You know the world is ending when nearly $150 is considered a good value 💀 And I know that it's a better value than other places, but c'mon: 10 years ago I thought $99 was an outrage and now there are resorts pushing $250.
Folks sleep on Bridger Bowl in Montana. Several times larger than some of the places on this list, more than 300 inches of snow per year, bowls/chutes/trees/groomers, great vibe, and tickets are $85 ($70 ahead)
You are 100% correct about Whitefish, MT. I've skied their multiple times, and I am still shocked how reasonably priced the tickets are year round for how HUGE the ski resort is.
Jay is pretty good so far this season. Probably one of the better snow packs as of right now. Though this weather this weekend really ate it to the snow pack.
Brighton also has night skiing available, while with a smaller footprint, at even lower prices too, and night skiing is convenient because it is less busy and (for locals at least) it’s nice to go up for night cruising after a busy day at work
With the lift tickets and accommodation prices in Colorado, Utah and California, it is actually cheaper to fly to Japan and enjoy the true powder paradise You only need 3-4 days of lift tickets differential to pay for the trans-Pacific economy flight over domestic flight to the Rockies
Baker! Mt Baker! Near Bellingham, WA. Schweitzer, near Sandpoint, ID. Whitewater, BC. True western Canada hits different on price and number of people, plus good snow and insane terrain
Two other great values in the PNW area are skibowl and white pass, $59 and $75 respectively. Skibowl has some inconsistent snow quality and primitive lifts, but has probably the most diverse advanced terrain on Mt. Hood, and it's never crowded enough for the slow lifts to become a huge problem. I've been able to ski right onto the lift on bluebird days, if you stay on the upper, advanced region. White pass has much better snow, and also a bunch of great advanced and in-bounds off trail area. It's got a pretty big footprint and more updated lifts, and it's never crowded either. It's kinda in the middle of nowhere tho.
I’m taking a trip to visit a buddy in Washington this week and snowboard while there and I was amazed at how cheap places like baker and white pass are especially compared to the resorts i frequent in New England. It’s crazy that my 3 days riding in the PNW is almost the same price of a single day at my local mountains in NE
I totally agree with White Pass. I haven’t been to Skibowl. Being 2 hours away, day trips are long and tiring but well with it. Crystal is getting expensive and Snoqualmie has short runs.
That is still very expensive. Here in Austria I pay around 700 USD for the whole year for 33 ski ressorts. The farthest area I reach within 1h 30 min of driving, so on average it's just 30-40 min of driving. The season for the highest area (glacier ressort) is 8 months (October to May/June).
Lift ticket at Baker is $87.04 Mount Baker broke the World Record single season snow depth record in 1998-99 at 1140” or 95’., that was a crazy year allowing us to ride areas never dreamed of before. Baker also broke the most snow fall in one month of 304”. Baker is also home of the World famous Mt Baker Banked Slalom which is going on this weekend after a two year cancellation due to covid. It has also been ranked in the top 5 for best powder in Powder and Ski magazine. But don’t go there it’s super super super busy
For the North East/New England, Saddleback Mountain in Rangeley Maine far and away has the best life ticket value. Average price of ~$60. Some of the best expert and off-piste skiing in New England. Comparable snowfall totals to Jay. No lift lines, ever. It’s amazing there.
I have 2 thoughts about value. First, certain regions are just cheaper than others. Idaho, Montana, and BC offer the same big time skiing that Utah and Colorado do, but at a much lower cost. I skied a 2000 vert, 2000 acre mountain on a powder day President's day last year for a $49 walk up ticket, and the longest line was 3 chairs. Second, you have to sacrifice something to get the lower ticket cost, what you choose to give up is where you need to make decisions. If you want some of the most difficult lines inbounds at any ski area, Bridger Bowl is half the price of Snowbird. The downsides are the more difficult flight in, no lodging on site, and the 20 minute hike. If you want cruisers for days, Panorama BC is a much better value than Sun Valley, but it's not exactly the same luxurious experience or name brand, and I'm honestly not sure how to get to Invermere if you can't just drive.
You should do a ranking video on the Whitefish Mountain resort in Montana! It’s my favorite resort to go to and could compete with some of the top ranks imo ❤❤
I think most of your followers are using ikon or epic passes. Daily pass prices matter very little. would be very interested to see a video on lodging cost with its relative value. For example, snow bird and Alta have some of the highest hotel room prices and very limited housing rental options.
Even with the ikon pass those mountains are super expensive if you stay at the base. Sandy UT is great but then you’re risking the road closures on powder days.
In Canada I would rank Fernie as a better value location than the other Canadian resorts. It has on resort lodging, better prices, great conditions and hot tub time machines :P It suffers the same drawback as Whitefish, not in a major city location or on a main highway.
Fernie is an excellent value on a good day, but you're also taking the risk of rain (which happens multiple times per season) and terrain closures (i.e. Polar Peak is closed for all but a handful of days each year).
@@PeakRankings Rain is a bigger concern at Whistler, rain days at Fernie are at the bottom while fresh snow falls up top. No different than most if not all Rockie mountain resorts. I even experienced a day like that and the snow conditions were way better than the snow in Lake Louis. When vacationing we can't pick the conditions, but Fernie on it's worst days has beat a lot of resorts on their best days.
Kinda surprised Taos didn’t at least get an honorable mention. Phenomenal mountain and they have some very good advanced ticket prices. Otherwise, you definitely nailed all of my picks.
Average Taos lift ticket is now $161, so it was a bit expensive to make this list using the methodology we had. However, as you stated, the mountain is still a great deal if you book off-peak weekday tickets in advance (with rates as low as $95).
@@PeakRankings I was wondering about more specific settings. I run mine at the exact same res and framerate but can't get good quality footage. I think doing a whole video on your filming setup would be a great idea.
Since we already had Baker and Whitefish so far up the list (both of which undercut Schweitzer's ticket prices), we made the call to leave more space in the video to highlight mountains from other regions.
am I the only person who really dislikes that sound effect when the video moves to the next on the list? it always startles me, and it sounds jarring. Also, sounds like a basketball. if you're going to use a generic sound effect, use something skiing-related, like a swoosh of skis through snow or whatever. Or just a musical chord.
Seeing those prices makes me so glad I'm living in Japan, I can get a bullet train ticket + lift for just 76USD to the nearest resort and the snow quality is good plus the town is great.
American resorts have become so ridiculously expensive (lifts + room) that it is now cheaper to fly to Europe to ski (even when you include the airfare).
Yeah I ski for the snow. I hunt pow. Europe snow quality sucks generally and run variability is low. No decent tree runs - no aspen glades. No great spruce/fir bowls. Much of the terrain is often closed. Much of the skiable terrain has the feel of huge wide cat walks that are green cruisers. No thanks. I’ll keep getting Epic or Ikon annual passes and get my daily lift ticket price well under $50. Take that Europe. Additionally more and more European resorts are on their last legs with global warming. I’ll take 600” of pow in Snowbird/Alta and 400” of good stuff at Vail, Snowmass, Steamboat, Winterpark… every day of the week. (Of course 2022/23 was an unusually great season in the US 😂)
@@F3lix953 A few valid points. I’m no longer interested in skiing couloirs but I was when younger. Crowds. Not a factor with me. I have the flexibility to ski when I want so I always avoid holiday crowds. For instance I finished my ski season by spending 2 weeks at Vail. Last week of March. First week of April. Very nice conditions. It snowed a total of 33” in January type weather. Unusually cold for that time of year. I was literally in a lift line once - 15 minutes at Gondola 1 for first run at 8:30am after 8” fell during the night. That morning I got first runs on 5 slopes front side and spent the rest of the day in the back bowls hitting fresh pow all day. It did get tracked up but it was easy to find virgin snow for 2 days between other tracks. My longest line for the other 13 days was under 2 minutes. Most of the time literally no wait. I was never in a long lift line the entire 22/23 season. Powder. Have you ever skied Alta/Snowbird champagne powder? Up to your waist? Up to your nipples? I have. Numerous times. It’s nothing like European snow I’ve ever seen. It’s ethereal. Magical. In my world the only experience that may compete is being a pro surfer, in a drop dead gorgeous tropical location, riding the most beautiful break, catching tubes that may only occur once every year or so. Personally my most memorable runs, and the runs I seek out, are glade skiing bottomless pow. Silently snaking between the trees with a couple friends. Wide open above tree line bowl skiing is great in fresh pow but for me nothing beats laying down tracks in the spruce and fir glades. You can get nice to great pow skiing almost weekly in Utah’s Alta/Snowbird region. Those conditions have haunted my dreams, whispered to me, since I was 8 years old. Not Europe. And when I’m dying and life is draining from me my last thought will probably be - if only I could have one more pow run in the glades.
@@mrsmartypants_1cope harder 😂 talking about amount of snow tho you don’t even have one skiing area that is open the whole year. You guys always always find a way to cope to not give in that Europe is superior in terms of skiing. Greetings from the Glacier in End of may with fine powder 😮💨
Clearly the trade off is convenience. Although I’d say Lake Louise in February with the shuttle makes it the best value to me. Love Banff. Great mountain.
Willamette Pass blows all these resorts out of the f'ing water in terms of ratio of ticket price to experience. It's 1550 vertical feet (same vert. rise as Baker), about half the area of Baker, but midweek tickets are $20. TWENTY DOLLARS. If you book your trip a couple weeks in advance the weekend tickets are ALSO TWENTY DOLLARS. If you book day-of on a really busy weekend it gets up to a max of about $65. It's legitimately cheaper than some tiny 100 foot vert hills in Wisconsin and it has a high-speed six pack and really good tree skiing, I don't see how you beat that on value.
As always, great content. It's absolutely amazing how ticket window prices have risen. Even back in the early 2000s, I skied Homewood for $25 during the week, Heavenly for $75 on a weekend and $67 at Kirkwood. Of course back then, there wasn't an Ikon, Indy or Epic pass.
0:00 Intro 1:15 10th Alta / Snowbird, UT 3:31 9th Whistler Blackcomb, Canada 4:55 8th Arapahoe Basin 6:28 7th Banff Sunshine / Lake Louise , Canada 8:23 6th Brighton, UT 9:33 5th Sierra at Tahoe, CA 10:55 4th Jay Peak, VT 12:22 3rd Mt. Baker, WA 1,500 ft vertical 14:04 2nd Wolf Creek, southern CO 15:21 1st Whitefish, northern MT 17:25 Hon. Mentions: Schweitzer NW ID, Loveland CO, Tremblant Q, Kirkwood CA, Big White BC, Kicking Horse BC, Revelstoke BC, Powder Mt. UT, Grand Targhee ID/WY, Snowbasin UT
While it's not very big, if you're skiing for the very first time, Granby Ranch is probably the best value and best place to learn. I'm not sure if they still have the deal, but at one point, 3 days of private lessons if you've never skiied before gets you a season pass. They genuinely give one away. It's perfect for families too, since there's only one base area, so you won't be getting lost
one of my Fav resorts in colorado is Ski Copper, 60 dollar all day lift tickets, with thursdays being 30 dollars. Its a really cool resort, no lodging but its near Leadville Colorado
A question - I was just looking at lift ticket price in the French Alps and the lift tickets are just incredibly cheap. Les 3 Valles, the biggest resort in the world, is just 60 Euros/day; and Chamonix, just 50. Any idea why Europe is so much cheaper than North America? Surely it's not terrain or snow quality!
Regarding snow quality and quantity, western North America generally beats the Alps overall (of course there are exceptions, but this is generally the case). Japan beats both of them in terms of quantity but not quality (the snow isn't very dry here). Terrain-wise, it depends on what visitors are looking for. Western North America has a mix of tree skiing and bowls, whereas the Alps tend more towards bowls and open alpine terrain. Otherwise, the differences are mostly in terms of business models and demand. North American resorts have been shifting towards the multi-resort ski pass systems (Epic, Ikon, Mountain Collective, Indy) and package deals for people planning vacations in advance. In Europe with its higher population density, the ski areas are generally more geographically accessible for single day and overnight trips as well as having more ski area competition per capita, so the business models of the resorts there are oriented towards more casual visitors who don't plan in advance and stay for a short time. This is only part of a larger picture, but it covers some of the major differences.
@@adamstofsky4244 At least in Austria the goverement is pumping money into the resorts to keep them expanding, always have top notch lifts and keep the prices low... skiing is considered a part of the National identity! So everyone should be able to acces it. If u live in Innsbruck for example u can buy the FREIZEITTICKET for 450€ and get unlimited days at almost 30 resorts in the area.... Liftprices in General are cheaper for locals
For a period of about 6 years our family of 3 would take an annual trip to SB or Telluride. Sad to say, we’ve pretty much been priced out of those type options. Yeah, we could do it cheaper, but a big part of the fun is staying in decent accommodations, and having nice towns during downtime.
Before COVID Mt Norquay in Banff offered select days, usually once a month, where tickets were $2. Lines were insane obviously but was a great way to get on the mountain for cheap
Solid list and summaries. I was surprised Crystal didn't make the cut -- I've skied there for like $70 on a Tuesday last March. Great conditions, amazing mountain, I almost couldn't believe the value. Would recommend.
A-basin will probably be on this list with their three day midweek pass. Also probably a few Canadian areas like Banff Sunshine and Big White. The best deal for day tickets in the east would probably be Jay Peak, but the way to go would be the Indy Pass.
Sadly skiing is set up in such a way that you have to commit to a season pass or get an Epic or Ikon pass to be able to ski without hemorrhaging your money. I purchase my pass in June and then I don’t think about it. My home mountain Killington takes it out over three payments over six months. It also includes a Ikon pass. If you want cheap skiing like I did when I was raising my family we skied small feeder mountains. You know small areas with 1000 vertical or less and all fixed lifts. My pass at Killington allows me to push vouchers to friends for 50 percent off. I mostly brown bag it and eat on the lift except when I ski with my wife or kids, yeah they want no part of eating on the lift. Skiing has always been expensive but now it’s crazy town especially if you only ski a few days a year and have small children. Stay away from resorts and look for places that offer value, they are out there. In New England there are many places that are not over priced and there are plenty out west too. Loveland and A Basin are both great and I could spend days skiing both. Backcountry skiing is also a good option to break things up. Now that I am retired I have time for this. Enjoy the snow it’s wonderful.
We know! It's hard to efficiently book a trip without purchasing your lift access months in advance, but we're thankful for the remaining destination mountains that are at least relatively reasonable.
Still as expensive as the most expensive ski areas in Austria, Germany, Italy etc. and not comparable to anywhere outside the Us you guys get scammed over shitty ski resorts with poor performance for their money that have nothing to deliver then snow. But that is what happens when the corps can own the whole mountain ain’t it?.
Very interesting. I am surprised you chose Jay peak and not Tremblant to represent the east :) Would love if you did this but compared ticket + accommodation pricing
I agree with most of these, however whistler should be number one. They also are on the epic pass, and I’ve never seen their lift lines get longer than 20 minutes.
for the east you definitely missed smugglers notch, best family ski area round here and some of the absolute best overall terrain in the east for only 85 is blasphemous, especially when stowe right next to it almost doubles that price for basics the same thing with bigger crowds on the other side of the same mountain
As an european its hard to understand how any of those resorts are considered cheap, when the most expensive resorts in austria like Sölden, Ischgl or St. Anton are all under 70 $.
They force people to buy season passes like Ikon and Epic pass. Vail corporation bought up a ton of resorts and jacked up daily passes. It use to be pretty cheap until recently.
Red mountain lodge in Montana is only 89 for a full day and 64 for a half day. You just need to check conditions and see if the Palisades park area is open so you can get the full mountain
Whistler is really on cheap for Americans because of the exchange rate. And when you do the math, food, gas, canadian flights, taxes, etc, all make it extremely expensive for Canadians
