Podcasts about Glades

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. The only way to interact with the podcast is to upgrade to The Storm's paid tier. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I will still write newsletters too (I blasted out this post on Smuggs joining Indy Pass this morning). To browse a podcast transcript, click the “transcript” button above - click on any block of text and the audio will jump to that point in the conversation. Paid subscribers can leave a comment in the article below, or by joining The Storm's chat (also below). I'll respond to some comments in the next episode. The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:56.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to Storm. It is September 9th, 2026 on a Wednesday. I've got a really great show for you today. We are going to visit with Loon President and General Manager, Brian Norton, who has been on the show before.00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:04.000Stuart Winchester: But we are going to have him on to talk about the Blackridge expansion that Loon announced last week.00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:10.000Stuart Winchester: There's actually a couple of expansion items in the news today, and I want to hit on those first before we get to Brian.00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:27.000Stuart Winchester: Altera today confirmed a couple of things we already knew in their 2026 to 27 capital plan. So unlike Vale who tends to release all their lifts and expansions and projects at once, Vale or Altera lets them leak out.00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:41.000Stuart Winchester: and then officially announces them sometime later. So, we had a pretty good idea these were coming. The first one will be up at Mont Tremblant, and Tremblant is…00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:44.000Stuart Winchester: If you've been there, it's…00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:55.000Stuart Winchester: an IntraWest legacy, so it has one of these really nice walkable villages of the sort that I'm always pushing for, and it has really great ski terrain. Busiest… it's…00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:11.000Stuart Winchester: Traditionally, Intrawest had the three busiest ski areas in Canada. They had, uh, Whistler was number one, obviously. Number two was Tremblant, and number three, surprisingly, was Blue Mountain, Ontario, which we covered on in the podcast.00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000Stuart Winchester: Pretty recently, but I want to…00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:19.000Stuart Winchester: show you something here. So this is why it's cool to watch, because you can see…00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:31.000Stuart Winchester: some of these things on YouTube or Substack if you're watching the podcast. So this is Tremblant's timber expansion that they're gonna open for 27 to 28. They're gonna have a new.00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:46.000Stuart Winchester: quad, high-speed quad, coming up to the Timber Summit with 8 new trails over here. Uh, and that's gonna be… let's see, they gave an acreage on that, 62 acres. So sometimes it's hard when you see these things, especially if you don't know the mountain.00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:57.000Stuart Winchester: to really know where it fits in. So this one, here's from the top, you can see the new trails, the timber trails, coming down here off of the new.00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:09.000Stuart Winchester: high-speed quad that'll come out of the Versant-Soleil base. And then here is the existing, if you're watching, here's the existing lift that comes up to the current Tremblant Summit.00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:19.000Stuart Winchester: And you can see that right here. So the new expansion will go bloop right up here, and we'll have some new trails over there. And then Altera also announced.00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:32.000Stuart Winchester: or not really announced, but reconfirmed, that will be when the Club Med is open, so that all-inclusive experience will be there for Tremblant. So, nice expansion coming for Tremblant. Obviously.00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:42.000Stuart Winchester: Altera has had a big expansion ongoing at Deer Valley for years and years. So, Deer Valley, prior to 2023.00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.000Stuart Winchester: was really just Bald Mountain.00:04:46.000 --> 00:05:02.000Stuart Winchester: On over to Empire. Uh, and then here's the front side, and then this little baldy peak was here. But over the past three seasons, they've really blown the place out and added thousands and thousands of acres. Uh, Deer Valley, believe it or not, is now the…00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:18.000Stuart Winchester: Sixth largest ski area in America. And, and they're opening 200 more acres this year. Hale Peak will be another high speed quad. I don't have a vertical on Hale Peak, but they did confirm today that Hale Peak will be.00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:29.000Stuart Winchester: 200 acres, so Deer Valley will now total 4,500 acres. It looks, it sounds pretty big, but right next door to it is Park City, which.00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:45.000Stuart Winchester: Combined with the historic canyons is 7,300 acres. That's the largest ski area in the United States. So those are a couple of the expansions that we have coming up. We'll talk about another one in a little bit with Loon. And the reason I wanna talk about expansions with you.00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.000Stuart Winchester: Is… is I… I…00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:58.000Stuart Winchester: I write about this over and over again, but sometimes when I write an article, it fritters off into the wilderness, and I'm not able to…00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:12.000Stuart Winchester: it doesn't have the staying power necessarily where people might find it sometime later. So I want to revisit some of these points that I made in the past about expansions and how important they are. So I wrote this article a few years ago.00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.000Stuart Winchester: I was looking at…00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:34.000Stuart Winchester: So everyone always gets hung up on this active ski ski areas number. And the NSA has tracked this for years and years. And here's the numbers you can see on the screen if you're watching in 1991 to 92 season.00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:46.000Stuart Winchester: The United States had 546 active ski areas. As of 2023 to 24, it had 486. The number for this season was right around 490.00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.000Stuart Winchester: So, oftentimes.00:06:49.000 --> 00:07:04.000Stuart Winchester: We will see articles usually written by folks who are not ski media, just general media, and they'll write about this number and they'll find this statistic and they'll point to the declining number of ski areas and say, skiing is dying. Climate change is killing skiing.00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:17.000Stuart Winchester: But there's actually a much more nuanced story behind that. So I pulled this number last year when I was reading an article from The Motley Fool, which is an investor site that I use. I love The Motley Fool.00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:24.000Stuart Winchester: But it was talking about MTN stock, which a lot of you know is the stock ticker for Vail Resorts.00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:33.000Stuart Winchester: And the Motley Fool article pointed out that in 1992, and this was their bear case, their case against buying MTN stock.00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:44.000Stuart Winchester: During… I'm gonna quote here, the Motley Fool. During the 1992 ski season, there were 546 ski areas operating in the United States, compared to 486 today. This article's from 2025.00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:57.000Stuart Winchester: Supply, says the fool, is flat to shrinking. On the demand side, 3 of the top 5 busiest ski seasons on record occurred each of the last 3 years. Demand is up. So, they were trying to make the point that.00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:07.000Stuart Winchester: Vail Resorts had a very valuable commodity, because the number of ski areas was shrinking. I said, wait a second, this doesn't really make sense, because…00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: How are you having so many fewer?00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:25.000Stuart Winchester: ski areas, and so many more skier visits? Well, the answer is pretty simple. We have a lot more ski terrain. In fact, I did an analysis in response to that Fool article.00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: And I found, just examining…00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:30.000Stuart Winchester: The 11 western ski states.00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:40.000Stuart Winchester: that, minus Alaska, that those 11 states had 54,598 more acres of terrain.00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:50.000Stuart Winchester: available at their ski areas, their lift service ski areas, than they had in 1994. So, yes, there are fewer ski areas.00:08:50.000 --> 00:09:00.000Stuart Winchester: now than there were in the early 90s. There were 546 in 92, 486 today, but there's a lot more terrain, and so what ended up happening was.00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:08.000Stuart Winchester: The ski areas that were successful expanded. It was as simple as that. And when I did this analysis.00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:10.000Stuart Winchester: I looked at…00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:24.000Stuart Winchester: I looked at 92 ski areas that I had the data for from 1992, and they happen to be some of the biggest ski areas in the West. And I compared their acreage in 1994 according to a guidebook I had from that date that I'd kept.00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:30.000Stuart Winchester: 107,671 acres was the total for these ski areas.00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:45.000Stuart Winchester: Fast forward to 2025, when I did this analysis, those same 92 ski areas had grown from 107,671 acres to 159,754 acres.00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:55.000Stuart Winchester: Then I added in a few ski areas that had opened since then, places like Tamarack in Idaho, Blacktail in Montana. There hasn't been a lot, but there's been a few.00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:11.000Stuart Winchester: And then I subtracted the lost ski areas. The biggest of them was Ski Rio in New Mexico. But for the most part, the ski areas that closed were small surface tow operations and they were in the region of a much larger area and most likely failed in large part.00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:29.000Stuart Winchester: Because they couldn't compete with that full service area, which could offer folks not only beginner terrain, but a progression up to more interesting terrain. So, there's a lot more ski terrain than there used to be, and to give you an idea of how much terrain 54,598 acres is.00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:36.000Stuart Winchester: Currently in Colorado, the whole state of Colorado, which has a quarter of the ski terrain in the entire United States.00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:42.000Stuart Winchester: there's 45,552 acres of terrain. So we've added the equivalent of another Colorado.00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:45.000Stuart Winchester: Now, there's a caveat to that.00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:48.000Stuart Winchester: The ski industry has been able to grow by expansion.00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:58.000Stuart Winchester: But it hasn't necessarily been able to grow where it needs to grow, and I made another point, a related point, in another recent article that I wrote.00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:11.000Stuart Winchester: for… about the U.S. Forest Service, and how most of the ski areas in the western United States are built on U.S. Forest Service land. They're leased from the U.S. Forest Service under 40-year terms.00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:18.000Stuart Winchester: However, following the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, those permits.00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: got almost impossible to obtain new permits. The Forest Service had lots and lots of ski areas proposed, but they were all shut down. Everyone except for Beaver Creek and then Blacktail in 1998 were shut down with.00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:51.000Stuart Winchester: court challenges that came out of NEPA in 1969. So, while we have more terrain, skiable terrain, than we had in 1994, the reason it often feels as though the mountains are overcrowded and insufficiently distributed.00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:57.000Stuart Winchester: is because they are. Because we've only been able to expand the ski areas where they were.00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:10.000Stuart Winchester: rather than building new ski areas where people move to. Look at snowy regions like Washington and Oregon, some of the snowiest ski areas in the country. A lot of them still don't have snowmaking because they get so much snow there.00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:22.000Stuart Winchester: Washington in 1980 had 4.1 million people. Today it has 8.2 million people, double the population, but fewer ski areas and some larger.00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:37.000Stuart Winchester: Stevens Pass has certainly grown, Crystal has grown, Mission Ridge has grown. Oregon, same thing, went from 2.6 million people in 1980 to 4.3 million today, but has fewer ski areas now than it did in the 1980s. So…00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:48.000Stuart Winchester: For better or worse, we are stuck right now with growth through expansion. So, I want to get to an expansion. First, I want to tell you about one of my awesome partners.00:12:48.000 --> 00:13:00.000Stuart Winchester: I've been working with Bonfire Collective for a long time, and if you run a ski area or an outdoor brand, you should consider hooking up with them as well.00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:10.000Stuart Winchester: Bonfire Collective is a fractional marketing team that collaborates with ski areas and outdoor brands to give your marketing a fresh perspective and better storytelling.00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:16.000Stuart Winchester: Bonfire can help you rethink your approach in ways that can turbocharge your business.00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:31.000Stuart Winchester: Bonfire Collective, for example, took on the marketing at one New Hampshire sea area and doubled revenue in just three years. And when the storm was ready to invest in its first ever digital marketing campaign last year, I worked with Bonfire to make it happen.00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:36.000Stuart Winchester: I could not be happier with the results. I think you will love working with them too.00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:40.000Stuart Winchester: To get started, you will want to talk to Eric over at Bonfire Collective.00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:56.000Stuart Winchester: Eric was a co-founder of Bluebird Backcountry Colorado, the first human powered ski area. He knows the ski business, as many of you know from that episode of the Storm Skiing Podcast that he appeared on last year. Visit bonfirecollective.com or I will be happy.00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:03.000Stuart Winchester: to make that connection for you. Alright, with that, let's go to our guest for today.00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:15.000Stuart Winchester: Here he is, Mr. Brian Norton. Brian, what an awesome background! Where are you at?00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.000brian norton: Uh, I'm in my office, but that's hanging outside my office, so…00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay, cool, I thought maybe you were in the, uh, the kink barn with the, uh…00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.000Stuart Winchester: With that, with the cool groomer behind you.00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:44.000Stuart Winchester: All right, well, let me give you a proper introduction here. Uh, my guest today is president and general manager of Loon Mountain, New Hampshire since 2022. Loon claims New Hampshire's tallest vertical drop at 2,190 feet.00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:58.000Stuart Winchester: served by 13 lifts. Last week, Loon announced the 272-acre Black Ridge expansion that, when added to the resort's existing 403-acre footprint.00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:08.000Stuart Winchester: will make Lune the largest ski area in New Hampshire, and the sixth largest ski area in the eastern United States at 675 acres.00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:23.000Stuart Winchester: He began his Loon career in 2001 as a Lyft attendant, and now he's running the place. He is Brian Norton. Brian, welcome back to the storm. Always good to see what's new at Loon, because there is always something new at Loon. How you doing today, Brian?00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:29.000brian norton: I'm doing awesome. It's sweatshirt weather right now, so we're getting closer.00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:33.000Stuart Winchester: Nice. Did you do a snowmaking test yet, or is that Sunday River's ter.00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:38.000brian norton: No, we have not done that yet. Sunday will probably beat us to that one.00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:54.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let's talk about Black Ridge. This is really an amazing project, and I've been pretty vocal and frank over the years about what I saw as Loon's biggest shortcoming, which was not enough real expert terrain, and by that I really meant glades, wild terrain.00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:58.000Stuart Winchester: Talk to us about Black Ridge, what it is, and how it's going to change Loon.00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:14.000brian norton: Yeah, I mean, it's a pivotal project for the ski resort. As you mentioned, it's almost doubling the size of the ski resort. For those not familiar with it, it's this kind of secret shoulder glade skiing. It's been there.00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:30.000brian norton: It was developed over time by some locals just kind of going out there, you know, maybe not necessarily following the rules, certainly not at our approval, but people have been skiing there. I mean, I think the first time I went skiing over there, I was in college, like 2001, and it was like you had to kind of find your way over there. You had to commit to it.00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:28.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:42.000brian norton: beautiful, um, beautiful area. It's like a big catcher's mitt off the side of the ski resort that just holds snow really well, and there's a lot of, um, it's a mile and a quarter.00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:51.000brian norton: hike, uh, across a ridgeline. You can actually ski or skate most of it. There's a few sections where you have to, you know, unclick and walk and…00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:09.000brian norton: um, you just get this incredible glade scheme that brings you right back to the bottom of North Peak, so it's like this full circle, you're way the heck out there, there's a couple viewpoints where you can stand at this cliff and just look back at the ski resort and look into the town of Lincoln, you're like, whoa, I am way out there, but a completely different view than, you know, most people would.00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:23.000brian norton: would ever get to see from Loon. And so, yeah, we've been working on it for a couple years with the Forest Service, trying to, like, wrap that into our special use permit. And, um, yeah, super happy to have that announcement, kind of. Like I said, planning.00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:28.000brian norton: For a long time, but awesome to have that hit the newsstands the other day.00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:34.000Stuart Winchester: So help us understand Loon's Forest Service footprint. This is a conversation I'm accustomed to having with.00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:53.000Stuart Winchester: your partners who run western ski areas. There's very few, just 7 in New England, that touch Forest Service land. My understanding is that Loon is not entirely on Forest Service land. I believe it's Kissing Cousins Lift. You're riding up, and you see a sign, welcome to the White Mountains National Forest. So, where are those boundaries at?00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:55.000Stuart Winchester: at Loon.00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:05.000brian norton: Yeah, it's really just the bottom. I mean, like, pretty much if you can hit a golf ball there, you're on private land from a base area, hit it up, and then everything above there is forest service land, so…00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.000brian norton: Yeah, it's the top 95% of the skewers work.00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:07.000Stuart Winchester: So how?00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:16.000Stuart Winchester: Right, so Loon went through quite a process as I remember it back in the 90s to open up South Peak and there was…00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:22.000Stuart Winchester: a lot of resistance to that locally, and ultimately, you got it opened.00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.000Stuart Winchester: was…00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:30.000Stuart Winchester: if you look at Black Ridge, it's… there's no new lift, right? It's essentially…00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:35.000Stuart Winchester: Glade thinning. So, so I want to talk about the process for that in a minute, but.00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:45.000Stuart Winchester: What was the process like of working with the Forest Service? Did they seem much more amenable and does the local community seem much more amenable?00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:54.000Stuart Winchester: to this given the small actual environmental impact? And was that a consideration in deciding how to develop this terrain?00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:10.000brian norton: I mean, it was definitely a consideration for us as we think about, you know, growing the ski resort sustainably. I think the, you know, and our partnership with the Forest Service is a really great one. I hear, you know, different stories from around the industry or around the country.00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:26.000brian norton: I just can't speak highly enough of our team here and the relationship that we have with them. And, the fact that this was kind of already skiing, the fact that it was super low impact, we weren't ever going to put a lift or a lodge or some sort of, you know, driving snow cats over there. We're not even doing any of that.00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:31.000brian norton: really, so it was a small lift, I think, to bring this kind of.00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:43.000brian norton: thing that people were skiing into the permit boundary, which really, you know, there's some work to clean it up and to create slightly better access, mostly for our patrol team to react out there.00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:46.000brian norton: But this is, um…00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.000brian norton: It's a small lift to bring our…00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:52.000brian norton: Services, so that we can go, you know, in the past.00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:56.000brian norton: Someone would get hurt, someone would get lost ‘cause they thought they knew where they were going.00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:14.000brian norton: technically, we're supposed to call fish and game, and they're supposed to go rescue them. A lot of times, we helped with that. So, by bringing this into the permit boundary, we're allowed to help manage it. So, um, this is really a win-win for everyone. It's a win-win for the skiers, it's a win-win for the Forest Service, because now we can actually manage something that wasn'.00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:16.000brian norton: That's a great opportunity for us.00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's going to be tremendous terrain. You know, another big difference between working in the East and the West is sometimes if you want to open 500 acres of glades in the West, you just drop a rope.00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:39.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, in the east, there tends to be a lot of undergrowth. Now, I don't know if that's the case at Loon, because maybe you have some old growth there, where the canopy is, is, has, you know, shut out some of that little stuff.00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:45.000Stuart Winchester: 200 and what is it, 267 acres? That's a lot of acres to clear.00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:55.000Stuart Winchester: What does it look like in there, and what is the… what is the labor lift gonna be like to glade that out and make it so that you don't need 4 feet of snow to ski it?00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:08.000brian norton: Um, we'll talk about snow in a minute, but in terms of glading, you get across the ridgeline, and you get to this… it's not the high point, like, the actual peak of the mountain, but the high point of the ridgeline.00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:23.000brian norton: And you kind of drop in there, and then it just funnels out both directions. And from that point, it's all hardwoods. And it's just… it's really open. You can kind of ski wherever you want. Now, we're gonna manage it slightly better, so there's better waypoint finding, you know, kind of…00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:42.000brian norton: more organized corridors. There's a river, uh, a stream valley that is between what I would call, you know, Black Ridge proper and, like, the North Peak Glades and Walking Boss, um, that you don't want to end up in, so that's kind of the part of the land that, you know, we're going to try to manage away from, and.00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:53.000brian norton: kind of cut that, you know, the extent of it, kind of clear those glades a little more, so that it's obvious, like, no, no, no, I want to go this way, or I want to go that way, so you all come back out to the… to.00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:50.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:57.000brian norton: But it's not a heavy lift to cut a lot out there.00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:54.000Stuart Winchester: So I.00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:13.000Stuart Winchester: So as far as snow goes, you mentioned a, a little catcher's mitt and along North Peak, and there are some terrific glades in lower New England. Stratton, I think has really, really excellent glades. Magic Mountain has some excellent glades. They're in a little bit different.00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:33.000Stuart Winchester: snow pocket, obviously, than you are, but also farther south. So, so talk to us, you know, Loon averages 160 inches of snow per year, but I don't know where you measure that, and I know that snow stays on different parts of the mountain in different ways, right? Because you can ski in New Hampshire in June on natural snow at Mount Washington and Tucks.00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:34.000Stuart Winchester: But…00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:39.000Stuart Winchester: That's not the case in most places. So, so talk to us about.00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:48.000Stuart Winchester: the snow in that area, and how often you think you'll realistically be able to offer that glade skiing experience in Black Ridge.00:22:48.000 --> 00:23:06.000brian norton: Yeah, I mean, I think it's gonna be… it's definitely a different experience, so we're gonna have different, um, opening protocols when that part of the mountain will open versus your traditional glade skiing, so it's gonna be a little more raw, a little more rugged, we're gonna be a little more free with opening it. Um, we're working through those kind of details with our patrol team right now.00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:23.000brian norton: Um, in terms of holding snow, predominant northeast wind here, everything cuts across the ski resort as you're looking at it, right to left, and guess what's far left? This, right? So, um, I'll tell you a funny story. We were walking over there with the Forest Service this.00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:25.000brian norton: Spring, and we're walking along the ridgeline.00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:38.000brian norton: And we're contemplating, like, how we get snowmobile access out there for our patrol team to, you know, manage this terrain in a reasonable amount of time to, like, respond to an incident. And we get to these two big boulders.00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:47.000brian norton: like, oh man, how are we gonna get a snowmobile through here? Like, it's… we can't get a machine all the way out here to move these boulders, what are we gonna do? And then it, like.00:23:47.000 --> 00:24:06.000brian norton: I don't remember seeing these boulders in the winter. That means there's 4 feet of snow here on this ridgeline, so it's like… it just… it's not the same as the rest of the ski resort when you think about, like, how that pocket holds snow and takes all the wind-deposited snow from the whole area and just stacks up in there, so it was a bit… it was eye-opening for us to be like.00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:54.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:59.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.000brian norton: Wait a minute, we don't see these in the winter, and they're 4-foot boulders, so.00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:28.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, man, you're really making me want to get back in there. You know, I did not mention in the intro that Loon is owned by Boyne Resorts, one of the 11 ski areas in the Boyne family. And Boyne has done just a tremendous amount of work over the past decade, putting in new lifts and doing expansions.00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:30.000Stuart Winchester: In fact, I think…00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:42.000Stuart Winchester: the last 5 expansions in New England were all Boyne Mountains. It was Brackett Basin, Burnt Mountain, it was, uh, Merrill Hill at Sunday River, it was the little one you did at Loon the other… the other, uh, couple years ago, and… and.00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:54.000Stuart Winchester: Black Ridge, you know, the one that this most echoes for Sugarloaf fans, and Sugarloaf is far, far, far, far north, but it's worth going to, is… is they opened that several hundred acre.00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:04.000Stuart Winchester: terrain expansion of Brackett Basin back in 2011. They expanded it with Burnt Ridge a few years later, and it's all natural bladed. How much…00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.000Stuart Winchester: Did you…00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:21.000Stuart Winchester: did Loon and the team at Loon use Bracket Basin as an inspiration, either… either to see as, like, a proof of concept this'll work, or… or just to imagine a… a different way of, uh… of expanding the resort without necessarily having to spend.00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:28.000Stuart Winchester: you know, $20 million on a new lift. Just talk about it, if there's any relationship there, or, you know, learning how to manage it, etc.00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:51.000brian norton: A lot for me personally, and for the team here. I mean, I'm not the the people that have been out there developing that glade skiing probably aren't necessarily thinking about bracket basin, but 100%. That was the equivalent. That was, you know, I've referred to it through this whole planning process as our version of bracket basin. We've been in communication with the team up there about how they manage it, what their entrance looks like all of those things. So.00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:54.000brian norton: Yeah, it's our version of that, 100%.00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:12.000Stuart Winchester: And just from a liability point of view, it's funny, because I grew up in Michigan, and I've been skiing the Boyne Mountains there since the 90s, and I remember you weren't allowed in the trees, and that was a big no-no. So now here you have, fast forward 30 years, and they're developing these enormous glade skiing pockets, and obviously Jay Peak was a leader.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:17.000Stuart Winchester: our early leader in that, in New England. But what has Boyne learned, do you think.00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:25.000Stuart Winchester: by operating Brackett Basin for the last 15 years, about liability and skiers' abilities to self-manage in terrain like that.00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:36.000brian norton: Yeah, I mean, Sugarloaf, they're Sugarloafers, right? So they're a slightly different clientele than we have here, so I'm sure we'll learn different things. I think the big thing is, you know.00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:30.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:50.000brian norton: clear messaging, and… and with this project, it's… it's very different. I said it earlier, it's different than the rest of the Glades here, so, um, you gotta know what you're doing, and it's gonna be messaged that way, but it's gonna be managed that way, too, and…00:26:50.000 --> 00:27:06.000brian norton: it's gonna pull people around the resort and move people around to places that, you know, it's a bit of a destination now. Camp 3 in North Peak was already a destination, and now you've got another, you know, 300 acres or so just past there that's serviced by the same portal, so…00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:15.000brian norton: yeah, I think our patrol team's gonna have a little bit of work cut out for them, but frankly, the guys and girls that work for our team that are gonna end up over there, like.00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:18.000brian norton: They… they're looking forward to that, so…00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:22.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, well, let's talk about access a little bit. I'll tell you…00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:39.000Stuart Winchester: That, or the listeners at least, people who haven't been there. So you access this expansion through the North Peak lift. It's a high speed quad built in 2004, 1500 vertical foot, 4,800 foot long. But the view off the top is an absolute showstopper. It's one of the best.00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:49.000Stuart Winchester: in New England. I just love it. Uh, my question for you, Brian, is Flight Path 2030, your… your Loon 2030 plan, essentially 10-year plan, published around 2020.00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:55.000Stuart Winchester: did consider an upgrade for the North Peak lift. Now, it's obviously not a very old lift.00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:10.000Stuart Winchester: But I would imagine that there may be some volume considerations as you look to expand the terrain available off this lift. So, A, am I right in seeing that you will be able to fully lap Black Ridge?00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:17.000Stuart Winchester: on the North Peak lift? And B, do you have thoughts on what might be next for North Peak lift?00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:26.000brian norton: Um, yes, you access it from the top of that lift. The entrance is 150 feet from the top of that lift, maybe, off of Whatcom House.00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:45.000brian norton: the primary exit is slightly lower in elevation than North Peak. You come out onto Brookway Extension there, so if you really wanted to lap it, you'd probably unclick and go down there. More often than not, I think what people will do is they'll ski down Brookway, go up Seven Brothers and a gondola, and get back over there if they want to do it again.00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:32.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:28:46.000 --> 00:29:06.000brian norton: So, yeah, I mean, access is pretty strong. In terms of replacing North Peak, yes, that lift is on our planning process. It's probably equivalent to South Peak on any given day, or Lincoln Express, I should say. On any given day, I flip-flop which one's more important. You know, we did the Timbertown expansion, and we thought, oh, these people are over here.00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:03.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:22.000brian norton: maybe we should be focused on this lift, and now we're doing this thing over here, or maybe we should be focused on North Peak, and, um, I'll tell you that the RFID data that we, you know, 3, 4 years ago, we put RFID gates at North Peak, remote up mountain, you can't get to it without passing another gate, and everyone was kind of looking at us, like.00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:29.000brian norton: What are you doing that for? Data collection, 100%. The things we've learned about how people use that terrain have…00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:26.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:40.000brian norton: driven our snowmaking philosophy, our investment philosophy. Uh, it's… it's last winter that Lyft opened on day one and closed on day 151, I think it was, so it was open every day of the season, so…00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:45.000brian norton: Maybe today, if you're asking me, that one gets done before Lincoln Express.00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:48.000Stuart Winchester: And are you thinking a six-pack? One of those nice D-lines?00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:51.000brian norton: Yeah, I'm sure that's what it would be at a minimum, yeah.00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:51.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, do you like the bubbles, like the one you have at CANC and up at Sunday River?00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:17.000brian norton: The bubbles are awesome for all the reasons they're awesome, but there are some hidden challenges with them as well, particularly when they come into the terminal. They're aerodynamic when the chairs are on the line, but when they come into the terminal, if the wind's blowing the wrong way and the bubbles opening and the wind wants to shut it or vice versa.00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:26.000brian norton: Uh, there's a little give and take there. I… we'd probably end up with bubbles, I think, but, um, yeah, there are… it's not all… it's not all easy with them.00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:24.000Stuart Winchester: That's that.00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:34.000Stuart Winchester: It's Boyne style, right? I was surprised, actually, when I got out to Brighton, and the, uh… their new Sixer, their D-Line out there does not have bubbles. I was like, oh, this.00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:28.000brian norton: Yep.00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:42.000brian norton: Or footrests, or footrests, which is the only one that I think doesn't have footrests, and as a snowboarder, I appreciated that when I rode that.00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:52.000Stuart Winchester: Right, right, right. Yeah, well, the Utah guys don't want to bring the bar down anyway so So, you know, I always think of this expansions like this first, Brian, as a skier.00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:10.000Stuart Winchester: Unless as a customer or as someone, you know, doing a business, I'm really curious. Loon has already historically been the busiest skier in New Hampshire and the pub, the skier visits aren't public anymore. But I would imagine that's still the case. It is busy, busy, busy all the time. It is the idea here.00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:18.000Stuart Winchester: Is it to bring in more skiers, or is it to create more variety at a mountain that…00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:28.000Stuart Winchester: I really think has traditionally had the reputation as a good intermediates family mountain. To maybe start to nudge that a little bit more toward a…00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:40.000Stuart Winchester: uh, more of a Killington profile, where there's… where there's more than one kind of skier? Like, the whole family can have fun there. So is it… is it more skiers, or more terrain for the same amount of skiers to spread them out better?00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:46.000brian norton: Um, both, and I'll clarify more skiers, because, um.00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:58.000brian norton: as the ski resort develops, and as the town develops, we inch closer to destination ski resort instead of day ski resort. I think we're still a day ski resort, but we're working our way towards destination.00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:18.000brian norton: Um, and as you become a destination, your skier visits spread equally over the 7-day week, right? We're heavily skewed to weekends right now. We're not talking about more skiers on the weekends. We're already managing tickets and limiting sales to keep guest experience where we want it. I think we can have more visits mid-week, or early season, late season.00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:33.000brian norton: this will certainly help with that, but on your peak Saturday in January, like, no, we don't… we're… we're not having more skiers here. We're… we're happy with where we're at. Um, in terms of terrain, yeah, I mean, you and I talked about it, I think, the last time we were together talking about glade skiing here.00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:40.000brian norton: We need more of it. Variety of terrain, um, is important, and this is a huge step in the right direction.00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:48.000Stuart Winchester: So I think in New England, when you talk about more skiers, more capacity, reflectively, we think parking, but you have this interesting project going on.00:32:48.000 --> 00:33:05.000Stuart Winchester: Where a pulse gondola is set to leave from near the new Timbertown quad that you put in 2023, go over the river, uh, and land, not exactly in the town of Lincoln, but to service some resorts there. Uh, I thought that project was gonna open.00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:15.000Stuart Winchester: This winter, it doesn't look like that's gonna happen. Tell us about that Pulse Gondola, Brian, what you hope to achieve with it, and kind of where you're at with approvals and permits.00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:33.000brian norton: Um, yeah, me too. I was hoping it was gonna open this winter, too. Um, yeah, we've said with that project all along that we're not really in a rush, and we want to do it right. More importantly, we want to get buy-in from all the current stakeholders, and that's where the project, um, lives. It's a really unique thing where.00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:48.000brian norton: you've got three different parties that are involved, two different completely owned land, uh, landowners, plus Loon being the easement and holders on some of that land, and, um, just working with the town currently and trying to.00:33:48.000 --> 00:34:08.000brian norton: none of us have been through this. I can't think of another example where you've got so many different entities trying to get one project approval. I actually have a planning board meeting tonight, and we're on the docket. So if you're if you're not doing anything at 6 o'clock tonight, feel free to join the zoom. Yeah. So we're we're still working on that. We've gotten essentially approval on one side. And now we're working on the loon side.00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:23.000brian norton: our hope is that that project still comes through in the next year. It's unique in the sense that it doesn't need to happen, like, for day one of ski season. It can be built during the ski season, because it's not replacing something, it's a true add to the ski resort, so…00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:22.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:38.000brian norton: the Daubmeyer team that would do the lift is kind of excited that, you know, they have a project that they can work on out of cycle, keep their team busy year-round, have the electricians there when they'd otherwise, you know, not be doing anything, because the crew's still standing steel somewhere else, that kind of thing.00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:39.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Boyne's had a lot of success doing those sorts of lifts at Big Sky, and it's amazing what.00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:59.000Stuart Winchester: Even if it's a low capacity, low use lift, like the one and only gondola or the lift that connects to the montage out there in Big Sky, it really gives the skiers a lot of freedom. And I think it really would make a big difference in being able to connect to the town. So let's talk about a lift.00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:01.000Stuart Winchester: That would not be easy.00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:18.000Stuart Winchester: Let's talk about that. Uh, the four passenger gondola you have, I believe it's the last four passenger Gandhi left in the east. It is a monster. This is a 1738 vertical foot lift, 6970.00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:30.000Stuart Winchester: foot long, uh, and recently Loon filed an application with the Forest Service to replace it, so tell us, Brian, what you want to do with the White Mountain Gondola.00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:32.000brian norton: Yeah, so, um…00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:44.000brian norton: a really cool old lift. You probably know better than me, but one of the oldest detachables in New England. It's one of the highest utilized lifts in Boyne's network.00:35:44.000 --> 00:36:00.000brian norton: around this 10-plus months out of the year, you know, between winter and summer. Uh, two years ago, I got a text message from our lift mechanic showing me the hour meeting that was 8675309. Um, it's nearing… it's nearing 100,000 hours now, so yeah, it's due for replacement.00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:10.000brian norton: Um, we filed some paperwork with the Forest Service to get in the queue. We're still working out the details of that project, that's why we haven't really addressed it publicly.00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:23.000brian norton: Try to figure out how it fits, where it goes. It will be a D-line Omega 10, you know, 10-person cabins. Boeing style, as you like to say, you know, we're gonna do it right. It's a pivotal lift for us.00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:29.000brian norton: the main base area that opens first and closes last, and, um, yeah, we want to make sure we do it right. So, we will.00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:48.000Stuart Winchester: One detail I thought was really cool in the permit, Brian, was, and obviously I'm not holding you to this, the permit is, you know, the application is the application, but this notion of moving the load terminal, it gets set 100 feet or 80 feet up the hill, away from the Octagon Lodge, I imagine that opens all kinds of possibilities for you.00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:52.000Stuart Winchester: Talk about what you have in mind there and how that would change just the whole flow of Loon.00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:02.000brian norton: Yeah, the problem is that the current lift is inside of a building, and the new one, you know, without tearing the building down, is not going to go inside of the same building, so…00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:03.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:21.000brian norton: how do we handle that? And, you know, I'd say there's a couple options on the table. Some of them is, you know, partially modifying that building, putting the lift against it, and or the polar opposite of that is just pushing it into the hillside as far as you can, and, um, you know, using the building for something else, which we have some cool ideas for.00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:36.000brian norton: Um, this lift is gonna need parking. That's a big space constraint that we don't necessarily have. I mean, those cabins aren't small, and you're talking, you know, another Kank 8 size. Probably not that big, but close to Kank 8 size, you know, parking structure to park all the cabins in, and.00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:42.000brian norton: Is parking at the top? Is parking at the bottom? You know, how do we, uh… how does our… if we put it…00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:57.000brian norton: upslope, not in the building, how does our food and beverage team that uses that as their main, you know, mover up the mountain, get food and everything else up, how do they get their food to the Summit Cafe now in the winter? And so, there's a lot of challenges with that, and that's why we haven't, you know.00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:13.000brian norton: really detailed the project, because we're… I mean, just this morning, I was walking out there, driving stakes in the ground, like, trying to visualize, okay, if we did this, how would it work? How would that work? So, yeah, ongoing, um, super exciting project, and I can't wait till we have that nailed down, and we can really start.00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:15.000brian norton: Showing people what we're doing.00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that would be huge, and maybe quiet at the Peanut Gallery, because I know a big storyline.00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:31.000Stuart Winchester: when the cant gate went in was, why'd they do that before the gondola? And I know there's a lot of reasons for that, but… and I love the cant gate, but I'm sure you heard those same narratives. You know.00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:40.000Stuart Winchester: Out with the old, I guess. Quick note, Brian, the little sister, a 1966 Hall double.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:57.000Stuart Winchester: has taken its last ride. I just made this connection prepping for this podcast. That's actually an original lift from Loon's opening, right? So tell us about Little Sister. It was a small lift, a hall lift, but you took it out this summer. Why was it time to retire Little Sister?00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:01.000Stuart Winchester: And what are you doing with the lift, the chairs, the pieces, the parts?00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:07.000brian norton: Yeah, so, um, Old Lyft, um, couple things. One…00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:10.000brian norton: When we installed Seven Brothers.00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:21.000brian norton: the skiers really stopped using that lift, because… sorry, when we upgraded Seven Brothers Triple to the Seven Brothers Quad, which was the old Kank Quad and got rebuilt.00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:21.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:37.000brian norton: the lap time off Seven Brothers was just as quick as Little Sister, but you got more vertical, and we had more uphill PPH. So, um, no one was really using it for skiing. We maintained it for tubing for a while, we got out of the tubing business.00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:56.000brian norton: Um, we'll maybe be back in the tubing business in the future, but not in that location. So, um, at the same time, it needed some maintenance work. Our friends at Cypress, one of the other Boyne properties, um, needed some spare parts to one of their lifts. We had them in the drive here at Little Sister, so…00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:13.000brian norton: Um, plus, in a base area that's crammed for space, when that thing eventually, you know, physically moves away, it'll be additional space, it'll open up skiing possibilities, it'll open up more space for our seasonal programs that are in that base area, or that part of the base area over there. Uh, in terms of what we're doing with the lift.00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:30.000brian norton: Um, towers are still standing right now, the terminals are still standing, we'll hopefully get that down next summer. The chairs were all auctioned off recently, we sold a few to employees, like myself, I bought one, I'll have that hanging on my porch at my house.00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:27.000Stuart Winchester: Nice.00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:44.000brian norton: Um, the rest of… I think we sold… there was 20, or there was 31 chairs… 30 or 31 chairs, and um, we sold some to employees. We're keeping 5 for spare parts, maybe future auction-type stuff. The rest of them…00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:50.000brian norton: were auctioned off to the public, and they're benefiting two incredible local charities, one, the Pemi Valley.00:40:51.000 --> 00:41:07.000brian norton: Uh, Upper Pemi Valley Historical Society, um, who's, you know, I saw some really cool historic stuff, check out their Instagram feed, there's some cool stuff about the Riverwalk Gondola, and then they just put a couple posts. Um, and then, uh, Lincoln Friends Iraq, which, you know, one of our purposes is making sure.00:40:57.000 --> 00:40:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:15.000brian norton: That we're connected to the community and doing everything we can for the youth of the community, and so that's what we're doing with the money, and we're proud to say that.00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:30.000Stuart Winchester: So don't go looking for Little Sister Lift this year. It is gone. That leaves you with one haul lift, a 1968 East Basin. I didn't see a map for that gondola proposal. Brian, is part of that proposal removing that East Basin haul lift?00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:20.000brian norton: And it's gone.00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:39.000brian norton: I started at East Basin and as long as I'm here, East Basin will, you know, I shouldn't say that. And maybe it'll go away, but it's not going away as part of.00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:34.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:37.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, I love it.00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:55.000Stuart Winchester: Love that. All right, Brian, hey, I really appreciate you joining us today on the New Look Pod. You're my second guest ever, and I really want to make this timely, so the fact that we could talk about this new expansion at Loon is awesome, and I hope I can be up there on opening day.00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:57.000Stuart Winchester: And I hope that's next winter.00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:00.000brian norton: Yeah, and I hope to get out there on Black Ridge with you.00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, good luck at your planning board meeting tonight, Brian. Talk to you.00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:05.000brian norton: All right. Thanks, Stuart.00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:06.000Stuart Winchester: Thanks so much. Bye.00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:06.000brian norton: Bye.00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:10.000Stuart Winchester: All right, so…00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:17.000Stuart Winchester: That is Brian Norton, President and General Manager of Loon Mountain.00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:25.000Stuart Winchester: Before we move on to the closing segment, I want to tell you about my friends at Profile Search International.00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:31.000Stuart Winchester: A lot of you come to this podcast to hear from the best minds in skiing, guys like Brian Norton.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:41.000Stuart Winchester: Managing mountains that are making big moves like Loon. But, what if you want to find one of these great leaders for your own mountain team? Brian is pretty happily employed.00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:46.000Stuart Winchester: I'd like to introduce you to the folks at Profile Search International.00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:59.000Stuart Winchester: Profile Search are ski industry talent acquisition experts, and they are the only executive search and recruitment firm in the world that is 100% focused on the ski industry.00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:05.000Stuart Winchester: ProfileSearch has used their intimate understanding of skiing and related industries.00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:14.000Stuart Winchester: and of available candidates worldwide to place hundreds of transformational leaders at the best and most progressive ski areas over the past 30 years.00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:21.000Stuart Winchester: With offices in the US and Canada, they find and negotiate with the right leaders for your team.00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:33.000Stuart Winchester: You can reach out to Profile Search directly at profilesearch.com, or contact them by email or phone, or send me a note, and I will connect you directly with this expert team.00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:40.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, I'm really looking forward to this next segment. As promised, I am going to use this segment.00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:52.000Stuart Winchester: to read reaction to the previous podcast. I'm not at a point where I can do the podcast live, maybe someday, but right now, we are…00:43:52.000 --> 00:44:08.000Stuart Winchester: Read and react the next day. So, uh, the way that you can interact with the podcast is to make a comment on the article that accompanies this podcast on stormskeeting.com. Only paid subscribers can do that.00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:23.000Stuart Winchester: You can upgrade to the paid tier of the storm, which is the very best way to support the product@stormskiing.com. That will get you 100% of the content below the paywall, and it will also allow you to interact with the podcast, but.00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:31.000Stuart Winchester: everyone can listen to the podcast. The podcast has always been for everyone, and my intent is to keep it that way. So…00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:40.000Stuart Winchester: Some reaction to yesterday, and a lot of this is just reacting to… So yesterday, as a reminder, Joe Hessian came on, talked about…00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:43.000Stuart Winchester: The Snow Pass, uh, talked about…00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:51.000Stuart Winchester: Indy Pass and Snow Pass, both claiming Snow King and the confusion around that.00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:00.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and I talked a little bit about, just in general, uh, the Indy Pass and the fact that smugglers not to join. So…00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:14.000Stuart Winchester: Reading the comments from top to bottom. And again, these are all paid subscribers, so thank you very much, and a lot of these folks I have been in dialogue with for years, so they're not necessarily new to me, but perhaps new to the community.00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:17.000Stuart Winchester: Starting with Peter Schlachtes.00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:21.000Stuart Winchester: So, just under an hour, in the short format?00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:27.000Stuart Winchester: I liked it. I had heard the backstory on Hessian and didn't need to hear it again.00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:30.000Stuart Winchester: It focused on the compelling stuff.00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:44.000Stuart Winchester: But remember that your growing audience, I hope, consists over time of more and more people who won't have heard or remember that context and texture and won't necessarily seek it out on an old podcast that features your speaker.00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:59.000Stuart Winchester: By the way, though, you really must make a point of steering people to relevant past podcasts that provide the backstory on guests and mountains you cover in the new format. Mention it, flash it on the screen, put it in a subtext, and leave it there, because people won't know they're interested in learning more until…00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000Stuart Winchester: They are.00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yes, Peter, I appreciate the short comment, and short has never been my…00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:25.000Stuart Winchester: Strength. So expect some experimentation. Uh, expect me to play around with this a little bit. Expect some episodes to be longer than others. I truly will try to get some bite size episodes out there, but I, I find that the podcasts that I listen to that are news focused are usually right around an hour and.00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:34.000Stuart Winchester: And I don't run out of steam with that, as long as what they're talking about is interesting to me. As far as your point about linking to past podcasts, look.00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:38.000Stuart Winchester: One of the reasons that…00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:42.000Stuart Winchester: I had to move to a different podcast format.00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:43.000Stuart Winchester: Was that…00:46:43.000 --> 00:47:03.000Stuart Winchester: the old podcast was becoming too laborious, and part of the reason was I was too concerned with building a big story around it, and making sure that everything I mentioned had some context that a reader could go back to. And what that… and it was great, and a lot of people appreciated that, and again, I'll still do some long-form product…00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:17.000Stuart Winchester: Podcasts and I'm still doing plenty of writing, but it actually gummed things up to the point where I was just not making as many podcasts as I should be. So my goal here with the new short format podcast, keep it light, keep it moving.00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:33.000Stuart Winchester: The trend is toward search, right? So with all the AI tools and everything available, it's pretty easy to find my old podcast. I do have a master list that I linked to from the homepage, uh, and, and.00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:38.000Stuart Winchester: As much as I agree with you, it would be nice, I think that most people…00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:50.000Stuart Winchester: will just Google Joe Hessian Storm Skiing Podcast, and it will pop right up. But, we'll see how it evolves. Next comment from Mimi Ma, another long-time paid subscriber. Shout out to Mimi.00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:57.000Stuart Winchester: Like the format, especially good that I can skim read if needed, and then jump to the sections of interest. Keep up the good work. I want to make that point.00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:09.000Stuart Winchester: there is a transcript for every single episode. You can click on the transcript, and when you're reading it, you click to any section, and it will go to that section of the podcast, if you're on Substack.00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:22.000Stuart Winchester: If you're on YouTube, you won't have that capability, so you can always check out the video version on Substack. Again, if you're listening via audio on Apple or Spotify or something, you also won't have that. So, go to stormskiing.com to get that capability.00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:36.000Stuart Winchester: Comment from Robert. Quote, I think Joe's comment about Eric self-describing himself as the, quote, anti-collaborator, and I'm curious to hear what his, Eric's, answer is.00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:39.000Stuart Winchester: To what is apparently a self-reference.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:58.000Stuart Winchester: I don't see how you can't be anti collaborative and run a ski area, not to mention operating what is effectively a business to business service business and to Benny and the need to work with all their customers. What's the business justification for not wanting to collaborate outside the sphere he controls?00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:14.000Stuart Winchester: The ski Cooper thing was a bit different in many ways. Here we're talking about two third party systems meant to drive skier visits, and at least at the moment, given the portfolios, I think it is a relatively small percentage of skiers that are most likely choosing between the snow pass and Indy.00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:27.000Stuart Winchester: Most of them, I would assume, are likely NYC Metro-based. Good stuff on the new format. Looking forward to its evolution. Look, Joe was referencing a conversation that he had with Eric. It wasn't…00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:39.000Stuart Winchester: a publicly available conversation, so this is why I'm going to get Eric on the podcast tomorrow, to give his reaction to it. I… you know, Eric, from my point of view.00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:55.000Stuart Winchester: Look at the explosive growth of IndiePass under his tenure, right? He's, he purchased the pass, I believe in 2023, and, and I believe the number of partners, and I can double check this, uh, has more than tripled since Eric took it over, and he's really done a phenomenal job.00:49:56.000 --> 00:50:08.000Stuart Winchester: transforming Black Mountain and 10x-ing revenue at a ski area, which is simply unheard of in the ski business, and making it to Benny, which is a platform that people use.00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:19.000Stuart Winchester: As with any person doing a lot of things, Eric sometimes runs into controversies, but that's what this podcast.00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:34.000Stuart Winchester: Is here for is to give folks an opportunity to air their sides of the stories. Uh, I have a lot of respect for Joe and for Eric, and I think they're both doing really cool things in the ski industry. So, so we'll, we'll see. We'll see what Eric's.00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:51.000Stuart Winchester: answer is to that. From Scott Abraham, another long-time reader, I presume your hair is still standing out from being present at the Hail Mary. Quack, he's a Ducks fan. Alright, Scott, I'm gonna move right past that one. Eric Morris, great new format. You've written great stuff on walkable ski areas. How did you develop those thoughts?00:50:51.000 --> 00:51:00.000Stuart Winchester: Are you aware of strong towns? Are you aware of the Congress of New Urbanism? Eric, thank you. Yes, that is a running theme.00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:03.000Stuart Winchester: We threw out the storm.00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:19.000Stuart Winchester: I'll say this. There's a reason I live in New York City, and it's not because I think it's the greatest place in the world. It's because I value living in a walkable community. I value a pedestrian environment. I like that I don't need to get in my car.00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:26.000Stuart Winchester: Every time I need to go to the grocery store to get a box of pancakes. And New York City offers a really.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:30.000Stuart Winchester: Great environment for that sort of lifestyle.00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:32.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and when you travel around Europe.00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:45.000Stuart Winchester: those sorts of communities are everywhere, including in the ski towns. And our ski areas, being developed post-World War II, were mostly developed as most of America was at the time, which is around the automobile.00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:47.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:49.000Stuart Winchester: I don't think that…00:51:49.000 --> 00:52:04.000Stuart Winchester: Car-centric mountain towns are necessarily the best way to evolve our towns into the future. So I think there's a rethinking in order. And yes, I am familiar with the schools of new urbanism and read frequently.00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:09.000Stuart Winchester: I'm not claiming these are ideas I'm coming up with mysel

Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I will still write newsletters too. To browse a podcast transcript, click the “transcript” button above - click on any block of text and the audio will jump to that point in the conversation. Paid subscribers can leave a comment below - I'll respond to some in the next episode. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism./:The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:02.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the Storm! It is September 8th, 2026, and if you are a Storm regular, you are probably wondering what in the heck is going on here.00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:09.000Stuart Winchester: Today, we are launching an all-new format for the Storm Skiing Podcast.00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:22.000Stuart Winchester: It is shorter, it is news-focused, it will be more frequent, and it will publish the same day that I record it in just about every instance.00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:23.000Stuart Winchester: So.00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:28.000Stuart Winchester: It's gonna have a lot of different elements. Uh, takes just…00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:31.000Stuart Winchester: on whatever's happening in the news.00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, let's scrap that and let's start again.00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, starting from the top.00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:42.000Stuart Winchester: 3.00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.000Stuart Winchester: Q.00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:45.000Stuart Winchester: One.00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:59.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. It is September 8th, 2026, and I would like to welcome you all to a brand new version of the Storm Skiing Podcast.00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000Stuart Winchester: So, the long-form podcast…00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:09.000Stuart Winchester: has been the default of the Storm Skiing Podcast since I launched in 2019.00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.000Stuart Winchester: Very proud of the Storm Skiing podcast.00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.000Stuart Winchester: We're at episode 227.00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:26.000Stuart Winchester: I have interviewed the leaders of nearly every large ski area in America, and the leaders of most of the large ski companies in America.00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:29.000Stuart Winchester: But something started to feel a little bit off.00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:35.000Stuart Winchester: And, you know, I started to think about the kind of podcasts that I consume.00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:44.000Stuart Winchester: And those are mostly, frankly, around Michigan football, uh, which is my other obsession besides ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-s.00:03:44.000 --> 00:04:02.000Stuart Winchester: tend to be much more news-focused. They tend to be much shorter than the Storm Skiing Podcast. They tend to publish the same day that they record them, and they tend to break down current events. For example, I just went to a Michigan football game.00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:21.000Stuart Winchester: on Saturday in Ann Arbor. If you're even remotely a sports fan, you probably saw the controversial ending to that game when Michigan got an extra second added on, and Bryce Underwood, the quarterback, tossed a Hail Mary to win the game when JJ Buchanan, our transfer receiver, came down with the ball.00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:36.000Stuart Winchester: That's never happened in the history of Michigan football, to have a Hail Mary ending that Michigan wins. So, on the way home, it's a 10-hour drive back to New York, my wife and I listened to all the different Michigan podcasts that were breaking down that moment. And I realized that…00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:54.000Stuart Winchester: as much as I like the Storm Skiing Podcast, and as much as a lot of other people like it, I was not really making the kind of podcast that I actually listen to. And that's a problem, because in our current media environment, people have a lot of choice.00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.000Stuart Winchester: They have a lot of of.00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:13.000Stuart Winchester: different things they can give their attention to, and it's hard to get and keep their attention. So, I want to say right off, I am not killing the long-form storm skiing podcast. It will not end with episode 227. In fact, I have about 5 or 6 in the can that I've been sitting on.00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:30.000Stuart Winchester: for this news, and I will release those soon, and my thanks to the folks who participated in those podcasts for their everlasting patience as I got this together. So, I'm still gonna make the Storm Skiing Podcast. The frequency will go from about 45 a year at its peak.00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:47.000Stuart Winchester: It's probably about a dozen a year or so, and sometimes there will just be a time when the long form is the more appropriate form for telling the story of a mountain. If I have someone new on, for example, so for example, I've never had.00:05:47.000 --> 00:06:02.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the GM or owner of Sierra at Tahoe in California, an important mountain on the podcast. Never had Wolf Creek on the podcast, never had Mount Baker. If I were to get one of those folks, I would want to do a long form, tell the story of the ski area. But it's not always necessary to.00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:18.000Stuart Winchester: Tell the entire story of the ski area and its history and its culture when you just want to talk about a new lift or you just want to talk about the fact that it joined a new pass. So this shorter podcast will be more frequent.00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: It will have different segments, segments with takes when I just talk about what's going on. It will still have interviews, much shorter interviews. Today we have an interview with an awesome guest, Snow Partner CEO Joe Heschen, one of the smartest guys in skiing.00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:45.000Stuart Winchester: But before, Joe and I went on for two hours. This time, we'll be able to condense it down. And then at the end of each episode, my intent.00:06:45.000 --> 00:07:02.000Stuart Winchester: and hope is to have reader interaction, and this will be a feature available only to paid supporters of the Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, and you can upgrade to a paid subscription at stormskiing.com anytime. The podcast will be for everyone, as it's always been.00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:18.000Stuart Winchester: But only paid subscribers will be able to interact with the podcast. And the way that they will be able to do that is that they will be able to write a comment on the article that accompanies the newsletter on stormskiing.com.00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:32.000Stuart Winchester: And the next day, I will read some of those comments and react to them as appropriate. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later and why I'm doing it that way. But for now, I want to assure you.00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:48.000Stuart Winchester: This podcast is going to come to you the same way your podcasts always have. Now, there is a video version. You can watch that on YouTube, will be our primary channel, as well as Substack, which is where the newsletter is published. There will always, always, always be an audio version.00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:58.000Stuart Winchester: And it will always come to the same places that you have always gotten the podcast. If that's Apple, if that's Spotify, there's some that I don't even know.00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: how the podcast got on there, or why it's on there. There's an RSS feed that spits this out from Substack. That will not change. The storm will be… when you go looking for it, you're going to find the storm.00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:13.000Stuart Winchester: So.00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:24.000Stuart Winchester: This is something I'm super excited about because I think it will allow me to have a lot more guests a lot more often.00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:35.000Stuart Winchester: there are so many great minds in skiing right now, and I feel like there's a lot of negative sentiment around skiing and the way it's evolving. There's a lot of talk of a duopoly.00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.000Stuart Winchester: But from my point of view.00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: there's not a duopoly in a way that is dominating all consumer choice. And the reason I have that point of view is I'm having conversations every single day with smart people.00:08:54.000 --> 00:09:10.000Stuart Winchester: thinking far ahead and doing great things to change skiing in ways that make skiing better, that make skiing access better. People like Joe Hesham, my guest today, people like Eric Mogenson, who runs the Indy Pass, people like John Schaefer, who runs a handful of mountains.00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:28.000Stuart Winchester: in the East, people like Rick Schmitz, who runs three ski areas in the Midwest. Small ski area operators like Tim Meyer at Caber Fay in Michigan, who we'll talk about a little bit later. So, I'm talking to these people all the time, and I'm seeing the independent ski areas are really, for the most part, doing fine. I'm seeing.00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:33.000Stuart Winchester: Huge investment. I'm seeing huge innovation and.00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: Because of the frequency of the podcast, and because of the laborious nature of turning interviews into written content.00:09:43.000 --> 00:10:00.000Stuart Winchester: I don't think that I'm getting that to you in the way that I would like, in, in, in the way that you deserve. I want you to be part of this conversation. I want you to see why I'm so optimistic about skiing right now. I want you to know why I feel that skiing is in its best.00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.000Stuart Winchester: place, historically, that it has ever been, at least in America.00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:10.000Stuart Winchester: Now, it certainly has problems, and we will get into those as well.00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:21.000Stuart Winchester: I don't answer to anyone. I don't answer to the operators. I don't have a boss. I answer to my subscribers, and that's it. The only thing I care about is the truth.00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:28.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and my optimism does not come from any desire to have access or anything else. My… my…00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.000Stuart Winchester: My content and my commitment to the truth.00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:50.000Stuart Winchester: comes from wanting to deliver a great journalistic product. Uh, and there's gonna be opinion and analysis. You're not always going to agree with what I say, and that's good! I wanna remind people that. That's good. If you agree with everything I say, I have no value. I can tell you that all of my guests.00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000Stuart Winchester: disagree with things I say, but the reason they keep coming back.00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:03.000Stuart Winchester: And the reason that I hope they will keep coming back is because I'm trying to be fair, I'm trying to work within the bounds of the truth, and I'm not…00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:08.000Stuart Winchester: Jumping to these huge accusatory.00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:25.000Stuart Winchester: narratives that we see so often with the Mega Passes and with the big consolidators, Vale and Altera. So, I want to give a different perspective, I want to give it more frequently. The newsletter, one more point, the newsletter will stay the same. There will always be written content.00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:34.000Stuart Winchester: I am still a writer with a podcast, not a podcaster with a newsletter, though I kind of have to admit at this point that I am.00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:42.000Stuart Winchester: a podcaster, even though that sounds… I don't know, it sounds a little… pretentious, or juvenile, or uh… like I'm…00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:58.000Stuart Winchester: you know, doing this as a side hustle while I drive for Uber, but… but no, this is my full-time job. The Storm is and has been my full-time job for a couple of years. Now, the reason I want to switch to a news-based podcast is for days like today, because today we have.00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.000Stuart Winchester: Huge news.00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.000Stuart Winchester: One of my favorite ski areas.00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:09.000Stuart Winchester: One of the best ski areas in the eastern United States.00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:14.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, depending on your point of view, maybe one of the best ski areas in the United States.00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:20.000Stuart Winchester: is joining a Malta Mountain Pass for the first time.00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:27.000Stuart Winchester: That is Smuggler's Notch, Vermont. Smuggs is an incredible place.00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:40.000Stuart Winchester: For a lot of reasons. Number one, if you don't live in the East, and you're under the impression that the East is an ice ball, and the vertical drops are short, and the mountains are small.00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:56.000Stuart Winchester: You're wrong. You're just wrong. And there is a snow. There's plenty of big mountains in the east. First of all, there's plenty of good snow pockets in the east. One of the best snow pockets is in northern Vermont, and you have a line of resorts.00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:12.000Stuart Winchester: We call it the spine of the Green Mountains. Starts at Killington Pico, goes up to Sugarbush, which is in Alterra Mountain. Right next door is Mad River Glen, the famous Indy with the single chair. North of that is Bolton Valley, which is on Indy Pass. North of that is Stowe, which is owned by V.00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:23.000Stuart Winchester: On the backside of Stowe is Smuggler's Notch, and then north of that is Jay Peak. Smuggler's Notch joins IndyPass today, and here are the stats.00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:39.000Stuart Winchester: It is a 2610 foot vertical drop that is the fourth tallest in the east. It has one smug says 1060 skiable acres that they claim there's actually more in the woods. If you count the back bowls and some of the secret stashes.00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:54.000Stuart Winchester: Off of the Sterling lift. So that makes it the fourth largest ski area in the east. It is the second snowiest ski area in the east after Jay Peak, which is also an IndyPass partner with 322in of snowfall.00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:10.000Stuart Winchester: On average per winter. Yes, that's a lot. That's those are Vail numbers. Those are Colorado numbers. No, it's not Cottonwoods, but it's deep enough that those ski areas almost always have tree skiing from the beginning.00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:22.000Stuart Winchester: from around Christmas through the end of the season. I've skied Glades at Stowe in April many times. I've done the same at Jay Peak. So, the snow coverage really.00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:38.000Stuart Winchester: comes and it really falls. Mount Mansfield, which is where Stowe is, right next to Smuggs, is the tallest mountain in Vermont, and they have a snow stake there that consistently builds up to around 60 inches or so for the season. So, Smuggs joins Indy Pass.00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:56.000Stuart Winchester: today. It is the… and, and, and, and… No Blackouts on Indie Bass Pass, which goes on sale today to the general public, or actually maybe tomorrow it goes on sale, for… $419.00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:57.000Stuart Winchester: The ND…00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:13.000Stuart Winchester: Plus is 469. So I'll give you a few stats here. So Indy with adding smugs, that is the 43rd Alpine lift serve ski area that Indy has added for the 2026 to 2027.00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:14.000Stuart Winchester: Winter.00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:30.000Stuart Winchester: That gives them a total. Now, my totals are going to be a little different than Indy's because they're counting cross-country ski areas. And I'm leaving those off. And I also count sometimes two ski areas, as one when they're when they're separate entities. But but they share days.00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: So Indy now has 256 ski areas, lift-served alpine downhill ski areas, which get two days each. So they have more than you could possibly use. That includes 148 ski areas in the United States.00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:57.000Stuart Winchester: 32 in Canada, 39 in Europe, and 32 in Japan. You can ski 30% of all ski areas in America on Indy.00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:14.000Stuart Winchester: Now, on the flip side, Indy also had some important losses this winter. They lost, and they're all in the Midwest, and Indy's lost mountains before, and with a roster that big, you're gonna have some turnover. Uh, but the first wave of losses came back.00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:24.000Stuart Winchester: in past release season in March, when the three areas owned by Midwest Family Ski Resorts, some of the best operators in the country, uh, they own Lutzen Mountain in Minnesota.00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:39.000Stuart Winchester: one of the largest ski areas in the Midwest, uh, Granite Peak in Wisconsin, which has 3 high-speed lifts, and Snow River, which is really 2 side-by-side ski areas and a nice snow belt in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. They left for Icon Pass.00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:53.000Stuart Winchester: Now, there's a little bit of a historical precedent there, because those three ski areas had been on the Max Pass, which had been the immediate predecessor, along with the Rocky Mountain Super Pass, to the Icon Pass. Uh, the…00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:10.000Stuart Winchester: Icon Pass, when it debuted in 2018, left off Snow River, Granite Peak, and Lutzen. And I always thought, well, Snow River wasn't a part of Midwest Family at the time, but I always thought that was a mistake. So I'm not surprised to see them go, but those were big drivers of Indy Pass sales.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:16.000Stuart Winchester: Because those are marquee mountains in the Midwest. They also recently lost…00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:34.000Stuart Winchester: Another three mountains run by another great operator in Wisconsin, Little Switzerland, Crystal Ridge, and Nordic Mountain. Now, these are small ski areas. They're feeder ski areas, but they're important ski areas because Rick is a very smart guy. He's very influential.00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:50.000Stuart Winchester: And he has a lot of influence in the ski business, including being part of the board of directors of the National Skiers Association. Everyone respects him. They also lost Cabar Fay, one of my favorite mountains in Michigan. It was my pseudo-home mountain when I lived in Michigan as a teenager.00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:57.000Stuart Winchester: I have a lot of respect for Tim and Pete Meyer, who run that over there. So, I'll talk a little bit more…00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:10.000Stuart Winchester: about that with Joe, because I think there's going to be some crossover with the snow pass. So, quickly, before we get to our guest, I want to tell you about Profile Search International.00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:15.000Stuart Winchester: A lot of you come to this podcast to hear from the best minds in skiing.00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:20.000Stuart Winchester: But what if you want to find one of these great leaders for your own mountain team?00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:35.000Stuart Winchester: Well, let me introduce you to the folks at Profile Search International. They are the ski industry talent acquisition experts, and are the only executive search and recruitment firm in the world that is 100% focused on the ski industry.00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:48.000Stuart Winchester: They have used their intimate understanding of skiing and related industries and available candidates worldwide to place hundreds of transformational leaders at the best and most progressive ski areas over the past 30 years.00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:04.000Stuart Winchester: With offices in the US and Canada, Profile Search finds and negotiates with the right leaders for your team. You can reach out to them directly at profilesearch.com or contact them by email or phone, or send me a note and I will connect you directly with their expert team.00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:11.000Stuart Winchester: We are joined.00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.000Stuart Winchester: As soon as we get a video.00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:33.000Stuart Winchester: We are joined today by the founder and CEO of Snow Partners, which owns and operates the Mountain Creek Outdoor Ski Area and the Big Snow American Dream Indoor Ski Areas in New Jersey. Snow Partners' terrain-based learning program has been used by more than 80 ski resorts worldwide.00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:50.000Stuart Winchester: And the company has rolled out its SnowCloud all-in-one resort management software with at least 15 clients, including Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Last year, the company launched the Snow Triple Play Pass, which was good for 3 days, total across 16 ski areas in eastern North America.00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:01.000Stuart Winchester: Ahead of Winter 2026-27, Triple Play adds 7 additional mountains, for a total of 23, at a price of $179.00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:18.000Stuart Winchester: Snow Partners has also launched the Snow Pass, which is loaded with two days each at 14 ski areas for $339.99. My guest to break all this down for us today is a good friend of the Storm Skiing Podcast, Joe Heschen. Joe, welcome back to the storm. Always good to track you down.00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:18.000Joe Hession: Thanks.00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:21.000Stuart Winchester: How are you feeling on Snow Pass launch day?00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:36.000Joe Hession: You know, it's launch day for Snow Pass. It's launch day for Mountain Creek Seasons Passes. So winter's in the air. Things are happening. It's really exciting. This is probably my favorite time of year. So thanks for having me on such a special day. Winter's coming.00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.000Stuart Winchester: I'll do it.00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and it's the first day of the new platform for the Storm. So I wanted to get you on first. I'll admit, I want to do a little bit of a flex because I know you're a hard guy to track down and you're doing a lot of cool, interesting things. I want to start with the Snowpass, Joe, because you came on the podcast last year to talk about Snow Triple Play.00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.000Stuart Winchester: And your launch, and you were pretty…00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:55.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:09.000Stuart Winchester: adamant, you know, this is not a pass. I don't want to do a pass. And, you know, we talked about it a lot, and I probably harassed you about it a little bit, and now we have a pass!00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:01.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:05.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:17.000Stuart Winchester: So, so tell us about that journey. How did, how did we get from TriplePlay to SnowPass, and, and why do you have the two different products?00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:10.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:32.000Joe Hession: Yeah. And, and, you know, you might be very responsible for it because you, you pushed it early on of, you know, why, why would this not be a pass? And, you know, originally we were really following the data and the data we were really focused on was 73% of people ski between one and five days.00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:50.000Joe Hession: the price point for that, and we were looking at the data for Mountain Creek with our triple play, and saying, you know, there's really not a lot of triple plays for multi-resort. That's kind of a cool, unique concept. So we were really stuck on the data. Obviously, we heard feedback from folks like yourself, and also your other… all your listeners and subscribers, and…00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:21:50.000 --> 00:22:05.000Joe Hession: And… but then, it was really our past partners. The people that bought the Triple Play were like, if we had this option, we'd be really happy. They hit us that in our post-survey, they said, we really would like this. Um, and then the resorts. We had great partners on the Triple Play program, and…00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:13.000Joe Hession: they came in and said, we would like this as well. So, you know, the model's been done, and we made the leap to do it. So we're really excited about it.00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:28.000Stuart Winchester: You have a great network to launch, and I think especially if you live in New York Metro, and I want to talk about — I do want to talk about Triple Play, but let's focus on Snowpass for a minute. The three key mountains here are Bel Air, Gore, and Whiteface.00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:43.000Stuart Winchester: These mountains, for those of us who are in the area, we know they're state subsidized. They've gotten a half billion dollars in investment. That's a whole different subject. We're going to leave that alone because the result of that for your pass holders is these are awesome ski areas. Bel Air is essentially a brand new ski area.00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:58.000Stuart Winchester: And if you're in New York Metro, you get two days at Mountain Creek, and you get two days at Big Snow, then there's some little ones. You get up in Connecticut, you have Mount Southington. So you have a really nice network of.00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:10.000Stuart Winchester: 14 ski areas, 12 of them are in the east. Talk about that network, Joe, and how deliberate it was that they kind of worked together to create a compelling pass product.00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:27.000Joe Hession: Yeah, that's a great question because that is, you know, we probably look at the world a little differently than people looking at different passes and different programs. And I think you nailed it. Like, you know, with the news last week, you know, sometimes people from Colorado chirp and they, this pass doesn't make sense for me. I'm like, yeah.00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:44.000Joe Hession: Yeah, congratulations. You can read and understand basic logic. So we love our friends in Colorado, we love our friends out west, but this is a pass that's very regional. It makes so much sense if you live in this area and you're planning to have those trips and, and, and you might remember this, but years ago.00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:32.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:23:44.000 --> 00:24:00.000Joe Hession: at the NSA show, which is the National Ski Association. I was on stage with a bunch of different groups, talking about Epic Pass and ICOM Pass, and this is before we had a Pass product. And I was saying, and I was a little critical too.00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:18.000Joe Hession: you know, listen, I think the high-level past products that exist, which just throw out big numbers, like, you know, 40 of these resorts, these resorts, or 300 resorts, like, it's cool, but the reality is, is I'm really focused on how does someone actually use it? So if we go back to the skier.00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:35.000Joe Hession: and the snowboarder, and how do they actually use this pass? And, you know, back in the day, and I love, you know, the industry is much smaller than people, especially your listeners might realize, like, I have a ton of respect for almost everybody. If anyone's in this business, I respect them, because it's a really hard business.00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:51.000Joe Hession: And so for us, I've always looked at it and said these big pass products that are kind of like overwhelming with the options, like how do people actually use them and where does it drive traffic and traffic to the right places at the right time and stuff like that. So we're very deliberate.00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:02.000Joe Hession: very deliberate in, if you live in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Long Island, um, upstate New York, parts of Pennsylvania, this is a very compelling pass that not only takes you from the city.00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:18.000Joe Hession: Because for us, what's really critical is that kind of warm handshake from, we're teaching a hundred thousand new people a year to ski at Big Snow. Where do they then go to? And obviously we want them to come to Mountain Creek, but I also want them to go to Whiteface and Bel Air and Gore and Platic Hill.00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:34.000Joe Hession: Um, because things like that, that's kind of how this industry can work together to take people who are new to the sport, or people who are, maybe have never gone. Maybe they always go to Vermont, and we love Vermont, but maybe this is their chance to go up to Whiteface and realize, oh, wow.00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:41.000Joe Hession: That's, you know, you can see JP from there, right? So it's kind of it's people don't realize how far north Whiteface is.00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:49.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so you have a really nice network, and I think it's gonna sell really well. I mean, just even if… even if you just launched.00:25:49.000 --> 00:26:05.000Stuart Winchester: a Bel Air Gore Whiteface pass at that price point, I think it would probably sell really well. Uh, but the reality is you're going up against a very competitive market. So, uh, you look at Epic Pass, not maybe so competitive, you're doing something different, they don't have as many mountains in the market. Indy Pass.00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:20.000Stuart Winchester: I'm not even sure if you know this yet, because the embargo literally lifted when we started this at 10 a.m. eastern. A smuggler's notch today announced they are joining the Indy Pass. So the Indy Pass gives you a really nice network of resorts in your neighborhood.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:14.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:34.000Stuart Winchester: In New England, it has Waterville Valley, Cannon, Jay Peak, Saddleback, and now Smug, some of the best ski areas in the region. It has ski areas all over New York. That goes on sale to the public.00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:50.000Stuart Winchester: Today or tomorrow, the Indy Pass, they do a fall sale for $419. They have 256 alpine ski areas as of today, including 61 in the western US. They have a big head start, right? They started in 2019, so.00:26:50.000 --> 00:27:04.000Stuart Winchester: you're offering a different product, but it works in the same way, right? SnowPass. Uh, little lower price point, $340 as opposed to $419. What's your pitch for someone considering SnowPass or IndyPass?00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:20.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so, well, well, first let me hit that because it's, it's, what's interesting is, and, and it's important to kind of explain our background and where we come from. I probably see the world differently than almost everyone involved in this past world. I, I kind of look at it as.00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:35.000Joe Hession: you know, the pitch is, if you live in this area and you want to visit the resorts on our pass, it's a no-brainer. Not only that, I don't think we're going to live in a world where there's Epic, Icon, Indy, Snow Pass, Mountain Collective.00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:53.000Joe Hession: I think we should be trying to live in a world where we democratize skiing back to the skiers and snowboarders, and allow them to make choices in their price points where they want to go, vastly different than it is today. I think these programs, um, really exist because lack of good technology.00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:08.000Joe Hession: Like, like, basically, we would have reciprocal programs back years ago with, uh, like, Mound Creek and Killington. And to get that to actually make sense to the guests, where they show up, and it's seamless, and the money's able to be traded the right way, wasn't possible years ago.00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:24.000Joe Hession: So, for us, you know, and I'll get to the question of what the pitch directly to Indy, but I see the world so dramatically different than IndyPass. I see a world where independent ski resorts should be working with each other.00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:43.000Joe Hession: for the betterment of their guests to share people to different locations that people find interesting. A real-life example is Martok in Nova Scotia and Cape Smoky have a reciprocal program that they're actually allowed to have… they have one pass that's able to work at both places and can split the revenue and funding between it.00:28:43.000 --> 00:29:00.000Joe Hession: between them. They have common ownership. But they're both on SnowCloud. So really, you know, our software platform, SnowCloud, which really operates all the things that is involved with Snowpass and Snow TriplePlay, our real pitch long-term, our real pitch of what we're trying to do with Snowpass.00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:17.000Joe Hession: is open up the door to give resort leaders and operators tools where they take out the middleman. And what I mean by the middleman is Wachusett and a resort up in Vermont doesn't need a third party to organize their pass benefits.00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:33.000Joe Hession: They should be doing it directly themselves, using better technology. So, I am calling for a shift, a big shift, in the way that people think of this, of, let's get away from these big, pillar, clunky things that are these big, like.00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:46.000Joe Hession: big, like, kind of ego plays of passes, and let's take skiing back to the skiers and snowboarders, and let them have direct relationships with the resorts they love, and give these operators great tools to allow that to happen.00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:50.000Joe Hession: Um, so that that's our long term pitch. Yeah.00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:56.000Stuart Winchester: So let me jump in there. I just want to ask now, I want to follow up on that. So are you saying this snow pass, your goal is to…00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:01.000Stuart Winchester: make it extinct at some point? It's a building block to the next level, is that what you're saying?00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:01.000Joe Hession: You…00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:17.000Joe Hession: Yeah, what's interesting is Snowpass, we have no upside in Snowpass. So we've been very open and clear about this. And I just want to make sure the goal of Snowpass is secure. We share all of our books openly with all of our resort partners. They can see every transaction, every dollar flow.00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:33.000Joe Hession: There's overhead in some of the expenses. They get a clear, like, this is the piece that we do that. We originally said it was estimated at 5%. If it ends up becoming 3%, we'll distribute the rest of that to the resorts. We have no profit margin built into our plan for Snowpass.00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:43.000Joe Hession: Snowpass to us is the first step in trying to prove the theory of could we remove the middleman from the equation?00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:58.000Joe Hession: And we applaud the idea that if you're on Snowpass, and let's say that Whiteface wants to now work with Platykill directly, we would celebrate that and see that as a huge win.00:30:58.000 --> 00:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:14.000Joe Hession: Because we want resorts to collaborate. If people are real fans of skiing and snowboarding, and they've been buying passes for years, and part of it, they know that the beauty of the ski industry is when the ski industry, skiers, snowboarders, the people that operate these resorts, work together.00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:26.000Joe Hession: they create beautiful things. So we need to give them tools to work together, and also the ability to work together, because some companies restrict people from being able to work with each other, which goes against the spirit of the whole ski industry in the first place.00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:32.000Stuart Winchester: So if you were… So let's think of… Let's do a thought experiment here. So let's take some…00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:32.000Joe Hession: Okay.00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:53.000Stuart Winchester: some resorts that share your operating software, right? So you have Mountain Creek, so you can do whatever you want with it, and you have big snow. I know that, for example, Greek Peak up in upstate New York uses, it's up near Cornell, sort of central New York for folks who aren't familiar. It would be a great feeder from Mountain Creek because it has.00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:40.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:09.000Stuart Winchester: a resort feel, and it's a big mountain, and it has a nice hotel across the street with a water park and everything. So you have, uh, Greek Beak, and then you signed Jackson Hole, right? So would an example be that if you were a…00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:05.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mountain Creek Passholder, you could somehow…00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mountain Creek could sign a deal with Greek Peak for shorter-term visits and Jackson Hole for longer-term. Is that the goal, and how would that be different from a pass we have now?00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:40.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so, yeah, well, because it could be priced exactly to the price, it would make sense to the consumer. Because right now, and remember, when people buy an IndiePass or a pass like that, there's an idea that all these resorts, like, I'm a big fan of IndiePass.00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:57.000Joe Hession: Pareto charts, the 80/20 rule. I will guess, not knowing anything about their business, that 80% of the revenue is made up of 20% of the resorts and the visits. I will almost guarantee it because that's how statistics works. So when you have huge numbers, it starts to cloud the efficiency of it, right?00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:17.000Joe Hession: So to me, I look at and say, yeah, so a program where it's like if Mountain Creek went to Greek Peak and said, we want to have a reciprocal program where if someone uses this, it seamlessly just works at the lift. So imagine someone took their Mountain Creek pass, went and rode the lift at Greek Peak and boom, the transaction happened. The guests never even knew it happened.00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:32.000Joe Hession: the business relationship worked, and then we shared data to basically say, oh, this is a Mountain Creek and Greek Peak guest. Now you guys can market directly to them and hopefully get them to come for a longer stay next time. That's where I… that's where I would love to have it, and Greek Peak's a great example.00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:40.000Joe Hession: We're great partners with them. We love that resort. They've been great early adopters of SnowCloud. We're not allowed to have a reciprocal program with them at Mountain Creek or Big.00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:58.000Joe Hession: They're, they're contractly obligated not to work with anyone other than who they work with, which is, which to me is just wild. And I think most people don't realize that that's how it works. And, you know, the last thing we need is, is the middleman kind of inserting themselves into controlling how people operate. It's just.00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:10.000Joe Hession: So… so I would love… I see a future like that. Currently, unfortunately, with a place like Repeat, we're not allowed to work with them. We're… we're… and… and I mean not on Snowpass. We can't have a reciprocal…00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:16.000Joe Hession: We can't give someone a discount if they're a Mountain Creek holder to go to Greek Peak. It's.00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and great.00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:18.000Joe Hession: Less rules. We need less rules.00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:29.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Greek Peak has worked with IndiePass since 2019. They've been an original partner over there. I want to get to that in a second. You know, I…00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:20.000Joe Hession: Okay.00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:44.000Stuart Winchester: I don't know if I see a post-pass world, because I like a menu, I like the big passes. However, what I think you're describing could solve is the free visit problem.00:34:44.000 --> 00:35:02.000Stuart Winchester: because I know Indian Ski Cooper, for example, had a dust-up a few years ago because Ski Cooper was essentially… India accused him of essentially creating a national pass, and that was probably my fault because I wrote an article that said, hey, look at this secret national pass for 300 bucks in Colorado. Nonetheless, it's a lot of…00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:56.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:19.000Stuart Winchester: Free visits and you have mountains like Bogus Basin in, in Idaho that are still giving away a lot of free visits. Now, Bogus is a great business and, and it's doing well and they have a surplus and, and they've evolved great in the past decade or so. Uh, but, but it seems like that could really solve that.00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:13.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:26.000Stuart Winchester: free visits problem, where there is some revenue sharing. Is that part of what you're trying to solve here?00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:41.000Joe Hession: 100%. And you see the big players do it, right? Like a big thing about us too is I'm not against anything. I think Indie is fantastic. And it's very important to point this out. I think that is, but I also think Epic and Icon are great.00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:42.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:57.000Joe Hession: Like, I'll put it this way, operating a small resort here in New Jersey, Mountain Creek, or Big Snow, there are things that Vail does so much better than us that we wish we had the resources they have. Now, with that said, we do things way better than Vail does, and they wish they had the resources.00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:14.000Joe Hession: Or the ability to do what we can do, right? And, you know, there's an old commercial years ago that there was, like, a big boardroom, and the boardroom, they're like, I wonder what the little guys are doing. And then all of a sudden, it showed the people in, like, the startup, and they're like, I wonder what the big guys are doing. So, we're all in the same business, and we're.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:32.000Joe Hession: some of the things they've done to try to cure their own things. They own most of their resorts on their program, so they're gonna do things the way that benefits them, because they own all those resorts together. And they've tried to solve these problems in similar ways, and I think learning from them on that stuff, same thing with Icon is doing similar stuff to that.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.000Joe Hession: Um, but yeah, I think…00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:44.000Joe Hession: that's exactly what we're trying to solve. We're trying to solve… we want resorts to have relationships that make sense to the consumer. Like, for example.00:36:44.000 --> 00:37:00.000Joe Hession: Who is going to go, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll focus on someone else for a minute. Who's gonna, who's gonna go to 40 resorts in a year on a certain pass? Nobody. Nobody. Skiers are smarter than that. No one's doing that. What they're doing, if you buy an Epic or Icon.00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:57.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:08.000Joe Hession: in the real world, the conversation goes, um, oh, I live in New York? Great. What pass are my friends buying?00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:24.000Joe Hession: Because where are they going to go this year? Where do we want to take our family trip? Oh, and it just happened. My wife and I, our family, we have a place in Snowmass. So every year, we have some friends who are like, I want to come out to Snowmass. Well, they buy an IconPass. Their decision is made based on, oh.00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:43.000Joe Hession: your condo's available, I can go, I'm gonna lock in an Icon Pass. That's how consumers actually work. So, to me, it's like, I agree with you, I love the big passes, I don't think they should go away. I think there's a great place for India, I think there's a great place for Icon, I think there's a great place for Epic Pass. There might be a great place for Snowpass.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:59.000Joe Hession: But I also get really excited about other options. And I feel like we're at this disruptive time where we're seeing the results of these passes and kind of the rubs that are rubbing people the wrong way. And I think it might be time with technology that we can kind of.00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:06.000Joe Hession: take it to the next level. Like, you know, we're talking about the evolution of, you know, major.00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:21.000Joe Hession: uh, success has been done, and there's been some learnings, right? Like… like, the pictures of the long lines and stuff, uh, that we see every holiday or powder day, like, is a result of the PASS program. It's a result of this, it's an output of that, and I think there's ways we can maybe.00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:37.000Joe Hession: Make it better where the skier gets a better choice, a better experience, and then the resorts get to share in different ways. So really, at the end of the day, I think it's a technology driven way to better collaborate for the betterment of the ski experience to democratize.00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:42.000Joe Hession: It's kind of the price and take out the middleman is really, is really my pitch.00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:44.000Stuart Winchester: So, Joy, I appreciate…00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:45.000Joe Hession: I'd like to remove myself from the equation eventually.00:38:44.000 --> 00:39:01.000Stuart Winchester: You know, the problem with you removing yourself from the equation, Joe, is that everyone I talk to really likes working with Snow Partners, your team. They like the train-based learning, they like your operating software.00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:55.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:16.000Stuart Winchester: And I appreciate that spirit of Bonhomie, and you're right, the ski industry is small, and it was smaller than I would have imagined, and it was more welcoming than I would have imagined. I'm not sure if you read the lawsuit.00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:25.000Stuart Winchester: The most recent one filed against Veil Altera, Boyne Powder, the National Skier Association and and RRC. And it's built.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:21.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:34.000Stuart Winchester: the case for the lawsuit is built on accusations of collusion. Using a lot of.00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:33.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:50.000Stuart Winchester: kind of fluffy evidence of people getting together at NSAA shows and basically sharing data and sharing best practices. I think all industries do this. Now, I'm going somewhere with this.00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: I appreciate that, and I think IndyPass, a lot of people love working with them. However, maybe a little more conflict would be good for the ski industry, because one thing I've seen as I've been reading old newspaper clippings is ski operators used to talk a lot more junk to each other, like, oh, Summit County, Colorado does.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:17.000Stuart Winchester: more skier visits to the whole state of Utah. Obviously, those days are over, but there used to be a little more smack talk. So let me get into a little controversy here, and you can address this as you want.00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:13.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:17.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:34.000Stuart Winchester: As you said, Indy Pass does not share. You have been willing to share and and the snow triple or snow pass shares two mountains, Bromance in Quebec and Whiteface with Mountain Collective and three.00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:45.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Butternut, Jiminy Peak, and Cranmore with the Icon today. You and Indy are both claiming Snow King, you're both telling me it's locked in, uh, and…00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:55.000Stuart Winchester: Indy's telling me it's only gonna be on Indy, so… there's a little conflict for ya. Uh, how are you approaching that, and what do you think about the scenario?00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.000Joe Hession: Yeah, yeah.00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:00.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so we're talking about Snow King specifically?00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yes, Snow King specifically.00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:10.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so specifically Snow King, we have a signed agreement with Snow King. We're very excited to work with Snow King.00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:23.000Joe Hession: Uh, Snow King would love to have visits, uh, come from us, and they are on our website, and we launched with Snow King. Um, that's where we're at. Um, you know, as far as what's going on with them in Indy.00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:39.000Joe Hession: Um, I'll kind of let them speak to that to themselves, but from what I understand, which I'll take some liberties and say what I think is going on, is there is a clause in an IndyPass that if someone leaves the IndyPass program.00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:55.000Joe Hession: They have to not work with anyone for another year. And it's kind of buried in the fine details. So I think what happened is I think they were off that pass, planned to be off that pass, maybe wasn't familiar with that clause, and then signed an agreement with us.00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:10.000Joe Hession: So for me, so the big question is, hey, so here's the choices as we sit today. We have a signed agreement. We've told Snow King, if this is going to hurt you, we never want to hurt you. So we are 100% willing to do whatever that takes.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:12.000Joe Hession: to do it.00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:17.000Joe Hession: But, you know, we're not gonna just, like, bow down, because at the end of the day.00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:31.000Joe Hession: It's also on Indy, and maybe they… maybe they signed an agreement that wasn't… that was not the right thing to do. We have a signed agreement. They're on our paths, right? Um, at the end of the day, there's one person who can make a big choice here.00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.000Joe Hession: Is Indy gonna sue Snow King because of this clause in the piece?00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:54.000Joe Hession: I read in the Boston Globe that Eric Mogensen is going to, like, change and save skiing. Is he going to sue a small ski resort? Like, and I know that's blunt, but I would put the ball right back in his court. I would love to, you know, if he sues Snow King.00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:45.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:54.000 --> 00:43:12.000Joe Hession: That would be an insane thing. And I think he should go out to everyone and say, you know what, we're not going to litigate. You know, I know he hasn't been operating a ski resort long, and I have a ton of respect because of the fact that the fact that he's a GM of a ski resort, the fact that he's operating a ski resort, there's not a single person. And I respect him.00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:27.000Joe Hession: I really do. I really do. There's just one piece that we don't see eye to eye on. And it's… he's told me he's the anti-collaborator, and I am the ultimate collaborator. So when you get us in the ring together, it's one is super collaboration and one isn't. And so to me.00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:39.000Joe Hession: I think, you know, the more he operates a ski resort, he's gonna realize that litigation is one of the hardest things we have to deal with in the ski business. We have realities of things that happen at ski resorts that involve litigation.00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:49.000Joe Hession: suing each other is just a waste of time. Like, what are we doing? Like, we should be, like, we need… we should be talking about skiing and snowboarding, and we should be thinking.00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:49.000 --> 00:44:09.000Joe Hession: how many visits can Indy give Snow King? I would love for them to get a ton of visits. How many visits can Snow Pass give Snow King? Let's get Snow King visits. Let's give people options. And just because of, like, some, uh, you know, red tape in a contract, we're then gonna threaten and clause, like.00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:28.000Joe Hession: So that's… so here's… so I gave you probably more than I should have, but… and I'm sure Hugh is no longer looking at me, so he… but he didn't give me the hook, so I'm still talking, right, Hugh? We're good? So, I'm sure… you know, but you'll definitely… you wanted to have, you know, for this inaugural session, you wanted to have some stories. This is a story.00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:39.000Joe Hession: The story is, the reality is, the truth is, that they were under contract, Indy, from what I understand, which they've told me, they wrote they are no longer to work, they gave them the right.00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:53.000Joe Hession: I'm out. This is the time you're supposed to be out. They were unaware of this one clause, which we were also unaware of. We signed, we moved forward, we announced. After announcement, it was, no, you can't do that. So, really, right now, I think Snow King would gladly take visits from both.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:56.000Joe Hession: We would gladly take visits from both.00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:02.000Joe Hession: Ball's in Mogensen's court, we'll see what he does. I guess the best way to approach this is publicly. So, here.00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.000Stuart Winchester: And he…00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:16.000Stuart Winchester: I agree, and Eric is scheduled to be on this podcast on Thursday, so he will have his chance to respond. And you know what, Joe, you're welcome back anytime to respond. But before you go out the door, I do want… I did promise to keep these short, and I know for you and I.00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:07.000Joe Hession: Perfect!00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:12.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:16.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:31.000Stuart Winchester: Both, that's a challenge. I do want to call out some of these awesome new triple play partners, uh, Jiminy Peak and Cramore, especially. I have a ton of respect for the Fairbanks and, and, uh, what, and what they do. Uh, Bromont is, is an excellent.00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:28.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:51.000Stuart Winchester: edition, and Hallamont. Actually, Hallamont is on Snow Pass as well, which is a terrific skier. I never realized until I went there this year. It's just because it's private on the weekends and in public during the week. What do you have to do to convince some of these folks, especially Jiminy Cranmore Bromont, to jump over to Snow Pass? Do you think there's a path there?00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:10.000Joe Hession: Yeah, you know, I do. I think it's kind of proving it out over time, but also making, you know, going back to what I said earlier, maybe the right product for them is a relationship with different resorts, right? Maybe it's a whole new version of what happens, but I think we're very lucky to have them on the program.00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:25.000Joe Hession: Both operators are fantastic. Brian and Tyler Fairbank, we go back really far. Like, they were early adopters of us with snow operating and train-based learning. Brian Fairbank, if people don't know, is one of the godfathers of snowmaking in the industry.00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:40.000Joe Hession: He's still at it. He's in his 80s. He's out there making snow. I mean, he's an absolute legend. So anytime we get to work with him and his resort partners, we're really happy. Tyler, we've obviously known for well over a decade and a half as well.00:46:40.000 --> 00:47:00.000Joe Hession: great resorts, we've loved visiting them, and I think they're great operators, so I think people are going to love discovering them. And that's, you know, one thing I'll give a lot of credit to Indy for, which has opened our eyes, is the fact that there's so many passes on the program, there's the fact that there's all these different options. People learn new places they've never learned before, right? And I think Epic and I kind of have done the same.00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:15.000Joe Hession: You know, I never thought of going to Crested Butte, but because it's on the Epic Pass, I'm going to go to Crested Butte, or I never thought of going to this resort, but because of it. And I think that's been a huge success. And it's great to hear you say, like, Hollymont, like, oh, I didn't know that much about the.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:29.000Joe Hession: I think that's the spirit. The spirit is, how do you take skiers from different regions and inspire them to want to go to somewhere else and make that transaction seamless and easy for the operators to navigate, is really our goal.00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:49.000Stuart Winchester: It's such a rich world, and I love how you're helping folks explore it. Leave us with this, Joe. Where can we buy Snowpass? And I believe you said you're selling a limited number. You probably won't tell me that number, but how soon should folks go to where you're going to tell us to go before they're going to lose this special price of, I believe, 340 for Snowpass and 179?00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:52.000Stuart Winchester: For the triple play.00:47:52.000 --> 00:48:05.000Joe Hession: Correct. So, so 4pm today, mysnowpass.com, uh, it's gonna be a limited release. Uh, if you know the Mound Creek world, and you know how we do it, it's actually Mound Creek's on the clock right now.00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:22.000Joe Hession: Um, we've been selling for 31 minutes, so I'm gonna get an update when we get off the call here, but at 4 o'clock, we will have our watch party with our group in the kind of war room. We're watching the transactions live. We have a number that we have promised ourselves we will not exceed, and it'll shut itself down at that number.00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:09.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:40.000Joe Hession: Um, so 4PM today will be, uh… will be the birth of a new product in the industry, which hopefully will inspire other new products down the road, and… and hopefully start to change the relationship between resorts and… and the skiers, because that's what it's about. It's about getting skiers the best price for the best mountains, new… doing new things, and working together.00:48:40.000 --> 00:49:00.000Joe Hession: And we have a beautiful industry of resorts, but we have great customers. People who are skiers and snowboarders are so passionate. Like, I read everything they post on your stuff. You know, the comments have been just amazing. And, you know, we're looking forward to, over time, I want to make that person in Colorado that keeps saying, this pass stinks, has nothing to do for me.00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:51.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:09.000Joe Hession: I want to eventually win them over by giving them a product that does make sense for them or allowing resorts there to find a product that works for them. So it's really exciting day.00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:17.000Stuart Winchester: Colorado bro is very proud of Colorado. Uh, last year, Joe, you sold Snow Triple Play, I believe, until Christmas Eve. You have a similar schedule in mind for these two passes this year?00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:11.000Joe Hession: Yes.00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:32.000Joe Hession: Yeah, exactly the same schedule. So they'll be… the best price will be the launches. So today will be the lowest possible price, it'll scale up in another drop, and then it'll be on sale for a little bit at its full retail price, and then it'll turn off at that time. Exactly.00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:51.000Stuart Winchester: Joe, so good to run you down. Good luck with the launch. I can't wait to see how it goes, and how this thing grows, and frankly, how this little controversy between Snowpass and Indypass resolves itself, because I'm sure that you will find a way through it. So, thank you so much for being my first guest on the new platform. I really appreciate it.00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:35.000Joe Hession: Yes.00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:51.000Joe Hession: Okay.00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:54.000Stuart Winchester: You're welcome on anytime. We'll talk to you really soon.00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:56.000Joe Hession: Great. Thanks for having me.00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:57.000Stuart Winchester: All right, take care, Joe. Bye now.00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:00.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, so…00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, what do you…00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:23.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so that was Joe Heschen, the CEO of Snow Partners and the founder. Quick update from another partner before I wrap up the show today. If you run a ski area or outdoor brand, I want to tell you about my friends at Bonfire Collective.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:35.000Stuart Winchester: They are a fractional marketing team that collaborates with ski areas and outdoor brands, and they will give your marketing a fresh perspective and better storytelling to supercharge your rebranding or advertising.00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:41.000Stuart Winchester: Bonfire can help you rethink your approach in ways that can turbocharge your business.00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:49.000Stuart Winchester: For example, Bonfire took on the marketing at one New Hampshire ski area and doubled revenue in just three years.00:50:49.000 --> 00:51:04.000Stuart Winchester: When the storm was ready to invest in its first ever digital marketing campaign last year, I worked with Bonfire to make it happen. I could not be happier with the results, and I think you will love working with them as well. To get started, you'll want to talk to Eric.00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:21.000Stuart Winchester: over at Bonfire Collective. He was a co-founder of Bluebird Backcountry Colorado, the first human-powered ski area, so he knows the ski business. You can actually listen to his podcast episode on the Storm Skiing Podcast, long form. Visit bonfirecollective.com.00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:25.000Stuart Winchester: Or I will be happy to make that connection for you.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000Stuart Winchester: All right, how great was Joe?00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:45.000Stuart Winchester: This is why I love the new pod, because I can have guys like that on all the time. I have dozens of relationships like that throughout the ski industry. Anytime you've listened to a podcast and you've heard someone on there and you enjoyed the conversation.00:51:45.000 --> 00:52:01.000Stuart Winchester: Whether it was Carl Kapczynski, who runs California Mountain Resorts, or… and owns Mountain High, and Bear Valley, and China Peak, and Dodge Ridge out in California. Or if it was…00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:15.000Stuart Winchester: Dustin, who… the president at Copper Mountain, uh, or it was Rob Katz, you know, the Vale CEO. I'm interacting with these people, or… or the folks who represent them, all the time.00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:31.000Stuart Winchester: I talk to Carl Kabasinski all the time, but I haven't had him on the podcast in four years. He's already agreed to come on the new shorter form to talk about all the things going on in his mountains. And that's what's great about it. And, you know, one of the concerns that I heard from people when I announced a shorter form pod was.00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:47.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, well, I really like when you covered small mountains. Well, this will allow me to do that much more, because I don't have to commit an entire hour and a half long episode to it, and it doesn't have to be the whole history of the area. I can just, for example, ask.00:52:47.000 --> 00:53:02.000Stuart Winchester: Rick Schmitz from Little Switzerland in Wisconsin to come onto the show and talk about the new quad chairlift that he's putting up or two new quads put

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September 7, 1939 - August 22, 2026RIP.

Rocco Casullo of Coral Glades joins Larry Blustein as they talk about how important was to play 7-on-7 football during the summertime. They talk about how important it was to show the kids more than just South Florida and so much more.

The Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928: The Night the Water CameEPISODE SUMMARYOn the night of September 16–17, 1928, one of the deadliest hurricanes in American history struck South Florida. The storm — already responsible for over 300 deaths in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean — made landfall near West Palm Beach as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds. The coastal destruction was severe, but the true catastrophe lay fifty miles inland, where the storm's winds drove the waters of Lake Okeechobee over and through its inadequate earthen dikes. The floodwaters swept across a 75-mile stretch of flat agricultural land, killing at least 2,500 people — most of them poor Black migrant farm workers who had no warning and nowhere to go.WHAT YOU'LL HEARA narrative-driven account of the storm's path from the eastern Atlantic through Puerto Rico and into South Florida. The episode covers the failure of the Lake Okeechobee levee, the devastating flood of the Glades communities, the tragic racial dimensions of the disaster and its aftermath, and the long-delayed recognition of the victims. Closes with the hurricane's lasting legacy: the Herbert Hoover Dike, the federal takeover of South Florida water management, and Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.KEY FACTS- Date of Florida landfall: September 16–17, 1928- Landfall location: Near West Palm Beach, Florida- Category at landfall: Category 4 (145 mph sustained winds)- Puerto Rico landfall: September 13, 1928 — Category 5 (the only Category 5 on record to hit Puerto Rico)- Deaths in Puerto Rico: 312- Deaths in the United States: At least 2,500 (NHC official estimate); some estimates exceed 3,000- Total storm deaths (Caribbean + US): Estimated over 4,000- Estimated damage (US): $25 million in 1928 dollars (~$16 billion today)- Lake Okeechobee depth: Average 9 feet (extraordinarily shallow for its size — 30 miles across)- Flood area: Approximately 6 miles deep x 75 miles long south of the lake- Victims: Approximately 75% were non-white migrant farm workers- Aftermath: Bodies disposed of in mass graves and burned on pyres; Black victims' grave went unmarked until 2003- Legacy: Herbert Hoover Dike constructed; Army Corps of Engineers took over South Florida water managementSOURCES- NOAA/NWS Miami: https://www.weather.gov/mfl/okeechobee- NOAA AOML 90th Anniversary: https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hurricane_blog/90th-anniversary-of-lake-okeechobee-hurricane/- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_Okeechobee_hurricane- PBS American Experience: https://www.pbs.org/video/swamp-okeechobee-hurricane-1928-qjcyfd/- National Hurricane Center — Deadliest US Hurricanes (Blake et al., 2011)HASHTAGS#Okeechobee #Hurricane1928 #WeatherHistory #SanFelipe #FloridaHistory #NaturalDisaster #ExtremeWeather #WeatherWithEnthusiasm #KolSimchaProductions #LakeOkeechobee #HerbertHooverDikeBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weather-with-enthusiasm--4911017/support.Weather with Enthusiasm is produced by Kol Simcha Productions.New episodes drop daily (B'N)— a morning forecast at 7 AM and historical deep dives Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact: kolsimchaproductions@outlook.comHistorical content is thoroughly researched and factually verified. After it has been factually verified it often will say so in the description. Should you find any mistakes, please email kolsimchaproductions@outlook.com so we can look into it and correct it. Not affiliated with any government agency or academic institution. Presented for educational and entertainment purposes — with meaning.Support the show — exclusive bonus episodes available to subscribers for just $2/month at spreaker.com/organization/kol-simcha

In this Halfway to Halloween episode, Matt sits down with Billy Lewis, founder of ScareNetwork.TV, to talk cryptids, ghost stories, and the indie streaming platform he's built to give paranormal, horror, true crime, and monster content a real home. They get into the Florida footage that ended up in the Smithsonian, the hunt for Chessie on the Chesapeake Bay, and why every town has a story worth telling.CRYPTIDS & PARANORMAL COVERED: The Skunk Ape, Dave Shealy and the famous Glades footage, the Skunk Ape museum, Chessie and the Chesapeake Bay sightings, the Love Point footage, the dissertation on Chessie, Bigfoot, regional ghost stories and haunted locationsSCARE NETWORK TV: Original paranormal, horror, true crime, and monster content — documentaries, narrative features, series, and podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Google Play.INFLUENCES & SHOWS DISCUSSED: Tales from the Crypt, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Jailhouse (Billy Lewis), Jack Osbourne's paranormal workBig thanks to Tony Barber and the team at Creative AV and Entertainment (CAVE) for producing the show.WATCH SCARE NETWORK TV:Web: https://scarenetwork.tvRoku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Google PlayWatch Matt's work on the platform too or visit the following links below!https://youtu.be/gsVoQbUboSAhttps://youtu.be/A4K0Z3PWXsQhttps://youtu.be/5aSpaMxAs0MFollow Billy Lewis & Scare Network: https://www.instagram.com/scarenetwork.tv/SHOW OVERVIEW:Website: thescarymovieproject.comGet your horror movie fix with filmmaker and horror junkie Matt Lolich, as he reviews and deep dives into horror movies and other spooky topics!Now with spoilerier spoilers!https://youtube.com/live/jZzx90i3ygw?feature=share

We're staying in Florida as we visit with Colton Eisenberg, the Special Teams Coordinator for Coral Glades H.S. Colton was an outstanding High School and College Punter and now he's building his career as a HS Assistant. He shares his journey so far and some of his Best Practices on The Educational AD Podcast!

After a week fishing the backcountry around Everglades City, we sat down with the guide team for a laid-back roundtable conversation about the place, the people, and the stories that make the Everglades special. Joining the conversation are guides Eric Herstedt, Brian Esposito, and Junior Popfinger, who share decades of experience fishing and exploring one of the wildest fisheries left in the United States. We talk about: • What makes the Everglades such a unique place to fish• The lessons learned from decades of exploring the Everglades• Why the ride out each morning feels like stepping into another world• Camp life, wild stories, and the unpredictable nature of fishing trips• The balance between growing the sport and protecting the places we love More than anything, this episode captures the feeling of sitting around camp at the end of a long day on the water — swapping stories, laughing about the week, and reflecting on why wild places like the Everglades matter. This conversation pairs with our full episode with Eric Herstedt and offers a deeper look into the guides, culture, and philosophy behind fishing the Glades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this message from our series "At The Movies" here at Church by the Glades, pastor Charlie Hughes uses the James Bond movies to help teach what to do when God calls you.

Rocco Casullo of Coral Glades joins Larry Blustein to talk about his team making the playoffs.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month so we're doing our part to increase awareness about breast cancer and the importance of screening, both self and diagnostic, and learning about how treatments and screenings have evolved since 1985 when Breast Cancer Awareness Month was initiated. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. We get a snapshot of the state of screening and treatment, and risk factors to consider — and we learn about Partners for Breast Cancer Care, a nonprofit that funds breast screening, diagnostic testing, and treatment for uninsured patients in Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties.

Alex informs Simon that he believes a spy exists in the British Embassy in Baku. Scarlett and Thornton travel to a small village in the Glades to talk to a witness who saw Meredith get picked up. Scarlett confers with Kate about each other's case. Thornton brings good news back from his talk with Troy. Barnes consults with Holliday on the mysterious agent who revealed his identity at the storage facility. Gabby, JoMac and Marko track the transponder and finally pick up its signal. Simon's team starts their investigation of personnel when Alex brings breaking news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex informs Simon that he believes a spy exists in the British Embassy in Baku. Scarlett and Thornton travel to a small village in the Glades to talk to a witness who saw Meredith get picked up. Scarlett confers with Kate about each other's case. Thornton brings good news back from his talk with Troy. Barnes consults with Holliday on the mysterious agent who revealed his identity at the storage facility. Gabby, JoMac and Marko track the transponder and finally pick up its signal. Simon's team starts their investigation of personnel when Alex brings breaking news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Frakes is a prolific director, producer and actor. He is best known to audiences for his portrayal as ‘Commander William Riker' on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Frakes has most recently returned to the Star Trek family by directing episodes of “Star Trek: Discovery", "Star Trek: Picard," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" for CBS All Access as well as the new LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION for ELECTRIC ENTERTAINMENT on IMDB TV.   He discovered his love and talent in directing during his seven years starring on “Star Trek: Next Generation” and ended up directing eight episodes of the series and was also invited to direct episodes from the spin-off series “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “Star Trek: Voyager.”   His other directing roles include “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “The Orville,” “Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce,” “Castle,” ”Falling Skies, “Leverage,” ”The Glades,” “Burn Notice,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Hit the Floor” among others. In addition, he was a producing director for seasons three and four of the TNT hit show “The Librarians” and directed two movies within the Librarian franchise for TNT: “The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice” and “The Librarian: Return to King Soloman's Mine.”    The role of ‘Commander William Riker' brought him worldwide fame which led to other acting roles in several television series including “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Angie Tribeca,” “Hit the Floor,” “Criminal Minds,” and “The Glades.” Frakes will next be seen in the Hallmark movie "A Biltmore Christmas." He has also appeared as the lead in the primetime soap ”Bare Essence” and guest-starred on several classic hit primetime series including ”Charlie's Angels,” “Fantasy Island” and ”The Dukes of Hazzard.”    Frakes received critical praise for his work as the director on the feature “Star Trek: First Contact,” making it the highest-grossing film of the franchise to date. He also directed the follow-up, ”Star Trek: Insurrection,” and the sci-fi feature “Clockstoppers.” He is an accomplished voiceover actor, with recent credits that include J'Son, king of the Spartax galactic empire and father of Peter Quill/Star-Lord on the Disney XD animated show “Guardians of the Galaxy.” His previous voice credits include “Gargoyles,” “Family Guy,” “Adventure Time,” “The Super Hero Squad Show,” “Futurama” and several Star Trek video games.   We chat about Directing and Being in Movie Jail, Star Trek, Imposter Syndrome, Thunderbirds, Gratitude, Meditation, Christopher Reeves, Acting plus plenty more!   Check Jonathan out on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansfrakes/ Team Trek & Pancreatic Cancer (click the link on top right to donate): https://secure.pancan.org/site/TR?company_id=7699&pg=national_company ------------------------------------------- Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook https://www.instagram.com/funnyinfailure/ https://www.facebook.com/funnyinfailure/ and @Michael_Kahan on Insta & Twitter to keep up to date with the latest info. https://www.instagram.com/michael_kahan/ https://twitter.com/Michael_Kahan

If you've ever called 211 here in Southwest Florida to find assistance with things like housing, food, healthcare, mental health — the list goes on — the United Way of Lee, Hendry, and Glades is who is supporting the 211 service, and is helping to fund the many agencies and nonprofits around the region who are there to help. Each year their fundraising campaign is designed to raise the money they need to help fund more than 90 partner agencies who help around a half-million people each year. Put simply, the United Way of Lee, Hendry, and Glades provides an essential backbone for social services in southwest Florida. We learn about a breakfast on Monday, Aug. 4 that will help set the tone for this year's campaign.

Our heroes look to set off on a new journey as they complete their mission to the Glades, but before moving on they need to first investigate something that has been bothering them for a while.Check out our Linktree where we have Twitter, Facebook, Discord and Instagram! Come join in the and chat about your favorite moments with the cast!linktr.ee/thedhcastMusic credits: www.epidemicsound.com

Today's after-show blitz unpacked the Supreme Court's smackdown on nationwide injunctions—cutting the leash on Trump's agenda—fresh intel debunking claims Iran hid its uranium (and Trump's charge that Dem leakers flirt with treason), and Gov. DeSantis' 48-hour “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant camp in the Glades. We rolled through Trump's “one big beautiful bill” with zero tax on tips, saluted sponsors Kirk Elliott Precious Metals and MyPillow, watched a fireball streak the Southern sky, and tipped our hats to the late “Dukes of Hazzard” star Rick Hurst—all in one freedom-packed hour.Get the stories from today's show in THE STACK: https://justinbarclay.comKirk Elliott PHD - FREE consultation on wealth conservation - http://GoldWithJustin.comJoin Justin in the MAHA revolution - http://HealthWithJustin.comTry Cue Streaming for just $2 / day and help support the good guys https://justinbarclay.com/cueUp to 80% OFF! Use promo code JUSTIN http://MyPillow.com/JustinPatriots are making the Switch! What if we could start voting with our dollars too? http://SwitchWithJustin.com

Frankie and Golden J sit down for another What's Your Damage episode, they talk about the new Spaceballs sequel and how Frankie is a Northern Indiana 8. Don't miss out!!   www.goldenmojoent.com   www.ko-fi.com/goldenmojoent    As always find us on all your favorite streaming sites Linktree https://linktr.ee/thegoldenimage80s   Follow us on our social media Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092241900860 Youtube:   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegoldenimage80s/ Golden 80's hosted by Jeremy Golden and Brandon Taylor Nostalgia Tug hosted by Logan Cothran and Lance Menzie Produced and edited by Jeremy Golden Art by Esteban Gomez Reyes https://instagram.com/esteban.gomezr?utm_medium=copy_link Theme music by REDproduction  Golden 80's is a product of Golden Mojo Entertainment   And here are some other great shows from Golden Mojo Entertainment MurdNerds Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MurdNerds www.linktr.ee/murdnerds The Call Guys Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theCallGuysPod www.linktr.ee/thecallguyspodcast The United States of Paranormal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theunitedstatesofparanormal www.theunitedstatesofparanormal.com Indiana Chiefs Fans Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/INChiefsFansPod Golden Image Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoldenImagePodcast www.linktr.ee/goldenimagepodcast A Court of Books and Booze Facebook; www.facebook.com/ACourtofBaB https://linktr.ee/acobab The Puck Yeah Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566980128235 Gridiron Kingz Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61563283119317   #Goldenmojoentertainment  #Goldenmojo  #Goldenimage  #Goldenimagepodcast #IndianaChiefsFans  #TheUnitedStatesofParanormal  #TheCallGuys  #Murdnerds #ACourtofBooksandBooze #Music #Adventure #food #Wine #MiniGolf #spotifypodcast  #applepodcast  #podcast #80s #Golden80s 

TALKING ARCANE SEASON 2 AHEAD OF AWARDS SEASON!!! With the second season of Netflix's Hit Animated Series based on Riot Games' League of Legends series, John sits down with Showrunner / Executive Producer, Christian Linke, Screenwriter & Co-Executive Producer Amanda Overton, & Co-Director / Fortiche Creative Director, Barthelemy "Bart" Maunoury, to discuss the triumphs & challenges in bringing Season 2 and the series as a whole to life as well as favorite cosplays, potential characters & champions to adapt, future seasons of the series, & Beyond!! Season 2 of Arcane delves deeper into the political and personal conflicts between Piltover and Zaun continuing the journeys of major characters such as Hailee Steinfeld's Vi (known for Bumblebee and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Ella Purnell as Jinx (from Fallout and Yellowjakcets), and Katie Leung as Caitlyn (best known for her role as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series). Jason Spisak returns as Silco, with previous credits including Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Young Justice. Kevin Alejandro voices Jace (from Lucifer and The Glades), while Harry Lloyd portrays Viktor (known for Game of Thrones and Counterpart). JB Blanc brings depth to Vander (from House of Cards), and Reed Shannon voices Ekko (from Detroit: Become Human). Mick Wingert adds gravitas to Heimerdinger (known for Kung Fu Panda and The Owl House), while Toks Olagundoye voices Mel Medarda (from The Nevers and The Orville), and Ellen Thomas portrays Ambessa Medarda (known for EastEnders). Amirah Vann voices Sevika, a fierce and loyal ally of Silco (known for How to Get Away with Murder and Underground). Finally, Brett Tucker voices Singed (from McLeod's Daughters and The Saddle Club). These talented voice actors bring each character to life, deepening the emotional stakes and driving the narrative forward in this thrilling, multi-layered series. Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cameo with Wildcat glades nature group. Cameo joined NewsTalk KZRG to discuss the organization and their cool upcoming Crawdads at the Creek fundraiser! Join Ted, Steve, and Lucas for the KZRG Morning Newswatch!

Lee began his career as a as a freelance journalist, writing for such publications as American Film, Starlog, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle. He was also the co-author with Janet Evanovich of the five international bestselling Fox & O'Hare novels (The Heist, The Chase, The Job, The Scam and The Pursuit) and two New York Times bestselling prequel novellas (The Shell Game and Pros & Cons). His most recent books include Dream Town (the 5th novel in the Eve Ronin series), Malibu Burning (the first novel in the Sharpe & Walker series) and the genre-bending thriller Calico, a 2024 Spur Award finalist for Best Contemporary Western from the Western Writers of America. Goldberg broke into television with a freelance script sale to Spenser: For Hire. Since then, his TV writing & producing credits have covered a wide variety of genres, including sci-fi (seaQuest), cop shows (Hunter, The Glades), martial arts (Martial Law), whodunits (Diagnosis Murder, Nero Wolfe), the occult (She-Wolf of London), kid's shows (R.L. Stine's The Nightmare Room), T&A (Baywatch, She Spies), comedy (Monk) clip shows (The Best TV Shows That Never Were) and total crap (The Highwayman, The New Adventures of Flipper). He co-created the hit Hallmark movie series Mystery 101. He's written and produced TV shows in Canada (Murphy's Law, Cobra, Missing), England (Stick With Me Kid, She Wolf of London) and Germany (Fast Track: No Limits). His mystery writing for television has earned him two Edgar Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. His two careers, novelist and TV writer, merged when he wrote the eight books in the Diagnosis Murder series of original novels, based on the hit CBS TV mystery that he also wrote and produced. He followed that up by writing fifteen bestselling novels based on Monk, another TV show that he worked on. His Monk novels have been translated and published in Germany, Poland, Thailand, Japan, Turkey, and many other countries. Follow the podcast Show Host - Toni Ann Marcolini

TOP STORIES - St. Petersburg approves $22.5 million for new Tropicana Field roof; Lawmakers question Florida insurance regulators' actions; Tampa woman fights off alligator to save her dog; Mike Johnson backs Donalds for Florida governor; Florida House to issue demand letters to DeSantis administration over spending; Man arrested for alleged voyeurism in Fort Lauderdale airport bathroom; Randy Fine says Ron DeSantis, team 'begged' him to apply for FAU opening; Feds will restart using Glades migrant detention center; Florida Man Masturbating at Train Stop on Video not a Metro Security Guard, Miami-Dade Officials Say.

He needs to find his friend. But that means facing gators . . . again. After Parker Buckman is mauled and nearly killed by an alligator in the Florida Everglades, he sees his new town as a place of death. All he wants to do is get out of the area, and he'd convinced he won't truly be okay until he does. When his park ranger father gets a transfer, Parker feels his escape is finally within reach. But when a friend goes missing in the Glades, Parker knows he can't leave until he finds her--or proof she's really dead. Parker's search takes him deep into the wilds, where he comes face-to-face with a rogue monster gator. Will Parker ever escape the death-grip of the Glades? Or will he find the strength to break free? Sometimes the only escape from danger isn't running away but facing it head-on.TIM SHOEMAKER author of sixteen books, including Easy Target, Escape From the Everglades, and Code of Silence to name a few. Tim speaks at schools, churches, and other organizations (such as Focus on the Family, Iron Sharpens Iron Men's Conferences, and Pastor Conferences). He also speaks at retreats, conventions, and workshops all across the country.Learn more about all of his books - and gain some other life lessons - when you visit him online at TimShoemakerSmashedTomatoes.com Please share StoryJumpers with a friend if you enjoyed this episode. StoryJumpers is still growing, and your positive review and 5-star rating would help.The Bridge Podcast Network is made possible by generous support from The Boardwalk Plaza Hotel and Victoria's Restaurant on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware - Open 7 days a week, year-round - Learn more at https://boardwalkplaza.comFeedback, or Show Ideas? Send an email to podcast@wearethebridge.orgDownload The Bridge Mobile App to get the latest podcast episodes as soon as they are published!

In this podcast Brian talks about growing up surfing, skating, and snook fishing south Florida, later becoming a highly respected guide and boat builder.

In hour Tua, We take a look UM pro day where former Hurricane QB Cam Ward put on a great show to help solidify his #1 selection in this 2025 NFL Draft. We talk to Locked On Canes podcast host Alex Donno who was at the UM Pro day for his insights on the Pro day and this upcoming season for the Hurricanes. We also look at the crazy encounter between a crocodile and alligators in the everglades.

State Natural Areas in Tennessee are set aside for conservation to protect it from development. But that doesn't always mean the state owns the land. Plus, the local news for March 14, 2025, and a look at the late-night cafe scene in Nashville. Credits: This is a production of Nashville Public RadioHost/producer: Nina CardonaEditor: Miriam KramerAdditional support: Mack Linebaugh, Tony Gonzalez, Rachel Iacovone, LaTonya Turner and the staff of WPLN and WNXP

In this episode of Fire Ecology Chats, Fire Ecology editor Bob Keane speaks with Carolyn Stephen, Jamie Ladner, and Lauren Sullivan about the effects of prescribed fire on plant communities like dry woodlands, dry-mesic woodlands, and glades in Missouri, USA.Full journal article can be found at https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s42408-024-00299-3

Church by the Glades celebrates Christmas 2024 with The Grinch, dancers, and aerialists captivating the stage. Pastor David delivers an inspiring message about life, hope, and the transformative power of Jesus. Using creative illustrations, time travel themes, and cultural references, the message emphasizes how Jesus is the Word, the Truth, and the Life, bringing purpose and salvation to all who believe in Him.

Taylor Cole is an actor who is perhaps best known for her recurring roles in THE ORIGINALS on the CW in addition to TV Land's IMPASTOR, the CW's SUPERNATURAL, and A&E's THE GLADES. Taylor was a series regular on the NBC hit series THE EVENT. Taylor has since appeared in numerous shows, including SECOND CHANCE, BALLERS, CASTLE, TWO AND A HALF MEN, and NCIS, to name a few.  Taylor is currently starring in A REASON FOR THE SEASON and recently starred in the movies ALOHA HEART, LONG LOST CHRISTMAS, and PUMPKIN EVERYTHING for Hallmark and prior to that starred in ALL IS BRIGHT and SOUTH BEACH LOVE. Other feature credits include ONE WINTER WEDDING and UNLOCKING CHRISTMAS for Hallmark and BAD for Lifetime. Taylor can also be seen in the films THE VIOLENT KIND, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, THE SURROGATES, TWELVE ROUNDS, as well as MTV's ALL YOU'VE GOT. Taylor first debuted in the WB TV series SUMMERLAND as a series regular. We chat about passion and purpose, being clear on what you want, being an 'accidental actor' modelling and volleyball, her new Hallmark film A REASON FOR THE SEASON, no sorry rule, life lessons from her dad, choosing happiness, growth, wanting to get better and dogs! The video footage of this entire chat is now out as well (one day after release)! So check them out on YouTube under Michael Kahan Check Taylor out on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taylorquinncole Twitter / X:  https://x.com/TaylorCole The Boys and Girls Club of Lake Tahoe: https://bgclt.org/ ------------------------------------------- Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook https://www.instagram.com/funnyinfailure/ https://www.facebook.com/funnyinfailure/ and @Michael_Kahan on Insta & Twitter to keep up to date with the latest info. https://www.instagram.com/michael_kahan/ https://twitter.com/Michael_Kahan

Actor, Activist, and Artist Michelle Hurd plays Raffaela Musiker in Star Trek: Picard. Her range of roles is enormous, from her portrayal of Detective Monique Jeffries in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", to Colleen Manus in "The Glades”. Michelle joins me to discuss today's political climate in America, the historic SAG-AFTRA strike, and her family's longtime dedication to activism, and the impact it's had on her life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head Coach of the Glades Central Football Team Omar Haugabook on the Muck Bowl importance, storied history.

In this craft-centered episode, The Lincoln Lawyer showrunner Dailyn Rodriguez (Queen of the South; The Night Shift) discusses writing procedurals. Dailyn has worked in that genre frequently, including The Glades, Lie To Me, In Plain Sight, and others.Come see Dead Pilots Society live on Sunday, November 17, 2-4pm at the Elysian Theater in LA! Also available to watch on demand.In Dead Pilots Society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks but were never produced are given the table reads they deserve.The November 17 show features scripts by John Enbom (co-creator, Party Down) and Brendan Scannell (Loot) & Amy Reed (Diary of a Future President).Cast includes: Martin Starr (Party Down; Spider-man), Ryan Hansen (Party Down; Veronica Mars), Olivia Liang (Kung Fu), Chris Witaske (The Bear), Anna Seregina (The Civil Dead), and more to be announced!GET TICKETS HERE.THE WRITERS PANEL IS A COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION.Follow and support the show by subscribing to Ben Blacker's newsletter, Re:Writing, where you'll also get weekly advice from the thousands of writers he's interviewed over the years, as well as access to exclusive live Q&As, meet-ups, and more: benblacker.substack.comSOCIALS:Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/benblacker.bsky.socialTwitter: twitter.com/benBlacker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Glades Central HC Omar Haugabook joined Colin Russo and ESPN West Palm High School Gameday to discuss the teams lopsided 42-0 win over Clewiston, the turnaround from last year, Glades' storied tradition and more.

It was quite the party, as it always is, at the Chillin' & Grillin' at the Glades. The event, which saw OVS take home the RGC, included a happy hour with Luke, Kim, and plenty of friends. Please enjoy!   

Jupiter Christian HC Baz Alfred post win over Glades Day full 152 Fri, 06 Sep 2024 23:43:46 +0000 E60voSQq3koqG2Yk5WI5WF0pwsGaqwwe High School Hysteria Jupiter Christian HC Baz Alfred post win over Glades Day Covering all high school sports throughout the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast. 2021, Good Karma Brands, LLC

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

Reed got his first big break in the movie Memphis Belle. Since then, he has made an impact in both films and TV. He has co-starred in many shows including Law & Order: Organized Crime, Better Call Saul, 13 Reasons Why, Homicide: Life on the Street, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Designated Survivor, Judging Amy, The Purge, Good Girls Revolt, Franklin & Bash, Wayward Pines, The Shield, Journeyman, Dollhouse, 24, Bones and The Mentalist and has been a guest star on the series Elementary, How to Get Away with Murder, Billions, Feud: Bette and Joan, Cold Case, The West Wing, Medium, Law & Order, CSI, Castle, Monk, White Collar, Revolution, The Glades and Criminal Minds and many others. He has also been in numerous movies such as Moneyball, Good Night, and Good Luck and Much Ado About Nothing.

in the next valley-glades - #3712 (824 left) by chair house 240212.mp3in the next valley-glades★ちょっと難産していましたけど、新しいピアノ万葉集のセレクションアルバムの第２５集を作成して公開開始しました。明日位から世界中の音楽配信サイトで配信が開始されます。URL等が決まりましたらここで紹介させて頂きます。今回はいつもと違って、約倍の200曲からの20曲の選別となっています。少しし..

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Canis Technical Hunting Apparel - Discount Code: 'OZARK' for 15% off Umarex Airguns - Discount Code: 'OZARKAIR' for 12% off Cache River Leather - Discount Code: 'OZARK10' for 10% off What is a "glade" and why are we talking about them? A glade by definition is "an open space in a forest" and the Ozarks used to be covered in this habitat. Now, most of our glades are overgrown with cedars and mature forests and they're rare to find, but when you do find one, you're going to want to keep note of it. They are absolute hot spots for certain animals many of us pursue due to the biodiversity of habitat, plants, insects, etc. that you won't find elsewhere in the Ozarks. In this episode we talk with Dr. Casey Brewster about all the things he's involved in from glades to pack goats and even get into Dr. Brewster's part in current smallmouth research being conducted in the Ozarks. We cover: The importance of identifying glade habitat as an outdoorsman and how different animals benefit from having this rich habitat available to them the disappearance of glades in the Ozarks what can be done to restore them on your own property and public lands hunting with pack goats and Dr. Brewster's non-profit organization Snake Mountain Pack Goats The smallmouth research that Dr. Brewster is involved in on hybridization of Smallmouth and identifying unique subspecies of Smallmouth Bass in the Ozarks We hope you enjoy! SUBSCRIBER ONLY PODCAST --> The Check Station The Ozark podcast sits down with men and women from the Ozarks who have a passion for the outdoors. Our aim is to listen, learn, and pass along their knowledge and experiences to help you become a better outdoorsman. Our hosts are Kyle Veit (@kyleveit_) and Kyle Plunkett (@kyle_plunkett) AND our producer is Daniel Matthews. Theme music: 'American Millionaire' by JD Clayton Follow us on Instagram: @theozarkpodcast PLEASE reach out to us with any recommendations or inquiries: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Dec. 28. It dropped for free subscribers on Jan. 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 to the free tier below:WhoJon Schaefer, Owner and General Manager of Berkshire East, Massachusetts and Catamount, straddling the border of Massachusetts and New YorkRecorded onDecember 6, 2023About the mountainsBerkshire EastClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Schaefer familyLocated in: Charlemont, MassachusettsYear founded: 1960Pass affiliations:* Berkshire Summit Pass: Unlimited Access* Indy Base Pass: 2 days with blackouts (reservations required)* Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackouts (reservations required)Closest neighboring ski areas: Eaglebrook School (:36), Brattleboro (:48), Hermitage Club (:48), Mt. Greylock Ski Club (:52), Mount Snow (:55), Jiminy Peak (:56), Bousquet (:56); Catamount is approximately 90 minutes south of Berkshire EastBase elevation: 660 feetSummit elevation: 1,840 feetVertical drop: 1,180 feetSkiable Acres: 180Average annual snowfall: 110 inchesTrail count: 45Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Berkshire East's lift fleet)View historic Berkshire East trailmaps on skimap.org.CatamountClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Schaefer familyLocated in: Hillsdale, New York and South Egremont, Massachusetts (the resort straddles the state line, and generally seems to use the New York address as its location of record)Year founded: 1939Pass affiliations:* Berkshire Summit Pass: Unlimited Access* Indy Base Pass and Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackouts (reservations required)Closest neighboring ski areas: Butternut (:19), Otis Ridge (:35), Bousquet (:40), Mohawk Mountain (:46), Jiminy Peak (:50), Mount Lakeridge (:55), Mt. Greylock Ski Club (1:02); Berkshire East sits approximately 90 minutes north of CatamountBase elevation: 1,000 feetSummit elevation: 2,000 feetVertical drop: 1,000 feetSkiable Acres: 133 acresAverage annual snowfall: 108 inchesTrail count: 44 (35% green, 42% blue, 23% black/double-black)Lift count: 8 (2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 3 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Catamount's lift fleet)View historic Catamount trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himMight I nominate Massachusetts as America's most underappreciated ski state? It's easy to understand the oversight. Bordered by three major ski states that are home to a combined 107 ski areas (50 in New York, 27 in Vermont, and 30 in New Hampshire), Massachusetts contains just 13 active lift-served mountains. Two (Easton School and Mount Greylock Ski Club) are private. Five of the remainder deliver vertical drops of 400 feet or fewer. The state's entire lift-served skiable area clocks in at around 1,300 acres, which is smaller than Killington and just a touch larger than Solitude.But the code and character of those 11 public ski areas is what I'm interested in here. Winnowed from some 200 bumps that once ran ropetows up the incline, these survivors are super-adapters, the Darwinian capstones to a century-long puzzle: how to consistently offer skiing in a hostile world that hates you.New England is a rumbler, and always has been. Outside of northern Vermont's Green Mountain Spine (Sugarbush, MRG, Bolton, Stowe, Smuggs, Jay), which snags 200-plus inches of almost automatic annual snowfall, the region's six states can, on any given day from November to April, stage double as Santa's Village or serve as props for sad brown Christmas pining. Immersive reading of the New England Ski History website suggests this contemporary reality reflects historical norms: prior to the widespread introduction of snowmaking, ski areas could sometimes offer just a single-digit number of ski days in particularly difficult winters. Even now, even in good winters, the freeze-thaw cycle is relentless. The rain-snow line is a thing during big storms. Several times in recent years, including this one, furious December rainstorms have washed out weeks of early-season snow and snowmaking.And yet, like sharks, hanging on for hundreds of millions of years as mass extinctions rolled most of the rest of life into the fossil record, the surviving Massachusetts ski area operators found a way to keep moving forward. But these are not sharks – the Colorado- and Utah-based operators haven't plundered the hills rolling west of Boston just yet. Every one of these ski areas (with the exception of investment fund-owned Bousquet), is still family-owned and operated. And these families are among the smartest ski area operators in America.In October, tiny Ski Ward, owned for decades by the LaCroix family, was the first North American ski area to spin lifts for the 2023-24 ski season. Wachusett, a thousand-footer run by the Crowley family since 1968, is a model home for volume urban skiing efficiency. The Fairbank family transformed Jiminy Peak from tadpole (in the 1960s) to alligator before expanding their small empire into New England (the family now runs Bromley, Vermont and owns Cranmore, New Hampshire). The Murdock family has run Butternut since its 1963 founding, and likely saved nearby Otis Ridge from extinction by purchasing the ski area in 2016 (the Murdocks also purchased, but later closed, another nearby ski area, Ski Blandford).The Schaefers, of Charlemont by way of Michigan, are as wiley and wired as any of them. Patriarch Roy Schaefer drove in from the Midwest with a station wagon full of kids in 1978. He stapled then-bankrupt Berkshire East together with the refuse of dead and dying ski areas from all over America. Some time in the mid- to late-aughts, Roy's son Jon took over daily operations and rapidly modernized the lifts, snowmaking, and trail network. Roy's other son Jim, a Wall-Streeter, helped the family take full ownership of the ski area. In 2018, they bought Catamount, a left-behind bump with fantastic fall lines but dated lifts and snowmaking.None of this is new or news to anyone who pays attention to Massachusetts skiing. In fact, Jon Schaefer has appeared on my podcasts twice before (and I've been on his). But in the four years since he joined me for episode nine, a lot has changed at Berkshire, at Catamount, in New England, and across skiing. Daily, the narrative grows that consolidation and megapasses are squeezing family operators out of skiing. My daily work suggests that the opposite may be happening, that independent operators, who have outlasted skiing's extinction event of the low-snow decades and perfected their mad alchemy through decades of swinging the pickaxe into the same mountain, have never had a better story to tell. And Jon Schaefer has one of the better ways of telling it.What we talked aboutEarly openings for both ski areas; what it means that Catamount opened before Berkshire East this season; snowmaking metaphors that I can guarantee you haven't heard before; letting go of things you love as you take on more responsibility; the power of ropetows; Berkshire East's new T-Bar Express, the ski area's first high-speed quad; why Schaefer finally came around on detachable lift technology; the unique dynamics of a multi-generational, family-owned mountain; the long-term plan for the three current top-to-bottom chairlifts; the potential Berkshire East expansion; yes Berkshire is getting busier; the strange math of high-speed versus fixed-grip quads; that balance between modernizing and retaining atmosphere; the Indy Pass' impact on Berkshire and the industry as a whole; whether more mountains could join the Berkshire Summit Pass; whether the Schaefers could buy another ski area; whether they considered buying Jay Peak or are considering buying Burke; assessing the overhaul of Catamount's lift fleet; talking through the clear-cutting of Catamount's frontside trails; parking at Catamount; expansion potential for Catamount; and Catamount being “one of the best small ski areas in the country.”Below: first chair on the new T-Bar Express at Berkshire East:Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIf I could somehow itemize and sort the thousands of Storm-related emails and Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook messages that I've read over the past four years, a top-10 request would be some form of this: get Schaefer back on the podcast.There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that Jon is, in my opinion, one of the more unfiltered and original thinkers in skiing. His dad moved the family to Berkshire in 1978. Jon was born in 1980. That means he grew up on the mountain and he lives at the mountain and he holds its past, present, and future in his vision like some shaman of the Berkshires, orchestrating its machinations in a hallucinogenic flow state, crafting, from the ether, a ski area like no other in America.Which leads to the second reason. Because Schaefer is so willful and effective, it can often be difficult for outsiders to see into the eye of the hurricane. You kind of have to let the storm pass. And the past four years have been a bit of a storm, particularly at Catamount, where Covid and supply-chain issues collided with an ambitious but protracted lift-fleet upgrade.But that's all done. Catamount has five functioning chairlifts (all of which, remarkably, were relocated from somewhere else). Berkshire just opened its first high-speed quad, the T-Bar Express. Both mountains are busier than ever, and Berkshire is a perennial Indy Pass top 10 by number of redemptions. And while expansion and a lift shuffle likely loom at Berkshire, both ski areas are, essentially, what the Schaefers want them to be.Which doesn't mean they are ever finished. Schaefer and I touch on this existential reality in the podcast, but we also discuss the other obvious question: now that Catamount's gut-renovation is wrapping up, what's next? Could this ski family, with their popular Berkshire Summit Pass (which is also good at Bousquet), expand with more owned or partner mountains? There are, after all, only so many people in America who know how to capably operate a ski area. You can learn, sure, but most people suck at it, which is (one reason) why there are more lost ski areas than active ones. While I don't root for consolidation necessarily, if ski areas are going to transfer ownership, I'd rather someone proven sign the deed than an unknown. And when it comes to proven, the Schaefers have proven as much as anyone in the country.Questions I wish I'd askedAt some point over the past few years, the Schaefers purchased a Rossland, B.C.-based Cat skiing operation called Big Red Cats. Their terrain covers 20,000 acres on eight peaks. I'm not sure why we didn't get into it.What I got wrongI said that Indy Pass had 130 alpine partners. That was correct on Dec. 6, when we conducted the interview, but the pass has since added Moose Mountain, Alaska and Hudson Bay Mountain, B.C., bringing the total up to 132.Why you should ski Berkshire East and CatamountWhile age, injuries, perspective, volume, skiing with children, and this newsletter have all changed my approach to where and what I ski on any given day, the thing I still love most is the fight. Riding the snowy mountain, in its bruising earthly form, through its trees and drops and undulations, feeling part of something raw and wild. I don't like speed. I like technical and varied terrain that requires deliberate, thoughtful turns. This I find profoundly interesting, like a book that offers, with each page, a captivating new thing.Massachusetts is a great ski state, but it doesn't have a lot of what I just described, that sort of ever-rolling wickedness you'll find clinging to certain mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire. But the state does have one such ski area: Berkshire East. She's ready to fight. Glades and bumps and little cliffs in the woods. Jiminy and Wachusett give you high-speed lifts and operational excellence, but they don't give you (more than nominal) trees. For a skier looking to summon a little Mad River Glen but save themselves a three-hour drive, Berkshire East goes on the storm-chase list.But unlike MRG, Berkshire is a top-to-bottom snowmaking house, and it has to be. While the glades are amazing when you can get them, the operating assumption here is that, more often than not, you can't. And that means the vast majority of skiers – those who prefer groomers to whatever frolics you find in the trees – can head to Berkshire knowing a good day awaits.Catamount, less-snowy and closer to New York City, gives you a more traditional Massachusetts ski experience. More people (it seems), less exploring in the trees (though you can do this a bit). What it has in common with Berkshire is that Catamount is an excellent natural ski mountain. Fall lines, headwalls, winders through the trees. A thousand vert gives you a good run. Head there on a weekday in March, when the whole joint is open, and let them run.Podcast NotesOn Schaefer's previous podcast appearancesSchaefer was the first person to ever agree to join me on The Storm Skiing Podcast, answering my cold email in about four seconds. “Let's do it,” he wrote. It took us a few months to make it happen, but he joined me for episode nine. While he showed up huge, the episode also doubles as a showcase for how much better my own production quality has gotten over the past four years. The intro is sorta… flat:A few months later, Schaefer became the first operator in America to shutter his mountains to help stop the spread of Covid-19. He almost immediately launched an organization called Goggles for Docs, and he joined me on my “Covid-19 & Skiing” miniseries to discuss the initiative:The next year, I joined Jon on his Berkshire Sessions podcast, where we discussed his mountains and Northeast skiing in general:On historic opening and closing dates at Berkshire East and CatamountWe discussed Berkshire and Catamount's historical opening and closing dates. Here's what the past 10 years looked like (the Schaefers took over Catamount starting with the 2018-19 ski season):On Berkshire SnowbasinSchaefer discussed the now-defunct Berkshire Basin ski area in nearby Cummington. The ski area operated from 1949 to 1989, according to New England Ski History, and counted a 550-foot vertical drop (though the map below says 500). Here's a circa 1984 trailmap:Schaefer references efforts to re-open this ski area as a backcountry center, though I couldn't find any reporting on the topic.Stan Brown, whom Schaefer cites for his insight that skiers “are more interested in how they get up the mountain than how they get down” founded Berkshire Snow Basin with his wife, Ruth.On high-speed ropetowsI'll never stop yelling about these things until everyone installs one – these high-speed ropetows can move 4,000 skiers per hour and cost all of $50,000. A more perfect terrain park lift does not exist. This one is at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota (video by me):On when the T-bar came out of Berkshire EastSchaefer refers to the old T-bar that occupied the line where the new high-speed quad now sits. The lift did not extend to the summit, but ran 1,800 feet up from the base, along the run that is still known as Competition (lift F below):On Schaefer's past resistance to high-speed liftsShaun Sutner, a longtime snowsports reporter who has appeared on this podcast three times – most recently in November – summarized Schaefer's onetime resistance to detachable lifts in a 2015 Worcester Telegram & Gazette article:The start of the 2014-15 ski season came with the B-East's first-ever summit quad, a $2 million fixed-grip "medium-speed" lift from Skytrac, a new U.S.-owned lift company. The low-maintenance, elegantly simple conveyance will save millions of dollars over the years. Not only was it less than half the cost of a high-speed detachable quad, but it also eliminates the need for $300,000-$500,000 grip replacements that high-speed lifts need every three or four years.So what changed Schaefer's mind? We discussed in the podcast.On the potential Berkshire East expansionWhile Berkshire East has teased an expansion for several years, details remain scarce (rumors, unfortunately, do not). Schaefer tells us what he's willing to on the podcast, and this image, which the resort presented to a local planning board last year, shows the approximate location of the new terrain pod (around the red dotted line labeled “4”):While this plan suggests the Mountain Top Triple would move to serve the expansion, that may not necessarily be the final plan, Schaefer confirms.On “the gondola side of Stowe” When Schaefer says that the Berkshire expansion will ski like “the gondola side of Stowe,” he's referring to the terrain pod indicated below:Stowe has two gondolas, one of which connects Stowe proper to Spruce Peak, but that's not the terrain he's referring to. The double chair side of Plattekill also skis in the way Schaefer describes, as a series of figure-eights that delightfully frazzles the senses, making the ski area feel far larger than it actually is:On Indy Pass rankingsBerkshire East has finished as a top-10 mountain in number of Indy Pass redemptions every season:On LiftopiaSchaefer references Liftopia, a former online lift ticket broker whose legacy is fading. At one time, I was a huge fan of this Expedia-of-skiing site, where you could score substantial discounts to most major non-Vail ski areas. I hosted founder and CEO Evan Reece way back on podcast number 8:Sadly, the company collapsed with the onset of Covid, as I documented back in 2020:…the industry's most-prominent pure tech entity – Liftopia – has been teetering on existential collapse since failing to pay significant numbers of its partners following the March shutdown. A group of ski area operators tried forcing Liftopia into bankruptcy to recoup their funds. They failed, then appealed, then withdrew that appeal. Outside of the public record, bitter and betrayed ski area operators fumed about the loss of revenues that, as Aspen Snowmass CFO Matt Jones wrote in emails filed in federal court, “were never yours to begin with.” In August, Liftopia CEO Evan Reece announced that he had signed a letter of intent to sell the company.That new owner, Liftopia announced Friday, would be Skitude, a European tech outfit specializing in mobile apps. “The proceeds from the sale will be used to pay creditors,” SAM reported. In an email to an independent ski area operator that was shared with The Storm Skiing Journal Reece wrote that “…all claims will be treated equally,” without specifying whether partners could expect a full or partial repayment. The message also indicated that the new owner may “prioritize ongoing partners,” though it was unclear whether that indicated preference in future business terms or payback of owed funds, or something else altogether.Whatever the outcome, this unsatisfying story is a tale of enormous missed opportunity. No company was better positioned to help lift-served skiing adapt to the social-distancing age than Liftopia. It could have easily expanded and adapted its highly regarded technology to accommodate the almost universal shift to online-only sales for lift tickets, rental reservations, ski lessons, and even appointment times in the lodge. It had 15 years of brand recognition with customers and deep relationships within the ski industry.But ski areas, uncertain about Liftopia's future, have spent an offseason when they could have been building out their presence on a familiar platform scrambling for replacement tech solutions. In addition to the Liftopia-branded site, many ski areas used Liftopia's Cloud Store platform to sell day tickets, season passes, rentals, and more. While it is unclear how many former partners shifted to another point-of-sale system this offseason, several have confirmed to The Storm Skiing Journal that they have done so.I'm not sure how Liftopia would have faired against the modern version of the Indy Pass, but more choice is almost always better for consumers, and I'm still bitter about how this one collapsed.On CaddyshackMovie quotes are generally lost on me, but Schaefer references this one from Caddyshack, so I looked it up and this is what the robots fed me:On the majority of skier visits now being on a season passAccording to the National Ski Areas Association, season pass holders have surpassed day-ticket buyers for total number of skier visits for four consecutive seasons. Without question, this is simply because the industry has gotten very good at incentivizing season pass sales by rolling the most well-known ski areas onto the Epic and Ikon passes. It is unclear whether the NSAA counts the Indy or Mountain Collective passes as season passes, but the number of each of those sold is small in comparison to Epic and Ikon.On the Berkshire Summit PassThe Schaefers have been leaders in establishing compelling regional multimountain ski passes. The Berkshire Summit Pass has, since 2020, delivered access to three solid western Massachusetts ski areas: Berkshire East, Catamount, and partner mountain Bousquet (on the unlimited version only). It is available in unlimited, Sunday through Friday, midweek, and nights-only versions. An Indy Pass add-on makes this a badass cross-New England ski product.On Burke being great and accessible even though it looks as though it's parked at the ass-end of nowhereThe first piece of ski writing I ever published was a New York Ski Blog recap of a Burke ski day in 2019:Last week, winter seemed to be winding down, with above-freezing temps forecast clear up to Canada before St. Patrick's Day. Desperate to extend winter, I had my sights on a storm forecast to dump nearly a foot of new snow across northern Vermont. After considering my options, I locked onto a hill I'd overlooked in 20 years of skiing Vermont: Burke.I'd read the online commentary: steep, funky, heavily gladed, classic New England twisty with high-quality snow well-preserved by cold temps and a lack of crowds. But to get there you have to drive past some big-name ski areas, most with equal or greater vertical drop, skiable acreage and average annual snowfall.Further research uncovered a secret Burke advantage over its better-known neighbors: unlike other mountains that require a post-expressway slog of 30-plus miles on local roads, Burke sits just seven miles off Interstate 91, meaning it was actually the closest northern Vermont option by drive time.As 10 inches of snow piled up Sunday and Monday and areas to the south teeter-tottered along a freeze-thaw cycle that would turn ungroomed trails to granite, Burke looked like my last best shot at mid-winter conditions.Two days after the storm, on the last day of below-freezing temps, I left Brooklyn at 4 am and arrived at 9:15. Read the rest…On Burke's (mostly) hapless ownership historyWe talk quite a bit about Burke Mountain, one of those good New England ski areas with a really terrible business record. Schaefer refers to the unusually huge number of former owners, which, according to New England Ski History, include:* 1964: Burke Mountain Recreation (Doug Kitchel) buys area; eventually went bankrupt* 1987: Paul D. Quinn buys, eventually sells to bank after his bank goes bankrupt* 1990: Hilco, Inc., a bank, takes ownership, then sells to…* 1991: Bernd Schaefers (no relation to Jon), under whom the ski area eventually went bankrupt (for the second time)* 1995: Northern Star Ski Corporation (five owners) buys the ski area, but it eventually goes bankrupt for a third time* 2000: Unidentified auction winner buys Burke and sells it to…* 2000: Burke Mountain Academy, who never wanted to be long-term owner, and sold to…* 2005: Laubert-Adler and the Ginn Corporation, who sold to…* 2012: Aerial Quiros, who engaged in all kinds of shadiness* 2016: Burke becomes the property of U.S. America, as court-appointed receiver takes control of this and Jay Peak. While Jay sold last year, Burke remains for saleOn media reports indicating that there is a bid on BurkeI got excited earlier this year, when the excellent Vermont Digger reported that the sales process for Burke appeared to be underway:Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed receiver in charge of overseeing Burke Mountain ski resort for more than seven years, has an offer to buy the scandal-plagued ski resort in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.News of the bid came from a recent court filing submitted by Goldberg, predicting that a sale of the property would take place “later this year.”The filing does not name the bidder or the amount of the bid, but the document stated that Goldberg wants to continue to seek qualified buyers, and if a matching or higher price is offered, an auction would be held to sell the resort. …“The Receiver has received an initial offer, and expects to file a motion with the Court in the next month recommending an identical sales process to the Jay Peak sale – a ‘stalking horse' bid, followed by an auction and a subsequent motion asking the Court to approve a final sale,” Goldberg stated in his recent court filing regarding Burke.Well, nothing happened, though the bid remains active, as far as I know. So who knows. I hope whoever buys Burke next, this place can finally stabilize and build.On the West Mountain expansion at CatamountSchaefer discusses a potential expansion at Catamount. New England Ski History hosts a summary page for this one as well:A lift and a variety of trails are proposed for the west side of the ski area, crossing over the Lower Sidewinder trail. The lift would climb 650 vertical feet from a new parking lot to the junction of Upper and Lower Sidewinder. 6 trail segments would be cut above and below the lower switchback of the Lower Sidewinder Trail. All of the terrain would be located in New York state.Here's a circa 2014 map, showing the proposed expansion looker's right: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 113/100 in 2023, and number 498 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

Church by the Glades celebrates Christmas 2023 with hints of AI, Lasers, and acrobats hanging from the ceiling. Pastor David delivers an inspiring message about the birth of Christ and how God came down to us.

In 2018, writer Robert Langellier and botanist Neal Humke cut down every tree across 19 acres in Pioneer Forest. Their aim was to restore one of the Ozarks' rarest ecosystems: a glade. While it may seem counterintuitive to cut down trees in a time of climate change, restoring glades helps ensure biodiversity. In this encore episode, Langellier talks about the conservation effort. Humke, land stewardship coordinator for the L-A-D Foundation (which privately owns the land in the Pioneer Forest) discusses the non-profits' work there and the importance of glades.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 26. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 2. 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: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

Pastor David Hughes delivers a compelling sermon on the essence of family, emphasizing the core values of the Church by the Glades.

Florida's 2023 tropical weather has ramped up as we find ourselves in the peak of hurricane season so the timing couldn't be more appropriate to reflect on our state's history with September storms. As clean up efforts from Idalia continue in North Florida, we take a look back at the disastrous 1926 Hurricane which forevermore changed Florida's trajectory financially and environmentally. This one tragic weather incident devastated the Glades region and altered Florida's course more than anyone at that time could have realized so join us for firsthand accounts of those fateful hours from survivors who bore witness to the devastation.

In this week's [UNCENSORED] podcast by GoWild, we talk with Paul Campbell from the 02 Podcast about every and anything turkey hunting related. He spent the majority of his season on the road chasing the thunder with some of his most memorable moments in the Everglades of southern Florida–it was HOT! Pro-tip: Don't forget your Thermacell! He packed on the miles in pursuit of a Sunshine State public land Osceola, even after finding an unpromising sight at his camp site. He then transferred over to some private land for a completely different style of hunting hoping for success … find out if he finds it or not! Lots of firsts for Paul on his trip as well as plenty of excitement. Listen in to find out why he says he'd love to go back.  We also cover public hunting perception and how the atmosphere is changing. How do we get more people outdoors and hunting? Paul gives some great advice on how he thinks we can change the perception of anti-hunting and how we should showcase hunting vs how it currently gets displayed on social media. What do you think outdoorsmen can do to help promote the hunting industry in a positive light? Paul goes on to talk about getting to speak to a conservation science class in Ohio. We talk about just how important it is to bring that curriculum into both high school and grad school levels of education as the numbers of hunters declines. Bass fishing teams and national archery leagues are really making a positive impact in that space but how else could we get kids involved? We pivot to discuss just how stupid a whitetail can be during turkey season. Literally they'll walk right up to your lap! Also, Paul tells a story about how he comes to a whitetail's rescue; the second time's the charm, right? Lots of fishing gear is dropping on the GoWild platform soon, as well as some collaborative stuff with gunbroker.com. It's going to be an exciting summer! If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a rate and review!! [UNCENSORED] by GoWild kicks off your week with shameful nonsense, inappropriate convictions, and unfiltered tales from the woods, waters and whatevers. [UNCENSORED] is a behind the scenes look at our adventures, failures, wins, embarrassing moments at trade shows, hilarious tales from the warehouse, and a good rant or three about the most recent tyranny from the Dark Lord of the Sith himself. The show launches every Monday morning. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. JOIN GOWILD AND GET $10: http://downloadgowild.com Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Lloyd Wruble is a successful, retired oral and facial surgeon by trade, and one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. He's a soft spoken man with a passion for fishing, not just fishing, but backcountry, Everglades fishing in South Florida. He has fished the nooks and crannies of the Everglades for decades. It's a labyrinthine waterway of creeks, black mangroves, bays, cypress trees, pines and sable palms that weave in and out and around forever and ever. Inside its world of salt and brackish water swim snook, redfish, tarpon, bass and a multitude of other species. It's beautiful and pristine, a sacred sanctuary! This is where Lloyd has given his soul. His relationship with the glades was initially cemented with the late pioneer, Herman Lucerne. He took Wruble deeper into the unknown and became Lloyd's mentor and great friend. Herman showed him this remote country like only Herman could, as he knew it better than anyone else... When Herman died in hurricane Andrew, Lloyd was crushed. He'd lost a brother, then devoted much of his time to preserving the life that Herman lived. On today's podcast, Lloyd Wruble speaks of many things few people has ever seen or know about.