DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 31, 2026--
This weekend, Canada’s high country was also covered in fresh snow at Ikon Pass destinations SkiBig3, Panorama, and CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures. Crystal Mountain in Washington was the first Ikon Pass destination to see snowfall on August 29th, kicking off the 26/27 Northern Hemisphere winter season.
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Winter-like snow fell on Alberta and British Columbia at SkiBig3’s Banff Sunshine and Lake Louise Ski Resort, at Panorama’s summit, and more snow blanketed CMH’s Bobbie Burns terrain.
Ikon Pass now offers access to 70+ global destinations across five continents and is on sale now for winter 26/27 at www.ikonpass.com.
About Ikon Pass
The Ikon Pass welcomes skiers and riders to a community of inspiring mountain destinations and the people who live and play among them across the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. Brought to you by Alterra Mountain Company, Ikon Pass unlocks adventure at iconic and unique destinations including Aspen Snowmass, Steamboat, Winter Park, Copper Mountain Resort, Arapahoe Basin, and Eldora Mountain Resort in Colorado; Palisades Tahoe, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Mammoth Mountain, June Mountain, Big Bear Mountain Resort, and Snow Valley in California; Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming; Big Sky Resort in Montana; Alyeska Resort in Alaska; Stratton, Sugarbush Resort, and Killington in Vermont; Snowshoe in West Virginia; The Highlands, Boyne Mountain and Snowriver Mountain Resort in Michigan; Lutsen Mountains in Minnesota; Granite Peak in Wisconsin; Crystal Mountain and The Summit at Snoqualmie in Washington; Mt. Bachelor in Oregon; Sun Valley and Schweitzer in Idaho; Tremblant and Le Massif de Charlevoix in Quebec and Blue Mountain in Ontario, Canada; SkiBig3 in Alberta, Canada; Revelstoke Mountain Resort, RED Mountain, Cypress Mountain, Panorama Mountain Resort, Sun Peaks Resort and SilverStar Mountain in British Columbia, Canada; Sunday River and Sugarloaf in Maine; Loon Mountain in New Hampshire; Camelback Resort and Blue Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania; Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico; Deer Valley Resort, Solitude Mountain Resort, Brighton Resort, Alta Ski Area, Snowbird and Snowbasin in Utah; Chamonix Mont-Blanc Valley and Megève Ski Area in France; Dolomiti Superski and Valle D’Aosta in Italy; Grandvalira Resorts in Andorra; Kitzbühel and Ischgl in Austria; Zermatt and St. Moritz in Switzerland; Thredbo and Mt Buller in Australia; Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Mt Hutt in New Zealand; Niseko United, Arai Mountain Resort, Shiga Kogen Mountain Resort, Mt.T, Myoko Suginohara, APPI Resort, Furano Ski Resort, NEKOMA Mountain and Zao Onsen Ski Resort in Japan; Yunding Snow Park in China; Mona Yongpyong in South Korea; and Valle Nevado in Chile. Special offers are available at CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures and Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing, the world’s largest heli-skiing and heli-accessed hiking operation. For more information, please visit www.ikonpass.com.
About Alterra Mountain Company
Alterra Mountain Company is a family of iconic year-round mountain destinations, the world’s leading heli-skiing operations, and Ikon Pass - the premier ski and snowboard season pass offering access to more than 70 iconic mountain destinations around the world. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado and born out of a shared love of the mountains and adventure, the company has brought together some of the world’s most aspirational brands, including: Steamboat, Winter Park and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado; Palisades Tahoe, Mammoth Mountain, June Mountain, Big Bear Mountain Resort and Snow Valley in California; Stratton Mountain and Sugarbush Resort in Vermont; Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia; Tremblant in Quebec and Blue Mountain in Ontario, Canada; Crystal Mountain in Washington; Schweitzer in Idaho; Deer Valley Resort and Solitude Mountain Resort in Utah; and CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures and Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing in British Columbia. Also included in the portfolio are Alpine Aerotech, a worldwide helicopter support and maintenance service center in British Columbia, Canada, Aspenware, the ski industry leader in technology services and e-commerce, and Ski Butlers, the global leader in ski and snowboard rental delivery. For more information, please visit www.alterramtn.co.
Fresh snow at Panorama's summit, one of the Canadian Ikon Pass destinations that was blanketed in snow on August 30.
FLORIDA, Uruguay (AP) — Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his visit to Uruguay on Sunday by praising the women who have passed the Catholic faith onto younger generations, as he highlighted the role the church has played since the founding of Latin America’s most secular country.
Leo traveled to the city of Florida, north of Montevideo, to mark an important Catholic feast day before heading to Argentina for the second leg of his South American tour. It’s expected to be the most politically delicate stop, given the Catholic Church’s sharp criticisms of the austerity program of libertarian President Javier Milei.
For his final event in Uruguay, Leo celebrated the feast of the Virgin of the Thirty-three. According to tradition, 33 independence patriots acquired the Guaraní statue and had it with them when independence was declared from the Brazilian empire in Florida on Aug. 25, 1825.
Leo became the first pope in nearly four decades to visit Uruguay, in hopes of reminding its people that the Catholic Church is part of their very identity as a nation — even if, in subsequent decades, the country went on a deeply secular, and at times anticlerical, route.
