Podcasts about Arapahoe Basin

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2025 76:33

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

america ceo american california president kids los angeles state colorado africa italian bachelor utah bear broadway southern california new england west coast village pacific base new hampshire ferrari new york yankees lift mountains eminem eagle red bull chief operating officer solitude openai clouds statue californians seventeen north star socal challenger mccoy technically copper lacking coyote dwight eisenhower chairs canyon pico mammoths keystone aston martin sierra nevada jackson hole tahoe whistler vail yan big sky catskills loon roadrunner d line steamboats big bear taos kirkwood palisades telluride sun valley winter park schweitzer ikon rustic wasatch tripling boreal j1 wile e poma revelstoke mammoth lakes greyhawk killington bear mountain deer valley mammoth mountain eric clark sublette alterra sunday river palisades tahoe dave mccoy arapahoe basin mount snow alterra mountain company riblet

Podcast #195: United Mountain Workers President Max Magill

Aspen Public Radio Newscast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2025 77:43

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.WhoMax Magill, President of United Mountain Workers and ski patroller at Park City Mountain Resort, UtahRecorded onJanuary 11, 2025About United Mountain WorkersUnited Mountain Workers (UMW) is a labor union representing 16 distinct employee groups across more than a dozen U.S. ski resorts:UMW is organized under Communication Workers of America, which represents more than 700,000 workers across media, healthcare, manufacturing, and other sectors.Why I interviewed himIn case you missed it (New York Times):Ski patrollers at Park City Mountain in Utah triumphantly returned to the slopes on Thursday, after ending a nearly two-week strike over union wages and benefits. The strike hobbled the largest U.S. ski resort during a busy holiday period and sparked online fury about deepening economic inequality in rural mountain areas.Late Wednesday, the Park City Professional Ski Patrollers Association ratified a contract with Vail Resorts, which owns Park City and more than 40 other ski areas, that raises the starting pay of ski patrollers and other mountain safety workers $2 an hour, to $23. The most experienced patrollers will receive an average increase of $7.75 per hour. The agreement also expands parental leave policies for the workers, and provides “industry-leading educational opportunities,” according to the union. …Accusing Vail Resorts of unfair labor practices, the Ski Patrollers Association, which represents 204 ski patrollers and mountain safety personnel, went on strike on Dec. 27. The strike received national attention as a fight between the haves and have-nots — a global corporation valued at nearly $10 billion against the vital workers who aid and protect skiers on its properties.With few ski patrollers to open trails, respond to accidents and perform avalanche mitigation, only about one fourth of Park City Mountain's terrain was open during the strike.Irate skiers and snowboarders at Park City soon pilloried Vail, taking to social media and national news organizations to denounce lengthy lift lines and contrast the high salaries of Vail leadership and expensive ticket prices with the relatively low pay of resort workers.This is a big deal, and it's probably just getting started.What we talked aboutBack to work; support in unexpected corners; I hear tell of flying pizzas and donuts and I want in on this magical world; a brief timeline of contract negotiations; what Vail Resorts offered and why the union said no; “we had no choice but to play our final and most powerful card, knowing that our strike would cause massive disruption”; deconstructing the vast Vail management machine; what UMW won in the new contract; “the raises we won are life-changing for a ton of our members, including me”; a rapidly changing Utah; how the patrollers' union was challenged when Vail merged Park City and Canyons; “a malicious union-busting campaign is the best way to organize workers”; organizing a union in a “right to work” state; the amazing complexity of Park City Mountain Resort; the complexities of importing patrollers from one resort to another; skier volumes at Park City over time; the pluses and minuses of more skiers; “this movement will continue to grow”; the patrol union vote at A-Basin (it passed); could the various patrol unions combine?; whether ski industry unions could spread to other worker groups and regions; “all workers, ski industry or not, deserve respect”; and Vail's big 2022 pay raises.Questions I wish I'd askedI was surprised to hear Magill describe new patrol uniforms as “pretty substandard.” With every lift op rocking a Helly jacket, I figured the squad up top would get primo stuff. Why don't they?What I got wrongReal-world facts for numbers that I roughly guessed at mid-talk:* Park City population: 8,254 (I said “a little over 8,000”)* 2024-25 Epic Pass sales: approximately 2.3 million (I said “2 million”)* Early-bird price of a 2024-25 Epic Local Pass: $739 (I said “seven-thirty-something”)* Size of Park City Mountain Resort: 7,300 acres, 350 trails (I actually got these right, but tagged them with a “or whatever they are” on the pod)* On the number of active U.S. ski areas: 509, by my own count (I said “500-some,” but it changes almost weekly, so I hedged)On words being hard* I kept saying “exasperate” when I meant to say “exacerbate,” a word that my idiot brain cannot pronounce. But I know the difference so please stop sending me that email.* I said that “most” U.S. ski areas were in the Midwest and East, when I meant to say that the “majority” were. This is true. Only 189 of the 509 active U.S. ski areas (37%) sit in the 11 western ski states.On things changing fastMagill and I discussed the pending unionization vote among Arapahoe Basin patrollers. Shortly after our conversation concluded, he informed me that they had officially voted to organize.On sourcingI cited the AP (Associated Press), as my source for some summary points from the Park City patrollers' contract with Vail Resorts. Most of what I cited actually came from High Country News.Corrected mid-flow* Contract negotiations began in March (not May, as I suggested) of 2024* Patrollers at the then-independent Canyons ski area established the union that now represents all of Park City Mountain Resort in 2001, not 2002. Vail purchased Canyons in 2013 and Park City in 2014, and combined the side-by-side ski areas into one with the Quicksilver Gondola in 2015.On skier visit numbersI noted that ski resorts operating on Forest Service lands had successfully lobbied against requirements to report annual skier visit numbers. That probably seemed irrelevant in the case of Park City Mountain Resort, which does not operate on Forest Service land, but I was trying to get to the larger point that Vail Resorts is secretive with its resort-by-resort skier visits.Podcast NotesOn Right to WorkMany states have passed “right to work” laws, meaning that employees are not compelled to join a labor union, even if one represents their workplace. From the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation:Nuances exist from state to state. Magill notes in our conversation that Colorado is a right-to-work state, but the Colorado Sun describes the state as a “modified right-to-work state”:But the Labor Peace Act is a law that unions find to be a challenge.Enacted in 1943, the state law was seen as a compromise between unions and business owners. That's why Colorado is considered a modified right-to-work state, which means that new hires don't have to join a union if one exists, though they can if they want to. But if a union wins its Labor Peace Act election, then union membership is required.The Peace Act rules require three-quarters of eligible workers to participate in a second vote, if they already successfully voted in an NLRB election. Without it, the union has less bite since it doesn't represent all eligible workers and cannot collect dues from those who don't join. The NLRB's vote needs just a simple majority.On Park City Mountain ResortYeah it's freaking huge:On the “Knowledge”I compared the master patroller's understanding of gigantic, rollicking Park City - with its 350 trails, 7,300 acres, and dozens of lifts - to the “Knowledge,” an exam that requires would-be London taxi drivers to memorize every cobblestone in the city to earn their license. Per The New York Times:McCabe had spent the last three years of his life thinking about London's roads and landmarks, and how to navigate between them. In the process, he had logged more than 50,000 miles on motorbike and on foot, the equivalent of two circumnavigations of the Earth, nearly all within inner London's dozen boroughs and the City of London financial district. He was studying to be a London taxi driver, devoting himself full-time to the challenge that would earn him a cabbie's “green badge” and put him behind the wheel of one of the city's famous boxy black taxis.Actually, “challenge” isn't quite the word for the trial a London cabbie endures to gain his qualification. It has been called the hardest test, of any kind, in the world. Its rigors have been likened to those required to earn a degree in law or medicine. It is without question a unique intellectual, psychological and physical ordeal, demanding unnumbered thousands of hours of immersive study, as would-be cabbies undertake the task of committing to memory the entirety of London, and demonstrating that mastery through a progressively more difficult sequence of oral examinations — a process which, on average, takes four years to complete, and for some, much longer than that. The guidebook issued to prospective cabbies by London Taxi and Private Hire (LTPH), which oversees the test, summarizes the task like this:To achieve the required standard to be licensed as an “All London” taxi driver you will need a thorough knowledge, primarily, of the area within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. You will need to know: all the streets; housing estates; parks and open spaces; government offices and departments; financial and commercial centres; diplomatic premises; town halls; registry offices; hospitals; places of worship; sports stadiums and leisure centres; airline offices; stations; hotels; clubs; theatres; cinemas; museums; art galleries; schools; colleges and universities; police stations and headquarters buildings; civil, criminal and coroner's courts; prisons; and places of interest to tourists. In fact, anywhere a taxi passenger might ask to be taken.If anything, this description understates the case. The six-mile radius from Charing Cross, the putative center-point of London marked by an equestrian statue of King Charles I, takes in some 25,000 streets. London cabbies need to know all of those streets, and how to drive them — the direction they run, which are one-way, which are dead ends, where to enter and exit traffic circles, and so on. But cabbies also need to know everything on the streets. Examiners may ask a would-be cabbie to identify the location of any restaurant in London. Any pub, any shop, any landmark, no matter how small or obscure — all are fair game. Test-takers have been asked to name the whereabouts of flower stands, of laundromats, of commemorative plaques. One taxi driver told me that he was asked the location of a statue, just a foot tall, depicting two mice sharing a piece of cheese. It's on the facade of a building in Philpot Lane, on the corner of Eastcheap, not far from London Bridge.Surely hyperbole, I thought, upon reading this 2014 article. But when I stepped into a London black cab some years later and gave the driver my address, he said “Quite good Old Fellow”* and piloted his gigantic car from the train station down an impossible tangle of narrow streets and dropped us at the doorstep of the very building I'd requested. It appears that the robots have yet to kill this requirement.*He probably didn't actually say this, but I jolly well wish he had.On Vail's 2022 pay raisesOn different skillsets and jobsI think I came off as a bit of an a-hole at the end when I was asking about Vail paying unskilled jobs like ticket-checker and lift attendant $20 an hour while setting the minimum for more skilled jobs like ski patrol at $21. Look, I know all jobs have nuances and challenges and ways to do them well and ways to do them poorly. I've done all sorts of “unskilled” jobs, from bagging groceries to pushing shopping carts to stocking shelves to waiting tables. I know the work can be challenging, tiring, and thankless, and I believe good workers should be paid good wages. If you're loading a fixed-grip double chair on a beginner run for eight hours in four-degree weather, well, you're awesome. But it does take more training and a larger skillset to step onto a big-mountain patrol than to manage a big-mountain liftline, and I believe the compensation for the more rigorous role ought to reflect that skills gap.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

Wednesday, November 20

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2024 9:37

On today's newscast: The city of Aspen is considering how to enforce the state's new psilocybin law; Arapahoe Basin ski area's sale to Alterra Ski Company has been finalized; and Denver-based Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright has been tapped as the Energy Secretary for Donald Trump's second administration. Tune into these stories and more.

donald trump energy secretary arapahoe basin

Skiing During Sundance in Utah with Ski-Bum-Extraordinaire Sebastian Blanno

Who Wear There by the Travel Brats

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2024 32:43

Utah in winter? Chef's kiss. Whether you're a ski bunny or a movie buff, this is the place to be. Picture this: late January rolls in, and Utah transforms into a winter wonderland. Snowy peaks call out to skiers, while Park City turns into a hub of glitz, glamour, and indie-film magic with the Sundance Film Festival. It's the perfect blend of adrenaline and artsy vibes.This week, Sofia and her mountain-man-extraordinaire and slight-ski-bum brother, Sebastian Blanno, hit the mic to talk about Utah's winter hotspots. Sebbi (our in-house Travel Brat ski king) knows his slopes, and he's here to spill the powdery tea on the best resorts, runs, and eats in the Beehive State.The Best Time to GoSebastian recommends the middle of January to early February. Why? Peak powder and prime Sundance season! Double the fun and twice the glitz, glamour, and magic of Sundance, plus the slopes are pretty empty despite the crowded streets! (P.S. If you're hitting Sundance, pack your boots AND your black-tie looks. You'll thank us later.)Here are Sebbi's Must-Visit Ski Havens in UtahPark City & Park City Mountain ResortThe Stats: Park City Mountain Resort, combined with Canyons Resort, is the largest ski area in the United States, with over 7,300 acres of skiable terrain. But keep in mind, large does NOT mean BEST!The Level: A great beginner, intermediate mountain with many “cruiser blues.” Similar to Vail Resort in Colorado.The Vibes: Once a silver mining town in the 19th century, Park City oozes charm with its historic buildings turned into trendy shops and restaurants. Did we mention you can ski past old mine shafts? Epic. Deer Valley ResortThe Luxe Life Vibe: With ski valets, snacks in the lift lines, gourmet on-mountain dining, and unparalleled service, Deer Valley Resort is consistently ranked as one of the most luxurious ski resorts in North America. You can even get a view of some mega-mansions on your way down the slopes! This is boujee skiing at its finest; perfect for our die-hard Travel Brats! Level & Terrain: Similar to Steamboat in Colorado, with great tree-skiing and many blue and black groomers. Also, no snowboarders allowed! Traditional skiing reigns supreme here.Little Cottonwood Canyon - The Iconic American Resorts of Snowbird & AltaSnowbird: A Travel Brat personal favorite, Snowbird is known for its long ski season, which can stretch to July 4th, and has very advanced terrain. Snowbird is also home to the famous Tram, which offers breathtaking views of the Wasatch Range as it climbs over 2,900 vertical feet. If you ski down into the mineral basin from here and then take one more lift, you can enter into Alta. Snowbird is similar to the Colorado resorts, Silverton or Aspen Highlands.Alta: A legendary U.S. Ski resort. Like Deer Valley, a snowboard-free paradise where traditional skiing reigns supreme. You can also ski back to Snowboird from Alta via the Tram or tunnel.Both Snowbird and Alta receive very similar snow accumulation, with Snowbird receiving about 600 inches in one season! Great for POWPOW skiing!Big Cottonwood Canyon - Solitude & Brighton:Solitude and Brighton are a snowboarder's dream. Lifts are spaced out, and the slopes have large open glades. These are your go-to spots for those craving quieter, more rugged vibes and killer backcountry terrain. Big Cottonwood also gets fantastic powder. Lifts are spaced out, and the slopes have large open glades. Similar to Colorado's Keystone (on the easy end) and Arapahoe Basin (on the difficult end), Solitude and Brighton are known as “social” mountains that the locals love.Favorite RunsSebastian's picks for thrilling runs? Snowbird's double black diamond run, “Lower Organ Grinder.” Hit Park City's “Quittin' Time” run for those postcard-perfect views and Snowbird's “Cirque Traverse” for heart-pounding challenges. Aprés Ski EatsPost-skiing, Sebbi raves about the Handle in Park City for its creative small plates and The Iconic Ruth Chris Steakhouse for a splurge-worthy feast. Try the venison! A favorite Park City Bar is “the Pig Pen Saloon” where you can get a $1 T-shirt with the purchase of a shot.Fun Utah Trivia: True or False?Utah's snow is called "The Greatest Snow on Earth" because it's super light and fluffy.True. The dry climate = primo powder.Sundance started in 1968, thanks to Robert Redford.False. It kicked off in 1978 as a small showcase for American films.Spielberg, Lucas, and Kubrick debuted films at Sundance.False. Legends like Tarantino and the Coen Brothers owe their big breaks to Sundance.It's illegal to throw snowballs in Utah without consent.True. Yep, Utah takes snowball fights seriously. Be sure to get consent before engaging in a snowball fight!“Stuff” You Should KnowSnow in Utah is not as dry as it is in Colorado, however, the temperatures don't feel as chilly. All resorts (with no traffic) are between a 20-35 minute drive. In addition, the Salt Lake City Airport is only 20 minutes from Park City.What to PackLayers, people! Layer using a GORE-TEX or other water-repellent gear to combat Utah's humidity. You'll need cozy après-ski sweaters, and something chic for Sundance. Bonus: pack sunscreen—mountain sunburn is real. Budget BreakWith the base regular Ikon Base pass, you can enjoy 5 days at Brighton, Snowbird, and Solitude. With the upgraded Ikon pass, you can enjoy 5 days at Deer Valley as well. This costs about $1,200. To ski Park City, you need to buy an Epic Pass. You can purchase a 3-day Epic pass for $320. Keep in mind, this $1,500+ splurge includes, not just Utah Skiing, but most other resorts for your entire ski season. Visit the Ikon and Epic websites for more info on resort options and perks. If you are driving from another western state you will end up spending roughly $200 on gas, if you share a hotel with 3 to 4 friends you will end up spending about $600 per person for 3-5 days, and if you are a foodie and a drink lover, budget about $2,000 per person. If you like memorable merch, set aside $100 for a souvenir or two.Most Memorable Moment: Sebbi's Solo Tram Run Sebbi's most memorable Travel Story was his last run at Snowbird down the “Great Scott” run right below the Tram. He blasted to the bottom and stared back at the mountain in awe at his entire experience. Catching him staring back at the Mountain, his Buddy said “You like Snowbird Bass?” and he said, “Oh Yeeeeeea.” Snowbird will always hold a place in Sebastian's heart as one of his favorite resorts.Why Visit Utah?Here's Seb's elevator pitch: Thick. Powder. Culture. Adventure. Whack. Extra. Different. Unforgettable. Whether you're carving through fresh POPOW or catching a future Oscar-winner at Sundance, Utah is the winter escape you didn't know you needed.Catch ya on the slopes, Travel Brats! And don't forget to tag us when you're shredding those Utah slopes or striking a pose at Sundance.

Podcast #189: Copper Mountain President & GM Dustin Lyman

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2024 87:08

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

EPISODE 731 | National Team Training at Arapahoe Basin with Kevin Jordan

training national team team training george thomas kevin jordan arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2024 22:47

PSIA Alpine Team Member Kevin Jordan sits down with our podcast host, George Thomas at Team Training to chat about what the week of Training entailed. Kevin goes into detail talking about what the week holds and what the larger goals were to come from this event. There was more of a mechanical focus to this Training that involved some pre-work relating to the basic parallel turn. Kevin talks about what it's like to be a two-term member and how this term is already a bit different than the last. Tune in for much more and learn more at thesnowpros.org.

Podcast #182: National Ski Areas Association President & CEO Kelly Pawlak

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2024 79:20

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

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Podcast #176: Wildcat General Manager JD Crichton

jason blevins arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 3, 2024 82:39

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 26. It dropped for free subscribers on July 3. 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:WhoJD Crichton, General Manager of Wildcat Mountain, New HampshireRecorded onMay 30, 2024About WildcatClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Gorham, New HampshireYear founded: 1933 (lift service began in 1957)Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Pass – unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Pass – unlimited weekday accessClosest neighboring ski areas: Black Mountain, New Hampshire (:18), Attitash (:22), Cranmore (:28), Sunday River (:45), Mt. Prospect Ski Tow (:46), Mt. Abram (:48), Bretton Woods (:48), King Pine (:50), Pleasant Mountain (:57), Cannon (1:01), Mt. Eustis Ski Hill (1:01)Base elevation: 1,950 feetSummit elevation: 4,062 feetVertical drop: 2,112 feetSkiable Acres: 225Average annual snowfall: 200 inchesTrail count: 48 (20% beginner, 47% intermediate, 33% advanced)Lift count: 5 (1 high-speed quad, 3 triples, 1 carpet)Why I interviewed himI've always been skeptical of acquaintances who claim to love living in New Jersey because of “the incredible views of Manhattan.” Because you know where else you can find incredible views of Manhattan? In Manhattan. And without having to charter a hot-air balloon across the river anytime you have to go to work or see a Broadway play.* But sometimes views are nice, and sometimes you want to be adjacent-to-but-not-necessarily-a-part-of something spectacular and dramatic. And when you're perched summit-wise on Wildcat, staring across the street at Mount Washington, the most notorious and dramatic peak on the eastern seaboard, it's hard to think anything other than “damn.”Flip the view and the sentiment reverses as well. The first time I saw Wildcat was in summertime, from the summit of Mount Washington. Looking 2,200 feet down, from above treeline, it's an almost quaint-looking ski area, spare but well-defined, its spiderweb trail network etched against the wild Whites. It feels as though you could reach down and put it in your pocket. If you didn't know you were looking at one of New England's most abrasive ski areas, you'd probably never guess it.Wildcat could feel tame only beside Mount Washington, that open-faced deathtrap hunched against 231-mile-per-hour winds. Just, I suppose, as feisty New Jersey could only seem placid across the Hudson from ever-broiling Manhattan. To call Wildcat the New Jersey of ski areas would seem to imply some sort of down-tiering of the thing, but over two decades on the East Coast, I've come to appreciate oft-abused NJ as something other than New York City overflow. Ignore the terrible drivers and the concrete-bisected arterials and the clusters of third-world industry and you have a patchwork of small towns and beach towns, blending, to the west and north, with the edges of rolling Appalachia, to the south with the sweeping Pine Barrens, to the east with the wild Atlantic.It's actually pretty nice here across the street, is my point. Even if it's not quite as cozy as it looks. This is a place as raw and wild and real as any in the world, a thing that, while forever shadowed by its stormy neighbor, stands just fine on its own.*It's not like living in New Jersey is some kind of bargain. It's like paying Club Thump Thump prices for grocery store Miller Lite. Or at least that was my stance until I moved my smug ass to Brooklyn.What we talked aboutMountain cleanup day; what it took to get back to long seasons at Wildcat and why they were truncated for a handful of winters; post-Vail-acquisition snowmaking upgrades; the impact of a $20-an-hour minimum wage on rural New Hampshire; various bargain-basement Epic Pass options; living through major resort acquisitions; “there is no intention to make us all one and the same”; a brief history of Wildcat; how skiers lapped Wildcat before mechanical lifts; why Wildcat Express no longer transforms from a chairlift to a gondola for summer ops; contemplating Wildcat Express replacements; retroactively assessing the removal of the Catapult lift; the biggest consideration in determining the future of Wildcat's lift fleet; when a loaded chair fell off the Snowcat lift in 2022; potential base area development; and Attitash as sister resort. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSince it's impossible to discuss any Vail mountain without discussing Vail Resorts, I'll go ahead and start there. The Colorado-based company's 2019 acquisition of wild Wildcat (along with 16 other Peak resorts), met the same sort of gasp-oh-how-can-corporate-Vail-ever-possibly-manage-a-mountain-that-doesn't-move-skiers-around-like-the-fat-humans-on-the-space-base-in-Wall-E that greeted the acquisitions of cantankerous Crested Butte (2018), Whistler (2016), and Kirkwood (2012). It's the same sort of worry-warting that Alterra is up against as it tries to close the acquisition of Arapahoe Basin. But, as I detailed in a recent podcast episode on Kirkwood, the surprising thing is how little can change at these Rad Brah outposts even a dozen years after The Consumption Event.But, well. At first the Angry Ski Bros of upper New England seemed validated. Vail really didn't do a great job of running Wildcat from 2019 to 2022-ish. The confluence of Covid, inherited deferred maintenance, unfamiliarity with the niceties of East Coast operations, labor shortages, Wal-Mart-priced passes, and the distractions caused by digesting 20 new ski areas in one year contributed to shortened seasons, limited terrain, understaffed operations, and annoyed customers. It didn't help when a loaded chair fell off the Snowcat triple in 2022. Vail may have run ski resorts for decades, but the company had never encountered anything like the brash, opinionated East, where ski areas are laced tightly together, comparisons are easy, and migrations to another mountain if yours starts to suck are as easy as a five-minute drive down the road.But Vail is settling into the Northeast, making major lift upgrades at Stowe, Mount Snow, Okemo, Attitash, and Hunter since 2021. Mandatory parking reservations have helped calm once-unmanageable traffic around Stowe and Mount Snow. The Epic Pass – particularly the northeast-specific versions – has helped to moderate region-wide season pass prices that had soared to well over $1,000 at many ski areas. The company now seems to understand that this isn't Keystone, where you can make snow in October and turn the system off for 11 months. While Vail still seems plodding in Pennsylvania and the lower Midwest, where seasons are too short and the snowmaking efforts often underwhelming, they appear to have cracked New England – operationally if not always necessarily culturally.That's clear at Wildcat, where seasons are once again running approximately five months, operations are fully staffed, and the pitchforks are mostly down. Wildcat has returned to the fringe, where it belongs, to being an end-of-the-road day-trip alternative for people who prefer ski areas to ski resorts (and this is probably the best ski-area-with-no-public-onsite lodging in New England). Locals I speak with are generally happy with the place, which, this being New England, means they only complain about it most of the time, rather than all of the time. Short of moving the mountain out of its tempestuous microclimate and into Little Cottonwood Canyon, there isn't much Vail could do to change that, so I'd suggest taking the win.What I got wrongWhen discussing the installation of the Wildcat Express and the decommissioning of the Catapult triple, I made a throwaway reference to “whoever owned the mountain in the late ‘90s.” The Franchi family owned Wildcat from 1986 until selling the mountain to Peak Resorts in 2010.Why you should ski WildcatThere isn't much to Wildcat other than skiing. A parking lot, a baselodge, scattered small buildings of unclear utility - all of them weather-beaten and slightly ramshackle, humanity's sad ornaments on nature's spectacle.But the skiing. It's the only thing there is and it's the only thing that matters. One high-speed lift straight to the top. There are other lifts but if the 2,041-vertical-foot Wildcat Express is spinning you probably won't even notice, let alone ride, them. Straight up, straight down. All day long or until your fingers fall off, which will probably take about 45 minutes.The mountain doesn't look big but it is big. Just a few trails off the top but these quickly branch infinitely like some wild seaside mangrove, funneling skiers, whatever their intent, into various savage channels of its bell-shaped footprint. Descending the steepness, Mount Washington, so prominent from the top, disappears, somehow too big to be seen, a paradox you could think more about if you weren't so preoccupied with the skiing.It's not that the skiing is great, necessarily. When it's great it's amazing. But it's almost never amazing. It's also almost never terrible. What it is, just about all the time, is a fight, a mottled, potholed, landmine-laced mother-bleeper of a mountain that will not cede a single turn without a little backtalk. This is not an implication of the mountain ops team. Wildcat is about as close to an un-tamable mountain as you'll find in the over-groomed East. If you've ever tried building a sandcastle in a rising tide, you have a sense of what it's like trying to manage this cantankerous beast with its impossible weather and relentless pitch.We talk a bit, on the podcast, about Wildcat's better-than-you'd-suppose beginner terrain and top-to-bottom green trail. But no one goes there for that. The easy stuff is a fringe benefit for edgier families, who don't want to pinch off the rapids just because they're pontooning on the lake. Anyone who truly wants to coast knows to go to Bretton Woods or Cranmore. Wildcat packs the rowdies like jacket-flask whisky, at hand for the quick hit or the bender, for as dicey a day as you care to make it.Podcast NotesOn long seasons at WildcatWildcat, both under the Franchi family (1986 to 2010), and Peak Resorts, had made a habit of opening early and closing late. During Vail Resorts' first three years running the mountain, those traditions slipped, with later-than-normal openings and earlier-than-usual closings. Obviously we toss out the 2020 early close, but fall 2020 to spring 2022 were below historical standards. Per New England Ski History:On Big Lifts: New England EditionI noted that the Wildcat Express quad delivered one of the longest continuous vertical rises of any New England lift. I didn't actually know where the machine ranked, however, so I made this chart. The quad lands at an impressive number five among all lifts, and is third among chairlifts, in the six-state region:Kind of funny that, even in 2024, two of the 10 biggest vertical drops in New England still belong to fixed-grip chairs (also arguably the two best terrain pods in Vermont, with Madonna at Smuggs and the single at MRG).The tallest lifts are not always the longest lifts, and Wildcat Express ranks as just the 13th-longest lift in New England. A surprise entrant in the top 15 is Stowe's humble Toll House double, a 6,400-foot-long chairlift that rises just 890 vertical feet. Another inconspicuous double chair – Sugarloaf's older West Mountain lift – would have, at 6,968 feet, have made this list (at No. 10) before the resort shortened it last year (to 4,130 feet). It's worth noting that, as far as I know, Sugarbush's Slide Brook Express is the longest chairlift in the world.On Herman MountainCrichton grew up skiing at Hermon Mountain, a 300-ish footer outside of Bangor, Maine. The bump still runs the 1966 Poma T-bar that he skied off of as a kid, as well as a Stadeli double moved over from Pleasant Mountain in 1998 (and first installed there, according to Lift Blog, in 1967. The most recent Hermon Mountain trailmap that I can find dates to 2007:On the Epic Northeast Value Pass versus other New England season passes Vail's Epic Northeast Value Pass is a stupid good deal: $613 for unlimited access to the company's four New Hampshire ski areas (Wildcat, Attitash, Mount Sunapee, Crotched), non-holiday access to Mount Snow and Okemo, and 10 non-holiday days at Stowe (plus access to Hunter and everything Vail operates in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan). Surveying New England's 25 largest ski areas, the Northeast Value Pass is less-expensive than all but Smugglers' Notch ($599), Black Mountain of Maine ($465), Pico ($539), and Ragged ($529). All of those save Ragged's are single-mountain passes.On the Epic Day PassYes I am still hung up on the Epic Day Pass, and here's why:On consolidationI referenced Powdr's acquisition of Copper Mountain in 2009 and Vail's purchase of Crested Butte in 2018. Here's an inventory all the U.S. ski areas owned by a company with two or more resorts:On Wildcat's old Catapult liftWhen Wildcat installed its current summit chair in 1997, they removed the Catapult triple, a shorter summit lift (Lift F below) that had provided redundancy to the summit alongside the old gondola (Lift A):Interestingly, the old gondy, which dated to 1957, remained in place for two more years. Here's a circa 1999 trailmap, showing both the Wildcat Express and the gondola running parallel from base to summit:It's unclear how often both lifts actually ran simultaneously in the winter, but the gondola died with the 20th Century. The Wildcat Express was a novel transformer lift, which converted from a high-speed quad chair in the winter to a four-passenger gondola in the summer. Vail, for reasons Crichton explains in the podcast, abandoned that configuration and appears to have no intentions of restoring it.On the Snowcat lift incidentA bit more on the January 2022 chairlift accident at Wildcat, per SAM:On Saturday, Jan. 8, a chair carrying a 22-year-old snowboarder on the Snowcat triple at Wildcat Mountain, N.H., detached from the haul rope and fell nearly 10 feet to the ground. Wildcat The guest was taken to a nearby hospital with serious rib injuries.According to state fire marshal Sean Toomey, the incident began after the chair was misloaded—meaning the guest was not properly seated on the chair as it continued moving out of the loading area. The chair began to swing as it traveled uphill, struck a lift tower and detached from the haul rope, falling to the ground. Snowcat is a still-active Riblet triple, and attaches to the haulrope with a device called an “insert clip.” I found this description of these novel devices on a random blog from 2010, so maybe don't include this in a report to Congress on the state of the nation's lift fleet:[Riblet] closed down in 2003. There are still quite a few around; from the three that originally were at The Canyons, only the Golden Eagle chair survives today. Riblet built some 500 lifts. The particularities of the Riblet chair are their grips, which are called insert clips. It is a very ingenious device and it is very safe too. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, You'll see a sketch below showing the detail of the clip.… One big benefit of the clip is that it provides a very smooth ride over the sheave trains, particularly under the compression sheaves, something that traditional clam/jaw grips cannot match. The drawback is that the clip cannot be visually inspected at it is the case with other grips. Also, the code required to move the grip every 2 years or 2,000 hours, whichever comes first. This is the same with traditional grips.This is a labor-intensive job and a special tool has been developed: The Riblet "Grip Detensioner." It's showed on a second picture representing the tool in action. You can see the cable in the middle with the strands separated, which allows the insertion of the clip. Also, the fiber or plastic core of the wire rope has to be cut where the clip is inserted. When the clip is moved to another location of the cable, a plastic part has to be placed into the cable to replace the missing piece of the core. Finally, the Riblet clip cannot be placed on the spliced section of the rope.Loaded chairs utilizing insert clips also detached from lifts at Snowriver (2021) and 49 Degrees North (2020). An unoccupied, moving chair fell from Heavenly's now-retired North Bowl triple in 2016.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 44/100 in 2024, and number 544 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

It's full-on summer, so let's talk skiin

The Daily Sun-Up

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2024 20:18

Ihttps://coloradosun.com/2024/06/28/justice-department-alterra-arapahoe-basin/ https://coloradosun.com/2024/06/17/colorado-ski-areas-visits-spending/ Today – Sun outdoors reporter Jason Blevins has updates from the skiing industry on updates in the Arapahoe Basin sale, skier visits and what resorts are doing with all that money.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Podcast #175: Whistler Blackcomb Vice President & COO Belinda Trembath

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2024 111:52

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 10. It dropped for free subscribers on June 17. 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:WhoBelinda Trembath, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb, British ColumbiaRecorded onJune 3, 2024About Whistler BlackcombClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail Resorts (majority owners; Nippon Cable owns a 25 percent stake in Whistler Blackcomb)Located in: Whistler, British ColumbiaYear founded: 1966Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited* Epic Local Pass: 10 holiday-restricted days, shared with Vail Mountain and Beaver CreekClosest neighboring ski areas: Grouse Mountain (1:26), Cypress (1:30), Mt. Seymour (1:50) – travel times vary based upon weather conditions, time of day, and time of yearBase elevation: 2,214 feet (675 meters)Summit elevation: 7,497 feet (2,284 meters)Vertical drop: 5,283 feet (1,609 meters)Skiable Acres: 8,171Average annual snowfall: 408 inches (1,036 centimeters)Trail count: 276 (20% easiest, 50% more difficult, 30% most difficult)Lift count: A lot (1 28-passenger gondola, 3 10-passenger gondolas, 1 8-passenger gondola, 1 8-passenger pulse gondola, 8 high-speed quads, 4 six-packs, 1 eight-pack, 3 triples, 2 T-bars, 7 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Whistler Blackcomb's lift fleet) – inventory includes upgrade of Jersey Cream Express from a quad to a six-pack for the 2024-25 ski season.Why I interviewed herHistorical records claim that when Lewis and Clark voyaged west in 1804, they were seeking “the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” But they were actually looking for Whistler Blackcomb.Or at least I think they were. What other reason is there to go west but to seek out these fabulous mountains, rising side by side and a mile* into the sky, where Pacific blow-off splinters into summit blizzards and packed humanity animates the village below?There is nothing else like Whistler in North America. It is our most complete, and our greatest, ski resort. Where else does one encounter this collision of terrain, vertical, panorama, variety, and walkable life, interconnected with audacious aerial lifts and charged by a pilgrim-like massing of skiers from every piece and part of the world? Europe and nowhere else. Except for here.Other North American ski resorts offer some of these things, and some of them offer better versions of them than Whistler. But none of them has all of them, and those that have versions of each fail to combine them all so fluidly. There is no better snow than Alta-Snowbird snow, but there is no substantive walkable village. There is no better lift than Jackson's tram, but the inbounds terrain lacks scale and the town is miles away. There is no better energy than Palisades Tahoe energy, but the Pony Express is still carrying news of its existence out of California.Once you've skied Whistler – or, more precisely, absorbed it and been absorbed by it – every other ski area becomes Not Whistler. The place lingers. You carry it around. Place it into every ski conversation. “Have you been to Whistler?” If not, you try to describe it. But it can't be done. “Just go,” you say, and that's as close as most of us can come to grabbing the raw power of the place.*Or 1.6 Canadian Miles (sometimes referred to as “kilometers”).What we talked aboutWhy skier visits dropped at Whistler-Blackcomb this past winter; the new Fitzsimmons eight-passenger express and what it took to modify a lift that had originally been intended for Park City; why skiers can often walk onto that lift with little to no wait; this summer's Jersey Cream lift upgrade; why Jersey Cream didn't require as many modifications as Fitzsimmons even though it was also meant for Park City; the complexity of installing a mid-mountain lift; why WB had to cancel 2024 summer skiing and what that means for future summer seasons; could we see a gondola serving the glacier instead?; Vail's Australian trio of Mt. Hotham, Perisher, and Falls Creek; Whistler's wild weather; the distinct identities of Blackcomb and Whistler; what WB means to Vail Resorts; WB's Olympic legacy; Whistler's surprisingly low base elevation and what that means for the visitor; WB's relationship with local First Nations; priorities for future lift upgrades and potential changes to the Whistler gondola, Seventh Heaven, Whistler T-bar, Franz's, Garbanzo; discussing proposed additional lifts in Symphony Bowl and elsewhere on Whistler; potential expansion into a fourth portal; potential new or upgraded lifts sketched out in Blackcomb Mountain's masterplan; why WB de-commissioned the Hortsman T-Bar; missing the Wizard-to-Solar-Coaster access that the Blackcomb Gondola replaced; WB's amazing self-managing lift mazes; My Epic App direct-to-lift access is coming to Whistler; employee housing; why Whistler's season pass costs more than an Epic Pass; and Edge cards. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewFour new major lifts in three years; the cancellation of summer skiing; “materially lower” skier visits at Whistler this past winter, as reported by Vail Resorts – all good topics, all enough to justify a check-in. Oh and the fact that Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski area in the Western Hemisphere, the crown jewel in Vail's sprawling portfolio, the single most important ski area on the continent.And why is that? What makes this place so special? The answer lies only partly in its bigness. Whistler is vast. Whistler is thrilling. Whistler is everything you hope a ski area will be when you plan your winter vacation. But most important of all is that Whistler is proof.Proof that such a place can exist in North America. U.S. America is stuck in a development cycle that typically goes like this:* Ski area proposes a new expansion/base area development/chairlift/snowmaking upgrade.* A small group of locals picks up the pitchforks because Think of the Raccoons/this will gut the character of our bucolic community of car-dependent sprawl/this will disrupt one very specific thing that is part of my personal routine that heavens me I just can't give up.* Said group files a lawsuit/formal objection/some other bureaucratic obstacle, halting the project.* Resort justifies the project/adapts it to meet locals' concerns/makes additional concessions in the form of land swaps, operational adjustments, infrastructure placement, and the like.* Group insists upon maximalist stance of Do Nothing.* Resort makes additional adjustments.* Group is Still Mad* Cycle repeats for years* Either nothing ever gets done, or the project is built 10 to 15 years after its reveal and at considerable extra expense in the form of studies, legal fees, rising materials and labor costs, and expensive and elaborate modifications to accommodate one very specific thing, like you can't operate the lift from May 1 to April 20 because that would disrupt the seahorse migration between the North and South Poles.In BC, they do things differently. I've covered this extensively, in podcast conversations with the leaders of Sun Peaks, Red Mountain, and Panorama. The civic and bureaucratic structures are designed to promote and encourage targeted, smart development, leading to ever-expanding ski areas, human-scaled and walkable base area infrastructure, and plenty of slopeside or slope-adjacent accommodations.I won't exhaust that narrative again here. I bring it up only to say this: Whistler has done all of these things at a baffling scale. A large, vibrant, car-free pedestrian village where people live and work. A gargantuan lift across an unbridgeable valley. Constant infrastructure upgrades. Reliable mass transit. These things can be done. Whistler is proof.That BC sits directly atop Washington State, where ski areas have to spend 15 years proving that installing a stop sign won't undermine the 17-year cicada hatching cycle, is instructive. Whistler couldn't exist 80 miles south. Maybe the ski area, but never the village. And why not? Such communities, so concentrated, require a small footprint in comparison to the sprawl of a typical development of single-family homes. Whistler's pedestrian base village occupies an area around a half mile long and less than a quarter mile wide. And yet, because it is a walkable, mixed-use space, it cuts down reliance on driving, enlivens the ski area, and energizes the soul. It is proof that human-built spaces, properly conceived, can create something worthwhile in what, 50 years ago, was raw wilderness, even if they replace a small part of the natural world.A note from Whistler on First NationsTrembath and I discuss Whistler's relationship with First Nations extensively, but her team sent me some follow-up information to clarify their role in the mountain's development:Belinda didn't really have time to dive into a very important piece of the First Nations involvement in the operational side of things:* There was significant engagement with First Nations as a part of developing the masterplans.* Their involvement and support were critical to the approval of the masterplans and to ensuring that all parties and their respective communities will benefit from the next 60 years of operation.* This includes the economic prosperity of First Nations – both the Squamish and Líl̓wat Nations will participate in operational success as partners.* To ensure this, the Province of British Columbia, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, Whistler Blackcomb and the Squamish and Líl̓wat Nations are engaged in agreements on how to work together in the future.* These agreements, known as the Umbrella Agreement, run concurrently with the Master Development Agreements and masterplans, providing a road map for our relationship with First Nations over the next 60 years of operations and development. * Key requirements include Revenue Sharing, Real Estate Development, Employment, Contracting & Recreational Opportunities, Marketing and Tourism and Employee Housing. There is an Implementation Committee, which oversees the execution of the agreement. * This is a landmark agreement and the only one of its kind within the mountain resort industry.What we got wrongI mentioned that “I'd never seen anything like” the lift mazes at Whistler, but that's not quite accurate. Vail Resorts deploys similar setups throughout its western portfolio. What I hadn't seen before is such choreographed and consistent navigation of these mazes by the skiers themselves. To watch a 500-person liftline squeeze itself into one loading ramp with no personnel direction or signage, and to watch nearly every chair lift off fully loaded, is to believe, at least for seven to nine minutes, in humanity as a worthwhile ongoing experiment.I said that Edge Cards were available for up to six days of skiing. They're actually available in two-, five-, or 10-day versions. If you're not familiar with Edge cards, it's because they're only available to residents of Canada and Washington State.Whistler officials clarified the mountain's spring skiing dates, which Trembath said started on May 14. The actual dates were April 15 to May 20.Why you should ski Whistler BlackcombYou know that thing you do where you step outside and you can breathe as though you didn't just remove your space helmet on the surface of Mars? You can do that at Whistler too. The village base elevation is 2,214 feet. For comparison's sake: Salt Lake City's airport sits at 4,227 feet; Denver's is at 5,434. It only goes up from there. The first chairlifts sit at 6,800 feet in Park City; 8,100 at Snowbird; 8,120 at Vail; 8,530 at Alta; 8,750 at Brighton; 9,000 at Winter Park; 9,280 at Keystone; 9,600 at Breckenridge; 9,712 at Copper Mountain; and an incredible 10,780 feet at Arapahoe Basin. Taos sits at 9,200 feet. Telluride at 8,750. Adaptation can be brutal when parachuting in from sea level, or some nominal inland elevation above it, as most of us do. At 8,500 feet, I get winded searching my hotel room for a power outlet, let alone skiing, until my body adjusts to the thinner air. That Whistler requires no such reconfiguration of your atomic structure to do things like blink and speak is one of the more underrated features of the place.Another underrated feature: Whistler Blackcomb is a fantastic family mountain. While Whistler is a flip-doodle factory of Stoke Brahs every bit the equal of Snowbird or Jackson Hole, it is not Snowbird or Jackson Hole. Which is to say, the place offers beginner runs that are more than across-the-fall line cat tracks and 300-vertical-foot beginner pods. While it's not promoted like the celebrated Peak-to-Creek route, a green trail (or sequence of them), runs nearly 5,000 uninterrupted vertical feet from Whistler's summit to the base village. In fact, with the exception of Blackcomb's Glacier Express, every one of the ski area's 16 chairlifts (even the fearsome Peak Express), and five gondolas offers a beginner route that you can ski all the way back to the base. Yes, some of them shuffle into narrow cat tracks for stretches, but mostly these are wide, approachable trails, endless and effortless, built, it seems, for ski-family safaris of the confidence-building sort.Those are maybe the things you're not thinking of. The skiing:Most skiers start with one of the three out-of-base village gondolas, but the new Fitz eight-seater rarely has a line. Start there:That's mostly a transit lift. At the top, head up the Garbanzo quad, where you can start to understand the scale of the thing:You're still not quite to the goods. But to get a sense of the mountain, ski down to Big Red:This will take you to Whistler's main upper-mountain portal, Roundhouse. From Whistler, you can see Blackcomb strafing the sky:From Roundhouse, it's a short ski down to the Peak Express:Depending upon your route down, you may end up back at Big Red. Ride back up to Roundhouse, then meander from Emerald to Harmony to Symphony lifts. For a moment on the way down Symphony, it feels like Euroski:Just about everyone sticks to the narrow groomers:But there are plenty of bumps and trees and wide-open bowls:Nice as this terrain is, the Peak 2 Peak Gondola summons you from all over the mountain:Whoosh. To Blackcomb in an instant, crossing the valley, 1,427 feet to the bottom, and out at Blackcomb's upper-mountain base, Rendezvous. Down to Glacier Express, and up a rolling fantasyland of infinite freeride terrain:And at the top it's like damn.From here, you can transfer to the Showcase T-bar if it's open. If not, climb Spanky's Ladder, and, Kaboom out on the other side:Ride Crystal Ridge or Excelerator back up, and run a lap through bowls and glades:Then ski back down to the village, ride Jersey Cream back to Rendezvous to connect to the spectacular 7th Heaven lift, or ride the gondy back over to Whistler to repeat the whole cycle. And that's just a sampling. I'm no Whistler expert - just go have fun and get lost in the whole thing.Podcast NotesOn the Lost Lifts of Park CityIt's slightly weird and enormously hilarious that the Fitzsimmons eight-seater that Whistler installed last summer and the Jersey Cream sixer that Blackcomb will drop on the mountain this year were originally intended for Park City. As I wrote in 2022:Last September, Vail Resorts announced what was likely the largest set of single-season lift upgrades in the history of the world: $315-plus million on 19 lifts (later increased to 21 lifts) across 14 ski areas. Two of those lifts would land in Park City: a D-line eight-pack would replace the Silverlode six, and a six-pack would replace the Eagle and Eaglet triples. Two more lifts in a town with 62 of them (Park City sits right next door to Deer Valley). Surely this would be another routine project for the world's largest ski area operator.It wasn't. In June, four local residents – Clive Bush, Angela Moschetta, Deborah Rentfrow, and Mark Stemler – successfully appealed the Park City Planning Commission's previous approval of the lift projects.“The upgrades were appealed on the basis that the proposed eight-place and six-place chairs were not consistent with the 1998 development agreement that governs the resort,” SAM wrote at the time. “The planning commission also cited the need for a more thorough review of the resort's comfortable carrying capacity calculations and parking mitigation plan, finding PCM's proposed paid parking plan at the Mountain Village insufficient.”So instead of rising on the mountain, the lifts spent the summer, in pieces, in the parking lot. Vail admitted defeat, at least temporarily. “We are considering our options and next steps based on today's disappointing decision—but one thing is clear—we will not be able to move forward with these two lift upgrades for the 22-23 winter season,” Park City Mountain Resort Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Deirdra Walsh said in response to the decision.One of the options Vail apparently considered was trucking the lifts to friendlier locales. Last Wednesday, as part of its year-end earnings release, Vail announced that the two lifts would be moved to Whistler and installed in time for the 2023-24 ski season. The eight-pack will replace the 1,129-vertical-foot Fitzsimmons high-speed quad on Whistler, giving the mountain 18 seats (!) out of the village (the lift runs alongside the 10-passenger Whistler Village Gondola). The six-pack will replace the Jersey Cream high-speed quad on Blackcomb, a midmountain lift with a 1,230-foot vertical rise.The whole episode is still one of the dumber things I'm aware of. There are like 80 lifts in Park City and two more (replacements, not all-new lines), apparently would have knocked the planet off its axis and sent us caterwauling into the sun. It's enough to make you un-see all the human goodness in Whistler's magical lift queues. More here.On Fitzsimmons 8's complex lineAmong the challenges of re-engineering the Fitzsimmons 8 for Whistler was the fact that the lift had to pass under the Whistler Village Gondola:Trembath and I talk a little about Fitz's download capability. Team Whistler sent over some additional information following our chat, indicating that the winter download capacity is four riders per chair (part of the original lift design, when it was meant for Park City). Summer download, for bike park operations, is limited to one passenger (a lower capacity than the original design).On Whistler's bike parkI'm not Bike Park Bro, though I could probably be talked into it fairly easily if I didn't already spend half the year wandering around the country in search of novel snowsportskiing operations. I do, however, ride my bike around NYC just about every day from May through October-ish, which in many ways resembles the giant jungle gyms that are downhill mountain bike parks, just with fewer jumps and a higher probability of decapitation by box truck.Anyway Whistler supposedly has the best bike park this side of Neptune, and we talk about it a bit, and so I'll include the trailmap even though I'd have a better chance of translating ancient Aramaic runes etched into a cave wall than I would of explaining exactly what's happening here:On Jersey Cream “not looking like much” on the trailmapBecause Whistler's online trailmap is shrunken to fit the same rectangular container that every ski map fills in the Webosphere, it fails to convey the scale of the operation (the paper version, which you can acquire if you slip a bag of gold bars and a map to the Lost City of Atlantis to a clerk at the guest services desk, is aptly called a “mountain atlas” and better captures the breadth of the place). The Jersey Cream lift and pod, for example, presents on the trailmap as an inconsequential connector lift between the Glacier Express and Rendezous station, where three other lifts convene. But this is a 1,230-vertical-foot, 4,647-foot-long machine that could, were you to hack it from the earth and transport it into the wilderness, be a fairly substantial ski area on its own. For context, 1,200 vertical feet is roughly the rise of Eldora or Monarch, or, for Easterners, Cranmore or Black Mountain.On the Whistler and Blackcomb masterplansUnlike the U.S. American Forest Service, which often fails to post ski area master development plans on their useless 1990s vintage websites, the British Columbia authorities have neatly organized all of their province's masterplans on one webpage. Whistler and Blackcomb mountains each file separate plans, last updated in 2013. That predates Vail Resorts' acquisition by three years, and Trembath and I discuss how closely (or not), these plans align with the company's current thinking around the resort.Whistler Mountain:Blackcomb Mountain:On Vail's Australian ski areasTrembath, at different points, oversaw all three of Vail Resorts' Australian ski areas. Though much of that tenure predated Vail's acquisitions (of Hotham and Falls Creek in 2019), she ran Perisher (purchased in 2015), for a year before leaping to the captain's chair at Whistler. Trembath provides a terrific breakdown of each of the three ski areas, and they look like a lot of fun:Perisher:Falls Creek:Hotham:On Sugar Bowl ParallelsTrembath's story follows a similar trajectory to that of Bridget Legnavsky, whose decades-long career in New Zealand included running a pair of that country's largest ski resorts. She then moved to North America to run a large ski area – in her case, Sugar Bowl near Lake Tahoe's North Shore. She appeared on the podcast in March.On Merlin EntertainmentI was unfamiliar with Merlin Entertainment, the former owner of Falls Creek and Hotham. The company is enormous, and owns Legoland Parks, Madame Tussauds, and dozens of other familiar brands.On Whistler and Blackcomb as formerly separate ski areasLike Park City (formerly Park City and Canyons) and Palisades Tahoe (formerly Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley), Whistler and Blackcomb were once separate ski areas. Here's the stoke version of the mountains' joint history (“You were either a Whistler skier, or you were a Blackcomb skier”):On First Nations' language on lifts and the Gondola Gallery projectAs Whistler builds new lifts, the resort tags the lift terminals with names in English and First Nations languages. From Pique Magazine at the opening of the Fitzsimmons eight-pack last December:Whistler Mountain has a brand-new chairlift ready to ferry keen skiers and snowboarders up to mid-mountain, with the rebuilt Fitzsimmons Express opening to guests early on Dec. 12. …“Importantly, this project could not have happened without the guidance and counsel of the First Nations partners,” said Trembath.“It's so important to us that their culture continues to be represented across these mountains in everything we do.”In keeping with those sentiments, the new Fitzsimmons Express is emblazoned with First Nations names alongside its English name: In the Squamish language, it is known as Sk_wexwnách, for Valley Creek, and in the Lil'wat language, it is known as Tsíqten, which means Fish Spear.New chairlifts are given First Nations names at Whistler Blackcomb as they are installed and opened.Here's Fitzsimmons:And Big Red, a sixer installed two years ago:Whistler also commissioned First Nations artists to wrap two cabins on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola. From Daily Hive:The Peak 2 Peak gondola, which connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, is showing off artwork created by First Nations artists, which can be seen by mountain-goers at BC's premiere ski resort.Vail Resorts commissioned local Indigenous artists to redesign two gondola cabins. Levi Nelson of Lil'wat Nation put his stamp on one with “Red,” while Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph of Squamish Nation have created “Wings of Thunder.” …“Red is a sacred colour within Indigenous culture, representing the lifeblood of the people and our connection to the Earth,” said Nelson, an artist who excels at contemporary Indigenous art. “These shapes come from and are inspired by my ancestors. To be inside the gondola, looking out through an ovoid or through the Ancestral Eye, maybe you can imagine what it's like to experience my territory and see home through my eyes.”“It's more than just the techniques of weaving. It's about ways of being and seeing the world. Passing on information that's meaningful. We've done weavings on murals, buildings, reviving something that was put away all those decades ago now,” said Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph.“The significance of the Thunderbird being on the gondola is that it brings the energy back on the mountain and watching over all of us.”A pic:On Native American issues in the U.S.I referenced conflicts between U.S. ski resorts and Native Americans, without providing specifics. The Forest Service cited objections from Native American communities, among other factors, in recommending a “no action” alternative to Lutsen Mountains' planned expansion last year. The Washoe tribe has attempted to “reclaim” land that Diamond Peak operates on. The most prominent dispute, however, has been a decades-long standoff between Arizona Snowbowl and indigenous tribes. Per The Guardian in 2022:The Arizona Snowbowl resort, which occupies 777 acres (314 hectares) on the mountain's slope, has attracted skiers during the winter and spring for nearly a century. But its popularity has boomed in recent years thanks to growing populations in Phoenix, a three hour's drive away, and neighbouring Flagstaff. During peak ski season, the resort draws upwards of 3,000 visitors a day.More than a dozen Indigenous nations who hold the mountain sacred have fought Snowbowl's existence since the 1930s. These include the Pueblo of Acoma, Fort McDowell Yavapai; Havasupai; Hopi; Hualapai; Navajo; San Carlos Apache; San Juan Southern Paiute; Tonto Apache; White Mountain Apache; Yavapai Apache, Yavapai Prescott, and Pueblo of Zuni. They say the resort's presence has disrupted the environment and their spiritual connection to the mountain, and that its use of treated sewage effluent to make snow is akin to baptizing a baby with wastewater.Now, a proposed $60m expansion of Snowbowl's facilities has brought simmering tensions to a boil.The US Forest Service, the agency that manages the national forest land on which Snowbowl is built, is weighing a 15-year expansion proposal that would bulk up operations, increase visitation and add new summer recreational facilities such as mountain biking trails, a zip line and outdoor concerts. A coalition of tribes, meanwhile, is resisting in unprecedented ways.The battle is emblematic of a vast cultural divide in the American west over public lands and how they should be managed. On one side are mostly financially well-off white people who recreate in national forests and parks; on the other are Indigenous Americans dispossessed from those lands who are struggling to protect their sacred sites.“Nuva'tukya'ovi is our Mount Sinai. Why can't the forest service understand that?,” asks Preston.On the tight load at the 7th Heaven liftYikes:Honestly it's pretty organized and the wait isn't that long, but this is very popular terrain and the trails could handle a higher-capacity lift (nearly everyone skis the Green Line trail or one of the blue groomers off this lift, leaving hundreds of acres of off-piste untouched; it's pretty glorious).On Wizard and Solar CoasterEvery local I spoke with in Whistler grumped about the Blackcomb Gondola, which replaced the Wizard and Solar Coaster high-speed quads in 2018. While the 10-passenger gondy substantively follows the same lines, it fails to provide the same mid-mountain fast-lap firepower that Solar Coaster once delivered. Both because removing your skis after each lap is a drag, and because many skiers ride the gondola up to Rendezvous, leaving fewer free mid-mountain seats than the empty quad chairs once provided. Here's a before-and-after:On Whistler's season passWhistler's season pass, which is good at Whistler Blackcomb and only Whistler Blackcomb, strangely costs more ($1,047 U.S.) than a full Epic Pass ($1,004 U.S.), which also provides unlimited access to Whistler and Vail's other 41 ski areas. It's weird. Trembath explains.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 42/100 in 2024, and number 542 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

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Podcast #174: Blue Knob, Pennsylvania Owners & Management

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2024 95:03

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 4. It dropped for free subscribers on June 11. 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:Who* Scott Bender, operations and business advisor to Blue Knob ownership* Donna Himes, Blue Knob Marketing Manager* Sam Wiley, part owner of Blue Knob* Gary Dietke, Blue Knob Mountain ManagerRecorded onMay 13, 2024About Blue KnobClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Majority owned by the Wiley familyLocated in: Claysburg, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations: Indy Pass and Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackouts (access not yet set for 2024-25 ski season)Closest neighboring ski areas: Laurel (1:02), Tussey (1:13), Hidden Valley (1:14), Seven Springs (1:23)Base elevation: 2,100 feetSummit elevation: 3,172 feetVertical drop: 1,072 feetSkiable Acres: 100Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 33 (5 beginner, 10 intermediate, 4 advanced intermediate, 5 advanced, 9 expert) + 1 terrain parkLift count: 5 (2 triples, 2 doubles, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blue Knob's lift fleet)Why I interviewed themI've not always written favorably about Blue Knob. In a state where shock-and-awe snowmaking is a baseline operational requirement, the mountain's system is underwhelming and bogged down by antiquated equipment. The lower-mountain terrain – Blue Knob's best – opens sporadically, sometimes remaining mysteriously shuttered after heavy local snows. The website at one time seemed determined to set the world record for the most exclamation points in a single place. They may have succeeded (this has since been cleaned up):I've always tried to couch these critiques in a but-damn-if-only context, because Blue Knob, considered purely as a ski area, is an absolute killer. It needs what any Pennsylvania ski area needs – modern, efficient, variable-weather-capable, overwhelming snowmaking and killer grooming. No one, in this temperamental state of freeze-thaws and frequent winter rains, can hope to survive long term without those things. So what's the holdup?My goal with The Storm is to be incisive but fair. Everyone deserves a chance to respond to critiques, and offering them that opportunity is a tenant of good journalism. But because this is a high-volume, high-frequency operation, and because my beat covers hundreds of ski areas, I'm not always able to gather reactions to every post in the moment. I counterbalance that reality with this: every ski area's story is a long-term, ongoing one. What they mess up today, they may get right tomorrow. And reality, while inarguable, does not always capture intentions. Eventually, I need to gather and share their perspective.And so it was Blue Knob's turn to talk. And I challenge you to find a more good-natured and nicer group of folks anywhere. I went off format with this one, hosting four people instead of the usual one (I've done multiples a few times before, with Plattekill, West Mountain, Bousquet, Boyne Mountain, and Big Sky). The group chat was Blue Knob's idea, and frankly I loved it. It's not easy to run a ski area in 2024 in the State of Pennsylvania, and it's especially not easy to run this ski area, for reasons I outline below. And while Blue Knob has been slower to get to the future than its competitors, I believe they're at least walking in that direction.What we talked about“This was probably one of our worst seasons”; ownership; this doesn't feel like PA; former owner Dick Gauthier's legacy; reminiscing on the “crazy fun” of the bygone community atop the ski hill; Blue Knob's history as an Air Force station and how the mountain became a ski area; Blue Knob's interesting lease arrangement with the state; the remarkable evolution of Seven Springs and how those lessons could fuel Blue Knob's growth; competing against Vail's trio of nearby mountains; should Vail be allowed to own eight ski areas in one state?; Indy Pass sales limits; Indy Pass as customer-acquisition tool; could Blue Knob ever upgrade its top-to-bottom doubles to a high-speed quad?; how one triple chair multiplied into two; why Blue Knob built a mile-long lift and almost immediately shortened it; how Wolf Creek is “like Blue Knob”; beginner lifts; the best ski terrain in Pennsylvania; why Mine Shaft and Boneyard Glades disappeared from Blue Knob's trailmap, and whether they could ever return; unmarked glades; Blue Knob's unique microclimate and how that impacts snowmaking; why the mountain isn't open top-to-bottom more and why it's important to change that; PA snowmaking and how Blue Knob can catch up; that wild access road and what could be done to improve it; and the surprising amount of housing on Blue Knob's slopes. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSo here's something that's absolutely stupid:That's southeastern Pennsylvania. Vail Resorts operates all of the ski areas in blue font. Ski areas in red are independent. Tussey, a local bump serving State College and its armies of sad co-eds who need a distraction because their football team can't beat Michigan, is not really relevant here. Blue Knob is basically surrounded by ski areas that all draw on the same well of out-of-state corporate resources and are stapled to the gumball-machine-priced Epic Pass. If this were a military map, we'd all say, “Yeah they're fucked.” Blue Knob is Berlin in 1945, with U.S. forces closing in from the west and the Russians driving from the east. There's no way they're winning this war.How did this happen? Which bureaucrat in sub-basement 17 of Justice Department HQ in D.C. looked at Vail's 2021 deal to acquire Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel and said, “Cool”? This was just two years after Vail had picked up Whitetail, Liberty, and Roundtop, along with Jack Frost and Big Boulder in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Peak Resorts acquisition. How does allowing one company to acquire eight of the 22 public ski resorts in one state not violate some antitrust statute? Especially when six of them essentially surround one independent competitor.I don't know. When a similar situation materialized in Colorado in 1997, Justice said, “No, Vail Resorts, you can not buy Keystone and Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin from this dog food company. Sell one.” And so A-Basin went to a real estate conglomerate out of Toronto, which gut-renovated the mountain and then flipped it, earlier this year, to Vail arch-frenemy Alterra. And an independent ski area operator told me that, at some point during this ongoing sales process, the Justice Department reached out to ask them if they were OK with Alterra – which already operates Winter Park, owns Steamboat, and has wrapped Copper, Eldora, and the four Aspen mountains into its Ikon Pass – owning A-Basin (which has been on the Ikon Pass since 2019). Justice made no such phone call, Blue Knob officials tell me on this podcast, when Vail was purchasing the Seven Springs resorts.This is where Colorad-Bro reminds me that Pennsylvania skiing is nothing compared to Colorado. And yes, Colorado is unquestionably the epicenter of American skiing, home to some of our most iconic resorts and responsible for approximately one in four U.S. skier visits each winter. But where do you suppose all those skiers come from? Not solely from Colorado, ranked 21st by U.S. population with just 5.9 million residents. Pennsylvania, with Philly and Pittsburgh and dozens of mid-sized cities in-between, ranks fifth in the nation by population, with nearly 13 million people. And with cold winters, ski areas near every large city, and some of the best snowmaking systems on the planet, PA is a skier printing press, responsible not just for millions of in-state skier visits annually, but for minting skiers that drive the loaded U-Haul west so they can brag about being Summit County locals five minutes after signing their lease. That one company controls more than one-third of the ski areas – which, combined, certainly account for more than half of the state's skier visits – strikes me as unfair in a nation that supposedly maintains robust antitrust laws.But whatever. We're locked in here. Vail Resorts is not Ticketmaster, and no one is coming to dismantle this siege. Blue Knob is surrounded. And it's worse than it looks on this map, which does not illuminate that Blue Knob sits in a vast wilderness, far from most population centers, and that all of Vail's resorts scoop up skiers flowing west-northwest from Philadelphia/Baltimore/D.C. and east from Pittsburgh. So how is Blue Knob not completely screwed? Answering that question was basically the point of this podcast. The mountain's best argument for continued existence in the maw of this Epic Pass blitzkrieg is that Blue Knob is a better pure ski area than any of the six Vail mountains that surround it (see trailmap above). The terrain is, in fact, the best in the State of Pennsylvania, and arguably in the entire Mid-Atlantic (sorry Elk Mountain partisans, but that ski area, fine as it is, is locked out of the conversation as long as they maintain that stupid tree-skiing ban). But this fact of mountain superiority is no guarantee of long-term resilience, because the truth is that Blue Knob has often, in recent years, been unable to open top to bottom, running only the upper-mountain triple chairs and leaving the best terrain out of reach.They have to fix that. And they know it. But this is a feisty mountain in a devilish microclimate with some antiquated infrastructure and a beast of an access road. Nothing about this renovation has been, or likely will be, fast or easy.But it can be done. Blue Knob can survive. I believe it after hosting the team on this podcast. Maybe you will too once you hear it.What I got wrong* When describing the trail network, I said that the runs were cut “across the fall line” in a really logical way – I meant, of course, to say they were cut down the fall line.* I said that I thought the plants that sprouted between the trees in the mothballed Mine Shaft and Boneyard Glades were positioned “to keep people out.” It's more likely, however, based upon what the crew told us, that those plants are intended to control the erosion that shuttered the glades several years ago.* I mentioned “six-packs going up in the Poconos at the KSL-owned mountains.” To clarify: those would be Camelback and Blue Mountain, which each added six-packs in 2022, one year before joining the Ikon Pass.* I also said that high-speed lifts were “becoming the standard” in Pennsylvania. That isn't quite accurate, as a follow-up inventory clarified. The state is home to just nine high-speed lifts, concentrated at five ski areas. So yeah, not exactly taking over Brah.* I intimated that Blue Knob shortened the Beginners CTEC triple, built in 1983, and stood up the Expressway triple in 1985 with some of the commandeered parts. This does not appear to be the case, as the longer Beginners lift and Expressway co-exist on several vintage trailmaps, including the one below from circa 1989. The longer lift continues to appear on Blue Knob trailmaps through the mid-1990s, but at some point, the resort shortened the lift by thousands of linear feet. We discuss why in the pod.Why you should ski Blue KnobIf we took every mountain, fully open, with bomber conditions, I would rank Blue Knob as one of the best small- to mid-sized ski areas in the Northeast. From a rough-and-tumble terrain perspective, it's right there with Berkshire East, Plattekill, Hickory, Black Mountain of Maine, Ragged, Black Mountain (New Hampshire), Bolton Valley, and Magic Mountain. But with its Pennsylvania address, it never makes that list.It should. This is a serious mountain, with serious terrain that will thrill and challenge any skier. Each trail is distinct and memorable, with quirk and character. Even the groomers are interesting, winding nearly 1,100 vertical feet through the trees, dipping and banking, crisscrossing one another and the lifts above. Lower Shortway, a steep and narrow bumper cut along a powerline, may be my favorite trail in Pennsylvania. Or maybe it's Ditch Glades, a natural halfpipe rolling below Stembogan Bowl. Or maybe it's the unmarked trees of East Wall Traverse down to the marked East Wall Glades. Or maybe it's Lower Extrovert, a wide but ungroomed and mostly unskied trail where I found wind-blown pow at 3 p.m. Every trail is playful and punchy, and they are numerous enough that it's difficult to ski them all in a single day.Which of course takes us to the reality of skiing Blue Knob, which is that the ski area's workhorse top-to-bottom lift is the 61-year-old Route 66 double chair. The lift is gorgeous and charming, trenched through the forest on a narrow and picturesque wilderness line (until the mid-station, when the view suddenly shifts to that of oddly gigantic houses strung along the hillside). While it runs fast for a fixed-grip lift, the ride is quite long (I didn't time it; I'll guess 10 to 12 minutes). It stops a lot because, well, Pennsylvania. There are a lot of novice skiers here. There is a mid-station that will drop expert skiers back at the top of the best terrain, but this portal, where beginners load to avoid the suicidal runs below, contributes to those frequent stops.And that's the reality when that lift is running, which it often is not. And that, again, is because the lower-mountain terrain is frequently closed. This is a point of frustration for locals and, I'll point out, for the mountain operators themselves. A half-open Blue Knob is not the same as, say, a half-open Sugarbush, where you'll still have access to lots of great terrain. A half-open Blue Knob is just the Expressway (Lift 4) triple chair (plus the beginner zone), mostly groomers, mostly greens and blues. It's OK, but it's not what we were promised on the trailmap.That operational inconsistency is why Blue Knob remains mostly unheralded by the sort of skiers who are most drawn to this newsletter – adventurous, curious, ready for a challenge – even though it is the perfect Storm mountain: raw and wild and secretive and full of guard dog energy. But if you're anywhere in the region, watch their Instagram account, which usually flashes the emergency lights when Route 66 spins. And go there when that happens. You're welcome.Podcast NotesOn crisscrossing chairliftsChairlifts are cool. Crisscrossing chairlifts are even cooler. Riding them always gives me the sense of being part of a giant Goldbergian machine. Check out the triple crossing over the doubles at Blue Knob (all videos by Stuart Winchester):Wiley mentions a similar setup at Attitash, where the Yankee Flyer high-speed quad crosses beneath the summit lift. Here's a pic I took of the old Summit Triple at the crossover junction in 2021:Vail Resorts replaced the triple with the Mountaineer high-speed quad this past winter. I intended to go visit the resort in early February, but then I got busy trying not to drop dead, so I cancelled that trip and don't have any pics of the new lift. Lift Blog made it there, because of course he did, and his pics show the crossover modified but intact. I did, however, discuss the new lift extensively with Attitash GM Brandon Swartz last November.I also snagged this rad footage of Whistler's new Fitzsimmons eight-pack flying beneath the Whistler Village Gondola in February:And the Porcupine triple passing beneath the Needles Gondola at Snowbasin in March:Oh, and Lift 2 passing beneath the lower Panorama Gondola at Mammoth:Brah I could do this all day. Here's Far East six-pack passing beneath the Red Dog sixer at Palisades Tahoe:Palisades' Base-to-Base Gondola actually passes over two chairlifts on its way over to Alpine Meadows: the Exhibition quad (foreground), and the KT-22 Express, visible in the distance:And what the hell, let's make it a party:On Blue Knob as Air Force baseIt's wild and wildly interesting that Blue Knob – one of the highest points in Pennsylvania – originally hosted an Air Force radar station. All the old buildings are visible in this undated photo. You can see the lifts carrying skiers on the left. Most of these buildings have since been demolished.On Ski Denton and LaurelThe State of Pennsylvania owns two ski areas: Laurel Mountain and Ski Denton (Blue Knob is located in a state park, and we discuss how that arrangement works in the podcast). Vail Resorts, of course, operates Laurel, which came packaged with Seven Springs. Denton hasn't spun the lifts in a decade. Late last year, a group called Denton Go won a bid to re-open and operate the ski area, with a mix of state and private investment.And it will need a lot of investment. Since this is a state park, it's open to anyone, and I hiked Denton in October 2022. The lifts – a double, a triple, and a Poma – are intact, but the triple is getting swallowed by fast-growing trees in one spot (top two photos):I'm no engineer, but these things are going to need a lot of work. The trail network hasn't grown over too much, and the base lodge looks pristine, the grasses around it mowed. Here's the old trailmap if you're curious:And here's the proposed upgrade blueprint:I connected briefly with the folks running Denton GO last fall, but never wrote a story on it. I'll check in with them soon for an update.On Herman Dupre and the evolution of Seven SpringsBender spent much of his career at Seven Springs, and we reminisce a bit about the Dupre family and the ski area's evolution into one of the finest mountains in the East. You can learn more about Seven Springs' history in my podcast conversation with the resort's current GM, Brett Cook, from last year.On Ski magazine's top 20 in the EastSki magazine – which is no longer a physical magazine but a collection of digital bits entrusted to the robots' care – has been publishing its reader resort rankings for decades. The list in the West is fairly static and predictable, filled largely with the Epkonic monsters you would expect (though Pow Mow won the top place this year). But the East list is always a bit more surprising. This year, for example, Mad River Glen and Smugglers' Notch claimed the top two spots. They're both excellent ski areas and personal favorites, with some of the most unique terrain in the country, but neither is on a megapass, and neither owns a high-speed lift, which is perhaps proof that the Colorado Machine hasn't swallowed our collective souls just yet.But the context in which we discuss the list is this: each year, three small ski areas punch their way into an Eastern lineup that's otherwise filled with monsters like Stowe and Sugarbush. Those are: Seven Springs; Holiday Valley, New York; and Wachusett, Massachusetts. These improbable ski centers all make the list because their owners (or former owners, in Seven Springs' case), worked for decades to transform small, backwater ski areas into major regional destinations.On Vail's Northeast Value Epic PassesThe most frightening factor in the abovementioned difficulties that Blue Knob faces in its cagefight with Vail is the introduction, in 2020, of Northeast-specific Epic Passes. There are two versions. The Northeast Value Pass grants passholders unlimited access to all eight Vail Resorts in Pennsylvania and all four in neighboring Ohio, which is a crucial feeder for the Seven Springs resorts. It also includes unlimited access to Vail's four New Hampshire resorts; unlimited access with holiday blackouts at Hunter, Okemo, and Mount Snow; and 10 non-holiday days at Stowe. And it's only $613 (early-bird price was $600):The second version is a midweek pass that includes all the same resorts, with five Stowe days, for just $459 ($450 early-bird):And you can also, of course, pick up an Epic ($1,004) or Epic Local ($746) pass, which still includes unlimited Pennsylvania access and adds everything in the West and in Europe.Blue Knob's season pass costs $465 ($429 early-bird), and is only good at Blue Knob. That's a very fair price, and skiers who acted early could have added an Indy Pass on at a pretty big discount. But Indy is off sale, and PA skiers weighing their pass options are going to find that Epic Pass awfully tempting.On comparisons to the liftline at MRGErf, I may have activated the Brobots at Mad Brother Glen when I compared the Route 66 liftline with the one beneath their precious single chair. But I mean it's not the worst comparison you could think of:Here's another Blue Knob shot that shows how low the chairs fly over the trail:And here's a video that gives a bit more perspective on Blue Knob's liftline:I don't know if I fully buy the comparison myself, but Blue Knob is the closest thing you'll find to MRG this far south.On Wolf Creek's old summit PomaHimes reminisced on her time working at Wolf Creek, Colorado, and the rattletrap Poma that would carry skiers up a 45-degree face to the summit. I was shocked to discover that the old lift is actually still there, running alongside the Treasure Stoke high-speed quad (the two lifts running parallel up the gut of the mountain). I have no idea how often it actually spins:Lift Blog has pics, and notes that the lift “very rarely operates for historic purposes.”On defunct gladesThe Mine Shaft and Bone Yard glades disappeared from Blue Knob's trailmap more than a decade ago, but this sign at the top of Lower Shortway still points toward them:Then there's this sign, a little ways down, where the Bone Yard Glade entrance used to be:And here are the glades, marked on a circa 2007 trailmap, between Deer Run and Lower Shortway:It would be rad if Blue Knob could resurrect these. We discuss the possibility on the podcast.On Blue Knob's base being higher than Killington'sSomewhat unbelievably, Blue Knob's 2,100-foot base elevation is higher than that of every ski area in New England save Saddleback, which launches from a 2,460-foot base. The five next highest are Bolton Valley (2,035 feet), Stowe (2,035), Cannon (2,034), Pico (2,000), and Waterville Valley (1,984). Blue Knob's Vail-owned neighbors would fit right into this group: Hidden Valley sits at 2,405 feet, Seven Springs at 2,240, and Laurel at 2,000. Head south and the bases get even higher: in West Virginia, Canaan Valley sits at 3,430 feet; Snowshoe at 3,348-foot base (skiers have to drive to 4,848, as this is an upside-down ski area); and Timberline at 3,268. But the real whoppers are in North Carolina: Beech Mountain sits at 4,675, Cataloochee at 4,660, Sugar Mountain at 4,100, and Hatley Pointe at 4,000. I probably should have made a chart, but damn it, I have to get this podcast out before I turn 90.On Blue Knob's antique snowmaking equipmentLook, I'm no snowmaking expert, but some of the stuff dotting Blue Knob's slopes looks like straight-up World War II surplus: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 41/100 in 2024, and number 541 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

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Sustainable Materials in Outdoor Apparel: Kelly Mazanati Shares Her Hard-Earned Lessons [ EP 446]

The Outdoor Biz Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 56:25

Today I'm speaking with Buttnski founder Kelly Mazanti. After leaving her corporate life in 2017, Kelly founded a brand design & strategy company, Pier Collective, which she ran for five years between LA and Breckenridge. She is an alumnus of the CU Boulder Leeds School of Business with a degree in Marketing & Management. She recently had the opportunity to participate as a Capstone partner with the CU Boulder Master's of the Environment program. Facebook Twitter Instagram Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Sign up for my Newsletter HERE I'd love to hear your feedback about the show! You can contact me here: rick@theoutdoorbizpodcast.com Brought to you this week by Thrive Market Show Notes 04:53 Skiing memories shape who I am now. 09:10 Skiing, eighties shorts, parents in Colorado. 09:43 Woman keeps old fleece shorts for warmth. 15:27 Supplier flexibility allowed working with local and overseas. 17:18 Family and friends supported our business launch. 21:47 Learning new things, like dealing with customs. 25:20 Thrilled to partner with smart master's student. 27:44 Using local eco-friendly company for packaging materials. 29:27 Customs issue with sourcing animal products. 32:43 Learning the high cost of building a business. 37:25 Developing product line with local designers, prototypes. 41:18 Exciting event at Arapahoe Basin with free riders. 44:16 More women supporting each other in sports. 46:05 Advice: be prepared and buckle up. 46:45 Favorite Piece of Outdoor Gear: Tire Repair Kit with Bacon and Noss Tire Sealant Favorite Book: Let My People Go Surfing, by Yvon Chouinard; Losing and Finding My Virginity by Richard Branson Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe and spread the word! Learn More You can follow up with Kelly and Buttinski on Instagram and their website Buttnski.com Next Steps If you enjoy interviews devoted to the outdoor industry, find us online at ricksaez.com/listen. We love likes and comments, and if you know someone who is also an outdoor enthusiast, go ahead and share our site with them, too. And be sure to Subscribe to our newsletter Keywords #small business, #retail partnerships, #local brand, #online sales, #brand awareness, #bootstrapping, ski resorts, #women's products, #winter sports, #summer activities, #outdoor industry, #sustainable materials, #local manufacturers, #eco-friendly Podcast produced using Descript, CastMagic Podcast hosted by Libsyn use code 'outdoorbizpod' for 20% OFF Show Notes powered by Castmagic Website powered by Wordpress Note: As an Affiliate of Amazon and others, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Podcast #171: Mission Ridge & Blacktail CEO Josh Jorgensen

Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2024 62:40

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on May 3. It dropped for free subscribers on May 10. 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:WhoJosh Jorgensen, CEO of Mission Ridge, Washington and Blacktail Mountain, MontanaRecorded onApril 15, 2024About Mission RidgeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Larry ScrivanichLocated in: Wenatchee, WashingtonYear founded: 1966Pass affiliations:* Indy Pass – 2 days with holiday and weekend blackouts (TBD for 2024-25 ski season)* Indy+ Pass – 2 days with no blackouts* Powder Alliance – 3 days with holiday and Saturday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Badger Mountain (:51), Leavenworth Ski Hill (:53) – travel times may vary considerably given weather conditions, time of day, and time of year.Base elevation: 4,570 feetSummit elevation: 6,820 feetVertical drop: 2,250 feetSkiable Acres: 2,000Average annual snowfall: 200 inchesTrail count: 70+ (10% easiest, 60% more difficult, 30% most difficult)Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 3 doubles, 2 ropetows, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mission Ridge's lift fleet)View historic Mission Ridge trailmaps on skimap.org.About BlacktailClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Larry ScrivanichLocated in: Lakeside, MontanaYear founded: 1998Pass affiliations:* Indy Pass – 2 days with holiday and weekend blackouts (TBD for 2024-25 ski season)* Indy+ Pass – 2 days with no blackouts* Powder Alliance – 3 days with holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Whitefish (1:18) - travel times may vary considerably given weather conditions, time of day, and time of year.Base elevation: 5,236 feetSummit elevation: 6,780 feetVertical drop: 1,544 feetSkiable Acres: 1,000+Average annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: (15% easier, 65% more difficult, 20% most difficult)Lift count: 4 (1 triple, 2 doubles, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blacktail's lift fleet)View historic Blacktail trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himSo much of Pacific Northwest skiing's business model amounts to wait-and-pray, hoping that, sometime in November-December, the heaping snowfalls that have spiraled in off the ocean for millennia do so again. It's one of the few regions in modern commercial skiing, anywhere in the world, where the snow is reliable enough and voluminous enough that this good-ole-boy strategy still works: 460 inches per year at Stevens Pass; 428 at Summit at Snoqualmie; 466 at Crystal; 400 at White Pass; a disgusting 701 at Baker. It's no wonder that most of these ski areas have either no snowguns, or so few that a motivated scrapper could toss the whole collection in the back of a single U-Haul.But Mission Ridge possesses no such natural gifts. The place is snowy enough – 200 inches in an average winter – that it doesn't seem ridiculous that someone thought to run lifts up the mountain. But by Washington State standards, the place is practically Palm Beach. That means the owners have had to work a lot harder, and in a far more deliberate way than their competitors, to deliver a consistent snowsportskiing experience since the bump opened in 1966.Which is a long way of saying that Mission Ridge probably has more snowmaking than the rest of Washington's ski areas combined. Which, often, is barely enough to hang at the party. This year, however, as most Washington ski areas spent half the winter thinking “Gee, maybe we ought to have more than zero snowguns,” Mission was clocking its third-best skier numbers ever.The Pacific Northwest, as a whole, finished the season fairly strong. The snow showed up, as it always does. A bunch of traditional late operators – Crystal, Meadows, Bachelor, Timberline – remain open as of early May. But, whether driven by climate change, rising consumer expectations, or a need to offer more consistent schedules to seasonal employees, the region is probably going to have to build out a mechanical complement to its abundant natural snows at some point. From a regulatory point of view, this won't be so easy in a region where people worry themselves into a coma about the catastrophic damage that umbrellas inflict upon raindrops. But Mission Ridge, standing above Wenatchee for decades as a place of recreation and employment, proves that using resources to enable recreation is not incompatible with preserving them.That's going to be a useful example to have around.What we talked aboutA lousy start to winter; a top three year for Mission anyway; snowmaking in Washington; Blacktail's worst snowfall season ever and the potential to add snowmaking to the ski area; was this crappy winter an anomaly or a harbinger?; how Blacktail's “long history of struggle” echoes the history of Mission Ridge; what could Blacktail become?; Blacktail's access road; how Blacktail rose on Forest Service land in the 1990s; Blacktail expansion potential; assessing Blacktail's lift fleet; could the company purchase more ski areas?; the evolution of Summit at Snoqualmie; Mission Ridge's large and transformative proposed expansion; why the expansion probably needs to come before chairlift upgrades; Fantasy Lift Upgrade; and why Mission Ridge replaced a used detachable quad with another used detachable quad.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewWashington skiing is endangered by a pretty basic problem: more people in this ever-richer, ever more-populous state want to ski than there are ski areas for them to visit. Building new ski areas is impossible – you'd have better luck flying an American flag from the roof of the Kremlin than introducing a new mountain to Washington State. That shortage is compounded by the lack of slopeside development, which compels every skier to drive to the hill every day that they want to ski. This circumstance reflects a false commitment to environmental preservation, which mistakes a build-nothing philosophy for watching over Mother Earth, an outmoded way of thinking that fails to appreciate the impacts of sprawl and car culture on the larger natural ecosystem.Which is where Mission Ridge, with its large proposed ski-and-stay expansion, is potentially so important. If Mission Ridge can navigate the bureaucratic obstacle course that's been dropped in its path, it could build the first substantial slopeside village in the Pacific Northwest. That could be huge. See, it would say, you can have measured development in the mountains without drowning all the grizzly bears. And since not everyone would have to drive up the mountain every day anymore, it would probably actually reduce traffic overall. The squirrels win and so do the skiers. Or something like that.And then we have Blacktail. Three-ish years ago, Mission Ridge purchased this little-known Montana bump, one of the West's few upside-down ski areas, an unlikely late addition to the Forest Service ski area network seated south of Whitefish Mountain and Glacier National Park. I was surprised when Mission bought it. I think everyone else was too. Mission Ridge is a fine ski area, and one with multi-mountain roots – it was once part of the same parent company that owned Schweitzer (now the property of Alterra) – but it's not exactly Telluride. How did a regional bump that was still running three Riblet doubles from the ‘60s and ‘70s afford another ski area two states away? And why would they want it? And what were they going to do with it?All of which I discuss, sort of, with Jorgensen. Mission and Blacktail are hardly the strangest duo in American skiing. They make more sense, as a unit, than jointly owned Red Lodge, Montana and Homewood, California. But they're also not as logical as New York's Labrador and Song, Pennsylvania's Camelback and Blue, or Massachusett's Berkshire East and Catamount, each of which sits within easy driving distance of its sister resort. So how do they fit together? Maybe they don't need to.Questions I wish I'd askedThere's a pretty cool story about a military bomber crashing into the mountain (and some associated relics) that I would have liked to have gotten into. I'd also have liked to talk a bit more about Wenatchee, which Mission's website calls “Washington's only true ski town.” I also intended to get a bit more into the particulars of the expansion, including the proposed terrain and lifts, and what sort of shape the bedbase would take. And I didn't really ask, as I normally do, about the Indy Pass and the reciprocal season pass relationship between the two ski areas.What I got wrongI said that Mission Ridge's first high-speed quad, Liberator Express, came used from Crystal Mountain. The lift actually came used from Winter Park. Jorgensen corrected that fact in the podcast. My mis-statement was the result of crossing my wires while prepping for this interview – the Crystal chairlift at Blacktail moved to Montana from Crystal Mountain, Washington. In the moment, I mixed up the mountains' lift fleets.Why you should ski Mission RidgeMission Ridge holds echoes of Arapahoe Basin's East Wall or pre-tram Big Sky: so much damn terrain, just a bit too far above the lifts for most of us to bother with. That, along with the relatively low snowfall and Smithsonian lift fleet, are the main knocks on the place (depending, of course, upon your willingness to hike and love of vintage machinery).But, on the whole, this is a good, big ski area that, because of its snowmaking infrastructure, is one of the most reliable operators for several hundred miles in any direction. The intermediate masses will find a huge, approachable footprint. Beginners will find their own dedicated lift. Better skiers, once they wear out the blacks off lifts 2 and 4, can hike the ridge for basically endless lines. And if you miss daylight, Mission hosts some of the longest top-to-bottom night-skiing runs in America, spanning the resort's entire 2,250 vertical feet (Keystone's Dercum mountain rises approximately 2,300 vertical feet).If Mission can pull off this expansion, it could ignite a financial ripple effect that would transform the resort quickly: on-site housing and expanded beginner terrain could bring more people (especially families), which would bring more revenue, which would funnel enough cash in to finally upgrade those old Riblets and, maybe, string the long-planned Lift 5 to the high saddle. That would be amazing. But it would also transform Mission into something different than what it is today. Go see it now, so you can appreciate whatever it becomes.Why you should ski BlacktailBlacktail's original mission, in the words of founder Steve Spencer, was to be the affordable locals' bump, a downhome alternative to ever-more-expensive Whitefish, a bit more than an hour up the road. That was in 1998, pre-Epic, pre-Ikon, pre-triple-digit single-day lift tickets. Fast forward to 2024, and Whitefish is considered a big-mountain outlier, a monster that's avoided every pass coalition and offers perhaps the most affordable lift ticket of any large, modern ski area in America (its top 2023-24 lift ticket price was $97).That has certainly complicated Blacktail's market positioning. It can't play Smugglers' Notch ($106 top lift ticket price) to neighboring Stowe ($220-ish). And while Blacktail's lift tickets and season passes ($450 early-bird for the 2024-25 ski season), are set at a discount to Whitefish's, the larger mountain's season pass goes for just $749, a bargain for a 3,000-acre sprawl served by four high-speed lifts.So Blacktail has to do what any ski area that's orbiting a bigger, taller, snowier competitor with more and better terrain does: be something else. There will always be a market for small and local skiing, just like there will always be a market for diners and bars with pool tables and dartboards hanging from the walls.That appeal is easy enough for locals to understand. For frequent, hassle-free skiing, small is usually better than big. It's more complicated to pitch a top-of-the-mountain parking lot to you, a probably not-local, who, if you haul yourself all the way to Montana, is probably going to want the fireworks show. But one cool thing about lingering in the small and foreign is that the experience unites the oft-opposed-in-skiing forces of novelty and calm. Typically, our ski travels involve the raucous and the loud and the fast and the enormous. But there is something utterly inspiring about setting yourself down on an unfamiliar but almost empty mountain, smaller than Mt. Megaphone but not necessarily small at all, and just setting yourself free to explore. Whatever Blacktail doesn't give you, it will at least give you that.Podcast NotesOn Mission Ridge's proposed expansionWhile we discuss the mountain's proposed expansion in a general way, we don't go deep into specifics of lifts and trails. This map gives the best perspective on how the expansion would blow Mission Ridge out into a major ski area - the key here is less the ski expansion itself than the housing that would attend it:Here's an overhead view:Video overviews:The project, like most ski area expansions in U.S. America, has taken about 700 years longer than it should have. The local radio station published this update in October:Progress is being made with the long-planned expansion of Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort.Chelan County is working with the resort on an Environmental Impact Statement.County Natural Resources Director Mike Kaputa says it'll be ready in the next eight months or so."We are getting closer and closer to having a draft Environmental Impact Statement and I think that's probably, I hate to put a month out there, but I think it's probably looking like May when we'll have a draft that goes out for public comment."The expansion plan for Mission Ridge has been in the works since 2014, and the resort brought a lawsuit against the county in 2021 over delays in the process.The lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year.Kaputa gave an update on progress with the Mission Ridge expansion before county commissioners Monday, where he said they're trying to get the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement right."You want to be as thorough as possible," Kaputa said. "You don't want to overdo it. You want to anticipate comments. I'm sure we'll get lots of comments when it comes out."In 2014, Larry Scrivanich, owner of Mission Ridge, purchased approximately 779 acres of private land adjacent to the current Mission Ridge Ski and Board Resort. Since then, Mission Ridge has been forging ahead with plans for expansion.The expansion plans call for onsite lodging and accommodations, which Mission Ridge calls a game changer, which would differentiate the resort from others in the Northwest.I'm all about process, due diligence, and checks-and-balances, but it's possible we've overcorrected here.On snowfall totals throughout WashingtonMission gets plenty of snow, but it's practically barren compared to the rest of Washington's large ski areas:On the founding of BlacktailBlacktail is an outlier in U.S. skiing in that it opened in 1998 on Forest Service land – decades after similarly leased ski areas debuted. Daily Inter Lake summarizes the unusual circumstances behind this late arrival:Steve Spencer had been skiing and working at Big Mountain [now Whitefish] for many years, starting with ski patrol and eventually rising to mountain manager, when he noticed fewer and fewer locals on the hill.With 14 years as manager of Big Mountain under his belt, Spencer sought to create an alternative to the famous resort that was affordable and accessible for locals. He got together with several business partners and looked at mountains that they thought would fit the bill.They considered sites in the Swan Range and Lolo Peak, located in the Bitterroot Range west of Missoula, but they knew the odds of getting a Forest Service permit to build a ski area there were slim to none.They had their eyes on a site west of Flathead Lake, however, that seemed to check all the right boxes. The mountain they focused on was entirely surrounded by private land, and there were no endangered species in the area that needed protection from development.Spencer consulted with local environmental groups before he'd spent even “two nickels” on the proposal. He knew that without their support, the project was dead on arrival.That mountain was known as Blacktail, and when the Forest Service OK'd ski operations there, it was the first ski area created on public land since 1978, when Beaver Creek Resort was given permission to use National Forest land in Colorado.Blacktail Mountain Ski Area celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, it is still the most recent in the country to be approved through that process.On Glacier National Park and Flathead LakeEven if you've never heard of Blacktail, it's stuffed into a dense neighborhood of outdoor legends in northern Montana, including Glacier National Park and Whitefish ski area:On WhitefishWith 3,000 skiable acres, a 2,353-foot vertical drop, and four high-speed lifts, Whitefish, just up the road from Blacktail, looms enormously over the smaller mountain's potential:But while Whitefish presents as an Epkon titan, it acts more like a backwater, with peak-day lift tickets still hanging out below the $100 mark, and no megapass membership on its marquee. I explored this unusual positioning with the mountain's president, Nick Polumbus, on the podcast last year (and also here).On “Big Mountain”For eons, Whitefish was known as “Big Mountain,” a name they ditched in 2007 because, as president and CEO at the time Fred Jones explained, the ski area was “often underestimated and misunderstood” with its “highly generic” name.On “upside-down” ski areasUpside-down ski areas are fairly common in the United States, but they're novel enough that most people feel compelled to explain what they mean when they bring one up: a ski area with the main lodge and parking at the top, rather than the bottom, of the hill.These sorts of ski areas are fairly common in the Midwest and proliferate in the Mid-Atlantic, but are rare out west. An incomplete list includes Wintergreen, Virginia; Snowshoe, West Virginia; Laurel, Blue Knob, Jack Frost, and Ski Big Bear, Pennsylvania; Otsego, Treetops, and the Jackson Creek Summit side of Snowriver, Michigan; and Spirit Mountain and Afton Alps, Minnesota. A few of these ski areas also maintain lower-level parking lots. Shawnee Mountain, Pennsylvania, debuted as an upside-down ski area, but, through a tremendous engineering effort, reversed that in the 1970s – a project that CEO Nick Fredericks detailed for us in a 2021 Storm Skiing Podcast.On LIDAR mappingJorgensen mentions LIDAR mapping of Mission Ridge's potential expansion. If you're unfamiliar with this technology, it's capable of giving astonishing insights into the past:On Blacktail's chairliftsAll three of Blacktail's chairlifts came used to the ski area for its 1998 opening. The Crystal double is from Crystal Mountain, Washington; the Olympic triple is from Canada Olympic Park in Alberta; and the Thunderhead double migrated from Steamboat, Colorado.On Riblet chairliftsFor decades, the Riblet double has been the workhorse of Pacific Northwest skiing. Simple, beautiful, reliable, and inexpensive, dozens of these machines still crank up the region's hills. But the company dissolved more than two decades ago, and its lifts are slowly retiring. Mission Ridge retains three (chairs 1, 3, and 4, which date, respectively, to 1966, 1967, and 1971), and has stated its intent to replace them all, whenever funds are available to do so.On the history of Summit at SnoqualmieThe Summit at Snoqualmie, where Jorgensen began his career, remains one of America's most confusing ski areas: the name is convoluted and long, and the campus sprawls over four once-separate ski areas, one of which sits across an interstate with no ski connection to the others. There's no easy way to understand that Alpental – one of Washington's best ski areas – is part of, but separate from, the Summit at Snoqualmie complex, and each of the three Summit areas – East, Central, and West - maintains a separate trailmap on the website, in spite of the fact that the three are interconnected by ski trails. It's all just very confusing. The ski area's website maintains a page outlining how these four ski areas became one ski area that is still really four ski areas. This 1998 trailmap gives the best perspective on where the various ski nodes sit in relation to one another:Because someone always gets mad about everything, some of you were probably all pissed off that I referred to the 1990s version of Summit at Snoqualmie as a “primitive” ski area, but the map above demonstrates why: 17 of 24 chairlifts were Riblet doubles; nine ropetows supplemented this system, and the mountain had no snowmaking (it still doesn't). Call it “retro” or whatever you want, but the place was not exactly Beaver Creek.On Vail and Alterra's Washington timelineI mentioned Washington's entrance onto the national ski scene over the past decade. What I meant by that was the addition of Summit and Crystal onto the Ikon Pass for the 2018-19 ski season, and Stevens Pass onto the Epic Pass the following winter. But Washington skiing – and Mt. Baker in particular – has always been a staple in the Temple of the Brobots, and Boyne Resorts, pre-Ikon, owned Crystal from 1997 to 2017.On Anthony LakesJorgensen mentioned that he applied for the general manager position at Anthony Lakes, a little-known 900-footer lodged in the western Oregon hinterlands. One triple chair serves the entire ski area: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 33/100 in 2024, and number 533 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

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Podcast #162: Camelback Managing Director David Makarsky

colorado sale effects ripple effect alterra jason blevins arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2024 86:58 Very Popular

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Feb. 12. It dropped for free subscribers on Feb. 19. 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:WhoDavid Makarsky, General Manager of Camelback Resort, PennsylvaniaRecorded onFebruary 8, 2024About CamelbackClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: KSL Capital, managed by KSL ResortsLocated in: Tannersville, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackoutsReciprocal partners: NoneClosest 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: 38 (3 Expert Only, 6 Most Difficult, 13 More Difficult, 16 Easiest) + 1 terrain parkLift count: 13 (1 high-speed six-pack, 1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 3 triples, 3 doubles, 4 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Camelback's lift fleet)View historic Camelback trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himAt night it heaves from the frozen darkness in funhouse fashion, 800 feet high and a mile wide, a billboard for human life and activity that is not a gas station or a Perkins or a Joe's Vape N' Puff. The Poconos are a peculiar and complicated place, a strange borderland between the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast. Equidistant from New York City and Philadelphia, approaching the northern tip of Appalachia, framed by the Delaware Water Gap to the east and hundreds of miles of rolling empty wilderness to the west, the Poconos are gorgeous and decadent, busyness amid abandonment, cigarette-smoking cement truck drivers and New Jersey-plated Mercedes riding 85 along the pinched lanes of Interstate 80 through Stroudsburg. “Safety Corridor, Speed Limit 50,” read the signs that everyone ignores.But no one can ignore Camelback, at least not at night, at least not in winter, as the mountain asserts itself over I-80. Though they're easy to access, the Poconos keeps most of its many ski areas tucked away. Shawnee hides down a medieval access road, so narrow and tree-cloaked that you expect to be ambushed by poetry-spewing bandits. Jack Frost sits at the end of a long access road, invisible even upon arrival, the parking lot seated, as it is, at the top of the lifts. Blue Mountain boasts prominence, rising, as it does, to the Appalachian Trail, but it sits down a matrix of twisting farm roads, off the major highway grid.Camelback, then, is one of those ski areas that acts not just as a billboard for itself, but for all of skiing. This, combined with its impossibly fortuitous location along one of the principal approach roads to New York City, makes it one of the most important ski areas in America. A place that everyone can see, in the midst of drizzling 50-degree brown-hilled Poconos February, is filled with snow and life and fun. “Oh look, an organized sporting complex that grants me an alternative to hating winter. Let's go try that.”The Poconos are my best argument that skiing not only will survive climate change, but has already perfected the toolkit to do so. Skiing should not exist as a sustained enterprise in these wild, wet hills. It doesn't snow enough and it rains all the time. But Poconos ski area operators invested tens of millions of dollars to install seven brand-new chairlifts in 2022. They didn't do this in desperate attempts to salvage dying businesses, but as modernization efforts for businesses that are kicking off cash.In six of the past eight seasons, (excluding 2020), Camelback spun lifts into April. That's with season snowfall totals of (counting backwards from the 2022-23 season), 23 inches, 58 inches, 47 inches, 29 inches, 35 inches, 104 inches (in the outlier 2017-18 season), 94 inches, 24 inches, and 28 inches. Mammoth gets more than that from one atmospheric river. But Camelback and its Poconos brothers have built snowmaking systems so big and effective, even in marginal temperatures, that skiing is a fixture in a place where nature would have it be a curiosity.What we talked aboutCamelback turns 60; shooting to ski into April; hiding a waterpark beneath the snow; why Camelback finally joined the Ikon Pass; why Camelback decided not to implement Ikon reservations; whether Camelback season passholders will have access to a discounted Ikon Base Pass; potential for a Camelback-Blue Mountain season pass; fixing the $75 season pass reprint fee (they did); when your job is to make sure other people have fun; rethinking the ski school and season-long programs; yes I'm obsessed with figuring out why KSL Capital owns Camelback and Blue Mountain rather than Alterra (of which KSL Capital is part-owner); much more than just a ski area; rethinking the base lodge deck; the transformative impact of Black Bear 6; what it would take to upgrade Stevenson Express; why and how Camelback aims to improve sky-high historic turnover rates (and why that should matter to skiers); internal promotions within KSL Resorts; working with sister resort Blue Mountain; rethinking Camelback's antique lift fleet; why terrain expansion is unlikely; Camelback's baller snowmaking system; everybody hates the paid parking; and long-term plans for the Summit House.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewA survey of abandoned ski areas across the Poconos underscores Camelback's resilience and adaptation. Like sharks or alligators, hanging on through mass extinctions over hundreds of millions of years, Camelback has found a way to thrive even as lesser ski centers have surrendered to the elements. The 1980 edition of The White Book of Ski Areas names at least 11 mountains – Mt. Tone, Hickory Ridge, Tanglwood, Pocono Manor, Buck Hill, Timber Hill (later Alpine Mountain), Tamiment Resort Hotel, Mt. Airy, Split Rock, Mt. Heidelberg, and Hahn Mountain – within an hour of Camelback that no longer exist as organized ski areas.Camelback was larger than all of those, but it was also smarter, aggressively expanding and modernizing snowmaking, and installing a pair of detachable chairlifts in the 1990s. It offered the first window into skiing modernity in a region where the standard chairlift configuration was the slightly ridiculous double-double.Still, as recently as 10 years ago, Camelback needed a refresh. It was crowded and chaotic, sure, but it also felt dumpy and drab, with aged buildings, overtaxed parking lots, wonky access roads, long lines, and bad food. The vibe was very second-rate oceanfront boardwalk, very take-it-or-leave-it, a dour self-aware insouciance that seemed to murmur, “hey, we know this ain't the Catskills, but if they're so great why don'chya go there?”Then, in 2015, a spaceship landed. A 453-room hotel with a water park the size of Lake George, it is a ridiculous building, a monstrosity on a hill, completely out of proportion with its surroundings. It looks like something that fell off the truck on its way to Atlantic City. And yet, that hotel ignited Camelback's renaissance. In a region littered with the wrecks of 1960s heart-shaped-hottub resorts, here was something vital and modern and clean. In a redoubt of day-ski facilities, here was a ski-in-ski-out option with decent restaurants and off-the-hill entertainment for the kids. In a drive-through region that felt forgotten and tired, here was something new that people would stop for.The owners who built that monstrosity/business turbo-booster sold Camelback to KSL Capital in 2019. KSL Capital also happens to be, along with Aspen owner Henry Crown, part owner of Alterra Mountain Company. I've never really understood why KSL outsourced the operation of Camelback and, subsequently, nearby Blue Mountain, to its hotel-management outfit KSL Resorts, rather than just bungee-cording both to Alterra's attack squadron of ski resorts, which includes Palisades Tahoe, Winter Park, Mammoth, Steamboat, Sugarbush, and 14 others, including, most recently, Arapahoe Basin and Schweitzer. It was as if the Ilitch family, which owns both the Detroit Tigers and Red Wings, had drafted hockey legend Steve Yzerman and then asked him to bat clean-up at Comerica Park.While I'm still waiting on a good answer to this question even as I annoy long lines of Alterra executives and PR folks by persisting with it, KSL Resorts has started to resemble a capable ski area operator. The company dropped new six-packs onto both Camelback and nearby Blue Mountain (which it also owns), for last ski season. RFID finally arrived and it works seamlessly, and mostly eliminates the soul-crushing ticket lines by installing QR-driven kiosks. Both ski areas are now on the Ikon Pass.But there is work to do. Liftlines – particularly at Stevenson and Sunbowl, where skiers load from two sides and no one seems interested in refereeing the chaos – are borderline anarchic; carriers loaded with one, two, three guests cycle up quad chairs all day long while liftlines stretch for 20 minutes. A sense of nickeling-and-diming follows you around the resort: a seven-dollar mandatory ski check for hotel guests; bags checked for outside snacks before entering the waterpark, where food lines on a busy day stretch dozens deep; and, of course, the mandatory paid parking.Camelback's paid-parking policy is, as far as I can tell, the biggest PR miscalculation in Northeast skiing. Everyone hates it. Everyone. As you can imagine, locals write to me all the time to express their frustrations with ski areas around the country. By far the complaint I see the most is about Camelback parking (the second-most-complained about resort, in case you're wondering, is Stratton, but for reasons other than parking). It's $12 minimum to park, every day, in every lot, for everyone except season passholders, with no discount for car-pooling. There is no other ski area east of the Mississippi (that I am aware of), that does this. Very few have paid parking at all, and even the ones that do (Stowe, Mount Snow), restrict it to certain lots on certain days, include free carpooling incentives, and offer large (albeit sometimes far), free parking lot options.I am not necessarily opposed to paid parking as a concept. It has its place, particularly as a crowd-control tool on very busy days. But imagine being the only bar on a street with six bars that requires a cover charge. It's off-putting when you encounter that outlier. I imagine Camelback makes a bunch of money on parking. But I wonder how many people roll up to redeem their Ikon Pass, pay for parking that one time, and decide to never return. Based on the number of complaints I get, it's not immaterial.There will always be an element of chaos to Pennsylvania skiing. It is like the Midwest in this way, with an outsized proportion of first-timers and overly confident Kamikaze Bros and busloads of kids from all over. But a very well-managed ski area, like, for instance, Elk Mountain, an hour north of Camelback, can at least somewhat tame these herds. I sense that Camelback can do this, even if it's not necessarily consistently doing it now. It has, in KSL Resorts, a monied owner, and it has, in the Ikon Pass, a sort of gold-stamp seal-of-approval. But that membership also gives it a standard to live up to. They know that. How close are they to doing it? That was the purpose of this conversation.What I got wrongI noted that the Black Bear 6 lift had a “750/800-foot” vertical drop. The lift actually rises 667 vertical feet.I accidentally said “setting Sullivan aside,” when asking Makarsky about upgrade plans for the rest of the lift fleet. I'd meant to say, “Stevenson.” Sullivan was the name of the old high-speed quad that Black Bear 6 replaced.Why you should ski CamelbackLet's start by acknowledging that Camelback is ridiculous. This is not because it is not a good ski area, because it is a very good ski area. The pitch is excellent, the fall lines sustained, the variety appealing, the vertical drop acceptable, the lift system (disorganized riders aside), quite good. But Camelback is ridiculous because of the comically terrible skill level of 90 percent of the people who ski there, and their bunchball concentrations on a handful of narrow green runs that cut across the fall line and intersect with cross-trails in alarmingly hazardous ways. Here is a pretty typical scene:I am, in general, more interested in making fun of very good skiers than very bad ones, as the former often possess an ego and a lack of self-awareness that transforms them into caricatures of themselves. I only point out the ineptitude of the average Camelback skier because navigating them is an inescapable fact of skiing there. They yardsale. They squat mid-trail. They take off their skis and walk down the hill. I observe these things like I observe deer poop lying in the woods – without judgement or reaction. It just exists and it's there and no one can say that it isn't (yes, there are plenty of fantastic skiers in the Poconos as well, but they are vastly outnumbered and you know it).So it's not Jackson Hole. Hell, it's not even Hunter Mountain. But Camelback is one of the few ski-in, ski-out options within two hours of New York City. It is impossibly easy to get to. The Cliffhanger trail, when it's bumped up, is one of the best top-to-bottom runs in Pennsylvania. Like all these ridge ski areas, Camelback skis a lot bigger than its 166 acres. And, because it exists in a place that it shouldn't – where natural snow would rarely permit a season exceeding 10 or 15 days – Camelback is often one of the first ski areas in the Northeast to approach 100 percent open. The snowmaking is unbelievably good, the teams ungodly capable.Go on a weekday if you can. Go early if you can. Prepare to be a little frustrated with the paid parking and the lift queues. But if you let Camelback be what it is – a good mid-sized ski area in a region where no such thing should exist – rather than try to make it into something it isn't, you'll have a good day.Podcast NotesOn Blue Mountain, PennsylvaniaSince we mention Camelback's sister resort, Blue Mountain, Pennsylvania, quite a bit, here's a little overview of that hill:Owned by: KSL Capital, managed by KSL ResortsLocated in: Palmerton, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1977Pass access:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Plus and Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackoutsBase elevation: 460 feetSummit elevation: 1,600 feetVertical drop: 1,140 feetSkiable Acres: 164 acresAverage annual snowfall: 33 inchesTrail count: 40 (10% expert, 35% most difficult, 15% more difficult, 40% easiest)Lift count: 12 (2 high-speed six-packs, 1 high-speed quad, 1 triple, 1 double, 7 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blue Mountain's lift fleet)On bugging Rusty about Ikon PassIt's actually kind of hilarious how frequently I used to articulate my wishes that Camelback and Blue would join Alterra and the Ikon Pass. It must have seemed ridiculous to anyone peering east over the mountains. But I carried enough conviction about this that I brought it up to former Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory in back-to-back years. I wrote a whole bunch of articles about it too. But hey, some of us fight for rainforests and human rights and cancer vaccines, and some of us stand on the plains, wrapped in wolf furs and banging our shields until The System bows to our demands of five or seven days on the Ikon Pass at Camelback and Blue Mountain, depending upon your price point.On Ikon Pass reservationsIkon Pass reservations are poorly communicated, hard to find and execute, and not actually real. But the ski areas that “require” them for the 2023-24 ski season are Aspen Snowmass (all four mountains), Jackson Hole, Deer Valley, Big Sky, The Summit at Snoqualmie, Loon, and Windham. If you're not aware of this requirement or they're “sold out,” you'll be able to skate right through the RFID gates without issue. You may receive a tisk-tisk email afterward. You may even lose your pass (I'm told). Either way, it's a broken system in need of a technology solution both for the consumer (easy reservations directly on an Ikon app, rather than through the partner resort's website), and the resort (RFID technology that recognizes the lack of a reservation and prevents the skier from accessing the lift).On Ikon Pass Base season pass add-onsWe discuss the potential for Camelback 2024-25 season passholders to be able to add a discounted Ikon Base Pass onto their purchase. Most, but not all, non-Alterra-owned Ikon Pass partner mountains offered this option for the 2023-24 ski season. A non-exhaustive inventory that I conducted in September found the discount offered for season passes at Sugarloaf, Sunday River, Loon, Killington, Windham, Aspen, Big Sky, Taos, Alta, Snowbasin, Snowbird, Brighton, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, Mt. Bachelor, and Boyne Mountain. Early-bird prices for those passes ranged from as low as $895 at Boyne Mountain to $2,890 for Deer Valley. Camelback's 2023-24 season pass debuted at just $649. Alterra requires partner passes to meet certain parameters, including a minimum price, in order to qualify passholders for the discounted Base pass. A simple fix here would be to offer a premium “Pennsylvania Pass” that's good for unlimited access at both Camelback and Blue, and that's priced at the current add-on rate ($849), to open access to the discounted Ikon Base for passholders.On conglomerates doing shared passesIn November, I published an analysis of every U.S.-based entity that owns or operates two or more ski areas. I've continued to revise my list, and I currently count 26 such operators. All but eight of them – Powdr, Fairbank Group, the Schoonover Family, the Murdock Family, Snow Partners, Omni Hotels, the Drake Family, and KSL Capital either offer a season pass that accesses all of their properties, or builds limited amounts of cross-mountain reciprocity into top-tier season passes. The robots aren't cooperating with me right now, but you can view the most current list here.On KSL ResortsKSL Resorts' property list looks more like a destination menu for deciding honeymooners than a company that happens to run two ski areas in the Pennsylvania Poconos. Mauritius, Fiji, The Maldives, Maui, Thailand… Tannersville, PA. It feels like a trap for the robots, who in their combing of our digital existence to piece together the workings of the human psyche, will simply short out when attempting to identify the parallels between the Outrigger Reef Waikiki Beach Resort and Camelback.On ski investment in the PoconosPoconos ski areas, once backwaters, have rapidly modernized over the past decade. As I wrote in 2022:Montage, Camelback, and Elk all made the expensive investment in RFID ticketing last offseason. Camelback and Blue are each getting brand-new six-packs this summer. Vail is clear-cutting its Poconos lift museum and dropping a total of five new fixed-grip quads across Jack Frost and Big Boulder (replacing a total of nine existing lifts). All of them are constantly upgrading their snowmaking plants.On Camelback's ownership historyFor the past 20 years, Camelback has mostly been owned by a series of uninteresting Investcos and property-management firms. But the ski area's founder, Jim Moore, was an interesting fellow. From his July 22, 2006 Pocono Record obituary:James "Jim" Moore, co-founder of Camelback Ski Area, died Thursday at age 90 at his home — at Camelback.Moore, a Kentucky-born, Harvard-trained tax attorney who began a lifelong love of skiing when he went to boarding school in Switzerland as a teenager, served as Camelback's president and CEO from 1963, when it was founded, to 1986."Jim Moore was a great man and an important part of the history of the Poconos," said Sam Newman, who succeeded Moore as Camelback's president. "He was a guiding force behind the building of Camelback."In 1958, Moore was a partner in the prominent Philadelphia law firm Pepper, Hamilton and Scheetz.He joined a small group of investors who partnered with East Stroudsburg brothers Alex and Charles Bensinger and others to turn the quaint Big Pocono Ski Area — open on weekends when there was enough natural snow — into Camelback Ski Area.Camelback developed one of the most advanced snowmaking systems in the country and diversified into a year-round destination for family recreation."He was one of the first people to use snowmaking," said Kathleen Marozzi, Moore's daughter. "It had never been done in the Poconos before. ... I remember the first year we opened we had no snow on the mountain."Marozzi said her father wanted to develop Camelback as a New England-type ski resort, with winding, scenic trails."He wanted a very pretty ski area," she said. "I remember when the mountain had nothing but trees on it; it had no trails.I also managed to find a circa 1951 trailmap of Big Pocono ski area on skimap.org:On Rival Racer at CamelbeachHere's a good overview of the “Rival Racer” waterslide that Makarsky mentions in our conversation:On the Stevenson ExpressHopefully KSL Resorts replaces Stevenson with another six-pack, like they did with Sullivan, and hopefully they can reconfigure it to load from one side (like Doppelmayr just did with Barker at Sunday River). Multi-directional loading is just the worst – the skiers don't know what to do with it, and you end up with a lot of half-empty chairs when no one is managing the line, which seems to be the case more often than not at Camelback.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 11/100 in 2024, and number 511 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

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What ripple effects will the Arapahoe Basin sale to Alterra have?

The Daily Sun-Up

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2024 22:47

https://coloradosun.com/2024/02/05/arapahoe-basin-acquired-alterra-mountain/ Today – Sun outdoors reporter Jason Blevins breaks down the recent sale of Arapahoe Basin ski area and what it could mean for some of Colorado's other independent ski areas.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Felonies, Fake News and the Return of JaPowBot | E31

Mind the Track

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2024 87:30

After a three week adventure overseas, JaPowBot makes his return from Japan just as winter turns back on in Lake Tahoe. The boys discuss Tom's trip as well as a potpourri of shenanigans that happened in Tahoe while he was gone, including shootings at Palisades Tahoe and Homewood, grant theft and assault at Boreal and a woman getting stranded overnight in the Heavenly gondola. Trail Whisperer rants about UnofficialNetworks and their false AI generated news headlines, PowBot calls out Palisades Tahoe for complaining about work on their blog, presidential candidates make campaign promises for the votes of Tahoe core lords, Snoop Pow Dogg gives his Snowsizzle My Dizzle Powderiffic Snow Report and Arapahoe Basin loses its identity and goes corporate after being bought out by Alterra/IKON Pass. 1:45 – POWBOT Returns from Japan with the Hakuba Hack.4:30 – Winter finally shows up in Tahoe. 6:45 – Riding Sonora Pass and Leavitt Lake in the Bridgeport Winter Recreation Area with Nick Bliss. @bridgeportavalanchecenter9:20 – Backcountry skiing in Japan – filling out forms to get permits for the Japanese Alps.11:45 – Shout Outs to listeners, Incline Spirits and Cigars, Bestfit Boots and Start Haus Truckee, Josh at Boot Solutions in Hakuba.25:45 – Eating weird Asian foods.29:00 – While Tom was gone….presidential campaigning in Reno/Tahoe region. Thanks Chad Peters - @takeoffyourpnts on Insta. 32:30 – Woman gets stranded overnight on Heavenly gondola, shooting at Squaw Village, shooting near Homewood at a restaurant, grand theft and assault at Boreal. 35:30 – Kurt's ASS Rant for the Week – UnofficialNetworks using AI to write news headlines.38:45 – Palisades Tahoe Blog and the complaining they love to do about their jobs. 40:20 – The Headwall chairlift debacle – Scott Gaffney writes an Ode to Headwall poem.44:30 – Arapahoe Basin in Colorado gets purchased by Alterra/Ikon Pass.51:30 – Snoop Pow Dogg's Snowsizzle My Dizzle Powderiific Snow Report54:00 – We are definitely in an El Nino winter – no snow in the Pacific NW and Montana56:00 – Gettin' older and feelin' older. Coping with injury and getting older. Do more cross training. Throttle back. Stretch more. 1:02:15 – Recap of PowBot's trip to Hakuba, Japan. Happo-One.1:14:00 – Trail Whisperer and Swan John's upcoming road trip to Idaho and Wyoming.1:20:30 – Sharing information about avalanches and Avalanche Canada's new avalanche reporting system built by the government for the public to use and share.

S2. E11 The Best in Apres Ski, Spotlight Arapahoe Basin, Ski News, Snow Reports and Gear Reviews

The White Out - Ski Podcast

Play Episode Play 20 sec Highlight Listen Later Dec 22, 2023 43:07 Transcription Available

Time to mention today's sponsors, Ski Independence & Canada's Alberta. The team at Ski Independence have been sending customers to Alberta's ski resorts for almost 30 years. With oodles of personal experience, they know all about the best places to stay, the best travel options… and everything in between: from Banff's best après-ski locations, to breathtaking scenery at Lake Louise, or how to get the best out of a multi-centre itinerary – they highly recommended road-tripping up the spectacular Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper for an experience like no other.Visit ski-i.com/alberta to find out more about booking Canada's Alberta with tailor-made specialists Ski Independence. ******************NEWS:Bognor store opens in LondonCO2 FREE groomer starts to roll out on the slopesArt in the Alps, Suvretta House St Moritz and Les Arcs******************Weather report Brought to our listeners in association with our friends at SkiWeekends The flexible ski holiday experts, choose form 10 fantastic catered chalets and over 100 hotels in over 40 resorts. You can stay as long as you like with SkiWeekends.******************Gear ReviewsHelly Hansen wins 3 ISPO awardsArc'teryx academy backBode Miller joins UYN******************Resort Spotlight:Arapahoe Basin we speak to Louis Skowyra Director of Mountain Operations to talk all things A-Basin and what a unique and fantastic skiers mountain it really is with an incredibly long season!******************InTheSnow's 24 in 24. Two Lucky individuals, Ben Haver and Clau De Cesaris sculpted this trip of a lifetime and will visit and compare 24 resorts starting in January 2024. Whilst doing so, InTheSnow bring you all the freshest content across our social channels this winter, and watch out for 24 brand new resort reviews on our YouTube channel. Follow us Instagram @InTheSnow_Magazine TikTok@inthesnowmag ******************Next week we have an episode dedicated to Les 7 Laux, never heard that name, well this is well worth listening t!! ******************Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year from Rob and IIn the meantime Happy Skiing :). Please do leave a review it's the only way other like minded skiers get to find us!And don't forget to check us out on the following channelsIn the meantime Happy Skiing :). Please do leave a review it's the only way other like minded skiers get to find us! And don't forget to check us out on the following channels inthesnow.comyoutube.com/inthesnowmagfacebook.com/inthesnowinstagram.com/inthesnowand contact us with your suggestions for further episodes at hello@InTheSnow.com

Podcast #144: Keystone Vice President and General Manager Chris Sorensen

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2023 81:05

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Sept. 19. It dropped for free subscribers on Sept. 26. 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:WhoChris Sorensen, Vice President and General Manager of Keystone, ColoradoRecorded onSeptember 11, 2023About KeystoneClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Keystone, ColoradoYear founded: 1970Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: unlimited access* Summit Value Pass: unlimited access* Keystone Plus Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Local: five days combined with Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Park City* Epic Day Pass: access with All Resorts and 32-resorts tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Arapahoe Basin (:08), Frisco (:19), Loveland (22 minutes), Breckenridge (:25), Copper (:25), Vail (:44), Beaver Creek (:53), Ski Cooper (:56) – travel times vary considerably given traffic, weather, and time of year.Base elevation: 9,280 feetSummit elevation: 12,408 feet at the top of Keystone Peak; highest lift-served point is 12,282 feet at the top of Bergman Bowl ExpressVertical drop: 3,002 feet lift-served; 3,128 feet hike-toSkiable Acres: 3,149 acresAverage annual snowfall: 235 inchesTrail count: 130 (49% most difficult, 39% more difficult, 12% easiest)Lift count: 20 (1 eight-passenger gondola, 1 six-passenger gondola, 4 high-speed six-packs, 3 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 triple, 2 doubles, 7 carpets)Why I interviewed himKeystone arrived in 1970, a star member of the last great wave of western ski resort development, just before Snowbird (1971), Northstar (1972), Telluride (1972), and Big Sky (1973). It landed in a crowded Summit County, just down the road from Arapahoe Basin (1946) and five miles overland from Breckenridge (1961). Copper Mountain came online two years later. Loveland (1937) stood at the gateway to Summit County, looming above what would become the Eisenhower Tunnel in 1973. Just west sat Ski Cooper (1942), the mighty and rapidly expanding Vail Mountain (1962), and the patch of wilderness that would morph into Beaver Creek within a decade. Today, the density of ski areas along Colorado's I-70 corridor is astonishing:Despite this geographic proximity, you could not find more distinct ski experiences were you to search across continents. This is true everywhere ski areas bunch, from northern Vermont to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to the Wasatch. Ski areas, like people, hack their identities out of the raw material available to them, and just as siblings growing up in the same household can emerge as wildly different entities, so too can mountains that sit side-by-side-by-side.Keystone, lacking the gnar, was never going to be Jackson or Palisades, fierce and frothing. Sprung from wilderness, it could never replicate Breck's mining-town patina. Its high alpine could not summon the drama of A-Basin's East Wall or the expanse of Vail's Back Bowls.But Keystone made its way. It would be Summit County's family mountain, its night-ski mountain, and, eventually, one of its first-to-open-each-ski-season mountains. This is the headline, and this is how everyone thinks of the place. But over the decades, Keystone has quietly built out one of Colorado's most comprehensive ski experiences, an almost perfect front-to-back progression from gentle to damn. Like Heavenly or Park City, Keystone wears its steeps modestly, like your quiet neighbor with a Corvette hidden beneath tarps in the polebarn. All you notice is the Camry parked in the driveway. But there are layers here. Keep looking, and you will find them.What we talked aboutHopeful for that traditional October opening; why Keystone is Vail's early-season operator in Colorado; why the mountain closes in early April; breaking down the Bergman Bowl expansion and the six-pack that will service it; the eternal tension of opening hike-to terrain to lift service; building more room to roam, rather than more people to roam it; the art of environmentally conscious glading; new lift-served terrain in Erickson Bowl; turning data into infrastructure; why the Bergman sixer won't have bubbles; why Bergman won't access The Windows terrain; the clever scheme behind renaming the Bergman Bowl expansion trails; building a new trailmap with Rad Smith; where skiers will be able to get a copy of the new paper trailmap; comparing the Peru upgrade to the Bergman lift project; the construction mistake that delayed the Bergman expansion by a full year; the possibility of lifts in Independence, North, and South Bowls; falling in love with skiing Colorado, then moving to Michigan; why Vail bought a bunch of Midwest bumps; when you get to lead the resort where you started bumping lifts; what makes Keystone stand out even though it sits within one of the densest concentrations of large ski areas in North America; thoughts on long-term lift upgrades, and where we could see six-packs; whether the Argentine lift could ever return in some form; the potential for a Ski Tip lift; where Keystone could expand next; whether a Windows lift is in play; North American Bowl; when we could see an updated Keystone masterplan; why Keystone gets less snow than its neighbors; assessing Epic Pass access; and night skiing. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewKeystone is opening one of three large lift-served ski expansions in Colorado this winter: the 500-plus-acre Bergman Bowl, served by a high-speed six-pack (the other two are Hero's on Aspen Mountain and Mahogany Ridge at Steamboat). While this pod has occupied the trailmap as hike-to terrain for years, more people will likely ski it before noon on a typical Monday than once slogged up the ridgeline in an entire winter. Keystone has renamed and somewhat re-sculpted the trails in honor of the occasion, inviting the masses onto a blue-square oasis at the top of Summit County.Which is always a good excuse for a podcast. But… this terrain was supposed to open in 2022, until the project ran into a high-altitude brick wall last July, when construction crews oopsied a road through sensitive terrain. Vail Daily:Construction of a new chairlift at Keystone Resort was ordered to cease this week after the U.S. Forest Service learned that an unauthorized road had been bulldozed through sensitive areas where minimal impacts were authorized.Keystone Resort, which operates by permit on U.S. Forest Service land, was granted permission by the White River National Forest to construct a new chairlift this summer in the area known as Bergman Bowl, creating a 555-acre expansion of Keystone's lift-served terrain. But that approval came with plenty of comments from the Environmental Protection Agency, which recommended minimal road construction associated with the project due to Bergman Bowl's environmentally sensitive location. …White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said while the Forest Service does approve many projects like Bergman Bowl, officials typically don't allow construction of new access roads in Alpine tundra.“When you drop a bulldozer blade in the Alpine, that is very fragile, and very difficult to restore,” Fitzwilliams said.In Bergman Bowl, the Forest Service has found “damage to the Alpine environment … impacts to wetlands and stuff that we normally don't want to do,” Fitzwilliams said.As a result, Fitzwilliams issued a cease and desist letter to Vail Resorts. He said the company immediately complied and shut down the impacted parts of the project.The Forest Service has not yet determined if a full restoration can occur.“When you impact the Alpine environment, it's not easy to restore,” Fitzwilliams said. “Sometimes, although achievable in some areas, it's difficult.”Vail Resorts, which has staked much of its identity on its friend-of-the-environment credentials, owned the mistake and immediately hired a firm to design a mitigation plan. What Keystone came back with was so thorough that it stunned Forest Service officials. Blevins, writing a week later in the Colorado Sun:White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams on Thursday said he accepted Vail Resorts' cure for improperly grading 2.5 acres outside of approved construction boundaries, including 1.5 acres above treeline in the fragile alpine zone. The company's construction crews also filled a wetland creek with logs and graded over it to create a road crossing and did not save topsoil and vegetation for replanting after construction, all of which the agency found “were not consistent with Forest Service expectations.”Fitzwilliams rescinded his order of noncompliance and canceled the cease-and-desist order he issued last month after Forest Service officials discovered the construction that had not been permitted. …“Quite honestly, it's the best restoration plan I've ever seen in my life. Even our staff are like ‘Oh my god,'” Fitzwilliams said. “The restoration plan submitted by Keystone is extremely detailed, thorough and includes all the necessary actions to insure the damage is restored as best as possible.”The damage to fragile alpine terrain does require additional analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, but Fitzwilliams said that can be done while the construction continues.On Thursday afternoon, resort officials said the further environmental review will keep Bergman Bowl from opening for the 2022-23 season, a development Keystone general manager Chris Sorensen said is disappointing but necessary.Indeed. The only way out is through. But how did that plan go? And what is Vail doing to make sure such mistakes don't recur? And how do you manage such a high-profile mistake from a personal and leadership point of view? It was a conversation worth having, and one that Sorensen managed well.What I got wrong…About the exact timeline of Vail's Midwest acquisitionsI kind of lumped Vail Resorts' first three Midwest acquisitions together, but there was quite a bit of space between the company's purchase of Afton Alps and Mt. Brighton, in 2012, and its pickup of Wilmot in 2016. The rest came with the Peak Resorts' acquisition in 2019.About Copper Mountain's season pass priceI said that it was “about $750” for a Copper pass or an Ikon Base Pass. Both were undercounts. Copper's 2023-24 season pass debuted at $799 and is now $849. The 2023-24 Ikon Base Pass, which includes unlimited access to Copper Mountain, debuted at $829 and now sells for $929.About the most-affordable big-mountain ski passes in the United StatesI said that Keystone offered “the most affordable big-mountain season pass” in the country. With peak-day walk-up lift tickets scheduled to hit $269 this season at Keystone, that may seem like an odd declaration. But it's almost true: Keystone sells the second-most-affordable unlimited season pass among America's 20 largest ski areas. Sister resort Park City comes in cheaper on a cost-per-acre basis, and Vail Mountain is tied with Keystone. In fact, four of the top five most affordable big-mountain passes are at Vail-owned properties (Park City, Keystone, Vail, and Heavenly):About night skiingI said that Keystone had “the largest night-skiing operation in America.” This is incorrect. I tried to determine who, indeed, hosts America's largest night-skiing operation, but after slamming my head into a wall for a few hours, I abandoned the exercise. There is absolutely no common standard of measurement, probably because 14-year-olds slamming Bang energy drinks and Faceposting from the chairlift aren't keen on fact-checking. Here's the best I could come up with:Even that simple chart took an embarrassing amount of time to assemble. At some point I will return to this exercise, and will include the entire country. The Midwest will factor significantly here, as nearly every ski area in the region is 100 percent lit for night-skiing. New York and the Mid-Atlantic also host many large night-skiing operations, as do Bolton Valley, Vermont and Pleasant Mountain, Maine. But unless I wanted to publish this podcast in June of 2024, I needed to flee this particular briar patch before I got ensnared.Why you should ski KeystoneThe Keystone you're thinking of is frontside Keystone, Dercum Mountain, River Run and Mountain House, Montezuma and Peru. That Keystone has a certain appeal. It is an approachable outsiders' version of Colorado, endless and wide, fast but manageable, groomed spirals ambling beneath the sunshine. Step out of the Suburban after a 16-hour drive from Houston, and find the Middle Earth you were seeking, soaring and jagged and wild, with a pedestrian village at the base.Keep going. Down Mine Shaft or Diamond Back to North Peak: 1,600 vertical feet of moguls bigger than your car. A half-dozen to choose from. Behind that, yet another peak, like a third ski area. Outback is where things start to get savage. Not drop-off-The-Cirque-at-Snowbird savage, but challenging enough. Slide back to Timberwolf or Bushwacker or Badger – or, more boldly, the trees in between – for that wild Colorado that Texas Ted and New York Ned find off Dercum.Or walk past the snow fort and click out, bootpack a mile and drop into Upper Windows, the only terrain marked double black on Keystone's sprawling trailmap. A rambling world, crisp and silent beneath the Outpost Gondola. Until it spits you out onto Mozart, Keystone's I-70, frantic and cluttered all the way to Santiago, and another lap.Podcast NotesOn Keystone's 2009 masterplan Keystone's masterplan dates to 2009, the second-oldest on file with the White River National Forest (Buttermilk's dates to 2008). The sprawling plan includes several yet-to-be-constructed lifts, including fixed-grips up Independence Bowl and Windows, a surface lift bisecting North and South Bowls; and a two-way ride out of Ski Tip. The plan also proposes upgrades to Outback, Wayback, and A-51; and a whole new line for the now-decommissioned Argentine:Since that image isn't very crisp, here's a closer look at Dercum:North Peak:And Outback:Sorensen and I discuss the potential for each of these projects, some of which are effectively dead. Strangely, Keystone's only two new chairlifts (besides Bergman), since 2009 - upgrading Montezuma and Peru from high-speed quads to sixers – were not suggested on the MDP at all. Argentine, which once connected the Mountain House Base directly to the Montezuma lift, was a casualty of the 2021 Peru upgrade. Here's a before-and-after:Argentine, it turns out, is just the latest casualty in Keystone's front-side clean-sweep. Check out this 1996 trailmap, when Dercum (called “Keystone” here), hosted nine frontside chairlifts (plus the gondola), to today's five:On the new Bergman Bowl trail namesBergman Bowl has appeared on Keystone's trailmap since at least 2005. The resort added trail names around 2007. As part of the lift installation, we get all new trail names and a few new trails (as well as downgrades, for most of the old lines, to blues). Keystone also updated trailnames in adjacent Erickson Bowl, which the new lift will partially serve. Sorensen and I discuss the naming scheme in the pod:On Rad Smith's new hand-painted Keystone trailmapSince 2002 or so, Keystone's trailmap has viewed the resort at a slight angle, with Dercum prioritized, the clear “front side.”The new map, Sorensen tells us, whips the vantage around to the side, giving us a better view of Bergman and, consequently, of North Peak and Outback. Here's the old map (2022 on the left), alongside the new:And here's the two-part video series on making the map with Rad Smith:On Vail's new appI've driven round trip between New York City and Michigan hundreds of times. Most of the drive is rural and gorgeous, cruise-control country, the flat Midwest and the rolling mountains of Pennsylvania. Even the stretch of north Jersey is attractive, hilly and green, dramatic at the Delaware Water Gap. All that quaintness slams shut on the eastbound approach to the George Washington Bridge, where a half dozen highways collapse into the world's busiest bridge. Backups can be comically long. Hitting this blockade after a 12-hour drive can be excruciating.Fortunately, NJDOT, or the Port Authority, or whomever controls the stretch of Interstate 80 that approaches the bridge after its 2,900-mile journey from San Francisco, has erected signs a few dozen miles out that ominously communicate wait times for the GW's upper and lower decks. I used to doubt these signs as mad guesses typed in by some low-level state employee sitting in a control room with a box of donuts. But after a couple dozen unsuccessful attempts to outsmart the system, I arrived at a bitter realization: the signs were always right.This is the experience that users of Vail's new My Epic app can (hopefully) expect when it comes online this winter. This app will be your digital Swiss Army Knife, your Epic Pass/stats tracker/snow cam/in-resort credit card/GPS tracker with interactive trailmap. No word on if they'll include that strange metal spire that's either a miniature icepick or an impromptu brass knuckle. But the app will include real-time grooming updates and chairlift wait times. And if a roadsign in New Jersey can correctly communicate wait times to cross the George Washington Bridge, then Vail Resorts ought to be able to sync this chairlift wait-times thing pretty precisely.On Mt. Brighton being built from landfillDepending upon your point of view, Mt. Brighton, Michigan – which Sorensen ran from 2016 to 2018 – is either the most amazing or the most appalling ski area in Vail's sprawling portfolio. Two-hundred thirty vertical feet, 130 acres, five chairlifts, seven surface lifts, and about four trees, rising like some alt-world mini-Alps from the flatlands of Southeast Michigan.Why is it there? What does it do? Who would do such a thing to themselves? The answer to the first question lies in the expressways that crisscross three miles to the east: crews building Interstate 96 and US 23 deposited the excess dirt here, making a hill. The answer to the second question is: the place sells a s**t-ton of Epic Passes, which was the point of Vail buying the joint. And the answer to the third question is obvious as well: for the local kids, its ski here or ski nowhere, and little Midwest hills are more fun than you think. Especially when you're 12 and the alternative is sitting inside for Michigan's 11-month winter.On Keystone's potential West Ridge expansionSorensen refers to a potential “West Ridge” expansion, which does not appear on the 2009 trailmap. The ski area's 1989 masterplan, however, shows up to five lifts scaling West Ridge between North Peak and Outback (which was then called “South Peak”):On Keystone being among Colorado's least-snowy major resortsIt's a strange fact of geography that Keystone scores significantly less snow, on average, than its Colorado peers:This makes even less sense when you realize how close Keystone sits to A-Basin (115 more inches per season), Breck (118), and Copper (70):When I hosted OpenSnow founder and CEO Joel Gratz on the podcast last year, he explained Keystone's odd circumstances (as well as how the mountain sometimes does better than its neighbors), at the 1:41:43 mark.On pass prices across Summit County creeping up over the past several yearsSummit County was Ground Zero for the pass wars, during which a preponderance of mountains the size of Rhode Island fought to the death over who could give skiing away the cheapest. There are many reasons this battle started here, and many reasons why it's ending. Not the least of which is that each of these ski areas hosts the population of a small city every day all winter long. Colorado accounts for approximately one in four U.S. skier visits. The state's infrastructure is one rolled-over semi away from post-apocalyptic collapse. There's no reason that skiing has to cost less than a load of laundry when everyone wants to do it all the time.As a result, prices are slowly but steadily rising. Here's what's happened to pass prices at the four Summit County ski areas over the past six seasons:They've mostly gone up. Keystone is the only one that is less expensive to ski at now than it was in 2018 (on a season-pass basis). This chart is somewhat skewed by a couple of factors:* For the 2018-19 ski season, A-Basin was an unlimited member of the Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, and Summit Value Pass, a fact that nearly broke the place. The drastic price drop from 2018 to '19 reflects A-Basin's first year outside Vail's coalition.* Vail cut Epic Pass prices 20 percent from the 2020-21 ski season to the 2021-22 campaign. That's why Breck and Keystone are approximately the same price now as they were before the asteroid attack, Covid.* Little-known fact: Copper Mountain sells its own season pass, separate from the Ikon Pass, even though the mountain offers unlimited access on both the Ikon Base and full Ikon passes.On Mr. OklahomaI don't want to spoil the ending here, but we do talk about this.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 75/100 in 2023, and number 461 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

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August 16, 2023 - High Country Politics - Government and Elections News from the American West

Heartland POD

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2023 8:59

Colorado teachers' union sues school district over gag policy | Arizona's state Democratic Party has raised 7x more money than AZ Republicans this year | Cecelia Espinoza, Rochelle Galindo, and Tim Hernandez seek vacant Colorado House seat representing Denver-based 4th district | Power shutoffs could prove deadly as Nevadans brace for continued extreme heatSong playsIntro by hostWelcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod's Talking Politics, every Monday.Support this show and all the work in the Heartland POD universe by going to heartlandpod.com and clicking the link for Patreon, or go to Patreon.com/HeartlandPod to sign up. Membership starts at $1/month, with even more extra shows and special access at the higher levels. No matter the level you choose, your membership helps us create these independent shows as we work together to change the conversation.Alright! Let's get into it: COLORADO NEWSLINE:A Colorado teachers union filed a federal lawsuit against the Woodland Park School District and its board of education over a policy that they say prevents teachers from publicly speaking about school concerns.The Woodland Park Education Association and its president, Nate Owen, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver this week. The school board and district in Woodland Park, outside Colorado Springs in Teller County, has become increasingly conservative in recent years and the schools have become a frequent flashpoint of controversy over a number of issues including curriculum, personnel, transparency, etc.The lawsuit alleges that a district policy known as KDDA, is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech that goes against the First Amendment.That policy, revised twice this year, states that the superintendent is the official spokesperson for the district and employees cannot talk to the media or even post on social media about district decisions without approval. Violation of the policy is considered insubordination.The lawsuit says “Prior restraints on speech are the most serious and least tolerable infringement of an individual's First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court has routinely held that prior restraints on protected speech are presumed to be constitutionally invalid,”There are examples of courts striking down policies that prevent public employees, like teachers, from speaking to the media without prior approval. attorney Steve Zansberg, who works on cases pertaining to media and the First Amendment said “It is my understanding that policies like this have previously been challenged in other school districts and have been found by courts to be unconstitutional restrictions on free speech rights of school employees.” Because of Owen's standing as president of the local teachers union, he often makes public comments to the school board about working conditions and matters of public concern, as well as comments to the media. The district's policy, however, puts his teaching job in jeopardy if he speaks out.The lawsuit also alleges that the way the policy was revised in February and March violates Colorado's Open Meetings Law. There are no posted minutes or agendas that show the school board publicly discussing the issue.Woodland Park School District Superintendent Ken Witt called the lawsuit a “coordinated political attack” by groups seeking to intimidate him, but of course offered no support for that claim. ARIZONA MIRROR:Arizona Republican Party's fundraising abysmal in run up to pivotal 2024 electionBY: CAITLIN SIEVERS - AUGUST 11, 2023 7:00 AMThe Arizona Republican Party's fundraising efforts so far this year are embarrassing, with Democrats outpacing them seven to one, leaving political operatives wondering if the party's new chairman can right the ship in time to mount any sort of meaningful campaign in 2024. The party took in only $165,000 in contributions so far in 2023, as compared to the Arizona Democratic Party's more than $1,150,000. And the state Republican Party's federal account, which is vital to fund operations during a presidential election year, was in a sad state as of the end of June, with less than $24,000 in cash on hand, compared to the state Democratic Party's nearly $714,000.Because of campaign finance laws, the parties must operate separate accounts for money spent to help elect federal candidates and funds used to bolster state and local hopefuls. Robert Graham, a former Arizona Republican Party chairman from 2013-2017, told the Arizona Mirror, “If this were me, I would be sweating a little bit.” He went on to say that the last party chairman Kelli Ward's extravagant spending and far-right fringe politics have left some big donors hesitant to give.Ward, who chaired the state GOP for four years beginning in January 2019, was part of the group of fake electors from Arizona that hoped to overturn former President Donald Trump's loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. She bought into election conspiracy theories and spent more than $500,000 on an election night party and statewide bus tour in 2022, angering fellow Republicans who would have rather seen that money used to help GOP candidates who lost extremely tight statewide races.In that election, Arizona Republicans suffered losses in the race for governor, secretary of state and attorney general and the U.S. Senate.One former AZ Democratic Party executive director said“Functionally, they're running an operation right now that wouldn't be capable of running one Dairy Queen franchise, much less a state operation to hopefully elect a senator or a president,” “I would be shocked, I think, just given where they are right now, if this time next year they're running any sort of impactful campaign or effort out of the state Republican Party.”DENVER WESTWORD:Firebrand Teacher Tim Hernández seeks seat in Colorado HouseHouse District 4 had been represented by Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, who won an at-large seat on Denver City Council.By Michael RobertsAugust 9, 2023Tim Hernández is a teacher best known for fighting on behalf of diversity, equity and inclusion related to both students and educators. Now he hopes to bring his passion to the Colorado Legislature as a representative for House District 4.Hernandez has been a controversial figure, making headlines last year when students at North High School protested the decision not to keep him on the staff.Colorado's House District 4 stretches roughly from Regis University south to Morrison Road, and from Sheridan Boulevard east to Zuni Street. However, the District's voters as a whole won't be making the selection — at least not yet. On August 26 "appointed leadership of the Democratic Party within the House district, an estimated 69 individuals, will decide who fills out the rest of the term. Two other hopefuls with significant Democratic connections are also vying for the spot. Cecelia Espenoza previously worked as a counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice and an appellate immigration judge. She is also a former professor at the University of Denver and St. Mary's University School of Law, and a former chair of the board at the National Hispana Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., as well.Also in the race is Rochelle Galindo, who in 2015 became the first openly gay person to be elected to the Greeley, Colorado City Council. She followed this win by besting Republican rival Michael Thuener to become the state representative for Weld County's District 50 in 2018. She resigned the next year after being accused of sexual assault and providing alcohol to a minor and was cleared of the charges in 2021. Since she left the legislature, Galindo has worked in various roles at advocacy organizations Colorado People's Alliance, Colorado People's Action, and Emerge.NEVADA CURRENT:NV households struggle to pay summer power bills, and it's getting worseBY: JENIFFER SOLIS - AUGUST 15, 2023 5:34 AMRecord heat in Southern Nevada throughout July drove scores of residents to take refuge in air-conditioned homes, but the cost of fighting off summer temperatures will likely leave an alarming number of Nevadans unable to pay their bills. Last month was the hottest July ever recorded in Las Vegas, with a daily average high of 109 degrees. The last two weeks of July were the hottest 14-day stretch on ever record, with an average high of 112 degrees. Nevada residents living in a single-family home saw an average 22% increase — from about $337 per month fo $407 per month - in their energy bills.Electricity rates in July were set to be even higher before NV Energy agreed to temporarily reduce costs for customers.For many Nevada households, an extra $60 to $70 dollars won't completely break the bank, but for low-income households or those on a fixed income, higher utility bills mean choosing between keeping the A/C running or addressing other essential needs like food and medication. In the worst-case scenario, lack of payment may lead to a power shut-off, leaving families scrambling to find enough money to restore service, often only to face disconnection again.Further, Nevada does not require utilities to disclose the number of customers they disconnect, leaving little transparency of the magnitude of the problem. NV Energy, a monopoly with more than a million captive customers, has shown little interest in publicly sharing the number of disconnected customers. An NV Energy spokesperson said in an email that “NV Energy does not share this type of data publicly, though the company works diligently with customers and makes every effort to avoid disconnecting power.”Data that is public reveals that more and more households are struggling to pay utility bills in Nevada. Applications for state utility assistance over the last three months of available data reveal a sharp 37% increase compared to the same period last year. Public health officials anticipate the high demand will continue as temperatures remain high throughout August. The state program, called the Energy Assistance Program, provides a supplement for qualifying low-income Nevadans with the cost of home energy. Eligible households receive an annual, one-time per year benefit paid directly to their energy provider.But the cost of that assistance ultimately falls on NV Energy customers. Part of the program's funding is subsidized by ratepayers through NV Energy's Universal Energy Charge, which adds 46 cents a month to the typical residential power bill.Unpaid bills that can't be recovered by NV Energy are eventually paid by customers too. Nevada law does protect utility customers from power shut-offs during periods of extreme heat, when a lack of air conditioning can result in waves of hospitalizations or even death. According to state statute, a utility company can't terminate service for a non-paying customer if the National Weather Service has forecast a period of extreme heat within the next 24 hours within the customer's geographical area. For most residents in Southern Nevada, extreme heat is defined as 105 degrees. So if it won't be 105 in the course of the next day, service can be terminated. NV Energy must also notify elderly customers at least 48 hours before termination of power.For all other residents in Southern Nevada, a forecast of 105 degrees or higher within a 24 hour period is considered extreme heat. Utilities also can't terminate service to a customer for nonpayment if the outstanding amount owed is $50 or less. But more than $50, it could be lights out. COLORADO SUN:Colorado's Copper Mountain resort starts seeding to spark a huge biodiversity effortJason Blevins3:50 AM MDT on Aug 15, 2023This story first appeared in The Outsider, the premium outdoor newsletter by Jason Blevins.In it, he covers the industry from the inside out, plus the fun side of being outdoors in our beautiful state.SUBSCRIBECopper Mountain has identified 558 acres on the front side of its ski area where soil work can help restore ecosystems and improve biodiversity to help lessen the impacts of climate change. Last year the resort announced a 10-year carbon sequestration plan to plant carbon-storing plants and grasses on its ski slopes. The resort has tapped researchers at Southwestern University in Texas in the effort, with student scientists staking out test plots on five ski runs where they can monitor vegetation growth using native seeds, compost and biochar.The ski area hosted several resort leaders at its second-annual conservation summit earlier this month in an effort to share their research, strategies and projects. A large focus was restoring biological vibrancy on ski slopes, which too often are simply treated pretty much like lawns instead of critical components of mountain ecosystems. Last year sustainability workers at Copper Mountain started collecting seeds from 27 native species and replanting them across the resort's north-facing ski runs.Jeff Grasser, head of sustainability at Copper Mountain said “We are experimenting. We are trying to figure out how to make all this work at a landscape level,” as he sifted through charred wood chips in a 50-gallon drum that he will carefully spread across plots of ski slopes to see how the porous, lightweight biochar might help native grasses thrive. The aptly named Grasser has big plans. What if he could create “tons and tons” of biochar in massive kilns, not just little drums? What if Copper Mountain's corporate owner deploys its fleet of helicopters for heli-skiing in Utah to spread biochar across all the ski slopes at the company's 10 mountain resorts?“We want to do this in ways that can be done on a very large scale and we can't wait to share these results with you,” Grasser told a group of sustainability leaders at a recent conservation summit.The program included a presentation from folks from another Colorado ski area, Arapahoe Basin, detailing how crews replaced vegetation by hand and preserved topsoil when installing new chairlift towers. The crew from Eldora Mountain Resort offered details of a project with the Town of Nederland to build a wetland to replace a trailhead parking lot. Sunlight ski area took a page from Copper Mountain's biodiversity playbook and began collecting native seeds for replanting on ski runs. The Copper Mountain project will build a dataset of more than 100 locations across the ski area, with 10 years of science showing how native grasses, compost and biochar can help resort operators regain a more diverse, balanced ecosystem on ski slopes.“We want to have the data to be able to say,‘Hey this works really well. Don't just take my word for it. We have scientific evidence that supports these methods. These are the first steps in delivering resilience so bio-diversity can grow.'”And your unsolicited concert pick of the week, Ha Ha TonkaThu., Aug. 24, 9 p.m. at the Skylark Lounge in Denver (Bobcat Club) $12-$15An indie / southern rock band originally formed in West Plains, MO, Ha Ha Tonka's "dark view of the realities of socio-economic hardship, backwoods prejudices and drug abuse is leavened by wry humor and a deep appreciation for regional storytelling traditions. New album Blood Red Moon will be released on October 23.After Denver, Ha Ha Tonka will play a slate of shows throughout California, then Columbia, Missouri on November 2nd, West Plains on November 3rd, and Springfield, Missouri on November 4th. hahatonkamusic.comWelp, that's it for me! From Denver I'm Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today's show comes from Colorado Sun, The Outsider, Colorado Newsline, Arizona Mirror, and Denver's Westword.Thank you for listening! See you next time.

university california texas donald trump power house washington las vegas politics action law colorado joe biden arizona elections government data public utah original supreme court missouri republicans democrats nevada senate columbia alliance democratic ward outsiders gop free speech springfield hernandez democratic party republican party electricity nederland first amendment colorado springs emerge sunlight american west eligible utilities violation dairy queen district court unpaid national weather service galindo house district extreme heat greeley teachers union talking politics 2024 elections high country southern nevada regis university university school functionally 2022 elections woodland park nevadans westword southwestern university colorado house north high school weld county colorado sun kelli ward copper mountain colorado legislature denver city council nv energy colorado politics jason blevins blood red moon mary's university school arapahoe basin ha ha tonka

August 16, 2023 - High Country Politics - Government and Elections News from the American West

The Heartland POD

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2023 8:59

university california texas donald trump power house washington las vegas politics action law colorado joe biden arizona elections government data public utah original supreme court missouri republicans democrats nevada senate columbia alliance democratic ward membership applications outsiders gop free speech springfield hernandez democratic party republican party electricity nederland first amendment colorado springs emerge sunlight american west eligible utilities violation dairy queen district court unpaid national weather service galindo house district extreme heat greeley teachers union talking politics 2024 elections high country southern nevada regis university university school functionally 2022 elections woodland park nevadans westword southwestern university robert graham colorado house north high school weld county kelli ward copper mountain colorado sun colorado legislature denver city council nv energy colorado politics jason blevins blood red moon mary's university school arapahoe basin ha ha tonka

Podcast #141: Mount Snow General Manager Brian Suhadolc

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2023 61:46

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on August 11. It dropped for free subscribers on August 14. 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 for free below:WhoBrian Suhadolc, General Manager of Mount Snow, VermontRecorded onJuly 17, 2023About Mount SnowClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Dover, VermontYear founded: 1954Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass and Epic Local Pass: Unlimited access* Epic Northeast Value Pass: Unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Epic Northeast Midweek Pass: Unlimited access with weekend and holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Hermitage Club (9 minutes), Stratton (23 minutes), Bromley (36 minutes), Magic Mountain (39 minutes)Base elevation: 1,900 feetSummit elevation: 3,600 feetVertical drop: 1,700 feetSkiable Acres: 601Average annual snowfall: 150 inchesTrail count: 80 (15% advanced/expert, 70% intermediate, 15% beginner)Lift count: 19 (2 six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 5 triples, 2 doubles, 1 ropetow, 5 magic carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Snow's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himThis is my second podcast focused on Mount Snow. The first episode featured then-GM Tracy Bartels, in November 2020. Our focus then was Covid: as in, what the hell were we going to do about it? The ski industry had spent eight months from the March shutdowns preparing for a masked world of closed ski bars and social distancing. Was this actually going to work?It did, of course. Sort of. But that podcast from 2020 has little to do with the Mount Snow of 2023, which has evolved substantially in just three years. It was time for an update.I'm also owning the fact that I overcorrected when I took The Storm national in 2021. In the pod's first two years, I'd interviewed the heads of most of New England's largest ski areas. Check, check, check. Done. I needed to establish this thing in the Rockies, the Cascades, the Sierras, the Wasatch. And I did. But a lot of my New England listeners felt snubbed. I'd built this thing on their attention and enthusiasm, and now I was pivoting away.It's time to pivot back a bit. The lift-served ski world is changing fast, especially among those giants with access to capital and ambition. So I've scheduled upcoming podcast conversations with the leaders of Killington and Sunday River, both of which I've profiled in the past. I'll pursue more such follow-ups in the future, in all regions – and not just with mega-resorts, as the recent second installment with the owners of Plattekill demonstrated. The long-term goal is to alternate podcasts so that every other episode focuses on the West, with the East/Midwest/Mid-Atlantic occupying the alternate slots.But setting aside my own admin, I'm focusing on Mount Snow because it's an incredibly important mountain. I'll reset what I wrote in this same section three years ago:Because Mount Snow is where big-time Northeast skiing begins. As the southern-most major Vermont ski area, it is a skier's gateway to mountains that are big enough to get lost on. From its strategic position in the orbit of the East Coast megalopolis, successive owners have gradually built something uniquely suited to the frenetic swarms of wildly varied skiers who bullseye the place each winter: Mount Snow has one of the most outstanding terrain parks in America and one of the best snowmaking systems in the world. The families who swarm here find absolutely unintimidating terrain, blue as the sky and groomed smoother than I-91. It's a perfect family mountain and a perfect bus skier's mountain and a perfect first step from Mount Local to something that shows you how big skiing can be. It was the crown jewel of the Peak Resort's empire, and it's one of the most important pieces to Vail's ever-expanding Epic jigsaw puzzle. I wouldn't call it a special mountain – the terrain is mild and not terribly interesting, and the volume and quality of natural snowfall is best described as adequate. But it is a vital mountain, as the southern-most anchor of Vermont's teeming ski scene, as an accessible ski experience for weekending cityfolk, as an aspirational destination for people stepping more fully into skiing culture, and as a testament to the power of the imagination to transform a big vertical drop and cold skies into a vital and vibrant node of the regional ski scene.What we talked aboutSurveying damage from the July rainstorm; the Epic Promise Foundation; Mount Snow's four-foot March snowstorm; the frantic hilarity of New England powder days; the difference between east and west coast pow; breaking down Mount Snow's lift upgrades at Sundance, Sunbrook, and Heavy Metal; how the Sundance six-pack “changed the dynamic of the ski resort”; why Sundance – unlike the mega-popular Bluebird Express – does not have bubbles; how the resort manages 18 high-speed out-of-base seats; the four most-utilized lifts at Mount Snow; how Mount Snow built the Sunbrook lift in a roadless section of mountain; what it took to convert the Heavy Metal lift from a double to a triple; why Vail auctioned the individual chairs from the old Sunbrook rather than selling the lift – a 1990 CTEC quad – to a smaller ski area; talking through long-term upgrades to Nitro; why the resort doesn't add more chairs to the current Nitro to boost its capacity from 2,100 skiers per hour to 2,400; the status of paid parking two years in; impressions of New England ski culture; the difference between running a mountain in the east and in the west; what happens when Vail surprise-buys your resort; connecting Park City to The Canyons via gondola – “the magnitude of it was not lost on me”; the mining facilities still scattered across Park City; career opportunity within Vail Resorts; Mount Snow's monster snowmaking system; why Mount Snow has become Vail's late-season New England operator, rather than Wildcat; why Carinthia is the mountain's late-operating pod; whether we could ever see another October opening at Mount Snow; potential upgrades for the North Face lifts; assessing the Beartrap double; contemplating the future of Grand Summit; whether we could ever see a detach lift on beginner terrain at Mount Snow; whether the Epic Local Pass is the correct unlimited-access pass for Mount Snow; the popularity of Northeast-specific Epic Passes; the Epic Day Pass; and Vail Resorts' day-ticket limits for the 2022-23 ski season.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewEver since Peak Resorts built the Bluebird Express six-pack in 2011, Mount Snow has had a problem: the lift, with its blue bubbles and ultra-smooth ride, was so flashy and appealing that nobody wanted to ride any other lift on the front side of the mountain. Even the Grand Summit high-speed quad, which runs parallel to Bluebird and serves all the same terrain, had trouble getting attention. This was great for skiers who actively work the mountain, but a real drag for Mount Snow's rap as the most-crowded Southern Vermont ski area.Enter: Vail Resorts' Epic Lift Upgrades of 2022. Mount Snow was the beneficiary of two of the 21 planned lifts (18 of which Vail finished on schedule*): the Sundance and Tumbleweed triples made way for a new six-pack, while the backside Sunbrook lift got a boost from a fixed-grip quad to a detach. Meanwhile, the mountain converted the Heavy Metal double into a triple chair, adding capacity to the popular Carinthia terrain park.Sundance and Sunbrook had one job: give people a reason to ski something besides Bluebird. As far as replacement lifts go, they seemed brilliant. But did the plan work to unknot Mount Snow's gnarliest crowd points?That was one topic Suhadolc and I discussed. Another: was Vail able to recover from its arguably oversold 2021-22 ski season by implementing day-ticket limits and settling into paid-parking plans? And how were those paid parking plans going? And should Mount Snow really be unlimited on the Epic Local Pass?Vail Resorts is entering its fifth winter season operating Mount Snow. With the Peak Resorts transition fully digested and Covid's hassles a memory, the company has no choice but to fully own every piece of the experience. With its size and proximity to New York City, Mount Snow will always be somewhat hectic. New Englanders can tolerate that. Chaos, however, does not belong in this land of picket-fence order. And for a moment post-Covid, Mount Snow seemed to be tilting toward chaos.But no one can say that Vail has not brought big change to the mountain over the past several seasons. Despite daily lift tickets that topped out at $154 this past winter, Mount Snow has never been more affordable to the masses. Unlimited access is just $689 on the Epic Local Pass; subtract holidays with the $567 Northeast Value Pass; minus weekends with the $425 Northeast Midweek Pass. With prices that low at a mountain that big that's as easy to access as Mount Snow is, things could go sideways pretty quick. The new lifts, the parking plans, the lift-ticket limits – all of it is calculated to prevent that from happening.Ski areas are a little bit like novels. They're never really finished. But unlike our great works of literature, we get to edit ski areas after they're published. The version of Mount Snow that we ski today is probably not the best and final version of the hill, but it may also be the best it's ever been,.*Two lifts scheduled to rise in Park City were rerouted to Whistler after spiteful locals revolted; Keystone's Bergman sixer had to wait a year after a construction-road misfire tore up some sensitive high-altitude terrain.What I got wrong* I said that the new Sunbrook high-speed quad clocked a ride time around four minutes. The actual time is closer to six minutes, according to Suhadolc.* I asked Brian why Vail didn't try to re-use the Sunbrook lift – a 1990 CTEC quad that likely had lots of life left on it – at a “smaller ski area.” He explained that Vail does occasionally move a lift within its portfolio. What I had meant to ask, however, was why didn't Mount Snow didn't attempt to sell the lift on the open market to a smaller independent ski area. It's great that Mount Snow sold the chairs and flipped the money to the Epic Promise Foundation, which assists their employees in times of outstanding need, such as the floods that just smashed Okemo. But the company could likely have made more for Epic Promise by selling the entire lift to an independent ski area, many of which are desperate for a modern quad in good working condition.* I said that Vail Resorts purchased Park City Mountain Resort “in 2014 or 2015.” The company bought the resort in 2014, a year after it bought Canyons (which is now part of Park City).* I said the Outpost lift turned 60 this year. Lift Blog, my go-to source for pretty much all things lifts, lists the lift as a 1963 Yan triple. Brian said that it is a 1988 CTEC triple. New England Ski History agrees with Brian. This is not a crack on Lift Blog, which is an excellent resource, so much as on me for not double-checking my references - in fact, I think Tracy Bartels corrected me on the exact same factoid three years ago.* I said that the Northeast Midweek Epic Pass was “less than $400.” This is incorrect. The pass currently costs $425. The early-bird price for the 2023-24 ski season was $416.* When I was running through the various resorts that the Northeast-specific Epic Passes accessed, I left out Mt. Brighton, Michigan.* I noted that Mount Snow had opened in October “once and maybe twice” under Peak Resorts. The only record I can find of Mount Snow opening that early was on Oct. 27, 2018.Why you should ski Mount SnowMount Snow has two big, obvious constituencies: Park Brah and Family Bro.The Carinthia peak is a crucial piece of Peak Resorts' legacy, as important as the Bluebird Express or the tens of millions the company pumped into snowmaking upgrades. Once a separate ski area, the peak is isolated from the mountain proper (though connected both ways by green trails), a thousand vertical feet of straight hits served by a high-speed quad and a triple chair. Park Brahs can park out, Brah. Along with Seven Brothers at Loon, it may be the best terrain park in the eastern United States.Family Bro loves Mount Snow partly because of Carinthia. Radbrah Junior can spend his afternoons there, posted up five wide with his boys, contemplating the hits below. The rest of the mountain, outside of the North Face, is interstate-width and solid blue. Families of almost any ability can manage this terrain. Mount Snow may be home to the best sustained intermediate terrain in New England. It's certainly among the most varied. And the mountain grooms just about every run just about every night, even if I wish they'd chill and let some bumps sprout here and there. Mount Snow's biggest drawback is a relative lack of glades for a mountain of its size. Skiers seeking trees should aim their GPS for Stratton or Magic, both of which have excellent, extensive glade networks.Epic Pass holders need to really pick their spots, though. Both Mount Snow and Okemo reach stampede-level crowding on weekends and holidays (I really don't think either should be unlimited on the Epic Local pass). Head for Stowe at these times if at all possible. Or snag an Indy Pass for peak-day getaways to Magic and Bolton Valley.Podcast NotesOn Heavenly and the Caldor FireWhen discussing Vail Resorts' unified disaster response to the recent Vermont floods, I referred to a similar conversation I'd had with Heavenly COO Tom Fortune in regards to the Caldor Fire that descended on Tahoe two years ago. You can listen to that conversation starting at 56:03 here.On Vermont's monster March snowstormWe discussed a monster snowstorm that descended on Vermont March 14 to 15. Huge snow totals included 45 inches at Bromley, 37 inches at Magic, and 46 inches at Mount Snow.On crushing pow at Mount SnowI discussed the chaos of a pow-day rope-drop at Mount Snow. Unfortunately the only access I have to it is this Twitter video. And since Substack won't embed Twitter videos anymore you'll have to click through to watch it:Too many “suns”I kept getting Mount Snow's “sun” lifts confused. It reminded me of a time I was skiing Snowbird, and a bunch of us were debating where to go next, and my buddy Mike, clearly confused, was just like, “There's too many Gads.” And my God he's right.On the Mount Snow “tram”Brian and I briefly discussed Mount Snow's old “tram,” which transported skiers from a base-area hotel up to the ski hill. It was really more of a whacky speedboat suspended from a cable, as you can see in the rendering on this 1965 trailmap. And yes, that's a double bubble chair beside it:On the Vail Resorts acquisition of Park CityBrian worked at Park City when Vail Resorts swiped it off Powdr Corp's lunch tray after the latter forgot to renew its lease. It was probably the most cartoonishly absurd business transaction in the history of lift-served skiing. Here's Park Record, examining the events as part of a decade-in-review series in late 2019:In some circles, though, the whispers had already started that something was afoot, and perhaps not right, at PCMR. Powdr Corp. for some unknown reason was negotiating a sale of its flagship resort, the most prevalent of the rumblings held. The CEO of Powdr Corp., John Cumming, late in 2011 had publicly stated there was not a deal involving PCMR under negotiation, telling Park City leaders during a Marsac Building appearance in December of that year the resort was “not for sale.” Later that evening, he told The Park Record the rumors “always amuse me.”The reality was far more astonishing and something that would define the decade in Park City in a similar fashion as the Olympics did in the previous 10-year span and the population boom did in the 1990s.The corporate infrastructure in the spring of 2011 had inadvertently failed to renew two leases on the land underlying most of the PCMR terrain, propelling the PCMR side and the landowner, a firm under the umbrella of Talisker Corp., into what were initially private negotiations and then into a dramatic lawsuit that unfolded in state court as the Park City community, the tourism industry and the North American ski industry watched in disbelief. As the decade ends, the turmoil that beset PCMR stands, in many ways, as the instigator of a changing Park City that has left so many Parkites uneasy about the city's future as a true community.The PCMR side launched the litigation in March of 2012, saying the future of the resort was at stake in the case. PCMR might be forced to close if it did not prevail, the president and general manager of the resort at the time said at the outset of the case. Talisker Land Holdings, LLC countered that the leases had expired, suddenly leaving doubts that Powdr Corp. would retain control of PCMR. …Colorado-based Vail Resorts, one of Powdr Corp.'s industry rivals, would enter the case on the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC side in May of 2013 with the aim of wresting the disputed land from Powdr Corp. and coupling it with nearby Canyons Resort, which was branded a Vail Resorts property as part of a long-term lease and operations agreement reached at the same time of the Vail Resorts entry into the case. Vail Resorts was already an industry behemoth with its namesake property in the Rockies and other mountain resorts across North America. The addition of Canyons Resort would advance the Vail Resorts portfolio in one of North America's key skiing states.It was a deft maneuver orchestrated by the chairman and CEO of Vail Resorts, Rob Katz. The agreement was pegged at upward of $300 million in long-term debt. As part of the deal, Vail Resorts also seized control of the litigation on behalf of Talisker Land Holdings, LLC. …The lawsuit itself unfolded with stunning developments followed by shocking ones over the course of two-plus years. In one stupefying moment, the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC attorneys discovered a crucial letter from the PCMR side regarding the leases had been backdated. In another such moment, PCMR outlined plans to essentially dismantle the resort infrastructure, possibly on an around-the-clock schedule, if it was ordered off the disputed land.What was transpiring in the courtroom was inconceivable to the community. How could Powdr Corp., even inadvertently, not renew the leases on the ground that made up most of the skiing terrain at PCMR, many asked. Why couldn't Powdr Corp. and Talisker Land Holdings, LLC just reach a new agreement, others wondered. And many became weary as businessmen and their attorneys took to the courtroom with the future of PCMR, critical to a broad swath of the local economy, at stake. The mood eventually shifted to exasperation as it appeared there was a chance PCMR would not open for a ski season if Talisker Land Holdings, LLC moved forward with an eviction against Powdr Corp. from the disputed terrain.The lawsuit wore on with the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC-Vail Resorts side winning a series of key rulings from the 3rd District Court judge presiding over the case. Judge Ryan Harris in the summer of 2014 signed a de facto eviction notice against PCMR and ordered the sides into mediation. Powdr Corp., realizing there was little more that could be accomplished as it attempted to maintain control of PCMR, negotiated a $182.5 million sale of the resort to Vail Resorts that September.Absolutely brutal and amazing and hard to believe, even nearly a decade later.On Canyons' name historyI mentioned the various names that the former Canyons ski area (now part of Park City), had gone by. Ski Utah provides the complete history:A neighboring ski area and sister resort to Park City Ski Area, called Park City West, opened in 1968. It was renamed ParkWest in 1975 after a change in ownership, then Wolf Mountain in 1995 for just two seasons. In 1997 it became The Canyons after an acquisition by the American Skiing Company before it was purchased by the Talisker Corporation. It was then sold to Vail Resorts in 2014 and subsequently merged with Park City Mountain. Today that base area is known as The Canyons Village at Park City.On Mount Snow's amazing snowmaking systemJust two years before selling its entire portfolio to Vail Resorts, Peak Resorts invested an amazing $30 million into Mount Snow's snowmaking system. The Brattleboro Reformer profiled the system shortly before go-live in 2017:West Lake is actually a sprawling system that begins about 4 miles from Mount Snow.It starts with a small, black, inflatable dam that stretches 18 feet across Cold Brook in Wilmington. From November through March, Mount Snow can inflate that dam as needed, drawing water into the newly constructed reservoir.A sluiceway alongside the dam ensures a flow of water in Cold Brook whether the dam is inflated or not."We were trying to be pretty low-impact, or as low-impact as possible," Storrs said.A nondescript-looking pump house near the dam can send water upward toward Mount Snow at a rate of 11,800 gallons per minute, "which is pretty much double what we used to have in terms of pumping capacity," Storrs said.On a recent morning, crews were putting on finishing touches and conducting tests at that pump house and two others situated farther up the mountain. There's a nearly 600-foot elevation gain between the inflatable dam and the last pump house on Mount Snow's slopes.On Wildcat and the long seasonWe discussed Wildcat's tradition as a late operator. Under Peak Resorts, the ski area would push the season into late April and, occasionally, May. Snowpak has documented Wildcat's closing dates over the past nine years – note the shift to earlier dates after Vail acquired the resort in 2019 (ignore the 2020 date, for obvious reasons):Vail shifted late-season New England operations to Mount Snow for reasons that Brian explains on the podcast. But it's a little incongruous stacked up against the region's other five late operators: Killington, Sugarbush, Jay Peak, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf, all of which are quite a ways north of Mount Snow:On Grand Summit and Yan detachablesI referred to the dreadful safety record of Yan detachable lifts. I broke this history of death and incompetence down in my recent podcast with China Peak GM Tim Cohee (scroll down to the Podcast Notes section).On Epic and Ikon access shifts since 2020I keep asking Vail Resorts' GMs if their ski areas are placed on the appropriate Epic Pass tier, mostly because it's amazing to me that an unlimited season pass to a mountain like Breckenridge or Mount Snow or Stevens Pass could be $676 – the early-bird price of 2023-24 Epic Local Passes. The Ikon Pass, as I noted on the podcast, has shifted its pass structure all over the place the past several seasons, tweaking access to Stratton, Sugarbush, Crystal Mountain, Alta, Aspen, Jackson Hole, Taos, Deer Valley, and Arapahoe Basin. Here's the chart I included in my recent podcast conversation with Alterra CEO Jared Smith to document those changes:I was astonished when Vail kept Stevens Pass on the Epic Local unlimited tier after 2021's well-documented crowding meltdowns. Things got so wild in Washington that Alterra pulled Crystal off the Ikon Pass' unlimited tier and jacked its season pass price up to $1,700 for the 2022-23 ski season. I still don't really understand this super-bargain access strategy, but Vail has made it clear that they're sticking with it.On the phenomenal deal that is the Epic Day PassWe discussed the Epic Day Pass. This thing really is an amazing deal: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 68/100 in 2023, and number 454 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

covid-19 united states america god ceo head new york city washington olympic games magic west chaos colorado michigan north america epic llc families mt new england general managers gps base east coast vermont north american sort lift substack northeast brighton heavy metal sundance rockies wilmington ski dover gms bergman keystone nitro jackson hole park city outpost wildcat tahoe whistler vail yan bluebird north face district court loon stratton skiers taos stowe westlake bromley breckenridge snowbirds cascades tumbleweeds canyons new englanders ikon sierras brah wasatch magic mountain storrs seven brothers sugarloaf vail resorts podcast notes killington deer valley gads southern vermont caldor fire crystal mountain alterra sunday river carinthia pcmr seasonwe jay peak ski utah epic pass stevens pass himthis arapahoe basin okemo mount snow

Podcast #138: Trollhaugen, Wisconsin Owner & General Manager Jim Rochford, Jr.

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2023 67:06

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on August 1. It dropped for free subscribers on August 4. 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 for free below:WhoJim Rochford Jr., Owner and General Manager of Trollhaugen, WisconsinRecorded onJuly 10, 2023About TrollhaugenClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Rochford familyLocated in: Dresser, WisconsinYear founded: 1950Pass affiliations: Indy Pass – 2 daysReciprocal partners: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Wild Mountain (18 minutes), Como Park (1 hour), Afton Alps (1 hour, 3 minutes), Elm Creek (1 hour, 3 minutes), Hyland Hills (1 hour, 18 minutes), Buck Hill (1 hour, 22 minutes), Welch Village (1 hour, 33 minutes), Christie Mountain (1 hour, 24 minutes), Powder Ridge (1 hour 54 minutes), Coffee Mill (1 hour, 56 minutes)Base elevation: 920 feetSummit elevation: 1,200 feetVertical drop: 280 feetSkiable Acres: 90 (2023 expansion will increase this total)Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 24 (28% advanced, 43% intermediate, 29% beginner)Lift count: 9 (4 fixed-grip quads, 5 ropetows – lift count includes new Partek fixed-grip Chair 1 that Trollhaugen is installing this summer – view Lift Blog's inventory of Trollhaugen's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himWhat if the greatest ski town in America is not Aspen or Telluride or Park City or Jackson, but Minneapolis? Within an hour of downtown, eight ski areas: Elm Creek, Como Park, Hyland Hills, Buck Hill, Afton Alps, Welch Village, Wild Mountain, and Trollhaugen. Not one of them tops 360 vertical feet or collects more than 60 inches of snow in an average season.Underwhelming stats that underscore the point: only the hardcore would swarm such bumps, endure the windblown cloud-cluttered upper Midwest dead-winter, in pursuit of the turn, the loft, the float, that singular moment of ski-high. There's a reason Vail's first stop on its march east was Minneapolis – this is a ski town (and one you can actually afford to live in).Midwest skiing is a bizarre world for the uninitiated. Chairlifts everywhere, often side-by-side, trolling up clear-cut hillsides seemingly conjured from the flats. Between these chairs, high-speed ropetows, hauling more skiers than you'd thought possible, faster than you can believe. You assume the ski areas are small, but they just keep going, rolling hillock after hillock over vast snowy complexes. At Afton, 17 Hall chairlifts ordered in industrial rows, threading a chutes-and-ladders labyrinth of gullies and tunnels and wide-open faces. At Welch, a mini-Vail Mountain, endless linked trailpods terminating at the Back Bowl, a spiderweb of burners diving through the trees. At Buck, every inch reserved, the place a vast school for racers, for bumpers, for flippity-flap flip-flap Brahs.Trollhaugen is a little bit of all of these things: four quads and five ropetows serving a hunk of Wisconsin countryside that feels bigger than 260 vertical feet on 100-ish acres. The Rochford family – which has owned the bump since the ‘60s – has resisted the urge to clear-cut, instead carving tree-lined tracks through the gullies. Wide-open faces aplenty, still, and zones for ropetow rockers fast and slow. The base area is themed Euro-Alpine, Bavarian perhaps, or Scandinavian.Don't let the Midwestern kitsch, wicket tickets, Rube Goldberg beginner tows, or pair of vintage ‘70s Borvig quads distract you: this is a terrific, and modern, ski area. The grooming is excellent. Snowmaking and night-skiing cover 100 percent of the hills. Trollhaugen erected a brand-new Partek quad two years ago, and it's installing another this summer. It was an inaugural Indy Pass partner, hyper-aware of the rapidly evolving lift-served skiing landscape and its competitive place within it. When you have seven direct competitors, one of which belongs to the Epic Pass, excellence is your only option. Trollhaugen delivers.What we talked aboutThe Covid outdoor surge just keeps on surging; limiting lift tickets; how different Covid-era policies impacted ski areas near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border; Wild Mountain; Trollhaugen's tradition of early-season openings; why Trollhaugen closed April 1 after a 10-inch snowstorm; post-closing railjams; what happened when Vail Resorts bought nearby Afton Alps; whether the Epic Pass' arrival contributed to Trollhaugen's decision to join the Indy Pass; how Indy visitation has evolved over time; three generations of family ownership; remembering an era in which a mailman and a firefighter could start a ski area; the non-skiing dentists who bought a ski area to party; a brief history of Trollhaugen's lifts; growing up with a ski area as your backyard; the surprisingly circuitous route that Rochford took to eventually run the family business; respecting the family legacy while building upon it; going deep on Trollhaugen's expansion; glade skiing at Trollhaugen; why the conceptual expansion map shows a triple chair but we're getting a quad; the quiet brilliance of Partek chairlifts; stepping up to automated snowmaking; how the expansion may change the annual terrain-opening plan; connecting the expansion to the ski area proper; parking expansions; the story behind the parking lot sign equipped with old double chairs; Welch Village; ropetows versus carpets; the fate of the Summit ropetow; high-speed ropetows rule; a fenced ski area; 3 a.m. Fridays; and behind the Trollhaugen name and theme.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview Trollhaugen is the only one of the eight metro Minneapolis-St. Paul ski areas that sits in Wisconsin. It's four miles east of the state line, and 18 minutes from Wild. Usually, that doesn't matter. U.S. state borders, practically speaking, are mostly roadside signs. No checkpoints or paperwork. Perhaps a speed-limit adjustment. Perhaps a slight state-of-mind shift.But during Covid, that address mattered. Wisconsin, for the most part, introduced less stringent Covid safety measures than its neighbor, and relaxed them faster. No need to itemize them here: the net impact was a clanging cash register for Trollhaugen. Record numbers of skiers dumped record revenues into the joint. And, as Rochford tells me on the podcast, “if the skiers are going to invest in us, then we're going to invest in them.”So Trollhaugen ripped out a 52-year-old Hall double chair and stood up a brand-new Partek quad in 2021. That was phase one of a three-year capital project and expansion that is set to open this coming winter, with three-and-a-half new trails and yet another new Partek quad.It's hard to overstate how big of a deal this is for a small Midwestern ski area. Skiers acclimated to New England or the Rockies would be stunned at the condition of the average lift fleet in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. Lots of Riblets. Lots of Halls. Very few detachables. Very few safety bars. It's vintage skiing, often quite good – snowmaking tends to be excellent – but unadorned by the trappings of big-time resorts in other regions. In this neighborhood, two new lifts in three years is an enormous flex.Trollhaugen is not the only family-owned Midwest ski area investing this year. Buck Hill, Wild Mountain, Nub's Nob, and Perfect North are also erecting new quads this summer. And the big Midwestern operators have fully activated their cash cannons: Boyne is dropping a D-line sixer onto The Highlands and a fixed quad and triple at Boyne Mountain; Midwest Family Ski Resorts is building six-packs at Snowriver and Lutsen; and Wisconsin Resorts is adding a second high-speed quad to Mt. Holly and a triple to Alpine Valley, Michigan. But Trollhaugen's new lift will serve the region's only terrain expansion for the 2023-24 ski season. That's a really big deal, and worth taking a deeper look at.What I got wrong* I said in the intro that Trollhaugen had been the first ski area to open in America for the 2022-23 ski season. It was actually the first to open a chairlift, on Oct. 19. Wild Mountain and Andes Tower Hills, both in Minnesota, opened ropetows on Oct. 18.* I intimated that Loveland was in Summit County, Colorado, along with Keystone and Arapahoe Basin. Loveland actually sits just across the border, in Clear Creek County. Breckenridge and Copper Mountain also sit in Summit County.* I said that Welch Village “must have had a dozen chairlifts.” It has eight.* I said that Trollhaugen had a “Bavarian” theme, but the backstory that Rochford told us suggests that the ornate buildings clustered at the ski area's base are better classified as “Scandinavian.”Why you should ski TrollhaugenThere's something about Midwest skiing that is extremely gratifying. Even for those who have other options. Remember that 2000 movie, The Family Man, where a rich a-hole played by Nick Cage is shoved into an alternate timeline where he's stripped of his Ferrari and closetful of $10,000 suits and self-important Wall Street job? And suddenly he's living in suburban New Jersey as a tire salesman who drives two kids around in a minivan. And at first he's like, “Oh boy this sucks a fat one.” But by the end of the film he's b******g about the price of a bag of rock salt and relishing domestic life in his messy falling-apart house in Maplewood or wherever.Midwest skiing is kind of like that. If you're accustomed to RFID and superfast lifts and 3,000-acre playgrounds stuffed with chutes and glades and 15-foot bases of natural snow, you may be unable to imagine skiing unadorned with those jewels. But what if you forced yourself to? What if you pulled up to a Midwest bump on a jam-packed Saturday and skied just for the sake of doing it? Surrounded by thousands of skiers who didn't seem to give a damn that the chairlifts didn't have heated toilets or Netflix-equipped safety bars? Who act like they're at the best party ever? Who seem as giddy as any skiers you've ever seen anywhere?It's odd that the people who seem most insecure about Midwest ski areas are those who've never been within 50 miles of one. I see this every time I write a post about the Midwest – the hate, the impulse to belittle a thing that so many people love. It's all so stupid and tedious, so boring. Midwest skiing is about relishing what's there, not bemoaning what isn't. Yes, it's a different sort of skiing than you get in the Rockies or New England. But it's fun. An often-overcomplicated thing boiled down to its essence.If you love skiing, you will love skiing at Trollhaugen. Yes, it demands a certain creativity to stay engaged, to draw new lines out of the hillside, to sink into the moment between frequent chairlift rides. But, just as a minivan gets you to the same place as a Ferrari, this stripped-down version of skiing can get you exactly where you need to go. If you let it.Podcast NotesOn the view from Spirit MountainThe view from the summit of Spirit Mountain, overlooking the St. Louis River just before it drains into Lake Superior. At the base of the lifts (Spirit is an upside-down ski area), the mountain is only about a half mile from the Wisconsin border.On Wisconsin's lost ski areasRochford's grandparents purchased Trollhaugen in the 1960s. During the podcast, he commented that “of the ski areas we had in Wisconsin in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, I bet half of those are open today.” It's hard to get exact numbers on what may or may not have existed 50-plus years ago, but I did dig up these old maps from the Wisconsin Lost Ski Areas Project:19671971For context, here's a complete list of active Wisconsin ski areas. In some cases, ski areas have changed their names: Rib Mountain is now Granite Peak, for example. I'd love to do a side-by-side here, but that would be a project I just don't have time for at the moment:On other ski area expansions happening this summerTrollhaugen's expansion is one of seven happening at U.S. ski areas this summer. Here's an overview:On Trollhaugen's parking lot chairliftWe briefly discuss the cool chairlift structure (which I referred to as a “sign”) at Trollhaugen's entrance. Here it is:On Trollhaugen's ropetowsTrollhaugen has two types of ropetows – these whacky Rube Goldberg contraptions in the beginner area that look like they're about 175 years old:And these burners for the Park Brahs:On the border fenceTrollhaugen, like the vast majority of Midwest ski areas, still trades in metal wicket tickets. But rather than station an attendant at the bottom of each lift, the ski area fences off the base area, leaving just one access point to the lifts. One attendant checks the ticket one time – a pretty brilliant (and inexpensive), fraud-prevention system:On the spring skiing surchargeMany ski areas use free spring skiing as an incentive for new passholders. Buy your 2023-24 season pass in February 2023 and ski the rest of the 2022-23 season for free. But many ski areas in Minnesota and Wisconsin charge for the spring skiing option. Trollhaugen is one of them, charging new 2023-24 passholders $75 for spring 2023 access if they wanted spring skiing. Not a bad deal, actually, as that's probably not much more than the cost of a weekend lift ticket. Here are the other ski areas in the region that charge new passholders for spring access: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 66/100 in 2023, and number 452 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Podcast #123: Breckenridge VP & COO Jody Churich

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Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2023 74:23

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on April 7. It dropped for free subscribers on April 10. 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 for free below:WhoJody Churich, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Breckenridge, ColoradoRecorded onMarch 27, 2023About BreckenridgeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Breckenridge, ColoradoYear founded: 1961Pass affiliations: Unlimited on Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass; limited access on Summit Value Pass (holiday blackouts), Keystone Plus Pass (unlimited access after April 1), Tahoe Local Pass (5 days shared with Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Crested Butte, Park City)Closest neighboring ski areas: Frisco Adventure Park (15 minutes), Copper Mountain (25 minutes), Keystone (25 minutes), Arapahoe Basin (30 minutes), Loveland (38 minutes), Ski Cooper (1 hour, 5 minutes) – travel times can vary considerably pending traffic and weatherBase elevation: 9,600 feetSummit elevation: 12,998 feetVertical drop: 3,398 feetSkiable Acres: 2,908Average annual snowfall: 350 inchesTrail count: 187Lift count: 35 (1 gondola, 5 six-packs, 7 high-speed quads, 1 triple, 6 doubles, 3 platters, 1 T-bar, 11 carpets) – Breckenridge plans to replace 5-Chair, a 1970 Riblet double, with a high-speed quad this summer.Why I interviewed herThe audacity of it all. Many ski areas reach. Breck soars. Above the town, above the Pacific Ocean-sized parking lots, above the twisty-road condos and mansions, above the frantic base areas and trail-cut high-alpine - there lie the bowls, sweeping one after the next, southeast to northwest, across the range. Chairlifts, improbably, magnificently, will take you there. Or most of the way, at least. Kensho Superchair – a six-pack, rolls up to 12,302 feet, to the doorstep of Peak 6 – it's a short hike to the tippy top, at 12,573 feet. But Kensho is holding Imperial Superchair's beer, as that monster climbs to 12,840, just 158 feet shy of the 12,998-foot summit of Peak 8.Why don't they go all the way to the summit? Why do you think? Listen to the podcast to get the answer, or go there for yourself and see how those wild winds hit you at the top – or close enough to the top – of America.The Brobots have plenty to say about Breck, Texas North, Intermediate Mountain. A-Basin is where the Summit County steeps live, don't you know? There's some truth to that, but it's a narrative fed by bravado and outdated information. Breck's high-alpine chairs – Imperial in 2005 and Kensho in 2013 – have trenched easy access to vast realms of gut-punching terrain. Beat your chest all you will – the only way out is straight down.Breck is one of the most complete resorts in America, is my point here. And that didn't happen by accident. Since Vail took ownership of the joint in 1997, the company has deliberately, steadily, almost constantly improved it. Sixteen new lifts, including the inbound 5-Chair upgrade (Breck will swap out a 53-year-old Riblet double for a new high-speed quad this summer); massive expansions onto Peaks 6 and 7; steady snowmaking and parking upgrades. If you want to understand Vail's long-term intentions for its other 40 ski areas, look to the evolution of this, one of its original four resorts, over decades of always-better incremental upgrades.Of course, plenty of people know that. Maybe too many. Breck is often – always? – America's busiest resort by pure skier visits. It's easy to access, easy to like, mostly – I said mostly Peak 10, E, 6 chairs – easy to ski if you stay below treeline. The town is the town, one of the great après hubs of North American skiing, thrumming, vibrant, a scene. Don't go unless you want some company.So what becomes of a place like Breck in a 21st century filled with existential questions about what lift-served skiing has become and what it is destined to be? How does a high-alpine but extremely accessible mountain adapt to its parent company's insistence on dropping it onto the budget version of its ultra-affordable Epic Pass? Can the super-modern lifts that these pass sales fuel fix the liftlines that spoil the experience without overloading the trails in a way that spoils the experience? How can a town of 5,000 residents accommodate a daily influx of 17,000-ish skiers without compromising its bucolic essence that drew those visitors to begin with? And to what extent do even our highest ski areas need to fortify themselves against the worst outcomes of a changing climate with ever-more-aggressive snowmaking?Every ski resort-blessed mountain town in the West is grappling with this same set of questions, but Breck, I-70 adjacent and Vail Resorts-bound, is perhaps the most high-profile among them. And where the town and the resort succeed or fail, they inform where our other icons will go. It's a fascinating story, and we're still in the book's early chapters.What we talked aboutUnseasonable Colorado snow and cold; Breck's strong 2022-23 ski season; how late the season could go and what could be available to ski; that California ski life; thoughts on Tahoe's big season; Sierra-at-Tahoe's fire recovery; Alpine Meadows in the pre-Powdr Corp ‘90s; why Alpine Meadows eventually dropped its snowboarding ban and what happened when it did; the early days of terrain parks; reaction when Powdr suddenly sold Alpine; how tiny Boreal and Soda Springs compete in a Tahoe market bursting with mega-resorts; the rise of Woodward; Vail's ongoing efforts to promote women; leaving Powdr for Vail; Breck magic; four giant ski resorts, mere miles apart, but all distinct; the largest employee housing bed base in Vail Resorts portfolio; an assist with childcare; how a ski resort prepares for and responds to on-mountain fatalities; Breck's “better not bigger” masterplan; nudging guests toward underutilized terrain; big plans for Peaks 8 and 9; upgrades on Freedom Superchair, Rip's Ride, and 5-Chair; how a gondola could change Peak 9; a mid-mountain learning center; prioritizing upgrades for Peak 9's 50-plus-year-old Riblet lifts; why Horseshoe T-bar is an unlikely candidate for an upgrade; why Kensho and Imperial Superchair don't go to the very top of Breckenridge; the Peak 8 Super Connect chair detachment in December; how the resort determined that the chairlift was safe to run again; massive snowmaking upgrades and how these sync with Vail Resorts' environmental goals; why Breck is only available on the top-tier Epic Day Pass, but is unlimited on the Epic Local Pass; and why Breck has remained on the Epic Local Pass.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewLate last year, Breck updated its masterplan, as all ski areas operating on U.S. Forest Service land are obliged to do every decade (or so, as it actually ends up working out). Themed “bigger, not better,” the masterplan amounted to a modernization blueprint to maximize the resort's existing footprint with modern lifts and selective trail- and glade-cutting:Breckenridge's goal is to tame its wild peaks. “The structuring vision for the next 10 years at [Breckenridge] is ‘Better not Bigger,'” the master plan states. Noting that the resort's “significant congestion … can diminish the guest experience,” Breck says that its “goal is not to increase overall skier and rider visits on or around peak days, but rather to concentrate on improving the guest experience and better managing visitation.” To accomplish this, the resort hopes to both better move skiers out of its base areas with more and better lifts, and to keep many of them on the upper mountains with a combination of better chairs and a subtly re-imagined trail network.Here's the overview:And a more granular look at what would and would not change in the mountain's massive lift network:The full article is worth a read, as I went peak-by-peak and broke down the proposed changes to each, including upgrades to the snowmaking footprint :So, what better time to discuss America's most vibrant ski resort than at the moment when the folks running it just outlined their vision for the far future? Breck will be an important test case of the extent to which a high-profile flagship can climate-proof and crowd-proof itself in an era of climate uncertainty and megapass maximalism. If Breck can thrive without breaking itself and everything around it – including the town at its base, the county it sits in, and the big road that leads up from the flats – then 21st century skiing will follow, adapt, adjust.Questions I wish I'd askedChurich and I briefly discussed a skier death at Breckenridge from a few weeks ago. Per the Aspen Times:An Illinois man clearing snow from his chairlift seat with the safety restraint up fell out and died at Breckenridge Ski Resort a week ago, the local sheriff's office reported.John Perucco, 60, of Elgin, Illinois, was pronounced dead March 17 at St. Anthony's Summit Hospital in Frisco after the fall, the Summit County Coroner's Office said in an email. He was reportedly wearing a helmet when he fell from the lift.He had not yet reached Tower 1 of Zendo Chair when he fell 25 feet and landed on a hard-packed, groomed trail below, according to the Summit County Sheriff's Office. The department was reportedly notified around 11:20 a.m. of a death at the emergency room.What I would have liked to explore a bit more was the issue of the raised safety bar. This is something I've thought a lot about lately. In New England and New York, all of the lifts have safety bars, and most skiers use them most of the time. Their use is required by law in several states, including Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts – patrollers and lift attendants often aggressively pressure skiers who don't lower them. If you load a lift with strangers and you're not prepared, you're liable to be conked in the head by a down-coming bar – Easterners' etiquette around this is abysmal, as it's polite to at least call out, “coming down.”In the Midwest and the West, bar use is much spottier. Forget the Midwest, where modern lifts are rare and most of the old ones have not been retrofit with bars. But skiing's money is in the West, where most major lifts at most major resorts have been upgraded to detachables, which all have bars. I get a lot of passive-aggressive irritation when I lower the bar (with warning, of course), particularly in Utah and Colorado. This has always puzzled me. What's the resistance? I'm aware of the NSAA research casting doubt on the efficacy of bar use – I'm skeptical, as there is no way to tell how many accidents have been prevented by a lowered bar.Anyway, there is a cultural resistance to chairlift bar usage in the western United States that, as far as I can tell, is unique to the world's major ski cultures. Vail, for its part, retrofits all of its inherited chairlifts with safety bars. So does Alterra. Vail requires its employees to use them at all times. Alterra allows each mountain to set its own policies (Palisades Tahoe and Solitude, for example, require bar use for employees).I want to dig into this more, to understand both why this resistance exists and why it persists, despite the proliferation of modern chairlifts. It's a bigger story than can be explored in a single anecdote, and hopefully it's one I can write about more this offseason. Will this resistance fade, as once-ubiquitous helmet resistance has? Or is this skiing's version of a cultural wedge issue, set to divide the tourists from the locals in an escalating game of Who Belongs Here?What I got wrong* I said that 10 of Vail Resorts' 41 ski areas were currently led by women. The correct number, at the time of recording, was nine out of 41. Here's a complete list (several of Vail's ski areas share a regional general manager: Boston Mills, Brandywine, and Alpine Valley in Ohio; Jack Frost and Big Boulder in Pennsylvania; and Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel in Pennsylvania). With yesterday's news that Beaver Creek COO Nadia Guerriero would move up to VP/COO of the Rockies Region (replacing Bill Rock, who was promoted to head of Vail's Mountain Division), that number is now eight, I suppose. But who knows how Vail will stir up its mountain leadership team over the summer.* I also named off all the large ski areas around Lake Tahoe, to give context to Churich's challenge running tiny Soda Springs and Boreal in that realm of monsters. The only thousand-plus-footer I missed in that riff is Homewood, but here's a complete list of Tahoe-region ski areas. It really is amazing how these smaller spots exist (and seem to thrive), alongside some of the nation's largest and most-developed resorts:* Churich and I also discussed what I referred to as “Vail's new app” for the 2023-24 ski season. Its official name will be the My Epic app, and it should be a considerable upgrade from Epic Mix. The app will be your Epic Pass (no more RFID card unless you still want one), and will feature interactive trailmaps, real-time liftline wait times, operational updates, blackout date info on your pass, weather updates, resort charge, and more.Why you should ski BreckenridgeBecause you kind of have to. Trying to navigate life as a U.S. American skier without skiing Breck is kind of like trying to go through life without hearing a Taylor Swift song. It's there whether you want it or not. Even if you're in the habit of driving past to hit the Eagle County resorts, or you prefer A-Basin or Copper, or you avoid the I-70 corridor altogether, eventually your cousin or your boys from college or your aunt Phyllis is going to plan a spring break trip or a bachelor party or a family Christmas get-together at Breck, and you're going to go.And you're going to like it. This is not the busiest ski area in America by accident. It's a damn good ski mountain, even if it has more people and fewer steeps and less snow than some of its high-profile ski-biz peers. Yes, liftlines at Peaks 8 and 9 can test your patience at key times. And, yes, the intermediate superhighways can accumulate interstate-esque traffic. But it only takes a little creativity to find quiet glades off Peak 10 and 6-Chair and E-Chair, and tucked between the groomers off every other peak. As with any big western resort, you can follow the crowds or you can follow your skis. The kind of day you have once you stand up and push off the top of the lift is entirely up to you.Podcast NotesI've hosted several other Colorado-based Vail Resorts leaders on the podcast over the past year. While Bill Rock and Nadia Guerriero have recently moved positions, these conversations are largely still relevant:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year long. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 32/100 in 2023, and number 418 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Where Are We With “Sustainability?”

PodSAM

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2023 60:53

Sustainability encompasses so much more than going “green.” The growth of sustainability specialist positions at mountain resorts and beyond has us asking, “What does it really mean to be a sustainable business?” We've gathered a group of sustainability leaders to hear about how they approach sustainability, the results of their current efforts, and future plans. Join us as we share stories and actionable takeaways for resorts big and small. Mike Nathan, Sustainability Manager, Arapahoe Basin, Colo. Amy Fonte, Sustainability Specialist, Big Sky, Mont., and Mari Kissinger, Director of Skier Services and Sustainability, The Highlands, Mich. Dawn Boulware, Vice President of Environmental and Social Responsibility, Taos Ski Valley, N.M. Bonnie Hickey, Sustainability Director, Bridger Bowl, Mont. Christian Knapp, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Pacific Group Resorts, Inc., and Tommy Royther, Sustainability Coordinator, Wisp Resort, Md. Co-host: Erika Kazi, Vice President of Social Impact and Sustainability, flaik and SAM's Associate Editor, Sarah Wojcik and Publisher, Olivia Rowan This Huddle is presented in partnership with flaik.

01.25.23: Meet PSIA-AASI's New CEO, Peggy Hiller

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2023 12:43

First Chair catches up with PSIA-AASI's new CEO, Peggy Hiller, a snowsports-industry leader with senior management experience in resort operations. She most recently served at Arapahoe Basin as their Vice President of Operations and Assistant General Manager. Listen to this episode, get to know Peggy and learn what she's excited about in her new role. Learn more: http://tiny.cc/meetpeggy

Podcast #108: Vail Mountain Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Beth Howard

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 28, 2022 75:56

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 28. It dropped for free subscribers on Dec. 1. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoBeth Howard, Vice President and General Manager of Vail Mountain, ColoradoRecorded onNovember 14, 2022About Vail MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsPass affiliations: Epic PassLocated in: Vail, ColoradoClosest neighboring ski areas: Beaver Creek (20 minutes), Copper Mountain (23 minutes), Ski Cooper (42 minutes), Keystone (42 minutes), Loveland (43 minutes), Arapahoe Basin (47 minutes), Breckenridge (50 minutes) - travel times may vary considerably in winter and heavy traffic.Base elevation: 8,120 feetSummit elevation: 11,570 feetVertical drop: 3,450 feetSkiable Acres: 5,317* Front Side: 1,655 Acres* Back Bowls: 3,017 Acres* Blue Sky Basin: 645 AcresAverage annual snowfall: 354 inchesTrail count: 276 (53% advanced/expert, 29% intermediate, 18% beginner)Lift count: 32 (one 12-passenger gondola, one 10-passenger gondola, 4 six-packs, 14 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 T-bar, 3 platters, 5 carpets)Why I interviewed herI articulated this as well as I could a couple months ago, in an article about Vail Resorts' decision to limit lift ticket sales for the coming ski season:It was a notion quaint and earnest. Simplistic but no less authentic. To start with Vail would have seemed presumptuous. This American place most synonymous with skiing. Three-sided and endless, galloping back into valleys, super-fast lifts shooting in all directions. I wanted to be ready. To feel as though I'd earned it.My first trip West was in 1995. But I did not ski Vail until 2004. In our megapass-driven, social-media-fueled moshpit of a present, I doubt anyone thinks this way anymore. Vail is a social-media trophy – go seize it. But I proceeded slowly to the big time. Primed on Midwest bumps, anything would have seemed enormous. First, the rounds of Summit County. Then Winter Park. As though skiing were a videogame and I could not pass to the higher levels until I'd completed those that came before. And then there it was. That first time standing over Sun Down Bowl, the single groomed path winding toward High Noon below. Eleven thousand feet over Colorado. Sliding down the ridges. Powder everywhere. Back to Blue Sky. Laps all day through unmarked glades. Refills from the sky even though it was April. Three thousand feet of up and down. The enormous complexity of it all. The energy. That impossible blend of wild and approachable.Vail Mountain and – on that same trip – Beaver Creek, were exactly what I needed them to be: the aspirational summit of America's lift-served skiing food chain. The best mountains I'd ever skied. I won't say it was The Experience of a Lifetime. But it was the best five days of skiing that I had, up to that point, ever done.I'm not sure what else I can add to that. Vail Mountain sits at the summit of American lift-served skiing. Yes I know, Backflip Bro: the terrain is not as Rad-Gnar as Snowbird or Jackson Hole or Taos or Palisades Tahoe or Big Sky. It does not get as much snow as Alta or Baker or Wolf Creek or Kirkwood. It does not minimize and mitigate crowds like Telluride or Aspen or Sun Valley.But Vail Mountain stands out even on that hall-of-fame lineup. Five thousand-plus acres of approachable terrain seated directly off the interstate. The Big Endless: 18 high-speed chairlifts, the Back Bowls™, a bit of rowdy and wild back in Blue Sky, a frenetic base village. If any mountain in Vail Resorts' sprawling, intercontinental empire is almost guaranteed to deliver The Experience of a Lifetime™, it's the namesake OG of them all: Vail Mountain. Even after all the growth and change and the Epic Pass atom bomb, Vail Mountain remains one of the greatest ski areas in North America.It's also a personal favorite of mine, and one that I've been eager to feature on the podcast since I expanded The Storm's focus from the Northeast to the entire country last year.What we talked aboutOpening weekend at Vail Mountain; staying open until May in 2022 and whether the ski area could do it again; marking Vail's 60th anniversary; Vail's founders; building the mountain and the town from raw wilderness; Vail in the ‘80s; Afton Alps; transitioning from food-and-bev to resort leadership; a Colorado-Tahoe comparison; what it means for Vail Mountain to share the Vail Resorts masthead with Whistler; going deep on the Game Creek Express upgrade and the new Sun Down Express lift; how Vail decides between a four- or six-place lift, and why Game Creek got the promotion to sixer; the future of fixed-grip lifts on Vail Mountain; why it was finally time to build the long-proposed Sun Down lift, and how that will change the ski experience and flow around the mountain; how this happened at High Noon Express (in February 2020), and how unusual it was:How Sun Down may help prevent a repeat; why Vail built Sun Down before the proposed Mongolia Express outlined in the resort's master plan (see below); thinking through the future of the Eagle Bahn gondola; a potential future portal at West Lionshead and the sorts of lifts we could see there; how Pride Express could evolve up and down the mountain; how the Cascade Village lift could better serve day skiers; the potential for terrain expansion in Blue Sky Basin; the growth and future of snowmaking on Vail Mountain; housing drama with the town at East Vail; why Vail rejected the town's $12 million offer for the land; how Vail's housing market has devolved to crisis levels over the decades; what other towns are doing to fix housing and whether any of that could work at Vail; the evolution of two housing markets – one for locals and one at market rate; the potential for Ever Vail; reaction to $275 walk-up lift tickets; and the factors that will go into setting lift ticket limits each day this season. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI've already written extensively about the valiant and courageous VAIL SHEEP DEFENDERS, an elite squadron whose mission is to ensure that local bighorns only have to poop next to rich people. In May, this group of nincompoops – the Vail Town Council – voted to condemn land where Vail Resorts planned to build 165 beds of worker housing on six acres of a 23-acre parcel (the remainder was to be set aside for bighorn habitat). Vail, which had already spent years permitting the project with the previous council, pushed back, and now the whole disaster has been swallowed by the courts, where it will likely remain for years.Meanwhile, the VAIL SHEEP DEFENDERS somehow missed the groundbreaking on, among other properties, a nearly $8 million, 5,700-square-foot mansion rising on that same bighorn habitat. This image – provided by Vail Resorts – distills the absurdity of the whole thing pretty well:In September, I chatted about this with Colorado Sun reporter Jason Blevins, who has lived in Eagle County for decades. He had a much more nuanced view:“Both sides have completely valid arguments here. Vail Resorts needs housing. They have the property, they went through three years of planning with the previous council to win all the approvals to develop this thing. They created a bighorn sheep management plan … Election came, new council came in, and that new council is more inclined to protect that herd than accommodate with housing. They've offered the company different spots in the valley where they could build. But the process has progressed, and it's along, and Vail is ready to pretty much break ground right now …“Yes, this is about bighorn. That council 100 percent supports the bighorn herd, and in their heart of hearts they are working to protect the bighorn. … And those bighorn have been there longer than us, and this is their winter habitat. They unquestionably come down in the winter … along the highway there.”The whole situation, Blevins told me, is reminiscent of the Telluride Valley Floor drama in the late ‘90s, in which the town and a developer took a land dispute all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court (read the court's full decision here). The town ended up paying $50 million to acquire the land. “Think of all the housing you could have build with $50 million in the early 2000s,” Blevins said.Unfortunately, Blevins said, “this one is lining up to follow that track. Could this fight go all the way to the Supreme Court? Could the town of Vail end up having a public fundraising campaign with rich residents giving money to support sheep habitat? Will it go that far? With the complaint filed last week, it certainly appears as though this is going to be a protracted legal battle that will end up costing the town millions and millions of dollars if they buy it from Vail Resorts. And the end result is no more new housing. So the true losers on this are the people in this town who need a place to sleep and live in that town.” You can listen to our full exchange on this topic, including a long discussion of the elusive NIMBY, starting at 56:50:So the housing drama made the pod timely. But so did the fact that Vail is installing two new chairlifts and celebrating its 60th anniversary. So did the fact that its peak-day lift tickets just hit $275. Really though, I wasn't sitting around waiting for an excuse to talk about Vail. It's Vail. One of the greatest ski areas in America. It's always interesting, always relevant. It's one of a handful of ski areas that evokes skiing whether you ski 100 days a year or never. Aspen, Telluride, Vail. The podcast was built to score interviews like this: a big-time mountain seated at the heart of our collective lift-served skiing experience. Enjoy.Questions I wish I'd askedI would have liked to have explored the impacts of the mountain town housing crisis on employees and the environment a bit more deeply. What does it mean to have a 50- or 60-mile commute through one of America's most extreme wintertime environments? How does such a setup further exacerbate the I-70 traffic that everyone so loathes? How sustainable and safe is this whole ecosystem?Last year, Vail Resorts, Alterra, Boyne Resorts, and Powdr – America's four largest ski area operators – launched “the ski industry's first unified effort to combat climate change with shared commitments around sustainability and advocacy.” These efforts include portfolio-wide shifts to renewable energy sources, climate advocacy, and “responsible” stewardship of the environment. All admirable and necessary steps toward creating sustainable 21st century businesses.However. I would propose an additional pillar to this joint pledge: these operators must commit to working with local, state, and national governments to encourage building density, expand mass transit, and limit individual car use wherever possible within the mountains.It is not just the ski area operators that are missing this. We built modern U.S. America on the premise of unlimited land and unlimited individual, anytime mobility. But this model does not scale up very well. When Congress passed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956, the nation had 156 million residents. It now has around 338 million. Interstate 70 through the Colorado Rockies is a miracle of engineering and one of the most beautiful roads in the world. But this thoroughfare, combined with poor regional planning and a U.S. American mentality that thinks you can shape the Colorado High Country in the same fashion as suburban Atlanta, have delivered Los Angeles-caliber traffic to the otherwise pristine high alpine.This is not sustainable. It was a dumb way to build a country. Sprawl and our car-centric culture are environmental and human disasters, the invisible antagonists to all our high-minded climate goals. Ski area operators and the municipalities they operate in have an incredible opportunity to showcase a different sort of America: a transit-oriented, weather-resilient, human-centered built ecosystem in which employees walk or ride a bus (or, God help us, a gondola) to work from hubs close to or on the mountain; the great mass of skiers arrive via transport other than a personal vehicle; and a Saturday on Interstate 70 does not resemble a wartime evacuation.For those of you fearful that this means Manhattan-in-the-mountains, that's not what I'm proposing here. Nor am I suggesting a Zermatt-style ban on individual automobiles. Just a better transit and housing mix so people who don't want the expense and hassle of wintertime commuting can avoid it. We actually have a pretty good model for this: the college town. Most students live, without cars, in dorms on or close to campus. Free and frequent shuttlebuses port them around town. A dense and walkable university center gives way to successive waves of less-dense housing, for more established employees or those with families. Some commuting occurs, but it is minimal. The university is a self-contained world that absorbs as much impact as it can from the problems it creates by concentrating many humans on a small footprint.The fact that the Town of Vail cannot accommodate 165 humans on 23 acres of land is pathetic. Their willingness to invest $12 million into ensuring people cannot live on this parcel crystalizes how unserious they are, long term, about creating a more sustainable, livable Vail. Rather than fighting Vail Resorts, the town ought to be partnering with them – as the previous council did on permitting this project – to see if the company could shrink the six acres down to three or four, and bump the 165 beds up 30 or 40 percent, with select units reserved for employees who agree to live car-free and use a shuttle system instead. The town's current, combative posture is only going to push the employees that could have lived in East Vail farther out into the mountains and into daily, likely solo commutes in a car, all of which will further degrade the mountain environment the town claims to treasure. This project could have been a model for cooperation and imaginative development. Instead, it's turned into a spectacle, a disappointment, the most predictable and U.S. American thing imaginable. What I got wrongI pronounced Vail Mountain founder Pete Siebert's name as “See-bert,” rather than “Cy-ber.” We also discussed Vail Mountain's remaining fixed-grip lifts, putting that total at just one. However, the ski area still has three fixed-grip chairlifts: the Cascade Village quad, the Gopher Hill triple rising out of Vail Village, and the Little Eagle triple at the top of Eagle's Nest.Why you should ski Vail MountainThere's a lot of pressure on Vail Resorts' flagship. While it's fairly easy to get to and navigate, Vail Mountain, for most skiers, is big, far, and exotic; a thing of myth, considered with reverence; less vacation destination than fantasy. It's work to get there, and no one wants to work without reward. Ride to your New England or Wisconsin or North Carolina local on a Saturday, and you'll cope with whatever mess they came up with. Arrive at Vail, and you expect the best skiing of your life.Vail can give you that. Yes, I know, Wasatch Bro, “Vail is great. Everyone should go there.” Sick burn, Bro. Original and hilarious. I'm not saying it's better than Utah or Tahoe or Aspen or Winter Park, but I am saying that the skiing at Vail Mountain is usually very good, often spectacular, rarely bad. It is big enough that there are always uncrowded bits somewhere. And since such a large percentage of the skiers here are tourists, and since most tourists are allergic to anything off-piste – and since only a small percentage of a 5,317-acre resort can be groomed at any one time – you can ride the ungroomed all day, most days, in relative isolation (meaning you're not speed-checking every four seconds at Fort Meyers Freddy arcs edge-to-edge turns over the fall line).I've often wondered how many skiers there are on Vail Mountain on any given Saturday. They won't tell me, but I'm guessing it's the population of a small city – 30,000 people? While the sorts of liftline nightmares profiled above do occasionally happen, they are, as Blevins (a Vail local) said in our interview, pretty rare, and pretty short-lived. The ski area moves people around really well.Everyone should ski Vail Mountain at least once. There is a sense of awe in being there. It is one of the best pure ski areas on the continent. Great terrain for (nearly) all abilities (sorry Backflip Bro, but you can hike over to East Vail). A terrific little town. Easy to get into and out of (off peak, at least). Affordable if you have enough sense to purchase an Epic Pass in advance. There are bigger and emptier and snowier ski areas out there, but Vail is going to give most skiers just about everything they want and a lot more than they need. The high expectations are earned, and, nearly always, met.Podcast NotesHoward and I talked quite a bit about elements of Vail Mountain's 2018 masterplan. Here's where new lifts could run on the frontside:And here's where they could run on the backside. You can also see potential new trails in Blue Sky Basin and Teacup Bowl:Vail is also aggressively building out snowmaking on the front of the mountain. Here's what that system could look like at full build-out:The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 127/100 in 2022, and number 373 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com.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

Slackliner Saves Skier Hanging From Chairlift

Tell Me What Happened

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2022 25:59

Arapahoe Basin is a legendary ski resort in Colorado, and when it's a powder day, skiers wake up at the crack of dawn to get up the hill for those fresh tracks. That's exactly what Richard Dempsey did, except he only got a few runs in before everything changed. Richard is able to recount his story thanks to a slackliner named Mickey Wilson who risked his own life to save someone he met that morning.We also speak to author and retired ski patroller Patti Burnett about what dangers to look out for while skiing at resorts and in the backcountry, as well as what to do if you find yourself or someone else in an emergency situation while enjoying the mountains in wintertime.For more information on this episode or to share your own story, visit OnStar's website.

11.03.22: Jeb Boyd and Dave Schuiling Chat Team Training & Interski 2023

education finland boyd one team breckenridge team training first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2022 17:49

First Chair caught up with PSIA-AASI National Team Head Coach Jeb Boyd and PSIA-AASI Director of Education during Team Training 2022. Learn how the team paired their indoor meetings in Breckenridge and on-snow training at Arapahoe Basin with a continued focus on Interski 2023 presentations in Levi, Finland, the implementation of strategic alignment, scholarship opportunities, and a ONEteam approach that benefits all disciplines.

S1. E4 Where to Ski Now | The Latest Ski Gear Reviewed | New Year Skiing | Ski Resorts Ski Kazakhstan and Ski Legend Kristoffersen

The White Out - Ski Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2022 30:04 Transcription Available

A ski podcast hosted by Dom Killinger publisher InTheSnow and Rob Stewart and owner Ski Press. Where to ski right now, Superb New Year Ski Deals, Interview with Charlie Raposo exposing GB Snowsports, Ski Kazakhstan, Meet Oosc the retro all in one ski suitsThe National Snow Show, Birmingham WHERE CAN WE SKI NOW?Sölden, one of the glacier ski areas already open for their 22-23 season in the AlpsAustria's Kaunertal glacier looked pretty fab on the web cams on SaturdayFirst-ever cross-border World Cup Downhill races in Cervinia-Zermatt next weekend are cancelled Arapahoe Basin gets Colorado's 22-23 season underway already this week. NEWSSölden World Cup and Helly Hansen Norwegian Ski Team sponsorship First-ever cross-border World Cup Downhill races in Cervinia-Zermatt next weekend are cancelled Graham Bell has signed up with the Finish clothing brand HaltiIndoor slopes in Europe are planning to closeNational Snow Week 2023City Ski Championships re-launched in Crans-Montana, February 3-5GEAROosc clothing Eco ski is launching a new shell jacket from Icebreaker that is made entirely from natural products, mostly Merino wool. SKI ON A SHOESTRING Deals for ski holidays over New Year with InghamsBLOW THE BUDGETPFD SkisDIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD SKI THERESkiing in Kazakhstan ANYTHING NICECoolcasc - helmet covers in the shape of fluffy animalsCharlie Raposo interviewed In the meantime Happy Skiing :). Please do leave a review it's the only way other like minded skiers get to find us! And don't forget to check us out on the following channels inthesnow.comyoutube.com/inthesnowmagfacebook.com/inthesnowinstagram.com/inthesnowand contact us with your suggestions for further episodes at hello@InTheSnow.com

Backbone Radio with Matt Dunn - October 23, 2022 - HR 2

donald trump washington colorado arizona republicans democrats missed wondering hispanic maga backbone america first mccain star spangled banner kari lake matt dunn colorado senate joe o'dea arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 24, 2022 39:21

Trump Massive Rally Texas. Huge happy crowd sings spontaneous "Star Spangled Banner." Trump says Democrats spend their time "obsessing over the borders of distant foreign nations" while neglecting our own. True! Meanwhile, callers continue heated debates over Joe O'Dea for Colorado Senate. The next McCain? Total RINO? Does the Colorado GOP Establishment really know how to win? We shall find out soon with the fate of O'Dea. Wondering if MAGA candidates Kari Lake of Arizona and Joe Kent of Washington are the ones showing the way. Host laments the lack of America First infrastructure in Colorado. Missed opportunities. Hispanic voters trending more Republican ever since Trump came down the escalator. Plus, family vignettes from a weekend climbing in the Colorado mountains. Host finds a long lost cell phone way up high at timberline, attempts to return it to its owner. Ski Season opens today at Arapahoe Basin in Colorado. Bring it on!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Podcast #92: Alterra Mountain Company CEO Rusty Gregory

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2022 91:45

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 25. Free subscribers got it on June 28. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoRusty Gregory, CEO of Alterra Mountain Company, owner of the Ikon PassRecorded onJune 23, 2022About Alterra Mountain CompanyOwned by: KSL Capital and Henry Crown and CompanyAbout the Ikon PassHere’s a breakdown of all the ski areas that are party to Alterra’s Ikon Pass:Why I interviewed himIn its first five years, Alterra has gotten just about everything right – or about as right as any ski company can as it Starfoxes its way through an asteroid belt filled with Covid and empowered workers and shattered supply chains and The Day After Tomorrow weather patterns and an evolving social fabric and the sudden realization by U.S. Americans that there’s such a thing as outside. The company changed the name of one of America’s iconic resorts, managed a near meltdown of its Pacific Northwest anchor, met Covid as well as it could, and continually tweaked Ikon Pass access tiers to avoid overwhelming partner mountains while still offering skiers good value. Oh, and adding Sun Valley, Snowbasin, Chamonix, Dolomiti Superski, Kitzbühel, Schweitzer, Red Mountain, Mt. Bachelor, and Windham to the pass – all since Covid hit.If it’s all seemed a little improvisational and surprising, that’s because it has been. “I have a great propensity for enjoying chaos and anarchy,” Gregory tells me in the podcast. That explains a lot. In the frantic weeks after Covid zipped North American skiing shut in March 2020, angry skiers demanded concessions for lost spring skiing. Vail released, all at once, an encyclopedic Epic Pass credit plan, which metered discounts based upon number of days skied and introduced an “Epic Coverage” program that secured your investment in the event of everything from a Covid resurgence to the death of a beloved houseplant. Alterra, meanwhile, spun its plan together in four dispatches weeks apart – a renewal discount here, a deferral policy there, an extension six weeks later. “We’re continuing to strengthen our offerings,” Gregory told me on the podcast mid-way through this staggered rollout.In other words, Dude, just chill. We’ll get it right. Whether they ultimately did or not – with their Covid response or anything else – is a bit subjective. But I think they’ve gotten more right than wrong. There was nothing inevitable about Alterra or the Ikon Pass. Vail launched the Epic Pass in 2008. It took a decade for the industry to come up with an effective response. The Mountain Collective managed to gather all the best indies into a crew, but its reach was limited, with just two days at each partner. M.A.X. Pass, with five days per partner, got closer, but it was short on alpha mountains such as Jackson Hole or Snowbird (it did feature Big Sky, Copper, Steamboat, and Winter Park) and wasn’t a season pass to any ski area. The Ikon Pass knitted together an almost impossible coalition of competitors into a coherent product that was an actual Epic Pass equal. Boyne, Powdr, and the ghosts of Intrawest joining forces was a bit like the Mets and the Red Sox uniting to take on the Yankees. It was – and is – an unlikely coalition of competitors fused around a common cause.The Ikon Pass was a great idea. But so was AOL-Time Warner – or so it seemed at the time. But great things, combined, do not always work. They can turn toxic, backfire, fail. Five years in, Alterra and Ikon have, as Gregory tells me, “dramatically exceeded our expectations in every metric for the fifth year in a row.” While Rusty is allergic to credit, he deserves a lot. He understands how complex and unruly and unpredictable skiing and the ski industry is. He came up under the tutelage of the great and feisty Dave McCoy, founder of the incomparable and isolated Mammoth Mountain, that snowy California kingdom that didn’t give a damn what anyone else was doing. He understood how to bring people together while allowing them to exist apart. That’s not easy. I can’t get 10 people to agree to a set of rules at a tailgate cornhole tournament (the beer probably doesn’t help). Everyone who loves the current version of lift-served skiing – which can deliver a skier to just about any chairlift in the United States on a handful of passes (and that’s definitely not all of you), and has inspired an unprecedented wave of ski area re-investment – owes Gregory at least a bit of gratitude.What we talked aboutThe accidental CEO; Alterra’s “first order of business was to do no harm”; Rusty’s mindset when the Ikon Pass launched; the moment when everyone began believing that the Ikon Pass would work; reflections on the first five years of Alterra and Ikon; the challenges of uniting far-flung independent ski areas under one coalition; “every year we have to make the effort to stay together”; the radically idiosyncratic individualism of Dave McCoy; what it means that Ikon has never lost a partner – “there’s no points in life for losing friends”; Alterra doesn’t like the Ikon Base Plus Pass either; Covid shutdown PTSD; the long-term impact of Covid on skiing and the world; the risks of complacency around the Covid-driven outdoor boom; why Alterra’s next CEO, Jared Smith, comes from outside the ski industry; how the Ikon Pass and Alterra needs to evolve; preserving the cultural quirks of individual mountains as Alterra grows and evolves under new leadership; “we dramatically exceeded our expectations in every metric for the fifth year in a row”; the importance of ceding local decisions to local resorts; “I have a great propensity for enjoying chaos and anarchy”; the current state of the labor market; Ikon Pass sales trends; “having too many people on the mountain at one time is not a great experience”; staying “maniacally guest-experience focused”; Crystal Mountain’s enormous pass price increase for next season; why Deer Valley and Alta moved off the Base Pass for next season; Mayflower, the resort coming online next to Deer Valley; the Ikon Session Pass as a gateway product; why Alterra pulled Mammoth, Palisades Tahoe, and Sugarbush off the Mountain Collective Pass; Sun Valley and Snowbasin joining Ikon; Ikon’s growing European network; whether Alterra would ever look to buy in Europe; “we’re making constant efforts” to sign new Ikon Pass partners; “we’re very interested in Pennsylvania”; I just won’t let the fact that KSL owns Blue and Camelback go; “Alterra needs to move at the right pace”; whether we will ever see more Ikon partners in the Midwest; why Alterra hasn’t bought a ski area since 2019; whether Alterra is bidding on Jay Peak; and thoughts on Rob Katz’s “growth NIMBYism” speech.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewGregory has been Alterra’s CEO for about four and a half years. That seems to be about four and a half years longer than he wanted the job. In 2017, he was enjoying retirement after four decades at Mammoth. As an investor in the nascent Alterra Mountain Company – a Frankenski made up of Mammoth, Palisades Tahoe, and the remains of Intrawest – he helped conduct a wide-reaching search for the company’s first CEO. He ended up with the job not through some deft power play but because the committee simply couldn’t find anyone else qualified to take it.His only plan, he said, was to do no harm. There are, as we have seen, plenty of ways to make multi-mountain ski conglomerates fail. Boyne alone has managed the trick over the extra long term (a fact that the company does not get nearly enough credit for). The years after Gregory took the job in February 2018 certainly tested whether Alterra and Ikon, as constructs, were durable beyond the stoke of first concept.They are. And he’s done. At 68, confined for the past half decade to a Denver office building, I get the sense that Gregory is ready to get away from his desk and back in the liftline (or maybe not – “I will be so pissed if I have to wait in a line,” he tells me on the podcast). He’s earned the break and the freedom. It’s someone else’s turn.That someone else, as we learned last month, will be Jared Smith, Alterra’s current president. Gregory will move into a vice chairman of the board role, a position that I suspect requires extensive on-the-ground snow reporting. Smith, who joined Alterra last year after nearly two decades with Live Nation/Ticketmaster, has plenty to prove. As I wrote in May:Gregory was the ultimate industry insider, a college football player-turned-liftie who worked at Mammoth for 40 years before taking the top job at Alterra in 2018. He’d been through the battles, understood the fickle nature of the ski biz, saved Mammoth from bankruptcy several times. Universally liked and respected, he was the ideal leader for Alterra’s remarkable launch, an aggressive and unprecedented union of the industry’s top non-Vail operators, wielding skiing’s Excalibur: a wintry Voltron called the Ikon Pass. That such disparate players – themselves competitors – not only came together but continued to join the Ikon Pass has no doubt been at least partly due to Gregory’s confidence and charisma.Smith came to Alterra last June after 18 years at Live Nation and Ticketmaster. I don’t know if he even skis. He is, by all accounts, a master of building products that knit consumers to experiences through technology. That’s a crucial skillset for Alterra, which must meet skiers on the devices that have eaten their lives. But technology won’t matter at all if the skiing itself suffers. Alterra has thrived as the anti-Vail, a conglomerate with an indie sheen. Will the Ikon Pass continue to tweak access levels to mitigate crowding? Will Alterra continue its mega-investments to modernize and gigantify its resorts? Can the company keep the restless coterie of Boyne, Powdr, Jackson Hole, Alta, Taos, A-Basin, Revelstoke, Red, and Schweitzer satisfied enough to stay united on a single pass? For Alterra, and for the Ikon Pass, these are the existential questions.I have been assured, by multiple sources, that Smith does, in fact, ski. And has an intuitive understanding of where consumers need to be, helping to transform Ticketmaster from a paper-based anachronism into a digital-first experience company. Covid helped accelerate skiing’s embrace of e-commerce. That, according to Gregory, is just the beginning. “Different times require different leadership, and Jared Smith is the right leader going forward,” Gregory tells me in the podcast.Alterra’s first five years were a proof of concept: can the Ikon Pass work? Yes. It works quite well. Now what? They’ve already thought of all the obvious things: buy more mountains, add more partners, play with discounts to make the thing attractive to loyalists and families. But how does Alterra sew the analogue joy that is skiing’s greatest pull into the digital scaffolding that’s hammering the disparate parts of our modern existence together? And how does it do that without compromising the skiing that must not suffer? Is that more difficult than getting Revelstoke and Killington and Taos to all suit up in the same jersey? It might be. But it was a good time to get Gregory on the line and see how he viewed the whole thing before he bounced.Questions I wish I’d askedEven though this went long, there were a bunch of questions I didn’t get to. I really wanted to ask how Alterra was approaching the need for more employee housing. I also wanted to push a little more on the $269 Steamboat lift tickets – like seriously there must be a better way. I also think blackout dates need to evolve as a crowding counter-measure, and Vail and Alterra both need to start thinking past holiday blackouts (as Indy has already done quite well). I’ve also been preoccupied lately with Alterra’s successive rolling out of megaprojects at Palisades Tahoe and Steamboat and Winter Park, and what that says about the company’s priorities. This also would have been a good time to check in on Alterra’s previously articulated commitments to diversity and the environment. These are all good topics, but Alterra has thus far been generous with access, and I anticipate ample opportunities to raise these questions with their leadership in the future.What I got wrongWell despite immense concentration and effort on my part, I finally reverted to my backwater roots and pronounced “gondola” as “gon-dole-ah,” a fact that is mostly amusing to my wife. Rusty and I vacillated between 61 million and 61.5 million reported U.S. skier visits last year. The correct number was 61 million. I also flip-flopped Vail’s Epic Pass sales number and stated at one point that the company had sold 1.2 million Epic Passes for the 2021-22 ski season. The correct number is 2.1 million – I did issue a midstream correction, but really you can’t clarify these things enough.Why you should consider an Ikon PassI feel a bit uncomfortable with the wording of this section header, but the “why you should ski X” section is a standard part of The Storm Skiing Podcast. I don’t endorse any one pass over any other – my job is simply to consider the merits and drawbacks of each. As regular readers know, pass analysis is a Storm pillar. But the Ikon Pass is uniquely great for a handful of reasons:An affordable kids’ pass. The Ikon Pass offers one of the best kids’ pass deals in skiing. Early-birds could have picked up a full Ikon Pass (with purchase of an adult pass) for children age 12 or under for $239. A Base Pass was $199. That’s insane. Many large ski areas – Waterville Valley, Mad River Glen – include a free kids pass with the purchase of an adult pass. But those are single-mountain passes. The Ikon lets you lap Stratton from your weekend condo, spend Christmas break at Snowbird, and do a Colorado tour over spring break. The bargain child’s pass is not as much of a differentiator as it once was – once Vail dropped Epic Pass prices last season, making the adult Epic Pass hundreds of dollars cheaper than an Ikon Pass, the adult-plus-kids pass equation worked out about the same for both major passes. Still, the price structures communicate plenty about Alterra’s priorities, and it’s an extremely strong message.A commitment to the long season. On April 23 this year, 21 Ikon partners still had lifts spinning. Epic passholders could access just nine resorts. That was a big improvement from the previous season, when the scorecard read 20-2 in favor of Ikon. Part of this is a coincidence – many of Alterra’s partners have decades-long histories of letting skiers ride out the snow: Killington, Snowbird, Arapahoe Basin, Sugarloaf. Others. But part of it is Alterra’s letting of big operational decisions to its individual resorts. If Crystal Mountain wants to stay open into June, Crystal Mountain stays open into June. If Stevens Pass has a 133-inch base on April 18… too bad. Closing day (in 2021) is April 18. The long season doesn’t matter to a lot of skiers. But to the ones it does matter to, it matters a lot. Alterra gets that.That lineup though… The Ikon Pass roster has been lights out from day one. But as the coalition has added partners, and as key mountains have migrated from Epic to Ikon, it has grown into the greatest collection of ski areas ever assembled. As I wrote in March:Whatever the reason is that Snowbasin and Sun Valley fled Epic, the ramifications for the North American multipass landscape are huge. So is Alterra’s decision to yank its two California flagships and its top-five New England resort off of the Mountain Collective. Those two moves gave the Ikon Pass the best top-to-bottom destination ski roster of any multi-mountain ski pass on the continent.Good arguments can still be made for the supremacy of the Epic Pass, which delivers seven days at Telluride and unlimited access to 10 North American megaresorts: Whistler, Northstar, Heavenly, Kirkwood, Park City, Crested Butte, Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Breckenridge, plus Stowe, one of the top two or three ski areas in the Northeast.But many of Vail’s ski areas are small and regionally focused. I like Hunter and Jack Frost and Roundtop and Mount Brighton, Michigan, and their value as businesses is unquestioned, both because they are busy and because they draw skiers from rich coastal and Midwestern cities to the Mountain West. But the Epic Pass’ 40-some U.S. and Canadian mountains are, as a group, objectively less compelling than Ikon’s.The Ikon Pass now delivers exclusive big-pass access to Steamboat, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, Palisades Tahoe, Mammoth, Crystal Washington, Red Mountain, Deer Valley, Solitude, and Brighton, as well as a killer New England lineup of Killington, Stratton, Sugarbush, Sunday River, and Loon. The pass also shares big-mountain partners with Mountain Collective: Alta, Arapahoe Basin, Aspen Snowmass, Banff Sunshine, Big Sky, Jackson Hole, Lake Louise, Revelstoke, Snowbasin, Snowbird, Sugarloaf, Sun Valley, and Taos. For pure fall-line thrills and rowdy, get-after-it terrain, there is just no comparison on any other pass.In large parts of America, it’s become impossible to imagine not buying an Ikon Pass. The lineup is just too good. Epic still makes more sense in many circumstances. But for the neutral party, aimed primarily for big-mountain destinations in a city not defined by access to a local, the Ikon is telling a damn good story.Podcast NotesRusty and I talked a bit about the huge jump in Crystal’s pass price for next season. Here’s a more comprehensive look that I wrote in March, based on conversations with Crystal CEO Frank DeBerry and a number of local skiers.We also discuss Mayflower Mountain Resort, which is to be built adjacent to Deer Valley. Here’s a bit more about that project, which could offer 4,300 acres on 3,000 vertical feet. The developers will have to overcome the ski area’s relatively low elevation, which will be compounded by Utah’s larger water issues.Rusty explained why Alterra pulled Palisades Tahoe, Mammoth, and Sugarbush off the Mountain Collective pass ahead of next ski season. Here were my initial thoughts on that move. A tribute to Mammoth Mountain founder Dave McCoy, who died in 2020 at age 104:Previous Storm Skiing Podcasts with Rusty or Ikon Pass mountain leadersThe Summit at Snoqualmie President & GM Guy Lawrence – April 20, 2022Arapahoe Basin COO Alan Henceroth – April 14, 2022Big Sky President & COO Taylor Middleton – April 6, 2022Solitude President & COO Amber Broadaway – March 5, 2022The Highlands at Harbor Springs President & GM Mike Chumbler – Feb. 18, 2022Steamboat President & COO & Alterra Central Region COO Rob Perlman – Dec. 9, 2021Jackson Hole President Mary Kate Buckley – Nov. 17, 2021Crystal Mountain, Washington President & CEO Frank DeBerry – Oct. 22, 2021Boyne Mountain GM Ed Grice – Oct. 19, 2021Mt. Buller, Australia GM Laurie Blampied – Oct. 12, 2021Aspen Skiing Company CEO Mike Kaplan – Oct. 1, 2021Taos Ski Valley CEO David Norden – Sept. 16, 2021Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory – March 25, 2021Sunday River GM Brian Heon – Feb. 10, 2021Windham President Chip Seamans – Jan. 31, 2021Sugarbush President & GM John Hammond – Nov. 2, 2020Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Part 2 – Sept. 30, 2020Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Part 1 – Sept. 25, 2020Palisades Tahoe President & COO Ron Cohen – Sept. 4, 2020Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory – May 5, 2020Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – April 1, 2020Sunday River President & GM Dana Bullen – Feb. 14, 2020Loon Mountain President & GM Jay Scambio – Feb. 7, 2020Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith – Jan. 30, 2020Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – Nov. 21, 2019Killington & Pico President & GM Mike Solimano – Oct. 13, 2019Future Storm Skiing Podcasts scheduled with Ikon Pass mountainsBoyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – September 2022Sun Valley VP & GM Pete Sonntag – September 2022The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 69/100 in 2022, and number 315 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Please be patient - my response may take a while. 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

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Podcast #89: Mountain High & Dodge Ridge President and CEO Karl Kapuscinski

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2022 87:45

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Paid subscribers receive thousands of extra words of content each month, plus all podcasts three days before free subscribers.WhoKarl Kapuscinski, President and CEO of Mountain High and Dodge Ridge, CaliforniaRecorded onJune 6, 2022About Mountain HighClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Invision Capital and Karl KapuscinskiLocated in: Wrightwood, CaliforniaClosest neighboring ski areas: Mt. Waterman (45 minutes), Mt. Baldy (1 hour, 15 minutes – they’re only 8.4 miles apart as the crow flies, but 57.4 miles apart via road!), Snow Valley (1 hour, 25 minutes), Big Bear/Snow Summit (1 hour 40 minutes)Base elevation | summit elevation | vertical drop:West Resort: 7,000 feet | 8,000 feet | 1,000 feetEast Resort: 6,600 feet | 8,200 feet | 1,600 feetNorth Resort: 7,200 feet | 7,800 feet | 600 feetSkiable Acres: 290Average annual snowfall: 117 inchesNight skiing: North onlyTrail count: 60 (35% advanced, 40% intermediate, 25% beginner)West Resort: 34 (1 expert, 16 advanced, 12 intermediate, 5 beginner)East Resort: 16 trails (1 expert, 4 advanced, 7 intermediate, 4 beginner)North Resort: 10 trails (6 intermediate, 4 beginner)Lift count: 14 (2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 4 doubles, 3 carpets - view Lift Blog’s inventory of Mountain High’s lift fleet)West Resort: 1 high-speed quad, 3 triples, 2 doubles, 2 carpetsEast Resort: 1 high-speed quad, 1 quad, 2 doubles, 1 carpetNorth Resort: 1 quadAbout Dodge RidgeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Invision Capital and Karl KapuscinskiLocated in: Pinecrest, CaliforniaClosest neighboring ski areas: Bear Valley (2 hours, 6 minutes), June Mountain (2 hours, 24 minutes), Mammoth Mountain (2 hours, 37 minutes), Badger Pass (2 hours, 45 minutes), Kirkwood (2 hours 58 minutes)Base elevation: 6,600 feetSummit elevation: 8,200 feetVertical drop: 1,600 feetSkiable Acres: 862Average annual snowfall: 300 to 500 inchesNight skiing: NoTrail count: 67 (40% advanced, 40% intermediate, 20% beginner)Lift count: 12 (1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 5 doubles [2 of these doubles - lifts 1 and 2 below, are making way for one triple chair for the 2022-23 ski season], 1 T-bar, 1 ropetow, 2 conveyors - view Lift Blog’s of inventory Dodge Ridge’s lift fleet)Why I interviewed himIn the Midwest of my youth, the calculus was simple: north, cold; south, warm. The only weather quirk was lake-effect snow, tumbling off Michigan and Superior in vast snowbelts west and north, and across that mysterious realm known as the UP. Altitude wasn’t a factor because there was no altitude. Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas get rounded up by the chortling masses reaching for a flatland target to ridicule, but they overlook Michigan by ignorance, or, if they’re Michiganders, denial and self-preservation. Midland County, where I grew up, is the flattest place I have ever seen, a forever plain that disguises itself in treed horizons. It was California that alerted me to the notion that altitude could override latitude. It could snow in the south. You just had to get to the sky. The mountains went there. Humans have so overrun modern SoCal that it is easy to forget what an amazing natural monster it is: foreversummer – or at least foreverspring – on the coast. From the beach with bare feet in the sand you can see the mountains*, snow-capped and forbidding, impossible and amazing, thrusting Tolkien-ish over pulsing Los Angeles. Beyond that, deserts vast and inhospitable, stretching hundreds of miles toward the rest of America. Cross that wasteland to understand why California so often feels like a nation of its own – geologically, it may as well be.But what we care about here are those mountains. There is no reason that LA, America’s second-largest city, must have skiing. But it does. Big Bear and Snow Summit, Baldy and Waterman, Snow Valley and Mountain High. From the ocean, the land lurches skyward with astonishing speed. Mt. Waterman, 40 straightline miles from the coast, sits at 7,000 feet. Mt. Baldy, base elevation 6,500, is 52 miles. Snow Valley, 6,800 feet, 67 miles. Snow Summit, 6,965 feet, 74 miles. Big Bear, 73 miles, 7,104 feet. And Mountain High, seated between 6,600 and 7,200 feet, depending upon which parking lot you pull into on any given day, standing 52-ish miles from the ocean.And it snows. Not what-the-hell amounts. This isn’t Tahoe. But enough that, 98 years ago, someone said “well by gum we ought to be snowskiing on these here hills” (in my head, everyone in the past either talks like Yosemite Sam or Winston Churchill), and set up a snowskiing operation at Mountain High. The ski areas of Southern California are not, like the Poconos or the mountains of the Southeast, the products of technology, of machines providing snow where nature provided hills and cold. Mountain High is the fourth-oldest ski area in the country, opened in 1924. Snow Valley opened in 1937. Waterman in ‘42. Big Bear in ‘46. Baldy and Snow Summit in ‘52. From a technology point of view, 1924 may as well have been a different planet. Electricity was this newfangled thing. Forget about snowmaking, or even chairlifts. I’m almost positive dudes must have been up there in top hats and bowties. And indeed here’s a photo of a fellow rocking a kerchief while smoking his pipe:I’ve been processing this for decades, and it still amazes me: there is skiing in Southern California. Of the many geological and geographic wonders packed into our sprawling continent, the mountains-looming-over-the-seaside-city phenomenon remains one of the most stunning in its asymmetric, improbable glory.And here, in the clouds, dwells Mountain High. Once, this complex was three competing ski areas, fighting it out for families scaling the mountains in rear-wheel drive Buicks and skiing in peacoats. Everything is different now. Those three ski areas – Blue Ridge (West), Holiday Hill (East), and Table Mountain ne Sunlight (North) – are still three separate ski areas, but they operate as one. The cars are better, the gear is better. Vapers and backpack speakers rule the day (Though were I to spy a chap swiveling downslope with poles tucked underarm while puffing on a pipe, I daresay I would invite the old swell to a game of backgammon and a bottle of my finest mead [and there’s the Churchill]). Somewhere along the way, Mountain High installed chairlifts, and then, snowmaking. But despite all this change, a century on, there is still skiing in Southern California. And what a marvelous fact that is.*“on a clear day,” one must always addWhat we talked aboutThe 2021-22 ski season at Mountain High and Dodge Ridge; a record broken at Dodge Ridge; growing up at Ascutney, Vermont; ascending the ranks to the top of Mountain High; Ascutney’s disadvantages compared to the rest of Vermont; how three once-separate ski areas united to form the modern Mountain High; the novel big-business prospects of “snow play” zones at the base of high-altitude urban-adjacent ski areas; why snow play is “drought-resistant”; Mountain High’s snowmaking source, limitations, technology and potential; the incredible efficiency of modern snowmaking; undeveloped land within Mountain High’s permit area and whether we could see expansion anytime soon; the possibility of connecting Mountain High East and West, and whether that would be done through lifts or skiing; the mountain-to-mountain connection we’re most likely to see; humoring me on the could-we-connect-North-to-East-and-West-with-a-gondola question; the most likely next lift upgrade at Mountain High and what it would take to make it happen; whether we could ever see Mountain High North expand lifts back down into the bowl where trails ran at the old Sunrise ski area; the cultural importance of night skiing and why it’s unlikely to ever expand beyond its current footprint; why Kapuscinski purchased Dodge Ridge last year; how Dodge Ridge is “very culturally different” from Mountain High; the amazing percentage of Dodge Ridge skiers that also have an Epic or Ikon pass; a long-term vision for Dodge Ridge; replacing chair 1 and 2 with a single lift this summer, and how the new alignment will enhance the experience for beginners; how much money the ski area is saving by putting in a new lift rather than a used one; possible alignments for high-speed lifts at Dodge Ridge; what a high-speed lift will run you these days; thoughts on Lift 8; the big expansion opportunities at Dodge Ridge and what sort of terrain skiers would find there; the differences between running a ski area that relies heavily on snowmaking and one that doesn’t; Dodge Ridge’s nascent snowmaking system; whether the ski area could ever get night skiing; reciprocity between Dodge Ridge and Mountain High season passes; the Saturday problem; the number of season passes each mountain sells; an estimate of Ikon Pass sales in Southern California; forming the Powder Alliance; and whether the ski areas are considering joining the Indy Pass. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewKapuscinski has been the king of Mountain High for decades, taking the CEO job in the mid-90s and eventually buying out his partners to take full control of the resort. He gradually grew the place, and in 2004 purchased nearby Sunrise, now Mountain High North, in what was essentially – as he tells me in the interview – an estate sale.That may have been practice for what came last summer, when Kapuscinski purchased big and snowy Dodge Ridge from Frank and Sally Helm, who had run the joint for 45 years.“I’d had my eye on Dodge Ridge for quite some time,” Kapuscinski tells me in the interview. “It was an area that I knew probably wouldn’t draw a ton of interest from the bigger ski companies. There’s not a lot of those areas that are well-positioned, where they still have a fair amount of upside, but aren’t going to get gobbled up by the bigger ski companies.”Dodge Ridge is one of a series of larger-than-you’d-think ski areas – Bear Valley and China Peak are the others – that hangs off the west side of the Sierras, in an awkward limbo that’s invisible to Epic- and Ikon-wielding skiers racing off to Mammoth and Tahoe. It’s a bit of a time machine, a fixed-grip redoubt that lacks material amounts of snowmaking and is seated, in a very un-California way, far from a large city or interstate. But it has terrain, room to expand, and 300-plus inches of snow per season. That’s plenty to work with.With a full season of operations behind him, I figured it was a good time to check in with Kapuscinski to see where Dodge Ridge was sitting and where he planned to take it, and how the ski area may work with Mountain High – six hours away – to form a little in-state ski network. He has plenty of ideas, particularly when it comes to blowing out the lift fleet. Dodge Ridge skiers tired of the 10-minute ride up Lift 7 are going to like where Kapuscinski’s head is at with an upgrade. Things are already starting to happen: this summer, Chairs 1 and 2 are making way for a used-but-rebuilt replacement, and the resort has, for the first time, the whispers of a snowmaking system.With skier visits up across the country and multi-mountain passes opening the state’s resorts to a new generation of skiers, this is an exciting time for California skiing. Kapuscinski is, and will continue for some time to be, an important part of the whole scene.Questions I wish I’d askedGiven that Kapuscinski ran Stevens Pass for many years, I ought to have asked him about Vail’s struggles up in Washington this past season. There was enough, however, to talk about with his two ski areas, and that seemed like the better place to focus. I also neglected to ask which runs, in particular, Kapuscinski had in mind for Dodge Ridge trail improvements when he mentioned that as a priority.What I got wrongThis isn’t really something I got wrong so much as something I didn’t explain properly – when I mentioned Loon’s base-to-base railroad connection, I commented that it “would never get environmental approval” in California. The reason why is that this is an old-fashioned steam train with an exhaust pipe that would embarrass the Onceler:I’m sure it’s grandfathered in in New Hampshire as some sort of tourist novelty, but any base-to-base transit between Mountain High East and West would have to, um, not run on wood. Not that they would propose it, but that explains my remark in the podcast.Why you should ski Mountain High and Dodge RidgeThere was a moment, before I turned against it, when I was in thrall to U.S. America’s car-first notion of civilization-building. Dropping out of the high desert after a cross-country roadtrip my buddy Ron and I found Los Angeles and its spectacular network of freeways. For days we explored, Midwest teenagers awestruck and eager, zippering through staggered herds of Hondas and BMWs in a beat-up GMC pickup with a topper and a brand-new transmission we’d acquired after a mid-night breakdown in Victorville*. What was this magical realm, sandwiched between sparkling ocean and spectacular mountains, with its Beach Brah vibe and its bristling subtext of hustle and ambition? City-strong, nature-adjacent, nearly rainless with moderate coastal temps, it struck me as a sort of American Utopia, everything great about the nation organized into a self-contained realm.It was the skiing, as mentioned above, that most fascinated me. Access to winter without the doldrums of winter, the ice and the wind, the endless months in jackets and boots, the extra 20 minutes in the morning to warm and de-ice the car and clear it of snow. While my infatuation with Southern California freeway culture would not last the week – shattered in a four-hour dead stop southbound on the 5 while the authorities tended to an overturned and fire-blackened vehicle – my belief in the awesomeness of its top-of-the-world skiing never abated. Most of America’s warm-weather cities – Miami, Houston, Dallas – are considerable journeys from easy turns. Not Los Angeles. There are a half dozen choices, right there. Vertical drops up to 2,000 feet. Glades aplenty and skiing into May when the snow comes. Parks, nights, whatever you want. I’m not saying it’s Mammoth. But I’m saying that it’s right goddamn there, and that’s pretty incredible.I never did move to Los Angeles, or anywhere in California. But if I had, I imagine I’d treat that halo of resilient little SoCal ski areas the same way I treat Mountain Creek now – as my local to notch turns between my runs farther north. The season passes are not expensive – Snow Valley’s is just $329 and grants you the option of a discounted Indy Pass add-on. Baldy and Mountain High run $499. Big Bear and Snow Summit are, of course, on the Ikon Pass, and I suppose that’s become the default for so many Southern California residents as a result. But Mountain High remains compelling – North is a beginner’s paradise, completely free of Radbrahs. West is a parks and night-skiing haven. East is the more traditional trails-and-glades option. I guess many people in Southern California simply choose none-of-the-above and wait out winter between trips to Tahoe and Salt Lake. Which, OK. But, I don’t know man, if there’s turns to be had, I’m taking them.Dodge Ridge is a whole different thing. How, exactly, does a mountain sandwiched between Tahoe and Mammoth stand out? Well, by not being Tahoe or Mammoth. The terrain gets plenty of snow. The mountain is big enough. It’s a good place to hide out, especially from high-speed lift snobs with the patience of a fruit fly, who act as though a 10-minute lift ride were the equivalent of waterboarding.Kapuscinski seems committed to changing that and upgrading the rusty lift fleet, but the mountain will always be a smaller alternative to California’s ski resort royalty. He told me in the interview that an amazing percentage of Dodge Ridge passholders also have an Epic or Ikon Pass. For them, Dodge Ridge is where they go when they can’t – or don’t want to – go to the chest-beaters. It is, as Kapuscinski says, “a multi-generational mountain.” Meaning, for a lot of people, it’s home.*To this day (this was 1996), my buddy is convinced that it was my insistence to reroute off I-70 and up US 6 in Colorado that strained the transmission to its breaking point later in the journey. He’s probably right, but I really, you know, NEEDED, to drive past Arapahoe Basin.More Mountain HighIn our interview, Kapuscinski mentioned mothballed plans for a gondola to connect the resort to lower-altitude terrain, which would have eliminated the need for “mountain driving.” I couldn’t find any of these old plans – if you have any materials on this, please send them over.I had a lot of fun poking around in the archives for trailmaps to Mountain High’s predecessor resorts. Here are a few:Table Mountain/Sunlight (now Mountain High North)Poma #1 in this 1970 trailmap of Table Mountain runs in the approximate line of the modern-day Sunlight quad at Mountain High North. Lift service is now restricted to the top portion of the mountain, and Poma #3 on this map stretches down into a bowl that is just a wide-open snowfield on the current trailmap. Holiday Hill (now Mountain High East)It’s hard to make out the modern hill in this map from 1976.In this version, it’s easier to recognize the basic footprint of modern-day Mountain High East. I’m not entirely confident on the date here, as skimap.org suggests this is from 1980, and some sources indicate that the resort merged with its neighbor in 1979.Mountain High WestI couldn’t find any trailmaps of Blue Ridge, as West was originally known. But this 1978 map of the ski area is pretty cool. You can see the outline of modern Mountain High West here: Chairlift #2 here runs along the approximate line of modern-day Lift 6, Exhibition. The resort long ago abandoned the Wild West-themed trailnames, but, for context, “Calamity Jane” is “Calamity” at the modern ski area.This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 10. Free subscribers got it on June 13. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, consider an upgrade.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 63/100 in 2022, and number 309 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Podcast #82: Arapahoe Basin Chief Operating Officer Alan Henceroth

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2022 Very Popular

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrading to a paid subscription is the only way to guarantee access to 100% of The Storm’s content.WhoAlan Henceroth, Chief Operating Officer of Arapahoe Basin, ColoradoRecorded onApril 12, 2022About Arapahoe BasinClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Dundee Resort DevelopmentBase elevation: 10,520 feetSummit elevation: 13,050 feetVertical drop: 2,530 feetSkiable Acres: 1,428Average annual snowfall: 350 inchesTrail count: 147 (24% double-black, 49% black, 20% intermediate, 7% beginner)Lift count: 9 (2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple [to be replaced with a high-speed six-pack this summer], 1 double, 2 carpets, 1 J-tow - view Lift Blog’s inventory of Arapahoe Basin’s lift fleet)Uphill capacity: 11,300 skiers per hourWhy I interviewed himThe Legend. Ski area taglines are typically rocket fuel for The Storm’s wiseass machine, but this one fits. Hard against the Continental Divide, Arapahoe Basin is the third-highest ski area in America, trailing only Monarch (10,790 feet) and Loveland (10,800) at its base, and Telluride (13,150) and Silverton (13,487), at its peak. Its legacy is 10th Mountain Division resourcefulness, an improbable place rising up and over the treeline, hacked out of the remote 1940s American wilderness. The ski area opens in October. It closes in June. Sometimes later (sometimes much later). In Conglomerate County USA, it is the rowdy independent, owned by Some Company Up In Canada, its extremes laced with ferocious double-blacks. There is no lodging. No phony village. No special rich-guy lanes. Just skiing.Damn good skiing, fed by 350 inches of average annual snowfall. This is a ski area, not a ski resort. And in approachable Summit County, with its green-blue acres appropriately tilted for destination-wired Texans and New Yorkers, its groves of high-speed super-lifts, its sprawling mountains perfectly divided by ability, we might assume that such a rowdy outfit, five miles past faux-village Keystone, half the size and with six fewer high-speed chairlifts, might wilt from the pressure. But A-Basin has a pull. Sort North America’s ski areas by size, and the bias is clear: just about any western resort under 2,000 acres was left off the Epic, Ikon, and Mountain Collective passes. But when Arapahoe Basin broke up with Vail in 2019, after a 22-year-partnership, Ikon and Mountain Collective were waiting in the driveway with a dozen roses and a ride to prom. Meanwhile, Loveland, just three miles away, 300 acres bigger, and infinitely easier to get to (its address is literally Interstate 70, Dillon, Colorado), continues to be shut out (or they’re just not interested).Anyone who’s skied there (and everyone has skied there), knows that Summit County is a special place. There’s a reason why it’s ground zero for America’s industrial snowsports machine. Copper, Breck, and Keystone have 79 lifts between them, including 10 six-packs, 16 high-speed quads, and four gondolas or chondolas. Eight and a half thousand acres of Epkonic terrain lurching within easy access of the interstate. And yet, there’s room for something different too. Something special. Something Legendary.What we talked aboutWhat the A-Basin crew does when Interstate 70 is closed and it’s dumping outside; the mountain’s 10th Mountain Division legacy; the audacity of 1946 A-Basin; what the ski area looked like when Henceroth showed up in 1988; the characters animating the mountain; ski-bumming and working in Summit County in the ‘80s; Arizona Snowbowl; yes a dog-food company used to own the ski area; The Legend’s terrain; recollections of rescues as Ski Patrol Director; the art of avalanche control; A-Basin’s unique position at the top of Summit County and at ground zero of every major issue in U.S. skiing; the hidden drama behind Vail’s purchase of Keystone, Breck, and A-Basin, and why the company had to pick one to sell; why and how A-Basin ended up on the Epic Pass; the historical inflection point that launched the large-scale ski season pass wars; the Epic Pass breaking point; breaking up with Vail – “it was a surprise to everyone”; the upsides of the Epic Pass; Vail’s stingy spring skiing legacy; how and why A-Basin joined the Ikon and Mountain Collective passes; what it meant for A-Basin to take its own pass back; how the skier experience has changed since the ski area left the Epic Pass; the parking problem; increasing uphill capacity while decreasing overall capacity by limiting ticket and pass sales; why A-Basin ditched its reservation system right after a two-week pilot in 2020; no more holiday blackouts on the Ikon Base Pass; why A-Basin finally installed a high-speed lift in 2010; why the ski area didn’t replace Pali with a higher-capacity lift; why A-Basin went with a fixed-grip quad at The Beavers even though it has twice the vertical rise of the high-speed Black Mountain lift; where you go once you have the newest lift fleet in the country; what the Montezuma Bowl expansion meant for the ski area; going deep on The Beavers expansion and why the lift is where it is; whether future terrain expansions are coming; the commitment to the long season; The Beach; and Al’s Blog. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSummit County is, unfortunately, too convenient for its own good. It is the first stop on the Ski Express heading west out of metropolitan Denver, where the population has nearly doubled in 30 years. It was, along with Winter Park, where the multi-mountain season pass wars erupted in the late ‘90s. Starting around 1998, a couple hundred bucks and a junker could get you an eight-month ski season in the high alpine. At the same time, air travel continued to get cheaper and Denver’s airport continued to expand. Anyone from anywhere could get to Colorado pretty easily, and over time the expressway into the mountains became a parking lot with a view.A-Basin rode this tsunami for a long time. An inaugural member of the Epic Pass in 2008, the ski area was also part of the bargain-basement Summit County version of the product, which delivered unlimited access to Arapahoe Basin and Keystone (along with non-holidays at Breck), for around $500 (past prices are tough to nail down, but the pass was $419 in 2012 and appeared to rise to $549 by 2018; versions without Breck access were even cheaper). It was a hell of a deal, but it nearly broke the ski area. By 2019, when the mountain shocked Vail, skiers, and the whole industry by saying “yeah we’re done,” parking – the foundation of the whole U.S. American lift-served ski experience – was well beyond maxed-out for half of A-Basin’s eight-month season.Exhausted and nearly defeated, the ski area needed a breather. The mountain that A-Basin had become was not the mountain it wanted or imagined itself to be. So Henceroth and his team rethought everything. They started limiting day ticket and season pass sales. For next season, they will actually decrease the number of passes by 10 percent of 2021-22 totals. They joined the Ikon and Mountain Collective passes, but as limited-day partners. This season, they will yank the 21-year-old Lenawee triple and drop a high-speed six-pack in its place (the triple is headed down I-70 to Sunrise). All of this came on top of the 468-acre Beavers and Steep Gullies expansion in 2018, which considerably boosted the ski area’s size and came with a new quad.The headline here: Arapahoe Basin is decreasing overall capacity while increasing uphill capacity. It’s not a completely novel strategy: Deer Valley was built on limited tickets and fast, insanely numerous lifts. But A-Basin is doing this without the luxury sheen or high-dollar pricetag (their season pass is $559 for 2022-23, while Deer Valley’s clocks in at $2,675). And, more interestingly, it’s working: Henceroth tells me on the podcast that the ski area has never been in better fiscal shape, even as it’s shed 200,000 annual skier visits in the past four years. It’s a remarkable narrative, and one that many other ski areas, I suspect, will copy. Many other big-dogs – Alta, Jackson Hole, Aspen – are also aggressively adjusting pass products or tweaking parking or ramping up lift fleets. A-Basin, however, has been arguably the most aggressive and outspoken, a story told one blog post at a time, a real-time experiment in how big-time skiing in a big-time ski market can approach rationality in the megapass era and amid an exploding population. It was a story I had to hear.Questions I wish I’d askedI had a few questions prepared around the mountain’s long-term snowmaking plans, as well as a bit about why the ski area has no lodging (I think it’s the difficulty guests have sleeping at that altitude).What I got wrongWhen I referenced the elimination of Ikon Base holiday blackouts at A-Basin for next season, I said that there were no restrictions over “Christmas, New Year’s, and MLK.” That should have been the standard blackout periods of Christmas-to-New Year’s, MLK, and Presidents’ Day weekend, as outlined on the Ikon Pass website.Why you should ski Arapahoe BasinThere’s something special about the top of America, where the trees meet the snowfields and peaks rise stark and lonesome beyond. To have skiing up there – to have anything up there – is disorienting and marvelous, a triumph of spirit and will. This is not Europe, where you’ll ride packed tram cars to a mountain-top abutment more impossible-seeming to anchor into than the surface of the moon. But it’s dramatic nonetheless, a sense of yeah-so-this-is-Colorado that will linger forever once absorbed.A-Basin has a few greens, a small collection of blues, a pair of carpets wheeling along at the base. But this is an expert’s mountain. See the East Wall terrain on the map above, or anything off Pali, or the elevator shafts dropping from the Zuma Cornice. This is not Keystone, with its 10-mile cruisers and good stuff hidden three humps from the front-side. A-Basin’s gnar hangs there, looming and unmissable, a reach goal or psychological torture device for the groomer-bound or the uninitiated. It’s still Summit County: busy, pass-aligned, easy to get to, but it soars in a way that Copper, Keystone, and Breck – all incredible mountains – just don’t. It’s a little more Tahoe, a little more Jackson, a little more Cottonwoods than its Colorado neighbors, with a bit more edge and a bit more muscle, something both among and apart from them.More Arapahoe BasinAl’s Blog is one of the best ski-area blogs in the country. Posts exploring some of the items we discussed on the podcast:Why A-Basin replaced its “1978 YAN fixed grip double chairlift with a capacity of 1,200 people per hour for a 2020 Leitner Poma fixed grip double chairlift with a capacity of 1,200 people per hour.”Why the ski area exited the Epic PassNumbers-based breakdowns of A-Basin’s post-Epic life from 2020, and again from earlier this year. A good breakdown (playing off the 2020 post above), by The Colorado Sun’s Jason Blevins: Arapahoe Basin’s effort to avoid overcrowding by leaving the Epic Pass may be working too wellHenceroth and I discussed Winter Park’s first buddy pass discount, which ignited the Colorado pass wars in 1998. This 2004 retrospective from The Summit Daily provides some good history, along with some funny-to-hear-now predictions from concerned ski industry veterans.On the podcast, Henceroth mentions a ski magazine cover that credited “Vail Resorts” with a 243-day season after A-Basin (which was then part of the Epic Pass), extended their season deep into summer. I mentioned that I would try and track this magazine (or an image of it online), down, but I was unable to. If anyone has this cover, please send me a photo and I’ll include it in a future newsletter.This trailmap of A-Basin, from 1967, is the oldest I could find:The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 40/100 in 2022. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer. You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Podcast #59: Ski Cooper President and GM Dan Torsell

KRDO Newsradio 105.5 FM • 1240 AM • 92.5 FM

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2021 100:05

The Storm Skiing Podcast is sponsored by Mountain Gazette - Listen to the podcast for discount codes on subscriptions and merch.WhoDan Torsell, President and General Manager of Ski Cooper, ColoradoRecorded onOctober 18, 2021Why I interviewed himWe’ve all seen the signs, westbound on I-70. Ski Cooper this way. Copper Mountain that way. And many of us have probably thought some version of “that’s funny, I wonder how many European tourists mix them up and show up at Ski Cooper with their Ikon Pass? Anyway, which way to the free lots at Copper?” And that’s as much as most of us have probably thought about the place.It’s easy to overlook. Lost between the world-famous monsters of Summit and Eagle counties, Ski Cooper is mostly a locals refuge. Most people reading this have probably skied some combination of Vail, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin, all Epic- or Ikon-aligned mountains, the smallest of them more than three times Cooper’s 500-ish acres. And yet, Cooper persists. It is, according to the NSAA, the fifth oldest ski area in Colorado, founded in 1942 as a training site for the legendary 10th Mountain Division, whose alumni would go on to found at least 64 ski areas throughout the United States. Any place with that kind of history and grit was, I figured, worth learning more about.What we talked aboutPennsylvania ski culture; turning skiing from passion to career; moving from snow-draped Utah to gritty Tussey Pennsylvania to frantic Killington; the dramatic technological advancements and swashbuckling energy of the late ‘80s-to-early-‘90s ski industry; applying the lessons of monster ski areas to community bumps; why Dan left the ski industry and what drew him back in; why small ski areas matter; the intensity of running a night-skiing operation with a short season; the thrill and challenge of running big parts of Sugarbush; working under Win Smith as he revitalized the resort; the story behind Sugarbush’s cabin Cat; first impressions of top-of-the-world Cooper; leaving an East Coast ski career to manage Ski Cooper; transitioning from one of the Northeast’s top dogs to one of Colorado’s underdogs; the enormous terrain expansion opportunities at Cooper; how the Tennessee Creek Basin expansion has transformed the mountain; why the ski area went with a T-bar for that terrain; running Cooper debt-free; snow distribution across the three sides of the ski area; avalanche mitigation; Cooper’s minimalist grooming philosophy; U.S. America’s culture of over-grooming; the scale of Chicago Ridge Cat Skiing and whether it will return this year; whether portions of the Cat-skiing terrain could ever be folded into the lift-served side of Ski Cooper; the potential to increase the ski area’s vertical drop; potential lift additions and upgrades; timelines for improvements; why the frontside double is likely to stay intact even if the mountain adds another lift; the beautiful simplicity of running a ski are with no snowmaking; why Ski Cooper doesn’t play the stay-open-as-late-as-possible game with A-Basin even though they have the coverage to ski until June; Ski Cooper’s bargain season pass and its incredible coalition of coast-to-coast reciprocal partnerships; how the mountain managed to mostly eliminate partner blackouts; how many passes it sells; why reciprocal partnerships are proving resilient even with the advent of the Indy Pass; why Ski Cooper raised its minimum wage to $15.25 per hour; whether the mountain will institute a worker vaccine mandate; and how Ski Cooper will build off its record 2020-21 ski season. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewAs anyone who reads this newsletter on a regular basis knows, I’m obsessed with the evolving U.S. season pass landscape. In particular, the evolution of the multi-mountain pass under the giant ski conglomerates, and how independent ski areas are responding to that. Some are joining the Indy Pass. Others are banding together to form reciprocal coalitions for their passholders. Cooper is a master of the latter strategy, building a partner network so vast that the mountain’s season pass is a de facto national megapass. And a cheap one.I first connected with Torsell and the pass’ conductor, Dana Johnson, over the summer. It was supposed to be a quick-hit interview, but I was impressed by the whole operation. Ski Cooper is the definition of composure in the maw of impossible competition. Would you open a ski area next door to Vail? Would you be able to keep one open if it was one-tenth the size and one one-millionth as famous? It takes resilience, patience, and some kind of brilliance to make it as a ski area in ruthless Colorado, ground zero of the modern skiglomerate. With a big expansion behind them and vast potential ahead, I knew Ski Cooper was a story worth following.Questions I wish I’d askedIt occurred to me while I was editing this that I had no idea who owned Ski Cooper. As you’ll see in our conversation, however, the mountain has plenty of big things ahead, and something tells me that Dan will be back on the podcast at some point to talk about those developments, and I’ll save the ownership question for then. In the meantime, this article by The Colorado Sun’s Jason Blevins details the whole ownership structure. I’d also like to have talked a bit more about the mountain’s founding as a training ground for the 10th Mountain Division.Why you should ski CooperBecause why not? When a lift ticket at its six closest neighbors is roughly the price of a new Cadillac, the compromises you make on sheer vertical drop and skiable acreage to hit Cooper seem acceptable. With no crowds and a magnificently affordable season pass, this is an entirely reasonable supplement to Epic and Ikon passholders looking for a weekend and holiday refuge. And while Cooper has traditionally been an intermediates mountain with very little terrain for the freight train skiers, the Tennessee Creek Basin expansion – opened just before the Covid shutdown – adds a rambling pod of full-throttle double-blacks. Yes, the runs are short – the T-bar rises just around 700 feet – but that’s roughly the same vertical drop you get on The Dumps at Aspen, and no one’s filling up the complaint box about those elevator shafts. Add in a minimalist grooming philosophy and all-natural snow, and you have a damn fine ski experience if you go in accepting what the place is, rather than obsessing over what it’s not.About that incredible season passIn July, I wrote an extended analysis of Ski Cooper’s amazing $299 (now $499) season pass, which acts as a de-facto alternate Indy Pass/megapass. I called it “America’s Hidden Mega Ski Pass:Ski Cooper’s sprawling season pass access is also the logical end state of a lift-served skiing universe increasingly defined by the Epic and Ikon passes, with their dazzling collections of poke-through-the-clouds resorts, relentless marketing, and fantastically achievable price points. Small ski areas, sitting alone, have a harder story to tell and far fewer resources to do it. Band together, and the story gets more interesting. And Ski Cooper is telling one of the best stories in skiing.Since I wrote that article, the ski area has added several new partners, including Lookout Pass, which sits on the Idaho-Montana border but does not appear on this map:Additional resourcesLift Blog’s inventory of Ski Cooper liftsHistoric Ski Cooper trailmapsSki Cooper today: Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

Katherine Fuller Communications Manager Arapahoe Basin Ski Area - October 18, 2021 - KRDO‘s Afternoon News

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2021 5:00

A-Basin is home to Colorado's longest ski and ride season, and plans to stay open into June. A-Basin will open with one lift, Black Mountain Express, and one intermediate run, High Noon. Early-season skiing and snowboarding is not a beginner experience.

colorado afternoons fuller communications manager high noon basin afternoon news arapahoe basin

#83 - Ben Dolenc

The Freeheel Life Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2021 87:59

Ben Dolenc was born on the Front Range of Colorado where he grew up enjoying the outdoors: cross-country skiing, snowboarding, and hiking. When he went to college in Bozeman, Montana in the 90s he needed a way to get into the mountains during the winter. He assembled an inexpensive Telemark setup so he could hike around in the snow and when he could afford a lift ticket would cut his teeth at Bridger Bowl Ski Area. He ended up going back to Colorado to study film for a short time at CU Boulder before he eventually turned to a ski bum lifestyle. While living in a cabin in Leadville, CO, with no heat, he began hanging out at Arapahoe Basin which is where he began to start meeting more Telemark skiers. It was there that he participated in some of the first Telemark big mountain competitions. Through these competitions and being a part of some of the earliest Telemark freeride ski movies he developed sponsorships with companies like Nike & K2 Telemark. Over the course of his Telemark career he graced the screen of several Warren Miller ski movies, helped influence Freeheel product, was the 1st ever cover shot of Telemark Skier Magazine, started his own Telemark movie company called Falling Forward Films, and much much more. He is currently a filmmaker, director, and producer based out of Ventura, CA. Producing over 18 television shows from American Idol to Ax Men for networks like NBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic, he found his niche creating content that documents the relationships surrounding complex characters like bush pilots, loggers, and fishermen. Ben opened the Bowsprit Company a small production company in 2010 that he directs commercials, short films, and branded content through. Bowsprits clients have included Toyota, Lululemon, Red Bull, and Suzuki. In 2017, Wilshire Studios (NBC) tapped him to develop a television show around the New York Times best-selling book What Doesn't Kill Us. His most recent short film is about two DIY land sailors who broke the 100 mph wind speed record mark in a garage-engineered hand-built land yacht named the Iron Duck. Learn more about Ben Dolenc: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bendolenc Twitter: @bendolenc Iron Duck Teaser: https://filmfreeway.com/IronDuck970

92 - The Finale: Arapahoe Basin

Wintry Mix

Play Episode Listen Later May 3, 2021 66:28

A-Basin still has weeks (or months) left in their 20-21 ski season so we head behind the curtain with help from Bryce and Katherine. Wintry Mix is supported by Beau Jo's Colorado Style Pizza and 10 Barrel Brewing Company. @wintrymixcast

finale basin arapahoe basin barrel brewing company

The Season in Review: Patrolling during COVID

Ski Patrol Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2021 35:14

It’s been a year since ski resorts all over the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen to Patroller Directors Tony Cammarata of Arapahoe Basin and Denise McLaughlin of Bogus Basin discuss their year of wins and losses, moving through the unknown, and staying safe. Finally, they share the silver lining and light at the end of the tunnel for everyone.

covid-19 safety patrol patrolling skiiing arapahoe basin

Sustainability in Summit Co with Michael Wurzel

Day Fire Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2021 65:36

This week we are talking with Michael Wurzel. Michael grew up in Nashville, Tennessee climbing at Kings Bluff and the now defunct Classic Rock Gym. When he turned 16 and bought his first car, you could often find him camping out at Rocktown and Zahnd on the weekends. His early climbing exploits led him to attending Sewanee for college and earning a degree in Environmental Policy. After a few years of being a climbing bum in Chattanooga, Michael earned a Master's in Environmental Science at UTC, and worked as the Executive Director of the Southeastern Climbers Coalition during its 20th Anniversary and beyond. Michael also worked at the Lula Lake Land Trust and the Friends of Moccasin Bend, always embracing the spirit of Chattanooga to make the place better. Eventually, Michael got a job at Summit County Open Space and Trails in Breckenridge, Colorado, and gave up the good life in Chattanooga for the high rockies. Now, Michael is the Sustainability Coordinator for Summit County Government, responsible for implementing the county's climate action plan. When not working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Michael is skiing at Arapahoe Basin, the Colorado backcountry, or camping out in the Rockies somewhere, bagging easy peaks. https://vimeo.com/72118303 http://www.summitcountyco.gov/sustainability Thanks for listening! Find all our episodes at dayfirepodcast.com This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Colorado Skiing - Arapahoe Basin and Loveland Ski Areas

Zipping Around The World Travel Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2021 41:43

Episode 83 - all notes from the show can be found at www.zippingaroundtheworld.com on the home page. Scroll to find Episode 83. Don't forget to subscribe to the show! Tell your friends and social media. Leave me a comment on my website under the comments tab if you have ever used any of my travel tips or locations.

colorado areas scroll skiing loveland arapahoe basin

"They're all f*cking new to you" with Sanitas Brewing Co.

Beyond The Après

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2020 65:20

Rich and Halley enjoy a few brews with Michael Memsic, co-founder of Sanitas Brewing Company out of Boulder, Colorado. Mike is an avid skier with an après plan for every kind of ski day and aspires to one day join the mug club at Arapahoe Basin. And during your first time to the brewery, don't ask what is new... because "they're all f*cking new to you" and he's not wrong. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/beyondtheapres/message

colorado rich boulder colorado brewing co sanitas arapahoe basin

Ep. 38: The SAM Huddle: We Are Open

PodSAM

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2020 57:40

It's time to start planning for next winter, because there’s a lot to plan for. One thing is certain: It won't be business as usual. What might winter operations look like? On this episode we hear from operators around the world who have recently reopened, or will soon open, for skiing and snowboarding. Our panelists include: Paul Anderson, CEO of The Remarkables – Coronet Peak – Mt. Hutt in New Zealand, which are scheduled to open this month; Arapahoe Basin, Colo., COO Alan Henceroth, Timberline, OR., CMO John Burton and Crystal Mountain, Wash., COO Frank DeBerry, whose resorts have all recently reopened for skiing and snowboarding; and Jimmy Ackerson, who operates Corralco Resort de Montaña in Chile, which is set to open for winter in the coming weeks. Ackerson is also president of the Chilean Ski Areas Association. Their experiences will help inform how North American ski areas should approach planning for winter 2020-21.

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05.29.20: Gates Lloyd Chats About Re-opening Arapahoe Basin This Week

colorado basin first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2020 13:03

First Chair catches up with Gates Lloyd, director of the snowsports school at Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin about how the resort reopened on Wednesday, May 27 for limited skiing and riding for the rest of this spring season. A-Basin shut down for more than two-months due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Gates shares what the resort did and is doing in order to reopen this month.

COVID-19 & Skiing Podcast #8: Mt. Baldy, California GM Robby Ellingson – First to Reopen

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2020 35:14

Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.What this is: This is the eighth in a series of short conversations exploring the ski industry fallout from the COVID-19-forced closure of nearly every ski area on the continent in March 2020. Click through to listen to the first seven: author Chris Diamond, Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher, Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway, NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak, Berkshire East/Catamount Owner & Goggles for Docs founder Jon Schaefer, Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis Cofounder Jeff Thompson, Doppelmayr USA President Katharina SchmitzWho: Robby Ellingson, General Manager of Mt. Baldy, CaliforniaWhy I interviewed him: Because Ellingson figured it out. After Lookout Pass, Idaho, became the last ski area on the continent to freeze its lifts on March 25 to help stop the spread of COVID-19, I figured the season was done. Even if Mammoth or Arapahoe Basin or Snowbird or Killington did have enough base and enough staff left hanging around to open up again when the curve flattened on the coronavirus outbreak, it seemed unlikely that they would have the will to do so. They’d lost weeks of fat March and early-April spring break revenue, and many of them don’t make much or any money on late spring skiing. Why bother? Mt. Baldy bothered. In a limited, careful manner, with pre-registrations and parking lot check-ins and metered access throughout the day, the mountain is conducting a micro-experiment on behalf of the entire North American ski industry to see if there’s a way to make skiing work in a socially distant world. When the lifts stopped at most of the nation’s largest ski resorts on a frantic Saturday-into-Sunday jumble of panic and confusion in mid-March, no one really understood yet what was going on, how bad it was going to get, and how severe and widespread a shutdown needed to be in order to arrest the disease’s spread. We don’t necessarily have a good long-term understanding of those things just yet, but the ski industry’s doers and managers have had a good long stretch to think through some approaches that may allow lift-served skiing to survive until the scientists can put a stake through coronavirus’ heart. I wanted to see how that experiment was going, if it was sustainable or practical, and what it could mean for the 2020-21 ski season. What we talked about: The story of Mt. Baldy’s March shutdown amid a storm cycle; how the mountain’s pre-shutdown social distancing plan informed its April re-opening; how they knew it was time to fire the lifts up again; the issues caused by cityfolk flooding the mountains throughout the closure; aiming for a low-key re-opening in a high-key world; what California has and has not closed and what that means for ski areas; when the government isn’t clear on their guidelines, are there even guidelines Bro?; applying the golf course model to skiing; if Costco and Best Buy can stay open, why not an 800-acre ski area operating at 10 percent capacity?; Baldy’s social distancing protocol, from buying the lift ticket to entering the parking lot to going up and away on the lifts; skiing in the age of mandatory facemasks; how employees feel about returning to work after weeks of shelter-in-place; yeah it makes no sense because it’s pushing 90 degrees in Los Angeles but Mt. Baldy’s been getting hammered with snow and they’re aiming for Memorial Day or later; there’s avy control in Southern California; the plan for Ski Patrol; the community reaction; how opening helped take pressure off the end-of-the-road crowds that had been congregating outside the mountain’s gates; whether this is a sustainable model for a COVID-bombed 2020-21 ski season Further reading:Mt. Baldy’s we’re open/social distancing protocol page.Additional coverage of Mt. Baldy’s reopening: Powder, MSN, LA Times, Gear Junkie, KTLA, KCALThis Mt. Baldy trip report from the March 1994 issue of Powder will give you a good sense of the place. It doesn’t seem to have changed much since. An overview of Mt. Baldy’s lifts and a trailmap.Recorded on: April 22, 2020The Storm Skiing Podcast is on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts. The Storm Skiing Journal publishes podcasts and other editorial content throughout the ski season. To receive new posts as soon as they are published, sign up for The Storm Skiing Journal Newsletter at skiing.substack.com. Follow The Storm Skiing Journal on Facebook and Twitter.COVID-19 & Skiing Podcasts: Author and Industry Veteran Chris Diamond | Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher | Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway | NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak| Berkshire East/Catamount Owner & Goggles for Docs founder Jon Schaefer | Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis Cofounder Jeff Thompson | Doppelmayr USA President Katharina SchmitzThe Storm Skiing Podcasts: Killington & Pico GM Mike Solimano | Plattekill owners Danielle and Laszlo Vajtay | New England Lost Ski Areas Project Founder Jeremy Davis | Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway | Lift Blog Founder Peter Landsman | Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher | Burke Mountain GM Kevin Mack | Liftopia CEO Evan Reece | Berkshire East & Catamount Owner & GM Jon Schaefer| Vermont Ski + Ride and Vermont Sports Co-Publisher & Editor Lisa Lynn| Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith| Loon President & GM Jay Scambio| Sunday River President & GM Dana Bullen| Big Snow & Mountain Creek VP of Sales & Marketing Hugh Reynolds Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

COVID-19 & Skiing Podcast #1: Author and Industry Veteran Chris Diamond - Optimism for the Future

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2020 33:19

Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher,TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.What this is: This is the first in a series of conversations exploring the ski industry fallout from the COVID-19-forced closure of nearly every ski area on the continent in March 2020. This is not a typical Storm Skiing Podcast, and the format, tone, and focus is intentionally different from those lengthier shows. My goal is to help the skiing community understand why the shutdown was necessary and what it means to our sport in the short and long term.Who: Chris Diamond, author of Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020, former president of Mount Snow, former head of Steamboat, past director and chairman of Colorado Ski Country USA and the National Ski Areas Association, member of the Colorado Ski Hall of FameWhy I interviewed him: Diamond’s two books, Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020, positioned him as one of the top experts on the modern North American skiing industry. When examining the fallout from chopping a month of more off the end of the ski season, I think it’s valuable to get a perspective that examines the industry as a whole and does so through a long-term lens. No one was better positioned to do that than Diamond, and he was fortunately available for a conversation. What we talked about: The atmosphere in Steamboat since the COVID-19 shutdown; how locals are adapting; the new uphill skinning restrictions in Colorado; current industry sentiment; how much it hurts a ski area financially to lose half of March; how much April matters; how fortunate we were that the pandemic didn’t hit a month or two earlier; why this is different from having to close early in a crummy snow year; why season pass sales may be OK; how the industry may respond to keep pass sales at least flat in a tough economic environment; how the COVID shutdown compares to other existential threats to skiing like climate change and attracting more diverse skiers; why this is the most severe shock that the modern ski industry has ever faced; what might happen if next season is cancelled; why there’s still reason for optimismWhat I got wrong: I identified Arapahoe Basin Chief Operating Officer Alan Henceroth as Arapahoe Basin “CMO” Alan “Henceforth.” I regret the error. I also stated that economic data revealed “3 million” new unemployment claims in the United States this week, smashing the previous record of “655,000” in 1982. The correct numbers are 3.3 million new claims this week, beating 1982’s record of 695,000.Why it sounds like I recorded this on a playground: Because I, like everyone else fortunate enough to have a job that enables them to work remotely, have ported my office into my home at the same moment all children have been untethered from school. My 11-year-old has remote classes to preoccupy her, but the 3-year-old does not, and so he is likely joining the podcast as a background singer for the foreseeable future.Recorded on: March 26, 2020The Storm Skiing Podcast is on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts. The Storm Skiing Journal publishes podcasts and other editorial content throughout the ski season. To receive new posts as soon as they are published, sign up for The Storm Skiing Journal Newsletter at skiing.substack.com. Follow The Storm Skiing Journal on Facebook and Twitter.Check out The Storm Skiing Podcast: Killington & Pico GM Mike Solimano | Plattekill ownersDanielle and Laszlo Vajtay | New England Lost Ski Areas Project Founder Jeremy Davis | Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway | Lift Blog Founder Peter Landsman | Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher | Burke Mountain GM Kevin Mack | Liftopia CEO Evan Reece | Berkshire East & Catamount Owner & GM Jon Schaefer| Vermont Ski + Ride and Vermont Sports Co-Publisher & Editor Lisa Lynn| Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith| Loon President & GM Jay Scambio| Sunday River President & GM Dana Bullen| Big Snow & Mountain Creek VP of Sales & Marketing Hugh Reynolds Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

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Matt Dunn Guest Hosts The Steffan Tubbs Show - December 26, 2019 - HR 1

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2019 41:01

Opening Monologues. Returning to the ring on the day after Christmas. Accepting the "fight" as the new normal in American politics. Participation mandatory for saving the republic. Luckily, we're Winning. Advising Democrats to back away from defending Leftist Police State tactics. Lotta bad news on the way for SpyGate Perps. Record-setting MAGA Economy numbers on Christmas Week. Grinch Canadians edit out the Trump scene in the classic movie Home Alone 2. Holiday Vignettes. Noisy Toys. Back on the skis again, hucking cornices at Arapahoe Basin. The Golden Age. Matt Dunn guest-hosting the Steffan Tubbs Show. With Listener Calls & Music via Dua Lipa, Beastie Boys, Kygo and Ben Kweller.

First Chair: Gates Lloyd Chats About The Learning Connection

learning first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2019 8:47

First Chair catches up with Gates Lloyd, about his new role as PSIA-AASI Rocky Mountain division’s Alpine Committee chair. Learn what Gates is doing in this role to apply The Learning Connection to education experiences. Gates also chats about his current role serving as snowsports director for Arapahoe Basin. Learn more about The Learning Connection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5wzlTX6W2M

Summit Series Ep14: Sustainability

PodSAM

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2019 52:50

On this episode of PodSAM we're going green and talking sustainability with Summit Series mentors Rich Burkley, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, Aspen Skiing Co., Kim Locke, Vice President, Lake Louise, Alberta, and Peggy Hiller, Vice President of Operations, Arapahoe Basin, Colo. This six episode run of Summit Series podcasts are supported by MountainGuard and Leitner Poma. Catch up by listening to episode 10 and check out year one of the Summit Series in episodes 1-6. The PodSAM theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our podcast advisor is Alex Kaufman, the Wintry Mix podcast guy.

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Destination: Arapahoe Basin Ski Area with George Whittam

Destinations with Deborah Howell

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2019 6:53

This episode, Deborah Howell talks with audio engineer and studio builder George Whittam, aka "George The Tech" about skiing the wild side of the Rockies' Arapahoe Basin; how to "ski the trees" and find the slopes no one else has taken.

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Gray Matters Radio Episode 27: How To MAGA? Start With Snowboarders & Skiers In Silverthorne, Colorado

Gray Matters Radio With Michael DeVine

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2019 52:34

Anybody that knows me well enough understands that skiing is one of my passions in life. It isn't just because I am an adrenaline junkie (which I am) but more because it is the only sport that gives me the ability to push myself beyond my comfort zone and whether I succeed or bite it hard, I grow exponentially as a person.Snow sports is a unique sport that you have to embrace failing as a necessary part of getting better. If you are afraid of failure, then you will never do anything to push yourself and will never learn what you need to learn to get better. It is something so pure and so simple but something any snowboarder or skier will tell you you must learn how to be okay with. This dynamic is very personal to me because I hear in my office every day a generation of children who are so scared of failing that they will avoid doing anything that might give them a chance of failure.I don't know about you, but in the world that I live in it is impossible to grow as a human being and get ahead in life if you avoid doing anything that might give you a chance at failure. This is why skiing plays such an important role in my life and why I tend to gravitate to people who understand what this sport can do for the soul. Its not by chance that I started out the blog for this week's podcast with these points because I think we have a serious problem in America that unless addressed, will be a problem that prevents this country from being what it should. If we truly want to Make America Great Again, we have to address the huge problem of people being petrified of failure. Not only that, but we have a huge problem with people being pulled apart and polarized in every facet of life. We are so divided as a country that I think it is more difficult to find any area of life right now that brings people together. That is where snow sports again is the model to the rest of the country. Just go to any local ski & snowboard slope and you will see parents and children happily shredding together. Even teenagers and their parents...shocking I know! You will see groups of kids pumping each other up, encouraging each other, pushing each other, and being outside with each other. Not only that, a group of teenagers shredding on the mountain after school & on the weekend is too busy to get themselves into trouble with drugs & other stupid things. That is why we have brought in this weeks special guests Kevin Sayler & Teddy Goggin who are putting on The Silverthorne April First Friday Rail Jam presented by Arapahoe Basin. These are two guys who completely understand the role that skiing and snow-boarding can play in a persons life and decided to bring together the community of Silverthorne, Colorado to celebrate the hard work of the snow sports community. Join us as we talk about how snow sports can be a valuable tool that teaches confidence, helps overcome adversity, brings parents and children together, and creates a community that brings people together instead of pulling them apart. If that wasn't amazing enough, it also gets people outside exercising and interacting with nature which research has shown time and time again is the easiest things people can do to overcome depression and anxiety.All the necessary ingredients to make a country great again. Funny how the secret to bringing the country back together was found by a bunch of skiers and snowboarders in Colorado...who would have though it?As always I am joined by the Armchair QB himself Bill Reed to help keep me in-check and firmly in The Gray. Gray Matters Radio with Michael DeVine is a proud member of The Reporters Network family of podcasts. Listen to new episodes of Gray Matters Radio With Michael DeVine every Monday.

Backbone Radio with Matt Dunn - January 20, 2019 - HR 3

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2019 54:05

Approaching Accountability on SpyGate. Recently released testimony from DOJ Bruce Ohr undermines longstanding Deep State posturing on FISA Abuse. Major new revelations of corruption within Obama's FBI. Bad week for Democrats Adam Schiff and Jim Himes, now exposed for lying to the American people. We sample Rep. John Ratcliffe's morning interview with Maria Bartiromo, which covers all the bases. Can the MSM survive an "anticlimactic" report from Team Mueller? Can AG Nominee William Barr bring it all home? Meanwhile, President Trump hits 50 percent approvals from Latino voters. Mitt Romney reaches a near-majority of "unfavorables" from GOP voters. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opines on morality, Speaker Pelosi discusses immorality. The amusing spectacle of the Democrat Bus going around in circles, before dropping them back off at home. Short trip for Pelosi, thanks to our savvy POTUS. Notes on the uselessness of conservative intellectuals remaining "above the fray." All those empty abstractions. Plus, vignettes on skiing heavy powder with small children in Colorado. Apres Ski with the Big Onions at Arapahoe Basin. Joey Ramone's punk rock tribute to Maria Bartiromo. Super Blood Wolf Moon, full lunar eclipse. With Listener Calls & Music via Lady Gaga, Astrid, The Hollies and The Ramones. Sacred Song tribute to Martin Luther King from The Chambers Brothers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Chair: Top Tips to Use to Prepare for Your Certification

certification top tips team training first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2018 10:54

Recorded live at Arapahoe Basin from Team Training 2018, PSIA Alpine team member, Stephen Helfenbein talks about what you can do to help get ready for your certification this season. Get some tips and tricks that will help you learn more about what happens and how to set up your training plan.

First Chair: AASI Team Members Talk People & Teaching Skills

teaching skills technical team members team training first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2018 16:03

Recorded live at Arapahoe Basin from Team Training 2018, get the education scoop from AASI Snowboard Team members about why having good people skills will help you make a connection with your students. Learn how all three of the skills (People, Teaching and Technical) are part of The Learning Connection. The wind was whipping this day, so turn up the volume.

First Chair: Live from Opening Day at Arapahoe Basin

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Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2018 22:16

It’s official, the start of the 2018-19 ski and ride season is here! First Chair attended opening day at Arapahoe Basin in Summit County, Colorado. Take a listen and learn what A-Basin is doing to help grow the sport and introduce new skiers and riders to the sport.

Julian Carr on Big Mtn Running & Massive Cliff Jumping

BLISTER Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2018 84:48

Julian Carr is a professional skier and world-record cliff jumper, the founder of Discrete Clothing, and the founder and race director of the Cirque Series, a group of six big-mountain running events held at some pretty iconic ski areas: Brighton, Alta, Alyeska, Sun Valley, Arapahoe Basin, and Snowbird.My conversation with Julian really falls into four parts: First, Julian and I talk about the Cirque Series, which kicks off this coming weekend on June 30th at Brighton, Utah. And you might assume that the race director of the Cirque Series probably is a pretty serious runner, but Julian doesn’t really consider himself to be a runner at all, but rather, someone who simply loves to be in the mountains, and enjoys becoming more and more adept at moving in the mountains. And that discussion about not really identifying as a runner makes up the 2nd part of our conversation.In part 3, Julian and I drill down pretty deep on the thing that many of you probably most associate Julian with: dropping impossibly huge cliffs on skis. Julian has sent many 100+ foot cliffs, and he is the world record holder for the biggest inverted cliff jump ever, at 210 feet. (Go to the show notes of this episode on Blister to watch videos of several of the jumps that Julian and I discuss, including his 210 foot world-record jump in Switzerland.)In part 4, Julian and I circle back to big-mountain running and the Cirque Series, then talk a bit about Julian’s company, Discrete, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.So whether you are a committed runner looking to learn about the Cirque Series, or a non-runner who wants to hear the case for mountain running, or you who want to hear about overcoming fear and the psychological limits we impose on ourselves, or you want to hear an entrepreneur talk about how his company has evolved over the past decade ... this conversation has a whole lot to offer.TOPICS & TIMES:Describing the 4 parts of this conversation (0:19)What is the Cirque Series, and why did you start it? (4:25)Why Julian doesn't identify as a "runner" and doesn't think the Cirque series is just for "runners" (11:06)The 6 stops: Brighton, Alta, Alyeska, Sun Valley, A-Basin, Snowbird (14:11)Julian and I settle on the distinction between "runner" vs. non-runner (22:46)Growing up, falling in love with skiing (24:06)The art & spiritual exercise of sending huge cliffs (29:11)The logistics & analysis of sending huge cliffs (37:29)Knowing when to walk away from a jump (1:01:11)More on how Julian started running & how his dog, Lexi, is actually responsible for the Cirque Series (1:04:39)On the 10-year anniversary of Julian's company, Discrete (1:15:58) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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First Chair: Ballou and Brenna Recap Rocky's Ride with a Team Member Event

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2018 14:46

PSIA Alpine Team members, Jonathan Ballou and Brenna Kelleher, chat about being a part of Rocky Mountain division’s free member event, when members could ski and ride with a member of the PSIA-AASI national team at Arapahoe Basin. Plus, get their recap from the 2017-18 season!

Backbone Radio with Matt Dunn - May 27, 2018 - HR 1

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2018 53:36

Opening Monologue. Nuclear Summit with North Korea is back ON, only days after President Trump had called it off. In spite of considerable MSM crowing over the cancellation, Kim Jong Un quickly crawled back to the table, again pledging full denuclearization. Hardest Hit -- Democrats. Meanwhile, the NFL bans "kneeling" on the field, handing off another ineluctable victory to culture-warrior Trump. Incredibly, Republicans have pulled ahead in "generic" polling data, leading to speculation of a Red Wave Election in 2018. Dems and MSM feeling faint? Also, the UK government goes rogue, arrests Tommy Robinson, anti-immigration activist and founder of the English Defence League. Pondering pernicious UK involvement in the American election, we begin to ask what's gotten into the British Ruling Class of late. King George moments ahead? A Mexican-American caller offers praise for Trump and speculation on the upcoming election in Mexico. Handcuffs for Harvey Weinstein, trouble for Morgan Freeman. Plus, vignettes on Polka, Lawrence Welk and the Vogeltjesdans -- a.k.a. The Chicken Dance -- along with the last family skiing weekend of the season at Arapahoe Basin. Apres Ski with The Big Onions. With Listener Calls & Memorial Day Music from the Zac Brown Band. Great new country singles from Dwight Yoakam and Clare Dunn. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck & Julie - May 28th 2018 - Hr 2

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2018 53:40

Matt Dunn of Backbone Radio guest hosts for Chuck & Julie on Memorial Day. Conversations on Border Security and the Second Amendment. Jon Favreau, speechwriter for Obama, makes very embarrassing Twitter error on Trump immigration policy. Favreau quickly deletes -- but does not apologize. Meanwhile, Harvard poll data suggests a majority of Americans think it's fair to refer to MS-13 gang members as "animals." Also, vignettes on skiing with small children this weekend at Arapahoe Basin, as the "Chicken Dance Polka" happens once again. Plus, we observe the Presidential Proclamation for Memorial Day and honor the National Moment of Remembrance. With Listener Calls & Music via Dwight Yoakam, De Electronica, the Yardbirds and the U.S. Army Ceremonial Band.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Chair: News from Rider Rally 2018

colorado rally rider chris rogers first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2018 11:19

AASI Team members Amy Gan, Tony Marci and Chris Rogers report on what’s happening at Rider Rally, which kicked off May 7 at Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin and continues through Friday, May 11. Learn how the team is working to build camaraderie with event attendees and what’s being worked on during these several days of incredible shredding and education with AASI Snowboard Team members and snowboarding colleagues from around the country.

First Chair: Highlights from A-Basin’s 2017 Opening Day

opening day basin george thomas first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 26, 2017 26:06

George Thomas, First Chair’s podcast host, chats with Arapahoe Basin’s operations team, school and ski patrol to get the scoop on what happens behind-the-scenes in order to be the first resort that welcomes guests to slide on snow for the start of their 2017-18 winter season.

First Chair: A-Basin Chats Why Learning + FUN Helps Prepare for Early Season Opening

learning helps basin season opening first chair arapahoe basin

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 11, 2017 13:13

Gates Lloyd, Arapahoe Basin’s snowsports school director, shares how he works with his team to get this PSIA-AASI member school ready for early seasoning opening. Learn why working hard and playing hard helps his team have fun and learn as much as possible to provide a great guest experience to learn to ski and snowboard.

Climate Change Turbulence, Curious Theater Protest Play, Colorado Garden Questions Answered

Colorado Matters

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2017 47:39

"Take your seats ... fasten your safety belts." We learn today that climate change could make air turbulence worse. It's just one of the stories we talked through with two Colorado climate scientists, one of whom went to conference at Arapahoe Basin recently, for news on skiing and climate change. Then, plays usually come to the stage after years of writing and rewriting. Not the one Curious Theater is putting on. They decided -- mid-season -- to add it to their line-up. Why the company thinks the production, called "Building The Wall" is so critical. And we answer your gardening questions, like the plusses and minuses of growing bamboo in Colorado. Plus some good alternatives to grass for your lawn.

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043: 2017 Reflection and EPIC Colorado Skiing

LIVETHEFUEL - Health, Business, Lifestyle

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2017 31:04

Reflection Kick-off 2017:This episode is a short solo hosted 2017 reflection episode. I've been home for 24 hours after an epic skiing break in Colorado. Celebrating freedoms by skiing Arapahoe Basin (http://arapahoebasin.com) and more! I simultaneously recorded this episode on Facebook Live which you can replay on the below linked video. This reflection episode is about the people you surround yourself with while making a positive change in your life and other people's lives. On This Reflection Episode You Will Hear:[spp-timestamp time="01:21"] Reflection on returning to Colorado for an Epic ski break. Skiing the Loveland Pass, the Vale Pass and Crested Buet [spp-timestamp time="09:09"] Geeking out on stickers. Adapting to altitude. Prepping for the trip by detoxing. Being able to detox your body, which is a naturally occurring process, is so crucial to your overall health every single day. It important to detox the body because it helps flush out your fat cells - Read Dr. Syliva Tara's book The Secret Life of Fat. It's not about the calories, it is about your hormones, that is what effects your weight gain and weight loss. [spp-timestamp time="20:15"] Politics, speak to what you believe in. [spp-timestamp time="25:14"] Surround yourself with the right people. We are the product of our inner circle and environment. "You're The Average Of The Five People You Spend The Most Time With" Jim Rohn[spp-timestamp time="27:05"] New Years Resolutions equals short term mindset. You should be focusing on long-term commitment, this goes for health, business or lifestyle. Everything we are doing now is to build to a long term successful lifestyle. [spp-tweet tweet="Make positive changes in yours & other people's lives in 2017 @LIVETHEFUEL "]Links and Resources The Secret Life of Fat (https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Fat-Science-Understood/dp/0393244830/ref=s9_simh_gw_g14_i4_r?_encoding=UTF8&fpl=fresh&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r=CV801816AP5JA2FVNVK7&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=a6aaf593-1ba4-4f4e-bdcc-0febe090b8ed&pf_rd_i=desktop) Bullet Proof Coffee (https://blog.bulletproof.com/bulletproof-coffee-recipe/) Local Businesses Become A Healthy You (http://www.becomeahealthyyou.com/) Greenmouth Juice Cafe (http://www.greenmouthjuicecafe.com) American Male Bethlehem (http://www.americanmalebethlehem.com/) Buckmans Ski and Sporting Goods Store (http://www.buckmans.com) People Mentioned Dr. Sylvia Tara (https://livethefuel.com/033-secret-life-fat-author-sylvia-tara/) Dave Asprey (https://blog.bulletproof.com/) Carey Frick (http://www.becomeahealthyyou.com/) Final WordsMake a positive change in your life while impacting positive changes in other people's lives for 2017. (http://scottmulvaney.isagenix.com) Action StepsPlease Submit an iTunes Show Rating & Review (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/livethefuel/id1150969758?mt=2) , we need more reviews to increase our ranking and appearance. We love 5 Stars! Join THE FUEL TANK (http://livethefueltank.com) our community on Facebook! - “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ~ Quote by Jim Rohn Be sure to check out our Resources (https://livethefuel.com/resources) and a reminder to "Keep Living The Fired Up Epic Life everyone!" #livethefuel

Backbone Radio with Matt Dunn - January 8, 2017 - HR 1