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Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.About CamelbackOwned by: EPR Properties, managed by Peregrine Hospitality (formerly KSL Resorts)Located in: Tannersville, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Shawnee Mountain (:24), Jack Frost (:26), Big Boulder (:27), Skytop Lodge (:29), Saw Creek (:37), Blue Mountain (:41), Pocono Ranchlands (:43), Montage (:44), Hideout (:51), Elk Mountain (1:05), Bear Creek (1:09), Ski Big Bear (1:16)Base elevation: 1,252 feetSummit elevation: 2,079 feetVertical drop: 827 feetSkiable Acres: 166Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 45, with three new trails for 2026-27 (not on the map below, but discussed on the podcast)Lift count: 12 (1 high-speed six-pack, 1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 2 doubles, 5 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Camelback's lift fleet)For reference:The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, then click on any text block to teleport to the associated point in the video; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:37.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and I've got a really good show for you today.00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:45.000Stuart Winchester: we're going to talk some Pennsylvania skiing. And Pennsylvania skiing is a really interesting thing. As I travel around the country.00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:56.000Stuart Winchester: and ski at all these different places in the Midwest, and out West, and in New England, and in the Mid-Atlantic. Uh, and as I talk to folks who… who don't ski that much, or only ski at the big mountains.00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:05.000Stuart Winchester: I'll often bring up some experience I had at a Pennsylvania ski area. Pennsylvania has quite a few ski areas as 21.00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:20.000Stuart Winchester: public chairlift-served ski areas, and it does 2.6 million skier visits on average per year. That is more than any state except for Colorado, California, Utah, Vermont, and New York.00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:26.000Stuart Winchester: It's more than Washington, it's more than Oregon, it's more than Montana, it's more than New.00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:39.000Stuart Winchester: So, Pennsylvania is a really important ski state, which is probably why Vail Resorts owns 8 ski areas there, because it is really close to a lot of population centers. In western PA, you have Pittsburgh.00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:54.000Stuart Winchester: and Seven Springs, and Laurel, and Hidden Valley, and then you have Philadelphia on the east side, and you can also draw up from Baltimore and D.C. for Round Top and Whitetail. And uh…00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.000Stuart Winchester: And Jack Frost's Big Boulder up in the Poconos. So…00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.000Stuart Winchester: Vail has a big presence there.00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:15.000Stuart Winchester: Icon has a presence there with Camelback and Blue Mountain. Uh, and then Indy Pass just signed their 8th ski area in Pennsylvania with Spring Mountain, uh, down near Philadelphia. So, so it's, it's a place where a lot of skiers start.00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.000Stuart Winchester: And it's a little bit of a funny place to ski, because…00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:29.000Stuart Winchester: it tends to have an outsized number of novice skiers, which is great. They're very good at doing that. Uh, but it can make it a little chaotic.00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:38.000Stuart Winchester: And the lift lines can get a little crazy, and people are all over the hill, and sometimes they're walking down the hill because they're frustrated and they're giving up.00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and…00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.000Stuart Winchester: You take that as your baseline in Pennsylvania.00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.000Stuart Winchester: And you had any sort of complications.00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:54.000Stuart Winchester: And things get out of hand really quickly. And in general.00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:00.000Stuart Winchester: For that reason, the ski areas that have survived in Pennsylvania.00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:07.000Stuart Winchester: are among the best operators in the world, and I would put that up against anyone.00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: It's a very, very challenging environment, not only because you have a high number of novice skiers.00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but also because you have…00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:31.000Stuart Winchester: not a ton of snow, sometimes in the west part of the state, where there's higher elevation, they do get a lot of snow, but… but not as a rule, you couldn't count on it for natural snow. Uh, you get a lot of rain, you get a lot of warm-ups.00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and… and you, in general, have to rely on…00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:42.000Stuart Winchester: a very short season, generally mid-December-ish to mid-March-ish.00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000Stuart Winchester: And the skiers there…00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.000Stuart Winchester: They're they're accustomed to a pretty high standard, so.00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000Stuart Winchester: So when things do get out of control, uh…00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:04.000Stuart Winchester: They really rebelled, and they really noticed. So, a couple years ago, this is what happened at Camelback. So, Camelback…00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.000Stuart Winchester: You know, I don't generally do ops stories, uh…00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:10.000Stuart Winchester: You know.00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:19.000Stuart Winchester: ski area didn't groom this run, or they haven't opened this lift, or, uh, you know, they usually let this bump up, but they don't, or, or…00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:27.000Stuart Winchester: you know, they… they are trying to save money, or they're being cheap. I generally don't bother with those, even though I get a lot of messages.00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:32.000Stuart Winchester: Complaining about things like that, because there's almost always a pretty good reason.00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:38.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and it's almost always temporary, and it's really not worth the effort.00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:48.000Stuart Winchester: to write the story if I'm just writing about, you know, why Stratton or Mount Snow or Magic Mountain didn't open a certain lift on a certain day.00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's, it's a lot to track down and it's a lot of, uh, this person said this and the other person said that. It's just not the kind of thing that I'm want to cover with the storm, right? I want to do bigger stories. I want to do trend stories. I want to look at the culture and evolution of skiing.00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: And the passes, and all the infrastructure, and all the fun stuff. So I don't generally cover the day-to-day stuff, just because…00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:18.000Stuart Winchester: The ski areas that remain in 2026 are, for the most part, run by really good operators.00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:32.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it… because… and they've survived. Most of the bad ski areas that were either mismanaged or were in the wrong places, they went out of business a long time ago, which is why the number of ski areas has been stable for around 25 years now in America.00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.000Stuart Winchester: So I but I started to notice.00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: several years ago that I was getting an outsized number of complaints around one ski area in particular in the Poconos.00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000Stuart Winchester: And it was Camelback.00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.000Stuart Winchester: And Camelback had a long history of being an independent.00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: Really…00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000Stuart Winchester: the way it's been described to me by… by season pass holders, and I've skied…00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:04.000Stuart Winchester: some at Camelback, but I don't have that depth of knowledge of having grown up there.00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:20.000Stuart Winchester: That Camelback for a long time, for decades, set the standard on snowmaking, on grooming, on just general maintenance of lifts in the ski area in the Poconos. And that was why they had chosen to ski there all those years.00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:30.000Stuart Winchester: But things had started to fall apart when a new owner showed up in 2019. It was at the time KSL Capital, who was.00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: was managing it for EPR Properties, which is the entity that bought it, and they own a bunch of ski areas, EPR Properties, including a bunch owned by Vail, including North Star, and a lot of the old Peak Resorts in Ohio and such.00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:50.000Stuart Winchester: And KSL Resorts was a division of KSL Capital.00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.000Stuart Winchester: which is a part owner of Altera.00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:58.000Stuart Winchester: But for some reason, Altera, which is very good at running ski resorts.00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:00.000Stuart Winchester: did not…00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:15.000Stuart Winchester: get assigned as the… as the owner of Camelback. And when KSL Resorts purchased Blue Mountain, not in Ontario, the Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania, that's about 45 minutes from Camelback, two years later, in 2021.00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:26.000Stuart Winchester: That ski area also did not fall under Altera's ownership. And it was an odd choice to make, because Altera's really good at running ski areas, and they run…00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mammoth, and Deer Valley, and Steamboat, and Solitude, and Palisades Tahoe, and Stratton, and Sugarbush, and they definitely have.00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:41.000Stuart Winchester: the institutional knowledge and internal firepower to be able to run these ski areas in the Poconos.00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Blue Mountain…00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:47.000Stuart Winchester: Had the benefit of a long time tenured management team.00:10:47.000 --> 00:11:02.000Stuart Winchester: That kept the place, by all accounts, running pretty well. Camelback, on the other hand, seemed to be falling apart before our eyes, and before the eyes of the loyalist skiers who loved the place so much. And they were really, really concerned, and I started to…00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:08.000Stuart Winchester: Because they had put, uh, a management team in place, it seemed.00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.000Stuart Winchester: that…00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:22.000Stuart Winchester: was not familiar with the… with the inner workings of a ski area. Uh, I… I hosted Dave Makarski, the former general manager of Kalenbach, on this podcast.00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: and very nice guy. We had a great conversation. Uh, he's not a skier. And, and, you know, sometimes you can be not a skier and run a great ski resort. Uh, look at Bill Stritzler up at Smuggler's Notch.00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: Bill hasn't skied in years, and he snowboarded for a little bit, but he's not a daily skier. Look at Shawnee.00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:54.000Stuart Winchester: that where the owner… that's one of the most modern, nice ski areas in the Poconos, uh, and the owner has not skied in decades. So, so it's not always necessary, uh, but…00:11:55.000 --> 00:12:10.000Stuart Winchester: It does help and it's certainly a benefit. So everyone I talked to, I was, I was gathering all this stuff for a story and I was gonna write about Camelback and, and it, it really seemed like it was the worst run ski area anywhere that I could find based on the amount of feedback I was getting.00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:25.000Stuart Winchester: I was gathering all this feedback from all these long-time pass holders, and then they hired a new general manager, and so I scrapped the story, but I still wanted to get it, and by all accounts, Jason Bays, who I'll bring on the podcast in a moment.00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:34.000Stuart Winchester: has really done a nice job of turning CamelBak around. So, so let's go to Jason now.00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:16.000Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the Vice President and General Manager of Camelback Ski Area in Pennsylvania.00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:26.000Stuart Winchester: Camelback runs six chairlifts, or maybe seven. I might have had a typo there. Serving 45 trails on an 827-foot vertical drop.00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:41.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to taking the top job at Camelback, he was general manager for Great Wolf Resorts around the United States. He also spent time as chief operating officer and general manager of Mountain Creek Ski Area in New Jersey and director of operations.00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:54.000Stuart Winchester: for Jay Peak, Vermont. His very first jobs as a teenager were as a lifeguard and ski instructor at Camelback. Jason Bay is my guest. Jason, welcome to the Storm. Awesome to have you. How you doing today?00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:00.000Jason Bays: Thank you, Stuart. Great to be here. I've been a listener from day one, so excited to join you.00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:14.000Stuart Winchester: I love that. I'm so hyped to hear that. I know I started with a little Northeast focus. You know, you're the… you probably know this already, but you're the second straight guest I've had on. There was a Mountain Creek alum, Chris Haggerty, on yesterday. Are you acquainted with Chris?00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:18.000Jason Bays: Yeah, Chris and I worked together, um, back in our days at Mountain Creek, great guy.00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm not sure, I'm sure you're aware I'm based in New York City and Mountain Creek is one of my go-tos and, and was my home mountain before I started traveling all over the place for the storm. So, so, you know, Jason, I, I think it's awesome that you grew up at Camelback. Tal.00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:41.000Stuart Winchester: your childhood Camelback. What was the kingdom of Camelback like to you, uh, when you were growing up skiing there?00:15:40.000 --> 00:16:03.000Jason Bays: Yeah, look, I, you know, took, I grew up in Pocono Kid, born and raised 10 minutes from the resort. After school ski program was the first, you know, first sort of foray into life at Camelback and was immediately hooked in the summer as a swimming pool and two water slides. I thought that was the most awesome place in the world too.00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:21.000Jason Bays: And my parents thought it was a great babysitting service, you know, relative to that. So it was just an awesome, awesome place to grow up and, you know, be part of the small but mighty ski community that is Tannersville, Pennsylvania, in this area, in the Poconos.00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:39.000Jason Bays: um, you know, when it came to get a first job, uh, there's no place I was, uh, gonna consider other than Camelback. It's where all my friends were, it's where we all hung out all the time, and, um, you know, really just got introduced to, uh, to the sport, and, um, had some freedom. It was the first time I had some freedom, and it was to be at Camelback, so that's.00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:56.000Stuart Winchester: So you worked there, and you were part of the machine, so to speak, and I realized you were sort of on the peripheral of the machine, as opposed to in the center of it, as you are now. But, you know, you grew up in the Poconos, and had that experience, and you had this vision of Camelback in your head, right? Then you went off and had a big life, as…00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000Jason Bays: Yes.00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:00.000Stuart Winchester: as people do, and you went and worked at all these places that I just mentioned.00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: And then you came back to Camelback.00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: When you, when you arrived.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.000Stuart Winchester: How had the place changed? And I just want to tee this up. I, you know.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:19.000Stuart Winchester: before you came on, I was talking about how I don't generally write operations stories, right? Because it… there's usually a good reason for why a trail is closed, a lift's not running.00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:26.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but a few years ago, I started to get an outsized number of complaints about Camelback.00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:38.000Stuart Winchester: And so I started to write a story about it, and then when you came along, I shelved it, because honestly, everyone immediately was like, oh, this is so much better. So, you know, how had…00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.000Stuart Winchester: Camelback changed.00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.000Stuart Winchester: when you…00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.000Stuart Winchester: Came back to work there.00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:51.000Stuart Winchester: And what were the challenges facing the resort? What did you focus on immediately?00:17:50.000 --> 00:18:08.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I'll just back up to say, you know, just to contextualize, um, from when I was there as a teenager and, um, through college on the ski team, too, I would say that community was a really big word, um, that was used all the time. You, you felt like it was, it was the Camelback community, and there's a really big emphasis on the ski product.00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:28.000Jason Bays: Um, as a ski instructor, like, what we were putting out, how we were doing lessons, how many lessons we could do, and the experience that was surrounding that. And same thing on the water park side. And, you know, I think the, um, you know, some of the observations, um, coming back to Camelback was, um, I think there's a little bit of focus, um, focus direction for, for, like, to focus on the ski product.00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:44.000Jason Bays: and focusing on the water park product, and I sort of look at it as, like, a… as Disney World, right? Whereas we fill out… if we do the ski part well, we do the snow tubing part well, we do the water park well, that puts heads in beds, um, versus trying to put heads in beds.00:18:44.000 --> 00:19:01.000Jason Bays: And then have them do the activities. We're leading with an activity front and centered focus. And that means making the strategic investments in the ski product, in our recreational product, and making that the very best that it can be.00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:23.000Jason Bays: back in 2008 when I was here as a teenager, that was all there was. There was no hotel product, right? So the ski product got outsized attention just naturally because it was a 560-acre resort that identified as a ski area and a water park. And I think some of the context that was missing was that while there's been a great evolution of Camelback as a four-season resort.00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:40.000Jason Bays: It's really important that, to me, that each of those business units gets the time and attention that they would deserve if they were stand-alone units, particularly because a cog… it's a cog in the wheel, and that wheel is… it's a flywheel. It needs to… it all needs to turn at once, and so we lead with.00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.000Jason Bays: the recreational offerings first.00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:48.000Stuart Winchester: You know, you mentioned the community, and I wasn't aware…00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:59.000Stuart Winchester: that there was such a strong community around Camelback, and I'm not surprised, because most ski areas have that group of folks who, you know, they're retirees, and they boot up at 8am, and they take runs together.00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:14.000Stuart Winchester: But they were really passionate, and the running theme, Jason, in the emails and messages that I got from Camelback locals was that they loved Camelback. It wasn't that they hated Camelback, they hated to complain about Camelback.00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.000Stuart Winchester: They wanted to love it, but they couldn't. There was there was.00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:34.000Stuart Winchester: a lot of things they cited, uh, not making snowmaking when it's cold, understaffed grooming, uh, missed lift inspections. I don't know if this is true. This is what people were… they were reaching, I think, for answers. Uh, put it all together, and there was… it was definitely…00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000Stuart Winchester: seemed as though the ski product was not the focus. So when you came in, what did you focus on right away and say, okay, this is what we gotta change, you know, we have to cover every trail 100% right away, or whatever it was?00:20:47.000 --> 00:21:09.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I think that's, look, I would start, you hit the nail on the head that there's a very passionate skiing community here at Camelback and in the Poconos and it means a lot to people. This is second, third generations that are learning to ski here, bring their families here and be part of this. And to your point, everyone wants to be prideful of Camelback, right?00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:24.000Jason Bays: This was the, this was family run for a really long time and, you know, very focused on sort of the, you know, season pass holders renewing year after year.00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:40.000Jason Bays: You know, a couple of things. One is I think that how we authentically tell our story isn't done in a way that is, you know, is done in a way that's authentic. A, bringing back the Camelback Mountain Facebook page that communicated ski related content.00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:39.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:21:40.000 --> 00:22:06.000Jason Bays: Right? I think that, you know, there's only so many things you can say about a hotel room and how exciting it is. Like, we really lead now first with authentically telling the story. Our snow report got a lot more detailed, gave granular information as to what was going on. So, you know, did we have a perfect winter last winter? By all means, no, but we communicated that authentically. And where we messed up, we took.00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:23.000Jason Bays: the blame for it, and said, hey, we didn't get this right, and where we were working to improve the experience, we communicated that… communicated that story. So, to me, it started from a communication standpoint, that we were authentic, that we were honest, that we were truthful, and that we were communicating on a medium that.00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:31.000Jason Bays: our guests would see, um, and relate to. So I think a big miss was, I think, admittedly, a big miss was removing the, um, Camelback Mountain.00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:53.000Jason Bays: social media pages, um, and bringing those back were really important so that, um, we could tell the story authentically. I think SKUs really appreciate, um, knowing what's going on, and to your point on, hey, there's sort of this rumor flying or that rumor flying, um, you know, we were able to, uh, sort of hone in and, and tell, tell that story. Secondarily, I think from an infrastructure standpoint.00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:09.000Jason Bays: um, we really needed to make sure that we had, um, the right team in place. And we have an amazingly talented team at Camelback, um, but we did not have key positions filled, um, in certain areas. Um, and so, we bolstered up the snowmaking. Snowmaking team went from.00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000Stuart Winchester: Like, what areas?00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:30.000Jason Bays: you know, 3 to 4 to 30, um, this past winter, um, that makes a big difference, right? Our trail rollout was, um, you know, first to open in the East, uh, for Pennsylvania, um, and, uh, um, and, and focus on the core products. Um, same thing with lift operations. We brought in a really experienced lift, uh, maintenance manager.00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:13.000Stuart Winchester: Hey!00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:14.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:46.000Jason Bays: Um, to our team that really helped, um, support our Lyft, um, uh, operation. Um, decisions on when Lyfts ran and what time they ran, uh, you know, our thought was, let's, um, be more… like, you have to run the Terrain Park Lyft every day.00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:46.000 --> 00:24:06.000Jason Bays: to me, that's a commitment. We make that every day. We say we're running the Glen Lift every day. It services great novice terrain. It services the train park. And so, looking at the operational plan and saying, okay, what are ways that we can give back, you know, and make deposits back to our skiers? And in turn.00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:24.000Jason Bays: that builds momentum, right? People talk, and, like, the ski community is so connected, right? It's like, if you do something, like, people find out about it, because they're really, you know, they hear about it. And so, for us, focus on the core business was, um, you know, from a ski standpoint, was really important, and the infrastructure.00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:13.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:41.000Jason Bays: to be able to do it. And I would just, lastly, just say I go back to making sure that our team had the resources to do their job. We're supported, we're empowered, collaborative leadership, you know, we sat around the table and said, this is the operating plan, this is what we're going to do for our guests.00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:46.000Jason Bays: And then go out and execute it to the best we can.00:24:45.000 --> 00:25:03.000Stuart Winchester: You know, Jason, I, I, I think you could have run for governor with one of the first things that you did, which was get rid of paid parking. I, I, I don't think that I've ever, uh, heard people happier about anything. Now, now, and let me, let me qualify this, right? I think in, in some instances, paid parking and parking reservations.00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:05.000Stuart Winchester: make sense.00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:18.000Stuart Winchester: you know, super high volume days. Arapahoe Basin, I think, is a model in Colorado where they only charge for certain days and certain times, and they keep backing off which days as they learn when they really need it. Camelback was charging every day.00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:36.000Stuart Winchester: All day, you know, a Monday with, you know, 10 people on the mountain, they were charging for it. And, you know, acknowledging that sometimes it's appropriate, I think Camelback got pretty out of hand with it, and when I had Mr. Markowski on the podcast, great guy, we had a great conversation, but he was not backing off that. He said, nope, paid parking.00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: we're all in. You said no. So talk about that and how you sold. I'd imagine it was a revenue stream, right? And you had to sell management on that, and I don't know if I'm giving you credit for something someone else did, but talk to us about parking and the evolution there.00:25:51.000 --> 00:26:12.000Jason Bays: Yeah, that was a week one decision from the Camelback team when I got here made from our leadership team at Camelback that everyone was in alignment on our senior leadership team here at the property and myself to remove the paid parking. And I think definitely there's actually you have so many nice pictures behind you.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:30.000Jason Bays: I have a picture of the old paid parking sign behind me there, if you can see it on the corner, and it actually serves to me as a reminder of the guest experience, because someone's put a sticker on that paid parking sign that you probably can't see there, but it says, Ski Camelback, we're not happy until you're not happy.00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:48.000Jason Bays: Um, and it's a reminder to, to me and our team, um, that we're here to have fun, and we're here for the guest experience, and we're here to live, live and breathe fun Camelback style. This is not a, um, you know, we want guests to look forward to, to being here. And I think, you know, yes, there was.00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:48.000 --> 00:27:05.000Jason Bays: So obviously we ran a financial model. We didn't just, you know, get rid of paid parking and not assume, you know, that there wasn't some revenue to be recaptured elsewhere with a strategy to do it. But I think more importantly, you know, think about it.00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:22.000Jason Bays: a non-busy day, it might even be raining, it's 40 degrees, the last thing you want is someone running around a parking lot telling you, like, hey, I need you to hand over $15, and by the way, then you're gonna schlep your stuff up two different levels of parking, um, you know, that might be even charged higher, and then get to.00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:38.000Jason Bays: uh, the mountain and go to guest services. You know, I have a 3-year-old. If my wife and I went skiing, that would be an incredible amount of friction, um, just to get to, uh, the front of the mountain. And so I think putting ourselves in the guest lens of saying, is that really what we want the guests to experience?00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:53.000Jason Bays: Um, it's not, and, and it was a burden to everyone at this, you know, you think I'm talking about, we talked to frontline associates too, like, the first thing that they had to tell people was that they had to pay for parking. You just imagine, sort of, the cascading effect that, that, that, uh, that that had, and we said, look, is there.00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:09.000Jason Bays: Um, is there a better way? Um, can we run shuttles to these lots and pick people up and bring them to the mountain and make them feel, um, you know, like our valued… like our valued guests? What does that arrival experience look like? Um, you know, that's really what we… what we looked at, and then said, okay.00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:25.000Jason Bays: can we… ultimately, will we drive more volume here? Will more people come because of a better guest experience? And I'll say that I would rather grow the sport, grow the industry. Our team would rather grow the sport and grow the industry than figuring out how to.00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:35.000Jason Bays: You know, sort of, you know, run a secondary ancillary business that's not to our core product and what we want our guests to experience here.00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:48.000Stuart Winchester: You know, it's a little counterintuitive, but sometimes, by removing a revenue stream, you get that less-is-more effect. Another example, your season pass, you know, according to my records.00:28:48.000 --> 00:29:04.000Stuart Winchester: Starting in 2020 to ‘21, the season pass was $599 at its early bird price, and it hovered between that and $649 for the next five years. This year, you put it on sale for $399. It's still at that price for unlimited Camelback.00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:20.000Stuart Winchester: That's a great bargain for, uh, for a season pass on the East Coast, and, you know, for the listeners, you are competing with the Epic Pass, which has Jack Frost, Big Boulder, right down the road, a couple exits down I-80, and their Northeast season pass is pretty affordable, and it's a pretty good deal.00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:33.000Stuart Winchester: So… so talk to us about that decision and… and… and how… how that $399 is worth it. You also wrote back, if you want to talk about, uh, the… the triple pack. I thought that was great, and I don't have the price right in front of me, but… but you've really done a lot to… to…00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:39.000Stuart Winchester: create more of a value experience for that loyal Camelback skier, from my point of view.00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:55.000Jason Bays: Yeah, thank you, and that's definitely the goal. Um, you know, I think our thought process here is let's get more people on Snow, um, and have them have a great experience while they're here. Um, I would love to tell you that there's some master business plan behind this.00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:10.000Jason Bays: But, you know, truly, at the heart of what we do is, let's figure out how to get more people on snow, get them to a spot where they want to come back and learn and be part of it. And guess what I would just share to that is.00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:24.000Jason Bays: you know, we were charging a day ticket in 2025 of $169, um, at its highest point, right? And I would rather have a lifelong… I would rather have one per… I would much rather, I think from business proposition, we would rather have.00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:39.000Jason Bays: one person definitely not come and spend $15 to $40 to park and $169 and say, I'm never coming back, versus $399, now they're like, wow, this place is awesome, I'm getting a great value, I bring my family.00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:33.000Stuart Winchester: Damn.00:30:39.000 --> 00:31:01.000Jason Bays: I want to come enjoy food and beverage. And hey, by the way, we also have this great snow tubing park and this great water park. And would you like to stay at our hotel when you come with your season pass and enjoy Aquatopia? And we're debuting The Curse of Camelback this fall, right? Which is the Halloween, if you haven't heard, it's a Halloween 13 scare zones. Take a chair, lift up to it.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:24.000Jason Bays: But I say all that to say we've got so many great cross marketing promotional opportunities at Camelback that that really becomes a super compelling business case for us. And I think it's the right thing to do for the sport is grow it, make it more accessible, allow more people to come here and see what we have to offer. I can't tell you how many people I meet, whether it's snow tubing, skiing.00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:41.000Jason Bays: water park, the hotel, whatever they're here for, CBKMA or Adventure Park, they have no idea that the other part exists to, um, the resort. And I'll share that that's been the case even in, like, when I was, uh, at Jay Peak running the water park.00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:34.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:43.000Jason Bays: People would come there, and they'd be like.00:31:43.000 --> 00:32:02.000Jason Bays: what is this mountain that is here? And it's Jay Peak, like, one of the most hardcore ski resorts in the world. And there were people that were coming there and were like, I had no idea there was a ski resort here. So, if it's true at Jay Peak, it certainly is true at Camelback, where.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:19.000Jason Bays: we have all these different offerings that people don't know about, maybe necessarily about all of them, so our fundamental business philosophy is make it accessible, make them lifelong, um, skiers and riders, and introduce them to everything that we have to offer here in the Poconos. And I would just argue, when I say Poconos.00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:41.000Jason Bays: Like go, like experience Shawnee and experience Jack Frost Big Boulder and experience, you know, the other great ski areas in this region and Mountain Creek and wherever else and get a flavor for it. I think that's, we could use more skiers in the industry and to grow the sport. So for us, that's sort of the long-term business model that we're using.00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:58.000Stuart Winchester: So, I just looked at the triple ticket, and it looks like $149, and I think that's no blackouts. $199 includes rentals. That's pretty amazing. So, talk about that product, and then you mentioned the $169 peak day ticket. Have you settled on prices yet for 2020?00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:03.000Stuart Winchester: 6, 27. I should have checked your site in advance, but I didn't. So I don't know if you've.00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:21.000Jason Bays: Yeah, we have not, uh, posted, uh, day ticket prices for this year. Last year, um, we didn't exceed around $110, um, on a day ticket. Uh, so we kept it, I think, pretty reasonable for, for, for a, for a Pocono offering. Um, triple tickets, massive, um, success, uh, for us.00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay.00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:37.000Jason Bays: Um, and when we talk about, like, again, getting more people introduced to the sport, you don't necessarily pick up skiing on the first time. Um, you think about that rental product, which we, um, tremendously… whatever we had on the pro forma for that was, uh, blown by by, like.00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:53.000Jason Bays: 400% on the triple ticket with rentals. And what I really believe in is that, you know, you become a lifelong skier by getting repetition, not by going once a year. It's really hard to sustain as a skier going once a year.00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:33:53.000 --> 00:34:11.000Jason Bays: and saying, oh yeah, that was our trip. We're really trying to create a guest for life and get them to return visit. That's in many ways more important to us than, again, trying to get, like, the highest yield on that one day that they picked. Like, come back and visit our resort and, um, you know, again, the business side to this is.00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:28.000Jason Bays: we're cross-marketing across all of our other offerings here that we have on this campus to say, come and visit us again. And again, to us, that's more important than, you know, the highest yield that we can get to. So the triple ticket's really successful. And I think one last thing I would share.00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:46.000Jason Bays: a lot of season passes in the market right now, um, the triple ticket's a great opportunity for people to get a couple of days at Camelback, even if they've committed somewhere else, and particularly, you know, our long season, um, there's plenty of time to use it, um, as well, uh, from the, uh, long season that we established from last year.00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:50.000Stuart Winchester: Jason, I think that's a really smart way to look at it as…00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:57.000Stuart Winchester: a… creating a habit rather than pulling as much yield as possible. And a lot of the larger operators.00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:11.000Stuart Winchester: get frustrated with me and the rest of the ski media because they don't understand why we focus on that peak price, right? Because the peak lift ticket this year at Beaver Creek is $392, set to be. Probably almost no one will pay that price, but…00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:28.000Stuart Winchester: What it does is it acts as a, a billboard for the rest of the ski industry and especially so, so Camelback for, for people who don't know when you're driving on I 80 I mean, you see it, it looms right over the highway. It is one of the major interstates in America, especially at night. The thing is lit up.00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: And so, chances are, if people think about skiing, and they think about where to go, they're gonna think about the most obvious one, and that's Camelback, and that's why, for many years, it was that, or Seven Springs was the busiest ski area in Pennsylvania, traditionally. So I think that's a really smart way to look at it, because if people show up that one time, and.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:59.000Stuart Winchester: cost them, you know, $500 for 2 people, they're just not gonna come back, and they're not gonna try Shawnee, or… or Blue Mountain, or Jack Frost, or Elk Mountain, or Montage. So, um, I wanna talk about… Jason, I wanna talk about Lyft.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:16.000Stuart Winchester: And… can you see this trail map? This is an old trail map. I mentioned that I know this, so for those watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube, you can see this. So there's been a ton of changes, and I want to break all these down with you. The first I want to talk about is, over the past couple years.00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mark Antony and Cleopatra, these two lifts right here, an old triple and an old double, have been removed. Can you talk about why you took those lifts out of service, and if you plan to replace them with anything, or what you planned, or what the rationale was behind it?00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:49.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I appreciate that. Uh, that does predate my time here, that they had reached the end of their, um, uh, ability to operate. Um, and so they have, um, both been, um, sort of partially disassembled. Um, there is unfortunately not.00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:47.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:36:49.000 --> 00:37:05.000Jason Bays: I, by the way, two of my favorite lifts when I was a ski instructor, because you could get right up and not wait in long lines on the weekends, so absolutely realizing and recognizing the capacity that they brought, but no opportunity for us to.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:23.000Jason Bays: um, reinstate those lifts as presently, um, as presently, uh, uh, sort of, um, situated, um, and, and not, not, not able to, uh, um, not able to, uh, rerun them. It will require a, um, new, uh, chairlift to, um, to ultimately replace.00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:37.000Jason Bays: those two lifts. It saddens me to share that, but that is, in fact, what has happened there, and I've been very open with our season pass holders about that messaging and the why behind it.00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:41.000Stuart Winchester: So, so in fantasy ski resort world, Jason.00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000Stuart Winchester: Would you put a new lift here, and what would you put, if you could?00:37:45.000 --> 00:38:04.000Jason Bays: Yeah, absolutely. Um, same thing. We've, uh, we've made clear, uh, with no time, no official time frame to share, um, but certainly, uh, we've, we've, um, had, uh, preliminary conversations, um, about a fixed grip, um, quad that would, uh, would be able to take the place of both of those lifts, uh, and create that.00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:10.000Jason Bays: original redundancy that those two lifts brought to the resort when they were in operation.00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that would be really nice. So, so, so these are gone and I, I have a, a current trail map now. So, um, and, and it's not completely current. We'll discuss the new trails in a moment, but this is the most current posted on your website. So, uh, we go over, these are the lifts that remain and see, uh, yeah, I, I miscounted in my intro, so sorry about that.00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:42.000Stuart Winchester: So this one is Stevenson, and Stevenson was, uh, it's a high-speed quad, uh, for the listeners, and it… it was a real junker. It was always stop, stop, stop, and, you know, it was… it was really… seemed to be falling apart and have a lot of issues. Now, uh, in 2020…00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:51.000Stuart Winchester: 5, this year, or 2024, I believe, Camelback, uh, McCarthy, the GM at the time, sent out a letter saying it was due for a…00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.000Stuart Winchester: Waltz.00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:02.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me see what he said… like, a complete modernization of Stevenson. So, so did that happen? And talk to us about Stevenson, and what kind of shape it's in right now.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:20.000Jason Bays: Yeah, great, um, yes, that was a, uh, look, an amazing, um, project that was completed by, uh, by Dave and team, um, to modernize that lift. Um, it has, essentially, Doppelmayr came in and put in an entire new, uh, minus the, uh, minus the, uh, uh, the terminals and the.00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:35.000Jason Bays: Um, uh, and the structure itself, um, essentially all new components, all new electrical, um, uh, wiring components to it, a lot of the things that had plagued it. Um, and last year, uh, it operated 138 days.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000Stuart Winchester: Unbelievable.00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:53.000Jason Bays: Uh, which for Pennsylvania, uh, that's pretty darn good. I think we recognize it's a workhorse, um, it's key to accessing some really, um, fantastic terrain for us, um, and that modernization project with Doppel… in, um, partnership with Doppelmeyer that was done in the summer and fall of 2025.00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:08.000Jason Bays: um, was, uh, very, uh, so it's all immediate impact, um, with, uh, Stevenson Reliability this past year, and we expect that to, uh, you know, knock on wood, to, uh, to continue going forward. We essentially, again, have a brand new lift, minus the, uh.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:10.000Jason Bays: Uh, minus the physical pieces.00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:26.000Stuart Winchester: That's a really smart way to do it because they are tremendously expensive, these new lifts. And for folks who are watching or listening, this Stevenson is really important because you walk out of this giant hotel that's right here, that's not on the trail map with 400 and some rooms, and that is how you get up the mountain. Otherwise you got to.00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:41.000Stuart Winchester: pull your way over, so when that lift is not running or has problems, it's a real big issue. So, the alternative was, over here, Black Bear 6, uh, you replaced an old high-speed quad that was there, and… and I love this Black Bear 6 lift. It is…00:40:41.000 --> 00:41:01.000Stuart Winchester: Freakin' Ferrari, man. I think the price they gave me was something like $12 million that they spent, or maybe it was $10 to put that in. So that's the alternative, right? If you don't just modernize that current lift, you replace it. So, uh, Black Bear is awesome. I love it. It has bubbles. Is it too much? I mean, I know that KSL Now Peregrine had reasons for.00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:16.000Stuart Winchester: for putting it in, but what have you learned from a couple of years of having BlackBerry around, which is, again, probably the nicest lift in the state of Pennsylvania and one of the nicest in the Northeast, but maybe a little heavier than what you need for CamelBak, but I don't know, you tell me.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:41.000Jason Bays: Yeah, you know, you know what I would share to that, um, you know, we, we brought it back for scenic chairlift rides this summer, and I mean, it's a massive hit. The summer, summer guests love, uh, the bubbles, they put them down when it's sunny, they put them down, um, probably gets more use in the summer as a bubble lift than the winter, uh, but look, it's, it's nice to, uh, have on the days where, you know, there's some liquid precipitation out here. It certainly happens in the Poconos.00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm.00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:58.000Jason Bays: um, and, uh, and, and or, um, uh, you know, other, other weather events, it's, it's, it's a nice to have, um, and it certainly, it gets you up in, you know, a little bit over two minutes. Um, it's a smooth ride, it's a great ride. Um, you are not going to get any complaints from me that we have a, um.00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:11.000Jason Bays: bubble, D-line, six-pack, um, in place, uh, and able to operate as our main workhorse lift. Um, and, uh, I think the six-pack versus the quad was absolutely the right, uh, call. Um…00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:27.000Jason Bays: from my experience being here before with the Sullivan Express, um, with the four-seater, the six-seater, just the… the added, uh, ability, uh, there is, uh, is… is well worth it. So, uh, we're happy to have that… happy to have that lift. I… I wouldn't, uh… I wouldn't…00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:31.000Jason Bays: We won't be trading it in at this point. Let's put it that way.00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:38.000Stuart Winchester: It is a gorgeous machine, and I have to tell you, I'm that weird person who, if there's a line on one lift.00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:56.000Stuart Winchester: And no line on the lift next to it. Even if it's a slower lift, I'll take the slower lift, because I just would rather not deal with the hassle of the line. So right here, for those who are watching, is the Bailey Double, and this is an old chair lift. It's an old slow double, it runs almost exactly parallel to Black Bear 6, doesn't land quite as high.00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:16.000Stuart Winchester: on the mountain, but functionally, it does about the same thing for you. So I like Bailey, and I was glad to see that not only did you keep it, and it does run, and that was true even under the previous regime, but you got a new gearbox for it, which is a really big deal for a lift like this in several decades. Also, talk about the work you've done on Bailey, and how you hope to use that lift.00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:18.000Stuart Winchester: this year to complement Black Bear.00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:21.000Jason Bays: Yeah, so, um, Bailey Lift…00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:32.000Jason Bays: full disclosure, Bailey Lift, Meadows Lift, Raceway Lift, and our season pass holders are very aware of this. Um, unfortunately, uh, we're not, um…00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:41.000Jason Bays: ready for day one of last year, um, or even close. And so, uh, we had to do a lot of, um…00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:57.000Jason Bays: normal PM maintenance, um, throughout the, um, end of fall and into winter to have all of them operational. Um, what I share to that is, um, we will run, just level set here really quickly, we will run all the lifts that we have on this trail map.00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:02.000Jason Bays: Um, and take care of them, maintain them, operate them.00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:18.000Jason Bays: Staff them, everything that you would do to run the extra capacity, we certainly need it. We'd like more capacity, actually. So that being said, Bailey Lift is critical. We got it back online.00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:34.000Jason Bays: End of January, it ran for 2 or 3 weekends, and we had a failed gearbox, um, on it, which is really unfortunate. Um, this off-season, uh, we've replaced the gearbox, we've done a full PM over the course of the summer on it, which is…00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:50.000Jason Bays: the, as you, as everyone knows, the ideal time, uh, to be, um, conducting such work, um, so that it is ready on, uh, day one. Um, it is a critical backup lift. We will run it every weekend.00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:07.000Jason Bays: Um, that we're, you know, in season, I would say in the heart of season, we're gonna run it. Won't be shy to not run it. Um, same thing with the Meadows, same thing with the Glen, same thing with the Raceway, which, um, you know, I know that that was, um, certainly chief among the complaints of.00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:22.000Jason Bays: locals and guests who were visiting from out of town alike was Lyft availability, Lyft reliability. That was something that we focused as fast as we could on last year, but we're setting ourselves up this year to be.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:39.000Jason Bays: um, very proactive to that, and recognizing the importance of, of each of, uh, uh, you know, each of these. And look, every once in a while, uh, if the, you always want to have, like, Bailey is critical because it's the only other, if there's Black Bear, without Black Bear, it's the only other thing left, right?00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:55.000Jason Bays: Um, and so, uh, you know, I think the, you know, back in the, when I was here, like, every Lyft ran on the weekends. It was Camelback. Um, it was busy, right? Like, everything was going. That's, that's essentially our, our, our philosophy, um, will continue to be our philosophy going forward.00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Jason, I'll admit, I didn't come to Camelback last season, so I wasn't able to experience it firsthand. I really wanted to come to your May thing, which I'll talk about, I'll get to in a minute, but I had a shoulder surgery, so I wasn't able to do that. But I wasn't only basing my perceptions of C.00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: on locals' reactions. I had skied there myself in recent years, and the lift line management, I have to say.00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:21.000Stuart Winchester: It was…00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:33.000Stuart Winchester: really frustrating from a skier point of view, when you're waiting for the Stevenson lift, and there's a big line, and every chair is going up with one or two people, and this is not peak COVID or anything else, this is several years later.00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:50.000Stuart Winchester: So, you know, and I had a lot of locals tell me, oh, we walk up Sun Bowl because the lift line is just too chaotic. People come from both sides. No, no, again, that was all before. What's your philosophy of lift line management? How have you tried to tame that? And there's always, it's always going to be a little wild and hard in Pennsylvan.00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:56.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but they could definitely have been managed better. Is that something that was important to you, that you focused on?00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:15.000Jason Bays: Yeah, we focused on that. We have a new lift operations manager that was hired in November of 2025, who took the bull by the horns. We developed a supervisor team in fairly short order to that as well, to build out a well-rounded team. And then I would just share that our lift attendants.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:32.000Jason Bays: All hired locally within the community. And I think that we were fully staffed in LiftOps this year, which was a big, very big win. It starts there, right? A, the people, and then B, the right people.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:49.000Jason Bays: um, on the, uh, on the bus, um, as a catalyst to drive, uh, lift operations forward. Um, and then absolutely, uh, we focused on, uh, line management, queuing, um, we set new, in some cases, new queues. We had, um, uh, supervisors, in many cases, out.00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:04.000Jason Bays: um, putting up chairs, um, and, um, and managing the lift line. We added, once we got that right, and we felt like we were in a good spot, and we, you know, look, I think, admittedly, a couple technology hiccups here and there, it was not a perfect, uh.00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:17.000Jason Bays: we didn't, like, on opening day, it wasn't perfect, but, uh, we improved, it was a big focus for our team, and I think when we talk about fundamental ski operation, um, if we just were a ski area, we would absolutely be focusing on.00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:36.000Jason Bays: lift queuing, but we have to do that, like, we have to execute that every day because we are a ski area, um, and that's core to our business, and so that's important. Um, then we added, once we got queuing, uh, uh, correct, we added surprise and delights. Lift, uh, chocolate chip cookies were massively popular.00:48:36.000 --> 00:49:04.000Jason Bays: We handed out over 15,000 chocolate chip cookies this winter at the Stevenson lift line. And so, you know, then it becomes fun, right? Then it's the hospitality side of the business of how do we engage with our guests now that we have full chairs going up for the most part off of the Stevenson and the Black Bear and the Sun Bowl. So we hired extra associates to do that, to surprise and delight, to help our guests.00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: Cool.00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:20.000Jason Bays: The one other thing I would just share is Sunbowl is a great example. How many people get down to the Sunbowl and have never ridden a lift before? And so you need that extra human touch to be able to help. It's not even just putting people in groups of four. It's just helping them with like, here's where you go to load the lift. Here's what you do.00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:33.000Jason Bays: Um, I think that that investment in our people to provide that service to our guests is very well worth it, and it's the difference between someone having a bad experience getting on a lift and never coming back.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:43.000Jason Bays: or having a great experience, feeling well cared for, and wanting to try again. Um, and so that, that, that was, um, you know, I think that's a core, um, focus for us.00:49:43.000 --> 00:50:02.000Stuart Winchester: So, one of the ways that I can tell the resort is being run by a skier, in addition to all the things you just said, and your passion for the minutiae of things like lift lines, which I share, is that you're cutting 3 new trails in a resort that's 60 years old, and I love that. So, talk us through these trails, Jason. I'll do my best to trace them.00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:08.000Stuart Winchester: on the trail map. I don't have the updated trail map, I don't know if you've created it yet, but talk us through these three trails.00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:25.000Jason Bays: Yeah, so we're really excited. Look, this, you know, came after, you know, the so many guests, new guests that visited us at Camelback this past season. We said, you know what, let's do something fun and exciting. And like, you know, you think about how.00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:43.000Jason Bays: Um, yeah, I just, you know, if someone said, anyone puts in a new trail, uh, the skier in me wants to drive to that resort, no matter how big or small, and be like, alright, like, let's do it. Um, and our team feels, uh, you know, much of the same way. So, um, that being said, uh, we had a lot of natural snowfall this year, so…00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, sure. Yeah.00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:59.000Jason Bays: I was acutely paying attention to where people were skiing when we had natural snowfall, where they wanted to go, and then, you know, maybe following those lines, too, and seeing what the fun was about. So, my point to all of that is, we said, let's create some, and I think for Camelback, too.00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:15.000Jason Bays: it's very, um, you know, we wanted to create something that was sort of unique. I didn't want to just put in, like, regular trails that, A, we don't have a lot of space for regular trails, and B, um, we really wanted to create sort of unique experience. So, right underneath Black Bear, um, in between Sullivan and John Bailey there.00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:30.000Jason Bays: um, there's a, um, there's a chute, um, where the old Alpine Slide used to go. Basculus goes back into Rocket, uh, but underneath there is some really fun rolling terrain. Like, it's, it's because the mountain, the, uh, Alpine Slide.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:54.000Jason Bays: back in the day did had several dips and curves and so we're going to lean into those dips and curves and create something sort of fun that you can get some you know launch some airtime off of if you want or carve a turn over it but it'll have some some really nice terrain variation in a way that most trails at Camelback don't have and they're coming off of an expert trail there so.00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:06.000Jason Bays: um, gives, uh, you know, anyone skiing Asp, Hump, Rocket, um, or Basilisk would be able to reach that trail, um, and, uh, and be able to, uh, just have a little bit more excitement on the way back down.00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000Jason Bays: Um…00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:20.000Jason Bays: Upper Cleopatra there, if you go to the, uh, where the U is, uh, or where Upper is, we're gonna cut a trail through the woods there that's going to end up on the bottom of Big Pocono.00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:31.000Jason Bays: Um, so it's gonna go down and across. So, um, that… um, and I see where your cursor is. If you go to the… where it says Upper on Upper Cleopatra.00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, like, here? Or…00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:32.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, upper…00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:54.000Jason Bays: So, Big Pocono, that's Uncle B. Yeah, right there. Yep, we're going through there. Yeah, so that's gonna be, that's a narrow blue square. So, you know, I think one of the things that's fun for us is we're gonna create a blue square there. That used to be a trail back in the 60s and 70s, fun fact, when Walter Foger was designing Camelback.00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:37.000Stuart Winchester: Upper… oh, this one. Okay, so you're cutting through here?00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:39.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool. Okay.00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:51.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:09.000Jason Bays: Um, that being said, um, the… actually, it got filled in with pine trees, so it's gonna be really cool, because there's pine trees on both sides. Um, we made it narrow, so we kept the pine trees, um, and so that's gonna be a really fun, um, sort of narrow… I think about, like, the, um.00:52:58.000 --> 00:52:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:03.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool. It's pretty.00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:26.000Jason Bays: the ending of Jay Peak with some of the blues at the very bottom there by Interstate. We're trying to sort of have that, obviously in a much smaller zone, have that same effect, though, where you're feeling like you're really in the trees, and you've got some nice twists and turns to it. It's not terribly steep.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:13.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:44.000Jason Bays: Um, two things on that trail. One is, it takes traffic off of Honeymoon Lane, which is a main boulevard, it pushes it onto the Sphinx, which has much more trail capacity, which is great, um, comfortable carrying capacity, and secondarily, um, on weekends, we're gonna have a hot chocolate, um, hut that people can ski up to.00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:52.000Jason Bays: Um, and get shots of hot chocolate, um, as well, so we're excited to, um, uh, to offer that to our guests. We think that'll be really fun.00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:47.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool.00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:53.000Stuart Winchester: That was awesome.00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:17.000Jason Bays: And then the Stevenson, it's going to drop on the cliffhanger side and drop down that lift line and go right down into the Faroe there and follow that lift line. Vermont skiing in a very short array but very much Vermont skiing, that's an intimidating drop. Stevenson for those that may not be familiar has a extremely.00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:55.000Stuart Winchester: And it.00:53:58.000 --> 00:53:59.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:34.000Jason Bays: extremely tight, um, and high, uh, crest of the lift, because the mountain crests, um, really steeply. Well, we're gonna ski that, um, and, uh, and make snow on it, and, uh, and, and, uh, and allow our guests to, uh, um, and allow skiers to, uh, to, to, to test, um, you know, a more narrow.00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:44.000Jason Bays: um, uh, trail up there that has a really great expansive view ov

