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To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoTrent Poole, Vice President and General Manager of Hunter Mountain, New YorkRecorded onMarch 19, 2025About Hunter MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Hunter, New YorkYear founded: 1959Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass – unlimited access* Epic Northeast Value Pass – unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Epic Northeast Midweek Pass – unlimited access with holiday and midweek blackouts* Epic Day Pass – All Resorts, 32 Resorts tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Windham (:16), Belleayre (:35), Plattekill (:49)Base elevation: 1,600 feetSummit elevation: 3,200 feetVertical drop: 1,600 feetSkiable acres: 320Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 67 (25% beginner, 30% intermediate, 45% advanced)Lift count: 13 (3 six-packs, 1 high-speed quad, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 2 doubles, 1 platter, 3 carpets)Why I interviewed himSki areas are like political issues. We all feel as though we need to have an opinion on them. This tends to be less a considered position than an adjective. Tariffs are _______. Killington is _______. It's a bullet to shoot when needed. Most of us aren't very good shots.Hunter tends to draw a particularly colorful basket of adjectives: crowded, crazy, frantic, dangerous, icy, frozen, confusing, wild. Hunter, to the weekend visitor, appears to be teetering at all times on the brink of collapse. So many skiers on the lifts, so many skiers in the liftlines, so many skiers on the trails, so many skiers in the parking lots, so many skiers in the lodge pounding shots and pints. Whether Hunter is a ski area with a bar attached or a bar with a ski area attached is debatable. The lodge stretches on and on and up and down in disorienting and disconnected wings, a Winchester Mansion of the mountains, stapled together over eons to foil the alien hordes (New Yorkers). The trails run in a splintered, counterintuitive maze, an impossible puzzle for the uninitiated. Lifts fly all over, 13 total, of all makes and sizes and vintage, but often it feels as though there is only one lift and that lift is the Kaatskill Flyer, an overwhelmed top-to-bottom six-pack that replaced an overwhelmed top-to-bottom high-speed quad on a line that feels as though it would be overwhelmed with a high-speed 85-pack. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of ski area you would expect to find two hours north of a 20-million-person megacity world famous for its blunt, abrasive, and bare-knuckled residents.That description of Hunter is accurate enough, but incomplete. Yes, skiing there can feel like riding a swinging wrecking ball through a tenement building. And I would probably suggest that as a family activity before I would recommend Hunter on, say, MLK Saturday. But Hunter is also a glorious hunk of ski history, a last-man-standing of the once-skiing-flush Catskills, a nature-bending prototype of a ski mountain built in a place that lacks both consistent natural snow and fall lines to ski on. It may be a corporate cog now, but the Hunter hammered into the mountains over nearly six decades was the dream and domain of the Slutsky family, many of whom still work for the ski area. And Hunter, on a midweek, when all those fast lifts are 10 times more capacity than you need, can be a dream. Fast up, fast down. And once you learn the trail network, the place unfolds like a picnic blanket: easy, comfortable, versatile, filled with delicious options (if occasionally covered with ants).There's no one good way to describe Hunter Mountain. It's different every day. All ski areas are different every day, but Hunter is, arguably, more more different along the spectrum of its extremes than just about any other ski area anywhere. You won't get it on your first visit. You will show up on the wrong day, at the wrong time, in the wrong parking lot, and the whole thing will feel like playing lasertag with hyenas. Alien hyenas. Who will for some reason all be wearing Jets jerseys. But if you push through for that second visit, you'll start to get it. Maybe. I promise. And you'll understand why one-adjective Hunter Mountain descriptions are about as useful as the average citizen's take on NATO.What we talked aboutSixty-five years of Hunter; a nice cold winter at last; big snowmaking upgrades; snowmaking on Annapurna and Westway; the Otis and Broadway lift upgrades; Broadway ripple effects on the F and Kaatskill Flyer lifts; supervising the installation of seven new lifts at three Vail Resorts over a two-year period; better liftline management; moving away from lettered lift names; what Otis means for H lift; whether the Hunter East mountaintop Poma could ever spin again; how much of Otis is re-used from the old Broadway lift; ski Ohio; landing at Vail Resorts pre-Epic Pass and watching the pass materialize and grow; taking over for a GM who had worked at Hunter for 44 years; understanding and appreciating Hunter madness; Hunter locals mixed with Vail Resorts; Hunter North and the potential for an additional base area; disappearing trailmap glades; expansion potential; a better ski connection to Hunter East; and Epic Local as Hunter's season pass.Questions I wish I'd askedI'd wanted to ask Poole about the legacy of the Slutzky family, given their founding role at Hunter. We just didn't have time. New York Ski Blog has a nice historical overview.I actually did ask Poole about D lift, the onetime triple-now-double parallel to Kaatskill Flyer, but we cut that segment in edit. A summary: the lift didn't run at all this past season, and Poole told me that, “we're keeping our options open,” when I asked him if D lift was a good candidate to be removed at some near-future point.Why now was a good time for this interviewThe better question is probably why I waited five-and-a-half years to feature the leader of the most prominent ski area in New York City's orbit on the podcast. Hunter was, after all, the first mountain I hit after moving to the city in 2002. But who does and does not appear on the podcast is grounded in timing more than anything. Vail announced its acquisition of Hunter parent company Peak Resorts just a couple of months before I launched The Storm, in 2019. No one, including me, really likes doing podcast interviews during transitions, which can be filled with optimism and energy, but also uncertainty and instability. The Covid asteroid then transformed what should have been a one-year transition period into more like a three-year transition period, which was followed by a leadership change at Hunter.But we're finally here. And, as it turns out, this was a pretty good time to arrive. Part of the perpetual Hunter mess tied back to the problem I alluded to above: the six-pack-Kaatskill-Flyer-as-alpha-lift muted the impact of the lesser contraptions around it. By dropping a second superlift right next door, Vail appears to have finally solved the problem of the Flyer's ever-exploding liftline.That's one part of the story, and the most obvious. But the snowmaking upgrades on key trails signal Hunter's intent to reclaim its trophy as Snow God of the New York Thruway. And the shuffling of lifts on Hunter East reconfigured the ski area's novice terrain into a more logical progression (true green-circle skiers, however, will be better off at nearby Belleayre, where the Lightning Quad serves an incredible pod of long and winding beginner runs).These 2024 improvements build on considerable upgrades from the Peak and Slutzky eras, including the 2018 Hunter North expansion and the massive learning center at Hunter East. If Hunter is to remain a cheap and accessible Epic Pass fishing net to funnel New Yorkers north to Stowe and west to Park City, even as neighboring Windham tilts ever more restrictive and expensive, then Vail is going to have to be creative and aggressive in how the mountain manages all those skiers. These upgrades are a promising start.Why you should ski Hunter MountainThink of a thing that is a version of a familiar thing but hits you like a completely different thing altogether. Like pine trees and palm trees are both trees, but when I first encountered the latter at age 19, they didn't feel like trees at all, but like someone's dream of a tree who'd had one described to them but had never actually seen one. Or horses and dolphins: both animals, right? But one you can ride like a little vehicle, and the other supposedly breathes air but lives beneath the sea plotting our extinction in a secret indecipherable language. Or New York-style pizza versus Domino's, which, as Midwest stock, I prefer, but which my locally born wife can only describe as “not pizza.”This is something like the experience you will have at Hunter Mountain if you show up knowing a good lot about ski areas, but not much about this ski area. Because if I had to make a list of ski areas similar to Hunter, it would include “that Gwar concert I attended at Harpos in Detroit when I was 18” and “a high-tide rescue scene in a lifeguard movie.” And then I would run out of ideas. Because there is no ski area anywhere remotely like Hunter Mountain.I mean that as spectacle, as a way to witness New York City's id manifest into corporeal form. Your Hunter Mountain Bingo card will include “Guy straightlining Racer's Edge with unzipped Starter jacket and backward baseball cap” and “Dude rocking short-sleeves in 15-degree weather.” The vibe is atomic and combustible, slightly intimidating but also riotously fun, like some snowy Woodstock:And then there's the skiing. I have never skied terrain like Hunter's. The trails swoop and dive and wheel around endless curves, as though carved into the Tower of Babel, an amazing amount of terrain slammed into an area that looks and feels constrained, like a bound haybale that, twine cut, explodes across your yard. Trails crisscross and split and dig around blind corners. None of it feels logical, but it all comes together somehow. Before the advent of Google Maps, I could not plot an accurate mental picture of how Hunter East, West, North, and whatever the hell they call the front part sat in relation to one another and formed a coherent single entity.I don't always like being at Hunter. And yet I've skied there more than I've skied just about anywhere. And not just because it's close. It's certainly not cheap, and the road in from the Thruway is a real pain in the ass. But they reliably spin the lifts from November to April, and fast lifts on respectable vert can add up quick. And the upside of crazy? Everyone is welcome.Podcast NotesOn Hunter's lift upgradesHunter orchestrated a massive offseason lift upgrade last year, moving the old Broadway (B) lift over to Hunter East, where the mountain demolished a 1968 Hall Double named “E,” and planted its third six-pack on a longer Broadway line. Check the old lines versus the new ones:On six-packs in New York StateNew York is home to more ski areas than any other state, but only eight of them run high-speed lifts, and only three host six-packs: Holiday Valley has one, Windham, next door to Hunter, has another, and Hunter owns the other three.On five new lifts at Jack Frost Big BoulderPart of Vail Resorts' massive 2022 lift upgrades was to replace eight old chairlifts at Jack Frost and Big Boulder with five modern fixed-grip quads.At Jack Frost, Paradise replaced the E and F doubles; Tobyhanna replaced the B and C triples; and Pocono replaced the E and F doubles:Over at Big Boulder, the Merry Widow I and II double-doubles made way for the Harmony quad. Vail also demolished the parallel Black Forest double, which had not run in a number of years. Blue Heron replaced an area once served by the Little Boulder double and Edelweiss Triple – check the side-by-side with Big Boulder's 2008 trailmap:Standing up so many lifts in such a short time is rare, but we do have other examples:* In 1998, Intrawest tore down up to a dozen legacy lifts and replaced them with five new ones: two high-speed quads, two fixed-grip quads, and the Cabriolet bucket lift (basically a standing gondola). A full discussion on that here.* American Skiing Company installed at least four chairlifts at Sugarbush in the summer of 1995, including the Slide Brook Express, a two-mile-long lift connection between its two mountains. More here.* Powder Mountain installed four chairlifts last summer.* Deer Valley built five chairlifts last summer, including a bubble six-pack, and is constructing eight more lifts this year.On Mad River Mountain, OhioMad River is about as prototypical a Midwest ski area as you can imagine: 300 vertical feet, 144 acres, 36 inches of average annual snowfall, and an amazing (for that size) nine ski lifts shooting all over the place:On Vail Resorts' acquisition timelineHunter is one of 17 U.S. ski areas that Vail purchased as part of its 2019 acquisition of Peak Resorts.On Hunter's 2018 expansionWhen Peak opened the Hunter West expansion for the 2018-19 ski season, a number of new glades appeared on the map:Most of those glades disappeared from the map. Why? We discuss.On Epic Pass accessHunter sits on the same unlimited Epic Local Pass tier as Okemo, Mount Snow, Breckenridge, Keystone, Crested Butte, and Stevens Pass. Here's an Epic Pass overview:You can also ski Hunter on the uber-cheap 32 Resorts version of the Epic Day Pass:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
For a limited time, upgrade to ‘The Storm's' paid tier for $5 per month or $55 per year. You'll also receive a free year of Slopes Premium, a $29.99 value - valid for annual subscriptions only. Monthly subscriptions do not qualify for free Slopes promotion. Valid for new subscriptions only.WhoIain Martin, Host of The Ski PodcastRecorded onJanuary 30, 2025About The Ski PodcastFrom the show's website:Want to [know] more about the world of skiing? The Ski Podcast is a UK-based podcast hosted by Iain Martin.With different guests every episode, we cover all aspects of skiing and snowboarding from resorts to racing, Ski Sunday to slush.In 2021, we were voted ‘Best Wintersports Podcast‘ in the Sports Podcast Awards. In 2023, we were shortlisted as ‘Best Broadcast Programme' in the Travel Media Awards.Why I interviewed himWe did a swap. Iain hosted me on his show in January (I also hosted Iain in January, but since The Storm sometimes moves at the pace of mammal gestation, here we are at the end of March; Martin published our episode the day after we recorded it).But that's OK (according to me), because our conversation is evergreen. Martin is embedded in EuroSki the same way that I cycle around U.S. AmeriSki. That we wander from similarly improbable non-ski outposts – Brighton, England and NYC – is a funny coincidence. But what interested me most about a potential podcast conversation is the Encyclopedia EuroSkiTannica stored in Martin's brain.I don't understand skiing in Europe. It is too big, too rambling, too interconnected, too above-treeline, too transit-oriented, too affordable, too absent the Brobot ‘tude that poisons so much of the American ski experience. The fact that some French idiot is facing potential jail time for launching a snowball into a random grandfather's skull (filming the act and posting it on TikTok, of course) only underscores my point: in America, we would cancel the grandfather for not respecting the struggle so obvious in the boy's act of disobedience. In a weird twist for a ski writer, I am much more familiar with summer Europe than winter Europe. I've skied the continent a couple of times, but warm-weather cross-continental EuroTreks by train and by car have occupied months of my life. When I try to understand EuroSki, my brain short-circuits. I tease the Euros because each European ski area seems to contain between two and 27 distinct ski areas, because the trail markings are the wrong color, because they speak in the strange code of the “km” and “cm” - but I'm really making fun of myself for Not Getting It. Martin gets it. And he good-naturedly walks me through a series of questions that follow this same basic pattern: “In America, we charge $109 for a hamburger that tastes like it's been pulled out of a shipping container that went overboard in 1944. But I hear you have good and cheap food in Europe – true?” I don't mind sounding like a d*****s if the result is good information for all of us, and thankfully I achieved both of those things on this podcast.What we talked aboutThe European winter so far; how a UK-based skier moves back and forth to the Alps; easy car-free travel from the U.S. directly to Alps ski areas; is ski traffic a thing in Europe?; EuroSki 101; what does “ski area” mean in Europe; Euro snow pockets; climate change realities versus media narratives in Europe; what to make of ski areas closing around the Alps; snowmaking in Europe; comparing the Euro stereotype of the leisurely skier to reality; an aging skier population; Euro liftline queuing etiquette and how it mirrors a nation's driving culture; “the idea that you wouldn't bring the bar down is completely alien to me; I mean everybody brings the bar down on the chairlift”; why an Epic or Ikon Pass may not be your best option to ski in Europe; why lift ticket prices are so much cheaper in Europe than in the U.S.; Most consumers “are not even aware” that Vail has started purchasing Swiss resorts; ownership structure at Euro resorts; Vail to buy Verbier?; multimountain pass options in Europe; are Euros buying Epic and Ikon to ski locally or to travel to North America?; must-ski European ski areas; Euro ski-guide culture; and quirky ski areas.What I got wrongWe discussed Epic Pass' lodging requirement for Verbier, which is in effect for this winter, but which Vail removed for the 2025-26 ski season.Why now was a good time for this interviewI present to you, again, the EuroSki Chart – a list of all 26 European ski areas that have aligned themselves with a U.S.-based multi-mountain pass:The large majority of these have joined Ski NATO (a joke, not a political take Brah), in the past five years. And while purchasing a U.S. megapass is not necessary to access EuroHills in the same way it is to ski the Rockies – doing so may, in fact, be counterproductive – just the notion of having access to these Connecticut-sized ski areas via a pass that you're buying anyway is enough to get people considering a flight east for their turns.And you know what? They should. At this point, a mass abandonment of the Mountain West by the tourists that sustain it is the only thing that may drive the region to seriously reconsider the robbery-by-you-showed-up-here-all-stupid lift ticket prices, car-centric transit infrastructure, and sclerotic building policies that are making American mountain towns impossibly expensive and inconvenient to live in or to visit. In many cases, a EuroSkiTrip costs far less than an AmeriSki trip - especially if you're not the sort to buy a ski pass in March 2025 so that you can ski in February 2026. And though the flights will generally cost more, the logistics of airport-to-ski-resort-and-back generally make more sense. In Europe they have trains. In Europe those trains stop in villages where you can walk to your hotel and then walk to the lifts the next morning. In Europe you can walk up to the ticket window and trade a block of cheese for a lift ticket. In Europe they put the bar down. In Europe a sandwich, brownie, and a Coke doesn't cost $152. And while you can spend $152 on a EuroLunch, it probably means that you drank seven liters of wine and will need a sled evac to the village.“Oh so why don't you just go live there then if it's so perfect?”Shut up, Reductive Argument Bro. Everyplace is great and also sucks in its own special way. I'm just throwing around contrasts.There are plenty of things I don't like about EuroSki: the emphasis on pistes, the emphasis on trams, the often curt and indifferent employees, the “injury insurance” that would require a special session of the European Union to pay out a claim. And the lack of trees. Especially the lack of trees. But more families are opting for a week in Europe over the $25,000 Experience of a Lifetime in the American West, and I totally understand why.A quote often attributed to Winston Churchill reads, “You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives.” Unfortunately, it appears to be apocryphal. But I wish it wasn't. Because it's true. And I do think we'll eventually figure out that there is a continent-wide case study in how to retrofit our mountain towns for a more cost- and transit-accessible version of lift-served skiing. But it's gonna take a while.Podcast NotesOn U.S. ski areas opening this winter that haven't done so “in a long time”A strong snow year has allowed at least 11 U.S. ski areas to open after missing one or several winters, including:* Cloudmont, Alabama (yes I'm serious)* Pinnacle, Maine* Covington and Sault Seal, ropetows outfit in Michigan's Upper Peninsula* Norway Mountain, Michigan – resurrected by new owner after multi-year closure* Tower Mountain, a ropetow bump in Michigan's Lower Peninsula* Bear Paw, Montana* Hatley Pointe, North Carolina opened under new ownership, who took last year off to gut-renovate the hill* Warner Canyon, Oregon, an all-natural-snow, volunteer-run outfit, opened in December after a poor 2023-24 snow year.* Bellows Falls ski tow, a molehill run by the Rockingham Recreation in Vermont, opened for the first time in five years after a series of snowy weeks across New England* Lyndon Outing Club, another volunteer-run ropetow operation in Vermont, sat out last winter with low snow but opened this yearOn the “subway map” of transit-accessible Euro skiingI mean this is just incredible:The map lives on Martin's Ski Flight Free site, which encourages skiers to reduce their carbon footprints. I am not good at doing this, largely because such a notion is a fantasy in America as presently constructed.But just imagine a similar system in America. The nation is huge, of course, and we're not building a functional transcontinental passenger railroad overnight (or maybe ever). But there are several areas of regional density where such networks could, at a minimum, connect airports or city centers with destination ski areas, including:* Reno Airport (from the east), and the San Francisco Bay area (to the west) to the ring of more than a dozen Tahoe resorts (or at least stops at lake- or interstate-adjacent Sugar Bowl, Palisades, Homewood, Northstar, Mt. Rose, Diamond Peak, and Heavenly)* Denver Union Station and Denver airport to Loveland, Keystone, Breck, Copper, Vail, Beaver Creek, and - a stretch - Aspen and Steamboat, with bus connections to A-Basin, Ski Cooper, and Sunlight* SLC airport east to Snowbird, Alta, Solitude, Brighton, Park City, and Deer Valley, and north to Snowbasin and Powder Mountain* Penn Station in Manhattan up along Vermont's Green Mountain Spine: Mount Snow, Stratton, Bromley, Killington, Pico, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Bolton Valley, Stowe, Smugglers' Notch, Jay Peak, with bus connections to Magic and Middlebury Snowbowl* Boston up the I-93 corridor: Tenney, Waterville Valley, Loon, Cannon, and Bretton Woods, with a spur to Conway and Cranmore, Attitash, Wildcat, and Sunday River; bus connections to Black New Hampshire, Sunapee, Gunstock, Ragged, and Mount AbramYes, there's the train from Denver to Winter Park (and ambitions to extend the line to Steamboat), which is terrific, but placing that itsy-bitsy spur next to the EuroSystem and saying “look at our neato train” is like a toddler flexing his toy jet to the pilots as he boards a 757. And they smile and say, “Whoa there, Shooter! Now have a seat while we burn off 4,000 gallons of jet fuel accelerating this f****r to 500 miles per hour.”On the number of ski areas in EuropeI've detailed how difficult it is to itemize the 500-ish active ski areas in America, but the task is nearly incomprehensible in Europe, which has as many as eight times the number of ski areas. Here are a few estimates:* Skiresort.info counts 3,949 ski areas (as of today; the number changes daily) in Europe: list | map* Wikipedia doesn't provide a number, but it does have a very long list* Statista counts a bit more than 2,200, but their list excludes most of Eastern EuropeOn Euro non-ski media and climate change catastropheOf these countless European ski areas, a few shutter or threaten to each year. The resulting media cycle is predictable and dumb. In The Snow concisely summarizes how this pattern unfolds by analyzing coverage of the recent near loss of L'Alpe du Grand Serre, France (emphasis mine):A ski resort that few people outside its local vicinity had ever heard of was the latest to make headlines around the world a month ago as it announced it was going to cease ski operations.‘French ski resort in Alps shuts due to shortage of snow' reported The Independent, ‘Another European ski resort is closing due to lack of snow' said Time Out, The Mirror went for ”Devastation” as another European ski resort closes due to vanishing snow‘ whilst The Guardian did a deeper dive with, ‘Fears for future of ski tourism as resorts adapt to thawing snow season.' The story also appeared in dozens more publications around the world.The only problem is that the ski area in question, L'Alpe du Grand Serre, has decided it isn't closing its ski area after all, at least not this winter.Instead, after the news of the closure threat was publicised, the French government announced financial support, as did the local municipality of La Morte, and a number of major players in the ski industry. In addition, a public crowdfunding campaign raised almost €200,000, prompting the officials who made the original closure decision to reconsider. Things will now be reassessed in a year's time.There has not been the same global media coverage of the news that L'Alpe du Grand Serre isn't closing after all.It's not the first resort where money has been found to keep slopes open after widespread publicity of a closure threat. La Chapelle d'Abondance was apparently on the rocks in 2020 but will be fully open this winter and similarly Austria's Heiligenblut which was said to be at risk of permanently closure in the summer will be open as normal.Of course, ski areas do permanently close, just like any business, and climate change is making the multiple challenges that smaller, lower ski areas face, even more difficult. But in the near-term bigger problems are often things like justifying spends on essential equipment upgrades, rapidly increasing power costs and changing consumer habits that are the bigger problems right now. The latter apparently exacerbated by media stories implying that ski holidays are under severe threat by climate change.These increasingly frequent stories always have the same structure of focusing on one small ski area that's in trouble, taken from the many thousands in the Alps that few regular skiers have heard of. The stories imply (by ensuring that no context is provided), that this is a major resort and typical of many others. Last year some reports implied, again by avoiding giving any context, that a ski area in trouble that is actually close to Rome, was in the Alps.This is, of course, not to pretend that climate change does not pose an existential threat to ski holidays, but just to say that ski resorts have been closing for many decades for multiple reasons and that most of these reports do not give all the facts or paint the full picture.On no cars in ZermattIf the Little Cottonwood activists really cared about the environment in their precious canyon, they wouldn't be advocating for alternate rubber-wheeled transit up to Alta and Snowbird – they'd be demanding that the road be closed and replaced by a train or gondola or both, and that the ski resorts become a pedestrian-only enclave dotted with only as many electric vehicles as it took to manage the essential business of the towns and the ski resorts.If this sounds improbable, just look to Zermatt, which has banned gas cars for decades. Skiers arrive by train. Nearly 6,000 people live there year-round. It is amazing what humans can build when the car is considered as an accessory to life, rather than its central organizing principle.On driving in EuropeDriving in Europe is… something else. I've driven in, let's see: Iceland, Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro. That last one is the scariest but they're all a little scary. Drivers' speeds seem to be limited by nothing other than physics, passing on blind curves is common even on mountain switchbacks, roads outside of major arterials often collapse into one lane, and Euros for some reason don't believe in placing signs at intersections to indicate street names. Thank God for GPS. I'll admit that it's all a little thrilling once the disorientation wears off, and there are things to love about driving in Europe: roundabouts are used in place of traffic lights wherever possible, the density of cars tends to be less (likely due to the high cost of gas and plentiful mass transit options), sprawl tends to be more contained, the limited-access highways are extremely well-kept, and the drivers on those limited-access highways actually understand what the lanes are for (slow, right; fast, left).It may seem contradictory that I am at once a transit advocate and an enthusiastic road-tripper. But I've lived in New York City, home of the United States' best mass-transit system, for 23 years, and have owned a car for 19 of them. There is a logic here: in general, I use the subway or my bicycle to move around the city, and the car to get out of it (this is the only way to get to most ski areas in the region, at least midweek). I appreciate the options, and I wish more parts of America offered a better mix.On chairs without barsIt's a strange anachronism that the United States is still home to hundreds of chairlifts that lack safety bars. ANSI standards now require them on new lift builds (as far as I can tell), but many chairlifts built without bars from the 1990s and earlier appear to have been grandfathered into our contemporary system. This is not the case in the Eastern U.S. where, as far as I'm aware, every chairlift with the exception of a handful in Pennsylvania have safety bars – New York and many New England states require them by law (and require riders to use them). Things get dicey in the Midwest, which has, as a region, been far slower to upgrade its lift fleets than bigger mountains in the East and West. Many ski areas, however, have retrofit their old lifts with bars – I was surprised to find them on the lifts at Sundown, Iowa; Chestnut, Illinois; and Mont du Lac, Wisconsin, for example. Vail and Alterra appear to retrofit all chairlifts with safety bars once they purchase a ski area. But many ski areas across the Mountain West still spin old chairs, including, surprisingly, dozens of mountains in California, Oregon, and Washington, states that tends to have more East Coast-ish outlooks on safety and regulation.On Compagnie des AlpesAccording to Martin, the closest thing Europe has to a Vail- or Alterra-style conglomerate is Compagnie des Alpes, which operates (but does not appear to own) 10 ski areas in the French Alps, and holds ownership stakes in five more. It's kind of an amazing list:Here's the company's acquisition timeline, which includes the ski areas, along with a bunch of amusement parks and hotels:Clearly the path of least resistance to a EuroVail conflagration would be to shovel this pile of coal into the furnace. Martin referenced Tignes' forthcoming exit from the group, to join forces with ski resort Sainte-Foy on June 1, 2026 – teasing a smaller potential EuroVail acquisition. Tignes, however, would not be the first resort to exit CdA's umbrella – Les 2 Alpes left in 2020.On EuroSkiPassesThe EuroMegaPass market is, like EuroSkiing itself, unintelligible to Americans (at least to this American). There are, however, options. Martin offers the Swiss-centric Magic Pass as perhaps the most prominent. It offers access to 92 ski areas (map). You are probably expecting me to make a chart. I will not be making a chart.S**t I need to publish this article before I cave to my irrepressible urge to make a chart.OK this podcast is already 51 days old do not make a chart you moron.I think we're good here.I hope.I will also not be making a chart to track the 12 ski resorts accessible on Austria's Ski Plus City Pass Stubai Innsbruck Unlimited Freedom Pass.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
In this episode, the Ski Moms dive into the world of Okemo Mountain Resort with Abby Childs, co-founder of Unofficial Okemo. Abby shares her journey from Rhode Island to becoming a local expert on all things Okemo. She discusses the mountain's layout, including the two base areas (Clock Tower and Jackson Gore) and offers tips on navigating the trails. Abby highlights Okemo's family-friendly features, such as the heated bubble chairlifts and varied terrain suitable for all skill levels.The conversation covers local dining gems, both on and off the mountain, with recommendations like the fried pickles at The Bull, Homestyle Hotel's sticky ribs, and the Unofficial Spritz at Main + Mountain. Abby also reveals hidden treasures like the mysterious Candy Mailbox on the slopes. For rainy day activities, she suggests options like the Spring House pool facility and the arcade at Game Bird restaurant. Throughout the episode, Abby's passion for Okemo and the Ludlow community shines through, offering an authentic insider's perspective on planning the perfect family ski trip to this Vermont destination.Resources:Website: https://www.okemo.comMain & Mountain Hotel and BarHomestyle Hotel RestaurantGame Bird RestaurantKeep up with the latest from Abby on Unofficial Okemo and Wavy Grape:Website: www.unofficialokemo.comWebsite: www.wavygrape.comInstagram: @wavygrapeReady for your next adventure? Download the Vrbo app or check out Vrbo.com for trusted, family-friendly getaways and plan a stay everyone will love! Start planning your trip here visitulstercountyny.comThe Ski Moms are so excited to be partnering with Ulster County this year. Located in New York State, Ulster County is tucked into the Hudson Valley and offers families a chance to get out in nature all year long.Support the showKeep up with the Latest from the Ski Moms!Website: www.theskimoms.coSki Moms Discount Page: https://www.theskimoms.co/discountsSki Moms Ski Rental HomesJoin the 13,000+ Ski Moms Facebook GroupInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theskimoms/ Send us an email and let us know what guests and topics you'd like to hear next! Sarah@skimomsfun.comNicole@skimomsfun.com
Hours before heading out for a ski trip of my own, I rant a bit about the price of lift tickets and how they've accelerated upwards through the years. It's a sport I love, but jeesh is it pricey!Sponsors: ScottyJ's album, Epic Pass, Ikon PassScotty Js YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV3WWSlwDKYf7P5k4XdP3zAIG & Twitter: the_bro_pod, littleBquotesE-mail the show!: thebropodnetwork@gmail.comBuy Merch!!: thebropod.threadless.comOur Website: www.bropodnetwork.com#skiing#Epic#Ikon#economics#podcasts#bropod#bropodnetwork
We find out about Big Sky Resort in Montana and look into the multipass options in the States, including the Epic, Ikon, Indy and Mountain Collective passes. We also have our regular snow reports, your feedback, Team GB news and equipment expert Al Morgan reports from the SIGB Ski Test in La Clusaz. Host Iain Martin was joined by Nancy Shiel, Head of Ski Patrol at Big Sky Resort in Montana, and Stuart Winchester, host of the Storm Skiing Podcast. Intersport Ski Hire Discount Code If you want to help The Ski Podcast and save yourself some money this winter…just use the code ‘SKIPODCAST' when you book your ski hire at intersportrent.com. That applies to any ski hire booked in their massive network across France, Austria and Switzerland. You'll get a guaranteed additional discount, or simply take this link for your discount to be automatically applied. SHOW NOTES Tim Hudson from Inspired Italy is in the Dolomites (5:45) Alex Armand from Tip Top Ski Coaching is in Les 2 Alpes (7:00) Alex Irwin from 150 Days of Winter is in Courchevel (7:30) Mia Brookes finished 3rd at the X Games Slopestyle in Aspen (9:15) Jasmin Taylor now has three wins this season in the Telemark World Cup (9:30) Laurie Taylor tied with Dave Ryding for 15th at Kitzbuhel (9:40) Freddy and Zak Carrick Smith will be taking part in the European Youth Olympics (9:45) Ski kit expert Al Morgan was out at the SIGB Ski Test in La Clusaz (10:20) Listen to our equipment episodes or watch them on YouTube (12:45) Nancy has been working on the ski patrol at Big Sky for over 20 years (13:15) Watch the Big Sky Ski Patrol in action (15:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f896Bsukqi0 “Big Sky is titanic, sprawling, impossible” (16:15) Big Sky is in south-west Montana (16:45) You can visit Yellowstone National Park in winter from Big Sky (17:30) The resort has 5850 acres of skiable terrain and has 400 inches annual of snowfall (18:45) The Lone Peak Tram is a standout lift (20:00) Peter Landsman in Episode 181 described it one of the lifts you must ride (20:15) Stuart is host of the Storm Skiing Podcast (24:00) “Everyone's searching for skiing's soul. I'm trying to find its brains” (24:15) The Epic Pass started in 2008 (28:00) The issue of overcrowding in US ski resorts (32:00) The Ikon Pass has introduced ‘reservations' to limit overcrowding (33:00) The Indy Pass is “the coolest thing going” (34:15) Glencoe and The Snow Centre in the UK are both on the Indy Pass (37:30) Will there be mergers between the multipasses? (37:45) Find out about the Mountain Collective Pass (38:30) Epic Pass sales were down 2% for the 24/25 winter (39:00) Vail Resorts had to deal with a ski patrol strike in Park City in December (39:15) Vail Resorts have acquired Andermatt and Crans Montana in Europe (41:00) If you visit Big Sky, you need to try Uncle Dan's Cookies (41:30) You can follow The Ski Podcast on WhatsApp (44:00) Feedback (42:00) I enjoy all feedback about the show, I'm always interested to hear what you think, so please do contact me on social @theskipodcast or by email theskipodcast@gmail.com Charlie Owen: "I enjoyed your interview with Mark Smith – the Man in Seat61" Charlie Henry Mack: "Episode 232 was great" Marcus: "I just wanted to drop you a note to say that I have started listening to the podcast on my drive into work and it's great! Brilliant to have such a good UK-based ski podcast." There are now 247 episodes of The Ski Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, why not to go theskipodcast.com and take a look around the tags and categories – there is so much in there and you're bound to find something of interest. If you like the podcast, there are three things you can do to help: 1) Follow us. Just take a look for that button and press it now 2) Give us a review or just leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 3) Book your ski hire with Intersport Rent using the code ‘SKIPODCAST' or take this link You can follow Iain @skipedia and the podcast @theskipodcast or WhatsApp
The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoMax Magill, President of United Mountain Workers and ski patroller at Park City Mountain Resort, UtahRecorded onJanuary 11, 2025About United Mountain WorkersUnited Mountain Workers (UMW) is a labor union representing 16 distinct employee groups across more than a dozen U.S. ski resorts:UMW is organized under Communication Workers of America, which represents more than 700,000 workers across media, healthcare, manufacturing, and other sectors.Why I interviewed himIn case you missed it (New York Times):Ski patrollers at Park City Mountain in Utah triumphantly returned to the slopes on Thursday, after ending a nearly two-week strike over union wages and benefits. The strike hobbled the largest U.S. ski resort during a busy holiday period and sparked online fury about deepening economic inequality in rural mountain areas.Late Wednesday, the Park City Professional Ski Patrollers Association ratified a contract with Vail Resorts, which owns Park City and more than 40 other ski areas, that raises the starting pay of ski patrollers and other mountain safety workers $2 an hour, to $23. The most experienced patrollers will receive an average increase of $7.75 per hour. The agreement also expands parental leave policies for the workers, and provides “industry-leading educational opportunities,” according to the union. …Accusing Vail Resorts of unfair labor practices, the Ski Patrollers Association, which represents 204 ski patrollers and mountain safety personnel, went on strike on Dec. 27. The strike received national attention as a fight between the haves and have-nots — a global corporation valued at nearly $10 billion against the vital workers who aid and protect skiers on its properties.With few ski patrollers to open trails, respond to accidents and perform avalanche mitigation, only about one fourth of Park City Mountain's terrain was open during the strike.Irate skiers and snowboarders at Park City soon pilloried Vail, taking to social media and national news organizations to denounce lengthy lift lines and contrast the high salaries of Vail leadership and expensive ticket prices with the relatively low pay of resort workers.This is a big deal, and it's probably just getting started.What we talked aboutBack to work; support in unexpected corners; I hear tell of flying pizzas and donuts and I want in on this magical world; a brief timeline of contract negotiations; what Vail Resorts offered and why the union said no; “we had no choice but to play our final and most powerful card, knowing that our strike would cause massive disruption”; deconstructing the vast Vail management machine; what UMW won in the new contract; “the raises we won are life-changing for a ton of our members, including me”; a rapidly changing Utah; how the patrollers' union was challenged when Vail merged Park City and Canyons; “a malicious union-busting campaign is the best way to organize workers”; organizing a union in a “right to work” state; the amazing complexity of Park City Mountain Resort; the complexities of importing patrollers from one resort to another; skier volumes at Park City over time; the pluses and minuses of more skiers; “this movement will continue to grow”; the patrol union vote at A-Basin (it passed); could the various patrol unions combine?; whether ski industry unions could spread to other worker groups and regions; “all workers, ski industry or not, deserve respect”; and Vail's big 2022 pay raises.Questions I wish I'd askedI was surprised to hear Magill describe new patrol uniforms as “pretty substandard.” With every lift op rocking a Helly jacket, I figured the squad up top would get primo stuff. Why don't they?What I got wrongReal-world facts for numbers that I roughly guessed at mid-talk:* Park City population: 8,254 (I said “a little over 8,000”)* 2024-25 Epic Pass sales: approximately 2.3 million (I said “2 million”)* Early-bird price of a 2024-25 Epic Local Pass: $739 (I said “seven-thirty-something”)* Size of Park City Mountain Resort: 7,300 acres, 350 trails (I actually got these right, but tagged them with a “or whatever they are” on the pod)* On the number of active U.S. ski areas: 509, by my own count (I said “500-some,” but it changes almost weekly, so I hedged)On words being hard* I kept saying “exasperate” when I meant to say “exacerbate,” a word that my idiot brain cannot pronounce. But I know the difference so please stop sending me that email.* I said that “most” U.S. ski areas were in the Midwest and East, when I meant to say that the “majority” were. This is true. Only 189 of the 509 active U.S. ski areas (37%) sit in the 11 western ski states.On things changing fastMagill and I discussed the pending unionization vote among Arapahoe Basin patrollers. Shortly after our conversation concluded, he informed me that they had officially voted to organize.On sourcingI cited the AP (Associated Press), as my source for some summary points from the Park City patrollers' contract with Vail Resorts. Most of what I cited actually came from High Country News.Corrected mid-flow* Contract negotiations began in March (not May, as I suggested) of 2024* Patrollers at the then-independent Canyons ski area established the union that now represents all of Park City Mountain Resort in 2001, not 2002. Vail purchased Canyons in 2013 and Park City in 2014, and combined the side-by-side ski areas into one with the Quicksilver Gondola in 2015.On skier visit numbersI noted that ski resorts operating on Forest Service lands had successfully lobbied against requirements to report annual skier visit numbers. That probably seemed irrelevant in the case of Park City Mountain Resort, which does not operate on Forest Service land, but I was trying to get to the larger point that Vail Resorts is secretive with its resort-by-resort skier visits.Podcast NotesOn Right to WorkMany states have passed “right to work” laws, meaning that employees are not compelled to join a labor union, even if one represents their workplace. From the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation:Nuances exist from state to state. Magill notes in our conversation that Colorado is a right-to-work state, but the Colorado Sun describes the state as a “modified right-to-work state”:But the Labor Peace Act is a law that unions find to be a challenge.Enacted in 1943, the state law was seen as a compromise between unions and business owners. That's why Colorado is considered a modified right-to-work state, which means that new hires don't have to join a union if one exists, though they can if they want to. But if a union wins its Labor Peace Act election, then union membership is required.The Peace Act rules require three-quarters of eligible workers to participate in a second vote, if they already successfully voted in an NLRB election. Without it, the union has less bite since it doesn't represent all eligible workers and cannot collect dues from those who don't join. The NLRB's vote needs just a simple majority.On Park City Mountain ResortYeah it's freaking huge:On the “Knowledge”I compared the master patroller's understanding of gigantic, rollicking Park City - with its 350 trails, 7,300 acres, and dozens of lifts - to the “Knowledge,” an exam that requires would-be London taxi drivers to memorize every cobblestone in the city to earn their license. Per The New York Times:McCabe had spent the last three years of his life thinking about London's roads and landmarks, and how to navigate between them. In the process, he had logged more than 50,000 miles on motorbike and on foot, the equivalent of two circumnavigations of the Earth, nearly all within inner London's dozen boroughs and the City of London financial district. He was studying to be a London taxi driver, devoting himself full-time to the challenge that would earn him a cabbie's “green badge” and put him behind the wheel of one of the city's famous boxy black taxis.Actually, “challenge” isn't quite the word for the trial a London cabbie endures to gain his qualification. It has been called the hardest test, of any kind, in the world. Its rigors have been likened to those required to earn a degree in law or medicine. It is without question a unique intellectual, psychological and physical ordeal, demanding unnumbered thousands of hours of immersive study, as would-be cabbies undertake the task of committing to memory the entirety of London, and demonstrating that mastery through a progressively more difficult sequence of oral examinations — a process which, on average, takes four years to complete, and for some, much longer than that. The guidebook issued to prospective cabbies by London Taxi and Private Hire (LTPH), which oversees the test, summarizes the task like this:To achieve the required standard to be licensed as an “All London” taxi driver you will need a thorough knowledge, primarily, of the area within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. You will need to know: all the streets; housing estates; parks and open spaces; government offices and departments; financial and commercial centres; diplomatic premises; town halls; registry offices; hospitals; places of worship; sports stadiums and leisure centres; airline offices; stations; hotels; clubs; theatres; cinemas; museums; art galleries; schools; colleges and universities; police stations and headquarters buildings; civil, criminal and coroner's courts; prisons; and places of interest to tourists. In fact, anywhere a taxi passenger might ask to be taken.If anything, this description understates the case. The six-mile radius from Charing Cross, the putative center-point of London marked by an equestrian statue of King Charles I, takes in some 25,000 streets. London cabbies need to know all of those streets, and how to drive them — the direction they run, which are one-way, which are dead ends, where to enter and exit traffic circles, and so on. But cabbies also need to know everything on the streets. Examiners may ask a would-be cabbie to identify the location of any restaurant in London. Any pub, any shop, any landmark, no matter how small or obscure — all are fair game. Test-takers have been asked to name the whereabouts of flower stands, of laundromats, of commemorative plaques. One taxi driver told me that he was asked the location of a statue, just a foot tall, depicting two mice sharing a piece of cheese. It's on the facade of a building in Philpot Lane, on the corner of Eastcheap, not far from London Bridge.Surely hyperbole, I thought, upon reading this 2014 article. But when I stepped into a London black cab some years later and gave the driver my address, he said “Quite good Old Fellow”* and piloted his gigantic car from the train station down an impossible tangle of narrow streets and dropped us at the doorstep of the very building I'd requested. It appears that the robots have yet to kill this requirement.*He probably didn't actually say this, but I jolly well wish he had.On Vail's 2022 pay raisesOn different skillsets and jobsI think I came off as a bit of an a-hole at the end when I was asking about Vail paying unskilled jobs like ticket-checker and lift attendant $20 an hour while setting the minimum for more skilled jobs like ski patrol at $21. Look, I know all jobs have nuances and challenges and ways to do them well and ways to do them poorly. I've done all sorts of “unskilled” jobs, from bagging groceries to pushing shopping carts to stocking shelves to waiting tables. I know the work can be challenging, tiring, and thankless, and I believe good workers should be paid good wages. If you're loading a fixed-grip double chair on a beginner run for eight hours in four-degree weather, well, you're awesome. But it does take more training and a larger skillset to step onto a big-mountain patrol than to manage a big-mountain liftline, and I believe the compensation for the more rigorous role ought to reflect that skills gap.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
Vail Resorts ha transformado el turismo de invierno, pasando de ser un simple destino de esquí a un modelo global que integra innovación, sostenibilidad y experiencias únicas. Con su Epic Pass, ha revolucionado la industria, atrayendo a millones de esquiadores en todo el mundo. En este episodio de The Story, analizamos cómo Vail Resorts se ha convertido en líder del sector turístico invernal y cuáles son las claves detrás de su éxito. Escucha The Story en tu plataforma de streaming favorita. Un producto de GBM Media.
Latest Utah Avalanche Center forecast, Vail's Epic Pass sales down, revenue up for 2024-2025 season, Summit County Manager Shayne Scott discusses the agenda for Wednesday's county council meeting, Mike Ruzek, founder of the Powder Buoy, discusses how their website tracks NOAA buoys to predict snowfall, Park City identifies four alternatives for a SR 248 transit solution, Park City Treble Makers annual concert offers a unique spin on holiday classics, Christian Center of Park City Executive Director Steve Richardson talks about their Operation Hope event, Summit County prepares ordinance to establish housing authority, Heber leaders weigh how many affordable units should go in proposed neighborhoods north of town and Heber locals can comment on proposed annexation map changes.
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 29. It dropped for free subscribers on Dec. 6. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoSusan Donnelly, General Manager of Mount Sunapee (and former General Manager of Crotched Mountain)Recorded onNovember 4, 2024About CrotchedClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail Resorts, which also owns:Located in: Francetown, New HampshireYear founded: 1963 (as Crotched East); 1969 (as Onset, then Onset Bobcat, then Crotched West, now present-day Crotched); entire complex closed in 1990; West re-opened by Peak Resorts in 2003 as Crotched MountainPass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Epic Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Epic Pass: midweek access, including holidaysClosest neighboring public ski areas: Pats Peak (:34), Granite Gorge (:39), Arrowhead (:41), McIntyre (:50), Mount Sunapee (:51)Base elevation: 1,050 feetSummit elevation: 2,066 feetVertical drop: 1,016Skiable Acres: 100Average annual snowfall: 65 inchesTrail count: 25 (28% beginner, 40% intermediate, 32% advanced)Lift count: 5 (1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 triple, 1 double, 1 surface lift – view Lift Blog's inventory of Crotched's lift fleet)History: Read New England Ski History's overview of Crotched MountainAbout Mount SunapeeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The State of New Hampshire; operated by Vail Resorts, which also operates resorts detailed in the chart above.Located in: Newbury, New HampshireYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Epic Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Epic Pass: midweek access, including holidaysClosest neighboring public ski areas: Pats Peak (:28), Whaleback (:29), Arrowhead (:29), Ragged (:38), Veterans Memorial (:42), Ascutney (:45), Crotched (:48), Quechee (:50), Granite Gorge (:51), McIntyre (:53)Base elevation: 1,233 feetSummit elevation: 2,743 feetVertical drop: 1,510 feetSkiable Acres: 233 acresAverage annual snowfall: 130 inchesTrail count: 67 (29% beginner, 47% intermediate, 24% advanced)Lift count: 8 (2 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 3 conveyors – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Sunapee's lift fleet.)History: Read New England Ski History's overview of Mount SunapeeWhy I interviewed herIt's hard to be small in New England and it's hard to be south in New England. There are 35 New England ski areas with vertical drops greater than 1,100 feet, and Crotched is not one of them. There are 44 New England ski areas that average more than 100 inches of snow per winter, and Crotched is not one of those either. Crotched does have a thousand vertical feet and a high-speed lift and a new baselodge and a snowmaking control room worthy of a nuclear submarine. Which is a pretty good starter kit for a successful ski area. But it's not enough in New England.To succeed as a ski area in New England, you need a Thing. The most common Things are to be really really nice or really really gritty. Stratton or Mad River. Okemo or Magic. Sunday River or Black Mountain of Maine. The pitch is either “you'll think you're at Deer Valley” or “you'll descend the hill on ice skates and you'll like it.” But Crotched's built-along-a-state-highway normalness precludes arrogance, and its mellow terrain lacks the attitude for even modest braggadocio. It's not a small ski area, but it's not big enough to be a mid-sized one, either. The terrain is fine, but it's not the kind of place you need to ski on purpose, or more than once. It's a fine local, but not much else, making Crotched precisely the kind of mountain that you would have expected to be smothered by the numerous larger and better ski areas around it before it could live to see the internet. And that's exactly what happened. Crotched, lacking a clear Thing, went bust in 1990.The ski area, undersized and average, should have melted back into the forest by now. But in 2002, then-budding Peak Resorts crept out of its weird Lower Midwest manmade snowhole on a reverse Lewis & Clark Expedition to explore the strange and murky East. And as they hacked away the brambles around Crotched's boarded-up baselodge, they saw not a big pile of mediocrity, but a portal into the gold-plated New England market. And they said “this could work if we can just find a Thing.” And that Thing was night-skiing with attitude, built on top of $10 million in renovations that included a built-from-scratch snowmaking system.The air above the American mountains is filled with such wild notions. “We're going to save Mt. Goatpath. It's going to be bigger than Vail and deeper than Alta and higher than Telluride.” And everyone around them is saying, “You know this is, like, f*****g Connecticut, right?” But if practical concerns killed all bad ideas, then no one would keep reptiles as pets. Everyone else is happy with cats or dogs, sentient mammals of kindred disposition with humans, but this idiot needs a 12-foot-long boa constrictor that he keeps in a 6x3 fishtank. It helps him get chicks or something. It's his thing. And damned if it doesn't work.What we talked aboutTransitioning from smaller, Vail-owned Crotched to larger, state-owned but Vail-operated Sunapee; “weather-proofing” Sunapee; Crotched and Sunapee – so close but so different; reflecting on the Okemo days under Triple Peaks ownership; longtime Okemo head Bruce Schmidt; reacting to Vail's 2018 purchase of Triple Peaks; living through change; the upside of acquisitions; integrating Peak Resorts; skiing's boys' club; Vail Resorts' culture of women's advancement; why Covid uniquely challenged Crotched among Vail's New England properties; reviving Midnight Madness; Crotched's historic downsizing; whether the lost half of Crotched could ever be re-developed; why Crotched 2.0 is more durable than the version that shut down in 1990; Crotched's baller snowmaking system; southern New Hampshire's wild weather; thoughts on future Crotched infrastructure; and considering a beginner trail from Crotched's summit.Why now was a good time for this interviewAs we swing toward the middle of the 2020s, it's pretty lame to continue complaining about operational malfunctions in the so-called Covid season of 2020-21, but I'm going to do it anyway.Some ski areas did a good job operating that season. For example, Pats Peak. Pats Peak was open seven days per week that winter. Pats Peak offered night skiing on all the days it usually offers night skiing. Pats Peak made the Ross Ice Shelf jealous with its snowmaking firepower. Pats Peak acted like a snosportskiing operation that had operated a snosportskiing operation in previous winters. Pats Peak did a good job.Other ski areas did a bad job operating that season. For example, Crotched. Crotched was open whenever it decided to be open, which was not very often. Crotched, one of the great night-skiing centers in New England, offered almost no night skiing. Crotched's snowmaking looked like what happens when you accidentally keep the garden hose running during an overnight freeze. Crotched did a bad job.This is a useful comparison, because these two ski areas sit just 21 miles and 30 minutes apart. They are dealing with the same crappy weather and the same low-altitude draw. They are both obscured by the shadows of far larger ski areas scraping the skies just to the north. They are both small and unserious places, where the skiing is somewhat beside the point. Kids go there to pole-click one another's skis off of moving chairlifts. College kids go there to alternate two laps with two rounds at the bar. Adults go there to shoo the kids onto the chairlifts and burn down happy hour. No one shows up in either parking lot expecting Jackson Hole.But Crotched Mountain is owned by Vail Resorts. Pats Peak is owned by the same family of good-old boys who built the original baselodge from logs sawed straight off the mountain in 1962. Vail Resorts has the resources to send a container full of sawdust to the moon just to see what happens when it's opened. Most of Pats Peaks' chairlifts came used from other ski areas. These two are not drawing from the same oil tap.And yet, one of them delivered a good product during Covid, and the other did not. And the ones who did are not the ones that their respective pools of resources would suggest. And so the people who skied Pats Peak that year were like “Yeah that was pretty good considering everything else kind of sucks right now.” And the people who skied Crotched that season were like “Well that sucked even worse than everything else does right now, and that's saying something.”And that's the mess that Donnelly inherited when she took the GM job at Crotched in 2021. And it took a while, but she fixed it. And that's harder than it should be when your parent company can deploy sawdust rockets on a whim.What I got wrong* I said that Colorado has 35 active ski areas. The correct number is 34, or 33 if we exclude Hesperus, which did not operate last winter, and is not scheduled to reactivate anytime soon.* I said that Bruce Schmidt was the “president and general manager” of Okemo. His title is “Vice President and General Manager.” Sorry about that, Bruce.* I said that Okemo's season pass was “closing in on $2,000” when Vail came along. According to New England Ski History, Okemo's top season pass price hit $1,375 for the 2017-18 ski season, the last before Vail purchased the resort. This appears to be a big cut from the 2016-17 season, when the top price was $1,619. My best guess is that Okemo dropped their pass prices after Vail purchased Stowe, lowering that mountain's pass price from $2,313 for the 2016-17 ski season to just $899 (an Epic Pass) the next.* I said that 80 percent-plus of my podcasts featured interviews with men. I examined the inventory, and found that of the 210 podcasts I've published (192 Storm Skiing Podcasts, 12 Covid pods, 6 Live pods), only 33, or 15.7 percent, included a female guest. Only 23 of those (11 percent), featured a woman as the only guest. And three of those podcasts were with one person: former NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak. So either my representation sucks, or the ski industry's representation sucks, but probably it's both.Why you should ski CrotchedUpper New England doesn't have a lot of night skiing, and the night skiing it does have is mostly underwhelming. Most of the large resorts – Killington, Sugarbush, Smuggs, Stowe, Sugarloaf, Waterville, Cannon, Stratton, Mount Snow, Okemo, Attitash, Wildcat, etc. – have no night skiing at all. A few of the big names – Bretton Woods, Sunday River, Cranmore – provide a nominal after-dark offering, a lift and a handful of trails. The bulk of the night skiing in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine involves surface lifts at community-run bumps with the vertical drop of a Slip N' Slide.But a few exceptions tower into the frosty darkness: Pleasant Mountain, Maine; Pats Peak, New Hampshire; and Bolton Valley, Vermont all deliver big vertical drops, multiple chairlifts, and a spiderweb of trails for night skiers. Boyne-owned Pleasant, with 1,300 vertical feet served by a high-speed quad, is the most extensive of these, but the second-most expansive night-skiing operation in New England lives at Crotched.Parked less than an hour from New Hampshire's four largest cities – Manchester, Nashua, Concord, and Derry – Crotched is the rare northern New England ski area that can sustain an after-hours business (New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont are ranked numbers 41, 42, and 49 among U.S. states by population, respectively, with a three-state total of just 3.5 million residents). With four chairlifts spinning, every trail lit, Park Brahs on patrol, first-timers lined up at the rental shop, Bomber Bro straightlining Pluto's Plunge in his unzipped Celtics jacket, the parking lots jammed, and the scritch-scratch of edges on ice shuddering across the night, it's an amazing scene, a lantern of New England Yeah Dawg zest floating in the winter night.No, Crotched night skiing isn't what it used to be, when Peak Resorts kept the joint bumping until 3 a.m. And the real jammer, Midnight Madness, hits just a half dozen days per winter. But it's still a uniquely New England scene, a skiing spectacle that can double as a night-cap after a day shredding Cannon or Waterville or Mount Snow.Podcast NotesOn my recent Sunapee podI tend to schedule these interviews several months in advance, and sometimes things change. One of the things that changed between when I scheduled this conversation and when we recorded it was Donnelly's job. She moved from Crotched, which I had never spotlighted on the podcast, to Sunapee, which I just featured a few months ago. Which means, Sunapee Nation, that we don't really talk much about Mount Sunapee on this podcast that has Mount Sunapee in the headline. But pretty much everything I talked about in June with former Sunapee GM Peter Disch (who's now VP of Mountain Ops at Vail's Heavenly), is still relevant:On historic CrotchedCrotched was once a much larger resort forged from two onetime independent side-by-side ski areas. The whole history of it is a bit labyrinthian and involves bad decisions, low snow years, and unpaid taxes (read the full tale at New England Ski History), but the upshot was this interconnected animal, shown here at its 1988-ish peak:The whole Crotched complex dropped dead around 1990, and would have likely stayed that way forever had Missouri-based Peak Resorts not gotten the insane idea to dig a lost New England ski area up from the graveyard. Somewhat improbably, they succeeded, and the contemporary Crotched (minus the summit quad, which came later), opened in 2003. The current ski area sits on what was formerly known as “Crotched West,” and before that “Bobcat,” and before that (or perhaps at the same time), “Onset.” Trails on the original Crotched Mountain, at Crotched East (left on the trailmap above), are still faintly visible from above (on the right below, between the “Crotched Mountain” and “St. John Enterprise” dots):On Triple Peaks and OkemoTriple Peaks was the umbrella company that owned Okemo, Vermont; Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire; and Crested Butte, Colorado. The owners, the Mueller family, sold the whole outfit to Vail Resorts in 2018. Longtime Okemo GM Bruce Schmidt laid out the whole history on the podcast earlier this year:On Crotched's lift fleetPeak got creative building Crotched's lift fleet. The West double, a Hall installed by Jesus himself in 400 B.C., had sat in the woods through Crotched's entire 13-year closure and was somehow reactivated for the revival. The Rover triple and the Valley and Summit quads came from a short-lived 1,000-vertical-foot Virginia ski area called Cherokee.What really nailed Crotched back to the floor, however, was the 2012 acquisition of a used high-speed quad from bankrupt Ascutney, Vermont.Peak flagrantly dubbed this lift the “Crotched Rocket,” a name that Vail seems to have backed away from (the lift is simply “Rocket” on current trailmaps).Fortunately, Ascutney lived on as a surface-lifts-only community bump even after its beheading. You can still skin and ski the top trails if you're one of those people who likes to make skiing harder than it needs to be:On Peak ResortsPeak Resorts started in, of all places, Missouri. The company slowly acquired small-but-busy suburban ski areas, and was on its way to Baller status when Vail purchased the whole operation in 2019. Here's a loose acquisition timeline:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 81/100 in 2024, and number 581 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
In this episode, Alex starts by giving an update on the Bird Flu (H5N1) outbreak. The USDA is now calling for all dairy to be tested. Alex discusses what is going on and wonders how close we are to a pandemic. For the rest of the episode, Alex re-airs a popular episode he did on skiing and price discrimination in the industry. The episode remains evergreen and relevant. After boom or bust seasons based on snowpack, large corporations like Vail Resorts ended up learning that they could charge different prices to different customers and make record profits. This led to overselling the Epic Pass (at a decent price), while also rising the average cost of day tickets. In a good season, this can lead to chaos and overcrowding (but profits), and in bad seasons, the passholders still feel obligated to ski. Basically, the ski industry has been able to increase output and demand (which is difficult in economics). Alex argues that this is why skiing feels less accessible than ever before but also more accessible at the same time. At the same time, price discrimination seems to be a new trend in the US economy and shows how the ski industry, the airline industry, and restaurants can make profits.
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 24. It dropped for free subscribers on Dec. 1. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:What There's a good reason that the Ikon Pass, despite considerable roster overlap and a more generous bucket of days, failed to kill Mountain Collective. It's not because Mountain Collective has established itself as a sort of bargain Ikon Junior, or because it's scored a few exclusive partners in Canada and the Western U.S. Rather, the Mountain Collective continues to exist because the member mountains like their little country club, and they're not about to let Alterra force a mass exodus. Not that Alterra has tried, necessarily (I frankly have no idea), but the company did pull its remaining mountains (Mammoth, Palisades, Sugarbush), out of the coalition in 2022. Mountain Collective survived that, just as it weathered the losses of Stowe and Whistler and Telluride (all to the Epic Pass) before it. As of 2024, six years after the introduction of the Ikon Pass that was supposed to kill it, the Mountain Collective, improbably, floats its largest roster ever.And dang, that roster. Monsters, all. Best case, you can go ski them. But the next best thing, for The Storm at least, is when these mountain leaders assemble for their annual meeting in New York City, which includes a night out with the media. Despite a bit of ambient noise, I set up in a corner of the bar and recorded a series of conversations with the leaders of some of the biggest, baddest mountains on the continent.Who* Stephen Kircher, President & CEO, Boyne Resorts* Dave Fields, President & General Manager, Snowbird, Utah* Brandon Ott, Marketing Director, Alta, Utah* Steve Paccagnan, President & CEO, Panorama, British Columbia* Geoff Buchheister, CEO, Aspen Skiing Company, Colorado* Pete Sonntag, VP & General Manager, Sun Valley, Idaho* Davy Ratchford, General Manager, Snowbasin, Utah* Aaron MacDonald, Chief Marketing Officer, Sun Peaks, British Columbia* Geordie Gillett, GM, Grand Targhee, Wyoming* Bridget Legnavsky, President & CEO, Sugar Bowl, California* Marc-André Meunier, Executive Marketing Director, Bromont, Quebec* Pete Woods, President, Ski Big 3, Alberta* Kendra Scurfield, VP of Brand & Communications, Sunshine, Alberta* Norio Kambayashi, director and GM, Niseko Hanazono, Japan* James Coleman, Managing Partner, Mountain Capital Partners* Mary Kate Buckley, CEO, Jackson Hole, WyomingRecorded onOctober 29, 2024About Mountain CollectiveMountain Collective gives you two days each at some badass mountains. There is a ton of overlap with the Ikon Pass, which I note below, but Mountain Collective is cheaper has no blackout dates.What we talked aboutBOYNE RESORTSThe PortfolioBig SkySunday RiverSugarloafTopicsYes a second eight-pack comes to Big Sky and it's a monster; why Sunday River joined the Mountain Collective; Sugarloaf's massive West Mountain expansion; and could more Boyne Resorts join Mountain Collective?More Boyne ResortsSNOWBIRDStats: 3,240 vertical feet | 2,500 skiable acres | 500 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe new Wilbere lift; why fixed-grip; why 600 inches of snow is better than 900 inches; and how Snowbird and Alta access differ on the Ikon versus the Mountain Collective passes.Wilbere's new alignmentMore SnowbirdALTAStats: 2,538 vertical feet | 2,614 skiable acres | 540 inches average annual snowfallTopicsNot 903 inches but still a hell of a lot; why Alta's aiming for 612 inches this season; and plotting Mountain Collective trips in LCC.PANORAMAStats: 4,265 vertical feet | 2,975 skiable acres | 204 inches average annual snowfallTopicsPanorama opens earlier than most skiers think, but not for the reasons they think; opening wall-to-wall last winter; Tantum Bowl Cats; and the impact of Mountain Collective and Ikon on Panorama.More PanoramaASPEN SKIING COMPANYStatsAspen MountainAspen HighlandsButtermilkSnowmassTopicsLast year's Heroes expansion; ongoing improvements to the new terrain for 2024-25; why Aspen finally removed The Couch; who Aspen donated that lift to, and why; why the new Coney lift at Snowmass loads farther down the mountain; “we intend to replace a lift a year probably for the next 10 years”; where the next lift could be; and using your two Mountain Collective days to ski four Aspen resorts. On Maverick Mountain, MontanaDespite megapass high-tides swarming mountains throughout the West, there are still dozens of ski areas like Maverick Mountain, tucked into the backwoods, 2,020 vertical feet of nothing but you and a pair of sticks. Aspen's old Gent's Ridge quad will soon replace the top-to-bottom 1969 Riblet double chair that serves Maverick now:On the Snowmass masterplanAspen's plan is, according to Buchheister, install a lift per year for the next decade. Here are some of the improvements the company has in mind at Snowmass:On the Mountain Collective Pass starting at AspenChristian Knapp, who is now with Pacific Group Resorts, played a big part in developing the Mountain Collective via Aspen-Snowmass in 2012. He recounted that story on The Storm last year:More AspenSUN VALLEYStats* Bald Mountain: 3,400 vertical feet | 2,054 skiable acres | 200 inches average annual snowfall* Dollar Mountain: 628 vertical feetTopicsLast season's massive Challenger/Flying Squirrel lift updates; a Seattle Ridge lift update; World Cup Finals inbound; and Mountain Collective logistics between Bald and Dollar mountains.More Sun ValleySNOWBASINStats: 3,015 vertical feet | 3,000 skiable acres | 300 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe Olympics return to Utah and Snowbasin; how Snowbasin's 2034 Olympic slate could differ from 2002; ski the downhill; how the DeMoisy six-pack changed the mountain; a lift upgrade for Becker; Porcupine on deck; and explaining the holdup on RFID.More SnowbasinSUN PEAKSStats: 2,894 vertical feet | 4,270 skiable acres | 237 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe second-largest ski area in Canada; the new West Bowl quad; snow quality at the summit; and Ikon and Mountain Collective impact on the resort.The old versus new West Bowl liftsMore Sun PeaksGRAND TARGHEEStats: 2,270 vertical feet | 2,602 skiable acres | 500 inches average annual snowfallTopicsMaintaining that Targhee vibe in spite of change; the meaning of Mountain Collective; and combining your MC trip with other badass powder dumps.More Grand TargheeSUGAR BOWLStats: 1,500 vertical feet | 1,650 skiable acres | 500 inches average annual snowfallTopicsBig-time parks incoming; how those parks will differ from the ones at Boreal and Northstar; and reaction to Homewood closing.More Sugar BowlBROMONTStats: 1,175 vertical feet | 450 skiable acres | 210 inches average annual snowfallTopicsWhy this low-rise eastern bump was good enough for the Mountain Collective; grooming three times per day; the richness of Eastern Townships skiing; and where to stay for a Bromont trip.SKI BIG 3Stats* Banff Sunshine: 3,514 vertical feet | 3,358 skiable acres | 360 inches average annual snowfall* Lake Louise: 3,250 vertical feet | 4,200 skiable acres | 179 inches average annual snowfallSunshineLake LouiseTopicsThe new Super Angel Express sixer at Sunshine; the all-new Pipestone Express infill six-pack at Lake Louise; how Mountain Collective access is different from Ikon access at Lake Louise and Sunshine; why Norquay isn't part of Mountain Collective; and the long season at all three ski areas.SUNSHINEStats & map: see aboveTopicsSunshine's novel access route; why the mountain replaced Angel; the calculus behind installing a six-person chair; and growing up at Sunshine.NISEKO UNITEDStats: 3,438 vertical feet | 2,889 skiable acres | 590 inches average annual snowfallTopicsHow the various Niseko ski areas combine for one experience; so.much.snow; the best way to reach Niseko; car or no car?; getting your lift ticket; and where to stay.VALLE NEVADOStats: 2,658 vertical feet | 2,400 skiable acres | 240 inches average annual snowfallTopicsAn excellent winter in Chile; heli-skiing; buying the giant La Parva ski area, right next door; “our plan is to make it one of the biggest ski resorts in the world”; and why Mountain Capital Partners maintains its Ikon Pass and Mountain Collective partnerships even though the company has its own pass.More Valle/La Parva JACKSON HOLEStats: 4,139 vertical feet | 2,500 skiable acres | 459 inches average annual snowfallTopicsThe Sublette lift upgrade; why the new lift has fewer chairs; comparisons to the recent Thunder lift upgrade; venturing beyond the tram; and managing the skier experience in the Ikon/Mountain Collective era.More Jackson HoleWhat I got wrong* I said that Wilbere would be Snowbird's sixth quad. Wilbere will be Snowbird's seventh quad, and first fixed-grip quad.* I said Snowbird got “900-some inches” during the 2022-23 ski season. The final tally was 838 inches, according to Snowbird's website.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 79/100 in 2024, and number 579 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 13. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 20. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoMatt Jones, President and Chief Operating Officer of Stratton Mountain, VermontRecorded onNovember 11, 2024About Stratton MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain Company, which also owns:Located in: Winhall, VermontYear founded: 1962Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: Unlimited* Ikon Base Pass: Unlimited, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Bromley (:18), Magic (:24), Mount Snow (:28), Hermitage Club (:33), Okemo (:40), Brattleboro (:52)Base elevation: 1,872 feetSummit elevation: 3,875 feetVertical drop: 2,003 feetSkiable Acres: 670Average annual snowfall: 180 inchesTrail count: 99 (40% novice, 35% intermediate, 16% advanced, 9% expert)Lift count: 14 (1 ten-passenger gondola, 4 six-packs, 1 high-speed quad, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 4 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Stratton's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himI don't know for sure how many skier visits Stratton pulls each winter, or where the ski area ranks among New England mountains for busyness. Historical data suggests a floor around 400,000 visits, likely good for fifth in the region, behind Killington, Okemo, Sunday River, and Mount Snow. But the exact numbers don't really matter, because the number of skiers that ski at Stratton each winter is many manys. And the number of skiers who have strong opinions about Stratton is that exact same number.Those numbers make Stratton more important than it should be. This is not the best ski area in Vermont. It's not even Alterra's best ski area in Vermont. Jay, MRG, Killington, Smuggs, Stowe, and sister resort Sugarbush are objectively better mountains than Stratton from a terrain point of view (they also get a lot more snow). But this may be one of the most crucial mountains in Alterra's portfolio, a doorway to the big-money East, a brand name for skiers across the region. Stratton is the only ski area that advertises in the New York City Subway, and has for years.But Stratton's been under a bit of stress. The lift system is aging. The gondola is terrible. Stratton was one of those ski areas that was so far ahead of the modernization curve – the mountain had four six-packs by 2001 – that it's now in the position of having to update all of that expensive stuff all at once. And as meaningful updates have lagged, Stratton's biggest New England competitors are running superlifts up the incline at a historic pace, while Alterra lobs hundreds of millions at its western megaresorts. Locals feel shafted, picketing an absentee landlord that they view as negligent. Meanwhile, the crowds pile up, as unlimited Ikon Pass access has holstered the mountain in hundreds of thousands of skiers' wintertime battle belts.If that all sounds a little dramatic, it only reflects the messages in my inbox. I think Alterra has been cc'd on at least some of those emails, because the company is tossing $20 million at Stratton this season, a sum that Jones tells us is just the beginning of massive long-term investment meant to reinforce the mountain's self-image as a destination on its own.What we talked aboutStratton's $20 million offseason; Act 250 masterplanning versus U.S. Forest Service masterplanning; huge snowmaking upgrades and aspirations; what $8 million gets you in employee housing these days; big upgrades for the Ursa and American Express six-packs; a case for rebuilding lifts rather than doing a tear-down and replace; a Tamarack lift upgrade; when Alterra's investment firehose could shift east; leaving Tahoe for Vermont; what can be done about that gondola?; the Kidderbrook lift; parking; RFID; Ikon Pass access levels; and $200 to ski Stratton.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewHow pissed do you think the Punisher was when Disney announced that Ant Man would be the 12th installment in Marvel's cinematic universe? I imagine him seated in his lair, polishing his grenades. “F*****g Ant Man?” He throws a grenade into one of his armored Jeeps, which disintegrates in a supernova of steel parts, tires, and smoke. “Ant Man. Are you f*****g serious with this? I waited through eleven movies. Eleven. Iron Man got three. Thor and Captain f*****g America got two apiece. The Hulk. Two Avengers movies. Something called ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,' about a raccoon and a talking tree that save the goddamn universe or some s**t. And it was my turn, Man. My. Turn. Do these idiots not know that I had three individual comic lines published concurrently in the 1990s? Do they not know that I'm ranked as the ninth-greatest Marvel superhero of all time on this nerd list? Do you know where Ant Man is ranked on that list? Huh? Well, I'll tell you: number 131, behind Rocket Raccoon, U-Go Girl, and Spider Man 2099, whatever the hell any of those are.” The vigilante then loads his rocket launcher and several machine guns into a second armored Jeep, and sets off in search of jaywalkers to murder.Anyway I imagine that's how Stratton felt as it watched the rest of Alterra's cinematic universe release one blockbuster after another. “Oh, OK, so Steamboat not only gets a second gondola, but they get a 600-acre terrain expansion served by their eighth high-speed quad? And it wasn't enough to connect the two sides of Palisades Tahoe with a gondola, but you threw in a brand-new six-pack? And they're tripling the size of Deer Valley. Tripling. 3,700 acres of new terrain and 16 new lifts and a new base village to go with it. That's equal to five-and-a-half Strattons. And Winter Park gets a new six-pack, and Big Bear gets a new six-pack, and Mammoth gets two. Do you have any idea how much these things cost? And I can't even get a gondola that can withstand wind gusts over three miles per hour? Even goddamn Snowshoe – Snowshoe – got a new lift before I did. I didn't even think West Virginia was actually a real place. I swear if these f*****s announce a new June Mountain out-of-base lift before I get my bling, things are gonna get Epic around here.”Well, it's finally Stratton's turn, with $20 million in upgrades inbound. Alterra wasn't exactly mining the depths of locals' dreams to decide where to deploy the cash – snowmaking, employee housing, lift overhauls – and a gondola replacement isn't coming anytime soon, but they're pretty smart investments when you dig into them. Which we do.Questions I wish I'd askedAmong the items that I would have liked to have discussed given more time: the Appalachian Trail's path across the top of Stratton Mountain, Stratton as birthplace of modern snowboarding, and the Stratton Mountain School.What I got wrong* I said that Epic Pass access had remained mostly unchanged for the past decade, which is not quite right. When Vail first added Stowe to the Epic Local Pass for the 2017-18 season, they slotted the resort into the bucket of 10 days shared with Vail, Beaver Creek, and Whistler. At some point, Stowe received its own basket of 10 days, apart from the western resorts.* I said that Sunday River's Jordan eight-pack was wind-resistant “because of the weight.” While that is one factor, the lift's ability to run in high winds relies on a more complex set of anti-sway technology, none of which I really understand, but that Sunday River GM Brian Heon explained on The Storm earlier this year:Why you should ski StrattonA silent skiing demarcation line runs roughly along US 4 through Vermont. Every ski area along or above this route – Killington, Pico, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Stowe, Smuggs – lets trails bump up, maintains large glade networks, and generally provides you with balanced, diverse terrain. Everything below that line – Okemo, Bromley, Mount Snow – generally don't do any of these things, or offer them sporadically, and in the most shrunken form possible. There are some exceptions on both sides. Saskadena Six, a bump just north of US 4, operates more like the Southies. Magic, in the south, better mirrors the MRG/Sugarbush model. And then there's Stratton.Good luck finding bumps at Stratton. Maybe you'll stumble onto the remains of a short competition course here or there, but, generally, this is a groom-it-all-every-day kind of ski area. Which would typically make it a token stop on my annual rounds. But Stratton has one great strength that has long made it a quasi-home mountain for me: glades.The glade network is expansive and well-maintained. The lines are interesting and, in places, challenging. You wouldn't know this from the trailmap, which portrays the tree-skiing areas as little islands lodged onto Stratton's hulk. But there are lots of them, and they are plenty long. On a typical pow day, I'll park at Sun Bowl and ski all the glades from Test Pilot over to West Pilot and back. It takes all day and I barely touch a groomer.And the glades are open more often than you'd think. While northern Vermont is the undisputed New England snow king, with everything from Killington north counting 250-plus inches in an average winter, the so-called Golden Triangle of Stratton, Bromley, and Magic sits in a nice little micro-snow-pocket. And Stratton, the skyscraping tallest peak in that region of the state, devours a whole bunch (180 inches on average) to fill in those glades.And if you are Groomer Greg, you're in luck: Stratton has 99 of them. And the grooming is excellent. Just start early, because they get scraped off by the NYC hordes who camp out there every weekend. The obsessive grooming does make this a good family spot, and the long green trail from the top down to the base is one of the best long beginner runs anywhere.Podcast NotesOn Act 250This is the 20th Vermont-focused Storm Skiing Podcast, and I think we've referenced Act 250 in all of them. If you're unfamiliar with this law, it is, according to the official state website:…Vermont's land use and development law, enacted in 1970 at a time when Vermont was undergoing significant development pressure. The law provides a public, quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of major subdivisions and developments in Vermont. It assures that larger developments complement Vermont's unique landscape, economy and community needs. One of the strengths of Act 250 is the access it provides to neighbors and other interested parties to participate in the development review process. Applicants often work with neighbors, municipalities, state agencies and other interested groups to address concerns raised by a proposed development, resolving issues and mitigating impacts before a permit application is filed.On Stratton's masterplanStratton is currently updating its masterplan. It will retain some elements of this 2013 version. Some elements of this – most notably a new Snow Bowl lift in 2018 – have been completed:One curious element of this masterplan is the proposed lift up the Kidderbrook trail – around 2007, Stratton removed a relatively new (installed 1989) Poma fixed-grip quad from that location. Here it is on the far left-hand side of the 2005 trailmap:On Stratton's ownership historyStratton's history mirrors that of many large New England ski areas: independent founders run the ski area for decades; founders fall into financial peril and need private equity/banking rescue; bank sells to a giant out-of-state conglomerate; which then sells to another giant out-of-state conglomerate; which eventually turns into something else. In Stratton's case, Robert Wright/Frank Snyder -> Moore and Munger -> Japanese company Victoria USA -> Intrawest -> Alterra swallows the carcass of Intrawest. You can read all about it on New England Ski History.Here was Intrawest's roster, if you're curious:On Alterra's building bingeSince its 2018 founding, Alterra has invested aggressively in its properties: a 2.4-mile-long, $65 million gondola connecting Alpine Meadows to the Olympic side of Palisades Tahoe; $200 million in the massive Mahogany Ridge expansion and a three-mile-long gondola at Steamboat; and an untold fortune on Deer Valley's transformation into what will be the fourth-largest ski area in the United States. Plus new lifts all over the place, new snowmaking all over the place, new lodges all over the place. Well, all over the place except for at Stratton, until now.On Boyne and Vail's investments in New EnglandAmplifying Stratton Nation's pain is the fact that Alterra's two big New England competitors – Vail Resorts and Boyne Resorts – have built a combined 16 new lifts in the region over the past five years, including eight-place chairs at Loon and Sunday River (Boyne), and six-packs at Stowe, Okemo, and Mount Snow (Vail). They've also replaced highly problematic legacy chairs at Attitash (Vail) and Pleasant Mountain (Boyne). Boyne has also expanded terrain at Loon, Sunday River, and, most notably – by 400 acres – Sugarloaf. And it's worth noting that independents Waterville Valley and Killington have also dropped new sixers in recent years (Killington will build another next year). Meanwhile, Alterra's first chairlift just landed this summer, at Sugarbush, which is getting a fixed-grip quad to replace the Heaven's Gate triple.On gondola wind holdsJust in case you want to blame windholds on some nefarious corporate meddling, here's a video I took of Kirkwood's Cornice Express spinning in 50-mile-per-hour winds when Jones was running the resort last year. Every lift has its own distinct profile that determines how it manages wind.On shifting Ikon Pass accessWhen Alterra launched the Ikon Pass in 2018, the company limited Base Pass holders to five days at Stratton, with holiday blackouts. Ahead of the 2020-21 season, the company updated Base Pass access to unlimited days with those same holiday blackouts. Alterra and its partners have made several such changes in Ikon's seven years. I've made this nifty chart that tracks them all (if you missed the memo, Solitude just upgraded Ikon Base pass access to eliminate holiday blackouts):On historic Stratton lift ticket pricesAgain, New England Ski History has done a nice job documenting Stratton's year-to-year peak lift ticket rates:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 76/100 in 2024, and number 576 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
Utah in winter? Chef's kiss. Whether you're a ski bunny or a movie buff, this is the place to be. Picture this: late January rolls in, and Utah transforms into a winter wonderland. Snowy peaks call out to skiers, while Park City turns into a hub of glitz, glamour, and indie-film magic with the Sundance Film Festival. It's the perfect blend of adrenaline and artsy vibes.This week, Sofia and her mountain-man-extraordinaire and slight-ski-bum brother, Sebastian Blanno, hit the mic to talk about Utah's winter hotspots. Sebbi (our in-house Travel Brat ski king) knows his slopes, and he's here to spill the powdery tea on the best resorts, runs, and eats in the Beehive State.The Best Time to GoSebastian recommends the middle of January to early February. Why? Peak powder and prime Sundance season! Double the fun and twice the glitz, glamour, and magic of Sundance, plus the slopes are pretty empty despite the crowded streets! (P.S. If you're hitting Sundance, pack your boots AND your black-tie looks. You'll thank us later.)Here are Sebbi's Must-Visit Ski Havens in UtahPark City & Park City Mountain ResortThe Stats: Park City Mountain Resort, combined with Canyons Resort, is the largest ski area in the United States, with over 7,300 acres of skiable terrain. But keep in mind, large does NOT mean BEST!The Level: A great beginner, intermediate mountain with many “cruiser blues.” Similar to Vail Resort in Colorado.The Vibes: Once a silver mining town in the 19th century, Park City oozes charm with its historic buildings turned into trendy shops and restaurants. Did we mention you can ski past old mine shafts? Epic. Deer Valley ResortThe Luxe Life Vibe: With ski valets, snacks in the lift lines, gourmet on-mountain dining, and unparalleled service, Deer Valley Resort is consistently ranked as one of the most luxurious ski resorts in North America. You can even get a view of some mega-mansions on your way down the slopes! This is boujee skiing at its finest; perfect for our die-hard Travel Brats! Level & Terrain: Similar to Steamboat in Colorado, with great tree-skiing and many blue and black groomers. Also, no snowboarders allowed! Traditional skiing reigns supreme here.Little Cottonwood Canyon - The Iconic American Resorts of Snowbird & AltaSnowbird: A Travel Brat personal favorite, Snowbird is known for its long ski season, which can stretch to July 4th, and has very advanced terrain. Snowbird is also home to the famous Tram, which offers breathtaking views of the Wasatch Range as it climbs over 2,900 vertical feet. If you ski down into the mineral basin from here and then take one more lift, you can enter into Alta. Snowbird is similar to the Colorado resorts, Silverton or Aspen Highlands.Alta: A legendary U.S. Ski resort. Like Deer Valley, a snowboard-free paradise where traditional skiing reigns supreme. You can also ski back to Snowboird from Alta via the Tram or tunnel.Both Snowbird and Alta receive very similar snow accumulation, with Snowbird receiving about 600 inches in one season! Great for POWPOW skiing!Big Cottonwood Canyon - Solitude & Brighton:Solitude and Brighton are a snowboarder's dream. Lifts are spaced out, and the slopes have large open glades. These are your go-to spots for those craving quieter, more rugged vibes and killer backcountry terrain. Big Cottonwood also gets fantastic powder. Lifts are spaced out, and the slopes have large open glades. Similar to Colorado's Keystone (on the easy end) and Arapahoe Basin (on the difficult end), Solitude and Brighton are known as “social” mountains that the locals love.Favorite RunsSebastian's picks for thrilling runs? Snowbird's double black diamond run, “Lower Organ Grinder.” Hit Park City's “Quittin' Time” run for those postcard-perfect views and Snowbird's “Cirque Traverse” for heart-pounding challenges. Aprés Ski EatsPost-skiing, Sebbi raves about the Handle in Park City for its creative small plates and The Iconic Ruth Chris Steakhouse for a splurge-worthy feast. Try the venison! A favorite Park City Bar is “the Pig Pen Saloon” where you can get a $1 T-shirt with the purchase of a shot.Fun Utah Trivia: True or False?Utah's snow is called "The Greatest Snow on Earth" because it's super light and fluffy.True. The dry climate = primo powder.Sundance started in 1968, thanks to Robert Redford.False. It kicked off in 1978 as a small showcase for American films.Spielberg, Lucas, and Kubrick debuted films at Sundance.False. Legends like Tarantino and the Coen Brothers owe their big breaks to Sundance.It's illegal to throw snowballs in Utah without consent.True. Yep, Utah takes snowball fights seriously. Be sure to get consent before engaging in a snowball fight!“Stuff” You Should KnowSnow in Utah is not as dry as it is in Colorado, however, the temperatures don't feel as chilly. All resorts (with no traffic) are between a 20-35 minute drive. In addition, the Salt Lake City Airport is only 20 minutes from Park City.What to PackLayers, people! Layer using a GORE-TEX or other water-repellent gear to combat Utah's humidity. You'll need cozy après-ski sweaters, and something chic for Sundance. Bonus: pack sunscreen—mountain sunburn is real. Budget BreakWith the base regular Ikon Base pass, you can enjoy 5 days at Brighton, Snowbird, and Solitude. With the upgraded Ikon pass, you can enjoy 5 days at Deer Valley as well. This costs about $1,200. To ski Park City, you need to buy an Epic Pass. You can purchase a 3-day Epic pass for $320. Keep in mind, this $1,500+ splurge includes, not just Utah Skiing, but most other resorts for your entire ski season. Visit the Ikon and Epic websites for more info on resort options and perks. If you are driving from another western state you will end up spending roughly $200 on gas, if you share a hotel with 3 to 4 friends you will end up spending about $600 per person for 3-5 days, and if you are a foodie and a drink lover, budget about $2,000 per person. If you like memorable merch, set aside $100 for a souvenir or two.Most Memorable Moment: Sebbi's Solo Tram Run Sebbi's most memorable Travel Story was his last run at Snowbird down the “Great Scott” run right below the Tram. He blasted to the bottom and stared back at the mountain in awe at his entire experience. Catching him staring back at the Mountain, his Buddy said “You like Snowbird Bass?” and he said, “Oh Yeeeeeea.” Snowbird will always hold a place in Sebastian's heart as one of his favorite resorts.Why Visit Utah?Here's Seb's elevator pitch: Thick. Powder. Culture. Adventure. Whack. Extra. Different. Unforgettable. Whether you're carving through fresh POPOW or catching a future Oscar-winner at Sundance, Utah is the winter escape you didn't know you needed.Catch ya on the slopes, Travel Brats! And don't forget to tag us when you're shredding those Utah slopes or striking a pose at Sundance.
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 11. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 18. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoAndy Cohen, General Manager of Fernie Alpine Resort, British ColumbiaRecorded onSeptember 3, 2024About FernieClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which also owns:Located in: Fernie, British ColumbiaPass affiliations:* Epic Pass: 7 days, shared with Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Nakiska, Stoneham, and Mont-Sainte Anne* RCR Rockies Season Pass: unlimited access, along with Kicking Horse, Kimberley, and NakiskaClosest neighboring ski areas: Fairmont Hot Springs (1:15), Kimberley (1:27), Panorama (1:45) – travel times vary considerably given time of year and weather conditionsBase elevation: 3,450 feet/1,052 metersSummit elevation: 7,000 feet/2,134 metersVertical drop: 3,550 feet/1,082 metersSkiable Acres: 2,500+Average annual snowfall: 360 inches/914 Canadian inches (also called centimeters)Trail count: 145 named runs plus five alpine bowls and tree skiing (4% extreme, 21% expert, 32% advanced, 30% intermediate, 13% novice)Lift count: 10 (2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 T-bar, 1 Poma, 1 conveyor - view Lift Blog's inventory of Fernie's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himOne of the most irritating dwellers of the #SkiInternet is Shoosh Emoji Bro. This Digital Daniel Boone, having boldly piloted his Subaru beyond the civilized bounds of Interstate 70, considers all outlying mountains to be his personal domain. So empowered, he patrols the digital sphere, dropping shoosh emojis on any poster that dares to mention Lost Trail or White Pass or Baker or Wolf Creek. Like an overzealous pamphleteer, he slings his brand haphazardly, toward any mountain kingdom he deems worthy of his forcefield. Shoosh Emoji Bro once Shoosh Emoji-ed me over a post about Alta.
Bill Rock is at home on the mountain. He skis. He snowboards. He remembers that first day his kids passed him on a ski run. He counts his blessings for being able to spend his life on ski mountains around the country – around the world! Today, as president of the mountain division of Vail Resorts, he is one of the most influential leaders in our sport. In his conversation with Ski Utah's Last Chair podcast, he talks about the evolution of his career and the pride he takes in his company's innovations to improve the guest experience.
Bill Rock is at home on the mountain. He skis. He snowboards. He remembers that first day his kids passed him on a ski run. He counts his blessings for being able to spend his life on ski mountains around the country – around the world! Today, as president of the mountain division of Vail Resorts, he is one of the most influential leaders in our sport. In his conversation with Ski Utah's Last Chair podcast, he talks about the evolution of his career and the pride he takes in his company's innovations to improve the guest experience.
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Sept. 13. It dropped for free subscribers on Sept. 20. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoChip Seamans, President of Windham Mountain Club, New YorkRecorded onAugust 12, 2024About Windham Mountain ClubClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Majority owned by Beall Investment Partners and Kemmons Wilson Hospitality Partners, majority led by Sandy BeallLocated in: Windham, New YorkYear founded: 1960Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days* Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Hunter (:17), Belleayre (:35), Plattekill (:48)Base elevation: 1,500 feetSummit elevation: 3,100 feetVertical drop: 1,600 feetSkiable Acres: 285Average annual snowfall: 100 inchesLift count: 11 (1 six-pack, 3 high-speed quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 5 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Windham's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himThe Catskills are the closest thing to big-mountain skiing in my immediate orbit. Meaning the ski areas deliver respectable vertical drops, reasonably consistent snowfall, and an address reachable for first chair with a 6 to 7 a.m. departure time. The four big ski areas off I-87 – Belleayre, Plattekill, Hunter, and Windham – are a bit farther from my launchpad than the Poconos, than Mountain Creek, than Catamount or Butternut or the smaller ski areas in Connecticut. But on the right day, the Catskills mountains ski like a proto-Vermont, a sampler that settles more like a main course than an appetizer.I'm tremendously fond of the Catskills, is my point here. And I'm not the only one. As the best skiing within three hours of New York City, this relatively small region slings outsized influence over North American ski culture. Money drives skiing, and there's a lot of it flowing north from the five boroughs (OK maybe two of the boroughs and the suburbs, but whatever). There's a reason that three Catskills ski areas (Belleayre, Hunter, and Windham), rock nearly as many high-speed chairlifts (nine) as the other 40-some ski areas in New York combined (12). These ski areas are cash magnets that prime the 20-million-ish metro region for adventures north to New England, west to the West, and east to Europe.I set this particular podcast up this way because it's too easy for Colorad-Bro or Lake Ta-Bro or Canyon Bro to look east and scoff. Of course I could focus this whole enterprise on the West, as every ski publication since the invention of snow has done. I know the skiing is better out there. Everyone does. But that doesn't mean it's the only skiing that matters. The Storm is plenty immersed in the West, but I can also acknowledge this reality: the West needs the East more than the East needs the West. After all, there's plenty of good skiing out here, with a lot more options, and without the traffic hassles (not to mention the far smaller Brobot:Not Brobot ratio). And while it's true that New England ski areas have lately benefitted from capital airdrops launched by their western overlords, a lot of that western money is just bouncing back east after being dropped off by tourists from Boston, New York, Philly, and D.C. Could Colorado have skiing without eastern tourism? Yes, but would Summit and Eagle counties be dripping with high-speed lifts and glimmering base villages without that cash funnel, or would you just have a bunch of really big Monarch Mountains?None of which tells you much about Windham Mountain Windham Mountain Club, which I've featured on the podcast before. But if you want to understand, rather than simply scoff at, the New Yorkers sharing a chair with you at Deer Valley or Snowmass or Jackson, that journey starts here, in the Catskills, a waystation on many skiers' pathway to higher altitudes.What we talked aboutChip is the new board chairman of the National Ski Areas Association; searching for a new NSAA head; the difference between state and national ski organizations; the biggest challenge of running a ski area in New York; could New York State do more to help independent ski areas?; how the ski area's rebrand to Windham Mountain Club “created some confusion in the market, no doubt”; the two-day weekend lift ticket minimum is dead; “our plan has always been to stay open to the public and to sell passes and tickets”; defining “premium”; what should a long liftline look like at WMC?; lift ticket and Ikon Pass redemption limits for 2024-25; the future of Windham on the Ikon Pass; rising lift ticket prices; free season passes for local students; who owns WMC, and what do they want to do with it?; defining the “club” in WMC; what club membership will cost you and whether just having the cash is enough to get you in; is Windham for NYC or for everyone?; how about a locals' pass?; a target number of skiers on a busy day at Windham; comparing Windham to Vermont's all-private Hermitage Club; how about the Holimont private-on-weekends-only model?; some people just want to be angry; the new owners have already plowed $70 million into the bump; snowmaking updates; a badass Cat fleet; a more or less complete lift fleet; the story behind K lift; the Windham village and changes to parking; and the dreaded gatehouse. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewRather than right now, maybe the best time for this interview would have been a year ago, or six months ago, or maybe all three. It's been a confusing time at Windham, for skiers, for employees, for the people running the place. No one seems to understand exactly what the bump is, what it plans to be, and what it wants to be.Which doesn't stop anyone from having an opinion, most of them wildly misinformed. Over the past year, I've been told, definitively, by a Saturday liftline's worth of casual skiers that Windham had “gone private.” The notion is pervasive, stubborn, immune to explanations or evidence to the contrary. So, very on brand for our cultural moment.Which doesn't mean I shouldn't try. I'm more than willing to bang on ski areas for their faults. In Windham's case, I've always thought that they groom too much, that the season is too short, that the season pass price (currently $2,000!), is beyond insane. But it's not really fair to invent a problem and then harangue the operators about it. Windham is not a private ski area, it is not shut off from locals, it does not require a $200,000 handshake to pass through the RFID gates. Inventing a non-existent problem and then taking offense to it is a starter kit for social media virtue signaling, but it's a poor way to conduct real life.But honestly, what the hell is going on up there? How can Windham Mountain Club justify a larger initiation fee than Vermont's truly private Hermitage Club for a ski experience that still involves half of Manhattan? Why is it so hard to make a weekend Ikon Pass reservation? Does anyone really go to the Catskills in search of the “rarified reality” that WMC insists it is somehow providing? What is the long-term vision here?All fair questions, all spun from WMC's self-inflicted PR tornado. But the answers are crystalizing, and we have them here.What I got wrong* I said that “Gore's triple chair,” which was only a “12, 13-year-old lift” was going to McCauley. I was referring to the Hudson triple, a 2010 Partek (so 14 years old), which will replace nearby but much smaller McCauley's 1973 Hall double, known as “Big Chair,” for the coming ski season. * I said that the club fees for Windham were roughly the same as Hermitage Club. This is drastically untrue. WMC's $200,000 initiation fee is double Hermitage Club's $100,000 number. Windham's annual dues, however, are much lower than HC's $18,500.* I said that Windham was automating its first snowmaking trail this year. That is incorrect, as Seamans points out in our conversation. Windham is installing its first automated snowmaking on the east side of the mountain this year, meaning that 40 percent of the mountain's snowmaking system will now be automated.* I said that Windham had a water-supply-challenge, which is not accurate. I was confusing water supply (adequate), with snowmaking system pumping capacity (room for improvement). I think I am covering too many mountains and sometimes the narratives cross. Sorry about that.Why you should ski Windham Mountain ClubIf you really want an uncrowded Catskills ski experience, you have exactly one option: go to family-owned Plattekill, 40 minutes down the road. It has less vert (1,100 feet), and half Windham's acreage on paper, but when the glades fill in (which they often do), the place feels enormous, and you can more or less walk onto either of the mountain's two chairlifts any day of the season.But Plattekill doesn't have high-speed lifts, it's not on the Ikon Pass, and it's not basically one turn off the thruway. Windham has and is all of those things. And so that's where more skiers will go.Not as many, of course, as will go to Hunter, Windham's Vail-owned archnemesis 15 minutes away, with its unlimited Epic Pass access, Sahara-sized parking lots, and liftlines that disappear over the curvature of the Earth. And that has been Windham's unspoken selling point for decades: Hey, at least we're not Hunter. That's true not only in relative crowd size, but in attitude and aesthetic; Hunter carries at least a 10:1 ratio* over Windham in number of LongIsland Bros straightlining its double-blacks in baseball caps and Jets jerseys.In that context, Windham's rebrand is perfectly logical – as Hunter grows ever more populist, with a bargain season pass price and no mechanism to limit visitors outside of parking lot capacity (they ski area does limit lift ticket sales, but not Epic Pass visits), the appeal of a slightly less-chaotic, more or less equally scaled option grows. That's Windham. Or, hey, the much more exclusive sounding “Windham Mountain Club.”And Windham is a good ski area. It's one of the better ones in New York, actually, with two peaks and nice fall line skiing and an excellent lift system. It doesn't sprawl like Gore or tower like Whiteface, and those fall lines do level off a bit too abruptly from the summit, but it feels big, especially when that Catskills snowbelt fires. On a weekday, it really can feel like a private ski area. And you can probably score an Ikon Pass slot without issue. So go now, before WMC jumps off that mainstream pass, and the only way in the door is a triple-digit lift ticket.*Not an actual statistic^^Probably though it's accurate.Podcast NotesOn New York having more ski areas than any other state in the countryIt's true. New York has 51. The next closest state is Michigan, with 44 (only 40 of which operated last winter). Here's a list:On the three New York state-owned ski areas that “have been generously funded by the state”It's basically impossible to have any honest conversation about any New York ski area without acknowledging the Godzilla-stomping presence of the state's three owned ski areas: Belleayre, Gore, and Whiteface. These are all terrific ski areas, in large part because they benefit from a firehose of taxpayer money that no privately owned, for-profit ski area could ever justify. As the Adirondack Explorer reported in July:The public authority in charge of the state's skiing, sliding and skating facilities saw expenses and losses jump in the past year, its annual financial report shows.The Lake Placid-based Olympic Regional Development Authority [ORDA], whose big-ticket sites are the Belleayre Mountain, Gore Mountain and Whiteface Mountain alpine centers, disclosed operating losses of $47.3 million for the last fiscal year. That compared with losses of $29.3 million for the same period a year earlier.It's important to acknowledge that this budget also covers a fun park's worth of skating rinks, ski jumps, luge chutes (or whatever), and a bunch of other expensive, unprofitable crap that you need if you ever want to host an Olympics (which New York State has done twice and hopes to do again). Still, the amount of cash funneled into ORDA in recent years is incredible. As the Adirondack Explorer reported last year:“The last six years, the total capital investment in the Olympic Authority was $552 million,” [now-fomer ORDA President and CEO Mike] Pratt told me proudly. “These are unprecedented investments in our facilities, no question about it. But the return on investment is immediate.”Half a billion dollars is a hell of a lot of money. The vast majority of it, more than $400 million, went to projects in the Lake Placid region, home to some 20,000 year-round residents—and it turns out, that breathtaking sum is only part of the story.Adirondack Life found New York State has actually pumped far more taxpayer dollars into ORDA since Pratt took the helm than previously reported, including a separate infusion of subsidies needed to cover the Olympic Authority's annual operating losses. Total public spending during Pratt's six-year tenure now tops $620 million.… Taken together that's more money than New York spent hosting the 1980 Winter Olympics. It's also more money than the state committed, amid growing controversy, to help build a new NFL stadium in Buffalo, a city with a population more than 10 times that of the Lake Placid region.There's also no sign ORDA's hunger for taxpayer cash will shrink anytime soon. In fact, it appears to be growing. The Olympic Authority is already slated to receive operating subsidies and capital investments next year that total another $119 million.To put that amount in context, the entire Jay Peak Resort in Vermont sold last year for $76 million. Which means New York State's spending on the Olympic Authority in 2024 would be enough to buy an entire new ski mountain, with tens of millions of dollars left over.It now appears certain the total price tag for Pratt's vision of a new, revitalized ORDA will top $1 billion. He said that's exactly what the organization needed to finally fulfill its mission as keeper of New York's Olympic flame.More context: Vail resorts, which owns and operates 42 ski areas – more than a dozen of which are several times larger than Belleayre, Gore, and Whiteface combined – is allocating between $189 and $194 million for 2024 capital improvements. You can see why New York is one of the few states where Vail isn't the Big Bad Guy. The state's tax-paying, largely family-owned ski areas funnels 95 percent of their resentment toward ORDA, and it's easy enough to understand why.On New York's “increasingly antiquated chairlift fleet”Despite the glimmer-glammer of the lift fleets at ORDA resorts, around the Catskills, and at Holiday Valley, New York is mostly a state of family-owned ski areas whose mountains are likely worth less than the cost of even a new fixed-grip chairlift. Greek Peak's longest chairlift is a Carlevaro-Savio double chair installed in 1963. Snow Ridge runs lifts dating to 1964, '60, and '58(!). Woods Valley installed its three lifts in 1964, '73, and '75 (owner Tim Woods told me last year that the ski area has purchased at least two used chairlifts, and hopes to install them at some future point). Intermittently open (and currently non-operational) Cockaigne's two double chairs and T-bar date to 1965. These lifts are, of course, maintained and annually inspected, and I have no fear of riding any of them, but in the war for customers, lifts that predate human space travel do make your story a bit trickier to tell.On Holiday Valley selling a chairlift to CatamountI noted that a lift had moved from Holiday Valley to Catamount – that is the Catamount quad, Holiday Valley's old Yodeler quad. Catamount installed the new lift in 2022, the year after Holiday Valley pulled out the 20-year-old, 500-vertical-foot fixed-grip lift to replace it with a new high-speed quad.On Windham's pass price in comparison to othersWindham's season pass price is the eighth most expensive in America, and the most expensive in the East by an enormous amount (Windham also offers a Monday through Friday, non-holiday season pass for $750, and a Sunday through Friday, non-holiday pass for $1,300). Here's how WMC compares nationally:And here's how it stacks up in the East:On WMC's ownershipWe talk a bit about Windham's ownership in the pod. I dug into that a bit more last year, when they bought the place in April and again when the mountain rebranded in October.On Blackberry Farms Lodged between Windham and New York City is a hilltop resort called Mohonk Mountain House. In its aesthetic and upscale cuisine, it resembles Blackberry Farm, the Tennessee resort owned by Windham majority owner Sandy Beall, which The New York Times describes as “built on a foundation of simple Tennessee country life as reinterpreted for guests willing to pay a premium to taste its pleasures without any of its hardships.” In other words, an incredibly expensive step into a version of nature that resembles but sidesteps its wild form. I think this is what WMC is going for, but on snow.On the location of Windham's tubing hillI frankly never even realized that Windham had a tubing hill until Seamans mentioned it. Even though it's marked on the trailmap, the complex sits across the access road, well removed from the actual ski area. Tubing is not really something I give a damn about (sorry #TubeNation), other than to acknowledge that it's probably the reason many small ski areas can continue to exist, but I usually at least notice it if it's there. Circled in red below:On Hermitage ClubWe talk a bit about how Hermitage Club is similar in size to Windham. The southern Vermont ski area sports a slightly smaller vertical drop (1,400 feet to Windham's 1,600), and skiable acreage (200 to Windham's 285). Here's the trailmap:On Holimont, Buffalo Ski Club, and Hunt HollowNew York is home to three private, chairlift-served ski areas that all follow a similar business model: the general public is welcome on weekdays, but weekends and holidays are reserved for members. Holimont, right next door to Holiday Valley, is the largest and most well-known:Hunt Hollow is smaller and less-renowned, but it's a nice little bump (my favorite fact about HH is that the double chair – the farthest looker's left – is Snowbird's old Little Cloud lift):Buffalo Ski Center is the agglomeration of three side-by-side, formerly separate ski areas: Sitzmarker Ski Club, Ski Tamarack and Buffalo Ski Club. The trail network is dense and super interesting:On Windham in The New York TimesI referred to a feature story that The Times ran on Windham last December. Read that here.On Vail's pay bumpWhen Vail Resorts raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour in 2022, that presented a direct challenge to every competing resort, including Windham, just down the road from Vail-owned Hunter.On Windham's village expansionWindham will build a new condominium village over some portion of its current parking lots. Here's a concept drawing:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 57/100 in 2024, and number 557 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
Send us a textBecome a Premium subscriber hereIn this episode Nicole talks with Alli Widman, CEO of Avant Ski. Alli recaps her eventful ski season, including trips to Alta, Heavenly, Grand Targhee, and resorts in Austria and Germany.Alli knows ski passes better than anyone, so we talked updates on major ski passes. Epic Pass did not have major updates, but did add the location of Crans, Montana (Switzerland) to their offering. Both Epic and Ikon Passes continued to increase prices for the upcoming season. The Indy Pass continues to be very popular, but sells out fast. And Alli recommends the Mountain Collective pass for occasional ski trips to big resorts.Alli shares some exciting new enhancements recently launched by Avant Ski, including a great new website with helpful features like resort guides, inspiration lists, and expanded trip planning services. We were excited to hear that Avant Ski is now offering flights, 5,000+ hotel partners, and local guide connections for full-service ski travel. Booking your ski trip through Avant Ski saves you time and gives you great perks like free breakfast, room upgrades, late checkout - and you pay the same as if you booked yourself.Alli also shares some of Loam Pass, the premier North American mountain biking pass, gives you over 80 days of access to some of the best mountain biking destinations across the country.Use code: SKIMOMS15 to save 15% off your order here. Save 20% off your Skida orders https://skida.com/discount/SKIMOMS20Skida is committed to local production, limited edition products, and a fresh perspective.Each season Skida delights old and new brand fans with whimsical prints for everyone in the family (including dogs!). Practical and pretty, layering on Skida pieces for your winter adventures feels like bringing along a friend. Save 20% off your orders at www.nikwax.com In the USA, use code SKIMOMS24 In Canada, use code SKIMOMS24CA Code good thru 10/1/24 and cannot be combined with other offersSupport the Show.Keep up with the Latest from the Ski Moms!Website: www.skimomsfun.comSki Moms Discount Page: https://skimomsfun.com/discountsSki Moms Ski Rental HomesJoin the 10,000+ Ski Moms Facebook GroupInstagram: https://instagram.com/skimomsfun Send us an email and let us know what guests and topics you'd like to hear next! Sarah@skimomsfun.comNicole@skimomsfun.com
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on July 27. It dropped for free subscribers on Aug. 3. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoPeter Disch, General Manager of Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire (following this interview, Vail Resorts promoted Disch to Vice President of Mountain Operations at its Heavenly ski area in California; he will start that new position on Aug. 5, 2024; as of July 27, Vail had yet to name the next GM of Sunapee.)Recorded onJune 24, 2024About Mount SunapeeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The State of New Hampshire; operated by Vail ResortsLocated in: Newbury, New HampshireYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Epic Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Epic Pass: midweek access, including holidaysClosest neighboring (public) ski areas: Pats Peak (:28), Whaleback (:29), Arrowhead (:29), Ragged (:38), Veterans Memorial (:42), Ascutney (:45), Crotched (:48), Quechee (:50), Granite Gorge (:51), McIntyre (:53), Saskadena Six (1:04), Tenney (1:06)Base elevation: 1,233 feetSummit elevation: 2,743 feetVertical drop: 1,510 feetSkiable Acres: 233 acresAverage annual snowfall: 130 inchesTrail count: 67 (29% beginner, 47% intermediate, 24% advanced)Lift count: 8 (2 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 3 conveyors – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Sunapee's lift fleet.)History: Read New England Ski History's overview of Mount SunapeeView historic Mount Sunapee trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himNew Hampshire state highway 103 gives you nothing. Straight-ish and flattish, lined with trees and the storage-unit detritus of the American outskirts, nothing about the road suggests a ski-area approach. Looping south off the great roundabout-ish junction onto Mt. Sunapee Road still underwhelms. As though you've turned into someone's driveway, or are seeking some obscure historical monument, or simply made a mistake. Because what, really, could be back there to ski?And then you arrive. All at once. A parking lot. The end of the road. The ski area heaves upward on three sides. Lifts all over. The top is up there somewhere. It's not quite Silverton-Telluride smash-into-the-backside-of-a-box-canyon dramatic, but maybe it's as close as you get in New Hampshire, or at least southern New Hampshire, less than two hours north of Boston.But the true awe waits up high. North off the summit, Lake Sunapee dominates the foreground, deep blue-black or white-over-ice in midwinter, like the flat unfinished center of a puzzle made from the hills and forests that rise and roll from all sides. Thirty miles west, across the lowlands where the Connecticut River marks the frontier with Vermont, stands Okemo, interstate-wide highways of white strafing the two-mile face.Then you ski. Sunapee does not measure big but it feels big, an Alpine illusion exploding over the flats. Fifteen hundred vertical feet is plenty of vertical feet, especially when it rolls down the frontside like a waterfall. Glades everywhere, when they're live, which is less often than you'd hope but more often than you'd think. Good runs, cruisers and slashers, a whole separate face for beginners, a 374-vertical-foot ski-area-within-a-ski-area, perfectly spliced from the pitched main mountain.Southern New Hampshire has a lot of ski areas, and a lot of well-run ski areas, but not a lot of truly great pure ski areas. Sunapee, as both an artwork and a plaything, surpasses them all, the ribeye on the grill stacked with hamburgers, a delightful and filling treat.What we talked aboutSunapee enhancements ahead of the 2024-25 winter; a new parking lot incoming; whether Sunapee considered paid parking to resolve its post-Covid, post-Northeast Epic Pass launch backups; the differences in Midwest, West, and Eastern ski cultures; the big threat to Mount Sunapee in the early 1900s; the Mueller family legacy and “The Sunapee Difference”; what it means for Vail Resorts to operate a state-owned ski area; how cash flows from Sunapee to Cannon; Sunapee's masterplan; the long-delayed West Bowl expansion; incredible views from the Sunapee summit; the proposed Sun Bowl-North Peak connection; potential upgrades for the Sunapee Express, North Peak, and Spruce lifts; the South Peak beginner area; why Sunapee built a ski-through lighthouse; why high-speed ropetows rule; the potential for Sunapee night-skiing; whether Sunapee should be unlimited on the Northeast Value Pass (which it currently is); and why Vail's New Hampshire mountains are on the same Epic Day Pass tier as its Midwest ski areas.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewShould states own ski areas? And if so, should state agencies run those ski areas, or should they be contracted to private operators?These are fraught questions, especially in New York, where three state-owned ski areas (Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre) guzzle tens of millions of dollars in new lift, snowmaking, and other infrastructure while competing directly against dozens of tax-paying, family-owned operations spinning Hall double chairs that predate the assassination of JFK. The state agency that operates the three ski areas plus Lake Placid's competition facilities, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), reported a $47.3 million operating loss for the fiscal year ending March 30, following a loss of $29.3 million the prior year. Yet there are no serious proposals at the state-government level to even explore what it would mean to contract a private operator to run the facilities.If New York state officials were ever so inspired, they could look 100 miles east, where the State of New Hampshire has run a sort of A-B experiment on its two owned ski areas since the late 1990s. New Hampshire's state parks association has operated Cannon Mountain since North America's first aerial tram opened on the site in 1938. For a long time, the agency operated Mount Sunapee as well. But in 1998, the state leased the ski area to the Mueller family, who had spent the past decade and a half transforming Okemo from a T-bar-clotted dump into one of Vermont's largest and most modern resorts.Twenty-six years later, that arrangement stands: the state owns and operates Cannon, and owns Sunapee but leases it to a private operator (Vail Resorts assumed or renewed the lease when they purchased the Muellers' Triple Peaks company, which included Okemo and Crested Butte, Colorado, in 2018). As part of that contract, a portion of Sunapee's revenues each year funnel into a capital fund for Cannon.So, does this arrangement work? For Vail, for the state, for taxpayers, for Sunapee, and for Cannon? As we consider the future of skiing, these are important questions: to what extent should the state sponsor recreation, especially when that form of recreation competes directly against private, tax-paying businesses who are, essentially, subsidizing their competition? It's tempting to offer a reflexive ideological answer here, but nuance interrupts us at ground-level. Alterra, for instance, leases and operates Winter Park from the City of Denver. Seems logical, but a peak-day walk-up Winter Park lift ticket will cost you around $260 for the 2024-25 winter. Is this a fair one-day entry fee for a city-owned entity?The story of Mount Sunapee, a prominent and busy ski area in a prominent and busy ski state, is an important part of that larger should-government-own-ski-areas conversation. The state seems happy to let Vail run their mountain, but equally happy to continue running Cannon. That's curious, especially in a state with a libertarian streak that often pledges allegiance by hoisting two middle fingers skyward. The one-private-one-public arrangement was a logical experiment that, 26 years later, is starting to feel a bit schizophrenic, illustrative of the broader social and economic complexities of changing who runs a business and how they do that. Is Vail Resorts better at running commercial ski centers than the State of New Hampshire? They sure as hell should be. But are they? And should Sunapee serve as a template for New York and the other states, counties, and cities that own ski areas? To decide if it works, we first have to understand how it works, and we spend a big part of this interview doing exactly that.What I got wrong* When listing the Vail Resorts with paid parking lots, I accidentally slipped Sunapee in place of Mount Snow, Vermont. Only the latter has paid parking.* When asking Disch about Sunapee's masterplan, I accidentally tossed Sunapee into Vail's Peak Resorts acquisition in 2019. But Peak never operated Sunapee. The resort entered Vail's portfolio as part of its acquisition of Triple Peaks – which also included Okemo and Crested Butte – in 2018.* I neglected to elaborate on what a “chondola” lift is. It's a lift that alternates (usually six-person) chairs with (usually eight-person) gondola cabins. The only active such lift in New England is at Sunday River, but Arizona Snowbowl, Northstar, Copper Mountain, and Beaver Creek operate six/eight-passenger chondolas in the American West. Telluride runs a short chondola with four-person chairs and four-person gondola cars.* I said that the six New England states combined covered an area “less than half the size of Colorado.” This is incorrect: the six New England states, combined, cover 71,987 square miles; Colorado is 103,610 square miles.Why you should ski Mount SunapeeSki area rankings are hard. Properly done, they include dozens of inputs, considering every facet of the mountain across the breadth of a season from the point of view of multiple skiers. Sunapee on an empty midweek powder day might be the best day of your life. Sunapee on a Saturday when it hasn't snowed in three weeks but everyone in Boston shows up anyway might be the worst. For this reason, I largely avoid assembling lists of the best or worst this or that and abstain, mostly, from criticizing mountain ops – the urge to let anecdote stand in for observable pattern and truth is strong.So when I do stuff ski areas into a hierarchy, it's generally grounded in what's objective and observable: Cottonwoods snow really is fluffier and more bounteous than almost all other snow; Tahoe resort density really does make it one of the world's great ski centers; Northern Vermont really does deliver far deeper snow and better average conditions than the rest of New England. In that same shaky, room-for-caveats manner, I'm comfortable saying this: Mount Sunapee's South Peak delivers one of the best beginner/novice experiences in the Northeast.Arrive childless and experienced, and it's likely you'll ignore this zone altogether. Which is precisely what makes it so great: almost completely cut off from the main mountain, South Peak is free from high-altitude bombers racing back to the lifts. Three progression carpets offer the perfect ramp-up experience. The 374-vertical-foot quad rises high enough to feel grown-up without stoking the summit lakeview vertigo. The trails are gently tilted but numerous and interesting. Other than potential for an errant turn down Sunnyside toward the Sunapee Express, it's almost impossible to get lost. It's as though someone chopped a mid-sized Midwest ski area from the earth, airlifted it east, and stapled it onto the edge of Sunapee:A few other Northeast ski areas offer this sort of ski-area-within-a-ski-area beginner separation – Burke, Belleayre, Whiteface, and Smugglers' Notch all host expansive standalone beginner zones. But Sunapee's is one of the easiest to access for New England's core Boston market, and, because of the Epic Pass, one of the most affordable.For everyone else, Sunapee's main mountain distills everything that is great and terrible about New England skiing: a respectable vertical drop; a tight, complex, and varied trail network; a detached-from-conditions determination to be outdoors in the worst of it. But also impossible weekend crowds, long snow draughts, a tendency to overgroom even when the snow does fall, and an over-emphasis on driving, with nowhere to stay on-mountain. But even when it's not perfect, which it almost never is, Sunapee is always, objectively, a great natural ski mountain, a fall-line classic, a little outpost of the north suspiciously far south. Podcast NotesOn Sunapee's masterplan and West Bowl expansionAs a state park, Mount Sunapee is required to submit an updated masterplan every five years. The most transformative piece of this would be the West Bowl expansion, a 1,082-vertical-foot pod running skiers' left off the current summit (right in purple on the map below):The masterplan also proposes upgrades for several of Sunapee's existing lifts, including the Sunapee Express and the Spruce and North Peak triples:On past Storm Skiing Podcasts:Disch mentions a recent podcast that I recorded with Attitash, New Hampshire GM Brandon Schwarz. You can listen to that here. I've also recorded pods with the leaders of a dozen other New Hampshire mountains:* Wildcat GM JD Crichton (May 30, 2024)* Gunstock President & GM Tom Day (April 15, 2024) – now retired* Tenney Mountain GM Dan Egan (April 8, 2024) – no longer works at Tenney* Cranmore President & GM Ben Wilcox (Oct. 16, 2023)* Dartmouth Skiway GM Mark Adamczyk (June 12, 2023)* Granite Gorge GM Keith Kreischer (May 30, 2023)* Loon Mountain President & GM Brian Norton (Nov. 14, 2022)* Pats Peak GM Kris Blomback (Sept. 26, 2022)* Ragged Mountain GM Erik Barnes (April 26, 2022)* Whaleback Mountain Executive Director Jon Hunt (June 16, 2021)* Waterville Valley President & GM Tim Smith (Feb. 22, 2021)* Cannon Mountain GM John DeVivo (Oct. 6, 2020) – now GM at Antelope Butte, WyomingOn New England ski area densityDisch referenced the density of ski areas in New England. With 100 ski areas crammed into six states, this is without question the densest concentration of lift-served skiing in the United States. Here's an inventory:On the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)From 1933 to 1942 – the height of the Great Depression – a federal government agency knows as the Civilian Conservation Corps recruited single men between the ages of 18 and 25 to “improve America's public lands, forests, and parks.” Some of this work included the cutting of ski trails on then-virgin mountains, including Mount Sunapee. While the CCC trail is no longer in use on Sunapee, that first project sparked the notion of skiing on the mountain and led to the development of the ski area we know today.On potential Northeast expansions and there being “a bunch that are proposed all over the region”This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a few of the larger Northeast expansions that are creeping toward reality include a new trailpod at Berkshire East:This massive, village-connecting expansion that would completely transform Waterville Valley:The de-facto resurrection of New York's lost Highmount ski area with an expansion from adjacent Belleayre:And the monster proposed Western Territories expansion that could double the size of Sunday River. There's no public map of this one presently available.On high-speed ropetowsI'll keep beating the crap out of this horse until you all realize that I'm right:A high-speed ropetow at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota. Video by Stuart Winchester.On Crotched proximity and night skiingWe talk briefly about past plans for night-skiing on Sunapee, and Disch argues that, while that may have made sense when the Muellers owned the ski area, it's no longer likely since Vail also owns Crotched, which hosts one of New England's largest night-skiing operations less than an hour south. It's a fantastic little operation, a once-abandoned mountain completely rebuilt from the studs by Peak Resorts:On the Epic Day PassHere's another thing I don't plan to stop talking about ever:The Storm explores the world of North American lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 48/100 in 2024, and number 548 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 26. It dropped for free subscribers on July 3. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoJD Crichton, General Manager of Wildcat Mountain, New HampshireRecorded onMay 30, 2024About WildcatClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Gorham, New HampshireYear founded: 1933 (lift service began in 1957)Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Pass – unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Pass – unlimited weekday accessClosest neighboring ski areas: Black Mountain, New Hampshire (:18), Attitash (:22), Cranmore (:28), Sunday River (:45), Mt. Prospect Ski Tow (:46), Mt. Abram (:48), Bretton Woods (:48), King Pine (:50), Pleasant Mountain (:57), Cannon (1:01), Mt. Eustis Ski Hill (1:01)Base elevation: 1,950 feetSummit elevation: 4,062 feetVertical drop: 2,112 feetSkiable Acres: 225Average annual snowfall: 200 inchesTrail count: 48 (20% beginner, 47% intermediate, 33% advanced)Lift count: 5 (1 high-speed quad, 3 triples, 1 carpet)Why I interviewed himI've always been skeptical of acquaintances who claim to love living in New Jersey because of “the incredible views of Manhattan.” Because you know where else you can find incredible views of Manhattan? In Manhattan. And without having to charter a hot-air balloon across the river anytime you have to go to work or see a Broadway play.* But sometimes views are nice, and sometimes you want to be adjacent-to-but-not-necessarily-a-part-of something spectacular and dramatic. And when you're perched summit-wise on Wildcat, staring across the street at Mount Washington, the most notorious and dramatic peak on the eastern seaboard, it's hard to think anything other than “damn.”Flip the view and the sentiment reverses as well. The first time I saw Wildcat was in summertime, from the summit of Mount Washington. Looking 2,200 feet down, from above treeline, it's an almost quaint-looking ski area, spare but well-defined, its spiderweb trail network etched against the wild Whites. It feels as though you could reach down and put it in your pocket. If you didn't know you were looking at one of New England's most abrasive ski areas, you'd probably never guess it.Wildcat could feel tame only beside Mount Washington, that open-faced deathtrap hunched against 231-mile-per-hour winds. Just, I suppose, as feisty New Jersey could only seem placid across the Hudson from ever-broiling Manhattan. To call Wildcat the New Jersey of ski areas would seem to imply some sort of down-tiering of the thing, but over two decades on the East Coast, I've come to appreciate oft-abused NJ as something other than New York City overflow. Ignore the terrible drivers and the concrete-bisected arterials and the clusters of third-world industry and you have a patchwork of small towns and beach towns, blending, to the west and north, with the edges of rolling Appalachia, to the south with the sweeping Pine Barrens, to the east with the wild Atlantic.It's actually pretty nice here across the street, is my point. Even if it's not quite as cozy as it looks. This is a place as raw and wild and real as any in the world, a thing that, while forever shadowed by its stormy neighbor, stands just fine on its own.*It's not like living in New Jersey is some kind of bargain. It's like paying Club Thump Thump prices for grocery store Miller Lite. Or at least that was my stance until I moved my smug ass to Brooklyn.What we talked aboutMountain cleanup day; what it took to get back to long seasons at Wildcat and why they were truncated for a handful of winters; post-Vail-acquisition snowmaking upgrades; the impact of a $20-an-hour minimum wage on rural New Hampshire; various bargain-basement Epic Pass options; living through major resort acquisitions; “there is no intention to make us all one and the same”; a brief history of Wildcat; how skiers lapped Wildcat before mechanical lifts; why Wildcat Express no longer transforms from a chairlift to a gondola for summer ops; contemplating Wildcat Express replacements; retroactively assessing the removal of the Catapult lift; the biggest consideration in determining the future of Wildcat's lift fleet; when a loaded chair fell off the Snowcat lift in 2022; potential base area development; and Attitash as sister resort. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSince it's impossible to discuss any Vail mountain without discussing Vail Resorts, I'll go ahead and start there. The Colorado-based company's 2019 acquisition of wild Wildcat (along with 16 other Peak resorts), met the same sort of gasp-oh-how-can-corporate-Vail-ever-possibly-manage-a-mountain-that-doesn't-move-skiers-around-like-the-fat-humans-on-the-space-base-in-Wall-E that greeted the acquisitions of cantankerous Crested Butte (2018), Whistler (2016), and Kirkwood (2012). It's the same sort of worry-warting that Alterra is up against as it tries to close the acquisition of Arapahoe Basin. But, as I detailed in a recent podcast episode on Kirkwood, the surprising thing is how little can change at these Rad Brah outposts even a dozen years after The Consumption Event.But, well. At first the Angry Ski Bros of upper New England seemed validated. Vail really didn't do a great job of running Wildcat from 2019 to 2022-ish. The confluence of Covid, inherited deferred maintenance, unfamiliarity with the niceties of East Coast operations, labor shortages, Wal-Mart-priced passes, and the distractions caused by digesting 20 new ski areas in one year contributed to shortened seasons, limited terrain, understaffed operations, and annoyed customers. It didn't help when a loaded chair fell off the Snowcat triple in 2022. Vail may have run ski resorts for decades, but the company had never encountered anything like the brash, opinionated East, where ski areas are laced tightly together, comparisons are easy, and migrations to another mountain if yours starts to suck are as easy as a five-minute drive down the road.But Vail is settling into the Northeast, making major lift upgrades at Stowe, Mount Snow, Okemo, Attitash, and Hunter since 2021. Mandatory parking reservations have helped calm once-unmanageable traffic around Stowe and Mount Snow. The Epic Pass – particularly the northeast-specific versions – has helped to moderate region-wide season pass prices that had soared to well over $1,000 at many ski areas. The company now seems to understand that this isn't Keystone, where you can make snow in October and turn the system off for 11 months. While Vail still seems plodding in Pennsylvania and the lower Midwest, where seasons are too short and the snowmaking efforts often underwhelming, they appear to have cracked New England – operationally if not always necessarily culturally.That's clear at Wildcat, where seasons are once again running approximately five months, operations are fully staffed, and the pitchforks are mostly down. Wildcat has returned to the fringe, where it belongs, to being an end-of-the-road day-trip alternative for people who prefer ski areas to ski resorts (and this is probably the best ski-area-with-no-public-onsite lodging in New England). Locals I speak with are generally happy with the place, which, this being New England, means they only complain about it most of the time, rather than all of the time. Short of moving the mountain out of its tempestuous microclimate and into Little Cottonwood Canyon, there isn't much Vail could do to change that, so I'd suggest taking the win.What I got wrongWhen discussing the installation of the Wildcat Express and the decommissioning of the Catapult triple, I made a throwaway reference to “whoever owned the mountain in the late ‘90s.” The Franchi family owned Wildcat from 1986 until selling the mountain to Peak Resorts in 2010.Why you should ski WildcatThere isn't much to Wildcat other than skiing. A parking lot, a baselodge, scattered small buildings of unclear utility - all of them weather-beaten and slightly ramshackle, humanity's sad ornaments on nature's spectacle.But the skiing. It's the only thing there is and it's the only thing that matters. One high-speed lift straight to the top. There are other lifts but if the 2,041-vertical-foot Wildcat Express is spinning you probably won't even notice, let alone ride, them. Straight up, straight down. All day long or until your fingers fall off, which will probably take about 45 minutes.The mountain doesn't look big but it is big. Just a few trails off the top but these quickly branch infinitely like some wild seaside mangrove, funneling skiers, whatever their intent, into various savage channels of its bell-shaped footprint. Descending the steepness, Mount Washington, so prominent from the top, disappears, somehow too big to be seen, a paradox you could think more about if you weren't so preoccupied with the skiing.It's not that the skiing is great, necessarily. When it's great it's amazing. But it's almost never amazing. It's also almost never terrible. What it is, just about all the time, is a fight, a mottled, potholed, landmine-laced mother-bleeper of a mountain that will not cede a single turn without a little backtalk. This is not an implication of the mountain ops team. Wildcat is about as close to an un-tamable mountain as you'll find in the over-groomed East. If you've ever tried building a sandcastle in a rising tide, you have a sense of what it's like trying to manage this cantankerous beast with its impossible weather and relentless pitch.We talk a bit, on the podcast, about Wildcat's better-than-you'd-suppose beginner terrain and top-to-bottom green trail. But no one goes there for that. The easy stuff is a fringe benefit for edgier families, who don't want to pinch off the rapids just because they're pontooning on the lake. Anyone who truly wants to coast knows to go to Bretton Woods or Cranmore. Wildcat packs the rowdies like jacket-flask whisky, at hand for the quick hit or the bender, for as dicey a day as you care to make it.Podcast NotesOn long seasons at WildcatWildcat, both under the Franchi family (1986 to 2010), and Peak Resorts, had made a habit of opening early and closing late. During Vail Resorts' first three years running the mountain, those traditions slipped, with later-than-normal openings and earlier-than-usual closings. Obviously we toss out the 2020 early close, but fall 2020 to spring 2022 were below historical standards. Per New England Ski History:On Big Lifts: New England EditionI noted that the Wildcat Express quad delivered one of the longest continuous vertical rises of any New England lift. I didn't actually know where the machine ranked, however, so I made this chart. The quad lands at an impressive number five among all lifts, and is third among chairlifts, in the six-state region:Kind of funny that, even in 2024, two of the 10 biggest vertical drops in New England still belong to fixed-grip chairs (also arguably the two best terrain pods in Vermont, with Madonna at Smuggs and the single at MRG).The tallest lifts are not always the longest lifts, and Wildcat Express ranks as just the 13th-longest lift in New England. A surprise entrant in the top 15 is Stowe's humble Toll House double, a 6,400-foot-long chairlift that rises just 890 vertical feet. Another inconspicuous double chair – Sugarloaf's older West Mountain lift – would have, at 6,968 feet, have made this list (at No. 10) before the resort shortened it last year (to 4,130 feet). It's worth noting that, as far as I know, Sugarbush's Slide Brook Express is the longest chairlift in the world.On Herman MountainCrichton grew up skiing at Hermon Mountain, a 300-ish footer outside of Bangor, Maine. The bump still runs the 1966 Poma T-bar that he skied off of as a kid, as well as a Stadeli double moved over from Pleasant Mountain in 1998 (and first installed there, according to Lift Blog, in 1967. The most recent Hermon Mountain trailmap that I can find dates to 2007:On the Epic Northeast Value Pass versus other New England season passes Vail's Epic Northeast Value Pass is a stupid good deal: $613 for unlimited access to the company's four New Hampshire ski areas (Wildcat, Attitash, Mount Sunapee, Crotched), non-holiday access to Mount Snow and Okemo, and 10 non-holiday days at Stowe (plus access to Hunter and everything Vail operates in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan). Surveying New England's 25 largest ski areas, the Northeast Value Pass is less-expensive than all but Smugglers' Notch ($599), Black Mountain of Maine ($465), Pico ($539), and Ragged ($529). All of those save Ragged's are single-mountain passes.On the Epic Day PassYes I am still hung up on the Epic Day Pass, and here's why:On consolidationI referenced Powdr's acquisition of Copper Mountain in 2009 and Vail's purchase of Crested Butte in 2018. Here's an inventory all the U.S. ski areas owned by a company with two or more resorts:On Wildcat's old Catapult liftWhen Wildcat installed its current summit chair in 1997, they removed the Catapult triple, a shorter summit lift (Lift F below) that had provided redundancy to the summit alongside the old gondola (Lift A):Interestingly, the old gondy, which dated to 1957, remained in place for two more years. Here's a circa 1999 trailmap, showing both the Wildcat Express and the gondola running parallel from base to summit:It's unclear how often both lifts actually ran simultaneously in the winter, but the gondola died with the 20th Century. The Wildcat Express was a novel transformer lift, which converted from a high-speed quad chair in the winter to a four-passenger gondola in the summer. Vail, for reasons Crichton explains in the podcast, abandoned that configuration and appears to have no intentions of restoring it.On the Snowcat lift incidentA bit more on the January 2022 chairlift accident at Wildcat, per SAM:On Saturday, Jan. 8, a chair carrying a 22-year-old snowboarder on the Snowcat triple at Wildcat Mountain, N.H., detached from the haul rope and fell nearly 10 feet to the ground. Wildcat The guest was taken to a nearby hospital with serious rib injuries.According to state fire marshal Sean Toomey, the incident began after the chair was misloaded—meaning the guest was not properly seated on the chair as it continued moving out of the loading area. The chair began to swing as it traveled uphill, struck a lift tower and detached from the haul rope, falling to the ground. Snowcat is a still-active Riblet triple, and attaches to the haulrope with a device called an “insert clip.” I found this description of these novel devices on a random blog from 2010, so maybe don't include this in a report to Congress on the state of the nation's lift fleet:[Riblet] closed down in 2003. There are still quite a few around; from the three that originally were at The Canyons, only the Golden Eagle chair survives today. Riblet built some 500 lifts. The particularities of the Riblet chair are their grips, which are called insert clips. It is a very ingenious device and it is very safe too. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, You'll see a sketch below showing the detail of the clip.… One big benefit of the clip is that it provides a very smooth ride over the sheave trains, particularly under the compression sheaves, something that traditional clam/jaw grips cannot match. The drawback is that the clip cannot be visually inspected at it is the case with other grips. Also, the code required to move the grip every 2 years or 2,000 hours, whichever comes first. This is the same with traditional grips.This is a labor-intensive job and a special tool has been developed: The Riblet "Grip Detensioner." It's showed on a second picture representing the tool in action. You can see the cable in the middle with the strands separated, which allows the insertion of the clip. Also, the fiber or plastic core of the wire rope has to be cut where the clip is inserted. When the clip is moved to another location of the cable, a plastic part has to be placed into the cable to replace the missing piece of the core. Finally, the Riblet clip cannot be placed on the spliced section of the rope.Loaded chairs utilizing insert clips also detached from lifts at Snowriver (2021) and 49 Degrees North (2020). An unoccupied, moving chair fell from Heavenly's now-retired North Bowl triple in 2016.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 44/100 in 2024, and number 544 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 10. It dropped for free subscribers on June 17. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoBelinda Trembath, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb, British ColumbiaRecorded onJune 3, 2024About Whistler BlackcombClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail Resorts (majority owners; Nippon Cable owns a 25 percent stake in Whistler Blackcomb)Located in: Whistler, British ColumbiaYear founded: 1966Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited* Epic Local Pass: 10 holiday-restricted days, shared with Vail Mountain and Beaver CreekClosest neighboring ski areas: Grouse Mountain (1:26), Cypress (1:30), Mt. Seymour (1:50) – travel times vary based upon weather conditions, time of day, and time of yearBase elevation: 2,214 feet (675 meters)Summit elevation: 7,497 feet (2,284 meters)Vertical drop: 5,283 feet (1,609 meters)Skiable Acres: 8,171Average annual snowfall: 408 inches (1,036 centimeters)Trail count: 276 (20% easiest, 50% more difficult, 30% most difficult)Lift count: A lot (1 28-passenger gondola, 3 10-passenger gondolas, 1 8-passenger gondola, 1 8-passenger pulse gondola, 8 high-speed quads, 4 six-packs, 1 eight-pack, 3 triples, 2 T-bars, 7 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Whistler Blackcomb's lift fleet) – inventory includes upgrade of Jersey Cream Express from a quad to a six-pack for the 2024-25 ski season.Why I interviewed herHistorical records claim that when Lewis and Clark voyaged west in 1804, they were seeking “the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” But they were actually looking for Whistler Blackcomb.Or at least I think they were. What other reason is there to go west but to seek out these fabulous mountains, rising side by side and a mile* into the sky, where Pacific blow-off splinters into summit blizzards and packed humanity animates the village below?There is nothing else like Whistler in North America. It is our most complete, and our greatest, ski resort. Where else does one encounter this collision of terrain, vertical, panorama, variety, and walkable life, interconnected with audacious aerial lifts and charged by a pilgrim-like massing of skiers from every piece and part of the world? Europe and nowhere else. Except for here.Other North American ski resorts offer some of these things, and some of them offer better versions of them than Whistler. But none of them has all of them, and those that have versions of each fail to combine them all so fluidly. There is no better snow than Alta-Snowbird snow, but there is no substantive walkable village. There is no better lift than Jackson's tram, but the inbounds terrain lacks scale and the town is miles away. There is no better energy than Palisades Tahoe energy, but the Pony Express is still carrying news of its existence out of California.Once you've skied Whistler – or, more precisely, absorbed it and been absorbed by it – every other ski area becomes Not Whistler. The place lingers. You carry it around. Place it into every ski conversation. “Have you been to Whistler?” If not, you try to describe it. But it can't be done. “Just go,” you say, and that's as close as most of us can come to grabbing the raw power of the place.*Or 1.6 Canadian Miles (sometimes referred to as “kilometers”).What we talked aboutWhy skier visits dropped at Whistler-Blackcomb this past winter; the new Fitzsimmons eight-passenger express and what it took to modify a lift that had originally been intended for Park City; why skiers can often walk onto that lift with little to no wait; this summer's Jersey Cream lift upgrade; why Jersey Cream didn't require as many modifications as Fitzsimmons even though it was also meant for Park City; the complexity of installing a mid-mountain lift; why WB had to cancel 2024 summer skiing and what that means for future summer seasons; could we see a gondola serving the glacier instead?; Vail's Australian trio of Mt. Hotham, Perisher, and Falls Creek; Whistler's wild weather; the distinct identities of Blackcomb and Whistler; what WB means to Vail Resorts; WB's Olympic legacy; Whistler's surprisingly low base elevation and what that means for the visitor; WB's relationship with local First Nations; priorities for future lift upgrades and potential changes to the Whistler gondola, Seventh Heaven, Whistler T-bar, Franz's, Garbanzo; discussing proposed additional lifts in Symphony Bowl and elsewhere on Whistler; potential expansion into a fourth portal; potential new or upgraded lifts sketched out in Blackcomb Mountain's masterplan; why WB de-commissioned the Hortsman T-Bar; missing the Wizard-to-Solar-Coaster access that the Blackcomb Gondola replaced; WB's amazing self-managing lift mazes; My Epic App direct-to-lift access is coming to Whistler; employee housing; why Whistler's season pass costs more than an Epic Pass; and Edge cards. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewFour new major lifts in three years; the cancellation of summer skiing; “materially lower” skier visits at Whistler this past winter, as reported by Vail Resorts – all good topics, all enough to justify a check-in. Oh and the fact that Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski area in the Western Hemisphere, the crown jewel in Vail's sprawling portfolio, the single most important ski area on the continent.And why is that? What makes this place so special? The answer lies only partly in its bigness. Whistler is vast. Whistler is thrilling. Whistler is everything you hope a ski area will be when you plan your winter vacation. But most important of all is that Whistler is proof.Proof that such a place can exist in North America. U.S. America is stuck in a development cycle that typically goes like this:* Ski area proposes a new expansion/base area development/chairlift/snowmaking upgrade.* A small group of locals picks up the pitchforks because Think of the Raccoons/this will gut the character of our bucolic community of car-dependent sprawl/this will disrupt one very specific thing that is part of my personal routine that heavens me I just can't give up.* Said group files a lawsuit/formal objection/some other bureaucratic obstacle, halting the project.* Resort justifies the project/adapts it to meet locals' concerns/makes additional concessions in the form of land swaps, operational adjustments, infrastructure placement, and the like.* Group insists upon maximalist stance of Do Nothing.* Resort makes additional adjustments.* Group is Still Mad* Cycle repeats for years* Either nothing ever gets done, or the project is built 10 to 15 years after its reveal and at considerable extra expense in the form of studies, legal fees, rising materials and labor costs, and expensive and elaborate modifications to accommodate one very specific thing, like you can't operate the lift from May 1 to April 20 because that would disrupt the seahorse migration between the North and South Poles.In BC, they do things differently. I've covered this extensively, in podcast conversations with the leaders of Sun Peaks, Red Mountain, and Panorama. The civic and bureaucratic structures are designed to promote and encourage targeted, smart development, leading to ever-expanding ski areas, human-scaled and walkable base area infrastructure, and plenty of slopeside or slope-adjacent accommodations.I won't exhaust that narrative again here. I bring it up only to say this: Whistler has done all of these things at a baffling scale. A large, vibrant, car-free pedestrian village where people live and work. A gargantuan lift across an unbridgeable valley. Constant infrastructure upgrades. Reliable mass transit. These things can be done. Whistler is proof.That BC sits directly atop Washington State, where ski areas have to spend 15 years proving that installing a stop sign won't undermine the 17-year cicada hatching cycle, is instructive. Whistler couldn't exist 80 miles south. Maybe the ski area, but never the village. And why not? Such communities, so concentrated, require a small footprint in comparison to the sprawl of a typical development of single-family homes. Whistler's pedestrian base village occupies an area around a half mile long and less than a quarter mile wide. And yet, because it is a walkable, mixed-use space, it cuts down reliance on driving, enlivens the ski area, and energizes the soul. It is proof that human-built spaces, properly conceived, can create something worthwhile in what, 50 years ago, was raw wilderness, even if they replace a small part of the natural world.A note from Whistler on First NationsTrembath and I discuss Whistler's relationship with First Nations extensively, but her team sent me some follow-up information to clarify their role in the mountain's development:Belinda didn't really have time to dive into a very important piece of the First Nations involvement in the operational side of things:* There was significant engagement with First Nations as a part of developing the masterplans.* Their involvement and support were critical to the approval of the masterplans and to ensuring that all parties and their respective communities will benefit from the next 60 years of operation.* This includes the economic prosperity of First Nations – both the Squamish and Líl̓wat Nations will participate in operational success as partners.* To ensure this, the Province of British Columbia, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, Whistler Blackcomb and the Squamish and Líl̓wat Nations are engaged in agreements on how to work together in the future.* These agreements, known as the Umbrella Agreement, run concurrently with the Master Development Agreements and masterplans, providing a road map for our relationship with First Nations over the next 60 years of operations and development. * Key requirements include Revenue Sharing, Real Estate Development, Employment, Contracting & Recreational Opportunities, Marketing and Tourism and Employee Housing. There is an Implementation Committee, which oversees the execution of the agreement. * This is a landmark agreement and the only one of its kind within the mountain resort industry.What we got wrongI mentioned that “I'd never seen anything like” the lift mazes at Whistler, but that's not quite accurate. Vail Resorts deploys similar setups throughout its western portfolio. What I hadn't seen before is such choreographed and consistent navigation of these mazes by the skiers themselves. To watch a 500-person liftline squeeze itself into one loading ramp with no personnel direction or signage, and to watch nearly every chair lift off fully loaded, is to believe, at least for seven to nine minutes, in humanity as a worthwhile ongoing experiment.I said that Edge Cards were available for up to six days of skiing. They're actually available in two-, five-, or 10-day versions. If you're not familiar with Edge cards, it's because they're only available to residents of Canada and Washington State.Whistler officials clarified the mountain's spring skiing dates, which Trembath said started on May 14. The actual dates were April 15 to May 20.Why you should ski Whistler BlackcombYou know that thing you do where you step outside and you can breathe as though you didn't just remove your space helmet on the surface of Mars? You can do that at Whistler too. The village base elevation is 2,214 feet. For comparison's sake: Salt Lake City's airport sits at 4,227 feet; Denver's is at 5,434. It only goes up from there. The first chairlifts sit at 6,800 feet in Park City; 8,100 at Snowbird; 8,120 at Vail; 8,530 at Alta; 8,750 at Brighton; 9,000 at Winter Park; 9,280 at Keystone; 9,600 at Breckenridge; 9,712 at Copper Mountain; and an incredible 10,780 feet at Arapahoe Basin. Taos sits at 9,200 feet. Telluride at 8,750. Adaptation can be brutal when parachuting in from sea level, or some nominal inland elevation above it, as most of us do. At 8,500 feet, I get winded searching my hotel room for a power outlet, let alone skiing, until my body adjusts to the thinner air. That Whistler requires no such reconfiguration of your atomic structure to do things like blink and speak is one of the more underrated features of the place.Another underrated feature: Whistler Blackcomb is a fantastic family mountain. While Whistler is a flip-doodle factory of Stoke Brahs every bit the equal of Snowbird or Jackson Hole, it is not Snowbird or Jackson Hole. Which is to say, the place offers beginner runs that are more than across-the-fall line cat tracks and 300-vertical-foot beginner pods. While it's not promoted like the celebrated Peak-to-Creek route, a green trail (or sequence of them), runs nearly 5,000 uninterrupted vertical feet from Whistler's summit to the base village. In fact, with the exception of Blackcomb's Glacier Express, every one of the ski area's 16 chairlifts (even the fearsome Peak Express), and five gondolas offers a beginner route that you can ski all the way back to the base. Yes, some of them shuffle into narrow cat tracks for stretches, but mostly these are wide, approachable trails, endless and effortless, built, it seems, for ski-family safaris of the confidence-building sort.Those are maybe the things you're not thinking of. The skiing:Most skiers start with one of the three out-of-base village gondolas, but the new Fitz eight-seater rarely has a line. Start there:That's mostly a transit lift. At the top, head up the Garbanzo quad, where you can start to understand the scale of the thing:You're still not quite to the goods. But to get a sense of the mountain, ski down to Big Red:This will take you to Whistler's main upper-mountain portal, Roundhouse. From Whistler, you can see Blackcomb strafing the sky:From Roundhouse, it's a short ski down to the Peak Express:Depending upon your route down, you may end up back at Big Red. Ride back up to Roundhouse, then meander from Emerald to Harmony to Symphony lifts. For a moment on the way down Symphony, it feels like Euroski:Just about everyone sticks to the narrow groomers:But there are plenty of bumps and trees and wide-open bowls:Nice as this terrain is, the Peak 2 Peak Gondola summons you from all over the mountain:Whoosh. To Blackcomb in an instant, crossing the valley, 1,427 feet to the bottom, and out at Blackcomb's upper-mountain base, Rendezvous. Down to Glacier Express, and up a rolling fantasyland of infinite freeride terrain:And at the top it's like damn.From here, you can transfer to the Showcase T-bar if it's open. If not, climb Spanky's Ladder, and, Kaboom out on the other side:Ride Crystal Ridge or Excelerator back up, and run a lap through bowls and glades:Then ski back down to the village, ride Jersey Cream back to Rendezvous to connect to the spectacular 7th Heaven lift, or ride the gondy back over to Whistler to repeat the whole cycle. And that's just a sampling. I'm no Whistler expert - just go have fun and get lost in the whole thing.Podcast NotesOn the Lost Lifts of Park CityIt's slightly weird and enormously hilarious that the Fitzsimmons eight-seater that Whistler installed last summer and the Jersey Cream sixer that Blackcomb will drop on the mountain this year were originally intended for Park City. As I wrote in 2022:Last September, Vail Resorts announced what was likely the largest set of single-season lift upgrades in the history of the world: $315-plus million on 19 lifts (later increased to 21 lifts) across 14 ski areas. Two of those lifts would land in Park City: a D-line eight-pack would replace the Silverlode six, and a six-pack would replace the Eagle and Eaglet triples. Two more lifts in a town with 62 of them (Park City sits right next door to Deer Valley). Surely this would be another routine project for the world's largest ski area operator.It wasn't. In June, four local residents – Clive Bush, Angela Moschetta, Deborah Rentfrow, and Mark Stemler – successfully appealed the Park City Planning Commission's previous approval of the lift projects.“The upgrades were appealed on the basis that the proposed eight-place and six-place chairs were not consistent with the 1998 development agreement that governs the resort,” SAM wrote at the time. “The planning commission also cited the need for a more thorough review of the resort's comfortable carrying capacity calculations and parking mitigation plan, finding PCM's proposed paid parking plan at the Mountain Village insufficient.”So instead of rising on the mountain, the lifts spent the summer, in pieces, in the parking lot. Vail admitted defeat, at least temporarily. “We are considering our options and next steps based on today's disappointing decision—but one thing is clear—we will not be able to move forward with these two lift upgrades for the 22-23 winter season,” Park City Mountain Resort Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Deirdra Walsh said in response to the decision.One of the options Vail apparently considered was trucking the lifts to friendlier locales. Last Wednesday, as part of its year-end earnings release, Vail announced that the two lifts would be moved to Whistler and installed in time for the 2023-24 ski season. The eight-pack will replace the 1,129-vertical-foot Fitzsimmons high-speed quad on Whistler, giving the mountain 18 seats (!) out of the village (the lift runs alongside the 10-passenger Whistler Village Gondola). The six-pack will replace the Jersey Cream high-speed quad on Blackcomb, a midmountain lift with a 1,230-foot vertical rise.The whole episode is still one of the dumber things I'm aware of. There are like 80 lifts in Park City and two more (replacements, not all-new lines), apparently would have knocked the planet off its axis and sent us caterwauling into the sun. It's enough to make you un-see all the human goodness in Whistler's magical lift queues. More here.On Fitzsimmons 8's complex lineAmong the challenges of re-engineering the Fitzsimmons 8 for Whistler was the fact that the lift had to pass under the Whistler Village Gondola:Trembath and I talk a little about Fitz's download capability. Team Whistler sent over some additional information following our chat, indicating that the winter download capacity is four riders per chair (part of the original lift design, when it was meant for Park City). Summer download, for bike park operations, is limited to one passenger (a lower capacity than the original design).On Whistler's bike parkI'm not Bike Park Bro, though I could probably be talked into it fairly easily if I didn't already spend half the year wandering around the country in search of novel snowsportskiing operations. I do, however, ride my bike around NYC just about every day from May through October-ish, which in many ways resembles the giant jungle gyms that are downhill mountain bike parks, just with fewer jumps and a higher probability of decapitation by box truck.Anyway Whistler supposedly has the best bike park this side of Neptune, and we talk about it a bit, and so I'll include the trailmap even though I'd have a better chance of translating ancient Aramaic runes etched into a cave wall than I would of explaining exactly what's happening here:On Jersey Cream “not looking like much” on the trailmapBecause Whistler's online trailmap is shrunken to fit the same rectangular container that every ski map fills in the Webosphere, it fails to convey the scale of the operation (the paper version, which you can acquire if you slip a bag of gold bars and a map to the Lost City of Atlantis to a clerk at the guest services desk, is aptly called a “mountain atlas” and better captures the breadth of the place). The Jersey Cream lift and pod, for example, presents on the trailmap as an inconsequential connector lift between the Glacier Express and Rendezous station, where three other lifts convene. But this is a 1,230-vertical-foot, 4,647-foot-long machine that could, were you to hack it from the earth and transport it into the wilderness, be a fairly substantial ski area on its own. For context, 1,200 vertical feet is roughly the rise of Eldora or Monarch, or, for Easterners, Cranmore or Black Mountain.On the Whistler and Blackcomb masterplansUnlike the U.S. American Forest Service, which often fails to post ski area master development plans on their useless 1990s vintage websites, the British Columbia authorities have neatly organized all of their province's masterplans on one webpage. Whistler and Blackcomb mountains each file separate plans, last updated in 2013. That predates Vail Resorts' acquisition by three years, and Trembath and I discuss how closely (or not), these plans align with the company's current thinking around the resort.Whistler Mountain:Blackcomb Mountain:On Vail's Australian ski areasTrembath, at different points, oversaw all three of Vail Resorts' Australian ski areas. Though much of that tenure predated Vail's acquisitions (of Hotham and Falls Creek in 2019), she ran Perisher (purchased in 2015), for a year before leaping to the captain's chair at Whistler. Trembath provides a terrific breakdown of each of the three ski areas, and they look like a lot of fun:Perisher:Falls Creek:Hotham:On Sugar Bowl ParallelsTrembath's story follows a similar trajectory to that of Bridget Legnavsky, whose decades-long career in New Zealand included running a pair of that country's largest ski resorts. She then moved to North America to run a large ski area – in her case, Sugar Bowl near Lake Tahoe's North Shore. She appeared on the podcast in March.On Merlin EntertainmentI was unfamiliar with Merlin Entertainment, the former owner of Falls Creek and Hotham. The company is enormous, and owns Legoland Parks, Madame Tussauds, and dozens of other familiar brands.On Whistler and Blackcomb as formerly separate ski areasLike Park City (formerly Park City and Canyons) and Palisades Tahoe (formerly Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley), Whistler and Blackcomb were once separate ski areas. Here's the stoke version of the mountains' joint history (“You were either a Whistler skier, or you were a Blackcomb skier”):On First Nations' language on lifts and the Gondola Gallery projectAs Whistler builds new lifts, the resort tags the lift terminals with names in English and First Nations languages. From Pique Magazine at the opening of the Fitzsimmons eight-pack last December:Whistler Mountain has a brand-new chairlift ready to ferry keen skiers and snowboarders up to mid-mountain, with the rebuilt Fitzsimmons Express opening to guests early on Dec. 12. …“Importantly, this project could not have happened without the guidance and counsel of the First Nations partners,” said Trembath.“It's so important to us that their culture continues to be represented across these mountains in everything we do.”In keeping with those sentiments, the new Fitzsimmons Express is emblazoned with First Nations names alongside its English name: In the Squamish language, it is known as Sk_wexwnách, for Valley Creek, and in the Lil'wat language, it is known as Tsíqten, which means Fish Spear.New chairlifts are given First Nations names at Whistler Blackcomb as they are installed and opened.Here's Fitzsimmons:And Big Red, a sixer installed two years ago:Whistler also commissioned First Nations artists to wrap two cabins on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola. From Daily Hive:The Peak 2 Peak gondola, which connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, is showing off artwork created by First Nations artists, which can be seen by mountain-goers at BC's premiere ski resort.Vail Resorts commissioned local Indigenous artists to redesign two gondola cabins. Levi Nelson of Lil'wat Nation put his stamp on one with “Red,” while Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph of Squamish Nation have created “Wings of Thunder.” …“Red is a sacred colour within Indigenous culture, representing the lifeblood of the people and our connection to the Earth,” said Nelson, an artist who excels at contemporary Indigenous art. “These shapes come from and are inspired by my ancestors. To be inside the gondola, looking out through an ovoid or through the Ancestral Eye, maybe you can imagine what it's like to experience my territory and see home through my eyes.”“It's more than just the techniques of weaving. It's about ways of being and seeing the world. Passing on information that's meaningful. We've done weavings on murals, buildings, reviving something that was put away all those decades ago now,” said Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph.“The significance of the Thunderbird being on the gondola is that it brings the energy back on the mountain and watching over all of us.”A pic:On Native American issues in the U.S.I referenced conflicts between U.S. ski resorts and Native Americans, without providing specifics. The Forest Service cited objections from Native American communities, among other factors, in recommending a “no action” alternative to Lutsen Mountains' planned expansion last year. The Washoe tribe has attempted to “reclaim” land that Diamond Peak operates on. The most prominent dispute, however, has been a decades-long standoff between Arizona Snowbowl and indigenous tribes. Per The Guardian in 2022:The Arizona Snowbowl resort, which occupies 777 acres (314 hectares) on the mountain's slope, has attracted skiers during the winter and spring for nearly a century. But its popularity has boomed in recent years thanks to growing populations in Phoenix, a three hour's drive away, and neighbouring Flagstaff. During peak ski season, the resort draws upwards of 3,000 visitors a day.More than a dozen Indigenous nations who hold the mountain sacred have fought Snowbowl's existence since the 1930s. These include the Pueblo of Acoma, Fort McDowell Yavapai; Havasupai; Hopi; Hualapai; Navajo; San Carlos Apache; San Juan Southern Paiute; Tonto Apache; White Mountain Apache; Yavapai Apache, Yavapai Prescott, and Pueblo of Zuni. They say the resort's presence has disrupted the environment and their spiritual connection to the mountain, and that its use of treated sewage effluent to make snow is akin to baptizing a baby with wastewater.Now, a proposed $60m expansion of Snowbowl's facilities has brought simmering tensions to a boil.The US Forest Service, the agency that manages the national forest land on which Snowbowl is built, is weighing a 15-year expansion proposal that would bulk up operations, increase visitation and add new summer recreational facilities such as mountain biking trails, a zip line and outdoor concerts. A coalition of tribes, meanwhile, is resisting in unprecedented ways.The battle is emblematic of a vast cultural divide in the American west over public lands and how they should be managed. On one side are mostly financially well-off white people who recreate in national forests and parks; on the other are Indigenous Americans dispossessed from those lands who are struggling to protect their sacred sites.“Nuva'tukya'ovi is our Mount Sinai. Why can't the forest service understand that?,” asks Preston.On the tight load at the 7th Heaven liftYikes:Honestly it's pretty organized and the wait isn't that long, but this is very popular terrain and the trails could handle a higher-capacity lift (nearly everyone skis the Green Line trail or one of the blue groomers off this lift, leaving hundreds of acres of off-piste untouched; it's pretty glorious).On Wizard and Solar CoasterEvery local I spoke with in Whistler grumped about the Blackcomb Gondola, which replaced the Wizard and Solar Coaster high-speed quads in 2018. While the 10-passenger gondy substantively follows the same lines, it fails to provide the same mid-mountain fast-lap firepower that Solar Coaster once delivered. Both because removing your skis after each lap is a drag, and because many skiers ride the gondola up to Rendezvous, leaving fewer free mid-mountain seats than the empty quad chairs once provided. Here's a before-and-after:On Whistler's season passWhistler's season pass, which is good at Whistler Blackcomb and only Whistler Blackcomb, strangely costs more ($1,047 U.S.) than a full Epic Pass ($1,004 U.S.), which also provides unlimited access to Whistler and Vail's other 41 ski areas. It's weird. Trembath explains.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 42/100 in 2024, and number 542 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
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You can also subscribe to the free tier below:Who* Scott Bender, operations and business advisor to Blue Knob ownership* Donna Himes, Blue Knob Marketing Manager* Sam Wiley, part owner of Blue Knob* Gary Dietke, Blue Knob Mountain ManagerRecorded onMay 13, 2024About Blue KnobClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Majority owned by the Wiley familyLocated in: Claysburg, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations: Indy Pass and Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackouts (access not yet set for 2024-25 ski season)Closest neighboring ski areas: Laurel (1:02), Tussey (1:13), Hidden Valley (1:14), Seven Springs (1:23)Base elevation: 2,100 feetSummit elevation: 3,172 feetVertical drop: 1,072 feetSkiable Acres: 100Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 33 (5 beginner, 10 intermediate, 4 advanced intermediate, 5 advanced, 9 expert) + 1 terrain parkLift count: 5 (2 triples, 2 doubles, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blue Knob's lift fleet)Why I interviewed themI've not always written favorably about Blue Knob. In a state where shock-and-awe snowmaking is a baseline operational requirement, the mountain's system is underwhelming and bogged down by antiquated equipment. The lower-mountain terrain – Blue Knob's best – opens sporadically, sometimes remaining mysteriously shuttered after heavy local snows. The website at one time seemed determined to set the world record for the most exclamation points in a single place. They may have succeeded (this has since been cleaned up):I've always tried to couch these critiques in a but-damn-if-only context, because Blue Knob, considered purely as a ski area, is an absolute killer. It needs what any Pennsylvania ski area needs – modern, efficient, variable-weather-capable, overwhelming snowmaking and killer grooming. No one, in this temperamental state of freeze-thaws and frequent winter rains, can hope to survive long term without those things. So what's the holdup?My goal with The Storm is to be incisive but fair. Everyone deserves a chance to respond to critiques, and offering them that opportunity is a tenant of good journalism. But because this is a high-volume, high-frequency operation, and because my beat covers hundreds of ski areas, I'm not always able to gather reactions to every post in the moment. I counterbalance that reality with this: every ski area's story is a long-term, ongoing one. What they mess up today, they may get right tomorrow. And reality, while inarguable, does not always capture intentions. Eventually, I need to gather and share their perspective.And so it was Blue Knob's turn to talk. And I challenge you to find a more good-natured and nicer group of folks anywhere. I went off format with this one, hosting four people instead of the usual one (I've done multiples a few times before, with Plattekill, West Mountain, Bousquet, Boyne Mountain, and Big Sky). The group chat was Blue Knob's idea, and frankly I loved it. It's not easy to run a ski area in 2024 in the State of Pennsylvania, and it's especially not easy to run this ski area, for reasons I outline below. And while Blue Knob has been slower to get to the future than its competitors, I believe they're at least walking in that direction.What we talked about“This was probably one of our worst seasons”; ownership; this doesn't feel like PA; former owner Dick Gauthier's legacy; reminiscing on the “crazy fun” of the bygone community atop the ski hill; Blue Knob's history as an Air Force station and how the mountain became a ski area; Blue Knob's interesting lease arrangement with the state; the remarkable evolution of Seven Springs and how those lessons could fuel Blue Knob's growth; competing against Vail's trio of nearby mountains; should Vail be allowed to own eight ski areas in one state?; Indy Pass sales limits; Indy Pass as customer-acquisition tool; could Blue Knob ever upgrade its top-to-bottom doubles to a high-speed quad?; how one triple chair multiplied into two; why Blue Knob built a mile-long lift and almost immediately shortened it; how Wolf Creek is “like Blue Knob”; beginner lifts; the best ski terrain in Pennsylvania; why Mine Shaft and Boneyard Glades disappeared from Blue Knob's trailmap, and whether they could ever return; unmarked glades; Blue Knob's unique microclimate and how that impacts snowmaking; why the mountain isn't open top-to-bottom more and why it's important to change that; PA snowmaking and how Blue Knob can catch up; that wild access road and what could be done to improve it; and the surprising amount of housing on Blue Knob's slopes. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSo here's something that's absolutely stupid:That's southeastern Pennsylvania. Vail Resorts operates all of the ski areas in blue font. Ski areas in red are independent. Tussey, a local bump serving State College and its armies of sad co-eds who need a distraction because their football team can't beat Michigan, is not really relevant here. Blue Knob is basically surrounded by ski areas that all draw on the same well of out-of-state corporate resources and are stapled to the gumball-machine-priced Epic Pass. If this were a military map, we'd all say, “Yeah they're fucked.” Blue Knob is Berlin in 1945, with U.S. forces closing in from the west and the Russians driving from the east. There's no way they're winning this war.How did this happen? Which bureaucrat in sub-basement 17 of Justice Department HQ in D.C. looked at Vail's 2021 deal to acquire Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel and said, “Cool”? This was just two years after Vail had picked up Whitetail, Liberty, and Roundtop, along with Jack Frost and Big Boulder in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Peak Resorts acquisition. How does allowing one company to acquire eight of the 22 public ski resorts in one state not violate some antitrust statute? Especially when six of them essentially surround one independent competitor.I don't know. When a similar situation materialized in Colorado in 1997, Justice said, “No, Vail Resorts, you can not buy Keystone and Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin from this dog food company. Sell one.” And so A-Basin went to a real estate conglomerate out of Toronto, which gut-renovated the mountain and then flipped it, earlier this year, to Vail arch-frenemy Alterra. And an independent ski area operator told me that, at some point during this ongoing sales process, the Justice Department reached out to ask them if they were OK with Alterra – which already operates Winter Park, owns Steamboat, and has wrapped Copper, Eldora, and the four Aspen mountains into its Ikon Pass – owning A-Basin (which has been on the Ikon Pass since 2019). Justice made no such phone call, Blue Knob officials tell me on this podcast, when Vail was purchasing the Seven Springs resorts.This is where Colorad-Bro reminds me that Pennsylvania skiing is nothing compared to Colorado. And yes, Colorado is unquestionably the epicenter of American skiing, home to some of our most iconic resorts and responsible for approximately one in four U.S. skier visits each winter. But where do you suppose all those skiers come from? Not solely from Colorado, ranked 21st by U.S. population with just 5.9 million residents. Pennsylvania, with Philly and Pittsburgh and dozens of mid-sized cities in-between, ranks fifth in the nation by population, with nearly 13 million people. And with cold winters, ski areas near every large city, and some of the best snowmaking systems on the planet, PA is a skier printing press, responsible not just for millions of in-state skier visits annually, but for minting skiers that drive the loaded U-Haul west so they can brag about being Summit County locals five minutes after signing their lease. That one company controls more than one-third of the ski areas – which, combined, certainly account for more than half of the state's skier visits – strikes me as unfair in a nation that supposedly maintains robust antitrust laws.But whatever. We're locked in here. Vail Resorts is not Ticketmaster, and no one is coming to dismantle this siege. Blue Knob is surrounded. And it's worse than it looks on this map, which does not illuminate that Blue Knob sits in a vast wilderness, far from most population centers, and that all of Vail's resorts scoop up skiers flowing west-northwest from Philadelphia/Baltimore/D.C. and east from Pittsburgh. So how is Blue Knob not completely screwed? Answering that question was basically the point of this podcast. The mountain's best argument for continued existence in the maw of this Epic Pass blitzkrieg is that Blue Knob is a better pure ski area than any of the six Vail mountains that surround it (see trailmap above). The terrain is, in fact, the best in the State of Pennsylvania, and arguably in the entire Mid-Atlantic (sorry Elk Mountain partisans, but that ski area, fine as it is, is locked out of the conversation as long as they maintain that stupid tree-skiing ban). But this fact of mountain superiority is no guarantee of long-term resilience, because the truth is that Blue Knob has often, in recent years, been unable to open top to bottom, running only the upper-mountain triple chairs and leaving the best terrain out of reach.They have to fix that. And they know it. But this is a feisty mountain in a devilish microclimate with some antiquated infrastructure and a beast of an access road. Nothing about this renovation has been, or likely will be, fast or easy.But it can be done. Blue Knob can survive. I believe it after hosting the team on this podcast. Maybe you will too once you hear it.What I got wrong* When describing the trail network, I said that the runs were cut “across the fall line” in a really logical way – I meant, of course, to say they were cut down the fall line.* I said that I thought the plants that sprouted between the trees in the mothballed Mine Shaft and Boneyard Glades were positioned “to keep people out.” It's more likely, however, based upon what the crew told us, that those plants are intended to control the erosion that shuttered the glades several years ago.* I mentioned “six-packs going up in the Poconos at the KSL-owned mountains.” To clarify: those would be Camelback and Blue Mountain, which each added six-packs in 2022, one year before joining the Ikon Pass.* I also said that high-speed lifts were “becoming the standard” in Pennsylvania. That isn't quite accurate, as a follow-up inventory clarified. The state is home to just nine high-speed lifts, concentrated at five ski areas. So yeah, not exactly taking over Brah.* I intimated that Blue Knob shortened the Beginners CTEC triple, built in 1983, and stood up the Expressway triple in 1985 with some of the commandeered parts. This does not appear to be the case, as the longer Beginners lift and Expressway co-exist on several vintage trailmaps, including the one below from circa 1989. The longer lift continues to appear on Blue Knob trailmaps through the mid-1990s, but at some point, the resort shortened the lift by thousands of linear feet. We discuss why in the pod.Why you should ski Blue KnobIf we took every mountain, fully open, with bomber conditions, I would rank Blue Knob as one of the best small- to mid-sized ski areas in the Northeast. From a rough-and-tumble terrain perspective, it's right there with Berkshire East, Plattekill, Hickory, Black Mountain of Maine, Ragged, Black Mountain (New Hampshire), Bolton Valley, and Magic Mountain. But with its Pennsylvania address, it never makes that list.It should. This is a serious mountain, with serious terrain that will thrill and challenge any skier. Each trail is distinct and memorable, with quirk and character. Even the groomers are interesting, winding nearly 1,100 vertical feet through the trees, dipping and banking, crisscrossing one another and the lifts above. Lower Shortway, a steep and narrow bumper cut along a powerline, may be my favorite trail in Pennsylvania. Or maybe it's Ditch Glades, a natural halfpipe rolling below Stembogan Bowl. Or maybe it's the unmarked trees of East Wall Traverse down to the marked East Wall Glades. Or maybe it's Lower Extrovert, a wide but ungroomed and mostly unskied trail where I found wind-blown pow at 3 p.m. Every trail is playful and punchy, and they are numerous enough that it's difficult to ski them all in a single day.Which of course takes us to the reality of skiing Blue Knob, which is that the ski area's workhorse top-to-bottom lift is the 61-year-old Route 66 double chair. The lift is gorgeous and charming, trenched through the forest on a narrow and picturesque wilderness line (until the mid-station, when the view suddenly shifts to that of oddly gigantic houses strung along the hillside). While it runs fast for a fixed-grip lift, the ride is quite long (I didn't time it; I'll guess 10 to 12 minutes). It stops a lot because, well, Pennsylvania. There are a lot of novice skiers here. There is a mid-station that will drop expert skiers back at the top of the best terrain, but this portal, where beginners load to avoid the suicidal runs below, contributes to those frequent stops.And that's the reality when that lift is running, which it often is not. And that, again, is because the lower-mountain terrain is frequently closed. This is a point of frustration for locals and, I'll point out, for the mountain operators themselves. A half-open Blue Knob is not the same as, say, a half-open Sugarbush, where you'll still have access to lots of great terrain. A half-open Blue Knob is just the Expressway (Lift 4) triple chair (plus the beginner zone), mostly groomers, mostly greens and blues. It's OK, but it's not what we were promised on the trailmap.That operational inconsistency is why Blue Knob remains mostly unheralded by the sort of skiers who are most drawn to this newsletter – adventurous, curious, ready for a challenge – even though it is the perfect Storm mountain: raw and wild and secretive and full of guard dog energy. But if you're anywhere in the region, watch their Instagram account, which usually flashes the emergency lights when Route 66 spins. And go there when that happens. You're welcome.Podcast NotesOn crisscrossing chairliftsChairlifts are cool. Crisscrossing chairlifts are even cooler. Riding them always gives me the sense of being part of a giant Goldbergian machine. Check out the triple crossing over the doubles at Blue Knob (all videos by Stuart Winchester):Wiley mentions a similar setup at Attitash, where the Yankee Flyer high-speed quad crosses beneath the summit lift. Here's a pic I took of the old Summit Triple at the crossover junction in 2021:Vail Resorts replaced the triple with the Mountaineer high-speed quad this past winter. I intended to go visit the resort in early February, but then I got busy trying not to drop dead, so I cancelled that trip and don't have any pics of the new lift. Lift Blog made it there, because of course he did, and his pics show the crossover modified but intact. I did, however, discuss the new lift extensively with Attitash GM Brandon Swartz last November.I also snagged this rad footage of Whistler's new Fitzsimmons eight-pack flying beneath the Whistler Village Gondola in February:And the Porcupine triple passing beneath the Needles Gondola at Snowbasin in March:Oh, and Lift 2 passing beneath the lower Panorama Gondola at Mammoth:Brah I could do this all day. Here's Far East six-pack passing beneath the Red Dog sixer at Palisades Tahoe:Palisades' Base-to-Base Gondola actually passes over two chairlifts on its way over to Alpine Meadows: the Exhibition quad (foreground), and the KT-22 Express, visible in the distance:And what the hell, let's make it a party:On Blue Knob as Air Force baseIt's wild and wildly interesting that Blue Knob – one of the highest points in Pennsylvania – originally hosted an Air Force radar station. All the old buildings are visible in this undated photo. You can see the lifts carrying skiers on the left. Most of these buildings have since been demolished.On Ski Denton and LaurelThe State of Pennsylvania owns two ski areas: Laurel Mountain and Ski Denton (Blue Knob is located in a state park, and we discuss how that arrangement works in the podcast). Vail Resorts, of course, operates Laurel, which came packaged with Seven Springs. Denton hasn't spun the lifts in a decade. Late last year, a group called Denton Go won a bid to re-open and operate the ski area, with a mix of state and private investment.And it will need a lot of investment. Since this is a state park, it's open to anyone, and I hiked Denton in October 2022. The lifts – a double, a triple, and a Poma – are intact, but the triple is getting swallowed by fast-growing trees in one spot (top two photos):I'm no engineer, but these things are going to need a lot of work. The trail network hasn't grown over too much, and the base lodge looks pristine, the grasses around it mowed. Here's the old trailmap if you're curious:And here's the proposed upgrade blueprint:I connected briefly with the folks running Denton GO last fall, but never wrote a story on it. I'll check in with them soon for an update.On Herman Dupre and the evolution of Seven SpringsBender spent much of his career at Seven Springs, and we reminisce a bit about the Dupre family and the ski area's evolution into one of the finest mountains in the East. You can learn more about Seven Springs' history in my podcast conversation with the resort's current GM, Brett Cook, from last year.On Ski magazine's top 20 in the EastSki magazine – which is no longer a physical magazine but a collection of digital bits entrusted to the robots' care – has been publishing its reader resort rankings for decades. The list in the West is fairly static and predictable, filled largely with the Epkonic monsters you would expect (though Pow Mow won the top place this year). But the East list is always a bit more surprising. This year, for example, Mad River Glen and Smugglers' Notch claimed the top two spots. They're both excellent ski areas and personal favorites, with some of the most unique terrain in the country, but neither is on a megapass, and neither owns a high-speed lift, which is perhaps proof that the Colorado Machine hasn't swallowed our collective souls just yet.But the context in which we discuss the list is this: each year, three small ski areas punch their way into an Eastern lineup that's otherwise filled with monsters like Stowe and Sugarbush. Those are: Seven Springs; Holiday Valley, New York; and Wachusett, Massachusetts. These improbable ski centers all make the list because their owners (or former owners, in Seven Springs' case), worked for decades to transform small, backwater ski areas into major regional destinations.On Vail's Northeast Value Epic PassesThe most frightening factor in the abovementioned difficulties that Blue Knob faces in its cagefight with Vail is the introduction, in 2020, of Northeast-specific Epic Passes. There are two versions. The Northeast Value Pass grants passholders unlimited access to all eight Vail Resorts in Pennsylvania and all four in neighboring Ohio, which is a crucial feeder for the Seven Springs resorts. It also includes unlimited access to Vail's four New Hampshire resorts; unlimited access with holiday blackouts at Hunter, Okemo, and Mount Snow; and 10 non-holiday days at Stowe. And it's only $613 (early-bird price was $600):The second version is a midweek pass that includes all the same resorts, with five Stowe days, for just $459 ($450 early-bird):And you can also, of course, pick up an Epic ($1,004) or Epic Local ($746) pass, which still includes unlimited Pennsylvania access and adds everything in the West and in Europe.Blue Knob's season pass costs $465 ($429 early-bird), and is only good at Blue Knob. That's a very fair price, and skiers who acted early could have added an Indy Pass on at a pretty big discount. But Indy is off sale, and PA skiers weighing their pass options are going to find that Epic Pass awfully tempting.On comparisons to the liftline at MRGErf, I may have activated the Brobots at Mad Brother Glen when I compared the Route 66 liftline with the one beneath their precious single chair. But I mean it's not the worst comparison you could think of:Here's another Blue Knob shot that shows how low the chairs fly over the trail:And here's a video that gives a bit more perspective on Blue Knob's liftline:I don't know if I fully buy the comparison myself, but Blue Knob is the closest thing you'll find to MRG this far south.On Wolf Creek's old summit PomaHimes reminisced on her time working at Wolf Creek, Colorado, and the rattletrap Poma that would carry skiers up a 45-degree face to the summit. I was shocked to discover that the old lift is actually still there, running alongside the Treasure Stoke high-speed quad (the two lifts running parallel up the gut of the mountain). I have no idea how often it actually spins:Lift Blog has pics, and notes that the lift “very rarely operates for historic purposes.”On defunct gladesThe Mine Shaft and Bone Yard glades disappeared from Blue Knob's trailmap more than a decade ago, but this sign at the top of Lower Shortway still points toward them:Then there's this sign, a little ways down, where the Bone Yard Glade entrance used to be:And here are the glades, marked on a circa 2007 trailmap, between Deer Run and Lower Shortway:It would be rad if Blue Knob could resurrect these. We discuss the possibility on the podcast.On Blue Knob's base being higher than Killington'sSomewhat unbelievably, Blue Knob's 2,100-foot base elevation is higher than that of every ski area in New England save Saddleback, which launches from a 2,460-foot base. The five next highest are Bolton Valley (2,035 feet), Stowe (2,035), Cannon (2,034), Pico (2,000), and Waterville Valley (1,984). Blue Knob's Vail-owned neighbors would fit right into this group: Hidden Valley sits at 2,405 feet, Seven Springs at 2,240, and Laurel at 2,000. Head south and the bases get even higher: in West Virginia, Canaan Valley sits at 3,430 feet; Snowshoe at 3,348-foot base (skiers have to drive to 4,848, as this is an upside-down ski area); and Timberline at 3,268. But the real whoppers are in North Carolina: Beech Mountain sits at 4,675, Cataloochee at 4,660, Sugar Mountain at 4,100, and Hatley Pointe at 4,000. I probably should have made a chart, but damn it, I have to get this podcast out before I turn 90.On Blue Knob's antique snowmaking equipmentLook, I'm no snowmaking expert, but some of the stuff dotting Blue Knob's slopes looks like straight-up World War II surplus:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 41/100 in 2024, and number 541 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. 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You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoRicky Newberry, Vice President and General Manager of Kirkwood Ski Resort, CaliforniaRecorded onMay 20, 2024About KirkwoodClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Kirkwood, CaliforniaYear founded: 1972Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Local Epic Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Value Pass: unlimited access with holiday and Saturday blackouts* Kirkwood Pass: unlimited accessClosest neighboring ski areas: Heavenly (:43), Sierra-at-Tahoe (:44) – travel times vary significantly given weather conditions, time of day, and time of year.Base elevation: 7,800 feetSummit elevation: 9,800 feetVertical drop: 2,000 feetSkiable Acres: 2,300Average annual snowfall: 354 inchesTrail count: 86 (20% expert, 38% advanced, 30% intermediate, 12% beginner)Lift count: 13 (2 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 6 triples, 1 double, 1 T-bar, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Kirkwood's lift fleet).Why I interviewed himImagine this: 1971. Caltrans, the military-grade state agency charged with clearing California's impossible snows from its high-alpine road network, agrees to maintain an additional wintertime route across the Sierra Crest: Highway 88, over Carson Pass, an east-west route cutting 125 miles from Stockton to US 395. This is California State Route 88 in the winter:A ridiculous road, an absurd idea: turn the industrial power of giant machines against a wilderness route whose wintertime deeps had eaten human souls for centuries. An audacious idea, but not an unusual one. Not in that California or in that America. Not in that era of will and muscle. Not in that country that had pushed thousands of miles of interstate across mountains and rivers and deserts in just 15 years. Caltrans would hammer 20-foot-high snow canyons up and over the pass, punching an arctic pathway into and through the howling angry fortress of the Sierra Nevada.And they did it all to serve a new ski resort.Imagine that. A California, an America that builds.Kirkwood, opened in 1972, was part of the last great wave of American ski resort construction. Copper, Northstar, Powder Mountain, 49 Degrees North, and Telluride all opened that year. Keystone (1970), Snowbird (1971), and Big Sky (1973) also cranked to life around this time. Large ski area building stalled by the early ‘80s, though Vail managed to develop Beaver Creek in 1980. Deer Valley opened in 1981. Outliers materialize: Bohemia, in spite of considerable local resistance, in 2000. Tamarack in 2004. But mostly, the ski resorts we have are all the ski resorts we'll ever have.But there is a version of America, of California, that dreams and does enormous things, and not so long ago. This institutional memory lives on, even in those who had no part in its happening. Kirkwood is an emblem of this era and its willful collective imagining. The mountain itself is a ludicrous place for a commercial ski resort, steep and wild, an avalanche hazard zone that commands constant vigilant maintenance. Like Alta-Snowbird or Jackson Hole, the ski area offers nominal groomed routes, a comfortable lower-mountain beginner area, just enough accommodation for the intermediate mass-market passholder to say “yes I did this.” This dressing up, too, encapsulates the fading American habit of taming the raw and imposing, of making an unthinkable thing look easy.But nothing about Kirkwood is easy. Not the in or the out. Not the up or the down. It's rough and feisty, messy and unpredictable. And that's the point of the place. As with the airplane or the smartphone, we long ago lost our awe of the ski resort, what a marvelous feat of human ingenuity it is. Kirkwood, lost in the highlands, lift-served on its crazy two-mile ridge, is one of the more improbable organized centers of American skiing. In its very existence the place memorializes and preserves lost impulses to actualize the unbelievable, to transport humans into, up, and down a ferocious mountain in a hostile mountain range. I find glory in Kirkwood, in that way and so many more. Hyperbole, perhaps. But what an incredible place this is, and not just because of the skiing.What we talked aboutComing down off a 725-inch 2022-23 winter; what's behind Kirkwood's big snows and frequent road closures; scenic highway 88; if you're running Kirkwood, prepare to sleep in your office; employee housing; opening when the road is closed; why Kirkwood doesn't stay open deep into May even when they have the snowpack; the legacy of retiring Heavenly COO Tom Fortune; the next ski area Vail should buy; watching Vail Resorts move into Tahoe; Vail's culture of internal promotion; what it means to lead the ski resort where you started your career; avalanche safety; the nuance and complexity of managing Kirkwood's avy-prone terrain; avy dogs; why is Kirkwood Vail's last Western mountain to get a new chairlift?; bringing Kirkwood onto the grid; potential lift upgrades (fantasy version); considering Kirkwood's masterplan; whether a lift could ever serve the upper bowls looker's right; why Kirkwood shrank the boundary of Reuter Bowl this past season; why the top of The Wall skied different this winter; why Kirkwood put in and then removed surface lifts around Lift 4 (Sunrise); Kirkwood's fierce terrain; what happens when Vail comes to Rowdy Town; The Cirque and when it opens for competitions; changes coming to Kirkwood parking; why Kirkwood still offers a single-mountain season pass; and the Tahoe Value and Tahoe Local passes. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewMaybe last year, when the stacked snows transformed Tahoe into a Seussian mushroom village, would have been a better moment for this interview. Kirkwood – Kirkwood – beat a 700-inch single-winter snowfall record that had stood for 40 years, with 725 inches of freaking snow. By the time I arrived onsite, in late March, the snowpack was so deep that I could barely see out the windows of my condo – on the second floor:This winter marked a return to almost exactly average, which at Kirkwood is still better than what some ski areas clock in a decade: 370 inches. Average, in draught-prone Tahoe and closure-prone Kirkwood, is perhaps the best possible outcome. As this season settled from a thing that is to a thing that happened, it felt appropriate to document the contrast: how does 370 feel when it chases 725? Is snow like money, where after a certain amount you really can't tell the difference? Or does snow, which, like money, occupies that strange space between the material and the ephemeral, ignite with its vanishing form some untamable avarice? More is never enough. Even 725 inches feels stingy in some contexts – Alta stacked 903 last winter; Baker's 1,140-inch 1998-99 season bests any known season snowfall total on Planet Earth.But Californians, I've found, have little use for comparisons. Perhaps that's an effect of the horizon-bending desert that chops the state off from the rest of the continent. Perhaps it's a silent pride in being a resident of America's most-populous state – more people live in California than in the 21 least-populous U.S. states combined, or in all of Canada. Perhaps its Surf Brah bonhomie drifting up to the mountains. Whatever it is, there seems to be something in Cali's collective soul that takes whatever it's given and is content with it.Or at least it feels that way whenever I go there, and it sure felt that way in this interview. At a moment when it seems as though too many big-mountain skiers at headliner mountains want to staple their home turf's alpha-dog patch to their forehead and walk around with two thumbs jerking upward repeating “You do realize I'm a season passholder at Alta, right?”, Kirkwood still feels tucked away, quiet in its excellence, a humble pride masking its fierce façade. Even 12 years into Vail Resorts' ownership, the ski area feels as corporate as a guy selling bootleg purses out of a rolled-out sheet on Broadway. Swaggering but approachable, funky and improvised, something that's probably going to make a good story when you get back home.Why you should ski KirkwoodOddly, I usually tell people not to go here. And not in that stupid social media way that ever-so-clever (usually) Utah and Colorad-Bros trip over one another to post: “Oh Snowbird/Wolf Creek/Pow Mow sucks, no one should go there.” It's so funny I forgot to laugh. But Kirkwood can be genuinely tough to explain. Most Epic Pass-toting tourists are frankly going to have a better time at Heavenly or Northstar, with their fast lifts, Tahoe views, vast intermediate trail networks, and easy access roads. Kirkwood is grand. Kirkwood is exceptional. Kirkwood is the maximalist version of what humankind can achieve in taming an angry pocket of wilderness for mass recreation. But Kirkwood is not for everyone.There. I've set expectations. So maybe don't make this your first Tahoe stop if you're coming west straight from Paoli Peaks. It's a bruiser, one of the rowdiest in Vail's sprawling portfolio, wild and steep and exposed. If you're looking for a fight, Kirkwood will give you one.That's not to say an intermediate couldn't enjoy themselves here. Just don't expect Keystone. What's blue and green at Kirkwood is fine terrain, but it's limited, and lacks the drama of, say, coming over Ridge Run or Liz's at Heavenly, with the lake shimmering below and miles of intermediate pitch in front of you. **This message is not endorsed (or likely appreciated) by the Kirkwood Chamber of Commerce, Vail Resorts, or Kirkwood ski area.Podcast NotesOn former Kirkwood GMs on the podcast Sometimes it seems as though everyone in skiing has taken their turn running Kirkwood. An unusual number of past Storm Skiing Podcast guests have done so, and I discussed the resort with all of them: Chip Seamans (now at Windham), Tim Cohee (now at China Peak), and Tom Fortune (recently retired from Heavenly). Apologies if I forgot anyone.On Apple MountainApple Mountain wasn't much: 200-ish vertical feet (pushed up from an original 30-footer) with a quad chair and a bunch of ropetows. Here was the 2000 trailmap:But this little Michigan ski area – where both Newberry and I learned (partially, in my case), to ski – moved nearly 800,000 students through its beginner programs from 1961 to '94, according to the Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project.It's been closed since 2017. Something about the snowmaking system that's either too hard or too expensive to fix. That leaves Michigan's Tri-Cities – Midland, Bay City, and Saginaw, with a total metro population approaching 400,000 – with no functioning ski area. Snow Snake is only about 40 minutes north of Midland, and Mt. Holly is less than an hour south of Saginaw. But Apple Mountain, tucked into the backwoods behind Freeland, sat dead in the middle of the triangle. It was accessible to almost any schoolkid, and, humble as it was, stoked that fire for thousands of what became lifelong skiers.What skiing has lost without Apple Mountain is impossible to calculate. I would argue that it was one of the more important ski areas anywhere. Winters in mid-Michigan are long, cold, snowy, and dull. People need something to do. But skiing is not an obvious solution: this is the flattest place you can imagine. To have skiing – any skiing – in the region was a joy and a novelty. There was no redundancy, no competing ski center. And so the place was impossibly busy at all times, minting skiers who would go off to start ski newsletters and run huge resorts on the other side of the country.The most frustrating fact about Apple Mountain is that it continues to operate as a conference center, golf course, and apple orchard. The ski lifts are intact, the slopes mowed in summertime. I stopped in two summers ago (I accidentally said “last summer,” implying 2023, on the podcast), and the place was immaculate:I haven't given up on Apple Mountain just yet. The hill is there, the market is there, and there is no shortage of people in Michigan – home to the second-most ski areas after New York – who know how to run a ski area. I told Ricky to tell Vail to buy it, which I am certain they will not do. But a solution must exist.On Mount Shasta and “the big mountain above it”Newberry references his time at “Mt. Shasta and the big mountain above it.” Here's what he meant by that: Mt. Shasta Ski Park is a mid-sized ski area seated on the lower portion of 14,179-foot Mt. Shasta. The lifts top out at 7,536 feet, even after an uphill expansion last ski season. The trailmap doesn't really capture the scale of it all (the ski area's vert is around 2,000 feet):Shasta is a temperamental (and potentially active) volcano. A previous ski area called Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl ran chairlifts up to 9,400 feet, but an avalanche wiped out the summit lift in 1978. Ski Bowl never ran again. Here's a nice history of the lost ski area:On Vail Resorts' timelineWe talk a lot about Vail's growth timeline. Here's the full roster, in order of acquisition:On HeavenlyWe discuss Heavenly - where Newberry spent a large part of his career - extensively. Here's the mountain's trailmap for reference:On Ted LassoIf you haven't watched Ted Lasso yet, you should probably go ahead and do that immediately:On Ellen at Stevens PassNewberry mentioned “Ellen at Stevens Pass.” He was referring to Ellen Galbraith, the ski area's delightful general manager, who joined me on the podcast last year.On Vail's lift installations in the WestGiven its outsized presence in the ski zeitgeist, Vail actually operates very few ski areas in Western North America: five in Colorado, three in California, and one each in Utah, Washington, and British Columbia. The company has stood up 44 (mostly) new lifts at these 11 ski areas since 2012, with one puzzling exception: Kirkwood. Check this:Why is Big K getting stiffed? Newberry and I discuss.On Kirkwood's masterplanAs far as I know, Vail hasn't updated Kirkwood's Forest Service masterplan since acquiring the resort in 2012. But this 2007 map shows an older version of the plan and where potential lifts could go:I can't find a version with the proposed Timber Creek lift, which Newberry describes in the pod as loading near Bunny and TC Express and running up-mountain to the top of the bowls.On the shrinking border of Reuter BowlKirkwood's 2023-24 trailmap snuck in a little shrinkage: the border of Reuter Bowl, a hike-in zone on the resort's far edge, snuck south. Newberry explains why on the pod:On Kirkwood's short-lived surface liftsWe discuss a pair of surface lifts that appeared as Lift 15 on the trailmap from around 2008 to 2017. You can see them on this circa 2017 (earlier maps show this as one lift), trailmap:On The CirqueThe Cirque, a wicked labyrinth of chutes, cliffs, and rocks looming above the ski area, was, somewhat unbelievably, once inbounds terrain. This circa 1976 trailmap even shows a marked trail through this forbidden zone, which is now open only occasionally for freeride comps:On Kirkwood's parking changesKirkwood will implement the same parking-reservations policy next winter that Northstar and Heavenly began using last year. Here's a summary from the ski area's website:Skiers get pretty lit up about parking. But Vail is fairly generous with the workarounds, and a system that spreads traffic out (because everyone knows they'll get a spot), across the morning is a smart adjustment so long as we are going to continue insisting on the automobile as our primary mode of transport.On Saginaw, MichiganNewberry and I share a moment in which we discover we were both born in the same mid-sized Michigan city: Saginaw. Believe it or not, there's a song that starts with these very lyrics: “I was born, in Saginaw, Michigan…” The fact that this song exists has long puzzled me. It is kind of stupid but also kind of great. The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 40/100 in 2024, and number 540 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
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You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoJosh Jorgensen, CEO of Mission Ridge, Washington and Blacktail Mountain, MontanaRecorded onApril 15, 2024About Mission RidgeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Larry ScrivanichLocated in: Wenatchee, WashingtonYear founded: 1966Pass affiliations:* Indy Pass – 2 days with holiday and weekend blackouts (TBD for 2024-25 ski season)* Indy+ Pass – 2 days with no blackouts* Powder Alliance – 3 days with holiday and Saturday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Badger Mountain (:51), Leavenworth Ski Hill (:53) – travel times may vary considerably given weather conditions, time of day, and time of year.Base elevation: 4,570 feetSummit elevation: 6,820 feetVertical drop: 2,250 feetSkiable Acres: 2,000Average annual snowfall: 200 inchesTrail count: 70+ (10% easiest, 60% more difficult, 30% most difficult)Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 3 doubles, 2 ropetows, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mission Ridge's lift fleet)View historic Mission Ridge trailmaps on skimap.org.About BlacktailClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Larry ScrivanichLocated in: Lakeside, MontanaYear founded: 1998Pass affiliations:* Indy Pass – 2 days with holiday and weekend blackouts (TBD for 2024-25 ski season)* Indy+ Pass – 2 days with no blackouts* Powder Alliance – 3 days with holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Whitefish (1:18) - travel times may vary considerably given weather conditions, time of day, and time of year.Base elevation: 5,236 feetSummit elevation: 6,780 feetVertical drop: 1,544 feetSkiable Acres: 1,000+Average annual snowfall: 250 inchesTrail count: (15% easier, 65% more difficult, 20% most difficult)Lift count: 4 (1 triple, 2 doubles, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blacktail's lift fleet)View historic Blacktail trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himSo much of Pacific Northwest skiing's business model amounts to wait-and-pray, hoping that, sometime in November-December, the heaping snowfalls that have spiraled in off the ocean for millennia do so again. It's one of the few regions in modern commercial skiing, anywhere in the world, where the snow is reliable enough and voluminous enough that this good-ole-boy strategy still works: 460 inches per year at Stevens Pass; 428 at Summit at Snoqualmie; 466 at Crystal; 400 at White Pass; a disgusting 701 at Baker. It's no wonder that most of these ski areas have either no snowguns, or so few that a motivated scrapper could toss the whole collection in the back of a single U-Haul.But Mission Ridge possesses no such natural gifts. The place is snowy enough – 200 inches in an average winter – that it doesn't seem ridiculous that someone thought to run lifts up the mountain. But by Washington State standards, the place is practically Palm Beach. That means the owners have had to work a lot harder, and in a far more deliberate way than their competitors, to deliver a consistent snowsportskiing experience since the bump opened in 1966.Which is a long way of saying that Mission Ridge probably has more snowmaking than the rest of Washington's ski areas combined. Which, often, is barely enough to hang at the party. This year, however, as most Washington ski areas spent half the winter thinking “Gee, maybe we ought to have more than zero snowguns,” Mission was clocking its third-best skier numbers ever.The Pacific Northwest, as a whole, finished the season fairly strong. The snow showed up, as it always does. A bunch of traditional late operators – Crystal, Meadows, Bachelor, Timberline – remain open as of early May. But, whether driven by climate change, rising consumer expectations, or a need to offer more consistent schedules to seasonal employees, the region is probably going to have to build out a mechanical complement to its abundant natural snows at some point. From a regulatory point of view, this won't be so easy in a region where people worry themselves into a coma about the catastrophic damage that umbrellas inflict upon raindrops. But Mission Ridge, standing above Wenatchee for decades as a place of recreation and employment, proves that using resources to enable recreation is not incompatible with preserving them.That's going to be a useful example to have around.What we talked aboutA lousy start to winter; a top three year for Mission anyway; snowmaking in Washington; Blacktail's worst snowfall season ever and the potential to add snowmaking to the ski area; was this crappy winter an anomaly or a harbinger?; how Blacktail's “long history of struggle” echoes the history of Mission Ridge; what could Blacktail become?; Blacktail's access road; how Blacktail rose on Forest Service land in the 1990s; Blacktail expansion potential; assessing Blacktail's lift fleet; could the company purchase more ski areas?; the evolution of Summit at Snoqualmie; Mission Ridge's large and transformative proposed expansion; why the expansion probably needs to come before chairlift upgrades; Fantasy Lift Upgrade; and why Mission Ridge replaced a used detachable quad with another used detachable quad.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewWashington skiing is endangered by a pretty basic problem: more people in this ever-richer, ever more-populous state want to ski than there are ski areas for them to visit. Building new ski areas is impossible – you'd have better luck flying an American flag from the roof of the Kremlin than introducing a new mountain to Washington State. That shortage is compounded by the lack of slopeside development, which compels every skier to drive to the hill every day that they want to ski. This circumstance reflects a false commitment to environmental preservation, which mistakes a build-nothing philosophy for watching over Mother Earth, an outmoded way of thinking that fails to appreciate the impacts of sprawl and car culture on the larger natural ecosystem.Which is where Mission Ridge, with its large proposed ski-and-stay expansion, is potentially so important. If Mission Ridge can navigate the bureaucratic obstacle course that's been dropped in its path, it could build the first substantial slopeside village in the Pacific Northwest. That could be huge. See, it would say, you can have measured development in the mountains without drowning all the grizzly bears. And since not everyone would have to drive up the mountain every day anymore, it would probably actually reduce traffic overall. The squirrels win and so do the skiers. Or something like that.And then we have Blacktail. Three-ish years ago, Mission Ridge purchased this little-known Montana bump, one of the West's few upside-down ski areas, an unlikely late addition to the Forest Service ski area network seated south of Whitefish Mountain and Glacier National Park. I was surprised when Mission bought it. I think everyone else was too. Mission Ridge is a fine ski area, and one with multi-mountain roots – it was once part of the same parent company that owned Schweitzer (now the property of Alterra) – but it's not exactly Telluride. How did a regional bump that was still running three Riblet doubles from the ‘60s and ‘70s afford another ski area two states away? And why would they want it? And what were they going to do with it?All of which I discuss, sort of, with Jorgensen. Mission and Blacktail are hardly the strangest duo in American skiing. They make more sense, as a unit, than jointly owned Red Lodge, Montana and Homewood, California. But they're also not as logical as New York's Labrador and Song, Pennsylvania's Camelback and Blue, or Massachusett's Berkshire East and Catamount, each of which sits within easy driving distance of its sister resort. So how do they fit together? Maybe they don't need to.Questions I wish I'd askedThere's a pretty cool story about a military bomber crashing into the mountain (and some associated relics) that I would have liked to have gotten into. I'd also have liked to talk a bit more about Wenatchee, which Mission's website calls “Washington's only true ski town.” I also intended to get a bit more into the particulars of the expansion, including the proposed terrain and lifts, and what sort of shape the bedbase would take. And I didn't really ask, as I normally do, about the Indy Pass and the reciprocal season pass relationship between the two ski areas.What I got wrongI said that Mission Ridge's first high-speed quad, Liberator Express, came used from Crystal Mountain. The lift actually came used from Winter Park. Jorgensen corrected that fact in the podcast. My mis-statement was the result of crossing my wires while prepping for this interview – the Crystal chairlift at Blacktail moved to Montana from Crystal Mountain, Washington. In the moment, I mixed up the mountains' lift fleets.Why you should ski Mission RidgeMission Ridge holds echoes of Arapahoe Basin's East Wall or pre-tram Big Sky: so much damn terrain, just a bit too far above the lifts for most of us to bother with. That, along with the relatively low snowfall and Smithsonian lift fleet, are the main knocks on the place (depending, of course, upon your willingness to hike and love of vintage machinery).But, on the whole, this is a good, big ski area that, because of its snowmaking infrastructure, is one of the most reliable operators for several hundred miles in any direction. The intermediate masses will find a huge, approachable footprint. Beginners will find their own dedicated lift. Better skiers, once they wear out the blacks off lifts 2 and 4, can hike the ridge for basically endless lines. And if you miss daylight, Mission hosts some of the longest top-to-bottom night-skiing runs in America, spanning the resort's entire 2,250 vertical feet (Keystone's Dercum mountain rises approximately 2,300 vertical feet).If Mission can pull off this expansion, it could ignite a financial ripple effect that would transform the resort quickly: on-site housing and expanded beginner terrain could bring more people (especially families), which would bring more revenue, which would funnel enough cash in to finally upgrade those old Riblets and, maybe, string the long-planned Lift 5 to the high saddle. That would be amazing. But it would also transform Mission into something different than what it is today. Go see it now, so you can appreciate whatever it becomes.Why you should ski BlacktailBlacktail's original mission, in the words of founder Steve Spencer, was to be the affordable locals' bump, a downhome alternative to ever-more-expensive Whitefish, a bit more than an hour up the road. That was in 1998, pre-Epic, pre-Ikon, pre-triple-digit single-day lift tickets. Fast forward to 2024, and Whitefish is considered a big-mountain outlier, a monster that's avoided every pass coalition and offers perhaps the most affordable lift ticket of any large, modern ski area in America (its top 2023-24 lift ticket price was $97).That has certainly complicated Blacktail's market positioning. It can't play Smugglers' Notch ($106 top lift ticket price) to neighboring Stowe ($220-ish). And while Blacktail's lift tickets and season passes ($450 early-bird for the 2024-25 ski season), are set at a discount to Whitefish's, the larger mountain's season pass goes for just $749, a bargain for a 3,000-acre sprawl served by four high-speed lifts.So Blacktail has to do what any ski area that's orbiting a bigger, taller, snowier competitor with more and better terrain does: be something else. There will always be a market for small and local skiing, just like there will always be a market for diners and bars with pool tables and dartboards hanging from the walls.That appeal is easy enough for locals to understand. For frequent, hassle-free skiing, small is usually better than big. It's more complicated to pitch a top-of-the-mountain parking lot to you, a probably not-local, who, if you haul yourself all the way to Montana, is probably going to want the fireworks show. But one cool thing about lingering in the small and foreign is that the experience unites the oft-opposed-in-skiing forces of novelty and calm. Typically, our ski travels involve the raucous and the loud and the fast and the enormous. But there is something utterly inspiring about setting yourself down on an unfamiliar but almost empty mountain, smaller than Mt. Megaphone but not necessarily small at all, and just setting yourself free to explore. Whatever Blacktail doesn't give you, it will at least give you that.Podcast NotesOn Mission Ridge's proposed expansionWhile we discuss the mountain's proposed expansion in a general way, we don't go deep into specifics of lifts and trails. This map gives the best perspective on how the expansion would blow Mission Ridge out into a major ski area - the key here is less the ski expansion itself than the housing that would attend it:Here's an overhead view:Video overviews:The project, like most ski area expansions in U.S. America, has taken about 700 years longer than it should have. The local radio station published this update in October:Progress is being made with the long-planned expansion of Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort.Chelan County is working with the resort on an Environmental Impact Statement.County Natural Resources Director Mike Kaputa says it'll be ready in the next eight months or so."We are getting closer and closer to having a draft Environmental Impact Statement and I think that's probably, I hate to put a month out there, but I think it's probably looking like May when we'll have a draft that goes out for public comment."The expansion plan for Mission Ridge has been in the works since 2014, and the resort brought a lawsuit against the county in 2021 over delays in the process.The lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year.Kaputa gave an update on progress with the Mission Ridge expansion before county commissioners Monday, where he said they're trying to get the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement right."You want to be as thorough as possible," Kaputa said. "You don't want to overdo it. You want to anticipate comments. I'm sure we'll get lots of comments when it comes out."In 2014, Larry Scrivanich, owner of Mission Ridge, purchased approximately 779 acres of private land adjacent to the current Mission Ridge Ski and Board Resort. Since then, Mission Ridge has been forging ahead with plans for expansion.The expansion plans call for onsite lodging and accommodations, which Mission Ridge calls a game changer, which would differentiate the resort from others in the Northwest.I'm all about process, due diligence, and checks-and-balances, but it's possible we've overcorrected here.On snowfall totals throughout WashingtonMission gets plenty of snow, but it's practically barren compared to the rest of Washington's large ski areas:On the founding of BlacktailBlacktail is an outlier in U.S. skiing in that it opened in 1998 on Forest Service land – decades after similarly leased ski areas debuted. Daily Inter Lake summarizes the unusual circumstances behind this late arrival:Steve Spencer had been skiing and working at Big Mountain [now Whitefish] for many years, starting with ski patrol and eventually rising to mountain manager, when he noticed fewer and fewer locals on the hill.With 14 years as manager of Big Mountain under his belt, Spencer sought to create an alternative to the famous resort that was affordable and accessible for locals. He got together with several business partners and looked at mountains that they thought would fit the bill.They considered sites in the Swan Range and Lolo Peak, located in the Bitterroot Range west of Missoula, but they knew the odds of getting a Forest Service permit to build a ski area there were slim to none.They had their eyes on a site west of Flathead Lake, however, that seemed to check all the right boxes. The mountain they focused on was entirely surrounded by private land, and there were no endangered species in the area that needed protection from development.Spencer consulted with local environmental groups before he'd spent even “two nickels” on the proposal. He knew that without their support, the project was dead on arrival.That mountain was known as Blacktail, and when the Forest Service OK'd ski operations there, it was the first ski area created on public land since 1978, when Beaver Creek Resort was given permission to use National Forest land in Colorado.Blacktail Mountain Ski Area celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, it is still the most recent in the country to be approved through that process.On Glacier National Park and Flathead LakeEven if you've never heard of Blacktail, it's stuffed into a dense neighborhood of outdoor legends in northern Montana, including Glacier National Park and Whitefish ski area:On WhitefishWith 3,000 skiable acres, a 2,353-foot vertical drop, and four high-speed lifts, Whitefish, just up the road from Blacktail, looms enormously over the smaller mountain's potential:But while Whitefish presents as an Epkon titan, it acts more like a backwater, with peak-day lift tickets still hanging out below the $100 mark, and no megapass membership on its marquee. I explored this unusual positioning with the mountain's president, Nick Polumbus, on the podcast last year (and also here).On “Big Mountain”For eons, Whitefish was known as “Big Mountain,” a name they ditched in 2007 because, as president and CEO at the time Fred Jones explained, the ski area was “often underestimated and misunderstood” with its “highly generic” name.On “upside-down” ski areasUpside-down ski areas are fairly common in the United States, but they're novel enough that most people feel compelled to explain what they mean when they bring one up: a ski area with the main lodge and parking at the top, rather than the bottom, of the hill.These sorts of ski areas are fairly common in the Midwest and proliferate in the Mid-Atlantic, but are rare out west. An incomplete list includes Wintergreen, Virginia; Snowshoe, West Virginia; Laurel, Blue Knob, Jack Frost, and Ski Big Bear, Pennsylvania; Otsego, Treetops, and the Jackson Creek Summit side of Snowriver, Michigan; and Spirit Mountain and Afton Alps, Minnesota. A few of these ski areas also maintain lower-level parking lots. Shawnee Mountain, Pennsylvania, debuted as an upside-down ski area, but, through a tremendous engineering effort, reversed that in the 1970s – a project that CEO Nick Fredericks detailed for us in a 2021 Storm Skiing Podcast.On LIDAR mappingJorgensen mentions LIDAR mapping of Mission Ridge's potential expansion. If you're unfamiliar with this technology, it's capable of giving astonishing insights into the past:On Blacktail's chairliftsAll three of Blacktail's chairlifts came used to the ski area for its 1998 opening. The Crystal double is from Crystal Mountain, Washington; the Olympic triple is from Canada Olympic Park in Alberta; and the Thunderhead double migrated from Steamboat, Colorado.On Riblet chairliftsFor decades, the Riblet double has been the workhorse of Pacific Northwest skiing. Simple, beautiful, reliable, and inexpensive, dozens of these machines still crank up the region's hills. But the company dissolved more than two decades ago, and its lifts are slowly retiring. Mission Ridge retains three (chairs 1, 3, and 4, which date, respectively, to 1966, 1967, and 1971), and has stated its intent to replace them all, whenever funds are available to do so.On the history of Summit at SnoqualmieThe Summit at Snoqualmie, where Jorgensen began his career, remains one of America's most confusing ski areas: the name is convoluted and long, and the campus sprawls over four once-separate ski areas, one of which sits across an interstate with no ski connection to the others. There's no easy way to understand that Alpental – one of Washington's best ski areas – is part of, but separate from, the Summit at Snoqualmie complex, and each of the three Summit areas – East, Central, and West - maintains a separate trailmap on the website, in spite of the fact that the three are interconnected by ski trails. It's all just very confusing. The ski area's website maintains a page outlining how these four ski areas became one ski area that is still really four ski areas. This 1998 trailmap gives the best perspective on where the various ski nodes sit in relation to one another:Because someone always gets mad about everything, some of you were probably all pissed off that I referred to the 1990s version of Summit at Snoqualmie as a “primitive” ski area, but the map above demonstrates why: 17 of 24 chairlifts were Riblet doubles; nine ropetows supplemented this system, and the mountain had no snowmaking (it still doesn't). Call it “retro” or whatever you want, but the place was not exactly Beaver Creek.On Vail and Alterra's Washington timelineI mentioned Washington's entrance onto the national ski scene over the past decade. What I meant by that was the addition of Summit and Crystal onto the Ikon Pass for the 2018-19 ski season, and Stevens Pass onto the Epic Pass the following winter. But Washington skiing – and Mt. Baker in particular – has always been a staple in the Temple of the Brobots, and Boyne Resorts, pre-Ikon, owned Crystal from 1997 to 2017.On Anthony LakesJorgensen mentioned that he applied for the general manager position at Anthony Lakes, a little-known 900-footer lodged in the western Oregon hinterlands. One triple chair serves the entire ski area:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 33/100 in 2024, and number 533 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. 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This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on April 15. It dropped for free subscribers on April 22. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoTom Day, President and General Manager of Gunstock, New HampshireRecorded onMarch 14, 2024About GunstockClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Belknap County, New HampshireLocated in: Gilford, New HampshireYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations: Unlimited access on New Hampshire College Pass (with Cannon, Cranmore, and Waterville Valley)Closest neighboring ski areas: Abenaki (:34), Red Hill Ski Club (:35), Veterans Memorial (:43), Tenney (:52), Campton (:52), Ragged (:54), Proctor (:56), Powderhouse Hill (:58), McIntyre (1:00)Base elevation: 904 feetSummit elevation: 2,244 feetVertical drop: 1,340 feetSkiable Acres: 227 Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 49 (2% double black, 31% black, 52% blue, 15% green)Lift count: 8 (1 high-speed quad, 2 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples, 3 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Gunstock's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himIn the roughly four-and-a-half years since I launched The Storm, I've written a lot more about some ski areas than others. I won't claim that there's no personal bias involved, because there are certain ski areas that, due to reputation, convenience, geography, or personal nostalgia, I'm drawn to. But Gunstock is not one of those ski areas. I was only vaguely aware of its existence when I launched this whole project. I'd been drawn, all of my East Coast life, to the larger ski areas in the state's north and next door in Vermont and Maine. Gunstock, awkwardly located from my New York City base, was one of those places that maybe I'd get to someday, even if I wasn't trying too hard to actually make that happen.And yet, I've written more about Gunstock than just about any ski area in the country. That's because, despite my affinity for certain ski areas, I try to follow the news around. And wow has there been news at this mid-sized New Hampshire bump. Nobody knew, going into the summer of 2022, that Gunstock would become the most talked-about ski area in America, until the lid blew off Mount Winnipesaukee in July of that year, when a shallow and ill-planned insurrection failed spectacularly at drawing the ski area into our idiotic and exhausting political wars.If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read more on the whole surreal episode in the Podcast Notes section below, or just listen to the podcast. But because of that weird summer, and because of an aspirational masterplan launched in 2021, I've given Gunstock outsized attention in this newsletter. And in the process, I've quite come to like the place, both as a ski area (where I've now actually skied), and as a community, and it has become, however improbably, a mountain I keep taking The Storm back to.What we talked aboutRetirement; “my theory is that 10 percent of people that come to a ski area can be a little bit of a problem”; Gunstock as a business in 2019 versus Gunstock today; skier visits surge; cash in the bank; the publicly owned ski area that is not publicly subsidized; Gunstock Nice; the last four years at Gunstock sure were an Asskicker, eh?; how the Gunstock Area Commission works and what went sideways in the summer of 2022; All-Summers Disease; preventing a GAC Meltdown repeat; the time bandits keep coming; should Gunstock be leased to a private operator?; qualities that the next general manager of Gunstock will need to run the place successfully; honesty, integrity, and respect; an updated look at the 2021 masterplan and what actually makes sense to build; could Gunstock ever have a hotel or summit lodge?; why a paved parking lot is a big deal in 2024; Maine skiing in the 1960s; 1970s lift lines; reflecting on the changes over 40-plus years of skiing; rear-wheel-drive Buicks as ski commuter car; competing against Epic and Ikon and why independent ski areas will always have a place in the market; will record skier-visit numbers persist?; a surprising stat about season passes; and how a payphone caused mass confusion in Park City. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewOn January 19, Gunstock Marketing Director Bonnie MacPherson (long of Okemo and Bretton Woods), shot me a press release announcing that Day would retire at the conclusion of the 2023-24 ski season.It was a little surprising. Day hadn't been at Gunstock long. He'd arrived just a couple months before the March 2020 Covid shutdowns, almost four years to the day before he announced retirement. He was widely liked and respected on the mountain and in the community, a sentiment reinforced during the attempted Kook Coup of summer 2022, when a pair of fundamentalist nutjobs got flung out of the county via catapult after attempting to seize Gunstock from Day and his team.But Gunstock was a bit of a passion project for Day, a skiing semi-lifer who'd spent three decades at Waterville Valley before fiddling with high-end odd-jobs of the consultancy and project-management sort for 10 years. In four years, he transformed county-owned Gunstock from a seasonal business that tapped bridge loans to survive each summer into a profitable year-round entertainment center with millions in the bank. And he did it all despite Covid, despite the arrival of vending-machine Epic and Ikon passes, despite a couple of imbeciles who'd never worked at a ski area thinking they could do a better job running a ski area than the person they paid $175,000 per year to run the ski area. I still don't really get it. How it all worked out. How Gunstock has gotten better as everything about running a ski area has gotten harder and more expensive and more competitive. There's nothing really special about the place statistically or terrain-wise. It's not super snowy or extra tall or especially big. It has exactly one high-speed lift, a really nice lodge, and Awe Dag views of Lake Winnipesaukee. It's nice but not exceptional, just another good mid-sized ski area in a state full of good mid-sized ski areas. And yet, Gunstock thrives. Day, like most ski area general managers, is allergic to credit, but I have to think he had a lot to do with the mountain's late resilience. He's an interesting guy, thoughtful and worldly and adventurous. Talking to him, I always get the sense that this is a person who's comfortable with who he is, content with his life, a hardcore skier whose interests extend far beyond it. He's colorful but also plainspoken, an optimist and a pragmatist, a bit of back-office executive and good ole' boy wrencher melded into your archetype of a ski area manager. Someone who, disposition baked by experience, is perfectly suited to the absurd task of operating a ski area in New Hampshire. It's too bad he's leaving, but I guess eventually we all do. The least I could do was get his story one more time before he bounced.Why you should ski GunstockSkiing Knife Fight, New Hampshire Edition, looks like this:That's 30 ski areas, the fifth-most of any state, in the fifth-smallest state in America. And oh by the way you're also right next door to all of this:And Vermont is barely bigger than New Hampshire. Together, the two states are approximately one-fifth the size of Colorado. “Fierce” as the kids (probably don't) say.So, what makes you choose Gunstock as your snowsportskiing destination when you have 56 other choices in a two-state region, plus another half-dozen large ski areas just east in Maine? Especially when you probably own an Indy, Epic, or Ikon pass, which, combined, deliver access to 28 upper New England ski areas, including most of the best ones?Maybe that's exactly why. We've been collectively enchanted by access, obsessed with driving down per-visit cost to beat inflated day-ticket prices that we simultaneously find absurd and delight in outsmarting. But boot up at any New England ski area with chairlifts, and you're going to find a capable operation. No one survived this long in this dogfight without crafting an experience worth skiing.It's telling that Gunstock has only gotten busier since the Epic and Ikon passes smashed into New England a half dozen years ago. There's something there, an extra thing worth pursuing. You don't have to give up your SuperUltimoWinterSki Pass to make Gunstock part of your winter, but maybe work it in there anyway?Podcast NotesOn Gunstock's masterplanGunstock's ambitious masterplan, rolled out in 2021, would have blown the ski area out on all sides, added a bunch of new lifts, and plopped a hotel and summit lodge on the property:Most of it seems improbable now, as Day details in the podcast.On the GAC conflictSomeone could write a book on the Gunstock Shenanigans of 2022. The best I can give you is a series of article I published as the whole ridiculous saga was unfolding:* Band of Nitwits Highjacks Gunstock, Ski Area's Future Uncertain - July 24, 2022* Walkouts, Resignations, Wild Accusations: A Timeline of Gunstock's Implosion - July 31, 2022* Gunstock GM Tom Day & Team Return, Commissioner Ousted – 3 Ways to Protect the Mountain's Future - Aug. 8, 2022If nothing else, just watch this remarkable video of Day and his senior staff resigning en masse:On the Caledonian Canal that “splits Scotland in half”I'd never heard of the Caledonian Canal, but Day mentions sailing it and that it “splits Scotland in half.” That's the sort of thing I go nuts for, so I looked it up. Per Wikipedia:The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford.The canal runs some 60 miles (100 kilometres) from northeast to southwest and reaches 106 feet (32 metres) above sea level.[2] Only one third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy.[3] These lochs are located in the Great Glen, on a geological fault in the Earth's crust. There are 29 locks (including eight at Neptune's Staircase, Banavie), four aqueducts and 10 bridges in the course of the canal.Here's its general location:More detail:On Day's first appearance on the podcastThis was Day's second appearance on the podcast. The first was way back in episode 34, recorded in January 2021:On Hurricane Mountain, MaineDay mentions skiing a long-gone ropetow bump named Hurricane Mountain, Maine as a child. While I couldn't find any trailmaps, New England Lost Ski Areas Project houses a nice history from the founder's daughter:I am Charlene Manchester now Barton. My Dad started Hurricane Ski Slope with Al Ervin. I was in the second grade, I remember, when I used to go skiing there with him. He and Al did almost everything--cranked the rope tow motor up to get it going, directed traffic, and were the ski patrol. As was noted in your report, accommodations were across road at the Norton farm where we could go to use the rest room or get a cup of hot chocolate and a hamburger. Summers I would go with him and Al to the hill and play while they cleared brush and tried to improve the hill, even opened one small trail to the right of the main slope. I was in the 5th grade when I tore a ligament in my knee skiing there. Naturally, the ski patrol quickly appeared and my Dad carried me down the slope in his arms. I was in contact with Glenn Parkinson who came to interview my mother , who at 96 is a very good source of information although actually, she was not much of a skier. The time I am referring to must have been around 1945 because I clearly recall discussing skiing with my second grade teacher Miss Booth, who skied at Hurricane. This was at DW Lunt School in Falmouth where I grew up. I was in the 5th grade when I hurt my leg.My Dad, Charles Manchester , was one of the first skiers in the State, beginning on barrel staves in North Gorham where he grew up. He was a racer and skied the White Mountains . We have a picture of him at Tuckerman's when not many souls ventured up there to ski in the spring. As I understand it, the shortage of gas during WWII was a motivator as he had a passion for the sport, but no gas to get to the mountains in N.H. Two of his best ski buddies were Al Ervin, who started Hurricane with him, and Homer Haywood, who was in the ski troopers during WWII, I think. Another ski pal was Chase Thompson. These guys worked to ski--hiking up Cranmore when the lifts were closed due to the gas shortage caused by WWII. It finally got to be too much for my Dad to run Hurricane, as he was spending more time directing traffic for parking than skiing, which after all was why he and Al started the project.I think my Dad and his ski buddies should be remembered for their love of the sport and their willingness to do whatever it took to ski. Also, they were perfect gentlemen, wonderful manners on the slope, graceful and handsomely dressed, often in neckties. Those were the good old days!The ski area closed around 1973, according to NELSAP, in response to rising insurance rates.On old-school Sunday RiverI've documented the incredible evolution of Sunday River from anthill to Vesuvius many times. But here, to distill the drama of the transformation, is the now-titanic ski area's 1961 trailmap:This 60s-era Sunday River was a foundational playground for Day.On the Epic and Ikon New England timelineIt's easy to lose track of the fact that the Epic and Ikon Passes didn't exist in New England until very recently. A brief timeline:* 2017: Vail Resorts buys Stowe, its first New England property, and adds the mountain to the Epic Pass for the 2017-18 ski season.* 2018: Vail Resorts buys Triple Peaks, owners of Mount Sunapee and Okemo, and adds them to the Epic Pass for the 2018-19 ski season.* 2018: The Ikon Pass debuts with five or seven days at five New England destinations for the 2018-19 ski season: Killington/Pico, Sugarbush, and Boyne-owned Loon, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf. Alterra-owned Stratton is unlimited on the Ikon Pass and offers five days on the Ikon Base Pass.* 2019: Vail buys the 17-mountain Peak Resorts portfolio, which includes four more New England ski areas: Mount Snow in Vermont and Crotched, Wildcat, and Attitash in New Hampshire. All join the Epic Pass for the 2019-20 ski season, bumping the number of New England ski areas on the coalition up to seven.* 2019: Alterra buys Sugarbush. Amps up the mountain's Ikon Pass access to unlimited with blackouts on the Ikon Base and unlimited on the full Ikon for the 2020-21 ski season. Alterra also ramps up Stratton Ikon Base access from five days to unlimited with blackouts for the 2020-21 winter.* 2020: Vail introduces New England-specific Epic Passes. At just $599, the Northeast Value Pass delivers unlimited access to Vail's four New Hampshire mountains, holiday-restricted unlimited access to Mount Snow and Okemo, and 10 non-holiday days at Stowe. Vail also rolls out a midweek version for just $429.* 2021: Vail unexpectedly cuts the price of Epic Passes by 20 percent, reducing the cost of the Northeast Value Pass to just $479 and the midweek version to $359. The Epic Local Pass plummets to $583, and even the full Epic Pass is just $783.All of which is background to our conversation, in which I ask Day a pretty interesting question: how the hell have you grown Gunstock's business amidst this incredibly challenging competitive marketplace?The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 30/100 in 2024, and number 530 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on April 5. It dropped for free subscribers on April 12. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoBruce Schmidt, Vice President and General Manager at Okemo Mountain Resort, VermontRecorded onFeb. 27, 2024 (apologies for the delay)About OkemoClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Ludlow, VermontYear founded: 1956Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: unlimited access* Epic Northeast Value Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Epic Northeast Midweek Pass: unlimited weekday access with holiday blackouts* Epic Day Pass: access on “all resorts” and “32 resorts” tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Killington (:22), Magic (:26), Bromley (:31), Pico (:32), Ascutney (:33), Bellows Falls (:37), Stratton (:41), Saskadena Six (:44), Ski Quechee (:48), Storrs Hill (:52), Whaleback (:56), Mount Snow (1:04), Hermitage Club (1:10)Base elevation: 1,144 feetSummit elevation: 3,344 feetVertical drop: 2,200 feetSkiable Acres: 632Average annual snowfall: 120 inches per On The Snow; Vail claims 200.Trail count: 121 (30% advanced, 37% intermediate, 33% beginner) + 6 terrain parksLift count: 20 (2 six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 5 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples, 1 platter, 6 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Okemo's lift fleet)View historic Okemo trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himWhether by plan or by happenstance, Vail ended up with a nearly perfect mix of Vermont ski areas. Stowe is the beater, with the big snows and the nasty trails and the amazing skiers and the Uphill Bros and the glades and the Front Four. Mount Snow is the sixth borough of New York City (but so is Florida and so is Stratton), big and loud and busy and bursting and messy, with a whole mountain carved out for a terrain park and big-drinking, good-timing crowds, as many skiers at the après, it can seem, as on the mountain. And Okemo is something that's kind of in-between and kind of totally different, at once tame and lively, a placid family redoubt that still bursts with that frantic Northeast energy.It's a hard place to define, and statistics won't do it. Line up Vermont's ski areas on a table, and Okemo looks bigger and better than Sugarbush or Stowe or Jay Peak. It isn't, of course, as anyone in the region will tell you. The place doesn't require the guts that its northern neighbors demand. It's big but not bossy. More of a stroll than a run, a good-timer cruising the Friday night streets in a drop-top low-rider, in no hurry at all to do anything other than this. It's like skiing Vermont without having to tangle with Vermont, like boating on a lake with no waves.Because of this unusual profile, New England skiers either adore Okemo or won't go anywhere near it. It is a singular place in a dense ski state that is the heart of a dense ski region. Okemo isn't particularly convenient to get to, isn't particularly snowy by Vermont standards, and isn't particularly interesting from a terrain point of view. And yet, it is, historically, the second-busiest ski area in the Northeast (after Killington). There is something there that works. Or at least, that has worked historically, as the place budded and flourished in the Mueller family's 36-year reign.But it's Vail's mountain now, an Epic Pass anchor that's shuffling and adding lifts for the crowds that that membership brings. While the season pass price has dropped, skier expectations have ramped up at Okemo, as they have everywhere in the social-media epoch. The grace that passholders granted the growing family-owned mountain has evaporated. Everyone's pulling the pins on their hand grenades and flinging them toward Broomfield every time a Saturday liftline materializes. It's not really fair, but it's how the world is right now. The least I can do is get their side of it.What we talked aboutSummer storm damage to Ludlow and Okemo; the resort helping the town; Vermont's select boards; New England resilience; Vail's My Epic Promise fund and how it helped employees post-storm; reminiscing on old-school Okemo and its Poma forest; the Muellers arrive; the impact of Jackson-Gore; how and why Okemo grew from inconsequential local bump to major New England ski hill; how Okemo expanded within the confines of Vermont's Act 250; Vail buys the mountain, along with Sunapee and Crested Butte; the Muellers' legacy; a Sunapee interlude; Vail adjusting to New England operations; mythbusters: snowmaking edition; the Great Chairlift Switcheroo of 2021; why Okemo didn't place bubbles on the Quantum 6; why Okemo's lift fleet is entirely made up of Poma machines; where Okemo could add a lift to the existing trail network; expansion potential; does Okemo groom too much?; glade expansion?; that baller snowmaking system; what happened when Okemo's season pass price dropped by more than $1,000; is Epic Pass access too loose at Okemo?; how to crowd-dodge; the Epic Northeast Midweek Pass; limiting lift ticket sales; and skyrocketing lift ticket prices.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewBruce Schmidt first collected a paycheck from Okemo in the late 1970s. That was a different mountain, a different ski industry, a different world. Pomas and double chairs and primitive snowmaking and mountain-man gear and no internet. It was grittier and colder, in the sense that snowpants and ski coats and heated gloves and socks were not so ubiquitous and affordable and high-quality as they are today. Skiing, particularly in New England, required a hardiness, a tolerance for cold and subtle pain that modernity has slowly shuffled out of the skier profile.Different as it was, that age of 210s and rear-wheel drive rigs was not that long ago, and Schmidt has experienced it as one continuous story. That sort of institutional and epochal tenure is rare, especially at one ski area, especially at one that has evolved as much as Okemo. Imagine if you showed up at surface-lift Hickory and watched it transform, over four decades, into sprawling Gore. That's essentially what Schmidt lived – and helped drive – at Okemo.That hardly ever happens. Small ski areas tend to stay small. Expansion is hard and expensive and, in Vermont especially, bureaucratically challenging. And yet little Okemo, wriggling in Killington's shadow, lodged between the state's southern and northern snow pockets, up past Mount Snow and Stratton but not so far from might-as-well-keep-driving Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, became, somehow, the fourth-largest ski area in America's fourth-largest ski state by skier visits (after Colorado, California, and Utah, typically).The Mueller family, which owned the ski area from 1982 until they sold it to Vail Resorts in 2018, were, of course, the visionaries and financiers behind that growth, the likes of which we will probably never witness in New England again. But as Vail's roots grow deeper and they make these mountains their own, that legacy will fade, if not necessarily dim. It was important, then, to download that part of Schmidt's brain to the internet, to make sure that story survived the big groom of time.What I got wrongI said in the intro that Bruce started at Okemo in 1987. He actually started in the late ‘70s and worked there on and off for several years, as he explains in the conversation.I said that Okemo's lift fleet was “100 percent Poma.” This is not exactly right, as some of the lifts are officially branded Leitner-Poma. I'm also not certain of the make of Okemo's carpets.I noted in the intro that Okemo was Vail's second-largest eastern mountain. It is actually their largest by skiable acreage (though Stowe feels larger to me, given the expansive unmarked but very skiable glades stuffed between nearly every trail). Here's a snapshot of Vail's entire portfolio for reference:Why you should ski OkemoThe first time I skied Okemo was 2007. I rode a 3:45 a.m. ski bus north from Manhattan. I remember thinking three things: 1) wow, this place is big; 2) wow, there are a lot of kids here; and 3) do they seriously groom every goddamn trail every single night?This was at the height of my off-piste mania. I'm not a great carver, especially after the cord gets chopped up and scratchy sublayers emerge. I prefer to maneuver, at a moderate pace, over terrain, meaning bumps or glades (which are basically bumps in the trees, at least on a typical Vermont day). It's more fun and interesting than blasting down wide-open, beaten-up groomers filled with New Yorkers.But wide-open, beaten-up groomers filled with New Yorkers is what Okemo is. At the time, I had no understanding of freeze-thaw cycles, of subtle snowfall differentials between nearby ski areas, of the demographic profile that drove such tight slope management (read: mediocre big-city skiers with no interest in anything other than getting to the bottom still breathing). All I knew was that for me, at the time, this wasn't what I was looking for.But what you want as a skier evolves over time. I still like terrain, and Okemo still doesn't have as much as I'd like. If that's what you need, take your Epic Pass to Stowe – they have plenty. But what I also like is skiing with my kids, skiing with my wife, morning cord laps off fast lifts, long meandering scenic routes to rest up between bumpers, exploring mountains border to border, getting a little lost among multiple base areas, big views, moderate pitches, and less-aggressive skiers (ride the K1 gondy or Superstar chair at Killington and then take the Sunburst Six at Okemo; the toning down of energy and attitude is palpable).Okemo not only has all that – it is all that. If that makes sense. This is one of the best family ski areas in the country. It feels like – it is – a supersized version of the busy ski areas in Massachusetts or Connecticut, a giant Wachusett or Catamount or Mohawk Mountain: unintimidating, wide-open, freewheeling, and quirky in its own overgroomed, overbusy way.If you hit it right, Okemo will give you bumps and glades and even, on a weekday, wide-open trails all to yourself. But that's not the typical Okemo experience, and it's not the point of the place. This is New England's friendly giant, a meandering mass of humanity, grinning and gripping and slightly frazzled, a disjointed but united-by-snow collective that, together, define Okemo as much as the mountain itself.Okemo on a stormy day in November 2021. Video by Stuart Winchester.Podcast NotesOn last summer's flooding in Okemo and LudlowI mean yowza:I hate to keep harping on New Englander's work ethic, but…I reset the same “dang New England you're badass” narrative that I brought up with Sunday River GM Brian Heon on the podcast a few weeks ago. I'm not from New England and I've never even lived there, and I'm from a region with the same sort of get-after-it problem-solver mentality and work ethic. But I'm still amazed at how every time New England gets smashed over the head with a frying pan, they just look annoyed for five minutes, put on a Band-Aid, and keep moving.On the fate of Plymouth, Bromley, Ascutney, and Plymouth/RoundtopSchmidt and I discuss several Vermont ski areas whose circa-1980s size rivaled that of Okemo's at the time. Here, for context, was Okemo before the Muellers arrived in 1982:It's hard to tell from the trailmap, but only four of the 10 or so lifts shown above were chairlifts. Today, Okemo has grown into Vermont's fourth-largest ski area by skiable acres (though I have reason to doubt the accuracy of the ski resort's self-reported tallies; Stowe, Sugarbush, and Jay all ski at least as big as Okemo, but officially report fewer skiable acres).Anyway, in the early ‘80s, Magic, Bromley, Ascutney, and Plymouth/Roundtop were approximate peers to Okemo. Bromley ran mostly chairlifts, and has evolved the most of this group, but it is far smaller than Okemo today. The mountain has always been well-managed, so it wasn't entirely fair to stick it in with this group, but the context is important here: Bromley today is roughly the same size that it was 40 years ago:Ascutney sold a 1,400-plus-foot vertical drop and a thick trail network in this 1982 trailmap. But the place went bust and sold its high-speed quad in 2012 (it's now the main lift at Vail-owned Crotched). Today, Ascutney consists of a lower-mountain ropetow and T-bar that rises just 450 vertical feet (you can still skin or hike the upper mountain trails).Magic, in the early ‘80s, was basically the same size it is today:A merger with now-private and liftless (but still skiable from Magic), Timber Ridge briefly supersized the place before it went out of business for a large part of the ‘90s:When Magic recovered from its long shutdown, it reverted to its historic footprint (with extensive glade skiing that either didn't exist or went unmarked in the ‘80s):And then there was Round Top, a 1,300-foot sometime private ski area also known as Bear Creek and Plymouth Notch. The area has sat idle since 2018, though the chairlifts are, last I checked, intact, and it can be yours for $6.5 million.Seriously you can buy it:On Okemo's expansion progressionThe Muellers' improbable transformation of Okemo into a New England Major happened in big chunks. First, they opened the Solitude area for the 1987-88 ski season:In 1994, South Face, far looker's left, opened a new pod of steeper runs toward the summit:The small Morningstar pod, located in the lower-right-hand corner of the trailmap, opened in 1995, mostly to serve a real estate development:The most dramatic change came in 2003, when Okemo opened the sprawling Jackson Gore complex:On Vermont Act 250It's nearly impossible to discuss Vermont skiing without referencing the infamous Act 250, which is, according to the official state website:…Vermont's land use and development law, enacted in 1970 at a time when Vermont was undergoing significant development pressure. The law provides a public, quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of major subdivisions and developments in Vermont. It assures that larger developments complement Vermont's unique landscape, economy and community needs. One of the strengths of Act 250 is the access it provides to neighbors and other interested parties to participate in the development review process. Applicants often work with neighbors, municipalities, state agencies and other interested groups to address concerns raised by a proposed development, resolving issues and mitigating impacts before a permit application is filed.As onerous as navigating Act 250 can seem, there is significantly more slopeside development in Vermont than in any other Northeastern state, and its large resorts are certainly more developed than anything in build-nothing New York.On the CNL lease structureSchmidt refers to “the CNL lease structure.” Here's what he was talking about: a company called CNL Lifestyle Properties once had a slick sideline in purchasing ski areas and leasing them back to the former owners. New England Ski History explains the historical context:As the banking crisis unfolded, many ski areas across the country transferred their debt into Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). On December 5, 2008, Triple Peaks transferred its privately held Mt. Sunapee assets to CNL Lifestyle Properties, Inc.. Triple Peaks then entered into a long agreement with CNL to maintain operational control.The site put together a timeline of the various resorts CNL once owned, including, from 2008 to '17, Okemo:On the proximity of Okemo to Mount Sunapee Though Okemo and Sunapee sit in different states, they're only an hour apart:I snapped this pic of Okemo from the Sunapee summit a couple years ago (super zoomed in):On Mount Sunapee's ownershipThe State of New Hampshire owns two ski areas: Cannon Mountain and Mount Sunapee. In 1998, after decades of debate on the subject, the state leased the latter to the Muellers. When Vail acquired Triple Peaks (Okemo, Sunapee, and Crested Butte), in 2019, they either inherited or renegotiated the lease. For whatever reason, the state continues to manage Cannon as part of Franconia Notch State Park. A portion of the lease revenue that Vail pays the state each year is earmarked for capital improvements at Cannon.On glades at Stratton and KillingtonOkemo's trail footprint is light on glades compared to many of the large Vermont ski areas. I point to Killington and Stratton, in particular, in the podcast, mostly due to their proximity to Okemo (every Vermont ski area from Sugarbush on north has a vast glade network). Though it's just 20 minutes away, Killington rakes in around double Okemo's snowfall in an average winter, and the ski area maintains glades all over the mountain:Stratton, 40 minutes south, also averages more snow than Okemo and is a sneaky good glade mountain. It's easy to spend all day in the trees there when the snow's deep (and it's deep more often than you might think):On Okemo's historic pass pricesWe can have mountain-to-mountain debates over the impact Vail Resorts has on the resorts it purchases, but one thing that's inarguable: season pass prices typically plummet when the company acquires ski areas. Check out New England Ski History's itemization of Okemo pass prices over the years – that huge drop in 2018-19 represents the ownership shift and that year's cost of an Epic Local Pass (lift ticket and pass prices listed below are the maximum for that season):But, yeah, those day-ticket prices. Yikes.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year long. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 25/100 in 2024, and number 525 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on March 30. It dropped for free subscribers on April 6. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoBridget Legnavsky, President & CEO of Sugar Bowl, CaliforniaRecorded onMarch 13, 2024About Sugar BowlClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: A group of shareholdersLocated in: Donner, CaliforniaYear founded: 1939Pass affiliations: Mountain Collective: 2 days, no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Donner Ski Ranch (:02), Soda Springs (:07), Boreal (:10), Kingvale (:14), Tahoe Donner (:24), Northstar (:27), Palisades Tahoe (:30), Homewood (:44), Diamond Peak (:52), Mt. Rose (:58), Sky Tavern (1:03) - travel times vary considerably given time of day, time of year, and weather conditions.Base elevation: 6,883 feetSummit elevation: 8,383 feetVertical drop: 1,500 feetSkiable Acres: 1,650 acresAverage annual snowfall: 500 inchesTrail count: 103 (38% advanced, 45% intermediate, 17% beginner)Lift count: 12 (1 four-passenger gondola, 5 high-speed quads, 3 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 platter, 1 carpet) - view Lift Blog's inventory of Sugar Bowl's lift fleet.View historic Sugar Bowl trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed herLagnavsky muses, toward the end of our interview, that Lake Tahoe in general is home to “the best skiing I've ever had in my life,” and that she can't fathom why it's not more of a national and international ski destination. This is coming from someone who has spent 30-plus years in the industry; who's worked in Europe, Colorado, and New Zealand; who has freeskier credentials etched on her resume. She knows what she's talking about.And I agree with her. More or less**. Tahoe is spectacular. The views, the snow, the terrain, the vibe, the energy, the variety, the sheer audacity of it all. Sixteen ski areas rung around a 191-square-mile lake at the top of California*^. An improbable wintertime circus, one of the greatest concentrations of ski areas on the continent.And no one would say there is any lack of people there. This is, again, California, home to 39 million Americans. Traffic and housing are big problems. But, being based in the East, I'm dialed into the way that much of the country thinks about Tahoe as a destination ski region. Which is to say, they mostly don't.And I don't quite get why. It's not hard to get to. Reno's airport is closer to the major Tahoe ski areas than Denver's is to Summit County. It's not a huge facility, but it's served by direct flights from 24 airports, including New York City and Chicago. While the roads can get nasty mid-storm, they're mostly well-maintained federal and state highways. There are plenty of accommodations on or near the larger resorts. But anytime I ask an Epic- or Ikon-Pass wielding East Coast city skier where they're going out west, they say the Wasatch or Colorado or Big Sky or Jackson Hole. And if I'm like “what about Tahoe,” they're usually like, “there's skiing in California? How strange.”Not that the Epic and Ikon Tahoe mountains need more skiers. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story a couple weeks ago about how fed-up Bay Area skiers were jetting to Utah and Colorado to outsmart the crowds (slow clap for that hack, Fellas). But there is a lot more to this sprawling, captivating ski region than Palisades, Heavenly, Northstar, and Kirkwood. And one of the most overlooked but also magical pieces of it is Sugar Bowl. And the fact that it's not, for whatever reason, a destination to anyone outside of a 250-mile radius might make it exactly the kind of place that a lot of you are searching for.**Settle down, Utah.*and Nevada^”Ummmm, the highest point in California is Mt. Whitney, which is nowhere near Lake Tahoe.” Thanks Doesn't-Understand-Intentional-Hyperbole Bro. P.S. I hate you.What we talked about127 inches in one storm and yes that's real; how do you even measure that?; the “storm troopers” living at Sugar Bowl; storm mode in Tahoe; adjustable lifts; this crazy door:A season extension; how late Sugar Bowl could stay open and why it usually shuts down before that; ski New Zealand; Treble Cone; Cardrona; the global seasonal ski resort work cycle; never-summer; the biggest cultural adjustment coming to America after running resorts in New Zealand; who owns Sugar Bowl and how committed they are to independence; “We're an independent resort surrounded by Ikon and Epic, and that's making it really hard for Sugar Bowl to survive”; could Sugar Bowl join the Ikon Pass?; joining Mountain Collective; “part of the beauty of Sugar Bowl is that it's uncrowded”; Shhhhhh-ugar Bowl; the three things that set Sugar Bowl apart in a crowded ski market; operating below comfortable carrying capacity; the village gondola; what happens when you live in a car-free village; considering a gondola upgrade; considering the lift fleet; why the Crow's Peak lift is a triple chair, rather than a high-speed quad; “I do believe we could have the best beginner's experience in the U.S.”; Sugar Bowl's masterplan; village evolution; the curiosity of the small ski areas surrounding Sugar Bowl; “it's got the best skiing I've ever had in my life here”; why isn't California a destination ski market?; yes snowmaking is still helpful in Tahoe, and not just in the winter.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewAs far as mid-to-large-sized ski areas go, Sugar Bowl is about as well placed as any in the world. Its four peaks sit walking distance from Interstate 80, which mainlines Bay Area skiers into the mountains in under three hours (without traffic; yes, I know, there's always traffic). Sugar Bowl is the first big ski area you hit riding east, and arguably the easiest to access. And it gets clobbered with 500 inches of average annual snowfall. Those are Alta-Snowbird numbers (keep moving, Canyon Bro; yes, it's heavier snow, in general; I already told you LCC delivers the best skiing in America, so stop arguing about something we agree on).And yet, skiing circa 2024 has set up a challenging obstacle course for Sugar Bowl to navigate. At least as a business. Legnavsky is frank in the podcast, telling us that, “we're an independent resort surrounded by Ikon and Epic, and that's making it really hard for Sugar Bowl to survive.” To underscore just how fierce competition for skiers is in Lake Tahoe, look how close Sugar Bowl is to Northstar, an Epic resort that is more than twice its size, and Palisades Tahoe, the 6,000-acre Ikon Pass monster just to its south:It's a tough draw. Though not as tough as that of the pass' namesake Donner Party, who spent what would have been the bomber ski winter of 1846-47 snowbound at a nearby lake eating each other (reading the fevered history of this ordeal derailed me for half an hour while writing this article; I will just say that I've never been happier to live in the future). Still, for a business trying to make a go in the U.S. America of 2024, Megapass Monopoly is a tough game to play.So if Sugar Bowl can't beat them, why not join them? The mountain has, after all, already jumped on the Mountain Collective train. Why not just join Ikon and be done with it?The answer, as you can imagine, is nuanced and considered. How does a ski area shape and retain an identity and remain a sustainable business in a vibrant ski region that is stuffed with snow and skiers, but also plenty of larger – and, frankly, less expensive (Sugar Bowl's season pass is $1,099, more than the $982 Epic Pass) – ski areas? That, for now, is Sugar Bowl's biggest challenge.Questions I wish I'd askedSugar Bowl also owns the expansive Royal Gorge cross-country ski center, which they claim is North America's largest, with more than 140 kilometers of trails. And while this trailmap resembles a Rorschach test slide (I see a bat, or maybe a volcano, or maybe a volcanic bat) more than any sort of guide I would be capable of following in and out of the wilderness, I can only assume this is impressive:What I got wrongI lumped Boreal in with Soda Springs, Tahoe Donner, and Donner Ski Ranch as a “small, family-oriented ski area.” That's not really accurate. While Boreal, which, like Soda Springs, is owned by big bad Powdr Corp, is small by Tahoe standards, it's really been transformed into a giant terrain park in line with the company's Woodward Brand. It's the only night-skiing operation in Tahoe, so the Park Brahs can Park Out Brah.Why you should ski Sugar Bowl“Part of the beauty of Sugar Bowl is that it's uncrowded,” Legnavsky tells us in the podcast.I'm sold.To access the best version of modern U.S. skiing, you have to, I believe, find the ski areas with all the attributes of the destination resorts, minus their cost, congestion and Instapost-braggy name recognition. Places like Saddleback (a high-speed lift, lots of snow, great terrain, no people), Loveland (easy access, huge terrain, everyone sitting in their cars on the highway below, waiting to go skiing), or Sundance (modern lifts, great snow and scenery, minus the huge crowds just north; this also happens to be where I'm posted up at the moment, writing this article).Sugar Bowl is one of these places. Five high-speed lifts and craptons of snow, without an access road that looks like the first draft of a caveman rollercoaster. While its 1,500-foot vertical drop ranks ninth among Tahoe ski areas, it clocks in at sixth in skiable acreage, with 1,650. Both numbers, in any context, are respectable, and will give an average skier more than enough to work with for a few days.Vail has sold more Epic Passes every year since 2008. While new mountain acquisitions surely drove much of that growth, the company's last new domestic pickup was Seven Springs and its sister resorts in 2021. That suggests that more Epic Pass holders are visiting the same number of ski areas each winter. I don't know how many Ikon Passes Alterra sells, but no one at Palisades Tahoe is looking around and saying, “Man, Alterra really needs to spread the word about this place.”I get it. The Epic and Ikon Passes are fabulous deals and fantastic products, granting Californians access to the big four Tahoe resorts and destinations far beyond. If you want to put skiing at the center of your winter, it's hard not to buy one or the other or both. But there's a tradeoff for everything. Every year, more people (probably; I'm speculating on Ikon) buy those passes. And every year, those resorts stay more or less the same size (with occasional expansions, like the sizeable expansions at Steamboat, Aspen, and Keystone this winter), implementing chessboard parking plans and building bigger lifts to keep the cauldron just at a boil. But you can turn down the heat yourself. Here's the hack: exit Interstate 80 eastbound at exit 174, Donner Pass Road, drive three miles, park, and ski while everyone else is waiting to cash in their cheap Ikon Passes down highway 89.Podcast NotesOn Cardrona and Treble ConeLegnavsky spent a large chunk of her career running Cardrona and Treble Cone, a pair of large ski areas 40 road miles apart on New Zealand's South Island. Both sit largely above treeline. Treble Cone rises around 2,300 vertical feet:Cardrona's vert is just shy of 2,000 feet on 1,149 acres. While New Zealand is known for “nutcracker” surface lifts, Cardrona runs a legit lift fleet, with a chondola, two high-speed quads, two fixed-grip quads, a platter, and three conveyors:If you do happen onto a nutcracker, here are some tips:On the dense concentration of ski areas around Lake TahoeResetting ye' old Tahoe ski areas inventory:And here's how close Sugar Bowl sits to its four small neighbors – Donner Ski Ranch is right across the street; Soda Springs and Boreal are right up the road; and Tahoe Donner is just a few miles east off Interstate 80:On the Sugar Bowl gondolaSugar Bowl runs what I believe is the last classic four-passenger gondola in the United States (Loon's four-person gondola sports a more modern design):On the old Crow's Peak liftPrior to expanding skier's left into Crow's Nest Peak in 2013, a Heron double chair that was also known as Crow's Nest ran parallel to the Disney chair. Here's the 2012 trailmap:After the new triple chair opened, Sugar Bowl changed the double's name to “Pony Express,” and eventually removed the lift around 2018.On The Art of SkiingWe don't discuss this in the pod, but here's a Disney short from like 1702 or something that shows Goofy crushing it at Sugar Bowl:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 22/100 in 2024, and number 522 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
In this episode, we discuss Verbier, Saalbach Hinterglemm and the impact of climate change on ski resorts. Plus we have a lot of feedback on Vail Resorts and the Epic Pass, which we covered in Episode 204. Iain was joined by freelance journalist and regular guest Catherine Murphy and David George, founder of the PisteHors.com website Intersport Ski Hire Discount Code Save money on your ski hire by using the code ‘SKIPODCAST' at intersportrent.com, or simply take this link for your discount to be automatically applied at the checkout. SHOW NOTES Catherine was last on the show in Episode 173, when she was telling us about Pays de Gex Jen Tsang from ‘That's La Plagne' reported from…La Plagne (3:00) Betony reports on the latest conditions in the Mont Blanc valley (5:45) Alex from 150 Days of Winter covered the latest conditions in Courchevel (7:15) Iain rented skis from Philippe Roux Intersport on his Verbier trip (8:45) Charlotte Bankes has taken 5 consecutive podiums in World Cup Snowboard Cross (9:00) Dave Ryding finished 7th overall in the World Cup slalom rankings Jasmin Taylor picked up 3 more podiums in Telemark and goes into the Finals in 1st place (9:15) Catherine was in Saalbach Hinterglemm Saalbach will host the Alpine Ski World Championships in 2025 (10:15) Read the case study on train travel to Saalbach on Ski Flight Free (14:00) Iain's guides in Verbier were Anthony Voute from European Snowsport and Bertrand Lovey from ski school La Fantastique (18:00) Try the ‘Canadian Trees' in the Bruson sector of Verbier (18:15) Verbier has so many backcountry options off the back of Mont Fort (19:30) Victor de la Rue clinched the snowboard Freeride World Tour title for the third time (20:30) Iain spoke with older brother and three-time champion Xavier de la Rue (21:00) Iain travelled by train to Verbier – a very straightforward journey (21:30) Protect Our Winters research shows that ski kit represents 12% of the carbon footprint of a ski holiday (22:00) Cirkel Supply is a new ski clothing rental company, founded by Anders Bergenstrand (22:45) Anna Smoothy has done some research that shows renting clothing has a 76% smaller carbon footprint than buying Josh Speller is the founder of Verbier Green (30:00) David founded PisteHors.com in 2004 (34:00) You can read David's blog about the effect of climate change on ski resorts here (44:00) 66% of the carbon footprint of a ski holiday comes from the your flight (45:30) Find out more about low-carbon ski holidays at Ski Flight Free (46:00) More than half of American skiers buy an Epic or Ikon pass (49:00) The Magic Pass has seen a 9% increase in sales this winter (49:00) Laurent Vauchet, CEO of Televerbier, is equivocal that Vail Resorts is not buying Verbier (49:30) Listen to Iain's interview with Mike Goar, MD of Andermatt in Episode 204 (51:00) Find out more about the Ikon Pass (52:00) Feedback I enjoy all feedback about the show, I like to know what you think, especially about our features so please contact on social @theskipodcast or by email theskipodcast@gmail.com Adam Horsfield: "I have been an avid listener of the ski podcast since 2018. After 6 years of listening, I've finally taken the decision to take the train to the Alps and am very much looking forward to it." Episode 204 about Vail Resorts prompted a LOT of feedback: Simon Burgess: "Really enjoyed the last episode on the Epic Pass. As someone who has used it a lot it's exciting what's on offer and what could develop. I still think some of the partner agreements are a rip off with special lodging needed to get a pass, but for Andermatt, 3 Valleys and the Dolomites it's been brilliant. It was fantastic in Andermatt: show the Epic Pass and they give you a season pass which I'm pretty sure is sold for more” Andrew Brannan: "Eye watering ticket prices, all the top management jobs taken out of resort, all teh restaurants and hotels, shops and even estate agents bought up by the same monopoly, aggressive property development, workers forced to live down the valley" Chris Howie: "It feels as if Vail Resorts are trying to wring every last penny out of resorts while providing the very minimum in return. In most of the Vail Resorts-owned resorts prices have gone sky high so only the rich can ski. Ski passes are almost three times the price of a European ski resort. Lift lines are unbelievably long. The local staff are removed to bring in centralised American staff, ripping the heart out of the resort. I will do my best to never ski at a resort owned by the Vail Resort organisation" Jane Henderson: “You should've given him a bit of a grilling on the negative impact of Epic/Ikon passes” If you like the podcast, there are three things you can do to help: 1) Review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 2) Subscribe 3) Book your ski hire with Intersport Rent using the code ‘SKIPODCAST' or simply take this link for your discount to be automatically applied at the checkout You can follow Iain @skipedia and the podcast @theskipodcast
In Episode 204, we discuss Vail Resorts - the company that owns over 40 ski destinations, including both Andermatt and Crans Montana in Switzerland. We look at their Epic Pass and their future expansion strategy in Europe. We also find out about skiing in Geilo, Norway. Iain was joined by Katie Bamber, Online Editor at Fall Line Magazine and Mike Goar, MD of the Andermatt-Sedrun ski area. Intersport Ski Hire Discount Code Save money on your ski hire by using the code ‘SKIPODCAST' at intersportrent.com, or simply take this link for your discount to be automatically applied at the checkout. SHOW NOTES Andermatt has had 80cm of new snow in the last week (3:30) Dave Burrows from Snow Pros Ski School reported from Villars in Switzerland (4:00) Tim from Inspired Italy reported from the Dolomites in Italy (5:15) Al Judge from AliKats Mountain Holidays reported from Morzine in France (6:45) Charlotte Bankes won gold at the Sierra Nevada Snowboard Cross World Cup (9:00) Laurie Taylor recorded a career PB of 8th at Aspen (9:15) Listen to Iain's interviews with Laurie and Dave after their race in Chamonix in Episode 200 (9:30) The audio in our Scotland Special was like Scotland itself, not always perfect, but worth it! (9:45) Mike Goar is MD at Andermatt Sedrun He has worked for Vail Resorts for 40 years (10:30) ‘Vail Resorts' was formed in 1997 (11:15) The Epic Pass launched in 2008 (12:15) Vail Resorts went international with the addition of Perisher and then Whistler in 2016 (16:30) The first European resort to join the Vail Resorts group was Andermatt (17:30) Iain reported from Andermatt in Episode 92 (19:45) In 2023, it was announced that Crans Montana would be joining the next acquisition (22:15) What changes can we expect to see in the Swiss resorts? (25:15) Will Verbier be the next acquisition? (27:45) Vail Resorts hit their goal of 100% renewable electricity for the 2nd year in a row (29:00) Episode 201 was a Norway Special (31:00) Katie was in Geilo in Norway (31:15) Geilo is known for its apres-ski reputation (34:45) Night skiing in Geilo (36:30) The Ski Podcast was recently no.1 in the Apple Podcast chart (42:45) Feedback (40:30) Kostas Doudoulakis: "Thank you for the inspiring content. I first started listening to the podcast during lockdown. We're now ready to take our first skiing holiday with our 4-year-old and I partly attribute this to the enthusiasm you manage to convey with each episode of the podcast. It is brilliant listening to someone who has such passion - please keep up the good work!" Grant (Apple Podcasts): “Love this podcast! It covers a wide range of ski subjects in lots of detail! It's a must listen! Keep up the good work.” Anon (Apple Podcasts): “I am a listener from the United States, and I follow several ski-oriented podcasts. I enjoy The Ski Podcast due to its wide geographic areas of focus, and I'm fascinated to hear the perspective of the primarily British and European hosts. Having had an opportunity to ski in Switzerland, I greatly enjoy and celebrate the differences in the ski culture there versus what I have grown up with here in the United States, just as I enjoy the wide range of topics covered by the podcast.” If you like the podcast, there are three things you can do to help: 1) Review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 2) Subscribe 3) Book your ski hire with Intersport Rent using the code ‘SKIPODCAST' or simply take this link for your discount to be automatically applied at the checkout You can follow Iain @skipedia and the podcast @theskipodcast
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Feb. 28. It dropped for free subscribers on March 6. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription (on sale at 15% off through March 12, 2024). You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoHoward Katkov, Chairman and CEO of Red Mountain Resort, British ColumbiaRecorded onFeb. 8, 2024About Red MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Red Mountain VenturesLocated in: Rossland, British Columbia, CanadaYear founded: 1947 (beginning of chairlift service)Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass and Ikon Base Pass Plus: 5 days, holiday blackouts* Lake Louise Pass (described below)Closest neighboring ski areas: Salmo (:58), Whitewater (1:22), Phoenix Mountain (1:33), 49 Degrees North (1:53)Base elevation: 3,887 feet/1,185 metersSummit elevation: 6,807 feet/2,075 metersVertical drop: 2,919 feet/890 metersSkiable Acres: 3,850Average annual snowfall: 300 inches/760 cmTrail count: 119 (17% beginner, 34% intermediate, 23% advanced, 26% expert)Lift count: 8 (2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 double, 1 T-bar, 1 carpet)View historic Red Mountain trailmaps on skimap.org. Here are some cool video overviews:Granite Mountain:Red Mountain:Grey Mountain:Rossland:Why I interviewed himIt's never made sense to me, this psychological dividing line between Canada and America. I grew up in central Michigan, in a small town closer to Canada (the bridge between Sarnia and Port Huron stood 142 miles away), than the closest neighboring state (Toledo, Ohio, sat 175 miles south). Yet, I never crossed into Canada until I was 19, by which time I had visited roughly 40 U.S. states. Even then, the place felt more foreign than it should, with its aggressive border guards, pizza at McDonald's, and colored currency. Canada on a map looks easy, but Canada in reality is a bit harder, eh?Red sits just five miles, as the crow flies, north of the U.S. border. If by some fluke of history the mountain were part of Washington, it would be the state's greatest ski area, larger than Crystal and Stevens Pass combined. In fact, it would be the seventh-largest ski area in the country, larger than Mammoth or Snowmass, smaller only than Park City, Palisades, Big Sky, Vail, Heavenly, and Bachelor.But, somehow, the international border acts as a sort of invisibility shield, and skiing Red is a much different experience than visiting any of those giants, with their dense networks of high-speed lifts and destination crowds (well, less so at Bachelor). Sure, Red is an Ikon Pass mountain, and has been for years, but it is not synonymous with the pass, like Jackson or Aspen or Alta-Snowbird. But U.S. skiers – at least those outside of the Pacific Northwest – see Red listed on the Ikon menu and glaze past it like the soda machine at an open bar. It just doesn't seem relevant.Which is weird and probably won't last. And right now Shoosh Emoji Bro is losing his goddamn mind and cursing me for using my platform focused on lift-served snowskiing to hype one of the best and most interesting and most underrated lift-served snowskiing operations in North America. But that's why this whole deal exists, Brah. Because most people ski at the same 20 places and I really think skiing as an idea and as an experience and as a sustainable enterprise will be much better off if we start spreading people out a bit more.What we talked aboutRed pow days; why Red amped up shuttle service between the ski area and Rossland and made it free; old-school Tahoe; “it is the most interesting mountain I've ever skied”; buying a ski area when you've never worked at a ski area; why the real-estate crash didn't bury Red like some other ski areas; why Katkov backed away from a golf course that he spent a year and a half planning at Red; why the 900 lockers at the dead center of the base area aren't going anywhere; housing and cost of living in Rossland; “we look at our neighborhood as an extension of our community of Rossland”; base area development plans; balancing parking with people; why and how Red Mountain still sells affordable ski-in, ski-out real estate; “our ethos is to be accessible for everybody”; whether we could ever see a lift from Rossland to Red; why Red conducted a crowd-funding ownership campaign and what they did with the money; Red's newest ownership partners; the importance of independence; “the reality is that the pass, whether it's the Epic or the Ikon Pass, has radically changed the way that consumers experience skiing”; why Red joined the Ikon Pass and why it's been good for the mountain; the Mountain Collective; why Red has no high-speed lifts and whether we could ever see one; no stress on a powder day; Red's next logical lift upgrades; potential lift-served expansions onto Kirkup, White Wolf, and Mt. Roberts; and the Powder Highway.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewMy full-scale assault of Canada, planned for 2023, has turned into more of an old-person's bus tour. I'm stopping at all the big sites, but I sure am taking my time, and I'm not certain that I'm really getting the full experience.Part of this echoes the realization centuries' of armies have had when invading Russia: damn this place is big. I'd hoped to quickly fold the whole country into the newsletter, as I'd been able to do with the Midwest and West when I expanded The Storm's coverage out of the Northeast in 2021. But I'd grown up in the Midwest and been skiing the West annually for decades. I'd underestimated how much that had mattered. I'd skied a bit in Canada, but not consistently enough to kick the door down in the manner I'd hoped. I started counting ski areas in Quebec and stopped when I got to 4,000*, 95 percent of which were named “Mont [some French word with numerous squiggly marks above the letters].” The measurements are different. The money is different. The language, in Quebec, is different. I needed to slow down.So I'm starting with western Canada. Well, I started there last year, when I hosted the leaders of SkiBig3 and Sun Peaks on the podcast. This is the easiest Canadian region for a U.S. American to grasp: Epic, Ikon, Mountain Collective, and Indy Pass penetration is deep, especially in British Columbia. Powdr, Boyne, Vail, and Pacific Group Resorts all own ski areas in the province. There is no language barrier.So, Red today, Panorama next month, Whistler in June. That's the way the podcast calendar sets up now, anyway. I'll move east as I'm able.But Red, in particular, has always fascinated me. If you're wondering what the largest ski area in North America is that has yet to install a high-speed lift, this is your answer. For many of you, that may be a deal-breaker. But I see a time-machine, an opportunity to experience a different sort of skiing, but with modern gear. Like if aliens were to land on today's Earth with their teleportation devices and language-translation brain chips and standard-issue post-industro-materialist silver onesies. Like wow look how much easier the past is when you bring the future with you.Someday, Red will probably build a high-speed lift or two or four, and enough skiers who are burned out on I-70 and LCC but refuse to give up their Ikon Passes will look north and say, “oh my, what's this all about?” And Red will become some version of Jackson Hole or Big Sky or Whistler, beefy but also busy, remote but also accessible. But I wanted to capture Red, as it is today, before it goes away.*Just kidding, there are actually 12,000.^^OK, OK, there are like 90. Or 90,000.Why you should ski Red MountainLet's say you've had an Ikon Pass for the past five or six ski seasons. You've run through the Colorado circuit, navigated the Utah canyons, circled Lake Tahoe. The mountains are big, but so are the crowds. The Ikon Pass, for a moment, was a cool little hack, like having an iPhone in 2008. But then everyone got them, and now the world seems terrible because of it.But let's examine ye ‘ole Ikon partner chart more closely, to see what else may be on offer:What's this whole “Canada” section about? Perhaps, during the pandemic, you resigned yourself to U.S. American travel. Perhaps you don't have a passport. Perhaps converting centimeters to inches ignites a cocktail of panic and confusion in your brain. But all of these are solvable dilemmas. Take a deeper look at Canada.In particular, take a deeper look at Red. Those stats are in American. Meaning this is a ski area bigger than Mammoth, taller than Palisades, snowy as Aspen. And it's just one stop on a stacked Ikon BC roster that also includes Sun Peaks (Canada's second-largest ski area), Revelstoke (the nation's tallest by vertical drop), and Panorama.We are not so many years removed from the age of slow-lift, empty American icons. Alta's first high-speed lift didn't arrive until 1999 (they now have four). Big Sky's tin-can tram showed up in 1995. A 1994 Skiing magazine article described the then-Squaw Valley side of what is now Palisades Tahoe as a pokey and remote fantasyland:…bottomless steeps, vast acreage, 33 lifts and no waiting. America's answer to the wide-open ski circuses of Europe. After all these years the mountain is still uncrowded, except on weekends when people pile in from the San Francisco Bay area in droves. Squaw is unflashy, underbuilt, and seems entirely indifferent to success. The opposite of what you would expect one of America's premier resorts to be.Well that's cute. And it's all gone now. America still holds its secrets, vast, affordable fixed-grip ski areas such as Lost Trail and Discovery and Silver Mountain. But none of them have joined the Ikon Pass, and none gives you the scale of Red, this glorious backwater with fixed-grip lifts that rise 2,400 vertical feet to untracked terrain. Maybe it will stay like this forever, but it probably won't. So go there now.Podcast NotesOn Red's masterplanRed's masterplan outlines potential lift-served expansions onto Kirkup, White Wolf, and Mount Roberts. We discuss the feasibility of each. Here's what the mountain could look like at full build-out:On Jane CosmeticsAn important part of Katkov's backstory is his role as founder of Jane cosmetics, a ‘90s bargain brand popular with teenagers. He built the company into a smash success and sold it to Estée Lauder, who promptly tanked it. Per Can't Hardly Dress:Lauder purchased the company in 1997. Jane was a big deal for Lauder because it was the company's first mass market drugstore brand. Up until that point, Lauder only owned prestige brands like MAC, Clinique, Jo Malone and more. Jane was a revolutionary move for the company and a quick way to enter the drugstore mass market.Lauder had no clue what do with Jane and sales plummeted from $50 million to $25 million by 2004. Several successive sales and relaunches also failed, and, according to the article above, “As it stands today, the brand is dunzo. Leaving behind a default Shopify site, an Instagram unupdated for 213 weeks and a Facebook last touched three years ago.”On Win Smith and SugarbushKatkov's story shares parallels with that of Win Smith, the Wall-Streeter-turned-resort-operator who nurtured Sugarbush between its days as part of the American Skiing Company shipwreck and its 2019 purchase by Alterra. Smith joined me on the podcast four years ago, post-Alterra sale, to share the whole story.On housing in Banff and Sun PeaksCanadian mountain towns are not, in general, backed up against the same cliff as their American counterparts. This is mostly the result of more deliberate regional planning policies that either regulate who's allowed to live where, or allow for smart growth over time (meaning they can build things without 500 lawsuits). I discussed the former model with SkiBig3 (Banff) President Pete Woods here, and the latter with Sun Peaks GM Darcy Alexander here. U.S. Americans could learn a lot from looking north.On not being able to buy slopeside real estate in Oregon, Washington, or California The Pacific Northwest is an extremely weird ski region. The resorts are big and snowy, but unless you live there, you've probably never visited any of them. As I wrote a few weeks back:Last week, Peak Rankings analyzed the matrix of factors that prevent Oregon and Washington ski areas, despite their impressive acreage and snowfall stats, from becoming destination resorts. While the article suggests the mountains' proximity to cities, lousy weather, and difficult access roads as blockers, just about every prominent ski area in America fights some combination of these circumstances. The article's most compelling argument is that, with few exceptions, there's really nowhere to stay on most of the mountains. I've written about this a number of times myself, with this important addendum: There's nowhere to stay on most of the mountains, and no possibility of building anything anytime soon.The reasons for this are many and varied, but can be summarized in this way: U.S. Americans, in thrall to an environmental vision that prizes pure wilderness over development of any kind, have rejected the notion that building dense, human-scaled, walkable mountainside communities would benefit the environment far more than making everyone drive to skiing every single day. Nowhere has this posture taken hold more thoroughly than in the Pacific Northwest.Snowy and expansive British Columbia, perhaps sensing a business opportunity, has done the opposite, streamlining ski resort development through a set of policies known as the B.C. Commercial Alpine Ski Policy. As a result, ski areas in the province have rapidly expanded over the past 30 years…California is a very different market, with plenty of legacy slopeside development. It tends to be expensive, however, as building anything new requires a United Nations treaty, an act of Jesus, and a total eclipse of the sun in late summer of a Leap Year. Perhaps 2024 will be it.On “Fight The Man, Own the Mountain”Red ran a crowd-funding campaign a few years back called “Fight the Man, Own the Mountain.” We discuss this on the pod, but here is a bit more context from a letter Katkov wrote on the subject:Investing in RED means investing in history, independence, and in this growing family that shares the same importance on lifestyle and culture. RED is the oldest ski resort in Western Canada and it has always been fiercely independent. There are not many, if any ski resorts left in North America like Red and the success of our campaign demonstrates a desire by so many of you to, help, in a small way, to protect the lifestyle, soul and ski culture that emanates from Red.RED is a place I've been beyond proud to co-own and captain since 2004 and the door is still open to share that feeling and be a part of our family. But please note that despite the friendly atmosphere, this is one of the Top 20 resorts in North America in terms of terrain. The snow's unreal and the people around here are some of the coolest, most down-to-earth folks you're ever likely to meet. (Trying to keep up with them on the hill is another thing entirely…)With $2 million so far already committed and invested, we wasted no time acting on promised improvements. These upgrades included a full remodel of fan favorite Paradise Lodge (incl. flush toilets!) as well as the expansion of RED's retail and High Performance centres. This summer we'll see the construction of overnight on-mountain cabins and the investor clubhouse (friends welcome!) as well as continued parking expansion. We've heard from a number of early investors that they were beyond stoked to enjoy the new Paradise Lodge so soon after clicking the BUY button. Hey, ownership has its privileges…On the Lake Louise PassKatkov mentions the “Lake Louise Pass,” which Red participates in, along with Castle Mountain and Panorama. He's referring to the Lake Louise Plus Card, which costs $134 Canadian up front. Skiers then get their first, fourth, and seventh days free, and 20 percent off lift tickets for each additional visit. While these sorts of discount cards have been diminished by Epkon domination, versions of them still provide good value across the continent. The Colorado Gems Card, Smugglers' Notch's Bash Badge, and ORDA's frequent skier cards are all solid options for skiers looking to dodge the megapass circus.On the Powder HighwayRed is the closest stop on the Powder Highway to U.S. America. This is what the Powder Highway is:And here's the circuit:Fairmont is just a little guy, but Kicking Horse, Kimberley, and Fernie are Epic Pass partners owned by Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, and Revy, Red, and Panorama are all on Ikon. Whitewater used to be on M.A.X. Pass, but is now pass-less. Just to the west of this resort cluster sits Big White (Indy), Silver Star (Ikon), and Sun Peaks (Ikon). To their east is Sunshine, Lake Louise, Norquay (all Ikon), and Castle (Indy). There are also Cat and heli-ski operations all over the place. You could lose a winter here pretty easily.On Katkov's business backgroundIn this episode of the Fident Capital Podcast, Katkov goes in-depth on his business philosophy and management style. Here's another:On bringing the city to the mountainsWhile this notion, rashly interpreted, could summon ghastly visions of Aspen-esque infestations of Fendi stores in downtown Rossland, it really just means building things other than slopeside mansions with 19 kitchens and a butler's wing. From a 2023 resort press release:Red Development Company, the real estate division of RED Mountain Resort (RED), in conjunction with ACE Project Marketing Group (ACE), recently reported the sell-out of the resort's latest real estate offering during the season opening of the slopes. On offer was The Crescent at RED, a collection of 102 homes, ranging from studio to one bedrooms and lofts featuring a prime ski in – ski out location. Howard Katkov, CEO of RED, and Don Thompson, RED President, first conceived of bringing the smaller urban living model to the alpine slopes in January 2021. ACE coined the concept as "everything you need and nothing you don't" …An important component was ensuring that the price point for The Crescent was accessible to locals and those who know and love the destination. With prices starting mid $300s – an excellent price when converted to USD – and with an achievable 5% deposit down, The Crescent at RED was easily one of the best value propositions in real estate for one of the best ranked ski resorts in North America. Not surprisingly, over 50% of the Crescent buyers were from the United States, spurred on by the extraordinary lifestyle and value offered by The Crescent, but also the new sparsity of Canadian property available to foreign buyers.As a good U.S. American, I ask Katkov why he didn't simply price these units for the one-percenters, and how he managed the House-Flipping Henries who would surely interpret these prices as opportunity. His answers might surprise you, and may give you hope that a different sort of ski town is possible.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 15/100 in 2024, and number 515 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
In this episode, Alex starts by debunking the idea that Donald Trump is an isolationist in foreign policy. He argues that Trump is actually quite involved in foreign policy, he just doesn't agree with the current alliance-based system. Next, Alex dives into the economic changes happening in the United States' skiing industries. After boom or bust seasons based on snowpack, large corporations like Vail Resorts ended up learning that they could charge different prices to different customers and make record profits. This led to overselling the Epic Pass (at a decent price), while also rising the average cost of day tickets. In a good season, this can lead to chaos and overcrowding (but profits), and in bad seasons, the passholders still feel obligated to ski. Basically, the ski industry has been able to increase output and demand (which is difficult in economics). Alex argues that this is why skiing feels less accessible than ever before but also more accessible at the same time. At the same time, price discrimination seems to be a new trend in the US economy and shows how the ski industry, the airline industry, and restaurants can make profits. Finally, Alex talks about how the Supreme Court has decided to hear Trump's immunity case. It seems like SCOTUS is trying to stall a trial and it will help Trump in the election.
