For the 2026-27 season, Ikon Base Pass holders will get three days at Deer Valley, with holiday blackouts.
For the first time in years, Deer Valley is joining the Ikon Base Pass, according to an Alterra press release this morning. For the 2026-27 season, Base Pass holders will get three days at the Utah resort, with holiday blackouts. Full Ikon Pass holders still get seven days with no blackouts. Both groups need lift reservations, and Deer Valley still caps how many skiers it lets on the mountain each day. Reservations are already open.
The change comes as Deer Valley continues to expand. The resort says it’ll have 4,500 skiable acres this winter, including 200 new acres and seven new runs served by the Hail Peak Express.
Ikon also announced that access to Ischgl and Samnaun will now extend to three nearby Austrian ski areas: Galtür, Kappl, and See. The number of days stays the same at seven on the full pass and five on Base, shared across all five areas. And in Wisconsin, Crystal Ridge, Nordic Mountain, and Little Switzerland are joining the Bonus Mountain lineup, with two days at each on the full Ikon Pass.
Deer Valley says it’ll have 4,500 skiable acres this winter, including 200 new acres served by the Hail Peak Express.
Our Take
It’s pretty wild that Ikon is doing this so close to the late fall pass deadlines. Deer Valley has long been one of the most expensive resorts to access on a multi-mountain pass. Last winter, it was the only one of Ikon’s six premium destinations where you had to buy the full Ikon to get in. The other five were all available on the cheaper Mountain Collective.
To us, this move suggests that Ikon, and Deer Valley in particular, may be looking at softer demand than they’d hoped for after last year’s poor winter. And with the season just around the corner, putting Deer Valley on the Base Pass is a pretty big lever to pull to juice the numbers.
But for Ikon Base Pass holders, this is a positive development. The Base Pass has been somewhat weak in Utah because three of the six Ikon mountains (Deer Valley, Alta, and Snowbasin) have been full-only. Now, the lower-tier of Ikon gives purchasers a chance to explore outside Snowbird, Brighton, and Solitude without purchasing additional lift tickets.
We’ll be following along this winter to see what it does to crowds and how hard it is for Ikon passholders to get reservations on the days they want to ski.
