Indy Pass Adds Donner Ski Ranch, Puncturing Tahoe Forcefield; Montage Returns
Pass also adds two partners in Europe, Magic Mountain in Idaho, Leavenworth Ski Hill in Washington; passes off sale Thursday
Consider this: a crystalline lake at the top of the world, a quarter-mile deep and 12 miles wide, surrounded by 15 ski areas that vacuum 400 inches of snow in an average winter. A couple of them speedbumps but a couple others among the 10 largest ski resorts in North America. Altogether 23,000 skiable acres served by 170 lifts. It sounds like make believe. Like something out of Tolkien. Or at least Europe. A ski bum’s imagined paradise, a mad robot’s invented thing to appease its human makers. From the alpine summits complex vistas unroll: the gigantic brilliant lake, mountains pine-treed and white and soaring, the snowless desert stretching to an empty horizon. Someone call the Vatican. It’s a miracle.
An accessible one, it turns out. Interstate 80 hammers across Lake Tahoe’s North Shore, a superfunnel for the millions of Californians who ski there each winter (and spring and summer and fall). Tahoe is one of North America’s densest and most popular ski regions, a must-have collection point for would-be megapasses chasing new members. When Vail voyaged outside Colorado they secured Tahoe first, taking Heavenly in 2002, Northstar in 2010, and Kirkwood two years later. Alterra anchored its 2018 Ikon Pass debut partly in the 6,000-acre mash-up of Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows, and later added Sierra-at-Tahoe as a partner mountain. Mountain Collective similarly launched in 2012 with Squaw, and quickly added Sugar Bowl as a Tahoe replacement when that mountain, now Palisades Tahoe, exited the coalition in 2022.
But Indy, founded in 2019, could never punch through. Despite success elsewhere in California, and despite claiming Red Lodge, sister resort to lakeside Homewood, as an original partner. First-to-open, high-elevation Mt. Rose remained elusive, as did insular, municipally managed Diamond Peak.
As the 2025-26 winter approaches, Indy finally found a way through the perimeter: Donner Ski Ranch. One of a half-dozen mostly small ski areas hugging I-80 as eastbound skiers approach Palisades and Northstar, Donner Ski Ranch is underwhelming in the context of Tahoe’s sprawling ski universe. But it’s a symbolically important ski area for Indy Pass, a survivor that has spun lifts for nearly 90 years despite living across the street from far larger Sugar Bowl, a family-owned outfit that quietly pushes its season into May despite its minimalist snowmaking.
Donner Ski Ranch is one of five ski areas that today joins Indy Pass for the 2025-26 winter. Along with new partners announced in May and August, Indy has added 43 new alpine ski areas to its roster for this winter. Today’s additions highlighted in yellow below:
Kaunertal Glacier is Indy’s seventh partner in Austria, and the fifth added this year. Together with Kartalkaya Dorukkaya, the pass’ third partner in Turkey, Indy now claims 22 resorts in Europe. Leavenworth, a 200-vertical-foot bump with a handful of surface tows drifting between longtime Indy partner Mission Ridge and Vail-owned Stevens Pass, is a nominal add that will be of little interest to more experienced skiers, but Magic Mountain, Idaho is a sneaky fun and playful romper with incredible terrain variety tucked into a sheltered bowl.
Good news for skiers in the Mid-Atlantic: Montage returns to Indy’s roster after an unexplained inter-season exit. Indy did not provide a reason for the partner whiplash. Swiss Valley, Michigan and Buck Hill, Minnesota will, as previously reported, exit Indy. That still leaves skiers with two days each at 220 ski areas, and discounts at five more under the Indy Allied program:
Indy’s Learn-To-Turn roster expands by eight ski areas, with 39 total mountains now participating in the pass’ separate, $189 beginner-oriented pass. Learn-To-Turn provides three total ski days, including lift tickets, rentals, and lessons:
Indy Pass will go off sale after Thursday, Sept. 18. This will be the “final” pass sale for 2025-26, according to Indy’s press release. The Learn-To-Turn pass will remain on sale throughout the season, however. The final rates for all pass tiers remain the same as August rates:
I’ll lay out more thoughts on the five new partners in a future newsletter. For now, go tell your lazy friends to buy Indy Pass before it goes away.
SKRANCH!
As an eastern PA skier more excited for montage returning than any of the new adds. Already of plenty of great drivable road trip destinations in Vt/NH and while a (probably never going to happen) add of plattekill, Smuggs or MRG would be cool, Indy doesn’t need more density in northern VT. However montage exiting would have left a big hole in the mid Atlantic unless they added Elk to compensate.