Epic, Indy, Ikon, Mountain Collective: Which Pass Accesses the Most U.S. Skiing?
73 percent of all skiable acreage in America is accessible with these four passes
We start here because this is enough to scare anyone trying to decide which multimountain ski pass to buy:
That’s 399 ski areas - an impossible number to sort and more than most skiers will ever need. It helps to categorize them, and the easiest category is: are they in America or not?
That’s 159 ski areas spread across the world. Most are in Europe (50), Japan (48), or Canada (51). We covered those yesterday.
Today, we’re back in America, where we’ll try to make sense of this chart showing the regional footprint of Epic, Mountain Collective, Ikon, and Indy (collectively referred to as EMCI2 passes):
Wow that’s a lot of ski areas. But sometimes counting is hard, because Big Sky is one of those ski areas and so is Paul Bunyan, Wisconsin. One of those is the third-largest ski area in America, with a 4,366-foot vertical drop and 39 lifts. The other one is a pile of ropetows and a T-bar stapled across 20 acres halfway between Green Bay and Iron River. Having the most of something does not always mean that you have the best of those things.
So, how do EMCI2 passes compare across the United States on a more granular level? Let’s see: