Utah Skier Days 2025-26 Decline Worse Than Colorado: Plummet 26%

[ChrisC]

It is truly shocking to see Utah's ski days drop by 26%, officially outpacing Colorado's 24% decline.

Based on the data, Utah Skier Days (2025-26 vs. 2022-23), it seems clear that local skiers are opting to stay home rather than endure a season of poor conditions. Do we have any solid data on how Oregon performed, or are they the only state faring even worse than this?

How much did Utah’s record-warm winter hurt skiing? The numbers are in.

Visitation at Utah's 16 public ski and snowboard resorts fell almost 30% this winter amid the least snowy and warmest winter on record. The drop may have million-dollar implications on the state's coffers.

www.sltrib.com

An anomaly? How Utah's record-low snowpack hurt the state's ski resorts

This past winter wasn't the worst on record for Utah's ski industry, but it's one the industry would like to forget.

www.ksl.com

Utah Skier Days per Winter Season

Utah Skier Days Growth Rates

 

[ChrisC]

Utah Skier Days over Two Decades

Versus Utah Population Growth

 

[ChrisC]

It would be interesting to see if more Utah residents (or Utah-adjacent) skiers bought IKON or Epic Passes, fueling this Skier Days growth (still more likely) versus Out-of-Staters

 

[Sbooker]

There would be many more Utah Ikon holders than Epic surely? The choice of Park City vs the four Wasatch areas plus Snowbasin...........
I don't know how Vail even competes in that race.

 

[jimk]

There would be many more Utah Ikon holders than Epic surely? The choice of Park City vs the four Wasatch areas plus Snowbasin...........
I don't know how Vail even competes in that race.

Park City gets a lot of vacationers traffic, whereas the Ikon resorts probably have a higher ratio of locals traffic.

Traffic and parking was much less of an issue this year in LCC and BCC, but I don't think many of us want low tide seasons as a permanent solution

 

[jamesdeluxe]

@jimk, if it were back in the old days before mega passes, would you just buy a Snowbird or Altabird season pass? How much would that (not a senior pass) cost?

 

[Sbooker]

@jimk, if it were back in the old days before mega passes, would you just buy a Snowbird or Altabird season pass? How much would that (not a senior pass) cost?

I just looked at this. $1569 for a Snowbird only pass and $2918 for Altabird. If I was like Jim and could access Snowbird easily and on weekdays which would result in over 20 ski days across the season I’d buy the Snowbird pass without thinking. Pricy but still stellar value for that hill assuming full snow coverage.
When considering quantity and quality of snow plus terrain variety is there a better lift served ski hill on the planet?

 

[Tony Crocker]

I would be firmly in the AltaBird camp. As it is, with Ikon about half my days include time at both areas. Formerly an AltaBird pass was about 150% of a single area pass. Due to the spat over parking/reservations/traffic you now have to buy the season passes separately.

result in over 20 ski days across the season

Living there, jimk is skiing more like 60 days. With that many I would still buy AltaBird. $2918/60 = $48.63, still sounds like a good deal to me! At any rate if you are there the entire season, Alta tends to ski much better early season and Snowbird better late season. Alta skis far better on a 3-4 foot base, so in low tide seasons like this one, I would likely be at Alta more often. I posted earlier:

alta open	15-Dec​	31-Dec​	15-Jan​	31-Jan​	14-Feb​	28-Feb​	15-Mar​	31-Mar​
11-12​	50%​	80%​	73%​	95%​	95%​	100%​	100%​	100%​
14-15​	95%​	100%​	100%​	100%​	100%​	100%​	100%​	100%​
17-18​	35%​	75%​	76%​	95%​	95%​	100%​	100%​	100%​
25-26​	25%​	52%​	96%​	97%​	97%​	90%​	95%​	59%​
bird open	15-Dec​	31-Dec​	15-Jan​	31-Jan​	14-Feb​	28-Feb​	15-Mar​	31-Mar​
11-12​	24%​	50%​	50%​	88%​	90%​	100%​	100%​	100%​
14-15​	31%​	90%​	95%​	96%​	95%​	97%​	94%​	94%​
17-18​	6%​	23%​	27%​	61%​	82%​	82%​	84%​	88%​
25-26​	23%​	33%​	87%​	97%​	93%​	83%​	93%​	60%​

Snowbird's rockier terrain can take as much as a month longer to get open in slow starting seasons vs. Alta.

Once you get into stronger sun and melt/freeze (not uncommon during my Iron Blosam week) the High T at Alta is routinely bulletproof until 2PM and won't soften at all on a cooler day. By contrast many of the north facing steeps at Snowbird that retain winter snow are more accessible.

 

[jimk]

@jimk, if it were back in the old days before mega passes, would you just buy a Snowbird or Altabird season pass? How much would that (not a senior pass) cost?

How soon we forget about season pass details, at least those of us that aren't finance or statistics geeks
The following is a guestimate from memory:
From 2016-18 I used a Snowbird ten-pack ticket for a few seasons and skied other mtns too.
The 2018-19 season was the first time I bought a Snowbird season pass and I qualified for the senior version by turning 65 just prior to the season. I skied Snowbird primarily that winter, but also got a couple days each at three or four other UT ski areas with the free "Wasatch Benefit Days" that came with that pass.
In 2019-20 I got another Snowbird senior pass. I believe that's when Snowbird also first started to offer a cheap base Ikon pass as an add-on for pass holders, and I bought it too. I want to say the senior season pass was about $800 then and the base Ikon pass add-on was about another $275, totaling about $1100 with tax for both products. I also had an Epic pass that year and skied park city several times. Too bad covid cut things short on March 15 and I got less than 30 lift served days that winter.
From 2020-2026 I've purchased the Snowbird senior season pass with the base Ikon add-on pass. It keeps creeping up in cost and now totals about $1350 for both. But I enjoy it and usually get quite a few days at Solitude and a nice sprinkling of other days at various Ikon resorts. In 2026 I got about 40 days at Snowbird with the bird pass and also some nice days in Chamonix and Banff with the Ikon pass. Going with the Bird-Ikon Base combo of passes next year too.
For regular Bird pass you can always add about $200-300 more than the senior rate. As others have said, the Alta-Bird combined pass used to be sold at a nice little discount of about $500 less than the total of two separate passes, but now you have to buy two full priced passes.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Evolution of

Snowbird pass details:

From 1996-2008 I was a guest during Iron Blosam week, skiing 3 or 4 days there. In those olden days I'd buy tickets at SLC ski shops. The best deal for Snowbird was a 2-out-of-5-days ticket that was probably at least 1/3 off 2 window tickets.

From 2009-2013 I had finally bought my own timeshare unit and so was at Snowbird all week. My fellow timesharers told me about the ten-packs. Purchased before the beginning of the season, not only were they attractively priced, but if you skied 5-7 days you could roll over the remaining ones to the next season.

For 2013-14, Mammoth and Snowbird joined the Mountain Collective. Liz had just moved in with me in spring 2013. She bought Mountain Collective while I bought Mammoth Premier MVP, a $100 surcharge on Mammoth's pass that gave me half price at the other Mountain Collective areas. This plan was a hedge that worked better for Liz in 2013-14 and 2014-15 which were bad seasons at Mammoth but better for me for the average 2015-16 season. 2016-17 was so huge at Mammoth that in April 2017 Liz knew to opt for MVP Premier, which she had paid for by Memorial Day of that season, with 6 more summer ski days plus all of 2017-18 ahead of her.

2018-19 was the first year of Ikon and a no-brainer with our ties to both Mammoth and Snowbird. We had full Ikon the first year, only used it one day (a 6th at AltaBird) that would have been ineligible on Base, so switched to Base Ikon for 3 seasons. We are back on full Ikon now as it's required for Alta. Most of our Iron Blosam groups are on Base Ikon though I know a couple are on Mountain Collective.

I'd have to look up credit card bills for pricing histories. The one I recall is that the half price MCP tickets at Alta and Snowbird were in the $50-55 range. The reason I remember is that ski area IT systems were of variable quality, meaning you might have to go to the window every day. This was true for the first couple of years at Mammoth and the entire time were were on MCP at Snowbird. Only Alta from Day One could initiate a MCP and tie it to their RFID so subsequent days would be direct to lift. And if you initiated MCP at Snowbird you had to go to the window every day at Alta too.