The Maine Agenda › Outdoors in Maine
Skiing Near Portland, Maine: 2026/27 Season Pass Prices and the One Deadline in September
Portland is not a ski town. It is a coastal city with a working waterfront and no chairlift inside forty minutes, and any guide that tells you otherwise is selling something. The nearest lift-served skiing is in Auburn, forty five minutes up I-95, and it is small. The mountain most Portland families actually buy a pass to is in Bridgton, an hour and ten minutes west on Route 302. The mountains that show up on postcards are ninety minutes and two and a half hours away.
That is the honest geography, and it matters right now for one reason: season pass prices for the 2026/27 winter are live, they are lower today than they will be later, and exactly one of them has a published date attached. Everything else is an unlabeled countdown.
Every price below was read on each mountain's own site on August 16, 2026. Drive times are Google Maps estimates from downtown Portland on the same day, in summer traffic, which is the honest version: add time for a February morning.
The only deadline anyone has published
Lost Valley in Auburn is running a summer pass sale through September 7, which is Labor Day. Junior, adult and family passes are $100 off until then. That is the single dated, quantified savings on the board this month, and it is the reason to read this page in August rather than November.
Everybody else is vaguer. Sugarloaf and Sunday River both label their current pricing "Summer Sale Pricing" and neither publishes the date the sale ends. Pleasant Mountain heads its pass page "Buy Early to Save," calls the number on screen the "Current Price," and does not say when current stops being current. All three are telling you truthfully that the price will rise. None of them will tell you when.
So the practical rule is: if Lost Valley is your mountain, you have a date. If a Boyne mountain is your mountain, buy when you have decided, not when you get a reminder, because there will not be one.
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What each pass costs
| Mountain | Drive from Portland | 2026/27 adult pass | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lost Valley, Auburn | 45 min, 35 mi | $695 (reg. $795) | Sale ends Sept 7. Small hill. |
| Mt. Abram, Greenwood | 1 hr 25 min, 63 mi | $649 | Cheapest pass, second-longest drive. |
| Pleasant Mountain, Bridgton | 1 hr 10 min, 43 mi | $979 | One mountain only at that price. |
| New England Gold (4 resorts) | varies | $1,549 | Adds Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Loon. |
| Sugarloaf "Loaf Pass" | ~2 hr 25 min, 114 mi | $769 | Sunday to Friday only. No Saturdays. |
Ages are as of December 1, 2026 at Lost Valley and November 1, 2026 at the Boyne mountains, which is the kind of detail that decides whether your kid is a junior or an adult.
Lost Valley: the only one you can ski on a Tuesday after work
Forty five minutes is the whole argument. Lost Valley is the only lift-served skiing close enough to Portland that a weeknight is realistic, and its pricing is built for people who ski a lot of short evenings rather than a few long days.
The 2026/27 individual pass covers ages 13 and up for $695 on sale, $795 after September 7. Note what that means: there is no separate adult tier. A thirteen year old and a forty five year old pay the same. Juniors 6 to 12 are $595 on sale, children 5 and under are $90, and a family pass covering up to four people in one household is $1,695, with extra family members at $165 each. College students, seniors 65 and up, and military pay $595.
No Lost Valley pass has blackout dates. Passholders also get half price tickets at Black Mountain, Titcomb and Camden Snow Bowl, three free days at Plattekill in New York, and the option to bolt on an Indy Pass. Nordic trails are $12 for the day, an uphill ticket is $15 and a snowshoe trail pass is $6, all sold at the window.
One warning about their page: parts of it still say 25/26. The military, college and senior description defines a college student as one "currently enrolled for the 25/26 school year" on a pass sold for 26/27, and an Indy Pass paragraph appears twice with two different seasons. The prices and the September 7 date are clearly labeled 26/27 and we are treating them as current, but if you are buying on the college rate, call 207-784-1561 first.
Pleasant Mountain: the one Portland actually buys
An hour and ten minutes on Route 302, and it is the mountain that shows up in Greater Portland driveways. The adult unlimited pass for ages 19 to 64 is $979 right now, with no blackouts, three free days each at Sunday River, Sugarloaf or Loon, three more at Boyne's western resorts, and eight discounted buddy tickets.
The real differentiator is night skiing. Pleasant Mountain lights 20 trails on four lifts and claims more night terrain than anywhere else in New England, which is their number and not ours, but the scale of it is not in dispute and it is the reason the mountain works for people who cannot give up a full Saturday. Night skiing is included with every daily lift ticket, not sold as an upgrade.
If $979 is too much, the ladder down is real: a Sunday through Friday pass skips midweek holiday blackouts (December 28 to January 1, January 18, February 15 to 19), a night-only pass runs 3:30 p.m. to close six nights a week for all ages, and ticket packs of two to five days start at $155. Two deadlines have already passed for this season: the renewal rate closed April 7 and the zero percent payment plan closed April 30.
The $570 question nobody puts side by side
Here is the arithmetic neither mountain shows you, because each one is selling its own product.
Pleasant Mountain alone: $979. The New England Gold Pass: $1,549. The difference is $570, and for that $570 you add unlimited Sunday River, unlimited Sugarloaf and unlimited Loon in New Hampshire, with no blackout dates anywhere.
That is roughly the cost of six or seven walk-up lift tickets. If you will ski Sunday River more than about four days this winter, the Gold pass is cheaper than the Pleasant Mountain pass plus tickets. If you will not, it is $570 of aspiration. Be honest with yourself about how many February Saturdays you will actually give to a ninety minute drive each way, and buy accordingly. Most people overestimate.
There are cheaper rungs on the same ladder. The New England Pass line starts at $659 for the limited tiers, which carry blackouts over Christmas week, MLK weekend and Presidents week. Full time college students pay $499 for unlimited access to all four. And Sugarloaf has a new product for 2026/27 called the Loaf Pass: $769, any age from 6 to 79, Sunday through Friday all season, no Saturdays. For anyone with a flexible schedule that is the most interesting new number in Maine skiing this year.
Skip the Boyne Passport at $2,900 unless you are already booking flights to Big Sky.
Mt. Abram is the value answer, and it is not the close one
Mt. Abram in Greenwood sells an adult winter pass for $649 with no blackout dates. That is less than Lost Valley's sale price and $330 less than Pleasant Mountain, from an independent mountain with genuinely more terrain than either. The catch is the drive: one hour twenty five minutes, forty minutes past Lost Valley and fifteen past Pleasant Mountain.
So the cheapest pass near Portland is not the closest one, and the closest one is not the cheapest. If price is what you are optimizing and you were going to drive an hour anyway, Mt. Abram deserves the look that its marketing budget will never buy it.
Sugarloaf is not a day trip, and pretending otherwise ruins the day
Two hours and twenty five minutes each way. Call it five hours of driving around a ski day, in the dark on the way home, in February, on roads that were not plowed for your convenience. Sugarloaf has 176 trails and glades across 1,360 acres and the only above treeline skiing on the East Coast in the Snow Fields, and it is worth every mile, but it is worth them on a Friday night arrival and a Sunday afternoon departure. Treat it as an overnight and it is one of the best mountains in the East. Treat it as a day trip and you will spend more time on Route 27 than on snow. Our day trips within an hour of Portland guide exists partly because this distinction matters so much in winter.
Two Sugarloaf dates worth knowing if you buy Gold: the First Tracks add-on closes Thursday, October 22, 2026, and the Ikon add-on ($799, or $299 for Ikon Base) must be redeemed by December 10, 2026.
The nordic answer is closer than the alpine one
If what you want is to move through snow rather than descend it, the geography flips in your favor. Sugarloaf's Outdoor Center sells an adult nordic season pass for $339 covering more than 50 kilometers of groomed classic and skate trails plus an NHL sized skating rink, and calls itself the largest nordic center in Maine. Lost Valley grooms nordic trails and sells a day pass for $12.
