Podcasts about Eldora

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as that would be the fastest way to make sure my quick-turnaround, up-to-date podcast turns into a slow-turnaround, out-of-date one.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

Kenny Wallace discusses Nick Hoffman winning the World 100 at Eldora. And also if Brad Keselowski will get his revenge against Carson Hocevar in St. Louis.#nascar #racing #kennywallace #carsonhocevar #bradkeselowski

General Manager for Eldora Speedway and former USAC racer Levi Jones joins Steve Post to do a post race analysis of The Kings Royal. They also discuss Levi working with the World of Outlaws, High Limit Racing, late model racing series at Eldora, his view of 410 sprint car racing, car safety, younger drivers and more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Send us Fan MailThis week we've got just the headlines.We've got tons of news coming your way, from Gilpin's preliminary discussions of a "de-Brucing" ballot measure that would remove the county's TABOR restricted budget cap, to Nederland's $325,000 contract with a brokerage firm assisting with the Eldora acquisition. Listen in to hear this week's top stories from the Peak to Peak.AlsoNederland lands $1 million grant for ADU, downtown accessibilityRemembering artist and former Gilpin resident Ramblin' Roy SmithFado music: Sounds of LisbonRead senior reporter Mindy Leary's obituary for Roy Smith here: themtnear.com/stories/story-of-roy-smith-racism-gilpin-county,77519?Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record Better off Dead here. Support the showThank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below.If you want to be involved in the podcast or paper, contact:Barbara Hardt, our editor-in-chief, at info@themountainear.comTyler Hickman, multimedia producer, at tyler@themountainear.comJamie Lammers, podcast host, at media@themountainear.comGeneral inquiries: frontdesk@themountainear.comHead to our website for all of the latest news. Subscribe to The Mountain-Ear in print and online.Submit local events to promote them in the paper and on our website.Find us on Facebook @mtnear and Instagram @mtn.earListen and watch on YouTube today.Share this podcast by scrolling to the bottom of our website home page or by heading to our main hub on Buzzsprout.Thank you for listening!

A single crash may have blown the World of Outlaws championship wide open, and a tiny Pennsylvania race track might be fighting for its survival against complaints from a neighbor. We cover it all, plus talk Dirt Late Model Dream at Eldora, High Limit, and more.

Brent Marks suddenly has the speed he's been missing all year. But outside of his sprint car's wrap, have things changed? We've got the answers, plus sprint car crew chief changes, early action at Eldora, and more.

A 13-year-old racer lost control, left the track, and landed upside down in a river — and the photos are unbelievable. Plus, Tanner Thorson did something you almost never see in racing, and Dream week at Eldora is here with 87 cars and one driver chasing history.

Stoking the FireA weekend recapThoughts on the racing at Eldora for Let's Race Two.There is a new USAC Ironman.The Shark Racing #1a was spotted over the weekend. On deck for the week

This week Duane tells us about his week of sprint car racing where Aaron Reutzel took $50k between Attica and Fremont. He also went to Eldora for the annual Let's Race Two weekend. We also talk about Mansfield Speedways return to action and other races from the area. We also talk about some track safety concerns that arose over the weekend.

Why do some students quit after one day, while others become skiers for life? In this episode of First Chair, host George Thomas is joined by Sebastian Crain to explore the deep psychology behind snowsports instruction. Sebastian teaches at Aspen Snowmass and Eldora, but he also holds a Master's in the Social Psychology of Sport. He uses that expertise to explain why Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is the ultimate tool for modern instructors. Sebastian breaks down the three basic psychological needs—autonomy, competency, and relatedness—and explains how they lead to "intrinsic motivation." Learn how to move your guests away from just "trying it out" and toward a permanent identity as a snowpro. We also discuss how to deliver "informational" rather than "controlling" feedback to keep your students in the driver's seat. In this episode, we discuss: - How Self-Determination Theory improves on Maslow's Hierarchy. - The motivation spectrum: From ice cream rewards to flow state. - 9 statistically significant characteristics of effective feedback. - Shifting the focus from what you teach to how the guest feels.

The Shark Racing 1A made a surprise return at Port Royal with a new driver nobody expected. Plus, Aaron Reutzel's incredible streak continues, Rico Abreu and Logan Schuchart split Eldora wins, and an emotional rookie victory that'll hit you right in the feels.

Reverse mortgages have one of the worst reputations in real estate - and most of it is based on outdated information, half-truths, or flat-out misunderstanding. In this episode, I chat with mortgage expert Laura Phillips to unpack what a reverse mortgage actually is, how it works today, and where it can be a powerful financial tool. In a market where property taxes are rising, insurance costs are climbing, and many homeowners are sitting on equity but short on cash… This conversation might change how you think about aging, equity, and staying in your home. Key takeaways to listen for What a reverse mortgage actually is and why it has a bad reputation How seniors can use equity without selling their home The shocking reason some reverse mortgages end in foreclosure How this tool can help cover property taxes + insurance Why real estate professionals need to understand reverse mortgages Resources mentioned in this episode HUD About Laura PhillipsLaura is a seasoned mortgage professional with over 30 years of experience, specializing in reverse mortgages and helping clients navigate them with clarity and confidence. A proud member of the Boomer generation, she offers a highly personal, hands-on approach - guiding clients through every step of the loan process without call centers or intermediaries. Originally from various states west of the Mississippi and with time spent overseas, Laura now calls Colorado home. She previously lived in Eldora at 9,000 feet and currently resides in Longmont. Outside of work, she enjoys Colorado's mix of refined dining and outdoor adventure, and treasures time with her two daughters, husband of over 40 years, and their German Shepherds.   Connect with Laura Website: Reverse Mortgage Specialist - Laura Phillips Facebook: Laura Phillips, CO Mortgage Lender NMLS 281098 Email: Laura@lauraphillips.com Contact Number: 303-817-4611   About Leigh BrownLeigh Brown is a keynote speaker and leadership expert who helps organizations navigate growth, conflict, and change with clarity and courage. Her message resonates with leaders facing real-world pressure—whether that's housing challenges, organizational friction, or cultural shifts. Her latest book, Next Is Now, equips leaders to stop reacting and start leading with intention.

WhoTim Smith, President and General Manager of Waterville Valley, New HampshireRecorded onNovember 12, 2025About Waterville ValleyClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Sununu FamilyLocated in: Waterville Valley, New HampshireYear founded: 1966Pass affiliations:* Indy Pass, Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackouts* White Mountain Super Pass: unlimited, no blackouts* Indy Learn-to-Turn: 3 days, includes rentals, lesson, lift ticket; limited lift access* Ski New Hampshire Kids Passport: 1 day with holiday blackouts* Uphill New England: no lift accessBase elevation: 1,984 feet (highest in New Hampshire, 3rd in New England)Summit elevation: 4,004 feet (2nd-highest in New Hampshire, 5th in New England)Vertical drop: 2,020 feet (4th-highest in New Hampshire, 14th in New England)Skiable acres: 265Average annual snowfall: 148 inchesTrail count: 62 (14% novice, 64% intermediate, 22% advanced)Lift count: 10 (1 six-pack, 1 high-speed quad, 2 triples, 2 doubles, 2 T-bars, 2 carpets)Why I interviewed himWell no one wants to hear this but we got to $300 lift tickets the same way we got to $80,000 pickup trucks. We're Americans Goddamnit and we just can't do stickshifts and we sure as s**t ain't standin' up on our skis to ride back up the mountain. It's pure agony you see. We need us a nine-pack chairlift with a bubble and a breakroom and a minibar and surround sound and Lazy-Boy seats and hell no we ain't ridin' it with eight strangers we'll hold back and take a whole chair to our ownselves. And it needs to move fast, Son. Like embarrass-the-Concord fast because God help us we spend more than 90 seconds with our own thoughts.I'm not aiming to get kicked out of America here, but if I may submit a few requests regarding our self-inflicted false price floors. I would like the option of purchasing a brand-new car with a manual transmission and windows rolled up and down with a hand-crank. I would like to keep pedaling my bicycle. I would like to cut the number of holidays with commercial mandates by 80 percent. I would prefer that we not set the air-conditioners to 60 when it's 65 degrees outside. This doesn't mean I want to get rid of all the air-conditioners but could we maybe take it easy on the frostbite-in-July overkill of it all?My Heretic Wishlist for American Skiing includes but is not limited to: more surface lifts, especially to serve terrain parks, high-altitude exposed terrain, and expert pods; on-resort lodging that does not still require a commute-by-personal-vehicle to reach the lifts; and thoughtful terrain management that retains ungroomed sections for skiers who like things about skiing other than going fast.Waterville Valley is doing all of these things. It is perhaps the only major American ski area in decades to replace a chairlift with a surface lift on a non-beginner terrain pod, and the only one to build two new T-bars this century. A planned gondola would connect Waterville Valley the town with Waterville Valley the ski area, correcting an only-in-America setup that separates these inseparable places by two miles of road. The glade network grows annually in both subtle and obvious ways.This is not a ski area going in reverse. Waterville is modern and keeps modernizing. The four-year-old Tecumseh bubble six-pack, though bookended with T-bars, is one of the nicest chairlifts in America. Skiers still go groomer-kaboom on morning cord. Suburban office-park dads with interstate commutes and a habit of lecturing the Facebook Commons about the virtues of snow tires can still park their 42-wheel-drive Abrams-Caterpillar-F-15,000 Tanktruck in sub-parking lot 42Z and walk uphill to the lifts. But Waterville Valley is one of a handful of American ski areas, along with Killington and Deer Valley and Winter Park, that is embracing all of our luxe cultural excesses while pursuing the very un-American ambition of putting more skiers close to skiing.No ski area is perfect. For all the cash saved on those T-bars, peak-day Waterville lift tickets still hit $145. The mountain's season pass is the second-most expensive single-mountain season passes in New England – more than a top-line Epic Pass (an adult WV pass includes a free pass for a kid age 6 to 12, which is great if you have one of those). That's bold pricing for the 22nd-largest ski area in New England, especially one that still spins three Stadeli chairlifts that predate the extinction of the dinosaurs. And two high-speed chairlifts is not a lot of high-speed chairlifts for a 2,000-vertical-foot ski area (though about half of New England's 2,000-footers run just two or fewer detaches).Yeah I know. Sick burn from someone who was waxing about surface lifts four paragraphs ago. I may have collected too many ski area Lego blocks in my mental bucket, and they don't always click together back here on planet Earth. “More villages,” I say while dismissing Aspen as a subsidized simulacrum of itself. “Big fast lifts rule,” I say while setting off fire alarms as first-generation chairlifts disintegrate and the cost of their most basic replacements escalates. “No-grooming, all-glades makes the best ski area,” I say, while condemning resort operators for $356 lift tickets that dam the masses. “Vail is too expensive,” I say. “Vail is too cheap,” I also say. “Modernize our chairlifts,” I say while celebrating the joy of riding an antique Riblet double. I endorse ski areas splitting off from conglomerates and ski areas joining them. These narratives can feel contradictory at best and schizophrenic at worst.But that tension is part of what draws me to lift-served ski areas, where two things central to my worldview – wild nature and human invention – merge. Or perhaps more accurately, collide. Both forces act at all times not only to extinguish one another, but themselves: above-freezing temps trash two feet of new snow; bad liftline management cancels out the capacity benefits of a $12 million lift upgrade. Making a ski area function, then, requires continual tweaking, of both the nuanced and look-at-us-press-release variety. A ski area is a business, sure, but that's almost a coincidence. The act of building and running a ski area is foremost an art, architecture, and engineering project that requires a somewhat madcap conductor to succeed. As with any artform, there is no one correct and final way to build a ski area. The variety is central to skiing's appeal. But there are operator/artist attributes - flexibility, inventiveness, consistency tempered by openness to change - that contribute to the overall quality and cohesion of the individual ski area experience in the context of competing ski areas. In the current version of Waterville Valley, we find one of our best contemporary examples of a ski area evolving toward the best version of itself under the stewardship of owners and managers possessing exactly these traits.What we talked aboutThe return of World Cup training and events to Waterville; drifting away from and back toward freeskiing culture; the best terrain parks in New England; why terrain parks are drifting away from mega-features; what happened to all the halfpipes?; and ramps?; no really no one wore helmets in the ‘90s; building terrain parks before institutional knowledge and the internet; the lost Hidden Valley, Wisconsin ski area; the rise of the high-speed ropetow; why Waterville replaced one T-bar and one Poma with a new T-bar (rather than a chairlift); why Waterville installed night skiing; the return of the Exhibition terrain park; self-installing the World Cup T-bar; Waterville's ops blog; why the Tecumseh Express sixer needed new bubbles after just a couple of seasons; why bubbles cost so much and how Waterville manufactured a less expensive one; Tecumseh's incredible wind resistance; MND lifts as an alternative to the two large U.S.-based lift manufacturers; a chairlift's “infancy” and how different 2020s lift technology is from early detachable tech; how Waterville's masterplan would reorient the mountain and skier traffic with an expansion and new lifts; Waterville's declining skier visits and whether that's a bad thing; how the resort's 1994 bankruptcy changed Waterville's trajectory; what stoked the Green Peak expansion; “we've been on a track to try to rebuild that energy we saw in the 1990s”; why Waterville turned away from discounting; “the right quantity of skiers on the right amount of surface”; building more terrain diversity; and a gondola connection from town to mountain.Should someone tell them they're running it backwards? Video by Stuart Winchester.What I got wrong* I said that the “High Country double chair was still standing” – what I meant was that parts of it were still in place. The top terminal remains, sans bullwheel, and the base terminal and motor room remain as a patrol shack:* I said that Waterville hadn't been known for terrain parks until recently, but Smith recalled that the ski area was more freestyle-centric from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, before pulling back during the first part of this century.* I said that 1,100 skiers per hour was “a little less than what a double chair would move,” thinking standard capacity for a double was 1,200 per hour. Smith says it is 900. Exact capacity varies from lift-to-lift, however. Lift Blog itemizes hourly capacities of between 800 and 1,200 for four of Smugglers' Notch's double chairs, between 1,000 and 1,200 for four of Mt. Spokane's fleet of Riblet doubles, and 1,000 for Waterville's Lower Meadows double. We all know, however, that the hourly capacity for a double chair is however many people are in line minus the number not paying attention minus singles who refuse to ride with anyone. So I don't know maybe 50.Podcast NotesOn other mentioned podcasts* World Cup competition returning to Sun Valley:* Heavenly backing out of mega-parks features:* Killington and the cost of bubbles:* Waterville part 1, from 2021:On Partek and each lift being differentOn Waterville's ownership historyFounder Tom Corcoran owned Waterville Valley from 1966 until 1994, when he sold to American Skiing Company (ASC) antecedent S-K-I. The feds made ASC dispense with Waterville and Cranmore when they merged with LBO Enterprises in 1996. Booth Creek (more on them below), bought the ski area and held it until 2010, when they sold it to the Sununu family. This makes Waterville one of just a handful of ski areas to ever enter a multi-mountain pass portfolio and then exit to independence - though Killington and Ragged recently did exactly that, and Eldora may follow.On Mt. Holiday, MichiganThis is just a little 200-footer, but it's still around on the outskirts of Traverse City, Michigan:That trailmap doesn't really communicate the ski area's essence. A little better are these pics I took on a summertime swing-through a few years back:I never skied there though, always preferring the far-larger Sugar Loaf, right down the road (which Smith and I also discussed):Until it was abandoned around 2000, this was one of the better ski areas in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. After a succession of owners - one of whom stripped all the chairlifts off the bump - failed to bring skiing back, the Leelanau Conservancy recently took ownership of the property. Skiing will return as an officially sanctioned activity, though unfortunately without a lift or snowmaking. I would have at least liked to have seen a ropetow. Here's their vision:On midwestskier.com Yes, Kids, the internet really did used to look like this:On Hidden Valley, WisconsinHere's a little ski hill that didn't make it. Smith spent time at Hidden Valley, Wisconsin, which opened in 1956 and closed forever in 2013. The chairlift appears to have been moved to nearby, county-run Kewaunee Winter Park, where it awaits installation.On high-speed ropetowsI am a huge fan of high-speed ropetows, which are a cheap and effective means to isolate users of terrain parks or other specialized, intensive-use zones from the broader ski area. Here's one at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota in 2023 (video by Stuart Winchester):On Waterville Valley's masterplanThis is perhaps the best angle of how Waterville's expansion would connect the legacy trail network to the town:Here's the Forest Service masterplan slide:Neither of these images, however, show how the gondola would eventually connect down into town, which is the crucial element of transforming Waterville Valley from a ski-area-that-says-it's-a-ski-resort into an actual ski resort. Here's a look at that connection:Waterville set up an excellent microsite detailing the hoped-for evolution.On Booth CreekAt the mid-90s height of American Skiing Company dominance, a former Vail executive assembled a cross-country ski area portfolio with ambitions of creating a hub-and-spoke network:Booth Creek ultimately sold off most of its properties, but still own Sierra-at-Tahoe. Grand Targhee GM Geordie Gillett was involved in the whole saga and broke it down for us in 2024:On Waterville going from one of the oldest lift fleets in New England to one of the most modernWhile Waterville runs some of the last Stadeli lifts in America (I count 16), the ski area has modernized extensively over the past decade:On U.S. Forest Service ski areas in the EastMost (109) of the 119 active U.S. ski areas on United States Forest Service leases sit in the West; two are in the Midwest, and eight are in the East: Bromley, Mount Snow, and Sugarbush, Vermont; Waterville Valley, Loon, Attitash, and Wildcat, New Hampshire; and Timberline, West Virginia. None, as far as I know, sit entirely within the boundaries of a national forest, but even partial overlap triggers the requirement to submit an updated masterplan each decade.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Today, Sun outdoors reporter Jason Blevins has updates on the pending sale of Eldora ski area to the town of Nederland and how the deal is coming together. Read more: https://coloradosun.com/2026/02/06/303-ski-nederland-eldora/ coloradosun.com/valentine https://coloradosun.com/eventsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight Super Late Model racer Jadon Frame called in to the ARYLCO Studio. He has some awesome racing stories including racing at Eldora, as well as winning a B Main beating Johnathan Davenport. OH YEAH!

Today, Colorado Sun co-founder, Jason Blevins, is back to give us the latest on Telluride reopening and the end of the ski patrol strike; we discuss recent developments in affordable housing in Steamboat Springs; we look at various ownership models of ski areas (including what's happening at Eldora in Colorado); and we ask the big questions: what are the responsibilities of the owners of ski areas, and how do we create more sustainable — and more stable — relationships between ski areas and mountain towns?Note: We Want to Hear From You!We'd love for you to share with us the stories or topics you'd like us to cover next month on Reviewing the News; ask your most pressing mountain town advice questions, or offer your hot takes for us to rate. You can email those to us here.RELATED LINKS: GetCARV.comBLISTER+ Get Yourself CoveredBLISTER+ Questions: contact@blisterplus.comGet Our 25/26 Winter Buyer's GuideDiscounted Summit Registration for BLISTER+ MembersNon-Member Registration: Blister Summit 2026Get Our Newsletter & Weekly Gear GiveawaysGalena Gleason's ArticleCHECK OUT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELS:Blister Studios (our new channel)Blister Review (our original channel)TOPICS & TIMES:Carv (1:17)OpenSnow (2:07)Snowbird (2:38)Jason in Telluride Last Friday (4:16)Ski Patrol's Needs vs Needs of Other Locals (8:37)Making Patrollers Town Employees? (19:28)What Are the Responsibilities of a Ski Area Owner? (29:08)Steamboat Springs Affordable Housing (35:04)Various Models of Ski Area Ownership (39:22)What's Happening in Nederland, CO, w/ Eldora? (47:40)What Else Should We Know? (50:18)CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Blister CinematicCRAFTEDBikes & Big IdeasGEAR:30 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textHappy New Year, and Happy Birthday to the Mountain-Ear Podcast!Today marks our fifth anniversary of being on the airwaves. We've come a long way, and we have a lot to be proud of - plus a lot to look forward to.To ring in the New Year, we have our first "Sounds of the Town" submission from Eldora resident David Hallock, a bird lover and conservationist who says the song of the American Dipper is what defines the quiet, natural ambience of the historic mountain village. Listen in to hear David's explanation of the near indescribable beauty of the song. Also:Wild Turkey Trail fire triggers evacuations in Fourmile CanyonGilpin County childcare center opens for enrollmentYour local government's year-in-reviewThanks to Xeno-Canto for providing the American Dipper's songs and calls used in today's episode. Recordings used were submitted by Ted Floyd, Seth Beaudreault, Paul Driver and Denise Wright. Support the showThank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below.If you want to be involved in the podcast or paper, contact: Barbara Hardt, our editor-in-chef, at info@themountainear.com Tyler Hickman, podcast host, at tyler@themountainear.com Jamie Lammers, podcast host, at media@themountainear.com General inquiries: frontdesk@themountainear.com Head to our website for all of the latest news. Subscribe online and use the coupon code PODCAST for a 10% discount for all new subscribers. Submit local events to promote them in the paper and on our website. Find us on Facebook @mtnear and Instagram @mtn.ear Listen and watch on YouTube today. Share this podcast by scrolling to the bottom of our website home page or by heading to our main hub on Buzzsprout.Thank you for listening!

We're welcoming special guest Paul Karolyi, podcast veteran and Senior Executive Producer of City Cast Denver! Paul is catching us up on The Denver-est Denver Awards, presented by City Cast Denver this Thursday at the Oriental Theatre!   If you want to attend, head to their website to purchase tickets, or subscribe to the Real Good Denver Newsletter for your chance to win a free pair! Sign up at realgooddenver.com   As always, we've got the top Denver news and things to do on our radar this week as well.   Follow RGD: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8u8GmvBi6th6LOOMCuwJKw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/real_good_denver/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realgooddenver   Do you have a Denver event, cause, opening, or recommendation that you want to share with us? We want to hear from you! Tell us what's good at tom@kitcaster.com. We're opening up early access to a custom Denver job alert program through our newsletter thanks to https://www.jobstreamai.com/. Sign up at realgooddenver.com to be the first to know when it's ready!! News & Events: Probabilistic Snow Forecast This week Steamboat, Eldora, Vail and Copper are the places to be! House For The Holidays @ Two Moons City Cast Denver - Denverest Denver Awards @ The Oriental Theatre ETH Denver Registration Den Thai Grand Opening   Shout Outs: City Cast Denver Den Thai Grand Opening Los Dos Potrillos Phatt Matts Rockmount Ranchwear   Our Sponsors: Motor Street 360 Telescope Mapping   ​​Music produced by Troy Higgins Goodboytroy.com  

Adam and Greg are joining us from Comedy Church SLC alongside their local promoter Jessie from Vortexx Events to talk about their upcoming comedy show: "Christmas - A Comedy Show for the Ex-Religious". Hear how they're working together to put on the event at the newly revamped Federal Theatre!   As always, we've got the top Denver news and things to do on our radar this week as well. Follow RGD: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8u8GmvBi6th6LOOMCuwJKw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/real_good_denver/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realgooddenver   Do you have a Denver event, cause, opening, or recommendation that you want to share with us? We want to hear from you! Tell us what's good at tom@kitcaster.com. We're opening up early access to a custom Denver job alert program through our newsletter thanks to https://www.jobstreamai.com/. Sign up at realgooddenver.com to be the first to know when it's ready!!   Special Guest Jessie, Adam, and Greg   Christmas -- A Comedy Show for the Ex-Religious   Comedy Church - Salt Lake City   Vortexx Events     News & Events:   Probabilistic Snow Forecast This week Steamboat, Eldora and Vail are the places to be!   fulhouse.io and their Congress Park Townhome Sweepstakes!   Light Haus V6 @ The Marigold   House For The Holidays @ Two Moons   Youth on Record Holiday Party @ Two Moons   City Cast Denver - Denverest Denver Awards @ The Oriental Theatre     Promo   New Year's Eve party from our friends over at Drink Denver     Shout Oust:   https://fulhouse.io/   telescopemapping.com   City Cast Denver   Youth on Record   ​​Music produced by Troy Higgins   Goodboytroy.com  

Send us a textOn today's show, we're launching a new joint segment with Boulder Valley Frequency we're calling “Sounds of the Town”.  The Mountain-Ear wants to know: What does home sound like to you? We are accepting submissions for Sounds of the Town, a new podcast series that seeks to highlight the sonic signatures of our area: from Allenspark to Idaho Springs, and all the canyons and communities in between.Tell us what the sound is, where you hear it and what it means to you. We'll gather the best ideas from each town, then send our audio experts out to record them. A different town and sound will be featured each week on The Mountain-Ear podcast. Tune in every Thursday to hear the latest.When we've got the entire Peak to Peak, Gilpin and Boulder County and beyond covered, we'll pull them all together into a story for readers in the regular, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.No idea is wrong. If you hear it and it evokes home, we want to know about it.You can send submissions to tyler@themountainear.com.Video of Pearl Street performer Ibashi-I, "The Man in the Box" (Courtesy: Boulder Daily Camera)Also in today's show:Eldora is open for the seasonBlack Hawk city council honors the late Alderman Gregory G. MoatesNed-are orgs nab county climate fundingPeak-to-peak Auroras light up Colorado skyPick up this week's paper to read these stories and so much more! Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below.If you want to be involved in the podcast or paper, contact our editor at info@themountainear.com or our podcast hosts: Tyler Hickman, at tyler@themountainear.com Jamie Lammers, at media@themountainear.com Head to our website for all of the latest news. Subscribe online and use the coupon code PODCAST for a 10% discount for all new subscribers. Submit local events to promote them in the paper and on our website. Find us on Facebook @mtnear and Instagram @mtn.ear Listen and watch on YouTube today. Share this podcast by scrolling to the bottom of our website home page or by heading to our main hub on Buzzsprout.Thank you for listening!

Send us a textThis week, we're featuring an episode of Boulder Valley Frequency, a show from longtime Boulder journalist Shay Castle covering news across the county.In this episode of BVHz, Shay sits down with our very own senior reporter for The Mountain-Ear, Chris Kelley, for an update on Nederland's progress toward acquiring Eldora Ski Resort. Chris gives us a bit of perspective on the potential purchase, and while he's hopeful it will do a lot of good for the town, he reminds us to stay wary of the private group, 303 Ski, who helped structure the bond deal -- and who Nederland will be indebted to after the purchase is finalized.One small note: this episode of BVHz was recorded and published before the Nederland Board of Trustees Nov. 5 meeting, which provided an update and opportunity for public comment on the potential deal. For a complete update, you can read Chris Kelley's story in the Nov. 13 issue of The Mountain-Ear. Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below!If you want to be involved in the podcast or paper, contact our editor at info@themountainear.com and/or our podcast host at media@themountainear.com! Head to our website for all of the latest news from peak to peak! SUBSCRIBE ONLINE and use the coupon code PODCAST for A 10% DISCOUNT for ALL NEW SUBSCRIBERS! Submit local events to promote them in the paper and on our website! Find us on Facebook @mtnear and Instagram @mtn.ear! Listen and watch on YouTube today! Share this podcast around by scrolling to the bottom of our website home page or by heading to our main hub on Buzzsprout!Thank you for listening!

This week Steve Post and Ashley Stremme are join by Tyler Courtney. Sunshine talks about his recovery since his incident at Eldora, working with Flo Racing, wedding plans and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For this episode we are joined by Adrian Tetreault. Driver of the Baker River Racing #52x open 305 winged sprint car in the Memphis area!Discussed:Early days in Connecticut and some 24 hour endurance racing. East coast to Memphis. Snow ❄️Lebanon Valley Speedway racing and concessions

Take 20% off an annual Storm subscription through 10/22/2025 to receive 100% of the newsletter's content. Thank you for your support of independent ski journalism.WhoPhill Gross, owner, and Mike Solimano, CEO of Killington and Pico, VermontRecorded onJuly 10, 2025About KillingtonClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Phill Gross and teamLocated in: Killington, VermontYear founded: 1958Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass: 5 or 7 combined days with PicoReciprocal partners: Pico access is included on all Killington passesClosest neighboring ski areas: Pico (:12), Saskadena Six (:39), Okemo (:40), Quechee (:44), Ascutney (:55), Storrs (:59), Harrington Hill (:59), Magic (1:00), Whaleback (1:02), Sugarbush (1:04), Bromley (1:04), Middlebury Snowbowl (1:08), Arrowhead (1:10), Mad River Glen (1:11)Base elevation: 1,165 feet at Skyeship BaseSummit elevation: 4,142 feet at top of K-1 gondola (hike-to summit of Killington Peak at 4,241 feet)Vertical drop: 2,977 feet lift-served, 3,076 hike-toSkiable Acres: 1,509Average annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: 155 (43% advanced/expert, 40% intermediate, 17% beginner)Lift count: 20 (2 gondolas, 2 six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 5 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples, 1 double, 1 platter, 3 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Killington's lift fleet; Killington plans to replace the Snowdon triple with a fixed-grip quad for the 2026-27 ski season)History: from New England Ski HistoryAbout PicoClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Phill Gross and teamLocated in: Mendon, VermontYear founded: 1934Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass: 5 or 7 combined days with KillingtonReciprocal partners: Pico access is included on all Killington passes; four days Killington access included on Pico K.A. PassClosest neighboring ski areas: Killington (:12), Saskadena Six (:38), Okemo (:38), Quechee (:42), Ascutney (:53), Storrs (:57), Harrington Hill (:55), Magic (:58), Whaleback (1:00), Sugarbush (1:01), Bromley (1:00), Middlebury Snowbowl (1:01), Mad River Glen (1:07), Arrowhead (1:09)Base elevation: 2,000 feetSummit elevation: 3,967 feetVertical drop: 1,967 feetSkiable Acres: 468Average annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: 58 (36% advanced/expert, 46% intermediate, 18% beginner)Lift count: 7 (2 high-speed quads, 2 triples, 1 doubles, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Pico's lift fleet)History: from New England Ski HistoryWhy I interviewed themThe longest-tenured non-government ski area operator in America, as far as I know, is the Seeholzer family, owner-operators of Beaver Mountain, Utah since 1939. Third-generation owner Travis Seeholzer came on the pod a few years back to trace the eight-decade arc from this dude flexing 10-foot-long kamikaze boards to the present:Just about every ski area in America was hacked out of the wilderness by Some Guy Who Looked Like That. Dave McCoy at Mammoth or Ernie Blake at Taos or Everett Kircher at Boyne Mountain, swarthy, willful fellows who flew airplanes and erected rudimentary chairlifts in impossible places and hammered together their own baselodges. Over decades they chiseled these mountains into their personal Rushmores, a life's work, a human soul knotted to nature in a built place that would endure for generations.It's possible that they all imagined their family name governing those generations. In the remarkable case of Boyne, they still do. But the Kirchers and the Seeholzers are ski-world exceptions. Successive generations are often uninterested in the chore of legacy building. Or they try and say wow this is expensive. Or bad weather leads to bad financial choices by our cigar-smoking, backhoe-driving, machete-wielding founder and his sons and daughters never get their chance. The ski area's deed shuffles into the portfolio of a Colorado Skico and McCoy fades a little each year and at some point Mammoth is just another ski area owned by Alterra Mountain Company.It's tempting to sentimentalize the past, to lament skiing's macro-transition from gritty network of founder-kingpin fifes to set of corporate brands, to conclude that “this generation” just doesn't have the tenacity of a Blake or a McCoy. But the America where a fellow could turn up with a dump truck and a chainsaw and flatten raw forest into a for-profit business with minimal protest is gone. Every part of the ski ecosystem is more regulated, complicated, and expensive than it's ever been. The appeal of running such a machine - and the skillset necessary to do so - is entirely different from that of sculpting your own personal snow Narnia from scratch. We will always have family-owned ski areas (we still have hundreds), and an occasional modern founder-disruptor like Mount Bohemia's Lonie Glieberman will materialize like a new X-man. But ski conglomerates have probably always been inevitable, and are probably largely the industry's future. They are best suited, in most cases, to manage, finance, and maintain the vast machinery of our largest ski centers (and also to create a ski landscape in which not all ski area operators are Some Guy Who Looked Like That).Killington demonstrates this arc from rambunctious founder to corporate vassal as well as any mountain in the country. Founded in 1958 by the wily and wild Pres Smith, the ski area's parent company, Sherburne Corp., bought Sunday River, Maine in 1973 and Mount Snow, Vermont in 1977. The two Vermont mountains became S-K-I in 1984, bought five more ski areas, and merged with four-resort LBO in 1996 to become the titanic American Skiing Company. Unfortunately ASC turned out to be skiing's Titanic, and one of the company's last acts before dissolution was to sell Killington and Pico to Utah-based Powdr in 2007.The Beast had been tamed, at least on paper. Corporate ownership of some sort felt as stapled to the mountain as Killington's 3,000 snowguns. And mostly, well, it didn't matter. Other than Powdr's disastrous attempts to shorten the resort's famously long seasons, Killington never lost its feisty edge. Over the decades the ski area modernized, masterplanned, and shed skier volume while increasing its viability as a business. Modern Killington wasn't the kingdom of a charismatic and ever-present founder, but it was a pretty good ski area.And then, suddenly, shockingly, Powdr sold both Killington and Pico last August. And they didn't sell the ski areas to Vail or Alterra or Boyne or to anyone who owned any ski areas at all. Instead, a group of local investors - led by Phill Gross and Michael Ferri, longtime Killington homeowners who ran a variety of non-ski-related businesses - bought the mountains. After 51 years as part of a multi-mountain ownership group, Killington (its relationship to neighboring Pico notwithstanding), was once again independent.It was all so improbable. Out-of-state operators had purchased five of Vermont's large ski areas in recent years: Colorado-based Vail Resorts bought Stowe in 2017, Okemo in 2018, and Mount Snow in 2019; Denver-based Alterra claimed Sugarbush in 2019; and Utah-based Pacific Group Resorts added Jay Peak to their small portfolio in 2022. Very few ski areas have ever entered the corporate matrix and re-emerged as independents. Grand Targhee, Wyoming; Waterville Valley, New Hampshire; and Mountain Creek, New Jersey (technically owned by multimountain operator Snow Partners) are exceptions spun off from larger companies. But mostly, once a larger entity absorbed a ski area, it stays locked in the multimountain universe forever.So what would this mean? For the largest and busiest mountain in the eastern United States to be independent? Did this, along with Powdr's intentions to sell Mount Bachelor (since rescinded), Eldora (sale in process), and Silver Star (no update), mark a reversal in the consolidation trend that had gathered 30 percent of America's ski areas under the umbrella of a multi-mountain operator? Did Killington's group of wealthy-but-not-Bezos-wealthy investors set an alternate blueprint for large-mountain ownership, especially when considered alongside the sale of Jackson Hole to a similar group the year before? Had the Ikon Pass – that harbinger of mass-market pass domination that had forced the we-better-join-them sales of Crystal Mountain, Washington and Sugarbush – inadvertently become a reliable revenue pipeline that made independence more viable? And would Killington, well-managed and constantly improving, backslide under cowboy owners who want to Q-Burke the place in their image?We're a year in now, and we have some clarity on these questions, along with two new chairlifts (Superstar this year, Snowdon next), 1,000 new snowguns, a revitalized Skyeship Gondola, and progressing plans on the East's first true ski village. Locals seem happy, management seems happy, the owners seem happy. Easy enough, Gross points out in our interview, when winter hits deep like the last one did. But can we keep the party going indefinitely? It was time for a check-in.What we talked aboutA strong first winter under independent ownership; what spring skiing off Canyon lift told us about the importance of Superstar; “it's an incredibly complex operation”; letting the smart people do their jobs; Killington's surprise spin-off from a multi-mountain operator; “our job is to keep the honeymoon going”; Superstar's six-pack upgrade; why six-packs are probably Killington's lift-upgrade future; why Pico is demolishing the Bonanza lift for a covered carpet; why Superstar won't have bubbles; where bubbles might make sense in a future lift; why ski areas can no longer run snowmaking under newly constructed chairlifts; why Superstar is a Doppelmayr machine after Killington installed a brand-new Leitner-Poma six at Snowdon in 2018; long- and short-term Superstar impacts to Killington's long season; long-term thoughts around early-season walkway access to North Ridge; Skyeship Gondola upgrades, including $5 million in new cabins; what 1,000 new snowguns means in practice; why Killington sold the Wobbly Barn; considering Killington as a business and investment; how Killington is a different financial beast from other Vermont ski areas; how close Killington was to going unlimited on Ikon Pass; Phill's journey to buying Killington; Devil's Fiddle and why sometimes things that don't make sense financially make sense anyway; “we want to own this for generations to come”; a village layout and timeline update – “we want to make sure that this is something that's additive to the ski experience” even if you don't own within it; “Great Gulf wants this [village] to be competitive for the western resorts”; “we don't want to change what Pico is”; how piping water over from Killington has reinvigorated and stabilized Pico; why Killington and Pico remained on Ikon Pass post-sale and probably will for the foreseeable future; is Ikon helping big ski areas stay independent?; Killington's steady rise in lift ticket prices; future lift upgrades and why the Snowdon Triple is next up for a replacement.What I got wrong* File “opinionation” under LOL I'm Dumb Talking Is Hard* I said that former Killington owner Powdr had “just sold” Eldora, but that's not accurate: in July, the town of Nederland, Colorado, announced their intent to purchase the ski area. The sales process is ongoing.Podcast NotesOn previous Killington podsOn Gross' purchase of Killington and PicoOn ANSI chairlift standardsWe get a bit in the weeds with a reference to “ANSI standards” for chairlifts. ANSI is the American National Standards Institute, a nonprofit organization that sets voluntary but widely adopted standards for everything from office furniture to electrical systems to safety signage in the United States. The ANSI standard for lifts, according to a blog post describing the code's 2022 update, is “developed by the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), [and] establishes standard requirements for the design, manufacture, construction, operation, and maintenance of passenger ropeways.” On Killington's long seasonsKillington often opens in October (though it has not done so since 2018), and closes in June (three straight years before a deliberately truncated 2024-25 season to begin demolition of the Superstar chair). List of Killington open and close dates since 1987-88.On Win Smith and Killington and SugarbushOn Killington's villageThe East needs more of this:On Killington's peak lift ticket pricesPer New England Ski History:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

For this episode we are joined by Nolan Kiefer. He is the driver of the #97 Mini- Sprint and 305 IMCA RaceSaver sprint car out of Jasper, Indiana. Discussed:Crown Vic's, D2 Midgets to start.Recently acquiring a 305 RaceSaver sprint car. His plans for that? How has the 2025 season gone for him?Getting a handle on Tri-State Speedway.Success in MMSA A couple of his favorite establishments in Dubois County - Snaps and SlammersChicken gizzards, hearts, or livers?What are some of his beverages of choice?Kool-aid mouth guard?His sponsors who make it all possible.(Ends around 40:00 minute mark)Stoking the FireWeekend recap from the fellas!Ripper let go as crew chief at SMRRIP - Bobby Allen and Steve PhillipsWest Virginia Motor Speedway reconfiguration and a successful turnout on Saturday 10/11.Western World entry list for USAC hits 41 On deck for the week: WoO @ LPS, LaSalle, High Limit @ Texas Motor Speedway for their finale, DTWC at Eldora, USAC @ Dodge City & Route 66, Trophy Cup @ Tulare (On Flo this year!)Social media of the week: A pot get stirred, Justyn Cox takes an airplane ride, another XR event cancelled "THE DRAFT"(Ends around 1:00:00 mark)Feature FinishWoO sprint cars @ New Egypt and Lincoln (PA)WoO @ Boot Hill for the Bayou ClassicHigh Limit @ Lakeside for the Heartland of America ShowdownUSAC National sprint cars @ Lawrenceburg Speedway for the Fall Nationals Super Dirt Week 53Blue/Gray 100Kokomo Klash 19Antioch Speedway - Open Wheel Octoberfest | NARC & BRCA midgetsBudweiser Nationals @ Bakersfield/KernKramer Cup @ Selinsgrove SpeedwayRon Milton Race of Champions @ Jacksonville SpeedwayWVMS Atomic Speedway - Night of Champions (Ends around 1:09:00 minute mark)The SmokeRJ's bar chicken wingsKrispy Kreme donuts! Birria RamenPenne Pasta5 Guys BurgersRed Lobster b-day mealBunner's hospital food reviewUna Pizza - Chicago loaded meat pizzaA reunion at LJS for us bothDiamonds DinerChuck-eye steaksIHOP for the first time in 15+ yearsTriple smash

Chad Daniels is a stand-up comedian currently on his Nothing To Fix tour with upcoming dates in San Diego, Chicago, and Madison. Find tickets at chaddaniels.com and follow him on Instagram @thatchaddaniels.Chase Rice is a country music singer with a brand-new album, Eldora, available now. Follow him on Instagram @chaserice and X @ChaseRiceMusic.In the news: Gavin Newsom faces backlash after calling ICE a “private domestic army” just hours before a fatal Dallas shooting at an ICE facility. Roseanne Barr slams ABC for a “double standard” in Jimmy Kimmel's return, and Kamala Harris sparks debate with her comments on trans student athletes and criticism of a Trump campaign ad.FOR MORE WITH CHAD DANIELS:TOUR: Nothing To FixSept 26-27 - American Comedy Co - San Diego, CASept 30 - Oct 1 - Zanies Comedy Club - Chicago, ILOct 2-4 - Comedy On State-WI - Madison, WIWEBSITE: chaddaniels.comINSTA: @thatchaddanielsFOR MORE WITH CHASE RICE:NEW ALBUM: EldoraAvailable nowINSTAGRAM: @chasericeTIKTOK: @chasericemusicFOR MORE WITH ELISHA KRAUSS: INSTAGRAM: @elishakraussWEBSITE: elishakrauss.com JOURNAL: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/elisha-krauss/LIVE SHOWS: October 2-4 - Las Vegas, NVOctober 9 - New York, NYOctober 29 - Burbank, CAThank you for supporting our sponsors:BetOnlinehomes.comoreillyauto.com/adamPluto.tvSELECTQUOTE.COM/CAROLLASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This Tuesday, Sam Mackey sits down with country star and avid hunter Chase Rice. After walking away from a major label deal, Chase went fully independent—trading commercial safety for truth, grit, and heart. His new album Eldora, written in the quiet of Colorado's mountains, marks a milestone in a career now defined by authenticity. Don't miss this conversation. Follow Outsider: https://www.instagram.com/outsiderig/ Shop Outsider: https://www.outsider.com/ Follow Jay: https://www.instagram.com/ifjayhadinstagram/ Follow Sam: https://www.instagram.com/sammackey615/ Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WeAreOutsider/podcasts Episode sponsored by: Montana Dog Food Company: https://montanadogfoodco.com/ Alpen Optics: https://alpenoptics.com/ Follow Chase Rice: https://www.instagram.com/chaserice/-- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we recap the the 55th World 100, where Ricky Thornton Jr put his name in the record books by breaking through for his first Eldora crown jewel! We also talk about Duane wrapping up the AFCS season at Attica and Fremont as well as results and other news from the dirt racing world.

Dale McDowell shines, lots of different chassis fast, and somehow Ricky Thornton Jr. was an underdog winner at Eldora. Plus another shocking Ryan Timms win, more High Limit championship movement, some sprint car driver and team notes, and a whole lot more today.

Dale McDowell shines, lots of different chassis fast, and somehow Ricky Thornton Jr. was an underdog winner at Eldora. Plus another shocking Ryan Timms win, more High Limit championship movement, some sprint car driver and team notes, and a whole lot more today.

James McFadden goes out on top, a World of Outlaws regular penalized, Roth Motorsports bringing their second sprint car out, late model drivers get laps at Eldora, and a whole lot more today.

James McFadden goes out on top, a World of Outlaws regular penalized, Roth Motorsports bringing their second sprint car out, late model drivers get laps at Eldora, and a whole lot more today.

This week we return after a week off! Duane tells us about his trips to Millstream Speedway and Oakshade Raceway. We talk about Iron Man at Pevely, The 360 Nationals at Knoxville and Eldora's family fun night with a last corner pass! We also talk about the unfortunate events lately that have injured drivers.

Our feature guest this week is Josh Peltz, VP of the West for Zero Networks. News from Eldora, COOP Rideshare, Red Canary, Optiv, zvelo and a lot more! Come join us on the Colorado = Security Slack channel to meet old and new friends. Sign up for our mailing list on the main site to receive weekly updates - https://www.colorado-security.com/. If you have any questions or comments, or any organizations or events we should highlight, contact Alex and Robb at info@colorado-security.com This week's news: New Colorado area code rolls out for dozens of counties Nederland to buy Eldora Mountain Resort with support of ski industry heavy hitters Time to buy? Denver housing market hits highest inventory in 14 years Colorado Driver-Owned Ridershare App Relaunches With Improved Service, Same Benefits for Drivers More shady QR codes found on Denver parking meters Colorado among states to pass privacy laws protecting brain data collected by devices Trump Administration's AI Action Plan and New Executive Orders Offer Strategic Opportunities and Legal Risks for Private Businesses Understanding the threat landscape for MCP and AI workflows Cybersecurity Leadership in 2025: The Strategic Role of CISOs in an AI-Driven Era Addressing Legacy Phishing Detection Failure Upcoming Events: Check out the full calendar ISSA Denver - August Chapter Meeting - 8/13 Colorado = Security Picnic - 8/23 ISSA Pikes Peak - Chapter Meeting - 8/27 ISSA Denver - AI/ML SIG: Agentic AI - 8/27 ISSA Denver - Women in Cyber: From Crisis Response to Boardroom: Becoming a CISO the Unconventional Way - 9/3 View our events page for a full list of upcoming events * Thanks to CJ Adams for our intro and exit! If you need any voiceover work, you can contact him here at carrrladams@gmail.com. Check out his other voice work here. * Intro and exit song: "The Language of Blame" by The Agrarians is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Today we'll dive into the 360 Nationals field, including subs and some drivers returning after injuries. Plus we got a close up look at Tyler Courtney's crashed car from Eldora and we'll point out a few things there. Those things and a lot more today.

Today we'll dive into the 360 Nationals field, including subs and some drivers returning after injuries. Plus we got a close up look at Tyler Courtney's crashed car from Eldora and we'll point out a few things there. Those things and a lot more today.

Both Dan's stories seem to present exceptionally strong evidence for life after death. The first comes from the state of Illinois and is the exceptionally strange late 19th century tale of the Watseka Wonder.  Then his second story takes us back to the early 18th century to Canterbury, England. Did famed English author Daniel Defoe write  the first based-on-a-true story ghost encounter claim? Lynze begins the back half of the show with a creepy encounter with a shadowy figure inside of the mind of someone playing a game. Then, we are off to New Orleans where we hear about two fans strange stay in a French Quarter hotel. Monthly Patreon Donation: This months charitable donation is going to Ignite Adaptive Sports. Ignite Adaptive Sports mission is to provide snow sport opportunities to people with disabilities. They believe that everyone should be able to enjoy winter sports, regardless of skill or ability level. We are a volunteer based organization that provide snow sport lessons to athletes with disabilities out of Eldora Mountain Resort.  In 2024, 320 volunteers gave 22,390 hours of their time to provide 1,690 snowsports lessons to 459 athletes. Ignite Adaptive Sports provides sit skiing lessons, cross country and snowshoe lessons, downhill skiing, snowboarding and ski biking lessons. They rely on grants, donations, an annual fundraising gala, and our host mountain Eldora to be able to provide this much needed service. Dan and Lynze had the pleasure of meeting Sam Brady who works with this great non profit. Sam shared with us that Ignite Adaptive Sports is run by almost all volunteers with only 2 paid staff members. They typically receive funding for disabled veterans to be able to receive lessons  at no cost to them. However, this year,  due to budget cuts in the DEI space, it's not looking good. Sam asked if we'd be interested in supporting this cause and supporting disabled people, especially disabled veterans. We sent $11,600 over to them and put another $1250 into the scholarship fund! If you'd like to volunteer your time or make an additional donation, please go to https://igniteadaptivesports.org/Want to be a Patron? Get episodes AD-FREE, listen and watch before they are released to anyone else, bonus episodes, a 20% merch discount, additional content, and more! Learn more by visiting: https://www.patreon.com/scaredtodeathpodcast.Send stories to mystory@scaredtodeathpodcast.comSend everything else to info@scaredtodeathpodcast.comPlease rate, review, and subscribe anywhere you listen.Thank you for listening!Follow the show on social media: @scaredtodeathpodcast on Facebook and IG and TTWebsite: https://www.badmagicproductions.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scaredtodeathpodcastInstagram: https://bit.ly/2miPLf5Mailing Address:Scared to Deathc/o Timesuck PodcastPO Box 3891Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816Opening Sumerian protection spell (adapted):"Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no home… or one that lieth dead in the desert… or a ghost unburied… or a demon or a ghoul… Whatever thou be until thou art removed… thou shalt find here no water to drink… Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own… Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence, breakthrough thou not… we are protected though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may feel SCARED TO DEATH." Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Scared to Death ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

A late night, emotional win at Fairbury for Brian Shirley. Aaron Reutzel will be out for a while after that Eldora injury, and I've got some insight on who could fill in. We'll also talk weekend dirt racing results, and a wild scene at Farmington Empire as two B-Mod drivers throw hands for $50.

A late night, emotional win at Fairbury for Brian Shirley. Aaron Reutzel will be out for a while after that Eldora injury, and I've got some insight on who could fill in. We'll also talk weekend dirt racing results, and a wild scene at Farmington Empire as two B-Mod drivers throw hands for $50.

This week we're back with our wrap up from a huge week of sprint car racing in Ohio! We talk about the racing, the injuries and the drama from the week. We also talk about the Summer Nationals in our area and the Chase Johnson incident at Sonoma.

Today, Sun outdoors reporter Jason Blevins breaks down the agreement for the tiny town of Nederland to buy nearby Eldora Mountain Resort in Boulder County, and what's the vibe among the locals.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a crazy last few days in dirt racing, and we'll begin to unravel all of it today. We're talking Anthony Macri's Kings Royal score, an ugly week at Eldora, David Gravel vs. Kyle Larson, and Bob Gardner completely losing his mind in a heat race at Farmer City.

It's been a crazy last few days in dirt racing, and we'll begin to unravel all of it today. We're talking Anthony Macri's Kings Royal score, an ugly week at Eldora, David Gravel vs. Kyle Larson, and Bob Gardner completely losing his mind in a heat race at Farmer City.

Who's up for a little bonus Daily show action? Today we'll dive into the Gio Scelzi situation and what certainly looks like it could be the kickoff to a busy summer of musical sprint car chairs. We'll also talk High Limit at Eldora, Thursday winners, and more.

Who's up for a little bonus Daily show action? Today we'll dive into the Gio Scelzi situation and what certainly looks like it could be the kickoff to a busy summer of musical sprint car chairs. We'll also talk High Limit at Eldora, Thursday winners, and more.

It was a wild night at Eldora, with some big crashes and some wild racing, but a lot of the talk is centered on the High Limit disqualification of World of Outlaws championship leader David Gravel. We'll get into all of it today and more.

It was a wild night at Eldora, with some big crashes and some wild racing, but a lot of the talk is centered on the High Limit disqualification of World of Outlaws championship leader David Gravel. We'll get into all of it today and more.

Eldora Speedway owner, Tony Stewart Racing owner, and 2025 NHRA Top Fuel points leader Tony Stewart joins Steve Post and Erin Evernham this week. They discuss being a dad, this weekends Kings Royal, owning Eldora and the improvements made to the track, the ability to bring the 2 national touring sprint car series together and much much more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today on the show we're talking tires and pit strategy at Eldora, Mike Marlar really hates inverts, plus Sunday dirt racing results and more.

Today on the show we're talking tires and pit strategy at Eldora, Mike Marlar really hates inverts, plus Sunday dirt racing results and more.