High-profile independent resorts like Jackson Hole, Crested Butte, Telluride, Alta and Snowbird have aligned with the brawling behemoths behind the Epic and Ikon season passes, which, at $899 each, offer access to more than 50 of North America’s 600-plus ski areas and host about a quarter of the continent’s skier visits.

Aaron Brill, whose frill-free Silverton Mountain ski area in southwest Colorado has not attracted partnership offers from either the Epic or Ikon, said the smaller, independent resorts unable to land a spot on the two dominant passes will suffer “devastating impacts.”

“Even for the small guys who manage to find their way onto a mega, big-box pass, they will experience problems with sustainability moving forward,” Brill said. “Small areas will have problems adapting to such large changes in the market. Areas that have run a certain way for decades don’t have a ton of options on how to pivot to adapt to lowering prices.”

Dozens of smaller resorts across the country are joining forces in a communal campaign to entice skiers away from the siren calls of the Epic and Ikon. Those independent hills are forging their own collectives, offering season passes priced well below their break-even point just to maintain relevancy in an industry where the volume of pass sales has become the new barometer for financial success.

The consolidation of major resorts under the Epic-vs-Ikon pass battle is transforming the resort industry. Vail Resorts sees Alterra Mountain Co.’s Ikon Pass as validation of its 10-year-old Epic Pass, which has shifted the resort industry away from real estate development and toward pass sales. When skiers buy their skiing months before the lifts start turning, resorts have the financial stability to invest in upgrades and pursue strategic plans. Vail Resorts recently reported the dearth of snow in the West led to a decline in visitation and visitor spending across its 11 destination resorts. But the company reported an uptick in lift ticket revenue thanks to more than 750,000 early-season buyers of the Epic Pass.

Skiers, in exchange for shouldering some of the financial risk that comes with running a business dependent on snow, benefit with cheaper turns. When the Epic Pass debuted at $579 in 2008, a typical season pass cost around $1,500. With the emergence of the 26-resort Ikon Pass, Vail Resorts corralled even more resort partners. Crested Butte Mountain Resort on Wednesday joined Telluride as one of the more high-profile U.S. resorts to join the Epic Pass.

“The ski industry has changed drastically in the last few years and in the last year particularly and we want to make sure we remain relevant and we remain economically viable and this deal represents that,” said Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s Erica Mueller, whose family owns the resort as well as operations in New Hampshire and Vermont. “I don’t think five years ago this is something we would have necessarily envisioned, but that’s OK and we are open to change and we need to adapt as a company.”

Resorts on the sidelines of the big-pass game are left to find their way in a new world where skiers expect skiing to cost about $30 to $40 a day, just like it does for their pass. Often times, those smaller resorts have to jump in bed with competitors and offer shared access to raise their appeal among pass-shopping skiers. That’s triggering unlikely unions between resorts that spent decades competing against each other to draw skiers.

“For us the challenge is maintaining our existing partners and adding more to increase the value on our passes,” said Greg Ralph from Purgatory, whose owner James Coleman has corralled five smaller ski hills in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona and created his own Power Pass as a sort of Epic Pass for southwest skiers.

Coleman’s Power Pass includes limited skiing at more than 20 other resorts in Japan, Europe and the U.S., including Copper Mountain, Eldora and Crested Butte. Last week, Coleman unveiled the lowest price ever — $599 — for the four-year-old Power Pass, with an offer of free passes for fourth-graders.

“To maintain our value we will be lowering the prices on season passes while still delivering a quality destination resort experience,” Ralph said. “James would if he could make skiing so affordable that everyone could do it.”

Powderhorn on the Grand Mesa partnered with about 20 ski areas to offer more than 50 free and discounted days with its 2017-18 $259 season pass. Those partners helped Powderhorn when the resort struggled with a lack of early-season snow, forcing a delayed opening and a span of limited operating days.

“These partnerships are a great selling point but, this season, they also provided the opportunity for our pass holders to get some early season skiing in elsewhere before winter fully arrived at Powderhorn,” said the ski area’s spokesman Ryan Robinson.

Offering a season of skiing for a few hundred less than the Epic and Ikon is one angle for smaller resorts seeking a niche in the season pass market.

“Pricing and value are our biggest advantage,” said Bob Nicolls, the owner of Monarch ski area, which has partnerships with about 15 different resorts on a season pass that sold for $499 last year. “Our value is irreplaceable and cannot be matched by big players.”

Ski Sunlight outside of Glenwood Springs has offered unique twists on its season pass. The 680-acre ski area scored a national spotlight in recent seasons with its $700 lift ticket that included a pair of custom-made Meier Skis. Sunlight’s partners include resorts in Spain and Japan as well as Idaho, Utah and Washington. This season the resort offered a $605 Sunny Soaker Pass good for unlimited skiing as well as soaking at the Glenwood Hot Springs.

“While we too are adding bells and whistles to our season pass, Sunlight has never actually been a bells-and-whistles ski area. We keep things small and affordable,” said Sunlight spokesman Troy Hawks.

For Brill, who has a vibrant Alaska helicopter skiing operation that helps offset any declines at his Colorado ski area, the Ikon and Epic passes represent the Costco and Walmart of skiing. He calls it “big box consumerism creeping into skiing.”

He’s not surprised — no one is really — to see a rival emerge with a product similar to the Epic Pass, which has fueled an astronomical rise in Vail Resorts’ stock price.

With the increased traffic that comes with pass sales that top 750,000, small resorts have something the big players can’t offer, Brill said.

“The good news is powder snow will become a much more valuable commodity due to supply and demand,” he said. “Small areas that have good snow will hold the rarest of all commodities: untracked powder snow.”