Closer to home, Pineland Farms in New Gloucester is the nearest real groomed network to Portland. We could not find 2026/27 winter trail pass pricing posted on their site in mid August, and their winter program announcements have historically gone up in December, so check before you drive out. We will re-read it once the winter schedule posts.
What we would actually buy
If you have kids under 13 and a weeknight habit, buy Lost Valley before September 7 and stop reading. If you ski ten to twenty days and want them to be good days, do the $570 math on the Gold pass and be honest about the answer. If you ski five days and hate crowds, buy the Loaf Pass and take your Saturdays back. If you ski three days, buy ticket packs and no pass at all: Pleasant Mountain's start at $155 and Boyne's New England packs at $199 for two adult days, both without blackout dates.
And if you ski once a year with visiting relatives, none of this is for you. Rent gear, buy a window ticket at Lost Valley, and put the difference toward somewhere warm and indoors for the other twelve weekends of a Maine winter. Whatever you buy, the drive is the part people underestimate, so it is worth reading up on Maine's winter driving laws before your first storm commute up Route 26.
FAQ
What is the closest ski mountain to Portland, Maine?
Lost Valley in Auburn, at about 45 minutes and 35 miles via I-95 north. It is the only lift-served skiing close enough to Portland to make a weeknight realistic. Pleasant Mountain in Bridgton is the next closest at about 1 hour 10 minutes and 43 miles via Route 302.
How much is a ski season pass near Portland, Maine for 2026/27?
Adult passes range from $649 to $1,549. Mt. Abram is $649, Lost Valley is $695 on sale through September 7 and $795 after, Sugarloaf's Sunday-to-Friday Loaf Pass is $769, Pleasant Mountain alone is $979, and the New England Gold Pass covering Pleasant Mountain, Sunday River, Sugarloaf and Loon is $1,549.
When does the ski season pass price go up in Maine?
Only Lost Valley publishes a date: its $100 summer discount on junior, adult and family passes runs through September 7, 2026. Sugarloaf and Sunday River label their current prices "Summer Sale Pricing" without an end date, and Pleasant Mountain lists a "Current Price" under the heading "Buy Early to Save." All three will rise, and none says when.
Is the New England Gold Pass worth it if I live in Portland?
It costs $570 more than a Pleasant Mountain-only pass and adds unlimited Sunday River, Sugarloaf and Loon with no blackout dates. That premium is roughly six or seven walk-up lift tickets, so it pays off at about four or more Sunday River days. Sunday River is 1 hour 36 minutes from Portland, so the real question is how many ninety minute drives you will genuinely make.
Can you ski at night near Portland, Maine?
Yes. Pleasant Mountain in Bridgton lights 20 trails on four lifts and includes night skiing with every daily lift ticket, and sells a night-only season pass valid 3:30 p.m. to close six nights a week for all ages. Lost Valley in Auburn also runs evening skiing, which combined with its 45 minute drive is what makes it the practical after-work option.
Where can you cross country ski near Portland, Maine?
Pineland Farms in New Gloucester is the closest groomed network, though its 2026/27 winter trail pass pricing was not posted online in mid August 2026. Lost Valley grooms nordic trails and sells a $12 all-day pass and a $6 snowshoe pass at the window. Sugarloaf's Outdoor Center is the largest, with more than 50 kilometers of groomed trails and a $339 adult season pass.
Do any Maine ski passes have blackout dates?
Lost Valley and Mt. Abram sell no passes with blackout dates. Among the Boyne passes, Gold and Nitro Unlimited have none, while Silver is blacked out December 27 to 31, 2026, January 16 to 17, 2027 and February 13 to 14 and 20, 2027, and Bronze is blacked out December 28 to 31, 2026, January 18, 2027 and February 15 to 19, 2027. Pleasant Mountain's Sunday-to-Friday pass is blacked out December 28 to January 1, January 18 and February 15 to 19.