In his homily, delivered in front of Florida’s cathedral, Leo recalled the presence of the statue at the time of independence in reminding Uruguayans that “the history of peoples, too, cannot be fully understood without reference to God,” and especially a mother.
He thanked all the mothers and grandmothers who have passed the faith onto younger generations, and acknowledged their pain when their efforts didn’t stick.
“You taught your children to pray, and today they no longer do so. You used to attend Mass together, and it has been years since they entered a church,” he said. But he urged them to not despair.
“Mothers and grandmothers: never tire of passing on the faith!"
Tens of thousands of people packed Florida’s main square for the Mass under brilliant blue skies, some walking for several kilometers (miles) to reach the site. The city has a population of about 40,000 but the Vatican estimated 50,000 were on hand.
Fiama Pirez, an English professor, traveled from Montevideo for the Mass even though she could have seen Leo in the capital. She said she preferred a family outing to Florida so her mother could fulfill a dream to see a pope.
“I’m religious in my own way, and although I never strayed far from the Catholic faith, I’m rediscovering it today,” she said.
In Buenos Aires, Milei is due to greet Leo at the airport before the two appear together for the traditional welcome ceremony and exchange of speeches. The Catholic Church has criticized Milei’s austerity measures that have slashed social spending, and his embrace of artificial intelligence.
Milei has staked his presidency on cutting social spending to overhaul Argentina’s troubled economy and deliver a long-elusive budget surplus. He has called social justice “an aberration” that amounts to stealing, and mocked as “huge stupidity” the increasingly common complaint in Argentina that families squeezed by his austerity program can’t make it to the end of the month.
Leo, who took his name from the 19th-century pope whose encyclical on labor laid the foundation of Catholic social teaching, has made the poor and vulnerable a focus of his papacy, carrying on the legacy of his Argentine predecessor, Pope Francis.
Posters reading “At last, a Lion who unites” appeared across Buenos Aires this weekend, a jab playing on the pope’s name in Spanish — León, or lion — and the lion imagery Milei often uses to portray himself on social media.
“Argentina is a society currently experiencing significant upheaval, deep polarization, and an economic crisis, along with a president who defies conventional protocol — a leader who, at one point, even challenged Pope Francis,” said Luis Bahamondes, a professor at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Chile.
Since taking office in December 2023, Milei has slashed Argentina’s healthcare budget by 48% in real terms. Planned cuts to the public university system, which represents a near-universal point of pride in the crisis-prone country, sent students into the streets.
According to official data, poverty in Argentina reached 32.3% of the population during the first half of 2026, representing about 15 million people.
Much like its allies in the Trump administration, Milei's government has portrayed the cuts as part of a necessary reform process to remake Argentina’s troubled economy and eliminate fraud and waste in the federal bureaucracy.
Like Trump, Milei has also courted AI investment and data centers with promises of limited regulation. Leo has warned that the AI race poses threats to humanity and the environment and called for strict, internationally policed safeguards on its development.
Milei’s government insists the papal trip is purely religious. “The pope belongs to all Argentines. He doesn’t belong to a political party or a political camp,” Karina Milei, the president’s sister and secretary-general of the presidency, told reporters after a recent planning meeting for Leo’s visit with church leaders.
In Argentina, Leo is completing unfinished business left by Francis. The Argentine Jesuit, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, never returned home during his 12-year pontificate, confounding friends and foes alike.
“There’s a lot of disagreement over Francis and his legacy in Argentina,” said David Lantigua, a theology professor and faculty fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute, which focuses especially on Latin American affairs.
Much of the polemics stems from his tenure in Buenos Aires, when the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was a slum priest who advocated for the poorest and most marginalized — the sector of Argentines feeling Milei’s social spending cuts the most.
“I think we’ll see that kind of tension with Leo — that’s the ministry Francis left behind,” Lantigua said.
Leo, who spent two decades as a missionary priest in Peru ministering to poor people, is very much a pastor in Francis' image and owes his pontificate to the late pope. But unlike Francis, he is returning home to Peru on the last leg of this trip, visiting a country where he spent two decades as a missionary.
Argentina’s state intelligence agency said Saturday that a person had been arrested over death threats against Leo ahead of his arrival. A federal court in Campana, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires, ordered the arrest less than 24 hours after the agency was tipped off, it said, without elaborating.
Ramiro Barreiro contributed. DeBre contributed from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the square outside the Cathedral Basilica of Florida, Uruguay, the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, to preside over Mass on the third day of his twelve-day apostolic journey to South America, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Leo XIV plays with a child as he arrives at the square outside the Cathedral Basilica of Florida, Uruguay, the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, to preside over Mass on the third day of his twelve-day apostolic journey to South America, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Leo XIV arrives to preside over Mass in Florida, Uruguay, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)
Pope Leo XIV arrives too lead a vigil payer at Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, Uruguay, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Pope Leo XIV leads a vigil prayer at Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, Uruguay, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Faithful listen to Pope Leo XIV leading a prayer vigil at Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, Uruguay, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)
Pope Leo XIV leads a prayer vigil at Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, on the second day of his twelve-day apostolic journey to South America, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Leo XIV is cheered by faithful as he arrives for a prayer vigil at Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, on the second day of his twelve-day apostolic journey to South America, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
