Aspen-Snowmass Launches Day-Pass Product, Midweek Pass
Aspen to skiers of Planet Earth: we still exist
Two Truths & A Lie, Storm edition: which of the following does not explain the newsletter’s two-and-a-half week absence?
A simple story about Aspen season passes that a normal person would have written in 15 minutes spiraled into a thesis-length research project tracing the resort’s marketing evolution against the contours of eight decades of American and Colorado ski history.
Before I could finish the story on Aspen season passes, which was one week after I intended to finish the story on Aspen season passes for which I had been given no fewer than 45 days advanced notice and an embargoed press release, it was time for my annual six-figure contribution to the American medical-industrial complex in the form of a surgical implant to mitigate damage from decades of flagrant overuse.
I’m like, super into weed and all things weed-related and I was baking up an extra-weed-tacular issue for 4/20 Brah!
Dang it, that’s too easy. Before you answer, let’s add a fourth truth-or-lie to the mayhem:
My meticulously plotted and always super up-to-date Storm Skiing Journal editorial calendar was eaten by my pet ferret, Fred.
OK that’s still too easy. Obviously my pet ferret’s name is “Jerry Garcia Snoop Dogg Puff-Puff The Magic Mascot.” Because I LOVE WEED AND IT’S 4/20 WHICH IS THE TIME AT WHICH STONERS SUCH AS MYSELF SMOKE WEED, get it???
And by now you’ve either stopped reading or this is exactly why you come here. And if it’s the latter, then you know the explanation for the content pause is some combination of 1. (“you’ll only have to do it once,” I tell myself as I Google “Aspen season pass price 1992”) and 2. (no need for concern as this year’s edition of the Bionic Storm chronicles was a rotator-cuff/biceps tendon repair scheduled several weeks in advance rather than an emergency intervention to prevent sudden death or dismemberment; it hurts but I can write).
Anyway here’s a story about Aspen season passes. I’ve rarely written about this $3,000-ish product and its slightly less-expensive offshoots in the past, but a handful of important changes are nudging the Aspen-Snowmass pass suite into something more than just an expensive pass of little interest to anyone but locals:
“Prepare to plunk down $78 for one day of skiing”
No one has ever accused Aspen of being a bargain. For years, the four-mountain complex jousted with Vail-Beaver Creek over who could charge more for a lift ticket. “Prepare to plunk down $78 for one day of skiing,” the Aspen Daily News warned ahead of the 2005-06 ski season. “My heavens!” we all thought. Until Vail and Beaver Creek, which the Associated Press described as among “the jet set’s favorite winter playgrounds,” dropped an $81 top lift ticket rate on us later that same winter. The AP quoted then-Vail Resorts CEO Adam Aron with a statement that no ski resort operator would dare utter in 2026:
“Vail and Beaver Creek do have the highest lift ticket price in the United States. And yes, we’re actually — as opposed to hiding from that fact — we’re proud of that fact,” he said. “If the resort is capable of successfully charging the highest lift ticket prices in the country, that may be an indicator that it really is the best vacation experience.”
Vail must have been the best locals’ experience as well, because by 2007, when those Eagle County peak-day lift tickets hit a now-quaint sounding $92 ($145 in 2026 dollars), a season pass to those two mountains (which also included access to Breck, Keystone, and A-Basin), cost $1,849 ($2,905 in 2026 dollars). Aspen was just as, um, “successful,” with an $87 lift ticket and a $1,699 four-mountain season pass.
But then something strange happened. In 2008, Vail decided that lift tickets were an extra-great way of telegraphing best-ness, but that season passes should cost roughly the same as a bag of dogfood. Enter: the Epic Pass, a $579 unlimited season pass good at every Vail mountain in the universe. Which for the pass’ debut 2008-09 season was just five mountains, plus A-Basin, but they were some mountains: Breck, Keystone, Beaver Creek, Vail Mountain, and Heavenly.
In response to the Epic Pass, Aspen decided to do… absolutely nothing.