In this episode of Real Talk, Chad Otterstrom and Mark Sullivan discuss current snow conditions, events, videos and more. Please consider supporting The Snowboard Project at http://patreon.com/thesnowboardproject
Join Kat Shortsleeve on an exhilarating journey in the latest episode of the Shortsleeve Travel Podcast! From the snowy slopes of Niseko, Japan, to an impromptu solo adventure in Scandinavia right after graduation from Columbia Business School, Kat delves into the art of traveling to champagne destinations on a beer budget. Discover her unique experiences, from luxury horseback riding in Peru to the awe-inspiring Northern Lights and 24-hour daylight phenomena in Scandinavia. Whether it's exploring the world-class 'Japow' or navigating the vibrant streets of Stockholm, Helsinki, and Oslo, this episode is packed with tips, laughs, and insights on making the most of every travel opportunity. Don't miss Kat's personal anecdotes and practical advice on solo travel, embracing local cultures, and seeking out the extraordinary in the everyday.Instagram @katshortsleeveTik Tok @katshortsleeveYoutube Shortsleeve Travel with Kat Shortsleeve
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 21. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 28. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoBrandon Swartz, General Manager of Attitash Mountain Resort, New HampshireRecorded onNovember 6, 2023About AttitashClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Bartlett, New HampshireYear founded: 1964Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Value Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Pass: unlimited midweek access* Epic Day Pass: 1 to 7 days of access with all resorts, 32-resorts, and 22-resorts tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Black Mountain (:14), Cranmore (:16), Wildcat (:23), Bretton Woods (:28), King Pine (:35), Pleasant Mountain (:45), Mt. Eustis (:49), Cannon (:49), Loon (1:04), Sunday River (1:04), Mt. Abram (1:07)Base elevation: 600 feetSummit elevation: 2,350 feet at the top of Attitash PeakVertical drop: 1,750 feetSkiable Acres: 311-plusAverage annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 68 (27% most difficult, 44% intermediate, 29% novice)Lift count: 8 (3 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples, 1 surface lift – view Lift Blog's inventory of Attitash's lift fleet)View historic Attitash trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himAsk any casual NBA fan which player won the most championships in the modern era, and they will probably give you Michael and Scottie. Six titles, two threepeats, '91 to '93 and '96 to '98. And it would've been eight in a row had MJ not followed his spirit animal onto the baseball diamond for two summers, they might add.But they're wrong. The non-1950s-to-‘60s player with the most NBA titles is Robert Horry, Big Shot Bob, who played an important role in seven title runs with three teams: the 1994 and '95 Houston Rockets; the 2000, 2001, and 2002 Lakers; and the 2005 and '07 San Antonio Spurs. While he's not in the hall of fame (Shaq thinks he should be), and doesn't make The Athletic or Hoops Hype's top 75 lists, Stadium Talk lists Horry as one of the 25 most clutch players of all time.Attitash might be skiing's Robert Horry. Always in the halo of greatness, never the superstar. Vail Resorts is the ski area's third consecutive conglomerate owner, and the third straight that doesn't quite seem to know what to do with the place. LBO Resort Enterprises opened Bear Peak in 1994, but then seemed to forget about Attitash after the merger with American Skiing Company two years later (ASC did install the Flying Yankee detachable quad in 1998). Peak Resorts picked Attitash out of ASC's rubbish bin in 2007, then mostly let the place languish for a decade before chopping down the Top Notch double chair in 2018 with no explanation. That left no redundant route to the top of Attitash peak, which became a problem when the Summit Triple dropped dead for most of the 2018-19 ski season. Rather than replace the lift, Peak repaired it, then handed the spruced-up-but-still-hated machine off to Vail Resorts, along with the rest of its portfolio, that summer.Like someone who inherits a jam-packed storage bin from a distant strange relative, Vail spent a couple of years just staring at all the boxes, uncertain what was in them and kind of afraid to look. Those first few winters, which corresponded with Covid, labor shortages, and supply-chain issues, weren't great ones at Attitash. A general sense of dysfunction reigned: snowmaking lagged, lifts opened late in the season or not at all, generic corporate statements thanked the hardworking teams without acknowledging the mountain's many urgent shortcomings. As it was picking through the storage unit, Vail made the strange decision of stacking the New Hampshire box next to the Midwest boxes, effectively valuing Attitash and long-suffering sister resort Wildcat – both with 2,000-ish-foot vertical drops and killer terrain – on the same day-pass tier as 240-foot Mad River, Ohio and 35-acre Snow Creek, Missouri. Anyone committed to arguing against absentee ownership of New England ski areas had a powerful exhibit A with Attitash.Then, last year, Vail opened the Attitash box. And instead of the Beanie Baby collection and Battle of Hamburger Hill commemorative coins that the company expected to find, they pulled out a stack of Microsoft stock certificates from the 1986 IPO. And they were like, “Well now, these might be worth something.”So they got to work. The company improved snowmaking. They replaced the 49-year-old East/West double-double with a brand-new fixed-grip quad. They raised the companywide minimum wage to $20 an hour, well above average for New Hampshire, helping Attitash staff up and resemble a functioning business. Then, this summer, they finally did it: demolished the wickedly inefficient Summit Triple and replaced it with a glimmering high-speed quad.Of course, in true Attitash fashion, the Mountaineer, as the new lift is called, was the last of 60-plus 2023 lift projects in North America to fly towers. But the chair will be open this winter, and it should reset the mountain's rap. Whether Mountaineer will finally push the resort's reputation and stature to match its burly vertical drop and trail count remains to be seen. Ski's readers did not list Attitash on their top 20 eastern ski areas for 2023. Z Rankings lists the mountain 28th in the East.Unlike NBA players, ski areas' careers span generations. In this way, they're more like the franchises themselves. Sometimes the Lakers have Magic or Kobe, and in some eras, well, they don't. Attitash just went a few decades without a franchise player. They may have finally drafted one. This is a top-20 New England ski area that may finally be ready to act like it.What we talked aboutThe overdue death of the Attitash triple; the story behind the “Mountaineer” lift name; why a high-speed quad was the right replacement lift; take the train to the mountain; what happened to the lift tower that Flying Yankee and Summit Triple shared; expansion opportunities off Attitash Peak; other alignments the ski area considered for Mountaineer; why and where Attitash moved the Mountaineer lift load station; the circa-Peak Resorts Mount Snow intelligentsia; Vail's culture of internal development and promotion; the unique challenges of running Attitash in a very crowded neighborhood; the Attitash-Wildcat combo; the Progression Quad replacement for the East/West double-double; considering Bear Peak's lift fleet; why glades disappeared from Attitash's trailmap, and why they're back; whether the old Top Notch double chair line could ever enter the official trail network; snowmaking upgrades; how big of an impact the $20-an-hour minimum wage had on Attitash; employee housing; Northeast-specific Epic Passes; and the Epic Day Pass.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewThe Mountaineer, of course. For 30 years, successive owners have insisted that Attitash Peak was incompatible with a high-speed quad: too much capacity feeding too few trails from a lift that would cost too much to build.Well, Vail built it. So Swartz and I discuss why, after saying no for so long, mom finally bought us our expensive toy. I won't get into that here, because that's what the podcast is for, but I will make this point: there is a dirt-stupid but persistent narrative that Vail Resorts doesn't care about its eastern properties, and only bought them to entice monied New Englanders to its western trophies. But, nearly seven years after entering the region with the surprise purchase of Stowe, Vail has done plenty to disprove that notion, launching Northeast-specific Epic Passes in 2020; installing new six-packs at Stowe, Mount Snow, and Okemo; adding high-speed quads at Attitash and Mount Snow; and moving another HSQ at Okemo. It's been a quiet but complete gut-renovation of what had been some very tired ski areas.Vail must feel, often, like it can't win. They're often framed as elitists for building too much and as cheapskates for investing too little. Social media piles on because their resorts are too busy but also because they're priced too high. I'll admit that I criticize them for making lift tickets too expensive and passes too cheap. The Mountaineer, which New England has spent two decades begging for, will likely draw criticism for overcrowding Attitash as skiers soon forget the aches and pains of the Summit Triple.Skiers can be impossible pains in the ass, no question. But Vail showed up at the steakhouse and came back to the table with the whole buffet. In the five years from 2016 to 2021, Vail purchased 29 ski areas. Prior to that, it owned just 11. That's nearly a quadrupling of size in half a decade. That would be challenging at any time. Add the Covid face-rearranging, and it was nearly impossible to digest.After several rough winters, however, Vail may be taming this herd of feral horses. They're not done yet, but things are calming down. The lift investments are helping, management is stabilizing. They still need to loosen the reigns on snowmaking outside of the West, better limit crowds on peak days, and find a less-gun-to-the-head method of incentivizing Epic Pass sales than $299 lift tickets. But Vail Resorts, as a stable entity rather than a growth monster, is beginning to gel, and Attitash symbolizes that metamorphosis as well as any mountain in the portfolio.What I got wrongWe alluded to the fact that Attitash would fly the Mountaineer towers on the day we recorded this, Nov. 6. Weather delays pushed that installation to later in the month.This isn't something I got wrong at the time, but the Epic Day Pass rates I mentioned were tier four prices. They've since increased slightly. Here are the current (and final) rates (the 22-resorts tier gets you in the door at Attitash):Why you should ski AttitashLet's continue the basketball metaphor. Who's your starting five if New Hampshire is your basketball team? Cannon makes the roster by default, a 2,180-footer with the best terrain in the state. Go ahead and fill out the roster with your other 2,000-footers: Loon, with its jungle gym of fancy upgraded lifts; Wildcat, with its Mount Washington views and high-speed top-to-bottom laps of twisted glory; and sprawling, falling Waterville Valley.So who's your number five? I'd accept arguments for gorgeous Mount Sunapee, beefy Bretton Woods, or Attitash. But as captain, I'm probably picking Attitash. Maybe not the Attitash of three years ago, but the Attitash that just got back from Chairlift Camp and can now offer a true, modern ski experience across its two mountains.But, carve away the cosmetics, and the truth is that Attitash is an incredible ski mountain. That 1,750 vertical feet is all fall line, consistent, beautiful cruisers up and down. It's not the steepest mountain, or the snowiest, or the most convenient to get to – you'll drive past Waterville and Loon and Cannon to get there (or not, Route Expert Bro; save it for your Powder DAWGZ WhatsApp chat). But from a pure, freefalling skiing point of view, it's among the best in the east. Just maybe don't show up at 11 a.m. on a Saturday.Podcast NotesOn the Top Notch DoubleI'm not sure if anyone ever really loved Attitash's Summit Triple, but the removal of the parallel Top Notch double in 2018 intensified focus on the summit lift's shortcomings. Here's where Top Notch ran (Lift 1 far looker's left):No one has ever really given me a good answer as to why former owner Peak Resorts removed that lift without a backup plan, but the timing could not have been worse – the Summit Triple suffered a series of catastrophic mechanical failures in late 2018 and early 2019, effectively shuttering the upper part of Attitash Peak for the bulk of that ski season.Anyway, once Peak removed the lift, the liftline stayed on the trailmap, suggesting that it may join the official trail network at some point:But the liftline slowly faded:This year, the old ghost line is gone completely:On the shared Flying Yankee-Attitash Summit Triple towerAn engineering quirk of the Summit Triple is that it shared a tower with the Flying Yankee high-speed quad, which crossed below the older lift:So what happened to that tower? We discuss it in the podcast.On the train from North ConwayEventually, U.S. America will have to figure out better ways to tie cities to its mountains. One of the best ways to do this is also one of the oldest: trains. Swartz and I briefly discuss the train that runs from downtown North Conway and drops you at the Attitash base. I looked into this a bit more, and unfortunately it's more of a novelty than a practical commuter service at this point. It's expensive ($40 per person roundtrip for coach), slow (the train ride takes around half an hour, compared to a 16-minute drive), and inconvenient, with the first trains arriving at the mountain around 11 a.m. and the latest one departing the mountain at 2:40. Not a great ski day, and the schedule is, for now, fairly limited, running weekends and holidays from the day after Christmas to late February. You can book rides and see details here.On the Attitash masterplanAttitash, like all ski areas that sit partially or fully on Forest Service land, is required to file an updated masterplan every so often. Unlike the highly organized western Forest Service divisions, however, which often have their ski area masterplans neatly organized online (three cheers for Colorado's White River National Forest), eastern districts rarely bother. So, while we discuss the mountain's masterplan, I couldn't find it, and the ski area couldn't readily provide it.On the Mystery of the Missing GladesCirca 2011, Attitash's trailmap called out several named glades on Bear Peak:By 2020, 10 marked glades appeared across both peaks, though Attitash had removed their names:By last season, all of them had disappeared:But this year, some (but not all) of the legacy glades, are back:What's going on? We discuss this in the podcast.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 101/100 in 2023, and number 487 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 14. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 21. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoJim Vick, General Manager of Lutsen Mountains, MinnesotaRecorded onOctober 30, 2023About Lutsen MountainsClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Midwest Family Ski ResortsLocated in: Lutsen, MinnesotaYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Legendary Gold Pass – unlimited access, no blackouts* Legendary Silver Pass – unlimited with 12 holiday and peak Saturday blackouts* Legendary Bronze Pass – unlimited weekdays with three Christmas week blackouts* Indy Pass – 2 days with 24 holiday and Saturday blackouts* Indy Plus Pass – 2 days with no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Chester Bowl (1:44), Loch Lomond (1:48), Spirit Mountain (1:54), Giants Ridge (1:57), Mt. Baldy (2:11)Base elevation: 800 feetSummit elevation: 1,688 feetVertical drop: 1,088 feet (825 feet lift-served)Skiable Acres: 1,000Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 95 (10% expert, 25% most difficult, 47% more difficult, 18% easiest)Lift count: 7 (1 eight-passenger gondola, 2 high-speed six-packs, 3 double chairs, 1 carpet)View historic Lutsen Mountains trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himI often claim that Vail and Alterra have failed to appreciate Midwest skiing. I realize that this can be confusing. Vail Resorts owns 10 ski areas from Missouri to Ohio. Alterra's Ikon Pass includes a small but meaningful presence in Northern Michigan. What the hell am I talking about here?Lutsen, while a regional standout and outlier, illuminates each company's blind spots. In 2018, the newly formed Alterra Mountain Company looted the motley M.A.X. Pass roster for its best specimens, adding them to its Ikon Pass. Formed partly from the ashes of Intrawest, Alterra kept all of their own mountains and cherry-picked the best of Boyne and Powdr, leaving off Boyne's Michigan mountains, Brighton, Summit at Snoqualmie, and Cypress (which Ikon later added); and Powdr's Boreal, Lee Canyon, Pico, and Bachelor (Pico and Bachelor eventually made the team). Alterra also added Solitude and Crystal after purchasing them later in 2018, and, over time, Windham and Alyeska. Vail bought Triple Peaks (Crested Butte, Okemo, Sunapee), later that year, and added Resorts of the Canadian Rockies to its Epic Pass. But that left quite a few orphans, including Lutsen and sister mountain Granite Peak, which eventually joined the Indy Pass (which didn't debut until 2019).All of which is technocratic background to set up this question: what the hell was Alterra thinking? In Lutsen and Granite Peak, Alterra had, ready to snatch, two of the largest, most well-cared-for, most built-up resorts between Vermont and Colorado. Midwest Family Ski Resorts CEO Charles Skinner is one of the most aggressive and capable ski area operators anywhere. These mountains, with their 700-plus-foot vertical drops, high-speed lifts, endless glade networks, and varied terrain deliver a big-mountain experience that has more in common with a mid-sized New England ski area than anything within several hundred miles in any direction. It's like someone in a Colorado boardroom and a stack of spreadsheets didn't bother looking past the ZIP Codes when deciding what to keep and what to discard.This is one of the great miscalculations in the story of skiing's shift to multimountain pass hegemony. By overlooking Lutsen Mountains and Granite Peak in its earliest days, Alterra missed an opportunity to snatch enormous volumes of Ikon Pass sales across the Upper Midwest. Any Twin Cities skier (and there are a lot of them), would easily be able to calculate the value of an Ikon Pass that could deliver 10 or 14 days between Skinner's two resorts, and additional days on that mid-winter western run. By dismissing the region, Alterra also enabled the rise of the Indy Pass, now the only viable national multi-mountain pass product for the Midwestern skier outside of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. These sorts of regional destinations, while not as “iconic” as, say, Revelstoke, move passes; the sort of resort-hopping skier who is attracted to a multi-mountain pass is going to want to ski near home as much as they want to fly across the country.Which is a formula Vail Resorts, to its credit, figured out a long time ago. Which brings us back to those 10 Midwestern ski areas hanging off the Epic Pass attendance sheet. Vail has, indeed, grasped the utility of the Midwestern, city-adjacent day-ski area, and all 10 of its resorts fit neatly into that template: 75 chairlifts on 75 vertical feet with four trees seated within 10 miles of a city center. But here's what they missed: outside of school groups; Park Brahs who like to Park Out, Brah; and little kids, these ski areas hold little appeal even to Midwesterners. That they are busy beyond comprehension at all times underscores, rather than refutes, that point – something simulating a big-mountain experience, rather than a street riot, is what the frequent Midwest skier seeks.For that, you have to flee the cities. Go north, find something in the 400- to 600-foot vertical range, something with glades and nooks and natural snow. Places like Caberfae, Crystal Mountain, Nub's Nob, and Shanty Creek in Michigan; Cascade, Devil's Head, and Whitecap, Wisconsin; Giants Ridge and Spirit Mountain, Minnesota. Lutsen is the best of all of these, a sprawler with every kind of terrain flung across its hundreds of acres. A major ski area. A true resort. A Midwestern dream.Vick and I discuss the Ikon snub in the podcast. It's weird. And while Alterra, five years later, is clearly doing just fine, its early decision to deliberately exclude itself from one of the world's great ski regions is as mystifying a strategic choice as I've seen any ski company make. Vail, perhaps, understands the Midwest resort's true potential, but never found one it could close on – there aren't that many of them, and they aren't often for sale. Perhaps they dropped a blank check on Skinner's desk, and he promptly deposited it into the nearest trashcan.All of which is a long way of saying this: Lutsen is the best conventional ski area in the Midwest (monster ungroomed Mount Bohemia is going to hold more appeal for a certain sort of expert skier), and one of the most consistently excellent ski operations in America. Its existence ought to legitimize the region to national operators too bent on dismissing it. Someday, they will understand that. And after listening to this podcast, I hope that you will, too.What we talked aboutWhy Lutsen never makes snow in October; Minnesota as early-season operator; the new Raptor Express six-pack; why the Bridge double is intact but retiring from winter operations; why Lutsen removed the 10th Mountain triple; why so many Riblet chairs are still operating; why Moose Return trail will be closed indefinitely; potential new lower-mountain trails on Eagle Mountain; an updated season-opening plan; how lake-effect snow impacts the west side of Lake Superior; how the Raptor lift may impact potential May operations; fire destroys Papa Charlie's; how it could have been worse; rebuilding the restaurant; Lutsen's long evolution from backwater to regional leader and legit western alternative; the Skinner family's aggressive operating philosophy; the history of Lutsen's gondola, the only such machine in Midwest skiing; Lutsen's ambitious but stalled masterplan; potential Ullr and Mystery mountain chairlift upgrades; “the list of what skiers want is long”; why Lutsen switched to a multi-mountain season pass with Granite Peak and Snowriver; and “if we would have been invited into the Ikon at the start, we would have jumped on that.”Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewFor all my gushing above, Lutsen isn't perfect. While Granite Peak has planted three high-speed lifts on the bump in the past 20 years, Lutsen has still largely been reliant on a fleet of antique Riblets, plus a sixer that landed a decade ago and the Midwest's only gondola, a glimmering eight-passenger Doppelmayr machine installed in 2015. While a fixed-grip foundation isn't particularly abnormal for the Midwest, which is home to probably the largest collection of antique chairlifts on the planet, it's off-brand for burnished Midwest Family Ski Resorts.Enter, this year, Lutsen's second six-pack, Raptor Express, which replaces both the 10th Mountain triple (removed), and the Bridge double (demoted to summer-only use). This new lift, running approximately 600 vertical feet parallel to Bridge, will (sort of; more below), smooth out the janky connection from Moose back to Eagle. And while the loss of 10th Mountain will mean 300 vertical feet of rambling below the steep upper-mountain shots, Raptor is a welcome upgrade that will help Lutsen keep up with the Boynes.However, even as this summer moved the mountain ahead with the Raptor installation, a storm demolished a skier bridge over the river on Moose Return, carving a several-hundred-foot-wide, unbridgeable (at least in the short term), gap across the trail. Which means that skiers will have to connect back to Eagle via gondola, somewhat dampening Raptor's expected impact. That's too bad, and Vick and I talk extensively about what that means for skiers this coming winter.The final big timely piece of this interview is the abrupt cancellation of Lutsen's massive proposed terrain expansion, which would have more than doubled the ski area's size with new terrain on Moose and Eagle mountains. Here's what they were hoping to do with Moose:And Eagle:Over the summer, Lutsen withdrew the plan, and Superior National Forest Supervisor Thomas Hall recommended a “no action” alternative, citing “irreversible damage” to mature white cedar and sugar maple stands, displacement of backcountry skiers, negative impacts to the 300-mile-long Superior hiking trail, objections from Native American communities, and water-quality concerns. Lutsen had until Oct. 10 to file an objection to the decision, and they did. What happens now? we discuss that.Questions I wish I'd askedIt may have been worth getting into the difference between Lutsen's stated lift-served vertical (825 feet), and overall vertical (1,088 feet). But it wasn't really necessary, as I asked the same question of Midwest Family Ski Resorts CEO Charles Skinner two years ago. He explains the disparity at the 25:39 mark:What I got wrongI said that Boyne Mountain runs the Hemlock double chair instead of the Mountain Express six-pack for summer operations. That is not entirely true, as Mountain Express sometimes runs, as does the new Disciples 8 chair on the far side of the mountain's Sky Bridge.I referred to Midwest Family Ski Resorts CEO Charles Skinner as “Charles Skinner Jr.” He is in fact Charles Skinner IV.Why you should ski Lutsen MountainsOne of the most unexpected recurring messages I receive from Storm readers floats out of the West. Dedicated skiers of the big-mountain, big-snow kingdoms of the Rockies, they'd never thought much about skiing east of the Continental Divide. But now they're curious. All these profiles of New England girth and history, Midwest backwater bumps, and Great Lakes snowtrains have them angling for a quirky adventure, for novelty and, perhaps, a less-stressful version of skiing. These folks are a minority. Most Western skiers wear their big-mountain chauvinism as a badge of stupid pride. Which I understand. But they are missing a version of skiing that is heartier, grittier, and more human than the version that swarms from the western skies.So, to those few who peek east over the fortress walls and consider the great rolling beyond, I tell you this: go to Lutsen. If you're only going to ski the Midwest once, and only in a limited way, this is one of the few must-experience stops. Lutsen and Bohemia. Mix and match the rest. But these two are truly singular.To the rest of you, well: Midwest Family's stated goal is to beef up its resorts so that they're an acceptable substitute for a western vacation. Lutsen's website even hosts a page comparing the cost of a five-day trip there and to Breckenridge:Sure, that's slightly exaggerated, and yes, Breck crushes Lutsen in every on-mountain statistical category, from skiable acreage to vertical drop to average annual snowfall. But 800 vertical feet is about what an average skier can manage in one go anyway. And Lutsen really does give you a bigger-mountain feel than anything for a thousand miles in either direction (except, as always, the Bohemia exception). And when you board that gondy and swing up the cliffs toward Moose Mountain, you're going to wonder where, exactly, you've been transported to. Because it sure as hell doesn't look like Minnesota.Podcast NotesOn Midwest Family Ski ResortsMidwest Family Ski Resorts now owns four ski areas (Snowriver, Michigan is one resort with two side-by-side ski areas). Here's an overview:On the loss of Moose ReturnA small but significant change will disrupt skiing at Lutsen Mountains this winter: the destruction of the skier bridge at the bottom of the Moose Return trail that crosses the Poplar River, providing direct ski access from Moose to Eagle mountains. Vick details why this presents an unfixable obstacle in the podcast, but you can see that Lutsen removed the trail from its updated 2023-24 map:On the Stowe gondola I referencedI briefly referenced Stowe's gondola as a potential model for traversing the newly re-gapped Moose Return run. The resort is home to two gondolas – the 2,100-vertical-foot, 7,664-foot-long, eight-passenger Mansfield Gondola; and the 1,454-foot-long, six-passenger Over Easy Gondola, which moves between the Mansfield and Spruce bases. It is the latter that I'm referring to in the podcast: On Mt. FrontenacVick mentions that his first job was at Mt. Frontenac, a now-lost 420-vertical-foot ski area in Minnesota. Here was a circa 2000 trailmap:Apparently a local group purchased the ski area and converted it into a golf course. Boo.On the evolution of LutsenThe Skinners have been involved with Lutsen since the early 1980s. Here's a circa 1982 trailmap, which underscores the mountain's massive evolution over the decades:On the evolution of Granite PeakWhen Charles Skinner purchased Granite Peak, then known as Rib Mountain, it was a nubby little backwater, with neglected infrastructure and a miniscule footprint:And here it is today, a mile-wide broadside running three high-speed chairlifts:An absolutely stunning transformation.On Charles Skinner IIISkinner's 2021 Star Tribune obituary summarized his contributions to Lutsen and to skiing:Charles Mather Skinner III passed away on June 17th at the age of 87 in his new home in Red Wing, MN. …Charles was born in St. Louis, MO on August 30, 1933, to Eleanor Whiting Skinner and Charles Mather Skinner II. He grew up near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis where he loved racing sailboats during the summer and snow sliding adventures in the winter.At the age of 17, he joined the United States Navy and fought in the Korean War as a navigator aboard dive bombers. After his service, he returned home to Minnesota where he graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School, served on the law review, and began practicing law in Grand Rapids, MN.In 1962, he led the formation of Sugar Hills Ski and purchased Sugar Lake (Otis) Resort in Grand Rapids, MN. For 20 years, Charles pioneer-ed snowmaking inventions, collaborated with other Midwest ski area owners to build a golden age for Midwest ski areas, and advised ski areas across the U.S. including Aspen on snowmaking.In the 1970s, Scott Paper Company recruited Charles to manage recreational lands across New England, and later promoted him to become President of Sugarloaf Mountain ski area in Maine. In 1980, he bought, and significantly expanded, Lutsen Mountains in Lutsen, MN, which is now owned and operated by his children.He and his wife spent many happy years on North Captiva Island, Florida, where they owned and operated Barnacle Phil's Restaurant. An entrepreneur and risk-taker at heart, he never wanted to retire and was always looking for new business ventures.His work at Sugar Hills, Lutsen Mountains and North Captive Island helped local economics expand and thrive.He was a much-respected leader and inspiration to thousands of people over the years. Charles was incredibly intellectually curious and an avid reader, with a tremendous memory for facts and history.Unstoppable and unforgettable, he had a wonderful sense of humor and gave wise counsel to many. …On the number of ski areas on Forest Service landA huge number of U.S. ski areas operate on Forest Service land, with the majority seated in the West. A handful also sit in the Midwest and New England (Lutsen once sat partially on Forest Service land, but currently does not):On additional Midwest podcastsAs a native Midwesterner, I've made it a point to regularly feature the leaders of Midwest ski areas on the podcast. Dig into the archive:MICHIGANWISCONSINOHIOINDIANASOUTH DAKOTAThe Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 98/100 in 2023, and number 484 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
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You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoDeirdra Walsh, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Park City, UtahRecorded onOctober 18, 2023About Park CityClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Park City, UtahYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited* Epic Local Pass: unlimited with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Local: five non-holiday days combined with Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Keystone* Epic Day Pass: access with All Resorts tierClosest neighboring ski areas: Deer Valley (:04), Utah Olympic Park (:09), Woodward Park City (:11), Snowbird (:50), Alta (:55), Solitude (1:00), Brighton (1:08) – or just ski between them all; travel times vary massively pending weather, traffic, and time of yearBase elevation: 6,800 feetSummit elevation: 9,998 feet at the top of Jupiter (can hike to 10,026 on Jupiter Peak)Vertical drop: 3,226 feetSkiable Acres: 7,300 acresAverage annual snowfall: 355 inchesTrail count: 330+ (50% advanced/expert, 42% intermediate, 8% beginner)Lift count: 41 (2 eight-passenger gondolas, 1 pulse gondola, 1 cabriolet, 6 high-speed six-packs, 10 high-speed quads, 5 fixed-grip quads, 7 triples, 4 doubles, 3 carpets, 2 ropetows – view Lift Blog's inventory of Park City's lift fleet)View historic Park City trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed herAn unfortunate requirement of this job is concocting differentiated verbiage to describe a snowy hill equipped with chairlifts. Most often, I revert to the three standbys: ski area, mountain, and resort/ski resort. I use them interchangeably, as one may use couch/sofa or dinner/supper (for several decades, I thought oven/stove to be a similar pairing; imagine my surprise to discover that these words described two separate parts of one familiar machine). But that is problematic, of course, because while every enterprise that I describe is some sort of ski area, only around half of them are anywhere near an actual mountain. And an even smaller percentage of those are resorts. Still, I swap the trio around like T-shirts in the world's smallest wardrobe, hoping my readers value the absence of repetition more than they resent the mental gymnastics required to consider 210-vertical-foot Snow Snake, Michigan a “ski resort.”But these equivalencies introduce a problem when I get to Park City. At 7,300 acres, Park City sprawls over 37 percent more terrain than Vail Mountain, Vail Resorts' second-largest U.S. ski area, and the fourth-biggest in the nation overall. To call this a “ski area” seems inadequate, like describing an aircraft carrier as a “boat.” Even “mountain” feels insubstantial, as Park City's forty-some-odd lifts shoots-and-ladder their way over at least a dozen separate summits. “Ski resort” comes closest to capturing the grandeur of the whole operation, but even that undersells the experience, given that the ski runs are directly knotted to the town below them – a town that is a ski town but is also so much more.In recent years, “megaresort” has settled into the ski lexicon, usually as a pejorative describing a thing to be avoided, a tourist magnet that has swapped its soul for a Disney-esque welcome mat. “Your estimated wait time to board the Ultimate Super Summit Interactive 4D 8K Turbo Gondola is [one hour and 45 minutes]”. The “megas,” freighted with the existential burden of Epic and Ikon flagships, carry just a bit too much cruise ship mass-escapism and Cheesecake Factory illusions of luxe to truly capture that remote wilderness fantasy that is at least half the point of skiing. Right?Not really. Not any more than Times Square captures the essence of New York City or the security lines outside the ballpark distill the experience of consuming live sports. Yes, this is part of it, like the gondola lines winding back to the interstate are part of peak-day Park City. Those, along with the Epic Pass or the (up to) $299 lift ticket, are the cost of admission. But get through the gates, and a sprawling kingdom awaits.I don't know how many people ski Park City on a busy day. Let's call it 20,000. The vast majority of them are going to spend the vast majority of their day lapping the groomers, which occupy a small fraction of Park City's endless varied terrain. With its cascading hillocks, its limitless pitch-perfect glades, its lifts shooting every which way like hammered-together contraptions in some snowy realm of silver-miners - their century-old buildings and conveyor belts rising still off the mountain – Park City delivers a singular ski experience. Call it a “mountain,” a “ski area,” a “ski resort,” or a “megaresort” – all are accurate but also inadequate. Park City, in the lexicon of American skiing, stands alone.What we talked aboutPark City's deep 2022-23 winter; closing on May 1; skiing Missouri; Lake Tahoe; how America's largest ski area runs as a logistical and cultural unit; living through the Powdr-to-Vail ownership transition; the awesome realization that Park City and Canyons were one; Vail's deliberate culture of women's empowerment; the history and purpose of those giant industrial structures dotting Park City ski area; how you can tour them; the novel relationship between the ski area and the town at its base; Park City's Olympic legacy; thoughts on future potential Winter Olympic Games in Utah and at Park City; why a six-pack and an eight-pack chairlift scheduled for installation at Park City last year never happened; where those lifts went instead; whether those upgrades could ever happen; the incoming Sunrise Gondola; the logic of the Over And Out lift; Red Pine Gondola improvements; why the Jupiter double is unlikely to be upgraded anytime soon; Town Lift; reflecting on year one of paid parking; and the massive new employee housing development at Canyons. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIf only The Storm had existed in 2014. Because wouldn't that have been fun? Hostile takeovers are rare in skiing. You normally can't give a ski area (sorry, a super-megaresort) away. Vail taking this one off Powdr's lunch tray is kind of amazing, kind of sad, kind of disturbing, and kind scary. Like, did that really happen? It did, so onward we go.Walsh, as it happened, worked at Park City at the time, though in a much different role, so we talked about what is was like to live through the transition. But two other events shape our modern perception of Park City: The Olympics and The Lifts.The Olympics, of course, came to Park City in 2002. On this podcast a few weeks back, Snowbird General Manager Dave Fields outlined the dramatic changes the Games wrought on Utah skiing. Suddenly, everyone on the planet realized that a half dozen ski resorts that averaged between 300 and 500 inches of snow per winter were lined up 45 minutes from a major international airport on good roads. And they were like, “Wait that's real?” And they all starting coming – annual Utah skier visits have more than doubled since the Olympics, from around 3 million in winter 2001-02 to more than 7 million in last year's amazing ski season. Which is cool. But the Olympics are (probably) coming back to Salt Lake, in 2030 or 2034, and Park City will likely be a part of them again. So we talk about that.The Lifts refers to this story that I covered last October:Last September, Vail Resorts announced what was likely the largest set of single-season lift upgrades in the history of the world: $315-plus million on 19 lifts (later increased to 21 lifts) across 14 ski areas. Two of those lifts would land in Park City: a D-line eight-pack would replace the Silverlode six, and a six-pack would replace the Eagle and Eaglet triples. Two more lifts in a town with 62 of them (Park City sits right next door to Deer Valley). Surely this would be another routine project for the world's largest ski area operator.It wasn't. In June, four local residents – Clive Bush, Angela Moschetta, Deborah Rentfrow, and Mark Stemler – successfully appealed the Park City Planning Commission's previous approval of the lift projects.“The upgrades were appealed on the basis that the proposed eight-place and six-place chairs were not consistent with the 1998 development agreement that governs the resort,” SAM wrote at the time. “The planning commission also cited the need for a more thorough review of the resort's comfortable carrying capacity calculations and parking mitigation plan, finding PCM's proposed paid parking plan at the Mountain Village insufficient.”So instead of rising on the mountain, the lifts spent the summer, in pieces, in the parking lot. Vail admitted defeat, at least temporarily. “We are considering our options and next steps based on today's disappointing decision—but one thing is clear—we will not be able to move forward with these two lift upgrades for the 22-23 winter season,” Park City Mountain Resort Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Deirdra Walsh said in response to the decision.One of the options Vail apparently considered was trucking the lifts to friendlier locales. Last Wednesday, as part of its year-end earnings release, Vail announced that the two lifts would be moved to Whistler and installed in time for the 2023-24 ski season. The eight-pack will replace the 1,129-vertical-foot Fitzsimmons high-speed quad on Whistler, giving the mountain 18 seats (!) out of the village (the lift runs alongside the 10-passenger Whistler Village Gondola). The six-pack will replace the Jersey Cream high-speed quad on Blackcomb, a midmountain lift with a 1,230-foot vertical rise. These will join the new Big Red six-pack and 10-passenger Creekside Gondola going in this summer on the Whistler side, giving the largest ski area on the continent four new lifts in two years. …Meanwhile, Park City skiers will have to continue riding Silverlode, a sixer dating to 1996, and Eagle, a 1993 Garaventa CTEC triple (the Eaglet lift, unfortunately, is already gone). The vintage of the remaining lifts don't sound particularly creaky, but both were built for a different, pre-Epic Pass Park City, and one that wasn't connected via the Quicksilver Gondola to the Canyons side of the resort. Vail targeted these choke points to improve the mountain's flow. But skiers are stuck with them indefinitely.On paper, Vail remains “committed to resolving our permit to upgrade the Eagle and Silverlode lifts in Park City.” I don't doubt that. But I wonder if the four individuals who chose to choke up this whole process understand the scale of what they just destroyed. Those two lifts, combined, probably cost somewhere around $50 million. Minimum. Maybe the resort will try again. Maybe it won't. Surely Vail can find a lot of places to spend its money with far less friction.All of which I thought was rather hilarious, for a number of reasons. First, stopping an enormous project on procedural grounds for nebulous reasons is the most U.S. American thing ever. Second, the more these sorts of over-the-top stall tactics are wielded for petty purposes (ski areas need to be able to upgrade chairlifts), the more likely we are to lose them, as politicians who never stop bragging about how “business-friendly” Utah is look to streamline these pesky checks and balances. Third, Vail unapologetically yanking those things out of the parking lot and hauling them up to BC was the company's brashest move since it punched Powdr in the face and took its resort away. It was harsh but necessary, a signal that the world keeps moving around the sun even when a small group of nitwits want it to stop on its axis.Questions I wish I'd askedOn Scott's Bowl accessI wanted to ask Walsh about the strange fact that Scott's Bowl and West Scott's Bowl – two high-alpine sections off Jupiter, suddenly closed in 2018 and stayed shut for four years. This story from the Park Record tells it well enough:Park City Mountain Resort on Tuesday said a high-altitude swath of terrain has reopened more than three years after a closure caused by the inability of the resort and the landowner to reach a lease agreement. …PCMR in December of 2018 indefinitely closed the terrain. The closure also included terrain located between Scott's Bowl and Constellation, a nearby ski run. The resort at the time of the closure said the landowner opted not to renew a lease. There had been an agreement in place for longer than 14 years, PCMR said at the time.A firm called Silver King Mining Company, with origins dating to Park City's silver-mining era, owns the land. The lease and renewals had been struck between the Gallivan family-controlled Silver King Mining Company and Powdr Corp., the former owner of PCMR. A representative of Silver King Mining Company in late 2018 indicated the firm traditionally accepted lift passes as compensation for the use of the land.The lease went to Vail Resorts when it acquired PCMR. The two sides negotiated a one-year extension but were unable at the time to reach a long-term agreement, the Silver King Mining Company side said in late 2018.Land ownership, particularly in the west, can be a wild patchwork. The majority of large western ski areas sit on National Forest Service land, but Park City (and neighboring Deer Valley), do not. While this grants them some developmental advantages over their neighbors in the Cottonwoods, who sit mostly or entirely on public land, it also means that sprawling Park City has more landlords than it would probably like.On Park City Epic Pass accessThis is the first Vail Resorts interview in a while where I haven't asked the question about Epic Pass access. I don't have a high-minded reason for that – I simply ran out of time.On the strange aversion to safety bars among Western U.S. skiersWhen you ski in Europe or, to a lesser-extent, the Northeastern U.S., skiers lower the chairlift safety bar reflexively, and typically before the carrier has exited the loading terminal. While I found this jarring when I first moved to New York from the Midwest – where safety bars remain rare – I quickly adapted, and now find it disconcerting to ride a chair without one.This whole dynamic is flipped in the West, where a sort of tough-guy bravado prevails, and skiers tend to ride with the safety bar aloft as a matter of stubborn pride. Many seem shocked, even offended, when I announce that I'm lowering it (and I always announce it, and bring it down slowly). Perhaps they are afraid their friends will see them riding with a lame tourist. It's all a bit tedious and stupid. I've had a few incidents where I've passed out for mysterious reasons. If that happens on a chairlift, I'd rather not die before I regain consciousness. So I like the bar. Vail Resorts, however, mandates that all employees lower the safety bar when in uniform. That doesn't mean they always do it. This past January, a Park City ski patroller died when a tree fell on the Short Cut liftline, flinging him into a snowbank, where he suffocated. Utah Occupational Safety and Health (UOSH) fined the resort a laughably inadequate sum of $2,500 for failing to clear potential hazards around the lift. UOSH's report did not indicate whether the patroller, 29-year-old Christian Helger, had lowered his safety bar, and experts who spoke to Fox 13 in Salt Lake City said that it may not have mattered. “With that type of hit from the weight of that type of a tree with that much snow on it, I don't know that the safety bar would have prevented this incident,” Travis Heggie, a Bowling Green State University professor, told the station.Fair enough. But a man is dead, and understanding the exact circumstances surrounding his death may help prevent another in the future. This is why airplane travel is so safe – regulators consider every factor of every tragedy to engineer similar failures out of future flights. We ought to be doing the same with chairlifts.Chairlifts are, on the whole, very safe to ride. But accidents, when they do happen, can be catastrophic. Miroslava “Mirka” Lewis, a former Stevens Pass employee, recently sued Vail Resorts after a fall from one of Stevens Pass' antique Riblet chairs in January of 2022 left her permanently disabled. From a local paper out of Everett, Washington:The lawsuit claims the ski lift Lewis was operating was designed in the 1960s by Riblet Tramway Company and lacked several safety precautions now considered standard in modern lifts. The lift suspended two chairs from a single pole in the center, with no safety bars or bails on the outside to confine passengers.Lewis suffered a traumatic brain injury, collapsed lung, four fractured vertebrae and other severe injuries, according to the complaint. She required multiple surgeries on her breasts and knees.The plaintiff also reportedly had to relearn how to speak, walk and write due to the severity of her injuries.It is unclear which lift Lewis was riding, but two centerpole Riblets remained at the resort last January: Kehr's and Seventh Heaven. Kehr's has since been removed. Vail Resorts, as a general policy, retrofits all of its chairlifts with safety bars, but these chairs' early-1960s recessed centerpole design is impossible to retrofit. So the lifts remain in their vintage state. It's a bit like buying a '57 Chevy – damn, does that thing look sweet, but if you drive it into a tree, you're kinda screwed without that seatbelt.Vail Resorts, by retrofitting its chairlifts and mandating employee use, has done more than probably any other entity to encourage safety bar use on chairlifts. But the industry, as a whole, could do more. In the east, safety bar use has been normalized by aggressive enforcement from lift crews and ski patrol and, in some cases (Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York), state laws mandating their use. Yet, across the West and the Midwest, hundreds of chairlifts still lack safety bars, let alone enforcement. That, in turn, discourages normalization of their use, and contributes to the blasé and dismissive attitude among western skiers, many of whom view the contraptions as extraneous.Technology can eventually resolve the issue for us – the new Burns high-speed quad at Deer Valley and the new Camelot six-pack at The Highlands in Michigan both drop the bar automatically, and raise it just before unload. But that's two chairlifts, at two very high-end resorts, out of 2,400 or so spinning in America. That technology is too expensive to apply at scale, and will be for the foreseeable future.So what to do? I think it starts with dismantling the tough-guy resistance. There are echoes here of the shift to widespread helmet use. Twenty years ago, almost no one, including me, wore helmets when skiing. I held out for a particularly long time – until 2016. But wearing them is the norm now, even among Western Bro Brahs. As the leader of a major Vail ski area who has watched the resort evolve first-hand, I think Walsh would have some valuable insights here into the roots of bar resistance and how Vail is tackling it, but we just didn't have the time to get into it.What I got wrongI noted that Nadia Guerriero, who appeared on this podcast last year as the VP/COO of Beaver Creek, had “transitioned to a regional leadership role.” That role is senior vice president and chief operating officer of Vail Resorts' Rockies Region.Park City personnel also provided a few clarifications following our conversation:* When discussing our 2023 closing date and “All the Way to May!” Deirdra said we had already extended our season by a week. In fact, our first extension was for two weeks: from April 9 to April 23. On April 12, we announced an additional eight days.* When discussing how we memorialize our Olympic legacy, Deirdra stated, “We have a mountain in the base area.” That should have been “monument.”* When discussing our lift upgrade permit, Deirdra said, “Our permit was upheld.” This should have been EITHER withheld, OR “The appeal was upheld.”Why you should ski Park CityPark City is a version of something that America needs a lot more of: a walkable community integrated with the ski area above it in a meaningful and seamless way. In Europe, this is the norm. In U.S. America, the exception. Only a few towns give you that experience: Telluride, Aspen, Red River. Park City is worth a visit for that experience alone – of sliding to the street, clicking out of your skis, and walking to the bar. It's novel and unexpected here in the land of King Car, but it feels very natural and right when you do it.The skiing, of course, is outstanding. There's less chest-thumping here than up in the Cottonwoods – less snow, too – but still plenty of steep stuff, plenty of glades, plenty of tucked-away spots where you look around and wonder where everyone went. Zip around off McConkey's or Jupiter or Tombstone or Ninety-Nine 90 or Super Condor and you'll find it. This is not Snowbird-off-the-Cirque stuff, but it's pretty good.But what Park City really is, at its core, is one of the world's great intermediate ski kingdoms. I'm talking here about King Con and Silverlode, the amazing jumble of blues skier's right off Tombstone, Saddleback and Dreamscape and Iron Mountain. You can ride express lifts pretty much everywhere as you skip around the low-angle glory. The mountain does not shoot skyward with the drama of Jackson or Palisades or Snowbird or Aspen. It rises and falls, rolls on forever, gifting you, off each summit, another peak to ride to.Before Vail bought it and stapled the resort together with the Canyons, no one talked about Park City in such epic – no pun intended – terms. It was just another of dozens of very good western ski areas. But that combination with its neighbor created something vast and otherworldly, six-and-a-half miles end-to-end, a scale that cannot be appreciated in any way other than to go ski it.Podcast NotesOn Vail's target opening and closing datesIn previous seasons, Vail Resorts would release target opening and closing dates for all of its ski areas. Perhaps traumatized by short seasons, particularly in the Midwest, the company released only target opening dates, and only for its largest ski areas, for 2023:The remainder of its ski areas, “expect to open consistent with target dates shared in years past,” according to a Vail Resorts press release.On Hidden Valley, MissouriWalsh's first ski experience was at Hidden Valley, a 320-footer just west of St. Louis. It's one of just two ski areas in Missouri (both of which Vail owns). Vail happened to acquire this little guy in the 2019 Peak Resorts acquisition. Here's a trailmap:Not to be confused, of course, with Vail's other Hidden Valley, which is stashed in Pennsylvania:Rather than renaming one or the other of these, I am actually in favor of just massively confusing everything by renaming every mountain in the portfolio “Vail Mountain” followed by its zip code. On the Vail-Powdr transitionI'll reset this 2019 story from the Park Record that I initially shared in the article accompanying my podcast conversation with Mount Snow GM Brian Suhadolc in August, who also worked at Park City during Vail's takeover from Powdr:In some circles, though, the whispers had already started that something was afoot, and perhaps not right, at PCMR. Powdr Corp. for some unknown reason was negotiating a sale of its flagship resort, the most prevalent of the rumblings held. The CEO of Powdr Corp., John Cumming, late in 2011 had publicly stated there was not a deal involving PCMR under negotiation, telling Park City leaders during a Marsac Building appearance in December of that year the resort was “not for sale.” Later that evening, he told The Park Record the rumors “always amuse me.”The reality was far more astonishing and something that would define the decade in Park City in a similar fashion as the Olympics did in the previous 10-year span and the population boom did in the 1990s.The corporate infrastructure in the spring of 2011 had inadvertently failed to renew two leases on the land underlying most of the PCMR terrain, propelling the PCMR side and the landowner, a firm under the umbrella of Talisker Corp., into what were initially private negotiations and then into a dramatic lawsuit that unfolded in state court as the Park City community, the tourism industry and the North American ski industry watched in disbelief. As the decade ends, the turmoil that beset PCMR stands, in many ways, as the instigator of a changing Park City that has left so many Parkites uneasy about the city's future as a true community.The PCMR side launched the litigation in March of 2012, saying the future of the resort was at stake in the case. PCMR might be forced to close if it did not prevail, the president and general manager of the resort at the time said at the outset of the case. Talisker Land Holdings, LLC countered that the leases had expired, suddenly leaving doubts that Powdr Corp. would retain control of PCMR. …Colorado-based Vail Resorts, one of Powdr Corp.'s industry rivals, would enter the case on the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC side in May of 2013 with the aim of wresting the disputed land from Powdr Corp. and coupling it with nearby Canyons Resort, which was branded a Vail Resorts property as part of a long-term lease and operations agreement reached at the same time of the Vail Resorts entry into the case. Vail Resorts was already an industry behemoth with its namesake property in the Rockies and other mountain resorts across North America. The addition of Canyons Resort would advance the Vail Resorts portfolio in one of North America's key skiing states.It was a deft maneuver orchestrated by the chairman and CEO of Vail Resorts, Rob Katz. The agreement was pegged at upward of $300 million in long-term debt. As part of the deal, Vail Resorts also seized control of the litigation on behalf of Talisker Land Holdings, LLC. …The lawsuit itself unfolded with stunning developments followed by shocking ones over the course of two-plus years. In one stupefying moment, the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC attorneys discovered a crucial letter from the PCMR side regarding the leases had been backdated. In another such moment, PCMR outlined plans to essentially dismantle the resort infrastructure, possibly on an around-the-clock schedule, if it was ordered off the disputed land.What was transpiring in the courtroom was inconceivable to the community. How could Powdr Corp., even inadvertently, not renew the leases on the ground that made up most of the skiing terrain at PCMR, many asked. Why couldn't Powdr Corp. and Talisker Land Holdings, LLC just reach a new agreement, others wondered. And many became weary as businessmen and their attorneys took to the courtroom with the future of PCMR, critical to a broad swath of the local economy, at stake. The mood eventually shifted to exasperation as it appeared there was a chance PCMR would not open for a ski season if Talisker Land Holdings, LLC moved forward with an eviction against Powdr Corp. from the disputed terrain.The lawsuit wore on with the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC-Vail Resorts side winning a series of key rulings from the 3rd District Court judge presiding over the case. Judge Ryan Harris in the summer of 2014 signed a de facto eviction notice against PCMR and ordered the sides into mediation. Powdr Corp., realizing there was little more that could be accomplished as it attempted to maintain control of PCMR, negotiated a $182.5 million sale of the resort to Vail Resorts that September.Incredible. Here, if you're curious, was Park City just before the merger:And Canyons:Now, imagine if someone, someday, merged this whole operation with the expanded version of Deer Valley, which sits right next door to Park City on Empire Peak:Here's a closer look at the border between the two, which is separated by ropes, rather than by any geographic barrier:Right around the time Vail took over Park City, all seven major local ski areas discussed a “One Wasatch” interconnect, which could be accomplished with a handful of lifts between Brighton and Park City and between Solitude and Alta (the Canyons/Park City connection below has since been built; Brighton and Solitude already share a ski link, as do Alta and Snowbird):This plan died under an avalanche of external factors, and is unlikely to be resurrected anytime soon. However, the mountains aren't getting any farther apart physically, and at some point we're going to accept that a few aerial lifts through the wilderness are a lot less damaging to our environment than thousands of cars cluttering up our roads.On the Park City-Canyons connector gondolaWe talked a bit about the Quicksilver Gondola, which, eight years after its construction, is taken for granted. But it's an amazing machine, a 7,767-foot-long connector that fused Park City to the much-larger Canyons, creating the largest interconnected ski resort in the United States. The fact that such a major, transformative lift opened in 2015, just a year after Vail acquired Park City, and the ski area is now having trouble simply upgrading two older lifts, speaks to how dramatically sentiment around the resort has changed within town.On Park City's mining historyAn amazing feature of skiing Park City is the gigantic warehouses, conveyor belts, and other industrial artifacts that dot the landscape. Visit Park City hosts free daily tours of these historic structures, which we discuss in the podcast. You can learn more here.On the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining HistoryWalsh mentions an organization called “Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History.” This group assumes the burden of restoring and maintaining all of these historic structures. From their website:More than 300 mines once operated in Park City, with the last silver mine closing in 1982. Twenty historic mine structures still exist today, many can been seen while skiing, hiking or mountain biking on our mountain trails. Due to the ravages of time and our harsh winters, many of the mine structures are dilapidated and in critical need of repair. We are committed to preserving our rich mining legacy for future residents and visitors before we lose these historic structures forever.Over the past seven years, our dedicated volunteers have completed stabilization of the King Con Counterweight, California Comstock Mill, Jupiter Ore Bin, Little Bell Ore Bin, two Silver King Water Tanks, the Silver Star Boiler Room and Coal Hopper, the Thaynes Conveyor and the King Con Ore Bin. Previous projects undertaken by our members include the Silver King Aerial Tramway Towers and two Silver King Water Tanks adjacent to the Silver Queen ski run. Our lecture with Clark Martinez, principal contractor on our projects and Jonathan Richards who is our structural engineer, will provide you insight as to how we saved these monuments to our mining era.Preserving our mining heritage is expensive. Our next challenge is to save the Silver King Headframe located at the base of the Bonanza lift and Thaynes Headframe near the Thaynes lift at Park City Mountain Resort. These massive buildings and adjacent structures will take 6 years to stabilize with an expected cost of $3 million. We are embarking on a capital campaign to raise the funds required to save these iconic structures. You can learn more about our campaign here.Here's a cool but slow-paced video about it:On the 2030/34 Winter OlympicsWe talk a bit about the potential for Salt Lake City – and, by extension, host mountains Park City, Deer Valley, and Snowbasin – to host a future Olympic Games. While both 2030 and 2034 are possibilities, the latter increasingly looks likely. Per an October Deseret News article:It looks like there's no competition for Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2034 Winter Games.International Olympic Committee members voted Sunday to formally award both the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games together next year after being told Salt Lake City's preference is for 2034 and the other three candidates still in the race are finalizing bids for 2030.“I think it's everything we could have hoped for,” said Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, describing the decision as “a tremendous step forward” now that Salt Lake City was identified as the only candidate for 2034.Salt Lake City is bidding to host the more than $2.2 billion event in either 2030 or 2034, but has made it clear waiting until the later date is better financially, because that will avoid competition for domestic sponsors with the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.The next step for the bid that began more than a decade ago is a virtual presentation to the IOC's Future Host Commission for the Winter Games during the week starting Nov. 19 that will include Gov. Spencer Cox and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. IOC Executive Board members will decide when they meet from Nov. 30 through Dec. 1 which bids will advance to contract negotiations for 2030 and 2034, known as targeted dialogue under the new, less formal selection process. Their choices to host the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games will go to the full membership for a final ratification vote next year, likely in July just before the start of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. The Summer Olympics have evolved into a toxic expense that no one really wants. The Winter Games, however, still seem desirable, and I've yet to encounter any significant resistance from the Utah ski community, who have (not entirely but in significant pockets) kind of made resistence to everything their default posture.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 96/100 in 2023, and number 482 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
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You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoBen Wilcox, President and General Manager of Cranmore Mountain Resort, New HampshireRecorded onOctober 16, 2023About CranmoreClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Fairbank GroupLocated in: North Conway, New HampshireYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations: NoneReciprocal partners: 1 day each at Jiminy Peak and BromleyClosest neighboring ski areas: Attitash (:16), Black Mountain (:18), King Pine (:28), Wildcat (:28), Pleasant Mountain (:33), Bretton Woods (:42)Base elevation: 800 feetSummit elevation: 2,000 feetVertical drop: 1,200 feetSkiable Acres: 170 acresAverage annual snowfall: 80 inchesTrail count: 56 (15 most difficult, 25 intermediate, 16 easier)Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 double, 2 carpets)Why I interviewed himNowhere does a high-speed quad transform the texture and fate of a mountain so much as in New England. Western mountains, geographically dispersed and disposed to sunshine, can still sell you a ride on a 1,700-vertical-foot fixed grip triple, as Montana Snowbowl did with their new Transporter lift last year, and which Mt. Spokane has promised to do should the ski area ever upgrade its Jurassic Riblets. Midwest hills are too short for lift speed to matter as anything other than a novelty.But in the blustery, frenetic East, a single detachable lift can profoundly alter a ski area's reach and rap. Such lifts have proven to be stabilizing mechanisms at Burke, Gunstock, Ragged, Bromley, and Saddleback – mountains without the terrain or marketing heft of their much-larger neighbors. In each case, one high-speed quad (and a sixer at Ragged), cracked the mountain open to the masses, uniting all or most of the terrain with one six-minute lift ride and, often, stabilizing operations that had struggled for decades.Cranmore is one such mountain. Had the Skimobile Express quad not gone up in 1995, Wilcox tells us on the podcast, he's not so sure that the ski area hanging over North Conway would have gotten out of the last century alive. A “dark period” followed the Skimobile's 1990 demolition, Wilcox says, during which Cranmore, tottering along on a double chair strung to the summit, fell behind its high-dollar, high-energy, rapidly consolidating competitors. The Skimobile had been pokey and inefficient, but at least it was freighted with nostalgia. At least it was novel. At least it was cool. An old double chair was just an old double chair, and local skiers had lost interest in those when high-speed lifts started rising up the New England mountainsides in the late 1980s.It's true that a handful of New England ski areas continue to rely on antique doubles: Smugglers' Notch, Magic, Black Mountain in New Hampshire, Mt. Abram. But Smuggs delivers 300 inches of snow per winter and a unique, sprawling terrain network. The rest are improbable survivors. Magic sat idle for half the ‘90s. We nearly lost Black earlier this month. All anybody knows about Mt. Abram is that it's not Sunday River.The Skimobile Express did not, by itself, save Cranmore. If such a lift were such a magic trick, then we'd still be skiing the top of Ascutney today (yes Uphill Bro I know you still are). But the lift helped. A lot.There is a tendency among skiers to conflate history with essence. As though a ski area, absent the trappings of its 1930s or ‘40s or ‘50s origins, loses something. These same skiers, however, do not rip around on 240s clapped to beartrap bindings or ski in top hats and mink shawls. Cranmore could not simply be The Ski Area With The Skimobile forever and ever. Not after every other ski area in New England, including Cranmore, had erected multiple chairlifts. There is a small market for such tricks. Mad River Glen can spin its single chair for 100 more years if the co-op ownership model holds up. But that is a rowdy, rugged hunk of real estate, 2,000 feet of nasty, a place where being uncomfortable is half the point. Cranmore… is not.So Cranmore changed. It is now a nice, modern, mid-sized New England ski area, with a 1,200-foot vertical drop and a hotel at the base. More important, it is an 86-year-old New England ski area, one that began in the era when guys named Harv and Mel and Bob and Jenkins showed up with a hacksaw and a 12-pack and started building a lift-served snowskiing operation, and transitioned into a new identity suited to a new world. Wilcox, with his grasp of the resort's sprawling, mad history, is a capable ambassador to tell us how they did it.What we talked aboutThe new Fairbank base lodge; what Cranmore found when they tore down the old lodge; the future of Zip's Pub; who the lodge is named after; the base lodge redevelopment plan; what happened when the Fairbanks purchased Cranmore; North Conway; traffic; Bretton Woods; Booth Creek; Cranmore pride; “if [the Skimobile Express] hadn't gone in in the mid-90s, I'm not sure if we'd still be here”; the Skimobile Express upgrade and why Cranmore didn't replace it with a new lift; the history of America's Zaniest lift, the original Skimobile; why Cranmore ultimately demolished the structure; potential upgrades for Lookout; the long-rumored but never-built Blackcap expansion; the glory and grind of southern exposure; night skiing; what happened when Vail came to town; competing against discount Epic Passes; why the days of car-counting are over; the history and logic behind the White Mountain Super Pass and the Sun and Snow Pass; Black Mountain; staffing up when your biggest rival raises minimum wage to $20 an hour; and whether Cranmore has considered a Jiminy Peak-esque wind turbine.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewThe Fairbank Group did something unsung and brilliant over the past two years. While major resorts across the continent razed and replaced first-generation detachables at a per-project cost approaching or exceeding double-digit millions, Cranmore (which Fairbank owns), and Bromley (which they operate), modernized in a more modest way. Rather than tearing down the high-speed quads that act as base-to-summit people-movers for each ski area, they gut-renovated them. For around $1 million per lift, Bromley's Sun Mountain Express and Cranmore's Skimobile Express got new, modern drives, comms lines, safety systems, and more. The result: two essentially brand-new lifts with three-plus decades of good life ahead of them.Skiers may not see it that way, and most won't even know about the upgrades. The aesthetics, mostly, remain unchanged. But for independent ski area operators knocked into eyes-bulging terror as they see price quotes for a Double Clutch Z-Link Awesomeness 42-passenger Express Lift, the Fairbank model offers an approachable alternative. Knock down the walls, but keep the building intact, a renovation rather than a rebuild.Boyne does this all the time, mostly with lifts the company is relocating: the Kanc quad at Loon becomes the Seven Brothers quad; Big Sky's Swift Current quad becomes Sugarloaf's Bucksaw Express; Sunday River's Jordan quad is, someday, maybe, supposedly going to land at Pleasant Mountain. Sugarloafers may grumble on their message boards about getting a used quad while Sunday River erects its second D-Line bubble lift in two years, but, as Loon President/GM Brian Norton told me about the Seven Brothers upgrade on the podcast last year, the effect of such projects are that skiers get “a new lift… you won't recognize it.” Other than the towers and the chairs, the machine parts of these machines really are brand new.Cranmore and its sister resorts have found a different way to sustainably operate, is my point here. The understated chairlift upgrades are just one expression of this. But both operate, remember, in impossible neighborhoods. Bromley is visible from almost any point on Alterra-owned Stratton, Southern Vermont's Ikon Pass freight train. Cranmore sits just down the road from Vail-owned Attitash and Wildcat, both of which are larger, and both of which share a pass – which, by the way, is less expensive than Cranmore's – with each other and with their 20 or 50 or 60 best friends, depending upon how Epic you want your winter to be. The local lift-served skiing market is so treacherous that Black Mountain, less than 11 miles north of Cranmore and in continuous operation since 1935, was saved from permanent closure last week only when Indy Pass called in the cavalry.Yet, Cranmore thrives. Wilcox says that season pass sales continue to increase every year. Going into year five of Northeast-specific Epic Pass offerings and year six of the Ikon Pass, that's an amazing statistic. Cranmore's pass is not cheap. The early-bird adult price for the 2023-24 ski season came in at $775. It's currently $1,139. For a 1,200-vertical-foot mountain in a state full of 2,000-footers, with just one high-speed lift in a neighborhood where Sunday River runs five, statistical equivalencies quickly fail any attempt to explain this momentum.So what does explain it? Perhaps it's the resort's massive, ongoing base area renovation that landed a new hotel and lodge onsite within the past year. Perhaps it's consumer habit and proximity to North Conway, looming, as the mountain does, over town. Perhaps it's the approachable, just-right size of the mountain or, for families, the fact that all trails funnel back to a single base. Perhaps it's the massive seasonal youth and race programs. It is, most likely, a combination of all of these things, as well as atmospheric intangibles and managerial competence.Whatever it is, Cranmore shows us that a pathway exists for a Very Good Mountain to thrive in the megapass era without being a direct party to it. It's worth noting that Black, which nearly failed, is a fifth-year member of Indy Pass, which Cranmore has declined to join. While this conversation with Wilcox does not exactly explain how the mountain has been so successful even as it sidesteps megatrends, it's easy enough to appreciate, as you listen to his passion for and appreciation of the place, why it does.What I got wrongI noted that the Skimobile Express quad had been upgraded “last year, or maybe the year before.” Cranmore completed the lift overhaul in 2022.I referred to Vail's Northeast Value Epic Pass as the “Northeast Local Pass.”Why you should ski CranmoreThe New England Ski Safari is not quite the social media meme that it is in the big-mountain West, where Campervan Karl and Bearded Bob document their season-long adventures over switchbacking passes with their trusty dog, Labrador Larry. Alta/Snowbird to Jackson to Big Sky to Sun Valley to Tahoe with a sickness Brah. Hella wicked rad. Six weeks and 16 storms, snowshovels in the roof box and Larry pouncing through snow in IG Stories.Distance is not such an obstacle in the East. New England crams 100 ski areas into a six-state region half the size of Montana (which is home to just 17, two of which it shares with Idaho). Between pow runs we can just… go home. But the advent of the megapass in the Northeast over the past decade has enabled this sort of resort-hopping adventure. Options abound:* Epic Pass gives you three of Vermont's largest ski areas (Okemo, Mount Snow, Stowe); one of New England's best ski areas (also Stowe); and four stops in New Hampshire, three of which (Mount Sunapee, Wildcat, and Attitash), are sizeable. Crotched gives you night skiing.* Ikon Pass delivers four of New England's biggest, best, and most complete ski areas: Killington, Sugarbush, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf; as well as two of its best lift systems (Stratton and Loon – yes, I know the gondolas are terrible at both); and a sleepy bomber in Pico.* Indy Pass gives you perhaps New England's best ski area (Jay Peak); three other mountains that stack up favorably with anything on Epic or Ikon (Waterville Valley, Cannon, Saddleback); and a stack of unheralded thumpers where light crowds and great terrain collide (Black Mountain of Maine, Black Mountain NH, Magic, Bolton Valley, Berkshire East); and a bunch of family-friendly bumps (Whaleback, Dartmouth Skiway, Pats Peak, Saskadena Six, Mohawk, Catamount, Bigrock).Hit any of those circuits, and you're bound for a good winter. So why tack on an extra? Cranmore is one of the few large New England independents (along with Bretton Woods, Smugglers' Notch, Mad River Glen, Bromley), to so far decline megapass membership. That makes it a tricker sell to the rambling resort-hopper.But this is not Colorado. You can score a Cranmore lift ticket for as little as $65 on select Sundays, even in mid-winter, (including, as of this writing, the always raucous St. Patrick's Day). If you're skiing Attitash and staying in North Conway, you can roll up to Cranmore starting at 2 p.m. on Wednesday or Saturday for a $69 night-ski and some pre-dinner turns.And it's worth the visit. This is a very good ski mountain. The stats undersell the place. It skis and feels big. The fall lines are sustained and excellent. Glades are more abundant than the trailmap suggests. The grooming is outstanding. It faces south – a not unimportant feature in often-frigid New England.Even if you're megapass Bro (and who among us is not?), this one fits right into the circuit, close to Attitash, Black, Wildcat, Cannon, Loon, Waterville. It's easy to ski multiple New England mountains on a single trip, or even in a single day. The last time I skied Cranmore, I cranked through 17 high-speed laps in three hours and then bumped over to Pleasant Mountain, half an hour down the road.Podcast NotesOn Hans SchneiderHenry Dow Gibson, who New England Ski History refers to as an “international financier” founded Cranmore in 1937, but it was Austrian ski instructor Hannes Schneider who institutionalized the place. Per New England Ski History:Hannes Schneider was born on June 24, 1890 in Stuben, a small town west of Arlberg Pass in Austria. At the age of 8, Schneider started skiing on makeshift skis.While becoming a renowned skier in his teenage years, Schneider developed the Arlberg technique. The Arlberg technique quickly caught on, resulting in Schneider becoming in demand for demonstrations, films, and military training.Following Nazi Germany taking Austria in the Anschluss, Schneider was imprisoned March 12, 1938.In January of 1937, international financier Harvey Gibson purchased land on Cranmore Mountain in Conway with the aim to make North Conway a winter destination. Two years later, after lawyer Karl Rosen managed to transfer Schneider from prison to house arrest, Gibson leveraged his firm's German holdings and negotiated with Heinrich Himmler to get Schneider and his family released from Germany and transported to the United States. Following a massive welcoming party in North Conway in February of 1939, Schneider took over Cranmore and worked quickly to make it one of the best known ski areas in the country.One of Schneider's first big decisions at Cranmore was to expand lift service to the summit, which was accomplished during his first full season when the upper section of the Skimobile was installed. With top to bottom Skimobile coverage, Cranmore was second only to Cannon's tram in terms of continuous lift served vertical drop in New England.With the onset of World War II, Hannes was reportedly involved in the training and providing intelligence for United States and British ski troops. His son Herbert served in the 10th Mountain Division during World War II, earning a Bronze Star for his heroic actions in Italy. Following the war, Herbert returned to North Conway to work for his father.In 1949, Hannes Schneider was hired to oversee construction of the new Blue Hills ski area outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Schneider referred to the ski area was "Little Cranmore."In the spring of 1955, Schneider was actively working to open new terrain at Cranmore, serviced by its first chairlift. Following a day of laying out new terrain in what would become the East Bowl, Schneider died of a heart attack. Schneider's son Herbert assumed control of the Cranmore ski school and, circa 1963 started a two decade run as owner of the ski area.Schneider's name lives on at Cranmore, as a trail (Schneider in the East Bowl) and the annual Hannes Schneider Meister Cup Race.On the Fairbank GroupCranmore is owned by the Fairbank Group, whose chairman and namesake, Brian Fairbank, transformed Jiminy Peak from a Berkshires backwater into the glimmering modern heart of Massachusetts skiing. The company also operates Bromley (which is owned by Joseph O'Donnell), and owns a renewable energy operation (EOS Ventures), a ski industry e-learning platform (Bullwheel Productions), and a snowmaking outfit (Snowgun Technologies). For all this and more, including Jiminy Peak's early embrace of clean energy to power its operation, Brian Fairbank earned a spot in the Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2020. I hosted him on the podcast that autumn to discuss his career and achievements:On Booth Creek Ski HoldingsIn an alternate universe, Booth Creek may stand today on Alterra's throne, Vail's foil in the Skico Wars. For a brief period in the late ‘90s, the company, founded by former Vail and Beaver Creek owner George Gillett Jr., owned eight ski areas across the United States: Cranmore, Loon, Waterville Valley, Grand Targhee, Summit at Snoqualmie, Bear Mountain (now part of Big Bear), Northstar, and Sierra-at-Tahoe. In 1998, the company attempted to purchase Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. But, as this summary chart from New England Ski History shows, Booth Creek began selling off resorts in the early 2000s. Today, it owns only Sierra-at-Tahoe:On the SkimobileHad Cranmore's monolithic Skimobile survived to the present day, most visitors would probably mistake it for a mountain coaster. When it went live, in 1938, skiers likely mistook it for the future. “Well, by gum, a contraption that just takes you right up the mountain while you sit on your heinie. This will change skiing forever!”Instead, the Skimobile, a two-track monster that toted skiers uphill in single-passenger carts, passed five decades as a beloved novelty before Cranmore demolished it in 1990. The New England ski diaspora is still sore about this. But imagine building a Great Wall of China vertically up your mountain. It would kind of make it hard for skiers, Patrol, groomers, etc. to move around the bump. And someone came up with a better idea called a “chairlift.” When the only feasible alternative was the ropetow, the Skimobile probably seemed like the greatest invention since electricity. But once the chairlift proliferated, the shortcomings of a tracked lift became obvious.The Skimobile rose Cranmore's full 1,200 vertical feet in two sections: the lower, built in 1938, and the upper, constructed the following year. Skiers had to disembark the first to take the second. Here's how they laid out in a circa 1951 trailmap:On the potential Black Cap expansionWilcox and I discussed Cranmore's long-proposed Black Cap expansion, which would give Cranmore a several-hundred-acre, several-hundred-vertical-foot boost off the backside. New England Ski History includes the following details in its short write-up of Black Cap:In 1951, Cranmore obtained an easement on 500 acres of land on Black Cap, a ledgy peak located to the east of the ski area. If the ski area were expanded to the top of Black Cap, Cranmore would see an increase of 700 vertical feet to 1,800 feet, making it the second highest in the Mount Washington Valley.Wilcox provides slightly different numbers, but doesn't rule out the possibility of this significant expansion at some future point. The current trailmap shows Black Cap looming in the background:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 91/100 in 2023, and number 477 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 23. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 30. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoMatt Vohs, General Manager of Cascade Mountain, WisconsinRecorded onOctober 10, 2023About Cascade MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Walz familyLocated in: Portage, WisconsinYear founded: 1962Pass affiliations: NoneReciprocal partners: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Devil's Head (:20), Christmas Mountain Village (:30), Tyrol Basin (1:00)Base elevation: 820 feetSummit elevation: 1,280 feetVertical drop: 460 feetSkiable Acres: 176Average annual snowfall: 50-60 inchesTrail count: 48 (23% advanced, 40% intermediate, 37% beginner)Lift count: 10 (2 high-speed quads, 3 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 2 doubles, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Cascade's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himContrary to what you may imagine, Midwesterners do not pass their winters staring wistfully at the western horizon, daydreaming only of the Back Bowls and Wasatch tram rides. They're not, God help us, New Yorkers. Because unlike the high-dollar Manhattanite with weeks booked at Deer Valley and Aspen, Midwesterners ski even when they're not on vacation. Sure, they'll tag that week in Summit County or Big Sky (driving there, most likely, from Grand Rapids or Cincinnati or Des Moines), but they'll fill in the calendar in between. They'll ski on weekends. They'll ski after work. They'll ski with their kids and with their buddies and with their cousins. They'll ski in hunter orange and in Vikings jerseys and in knit caps of mysterious vintage. They'll ski with a backpack full of High Life and a crockpot tucked beneath each arm and a pack of jerky in their coat pocket. “Want some,” they'll offer as you meet them for the first time on the chairlift, a 55-year-old Hall double with no safety bar. “My buddy got an elk permit this year.”They ski because it's fun and they ski because it's cold and they ski because winter is 16 months long. But mostly they ski because there are ski areas everywhere, and because they're pretty affordable. Even Vail doesn't break double digits at its Midwest bumps, with peak-day lift tickets reaching between $69 and $99 at the company's 10 ski areas spread between Missouri and Ohio.Because of this affordable density, the Midwest is still a stronghold for the blue-collar ski culture that's been extinguished in large parts of the big-mountain West. You may find that notion offensive - that skiing, in this rustic form, could be more approachable. If so, you're probably not from the Midwest. These people are hard to offend. Michigan-born Rabbit, AKA Eminem, channels this stubborn regional pride in 8 Mile's closing rap battle, when he obliterates nemesis Papa Doc by flagrantly itemizing his flaws.“I know everything he's got to say against me” may as well be the mantra of the Midwest skier. In the U.S. ski universe, Colorad-Bro is Papa Doc, standing dumbfounded after Wisco Bro just turned his sword around on himself:This guy ain't no m***********g MCI know everything he's got to say against meMy hill is short, It snows 30 inches per yearI do ski with a coffee Thermos filled with beerMy boys do ski in camouflageI do ride Olin 210s I found in my Uncle Jack's garageI did hit an icy jumpAnd biff like a chumpAnd my last chairlift ride was 45 seconds longI'm still standing here screaming “Damn let's do it again!”You can't point out the idiosyncratic shortcomings of Midwest skiing better than a Midwest skier. They know. And they love the whole goddamn ball of bologna.But that enthusiasm wouldn't track if Wisconsin's 33 ski areas were 33 hundred-foot ropetow bumps. As in any big ski state to its east or west, Wisco has a hierarchy, a half-dozen surface lift-only operations; a smattering of 200-footers orbiting Milwaukee; a few private clubs; and, at the top of the food chain, a handful of sprawling operations that can keep a family entertained for a weekend: Granite Peak, Whitecap, Devil's Head, and Cascade. And, just as I'm working my way through the Wasatch and Vermont and Colorado by inviting the heads of those region's ski areas onto the podcast, so I'm going to (do my best to) deliver conversations with the leaders of the big boys in the Upper Midwest. This is my sixth Wisconsin podcast, and my 15th focused on the Midwest overall (five in Michigan, one each in Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota, plus my conversation with Midwest Family Ski Resorts head Charles Skinner – view them all here). I've also got a pair of Minnesota episodes (Lutsen and Buck Hill), and another Michigan (Snowriver) one booked over the coming months.I don't record these episodes just to annoy Colorado-Bro (though that is pretty funny), or because I'm hanging onto the Midwest ski areas that stoked my rabid obsession with skiing (though I am), or because the rest of the ski media has spent 75 years ignoring them (though they have). I do it because the Midwest has some damn good ski areas, run by some damn smart people, and they have a whole different perspective on what makes a good and interesting ski area. And finding those stories is kind of the whole point here.What we talked aboutCascade's season-opening plan; summer improvements; how much better snowmaking is getting, and how fast; improving the load area around Cindy Pop; Cascade's unique immoveable neighbor; the funky fun Daisy mid-mountain parking lot; upgrading the Mogul Monster lift; why Cascade changed the name to “JL2”; Cascade's “Midwest ski-town culture”; Devil's Head; when I-94 is your driveway; why JL2 is a fixed-grip lift, even though it runs between two high-speed quads; other lift configurations Cascade considered for JL2; the dreaded icing issue that can murder high-speed lifts; reminiscing on old-school Cascade – “if the hill was open, we were here”; Christmas Mountain; a brief history of the Walz family's ownership; a commitment to independence; whether slopeside lodging could ever be an option; which lifts could be next in line for upgrades; whether Cascade considered a midstation for Cindy Pop; the glory of high-speed ropetows and where Cascade may install another one; the summer of two lift installations; the neverending saga of Cascade's expansion and what might happen next; the story behind the “Cindy Pop” and “B-Dub” lift names and various trail names; why Cindy Pop is a detachable lift and B-Dub is a fixed-grip, even though they went in the same summer; additional expansion opportunities; why Cascade hasn't (and probably won't), joined a multi-mountain ski pass; and Cascade's best idea from Covid-era operations.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewThe National Ski Areas Association asked me to lead a panel of general managers at their annual convention in Savannah last spring. I offered them a half-dozen topics, and we settled on “megapass holdouts”: large (for their area), regionally important ski areas that could join the Indy Pass – and, in many cases, the Epic and Ikon passes – but have chosen not to. It's a story I'd been meaning to write in the newsletter for a while, but had never gotten to.We wanted nationwide representation. In the west, we locked in Mt. Baker CEO Gwyn Howat and Mt. Rose GM Greg Gavrilets. For the eastern rep, I tapped Laszlo Vajtay, owner of Plattekill, an 1,100-footer tucked less than three hours north of New York City (but nearly unknown to its mainstream skier populations). In the Midwest, Cascade was my first choice.Why? Because it's a bit of an outlier. While the Ikon Pass ignores the Midwest outside of Boyne's two Michigan properties, opportunities for megapass membership are ample. Indy Pass has signed 32 partners in the region, and Vail has added 10 more to its Epic Pass. Five of the remainder are owned by an outfit called Wisconsin Resorts, which has combined them on its own multi-mountain pass. The model works here, is my point, and most of the region's large ski areas have either opted into the Indy Pass, or been forced onto a different megapass by their owner. But not Cascade. Here is a mountain with a solid, modern lift fleet; a sprawling and varied trail network; and what amounts to its own interstate exit. This joint would not only sell Indy Passes – it would be a capable addition to Ikon or Epic, selling passes to voyaging locals in the same way that Camelback and Windham do in the East and Big Bear does in the West. And they know it.But Cascade stands alone. No pass partnerships. No reciprocal deals. Just a mountain on its own, selling lift tickets. What a concept.A core operating assumption of The Storm is that multi-mountain passes are, mostly, good for skiers and ski areas alike. But I have not made much of an effort to analyze counter-arguments that could challenge this belief. The Savannah panel was an exercise in doing exactly that. All four mountain leaders made compelling cases for pass independence. Since that conversation wasn't recorded, however, I wanted to bring a more focused version of it to you. Here you go.What I got wrongI said that “I grew up skiing in Michigan” – that isn't exactly correct. While I did grow up in Michigan, and that's where I started skiing, I never skied until I was a teenager.Why you should ski CascadeLet's say you decided to ski the top five ski areas in every ski state in America. That would automatically drop Cascade onto your list. Even in a state with 33 ski areas, Cascade easily climbs into the top five. It's big. The terrain is varied. It's well managed. The infrastructure is first-rate. And every single year, it gets better.Yes, Cascade is consistent and deliberate in its lift and snowmaking upgrades, but no single change has improved the experience more than limiting lift ticket sales. This was a Covid-era change that the ski area stuck with, Vohs says, after realizing that giving a better experience to fewer skiers made more long-term business sense than jamming the parking lot to overfill every Saturday.Every ski area in America is a work in progress. Watching The Godfather today is the same experience as when the film debuted in 1972. But if you haven't skied Vail Mountain or Sun Valley or Stowe since that year, you'd arrive to an experience you scarcely recognized in 2023. Some ski areas, however, are more deliberate in crafting this evolving story. To some, time sort of happens, and they're surprised to realize, one day, that their 1985 experience doesn't appeal to a 21st century world. But others grab a handsaw and a screwdriver and carefully think through the long-term, neverending renovation of their dream home. Cascade is one of these, constantly, constantly sanding and shifting and shaping this thing that will never quite be finished.Podcast NotesOn Wisconsin's largest ski areasI mentioned that Cascade was one of Wisconsin's largest ski areas. Here's a full state inventory for context:On more efficient modern snowmaking I mentioned a conversation I'd had with Joe VanderKelen, president of SMI Snow Makers, and how he'd discussed the efficiency of modern snowmaking. You can listen to that podcast here:On naming the JL2 liftWhen Cascade replaced the Mogul Monster lift last year, resort officials named the new fixed-grip quad on the same line “JL2.” That, Vohs tells us, is an honorarium to two Cascade locals killed in a Colorado avalanche in 2014: Justin Lentz and Jarrard Law. Per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Feb. 16, 2014:Two men from Portage were killed in a Colorado avalanche while skiing over the weekend.Justin Lentz, 32, and Jarrad Law died when they and five other skiers were swept away by an avalanche late Saturday afternoon, friends and family told Madison television station WISC-TV (Channel 3.)The avalanche occurred at an elevation of about 11,000 feet near Independence Pass, roughly 120 miles southwest of Denver.The two skiers were found at the top of the avalanche, said Susan Matthews, spokeswoman for the Lake County Office of Emergency Management."The skiers were equipped with avalanche beacons, which assisted search and rescue crews in locating them," she said.She said authorities believe the seven skiers triggered the slide. Officials found the bodies of Lentz and Law Sunday afternoon but did not release their names.One of Lentz's family members told WISC-TV that the family was notified Saturday night. Lentz was a Portage High School graduate who was in Colorado on a skiing trip. A friend said Law had worked at Cascade Mountain and was an avid skier.WKOW captured the scene at the JL2 lift's opening this past January:It was a bittersweet moment for those at Cascade Mountain as visitors took a ride on a new ski lift named in honor of two late skiers.When it came time to name the new ski lift at Cascade Mountain in Portage, crews at the resort said there was only option that seemed fitting."We tossed around the idea of naming it after a couple of just really awesome guys who grew up skiing and snowboarding here," said Evan Walz, who is the Inside Operations Manager for Cascade Mountain.The name they landed on was JL2. It's in honor of Jarrard Law and Justin Lentz."[I] wanted to cry," Justin Lentz's mother, Connie Heitke, said. "Because I knew that people were still thinking of them and love them as much as when it first happened."Law and Lentz lost their lives to an avalanche while on a backcountry trip in Colorado in February 2014. Heitke said it has been hard but said it's the support from friends and family that helps her get through."[I] still miss him awfully a lot. He was my first. It's coming around and now that I can feel that it was okay because he used to enjoy life," she said.Seeing people gather for the ribbon cutting of the ski lift's grand opening, Heitke said is a fabulous feeling."He [Justin] would have been grabbing my head and shaking my head and shaking me screaming and yelling and hollering just like he did," she said. "Jarrard would have just been sitting over there really calm with a smile on his face enjoying watching Justin."From Lentz's obituary:Justin T. Lentz, age 32, of Sun Prairie, died on Saturday, February 15, 2014 as the result of a skiing accident in Twin Lakes, Colorado.Justin was born on August 7, 1981 in Portage, the son of Robert and Connie (Heitke) Lentz. He graduated from Portage High School in 2000. He had worked at Staff Electric in Madison since 2005. Justin loved skiing, snowboarding, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and making his weekends better than everyone else's year. From Law's obituary:Jarrard Leigh Law, 34, of Portage, formerly of Carroll County, died tragically while skiing in Colorado Saturday, Feb. 15, 2014.He was born Dec. 6, 1979, in Freeport, to Joan (Getz) and Robert Law.Jarrard was baptized at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Savanna and confirmed at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Portage.He was a 1998 graduate of Portage High School and earned a degree in computer information systems from Madison Area Technical College.For the past 12 years, he was employed by CESA 5 working as a computer technician for the Necedah Area School District.Jarrard was a member of Bethlehem Lutheran Church serving as an usher and communion assistant.He enjoyed skiing, biking, hiking and many other outdoor activities.On Devil's HeadI've long had a low-grade obsession with ski areas that sit near one another. Despite drawing from identical or very similar weather systems, terrain features, and population bases, they ski, look, and feel like completely different entities. Think A-Basin/Keystone or Sugarbush/Mad River Glen – neighbors that exist, it can seem, in different universes.Many versions of this dot the Midwest, with perhaps the most well-known being Nub's Nob/The Highlands, an independent/Boyne Resorts duo that face one another across a Michigan backroad. How different are they? Both ski areas built new lifts this summer. The Highlands removed three Riblet triples and replaced them with one Doppelmayr D-Line bubble six-pack, a chairlift that probably cost more than the Detroit Lions. Nub's Nob, meanwhile, replaced a Riblet fixed-grip quad with… a Skytrac fixed-grip quad. “High-speed chairlifts at Nub's Nob just don't make sense,” GM Ben Doornbos underscored in a video announcing the replacement:Wisconsin's version of this is Cascade and Devil's Head, which sit 14 road miles apart. While both count similar vertical drops and skiable acreage totals, Devil's Head, like Nub's, relies solely on fixed-grip lifts. It's a bit more backwoods, a bit less visible than Cascade, which is parked like a sentinel over the interstate. Vohs and I talk a bit about the relationship between the two ski areas. Here's a visual of Devil's Head for reference:On Christmas MountainVohs spent some time managing Christmas Mountain, 22 miles down the interstate. He refers to it as, “a very small operation.” The place is more of an amenity for the attached resort than a standalone ski area meant to compete with Cascade or Devil's Head. It's around 200 vertical feet served by a quad and a handletow:On the capacity differences between fixed-grip and high-speed liftsCascade runs four top-to-bottom quads: two detachables and two fixed-grips. Vohs and I discuss what went into deciding which lift to install for each of these lines. Detachable quads, it turns out, are about twice as expensive to install and far more expensive to maintain, and – this is hard to really appreciate – don't move any more skiers per hour than a fixed-grip quad. Don't believe it? Check this excellent summary from Midwest Skiers:You can also read the summary here.On high-speed ropetowsI'm going to go ahead and keep proselytizing on the utility and efficiency of high-speed ropetows until every ski area in America realizes that they need like eight of them. Look at these things go (this one is at Mount Ski Gull in Minnesota):On Cascade's expansion and Google MapsMany years ago, Cascade cut a half dozen or so top-to-bottom trails skier's right of the traditional resort footprint. Were this anywhere other than Cascade, skiers may have barely noticed, but since the terrain rises directly off the interstate, well, they did. Cascade finally strung the B-Dub lift up to serve roughly half the terrain in 2016, but, as you can see on Google Maps, a clutch of trails still awaits lift service:So what's the plan? Vohs tells us in the podcast.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 90/100 in 2023, and number 476 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 13. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 20. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoAmy Ohran, Vice President and General Manager of Northstar, CaliforniaRecorded onOctober 2, 2023About NorthstarClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: EPR Properties, operated by Vail ResortsLocated in: Truckee, CaliforniaYear founded: 1972Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited* Epic Local Pass: unlimited with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Local: unlimited with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Value: unlimited with holiday and Saturday blackouts* Epic Day Pass: access with all resorts and 32-resorts tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Boreal (:21), Tahoe Donner (:22), Palisades Tahoe (:25), Diamond Peak (:25), Soda Springs (:25), Kingvale (:27), Sugar Bowl (:28), Donner Ski Ranch (:29), Mt. Rose (:30), Homewood (:35), Heavenly (:57) - travel times vary considerably pending traffic, weather, and time of year.Base elevation: 6,330 feet (at the village)Summit elevation: 8,610 feet (top of Mt. Pluto)Vertical drop: 2,280 feetSkiable Acres: 3,170 acresAverage annual snowfall: 350 inchesTrail count: 100 (27% advanced, 60% intermediate, 13% beginner)Lift count: 20 (1 six-passenger gondola, 1 pulse gondola, 1 six/eight-passenger chondola, 1 high-speed six pack, 6 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 platter, 1 ropetow, 5 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Northstar's lift fleet)Why I interviewed herI am slowly working my way through the continent's great ski regions. Aspen, Vail, Beaver Creek, Ski Cooper, Keystone, Breckenridge, and A-Basin along the I-70 corridor (Copper is coming). Snowbird, Solitude, Deer Valley, Sundance, and Snowbasin in the Wasatch (Park City is next). Jay Peak, Smugglers' Notch, Bolton Valley, Mad River Glen, Sugarbush, and Killington in Northern Vermont.I'm a little behind in Tahoe. Before today, the only entrants into this worthy tome have been with the leaders of Palisades Tahoe and Heavenly. But I'm working my way around the lake. Northstar today. Mount Rose in November. I'll get to the rest as soon as I'm able (you can always access the full podcast archive, and view the upcoming schedule, here or from the stormskiing.com homepage).I don't only cover megaresorts, of course, and the episodes with family-owned ski area operators always resonate deeply with my listeners. Many of you would prefer that I focus my energies solely on these under-covered gems. But corporate megaresorts matter a lot. They are where the vast majority of skier visits occur, and therefore are the backdrop to most skiers' wintertime stories. I personally love skiing them. They tend to be vast and varied, with excellent lift networks and gladed kingdoms mostly ignored by the masses. The “corporate blandness” so abhorred by posturing Brobots is, in practice, a sort of urban myth of the mountains. Vail Mountain and Stowe have as much quirk and character as Alta and Mad River Glen. Anyone who tells you different either hasn't skied them all, or is confusing popularity with soullessness.Every ski area guards terrain virtues that no amount of marketing can beat out of it. Northstar has plenty: expansive glades, big snowfalls, terrific park, long fall-line runs. Unfortunately, the mountain is the LA Clippers of Lake Tahoe, overshadowed, always, by big Palisades, the LA Lakers of big-time Cali skiing.But Northstar is a hella good ski area, as any NoCal shredder who's honest with themselves will admit. It's not KT-22, but it isn't trying to be. Most skier fantasize about lapping the Mothership, just as, I suppose, many playground basketball players fantasize about dunking from the freethrow line. In truth, most are better off lobbing shots from 15 feet out, just as most skiers are going to have a better day off Martis or Backside at Northstar than off the beastly pistes five miles southwest. But that revelation, relatively easy to arrive at, can be hard for progression-minded skiers to admit. And Northstar, because of that, often doesn't get the credit it deserves. But it's worth a deeper look.What we talked aboutTahoe's incredible 2022-23 winter; hey where'd our trail signs go?; comparing last year's big winter to the record 2016-17 season; navigating the Cottonwoods in a VW Bug; old-school Cottonwoods; rock-climbing as leadership academy; Bend in the 1990s; how two of Tahoe's smallest ski areas stay relevant in a land of giants; the importance of parks culture to Northstar; trying to be special in Tahoe's all-star lineup; Northstar's natural wind protection; who really owns Northstar; potential expansions on Sawtooth Ridge, Lookout Mountain, and Sawmill; potential terrain expansion within the current footprint; last year's Comstock lift upgrade; contemplating the future of the Rendezvous lift; which lift upgrade could come next; the proposed Castle Peak transport gondola; paid parking; the Epic Pass; a little-known benefit of the Tahoe Local Pass; the impact of Saturday blackouts; and Tōst.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewVail Resorts' 2022 Epic Lift upgrade struck me as a mind-bending exercise. Not just because the company was attempting to build 21 new lifts in a single summer (they managed to complete 18), but because that number represents a fraction of Vail's hundreds of lifts across its 37 North American resorts. Vail Mountain alone houses 18 high-speed chairlifts and two gondolas. Park City owns 16 detachables. Whistler has six or nine gondolas – depending on how you count them – and 13 high-speed chairs. You can keep counting through Heavenly, Breckenridge, Keystone – how do you even maintain such a sprawling network, let alone continue to upgrade it?Northstar managed to snag a piece of Vail's largess, securing a four-to-six replacement for the Comstock Express. It was just the third major lift upgrade since Vail bought the joint in 2010, following the 2011 addition of the Promised Land Express quad and the 2015 replacement of the Big Springs Gondola. So why Comstock? And what's next for a ski area with a trio of high-speed quads (Arrow, Backside, Vista), that are approaching that 30-year expiration date for first-generation detachable lifts?Tahoe is also one of several U.S. ski regions coping with a generational crisis of untenable congestion and cost. The culprits, in no particular order, are an over-reliance on individual automobiles as the primary mechanism of ski resort access, megapasses that enable and empower more frequent skiing, a Covid-driven exodus from cities, a permanent shift to remote work, short-term rentals choking local housing stock, and reflexive opposition to any development of any kind by an array of NIMBYs and leaf defenders.Northstar, an enormous and easy-to-access megaresort owned by the world's largest ski area operator and seated in America's most populous state, sits in the bullseye of several of these megatrends. The resort is responding with a big toolbox, tiering access across a variety of Epic Passes, implementing a partial paid parking plan, and continuing a masterplan that would increase on-mountain beds and decrease automobile congestion. Like every ski area, it's a work in progress, never quite finished and never quite perfect, but tiptoeing maybe a little closer to it every year.What I got wrongAbout the relative size of NorthstarI noted in Ohran's podcast intro that Northstar was America's ninth largest ski area. That's technically still true, but once Steamboat officially opens its Mahogany Ridge expansion this winter, the Alterra-owned resort will shoot up to the number eight spot, kicking Northstar down to number 10. Looking a few years down the road, Deer Valley is set to demote Northstar to number 11, once Mt. Fancypants completes its 3,700-acre expansion (boosting the mountain to 5,726 acres), and takes the fourth-place spot between Big Sky and Vail Mountain.About the coming ski seasonI noted that Northstar was opening, “probably around Thanksgiving.” The resort's scheduled opening date is Nov. 17.About Powdr's Tahoe complexI asked Ohran about her experience running Powdr's “three ski areas” in Tahoe, before correcting that to “two ski areas.” The confusion stemmed from the three distinct brands that Powdr operates in Tahoe: the Soda Springs ski area, the Boreal ski area, and the Woodward terrain park. While these are distinct brands, Woodward's winter facilities are part of Boreal ski area:Why you should ski NorthstarThe Brobots won't do much to surprise or interest you. That's why they're the Brobots. Rote takes, recited like multiplication tables, lacking nuance or context, designed to pledge allegiance to Brobot Nation. The Brobots hate Vail and the Ikon Pass. They despise “corporate” skiing, without ever defining what that is. They rage against ski-town congestion and traffic, while reflexively opposing any solutions that would require change of any kind. They worship dive bars, weed, and beanie caps. They despise tourists, chairlift safety bars, slopeside condos, and paid parking of any kind. They are the Brobots.Lake Tah-Bro is a subspecies of Brobotus Americanus. Lake Tah-Bro wishes you weren't here, but since you are, he wants you to understand his commandments. One of which is this: “Flatstar” is not cool. Like you. Real-ass skiers ski Palisades (steep), Alpine (chill), or Kirkwood (wild). But OK, if you must, go see for yourself. Tah-Bro won't be joining you. He has to go buy a six-pack of craft beer to celebrate his six-month anniversary of moving here from Virginia, while tapping out a Tweet reminding everyone that he's a local.It must be an exhausting way to live, having to constantly remind everyone how ridiculously cool you are. But luckily for you, I don't care about being cool. I'm a dad with two kids. I drive a minivan. I drink Miller Lite and rarely drive past a Taco Bell. My musical tastes are straightforward and mainstream. I track my ski days on an app and take a lot of pictures. I am not 100 percent sure which brand of ski boots I own (I trusted the bootfitter). My primary Brobot trait is that I like to ski mostly off-piste. Otherwise you can call me Sir Basic Bro. Or don't. I won't see it anyway – I stopped reading social media comments a long time ago.Brah do you have a point here? Yes. My point is this: I am supremely qualified to tell you that Northstar is a great ski area. It is huge. It is interesting. It has more glades than you could manage if you spent all winter trying. It is threaded with an excellent high-speed lift network that, during the week, rarely has an over-abundance of skiers to actually ride it. You can cruise the wide-open or sail the empty trees. Park Brahs can park-out on the Vista Park Brah.But if you take my advice and lap the place for an afternoon and find that it's just too flat for your radness, simply ask Ski Patrol if you can borrow a pair of scissors. Then cut the sleeves off your jacket and all under-layers, and descend each run in an arms-up posture of supreme muscle-itude. Everyone will be aware of and in awe of your studliness, and know that you are only skiing Flatstar as a sort of joke, the mountain a prop to your impossibly cool lifestyle. Your Instapost followers will love it.Podcast NotesOn Tahoe's competitive landscapeTahoe hosts one of the densest clusters of ski areas in North America. Here are the 16 currently in operation:On Northstar's masterplan Northstar's 2017 masterplan outlines several potential expansions, each of which we discuss in the podcast:On the “My Epic” appOhran referenced Vail's new My Epic app, which I devoted a section to explaining in the article accompanying my recent Keystone podcast. The Epic Pass website notes that the app will be “launching in October.”On Northstar's original brand campaignI couldn't find any relics from Northstar's 1972 “Everything in the middle of nowhere” ad campaign. I did, however, find this 1978 trailmap noting that all-day adult lift tickets cost $13:That's $64.02 adjusted for inflation, in case you're wondering.The Sierra Sun ran a nice little history of Northstar last year, in honor of the resort's 50-year anniversary:On Dec. 22, 1972, Northstar-at-Tahoe began spinning its original five lifts, operating under the motto “Everything in the middle of nowhere.” The first lifts were given alphabetic names A, B, C, and D. A T-chair provided access to mid-mountain from the village. The cost for an adult to ski for the day in 1972 was $8, gear could be rented for $7.50, and a room for the night at the resort was $30. …The 1980s brought further growth to the resort and in 1988 the first snowboarders took their turns at the resort. That year, George N. Gillett Jr., president of Colorado's Vail Associates purchased Northstar-at-Tahoe. By 1992, Gillett had run into financial troubles and lost Vail Associates. Gillett managed to come away with enough resources to form Booth Creek Ski Holdings, Inc. Gillett's new company focused on real estate development and creating multi-season resorts. In 1996, the company acquired Northstar-at-Tahoe, Sierra-at-Tahoe, and Bear Mountain for $127 million, and began developing the Big Springs area at Northstar. …The new millennium brought with it a joint venture between Booth Creek Ski Holdings and East West Partners with the aim to complete the resort's real estate and mountain development plan. The first phase of the project opened in 2004 and included the foundation for the village along with the completion of Iron Horse North, Iron Horse South, and the Great Bear Lodge buildings. The ice rink and surrounding commercial space were completed during this time. Skiers and riders were also treated to new terrain with the installation of Lookout Lift.From 2005 through 2008 work continued at the base of the mountain to complete the gondola building along with the Catamount and Big Horn buildings in the village. Collaboration between East West Partners and Hyatt Corp also began at this time, leading to the Northstar Lodge Hyatt project. The first building was started in May 2007 and completed in December 2008. Along with these came the Village Swim & Fitness center and the Highlands Gondola from the Northstar Lodge to The Ritz-Carlton Hotel and neighboring building.In 2010, Vail Resorts, Inc., entered the fray and purchased Northstar-at-Tahoe from Booth Creek for $63 million, and later renamed it Northstar California Resort.On Matt JonesOhran mentions Kirkwood GM Matt Jones once or twice during the pod, which we recorded on Oct. 2. This past Tuesday, Oct. 10, Alterra announced that they had hired Jones as the new president and chief operating officer of Stratton, Vermont.On that deep deep winterWhen I was skiing around Northstar in March, I snagged a bunch of hey-where'd-the-world-go shots of stuff buried in snow:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 85/100 in 2023, and number 471 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
In line with Episode 21 and its Fall theme, @pow_bot and @trail_whisperer chat (rant?) about a cornucopia of topics ranging from the possible arrival of a Super El Nino in Tahoe, looking back on summer's favorite rides and new trails, the etiquette of riding illegal trails, Strava and social media, the season pass conundrum, Palisades Tahoe announcing parking pass reservations and overcrowding due to Ikon and Epic Pass sales, a 15 mph speed limit on trails in Truckee, a gang of Truckee kids on ebikes throwing apples at people and evading the law, Reno's ranking by Outside as “happiest place to live in America”, remembering the legend of Robb Gaffney and more. Like most one-on-one episodes with the boys, this one gets a little ranty, channeling a bit of the Angry Singlespeeder (aka The ASS) in Kurt. The boys also ask listeners – what do you prefer to wear when riding, a hip pack or a backpack? Let us know your preference! 2:00 – Trail Running.4:00 – It's Fall and it's Snowing! Getting ready for winter. Trail Whisperer loves pumpkin pie. 8:20 – Ski Films – Do you watch ski films to get fired up for ski season?12:30 – Summer Recap – Lots of rain, never got too hot, no smoke.14:05 – Super El Nino is coming! Fall Tahoe weather is setting in. Early Winter?17:30 – What was your favorite mountain bike ride this summer?19:45 – What's the etiquette of riding unsanctioned trails?22:00 – Strava and social media rant.30:00 – PowBot and 2NBen's bear and bee encounter on JP Trail. 32:20 – Favorite new trail? Shark Bait at Sky Tavern and flow trail at Sugar Bowl. 35:40 – PowBot is almost 2 months into not drinking alcohol and he's loving it.39:30 – Season Pass sales – PowBot buys Mount Rose, Epic Pass and Ikon Pass.41:50 – Palisades Tahoe announces parking reservations and pay for parking details.48:30 – Fighting for preserving the culture of Squaw Valley.49:20 – In memoriam – Robb Gaffney.51:40 – Outside ranks Reno as the happiest place to live in America. 58:50 – City of Truckee passes 15 mph speed limit on multi-use trails in town in response to an ebike gang of high school kids roaming Truckee throwing eggs and apples at people.1:05:00 – Focus on education, not enforcement. 1:08:00 – Sky Tavern fundraiser – Party in the Sky – October 14 at 10AM. Be there!1:08:40 – Sendy Send of the Week - @cascadeconnections – skiing POW in September. @amymo_11 winning the Enduro in Killington and @marcoOsborne92 taking 2nd in Enduro and 14th in the US Cup Downhill. 1:13:00 – Hip packs vs backpacks. What do you wear mountain biking?
