Adaptive Athletes Can Get a Discount on Epic Passes, but Not Ikon

It's a question Colorado skiers and snowboarders ask themselves every fall: Epic or Ikon?

But what if you're a disabled athlete looking for a discounted mountain pass — a welcome break after the bank-breaking expense of adaptive ski gear equipment, and one that would allow you to visit numerous resorts?

Then the choice is easy.

As a way to "increase participation and representation of all abilities in skiing and riding," Vail Resorts offers a significant discount on the Epic Pass for adaptive skiers, according to Vail Resorts director of corporate communications Jamie Alvarez. Alterra Mountain Company, which sells the slightly newer Ikon Pass, does not.

Adaptive athletes like Mark Urich — who had his right leg amputated at the age of two — want to persuade Alterra to change that.

Urich, who grew up in Loveland, didn't try skiing until his mid-twenties. But when he did, he recalls, "I was like, wow, this is something that I love. I tried it for two days and quit my job and moved to the mountains."

Urich sometimes skis on his one leg, and sometimes uses a sit ski — a setup designed for those who either don't have legs or don't have function in their legs. For people like Urich's wife and many others, the sit ski is their only option, and it's not cheap.

"A basic frame is like $5,000," Urich says. "The shock is around $2,000. The seat bucket is $1,000, but you want it custom-modeled like a pair of [ski] boots. Outriggers cost $750." But the costs can go higher depending on the impairment.

"When you get into people's ski and board prosthetic legs — that insurance doesn't usually cover — you can be talking over $100,000 per prosthetic in some cases," Urich says. "Blind skiers skiers have to cover the cost of a whole other skier, because they have to pay their guide's way, usually, and also pay the guide."

But while the price tags are hefty, being out on the mountain is well worth the cost, according to Urich.

"It's just a sport that you can do as a disabled person better than an able-bodied person," he says. "As a disabled person, to see an able-bodied person not be able to do something that you can do is a pretty exhilarating feeling."

Urich volunteers as a teacher to help adaptive athletes learn advanced skills on the slopes.

"When a disabled person gets it — when I'm teaching them and they're struggling, and I'm like, 'Try this,' and they start linking turns, and they feel that 'swoosh,' so to speak, that feeling of bending the ski and getting it to pop and being over it and ready for the next one, kind of playing with the mountain — it's a really freeing experience," he says. "If you're in a wheelchair and you get into a sit ski, you forget that you're disabled."

But on top of the cost of the equipment, there's the lift ticket, which can run as much as $299 at places like Vail. So skiing enthusiasts usually buy season passes to a favorite resort or passes like the Epic or Ikon, which act as season tickets for multiple mountains.

The Epic Pass costs $929 for adults right now (prices go up on September 4) and includes unlimited access at dozens of resorts around the world — including Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Crested Butte in Colorado.

The Ikon Base pass also costs $929, with unlimited days at Eldora, Winter Park and Copper, as well as five days at Steamboat and Arapahoe Basin. A more expensive version of the Ikon includes more days at those two resorts and access to other resorts around the world.

While they are expensive, the passes often pay for themselves after just a few days of skiing.

The Epic Adaptive Pass includes all the benefits of the regular Epic Pass, but at a discounted price of $455. It is available to people with permanent disabilities.

"Vail Resorts qualifies a permanent disability as a permanent physical, mental or sensory impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, such as caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning or working," Alvarez says.

The Epic Pass was introduced in 2008, and the adaptive discount has been around for the past decade, according to Alvarez. "In March 2022, ahead of the 2022-2023 season, we made our adaptive passes easier to purchase online and expanded our options to best fit the needs of our guests," she says.

Ikon was introduced in 2018 and has never offered an adaptive discount.

"They don't do it," Urich says. "They offer a military discount, they offer a student discount, they offer a nurse discount, which is great — I'm stoked for all those groups. But all of those groups of people don't have to spend $12,000 extra to do the same sport."

When Urich reached out to Ikon, he says he was told that individual resorts under the Ikon umbrella offer discounts each season.

"Ikon Pass does not offer an adaptive pass," confirms Kristen Rust, a spokesperson for Alterra. "However, many Ikon Pass destinations do offer their own adaptive pass options."

But that option doesn't work for Urich, who likes to ski around. "I want to go on an epic, six-resort ski trip with my buddies," he says.

Copper Mountain offers an adaptive season pass for $349. Winter Park offers "a significant discount — around 50 percent — on season passes for adaptive skiers and riders," according to resort spokesperson Jen Miller.

A Winter Park season pass currently costs $709 — or $354.50 with a 50 percent discount for the adaptive pass. Still, the combined cost of discounted Copper and Winter Park season passes is significantly more than the Epic Adaptive Pass.

But Alterra works with the adaptive community in other ways, notes Rust, pointing out that the company works with and donates to the High Fives Foundation, a nonprofit that helps adaptive athletes.

"Ikon Pass partners with adaptive athletes Trevor Kennison and Noah Elliot," Rust continues. "Ikon Pass, alongside Winter Park, CMH, High Fives Foundation and Craig Hospital, are partnering with Level1 to produce a feature-length documentary called Full Circle, about Trevor Kennison, Barry Corbet and spinal cord injuries in the outdoors. Brittani Coury, paralympic snowboarder, and Phil 'Q' Quintana, veteran, were featured in an Ikon Pass storytelling piece. We work with several other influencers who identify as adaptive athletes or disability advocacy voices."

Winter Park is the longtime host of the National Sports Center for the Disabled, and "most credit Winter Park Resort as the birthplace of adaptive skiing and riding," according to Miller. "Hal O’Leary founded the National Sports Center for the Disabled at Winter Park more than fifty years ago, and the NSCD has called it home ever since. Through a long-term partnership, Winter Park Resort donates office space, gear, lift tickets and other in-kind and cash contributions to the NSCD and its athletes every year."

But those commitments just make Urich wish Alterra went the extra mile and offered an adaptive discount for the Ikon Pass;  athletes who learn to ski at Winter Park might want to try other resorts, too.

This isn't the first year he has complained to Altera. "I'm always trying to toot the horn," Urich says, noting how he tends to rally supporters in adaptive-skier Facebook groups like the Sit Ski Collective.

But it's not just disabled athletes that should be making noise, he adds.

"Anyone can be disabled," he concludes. "Anybody can spin that wheel at any time, on any day. It's not picky. You could walk out your door and become disabled — get hit by a bus, whatever. It can happen to anyone."