#IKON VS EPIC PASS FREE#

#IKON VS EPIC PASS FREE#

But what happens when (as is the case for those who live and/or work in Frisco, Silverthorne, and Dillon) you plan to frequent mountains in both the Epic (Keystone/A-Basin) and the Ikon (Copper) programs? At Pioneer Sports, where after a year of service full-timers qualify for a free season pass of their choosing, a clear winner emerged of the six eligible employees, all but one had opted for the Epic as of October. This fall, skiers who live close to an Ikon or Epic resort had a straightforward decision to make: buy the pass that secures unlimited access to your favorite local mountain. Compared to single-day prices at the ticket window on peak days (up to $172 at Breck), for locals and Front Range skiers and anyone booking a weeklong ski vacation, forking over an amount that could buy a major kitchen appliance makes economic sense since the spendy passes with all those perks pay for themselves after seven days of skiing. In part because Alterra is run by a number of ex-Vail executives, the Ikon Pass is packaged much like the Epic in addition to unlimited skiing at each company’s primary local resorts, both include five to seven days of skiing at top-tier partner resorts around the country and across the globe, from Telluride, Fernie, Les 3 Vallées, and Hakuba Valley (Epic) to Jackson Hole, Alta/Snowbird, Revelstoke, and Hokkaido (Ikon). Vail’s recent acquisitions include Whistler Blackcomb, Crested Butte, Stowe, and Park City, while Alterra bought Steamboat, Winter Park, Mammoth Mountain, and Deer Valley. Both Vail Resorts and Ikon’s parent, Alterra Mountain Company-a conglomerate formed by Henry Crown and Co, which owns Aspen Snowmass, and KSL Capital Partners in Denver-have spent years buying up top-tier resorts in anticipation of this showdown. The local implications are only part of the intrigue, though. The similarly priced season passes (roughly $900 for the Epic and $1,000 for the Ikon) offer unlimited access to some of the world’s premier resorts, including all four in Summit County-Breckenridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin fall under the Epic, and Copper Mountain is on the Ikon. In the most anticipated business duel to hit the ski industry in recent memory, this winter, for the first time in its 10-year history, Vail Resorts’ dominant Epic Pass faced a worthy challenger: the upstart Ikon Pass.

Ikon vs epic pass