10 Most Affordable Ski Resorts According To Forbes

If you’re looking for a great value for a ski vacation, head on out to Brian Head Ski Resort in Utah…at least if you buy into the methodology Forbes Magazine used to compile this list of the ten most affordable ski resorts in the US. They used interesting combination of metrics including lift ticket price, airfare and something called the “Snow Score” which they borrowed from Zranking.com. Here’s the how Forbes ranks the top ten most affordable ski resorts:

1. Brian Head Resort, Utah

2. Eagle Point Resort, Utah

3. Beaver Mountain Ski Resort, Utah

4. Silver Mountain Resort, Idaho

5. Arapahoe Basin, Colorado

6. Mt. Baker Ski Area, Washington

7. Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico

8. Palisades Tahoe, California

9. Snowy Range Ski Area, Wyoming

10. Whitefish Mountain Resort, Montana

Here’s the 9 metrics they used to make their list:

To determine the best ski resorts for the money, Forbes Advisor examined data for 51 of the most popular ski resorts across the continental U.S. We considered nine relevant metrics in our rankings:

Lift tickets for two days (20% of total score): Data comes from each ski resort’s business website and is for the year 2023. With the exception of the cost of lift tickets for Sugar Bowl, CA, data comes from Snowonline.com.
Ski rentals for two days (20% of the total score): Data comes from each ski resort’s business website and is for the year 2023. With the exception of Mt. Hood Meadows, OR, data comes from Snowonline.com. Ski rentals include boots and optional poles.
Average cost of two-day accommodations (15% of total score): Data comes from Airbnb. We gathered the average cost of a two-night stay near the resort location for the weekend of Jan 13, 2024–Jan 15, 2024 (weekend of Martin Luther King Day).
Average airfare (10% of total score): Data comes from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and is the average airfare for Q1 2023.
Two-day car rental (10% of total score): Data comes from the Business Travel News Corporate Travel Index and is for 2023. We used the nearest major city to the resort with available data.
Multipass availability (e.g. Epic Pass, Ikon Pass, etc.) (8% of total score): Data comes from each ski resort’s business website as well as zranking.com and is for 2023.
Snow score (7% of total score): Data comes from Zranking.com’s Best Snow in North America list.
Number of lifts (5% of total score): Data comes from Zranking.com.
Number of runs (5% of total score): Data comes from Zranking.com.