Whiteface is one of three New York mountains joining Indy’s Allied Program for 2026-27.
Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre are joining the Indy Pass program for the 2026-27 season, albeit pretty much in name only.
All three New York mountains are joining Indy’s Allied Program, which gives passholders discounts on up to two lift tickets at each resort. They will not offer the two included ski days that come with a standard Indy Pass partnership.
Separately, Indy has announced 15 new partners: 10 alpine ski areas and five cross-country centers. The alpine additions include Cherry Peak in Utah, Mount Cain in British Columbia, Le Relais and Ski Mont Blanc in Quebec, Stoke Mountain in Washington, and five destinations across Austria and Norway.
Indy says these additions create enough capacity to reopen pass sales to waitlist members beginning Friday, November 13. The earliest people on the waitlist will receive the first invitations to buy, with additional members contacted when their turn comes.
Gore is one of three state-owned New York mountains joining the Allied Program, which offers discounted tickets rather than included days.
Our Take
For many skiers and riders in the Northeast, Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre are pretty big names. But the distinction between Allied participation and full Indy access makes this development a lot less significant than the headline might suggest.
At a standard Indy partner, your pass includes two days of skiing or riding, subject to any applicable blackout dates and reservation requirements. At an Allied mountain, you get a discount on window-rate lift tickets instead (25% off on weekends and holidays between December 23 and March 10, and 50% off all other days), with up to two discounted tickets available at each of these three resorts.
For many Indy Pass holders, a major reason to buy is to visit participating mountains without paying separately for your first two lift tickets. At these three resorts, you’ll still need to spend money on top of your Indy to ski. The discounts could be a useful bonus for existing passholders, but we’d be surprised if they changed the purchasing decision for many people on their own. In addition, the fact that the discounts are derived from the window rate means you’ll likely save less than you might think if you typically purchase your lift tickets in advance (online rates can be as much as 45% off at all three resorts).
It’s also hard to dismiss the timing of these New York partnerships. This winter marks the debut of the Snow Pass, which offers two visits at each of 14 participating ski areas, including none other than Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre. Its Snow Triple Play product, which offers three total ski days to distribute across participating mountains and a maximum of two at any one resort, also includes all three. That makes Snow Pass a direct competitor to Indy for skiers and riders looking to sample several mountains, especially in the Northeast. And it raises the question of whether Indy’s new partnerships are partly an attempt to blunt that competitor’s growth while it’s still small.
We don’t know whether that motivated the deal. But adding these names gives Indy another selling point for people comparing the two products, even though Snow Pass / Triple Play products include lift access at these mountains and Indy only discounts them.
It’s also worth directly touching on the return of pass sales. Indy went back to a waitlist in September and now says these additions justify selling more passes. That’s possible with just how massive some of the European destinations are (Austria’s Bad Kleinkirchheim advertises 103 kilometers of slopes, while Norway’s Hafjell has 50 kilometers). But additional capacity in Austria or Norway doesn’t necessarily relieve pressure at a popular partner in New England.
This does little to dispel our skepticism that Indy’s waitlist also serves as a marketing strategy, creating urgency around each new purchasing window. The announcement doesn’t say how many additional passes will be offered, making it difficult to assess how closely this reopening tracks the capacity being added.
Ultimately, this is only the latest in a number of headline-driving Indy Pass changes over the past few weeks. We’ll be following along to see how this all plays out.
