Sierra-at-Tahoe, California Joins Ikon Pass Ahead of 2024-25 Ski Season

Mountain will be Ikon’s second ski area in Tahoe region, and seventh in California overall

Sierra-at-Tahoe, the sixth-largest ski area in California, will join Alterra Mountain Company’s Ikon Pass for the 2024-25 ski season. The agreement grants skiers the standard basket of seven days for full Ikon Pass holders and five days with blackouts for Ikon Base Pass holders. The Ikon Session Pass will also be valid at Sierra-at-Tahoe. The mountain will remain a member of the Powder Alliance, a season passholder lift-ticket exchange program between nearly two dozen mountains, mostly in western North America.

Alterra also announced that Taos, which had left the Ikon Base Pass for the more expensive Base Plus pass last year, would return to the Ikon Base with five days of non-holiday access for the 2024-25 ski season.

Sprawling over 2,000 acres with a 2,212-foot vertical drop served by nine lifts, including three high-speed quads, Sierra-at-Tahoe rises roughly 10 miles south of Lake Tahoe. The mountain is Ikon Pass’ second outpost in the region, joining the 6,000-acre Palisades Tahoe complex on the northwest side of the lake.

The addition grants Ikon Pass holders a second option in overloaded Lake Tahoe, where traffic on peak days can stretch for hours along feeder roads leading into the ski areas, particularly those affiliated with the Ikon (just Palisades), and Epic (Heavenly, Kirkwood, Northstar) passes. While the most direct route between Sierra-at-Tahoe and Palisades Tahoe is often closed during the winter at Emerald Bay, adding a second Ikon resort could catalyze passholders to redistribute themselves, taking some pressure off Palisades.

“There are two basic arteries to the lake, I-80 and US 50, and this should help spread people out, both on the road and at the resorts,” Ski California President Michael Reitzell told The Storm.

The move could also, of course, simply bring megapass headaches to a formerly low-key ski area. The Ikon Pass has served as Palisades’ de-facto season pass since its 2018-19 debut, so a substantial number of local passholders will instantly find themselves with direct-to-lift access to Sierra-at-Tahoe.

Despite its considerable size, Sierra Nevada snowdumps (the mountain scored 686 inches during the monster 2022-23 ski season), and varied terrain, Sierra-at-Tahoe has remained mostly a locals mountain, whose inexpensive season pass ($529 early-bird for 2024-25) appeals to Sacramento or Bay Area families who have so far sidestepped the rush toward the Epic and Ikon Passes.

Sierra-at-Tahoe never fully recovered from the 2021 Caldor Fire, which destroyed several lifts and forced the resort to miss an entire winter to rebuild the ski area and clear unstable burned trees. Joining the Ikon Pass, resort officials say, should steer the resort back to stability after skier visits failed to rebound to pre-fire levels.

Alterra will not purchase the resort. While Sierra-at-Tahoe is substantively an independent mountain, that fact is asterisked by the fact that it is the last remaining ski area property of Booth Creek, which at one time owned eight ski areas, including nearby Northstar (now owned by Vail).

Sierra-at-Tahoe is the 71^st ski area globally, 47^th in the United States, and seventh in California accessible to Ikon Passholders. Sierra is the first non-owned California resort that Alterra has added to the Ikon Pass. This will be Ikon’s second new ski area for the coming winter, after St. Moritz, Switzerland joined earlier this year. Here’s a look at the 2024-25 roster:

The move continues the slow rollup of California’s ski industry under a handful of multimountain companies and passes. With today’s announcement, Southern California’s Mt. Baldy and Tahoe’s Homewood remain the state’s only ski area with more than a 1,000 feet of vertical drop that have declined to join a multimountain pass.

Here's a deeper look at today’s announcement, and what it means for Sierra-at-Tahoe, the Ikon Pass, and California skiing in general.