About an hour west is Vail and Beaver Creek, which are also around 20 minutes apart. Breckenridge and Keystone are a 20-minute drive apart, so you can easily bounce back and forth. What’s great about the ski resorts in the Rockies is how close they are to each other. Then we’d head to Vail (which is known for its glitz and legendary back bowls) with some skiing at nearby Beaver Creek (a family-friendly slope near Vail). The plan was to stay in Breckenridge (a sprawling, beginner-friendly mountain) and also check out nearby Keystone (a ski-first resort that’s a bit more value-oriented). And since we were traveling with my 10-year-old daughter, Lucy, and Rahul’s 9-year-old daughter, Sabine, we wanted to make sure everything was family-friendly. Since his wife, Nisha, isn't a skier, he chose locations with a lively après ski scene. Having so many options was a bit mind-boggling, but Rahul had a plan: to split the trip between several mountains. Given that Vail Resorts is the brand behind the Epic Pass, it’s no surprise that the company has a number of resorts in the Colorado Rockies.

Now, I was finally ready to check out those next-level perks.Ī nighttime view of Vail. Depending on which Epic Pass you buy, you also get access to partner resorts like Colorado’s Telluride. With just a handful of ski days each season, the Epic Pass paid off-but one of the big perks, of course, is getting access to serious mountains around the world, including Colorado resorts like Vail and Crested Butte, Park City in Utah and Whistler Blackcomb in Canada-just to name a few. We made our way to the summit of Vermont’s highest peak at Stowe Mountain Resort. We checked out family-friendly Okemo in Vermont. We navigated some of Vermont’s southernmost slopes at Mount Snow. We dive-bombed down Hunter Mountain in New York’s Catskills. We conquered the greens at beginner-friendly Jack Frost-Big Boulder in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Over the first two seasons of having an Epic Pass, I managed to check out a number of mountains throughout the Northeast with my family. A selfie on Vail Mountain with (from left) Sabine, Rahul and Lucy.

Epic ski pass locations