Podcasts about jetsonian

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Feb. 1. It dropped for free subscribers on Feb. 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.WhoDavy Ratchford, Vice President and General Manager of Snowbasin Resort, UtahRecorded onJanuary 31, 2023About SnowbasinClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The R. Earl Holding FamilyPass affiliations: Ikon Pass, Mountain CollectiveLocated in: Huntsville, UtahYear founded: 1940Closest neighboring ski areas: Nordic Valley (30 minutes), Powder Mountain (35 minutes), Woodward Park City (1:05), Utah Olympic Park (1:08), Park City (1:15), Deer Valley (1:15), Snowbird (1:15), Alta (1:20), Solitude (1:20), Brighton (1:25), Sundance (1:40), Cherry Peak (1:45), Beaver Mountain (2:00) – travel times vary considerably based upon weather and trafficBase elevation: 6,450 feetSummit elevation: 9,350 feetVertical drop: 2,900 feetSkiable Acres: 3,000Average annual snowfall: 300 inchesTrail count: 111Lift count: 12­­ (One 15-passenger tram, 2 eight-passenger gondolas, 2 six-packs, 2 high-speed quads, 2 triples, 1 ropetow, 2 carpets) – Snowbasin will add a third six-pack on an all-new line this summer (more on this below).Why I interviewed himFor 60 years it sat there, empty, enormous, unnoticed. Utah skiing was Park City and Alta; Snowbird in the ‘70s; Deer Valley in the ‘80s; sometimes Solitude and Brighton. No need to ski outside that powder pocket east of SLC: in 1995, an Alta lift ticket cost $25, and the area resorts frequently landed on ski magazine “least-crowded” lists.The November 2000 issue of Ski distilled Snowbasin's malaise:Though skiers were climbing the high ridgeline that overlooks the small city of Ogden as far back as the Thirties, Alta founder Alf Engen officially discovered Snowbasin in 1940. At that time the high, sunny basin was used for cattle range, but it was so overgrazed that eroded topsoil and bloated carcasses of dead cows were tainting Ogden's water supply. Working with the U.S. Forest Service, Ogden's town fathers decided that a ski resort would provide income and recreation while also safeguarding the water supply. A deal was struck with the ranch owner, and Snowbasin opened for business.In the 60 years since, the resort has struggled under five owners, including Vail-founder Pete Seibert, who owned it in the mid-Eighties. The problem was a lack of lodging. Snowbasin was too far from Salt Lake City to attract out-of-state skiers and too far from Ogden to use the city's aging railroad center as a resort base. Successive owners realized that to succeed, Snowbasin needed a base village, but building one from scratch is a costly proposition. So for half a century, the resort has remained the private powder stash of Ogden locals and the few lucky skiers who have followed rumors of deep snow and empty lifts up Ogden Canyon.In 1984, Earl Holding, an oil tycoon who had owned Sun Valley since 1978, purchased the resort from Seibert (process the fact that Snowbasin was once part of the Vail portfolio for a moment). For a long time, nothing much changed. Then came the 2002 Olympics. In a single offseason in 1998, the resort added two gondolas, a tram, and a high-speed quad (John Paul), along with the thousand-ish-acre Strawberry terrain pod. A new access road cut 13 miles off the drive from Salt Lake City. Glimmering base lodges rose from the earth.Still, Snowbasin languished. “But despite the recent addition of modern lifts, it has still failed to attract more than 100,000 skier visits the past two seasons,” Ski wrote in 2000, attributing this volume partly to “the fact that the Olympics, not today's lift ticket revenue, is the management's priority.” Holding, the magazine reported, was considering a bizarre name change for the resort to “Sun Valley.” As in, Sun Valley, Utah. Reminder: there was no social media in 2000.That's all context, to make this point: the Snowbasin that I'm writing about today – a glimmering end-of-the-road Ikon Pass jewel with a Jetsonian lift fleet – is not the Snowbasin we were destined to have. From backwater to baller in a generation. This is the template, like it or not, for the under-developed big-mountain West. Vail Mountain, Park City, Snowbird, Palisades Tahoe, Breckenridge, Steamboat: these places cannot accommodate a single additional skier. They're full. The best they can do now is redistribute skiers across the mountain and suck more people out of the base areas with higher-capacity lifts. But with record skier visits and the accelerating popularity of multi-mountain passes that concentrate more of them in fewer places, we're going to need relief valves. And soon.There are plenty more potential Snowbasins out there. Mountains with big acreage and big snowfall but underdeveloped lift and lodging infrastructure and various tiers of accessibility issues: White Pass, Mission Ridge, Silver Mountain, Montana Snowbowl, Great Divide, Discovery, Ski Apache, Angel Fire, Ski Santa Fe, Powder Mountain, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Loveland. There are dozens more.Snowbasin's story is singular and remarkable, a testament to invested owners and the power of media magnification to alter the fate of a place. But the mountain's tale is instructive as well, of how skiing can reorient itself around something other than our current version of snowy bunchball, the tendency for novice soccer players to disregard positions and swarm to wherever the ball moves. Snowbasin didn't matter and now it does. Who's next?What we talked aboutUtah's amazing endless 2022-23 snow season; an Irish fairytale; skiing Beaver Mountain in jeans; helping to establish Utah's Major League Soccer team and then leaving for the ski industry; “if you have a chance to raise your family in the mountains, you should do that”; the unique characteristic of a ski career that helps work-life balance; much love for the Vail Fam; the Holding family legacy; “Snowbasin is a gift to the world”; the family's commitment to keeping Snowbasin independent long-term; “they're going to put in the best possible things, all the time”; amazing lodges, bathrooms and all; Snowbasin's Olympic legacy and potential future involvement in the Games; breaking down the DeMoisy Express six-pack that will go up Strawberry this summer; what the new lift will mean for the Strawberry gondola; soccer fans versus ski fans; managing a resort in the era of knucklehead social media megaphones; “I've lost a lot of employees to guests”; taming the rumor machine; reflecting on the Middle Bowl lift upgrade; long-term upgrades for the Becker and Porcupine triples; Snowbasin's ambitious base-area redevelopment plan, including an all-inclusive Club Med, new lifts and terrain, and upgraded access road; “the amount of desire to own something here is huge”; what happens with parking once the mountain builds a village over it; the curse of easy access; breaking down the new beginner terrain and lifts that will accompany the village; whether future large-scale terrain expansion is possible; and leaving the Epic Pass for Ikon and Mountain Collective.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewLast month, Snowbasin announced that it will build the DeMoisy Express, a long-awaited six-pack that will run parallel to the Strawberry Gondola on a slightly shorter line, for the 2023-24 ski season. Here's where it will sit on the current trailmap (highlighted below):This will be Snowbasin's second six-pack in just two years, and it follows the resort's 2021 announcement of an ambitious base-area development plan, which will include new beginner terrain, several new lifts, a mixed-use pedestrian village, access-road improvements, and an all-inclusive Club Med resort. Here's a rendering of the reconfigured base at full build-out:Snowbasin, along with sister resort Sun Valley, also stalked off the Epic Pass last year, fleeing for the Mountain Collective and Ikon passes. “Because we're smart,” Ratchford half-joked when I asked him why the resorts left Epic after just three years. He framed the switch as an opportunity to expose the resorts to new skiers. Snowbasin surely will not be the last resort to change allegiances. Don't think big indies like Jackson Hole, Taos, and Revelstoke aren't listening when Vail calls, offering them a blank check to change jerseys.What I got wrongI had an on-the-fly moment where I mixed up the Wildcat Express six-pack and the Littlecat Express high-speed quad. I asked Ratchford how they were going to upgrade Little Cat (as suggested in the base-area redevelopment image above), when it was already a six-pack. Dumb stuff happens in the moment during these podcasts, and while I guess I could ask the robots to fix it, I'd rather just own the mistake and keep moving.Why you should ski SnowbasinI love skiing Alta and Snowbird, but I don't love skiing anywhere enough to endure the mass evacuation drill that is a Cottonwoods powder-day commute. Not when there's a place like Snowbasin where you can just, you know, pull into the parking lot and go skiing.What you'll find when you arrive is as good as anything you'll hunt down in U.S. skiing. Maybe not from a total snowfall perspective – though 300 inches is impressive anywhere outside of Utah – but from a lift-and-lodge infrastructure point of view. Four – soon to be five – high-speed chairlifts, a tram and two gondolas, and a couple old triple chairs that Ratchford tells me will be replaced fairly soon, and probably with high-speed quads. The lodges are legendary, palaces of excess and overbuild, welcome in an industry that makes Lunch-Table Death-Match a core piece of the experience. If you need to take your pet elephant to the bathroom, plug Snowbasin into your GPS – I assure you the stalls can accommodate them.But, really, you ski Snowbasin because Snowbasin is easy to get to and easy to access, with the Ikon Pass that most people reading this probably already have, and with terrain that's as good as just about anything else you're going to find in U.S. America.Podcast NotesOn Park City: Ratchford referred obliquely to the ownership change at Park City in 2014, saying, “if you know the history there…” Well, if you don't know the history there, longtime resort owner Powdr Corp made the biggest oopsie in the history of lift-served skiing when it, you know, forgot to renew its lease on the mountain. Vail, in what was the most coldblooded move in the history of lift-served skiing, installed itself as the new lessee in what I can imagine was a fit of cackling glee. It was amazing. You can read more about it here and here. If only The Storm had existed back then.On the Olympics: While I don't cover the Olympics at all (I completely ignored them last year, the first Winter Games in which The Storm existed), I do find their legacy at U.S. ski resorts interesting. Only five U.S. ski areas have hosted events: Whiteface (1980), Palisades Tahoe (1960), and, in 2002, Deer Valley, Park City, and Snowbasin. Ratchford and I talk a bit about this legacy, and the potential role of his resort in the upcoming 2030 or 2034 Games – Salt Lake City is bidding to host one or the other. Read more here.On megapasses: Snowbasin has been all over the place with megapasses. Here's its history, as best I can determine:* 2013: Snowbasin joins the Powder Alliance reciprocal coalition (it is unclear when Snowbasin left this coalition)* 2017: Snowbasin joins Mountain Collective for 2017-18 ski season* 2019: Snowbasin joins Epic Pass, leaves Mountain Collective for 2019-20 ski season* 2022: Snowbasin leaves Epic Pass, re-joins Mountain Collective and joins Ikon Pass for 2022-23 ski seasonThe Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 8/100 in 2023, and number 394 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.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Evgenia and I talk to our friend Anthony Galluzzo about his views on the politics of technology, degrowth, the left’s inability to imagine a way of life decoupled from industrial capitalism and consumerism, and how both the right, the left and the center are all in the thrall of techno-utopianism.Anthony is a lecturer at the New School. His focus is on early American and Romantic literature. You can follow him on Twitter and read his some of his stuff here and here and here. —Yasha LevinePS: I wanted to start our talk with Anthony by discussing Biden’s pro-growth “climate” bill — which, among subsidies to electric car and solar panel corps and ghee-whiz green capitalist carbon reclamation projects, ties building wind farms to opening millions of acres of land for new onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska. But I got caught up in the moment and forgot to mention it. So we never got around to discussing the issue. Maybe next time… This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe

Evgenia and I talk to our friend Anthony Galluzzo about his views on the politics of technology, degrowth, the left’s inability to imagine a way of life decoupled from industrial capitalism and consumerism, and how both the right, the left and the center are all in the thrall of techno-utopianism.Anthony is a lecturer at the New School. His focus is on early American and Romantic literature. You can follow him on Twitter and read his some of his stuff here and here and here.—Yasha LevineOne note: I wanted to start our talk with Anthony by discussing Biden’s pro-growth “climate” bill — which, among subsidies to electric car and solar panel corps and ghee-whiz green capitalist carbon reclamation projects, ties building wind farms to opening millions of acres of land for new onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska. But I got caught up in the moment and forgot to mention it. So we never got around to discussing the issue. Maybe next time… This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe

The Storm Skiing Podcast is sponsored by Mountain Gazette - Listen to the podcast for discount codes on subscriptions and merch.WhoCharles Skinner, Co-President and co-owner of Lutsen Mountains, Minnesota; and President and owner of Granite Peak, WisconsinRecorded onAugust 30, 2021Why I interviewed him Because my God, these mountains:They are improbable enough in the Midwest that few have had the audacity to even imagine ski areas of this size and variety. Enormous and interesting places, cut with endless glades and high-speed lift systems sparkling like some Sim City fantasy of what a built-from-scratch ski area could be. But Lutsen and Granite Peak are not what could be. They are what is: two of the best ski resorts in the Midwest. And there was nothing inevitable about that. This is what Granite Peak looked like in 1996, four years before Skinner took over:The ski area was “tired and old,” Skinner told me in the podcast. “It was like starting a whole new ski area.” Indeed, driven by his willingness to invest and his commitment to crafting mountains that are actually interesting to ski, Granite Peak is now one of the most up-to-date ski areas in the country.Skinner has vision. Many people do. But what makes him special is the tenacity, creativity, and organization to actually construct something tangible. Big, wild ski areas where they have no business being. I wanted to understand how he did it and what was happening next.What we talked aboutThe legacy of Skinner’s late father, Charles Skinner III, the founder of Sugar Hills, Minnesota and onetime GM of Sugarloaf and owner of Lutsen; skiing Minnesota as a child in the ‘60s; Lutsen in 1980; why the ski area installed the Midwest’s only gondola and why it makes sense even though it only rises 300 vertical feet; where that original gondola came from; what happened to Sugar Hills; how Skinner acquired the ski area from his father in the early ‘90s; how glades finally landed in the Midwest and the importance of a balanced mountain; bringing Mystery Mountain back from the dead; why Lutsen expanded onto the North Face; why Lutsen advertises a 1,088-foot vertical drop but only an 825-foot lift-served vertical drop; the gondola and Moose Mountain six-pack upgrades; which Lutsen lifts may be next in line for upgrades and what kind of lifts we may see; Lutsen’s mammoth expansion plan; what to expect out of the mass of new trails, glades, and lifts on Moose Mountain; creating an expansive beginner pod off of Eagle Mountain; the virtues of green-circle glades; how new baselodges would fix the mountain’s remote-parking problem; the advantages of drawing your snowmaking water from the largest body of fresh water on planet Earth; a potential timeline for the expansion and which parts of the project they would build first; why Skinner passed on Granite Peak the first time it came up for sale and what finally sold him on it; the “tired” and run-down Granite Peak of 2000 and how the ski area evolved into one of the Midwest’s largest and best ski complexes; Granite Peak’s huge expansion ambitions, including visions for new trails, chairs, and lodges; what may replace the Blitzen lift; why the mountain may build a mountain bike-only pod; why this expansion proposal is different from the one that fizzled half a decade ago; a potential expansion timeline and what may come first; the joint Lutsen-Granite Peak pass; why the two mountains joined the Indy Pass and why they added so many blackouts this season; the M.A.X. Pass and why Granite Peak and Lutsen didn’t join the Ikon Pass; why no one understands the Midwest; why Skinner considers his true competition to be Western destination resorts; whether he would ever buy another ski area; and whether the mountains will continue to be family-owned.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview Because as big and built-out as they are, neither ski area is even close to finished. Both Granite Peak and Lutsen are working on expansion plans that would essentially double their trail footprints. Granite Peak would add four new pods of much-needed beginner and intermediate terrain to the east and west sides of existing trails. Most of the new lifts, Skinner told me, would be detachables:Lutsen would cut trails and glades along the rest of Moose Mountain and drop a large beginner pod off the back of Eagle Mountain. Lutsen’s lift network isn’t the Jetsonian marvel that Granite Peak’s is, but it would see substantial upgrades:These are two of the most transformative expansion projects underway in American skiing – and they are happening at what are already some of the most well-cared-for and thoughtfully developed and updated mountains in the Midwest. I wanted to see where Skinner was in these projects, when we could see the trails start to materialize out of the wilderness, and what it would take to nudge these plans into existence.What I got wrongIn the intro, I identified Skinner as the chairman of the board of the Minnesota Ski Areas Association, a position he’s since resigned from. When we discussed Lutsen’s expansion, I was looking at an old version of the expansion plan – the current one, and the one Skinner refers to in the podcast, is embedded above. In prepping for this interview, I’d studied old trailmaps and concluded that Skinner had added Mystery Mountain shortly after taking ownership, but what he actually did was revive it from its grave – the pod had been taken off the trailmap for several years for the simple reason that the lift serving it was broken. A close inspection of archived maps reveals that Lutsen simple de-emphasized Mystery Mountain the 1993 trailmap (left), and, once they installed a new lift in 1994 (right), the peak reappeared:Why you should ski thereBecause these may be the best ski areas between Whiteface and Winter Park. Set the singular Mount Bohemia aside here – most people couldn’t ski that wild and remote slice of gladed freefall if they tried. Granite Peak and Lutsen are true everyone mountains. Families like them. Radbrahs like them. People who wish they were skiing out West like them. In a Midwest where half the ski areas are clear-cut hillsides with 18 lifts climbing 250 vertical feet on a 10-acre footprint, these feel like something transplanted from another region, sprawling and tree-lined, with lifts that (mostly) don’t feel like they were stapled together A-Team style from a World War II scrapyard. The Upper Midwest is one of the world’s great ski centers, cold and snowy and filled with the hearty and the adventurous. It deserves ski areas like Granite Peak and Lutsen, and if you’re anywhere near them, they need to be on your list.Additional resourcesLutsenLift Blog’s Lutsen lift inventory - the gondola pics are especially goodAn archive of Lutsen trailmapsThe Star Tribune obituary for Skinner’s father, Charles Skinner III, who once owned Lutsen and passed away earlier this year.Granite PeakLift Blog’s Granite Peak lift inventoryAn archive of Granite Peak trailmapsGranite Peak GM and Marketing Director Greg Fisher on The Storm Skiing PodcastThis Ski article from 2002 captures the rapid-fire pace of Granite Peak’s transformation Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

The Internet of Things (IoT) industry has quickly transformed from a futuristic idea to the next massive evolution (McKinsey predicts IoT will deliver $6 trillion in economic impact by 2025). Greg Kahn is the President and CEO of the Internet of Things Consortium, a trade association focused on frontier technologies across IoT including home automation, smart cities, connected healthcare/wellness, connected cars and connected retail. Greg is also the CEO of GK Digital Ventures, which provides investor strategies, marketplace development and executive experiences, and data & technology support. He has been awarded the Business Role Model of the Year in 2020 by CEO World. Named one of the Top IoT influencers by Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and The Internet of Business. We talk about the future of IoT, its impact on startups and corporations and why the future is not in some Jetsonian future but is the Now Normal.

In our pilot episode, we interview the fascinating and inspiring Clem Newton-Brown. Clem is a former barrister, Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne and Member of the Victorian Parliament. He is also a key player in getting Uber Air to choose Melbourne as one of the first international test cities for their urban aerial ride sharing service. He has spent a lifetime around politics, law, planning, and cities, pushing the boundaries. He started the first water taxi service on the Yarra River in 1992 and around the same time was getting around on a powered scooter, 25 years before the current trend for micro-mobility. With Uber Air's plans for Melbourne, Clem's https://www.skyportz.com/ (Skyportz) business is developing the infrastructural network required. In his conversation with Brenton, Clem shares his insights on how air mobility is the future for urban transportation, and how our experience of urban mobility will transform our lives. --- Connect with Clem - https://www.linkedin.com/in/clem-newton-brown-oam-47490724/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/clem-newton-brown-oam-47490724/) https://www.skyportz.com/ (https://www.skyportz.com/) --- Contact our host - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentonmwebber/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentonmwebber/) https://www.halftimeorange.co.nz/ (https://www.halftimeorange.co.nz)

Sarah and Ellison Weist convene for the fourth annual summer reading podcast to discuss their favorite new books—plus a few fabulous classics. They start with fiction, and the duo soon realizes how many of the novels have a British bent to them. Fittingly, Ellison makes excellent use of the adjective “twee” with regards to a ballyhooed book she recommends steering clear of. Sarah voices her Jetsonian desire about a new way to experience books. Sprinkled amidst the literary conversation are mentions of film and TV adaptations of stories—and numerous “hot vicar” allusions! The BAMRs recommend a few non-fiction tomes. Ever-in-the-know, Ellison also offers numerous suggestions for books coming out in the next few months, including a collection of short stories by Tom Hanks. Below are all the new books mentioned in the episode, plus a few novels Sarah and Ellison can’t let go of. The gals talk movies (and more) in the intro; the book talk starts at 13:49. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book, ENCHANTED OBJECTS, M.I.T. Media Lab researcher, David Rose, explores the sometimes too-futuristic world of "smart" house objects. A world of Jetsonian objects are already a reality: coffee tables that you can check Facebook on, refrigerators that monitor your grocery purchases and toasters that talk to you. These household-wonders can enhance and develop human relationships when guided properly, and David join us today to share his outline for an enlightened tech future.

Colin Marshall sits down before a live audience at the New Urbanism Film Festival at Los Angeles' ACME Theater with Tim Halbur, Director of Communications at the Congress for the New Urbanism, former Managing Editor at Planetizen, creator of the two-disc DVD set The Story of Sprawl, and author of the children's urban planning book Where Things Are from Near to Far. They discuss the anti-Los Angeles indoctrination he received in San Francisco, and what that indoctrination might have had right; the two "nodes" of Hollywood and the beach that outsiders tend to recognize in Los Angeles, and why people claim to live here even when they live thirty miles away; why cities actually build for the car aren't as often derided as "built for the car"; the hard-to-place unease we grew up with in the suburbs; his past producing museum audio tours, and how he would produce an audio tour of Los Angeles that navigates by subcultures; whether Los Angeles is too big, and what it means that we continually try to define and connect it all; what the Congress for the New Urbanism does, and how it addresses the way we once "carved out" our cities for parking lots and freeways; the Jetsonian vision of the future that carried us away after the Second World War; what Disneyland gets right about urbanism; the constant change that defines a living city, and San Francisco's unhappy experience trying to halt it; the Beverly Hills 90210 model of denser-than-suburbia living he found in Los Angeles; his weekly commute to the CNU in Chicago, and what he learns from living in these two quite different cities at once; how he'd like to see Los Angeles change in the next ten years; how Eric Brightwell's neighborhood maps surprise people, and what that means for neighborhood awareness; and the importance of "theming" urban places.

We start off this week's CKUA podcast with everyone's favourite 1967 Expo-era Ontario promotional tune. This earworm of a ditty was commissioned by the government of Ontario for the 1967 Expo in Montreal. While those Jetsonian fantasies didn’t come true Ontario is taking dramatic steps towards a renewable energy future. Imagine a place that is turning off all of its coal plants in just two years and replacing most of it with renewable energy. That is happening right now in Ontario. See Green Energy Futures video, blog and photos: http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/10/renewable-energy-revolution-ontario