Epic vs. Ikon: Which Ski Pass Wins?
In Colorado, the question comes up every fall, somewhere between the first snow on the peaks and the first traffic jam on I-70: which pass did you get? It sounds like small talk. It isn't. People here split into Team Epic and Team Ikon the way other places split over football. One Denver writer joked in 5280 that the rivalry was ruining her dating life. A Front Range blogger wrote, only half kidding, that it was costing him a ten-year ski partner.
I sell both passes, so I've never had to pick a team in public. But after more than 30 years of answering this question on the phone, I've come to think the answer is less about the passes than about the map.
How it began
For most of skiing's history, a season pass meant one mountain. Before 2008, a pass to Vail alone ran about $1,800. Then, on March 18, 2008, Vail Resorts, a public company based in Broomfield, announced the Epic Season Pass: unlimited skiing at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Heavenly for $579. Arapahoe Basin was added that first season. The rest of the industry thought Vail had lost its mind. Instead it had invented the modern ski business.
The answer took almost ten years. In 2017, KSL Capital Partners, the Denver firm that owned Squaw Valley, teamed up with Henry Crown and Company, the Chicago family business that owns Aspen Skiing Company. Together they bought Intrawest, which owned Steamboat and Winter Park, and then Mammoth and Deer Valley. In January 2018 the partnership took the name Alterra Mountain Company, and within two weeks it introduced the Ikon Pass and the Ikon Base Pass. Aspen Snowmass came along as a partner, though Aspen Skiing Company still runs its four mountains.
How one pass became many
Vail never stopped adding. The company bought Park City, Whistler Blackcomb, Crested Butte and dozens of other mountains, and the single Epic Pass grew into more than a dozen products.
The full Epic Pass is still the flagship: unlimited, with no blackout dates, at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, Crested Butte, Park City, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood and Whistler Blackcomb, plus seven days at Telluride (with 50% off after that), seven days at the Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, and days in Japan and Europe.
The Epic Local Pass costs a few hundred dollars less and asks for a few compromises. Breckenridge, Keystone and Crested Butte stay unlimited. Park City, Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood are unlimited except on a handful of peak holiday dates. Vail, Beaver Creek and Whistler Blackcomb share ten days among them, none on peak dates. Telluride isn't included.
The Epic Day Pass, which arrived in 2019, is the one I recommend most often to people taking a vacation rather than a season. You choose one to seven days, choose all resorts or a smaller group of 32 or 22, and decide whether to pay a little extra for the peak holiday dates. The days don't have to be in a row, and the four to seven-day versions with all resorts include Telluride. Bought before the season, it can come in at well under half the price of buying lift tickets at the window.
Below those sit the regional passes, built for people who live near the mountains: the Summit Value and Keystone Plus passes for Summit County, the Tahoe Local and Tahoe Value passes, two Northeast passes and an Epic Australia Pass. There are also programs for military families, college students, seniors, adaptive skiers and schoolkids. Every Epic pass includes Epic Coverage at no charge, which refunds you for things like an injury, a job loss or a resort closure, and season pass holders get Epic Friend Tickets for discounted lift tickets for friends and family.
Ikon kept a shorter menu. The full Ikon Pass is unlimited at 18 destinations, including Steamboat, Winter Park, Copper and Arapahoe Basin, and gives up to seven days each at the big Western names: Aspen Snowmass, Jackson Hole, Big Sky, Deer Valley, Alta, Snowbird, Sun Valley and Taos. It has no blackout dates and comes with 15 Friends & Family tickets at 25% off.
The Ikon Base Pass keeps unlimited skiing at 15 destinations, Copper, Winter Park and Arapahoe Basin among them, and adds up to five days at many others, including Big Sky, Steamboat and Deer Valley, with blackout dates around the holidays. Here is the catch for most of our guests: at Aspen Snowmass the Base Pass works at Snowmass only, and Jackson Hole isn't on it at all. A Squad Pack lets five skiers ages 23 to 28 buy Base Passes together for less.
The Ikon Session Pass is the short version, two, three or four days at a long list of destinations including Big Sky, Steamboat, Copper and Winter Park, though not Aspen Snowmass or Jackson Hole.
And this season Ikon did something Epic doesn't: it began selling refundable versions of the Ikon Pass and Ikon Base Pass. They cost about 20% more. If you haven't scanned the pass by January 15, you get all your money back. After one scan, you get half. After two, nothing.
Where you live decides it
Spread the two maps across a kitchen table in Denver and the argument mostly settles itself. Within reach of the city, Ikon offers Copper and Winter Park, and Winter Park sits on the near side of the Eisenhower Tunnel, with a ski train from Union Station. Epic counters with Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek, four of the biggest names in the state, an easy drive up I-70.
Drive farther and the picture changes again. Ikon's long trip is Aspen Snowmass, four mountains on one ticket, with Steamboat to the north. Epic's long trip is Telluride, at the end of its box canyon, and Crested Butte. Skiers who love Vail buy Epic. Skiers who won't give up Aspen buy Ikon. Those who need a few days in Telluride go Epic.
If you're flying in, the logic is the same, only simpler. Look at the two or three trips you're most likely to take this winter. If most of them land on Vail Resorts mountains, buy Epic. If they land on Aspen Snowmass, Jackson Hole or Big Sky, buy Ikon, and probably the full Ikon Pass, since the Base Pass leaves out most of Aspen and all of Jackson Hole. If you're taking only one short trip, you may not need either. Discounted lift tickets bought in advance can be the better buy.
My own pick
Honestly, it's close to a toss-up, and plenty of people I respect would argue the other side. But if I had to choose, I'd get the Epic. It costs less, and from where I live in Colorado it puts Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek within a morning's drive, with Telluride waiting when I want to go farther. A skier who lives for Aspen or Jackson Hole would choose differently, and they wouldn't be wrong.
Whichever team you're on, the rules for saving are the same. A pass typically cuts the cost of getting on the mountain by more than half if you use it. Both companies sell their passes at the lowest price in the spring, raise the price in steps through the fall, and stop selling in December.
What about the smaller passes?
Two others deserve a mention. The Mountain Collective, created in 2012 by Aspen Skiing Company and a group of independent resorts, includes two days at each of 27 destinations around the world, plus 50% off additional days. The Indy Pass, started in 2019 by ski marketer Doug Fish, gathers hundreds of small, independent ski areas, two days at each. It's so popular that this season's pass sold out in 37 minutes.
Both are good passes for the right skier. But for a ski vacation in the big Western resorts, nothing really comes close to Epic or Ikon.
Let us do the math
Tell us where you want to ski this winter and how many days, and we'll tell you which pass, if any, makes sense for your group. We sell both, and we'll build the rest of the trip around it.
John Steed is the managing partner of Ski Trip Advisors and has been planning ski vacations in the West for over 30 years.
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