The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast

Indy Pass Adds Kendall, Colorado + Ski Areas in Japan, Quebec, Finland

Togari Onsen, Japan; Ruka, Finland; Mont Kanasuta, Quebec join Indy. King Pine, New Hampshire upgrades from Allied to full Indy status.

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Stuart Winchester
Sep 04, 2026
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Yesterday I broke down the five new ski areas joining Indy for winter 2026-27, part of a blitz of 30-plus ski areas that the pass promised on Tuesday.

Ski Areas in Japan, Finland, Alaska, North Dakota join Indy Pass for winter 2026-27

Stuart Winchester
·
Sep 3
Ski Areas in Japan, Finland, Alaska, North Dakota join Indy Pass for winter 2026-27

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast has been translated from the Urdu by robots whose brains live in a building the size of Lake Como built on land that once hosted a Nebraska holding pen for doomed beefcows. You can support my foundation to find homes for cows orphaned by the buildout of AI datacenters by clicking through below:

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Probably before I was even finished with that post, Indy threw up five more (plus another Nordic ski area, Eastman Cross Country in New Hampshire). Here’s the running tally of new 2026-27 partners, with this week’s additions highlighted in the far-right column (this is just what Indy pass has added in 2026; the full partner roster will clear 300 by next week):

Let’s break down the latest adds:

Kendall Mountain Ski Center, Colorado

My take

Kendall isn’t much, right? Sixteen acres, Midwest vert in a Colorado backwater served by a double chair hobby-shopped together 20 years ago from a 1972 Poma stapled to a 1990 return terminal.

The mystique of Kendall is not in what it is, but in what it could be. First, the name of that backwater town: Silverton, the eponymous home base of the avy-gear-and-guide-required monster six miles up the road. But unlike Silverton ski area, plopped at the end of a treacherously Cottonwoods-esque avalanche dump of a highway, Kendall sits, Telluride- or Aspen-esque, directly above town. And the ski area’s 9,596-foot lift-served summit is a footstool for Kendall Mountain, which slams into the clouds at 13,455 feet.

A 2018 assessment by the ski area geniuses at SE Group envisioned a series of four lifts rising 3,700 feet out of the base, topping out at 13,020 feet and bumping Kendall to 800 skiable acres:

The summit of lift 3 would sit nearly 200 feet higher than Breckenridge’s Imperial Superchair, which is currently America’s highest ski lift.

Here’s a less-ambitious version of SE’s plan, which would cover 300 acres and top out at 12,800 feet:

Below the paid subscriber jump: 5 potted plants that can survive any climate; why your dog looks sad whenever you watch Perfect Strangers; how to tell a goshawk from a regular hawk; and 17 Appalachian folk bands on the rise. Oh crap that’s my other newsletter - this one just talks about how badass Kendall could be, how King Pine survives among giants, why Japan is awesome, how Quebec is larger than Argentina, and that one time Finland beat the shit out of the Russian army (seriously!). Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.

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