiers assumed the will-it-snow risk that used to haunt resort operators. As an incentive, skiers who buy early get the lowest prices, similar to the airline industry.
On the other hand, skiers who wait to buy lift tickets at the last minute are paying record-high prices, with window tickets at some of Colorado’s most well-known ski areas — Aspen, Winter Park, Telluride and Steamboat Springs — exceeding $200 for a single-day ticket, on average, between January and March. During holidays and weekends, those prices surge closer to $300 per day.
“It makes sense to lock in revenue when you’re a weather-dependent business — you have staff relying on you for their income, utility bills that don’t care when the snow falls, and future capital investments to plan for,” said Adrienne Saia Isaac, director of communications for the National Ski Area Association.
The bottom line is: if you don’t plan ahead, skiing has never been more expensive. If you do plan ahead, skiing has never been more affordable.
The shift to season passes
Winter Park was the first to launch the so-called season pass war with a pack of four season passes for $800 in 1998, followed closely by Intrawest offering its Rocky Mountain Super Pass for Copper Mountain and Winter Park in the early 2000s.
These days, it’s more cost effective to buy a season pass than day passes at all but eight Colorado resorts if you plan to ski more than eight days, or four winter weekends.
Pop quiz time
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In 2008, Vail Resorts introduced the Epic Pass and sold 60,000 of the passes for the 2008-09 season. The Epic Pass offered unlimited skiing at five Colorado resorts and Heavenly Mountain in California. They didn’t just add up the cost of six season passes and cut a percentage. The Epic Pass was — and still is — a solidly middle-of-the-road price for season passes to any single mountain in Colorado. This season, for example, the average season pass across all operating ski resorts was $858.70. Last year’s Epic Pass cost $859 for the early purchasers. The company sold 2.4 million Epic passes and early-purchase lift tickets.
By giving skiers options paired with discounts, Vail Resorts pushed the pass war into new territory.
In 2018 the privately held Alterra Mountain Co. debuted the Ikon Pass, a $649 rival to Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass. The Ikon Pass offered access to 23 resorts across North America. It has since expanded to offer unlimited skiing at 16 ski areas and up to seven days at another 41 global ski destinations. The following season, Vail Resorts introduced advanced-purchase single-day lift tickets, with prices around $100 a day for buyers who purchased months before winter, creating a lower-commitment way to secure more skiers. An early-purchase Epic Day Pass for the 2023-24 season costs $113 a day.
Epic vs. Ikon passes over time
In 2021, Vail Resorts doubled down on its advance commitment strategy, dropping the price of the Epic Pass to $783, the lowest price since the 2015-16 season, and about the only thing in the ski industry that got cheaper post-pandemic.
Vail Resorts now generates close to $3 billion in revenue a year and hosts close to 18 million visits to its 37 North American ski areas, which include the largest and most trafficked on the continent: Park City Mountain Resort, Breckenridge and Vail. Last season, about three-quarters of those visitors were pass holders.
Last week Alterra Mountain Co. and Vail Resorts announced prices for the 2024-25 passes, with annual increases around 8%.
The Ikon Pass, with access to 58 ski destinations and April skiing for early-purchasers at several resorts including Steamboat and Winter Park, starts at $1,249 and the more restrictive Ikon Base selling for $869.
Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass is selling for $982 for 2024-25, with unlimited access to all 42 of the company’s ski areas, plus seven days at Telluride ski area and access to partner resorts in Canada, Europe and Japan. The company’s Epic Local is offered for $731 with holiday restrictions and unlimited access to 32 ski areas. Epic Day passes sell for as little as $52 for non-peak days at 22 resorts, up to $129 for unrestricted access to all 42 ski hills.
But what about all of the resorts that aren’t owned by Vail?
The Epic and Ikon Passes combined only account for 9 of Colorado’s 30 operational ski hills and resorts (12 if you count Arapahoe Basin, Aspen and Telluride, where you can ski a limited number of days as a pass holder).
In fact, 55% of US ski areas are considered small, and the majority of ski areas are independently-owned, according to Isaac of the National Ski Area Association.
The cost for walk-up tickets and season passes at Colorado ski resorts (plus whether they are on a pass or not)
The astronomical walk-up window prices at Epic and Ikon resorts opened opportunities for small ski areas, like Ski Cooper, Echo Mountain and Sunlight, all of which offer lift tickets for less than $100. If you’re really looking for a deal, seven of those 30 resorts offer tickets for less than $50.
Most of these are really ski hills (as opposed to ski resorts) that offer a rope tow up a local rise. These are great spots to learn how to ski or mess around in the terrain park. Lake City Ski Hill, for instance, includes equipment rental in its $30 day-pass price, making it a great option for someone who wants an introduction to the sport without the investment.
The outlier in this group is the 11-lift, 100-run Purgatory, outside of Durango, which is owned by Mountain Capital Partners, the operator of 11 ski areas and a snowcat operation in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Chile. Day passes to Purgatory can dip as low as $35 — again, if you’re able to plan ahead. They also hit the laughably low price of $9 in April, which might be a direct correlation with snow conditions that time of year.
The Lake County-owned nonprofit Ski Cooper squeaks into the under $50 category one day per week. Their $30 Thursdays program in January and February offers skiers seven chances to snag a $30 lift ticket, $30 rentals and $30 off ski lessons.
How much a walk-up ski pass costs at different Colorado ski areas
There has also been a boom in season pass competitors. The Indy Pass, for example, offers two days at 180 different ski areas in the U.S. The Mountain Collective Pass also offers two days at 12 major ski areas in the U.S., with 50% off day-passes on subsequent days. And many smaller resorts have reported strong visitation and revenues as they find opportunities in the shadow of the dueling Alterra Mountain Co. and Vail Resorts.
Across all 30 ski areas — from Lee’s (free) Ski Hill in Ouray to $290-plus a day in Aspen — the average cost of a day of skiing from January to March, not including major holidays, is $101. That’s also the exact price of an advanced-purchase day at Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Vail, three of the five main Epic Pass Colorado mountains. Yes, all paths really do point to Epic.
Three Ski Freebies
Free RTD to Eldora
The discussion about better public transportation to ski areas has lasted eons, and Eldora is one of the few places that has really taken it seriously. On weekends throughout winter, skiers can take a free RTD bus or a free shuttle between Boulder and Eldora. The bus leaves from downtown Boulder station (the Park-n-ride garage above it is also free on weekends), and the shuttle picks passengers up at the Boulder County Justice Center. The bus and shuttle schedules alternate every hour from 6:10 a.m. to noon, and head down the mountain from noon until 5:15 p.m. Save on gas and get a guaranteed front-row spot.
Free skiing at Howelsen Hill, Lee’s Ski Hill, and Ruby Hill Park
Howelsen Hill, also known as “town hall” and “the other Steamboat ski area” offers free skiing every Sunday. No caveats or reservations, just pick up your free ticket at the ticket office. If you’d rather hit Howelsen on a quieter day — free does mean crowded — the day pass costs $47, making it one of the cheaper Colorado options.
In Ouray you’ll find Lee’s Ski Hill, the smallest ski area in Colorado, and the only one that is consistently free of charge. Anyone can grab onto the rope tow, which operates from 3 p.m. to dusk on weekdays and noon to dusk on weekends.
Park skiers in the Denver area can hit the Ruby Hill Rail Yard for free starting on Jan. 26 into March, weather permitting. Beginning Feb. 2, Ruby Hill offers free equipment rentals Thurs.-Sat.
Free kids skiing
The easiest way to get a free day of skiing is to be a kid. Not only because your parents have to pay for everything anyway, but because almost all of Colorado’s resorts offer free skiing for kids under 5. Purgatory offers free skiing for kids up to 12 years old, and at Copper Mountain an adult season pass comes with a free season pass for anyone under 15.
So, really, why is skiing so expensive?
To put it simply, resorts want you to buy passes ahead of time rather than during the ski season.
Skiing is a high-overhead operation: lifts and lift maintenance, grooming, insurance, climate change resiliency measures and staff to run it all. Isaac of the National Ski Area Association said that when ski areas close, the most often reason they hear is lack of capital. “That’s a real issue for many areas, especially as infrastructure ages and guest expectations evolve,” she said.
Incentivizing guests to make their ski plans ahead of the season created “unprecedented stability for our industry, which had previously been ruled by weather,” said Laura Bonfiglio, senior manager at Vail Resorts. “We lock in revenue ahead of the season – which has allowed us to continually invest back into our resorts/guest experience, our employees, our communities and even the environment, no matter the winter we have.”
Financial stability allows resorts to invest in their equipment, employees and sustainability initiatives without having to worry about being smited by Ullr. (Getting bad press about long lift lines, though, is another story).
To incentivize people to buy early, most resorts these days deeply discount passes before the season, and steeply mark-up in-season and day-of sales.
“By getting people to commit to their skiing before the season, the skier gets a great deal, and the resort gets a great deal. There’s a partnership,” Bonfiglio said.
But of course, there’s also something to be said for the danger of pricing out the casual skier. “I think about that a lot, and wonder how we can make it easier to bring a friend,” Isaac said. “I’m hoping ski areas can see the value in growing the pipeline this way, too.”
So, will we see you on the slopes next season? If so, you better start planning it now.
Graphics by Danika Worthington, The Colorado Sun.