Yeah but it sucks to have to play the pass game. And even when you buy passes, unless you live within easy reach to the mountains, you're probably paying too much. Its a racket.
I'm not going to do all the various vacation cost comparisons but if you have a family of four like mine and you buy 4 passes for 6 days at the resort I mentioned, you're at about $1300 for four people. If you want to do the same at Breckenridge using Epic Day Passes, here's your cost below. That's a $1200 difference. We haven't even touched rentals, lessons, guiding, etc.
I mean, let's look at this...
So... let's say you pay $63/day for equipment...
I went to a local INTERSPORT shop in the town where we were in France. I had already rented six days of equipment for my other son and that was all paid up for about $200 for higher end all mountain gear. Anyway, I then added the following:
* 2 days of intermediate rentals for my other son
* 1 day of avalanche gear rental for me
* 1 hand wax of my skis
Total - 87 Euro