Podcasts about Alterra

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Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.About CamelbackOwned by: EPR Properties, managed by Peregrine Hospitality (formerly KSL Resorts)Located in: Tannersville, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Shawnee Mountain (:24), Jack Frost (:26), Big Boulder (:27), Skytop Lodge (:29), Saw Creek (:37), Blue Mountain (:41), Pocono Ranchlands (:43), Montage (:44), Hideout (:51), Elk Mountain (1:05), Bear Creek (1:09), Ski Big Bear (1:16)Base elevation: 1,252 feetSummit elevation: 2,079 feetVertical drop: 827 feetSkiable Acres: 166Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 45, with three new trails for 2026-27 (not on the map below, but discussed on the podcast)Lift count: 12 (1 high-speed six-pack, 1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 2 doubles, 5 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Camelback's lift fleet)For reference:The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, then click on any text block to teleport to the associated point in the video; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:37.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and I've got a really good show for you today.00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:45.000Stuart Winchester: we're going to talk some Pennsylvania skiing. And Pennsylvania skiing is a really interesting thing. As I travel around the country.00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:56.000Stuart Winchester: and ski at all these different places in the Midwest, and out West, and in New England, and in the Mid-Atlantic. Uh, and as I talk to folks who… who don't ski that much, or only ski at the big mountains.00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:05.000Stuart Winchester: I'll often bring up some experience I had at a Pennsylvania ski area. Pennsylvania has quite a few ski areas as 21.00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:20.000Stuart Winchester: public chairlift-served ski areas, and it does 2.6 million skier visits on average per year. That is more than any state except for Colorado, California, Utah, Vermont, and New York.00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:26.000Stuart Winchester: It's more than Washington, it's more than Oregon, it's more than Montana, it's more than New.00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:39.000Stuart Winchester: So, Pennsylvania is a really important ski state, which is probably why Vail Resorts owns 8 ski areas there, because it is really close to a lot of population centers. In western PA, you have Pittsburgh.00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:54.000Stuart Winchester: and Seven Springs, and Laurel, and Hidden Valley, and then you have Philadelphia on the east side, and you can also draw up from Baltimore and D.C. for Round Top and Whitetail. And uh…00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.000Stuart Winchester: And Jack Frost's Big Boulder up in the Poconos. So…00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.000Stuart Winchester: Vail has a big presence there.00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:15.000Stuart Winchester: Icon has a presence there with Camelback and Blue Mountain. Uh, and then Indy Pass just signed their 8th ski area in Pennsylvania with Spring Mountain, uh, down near Philadelphia. So, so it's, it's a place where a lot of skiers start.00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.000Stuart Winchester: And it's a little bit of a funny place to ski, because…00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:29.000Stuart Winchester: it tends to have an outsized number of novice skiers, which is great. They're very good at doing that. Uh, but it can make it a little chaotic.00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:38.000Stuart Winchester: And the lift lines can get a little crazy, and people are all over the hill, and sometimes they're walking down the hill because they're frustrated and they're giving up.00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and…00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.000Stuart Winchester: You take that as your baseline in Pennsylvania.00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.000Stuart Winchester: And you had any sort of complications.00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:54.000Stuart Winchester: And things get out of hand really quickly. And in general.00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:00.000Stuart Winchester: For that reason, the ski areas that have survived in Pennsylvania.00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:07.000Stuart Winchester: are among the best operators in the world, and I would put that up against anyone.00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: It's a very, very challenging environment, not only because you have a high number of novice skiers.00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but also because you have…00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:31.000Stuart Winchester: not a ton of snow, sometimes in the west part of the state, where there's higher elevation, they do get a lot of snow, but… but not as a rule, you couldn't count on it for natural snow. Uh, you get a lot of rain, you get a lot of warm-ups.00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and… and you, in general, have to rely on…00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:42.000Stuart Winchester: a very short season, generally mid-December-ish to mid-March-ish.00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000Stuart Winchester: And the skiers there…00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.000Stuart Winchester: They're they're accustomed to a pretty high standard, so.00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000Stuart Winchester: So when things do get out of control, uh…00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:04.000Stuart Winchester: They really rebelled, and they really noticed. So, a couple years ago, this is what happened at Camelback. So, Camelback…00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.000Stuart Winchester: You know, I don't generally do ops stories, uh…00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:10.000Stuart Winchester: You know.00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:19.000Stuart Winchester: ski area didn't groom this run, or they haven't opened this lift, or, uh, you know, they usually let this bump up, but they don't, or, or…00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:27.000Stuart Winchester: you know, they… they are trying to save money, or they're being cheap. I generally don't bother with those, even though I get a lot of messages.00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:32.000Stuart Winchester: Complaining about things like that, because there's almost always a pretty good reason.00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:38.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and it's almost always temporary, and it's really not worth the effort.00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:48.000Stuart Winchester: to write the story if I'm just writing about, you know, why Stratton or Mount Snow or Magic Mountain didn't open a certain lift on a certain day.00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's, it's a lot to track down and it's a lot of, uh, this person said this and the other person said that. It's just not the kind of thing that I'm want to cover with the storm, right? I want to do bigger stories. I want to do trend stories. I want to look at the culture and evolution of skiing.00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: And the passes, and all the infrastructure, and all the fun stuff. So I don't generally cover the day-to-day stuff, just because…00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:18.000Stuart Winchester: The ski areas that remain in 2026 are, for the most part, run by really good operators.00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:32.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it… because… and they've survived. Most of the bad ski areas that were either mismanaged or were in the wrong places, they went out of business a long time ago, which is why the number of ski areas has been stable for around 25 years now in America.00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.000Stuart Winchester: So I but I started to notice.00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: several years ago that I was getting an outsized number of complaints around one ski area in particular in the Poconos.00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000Stuart Winchester: And it was Camelback.00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.000Stuart Winchester: And Camelback had a long history of being an independent.00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: Really…00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000Stuart Winchester: the way it's been described to me by… by season pass holders, and I've skied…00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:04.000Stuart Winchester: some at Camelback, but I don't have that depth of knowledge of having grown up there.00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:20.000Stuart Winchester: That Camelback for a long time, for decades, set the standard on snowmaking, on grooming, on just general maintenance of lifts in the ski area in the Poconos. And that was why they had chosen to ski there all those years.00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:30.000Stuart Winchester: But things had started to fall apart when a new owner showed up in 2019. It was at the time KSL Capital, who was.00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: was managing it for EPR Properties, which is the entity that bought it, and they own a bunch of ski areas, EPR Properties, including a bunch owned by Vail, including North Star, and a lot of the old Peak Resorts in Ohio and such.00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:50.000Stuart Winchester: And KSL Resorts was a division of KSL Capital.00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.000Stuart Winchester: which is a part owner of Altera.00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:58.000Stuart Winchester: But for some reason, Altera, which is very good at running ski resorts.00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:00.000Stuart Winchester: did not…00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:15.000Stuart Winchester: get assigned as the… as the owner of Camelback. And when KSL Resorts purchased Blue Mountain, not in Ontario, the Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania, that's about 45 minutes from Camelback, two years later, in 2021.00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:26.000Stuart Winchester: That ski area also did not fall under Altera's ownership. And it was an odd choice to make, because Altera's really good at running ski areas, and they run…00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mammoth, and Deer Valley, and Steamboat, and Solitude, and Palisades Tahoe, and Stratton, and Sugarbush, and they definitely have.00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:41.000Stuart Winchester: the institutional knowledge and internal firepower to be able to run these ski areas in the Poconos.00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Blue Mountain…00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:47.000Stuart Winchester: Had the benefit of a long time tenured management team.00:10:47.000 --> 00:11:02.000Stuart Winchester: That kept the place, by all accounts, running pretty well. Camelback, on the other hand, seemed to be falling apart before our eyes, and before the eyes of the loyalist skiers who loved the place so much. And they were really, really concerned, and I started to…00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:08.000Stuart Winchester: Because they had put, uh, a management team in place, it seemed.00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.000Stuart Winchester: that…00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:22.000Stuart Winchester: was not familiar with the… with the inner workings of a ski area. Uh, I… I hosted Dave Makarski, the former general manager of Kalenbach, on this podcast.00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: and very nice guy. We had a great conversation. Uh, he's not a skier. And, and, you know, sometimes you can be not a skier and run a great ski resort. Uh, look at Bill Stritzler up at Smuggler's Notch.00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: Bill hasn't skied in years, and he snowboarded for a little bit, but he's not a daily skier. Look at Shawnee.00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:54.000Stuart Winchester: that where the owner… that's one of the most modern, nice ski areas in the Poconos, uh, and the owner has not skied in decades. So, so it's not always necessary, uh, but…00:11:55.000 --> 00:12:10.000Stuart Winchester: It does help and it's certainly a benefit. So everyone I talked to, I was, I was gathering all this stuff for a story and I was gonna write about Camelback and, and it, it really seemed like it was the worst run ski area anywhere that I could find based on the amount of feedback I was getting.00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:25.000Stuart Winchester: I was gathering all this feedback from all these long-time pass holders, and then they hired a new general manager, and so I scrapped the story, but I still wanted to get it, and by all accounts, Jason Bays, who I'll bring on the podcast in a moment.00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:34.000Stuart Winchester: has really done a nice job of turning CamelBak around. So, so let's go to Jason now.00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:16.000Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the Vice President and General Manager of Camelback Ski Area in Pennsylvania.00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:26.000Stuart Winchester: Camelback runs six chairlifts, or maybe seven. I might have had a typo there. Serving 45 trails on an 827-foot vertical drop.00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:41.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to taking the top job at Camelback, he was general manager for Great Wolf Resorts around the United States. He also spent time as chief operating officer and general manager of Mountain Creek Ski Area in New Jersey and director of operations.00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:54.000Stuart Winchester: for Jay Peak, Vermont. His very first jobs as a teenager were as a lifeguard and ski instructor at Camelback. Jason Bay is my guest. Jason, welcome to the Storm. Awesome to have you. How you doing today?00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:00.000Jason Bays: Thank you, Stuart. Great to be here. I've been a listener from day one, so excited to join you.00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:14.000Stuart Winchester: I love that. I'm so hyped to hear that. I know I started with a little Northeast focus. You know, you're the… you probably know this already, but you're the second straight guest I've had on. There was a Mountain Creek alum, Chris Haggerty, on yesterday. Are you acquainted with Chris?00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:18.000Jason Bays: Yeah, Chris and I worked together, um, back in our days at Mountain Creek, great guy.00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm not sure, I'm sure you're aware I'm based in New York City and Mountain Creek is one of my go-tos and, and was my home mountain before I started traveling all over the place for the storm. So, so, you know, Jason, I, I think it's awesome that you grew up at Camelback. Tal.00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:41.000Stuart Winchester: your childhood Camelback. What was the kingdom of Camelback like to you, uh, when you were growing up skiing there?00:15:40.000 --> 00:16:03.000Jason Bays: Yeah, look, I, you know, took, I grew up in Pocono Kid, born and raised 10 minutes from the resort. After school ski program was the first, you know, first sort of foray into life at Camelback and was immediately hooked in the summer as a swimming pool and two water slides. I thought that was the most awesome place in the world too.00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:21.000Jason Bays: And my parents thought it was a great babysitting service, you know, relative to that. So it was just an awesome, awesome place to grow up and, you know, be part of the small but mighty ski community that is Tannersville, Pennsylvania, in this area, in the Poconos.00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:39.000Jason Bays: um, you know, when it came to get a first job, uh, there's no place I was, uh, gonna consider other than Camelback. It's where all my friends were, it's where we all hung out all the time, and, um, you know, really just got introduced to, uh, to the sport, and, um, had some freedom. It was the first time I had some freedom, and it was to be at Camelback, so that's.00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:56.000Stuart Winchester: So you worked there, and you were part of the machine, so to speak, and I realized you were sort of on the peripheral of the machine, as opposed to in the center of it, as you are now. But, you know, you grew up in the Poconos, and had that experience, and you had this vision of Camelback in your head, right? Then you went off and had a big life, as…00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000Jason Bays: Yes.00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:00.000Stuart Winchester: as people do, and you went and worked at all these places that I just mentioned.00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: And then you came back to Camelback.00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: When you, when you arrived.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.000Stuart Winchester: How had the place changed? And I just want to tee this up. I, you know.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:19.000Stuart Winchester: before you came on, I was talking about how I don't generally write operations stories, right? Because it… there's usually a good reason for why a trail is closed, a lift's not running.00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:26.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but a few years ago, I started to get an outsized number of complaints about Camelback.00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:38.000Stuart Winchester: And so I started to write a story about it, and then when you came along, I shelved it, because honestly, everyone immediately was like, oh, this is so much better. So, you know, how had…00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.000Stuart Winchester: Camelback changed.00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.000Stuart Winchester: when you…00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.000Stuart Winchester: Came back to work there.00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:51.000Stuart Winchester: And what were the challenges facing the resort? What did you focus on immediately?00:17:50.000 --> 00:18:08.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I'll just back up to say, you know, just to contextualize, um, from when I was there as a teenager and, um, through college on the ski team, too, I would say that community was a really big word, um, that was used all the time. You, you felt like it was, it was the Camelback community, and there's a really big emphasis on the ski product.00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:28.000Jason Bays: Um, as a ski instructor, like, what we were putting out, how we were doing lessons, how many lessons we could do, and the experience that was surrounding that. And same thing on the water park side. And, you know, I think the, um, you know, some of the observations, um, coming back to Camelback was, um, I think there's a little bit of focus, um, focus direction for, for, like, to focus on the ski product.00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:44.000Jason Bays: and focusing on the water park product, and I sort of look at it as, like, a… as Disney World, right? Whereas we fill out… if we do the ski part well, we do the snow tubing part well, we do the water park well, that puts heads in beds, um, versus trying to put heads in beds.00:18:44.000 --> 00:19:01.000Jason Bays: And then have them do the activities. We're leading with an activity front and centered focus. And that means making the strategic investments in the ski product, in our recreational product, and making that the very best that it can be.00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:23.000Jason Bays: back in 2008 when I was here as a teenager, that was all there was. There was no hotel product, right? So the ski product got outsized attention just naturally because it was a 560-acre resort that identified as a ski area and a water park. And I think some of the context that was missing was that while there's been a great evolution of Camelback as a four-season resort.00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:40.000Jason Bays: It's really important that, to me, that each of those business units gets the time and attention that they would deserve if they were stand-alone units, particularly because a cog… it's a cog in the wheel, and that wheel is… it's a flywheel. It needs to… it all needs to turn at once, and so we lead with.00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.000Jason Bays: the recreational offerings first.00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:48.000Stuart Winchester: You know, you mentioned the community, and I wasn't aware…00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:59.000Stuart Winchester: that there was such a strong community around Camelback, and I'm not surprised, because most ski areas have that group of folks who, you know, they're retirees, and they boot up at 8am, and they take runs together.00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:14.000Stuart Winchester: But they were really passionate, and the running theme, Jason, in the emails and messages that I got from Camelback locals was that they loved Camelback. It wasn't that they hated Camelback, they hated to complain about Camelback.00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.000Stuart Winchester: They wanted to love it, but they couldn't. There was there was.00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:34.000Stuart Winchester: a lot of things they cited, uh, not making snowmaking when it's cold, understaffed grooming, uh, missed lift inspections. I don't know if this is true. This is what people were… they were reaching, I think, for answers. Uh, put it all together, and there was… it was definitely…00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000Stuart Winchester: seemed as though the ski product was not the focus. So when you came in, what did you focus on right away and say, okay, this is what we gotta change, you know, we have to cover every trail 100% right away, or whatever it was?00:20:47.000 --> 00:21:09.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I think that's, look, I would start, you hit the nail on the head that there's a very passionate skiing community here at Camelback and in the Poconos and it means a lot to people. This is second, third generations that are learning to ski here, bring their families here and be part of this. And to your point, everyone wants to be prideful of Camelback, right?00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:24.000Jason Bays: This was the, this was family run for a really long time and, you know, very focused on sort of the, you know, season pass holders renewing year after year.00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:40.000Jason Bays: You know, a couple of things. One is I think that how we authentically tell our story isn't done in a way that is, you know, is done in a way that's authentic. A, bringing back the Camelback Mountain Facebook page that communicated ski related content.00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:39.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:21:40.000 --> 00:22:06.000Jason Bays: Right? I think that, you know, there's only so many things you can say about a hotel room and how exciting it is. Like, we really lead now first with authentically telling the story. Our snow report got a lot more detailed, gave granular information as to what was going on. So, you know, did we have a perfect winter last winter? By all means, no, but we communicated that authentically. And where we messed up, we took.00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:23.000Jason Bays: the blame for it, and said, hey, we didn't get this right, and where we were working to improve the experience, we communicated that… communicated that story. So, to me, it started from a communication standpoint, that we were authentic, that we were honest, that we were truthful, and that we were communicating on a medium that.00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:31.000Jason Bays: our guests would see, um, and relate to. So I think a big miss was, I think, admittedly, a big miss was removing the, um, Camelback Mountain.00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:53.000Jason Bays: social media pages, um, and bringing those back were really important so that, um, we could tell the story authentically. I think SKUs really appreciate, um, knowing what's going on, and to your point on, hey, there's sort of this rumor flying or that rumor flying, um, you know, we were able to, uh, sort of hone in and, and tell, tell that story. Secondarily, I think from an infrastructure standpoint.00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:09.000Jason Bays: um, we really needed to make sure that we had, um, the right team in place. And we have an amazingly talented team at Camelback, um, but we did not have key positions filled, um, in certain areas. Um, and so, we bolstered up the snowmaking. Snowmaking team went from.00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000Stuart Winchester: Like, what areas?00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:30.000Jason Bays: you know, 3 to 4 to 30, um, this past winter, um, that makes a big difference, right? Our trail rollout was, um, you know, first to open in the East, uh, for Pennsylvania, um, and, uh, um, and, and focus on the core products. Um, same thing with lift operations. We brought in a really experienced lift, uh, maintenance manager.00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:13.000Stuart Winchester: Hey!00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:14.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:46.000Jason Bays: Um, to our team that really helped, um, support our Lyft, um, uh, operation. Um, decisions on when Lyfts ran and what time they ran, uh, you know, our thought was, let's, um, be more… like, you have to run the Terrain Park Lyft every day.00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:46.000 --> 00:24:06.000Jason Bays: to me, that's a commitment. We make that every day. We say we're running the Glen Lift every day. It services great novice terrain. It services the train park. And so, looking at the operational plan and saying, okay, what are ways that we can give back, you know, and make deposits back to our skiers? And in turn.00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:24.000Jason Bays: that builds momentum, right? People talk, and, like, the ski community is so connected, right? It's like, if you do something, like, people find out about it, because they're really, you know, they hear about it. And so, for us, focus on the core business was, um, you know, from a ski standpoint, was really important, and the infrastructure.00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:13.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:41.000Jason Bays: to be able to do it. And I would just, lastly, just say I go back to making sure that our team had the resources to do their job. We're supported, we're empowered, collaborative leadership, you know, we sat around the table and said, this is the operating plan, this is what we're going to do for our guests.00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:46.000Jason Bays: And then go out and execute it to the best we can.00:24:45.000 --> 00:25:03.000Stuart Winchester: You know, Jason, I, I, I think you could have run for governor with one of the first things that you did, which was get rid of paid parking. I, I, I don't think that I've ever, uh, heard people happier about anything. Now, now, and let me, let me qualify this, right? I think in, in some instances, paid parking and parking reservations.00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:05.000Stuart Winchester: make sense.00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:18.000Stuart Winchester: you know, super high volume days. Arapahoe Basin, I think, is a model in Colorado where they only charge for certain days and certain times, and they keep backing off which days as they learn when they really need it. Camelback was charging every day.00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:36.000Stuart Winchester: All day, you know, a Monday with, you know, 10 people on the mountain, they were charging for it. And, you know, acknowledging that sometimes it's appropriate, I think Camelback got pretty out of hand with it, and when I had Mr. Markowski on the podcast, great guy, we had a great conversation, but he was not backing off that. He said, nope, paid parking.00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: we're all in. You said no. So talk about that and how you sold. I'd imagine it was a revenue stream, right? And you had to sell management on that, and I don't know if I'm giving you credit for something someone else did, but talk to us about parking and the evolution there.00:25:51.000 --> 00:26:12.000Jason Bays: Yeah, that was a week one decision from the Camelback team when I got here made from our leadership team at Camelback that everyone was in alignment on our senior leadership team here at the property and myself to remove the paid parking. And I think definitely there's actually you have so many nice pictures behind you.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:30.000Jason Bays: I have a picture of the old paid parking sign behind me there, if you can see it on the corner, and it actually serves to me as a reminder of the guest experience, because someone's put a sticker on that paid parking sign that you probably can't see there, but it says, Ski Camelback, we're not happy until you're not happy.00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:48.000Jason Bays: Um, and it's a reminder to, to me and our team, um, that we're here to have fun, and we're here for the guest experience, and we're here to live, live and breathe fun Camelback style. This is not a, um, you know, we want guests to look forward to, to being here. And I think, you know, yes, there was.00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:48.000 --> 00:27:05.000Jason Bays: So obviously we ran a financial model. We didn't just, you know, get rid of paid parking and not assume, you know, that there wasn't some revenue to be recaptured elsewhere with a strategy to do it. But I think more importantly, you know, think about it.00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:22.000Jason Bays: a non-busy day, it might even be raining, it's 40 degrees, the last thing you want is someone running around a parking lot telling you, like, hey, I need you to hand over $15, and by the way, then you're gonna schlep your stuff up two different levels of parking, um, you know, that might be even charged higher, and then get to.00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:38.000Jason Bays: uh, the mountain and go to guest services. You know, I have a 3-year-old. If my wife and I went skiing, that would be an incredible amount of friction, um, just to get to, uh, the front of the mountain. And so I think putting ourselves in the guest lens of saying, is that really what we want the guests to experience?00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:53.000Jason Bays: Um, it's not, and, and it was a burden to everyone at this, you know, you think I'm talking about, we talked to frontline associates too, like, the first thing that they had to tell people was that they had to pay for parking. You just imagine, sort of, the cascading effect that, that, that, uh, that that had, and we said, look, is there.00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:09.000Jason Bays: Um, is there a better way? Um, can we run shuttles to these lots and pick people up and bring them to the mountain and make them feel, um, you know, like our valued… like our valued guests? What does that arrival experience look like? Um, you know, that's really what we… what we looked at, and then said, okay.00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:25.000Jason Bays: can we… ultimately, will we drive more volume here? Will more people come because of a better guest experience? And I'll say that I would rather grow the sport, grow the industry. Our team would rather grow the sport and grow the industry than figuring out how to.00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:35.000Jason Bays: You know, sort of, you know, run a secondary ancillary business that's not to our core product and what we want our guests to experience here.00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:48.000Stuart Winchester: You know, it's a little counterintuitive, but sometimes, by removing a revenue stream, you get that less-is-more effect. Another example, your season pass, you know, according to my records.00:28:48.000 --> 00:29:04.000Stuart Winchester: Starting in 2020 to ‘21, the season pass was $599 at its early bird price, and it hovered between that and $649 for the next five years. This year, you put it on sale for $399. It's still at that price for unlimited Camelback.00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:20.000Stuart Winchester: That's a great bargain for, uh, for a season pass on the East Coast, and, you know, for the listeners, you are competing with the Epic Pass, which has Jack Frost, Big Boulder, right down the road, a couple exits down I-80, and their Northeast season pass is pretty affordable, and it's a pretty good deal.00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:33.000Stuart Winchester: So… so talk to us about that decision and… and… and how… how that $399 is worth it. You also wrote back, if you want to talk about, uh, the… the triple pack. I thought that was great, and I don't have the price right in front of me, but… but you've really done a lot to… to…00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:39.000Stuart Winchester: create more of a value experience for that loyal Camelback skier, from my point of view.00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:55.000Jason Bays: Yeah, thank you, and that's definitely the goal. Um, you know, I think our thought process here is let's get more people on Snow, um, and have them have a great experience while they're here. Um, I would love to tell you that there's some master business plan behind this.00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:10.000Jason Bays: But, you know, truly, at the heart of what we do is, let's figure out how to get more people on snow, get them to a spot where they want to come back and learn and be part of it. And guess what I would just share to that is.00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:24.000Jason Bays: you know, we were charging a day ticket in 2025 of $169, um, at its highest point, right? And I would rather have a lifelong… I would rather have one per… I would much rather, I think from business proposition, we would rather have.00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:39.000Jason Bays: one person definitely not come and spend $15 to $40 to park and $169 and say, I'm never coming back, versus $399, now they're like, wow, this place is awesome, I'm getting a great value, I bring my family.00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:33.000Stuart Winchester: Damn.00:30:39.000 --> 00:31:01.000Jason Bays: I want to come enjoy food and beverage. And hey, by the way, we also have this great snow tubing park and this great water park. And would you like to stay at our hotel when you come with your season pass and enjoy Aquatopia? And we're debuting The Curse of Camelback this fall, right? Which is the Halloween, if you haven't heard, it's a Halloween 13 scare zones. Take a chair, lift up to it.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:24.000Jason Bays: But I say all that to say we've got so many great cross marketing promotional opportunities at Camelback that that really becomes a super compelling business case for us. And I think it's the right thing to do for the sport is grow it, make it more accessible, allow more people to come here and see what we have to offer. I can't tell you how many people I meet, whether it's snow tubing, skiing.00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:41.000Jason Bays: water park, the hotel, whatever they're here for, CBKMA or Adventure Park, they have no idea that the other part exists to, um, the resort. And I'll share that that's been the case even in, like, when I was, uh, at Jay Peak running the water park.00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:34.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:43.000Jason Bays: People would come there, and they'd be like.00:31:43.000 --> 00:32:02.000Jason Bays: what is this mountain that is here? And it's Jay Peak, like, one of the most hardcore ski resorts in the world. And there were people that were coming there and were like, I had no idea there was a ski resort here. So, if it's true at Jay Peak, it certainly is true at Camelback, where.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:19.000Jason Bays: we have all these different offerings that people don't know about, maybe necessarily about all of them, so our fundamental business philosophy is make it accessible, make them lifelong, um, skiers and riders, and introduce them to everything that we have to offer here in the Poconos. And I would just argue, when I say Poconos.00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:41.000Jason Bays: Like go, like experience Shawnee and experience Jack Frost Big Boulder and experience, you know, the other great ski areas in this region and Mountain Creek and wherever else and get a flavor for it. I think that's, we could use more skiers in the industry and to grow the sport. So for us, that's sort of the long-term business model that we're using.00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:58.000Stuart Winchester: So, I just looked at the triple ticket, and it looks like $149, and I think that's no blackouts. $199 includes rentals. That's pretty amazing. So, talk about that product, and then you mentioned the $169 peak day ticket. Have you settled on prices yet for 2020?00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:03.000Stuart Winchester: 6, 27. I should have checked your site in advance, but I didn't. So I don't know if you've.00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:21.000Jason Bays: Yeah, we have not, uh, posted, uh, day ticket prices for this year. Last year, um, we didn't exceed around $110, um, on a day ticket. Uh, so we kept it, I think, pretty reasonable for, for, for a, for a Pocono offering. Um, triple tickets, massive, um, success, uh, for us.00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay.00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:37.000Jason Bays: Um, and when we talk about, like, again, getting more people introduced to the sport, you don't necessarily pick up skiing on the first time. Um, you think about that rental product, which we, um, tremendously… whatever we had on the pro forma for that was, uh, blown by by, like.00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:53.000Jason Bays: 400% on the triple ticket with rentals. And what I really believe in is that, you know, you become a lifelong skier by getting repetition, not by going once a year. It's really hard to sustain as a skier going once a year.00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:33:53.000 --> 00:34:11.000Jason Bays: and saying, oh yeah, that was our trip. We're really trying to create a guest for life and get them to return visit. That's in many ways more important to us than, again, trying to get, like, the highest yield on that one day that they picked. Like, come back and visit our resort and, um, you know, again, the business side to this is.00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:28.000Jason Bays: we're cross-marketing across all of our other offerings here that we have on this campus to say, come and visit us again. And again, to us, that's more important than, you know, the highest yield that we can get to. So the triple ticket's really successful. And I think one last thing I would share.00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:46.000Jason Bays: a lot of season passes in the market right now, um, the triple ticket's a great opportunity for people to get a couple of days at Camelback, even if they've committed somewhere else, and particularly, you know, our long season, um, there's plenty of time to use it, um, as well, uh, from the, uh, long season that we established from last year.00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:50.000Stuart Winchester: Jason, I think that's a really smart way to look at it as…00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:57.000Stuart Winchester: a… creating a habit rather than pulling as much yield as possible. And a lot of the larger operators.00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:11.000Stuart Winchester: get frustrated with me and the rest of the ski media because they don't understand why we focus on that peak price, right? Because the peak lift ticket this year at Beaver Creek is $392, set to be. Probably almost no one will pay that price, but…00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:28.000Stuart Winchester: What it does is it acts as a, a billboard for the rest of the ski industry and especially so, so Camelback for, for people who don't know when you're driving on I 80 I mean, you see it, it looms right over the highway. It is one of the major interstates in America, especially at night. The thing is lit up.00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: And so, chances are, if people think about skiing, and they think about where to go, they're gonna think about the most obvious one, and that's Camelback, and that's why, for many years, it was that, or Seven Springs was the busiest ski area in Pennsylvania, traditionally. So I think that's a really smart way to look at it, because if people show up that one time, and.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:59.000Stuart Winchester: cost them, you know, $500 for 2 people, they're just not gonna come back, and they're not gonna try Shawnee, or… or Blue Mountain, or Jack Frost, or Elk Mountain, or Montage. So, um, I wanna talk about… Jason, I wanna talk about Lyft.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:16.000Stuart Winchester: And… can you see this trail map? This is an old trail map. I mentioned that I know this, so for those watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube, you can see this. So there's been a ton of changes, and I want to break all these down with you. The first I want to talk about is, over the past couple years.00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mark Antony and Cleopatra, these two lifts right here, an old triple and an old double, have been removed. Can you talk about why you took those lifts out of service, and if you plan to replace them with anything, or what you planned, or what the rationale was behind it?00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:49.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I appreciate that. Uh, that does predate my time here, that they had reached the end of their, um, uh, ability to operate. Um, and so they have, um, both been, um, sort of partially disassembled. Um, there is unfortunately not.00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:47.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:36:49.000 --> 00:37:05.000Jason Bays: I, by the way, two of my favorite lifts when I was a ski instructor, because you could get right up and not wait in long lines on the weekends, so absolutely realizing and recognizing the capacity that they brought, but no opportunity for us to.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:23.000Jason Bays: um, reinstate those lifts as presently, um, as presently, uh, uh, sort of, um, situated, um, and, and not, not, not able to, uh, um, not able to, uh, rerun them. It will require a, um, new, uh, chairlift to, um, to ultimately replace.00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:37.000Jason Bays: those two lifts. It saddens me to share that, but that is, in fact, what has happened there, and I've been very open with our season pass holders about that messaging and the why behind it.00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:41.000Stuart Winchester: So, so in fantasy ski resort world, Jason.00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000Stuart Winchester: Would you put a new lift here, and what would you put, if you could?00:37:45.000 --> 00:38:04.000Jason Bays: Yeah, absolutely. Um, same thing. We've, uh, we've made clear, uh, with no time, no official time frame to share, um, but certainly, uh, we've, we've, um, had, uh, preliminary conversations, um, about a fixed grip, um, quad that would, uh, would be able to take the place of both of those lifts, uh, and create that.00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:10.000Jason Bays: original redundancy that those two lifts brought to the resort when they were in operation.00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that would be really nice. So, so, so these are gone and I, I have a, a current trail map now. So, um, and, and it's not completely current. We'll discuss the new trails in a moment, but this is the most current posted on your website. So, uh, we go over, these are the lifts that remain and see, uh, yeah, I, I miscounted in my intro, so sorry about that.00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:42.000Stuart Winchester: So this one is Stevenson, and Stevenson was, uh, it's a high-speed quad, uh, for the listeners, and it… it was a real junker. It was always stop, stop, stop, and, you know, it was… it was really… seemed to be falling apart and have a lot of issues. Now, uh, in 2020…00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:51.000Stuart Winchester: 5, this year, or 2024, I believe, Camelback, uh, McCarthy, the GM at the time, sent out a letter saying it was due for a…00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.000Stuart Winchester: Waltz.00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:02.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me see what he said… like, a complete modernization of Stevenson. So, so did that happen? And talk to us about Stevenson, and what kind of shape it's in right now.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:20.000Jason Bays: Yeah, great, um, yes, that was a, uh, look, an amazing, um, project that was completed by, uh, by Dave and team, um, to modernize that lift. Um, it has, essentially, Doppelmayr came in and put in an entire new, uh, minus the, uh, minus the, uh, uh, the terminals and the.00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:35.000Jason Bays: Um, uh, and the structure itself, um, essentially all new components, all new electrical, um, uh, wiring components to it, a lot of the things that had plagued it. Um, and last year, uh, it operated 138 days.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000Stuart Winchester: Unbelievable.00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:53.000Jason Bays: Uh, which for Pennsylvania, uh, that's pretty darn good. I think we recognize it's a workhorse, um, it's key to accessing some really, um, fantastic terrain for us, um, and that modernization project with Doppel… in, um, partnership with Doppelmeyer that was done in the summer and fall of 2025.00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:08.000Jason Bays: um, was, uh, very, uh, so it's all immediate impact, um, with, uh, Stevenson Reliability this past year, and we expect that to, uh, you know, knock on wood, to, uh, to continue going forward. We essentially, again, have a brand new lift, minus the, uh.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:10.000Jason Bays: Uh, minus the physical pieces.00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:26.000Stuart Winchester: That's a really smart way to do it because they are tremendously expensive, these new lifts. And for folks who are watching or listening, this Stevenson is really important because you walk out of this giant hotel that's right here, that's not on the trail map with 400 and some rooms, and that is how you get up the mountain. Otherwise you got to.00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:41.000Stuart Winchester: pull your way over, so when that lift is not running or has problems, it's a real big issue. So, the alternative was, over here, Black Bear 6, uh, you replaced an old high-speed quad that was there, and… and I love this Black Bear 6 lift. It is…00:40:41.000 --> 00:41:01.000Stuart Winchester: Freakin' Ferrari, man. I think the price they gave me was something like $12 million that they spent, or maybe it was $10 to put that in. So that's the alternative, right? If you don't just modernize that current lift, you replace it. So, uh, Black Bear is awesome. I love it. It has bubbles. Is it too much? I mean, I know that KSL Now Peregrine had reasons for.00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:16.000Stuart Winchester: for putting it in, but what have you learned from a couple of years of having BlackBerry around, which is, again, probably the nicest lift in the state of Pennsylvania and one of the nicest in the Northeast, but maybe a little heavier than what you need for CamelBak, but I don't know, you tell me.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:41.000Jason Bays: Yeah, you know, you know what I would share to that, um, you know, we, we brought it back for scenic chairlift rides this summer, and I mean, it's a massive hit. The summer, summer guests love, uh, the bubbles, they put them down when it's sunny, they put them down, um, probably gets more use in the summer as a bubble lift than the winter, uh, but look, it's, it's nice to, uh, have on the days where, you know, there's some liquid precipitation out here. It certainly happens in the Poconos.00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm.00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:58.000Jason Bays: um, and, uh, and, and or, um, uh, you know, other, other weather events, it's, it's, it's a nice to have, um, and it certainly, it gets you up in, you know, a little bit over two minutes. Um, it's a smooth ride, it's a great ride. Um, you are not going to get any complaints from me that we have a, um.00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:11.000Jason Bays: bubble, D-line, six-pack, um, in place, uh, and able to operate as our main workhorse lift. Um, and, uh, I think the six-pack versus the quad was absolutely the right, uh, call. Um…00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:27.000Jason Bays: from my experience being here before with the Sullivan Express, um, with the four-seater, the six-seater, just the… the added, uh, ability, uh, there is, uh, is… is well worth it. So, uh, we're happy to have that… happy to have that lift. I… I wouldn't, uh… I wouldn't…00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:31.000Jason Bays: We won't be trading it in at this point. Let's put it that way.00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:38.000Stuart Winchester: It is a gorgeous machine, and I have to tell you, I'm that weird person who, if there's a line on one lift.00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:56.000Stuart Winchester: And no line on the lift next to it. Even if it's a slower lift, I'll take the slower lift, because I just would rather not deal with the hassle of the line. So right here, for those who are watching, is the Bailey Double, and this is an old chair lift. It's an old slow double, it runs almost exactly parallel to Black Bear 6, doesn't land quite as high.00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:16.000Stuart Winchester: on the mountain, but functionally, it does about the same thing for you. So I like Bailey, and I was glad to see that not only did you keep it, and it does run, and that was true even under the previous regime, but you got a new gearbox for it, which is a really big deal for a lift like this in several decades. Also, talk about the work you've done on Bailey, and how you hope to use that lift.00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:18.000Stuart Winchester: this year to complement Black Bear.00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:21.000Jason Bays: Yeah, so, um, Bailey Lift…00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:32.000Jason Bays: full disclosure, Bailey Lift, Meadows Lift, Raceway Lift, and our season pass holders are very aware of this. Um, unfortunately, uh, we're not, um…00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:41.000Jason Bays: ready for day one of last year, um, or even close. And so, uh, we had to do a lot of, um…00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:57.000Jason Bays: normal PM maintenance, um, throughout the, um, end of fall and into winter to have all of them operational. Um, what I share to that is, um, we will run, just level set here really quickly, we will run all the lifts that we have on this trail map.00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:02.000Jason Bays: Um, and take care of them, maintain them, operate them.00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:18.000Jason Bays: Staff them, everything that you would do to run the extra capacity, we certainly need it. We'd like more capacity, actually. So that being said, Bailey Lift is critical. We got it back online.00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:34.000Jason Bays: End of January, it ran for 2 or 3 weekends, and we had a failed gearbox, um, on it, which is really unfortunate. Um, this off-season, uh, we've replaced the gearbox, we've done a full PM over the course of the summer on it, which is…00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:50.000Jason Bays: the, as you, as everyone knows, the ideal time, uh, to be, um, conducting such work, um, so that it is ready on, uh, day one. Um, it is a critical backup lift. We will run it every weekend.00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:07.000Jason Bays: Um, that we're, you know, in season, I would say in the heart of season, we're gonna run it. Won't be shy to not run it. Um, same thing with the Meadows, same thing with the Glen, same thing with the Raceway, which, um, you know, I know that that was, um, certainly chief among the complaints of.00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:22.000Jason Bays: locals and guests who were visiting from out of town alike was Lyft availability, Lyft reliability. That was something that we focused as fast as we could on last year, but we're setting ourselves up this year to be.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:39.000Jason Bays: um, very proactive to that, and recognizing the importance of, of each of, uh, uh, you know, each of these. And look, every once in a while, uh, if the, you always want to have, like, Bailey is critical because it's the only other, if there's Black Bear, without Black Bear, it's the only other thing left, right?00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:55.000Jason Bays: Um, and so, uh, you know, I think the, you know, back in the, when I was here, like, every Lyft ran on the weekends. It was Camelback. Um, it was busy, right? Like, everything was going. That's, that's essentially our, our, our philosophy, um, will continue to be our philosophy going forward.00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Jason, I'll admit, I didn't come to Camelback last season, so I wasn't able to experience it firsthand. I really wanted to come to your May thing, which I'll talk about, I'll get to in a minute, but I had a shoulder surgery, so I wasn't able to do that. But I wasn't only basing my perceptions of C.00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: on locals' reactions. I had skied there myself in recent years, and the lift line management, I have to say.00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:21.000Stuart Winchester: It was…00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:33.000Stuart Winchester: really frustrating from a skier point of view, when you're waiting for the Stevenson lift, and there's a big line, and every chair is going up with one or two people, and this is not peak COVID or anything else, this is several years later.00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:50.000Stuart Winchester: So, you know, and I had a lot of locals tell me, oh, we walk up Sun Bowl because the lift line is just too chaotic. People come from both sides. No, no, again, that was all before. What's your philosophy of lift line management? How have you tried to tame that? And there's always, it's always going to be a little wild and hard in Pennsylvan.00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:56.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but they could definitely have been managed better. Is that something that was important to you, that you focused on?00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:15.000Jason Bays: Yeah, we focused on that. We have a new lift operations manager that was hired in November of 2025, who took the bull by the horns. We developed a supervisor team in fairly short order to that as well, to build out a well-rounded team. And then I would just share that our lift attendants.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:32.000Jason Bays: All hired locally within the community. And I think that we were fully staffed in LiftOps this year, which was a big, very big win. It starts there, right? A, the people, and then B, the right people.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:49.000Jason Bays: um, on the, uh, on the bus, um, as a catalyst to drive, uh, lift operations forward. Um, and then absolutely, uh, we focused on, uh, line management, queuing, um, we set new, in some cases, new queues. We had, um, uh, supervisors, in many cases, out.00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:04.000Jason Bays: um, putting up chairs, um, and, um, and managing the lift line. We added, once we got that right, and we felt like we were in a good spot, and we, you know, look, I think, admittedly, a couple technology hiccups here and there, it was not a perfect, uh.00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:17.000Jason Bays: we didn't, like, on opening day, it wasn't perfect, but, uh, we improved, it was a big focus for our team, and I think when we talk about fundamental ski operation, um, if we just were a ski area, we would absolutely be focusing on.00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:36.000Jason Bays: lift queuing, but we have to do that, like, we have to execute that every day because we are a ski area, um, and that's core to our business, and so that's important. Um, then we added, once we got queuing, uh, uh, correct, we added surprise and delights. Lift, uh, chocolate chip cookies were massively popular.00:48:36.000 --> 00:49:04.000Jason Bays: We handed out over 15,000 chocolate chip cookies this winter at the Stevenson lift line. And so, you know, then it becomes fun, right? Then it's the hospitality side of the business of how do we engage with our guests now that we have full chairs going up for the most part off of the Stevenson and the Black Bear and the Sun Bowl. So we hired extra associates to do that, to surprise and delight, to help our guests.00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: Cool.00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:20.000Jason Bays: The one other thing I would just share is Sunbowl is a great example. How many people get down to the Sunbowl and have never ridden a lift before? And so you need that extra human touch to be able to help. It's not even just putting people in groups of four. It's just helping them with like, here's where you go to load the lift. Here's what you do.00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:33.000Jason Bays: Um, I think that that investment in our people to provide that service to our guests is very well worth it, and it's the difference between someone having a bad experience getting on a lift and never coming back.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:43.000Jason Bays: or having a great experience, feeling well cared for, and wanting to try again. Um, and so that, that, that was, um, you know, I think that's a core, um, focus for us.00:49:43.000 --> 00:50:02.000Stuart Winchester: So, one of the ways that I can tell the resort is being run by a skier, in addition to all the things you just said, and your passion for the minutiae of things like lift lines, which I share, is that you're cutting 3 new trails in a resort that's 60 years old, and I love that. So, talk us through these trails, Jason. I'll do my best to trace them.00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:08.000Stuart Winchester: on the trail map. I don't have the updated trail map, I don't know if you've created it yet, but talk us through these three trails.00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:25.000Jason Bays: Yeah, so we're really excited. Look, this, you know, came after, you know, the so many guests, new guests that visited us at Camelback this past season. We said, you know what, let's do something fun and exciting. And like, you know, you think about how.00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:43.000Jason Bays: Um, yeah, I just, you know, if someone said, anyone puts in a new trail, uh, the skier in me wants to drive to that resort, no matter how big or small, and be like, alright, like, let's do it. Um, and our team feels, uh, you know, much of the same way. So, um, that being said, uh, we had a lot of natural snowfall this year, so…00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, sure. Yeah.00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:59.000Jason Bays: I was acutely paying attention to where people were skiing when we had natural snowfall, where they wanted to go, and then, you know, maybe following those lines, too, and seeing what the fun was about. So, my point to all of that is, we said, let's create some, and I think for Camelback, too.00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:15.000Jason Bays: it's very, um, you know, we wanted to create something that was sort of unique. I didn't want to just put in, like, regular trails that, A, we don't have a lot of space for regular trails, and B, um, we really wanted to create sort of unique experience. So, right underneath Black Bear, um, in between Sullivan and John Bailey there.00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:30.000Jason Bays: um, there's a, um, there's a chute, um, where the old Alpine Slide used to go. Basculus goes back into Rocket, uh, but underneath there is some really fun rolling terrain. Like, it's, it's because the mountain, the, uh, Alpine Slide.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:54.000Jason Bays: back in the day did had several dips and curves and so we're going to lean into those dips and curves and create something sort of fun that you can get some you know launch some airtime off of if you want or carve a turn over it but it'll have some some really nice terrain variation in a way that most trails at Camelback don't have and they're coming off of an expert trail there so.00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:06.000Jason Bays: um, gives, uh, you know, anyone skiing Asp, Hump, Rocket, um, or Basilisk would be able to reach that trail, um, and, uh, and be able to, uh, just have a little bit more excitement on the way back down.00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000Jason Bays: Um…00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:20.000Jason Bays: Upper Cleopatra there, if you go to the, uh, where the U is, uh, or where Upper is, we're gonna cut a trail through the woods there that's going to end up on the bottom of Big Pocono.00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:31.000Jason Bays: Um, so it's gonna go down and across. So, um, that… um, and I see where your cursor is. If you go to the… where it says Upper on Upper Cleopatra.00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, like, here? Or…00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:32.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, upper…00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:54.000Jason Bays: So, Big Pocono, that's Uncle B. Yeah, right there. Yep, we're going through there. Yeah, so that's gonna be, that's a narrow blue square. So, you know, I think one of the things that's fun for us is we're gonna create a blue square there. That used to be a trail back in the 60s and 70s, fun fact, when Walter Foger was designing Camelback.00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:37.000Stuart Winchester: Upper… oh, this one. Okay, so you're cutting through here?00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:39.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool. Okay.00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:51.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:09.000Jason Bays: Um, that being said, um, the… actually, it got filled in with pine trees, so it's gonna be really cool, because there's pine trees on both sides. Um, we made it narrow, so we kept the pine trees, um, and so that's gonna be a really fun, um, sort of narrow… I think about, like, the, um.00:52:58.000 --> 00:52:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:03.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool. It's pretty.00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:26.000Jason Bays: the ending of Jay Peak with some of the blues at the very bottom there by Interstate. We're trying to sort of have that, obviously in a much smaller zone, have that same effect, though, where you're feeling like you're really in the trees, and you've got some nice twists and turns to it. It's not terribly steep.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:13.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:44.000Jason Bays: Um, two things on that trail. One is, it takes traffic off of Honeymoon Lane, which is a main boulevard, it pushes it onto the Sphinx, which has much more trail capacity, which is great, um, comfortable carrying capacity, and secondarily, um, on weekends, we're gonna have a hot chocolate, um, hut that people can ski up to.00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:52.000Jason Bays: Um, and get shots of hot chocolate, um, as well, so we're excited to, um, uh, to offer that to our guests. We think that'll be really fun.00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:47.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool.00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:53.000Stuart Winchester: That was awesome.00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:17.000Jason Bays: And then the Stevenson, it's going to drop on the cliffhanger side and drop down that lift line and go right down into the Faroe there and follow that lift line. Vermont skiing in a very short array but very much Vermont skiing, that's an intimidating drop. Stevenson for those that may not be familiar has a extremely.00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:55.000Stuart Winchester: And it.00:53:58.000 --> 00:53:59.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:34.000Jason Bays: extremely tight, um, and high, uh, crest of the lift, because the mountain crests, um, really steeply. Well, we're gonna ski that, um, and, uh, and make snow on it, and, uh, and, and, uh, and allow our guests to, uh, um, and allow skiers to, uh, to, to, to test, um, you know, a more narrow.00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:44.000Jason Bays: um, uh, trail up there that has a really great expansive view ov

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is made in the USA. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.About CaberfaeOwned by: The Meyer FamilyYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 2 days, blackouts* Freedom Pass: 3 days, no blackouts Base elevation: 1,076 feetSummit elevation: 1,561 feetVertical drop: 485 feetSkiable Acres: 200Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesLift count: 5 (1 fixed-grip quad, 3 triples, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Caberfae's lift fleet)The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, then click on any text block to teleport to the associated point in the video; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO; also since Tim and Pete were on one screen, the transcript does not differentiate between them).Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the storm. I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Thursday, September 17th, 2026, and we are going to mix things up a little bit today. Instead of starting with the takes, we are starting with the guests, and I have some great guests today.00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:40.000Stuart Winchester: They are the general managers of Cabrifay Peaks, Michigan, with over 200 acres of terrain served by 4 chairlifts across 3 peaks, with a 485-foot vertical drop.00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.000Stuart Winchester: Cabar Fay is one of the largest ski areas in Michigan's Lower Penins.00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:49.000Stuart Winchester: The ski area averaged 120 inches of lake effect snowfall per winter.00:22:49.000 --> 00:23:06.000Stuart Winchester: Their family has operated Cabaret since 1980. They are co-general managers, with Tim Meyer on the right, handling everything on the mountain, and Pete Meyer on the left, taking care of everything off. Tim and Pete, welcome to the storm. I'm always hyped to talk Cabaret. How are you guys doing today?00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:11.000Pete Meyer: Good. We're doing awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah.00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and trigger warning for any Sparties or Buckeyes out there who want to go to the video version on stormskiing.com or YouTube. Me and Tim are both proudly rocking our Wolverines gear. This is a shirt I wore to the maze out when Michigan blasted Oklahoma in the big house this past weekend. So we're feeling.00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:31.000Stuart Winchester: Although I understand Tim's also got a little Sparty, side loyalty.00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:35.000Pete Meyer: Yes, my children, both my sons are Spartans, so that's…00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, as soon as my daughter got into college, I bought all the gear for her place. So, you know, there's tons going on at Cabaret, and I want to start…00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:36.000Pete Meyer: It.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:54.000Stuart Winchester: with this coming expansion, and you, you announced this a while ago, and I'm gonna share my screen here so that everyone can see, uh, see this as we talk through it.00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:13.000Stuart Winchester: And this is where I am never quite as fast as I want to be. Uh, but… okay. So, here is the Cabra Fay trail map. This is the one I took off your website this morning, so it's the most current that I have. Uh, and last time I talked to Tim in, I think, 2021, when you came on the podcast.00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it…00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:31.000Stuart Winchester: This East Peak triple chair was still still in a theory phase and you hadn't built yet. Now that's in place and we'll talk about that in a minute and how that's gone. But talk to us about the Green Mountain triple chair, what we're getting and why you're building it.00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, so, um…00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:40.000Pete Meyer: I'm going to start with why, because it's kind of an interesting story, you know.00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:51.000Pete Meyer: we… when we put in the East Peak lift, we took out the shelter chairlift, the double. They started in almost the same place, but the shelter… the shelter lift.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:54.000Pete Meyer: let off about halfway up the hill.00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:04.000Pete Meyer: And because we we have our dads before us and then and then we also have continued to develop the terrain.00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:13.000Pete Meyer: the terrain changes and the flow changes. And what happened over time, like, especially over the last.00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:16.000Pete Meyer: 25 years or so.00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:23.000Pete Meyer: we kept adding on to Smiling Irishman and making it wider and wider and wider, and it got busier and busier and busier, so…00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:29.000Pete Meyer: The shelter chairlift was essentially letting off these new skiers.00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.000Pete Meyer: in the middle of flowing traffic. And…00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.000Pete Meyer: We thought when we put in the East Peak lift.00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:41.000Pete Meyer: Now we're gonna take these lower end skiers to the top.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:55.000Pete Meyer: we're going to give them a longer run, and the new part we're giving them is actually the easier half. They're already negotiating the tougher half, the steeper half, and the narrower half. If we add the upper half, it's easier, it's wider, it should be fine.00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:06.000Pete Meyer: And that's what we thought. And so we put it in and then but then what we found and this is the this is the piece that you learn as you go.00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.000Pete Meyer: is…00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:15.000Pete Meyer: The new skiers accepted being let off at the lower level, and having to merge into traffic, because.00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:32.000Pete Meyer: They didn't really know any different and that it was the psychological factor. Well, I'm only halfway up the mountain. I can, I can do this. When we took them up to the top, you know, that East Peak lift actually feels like a out, it almost feels like an out West lift. It has.00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:43.000Pete Meyer: like, three rises, you know? So you ride… you go up over a break, and then you… and then you go again for a while, and then up over another break, and then you're coming into the top, and you… you know, you're above…00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:47.000Pete Meyer: Tree line, basically, and you can see the horizon, and it just…00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:51.000Pete Meyer: would kind of psych out that new skier, you know, they would just, they would.00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.000Pete Meyer: They'd get up there and kind of freeze and panic, and…00:26:55.000 --> 00:27:06.000Pete Meyer: say, there's no way I'm gonna go down, you know, I'm not gonna go down that hill. And, uh, so we found our ski patrol having to give a lot of lessons just to get people down the hill, and…00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:13.000Pete Meyer: And, um, and so we, we just, we kind of knew that we had a, you know, a little bit of an issue that we had to work through.00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:21.000Pete Meyer: And so Pete and I would be talking, you know, and I would say, I think I have it all figured out, you know, I'm saying, um…00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:34.000Pete Meyer: we just need to give them… make sure that all the… every single new skier gets a lesson, and we get them ready to… you know, we get them ready to go. And a lot of the… a lot of this is the school groups, you know, the different groups, and we do offer lessons.00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:40.000Pete Meyer: to everybody, but sometimes they don't take them, and, you know, they slide, they slide through, and…00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.000Pete Meyer: And so.00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:50.000Pete Meyer: Pete and I were having a meeting on Green Mountain with our ski patrol director, Katie, and Dennis, one of our top instructors.00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:59.000Pete Meyer: And we think we have it all figured out. You know, we're just we just need to put them through a lesson and then and then problem solved.00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:00.000Pete Meyer: And…00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:12.000Pete Meyer: And Dennis, our ski instructor, was like, almost grabbed right onto my jacket. He's like, you don't understand. I can't get them ready for East Peak on this.00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:23.000Pete Meyer: we need something in between, and I… and… and so it's like, oh, oh, well, what do you need, Dennis? And he pointed up at the Green Mountain, and he said, we need that.00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:41.000Pete Meyer: And I… I said, well, I think we have a plan for that on a cocktail napkin somewhere. We could go look at that again. So basically, what… what hap… what it was is we… we had always had this. We… we actually had lift lines staked out, and we hadn't been looking at doing this. We just thought it would be…00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:51.000Pete Meyer: the last thing that we do. We thought we would… we would continue to develop into the… into the backcountry area, and then do the Green Mountain expansion later.00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:06.000Pete Meyer: But what the… what the customer told us was, no, you need the Green Mountain expansion now. So that's the why and the how, that all of a sudden that thing kind of appeared out of nowhere, and why it was a two…00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:14.000Pete Meyer: why it's a two-year construction, because there's nothing over there. No services. Um, so we've had… we had to…00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:18.000Pete Meyer: You know, we had to do the final planning kind of fast.00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:30.000Pete Meyer: so we wanted to take 2 years to do it. Um, and so what are you getting? You're getting about 135 vertical feet, a brand new Doppelmayr triple.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.000Pete Meyer: uh, that's just like East Peak and just like Vista, so it's gonna show this, you know, it's gonna take the new skier, um.00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:43.000Pete Meyer: Uh, and get them going on a lift that's similar to what we have throughout the area.00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:55.000Pete Meyer: it runs a little bit slower, has a bigger chair spacing, so it's going to be a little bit easier to load and unload. And when it's all built out, we should have 4 or 5.00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:00.000Pete Meyer: really, uh, easy trails, but with character. I mean, these aren't just…00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:14.000Pete Meyer: you know, a football field at 10 degrees that doesn't have any character. These are, you know, tree-lined, um, interesting slopes. Uh, the lift itself actually goes through the woods.00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:20.000Pete Meyer: and part of the way, and it's just a really neat development. So we think that.00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:32.000Pete Meyer: You know, even though it's not big vertical, it lifts about a thousand feet long. The terrain has really good character and we think it's going to be really popular.00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:47.000Stuart Winchester: I've always loved that about Cabaret. My favorite section of Cabaret for the folks who are watching is this sort of lower section where all the trails split off. And I've always found it a little confusing and fun. And I like confusing. I like it. I feel like it makes ski areas feel bigger than they are.00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: I want to zoom out a little bit and connect this expansion to some larger ski industry narratives, because the narrative that won't die is that the big corporate consolidation and big passes are killing the independents.00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:15.000Stuart Winchester: here I'm looking at Cabra Fay, family-owned for the last 46 years, and in 2016, you put in a brand new triple chair right here on North Peak. In 2022, you put in the brand new East Peak triple chair, and then you're putting in this brand new Green Mountain triple chair next year, at least that's the plan. I mean…00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:31.000Stuart Winchester: So you're affording three new chairlifts. Uh, you know, Monarch was willing to tell me out in Colorado. Yeah, we, and we paid cash for them. I don't know if you, if you have, you know, theories on debt. I know a lot of scare operators like Platykill in New York, like to stay out of debt, but, but how did Cab.00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:40.000Stuart Winchester: How is Calgary managing all these capital upgrades, and what does it say, do you think, about independents competing in 2026?00:31:41.000 --> 00:32:05.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, I don't have access to the checkbook, so you have to let me answer that one. No, that's a great question, Stu. And Tim kind of hit on this on his first podcast with you, but when Tim and I got moved back here in 2001, we had what I call like soul crushing debt. You know, it was just crippling, like every dollar we made had to go and service the debt.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:08.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we didn't have…00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:18.000Pete Meyer: really any money to even make capital improvements or to do much of anything. So our our main mission early on was try to try to get out of debt and get out of that hole.00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:35.000Pete Meyer: And, you know, our dad's done a nice job developing and building, and they got it out of bankruptcy. So when you get something out of bankruptcy, they've already cut every corner and done all kinds of deferred maintenance, pushed it all off. So we had quite a bit to deal with, and it was a long…00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:36.000Pete Meyer: Um…00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:46.000Pete Meyer: the long slugfest. Tim and I call those the dark days, you know, about 10 years of just really grinding. And then, finally, right, you know.00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:58.000Pete Meyer: about 2015, we were able to, uh, to get out of debt, and then… and then we started to, um, really put capital back into it, and that's why we decided on… on…00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:02.000Pete Meyer: Uh, putting in some new chairlifts, and yes, we have not gone back into debt since.00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:14.000Stuart Winchester: That's fantastic, and as you think to the future, okay, you have this North Peak quad chair, built in, I think, 92, and then you have the South Peak triple, which I think early 80s lift, it's a riblet, which…00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:29.000Stuart Winchester: As you know, is out of business now. I think this one's a SeaTac. So, I don't know if when, you know, you give a really good summary, Tim, of how East Peak changed traffic around the mountain. Uh, I, I've seen a, there's a ton of comments. I was just scrolling through, through Lyft blog for the folks watching.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:41.000Stuart Winchester: to show Peter's excellent pictures of that lift. And the Cabaret page on there has a ton of comments, and I'm sure you've seen them. So, there's a lot of wondering, it seems, among skiers.00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:44.000Stuart Winchester: Why the quad is still here, because it…00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:57.000Stuart Winchester: they don't seem to think it runs a lot, and they think the triple does the job. Is there any thought of moving the quad, or do you really need 7 seats here? Or, just thinking long-term, what does the lift distribution look like across Cabaret Fay as you look at this map?00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:13.000Pete Meyer: Well, I think that we do need the quad on the busiest days, right? Otherwise, the reason we put the Vista Triple in there is the lines on the quad used to get so long. And it was like, that's the artery. I mean, you know, more people.00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.000Pete Meyer: go through the North Peak complex.00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:34.000Pete Meyer: every day than than the others, you know, because it's the middle. And so it's you go through there on your way to and from South Peak, and a lot of people just ski there because it's really really good inter advanced, intermediate and intermediate type terrain, and even some advanced beginner terrain. So it.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:43.000Pete Meyer: It services a wide range of abilities. So I think you want to have the two lifts.00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:45.000Pete Meyer: Um…00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:58.000Pete Meyer: I think ultimately, though, we want to have more places for people to go, more pods of skiing, so that actually you do run the quad less and less, but you have it there so that on the really busy days.00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:14.000Pete Meyer: you can turn it on and have, you know, a lift that doesn't have a line that somebody can sit on and ride up. But, um, I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah, right now, Stu, we run it 3 days a week, Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays, the busier days, and so…00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:24.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we don't run it, uh, Monday through Thursday, just because it's a redundant lift, and we don't need the uphill capacity, um, is… is why people say it's not running some of the time.00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I guess what I was getting at is, is there a world where you move the quad over here to serve some of this backcountry terrain and in the top of Green Mountain? As it's, as there's kind of open space on the trail map and, and knowing Gary Milken, how he designs maps, he sometimes leaves that space.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:57.000Stuart Winchester: for expansion. So, so what's the thought around, you know, and you alluded to it earlier when you were thinking about a lift for backcountry, and Tim, you had mentioned even maybe reviving those halls. I don't know if that's still a possibility. I don't know if they're still sitting at the bottom of the mountain here, but what's the thought on.00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:02.000Stuart Winchester: potential expansion over in this area or lifts in this area long term.00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:17.000Pete Meyer: I think that would be the next frontier. So, somewhere in the bottom… because you've skied here, Stu, you know if you go through the backcountry, you run out of gas, and then you have… and then you have to walk, and that's why we call it backcountry, because it's a…00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:27.000Pete Meyer: Because it's a tearful experience for many people coming out of there in the flats. And so somewhere down in that basin.00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:40.000Pete Meyer: there could, there could be a lift someday that goes up to east of the top of East Peak. And Stu, what Tim had alluded to earlier in his first answer is that that was our original plan, so that would have been.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:58.000Pete Meyer: Uh, that was the plan to be our next chairlift, was to service that area. But due to the reaction and the response of our skiers, you know, we deviated and focused on… and moved to Green Mountain. Um, and, you know, one thing we found is that transition from the magic carpet, right there on the trail map, you can see, to the East Peak chair.00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:15.000Pete Meyer: was just too much for most of our skiers. And not only were we not doing Cabaret any favors, but we're not doing the industry any favors. You know, it's just, it was asking them to do too much, too big of a, make too much of a jump. So by putting in this East Peak.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:03.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:30.000Pete Meyer: chair, and then we'll have all green runs that'll all be, um, varying degrees of difficulty of a green run, but all of them will be in between the Magic Carpet slope and the Smiling Irishman slope, so it'll be a really nice.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:43.000Pete Meyer: transition, and quite frankly, we think a lot of school groups and a lot of skiers are going to come out, um, and never get off that chair, and stay on Green Mountain all day, and have a wildly successful day, and want to return, um, to not only Cabaret Fay, but to other ski.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:48.000Stuart Winchester: I love it, and I can confidently say, because I ski all over, uh, that Cabaret is now…00:37:48.000 --> 00:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: And, and especially once you put in this new lift, it's one of the most modern up to date ski areas in the entire region. And, and that wasn't always true. When I first skied at Cabaret in the nineties, it was a lot of haul double chairs. I mean, these, these guys were over here, the, the quad and the, and the triple, but.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:11.000Stuart Winchester: that, that throwback feel to it. And I know, Tim, when you were on last time, uh, you, you talked, you lamented a little bit.00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:23.000Stuart Winchester: getting rid of the last rope toe for the carpet, and just sort of the emotion of it, even though you knew it was logically the right thing. What if you could bring back a little throwback by putting a little rope toe right here to bring people out of the backcountry?00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:27.000Pete Meyer: Well, you know, it's funny, I…00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:36.000Pete Meyer: I was kind of slow to warm up to getting rid of that rope toe. I guess, you know, I always had that old school…00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:52.000Pete Meyer: you know, I learned on a rope toe, my kids learned on a rope toe, your kids are going to learn on a rope toe, which is just backwards thinking, right, for a for a ski area manager to have that kind of thought process. I'm not sure. I know where you're going. I mean, no one knows what the future holds.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:09.000Pete Meyer: I do see ski areas having a lot of success with train parks with fast tows that service them. Again, another cocktail napkin plan that we have that we're not going to get into in this interview is something like that on our property down the road.00:38:58.000 --> 00:38:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:16.000Pete Meyer: Um, so there, you know, I could see that kind of a thing, but, um…00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:26.000Pete Meyer: And… but I think… I don't know if we would ever want to put a surface tow out of the backcountry area unless, for some reason, we weren't going to lift serve it.00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:27.000Stuart Winchester: Got it.00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:31.000Pete Meyer: But, you know, I guess, you know, no one knows for sure.00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:37.000Pete Meyer: Um, but I wanna… I wanna back up on the Green Mountain expansion a little bit, if… if you'll let me.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000Stuart Winchester: Sure.00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, do it. Let's do it.00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:44.000Pete Meyer: When we were at the Midwest, uh, show this year, there was a, there was a fireside chat, and we were talking about.00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:54.000Pete Meyer: We're talking about, you know, turning first-time skiers into second-time skiers, and making the experience the best it can be.00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:06.000Pete Meyer: And so that we have… we have success in that arena. And the Green Mountain… the Green Mountain is… is really a missing piece, because you're looking at our trail map, and you see how the parking lot is laid out.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:12.000Pete Meyer: Um, so if you're, you know, trying to make it as easy as possible for somebody who's never skied before.00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.000Pete Meyer: You can park on pavement right in front of our ticket office.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:24.000Pete Meyer: Get out of your car, walk a short distance on heated sidewalks to the ticket office.00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:36.000Pete Meyer: Get… pay for everything you need. Pay for your skis, pay for your ticket, pay for your rentals, pay for your lesson, and then walk up to the… walk up to the, um…00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:37.000Pete Meyer: Rental.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:52.000Pete Meyer: In your, in your regular boots, so it's easy walking, go inside, take your stuff off, take your boots off, get your boots, get your skis and come and then, and then secure your lesson at the end and then walk out the door.00:40:52.000 --> 00:41:09.000Pete Meyer: And you're 30, you know, you're 30 feet from where the ski school meets and you're right at the bottom of the conveyor. So it's really easy to start out and we can get you going on the conveyor. We can virtually get anybody that can stand up on skis or snowboard up to the top.00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:13.000Pete Meyer: And then put, you know, all their energy into getting them down the hill.00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:28.000Pete Meyer: And then once you outgrow that, you just get off the conveyor and you ski down a little slope right onto the East Peak lift. Or, I'm sorry, onto the Green Mountain lift. So now you're right there, and you have this real easy area.00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:37.000Pete Meyer: to learn to ski, and then when you, when you're ready, you just ski down, just ski down the hill to the east peak lift. So the, the flow.00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:42.000Pete Meyer: for that never ever in the in the ah, the the.00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:51.000Pete Meyer: possibility of getting them to come a second and third and fourth time is really real, and I think… I think we're in, like, a new stratosphere for getting…00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:59.000Pete Meyer: you know, getting people, uh, skiing. And then as it flows, you know, the next step, the next place to ski is East Peak.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.000Pete Meyer: And then as you get a little more daring, you work your way into the North Peak complex, and then eventually over to South Peak. So the flow is really natural, and I think it's going to work out extremely well.00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's like a mini, uh, Copper Mountain. I know you're a Winter Park guy, but it, you know, the, the, the viability… You know what, the exciting thing, I think, for skiers who are not novices, who know Cabaret Faye well.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:12.000Pete Meyer: Yeah.00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:38.000Stuart Winchester: starts to creep back into old Caber Fay. And, and when we've talked a while ago, Tim, I, I didn't have a good perspective, but some new maps have popped up on ski map.org, which is my go to for old trail maps. And this one I think shows the old terrain really well. So here's the road looping around, here's the parking lot.00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:47.000Stuart Winchester: And then here's all the terrain. And so I… Google Earth also makes it really easy. So as I go here…00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:02.000Stuart Winchester: I am, for those who are watching, I am zooming in on… so this is what you were talking about, you kind of just park on pavement, you get out here, for those watching on YouTube or StormSkiing.com, the carpet's right around here, and then this will be green, is that right?00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.000Pete Meyer: No, if you go, if you, if you go back to that old, old trail map, like you can see right to there, there's a.00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:14.000Pete Meyer: A rope toe — there's two rope toes right there, right up that line, top of that peak. There was two rope toes.00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:12.000Stuart Winchester: Right there? Okay.00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:13.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000Pete Meyer: Uh, heading up that way, and another rope tow coming out at 90 degrees from… from the top.00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:19.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:37.000Pete Meyer: And that shack still is up there to this day. It's a two-story tow shack where we had three different rope tows coming in. So it's going to come right up to the top of that. And that area was always called practice area. That was the old name of it. So if you look at old trail maps, you'll see that word practice area.00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:24.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool.00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:41.000Pete Meyer: It's a great name for a learn to ski area.00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, here's another map, the 1971 map has it as practice area. Okay, so I was assuming that you were digging that up, but I guess you're taking earth from there for the other… is that where you took it for East Peak? Is that what this big sandpit is?00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:07.000Pete Meyer: Oh, that's more of the West Ridge area out into that area. So we're actually off to the left. It's all still green. Up into there, yeah, so it'll be a nice natural hilltop with big mature trees, tree line runs. It's gonna be really, it's gonna be really nice.00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000Stuart Winchester: So as you… so you can see, for those watching, this is old cab buffet. These are… this is all abandoned, right? I… do you still own this? I mean, it… because once you put the lift up here.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:37.000Stuart Winchester: It seems like it could potentially open some of this backside terrain. I know people would love that. It also makes you very big. I don't know if that's on your radar as Cabaret continues to grow and succeed, but what are the thoughts on this really cool abandoned terrain that you have back here? And Tim, I know we talked about this a few years ago, but I also know that thoughts evolve over time.00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:44.000Pete Meyer: So we do still own all of that. So that area you're looking at, we do own it.00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:55.000Pete Meyer: I think that we don't have any plans to go back into that area at this time, but you never know.00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:04.000Pete Meyer: Going back, though, a little bit, we don't want to get too far into the weeds. Unless you want to get into the weeds, we can go. Um, I brought my machete, so we can…00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.000Stuart Winchester: I live in the weeds, man, that's, uh, my…00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:22.000Pete Meyer: we can do what we need to do. But when… way back, going way back to 1982, 83, when South Peak opened, you know, South Peak was redeveloped, all that… a lot of that terrain was still running back then. We were riding T-bars and rope tows on the North Ridge, and West Ridge was alive, and.00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:31.000Pete Meyer: The practice area tow was still running. So I remember that stuff, you know, as a kid, all happening. And when South Peak was built.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:43.000Pete Meyer: it was so much bigger than all that, you know, vertical-wise. It was, like, twice, you know, twice the vertical, um, real snowmaking, real grooming.00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:56.000Pete Meyer: people just abandoned the back… the back hills. They just went… they left that. They left that area, and they went to Salt Peak. And that's really why it all closed, is people just stopped going back there. It just wasn't as good. So…00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:46.000Stuart Winchester: Or did they?00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:00.000Pete Meyer: I often think maybe it just is better to be a memory.00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:05.000Pete Meyer: But but who knows? You know, down the road it could be what it could be.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think between opening the backcountry and that, uh, the Green Mountain expansion, I think you excited some folks. Alright, that, that's, uh, that's, that's all really cool. I appreciate you taking me inside that. Let's talk passes now, and I'm.00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: the screen share here. So, uh…00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:36.000Stuart Winchester: Cabrefe joined IndyPass as an inaugural member in 2019, and has been on that pass every season since, for the 2026-27 season. Cabrefe has, and I'm just laying this out for the listeners, uh, Cabrefe has departed the IndyPass and has joined.00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:51.000Stuart Winchester: The full icon pass, uh, on their two day tier, which is only on the full icon pass, not on the icon base, there's no access, and there's also holiday blackout, so the only mountains that are holiday blacked out on the full icon are the, the two day mountains, of which.00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:55.000Stuart Winchester: Cabaret is now one. So, so talk us through.00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:03.000Stuart Winchester: your experience with IndiePass and the decision, ultimately, to leave that partnership and to join up with ICON.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:09.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, sure, Stu, we have a feeling this might be a topic of conversation today, so…00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:11.000Pete Meyer: So we.00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:11.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:22.000Pete Meyer: There's a lot of layers to this answer, and this decision was not made quickly or lightly, and a lot of analysis and discussion went into it.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:37.000Pete Meyer: To be quite honest, we were… we've been frustrated with the IndyPass a little bit for a couple years, and we kind of… we kind of laid out a bunch of, um, the pros and cons list, and the cons list was a lot longer than the pros, and so we… we ultimately kind of came to this decision to exit, and um…00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:53.000Pete Meyer: We're going to talk about — I'll talk about a couple of those reasons now. But before I do, I think it's important to provide some history and some context with Cadbury and IndyPass. So as you mentioned, Indy launched in 2019. We were an early adopter. We had some great conversations with Doug Fish that summer.00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:10.000Pete Meyer: Doug worked really hard to get this pass going. We really enjoyed our conversations. He kind of could answer the questions that nobody could answer. He knew things that nobody else knew. And I still remember to this day, I'm like, Doug, how do you know all this? And he's like in his raspy voice.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:21.000Pete Meyer: I just know, you know, so it's like, it was kind of cool. So we had confidence that, uh, that he could implement this pass and make it successful, um, because he knew what it took. So we…00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:26.000Stuart Winchester: I'm sorry to interrupt. I may have been the first ever Cabaret Redemption on the Indie Pass since November 2019.00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:25.000Pete Meyer: You know what? That's this.00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:30.000Pete Meyer: It wasn't, it was December 5th, 2019.00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:31.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. It…00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:39.000Pete Meyer: So, I was gonna get into that in a little bit, but now I'll hit on that. So then, um, in digging through all these redemptions, which I was gonna get into.00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, okay, go ahead.00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Sorry, I spoiled it.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:56.000Pete Meyer: And pouring this data, I was like, Stuart Winchester, you were redemption number one for us. I don't know if you knew that. And I remember it to this day because I never heard your name. I never heard of your podcast. I don't even know if you had it going then.00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:49.000Stuart Winchester: Wow, that's cool.00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yah.00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.000Stuart Winchester: It launched, uh, that October, so it was brand new. Mm-hmm.00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:59.000Pete Meyer: That October? Okay.00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:14.000Pete Meyer: So the… our… my office is right behind the ticket window, and the ticket teller… our office… the ticket manager wasn't in there, so the ticket teller came and got me when he came to the window. I have this, uh, IndiePass, I don't know what to do with it. So I was showing her how to…00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:18.000Pete Meyer: redeem it in in Brooklyn.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:43.000Pete Meyer: New York pops up. Oh, I got to talk to this guy. I go, you mean that you drove all the way here just to ski at Cabra Faith in Brooklyn, New York? And you're like, yeah, I did. And I thought, I'm like, this pass is awesome, right? It's great, guys. But then we talked a little bit more and you said you had family in the area and we're in the area for a while. So I was really high for a long time on the UniPass because of that. But I didn't know it was you until I was digging through the data. I'm like, oh, that's.00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so.00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, that's cool.00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:58.000Pete Meyer: That's that's so. So anyways, anyways, we'll where was I? So okay, so then we were the first as part of that. Then we were the 1st ski resort in the Lower Peninsula to to commit to the to Indy Pass, and I'm not sure about.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:46.000Stuart Winchester: Love that.00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:01.000Pete Meyer: Um, the UP, uh.00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:16.000Pete Meyer: But the only one in the Lower Peninsula. And so we knew at that time, well, this isn't going to do anything unless we get a couple more ski resorts to join. So we had reached out to a few. And Pete Bigford was interested. And he was the CEO and president of Shanty Creek at the time.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:30.000Pete Meyer: And Pete had said, yeah, we'll do it, but we need a couple of downstate resorts to join as well. So then we reached out to Jamie at Swiss Valley, she said yes, and Doug at Cannonsburg, and he said yes. So that first year, we had four.00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:33.000Pete Meyer: Um, resorts on the Indy Pass. And…00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:45.000Pete Meyer: During that time he that 1st year he charged resorts a thousand dollars to get in. So we we had conversations. We're like, well, let's let's try it. The worst we can do is be out a thousand dollars right? So we had these.00:50:45.000 --> 00:51:00.000Pete Meyer: 4 ski areas in, and we did… I think we did 44 redemptions that first year. It was… it was virtually nothing. I don't even think it covered the… the $1,000. It might have come… but… but we liked the concept, it was neat, and the word got out, and then… and then Crystal Mountain joined, um, the next year.00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:53.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow. Okay.00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:06.000Pete Meyer: Uh, and then, so we kind of hit a critical mass there, and then it was a really good pass, um.00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:16.000Pete Meyer: for a long time, for a while, for several years. And one thing that Doug had said, and during that first year, I think in 2019, they had about 50.00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:32.000Pete Meyer: ski resorts on the pass, if I remember. And he said, I really hope to get it to 80 to maybe 100 passes. Um, and you as an early adopter, um, Cabaret will have say who gets in, in, in your particular region, because I really want to keep it, do just a couple ski resorts per region.00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.000Pete Meyer: not to not to oversaturate the market. Like, yeah, great. This sounds sounds really good.00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:40.000Pete Meyer: So then as we go on, um…00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:50.000Pete Meyer: he sells the pass to, uh, Entebani and Eric. Um, and great for Doug, we're happy for Doug, he worked really hard to make that pass, good for him for selling it. Um, can't fault him.00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:05.000Pete Meyer: Um, and then we like to say, like, Eric, Eric took the pass and put it on steroids. You know, it's just, he, he's, he's done a wonderful job with it. You know, he's obviously very, very intelligent, very successful, running three different businesses, um, um, and doing well at all of them.00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.000Pete Meyer: But he's blown it up. He just had a different mission.00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:13.000Pete Meyer: than than Doug had. Right? So what did that evolve into?00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:14.000Stuart Winchester: Blowing it up, you mean making bigger, right?00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:22.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, making it bigger. Like, Doug was gonna keep it small and couple to each region, and we were gonna have an input on, you know.00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:35.000Pete Meyer: to try to prevent it from being oversaturated. So, I know the Midwest has a lot of ski areas on the pass, but, like, our world is Michigan and our, more specifically, northern Michigan.00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:36.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:38.000Pete Meyer: So it got down to where we had 6.00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:56.000Pete Meyer: um, ski resorts within a 60-mile radius in northern Michigan, right? So if you drop a pin, you can drive within, within 60 miles, you can get to six resorts on it. Um, that density just became too much for us, because that's 12 visits, right? If a skier buys an Andy Pass, they can ski 12 times, two at each place. It's great for them, they get a lot of.00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:12.000Pete Meyer: Um, the problem is, is what we're seeing, and we're watching the numbers every year, um, and it was easy to do because there's not a ton of redemptions, but how many of those people were former Passovers, right? And that percentage kept rising every year.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mmm.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:25.000Pete Meyer: So what it became and evolved into is just a direct competitor of our own season pass product. And that's ultimately reason number one why we — it just oversaturated.00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:26.000Pete Meyer: And.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:27.000Stuart Winchester: So, go ahead.00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:28.000Pete Meyer: And, you know, so…00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:34.000Pete Meyer: I and I think the the Indy Pass really for a lot of ski resorts.00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:51.000Pete Meyer: doesn't move the needle a ton, um, financially. Uh, for… for us, it really didn't, and I felt like we were… did a reasonable number of redemptions, so we could… we could take it… take it or leave it. It doesn't have a big impact. It affects the customer more. Like, that decision was hard, the person who bought it in the past.00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:56.000Pete Meyer: Um, but I think Eric's a stand-up guy. He'll let anybody who…00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:07.000Pete Meyer: who bought an E-Pass, and their favorite resort is not on that, they'll give a refund to anybody who wants one. So the Cabaret listeners know that, and I think that's nice of him to do. Also, for those.00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:19.000Pete Meyer: um, Cabaret, uh, listeners who bought an Indy add-on. He'll honor that for this year, from what I understand. So, it's a couple of really good things that he's doing there, so we're thankful, thankful for that. But, um.00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:28.000Pete Meyer: through conversations, and we just decided it was time to get out. So that's reason number one. I got a couple more reasons if you've got time.00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:41.000Stuart Winchester: Well, let's linger on that for a second. I mean, for me, it just comes down to good old-fashioned free market competition, right? Where there's another pass available that is looking for smaller mountains like Caber Fay. It also signed mountains like Buck Hill and.00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:58.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and uh… Wild Mountain over in Minnesota, just small areas near populations that are popular. I saw you catching some heat in comments to me, you know, on my platforms and social media, because you go from the Indy Pass, which maxed out at $419.00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:16.000Stuart Winchester: to the full Icon, which is $1,449 right now, and I know you can upgrade and buy a discounted Icon session pass, but I don't want to overstate it. What's the reaction been like from your pass holders, and how have you handled that?00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:24.000Stuart Winchester: The fact that you're no longer available on the cheap discounted pass, multi-mountain pass, but you are available on the very expensive one.00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:27.000Pete Meyer: Great question, great question, because we've been getting…00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:42.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we've been getting both, uh, good and, and bad feedback from it. So, what, what it comes down to is the, is the decision to, to, uh, leave Indy and, and join OCCON. Those, those decisions were, were mutually exclusive. Like, like, we had made the decision to.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:52.000Pete Meyer: to leave Indy, um, before we even started to Icon. And we had a lot of conversations of, hey, let's just… let's just be… let's just be independent and not on any… any, uh…00:55:52.000 --> 00:56:08.000Pete Meyer: Multi resort pass, you know, there's a lot of really successful and really nice ski resorts that have that model, like Perfect North Slopes, Cascade in Wisconsin. We always go out and ski somewhere every spring and I went out to the Tahoe area this year and skied at Mount Rose, you know, that place is.00:55:58.000 --> 00:55:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:18.000Pete Meyer: that place is phenomenal. They're not on any, any, um, any pants. And, um, it was neat to ski there, and just see they had a similar vibe and feel that, um, Cabaret had, right?00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: Right. That's right.00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:23.000Pete Meyer: So quite a bit more, quite a bit more. Yeah, yeah.00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:21.000Stuart Winchester: Just a little more elevation.00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:24.000Stuart Winchester: They're at, like, 9,000 feet.00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:27.000Pete Meyer: Absolutely, but it was great terrain. So.00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:29.000Pete Meyer: After we left the Indy Pass.00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:31.000Pete Meyer: Then we, um…00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:46.000Pete Meyer: Started talking to the folks at ICON, and I want to give a shout out to Aaron Keene and Caitlin Windauer, those girls are really sharp and would answer all the questions. It kind of reminded me of the early DuckFish days where they were all knowing and knew a lot of answers to everything.00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:53.000Pete Meyer: We talked to them for a long time. We weren't in any rush to make a decision to go down this road.00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:57.000Pete Meyer: And you know what ultimately decided for us is.00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:10.000Pete Meyer: We want to do what's best for our core customer, and our core customer is our season pass holder, okay? And this IndyPass or this IconPass brought on this reciprocal benefit of a three-day.00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:27.000Pete Meyer: 3 day session pass you can get for 50% off. Right? And that adds a lot of value. To our pass holders. And so we've been hit as much as the negativity that you've seen online for leaving any pass, we've been getting messages from our pass holders saying, hey, thank you for this benefit. This is great.00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:13.000Stuart Winchester: It's.00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:15.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, three day. Yeah. Okay.00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:43.000Pete Meyer: I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna take a trip. And then we've known we've gone out west together and 3 days of skiing is plenty. Like we like to ski bell to bell and it's you're by that 3rd day you're waking up and you're like you can't even move your legs for you know we're so so we think it's a nice.00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:38.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah.00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:55.000Pete Meyer: Uh, you can ski locally here, you can head up in, um, hit up, hit up both Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands, or drive over to, uh, Blue Mountain, Ontario, so you don't have to get in a plane. So it's.00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:11.000Pete Meyer: Uh, of our pass holders. Cause we know, we know, Stuart, that nobody's going to buy a full icon pass for two days at Cabaret. We, we know that that wasn't even the, like Pete said, we're, we do like our independence and, and.00:57:57.000 --> 00:57:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:04.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:25.000Pete Meyer: And we like to create these partnerships that are good for our core customers. The people that commit to us, we're going to give you the best we can. And so, you know, that that three day session pass is just it's it's.00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.000Pete Meyer: It's a it's a great benefit for our core customers.00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:47.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's like you take a trip to Steamboat, or Palisades Tahoe, or a lot of the mountains that are on that. So, you know, it all makes sense, and I like the, you know, Boyne, Cabaret, sort of on one team, and then you have Nubs, and Crystal, and Treetops, and Shani on the other. I think that's good for skiers, it's good for.00:58:47.000 --> 00:59:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, two more, two more things I wanna talk about and then we'll get out of here. Uh, I, I really wanna talk about your season pass. $299 unlimited. I think it was even a little cheaper for early birds, but that's what it is right now. Uh, 219 for weekday, 129 for Sunday. That, that's an awesome, awesome deal.00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:18.000Stuart Winchester: by any measure. I noticed you no longer have the Saturday-Sunday pass, and I think it's been a couple years, and it also… Saturday lift tickets are more than Sunday, so it seems as though, from my point of view, you're really trying to manage the experience on Saturday. So, talk about your season pass suite.00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:27.000Stuart Winchester: And how that relates to your mountain management as far as making sure when people show up, they have a good experience.00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:42.000Pete Meyer: No, you're exactly right. You hit the nail on the head right there. We're trying to preserve the Saturday experience. That's the day everybody wants to ski. So if you're going to be on a pass and ski at Calgary on a pass, you got to have the seven-day week pass.00:59:42.000 --> 01:00:00.000Pete Meyer: And we wanted to protect that experience and not get overcrowded, not get overrun, and that's one of the main reasons that we got rid of the weekend pass. The weekend pass, we roll out, it was a $99 weekend pass in 2007 when we launched that, and that thing went all the way till.01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:14.000Pete Meyer: I think 2000 or 2001, we had that, so we had that for a long time, and that brought a lot of skiers here and exposed us as we continued to get better, and they saw the resort that we had, and all the work that Tim was doing on the hill.01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:21.000Pete Meyer: And then that just evolved into trying to manage the volume levels on Saturdays.01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a great deal. And, uh, you know, even, even as it's risen past 99, I mean, you know, 299, there's, there's a lot of resorts in the West that are charging more than that for a day this year. Beaver Creek's topping out at 392. So I love it. Okay. The last thing I want to.01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:48.000Stuart Winchester: This one's a little personal, and I know I talked to you about this, uh, it was about 4 years ago, Tim or Pete, I forget, it was maybe both of you I was talking to. So I want to talk about this Trail Starkey.01:00:48.000 --> 01:01:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, I knew Dick Starkey. I'm friends with his daughter Crystal from way back. We went to school together. Uh, and, and I met him and I, I was always just remember being very impressed by him. He had a really good presence. Uh, he was, he was very fit and active and, and did a lot of things.01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:09.000Stuart Winchester: Um, I didn't know him super well, but I met him a few times, and… and I… I just want to talk about, you know, he passed.01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000Stuart Winchester: Four or five years ago now, and I noticed this trail and, and I said, oh, is that, is that named after Dick? And, and you said it was. So, uh, can, can you talk about the Starkey trail? Talk about Dick Starkey and, and, uh, his legacy at Cabre Fay and, and, and why it was fitting to name a.01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:34.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, Dick was a volunteer patroller at SP, patroller at Caber Fay for…01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:42.000Pete Meyer: I think… I… I think as long as… as my dad was around, you know, uh, Dick was there, and so, you know.01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:52.000Pete Meyer: 40… however many years, 40… 40-some years, he was a patroller at Cabaret, and uh… you know, just had a big presence, you know, you knew him.01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:52.000 --> 01:02:01.000Pete Meyer: Played football at Ferris. Great stories about that. He was a captain and so he's tough.01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:02:01.000 --> 01:02:02.000Pete Meyer: And.01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:17.000Pete Meyer: just a… just a great guy, great patroller, great mentor, um, a ton… lots and lots of stories about Dick Starkey for another day, but, uh, just somebody that we wanted to honor, and, um, so, you know, we made that change.01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:21.000Stuart Winchester: And why this trail? Why this, uh, why did you choose this one?01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:35.000Pete Meyer: you know, that… I don't… I don't know why we picked that one. We just… we… we… I think we… the, um… the previous name was an old, you know, an older name that… that… that honored a…01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:47.000Pete Meyer: an older ski instructor, but I think we thought, you know, maybe… maybe it was time for a change there. Some… maybe just something a little more relevant to… someone more relevant to…01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:52.000Pete Meyer: You know, this this last, you know, 40 years of caprophage tradition.01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. And, and I believe, I believe Crystal still, uh, volunteer patrols there as well, right? Yeah.01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:59.000Pete Meyer: Yes. Yes, she is.01:02:57.000 --> 01:03:03.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's great. I haven't talked to her in a minute, but hi, Crystal. Hope you're doing great. Pete.01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:05.000Pete Meyer: No, no, not about the trail.01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:22.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay, all right. Well, hey, listen, guys, I really appreciate catching up with you. There's so much always going on at Cabaret, and we were long overdue, so let's do it again soon, and I gotta get up there and ski that East Peak lift, because I haven't been in a minute, so I really appreciate that, and I'll talk to you guys soon, and thanks so much.01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:25.000Pete Meyer: Thanks, Stuart. Thanks a lot, Stu. Appreciate it.01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:26.000Stuart Winchester: All right, talk soon.01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:28.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let me just…01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:43.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, that was Tim and Pete Meyer of Cabaret. I love Cabaret. It was my pseudo home mountain when I lived in Michigan. It was just 90 minutes down the road, so I never had a season pass there.01:03:43.000 --> 01:03:51.000Stuart Winchester: but I would go there a lot. I mean, and this was, you know, lift tickets were $20 or something back then, so it didn't really matter, and they had a lot of specials. So, I want to…01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:57.000Stuart Winchester: wrap up today, I want to talk about lift tickets a little bit, because there's some lift ticket deals going on.01:03:57.000 --> 01:03:59.000Stuart Winchester: And…01:03:59.000 --> 01:04:14.000Stuart Winchester: I'll tell you about the deals first, and then I'll, I'll tell you what I make of them as a, as a theme. So we're gonna focus on Colorado for a moment. So Arapahoe Basin, to celebrate its 80th anniversary, is doing $80 lift tickets every Wednesday.01:04:14.000 --> 01:04:29.000Stuart Winchester: from late December through April, except for December 30th, which is holiday week, of course. Uh, they are $50 on Wednesdays outside of those windows, so early season at A-Basin, and then late season, and of course, uh, the mountain typically goes until June.01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:35.000Stuart Winchester: $80 lift ticket today, based in on their anniversary weekend, Saturday and Sunday, December 5th and 6th.01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:45.000Stuart Winchester: Also, anyone born in 1946, making you 80 years old, skis free all winter. Uh, A-Basin has a lot of ways to get in cheap. They have 3-day packs.01:04:45.000 --> 01:05:00.000Stuart Winchester: With no blackouts, any day, use any 3 days for $249. They have midweek packs, 5 days for $319. Midweek season pass is $539, and a full is $699, and of course, A-Basin is unlimited on both the Icon and the Icon.01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, base pass, and I wanna see…01:05:03.000 --> 01:05:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, they did get rid of the fall pass. I had…01:05:09.000 --> 01:05:21.000Stuart Winchester: I had emailed, because… because A-Basin used to have this great pass for, like, 250 bucks. It was from opening day until Christmas, but they did get rid of it. Uh, and… and they… Shayna from A-Basin emailed, and she told me.01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:37.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, for background, that was a very small audience for, for us who were interested in the Fall Pass pack. So, uh, so thank you, Shayna, for getting back to me so quickly, and I'd sent that right before the podcast started. So, so A-Basin deals on Wednesdays, you know, put that down in your.01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:55.000Stuart Winchester: List if you, if you wanna actually day ski and maybe you have an epic pass, but you wanna, you miss a basin. Uh, and then Thursdays Copper Mountain is again doing $99 Thursdays. They're play for every Thursdays and a portion of that goes to a good cause. They're doing that every Thursday from January 7th to April 8th.01:05:55.000 --> 01:06:04.000Stuart Winchester: Including the holiday week in February, I don't know if that's a mistake, but grab it while you can, because I don't think they can take it back once you buy it. Uh, and then.01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:05.000Stuart Winchester: $99 a copper.01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:19.000Stuart Winchester: starting Monday, April 12th, which is pretty awesome. So, if you wanted to do a little day ski, and, you know, right now you can still buy tickets and everything, or still buy passes, because we're recording this on September 17th.01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:30.000Stuart Winchester: But if you're listening in the future, you could do a Wednesday $80 a day basin, a Thursday $99 at Copper Mountain. It's not a bad couple days in Summit County for a pretty reasonable price, given.01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:44.000Stuart Winchester: prices in 2026 for lift tickets at most mountains. Uh, down the road, Aspen, for its 80th anniversary, is doing $80 lift tickets Saturday and Sunday, December 12th and 13th. They also offered…01:06:44.000 --> 01:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, tickets for $3 and 75 cents for Monday, December 14th. But those are sold out and they, I'm pretty much sure they sold out instantly. And it's funny ‘cause they didn't even market it at first. And, and Aspen folks tell me they just blew off the shelves. So that is for Aspen's 80th anniversary.01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:17.000Stuart Winchester: Same year as, uh, a basin is celebrating right now. And of course, some of the little guys around there, you know, ski Cooper hasn't announced their lift ticket prices yet. And I know it's small, but it's still, it's, it's a place you can go. It's high. There's no snow making. It's all natural snow.01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:22.000Stuart Winchester: $49 midweek tickets at Ski Cooper last year, maxed out at $99 on weekends.01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:30.000Stuart Winchester: Down the road, if you're on your way to Aspen, Sunlight, which has 1,750 feet of vertical drop.01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:46.000Stuart Winchester: And two brand new lifts. Well, one was from a base and used, but it was only 20 years old. So they put in two brand new lifts last year. Big vertical. Uh, their lift tickets max out at $109. Midweek, they're $74 to $94. It's a fun little area. It gives you Colorado.01:07:46.000 --> 01:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: with a little bit more of a… a throwback Colorado, old Colorado feel. So, so the question here is.01:07:53.000 --> 01:07:57.000Stuart Winchester: Are we starting to see a rationalization?01:07:57.000 --> 01:07:58.000Stuart Winchester: In the lift ticket market.01:07:58.000 --> 01:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: Are we starting to see ski areas value the skier that.01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:19.000Stuart Winchester: maybe has an Icon Pass, but wants to ski another mountain for a day? Or I guess more in this case, since Copper and A-Basin are both Epic Pass mountains, are we seeing them take advantage of the fact that right now, if you look at prices for.01:08:19.000 --> 01:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Breckenridge, it's $153 to ski on Friday, November 6th. Who knows what they'll have open? Probably not a lot.01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's 180 that day. Breckenridge goes over 300 for peak days. Uh, and on Monday, April 19th, as, as copper has dropped to 99, Breck right now is set to have a $179 walkup price for Monday, April 19th. So.01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:49.000Stuart Winchester: I think you're seeing some smart reactions from some of the…01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:55.000Stuart Winchester: larger players and showing there's still a competitive market in Colorado. The question is…01:08:55.000 --> 01:09:07.000Stuart Winchester: will Vail follow? In their earnings call, one of their earnings calls recently, uh, Rob Katz, or their end-of-year earnings, their CEO, Rob Katz, said that Lyft ticket sales had softened considerably.01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:14.000Stuart Winchester: To absolutely no one's surprise, uh, because of the price of lift tickets. So, Ken Vale…01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:27.000Stuart Winchester: find a way in the softer seasons to start to compete, because it's clear that their direct compe

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I still write long-form newsletters. Paid subscribers can leave a comment in the article below, or by joining The Storm's chat (also below). I'll respond to some comments in the next episode, which is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 16.Transcript updateFollowing up on yesterday's feedback, there are now two transcripts available for each podcast:* Substack's transcript: This transcript is auto-generated when I upload the podcast file to Substack, which is the platform that hosts stormskiing.com. This one is cool because you can click on any block of text and the audio will jump to that point in the conversation. Click the “transcript” button above to access. * Zoom's transcript: Zoom automatically generates this transcript as I record. It should be more or less identical to Substack's transcript, but with names attached to each quote block. The downside of this transcript is that you can't teleport to that point in the pod by clicking on the text block, as you can with Substack's. Another downside: the timestamps are off, since I typically start recording prior to the start of the podcast. I'll work on cleaning this up.So until the robots get smarter, we're stuck with two different transcripts. Both are auto-generated, and I don't proofread either one, as that would be the fastest way to make sure my quick-turnaround, up-to-date podcast turns into a slow-turnaround, out-of-date one. My hope is that Substack will soon hire or invent or weld from raw iron a robot that's smart enough to know who's speaking when. I'll just keep following the robots around and using their hyper-intelligence until they decide to kill me.The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, and I am very excited today to bring you a conversation with the General Manager of Monarch Mountain, Colorado, Chris Haggerty. Now, I've never featured Monarch either on the long-form pod or on the short-form pod.00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:11.000Stuart Winchester: There's never really a reason behind that, other than this is just kind of when it happened. If you run an area, a ski area anywhere in America, I do want to talk to you. I've just never had the opportunity to feature Monarch before, so we will talk about Monarch in just a little bit here.00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:27.000Stuart Winchester: Part of the reason why we're talking about Monarch is because they were one of two Western Mountains to this year join Snow Operating's Snow Pass. Now, the Snow Pass, if you missed the news, it works a lot like the Indy Pass or the Mountain Collective Pass, where you get two days each.00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:37.000Stuart Winchester: at a set number of ski areas. In this case, it's planned to be 14 ski areas for the 2026-27 ski season. And…00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:45.000Stuart Winchester: That product went on sale last Tuesday. I had Snow Operating CEO Joe Heschen on the podcast to talk through it with us.00:10:45.000 --> 00:11:01.000Stuart Winchester: Couple days later, I got an email from Snow Operating saying, Hey, guess what? Our first round of Snow Operating and Snow Triple Play, which are two different products, and I'll explain the difference in a moment, sold out. So we're taking it off sale. We're putting it back on sale next Monday, September 21st.00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:13.000Stuart Winchester: at 10 a.m. Eastern. It will be $349.99 for Snowpass, and $184.99 for Snow Triple Play. Still a pretty good deal. Those products at full price.00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:24.000Stuart Winchester: the prices that Snow Partners gave me, and they anticipate selling both products through Christmas Eve, December 24th, just like they did last year with the first season of the Triple Play.00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:40.000Stuart Winchester: They, the final prices they anticipate will be 3 99 99 for snow pass and 1 99 99 for snow triple play. So you get a nice little discount, particularly with the snow pass, $50 off if you buy it in the next round. So let's talk a little bit about the snow pass because.00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: When this product debuted.00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:53.000Stuart Winchester: I… I've been saying for years, there's 4 national ski passes, right? There's obviously Epic and Icon, and those have some season pass unlimited tiers at certain mountains.00:11:53.000 --> 00:12:08.000Stuart Winchester: And a limited number of days at other partner mountains. And then you have Indian Mountain Collective, which essentially worked the same way, 2 days at each ski area that is on their roster. Uh, Mountain Collective is more expensive, tends to be your bigger, more high-end resorts, Snowbird, Jackson Hole.00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:23.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Sun Peaks up in Canada. And Indy tended to be the lesser-known ski areas, but still some really dynamite stuff there, and a lot more ski areas. Mountain Collective always has around 30, and Indy is more like 250, not counting their cross-country.00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:36.000Stuart Winchester: ski areas. So, I always thought there was probably room for a fifth national pass, but I wasn't sure, and as time went on, and more and more mountains joined multi-mountain passes.00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:37.000Stuart Winchester: I…00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:41.000Stuart Winchester: I thought, okay, maybe there's not room for a fifth national pass. Maybe everyone who's…00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:44.000Stuart Winchester: who wants to join a pass has, because I know Indy, uh.00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:58.000Stuart Winchester: Now, I'm not saying they don't have standards, but they'll let just about anybody on the pass just to help them get that exposure and that national marketing. But Snow Operating, the outfit that owns Mountain Creek in New Jersey and the indoor big snow ski area in New Jersey, they launched.00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:15.000Stuart Winchester: their Snow Pass, and it's a pretty good roster. Here, I'm gonna share my screen for those of you watching on video, and if you're not watching on video, don't worry, I'm gonna talk through it. So, here's the Snow Triple Play East roster, and here's the Snow Pass roster. Now, the Snow Pass has 14 ski areas on it.00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:18.000Stuart Winchester: And you get 2 days at each ski area.00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.000Stuart Winchester: The Snow Triple Play has…00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:27.000Stuart Winchester: 23 total ski areas on it, and you get 3 days total.00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:43.000Stuart Winchester: across all 23 ski areas. That's why it's so much less expensive. The most days you can use at any ski area is 2, so you can't buy this as a 3-pack Force A Gore Mountain, alright? So, that's the first important.00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:59.000Stuart Winchester: distinction is that Snow Triple Play is a much more limited basket of days. You also don't want to assume that they have the same roster. Just because something's on Snow Pass doesn't mean it's on Snow Triple Play, and vice versa. Snow Triple Play right now has a pretty…00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:15.000Stuart Winchester: Big roster that I wish was on the, uh, Snow Pass, because it has Jiminy Peak in, uh, Massachusetts, and also Cranmore in New Hampshire, which is jointly owned. It has Platykill up in the New York Catskills.00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:30.000Stuart Winchester: It has all these summit ski areas around Quebec. It has Bromont, one of the great eastern townships ski areas. Uh, so that's Snow Triple Play. Snow Triple Play does not have anything in the west. It's all east. It's all east coast, either eastern Canada or eastern New York.00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:45.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Snow Pass has… it's a pretty interesting roster, and it's a great roster for a very particular type of skier. Now, it does have two ski areas in the West, uh, Snow King, which has been controversial, I'm gonna set that aside, and Monarch, which we'll talk about in a moment.00:14:45.000 --> 00:15:00.000Stuart Winchester: The core of the Snow Pass, and the reason why it makes sense, is because of the south to north line of ski areas that it offers. So if you buy the Snow Pass, again, goes back on sale for $349.99 next Monday, September 21st.00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:05.000Stuart Winchester: You would get two days each at Bel Air, which is in New York's Catskills.00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:07.000Stuart Winchester: Gore.00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:16.000Stuart Winchester: higher up in the Adirondacks, and Whiteface, which are all owned and run and operated by the state, all fantastic ski areas. So it's 2 days at each of those, that alone would be worth $350.00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:33.000Stuart Winchester: Then you add in the fact that you get two days at Mountain Creek, which is right there in New Jersey, uh, two days at the indoor snow dome, big snow American dream. Uh, if you have kids, two days at Butternut and two days at Mount Southington in Connecticut. Uh, Butternut is in Massachusetts. They're both day drive distance from New York City.00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:42.000Stuart Winchester: Let them wander around, let them explore. They're both, uh, especially Butternut. It's very up-to-date, very modern lifts, very, very well-run ski area. So…00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: You have a really great little, you know.00:15:46.000 --> 00:16:03.000Stuart Winchester: 5, 6, 7 ski areas that really make sense. Now, Ski Martok doesn't really make sense. It's all the way up in the middle of nowhere in the, in the Atlantic provinces in, in Canada. Uh, and, and Pleasant Mountain makes less sense. It's, it's up in Maine and, uh, harder to get to from, from the folks who would likely buy this as.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:13.000Stuart Winchester: But what you have to ask yourself is, okay, the snow pass, that's a pretty good deal, right? It's $349.99 for 2 days each of 14 mountains. Then you look at Indy.00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:16.000Stuart Winchester: And Indy Pass is 254.00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:34.000Stuart Winchester: uh, alpine ski areas, and it just went off sale for $429 for the base pass. So, it would be 2 days each at all of these, and the… the plus pass, the ND plus pass, was $469. It had no blackouts. Now, the other thing to know about Snow Triple Play.00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:50.000Stuart Winchester: and snow passes, there are a lot of blackouts, okay? So, a lot of these are holidays, you probably expect that. Uh, you know, here I see Big Snow, Oak Mountain, Plattekill, a lot of holiday blackouts, Butternut holiday blackouts, Gore, uh, Bel Air. Bel Air, though, you want to stop.00:16:50.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: Bel Air is blacked out every Saturday and Sunday. That's a big deal, because when do you probably want to go to Bel Air if you're someone skiing around with your little kids? Probably on a Saturday or Sunday. So, you want to be really careful and really look at these, uh, these blackout dates before you pull the trigger.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.000Stuart Winchester: on the snow pass. So…00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:14.000Stuart Winchester: So if you have a snow pass, I I'm calling it.00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:18.000Stuart Winchester: A national pass, kind of, uh…00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:24.000Stuart Winchester: out of anticipation, right? It's more of a, I think they'll get there, sort of designation, because right now.00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:40.000Stuart Winchester: it's not really a national pass, right? You have one small skier in Wyoming, one small skier in Colorado. Is someone who lives in New York's metro really going to travel to Colorado just to ski that because they have a snow pass, right? Because it's not cheap to get up to Colorado.00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:56.000Stuart Winchester: And there's a lot of much bigger mountains out there. So… so I think that Snow Pass, much like Indy did when it started in 2019, will grow into a national… a true national pass. Uh, for now, just based on the reputation of the operators, uh, the fact that I think that they will be able to grow this thing, the fact that I…00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:11.000Stuart Winchester: know their relationships with folks all around the country, and how much folks like working with them, I am assuming that this pass will grow up, and if it does, Monarch will be the OG Western partner. So, let's talk more about Monarch now, and I'm gonna bring.00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.000Stuart Winchester: Chris Haggerty in.00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.000Stuart Winchester: And we will, uh… Chris, how you doing?00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:20.000Chris Haggerty: I'm doing well today, Stuart. How are you?00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:37.000Stuart Winchester: I'm doing great. All right, you passed the sound check, so I'm going to give you an intro here. Joining us now is the general manager of Monarch Mountain, Colorado. Monarch has six chairlifts serving 1,017 acres of terrain, including the 377-acre no-name expansion that opened last winter.00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:44.000Stuart Winchester: Monarch's 10,727-foot base elevation is the third highest in American skiing.00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:59.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to taking the top job at Monarch in 2024, he spent 21 years as general manager of Mountain Creek, New Jersey. Chris Haggerty is my guest. Chris, welcome to The Storm. Awesome to connect with you. I've really been wanting to spotlight Monarch for a long time now, and I'm so hyped we get to.00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:10.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah. Thanks for having me, and I'm excited to be here and chat Monarch. It's a special place, so excited to share some discussion about it.00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:23.000Stuart Winchester: So, the New Jersey to Colorado pipeline is maybe not necessarily a well-trod one, although there are a surprising amount of IntraWest vets working in the ski industry because of its relationship with IntraWest, but talk to us about…00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:40.000Stuart Winchester: Getting to Monarch, and you were taking over for Randy Stroud, super experienced guy, he was retiring, uh, he'd been there 23 years, a decade as GM, and he stayed on, I believe, for, for a year. So, talk to us about going from New Jersey, where they have a lot of snowmaking, because they have to.00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:41.000Chris Haggerty: Mmhm.00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:47.000Stuart Winchester: to Monarch, where they have no snowmaking, and just what that adjustment period was like, and how you settled into the role.00:19:48.000 --> 00:20:07.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, just a quick story is that, you know, as you mentioned, I was at Mountain Creek for a long time, and, you know, really where I found my love for the ski industry, and after college, I had taken a trip out to Colorado and got my first taste of, like.00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:12.000Chris Haggerty: the Rockies, right? So it's always been something in the back of my mind. Um…00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:28.000Chris Haggerty: And I ended up stumbling upon Monarch. I hadn't been to Monarch before, and I was like, oh, this place looks pretty cool. It definitely screamed the ski independent. I definitely wanted to.00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:50.000Chris Haggerty: you know, if I was going to relocate, wanted to find an area where the resort and the local community both had that kind of just feeling of community and stuff. So a monarch was it. And I was blessed to step in after Randy Stroud, and we shared a season together. So I got to learn a lot of institutional knowledge from him.00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:58.000Chris Haggerty: Um, but also bring my viewpoints coming from New Jersey in an area where, you know, we're not…00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:15.000Chris Haggerty: maybe blessed with natural snow. Um, so last year was, like, a challenging winter, and, um, I was ready for it, because I was like, man, 120 inches, like, if you gave me that in New Jersey, we'd be celebrating for years, right? So, um, you know, just kind of a unique perspective, but…00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:21.000Chris Haggerty: um, definitely happy to be here, and just pumped to keep the Monarch kind of spirit going forward.00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:37.000Stuart Winchester: So you've been there for a couple years, one full year as GM, and one of the… there's been tons of stuff coming out of Monarch, it's amazing for a small ski area, which is why I wanted to get you on. So you recently joined the Snow Pass, one of two Western partners to join the Snow Pass, which gives pass holders.00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.000Chris Haggerty: Thank you.00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:54.000Stuart Winchester: Two days at Monarch. I don't think there's blackouts on that, but correct me if I'm wrong now. Now, Multimon Pass has been around for years and almost everybody in Colorado is on either Epic or Icon if they're large and if they're small, a lot of them have joined Indy. So the option has been there for years.00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:00.000Stuart Winchester: Why was it finally time for Monarch to join a multi-mountain pass, and why the snow pass?00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:15.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, two parts there. I think on the, I mentioned it before, we're ski independent as our tagline, right? Part of independence is like the definition is freedom.00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.000Chris Haggerty: Right? Like, you make your own choices. You do what you wanna do.00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:31.000Chris Haggerty: we've been approached in the past for IndyPass, and, you know, it wasn't right for us because it kind of went against our spirit of being independent. Like, we want to be able to work with who we…00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:43.000Chris Haggerty: who we choose at any given moment, um, and that just isn't something that, um, is available through the Unipass, so… so we've passed on that. Um, we were even approached about it this year. Um…00:22:43.000 --> 00:23:00.000Chris Haggerty: As far as Snowpass goes, they respect that. They're all about, hey, you want to work with XYZ Pass, go for it. And obviously, I've spent some time working with the Snow Partners group.00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:05.000Chris Haggerty: You know, from my perspective, that group is all about, um…00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:17.000Chris Haggerty: you know, rising tides lifts all boats, right? And, um, you know, for me personally, they've opened doors for me, right? And helped me throughout growing in my career, so, um…00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:40.000Chris Haggerty: We're down.00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:52.000Stuart Winchester: I want to share, because you've sort of created your own… I'm sharing my screen now, if you can see that, and hopefully the folks watching can as well, and if you're listening, I'll talk through it. So, Monarch has…00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:46.000Chris Haggerty: Thank you.00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:07.000Stuart Winchester: not joined a pass, necessarily, but you've kind of built your own pass, and what I have on the screen right now is a list of Monarch's reciprocals, and it's a pretty amazing pass all in and of itself, so if you buy a Monarch season pass, which I believe now is, what, $6.59, less if you renew.00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:24.000Stuart Winchester: It comes with a lot of reciprocal days. Some of the big ones that people probably are really attracted to, 3 days at A-Basin, 3 days at Copper. Now there's blackouts on that, but still, it's freaking Copper Mountain. Uh, 3 days at Purgatory. And then, uh, 3 days each at all of the Mountain Capital Partners-owned skiers, which Purgatory.00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:08.000Chris Haggerty: Mm-hmm.00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:16.000Chris Haggerty: I'll do that.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:25.000Chris Haggerty: Yes.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:39.000Stuart Winchester: Also, Arizona Snowball. And there's a bunch more. I don't want to list them all, given our time constraints here today. But talk about this reciprocal program, because essentially, you're saying you're going to give pass holders of all these mountains.00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:34.000Chris Haggerty: Yes.00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:38.000Chris Haggerty: Sure.00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:46.000Stuart Winchester: free visits to Monarch in exchange for your pass holders getting free visits there, so…00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.000Chris Haggerty: Oh.00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.000Chris Haggerty: Yes.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:52.000Stuart Winchester: whatever you did or didn't like about IndyPass, it does pay per visit, so what was attractive about.00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:49.000Chris Haggerty: Just a second.00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:57.000Stuart Winchester: this, and why did it make sense to do these free visit exchanges with other ski areas?00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:15.000Chris Haggerty: We look at it as other skiers are not our competition, right? There's 350 million people roughly in the United States. Less than 5% actually ski or snowboard, right? So there's a lot of people out there that just need to be introduced into the sport.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:17.000Chris Haggerty: Um…00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:23.000Chris Haggerty: rather than trying to fight for visits between resorts. So… so one of the things is just…00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:39.000Chris Haggerty: How do we get more people skiing and snowboarding, which is obviously a huge conversation you could talk about forever. But with this one, it's just like, hey, these are other resorts that are interested in also giving their pass holders as well as ours.00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:10.000Chris Haggerty: allow our pass holders to try each out while still knowing that, like most people that have a copper pass, they're not migrating to Monarch because they came here for two days.00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:28.000Chris Haggerty: they're bought a Copper Pass for a reason, they love that, and they're like, yeah, if I could get two days over at Monarch, cool. Same thing with our Monarch guests, like, they… they… they love Monarch, they want most of their days to be here, and if we could break it up for them, um, you know, a couple times a year, or they could go to A-Basin and Copper, then.00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:37.000Chris Haggerty: That adds a lot of value to them and gives them that flexibility to move around and go where it works for them.00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:52.000Stuart Winchester: You know, Monarch is small by Colorado standards, but it always surprised me to see that it actually does have a pseudo national following. And I get emails from people all over the country that say they buy the Monarch Pass because it gives them all those reciprocals and they come out and they like to support the small ski area.00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:59.000Stuart Winchester: I want to get your take on something here, Chris. I'm going to share my screen again, and I want to share a chart that I made.00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:14.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, so, so this is a chart of Monarch's skier visits since 1997, up to 2024 to 25, right? And I've compiled these from all kinds of different places, and I have a little bit of a gap there. But as you, as you see right here, they've been going steadily up, right?00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, so you were averaging below $200,000 for most of the, of the 2010s, you know, much lower some years, and now you're pretty steadily adding, averaging over $200,000. Now, last year, I don't have your numbers, I'm, I'm sure that they were, uh, pretty bad, but.00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:33.000Stuart Winchester: You know, in relation to what your past numbers were.00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:35.000Stuart Winchester: So here's my question.00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:48.000Stuart Winchester: Monarch was supposed to be one of the ski areas that got squeezed out by Epic, squeezed out by Icon. That was one of the big worries. Uh, independent ski areas can't compete. We're seeing the opposite, because I've put some things on this timeline.00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:04.000Stuart Winchester: So, for example, 2007, IntraWest buys Steamboat. Uh, 2008, the Epic Pass launches. 2009, Powder buys Copper. Uh, the Mountain Collective launched in 2012. Uh, Mountain Capital Partners bought Purgatory in 2015. Powder bought Eldora the following year.00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:21.000Stuart Winchester: Uh In 2017, Alterra combined Steamboat and Winter Park in 2018, they launched the icon pass. Uh And then we had the 20% epic price cut in 2022. So all these things you think, ok, Vale and Alterra putting their mountains on sale. These are big world famous mountains, Steamboat Vale Mountain.00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:25.000Stuart Winchester: Monarch must be getting crushed. No, it's not. Why?00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:45.000Chris Haggerty: I think it's a couple of reasons. Number one is we've just stayed true to who we are. And as the population has grown in the front range, like since 2010, Denver and Colorado Springs have grown by about 20%.00:28:45.000 --> 00:29:00.000Chris Haggerty: Right? So there's just more people, um, that are finding Monarch, and they're, they're like, wow, we like this, this is what we want. You know, you also throw in the fact that, um, I-70, for those in Colorado, are pretty familiar with, like, the traffic that is.00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:50.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:17.000Chris Haggerty: created there on the weekends and it's not for everybody. So thankfully the drive to Monarch currently is a pretty attractive one, a lot less traffic. And I give credit to our ownership group, our current ownership group. They bought the resort in.00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:33.000Chris Haggerty: 2002. And part of it was, you know, a little bit of a passion project. Right? Like, they had come here and just really liked the vibe at Monarch and and wanted to protect that. And what they've been able to do is, number one, protect it.00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:53.000Chris Haggerty: Um, by not selling, you know, to, to one of the larger players, um, to just investing into our, our core, um, like deferred maintenance projects and those types of things, and then being really committed to the no name project, which we talked about and, and making sure timing was right on that and.00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:11.000Chris Haggerty: Um, that we were a healthy company before we jumped into that, so we didn't need a lifeline from, you know, someone else. So, um, there's kind of a lot of pieces that go into it. Um, and it's also worth noting that, like, our pass holders, like, and I think this goes to the growth, like, once people find us.00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:25.000Chris Haggerty: Um, our pass holder, uh, renewal rate is about 85% every year. Um, and the industry standard, depending on where you, you know, who you ask, it's somewhere between, like, 55% and 62%.00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:42.000Chris Haggerty: Um, and, and most of the 15% that we lose as we've dug into it is because of, uh, we have a lot of season pass holders from Fort Carson, um, military base outside of Colorado Springs, and they've just moved out of the area, right? So, um, I think our growth is partly due to, like.00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:49.000Chris Haggerty: Once people come here and they discover it and they love it and they just keep coming back and we're just building upon that.00:30:49.000 --> 00:31:06.000Stuart Winchester: So you have owners that are willing to invest and that's really important. And Randy Stroud, I interviewed him, not on the podcast, but just for an article a couple of years ago. And he told me, and I'm not sure if this ended up being true, but their intention was to pay for the entire no name expansion in cash, including a brand new SkyTrak.00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:22.000Stuart Winchester: triple chair, or Doppelmayr, I can't remember what it was offhand, but regardless, it spoke to a very stable operation. Now, meanwhile, you still have some pretty old lifts, some pretty old infrastructure on the front side of the mountain, and recently Monarch's.00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:36.000Stuart Winchester: Master Development Plan was accepted by the U.S. Forest Service, which, for the listeners, just means that they said, okay, we'll let you consider doing these things on a project-by-project basis in the future. I have a lot of questions about the Master Plan, but first.00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: I want to focus on one that you called out, that Monarch Mountain called out in its first blog post announcing acceptance of the Master Plan, and it was about snowmaking. And Dan Torsell, the longtime GM of Ski Cooper, told me a long time ago when he came on this pod that.00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:04.000Stuart Winchester: that Ski Cooper and Monarch were the only big lift-surf ski areas in Colorado that don't have snowmaking. I think Silverton is too, but that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. So, uh, you have it in your master development plan.00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:19.000Stuart Winchester: to a sort of rudimentary snowmaking system that would allow you to open early. But, this is a quote from your blog, quote, Before anyone panics when they read about snowmaking, let me assure you that Monarch is committed to remaining 100% all natural.00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:37.000Stuart Winchester: Snowmaking has been a part of our previous MDPs, Master Development Plan, and we have chosen not to implement it as we truly believe that natural snow provides the best skiing experience. This continues to be the case as snowmaking is in the plan to cover all bases, but we will not implement anything unless Mother Nature gives us no other choice.00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.000Stuart Winchester: Care to expand upon that at all?00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:53.000Chris Haggerty: Definitely. And yeah, and we are committed to that. And I actually, last summer, I spoke in front of some of the locals and pass holders, and when I let them know that we were committed to.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.000Stuart Winchester: Or elaborate.00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:09.000Chris Haggerty: 100% all natural. That was the loudest cheer we got all day. So, like, that's what our, that's what our guests want. That's what we want. Um, as far that, you know, snowmaking has come a long way, and, and it is a necessity for a bunch of resorts.00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:19.000Chris Haggerty: Um, we're not at that point, um, and we're gonna push as far as we can, um, leaning into, like, snow farming and everything else before we ever, um.00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:35.000Chris Haggerty: have snow… have snowmaking. But, you know, in the Master Development Plan, it's in there because, like, part of putting things into that document is because it's a conceptual document. It's, like, it's designed to be a 15-year document. If it's not in there.00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:51.000Chris Haggerty: The Forest Service really doesn't even consider something. So if 15 years from now we're like, we need to put snowmaking in and it's not in there, we'd have some challenges. I will say our base elevation being basically 10,800 feet.00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:02.000Chris Haggerty: has helped us out, right? Like, as weather patterns has changed, and temperatures have rised, and winters are, you know, different every year, um…00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:13.000Chris Haggerty: we've been pretty lucky because of that base elevation, where we're… we are seeing snow, where other resorts are seeing some of that other precipitation falling, right? So, um…00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:30.000Chris Haggerty: you know, and then I mentioned the snow farming, like, we're… we're gonna do everything we can, like, on that side of things, right? And that's all the way from, like, fences strategically placed throughout the mountain, whether they're permanent or temporary, to catch the snow when the winds are coming from whatever direction.00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:47.000Chris Haggerty: And we do early season, we take the snow in the parking lots and we plow it all up and get it into one of the corners and then our groomers take it from there and start to build our base in the base area. So we have some different techniques to try to insulate us as much as possible.00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:53.000Chris Haggerty: And we're going to keep going that way as long as Mother Nature allows us to.00:34:53.000 --> 00:35:09.000Stuart Winchester: So snowmaking, it sounds like, is Monarch's emergency parachute. Meanwhile, there are a lot of big chairlift upgrades outlined on the master development plan. So Monarch has had substantially the same footprint for decades until last season's snowmaking upgrade.00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:24.000Stuart Winchester: And like I said before, more and more skier visits, and you were still running, with the exception of the 1999 Pioneer lift, the quad that was put in, with a lot of older double chairs. So Breezeway is a 1968 hall, Garfield is a 1969 hall, Panorama is a 1980 hall.00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:40.000Stuart Winchester: Tumbling as a 1981 hall. Those are all doubles. Now they've all gotten new drive terminals. So I understand they're, they're more modern in their actual functioning than, than in their look. However, the capacity is probably not a whole lot more than maybe it would have been. The master development plan proposes.00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:43.000Stuart Winchester: Replacing all of these with.00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:54.000Stuart Winchester: is advanced of a lift as a high-speed quad. Now, I realize you wanna… maybe the same reason as somebody… you say high-speed quad because you can always take it down, easier to go down than up, but talk us through…00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:05.000Stuart Winchester: your lift upgrade plan, and whether you think that high speed would be good for Monarch, or if you think that maybe fixed grip is the way you want to stay.00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:09.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, fixed script is, you know.00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:24.000Chris Haggerty: Well, let me back up. A lot of that is in there because it's got to be in there if we choose to do that. And with no name opening, there's a lot of unknowns as far as, like, how is that going to change skier traffic around the mountain, right?00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:41.000Chris Haggerty: One of the things we worked with the SE group, so they're, you know, a company that helps ski areas, right, with all sorts of development projects, big and small. And one of the things that they do is they do this density analysis, right? And it's a complicated, you know.00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:57.000Chris Haggerty: Analysis that takes on a lot of different data, but basically it's like they look at your uphill capacity based on the speed of the lift, the size of the lift, the length of the trip up, the time, and then what terrain it accesses from that lift.00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:14.000Chris Haggerty: And, like, an optimal score where, like, you have, like, perfect harmony from uphill and downhill is, like, a hundred percent. If you're below that, you're actually putting fewer people up the hill, that the downhill terrain can handle.00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:34.000Chris Haggerty: Monarch, in our current state, sits at a 56%. So basically, like, when you ski the runs at Monarch, even on our busiest day, because of the capacity that we have at our lifts, like, you have, like, semi-private runs, right? If we were to do all of our lift upgrades in the 2025 MDP.00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:49.000Chris Haggerty: we would actually get to an 84% density analysis. So even still, you wouldn't feel overcrowded on the runs. So knowing that, we're like, wow, well, we don't need to right away push for any kind of high speed lifts.00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:58.000Chris Haggerty: Um, and in fact, again, things that our guests like about them is twofold. Number one, it's like…00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:11.000Chris Haggerty: that slow metering from a fixed grip lift just adds, like, this extra time, right? Like, part of why we ski and snowboard is because we like to just disconnect, right, from reality for a little while and, like, be out in nature and, like.00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:21.000Chris Haggerty: you know, our guests like taking a step back and slowing things down here, and it feels like things are just moving a little slower. And second, one thing that we feel is like a…00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:36.000Chris Haggerty: a strong differentiator for us is, um, having a fixed grip lift. Our lift operators have to be at, like, the load point, and, um, you know, bumping the chairs and helping our guests on, and.00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:40.000Chris Haggerty: It's this, like, human interaction piece that, like.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:56.000Chris Haggerty: You don't get everywhere else, especially with some of the newer lifts where, you know, it's everything's so automated, um, which has its value, but for us, again, with who Monarch is and taking that step back in time a little bit like that, that face-to-face interaction.00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:14.000Chris Haggerty: like, so many of our reviews are constantly calling out our lift operators, like, oh, yeah, I remember so-and-so, like, he's awesome, he helped me on, or he just said hello, or he remembered what kind of skis I'm wearing, or told me about this secret powder stash, which… another benefit of a slower uphill capacity is, like.00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:23.000Chris Haggerty: Monarch, even though it's smaller in size, doesn't get tracked out. Like, you get powder turns at the end of the day on a powder day.00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:34.000Stuart Winchester: So the, I'm gonna share my screen to, to talk about this next bit. So those are the lift upgrades that you're proposing. There's also two, and I'm, I, so for those watching.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:49.000Stuart Winchester: On YouTube or stormskiing.com, I have the master development plan, conceptual plan up. There's also two infill lifts. Okay, so there would be this planned NNB lift, which is a redundant lift in the No Name Basin expansion. This is the new lift that opened last year. And then there's this…00:39:49.000 --> 00:40:04.000Stuart Winchester: Plan, divide, express. So, again, it's two more lifts on the same footprint. And I didn't see in the master plan, maybe I missed it, that you do have all this cat skiing terrain over here, so…00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:10.000Stuart Winchester: So, talk us through the logic of putting in more lists to serve the same amount of terrain, and if you've considered.00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: moving lift surf skiing into the cat skiing, as Targi did with its peaked mountain expansion a couple of years ago.00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:37.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, so no name is actually was a part of our cat skiing terrain. So we did take a little bit of that. That redundant lift out there is just because we'll see what happens, how many people just access the terrain and no name. And if we ever need a second lift there, then.00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:24.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:55.000Chris Haggerty: um, we'll consider it. As far as further into cat skiing terrain, um, you know, our current MDP outlines our next 15 years, so we're not looking to push any further into that. Um, we also have, um, the Mirkwood terrain, which is a little bit of a hike-to terrain.00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:04.000Chris Haggerty: Um, between, like, the front side and no name, and we get… that's… that's the area we most commonly get asked about a lift, and uh…00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:12.000Chris Haggerty: I will tell you from my, uh, initial conversations with owners, it's… it's not a, um…00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:27.000Chris Haggerty: the answer isn't no, we're not putting a lift there, it's a expletive no, we're not putting a lift there. Um, we take pride in having, like, being a small mountain, but still offering, like, all these other things, right? Which one being hike to terrain, um, which is pretty cool for…00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:31.000Chris Haggerty: a small mountain like this. And then that, um…00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:41.000Chris Haggerty: the Divide Express, right, that would get us all the way from the base area to the summit on the front side. Um, that… that is one that we've, you know, had some…00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:55.000Chris Haggerty: serious discussions about, and, um, you know, it probably… number one, it would just, you know, allow guests to not have to take two lifts to get to the… to the summit on the front side. Um, but also, if we…00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:06.000Chris Haggerty: explore, um, summer operations in the future. You know, having a high-speed, you know, detachable lift gives you more flexibility to do that.00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:13.000Chris Haggerty: So that kind of, you know, would add into that if we get to that point.00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:24.000Stuart Winchester: So let me ask a stupid question, because that's what I'm here for. So Garfield Lyft, as I said, was built in the 60s. Pioneer Lyft came along in 1999. So I would have thought, okay, they cross over each other.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:41.000Stuart Winchester: Because they, they retroactively built Pioneer and didn't realize it. Uh, I would have thought, hey, the master plan is an opportunity to straighten those out so they don't have to cross over each other. Maybe I'm overthinking it and it's not that complicated, but, but talk about this interesting crisscross pattern you have here and, and why that's where Garfield and Pioneer are slated.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.000Chris Haggerty: Mm-hmm.00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:45.000Stuart Winchester: to continue to exist, even if you were to upgrade their lifts.00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:05.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I have the best answer. We do have a proposal to shift the base of the bottom terminal of Pioneer uphill a little bit, just because the terrain is a little more desirable there. And obviously, if we needed to add the Divide Express, we need to open that area up.00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:06.000Chris Haggerty: um…00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:21.000Chris Haggerty: but other than that, right, we just kind of… we like the terrain that they serve right now, we don't really have a better spot, so the lifts crisscrossing wasn't like a, oh man, we need to change this. It wasn't something that we were focused on solving, um, in a way.00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.000Chris Haggerty: I think it's kind of a little cool, I guess.00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:40.000Stuart Winchester: I do like criss-crossing lifts, so I'm glad we're doing this one a video, because every time I bring this up, I get tomatoes thrown at me. Uh, Monarch skier visits have gone up and up, as we said. However, as they've gone up and up, there's still nowhere to stay on the mountain. There never has been. Uh.00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:51.000Stuart Winchester: a philosophical choice? Is that just a practical matter of, hey, the Forest Service owns the land at the base? Is it both? Talk us through why there's nowhere to stay at Monarch as a drive ski area only.00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:55.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, there's a couple of reasons.00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:02.000Chris Haggerty: And, you know, one of them, again, I'll say our pass holders and our guests, like…00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:18.000Chris Haggerty: are pretty vocal about not wanting that, right? Like that's what separates Monarch. We're not that resort that has the big base village. And again, that's not to knock those resorts. I think that that's, you know, I've gone to those resorts as a guest. I think it's awesome.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:38.000Chris Haggerty: I think another side of it for us is we're really focused on our community, right? We're a small mountain ski area and there's a small mountain community 15 miles from where we are that has a really cool, the town of Salida has a really cool downtown, a main street.00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:52.000Chris Haggerty: Um, with a ton of restaurants, a ton of mom-and-pop-owned shops, right? And, um, you know, we're our largest, uh, driver for winter visits, and, and, you know, um…00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:01.000Chris Haggerty: in the wintertime, and we want to make sure we embrace that community. If we moved a village up onto the mountain, like.00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:16.000Chris Haggerty: Salida is going to suffer. All those guests now are going to stay in the lodging up at Monarch versus in town. And we want to be good community partners and be like, no, here, you guys should be the ones to have lodging. And we live.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:35.000Chris Haggerty: all of us live in the community as well, and we want to see those restaurants, you know, stay active all year round, the mom-and-pop shops, like, you know, thrive. So part of it is just, like, wanting to be a part of something bigger, right, in that larger community, rather than.00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:38.000Chris Haggerty: moving everything up to… to Monarch.00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:53.000Stuart Winchester: So if Snowpass skiers do decide to come out and visit Monarch, they'll stay in Salida, most likely, and drive up that day. So leave us with this, Chris, because Joe Heschen, the CEO of Snow Partners.00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:58.000Stuart Winchester: Said we get so caught up on stats, but stats aren't aren't always the thing and and.00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:04.000Stuart Winchester: when you look statistically at Monarch, it's 1,100 vertical feet.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:21.000Stuart Winchester: Lift serve drop. That's 25th in Colorado. Uh, 1017 acres that ranks 17th in Colorado is bigger than Aspen Mountain. I'll point, I'll point out, uh, it's 308 inch average annual snowfall is good, but it's, it's good for ninth best. It has the third highest base, as I said, but the 12th highest summ.00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:28.000Stuart Winchester: It has those older lifts in a state that has 120 high-speed lifts, and there's nowhere to stay on the mountain, so…00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:34.000Stuart Winchester: I'm just stating those facts, right? So what's your pitch to someone to come.00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.000Stuart Winchester: use that snow pass, and try out Monarch.00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:44.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, the big one is to start with, we're 100% natural, right?00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:59.000Chris Haggerty: you want natural snow, it is a definitely a different feel, even as good as snowmaking is these days, like, come check it out. And this, and the second part is, um, the people that are at Monarch are a unique group, right? Like, we're, we're.00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:18.000Chris Haggerty: past the characters, whether you work here or you're a guest here. And, um, we're looking out for each other, right? Like, it's not, um, it's not judgmental, like, no matter what you show up wearing or what your ability is, like, we just want everyone here to have a fun day on the mountain.00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:37.000Chris Haggerty: whether you're the extreme person out in the cat skiing terrain, hiking Mirkwood, the Never Ever, or the SnowTuber, which I love SnowTubers, you know, I think that's who we all are at our core. Um, you know, it's just… it's just a cool vibe that you gotta just come check it out, and our track record's saying that.00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:40.000Chris Haggerty: People love it once they find it. So give it a shot.00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:51.000Stuart Winchester: I'm always telling my readers that these old lifts, these hauls, these riblets, they're not gonna be around for a whole lot longer, right? There's still hundreds in operation, but they don't last forever.00:47:51.000 --> 00:48:08.000Stuart Winchester: And the best thing you can do to memorialize them, you can't really preserve them forever because they're functional machines, right? But go ride them. And right now, Monarch, along with Lost Trail, is probably the best place in the West to go and ride all Old Hall Liftley. And I understand, again, they've been updated.00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:23.000Stuart Winchester: But the aesthetic is similar. So, alright, Chris, look, I gotta take my own advice and get out there and ride those hauls with you this winter. It was really great to talk to you. I really appreciate you coming on. I can't wait to catch up and hopefully make some turns together this winter.00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:27.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, thanks a lot for the time and look forward to seeing you out here at Monarch.00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:29.000Stuart Winchester: All right. Talk to you soon. Thanks so much, Chris.00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:30.000Chris Haggerty: Thank you. Bye.00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:47.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was Chris Haggerty, the General Manager of Monarch Mountain. That was really fun, I'm really glad that he came on. Uh, Randy Stroud, just to be clear, the former GM, it's not that he ever didn't want to come on the podcast, it's just that.00:48:47.000 --> 00:49:00.000Stuart Winchester: I covered Monarch in a different way for the story about the expansion. So he was very good to the storm as well. I do want to tell you that today's podcast is brought to you by Profile Search International.00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:08.000Stuart Winchester: If you want to find a great leader for your mountain team, I want to introduce you to the pros at Profile Search International.00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:18.000Stuart Winchester: They are the ski industry talent acquisition experts, and they are the only executive search and recruitment firm in the entire world that is 100% focused on the ski industry.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:31.000Stuart Winchester: ProfileSearch has used their intimate understanding of skiing and related industries, and of available candidates worldwide, to place hundreds of transformational leaders at the best and most progressive ski areas over the past 30 years.00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: Profile Search has offices in the US and Canada. They find and negotiate with the right leaders for your team, which sometimes you don't even know that you need in this era of online everything and big data. You can reach Profile Search.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:59.000Stuart Winchester: Directly at ProfileSearch.com, where you will find their email or phone number. You can also send me a note. I will be happy to connect you directly with this expert team. My email address is skiing at substack.com. Alright, we are going to wrap up today.00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:05.000Stuart Winchester: With some reader reaction to yesterday's podcast on…00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:22.000Stuart Winchester: with Midwest skiers, Matt Zabranski, and there wasn't a lot of feedback. I think, number one, because the Midwest doesn't get as much feedback in general, but also because I published this one pretty late, I think I put it out at 8 or 9 at night, and so folks may just have not had a chance.00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.000Stuart Winchester: really process it yet. So…00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:30.000Stuart Winchester: Nell says…00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:41.000Stuart Winchester: Midwest Skiers, meaning MidwestSkiers.com, Matthew Zbrensky's site, is a regional treasure. The ride-throughs are so thorough, and what Nell means by that is.00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:52.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Midwest Skiers puts up on their YouTube channel a, hey, look, here's the trail map at, say, Trollhagen, Wisconsin. Here's all 32 trails, whatever it is.00:50:52.000 --> 00:51:03.000Stuart Winchester: and then it rides the reach for the GoPro, and tells you about them, and gives you a really specific breakdown, uh, with some great graphs. So the production quality is really, really good. So, I second that now. Really good.00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:15.000Stuart Winchester: breakdowns of the ski areas from Midwest Skiers. Eric Morris says, great Midwest content, it'd be great to talk to the Dean of Southern Skiing, Randy Johnson, who wrote Southern Snow, the new guide to winter sports.00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:31.000Stuart Winchester: Couldn't agree more, Eric. If you know him, I would love an introduction. I am not acquainted with Mr. Randy Johnson, but I would love to meet him, as the South has certainly been an undercovered region from my point of view, and not on purpose, just because there's…00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:44.000Stuart Winchester: a little different culturally than the rest of the United States from a ski point of view, and I have not sunk as far of roots in there as I would like to, especially since I'm not too far from those ski areas. There was also…00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:47.000Stuart Winchester: We're not getting as much action on the chat, but here's one.00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:57.000Stuart Winchester: question on the chat, and this is not to do with the podcast from yesterday, but I want to talk about it a little. What will it take for Vail Resorts to turn around? That's from Saurabh Jain.00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:06.000Stuart Winchester: And commenter Slappy said, redefine what success looks like and suspend the dividend and stock buyback. Of course, those last two may be non-negotiable.00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:24.000Stuart Winchester: I'm not going to get out of my lane and talk too much about dividends and stock buybacks, though I do like stocks and follow that world nominally. It's certainly nothing that I'm an expert to speak on. What Vail needs to do to turn around, I think, is very simple, and I've said this many, many times.00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:25.000Stuart Winchester: And I've written about it.00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:37.000Stuart Winchester: many times, and we've talked about it on the podcast many times, is they need to treat every single ski resort like it's Vail Mountain, and every single guest like they're the President of the United States. They…00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:40.000Stuart Winchester: They need to make sure that.00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:48.000Stuart Winchester: the experience of a lifetime ethos is transferred to any Skiera, whether it's Beaver Creek.00:52:48.000 --> 00:53:03.000Stuart Winchester: or it's Mad River, Ohio. And that has not always seemed to be the case since Vail Resorts purchased Peak Resorts in 2019 and sort of doubled the size of its owned resort portfolio within a year's span. Now.00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:08.000Stuart Winchester: Certainly, Vail has recently recommitted to.00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:11.000Stuart Winchester: To that sort of quality, and we'll see how that plays out.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:13.000Stuart Winchester: I think…00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:19.000Stuart Winchester: maybe a little more shuffling with the Epic Pass, uh, maybe a higher-priced.00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:22.000Stuart Winchester: Full pass to to.00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:37.000Stuart Winchester: help traffic some of the more popular ski areas, and maybe some more options. They do a really good job, actually, with the Epic Regionals, with the Tahoe Local, the Northeast Local, and the Summit County Local. So, I think Vail's done a nice job with that. And I think…00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:45.000Stuart Winchester: From my experience, Vail executives, and I've hosted many of them on this podcast. They're very receptive to criticism.00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:47.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and they are…00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:53.000Stuart Winchester: Willing to listen and change and evolve. I'm not sure.00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:57.000Stuart Winchester: If that always comes through.00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:04.000Stuart Winchester: Outside of direct lines of questioning, if that makes sense. So, so the, the owning of mistakes and saying, okay, you know what?00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:19.000Stuart Winchester: we messed up because Paley Peaks was only open 25 days a year in 2021, or whatever it was. There was a year when a lot of its Midwest ski areas were extremely restricted, or the COVID restrictions and everyone else, but the local ski area operators there.00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:24.000Stuart Winchester: we're out competing them. Uh, you know, when Vail first bought Wilmot, Wisconsin.00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:27.000Stuart Winchester: In 2016, there…00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:38.000Stuart Winchester: their… or maybe that was 2012. They bought Afton Alps, Wilmot, and Mount Brighton in some order, two of them in 2012 and one in 2016. Anyway, there was a great article I read that said.00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:49.000Stuart Winchester: what Wilmot skiers can expect, and Wilmot's a small ski area outside of, well, it's broad, it has a lot of lifts, outside of Wisconsin and Chicago, uh, Milwaukee and Chicago.00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:56.000Stuart Winchester: And what they said was, we're gonna bring Western standards to the Midwest, right? And that was very out front. Dale spokespeople were saying that.00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:11.000Stuart Winchester: You never hear them say that anymore, and it's not clear that that is the standard, and I had a very nice time at Wilmot when I went two years ago, and super friendly staff, and all the lifts were running, even though clearly they didn't need to be, because it was a Monday, and hardly anyone was there, so I'm certain they were.00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:19.000Stuart Winchester: losing money on that day, and yet they still did their best to provide an experience. I'm just not…00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:21.000Stuart Winchester: It's just not always…00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:31.000Stuart Winchester: super clear throughout the portfolio, particularly in the Lower Midwest, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, uh, in some of the Pennsylvania ski areas, Mid-Atlantic.00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:36.000Stuart Winchester: that that this is their operating philosophy. So I think that.00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:38.000Stuart Winchester: I think Vail's better than most…00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:49.000Stuart Winchester: than you would think, scrolling through social media. Uh, in general, I've been to pretty much every Vail resort in North America, other than, I think, the two in Missouri and Paoli Peaks.00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:07.000Stuart Winchester: And I generally have a really good time and a positive experience, and I find the staff friendly, and that's a super important thing to me. I love that Vail puts bars on all the lifts. I love that they're focused on safety in general, that they help police speed. As someone who skis with my kids, that's important to me.00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: So I generally have a pretty good experience. I think…00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:29.000Stuart Winchester: there's a little too much gum in the machine, maybe, when it comes to communicating these things and owning and correcting mistakes. So, anyway, with that, I will leave Vel alone for today, and you're probably wondering why I haven't yet covered the new Slate.00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:44.000Stuart Winchester: of proposed board members by Oasis Capital for Vail Resorts. I don't want to get too into the weeds on stock stuff, but I do have some thoughts on that. I want to wait till I have a little bit more time to break it down.00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.000Stuart Winchester: So I thank you for coming today. I hope you enjoyed that podcast episode.00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:58.000Stuart Winchester: If you are not already subscribed to the Storm Skiing newsletter, please click over to stormskiing.com and subscribe.00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:14.000Stuart Winchester: That will come right to your inbox. It is not only podcasts, I do a ton of writing. And if you want to upgrade to a paid subscription to the Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, that will give you everything below the paywall, which is a lot of really deep analysis.00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:29.000Stuart Winchester: that I do on the lift service ski industry, particularly in North America, and especially in the United States. Also, if you're a paid subscriber to The Storm at stormskiing.com, that is the only way to interact with the podcast, because I'm only reading comments from the.00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:30.000Stuart Winchester: Previous.00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:47.000Stuart Winchester: Day's podcast and only paid subscribers can comment. Only paid subscribers can join the chat, which is the second way that they can interact with the podcast. If you want to rep the storm, we have a swag store. You can buy shirts, hats, et cetera, at stormskiing.myshopify.com.00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:48.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:52.000Stuart Winchester: Please follow me on YouTube. YouTube is…00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:55.000Stuart Winchester: Where we will increasingly.00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:02.000Stuart Winchester: It'll be increasingly important to us, and right now, we don't have that many subscribers there. Uh, everything is going there, but it's just not…00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:12.000Stuart Winchester: made it into the cultural fabric of that site just yet, so please follow me at Storm Ski Journal on YouTube. Also, Instagram, which I post on more during the winter season.00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:27.000Stuart Winchester: I will be back tomorrow, or I'm scheduled to be back tomorrow, with, and this is one a lot of people have asked me for, a conversation with the general manager of what I think was perhaps the most improved ski area in the country last year, Camelback.00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:38.000Stuart Winchester: Pennsylvania. If you're rolling your eyes, if you live out west, I encourage you to tune in anyway, because the story of Camelback is a really good story of how do we do things wrong?Stuff referenced in the pod:Monarch's amazing season pass reciprocal network:A full breakdown of Monarch's U.S. Forest Service masterplan:Conversation with Snow Partners' CEO Joe Hession: Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Wildfires, triple digit temperatures and dusty, blown out trails – it must be the middle of August in Tahoe. Episode 94 features a grab bag of topics including the relationship between dogs and bears, magicians and the ice cream man, new Tahoe trails, Heavenly opening its gondola to mountain bikes, Palisades Tahoe offering a midweek pass for $699 while Alterra gets sued for price fixing, poisoned trees in Incline Village and the development of the largest El Niño in recorded history. Also, the 888 COR LORD hotline blows up with voicemails, Trail Whisperer gives his initial impressions on his new Aventon Current EXP, issues a call to action in Nevada to stop Greenlink North and the boys shout out Kyle and Jessica Aster for donating $250,000 to TAMBA for finishing Meeks Ridge Trail. Throw in a couple DOPE or DERPs and On a Musical Notes, this is a variety-packed episode.3:00 – Buy a Mind the Track hat at Start Haus in Truckee!4:10 – Downieville Classic Recap – Tobin Ortenblad and Marco Osborne winners!6:50 – Cosbey witnesses carnage on Baby Heads8:30 – Big fires in Reno/Tahoe area – Bug Fire, Stallion Fire and Talbot Fire14:25 – Pow Bot's two brothers visit from Michigan and ride Tahoe16:00 – Trail Whisperer gives his initial impressions on the new Aventon Current EXP20:00 – Core Lords Call In – Josh from Loyalton – Tahoe Donner, Glizzys and Bike Polo25:40 – Lauren – Picking up a new truck camper while listening to truck campers.26:40 – We have female listeners, Glizzy Gauntlet results and 7-Eleven is lame34:13 – Jon calls in and praises Gordo as well as prioritizing play over work41:17 – Eric calls in and shares a funny ice cream man story46:36 – Magicians are like the ice cream man – people don't like either49:10 – Stop the Greenlink North power line from running along Highway 50 in Nevada53:00 – Does your dog make you safer in bear country?58:15 – Someone is poisoning and killing dozens of trees in Incline Village1:04:00 – Huge shout out to Kyle and Jessica Aster – THANK YOU for donating $250k to TAMBA1:06:50 – The new Panorama Trail at Heavenly opens, as well as the gondola opening to MTBs1:11:20 – Palisades Tahoe bringing back midweek season pass for $6991:12:30 – Class action lawsuit against Vail, Alterra, Powder Corp and Boyne for price fixing1:15:05 – The Super El Nino of 2026-27 seems to be a certainty at this point1:22:15 – DOPE OR DERP – Cell phone mounts on bike handlebars1:28:40 – DOPE OR DERP – Hand guards on a mountain bike1:35:50 – ON A MUSICAL NOTE – Organically Good Trio1:39:05 – ON A MUSICAL NOTE – Genesis Owusu1:40:30 – ON A MUSICAL NOTE – The Crooked Stuff1:49:20 – Sept 11-13 – Mount Hough Enduro and Grinduro. Be there!1:51:07 – The Crooked Stuff – Waking Alive

Denverites will vote in both a special election in November and municipal election in April as at-large councilmember Sarah Parady steps down from her seat for health reasons. Will candidates want to run twice for the same job? And will voters have the appetite to pick twice from an already crowded field? Westword editor emeritus Patty Calhoun joins host Bree Davies to explain the many complications of this important seat, plus they speculate on why the city and the state are both throwing money at ski industry behemoth Alterra and what it means for RiNo and downtown. Then, Bree chats with Rebecca Green, the state executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving about why the organization strongly opposes a proposal going before city council that would mean some Mile High bars and clubs could potentially stay open until 4 A.M.  Rebecca mentioned a study on extended business hours for alcohol sales related to first time drunk driving offenses. For even more news from around the city, subscribe to our morning newsletter at denver.citycast.fm. Follow us on Instagram: @citycastdenver Chat with other listeners on reddit: r/CityCastDenver Support City Cast Denver by becoming a member! What do you think about the city and state giving millions to ski industry giant Alterra? Text or leave us a voicemail with your name and neighborhood, and you might hear it on the show: 720-500-5418 Learn more about the sponsors of this July 28th episode: Colorado Lottery Denver Art Museum Colfax Ave BID Curious Theatre Denver Public Library Cozy Earth - Use code COZYDENVER for up to 20% off Looking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha's top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Is Altérra's ambitious effort to mobilize climate finance for the Global South working?; how Fervo Energy pulled off the biggest clean energy IPO in Wall Street history; and, Working Capital Fund secures $31 million for its third supply chain resilience fund.To try ImpactAlpha Edge, ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠. This week's stories:“Is Altérra's ambitious effort to mobilize climate finance for the Global South working?,” by Erik Stein, Amy Cortese and David Bank“Fervo's IPO recipe includes a dash of federal funding and a scoop of catalytic capital,” by Antony Bugg-Levine"Working Capital Fund secures $31 million for its third supply chain resilience fund," by Amy Cortese

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha's top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Is Altérra's ambitious effort to mobilize climate finance for the Global South working?; how Fervo Energy pulled off the biggest clean energy IPO in Wall Street history; and, Working Capital Fund secures $31 million for its third supply chain resilience fund.To try ImpactAlpha Edge, ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠. This week's stories:“Is Altérra's ambitious effort to mobilize climate finance for the Global South working?,” by Erik Stein, Amy Cortese and David Bank“Fervo's IPO recipe includes a dash of federal funding and a scoop of catalytic capital,” by Antony Bugg-Levine"Working Capital Fund secures $31 million for its third supply chain resilience fund," by Amy Cortese

WhoDan Skelton, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blue Mountain, OntarioRecorded onJune 26, 2025About Blue Mountain, OntarioClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain CompanyLocated in: The Blue Mountains, Ontario, CanadaYear founded: 1941Pass affiliations: Unlimited on Ikon and Ikon BaseBase elevation: 229 feet/750 metersSummit elevation: 1,480 feet/451 metersVertical drop: 730 feet/223 metersSkiable acres: 364 acres/147 hectaresAverage annual snowfall: 154 inches/391 centimetersTrail count: 43Lift count: 11 (5 six-packs, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 triple, 4 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blue Mountain, Ontario's lift fleet)Why I interviewed him: A Very Dumb Story About a Very Dumb Person, Volume IIn the winter of 1995-96, I developed Vertical Fever, a syndrome in which the afflicted believes, in a way that is beyond reason and immune from contrary arguments, that the skiing will be better if the ski hill is taller.This was a problem. Because in 1995, I lived, as I had all my life up to that point, in Michigan. Specifically, Sanford, a flat town in a flat county in what may be the flattest region of the country, the Tri-Cities area of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Fortunately for a skier, Michigan is cold and full of ski areas. Unfortunately, these ski areas are small or short or both. The tallest of the 33 ski areas inventoried on the 1995 Michigan Downhill Skiing Guide is Boyne Highlands, which then and today promotes a probably made-up vertical drop of 550 feet. Right across the street was 427-vertical-foot Nub's Nob, one of six Lower Peninsula ski areas to exceed 400 vertical, along with Caberfae (485 feet), Shanty Creek Schuss Mountain (450 feet), Sugar Loaf (500 feet), and Boyne Mountain (495 feet).I'd skied all of these and I'd skied them all many times since my first real ski season, which was the previous winter, 1994-95. But once I'd stopped summersaulting down the hill and learned to carve and to land jumps, I grew bored. Skiing in 1995 was not like skiing in 2026. Terrain parks were rare and, anyway, off limits to skiers. Jumping was forbidden. There were signs all over saying so. Everything was groomed and everything was about carving turns, even though grooming was inconsistent and the shaped skis that would transform the average skier into a carver were years away from mass market distribution.So I scoured maps and guidebooks for ski areas of any size in any direction that I could reasonably drive to. To the south lay Ohio and Indiana. Useless. To the north, at the far western end of the Upper Peninsula, lay several 600-ish footers (Mount Bohemia did not open until 2000), but Michigan is a deceptively large state made larger by the inconvenience of driving around gigantic lakes – those UP ski areas were 10 hours away. But also to the north, east instead of west and just over the Canadian border, lay Searchmont: 750 vertical feet of ungladed bananas skiing, with little cliffs and rocks and glades all over. It was a glorious real-life validation of the less-stuffy Canadian ski-area management culture that I'd read about in Skiing and Powder. And it was only a four-hour drive each way, an easy daytrip on the cruise-control-empty interstates of northern Michigan. This is what a Canadian 700-plus-footer is like, I decided, and I searched for more of them.That's when I became obsessed with Blue Mountain, this mysterious guidebook mapdot floating south of Lake Huron. Stat-line, as listed in contemporary guide books: 720 vertical feet, 13 chairlifts and two T-bars, 920 skiable acres (this was, um, not accurate). A Midwest hack, a backdoor to a secret mini-New England unknown to Michiganders. As with Searchmont, I would rise at 4 and arrive by lifts-on and soar all day among the woodsy wide-open drop-step terrain of Ontario yahoo skiing.Yeah it didn't work out like that. The first time I tried to drive to Blue Mountain, I wound up at Mount Brighton, 273 miles away in Southeast Michigan. A blizzard had forced course correction to a more achievable destination. But the second time, I made it. Here's how it went, per a journal entry I wrote few days later:Monday, March 25th, 1996 – 11:53 p.m.Let's just call Friday the day that didn't quite flow. In fact, it didn't flow like no day on skis ever hasn't. First off, I only slept four hours. Normally , I wouldn't give a f**k, but that was directly following three hours the night before, which didn't help my status in an already exhausting week. Then there was the drive. I figured four, maybe five hours at the most, 250 miles, give or take. Wrong. I only realized this somewhere well over the Canadian border. Six hours, 350 miles. Then there's the mountain.I knew Blue was big, but I was not, I'll admit, in any way, shape, or form prepared for what I found Friday. The place is enormous by Midwest standards, though not as mammoth as I'd originally thought coming up the road, scoping out the two private resorts. Notice I said “enormous,” not necessarily “good.” Which is sad, cause, for one thing, they're trying pretty hard to make a good hill, and, #2, I drove a long f****n' way to get there. The whole thing bore a striking resemblance to western skiing – enormous base lodges, hugely wide runs, high-speed chairs. Which I suppose makes it ideal for families. Then there's the fifty miles or so of safety fence, zero ungroomed runs, and as many jumps as a Fat Albert convention. This, I surmise, makes it extremely unideal for Stuarts. In fact, I really didn't enjoy it at all. It was bland, repetitive, and almost sickening in its nature. I was tired, pissed, and lonely. The highlight of the day was jumping off the cornice which was the subject of much inner conflict. But I did it, and I'm glad, and then I drove home, and I'm glad for that too.I only skied four-and-a-half hours. My ticket was good til' ten, but I considered a lot of things. For starters, it only cost me twenty bucks; second, I told Clint I was gonna make it a point to get out of there by four [to hang out], so I sorta tried; third, I'd skied the whole f****n' place anyhow, and I really didn't feel like getting home at four AM. It's not like I didn't ski well, cause I was actually carving and reacting magnificently (to the terrain, not the carving). I was fluid, but I needed more variety, and they just didn't deliver.It would have been nice to have the internet in 1996 (it existed, but almost no one used it, partly because there was almost nothing on it, including driving directions, maps, or trailmaps).Great endorsement of Blue Mountain, Stu. You managed to convince people not to go and make the people who do ski there feel bad about it all at once. Slow clap for aggressive transparency.But my message here is hardly “Blue Mountain sucks don't go.” Blue Mountain is, as it was 30 years ago, exactly what it needs to be: a rapid-fire lap machine optimized to provide a consistent ski experience to the residents of Canada's densest metro area, Toronto. Blue is, historically and probably still, the third-busiest ski area in Canada after Tremblant and Whistler. It is a low-altitude, variable-weather, high-volume business tasked with the twin burdens of being the sole public outpost for recreational skiing in a ridgeline of upscale private clubs and being a profitable enterprise. It is, from a dollar-generating and Ikon Pass-dispersal-to-the-West point of view, probably one of Alterra's most important ski areas.The problem, then, is not that every ski area isn't like Searchmont. The problem is that, in 1996, I thought every ski area should be like Searchmont. It was like walking into a pizza parlor and complaining that they didn't sell tacos. I was young and dumb, and it didn't occur to me until arrival that a 700-ish-vertical-foot ski area dangling off the far eastern end of the Lake Superior wilderness (Searchmont), would, by custom and by necessity, offer a far different ski experience than a 700-ish-vertical-foot satellite orbiting metro Toronto (Blue). I thought every ski area should be for me and for people like me, like the people I read about in ski magazines who toured B.C. in rusty pickup trucks and never took bathroom breaks and who viewed skiing as a constant level-up challenge.Thirty years later, I view Blue Mountain differently, for two reasons. The first is that I'm sure that Blue, like nearly all North American ski areas, is a more interesting mountain in 2026 than it was in 1996. Freeski culture and snowboarding really did loosen up skiing's stodgier tendencies, most visibly with the widespread building of come-one-come-all terrain parks. The second is that I no longer approach ski areas by asking if they are the best possible experience for me, but if they are the best possible version of themselves for the demographic of skiers who are most likely to ski there. And with Blue – which I will admit, I never visited again - the answer appears to be, always and ever upward, yes.What we talked aboutOh Ontario; being a Canadian ski area owned by a U.S. company; “one of the beauties of being part of Alterra is our emphasis on honoring and preserving the uniqueness of each resort and each mountain community”; Blue Mountain's Reserve Pass; fixing up Blue's disordered lift mazes; growing up at the base of Blue Mountain; the amazing evolution of ski area technology; Blue's wacky, charismatic founder; preserving the mountain's independent character after it's been absorbed by a conglomerate; Blue in the ‘70s; building Blue's snowmaking system; big leaps forward in snowmaking during the 1990s; the rise of HKD; Alterra's point of view on snowmaking; the hit-or-miss Lake Huron and Georgian Bay lake-effect snowbelts; snowmaking in the era of climate change; how snow-depth technology impacts snowmaking volumes; living through the transition from independence to Intrawest and ultimately to Alterra; how the village transformed Blue; “we come to the table scrappy, inventive, entrepreneurial” to this company of mega-resort destinations; the impact of the Ikon Pass; Blue's amazing lift fleet and how the six-pack became the mountain's workhorse; building chairlifts in-house; 15,000 skiers on Blue's busiest days; “we're not going to cut any new trails, so we gotta squeeze every little bit out and make sure we have a balanced experience”; whether Blue could upgrade to an eight-place lift; operating as the only substantial public ski area amid a huge number of private ski areas; and Blue's history owning and operating the neighboring Georgian Peaks ski area.What I got wrongI mentioned that HKD President Charles Santry had told the same side of a story that Skelton shared on a previous podcast recording, which he had. The problem is that as of now, I still haven't released that pod with Santry. Stand by.Podcast NotesOn IntrawestA brief history of Intrawest:On “Rusty” in the Alterra/Ikon transitionSkelton was referring to Rusty Gregory, Alterra CEO from 2018 to '22.On Blue's 1980 trailmapThe Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Send us Fan MailJoin Chris and Tom as they breakdown all the week's Xbox rebrand, Saros Reviews and the return of Assassins Creed Black Flag! 00:00:41 - Welcome/Housekeeping00:12:30 - The News! 00:13:43 - Somehow Xbox Returned! 00:50:00 - Xbox ID Showcase01:01:08 - Saros Reviews01:11:43 - Assassins Creed Black Flag Resynced01:22:06 - Ubisoft Cancelled Game 'Alterra'Want more gaming content?

Xbox is rethinking its identity under new gaming chief Asha Sharma, with exclusivity strategy and Game Pass pricing both under review. Retro fans, meanwhile, have cause to celebrate: Retro Games Limited has launched the Spectrum White Edition to mark 44 years since the original ZX Spectrum, priced at £129.99 at Argos. Ubisoft had better news to share too — Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is officially confirmed for 9 July 2026 — though the publisher also quietly axed Alterra, its Animal Crossing-inspired social sim, making it the seventh cancelled title of 2026. Nintendo revealed Splatoon Raiders for Switch 2, arriving 23 July, while Vampire Survivors studio Poncle confirmed 15 projects in development including new IP and licensed spin-offs. US hardware sales surged 69% year-on-year in March, largely on the back of the Switch 2's continued dominance. On Pick of the Week, Gary brought board game double-header Clans of Caledonia and Industria to the table, Jerome spotlighted Aether & Iron on PC, and the community weighed in via BlueSky — shoutouts to Leaps and Bounds, a nine-generation console history book, plus praise for Murderbot and Twisted Metal as proof that adaptations can genuinely land. #gameburst

К вам возвращается подкаст Завтракаст, который уже десять лет рассказывает про технологии, интернет, игры, кино, сериалы, аниме, машины, фотоаппараты и многое другое. На сей раз Дима и Максим вдвоём обсуждают игру Pragmata, демо-версию The Expanse Osiris Reborn, как поменяется Xbox GamePass и многое-многое другое!

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights Podcast, Stuart Wilson, President of Alterra Developments, shares his path from Scotland (quantity surveying and construction management) to Hong Kong civil projects and then Canada, where he joined Alterra about 10 years ago after planning a move into development. He explains that value engineering should focus on structural efficiency rather than cutting visible finishes, arguing that buyers and renters value tactile elements like flooring, kitchens, and fixtures.Stuart discusses Alterra's emphasis on integrity, design quality, and “city building,” and contrasts condos—often driven by investors and characterized by shrinking unit sizes—with purpose-built rentals, where long-term ownership demands greater attention to operations, layouts, and livability. He details Alterra's CreateTO partnership and advises developers to approach CreateTO with a social lens, meticulous diligence, and strong legal support. He reflects on the challenges of building the Ace Hotel during COVID, stresses rigorous proforma knowledge, calm problem-solving, and partner selection based on trust, then calls for more predictable costs and criticizes escalating fees and development charges that undermine project viability.Why Become a DeveloperOptimism Versus RiskSpend on What MattersAlterra Values and IntegrityRentals Versus CondosCreateTO Affordable HousingBidding and RFP AdviceUnlocking Nonprofit ProjectsChoosing the Right PartnersACE Hotel ChallengeFramework for Daily CrisesOptimism and Better Homes #RealEstateDevelopment #TorontoRealEstate #GTARealEstate #HousingDevelopment  #UrbanDevelopment  #PurposeBuiltRental  #AffordableHousing #RentalHousing #HousingSupply #MixedIncomeHousing #RentControlledHousing  #CreateTO For more information, please refer to RealEstateDevelopmentInsights.comTake our Free Assessment at: DevelopmentReadinessAssessment.com

We visit La Clusaz and find out about local freeride skier Candide Thovex's new range of skis. We also go to Verbier to learn what it was like to become the first woman to work on their ski patrol.We have snow reports from Flaine in France, Via Lattea in Italy and St Anton in Austria, news on the class action lawsuit going on in the States and there's a Team GB update as well. Host Iain Martin was joined by Victoria Jamieson, the first woman to join the Verbier ski patrol, and Tony McWilliam, the founder of Faction Skis and designer of Candide Thovex's new line of skis. ---------Tirol in Austria sponsors The Ski Podcast, which means this winter we're are finding out more about some of the great destinations in Tirol, and how you can connect with the Austrian way of life: ‘Lebensgefühl' – that you'll find there. --------- SHOW NOTESTony McWilliam is the founder of Faction Skis (2:00)Listen to Iain's interview with Tony about his story Simon Burgess reports from Flaine (5:00) James and Sinead from Sauze Online are in the Via Lattea (7:00) Andy Butterworth from Kaluma Travel is in St Anton (8:30) A class action lawsuit has been filed against Vail Resorts and Alterra (11:00) Read the excellent analysis by Stuart Winchester from the Storm Skiing Podcast (11:15) Kirsty Muir, Charlotte Bankes & Zoe Atkin won Crystal Globes in Ski Slopestyle, Snowboard Cross and Ski Halfpipe (12:00) Jim Duncombe lives in La Clusaz and was co-founder of The Ski Podcast (12:30) The new black run is named after home town hero Candide Thovex (16:20)Check out Candide on YouTube… (16:30) Candide has said that La Balme taught him everything and shaped his skiing (16:45) Philippine Bories works for the La Clusaz tourist office (18:00) Listen to Iain's previous interview with Tony (22:30) Tony first met Candide when he was 16 and signed him to Faction Skis later (23:30) Faction supplied him with 27 sets of skis for his epic ‘Ski The World'  video (25:00)Tony worked with Candide on his own range of skis (27:00) The design of the top sheets are very minimalist (29:00) Only 100 of the limited edition La Clusaz 101 were made (29:30) The construction of the skis (30:00) Tony now runs Forward Outdoor (32:30) Angelika Kaufmann spoke about her job blasting avalanches in Lech in Episode 270 (33:00) Victoria was the first woman to join the Verbier ski patrol in 2008 (34:00) The exams or qualifications required (37:00) Why blasting avalanches is so important (38:30)FeedbackYou can leave a comment on Spotify, Instagram or Facebook – our handle is @theskipodcast – or drop Iain an email to theskipodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow us on our WhatsApp channel.andrewdickson: "Great interview with Tim Wall (Episode 299). I love the Ski Lodge and all the bands that have played there over the years. We will be back for our 21st visit next year.” James Rice: "Just downloaded Episode 308 (about Chamonix). Really looking forward to it."Sean Burton: “I just wanted to reiterate how much I enjoy the podcast.I discovered it after my first ski trip in January 2024 and have been listening avidly ever since.”There are now 309 episodes of The Ski Podcast to catch up with. If you'd like to get some insight on a particular destination or the latest kit, just go to theskipodcast.com, have a search around the tags and categories and you're bound to find something you'll find something of interest.If you enjoy the podcast, you can always buy Iain a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/theskipodcast

After two weeks of bi-polar weather in Canada chasing pow and getting rained on, aka a “dog's breakfast”, the boys recount the trip to Ice Creek Lodge and the wisdom gained from the jedi master of snow, Russell Hulbert. Meanwhile, back home in the Sierra, a dismal March left zero inches of snow on Donner Summit, the first time in recorded history, capping off a Winter to forget. Moving on to Spring things, the boys chat about a variety of topics including DOPE or DERPs on 32” mountain bike wheels, uphill or downhill traffic having the right of way on trails and reintroducing grizzly bears into the Sierra Nevada. Other topics include introducing a new AI-generated Mind the Track theme song, Trail Whisperer almost getting maced by a hiker while logging out a trail with his chainsaw, Lost Sierra trail conditions updates, a class-action anti-trust lawsuit against Vail Resorts and Alterra and has social media ruined April Fools Day?2:10 – New intro song for Mind the Track created by AI. Maybe AI is good for something.4:30 – Recapping a wild Canada ski hut trip to Ice Creek Lodge.8:00 – Watching avalanches come down all around the crew at Ice Creek Lodge.9:00 – Russell Hulbert, owner of Ice Creek Lodge, is a jedi of snow. The snow Yoda.13:50 – Learning everything you'd ever want to know about avalanche beacons – Mammut Barryvox versus the BCA Tracker 4.17:50 – Is all the risk, variables and dangers of pow skiing worth it? Should we just ski corn only?21:50 – Shout out to the crew of Ice Creek – Benny, Brodie and Hannah.25:05 – Jerry of the Day awards from the trip.28:14 – Skiing Kicking Horse in Golden, BC and attending the “State of the Snowpack”.35:25 – March closes out with zero inches of snow on Donner Summit all month – the first time in recorded history.38:20 – Has social media ruined April Fools?40:45 – A few LOST and FOUND stories – leave it where you found it.43:10 – Anti-trust lawsuit against Alterra and Vail Resorts regarding a duopoly and inflating the price of day pass tickets.49:50 – Update on the Downieville mountain biker getting lost. It's way dumber than expected.52:20 - DOPE or DERP from Stu – 32” wheels on a mountain biker.54:30 – DOPE or DERP/RANT from Lee – Uphill traffic has the right of way.1:02:45 – TW almost gets bear sprayed by a hiker while cutting out a log with a chainsaw.1:04:55 – DOPE or DERP – reintroduction of grizzly bears into California.1:12:55 – Update on the Ruby Mountains ski resort near Lamoille Canyon.1:16:35 – Listener feedback about the Frog Lake avalanche accident.1:18:40 – The Durand Glacier accident in 2003 changed guiding in Canada.1:23:50 – Spring corn skiing missions to Shasta and Lassen.1:25:55 – Calling 311 to complain about the Ice Cream Man1:28:30 – Trail Whisperer's story about being a cold calling headhunter machine. 1:35:15 – Lost Sierra trail conditions update – Mount Hough completely open!1:39:10 – Weather forecasters calling for Godzilla El Nino!

As we limp into the final weeks of winter, Sun outdoors reporter Jason Blevins has insights on the latest Vail Resorts earnings, a change at Alterra and the world’s most social hermit citizen scientist who has been collecting snow data for more than 50 years above Crested Butte.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WhoSusan Cross, Vice President of Operations at Aspen Skiing Company (and former Mountain Manager of Snowmass)Recorded onNovember 14, 2025 - which was well before I traveled to Snowmass and chased Cross around a bit in the pow. There she is tiny in the distance:About Aspen Skiing CompanyAspen Skiing Company (Skico) is part of something called Aspen One. Don't ask me what that is because even though they rolled it out two years ago I still have no idea what they're talking about. All I know or care about is that they own four ski areas and here is what I know about them:Don't be fooled by the scale of the map above - at 3,342 acres, Snowmass is larger than Aspen Mountain, Buttermilk, and Aspen Highlands combined. The monster 4,400-foot vert means these lifts are massively shrunken to fit the map - Snowmass operates three of the 10 longest chairlifts in America, and seven chairlifts over one mile long:You can't ski or ride a lift between the four mountains, but free shuttles connect them all. Aspen Mountain, Highlands, and Buttermilk are all bunched together near town, and Snowmass is a short drive (15 to 20 minutes if traffic is clear and dependent upon which base area you want to hit):Why I interviewed herAmerican ski areas will often re-use chairlifts or snowcats that other operators have outgrown. Aspen Mountain re-used a whole town.In 1879, Aspen the city didn't exist, and by 1890 more than 5,000 people lived there. They came for silver, not snow. In less than a decade they laid out the Victorian street grid of brick and wood-framed buildings using hand tools and horses, with the Roaring Fork River as their supply road.Aspen's population collapsed in the economic depressions of the 1890s and didn't rebound to 5,000 for 100 years. The 1940 Census counted 777 residents. That was 16 years before the first chairlift rose up Ajax, a perfect ski mountain above an intact but semi-abandoned town made pointless by history.It was an amazing coincidence, really. Americans would never build a ski town on purpose. That's where the parking lots go. But hey it all worked out: Aspen evolved into a ski town that offset its European walk-to-the-chairlifts sensibility with a hard-coded American refusal to expand the historic street grid in favor of protectionism and mansion-building. The contemporary result is one of the world's most expensive real estate markets cosplaying as a quaint ski town, a lively and walkable mixed-use community of the sort that we idealize but refuse to build more of. Aspen's population is now around 7,000, most of whom live there by benefit of longevity, subsidy, inheritance, or extreme wealth. The city's median household income is just over $50,000. The median home price is $9.5 million. Anyone clinging to the illusion that Aspen is an actual ski town should consider that it took 25 years to approve and build the Hero's chairlift. Imagine what the fellows who built this whole city in half a decade without the benefit of electricity or cement trucks or paved roads would make of that.The illusory city, however, is a dynamic separate from the skiing. Aspen, despite its somewhat dated lift fleet, remains one of America's best small ski mountains. But it is small, and, with no green terrain and barely any blues, the ski area lacks the substance and scale to draw tourists west of Summit County and Vail.Sister mountain Snowmass does that. And while Snowmass did not benefit from an already-built town at its base, it did benefit from not having one, in that the mountain could evolve with a purpose and speed that Ajax, boxed in by geography and politics, never could. Snowmass has built 13 new aerial lifts this century, including the two-station, mountain-redefining Elk Camp Gondola; the Village Express six-pack, which is the fourth-longest chairlift in America; and, in just the past two years, a considerably lengthened Coney high-speed quad and a new six-pack to replace the Elk Camp chairlift.I've focused on Aspen's story a bit over the years (including this 2021 podcast with former Skico CEO Mike Kaplan), but probably not enough. The four Aspen mountains are some of the most important in American skiing, even if visitation doesn't quite match their status as skiing word-association champion among non-skiers (more on that below). Aspen, a leader not just in skiing but in housing, the environment, and culture, carries narrative heft, and the company's status as favored property of Alterra part-owner Henry Crown hints at deeper influence than Skico likely takes credit for. Aspen, like Big Sky and Deer Valley and Sun Valley, is rapidly emerging as one of the new titans of American skiing, unleashing a modernization drive that should lead, as Cross says in our conversation, to an average of at least one new lift per year across the portfolio. Snowmass' 2023 U.S. Forest Service masterplan envisions a fully modern mountain with snowmaking to the summit. Necessary and exciting as that all is, forthcoming updates to the dated masterplans at Aspen Highlands (2013) and Buttermilk (2008), could, Skico officials tell me, offer a complete rethinking of what Aspen-Snowmass is and how the ski areas orbit one another as a unit.And they do need to rethink the whole package. Challenging Skico's pre-eminence in the Circle of American Ski Gods are many obstacles, including but not limited to: an address that's just a bit remote for Denver to bother with or tourists to comprehend; a rinky-dink airport that can't land a paper plane; an only-come-if-you-have-nine-houses rap on the affordability matrix; a toxic combination of one of America's most expensive season passes and most expensive walk-up lift tickets; and national pass partners who do a poor job making it clear that Aspen is not one ski area but four.A lot to overcome, but I think they'll figure it out. The skiing is too good not to. What we talked about“I thought I had found Heaven” upon arrival in Aspen; Aspen in the 1990s; $200 a month to live in Carbondale; “as soon as you go up on the lifts, the mountain hasn't changed”; when Skico purchased formerly independent Aspen Highlands; Highlands pre-detachable lifts; four ski areas working (and not), as one ski resort; why there is “minimal sharing” of employees between the four mountains; why “two winter seasons, and then I was going back to Boston” didn't quite work out; why “total guilt sets in” if Cross misses a day of skiing and how she “deliberately” makes “at least a couple of runs” happen every day of the winter and encourages everyone else to do the same; Long Shot in the morning; the four pods of Snowmass; why tourists tend to lock onto one section of the mountain; “a lot of people don't realize their lift ticket is good for the four mountains”; “there's plenty of room to spread out and have a blast” even at busy Snowmass; defining the four mountains without typecasting them; no seriously there are no green runs on Aspen Mountain; the new Elk Camp six-pack; why Elk Camp doesn't terminate at the top of Burnt Mountain; why Elk Camp doesn't have the fancy carriers that came with 2024's new Coney Express lift; why Snowmass opted not to add bubbles to its six-packs; how Coney Express changed how skiers use Snowmass; why Coney is a quad rather than a six; why skiers can't unload at the Coney Express mid-station (and couldn't load last season); how Coney ended up with a mid-station and two bends along the liftline; the hazards of bending chairlifts and lessons learned from Alta's Supreme debacle; why Snowmass replaced the Cirque Poma with a T-bar (and not a chairlift); which mountain purchased the old Poma; Aspen's history of selling lifts and how the old Elk Camp wound up at Powderhorn ski area; where Skico had considered moving the Elk Camp quad; “we want everybody to stay in business”; why Snowmass didn't sell or relocate the Coney Glade lift; prioritizing future chairlift upgrades; the debate over whether to replace Elk Camp or Alpine Springs first, and why Elk Camp won; “what we're trying to do is at least one lift a year across the four mountains”; a photobomb from my cat; why the relatively new Village Express lift is a replacement candidate and where that lift could move; why we're unlikely to see the proposed Burnt Mountain chairlift anytime soon; and the new megalift that could rise on Aspen Mountain this summer.What I got wrong* I said that Breck had “T-bars serving their high peaks,” which is incorrect. In fact, Breck runs chairlifts close to the summits of Peak 8 (Imperial Superchair, the highest chairlift in North America), and Peak 6 (Kensho Superchair). I was thinking, however, of the Horseshoe T-Bar, an incredible high-alpine machine that I rode recently (it lands below Imperial Superchair on Peak 8).* I said that Maverick Mountain, Montana, was running a “1960-something” Riblet double. The lift dates to 1969, and is slated for replacement by Aspen Mountain's old Gent's Ridge fixed-grip quad, which Skico removed in 2024.* I referred to the Sheer Bliss chairlift as “Super Bliss,” which I think was fallout from over-exposure to Breck, where 12 of the chairlifts are named [SOMETHING] Superchair or some similar name.Why you should ski Aspen-SnowmassWhy do we ski Colorado? In some ways, it's a dumb question. We ski Colorado because everyone skis Colorado: the state's resorts account for 20 to 25 percent of annual U.S. skier visits, inbounds skiable acreage, and detachable chairlifts. Colorado is so synonymous with skiing that the state basically is skiing from the point of view of the outside world, especially to non-skiers who, challenged to name a ski resort, would probably come up with Vail or Aspen.But among well-traveled skiers, Colorado is Taylor Swift. Talented, yes, but a bit too obvious and sell-your-kidneys expensive. There's a lot more music out there: Utah gets more snow, Idaho and Montana have fewer people, B.C.'s Powder Highway has both of those things. Europe is cheaper (well, everywhere is cheaper). Colorado is only home to 26 public, lift-served ski areas, and only two of the 10 largest in America. Only seven Colorado ski areas rank among the nation's 50 snowiest by average annual snowfall. Getting there is a hassle. That awful airport. That stupid road. So many Texans. So many New Yorkers. Alternate, Man!But we all go anyway. And here's why: Colorado ski areas claim 14 of the 20 highest base areas in North America, and 16 of the 20 highest summits. What that means is that, unlike in Tahoe or Park City or Idaho, it never rains. Temperatures rarely top freezing. That means the snow that falls stays, and stays nice. Even in a mediocre Rocky Mountain winter – like this one – Colorado is able to deliver a consistent and predictable trail footprint in a way that no other U.S. ski state can match. Add in an abundance of approachable, intermediate-oriented ski terrain, and it's clear why America's two largest ski area operators center their multi-mountain pass empires in Colorado.Which brings us back to the thing most skiers hate the most about Colorado skiing: other skiers. There are just so many of them. And they all planned the same vacation. For the same time.But there is a back door. Around half of Colorado's 12 to 14 million annual skier visits occur at just five ski areas: Vail Mountain, Breck, Keystone, Copper, and Steamboat – often but not always strictly in that order. Next comes Winter Park, then Beaver Creek. And all the way down at number eight for Colorado annual skier visits is Snowmass.Snowmass' 771,259 skier visits is still a lot of skier visits. But consider some additional stats: Snowmass is the third-largest ski area in Colorado and the 11th-largest in America. From a skier visits-to-skiable-acreage ratio, it comes in way below the state's other 2,000-plus-acre ski areas (save Telluride, which is even more remote than Aspen):Why is that? The map explains it: Snowmass, and Aspen in general, lost the I-70 sweepstakes. They're too far west, too far off the interstate (so is Steamboat, but at least they have a real airport).Snowmass is worth the extra drive time. I-70 through Glenwood Canyon is slow-going but gorgeous, and the 40 miles of Colorado 82 after the interstate turnoff barely qualify as mountain driving – four lanes most of the way, no tight turns, some congestion but only if you're arriving in the morning. A roundabout or two and there you are at Snowmass.And here's what that extra two hours of driving gets you: all the benefits of Colorado skiing absent most of its drawbacks. Goldilocks Mountain. Here you'll find the fourth-highest lift-served summit in American skiing, the second-tallest vertical drop, and a dizzying, dazzling modern lift fleet spinning 20 lifts, including 9 detachables and a gondola. You'll find glorious ever-cruisers, tree-dotted and infinite; long bumpers twisting off High Alpine; comically approachable green zones at the village and mid-mountain. If Campground double is open, you can sample Colorado skiing circa 1975, alone in the big empty lapping the long, slow lift. And since the Brobots hate Snowmass, the high-altitude Hanging Valley and Cirque Headwall expert zones are always empty.That's one of four mountains. Towering, no-greens-for-real Aspen Mountain and Aspen Highlands are as rugged and wicked as anything a Colorado chairlift can drop you onto. And Buttermilk is just delightful – 2,000 vertical feet of no-stress-with-the-9-year-old, with fast lifts back to the top all day long.Podcast NotesOn Sugarbush and Mad River GlenI always like to make this point for western partisans: there is eastern skiing that stacks up well against the average western ski experience. Most of it is in northern Vermont, and two of the best, terrain-wise, are Alterra-owned Sugarbush - home of the longest chairlift in the world - and co-op-owned Mad River Glen, which still spins the only single chair in the lower 48. Here's Sugarbush:Mad River Glen is right next door. Just keep going looker's right off Mt. Ellen:On pre-Skico HighlandsWhoa that's a lot of lifts. And they're almost all doubles and Pomas.On Joe HessionHession is founder and CEO of Snow Partners, which owns Mountain Creek ski area, the Big Snow indoor ski ramp in New Jersey, Snow Cloud resort-management software, the Snow Triple Play Pass, and the Terrain Based Learning concept that you see in beginner areas all over America. He's been on the pod a few times, and he's a huge fan of Susan's.On Timberline's wonky vertMeasuring vertical drop is a somewhat hazardous game. Potential asterisks include the clandestine inclusion of hike-up terrain (Aspen Highlands), ski-down terrain with no return lift access (Sunlight), or both (Arapahoe Basin). Generally, I refer to lift-served vert, meaning what you can ski down and ride back up without walking. But even that gets tricky, as in the case of Timberline Lodge, Oregon, home to the tallest vertical drop in American lift-served skiing. We have to get mighty creative with the definition of “lift” however, since Timberline includes a 557-vertical-foot lift-served gap between the top of the Summit chairlift (4,290 feet) and the bottom of the Jeff Flood high-speed quad (4,847 feet). This is the result of two historically separate ski areas combining in 2018:Timberline's masterplan calls for a gondola from the base of Summit up to the top of Jeff Flood:For now, skiers can ski all the way down, but have to ride back up to Timberline from the Summit base via shuttle. To further complicate the calculus here, the hyper-exposed Palmer high-speed summit quad rarely runs in winter, acting mostly as a summer workhorse for camp kids. When Palmer's not running, a snowcat will sometimes shuttle skiers close to the unload point.Anyway, that's the fine print annotating our biggest lift-served vertical drop list:On Big Sky's new lifts and pod-stickingSnowmass' recent lift upgrade splurges are impressive, but Big Sky has built an incredible 12 aerial lifts in the past decade, 11 of them brand-new. These are some of the most sophisticated lifts in the world and include two six-packs, two eight-packs, a tram, and two gondolas. This reverse chronology of Big Sky's active lifts doubles as a neat history of the mountain's evolution from striver importing other resorts' leftovers to one of the top ski areas on the continent:Big Sky still has some older chairs spinning along its margins, but plenty of tourists spend their entire vacation just lapping the out-of-base super lifts (according to on-the-ground staff). The only peer Big Sky has in the recent American lift upgrade game is Deer Valley, which has erected nearly a dozen aerial lifts in just the past two years to feed its mega-expansion.On the Ikon Pass site being confusing as to mountain accessI just find the classification of four separate and distinct ski areas as one “destination” confusing, especially for skiers who aren't familiar with the place:On the new Elk Camp chairliftThe upside of taking nine years to distribute this podcast is that I was able to go ride Snowmass' gorgeous new Elk Camp sixer:On my Superstar lift discussion with KillingtonOn Aspen's history of selling liftsI somewhat overstated Aspen's history of selling lifts to smaller mountains. It seemed like a lot, though these are the only ones I can find records of:However, given Skico's enormous number of retired Riblets (28, all but two of which were doubles), and the durability and ubiquity of these machines, I suspect that pieces – and perhaps wholes – of Aspen's retired chairlifts are scattered in boneyards across the West.On the small number of relocated detachable lifts Given that the world's first modern detachable chairlift debuted at Breckenridge 45 years ago, it's astonishing how few have been relocated. Only 19 U.S. detaches that started life within the U.S. are now operating elsewhere in the country, and only nine moved to a different ski area:On Powderhorn's West End chairThe number of relocated detachables is set to increase to 10 next year, when Powderhorn, Colorado repurposes Snowmass' old Elk Camp quad to replace this amazing, 7,000-foot-long double chair, a 1972 Heron-Poma machine:Elk Camp is already sitting in a pile beside the load station (Powderhorn officials tell me the carriers are also onsite, but elsewhere):Powderhorn's existing high-speed quad, the Flat Top Flyer, also came used, from Marble Mountain in Canada.On Snowmass' masterplan and the proposed Burnt Mountain liftSnowmass' most recent U.S. Forest Service masterplan, released in 2022, shows the approximate location of a future hypothetical Burnt Mountain chairlift (the left-most red dotted line below):Unfortunately, Cross and the rest of Skico's leadership seem fairly unenthusiastic about actually building this lift. Right now, skiers can hike from the top of Elk Camp chair to access this terrain.On Aspen's Nell-Bell ProposalOh man how freaking cool would it be to ride one chairlift from Aspen's base to the top of Bell? Cross and I discuss Aspen Mountain's Forest Service application to do exactly that, with a machine along roughly this line parallel to the gondola:The new detachable would replace two rarely-used chairs: the Nell fixed-grip quad and the Bell Mountain double chair, which, incredibly, dates to 1957 (with heavy modifications in the 1980s), making it the fourth-oldest standing chairlift in the nation (after Mt. Spokane's 1956 Vista Cruiser Riblet, Mad River Glen's 1946 American Steel & Wire single chair, and Boyne Mountain's Hemlock Riblet double, moved to Michigan in 1948 after starting life circa 1936 as America's first chairlift – a single standing at Sun Valley).I lucked out with a gondola wind hold when I was in Aspen a few weeks back, meaning Nell was spinning:Sadly, Bell was idle, but I skied the liftline and loaded up on photos:On the original Lift 1 at AspenBehold Lift 1 on Aspen Mountain, a 1946 American Steel & Wire single chair that rose 2,574 vertical feet along an 8,480-foot line in something like 35 or 40 minutes. Details on this lift's origin story and history vary, but commenters on Lift Blog suggest that towers from this lift ended up as part of Sunlight's Segundo double following its removal from Ajax in 1971. That Franken-lift, which also contained parts from Aspen's Lift 3 – which dated to 1954 and may have been a Poma or American Steel & Wire machine, but lived its 52-year Sunlight tenure as a Riblet – came down last summer to make way for a new-used triple – A-Basin's old Lenawee chair.On the Hero's expansionAt just 826 acres, Aspen Mountain is the most famous small ski area in the West. The reason, in part, for this notoriety: a quirky, lively treasure chest of a ski area that rockets straight up, hiding odd little terrain pockets in its fingers and folds. The 153-acre Hero's terrain, a byzantine scramble of high-altitude tree skiing opened just two years ago, fits into this Rocky Mountain minefield like a thousand-dollar bill in a millionaire's wallet. An obscene boost to an already near-perfect ski mountain, so good it's hard to believe the ski area existed so long without it.Here's a mellow section of Hero's:And a less-mellow one (adding to the challenge, this terrain is at 11,000 feet):The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Now that host Ali Vallarta is learning to ski, she asks More Perfect Union reporter Jordan Zakarin why Vail and Alterra had to ruin all the fun. And, if city-owned ski resorts are the future? Listen more on how we could save Park City.  Get more from City Cast Salt Lake when you become a City Cast Salt Lake Neighbor. You'll enjoy perks like ad-free listening, invitations to members only events and more. Join now at membership.citycast.fm.  Subscribe to Hey Salt Lake, our daily morning newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram @CityCastSLC. Text or leave us a voicemail with your name and neighborhood, and you might hear it on the show: (801) 203-0137 Looking to advertise on City Cast Salt Lake? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads. Learn more about the sponsors of this episode:  Salt Lake Sewciety

WhoJimmy Ackerson, General Manager of Corralco, ChileRecorded onJuly 24, 2025About CorralcoClick here for a mountain stats overviewLocated in: Curacautín, Araucanía, ChileYear founded: 2003, by Enrique BascurPass affiliations: Indy Pass, Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackoutsBase elevation: 4,724 feet (1,440 meters)Summit elevation: 7,874 feet (2,400 meters) top of lifts; 9,400 feet (2,865 meters) hike-toVertical drop: 3,150 feet (960 meters) lift-served; 4,676 feet (1,425 meters) hike-toSkiable acres: 2,475 acres lift served; 4,448 acres (1,800 hectares), including hike-to terrainAverage annual snowfall: 354 inches (899 cm)Trail count: 34Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 1 double, 5 J-bars)Why I interviewed himThe Andes run the length of South America, 4,300 miles from the southern tip of Argentina north to Venezuela. It is the longest continental mountain range on Earth, nearly six times the length of the Alps and 1,300 miles longer than the Rockies. It is the highest mountain range outside of Asia, topping out at 22,841 feet on Mount Aconcagua, more than a mile higher than the tallest point in the Rockies (14,439-foot Mount Elbert) or Alps (15,772-foot Mont Blanc).So this ought to be one hell of a ski region, right? If the Alps house more than 500 ski areas and the Rockies several hundred, then the Andes ought to at least be in the triple digits?Surprisingly, no. Of the seven nations transected by the Andes, only Argentina and Chile host outdoor, lift-served ski areas. Between the two countries, I'm only able to assemble a list of 37 ski areas, 33 of which skiresort.info categorizes as “temporarily closed” – a designation the site typically reserves for outfits that have not operated over the past several seasons.For skiers hoping to live eternal winter by commuting to the Upside Down each May through October, this roster may be a bit of a record scratch. There just aren't that many ski areas in the Southern Hemisphere. Outside of South America, the balance – another few dozen total - sit in Australia and New Zealand, with scattered novelties such as Afriski lodged at the top of Lesotho. There are probably more ski areas in New England than there are south of the equator.That explains why the U.S.-based multimountain ski passes have been slow to move into the Southern Hemisphere – there isn't much there to move into. Ikon and Mountain Collective each have just one destination on the continent, and it's the same destination: Valle Nevado. Epic offers absolutely nothing in South America.Even with few options, Vail moved south a decade ago with its purchase of Perisher, Australia's largest ski area. That English-speaking nation was a logical first pass frontier, but the five Kangaroo resorts claimed by the Epic and Ikon passes are by far the five largest in the country, and they're a 45-year flight from America. New Zealand is similarly remote, with more but generally less-developed ski areas, and Ikon has established a small presence there.But South America remains mostly wide open, despite its obvious appeal to North Americans: the majesty of the Andes, the novelty of summer skiing, and direct flights with no major timezone hopping required. Mountain Capital Partners has dropped anchor in Chile, purchasing Valle Nevado in 2023, neighboring La Parva the following year, and bidding for also-neighboring El Colorado in 2025 (that sale is pending regulatory review).But perhaps it's time for a broader invasion. Last March, Indy Pass added Corralco as its first South American – and first Southern Hemisphere – ski area. That, as Ackerson and I discuss in the podcast, could be just the start of Indy's ambitions for a continent-spanning (or at least, Argentina- and Chile-spanning) resort network.So this is a good time to start getting to know Chilean skiing. And Ackerson, longtime head of the Chilean Ski Areas Association, former leader of Chilean giants Portillo and Valle Nevado, and a Connecticut-born transplant who has been living the upside-down life for more than 50 years, is probably better suited than anyone on the planet to give us that intro.What we talked aboutReverse ski seasons; why Corralco draws (and retains) so much more snow than any other ski area in Chile; no snowmaking; Corralco as training ground for national ski teams; the logistics of moving a high-speed quad from Holiday Valley, New York to the Chilean Andes; rebuilding a lift as a longer machine; how that lift transformed Corralco; new lift, new alignment; the business impact of replacing a double chair with a high-speed quad; how a dude who grew up in Connecticut with non-skiing parents ended up running a ski area in South America; Chile's allure; Portillo; Chilean skiing past and present; Corralco's founding and evolution; shrinking South American ski areas; Mountain Capital Partners (MCP) buying four more ski areas in Chile after purchasing Valle Nevado in 2023 and La Parva in 2024; the Americans are coming; why La Parva, Valle Nevado, and El Colorado “have to be consolidated” for the benefit of future skiing in Chile; MCP's impact on Chilean skiing so far; “the culture is very different here” both on the hill and off; MCP's challenges as they settle into Chilean skiing; why Corralco joined Indy Pass; a potential Indy Pass network in South America; and getting to Corralco from the U.S., from airplane to access road – “we have no switchbacks.”What I got wrong* In the intro, I said that it was the “heart of ski season in South America.” This was true when we recorded this conversation in July 2025. It's not true in January 2026, when the Chilean ski season is long over.* I said the highest peak in Chile only received a few inches of snow per year and didn't retain it, but I couldn't remember the name of the peak – it is 22,615-foot Ojos del Salado.* I gave new stats for Corralco's high-speed quad, but did not mention where those stats came from – my source was skiresort.info, which catalogues a 4,921-foot length and 1,148-foot vertical drop for the lift, both substantially longer than the 4,230-foot length and 688-foot vertical rise that Lift Blog documents for the antecedent Mardi Gras lift at Holiday Valley, New York. We discuss the logistics and mechanics of moving this machine from North to South America and extending it in the pod. Here are a few pics of this machine I took in New York in January 2022:Podcast NotesOn Corralco's evolving footprintCorralco is a new-ish ski area, at least insofar as public access goes. The 2008 trailmap shows a modest vertical drop served by surface lifts:But growth has been rapid, and by 2022, the ski area resembled modern Corralco, which is now an international training center for athletes:On Camp Jewel, ConnecticutAckerson learned to ski on a two-tow bump called Camp Jewell, a YMCA center in Connecticut. NELSAP has some fun info on this defunct ski area, including photos of what's left of the lifts.On Sigi GrottendorderAckerson's conduit to South American skiing came in the form of Austrian-born Sigi Grottendorfer, who led the ski schools at both Sugarbush, Vermont and Portillo, Chile. He passed away in 2023 – The Valley Reporter ran an obituary with more info on Grottendorfer's expansive and colorful life.On Chile “five years after the coup had occurred”We reference past political instability in Chile, referring to the 1973 coup that launched the military dictatorship of the notorious Augusto Pinochet. The nation transitioned back to democracy in 1990 and is considered safe and stable for tourists by the U.S. State Department.On PortilloWe discuss Portillo, a Chilean ski area whose capacity limits and weeklong ski-and-stay packages result in Windham-is-private-style (it's not) confusion. Skiers can visit Portillo on a day pass. Lift tickets are all of $68. Still, the hotel experience is, by all accounts, pretty rad. Here's the bump:On previous podcastsWe mention a few previous podcast guests who had parallels to Ackerson's story. Bogus Basin GM Brad Wilson also left skiing for several years to run a non-ski resort:Longtime Valle Nevado GM Ricardo Margolis appeared on this podcast in 2023:On the shrinking of Volcán Osorno and PillánI won't reset the entire history here, but I broke down the slow shrinkage of Volcán Osorno and Pillán ski areas when Mountain Capital Partners bid to purchase them last year:On Kamori Kankō buying HeavenlyFor a brief period, Japanese company Kamori Kankō owned Steamboat and Heavenly. The company sold both to American Skiing Company in 1997, and they eventually split owners, with Heavenly joining Vail's roster in 2002, and Steamboat now part of Alterra by way of Intrawest. Today, Kamori Kankō appears to operate five ski areas in Japan, all in Hokkaido, most notably Epic Pass partner Rusutsu:On MCP's free season passes for kids 12 and underOne pretty cool thing that Mountain Capital Partners has brought to Chile from its U.S. HQ is free season passes for kids 12 and under. It's pretty incredible:On Sugarbush Ackerson worked for a long time at Sugarbush, an Alterra staple and one of the best overall ski areas in New England. It's a fully modern resort, with the exception of the knockout Castle Rock terrain, which still spins a double chair on all-natural snow:On skiing El ColoradoWe discuss the insane, switchbacking access road up to El Colorado/La Parva/Valle Nevado from Santiago:The route up to Corralco is far more suited to mortals:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Happy new year! Join us for a listener recommended dive into David Royce, the mind behind a series of moderately successful Pest Control companies like Moxie, Eco First, Alterra and AptiveAlong the way, employees and customers have voiced pretty negative opinions, so let's see what that's about!Here's our subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/profiteersvsthepeople/Here's our email: Profitvspeeps@gmail.comHere are our sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1msk0IsYSEQGIyELDxEjOIQ9Hfvo0_HIQeF2cygaXoxg/edit?usp=sharingPlease like comment and subscribe!

In today's episode, Jack sits down with Jeff Riddle, founder of Alterra Landscape Design in Dallas, to talk about what it really takes to keep a landscape company growing—even when the market softens. Jeff shares how Dallas is seeing more competition than ever before, why lead volume has dipped, and the surprising reasons many landscape firms are feeling anxious even in a still-healthy market. Yet instead of cutting back, Jeff explains why Alterra has intentionally increased marketing investment, upgraded their website, and leaned into long-term branding strategies.You'll also hear how video, reviews, deep content, and boots-on-the-ground storytelling help Alterra stand out in a market with 75% more competitors than two decades ago. From navigating AI-driven search to using ChatGPT for content creation, Jeff offers practical, real-world lessons landscape companies can apply right now.You'll Learn:Why cutting marketing in a downturn is a costly mistakeHow long-term marketing investments “harvest” results years laterWhat landscape companies need to know about AI-driven searchWhy deep content, reviews, and video outperform competitorsHow Alterra creates steady demand in an oversaturated marketConnect With Today's Guest: 

Take 20% off a paid annual ‘Storm' subscription through Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.WhoJared Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Alterra Mountain CompanyRecorded onOctober 22, 2025About Alterra Mountain CompanyAlterra is skiing's Voltron, a collection of super-bots united to form one super-duper bot. Only instead of gigantic robot lions the bots are gigantic ski areas and instead of fighting the evil King Zarkon they combined to battle Vail Resorts and its cackling mad Epic Pass. Here is Alterra's current ski-bot stable:Alterra of course also owns the Ikon Pass, which for the 2025-26 winter gives skiers all of this:Ikon launched in 2018 as a more-or-less-even competitor to Epic Pass, both in number and stature of ski areas and price, but long ago blew past its mass-market competitor in both:Those 89 total ski areas include nine that Alterra added last week in Japan, South Korea, and China. Some of these 89 partners, however, are so-called “bonus mountains,” which are Alterra's Cinderellas. And not Cinderella at the end of the story when she rules the kingdom and dines on stag and hunts peasants for sport but first-scene Cinderella when she lives in a windowless tower and wears a burlap dress and her only friends are talking mice. Meaning skiers can use their Ikon Pass to ski at these places but they are not I repeat NOT on the Ikon Pass so don't you dare say they are (they are).While the Ikon Pass is Alterra's Excalibur, many of its owned mountains offer their own season passes (see Alterra chart above). And many now offer their own SUPER-DUPER season passes that let skiers do things like cut in front of the poors and dine on stag in private lounges:These SUPER-DUPER passes don't bother me though a lot of you want me to say they're THE END OF SKIING. I won't put a lot of effort into talking you off that point so long as you're all skiing for $17 per day on your Ikon Passes. But I will continue to puzzle over why the Ikon Session Pass is such a very very bad and terrible product compared to every other day pass including those sold by Alterra's own mountains. I am also not a big advocate for peak-day lift ticket prices that resemble those of black-market hand sanitizer in March 2020:Fortunately Vail and Alterra seem to have launched a lift ticket price war, the first battle of which is The Battle of Give Half Off Coupons to Your Dumb Friends Who Don't Buy A Ski Pass 10 Months Before They Plan to Ski:Alterra also runs some heli-ski outfits up in B.C. but I'm not going to bother decoding all that because one reason I started The Storm was because I was over stories of Bros skiing 45 feet of powder at the top of the Chugach while the rest of us fretted over parking reservations and the $5 replacement cost of an RFID card. I know some of you are like Bro how many stories do you think the world needs about chairlifts but hey at least pretty much anyone reading this can go ride them.Oh and also I probably lost like 95 percent of you with Voltron because unless you were between the ages of 7 and 8 in the mid-1980s you probably missed this:One neat thing about skiing is that if someone ran headfirst into a snowgun in 1985 and spent four decades in a coma and woke up tomorrow they'd still know pretty much all the ski areas even if they were confused about what's a Palisades Tahoe and why all of us future wussies wear helmets. “Damn it, Son in my day we didn't bother and I'm just fine. Now grab $20 and a pack of smokes and let's go skiing.”Why I interviewed himFor pretty much the same reason I interviewed this fellow:I mean like it or not these two companies dominate modern lift-served skiing in this country, at least from a narrative point of view. And while I do everything I can to demonstrate that between the Indy Pass and ski areas not in Colorado or Utah or Tahoe plenty of skier choice remains, it's impossible to ignore the fact that Alterra's 17 U.S. ski areas and Vail's 36 together make up around 30 percent of the skiable terrain across America's 509 active ski areas:And man when you add in all U.S. Epic and Ikon mountains it's like dang:We know publicly traded Vail's Epic Pass sales numbers and we know those numbers have softened over the past couple of years, but we don't have similar access to Alterra's numbers. A source with direct knowledge of Ikon Pass sales recently told me that unit sales had increased every year. Perhaps some day someone will anonymously message me a screenshot code-named Alterra's Big Dumb Chart documenting unit and dollar sales since Ikon's 2018 launch. In the meantime, I'm just going to have to keep talking to the guy running the company and asking extremely sly questions like, “if you had to give us a ballpark estimate of exactly how many Ikon Passes you sold and how much you paid each partner mountain and which ski area you're going to buy next, what would you say?”What we talked aboutA first-to-open competition between A-Basin and Winter Park (A-Basin won); the allure of skiing Japan; Ikon as first-to-market in South Korea and China; continued Ikon expansion in Europe; who's buying Ikon?; bonus mountains; half-off friends tickets; reserve passes; “one of the things we've struggled with as an industry are the dynamics between purchasing a pass and the daily lift ticket price”; “we've got to find ways to make it more accessible, more affordable, more often for more people”; Europe as a cheaper ski alternative to the West; “we are focused every day on … what is the right price for the right consumer on the right day?”; “there's never been more innovation” in the ski ticket space; Palisades Tahoe's 14-year-village-expansion approval saga; America's “increasingly complex” landscape of community stakeholders; and Deer Valley's massive expansion.What I got wrong* We didn't get this wrong, but when we recorded this pod on Wednesday, Smith and I discussed which of Alterra's ski areas would open first. Arapahoe Basin won that fight, opening at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25, which was yesterday unless you're reading this in the future.* I said that 40 percent of all Epic, Ikon, and Indy pass partners were outside of North America. This is inaccurate: 40 percent (152) of those three passes' combined 383 partners is outside the United States. Subtracting their 49 Canadian ski areas gives us 103 mountains outside of North America, or 27 percent of the total.* I claimed that a ski vacation to Europe is “a quarter of the price” of a similar trip to the U.S. This was hyperbole, and obviously the available price range of ski vacations is enormous, but in general, prices for everything from lift tickets to hotels to food tend to be lower in the Alps than in the Rocky Mountain core.* It probably seems strange that I said that Deer Valley's East Village was great because you could drive there from the airport without hitting a spotlight and also said that the resort would be less car-dependent. What I meant by that was that once you arrive at East Village, it is – or will be, when complete – a better slopeside pedestrian village experience than the car-oriented Snow Park that has long served as the resort's principal entry point. Snow Park itself is scheduled to evolve from parking-lot-and-nothing-else to secondary pedestrian village. The final version of Deer Valley should reduce the number of cars within Park City proper and create a more vibrant atmosphere at the ski area.Questions I wish I'd askedThe first question you're probably asking is “Bro why is this so short aren't your podcasts usually longer than a Superfund cleanup?” Well I take what I can get and if there's a question you can think of related to Ikon or Alterra or any of the company's mountains, it was on my list. But Smith had either 30 minutes or zero minutes so I took the win.Podcast NotesOn Deer ValleyI was talking to the Deer Valley folks the other day and we agreed that they're doing so much so fast that it's almost impossible to tell the story. I mean this was Deer Valley two winters ago:And this will be Deer Valley this winter:Somehow it's easier to write 3,000 words on Indy Pass adding a couple of Northeast backwaters than it is to frame up the ambitions of a Utah ski area expanding by as much skiable acreage as all 30 New Hampshire ski areas combined in just two years. Anyway Deer Valley is about to be the sixth-largest ski area in America and when this whole project is done in a few years it will be number four at 5,700 acres, behind only Vail Resorts' neighboring Park City (7,300 acres), Alterra's own Palisades Tahoe (6,000 acres), and Boyne Resorts' Big Sky (5,850 acres).On recent Steamboat upgradesYes the Wild Blue Gondola is cool and I'm sure everyone from Baton-Tucky just loves it. But everything I'm hearing out of Steamboat over the past couple of winters indicates that A) the 650-acre Mahogany Ridge expansion adds a fistfighting dimension to what had largely been an intermediate ski resort, and that, B) so far, no one goes over there, partially because they don't know about it and partially because the resort only cut one trail in the whole amazing zone (far looker's left):I guess just go ski this one while everyone else still thinks Steamboat is nothing but gondolas and Sunshine Peak.On Winter Park being “on deck”After stringing the two sides of Palisades Tahoe together with a $75 trillion gondola and expanding Steamboat and nearly tripling the size of Deer Valley, all signs point to Alterra next pushing its resources into actualizing Winter Park's ambitious masterplan, starting with the gondola connection to town (right side of map):On new Ikon Pass partners for 2025-26You can read about the bonus partners above, but here are the write-ups on Ikon's full seven/five-day partners:On previous Alterra podcastsThis was Smith's second appearance on the pod. Here's number one, from 2023:His predecessor, Rusty Gregory, appeared on the show three times:I've also hosted the leaders of a bunch of Alterra leaders on the pod, most recently A-Basin and Mammoth:And the heads of many Ikon Pass partners – most recently Killington and Sun Valley:On U.S. passes in JapanEpic, Ikon, Indy, and Mountain Collective are now aligned with 48 ski areas in Japan – nearly as many as the four passes have signed in Canada:On EuropeAnd here are the European ski areas aligned with Epic, Ikon, Indy, and Mountain Collective – the list is shorter than the Japanese list, but since each European ski area is made up of between one and 345 ski areas, the actual skiable acreage here is likely equal to the landmass of Greenland:On skier and ski area growth in ChinaChina's ski industry appears to be developing rapidly - I'm not sure what to make of the difference between “ski resorts” and “ski resorts with aerial ropeways.” Normally I'd assume that means with or without lifts, but that doesn't make a lot of sense and sometimes nations frame things in very different ways.On the village at Palisades TahoeThe approval process for a village expansion on the Olympic side of Palisades Tahoe was a very convoluted one. KCRA sums the outcome up well (I'll note that “Alterra” did not call for anything in 2011, as the company didn't exist until 2017):Under the initial 2011 application, Alterra had called for the construction of 2,184 bedrooms. That was reduced to 1,493 bedrooms in a 2014 revised proposal where 850 housing units — a mix of condominiums, hotel rooms and timeshares — were planned. The new agreement calls for a total of 896 bedrooms.The groups that pushed this downsizing were primarily Keep Tahoe Blue and Sierra Watch. Smith is very diplomatic in discussing this project on the podcast, pointing to the “collaboration, communication, and a little bit of compromise” that led to the final agreement.I'm not going to be so diplomatic. Fighting dense, pedestrian-oriented development that could help reconfigure traffic patterns and housing availability in a region that is choking on ski traffic and drowning in housing costs is dumb. The systems for planning, approving, and building anything that is different from what already exists in this nation are profoundly broken. The primary issue is this: these anti-development crusaders position themselves as environmental defenders without acknowledging (or, more likely, realizing), that the existing traffic, blight, and high costs driving their resistance is a legacy of haphazard development in past decades, and that more thoughtful, human-centric projects could mitigate, rather than worsen, these concerns. The only thing an oppose-everything stance achieves is to push development farther out into the hinterlands, exacerbating sprawl and traffic.British Columbia is way ahead of us here. I've written about this extensively in the past, and won't belabor the point here except to cite what I wrote last year about the 3,711-home city sprouting from raw wilderness below Cypress Mountain, a Boyne-owned Ikon Pass partner just north of Vancouver:Mountain town housing is most often framed as an intractable problem, ingrown and malignant and impossible to reset or rethink or repair. Too hard to do. But it is not hard to do. It is the easiest thing in the world. To provide more housing, municipalities must allow developers to build more housing, and make them do it in a way that is dense and walkable, that is mixed with commerce, that gives people as many ways to move around without a car as possible.This is not some new or brilliant idea. This is simply how humans built villages for about 10,000 years, until the advent of the automobile. Then we started building our spaces for machines instead of for people. This was a mistake, and is the root problem of every mountain town housing crisis in North America. That and the fact that U.S. Americans make no distinction between the hyper-thoughtful new urbanist impulses described here and the sprawling shitpile of random buildings that are largely the backdrop of our national life. The very thing that would inject humanity into the mountains is recast as a corrupting force that would destroy a community's already-compromised-by-bad-design character.Not that it will matter to our impossible American brains, but Canada is about to show us how to do this. Over the next 25 years, a pocket of raw forest hard against Cypress' access road will sprout a city of 3,711 homes that will house thousands of people. It will be a human-scaled, pedestrian-first community, a city neighborhood dropped onto a mountainside. A gondola could connect the complex to Cypress' lifts thousands of feet up the mountain – more cars off the road. It would look like this (the potential aerial lift is not depicted here):Here's how the whole thing would set up against the mountain:And here's what it would be like at ground level:Like wow that actually resembles something that is not toxic to the human soul. But to a certain sort of Mother Earth evangelist, the mere suggestion of any sort of mountainside development is blasphemous. I understand this impulse, but I believe that it is misdirected, a too-late reflex against the subdivision-off-an-exit-ramp Build-A-Bungalow mentality that transformed this country into a car-first sprawlscape. I believe a reset is in order: to preserve large tracts of wilderness, we should intensely develop small pieces of land, and leave the rest alone. This is about to happen near Cypress. We should pay attention.Given the environmental community's reflexive and vociferous opposition to a recent proposal to repurpose tracts of not-necessarily-majestic wilderness for housing, I'm not optimistic that we possess the cultural brainpower to improve our own lives through policy. Which is why I've been writing more about passes and less about our collective ambitions to make everything from the base of the lifts outward as inconvenient and expensive as possible.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us for 20% off the annual rate through Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

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Thank you for your support of independent ski journalism.WhoPhill Gross, owner, and Mike Solimano, CEO of Killington and Pico, VermontRecorded onJuly 10, 2025About KillingtonClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Phill Gross and teamLocated in: Killington, VermontYear founded: 1958Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass: 5 or 7 combined days with PicoReciprocal partners: Pico access is included on all Killington passesClosest neighboring ski areas: Pico (:12), Saskadena Six (:39), Okemo (:40), Quechee (:44), Ascutney (:55), Storrs (:59), Harrington Hill (:59), Magic (1:00), Whaleback (1:02), Sugarbush (1:04), Bromley (1:04), Middlebury Snowbowl (1:08), Arrowhead (1:10), Mad River Glen (1:11)Base elevation: 1,165 feet at Skyeship BaseSummit elevation: 4,142 feet at top of K-1 gondola (hike-to summit of Killington Peak at 4,241 feet)Vertical drop: 2,977 feet lift-served, 3,076 hike-toSkiable Acres: 1,509Average annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: 155 (43% advanced/expert, 40% intermediate, 17% beginner)Lift count: 20 (2 gondolas, 2 six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 5 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples, 1 double, 1 platter, 3 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Killington's lift fleet; Killington plans to replace the Snowdon triple with a fixed-grip quad for the 2026-27 ski season)History: from New England Ski HistoryAbout PicoClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Phill Gross and teamLocated in: Mendon, VermontYear founded: 1934Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass: 5 or 7 combined days with KillingtonReciprocal partners: Pico access is included on all Killington passes; four days Killington access included on Pico K.A. PassClosest neighboring ski areas: Killington (:12), Saskadena Six (:38), Okemo (:38), Quechee (:42), Ascutney (:53), Storrs (:57), Harrington Hill (:55), Magic (:58), Whaleback (1:00), Sugarbush (1:01), Bromley (1:00), Middlebury Snowbowl (1:01), Mad River Glen (1:07), Arrowhead (1:09)Base elevation: 2,000 feetSummit elevation: 3,967 feetVertical drop: 1,967 feetSkiable Acres: 468Average annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: 58 (36% advanced/expert, 46% intermediate, 18% beginner)Lift count: 7 (2 high-speed quads, 2 triples, 1 doubles, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Pico's lift fleet)History: from New England Ski HistoryWhy I interviewed themThe longest-tenured non-government ski area operator in America, as far as I know, is the Seeholzer family, owner-operators of Beaver Mountain, Utah since 1939. Third-generation owner Travis Seeholzer came on the pod a few years back to trace the eight-decade arc from this dude flexing 10-foot-long kamikaze boards to the present:Just about every ski area in America was hacked out of the wilderness by Some Guy Who Looked Like That. Dave McCoy at Mammoth or Ernie Blake at Taos or Everett Kircher at Boyne Mountain, swarthy, willful fellows who flew airplanes and erected rudimentary chairlifts in impossible places and hammered together their own baselodges. Over decades they chiseled these mountains into their personal Rushmores, a life's work, a human soul knotted to nature in a built place that would endure for generations.It's possible that they all imagined their family name governing those generations. In the remarkable case of Boyne, they still do. But the Kirchers and the Seeholzers are ski-world exceptions. Successive generations are often uninterested in the chore of legacy building. Or they try and say wow this is expensive. Or bad weather leads to bad financial choices by our cigar-smoking, backhoe-driving, machete-wielding founder and his sons and daughters never get their chance. The ski area's deed shuffles into the portfolio of a Colorado Skico and McCoy fades a little each year and at some point Mammoth is just another ski area owned by Alterra Mountain Company.It's tempting to sentimentalize the past, to lament skiing's macro-transition from gritty network of founder-kingpin fifes to set of corporate brands, to conclude that “this generation” just doesn't have the tenacity of a Blake or a McCoy. But the America where a fellow could turn up with a dump truck and a chainsaw and flatten raw forest into a for-profit business with minimal protest is gone. Every part of the ski ecosystem is more regulated, complicated, and expensive than it's ever been. The appeal of running such a machine - and the skillset necessary to do so - is entirely different from that of sculpting your own personal snow Narnia from scratch. We will always have family-owned ski areas (we still have hundreds), and an occasional modern founder-disruptor like Mount Bohemia's Lonie Glieberman will materialize like a new X-man. But ski conglomerates have probably always been inevitable, and are probably largely the industry's future. They are best suited, in most cases, to manage, finance, and maintain the vast machinery of our largest ski centers (and also to create a ski landscape in which not all ski area operators are Some Guy Who Looked Like That).Killington demonstrates this arc from rambunctious founder to corporate vassal as well as any mountain in the country. Founded in 1958 by the wily and wild Pres Smith, the ski area's parent company, Sherburne Corp., bought Sunday River, Maine in 1973 and Mount Snow, Vermont in 1977. The two Vermont mountains became S-K-I in 1984, bought five more ski areas, and merged with four-resort LBO in 1996 to become the titanic American Skiing Company. Unfortunately ASC turned out to be skiing's Titanic, and one of the company's last acts before dissolution was to sell Killington and Pico to Utah-based Powdr in 2007.The Beast had been tamed, at least on paper. Corporate ownership of some sort felt as stapled to the mountain as Killington's 3,000 snowguns. And mostly, well, it didn't matter. Other than Powdr's disastrous attempts to shorten the resort's famously long seasons, Killington never lost its feisty edge. Over the decades the ski area modernized, masterplanned, and shed skier volume while increasing its viability as a business. Modern Killington wasn't the kingdom of a charismatic and ever-present founder, but it was a pretty good ski area.And then, suddenly, shockingly, Powdr sold both Killington and Pico last August. And they didn't sell the ski areas to Vail or Alterra or Boyne or to anyone who owned any ski areas at all. Instead, a group of local investors - led by Phill Gross and Michael Ferri, longtime Killington homeowners who ran a variety of non-ski-related businesses - bought the mountains. After 51 years as part of a multi-mountain ownership group, Killington (its relationship to neighboring Pico notwithstanding), was once again independent.It was all so improbable. Out-of-state operators had purchased five of Vermont's large ski areas in recent years: Colorado-based Vail Resorts bought Stowe in 2017, Okemo in 2018, and Mount Snow in 2019; Denver-based Alterra claimed Sugarbush in 2019; and Utah-based Pacific Group Resorts added Jay Peak to their small portfolio in 2022. Very few ski areas have ever entered the corporate matrix and re-emerged as independents. Grand Targhee, Wyoming; Waterville Valley, New Hampshire; and Mountain Creek, New Jersey (technically owned by multimountain operator Snow Partners) are exceptions spun off from larger companies. But mostly, once a larger entity absorbed a ski area, it stays locked in the multimountain universe forever.So what would this mean? For the largest and busiest mountain in the eastern United States to be independent? Did this, along with Powdr's intentions to sell Mount Bachelor (since rescinded), Eldora (sale in process), and Silver Star (no update), mark a reversal in the consolidation trend that had gathered 30 percent of America's ski areas under the umbrella of a multi-mountain operator? Did Killington's group of wealthy-but-not-Bezos-wealthy investors set an alternate blueprint for large-mountain ownership, especially when considered alongside the sale of Jackson Hole to a similar group the year before? Had the Ikon Pass – that harbinger of mass-market pass domination that had forced the we-better-join-them sales of Crystal Mountain, Washington and Sugarbush – inadvertently become a reliable revenue pipeline that made independence more viable? And would Killington, well-managed and constantly improving, backslide under cowboy owners who want to Q-Burke the place in their image?We're a year in now, and we have some clarity on these questions, along with two new chairlifts (Superstar this year, Snowdon next), 1,000 new snowguns, a revitalized Skyeship Gondola, and progressing plans on the East's first true ski village. Locals seem happy, management seems happy, the owners seem happy. Easy enough, Gross points out in our interview, when winter hits deep like the last one did. But can we keep the party going indefinitely? It was time for a check-in.What we talked aboutA strong first winter under independent ownership; what spring skiing off Canyon lift told us about the importance of Superstar; “it's an incredibly complex operation”; letting the smart people do their jobs; Killington's surprise spin-off from a multi-mountain operator; “our job is to keep the honeymoon going”; Superstar's six-pack upgrade; why six-packs are probably Killington's lift-upgrade future; why Pico is demolishing the Bonanza lift for a covered carpet; why Superstar won't have bubbles; where bubbles might make sense in a future lift; why ski areas can no longer run snowmaking under newly constructed chairlifts; why Superstar is a Doppelmayr machine after Killington installed a brand-new Leitner-Poma six at Snowdon in 2018; long- and short-term Superstar impacts to Killington's long season; long-term thoughts around early-season walkway access to North Ridge; Skyeship Gondola upgrades, including $5 million in new cabins; what 1,000 new snowguns means in practice; why Killington sold the Wobbly Barn; considering Killington as a business and investment; how Killington is a different financial beast from other Vermont ski areas; how close Killington was to going unlimited on Ikon Pass; Phill's journey to buying Killington; Devil's Fiddle and why sometimes things that don't make sense financially make sense anyway; “we want to own this for generations to come”; a village layout and timeline update – “we want to make sure that this is something that's additive to the ski experience” even if you don't own within it; “Great Gulf wants this [village] to be competitive for the western resorts”; “we don't want to change what Pico is”; how piping water over from Killington has reinvigorated and stabilized Pico; why Killington and Pico remained on Ikon Pass post-sale and probably will for the foreseeable future; is Ikon helping big ski areas stay independent?; Killington's steady rise in lift ticket prices; future lift upgrades and why the Snowdon Triple is next up for a replacement.What I got wrong* File “opinionation” under LOL I'm Dumb Talking Is Hard* I said that former Killington owner Powdr had “just sold” Eldora, but that's not accurate: in July, the town of Nederland, Colorado, announced their intent to purchase the ski area. The sales process is ongoing.Podcast NotesOn previous Killington podsOn Gross' purchase of Killington and PicoOn ANSI chairlift standardsWe get a bit in the weeds with a reference to “ANSI standards” for chairlifts. ANSI is the American National Standards Institute, a nonprofit organization that sets voluntary but widely adopted standards for everything from office furniture to electrical systems to safety signage in the United States. The ANSI standard for lifts, according to a blog post describing the code's 2022 update, is “developed by the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), [and] establishes standard requirements for the design, manufacture, construction, operation, and maintenance of passenger ropeways.” On Killington's long seasonsKillington often opens in October (though it has not done so since 2018), and closes in June (three straight years before a deliberately truncated 2024-25 season to begin demolition of the Superstar chair). List of Killington open and close dates since 1987-88.On Win Smith and Killington and SugarbushOn Killington's villageThe East needs more of this:On Killington's peak lift ticket pricesPer New England Ski History:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

WhoAlan Henceroth, President and Chief Operating Officer of Arapahoe Basin, Colorado – Al runs the best ski area-specific executive blog in America – check it out:Recorded onMay 19, 2025About Arapahoe BasinClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain Company, which also owns:Pass access* Ikon Pass: unlimited* Ikon Base Pass: unlimited access from opening day to Friday, Dec. 19, then five total days with no blackouts from Dec. 20 until closing day 2026Base elevation* 10,520 feet at bottom of Steep Gullies* 10,780 feet at main baseSummit elevation* 13,204 feet at top of Lenawee Mountain on East Wall* 12,478 feet at top of Lazy J Tow (connector between Lenawee Express six-pack and Zuma quad)Vertical drop* 1,695 feet lift-served – top of Lazy J Tow to main base* 1,955 feet lift-served, with hike back up to lifts – top of Lazy J Tow to bottom of Steep Gullies* 2,424 feet hike-to – top of Lenawee Mountain to Main BaseSkiable Acres: 1,428Average annual snowfall:* Claimed: 350 inches* Bestsnow.net: 308 inchesTrail count: 147 – approximate terrain breakdown: 24% double-black, 49% black, 20% intermediate, 7% beginnerLift count: 9 (1 six-pack, 1 high-speed quad, 3 fixed-grip quads, 1 double, 2 carpets, 1 ropetow)Why I interviewed himWe can generally splice U.S. ski centers into two categories: ski resort and ski area. I'll often use these terms interchangeably to avoid repetition, but they describe two very different things. The main distinction: ski areas rise directly from parking lots edged by a handful of bunched utilitarian structures, while ski resorts push parking lots into the next zipcode to accommodate slopeside lodging and commerce.There are a lot more ski areas than ski resorts, and a handful of the latter present like the former, with accommodations slightly off-hill (Sun Valley) or anchored in a near-enough town (Bachelor). But mostly the distinction is clear, with the defining question being this: is this a mountain that people will travel around the world to ski, or one they won't travel more than an hour to ski?Arapahoe Basin occupies a strange middle. Nothing in the mountain's statistical profile suggests that it should be anything other than a Summit County locals hang. It is the 16th-largest ski area in Colorado by skiable acres, the 18th-tallest by lift-served vertical drop, and the eighth-snowiest by average annual snowfall. The mountain runs just six chairlifts and only two detachables. Beginner terrain is limited. A-Basin has no base area lodging, and in fact not much of a base area at all. Altitude, already an issue for the Colorado ski tourist, is amplified here, where the lifts spin from nearly 11,000 feet. A-Basin should, like Bridger Bowl in Montana (upstream from Big Sky) or Red River in New Mexico (across the mountain from Taos) or Sunlight in Colorado (parked between Aspen and I-70), be mostly unknown beside its heralded big-name neighbors (Keystone, Breck, Copper).And it sort of is, but also sort of isn't. Like tiny (826-acre) Aspen Mountain, A-Basin transcends its statistical profile. Skiers know it, seek it, travel for it, cross it off their lists like a snowy Eiffel Tower. Unlike Aspen, A-Basin has no posse of support mountains, no grided downtown spilling off the lifts, no Kleenex-level brand that stands in for skiing among non-skiers. And yet Vail tried buying the bump in 1997, and Alterra finally did in 2024. Meanwhile, nearby Loveland, bigger, taller, snowier, higher, easier to access with its trip-off-the-interstate parking lots, is still ignored by tourists and conglomerates alike.Weird. What explains A-Basin's pull? Onetime and future Storm guest Jackson Hogen offers, in his Snowbird Secrets book, an anthropomorphic explanation for that Utah powder dump's aura: As it turns out, everyone has a story for how they came to discover Snowbird, but no one knows the reason. Some have the vanity to think they picked the place, but the wisest know the place picked them.That is the secret that Snowbird has slipped into our subconscious; deep down, we know we were summoned here. We just have to be reminded of it to remember, an echo of the Platonic notion that all knowledge is remembrance. In the modern world we are so divorced from our natural selves that you would think we'd have lost the power to hear a mountain call us. And indeed we have, but such is the enormous reach of this place that it can still stir the last seed within us that connects us to the energy that surrounds us every day yet we do not see. The resonance of that tiny, vibrating seed is what brings us here, to this extraordinary place, to stand in the heart of the energy flow.Yeah I don't know, Man. We're drifting into horoscope territory here. But I also can't explain why we all like to do This Dumb Thing so much that we'll wrap our whole lives around it. So if there is some universe force, what Hogen calls “vibrations” from Hidden Peak's quartz, drawing skiers to Snowbird, could there also be some proton-kryptonite-laserbeam s**t sucking us all toward A-Basin? If there's a better explanation, I haven't found it.What we talked aboutThe Beach; keeping A-Basin's whole ski footprint open into May; Alterra buys the bump – “we really liked the way Alterra was doing things… and letting the resorts retain their identity”; the legacy of former owner Dream; how hardcore, no-frills ski area A-Basin fits into an Alterra portfolio that includes high-end resorts such as Deer Valley and Steamboat; “you'd be surprised how many people from out of state ski here too”; Ikon as Colorado sampler pack (or not); local reaction to Alterra's purchase – “I think it's fair that there was anxiety”; balancing the wild ski cycle of over-the-top peak days and soft periods; parking reservations; going unlimited on the full Ikon Pass and how parking reservations play in – “we spent a ridiculous amount of time talking about it”; the huge price difference between Epic and Ikon and how that factors into the access calculus; why A-Basin still sells a single-mountain season pass; whether reciprocal partnerships with Monarch and Silverton will remain in place; “I've been amazed at how few things I've been told to do” by Alterra; A-Basin's dirt-cheap early-season pass; why early season is “a more competitive time” than it used to be; why A-Basin left Mountain Collective; Justice Department anti-trust concerns around Alterra's A-Basin purchase – “it never was clear to me what the concerns were”; breaking down A-Basin's latest U.S. Forest Service masterplan – “everything in there, we hope to do”; a parking lot pulse gondola and why that makes sense over shuttles; why A-Basin plans a two-lift system of beginner machines; why should A-Basin care about beginner terrain?; is beginner development is related to Ikon Pass membership?; what it means that the MDP designs for 700 more skiers per day; assessing the Lenawee Express sixer three seasons in; why A-Basin sold the old Lenawee lift to independent Sunlight, Colorado; A-Basin's patrol unionizing; and 100 percent renewable energy.What I got wrong* I said that A-Basin was the only mountain that had been caught up in antitrust issues, but that's inaccurate: when S-K-I and LBO Enterprises merged into American Skiing Company in 1996, the U.S. Justice Department compelled the combined company to sell Cranmore and Waterville Valley, both in New Hampshire. Waterville Valley remains independent. Cranmore stayed independent for a while, and has since 2010 been owned by Fairbank Group, which also owns Jiminy Peak in Massachusetts and operates Bromley, Vermont.* I said that A-Basin's $259 early-season pass, good for unlimited access from opening day through Dec. 25, “was like one day at Vail,” which is sort of true and sort of not. Vail Mountain's day-of lift ticket will hit $230 from Nov. 14 to Dec. 11, then increase to $307 or $335 every day through Christmas. All Resorts Epic Day passes, which would get skiers on the hill for any of those dates, currently sell for between $106 and $128 per day. Unlimited access to Vail Mountain for that full early-season period would require a full Epic Pass, currently priced at $1,121.* This doesn't contradict anything we discussed, but it's worth noting some parking reservations changes that A-Basin implemented following our conversation. Reservations will now be required on weekends only, and from Jan. 3 to May 3, a reduction from 48 dates last winter to 36 for this season. The mountain will also allow skiers to hold four reservations at once, doubling last year's limit of two.Why now was a good time for this interviewOne of the most striking attributes of modern lift-served skiing is how radically different each ski area is. Panic over corporate hegemony power-stamping each child mountain into snowy McDonald's clones rarely survives past the parking lot. Underscoring the point is neighboring ski areas, all over America, that despite the mutually intelligible languages of trail ratings and patrol uniforms and lift and snowgun furniture, and despite sharing weather patterns and geologic origins and local skier pools, feel whole-cut from different eras, cultures, and imaginations. The gates between Alta and Snowbird present like connector doors between adjoining hotel rooms but actualize as cross-dimensional Mario warpzones. The 2.4-mile gondola strung between the Alpine Meadows and Olympic sides of Palisades Tahoe may as well connect a baseball stadium with an opera house. Crossing the half mile or so between the summits of Sterling at Smugglers' Notch and Spruce Peak at Stowe is a journey of 15 minutes and five decades. And Arapahoe Basin, elder brother of next-door Keystone, resembles its larger neighbor like a bat resembles a giraffe: both mammals, but of entirely different sorts. Same with Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, Vermont; Sugar Bowl, Donner Ski Ranch, and Boreal, California; Park City and Deer Valley, Utah; Killington and Pico, Vermont; Highlands and Nub's Nob, Michigan; Canaan Valley and Timberline and Nordic-hybrid White Grass, West Virginia; Aspen's four Colorado ski areas; the three ski areas sprawling across Mt. Hood's south flank; and Alpental and its clump of Snoqualmie sisters across the Washington interstate. Proximity does not equal sameness.One of The Storm's preoccupations is with why this is so. For all their call-to-nature appeal, ski areas are profoundly human creations, more city park than wildlife preserve. They are sculpted, managed, manicured. Even the wildest-feeling among them – Mount Bohemia, Silverton, Mad River Glen – are obsessively tended to, ragged by design.A-Basin pulls an even neater trick: a brand curated for rugged appeal, scaffolded by brand-new high-speed lifts and a self-described “luxurious European-style bistro.” That the Alterra Mountain Company-owned, megapass pioneer floating in the busiest ski county in the busiest ski state in America managed to retain its rowdy rap even as the onetime fleet of bar-free double chairs toppled into the recycling bin is a triumph of branding.But also a triumph of heart. A-Basin as Colorado's Alta or Taos or Palisades is a title easily ceded to Telluride or Aspen Highlands, similarly tilted high-alpiners. But here it is, right beside buffed-out Keystone, a misunderstood mountain with its own wild side but a fair-enough rap as an approachable landing zone for first-time Rocky Mountain explorers westbound out of New York or Ohio. Why are A-Basin and Keystone so different? The blunt drama of A-Basin's hike-in terrain helps, but it's more enforcer than explainer. The real difference, I believe, is grounded in the conductor orchestrating this mad dance.Since Henceroth sat down in the COO chair 20 years ago, Keystone has had nine president-general manager equivalents. A-Basin was already 61 years old in 2005, giving it a nice branding headstart on younger Keystone, born in 1970. But both had spent nearly two decades, from 1978 to 1997, co-owned by a dogfood conglomerate that often marketed them as one resort, and the pair stayed glued together on a multimountain pass for a couple of decades afterward.Henceroth, with support and guidance from the real-estate giant that owned A-Basin in the Ralston-Purina-to-Alterra interim, had a series of choices to make. A-Basin had only recently installed snowmaking. There was no lift access to Zuma Bowl, no Beavers. The lift system consisted of three double chairs and two triples. Did this aesthetic minimalism and pseudo-independence define A-Basin? Or did the mountain, shaped by the generations of leaders before Henceroth, hold some intangible energy and pull, that thing we recognize as atmosphere, culture, vibe? Would The Legend lose its duct-taped edge if it:* Expanded 400 mostly low-angle acres into Zuma Bowl (2007)* Joined Vail Resorts' Epic Pass (2009)* Installed the mountain's first high-speed lift (Black Mountain Express in 2010)* Expand 339 additional acres into the Beavers (2018), and service that terrain with an atypical-for-Colorado 1,501-vertical-foot fixed-grip lift* Exit the Epic Pass following the 2018-19 ski season* Immediately join Mountain Collective and Ikon as a multimountain replacement (2019)* Ditch a 21-year-old triple chair for the mountain's first high-speed six-pack (2022)* Sell to Alterra Mountain Company (2024)* Require paid parking reservations on high-volume days (2024)* Go unlimited on the Ikon Pass and exit Mountain Collective (2025)* Release an updated USFS masterplan that focuses largely on the novice ski experience (2025)That's a lot of change. A skier booted through time from Y2K to October 2025 would examine that list and conclude that Rad Basin had been tamed. But ski a dozen laps and they'd say well not really. Those multimillion upgrades were leashed by something priceless, something human, something that kept them from defining what the mountain is. There's some indecipherable alchemy here, a thing maybe not quite as durable as the mountain itself, but rooted deeper than the lift towers strung along it. It takes a skilled chemist to cook this recipe, and while they'll never reveal every secret, you can visit the restaurant as many times as you'd like.Why you should ski Arapahoe BasinWe could do a million but here are nine:1) $: Two months of early-season skiing costs roughly the same as A-Basin's neighbors charge for a single day. A-Basin's $259 fall pass is unlimited from opening day through Dec. 25, cheaper than a Dec. 20 day-of lift ticket at Breck ($281), Vail ($335), Beaver Creek ($335), or Copper ($274), and not much more than Keystone ($243). 2) Pali: When A-Basin tore down the 1,329-vertical-foot, 3,520-foot-long Pallavicini double chair, a 1978 Yan, in 2020, they replaced it with a 1,325-vertical-foot, 3,512-foot-long Leitner-Poma double chair. It's one of just a handful of new doubles installed in America over the past decade, underscoring a rare-in-modern-skiing commitment to atmosphere, experience, and snow preservation over uphill capacity. 3) The newest lift fleet in the West: The oldest of A-Basin's six chairlifts, Zuma, arrived brand-new in 2007.4) Wall-to-wall: when I flew into Colorado for a May 2025 wind-down, five ski areas remained open. Despite solid snowpack, Copper, Breck, and Winter Park all spun a handful of lifts on a constrained footprint. But A-Basin and Loveland still ran every lift, even over the Monday-to-Thursday timeframe of my visit.5) The East Wall: It's like this whole extra ski area. Not my deal as even skiing downhill at 12,500 feet hurts, but some of you like this s**t:6) May pow: I mean yeah I did kinda just get lucky but damn these were some of the best turns I found all year (skiing with A-Basin Communications Manager Shayna Silverman):7) The Beach: the best ski area tailgate in North America (sorry, no pet dragons allowed - don't shoot the messenger):8) The Beavers: Just glades and glades and glades (a little crunchy on this run, but better higher up and the following day):9) It's a ski area first: In a county of ski resorts, A-Basin is a parking-lots-at-the-bottom-and-not-much-else ski area. It's spare, sparse, high, steep, and largely exposed. Skiers are better at self-selecting than we suppose, meaning the ability level of the average A-Basin skier is more Cottonwoods than Connecticut. That impacts your day in everything from how the liftlines flow to how the bumps form to how many zigzaggers you have to dodge on the down.Podcast NotesOn the dates of my visit We reference my last A-Basin visit quite a bit – for context, I skied there May 6 and 7, 2025. Both nice late-season pow days.On A-Basin's long seasonsIt's surprisingly difficult to find accurate open and close date information for most ski areas, especially before 2010 or so, but here's what I could cobble together for A-Basin - please let me know if you have a more extensive list, or if any of this is wrong:On A-Basin's ownership timelineArapahoe Basin probably gets too much credit for being some rugged indie. Ralston-Purina, then-owners of Keystone, purchased A-Basin in 1978, then added Breckenridge to the group in 1993 before selling the whole picnic basket to Vail in 1997. The U.S. Justice Department wouldn't let the Eagle County operator have all three, so Vail flipped Arapahoe to a Canadian real estate empire, then called Dundee, some months later. That company, which at some point re-named itself Dream, pumped a zillion dollars into the mountain before handing it off to Alterra last year.On A-Basin leaving Epic PassA-Basin self-ejected from Epic Pass in 2019, just after Vail maxed out Colorado by purchasing Crested Butte and before they fully invaded the East with the Peak Resorts purchase. Arapahoe Basin promptly joined Mountain Collective and Ikon, swapping unlimited-access on four varieties of Epic Pass for limited-days products. Henceroth and I talked this one out during our 2022 pod, and it's a fascinating case study in building a better business by decreasing volume.On the price difference between Ikon and Epic with A-Basin accessConcerns about A-Basin hurdling back toward the overcrowded Epic days by switching to Ikon's unlimited tier tend to overlook this crucial distinction: Vail sold a 2018-19 version of the Epic Pass that included unlimited access to Keystone and A-Basin for an early-bird rate of $349. The full 2025-26 Ikon Pass debuted at nearly four times that, retailing for $1,329, and just ramped up to $1,519.On Alterra mountains with their own season passesWhile all Alterra-owned ski areas (with the exception of Deer Valley), are unlimited on the full Ikon Pass and nine are unlimited with no blackouts on Ikon Base, seven of those sell their own unlimited season pass that costs less than Base. The sole unlimited season pass for Crystal, Mammoth, Palisades Tahoe, Steamboat, Stratton, and Sugarbush is a full Ikon Pass, and the least-expensive unlimited season pass for Solitude is the Ikon Base. Deer Valley leads the nation with its $4,100 unlimited season pass. See the Alterra chart at the top of this article for current season pass prices to all of the company's mountains.On A-Basin and Schweitzer pass partnershipsAlterra has been pretty good about permitting its owned ski areas to retain historic reciprocal partners on their single-mountain season passes. For A-Basin, this means three no-blackout days at Monarch and two unguided days at Silverton. Up at Schweitzer, passholders get three midweek days each at Whitewater, Mt. Hood Meadows, Castle Mountain, Loveland, and Whitefish. None of these ski areas are on Ikon Pass, and the benefit is only stapled to A-Basin- or Schweitzer-specific season passes.On the Mountain Collective eventI talk about Mountain Collective as skiing's most exclusive country club. Nothing better demonstrates that characterization than this podcast I recorded at the event last fall, when in around 90 minutes I had conversations with the top leaders of Boyne Resorts, Snowbird, Aspen, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, Snowbasin, Grand Targhee, and many more.On Mountain Collective and Ikon overlapThe Mountain Collective-Ikon overlap is kinda nutso:On Pennsylvania skiingIn regards to the U.S. Justice Department grilling Alterra on its A-Basin acquisition, it's still pretty stupid that the agency allowed Vail Resorts to purchase eight of the 19 public chairlift-served ski areas in Pennsylvania without a whisper of protest. These eight ski areas almost certainly account for more than half of all skier visits in a state that typically ranks sixth nationally for attendance. Last winter, the state's 2.6 million skier visits accounted for more days than vaunted ski states New Hampshire (2.4 million), Washington (2.3), Montana (2.2), Idaho (2.1). or Oregon (2.0). Only New York (3.4), Vermont (4.2), Utah (6.5), California (6.6), and Colorado (13.9) racked up more.On A-Basin's USFS masterplanNothing on the scale of Zuma or Beavers inbound, but the proposed changes would tap novice terrain that has always existed but never offered a good access point for beginners:On pulse gondolasA-Basin's proposed pulse gondola, should it be built, would be just the sixth such lift in America, joining machines at Taos, Northstar, Steamboat, Park City, and Snowmass. Loon plans to build a pulse gondola in 2026.On mid-mountain beginner centersBig bad ski resorts have attempted to amp up family appeal in recent years with gondola-serviced mid-mountain beginner centers, which open gentle, previously hard-to-access terrain to beginners. This was the purpose of mid-stations off Jackson Hole's Sweetwater Gondola and Big Sky's new-for-this-year Explorer Gondola. A-Basin's gondy (not the parking lot pulse gondola, but the one terminating at Sawmill Flats in the masterplan image above), would provide up and down lift access allowing greenies to lap the new detach quad above it.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This week on Power House, Diego sits down with Hector Amendola, the president of Panorama Mortgage Group, formerly known as Alterra Home Loans. In 2022, Panorama rebranded from Alterra to what we now know as Panorama, with Alterra remaining as their retail arm. Panorama focuses on specifically serving underserved and underrepresented communities now through their brand new wholesale channel, Travisa Financial.  Hector shares his journey from loan officer assistant to president and discusses Panorama's post-COVID pivot that included establishing their Mexican operations and launching their wholesale division. He explains the business opportunity in serving black and brown communities and why they believe in finding the "yes" rather than the easy "no" when it comes to lending. Here's what you'll learn: How Panorama transformed from retail-focused Altera into diversified lending The strategic advantages of establishing back-office operations in Mexico Why Travisa Financial targets wholesale lending to underserved communities How Panorama maintains a 50% servicing retention rate on payoffs  Hector's career journey from LO assistant to president and the power of mentorship How the company's "find the yes" philosophy drives their underwriting approach Panorama's 2026 growth strategy balancing retail and wholesale expansion Related to this episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Hector Amendola | LinkedIn Panorama Mortgage Group Panorama Mortgage Group enters TPO market with new brand Travisa Financial Alterra Home Loans ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enjoy the episode! The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they're differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast and article are free, but a lot of The Storm lives behind a paywall. I wish I could make everything available to everyone, but an article like this one is the result of 30-plus hours of work. Please consider supporting independent ski journalism with an upgrade to a paid Storm subscription. You can also sign up for the free tier below.WhoRob Katz, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Vail ResortsRecorded onAugust 8, 2025About Vail ResortsVail Resorts owns and operates 42 ski areas in North America, Australia, and Europe. In order of acquisition:The company's Epic Pass delivers skiers unlimited access to all of these ski areas, plus access to a couple dozen partner resorts:Why I interviewed himHow long do you suppose Vail Resorts has been the largest ski area operator by number of resorts? From how the Brobots prattle on about the place, you'd think since around the same time the Mayflower bumped into Plymouth Rock. But the answer is 2018, when Vail surged to 18 ski areas – one more than number two Peak Resorts. Vail wasn't even a top-five operator until 2007, when the company's five resorts landed it in fifth place behind Powdr's eight and 11 each for Peak, Boyne, and Intrawest. Check out the year-by-year resort operator rankings since 2000:Kind of amazing, right? For decades, Vail, like Aspen, was the owner of some great Colorado ski areas and nothing more. There was no reason to assume it would ever be anything else. Any ski company that tried to get too big collapsed or surrendered. Intrawest inflated like a balloon then blew up like a pinata, ejecting trophies like Mammoth, Copper, and Whistler before straggling into the Alterra refugee camp with a half dozen survivors. American Skiing Company (ASC) united eight resorts in 1996 and was 11 by the next year and was dead by 2007. Even mighty Aspen, perhaps the brand most closely associated with skiing in American popular culture, had abandoned a nearly-two-decade experiment in owning ski areas outside of Pitkin County when it sold Blackcomb and Fortress Mountains in 1986 and Breckenridge the following year.But here we are, with Vail Resorts, improbably but indisputably the largest operator in skiing. How did Vail do this when so many other operators had a decades-long head start? And failed to achieve sustainability with so many of the same puzzle pieces? Intrawest had Whistler. ASC owned Heavenly. Booth Creek, a nine-resort upstart launched in 1996 by former Vail owner George Gillett, had Northstar. The obvious answer is the 2008 advent of the Epic Pass, which transformed the big-mountain season pass from an expensive single-mountain product that almost no one actually needed to a cheapo multi-mountain passport that almost anyone could afford. It wasn't a new idea, necessarily, but the bargain-skiing concept had never been attached to a mountain so regal as Vail, with its sprawling terrain and amazing high-speed lift fleet and Colorado mystique. A multimountain pass had never come with so little fine print – it really was unlimited, at all these great mountains, all the time - but so many asterisks: better buy now, because pretty soon skiing Christmas week is going to cost more than your car. And Vail was the first operator to understand, at scale, that almost everyone who skis at Vail or Beaver Creek or Breckenridge skied somewhere else first, and that the best way to recruit these travelers to your mountain rather than Deer Valley or Steamboat or Telluride was to make the competition inconvenient by bundling the speedbump down the street with the Alpine fantasy across the country.Vail Resorts, of course, didn't do anything. Rob Katz did these things. And yes, there was a great and capable team around him. But it's hard to ignore the fact that all of these amazing things started happening shortly after Katz's 2006 CEO appointment and stopped happening around the time of his 2021 exit. Vail's stock price: from $33.04 on Feb. 28, 2006 to $354.76 to Nov. 1, 2021. Epic Pass sales: from zero to 2.1 million. Owned resort portfolio: from five in three states to 37 in 15 states and three countries. Epic Pass portfolio: from zero ski areas to 61. The company's North American skier visits: from 6.3 million for the 2005-06 ski season to 14.9 million in 2020-21. Those same VR metrics after three-and-a-half years under his successor, Kirsten Lynch: a halving of the stock price to $151.50 on May 27, 2025, her last day in charge; a small jump to 2.3 million Epic Passes sold for 2024-25 (but that marked the product's first-ever unit decline, from 2.4 million the previous winter); a small increase to 42 owned resorts in 15 states and four countries; a small increase to 65 ski areas accessible on the Epic Pass; and a rise to 16.9 million North American skier visits (actually a three percent slump from the previous winter and the company's second consecutive year of declines, as overall U.S. skier visits increased 1.6 percent after a poor 2023-24).I don't want to dismiss the good things Lynch did ($20-an-hour minimum wage; massively impactful lift upgrades, especially in New England; a best-in-class day pass product; a better Pet Rectangle app), or ignore the fact that Vail's 2006-to-2019 trajectory would have been impossible to replicate in a world that now includes the Ikon Pass counterweight, or understate the tense community-resort relationships that boiled under Katz's do-things-and-apologize-later-maybe leadership style. But Vail Resorts became an impossible-to-ignore globe-spanning goliath not because it collected great ski areas, but because a visionary leader saw a way to transform a stale, weather-dependent business into a growing, weather-agnostic(-ish) one.You may think that “visionary” is overstating it, that merely “transformational” would do. But I don't think I appreciated, until the rise of social media, how deeply cynical America had become, or the seemingly outsized proportion of people so eager to explain why new ideas were impossible. Layer, on top of this, the general dysfunction inherent to corporate environments, which can, without constant schedule-pruning, devolve into pseudo-summits of endless meetings, in which over-educated and well-meaning A+ students stamped out of elite university assembly lines spend all day trotting between conference rooms taking notes they'll never look at and trying their best to sound brilliant but never really accomplishing anything other than juggling hundreds of daily Slack and email messages. Perhaps I am the cynical one here, but my experience in such environments is that actually getting anything of substance done with a team of corporate eggheads is nearly impossible. To be able to accomplish real, industry-wide, impactful change in modern America, and to do so with a corporate bureaucracy as your vehicle, takes a visionary.Why now was a good time for this interviewAnd the visionary is back. True, he never really left, remaining at the head of Vail's board of directors for the duration of Lynch's tenure. But the board of directors doesn't have to explain a crappy earnings report on the investor conference call, or get yelled at on CNBC, or sit in the bullseye of every Saturday morning liftline post on Facebook.So we'll see, now that VR is once again and indisputably Katz's company, whether Vail's 2006-to-2021 rise from fringe player to industry kingpin was an isolated case of right-place-at-the-right-time first-mover big-ideas luck or the masterwork of a business musician blending notes of passion, aspiration, consumer pocketbook logic, the mystique of irreplaceable assets, and defiance of conventional industry wisdom to compose a song that no one can stop singing. Will Katz be Steve Jobs returning to Apple and re-igniting a global brand? Or MJ in a Wizards jersey, his double threepeat with the Bulls untarnished but his legacy otherwise un-enhanced at best and slightly diminished at worst?I don't know. I lean toward Jobs, remaining aware that the ski industry will never achieve the scale of the Pet Rectangle industry. But Vail Resorts owns 42 ski areas out of like 6,000 on the planet, and only about one percent of them is associated with the Epic Pass. Even if Vail grew all of these metrics tenfold, it would still own just a fraction of the global ski business. Investors call this “addressable market,” meaning the size of your potential customer base if you can make them aware of your existence and convince them to use your services, and Vail's addressable market is far larger than the neighborhood it now occupies.Whether Vail can get there by deploying its current operating model is irrelevant. Remember when Amazon was an online bookstore and Netflix a DVD-by-mail outfit? I barely do either, because visionary leaders (Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings) shaped these companies into completely different things, tapping a rapidly evolving technological infrastructure capable of delivering consumers things they don't know they need until they realize they can't live without them. Like never going into a store again or watching an entire season of TV in one night. Like the multimountain ski pass.Being visionary is not the same thing as being omniscient. Amazon's Fire smartphone landed like a bag of sand in a gastank. Netflix nearly imploded after prematurely splitting its DVD and digital businesses in 2011. Vail's decision to simultaneously chop 2021-22 Epic Pass prices by 20 percent and kill its 2020-21 digital reservation system landed alongside labor shortages, inflation, and global supply chain woes, resulting in a season of inconsistent operations that may have turned a generation off to the company. Vail bullied Powdr into selling Park City and Arapahoe Basin into leaving the Epic Pass and Colorado's state ski trade association into having to survive without four (then five) of its biggest brands. The company alienated locals everywhere, from Stowe (traffic) to Sunapee (same) to Ohio (truncated seasons) to Indiana (same) to Park City (everything) to Whistler (same) to Stevens Pass (just so many people man). The company owns 99 percent of the credit for the lift-tickets-brought-to-you-by-Tiffany pricing structure that drives the popular perception that skiing is a sport accessible only to people who rent out Yankee Stadium for their dog's birthday party.We could go on, but the point is this: Vail has messed up in the past and will mess up again in the future. You don't build companies like skyscrapers, straight up from ground to sky. You build them, appropriately for Vail, like mountains, with an earthquake here and an eruption there and erosion sometimes and long stable periods when the trees grow and the goats jump around on the rocks and nothing much happens except for once in a while a puma shows up and eats Uncle Toby. Vail built its Everest by clever and novel and often ruthless means, but in doing so made a Balkanized industry coherent, mainstreamed the ski season pass, reshaped the consumer ski experience around adventure and variety, united the sprawling Park City resorts, acknowledged the Midwest as a lynchpin ski region, and forced competitors out of their isolationist stupor and onto the magnificent-but-probably-nonexistent-if-not-for-the-existential-need-to-compete-with Vail Ikon, Indy, and Mountain Collective passes.So let's not confuse the means for the end, or assume that Katz, now 58 and self-assured, will act with the same brash stop-me-if-you-can bravado that defined his first tenure. I mean, he could. But consumers have made it clear that they have alternatives, communities have made it clear that they have ways to stop projects out of spite, Alterra has made it clear that empire building is achieved just as well through ink as through swords, and large independents such as Jackson Hole have made it clear that the passes that were supposed to be their doom instead guaranteed indefinite independence via dependable additional income streams. No one's afraid of Vail anymore.That doesn't mean the company can't grow, can't surprise us, can't reconfigure the global ski jigsaw puzzle in ways no one has thought of. Vail has brand damage to repair, but it's repairable. We're not talking about McDonald's here, where the task is trying to convince people that inedible food is delicious. We're talking about Vail Mountain and Whistler and Heavenly and Stowe – amazing places that no one needs convincing are amazing. What skiers do need to be convinced of is that Vail Resorts is these ski areas' best possible steward, and that each mountain can be part of something much larger without losing its essence.You may be surprised to hear Katz acknowledge as much in our conversation. You will probably be surprised by a lot of things he says, and the way he projects confidence and optimism without having to fully articulate a vision that he's probably still envisioning. It's this instinctual lean toward the unexpected-but-impactful that powered Vail's initial rise and will likely reboot the company. Perhaps sooner than we expect.What we talked aboutThe CEO job feels “both very familiar and very new at the same time”; Vail Resorts 2025 versus Vail Resorts 2006; Ikon competition means “we have to get better”; the Epic Friends program that replaces Buddy Tickets: 50 percent off plus skiers can apply that cost to next year's Epic Pass; simplifying the confusing; “we're going to have to get a little more creative and a little more aggressive” when it comes to lift ticket pricing; why Vail will “probably always have a window ticket”; could we see lower lift ticket prices?; a response to lower-than-expected lift ticket sales in 2024-25; “I think we need to elevate the resort brands themselves”; thoughts on skier-visit drops; why Katz returned as CEO; evolving as a leader; a morale check for a company “that was used to winning” but had suffered setbacks; getting back to growth; competing for partners and “how do we drive thoughtful growth”; is Vail an underdog now?; Vail's big advantage; reflecting on the 20 percent 2021 Epic Pass price cut and whether that was the right decision; is the Epic Pass too expensive or too cheap?; reacting to the first ever decline in Epic Pass unit sales numbers; why so many mountains are unlimited on Epic Local; “who are you going to kick out of skiing” if you tighten access?; protecting the skier experience; how do you make skiers say “wow?”; defending Vail's ongoing resort leadership shuffle; and why the volume of Vail's lift upgrades slowed after 2022's Epic Lift Upgrade.What I got wrong* I said that the Epic Pass now offered access to “64 or 65” ski areas, but I neglected to include the six new ski areas that Vail partnered with in Austria for the 2025-26 ski season. The correct number of current Epic Pass partners is 71 (see chart above). * I said that Vail Resorts' skier visits declined by 1.5 percent from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 winters, and that national skier visits grew by three percent over that same timeframe. The numbers are actually reversed: Vail's skier visits slumped by approximately three percent last season, while national visits increased by 1.7 percent, per the National Ski Areas Association.* I said that the $1,429 Ikon Pass cost “40% more” than the $799 Epic Local – but I was mathing on the fly and I mathed dumb. The actual increase from Epic Local to Ikon is roughly 79 percent.* I claimed that Park City Mountain Resort was charging $328 for a holiday week lift ticket when it was “30 percent-ish open” and “the surrounding resorts were 70-ish percent open.” Unfortunately, I was way off on the dollar amount and the timeframe, as I was thinking of this X post I made on Wednesday, Jan. 8, when day-of tickets were selling for $288:* I said I didn't know what “Alterra” means. Alterra Mountain Company defines it as “a fusion of the words altitude and terrain/terra, paying homage to the mountains and communities that form the backbone of the company.”* I said that Vail's Epic Lift Upgrade was “22 or 23 lifts.” I was wrong, but the number is slippery for a few reasons. First, while I was referring specifically to Vail's 2021 announcement that 19 new lifts were inbound in 2022, the company now uses “Epic Lift Upgrade” as an umbrella term for all years' new lift installs. Second, that 2022 lift total shot up to 21, then down to 19 when Park City locals threw a fit and blocked two of them (both ultimately went to Whistler), then 18 after Keystone bulldozed an illegal access road in the high Alpine (the new lift and expansion opened the following year).Questions I wish I'd askedThere is no way to do this interview in a way that makes everyone happy. Vail is too big, and I can't talk about everything. Angry Mountain Bro wants me to focus on community, Climate Bro on the environment, Finance Bro on acquisitions and numbers, Subaru Bro on liftlines and parking lots. Too many people who already have their minds made up about how things are will come here seeking validation of their viewpoint and leave disappointed. I will say this: just because I didn't ask about something doesn't mean I wouldn't have liked to. Acquisitions and Europe, especially. But some preliminary conversations with Vail folks indicated that Katz had nothing new to say on either of these topics, so I let it go for another day.Podcast NotesOn various metrics Here's a by-the-numbers history of the Epic Pass:Here's Epic's year-by-year partner history:On the percent of U.S. skier visits that Vail accounts forWe don't know the exact percentage of U.S. skier visits belong to Vail Resorts, since the company's North American numbers include Whistler, which historically accounts for approximately 2 million annual skier visits. But let's call Vail's share of America's skier visits 25 percent-ish:On ski season pass participation in AmericaThe rise of Epic and Ikon has correlated directly with a decrease in lift ticket visits and an increase in season pass visits. Per Kotke's End-of-Season Demographic Report for 2023-24:On capital investmentSimilarly, capital investment has mostly risen over the past decade, with a backpedal for Covid. Kotke:The NSAA's preliminary numbers suggest that the 2024-25 season numbers will be $624.4 million, a decline from the previous two seasons, but still well above historic norms.On the mystery of the missing skier visitsI jokingly ask Katz for resort-by-resort skier visits in passing. Here's what I meant by that - up until the 2010-11 ski season, Vail, like all operators on U.S. Forest Service land, reported annual skier visits per ski area:And then they stopped, winning a legal argument that annual skier visits are proprietary and therefore protected from public records disclosure. Or something like that. Anyway most other large ski area operators followed this example, which mostly just serves to make my job more difficult.On that ski trip where Timberline punched out Vail in a one-on-five fightI don't want to be the Anecdote King, but in 2023 I toured 10 Mid-Atlantic ski areas the first week of January, which corresponded with a horrendous warm-up. The trip included stops at five Vail Resorts: Liberty, Whitetail, Seven Springs, Laurel, and Hidden Valley, all of which were underwhelming. Fine, I thought, the weather sucks. But then I stopped at Timberline, West Virginia:After three days of melt-out tiptoe, I was not prepared for what I found at gut-renovated Timberline. And what I found was 1,000 vertical feet of the best version of warm-weather skiing I've ever seen. Other than the trail footprint, this is a brand-new ski area. When the Perfect Family – who run Perfect North, Indiana like some sort of military operation – bought the joint in 2020, they tore out the lifts, put in a brand-new six-pack and carpet-loaded quad, installed all-new snowmaking, and gut-renovated the lodge. It is remarkable. Stunning. Not a hole in the snowpack. Coming down the mountain from Davis, you can see Timberline across the valley beside state-run Canaan Valley ski area – the former striped in white, the latter mostly barren.I skied four fast laps off the summit before the sixer shut at 4:30. Then a dozen runs off the quad. The skier level is comically terrible, beginners sprawled all over the unload, all over the green trails. But the energy is level 100 amped, and everyone I talked to raved about the transformation under the new owners. I hope the Perfect family buys 50 more ski areas – their template works.I wrote up the full trip here.On the megapass timelineI'll work on a better pass timeline at some point, but the basics are this:* 2008: Epic Pass debuts - unlimited access to all Vail Resorts* 2012: Mountain Collective debuts - 2 days each at partner resorts* 2015: M.A.X. Pass debuts - 5 days each at partner resorts, unlimited option for home resort* 2018: Ikon Pass debuts, replaces M.A.X. - 5, 7, or unlimited days at partner resorts* 2019: Indy Pass debuts - 2 days each at partner resortsOn Epic Day vs. Ikon Session I've long harped on the inadequacy of the Ikon Session Pass versus the Epic Day Pass:On Epic versus Ikon pricingEpic Passes mostly sell at a big discount to Ikon:On Vail's most recent investor conference callThis podcast conversation delivers Katz's first public statements since he hosted Vail Resorts' investor conference call on June 5. I covered that call extensively at the time:On Epic versus Ikon access tweaksAlterra tweaks Ikon Pass access for at least one or two mountains nearly every year – more than two dozen since 2020, by my count. Vail rarely makes any changes. I broke down the difference between the two in the article linked directly above this one. I ask Katz about this in the pod, and he gives us a very emphatic answer.On the Park City strikeNo reason to rehash the whole mess in Park City earlier this year. Here's a recap from The New York Times. The Storm's best contribution to the whole story was this interview with United Mountain Workers President Max Magill:On Vail's leadership shuffleI'll write more about this at some point, but if you scroll to the right on Vail's roster, you'll see the yellow highlights whenever Vail has switched a president/general manager-level employee over the past several years. It's kind of a lot. A sample from the resorts the company has owned since 2016:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year long. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

WhoRon Schmalzle, President, Co-Owner, and General Manager of Ski Big Bear operator Recreation Management Corp; and Lori Phillips, General Manager of Ski Big Bear at Masthope Mountain, PennsylvaniaRecorded onApril 22, 2025About Ski Big BearClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Property owners of Masthope Mountain Community; operated by Recreation Management CorporationLocated in: Lackawaxen, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1976 as “Masthope Mountain”; changed name to “Ski Big Bear” in 1993Pass affiliations:* Indy Pass – 2 days, select blackouts* Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Villa Roma (:44), Holiday Mountain (:52), Shawnee Mountain (1:04)Base elevation: 550 feetSummit elevation: 1,200 feetVertical drop: 650 feetSkiable acres: 26Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 18 (1 expert, 5 advanced, 6 intermediate, 6 beginner)Lift count: 7 (4 doubles, 3 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Ski Big Bear's lift fleet)Why I interviewed themThis isn't really why I interviewed them, but have you ever noticed how the internet ruined everything? Sure, it made our lives easier, but it made our world worse. Yes I can now pay my credit card bill four seconds before it's due and reconnect with my best friend Bill who moved away after fourth grade. But it also turns out that Bill believes seahorses are a hoax and that Jesus spoke English because the internet socializes bad ideas in a way that the 45 people who Bill knew in 1986 would have shut down by saying “Bill you're an idiot.”Bill, fortunately, is not real. Nor, as far as I'm aware, is a seahorse hoax narrative (though I'd like to start one). But here's something that is real: When Schmalzle renamed Masthope Mountain to “Ski Big Bear” in 1993, in honor of the region's endemic black bears, he had little reason to believe anyone, anywhere, would ever confuse his 550-vertical-foot Pennsylvania ski area with Big Bear Mountain, California, a 39-hour, 2,697-mile drive west.Well, no one used the internet in 1993 except weird proto-gamers and genius movie programmers like the fat evil dude in Jurassic Park. Honestly I didn't even think the “Information Superhighway” was real until I figured email out sometime in 1996. Like time travel or a human changing into a cat, I thought the internet was some Hollywood gimmick, imagined because wouldn't it be cool if we could?Well, we can. The internet is real, and it follows us around like oxygen, the invisible scaffolding of existence. And it tricks us into being dumb by making us feel smart. So much information, so immediately and insistently, that we lack a motive to fact check. Thus, a skier in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania (let's call him “Bill 2”), can Google “Big Bear season pass” and end up with an Ikon Pass, believing this is his season pass not just to the bump five miles up the road, but a mid-winter vacation passport to Sugarbush, Copper Mountain, and Snowbird.Well Bill 2 I'm sorry but you are as dumb as my imaginary friend Bill 1 from elementary school. Because your Ikon Pass will not work at Ski Big Bear, Pennsylvania. And I'm sorry Bill 3 who lives in Riverside, California, but your Ski Big Bear, Pennsylvania season pass will not work at Big Bear Mountain Resort in California.At this point, you're probably wondering if I have nothing better to do but sit around inventing problems to grumble about. But Phillips tells me that product mix-ups with Big Bear, California happen all the time. I had a similar conversation a few months ago with the owners of Magic Mountain, Idaho, who frequently sell tubing tickets to folks headed to Magic Mountain, Vermont, which has no tubing. Upon discovering this, typically at the hour assigned on their vouchers, these would-be customers call Idaho for a refund, which the owners grant. But since Magic Mountain, Idaho can only sell a limited number of tickets for each tubing timeslot, this internet misfire, impossible in 1993, means the mountain may have forfeited revenue from a different customer who understands how ZIP codes work.Sixty-seven years after the Giants baseball franchise moved from Manhattan to San Francisco, NFL commentators still frequently refer to the “New York football Giants,” a semantic relic of what must have been a confusing three-decade cohabitation of two sports teams using the same name in the same city. Because no one could possibly confuse a West Coast baseball team with an East Coast football team, right?But the internet put everything with a similar name right next to each other. I frequently field media requests for a fellow names Stuart Winchester, who, like me, lives in New York City and, unlike me, is some sort of founder tech genius. When I reached out to Mr. Winchester to ask where I could forward such requests, he informed me that he had recently disappointed someone asking for ski recommendations at a party. So the internet made us all dumb? Is that my point? No. Though it's kind of hilarious that advanced technology has enabled new kinds of human error like mixing up ski areas that are thousands of miles apart, this forced contrast of two entities that have nothing in common other than their name and their reason for existence asks us to consider how such timeline cohabitation is possible. Isn't the existence of Alterra-owned, Ikon Pass staple Big Bear, with its hundreds of thousands of annual skier visits and high-speed lifts, at odds with the notion of hokey, low-speed, independent, Boondocks-situated Ski Big Bear simultaneously offering a simpler version of the same thing on the opposite side of the continent? Isn't this like a brontosaurus and a wooly mammoth appearing on the same timeline? Doesn't technology move ever upward, pinching out the obsolete as it goes? Isn't Ski Big Bear the skiing equivalent of a tube TV or a rotary phone or skin-tight hip-high basketball shorts or, hell, beartrap ski bindings? Things no one uses anymore because we invented better versions of them?Well, it's not so simple. Let's jump out of normal podcast-article sequence here and move the “why now” section up, so we can expand upon the “why” of our Ski Big Bear interview.Why now was a good time for this interviewEvery ski region offers some version of Ski Big Bear, of a Little Engine That Keeps Coulding, unapologetically existent even as it's out-gunned, out-lifted, out-marketed, out-mega-passed, and out-locationed: Plattekill in the Catskills, Black Mountain in New Hampshire's White Mountains, Middlebury Snowbowl in Vermont's Greens, Ski Cooper in Colorado's I-70 paper shredder, Nordic Valley in the Wasatch, Tahoe Donner on the North Shore, Grand Geneva in Milwaukee's skiing asteroid belt.When interviewing small ski area operators who thrive in the midst of such conditions, I'll often ask some version of this question: why, and how, do you still exist? Because frankly, from the point of view of evolutionary biologist studying your ecosystem, you should have been eaten by a tiger sometime around 1985.And that is almost what happened to Ski Big Bear AKA Masthope Mountain, and what happened to most of the dozens of ski areas that once dotted northeast Pennsylvania. You can spend days doomsday touring lost ski area shipwrecks across the Poconos and adjacent ranges. A very partial list: Alpine Mountain, Split Rock, Tanglwood, Kahkout, Mount Tone, Mount Airy, Fernwood - all time-capsuled in various states of decay. Alpine, slopes mowed, side-by-side quad chairs climbing 550 vertical feet, base lodge sealed, shrink-wrapped like a winter-stowed boat, looks like a buy-and-revive would-be ski area savior's dream (the entrance off PA 147 is fence-sealed, but you can enter through the housing development at the summit). Kahkout's paint-flecked double chair, dormant since 2008, still rollercoasters through forest and field on a surprisingly long line. Nothing remains at Tanglwood but concrete tower pads.Why did they all die? Why didn't Ski Big Bear? Seven other public, chairlift-served ski areas survive in the region: Big Boulder, Blue Mountain, Camelback, Elk, Jack Frost, Montage, and Shawnee. Of these eight, Ski Big Bear has the smallest skiable footprint, the lowest-capacity lift fleet, and the third-shortest vertical drop. It is the only northeast Pennsylvania ski area that still relies entirely on double chairs, off kilter in a region spinning six high-speed lifts and 10 fixed quads. Ski Big Bear sits the farthest of these eight from an interstate, lodged at the top of a steep and confusing access road nearly two dozen backwoods miles off I-84. Unlike Jack Frost and Big Boulder, Ski Big Bear has not leaned into terrain parks or been handed an Epic Pass assist to vacuum in the youth and the masses.So that's the somewhat rude premise of this interview: um, why are you still here? Yes, the gigantic attached housing development helps, but Phillips distills Ski Big Bear's resilience into what is probably one of the 10 best operator quotes in the 209 episodes of this podcast. “Treat everyone as if they just paid a million dollars to do what you're going to share with them,” she says.Skiing, like nature, can accommodate considerable complexity. If the tigers kill everything, eventually they'll run out of food and die. Nature also needs large numbers of less interesting and less charismatic animals, lots of buffalo and wapiti and wild boar and porcupines, most of which the tiger will never eat. Vail Mountain and Big Sky also need lots of Ski Big Bears and Mt. Peters and Perfect Norths and Lee Canyons. We all understand this. But saying “we need buffalo so don't die” is harder than being the buffalo that doesn't get eaten. “Just be nice” probably won't work in the jungle, but so far, it seems to be working on the eastern edge of PA.What we talked aboutUtah!; creating a West-ready skier assembly line in northeast PA; how – and why – Ski Big Bear has added “two or three weeks” to its ski season over the decades; missing Christmas; why the snowmaking window is creeping earlier into the calendar; “there has never been a year … where we haven't improved our snowmaking”; why the owners still groom all season long; will the computerized machine era compromise the DIY spirit of independent ski areas buying used equipment; why it's unlikely Ski Big Bear would ever install a high-speed lift; why Ski Big Bear's snowmaking fleet mixes so many makes and models of machines; “treat everyone as if they just paid a million dollars to do what you're going to share with them”; why RFID; why skiers who know and could move to Utah don't; the founding of Ski Big Bear; how the ski area is able to offer free skiing to all homeowners and extended family members; why Ski Big Bear is the only housing development-specific ski area in Pennsylvania that's open to the public; surviving in a tough and crowded ski area neighborhood; the impact of short-term rentals; the future of Ski Big Bear management, what could be changing, and when; changing the name from Masthope Mountain and how the advent of the internet complicated that decision; why Ski Big Bear built maybe the last double-double chairlift in America, rather than a fixed-grip quad; thoughts on the Grizzly and Little Bear lifts; Indy Pass; and an affordable season pass.What I got wrongOn U.S. migration into cities: For decades, America's youth have flowed from rural areas into cities, and I assumed, when I asked Schmalzle why he'd stayed in rural PA, that this was still the case. Turns out that migration has flipped since Covid, with the majority of growth in the 25-to-44 age bracket changing from 90 percent large metros in the 2010s to two-thirds smaller cities and rural areas in this decade, according to a Cooper Center report.Why you should ski Ski Big BearOK, I spent several paragraphs above outlining what Ski Big Bear doesn't have, which makes it sound as though the bump succeeds in spite of itself. But here's what the hill does have: a skis-bigger-than-it-is network of narrow, gentle, wood-canyoned trails; one of the best snowmaking systems anywhere; lots of conveyors right at the top; a cheapo season pass; and an extremely nice and modern lodge (a bit of an accident, after a 2005 fire torched the original).A ski area's FAQ page can tell you a lot about the sort of clientele they're built to attract. The first two questions on Ski Big Bear's are “Do I need to purchase a lift ticket?” and “Do I need rental equipment?” These are not questions you will find on the website for, say, Snowbird.So mostly I'm going to tell you to ski here if you have kids to ski with, or a friend who wants to learn. Ski Big Bear will also be fine if you have an Indy Pass and can ski midweek and don't care about glades or steeps, or you're like me and you just enjoy novelty and exploration. On the weekends, well, this is still PA, and PA skiing is demented. The state is skiing's version of Hanoi, Vietnam, which has declined to add traffic-management devices of any kind even as cheap motorbikes have nearly broken the formerly sleepy pedestrian city's spine:Hanoi, Vietnam, January 2016. Video by Stuart Winchester. There are no stop signs or traffic signals, for vehicles or pedestrians, at this (or most), four-way intersections in old-town Hanoi.Compare that to Camelback:Camelback, Pennsylvania, January 2024. Video by Stuart Winchester.Same thing, right? So it may seem weird for me to say you should consider taking your kids to Ski Big Bear. But just about every ski area within a two-hour drive of New York City resembles some version of this during peak hours. Ski Big Bear, however, is a gentler beast than its competitors. Fewer steeps, fewer weird intersections, fewer places to meet your fellow skiers via high-speed collision. No reason to release the little chipmunks into the Pamplona chutes of Hunter or Blue, steep and peopled and wild. Just take them to this nice little ski area where families can #FamOut. Podcast NotesOn smaller Utah ski areasStep off the Utah mainline, and you'll find most of the pow with fewer of the peak Wasatch crowds:I've featured both Sundance and Beaver Mountain on the podcast:On Plattekill and Berkshire EastBoth Plattekill, New York and Berkshire East, Massachusetts punched their way into the modern era by repurposing other ski areas' junkyard discards. The owners of both have each been on the pod a couple of times to tell their stories:On small Michigan ski areas closingI didn't ski for the first time until I was 14, but I grew up within an hour of three different ski areas, each of which had one chairlift and several surface lifts. Two of these ski areas are now permanently closed. My first day ever was at Mott Mountain in Farwell, Michigan, which closed around 2000:Day two was later that winter at what was then called “Bintz Apple Mountain” in Freeland, which hasn't spun lifts in about a decade:Snow Snake, in Harrison, managed to survive:The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a sustainable small business directly because of my paid subscribers. To upgrade, please click through below. Thank you for your support of independent ski journalism. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