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is made in the USA. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.About CaberfaeOwned by: The Meyer FamilyYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 2 days, blackouts* Freedom Pass: 3 days, no blackouts Base elevation: 1,076 feetSummit elevation: 1,561 feetVertical drop: 485 feetSkiable Acres: 200Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesLift count: 5 (1 fixed-grip quad, 3 triples, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Caberfae's lift fleet)The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, then click on any text block to teleport to the associated point in the video; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO; also since Tim and Pete were on one screen, the transcript does not differentiate between them).Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the storm. I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Thursday, September 17th, 2026, and we are going to mix things up a little bit today. Instead of starting with the takes, we are starting with the guests, and I have some great guests today.00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:40.000Stuart Winchester: They are the general managers of Cabrifay Peaks, Michigan, with over 200 acres of terrain served by 4 chairlifts across 3 peaks, with a 485-foot vertical drop.00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.000Stuart Winchester: Cabar Fay is one of the largest ski areas in Michigan's Lower Penins.00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:49.000Stuart Winchester: The ski area averaged 120 inches of lake effect snowfall per winter.00:22:49.000 --> 00:23:06.000Stuart Winchester: Their family has operated Cabaret since 1980. They are co-general managers, with Tim Meyer on the right, handling everything on the mountain, and Pete Meyer on the left, taking care of everything off. Tim and Pete, welcome to the storm. I'm always hyped to talk Cabaret. How are you guys doing today?00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:11.000Pete Meyer: Good. We're doing awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah.00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and trigger warning for any Sparties or Buckeyes out there who want to go to the video version on stormskiing.com or YouTube. Me and Tim are both proudly rocking our Wolverines gear. This is a shirt I wore to the maze out when Michigan blasted Oklahoma in the big house this past weekend. So we're feeling.00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:31.000Stuart Winchester: Although I understand Tim's also got a little Sparty, side loyalty.00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:35.000Pete Meyer: Yes, my children, both my sons are Spartans, so that's…00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, as soon as my daughter got into college, I bought all the gear for her place. So, you know, there's tons going on at Cabaret, and I want to start…00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:36.000Pete Meyer: It.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:54.000Stuart Winchester: with this coming expansion, and you, you announced this a while ago, and I'm gonna share my screen here so that everyone can see, uh, see this as we talk through it.00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:13.000Stuart Winchester: And this is where I am never quite as fast as I want to be. Uh, but… okay. So, here is the Cabra Fay trail map. This is the one I took off your website this morning, so it's the most current that I have. Uh, and last time I talked to Tim in, I think, 2021, when you came on the podcast.00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it…00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:31.000Stuart Winchester: This East Peak triple chair was still still in a theory phase and you hadn't built yet. Now that's in place and we'll talk about that in a minute and how that's gone. But talk to us about the Green Mountain triple chair, what we're getting and why you're building it.00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, so, um…00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:40.000Pete Meyer: I'm going to start with why, because it's kind of an interesting story, you know.00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:51.000Pete Meyer: we… when we put in the East Peak lift, we took out the shelter chairlift, the double. They started in almost the same place, but the shelter… the shelter lift.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:54.000Pete Meyer: let off about halfway up the hill.00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:04.000Pete Meyer: And because we we have our dads before us and then and then we also have continued to develop the terrain.00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:13.000Pete Meyer: the terrain changes and the flow changes. And what happened over time, like, especially over the last.00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:16.000Pete Meyer: 25 years or so.00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:23.000Pete Meyer: we kept adding on to Smiling Irishman and making it wider and wider and wider, and it got busier and busier and busier, so…00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:29.000Pete Meyer: The shelter chairlift was essentially letting off these new skiers.00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.000Pete Meyer: in the middle of flowing traffic. And…00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.000Pete Meyer: We thought when we put in the East Peak lift.00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:41.000Pete Meyer: Now we're gonna take these lower end skiers to the top.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:55.000Pete Meyer: we're going to give them a longer run, and the new part we're giving them is actually the easier half. They're already negotiating the tougher half, the steeper half, and the narrower half. If we add the upper half, it's easier, it's wider, it should be fine.00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:06.000Pete Meyer: And that's what we thought. And so we put it in and then but then what we found and this is the this is the piece that you learn as you go.00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.000Pete Meyer: is…00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:15.000Pete Meyer: The new skiers accepted being let off at the lower level, and having to merge into traffic, because.00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:32.000Pete Meyer: They didn't really know any different and that it was the psychological factor. Well, I'm only halfway up the mountain. I can, I can do this. When we took them up to the top, you know, that East Peak lift actually feels like a out, it almost feels like an out West lift. It has.00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:43.000Pete Meyer: like, three rises, you know? So you ride… you go up over a break, and then you… and then you go again for a while, and then up over another break, and then you're coming into the top, and you… you know, you're above…00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:47.000Pete Meyer: Tree line, basically, and you can see the horizon, and it just…00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:51.000Pete Meyer: would kind of psych out that new skier, you know, they would just, they would.00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.000Pete Meyer: They'd get up there and kind of freeze and panic, and…00:26:55.000 --> 00:27:06.000Pete Meyer: say, there's no way I'm gonna go down, you know, I'm not gonna go down that hill. And, uh, so we found our ski patrol having to give a lot of lessons just to get people down the hill, and…00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:13.000Pete Meyer: And, um, and so we, we just, we kind of knew that we had a, you know, a little bit of an issue that we had to work through.00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:21.000Pete Meyer: And so Pete and I would be talking, you know, and I would say, I think I have it all figured out, you know, I'm saying, um…00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:34.000Pete Meyer: we just need to give them… make sure that all the… every single new skier gets a lesson, and we get them ready to… you know, we get them ready to go. And a lot of the… a lot of this is the school groups, you know, the different groups, and we do offer lessons.00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:40.000Pete Meyer: to everybody, but sometimes they don't take them, and, you know, they slide, they slide through, and…00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.000Pete Meyer: And so.00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:50.000Pete Meyer: Pete and I were having a meeting on Green Mountain with our ski patrol director, Katie, and Dennis, one of our top instructors.00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:59.000Pete Meyer: And we think we have it all figured out. You know, we're just we just need to put them through a lesson and then and then problem solved.00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:00.000Pete Meyer: And…00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:12.000Pete Meyer: And Dennis, our ski instructor, was like, almost grabbed right onto my jacket. He's like, you don't understand. I can't get them ready for East Peak on this.00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:23.000Pete Meyer: we need something in between, and I… and… and so it's like, oh, oh, well, what do you need, Dennis? And he pointed up at the Green Mountain, and he said, we need that.00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:41.000Pete Meyer: And I… I said, well, I think we have a plan for that on a cocktail napkin somewhere. We could go look at that again. So basically, what… what hap… what it was is we… we had always had this. We… we actually had lift lines staked out, and we hadn't been looking at doing this. We just thought it would be…00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:51.000Pete Meyer: the last thing that we do. We thought we would… we would continue to develop into the… into the backcountry area, and then do the Green Mountain expansion later.00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:06.000Pete Meyer: But what the… what the customer told us was, no, you need the Green Mountain expansion now. So that's the why and the how, that all of a sudden that thing kind of appeared out of nowhere, and why it was a two…00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:14.000Pete Meyer: why it's a two-year construction, because there's nothing over there. No services. Um, so we've had… we had to…00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:18.000Pete Meyer: You know, we had to do the final planning kind of fast.00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:30.000Pete Meyer: so we wanted to take 2 years to do it. Um, and so what are you getting? You're getting about 135 vertical feet, a brand new Doppelmayr triple.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.000Pete Meyer: uh, that's just like East Peak and just like Vista, so it's gonna show this, you know, it's gonna take the new skier, um.00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:43.000Pete Meyer: Uh, and get them going on a lift that's similar to what we have throughout the area.00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:55.000Pete Meyer: it runs a little bit slower, has a bigger chair spacing, so it's going to be a little bit easier to load and unload. And when it's all built out, we should have 4 or 5.00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:00.000Pete Meyer: really, uh, easy trails, but with character. I mean, these aren't just…00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:14.000Pete Meyer: you know, a football field at 10 degrees that doesn't have any character. These are, you know, tree-lined, um, interesting slopes. Uh, the lift itself actually goes through the woods.00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:20.000Pete Meyer: and part of the way, and it's just a really neat development. So we think that.00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:32.000Pete Meyer: You know, even though it's not big vertical, it lifts about a thousand feet long. The terrain has really good character and we think it's going to be really popular.00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:47.000Stuart Winchester: I've always loved that about Cabaret. My favorite section of Cabaret for the folks who are watching is this sort of lower section where all the trails split off. And I've always found it a little confusing and fun. And I like confusing. I like it. I feel like it makes ski areas feel bigger than they are.00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: I want to zoom out a little bit and connect this expansion to some larger ski industry narratives, because the narrative that won't die is that the big corporate consolidation and big passes are killing the independents.00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:15.000Stuart Winchester: here I'm looking at Cabra Fay, family-owned for the last 46 years, and in 2016, you put in a brand new triple chair right here on North Peak. In 2022, you put in the brand new East Peak triple chair, and then you're putting in this brand new Green Mountain triple chair next year, at least that's the plan. I mean…00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:31.000Stuart Winchester: So you're affording three new chairlifts. Uh, you know, Monarch was willing to tell me out in Colorado. Yeah, we, and we paid cash for them. I don't know if you, if you have, you know, theories on debt. I know a lot of scare operators like Platykill in New York, like to stay out of debt, but, but how did Cab.00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:40.000Stuart Winchester: How is Calgary managing all these capital upgrades, and what does it say, do you think, about independents competing in 2026?00:31:41.000 --> 00:32:05.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, I don't have access to the checkbook, so you have to let me answer that one. No, that's a great question, Stu. And Tim kind of hit on this on his first podcast with you, but when Tim and I got moved back here in 2001, we had what I call like soul crushing debt. You know, it was just crippling, like every dollar we made had to go and service the debt.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:08.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we didn't have…00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:18.000Pete Meyer: really any money to even make capital improvements or to do much of anything. So our our main mission early on was try to try to get out of debt and get out of that hole.00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:35.000Pete Meyer: And, you know, our dad's done a nice job developing and building, and they got it out of bankruptcy. So when you get something out of bankruptcy, they've already cut every corner and done all kinds of deferred maintenance, pushed it all off. So we had quite a bit to deal with, and it was a long…00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:36.000Pete Meyer: Um…00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:46.000Pete Meyer: the long slugfest. Tim and I call those the dark days, you know, about 10 years of just really grinding. And then, finally, right, you know.00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:58.000Pete Meyer: about 2015, we were able to, uh, to get out of debt, and then… and then we started to, um, really put capital back into it, and that's why we decided on… on…00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:02.000Pete Meyer: Uh, putting in some new chairlifts, and yes, we have not gone back into debt since.00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:14.000Stuart Winchester: That's fantastic, and as you think to the future, okay, you have this North Peak quad chair, built in, I think, 92, and then you have the South Peak triple, which I think early 80s lift, it's a riblet, which…00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:29.000Stuart Winchester: As you know, is out of business now. I think this one's a SeaTac. So, I don't know if when, you know, you give a really good summary, Tim, of how East Peak changed traffic around the mountain. Uh, I, I've seen a, there's a ton of comments. I was just scrolling through, through Lyft blog for the folks watching.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:41.000Stuart Winchester: to show Peter's excellent pictures of that lift. And the Cabaret page on there has a ton of comments, and I'm sure you've seen them. So, there's a lot of wondering, it seems, among skiers.00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:44.000Stuart Winchester: Why the quad is still here, because it…00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:57.000Stuart Winchester: they don't seem to think it runs a lot, and they think the triple does the job. Is there any thought of moving the quad, or do you really need 7 seats here? Or, just thinking long-term, what does the lift distribution look like across Cabaret Fay as you look at this map?00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:13.000Pete Meyer: Well, I think that we do need the quad on the busiest days, right? Otherwise, the reason we put the Vista Triple in there is the lines on the quad used to get so long. And it was like, that's the artery. I mean, you know, more people.00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.000Pete Meyer: go through the North Peak complex.00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:34.000Pete Meyer: every day than than the others, you know, because it's the middle. And so it's you go through there on your way to and from South Peak, and a lot of people just ski there because it's really really good inter advanced, intermediate and intermediate type terrain, and even some advanced beginner terrain. So it.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:43.000Pete Meyer: It services a wide range of abilities. So I think you want to have the two lifts.00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:45.000Pete Meyer: Um…00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:58.000Pete Meyer: I think ultimately, though, we want to have more places for people to go, more pods of skiing, so that actually you do run the quad less and less, but you have it there so that on the really busy days.00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:14.000Pete Meyer: you can turn it on and have, you know, a lift that doesn't have a line that somebody can sit on and ride up. But, um, I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah, right now, Stu, we run it 3 days a week, Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays, the busier days, and so…00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:24.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we don't run it, uh, Monday through Thursday, just because it's a redundant lift, and we don't need the uphill capacity, um, is… is why people say it's not running some of the time.00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I guess what I was getting at is, is there a world where you move the quad over here to serve some of this backcountry terrain and in the top of Green Mountain? As it's, as there's kind of open space on the trail map and, and knowing Gary Milken, how he designs maps, he sometimes leaves that space.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:57.000Stuart Winchester: for expansion. So, so what's the thought around, you know, and you alluded to it earlier when you were thinking about a lift for backcountry, and Tim, you had mentioned even maybe reviving those halls. I don't know if that's still a possibility. I don't know if they're still sitting at the bottom of the mountain here, but what's the thought on.00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:02.000Stuart Winchester: potential expansion over in this area or lifts in this area long term.00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:17.000Pete Meyer: I think that would be the next frontier. So, somewhere in the bottom… because you've skied here, Stu, you know if you go through the backcountry, you run out of gas, and then you have… and then you have to walk, and that's why we call it backcountry, because it's a…00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:27.000Pete Meyer: Because it's a tearful experience for many people coming out of there in the flats. And so somewhere down in that basin.00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:40.000Pete Meyer: there could, there could be a lift someday that goes up to east of the top of East Peak. And Stu, what Tim had alluded to earlier in his first answer is that that was our original plan, so that would have been.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:58.000Pete Meyer: Uh, that was the plan to be our next chairlift, was to service that area. But due to the reaction and the response of our skiers, you know, we deviated and focused on… and moved to Green Mountain. Um, and, you know, one thing we found is that transition from the magic carpet, right there on the trail map, you can see, to the East Peak chair.00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:15.000Pete Meyer: was just too much for most of our skiers. And not only were we not doing Cabaret any favors, but we're not doing the industry any favors. You know, it's just, it was asking them to do too much, too big of a, make too much of a jump. So by putting in this East Peak.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:03.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:30.000Pete Meyer: chair, and then we'll have all green runs that'll all be, um, varying degrees of difficulty of a green run, but all of them will be in between the Magic Carpet slope and the Smiling Irishman slope, so it'll be a really nice.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:43.000Pete Meyer: transition, and quite frankly, we think a lot of school groups and a lot of skiers are going to come out, um, and never get off that chair, and stay on Green Mountain all day, and have a wildly successful day, and want to return, um, to not only Cabaret Fay, but to other ski.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:48.000Stuart Winchester: I love it, and I can confidently say, because I ski all over, uh, that Cabaret is now…00:37:48.000 --> 00:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: And, and especially once you put in this new lift, it's one of the most modern up to date ski areas in the entire region. And, and that wasn't always true. When I first skied at Cabaret in the nineties, it was a lot of haul double chairs. I mean, these, these guys were over here, the, the quad and the, and the triple, but.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:11.000Stuart Winchester: that, that throwback feel to it. And I know, Tim, when you were on last time, uh, you, you talked, you lamented a little bit.00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:23.000Stuart Winchester: getting rid of the last rope toe for the carpet, and just sort of the emotion of it, even though you knew it was logically the right thing. What if you could bring back a little throwback by putting a little rope toe right here to bring people out of the backcountry?00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:27.000Pete Meyer: Well, you know, it's funny, I…00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:36.000Pete Meyer: I was kind of slow to warm up to getting rid of that rope toe. I guess, you know, I always had that old school…00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:52.000Pete Meyer: you know, I learned on a rope toe, my kids learned on a rope toe, your kids are going to learn on a rope toe, which is just backwards thinking, right, for a for a ski area manager to have that kind of thought process. I'm not sure. I know where you're going. I mean, no one knows what the future holds.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:09.000Pete Meyer: I do see ski areas having a lot of success with train parks with fast tows that service them. Again, another cocktail napkin plan that we have that we're not going to get into in this interview is something like that on our property down the road.00:38:58.000 --> 00:38:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:16.000Pete Meyer: Um, so there, you know, I could see that kind of a thing, but, um…00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:26.000Pete Meyer: And… but I think… I don't know if we would ever want to put a surface tow out of the backcountry area unless, for some reason, we weren't going to lift serve it.00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:27.000Stuart Winchester: Got it.00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:31.000Pete Meyer: But, you know, I guess, you know, no one knows for sure.00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:37.000Pete Meyer: Um, but I wanna… I wanna back up on the Green Mountain expansion a little bit, if… if you'll let me.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000Stuart Winchester: Sure.00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, do it. Let's do it.00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:44.000Pete Meyer: When we were at the Midwest, uh, show this year, there was a, there was a fireside chat, and we were talking about.00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:54.000Pete Meyer: We're talking about, you know, turning first-time skiers into second-time skiers, and making the experience the best it can be.00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:06.000Pete Meyer: And so that we have… we have success in that arena. And the Green Mountain… the Green Mountain is… is really a missing piece, because you're looking at our trail map, and you see how the parking lot is laid out.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:12.000Pete Meyer: Um, so if you're, you know, trying to make it as easy as possible for somebody who's never skied before.00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.000Pete Meyer: You can park on pavement right in front of our ticket office.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:24.000Pete Meyer: Get out of your car, walk a short distance on heated sidewalks to the ticket office.00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:36.000Pete Meyer: Get… pay for everything you need. Pay for your skis, pay for your ticket, pay for your rentals, pay for your lesson, and then walk up to the… walk up to the, um…00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:37.000Pete Meyer: Rental.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:52.000Pete Meyer: In your, in your regular boots, so it's easy walking, go inside, take your stuff off, take your boots off, get your boots, get your skis and come and then, and then secure your lesson at the end and then walk out the door.00:40:52.000 --> 00:41:09.000Pete Meyer: And you're 30, you know, you're 30 feet from where the ski school meets and you're right at the bottom of the conveyor. So it's really easy to start out and we can get you going on the conveyor. We can virtually get anybody that can stand up on skis or snowboard up to the top.00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:13.000Pete Meyer: And then put, you know, all their energy into getting them down the hill.00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:28.000Pete Meyer: And then once you outgrow that, you just get off the conveyor and you ski down a little slope right onto the East Peak lift. Or, I'm sorry, onto the Green Mountain lift. So now you're right there, and you have this real easy area.00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:37.000Pete Meyer: to learn to ski, and then when you, when you're ready, you just ski down, just ski down the hill to the east peak lift. So the, the flow.00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:42.000Pete Meyer: for that never ever in the in the ah, the the.00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:51.000Pete Meyer: possibility of getting them to come a second and third and fourth time is really real, and I think… I think we're in, like, a new stratosphere for getting…00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:59.000Pete Meyer: you know, getting people, uh, skiing. And then as it flows, you know, the next step, the next place to ski is East Peak.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.000Pete Meyer: And then as you get a little more daring, you work your way into the North Peak complex, and then eventually over to South Peak. So the flow is really natural, and I think it's going to work out extremely well.00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's like a mini, uh, Copper Mountain. I know you're a Winter Park guy, but it, you know, the, the, the viability… You know what, the exciting thing, I think, for skiers who are not novices, who know Cabaret Faye well.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:12.000Pete Meyer: Yeah.00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:38.000Stuart Winchester: starts to creep back into old Caber Fay. And, and when we've talked a while ago, Tim, I, I didn't have a good perspective, but some new maps have popped up on ski map.org, which is my go to for old trail maps. And this one I think shows the old terrain really well. So here's the road looping around, here's the parking lot.00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:47.000Stuart Winchester: And then here's all the terrain. And so I… Google Earth also makes it really easy. So as I go here…00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:02.000Stuart Winchester: I am, for those who are watching, I am zooming in on… so this is what you were talking about, you kind of just park on pavement, you get out here, for those watching on YouTube or StormSkiing.com, the carpet's right around here, and then this will be green, is that right?00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.000Pete Meyer: No, if you go, if you, if you go back to that old, old trail map, like you can see right to there, there's a.00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:14.000Pete Meyer: A rope toe — there's two rope toes right there, right up that line, top of that peak. There was two rope toes.00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:12.000Stuart Winchester: Right there? Okay.00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:13.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000Pete Meyer: Uh, heading up that way, and another rope tow coming out at 90 degrees from… from the top.00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:19.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:37.000Pete Meyer: And that shack still is up there to this day. It's a two-story tow shack where we had three different rope tows coming in. So it's going to come right up to the top of that. And that area was always called practice area. That was the old name of it. So if you look at old trail maps, you'll see that word practice area.00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:24.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool.00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:41.000Pete Meyer: It's a great name for a learn to ski area.00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, here's another map, the 1971 map has it as practice area. Okay, so I was assuming that you were digging that up, but I guess you're taking earth from there for the other… is that where you took it for East Peak? Is that what this big sandpit is?00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:07.000Pete Meyer: Oh, that's more of the West Ridge area out into that area. So we're actually off to the left. It's all still green. Up into there, yeah, so it'll be a nice natural hilltop with big mature trees, tree line runs. It's gonna be really, it's gonna be really nice.00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000Stuart Winchester: So as you… so you can see, for those watching, this is old cab buffet. These are… this is all abandoned, right? I… do you still own this? I mean, it… because once you put the lift up here.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:37.000Stuart Winchester: It seems like it could potentially open some of this backside terrain. I know people would love that. It also makes you very big. I don't know if that's on your radar as Cabaret continues to grow and succeed, but what are the thoughts on this really cool abandoned terrain that you have back here? And Tim, I know we talked about this a few years ago, but I also know that thoughts evolve over time.00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:44.000Pete Meyer: So we do still own all of that. So that area you're looking at, we do own it.00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:55.000Pete Meyer: I think that we don't have any plans to go back into that area at this time, but you never know.00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:04.000Pete Meyer: Going back, though, a little bit, we don't want to get too far into the weeds. Unless you want to get into the weeds, we can go. Um, I brought my machete, so we can…00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.000Stuart Winchester: I live in the weeds, man, that's, uh, my…00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:22.000Pete Meyer: we can do what we need to do. But when… way back, going way back to 1982, 83, when South Peak opened, you know, South Peak was redeveloped, all that… a lot of that terrain was still running back then. We were riding T-bars and rope tows on the North Ridge, and West Ridge was alive, and.00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:31.000Pete Meyer: The practice area tow was still running. So I remember that stuff, you know, as a kid, all happening. And when South Peak was built.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:43.000Pete Meyer: it was so much bigger than all that, you know, vertical-wise. It was, like, twice, you know, twice the vertical, um, real snowmaking, real grooming.00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:56.000Pete Meyer: people just abandoned the back… the back hills. They just went… they left that. They left that area, and they went to Salt Peak. And that's really why it all closed, is people just stopped going back there. It just wasn't as good. So…00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:46.000Stuart Winchester: Or did they?00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:00.000Pete Meyer: I often think maybe it just is better to be a memory.00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:05.000Pete Meyer: But but who knows? You know, down the road it could be what it could be.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think between opening the backcountry and that, uh, the Green Mountain expansion, I think you excited some folks. Alright, that, that's, uh, that's, that's all really cool. I appreciate you taking me inside that. Let's talk passes now, and I'm.00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: the screen share here. So, uh…00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:36.000Stuart Winchester: Cabrefe joined IndyPass as an inaugural member in 2019, and has been on that pass every season since, for the 2026-27 season. Cabrefe has, and I'm just laying this out for the listeners, uh, Cabrefe has departed the IndyPass and has joined.00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:51.000Stuart Winchester: The full icon pass, uh, on their two day tier, which is only on the full icon pass, not on the icon base, there's no access, and there's also holiday blackout, so the only mountains that are holiday blacked out on the full icon are the, the two day mountains, of which.00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:55.000Stuart Winchester: Cabaret is now one. So, so talk us through.00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:03.000Stuart Winchester: your experience with IndiePass and the decision, ultimately, to leave that partnership and to join up with ICON.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:09.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, sure, Stu, we have a feeling this might be a topic of conversation today, so…00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:11.000Pete Meyer: So we.00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:11.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:22.000Pete Meyer: There's a lot of layers to this answer, and this decision was not made quickly or lightly, and a lot of analysis and discussion went into it.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:37.000Pete Meyer: To be quite honest, we were… we've been frustrated with the IndyPass a little bit for a couple years, and we kind of… we kind of laid out a bunch of, um, the pros and cons list, and the cons list was a lot longer than the pros, and so we… we ultimately kind of came to this decision to exit, and um…00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:53.000Pete Meyer: We're going to talk about — I'll talk about a couple of those reasons now. But before I do, I think it's important to provide some history and some context with Cadbury and IndyPass. So as you mentioned, Indy launched in 2019. We were an early adopter. We had some great conversations with Doug Fish that summer.00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:10.000Pete Meyer: Doug worked really hard to get this pass going. We really enjoyed our conversations. He kind of could answer the questions that nobody could answer. He knew things that nobody else knew. And I still remember to this day, I'm like, Doug, how do you know all this? And he's like in his raspy voice.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:21.000Pete Meyer: I just know, you know, so it's like, it was kind of cool. So we had confidence that, uh, that he could implement this pass and make it successful, um, because he knew what it took. So we…00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:26.000Stuart Winchester: I'm sorry to interrupt. I may have been the first ever Cabaret Redemption on the Indie Pass since November 2019.00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:25.000Pete Meyer: You know what? That's this.00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:30.000Pete Meyer: It wasn't, it was December 5th, 2019.00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:31.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. It…00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:39.000Pete Meyer: So, I was gonna get into that in a little bit, but now I'll hit on that. So then, um, in digging through all these redemptions, which I was gonna get into.00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, okay, go ahead.00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Sorry, I spoiled it.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:56.000Pete Meyer: And pouring this data, I was like, Stuart Winchester, you were redemption number one for us. I don't know if you knew that. And I remember it to this day because I never heard your name. I never heard of your podcast. I don't even know if you had it going then.00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:49.000Stuart Winchester: Wow, that's cool.00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yah.00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.000Stuart Winchester: It launched, uh, that October, so it was brand new. Mm-hmm.00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:59.000Pete Meyer: That October? Okay.00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:14.000Pete Meyer: So the… our… my office is right behind the ticket window, and the ticket teller… our office… the ticket manager wasn't in there, so the ticket teller came and got me when he came to the window. I have this, uh, IndiePass, I don't know what to do with it. So I was showing her how to…00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:18.000Pete Meyer: redeem it in in Brooklyn.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:43.000Pete Meyer: New York pops up. Oh, I got to talk to this guy. I go, you mean that you drove all the way here just to ski at Cabra Faith in Brooklyn, New York? And you're like, yeah, I did. And I thought, I'm like, this pass is awesome, right? It's great, guys. But then we talked a little bit more and you said you had family in the area and we're in the area for a while. So I was really high for a long time on the UniPass because of that. But I didn't know it was you until I was digging through the data. I'm like, oh, that's.00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so.00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, that's cool.00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:58.000Pete Meyer: That's that's so. So anyways, anyways, we'll where was I? So okay, so then we were the first as part of that. Then we were the 1st ski resort in the Lower Peninsula to to commit to the to Indy Pass, and I'm not sure about.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:46.000Stuart Winchester: Love that.00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:01.000Pete Meyer: Um, the UP, uh.00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:16.000Pete Meyer: But the only one in the Lower Peninsula. And so we knew at that time, well, this isn't going to do anything unless we get a couple more ski resorts to join. So we had reached out to a few. And Pete Bigford was interested. And he was the CEO and president of Shanty Creek at the time.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:30.000Pete Meyer: And Pete had said, yeah, we'll do it, but we need a couple of downstate resorts to join as well. So then we reached out to Jamie at Swiss Valley, she said yes, and Doug at Cannonsburg, and he said yes. So that first year, we had four.00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:33.000Pete Meyer: Um, resorts on the Indy Pass. And…00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:45.000Pete Meyer: During that time he that 1st year he charged resorts a thousand dollars to get in. So we we had conversations. We're like, well, let's let's try it. The worst we can do is be out a thousand dollars right? So we had these.00:50:45.000 --> 00:51:00.000Pete Meyer: 4 ski areas in, and we did… I think we did 44 redemptions that first year. It was… it was virtually nothing. I don't even think it covered the… the $1,000. It might have come… but… but we liked the concept, it was neat, and the word got out, and then… and then Crystal Mountain joined, um, the next year.00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:53.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow. Okay.00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:06.000Pete Meyer: Uh, and then, so we kind of hit a critical mass there, and then it was a really good pass, um.00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:16.000Pete Meyer: for a long time, for a while, for several years. And one thing that Doug had said, and during that first year, I think in 2019, they had about 50.00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:32.000Pete Meyer: ski resorts on the pass, if I remember. And he said, I really hope to get it to 80 to maybe 100 passes. Um, and you as an early adopter, um, Cabaret will have say who gets in, in, in your particular region, because I really want to keep it, do just a couple ski resorts per region.00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.000Pete Meyer: not to not to oversaturate the market. Like, yeah, great. This sounds sounds really good.00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:40.000Pete Meyer: So then as we go on, um…00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:50.000Pete Meyer: he sells the pass to, uh, Entebani and Eric. Um, and great for Doug, we're happy for Doug, he worked really hard to make that pass, good for him for selling it. Um, can't fault him.00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:05.000Pete Meyer: Um, and then we like to say, like, Eric, Eric took the pass and put it on steroids. You know, it's just, he, he's, he's done a wonderful job with it. You know, he's obviously very, very intelligent, very successful, running three different businesses, um, um, and doing well at all of them.00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.000Pete Meyer: But he's blown it up. He just had a different mission.00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:13.000Pete Meyer: than than Doug had. Right? So what did that evolve into?00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:14.000Stuart Winchester: Blowing it up, you mean making bigger, right?00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:22.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, making it bigger. Like, Doug was gonna keep it small and couple to each region, and we were gonna have an input on, you know.00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:35.000Pete Meyer: to try to prevent it from being oversaturated. So, I know the Midwest has a lot of ski areas on the pass, but, like, our world is Michigan and our, more specifically, northern Michigan.00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:36.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:38.000Pete Meyer: So it got down to where we had 6.00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:56.000Pete Meyer: um, ski resorts within a 60-mile radius in northern Michigan, right? So if you drop a pin, you can drive within, within 60 miles, you can get to six resorts on it. Um, that density just became too much for us, because that's 12 visits, right? If a skier buys an Andy Pass, they can ski 12 times, two at each place. It's great for them, they get a lot of.00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:12.000Pete Meyer: Um, the problem is, is what we're seeing, and we're watching the numbers every year, um, and it was easy to do because there's not a ton of redemptions, but how many of those people were former Passovers, right? And that percentage kept rising every year.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mmm.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:25.000Pete Meyer: So what it became and evolved into is just a direct competitor of our own season pass product. And that's ultimately reason number one why we — it just oversaturated.00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:26.000Pete Meyer: And.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:27.000Stuart Winchester: So, go ahead.00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:28.000Pete Meyer: And, you know, so…00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:34.000Pete Meyer: I and I think the the Indy Pass really for a lot of ski resorts.00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:51.000Pete Meyer: doesn't move the needle a ton, um, financially. Uh, for… for us, it really didn't, and I felt like we were… did a reasonable number of redemptions, so we could… we could take it… take it or leave it. It doesn't have a big impact. It affects the customer more. Like, that decision was hard, the person who bought it in the past.00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:56.000Pete Meyer: Um, but I think Eric's a stand-up guy. He'll let anybody who…00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:07.000Pete Meyer: who bought an E-Pass, and their favorite resort is not on that, they'll give a refund to anybody who wants one. So the Cabaret listeners know that, and I think that's nice of him to do. Also, for those.00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:19.000Pete Meyer: um, Cabaret, uh, listeners who bought an Indy add-on. He'll honor that for this year, from what I understand. So, it's a couple of really good things that he's doing there, so we're thankful, thankful for that. But, um.00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:28.000Pete Meyer: through conversations, and we just decided it was time to get out. So that's reason number one. I got a couple more reasons if you've got time.00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:41.000Stuart Winchester: Well, let's linger on that for a second. I mean, for me, it just comes down to good old-fashioned free market competition, right? Where there's another pass available that is looking for smaller mountains like Caber Fay. It also signed mountains like Buck Hill and.00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:58.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and uh… Wild Mountain over in Minnesota, just small areas near populations that are popular. I saw you catching some heat in comments to me, you know, on my platforms and social media, because you go from the Indy Pass, which maxed out at $419.00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:16.000Stuart Winchester: to the full Icon, which is $1,449 right now, and I know you can upgrade and buy a discounted Icon session pass, but I don't want to overstate it. What's the reaction been like from your pass holders, and how have you handled that?00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:24.000Stuart Winchester: The fact that you're no longer available on the cheap discounted pass, multi-mountain pass, but you are available on the very expensive one.00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:27.000Pete Meyer: Great question, great question, because we've been getting…00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:42.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we've been getting both, uh, good and, and bad feedback from it. So, what, what it comes down to is the, is the decision to, to, uh, leave Indy and, and join OCCON. Those, those decisions were, were mutually exclusive. Like, like, we had made the decision to.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:52.000Pete Meyer: to leave Indy, um, before we even started to Icon. And we had a lot of conversations of, hey, let's just… let's just be… let's just be independent and not on any… any, uh…00:55:52.000 --> 00:56:08.000Pete Meyer: Multi resort pass, you know, there's a lot of really successful and really nice ski resorts that have that model, like Perfect North Slopes, Cascade in Wisconsin. We always go out and ski somewhere every spring and I went out to the Tahoe area this year and skied at Mount Rose, you know, that place is.00:55:58.000 --> 00:55:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:18.000Pete Meyer: that place is phenomenal. They're not on any, any, um, any pants. And, um, it was neat to ski there, and just see they had a similar vibe and feel that, um, Cabaret had, right?00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: Right. That's right.00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:23.000Pete Meyer: So quite a bit more, quite a bit more. Yeah, yeah.00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:21.000Stuart Winchester: Just a little more elevation.00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:24.000Stuart Winchester: They're at, like, 9,000 feet.00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:27.000Pete Meyer: Absolutely, but it was great terrain. So.00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:29.000Pete Meyer: After we left the Indy Pass.00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:31.000Pete Meyer: Then we, um…00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:46.000Pete Meyer: Started talking to the folks at ICON, and I want to give a shout out to Aaron Keene and Caitlin Windauer, those girls are really sharp and would answer all the questions. It kind of reminded me of the early DuckFish days where they were all knowing and knew a lot of answers to everything.00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:53.000Pete Meyer: We talked to them for a long time. We weren't in any rush to make a decision to go down this road.00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:57.000Pete Meyer: And you know what ultimately decided for us is.00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:10.000Pete Meyer: We want to do what's best for our core customer, and our core customer is our season pass holder, okay? And this IndyPass or this IconPass brought on this reciprocal benefit of a three-day.00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:27.000Pete Meyer: 3 day session pass you can get for 50% off. Right? And that adds a lot of value. To our pass holders. And so we've been hit as much as the negativity that you've seen online for leaving any pass, we've been getting messages from our pass holders saying, hey, thank you for this benefit. This is great.00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:13.000Stuart Winchester: It's.00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:15.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, three day. Yeah. Okay.00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:43.000Pete Meyer: I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna take a trip. And then we've known we've gone out west together and 3 days of skiing is plenty. Like we like to ski bell to bell and it's you're by that 3rd day you're waking up and you're like you can't even move your legs for you know we're so so we think it's a nice.00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:38.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah.00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:55.000Pete Meyer: Uh, you can ski locally here, you can head up in, um, hit up, hit up both Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands, or drive over to, uh, Blue Mountain, Ontario, so you don't have to get in a plane. So it's.00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:11.000Pete Meyer: Uh, of our pass holders. Cause we know, we know, Stuart, that nobody's going to buy a full icon pass for two days at Cabaret. We, we know that that wasn't even the, like Pete said, we're, we do like our independence and, and.00:57:57.000 --> 00:57:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:04.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:25.000Pete Meyer: And we like to create these partnerships that are good for our core customers. The people that commit to us, we're going to give you the best we can. And so, you know, that that three day session pass is just it's it's.00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.000Pete Meyer: It's a it's a great benefit for our core customers.00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:47.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's like you take a trip to Steamboat, or Palisades Tahoe, or a lot of the mountains that are on that. So, you know, it all makes sense, and I like the, you know, Boyne, Cabaret, sort of on one team, and then you have Nubs, and Crystal, and Treetops, and Shani on the other. I think that's good for skiers, it's good for.00:58:47.000 --> 00:59:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, two more, two more things I wanna talk about and then we'll get out of here. Uh, I, I really wanna talk about your season pass. $299 unlimited. I think it was even a little cheaper for early birds, but that's what it is right now. Uh, 219 for weekday, 129 for Sunday. That, that's an awesome, awesome deal.00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:18.000Stuart Winchester: by any measure. I noticed you no longer have the Saturday-Sunday pass, and I think it's been a couple years, and it also… Saturday lift tickets are more than Sunday, so it seems as though, from my point of view, you're really trying to manage the experience on Saturday. So, talk about your season pass suite.00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:27.000Stuart Winchester: And how that relates to your mountain management as far as making sure when people show up, they have a good experience.00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:42.000Pete Meyer: No, you're exactly right. You hit the nail on the head right there. We're trying to preserve the Saturday experience. That's the day everybody wants to ski. So if you're going to be on a pass and ski at Calgary on a pass, you got to have the seven-day week pass.00:59:42.000 --> 01:00:00.000Pete Meyer: And we wanted to protect that experience and not get overcrowded, not get overrun, and that's one of the main reasons that we got rid of the weekend pass. The weekend pass, we roll out, it was a $99 weekend pass in 2007 when we launched that, and that thing went all the way till.01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:14.000Pete Meyer: I think 2000 or 2001, we had that, so we had that for a long time, and that brought a lot of skiers here and exposed us as we continued to get better, and they saw the resort that we had, and all the work that Tim was doing on the hill.01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:21.000Pete Meyer: And then that just evolved into trying to manage the volume levels on Saturdays.01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a great deal. And, uh, you know, even, even as it's risen past 99, I mean, you know, 299, there's, there's a lot of resorts in the West that are charging more than that for a day this year. Beaver Creek's topping out at 392. So I love it. Okay. The last thing I want to.01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:48.000Stuart Winchester: This one's a little personal, and I know I talked to you about this, uh, it was about 4 years ago, Tim or Pete, I forget, it was maybe both of you I was talking to. So I want to talk about this Trail Starkey.01:00:48.000 --> 01:01:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, I knew Dick Starkey. I'm friends with his daughter Crystal from way back. We went to school together. Uh, and, and I met him and I, I was always just remember being very impressed by him. He had a really good presence. Uh, he was, he was very fit and active and, and did a lot of things.01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:09.000Stuart Winchester: Um, I didn't know him super well, but I met him a few times, and… and I… I just want to talk about, you know, he passed.01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000Stuart Winchester: Four or five years ago now, and I noticed this trail and, and I said, oh, is that, is that named after Dick? And, and you said it was. So, uh, can, can you talk about the Starkey trail? Talk about Dick Starkey and, and, uh, his legacy at Cabre Fay and, and, and why it was fitting to name a.01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:34.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, Dick was a volunteer patroller at SP, patroller at Caber Fay for…01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:42.000Pete Meyer: I think… I… I think as long as… as my dad was around, you know, uh, Dick was there, and so, you know.01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:52.000Pete Meyer: 40… however many years, 40… 40-some years, he was a patroller at Cabaret, and uh… you know, just had a big presence, you know, you knew him.01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:52.000 --> 01:02:01.000Pete Meyer: Played football at Ferris. Great stories about that. He was a captain and so he's tough.01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:02:01.000 --> 01:02:02.000Pete Meyer: And.01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:17.000Pete Meyer: just a… just a great guy, great patroller, great mentor, um, a ton… lots and lots of stories about Dick Starkey for another day, but, uh, just somebody that we wanted to honor, and, um, so, you know, we made that change.01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:21.000Stuart Winchester: And why this trail? Why this, uh, why did you choose this one?01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:35.000Pete Meyer: you know, that… I don't… I don't know why we picked that one. We just… we… we… I think we… the, um… the previous name was an old, you know, an older name that… that… that honored a…01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:47.000Pete Meyer: an older ski instructor, but I think we thought, you know, maybe… maybe it was time for a change there. Some… maybe just something a little more relevant to… someone more relevant to…01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:52.000Pete Meyer: You know, this this last, you know, 40 years of caprophage tradition.01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. And, and I believe, I believe Crystal still, uh, volunteer patrols there as well, right? Yeah.01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:59.000Pete Meyer: Yes. Yes, she is.01:02:57.000 --> 01:03:03.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's great. I haven't talked to her in a minute, but hi, Crystal. Hope you're doing great. Pete.01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:05.000Pete Meyer: No, no, not about the trail.01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:22.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay, all right. Well, hey, listen, guys, I really appreciate catching up with you. There's so much always going on at Cabaret, and we were long overdue, so let's do it again soon, and I gotta get up there and ski that East Peak lift, because I haven't been in a minute, so I really appreciate that, and I'll talk to you guys soon, and thanks so much.01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:25.000Pete Meyer: Thanks, Stuart. Thanks a lot, Stu. Appreciate it.01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:26.000Stuart Winchester: All right, talk soon.01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:28.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let me just…01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:43.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, that was Tim and Pete Meyer of Cabaret. I love Cabaret. It was my pseudo home mountain when I lived in Michigan. It was just 90 minutes down the road, so I never had a season pass there.01:03:43.000 --> 01:03:51.000Stuart Winchester: but I would go there a lot. I mean, and this was, you know, lift tickets were $20 or something back then, so it didn't really matter, and they had a lot of specials. So, I want to…01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:57.000Stuart Winchester: wrap up today, I want to talk about lift tickets a little bit, because there's some lift ticket deals going on.01:03:57.000 --> 01:03:59.000Stuart Winchester: And…01:03:59.000 --> 01:04:14.000Stuart Winchester: I'll tell you about the deals first, and then I'll, I'll tell you what I make of them as a, as a theme. So we're gonna focus on Colorado for a moment. So Arapahoe Basin, to celebrate its 80th anniversary, is doing $80 lift tickets every Wednesday.01:04:14.000 --> 01:04:29.000Stuart Winchester: from late December through April, except for December 30th, which is holiday week, of course. Uh, they are $50 on Wednesdays outside of those windows, so early season at A-Basin, and then late season, and of course, uh, the mountain typically goes until June.01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:35.000Stuart Winchester: $80 lift ticket today, based in on their anniversary weekend, Saturday and Sunday, December 5th and 6th.01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:45.000Stuart Winchester: Also, anyone born in 1946, making you 80 years old, skis free all winter. Uh, A-Basin has a lot of ways to get in cheap. They have 3-day packs.01:04:45.000 --> 01:05:00.000Stuart Winchester: With no blackouts, any day, use any 3 days for $249. They have midweek packs, 5 days for $319. Midweek season pass is $539, and a full is $699, and of course, A-Basin is unlimited on both the Icon and the Icon.01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, base pass, and I wanna see…01:05:03.000 --> 01:05:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, they did get rid of the fall pass. I had…01:05:09.000 --> 01:05:21.000Stuart Winchester: I had emailed, because… because A-Basin used to have this great pass for, like, 250 bucks. It was from opening day until Christmas, but they did get rid of it. Uh, and… and they… Shayna from A-Basin emailed, and she told me.01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:37.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, for background, that was a very small audience for, for us who were interested in the Fall Pass pack. So, uh, so thank you, Shayna, for getting back to me so quickly, and I'd sent that right before the podcast started. So, so A-Basin deals on Wednesdays, you know, put that down in your.01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:55.000Stuart Winchester: List if you, if you wanna actually day ski and maybe you have an epic pass, but you wanna, you miss a basin. Uh, and then Thursdays Copper Mountain is again doing $99 Thursdays. They're play for every Thursdays and a portion of that goes to a good cause. They're doing that every Thursday from January 7th to April 8th.01:05:55.000 --> 01:06:04.000Stuart Winchester: Including the holiday week in February, I don't know if that's a mistake, but grab it while you can, because I don't think they can take it back once you buy it. Uh, and then.01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:05.000Stuart Winchester: $99 a copper.01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:19.000Stuart Winchester: starting Monday, April 12th, which is pretty awesome. So, if you wanted to do a little day ski, and, you know, right now you can still buy tickets and everything, or still buy passes, because we're recording this on September 17th.01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:30.000Stuart Winchester: But if you're listening in the future, you could do a Wednesday $80 a day basin, a Thursday $99 at Copper Mountain. It's not a bad couple days in Summit County for a pretty reasonable price, given.01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:44.000Stuart Winchester: prices in 2026 for lift tickets at most mountains. Uh, down the road, Aspen, for its 80th anniversary, is doing $80 lift tickets Saturday and Sunday, December 12th and 13th. They also offered…01:06:44.000 --> 01:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, tickets for $3 and 75 cents for Monday, December 14th. But those are sold out and they, I'm pretty much sure they sold out instantly. And it's funny ‘cause they didn't even market it at first. And, and Aspen folks tell me they just blew off the shelves. So that is for Aspen's 80th anniversary.01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:17.000Stuart Winchester: Same year as, uh, a basin is celebrating right now. And of course, some of the little guys around there, you know, ski Cooper hasn't announced their lift ticket prices yet. And I know it's small, but it's still, it's, it's a place you can go. It's high. There's no snow making. It's all natural snow.01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:22.000Stuart Winchester: $49 midweek tickets at Ski Cooper last year, maxed out at $99 on weekends.01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:30.000Stuart Winchester: Down the road, if you're on your way to Aspen, Sunlight, which has 1,750 feet of vertical drop.01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:46.000Stuart Winchester: And two brand new lifts. Well, one was from a base and used, but it was only 20 years old. So they put in two brand new lifts last year. Big vertical. Uh, their lift tickets max out at $109. Midweek, they're $74 to $94. It's a fun little area. It gives you Colorado.01:07:46.000 --> 01:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: with a little bit more of a… a throwback Colorado, old Colorado feel. So, so the question here is.01:07:53.000 --> 01:07:57.000Stuart Winchester: Are we starting to see a rationalization?01:07:57.000 --> 01:07:58.000Stuart Winchester: In the lift ticket market.01:07:58.000 --> 01:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: Are we starting to see ski areas value the skier that.01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:19.000Stuart Winchester: maybe has an Icon Pass, but wants to ski another mountain for a day? Or I guess more in this case, since Copper and A-Basin are both Epic Pass mountains, are we seeing them take advantage of the fact that right now, if you look at prices for.01:08:19.000 --> 01:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Breckenridge, it's $153 to ski on Friday, November 6th. Who knows what they'll have open? Probably not a lot.01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's 180 that day. Breckenridge goes over 300 for peak days. Uh, and on Monday, April 19th, as, as copper has dropped to 99, Breck right now is set to have a $179 walkup price for Monday, April 19th. So.01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:49.000Stuart Winchester: I think you're seeing some smart reactions from some of the…01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:55.000Stuart Winchester: larger players and showing there's still a competitive market in Colorado. The question is…01:08:55.000 --> 01:09:07.000Stuart Winchester: will Vail follow? In their earnings call, one of their earnings calls recently, uh, Rob Katz, or their end-of-year earnings, their CEO, Rob Katz, said that Lyft ticket sales had softened considerably.01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:14.000Stuart Winchester: To absolutely no one's surprise, uh, because of the price of lift tickets. So, Ken Vale…01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:27.000Stuart Winchester: find a way in the softer seasons to start to compete, because it's clear that their direct compe

Just as crews began repairing sections of M-119 (also known as The Tunnel of Trees) damaged by April flooding, heavy rains in June wreaked havoc on more sections of the popular tourist route in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.Following completion of a $300,000 project to stabilize the slope beneath a section of M-119 near West Stutsmanville Road damaged in the spring flooding, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) announced in early September that it has reopened M-119 between West Stutsmanville Road and Terpening Road. This map shows current status and detour routes.On this week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation, an update from MDOT North Region Engineer Bill Wahl on work that's been completed on M-119 and what long-term challenges remain for the corridor. He also talks about some of the other roads in MDOT's North Region damaged in the spring flooding.Finally, Wahl offers details on construction of a diverging diamond interchange (DDI) at the I-75/M-32 intersection in Gaylord. The first such interchange to be built in northern lower Michigan, a DDI is an alternative interchange that improves safety, increases traffic flow and can reduce construction costs.

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is going to cover Midwestern skiing whether you like it or not. Don't worry, Colorad-Bro, it's your turn tomorrow.Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I will still write newsletters too. To browse a (robot-generated) 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, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 15.The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Monday, September 14th, 2026. Welcome to week two of the New Look Storm Skiing Podcast. If you missed last week, I am still doing the longer form pod.00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:08.000Stuart Winchester: But I'm cutting way back on the frequency of those. Instead, I am doing a shorter, news-focused pod that I release more often, and whenever possible, that I release the same day that I record it.00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.000Stuart Winchester: And the reason that I'm doing that is because…00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:19.000Stuart Winchester: the world has changed a lot since 2019, when I launched the Storm Skiing podcast, and when I launched it, there really wasn't anything quite like…00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:26.000Stuart Winchester: what I was doing with the long-form audio stories of a ski area's background.00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000Stuart Winchester: I've done a couple hundred episodes at this point.00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.000Stuart Winchester: I feel like…00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:47.000Stuart Winchester: They're evergreen. But what they don't allow me to do is to really talk about what's happening in a ski area right now. Uh Especially when there's a lot of things happening and there's a lot of pieces and parts shuffling around as there is right now in the Midwest.00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:51.000Stuart Winchester: with multi-mountain passes. So, what I'm doing…00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: is I'm trying out a little bit of a new format today. The format… we're gonna experiment, we're gonna play around with it. Sometimes there'll be a guest off the top, sometimes I'll have a take off the top, uh, sometimes I'll have a guest on for a longer period, and that's gonna be the case today.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:22.000Stuart Winchester: Because right now there is so much happening in the Midwest with multi mountain passes and different mountains leaving and joining is completely changing the landscape there. So I want to bring in someone to talk to us at length about that. We'll do a couple other fun things as well.00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:24.000Stuart Winchester: Let's bring…00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:27.000Stuart Winchester: I'm in now.00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:35.000Stuart Winchester: And there he is. Can you hear me, Matthew?00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.000Matthew Zabransky: Hey, how's it going, Stuart?00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.000Matthew Zabransky: I can.00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:41.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, I can't hear you. All right. This is a flub, and this is why I haven't heard her.00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:41.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:45.000Stuart Winchester: Because I am not that smart.00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, you there?00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.000Matthew Zabransky: Can you hear me?00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:52.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, yes, I can. Look at that.00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay, perfect.00:17:52.000 --> 00:18:07.000Stuart Winchester: The technology known as headphones. Matthew, this is why you're the production guy, and I generally stick to writing, because I'm an idiot. Alright, I want to introduce today the founder of MidwestSkiers.com.00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:13.000Stuart Winchester: He founded that in 2018, and in 2020, founded MWS Productions.00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:29.000Stuart Winchester: He is making all the Midwest content that I was dying for in the 1990s when I was a teenager living and skiing in Michigan, and the ski mags would completely ignore the region and maybe mention Boyne Mountain or Luton once per year, but he makes.00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:20.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:38.000Stuart Winchester: Top quality content. I link to it all the time in my stuff because no one else quite does it, as well as Matthew Zabranski. Matthew, welcome to The Storm. How you doing today?00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:56.000Matthew Zabransky: I am doing fantastic. Stuart, thank you, first of all, for the opportunity, but more importantly, for also repping the Midwest. I think it's such an important, obviously, region, and you have ties to it, I obviously have ties to it as well, so it's great that we're getting recognition, not only, obviously, in our region now, but on the national, even international scale, so…00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:00.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you so much for doing that. I appreciate it. I'm excited to be here.00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I love covering the Midwest, Matthew, and I still make it a point to go back and take a Midwest trip every year, because there's…00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:01.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:27.000Stuart Winchester: when I'm doing this podcast, there's nothing quite like making relationships, like showing up at, you know, a 200 vertical foothill in the boondocks in Minnesota. People are like, okay, I'll talk to this guy, even though, you know, I've never heard of him. So, but you are 100% Midwest-focused. I cover it where I can and whenever I can.00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:21.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:26.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:37.000Stuart Winchester: There is so much happening in the Midwest that we could talk about. I really want to focus today on multi-mountain passes. So…00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:34.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:37.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:53.000Stuart Winchester: I'll start by, I'll just set this up and then I'll, and then I'll, I'll let you comment on it. So if you go back about 10 years, there was nothing in the Midwest on multi mountain passes. You know, Vale had started to add a few things to Epic Pass and B Brighton and Afton Alps and Wilmot and such.00:19:53.000 --> 00:20:03.000Stuart Winchester: But the real inflection point came in 2019, when IndiePass came along. 2018, Icon added a couple things. So, right now, I'll give you some stats.00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:09.000Stuart Winchester: Of the 124 ski areas that I have inventoried in the Midwest, that you might have a different count.00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:10.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:15.000Stuart Winchester: They're 117 of those are public. 89 of those are public with aerial lifts.00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:28.000Stuart Winchester: 58 of those, although there's a couple that are just surface toes only, so 58 ski areas in the Midwest are now on a national multi-mountain ski pass. 10 on Epic.00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.000Stuart Winchester: 11 on Icon, 37 for Indy. So, so to start out with, Matthew.00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:34.000Stuart Winchester: How has…00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000Stuart Winchester: the acceptance of the Midwest by multi-mountain national passes change the calculus for skiers as they're planning out their winter in the Midwest, compared to what it was for most of history up until just a few years ago?00:20:47.000 --> 00:21:02.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, it's changed dramatically. It's even going back a little bit further. I think the first initial, if you look at the statistics and you obviously know all this offhand, but back when you go back to Vail's acquisition of Wilmont, Afton.00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:19.000Matthew Zabransky: Brighton back in like 2012. I mean, that's really what started to to kick off this like idea of like. Maybe the Midwest has some legs in it, as far as like developing skiers, and then, you know, bringing them into a pass portfolio that could bring them out west. So that was the very early set, you know, early iteration of this. And then, obviously, as we went along, there wasn't.00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:37.000Matthew Zabransky: too many options outside of just the epic pass. But then, like you mentioned, Indie Pass came in, and I knew, and it's you know, as we dive into this, I do want to do a little disclosure here, and like Indie Pass was my very 1st client from a production side of things. So Doug and I, because I I saw the opportunity like there was an absolute gold mine here. I'm like.00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:55.000Matthew Zabransky: Because I got to travel around, that's why I started MidwestGears.com, because we were… we were traveling for my wife's job all over the Midwest, and every time we'd go to a new city, Columbus, Akron, I'd be a pass holder at one of these little ski areas, and I'd be like, holy crap, there's a lot of them here, no one's talking about them.00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:15.000Matthew Zabransky: But you know, once you start to realize there was this many, then you're then you're starting to think, okay, like, why isn't somebody coming in here and starting to develop a past that could actually stand on its own. And that's what we've seen the last, I would say, 5 to 10 years. Specifically, we've seen more people traveling around in the Midwest. You'll catch people at any stereo across the Midwest. That's not their home hill, and that's not how it used.00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:27.000Matthew Zabransky: you go ski or one little local place for the most part, you might do your weekend trip up to Boyne or something, but you would never catch people going to some of these really small places, you know, outside of just the local crew there, so it's been really cool to watch people.00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:45.000Matthew Zabransky: travel and discover, more importantly, the different areas, uh, throughout the Midwest. I think a lot of that had to do with IndyPass's push in the Midwest, because, as we're gonna talk about here in a second, it was an absolute auto-buy. Like, there was not even a question about it. From the day it started, when it was, you know, what was that, $99?00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:02.000Matthew Zabransky: up until even just the last year. It was like you almost just were gonna if you lived in the Midwest, and you like skiing, and you don't. You know you like traveling around checking out new things. There was no reason not to buy it. You'd be silly, basically not to, just because how much saturation there was in the Midwest, which I think is going to lead us into our next conversation a little bit here.00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so, so the…00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:15.000Stuart Winchester: Just being on the ground, before we get to the shuffling around, you know, I'd imagine you're pretty connected with a lot of pretty hardcore skiers, pretty frequent skiers.00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:13.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:17.000Stuart Winchester: How much has…00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:24.000Stuart Winchester: that a… a season… a multi-mountain pass becomes something that the person in the Midwest just…00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:40.000Stuart Winchester: considers or, or automatically buys it as compared to several years ago where you might buy your local season pass, but, but you, you probably, like you said, you wouldn't go around. And when I lived in the Midwest, actually, I always appreciated how close the areas were, so I would just kind of bounce around a lot for.00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:46.000Stuart Winchester: for deal days or whatever, back when those were still a thing. But how automatic has it become?00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:42.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:23:46.000 --> 00:24:01.000Matthew Zabransky: Very. I mean, there's people that have been buying the IndyPass specifically now. Up until this season, it was like they were probably on their fifth year of doing it and just continue to. And to be honest, there wasn't any reason not to because the pricing has stayed relatively affordable.00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:17.000Matthew Zabransky: they keep they kept strengthening their pro, their their product. I mean, like they just kept adding more ski areas in the Midwest. And so in in a lot of times the pass would pay itself off within a couple of visits based off of some of the redemption rates that you'd be getting at some somewhere like Lutz and Snow River.00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:34.000Matthew Zabransky: um, those are all, like, you know, $100 tickets, so you buy… you go there once or twice, you get two days of each of them, and basically that's already done. So if you already had one of those trips kind of on there, and if you lived in Chicago, you're going to Granite Peak usually once or twice a year. If you lived in Minnesota, you're going to Lutz.00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:52.000Matthew Zabransky: So it almost became this thing. And then you shuffle in like nubs, knob, and all that. So it it very much was like, yeah, we're gonna buy it every single year, you know, we might not. And some people are hardcore and going to all the places they could. And some people were just, you know. Hey? I'm gonna buy it because I'm gonna go for a weekend, so I might as well. And then I have this option of going some other places.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:03.000Matthew Zabransky: it was huge. I mean, I don't… of course, I don't have any of the IndyPass numbers, but I would… I would venture to say that the Midwest had to be a very big portion of their portfolio from the sales and redemption standpoint.00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:20.000Stuart Winchester: So the traditional numbers that Indy has given me, and it's been a couple years since Doug Fish provided these round numbers to me, but he told me about half of their sales came in New England, and 25% came in the Midwest, which is a really big number for a national pass. So you figured the other quarter were coming from somewhere else.00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:05.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.000Matthew Zabransky: Cool.00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:19.000Matthew Zabransky: For… yeah.00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:25.000Stuart Winchester: I always give Doug Fish credit, because he's a Pacific Northwest guy, and…00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:40.000Stuart Winchester: Western skiers just love to hate on the Midwest. Everyone loves to hate on the Midwest. It's like the national pastime. It's like the safe thing to make fun of, and you know, I hope you take that personally, because I always do, and I really appreciated that Doug.00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:32.000Matthew Zabransky: Is…00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:38.000Matthew Zabransky: I do.00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:55.000Stuart Winchester: Included the Midwest from the start. That first year in 2019, he had Little Switz, he had Crystal, he had Cabre Fay, he had a bunch of other ski areas. Really got big in 2020 when he added Lutzen and Granite Peak. Now, I always say his insight was…00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:45.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:02.000Stuart Winchester: that Doug's great insight with the IndyPass was realizing there was value in the mountains that are not.00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:08.000Stuart Winchester: super destinations when you put them all together for skiers across the country. He also…00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:07.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:23.000Stuart Winchester: the fact that he extended that to the Midwest is huge, because, yes, I… so, before Icon started adding in into the Midwest, which we'll talk about in a minute, I would always say, Indy Pass is the pass to go to in the Midwest, no one else has anything, and everyone would always say, oh, wait, Epic has 10 mountains. I was like.00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:16.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:18.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:34.000Stuart Winchester: But the Midwest is gigantic. Unless you live in Ohio, they're very spread out, and they're near cities, and there are actually mountains in the Midwest that are more…00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:44.000Stuart Winchester: of, of what you would consider, like, regional destinations. And that, that's your Boyne, Nubs, Lutsen, uh, even, even Spira with the bigger, uh, all the stuff over in the UP.00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:38.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:57.000Stuart Winchester: So Indy really collected them all together, and it was almost too good to be true, because they had over 40 ski areas in the Midwest. Talk about Indy at its peak.00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:02.000Stuart Winchester: And how great of a pass that was for the Midwest here.00:26:58.000 --> 00:26:59.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:17.000Matthew Zabransky: It was too great. We're going to get into this, I'm sure, but I think that's part of the reason for the course correction. There was a moment two or three years ago when I literally turned to Nick, my associate who edits for me and stuff, and I said, with some of the additions they announced at that time, I said.00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:33.000Matthew Zabransky: this is too saturated like it's got to fix itself at some point like it's just. It's too good of a value, and like for skiers, we like anybody that was buying the passes like this is amazing. It makes it like again. It's an auto buy like, why wouldn't you do this? But I knew that this time was going to come at some point. But I'm you know, at least we got to.00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:50.000Matthew Zabransky: to see what it like. The peak of that was for a little while. We got a couple of years. We've got to be happy for that, to be honest. We're starting to see some of those what I'll call course corrections now and and we're going to continue to see this. I mean, you know that every every year it's going to be something new. Someone's changing. It's just kind of the nature of the business. But.00:27:50.000 --> 00:28:02.000Matthew Zabransky: it was not a shock to me when, um, when these changes were announced, uh, both in the spring and then more recently in the last few weeks and stuff, so it wasn't… I kind of saw it coming, it was just a matter of, like, when was it gonna happen.00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:14.000Stuart Winchester: So everyone left… they seemed as though… Epic and Icon seemed like they were just leaving the Midwest to Indy, to take. And I've always thought that Icon's original sin was when they killed the Max Pass.00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:08.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:15.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:30.000Stuart Winchester: And launched the Icon Pass. They brought all the Powder Mountains, all the Boyne Mountains, uh, all the Intra West Mountains, but they didn't bring Granite Peak and Lutzen, which are the biggest ski areas or most modern, however, whatever metric you want to use in Minnesota and, and Wisconsin.00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.000Matthew Zabransky: Yep.00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:31.000Stuart Winchester: So…00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:46.000Stuart Winchester: for a long time, Indy just built up this huge coalition. Started to see some cracks last year. Icon had just two mountains, Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands, and honestly, and Boyne has never affirmed this to me, but my hunch is, Boyne said, include our mountains or you don't get Big Sky.00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:40.000Matthew Zabransky: Yep.00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:48.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, yeah.00:28:46.000 --> 00:29:01.000Stuart Winchester: So, so, Icon was like, okay, I guess we'll add these stupid little things. Uh, which is not my opinion of them, but I think that's probably what they thought from Colorado, which is why they dropped Lutzen and Granite Peak. So, last year, we started to see the first crack in Indy's armor.00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.000Matthew Zabransky: I was like, don't do that.00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:02.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm.00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:12.000Stuart Winchester: when the Icon Pass… they call them bonus mountains, I call them two-day mountains, because that's what they are. If you have an Icon Pass, you get two days of these mountains. Uh, Buck Hill, Minnesota.00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:07.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:27.000Stuart Winchester: Uh joined the icon pass as a two day mountain, which for the listeners, that's no, you get no base pass access, you only get full icon access and there are holiday blackouts. So that's what the two day tier is. They added Buck Hill. Uh Indy said, no, you're not allowed to do that. Remove Buck Hill.00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:30.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, which is a great little, uh, you know.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.000Stuart Winchester: kind of trainer hill outside of the Twin Cities.00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:40.000Stuart Winchester: And every square inch is used with very maximum effect. So Indy removed them.00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:53.000Stuart Winchester: Buck Hill has been on Icon, and that was sort of the first… when you first saw that, did you think, okay, here we go, Icon is finally starting to realize the value of the Midwest, and if not, what was the moment that you did think that they got it?00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:09.000Matthew Zabransky: I would, you know, the whole time I've been shaking my head a little bit because it's just ironic to me that Boeing, Boeing, one of the biggest companies in, you know, that started in the Midwest, that literally has its roots here. And I'm just shocked that Icon hasn't.00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:26.000Matthew Zabransky: made this push earlier, and it took this long. But that was like the 1st that was the 1st like mention of that. And the other connection that was really kind of just crazy to me is, there's so many people from the twin cities that go to Big Sky like a lot like you talk to people all over the place. They have cabins up there. They.00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:24.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so. Yeah.00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:42.000Matthew Zabransky: They're traveling there all the time. It's a huge destination for specifically for Minnesota, it seems. So I was always thinking, man, like if they were just to strengthen this pass a little bit in the Midwest, give somebody a reason to, to jump on to the icon pass. They're probably going out to Big Sky anyway.00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:57.000Matthew Zabransky: now all of a sudden, you give them another reason to buy the full pass, you got some… some more local hills, some day… like, weekend trips, you can go up to Lutzen, things like that, and I think that's when… when Lutzen and those guys came on, that was, like, full-blown, that's gonna… that changes everything. Like, everything.00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:14.000Matthew Zabransky: As you know, the lake, Lake Michigan, is a huge divider for the eastern and the western side of what I'll call the Midwest. Basically, if you're on the eastern side of the lake, you're kind of going to stick to mostly your lower peninsula, maybe go up to the UP occasionally. But if you're on the western side over here, in the Minneapolis.00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:31.000Matthew Zabransky: Um, there was really no offerings for Icon, so it really made no sense at that point to buy an Icon Pass. You know, maybe Chicago, you drive up to Boeing, but you're kind of on that cusp there, where it's like, mmm… but I think once they strengthened it this past year, now it's like… it's a fair fight, in my opinion. Now we're.00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:46.000Matthew Zabransky: You know, which one is gonna make more sense for you, or your situation, which it was not, it didn't used to be that way, it just, there was never an opportunity for most people that were on this side of the lake, or in Minneapolis. Sometimes it didn't make sense, unless you're going out to, you know, Big Sky for a week and a half, it, you know.00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so just a little background for the listeners.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm.00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: Boyne Mountain and and.00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:08.000Stuart Winchester: what they call the Highlands at Harbor Springs. I'll call it Boyne Highlands because no one knows what I'm talking about when I say the Highlands. So Boyne and Boyne Highlands are two of the nicer ski areas, more built up ski areas in Michigan, and they were long on Icon. Uh, Lutzen and Granite Peak.00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:58.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, this…00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:07.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:14.000Stuart Winchester: that, uh, Midwest Family Ski Resorts, which owns Lutzen and Granite Peak, bought, immediately took.00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:25.000Stuart Winchester: four old riblet lifts, put in a high-speed six-pack, the first one in the UP. So, those three ski areas had been indie anchors in the Midwest for years.00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:24.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:30.000Stuart Winchester: This year, for 2026-27 winter, they're going as 5-7 day…00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:42.000Stuart Winchester: mountains each on Icon and Icon Base, and so they are leaving the Indy Pass as a result of that. Now, Icon has also added some more two-day mountains. I'm gonna put those to the side for a second.00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:42.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:50.000Stuart Winchester: How big of a loss was Lutsen and Granite Peak and Snow River for Indy Pass in the Midwest?00:32:51.000 --> 00:33:06.000Matthew Zabransky: It's it's an easy question. I mean the answer just like, go look at the comments on the thread when it was announced, and you could just read how an impactful it was. And I think that was my argument when people started talking about like, Oh, they're you know, hey? Like they're leaving. They're leaving us in the dust, and we we don't like them anymore.00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:29.000Matthew Zabransky: It's probably justified. If you guys are this upset about them leaving, it means they probably had a little more leverage than they should have in that past portfolio. And I think it to that. And again, I don't know that it needs, like, a passion never be so strong, in my opinion. And I'm talking about the business side of things. You're not talking about the skier. Trust me, if I was, like, just skiing Matthew, put my skiing thing on, I'd be like, yeah, absolutely.00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:49.000Matthew Zabransky: Uh, but from the business side, as an area owner, operator, you gotta look at it, like, what kind of value are we getting back out of this pass? Are we the ones carrying your product? Like, that's the other thing to think about, too, right? We don't… you don't always necessarily want to be the top dog in the pass lineup. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. Uh, and in this case, I think that they…00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:56.000Matthew Zabransky: they were carrying that pass line up, and I think nothing speaks more to the volumes of how upset people were when they came off of the pass.00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:00.000Stuart Winchester: So we're… I've kind of looked at this as it's…00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:12.000Stuart Winchester: sucks for Indy, it's probably good for the consumer in the long run, because, like you said, you never want too much market concentration, so now you have… you have the Snow Pass coming up, which is… which is Snow Partners in two days…00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:05.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:28.000Stuart Winchester: at each mountain. There's none in the Midwest yet, but I suspect there may be at some point. Right now, they're mostly in the Northeast. And then you have Icon. So, before, I think a lot of people in Michigan probably had Icon, because you could use it for the Boynes, but like you said.00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:44.000Stuart Winchester: if you're not from the Midwest, you're probably just thinking it's like a big square, but there's a lake there, and you can't… I mean, you can take a ferry over it, but it takes all day, right? You have to go to Ludington, and it's like a whole thing, right? So really, you have Michigan, the Lower Peninsula, and then you kind.00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:33.000Matthew Zabransky: Yep.00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:58.000Stuart Winchester: Wisconsin. So, you live on the west side of that, I believe, like, around the Minnesota-Wisconsin line. How immediately did you see people say, okay, well, now, yeah, let's consider Icon that maybe never would have before?00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:49.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:04.000Matthew Zabransky: I think the original, like, when it first was announced, there was just a lot of, like.00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:17.000Matthew Zabransky: oh man, this sucks. Like, now what? You know, what do we do? Because the initial reaction was like, well, I'm not gonna auto-buy this now, I gotta think about it a little bit more. I'm curious because I haven't… it's still so fresh, to be honest, and I haven't, like.00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:07.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:32.000Matthew Zabransky: but to, like, really figure that question, like, the answer to that question out, but I have… the one thing I have been seeing is a lot more people starting to weigh those options, right? They're starting to look at the passes differently now. Now it's, like, not just, like, we're gonna pick up Indy automatically and, you know, whatever might throw a different pass on there. Now they.00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:49.000Matthew Zabransky: think about, how am I using my pass? Am I going up to Lutzen for a weekend or 2? Does it make sense for me to just get an icon pass? Am I a pass holder at Lutzen, and want to add it on now that that's an option, and maybe do an out west trip, or if you're granted peak. So I'm starting to see more people analyzing.00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:35:49.000 --> 00:36:03.000Matthew Zabransky: in an area where they haven't before. So I'll be curious to see this upcoming season will be a really good test to kind of figure out, like, where are those numbers starting to shift a little bit. But, um, from my first reaction is I have a feeling that there's gonna be a pretty big drop in IndyPass sales in the Midwest.00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:20.000Matthew Zabransky: For that reasoning. Um, and then I do think there's gonna be a bit of a spike, um, in, in IconPass sales. I don't think it's gonna obviously affect much on the Michigan side, Lower Peninsula side of things. I think that'll stay pretty stable. But I think this side, for sure, this market, Minneapolis specifically, a little bit of Chicago.00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:25.000Matthew Zabransky: Um, but I would expect to see a pretty good little spike in sales on the IconPass side.00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:35.000Stuart Winchester: So, Lutzen and Granite Peak, I think, huge losses for India. Snow River, less so, just because Powderhorn is right next door, and it's kind of the same size, and it's, you know, gets the same s.00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:30.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm.00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:32.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:53.000Stuart Winchester: Continued building by Icon after that announcement, and, and some, and some continued bleeding by Indy. So, so Icon had a Giants Ridge, which is an excellent ski area up in Minnesota. It's, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but it's worth it. Uh, Devil's Head, which is a nice, uh, Madison ski area, and then.00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:45.000Matthew Zabransky: Yep.00:36:53.000 --> 00:37:10.000Stuart Winchester: in Michigan left Indy to join the Icon today, so those all joined Icon today. And then Indy also lost Little Switzerland, Nordic Mountain, and Crystal Ridge in Wisconsin. As of now, they are passless. So, you know, those are small ski areas, but they're really important sort of urban.00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:21.000Stuart Winchester: collectors, but do you worry, Matthew, and I'll say, Indy still has 37 ski areas in the Midwest, but do you worry that their coalition is splintering a little bit, starting to fall apart?00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:17.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:40.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, a little bit. So I'm going to dance around this as carefully as I can because I have connections with all these owners, operators, and I talk to them on a regular basis, so I kind of know more than I probably should. But I'll try to navigate this the best that I can.00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:56.000Matthew Zabransky: with… when IndyPass started, Doug Fish and the team did a really nice job of making sure that when they signed a ski area on, that they were being very, very intentional about its location, what… who was serving, and then when they would add another person on, a lot of times they would even approach.00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:04.000Matthew Zabransky: some of the nearby ski areas, and be like, hey, we're adding so-and-so, or making sure that those partnerships were all, you know.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:22.000Matthew Zabransky: You're not too close where you're starting to monopolize business in different ways. I'll talk a little bit more about this in a second. So that was the approach for many, many years. However, I noticed a pretty big change a handful of years ago when it became more about a statistical difference than building those partnerships and.00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:41.000Matthew Zabransky: making those owners feel valued, if that makes sense. So it was like, okay, how can we just continue to pump numbers, get more? And in that process, what happened was a lot of ski areas in a small geographical area. And why has that caused a lot of issues for owners and operators? Is the idea of the IndyPass was, yeah.00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:50.000Matthew Zabransky: to create value with a portfolio of ski areas across the Midwest to rival that of, like, you know, other multi-mountain passes.00:38:50.000 --> 00:39:06.000Matthew Zabransky: Um, but what some of the owners and operators were starting to see was that instead of skiers buying a season pass at their local ski area, what they would do is buy the Indy Pass, ski two days at the ski area that would have been their local ski area, and then.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:22.000Matthew Zabransky: You know, in some cases, like in the Twin Cities, you have a handful that are within a two hour drive. So then it became this thing of like, oh, we're starting to see RR like personal season passes drop for then people that are using IndiePass redemptions to treat it as if it were basically a season pass.00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:40.000Matthew Zabransky: I'm summarizing a lot there. There's a lot, like, to dive into, like, the details, but I can't, unfortunately, go into too much of that. But I think you can probably get the idea of why that was a little bit frustrating for some, um, owners and operators. So they really had to take a deep dive into some of those numbers and start to look at, like.00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:26.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:50.000Matthew Zabransky: Where are these people coming from? How are the redemptions being used? And then, you know, how is this pass either, you know, net positive or net negative for us? And, you know, I always tell everybody, it's…00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:00.000Matthew Zabransky: the ski business is, you know, Stuart, is just a very, very low margin business, and it is a business. Like, at the end of the day, like, they have to treat it like…00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:22.000Matthew Zabransky: you know, like you gotta find out where you're losing money, or is there opportunity? And that assessment has to happen on a yearly basis. And sometimes when they run it for their business, they might be finding out that this might not be a great option for them. Or maybe it was, and things have changed. And now it's not so. It's an ongoing assessment. And like I was mentioning earlier, this is going to be a game that is going to play out over the next 10 years, probably where people are going to be switching teams all the time. And.00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:28.000Matthew Zabransky: and just get used to it. I mean, this is gonna be the way it is, unfortunately or fortunately, you know.00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:31.000Stuart Winchester: If you're Indy, what's your next move to try to build your coalition back up?00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:49.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, I think the biggest thing they need to do is get some sort of anchor on this side of the lake. I mean, you've got Nub's Knob on Lower Peninsula, which is a great offering. I think that that really does anchor that side for sure. Over here, you gotta start eyeing up some areas that would serve as that anchor ski area. I know Whitecap was added.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:49.000 --> 00:41:04.000Matthew Zabransky: Um, which is good, but I think, like, you gotta think about, you know, what is that replacement for? You know, what is that replacement for Granite Peak? And it immediately comes to mind, like, a Cascade, right? Or one of those. And we all know, like, it's just gonna be a tough sale for some of these operations, because it's always that, like.00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:09.000Matthew Zabransky: If you're an anchor skier, you've probably got a good operation and a good thing going already, so…00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:29.000Matthew Zabransky: you know, what is the pitch? Why should I join your indie pass? So it's always this give and take a little bit, but, you know, given that we've had a bunch of ski areas now come off of indie, there might be an opportunity to fill that little bit of a void and be kind of that new anchor spot that would then highlight that side of the lake. I don't know. It'll be curious to see kind of how things play out, but.00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:37.000Matthew Zabransky: Um, I think we'll see a little bit of this course correction go on for the next year or two, and then I think maybe we'll see some moves in the future. It's hard to say.00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:43.000Stuart Winchester: That was really good, so I'm gonna extend that question. If you're Icon, what's your next move in the Midwest, and if you're Epic?00:41:45.000 --> 00:42:02.000Matthew Zabransky: If if I'm icon, what I'm circling right now to be quite frank is somewhere in the Chicagoland area. There's an opportunity there, and I don't, you know, of course. What is it? We don't know, but I think if you could add an offering like a full offering to which is a little bit tricky to do. But yeah, like you think of something like.00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:24.000Matthew Zabransky: Cascade, Devil's Head, one of those areas, if you can get it into, like, a full area where you can now grab that Chicago market and have it really well solidified, because right now you're kind of in a, you know, it's about four hours from up to Granite Peak, and then Boeing the other way is something like that, five or something. So you're kind of in that weird dead zone there, so I think there's still a huge opportunity to grab that market, which obviously is a huge market of skiers and s.00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. And if you're Epic, I mean, they have all city stuff, so what do you do if you're Epic?00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:29.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:49.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, I mean, I think Epic's playing the card that they want. The one thing that I am curious to see with Epic is not necessarily that, it's what's gonna happen with some of these smaller regional ski areas that have kind of been left in the dust a little bit. Paley Peaks is the first one that comes to mind when you start to think about this Snow Creek.00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:49.000 --> 00:43:06.000Matthew Zabransky: These ones that are just kind of in no man's land a little bit. They kind of got brought in with the Peak Resorts acquisition. I'm not sure that they necessarily wanted some of these ski areas, but they came in as a package deal as part of that. So it's just gonna be kind of interesting to see. They need a lot of reinvestment over the next, you know.00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:23.000Matthew Zabransky: 10 to 15 years, for sure, if not even sooner than that. So it'll be curious to see kind of how they approach those sort of areas in those regions, because some of those are in their own land like there is no ski area relatively close to some of them, or a couple of hours to the nearest ski area. So it'll be curious to see how they leverage that going forward.00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Matthew, I could sink into that one for about two hours and we could have a talk. I'm going to have to bring you back for that one. But for now, let's move on. And some of the folks who may not be familiar with the Midwest, we're going to talk about some of our favorite Midwest ski areas in just a moment. First, I want to tell you that this podcast is brought to you today by Profile Search International.00:43:44.000 --> 00:44:03.000Stuart Winchester: Profile Search is the only talent acquisition firm in the entire world that is 100% focused on the ski industry. They have used their intimate understanding of skiing and related industries, and of available candidates worldwide, to place hundreds of transformational leaders at the best and most progressive ski areas over the past.00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:19.000Stuart Winchester: 30 years. Profile Search has offices in the US and Canada, and they find and negotiate with the right leaders for their team. If you want to reach out to Profile Search, you can find them at profilesearch.com, and you can get their email or phone number there, or send me a note and I will.00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:26.000Stuart Winchester: make that connection for you. That is profilesearch.com. All right, Matthew, I gave you a challenge.00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:43.000Stuart Winchester: Or, or homework or something. I don't know. I'm sure you didn't have to think too hard about this, but we are going to break down our five favorite Midwest ski areas. We each have five. We'll, we'll start with five and, and, uh, and we'll take turns. Now, these are not what we think are the best necessarily because that's a whole different.00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:47.000Stuart Winchester: Conversation and I tried to think about.00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:59.000Stuart Winchester: If you've never skied the Midwest and are only going to ski here once in your life, where would I tell people to go? So, Matthew, I'll start with you. What is your number five favorite Midwest ski area and why?00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:14.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah. So I'll just just key this up with like, yeah, I agree with you. I went with kind of like I took an approach of uniqueness. There's different things that I enjoy about this years for different reasons, and I'll obviously unpack them as we kind of go through number 5 for me was perfect north slopes.00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:32.000Matthew Zabransky: And at its face, you might not think that that's… it's, you know, it's a ski area right outside of, uh, Cincinnati, um, and the southern tip of Indiana down there. And for, you know, for people that have never heard of it, they'd be like, why does this… why is this even on here? Uh, but the moment that you visit there, I think it all becomes very clear. Their throughput.00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:51.000Matthew Zabransky: their snowmaking capacity, their operations. It is a gold standard when we think of how to run a ski area in extremely challenging conditions and environments. Perfect North is the one that comes to mind. The way that they can move people through their rental department is phenomenal. The way that they can have a stable season based off of where they are.00:45:51.000 --> 00:46:08.000Matthew Zabransky: is just absolutely mind blowing. And they've been doing this since day one. So this isn't something that they have. You know they're new to. They've been doing this for many, many, many decades now at this point. So it's it's definitely worth a visit. Their train's really good as well. They have some Olympians that have come out of there just some some good stuff going down at at perfect north slopes.00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:23.000Stuart Winchester: I'm so glad you said Perfect North, because I did not include it on my list, but I think they are one of the best operators in the country. My number 5 is Chestnut, Illinois, and everyone's… you know why, but everyone's gonna say, Illinois? Like, what does it matter with you?00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:23.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:29.000Stuart Winchester: It is so unique, because you get up there, and it's about 500 vertical feet.00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:45.000Stuart Winchester: and you ski down to the freaking Mississippi River. It is… there is nothing else like that in American skiing. It is such a gorgeous view, and there's a train that goes by, and, and, and… the lift system is fantastic. Bunch of, you know, really maintained quads.00:46:45.000 --> 00:47:00.000Stuart Winchester: They have bars, which I like, which most Midwest ski areas don't, but they've retrofit them. Their grooming is phenomenal. Terrain's really good, steep and varied, and then one of the best things is on the backside, and the name of this probably is escaping me, it's like the backyard or something.00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:48.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah. Okay.00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:00.000Matthew Zabransky: Uh, far side.00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:15.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah, so they have a terrain park that could be its own ski area, and it has a lift by itself, and so all the badly behaved teenagers go over there and throw cans around and smoke. Maybe it was just the day I was there.00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:20.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but, but my number five is Chestnut, Illinois. Uh, number four, Matthew.00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:37.000Matthew Zabransky: This is gonna be. This is gonna be a deep cut here, and I'll give you my reasoning. So I'm a sucker for community rope toe ski places like it. It warms my heart every time every year there's at least one or 2 that I go to every time I show up. It's just the kids are so excited to show me around.00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. Oh, love it.00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:47:37.000 --> 00:48:00.000Matthew Zabransky: They're so passionate and it really brings me back to why skiing is important and what it really is about, right? We talk about the steeps and all this fun stuff all the time, but like when you go to these places, there's just to see a kid just in jeans or whatever it may be after school ripping down. It's so fun. So one of my favorite, if not my favorite rope to ski area in the entire Midwest is a place called Hickory Hills. It's in Traverse City.00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:18.000Matthew Zabransky: It's a beautiful setting overlooking the bay, and they have just all ropes and one conveyor, and it's stacked. And it was one of the first ski areas in the Midwest to offer night skiing, which I thought was really, really cool as well. Obviously, not a lot of vertical, maybe 200 feet of vertical, depending on which rope you're going on, but it's one of those places you just show up.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:30.000Matthew Zabransky: And they've reinvested, as recently as 2018, they built a new lodge, new snowmaking, and you just show up there, and you're just like, it brings you back to that, like, oh yeah, this is some good skiing, like, just…00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:37.000Matthew Zabransky: fundamental, good stuff, you see kids ripping around after school, it's like, it's what I think of when I think of, uh, rope tow places.00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: And long live the rope tow. I mean, it is amazing that I think they run five or six there, right?00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:46.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, I think they have six total, I believe, yeah.00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I've been there in the summer. I've never skied there. I used to ski at Sugarloaf down the… down the road till that went out of business. My number 4 is one you already mentioned, Matthew. Whitecap, Wisconsin. I just love this crazy ski area. It is…00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:51.000Matthew Zabransky: Yo.00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:04.000Stuart Winchester: I like to be confused when I'm skiing. I like it when a ski area…00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:05.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:22.000Stuart Winchester: Kind of hides its secrets and has lots of little trails and the trail map doesn't quite match up with the, with what you actually see. And, and there's lifts all over the place and there's little pockets and there's, you can tell that they don't care if you ski in the trees. And, and, and Whitecap is, is one of the most confusing ski areas I've, I've ever been to and I love.00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:23.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:40.000Stuart Winchester: it's in the great snow pocket off of Lake Superior, gets 200 or more inches of snow average per year, which is a good thing, because they don't have a lot of snowmaking, uh, there. But I really, really love Whitecap, and by the way, we did not share ours before, so we may have some crossover here. So, uh, what's your number 3, Matthew?00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:39.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:55.000Matthew Zabransky: Number three, I am going with a ski area that I think people around here would know, but I think people on the other side of the lake would not. And it is going to be Welch Village. Welch Village is an area that just, you look at the numbers, you read the stats, and you're like, this place…00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmm.00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:15.000Matthew Zabransky: cannot be that good. But it really is. It skis so much bigger than the stats suggest. I think it's about 300 feet of vertical. They have like 50 something runs. But I think what Welch Village has that a lot of skiers don't is the amount of terrain variation and stepping that they have is just phenomenal for beginners, and the fact that it's only about 40 minutes from the Twin Cities.00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:31.000Matthew Zabransky: is amazing. So they have basically a run for every progression. If you want super steep, now obviously it's only 300 feet of vertical, so it's gonna be a handful of turns, but they have that. If you want something very, very gently sloped, they got that, and basically everything in between. And it's just one of those areas that is a perfect.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:41.000Matthew Zabransky: Kind of like just outside the urban reach, right? It's not like in your backyard, but it's close enough where you can easily go for a few hours and just a perfect place to learn how to ski and snowboard.00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I love Welch Village. I was super impressed when I went there a few years ago, and it's not too far from Vail's Afton Alps, so you can do both in a day easily if you want to, but Welch Village, first-rate operation, absolutely one of the best in the Midwest. My number three is a nostalgia play, and I'm gonna say Boyne Mount.00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:44.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:13.000Stuart Winchester: The reason I love Boyne Mountain is not because of the fast lift, so they were the first six-pack in North America, and, you know, they put in the first eight-pack in the Midwest, and there's a lot of history there. The first chairlift in the world is there. They moved it from Sun Valley.00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:23.000Stuart Winchester: the single chair from Sun Valley back in the… in the 40s, and it's now the Hemlock double chair. But what I love Boyne Mountain is because when I… back in the 90s, when I lived in Michigan.00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:30.000Stuart Winchester: they would stay open into May. And back then, there was no social media, so no one knew about it, so I'd show up, and there would be…00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:26.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:47.000Stuart Winchester: not kidding, 10 people skiing, and they would be running that six-pack all day, and they would let it bump up, and just run idiots to light, and it's where I learned how to ski moguls, and I've always just been tremendously fond of Boyne for that reason. So while it is one of the nicest ski areas in the Midwest, just on its own terms.00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:34.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:51:47.000 --> 00:52:02.000Stuart Winchester: It's also very steep. It's just, I have that feeling of, you know, that memory of skiing in my t-shirt in May in 1996, you know, down the moguls at Boyne Mountain with five other people, and it was just, it's one of my favorite ski memories ever, and the fact that they.00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:13.000Stuart Winchester: empowered that and did that. When they lost money, there's no way they didn't lose money doing that. It just speaks a lot to the spirit that still animates that company, even though it's a bigger company now.00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:07.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:16.000Stuart Winchester: Number two for you, Matthew.00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:31.000Matthew Zabransky: We'll get to this, I'm sure, at the end, but it's cool to see some of that going full circle. I don't want to give too much away. We'll get into that in a second. Number two for me is a pick that I think is going to change a lot this year, specifically because of the new lift alignment, and that's Marquette Mountain.00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:19.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmm.00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:50.000Matthew Zabransky: They have phenomenal terrain up there, they get great snow, and the thing that was always just missing was a little bit of polishing around the edges, and I think they're finally getting to that point now with, uh, you know, a lot of snowmaking investments over the last handful of years. This new chair from Dolphin Meyer, uh, triple gonna run up basically the center of the ski area, and I think it's really gonna change the way that this.00:52:50.000 --> 00:53:07.000Matthew Zabransky: Uh, previously, it was divided into kind of two almost separate pods. It kind of had this weird split down the middle. It was kind of hard to navigate. But given that this one's gonna go right up to the center there, you're gonna be able to get full top-to-bottom access a lot more easily, be able to access a lot more of the terrain across the port, the entire, you know, trail map off the front side there.00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:23.000Matthew Zabransky: and I think it's 1 of those that like it. This they have the terrain, and there's not many areas in the Midwest that have the terrain. It's usually the other way where it's like, Yeah, okay, we have. You know the infrastructure. We have the location, but we don't have the steeps, or we don't have the trees, or whatever it may be.00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:34.000Matthew Zabransky: It's a Marquette, good city up there in the UP, really the only major city in the UP, but they have a good demographic up there. And I think with the changes that they're gonna see this year with the new lift, it's gonna be really fun to watch.00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:44.000Stuart Winchester: Not only do they have the terrain, they have the snow. I mean, they're another one of those Lake Superior. They don't get quite as much as up in the Keweenaw or Snow River, but they do get a fair amount.00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:38.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, yeah.00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:45.000Matthew Zabransky: They do.00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:54.000Stuart Winchester: So my number two, I'm kind of going chalk on these last two, so you can probably guess what my number one is. My number two is a very obvious one, and that's Lutzen.00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:56.000Matthew Zabransky: Mm-hmm.00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:10.000Stuart Winchester: You know, for, for folks who have never been to Lutzen, it, first of all, it has a gondola. Now, now it's more of a transit lift. It goes more sideways than up and down, but it does have, is it eight or 900 feet of vertical? I think 800 and, or you could ski down to, yeah, of lift served vertical. And the.00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:01.000Matthew Zabransky: Thank you.00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:07.000Matthew Zabransky: It's… yeah.00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:26.000Stuart Winchester: enormous. It's really four separate mountains and it goes in all different directions and they have two six packs and they have that Gandhi, which is fairly new. I think within the last 10 years, they built that to replace their older one. Uh That is one of the best run ski areas in the Midwest. Another one that will stay open into May.00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:42.000Stuart Winchester: when they can. Oh, and speaking of views, I mean, the view off of Moose Mountain of Lake Superior just knock you on your ass. It is so good. I really love Lutzen Mountain, which takes us, Matthew, to your number one ski area in the Midwest.00:54:42.000 --> 00:55:01.000Matthew Zabransky: Man, man, this is one, and it's funny ‘cause I'm working on this video right now, and it's a place that every time I leave this ski area or while I'm at this gear, I just have a smile on my face the entire time. It has nothing flashy, but they do everything right, and that's nub knob. I mean, you go to this place and you just…00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:44.000Stuart Winchester: Favorite ski area.00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:17.000Matthew Zabransky: It's just crazy to me that we were working on this video and my editor, Nick, we got to the end of the video and I mentioned like, “Oh, it doesn't have any high-speed lifts, but it almost feels like it does just because of the way that they're aligned and the way the traffic flows and the way that the runs are cut and everything.00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:34.000Matthew Zabransky: It feels like another one that just, you read the stats and you're like, okay, that sounds decent. But then you get on site and you're just like, this is just a really well run ski area. Snowmaking is always top notch. Grooming is amazing. Lifts spin, they don't stop very often. I mean, everything is just really well polished.00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:45.000Matthew Zabransky: the core skiing experience, and they really nail it, and again, it's one of those, like, every time I come off the hill there, I'm just like, man, that was a great day of skiing, even if, you know, it's raining outside, I feel like.00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:45.000 --> 00:56:01.000Stuart Winchester: And as a… just to underscore how good of a scary it is, it's right across the street from Boyne Highlands, and it has been, you know, obviously its whole time, but for a scary to succeed, a lot of times, a smaller scary will fail next to a big corporate area, but Nubs has managed to flourish. Matthew, we actually had no crossover, because.00:55:46.000 --> 00:55:47.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:51.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:16.000Stuart Winchester: as you can probably guess, is Mount Bohemia, and I'm sure that's probably why you left it off. Uh, Mount Bohemia, for the folks who are not familiar with it, I wrote an article last year, I called it, Mount Bohemia, the scarier the Midwest deserves, because when Mount Bohemia opened in 2000, it.00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:03.000Matthew Zabransky: Hey.00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:07.000Matthew Zabransky: Yep.00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:31.000Stuart Winchester: And it has 900 feet of vertical. They do not groom. They have no snowmaking. They get 300 inches annually. It's all, almost all, glades. Their glading is some of the best I've ever seen anywhere, because there's a lot of underbrush in Michigan.00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:22.000Matthew Zabransky: Okay.00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:48.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the place is an absolute riot. Talk about culture. You get on the ground and you're like, oh, what's here? They don't even have a proper base lodge. It's, it's all these yurts and then they have this giant complex of hot tubs for some reason that, that everyone's always in there drinking beer and.00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:55.000Stuart Winchester: And the skiing is just… it's great! It's… it's… there's nothing else like it anywhere in North America, where there's just…00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:12.000Stuart Winchester: that much just free skiing available off of a lift, and Lonnie, the owner, has been on a couple times, and I cannot say enough good things about Nubs Knob, including… and I'll let people do their own research on this, but their season pass is $117, or $99 for… you don't want Fridays and Saturdays, and you get all kinds of reciprocals with it, so…00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:16.000Stuart Winchester: It's not a bad multi-mountain pass on its own. So…00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:14.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah.00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:30.000Matthew Zabransky: I was so. I was so nervous the 1st so I went to Bohemia last year for the 1st time ever, and I it has been on my list forever, and I keep like I want to hit it right, because I don't want to like. Just go there and not be able to ski everything. And the entire time I've been super fortunate to see a lot of amazing places in in North.00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:49.000Matthew Zabransky: And I was super nervous it was not going to live up to the hype, because I was like, this place is hyped up so much, there is no way that it is going to live up to the hype, and it absolutely did. It's one of the most unique scary areas that you'll ever go to, the operations, the bus system, the hot tub. Nothing makes sense there, but it all does in a weird way. It's an absolute riot.00:57:49.000 --> 00:58:04.000Stuart Winchester: I couldn't have said any better. I always tell people, if you ski one place in the Midwest in your life, make it Mount Bohemia. All right, now, Matthew, what I want you to leave us with today is… I imagine, maybe deliberately, you didn't mention any of these ski areas, but one of the…00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:15.000Stuart Winchester: things that you do an awesome job with every year is covering the race to open in the Midwest. So, so tell us about the race to open. Who's involved?00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:19.000Stuart Winchester: When it generally takes place and how you cover it.00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:35.000Matthew Zabransky: Yeah, so the race to open is a pretty big deal across the Midwest. It was something that before I started this website and YouTube channel, I did not really realize a lot, but the Midwest is always usually fighting for one of the first areas to open in the entire country on occasion. It really just depends on the weather.00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:52.000Matthew Zabransky: But what

Before Route 66 became an American road-trip icon, Michigan motorists were already following another ambitious highway south.In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we trace the history of the Dixie Highway, a sprawling early automobile route that linked Michigan with Florida beginning in 1915. Its eastern and western divisions crossed the Lower Peninsula, passed through communities such as Detroit, Waterford and Mackinaw City, and helped usher in a new era of tourism, roadside businesses and long-distance driving.We look at Carl G. Fisher's role in promoting the route, Michigan's push to become part of the system, the rough conditions early motorists faced, and the stone monument that once marked the highway at Mackinaw City.We also explain how the Dixie Highway predated Route 66 by more than a decade and how much of its route was later absorbed into numbered highways such as U.S. 31. Historic maps, postcards and photographs reveal a time when a “highway” could still mean dirt, gravel and uncertainty.This is the story of the road that pointed south — from the Great Lakes toward Miami — and helped change how Americans traveled. Follow End of the Road in Michigan for more stories from Michigan's past.The End of the Road in Michigan is a production of Thumbwind Publications

Health officials suggest limiting strenuous outdoor activity today as dangerously hot temperatures take over the state. WWJ's Jackie Paige has the local news headlines for your Tuesday morning in Metro Detroit. (Photo: Getty Images)

Just as crews began repairing sections of M-119, also known as The Tunnel of Trees, damaged by April flooding, heavy rains wreaked havoc on more sections of the popular tourist route in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.This week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features conversations with State Sen. John Damoose (Harbor Springs), who represents the area, and Bill Wahl, acting North Region engineer for the Michigan Department of Transportation. (MDOT).MDOT is already investing $300,000 to stabilize the slope beneath a section of M-119 near West Stutsmanville Road, between Harbor Springs and Good Hart in Emmet County, damaged in the spring flooding. Now, engineers are assessing other sections of the roadway washed out by heavy rains on Monday, June 29, as well as sections of M-66 and M-88 in Antrim County. Wahl provides a status report on each of the washouts and short- and long-term planning for both.Sen. Damoose talks about his conversations with business owners and other constituents affected by the road closures and the ongoing challenges to fund sustainable infrastructure in Michigan.

Chris Holman welcomes Dr. Charles Ballard, Emeritus Economics Professor, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. Dr. Charles Ballard, emeritus economics professor at Michigan State University, described Michigan's economy as persistently middling, ranking 39th in per capita personal income due largely to decades of decline in manufacturing and the auto industry. He emphasized that economic conditions vary widely across the state, with affluent areas like southern Oakland County contrasting sharply with struggling rural regions in the northern Lower Peninsula and Upper Peninsula that continue to lose population. Ballard noted that Michigan's challenge is less about unusually high out-migration and more about a low rate of in-migration, pointing to the state's undeserved reputation as a "rusty place" as a barrier to attracting new residents. Looking at 2024, he highlighted positive developments in mid-Michigan including restaurant growth and healthcare sector expansion, and expressed cautious optimism for 2025, while voicing concern that new tariffs could damage Michigan's vital trade relationships. » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: twitter.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

Chris Holman welcomes Ken Estelle, CEO, Feeding America West Michigan, Kentwood, MI. This episode of Michigan Business Beat features an interview with Ken Estelle, CEO of Feeding America West Michigan, a food bank headquartered in Kentwood that serves 40 of Michigan's 83 counties — primarily rural areas on the west side of the Lower Peninsula and the entire Upper Peninsula. Estelle reports that the organization is currently seeing more people seeking food assistance more frequently than at any point in its 40-year history, a trend he attributes largely to inflation driving up the costs of food, rent, utilities, and medications while incomes have not kept pace. Retail partners like Meijer remain among the organization's largest donors by weight, though supply chain fluctuations have at times reduced incoming donations, forcing the food bank to purchase more food than ever before. Estelle encouraged the business community to get involved by raising awareness among employees, volunteering at food bank facilities, and making financial contributions to help sustain operations. » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: twitter.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

WhoDan Skelton, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blue Mountain, OntarioRecorded onJune 26, 2025About Blue Mountain, OntarioClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Alterra Mountain CompanyLocated in: The Blue Mountains, Ontario, CanadaYear founded: 1941Pass affiliations: Unlimited on Ikon and Ikon BaseBase elevation: 229 feet/750 metersSummit elevation: 1,480 feet/451 metersVertical drop: 730 feet/223 metersSkiable acres: 364 acres/147 hectaresAverage annual snowfall: 154 inches/391 centimetersTrail count: 43Lift count: 11 (5 six-packs, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 triple, 4 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Blue Mountain, Ontario's lift fleet)Why I interviewed him: A Very Dumb Story About a Very Dumb Person, Volume IIn the winter of 1995-96, I developed Vertical Fever, a syndrome in which the afflicted believes, in a way that is beyond reason and immune from contrary arguments, that the skiing will be better if the ski hill is taller.This was a problem. Because in 1995, I lived, as I had all my life up to that point, in Michigan. Specifically, Sanford, a flat town in a flat county in what may be the flattest region of the country, the Tri-Cities area of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Fortunately for a skier, Michigan is cold and full of ski areas. Unfortunately, these ski areas are small or short or both. The tallest of the 33 ski areas inventoried on the 1995 Michigan Downhill Skiing Guide is Boyne Highlands, which then and today promotes a probably made-up vertical drop of 550 feet. Right across the street was 427-vertical-foot Nub's Nob, one of six Lower Peninsula ski areas to exceed 400 vertical, along with Caberfae (485 feet), Shanty Creek Schuss Mountain (450 feet), Sugar Loaf (500 feet), and Boyne Mountain (495 feet).I'd skied all of these and I'd skied them all many times since my first real ski season, which was the previous winter, 1994-95. But once I'd stopped summersaulting down the hill and learned to carve and to land jumps, I grew bored. Skiing in 1995 was not like skiing in 2026. Terrain parks were rare and, anyway, off limits to skiers. Jumping was forbidden. There were signs all over saying so. Everything was groomed and everything was about carving turns, even though grooming was inconsistent and the shaped skis that would transform the average skier into a carver were years away from mass market distribution.So I scoured maps and guidebooks for ski areas of any size in any direction that I could reasonably drive to. To the south lay Ohio and Indiana. Useless. To the north, at the far western end of the Upper Peninsula, lay several 600-ish footers (Mount Bohemia did not open until 2000), but Michigan is a deceptively large state made larger by the inconvenience of driving around gigantic lakes – those UP ski areas were 10 hours away. But also to the north, east instead of west and just over the Canadian border, lay Searchmont: 750 vertical feet of ungladed bananas skiing, with little cliffs and rocks and glades all over. It was a glorious real-life validation of the less-stuffy Canadian ski-area management culture that I'd read about in Skiing and Powder. And it was only a four-hour drive each way, an easy daytrip on the cruise-control-empty interstates of northern Michigan. This is what a Canadian 700-plus-footer is like, I decided, and I searched for more of them.That's when I became obsessed with Blue Mountain, this mysterious guidebook mapdot floating south of Lake Huron. Stat-line, as listed in contemporary guide books: 720 vertical feet, 13 chairlifts and two T-bars, 920 skiable acres (this was, um, not accurate). A Midwest hack, a backdoor to a secret mini-New England unknown to Michiganders. As with Searchmont, I would rise at 4 and arrive by lifts-on and soar all day among the woodsy wide-open drop-step terrain of Ontario yahoo skiing.Yeah it didn't work out like that. The first time I tried to drive to Blue Mountain, I wound up at Mount Brighton, 273 miles away in Southeast Michigan. A blizzard had forced course correction to a more achievable destination. But the second time, I made it. Here's how it went, per a journal entry I wrote few days later:Monday, March 25th, 1996 – 11:53 p.m.Let's just call Friday the day that didn't quite flow. In fact, it didn't flow like no day on skis ever hasn't. First off, I only slept four hours. Normally , I wouldn't give a f**k, but that was directly following three hours the night before, which didn't help my status in an already exhausting week. Then there was the drive. I figured four, maybe five hours at the most, 250 miles, give or take. Wrong. I only realized this somewhere well over the Canadian border. Six hours, 350 miles. Then there's the mountain.I knew Blue was big, but I was not, I'll admit, in any way, shape, or form prepared for what I found Friday. The place is enormous by Midwest standards, though not as mammoth as I'd originally thought coming up the road, scoping out the two private resorts. Notice I said “enormous,” not necessarily “good.” Which is sad, cause, for one thing, they're trying pretty hard to make a good hill, and, #2, I drove a long f****n' way to get there. The whole thing bore a striking resemblance to western skiing – enormous base lodges, hugely wide runs, high-speed chairs. Which I suppose makes it ideal for families. Then there's the fifty miles or so of safety fence, zero ungroomed runs, and as many jumps as a Fat Albert convention. This, I surmise, makes it extremely unideal for Stuarts. In fact, I really didn't enjoy it at all. It was bland, repetitive, and almost sickening in its nature. I was tired, pissed, and lonely. The highlight of the day was jumping off the cornice which was the subject of much inner conflict. But I did it, and I'm glad, and then I drove home, and I'm glad for that too.I only skied four-and-a-half hours. My ticket was good til' ten, but I considered a lot of things. For starters, it only cost me twenty bucks; second, I told Clint I was gonna make it a point to get out of there by four [to hang out], so I sorta tried; third, I'd skied the whole f****n' place anyhow, and I really didn't feel like getting home at four AM. It's not like I didn't ski well, cause I was actually carving and reacting magnificently (to the terrain, not the carving). I was fluid, but I needed more variety, and they just didn't deliver.It would have been nice to have the internet in 1996 (it existed, but almost no one used it, partly because there was almost nothing on it, including driving directions, maps, or trailmaps).Great endorsement of Blue Mountain, Stu. You managed to convince people not to go and make the people who do ski there feel bad about it all at once. Slow clap for aggressive transparency.But my message here is hardly “Blue Mountain sucks don't go.” Blue Mountain is, as it was 30 years ago, exactly what it needs to be: a rapid-fire lap machine optimized to provide a consistent ski experience to the residents of Canada's densest metro area, Toronto. Blue is, historically and probably still, the third-busiest ski area in Canada after Tremblant and Whistler. It is a low-altitude, variable-weather, high-volume business tasked with the twin burdens of being the sole public outpost for recreational skiing in a ridgeline of upscale private clubs and being a profitable enterprise. It is, from a dollar-generating and Ikon Pass-dispersal-to-the-West point of view, probably one of Alterra's most important ski areas.The problem, then, is not that every ski area isn't like Searchmont. The problem is that, in 1996, I thought every ski area should be like Searchmont. It was like walking into a pizza parlor and complaining that they didn't sell tacos. I was young and dumb, and it didn't occur to me until arrival that a 700-ish-vertical-foot ski area dangling off the far eastern end of the Lake Superior wilderness (Searchmont), would, by custom and by necessity, offer a far different ski experience than a 700-ish-vertical-foot satellite orbiting metro Toronto (Blue). I thought every ski area should be for me and for people like me, like the people I read about in ski magazines who toured B.C. in rusty pickup trucks and never took bathroom breaks and who viewed skiing as a constant level-up challenge.Thirty years later, I view Blue Mountain differently, for two reasons. The first is that I'm sure that Blue, like nearly all North American ski areas, is a more interesting mountain in 2026 than it was in 1996. Freeski culture and snowboarding really did loosen up skiing's stodgier tendencies, most visibly with the widespread building of come-one-come-all terrain parks. The second is that I no longer approach ski areas by asking if they are the best possible experience for me, but if they are the best possible version of themselves for the demographic of skiers who are most likely to ski there. And with Blue – which I will admit, I never visited again - the answer appears to be, always and ever upward, yes.What we talked aboutOh Ontario; being a Canadian ski area owned by a U.S. company; “one of the beauties of being part of Alterra is our emphasis on honoring and preserving the uniqueness of each resort and each mountain community”; Blue Mountain's Reserve Pass; fixing up Blue's disordered lift mazes; growing up at the base of Blue Mountain; the amazing evolution of ski area technology; Blue's wacky, charismatic founder; preserving the mountain's independent character after it's been absorbed by a conglomerate; Blue in the ‘70s; building Blue's snowmaking system; big leaps forward in snowmaking during the 1990s; the rise of HKD; Alterra's point of view on snowmaking; the hit-or-miss Lake Huron and Georgian Bay lake-effect snowbelts; snowmaking in the era of climate change; how snow-depth technology impacts snowmaking volumes; living through the transition from independence to Intrawest and ultimately to Alterra; how the village transformed Blue; “we come to the table scrappy, inventive, entrepreneurial” to this company of mega-resort destinations; the impact of the Ikon Pass; Blue's amazing lift fleet and how the six-pack became the mountain's workhorse; building chairlifts in-house; 15,000 skiers on Blue's busiest days; “we're not going to cut any new trails, so we gotta squeeze every little bit out and make sure we have a balanced experience”; whether Blue could upgrade to an eight-place lift; operating as the only substantial public ski area amid a huge number of private ski areas; and Blue's history owning and operating the neighboring Georgian Peaks ski area.What I got wrongI mentioned that HKD President Charles Santry had told the same side of a story that Skelton shared on a previous podcast recording, which he had. The problem is that as of now, I still haven't released that pod with Santry. Stand by.Podcast NotesOn IntrawestA brief history of Intrawest:On “Rusty” in the Alterra/Ikon transitionSkelton was referring to Rusty Gregory, Alterra CEO from 2018 to '22.On Blue's 1980 trailmapThe Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

In this episode, we break down the real situation behind Michigan's deer policies. The buck to doe ratio problem. The drop in harvest numbers. The science being used to justify new rules. And the growing frustration from hunters who feel like things just aren't adding up. Should Michigan move to a one buck rule for deer hunting? We break down one of the biggest debates in Michigan deer management right now. The conversation covers the Lower Peninsula specifically and digs into the real issues hunters keep bringing up, including buck to doe ratio concerns, antler point restrictions, the bait ban, harvest numbers, hunter satisfaction, disease concerns, and whether Michigan is actually creating better deer management or just adding more restrictions. We talk through the major sides of the argument. Some hunters believe a one buck rule would help create more selective harvest and improve the age structure of bucks. Others believe an earn a buck system would make more sense by requiring doe harvest before buck harvest, which could more directly address the imbalance between bucks and does. We also get into the argument over APRs, how they work in Michigan now, and whether they truly help improve buck quality or simply protect deer with poor antler traits that should not stay in the breeding pool. We also dives into the controversy around the Lower Peninsula bait ban and the belief that reduced harvest numbers may actually be making Michigan's deer issues worse instead of better. Kyle explains why he believes any serious deer management plan has to stay consistent with the science being used to justify it. If the concern is disease spread and overpopulation, then the state has to look honestly at whether current rules are helping hunters remove enough deer from the landscape. Along the way, we talk about hunting ethics, managing wounded or genetically poor deer in the field, how different Michigan regions should be treated differently, why hunter input matters, and why accurate deer reporting is critical if the DNR and hunters are ever going to get on the same page. This is a real conversation about conservation, deer management, hunting culture, regulations, and what the future of Michigan deer season should actually look like. If you care about Michigan deer hunting, whitetail management, the DNR, APRs, the bait ban, doe harvest, trophy buck potential, wildlife policy, or the future of hunting in the Midwest, this is a conversation worth hearing. Watch the full podcast and join the conversation in the comments. What makes the most sense for Michigan: one buck rule, earn a buck, APR changes, bringing back baiting, or a totally different solution? #MichiganDeerHunting #OneBuckRule #WhitetailDeer #DeerManagement #MichiganDNR #APR #BaitBan #BuckToDoeRatio #EarnABuck #WhitetailHunting #DeerSeason #HuntingPodcast #Conservation #WildlifeManagement #TheGreenWayOutdoors Watch our HISTORY Channel show on:HISTORYWAYPOINT TVFollow us on:FacebookInstagramTwitterYoutubeOur Website

What does it actually take to dedicate your life to Michigan's wild places — and land one of the most coveted jobs in conservation? In this episode, Ryan sits down with longtime friend and newly appointed Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Tim Riley for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about the road less traveled.Tim pulls back the curtain on what a typical day in the field really looks like — from early morning surveys to late nights buried in data — and shares the winding, years-long journey it took to earn his place with the Michigan DNR. It's a story that every aspiring wildlife professional and lifelong outdoorsman needs to hear.But this episode isn't just about the career path. Tim and Ryan dive deep into four of Michigan's most fascinating and complex species:

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

This weekend we debut our show in Escanaba on our first radio affiliate in the Upper Peninsula. A huge shout out to our good friend Caleb Gordon, who helped us get connected to WCHT-AM and FM as part of the Radio Results Network family.Segment 1: Gonzo and Amy talk about the things they still want to do this winter,Segment 2: Rosy's Diner is a popular hangout for breakfast and a burger in Escanaba. We talk to co-owners Andy and Myra Fields, who are also active members of the community. Any is the high school girl's softball coach. He talks about how difficult it is for UP schools to play a spring sport when there is so much snow.Segment 3: Mick of Snow Snake Ski & Golf in Harrison talks about the fun they have each year at this hidden gem just north of Mt. Pleasant.Segment 4: Gonzo and Amy  preview events taking place in March all over the state.Learn more about our show at amyandgonzo.com where you can subscribe to our new Substack page to keep up on all of our adventures.

WhoBarry Owens, General Manager of Treetops, MichiganRecorded onJune 13, 2025About TreetopsClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Treetops Acquisition Company LLCLocated in: Gaylord, MichiganYear founded: 1954Pass affiliations: Indy Pass, Indy+ Pass – 2 daysClosest neighboring ski areas: Otsego (:07), Boyne Mountain (:34), Hanson Hills (:39), Shanty Creek (:51), The Highlands (:58), Nub's Nob (1:00)Base elevation: 1,110 feetSummit elevation: 1,333 feetVertical drop: 223 feetSkiable acres: 80Average annual snowfall: 140 inchesTrail count: 25 (30% beginner, 40% intermediate, 30% advanced)Lift count: 5 (3 triples, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Treetops' lift fleet)Why I interviewed himThe first 10 ski areas I ever skied, in order, were:* Mott Mountain, Michigan* Apple Mountain, Michigan* Snow Snake, Michigan* Caberfae, Michigan* Crystal Mountain, Michigan* Nub's Nob, Michigan* Skyline, Michigan* Treetops, Michigan* Sugar Loaf, Michigan* Shanty Creek – Schuss Mountain, MichiganAnd here are the first 10 ski areas I ever skied that are still open, with anything that didn't make it crossed out:* Mott Mountain, Michigan* Apple Mountain, Michigan* Snow Snake, Michigan* Caberfae, Michigan* Crystal Mountain, Michigan* Nub's Nob, Michigan* Skyline, Michigan* Treetops, Michigan* Sugar Loaf, Michigan* Shanty Creek – Schuss Mountain, Michigan* Shanty Creek – Summit, Michigan* Boyne Mountain, Michigan* Searchmont, Ontario* Nebraski, Nebraska* Copper Mountain, Colorado* Keystone, ColoradoSix of my first 16. Poof. That's a failure rate of 37.5 percent. I'm no statistician, but I'd categorize that as “not good.”Now, there's some nuance to this list. I skied all of these between 1992 and 1995. Most had faded officially or functionally by 2000, around the time that America's Great Ski Area Die-Off concluded (Summit lasted until around Covid, and could still re-open, resort officials tell me). Their causes of death are varied, some combination, usually, of incompetence, indifference, and failure to adapt. To climate change, yes, but more of the cultural kind of adaptation than the environmental sort.The first dozen ski areas on this list are tightly bunched, geographically, in the upper half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. They draw from the same general population centers and suffer from the same stunted Midwest verticals. None are naturally or automatically great ski areas. None are or were particularly remote or tricky to access, and most sit alongside or near a major state or federal highway. And they (mostly) all benefit from the same Lake Michigan lake-effect snow machine, the output of which appears to be increasing as the Great Lakes freeze more slowly and less often (cold air flowing over warm water = lake-effect snow).Had you presented this list of a dozen Michigan ski areas to me in 1995 and said, “five of these will drop dead in the next 30 years,” I would not have chosen those five, necessarily, to fail. These weren't ropetow backwaters. All but Apple had chairlifts (and they soon installed one), and most sat close to cities or were attached to a larger resort. Sugar Loaf, in particular, was one of Michigan's better ski areas, with five chairlifts and the largest in-state vertical drop on this list.My guess for most-likely-to-die probably would have been Treetops, especially if you'd told me that then-private Otsego ski area, right next door and with twice its neighbor's skiable acreage, vertical drop, and number of chairlifts, would eventually open to the public. Especially if you'd told me that Boyne Mountain, the monster down the road, would continue to expand its lodging and village, and would add a Treetops-sized cluster of greens to its ferocious ridge of blacks. Especially if you'd told me that Treetops' trail footprint, never substantial, would remain more or less the same size 30 years later. In fact, just about every surviving Michigan ski area on that list - Crystal, Nub's, Caberfae, Shanty Schuss - greatly expanded its terrain footprint. Except Treetops.But here we are, in the future, and I just skied Treetops 10 months ago with my 8-year-old son. It was, in some ways, more or less as I'd left it on my last visit, in 1995: small vert, small trail network, a slightly confusing parking situation, no chairlift restraint bars. A few improvements were obvious: the beginner ropetows had made way for a carpet, the last double chair had been upgraded to a triple, terrain park features dotted the east side, and a dozen or so glades and short steep shots had been hacked from the woods of the legacy trail footprint.That's all nice. But what was not obvious to me was this: why, and how, does Treetops the ski area still exist? Sugar Loaf was a better ski area. Apple Mountain was closer to large population centers. Summit was attached to ski-in-ski-out accommodations and shared a lift ticket with the larger Schuss mountain a couple miles away. Was modern Treetops some sort of money-losing ski area hobby horse for whomever owned the larger resort, which is better known for its five golf courses? Was it just an amenity to keep the second homeowners who mostly lived in Southeast Michigan invested year-round? Had the ski area cemented itself as the kind of high-volume schoolkids training ground that explained the resilience of ski areas in metro Detroit, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee?There is never, or rarely, one easy or obvious explanation for why similar businesses thrive or fail. This is why I resist pinning the numerical decline in America's ski area inventory solely to climate change. We may have fewer ski areas in America than we had in 1995, but we have a lot more good ski areas now than we did 30 years ago (and, as I wrote in March, a lot more overall ski terrain). Yes, Skyline, 40 minutes south of Treetops, failed because it never installed snowmaking, but that is only part of the sentence. Skyline failed because it never installed snowmaking while its competitors aggressively expanded and continually updated their snowmaking systems, raising the floor on the minimal ski experience acceptable to consumers. That takes us back to culture. What do you reckon has changed more over the past 30 to 40 years: America's weather patterns, or its culture? For anyone who remembers ashtrays at McDonald's or who rode in the bed of a pickup truck from Michigan to Illinois or who ran feral and unsupervised outdoors from toddlerhood or who somehow fumbled through this vast world without the internet or a Pet Rectangle or their evil offspring social media, the answer seems obvious. The weather feels a little different. Our culture feels airlifted from another planet. Americans accepted things 30 years ago that would seem outrageous today – like smoking adjacent to a children's play area ornamented with a demented smiling clown. But this applies to skiing as well. My Treetops day in 1995 was memorably horrible, the snow groomed but fossilized, unturnable. A few weeks earlier, I'd skied Skyline on perhaps a three-inch base, grass poking through the trails. Modern skiers, armed with the internet and its Hubble connection to every ski area on the planet, would not accept either set of conditions today. But one of those ski areas adapted and the other did not. That's the “why” of Treetops survival. It was the “how” that I needed Barry Owens to help me understand.What we talked aboutLast winter's ice storm – “it provides great insight into human character when you go through that stuff”; record snowfall (204 inches!) to chase the worst winter ever; the Lake Michigan snowbelt; a golf resort with a ski area attached; building a ski culture when “we didn't have enough people dedicated to ski… and it showed”; competing with nearby ski areas many times Treetops' size “we don't shy away from… who we are and what we are”; what happened when next-door-neighbor Otsego Resort switched from a private to a public model in 2017 – “neither one of us is going to get rich seeing who can get the most $15 lift tickets on a Wednesday”; I attempt to talk about golf and why Michigan is a golf mecca; moving on from something you've spent decades building; Treetops' rough financial period and why Owens initially turned down the GM job; how Owens convinced ownership not to close the ski area; fixing a “can't-do staff” by “doing things that created the freedom to be able to act”; Treetops' strange 2014 bankruptcy and rebuilding from there; “right now we're happy” with the lift fleet; how much it would cost to retrofit Treetops' lifts with restraint bars; timeline for potential ski expansion at Treetops; bargain season passes (as low as $125); and Indy Pass' network power.What I got wrong* I said “Gaylord County,” but the city of Gaylord is in Otsego County.* I said that Boyne Resorts, operator of 11 ski areas, also runs “10 or 11 golf resorts.” The company operates 14 golf courses.* I said that Michigan had a “very good” road network and that there was “not a lot of traffic,” and if you live there, you're reaction is probably, “you're dumb.” What I meant by “very good road network” is this: compared to most ski regions, which have, um, mountains, Michigan's bumplets sit more or less directly alongside the state's straight, flat, almost perfectly gridded highway network. Also, the “not a lot of traffic” thing does not apply to special situations like, say, northbound I-75 on a July Friday evening.* I said that Crystal, Nub's, Caberfae, and Shanty Creek were “close” – while they're not necessarily all close to one another, they are all roughly equidistant for folks coming to them from downstate.* I said that Treetops was “the fifth or sixth place I ever skied at,” but upon further review, it was number eight (which is reflected in the list above).Podcast NotesOn the ice stormAn ice storm hammered Northern Michigan in late March of this year:On the lightning strike on Treetops' golf courseOn the Midwest's terrible 2023-24 ski seasonSkier visits cratered in the Midwest during the 2023-24 ski season, the region's worst on record from a snowfall point of view. Weather - and skier visits - settled back into normal ranges last winter:This is a bit hard to see with any sort of precision, but this 10-year chart gives a nice sense of just how abnormal 2023-24 was for the Midwest:On Michigan's ski areasMichigan is home to 44 active ski areas - more than any state other than New York. Many of them are quite small, operate sporadically, and run only surface lifts, but Treetops is close to a bunch of the better lift-served outfits, including Boyne Mountain, Nub's Nob, and The Highlands (the UP ski areas may as well be in another state). It helps Treetops that so many of the state's ski areas have also joined Indy Pass:On Otsego ResortFor decades - I'm not certain how long, exactly - Otsego Resort, right next door to Treetops and with roughly double the vertical drop and skiable acreage, was private. In 2017, the bump opened to the public, considerably amping up competition. Complicating the matter further, Otsego sits a bit closer to Michigan's Main Street - I-75 - than Treetops.On Snow OperatingOwens mentioned working with “TBL” – he was referring to Terrain Based Learning, Snow Partners' learn-to-ski program. That company also runs the Snow Cloud operating system that Owens refers to at the end.On Treetops' rough period I quoted this Detroit Business News article at length in the interview. It goes deep on Treetops' precarious early 2000s history and the resort's broken employee culture at the time.On people being nice at ski areasYeah I'm super into this:On the hedgehog conceptOwens mentions “the hedgehog concept,” which I wasn't familiar with. It sounded like a business-book thing, and it is, adapted by author Jim Collins for his book Good to Great and described in this way on his website:The Hedgehog Concept is developed in the book Good to Great. A simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic or resource engine. Transformations from good to great come about by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog Concept, supremely well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a long period of time.More:On safety-bar requirements in New York and New EnglandThis is kind of funny…That's my 8-year-old son, who's skied in a dozen states, taking his first ride on a lift with no safety bar, at Treetops last December. Why such machines still exist in 2025, I have no idea - this lift rises about 30 feet off the ground. In the East, all chairlifts are equipped with bars, and state law mandates their use in New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont (and perhaps elsewhere). I don't advocate for rider mandates, but I do think all chairlifts ought to have bars available for those who want them. Owens and I discuss the resort's plans to retrofit Treetops' three chairlifts - CTEC machines installed between 1984 and 1995 - with bars. The cost would be roughly $250,000. That's a significant number, but probably a lot less than the figure if, say, someone has a heart attack or seizure on the lift, falls off, then sues the resort. Besides, as Owens points out, chairlifts must be equipped with restraint bars for summer use, which would open new revenue streams. Why are bars required for summer activities, but not winter? It's a strange anachronism, unique among the ski world to America.On “Joe from SMI”I mentioned “Joe from SMI” offhand. I was referring to SMI Snowmakers President Joe VanderKelen, who appeared on the podcast back in 2022:On potential expansion Owens discusses a potential expansion looker's left of Chair 1, which would restore lost terrain and built upon that. This 1988 trailmap shows a couple of the trails that Treetops eliminated to make way for its current top-to-bottom access road (trails 1 through 4):The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

In this episode, my guest, Nick Racette and I talk about his journey into the world of Telemark skiing and starting up the Lower Peninsula Pinheads in Michigan, as well as his own personal backstory. Enjoy!

Steve Gruber discusses news and headlines 

August 4, 2025 ~ Crain's Detroit Business Executive Editor Mickey Ciokajlo talks with Chris and Jamie about Greektown businesses facing hardship due to ongoing construction, Bedrock transitioning leadership, Amazon opening its first same-day delivery pharmacy in Michigan, Consumers Energy finalizing a deal for a large data center to increase the power load in the Lower Peninsula, and much more!

Steve Gruber is joined by Ivey Gruber, President of the Michigan Talk Network, for a wide-ranging and hard-hitting discussion. They cover the ongoing cleanup challenges from ice storm damage in northern Michigan and whether state incentives might be used to speed up recovery. The conversation then shifts to a surprising trend, black bears moving deeper into Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Finally, they dig into a controversial story making headlines: a gay couple's adoption of a baby, despite one partner being a convicted sex offender. A candid conversation about safety, oversight, and common sense.

July 1, 2025 ~ Mike Alaimo, senior director of Legislative & External Affairs at the Michigan Chamber, joins Chris, Lloyd, and Jamie to discuss the Army Corps of Engineers report on the Line 5 project, noting minor concerns, but overall deemed it a safe method for natural gas transport from the Upper to the Lower Peninsula.

Michigan, with its vast forests, remote wilderness, and deep-rooted Native American legends, has long been a hotspot for mysterious Bigfoot sightings. Known locally by names like "Sasquatch" or “The Michigan Wildman,” reports of encounters stretch from the Upper Peninsula down to the wooded trails of the Lower Peninsula. Witnesses describe large, hairy, ape-like creatures standing over 7 feet tall, with glowing eyes and a powerful, musky odor. These elusive beings are often spotted crossing rural roads, lurking near rivers, or vocalizing through howls and tree knocks deep in the night.Some of the most famous hotspots include the Manistee National Forest, the Huron Mountains, and remote areas near the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Eyewitness accounts often include chilling experiences—unexplained footprints, sudden silences in the woods, or eerie feelings of being watched. Michigan researchers and Bigfoot enthusiasts continue to document sightings, collect evidence like audio recordings and plaster casts, and investigate these ongoing encounters. Whether seen as folklore or fact, Bigfoot remains an enduring mystery rooted deeply in Michigan's wild and untamed terrain.#Bigfootb #Sasquatch #BigfootSightings #BigfootHunters #BigfootEvidence

Surviving the Ice Storm: Nature's Resilience and Challenges John and Richard are joined by Dr. Greg Corace to discuss the aftermath of the impactful ice storm that hit the northern lower Peninsula at the end of March. Greg shares his insights on how this natural event affected the woods around us. Greg is a professional Forest and Wildlife Ecologist and is a contact for the Forestry Assistance Program in Alpena and Montmorency Counties. He began working at the Alpena-Montmorency Conservation District in July 2019.  Greg has a Bachelor's of Science (Zoology) and a Master's of Science (Biology) from Northern Michigan University and a Ph.D. (Forest Science) from Michigan Technological University. Greg was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana. Click here for Greg's full resume/CV. Over the last 20+ years, Greg has conducted forest planning, applied research, management, and inventory and monitoring on public and private lands in the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan.  As an aside; if you are interested in learning more about the storm, the National Weather Service also has a great write-up(weather geek stuff) on the storm – definitely worth a read. As always; we're grateful for your time and hope you enjoy our shows.  The Lovells Township Historical Society is dedicated to preserving and celebrating the heritage of Lovells and northern Michigan. Through our museums and events, we strive to enrich our community and preserve the important history of the area while sharing it with our residents and visitors. The Lovells Township Historical Society is a 501 (c) (3) organization whose genesis can be traced back to the August 1990 Heritage Days Celebration. For a more detailed history of the Historical Society, visit here.    

For decades, Michigan State University has been working with partners in Detroit to support the city's economic development, advance the arts, transform schools, improve health and protect the environment. And, after a successful and illuminating trip with visits along the western Lower Peninsula of Michigan in the fall of 2024, this May, the Spartan Bus Tour headed to Detroit.Just as the inaugural Spartan Bus Tour demonstrated how Spartans are making a difference across the state, a tour of metro Detroit illustrated how the partnerships between the city and Michigan State are changing our state for the better.Taking place May 5 and 6 with stops at 12 locations in the Detroit area, the tour was led by MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz, and included a delegation of 50 faculty and administrators who explored the breadth and depth of the university's research, outreach and education impact in a city that, like MSU, values resilience, hard work and a commitment to solving problems and empowering people for better lives.Conversation Highlights:(1:20) - President Guskiewicz sets the scene. (2:00) - The Zekelman Holocaust Center opened its doors in 1984 in West Bloomfield and relocated to the current Farmington Hills location in 2004. It was the first stop on the tour. The center is home to the Holocaust Museum exhibit and an extensive research library, archives and special exhibit galleries. Each year, more than 150,000 people visit the center, whose mission is to engage, educate and empower by remembering the Holocaust. Eli Mayerfeld is CEO of the Holocaust Museum.(6:35) - The second stop on Day 1 was at the Detroit Partnership for Food, Learning and Innovation, or DPFLI: The DPFLI was founded in 2017 and is MSU's first urban agriculture center. Housed within MSU Extension, the partnership in northwest Detroit focuses on research and education to improve the lives of Detroiters and serves as a community space for residents. Naim Edwards directs DPFLI, George Smith directs MSU AgBioResearch and Dave Ivan directs the Community Food and Environment Institute.(16:07) - The third stop on Day 1 was at The Shepherd and LANTERN, which are part of Library Street Collective's ongoing artistic commitment to Detroit's Little Village neighborhood. Anthony Curis is co-founder of The Shepherd and Library Street Collective. (21:30) - The fourth stop on Day 1 was a visit to Magna International: Magna International is the largest automobile parts manufacturer in North America with its U.S. headquarters in Troy. Heather Holm is talent attraction and employer brand manager.(23:44) - Stop five on Day 1 was at the Apple Developer Academy: Partnering with MSU, Apple's first U.S.-based academy was launched in 2021 in Detroit where participants learn the essentials of coding, design and business with Apple tools. The academy offers free programs of 10 months and four weeks, and, to date, has graduated more than 1,000 learners from the metro Detroit area. Sarah Gretter is director of the academy, and Anny Staten is assistant director.(27:10) - The final stop...

We're wrapping up another month this weekend on Outdoor Magazine radio. First, Kyle Green of The Greenway Outdoors talks about a plan to kill nuisance geese across Michigan. Then, Tom Campbell from Woods-n-Waternews takes us inside their latest edition. Hour two features steelhead guide Paul Schalfley of Riverside Charters in Manistee. Justin Tomei from MUCC is up next with a discussion about a proposed license fee increases and a plan to allow baiting in the Lower Peninsula. In this week's final hour I talk with Doug Ward of Xpress Fishing Charters on Detroit River and Saginaw Bay walleye. We wrap it all up with chef Dave Minar and another great recipe.

Discover how more than one weather pattern system impacted the Great Lakes Region per U.S. Upper Midwest & Southwest Ontario Canada between late October into early November 1913. Find out what hurdles faced the U.S. Weather Bureau involving storm forecasting in 1913. Get an in depth analysis behind when the storm first struck Lake Huron including final aftermath. Discover exactly where Presque Isle Township is located in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Determine primary reason why the need for a lighthouse was so strong around Presque Isle Harbor during early 1830's. Get introduced to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Officer Major Orlando Metcalfe Poe. Understand importance behind steam fog signals. Get acquainted with Rogers City, Presque Isle's official county seat. Learn just how large Lake Huron truly is along with the total number of islands it possesses. Understand just how severe the threat level was involving 50 Mile stretch of shoreline between Cheboygan & Presque Isle Lighthouse. Figure out how 40 Mile Point Light got its name including total number of shipwrecks recorded along Lake Huron's waters since 2006. Determine if in fact the Straits of Mackinac connect multiple Great Lakes. Understand significance behind Spectacle Reef Light from a cost standpoint. Go behind the scenes and learn exactly how the Straits of Mackinac went about getting its name. Learn how vehicles accessed Straits of Mackinac prior to 1957 along with discovering an assortment of fascinating facts about the Mackinac Bridge itself. Discover how the Anishinabe People navigated around Straits of Mackinac prior to European arrival including lighthouses getting built. Receive a timeline of events between 1829-1892 leading up to constructing Old Mackinac Point Light. Learn if Old Mackinac Point Light provided vital services to railroad car ferries and how it became impacted once Mackinac Bridge opened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michigan Cider: The Great Cider State with Paula Englin Michigan has earned its place as a leader in the cider industry, boasting the highest number of hard cider businesses in the U.S. In this episode, Paula Englin, Executive Director of the Michigan Cider Association, discusses the state's growth in cider, the role of education, and how Michigan cider makers are shaping the industry with events like the well known cider competition GLINTCAP – Great Lakes International Cider and Perry competition. MCA Executive Director Paula Englin With nearly 195 cider businesses and a thriving community, Michigan truly is The Great Cider State Growing Michigan Cider: Collaboration & Education The Michigan Cider Association was founded over a decade ago to bring cider makers together, advocate for legislative needs, and expand consumer awareness. Today, the association focuses on education, providing opportunities for cider makers at all levels—from home enthusiasts to large-scale producers. One of the recent big initiatives has been working with the Cider Institute, formely known as the Cider Institute of North America (CINA), to offer subsidized cider education. Michigan cider makers have benefited from foundational courses, cider guide certifications for taproom staff, and marketing efforts that drive cider sales across the state. Mapping Michigan's Cider Scene Michigan's unique geography, shaped by the Great Lakes, creates an ideal environment for growing apples. Many cider makers source their fruit locally, often within 30 minutes of their production sites. Here's how the cider landscape breaks down: To use this Hand Map – Hold up your left hand, palm facing outward, with fingers together and thumb extended—this mimics Michigan's Lower Peninsula, often called “The Mitten,” with Detroit near the base of the thumb and Traverse City near the tip of your pinky. Metro Detroit (Thumb region) – A hub for orchards and cideries, home to well-known producers. Southwest Michigan (Pinky side of the mitten) – A mix of wineries and cideries, taking advantage of the region's wine industry crossover. Grand Rapids & the Fruit Ridge (Center of the mitten) – A major apple-growing region supplying cideries statewide. Traverse City (Top of the mitten) – A destination for cider lovers, known for high-quality cider apples and innovative makers. Cider Events That Put Michigan on the Map Michigan's cider industry thrives on consumer engagement, and events play a major role in getting more people to appreciate and support local cider. Michigan Apple Festival (Sparta, MI) – A harvest celebration featuring local apple growers, cider producers, and even an apple peeling contest! Cider Week Grand Rapids (May 9-17, 2025) – A week of cider-focused events, including pairing dinners, tap takeovers, and a board game night at House Rules in Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids Wine, Beer & Food Festival – Showcasing a variety of Michigan ciders to educate new consumers and cider fans alike. GLINTCAP: Great Lakes International Cider and Perry competition Michigan is also home to GLINTCAP (Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition), the world's largest cider competition. Paula now oversees the event, which continues to grow, introducing a low and no-ABV category for the first time in 2025. One major shift? Judging is now fully digital, improving feedback delivery and accuracy. The competition also expanded international accessibility, making it easier for cider makers worldwide to participate. Contant the Michigan Cider Association Website: https://michiganciders.com/ Mentions in this Cider Chat Totally Cider Tour to the UK – send an email to info@ciderchat.com to get on the wait list for spots opening on this 2025 tour taking place August 25-31, 2025 and future cider tours. Letter from Patron Rod – Become a patron of Cider Chat via Cider Chat Patreon Stone Ridge Orchard May Wassail – follow on Instagram Episode 296 Bauman's |Oregon's Destination Farm Cidery

Originally uploaded October 8th, re-edited December 17th. Chris Holman welcomes back Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D., President, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. Welcome back you just had your Investiture on Sunday, share what that is, with the Michigan business community? During that you had a speech covering several things; tell us about a New merit based scholarship ? Share about Expanding transfer student programs for those transferring from community colleges to MSU? What is the Native American Tuition Advantage program? Tell us about Creation of a Green and White Council ? We hear you will have a Spartan Bus Tour going around Michigan for 3 days, what's that all about? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Watch MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: twitter.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Michigan State University students, faculty, staff, alumni and dignitaries gathered to celebrate the investiture of MSU's 22nd president, Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D., at 2 p.m. on Sept. 29 at Wharton Center's Cobb Great Hall. Presidential investitures are typically held in a leader's first year in office to publicly and formally “vest” them with the authority of the office and acknowledge, introduce and celebrate the new leader. Investitures also represent continuity, connecting a university's present with its past and allowing new leaders an opportunity to express their vision for the institution's future. Guskiewicz, a noted academic leader and neuroscientist, embarked on a 52-stop listening and learning tour of MSU's colleges and major administrative units during the first several months of his presidency. These visits underscored for the president the student-focused, passionately public work that happens at MSU every day. Michigan State University President Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D., with nearly seven months at the helm of the presidency, is helping to write the next chapter of MSU's storied history — one that continues to be student-centered, with a focus on inclusivity, accessibility and global impact as a leading public research university. Guskiewicz highlighted several initiatives during September 29th's investiture ceremony he and university leadership plan to roll out in the coming weeks and months, including efforts to increase accessibility to an MSU degree, meeting the needs of a 21st-century workforce, and the second iteration of the university's Global Impact Initiative that was approved by the Board of Trustees in June. To increase access and reduce financial barriers to a quality, accessible, world-class education, Guskiewicz announced a new merit-based scholarship named after MSU's first president and first lady, Joseph R. and Sarah L. Williams. The scholarship will fund tuition, food and housing, and an education abroad or other experiential education opportunity for undergraduates. Guskiewicz also announced the establishment of the Native American Tuition Advantage program, an expansion of the current Spartan Tuition Advantage program. Students from anywhere in the United States or Canada who meet tribal affiliation criteria will qualify for in-state tuition levels and potentially the Spartan Tuition Advantage program. Also, from Oct. 21-23, Michigan State University President Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D., and a group of faculty and administrators are set to go out on the inaugural Spartan Bus Tour. Intending to visit locations throughout the western Lower Peninsula of Michigan to build community connections and strengthen MSU's commitment to education, research, outreach and extension.

...Widespread heavy rain threat developing from the central and easternGulf Coast to the entire East Coast tonight into Wednesday......Arctic air to plunge south and eastward across the northern Plains,Upper Midwest, and Great Lakes tonight into Wednesday......Another round of significant lake effect snow to begin Wednesday andcontinue through Thursday downwind of the Lakes...A developing storm system over the Southeast U.S. is set to bringwidespread heavy rains from the central and eastern Gulf Coast to theentire East Coast tonight into Wednesday. A wave of low pressure willrapidly strengthen and move northeastward across the interior Mid-Atlanticand Northeast, dragging a strong cold front along with it. Ahead of thefront, warm and moist air will set the stage for numerous showers andthunderstorms, some of which could become strong to severe. This isespecially the case across eastern North Carolina on Wednesday, where theStorm Prediction Center has issued a Slight Risk (level 2 of 5) for severethunderstorms capable of producing damaging wind gusts. Elsewhere alongthe Eastern Seaboard, the main concern will be a period of heavy rain withembedded strong thunderstorms and intense downpours. Despite much of theregion currently experiencing moderate to extreme drought conditions, therain, while mostly beneficial, could still lead to some localizedinstances of flash flooding. The more urbanized locations and poordrainage areas would have the greater risk of flooding issues.The cold front will sweep across the East Coast Wednesday into Thursday,with much colder air surging in from the north and northwest in its wake.This Arctic blast will first plunge into the northern Plains and UpperMidwest tonight before expanding eastward across the Great Lakes,Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Wednesday and Thursday. High temperatures thenext couple of days will be roughly 10 to as much as 30 degrees belownormal. The cold post-frontal air mass will also help to change rain tosnow across the western slopes of the Appalachians and interior portionsof New England and the Northeast with at least modest accumulationslooking like a decent bet.Attention then turns to yet another round of significant lake effect snowdownwind of the Great Lakes Wednesday through Thursday. The aforementionedArctic air will stream across the still relatively warm Great Lakes andignite intense bands of lake effect snow, initially downwind of LakesSuperior and Michigan on Wednesday and then downwind of Lakes Erie andOntario Wednesday night into early Thursday. By the time the snow startsto taper off on Friday, snowfall totals of 1 to 2 feet are likely in thefavored Snow Belt across portions of northwest and western New York State,far northwest Pennsylvania, far northeastern Ohio, the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan and the western portions of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 10. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 17. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoJohn Melcher, CEO of Crystal Mountain, MichiganRecorded onOctober 14, 2024About Crystal Mountain, MichiganClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Petritz FamilyLocated in: Thompsonville, MichiganYear founded: 1956Pass affiliations: Indy Pass & Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackoutsReciprocal partners: 1 day each at Caberfae and Mount Bohemia, with blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Caberfae (:37), Hickory Hills (:45), Mt. Holiday (:50), Missaukee Mountain (:52), Homestead (:51)Base elevation: 757 feetSummit elevation: 1,132 feetVertical drop: 375 feetSkiable Acres: 103Average annual snowfall: 132 inchesTrail count: 59 (30% black diamond, 48% blue square, 22% green circle) + 7 glades + 3 terrain parksLift count: 8 (1 high-speed quad, 3 fixed-grip quads, 2 triples, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Crystal Mountain's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himThe biggest knock on Midwest skiing is that the top of the hill is not far enough away from the bottom of the hill, and this is generally true. Two or three or four hundred vertical feet is not a lot of vertical feet. It is enough to hold little pockets of trees or jumps or a racer's pitch that begs for a speed check. But no matter how fun the terrain, too soon the lift maze materializes and it's another slow roll up to more skiing.A little imagination helps here. Six turns in a snowy Michigan glade feel the same as six turns in Blue Sky Basin trees (minus the physiological altitude strain). And the skillset transfers well. I learned to ski bumps on a 200-vertical-foot section of Boyne Mountain and now I can ski bumps anywhere. But losing yourself in a 3,000-vertical-foot Rocky Mountain descent is not the same thing as saying “Man I can almost see it” as you try to will a 300-footer into something grander. We all know this.Not everything about the lift-served skiing experience shrinks down with the same effect, is my point here. With the skiing itself, scale matters. But the descent is only part of the whole thing. The lift maze matters, and the uphill matters, and the parking matters, and the location of the lift ticket pick-up matters, and the availability of 4 p.m. beers matters, and the arrangement base lodge seating matters. And when all of these things are knotted together into a ski day that is more fun than stressful, it is because you are in the presence of one thing that scales down in any context: excellence.The National Ski Areas Association splits ski areas into four size categories, calculated by “vertical transportation feet per hour.” In other words: how many skiers your lifts can push uphill in an ideal hour. This is a useful metric for many reasons, but I'd like to see a more qualitative measurement, one based not just on size, but on consistent quality of experience.I spend most of my winter bouncing across America, swinging into ski areas of all sizes and varieties. Excellence lives in unexpected places. One-hundred-and-sixty-vertical-foot Boyce Park, Pennsylvania blows thick slabs of snow with modern snowguns, grooms it well, and seems to double-staff every post with local teenagers. Elk Mountain, on the other side of Pennsylvania, generally stitches together a better experience than its better-known neighbors just south, in the Poconos. Royal Mountain, a 550-vertical-foot, weekends-only locals' bump in New York's southern Adirondacks, alternates statuesque grooming with zippy glades across its skis-bigger-than-it-is face.These ski areas, by combining great order and reliable conditions with few people, are delightful. But perhaps more impressive are ski areas that deliver consistent excellence while processing enormous numbers of visitors. Here you have places like Pats Peak, New Hampshire; Wachusett, Massachusetts; Holiday Valley, New York; and Mt. Rose, Nevada. These are not major tourist destinations, but they run with the welcoming efficiency of an Aspen or a Deer Valley. A good and ordered ski day, almost no matter what.Crystal Mountain, Michigan is one of these ski areas. Everything about the ski experience is well-considered. Expansion, upgrades, and refinement of existing facilities have been constant for decades. The village blends with the hill. The lifts are where the lifts should be. The trail network is interesting and thoughtfully designed. The parks are great. The grooming is great. The glades are plentiful. The prices are reasonable. And, most important of all, despite being busy at all times, Crystal Mountain is tamed by order. This is excellence, that thing that all ski areas should aspire to, whatever else they lack.What we talked aboutWhat's new for Crystal skiers in 2024; snowmaking; where Crystal draws its snowmaking water; Peek'n Peak, New York; why Crystal is a good business in addition to being a good ski area; four-seasons business; skiing as Mother; what makes a great team (and why Crystal has one); switching into skiing mid-career; making trails versus clearcutting the ski slope; ownership decided via coinflip; Midwest destination skiing's biggest obstacle; will Crystal remain independent?; room to expand; additional glading opportunities; why many of Crystal's trails are named after people; considering the future of Crystal's lift fleet; why Crystal built a high-speed lift that rises just 314 vertical feet; why the ghost of the Cheers lift lives on as part of Crystal's trailmap; where Crystal has considered adding a lift to the existing terrain; that confusing trailmap; a walkable village; changes inbound at the base of Loki; pushing back parking; more carpets for beginners; Crystal's myriad bargain lift ticket options; the Indy Pass; why Crystal dropped Indy Pass blackouts; the Mt. Bohemia-Crystal relationship; Caberfae; Indy's ultimatum to drop Ski Cooper reciprocals or leave the pass; and why Crystal joined Freedom Pass last year and left for this coming winter.  Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewThe Storm's mission is to serve all of American lift-served skiing. That means telling the stories of ski areas in every part of the country. I do this not because I have to, but because I want to. This newsletter would probably work just fine if it focused always and only on the great ski centers of the American West. That is, after all, the only part of U.S. ski country that outsiders travel to and that locals never leave. The biggest and best skiing is out there, at the top of our country, high and snowy and with a low chance of rain.But I live in the East and I grew up in the Midwest. Both regions are cluttered with ski areas. Hundreds of them, each distinct, each its own little frozen kingdom, each singular in atmosphere and arrangement and orientation toward the world. Most remain family-owned, and retain the improvisational quirk synonymous with such a designation. But more interesting is that these ski areas remain tethered to their past in a way that many of the larger western destination resorts, run by executives cycled in via corporate development programs, never will be again.I want to tell these stories. I'm aware that my national audience has a limited tolerance for profiles of Midwest ski centers they will never ski. But they seem to be okay with about a half-dozen per year, which is about enough to remind the wider ski community that this relatively flat but cold and hardy region is home to one of the world's great ski cultures. The Midwest is where night-skiing rules, where blue-collar families still ski, where hunting clothes double as ski clothes, where everything is a little less serious and a little more fun.There's no particular big development or project that threw the spotlight on Crystal here. I've been trying to arrange this interview for years. Because this is a very good ski area and a very well-run ski area, even if it is not a very large ski area in the grand landscape of American ski areas. It is one of the finest ski areas in the Midwest, and one worthy of our attention.What I got wrong* I said that “I forget if it's seven or nine different tree areas” at Crystal. The number of glades labeled on the trailmap is seven.* I said Crystal had been part of Indy Pass “since the beginning or near the beginning.” The mountain joined the pass in May, 2020, ahead of the 2020-21 ski season, Indy's second.Why you should ski Crystal Mountain, MichiganCrystal's Loki pod rises above the parking lots, 255 vertical feet, eight trails down, steep on the front, gentler toward the back. These days I would ski each of the eight in turn and proceed next door to the Clipper lift. But I was 17 and just learning to ski and to me at the time that meant bombing as fast as possible without falling. For this, Wipeout was the perfect trail, a sweeping crescent through the trees, empty even on that busy day, steep but only for a bit, just enough to ignite a long sweeping tuck back to the chairs. We lapped this run for hours. Speed and adrenaline through the falling snow. The cold didn't bother us and the dozens of alternate runs striped over successive hills didn't tempt us. We'd found what we'd wanted and what we'd wanted is this.I packed that day in the mental suitcase that holds my ski memories and I've carried it around for decades. Skiing bigger mountains hasn't tarnished it. Becoming a better skier hasn't diminished it. Tuck and bomb, all day long. Something so pure and simple in it, a thing that bundles those Loki laps together with Cottonwoods pow days and Colorado bump towers and California trees. Indelible. Part of what I think of when I think about skiing and part of who I am when I consider myself as a skier.I don't know for sure what Crystal Mountain, Michigan can give you. I can't promise transformation of the impressionable teenage sort. I can't promise big terrain or long runs because those don't have them. I'm not going to pitch Crystal as a singular pilgrimage of the sort that draws western Brobots to Bohemia. This is a regional ski area that is most attractive to skiers who live in Michigan or the northern portions of the states to its immediate south. Read: it is a ski area that the vast majority of you will never experience. And the best endorsement I can make of Crystal is that I think that's too bad, because I think you would really like it, even if I can't exactly explain why.Podcast NotesOn Peek'n PeakThe most difficult American ski area name to spell is not “Summit at Snoqualmie” or “Granlibakken” or “Pomerelle” or “Sipapu” or “Skaneateles” or “Bottineau Winter Park” or “Trollhaugen,” all of which I memorized during the early days of The Storm. The most counterintuitive, frustrating, and frankly stupid ski area name in all the land is “Peek'n Peak,” New York, which repeats the same word spelled two different ways for no goddamn reason. And then there's the apostrophe-“n,” lodged in there like a bar of soap crammed between the tomato and lettuce in your hamburger, a thing that cannot possibly justify or explain its existence. Five years into this project, I can't get the ski area's name correct without looking it up.Anyway, it is a nice little ski area, broad and varied and well-lifted, lodged in a consistent little Lake Erie snowbelt. They don't show glades on the trailmap, but most of the trees are skiable when filled in. The bump claims 400 vertical feet; my Slopes app says 347. Either way, this little Indy Pass hill, where Melcher learned to ski, is a nice little stopover:On Crystal's masterplanCrystal's masterplan leaves room for potential future ski development – we discuss where, specifically, in the podcast. The ski area is kind of lost in the sprawl of Crystal's masterplan, so I've added the lift names for context:On Sugar Loaf, MichiganMichigan, like most ski states, has lost more ski areas than it's kept. The most frustrating of these loses was Sugar Loaf, a 500-footer parked in the northwest corner of the Lower Peninsula, outside of Traverse City. Sunday afternoon lift tickets were like $12 and my high school buddies and I would drive up through snowstorms and ski until the lifts closed and drive home. The place went bust around 2000, but the lifts were still standing until some moron ripped them out five years ago with fantasies of rebuilding the place as some sort of boutique “experience.” Then he ran away and now it's just a lonely, empty hill.On Michigan being “littered with lost ski areas”Michigan is home to the second-most active or semi-active ski areas of any state in the country, with 44 (New York checks in around 50). Still, the Midwest Lost Ski Areas project counts more than 200 lost ski areas in the state.On Crystal's backside evolution and confusing trailmapBy building pod after pod off the backside of the mountain, Crystal has nearly doubled in size since I first skied there in the mid-90s. The Ridge appeared around 2000; North Face came online in 2003; and Backyard materialized in 2015. These additions give Crystal a sprawling, adventurous feel on par with The Highlands or Nub's Nob. But the trailmap, while aesthetically pleasant, is one of the worst I've seen, as it's very unclear how the three pods link to one another, and in turn to the front of the mountain:This is a fixable problem, as I outlined in my last podcast, with Vista Map founder Gary Milliken, who untangled similarly confusing trailmaps for Mt. Spokane, Washington and Lookout Pass, Idaho over the past couple of years. Here's Lookout Pass' old and new maps side-by-side:And here's Mt. Spokane:Crystal – if you'd like an introduction to Gary, I'm happy to make that happen.On resort consolidation in the MidwestThe Midwest has not been sheltered from the consolidation wave that's rolled over much of the West and New England over the past few decades. Of the region's 123 active ski areas, 25 are owned by entities that operate two or more ski areas: Vail Resorts owns 10; Wisconsin Resorts, five; Midwest Family Ski Resorts, four; the Schmitz Brothers, three; Boyne, two; and the Perfect Family, which also owns Timberline in West Virginia, one. But 98 of the region's ski areas remain independently owned and operated. While a couple dozen of those are tiny municipal ropetow bumps with inconsistent operations and little or no snowmaking, most of those that run at least one chairlift are family-owned ski areas that, last winter notwithstanding, are doing very well on a formula of reasonable prices + a focus on kids and night-skiing. Here's the present landscape of Midwest skiing:On the consolidation of Crystal's lift fleetCrystal once ran five frontside chairlifts:Today, the mountain has consolidated that to just five, despite a substantively unchanged trail footprint. While Crystal stopped running the Cheers lift around 2016, its shadowy outline still appears along the Cheers To Lou run.Crystal is way out ahead of the rest of the Midwest, which built most of its ski areas in the age of cheap fixed-grip lifts and never bothered to replace them. The king of these dinosaurs may be Afton Alps, Minnesota, with 15 Hall chairlifts (it was, until recently, 17) lined up along the ridge, the newest of them dating to 1979:It's kind of funny that Vail owns this anachronism, which, despite its comic-book layout, is actually a really fun little ski area.On Crystal's many discounted lift ticket optionsWhile Crystal is as high-end as any resort you'll find in Michigan, the ski area still offers numerous loveably kitschy discounts of the sort that every ski area in the country once sold:Browse these and more on their website.On Indy Pass' dispute with Ski CooperLast year, Indy Pass accused Ski Cooper of building a reciprocal resort network that turned the ski area's discount season pass into a de facto national ski pass that competed directly with Indy. Indy then told its partners to ditch Cooper or leave Indy. Crystal was one of those resorts, and found a workaround by joining the Freedom Pass, which maintained the three Cooper days for their passholders without technically violating Indy Pass' mandate. You can read the full story here:On Bohemia and CaberfaeCrystal left Freedom Pass for this winter, but has retained reciprocal deals with Mount Bohemia and Caberfae. I've hosted leaders of both ski areas on the podcast, and they are two of my favorite episodes: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 73/100 in 2024, and number 573 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

Get to know why combers are important. Receive an in depth analysis report behind SS Novadoc's journey on Lake Michigan starting around 12PM come November 11. Get introduced to William Krewell, Little Sable Point's Lighthouse Keeper, including his role behind performing communication miracle networking when so many other people were experiencing the exact opposite. Learn about the procedures which United States Coast Guard Stations along Lake Michigan required their crews to perform. Determine if there are special vessels within United States Coast Guard. Come across an unexpected situation impacting the Coast Guard along Lake Michigan Monday November 11. Discover just how intense the overall wind speed came out to be exactly along Lake Michigan. Learn exactly how bad the storm impacted Lansing Shoals Lighthouse. Figure out what exactly was the most widely common transportation practice operating regularly between Michigan's Upper & Lower Peninsula's in 1940. Go behind the scenes and understand why Little Bay de Noc endured the storm's overall brunt. Determine if Michigan's Lower Peninsula had fared any better than her counterpart to the north. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 17. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 24. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:When we recorded this podcast, Norway Mountain's adult season pass rates were set at $289. They have since increased by $100, but Hoppe is offering a $100 discount with the code “storm” through Nov. 1, 2024.WhoJustin Hoppe, Owner of Norway Mountain, MichiganRecorded onSeptember 16, 2024About Norway MountainOwned by: Justin HoppeLocated in: Norway, MichiganYear founded: Around 1974, as Norvul ski area; then Vulcan USA; then Briar Mountain; then Mont Brier; and finally Norway Mountain from ~1993 to 2012; then from 2014 to 2017; re-opened 2024Pass affiliations: Freedom Pass – 3 days each at these ski areas:Closest neighboring ski areas: Pine Mountain (:22), Keyes Peak (:35), Crystella (:46), Gladstone (:59), Ski Brule (1:04)Base elevation: 835 feetSummit elevation: 1,335 feetVertical drop: 500 feetSkiable Acres: 186Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 15Lift count: 6 (1 triple, 2 doubles, 3 handle tows)The map above is what Norway currently displays on its website. Here's a 2007 map that's substantively the same, but with higher resolution:View historic Norway Mountain trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himWhat a noble act: to resurrect a dead ski area. I'll acknowledge that a ski area is just a business. But it's also a (usually) irreplaceable community asset, an organ without which the body can live but does not function quite right. We read about factories closing up and towns dying along with them. This is because the jobs leave, yes, but there's an identity piece too. As General Motors pulled out of Saginaw and Flint in the 1980s and ‘90s, I watched, from a small town nearby, those places lose a part of their essence, their swagger and character. People were proud to have a GM factory in town, to have a GM job with a good wage, to be a piece of a global something that everyone knew about.Something less profound but similar happens when a ski area shuts down. I've written before about Apple Mountain, the 200-vertical-foot bump in Freeland, Michigan where I spent my second-ever day on skis:[Apple Mountain] has been closed since 2017. Something about the snowmaking system that's either too hard or too expensive to fix. That leaves Michigan's Tri-Cities – Midland, Bay City, and Saginaw, with a total metro population approaching 400,000 – with no functioning ski area. Snow Snake is only about 40 minutes north of Midland, and Mt. Holly is less than an hour south of Saginaw. But Apple Mountain, tucked into the backwoods behind Freeland, sat dead in the middle of the triangle. It was accessible to almost any schoolkid, and, humble as it was, stoked that fire for thousands of what became lifelong skiers.What skiing has lost without Apple Mountain is impossible to calculate. I would argue that it was one of the more important ski areas anywhere. Winters in mid-Michigan are long, cold, snowy, and dull. People need something to do. But skiing is not an obvious solution: this is the flattest place you can imagine. To have skiing – any skiing – in the region was a joy and a novelty. There was no redundancy, no competing ski center. And so the place was impossibly busy at all times, minting skiers who would go off to start ski newsletters and run huge resorts on the other side of the country.When the factory closes, the jobs go, and often nothing replaces them. Losing a ski area is similar. The skiers go, and nothing replaces them. The kids just do other things. They never become skiers.Children of Men, released in 2006, envisions a world 18 years after women have stopped having babies. Humanity lives on, but has collectively lost its soul. Violence and disorder reign. The movie is heralded for its extended single-shot battle scenes, but Children of Men's most remarkable moment is when a baby, born in the midst of a firefight, momentarily paralyzes the war as her protectors parade her to sanctuary:Humanity needs babies like winter needs skiers. But we have to keep making more.Yes, I'm being hyperbolic about the importance of resurrecting a lost ski area. If you're new here, that part of My Brand™. A competing, similar-sized ski center, Pine Mountain, is only 20 minutes from Norway. But that's 13 miles, which for a kid may as well be 1,000. Re-opening Norway is going to seed new skiers. Some of them will ski four times and forget about it and some of them will take spring break trips to Colorado when they get to college and a few of them may wrap their lives around it.And if they don't ever ski? Well, who knows. I almost didn't become a skier. I was 14 when my buddy said “Hey let's take the bus to Mott Mountain after school,” and I said “OK,” and even though I was Very Bad at it, I went again a few weeks later at Apple Mountain. Both of those hills are closed now. If I were growing up in Central Michigan now, would I have become a skier? What would I be if I wasn't one? How awful would that be?What we talked aboutBack from the dead; the West Michigan snowbelt; the power of the ski family; Caberfae; Pando's not for sale; when you decide to buy a lost ski area; how lost Norway was almost lost forever; the small business mindset; surprise bills; what a ski area looks like when it's sat idle for six years; piecing a sold-off snowmaking system back together; Norway's very unique lift fleet; glades; the trailmap; Norway's new logo; the Wild West of websites; the power of social media; where to even begin when you buy a ski area; the ups and downs of living at your ski area; shifting from renovation to operation; Norway's uneven history and why this time is different; is there enough room for Pine Mountain and Norway in such a small market?; why night skiing won't return on a regular basis this winter; send the school buses; it doesn't snow much but at least it stays cold; can Norway revitalize its legendary ski school?; and why Norway joined the Freedom Pass.  Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewHello Mr. Television Network Executive. Thank you for agreeing to hear my pitch. I understand I have 10 minutes with you, which is perfect, because what I'm proposing will take no fewer than five years, while simultaneously taking 10 years off both our lives. Because my show is called Who Wants to Own a Ski Area?The show works like this: contestants will navigate a series of logic puzzles, challenges, and obstacle courses. These will act as elimination rounds. We can base everyone at an abandoned ski resort, like in The Last of Us, where they will live while games materialize at random. Some examples:* It's 3 a.m. Everyone is sleeping. Alarms blare. A large structure has caught fire. The water has been cut off, but somehow you're standing in a knee-deep flood. Your firefighting arsenal consists of a bucket. You call the local volunteer fire department, which promises you they will “be along whenever Ed gits up here with the gay-rage door keys.” Whoever keeps the building from melting into a pile of ashes wins.* It's state inspection day. All machinery must be in working order. We present each contestant with a pile of sprockets, hoses, wires, clips, and metal parts of varying sizes and thickness. Their instructions are to rebuild this machine. We do not tell them what the machine is supposed to be. The good news is that the instruction manual is sitting right there. The bad news is that it's written in Polish. The pile is missing approximately seven to 20 percent of the machine's parts, without which the device may operate, but perhaps not in a way compatible with human life. Whoever's put-together machine leads to the fewest deaths advances to the next round.* The contestants are introduced to Big Jim. Big Jim has worked at the ski area since 1604. He has been through 45 ownership groups, knows everything about the mountain, and everyone on the mountain. Because of this, Big Jim knows you can't fire him lest you stoke a rebellion of labor and/or clientele. And he can tell you which pipes are where without you having to dig up half the mountain. But Big Jim keeps as much from getting done as he actually does. He resists the adoption of “fads” such as snowmaking, credit cards, and the internet. The challenge facing contestants is to get Big Jim to send a text message. He asks why the letters are arranged “all stupid” on the keyboard. The appearance of an emoji causes him to punch the phone several times and heave it into the woods.* Next we introduce the contestants to Fran and Freddy Filmore from Frankenmuth. The Filmores have been season passholders since the Lincoln Administration. They have nine kids in ski school, each of which has special dietary needs. Their phones are loaded with photos of problems: of liftlines, of dirt patches postholing trails, of an unsmiling parking attendant, of abandoned boot bags occupying cafeteria tables, of skis and snowboards and poles scattered across the snow rather than being placed on the racks that are right there for goodness sake. The Filmores want answers. The Filmores also want you to bring back Stray Cat Wednesdays, in which you could trade a stray cat for a lift ticket. But the Filmores are not actually concerned with solutions. No matter the quickness or efficacy of a remedy, they still “have concerns.” Surely you have 90 minutes to discuss this. Then the fire alarm goes off.* Next, the contestents will meet Hella Henry and his boys Donuts, Doznuts, Deeznuts, Jam Box, and 40 Ounce. HH and the Crushnutz Krew, as they call themselves, are among your most loyal customers. Though they are all under the age of 20, it is unclear how any of them could attend school or hold down a job, since they are at your hill for 10 to 12 hours per day. During that time, the crew typically completes three runs. They spend the rest of their time vaping, watching videos on their phones, and sitting six wide just below a blind lip in the terrain park. The first contestant to elicit a response from the Crushnutz Krew that is anything other than “that's chill” wins.The victor will win their very own ski area, complete with a several-thousand person Friends of [Insert Ski Area Name] group where 98 percent of the posts are complaints about the ski area. The ski center will be functional, but one popped bolt away from catastrophe in four dozen locations. The chairlifts will be made by a company that went out of business in 1912. The groomer will be towed by a yak. The baselodge will accommodate four percent of the skiers who show up on a busy day. The snowmaking “system” draws its water from a birdbath. Oh, and it's in the middle of nowhere in the middle of winter, and they're going to have to find people to work there.Oh, you love it Mr. Television Network Executive? That's so amazing. Now I can quit my job and just watch the money pile up. What do I do for a living? Well, I run a ski area.Hoppe won the contest. And I wanted to wish him luck.What I got wrongI lumped Ski Brule in with Pine Mountain as ski areas that are near Norway. While only 20-ish minutes separate Pine and Norway, Brule is in fact more than an hour away.Why you should ski Norway MountainYou can ski every run on Norway Mountain in one visit. There's something satisfying in that. You can drive off at the end of the day and not feel like you missed anything.There are hundreds of ski areas in North America like this. Most of them manage, somehow, to stuff the full spectrum of ski experience into an area equal to one corner of one of Vail's 90 or whatever Legendary Back Bowls. There are easy runs and hard runs. Long runs and short runs. Narrow runs and wide runs. Runs under the lifts and runs twisting through the trees. Some sort of tree-skiing. Some sort of terrain park. A little windlip that isn't supposed to be a cornice but skis like one, 9-year-olds leaping off it one after the next and turning around to watch each other after they land. Sometimes there is powder. Sometimes there is ice. Sometimes the grooming is magnificent. Sometimes the snow really sucks. Over two to four hours and 20 to 30 chairlift rides, you can fully absorb what a ski area is and why it exists.This is an experience that is more difficult to replicate at our battleship resorts, with 200 runs scribbled over successive peaks like a medieval war map. I ski these resorts differently. Where are the blacks? Where are the trees? Where are the bumps? I go right for them and I don't bother with anything else. And that eats up three or four days even at a known-cruiser like Keystone. In a half-dozen trips into Little Cottonwood Canyon, I've skied a top-to-bottom groomer maybe twice. Because skiing groomers at Alta-Snowbird is like ordering pizza at a sushi restaurant. Like why did you even come here?But even after LCC fluff, when I've descended back to the terrestrial realm, I still like skiing the Norway Mountains of the land. Big mountains are wonderful, but they come with big hassle, big crowds, big traffic, big attitudes, big egos. At Norway you can pull practically up to the lifts and be skiing seven minutes later, after booting up and buying your lift ticket. You can ski right onto the lift and the guy in the Carhartt will nod at you and if you're just a little creative and thoughtful every run will feel distinct. And you can roll into the chalet and grab a pastie and bomb the whole mountain again after lunch.And it will all feel different on that second lap. When there are 25 runs instead of 250, you absorb them differently. The rush to see it all evaporates. You can linger with it, mingle with the mountain, talk to it in a way that's harder up top. It's all so awesome in its own way.Podcast NotesOn Pando Ski CenterI grew up about two hours from the now-lost Pando Ski Center, but I never skied there. When I did make it to that side of Michigan, I opted to ski Cannonsburg, the still-functioning multi-lift ski center seven minutes up the road. Of course, in the Storm Wandering Mode that is my default ski orientation nowadays, I would have simply hit both. But that's no longer possible, because Cannonsburg purchased Pando in 2015 and subsequently closed it. Probably forever.Hoppe and I discuss this a bit on the pod. He actually tried to buy the joint. Too many problems with it, he was told. So he bought some of the ski area's snowguns and other equipment. Better that at least something lives on.Pando didn't leave much behind. The only trailmap I can find is part of this Ski write-up from February 1977:Apparently Pando was a onetime snowboarding hotspot. Here's a circa 2013 video of a snowboarder doing snowboarderly stuff:On CannonsburgWhile statistically humble, with just 250 vertical feet, Cannonsburg is the closest skiing to metropolitan Grand Rapids, Michigan, population 1.08 million. That ensures that the parks-oriented bump is busy at all times:On CaberfaeOne of Hoppe's (and my) favorite ski areas is Caberfae. This was my go-to when I lived in Central Michigan, as it delivered both decent vert (485 feet), and an interesting trail network (the map undersells it):The Meyer family has owned and operated Caberfae for decades, and they constantly improve the place. GM Tim Meyer joined me on the pod a few years back to tell the story.On Norway's proximity to Pine MountainNorway sits just 23 minutes down US 2 from Pine Mountain. The two ski areas sport eerily similar profiles: both measure 500 vertical feet and run two double chairs and one triple. Both face the twin challenges of low snowfall (around 60 inches per season), and a relatively thin local population base (Iron Mountain's metro area is home to around 32,500 people). It's no great surprise that Norway struggled in previous iterations. Here's a look at Pine:On Big TupperI mention Big Tupper as a lost ski area that will have an extra hard time coming back since it's been stripped (I think completely), of snowmaking. This ski area isn't necessarily totally dead: the lifts are still standing, and the property is going to auction next month, but it will take tens of millions to get the place running again. It was at one time a fairly substantial operation, as this circa 1997 trailmap shows:On Sneller chairliftsNorway runs two Sneller double chairs. Only one other Sneller is still spinning, at Ski Sawmill, a short and remote Pennsylvania bump. Lift Blog catalogued the machine here. It wasn't spinning when I skied Sawmill a couple of years ago, but I did snag some photos:On Norway's new logoIn general, animals make good logos. Hoppe designed this one himself:On social mediaHoppe has done a nice job of updating Norway's rebuild progress on social media, mostly via the mountain's Facebook page. Here are links to a few other social accounts we discussed:* Skiers and Snowboarders of the Midwest is a big champion of ski areas of all sizes throughout the region. The Midwest Skiers group is pretty good too.* Magic Mountain, Vermont, an underdog for decades, finally dug itself out of the afterthoughts pile at least in part due to the strength of its Instagram and Twitter presence.* The formerly dumpy Holiday Mountain, New York, has meticulously documented its rebuild under new ownership on Instagram and Facebook.On NeighborsMy 17-year-old brain could not comprehend the notion that two ski areas operated across the street from – and independent of – one another. But there they were: Nub's Nob and Boyne Highlands (now The Highlands), each an opposite turn off Pleasantview Road.We turned right, to Nub's, because we were in high school and because we all made like $4.50 an hour and because Nub's probably had like 10-Cent Tuesdays or something.I've since skied both mountains many times, but the novelty has never faded. Having one of something so special as a ski area in your community is marvelous. Having two is like Dang who won the lottery? There are, of course, examples of this all over the country – Sugarbush/Mad River Glen, Stowe/Smugglers' Notch, Alta/Snowbird, Timberline/Meadows/Skibowl – and it's incredible how distinct each one's identity remains even with shared borders and, often, passes.On UP ski areasMichigan's Upper Peninsula is a very particular animal. Only three percent of the state's 10 million residents live north of the Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) Bridge. Lower Peninsula skiers are far more likely to visit Colorado or Vermont than their far-north in-state ski areas, which are a 10-plus hour drive from the more populous southern tiers. While Bohemia's ultra-cheap pass and rowdy terrain have somewhat upset that equation, the UP remains, for purposes of skiing and ski culture, essentially a separate state.My point is that it's worth organizing the state's ski areas in the way that they practically exist in skiers minds. So I've separated the UP from the Lower Peninsula. Since Michigan is also home to an outsized number of town ropetows, I've also split surface-lift-only operations into their own categories:On last winter being very bad with record-low skier visitsSkier visits were down in every region of the United States last winter, but they all but collapsed in the Midwest, with a 26.7 percent plunge, according to the annual Kottke Demographic Report. Michigan alone was down nearly a half million skier visits. Check out these numbers:For comparison, overall skier numbers dropped just six percent in the Northeast, and five percent in the Rockies.The Storm publishes year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 66/100 in 2024, and number 566 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

The smell was overwhelming on that July day in 1968 as Monnie Bliss approached the cabin that his father Chauncey had built years earlier near the community of Good Hart, on the Lower Peninsula of Michigan's Northwest Coast. And the murders that ended up being discovered in the strange cabin in the woods would be a mystery that has yet to solved.Check out our updated website and sign up for our newsletter at AmericanHauntingsPodcast.comWant an episode every week, plus other awesome perks and discounts? Check out our Patreon pageFind out merch at AmericanHauntingsClothing.comFollow us on Twitter @AmerHauntsPod, @TroyTaylor13, @CodyBeckSTLFollow us on Instagram @AmericanHauntingsPodcast, @TroyTaylorgram, @CodyBeckSTLThis episode was written by Troy TaylorProduced and edited by Cody BeckOur Sponsors:* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com/* Check out undefined and use my code HAUNTINGS for a great deal: undefinedSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/american-hauntings-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/602 Presented By: FishHound Expeditions, Skwala, Waters West, Visit Helena, MT Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors In this episode of the Great Lakes Dude podcast, we're gonna chit-chat and take a journey into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with Capt. Brad Petzke, owner of Rivers North Guide Service. Yes, it's still Michigan. Once you cross that big, long Mackinac bridge and head north from the Lower Peninsula, it almost seems like another state. Once you cross it, things start to get a little more wilderness, a lot less towns and cities and villages, and just a lot of water and opportunities to explore.

Tonight's guest, Dwayne, was featured on Episode 409, and on that show, he told us about the Dogman encounter he had in 2012, while deer hunting in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Well, this last January, he had another encounter and that's what he's going to be talking about on tonight's livestream episode of the show. He'll also be answering listener questions that are posted in the live chat. We hope you'll join us in the live chat and that you'll have plenty of questions for Dwayne.  Premium memberships are now available! If you'd like to be able to listen to the show without ads and have full access to premium content, please go to https://DogmanEncounters.com/Podcast to find out how to become a premium member.  If you'd like to help support the show, by buying your own Dogman Encounters t-shirt, sweatshirt, tank top, or coffee mug, please visit the Dogman Encounters Show Store, by going to https://Dogman-Encounters.MyShopify.com  If you've had a Dogman encounter and would like to speak with me about it, whether you'd like to keep your encounter confidential or be interviewed on a show, please go to https://DogmanEncounters.com and submit a report.  If you've had a Sasquatch sighting and would like to be a guest on My Bigfoot Sighting, please go to https://MyBigfootSighting.com and submit a report.I produce 3 other podcasts. Below, you'll find links to them.  My Bigfoot Sighting...  https://spreaker.page.link/xT7zh6zWsnCDaoVa7  Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio...  https://spreaker.page.link/WbtSccQm92TKBskT8  My Paranormal Experience https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-paranormal-experience  Thanks for listening!

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, we talk to James Miller about all things habitat in the Southwest Lower Peninsula region of the state, fly away with a discussion about the American woodcock, answer a question about the existence of coywolves and we wrap up the episode with a chat about Michigan black bears. Pete Kailing also stops in to talk about hunting and trapping opportunities available in the month of March. Episode Hosts: Rachel Lincoln and Eric HilliardProducer/editor: Eric HilliardFor Pete's sakeHunting regulation summary bookletsAll things habitatState Game and Wildlife AreasAll things feathersAmerican woodcockAll things furAmerican black bearQuestions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, we talk to Scott Eggeman about all things habitat in the Northern Lower Peninsula region of the state, fly away with a discussion about crows, and we wrap up the episode with a chat about otters. Pete Kailing also stops in to talk about hunting and trapping opportunities available in the month of February. Episode Hosts: Rachel Lincoln and Eric HilliardProducer/editor: Eric HilliardAll things habitatMichigan.gov/elkAll things feathersAmerican crowBird walk event registrationAll things furNorth American river otterQuestions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

RADM Dan May, USCG (ret.) Photo by Jeremy D'Entremont. Daniel R. May graduated with a degree in ocean engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, in the class of 1979. During his time as the ocean engineer for the Fifth Coast Guard District, Dan worked on lighthouse projects from Delaware Bay to the Carolinas. Dan eventually moved to Civil Engineering Unit Providence, Rhode Island, where he served as the project engineer for several major lighthouse projects including the relocation of Block Island Southeast Light, the first move of a major lighthouse structure in the United States. Dan retired as a rear admiral in 2013. He is the author of a new book published by the U.S. Lighthouse Society, called Preserving America's Lighthouses: Memoirs of a Coast Guard Ocean Engineer. Tawas Point Lighthouse during restoration. Tawas Point Lighthouse is located in Tawas Point State Park in the northeastern part of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The State of Michigan acquired Tawas Point Light Station from the Coast Guard in 2002. Today, it's one of twelve sites that comprise the Michigan History Center. Laurie Perkins is the Southern Lower Peninsula Historian for the Michigan History Center and she also coordinates the keeper program at Tawas Point Lighthouse. In this interview, Laurie describes the recent restoration of the lighthouse and also the keepers program, which is returning after an absence of a few years.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 14. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 21. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoJim Vick, General Manager of Lutsen Mountains, MinnesotaRecorded onOctober 30, 2023About Lutsen MountainsClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Midwest Family Ski ResortsLocated in: Lutsen, MinnesotaYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Legendary Gold Pass – unlimited access, no blackouts* Legendary Silver Pass – unlimited with 12 holiday and peak Saturday blackouts* Legendary Bronze Pass – unlimited weekdays with three Christmas week blackouts* Indy Pass – 2 days with 24 holiday and Saturday blackouts* Indy Plus Pass – 2 days with no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Chester Bowl (1:44), Loch Lomond (1:48), Spirit Mountain (1:54), Giants Ridge (1:57), Mt. Baldy (2:11)Base elevation: 800 feetSummit elevation: 1,688 feetVertical drop: 1,088 feet (825 feet lift-served)Skiable Acres: 1,000Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesTrail count: 95 (10% expert, 25% most difficult, 47% more difficult, 18% easiest)Lift count: 7 (1 eight-passenger gondola, 2 high-speed six-packs, 3 double chairs, 1 carpet)View historic Lutsen Mountains trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himI often claim that Vail and Alterra have failed to appreciate Midwest skiing. I realize that this can be confusing. Vail Resorts owns 10 ski areas from Missouri to Ohio. Alterra's Ikon Pass includes a small but meaningful presence in Northern Michigan. What the hell am I talking about here?Lutsen, while a regional standout and outlier, illuminates each company's blind spots. In 2018, the newly formed Alterra Mountain Company looted the motley M.A.X. Pass roster for its best specimens, adding them to its Ikon Pass. Formed partly from the ashes of Intrawest, Alterra kept all of their own mountains and cherry-picked the best of Boyne and Powdr, leaving off Boyne's Michigan mountains, Brighton, Summit at Snoqualmie, and Cypress (which Ikon later added); and Powdr's Boreal, Lee Canyon, Pico, and Bachelor (Pico and Bachelor eventually made the team). Alterra also added Solitude and Crystal after purchasing them later in 2018, and, over time, Windham and Alyeska. Vail bought Triple Peaks (Crested Butte, Okemo, Sunapee), later that year, and added Resorts of the Canadian Rockies to its Epic Pass. But that left quite a few orphans, including Lutsen and sister mountain Granite Peak, which eventually joined the Indy Pass (which didn't debut until 2019).All of which is technocratic background to set up this question: what the hell was Alterra thinking? In Lutsen and Granite Peak, Alterra had, ready to snatch, two of the largest, most well-cared-for, most built-up resorts between Vermont and Colorado. Midwest Family Ski Resorts CEO Charles Skinner is one of the most aggressive and capable ski area operators anywhere. These mountains, with their 700-plus-foot vertical drops, high-speed lifts, endless glade networks, and varied terrain deliver a big-mountain experience that has more in common with a mid-sized New England ski area than anything within several hundred miles in any direction. It's like someone in a Colorado boardroom and a stack of spreadsheets didn't bother looking past the ZIP Codes when deciding what to keep and what to discard.This is one of the great miscalculations in the story of skiing's shift to multimountain pass hegemony. By overlooking Lutsen Mountains and Granite Peak in its earliest days, Alterra missed an opportunity to snatch enormous volumes of Ikon Pass sales across the Upper Midwest. Any Twin Cities skier (and there are a lot of them), would easily be able to calculate the value of an Ikon Pass that could deliver 10 or 14 days between Skinner's two resorts, and additional days on that mid-winter western run. By dismissing the region, Alterra also enabled the rise of the Indy Pass, now the only viable national multi-mountain pass product for the Midwestern skier outside of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. These sorts of regional destinations, while not as “iconic” as, say, Revelstoke, move passes; the sort of resort-hopping skier who is attracted to a multi-mountain pass is going to want to ski near home as much as they want to fly across the country.Which is a formula Vail Resorts, to its credit, figured out a long time ago. Which brings us back to those 10 Midwestern ski areas hanging off the Epic Pass attendance sheet. Vail has, indeed, grasped the utility of the Midwestern, city-adjacent day-ski area, and all 10 of its resorts fit neatly into that template: 75 chairlifts on 75 vertical feet with four trees seated within 10 miles of a city center. But here's what they missed: outside of school groups; Park Brahs who like to Park Out, Brah; and little kids, these ski areas hold little appeal even to Midwesterners. That they are busy beyond comprehension at all times underscores, rather than refutes, that point – something simulating a big-mountain experience, rather than a street riot, is what the frequent Midwest skier seeks.For that, you have to flee the cities. Go north, find something in the 400- to 600-foot vertical range, something with glades and nooks and natural snow. Places like Caberfae, Crystal Mountain, Nub's Nob, and Shanty Creek in Michigan; Cascade, Devil's Head, and Whitecap, Wisconsin; Giants Ridge and Spirit Mountain, Minnesota. Lutsen is the best of all of these, a sprawler with every kind of terrain flung across its hundreds of acres. A major ski area. A true resort. A Midwestern dream.Vick and I discuss the Ikon snub in the podcast. It's weird. And while Alterra, five years later, is clearly doing just fine, its early decision to deliberately exclude itself from one of the world's great ski regions is as mystifying a strategic choice as I've seen any ski company make. Vail, perhaps, understands the Midwest resort's true potential, but never found one it could close on – there aren't that many of them, and they aren't often for sale. Perhaps they dropped a blank check on Skinner's desk, and he promptly deposited it into the nearest trashcan.All of which is a long way of saying this: Lutsen is the best conventional ski area in the Midwest (monster ungroomed Mount Bohemia is going to hold more appeal for a certain sort of expert skier), and one of the most consistently excellent ski operations in America. Its existence ought to legitimize the region to national operators too bent on dismissing it. Someday, they will understand that. And after listening to this podcast, I hope that you will, too.What we talked aboutWhy Lutsen never makes snow in October; Minnesota as early-season operator; the new Raptor Express six-pack; why the Bridge double is intact but retiring from winter operations; why Lutsen removed the 10th Mountain triple; why so many Riblet chairs are still operating; why Moose Return trail will be closed indefinitely; potential new lower-mountain trails on Eagle Mountain; an updated season-opening plan; how lake-effect snow impacts the west side of Lake Superior; how the Raptor lift may impact potential May operations; fire destroys Papa Charlie's; how it could have been worse; rebuilding the restaurant; Lutsen's long evolution from backwater to regional leader and legit western alternative; the Skinner family's aggressive operating philosophy; the history of Lutsen's gondola, the only such machine in Midwest skiing; Lutsen's ambitious but stalled masterplan; potential Ullr and Mystery mountain chairlift upgrades; “the list of what skiers want is long”; why Lutsen switched to a multi-mountain season pass with Granite Peak and Snowriver; and “if we would have been invited into the Ikon at the start, we would have jumped on that.”Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewFor all my gushing above, Lutsen isn't perfect. While Granite Peak has planted three high-speed lifts on the bump in the past 20 years, Lutsen has still largely been reliant on a fleet of antique Riblets, plus a sixer that landed a decade ago and the Midwest's only gondola, a glimmering eight-passenger Doppelmayr machine installed in 2015. While a fixed-grip foundation isn't particularly abnormal for the Midwest, which is home to probably the largest collection of antique chairlifts on the planet, it's off-brand for burnished Midwest Family Ski Resorts.Enter, this year, Lutsen's second six-pack, Raptor Express, which replaces both the 10th Mountain triple (removed), and the Bridge double (demoted to summer-only use). This new lift, running approximately 600 vertical feet parallel to Bridge, will (sort of; more below), smooth out the janky connection from Moose back to Eagle. And while the loss of 10th Mountain will mean 300 vertical feet of rambling below the steep upper-mountain shots, Raptor is a welcome upgrade that will help Lutsen keep up with the Boynes.However, even as this summer moved the mountain ahead with the Raptor installation, a storm demolished a skier bridge over the river on Moose Return, carving a several-hundred-foot-wide, unbridgeable (at least in the short term), gap across the trail. Which means that skiers will have to connect back to Eagle via gondola, somewhat dampening Raptor's expected impact. That's too bad, and Vick and I talk extensively about what that means for skiers this coming winter.The final big timely piece of this interview is the abrupt cancellation of Lutsen's massive proposed terrain expansion, which would have more than doubled the ski area's size with new terrain on Moose and Eagle mountains. Here's what they were hoping to do with Moose:And Eagle:Over the summer, Lutsen withdrew the plan, and Superior National Forest Supervisor Thomas Hall recommended a “no action” alternative, citing “irreversible damage” to mature white cedar and sugar maple stands, displacement of backcountry skiers, negative impacts to the 300-mile-long Superior hiking trail, objections from Native American communities, and water-quality concerns. Lutsen had until Oct. 10 to file an objection to the decision, and they did. What happens now? we discuss that.Questions I wish I'd askedIt may have been worth getting into the difference between Lutsen's stated lift-served vertical (825 feet), and overall vertical (1,088 feet). But it wasn't really necessary, as I asked the same question of Midwest Family Ski Resorts CEO Charles Skinner two years ago. He explains the disparity at the 25:39 mark:What I got wrongI said that Boyne Mountain runs the Hemlock double chair instead of the Mountain Express six-pack for summer operations. That is not entirely true, as Mountain Express sometimes runs, as does the new Disciples 8 chair on the far side of the mountain's Sky Bridge.I referred to Midwest Family Ski Resorts CEO Charles Skinner as “Charles Skinner Jr.” He is in fact Charles Skinner IV.Why you should ski Lutsen MountainsOne of the most unexpected recurring messages I receive from Storm readers floats out of the West. Dedicated skiers of the big-mountain, big-snow kingdoms of the Rockies, they'd never thought much about skiing east of the Continental Divide. But now they're curious. All these profiles of New England girth and history, Midwest backwater bumps, and Great Lakes snowtrains have them angling for a quirky adventure, for novelty and, perhaps, a less-stressful version of skiing. These folks are a minority. Most Western skiers wear their big-mountain chauvinism as a badge of stupid pride. Which I understand. But they are missing a version of skiing that is heartier, grittier, and more human than the version that swarms from the western skies.So, to those few who peek east over the fortress walls and consider the great rolling beyond, I tell you this: go to Lutsen. If you're only going to ski the Midwest once, and only in a limited way, this is one of the few must-experience stops. Lutsen and Bohemia. Mix and match the rest. But these two are truly singular.To the rest of you, well: Midwest Family's stated goal is to beef up its resorts so that they're an acceptable substitute for a western vacation. Lutsen's website even hosts a page comparing the cost of a five-day trip there and to Breckenridge:Sure, that's slightly exaggerated, and yes, Breck crushes Lutsen in every on-mountain statistical category, from skiable acreage to vertical drop to average annual snowfall. But 800 vertical feet is about what an average skier can manage in one go anyway. And Lutsen really does give you a bigger-mountain feel than anything for a thousand miles in either direction (except, as always, the Bohemia exception). And when you board that gondy and swing up the cliffs toward Moose Mountain, you're going to wonder where, exactly, you've been transported to. Because it sure as hell doesn't look like Minnesota.Podcast NotesOn Midwest Family Ski ResortsMidwest Family Ski Resorts now owns four ski areas (Snowriver, Michigan is one resort with two side-by-side ski areas). Here's an overview:On the loss of Moose ReturnA small but significant change will disrupt skiing at Lutsen Mountains this winter: the destruction of the skier bridge at the bottom of the Moose Return trail that crosses the Poplar River, providing direct ski access from Moose to Eagle mountains. Vick details why this presents an unfixable obstacle in the podcast, but you can see that Lutsen removed the trail from its updated 2023-24 map:On the Stowe gondola I referencedI briefly referenced Stowe's gondola as a potential model for traversing the newly re-gapped Moose Return run. The resort is home to two gondolas – the 2,100-vertical-foot, 7,664-foot-long, eight-passenger Mansfield Gondola; and the 1,454-foot-long, six-passenger Over Easy Gondola, which moves between the Mansfield and Spruce bases. It is the latter that I'm referring to in the podcast: On Mt. FrontenacVick mentions that his first job was at Mt. Frontenac, a now-lost 420-vertical-foot ski area in Minnesota. Here was a circa 2000 trailmap:Apparently a local group purchased the ski area and converted it into a golf course. Boo.On the evolution of LutsenThe Skinners have been involved with Lutsen since the early 1980s. Here's a circa 1982 trailmap, which underscores the mountain's massive evolution over the decades:On the evolution of Granite PeakWhen Charles Skinner purchased Granite Peak, then known as Rib Mountain, it was a nubby little backwater, with neglected infrastructure and a miniscule footprint:And here it is today, a mile-wide broadside running three high-speed chairlifts:An absolutely stunning transformation.On Charles Skinner IIISkinner's 2021 Star Tribune obituary summarized his contributions to Lutsen and to skiing:Charles Mather Skinner III passed away on June 17th at the age of 87 in his new home in Red Wing, MN. …Charles was born in St. Louis, MO on August 30, 1933, to Eleanor Whiting Skinner and Charles Mather Skinner II. He grew up near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis where he loved racing sailboats during the summer and snow sliding adventures in the winter.At the age of 17, he joined the United States Navy and fought in the Korean War as a navigator aboard dive bombers. After his service, he returned home to Minnesota where he graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School, served on the law review, and began practicing law in Grand Rapids, MN.In 1962, he led the formation of Sugar Hills Ski and purchased Sugar Lake (Otis) Resort in Grand Rapids, MN. For 20 years, Charles pioneer-ed snowmaking inventions, collaborated with other Midwest ski area owners to build a golden age for Midwest ski areas, and advised ski areas across the U.S. including Aspen on snowmaking.In the 1970s, Scott Paper Company recruited Charles to manage recreational lands across New England, and later promoted him to become President of Sugarloaf Mountain ski area in Maine. In 1980, he bought, and significantly expanded, Lutsen Mountains in Lutsen, MN, which is now owned and operated by his children.He and his wife spent many happy years on North Captiva Island, Florida, where they owned and operated Barnacle Phil's Restaurant. An entrepreneur and risk-taker at heart, he never wanted to retire and was always looking for new business ventures.His work at Sugar Hills, Lutsen Mountains and North Captive Island helped local economics expand and thrive.He was a much-respected leader and inspiration to thousands of people over the years. Charles was incredibly intellectually curious and an avid reader, with a tremendous memory for facts and history.Unstoppable and unforgettable, he had a wonderful sense of humor and gave wise counsel to many. …On the number of ski areas on Forest Service landA huge number of U.S. ski areas operate on Forest Service land, with the majority seated in the West. A handful also sit in the Midwest and New England (Lutsen once sat partially on Forest Service land, but currently does not):On additional Midwest podcastsAs a native Midwesterner, I've made it a point to regularly feature the leaders of Midwest ski areas on the podcast. Dig into the archive:MICHIGANWISCONSINOHIOINDIANASOUTH DAKOTAThe Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 98/100 in 2023, and number 484 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Opening day for rifle season is November 15, and once again the Michigan DNR has banned baiting in hopes to curb cases of the lethal Chronic Wasting Disease among deer. On this Daily J, WWJ's Brian Fisher explores why officials say the ban is so important, and why some hunters are pushing back. (Credit: Getty Images)

Consumers Energy Empowers 6.7 Million Michigan Customers with Natural Gas and Electricity Across 68 Lower Peninsula Counties: Lauren Snyder Unpacks Their Role in Shaping Michigan's Future.Listen to Lauren Youngdahl Snyder as she discusses electric vehicles, renewable energy and efficiency with The Michigan Opportunity podcast!  Consumers Energy is an investor-owned utility that provides natural gas and electricity to 70% of Michiganders and serves customers in all 68 of the state's Lower Peninsula counties. Consumes Energy, a subsidiary of CMS Energy, was founded in 1886 and is currently headquartered in Jackson, Michigan. 

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, we talk to Joe Robison about all things habitat in the Southeast Lower Peninsula of Michigan, fly away with eastern screech-owls as we talk all things feathers, and we discuss the odorous, striped skunk in our all things fur segment.Episode Hosts: Rachel Leightner and Eric HilliardProducer/editor: Eric HilliardAll things habitatMichigan.gov/WaterfowlMichigan.gov/WetlandWondersAll things feathersEastern screech-owl (All about birds)All things furStriped skunk (iNaturalist)Nuisance wildlife informationQuestions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, we talk to Mike Parker about all things habitat in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, fly away with sharp-tailed grouse as we talk all things feathers, and we discuss the Ursus americanus in our all things fur segment.Episode Hosts: Rachel Leightner and Eric HilliardProducer/editor: Eric HilliardAll things habitatMichigan.gov/HuntingMichigan.gov/DeerAll things feathersSharp-tailed grouseAll things furBlack bearsNuisance wildlife informationQuestions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/481 Presented By: Mavrk Fly Fishing, Yellowstone Teton, Drifthook Fly Fishing, Togens Fly Shop Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors In today's episode, the Dude Jeff Liskay chats with one of the best shallow-water fly anglers, Dave Hurley. They connected because of their love for the freshwater Drum. They think it's a cool fish with its chicken feathers but interestingly enough, some people call it "trash fish". Now Dave joins our show today to talk about why these fish are great to target. Dave is a skinny water specialist that runs skinny water safari guide service. Dave roams the backwater of the Great Lakes based on the Lower Peninsula, Michigan where he pulls his way through the miles of skinny water flats, sight-fishing for a wide variety of warm water species out of his towee boat. Show Notes with Dave Hurley on Skinny Water Fishing 04:00 - Dave joined a community of fly fishermen who fished in the surf along the Pacific where they fished for Corbina, Surfperch, and Croaker species. Dave got really into fishing for Spotfin Croaker. 06:00 - Dave found out that a stonefly nymph pattern works great for Spotfin Croakers. 09:00 - Dave talks about getting his first boat. 17:50 - He talks about the time when he and his best friend fished sight fished for musky on the flats. 18:40 - His go-to is a 6-wt rod and occasional 7-wt. 19:30 - Dave now focuses on carp fishing and goes up to 10-wt. For leader, he goes up to 15-pound test, and sometimes 12 or 10-pound. 27:25 - Dave doesn't really pay attention to water temperatures. He and his team are mostly sight fishing. 35:55 - We talk about casting. "Your short game is just as important as your long game", Dave says. 39:25 - Dave's favorite line is the SA Bass Bug Fly Line. 42:25 - Dave talks about how he improvises when he ties his flies, tying them differently each time. He also talks about the common materials he uses. 47:40 - Jeff's go-to flies always have rubber. 49:00 - Dave talks about how being an artist affects his creativity in fishing. 51:00 - Dave talks about how he practices handling fish in a way that doesn't hurt the fish. And also talks about how he tries in his own little ways to protect the waters he fishes. Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/481

Bridge Michigan reported this week that fatal crash numbers remain high in post-pandemic Michigan, with safety advocates again citing risky driving behavior as the reason. On this week's Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, Bridge Michigan reporter Mike Wilkinson talks about his analysis of the data and what he found. In a second segment, Pamela Shadel Fischer, senior director of external engagement at the Washington, D.C.-based Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), offers her organization's perspective on the problem and how automated traffic enforcement could stem the tide. Wilkinson collected data that supports these troubling findings. He discovered that despite a decrease in overall driving during the pandemic, fatal crash rates have increased by 30 percent over that time frame, particularly in the northern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The discussion begins with an exploration of worrying trends: an alarming rise in reckless driving and crashes, particularly in rural areas. This is due to several factors, including higher speeds, more risky behavior on the roads, and a concerning disparity in seatbelt usage between rural and urban areas. Shadel Fischer is among advocates who say policy makers should promote measures that take advantage of automated technology to detect speeding. She also cites provisions in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to allow for the use of the technology, what she terms "safety cameras."

Please click Subscribe/Follow and give us a 5-star rating and review.  Click here to go to our website. Click here to donate to the show. Click here for Jens Closet.  Second week in Hell With Nadine..for the start of Season 8! Thanks to Black Swamp Paranormal's Nadine for sharing more creepy and spooky tales from their ghost outings!  Michigan Dogman In folklore, the Michigan Dogman was allegedly witnessed in 1887 in Wexford County, Michigan, United States. The creature is described as a seven-foot tall, blue-eyed, or amber-eyed bipedal canine-like animal with the torso of a man and a fearsome howl that sounds like a human scream. According to legends, the Michigan Dogman appears in a ten-year cycle that falls on years ending in 7. Sightings have been reported in several locations throughout Michigan, primarily in the northwestern quadrant of the Lower Peninsula. In 1987, the legend of the Michigan Dogman gained popularity when disc jockey Steve Cook at WTCM-FM recorded a song about the creature and its reported sightings. History This creature was unknown to most of the modern world until very late in the twentieth century. It is said to have been stalking the area around the Manistee River since the days when the Odawa tribes lived there. Authentic sources for sightings made prior to 1987, however, have never been documented beyond Steve Cook's song, discussed below. The first alleged encounter of the Michigan Dogman occurred in 1887 in Wexford County, when two lumberjacks saw a creature that they described as having a man's body and a dog's head. In 1937 in Paris, Michigan, Robert Fortney was attacked by five wild dogs and said that one of the five walked on two legs. Reports of similar creatures also came from Allegan County in the 1950s, and in Manistee and Cross Village in 1967. Linda S. Godfrey, in her book The Beast of Bray Road, compares the Manistee sightings to a similar creature sighted in Wisconsin known as the Beast of Bray Road. Hell, Michigan Hell is an unincorporated community in Livingston County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As an unincorporated community, Hell has no defined boundaries or population statistics of its own. Located within Putnam Township, the community is centered along Patterson Lake Road about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Ann Arbor and three miles (4.8 km) southwest of Pinckney. The community is served by the Pinckney post office with the 48169 ZIP Code. History Hell developed around a sawmill, gristmill, distillery and tavern. All four were operated by George Reeves, who moved to the area in the 1830s from the Catskill Mountains in New York. He purchased a sawmill on what is now known as Hell Creek in 1841. In addition to the sawmill, Reeves purchased 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land surrounding the mill. Reeves then built a gristmill on Hell Creek which was powered by water that was impounded by a small dam across the creek. Farmers in the area were quite successful in growing wheat and had an abundance of grain. Reeves opened a distillery to process the excess grain into whiskey. Reeves also opened a general store/tavern on his property. The tavern and distillery soon became a thriving business for Reeves. He built a ballroom on the second floor of the establishment and a sulky racetrack around his millpond. Reeves also sold his alcohol to nearby roadhouses and stores for as little as ten cents a gallon. His operation came under the scrutiny of the U.S. government in the years after the American Civil War. When tax collectors came to Hell to assess his operation, Reeves and his customers conspired to hide the whiskey by filling barrels and sinking them to the bottom of the millpond. When the government agents left the area, the barrels were hauled to the surface with ropes. As Reeves aged, he slowed his business ventures, closing the distillery and witnessing the burning of the gristmill. He died in 1877. Reeves' family sold the land to a group of investors from Detroit in 1924. The investors increased the size of the millpond by raising the level of the dam, creating what is now Hiland Lake. The area soon became a summer resort area, attracting visitors for swimming and fishing. Henry Ford considered building some manufacturing facilities in the area but decided against it.

Tonight's guest, Michael Bondie, had his Bigfoot sighting in the spring of 2012, when he was 16. He had gone fishing at a place on the river that his family's home was next to, in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, that day. Wanting to get an early start, Mike set out early that morning and when he got to the spot where he planned to fish, he couldn't help but be taken by how peaceful everything seemed. The birds were chirping, the sound of the water flowing by was relaxing and everything was so serene. After fishing there for a few hours, however, the serenity he felt came to an abrupt stop. Suddenly, Mike heard a loud splashing sound about 50 feet from where he was fishing. Little did he know, he was about to have an encounter with an 8 ½ to 9 foot tall Sasquatch! If you've had a Bigfoot sighting and would like to be a guest, on the show, please go to https://MyBigfootSighting.com and let us know. We'd love to hear from you. Premium memberships are now available! If you'd like to be able to listen to the show without ads and have full access to premium content, please go to https://MyBigfootSighting.com to find out how to become a premium member.If you'd like to help support the show, by buying your own My Bigfoot Sighting t-shirt, sweatshirt, or tank top, please visit the My Bigfoot Sighting Show Store Page, by going to...https://dogman-encounters.myshopify.com/collections/mens-my-bigfoot-sighting-collectionShow's theme song, "Banjo Music," courtesy Nathan BrumleyI produce 3 other podcasts that are available for listening on your favorite podcast app. If you haven't checked them out, already, here are links to them… Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio https://www.spreaker.com/show/bigfoot-eyewitness-radio_1 Dogman Encounters https://www.spreaker.com/show/dogman-encounters-radio_2 My Paranormal Experience https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-paranormal-experience Thanks for listening!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5101987/advertisement

Dogman - A werewolf or werewolf-type creature first reported in 1887 in Wexford County, Michigan. Sightings have been reported in several locations throughout Michigan, primarily in the northwestern quadrant of the Lower Peninsula.  Discover more TERRIFYING podcasts at http://eeriecast.com/   Follow Carman Carrion!    https://www.facebook.com/carman.carrion.9/   https://www.instagram.com/carmancarrion/?hl=en   https://twitter.com/CarmanCarrion   Subscribe to Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/show/0uiX155WEJnN7QVRfo3aQY   Please Review Us on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freaky-folklore/id1550361184   Music and sound effects used in the Freaky Folklore Podcast have or may have been provided/created by:  CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvA Myuu: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiSKnkKCKAQVxMUWpZQobuQ Jinglepunks: https://jinglepunks.com/ Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Kevin MacLeod: http://incompetech.com/ Dark Music: https://soundcloud.com/darknessprevailspodcast Soundstripe: https://app.soundstripe.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Heather Young agrees to relocate with her boyfriend to Michigan's secluded Lower Peninsula, she has high hopes that the change of scenery will do them and their relationship good. But after a big relationship blowup, Heather reaches her breaking point; little does she know the worst is yet to come.For even more true crime, head to discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/deadlynightmares to start your 7 day free trial today. Terms apply. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 15. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 18. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoBen Doornbos, General Manager at Nub's Nob, MichiganRecorded onOctober 10, 2022About Nub's NobClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Fisher familyPass affiliations: Indy PassReciprocal pass partners: NoneLocated in: Harbor Springs, MichiganClosest neighboring ski areas: The Highlands (4 minutes), Mt. McSauba (35 minutes), Boyne Mountain (37 minutes), Otsego (55 minutes), Treetops (1 hour), Shanty Creek (1 hour, 9 minutes), Hanson Hills (1 hour, 22 minutes), Mt. Holiday (1 hour, 26 minutes), Hickory Hills (1 hour, 41 minutes), Missaukee Mountain (1 hour, 41 minutes), Snow Snake (1 hour, 58 minutes), The Homestead (2 hours, 11 minutes), Crystal (2 hours, 14 minutes), Caberfae (2 hours, 14 minutes)Base elevation: 911 feetSummit elevation: 1,338 feetVertical drop: 427 feetSkiable Acres: 248Average annual snowfall: 123 inchesTrail count: 53 (24% double-black, 49% black, 20% intermediate, 7% beginner)Lift count: 10 (3 fixed-grip quads, 4 triples, 1 double, 1 carpet, 1 ropetow - view Lift Blog's inventory of Nub's Nob's lift fleet)Uphill capacity: 17,075 skiers per hourWhy I interviewed himWe all have those places that made us skiers, that wrecked us or rescued us, that in our private worlds are synonymous with skiing itself. For me those places are Mott Mountain, Apple Mountain, Snow Snake, Caberfae, Boyne Mountain, and Searchmont. Without those places I am not a skier, or at least I am not the particular version of a skier that's writing this newsletter. These are, in order, the first, second, third, and fourth places I skied; the place I learned to thread bumps; and the place I learned to navigate little drops and off-piste terrain. The first two are dead, the others survive in various states of modernized. In my head they all stand available at any moment for viewing, a tattered Stu-flix, a vault of skinny-ski adventures crashing through 1990s stop-animation reels.But there's a seventh ski area in my mental vault: Nub's Nob. It's a funny name, perhaps jarring if this is your first time seeing it. I happen to think it's the best ski area name in America. It's simple, memorable, intriguing, evocative of what it is: a 427-foot locals' bump with an Alta-grade following of devoted locals.That's not the same thing as having Alta-grade skiing (who does besides Snowbird)? But consider this: across the street lies The Highlands, the Boyne-owned runner formerly known as Boyne Highlands. The Highlands is larger than Nub's. It has one high-speed lift and is dropping in another next year – a six-pack so fancy that it makes the iPhone 14 look like a block of aged Roquefort. Highlands' season pass costs a bit more than Nub's, but it comes with days at Big Sky, which is like buying a microwave and getting a free car as a thank-you gift.None of it matters. Well, it probably matters to some people. But Nub's is the opposite of the endangered indie. It may be the best ski area under 500 vertical feet in the country: a big, sprawling trail layout; numerous and redundant lifts; grooming that makes an Olympic skating rink look like a Tough Mudder course; glades everywhere; and, like any Midwest ski area with a stocked trophy cabinet, an absolute flamethrower of a terrain park. Nub's is that lost treasure of Midwest skiing, rare as a 200-grade Boone-and-Crockett trophy buck: the balanced mountain. Grooming, yes, of all kinds, but bumps always on Twilight Zone, and maybe also on Chute (like many Michigan ski areas, the runs stack side by side on the trailmap, creating half a dozen that you could tuck into Park City's pumphouse). Several times per decade the ski area punches new glades into the forest. And since Nub's has one of the world's best snowmaking systems, supplemented with a reliable train of lake-effect and an ability to ninja-dodge freeze-thaw cycles, the whole mountain opens in the early season and often stays filled to the edges into April.Bad people can ruin a great ski area, of course. I can stay salty for decades over unprovoked attitude from a liftie. But I've been skiing Nub's Nob for as long as I've been skiing and I've never encountered anything other than an Extreme Welcome. The lifties chitter-chatter as you load and Patrol lets you ski where you please and the bartenders are tolerant of pitchers ordered in bulk at 11 a.m.My first day at Nub's was one of the weirdest ski days of my life. It was my sixth day ever on skis and I was geared up in sweatpants and a discount-superstore winter coat of the sort that rips when you yank the zipper open too sternly. We arrived in the snowslammed evening with tennis ball-sized flakes drifting in the wind. I did not have goggles of course and scoffed at the notion. At age 17 I had lived all my life in snowy climes and had never once needed such decorative nonsense. In a catastrophic freefall down Valley or perhaps it was Scarface I understood at last that storm-skiing sans goggles was like swimming without water: painful and really quite impossible. In the baselodge I purchased the least-expensive pair of goggles I could find, which I believe cost $25, an astonishing sum for a bagboy earning $4.50 an hour at the local Meijer superstore.Nub's excused the error. The upside of place-based defeat is the clear path to redemption. In all phases of my ski life I have returned to Nub's and it has always had something useful to say, something I couldn't exactly find anywhere else. I still can't, and I needed to poke around in the machine a bit to try and decode the trance.What we talked aboutWhen snowmaking starts at Nub's Nob; the mountain's earliest and latest openings ever; “bottom line, the ski industry in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan doesn't exist without snowmaking”; why freeze-thaw isn't really a thing for Nub's; “if you can open, you should open”; the path from $8.25-an-hour rental tech to general manager; Marquette Mountain; Nub's incredible seasonal employee retention rate; Jim Bartlett, the ski area's legendary general manager; not breaking a good thing; becoming the boss of the people who taught you everything you know; how Nub's Nob got its name; whether Nub's will stay independent over the long term; “where skiers go”; going deep on the Green lift upgrade: why it won't be a high-speed lift, when it's coming, and whether it will be green; whether the ski area considered wiping out the front-side lifts in favor of a six-pack; the tug-of-war between Fixed-Grip Bro and Detach Bro; why Orange won't be a high-speed lift either; comparing a modern fixed-grip Skytrac chair to a 1978 Riblet lift; why the new lift won't have a carpet load; why lifties need to talk to skiers; the installation and maintenance cost of a fixed-grip versus a high-speed lift; why the new lift will be the same length but occupy a smaller footprint; whether the new lift will load and unload at the same spots as the current Green lift; whether Nub's will sell the chairs; the Blue chair Killer; why the Blue lift isn't coming back; the power of the ropetow and where we could see more on Nub's; long-term plans for the Purple and Orange lifts; “there's something special about riding a double chairlift”; regional differences in safety-bar culture; “I'd like to have a super-modern lift fleet”; whether a lift from the bottom of Pintail Peak to the top of Nub's Nob South would make sense; how Nub's continues to develop new terrain on essentially the same footprint; how to access Nub's endless glade stash; why Arena and Tower glades don't continue farther skier's left along their respective ridges; the glades always open in Northern Michigan; Nub's last big expansion opportunity and what kind of terrain sits in there; keeping the parks rad Brah; the return of the halfpipe; why Nub's doesn't build earthwork features; the importance of night-skiing; considering lights on Pintail Peak; the history and secrets behind the Nub's Nob snowgun; “you can fix everything with a pipe wrench” and why the ski area is happy with a low-tech snowgun arsenal; long-live the metal wicket ticket; “we always think of technology as making our lives better, but sometimes, it's making our lives worse”; the competitive and cooperative dynamic between Nub's Nob and The Highlands, which sit across the street from one another; why Nub's finally joined the Indy Pass; the ski-industry problem that Indy Pass is solving; why Nub's is rolling with 32 Indy Base Pass blackouts; looking out for the little ski areas down the street; and how much it hurt to finally push Nub's peak-day lift-ticket prices over $100.    Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewA lot of pretty obvious reasons: the new Green Chair, the resort's decision to at last join the Indy Pass, the obvious example of another thriving indie belying the whole Megapass-Killbot theory. But we booked this pod in May, weeks before the Indy announcement (which I knew was coming), and the chairlift upgrade (which I didn't). The simple fact is that I'd had Nub's Nob on my interview-the-GM list since Storm day one, and I finally reached out and we set everything up pretty quickly.This is a good time, however, to restate something that's core to this whole operation: this podcast is for everyone. And by “everyone,” I mean every ski area of any size. If it has a lift, I'm interested. For now, that means the United States, but I will fold Canada in soon enough. That will probably remain the focus over the long-term, but if you are running a ski area of any size anywhere on Planet Earth*, consider yourself relevant to The Storm Skiing Podcast.But from a practical, logistical point of view, I have tried very hard to balance the podcast across regions. This does not mean that I will guarantee an equal ratio of Western, Midwestern, and Northeast interviews (I haven't quite gotten to the Southeast yet; I will soon, but there are only a couple dozen ski areas down there, so pods focused in the southern states will likely always be infrequent). But I will promise a consistent flow of Midwest pods. It's where I came from, where I learned to ski, and it's one of the world's greatest and most vital ski regions.When the season's ski mags would drop each August in my early ski years, I would flip through slowly, hopefully, for any nugget of writing on Midwest ski areas. It was like searching for ice cream at a hardware store. No one cared. If a ski magazine was 200 pages, the West got 195, the East got five, and the Midwest got mentioned whenever a writer noted that Big Sky was owned by the same outfit that owned Boyne Mountain. It was a different, internet-less world, of course, but I am now in a position to create the sort of immersive ski area profiles that Teen Stu longed to see about my local bumps. These will keep landing in your inbox as long as The Storm does.You can view all past and future Storm Skiing Podcasts by clicking through below:*I will also consider ski areas on other planets.What I got wrongThe opening day of Michigan's deer-hunting season is a big deal. Like day-off-from-school big deal. And I don't mean parents pull their kids out while the non-hunters press on. I mean every Nov. 15 is a school holiday like Thanksgiving or Labor Day or Christmas. Our morning announcements each fall would warn us to watch out for sugarbeets – an enormous root crop stacked in clearings to bait deer – that had bounced off transport trucks on M-30. Deer hunting in Northern Michigan is a big deal.So, during a discussion about Nub's previous years' opening dates, I told Doornbos that it was pretty bold of him to open on the first day of deer-hunting season, after I thought he'd referenced a recent Nov. 15 opening. Doornbos rolled with it, but I realized while editing the pod that he had actually said Nov. 16. Oops.Why you should ski Nub's NobMichigan has 39 active ski areas, according to the National Ski Areas Association. This is the second-most of any state, behind New York, which sports 52. About two-thirds of Michigan's ski areas sit in the Lower Peninsula. This is a useful distinction: Lower Peninsula skiers rarely hit the Upper Peninsula (UP), and UP skiers rarely ski below the Mackinaw Bridge. Geography explains this disconnect: the UP's ski areas are mostly bunched in its western portion, far closer to Wisconsin than the population centers of Michigan. Marquette Mountain, the closest non-ropetow bump, is seven hours from Detroit airport, but fewer than five hours from Milwaukee. In that time, Southeast Michigan skiers can be at Keystone (with help from an airplane).That's all background. What I'm getting to is that the Lower Peninsula only has a half dozen or so well-equipped, substantially built-out ski areas with respectable vertical drops (relative to their neigboring hills): Nub's Nob, Caberfae, Crystal, Shanty Creek, Boyne Mountain, and The Highlands. Otsego Club, a longtime private joint, recently opened to the public, but its infrastructure is a bit creaky. So if you're planning a best-of-Michigan tour, these are the six to hit.But if you only have one day to ski Michigan before an asteroid crashes into the planet and wipes out life as we know it, pick Nub's. I'm not sure that it has the best terrain of those six – Highlands, I think, is equal in its sprawling videogame-ish dimensions. Nub's isn't the steepest – Boyne Mountain has the most consistent pitch along its extended main ridge. Nub's is probably also the least-resort-ish of the six, with little onsite lodging. But, like Caberfae, another family-owned bump that is on a constant crusade to enhance the skiing, Nub's is defined less by what I can easily point to and more by what's hard to describe. By that thing called atmosphere, a sort of sense of place that collectively descends upon all who ski there. It's not a thing you can order, like a lift, or something you can streamline, like parking. It's just something that is. You'll have to go and see for yourself.Podcast notes* I make the point several times that Nub's Nob is constantly upgrading. The ski area has collated an excellent timeline, starting with the ski area's 1957 founding. Skim this page and Nub's decades-long commitment to constant, mostly subtle but always impactful improvement is obvious. I wish all ski areas would create something like this.* A 2016 obituary for longtime owner Walter Fisher, who bought Nub's Nob from founder Dorie Sarnes in 1977 and owned it until he passed away (his family continues to own the ski area). An excerpt:Jim Bartlett — who joined Nub's that same year and now serves as its general manager — noted that the ski area has added significantly to its amenities since then, expanding from about a dozen runs to 53.“The business has grown almost continuously since Walter bought it in 1977,” said Bartlett, who described Fisher as “absolutely one of the most sincere, thoughtful, kind, classy men I've ever met.” …With neighboring Boyne Highlands Resort establishing itself as a ski area with extensive on-site lodging, Bartlett said Walter Fisher decided early in his Nub's involvement to pursue another niche — wanting the property to become "the best day ski area in the Midwest."Nub's would phase out its own limited lodging options so it could channel resources toward skiing amenities, grooming and snowmaking operations and food and beverage options. The ski area's offerings have since achieved regional and national recognition on numerous occasions.* Doornbos and I also talked extensively about Bartlett, who served as general manager from 1987 until handing the job off to Doornbos in 2017. An excerpt from this excellent profile by Kate Bassett:General Manager of Nub's Nob, Jim Bartlett, is a guy who has earned a nationwide reputation as a leader and champion of the old-school-cool Harbor Springs ski resort. But that's not the reason Jim Bartlett is a person whose story is worth telling.He's on top of the hill. He's at the bottom of the hill. He's in the maintenance garage. He's in the cafeteria. He's at a chairlift on-ramp. He's in the rental area. He's in the parking lot. He's everywhere. He's Nub's Nob's JB. …In his tenure at Nub's Nob, first as area manager and then as general manager, following the death of his mentor, legendary snow maker Jim Dilworth, Bartlett has turned 14 runs into 53, four chairlifts into nine, 15 patented snowmaking guns into 292, plus added a Pintail Peak Lodge, new locker room and so much more. The most impressive part? He's done it without sacrificing Nub's signature vibe, best described as a home away from home.Bartlett's an expert in snow making techniques. A public relations superstar. A guy who understands the importance of blending tradition with new technology. He's even learned how to make peace with the Midwest's occasionally uncooperative winter weather. In short, he's like a walking, talking master's class of how to run a resort that's focused 100 percent on skiing and riding.* We go deep on the Green lift upgrade, which Doornbos announced in an excellent video last month:* Nub's Nob is The Storm's fourth podcast focused explicitly on a Michigan ski area - I've also featured The Highlands, Boyne Mountain, and Caberfae:I should have another Michigan episode coming next week - and it's a good one. Listen to the end of the pod to find out who.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 112/100 in 2022, and number 358 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

Tonight's guest, Dwayne, has been tramping around in the woods his whole life, so he's got woods credentials a mile long. After spending so much time in the woods of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, he thought he'd seen every kind of animal that lived there. Well, on November 17th, 2012, he found out how wrong he was about that. You see, Dwayne was deer hunting, in a blind, he had put 25 feet up in a huge pine tree. He had cut off some of its branches, so he'd have a window to look out. He sat in that blind all day, up until around 6 PM, without anything out of the ordinary happening. Around that time, though, Dwayne heard something that sounded like a woman, with a deep voice, let out an extremely loud yell, followed by a deep growl. At 1st, he thought it must have been a really big bear vocalizing because it was hungry. Roughly 1 hour later, Dwayne saw a large figure moving out of the corner of his eye and when he looked to see what it was, he saw what he initially thought was a huge wolf. As soon as he laid eyes on it, the creature tilted its head back and started sniffing the air. Then, to Dwayne's horror, the huge creature looked right at the base of the tree he was in and traced its eyes up the tree until it was looking right at him, through the window he'd cut in the branches. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, it stood up onto its back legs and started walking towards the tree he was in. When it made it to the base of the tree, it let out the most ungodly yell/howl Dwayne had ever heard in his life. Dwayne had tears in his eyes now and did the only thing he could think of, to try to protect himself. He reached for his rifle...What happened to Dwayne that day has traumatized him so much that he works the 3rd shift, so he can stay awake at night. After experiencing what Dwayne did, that day, I'm sure you'll understand why his 1st encounter has had such a profound effect on him.If you'd like to help support the show, by buying your own Dogman Encounters t-shirt, sweatshirt, tank top, or coffee mug, please visit the Dogman Encounters Show Store, by going to… https://Dogman-Encounters.MyShopify.com If you've had a Dogman encounter and would like to speak with me about it, whether you'd like to keep your encounter confidential or be interviewed on a show, please go to… https://DogmanEncounters.com and submit a report. If you've had a Sasquatch sighting and would like to be a guest on My Bigfoot Sighting, please go to… https://MyBigfootSighting.com and submit a report. I produce 3 other podcasts. Below, you'll find links to them.My Bigfoot Sighting... https://spreaker.page.link/xT7zh6zWsnCDaoVa7Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio... https://spreaker.page.link/WbtSccQm92TKBskT8My Paranormal Experience... https://youtube.com/channel/UCyxVu8_b4yxLHcZ1fNPmRkAThanks for listening!