The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast

Indy Pass Grows Along the Western Margins

Donner Ski Ranch, California; Magic Mountain and Little Ski Hill, Idaho; Leavenworth, Washington; Hilltop, Alaska; and Cuchara, Colorado join Indy

Stuart Winchester's avatar
Stuart Winchester
Oct 07, 2025
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Indy entered the West as a bit of an expansion team, raking together a roster from whatever Epic and Ikon had overlooked in their mad expansion. Colorado, Utah, and California collectively account for about half of annual U.S. skier visits, and a relatively small number of ski areas claim nearly all of those visits. By 2019, when Indy pieced together a coast-to-coast coalition of hangabouts, 90 percent of these majors had already signed on, by fate or by choice, to Epic or Ikon.

Indy’s western roster, then, was never going to do as a standalone in the pass-rich West. It’s a nice complement to Epic or Ikon, a good fill-in-the-blanks rambler. Still, Indy assembled a surprisingly robust lineup of big ski areas tucked in odd corners, statistically impressive high-risers like Silver Mountain and Brundage in Idaho and Red Lodge in Montana and White Pass in Washington.

But there’s a finite number of these places, and as the U.S. multimountain ski pass market matures, Indy’s strategy for western expansion must evolve. They may still be able to win a Mount Rose or Wolf Creek or Baker or Discovery or Ski Apache or Whitefish, but as those larger outliers continue to choose independence, Indy can still grow in small ways that suit both its passholders and independent ski areas as a whole.

The pass’ half-dozen western additions for 2025-26, announced in August and September, demonstrate Indy’s most likely path forward not just in the West, but in all mature pass markets. The most significant addition is Donner Ski Ranch, a small-but-fun family-owned scrapper that is Indy’s first move into the big and snowy Lake Tahoe ski region. Magic Mountain, Idaho is another undersized-for-its-region outlier that in this case complements a nice existing regional network. The other four Indy West additions are nonprofit ski areas, two of which run only surface lifts, and one of which is trying to re-open a chairlift that has not spun for the public in 25 years. These family- and community-oriented bumps are unlikely to suck in many – or any – new passholders, but by virtue of associating them with Indy’s larger partners, the pass helps skiers realize these places exist, potentially funneling small but impactful annual sums into the ski areas’ bank accounts.

Here’s a glimpse of Indy’s western U.S. roster, with all six new additions included: Donner Ski Ranch, California; Magic Mountain and Little Ski Hill, Idaho; Hilltop, Alaska; Cuchara, Colorado; and Leavenworth, Washington. One other note of interest: Sunrise, Arizona, an OG Indy Passer from the Class of 2019, exits without explanation (Indy confirmed the exit; Sunrise representatives did not reply to requests for comment):

Best viewed on desktop. View in Google Sheets. View full Indy Alpine roster here.

Let’s take a deeper look at each ski area, the sort of experience they can deliver to passholders, and what joining Indy Pass might mean for their operations:

Below the paid subscriber jump: how Donner Ski Ranch survives in a Tahoe dominated by giants; the head-shaking magic of Magic Mountain, Idaho; why Cuchara officials believe they’re close to actually getting their lift running, and much more. I wish it could all be free, but The Storm only works as a full-time job. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.

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