After losing his first fortune to a Ponzi scheme in his late twenties, Brandon Kraupp didn't lick his wounds—he grabbed a clipboard. Today, his Utah-based Romex Pest Control spans four states, fields nearly two hundred teammates, and runs on an EOS-powered culture that blends door-knock grit with relentless data-tracking. Brandon sits down with the Blue-Collar Twins to share how maxed-out 0 % credit cards and a “just make more tomorrow” mindset turned a single truck into a regional platform. You'll hear: FBI Wake-Up Call – why losing everything crystallized a fearless approach to risk and growth.Door-Knock Science – mastering 55-plus communities and turning authenticity into daily deals.Data over Drama – using market analytics, WiseTack financing, and EOS scorecards to steer every expansion.Culture Moat – six core values, weekly L10s, and therapist-mediated exec meetings that keep 180 people rowing.Next Moves – an aggressive Texas build-out, acquisition targets on the Gulf Coast, and AI sliding into every SOP. Stick around for Brandon's take on “stealth-wealth” margins and a quick CTA to Paul Giannamore's Private-Equity Masterclass playlist—then audit the numbers that actually move your own scoreboard. From PE Teachers to Pest-Control Owners: The Julio Twins' POTOMAC Experience https://youtu.be/HAx9noqsqTo https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulgiannamore www.potomaccompany.com https://bluecollartwins.com Produced by: www.verbell.ltd Timestamps (podcast.co-ready) 00:00 – Cold-open: Brandon on San Antonio's $2 M sprint and ignoring competitors 00:35 – Meet-cute in Denver: Twins recap how Romex hit the Buzz radar 02:00 – Idaho & Utah roots ➜ NC lake life and snowboard obsession 04:00 – Pre-dental student to Yamaha finance wiz; first taste of sales 05:55 – Buying the dealership at 23 amid the 2008 crash 07:50 – The $50 K zero-percent credit-card gamble (dad said “pound sand”) 10:30 – #1 Yamaha dealer award, Hawaii trip & seven-figure exit at 27 12:45 – Houseboat “retirement” on Lake Powell—then the FBI phone call 15:30 – Ponzi fallout: losing everything, choosing bounce-back over bitterness 18:15 – Digital-marketing lessons he'd use to 10x a dealership today 21:30 – Door-to-door debut with Alterra; launching Romex during senior year of college 24:00 – Early offices, small acquisitions & meeting sales phenom JJ 27:00 – High close-rate playbook: 55-plus communities and 10-deal days 30:00 – Golden-Door sellers, mindset of elite reps, and JJ's natural talent 32:45 – Romex footprint: TX, OK, LA, MS—why every growth dollar points to Texas 34:50 – Data-driven market picks; San Antonio case study 35:35 – Revenue targets: $50 M by 2027, PCT Top-40 climb, margin focus 38:00 – Personal goals: lake-house life, golf bets & the women's-attire wager 39:55 – Twins invite Brandon to Potomac 100 mastermind in Puerto Rico 40:30 – Dylan Seals outro & Masterclass CTA

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.WhoPete Sonntag, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of Sun Valley, IdahoRecorded onApril 9, 2025About Sun ValleyClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The R. Earl Holding family, which also owns Snowbasin, UtahPass affiliations:* Ikon Pass – 7 days, no blackouts; no access on Ikon Base or Session passes; days shared between Bald and Dollar mountains* Mountain Collective – 2 days, no blackouts; days shared between Bald and Dollar mountainsReciprocal pass partners: Challenger Platinum and Challenger season passes include unlimited access to Snowbasin, UtahLocated in: Ketchum, IdahoClosest neighboring ski areas: Rotarun (:47), Soldier Mountain (1:10)Base elevation | summit elevation | vertical drop:Bald Mountain: 5,750 feet | 9,150 feet | 3,400 feetDollar Mountain: 6,010 feet | 6,638 feet | 628 feetSkiable Acres: 2,533 acres (Bald Mountain) | 296 acres (Dollar Mountain)Average annual snowfall: 200 inchesTrail count: 122 (100 on Bald Mountain; 22 on Dollar) – 2% double-black, 20% black, 42% intermediate, 36% beginnerLift fleet:Bald Mountain: 12 lifts (8-passenger gondola, 2 six-packs, 6 high-speed quads, 2 triples, 1 carpet - view Lift Blog's of inventory of Bald Mountain's lift fleet)Dollar Mountain: 5 lifts (2 high-speed quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 1 carpet - view Lift Blog's of inventory of Dollar Mountain's lift fleet)Why I interviewed him (again)Didn't we just do this? Sun Valley, the Big Groom, the Monster at the End of The Road (or at least way off the interstate)? Didn't you make All The Points? Pretty and remote and excellent. Why are we back here already when there are so many mountains left to slot onto the podcast? Fair questions, easy answer: because American lift-served skiing is in the midst of a financial and structural renaissance driven by the advent of the multimountain ski pass. A network of megamountains that 15 years ago had been growing creaky and cranky under aging lift networks has, in the past five years, flung new machines up the mountain with the slaphappy glee of a minor league hockey mascot wielding a T-shirt cannon. And this investment, while widespread, has been disproportionately concentrated on a handful of resorts aiming to headline the next generation of self-important holiday Instagram posts: Deer Valley, Big Sky, Steamboat, Snowbasin, and Sun Valley (among others). It's going to be worth checking in on these places every few years as they rapidly evolve into different versions of themselves.And Sun Valley is changing fast. When I hosted Sonntag on the podcast in 2022, Sun Valley had just left Epic for Ikon/Mountain Collective and announced its massive Broadway-Flying Squirrel installation, a combined 14,982 linear feet of high-speed machinery that included a replacement of North America's tallest chairlift. A new Seattle Ridge sixer followed, and the World Cup spectacle followed that. Meanwhile, Sun Valley had settled into its new pass coalitions and teased more megalifts and improvements to the village. Last December, the resort's longtime owner, Carol Holding, passed away at age 95. Whatever the ramifications of all that will be, the trajectory and fate of Sun Valley over the next decade is going to set (as much or more than it traces), the arc of the remaining large independents in our consolidating ski world.What we talked aboutThe passing and legacy of longtime owner Carol Holding and her late husband Earl – “she was involved with the business right up until the very end”; how the Holdings modernized the Sun Valley ski areas; long-term prospects for Sun Valley and Snowbasin independence following Mrs. Holding's passing; bringing World Cup Downhill races back to Sun Valley; what it took to prep Bald Mountain for the events; the risks of hosting a World Cup; finish line vibes; the potential for a World Cup return and when and how that could happen; the impact of the Challenger and Flying Squirrel lift upgrades; potential upgrades for the Frenchman's, River Run, Lookout Express, and Christmas lifts; yes Sun Valley has glades; the impact of the Seattle Ridge chairlift upgrade; why actual lift capacity for Sun Valley's legacy high-speed quads doesn't match spec; explaining Sun Valley's infrastructure upgrade surge; why Mayday and Lookout will likely remain fixed-grip machines; the charm of Dollar Mountain; considering Dollar lift upgrades; what happened to the Silver Dollar carpet; why Sun Valley is likely sticking with Ikon and Mountain Collective long-term after trying both those coalitions and Epic; whether Sun Valley could join Ikon Base now that Alterra ditched Ikon Base Plus; RFID coming at last; whether we could still see a gondola connection between Sun Valley Village and Dollar and Bald mountains; and why Sun Valley isn't focused on slopeside development at Bald Mountain.Why now was a good time for this interviewSince I more or less covered interview timing above, let me instead pull out a bit about Sun Valley's megapass participation that ended up being timely by accident. We recorded this conversation in April, well before Vail Resorts named Rob Katz its CEO for a second time, likely resetting what had become a lopsided (in Alterra's favor) Epic-versus-Ikon battle. Here's what Sonntag had to say on the pod in 2022, when Sun Valley had just wrapped its three-year Epic Pass run and was preparing for its first season on Ikon:… our three-year run with Epic was really, really good. And it brought guests to Sun Valley who have never been here before. I mean, I think we really proved out the value of these multi-resort passes and these partner passes. People aspire to go other places, and when their pass allows them to do that, that sometimes is the impetus. That's all they need to make that decision to do it. So as successful as that was, we looked at Ikon and thought, well, here's an opportunity to introduce ourselves to a whole new group of guests. And why would we not take advantage of that? We're hoping to convert, obviously, a few of these folks to be Sun Valley regulars. And so now we have the opportunity to do that again with Ikon.When I asked Sonntag during that conversation whether he would consider returning to Epic at some point, he said that “I'm focused on doing a great job of being a great partner with Ikon right now,” and that, “I'm not ready to go there yet.”With three winters of Ikon and Mountain Collective membership stacked, Sonntag spoke definitively this time (emphasis mine):We are very very happy with how everything has gone. We feel like we have great partners with both Ikon, which is, you know, partnering with a company, but they're partners in every sense of the word in terms of how they approach the partnership, and we feel like we have a voice. We have access to data. We can really do right by our customers and our business at the same time.Should we read that as an Epic diss on Broomfield? Perhaps, though saying you like pizza doesn't also mean you don't like tacos. But Sonntag was unambiguous when I asked whether Sun Valley was #TeamIkon long-term: “I would see us staying the course,” he said.For those inclined to further read into this, Sonntag arrived at Sun Valley after a long career at Vail Resorts, which included several years as president/COO-equivalent of Heavenly and Whistler. And while Sun Valley is part of a larger company that also includes Snowbasin, meaning Sonntag is not the sole decision-maker, it is interesting that an executive who spent so much of his career with a first-hand look inside the Epic Pass would now lead a mountain that stands firmly with the opposition.What I got wrongI mischaracterized the comments Sonntag had made on Epic and Ikon when we spoke in 2022, making it sound as though he had suggested that Sun Valley would try both passes and then decide between them. But it was me who asked him whether he would decide between the two after an Ikon trial, and he had declined to answer the question, saying, as noted above, that he wasn't “ready to go there yet.”Why you should ski Sun ValleyIf I was smarter I'd make some sort of heatmap showing where skier visits are clustered across America. Unfortunately I'm dumb, and even more unfortunately, ski areas began treating skier visit numbers with the secrecy of nuclear launch codes about a decade ago, so an accurate map would be difficult to draw up even if I knew how.However, I can offer a limited historical view into the crowding advantages that Sun Valley offers in comparison to its easier-to-access peer resorts. Check out Sun Valley's average annual skier visits from 2005 to 2011, compared to similarly sized Breckenridge and Keystone, and smaller Beaver Creek:Here's how those four ski areas compare in size and average skier visits per acre:Of course, 2011 was a long time ago and multi-mountain passes have dramatically reworked visitation patterns. Breck, Keystone, and Beaver Creek, all owned by Vail during the above timeframe, joined Epic Pass in 2008, while Sun Valley would stand on its own until landing on Mountain Collective in 2015, then Epic in 2019, then back to MC and Ikon in 2022. Airline service to Sun Valley has improved greatly in the past 15 years, which could also have ramped up the resort's skier visits.Still, anecdote and experience suggest that these general visitation ratios remain similar to the present day. Beaver Creek remains a bit of a hidey-hole by Colorado standards, but Breck and Keystone, planted right off America's busiest ski corridor in America's busiest ski state, are among the most obvious GPS inputs for the Epic Pass masses. No one has to try that hard to get to Summit County. To get to Sun Valley, you still have to work (and spend), a bit more.So that's the pitch, I guess, in addition to all the established Sun Valley bullet points: excellent grooming and outrageous views and an efficient and fast lift network. By staying off the Ikon Base Pass, not to mention Interstates 70 and 80, Sun Valley has managed to achieve oxymoron status: the big, modern U.S. ski resort that feels mostly empty most of the time. It's this and Taos and Telluride and a few others tossed into the far corners of the Rockies, places that at once feel of the moment and stand slightly outside of time.Podcast NotesOn Sun Valley/Pete 1.0Sonntag first joined me on the pod back in 2022:On Carol HoldingLongtime Sun Valley owner Carol Holding passed away on Dec. 23, 2024. Boise Dev recalled a bit of the family legacy around Sun Valley:“One day, I spotted Earl and Carol dining on the patio and asked him again,” Webb told Bossick. “And Carol turned to him and said, ‘Earl, you've been saying you're going to do that for years. If you don't build a new lodge, I'm going to divorce you.' That's what she said!”The lodge opened in 2004, dubbed Carol's Dollar Mountain Lodge.In a 2000 interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, Carol made it clear that she was as much a part of the business as Earl, whose name caught most of the headlines.“I either became part of his business or lived alone,” she said.The pair often bought distressed or undervalued assets and invested to upgrade them. She told the Tribune that paying attention to the dollars in those early years made a big difference.“I still have the first dollar bill that anyone gave me as a tip,” she said.Once they bought Sun Valley, Robert and Carol wasted no time.Wally Huffman, the resort's GM, got a call to the area above the Ram Restaurant. Someone was stuffing mattresses out the window, and they were landing with a thud on the kitchen loading dock below. Huffman called Janss – the person who had owned the resort – and asked what to do.“I think you should do whatever Mr. Holding tells you to do.”Robert and Carol had purchased the property, and upgrades were well underway. They didn't know how to ski. But they did know hospitality.“Why would anyone who didn't know how to ski buy a ski resort? That wasn't why we bought it—to come here to ski,” Carol said. “We bought it to run as a business.”Earl Holding's 2013 New York Times obituary included background on the couple's purchase of Sun Valley:A year later, Carol Holding, who was her husband's frequent business partner, showed him a newspaper article about the potential sale of Sun Valley. He bought the resort, which had fallen into disrepair since its glory years as a getaway for Ernest Hemingway and others, after he and his wife spent a day there skiing. They had never skied before.Davy Ratchford, President of sister resort Snowbasin, told a great story about Carol Holding on the podcast back in 2023 [31:20]:Mrs. Holding is an amazing woman and is sharp. She knows everything that's going on at the resorts. She used to work here, right? She'd flip burgers and she'd sell things from the retail store. I mean she's an original, right? Like she is absolutely amazing and she knows everything about it. And I was hired and I remember being in our lodge and I had all the employees there and she was introducing me, and it was an amazing experience. I remember I was kneeling down next to her chair and I said, “You know, Mrs. Holding, thank you for the opportunity.” And she grabs both your hands and she holds them in tight to her, and that's how she talks to you. It's this amazing moment. And I said, “I just want to make sure I'm doing exactly what you want me to do for you and Earl's legacy of Snowbasin.” I know how much they love it, right? Since 1984. And I said, “Can I just ask your advice?” And this is exactly what she said to me, word for word, she said, “Be nice and hire nice people.” And every employee orientation since then, I've said that: “Our job is to be nice and to hire nice people.”Listen to the rest here:On Sun Valley's evolutionWhen the Holdings showed up in 1977, Sun Valley, like most contemporary ski areas, was a massive tangle of double and triple chairs:The resort upgraded rapidly, installing seven high-speed quads between 1988 and 1994: Unfortunately, the ski area chose Yan, whose bungling founder's shortcuts transformed the machines into deathtraps, as its detachable partner. The ski area heavily retrofit all seven machines in partnership with Doppelmayr in 1995. Sun Valley has so far replaced three of the seven Yans: the Seattle Ridge sixer replaced the detach quad of the same name last year and the Broadway sixer and Flying Squirrel quad replaced the Broadway and Greyhawk quads in 2023, on a new alignment:Sonntag outlines which of the remaining four Yan-Doppelmayr hybrids will be next on the pod.I've summarized the Yan drama several times, most recently in the article accompanying my podcast conversation with Mammoth COO Eric Clark earlier this year:On World Cup resultsWhile we talk in general about the motivation behind hosting the World Cup, what it took to prep the mountain, and the energy of the event itself, we don't get a lot into the specifics of the events themselves. Here are all the official stats. Videos here.On gladesYes, Sun Valley has glades (video by #GoProBro, which is me):On Ikon Pass' evolutionI feel as though I publish this chart every other article, but here it is. If you're reading this in the future, click through for the most current:On the Sun Valley Village masterplanWe discuss an old Sun Valley masterplan that included a gondola connection from the village to Dollar and then Bald mountains:The new village plan, which is a separate document, rather than an update of the image above, doesn't mention it:Why? We discuss.The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. Please support independent ski journalism, or we'll all be reading about bros backflipping over moving trains for the rest of our lives. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

We welcome Jeremy DeBenedictis, President of Alterra, and Ross Eisenberg, President of America's Plastic Makers at the American Chemistry Council. We're diving into a topic that impacts nearly every aspect of modern life — plastics. From the packaging that protects our food to the components in our vehicles, medical equipment, and technology, plastics play a vital role in the American economy and our daily routinesLearn More:https://www.alterra360.com/https://www.linkedin.com/company/alterraenergy/@AlterraEnergy on Xhttps://plasticmakers.org/@eisenberg_ross on Xlinkedin.com/in/ross-eisenberg-acc

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication (and my full-time job). To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoChris Cushing, Principal of Mountain Planning at SE GroupRecorded onApril 3, 2025About SE GroupFrom the company's website:WE AREMountain planners, landscape architects, environmental analysts, and community and recreation planners. From master planning to conceptual design and permitting, we are your trusted partner in creating exceptional experiences and places.WE BELIEVEThat human and ecological wellbeing forms the foundation for thriving communities.WE EXISTTo enrich people's lives through the power of outdoor recreation.If that doesn't mean anything to you, then this will:Why I interviewed himNature versus nurture: God throws together the recipe, we bake the casserole. A way to explain humans. Sure he's six foot nine, but his mom dropped him into the intensive knitting program at Montessori school 232, so he can't play basketball for s**t. Or identical twins, separated at birth. One grows up as Sir Rutherford Ignacious Beaumont XIV and invents time travel. The other grows up as Buford and is the number seven at Okey-Doke's Quick Oil Change & Cannabis Emporium. The guts matter a lot, but so does the food.This is true of ski areas as well. An earthquake here, a glacier there, maybe a volcanic eruption, and, presto: a non-flat part of the earth on which we may potentially ski. The rest is up to us.It helps if nature was thoughtful enough to add slopes of varying but consistent pitch, a suitable rise from top to bottom, a consistent supply of snow, a flat area at the base, and some sort of natural conduit through which to move people and vehicles. But none of that is strictly necessary. Us humans (nurture), can punch green trails across solid-black fall lines (Jackson Hole), bulldoze a bigger hill (Caberfae), create snow where the clouds decline to (Wintergreen, 2022-23), plant the resort base at the summit (Blue Knob), or send skiers by boat (Eaglecrest).Someone makes all that happen. In North America, that someone is often SE Group, or their competitor, Ecosign. SE Group helps ski areas evolve into even better ski areas. That means helping to plan terrain expansions, lift replacements, snowmaking upgrades, transit connections, parking enhancements, and whatever built environment is under the ski area's control. SE Group is often the machine behind those Forest Service ski area master development plans that I so often spotlight. For example, Vail Mountain:When I talk about Alta consolidating seven slow lifts into four fast lifts; or Little Switzerland carving their mini-kingdom into beginner, parkbrah, and racer domains; or Mount Bachelor boosting its power supply to run more efficiently, this is the sort of thing that SE plots out (I'm not certain if they were involved in any or all of those projects).Analyzing this deliberate crafting of a natural bump into a human playground is the core of what The Storm is. I love, skiing, sure, but specifically lift-served skiing. I'm sure it's great to commune with the raccoons or whatever it is you people do when you discuss “skinning” and “AT setups.” But nature left a few things out. Such as: ski patrol, evacuation sleds, avalanche control, toilet paper, water fountains, firepits, and a place to charge my phone. Oh and chairlifts. And directional signs with trail ratings. And a snack bar.Skiing is torn between competing and contradictory narratives: the misanthropic, which hates crowds and most skiers not deemed sufficiently hardcore; the naturalistic, which mistakes ski resorts with the bucolic experience that is only possible in the backcountry; the preservationist, with its museum-ish aspirations to glasswall the obsolete; the hyperactive, insisting on all fast lifts and groomed runs; the fatalists, who assume inevitable death-of-concept in a warming world.None of these quite gets it. Ski areas are centers of joy and memory and bonhomie and possibility. But they are also (mostly), businesses. They are also parks, designed to appeal to as many skiers as possible. They are centers of organized risk, softened to minimize catastrophic outcomes. They must enlist machine aid to complement natural snowfall and move skiers up those meddlesome but necessary hills. Ski areas are nature, softened and smoothed and labelled by their civilized stewards, until the land is not exactly a representation of either man or God, but a strange and wonderful hybrid of both.What we talked aboutOld-school Cottonwoods vibe; “the Ikon Pass has just changed the industry so dramatically”; how to become a mountain planner for a living; what the mountain-planning vocation looked like in the mid-1980s; the detachable lift arrives; how to consolidate lifts without sacrificing skier experience; when is a lift not OK?; a surface lift resurgence?; how sanctioned glades changed ski areas; the evolution of terrain parks away from mega-features; the importance of terrain parks to small ski areas; reworking trails to reduce skier collisions; the curse of the traverse; making Jackson more approachable; on terrain balance; how megapasses are redistributing skier visits; how to expand a ski area without making traffic worse; ski areas that could evolve into major destinations; and ski area as public park or piece of art.What I got wrong* I blanked on the name of the famous double chair at A-Basin. It is Pallavicini.* I called Crystal Mountain's two-seater served terrain “North Country or whatever” – it is actually called “Northway.”* I said that Deer Valley would become the fourth- or fifth-largest ski resort in the nation once its expansion was finished. It will become the sixth-largest, at 4,926 acres, when the next expansion phase opens for winter 2025-26, and will become the fourth-largest, at 5,726 acres, at full build out.* I estimated Kendall Mountain's current lift-served ski footprint at 200 vertical feet; it is 240 feet.Why now was a good time for this interviewWe have a tendency, particularly in outdoor circles, to lionize the natural and shame the human. Development policy in the United States leans heavily toward “don't,” even in areas already designated for intensive recreation. We mustn't, plea activists: expand the Palisades Tahoe base village; build a gondola up Little Cottonwood Canyon; expand ski terrain contiguous with already-existing ski terrain at Grand Targhee.I understand these impulses, but I believe they are misguided. Intensive but thoughtful, human-scaled development directly within and adjacent to already-disturbed lands is the best way to limit the larger-scale, long-term manmade footprint that chews up vast natural tracts. That is: build 1,000 beds in what is now a bleak parking lot at Palisades Tahoe, and you limit the need for homes to be carved out of surrounding forests, and for hundreds of cars to daytrip into the ski area. Done right, you even create a walkable community of the sort that America conspicuously lacks.To push back against, and gradually change, the Culture of No fueling America's mountain town livability crises, we need exhibits of these sorts of projects actually working. More Whistlers (built from scratch in the 1980s to balance tourism and community) and fewer Aspens (grandfathered into ski town status with a classic street and building grid, but compromised by profiteers before we knew any better). This is the sort of work SE is doing: how do we build a better interface between civilization and nature, so that the former complements, rather than spoils, the latter?All of which is a little tangential to this particular podcast conversation, which focuses mostly on the ski areas themselves. But America's ski centers, established largely in the middle of the last century, are aging with the towns around them. Just about everything, from lifts to lodges to roads to pipes, has reached replacement age. Replacement is a burden, but also an opportunity to create a better version of something. Our ski areas will not only have faster lifts and newer snowguns – they will have fewer lifts and fewer guns that carry more people and make more snow, just as our built footprint, thoughtfully designed, can provide more homes for more people on less space and deliver more skiers with fewer vehicles.In a way, this podcast is almost a canonical Storm conversation. It should, perhaps, have been episode one, as every conversation since has dealt with some version of this question: how do humans sculpt a little piece of nature into a snowy park that we visit for fun? That is not an easy or obvious question to answer, which is why SE Group exists. Much as I admire our rough-and-tumble Dave McCoy-type founders, that improvisational style is trickier to execute in our highly regulated, activist present.And so we rely on artist-architects of the SE sort, who inject the natural with the human without draining what is essential from either. Done well, this crafted experience feels wild. Done poorly – as so much of our legacy built environment has been – and you generate resistance to future development, even if that future development is better. But no one falls in love with a blueprint. Experiencing a ski area as whatever it is you think a ski area should be is something you have to feel. And though there is a sort of magic animating places like Alta and Taos and Mammoth and Mad River Glen and Mount Bohemia, some ineffable thing that bleeds from the earth, these ski areas are also outcomes of a human-driven process, a determination to craft the best version of skiing that could exist for mass human consumption on that shred of the planet.Podcast NotesOn MittersillMittersill, now part of Cannon Mountain, was once a separate ski area. It petered out in the mid-‘80s, then became a sort of Cannon backcountry zone circa 2009. The Mittersill double arrived in 2010, followed by a T-bar in 2016.On chairlift consolidationI mention several ski areas that replaced a bunch of lifts with fewer lifts:The HighlandsIn 2023, Boyne-owned The Highlands wiped out three ancient Riblet triples and replaced them with this glorious bubble six-pack:Here's a before-and-after:Vernon Valley-Great Gorge/Mountain CreekI've called Intrawest's transformation of Vernon Valley-Great Gorge into Mountain Creek “perhaps the largest single-season overhaul of a ski area in the history of lift-served skiing.” Maybe someone can prove me wrong, but just look at this place circa 1989:It looked substantively the same in 1998, when, in a single summer, Intrawest tore out 18 lifts – 15 double chairs, two platters, and a T-bar, plus God knows how many ropetows – and replaced them with two high-speed quads, two fixed-grip quads, and a bucket-style Cabriolet lift that every normal ski area uses as a parking lot transit machine:I discussed this incredible transformation with current Hermitage Club GM Bill Benneyan, who worked at Mountain Creek in 1998, back in 2020:I misspoke on the podcast, saying that Intrawest had pulled out “something like a dozen lifts” and replaced them with “three or four” in 1998.KimberleyBack in the time before social media, Kimberley, British Columbia ran four frontside chairlifts: a high-speed quad, a triple, a double, and a T-bar:Beginning in 2001, the ski area slowly removed everything except the quad. Which was fine until an arsonist set fire to Kimberley's North Star Express in 2021, meaning skiers had no lift-served option to the backside terrain:I discussed this whole strange sequence of events with Andy Cohen, longtime GM of sister resort Fernie, on the podcast last year:On Revelstoke's original masterplanIt is astonishing that Revelstoke serves 3,121 acres with just five lifts: a gondola, two high-speed quads, a fixed quad, and a carpet. Most Midwest ski areas spin three times more lifts for three percent of the terrain.On Priest Creek and Sundown at SteamboatSteamboat, like many ski areas, once ran two parallel fixed-grip lifts on substantively the same line, with the Priest Creek double and the Sundown triple. The Sundown Express quad arrived in 1992, but Steamboat left Priest Creek standing for occasional overflow until 2021. Here's Steamboat circa 1990:Priest Creek is gone, but that entire 1990 lift footprint is nearly unrecognizable. Huge as Steamboat is, every arriving skier squeezes in through a single portal. One of Alterra's first priorities was to completely re-imagine the base area: sliding the existing gondola looker's right; installing an additional 10-person, two-stage gondola right beside it; and moving the carpets and learning center to mid-mountain:On upgrades at A-BasinWe discuss several upgrades at A-Basin, including Lenawee, Beavers, and Pallavicini. Here's the trailmap for context:On moguls on Kachina Peak at TaosYeah I'd say this lift draws some traffic:On the T-bar at Waterville ValleyWaterville Valley opened in 1966. Fifty-two years later, mountain officials finally acknowledged that chairlifts do not work on the mountain's top 400 vertical feet. All it took was a forced 1,585-foot shortening of the resort's base-to-summit high-speed quad just eight years after its 1988 installation and the legacy double chair's continued challenges in wind to say, “yeah maybe we'll just spend 90 percent less to install a lift that's actually appropriate for this terrain.” That was the High Country T-bar, which arrived in 2018. It is insane to look at ‘90s maps of Waterville pre- and post-chop job:On Hyland Hills, MinnesotaWhat an insanely amazing place this is:On Sunrise ParkFrom 1983 to 2017, Sunrise Park, Arizona was home to the most amazing triple chair, a 7,982-foot-long Yan with 352 carriers. Cyclone, as it was known, fell apart at some point and the resort neglected to fix or replace it. A couple of years ago, they re-opened the terrain to lift-served skiing with a low-cost alternative: stringing a ropetow from a green run off the Geronimo lift to where Cyclone used to land.On Woodward Park City and BorealPowdr has really differentiated itself with its Woodward terrain parks, which exist at amazing scale at Copper and Bachelor. The company has essentially turned two of its smaller ski areas – Boreal and Woodward Park City – entirely over to terrain parks.On Killington's tunnelsYou have to zoom in, but you can see them on the looker's right side of the trailmap: Bunny Buster at Great Northern, Great Bear at Great Northern, and Chute at Great Northern.On Jackson Hole traversesJackson is steep. Engineers hacked it so kids like mine could ride there:On expansions at Beaver Creek, Keystone, AspenRecent Colorado expansions have tended to create vast zones tailored to certain levels of skiers:Beaver Creek's McCoy Park is an incredible top-of-the-mountain green zone:Keystone's Bergman Bowl planted a high-speed six-pack to serve 550 acres of high-altitude intermediate terrain:And Aspen – already one of the most challenging mountains in the country – added Hero's – a fierce black-diamond zone off the summit:On Wilbere at SnowbirdWilbere is an example of a chairlift that kept the same name, even as Snowbird upgraded it from a double to a quad and significantly moved the load station and line:On ski terrain growth in AmericaYes, a bunch of ski areas have disappeared since the 1980s, but the raw amount of ski terrain has been increasing steadily over the decades:On White Pine, WyomingCushing referred to White Pine as a “dinky little ski area” with lots of potential. Here's a look at the thousand-footer, which billionaire Joe Ricketts purchased last year:On Deer Valley's expansionYeah, Deer Valley is blowing up:On Schweitzer's growthSchweitzer's transformation has been dramatic: in 1988, the Idaho panhandle resort occupied a large footprint that was served mostly by double chairs:Today: a modern ski area, with four detach quads, a sixer, and two newer triples – only one old chairlift remains:On BC transformationsA number of British Columbia ski areas have transformed from nubbins to majors over the past 30 years:Sun Peaks, then known as Tod Mountain, in 1993Sun Peaks today:Fernie in 1996, pre-upward expansion:Fernie today:Revelstoke, then known as Mount Mackenzie, in 1996:Modern Revy:Kicking Horse, then known as “Whitetooth” in 1994:Kicking Horse today:On Tamarack's expansion potentialTamarack sits mostly on Idaho state land, and would like to expand onto adjacent U.S. Forest Service land. Resort President Scott Turlington discussed these plans in depth with me on the pod a few years back:The mountain's plans have changed since, with a smaller lift footprint:On Central Park as a manmade placeNew York City's fabulous Central Park is another chunk of earth that may strike a visitor as natural, but is in fact a manmade work of art crafted from the wilderness. Per the Central Park Conservancy, which, via a public-private partnership with the city, provides the majority of funds, labor, and logistical support to maintain the sprawling complex:A popular misconception about Central Park is that its 843 acres are the last remaining natural land in Manhattan. While it is a green sanctuary inside a dense, hectic metropolis, this urban park is entirely human-made. It may look like it's naturally occurring, but the flora, landforms, water, and other features of Central Park have not always existed.Every acre of the Park was meticulously designed and built as part of a larger composition—one that its designers conceived as a "single work of art." Together, they created the Park through the practice that would come to be known as "landscape architecture."The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication (and my full-time job). To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoJoe Hession, CEO of Snow Partners, which owns Mountain Creek, Big Snow American Dream, SnowCloud, and Terrain Based LearningRecorded onMay 2, 2025About Snow PartnersSnow Partners owns and operates Mountain Creek, New Jersey and Big Snow American Dream, the nation's only indoor ski center. The company also developed SnowCloud resort management software and has rolled out its Terrain Based Learning system at more than 80 ski areas worldwide. They do some other things that I don't really understand (there's a reason that I write about skiing and not particle physics), that you can read about on their website.About Mountain CreekLocated in: Vernon Township, New JerseyClosest neighboring public ski areas: Mount Peter (:24); Big Snow American Dream (:50); Campgaw (:51) Pass affiliations: Snow Triple Play, up to two anytime daysBase elevation: 440 feetSummit elevation: 1,480 feetVertical drop: 1,040 feetSkiable Acres: 167Average annual snowfall: 65 inchesTrail count: 46Lift count: 9 (1 Cabriolet, 2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mountain Creek's lift fleet)About Big Snow American DreamLocated in: East Rutherford, New JerseyClosest neighboring public ski areas: Campgaw (:35); Mountain Creek (:50); Mount Peter (:50)Pass affiliations: Snow Triple Play, up to two anytime daysVertical drop: 160 feet Skiable Acres: 4Trail count: 4 (2 green, 1 blue, 1 black)Lift count: 4 (1 quad, 1 poma, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog's of inventory of Big Snow American Dream's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himI read this earlier today:The internet is full of smart people writing beautiful prose about how bad everything is, how it all sucks, how it's embarrassing to like anything, how anything that appears good is, in fact, secretly bad. I find this confusing and tragic, like watching Olympic high-jumpers catapult themselves into a pit of tarantulas.That blurb was one of 28 “slightly rude notes on writing” offered in Adam Mastroianni's Experimental History newsletter. And I thought, “Man this dude must follow #SkiTwitter.” Or Instabook. Of Flexpost. Or whatever. Because online ski content, both short- and long-form, is, while occasionally joyous and evocative, disproportionately geared toward the skiing-is-fucked-and-this-is-why worldview. The passes suck. The traffic sucks. The skiers suck. The prices suck. The parking sucks. The Duopoly sucks. Everyone's a Jerry, chewing up my pow line with their GoPro selfie sticks hoisted high and their Ikon Passes dangling from their zippers. Skiing is corporate and soulless and tourist obsessed and doomed anyway because of climate change. Don't tell me you're having a good time doing this very fun thing. People like you are the reason skiing's soul now shops at Wal-Mart. Go back to Texas and drink a big jug of oil, you Jerry!It's all so… f*****g dumb. U.S. skiing just wrapped its second-best season of attendance. The big passes, while imperfect, are mostly a force for good, supercharging on-hill infrastructure investment, spreading skiers across geographies, stabilizing a once-storm-dependent industry, and lowering the per-day price of skiing for the most avid among us to 1940s levels. Snowmaking has proven an effective bulwark against shifting weather patterns. Lift-served skiing is not a dying pastime, financially or spiritually or ecologically. Yes, modern skiing has problems: expensive food (pack a lunch); mountain-town housing shortages (stop NIMBY-ing everything); traffic (yay car culture); peak-day crowds (don't go then); exploding insurance, labor, utilities, and infrastructure costs (I have no answers). But in most respects, this is a healthy, thriving, constantly evolving industry, and a more competitive one than the Duopoly Bros would admit.Snow Partners proves this. Because what the hell is Snow Partners? It's some company sewn together by a dude who used to park cars at Mountain Creek. Ten years ago this wasn't a thing, and now it's this wacky little conglomerate that owns a bespoke resort tech platform and North America's only snowdome and the impossible, ridiculous Mountain Creek. And they're going to build a bunch more snowdomes that stamp new skiers out by the millions and maybe – I don't know but maybe – become the most important company in the history of lift-served skiing in the process.Could such an outfit possibly have materialized were the industry so corrupted as the Brobot Pundit Bros declare it? Vail is big. Alterra is big. But the two companies combined control just 53 of America's 501 active ski areas. Big ski areas, yes. Big shadows. But neither created: Indy Pass, Power Pass, Woodward Parks, Terrain Based Learning, Mountain Collective, RFID, free skiing for kids, California Mountain Resort Company, or $99 season passes. Neither saved Holiday Mountain or Hatley Pointe or Norway Mountain or Timberline West Virigina from the scrapheap, or transformed a failing Black Mountain into a co-op. Neither has proven they can successfully run a ski area in Indiana (sorry Vail #SickBurn #SellPaoliPeaks #Please).Skiing, at this moment, is a glorious mix of ideas and energy. I realize it makes me uncool to think so, but I signed off on those aspirations the moment I drove the minivan off the Chrysler lot (topped it off with a roofbox, too, Pimp). Anyhow, the entire point of this newsletter is to track down the people propelling change in a sport that most likely predates the written word and ask them why they're doing these novel things to make an already cool and awesome thing even more cool and awesome. And no one, right now, is doing more cool and awesome things in skiing than Snow Partners.**That's not exactly true. Mountain Capital Partners, Alterra, Ikon Pass, Deer Valley, Entabeni Systems, Jon Schaefer, the Perfect Clan, Boyne Resorts, Big Sky, Mt. Bohemia, Powdr, Vail Resorts, Midwest Family Ski Resorts, and a whole bunch more entities/individuals/coalitions are also contributing massively to skiing's rapid-fire rewiring in the maw of the robot takeover digital industrial revolution. But, hey, when you're in the midst of transforming an entire snow-based industry from a headquarters in freaking New Jersey, you get a hyperbolic bump in the file card description.What we talked aboutThe Snow Triple Play; potential partners; “there's this massive piece of the market that's like ‘I don't even understand what you're talking about'” with big day ticket prices and low-priced season passes; why Mountain Creek sells its Triple Play all season long and why the Snow Triple Play won't work that way (at least at first); M.A.X. Pass and why Mountain Creek declined to join successor passes; an argument for Vail, Alterra and other large ski companies to participate on the Snow Triple Play; comparing skiing to hotels, airlines, and Disney World; “the next five years are going to be the most interesting and disruptive time in the ski industry because of technology”; “we don't compete with anybody”; Liftopia's potential, errors, failure, and legacy; skiing on Groupon; considering Breckenridge as an independent ski area; what a “premium” ski area on the Snow Triple Play would be; why megapasses are “selling people a product that will never be used the way it's sold to them”; why people in NYC feel like going to Mountain Creek, an hour over the George Washington Bridge, is “going to Alaska”; why Snow Triple Play will “never” add a fourth day; sticker shock for Big Snow newbs who emerge from the Dome wanting more; SnowCloud and the tech and the guest journey from parking lot to lifts; why Mountain Creek stopped mailing season passes; Bluetooth Low Energy “is certainly the future of passes”; “100 percent we're getting more Big Snows” – but let's justify the $175 million investment first; Big Snow has a “terrible” design; “I don't see why every city shouldn't have a Big Snow” and which markets Snow Partners is talking to; why Mountain Creek didn't get the mega-lift Hession teased on this pod three years ago and when we could see one; “I really believe that the Vernon base of Mountain Creek needs an updated chair”; the impact of automated snowmaking at Mountain Creek; and a huge residential project incoming at Mountain Creek.What I got wrong* I said that Hession wasn't involved in Mountain Creek in the M.A.X. Pass era, but he was an Intrawest employee at the time, and was Mountain Creek's GM until 2012.* I hedged on whether Boyne's Explorer multi-day pass started at two or three days. Skiers can purchase the pass in three- to six-day increments.Why now was a good time for this interviewOkay, so I'll admit that when Snow Partners summarized the Snow Triple Play for me, I wasn't like “Holy crap, three days (total) at up to three different ski areas on a single ski pass? Do you think they have room for another head on Mount Rushmore?” This multi-day pass is a straightforward product that builds off a smart idea (the Mountain Creek Triple Play), that has been a smash hit at the Jersey Snow Jungle since at least 2008. But Snow Triple Play doesn't rank alongside Epic, Ikon, Indy, or Mountain Collective as a seasonlong basher. This is another frequency product in a market already flush with them.So why did I dedicate an entire podcast and two articles (so far) to dissecting this product, which Hession makes pretty clear has no ambitions to grow into some Indy/Ikon/Epic competitor? Because it is the first product to tie Big Snow to the wider ski world. And Big Snow only works if it is step one and there is an obvious step two. Right now, that step two is hard, even in a region ripe with ski areas. The logistics are confounding, the one-off cost hard to justify. Lift tickets, gear rentals, getting your ass to the bump and back, food, maybe a lesson. The Snow Triple Play doesn't solve all of these problems, but it does narrow an impossible choice down to a manageable one by presenting skiers with a go-here-next menu. If Snow Partners can build a compelling (or at least logical) Northeast network and then scale it across the country as the company opens more Big Snows in more cities, then this simple pass could evolve into an effective toolkit for building new skiers.OK, so why not just join Indy or Mountain Collective, or forge some sort of newb-to-novice agreement with Epic or Ikon? That would give Snow Partners the stepladder, without the administrative hassle of owning a ski pass. But that brings us to another roadblock in Ski Revolution 2025: no one wants to share partners. So Hession is trying to flip the narrative. Rather than locking Big Snow into one confederacy or the other, he wants the warring armies to lash their fleets along Snow Partners Pier. Big Snow is just the bullet factory, or the gas station, or the cornfield – the thing that all the armies need but can't supply themselves. You want new skiers? We got ‘em. They're ready. They just need a map to your doorstep. And we're happy to draw you one.Podcast NotesOn the Snow Triple PlayThe basics: three total days, max of two used at any one partner ski area, no blackouts at Big Snow or Mountain Creek, possible blackouts at partner resorts, which are TBD.The pass, which won't be on sale until Labor Day, is fully summarized here:And I speculate on potential partners here:On the M.A.X. PassFor its short, barely noted existence, the M.A.X. Pass was kind of an amazing hack, granting skiers five days each at an impressive blend of regional and destination ski areas:Much of this roster migrated over to Ikon, but in taking their pass' name too literally, the Alterra folks left off some really compelling regional ski areas that could have established a hub-and-spoke network out of the gate. Lutsen and Granite Peak owner Charles Skinner told me on the podcast a few years back that Ikon never offered his ski areas membership (they joined Indy in 2020), cutting out two of the Midwest's best mountains. The omissions of Mountain Creek, Wachusett, and the New York trio of Belleayre, Whiteface, and Gore ceded huge swaths of the dense and monied Northeast to competitors who saw value in smaller, high-end operations that are day-trip magnets for city folks who also want that week at Deer Valley (no other pass signed any of these mountains, but Vail and Indy both assembled better networks of day-drivers and destinations).On my 2022 interview with HessionOn LiftopiaLiftopia's website is still live, but I'm not sure how many ski areas participate in this Expedia-for-lift-tickets. Six years ago, I thought Liftopia was the next bargain evolution of lift-served skiing. I even hosted founder Evan Reece on one of my first 10 podcasts. The whole thing fell apart when Covid hit. An overview here:On various other day-pass productsI covered this in my initial article, but here's how the Snow Triple Play stacks up against other three-day multi-resort products:On Mountain Creek not mailing passesI don't know anything about tech, but I know, from a skier's point of view, when something works well and when it doesn't. Snow Cloud's tech is incredible in at least one customer-facing respect: when you show up at a ski area, a rep standing in a conspicuous place is waiting with an iPhone, with which they scan a QR code on your phone, and presto-magico: they hand you your ski pass. No lines or waiting. One sentimental casualty of this on-site efficiency was the mailed ski pass, an autumn token of coming winter to be plucked gingerly from the mailbox. And this is fine and makes sense, in the same way that tearing down chairlifts constructed of brontosaurus bones and mastodon hides makes sense, but I must admit that I miss these annual mailings in the same way that I miss paper event tickets and ski magazines. My favorite ski mailing ever, in fact, was not Ikon's glossy fold-out complete with a 1,000-piece 3D jigsaw puzzle of the Wild Blue Gondola and name-a-snowflake-after-your-dog kit, but this simple pamphlet dropped into the envelope with my 2018-19 Mountain Creek season pass:Just f*****g beautiful, Man. That hung on my office wall for years. On the CabrioletThis is just such a wackadoodle ski lift:Onetime Mountain Creek owner Intrawest built similar lifts at Winter Park and Tremblant, but as transit lifts from the parking lot. This one at Mountain Creek is the only one that I'm aware of that's used as an open-air gondola. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Jeremy and Will sit down with David Guinn of Davidson Bogel.David leads the IOS team at Davidson Bogel, where he's helped top institutional investors—including Zenith, IOV, Stonemont, and Alterra—source over 26 off-market acquisitions since 2021. In this episode, he shares his perspective on the IOS sector, how his team uncovers hard-to-find opportunities, and what's fueling investor demand in this rapidly growing niche.Jeremy, Will, and David will also be at the NAIOS Summit at Gilley's in Dallas on Thursday, March 29th, where David will be speaking as part of the event lineup.

