It sounds absurd because it is absurd. Skiing in Scotland. Like sailing in Oklahoma or hot-air ballooning on the moon. Why would you do such a thing? The world is full of things that make sense and one of those things is not seeking out snowsportskiing in the United Kingdom. You could genetically engineer a cat-chicken hybrid or re-record Appetite for Destruction in Armenian or launch a non-plant-based carrot cake empire, and any of those activities would sound more logical than swinging skis over your shoulder and yodeling your way north to the Scottish highlands.
“They don’t yodel in Scotland.”
Stop ruining my fun, EncycBroPedia Bro. I say they yodel. I say they play merciless bagpipe solos. I say they keep sheep for pets and that those sheep double as lawnmowers. I say they drink whisky straight from the bottle while cursing both the English and the day that traitor blew the whistle on their pet dinosaur living in Loch Ness. But one thing I will not say they do is ski. Because they do not.
“Actually, there are several ski areas in Scotland.”
Who keeps letting this guy in? Please allow me to continue writing my factually dubious article so that I may make this larger point: Indy Pass, the Colorado-based product that will offer skiers two days each at 229 ski areas for the 2024-25 ski season, doesn’t care about the improbable or the absurd. In fact, they have staked their entire brand on it. In 2019, Indy Pass founder Doug Fish scanned a North American ski landscape that pundits declared, on the basis of growing Epic and Ikon prestige resort rosters, conquered, and said: no. I will create a new ski pass anyway. And it will be a ski pass of castoffs and forgottens and little-knows, of the great regional ski areas that lack chandeliers on their chairlifts but deliver excellent skiing on sometimes grand terrain. And it will be the greatest ski pass of all time because there are more of these ski areas than there are Tellurides and Snowbirds and Big Skys, and once people know about Lost Trail and White Pass and Red Lodge they’ll say “dang it what was I thinking?”
At least that’s the story as it plays out in my head, and I could just ask Doug for his version but I prefer to make it up. And what I believe was Doug’s next great insight was to venture out of the West even though he had never skied east of Winter Park and walk arms wide open into Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan and New York and Pennsylvania and West Virginia and New England and say, “You guys want in on this?” And they did. And the largest ski pass in the history of the The Nine Planets (as the robots shall one day refer to our solar system) was born.
“Actually, there are eight planets in our solar system.”
Man I really hate this guy. Anyway, Fish told me once, on a podcast recorded after a Season Zero during which Indy accounted for all of 9,000 skier visits, that he hoped to one day sign 80 resorts. He blew right past that, signing, as of today, 125 Alpine ski areas in the United States alone. That’s one-quarter of all U.S. ski areas, and nearly one-third of all U.S. ski areas that operate at least one chairlift. There’s not a lot left to add. But this thing, it turns out, scales.
Indy Pass, by waving the cover charge and relaxing the dress code, blew out the notions of what a multi-mountain pass could be. Yes, Fish signed the occasional Jay Peak or Mt. Hood Meadows, but mostly he took what Epic and Ikon didn’t want. And there are a lot more of these sorts of ski areas than there are Mt. Fancy Pantses. Now, with the brand firmly established and the entry criteria set, Indy can march across the planet collecting ski areas. And every time they add another one, another unknown name in another unexpected place, the Indy Pass comes to look more and more like the Adventure Pass, a product that, like a Eurail Pass or an all-you-can-ride wristband at the county fair, sets up a choose-your-own-adventure story with limitless possible endings.
And so, on Thursday, Indy added Glencoe Mountain Resort in Scotland and Erciyes Ski Resort in Turkey. And you’re probably saying “so what?” And that’s fair. But what is important about these two strange additions is not what they are, specifically, but what they signal: that Indy Pass intends to string together a global network of ski areas on an almost-impossible-to-comprehend scale. Right now, the pass’ eight-resort European network is thin, scattered, and, with the exception of three large resorts in Austria and Spain, underwhelming (though dang the Turkey resort is actually kinda baller – more below). But Europe is home to thousands of ski areas, and Vail and Alterra might care about 50 of them. The rest are Indy’s. Or could be. Or probably will be. This thing could stack up 1,000 ski areas within a decade. That sounds as absurd as the fact that snow-skiing exists in Scotland, but, like that strange-but-true reality, the notion of a thousand-resort pass is based on this simple fact: strange little pockets of ski areas exist all over the world. There are ski areas in Greece and India and Lebanon and South Korea and Lesotho and Mongolia and Tajikistan. China has built hundreds of ski areas. And you may not care about any of them, but Indy Pass does, and Indy Pass is collecting them, and for a skier who values novelty over prestige and adventure over curated experience and whimsy over The Experience of a Lifetime, Indy is the best possible starting point for a pass quiver that, fairly soon, will probably be able to transport you just about anywhere.
And here’s why you may want to explore that anywhere, rather than the specific Somewhere that the larger passes zip together in a boutique box: Indy is cool. Indy is unexpected. Indy is defiant. Indy is a teenage windows-down roadtrip with no map and a $20 between you. Indy is forties of Big Bear on the dock before a midnight swim (don’t do this). Indy is deer hunting with a Buck knife. Indy is a cooler full of canned beer with your buddies on a backyard summer night. Indy is the story you tell that’s different than the stories that every other skier in your office park tells. Anyone can have Sun Valley. You’ll take Silver and Brundage and Soldier and Pomerelle. And Rich from Accounting looks puzzled and says “well I’ve never heard of those places” and you say “yes Rich you don’t have to tell me I already knew that.”
Before I cut this thing off with a paywall, I should mention that 2024-25 Indy Pass sales end permanently tomorrow, Sunday, Nov. 10 at midnight. Buy it here, for this many U.S. American dollars:
Now, here’s a deeper look at Indy’s new partners, and the unstoppable future of this incredible little ski pass:
