Pass Notes - December 2023: 5 Things That Shaped the Multimountain Pass Landscape This Year

44 new megapass additions, pass tech improves, and multimountain passes get territorial

Welcome to Pass Notes, a monthly ski pass-specific newsletter exclusively for paid Storm subscribers. The Pass Tracker 5001 is updated:

I’m not going to bother with a detailed deadline breakdown this month. The vast majority of single-mountain passes have hit their maximum price for the 2023-24 ski season. Most are substantially marked up from their early-bird offerings (many by 100% or more!). Very few deals remain. The exception: you have until tomorrow to pick up Mount Bohemia’s $109 ($145 with fees) season pass. Daily lift tickets will run $92. Buy the pass.

Even fewer deals will remain later this month, as the major multi-mountain passes drop off sale until 2024-25 passes debut in March. Epic Pass sales end tomorrow – Dec. 3. Unlike Vail’s various fake deadlines throughout the offseason, this one is real and immediate. Alterra will follow on Dec. 14, taking Ikon Passes off sale. Indy Pass and Mountain Collective will both end sales this month, though neither has published a firm date yet. Power Pass prices increase on Dec. 15, but are likely to remain on sale into the season.

There will be no January Pass Notes. It is a dead time for the product, too late to buy passes for the current season, too early to put anything on sale for the next. 2024-25 products will likely trickle onto the market in February, then begin to appear en masse following the Presidents’ Day holiday. The next Pass Notes will likely hit right around then, and may be a weekly product through the prime early-bird sales season.

Today, however, I want to look back at a few trends that shaped the U.S.-based ski pass landscape in 2023: