Prices on Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass go up tomorrow, November 17th!

Sit down, take a deep breath, and believe me when I tell you that single-day lift tickets to ski at Vail during the winter of 2024-2025 will cost you $295 dollars.

Two-hundred and ninety-five dollars to ski for however much of one day you can squeeze in.

If that sounds completely absurd, well, I wish I could tell you it was a one-resort aberration. Beaver Creek is equally as brutal at $295, Breckenridge isn’t too far behind at a ghastly $269 for single-day tickets, and the massive new connected complex that is Park City in Utah will set you back $289 for a single-day scan to ride their lifts.

Skiing isn’t cheap any way you look at it. Gear itself requires a major investment whether it’s via purchase or rental, while transportation to and from the numerous resorts adds up exponentially the further away from the mountains you live. That said, one way resorts have tried to encourage ‘savings’ is to effectively buy in bulk – and the way to do so is to buy one of the collective passes that bundle multiple resorts for many flexible days well in advance of when you’ll actually be on skis.

Vail Resorts, which owns/operates the likes of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breck, Crested Butte, Park City, and many more partner mountains, has their Epic Pass for just such shopping. As you might expect, it too is not cheap by any means. However, if you know you’ll be planning a minimum of four or five days on the slopes of their mountains somewhere, at some time during the course of this winter, it would behoove you to pick up either their Epic Pass (or more restrictive Epic Local Pass, or even a pre-paid three or four day pass) before those get mighty expensive, too.

As of the time of writing this on the morning of November 16th, you’ve got a little over a day and a half before their next major price increase during the evening of Sunday, November 17th. They won’t be on sale too much longer at all, as they typically close off the ability to buy the passes in late November once most of their resorts have snow on the ground and lifts turning.

Prices right now are this: $1047 for the full, blackout-free Epic Pass and $778 for the Epic Local Pass (which still includes copious access to most of their resorts with some specific blackout dates).

Is that a major outlay of cash? You’re damn right it is.

Will it save you potentially thousands of dollars if you’re planning to bring a family (or friends) on a trip for a week? It absolutely will.

It’s a similar story for Alterra’s Ikon Pass, which provides much of the same pricing strategy for rival resorts like Aspen, Snowmass, Winter Park, Copper, Steamboat, and California’s Mammoth. While their prices aren’t set to rise specifically on November 17th, they, too, will cap sales of all passes at some point by the end of November as their resorts set to open, too. So, if you’ve got trips on the docket (or still yet planned), it would similarly behoove you to shop their variety of passes as soon as possible as well.

Full disclosure: I don’t get any kickbacks or referrals for suggesting these options. It’s just an easy way for me to point out to readers who I know have skiing this winter in mind who haven’t yet put it on the books. Save some cash, get those trips planned early, and give me a call when you get out West – I’ll come hit the slopes with ya!