Indy Pass Adds Tussey, Pennsylvania and Peek’N Peak, New York

Also adds cross-country ski areas in Vermont, Maine

When Indy Pass tacked Sunlight, Colorado onto its roster in the back half of the 2021-22 ski season, the coalition numbered 82. Eighty-one alpine ski areas, and the Sovereign Lake cross-country center in British Columbia. It was a solid lineup, headlined by Jay Peak in the East, the Granite Peak/Lutsen combo in the Midwest, and Powder Mountain in the West. In three seasons, Indy had established itself as the go-to frequency product in New England and the Upper Midwest, an automatic buy for the roving variety-seeker unbothered by long-ish wintertime drives.

Indy could have stopped there. Or it could have added eight or 10 or a dozen new ski areas over the summer. The product would have remained compelling: two days each at 82 ski areas equals 164 days of skiing for $279. But this monster kept devouring new terrain: Bluewood, Kelly Canyon, and Sawmill in April; Nub’s Nob, Marquette Mountain, Treetops, Mount Kato, and Big Rock in June; Black Mountain of Maine, Meadowlark and Aomori Springs, Japan in July; the mighty Mt. Hood Meadows; Dodge Ridge and Mountain High in August; Snowriver, Chestnut, and Bluebird Backcountry in September; Calabogie Peaks, Loch Lomond, Mt. Crescent, and Arctic Valley in October; and Echo Mountain and Granby Ranch in November. Plus 19 new cross-country ski areas and 14 partners in its Allied discount program. That’s 58 new ski areas in six months (with one loss: the enormous Marmot Basin in Alberta).

That total includes four new resorts that joined Indy today: alpine ski areas Peek’N Peak, New York and Tussey Mountain, Pennsylvania; and cross-country areas Catamount Outdoor Family Center, Vermont and Rangeley Lakes Trail Center, Maine. These four, Indy Pass founder Doug Fish confirmed to The Storm Skiing Journal, will be the final additions for 2022. Here a look at Indy’s roster as of today:

None of today’s additions will have any blackout dates. Peek’N Peak, seated on a broad ridge off the Lake Eerie snowbelt, is Indy’s seventh alpine ski area in New York. Tussey, a steeper-than-you’re-expecting college-town bump, makes five in Pennsylvania. And Indy now counts eight cross-country ski areas in upper New England, including four in Vermont.

With 105 alpine ski areas and 20 cross-country, Indy now delivers, ahem, 250 days of skiing. For, as of today, $329. That’s $1.32 per day. No one will max out the pass, of course, but even a moderately organized person could ski that thing down to $32 per day. That, in 2022, is a hell of a good deal on a lift ticket.

These final four additions drop an exclamation point on how thoroughly Indy Pass has redefined value and reset accessibility in skiing. It’s a phenomenal product, one of the best ideas in skiing since the chairlift or the snowgun. In just three years, Fish and his team – which I think is like three interns and a cat – have organized the unorganizable. They have created – from nothing more than an idea – a continent-wide (plus!) network of fully independent ski areas accessible with a skeleton key that nearly anyone can afford. Indy Pass is simple, sustainable, flexible, almost infinitely expandable. I’m not sure what skiing, skiers, or small independent ski areas did without it.

Here’s a look at these four new ski-area partners, plus thoughts on how Indy has changed the ski-season equation for families, young people, and anyone who’s had enough fun fistfighting their way onto the Monster Awesome Express at Mt. Calamity: