The Indy Pass will cut off sales at midnight on Monday, just 10 days after the pass opened up sales to the public for the 2023-24 ski season, in an effort to fulfill a promise to passholders.

The promise, according to the Indy Pass management team, is “to preserve the independent ski resort experience.”

The Indy Pass is a collective ski pass that allows skiers and snowboarders two days at more than 100 different ski areas in the United States, Canada and Japan. It launched five years ago and has seen steady growth in membership in recent years.

But that growth has been accompanied by concerns from Indy Pass management, which seeks to promote “the independent and authentic snowsports experience,” according to a letter issued to passholders in March.

The Indy Pass, in March, was purchased by Entabeni Systems — the company which provides the back-end technology allowing the pass to function — and in announcing the purchase, Entabeni owner Erik Mogensen penned a letter praising the Indy Pass’ successful promotion of independent ski areas. But Mogensen also expressed concern over ruining what the Indy Pass seeks to promote.

“The Indy Ski Pass has done a remarkable job promoting the independent and authentic snowsports experience, but we are also responsible for preserving those experiences,” Mogensen wrote. “We will never put promotion ahead of preservation. Because of that, Indy Pass will limit pass sales for the coming season, offering our current passholders an opportunity to renew first.”

Mogensen, in a Sunday message announcing the intention to cut off pass sales, said renewals among existing passholders were prolific. The pass then went on sale to the general public on April 1.

“I thought this would happen in the fall and not on April 10,” Mogensen wrote of the suspension of pass sales. “However, record renewals and unprecedented new passholders for 23/24 have made the cutoff necessary based on our current capacity.”

Mogensen said the Indy Pass management team will reassess its capacity with participating resorts over the summer and fall, and will create a waiting list for those who weren’t able to purchase.

“We would love everyone in the world to have an Indy Pass, but we were serious when we said we would put preservation of the Indy experience above promoting and over-selling the pass,” Mogensen wrote.

The Indy Pass also announced on Sunday that its final holdout, Mount Hood Meadows, had agreed to join the pass again in 2023-24.

“This is meaningful beyond just the return of a special place like Meadows,” Mogensen wrote. “We have now confirmed that 104 of 105 Alpine partners will return for the 23/24 season. The one loss, Snow Valley, was bought by Alterra.”

Sunlight Mountain became the first ski area in Colorado to join the Indy Pass in the 2021-22 season; former communications manager Troy Hawks said Sunlight saw hundreds of Indy Pass redemptions that season despite not joining the collective until mid-February. The pass has since added three other Colorado ski areas — Granby Ranch, Bluebird Backcountry and Echo Mountain. Entabeni Systems is based out of Grand County, Colorado.

This story is from VailDaily.com.