Beidahu and Lake Songhua ski areas in China, along with Madarao in Japan, will join Ikon Pass for winter 2026-27. The familiar access terms for each of the three mountains are seven days on full Ikon, five on Ikon Base, and no blackouts on either pass. And of course no access on Ikon Session because it’s a terrible product. Ikon, which added Yunding Snow Park in China to its roster last winter, remains the only U.S.-based multimountain ski pass with a presence in that nation.
Ikon also expands its growing two-day tier – accessible with full Ikon only, with holiday blackouts – to 11 ski areas with the additions of Caberfae Peaks, Michigan and Snowy Range, Wyoming.
With today’s additions, Ikon will deliver access to 103 ski areas for winter 2026-27. Eighty-three of these are also on Ikon Base, and only 53 are on Ikon Session (because it sucks):
In the interest of getting this news live, I’ll save detailed breakdowns of each mountain for a future post. I’ll leave you with these stats: with today’s Ikon additions, piled on top of recent partner surges from Indy and the nascent Snow Pass, U.S.-based multimountain ski passes have added 69 new partners ahead of winter 2026-27: 43 for Indy, 14 for Snow Pass, 12 for Ikon, and zero for Epic or Mountain Collective. Together, those five passes, plus Mountain Capital Partners’ Power Pass, now collectively deliver access to 451 ski areas around the world, including 267 in America, 55 in Canada, and 53 in Japan. Europe accounts for 61 more multimountain pass partners, with the largest concentrations in Austria (20), Switzerland (12), and France (7). Indy Pass, with a 250-resort (alpine-only) roster, claims more than every other pass combined. Vail’s Epic Pass is good at 71 ski areas, Alterra’s Ikon at 103, the Mountain Collective at 32, Snow Pass at 14, and Power Pass at 15.
I’ll get into this announcement a bit more on today’s pod. Look out for full resort write-ups – as well as more regional context on the exploding world of U.S.-based ski passes – as soon as I can dam this Niagara Falls of new partners.
Stuart, I want you to know that after you inaugural "short"-form podcast the other day I went out and purchased six (6) Snow Triple Play passes for me and my family. In case it's helpful to you, your guest, or others, my rationale was as follows. We live in NYC metro with two young adult kids (avid and accomplished skiers both I am proud to say) also living in the area in committed relationships. One is recovering from a torn ACL while the other is just starting a new job. Neither feel they can commit to lots of ski days this winter but don't want to miss out entirely or feel ripped off when they do ski. In college we included them on our Ikon pass, which my wife and I maintain (base, not session -- cuz it sucks! LOL). Anyway, the Triple Play is going to be our holiday gift to each of the kids and their signif. others. It's price point is great and it delivers value ($60/day) with a solid selection of hills in our region. And of course we want the option to ski with them (and revisit old favorites like Plattekill, Jiminy, Butternut, or Gore) so we've treated ourselves. I almost got a 2nd one for myself but I don't want to pirate my Ikon days too much. Maybe next year. Thanks for all you do covering lift-served skiing. I only wish I had thought of it first!
With Cabby now going IKON (my favorite hill in lower MI and driving distance from my Ohio abode) I now have the flimsiest excuse to cough up for a full IKON pass to accompany my EPIC pass. 😎