Ski Week

The destinations, ranked

Three of our cities are real ski towns. The rest are not, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Best first. This is an opinion, not a spreadsheet. If the top pick fits your dates and budget, stop scrolling.

Lift tickets are the whole argument

Three nights of skiing is not a season, and the pass math says so out loud.

As of 10 September 2026 a full Epic Pass is $1,145 and a full Ikon Pass is $1,449. Epic Local is $849 and Ikon Base is $1,019. Those Epic numbers went up on 7 September, the second increase since March, and they will go up again in October and November before passes come off sale in early December. So treat any pass price you read anywhere, including this one, as a floor with a date on it.

Here is the part that does not go stale. A full season pass does not pay for itself on a three or four night trip, at either mountain, in any scenario we could construct.

At Jackson Hole, advance multi-day lift tickets start around $60 a day for three days or more. Three days is about $180. Even on Christmas week, when the online rate hits $255 a day, four days comes to roughly $1,020, still under the Ikon Pass.

At Park City, the walk-up window rate ran $351 a day last season and buying about a month ahead takes roughly 30 percent off that. Three days lands near $740, four near $985. Both sit under a $1,145 Epic Pass. If someone in the group wants a pass anyway, the Epic Day Pass is the right shape, seven days across all resorts for about $701.

One genuinely new thing for 2026-27, and it matters for this particular trip: Vail added a 20 percent discount on the full Epic and Epic Local for ages 13 to 30. If most of your group is under 30, rerun the numbers, because that is the one case where a pass can start to make sense.

The trap that costs real money is the guy who buys Epic Local or Ikon Base to save a few hundred dollars and then finds out he cannot use it on your dates. Ikon Base in particular has historically restricted Jackson Hole. Check the blackout calendar for your exact dates before anyone buys anything.

When you go decides what you pay

Ski pricing is tiered and the cheap tiers sell out. Jackson Hole says it plainly: limited quantities, once they are gone they are gone. That is not marketing. It means the same Thursday costs different money in October than it does in January.

MLK and Presidents week are the two weeks every group picks and the two weeks that cost the most. They are also blacked out on the cheaper pass tiers, so the guy who bought an Epic Local or Ikon Base to save a few hundred dollars finds out he cannot use it on your dates.

Early December and April are the same mountains for less money and fewer people. The snow is a gamble in December and a different gamble in April. Everyone has an opinion about which gamble is worse.

The one thing everyone screws up

Booking the lodging first.

Someone finds a condo, everyone Venmos a deposit, and then the group works out that half of them hold the wrong pass for that mountain and the cheap ticket tier sold out three weeks ago. Now you are paying window rates on top of a non-refundable house.

Sort the lift tickets first. They are the variable that moves the most money and the only one with a clock on it. Lodging is easier to change than a sold-out ticket tier.