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoTyler Fairbank, General Manager of Jiminy Peak, Massachusetts and CEO of Fairbank GroupRecorded onFebruary 10, 2025 and March 7, 2025About Fairbank GroupFrom their website:The Fairbank Group is driven to build things to last – not only our businesses but the relationships and partnerships that stand behind them. Since 2008, we have been expanding our eclectic portfolio of businesses. This portfolio includes three resorts—Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort, Cranmore Mountain Resort, and Bromley Mountain Ski Resort—and real estate development at all three resorts, in addition to a renewable energy development company, EOS Ventures, and a technology company, Snowgun Technology.About Jiminy PeakClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Fairbank Group, which also owns Cranmore and operates Bromley (see breakdowns below)Located in: Hancock, MassachusettsYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 2 days, with blackouts* Uphill New EnglandClosest neighboring ski areas: Bousquet (:27), Catamount (:49), Butternut (:51), Otis Ridge (:54), Berkshire East (:58), Willard (1:02)Base elevation: 1,230 feetSummit elevation: 2,380 feetVertical drop: 1,150 feetSkiable acres: 167.4Average annual snowfall: 100 inchesTrail count: 42Lift count: 9 (1 six-pack, 2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Jiminy Peak's lift fleet)About CranmoreClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Fairbank GroupLocated in: North Conway, New HampshireYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations: * Ikon Pass: 2 days, with blackouts* Uphill New EnglandClosest neighboring ski areas: Attitash (:16), Black Mountain (:18), King Pine (:28), Wildcat (:28), Pleasant Mountain (:33), Bretton Woods (:42)Base elevation: 800 feetSummit elevation: 2,000 feetVertical drop: 1,200 feetSkiable Acres: 170 Average annual snowfall: 80 inchesTrail count: 56 (15 most difficult, 25 intermediate, 16 easier)Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Cranmore's lift fleet)About BromleyClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The estate of Joseph O'DonnellOperated by: The Fairbank GroupPass affiliations: Uphill New EnglandLocated in: Peru, VermontClosest neighboring ski areas: Magic Mountain (14 minutes), Stratton (19 minutes)Base elevation: 1,950 feetSummit elevation: 3,284 feetVertical drop: 1,334 feetSkiable Acres: 300Average annual snowfall: 145 inchesTrail count: 47 (31% black, 37% intermediate, 32% beginner)Lift count: 9 (1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 4 doubles, 1 T-bar, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog's of inventory of Bromley's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himI don't particularly enjoy riding six-passenger chairlifts. Too many people, up to five of whom are not me. Lacking a competent queue-management squad, chairs rise in loads of twos and threes above swarming lift mazes. If you're skiing the West, lowering the bar is practically an act of war. It's all so tedious. Given the option – Hunter, Winter Park, Camelback – I'll hop the parallel two-seater just to avoid the drama.I don't like six-packs, but I sure am impressed by them. Sixers are the chairlift equivalent of a two-story Escalade, or a house with its own private Taco Bell, or a 14-lane expressway. Like damn there's some cash floating around this joint.Sixers are common these days: America is home to 107 of them. But that wasn't always so. Thirty-two of these lifts came online in just the past three years. Boyne Mountain, Michigan built the first American six-pack in 1992, and for three years, it was the only such lift in the nation (and don't think they didn't spend every second reminding us of it). The next sixer rose at Stratton, in 1995, but 18 of the next 19 were built in the West. In 2000, Jiminy Peak demolished a Riblet double and dropped the Berkshire Express in its place.For 26 years, Jiminy Peak has owned the only sixer in the State of Massachusetts (Wachusett will build the second this summer). Even as they multiply, the six-pack remains a potent small-mountain status symbol: Vail owns 31 or them, Alterra 30. Only 10 independents spin one. Sixers are expensive to build, expensive to maintain, difficult to manage. To build such a machine is to declare: we are different, we can handle this, this belongs here and so does your money.Sixty years ago, Jiminy Peak was a rump among a hundred poking out of the Berkshires. It would have been impossible to tell, in 1965, which among these many would succeed. Plenty of good ski areas failed since. Jiminy is among the last mountains standing, a survival-of-the-fittest tale punctuated, at the turn of the century, by the erecting of a super lift that was impossible to look away from. That neighboring Brodie, taller and equal-ish in size to Jiminy, shuttered permanently two years later, after a 62-year run as a New England staple, was probably not a coincidence (yes, I'm aware that the Fairbanks themselves bought and closed Brodie). Jiminy had planted its 2,800-skier-per-hour flag on the block, and everyone noticed and no one could compete.The Berkshire Express is not the only reason Jiminy Peak thrives in a 21st century New England ski scene defined by big companies, big passes, and big crowds. But it's the best single emblem of a keep-moving philosophy that, over many decades, transformed a rust-bucket ski area into a glimmering ski resort. That meant snowmaking before snowmaking was cool, building places to stay on the mountain in a region of day-drivers, propping a wind turbine on the ridge to offset dependence on the energy grid.Non-ski media are determined to describe America's lift-served skiing evolution in terms of climate change, pointing to the shrinking number of ski areas since the era when any farmer with a backyard haystack and a spare tractor engine could run skiers uphill for a nickel. But this is a lazy narrative (America offers a lot more skiing now than it did 30 years ago). Most American ski areas – perhaps none – have failed explicitly because of climate change. At least not yet. Most failed because running a ski area is hard and most people are bad at it. Jiminy, once surrounded by competitors, now stands alone. Why? That's what the world needs to understand.What we talked aboutThe impact of Cranmore's new Fairbank Lodge; analyzing Jiminy's village-building past to consider Cranmore's future; Bromley post-Joe O'Donnell (RIP); Joe's legacy – “just an incredible person, great guy”; taking the long view; growing up at Jiminy Peak in the wild 1970s; Brian Fairbank's legacy building Jiminy Peak – with him, “anything is possible”; how Tyler ended up leading the company when he at one time had “no intention of coming back into the ski business”; growing Fairbank Group around Jiminy; surviving and recovering from a stroke – “I had this thing growing in me my entire life that I didn't realize”; carrying on the family legacy; why Jiminy and Cranmore joined the Ikon Pass as two-day partners, and whether either mountain could join as full partners; why Bromley didn't join Ikon; the importance of New York City to Jiminy Peak and Boston to Cranmore; why the ski areas won't be direct-to-lift with Ikon right away; are the Fairbank resorts for sale?; would Fairbank buy more?; the competitive advantage of on-mountain lodging; potential Jiminy lift upgrades; why the Berkshire Express sixer doesn't need an upgrade of the sort that Cranmore and Bromley's high-speed quads received; why Jiminy runs a fixed-grip triple parallel to its high-speed six; where the mountain's next high-speed lift could run; and Jiminy Peak expansion potential.What I got wrong* I said that I didn't know which year Jiminy Peak installed their wind turbine – it was 2007. Berkshire East built its machine in 2010 and activated it in 2011.* When we recorded the Ikon addendum, Cranmore and Jiminy Peak had not yet offered any sort of Ikon Pass discount to their passholders, but Tyler promised details were coming. Passholders can now find offers for a discounted ($229) three-day Ikon Session pass on either ski area's website.Why now was a good time for this interviewFor all the Fairbanks' vision in growing Jiminy from tumbleweed into redwood, sprinting ahead on snowmaking and chairlifts and energy, the company has been slow to acknowledge the largest shift in the consumer-to-resort pipeline this century: the shift to multi-mountain passes. Even their own three mountains share just one day each for sister resort passholders.That's not the same thing as saying they've been wrong to sit and wait. But it's interesting. Why has this company that's been so far ahead for so long been so reluctant to take part in what looks to be a permanent re-ordering of the industry? And why have they continued to succeed in spite of this no-thanks posture?Or so my thinking went when Tyler and I scheduled this podcast a couple of months ago. Then Jiminy, along with sister resort Cranmore, joined the Ikon Pass. Yes, just as a two-day partner in what Alterra is labeling a “bonus” tier, and only on the full Ikon Pass, and with blackout dates. But let's be clear about this: Jiminy Peak and Cranmore joined the Ikon Pass.Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), for me and my Pangea-paced editing process, we'd recorded the bulk of this conversation several weeks before the Ikon announcement. So we recorded a post-Ikon addendum, which explains the mid-podcast wardrobe change.It will be fascinating to observe, over the next decade, how the remaining holdouts manage themselves in the Epkon-atronic world that is not going away. Will big indies such as Jackson Hole and Alta eventually eject the pass masses as a sort of high-class differentiator? Will large regional standouts like Whitefish and Bretton Woods and Baker and Wolf Creek continue to stand alone in a churning sea of joiners? Or will some economic cataclysm force a re-ordering of the companies piloting these warships, splintering them into woodchips and resetting us back to some version of 1995, where just about every ski area was its own ski area doing battle against every other ski area?I have guesses, but no answers, and no power to do anything, really, other than to watch and ask questions of the Jiminy Peaks of the world as they decide where they fit, and how, and when, into this bizarre and rapidly changing lift-served skiing world that we're all gliding through.Why you should ski Jiminy PeakThere are several versions of each ski area. The trailmap version, cartoonish and exaggerated, designed to be evocative as well as practical, a guide to reality that must bend it to help us understand it. There's the Google Maps version, which straightens out the trailmap but ditches the order and context – it is often difficult to tell, from satellite view, which end of the hill is the top or the bottom, where the lifts run, whether you can walk to the lifts from the parking lot or need to shuttlebus it. There is the oral version, the one you hear from fellow chairlift riders at other resorts, describing their home mountain or an epic day or a secret trail, a vibe or a custom, the thing that makes the place a thing.But the only version of a ski area that matters, in the end, is the lived one. And no amount of research or speculation or YouTube-Insta vibing can equal that. Each mountain is what each mountain is. Determining why they are that way and how that came to be is about 80 percent of why I started this newsletter. And the best mountains, I've found, after skiing hundreds of them, are the ones that surprise you.On paper, Jiminy Peak does not look that interesting: a broad ridge, flat across, a bunch of parallel lifts and runs, a lot of too-wide-and-straight-down. But this is not how it skis. Break left off the sixer and it's go-forever, line after line dropping steeply off a ridge. Down there, somewhere, the Widow White's lift, a doorway to a mini ski area all its own, shooting off, like Supreme at Alta, into a twisting little realm with the long flat runout. Go right off the six-pack and skiers find something else, a ski area from a different time, a trunk trail wrapping gently above a maze of twisting, tangled snow-streets, dozens of potential routes unfolding, gentle but interesting, long enough to inspire a sense of quest and journey.This is not the mountain for everyone. I wish Jiminy had more glades, that they would spin more lifts more often as an alternative to Six-Pack City. But we have Berkshire East for cowboy skiing. Jiminy, an Albany backyarder that considers itself worthy of a $1,051 adult season pass, is aiming for something more buffed and burnished than a typical high-volume city bump. Jiminy doesn't want to be Mountain Creek, NYC's hedonistic free-for-all, or Wachusett, Boston's high-volume, low-cost burner. It's aiming for a little more resort, a little more country club, a little more it-costs-what-it-costs sorry-not-sorry attitude (with a side of swarming kids).Podcast NotesOn other Fairbank Group podcastsOn Joe O'DonnellA 2005 Harvard Business School profile of O'Donnell, who passed away on Jan. 7, 2024 at age 79, gives a nice overview of his character and career:When Joe O'Donnell talks, people listen. Last spring, one magazine ranked him the most powerful person in Boston-head of a privately held, billion-dollar company he built practically from scratch; friend and advisor to politicians of both parties, from Boston's Democratic Mayor Tom Menino to the Bay State's Republican Governor Mitt Romney (MBA '74); member of Harvard's Board of Overseers; and benefactor to many good causes. Not bad for a "cop's kid" who grew up nearby in the blue-collar city of Everett.Read the rest…On Joe O'Donnell “probably owning more ski areas than anyone alive”I wasn't aware of the extent of Joe O'Donnell's deep legacy of ski area ownership, but New England Ski History documents his stints as at least part owner of Magic Mountain VT, Timber Ridge (now defunct, next-door to and still skiable from Magic), Jiminy, Mt. Tom (defunct), and Brodie (also lost). He also served Sugar Mountain, North Carolina as a vendor for years.On stroke survivalKnow how to BE FAST by spending five second staring at this:More, from the CDC.On Jiminy joining the Ikon PassI covered this extensively here:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

For a limited time, upgrade to ‘The Storm's' paid tier for $5 per month or $55 per year. You'll also receive a free year of Slopes Premium, a $29.99 value - valid for annual subscriptions only. Monthly subscriptions do not qualify for free Slopes promotion. Valid for new subscriptions only.WhoIain Martin, Host of The Ski PodcastRecorded onJanuary 30, 2025About The Ski PodcastFrom the show's website:Want to [know] more about the world of skiing? The Ski Podcast is a UK-based podcast hosted by Iain Martin.With different guests every episode, we cover all aspects of skiing and snowboarding from resorts to racing, Ski Sunday to slush.In 2021, we were voted ‘Best Wintersports Podcast‘ in the Sports Podcast Awards. In 2023, we were shortlisted as ‘Best Broadcast Programme' in the Travel Media Awards.Why I interviewed himWe did a swap. Iain hosted me on his show in January (I also hosted Iain in January, but since The Storm sometimes moves at the pace of mammal gestation, here we are at the end of March; Martin published our episode the day after we recorded it).But that's OK (according to me), because our conversation is evergreen. Martin is embedded in EuroSki the same way that I cycle around U.S. AmeriSki. That we wander from similarly improbable non-ski outposts – Brighton, England and NYC – is a funny coincidence. But what interested me most about a potential podcast conversation is the Encyclopedia EuroSkiTannica stored in Martin's brain.I don't understand skiing in Europe. It is too big, too rambling, too interconnected, too above-treeline, too transit-oriented, too affordable, too absent the Brobot ‘tude that poisons so much of the American ski experience. The fact that some French idiot is facing potential jail time for launching a snowball into a random grandfather's skull (filming the act and posting it on TikTok, of course) only underscores my point: in America, we would cancel the grandfather for not respecting the struggle so obvious in the boy's act of disobedience. In a weird twist for a ski writer, I am much more familiar with summer Europe than winter Europe. I've skied the continent a couple of times, but warm-weather cross-continental EuroTreks by train and by car have occupied months of my life. When I try to understand EuroSki, my brain short-circuits. I tease the Euros because each European ski area seems to contain between two and 27 distinct ski areas, because the trail markings are the wrong color, because they speak in the strange code of the “km” and “cm” - but I'm really making fun of myself for Not Getting It. Martin gets it. And he good-naturedly walks me through a series of questions that follow this same basic pattern: “In America, we charge $109 for a hamburger that tastes like it's been pulled out of a shipping container that went overboard in 1944. But I hear you have good and cheap food in Europe – true?” I don't mind sounding like a d*****s if the result is good information for all of us, and thankfully I achieved both of those things on this podcast.What we talked aboutThe European winter so far; how a UK-based skier moves back and forth to the Alps; easy car-free travel from the U.S. directly to Alps ski areas; is ski traffic a thing in Europe?; EuroSki 101; what does “ski area” mean in Europe; Euro snow pockets; climate change realities versus media narratives in Europe; what to make of ski areas closing around the Alps; snowmaking in Europe; comparing the Euro stereotype of the leisurely skier to reality; an aging skier population; Euro liftline queuing etiquette and how it mirrors a nation's driving culture; “the idea that you wouldn't bring the bar down is completely alien to me; I mean everybody brings the bar down on the chairlift”; why an Epic or Ikon Pass may not be your best option to ski in Europe; why lift ticket prices are so much cheaper in Europe than in the U.S.; Most consumers “are not even aware” that Vail has started purchasing Swiss resorts; ownership structure at Euro resorts; Vail to buy Verbier?; multimountain pass options in Europe; are Euros buying Epic and Ikon to ski locally or to travel to North America?; must-ski European ski areas; Euro ski-guide culture; and quirky ski areas.What I got wrongWe discussed Epic Pass' lodging requirement for Verbier, which is in effect for this winter, but which Vail removed for the 2025-26 ski season.Why now was a good time for this interviewI present to you, again, the EuroSki Chart – a list of all 26 European ski areas that have aligned themselves with a U.S.-based multi-mountain pass:The large majority of these have joined Ski NATO (a joke, not a political take Brah), in the past five years. And while purchasing a U.S. megapass is not necessary to access EuroHills in the same way it is to ski the Rockies – doing so may, in fact, be counterproductive – just the notion of having access to these Connecticut-sized ski areas via a pass that you're buying anyway is enough to get people considering a flight east for their turns.And you know what? They should. At this point, a mass abandonment of the Mountain West by the tourists that sustain it is the only thing that may drive the region to seriously reconsider the robbery-by-you-showed-up-here-all-stupid lift ticket prices, car-centric transit infrastructure, and sclerotic building policies that are making American mountain towns impossibly expensive and inconvenient to live in or to visit. In many cases, a EuroSkiTrip costs far less than an AmeriSki trip - especially if you're not the sort to buy a ski pass in March 2025 so that you can ski in February 2026. And though the flights will generally cost more, the logistics of airport-to-ski-resort-and-back generally make more sense. In Europe they have trains. In Europe those trains stop in villages where you can walk to your hotel and then walk to the lifts the next morning. In Europe you can walk up to the ticket window and trade a block of cheese for a lift ticket. In Europe they put the bar down. In Europe a sandwich, brownie, and a Coke doesn't cost $152. And while you can spend $152 on a EuroLunch, it probably means that you drank seven liters of wine and will need a sled evac to the village.“Oh so why don't you just go live there then if it's so perfect?”Shut up, Reductive Argument Bro. Everyplace is great and also sucks in its own special way. I'm just throwing around contrasts.There are plenty of things I don't like about EuroSki: the emphasis on pistes, the emphasis on trams, the often curt and indifferent employees, the “injury insurance” that would require a special session of the European Union to pay out a claim. And the lack of trees. Especially the lack of trees. But more families are opting for a week in Europe over the $25,000 Experience of a Lifetime in the American West, and I totally understand why.A quote often attributed to Winston Churchill reads, “You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives.” Unfortunately, it appears to be apocryphal. But I wish it wasn't. Because it's true. And I do think we'll eventually figure out that there is a continent-wide case study in how to retrofit our mountain towns for a more cost- and transit-accessible version of lift-served skiing. But it's gonna take a while.Podcast NotesOn U.S. ski areas opening this winter that haven't done so “in a long time”A strong snow year has allowed at least 11 U.S. ski areas to open after missing one or several winters, including:* Cloudmont, Alabama (yes I'm serious)* Pinnacle, Maine* Covington and Sault Seal, ropetows outfit in Michigan's Upper Peninsula* Norway Mountain, Michigan – resurrected by new owner after multi-year closure* Tower Mountain, a ropetow bump in Michigan's Lower Peninsula* Bear Paw, Montana* Hatley Pointe, North Carolina opened under new ownership, who took last year off to gut-renovate the hill* Warner Canyon, Oregon, an all-natural-snow, volunteer-run outfit, opened in December after a poor 2023-24 snow year.* Bellows Falls ski tow, a molehill run by the Rockingham Recreation in Vermont, opened for the first time in five years after a series of snowy weeks across New England* Lyndon Outing Club, another volunteer-run ropetow operation in Vermont, sat out last winter with low snow but opened this yearOn the “subway map” of transit-accessible Euro skiingI mean this is just incredible:The map lives on Martin's Ski Flight Free site, which encourages skiers to reduce their carbon footprints. I am not good at doing this, largely because such a notion is a fantasy in America as presently constructed.But just imagine a similar system in America. The nation is huge, of course, and we're not building a functional transcontinental passenger railroad overnight (or maybe ever). But there are several areas of regional density where such networks could, at a minimum, connect airports or city centers with destination ski areas, including:* Reno Airport (from the east), and the San Francisco Bay area (to the west) to the ring of more than a dozen Tahoe resorts (or at least stops at lake- or interstate-adjacent Sugar Bowl, Palisades, Homewood, Northstar, Mt. Rose, Diamond Peak, and Heavenly)* Denver Union Station and Denver airport to Loveland, Keystone, Breck, Copper, Vail, Beaver Creek, and - a stretch - Aspen and Steamboat, with bus connections to A-Basin, Ski Cooper, and Sunlight* SLC airport east to Snowbird, Alta, Solitude, Brighton, Park City, and Deer Valley, and north to Snowbasin and Powder Mountain* Penn Station in Manhattan up along Vermont's Green Mountain Spine: Mount Snow, Stratton, Bromley, Killington, Pico, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Bolton Valley, Stowe, Smugglers' Notch, Jay Peak, with bus connections to Magic and Middlebury Snowbowl* Boston up the I-93 corridor: Tenney, Waterville Valley, Loon, Cannon, and Bretton Woods, with a spur to Conway and Cranmore, Attitash, Wildcat, and Sunday River; bus connections to Black New Hampshire, Sunapee, Gunstock, Ragged, and Mount AbramYes, there's the train from Denver to Winter Park (and ambitions to extend the line to Steamboat), which is terrific, but placing that itsy-bitsy spur next to the EuroSystem and saying “look at our neato train” is like a toddler flexing his toy jet to the pilots as he boards a 757. And they smile and say, “Whoa there, Shooter! Now have a seat while we burn off 4,000 gallons of jet fuel accelerating this f****r to 500 miles per hour.”On the number of ski areas in EuropeI've detailed how difficult it is to itemize the 500-ish active ski areas in America, but the task is nearly incomprehensible in Europe, which has as many as eight times the number of ski areas. Here are a few estimates:* Skiresort.info counts 3,949 ski areas (as of today; the number changes daily) in Europe: list | map* Wikipedia doesn't provide a number, but it does have a very long list* Statista counts a bit more than 2,200, but their list excludes most of Eastern EuropeOn Euro non-ski media and climate change catastropheOf these countless European ski areas, a few shutter or threaten to each year. The resulting media cycle is predictable and dumb. In The Snow concisely summarizes how this pattern unfolds by analyzing coverage of the recent near loss of L'Alpe du Grand Serre, France (emphasis mine):A ski resort that few people outside its local vicinity had ever heard of was the latest to make headlines around the world a month ago as it announced it was going to cease ski operations.‘French ski resort in Alps shuts due to shortage of snow' reported The Independent, ‘Another European ski resort is closing due to lack of snow' said Time Out, The Mirror went for ”Devastation” as another European ski resort closes due to vanishing snow‘ whilst The Guardian did a deeper dive with, ‘Fears for future of ski tourism as resorts adapt to thawing snow season.' The story also appeared in dozens more publications around the world.The only problem is that the ski area in question, L'Alpe du Grand Serre, has decided it isn't closing its ski area after all, at least not this winter.Instead, after the news of the closure threat was publicised, the French government announced financial support, as did the local municipality of La Morte, and a number of major players in the ski industry. In addition, a public crowdfunding campaign raised almost €200,000, prompting the officials who made the original closure decision to reconsider. Things will now be reassessed in a year's time.There has not been the same global media coverage of the news that L'Alpe du Grand Serre isn't closing after all.It's not the first resort where money has been found to keep slopes open after widespread publicity of a closure threat. La Chapelle d'Abondance was apparently on the rocks in 2020 but will be fully open this winter and similarly Austria's Heiligenblut which was said to be at risk of permanently closure in the summer will be open as normal.Of course, ski areas do permanently close, just like any business, and climate change is making the multiple challenges that smaller, lower ski areas face, even more difficult. But in the near-term bigger problems are often things like justifying spends on essential equipment upgrades, rapidly increasing power costs and changing consumer habits that are the bigger problems right now. The latter apparently exacerbated by media stories implying that ski holidays are under severe threat by climate change.These increasingly frequent stories always have the same structure of focusing on one small ski area that's in trouble, taken from the many thousands in the Alps that few regular skiers have heard of. The stories imply (by ensuring that no context is provided), that this is a major resort and typical of many others. Last year some reports implied, again by avoiding giving any context, that a ski area in trouble that is actually close to Rome, was in the Alps.This is, of course, not to pretend that climate change does not pose an existential threat to ski holidays, but just to say that ski resorts have been closing for many decades for multiple reasons and that most of these reports do not give all the facts or paint the full picture.On no cars in ZermattIf the Little Cottonwood activists really cared about the environment in their precious canyon, they wouldn't be advocating for alternate rubber-wheeled transit up to Alta and Snowbird – they'd be demanding that the road be closed and replaced by a train or gondola or both, and that the ski resorts become a pedestrian-only enclave dotted with only as many electric vehicles as it took to manage the essential business of the towns and the ski resorts.If this sounds improbable, just look to Zermatt, which has banned gas cars for decades. Skiers arrive by train. Nearly 6,000 people live there year-round. It is amazing what humans can build when the car is considered as an accessory to life, rather than its central organizing principle.On driving in EuropeDriving in Europe is… something else. I've driven in, let's see: Iceland, Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro. That last one is the scariest but they're all a little scary. Drivers' speeds seem to be limited by nothing other than physics, passing on blind curves is common even on mountain switchbacks, roads outside of major arterials often collapse into one lane, and Euros for some reason don't believe in placing signs at intersections to indicate street names. Thank God for GPS. I'll admit that it's all a little thrilling once the disorientation wears off, and there are things to love about driving in Europe: roundabouts are used in place of traffic lights wherever possible, the density of cars tends to be less (likely due to the high cost of gas and plentiful mass transit options), sprawl tends to be more contained, the limited-access highways are extremely well-kept, and the drivers on those limited-access highways actually understand what the lanes are for (slow, right; fast, left).It may seem contradictory that I am at once a transit advocate and an enthusiastic road-tripper. But I've lived in New York City, home of the United States' best mass-transit system, for 23 years, and have owned a car for 19 of them. There is a logic here: in general, I use the subway or my bicycle to move around the city, and the car to get out of it (this is the only way to get to most ski areas in the region, at least midweek). I appreciate the options, and I wish more parts of America offered a better mix.On chairs without barsIt's a strange anachronism that the United States is still home to hundreds of chairlifts that lack safety bars. ANSI standards now require them on new lift builds (as far as I can tell), but many chairlifts built without bars from the 1990s and earlier appear to have been grandfathered into our contemporary system. This is not the case in the Eastern U.S. where, as far as I'm aware, every chairlift with the exception of a handful in Pennsylvania have safety bars – New York and many New England states require them by law (and require riders to use them). Things get dicey in the Midwest, which has, as a region, been far slower to upgrade its lift fleets than bigger mountains in the East and West. Many ski areas, however, have retrofit their old lifts with bars – I was surprised to find them on the lifts at Sundown, Iowa; Chestnut, Illinois; and Mont du Lac, Wisconsin, for example. Vail and Alterra appear to retrofit all chairlifts with safety bars once they purchase a ski area. But many ski areas across the Mountain West still spin old chairs, including, surprisingly, dozens of mountains in California, Oregon, and Washington, states that tends to have more East Coast-ish outlooks on safety and regulation.On Compagnie des AlpesAccording to Martin, the closest thing Europe has to a Vail- or Alterra-style conglomerate is Compagnie des Alpes, which operates (but does not appear to own) 10 ski areas in the French Alps, and holds ownership stakes in five more. It's kind of an amazing list:Here's the company's acquisition timeline, which includes the ski areas, along with a bunch of amusement parks and hotels:Clearly the path of least resistance to a EuroVail conflagration would be to shovel this pile of coal into the furnace. Martin referenced Tignes' forthcoming exit from the group, to join forces with ski resort Sainte-Foy on June 1, 2026 – teasing a smaller potential EuroVail acquisition. Tignes, however, would not be the first resort to exit CdA's umbrella – Les 2 Alpes left in 2020.On EuroSkiPassesThe EuroMegaPass market is, like EuroSkiing itself, unintelligible to Americans (at least to this American). There are, however, options. Martin offers the Swiss-centric Magic Pass as perhaps the most prominent. It offers access to 92 ski areas (map). You are probably expecting me to make a chart. I will not be making a chart.S**t I need to publish this article before I cave to my irrepressible urge to make a chart.OK this podcast is already 51 days old do not make a chart you moron.I think we're good here.I hope.I will also not be making a chart to track the 12 ski resorts accessible on Austria's Ski Plus City Pass Stubai Innsbruck Unlimited Freedom Pass.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This week we review a recent report of 4 patients with serious complications related to either perforation or external compression from the distal tines of the Alterra prestent when used for transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement. We speak with Dr. R. Allen Ligon, interventional cardiologist at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta/Emory University about a recent multicenter report of rare complications seen with this prosthesis. How common are perforations seen with this device and how often are these clinically silent? What should be done for clinically silent prestent perforations? What sort of surveillance of all patients with this device is warranted after successful placement? These are amongst the questions posed to Dr. Ligon and discussed this week. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaccas.2024.102836

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoErik Mogensen, Director of Indy Pass, founder of Entabeni Systems, and temporary owner and General Manager of Black Mountain, New HampshireRecorded onFebruary 25, 2025About Entabeni SystemsEntabeni provides software and hardware engineering exclusively for independent ski areas. Per the company's one-page website:Entabeni: noun; meaning: zulu - "the mountain"We take pride in providing world class software and hardware engineering in true ski bum style.About Indy PassIndy Pass delivers two days each at 181 Alpine and 44 cross-country ski areas, plus discounts at eight Allied resorts and four Cat-skiing outfits for the 2024-25 ski season. Indy has announced several additional partners for the 2025-26 ski season. Here is the probable 2025-26 Alpine roster as of March 2, 2025 (click through for most up-to-date roster):Doug Fish, who has appeared on this podcast four times, founded Indy Pass in 2019. Mogensen, via Entabeni, purchased the pass in 2023.About Black Mountain, New HampshireClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Indy PassLocated in: Jackson, New HampshireYear founded: 1935Pass affiliations: Indy Pass and Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Attitash (:14), Wildcat (:19), Cranmore (:19), Bretton Woods (:40), King Pine (:43), Pleasant Mountain (:48), Sunday River (1:00), Cannon (1:02), Mt. Abram (1:03)Base elevation: 1,250 feetSummit elevation: 2,350 feetVertical drop: 1,100 feetSkiable acres: 140Average annual snowfall: 125 inchesTrail count: 45Lift count: 5 (1 triple, 1 double, 1 J-bar, 1 platter pull, 1 handletow – view Lift Blog's inventory of Black Mountain's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himI first spoke to Mogensen in the summer of 2020. He was somewhere out west, running something called Entabeni Systems, and he had insight into a story that I was working on. Indy Pass founder and owner-at-the-time Doug Fish had introduced us. The conversation was helpful. I wrote the story and moved on.Mogensen didn't. He kept calling. Kept emailing. There was something he wanted me to understand. Not about any particular story that I was writing, but about skiing as a whole. Specifically, about non-megapass skiing. It wasn't working, he insisted. It couldn't work without sweeping and fundamental changes. And he knew how to make those changes. He was already making them, via Entabeni, by delivering jetpack technology to caveman ski areas. They'd been fighting with sticks and rocks but now they had machine guns. But they needed more weapons, and faster.I still didn't get it. Not when Mogensen purchased Indy Pass in March 2023, and not when he joined the board at teetering-on-the-edge-of-existence Antelope Butte, Wyoming the following month. I may not have gotten it until Mogensen assembled, that October, a transcontinental coalition to reverse a New Hampshire mountain's decision to drop dead or contributed, several weeks later, vital funds to help re-open quirky and long-shuttered Hickory, New York.But in May of that year I had a late-night conversation with Doug Fish in a Savannah bar. He'd had no shortage of Indy Pass suitors, he told me. Fish had chosen Erik, he said, not because his longtime tech partner would respect Indy's brand integrity or would refuse to sell to Megaski Inc – though certainly both were true – but because in Mogensen, Fish saw a figure messianic in his conviction that family-owned, crockpots-on-tabletops, two-for-Tuesday skiing must not be in the midst of an extinction event.Mogensen, Fish said, had transformed his world into a laboratory for preventing such a catastrophe, rising before dawn and working all day without pause, focused always and only on skiing. More specifically, on positioning lunch-bucket skiing for a fair fight in the world of Octopus Lifts and $329 lift tickets and suspender-wearing Finance Bros who would swallow the mountains whole if they could poop gold coins out afterward. In service of this vision, Mogensen had created Entabeni from nothing. Indy Pass never would have worked without it, Fish said. “Elon Musk on skis,” Fish called* him. A visionary who would change this thing forever.Fish was, in a way, mediating. I'd written something - who knows what at this point – that Mogensen hadn't been thrilled with. Fish counseled us both against dismissiveness. I needed time to appreciate the full epic; Erik to understand the function of media. We still disagree often, but we understand and appreciate one another's roles. Mogensen is, increasingly, a main character in the story of modern skiing, and I – as a chronicler of such – owe my audience an explanation for why I think so.*This quote hit different two years ago, when Musk was still primarily known as the tireless disruptor who had mainstreamed electric cars. What we talked aboutWhy Indy Pass stepped up to save Black Mountain, New Hampshire; tripling Black's best revenue year ever in one season; how letting skiers brown bag helped increase revenue; how a beaten-up, dated ski area can compete directly with corporate-owned mountains dripping with high-speed lifts and riding cheap mass-market passes; “I firmly believe that skiing is in a bit of an identity crisis”; free cookies as emotional currency; Black's co-op quest; Black's essential elements; skiing's multi-tiered cost crisis; why the fanciest option is often the only option for lifts, snowcats, and snowguns; what ski areas are really competing against (it isn't other ski areas); bringing big tech to small skiing with Entabeni; what happened when teenage Mogensen's favorite ski area closed; “we need to spend 90 percent of our time understanding the problem we're trying to solve, and 10 percent of our time solving it”; why data matters; where small skiing is in the technology curve; “I think it's become very, very obvious that where you can level the playing field very quickly is with technology”; why Entabeni purchased Indy Pass; the percent of day-ticket sales that Indy accounts for at partner ski areas; limiting Indy Pass sales and keeping prices low; is Indy Pass a business?; and why Indy will never add a third day.Questions I wish I'd askedMogensen's tenure at Indy Pass has included some aggressive moves to fend off competition and hold market share. I wrote this series of stories on Indy's showdown with Ski Cooper over its cheap reciprocal pass two years ago:These are examples of headlines that Indy Pass HQ were not thrilled with, but I have a job to do. We could have spent an entire podcast re-hashing this, but the story has already been told, and I'd rather move forward than back.Also, I'd have liked to discuss Antelope Butte, Wyoming and Hickory, New York at length. We glancingly discuss Antelope Butte, and don't mention Hickory at all, but these are both important stories that I intend to explore more deeply in the future.Why now was a good time for this interviewHere's an interesting fact: since 2000, the Major League Baseball team with the highest payroll has won the World Series just three times (the 2018 Red Sox, and the 2000 and '09 Yankees), and made the series but lost it three additional times (the 2017 Dodgers and 2001 and '03 Yankees). Sure, the world champ rocks a top-five payroll about half the time, and the vast majority of series winners sit in the top half of the league payroll-wise, but recent MLB history suggests that the dudes with the most resources don't always win.Which isn't to say it's easy to fight against Epic and Ikon and ski areas with a thousand snowguns and chairlifts that cost more than a fighter jet. But a little creativity helps a lot. And Mogensen has assembled a creative toolkit that independent ski area operators can tap to help them spin-kick their way through the maelstrom:* When ski areas join Indy Pass, they join what amounts to a nationally marketed menu for hungry skiers anxious for variety and novelty. “Why yes, I'll have two servings of the Jay Peak and two Cannon Mountains, but I guess I'll try a side of this Black Mountain so long as I'm here.” Each resulting Indy Pass visit also delivers a paycheck, often from first-time visitors who say, “By gum let's do it again.”* Many ski areas, such as Nub's Nob and Jiminy Peak, build their own snowguns. Some, like Holiday Valley, install their own lifts. The manly man manning machines has been a ski industry trope since the days of Model T-powered ropetows and nine-foot-long skis. But ever so rare is the small ski area that can build, from scratch, a back-end technology system that actually works at scale. Entabeni says “yeah actually let me get this part, Bro.” Tech, as Mogensen says in our interview, is the fastest way for the little dude to catch up with the big dude.* Ski areas can be good businesses. But they often aren't. Costs are high, weather is unpredictable, and skiing is hard, cold, and, typically, far away from where the people live. To avoid the inconvenience of having to turn a profit, many ski areas – Bogus Basin, Mad River Glen, Bridger Bowl – have stabilized themselves under alternate business models, in which every dollar the ski area makes funnels directly back into improving the ski area. Black Mountain is attempting to do the same.I'm an optimist. Ask me about skiing's future, and I will not choose “death by climate change.” It is, instead, thriving through adaptation, to the environment, to technological shifts, to societal habits. Just watch if you don't believe me.Why you should ski Black MountainThere's no obvious answer to this question. Black is surrounded by bangers. Twin-peaked Attitash looms across the valley. Towering Wildcat faces Mt. Washington a dozen miles north. Bretton Woods and Sunday River, glimmering and modern, hoteled and mega-lifted and dripping with snowgun bling, rise to the west and to the east, throwing off the gravity and gravitas to haul marching armies of skiers into their kingdoms. Cranmore gives skiers a modern lift and a big new baselodge. Even formerly beat-up Pleasant Mountain now spins a high-speeder up its 1,200 vertical feet. And to even get to Black from points south, skiers have to pass Waterville, Loon, Cannon, Gunstock, and Ragged, all of which offer more terrain, more vert, faster lifts, bigger lodges, and an easier access road.That's a tough draw. And it didn't help that, until recently, Black was, well, a dump. Seasons were short, investment was limited. When things broke, they stayed broken – Mogensen tells me that Black hadn't made snow above the double chair midstation in 20 years before this winter. When I last showed up to ski at Black, two years ago, I found an empty parking lot and stilled lifts, in spite of assurances on social media and the ski area's website that this was a normal operating day.Mogensen fixed all that. The double now spins to the top every day the ski area is open. New snowguns line many trunk trails. A round of explosives tamed Upper Maple Slalom, transforming the run from what was essentially a cliff into an offramp-smooth drag-racer. The J-bar – America's oldest continuously operating overhead cable lift, in service since 1935 – spins regularly. A handle tow replaced the old rope below the triple. Black has transformed the crippled and sad little mid-mountain lodge into a boisterous party deck with music and champagne and firepits roaring right beneath the double chair. Walls and don't-do-this-or-that signs came down all over the lodge, which, while still crowded, is now stuffed with families and live music and beer glasses clinking in the dusk.And this is year one. Mogensen can't cross five feet of Black's campus without someone stopping him to ask if he's “the Indy Pass guy” and hoisting their phone for selfie-time. They all say some version of “thank you for what you're doing.” They all want in on the co-op. They all want to be part of whatever this crazy, quirky little hill is, which is the opposite of all the zinger lifts and Epkon overload that was supposed to kill off creaky little outfits like this one.Before I skied Black for three days over Presidents' weekend, I was skeptical that Mogensen could summon the interest to transform the mountain into a successful co-op. Did New England really have the appetite for another large throwback ski outfit on top of MRG and Smuggs and Magic? All my doubt evaporated as I watched Mogensen hand out free hot cookies like some orange-clad Santa Claus, as I tailed my 8-year-old son into the low-angle labyrinths of Sugar Glades and Rabbit Run, as I watched the busiest day in the mountain's recorded history fail to produce lift lines longer than three minutes, as Mt. Washington greeted me each time I slid off the Summit double.Black Mountain is a special place, and this is a singular time to go and be a part of it. So do that.Podcast NotesOn Black Mountain's comebackIn October 2023, Black Mountain's longtime owner, John Fichera, abruptly announced that the ski area would close, probably forever. An alarmed Mogensen rolled in with an offer to help: keep the ski area open, and Indy and Entabeni will help you find a buyer. Fichera agreed. I detailed the whole rapid-fire saga here:A year and dozens of perspective buyers later, Black remained future-less heading into the 2024-25 winter. So Mogensen shifted tactics, buying the mountain via Indy Pass and promising to transform the ski area into a co-op:On the Mad River Glen co-opAs of this writing, Mad River Glen, the feisty, single-chair-accessed 2,000-footer that abuts Alterra's Sugarbush, is America's only successful ski co-op. Here's how it started and how it works, per MRG's website:Mad River Glen began a new era in 1995 when its skiers came together to form the Mad River Glen Cooperative. The Cooperative works to fulfill a simple mission;“… to forever protect the classic Mad River Glen skiing experience by preserving low skier density, natural terrain and forests, varied trail character, and friendly community atmosphere for the benefit of shareholders, area personnel and patrons.” …A share in the Mad River Cooperative costs $2,000. Shares may be purchased through a single payment or in 40 monthly installments of $50 with a $150 down payment. The total cost for an installment plan is $2,150 (8.0% Annual Percentage Rate). The installment option enables anyone who loves and appreciates Mad River Glen to become an owner for as little as $50 per month. Either way, you start enjoying the benefits immediately! The only other cost is the annual Advance Purchase Requirement (APR) of $200. Since advance purchases can be applied to nearly every product and service on the mountain, including season passes, tickets, ski school and food, the advance purchase requirement does not represent an additional expense for most shareholders. In order to remain in good standing as a shareholder and receive benefits, your full APR payment must be met each year by September 30th.Black is still working out the details of its co-op. I can't share what I already know, other than to say that Black's organizational structure will be significantly different from MRG's.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.As of episode 198, you can now watch The Storm Skiing Podcast on YouTube. Please click over to follow the channel. The podcast will continue to stream on all audio platforms. WhoEric Clark, President and Chief Operating Officer of Mammoth and June Mountains, CaliforniaRecorded onJanuary 29, 2025Why I interviewed himMammoth is ridiculous, improbable, outrageous. An impossible combination of unmixable things. SoCal vibes 8,000 feet in the sky and 250 miles north of the megalopolis. Rustic old-California alpine clapboard-and-Yan patina smeared with D-Line speed and Ikon energy. But nothing more implausible than this: 300 days of sunshine and 350 inches of snow in an average year. Some winters more: 715 inches two seasons ago, 618 in the 2016-17 campaign, 669 in 2010-11. Those are base-area totals. Nearly 900 inches stacked onto Mammoth's summit during the 2022-23 ski season. The ski area opened on Nov. 5 and closed on Aug. 6, a 275-day campaign.Below the paid subscriber jump: why Mammoth stands out even among giants, June's J1 lift predates the evolution of plant life, Alterra's investment machine, and more.That's nature, audacious and brash. Clouds tossed off the Pacific smashing into the continental crest. But it took a soul, hardy and ungovernable, to make Mammoth Mountain into a ski area for the masses. Dave McCoy, perhaps the greatest of the great generation of American ski resort founders, strung up and stapled together and tamed this wintertime kingdom over seven decades. Ropetows then T-bars then chairlifts all over. One of the finest lift systems anywhere. Chairs 1 through 25 stitching together a trail network sculpted and bulldozed and blasted from the monolithic mountain. A handcrafted playground animated as something wild, fierce, prehuman in its savage ever-down. McCoy, who lived to 104, is celebrated as a businessman, a visionary, and a human, but he was also, quietly, an artist.Mammoth is not the largest ski area in America (ranking number nine), California (third behind Palisades and Heavenly), Alterra's portfolio (third behind Palisades and Steamboat), or the U.S. Ikon Pass roster (fifth after Palisades, Big Sky, Bachelor, and Steamboat). But it may be America's most beloved big ski resort, frantic and fascinating, an essential big-mountain gateway for 39 million Californians, an Ikon Pass icon and the spiritual home of Alterra Mountain Company. It's impossible to imagine American skiing without Mammoth, just as it's impossible to imagine baseball without the Yankees or Africa without elephants. To our national ski identity, Mammoth is an essential thing, like a heart to a human body, a part without which the whole function falls apart.About MammothClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain Company, which also owns:Located in: Mammoth Lakes, CaliforniaYear founded: 1953Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: unlimited, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: unlimited, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: June Mountain – around half an hour if the roads are clear; to underscore the severity of the Sierra Nevada, China Peak sits just 28 miles southwest of Mammoth, but is a seven-hour, 450-mile drive away – in good weather.Base elevation: 7,953 feetSummit elevation: 11,053 feetVertical drop: 3,100 feetSkiable acres: 3,500Average annual snowfall: 350 inchesTrail count: 178 (13% easiest, 28% slightly difficult, 19% difficult, 25% very difficult, 15% extremely difficult)Lift count: 25 (1 15-passenger gondola, 1 two-stage, eight-passenger gondola, 4 high-speed six-packs, 8 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 6 triples, 3 doubles, 1 Poma – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mammoth's lift fleet) – the ski area also runs some number of non-public carpetsAbout JuneClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain Company (see complete roster above)Located in: June Lake, CaliforniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: unlimited, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: unlimited, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Mammoth Mountain – around half an hour if the roads are clearBase elevation: 7,545 feetSummit elevation: 10,090 feetVertical drop: 2,590 feetSkiable acres: 1,500 acresAverage annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: 41Lift count: 6 (2 high-speed quads, 4 doubles – view Lift Blog's inventory of June Mountain's lift fleet)What we talked aboutMammoth's new lift 1; D-Line six-packs; deciding which lift to replace on a mountain with dozens of them; how the new lifts 1 and 16 redistributed skier traffic around Mammoth; adios Yan detachables; the history behind Mammoth's lift numbers; why upgrades to lifts 3 and 6 made more sense than replacements; the best lift system in America, and how to keep this massive fleet from falling apart; how Dave McCoy found and built Mammoth; retaining rowdy West Coast founder's energy when a mountain goes Colorado corporate; old-time Colorado skiing; Mammoth Lakes in the short-term rental era; potential future Mammoth lift upgrades; a potentially transformative future for the Eagle lift and Village gondola; why Mammoth has no public carpets; Mammoth expansion potential; Mammoth's baller parks culture, and what it takes to build and maintain their massive features; the potential of June Mountain; connecting to June's base with snowmaking; why a J1 replacement has taken so long; kids under 12 ski free at June; Ikon Pass access; changes incoming to Ikon Pass blackouts; the new markets that Ikon is driving toward Mammoth; improved flight service for Mammoth skiers; and Mammoth ski patrol.What I got wrong* I guessed that Mammoth likely paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million for “Canyon and Broadway.” I meant that the new six-pack D-line lifts likely cost $15 million each.* I mentioned that Jackson Hole installed a new high-speed quad last year – I was referring to the Sublette chair.* I said that Steamboat's Wild Blue Gondola was “close to three miles long” – the full ride is 3.16 miles. Technically, the first and second stages of the gondola are separate machines, but riders experience them as one.Why now was a good time for this interviewTalk to enough employees of Alterra Mountain Company and a pattern emerges: an outsized number of high-level execs – the people building the mountain portfolio and the Ikon Pass and punching Vail in the face while doing it – came to the mothership, in some way or another, through Mammoth Mountain.Why is that? Such things can be a coincidence, but this didn't feel like it. Rusty Gregory, Alterra's CEO from 2018 to '23, entered that pilot's seat as a Mammoth lifer, and it was possible that he'd simply tagged in his benchmates. But Alterra and the Ikon Pass were functioning too smoothly to be the products of nepotism. This California ski factory seemed to be stamping out effective big-ideas people like an Italian plant cranking out Ferraris.Something about Mammoth just works. And that's remarkable, considering no one but McCoy thought that the place would work at all as a functional enterprise. A series of contemporary dumbasses told him that Mammoth was “too windy, too snowy, too high, too avalanche-prone, and too isolated” to work as a commercial ski area, according to The Snow Mag. That McCoy made Mammoth one of the most successful ski areas anywhere is less proof that the peanut gallery was wrong than that it took extraordinary will and inventiveness to accomplish the feat.And when a guy runs a ski area for 52 years, that ski area becomes a manifestation of his character. The people who succeed in working there absorb these same traits, whether of dysfunction or excellence. And Mammoth has long been defined by excellence.So, how to retain this? How does a ski area stitched so tightly to its founder's swashbuckling character fully transition to corporate-owned megapass headliner without devolving into an over-groomed volume machine for Los Angeles weekenders? How does a mountain that's still spinning 10 Yan fixed-grip chairs – the oldest dating to 1969 – modernize while D-Line sixers are running eight figures per install? And how does a set-footprint mountain lodged in remote wilderness continue to attract enough skiers to stay relevant, while making sure they all have a place to stay and ski once they get there?And then there's June. Like Pico curled up beside Killington, June, lost in Mammoth's podium flex, is a tiger dressed up like a housecat. At 1,500 acres, June is larger than Arapahoe Basin, Aspen Highlands, or Taos. It's 2,590-foot-vertical drop is roughly equal to that of Alta, Alyeska, or Copper (though June's bottom 1,000-ish vertical feet are often closed due to lack of lower-elevation snow). And while the terrain is not fierce, it's respectable, with hundreds of acres of those wide-open California glades to roll through.And yet skiers seem to have forgotten about the place. So, it can appear, has Alterra, which still shuffles skiers out of the base on a 1960 Riblet double chair that is the oldest operating aerial lift in the State of California. The mountain deserves better, and so do Ikon Pass holders, who can fairly expect that the machinery transporting them and their gold-plated pass uphill not predate the founding of the republic. That Alterra has transformed Deer Valley, Steamboat, and Palisades Tahoe with hundreds of millions of dollars of megalifts and terrain expansions over the past five years only makes the lingering presence of June's claptrap workhorse all the more puzzling.So in Mammoth and June we package both sides of the great contradiction of corporate ski area ownership: that whoever ends up with the mountain is simultaneously responsible for both its future and its past. Mammoth, fast and busy and modern, must retain the spirit of its restless founder. June, ornamented in quaint museum-piece machinery while charging $189 for a peak-day lift ticket, must justify its Ikon Pass membership by doing something other than saying “Yeah I'm here with Mammoth.” Has one changed too much, and the other not enough? Or can Alterra hit the Alta Goldilocks of fast lifts and big passes with throwback bonhomie undented?Why you should ski Mammoth and JuneIf you live in Southern California, go ahead and skip this section, because of course you've already skied Mammoth a thousand times, and so has everyone you know, and it will shock you to learn that there is anyone, anywhere, who has never skied this human wildlife park.But for anyone who's not in Southern California, Mammoth is remote and inconvenient. It is among the least-accessible big mountains in the country. It lacks the interstate adjacency of Tahoe, the Wasatch, and Colorado; the modernized airports funneling skiers into Big Sky and Jackson and Sun Valley (though this is changing); the cultural cachet that overcomes backwater addresses for Aspen and Telluride. Going to Mammoth, for anyone who can't point north on 395, just doesn't seem worth the hassle.It is worth the hassle. The raw statistical profile validates this. Big vert, big acreage, big snows, and big lift networks always justify the journey, even if Mammoth's remoteness fails to translate to emptiness in the way it does at, say, Taos or Revelstoke. But there is something to being Not Tahoe, a Sierra Nevada monster throwing off its own gravity rather than orbiting a mother lake with a dozen equals. Lacking the proximity to leave some things to more capable competitors, the way Tahoe resorts cede parks to Boreal or Northstar, or radness to Palisades and Kirkwood, Mammoth is compelled to offer an EveryBro mix of parks and cliffs and groomers and trees and bumps. It's a motley, magnificent scene, singular and electric, the sort of place that makes all realms beyond feel like a mirage.Mammoth does have one satellite, of course, and June Mountain fills the mothership's families-with-kids gap. Unlike Mammoth, June lets you use the carpet without an instructor. Kids 12 and under ski free. June is less crowded, less vodka-Red Bull, less California. And while the dated lifts can puzzle the Ikon tote-bagger who's last seven trips were through the detachable kingdoms of Utah and Colorado, there is a certain thrill to riding a chairlift that tugged its first passengers uphill during the Eisenhower administration.Podcast NotesOn Mammoth's masterplanOn Alterra pumping “a ton of money into its mountains”Tripling the size of Deer Valley. A massive terrain expansion and transformative infill gondola at Steamboat. The fusing of Palisades Tahoe's two sides to create America's second-largest interconnected ski area. New six-packs at Big Bear, Mammoth, Winter Park, and Solitude. Alterra is not messing around, as the Vail-Slayer continues to add mountains, add partners, and transform its portfolio of once-tired giants into dazzling modern megaresorts with billions in investment.On D-Line lifts “floating over the horizon”I mean just look at these things (Loon's Kancamagus eight on opening day, December 10, 2021 – video by Stuart Winchester):On severe accidents on Yan detachablesIn 2023, I wrote about Yan's detachable lift hellstorm:Cohee referenced a conversation he'd had with “Yan Kunczynski,” saying that, “obviously he had his issues.” If it's not obvious to the listener, here's what he was talking about: Kuncyznski founded Yan chairlifts in 1965. They were sound lifts, and the company built hundreds, many of which are still in operation today. However. Yan's high-speed lifts turned out to be death traps. Two people died in a 1985 accident at Keystone. A 9-year-old died in a 1993 accident at Sierra-at-Tahoe (then known as Sierra Ski Ranch). Two more died at Whistler in 1995. This is why all three detachable quads at Sierra-at-Tahoe date to 1996 – the mountain ripped out all three Yan machines following the accident, even though the oldest dated only to 1989.Several Yan high-speed detachables still run, but they have been heavily modified and retrofit. Superstar Express at Killington, for example, was “retrofitted with new Poma grips and sheaves as well as terminal modifications in 1994,” according to Lift Blog. In total, 15 ski areas, including Sun Valley, Schweitzer, Mount Snow, Mammoth, and Palisades Tahoe spent millions upgrading or replacing Yan detachable quads. The company ceased operations in 2001.Since that writing, many of those Yan detachables have met the scrapyard:* Killington will replace Superstar Express with a Doppelmayr six-pack this summer.* Sun Valley removed two of their Yan detachables – Greyhawk and Challenger – in 2023, and replaced them with a single Doppelmayr high-speed six-pack.* Sun Valley then replaced the Seattle Ridge Yan high-speed quad with a Doppelmayr six-pack in 2024.* Mammoth has replaced both of its Yan high-speed quads – Canyon and Broadway – with Doppelmayr D-line six-packs.* Though I didn't mention Sunday River above, it's worth noting that the mountain ripped out its Barker Yan detachable quad in 2023 for a D-Line Doppelmayr bubble sixer.I'm not sure how many of these Yan-detach jalopies remain. Sun Valley still runs four; June, two; and Schweitzer, Mount Snow, and Killington one apiece. There are probably others.On Mammoth's aging lift fleetMammoth's lift system is widely considered one of the best designed anywhere, and I have no doubt that it's well cared for. Still, it is a garage filled with as many classic cars as sparkling-off-the-assembly-line Aston Martins. Seventeen of the mountain's 24 aerial lifts were constructed before the turn of the century; 10 of those are Yan fixed- grips, the oldest dating to 1969. Per Lift Blog:On Rusty's tribute to Dave McCoyFormer Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory delivered an incredible encomium to Mammoth founder Dave McCoy on this podcast four years ago [18:08]:The audio here is jacked up in 45 different ways. I suppose I can admit now that this was because whatever broke-ass microphone I was using at the time sounded as though it had filtered my audio through a dying air-conditioner. So I had to re-record my questions (I could make out the audio well enough to just repeat what I had said during our actual chat), making the conversation sound like something I had created by going on Open AI and typing “create a podcast where it sounds like I interviewed Rusty Gregory.” Now I probably would have just asked to re-record it, but at the time I just felt lucky to get the interview and so I stapled together this bootleg track that sounds like something Eminem would have sold from the trunk of his Chevy Celebrity in 1994.More good McCoy stuff here and in the videos below:On Mammoth buying Bear and Snow SummitRusty also broke down Mammoth's acquisition of Bear Mountain and Snow Summit in that pod, at the 29:18 mark.On Mammoth super parksWhen I was a kid watching the Road Runner dominate Wile E. Coyote in zip-fall-splat canyon hijinks, I assumed it was the fanciful product of some lunatic's imagination. But now I understand that the whole serial was just an animation of Mammoth Superparks:I mean can you tell the difference?I'm admittedly impressed with the coyote's standing turnaround technique with the roller skis.On Pico beside KillingtonThe Pico-Killington dilemma echoes that of June-Mammoth, in which an otherwise good mountain looks like a less-good mountain because it sits next door to a really great mountain. As I wrote in 2023:Pico is funny. If it were anywhere else other than exactly next door to the largest ski area in New England, Pico might be a major ski area. Its 468 acres would make it the largest ski area in New Hampshire. A 2,000-foot vertical drop is impressive anywhere. The mountain has two high-speed lifts. And, by the way, knockout terrain. There is only one place in the Killington complex where you can run 2,000 vertical feet of steep terrain: Pico.On the old funitel at JuneCompounding the weirdness of J1's continued existence is the fact that, from 1986 to '96, a 20-passenger funitels ran on a parallel line:Clark explains why June removed this lift in the podcast.On kids under 12 skiing free at JuneThis is pretty amazing – per June's website:The free June Mountain Kids Season Pass gives your children under 12 unlimited access to June Mountain all season long. This replaces day tickets for kids, which are no longer offered. Everyone in your family must have a season pass or lift ticket. Your child's free season pass must be reserved in advance, and picked up in-person at the June Mountain Ticket Office. If your child has a birthday in our system that states they are older than 12 years of age, we will require proof of age to sell you a 12 and under season pass.I clarified with June officials that adults are not required to buy a season pass or lift ticket in order for their children to qualify for the free season pass.While it is unlikely that I will make it to June this winter, I signed my 8-year-old son up for a free season pass just to see how easy it was. It took about 12 seconds (he was already in Alterra's system, saving some time).On Alterra's whiplash Ikon Pass accessAlterra has consistently adjusted Ikon Pass access to meter volume and appease its partner mountains:On Mammoth's mammoth snowfallsMammoth's annual snowfalls tend to mirror the boom-bust cycles of Tahoe, with big winters burying the Statue of Liberty (715 inches at the base over the 2022-23 winter), and others underperforming the Catskills (94 inches in the winter of 1976-77). Here are the mountain's official year-by-year and month-by-month tallies. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Dec. 31. It dropped for free subscribers on Jan. 7. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoShaun Sutner, snowsports columnist for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Telegram.comRecorded onNovember 25, 2024About Shaun SutnerSutner is a skier, writer, and journalist based in Worcester, Massachusetts. He's written a snowsports column for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from Thanksgiving to April for the past several decades. You can follow Shaun on social media to stay locked into his work:Read his recent columns:* On Wildcat, Attitash, and Vail Resorts* Everyone needs a bootfitter* Indy Pass is still kicking assWhy I interviewed himJournalism sounds easy. Go there, talk to people, write about it. It's not easy. The quest for truth is like the Hobbit's quest for the ring: long, circuitous, filled with monsters who want to eat you. Some truth is easy: Wachusett has four chairlifts. Beyond the objective, complications arise: Wachusett's decision to replace its summit quad with a six-pack in 2025 is… what, exactly? Visionary, shortsighted, foolish, clever, pedestrian? Does it prioritize passholders or marketing or profit over experience? Is it necessary? Is it wise? Is it prudent? Is it an answer to locals' frustrations or a compounding factor in it?The journalist's job is to machete through this jungle and sculpt a version of reality that all parties will recognize and that none of them will be entirely happy with. Because people are complex and so is the world, and assembling the truth is less like snapping together a thousand-piece puzzle and more like the A-Team examining a trashheap and saying “OK boys, let's build a helicopter.”Sutner is good at this, as may be expected of someone who's spent decades on his beat. He understands that anecdote is not absolute. He knows how to pull together broad narratives (“New England's outdated lift fleet” of the 2010s), and to acknowledge when they change (“New England operators aggressively modernize lifts” in the 2020s). He is empathetic to locals and operators alike, without being deferential to either. He knows that the best stories are 90 percent what the writer leaves out, and 10 percent identifying the essential bits to frame the larger whole. And he lives the beat, aggressively, joyously, immersively.We need more Sutners, but we are probably getting fewer. As journalism figures out what it is in the 21st century, it is deciding that it is less about community-based entities employing beat-specific writers and more about feeding mastheads to private equity funds that drag the carcass down to entrails and then feed them to the hounds. Thousands of American communities now have no local news organization, let alone one with the resources to hire writers solely devoted to something as niche as skiing. Filling the information void is Angry Ski Bro, firing off 50 dozen monthly Facebook posts about Vail's abominable greed being distilled in a broken snowgun at Wildcat.I started The Storm as an antidote to this global complaint box. And I believe that the future of journalism includes writers tapping Substack and similar platforms to freelance the truth. But I still believe that the traditional news organization – meaning physical newspapers that have evolved into digital-analogue hybrids – can find a sustainable business model that tells a community's essential stories. Sutner, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, deserve credit for showing us how to do this.What we talked aboutSki South America; how to ski 60 days while working full time; Worcester's legendary Strand's ski shop; Powdr's sale of Killington and Pico and how the new owners can keep from ruining it; how to make Pico more relevant; is this the start of New England ski area deconsolidation?; Smuggs; Black Mountain, New Hampshire's co-op quest; taking stock of New England consolidation; Vail Resorts' New England GM shuffle; New England's chairlift renaissance; what is New England's new most-hated lift?; why New England needs more surface lifts; a new sixer coming to Wachusett; the legacy of Wachusett's David Crowley; why Wachusett works; and what we lose with consolidation.What we got wrongOn whatever that city is calledI probably still can't pronounce “Worcester.” Just congratulate yourself if you can, and keep moving.On South American skiingI said in our conversation that there were “40 or so ski areas” in South America. I've not taken my magnifying glass to the region as I have with Real America, but I made this quick-hitter chart earlier this year that counted just 26 on the continent, all of them in Chile and Argentina:This map on skiresort.info counts 45 South American ski areas, including a sporadically operating area in Bolivia and one indoor and one artificial-turf area in Brazil. Someday I'll do a cross-check with my list, but that day is not today.On which county Killington lives inNeither of us knew which county Killington is in, but he suggested Windham County. The correct answer is Rutland County.On The Man owning our ski centersWhen discussing state-owned ski areas, Sutner didn't remember that New Hampshire owns Cannon and Vail-operated Sunapee, and I didn't remember to remind him.On Black Mountain, New HampshireWe recorded this prior to Black outlining its plans for a transition to co-op ownership. Mountain leadership has since released more details:On Mad River Glen's snowmaking hard stopI noted that Mad River Glen only makes snow up to “2,000-whatever feet.” The actual number, as proclaimed by some past assemblage of the MRG co-op, is 2,200 feet. Though perhaps raising that by a couple hundred feet would have spared them from spending a fat stack to build a double-chair midstation this year.On Vail's GM shuffleWhen we recorded this conversation, Vail-owned Wildcat, Mount Snow, and Crotched had general manager vacancies. The company has since filled all three (click through on the links above).On Sugarloaf's T-barIn our discussion on surface lifts, Sutner references a T-bar to Sugarloaf's summit. The Bateau T-bar does land quite high on the mountain, but it stops short of the summit and snowfields.On Waterville Valley's T-barsWaterville's T-bar game is way ahead of most New England ski areas. Two of them serve lower-mountain race or race-training trails, and one serves the mountain's top 400 vertical feet, replacing the windhold-prone chairlifts that once ran to the summit. While two of the T-bars run parallel to terrain parks, serving them does not appear to be the lifts' direct purpose, as we debated on the podcast.On Vail's high-speed “T-bars”I mixed up my lift types when describing the high-speed surface lifts that Vail runs at its Midwest mountains. They are ropetows, not T-bars. Here they go at Afton Alps, Minnesota:Afton Alps, Minnesota. Video by Stuart Winchester.On Wachusett upgradesSutner noted that Wachusett's coming summit six-pack would be its first big infrastructure upgrade in 20 years, but the mountain installed the 299-vertical-foot Monadnock Express quad in 2011.On Berkshire East's T-Bar ExpressSutner said that last year was Berkshire East's second season running its T-Bar Express high-speed quad, but the lift first spun for the 2023-24 ski season. The current, 2024-25 season is the lift's second.On Sutner's ski daysWe recorded this a while ago, and Sutner had clocked eight ski days before Thanksgiving. As of Dec. 30, he'd hit 21 days, well along to his 60-day goal.Podcast NotesOn Cerro CatedralI'm somewhat obsessed with this 3,773-vertical-foot, 1,500-acre Argentinian monster:On Shaun's Worcester Living articleSutner wrote up his Argentinian ski adventure for Worcester Living magazine. The story starts on page 20.On Powdr's sale of Killington and PicoIn case you missed it:On New England consolidationNew England's 100-ish ski areas are largely independently owned and operated. These 25 are run by an entity that operates at least two ski areas:On Intrawest and American Skiing CompanyIt's impossible to discuss the history of New England ski area consolidation without acknowledging the now-dead Intrawest and American Skiing Company. On Vail's management shuffleI wrote about this recently:I launched The Storm in October 2019, when Vail owned 34 North American ski areas. To the best of my knowledge, just three of those ski areas' general manager-level leaders remain where they were on that date: Vail Mountain VP/COO Beth Howard, Okemo VP/GM Bruce Schmidt, and Boston Mills-Brandywine GM Jake Campbell. Compare this to Boyne, where nine of 10 mountain leaders either remain in their 2019 roles, or have since ascended to them after working at the resort for decades, often replacing legends retiring after long careers. Alterra and Powdr have demonstrated similar stability. Meanwhile, Vail's seven New England Resorts enter this winter with just two mountains – Okemo and Attitash – under the same general manager that ran them in the spring.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 90/100 in 2024, and number 590 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. 2024 will continue until the 100-article threshold is achieved, regardless of what that pesky calendar says. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 24. It dropped for free subscribers on Dec. 1. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:What There's a good reason that the Ikon Pass, despite considerable roster overlap and a more generous bucket of days, failed to kill Mountain Collective. It's not because Mountain Collective has established itself as a sort of bargain Ikon Junior, or because it's scored a few exclusive partners in Canada and the Western U.S. Rather, the Mountain Collective continues to exist because the member mountains like their little country club, and they're not about to let Alterra force a mass exodus. Not that Alterra has tried, necessarily (I frankly have no idea), but the company did pull its remaining mountains (Mammoth, Palisades, Sugarbush), out of the coalition in 2022. Mountain Collective survived that, just as it weathered the losses of Stowe and Whistler and Telluride (all to the Epic Pass) before it. As of 2024, six years after the introduction of the Ikon Pass that was supposed to kill it, the Mountain Collective, improbably, floats its largest roster ever.And dang, that roster. Monsters, all. Best case, you can go ski them. But the next best thing, for The Storm at least, is when these mountain leaders assemble for their annual meeting in New York City, which includes a night out with the media. Despite a bit of ambient noise, I set up in a corner of the bar and recorded a series of conversations with the leaders of some of the biggest, baddest mountains on the continent.Who* Stephen Kircher, President & CEO, Boyne Resorts* Dave Fields, President & General Manager, Snowbird, Utah* Brandon Ott, Marketing Director, Alta, Utah* Steve Paccagnan, President & CEO, Panorama, British Columbia* Geoff Buchheister, CEO, Aspen Skiing Company, Colorado* Pete Sonntag, VP & General Manager, Sun Valley, Idaho* Davy Ratchford, General Manager, Snowbasin, Utah* Aaron MacDonald, Chief Marketing Officer, Sun Peaks, British Columbia* Geordie Gillett, GM, Grand Targhee, Wyoming* Bridget Legnavsky, President & CEO, Sugar Bowl, California* Marc-André Meunier, Executive Marketing Director, Bromont, Quebec* Pete Woods, President, Ski Big 3, Alberta* Kendra Scurfield, VP of Brand & Communications, Sunshine, Alberta* Norio Kambayashi, director and GM, Niseko Hanazono, Japan* James Coleman, Managing Partner, Mountain Capital Partners* Mary Kate Buckley, CEO, Jackson Hole, WyomingRecorded onOctober 29, 2024About Mountain CollectiveMountain Collective gives you two days each at some badass mountains. There is a ton of overlap with the Ikon Pass, which I note below, but Mountain Collective is cheaper has no blackout dates.What we talked aboutBOYNE RESORTSThe PortfolioBig SkySunday RiverSugarloafTopicsYes a second eight-pack comes to Big Sky and it's a monster; why Sunday River joined the Mountain Collective; Sugarloaf's massive West Mountain expansion; and could more Boyne Resorts join Mountain Collective?More Boyne ResortsSNOWBIRDStats: 3,240 vertical feet | 2,500 skiable acres | 500 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe new Wilbere lift; why fixed-grip; why 600 inches of snow is better than 900 inches; and how Snowbird and Alta access differ on the Ikon versus the Mountain Collective passes.Wilbere's new alignmentMore SnowbirdALTAStats: 2,538 vertical feet | 2,614 skiable acres | 540 inches average annual snowfallTopicsNot 903 inches but still a hell of a lot; why Alta's aiming for 612 inches this season; and plotting Mountain Collective trips in LCC.PANORAMAStats: 4,265 vertical feet | 2,975 skiable acres | 204 inches average annual snowfallTopicsPanorama opens earlier than most skiers think, but not for the reasons they think; opening wall-to-wall last winter; Tantum Bowl Cats; and the impact of Mountain Collective and Ikon on Panorama.More PanoramaASPEN SKIING COMPANYStatsAspen MountainAspen HighlandsButtermilkSnowmassTopicsLast year's Heroes expansion; ongoing improvements to the new terrain for 2024-25; why Aspen finally removed The Couch; who Aspen donated that lift to, and why; why the new Coney lift at Snowmass loads farther down the mountain; “we intend to replace a lift a year probably for the next 10 years”; where the next lift could be; and using your two Mountain Collective days to ski four Aspen resorts.   On Maverick Mountain, MontanaDespite megapass high-tides swarming mountains throughout the West, there are still dozens of ski areas like Maverick Mountain, tucked into the backwoods, 2,020 vertical feet of nothing but you and a pair of sticks. Aspen's old Gent's Ridge quad will soon replace the top-to-bottom 1969 Riblet double chair that serves Maverick now:On the Snowmass masterplanAspen's plan is, according to Buchheister, install a lift per year for the next decade. Here are some of the improvements the company has in mind at Snowmass:On the Mountain Collective Pass starting at AspenChristian Knapp, who is now with Pacific Group Resorts, played a big part in developing the Mountain Collective via Aspen-Snowmass in 2012. He recounted that story on The Storm last year:More AspenSUN VALLEYStats* Bald Mountain: 3,400 vertical feet | 2,054 skiable acres | 200 inches average annual snowfall* Dollar Mountain: 628 vertical feetTopicsLast season's massive Challenger/Flying Squirrel lift updates; a Seattle Ridge lift update; World Cup Finals inbound; and Mountain Collective logistics between Bald and Dollar mountains.More Sun ValleySNOWBASINStats: 3,015 vertical feet | 3,000 skiable acres | 300 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe Olympics return to Utah and Snowbasin; how Snowbasin's 2034 Olympic slate could differ from 2002; ski the downhill; how the DeMoisy six-pack changed the mountain; a lift upgrade for Becker; Porcupine on deck; and explaining the holdup on RFID.More SnowbasinSUN PEAKSStats: 2,894 vertical feet | 4,270 skiable acres | 237 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe second-largest ski area in Canada; the new West Bowl quad; snow quality at the summit; and Ikon and Mountain Collective impact on the resort.The old versus new West Bowl liftsMore Sun PeaksGRAND TARGHEEStats: 2,270 vertical feet | 2,602 skiable acres | 500 inches average annual snowfallTopicsMaintaining that Targhee vibe in spite of change; the meaning of Mountain Collective; and combining your MC trip with other badass powder dumps.More Grand TargheeSUGAR BOWLStats: 1,500 vertical feet | 1,650 skiable acres | 500 inches average annual snowfallTopicsBig-time parks incoming; how those parks will differ from the ones at Boreal and Northstar; and reaction to Homewood closing.More Sugar BowlBROMONTStats: 1,175 vertical feet | 450 skiable acres | 210 inches average annual snowfallTopicsWhy this low-rise eastern bump was good enough for the Mountain Collective; grooming three times per day; the richness of Eastern Townships skiing; and where to stay for a Bromont trip.SKI BIG 3Stats* Banff Sunshine: 3,514 vertical feet | 3,358 skiable acres | 360 inches average annual snowfall* Lake Louise: 3,250 vertical feet | 4,200 skiable acres | 179 inches average annual snowfallSunshineLake LouiseTopicsThe new Super Angel Express sixer at Sunshine; the all-new Pipestone Express infill six-pack at Lake Louise; how Mountain Collective access is different from Ikon access at Lake Louise and Sunshine; why Norquay isn't part of Mountain Collective; and the long season at all three ski areas.SUNSHINEStats & map: see aboveTopicsSunshine's novel access route; why the mountain replaced Angel; the calculus behind installing a six-person chair; and growing up at Sunshine.NISEKO UNITEDStats: 3,438 vertical feet | 2,889 skiable acres | 590 inches average annual snowfallTopicsHow the various Niseko ski areas combine for one experience; so.much.snow; the best way to reach Niseko; car or no car?; getting your lift ticket; and where to stay.VALLE NEVADOStats: 2,658 vertical feet | 2,400 skiable acres | 240 inches average annual snowfallTopicsAn excellent winter in Chile; heli-skiing; buying the giant La Parva ski area, right next door; “our plan is to make it one of the biggest ski resorts in the world”; and why Mountain Capital Partners maintains its Ikon Pass and Mountain Collective partnerships even though the company has its own pass.More Valle/La Parva JACKSON HOLEStats: 4,139 vertical feet | 2,500 skiable acres | 459 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe Sublette lift upgrade; why the new lift has fewer chairs; comparisons to the recent Thunder lift upgrade; venturing beyond the tram; and managing the skier experience in the Ikon/Mountain Collective era.More Jackson HoleWhat I got wrong* I said that Wilbere would be Snowbird's sixth quad. Wilbere will be Snowbird's seventh quad, and first fixed-grip quad.* I said Snowbird got “900-some inches” during the 2022-23 ski season. The final tally was 838 inches, according to Snowbird's website.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 79/100 in 2024, and number 579 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 13. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 20. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoMatt Jones, President and Chief Operating Officer of Stratton Mountain, VermontRecorded onNovember 11, 2024About Stratton MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain Company, which also owns:Located in: Winhall, VermontYear founded: 1962Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: Unlimited* Ikon Base Pass: Unlimited, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Bromley (:18), Magic (:24), Mount Snow (:28), Hermitage Club (:33), Okemo (:40), Brattleboro (:52)Base elevation: 1,872 feetSummit elevation: 3,875 feetVertical drop: 2,003 feetSkiable Acres: 670Average annual snowfall: 180 inchesTrail count: 99 (40% novice, 35% intermediate, 16% advanced, 9% expert)Lift count: 14 (1 ten-passenger gondola, 4 six-packs, 1 high-speed quad, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 4 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Stratton's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himI don't know for sure how many skier visits Stratton pulls each winter, or where the ski area ranks among New England mountains for busyness. Historical data suggests a floor around 400,000 visits, likely good for fifth in the region, behind Killington, Okemo, Sunday River, and Mount Snow. But the exact numbers don't really matter, because the number of skiers that ski at Stratton each winter is many manys. And the number of skiers who have strong opinions about Stratton is that exact same number.Those numbers make Stratton more important than it should be. This is not the best ski area in Vermont. It's not even Alterra's best ski area in Vermont. Jay, MRG, Killington, Smuggs, Stowe, and sister resort Sugarbush are objectively better mountains than Stratton from a terrain point of view (they also get a lot more snow). But this may be one of the most crucial mountains in Alterra's portfolio, a doorway to the big-money East, a brand name for skiers across the region. Stratton is the only ski area that advertises in the New York City Subway, and has for years.But Stratton's been under a bit of stress. The lift system is aging. The gondola is terrible. Stratton was one of those ski areas that was so far ahead of the modernization curve – the mountain had four six-packs by 2001 – that it's now in the position of having to update all of that expensive stuff all at once. And as meaningful updates have lagged, Stratton's biggest New England competitors are running superlifts up the incline at a historic pace, while Alterra lobs hundreds of millions at its western megaresorts. Locals feel shafted, picketing an absentee landlord that they view as negligent. Meanwhile, the crowds pile up, as unlimited Ikon Pass access has holstered the mountain in hundreds of thousands of skiers' wintertime battle belts.If that all sounds a little dramatic, it only reflects the messages in my inbox. I think Alterra has been cc'd on at least some of those emails, because the company is tossing $20 million at Stratton this season, a sum that Jones tells us is just the beginning of massive long-term investment meant to reinforce the mountain's self-image as a destination on its own.What we talked aboutStratton's $20 million offseason; Act 250 masterplanning versus U.S. Forest Service masterplanning; huge snowmaking upgrades and aspirations; what $8 million gets you in employee housing these days; big upgrades for the Ursa and American Express six-packs; a case for rebuilding lifts rather than doing a tear-down and replace; a Tamarack lift upgrade; when Alterra's investment firehose could shift east; leaving Tahoe for Vermont; what can be done about that gondola?; the Kidderbrook lift; parking; RFID; Ikon Pass access levels; and $200 to ski Stratton.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewHow pissed do you think the Punisher was when Disney announced that Ant Man would be the 12th installment in Marvel's cinematic universe? I imagine him seated in his lair, polishing his grenades. “F*****g Ant Man?” He throws a grenade into one of his armored Jeeps, which disintegrates in a supernova of steel parts, tires, and smoke. “Ant Man. Are you f*****g serious with this? I waited through eleven movies. Eleven. Iron Man got three. Thor and Captain f*****g America got two apiece. The Hulk. Two Avengers movies. Something called ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,' about a raccoon and a talking tree that save the goddamn universe or some s**t. And it was my turn, Man. My. Turn. Do these idiots not know that I had three individual comic lines published concurrently in the 1990s? Do they not know that I'm ranked as the ninth-greatest Marvel superhero of all time on this nerd list? Do you know where Ant Man is ranked on that list? Huh? Well, I'll tell you: number 131, behind Rocket Raccoon, U-Go Girl, and Spider Man 2099, whatever the hell any of those are.” The vigilante then loads his rocket launcher and several machine guns into a second armored Jeep, and sets off in search of jaywalkers to murder.Anyway I imagine that's how Stratton felt as it watched the rest of Alterra's cinematic universe release one blockbuster after another. “Oh, OK, so Steamboat not only gets a second gondola, but they get a 600-acre terrain expansion served by their eighth high-speed quad? And it wasn't enough to connect the two sides of Palisades Tahoe with a gondola, but you threw in a brand-new six-pack? And they're tripling the size of Deer Valley. Tripling. 3,700 acres of new terrain and 16 new lifts and a new base village to go with it. That's equal to five-and-a-half Strattons. And Winter Park gets a new six-pack, and Big Bear gets a new six-pack, and Mammoth gets two. Do you have any idea how much these things cost? And I can't even get a gondola that can withstand wind gusts over three miles per hour? Even goddamn Snowshoe – Snowshoe – got a new lift before I did. I didn't even think West Virginia was actually a real place. I swear if these f*****s announce a new June Mountain out-of-base lift before I get my bling, things are gonna get Epic around here.”Well, it's finally Stratton's turn, with $20 million in upgrades inbound. Alterra wasn't exactly mining the depths of locals' dreams to decide where to deploy the cash – snowmaking, employee housing, lift overhauls – and a gondola replacement isn't coming anytime soon, but they're pretty smart investments when you dig into them. Which we do.Questions I wish I'd askedAmong the items that I would have liked to have discussed given more time: the Appalachian Trail's path across the top of Stratton Mountain, Stratton as birthplace of modern snowboarding, and the Stratton Mountain School.What I got wrong* I said that Epic Pass access had remained mostly unchanged for the past decade, which is not quite right. When Vail first added Stowe to the Epic Local Pass for the 2017-18 season, they slotted the resort into the bucket of 10 days shared with Vail, Beaver Creek, and Whistler. At some point, Stowe received its own basket of 10 days, apart from the western resorts.* I said that Sunday River's Jordan eight-pack was wind-resistant “because of the weight.” While that is one factor, the lift's ability to run in high winds relies on a more complex set of anti-sway technology, none of which I really understand, but that Sunday River GM Brian Heon explained on The Storm earlier this year:Why you should ski StrattonA silent skiing demarcation line runs roughly along US 4 through Vermont. Every ski area along or above this route – Killington, Pico, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Stowe, Smuggs – lets trails bump up, maintains large glade networks, and generally provides you with balanced, diverse terrain. Everything below that line – Okemo, Bromley, Mount Snow – generally don't do any of these things, or offer them sporadically, and in the most shrunken form possible. There are some exceptions on both sides. Saskadena Six, a bump just north of US 4, operates more like the Southies. Magic, in the south, better mirrors the MRG/Sugarbush model. And then there's Stratton.Good luck finding bumps at Stratton. Maybe you'll stumble onto the remains of a short competition course here or there, but, generally, this is a groom-it-all-every-day kind of ski area. Which would typically make it a token stop on my annual rounds. But Stratton has one great strength that has long made it a quasi-home mountain for me: glades.The glade network is expansive and well-maintained. The lines are interesting and, in places, challenging. You wouldn't know this from the trailmap, which portrays the tree-skiing areas as little islands lodged onto Stratton's hulk. But there are lots of them, and they are plenty long. On a typical pow day, I'll park at Sun Bowl and ski all the glades from Test Pilot over to West Pilot and back. It takes all day and I barely touch a groomer.And the glades are open more often than you'd think. While northern Vermont is the undisputed New England snow king, with everything from Killington north counting 250-plus inches in an average winter, the so-called Golden Triangle of Stratton, Bromley, and Magic sits in a nice little micro-snow-pocket. And Stratton, the skyscraping tallest peak in that region of the state, devours a whole bunch (180 inches on average) to fill in those glades.And if you are Groomer Greg, you're in luck: Stratton has 99 of them. And the grooming is excellent. Just start early, because they get scraped off by the NYC hordes who camp out there every weekend. The obsessive grooming does make this a good family spot, and the long green trail from the top down to the base is one of the best long beginner runs anywhere.Podcast NotesOn Act 250This is the 20th Vermont-focused Storm Skiing Podcast, and I think we've referenced Act 250 in all of them. If you're unfamiliar with this law, it is, according to the official state website:…Vermont's land use and development law, enacted in 1970 at a time when Vermont was undergoing significant development pressure. The law provides a public, quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of major subdivisions and developments in Vermont. It assures that larger developments complement Vermont's unique landscape, economy and community needs. One of the strengths of Act 250 is the access it provides to neighbors and other interested parties to participate in the development review process. Applicants often work with neighbors, municipalities, state agencies and other interested groups to address concerns raised by a proposed development, resolving issues and mitigating impacts before a permit application is filed.On Stratton's masterplanStratton is currently updating its masterplan. It will retain some elements of this 2013 version. Some elements of this – most notably a new Snow Bowl lift in 2018 – have been completed:One curious element of this masterplan is the proposed lift up the Kidderbrook trail – around 2007, Stratton removed a relatively new (installed 1989) Poma fixed-grip quad from that location. Here it is on the far left-hand side of the 2005 trailmap:On Stratton's ownership historyStratton's history mirrors that of many large New England ski areas: independent founders run the ski area for decades; founders fall into financial peril and need private equity/banking rescue; bank sells to a giant out-of-state conglomerate; which then sells to another giant out-of-state conglomerate; which eventually turns into something else. In Stratton's case, Robert Wright/Frank Snyder -> Moore and Munger -> Japanese company Victoria USA -> Intrawest -> Alterra swallows the carcass of Intrawest. You can read all about it on New England Ski History.Here was Intrawest's roster, if you're curious:On Alterra's building bingeSince its 2018 founding, Alterra has invested aggressively in its properties: a 2.4-mile-long, $65 million gondola connecting Alpine Meadows to the Olympic side of Palisades Tahoe; $200 million in the massive Mahogany Ridge expansion and a three-mile-long gondola at Steamboat; and an untold fortune on Deer Valley's transformation into what will be the fourth-largest ski area in the United States. Plus new lifts all over the place, new snowmaking all over the place, new lodges all over the place. Well, all over the place except for at Stratton, until now.On Boyne and Vail's investments in New EnglandAmplifying Stratton Nation's pain is the fact that Alterra's two big New England competitors – Vail Resorts and Boyne Resorts – have built a combined 16 new lifts in the region over the past five years, including eight-place chairs at Loon and Sunday River (Boyne), and six-packs at Stowe, Okemo, and Mount Snow (Vail). They've also replaced highly problematic legacy chairs at Attitash (Vail) and Pleasant Mountain (Boyne). Boyne has also expanded terrain at Loon, Sunday River, and, most notably – by 400 acres – Sugarloaf. And it's worth noting that independents Waterville Valley and Killington have also dropped new sixers in recent years (Killington will build another next year). Meanwhile, Alterra's first chairlift just landed this summer, at Sugarbush, which is getting a fixed-grip quad to replace the Heaven's Gate triple.On gondola wind holdsJust in case you want to blame windholds on some nefarious corporate meddling, here's a video I took of Kirkwood's Cornice Express spinning in 50-mile-per-hour winds when Jones was running the resort last year. Every lift has its own distinct profile that determines how it manages wind.On shifting Ikon Pass accessWhen Alterra launched the Ikon Pass in 2018, the company limited Base Pass holders to five days at Stratton, with holiday blackouts. Ahead of the 2020-21 season, the company updated Base Pass access to unlimited days with those same holiday blackouts. Alterra and its partners have made several such changes in Ikon's seven years. I've made this nifty chart that tracks them all (if you missed the memo, Solitude just upgraded Ikon Base pass access to eliminate holiday blackouts):On historic Stratton lift ticket pricesAgain, New England Ski History has done a nice job documenting Stratton's year-to-year peak lift ticket rates:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 76/100 in 2024, and number 576 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 11. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 18. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoDustin Lyman, President and General Manager of Copper Mountain, ColoradoRecorded onOctober 21, 2024About Copper MountainOwned by: Powdr, which also owns:Located in: Frisco, ColoradoYear founded: 1972Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass and Ikon Base Pass: unlimited access, no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Frisco Adventure Park (:15), Keystone (:19), Vail Mountain (:21), Breckenridge (:23), Loveland (:23), Arapahoe Basin (:30), Beaver Creek (:32), Ski Cooper (:34) – travel times vary considerably depending upon time of day, time of year, and apocalypse level on I-70Base elevation: 9,738 feetSummit elevation: 12,441 feetVertical drop: 2,703 feetSkiable Acres: 2,538Average annual snowfall: 305 inchesTrail count: 178Lift count: 25 (1 6/8-passenger chondola, 3 high-speed six-packs, 3 high-speed quads, 5 triples, 4 doubles, 2 platters, 1 T-bar, 6 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Copper Mountain's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himImagine if, rather than finding an appropriate mountain upon which to build ski area, we just identified the best possible location for a ski area and built a mountain there. You would want to find a reliable snow pocket, preferably at elevation. You would want a location close to a major highway, with no access road drama. There should be a large population base nearby. Then you would build a hill with a great variety of green, blue, and black runs, and bunch them together in little ability-based kingdoms. The ski area would be big but not too big. It would be tall but not too tall. It would snow often, but rarely too much. It would challenge you without trying to kill you. You may include some pastoral touches, like tree islands to break up the interstate-wide groomers. You'd want to groom a lot but not too much. You'd want some hella good terrain parks. You'd want to end up with something pretty similar to Copper Mountain.Because Copper is what we end up with when we lop off all the tryhard marketing meth that attempts to make ski resorts more than what they are. Copper is not Gladiator on skis, you against the notorious Batshit Chutes. But Copper is not one big groomer, either. Copper is not fur shawls in the hotel lobby. But Copper is also not duct tape around a pants leg. Copper does not serve passenger pigeon eggs in its mountaintop eateries. But Copper is also not frozen burritos and a plastic sleeve of powdered donuts. Copper is not angry, or haughty, or cloying, or righteous, or overwrought. Copper does not call you “Sir.” Copper fixes your refrigerator without having to come back with another part. Copper, quietly and without a lot of hassle, just works.What we talked aboutThe new Timberline six-pack chairlift; why Copper upgraded T-Rex before the mountain's much older lifts; how much better a 2024 detachable lift is from a 1994 detachable lift; why Copper didn't sell the lift to another ski area; that one summer that Copper installed two gargantuan frontside lifts; why new chairlift installations are so challenging; Leitner-Poma; the challenges of installing mid-mountain versus base-area lifts; installing American Eagle, American Flyer, and Three Bears; how Copper quietly offered skiing for 12 consecutive months from October 2023 to September 2024, despite an official May closing date; whether year-round skiing will become an official Copper activity; why Copper builds its halfpipe entirely from snow each season rather than constructing an earthwork base; The Athlete's Mountain; why Copper continues to build bigger and more advanced terrain parks even as many big mountains back out of the space; Woodward parks; how many crew members and snowcats Copper devotes to maintaining its enormous terrain park network; why the Union Creek high-speed quad became Woodward Express; why Copper doesn't compete with Keystone and A-Basin as first-to-open for the skiing public; Copper's World Cup ambitions; how to get a job running a ski resort when you've never worked at a ski resort; why it's so important for a ski area manager to ski every day; counting ski days; mad love for ski areas; potential candidates for lift replacements; how to get a ski trail named after you; retrofitting old lifts with safety bars; expansion opportunities; $99 Thursday lift tickets and whether that program could expand to additional weekdays; Copper's amazing season pass benefit; why Copper Mountain access is unlimited with no blackouts on the Ikon and Ikon Base passes; and why Copper continues to sell its own season pass that doesn't cost much less than the Ikon Base Pass.  Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewCopper is a curious bloke. Copper sits within 30 minutes of four Vail Resorts, one of the toughest draws in North American skiing. So Copper is an unlimited-access member of Alterra's Ikon Pass even though Copper is not owned by Alterra. Copper also sells its own season pass that only costs $60 less than an Ikon Base Pass. Copper sells $99 lift tickets on Thursdays, but $264 walk-up lift tickets if you show up on certain Wednesdays or Fridays. Copper sits atop I-70, observing the antlines of inbound vehicles and saying “I'm flattered.” Copper greets its guests with a halfpipe that could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. Copper just offered year-round skiing and didn't bother bragging about it until the whole thing was over. Copper lets you cut the line. Copper has quietly become some ninjitsu November training ground for the global ski-race community. Copper is parked in the middle of the most important ski county in the most important ski state in America.If anything is happening in skiing, Copper is dealing with it: expensive lift tickets, cheap season passes, easy access that may be a little too easy, ferocious competition in every direction. Because of its naturally divided terrain, ordered black to green as you sweep west across the mountain, Copper is often referred to as a nearly perfect ski area. And it is. But because of where it is and what it's chosen to become, the resort also happens to be the perfect thermometer for taking skiing's temperature. How we doing up there past 10,000? What's your story? What makes you special? Why should I drive past Keystone to ski here? Why shouldn't I just keep driving 20 minutes to Vail instead? Why, I'm asking, do you even exist?What I got wrongI said that certain old chairlifts had not yet been retrofit with safety bars; Lyman clarified that Copper had in fact updated the carriers on all of those lifts.Why you should ski Copper MountainHere are some things I remember about skiing Copper Mountain in 1995:* Riding a high-speed quad. Probably American Flyer but I can't say for sure. Four of us on the lift. My buddy Andy and two middle-aged fellows of indeterminant provenance. “My cat sleeps 22 hours a day and can catch a bird out of the air,” one says to the other. And I've never been able to stop thinking about the truth of that and how it's possible.* My room at the Foxpine Inn came with an underground parking space, which I declined to use until a New Year's snowstorm buried my poor little four-cylinder Ford Probe beneath an igloo. Rather than clean the car off, I leaned my head out the window and drove down the ramp to my parking spot below. Then all the snow melted. Easiest snow removal job ever.* Near the terminus of the long-gone B lift, a double chair displaced by Super Bee, a lightly treed knoll stood above the trails. I watched, awestruck, as a skier materialized from the forest depths above and trenched the newfallen snow and blasted down the fall-line with superhero poise and ease.* My first attempted powder turn, three minutes later, ended in a yardsale. This was in the flat just off of the lift unload. That ended up being a very long run.Modern Copper is more polished, better-lifted, more expensive, better known than the version I encountered on my first western ski trip 29 years ago. There's more ski terrain and a little pedestrian base village. I'm not certain that two eighteen-year-olds could still afford a room at the base of the chairlifts (Foxpine rates are not listed online). But what struck me on a return visit last winter, as much as the six-packs and the terrain parks and the base village that used to be a parking lot was how much Copper, despite all that investment, had retained a coziness that still makes it feel more like a ski area than a ski resort.Some of this humility, I suppose, is anchored in the mountain's profile. Copper doesn't have Breck's big exposed peaks or Vail's endless bowls or Beaver Creek's Grey Poupon trim. Copper doesn't give you cookies or promise you The Experience of a Lifetime. The mountain's core lifts are fast and modern, but Copper runs nearly as many fixed-grip chairs (9) as Vail (3), Beaver Creek (3), and Keystone (4), combined (10).  But it works. Rather wonderfully, really. Go see for yourself.Podcast NotesOn Copper's masterplanCopper's most recent comprehensive Forest Service masterplan dates to 2011. A 2015 addendum focused mostly on summer activities. Here's an overview of what the 2011 plan imagined:A 2021 addendum added a new trail, which we discuss on the pod:On Copper Mountain's halfpipeI mean this thing is just so damn extra:On Summit County ski areas by sizeThe four Summit County ski areas compare favorably to one another, stats-wise. I'm going to go ahead and throw Loveland in there as an honorary member, since it's like two feet from Summit County:On the Slopes AppBeing Stats Tracker Bro, I am a loyalist to the Slopes app, which recently updated their static map with a zoomable version:Slopes is also handy in real-time, when I want to ensure that I've hit every trail on a mountain. Here's my map from Giants Ridge, Minnesota last winter (the big unskied trails in the middle were closed for racing):On SilvertonWhile I would expect Elvis to rise from the dead before we see another Breckenridge-style megaresort built in Colorado, developers have had some luck creating low-impact, low-infrastructure ski areas. The now-defunct Bluebird Backcountry, near Steamboat, operated with no lifts on private land. Silverton, in the state's southwest corner, operates out of a small parcel of private land and runs one double chair, which in turn opens up huge swaths of land under permit from the Bureau of Land Management. Any future big-mountain western developments will likely hinge on some version of a Silverton/Bluebird model. Here's Silverton's trailmap:And here's Bluebird's:On expansions Colorado ski areas have had great success expanding existing operations in recent years. Since 2012, nine large expansions have added more than 3,000 acres of high-quality terrain to the state's ski resorts. That's the equivalent of opening another Breckenridge, without all the outrage.On Snowbird's Freeloader PassCopper's adult season pass includes a free season pass for one child up to 15 years old. Sister resort Snowbird one-upped them last year by rolling out the same benefit and raising the age to 18. Lyman and I discuss Snowbird's move, and whether it will inspire a similar deal at Copper.On Copper's unlimited Ikon Pass accessOne of the strangest alliances in all of Megapass-dom is Copper's status as a stowaway unlimited Ikon Pass partner. Alterra has transformed the Ikon Pass into a season pass for all of its owned mountains except for Deer Valley and Arapahoe Basin, but it's also a de facto season pass for Powdr-owned Copper and Eldora. To confuse things further, Copper sells its own season pass that isn't much less expensive than an Ikon Base Pass. We discuss this whole dynamic on the pod, but here's where Alterra-owned mountains sit with Ikon Pass access, with Eldora and Copper slotted in for comparison:On Powdr owning Eldora “at least for now”Park City-based Powdr has owned Eldora, just under two hours northeast of Copper, since 2016. In August, the company announced that it had sold its Killington and Pico resorts to a group of local Vermont investors, and would soon put Eldora – along with Mt. Bachelor, Oregon and Silver Star, B.C. – up for sale as well.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 74/100 in 2024, and number 574 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 11. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 18. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoAndy Cohen, General Manager of Fernie Alpine Resort, British ColumbiaRecorded onSeptember 3, 2024About FernieClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which also owns:Located in: Fernie, British ColumbiaPass affiliations:* Epic Pass: 7 days, shared with Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Nakiska, Stoneham, and Mont-Sainte Anne* RCR Rockies Season Pass: unlimited access, along with Kicking Horse, Kimberley, and NakiskaClosest neighboring ski areas: Fairmont Hot Springs (1:15), Kimberley (1:27), Panorama (1:45) – travel times vary considerably given time of year and weather conditionsBase elevation: 3,450 feet/1,052 metersSummit elevation: 7,000 feet/2,134 metersVertical drop: 3,550 feet/1,082 metersSkiable Acres: 2,500+Average annual snowfall: 360 inches/914 Canadian inches (also called centimeters)Trail count: 145 named runs plus five alpine bowls and tree skiing (4% extreme, 21% expert, 32% advanced, 30% intermediate, 13% novice)Lift count: 10 (2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 T-bar, 1 Poma, 1 conveyor - view Lift Blog's inventory of Fernie's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himOne of the most irritating dwellers of the #SkiInternet is Shoosh Emoji Bro. This Digital Daniel Boone, having boldly piloted his Subaru beyond the civilized bounds of Interstate 70, considers all outlying mountains to be his personal domain. So empowered, he patrols the digital sphere, dropping shoosh emojis on any poster that dares to mention Lost Trail or White Pass or Baker or Wolf Creek. Like an overzealous pamphleteer, he slings his brand haphazardly, toward any mountain kingdom he deems worthy of his forcefield. Shoosh Emoji Bro once Shoosh Emoji-ed me over a post about Alta.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Sept. 15. It dropped for free subscribers on Sept. 22. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoKelly Pawlak, President & CEO of the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA)Recorded onAugust 19, 2024About the NSAAFrom the association's website:The National Ski Areas Association is the trade association for ski area owners and operators. It represents over 300 alpine resorts that account for more than 90% of the skier/snowboarder visits nationwide. Additionally, it has several hundred supplier members that provide equipment, goods and services to the mountain resort industry.NSAA analyzes and distributes ski industry statistics; produces annual conferences and tradeshows; produces a bimonthly industry publication and is active in state and federal government affairs. The association also provides educational programs and employee training materials on industry issues including OSHA, ADA and NEPA regulations and compliance; environmental laws and regulations; state regulatory requirements; aerial tramway safety; and resort operations and guest service.NSAA was established in 1962 and was originally headquartered in New York, NY. In 1989 NSAA merged with SIA (Snowsports Industries America) and moved to McLean, Va. The merger was dissolved in 1992 and NSAA was relocated to Lakewood, Colo., because of its central geographic location. NSAA is located in the same office building as the Professional Ski Instructors of America and the National Ski Patrol in Lakewood, Colo., a suburb west of Denver.Why I interviewed herA pervasive sub-narrative in American skiing's ongoing consolidation is that it's tough to be alone. A bad winter at a place like Magic Mountain, Vermont or Caberfae Peaks, Michigan or Bluewood, Washington means less money, because a big winter at Partner Mountain X across the country isn't available to keep the bank accounts stable. Same thing if your hill gets chewed up by a tornado or a wildfire or a flood. Operators have to just hope insurance covers it.This story is not entirely incorrect. It's just incomplete. It is harder to be independent, whether you're Jackson Hole or Bolton Valley or Mount Ski Gull, Minnesota. But few, if any, ski areas are entirely and truly alone, fighting on the mountaintop for survival. Financially, yes (though many independent ski areas are owned by families or individuals who operate one or more additional businesses, which can and sometimes do subsidize ski areas in lean or rebuilding years). But in the realm of ideas, ski areas have a lot of help.That's because, layered over the vast network of 500-ish U.S. mountains is a web of state and national associations that help sort through regulations, provide ideas, and connect ski areas to one another. Not every state with ski areas has one. Nevada's handful of ski areas, for example, are part of Ski California. New Jersey's can join Ski Areas of New York, which often joins forces with Ski Pennsylvania. Ski Idaho counts Grand Targhee, Wyoming, as a member. Some of these associations (Ski Utah), enjoy generous budgets and large staffs. Others (Ski New Hampshire), accomplish a remarkable amount with just a handful of people. But layered over them all – in reach but not necessarily hierarchy – is the National Ski Areas Association. The NSAA helps ski areas where state associations may lack the scale, resources, or expertise. The NSAA organized the united, nationwide approach to Covid-era operations ahead of the 2020-21 ski season; developed and maintained the omnipresent Skier Responsibility Code; and help ski areas do everything from safely operate chairlifts and terrain parks to fend off climate change. Their regional and national shows are energetic, busy, and productive. Top representatives – the sorts of leaders who appear on this podcast - from every major national or regional ski area are typically present.This support layer, mostly invisible to consumers, is in some ways the concrete holding the nation's ski areas together. Most of even the most staunchly independent operators are members. If U.S. skiing were really made up of 500 ski areas trying to figure out snowmaking in 500 different ways, then we wouldn't have 500 ski areas. They need each other more than you might think. And the NSAA helps pull them all together.What we talked aboutLow natural snow, strong skier visits – the paradox of the 2023-24 ski season; ever-better snowmaking; explaining the ski industry's huge capital investments over recent years; European versus American lift fleets; lift investments across America; when it's time to move on from your dream job; 2017 sounds like yesterday but it may as well have been 1,000 years ago; the disappearing climate-change denier; can ski areas adapt to climate change?; the biggest challenges facing the NSAA's next leader, and what qualities that leader will need to deal with them; should ski areas be required to report injuries?; operators who are making progress on safety; are ski area liability waivers in danger?; the wild cost of liability insurance; how drones could help ski area safety; why is skiing still so white, even after all the DE&I?; why youth skier participation as a percentage of overall skier visits has been declining; and the enormous potential for indoor skiing to grow U.S. participation.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewFirst, Pawlak announced, in May, that she would step down from her NSAA role whenever the board could identify a capable replacement. She explains why on the podcast, but hers has been a by-all-accounts successful seven-year run amidst and through rapid and irreversible industry change – Covid, consolidation, multi-mountain passes, climate change, skyrocketing costs, the digitization of everything – and it was worth pausing to reflect on all that the NSAA had accomplished and all of the challenges waiting ahead.Second, our doomsday instincts keep running up against this stat: despite a fairly poor winter, snow-wise, the U.S. ski industry racked up the fifth-most skier visits of all time during its 2023-24 campaign. How is that possible, and what does it mean? I've explored this a little myself, but Pawlak has access to data that I don't, and she adds an extra dimension to our analysis.And this is true of so many of the topics that I regularly cover in this newsletter: capital investment, regulation, affordability, safety, diversity. This overlap is not surprising, given my stated focus on lift-served skiing in North America. Most of my podcasts bore deeply into the operations of a single mountain, then zoom out to center those ski areas within the broader ski universe. When I talk with the NSAA, I can do the opposite – analyze the larger forces driving the evolution of lift-served skiing, and see how the collective is approaching them. It's a point of view that very few possess, and even fewer are able to articulate. Questions I wish I'd askedWe recorded this conversation before POWDR announced that it had sold Killington and Pico, and would look to sell Bachelor, Eldora, and Silver Star in the coming months. I would have loved to have gotten Pawlak's take on what was a surprise twist in skiing's long-running consolidation.I didn't ask Pawlak about the Justice Department's investigation into Alterra's proposed acquisition of Arapahoe Basin. I wish I would have.What I got wrongI said that Hugh Reynolds was “Big Snow's head of marketing.” His actual role is Chief Marketing Officer for all of Snow Partners, which operates the indoor Big Snow ski area, the outdoor Mountain Creek ski area, and a bunch of other stuff.Podcast NotesOn specific figures from the Kotke Report:Pretty much all of the industry statistics that I cite in this interview come from the Kotke Demographic Report, an annual end-of-season survey that aggregates anonymized data from hundreds of U.S. ski areas. Any numbers that I reference in this conversation either refer to the 2022-23 study, or include historical data up to that year. I did not have access to the 2023-24 report until after our conversation.Capital expendituresPer the 2023-24 Kotke Report:Definitions of ski resort sizesAlso from Kotke:On European lift fleets versus AmericanComparing European skiing to American skiing is a bit like comparing futbol to American football – two different things entirely. Europe is home to at least five times as many ski areas as North America and about six times as many skiers. There are ski areas there that make Whistler look like Wilmot Mountain. The food is not only edible, but does not cost four times your annual salary. Lift tickets are a lot cheaper, in general. But it snows more, and more consistently, in North America; our liftlines are more organized; and you don't need a guide here to ski five feet off piste. Both are great and annoying in their own way. But our focus of difference-ness in this podcast was between the lift fleets on each continent. In brief, you're far more likely to stumble across a beefcaker on a random Austrian trail than you are here in U.S. America. Take a look at skiresort.info's (not entirely accurate but close enough), inventory of eight-place chairlifts around the world:On “Waterville with the MND lift”Pawlak was referring to Waterville Valley's Tecumseh Express, built in 2022 by France-based MND. It was the first and only lift that the manufacturer built in the United States prior to the dissolution of a joint venture with Bartholet. While MND may be sidelined, Pawlak's point remains valid: there is room in the North American market for manufacturers other than Leitner-Poma and Doppelmayr, especially as lift prices continue to escalate at amazing rates.On my crankiness with “the mainstream media” and climate changeI kind of hate the term “mainstream media,” particularly when it's used as a de facto four-letter word to describe some Power Hive of brainwashing elitists conspiring to cover up the government's injection of Anthrax into our Honey Combs. I regret using the term in our conversation, but sometimes in the on-the-mic flow of an interview I default to stupid. Anyway, once or twice per year I get particularly bent about some non-ski publication framing lift-served skiing as an already-doomed industry because the climate is changing. I'm not some denier kook who's stockpiling dogfood for the crocodile apocalypse, but I find this narrative stupid because it's reductive and false. The real story is this: as the climate changes, the ski industry is adapting in amazing and inventive ways; ski areas are, as I often say, Climate Change Super Adapters. You can read an example that I wrote here.On the NSAA's Covid responseThere's no reason to belabor the NSAA's Covid response – which was comprehensive and excellent, and is probably the reason the 2020-21 American ski season happened – here. I already broke the whole thing down with Pawlak back in April 2021. She also joined me – somewhat remarkably, given the then-small reach of the podcast – at the height of Covid confusion in April 2020 to talk through what in the world could possibly happen next.On The Colorado Sun's reporting on ski area safety and the NSAA's safety reportThe Colorado Sun consistently reports on ski area safety, and the ski industry's resistance to laws that would compel them to make injury reports public. I asked Pawlak about this, citing, specifically, this Sun article From April 8, 2024:[13-year-old] Silas [Luckett] is one of thousands of people injured on Colorado ski slopes every winter. With the state's ski hills posting record visitation in the past two seasons — reaching 14.8 million in 2022-23 — it would appear that the increasing frequency of injuries coincides with the rising number of visits. We say “appear” because, unlike just about every other industry in the country, the resort industry does not disclose injury data. …Ski resorts do not release injury reports. The ski resort industry keeps a tight grasp on even national injury data. Since 1980, the National Ski Areas Association provides select researchers with injury data for peer-reviewed reports issued every 10 years by the National Ski Areas Association. The most recent 10-year review of ski injuries was published in 2014, looking at 13,145 injury reports from the 2010-11 ski season at resorts that reported 4.6 million visits.The four 10-year reports showed a decline in skier injuries from 3.1 per 1,000 visitors in 1980-81 to 2.7 in 1990-91 to 2.6 in 2000-01 to 2.5 in 2010-11. Snowboarder injuries were 3.3 in 1990, 7.0 in 2000 and 6.1 in 2010.For 1990-91, the nation's ski areas reported 46.7 million skier visits, 2000-01 was 57.3 million and 2010-11 saw a then all–time high of 60.5 million visits. …The NSAA's once-a-decade review of injuries from 2020-21 was delayed during the pandemic and is expected to land later this year. But the association's reports are not available to the public [Pawlak disputes this, and provided a copy of the report to The Storm – you can view it here].When Colorado state Sen. Jessie Danielson crafted a bill in 2021 that would have required ski areas to publish annual injury statistics, the industry blasted the plan, arguing it would be an administrative burden and confuse the skiing public. It died in committee.“When we approached the ski areas to work on any of the details in the bill, they refused,” Danielson, a Wheat Ridge Democrat, told The Sun in 2021. “It makes me wonder what it is that they are hiding. It seems to me that an industry that claims to have safety as a top priority would be interested in sharing the information about injuries on their mountains.”The resort industry vehemently rebuffs the notion that ski areas do not take safety seriously.Patricia Campbell, the then-president of Vail Resorts' 37-resort mountain division and a 35-year veteran of the resort industry, told Colorado lawmakers considering the 2021 legislation that requiring ski resorts to publish safety reports was “not workable” and would create an “unnecessary burden, confusion and distraction.”Requiring resorts to publish public safety plans, she said, would “trigger a massive administrative effort” that could redirect resort work from other safety measures.“Publishing safety plans will not inform skiers about our work or create a safer ski area,” Campbell told the Colorado Senate's Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in April 2021.On ASTM International Pawlak refers to “ASTM International” in the podcast. That is an acronym for “American Society for Testing and Materials,” an organization that sets standards for various industries. Here's an overview video that most of you will find fairly boring (I do, however, find it fascinating that these essentially invisible boards operate in the background to introduce some consistency into our highly confusing industrialized world):On Mammoth and Deer Valley's “everyone gets 15 feet” campaignThere's a cool video of this on Deer Valley's Instapost that won't embed on this page for some reason. Since Alterra owns both resorts, I will assume Mammoth's campaign is similar.On Heavenly's collision prevention programMore on this program, from NSAA's Safety Awards website:Heavenly orchestrated a complex collision prevention strategy to address a very specific situation and need arising from instances of skier density in certain areas. The ski area's unique approach leveraged detailed incident data and distinct geographic features, guest dynamics and weather patterns to identify and mitigate high-risk areas effectively. Among its efforts to redirect people in a congested area, Heavenly reintroduced the Lakeview Terrain Park, added a rest area and groomed a section through the trees to attract guests to an underutilized run. Most impressively, these innovative interventions resulted in a 52% year-over-year reduction of person-on-person collisions. Judges also appreciated that the team successfully incorporated creative thinking from a specialist-level employee. For its effective solutions to reduce collision risk through thoughtful terrain management, NSAA awarded Heavenly Mountain Resort with the win for Best Collision Prevention Program.On the Crested Butte accidentPawlak and I discuss a 2022 accident at Crested Butte that could end up having lasting consequences on the ski industry. Per The Colorado Sun:It was toward the end of the first day of a ski vacation with their church in March 2022 when Mike Miller and his daughter Annie skied up to the Paradise Express lift at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. The chair spun around and Annie couldn't settle into the seat. Mike grabbed her. The chair kept climbing out of the lift terminal. He screamed for the lift operator to stop the chair. So did people in the line. The chair kept moving. Annie tried to hold on to the chair. Mike tried to hold his 16-year-old daughter. The fall from 30 feet onto hard-packed snow shattered her C7 vertebrae, bruised her heart, lacerated her liver and injured her lungs. She will not walk again. The Miller family claims the lift operators were not standing at the lift controls and “consciously and recklessly disregarded the safety of Annie” when they failed to stop the Paradise chair. In a lawsuit the family filed in December 2022 in Broomfield County District Court, they accused Crested Butte Mountain Resort and its owner, Broomfield-based Vail Resorts, of gross negligence and “willful and wanton conduct.”In May, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on the incident, per SAM:In a 5-2 ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court found that liability waivers cannot be used to protect ski areas from negligence claims related to chairlift accidents. The decision will allow a negligence per se claim brought against Vail Resorts to proceed in the district courts.The decision, however, did not invalidate all waivers, as the NSAA clarified in the same SAM article:There was concern among outdoor activity operators in Colorado that the case might void liability waivers altogether, but the narrow scope of the decision has largely upheld the use of liability waivers to protect against claims pertaining to inherent risks.“While the Supreme Court carved out a narrow path where releases of liability cannot be enforced in certain, unique chairlift incidents, the media downplayed, if not ignored, a critical part of the ruling,” explained Dave Byrd, the National Ski Areas Association's (NSAA) director of risk and regulatory affairs. “Plaintiffs' counsel had asked the [Colorado] Supreme Court to overturn decades of court precedent enforcing the broader use of ALL releases in recreation incidents, and the court unanimously declined to make such a radical change with Colorado's long-standing law on releases and waivers—and that was the more important part of the court's decision from my perspective.”The Colorado Supreme Court's ruling “express[es] no view as to the ultimate merit of the claim,” rather it allows the Millers' claim to proceed to trial in the lower courts. It could be month or years before the lawsuit is concluded.On me knowing “all too well what it's like to be injured on a ski trip”Boy do I ever:Yeah that's my leg. Ouch.Don't worry. I've skied 102 days since that mangling.Here's the full story.On “Jerry of the Day”I have conflicted feelings on Jerry of the Day. Some of their posts are hilarious, capturing what are probably genuinely good and seasoned skiers whiffing in incredible fashion:Some are just mean-spirited and stupid:Funny I guess if you rip and wear it ironically. But it's harder to be funny than you may suppose. See The New Yorker's cloying and earnest (and never-funny), Shouts & Murmurs column.On state passport programsState passport programs are one of the best hacks to make skiing affordable for families. Run by various state ski associations, they provide between one and three lift tickets to every major ski area in the state for some grade range between third and fifth. A small administrative fee typically applies, but otherwise, the lift tickets are free. In most, if not all, cases, kids do not need to live in the state to be eligible. Check out the programs in New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Utah. Other states have them too – use the Google machine to find them.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 58/100 in 2024, and number 558 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe