Podcast appearances and mentions of dave mccoy

#756 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/756 Presented By: FishHound Expeditions, Fish The Fly, On DeMark Lodge, Mountain Waters Resort Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors Would you guide steelhead anglers through Washington's wild rivers, then hop on a flight to Gabon or French Polynesia to chase something completely different—all while pushing the fly fishing industry to care more and do better? Today we're joined by Dave McCoy, Patagonia Fly Fish ambassador and owner of Emerald Water Anglers. Dave breaks down the real state of steelhead conservation, the overlooked opportunities in warmwater fly fishing, and why swinging flies is more than a method—it's a mindset. He shares the story of helping launch Patagonia's Fly Fish social presence, his conversations with Yvon Chouinard, and why guiding should include deeper dialogue—yes, even about politics. You'll also hear about his global travel program, from sea-run cutthroat in Seattle to tarpon in rivers and bonefish in the Bahamas. Plus, Dave explains why your first fly fishing trip shouldn't always be for trout, how Patagonia is rethinking wader design, and how listening—really listening—might just save the sport. Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/756

#720 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/720 Presented By:  Togiak River Lodge We're heading to Alaska to chase King Salmon in one of the last great strongholds for Chinook. Today, we're joined by Floyd Carter, a passionate guide at Togiak River Lodge and beyond, who's sharing expert tips on swinging for Chinook on a spey. He'll take us back to his first season at Togiak, the unique spey camp they set up, and the lessons learned along the way. Here's what we'll cover today:  The only two lines and flies you need for Togiak How to get your cast out even with zero room for a D-loop Why you don't have to be a mega hucker to land big Kings Quick Reminder... We just launched a giveaway for a trip to Togiak River Lodge! Enter now at wetflyswing.com/giveaway for a chance to win. We'll announce the winner next week! About Floyd Carter Floyd grew up fishing in Colorado but got hooked on swinging flies after a trip to Seattle. A chance encounter with Dave Mccoy of Emerald Water Anglers led to his first spey casting experience—in leaky waders! That moment sparked a three-year plan to move to the Pacific Northwest and chase anadromous fish. He trained with Tom Mahan, learning the ins and outs of spey casting while exploring the Oregon and California coasts. After leaving Oklahoma, he saved up, went all-in on guiding, and took a chance on a new life.  His first big break came when he helped build a remote spey camp on the Togiak River with a “wacky bush carpenter.” That led to his first guiding gig for King Salmon on the Togiak, where he also met Zack and Jordan Larsen.  Check out our episode with Zack and Jordan of Togiak River Lodge.   Show Notes:  https://wetflyswing.com/720

It was a blast to sit down with Dave McCoy, professional fly fisherman, fly shop owner, and photographer. As the founder of Emerald Water Anglers, Dave is not only passionate about fly fishing but also about building a strong community around the sport. In this episode, we dive into his journey, from running a fly shop in Seattle to his deep love for travel and photography. We also talk about his approach to hosting international trips, his philosophy on reading water, and how he balances photography with fishing. Enjoy this rich and insightful conversation. Connect with Dave McCoy Instagram: www.instagram.com/davemccoyewa Thanks to our incredible sponsors:www.naturesspiritflytying.netwww.nor-vise.comcrosscurrentinsurance.comflyfishingshow.com

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

In today's live episode, we've invited Dave McCoy of BitFreighter to speak about the EDI challenges in the freight industry! Dave highlights how BitFreighter provides modern, cost-effective EDI solutions, including automated quoting, integration with carrier TMSs, and a customizable rules engine to enhance freight pricing transparency! To support people with ALS, go to https://bitfreightergolf.com/ or  https://www.als.org/understanding-als to learn more on how to donate!    About Dave McCoy Dave McCoy is the VP of Sales for Bitfreighter, the integration platform for freight. He has spent the last 15 years in the Freight Tech space and is dedicated to solving integration issues for Logistics Providers.   Connect with Dave Website: https://www.bitfreighter.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mccoydave/  Email: dmccoy@bitfreighter.com  

Dr. Dave McCoy was a wonderful man of God that I not only had the pleasure of knowing on a ministry level, but on a personal level as well. The impact he has left on me is one that I will carry for the rest of my life. Before he passed away, I had the incredible opportunity to interview Dr. McCoy on the podcast (episode #64). I would encourage all listeners to go back and listen to that episode. This message is sure to be a tremendous blessing to your heart and will challenge you in your Christian life. "The choice is up to you!"

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Dave McCoy, from Seattle, Washington.  Dave grew up in Oregon, in a family of fly fishers.  From both parents, to grandparents, to great uncles.  Fly fishing was not just family vacations, it was a way of life. After fishing the storied watersheds of his home state, Dave left home for Colorado, where he worked as a ski race coach.  In need of a summer job, Dave put his knowledge of the river and rowing to use as a fly fishing guide.  While guiding, Dave discovered photography as a way to share memories with clients and enhance their experience.  In 1999 Dave moved to Seattle and started Emerald Waters Anglers, a guide service and fly shop committed to the principles of sustainability and welcomeness that Dave carried with him from his initial experiences in Colorado.  We discuss storytelling your day on the water through five thoughtful photographs and tactics for reading water and catching sea run cutthroat from the beaches of the Puget Sound.To learn more about Dave and the topics we discussed in this episode, or to schedule a guided trip, check out the following links:Emeraldwateranglers.comREAD: WADEOUTTHERE | Fish With ThemREAD: WADEOUTTHERE | We All Have Home WaterREAD: WADEOUTTHERE | Don't Keep Score READ: WADEOUTTHERE | Why We Take Our Children Fly FishingNewsletter Sign-UpView Jason's ArtworkThanks for listening.VR- Jason

On this week

In this episode (#284): Whoa! My guests are fast and fit! State and national champions and record holders! The Executive Director of the Missouri Senior Games, Dave Fox joins us along with two superb athletes: Dave McCoy (at 91!) and Liz Kyger. Guests: Dave Fox, Dave McCoy, Liz Kyger

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and to support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoDennis Eshbaugh, President and General Manager of Holiday Valley, New YorkRecorded onFebruary 13, 2023About Holiday ValleyClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Win-Sum Ski Corp, which Holiday Valley's website describes as “a closely held corporation owned by a small number of stockholders.”Year founded: 1958Pass affiliations: NoneLocated in: Ellicottville, New YorkClosest neighboring ski areas: Holimont (3 minutes), Kissing Bridge (38 minutes), Cockaigne (45 minutes), Buffalo Ski Center (48 minutes), Swain (1 hour, 15 minutes), Peek'N Peak (1 hour, 15 minutes)Base elevation: 1,500 feetSummit elevation: 2,250 feetVertical drop: 750 feetSkiable Acres: 290Average annual snowfall: 180 inchesTrail count: 84 (4 glades, 1 expert, 21 advanced, 21 intermediate, 32 beginner, 5 terrain parks) – the official glade number is a massive undercount, as nearly all of the trees at Holiday Valley are well-spaced and skiable (the trailmap below notes that “woods are available to expert skiers and riders and are not open, closed, or marked”).Lift count: 13­­ (4 high-speed quads, 7 fixed-grip quads, 2 surface lifts) – a high-speed six-pack will replace the Mardis Gras high-speed quad this sumer.Uphill capacity: 23,850 people per hourWhy I interviewed himWestern New York is one of the most important ski markets in America. Orbiting a vast wilderness zone of hilly lake-effect are the cities of Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, and, farther out but still relevant to the market, Pittsburgh. That's more than 20 million people, as Eshbaugh notes in our conversation. They all need somewhere to ski. They don't have big mountains, but they do have options. In Western New York alone: Peek'n Peak, Cockaigne, Kissing Bridge, Buffalo Ski Club, Bristol, Hunt Hollow, Swain, Holiday Valley, Holimont, and a half-dozen-ish surface-lift outfits hyper-focused on beginners.It's one of the world's great new-skier factories. Skiers learn here and voyage to the Great Out There. From these metro regions, skiers can get anywhere else quickly. At least four daily flights connect Cleveland and Denver – you can leave your house in the evening and catch first chair at Keystone or Copper the following morning. But sometimes local is good, especially when you start stacking kids in the backseat and your airplane bill ticks past four digits.Set the GPS for Holiday Valley. In a region of ski areas, this is a ski resort. The terrain is varied and expansive. Downtown Ellicottville, a Rust Belt industrial refugee that has remade itself as one of the East's great resort towns, is minutes away. The mountain is easy enough to get to (in the way that anything off-interstate is an easy-ish pain in the ass requiring some patience with two-lane state highways and their poke-along drivers). And lift tickets are affordable, topping out at $87 for an eight-hour session.As a business, Holiday Valley is one of the most well-regarded independent ski areas in the country, on the level of Wachusett or Whitefish or Smugglers' Notch. But it wasn't the inevitable King of Western New York. When Eshbaugh showed up in 1975, the place was a backwater, with a handful of double chairs and T-bars and a couple dozen runs. It took decades to build the machine. But for at least the past 20 years, Holiday Valley has led all New York ski areas in annual visits, keeping company with New England monsters Mount Snow and Sunday River at around half a million skiers per season. That's incredible. I wanted to learn how they did it, and how they keep doing it, even as the ski world evolves rapidly around them.What we talked aboutThe wild Western New York winter; what's driving record business to Holiday Valley; the busiest ski area in New York State; learning from Sam Walton in the best possible way; competing with Colorado; the history and remaking of Ellicotville; from ski school instructor to resort president; staying at one employer for nearly five decades; who owns Holiday Valley and how committed they are to independence; a brief history of the ski area; setting season pass prices at $1,000 in the megapass era – “we have 10,000 buyers of these other pass programs as well”; the importance of night-skiing; the bygone days of skiing all-nighters; why Holiday Valley hasn't joined the Epic, Ikon, or Indy Passes, and whether it ever would; thoughts on reciprocal coalitions and why the Ski Cooper partnership went away; a picture of Holiday Valley in the mid-1970s; the landmine of too much real-estate development; going deep on the new Mardi Gras Express six-pack; why they're building the lift over two years; how and why Holiday Valley self-installs chairlifts (one of the few ski areas to do so); remembering 20-minute double-chair rides on Mardi Gras; the surprising potential destination of the Mardi Gras quad; long-term potential upgrades for Sunrise, Eagle, Cindy's, and Chute; the next lift that Holiday Valley will likely upgrade to a detachable; why Holiday Valley upgraded the 20-year-old Yodeler fixed-grip quad to a detachable quad two years ago; how much more it costs to maintain a detachable lift than a fixed-grip lift, and whether Holiday Valley could one day get to an all-high-speed fleet; “you have to keep a balance between what your customer base wants and what your customer base can support”; Dave McCoy's thumbprint on Mammoth Mountain; potential expansion opportunities; where the next all-new liftline could sit; potential glade expansion; remembering when insurance carriers were paranoid of glade-skiing and why they backed off that notion; and why Holiday Valley implemented RFID but didn't install gates.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewHoliday Valley is one of the few large regional destination ski areas that continues to stand alone. No pass allegiance. No reciprocal deals. The pass is good here and only here.And it works. Like Wolf Creek or Baker or Mount Rose or Smugglers' Notch or Bretton Woods, Holiday Valley is proving that the one-mountain model isn't dead just yet. Even with a headliner season pass that runs $1,049*, just $30 cheaper than the good-at-63-mountains Ikon Pass and a couple hundred dollars more than the equally expansive Epic Pass. Many of the mountain's passholders do also purchase these passes, Eshbaugh told me, but they keep buying the Holiday Valley Pass too.Why? My guess is the constant, conspicuous investment. A new high-speed quad to replace a 20-year-old fixed-grip quad in 2021. Holiday Valley's first six-pack – to replace a 27-year-old high-speed quad – next season. And the place is pristine. Everything looks new, even if it isn't. The lodges – and it feels like there are lodges everywhere – are expansive and attractive. Snowguns all over. I haven't walked around the joint opening closet doors or anything, but I bet it I did, I'd find the towels sorted by color and shelves labelled accordingly.In the era of sprawling and standardized, there is still a lot to like in this hyper-local approach to ski resort management. Eshbaugh is in no hurry to chase his peers over the horizon. He admits there may be vast treasure and security waiting there, but there may also be a bottomless void. Holiday Valley and its eclectic and somewhat secretive group of owners will wait and see. In the meantime, we may as well enjoy the place for what it is.*Holiday Valley offered several more affordable pass options for the 2022-23 ski season, including a nights-only version for $504, a Sundays pass for $313, a pass good for 10 weekdays or evenings for $285, and a nine-use night pass for $213.Questions I wish I'd askedI'd wanted to get a bit into Holimont, and ask my usual stupid question about whether the two resorts had ever discussed some sort of lift or ski connection. From a pure engineering standpoint, it wouldn't be an especially difficult project: the hill that rises from the far side of the Holiday Valley parking lot is the backside of Holimont. You would just need trails down from the top of Holimont's Exhibition Express or Sunset double to the bottom of Holiday Valley's Tannenbaum lift, then a return lift up the mountain to Holimont. Here's a crappy concept sketch I put together:Of course, there are problems with my elaborate plans, starting with the fact that I have no idea who owns the property that I just designated for new trails and chairlifts. The bigger issue, however, is that Holimont is a private ski club, and it's closed to the public on weekends and holidays. That won't change. But if you're curious, you can roll up and buy a lift ticket midweek, which is pretty cool. The place is substantial, with 56 trails and eight lifts, including a high-speed quad:A union of these two ski areas seems highly improbable. But it would create an enormous ski area, and it was fun to fantasize about for a few minutes.Why you should ski Holiday ValleyHoliday Valley skis far larger than the trailmap would suggest. Rolling from Spruce Lake over to Snowpine can take all morning. There's lots of little offshoots, quirks and nooks to explore. Glades everywhere. Lifts everywhere. Most runs are substantially shorter than the advertised 750 vertical feet, but they cling to the fall line, and there are a lot of them: 84 trails feels like an undercount.I said in the podcast that Holiday Valley felt like a half dozen or so ski areas stitched together, and it does. Creekside and Sunrise feel like that town bump, with gentle wide-open meadows. Morningstar is big broadsides, park kids and a speedy lift. Yodeler and Chute are raw and steep, tight glades between groomed-out boomers. Eagle is restless and wild and underdeveloped. And Tannenbaum is a sort-of idyll, a rich glen dense with towering pines, a detachable lift line threading low and fast through the trees.It's just a very good ski area, with everything except a headline vertical drop. But the sprawling lift system makes fastlaps easy, and if the snow is deep, pretty much all the trees between the trails are skiable. The place is likely to wear you out before you wear it out, and then you can head down the street for a beer and a pillow.Podcast NotesOn operating hoursI guessed on the podcast that Holiday Valley was open more hours per week than most other ski areas in the country. Their regular schedule is 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. That adds up to 89 hours per week. I'm not sure exactly where that ranks among U.S. American ski areas, but its in the upper five percentile.On Mountains of DistinctionEshbaugh mentions the Mountains of Distinction program. This is a discount program started by Jiminy Peak before the megapass craze. It currently includes Jiminy, Wachusett, Cranmore, Holiday Valley, Bromley, and Crystal Mountain, Michigan. Passholders at any of these ski areas generally get half off on weekdays and $15 off on weekends and holidays at any of the other resorts. The program was far larger at one time, but it's lost many members – such as Seven Springs – to consolidation.On the incredible migrating chairliftI mentioned a chairlift at Hunt Hollow – a ski area that operates on the same public/private model as Holimont – that relocated one of Snowbird's old chairs. The chair was Snowbird's old Little Cloud double, which they removed in 2012 to make way for a high-speed quad. You can read more about it here (pages 13 to 14). Lift Blog documented the lift when it stood at Snowbird, and then again at Hunt Hollow.On lost ski areas of Western New YorkIn the podcast intro, I mention a pair of onetime competitors to Holiday Valley that failed to evolve in the same way and went bust. One was Wing Hollow, a 750-footer just 20 minutes south of Holiday Valley that is now best known for a never-solved 1975 double-murder. Here's the 1978 trailmap, showing two T-bars and a double chair - about the same setup that Holiday Valley had in that period.I also mention Bluemont, which was just half an hour north of Holiday Valley and claimed an 800-foot-vertical drop, a double chair, a T-bar, and two ropetows. Here it is around 1980:The land that Bluemont sat on is currently for sale for $5.95 million. I wrote about this in May:Man I don't know what happens to these places. Eight hundred vertical feet would make this the second-tallest ski area in Western New York, after Bristol, and poof. Just gone. NELSAP says that the last investors “never received enough capital to get their idea off the ground.” The chairlifts are apparently long gone. Who knows if you would even be able to build on the land if you owned it – everything is impossible these days, especially in New York. But here it is if you have the money and the gumption to try.These were just the two largest of many lost ski areas in Western New York. You can poke around the lost New York ski areas page on the New England Lost Ski Areas project for more info.On Holiday Valley's evolutionEshbaugh talks about the deliberate way they've built out Holiday Valley over the decades. The oldest trailmap I can find for the ski area is from 1969 – 11 years after the resort opened, and six years before Eshbaugh arrived. It shows what is currently the area from Mardi Gras over to Tannenbaum, including Yodeler and Chute:The mountain added the first Cindy's lift – a double chair – in 1978. Here's the trailmap circa 1981 - Cindy's is lift 3:Morning Star – a triple – arrived in 1983. The Snowpine double came the following year. This circa 1988 trailmap shows both (Morning Star is lift 5; Snowpine lift 6), and also teases the Eagle quad, which was slated to open the following year (it did, but as a quad, rather than as the triple teased below):The Sunrise quad rose in 1992. Here it is on a circa 1997 trailmap (lift 10):The Spruce Lake quad arrived for the 2007-08 season (lift 11):Which basically takes us to modern Holiday Valley, though the ski area continues to upgrade lifts regularly. Impressive as this growth has been, I don't think they're anywhere near finished.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 13/100 in 2023, and number 399 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. 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

SLBA Podcast Competition winners Noel Campbell Jr. BL & Neil Horgan BL are joined by a stellar line-up of guests, discussing Irish football post-Brexit and the opportunities and challenges surrounding a potential all-island league. The views expressed in this podcast are the contributors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Bar of Ireland. Intro Music: Positive Fuse - French Fuse

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

Show Notes This week Clelland combines forces with JCPS again; this time at Pleasure Ridge Park High School featuring their welding program, Chad Lightle, PRP's Academy Coach, Dave McCoy, the Senior Welding Instructor, and Chad Anglin, OM for Wirecrafters, PRP's Welding Community partner. These guys cover the inception of the welding program to the polishing of students into high demand welders and expanding trades programming throughout our nation's school systems. . Topics Discussed in this episode: Connecting with Students The Importance of Career and Technical Education (CTE) Career Pathways in JCPS Partnering with Businesses in the Community Celebrating the Trades . Show Links Connect with Clelland! LinkedIn - Clelland Russell FB - @WhytheTrades . Guest Info Josh Lightle - PRP Academy Coach Dave McCoy - PRP Senior Welding Instructor Chad Anglin - Operations Manager for Wirecrafters

Episode 248 - No excuses from anyone this week! We welcome Executive Director of the Show Me State Games and the Missouri Senior Games, Dave Fox, along with our profile athletes 90-year-old Dave McCoy and 91-year-old Ed Story. McCoy and Story are record holders in the games in several events and are excited to participate this year for even more medals. This interview will motivate you to get moving, never give up, and keep your body in motion! My thanks to this talented duo, and to Dave Fox for providing such a wonderful opportunity for so many athletes of all ages in the state. Visit https://smsg.org/ and https://moseniorgames.org/ for more information.

Several years ago, Dr. McCoy preached this message at our Christmas Revival. It's a powerful message that convicts and corrects. It was 6 months ago that Dr. McCoy passed away and we miss his encouragement and preaching. Praise the Lord for recordings that are available to us. May this message be a blessing to you!

OK, have to admit I had to edit this one a bit!  You see, Dave and I…well, we've known each other since 7th grade! In this episode, you will get a chance to not only learn about life from the perspective of world travelling expert fly fisherman, incredible photographer, and passionate community builder, but also a little about my history and what makes me so passionate about expanding people's minds so they can see beyond their own perspectives. Fish pellets are going to have a whole new meaning for you after this! Dave McCoy is the Owner of Emerald Water Anglers and the artist whose breathtaking work can be viewed at Dave McCoy Photography and on the Emerald Water Anglers website. (Warning, you might lose a good hour day-dreaming of your next vacation while looking at the photos!) Dave uses his photography to capture stories from the world he has travelled extensively and document the beauty of nature as seen from the water's edge. Hanging out with Dave always feels a bit surreal because of his genuine presence that has an intensity that is rare in our tech distracted world. You can sense that he is both deeply reflective and a complete goofball who has a joy for life and a passion for waking people up from a “keeping up with the Jones'” technology filled trance to really seeing and living life just as we are – humans that are a part of a beautiful and suffering natural world.While there are a few curse words and some loud laughs (sorry), you will also be inspired to see the world from a new perspective and perhaps re-think how you are moving through life as you listen to us wind our way through: -          How and why Dave works to maintain discomfort in his life-          How high school and human “fixes” can have big unintended consequences-          Why taboo topics are the key to his business' success-          Why he never washes his coffee cup-          His vision for re-connecting people with nature and creating a new kind of community-          His secrets for growing a successful business  -          What fish pellets and home-waters have to do with your lifeIn the spirit of Dave and his passion for nature, I hope you enjoy listening to this and are inspired to get out for a walk or hike, perhaps by the edge of a river, and you take the time to just listen and be curious about the beautiful world you live in. Enjoy!To learn more about Dave, check out his:-          LinkedIn HERE. -          Website HERE. -          Podcast HERE. (In Episode #4, Dave demonstrates "Taking Your Shoes Off First" beautifully!)

In this Fly Fishing Insider Podcast episode, your host Christian Bacasa speaks with world traveler and unknown fly fishing phenom Dave McCoy. Dave has traveled the world fishing all kinds of species and shares his knowledge and experience with the Fly Fishing Insider Podcast. Now available on WAYPOINT TV - https://waypointtv.com/ Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Business, Pinterest, and YouTube. Other Mentions in this Podcast:  Emerald Waters Anglers - https://emeraldwateranglers.com/ Undercurrent Podcast - https://ewaundercurrent.libsyn.com/ Contact Guest:  Instagram - @davemccoyewa or @ewaflyshop_seattl This Episode's Sponsors: This episode is proudly sponsored in part with the following:  Angler's Coffee - www.anglerscoffee.com - @anglerscoffeeco - Business owners and anglers, Angler's Coffee has been on the leading edge of coffee for over 40 years.   Dupe a Fish - Register Now; we aim to have a comprehensive list of service providers that can guide you in selecting the perfect trip for you and your party. Book a trip now and have your own adventure of a lifetime! www.dupeafish.com and @dupeafish  Like the Podcast, Show Us:  Leave a review! - Here is how I know you will love this podcast and the guests; please share, like, and support this episode.  Do you have an excellent idea for a guest or an Episode? Please let us know. You can reach the team at www.flyfishinginsiderpodcast.com. We are also very social where you can find a tone of great fly-fishing content, giveaways, tips, and more follow us on Instagram @flyfishinginsiderpodcast or see our Facebook page Fly Fishing Insider Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Fly Fishing Insider Podcast episode, your host Christian Bacasa speaks with world traveler and unknown fly fishing phenom Dave McCoy. Dave has traveled the world fishing all kinds of species and shares his knowledge and experience with the Fly Fishing Insider Podcast. Now available on WAYPOINT TV - https://waypointtv.com/ Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Business, Pinterest, and YouTube. Other Mentions in this Podcast:  Emerald Waters Anglers - https://emeraldwateranglers.com/ Undercurrent Podcast - https://ewaundercurrent.libsyn.com/ Contact Guest:  Instagram - @davemccoyewa or @ewaflyshop_seattl This Episode's Sponsors: This episode is proudly sponsored in part with the following:  Angler's Coffee - www.anglerscoffee.com - @anglerscoffeeco - Business owners and anglers, Angler's Coffee has been on the leading edge of coffee for over 40 years.   Dupe a Fish - Register Now; we aim to have a comprehensive list of service providers that can guide you in selecting the perfect trip for you and your party. Book a trip now and have your own adventure of a lifetime! www.dupeafish.com and @dupeafish  Like the Podcast, Show Us:  Leave a review! - Here is how I know you will love this podcast and the guests; please share, like, and support this episode.  Do you have an excellent idea for a guest or an Episode? Please let us know. You can reach the team at www.flyfishinginsiderpodcast.com. We are also very social where you can find a tone of great fly-fishing content, giveaways, tips, and more follow us on Instagram @flyfishinginsiderpodcast or see our Facebook page Fly Fishing Insider Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is with saddened hearts that we remember the great Dr. Dave McCoy. Dr. McCoy passed away from Covid-19 just hours after celebrating 40 years as pastor of Peoples Baptist Church in McDonough, Georgia. Listeners of Sandy Creek Stirrings know what a mighty man of God Dr. McCoy was and what a tremendous influence he had on me. This week we will be playing two of Dr. McCoy's messages as we honor his memory.

It is with saddened hearts that we remember the great Dr. Dave McCoy. Dr. McCoy passed away from Covid-19 just hours after celebrating 40 years as pastor of Peoples Baptist Church in McDonough, Georgia. Listeners of Sandy Creek Stirrings know what a mighty man of God Dr. McCoy was and what a tremendous influence he had on me. This week we will be playing two of Dr. McCoy's messages as we honor his memory.

Join us as Pastor Dave McCoy preaches Sunday Evening Services are streamed on our YouTube channel at their regularly scheduled times. Services will be available shortly after their conclusion on YouTube, Facebook, and as a podcast (https://anchor.fm/mabc). Online giving is available at https://www.mabconline.com/online-giving or a check can be mailed to the church office at 1325 Mountain Avenue, Banning, CA 92220. If there is any way we can help you, please reach out to us at (951) 849-1877 or at mountavebc@juno.com. We would like to assist in any way we can. If you are not receiving calls or post cards from us, please update your contact information at https://bit.ly/MABCupdate if you are a member or https://bit.ly/MABCvisitor if you are a visitor.

Dave McCoy is a world-traveling angler and photographer who has visited 47 countries...

Welcome to the Emerald Water Anglers Podcast, Undercurrent! In episode one, Dave McCoy and Matt DeLorme sit down in the fly shop and talk about our vision for the podcast, and what to expect in future episodes. Join us for our maiden voyage!

On today’s Empowerful Podcast, we are joined by Dave Mccoy to discuss fly fishing, conservation, and how he is working to protect the rivers he cares so deeply about. As the Founder of Emerald Waters Anglers, Dave has gotten a chance to shift how he does business and rethink how businesses can operate sustainably in the "new normal". Through the process, Emerald Waters was able to offset half of the carbon footprint in their local Washington county, and became the first fly fishing company in the world to do so! As Dave says, “how we spend our dollars can be as or more important than our actual vote.”

The Storm Skiing Podcast is sponsored in part by:Mountain Gazette - Listen to the podcast for discount codes on subscriptions and merch.Helly Hansen - Listen to the podcast to learn how to get an 18.77 percent discount at the Boston and Burlington, Vermont stores.Who Rusty Gregory, CEO of Alterra Mountain CompanyRecorded onMarch 24, 2021Why I interviewed himBecause Alterra and its Ikon Pass sit at the center of the lift-served skiing universe. The very fact of the pass’ existence is a marvelous development for amped-up road-tripping adventurers, a revelation that untethers the frequent skier from concerns about ticket costs and access. Ikon has at times been less marvelous for locals, or even for out-of-town passholders themselves, who sometimes find their bucolic mountain getaways overrun. Composed of an unlikely federation of nearly every big-name ski operator outside of Vail, the Ikon Pass provides a vital counterweight to the Epic Pass, an absolute equal to one of the most successful ski products of all time. I wanted to talk to the person at the head of the whole operation, to better understand how Alterra and the Ikon Pass came together and continue to evolve.Red Mountain, British Columbia joined the Ikon Pass prior to the 2020-21 ski season. Photo courtesy of Alterra Mountain Company.What we talked aboutThe Blue Mountain (not that Blue Mountain) shutdown; how a Southern California surfer discovered skiing as a college football player in the Pacific Northwest; ski-bumming at Mammoth; how a liftie ended up running the mountain; What happened when Mammoth dropped its pass prices from $1,200 to $379 in 1995; the legacy of Mammoth founder Dave McCoy, who passed away last year at age 104; a borrowed city truck and the origin of organized skiing at Mammoth; McCoy’s ski engineering innovations; the argument for a simplified work life; why Mammoth bought Big Bear and Snow Summit and dropped them on a joint pass along with June Mountain in 2014; how that small group of mountains acted as a precursor to Alterra and the Ikon Pass; how Rusty became Alterra CEO; assembling the motley chest-thumping Ikon Pass roster; how good Alterra’s Adventure Assurance plan looks in hindsight; why Alterra didn’t implement a universal reservation policy and whether they will have one next season; why Alterra shuffled Base Pass access for Jackson Hole, Aspen, Crystal, Stratton, and Sugarbush over the past two seasons; reaction to Vail cutting Epic Pass prices by 20 percent; whether Ikon prices will change as a result; Alterra’s 2021 capital plan; potential new ski area partners and acquisitions in North America and Europe; considering Jay Peak and Camelback; and why the Ikon Pass shares so many partners with the Mountain Collective.  Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewBecause Alterra just announced its 2021-22 Ikon Pass suite, changing Crystal Mountain access on the Base Pass, maintaining its Adventure Assurance shutdown protection and deferral plan, and holding prices relatively steady. I wanted to discuss these changes, how the 2020-21 season had gone, and the outlook for the future. The interview also happened to be on the same day that Vail announced 20 percent across-the-board reductions to Epic Pass prices, and I wanted to get a sense for Alterra’s reaction to that news. Rusty enjoying a powder day. Photo courtesy of Alterra Mountain Company.Questions I wish I’d askedI had questions prepared on the frustrations of dealing with the social media hate mobs, the fact that Alterra gave people with unused 2019-20 Ikon Passes a free 2020-21 pass but never advertised it, why the child’s Ikon Base Plus Pass costs more than a full child’s Ikon Pass, operational changes that may stick around after Covid, why Ikon Pass prices held steady, why Alterra switched from an interest-free payment plan to a monthly plan that carries interest, why Adventure Assurance stuck around and whether the plan would continue indefinitely, what it would take to expand capacity at Crystal, the limitations of the Ikon Session Pass, and how the partnerships with Red, Windham, and Bachelor went in their first seasons. Next time. Previous Ikon Pass Podcasts and content on The StormMy previous interview with Rusty, which was part of The Storm’s Covid-19 & Skiing series in the immediate aftermath of last year’s shutdowns.I spoke with former Sugarbush owner Win Smith last winter, and followed up with an interview with current GM John Hammond in the fall.Killington and Pico GM Mike Solimano appeared on the first-ever Storm Skiing PodcastBoyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher discussed the Ikon Pass at length, and then joined me in the aftermath of the shutdown to relay what that experience was like.Sunday River President Dana Bullen and GM Brian Heon have both joined me on the podcast.Just before the shutdown last year, I interviewed Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand. We connected again as the resort was ramping up for the 2020-21 ski season.Loon Mountain President and GM Jay Scambio talked through the resort’s 2030 plan last year.Windham Mountain President Chip Seamans joined The Storm for one of its most recent episodes.Squaw Valley-Alpine Meadows President Ron Cohen and I had an in-depth conversation about the resort’s imminent name change. My breakdown of 2021-22 Ikon, Epic, and Mountain Collective Pass offerings.You can also compare Ikon Passes to all other Northeast season passes using the Storm Skiing Journal’s Pass Tracker 5000.Epic Pass fans will have to make do with my interview with Mount Snow GM Tracy Bartels. Vail: I’m ready to do more whenever you are. Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

https://wetflyswing.com/199 Sponsor: OPST: http://wetflyswing.com/opst Sponsor: Sawyer Oars: http://wetflyswing.com/sawyer Peter Vandergrift from Cheeky Fishing is here to walk through the top tips on finding the right fly fishing reel for your setup.  We hear about the 4 reel models in the Cheeky lineup and what you need for your species of choice. We hear about an amazing steelhead that Peter landed on the Skagit and the tear that it brought to Dave McCoy's eye.  This after they forgot their food and water for the day and only had an 18 pack of beer.  This episode Show Notes with Peter Vandergrift - Camille Egdorf was at the first lodge Peter worked at on his first trip to Alaska.  Peter shares a great Alaska adventure with his parent's car as a 16 year old. - Diane Bristol was a huge influence on Peter’s career in fly fishing.  Diane has been doing marketing at Simms for many years. - IndyFly is Oliver White's nonprofit and a program that Peter worked on in the past. - I noted the Joe Goodspeed episode 193 with Thomas and Thomas Rod Designs.  Joe shared the process and stories behind the T&T rods. - The Preload 350 is the perfect beginner setup for trout fishing - The difference between the PreLoad, Tyro which comes with two spools. - The Cheeky Reel Selector - Schoolie tournament - Dave McCoy was on the podcast and Tom Larimer was on the podcast here. You can find Peter at CheekyFishing.com Cheeky Fly Fishing Reel Conclusion with Peter Vandergrift We get the story behind Cheeky and some tips on choosing a high-quality fly fishing reel with Peter Vandergrift.  One of the best stories here is where Peter describes his first Skagit River steelhead and the tears of joy brought to Dave McCoy from this trip. https://wetflyswing.com/199 Sponsor: OPST: http://wetflyswing.com/opst Sponsor: Sawyer Oars: http://wetflyswing.com/sawyer  

What do we do when we love something too much? Dave McCoy is a Patagonia ambassador, fly fishing guide, and founder of Emerald Water Anglers. Dave shares how he enjoys the fishing experience without ever taking anything out of the water. "Keep fish wet" is the motto.

Join me as I sit down with Dr. Dave McCoy, the pastor of People's Baptist Church in McDonough, Georgia. We sit down and discuss a multitude of topics from his salvation testimony, to taking care of your pastor, to the story of how one of his member's killed a state record buck, and on to having joy in physical trials. It is a phenomenal episode that will be a blessing to you! Submit a question for our Q&A: https://sandycreekstirrings.com/contact/

Between an ordeal and an adventure, there's a positive attitude and a fella/ by the handle of McCoy. Dave has a fly shop in Seattle and an outfitting crew, collectively called, Emerald Water Anglers. An ex-ski racer, McCoy still has a knit or two unwoven and we're very grateful that a talented photographer and complete class-act took the time to share his stories with us. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lauren-karnopp3/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us this evening as Dave McCoy shares a message to our church. Services are streamed on our YouTube channel at their regularly scheduled times. Services will be available shortly after their conclusion on YouTube, Facebook, and as a podcast (https://anchor.fm/mabc). Online giving is available at https://www.mabconline.com/online-giving or a check can be mailed to the church office at 1325 Mountain Avenue, Banning, CA 92220. If there is any way we can help you, please reach out to us at (951) 849-1877. We would like to assist in any way we can. If you are not receiving calls or post cards from us, please update your contact information at https://bit.ly/MABCupdate

In this episode of The Sustainable Angler Podcast, I interview Fly Fishing Climate Alliance Members, Corinne & Garrison Doctor from Rep Your Water, Tom Fernandez from Tailwater Lodge, Dave McCoy from Emerald Water Anglers and Kyle Schaefer from Soul Fly Outfitters. In the summer of 2019, I first started pitching the idea of forming a Climate Alliance with the goal of making the fly fishing industry Carbon Neutral by 2030. It seemed daunting, but thankfully, there are enough people in this industry who care and are willing to put themselves out there and make that commitment. I am thrilled to have Rep Your Water, Tailwater Lodge, Emerald Water Anglers and Soul Fly Outfitters on this episode because they were the first to sign up for the Alliance in their respective categories of brands, lodges, shops and guides, and I am stoked to help share their stories! On this episode we discuss why each of them decided to join the Fly Fishing Climate Alliance; how climate change is impacting our fisheries; and how sustainable business practices and going Carbon Neutral is solving the climate crisis so that we can save the planet, the fish, our businesses, and in the process, protect what we love. Thank you to all of the Fly Fishing Climate Alliance Members and don't forget to support these guides, shops, lodges and brands who are actively working to solve the climate crisis!

In this episode of The Sustainable Angler Podcast I interview Emerald Water Anglers Founder Dave McCoy and we discuss everything from how Dave founded Emerald Water Anglers; to environmental threats to our fisheries; how sustainable business practices increase customer loyalty; how Emerald Water Anglers is going Carbon Neutral, and to my knowledge, will be the first fly shop on the planet to achieve Carbon Neutrality!

Dave McCoy

Dave Mccoy was an American skier and businessman who founded the Mammoth Mountain Ski Resorts. I got to visit him in his home this is what I came away with.Support the show (https://www.gofundme.com/f/6rawawg?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet)

This Man is 104 years old.  His name is Dave McCoy. He started one of the largest ski resorts in North America.  He stopped skiing when he had a knee replacement at the age of 92. He sold the ski resort in 2005 but he didn’t completely retire, he has a new business now. Listen to your Monday Motivation to hear the story of Dave McCoy and how he is still making every day count at age 104!

Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/martin Sponsors: https://www.thegreydrake.com/ and https://www.delifreshdesign.com/ I finally sat down and talked to Martin Joergensen, the man behind the Global Fly Fisher.  We talk about Sea Trout in Denmark, how they differ from South American Brown Trout and how to catch fish in this unique fishery. Martin shares with us the impact of being diagnosed with MS.  Take home message from Martin is to go fishing now while you can.  Don't wait because none of us really know how long we'll be on this crazy journey. Show Sponsors The Grey Drake at:  https://www.thegreydrake.com/ Deli Fresh Design at: https://www.delifreshdesign.com/ (use coupon wfs20 for 20% off) Hosted Fly Fishing Trips with Dave: https://wetflyswing.com/destination Show Notes with Martin Joergensen Steve Schweitzer is a great fly tyer and one of the guys who helped to start the Global FlyFisher. Chris Helm is another great fly tyer Martin noted in the podcast.  Here's a short fly tying video by Chris Helm on working with Deer Hair. Landing Fish the Right Way is an article I published for the Global FlyFisher back in 2015.  We talk about how Martin helps people publish articles on his site. The Fly Fish Journal was a great show back in episode Dave McCoy was on from Emerald Waters Anglers and covered Searun Cutthroat fishing.  Click here to listen to episode 77. Here is the editors pick search for Sea Trout. The Night Dancer is a great fly tied and connected to the Global FlyFisher. You can reach Martin at the GlobalFlyFisher.com. Conclusion with Martin Martin Joergensen from the Global FlyFisher is my guest today on the podcast.  He explains how to catch Sea-Trout in northern Europe of of the coast.  We also go into the resources that is the GlobalFlyFisher.com. Find Show Notes, Sponsors and Links to the Hosted Trips Here: https://wetflyswing.com/martin

Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/77 Sponsor:  https://www.delifreshdesign.com/ Dave McCoy from Emerald Water Anglers put together a great episode for Sea-Run Cutthroat fishing and maybe the best resource online for Sea-Run fly fishing in Puget Sound. We talk about the best beach access points, Yakima trout fishing and what it felt like going all in on building the fly shop.  Steelhead in Argentina, the Sound Searcher and a great 8' 8" fly rod by Thomas and Thomas is all on tap today. Show Sponsors Deli Fresh Design:  https://www.delifreshdesign.com/ (use the coupon code wfs20 to get 20% off) Show Notes with Dave McCoy Marty Sheppard was on the podcast in episode 76 and talked about the 30 day John Day River steelhead season. The Sound Searcher is a pattern developed by Dave's dad and imitates a wounded bait fish.  See below for the photo. The Thomas and Thomas 250 exocett ss rod is the goto rod for dave in the 8' 8" variety. We talk about steelhead in Argentina.  Here's a random video that touches on it. Brian O'keefe was on the podcast in episode 78 where we covered some great photo tips. KeepEmWet.org is a movement that Dave helped to move forward and now Brian Husky is leading the charge. Rob Crandall was on the show in episode 62. We talk about the debate between barbed and barbless hooks. Oliver White was on in episode 69 and described how he left his guide job to become a hedge fund manager in New York.58:30 - Brian O'keefe was on here. The Scientific Angler Trout Spey Light line is perfect for puget sound because it's a one piece. The Foul Free Hering Fly Pattern. Dave notes these two books that are good resources.  Afoot and Afoat in the Sound and Beach Walks and Hikes around Puget Sound. The Orvis episode with Brian O'keefe where he covers 10 huge photo tips. Steve Duda and Jason Rolfe were both on the podcast and were both Fly Fish Journal editors. Dave tells us about his daughter and her interest in Led Zeppelin. The Oregon Country Fair is a ultra popular hippie event near Eugene.  I've been there once and recommend it. Pearl Jam and Metallica were some of Dave's bands during the college years. Jay Nicholas also has a book on Sea-Run Cutthroat fishing. You can reach Dave at Emerald Water Anglers Resources Noted in the Show Thomas and Thomas 250 exocett ss Scientific Angler Spey Light Afoot and Afloat in Puget SoundBeach Walks and Hikes around Puget Sound Sea-Run Cutthroat:  Flies and Fishing Videos Noted in the ShowPearl Jam - Alive Led Zeppelin - Over the Hills and Far Away The Sound Searcher Conclusion with Dave McCoy We cover Cutthroat Fishing in depth with a focus on Puget Sound.  I think this may be the ultimate resource out there on these two topics.  Leave a comment if there is another great resource that we can link out to. Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/77

Pastor Dave McCoy's message about the life of a servant of God being able to pay dividends much better than the world.

At a young age, Dave’s father introduced him to fishing and sparked a lifelong passion to experience and enjoy life in the great outdoors. Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, his stomping grounds were and remain legendary namesakes such as Crane Prairie and Hosmer Lakes as well as the Deschutes, McKenzie and Umpqua Rivers to name a few. While Dave quickly discovered the thrill of having a fish on, it was the awe of his surroundings that instilled his deep passion for fishing and conservation. Dave has dedicated his professional life to the fly fishing industry and has spent the last twenty-plus years relentlessly trying to surpass expectations as a guide, outfitter owner, conservationist, and fly fishing ambassador. Dave is quick to note that he is nothing in his pursuits without his wife Natalie and daughter Nessa, who constantly remind him why he is so inspired without saying a word. In addition to co-owning and operating Emerald Water Anglers, Dave is a Patagonia Ambassador, Winston, Rajeff Sports, and Bauer Pro Staff Member; FFF Certified Casting Instructor; and widely published photographer.

Best trout fishery in the West? It's not Montana: how about some Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat action with Dave McCoy of Emerald Water Anglers in Seattle?

Best trout fishery in the West? It's not Montana: how about some Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat action with Dave McCoy of Emerald Water Anglers in Seattle?

This week's guest is Brad Loetel, the co-owner of West Seattle Cyclery, which opened in 2013 in West Seattle's Alaska Junction. After many years in the software industry, he decided to transition and his passion for cycling has driven his desire to create a bike shop which provides great customer service and gives back to the community. Highlights From This Episode: After leaving the software industry, Brad managed a couple different bike shops in the Seattle area since 2009 and in 2013, an opportunity arose for him to open his own shop in West Seattle. What do you love most about what you do? Working with the customers and he loves cycling... being able open the shop, he was able to put cycling back into his regular life rhythms. Some bike shops have the reputation of not being very personable and it's ridiculous that a bike shop would talk down to or belittle their customers. With having worked on the retail side for companies like REI and Apple that are very customer service focused, he really saw the value and benefit of a business centered around the customers experience (very similar customer service values as Dave McCoy, owner of Emerald Water Anglers expressed during his interview on Episode 24). Brad is good friends with Reed, the manager at Dave's shop. They race together on the same cycling team and even helped bust a guy that was stealing from both of their shops (making it onto the West Seattle Blog). One of the reasons West Seattle is so great is because of all the small businesses that give it such a "small town" and homey feel. It's not like the Eastside, where the majority of the businesses are owned by large corporations but it also makes it very challenging for West Seattle business to compete with larger corporations. What was your biggest challenges when first starting business? Challenging his vendors and staff that their is a certain level of service and quality that he expects at West Seattle Cyclery. Also, with so many moving pieces in running your own business, it can be hard to stay on track and easy to get distracted. What is your biggest challenge now? Competing with online retailers and companies flooding the outdoor market with "grey market" products (bike accessories being sold out the back door of larger companies at or below cost). Many times those "great deals" on online bike parts are missing pieces because they were designed to go with a specific bike... and the bike owner has to spend additional money on the parts it didn't come with to make it work and it ends up being a bigger headache and cost them more then it would of had they bought it in a local bike shop or from an authorized distributor. What set's you apart from others in your industry? Great customer service, only sell bikes and accessories that are good quality that they stand behind. The bike owner/client knows what they are getting is going to be right for them, develop a trusting relationship with them and that they are supporting a local small business and supporting the community. What is your greatest strength? Being able to adapt to needed changes... being agile enough to adjust quickly. What habit do you wish you had? To be better at asking a few more questions to get to the root of an issue with employee and vendor relationships. What is a personal habit that contribute to your success? Being outgoing and nice to people... even when he is in a bad mood or things weren't going the way they should have been. What boundaries have you setup to keep from being distracted by technology or other time suckers? Brad tries to be intentional about taking a break (for himself and his employees) from work to do something else for a few minutes to reset and be able to come back and focus on his work better... otherwise the work suffers. What is the best advice you have ever received? Brad's dad and grandfather really instilled a strong work ethic and taught him to work smart and always do it right the first time (don't take shortcuts). What is your one book recommendation for our listeners? "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman - Great for someone looking to create a business that is customer-centric. Parting Guidance - "Get out and ride your bike

This week's guest is Dave McCoy, owner of Emerald Water Anglers. Headquartered out of their premier fly-fishing retail shop in West Seattle, Dave and his staff offer high-quality and knowledgable fly-fishing guides, are passionate about fishing, preservation and they really know the water and fishing around the Northwest. Topics & Ideas Discussed in This Episode: Dave is involved in many aspects of the fly-fishing industry - He is a true entrepreneur: with a photography business, writer, traveler, fishing guide, social media manager for his shop and Patagonia Fly Fish (as well as a "Patagonia Ambassador"), and helps develop products for companies he believes in. Seattle is a pretty small city for being a big city. The fly-fishing community is pretty tight - Dave's friend (and my dad) Tim Harris' fly-fishing site Their biggest challenge when first starting business - moving from CO, to WA and being new to the area... he had to go from just knowing trout in one mt. lake to having to know so many different fish species and hundreds of bodies of water. Their biggest challenge now - local retail spaces having to compete with online retailers | resource management pressures in WA State | Getting in front of a lot of fly-anglers, who are older and not necessarily online and so have never heard of their store. Steelhead (the WA State fish) are endangered in a lot of the local rivers, creating closures of some great rivers. Just launched new woman's fly-fishing guide program - Welcome Karli Roland (official announcement on Facebook) What set's them apart from other in their industry - Super selective in hiring... leading to unbeatable customer service, superior staff with extensive knowledge and experience. Their greatest strength - "great salesman"... focuses on the relationship and what the customer needs and what's best for them vs. pushing for "closing the sale". They wish they had the habit of... - not always saying what comes to his mind; having a better filter. They are passionate about - educating fellow fly-fishers about the current state of the states fishers and resources and incoming them on what they can do to be good steward of our fisheries. The best advice they have ever received - "Jump in with both feet and give 100% of yourself to it, unconditionally" A personal habit that contribute to their success - A sense of humor Parting Guidance from our guest - "If you make a lot of money and your unhappy, change it". Figure out something you really want to do and through yourself at it... you only have one life to live, so life it! Episode Links & Resources: www.emeraldwateranglers.com Business Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EmeraldWaterAnglers Business Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/EmrldWtrAnglers Get involved in local organizations that work to preserve our fisheries and be a good steward of the resources. www.pugetsoundkeeper.org - Working to keep Puget Sound waters clean & watchdog for superfund sites. www.wildsteelheadcoalition.org - Working specifically on policy for managing our state fish, the wild Steelhead. www.wildfishconservancy.org - Help facilitate courts making judgments in favor of good and sustainable policies as well as do a good deal of science to backup why they take the stances they do in court. www.tu.org - Does great work on habitat restoration in entire region. www.wildsalmon.org - Working hard in regaining Salmon populations. Jim Collins book - Good To Great Skate The Fly Podcast (Dave McCoy & Dylan Rose video podcast on Vimeo) The Tim Ferris Podcast - "Drunk Dialing - Ladies Night" episode Favorite podcast(s) - Anchored Podcast with April Vokey - Not just entertaining but also informative, as she asks the right question of the more informed and involved people in the industry. Book recommendation - "Let My People Go Surfing - The Education of a Reluctant Businessman" by Yvon Chouinard (By the Founder of Patagonia and how it came to be.) Learn more about Christian, other projects he's working on and his business at: www.Sea-Town.com Ways to Subscribe to The Sea-Town Podcast: "Like" the Sea-Town Podcast FaceBook Page HERE Click here to subscribe on iTunes Click here to subscribe on Google Play Click here to subscribe on TuneIn Click here to subscribe on Stitcher Help Us Spread The Word - Reviews Help a Ton! Thanks for joining me again this week. If you have any tips, suggestions, or comments about this episode, please be sure to leave them in the comment section below. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Thank you! And finally, please leave an honest review for The Sea-Town Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. Tags: Seattle, West Seattle, Sea Town, Sea-Town, Business, Entrepreneur, Community, Neighborhood,  Small Businesses, Local, Christian Harris, Fly Fishing, Angeler, Casting, Emeral Water Anglers, Patagonia, Photography, Karli Roland, Fishing, Rivers, Dave McCoy

Dave McCoy wears many fishing hats: guide, photographer, retailer, Patagonia ambassador… he knows his way around the fly fishing industry. Dave is one of those people who isn’t afraid to speak his mind—especially about his beliefs. I was curious to hear more about Dave's involvement in a recent “keep-em-wet” campaign, as well as his stance on hatchery steelhead in the Pacific Northwest. In this episode of Anchored, Dave and I talk about the industry, Washington’s future and the importance of wild steelhead.

This is the first Hatchet Job show. It’s more of a practice run more than anything, both of recording a show and using this publishing software. In this episode my guest, Dave McCoy, and I talk about the relationship between a game’s size and its quality, GTA4, and more. There may be some swearing. Music is by Georges Bloch Email us