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Sept. 19. It dropped for free subscribers on Sept. 26. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoChris Sorensen, Vice President and General Manager of Keystone, ColoradoRecorded onSeptember 11, 2023About KeystoneClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Keystone, ColoradoYear founded: 1970Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: unlimited access* Summit Value Pass: unlimited access* Keystone Plus Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Local: five days combined with Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Park City* Epic Day Pass: access with All Resorts and 32-resorts tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Arapahoe Basin (:08), Frisco (:19), Loveland (22 minutes), Breckenridge (:25), Copper (:25), Vail (:44), Beaver Creek (:53), Ski Cooper (:56) – travel times vary considerably given traffic, weather, and time of year.Base elevation: 9,280 feetSummit elevation: 12,408 feet at the top of Keystone Peak; highest lift-served point is 12,282 feet at the top of Bergman Bowl ExpressVertical drop: 3,002 feet lift-served; 3,128 feet hike-toSkiable Acres: 3,149 acresAverage annual snowfall: 235 inchesTrail count: 130 (49% most difficult, 39% more difficult, 12% easiest)Lift count: 20 (1 eight-passenger gondola, 1 six-passenger gondola, 4 high-speed six-packs, 3 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 triple, 2 doubles, 7 carpets)Why I interviewed himKeystone arrived in 1970, a star member of the last great wave of western ski resort development, just before Snowbird (1971), Northstar (1972), Telluride (1972), and Big Sky (1973). It landed in a crowded Summit County, just down the road from Arapahoe Basin (1946) and five miles overland from Breckenridge (1961). Copper Mountain came online two years later. Loveland (1937) stood at the gateway to Summit County, looming above what would become the Eisenhower Tunnel in 1973. Just west sat Ski Cooper (1942), the mighty and rapidly expanding Vail Mountain (1962), and the patch of wilderness that would morph into Beaver Creek within a decade. Today, the density of ski areas along Colorado's I-70 corridor is astonishing:Despite this geographic proximity, you could not find more distinct ski experiences were you to search across continents. This is true everywhere ski areas bunch, from northern Vermont to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to the Wasatch. Ski areas, like people, hack their identities out of the raw material available to them, and just as siblings growing up in the same household can emerge as wildly different entities, so too can mountains that sit side-by-side-by-side.Keystone, lacking the gnar, was never going to be Jackson or Palisades, fierce and frothing. Sprung from wilderness, it could never replicate Breck's mining-town patina. Its high alpine could not summon the drama of A-Basin's East Wall or the expanse of Vail's Back Bowls.But Keystone made its way. It would be Summit County's family mountain, its night-ski mountain, and, eventually, one of its first-to-open-each-ski-season mountains. This is the headline, and this is how everyone thinks of the place. But over the decades, Keystone has quietly built out one of Colorado's most comprehensive ski experiences, an almost perfect front-to-back progression from gentle to damn. Like Heavenly or Park City, Keystone wears its steeps modestly, like your quiet neighbor with a Corvette hidden beneath tarps in the polebarn. All you notice is the Camry parked in the driveway. But there are layers here. Keep looking, and you will find them.What we talked aboutHopeful for that traditional October opening; why Keystone is Vail's early-season operator in Colorado; why the mountain closes in early April; breaking down the Bergman Bowl expansion and the six-pack that will service it; the eternal tension of opening hike-to terrain to lift service; building more room to roam, rather than more people to roam it; the art of environmentally conscious glading; new lift-served terrain in Erickson Bowl; turning data into infrastructure; why the Bergman sixer won't have bubbles; why Bergman won't access The Windows terrain; the clever scheme behind renaming the Bergman Bowl expansion trails; building a new trailmap with Rad Smith; where skiers will be able to get a copy of the new paper trailmap; comparing the Peru upgrade to the Bergman lift project; the construction mistake that delayed the Bergman expansion by a full year; the possibility of lifts in Independence, North, and South Bowls; falling in love with skiing Colorado, then moving to Michigan; why Vail bought a bunch of Midwest bumps; when you get to lead the resort where you started bumping lifts; what makes Keystone stand out even though it sits within one of the densest concentrations of large ski areas in North America; thoughts on long-term lift upgrades, and where we could see six-packs; whether the Argentine lift could ever return in some form; the potential for a Ski Tip lift; where Keystone could expand next; whether a Windows lift is in play; North American Bowl; when we could see an updated Keystone masterplan; why Keystone gets less snow than its neighbors; assessing Epic Pass access; and night skiing. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewKeystone is opening one of three large lift-served ski expansions in Colorado this winter: the 500-plus-acre Bergman Bowl, served by a high-speed six-pack (the other two are Hero's on Aspen Mountain and Mahogany Ridge at Steamboat). While this pod has occupied the trailmap as hike-to terrain for years, more people will likely ski it before noon on a typical Monday than once slogged up the ridgeline in an entire winter. Keystone has renamed and somewhat re-sculpted the trails in honor of the occasion, inviting the masses onto a blue-square oasis at the top of Summit County.Which is always a good excuse for a podcast. But… this terrain was supposed to open in 2022, until the project ran into a high-altitude brick wall last July, when construction crews oopsied a road through sensitive terrain. Vail Daily:Construction of a new chairlift at Keystone Resort was ordered to cease this week after the U.S. Forest Service learned that an unauthorized road had been bulldozed through sensitive areas where minimal impacts were authorized.Keystone Resort, which operates by permit on U.S. Forest Service land, was granted permission by the White River National Forest to construct a new chairlift this summer in the area known as Bergman Bowl, creating a 555-acre expansion of Keystone's lift-served terrain. But that approval came with plenty of comments from the Environmental Protection Agency, which recommended minimal road construction associated with the project due to Bergman Bowl's environmentally sensitive location. …White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said while the Forest Service does approve many projects like Bergman Bowl, officials typically don't allow construction of new access roads in Alpine tundra.“When you drop a bulldozer blade in the Alpine, that is very fragile, and very difficult to restore,” Fitzwilliams said.In Bergman Bowl, the Forest Service has found “damage to the Alpine environment … impacts to wetlands and stuff that we normally don't want to do,” Fitzwilliams said.As a result, Fitzwilliams issued a cease and desist letter to Vail Resorts. He said the company immediately complied and shut down the impacted parts of the project.The Forest Service has not yet determined if a full restoration can occur.“When you impact the Alpine environment, it's not easy to restore,” Fitzwilliams said. “Sometimes, although achievable in some areas, it's difficult.”Vail Resorts, which has staked much of its identity on its friend-of-the-environment credentials, owned the mistake and immediately hired a firm to design a mitigation plan. What Keystone came back with was so thorough that it stunned Forest Service officials. Blevins, writing a week later in the Colorado Sun:White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams on Thursday said he accepted Vail Resorts' cure for improperly grading 2.5 acres outside of approved construction boundaries, including 1.5 acres above treeline in the fragile alpine zone. The company's construction crews also filled a wetland creek with logs and graded over it to create a road crossing and did not save topsoil and vegetation for replanting after construction, all of which the agency found “were not consistent with Forest Service expectations.”Fitzwilliams rescinded his order of noncompliance and canceled the cease-and-desist order he issued last month after Forest Service officials discovered the construction that had not been permitted. …“Quite honestly, it's the best restoration plan I've ever seen in my life. Even our staff are like ‘Oh my god,'” Fitzwilliams said. “The restoration plan submitted by Keystone is extremely detailed, thorough and includes all the necessary actions to insure the damage is restored as best as possible.”The damage to fragile alpine terrain does require additional analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, but Fitzwilliams said that can be done while the construction continues.On Thursday afternoon, resort officials said the further environmental review will keep Bergman Bowl from opening for the 2022-23 season, a development Keystone general manager Chris Sorensen said is disappointing but necessary.Indeed. The only way out is through. But how did that plan go? And what is Vail doing to make sure such mistakes don't recur? And how do you manage such a high-profile mistake from a personal and leadership point of view? It was a conversation worth having, and one that Sorensen managed well.What I got wrong…About the exact timeline of Vail's Midwest acquisitionsI kind of lumped Vail Resorts' first three Midwest acquisitions together, but there was quite a bit of space between the company's purchase of Afton Alps and Mt. Brighton, in 2012, and its pickup of Wilmot in 2016. The rest came with the Peak Resorts' acquisition in 2019.About Copper Mountain's season pass priceI said that it was “about $750” for a Copper pass or an Ikon Base Pass. Both were undercounts. Copper's 2023-24 season pass debuted at $799 and is now $849. The 2023-24 Ikon Base Pass, which includes unlimited access to Copper Mountain, debuted at $829 and now sells for $929.About the most-affordable big-mountain ski passes in the United StatesI said that Keystone offered “the most affordable big-mountain season pass” in the country. With peak-day walk-up lift tickets scheduled to hit $269 this season at Keystone, that may seem like an odd declaration. But it's almost true: Keystone sells the second-most-affordable unlimited season pass among America's 20 largest ski areas. Sister resort Park City comes in cheaper on a cost-per-acre basis, and Vail Mountain is tied with Keystone. In fact, four of the top five most affordable big-mountain passes are at Vail-owned properties (Park City, Keystone, Vail, and Heavenly):About night skiingI said that Keystone had “the largest night-skiing operation in America.” This is incorrect. I tried to determine who, indeed, hosts America's largest night-skiing operation, but after slamming my head into a wall for a few hours, I abandoned the exercise. There is absolutely no common standard of measurement, probably because 14-year-olds slamming Bang energy drinks and Faceposting from the chairlift aren't keen on fact-checking. Here's the best I could come up with:Even that simple chart took an embarrassing amount of time to assemble. At some point I will return to this exercise, and will include the entire country. The Midwest will factor significantly here, as nearly every ski area in the region is 100 percent lit for night-skiing. New York and the Mid-Atlantic also host many large night-skiing operations, as do Bolton Valley, Vermont and Pleasant Mountain, Maine. But unless I wanted to publish this podcast in June of 2024, I needed to flee this particular briar patch before I got ensnared.Why you should ski KeystoneThe Keystone you're thinking of is frontside Keystone, Dercum Mountain, River Run and Mountain House, Montezuma and Peru. That Keystone has a certain appeal. It is an approachable outsiders' version of Colorado, endless and wide, fast but manageable, groomed spirals ambling beneath the sunshine. Step out of the Suburban after a 16-hour drive from Houston, and find the Middle Earth you were seeking, soaring and jagged and wild, with a pedestrian village at the base.Keep going. Down Mine Shaft or Diamond Back to North Peak: 1,600 vertical feet of moguls bigger than your car. A half-dozen to choose from. Behind that, yet another peak, like a third ski area. Outback is where things start to get savage. Not drop-off-The-Cirque-at-Snowbird savage, but challenging enough. Slide back to Timberwolf or Bushwacker or Badger – or, more boldly, the trees in between – for that wild Colorado that Texas Ted and New York Ned find off Dercum.Or walk past the snow fort and click out, bootpack a mile and drop into Upper Windows, the only terrain marked double black on Keystone's sprawling trailmap. A rambling world, crisp and silent beneath the Outpost Gondola. Until it spits you out onto Mozart, Keystone's I-70, frantic and cluttered all the way to Santiago, and another lap.Podcast NotesOn Keystone's 2009 masterplan Keystone's masterplan dates to 2009, the second-oldest on file with the White River National Forest (Buttermilk's dates to 2008). The sprawling plan includes several yet-to-be-constructed lifts, including fixed-grips up Independence Bowl and Windows, a surface lift bisecting North and South Bowls; and a two-way ride out of Ski Tip. The plan also proposes upgrades to Outback, Wayback, and A-51; and a whole new line for the now-decommissioned Argentine:Since that image isn't very crisp, here's a closer look at Dercum:North Peak:And Outback:Sorensen and I discuss the potential for each of these projects, some of which are effectively dead. Strangely, Keystone's only two new chairlifts (besides Bergman), since 2009 - upgrading Montezuma and Peru from high-speed quads to sixers – were not suggested on the MDP at all. Argentine, which once connected the Mountain House Base directly to the Montezuma lift, was a casualty of the 2021 Peru upgrade. Here's a before-and-after:Argentine, it turns out, is just the latest casualty in Keystone's front-side clean-sweep. Check out this 1996 trailmap, when Dercum (called “Keystone” here), hosted nine frontside chairlifts (plus the gondola), to today's five:On the new Bergman Bowl trail namesBergman Bowl has appeared on Keystone's trailmap since at least 2005. The resort added trail names around 2007. As part of the lift installation, we get all new trail names and a few new trails (as well as downgrades, for most of the old lines, to blues). Keystone also updated trailnames in adjacent Erickson Bowl, which the new lift will partially serve. Sorensen and I discuss the naming scheme in the pod:On Rad Smith's new hand-painted Keystone trailmapSince 2002 or so, Keystone's trailmap has viewed the resort at a slight angle, with Dercum prioritized, the clear “front side.”The new map, Sorensen tells us, whips the vantage around to the side, giving us a better view of Bergman and, consequently, of North Peak and Outback. Here's the old map (2022 on the left), alongside the new:And here's the two-part video series on making the map with Rad Smith:On Vail's new appI've driven round trip between New York City and Michigan hundreds of times. Most of the drive is rural and gorgeous, cruise-control country, the flat Midwest and the rolling mountains of Pennsylvania. Even the stretch of north Jersey is attractive, hilly and green, dramatic at the Delaware Water Gap. All that quaintness slams shut on the eastbound approach to the George Washington Bridge, where a half dozen highways collapse into the world's busiest bridge. Backups can be comically long. Hitting this blockade after a 12-hour drive can be excruciating.Fortunately, NJDOT, or the Port Authority, or whomever controls the stretch of Interstate 80 that approaches the bridge after its 2,900-mile journey from San Francisco, has erected signs a few dozen miles out that ominously communicate wait times for the GW's upper and lower decks. I used to doubt these signs as mad guesses typed in by some low-level state employee sitting in a control room with a box of donuts. But after a couple dozen unsuccessful attempts to outsmart the system, I arrived at a bitter realization: the signs were always right.This is the experience that users of Vail's new My Epic app can (hopefully) expect when it comes online this winter. This app will be your digital Swiss Army Knife, your Epic Pass/stats tracker/snow cam/in-resort credit card/GPS tracker with interactive trailmap. No word on if they'll include that strange metal spire that's either a miniature icepick or an impromptu brass knuckle. But the app will include real-time grooming updates and chairlift wait times. And if a roadsign in New Jersey can correctly communicate wait times to cross the George Washington Bridge, then Vail Resorts ought to be able to sync this chairlift wait-times thing pretty precisely.On Mt. Brighton being built from landfillDepending upon your point of view, Mt. Brighton, Michigan – which Sorensen ran from 2016 to 2018 – is either the most amazing or the most appalling ski area in Vail's sprawling portfolio. Two-hundred thirty vertical feet, 130 acres, five chairlifts, seven surface lifts, and about four trees, rising like some alt-world mini-Alps from the flatlands of Southeast Michigan.Why is it there? What does it do? Who would do such a thing to themselves? The answer to the first question lies in the expressways that crisscross three miles to the east: crews building Interstate 96 and US 23 deposited the excess dirt here, making a hill. The answer to the second question is: the place sells a s**t-ton of Epic Passes, which was the point of Vail buying the joint. And the answer to the third question is obvious as well: for the local kids, its ski here or ski nowhere, and little Midwest hills are more fun than you think. Especially when you're 12 and the alternative is sitting inside for Michigan's 11-month winter.On Keystone's potential West Ridge expansionSorensen refers to a potential “West Ridge” expansion, which does not appear on the 2009 trailmap. The ski area's 1989 masterplan, however, shows up to five lifts scaling West Ridge between North Peak and Outback (which was then called “South Peak”):On Keystone being among Colorado's least-snowy major resortsIt's a strange fact of geography that Keystone scores significantly less snow, on average, than its Colorado peers:This makes even less sense when you realize how close Keystone sits to A-Basin (115 more inches per season), Breck (118), and Copper (70):When I hosted OpenSnow founder and CEO Joel Gratz on the podcast last year, he explained Keystone's odd circumstances (as well as how the mountain sometimes does better than its neighbors), at the 1:41:43 mark.On pass prices across Summit County creeping up over the past several yearsSummit County was Ground Zero for the pass wars, during which a preponderance of mountains the size of Rhode Island fought to the death over who could give skiing away the cheapest. There are many reasons this battle started here, and many reasons why it's ending. Not the least of which is that each of these ski areas hosts the population of a small city every day all winter long. Colorado accounts for approximately one in four U.S. skier visits. The state's infrastructure is one rolled-over semi away from post-apocalyptic collapse. There's no reason that skiing has to cost less than a load of laundry when everyone wants to do it all the time.As a result, prices are slowly but steadily rising. Here's what's happened to pass prices at the four Summit County ski areas over the past six seasons:They've mostly gone up. Keystone is the only one that is less expensive to ski at now than it was in 2018 (on a season-pass basis). This chart is somewhat skewed by a couple of factors:* For the 2018-19 ski season, A-Basin was an unlimited member of the Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, and Summit Value Pass, a fact that nearly broke the place. The drastic price drop from 2018 to '19 reflects A-Basin's first year outside Vail's coalition.* Vail cut Epic Pass prices 20 percent from the 2020-21 ski season to the 2021-22 campaign. That's why Breck and Keystone are approximately the same price now as they were before the asteroid attack, Covid.* Little-known fact: Copper Mountain sells its own season pass, separate from the Ikon Pass, even though the mountain offers unlimited access on both the Ikon Base and full Ikon passes.On Mr. OklahomaI don't want to spoil the ending here, but we do talk about this.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 75/100 in 2023, and number 461 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. 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You can also subscribe for free below:WhoBrian Suhadolc, General Manager of Mount Snow, VermontRecorded onJuly 17, 2023About Mount SnowClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Dover, VermontYear founded: 1954Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass and Epic Local Pass: Unlimited access* Epic Northeast Value Pass: Unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Epic Northeast Midweek Pass: Unlimited access with weekend and holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Hermitage Club (9 minutes), Stratton (23 minutes), Bromley (36 minutes), Magic Mountain (39 minutes)Base elevation: 1,900 feetSummit elevation: 3,600 feetVertical drop: 1,700 feetSkiable Acres: 601Average annual snowfall: 150 inchesTrail count: 80 (15% advanced/expert, 70% intermediate, 15% beginner)Lift count: 19 (2 six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 5 triples, 2 doubles, 1 ropetow, 5 magic carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Snow's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himThis is my second podcast focused on Mount Snow. The first episode featured then-GM Tracy Bartels, in November 2020. Our focus then was Covid: as in, what the hell were we going to do about it? The ski industry had spent eight months from the March shutdowns preparing for a masked world of closed ski bars and social distancing. Was this actually going to work?It did, of course. Sort of. But that podcast from 2020 has little to do with the Mount Snow of 2023, which has evolved substantially in just three years. It was time for an update.I'm also owning the fact that I overcorrected when I took The Storm national in 2021. In the pod's first two years, I'd interviewed the heads of most of New England's largest ski areas. Check, check, check. Done. I needed to establish this thing in the Rockies, the Cascades, the Sierras, the Wasatch. And I did. But a lot of my New England listeners felt snubbed. I'd built this thing on their attention and enthusiasm, and now I was pivoting away.It's time to pivot back a bit. The lift-served ski world is changing fast, especially among those giants with access to capital and ambition. So I've scheduled upcoming podcast conversations with the leaders of Killington and Sunday River, both of which I've profiled in the past. I'll pursue more such follow-ups in the future, in all regions – and not just with mega-resorts, as the recent second installment with the owners of Plattekill demonstrated. The long-term goal is to alternate podcasts so that every other episode focuses on the West, with the East/Midwest/Mid-Atlantic occupying the alternate slots.But setting aside my own admin, I'm focusing on Mount Snow because it's an incredibly important mountain. I'll reset what I wrote in this same section three years ago:Because Mount Snow is where big-time Northeast skiing begins. As the southern-most major Vermont ski area, it is a skier's gateway to mountains that are big enough to get lost on. From its strategic position in the orbit of the East Coast megalopolis, successive owners have gradually built something uniquely suited to the frenetic swarms of wildly varied skiers who bullseye the place each winter: Mount Snow has one of the most outstanding terrain parks in America and one of the best snowmaking systems in the world. The families who swarm here find absolutely unintimidating terrain, blue as the sky and groomed smoother than I-91. It's a perfect family mountain and a perfect bus skier's mountain and a perfect first step from Mount Local to something that shows you how big skiing can be. It was the crown jewel of the Peak Resort's empire, and it's one of the most important pieces to Vail's ever-expanding Epic jigsaw puzzle. I wouldn't call it a special mountain – the terrain is mild and not terribly interesting, and the volume and quality of natural snowfall is best described as adequate. But it is a vital mountain, as the southern-most anchor of Vermont's teeming ski scene, as an accessible ski experience for weekending cityfolk, as an aspirational destination for people stepping more fully into skiing culture, and as a testament to the power of the imagination to transform a big vertical drop and cold skies into a vital and vibrant node of the regional ski scene.What we talked aboutSurveying damage from the July rainstorm; the Epic Promise Foundation; Mount Snow's four-foot March snowstorm; the frantic hilarity of New England powder days; the difference between east and west coast pow; breaking down Mount Snow's lift upgrades at Sundance, Sunbrook, and Heavy Metal; how the Sundance six-pack “changed the dynamic of the ski resort”; why Sundance – unlike the mega-popular Bluebird Express – does not have bubbles; how the resort manages 18 high-speed out-of-base seats; the four most-utilized lifts at Mount Snow; how Mount Snow built the Sunbrook lift in a roadless section of mountain; what it took to convert the Heavy Metal lift from a double to a triple; why Vail auctioned the individual chairs from the old Sunbrook rather than selling the lift – a 1990 CTEC quad – to a smaller ski area; talking through long-term upgrades to Nitro; why the resort doesn't add more chairs to the current Nitro to boost its capacity from 2,100 skiers per hour to 2,400; the status of paid parking two years in; impressions of New England ski culture; the difference between running a mountain in the east and in the west; what happens when Vail surprise-buys your resort; connecting Park City to The Canyons via gondola – “the magnitude of it was not lost on me”; the mining facilities still scattered across Park City; career opportunity within Vail Resorts; Mount Snow's monster snowmaking system; why Mount Snow has become Vail's late-season New England operator, rather than Wildcat; why Carinthia is the mountain's late-operating pod; whether we could ever see another October opening at Mount Snow; potential upgrades for the North Face lifts; assessing the Beartrap double; contemplating the future of Grand Summit; whether we could ever see a detach lift on beginner terrain at Mount Snow; whether the Epic Local Pass is the correct unlimited-access pass for Mount Snow; the popularity of Northeast-specific Epic Passes; the Epic Day Pass; and Vail Resorts' day-ticket limits for the 2022-23 ski season.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewEver since Peak Resorts built the Bluebird Express six-pack in 2011, Mount Snow has had a problem: the lift, with its blue bubbles and ultra-smooth ride, was so flashy and appealing that nobody wanted to ride any other lift on the front side of the mountain. Even the Grand Summit high-speed quad, which runs parallel to Bluebird and serves all the same terrain, had trouble getting attention. This was great for skiers who actively work the mountain, but a real drag for Mount Snow's rap as the most-crowded Southern Vermont ski area.Enter: Vail Resorts' Epic Lift Upgrades of 2022. Mount Snow was the beneficiary of two of the 21 planned lifts (18 of which Vail finished on schedule*): the Sundance and Tumbleweed triples made way for a new six-pack, while the backside Sunbrook lift got a boost from a fixed-grip quad to a detach. Meanwhile, the mountain converted the Heavy Metal double into a triple chair, adding capacity to the popular Carinthia terrain park.Sundance and Sunbrook had one job: give people a reason to ski something besides Bluebird. As far as replacement lifts go, they seemed brilliant. But did the plan work to unknot Mount Snow's gnarliest crowd points?That was one topic Suhadolc and I discussed. Another: was Vail able to recover from its arguably oversold 2021-22 ski season by implementing day-ticket limits and settling into paid-parking plans? And how were those paid parking plans going? And should Mount Snow really be unlimited on the Epic Local Pass?Vail Resorts is entering its fifth winter season operating Mount Snow. With the Peak Resorts transition fully digested and Covid's hassles a memory, the company has no choice but to fully own every piece of the experience. With its size and proximity to New York City, Mount Snow will always be somewhat hectic. New Englanders can tolerate that. Chaos, however, does not belong in this land of picket-fence order. And for a moment post-Covid, Mount Snow seemed to be tilting toward chaos.But no one can say that Vail has not brought big change to the mountain over the past several seasons. Despite daily lift tickets that topped out at $154 this past winter, Mount Snow has never been more affordable to the masses. Unlimited access is just $689 on the Epic Local Pass; subtract holidays with the $567 Northeast Value Pass; minus weekends with the $425 Northeast Midweek Pass. With prices that low at a mountain that big that's as easy to access as Mount Snow is, things could go sideways pretty quick. The new lifts, the parking plans, the lift-ticket limits – all of it is calculated to prevent that from happening.Ski areas are a little bit like novels. They're never really finished. But unlike our great works of literature, we get to edit ski areas after they're published. The version of Mount Snow that we ski today is probably not the best and final version of the hill, but it may also be the best it's ever been,.*Two lifts scheduled to rise in Park City were rerouted to Whistler after spiteful locals revolted; Keystone's Bergman sixer had to wait a year after a construction-road misfire tore up some sensitive high-altitude terrain.What I got wrong* I said that the new Sunbrook high-speed quad clocked a ride time around four minutes. The actual time is closer to six minutes, according to Suhadolc.* I asked Brian why Vail didn't try to re-use the Sunbrook lift – a 1990 CTEC quad that likely had lots of life left on it – at a “smaller ski area.” He explained that Vail does occasionally move a lift within its portfolio. What I had meant to ask, however, was why didn't Mount Snow didn't attempt to sell the lift on the open market to a smaller independent ski area. It's great that Mount Snow sold the chairs and flipped the money to the Epic Promise Foundation, which assists their employees in times of outstanding need, such as the floods that just smashed Okemo. But the company could likely have made more for Epic Promise by selling the entire lift to an independent ski area, many of which are desperate for a modern quad in good working condition.* I said that Vail Resorts purchased Park City Mountain Resort “in 2014 or 2015.” The company bought the resort in 2014, a year after it bought Canyons (which is now part of Park City).* I said the Outpost lift turned 60 this year. Lift Blog, my go-to source for pretty much all things lifts, lists the lift as a 1963 Yan triple. Brian said that it is a 1988 CTEC triple. New England Ski History agrees with Brian. This is not a crack on Lift Blog, which is an excellent resource, so much as on me for not double-checking my references - in fact, I think Tracy Bartels corrected me on the exact same factoid three years ago.* I said that the Northeast Midweek Epic Pass was “less than $400.” This is incorrect. The pass currently costs $425. The early-bird price for the 2023-24 ski season was $416.* When I was running through the various resorts that the Northeast-specific Epic Passes accessed, I left out Mt. Brighton, Michigan.* I noted that Mount Snow had opened in October “once and maybe twice” under Peak Resorts. The only record I can find of Mount Snow opening that early was on Oct. 27, 2018.Why you should ski Mount SnowMount Snow has two big, obvious constituencies: Park Brah and Family Bro.The Carinthia peak is a crucial piece of Peak Resorts' legacy, as important as the Bluebird Express or the tens of millions the company pumped into snowmaking upgrades. Once a separate ski area, the peak is isolated from the mountain proper (though connected both ways by green trails), a thousand vertical feet of straight hits served by a high-speed quad and a triple chair. Park Brahs can park out, Brah. Along with Seven Brothers at Loon, it may be the best terrain park in the eastern United States.Family Bro loves Mount Snow partly because of Carinthia. Radbrah Junior can spend his afternoons there, posted up five wide with his boys, contemplating the hits below. The rest of the mountain, outside of the North Face, is interstate-width and solid blue. Families of almost any ability can manage this terrain. Mount Snow may be home to the best sustained intermediate terrain in New England. It's certainly among the most varied. And the mountain grooms just about every run just about every night, even if I wish they'd chill and let some bumps sprout here and there. Mount Snow's biggest drawback is a relative lack of glades for a mountain of its size. Skiers seeking trees should aim their GPS for Stratton or Magic, both of which have excellent, extensive glade networks.Epic Pass holders need to really pick their spots, though. Both Mount Snow and Okemo reach stampede-level crowding on weekends and holidays (I really don't think either should be unlimited on the Epic Local pass). Head for Stowe at these times if at all possible. Or snag an Indy Pass for peak-day getaways to Magic and Bolton Valley.Podcast NotesOn Heavenly and the Caldor FireWhen discussing Vail Resorts' unified disaster response to the recent Vermont floods, I referred to a similar conversation I'd had with Heavenly COO Tom Fortune in regards to the Caldor Fire that descended on Tahoe two years ago. You can listen to that conversation starting at 56:03 here.On Vermont's monster March snowstormWe discussed a monster snowstorm that descended on Vermont March 14 to 15. Huge snow totals included 45 inches at Bromley, 37 inches at Magic, and 46 inches at Mount Snow.On crushing pow at Mount SnowI discussed the chaos of a pow-day rope-drop at Mount Snow. Unfortunately the only access I have to it is this Twitter video. And since Substack won't embed Twitter videos anymore you'll have to click through to watch it:Too many “suns”I kept getting Mount Snow's “sun” lifts confused. It reminded me of a time I was skiing Snowbird, and a bunch of us were debating where to go next, and my buddy Mike, clearly confused, was just like, “There's too many Gads.” And my God he's right.On the Mount Snow “tram”Brian and I briefly discussed Mount Snow's old “tram,” which transported skiers from a base-area hotel up to the ski hill. It was really more of a whacky speedboat suspended from a cable, as you can see in the rendering on this 1965 trailmap. And yes, that's a double bubble chair beside it:On the Vail Resorts acquisition of Park CityBrian worked at Park City when Vail Resorts swiped it off Powdr Corp's lunch tray after the latter forgot to renew its lease. It was probably the most cartoonishly absurd business transaction in the history of lift-served skiing. Here's Park Record, examining the events as part of a decade-in-review series in late 2019:In some circles, though, the whispers had already started that something was afoot, and perhaps not right, at PCMR. Powdr Corp. for some unknown reason was negotiating a sale of its flagship resort, the most prevalent of the rumblings held. The CEO of Powdr Corp., John Cumming, late in 2011 had publicly stated there was not a deal involving PCMR under negotiation, telling Park City leaders during a Marsac Building appearance in December of that year the resort was “not for sale.” Later that evening, he told The Park Record the rumors “always amuse me.”The reality was far more astonishing and something that would define the decade in Park City in a similar fashion as the Olympics did in the previous 10-year span and the population boom did in the 1990s.The corporate infrastructure in the spring of 2011 had inadvertently failed to renew two leases on the land underlying most of the PCMR terrain, propelling the PCMR side and the landowner, a firm under the umbrella of Talisker Corp., into what were initially private negotiations and then into a dramatic lawsuit that unfolded in state court as the Park City community, the tourism industry and the North American ski industry watched in disbelief. As the decade ends, the turmoil that beset PCMR stands, in many ways, as the instigator of a changing Park City that has left so many Parkites uneasy about the city's future as a true community.The PCMR side launched the litigation in March of 2012, saying the future of the resort was at stake in the case. PCMR might be forced to close if it did not prevail, the president and general manager of the resort at the time said at the outset of the case. Talisker Land Holdings, LLC countered that the leases had expired, suddenly leaving doubts that Powdr Corp. would retain control of PCMR. …Colorado-based Vail Resorts, one of Powdr Corp.'s industry rivals, would enter the case on the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC side in May of 2013 with the aim of wresting the disputed land from Powdr Corp. and coupling it with nearby Canyons Resort, which was branded a Vail Resorts property as part of a long-term lease and operations agreement reached at the same time of the Vail Resorts entry into the case. Vail Resorts was already an industry behemoth with its namesake property in the Rockies and other mountain resorts across North America. The addition of Canyons Resort would advance the Vail Resorts portfolio in one of North America's key skiing states.It was a deft maneuver orchestrated by the chairman and CEO of Vail Resorts, Rob Katz. The agreement was pegged at upward of $300 million in long-term debt. As part of the deal, Vail Resorts also seized control of the litigation on behalf of Talisker Land Holdings, LLC. …The lawsuit itself unfolded with stunning developments followed by shocking ones over the course of two-plus years. In one stupefying moment, the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC attorneys discovered a crucial letter from the PCMR side regarding the leases had been backdated. In another such moment, PCMR outlined plans to essentially dismantle the resort infrastructure, possibly on an around-the-clock schedule, if it was ordered off the disputed land.What was transpiring in the courtroom was inconceivable to the community. How could Powdr Corp., even inadvertently, not renew the leases on the ground that made up most of the skiing terrain at PCMR, many asked. Why couldn't Powdr Corp. and Talisker Land Holdings, LLC just reach a new agreement, others wondered. And many became weary as businessmen and their attorneys took to the courtroom with the future of PCMR, critical to a broad swath of the local economy, at stake. The mood eventually shifted to exasperation as it appeared there was a chance PCMR would not open for a ski season if Talisker Land Holdings, LLC moved forward with an eviction against Powdr Corp. from the disputed terrain.The lawsuit wore on with the Talisker Land Holdings, LLC-Vail Resorts side winning a series of key rulings from the 3rd District Court judge presiding over the case. Judge Ryan Harris in the summer of 2014 signed a de facto eviction notice against PCMR and ordered the sides into mediation. Powdr Corp., realizing there was little more that could be accomplished as it attempted to maintain control of PCMR, negotiated a $182.5 million sale of the resort to Vail Resorts that September.Absolutely brutal and amazing and hard to believe, even nearly a decade later.On Canyons' name historyI mentioned the various names that the former Canyons ski area (now part of Park City), had gone by. Ski Utah provides the complete history:A neighboring ski area and sister resort to Park City Ski Area, called Park City West, opened in 1968. It was renamed ParkWest in 1975 after a change in ownership, then Wolf Mountain in 1995 for just two seasons. In 1997 it became The Canyons after an acquisition by the American Skiing Company before it was purchased by the Talisker Corporation. It was then sold to Vail Resorts in 2014 and subsequently merged with Park City Mountain. Today that base area is known as The Canyons Village at Park City.On Mount Snow's amazing snowmaking systemJust two years before selling its entire portfolio to Vail Resorts, Peak Resorts invested an amazing $30 million into Mount Snow's snowmaking system. The Brattleboro Reformer profiled the system shortly before go-live in 2017:West Lake is actually a sprawling system that begins about 4 miles from Mount Snow.It starts with a small, black, inflatable dam that stretches 18 feet across Cold Brook in Wilmington. From November through March, Mount Snow can inflate that dam as needed, drawing water into the newly constructed reservoir.A sluiceway alongside the dam ensures a flow of water in Cold Brook whether the dam is inflated or not."We were trying to be pretty low-impact, or as low-impact as possible," Storrs said.A nondescript-looking pump house near the dam can send water upward toward Mount Snow at a rate of 11,800 gallons per minute, "which is pretty much double what we used to have in terms of pumping capacity," Storrs said.On a recent morning, crews were putting on finishing touches and conducting tests at that pump house and two others situated farther up the mountain. There's a nearly 600-foot elevation gain between the inflatable dam and the last pump house on Mount Snow's slopes.On Wildcat and the long seasonWe discussed Wildcat's tradition as a late operator. Under Peak Resorts, the ski area would push the season into late April and, occasionally, May. Snowpak has documented Wildcat's closing dates over the past nine years – note the shift to earlier dates after Vail acquired the resort in 2019 (ignore the 2020 date, for obvious reasons):Vail shifted late-season New England operations to Mount Snow for reasons that Brian explains on the podcast. But it's a little incongruous stacked up against the region's other five late operators: Killington, Sugarbush, Jay Peak, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf, all of which are quite a ways north of Mount Snow:On Grand Summit and Yan detachablesI referred to the dreadful safety record of Yan detachable lifts. I broke this history of death and incompetence down in my recent podcast with China Peak GM Tim Cohee (scroll down to the Podcast Notes section).On Epic and Ikon access shifts since 2020I keep asking Vail Resorts' GMs if their ski areas are placed on the appropriate Epic Pass tier, mostly because it's amazing to me that an unlimited season pass to a mountain like Breckenridge or Mount Snow or Stevens Pass could be $676 – the early-bird price of 2023-24 Epic Local Passes. The Ikon Pass, as I noted on the podcast, has shifted its pass structure all over the place the past several seasons, tweaking access to Stratton, Sugarbush, Crystal Mountain, Alta, Aspen, Jackson Hole, Taos, Deer Valley, and Arapahoe Basin. Here's the chart I included in my recent podcast conversation with Alterra CEO Jared Smith to document those changes:I was astonished when Vail kept Stevens Pass on the Epic Local unlimited tier after 2021's well-documented crowding meltdowns. Things got so wild in Washington that Alterra pulled Crystal off the Ikon Pass' unlimited tier and jacked its season pass price up to $1,700 for the 2022-23 ski season. I still don't really understand this super-bargain access strategy, but Vail has made it clear that they're sticking with it.On the phenomenal deal that is the Epic Day PassWe discussed the Epic Day Pass. This thing really is an amazing deal:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 68/100 in 2023, and number 454 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on August 1. It dropped for free subscribers on August 4. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoJim Rochford Jr., Owner and General Manager of Trollhaugen, WisconsinRecorded onJuly 10, 2023About TrollhaugenClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Rochford familyLocated in: Dresser, WisconsinYear founded: 1950Pass affiliations: Indy Pass – 2 daysReciprocal partners: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Wild Mountain (18 minutes), Como Park (1 hour), Afton Alps (1 hour, 3 minutes), Elm Creek (1 hour, 3 minutes), Hyland Hills (1 hour, 18 minutes), Buck Hill (1 hour, 22 minutes), Welch Village (1 hour, 33 minutes), Christie Mountain (1 hour, 24 minutes), Powder Ridge (1 hour 54 minutes), Coffee Mill (1 hour, 56 minutes)Base elevation: 920 feetSummit elevation: 1,200 feetVertical drop: 280 feetSkiable Acres: 90 (2023 expansion will increase this total)Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 24 (28% advanced, 43% intermediate, 29% beginner)Lift count: 9 (4 fixed-grip quads, 5 ropetows – lift count includes new Partek fixed-grip Chair 1 that Trollhaugen is installing this summer – view Lift Blog's inventory of Trollhaugen's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himWhat if the greatest ski town in America is not Aspen or Telluride or Park City or Jackson, but Minneapolis? Within an hour of downtown, eight ski areas: Elm Creek, Como Park, Hyland Hills, Buck Hill, Afton Alps, Welch Village, Wild Mountain, and Trollhaugen. Not one of them tops 360 vertical feet or collects more than 60 inches of snow in an average season.Underwhelming stats that underscore the point: only the hardcore would swarm such bumps, endure the windblown cloud-cluttered upper Midwest dead-winter, in pursuit of the turn, the loft, the float, that singular moment of ski-high. There's a reason Vail's first stop on its march east was Minneapolis – this is a ski town (and one you can actually afford to live in).Midwest skiing is a bizarre world for the uninitiated. Chairlifts everywhere, often side-by-side, trolling up clear-cut hillsides seemingly conjured from the flats. Between these chairs, high-speed ropetows, hauling more skiers than you'd thought possible, faster than you can believe. You assume the ski areas are small, but they just keep going, rolling hillock after hillock over vast snowy complexes. At Afton, 17 Hall chairlifts ordered in industrial rows, threading a chutes-and-ladders labyrinth of gullies and tunnels and wide-open faces. At Welch, a mini-Vail Mountain, endless linked trailpods terminating at the Back Bowl, a spiderweb of burners diving through the trees. At Buck, every inch reserved, the place a vast school for racers, for bumpers, for flippity-flap flip-flap Brahs.Trollhaugen is a little bit of all of these things: four quads and five ropetows serving a hunk of Wisconsin countryside that feels bigger than 260 vertical feet on 100-ish acres. The Rochford family – which has owned the bump since the ‘60s – has resisted the urge to clear-cut, instead carving tree-lined tracks through the gullies. Wide-open faces aplenty, still, and zones for ropetow rockers fast and slow. The base area is themed Euro-Alpine, Bavarian perhaps, or Scandinavian.Don't let the Midwestern kitsch, wicket tickets, Rube Goldberg beginner tows, or pair of vintage ‘70s Borvig quads distract you: this is a terrific, and modern, ski area. The grooming is excellent. Snowmaking and night-skiing cover 100 percent of the hills. Trollhaugen erected a brand-new Partek quad two years ago, and it's installing another this summer. It was an inaugural Indy Pass partner, hyper-aware of the rapidly evolving lift-served skiing landscape and its competitive place within it. When you have seven direct competitors, one of which belongs to the Epic Pass, excellence is your only option. Trollhaugen delivers.What we talked aboutThe Covid outdoor surge just keeps on surging; limiting lift tickets; how different Covid-era policies impacted ski areas near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border; Wild Mountain; Trollhaugen's tradition of early-season openings; why Trollhaugen closed April 1 after a 10-inch snowstorm; post-closing railjams; what happened when Vail Resorts bought nearby Afton Alps; whether the Epic Pass' arrival contributed to Trollhaugen's decision to join the Indy Pass; how Indy visitation has evolved over time; three generations of family ownership; remembering an era in which a mailman and a firefighter could start a ski area; the non-skiing dentists who bought a ski area to party; a brief history of Trollhaugen's lifts; growing up with a ski area as your backyard; the surprisingly circuitous route that Rochford took to eventually run the family business; respecting the family legacy while building upon it; going deep on Trollhaugen's expansion; glade skiing at Trollhaugen; why the conceptual expansion map shows a triple chair but we're getting a quad; the quiet brilliance of Partek chairlifts; stepping up to automated snowmaking; how the expansion may change the annual terrain-opening plan; connecting the expansion to the ski area proper; parking expansions; the story behind the parking lot sign equipped with old double chairs; Welch Village; ropetows versus carpets; the fate of the Summit ropetow; high-speed ropetows rule; a fenced ski area; 3 a.m. Fridays; and behind the Trollhaugen name and theme.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview Trollhaugen is the only one of the eight metro Minneapolis-St. Paul ski areas that sits in Wisconsin. It's four miles east of the state line, and 18 minutes from Wild. Usually, that doesn't matter. U.S. state borders, practically speaking, are mostly roadside signs. No checkpoints or paperwork. Perhaps a speed-limit adjustment. Perhaps a slight state-of-mind shift.But during Covid, that address mattered. Wisconsin, for the most part, introduced less stringent Covid safety measures than its neighbor, and relaxed them faster. No need to itemize them here: the net impact was a clanging cash register for Trollhaugen. Record numbers of skiers dumped record revenues into the joint. And, as Rochford tells me on the podcast, “if the skiers are going to invest in us, then we're going to invest in them.”So Trollhaugen ripped out a 52-year-old Hall double chair and stood up a brand-new Partek quad in 2021. That was phase one of a three-year capital project and expansion that is set to open this coming winter, with three-and-a-half new trails and yet another new Partek quad.It's hard to overstate how big of a deal this is for a small Midwestern ski area. Skiers acclimated to New England or the Rockies would be stunned at the condition of the average lift fleet in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. Lots of Riblets. Lots of Halls. Very few detachables. Very few safety bars. It's vintage skiing, often quite good – snowmaking tends to be excellent – but unadorned by the trappings of big-time resorts in other regions. In this neighborhood, two new lifts in three years is an enormous flex.Trollhaugen is not the only family-owned Midwest ski area investing this year. Buck Hill, Wild Mountain, Nub's Nob, and Perfect North are also erecting new quads this summer. And the big Midwestern operators have fully activated their cash cannons: Boyne is dropping a D-line sixer onto The Highlands and a fixed quad and triple at Boyne Mountain; Midwest Family Ski Resorts is building six-packs at Snowriver and Lutsen; and Wisconsin Resorts is adding a second high-speed quad to Mt. Holly and a triple to Alpine Valley, Michigan. But Trollhaugen's new lift will serve the region's only terrain expansion for the 2023-24 ski season. That's a really big deal, and worth taking a deeper look at.What I got wrong* I said in the intro that Trollhaugen had been the first ski area to open in America for the 2022-23 ski season. It was actually the first to open a chairlift, on Oct. 19. Wild Mountain and Andes Tower Hills, both in Minnesota, opened ropetows on Oct. 18.* I intimated that Loveland was in Summit County, Colorado, along with Keystone and Arapahoe Basin. Loveland actually sits just across the border, in Clear Creek County. Breckenridge and Copper Mountain also sit in Summit County.* I said that Welch Village “must have had a dozen chairlifts.” It has eight.* I said that Trollhaugen had a “Bavarian” theme, but the backstory that Rochford told us suggests that the ornate buildings clustered at the ski area's base are better classified as “Scandinavian.”Why you should ski TrollhaugenThere's something about Midwest skiing that is extremely gratifying. Even for those who have other options. Remember that 2000 movie, The Family Man, where a rich a-hole played by Nick Cage is shoved into an alternate timeline where he's stripped of his Ferrari and closetful of $10,000 suits and self-important Wall Street job? And suddenly he's living in suburban New Jersey as a tire salesman who drives two kids around in a minivan. And at first he's like, “Oh boy this sucks a fat one.” But by the end of the film he's b******g about the price of a bag of rock salt and relishing domestic life in his messy falling-apart house in Maplewood or wherever.Midwest skiing is kind of like that. If you're accustomed to RFID and superfast lifts and 3,000-acre playgrounds stuffed with chutes and glades and 15-foot bases of natural snow, you may be unable to imagine skiing unadorned with those jewels. But what if you forced yourself to? What if you pulled up to a Midwest bump on a jam-packed Saturday and skied just for the sake of doing it? Surrounded by thousands of skiers who didn't seem to give a damn that the chairlifts didn't have heated toilets or Netflix-equipped safety bars? Who act like they're at the best party ever? Who seem as giddy as any skiers you've ever seen anywhere?It's odd that the people who seem most insecure about Midwest ski areas are those who've never been within 50 miles of one. I see this every time I write a post about the Midwest – the hate, the impulse to belittle a thing that so many people love. It's all so stupid and tedious, so boring. Midwest skiing is about relishing what's there, not bemoaning what isn't. Yes, it's a different sort of skiing than you get in the Rockies or New England. But it's fun. An often-overcomplicated thing boiled down to its essence.If you love skiing, you will love skiing at Trollhaugen. Yes, it demands a certain creativity to stay engaged, to draw new lines out of the hillside, to sink into the moment between frequent chairlift rides. But, just as a minivan gets you to the same place as a Ferrari, this stripped-down version of skiing can get you exactly where you need to go. If you let it.Podcast NotesOn the view from Spirit MountainThe view from the summit of Spirit Mountain, overlooking the St. Louis River just before it drains into Lake Superior. At the base of the lifts (Spirit is an upside-down ski area), the mountain is only about a half mile from the Wisconsin border.On Wisconsin's lost ski areasRochford's grandparents purchased Trollhaugen in the 1960s. During the podcast, he commented that “of the ski areas we had in Wisconsin in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, I bet half of those are open today.” It's hard to get exact numbers on what may or may not have existed 50-plus years ago, but I did dig up these old maps from the Wisconsin Lost Ski Areas Project:19671971For context, here's a complete list of active Wisconsin ski areas. In some cases, ski areas have changed their names: Rib Mountain is now Granite Peak, for example. I'd love to do a side-by-side here, but that would be a project I just don't have time for at the moment:On other ski area expansions happening this summerTrollhaugen's expansion is one of seven happening at U.S. ski areas this summer. Here's an overview:On Trollhaugen's parking lot chairliftWe briefly discuss the cool chairlift structure (which I referred to as a “sign”) at Trollhaugen's entrance. Here it is:On Trollhaugen's ropetowsTrollhaugen has two types of ropetows – these whacky Rube Goldberg contraptions in the beginner area that look like they're about 175 years old:And these burners for the Park Brahs:On the border fenceTrollhaugen, like the vast majority of Midwest ski areas, still trades in metal wicket tickets. But rather than station an attendant at the bottom of each lift, the ski area fences off the base area, leaving just one access point to the lifts. One attendant checks the ticket one time – a pretty brilliant (and inexpensive), fraud-prevention system:On the spring skiing surchargeMany ski areas use free spring skiing as an incentive for new passholders. Buy your 2023-24 season pass in February 2023 and ski the rest of the 2022-23 season for free. But many ski areas in Minnesota and Wisconsin charge for the spring skiing option. Trollhaugen is one of them, charging new 2023-24 passholders $75 for spring 2023 access if they wanted spring skiing. Not a bad deal, actually, as that's probably not much more than the cost of a weekend lift ticket. Here are the other ski areas in the region that charge new passholders for spring access:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 66/100 in 2023, and number 452 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on July 27. It dropped for free subscribers on July 30. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoJared Smith, President and CEO of Alterra Mountain CompanyRecorded onJuly 26, 2023About Alterra Mountain CompanyAlterra is owned by a joint venture between KSL Capital and Henry Crown and Company. Alterra owns and operates the following properties:The company's Ikon Pass delivers access to these resorts for the 2023-24 ski season:Why I interviewed himIf I could unleash one artifact of 2023 skiing on the winters of my teens and twenties, it would be these passes. Ikon, Epic, Indy, Mountain Collective. It doesn't matter which. They're all amazing. Punchcards to white-capped horizons. The kind of guidebook I could have spun a winter around, sating those impulses for novelty, variety, constant motion.Not that I mind them now. For anyone, especially families, that lives near skiing and vacations to skiing, they basically saved the sport. Day trips to Windham, weekends at Stratton, a spring break run to the Wasatch: a tough itinerary – perhaps an impossible one – without that plastic ticket secured the previous March.But man I coulda used one of those little Ski Club cards when I was untethered and unmoored and wired at all times on Mountain Dew. And broke, too, by the way. Teenage Stu's ski circuits followed discount days more than snowstorms. Fifteen-dollar lift tickets after one on Sunday at Sugar Loaf? I'm there, rolling three-deep in a red Ford Probe, the driver's-side passenger seat dropped for the skis and poles and boots angled in through the hatchback.I would have preferred a membership. In my 1990s Indy Pass fantasies I roll the Michigan circuit early winter – Nub's and Caberfae and Crystal and Shanty Creek and Treetops. Then 94 to 80, popping into all the snowgun-screaming High Plains bumps along the route west. Chestnut and Sundown and Seven Oaks and Mt. Crescent and Terry Peak. Then the big mountains and the big snows. Red Lodge and Lost Trail and Brundage and Silver and 49 North and White Pass. Or I skip the Midwest and roll Ikon, spend a week circling California. Another in Utah. A third in Colorado on the way home.It's weird how much I think about this. Alternate versions of winters long melted away. I'm not one to dwell or regret. Or pine for the lost or never-was. But that's the power of the multi-mountain ski pass. I never re-imagine my past with an iPhone or the internet or even the modern skis that have amped up the average skier's ability level. But I constantly imagine how much more I could have skied, and how many more places I could have visited, and how much sooner I would have discovered the ski world outside of the destination circuit, had the Ikon and Epic passes arrived 15 to 20 years before they did.These passes are special, is my point here. As a catalyst to adventure and an enabler to the adventurous, they have no equal that I can think of in any other industry. It's as though I could buy some supper club pass and use it at every restaurant in town for an entire year without ever paying again. And among these remarkable products, the Ikon Pass is currently the best of them all. It's hard to dispute this. Look again at the roster above. What they've built in just six years is remarkable. And it keeps getting better.What we talked aboutThe sudden passing and legacy of Aspen managing partner Jim Crown; why Aspen is not part of Alterra; from entry-level salesman to CEO at Ticketmaster; the dramatic evolution of Ticketmaster and its adaptation to the digital age; skiing's digital transition; entering skiing at a high level as an outsider; “we don't make it easy at all for people to come enjoy our sport”; how to better meet consumers on their Pet Rectangles; balancing affordability with crowding and capacity; could lift ticket pricing be more like baseball or concerts?; finally some sensible thoughts on lowering lift ticket prices; $289 lift tickets; filling midweek ghost towns; “we're on the front end of our pricing and product-packaging journey as an industry”; why Alterra bought Snow Valley; rethinking the mountain's lift fleet; chairlift safety bars; Snow Valley expansion potential; housing and bed development at Snow Valley's base; considering a lift connection between Bear Mountain and Snow Summit; whether Alterra could purchase more city-adjacent ski areas; why Alterra bought Schweitzer; expansion potential; how Ikon Pass access may evolve at Schweitzer; the Ikon approach to adding new partners; whether the Ikon Base Pass' value is eroding over time as high-profile partners exit that tier; comparing Epic and Ikon prices; and Alterra's Impact Report. Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSmith pinned his CEO nametag onto his shirt almost exactly one year ago, on Aug. 1, 2022. He's had a busy year. The Ikon Pass has added five new partners (Alyeska, Sun Peaks, Grandvalira, Panorama, and Lotte Arai). Alterra purchased its first two ski areas since Sugarbush in 2019, scooping up Snow Valley, California in January and Schweitzer – the largest ski area in Idaho – last month. And the company acquired gear-rental outfit Ski Butlers and released its first Impact Report. A setback, too: while Ikon has still never lost a partner, Taos jumped off the Ikon Base Pass for next ski season, making it the seventh resort (along with Sun Valley, Snowbasin, Alta, Deer Valley, Aspen, and Jackson Hole) to exit that product.Meanwhile, check out the growing price differential between the Ikon and Epic passes over the past several seasons:After three years of relative parity, Ikon prices blew past Epic when Vail Resorts slashed prices in 2021. So this isn't news. But what's interesting is that Alterra has been able to hold that premium price. Vail lobbed its discount hand grenade three weeks after Alterra had locked in 2021-22 Ikon Pass prices. Rather than follow Vail into the basement, Alterra raised prices again in 2022. And again in 2023. Stunning as those early-bird differentials are, the gap is even more pronounced now: the current sticker price of a 2023-24 Ikon Pass is $1,259, a 36 percent premium over Epic's $929 pricetag. Ikon Base currently runs $929, which is 35 percent more than the $689 Epic Local Pass.So what? A Porsche costs more than a Ford. But when did the Ikon Pass become skiing's luxe label? For years, no one had an answer for Vail. Now it's hard to imagine how the Epic Pass will ever catch up to Ikon. Since 2020, Ikon has added Alyeska, Mt. Bachelor, Windham, Snow Valley, Schweitzer, Panorama, Sun Peaks, Chamonix, Dolomiti Superski, Kitzbühel, Lotte Arai, Sun Valley, and Snowbasin to its roster. Vail has added three ski areas in Pennsylvania and two (really one) in Switzerland, while losing Sun Valley and Snowbasin to Ikon. The Broomfield Bully, which spent the 2010s gobbling up everything from Whistler to Park City to half the Midwest and New England, suddenly looks inert beside its flashy young competitor.For now. Don't expect the dragon to sleep much longer. Vail – or, more accurately, the company's investors – will need to feast again soon (and I'll note that Vail has invested enormous sums into technology, infrastructure, and personnel upgrades over the past 16 months). Which is why Smith's job is so enormous. It won't be enough to simply keep Alterra and the Ikon Pass relevant. They must be transformative. Yes, that means things like terrain expansions and $50 million gondolas and new tickboxes on the Ikon Pass. But it also means the further melding of the physical and the digital, a new-skier experience that does not feel like Alaskan bootcamp, and more creativity in pricing than a $5 season pass purchased seven years in advance and a $4,500 day-of lift ticket.It's 2023. The Pet Rectangle has eaten the world. Any industry that hasn't gotten there already is going to die pretty soon. Skiing is sort of there and it's sort of not. Smith's job is to make sure Alterra makes it all the way in, and to bring us along for the run.Questions I wish I'd askedSo many. The most obvious being about the recent death of 50-year-old Sheldon Johnson, who fell out of a Tremblant gondola after it struck a drilling rig and split open. The photos are insane – it looks as though the car was sliced right in half. My minivan goes apeshit with sensors and auto-brakes if I'm about to back into a fence – why does a gondola, with all the technology we have, keep moving full speed into a gigantic piece of construction equipment?I also wanted to check in on Crystal's decision to jump off the Ikon Pass as its season pass, get an update on the new lifts going in at Alterra's resorts this summer, and ask when Deer Valley was going to get rid of that icky snowboard ban.Podcast NotesOn the sudden passing of Aspen managing partner Jim CrownPer the Aspen Times:Billionaire philanthropist Jim Crown was driving a single-seat, open-top Spec Racer with a 165-horsepower engine on June 25 in Woody Creek when it struck a tire barricade backed by a concrete wall that was surrounding a gravel trap.His son-in-law, Matthew McKinney, drove the Spec Racer a few hours before Crown drove it that day. McKinney remembered the car handled normally, although the brakes “were somewhat stiff, and the brake pedal had to be pressed somewhat firmly.”Aspen Motorsports Park staff told McKinney the brakes were new.These are some of the findings in the Pitkin County sheriff's report, released on Thursday, investigating Crown's death at the 50-acre park last month.A beloved Aspen and Chicago resident, he was not a racetrack rookie. The managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co. and adviser to former President Barack Obama, he enjoyed the Aspen tracks and once owned a Ferrari. He celebrated his June 25 birthday with family at the park.Around 2:20 p.m., deputies were alerted to a crash at the park's eighth corner wall. Dispatchers relayed that the 70-year-old driver was conscious, breathing but bleeding badly from head injuries. And his pulse was weak.McKinney and his wife told the officer in charge, Bruce Benjamin, that they never heard brakes screeching before the crash. (Benjamin noted skid marks near the crash). Crown's car hit the tire barricade “with such force, that it came off the ground a few feet.”Sheriff's deputies, Aspen Ambulance, and Aspen Fire Protection District first responders cared for Crown at the crash site. The report says they took turns giving him CPR chest compressions, but they were unable to save him. Crown was pronounced dead, with daughters Hayley and Victoria nearby.On why Aspen is not part of AlterraSmith and I discussed Aspen's decision to remain independent, rather than become part of Alterra, of which it is part owner. Former Aspen CEO Mike Kaplan told the full story on this podcast two years ago (49:28):On acquisitionsHere are my full write-ups on Alterra's purchase of Snow Valley and Schweitzer.On the evolution of the Ikon Base PassThere's little question that the Ikon Base Pass was underpriced when it hit the market at $599 in 2018. As the pass gained momentum, flooding some of the coalition's biggest names, resorts began excusing themselves from the cheapest version of Ikon. While the coalition has added more partners since inception than it has lost from the Base Pass, losing marquee names like Aspen, Jackson Hole, and Alta contributes to a sense that the pass' value is eroding over time, even as the price continues to climb (the Ikon Base Pass is currently on sale for $929). Here's a look at how Ikon Pass access has evolved since 2018:On Snow Valley's ghost lift fleetSnow Valley may be home to the most abandoned lifts of any operating ski area in the country. A Snow Valley representative confirmed for me earlier this year that lifts 2 and 8 have not run in at least five years, yet they remain on the trailmap today:Even more amazing, when I skied there in March, lifts 4 and 5 are still intact. Lift 5 hasn't been on the trailmap for 20 years!I also referenced a long-cancelled proposal to expand Snow Valley – here's where it sits on old trailmaps (looker's right):On Schweitzer's masterplanSmith alludes to Schweitzer's masterplan. Here's a look:And here, for reference, is the resort today (this map does not include the Creekside lift, which is replacing Musical Chairs this offseason):On Alterra's 2023 lift upgradesAlterra is at work on six new lifts this offseason:* The biggest of those projects is at Steamboat, where phase two of the Wild Blue Gondola will transport skiers from the base area directly to the top of Sunshine Peak. This 3.16-mile-long, 10-passenger gondola will be the longest in North America.* Even more exciting for skiers: the Mahogany Ridge high-speed quad will open an additional 650 acres of terrain looker's left of Pony Express, transforming Steamboat into the second-largest ski area in Colorado:* Mammoth will upgrade Canyon Express (Lift 16) from a high-speed quad to a high-speed six-pack:* Winter Park will upgrade Pioneer from a high-speed quad to a high-speed six-pack with a mid-station:* Solitude will upgrade Eagle Express from a high-speed quad to a high-speed six-pack:* Snowshoe will replace the Powder Monkey triple with a fixed-grip quad:On Smith leaving TicketmasterI referenced a Q&A that Smith did with Pollstar in 2020. You can read that here.On Alterra's Impact ReportSmith and I discuss Alterra's first Impact Report. You can read it here.More Alterra on The Storm Skiing PodcastFormer Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory appeared on the podcast three times, in 2020, 2021, and 2022. I've also hosted the leaders of several of Alterra's ski areas:* Palisades Tahoe President and COO Dee Byrne – May 4, 2023* Deer Valley President & COO Todd Bennett – April 20, 2023* Solitude President & COO Amber Broadaway – March 5, 2022* Steamboat President & COO Rob Perlman – Dec. 9, 2021* Crystal Mountain President & CEO Frank DeBerry – Oct. 22, 2021* Sugarbush President & GM John Hammond – Nov. 2, 2020* Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith – Jan. 30, 2020I've also hosted the leaders of many Ikon Pass partner mountains and related entities, including:* Valle Nevado GM Ricardo Margulis – July 19, 2023* Sun Peaks GM Darcy Alexander – June 13, 2023* SkiBig3 President Pete Woods – May 26, 2023* Snowbasin VP & GM Davy Ratchford – Feb. 1, 2023* Aspenware CEO Rob Clark (Alterra purchased Aspenware in 2022) – Dec. 29, 2023* Loon Mountain President & GM Brian Norton – Nov. 14, 2022* Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – Nov. 21, 2022* Sun Valley VP & GM Pete Sonntag – Oct. 20, 2022* The Summit at Snoqualmie GM Guy Lawrence – April 20, 2022* Arapahoe Basin COO Alan Henceroth – April 14, 2022* Big Sky President & COO Taylor Middleton – April 6, 2022* The Highlands President & GM Mike Chumbler – Feb. 18, 2022* Jackson Hole President Mary Kate Buckley – Nov. 17, 2021* Boyne Mountain GM Ed Grice – Oct. 19, 2021* Mt. Buller GM Laurie Blampied – Oct. 12, 2021* Aspen Skiing Company CEO Mike Kaplan – Oct. 1, 2021* Taos CEO David Norden – Sept. 16, 2021* Sunday River GM Brian Heon – Feb. 10, 2021* Windham President Chip Seamans – Jan. 31, 2021* Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Part 1, Sept. 25, 2020* Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Part 2, Sept. 30, 2020* Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – April 1, 2020* Sunday River President & GM Dana Bullen – Feb. 14, 2020* Loon Mountain President & GM Jay Scambio – Feb. 7, 2020 * Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – Nov. 21, 2019* Killington & Pico President & GM Mike Solimano – Oct. 13, 2019You can view all archived and scheduled podcasts here.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 63/100 in 2023, and number 449 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on July 19. It dropped for free subscribers on July 22. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoRicardo Margulis, General Manager of Valle Nevado, ChileRecorded onJuly 3, 2023About Valle NevadoClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Majority owned by Mountain Capital PartnersLocated in: Lo Barnechea, ChileYear founded: 1988Pass affiliations:Base elevation: 9,383 feetSummit elevation: 12,041 feetVertical drop: 2,658 feetSkiable acres: 2,200 lift-served (20,000-plus additional acres served by helicopter)Trails: 44Average annual snowfall: 276 inchesLift fleet: 16 lifts (1 gondola, 1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed quad, 1 triple, 2 doubles, 1 T-bar, 6 J-bars, 3 carpets)Why I interviewed himThe Storm is firmly anchored in North America. Built on 4 a.m. alarms and winding explorations of the Whites and the Greens and the Adirondacks and the Catskills and the Poconos and the Berkshires. Flights west to the Rockies and the Wasatch and the Sierras. Born on bumps rising from the Midwest flats.That domain will always be the core of this thing. Two years ago, I blew out of the Northeast to expand coverage to the entire United States. This year, I began folding in Canada. I can't go any farther. I don't know how many ski areas there are on planet Earth, but an educated guess is a minimum of 10,000, with more than half of those being in Europe. If I live to be 1,000 I might get there. But I won't so I need to fence the yard.However. Just because I live in and focus on North America does not mean my interests stop at the oceans. The world's vast and varied ski cultures are worth considering, as outlets to disrupt our biases, as wells of supreme adventure, and as crucial links in the story of skiing, which fuels the evolution of our domestic obsession in crucial, often unseen ways.But I have to pick my spots. This podcast is built less on novelty than on perspective and completeness. There are only so many far-flung spotlights that my listeners will tolerate, just as there are only so many episodes on ropetow bumps or the Midwest or even mighty New England that they can handle (this rule does not apply to the West). So where, in this whole wild world of endless skiing and endless snow, do I focus?My first entry in this very occasional international series landed almost two years ago, when I hosted the longtime general manager of Mt. Buller, Australia on the podcast. Why Mt. Buller? Well, frankly, they reached out to me and asked. But the ski area also hangs onto a strong North American connection: it is a longtime Ikon and Mountain Collective partner. If my readers are planning a Southern Hemisphere run over our summer, they likely scan the Epic and Ikon rosters before they do anything else.Enter: Valle Nevado. It is the only South American option for skiers clutching a North American ski pass. Vail's Epic Pass, believe it or not, gives you nothing in Argentina or Chile – the only serious ski destinations on the continent. But Ikon, Mountain Collective, and, now, Mountain Capital Partners' Power Pass all give you between two and seven days at the Chilean resort.Not that skiers don't have other options. Lift tickets to Las Leñas, Argentina's second-largest ski area, are just $66. Catedral Alta Patagonia, the nation's largest, sells a ticket for a pricier but still reasonable $108. El Colorado, right next door to – and connected with – Valle Nevado sells a daily lift ticket for around $73. Unlike large parts of U.S. American skiing, you can still ramble without a pass through the Andes (though I expect both Vail and Alterra to eventually acquire or partner with more ski areas throughout the continent).But “free” lift tickets are a powerful draw, even for many travelers with the means to voyage to South America for a ski trip. And a lot of North Americans are going to end up at Valle Nevado for as long as it retains its trio of U.S.-based pass memberships. It's a place that, when I'm considering what matters to my readers and my listeners, fits right in.What we talked aboutA strange snowstorm to start the Chilean ski season; the best time of year to ski Chile; target closing dates; “in 2020, Chile was closed”; the first normal summer for international visitors since 2019; the Valle Nevado origin story; enter Mountain Capital Partners; the MCP way; MCP's investment priorities; the prevalence of surface lifts at Valle Nevado (and South America in general); why Valle Nevado would rather install a new lift in a new place than upgrade a surface lift to a chairlift; where the resort could potentially expand; the resort's massive heliski operation; 7,000 feet of vert!; a ski circus at the top of the Andes; how you can ski La Parva and El Colorado if you're a Valle Nevado hotel guest, or if you show up with an Ikon, Mountain Collective, or Power Pass; why Valle Nevado joined so many U.S.-based megapasses; whether Valle Nevado will renew with Ikon and Mountain Collective when its contracts expire; Valle Nevado's evolving position on the Power Pass; staying at the village; why international visitors shouldn't rent a car; the wild, 8,000-foot-elevation access road up from Santiago; why the road is safer than it looks; and snowmaking past, present, and future.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIn January, Mountain Capital Partners, the under-the-radar but aggressive Southwest operator that is rapidly growing its U.S. portfolio, announced its intention to acquire a majority stake in Valle Nevado. They closed on the deal in April. It was the first acquisition of a South American ski resort by a North American ski company (at least that I'm aware of; I'm sure there's some newspaper clipping from 1946 about the eccentric Hayward “Skip” McSteeljaw, owner of Mt. Buckaroo, New York cowboying a remote Argentinian peak at which to pass his summers).This was a big deal. By beating Vail and Alterra to the continent, MCP signaled that the company intends to compete at an international scale. Prior to this purchase, MCP ran one of the most important regional ski passes in the United States. But no one seriously considered it a competitor to the Epic or Ikon passes outside of its immediate markets. Perhaps they still don't, but perception matters. And by reaching outside of its Southwest home turf with a crown-jewel purchase that trumps its current alphas – Arizona Snowbowl and Purgatory – in international prestige, MCP has evolved from a slick local operator to an ambitious and aggressive growth machine that could be a serious contender when and if North America's remaining megaresorts – Jackson Hole, Telluride, Taos, Alta, Whitefish, etc. – hit the market.MCP also introduced a unique problem to the rapidly evolving U.S. megapass market: what happens when a small conglomerate with its own multi-mountain pass purchases an Ikon Pass partner? Ikon has so far tolerated some crossover with competing passes – all but four of Mountain Collective's partners (Sugar Bowl, Grand Targhee, Le Massif, and Marmot Basin), are also on the Ikon Pass. Aspen's four mountains have their own pass, as do Boyne's three New England Ikon Pass partners: Loon, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf. Alterra surely loses some market share to Mountain Collective, but the pass is run out of Aspen, which partly owns Alterra.The Power Pass presents a different test case: will Alterra tolerate internal competition from a regional pass that competes directly with Ikon in the Southwest? The answer, for now, seems to be “probably.” Valle Nevado's contract with the Ikon Pass lasts through 2025. Alterra and Mountain Collective both gave the resort permission to join the Power Pass, Margulis said, starting with the current ski season. Alterra either doesn't view the Power Pass as a serious threat yet, or is not eager to let go of its only South American resort partner. For North American skiers, a trip to Chile – which sits in the Eastern timezone – is a lot easier logistically and financially than a run to New Zealand or Australia, which are so remote that it's already February 2029 there.The other side of this question is just as interesting: will rowdy and rabidly independent MCP have any interest in retaining Ikon or Mountain Collective membership? A big part of the company's identity, after all, is not being Vail or Alterra, or even Boyne or Powdr Corp. How do they take Alterra's money without compromising some of their double-bird-to-the-system rep? It probably depends on how big the check is. Margulis tells us in the podcast that Alterra transferred around $300,000 into Valle Nevado's bank account last year. If each Ikon redemption equaled $50 (an estimate based on nothing, I'll admit), that would equal 6,000 visitors. Not a lot in the context of how many Ikon Passes Alterra sells each year (which is probably approaching or past 1 million, a number that's based on deep sources), but a substantial bonus for a resort that's seated at the end of the earth. MCP is unlikely to replace that number with Power Pass visits, so what to do?I get into all this with Margulis in the podcast. He is a thoughtful, diplomatic leader, and he endorses all parties without committing to any of them. But one thing is clear: the pass roulette playing out in the Andes over the next few years is a wargames scenario likely to repeat at one or more key North American resorts over the coming decade. This is World War Skiing, the First Battle. There will be alliances, betrayals, surprises, surrenders. As usual, America is right in the middle, and it's too soon to tell if that's good or bad for everyone involved.What I got wrongI noted that Valle Nevado was on its “fifth season” as an Ikon Pass and Mountain Collective partner. The ski area actually joined Mountain Collective following its 2014 ski season, making 2023 the ninth season of membership on that coalition. The resort joined Ikon in November 2018, making 2023 the fifth numerical summer for Ikon Pass holders, though the third or fourth in practice. Chile was closed to international visitors for the 2020 and '21 ski seasons, and the resort did not open at all in 2020, meaning that, practically speaking, this is the third year that most Ikon Pass holders could really use their pass at Valle Nevado.Why you should ski Valle NevadoUntil you've seen it, you can't possibly understand the drama. Imagine if the Rockies mainlined ‘roids like a 1990s baseball slugger. Or got really pissed off and went Incredible Hulk. Or they went U.S. American homeowner and built an extra vertical wing atop their peaks. As I wrote when MCP announced the Valle Nevado acquisition in January:Colorad-Bro can be an insecure animal. One of his favorite pastimes is telling people from other states that they don't have real mountains. Just hills in Vermont, he'll say. We have mountains in Colorado, he says proudly. As though he chiseled them himself from the Earth's crust.I wonder what Colorad-Bro does when he meets someone from Chile or Argentina, both of which sprawl from the peak of Aconcagua. At 22,838 feet, it's 8,399 feet taller than Mount Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado. That's like stacking Copper and A-Basin and Keystone on top of Elbert – and still looking 140 feet up to the top. This must make Colorad-Bro sad.Valle Nevado doesn't reach those heights, but with a base at 9,383 feet, it sits higher than most North American ski areas. The terrain is entirely above treeline, enormous and exposed, a snow basket at the top of the world.Admittedly, Valle Nevado's lift-served numbers are modest compared to the North American skyscrapers: 2,200 acres and 2,658 vertical feet. That's about the size of Discovery, Montana or Kirkwood. And above-treeline skiing always feels smaller to me. This may seem paradoxical, as no trees equals more terrain, but one glade run at a small ski area like Berkshire East can feel larger than a whole open bowl, as each line feels distinct in a way that un-treed skiing never can.Valle Nevado, however, must be considered in this context of its interconnected neighbors: 1,100-acre El Colorado and 988-acre La Parva. They cannot be skied on one lift ticket, but maintained and signed trails run between both resorts and Valle Nevado. That gives skiers 4,288 acres to play in – more than Mammoth (3,500 acres), Northstar (3,170 acres), or Winter Pak (3,081 acres), and roughly the size of Mt. Bachelor. If you're really balling, the heli runs – some up to 7,000 vertical feet – are right there too.And then there's all the rest of it: Chile, vino, Santiago, that surreal road up from the flats, the passport stamp, winter-in-summer, the food, the parties, the international stir. Oh and this:Podcast NotesOn Mountain Capital PartnersMountain Capital Partners has been the fastest-growing U.S. ski conglomerate over the past year, adding three new ski areas: Willamette Pass, Oregon (as operator); Valle Nevado; and Lee Canyon, Nevada. Here's how the company's current roster stacks up:The company has basically guaranteed that it's not finished empire-building – April's Lee Canyon announcement noted that “future resort investments are being explored and will be announced at a later date.” Untethered by the attributes that define Vail and Alterra's purchases – either a mega-mega or big-city-adjacent – MCP could land its ship just about anywhere.On the Power PassMCP has collected all of those resorts on its Power Pass, an outstanding product that, like Ikon and Epic, also delivers days at non-owned resorts:Sadly, the Power Pass site has no mention of days at Copper Mountain, which last season was included on the top-tier pass.On La ParvaBase elevation: 8,704 feetSummit elevation: 11,722 feetVertical drop: 3,022 feetSkiable acres: 988Trails: 40 (18% expert, 43% advanced, 20% intermediate, 20% beginner)Average annual snowfall: 118 inchesLift fleet: 15 lifts (2 quads, 2 triples, 1 double, 10 surface lifts)On El ColoradoBase elevation: 7,972 feetSummit elevation: 10,935 feetVertical drop: 2,963 feetSkiable acres: 1,100Trails: 98 (34% expert, 32% advanced, 17% intermediate, 17% beginner)Average annual snowfall: N/ALift fleet: 19 lifts (3 triples, 1 double, 15 surface lifts)On Les ArcsMargulis mentions Valle Nevado's connection to Les Arcs, France. This doesn't have much to do with the actual story, but I thought we would all appreciate looking at this trailmap:Les Arcs is actually four interconnected ski areas. Here are the combined stats, in case you're wondering:Base elevation: 3,937 feetSummit elevation: 10,583 feetVertical drop: 6,646 feetSkiable acres: Who knows. Euros measure their resorts in kilometers of slopes, and Les Arcs covers 425 “KMs,” whatever that meansLift fleet: 52 lifts (8 “gondolas etc.”, 27 chairlifts, 17 surface lifts)On that wild access roadIf I rode up from Santiago to the ski resorts floating on the western edge of the Andes mountains today, I would come away with videos and photos of the wild endless switchbacks. But the last time I ascended the route – from a Santiago ski shop to El Colorado – was in 2005, before the Pet Rectangle redefined and ruined our collective lives. So all I have are my memories: a suicidal minibus driver charging uphill with little regard for life or the consequences of high-speed mountainside collisions. No guardrails. Passing on blind curves. Like we were filming some South American Bourne movie. But we weren't. We were just going skiing. Dear Lord.Margulis tells me the highway is much safer now, and who knows if I'm even remembering it correctly, as I'd spent the previous two days in a borderline hallucinatory state brought on by Argentinian lettuce. It was a weird week.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 62/100 in 2023, and number 448 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. 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You can also subscribe for free below:WhoEllen Galbraith, Vice President and General Manager of Stevens Pass, WashingtonRecorded onJune 5, 2023About Stevens PassClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Skykomish, WashingtonYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations:* Unlimited access on Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Stevens Pass Premium Pass* Stevens Pass Select Pass: blacked out during the day on all holidays plus weekends from Dec. 16 to March 10; night skiing allowed on all days* 1- to 7-day access on Epic Day Pass – All Resorts and 32 Resorts versionsClosest neighboring ski areas: Leavenworth Ski Hill (40 minutes), Badger Mountain (1 hour, 28 minutes), Mission Ridge (1 hour, 29 minutes), Echo Valley (1 hour, 58 minutes), Summit at Snoqualmie (2 hours, 4 minutes), Loup Loup (2 hours, 49 minutes) - travel times vary considerably given weather conditions, time of day, and time of yearBase elevation: 3,821 feet at Mill Valley; 4,061 feet at main baseSummit elevation: 5,600 feet at top of Big Chief Mountain, 5,845 feet at top of Cowboy MountainVertical drop: 1,779 from top of Big Chief to bottom of Mill Valley, 1,784 from top of Cowboy to main baseSkiable Acres: 1,125Average annual snowfall: 460 inchesTrail count: 57Lift count: 11 (4 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples [Southern Cross and Double Diamond are one long up-and-over lift], 1 double, 2 carpets – this is the anticipated lift fleet for 2023-24, which includes the upgrade of Kehr's from a Riblet double to a fixed-grip quad) – view Lift Blog's inventory of Stevens Pass' lift fleet.Why I interviewed herThere is a version of reality in which Washington is a sort of Tahoe North, its snow-bombed ski centers defined by condos bunched mountainside and mixed-use base villages Lego-bricked together for the weekender and spring-breaker. In which the state competes with Colorado or Utah or Montana or Wyoming for conventions and competitions and ski clubs by the planeload. In which Washington skiing matters to anyone other than Washington skiers.But this is not the reality we live in. Because despite several defining factors shared by other great ski regions – plentiful snowfall, proximity to a large airport, locations along major highways, plentiful natural snow, large vertical drops – the state's ski areas are, for the most part, day-drivers. There is little slopeside lodging, nothing approximating a pedestrian base village. Just scattered cabins, ubiquitous RV lots, hotels 40 miles from the lifts.Which, when Washington was a scenic American backwater, was fine. But Seattle is the fastest-growing big city in America. And those new arrivals have money to spend: per-capita personal income in the region has more than doubled in the past 20 years, from $39,965 annually in 2003 to $89,274 today, a rate that has significantly outpaced inflation. Thank Amazon or Microsoft or Starbucks or Boeing. But whatever's driving this general affluence, the region's ski infrastructure has simultaneously benefitted from it and failed to keep up.There are good reasons that Vail (Stevens Pass) and Alterra (Crystal) and Boyne (Summit at Snoqualmie) all own ski areas within Seattle's orbit – it's a rabid and monied market, and one with a reliable enough snowtrain that Stevens Pass owns exactly two snowguns. Snoqualmie doesn't have any (well, a few for their tubing park). All of these companies know how to build resorts. But they can't do it in Washington. Hemmed in by national parks or NIMBYs or terrain too severe for building, they are stuck with powder-day and weekend parades of SUVs dozens of miles long.Which takes us to the purpose of this podcast. What is the future of Washington skiing? That it should continue unchanged seems an insane proposition. But absent large-scale infrastructure investment, the state's Seattle-adjacent ski areas have had to get creative to manage crowds. Crystal's season pass price nearly tripled in just two years. Summit at Snoqualmie is trying to build its way out with ever-more, ever-more-high-capacity lifts. And Stevens Pass follows the mothership's policy of limiting day tickets even as access remains unlimited on a variety of highly affordable Epic Passes.Washington will likely never be an epicenter of destination ski resorts like the Wasatch or Summit County or Tahoe. But it does need to evolve into something other than what it is right now: a big-mountain, high-traffic region that is trying to pretend like it's Michigan's Upper Peninsula, isolated and depopulated and wild. Stevens Pass will be an important character in this drama, creating one version of what it means to be a busy Pacific Northwest Ski area in the so-far eruptive 2020s. Hang on.What we talked aboutStevens Pass' relationship to Whistler; whether the ski area has jumped regional destination status; the ski area's lower-than-average snowfall this past season; the often treacherous but indispensable US-2; earning back trust after you lose it; working the 2002 Olympics; Beaver Creek and the art and importance of grooming; why Galbraith volunteered to work at Stevens Pass when everything started to go sideways during the 2021-22 ski season; the moment the ski area turned around; rethinking parking; employee housing; lodging; RV life; the Kehr's chairlift upgrade; why Stevens Pass is upgrading Kehr's before the even older Seventh Heaven lift; thoughts on replacing Seventh Heaven; the unique up-and-over Double Diamond/Southern Cross lift and whether a future version would still combine the two lifts or upgrade to a detach; potential expansions and lift additions; the masterplan; Stevens Pass snowmaking “system”; the night-skiing footprint; why Stevens Pass still has its own Epic Pass and why the mountain remains unlimited on the Epic Local Pass; comparing Crystal and Stevens' varying responses to Washington's population explosion; and limiting lift ticket sales.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewAt some point, we'll be able to stop discussing the disastrous start to Stevens Pass' 2021-22 ski season. But, to both set context around Galbraith's arrival and to distance her from the genesis of the issues, I'll reset it one more time. Gregory Scruggs, writing in The Seattle Times last year:After a delayed start to the season, snow hammered the Cascades during the [2021]holiday week. Severely understaffed, Stevens Pass struggled to open most of its chairlifts for six weeks, including those serving the popular backside terrain.Vail Resorts, which bought Stevens Pass in 2018, had sold a record number of its season pass product, the Epic Pass, in the run-up to the 2021-22 winter, leaving thousands of Washington residents claiming that they had prepaid for a product they couldn't use. A Change.org petition titled “Hold Vail Resorts Accountable” generated over 45,000 signatures. Over 400 state residents filed complaints against Vail Resorts with the state Attorney General's office. In early January, VailDaily reported that Vail's stock price was underperforming by 25%, with analysts attributing the drop in part to an avalanche of consumer ire about mismanagement at resorts across the country, including Stevens Pass.On Jan. 12, Vail Resorts fired then-general manager Tom Pettigrew and announced that [Tom] Fortune would temporarily relocate from his role as general manager at Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe, California, to right the ship at Stevens Pass.Fortune, the current head of Heavenly and Vail's Tahoe Region, had grown up at the ski area, and Stevens' resurrection constituted a deeply personal mission. He laid out the whole experience when he joined The Storm Skiing Podcast back in April. But after jump-starting the machine, he had to get back to Tahoe. Enter Galbraith, who had worked her way up through the Vail ranks and earned her first shot as a mountain general manager last June. Scruggs wrote a follow-up article this past January, to check in on Stevens and assess her first half-year as resort lead:Galbraith, 42, was brought in to help right the ship last season under interim general manager Tom Fortune as Stevens Pass struggled to operate at full capacity, with staff shortages leading to long lines, closed terrain and irate season pass holders. In May, Galbraith became general manager, and by all accounts the guest experience has improved dramatically since its nadir one year ago. For longtime Stevens Pass regulars, their home mountain feels back to normal, with all 10 chairlifts spinning and ski runs open every day, conditions permitting, and lodges fully open for business. And more promised capital upgrades from deep-pocketed Vail are on the way.“Those memories from last year are still very front of mind,” said Galbraith, from her office overlooking the mountain, where a David Horsey cartoon featuring the abominable snowman lampooning the Stevens Pass debacle is tacked above her desk next to a quote from Gen. George S. Patton. …While customers signed a Change.org petition to hold Vail Resorts accountable last winter and filed consumer complaints with the state attorney general, Stevens Pass is generally earning higher marks under Galbraith's tenure.“After last year's D-plus effort, I give this year a solid B-plus,” said Will Roberts, of Edmonds, via email. “My family is having fun and we are happy to come to Stevens Pass.”So, with a season behind her, how was it going? While the Epic and Ikon passes have somewhat scrambled the traditional who-gets-attention calculus, skiers outside of the Pacific Northwest rarely hear about the region's ski areas unless things get terrible. A heat wave ends Timberline's famous summer season three weeks early. The unlimited-Ikon-Base-Pass-inspired Crystal Mountain meltdown of 2020. Stevens Pass goes sideways. When the national ski media ignores the PNW, that typically means everything's going OK.And we didn't hear much about Stevens this year, did we? Lift aficionados are aware of the Kehr's chairlift upgrade. Powderchasers know the ski area came in significantly under its annual snowfall average despite bomber conditions throughout the West. Locals know that the ski area lost several days to road shutdowns on notoriously dicey US 2. But the rest of us mostly forgot about the joint, and for Vail Resorts, that was probably the best possible outcome.Questions I wish I'd askedIf I'd had more time, or if this interview had been 10 years earlier, or if the mountain hadn't been shuffled among owners in the interim, we surely would have discussed the 2012 Tunnel Creek avalanche. The incident killed three skiers in the popular backcountry area adjacent to Stevens Pass. This Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times feature story by John Branch offers a definitive account of what happened that day. It is a long but essential read, and basically scared me away from the backcountry forever.Why you should ski Stevens PassUsually Facebook is a wasteland overrun by morons who either lack brains, lack empathy, or both. As though someone had flushed the contents of the DSM-5 into the digital netherworld. But once in a while, a flash of brilliance. I observed such an exchange around the time Vail Resorts purchased Stevens Pass in 2018. I can't find the original conversation, so I'll paraphrase:PERSON 1: This is terrible, I don't want a bunch of Vail skiers overrunning my ski area.PERSON 2: You have nothing to worry about. No one is coming from Colorado to ski Stevens Pass. Vail is buying it so that Stevens regulars will go to Park City/Vail/Breckenridge/Whistler on vacation.Person two was right, of course, to an extent. Sure, Colorado or Utah skiers are generally happy reminding everyone that they live in Colorado or Utah. But to an Epic Pass holder living in, say, Pennsylvania or Michigan or New York or Wisconsin, an 1,800-foot, 1,100-acre ski area that averages 460 inches of snow annually sounds like a rowdy good time worth traveling for. Particularly since that ski area is pretty easy to reach via Seattle.I asked Galbraith whether, under the Epic Pass, Stevens had begun to attract more destination guests. She said that it had. It is likely a modest increase, and Stevens Pass will never offer the slopeside condos and snow quality of Utah or Colorado. But it is a revered ski center in a gorgeous natural setting with fierce skiing and a well-defined locals' culture. In our checklist era that the Epic Pass has enabled and defined, Stevens Pass is one mountain that every skier ought to hit eventually.Podcast NotesOn Washington's ski area landscapeWashington has just 16 ski areas and nearly 8 million residents. That gives the state one of the lowest numbers of ski areas, by geographic or population size, of any major ski state:While some of the state's ski areas are quite large, only 11 have chairlifts:We have a better chance of seeing Loup Loup on the Epic Pass than we do of ever building another ski area in Washington State. So this is what we have to work with.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 54/100 in 2023, and number 440 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 15. It dropped for free subscribers on June 18. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoKeith Kreischer, General Manager of Granite Gorge, New HampshireRecorded onMay 30, 2023About Granite GorgeOwned by: Granite Gorge Partnership LLC, a group of local investorsLocated in: Roxbury, New HampshireYear founded: 1959Pass affiliations: NoneReciprocal partners: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Crotched (32 minutes), Brattleboro (32 minutes), Bellows Falls (35 minutes), Pats Peak (37 minutes), Mount Sunapee (50 minutes), Arrowhead (50 minutes), Ascutney (58 minutes), McIntyre (1 hour), Hermitage Club (1 hour, 6 minutes), Mount Snow (1 hour, 9 minutes), Magic (1 hour, 3 minutes), Wachusett (1 hour, 7 minutes), Bromley (1 hour, 13 minutes), Berkshire East (1 hour, 13 minutes), Okemo (1 hour, 13 minutes), Veterans Memorial (1 hour, 14 minutes), Ragged Mountain (1 hour, 16 minutes), Stratton (1 hour, 18 minutes)Base elevation: 800 feetSummit elevation: 1,325 feetVertical drop: 525 feetSkiable Acres: 25Average annual snowfall: 100 inchesTrail count: 17 (2 expert, 3 advanced, 5 intermediate, 7 beginner)Lift count: 3 (1 double, 1 handletow, 1 carpet)Why I interviewed himIt doesn't happen often, these comebacks. Ski areas die and they stay dead. Or they die and return and die again and then they're really gone.We're at a weird inflection point. After decades of exploding numbers followed by decades of divebombing ranks, the number of U.S. ski areas has stabilized over the past 20 years. Most of the ski areas that are going to die already have. Most of the ones that remain will survive indefinitely. Yes, climate change. But this has been a long-simmering storm and operators have strung lines of snowguns like cannons along a castle wall. They are ready to fight and they will.They have plenty to fight for. In most of U.S. America, it is all but impossible to build a new ski area. Imagine if no one could build a new restaurant or grocery store. The owners of existing restaurants and grocery stores would rejoice, knowing that anyone who wanted to eat out or buy a banana would have to do it through them. Such is the state of U.S. skiing – what we have is all we're ever going to get*. The established mountains are not exactly monopolies, but they do not have to worry about unexpected new competition, either.There is one hack: if a would-be owner can find an abandoned ski area, the path to selling lift tickets and hauling weekenders up the incline becomes infinitely easier. It's the difference between fixing up a junkyard car and assembling one from the raw elements of the earth. You'd have a better chance of building a time machine out of cardboard boxes and a Nintendo Game Boy than you would of constructing a ski area on a raw New England hillside. But find one already scarred with the spiderweb of named trails, and you have a chance.It's not a good chance. Ski areas do come back: Saddleback in 2020, Tenney and Granite Gorge in 2023. Les Otten may bring the Balsams Wilderness back as a mega-resort. But most simply fade. There are hundreds of lost ski areas in New England – many times more have died than survived. Many big and established ski centers evaporated: Mt. Tom, Brodie, Crotched East, King Ridge, Moose Mountain, Mt. Whittier, Maple Valley, Plymouth Notch, Snow Valley. Empty lifts still swing over many of these mountains decades after they went bust, but none ever found its way back.So why this one? Why Granite Gorge? A small ski area in a state stuffed with giant ski areas, many of them a mainline shot off the interstate from Boston. Once the joint closed after a rough winter in 1977, that should have been it. Another lost ski area in a state littered with them.But then Granite Gorge re-opened, miraculously, improbably, in 2003, under Fred Baybutt, who also ran a local construction company with his family. Baybutt added snowmaking and night skiing, built a new lodge and a new bridge over from Route 9. He bought a used Borvig double and ran it to the summit.But the ski area never really found momentum under Baybutt. By 2018, the chairlift had ceased operations. The ropetow and carpet continued to spin, but in August 2020, Baybutt died suddenly, and the ski area appeared to die with him.Except that it didn't. Granite Gorge is back. Somehow, this 525-vertical foot, low-elevation molehill whose direct competitors include basically every ski area in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts has more lives than a cartoon coyote smashed under an anvil. It's one of the best stories in New England skiing right now, and I had to hear it.*With rare exceptions, such as the forthcoming Mayflower, Utah.What we talked aboutWhat it's like to take that first general manager job; an overgrown mess; “I had to keep in mind that there was going to be an unlimited amount of punches that were going to be dealt”; how a busted Ford Taurus and a can of Red Bull foreshadowed the renaissance of Granite Gorge; Kreischer's messianic, decade-long quest to rescue Granite Gorge; how an ownership group “who really just wanted this thing back in the hands of the community” came together; advice for up-and-comers in the ski business; trying to save the lost Tanglwood ski area in Pennsylvania or Maple Valley in Vermont; Granite Gorge under the Baybutt family, the previous owners; Keene, New Hampshire; the rabid outdoor culture in the Northeast; how this time is different at Granite Gorge; fixing the bridge back to the ski area; helping ownership understand the enormous capital needs; the power of admitting your shortcomings; “if you don't know something, you need to find someone who does”; the comeback season was “awesome”; much love for Mountain Creek; finding a niche at Nashoba Valley; reviving the Granite Gorge double chair; why the ski area removed the lift's mid-station; Granite Gorge's snowmaking footprint and aspirations; how the ski area's new mountain bike operation will enhance glade skiing; surviving as a small ski area in a big ski state; night skiing; building terrain parks at an appropriate scale for mortals; running a mountain as a dad with five children; keeping lift tickets and passes affordable; a parking shortage; and competing against megapasses.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI first connected with Keith sometime last spring, when he shot me an email with a promising update on Granite Gorge. The ski area was re-opening, he said, but I'd have to keep it to myself for the time being. Shortly after, the new ownership group officially named him general manager, and by August he was whacking weeds from beneath the Granite Gorge sign on Route 9 and brushing ticks off his legs.Excited as I was about this news, I generally don't ask folks to join me on the podcast until they've weathered at least one season leading their current resort. It's impossible to really know the place until you've sat teeth-gritted through a brown rain-soaked January and roared in glory at a nor-easter-driven March power-up. It's just not something you can appreciate through Zuckerberg's Oculus glasses. You have to be there.So we waited. In January, the ski area cranked open with its ropetow. The chairlift came online in mid-February. I was there the next day, taking fastlaps off the summit with my six-year-old. I stopped Kreischer for what would become my first #TwoMinuteStorm (basically, very short interviews with ski area managers) video on Instagram (click through to listen):Kreischer and I talked last summer, so I had a sense of his baseline. This podcast was almost like talking to a different person. It was like he'd spent 10 months cramming for a master's degree in Granite Gorge. Which I guess he had. But waiting was the right decision. Kreischer is a terrific ski area leader, thoughtful and passionate and enthusiastic and full of positive energy. He's the kind of guy who only gets more interested in a topic as he immerses himself in it. And after transforming an overgrown backwoods bump into a living business, his raw passion for the job had only amplified and become more focused. Last summer, Granite Gorge was an abstract thing. It was right there, waiting, but you could only really find it in your imagination. Now it's real. Now, he's actually done it. Actually re-opened a dead-as-the-dinosaurs ski area. Even if you normally just read this article and skip the podcast, listen to this one. Kreischer is as authentic and sincere as they get.Why you should ski Granite GorgeNot to be lazy with it, but I've covered this one already:Of all the ski states in America, I can't think of a rougher one to make a go as an operator than New Hampshire. There are so many good and large resorts and they are impossibly easy to access, stacked along I-93 like a snowy outlet mall. But here's little Granite Gorge, opened in 1959 but busted in the ‘70s and re-opened in 2003 and busted again in 2020 and now, improbably, opened again under a group of local business owners who bought it at auction last June. The joint sits in the southwest corner of the state, well off the main ski thoroughfares, which means it will make it as a locals' bump for Keene or it won't make it at all. I took my 6-year-old and we rolled 15 runs off the double chair that had re-opened the day before after not running since 2018. It was creaky and cranky and the mid-station was gone but it was running. We skied the same run over and over, a thin and windy green lolling off the summit. Six hundred vertical feet, up and down. Skier traffic was light but the tubing hill was full. It was a holiday weekend and we'd found a hack. No liftlines on a New England Sunday.Skiing there feels like being part of an excavation, as though they are digging things out of the ground and looking at them and trying to figure out what the ancients of New Hampshire could have been doing with such contraptions. It's spunky and plucky and a little ramshackle. You drive over a single-vehicle bridge to access a parking lot that's muddy and ungraded and unmanaged. They removed the chairlift mid-station, but it's still laying in parts scattered all over the woods. The lodge is squat and half-finished like a field hospital. But a strong spirit of revival is there, and if the owners can have patience enough to give this thing five years and focus on busloads of kids, it has a future.OK maybe not the best commercial for the place. But here's what Granite Gorge can give you: a completely uncrowded and inexpensive ski experience in a region that's getting short on both. Probably not your destination if you and the boys are looking to link Flipdoodle Supremes on monster kickers. Perfect if, like me, you're a dad who doesn't want to fight crowds on a holiday weekend. Or if you're a local looking to crush turns after work. Or if you live nearby and you have an Epic Pass but you just want to support the joint. There are worse places for your money.Podcast NotesOn the auction timelineThe current owners won Granite Gorge in an auction last June. From the June 6, 2022 Keene Sentinel:It took nearly 10 minutes of deliberation, two bidders dropping out and a back-and-forth bidding war amounting to $210,000 before a developer secured the rights to the former Granite Gorge Ski Area property along with the intent to reopen it for recreation.Between breaks of silence, bidders at Friday's foreclosure auction raised the stakes from an opening bid of $240,000 to a winning bid of $430,000 on site at the property, located along Route 9 in Roxbury. Bryan Granger, the senior vice president of Keene-based wholesale grocery company C&S Wholesale Grocers, clinched the final bid.Granger represented Granite Gorge Partnership, LLC at the auction, which claims itself to be a local group of Keene investors with a “shared desire of returning winter and summer activities to Granite Gorge in a safe and inclusive manner,” according to a media statement Granger provided to The Sentinel.The other bidder was a Massachusetts-based contractor named Nick Williamson.On Granite Gorge's troubled historyNew England Ski History provides a succinct timeline of Granite Gorge's history (the ski area was originally known as “Pinnacle”). A few highlights:Following the 1974-75 season, George LaBrecque transferred the ski area to Maurice Stone. One year later, Stone sold the area to Paul and Eleanor Jensen of Connecticut. Dealing with subpar snowfall, no snowmaking, and aging infrastructure, the Jensens only operated the Pinnacle for the 1976-77 season. Following the season, when mortgage payments were missed, Stone foreclosed and took back the property. There would be no more lift-served skiing at Pinnacle for the rest of the twentieth century.In November 1980, Stone sold the 94-acre Pinnacle property to Juanita Robinson of Kentucky and her three sons, one of whom lived in Massachusetts. Though “big plans” were teased with skiing to return in 1980 or 1981, Pinnacle remained idle.In December 1985, the Robinsons sold the property to Bald Mountain Park, Inc. The real estate entity held the property for fourteen years.In September 1999, Baybutt Construction purchased the former ski area and commenced studies for a potential reopening. …After a quarter of a century of idleness, the Pinnacle became a work site in the spring of 2002 when a new bridge was built from Route 9 to the base area.The Pinnacle reopened in early 2003 under the name of Granite Gorge. … The tiny startup on the Bunny Buster slope featured a rope tow and snowmaking. …After multiple years of planning and decades after the first proposal, Granite Gorge saw a significant expansion in 2005 with the addition of a double chairlift to Spruce Peak.Snowmaking and night skiing were expanded for 2006-07, which also featured a new base yurt. Snowmaking was expanded to the top of the chairlift for the 2008-2009 season, while night skiing followed up the mountain for the 2009-2010 season.In 2010 Granite Gorge was approved for a 300-person lodge, to be built in phases. Portions were completed in 2011 and 2012.In late 2012, parent company Baybutt Construction was dealing with escalating financial problems. One of Baybutt's lenders, Interstate Electrical Services Corp., arranged for a foreclosure auction of some of Baybutt's properties, including Granite Gorge ski area, for February 1, 2013. The auction was cancelled at the last minute and the ski area remained open. That month, Baybutt Construction Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.Granite Gorge continued to operate and grow in subsequent years, including adding to its off season offerings and events. …Granite Gorge scaled back operations for the 2018-19 season, as it ceased operating the chairlift and instead focused on snow tubing and skiing on the Bunny Buster trail. After nearly being auctioned off in the summer of 2019, the ski area continued to operate its surface lifts during the winter of 2019-20.On August 3, 2020, Fred Baybutt died of a sudden heart event at the age of 60. Following his death, Granite Gorge sat idle.On Tanglwood, PAKreischer recalls early snowboard adventures at Tanglwood, one of dozens of abandoned ski areas in Pennsylvania's Poconos. DCSki lists modest stats for the joint: 415 vertical feet on 35 acres served by two double chairs and a ropetow. The place closed around 2010 and liquidated its lifts in 2012. Here's a circa 2008 trailmap:I spent a few hours hiking the place back in 2021. Here's what I wrote at the time:Another 40 minutes up wild Pennsylvania highway is Tanglwood, 415 vertical feet shuttered since 2010. The mountain once had two doubles and two T-bars and a ropetow but now it has nothing, the place stripped as though looted by a ski grinch stuffing the chairs and tower guns into his wicked sleigh. Concrete lift towers anchored into the forest and the trails themselves are all that remain. The place is filled with deer. Like all the ski areas I visited that day it is lined with houses. It is late in the day and the American mole people are emerging to stand on their decks and tend to their plants and I wonder what it would be like to live on a ski area and then not live on a ski area because the ski area is gone and now you just live on a mountain where it hardly ever snows and you can hardly ever ski. I think I would be pissed.On Maple Valley, VermontKreischer also considered resurrecting Maple Valley, a thousand-footer in Southern Vermont. It had a nice little spread:The place opened in 1963 and made it, haltingly, to the end of the century under a series of owners. The culprit was likely a very tough neighborhood – Southern Vermont skiers have their choice of Stratton, Mount Snow, Bromley, or Magic. Maple Valley was just a little too close and a little too small to compete:I also included Granite Gorge on the map, so you can see how close the place is. I wouldn't have bet on Granite to re-open before Maple if pure ski terrain were the only factor to consider. But a fellow named Nicholas Mercede tried twice to open the ski area, according to New England Ski History. NIMBYs beat him back, and he died in 2018 at age 90.The lifts – a pair of 1960s Hall doubles – are, I believe, still standing. An outfit called “Sugar Mountain Holdings” has owned the ski area since 2018, and “a long-term vision was announced for possibly reopening the ski area,” according to New England Ski History.On Ski Resort Tycoon, the videogameKreischer's first run at ski resort management came via Ski Resort Tycoon, a 2000 sim game that you can still purchase on Amazon for $5.95. According to Wikipedia, “A Yeti can also be seen in the game, and it can be found eating the guests.” My God, can you imagine the insurance bill?On the density of New England ski areasNew England is one of the most competitive ski markets on the planet. It's certainly one of the densest, with 100 ski areas stuffed into 71,988 square miles – that's an area small than any major western ski state. The six New England states are small (Maine occupies nearly half of the total square mileage), so they share the glory, but their size masks just how tightly they are clustered. Check this stat: the number of ski areas per square mile across the six New England states is more than four times that of Colorado and six times that of Utah:Of course, New England ski areas tend to measure far smaller than those of the West. But the point of this exercise is to underscore the sheer volume of choices available to the New England skier. Here's what Granite Gorge is competing against as it works to establish itself as a viable business:That means the ski area is fighting against heavies like Mount Snow, Okemo, Stratton, and Mount Sunapee for its local Keene market – and the Keene market is essentially Granite Gorge's only market. There's probably a place for this little knuckler to act as a new-skier assembly line and weekend hideout for families and teenage Park Bros, but there's probably not a tougher place in America to pull this off than southwest New Hampshire.On Granite Gorge's mountain bike park and better glade skiing Kreischer believes that Granite Gorge cannot survive as a winter-only business. Earlier this spring, he announced the construction of a downhill mountain bike park. You can track their progress via Instagram:As regular readers know, I don't cover MTB, but we discuss these new trails in the context of their potential to enhance the ski area's glade network. Very little of Granite Gorge's face has been cut with trails. The potential for glade development is huge, and this initial poke into the forest is an excellent start.On Highland bike parkKreischer and I briefly discuss Highland Bike Park in New Hampshire. This is the only lift-served MTB park in New England that doesn't also double as a ski area. It was, in fact, once a 700-vertical-foot ski area. Here's a circa 1987 trailmap:Highland closed for skiing in 1995, and re-opened as a mountain bike park at some point over the next dozen years. Bike people tell me that the place is one of the best-regarded MTB facilities in New England. Here's the current bike trailmap:There are no current plans to re-open the area for skiing. “While there have been rumors that limited ski operations could resume in the future, the park remains biking-only at this point,” according to New England Ski History. Highland is in a tough spot for skiing, lodged between Ragged and Gunstock, which both have high-speed lifts and far more vertical. Highland sits just over two miles off Interstate 93, however, and there could be room in the market for a terrain-park only mountain à la Woodward Park City. Loon is the current terrain park king of New Hampshire, but it's crowded and expensive. Imagine a parks paradise with $50 day tickets and $300 season passes. That could work.On the alarm beeping in the backgroundYou may notice an alarm beeping in the background during the latter half of the podcast. I thought this was on my end, and I planned to simply edit the noise out, since I'm listening most of the time. After the podcast, I came up the stairs toting a ladder, prepared to dismantle the fire alarm. My wife looked at me, baffled. “What beeping?” she asked. Well, it was on Keith's end. Hopefully he wasn't so devoted to the podcast that he let his house burn down while recording it. Though I doubt that. Maybe he is Batman and that was his Batman alarm alerting him to nearby crimes. Though frankly I'm not sure a superhero could have revived Granite Gorge in six months. So it was probably just his You're Awesome alarm going off. All part of the story here.On an assist from Pats PeakKeith followed up via email after our call to throw some credit to his contemporary at Pats Peak: “I was reflecting on our conversation last night and one huge thing I forgot to mention was Kris Blomback and the help from Pat's Peak. They were instrumental in giving us a patrol sled and some awesome rental equipment that was a big deal getting us going this season. Kris is an amazing guy and a great leader. When I listened to his podcast episode with you, his words of advice to me was virtually verbatim, which really showcases his honesty, class, and true passion for bolstering skiing in this region. I really want to thank Kris and the rest of the Pats team for their help and assistance bringing us back to being a feeder for the entire Southern NH region.”On New Hampshire skiingI am an enormous, unapologetic fan of New Hampshire skiing. The mountains are many and varied, each one distinct. I've hosted a number of New Hampshire resort leaders on the podcast, and I have conversations scheduled with Cranmore GM Ben Wilcox and Attitash GM Brandon Swartz later this year. I also recorded an episode with Dartmouth Skiway GM Mark Adamczyk earlier this week – you'll have that one soon. Here's what's in the catalog right now:* Loon Mountain GM Brian Norton – Nov. 14, 2022* Pats Peak GM Kris Blomback – Sept. 22, 2022* Ragged Mountain GM Erik Barnes – April 29, 2022* Whaleback Executive Director Jon Hunt – June 17, 2021* Waterville Valley President and GM Tim Smith – Feb. 23, 2021* Gunstock President and GM Tom Day – Jan. 13, 2021* Cannon Mountain GM John DeVivo – Oct. 12, 2020* Loon Mountain President and GM Jay Scambio – Feb. 7, 2020The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing in North America year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 51/100 in 2023, and number 437 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. 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You can also subscribe for free below:WhoDarcy Alexander, Vice President and General Manager of Sun Peaks, British ColumbiaRecorded onMay 23, 2023About Sun PeaksClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Nippon Cable CompanyLocated in: Sun Peaks, British ColumbiaYear founded: 1961, as Tod MountainPass affiliations: Ikon Pass: 5 or 7 days; Mountain Collective: 2 daysReciprocal partners: 2 days at Silver StarClosest neighboring ski areas: Harper Mountain (58 minutes), Silver Star (2 hours, 20 minutes)Base elevation: 3,930 feetSummit elevation: 6,824 feetVertical drop: 2,894 feetSkiable Acres: 4,270Average annual snowfall: 237 inchesTrail count: 138 trails and 19 glades (32% advanced/expert, 58% intermediate, 10% beginner)Lift count: 13 (3 high-speed quads, 4 fixed-grip quads, 2 platters, 4 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Sun Peaks' lift fleet) – Sun Peaks will build a fourth high-speed quad, West Bowl Express, in 2024Why I interviewed himBecause this freaking province, man. Twenty-nine ski areas with vertical drops over 1,000 feet. Fourteen soar beyond 2,000. Five cross the 3,000-foot mark. Four pass 4,000. And BC is home to the only two ski areas in North America that give you 5,000 or more vertical feet: Whistler and King Revelstoke. Thirteen BC bumps deliver 1,000-plus acres of terrain, and at least 20 load up on 200 inches or more of snow per season. Check these stats:British Columbia is like the Lamborghini dealership of skiing. Lots of power, lots of flash, lots of hot damn is that real? No duds. Nothing you'd be embarrassed to pick up a date in. A few community bumps, sure. But the BC Bros can stack their power towers – Big White, Fernie, Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Panorama, Red, Revelstoke, Silver Star, Sun Peaks, Whistler, and Whitewater – against any collection of ski areas anywhere on the planet and feel pretty good about winning that knife fight.And yet, even in this Seal Team Six of ski resorts, Sun Peaks looks heroic, epaulets and medals dangling from its dress blues. This is the second-largest ski area in Canada. Ponder that BC ski roster again to understand what that means: Sun Peaks gives you more acreage than anything on the famed Powder Highway, more than Revy or Red or Kicking Horse or Fernie. Turn north at Kamloops, east at Hefley Creek, and get lost at the end of the valley.But Sun Peaks' sheer size is less impressive than how the resort won those big-mountain stats. “British Columbia has probably the most progressive ski resort development policy in the world,” Alexander tells me in the podcast. When he arrived at the bump that was then called “Tod Mountain” in 1993, the place was three chairlifts and some surface movers serving a single peak:Over the next 30 years, Nippon Cable transformed the joint into a vast ski Narnia not only because they were willing to funnel vast capital into the hill, but because the BC government let them do it, under a set of rules known as the B.C. Commercial Alpine Ski policy. While inspiring, this is not an unusual ski area evolution tale for Western Canada. Compare the 10 largest BC ski areas today to the 10 largest in 1994:The acreage explosions at all but Whistler-Blackcomb (which at the time operated as independent ski areas), are astonishing. To underscore the point, check out the same years' comparison for the 10-largest U.S. ski areas:Certainly, the U.S. has seen some dramatic shuffling, especially as Vail and Alterra combined Canyons with Park City and Alpine Meadows with the ski area formerly known as Squaw Valley to form the megaresorts of Park City and Palisades Tahoe. That Big Sky didn't measure on the top 10 in 1994 – the tram didn't arrive until 1995 – is amazing. But the Western U.S., in 1994, was already home to legions of enormous ski resorts. That Heavenly, Mammoth, and Jackson Hole are the exact same size today as they were 29 years ago illustrates the difference between the two countries' attitudes toward ski resort expansion and development. Canada nurtures growth. The U.S. makes it as difficult as possible. Indeed, the reason Big Sky was able to ascend to monster status is that the resort sits entirely on private land, immunizing it from Forest Service bureaucracy and the endless public challenges that attend it.Sun Peaks is a case study in BC's development-friendly policies actualized. More important: the resort's evolution is a case study in smart, transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly development. Alexander explains in the podcast that the long-range goal has been to build not just walkable base villages, but a walkable community stretching from one end of the valley to the other. This is the point that's so often missed in the United States: not all growth and development is bad. The reckless, developer-driven, luxury-focused, disconnected sprawl that is U.S. America's default building mode is terrible and inhuman and ought to be curtailed. Deliberate, dense, interconnected, metered development based upon a community masterplan - which is what Sun Peaks is doing - should be encouraged.This sort of thoughtful growth does not dilute mountain communities. It creates them. Rather than trying to freeze development in time – a posture that only kicks sprawl ever farther out from the mountains and leads directly to the traffic addling so many Western U.S. ski towns – BC has enabled and empowered the sort of place-building that will create sustainable mountain communities over the long term. It's an inspiring model, and one that The Storm will examine intensely as I focus more deliberately on Canada.What we talked aboutRecord skier visits; bringing back that international vibe; touring Western Canada; Sun Peaks' first season on the Ikon Pass; the secret giant; how to dodge what few liftlines the resort has; the Mountain Collective as Ikon test run; Tod Mountain in the early 1990s; ski area masterplanning; Sunshine Village; growing Sun Peaks from backwater to the second-largest ski area in Canada; Nippon Cable, the Japanese lift manufacturer that owns Sun Peaks; why Sun Peaks doesn't use Nippon lifts; why Sun Peaks changed its name from “Tod Mountain” in 1993; an interesting tidbit about Whistler ownership; whether Sun Peaks ever considered joining the Epic Pass; Sun Peaks' masterplan; potential terrain expansions; upgrade potential for Sunburst and Sundance lifts; future lift additions; “the guy who serves the most ski terrain with the fewest lifts is the most efficient”; going deep on the coming West Bowl Express quad and the new terrain that will go along with it; why Sun Peaks retired the West Bowl T-bar before replacing it; better access to Gil's; why Sun Peaks is building the lift over three summers; the amazing Burfield lift, a fixed-grip quad that stretches nearly 3,000 vertical feet; potentially shortening that lift; why Burfield will likely never be a high-speed lift; prioritizing lift projects after West Bowl; converting – not replacing – Orient from a fixed-grip quad to a high-speed quad or six-pack; village-building; the potential major lift that's not on Sun Peaks' masterplan; and potentially connecting the resort to the Trans-Canada highway by paved road from the east.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIn April, Sun Peaks announced construction of a new high-speed quad in West Bowl for the 2024-25 ski season. The lift will replace the West Bowl T-bar, visible on this circa 2019 trailmap, on a longer line that pushes the boundary away from the 7 Mile Road trail:The resort will lengthen the existing trails to meet the new lift's load point down the mountain, as Alexander explains in the podcast.This will be Sun Peaks' third new chairlift in three years, following new fixed-grip quads at Crystal and Orient in 2020 and 2018, respectively. Sun Peaks approaches chairlift construction in a unique manner, with a history of building lifts as fixed-grip machines and then upgrading them to high-speed lifts later on. Orient, for example, may evolve into a high-speed six-pack that lands several hundred more feet up the mountain. Slowly, deliberately, endlessly, Sun Peaks grows and evolves.While Alexander and his team continue to stack bricks into the resort's foundation, they simultaneously grow the mountain's profile. A few years back, the resort joined the Mountain Collective. Last October, it joined Ikon. And, kaboom: no more secret at the end of the road.That's a good thing. If these BC giants are to thrive, they're going to need help outside the province, which hosts a population of approximately 5 million in an area the size of California (39 million residents), Colorado (5.8 million), and Utah (3.4 million) combined. That means bringing skiers burned out on Summit County and Wasatch liftlines across the border, where big ski resorts continue to get bigger and the liftlines rarely form (outside of the West Coast).I don't want to overstate the scale of what's happening in BC – certainly big projects still can and do happen in America. And even as they grow fat by North American standards, most of the province's biggest ski areas still look like birdbaths compared to the ski circuses of Europe. But imagine if, over the next 30 years, 480-acre Ski Cooper transformed into 5,317-acre Vail Mountain. That is essentially what's happened at Sun Peaks since 1993, where a small community bump evolved into an international destination resort 10 times its original size. And they're nowhere near finished – Sun Peaks' masterplan (pg. 141), outlines a monster facility at full build-out:The Mountain Master Plan … will ultimately include a total of 26 ski lifts, including one pulse gondola, one 10G/8C Combi lift one detachable grip six-passenger chairlift, four detachable quadruple chairlifts, nine fixed grip quadruple chairlifts, four platter lifts and approximately two beginner moving carpet lifts, with a total combined rated capacity of about 41,186 passengers per hour … The overall Phase 4 [Skier Comfortable Carrying Capacity] will be approximately 14,830 skiers per day. … there will be 225 trails providing 177.5 kilometers of skiing on [1,895 acres] of terrain.Here's a conceptual map of Sun Peaks at full build-out:While plenty of BC ski areas have evolved over the past several decades, no one has accomplished the trick more steadily or with such deliberate, constant momentum as Sun Peaks. It was time to check in to see how they'd done it, and what was going to happen next.What I got wrongAs is my habit, I introduced Sun Peaks as defined by our U.S. American measurement system of feet and acres. Which is not that unusual – this is a U.S. American-based podcast. However, as a courtesy to my Canadian guests, listeners, and readers, I should have also offered the equivalent measurements in meters. Only I am a dumb U.S. American so I don't actually know how to do these conversions. Sorry about that.Why you should ski Sun PeaksThe Ikon Pass is an incredible thing. Purchase one in the spring and spend the following winter bouncing across the snowy horizons. Hit half a dozen of the continent's greatest resorts in Utah, big-mountain hop in Colorado, spend a week in Tahoe or skimming between peaks at Big Sky. Or go to Canada – 10 Ikon destinations sit in the northland, and seven of them crouch in a neat circle straddling BC and Alberta: Norquay, Lake Louise, Sunshine, Panorama, Red, Sun Peaks, and Revelstoke:You could complete that circle in around 17 hours of driving. Which is not much if you're rolling through a two-week roadie and spending two or three days at each resort. Some of them could occupy far more time. Sun Peaks can eat up a week pretty easily. But for the resort-hoppers among us, an Ikon or Mountain Collective pass includes days at Canada's second-largest ski area on its ready-to-eat buffet. Here's a look at every Canadian ski area that participates in a U.S.-based megapass:So the first reason to ski Sun Peaks is that you probably already have access to it. But there's something else – you can just go there and ski. As much as I love the ski resorts of Colorado and Utah, they are just too easy to access for too many people. That's great, but skiing in those powder holes requires a certain patience, an expectation of some kind of madness, a willingness to tweak the algorithm to see what combination of snowfall, open terrain, day of the week, and time of day yields the most open path between you and turns.That calculus is a little easier at Sun Peaks: just show up whenever you want and start skiing. Outside of Whistler, the big-mountain resorts of BC resemble the big-mountain resorts of the American West 40 years ago. Endless labyrinths of untamed terrain, no one to race off the ropeline. BC's collective ski resorts have evolved much faster than the market's realization that there is another set of Rocky Mountain resorts stacked on top of the Rocky Mountain resorts of U.S. America. That's a lot of terrain to roam. And all you need is a passport. Go get it.Podcast NotesOn building an alternate route into Sun Peaks from the eastMost visitors to Sun Peaks are going to spend some time traveling to the resort along the Trans-Canada Highway. Eastbound travelers will simply turn north at Kamloops and then right at Heffley Creek. Westbound travelers pass within five miles of the resort's southeast edge as they drive through Chase, but must continue toward Kamloops before turning toward Sun Peaks – nearly an hour and a half on clear roads. There is a mountain road, unpaved and impassable in wintertime (marked in yellow below), and long-simmering plans for an alternate, less death-defying paved path that could be open year-round (market in blue below). Alexander and I discussed this road, and he seemed optimistic that it will, eventually, get built. Given Sun Peaks' record of actualizing the improbable, I share his outlook. Here's a map of the whole mess:On Nippon Cable and WhistlerWhile Sun Peaks presents as an independent ski area, it is in fact part of a Japan-based conglomerate called Nippon Cable. This is primarily a lift manufacturer, but Nippon also owns a number of ski areas in Japan and 25 percent of Whistler (seriously). Read more about their properties here.On Big Bam ski areaAlexander mentions Big Bam ski area, which sits along the Pine River just west of the Alaska Highway and south of Fort St. John. Here's a homemade trailmap that someone codenamed “Skier72” posted on skimap.org, with the caption, “Approx. Trails at Big Bam. Made with Google Earth. Top lift is future quad chair, bottom lift is rope tow”:Big Bam is a volunteer-run, weekends-only organization with 180 feet of vert. You can follow them on Facebook (their last Instapost was in 2014). Alexander mentioned that the ski area had moved from its original location, though I couldn't find any information on the old hill. The place has had a rough go – it re-opened (I believe in the current location), in 2009, and was closed from 2016 to 2019 before turning the lifts on again. They seem desperate for a chairlift. If anyone knows more about the Big Bam story, please let me know.On Sun Peaks spare lift fleetAlexander notes that Sun Peaks “might have the least number of lifts for a resort of our size” on the continent. Indeed, the ski area has the third-fewest number of lifts among North America's 10 largest ski areas:On the Burfield chairliftStow this one for ski club trivia night: Sun Peaks is home to what is very likely the longest fixed-grip chairlift in the world. The Burfield quad rises 2,890 vertical feet on a 9,510-foot-long line. According to Lift Blog, ride time is 21 minutes, and the carriers are 115 feet apart. The lift's hourly capacity is just 470 riders – compare that to the Crystal fixed-grip quad right beside it, which can move up to 2,400 skiers per hour.The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 50/100 in 2023, and number 436 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 7. It dropped for free subscribers on June 10. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoMike Hussey, General Manager of Middlebury College Snowbowl, VermontRecorded onMay 15, 2023About Middlebury SnowbowlClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Middlebury CollegeLocated in: Hancock, VermontYear founded: 1936Pass affiliations: Indy Pass Allied ResortReciprocal partners: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Sugarbush (38 minutes), Mad River Glen (43 minutes), Pico (45 minutes), Killington (49 minutes)Base elevation: 1,720 feetSummit elevation: 2,720 feetVertical drop: 1,000 feetSkiable Acres: 100 on-trail; 600+ woods and gladesAverage annual snowfall: 200 inchesTrail count: 17 (8 advanced/expert, 4 intermediate, 5 beginner) + 11 gladesLift count: 4 (1 fixed-grip quad [to replace Sheehan double for 2023-24 ski season], 2 triples, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Middlebury Snowbowl's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himI've held Michigan Wolverines football season tickets for the past 15 years. The team's 12-game schedule acts as a sort of life framework for three months each fall. Where the team goes, I often go: Oklahoma in 2025, Texas in 2027, Washington in 2028. Plus Ann Arbor, all the time, for home games. I like big games, ranked opponents, rivalries. This year's home schedule is a stinker: East Carolina, UNLV, Bowling Green, Rutgers, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State. To be a Michigan fan is to assume the boys will win those first six easily before a fistfight with the Buckeyes. In college football, big brand names get nearly all the glory nearly all the time.Skiing is a little bit like that. Ask your friend who skis three to 10 days per year where they go, and you'll likely get a list of familiars: Mammoth, Park City, Breck, Vail. In New England or New York, the list will be some mix of Stratton, Mount Snow, Okemo, Killington, Sugarbush, Hunter, Windham. All fine mountains, and all worthy of three-day Dan's discretionary skiing dollars. They will get his social media posts and elevator chats too. In skiing, as in college football, legacy and brand mean a hell of a lot.Which takes us to Middlebury Snowbowl (though you're probably wondering how). Being a thousand-vertical foot ski area in Vermont is a little like being the Rutgers football team in the Big 10. You know you're going to lose most of your games most of the time: Rutgers is 12-58 in Big 10 play since joining the conference in 2014. And no wonder: officials slotted the team in the East division, alongside blue chips Ohio State (69-6 in Big 10 play since 2014), Michigan (53-22), and Penn State (49-30). Rutgers is 1-26 against those three teams over that span (the one win was versus Michigan in 2014; yes, I was at that game; yes, it was clear that the Rutgers fans had not been there before).Vermont state highway 100 is the Big 10 East of New England skiing: Mount Snow, Okemo, Killington, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Stowe, and Smugglers' Notch all sit along or near this north-south route. So does Middlebury Snowbowl. Here's how they all stack up:It's all a little incongruous, this land of giants and speedbumps and not much in between. Skiers have shown little mercy for mid-sized ski areas in Vermont. Snow Valley, Plymouth Notch, and Maple Valley have all gone extinct. Ascutney, now a surface-lift bump, was once an 1,800-footer with a high-speed quad. Magic was shuttered for years before pinpointing a scrappy-rebel narrative upon which it could thrive. Saskadena Six and Quechee are both attached to larger entities who maintain the ski hills as guest and resident amenities. Even Bolton Valley missed a season in the late ‘90s during a problematic ownership transition period.Middlebury Snowbowl, of course, has survived since 1936 as a protectorate of Middlebury College, which owns the facility. But money-losing ski areas subsidized by larger entities are out of fashion. The world knows such arrangements are unnecessary; ski areas can and should be self-sustaining. See: Gunstock, Bogus Basin, Bridger Bowl, Mt. Ashland. Mike Hussey knows this, and he has a vision to make the Snowbowl a strong independent business. Oddly, the small ski area's proximity to giants may finally be a positive – as Killington and Sugarbush have driven peak-day lift ticket prices over $200, the Snowbowl has remained an affordable alternative that delivers a scaled-down but still substantial ski experience. Is this Middlebury's moment? I had to find out.What we talked aboutMiddlebury's huge increases in skier visits over the past few seasons; XC snowmaking at Rickert; miracle March; competing in a rapidly changing Vermont and why megapasses and consolidation have been good for most independent ski areas; Middlebury's parking problem; why Middlebury College owns a ski area; the coolest college graduation ceremony in skiing; Middlebury College 101; the relationship between the college and the ski area; whether the ski area does or can make money; a brief history of HKD Snowmakers; transforming Rikert from a locals' slidepath to a modern Nordic ski area; how the college's board of trustees reacted to suggestions that the school close down Rickert and Snowbowl; how Snowbowl lured students back by changing its season pass structure; the Sheehan chairlift upgrade; reflecting on the Worth Mountain lift upgrade to a triple and why Middlebury went with a quad this time; the importance of Skytrac; why Middlebury is introducing night-skiing and where that footprint will sit; why Middlebury keeps only a minimalist terrain park; navigating Act 250 approval; what's fueling Snowbowl's massive investment; potential future snowmaking and parking upgrades; Lake Pleiad; doing the math on Middlebury's massive acreage counts; glade culture; that wacky trailmap; expansion opportunities; so many season pass options; the season pass punch-card benefit; and the Indy Pass.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewSuddenly, Middlebury is booming. Skier visits popped 20 percent this past winter, after soaring 60 percent during the 2021-22 ski season. And while the college still subsidizes ski area operations, management is reinvesting with the hopes of reaching self-sufficiency long term. This summer, Middlebury will install night-skiing and replace the Sheehan double with a brand-new Skytrac quad.What's going on? Why is a thousand-footer jammed between Killington and Sugarbush exploding? Wasn't the Epkon Godzilla supposed to leave nothing but craters and a dozen super resorts as it bulldozed its way across New England?Skiers seem to be telling us that there is room in the marketplace for a ski area that acts like ski areas did for 80 years. Before $200 lift tickets. Before Colorado HQ. Before checklist tourism. Before the social media flex. Before chairlifts could load the population of Delaware into a single carrier.At Middlebury Snowbowl, a minivan filled with the six members of the Parker family of Hancock Vermont can roll into the parking lot on a weekend morning, pay rack rate for lift tickets, and ski all day without waiting in line. They can wander and explore and not get bored. Middlebury's trail network is limited by big-mountain Vermont standards, but there's plenty there. Especially if there's snow on the ground and the Parker clan can handle some light trees. The place sprawls over hundreds of acres, deceptively large.There's a desire and a demand for places like Middlebury Snowbowl right now. For something easier and cleaner and cheaper. More atmosphere and less circus. A day on skis that's just about the skiing.What I got wrongI described Vermont's Act 250 as a state law that governs how ski areas can develop. That's partially correct but somewhat misstates the purpose and intent of the law, which applies to land use and development as a whole across the state. From Vermont's official Natural Resources Board website:Act 250 (10 V.S.A. Chapter 151) is Vermont's land use and development law, enacted in 1970 at a time when Vermont was undergoing significant development pressure. The law provides a public, quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of major subdivisions and developments in Vermont. It assures that larger developments compliment Vermont's unique landscape, economy and community needs. …The effects of Act 250 are most clear when one compares Vermont's pristine landscape with most other states. Protecting Vermont's environmental integrity and the strength of our communities benefits everyone, forming a strong basis for both our economy and our quality of life.The Act 250 process balances environmental and community concerns; a tall order which at times can be complex. Developers, engineers and consultants best navigate the Act 250 process by planning their project, from the earliest stages, with the 10 criteria in mind.As a result of Act 250 and the planning process, project designs, landscaping plans and color schemes fit the landscape. Act 250 has helped Vermont retain its unsurpassed scenic qualities while undergoing the substantial growth of the last 5 decades. Act 250 is also critical because it requires development to conform to municipal and regional plans and Vermont's land use planning goals.The Act 250 criteria have protected many important natural and cultural resources — water and air quality, wildlife habitat and agricultural soils (just to name a few) — that have long been valued by Vermonters and that are an important part of the state's economy. No single law can protect all of Vermont's unique attributes — but Act 250 plays a critical role in maintaining the quality of life that Vermonters enjoy.The law, for all its benefits, is often viewed as a regulatory burden that considerably stunted the potential of Vermont's ski areas over the long term. The late Chris Diamond examined the impacts of Act 250 at length in his book, Ski Inc. 2020:In short order, the ski area operators became the bad guys, the most visible incarnation of the capitalist beast, to these newcomers [in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s]. Over time, the enmity – or, at a minimum, distrust – was formalized in a regulatory structure that made day-to-day business life incredibly difficult. Capitalism brings a certain messiness and unpredictability, something the new political majority would not tolerate. Vermont basically tried to have it both ways: a healthy economy and some of the nation's most restrictive land-use laws. Given a ski area's impact on the natural and social environment, they were disproportionately impacted. Water-quality regulations made it impossible or extraordinarily expensive to expand snowmaking operations. Other criteria under the state's landmark environmental law, Act 250, were aimed at growth issues. The permitting process gave significant influence to those representing the status quo. So it shouldn't be surprising to note that, generally, the status quo was protected. For most rural areas, that meant zero or slow growth. An unintended but inevitable result: As decades passed and people moved on, the population base began to shrink. …My view is that the current situation would be less dire if the state's ski communities were as economically vigorous as their Western counterparts. …During the ‘90s, growth in most of Vermont's ski towns ground to a halt. A notable exception was Okemo, where the Mueller family managed a significant terrain expansion, a second base area, and a related real-estate development. Although their operating competence and focus on service were largely the catalysts, they also benefited from their location in the former manufacturing-based economy of Ludlow. Here the status quo was arguably more focused on economic survival. The Muellers also proved themselves exceptionally skilled at navigating the permit process.The bigger challenge for most Vermont resorts remained water for snowmaking. Most have finally managed to navigate their way to a solution and now offer a competitive product, albeit at great cost and with significant delays. (For Mount Snow that process took over 30 years). With that, and all the other changes that are occurring within the ski realm, I do believe they face a brighter future. Vermont ski towns will continue to evolve into important economic centers. But in my view, they will not be what they might have been.Diamond was a smart guy, and ran Mount Snow and Steamboat over the course of several decades. Ski Inc. 2020 and its companion book, Ski Inc. are must-reads for anyone who enjoys this newsletter. But while I agree with much of Diamond's analysis above, I floated this notion of Act 250-as-development killer to a prominent Vermont resort operator last year. That individual waved their hand toward the base area we were sitting in and the stacks of condos rolling up the hillside. “Well, we built all this,” they said. And Vermont does offer considerably more ski-in, ski-out accommodations than, say, New York. Killington is finally moving ahead with their base village, and the state is home to the best and most-advanced lift systems in the Northeast.So something's working there. The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in between the extremes of the build-it-all and build-nothing-at-all fundamentalists.Why you should ski Middlebury SnowbowlEvery year, more megapasses move into the marketplace. But neither Vail nor Alterra has added a new ski area in the Northeast since Windham joined the Ikon Pass in 2020 (Seven Springs, which joined the Epic Pass in 2022, really serves the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest). It's fair to assume that more skiers are trying to cram into an unchanging number of ski areas each season. And while the mountains can somewhat mitigate peak-day crowds with advanced reservations, lift-ticket limitations, and higher-capacity chairlifts, skiers also have a crowd-control mechanism at their disposal: go somewhere else.Savvy Northeast skiers know how to people-dodge. Sure, go to Killington, Sugarbush, Stowe, Loon, and Cannon. They are all spectacular. But on weekends, unlatch the secret weapons on the ski-area utility belt: Plattekill, Berkshire East, Elk, Black Mountain in New Hampshire and Black Mountain of Maine. Excellent ski areas, all, lacking their competitors' size and crowds but none of their thrill and muscle.Middlebury Snowbowl belongs on this list. True, 1,000 feet of vert makes Middlebury the 16th-tallest ski area in the state of Vermont. And unlike people, the ski area can't just buy a bigger pickup truck to compensate. But 1,000 vertical feet is a good ski run. Especially when it's fed by 200 inches of average annual snowfall that doesn't get shredded by Epkonitron hordes trampling off high-speed chairlifts.At some point, each skier has to decide: will they ski the same dozen ski areas they've always skied and that everyone else they know has always skied, or will they roam a bit, taste test, see if they need that high-speed lift as much as they think you do. Or do they give that up – even if just for a day – to view the snow from a different angle?Podcast NotesOn Vermont being a sparsely populated stateDespite its outsized presence in the U.S. ski industry – the state typically ranks fourth in skier visits behind Colorado, California, and Utah – Vermont is tiny by just about any measure. It's the seventh-smallest U.S. state by size and the second-smallest by population, with around 650,000 residents (Wyoming is last with just 580,000). This surprised me, mostly because the state is so close to so many population centers (New England is home to nearly 15 million people; New York to another 20.5 million).On the U.S. ski industry's massive investmentHussey and I briefly discuss the U.S. ski industry's massive capital investment for this past season. The exact number was $812.4 million, according to the National Ski Areas Association.On that punchcardMiddlebury Snowbowl offers one of the best season pass perks of any ski area in New England: each pass includes a punch card good for four lift tickets. This solves a season passholder's greatest irritation: dragging along cheap-ass procrastinating friends who can't be bothered to buy anything in advance but also don't want to donate a lung to pay for a Saturday lift ticket. Or the friend who has an Ikon Pass and is horrified by the idea of paying for another day of skiing beyond that massive investment. The card is transferrable and has no blackouts. On the Indy Pass Allied and XC programsThe Indy Pass has done a marvelous job adapting to a complex industry. This can be a bit confusing, as Hussey outlines in the podcast – some Indy Pass holders show up to Middlebury expecting “free”* lift tickets. But the ski area is part of the Allied Resorts program, which gets skiers half off on non-holiday weekdays, and 25 percent off at other times. I analyzed the Allied program at length here.Lift tickets to Rickert Nordic Center, which Hussey also manages, are included on the Indy Pass and the drastically discounted Indy XC Pass. I discussed that pass here.*Megapass lift tickets are also characterized as being “free,” but that is incorrect: the passholder paid for the pass in advance, and is simply redeeming a product they've pre-purchased.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 49/100 in 2023, and number 435 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on May 23. It dropped for free subscribers on May 26. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoRobby Ellingson, General Manager of Mt. Baldy, CaliforniaRecorded onMay 8, 2023About Mt. BaldyClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Mt. Baldy Ski Lifts, which is majority owned by Ron EllingsonLocated in: Mt. Baldy, CaliforniaYear founded: 1952Pass affiliations: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Mountain High (1 hour, 12 minutes), Snow Valley (1 hour, 19 minutes), Snow Summit (1 hour, 52 minutes), Bear Mountain (1 hour, 56 minutes) – travel times vary considerably pending time of day and weather conditionsBase elevation: 6,500 feetSummit elevation: 8,600 feetVertical drop: 2,100 feetSkiable Acres: 800-plusAverage annual snowfall: 170 inchesTrail count: 26 (54% advanced/expert, 31% intermediate, 15% beginner)Lift count: 4 double chairs – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mt. Baldy's lift fleetWhy I interviewed himIf you have children under the age of 15 or so, you have likely seen Zootopia. If not, imagine this: anthropomorphic animals (it's Disney), traumatized by eons of predator-eat-prey brutalism, build a city in which they can all coexist after the lions and wolves are given the equivalent of cartoon Beyond burgers or something. This city is divided into realms: desert, jungle, arctic, water, etc. Which is about as believable as thousands of species of walking, talking animals living in non-murderous harmony until you realize, oh yeah, that's basically Los Angeles.The monster, pulsing city, its various terras stacked skyward like realms in Tolkein: ocean then beach then jungle then mountain then desert beyond. Most American cities sprawl outward in concentric rings of Wal-Marts and Applebee's and Autozones. LA gives you whole different worlds every five freeway exits.It's still incongruous, to drive up into the sky and find Mt. Baldy. Not just to find a ski area, because there are plenty of those perched along the city walls, but to find this ski area, pinched in a deep ravine at the end of a narrow highway switchbacking up from the flats. Foot-loading the lattice-towered double chair is like boarding a slow-motion time machine into the sky. And indeed you may think you have. At the top, cellphone service blinks out. The chairlifts are museum pieces from the pre-digital era of industrial design. The trailmap un-scrolled across the baselodge wall teases the Stockton Flats expansion, which will be new… in 1991 (it's still not there).Los Angeles, with its vast wealth and enormous population, could support almost any kind of ski area. Knit the entirety of the mountains above the city together with high-speed lifts, and you would have no issue filling them with skiers. And yet, the closest ski area to Fancy Town is this throwback. Soaring, glorious, gorgeous, but a relic, as though someone turned the lights on in 1952 and forgot about it. There's some grooming but not a lot. Some snowmaking but not a lot. Some services but just enough. A few other skiers but basically none. Meaning not enough for liftlines, at least once you get up Lift 1. It's just you and endless inventive lines through the trees.If I found Baldy staked out in the remote Sierras, a token of another time, I'd be awestruck and amazed. If I found it tucked off some pass in Idaho or Wyoming, I'd understand its end-of-civilization vibe. But so positioned, directly and conspicuously over America's West Coast glitter, the place is puzzling and fascinating. I had to know more.What we talked aboutThat amazing 2022-23 California ski season; why it's almost impossible to get accurate snow measurements at Baldy; why Baldy isn't reliant on CalTrans like the other SoCal ski areas; avy mitigation in SoCal; why Baldy pushes the season so deep into spring; embracing social media; growing up in the mountains above LA; the Ellingson family legacy on the mountain; why bombing the mountain as a kid doesn't prepare you to run it as an adult; loving the mountain and the rush of it all; who owns Mt. Baldy Ski Lifts; building Baldy above Los Angeles starting in 1952; thoughts on the consolidation of Southern California skiing; competing with the Ikon Pass; what happened when Baldy introduced a $49 season pass, and why that product eventually went away; whether Vail has ever driven up from the 210 with an open checkbook; why Baldy never became the “Disneyland of the mountains”; Baldy's Holy Grail expansion and whether it will ever happen; Baldy's throwback vibe; updating the masterplan (from 1993!); priorities for new lifts, including one that could change the texture of the entire resort; the incredible journey of the used lift that will replace Chair 2; upgrades happening to Chair 3 this summer; Baldy's unique follow-the-sun lift operations; how Mt. Baldy's snowmaking system exists in an area facing chronic water shortages; snowmaking priorities; Club Baldy; whether Baldy could ever join the Indy Pass; and Baldy's parking restrictions and whether they could ever build more parking spots.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI've been aware of Mt. Baldy for decades, in the way that I've been aware of every mid-sized-for-its-region ski area, but I never thought much about the place until April 2020.As we all remember, the entire North American ski industry had shut down over the course of a week that March. As most of us have forgotten, a handful re-opened starting in late April. The first of those was Mt. Baldy. On April 22, operating under a tee-time social-distancing structure that permitted small groups of skiers up the mountain in intervals, Baldy turned the lifts back on for the first time in weeks. I lobbed an email into the ether and, much to my surprise, connected with Ellingson for a short podcast conversation.The clever operating scheme that Ellingson patched together told a far larger story than one ski area hacking the Covid shutdowns. It was that, of course, but it also distilled the rowdy spirit of independent ski areas into one tangible act: a simple, creative, rapidly conceived and executed set of operating procedures that flexed to both the complexities of a global pandemic and the nuances of a single ski area. Vail and Alterra can do a lot of things, but that sort of nimble adaptation is harder for them (though Crystal, Washington was one of the half-dozen or so ski areas to re-open that spring). Baldy's scheme was brash without being reckless - Ellingson did not ask the local or state authorities' permission to re-open the bump, but he did so with 10 percent capacity restrictions that seem conservative in hindsight. The plan showcased the vitality of independent ski areas, and also their necessity. Remember that, in those first weeks after the Covid shutdowns, there was some doubt as to whether the 2020-21 ski season would happen at all (and, indeed, in many European nations, it basically didn't), but Baldy showed, early and decisively, that some version of skiing could co-exist with Covid, and the industry's focus quickly swiveled from “if” to “how.”That sense of quirky, raw independence animates everything about Mt. Baldy. There is nothing else like it in America. And not in the way that there's nothing else like Alta or Vail Mountain or Killington or Whiteface, which each have unique terrain and snowfall patterns and cultures, but similar ways of being. Baldy just feels like a different way of being a ski area, like when you go to Europe and all of the cars and buildings look different and you're like, OK, this is a different way of being a civilization. Or I guess like skiing in Europe, which really feels nothing at all like America.It's hard to understand without experiencing it for yourself. In March, I finally stopped in and skied the place. And I had to ask what in the world I'd just experienced.What I got wrongFor some reason, I'd thought that the Mueller lift company had gone the way of the Riblet (meaning, out of business). I said so during our interview, when Ellingson noted that he had ordered new chairs for Chair 3, a 1978 Mueller double. He pointed out that the company is still in business, in Canada.Why you should ski Mt. BaldyIn the podcast, I ask Ellingson if Vail Resorts has ever brought its big fat checkbook up the access road. He said they haven't, which is both surprising and not surprising. Surprising because Vail has purchased a ski area within the orbit of pretty much every cold-weather or mountain-adjacent city in the United States, with the exception of Los Angeles. Not surprising because Vail tends to buy renovated houses, rather than repair jobs. Not that there's anything broken about Baldy, but four double chairlifts is not exactly Vail's brand.I asked about Vail's interest for this reason: as a fully permitted ski area with secure water rights standing above the nation's second-most-populous city, Baldy is an irreplaceable asset. There are only a handful of ski areas in the National Forests above Los Angeles. Alterra owns three of them: Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, and Snow Valley. Mountain High is itself in acquisition mode, purchasing Dodge Ridge in 2021 and China Peak last year. Mt. Waterman has no snowmaking and has not turned the lifts on for public skiing in more than three years. A few other Forest Service permits remain active, though the ski areas have long closed: Cedar Pass, Green Valley, Kratka Ridge. That makes Baldy the only viable LA-area independent ski area that would make sense as a megapass acquisition.It's unlikely, but not impossible. It would cost tens of millions to upgrade the resort's lift and snowmaking infrastructure to handle Epic Pass volumes. Eventually, however, Vail may conclude that their only way to compete with Alterra for LA is to buy their way in. And, as Ellingson says in the podcast, “everything is for sale” - for the right price.My point here is this: if you want to experience the funky, idiosyncratic Mt. Baldy that I'm describing here, don't wait to do it. This is not Mad River Glen, shielded from over-development by co-op bylaws. This is a locally owned and operated ski area that has done what they could with what they've had for decades. That it's quaint and wild is a function of circumstance rather than destiny. Someone could buy this. Someone could change this. Someone could make this Big Bear 2. I'm not going to tell you whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing, but I will tell you that it would be a different thing. And that different thing could happen tomorrow or it could happen 30 years from now or it could happen never. Don't bet against it. Go ski Baldy the next chance you get.Podcast NotesOn SoCal summit elevationsWe briefly discussed the top altitude of the various SoCal ski areas. Bear Mountain checks in with the highest, topping out at 8,805 feet at the top of Bear Peak. Baldy is right behind, at 8,600 at the tops of both lifts 3 and 4. Baldy is the king of SoCal vert, however – when you can ski all the way to the bottom of Lift 1. Some seasons, this doesn't happen at all, but this year, Ellingson said one of his employees skied to the base more than 50 days.Just for fun, here's an inventory of all California ski areas' headline stats, with SoCal ski areas highlighted in blue:On reading recommendations Ellingson mentions a book by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard: Let My People Surf. Here's a link if you want to check it out.On the bells clanging in the backgroundYou may notice bells clanging in the background during a good portion of the podcast. While you may conclude that I recorded this episode in a Christmas village, this was just our family's eight-week-old kittens batting their cat toys around in the background. Eventually I called in reinforcements to shut this illicit operation down, but in the meantime, chaos reigned.On Mt. Waterman not being a real ski areaMt. Waterman is, technically, still a functioning ski area. Their Forest Service permit is active. Someone regularly updates their Facebook page and website. However. The lifts haven't actually spun for the public since early 2020, pre-Covid shutdowns. There is always some excuse: not enough workers, no power, no snow, the road is closed. The place has no snowmaking, which, in Southern California in 2023, is as absurd as it sounds. But they failed to open even after this year's massive storm, which brought as much as 10 feet to the other ski areas in the region.It's fair to suspect something shady is going on here. I'm not making any accusations, but the Forest Service ought to investigate (if they're even equipped to do that) why the ski area so infrequently opens. I am usually allergic to online mob violence, but the ruthless shaming by disappointed would-be Waterman skiers to the ski area's every Facebook post is consistent, disgusted, and hilarious:The whole “you're just running the lifts for your friends and family” accusation is fairly common. I have no idea if it's true. If so, this place needs to be liberated for the people.On Stockton FlatsSki straight off Chair 4 and angle slightly right, sidestep a few feet up, and you'll see a vast kingdom stretching off into the wilderness. Straight down, marvelous untracked pow. This is Stockton Flats, the long-teased but never actualized expansion off Baldy's backside. This circa 2006 trailmap shows up to six lifts spread over 2,200 vertical feet on the expansion:The potential expansion is so built into Baldy's lore that the large trailmap stretched across the baselodge still teases it:So, why hasn't the expansion happened? Will it ever? We discuss that extensively in the podcast.On the Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement ActEllingson refers to the “Summertime Enhancement Act” that Congress passed several years ago. This was a 2010 law that allowed ski areas operating on Forest Service land to expand operations into the summer. Thus: all the mountain coasters, ziplines, disc golf, mountain biking, and other stuff you see happening around ski areas in the offseason. In other words, this law allowed ski areas to evolve into year-round businesses, as their non-Forest Service counterparts had been doing for decades. It was, by all accounts, a huge boost to the viability of the nation's ski industry.On our last Mt. Baldy podcastEllingson and I recorded a podcast episode previously, on April 22, 2020. Heads up: the energy here is way different than what you're accustomed to from The Storm. In summary, when Covid hit, no one cared about anything else but Covid for like three months. So I halted my regular podcast series (which at the time consisted of just 14 episodes), and pivoted to a “Covid-19 & Skiing” series. These were short – generally about 30 minutes – and explored the impact of Covid on skiing in the most sober possible terms. There is no music and no sponsors, and barely an introduction. Plus I hope I've gotten better at this. Anyway just setting expectations here.On “Disneyland of the Mountains”I referenced this 1987 Los Angeles Times article that envisioned a future Mt. Baldy that looked a lot like, well, Big Bear. That never happened, obviously, and Ellingson and I discuss why not at length. But it's fascinating to put yourself back in the late ‘80s and see a whole different world than the one that actually happened.On InstapostEllingson talked a bit about his experience as reluctant owner of the Mt. Baldy Instagram account. Frankly I think he does an awesome job. The feed is interesting, raw, quirky, and fun. Give them a follow.On the Mt. Baldy ski experienceIn my recent article recapping the highlights of my 2022-23 ski season, I laid out a day at Mt. Baldy in detail:There is a basic acceptance and understanding among New York City-based skiers that any hill within a three-hour orbit of Manhattan will be maximally oversold and intolerable at all peak times. Unless you go to Plattekill – a family-owned 1,100-footer tucked deep into the Catskills, with a double and a triple and ferocious double-blacks stacked along the frontside. Maybe because it lacks high-speed lifts, maybe because it sits down a tangle of poorly marked backroads, maybe because people just go where the buses go, maybe because parking is limited and that controls liftlines – but the place is never overwhelmed, even during peak season with peak snow.LA's version of Plattekill is Mt. Baldy. The crowds swarm Big Bear and Mountain High. But not Baldy, even though it's right. Freaking. There. Fourteen miles and half an hour off the 210 freeway. An hour from downtown LA. And what a surreal, unbelievable, indescribable experience this place is.The arrival likely puts the masses off. You foot-load a double chair that looks as though it was assembled from repurposed Noah's Ark scrap and ride 20 minutes to where the ski area, essentially, begins (though in deep years you can ski all the way back to the parking lot – this was a deep year).…Here, more double chairs. Your choices, in the morning, are Chair 2 – for beginners, or southeast-facing Chair 4, looker's left. This is all marked as blue terrain, but if the trees are live, it is a mad bazaar of gladed lines, nicely pitched for fast, wild turns through the widely spaced SoCal forest. There are no lift lines, even on a bluebird Saturday.At around 1 or 1:30 – whenever the sun softens the northwest-facing terrain, or whenever they feel like it – Baldy Patrol shuts down Chair 4 and opens Chair 3. Here, vastly more vert, vastly more terrain, and vastly steeper pitch. This is big-mountain stuff, steep, wild, exposed, scary. Again, there are no liftlines. Fastlaps on this caliber of terrain – especially in California – are rare. But here you go. Feast.And at the end of the day, venture onto The Face, the enormous steeps leading back to the bottom of Chair 1.The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 45/100 in 2023, and number 431 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe