Pleasant Mountain, Maine Joins New England Gold Pass

Pleasant’s addition to the New England Gold Pass does, however, leave skiers with a bewildering number of ways to access Boyne’s four Northeast ski resorts, and to tap those passes for lift tickets to Boyne’s big bads out west. Should skiers go big, with the ,449 New England Gold Pass and the 9 Ikon Base Pass add-on, which adds all of this to their winters?:

So when Boyne purchased Shawnee Peak in 2021, I figured the 1,300-vertical-foot mountain an hour outside of Portland would act as a sort of New England Pass bow, a first stop skiers would unwrap to reveal their big-mountain gift box.But Pleasant (as the mountain is now known), didn’t join the expensive pass for the 2021-22 ski season, or for any of the three winters that followed. Boyne did eventually give New England Pass holders three days at Pleasant, mirroring the pass’ access to the company’s far-flung non-New England ski areas. Last year, New England pass holders could add on a Pleasant night pass for . But anyone who wanted unrestricted 2023-24 Pleasant access was staring down an 9 pass that included three total days at Sugarloaf, Sunday River, and Loon, and the standard three-day allotment of Big Sky etc. days.How inconvenient for a Portland-based skier (and there are a lot of them), who wants to use Pleasant as a quick-hitter and spend weekends at Sunday River or Sugarloaf. What was the point of a company owning a network of close-knit mountains in the multimountain pass era if these mountains did not share a multimountain pass? Pleasant’s pass cost more than a season ticket to Jay Peak (9), Smugglers’ Notch (9), or Cannon (9), despite being half the mountain, terrain-wise. The pass cost more than similarly sized Gunstock (5), despite Pleasant’s lack, until this winter, of a high-speed lift. And Vail’s Northeast Value Pass, unlimited at four New Hampshire mountains and offering generous access to three in Vermont, was sitting at just 0.But, finally, Boyne fixed the glitch. Pleasant Mountain joins the New England Pass as an unlimited mountain for the 2025-26 ski season. Gold passholders still get three direct-to-lift, no-blackout dates at Boyne’s non-New England mountains:Boyne’s approach to Pleasant access had been deliberately measured, the company’s chief marketing officer, Nick Lambert, told The Storm. “When we acquired Pleasant, we frankly wanted to make sure not to screw it up,” he said. Boyne expanded parking and lift capacity before adding the mountain to more products, despite considerable demand for increased Pleasant access from existing New England passholders, Lambert said. He also confirmed that this winter’s addition of a high-speed quad to the summit – which replaced a fixed-grip triple chair – gave Boyne the confidence to ratchet up its access on the top-tier New England Pass.For years, Boyne’s New England Pass has been the most-expensive ski pass in the six-state region. More than Epic or Ikon or Killington or Bretton Woods or Waterville Valley or Jiminy Peak. When Vail tossed the Epic hand grenade over Lake Champlain in 2017, everyone from Okemo (not yet Vail) to Sugarbush (not yet Alterra) said “Hey now, ease up there Fella, we’ll just go ahead and drop our season pass prices by 30 to 50 percent.” But not Sunday River and Sugarloaf and Loon. Their three-mountain pass hit ,000 before the Great Recession and never let off the gas. Not after Epic gobbled up a half-dozen more competitors, not after all three Boyne mountains joined the Ikon Pass, not after Covid said “hold still, I’ve got something to give you,” not after the Indy Pass assembled almost every other ski area in Maine onto its roster. Boyne bet that upscale lifts, overpowering snowmaking, terrain expansions, long seasons, and general goodwill could justify the big-baller pricing. And it did.For now, Pleasant will join only the top-tier Gold version of the New England Pass. It will not join the Silver (blackouts), Bronze (midweek), or Day or other specialty passes. Pleasant will continue to offer its own 9 single-mountain season pass, which is only cheaper than an Ikon Base Pass (which gives skiers five days each at Loon, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf). And Pleasant will not join the Ikon Pass (yet). But this is a logical and welcome product evolution in a ski world that increasingly expects ski areas to act as complementary networks, rather than standalone do-it-all-for-every-skier entertainment complexes.

Or, for less, should skiers buy a ,329 full Ikon, which leaves off Pleasant but gives them Alta, Aspen, Jackson, and more? Or would an Ikon Base, with five days each at Loon, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf be sufficient along with a Pleasant Mountain night pass? And what about New England Day versus Ikon Session?I simplified all the options as best I could. This is still confusing as hell. So stare at this for five minutes, then let’s journey into Ski Pass Scenario World to figure out whatever a Mainer’s to do.