Podcasts about North Peak

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This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 14. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 21. 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:WhoRalph Lewis, General Manager of Pleasant Mountain (formerly Shawnee Peak), MaineRecorded onSeptember 9, 2024About Pleasant MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Boyne Resorts, which also owns:Located in: Bridgton, MaineYear founded: 1938Pass affiliations: New England Gold Pass: 3 days, no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Cranmore (:33), King Pine (:39), Attitash (:46), Black Mountain NH (:48), Sunday River (:53), Wildcat (:58), Mt. Abram (:56), Lost Valley (:59)Base elevation: 600 feetSummit elevation: 1,900 feetVertical drop: 1,300 feetSkiable Acres: 239Average annual snowfall: 110 inchesTrail count: 47 (25% advanced, 50% intermediate, 25% beginner)Lift count: 6 (1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triple chairs, 2 surface lifts – total includes Summit Express quad, anticipated to open for the 2024-25 ski season; view Lift Blog's inventory of Pleasant Mountain's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himPleasant Mountain is loaded with many of the attributes of great - or at least useful - ski areas: bottom-to-top chairlifts, a second base area to hack the crowds, night skiing, a nuanced trail network that includes wigglers through the woods and interstate-width racing chutes, good stuff for  kids, an easy access road that breaks right off a U.S. highway, killer views, a tight community undiluted by destination skiers, and a simpleness that makes you think “yeah this is pretty much what I thought a Maine ski area would be.”But the place has been around since 1938, which was 15 U.S. presidents ago. Parts of Pleasant feel musty and dated. Core skier services remain smushed between the access road and the bottom of the lifts, squeezed by that kitchen-in-a-camper feeling that everything could use just a bit more space. The baselodge feels improvised, labyrinthian, built for some purpose other than skiing. I would believe that it used to be a dairy barn housing 200 cows or a hideout for bootleggers and bandits or the home of an eccentric grandmother who kept aardvarks for pets before I would believe that anyone built this structure to accommodate hundreds of skiers on a winter weekend.American skiing, with few exceptions, follows a military/finance-style up-or-out framework. You either advance or face discharge, which in skiing means falling over dead in the snow. Twenty-five years ago, the notion of a high-speed lift at Alta would have been sacrilege. The ski area has four now, including a six-pack, and nobody ever even mentions it. Saddleback rose from the grave partly because they replaced a Napolean-era double chair with a high-speed quad. Taos – Ikon and Mountain Collective partner Taos – held out for eons before installing its first detachable in 2018 (the mountain now has two). One of the new owner's first acts at tiny Bousquet, Massachusetts was to level the rusty baselodge and build a new one.Pleasant needed to start moving up. Thirteen hundred vertical feet is too many vertical feet to ascend on a fixed-grip lift in southern New England. There are too many larger options too nearby where skiers don't have to do that. Sure, Magic, Smuggs, and MRG have fended off ostentatious modernization by tapping nostalgia as a brand, but they are backstopped by the kind of fistfighting terrain and natural snow that Pleasant lacks. To be a successful city-convenient New England ski area in the 2020s, you're going to have to be a modern ski area.That's happening now, at an encouraging clip, under Boyne Resorts' ownership. Pleasant was fine before, kept in good repair and still relevant even in a crowded market. It could have hung around for decades no matter what. But the big passes aren't going anywhere and the fast lifts aren't going anywhere and ski areas need to change along with skier expectations of what a ski area ought to be. That's happening now at Pleasant Mountain, and it's damn fun to watch.What we talked aboutAt long last, a high-speed lift up Pleasant Mountain; why the new lift won't have a midstation; why the summit triple had to go; taking out the same lift at two different mountains decades apart; when the mountain will sell old triple chairs, and where the proceeds for those will go; will the new lift overcrowd the mountain?; why Pleasant doesn't consider this a used lift even though its bones came from Sunday River; being part of Boyne versus being an indie on an island; Pleasant Mountain in the ‘70s; building Bear Peak at Attitash; returning to a childhood place when you're no longer a child; the Homer family legacy; Boyne buys Shawnee and changes the name back to “Pleasant”; “the big question is, what do we do with the land to the west of us?” as far as potential ski area expansion goes; how Pleasant interacts with Boyne's other New England ski areas; why Pleasant hasn't joined the Ikon Pass like all of Boyne's other ski areas; the evolution and future of Pleasant Mountain on the New England Pass; whether the Sunnyside triple is next in line for a high-speed upgrade; night-skiing; snowmaking; and potential baselodge expansion. This pod also features some of the coolest background noise ever, as we hear the helicopter flying these towers for the new summit lift:Lewis sent me some photos after the call:Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewBoyne came in and went to work doing Boyne things. That means snowmaking that can bury a brontosaurus. More parking. Food trucks. Tweaks to the trail network. Better grooming. Access to the Maine bigsters with a Pleasant season pass. And a bunch of corporate streamlining that none of us notice but that fortify the bump for long-term stability.But what we've all been waiting for are the new lifts. Or lift. It would always be the Summit Triple that would go first. The other chairs gathered around Big Jim (as he was known around the yard), and delivered their eulogies on that day three years ago when Boyne bought its fourth New England ski area. They all had stories to share. Breakdowns and wind holds. Liftlines and rainy days. Long summers just sitting there, waiting for something to do. Better to hear the tributes before the chairs stopped spinning, before they were auctioned off and sent to sentry backyard firepits from Portsmouth to Farmington, before the towers were scrapped and recycled into steel support beams for a Bangor outlet mall. Then they gathered round to listen.“What's it like to have a midstation?” asked Pine Quad.“Did you have electricity in the ‘90s, or were you powered by a woodstove?” asked Rabbit Run Triple, born in 2014.“Is it true that from the top of North Peak at Loon, you can see four Canadian states?” asked Sunnyside Triple.“In Canada, they're called ‘metric states,'” Summit Express Triple answered sagely. And they all nodded in awe.And then Boyne sawed the whole thing into pieces and trucked a better lift down from Sunday River to replace it. The whole project probably took a bit longer than Pleasant Mountain locals would have liked, but hey Boyne restored the ski area's original name in the meantime which was a nifty distraction. And now the new lift is here and it isn't new but it looks new and was rebuilt like a ‘60s muscle car so that the garaged version you see today is better than anything you would have seen on the street when CCR was new and cool.I don't know what Boyne's going to do when they run out of lifts to upgrade. Right now it's like 10 every year and each of them sleek as a fighter jet and nearly as expensive. But impactful, meaningfully changing how skiers experience a mountain. The new tram at Big Sky feels like a rocket launch to a moon landing. Camelot 6 at The Highlands – 487 vertical feet with bubbles and heated seats – is so over the top that riders travel from Michigan to Austria on the 42-second ride. Even the International triple chair at Alpental will blow the sidewalls off one of the best pure ski mountains in the Pacific Northwest, humble as a three-person chair sounds in this itemization of megalifts.Pleasant Mountain's new Summit Express – which replaces a Summit Express that was actually a Summit Regular-Speed Fixed-Grip Lift – will transform the ski area. It will change how skiers think about the place and how they experience it. It instantly promotes the mountain to the 21st century, where New England skiers expect detachable chairs anytime a lift rises more than a thousand vertical feet. And it assures the locals that yeah Boyne is in this. They've got plans. And we're just getting started here.What I got wrong* There were a bunch of times that I called the ski area “Shawnee” or “Shawnee Peak.” Yes I got the memo but I don't know names are hard.* I said the six-state New England region was “like half the size of Colorado,” but the difference is not quite that dramatic. New England covers 71,988 square miles (nearly half of which – 30,843 square miles – is Maine), compared to 103,610 square miles for Colorado. I feel like I've made this mistake, and this correction, before.* I made the keen observation that Pleasant Mountains was “Loon's” fourth ski area in the region and third in the state of Maine. I meant “Boyne's.”Why you should ski Pleasant MountainPleasant Mountain fits into this odd category of ski areas that you only visit if you live within an hour of the parking lot, and only if that hour is east-southeast of the ski area. There's too much Conway competition west. Too much Sunday River north. Too easy to get to Loon if you're south. Which is another way of saying that Pleasant Mountain is an overlooked member of New England's ski area roster, a lost-unless-you're-from-Portland afterthought for skiers distracted by New Hamsphire and Vermont and Sugarloaf.That's not the same thing as saying that this is not a very nice ski area. Nothing stays in business for 86 years by accident. Skiers just don't think about it unless they have to. Pleasant isn't on any national multimountain pass, isn't particularly convenient to get to, isn't a bargain, doesn't harbor a pocket of secret hardcore terrain.But you should go anyway. Even if all you do is ride the lift to the summit and stare out at the water below. The views are primo. But the ride down is fun too. Twisty narrow New England fall lines at their playful, unpredictable best. The pitches aren't overly steep, but they are consistent. This is one of the more approachable thousand-plus-footers in the country. And Maine is one of the more pleasant states in the country (no pun intended). Good people up there. A nice place to break your leg, I'm told. I'll take any excuse to visit Maine. You can go ahead and see that for yourself.Podcast NotesOn Pleasant having one of New England's highest vertical drops with no high-speed liftPleasant Mountain is one of the last New England ski areas with more than 1,000 vertical feet to install a detachable lift, but there are still a 11 left. Twelve if you count Dartmouth Skiway, which I will because I suspect their reported vertical drop may be more honest than some of the ski areas claiming 1,000-plus:On Boyne rebuilding old detach quadsBoyne has rebuilt quite a few high-speed quads over the past half-decade:Loon GM Brian Norton delivered an excellent breakdown of his mountain's rebuild of Kanc/Seven Brothers in his 2022 podcast appearance.On early-70s Pleasant MountainLewis recalls his 1970s childhood days skiing Pleasant Mountain. The place was a fairly simple operation in 1970:Within a couple of years, however, the trail footprint had evolved into something remarkably similar to modern-day Pleasant Mountain:On Pleasant's claim to having the first chairlift in the state of MainePleasant appears to be home to Maine's first double chair, a Constam make named “Old Blue,” that ran from 1955 to ‘84. According to New England Ski History, a now-defunct operation named Michaud Hill installed a single-person chairlift for the 1945-46 ski season. The lift only lasted for a couple of years, however, before being “possibly removed following 1947-48 season, with parts possibly used at [also now defunct] Thorn Mountain, New Hampshire.”On Sunday River as a backwaterI've covered this extensively, but it's still a trip to look at 1980s trailmaps of a teeny-tiny Sunday River:On ASC's rosterLewis spent time as part of American Skiing Company, which at its height had collected a now widely distributed bundle of mountains:On Bear Peak at AttitashLewis helped build two of the largest modern ski expansions in New Hampshire. Bear Peak, installed between 1994 and '95 on the proposed-but-never-developed Big Bear development next door to Attitash, more or less doubled the size of the ski area. Here's a before-and-after look at the American Skiing Company mega-project:On Sugarbush's Lift-tacular summerThose American Skiing Company days were wild in New England, marking the last major investment surge until the one we're witnessing over the past five years. One of the most incredible single-summer efforts unfolded at Sugarbush in 1995, when the company installed six chairlifts: Super Bravo Express, Gatehouse Express, and the North Lynx Triple on the Lincoln side; North Ridge Express and the Green Mountain Quad on the Mt. Ellen side; and the two-mile-long Slide Brook Express (still the longest chairlift in the world), linking the two.Current Sugarbush GM John Hammond, who occupied a much more junior role at the mountain in the mid-90s, recalled that summer when he joined the podcast in 2020.On vintage LoonLewis eventually moved from Attitash to Loon, where he found himself part of his second generational expansion: South Peak. Here's Loon around 2003:Expansion unfolded in phases, beginning in 2007. By 2011, the new peak was mostly built out:Loon actually expanded it again in 2022:On Loon busynessWhile it's difficult to verify skier visit numbers exactly, since ski areas, for reasons I don't understand, lock them up as though they were the nuclear launch codes, they occasionally slip out. And all available evidence suggests that Loon is, by far, New Hampshire's busiest ski area. Here's a dated snapshot gathered by New England Ski History:On Loon being the best of New HampshireI claim, without really qualifying it, that Loon is New Hampshire's “premier ski area.” What I meant by that was that the ski area owns the state's most sophisticated snowmaking and lift system. That assessment is a bit subjective, and Bretton Woods Nation could fight me about it and I wouldn't really have much of a counterargument.However, there is another way to look at the “best,” and that is in terms of pure ski terrain. Among the state's ski areas, Cannon and Wildcat generally split this category. Again, it's subjective, but on a powder day, those two are going to give you the most interesting terrain when you consider glades, steeps, bumps, etc.And then you have a bunch of ski areas in Vermont, and a handful in Maine, that are right in this fight. And since New England states are roughly the size of suburban Atlanta Costcos, it makes sense to consider them as a whole. Which means this is a good place to re-insert my standard Ski Areas of New England Inventory:On Booth Creek's rosterLoon was, for a time, one of eight ski areas owned by Booth Creek:Today, the company's only ski area is Sierra-at-Tahoe.On the Homer family and “Shawnee Peak”Pleasant Mountain's somewhat bizarre history includes its purchase by the owners of Shawnee Mountain, Pennsylvania in 1988. Per New England Ski History:Following the 1987-88 season, the owners of Pleasant Mountain found themselves in financial trouble. That off season, they sold the ski area to Shawnee Mountain Corp. for $1.4 million. Pleasant Mountain was subsequently renamed to "Shawnee Peak," the name of the owners' Pennsylvania ski area.Current Shawnee Mountain CEO Nick Fredericks, who has worked at that Pennsylvania ski area for its entire existence, recalled the whole episode in detail when he joined me on the podcast three years ago.Out-of-state ownership didn't last long. New England Ski History:Circa 1992, the parent company decided to divest its skiing holdings, resulting in banks taking control of Shawnee Peak. After a couple of season on the bubble, Shawnee Peak was purchased by Tom's of Maine executive Chet Homer in September of 1994. Though Homer considered restoring the ski area's original name, he opted to keep the Shawnee Peak identity due to the brand that had been established.In 2021, Homer sold the ski area to Boyne Resorts, who changed the name back to “Pleasant Mountain” in 2022. Chet's son, Geoff, recently acquired the operating lease for the small Blue Hills, Massachusetts ski area:On expansion potential to Pleasant Mountain's westPleasant Mountain owns a large parcel skier's left off the summit that could substantially expand the mountain's skiable terrain:Boyne has been aggressive with New England expansions over the past several years, opening a massive new terrain pod at Sugarloaf, expanding South Peak at Loon, and adding the family-friendly Merrill Hill at Sunday River. Boyne has the resources, organizational knowhow, and will to pull off a similar project at Pleasant. I'd expect the new terrain to be included whenever the company puts together the sort of long-term visions it's articulated for Sugarloaf, Sunday River, Loon, Boyne Mountain, The Highlands, Summit at Snoqualmie, and Big Sky.That expansion will not include these trails teased skier's right of the current Sunnyside pod in this 52-year-old trailmap – Pleasant either donated or sold this land to a nature conservancy some years ago.On Pleasant's slow expansion onto the New England PassHere's how access has evolved between Pleasant Mountain and the remainder of Boyne's portfolio since the company's 2021 acquisition:* 2021-22: Boyne purchased Pleasant in September, 2021 – too late to include the ski area on any of the company's pass products for the coming winter.* 2022-23: New England Pass excludes Pleasant as a full partner, but top-tier passes include three days each at Pleasant and Boyne's other ski areas across North America; top-tier Pleasant passes included three days to split between Sugarloaf, Sunday River, and Loon, but no access to Boyne's other resorts.* 2023-24: New England Pass access remains same as 2022-23; top-tier Pleasant Mountain passes now include three days each at Boyne's non-New England resorts, including Big Sky.* 2024-25: New England Pass holders can now add a Pleasant Mountain night-skiing pass at a substantial discount; Pleasant Mountain access to remainder of Boyne's portfolio remains unchanged.Since Pleasant Mountain's season pass remains so heavily discounted against top-tier New England Passes ($849 early-bird versus $1,389), it seems unlikely that adding Pleasant as a full pass partner would do much to overcrowd the smaller mountain. Most skiers who lay out that much for their big-time pass will probably want to spend their weekends at the bigger mountains up north. Pleasant's expansion, whenever it happens, will also increase the chances that Pleasant could join the New England or Ikon Passes.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 65/100 in 2024, and number 565 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

My guest today worked for Club Med from 1993 to 1997. His first season was in Club Med Copper Mountain as a Ski Instructor. He is yet another EXGO referred to me by recruiter extraordinaire, Shehime Arshad. Fun Fact: He attended the same university (for 1 year) that I work at, Concordia University, in 1992. During the summers at Club Med, he was also a Tennis and Golf G.O. He saw an ad for Club Med in a ski magazine and knew someone who had worked at Club Med who told him about it. Seasoners, please help me welcome, from Toronto, Ontario, Mark Kelton! Mark also worked in the Club Med resorts of Eleuthera (1995 & 1996), Paradise Island (1996/1997) and Turks and Caicos (1997). Mark goes into detail about each of his seasons and shares some very humorous stories that range from getting a jack-o'-lantern sunburn during his first beach season in Club Med, hockey tournaments with very competitive Russian NHL players, and being stunned by the shows that Mike Coltman put on in Eleuthera in 1996. Mark talks about the band that was put together during his first season called Los Mogles. Mark was asked to join the band because a G.O. was convinced that since Mark played the tuba, he could easily play the bass! Mark also shares a story about how Dan and Chantal (RIP) became ski instructors at Copper Mountain. The interview ends with Mark sharing a story about the Alpineglow Stube, a restaurant in Summit County, Colorado that sits atop Keystone's North Peak, that a Brazilian G.M. took Mark and fourteen others to (robes and slippers?!). It's a must-hear story at the end of a very entertaining interview. Please enjoy! **My First Season podcast has always been ad-free and free to listen to and is available to download on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Samsung Podcasts, Podbean App, Podchaser, Spotify, Amazon Music/Audible, TuneIn + Alexa, iHeartRadio, PlayerFM, Pandora and Listen Notes. And if you like what you hear, please leave a review on Apple podcasts.   

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on July 27. It dropped for free subscribers on Aug. 3. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoPeter Disch, General Manager of Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire (following this interview, Vail Resorts promoted Disch to Vice President of Mountain Operations at its Heavenly ski area in California; he will start that new position on Aug. 5, 2024; as of July 27, Vail had yet to name the next GM of Sunapee.)Recorded onJune 24, 2024About Mount SunapeeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The State of New Hampshire; operated by Vail ResortsLocated in: Newbury, New HampshireYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Epic Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Epic Pass: midweek access, including holidaysClosest neighboring (public) ski areas: Pats Peak (:28), Whaleback (:29), Arrowhead (:29), Ragged (:38), Veterans Memorial (:42), Ascutney (:45), Crotched (:48), Quechee (:50), Granite Gorge (:51), McIntyre (:53), Saskadena Six (1:04), Tenney (1:06)Base elevation: 1,233 feetSummit elevation: 2,743 feetVertical drop: 1,510 feetSkiable Acres: 233 acresAverage annual snowfall: 130 inchesTrail count: 67 (29% beginner, 47% intermediate, 24% advanced)Lift count: 8 (2 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 3 conveyors – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Sunapee's lift fleet.)History: Read New England Ski History's overview of Mount SunapeeView historic Mount Sunapee trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himNew Hampshire state highway 103 gives you nothing. Straight-ish and flattish, lined with trees and the storage-unit detritus of the American outskirts, nothing about the road suggests a ski-area approach. Looping south off the great roundabout-ish junction onto Mt. Sunapee Road still underwhelms. As though you've turned into someone's driveway, or are seeking some obscure historical monument, or simply made a mistake. Because what, really, could be back there to ski?And then you arrive. All at once. A parking lot. The end of the road. The ski area heaves upward on three sides. Lifts all over. The top is up there somewhere. It's not quite Silverton-Telluride smash-into-the-backside-of-a-box-canyon dramatic, but maybe it's as close as you get in New Hampshire, or at least southern New Hampshire, less than two hours north of Boston.But the true awe waits up high. North off the summit, Lake Sunapee dominates the foreground, deep blue-black or white-over-ice in midwinter, like the flat unfinished center of a puzzle made from the hills and forests that rise and roll from all sides. Thirty miles west, across the lowlands where the Connecticut River marks the frontier with Vermont, stands Okemo, interstate-wide highways of white strafing the two-mile face.Then you ski. Sunapee does not measure big but it feels big, an Alpine illusion exploding over the flats. Fifteen hundred vertical feet is plenty of vertical feet, especially when it rolls down the frontside like a waterfall. Glades everywhere, when they're live, which is less often than you'd hope but more often than you'd think. Good runs, cruisers and slashers, a whole separate face for beginners, a 374-vertical-foot ski-area-within-a-ski-area, perfectly spliced from the pitched main mountain.Southern New Hampshire has a lot of ski areas, and a lot of well-run ski areas, but not a lot of truly great pure ski areas. Sunapee, as both an artwork and a plaything, surpasses them all, the ribeye on the grill stacked with hamburgers, a delightful and filling treat.What we talked aboutSunapee enhancements ahead of the 2024-25 winter; a new parking lot incoming; whether Sunapee considered paid parking to resolve its post-Covid, post-Northeast Epic Pass launch backups; the differences in Midwest, West, and Eastern ski cultures; the big threat to Mount Sunapee in the early 1900s; the Mueller family legacy and “The Sunapee Difference”; what it means for Vail Resorts to operate a state-owned ski area; how cash flows from Sunapee to Cannon; Sunapee's masterplan; the long-delayed West Bowl expansion; incredible views from the Sunapee summit; the proposed Sun Bowl-North Peak connection; potential upgrades for the Sunapee Express, North Peak, and Spruce lifts; the South Peak beginner area; why Sunapee built a ski-through lighthouse; why high-speed ropetows rule; the potential for Sunapee night-skiing; whether Sunapee should be unlimited on the Northeast Value Pass (which it currently is); and why Vail's New Hampshire mountains are on the same Epic Day Pass tier as its Midwest ski areas.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewShould states own ski areas? And if so, should state agencies run those ski areas, or should they be contracted to private operators?These are fraught questions, especially in New York, where three state-owned ski areas (Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre) guzzle tens of millions of dollars in new lift, snowmaking, and other infrastructure while competing directly against dozens of tax-paying, family-owned operations spinning Hall double chairs that predate the assassination of JFK. The state agency that operates the three ski areas plus Lake Placid's competition facilities, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), reported a $47.3 million operating loss for the fiscal year ending March 30, following a loss of $29.3 million the prior year. Yet there are no serious proposals at the state-government level to even explore what it would mean to contract a private operator to run the facilities.If New York state officials were ever so inspired, they could look 100 miles east, where the State of New Hampshire has run a sort of A-B experiment on its two owned ski areas since the late 1990s. New Hampshire's state parks association has operated Cannon Mountain since North America's first aerial tram opened on the site in 1938. For a long time, the agency operated Mount Sunapee as well. But in 1998, the state leased the ski area to the Mueller family, who had spent the past decade and a half transforming Okemo from a T-bar-clotted dump into one of Vermont's largest and most modern resorts.Twenty-six years later, that arrangement stands: the state owns and operates Cannon, and owns Sunapee but leases it to a private operator (Vail Resorts assumed or renewed the lease when they purchased the Muellers' Triple Peaks company, which included Okemo and Crested Butte, Colorado, in 2018). As part of that contract, a portion of Sunapee's revenues each year funnel into a capital fund for Cannon.So, does this arrangement work? For Vail, for the state, for taxpayers, for Sunapee, and for Cannon? As we consider the future of skiing, these are important questions: to what extent should the state sponsor recreation, especially when that form of recreation competes directly against private, tax-paying businesses who are, essentially, subsidizing their competition? It's tempting to offer a reflexive ideological answer here, but nuance interrupts us at ground-level. Alterra, for instance, leases and operates Winter Park from the City of Denver. Seems logical, but a peak-day walk-up Winter Park lift ticket will cost you around $260 for the 2024-25 winter. Is this a fair one-day entry fee for a city-owned entity?The story of Mount Sunapee, a prominent and busy ski area in a prominent and busy ski state, is an important part of that larger should-government-own-ski-areas conversation. The state seems happy to let Vail run their mountain, but equally happy to continue running Cannon. That's curious, especially in a state with a libertarian streak that often pledges allegiance by hoisting two middle fingers skyward. The one-private-one-public arrangement was a logical experiment that, 26 years later, is starting to feel a bit schizophrenic, illustrative of the broader social and economic complexities of changing who runs a business and how they do that. Is Vail Resorts better at running commercial ski centers than the State of New Hampshire? They sure as hell should be. But are they? And should Sunapee serve as a template for New York and the other states, counties, and cities that own ski areas? To decide if it works, we first have to understand how it works, and we spend a big part of this interview doing exactly that.What I got wrong* When listing the Vail Resorts with paid parking lots, I accidentally slipped Sunapee in place of Mount Snow, Vermont. Only the latter has paid parking.* When asking Disch about Sunapee's masterplan, I accidentally tossed Sunapee into Vail's Peak Resorts acquisition in 2019. But Peak never operated Sunapee. The resort entered Vail's portfolio as part of its acquisition of Triple Peaks – which also included Okemo and Crested Butte – in 2018.* I neglected to elaborate on what a “chondola” lift is. It's a lift that alternates (usually six-person) chairs with (usually eight-person) gondola cabins. The only active such lift in New England is at Sunday River, but Arizona Snowbowl, Northstar, Copper Mountain, and Beaver Creek operate six/eight-passenger chondolas in the American West. Telluride runs a short chondola with four-person chairs and four-person gondola cars.* I said that the six New England states combined covered an area “less than half the size of Colorado.” This is incorrect: the six New England states, combined, cover 71,987 square miles; Colorado is 103,610 square miles.Why you should ski Mount SunapeeSki area rankings are hard. Properly done, they include dozens of inputs, considering every facet of the mountain across the breadth of a season from the point of view of multiple skiers. Sunapee on an empty midweek powder day might be the best day of your life. Sunapee on a Saturday when it hasn't snowed in three weeks but everyone in Boston shows up anyway might be the worst. For this reason, I largely avoid assembling lists of the best or worst this or that and abstain, mostly, from criticizing mountain ops – the urge to let anecdote stand in for observable pattern and truth is strong.So when I do stuff ski areas into a hierarchy, it's generally grounded in what's objective and observable: Cottonwoods snow really is fluffier and more bounteous than almost all other snow; Tahoe resort density really does make it one of the world's great ski centers; Northern Vermont really does deliver far deeper snow and better average conditions than the rest of New England. In that same shaky, room-for-caveats manner, I'm comfortable saying this: Mount Sunapee's South Peak delivers one of the best beginner/novice experiences in the Northeast.Arrive childless and experienced, and it's likely you'll ignore this zone altogether. Which is precisely what makes it so great: almost completely cut off from the main mountain, South Peak is free from high-altitude bombers racing back to the lifts. Three progression carpets offer the perfect ramp-up experience. The 374-vertical-foot quad rises high enough to feel grown-up without stoking the summit lakeview vertigo. The trails are gently tilted but numerous and interesting. Other than potential for an errant turn down Sunnyside toward the Sunapee Express, it's almost impossible to get lost. It's as though someone chopped a mid-sized Midwest ski area from the earth, airlifted it east, and stapled it onto the edge of Sunapee:A few other Northeast ski areas offer this sort of ski-area-within-a-ski-area beginner separation – Burke, Belleayre, Whiteface, and Smugglers' Notch all host expansive standalone beginner zones. But Sunapee's is one of the easiest to access for New England's core Boston market, and, because of the Epic Pass, one of the most affordable.For everyone else, Sunapee's main mountain distills everything that is great and terrible about New England skiing: a respectable vertical drop; a tight, complex, and varied trail network; a detached-from-conditions determination to be outdoors in the worst of it. But also impossible weekend crowds, long snow draughts, a tendency to overgroom even when the snow does fall, and an over-emphasis on driving, with nowhere to stay on-mountain. But even when it's not perfect, which it almost never is, Sunapee is always, objectively, a great natural ski mountain, a fall-line classic, a little outpost of the north suspiciously far south.  Podcast NotesOn Sunapee's masterplan and West Bowl expansionAs a state park, Mount Sunapee is required to submit an updated masterplan every five years. The most transformative piece of this would be the West Bowl expansion, a 1,082-vertical-foot pod running skiers' left off the current summit (right in purple on the map below):The masterplan also proposes upgrades for several of Sunapee's existing lifts, including the Sunapee Express and the Spruce and North Peak triples:On past Storm Skiing Podcasts:Disch mentions a recent podcast that I recorded with Attitash, New Hampshire GM Brandon Schwarz. You can listen to that here. I've also recorded pods with the leaders of a dozen other New Hampshire mountains:* Wildcat GM JD Crichton (May 30, 2024)* Gunstock President & GM Tom Day (April 15, 2024) – now retired* Tenney Mountain GM Dan Egan (April 8, 2024) – no longer works at Tenney* Cranmore President & GM Ben Wilcox (Oct. 16, 2023)* Dartmouth Skiway GM Mark Adamczyk (June 12, 2023)* Granite Gorge GM Keith Kreischer (May 30, 2023)* Loon Mountain President & GM Brian Norton (Nov. 14, 2022)* Pats Peak GM Kris Blomback (Sept. 26, 2022)* Ragged Mountain GM Erik Barnes (April 26, 2022)* Whaleback Mountain Executive Director Jon Hunt (June 16, 2021)* Waterville Valley President & GM Tim Smith (Feb. 22, 2021)* Cannon Mountain GM John DeVivo (Oct. 6, 2020) – now GM at Antelope Butte, WyomingOn New England ski area densityDisch referenced the density of ski areas in New England. With 100 ski areas crammed into six states, this is without question the densest concentration of lift-served skiing in the United States. Here's an inventory:On the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)From 1933 to 1942 – the height of the Great Depression – a federal government agency knows as the Civilian Conservation Corps recruited single men between the ages of 18 and 25 to “improve America's public lands, forests, and parks.” Some of this work included the cutting of ski trails on then-virgin mountains, including Mount Sunapee. While the CCC trail is no longer in use on Sunapee, that first project sparked the notion of skiing on the mountain and led to the development of the ski area we know today.On potential Northeast expansions and there being “a bunch that are proposed all over the region”This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a few of the larger Northeast expansions that are creeping toward reality include a new trailpod at Berkshire East:This massive, village-connecting expansion that would completely transform Waterville Valley:The de-facto resurrection of New York's lost Highmount ski area with an expansion from adjacent Belleayre:And the monster proposed Western Territories expansion that could double the size of Sunday River. There's no public map of this one presently available.On high-speed ropetowsI'll keep beating the crap out of this horse until you all realize that I'm right:A high-speed ropetow at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota. Video by Stuart Winchester.On Crotched proximity and night skiingWe talk briefly about past plans for night-skiing on Sunapee, and Disch argues that, while that may have made sense when the Muellers owned the ski area, it's no longer likely since Vail also owns Crotched, which hosts one of New England's largest night-skiing operations less than an hour south. It's a fantastic little operation, a once-abandoned mountain completely rebuilt from the studs by Peak Resorts:On the Epic Day PassHere's another thing I don't plan to stop talking about ever:The Storm explores the world of North American lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 48/100 in 2024, and number 548 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

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You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoChris Sorensen, Vice President and General Manager of Keystone, ColoradoRecorded onSeptember 11, 2023About KeystoneClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Keystone, ColoradoYear founded: 1970Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: unlimited access* Summit Value Pass: unlimited access* Keystone Plus Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts* Tahoe Local: five days combined with Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Park City* Epic Day Pass: access with All Resorts and 32-resorts tiersClosest neighboring ski areas: Arapahoe Basin (:08), Frisco (:19), Loveland (22 minutes), Breckenridge (:25), Copper (:25), Vail (:44), Beaver Creek (:53), Ski Cooper (:56) – travel times vary considerably given traffic, weather, and time of year.Base elevation: 9,280 feetSummit elevation: 12,408 feet at the top of Keystone Peak; highest lift-served point is 12,282 feet at the top of Bergman Bowl ExpressVertical drop: 3,002 feet lift-served; 3,128 feet hike-toSkiable Acres: 3,149 acresAverage annual snowfall: 235 inchesTrail count: 130 (49% most difficult, 39% more difficult, 12% easiest)Lift count: 20 (1 eight-passenger gondola, 1 six-passenger gondola, 4 high-speed six-packs, 3 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 triple, 2 doubles, 7 carpets)Why I interviewed himKeystone arrived in 1970, a star member of the last great wave of western ski resort development, just before Snowbird (1971), Northstar (1972), Telluride (1972), and Big Sky (1973). It landed in a crowded Summit County, just down the road from Arapahoe Basin (1946) and five miles overland from Breckenridge (1961). Copper Mountain came online two years later. Loveland (1937) stood at the gateway to Summit County, looming above what would become the Eisenhower Tunnel in 1973. Just west sat Ski Cooper (1942), the mighty and rapidly expanding Vail Mountain (1962), and the patch of wilderness that would morph into Beaver Creek within a decade. Today, the density of ski areas along Colorado's I-70 corridor is astonishing:Despite this geographic proximity, you could not find more distinct ski experiences were you to search across continents. This is true everywhere ski areas bunch, from northern Vermont to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to the Wasatch. Ski areas, like people, hack their identities out of the raw material available to them, and just as siblings growing up in the same household can emerge as wildly different entities, so too can mountains that sit side-by-side-by-side.Keystone, lacking the gnar, was never going to be Jackson or Palisades, fierce and frothing. Sprung from wilderness, it could never replicate Breck's mining-town patina. Its high alpine could not summon the drama of A-Basin's East Wall or the expanse of Vail's Back Bowls.But Keystone made its way. It would be Summit County's family mountain, its night-ski mountain, and, eventually, one of its first-to-open-each-ski-season mountains. This is the headline, and this is how everyone thinks of the place. But over the decades, Keystone has quietly built out one of Colorado's most comprehensive ski experiences, an almost perfect front-to-back progression from gentle to damn. Like Heavenly or Park City, Keystone wears its steeps modestly, like your quiet neighbor with a Corvette hidden beneath tarps in the polebarn. All you notice is the Camry parked in the driveway. But there are layers here. Keep looking, and you will find them.What we talked aboutHopeful for that traditional October opening; why Keystone is Vail's early-season operator in Colorado; why the mountain closes in early April; breaking down the Bergman Bowl expansion and the six-pack that will service it; the eternal tension of opening hike-to terrain to lift service; building more room to roam, rather than more people to roam it; the art of environmentally conscious glading; new lift-served  terrain in Erickson Bowl; turning data into infrastructure; why the Bergman sixer won't have bubbles; why Bergman won't access The Windows terrain; the clever scheme behind renaming the Bergman Bowl expansion trails; building a new trailmap with Rad Smith; where skiers will be able to get a copy of the new paper trailmap; comparing the Peru upgrade to the Bergman lift project; the construction mistake that delayed the Bergman expansion by a full year; the possibility of lifts in Independence, North, and South Bowls; falling in love with skiing Colorado, then moving to Michigan; why Vail bought a bunch of Midwest bumps; when you get to lead the resort where you started bumping lifts; what makes Keystone stand out even though it sits within one of the densest concentrations of large ski areas in North America; thoughts on long-term lift upgrades, and where we could see six-packs; whether the Argentine lift could ever return in some form; the potential for a Ski Tip lift; where Keystone could expand next; whether a Windows lift is in play; North American Bowl; when we could see an updated Keystone masterplan; why Keystone gets less snow than its neighbors; assessing Epic Pass access; and night skiing.   Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewKeystone is opening one of three large lift-served ski expansions in Colorado this winter: the 500-plus-acre Bergman Bowl, served by a high-speed six-pack (the other two are Hero's on Aspen Mountain and Mahogany Ridge at Steamboat). While this pod has occupied the trailmap as hike-to terrain for years, more people will likely ski it before noon on a typical Monday than once slogged up the ridgeline in an entire winter. Keystone has renamed and somewhat re-sculpted the trails in honor of the occasion, inviting the masses onto a blue-square oasis at the top of Summit County.Which is always a good excuse for a podcast. But… this terrain was supposed to open in 2022, until the project ran into a high-altitude brick wall last July, when construction crews oopsied a road through sensitive terrain. Vail Daily:Construction of a new chairlift at Keystone Resort was ordered to cease this week after the U.S. Forest Service learned that an unauthorized road had been bulldozed through sensitive areas where minimal impacts were authorized.Keystone Resort, which operates by permit on U.S. Forest Service land, was granted permission by the White River National Forest to construct a new chairlift this summer in the area known as Bergman Bowl, creating a 555-acre expansion of Keystone's lift-served terrain. But that approval came with plenty of comments from the Environmental Protection Agency, which recommended minimal road construction associated with the project due to Bergman Bowl's environmentally sensitive location. …White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said while the Forest Service does approve many projects like Bergman Bowl, officials typically don't allow construction of new access roads in Alpine tundra.“When you drop a bulldozer blade in the Alpine, that is very fragile, and very difficult to restore,” Fitzwilliams said.In Bergman Bowl, the Forest Service has found “damage to the Alpine environment … impacts to wetlands and stuff that we normally don't want to do,” Fitzwilliams said.As a result, Fitzwilliams issued a cease and desist letter to Vail Resorts. He said the company immediately complied and shut down the impacted parts of the project.The Forest Service has not yet determined if a full restoration can occur.“When you impact the Alpine environment, it's not easy to restore,” Fitzwilliams said. “Sometimes, although achievable in some areas, it's difficult.”Vail Resorts, which has staked much of its identity on its friend-of-the-environment credentials, owned the mistake and immediately hired a firm to design a mitigation plan. What Keystone came back with was so thorough that it stunned Forest Service officials. Blevins, writing a week later in the Colorado Sun:White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams on Thursday said he accepted Vail Resorts' cure for improperly grading 2.5 acres outside of approved construction boundaries, including 1.5 acres above treeline in the fragile alpine zone. The company's construction crews also filled a wetland creek with logs and graded over it to create a road crossing and did not save topsoil and vegetation for replanting after construction, all of which the agency found “were not consistent with Forest Service expectations.”Fitzwilliams rescinded his order of noncompliance and canceled the cease-and-desist order he issued last month after Forest Service officials discovered the construction that had not been permitted. …“Quite honestly, it's the best restoration plan I've ever seen in my life. Even our staff are like ‘Oh my god,'” Fitzwilliams said. “The restoration plan submitted by Keystone is extremely detailed, thorough and includes all the necessary actions to insure the damage is restored as best as possible.”The damage to fragile alpine terrain does require additional analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, but Fitzwilliams said that can be done while the construction continues.On Thursday afternoon, resort officials said the further environmental review will keep Bergman Bowl from opening for the 2022-23 season, a development Keystone general manager Chris Sorensen said is disappointing but necessary.Indeed. The only way out is through. But how did that plan go? And what is Vail doing to make sure such mistakes don't recur? And how do you manage such a high-profile mistake from a personal and leadership point of view? It was a conversation worth having, and one that Sorensen managed well.What I got wrong…About the exact timeline of Vail's Midwest acquisitionsI kind of lumped Vail Resorts' first three Midwest acquisitions together, but there was quite a bit of space between the company's purchase of Afton Alps and Mt. Brighton, in 2012, and its pickup of Wilmot in 2016. The rest came with the Peak Resorts' acquisition in 2019.About Copper Mountain's season pass priceI said that it was “about $750” for a Copper pass or an Ikon Base Pass. Both were undercounts. Copper's 2023-24 season pass debuted at $799 and is now $849. The 2023-24 Ikon Base Pass, which includes unlimited access to Copper Mountain, debuted at $829 and now sells for $929.About the most-affordable big-mountain ski passes in the United StatesI said that Keystone offered “the most affordable big-mountain season pass” in the country. With peak-day walk-up lift tickets scheduled to hit $269 this season at Keystone, that may seem like an odd declaration. But it's almost true: Keystone sells the second-most-affordable unlimited season pass among America's 20 largest ski areas. Sister resort Park City comes in cheaper on a cost-per-acre basis, and Vail Mountain is tied with Keystone. In fact, four of the top five most affordable big-mountain passes are at Vail-owned properties (Park City, Keystone, Vail, and Heavenly):About night skiingI said that Keystone had “the largest night-skiing operation in America.” This is incorrect. I tried to determine who, indeed, hosts America's largest night-skiing operation, but after slamming my head into a wall for a few hours, I abandoned the exercise. There is absolutely no common standard of measurement, probably because 14-year-olds slamming Bang energy drinks and Faceposting from the chairlift aren't keen on fact-checking. Here's the best I could come up with:Even that simple chart took an embarrassing amount of time to assemble. At some point I will return to this exercise, and will include the entire country. The Midwest will factor significantly here, as nearly every ski area in the region is 100 percent lit for night-skiing. New York and the Mid-Atlantic also host many large night-skiing operations, as do Bolton Valley, Vermont and Pleasant Mountain, Maine. But unless I wanted to publish this podcast in June of 2024, I needed to flee this particular briar patch before I got ensnared.Why you should ski KeystoneThe Keystone you're thinking of is frontside Keystone, Dercum Mountain, River Run and Mountain House, Montezuma and Peru. That Keystone has a certain appeal. It is an approachable outsiders' version of Colorado, endless and wide, fast but manageable, groomed spirals ambling beneath the sunshine. Step out of the Suburban after a 16-hour drive from Houston, and find the Middle Earth you were seeking, soaring and jagged and wild, with a pedestrian village at the base.Keep going. Down Mine Shaft or Diamond Back to North Peak: 1,600 vertical feet of moguls bigger than your car. A half-dozen to choose from. Behind that, yet another peak, like a third ski area. Outback is where things start to get savage. Not drop-off-The-Cirque-at-Snowbird savage, but challenging enough. Slide back to Timberwolf or Bushwacker or Badger – or, more boldly, the trees in between – for that wild Colorado that Texas Ted and New York Ned find off Dercum.Or walk past the snow fort and click out, bootpack a mile and drop into Upper Windows, the only terrain marked double black on Keystone's sprawling trailmap. A rambling world, crisp and silent beneath the Outpost Gondola. Until it spits you out onto Mozart, Keystone's I-70, frantic and cluttered all the way to Santiago, and another lap.Podcast NotesOn Keystone's 2009  masterplan Keystone's masterplan dates to 2009, the second-oldest on file with the White River National Forest (Buttermilk's dates to 2008). The sprawling plan includes several yet-to-be-constructed lifts, including fixed-grips up Independence Bowl and Windows, a surface lift bisecting North and South Bowls; and a two-way ride out of Ski Tip. The plan also proposes upgrades to Outback, Wayback, and A-51; and a whole new line for the now-decommissioned Argentine:Since that image isn't very crisp, here's a closer look at Dercum:North Peak:And Outback:Sorensen and I discuss the potential for each of these projects, some of which are effectively dead. Strangely, Keystone's only two new chairlifts (besides Bergman), since 2009 - upgrading Montezuma and Peru from high-speed quads to sixers – were not suggested on the MDP at all. Argentine, which once connected the Mountain House Base directly to the Montezuma lift, was a casualty of the 2021 Peru upgrade. Here's a before-and-after:Argentine, it turns out, is just the latest casualty in Keystone's front-side clean-sweep. Check out this 1996 trailmap, when Dercum (called “Keystone” here), hosted nine frontside chairlifts (plus the gondola), to today's five:On the new Bergman Bowl trail namesBergman Bowl has appeared on Keystone's trailmap since at least 2005. The resort added trail names around 2007. As part of the lift installation, we get all new trail names and a few new trails (as well as downgrades, for most of the old lines, to blues). Keystone also updated trailnames in adjacent Erickson Bowl, which the new lift will partially serve. Sorensen and I discuss the naming scheme in the pod:On Rad Smith's new hand-painted Keystone trailmapSince 2002 or so, Keystone's trailmap has viewed the resort at a slight angle, with Dercum prioritized, the clear “front side.”The new map, Sorensen tells us, whips the vantage around to the side, giving us a better view of Bergman and, consequently, of North Peak and Outback. Here's the old map (2022 on the left), alongside the new:And here's the two-part video series on making the map with Rad Smith:On Vail's new appI've driven round trip between New York City and Michigan hundreds of times. Most of the drive is rural and gorgeous, cruise-control country, the flat Midwest and the rolling mountains of Pennsylvania. Even the stretch of north Jersey is attractive, hilly and green, dramatic at the Delaware Water Gap. All that quaintness slams shut on the eastbound approach to the George Washington Bridge, where a half dozen highways collapse into the world's busiest bridge. Backups can be comically long. Hitting this blockade after a 12-hour drive can be excruciating.Fortunately, NJDOT, or the Port Authority, or whomever controls the stretch of Interstate 80 that approaches the bridge after its 2,900-mile journey from San Francisco, has erected signs a few dozen miles out that ominously communicate wait times for the GW's upper and lower decks. I used to doubt these signs as mad guesses typed in by some low-level state employee sitting in a control room with a box of donuts. But after a couple dozen unsuccessful attempts to outsmart the system, I arrived at a bitter realization: the signs were always right.This is the experience that users of Vail's new My Epic app can (hopefully) expect when it comes online this winter. This app will be your digital Swiss Army Knife, your Epic Pass/stats tracker/snow cam/in-resort credit card/GPS tracker with interactive trailmap. No word on if they'll include that strange metal spire that's either a miniature icepick or an impromptu brass knuckle. But the app will include real-time grooming updates and chairlift wait times. And if a roadsign in New Jersey can correctly communicate wait times to cross the George Washington Bridge, then Vail Resorts ought to be able to sync this chairlift wait-times thing pretty precisely.On Mt. Brighton being built from landfillDepending upon your point of view, Mt. Brighton, Michigan – which Sorensen ran from 2016 to 2018 – is either the most amazing or the most appalling ski area in Vail's sprawling portfolio. Two-hundred thirty vertical feet, 130 acres, five chairlifts, seven surface lifts, and about four trees, rising like some alt-world mini-Alps from the flatlands of Southeast Michigan.Why is it there? What does it do? Who would do such a thing to themselves? The answer to the first question lies in the expressways that crisscross three miles to the east: crews building Interstate 96 and US 23 deposited the excess dirt here, making a hill. The answer to the second question is: the place sells a s**t-ton of Epic Passes, which was the point of Vail buying the joint. And the answer to the third question is obvious as well: for the local kids, its ski here or ski nowhere, and little Midwest hills are more fun than you think. Especially when you're 12 and the alternative is sitting inside for Michigan's 11-month winter.On Keystone's potential West Ridge expansionSorensen refers to a potential “West Ridge” expansion, which does not appear on the 2009 trailmap. The ski area's 1989 masterplan, however, shows up to five lifts scaling West Ridge between North Peak and Outback (which was then called “South Peak”):On Keystone being among Colorado's least-snowy major resortsIt's a strange fact of geography that Keystone scores significantly less snow, on average, than its Colorado peers:This makes even less sense when you realize how close Keystone sits to A-Basin (115 more inches per season), Breck (118), and Copper (70):When I hosted OpenSnow founder and CEO Joel Gratz on the podcast last year, he explained Keystone's odd circumstances (as well as how the mountain sometimes does better than its neighbors), at the 1:41:43 mark.On pass prices across Summit County creeping up over the past several yearsSummit County was Ground Zero for the pass wars, during which a preponderance of mountains the size of Rhode Island fought to the death over who could give skiing away the cheapest. There are many reasons this battle started here, and many reasons why it's ending. Not the least of which is that each of these ski areas hosts the population of a small city every day all winter long. Colorado accounts for approximately one in four U.S. skier visits. The state's infrastructure is one rolled-over semi away from post-apocalyptic collapse. There's no reason that skiing has to cost less than a load of laundry when everyone wants to do it all the time.As a result, prices are slowly but steadily rising. Here's what's happened to pass prices at the four Summit County ski areas over the past six seasons:They've mostly gone up. Keystone is the only one that is less expensive to ski at now than it was in 2018 (on a season-pass basis). This chart is somewhat skewed by a couple of factors:* For the 2018-19 ski season, A-Basin was an unlimited member of the Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, and Summit Value Pass, a fact that nearly broke the place. The drastic price drop from 2018 to '19 reflects A-Basin's first year outside Vail's coalition.* Vail cut Epic Pass prices 20 percent from the 2020-21 ski season to the 2021-22 campaign. That's why Breck and Keystone are approximately the same price now as they were before the asteroid attack, Covid.* Little-known fact: Copper Mountain sells its own season pass, separate from the Ikon Pass, even though the mountain offers unlimited access on both the Ikon Base and full Ikon passes.On Mr. OklahomaI don't want to spoil the ending here, but we do talk about this.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 75/100 in 2023, and number 461 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. 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To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Nov. 14. It dropped for free subscribers on Nov. 17. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoBrian Norton, President and General Manager of Loon Mountain, New HampshireRecorded onNovember 1, 2022About LoonClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Boyne ResortsPass affiliations: Ikon Pass, New England PassReciprocal pass partners:* Unlimited access to Sunday River and Sugarloaf* 3 days each at Pleasant Mountain, Boyne Mountain, The Highlands, Brighton, Big Sky, Summit at Snoqualmie, CypressLocated in: Lincoln, New HampshireClosest neighboring ski areas: Kanc (3 minutes), Cannon (21 minutes), Campton (26 minutes), Mt. Eustis (28 minutes), Mt. Prospect (35 minutes), Waterville Valley (37 minutes), Bretton Woods (38 minutes), Cranmore (55 minutes), Veterans Memorial (55 minutes), Ragged (58 minutes), King Pine (58 minutes), Attitash (1 hour), Gunstock (1 hour, 6 minutes), Black Mountain NH (1 hour, 7 minutes), Pleasant Mountain (1 hour, 7 minutes), Wildcat (1 hour, 13 minutes), Abenaki (1 hour, 15 minutes)Base elevation: 950 feetSummit elevation: 3,050 feetVertical drop: 2,100 feetSkiable Acres: 370 (will increase to 400 with next year's South Peak expansion)Average annual snowfall: 160 inchesTrail count: 61 (20% black, 60% intermediate, 20% beginner)Lift count: 11, plus one train (1 four-passenger gondola, 1 eight-pack, 3 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 3 doubles, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog's of inventory of Loon's lift fleet). Loon will add a second fixed-grip quad - this one with a carpet-loader - rising approximately 500 feet off the Escape Route parking lots, in 2023.Why I interviewed himThere are 26 ski areas in New Hampshire. And lots of good ones: Cannon, Waterville, Bretton Woods, Attitash, Wildcat. Black and Cranmore and Ragged and Gunstock and Sunapee. Pats Peak and Crotched and King Pine. Don't “you forgot…” me, You-Forgot-[Blank] Bro. I'm making a point here: there are more good ski areas in this state than even You-Forgot-[Blank] Bro can keep track of.That means I have plenty of podcast material: I've hosted the leaders of Cannon, Gunstock, Waterville Valley, Whaleback, Ragged, and Pats Peak on the podcast. And Loon, a conversation with then-President and General Manager Jay Scambio shortly after the resort launched its so-call Flight Path 2030 plan in early 2020.So why, before I've checked off Bretton Woods or Black or Cranmore or any of the four Vail properties, am I revisiting Loon? Fair question. Plenty of answers. First, the Loon I discussed with Scambio in February 2020 is not the Loon that skiers ski today. And the Loon that skiers will make turns on before the end of this month is not the same Loon they'll ski next year, or the year after that. Kanc 8 – New England's first Octopus Lift – changed the whole flow of the resort, even though it followed the same line as the legacy lift. This year's Seven Brothers upgrade should do the same. And next year's small but significant South Peak expansion will continue the evolution.Second, Scambio, young and smart and ambitious, jumped up the Boyne Resort food chain, and is now chief operating officer for the company's day areas (Brighton, Summit at Snoqualmie, Cypress, and Loon), clearing the way for the young and smart and ambitious Norton to take the resort's top job.Third, my first Loon Mountain podcast did not age well from a technical point of view. Pre-Covid, I relied mostly on a telephone recording service to capture podcast audio. Sometimes this landed fine, but Jay and I sound as though we're talking in a 1940s war movie recorded in a field tent. I also sound considerably less enthusiastic than I actually was. I wish I could re-master it or something, but for now, Storm Skiing Podcast number 12 is an artifact of a platform in motion, seeking its shape and identity. The Storm is a far better product now, and this is as close to a re-do as I'm going to get.Fourth, the guest I originally had scheduled for the week of Oct. 31 had to cancel. Loon had just announced the South expansion, and the timing seemed perfect to revisit a New England favorite. Norton was good enough to step in, even in the midst of intensive preseason prep.So here you go: Loon podcast number two. It won't be the last.What we talked aboutHow Loon determines opening day; potential changes to the terrain-opening cadence; “I hate the thought that you do something one way because you've always done it that way”; from college student/East Basin liftie to president and general manager; Wachusett nights; that New Hampshire vibe; Planet Terrain Park; living through the Booth Creek-Boyne Resorts transition; Loon, the most popular kid on the block; managing skier volume; why Loon doesn't have night skiing, and whether the ski area has ever considered it; the amazing Kanc 8; “so much of our guest's day is not skiing”; how the new lift changed Loon skier patterns and other reflections on season one; Kanc's chaotic, wonderful lift queue; evolving the Governor's Lodge side of the resort; the Seven Brothers upgrade: “it's a new lift … you won't recognize it”; the slight modifications to the location of the top and bottom terminals; the fate of the Seven Brothers triple; comparing the new and old lifts; the importance of terrain parks to Loon; thinking through long-term upgrades to the South Peak and North Peak Express quads and the gondola; what having “the most technologically advanced lift fleet in New England” means; thoughts on the future of the East Basin double; breaking down the 2023 South Peak expansion; what it means to finally run a lift up from the massive Escape Route parking lots; the importance of connecting Loon to Lincoln; evolving Loon's learning experience; breaking down the bottom and top terminals of the coming quad lift and why it will sit slightly away from the parking lot; where the expansion will fit into the terrain-opening sequence; Loon's evolving glade philosophy; where Loon will be eliminating a glade and why; where new glades will be coming online; three huge projects at Loon in three years: “this is a commitment across the board to grow”; what the Westward Trail expansion is and when we could see it; breaking down potential additional development on North Peak; why Lincoln Peak Express doesn't go to the summit of South Peak; Loon's absolute commitment to snowmaking; why Loon will require Ikon Pass reservations this coming season, and how the mountain will set the number of reservations for each day.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIt's all just changing so fast. Ever since dropping Flight Path 2030 plan in early 2020, Loon has built the massive and gorgeous Kancamagus eight-pack (New England's first), rebuilt the old Kanc quad and moved it across the mountains to replace the Seven Brothers triple chair, and announced a 30-acre 2023 expansion that will finally knot the ski area's massive Escape Route parking lots to the rest of the resort with a lift. And the mountain has built all that around Covid-19, with all its operational disorientation and a one-year delay on construction of Kanc 8 (originally scheduled to go live in 2020).They're just getting going. Flight Path's overarching goal, from a skier-experience point of view, is to stand up “the most technologically advanced lift network in the East to increase uphill speed and achieve ultimate comfort.” That means upgrades to the Lincoln and North Peak high-speed quads and that weird little four-person gondola. The snowmaking system, hundreds of guns that can already bury most of Loon's 370 acres by Christmas, is going full auto. New trails are likely incoming for North and South peaks. More glades, too. The Westward Trail expansion could potentially add hundreds more acres and shoot Loon past Bretton Woods for the largest-in-New Hampshire title.Even if Loon stopped with next year's expansion, the place would be in good shape. Lincoln Peak Express is only 15 years old. North Peak is 18. Kanc 8 is a glorious, beautiful machine, standing monolithic at Governor Adams, so smooth in its ascent that it appears to float up the rise. And Seven Brothers is more than a lift-and-shift – “It's a new lift,” Norton tells me on the podcast, after Doppelmayr spent a year on an overhaul so thorough that “you won't recognize it.”The 500-vertical-foot, beginner-oriented expansion, to be served by a carpet-loaded fixed-grip quad, seems small in the scale of 2,100-vertical-foot, super-octopus-lift-served Loon. But the new pod is a crucial connection both to the checkerboard of outer-edge parking lots currently served by shuttlebuses, and to the town of Lincoln, the edges of which sit walking distance to the new lift. The expansion will also add new beginner terrain, a product that extra-intermediate Loon currently lacks in meaningful quantities. Here's a peek:And here's how the little pod will fit in with the rest of the resort:With so much so recently accomplished, and so much more incoming, this seemed like a perfect moment to check in with one of New England – and, really, America's – most rapidly evolving ski areas.What I got wrongRumors were all over the place last year that Kanc 8 experienced intermittent power issues last season. I asked Norton about this in the podcast, and it turns out that the rumors weren't true. But I asked the question in a way that presumed they were. Instead of asking “what was happening with the intermittent power issues,” I should have framed it this way: “There was a lot of chatter that intermittent power issues interfered with Kanc 8 operating last year – was that true?” I'll do better.Why you should ski Loon MountainIf you're questing for rad, keep driving. Cannon is 20 minutes up the road. Loon is many things, but challenging is not one of them (watch this be the site of my next catastrophic injury). Here's what it is: one of the best exactly-in-the-middle mountains in New England skiing. Its peers are Okemo and Mount Snow and Bretton Woods; lots of fast lifts, ExtraGroomed and extra busy, with lots of skiers welcomed by the welcoming terrain.Loon is, in other words, what every ski area east of the Rockies was trying to be before terrain parks and glades and bumps made skiing more interesting: a perfect groomed ski area. Approachable and modest, big and sprawling enough to feel like an adventure, well-appointed with Boyne's particular brand of largess.Loon has an amazing terrain park, of course. Some steeper stuff off North and South. Some trees if you're timing is right. But that's not the point of the place (well, the park sort of is), and it doesn't need to be. Loon is for blue skiers like Jay is for glade skiers and like springtime Killington is for bump skiers. Groomers are the point here. Let them run.But stop, please, mid-mountain beneath the Kanc 8. Watch this beautiful machine glide. Up and over and away, the smoothest lift in skiing. Rising from frantic load terminal to propelled silence as it advances toward the summit, floating and flying and encased in a bubble. Then catch the J.E. Henry railroad over to the gondola, ride to the summit, board Tote Road – the party lift – across the mountain decorous with pines, sprawling like a mini-Sugarbush, and roll the endless, glorious blue-square Cruiser or Boom Run to the base. This is Loon – a big ramble, quirky and stimulating and easy – easy to ski, easy to like, easy to settle into and ride.Podcast notes* Norton noted that previous plans for the South Peak expansion had included two proposed lifts. This version, which, according to New England Ski History, dates to 2013, shows one possible alignment, with two crisscrossing fixed-grip quads oriented against the existing Cruiser and Escape Route trails. This plan also included the magic carpets:* We also briefly discussed the so-called “Westward Trail expansion,” which Flight Path 2030 names as a potential late-stage project. Norton noted that several hundred additional acres exist within Loon's permit area, that plans for such an expansion have existed for decades, and that this is what the Westward Trail expansion referred to. Unfortunately, I've been unable to locate these maps. If you are in possession of any, please send them over.* I attended Kanc 8's grand opening last December. Here's video of the first-ever chair:* And of course, the J.E. Henry, an honest-to-goodness steam engine that skiers ride between the Governor Adams and Octagon base areas: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 122/100 in 2022, and number 368 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

NORTH PEAK  Learn about the lofty backdrop to this quiet entrance to Mount Diablo State Park: 3,557-foot North Peak. You can scramble up the peak from here—with difficulty!—or just gaze in admiration.  Presented by Save Mount Diablo. Featuring Seth Adams, Jean Hetherington, and Ken Lavin. Music by Phil Heywood. Photographs by Scott Hein and others. Production by Joan Hamilton. 

Santa Claus is real. He goes by the name of Chris and lives in North Peak, Alaska. A child receives a lump of coal as a gift and decides to enact retribution on Santa Claus by hiring a hitman to take him out. Yes this is an actual movie that exists in the world. We have a lively discussion about the events of this bonkers film and hash out why some critics hate it and audiences love it. Critics: 45% Audience: 84%

The Storm Skiing Podcast is sponsored by Mountain Gazette - Listen to the podcast for discount codes on subscriptions and merch.An old-timey coziness defines Caberfae, but this is one of the most steadily evolving ski areas in America.WhoTim Meyer, Co-Owner and General Manager of Mountain Operations at Caberfae Peaks, MichiganRecorded onJuly 21, 2021Why I interviewed him In the part of my brain warehousing ski memories there are days and places that live forever. Many of those days are at Caberfae. When I first pulled up to the base area as a novice skier trained poorly at the single-lift bumps downstate I stood in dumbstruck awe of the place, its teeming peaks and lift network sprawling off into the woods. A dozen tumbling freefalls did not discourage me from its charms. Caberfae stood just 90 minutes from my house and I became a regular, returning on swirling weekends and quiet spring weeknights when I lapped empty chairs in long March sunsets after school. I moved away from Michigan long ago, but if I’m there in the winter Caberfae is the first place I go.It is a special place, quintessentially Midwestern and unusually aggressive in its deliberate decades-long evolution. Opened in the 1930s, the complex grew by the 1970s into what Chris Diamond described in his book Ski Inc. 2020 as “a sprawling series of hills served by 20-plus rope tows, five T-Bars and a chairlift, spanning some two miles from end-to-end.” A 1966 copy of America’s Ski Book describes Caberfae as being equipped with “six T-bars and sixteen rope tows on 270 vertical feet.” Here is the 1980 trailmap, which looks like it was spun out of the ditto machines that stamped out my early grade-school classwork sheets:Today, nearly everything on that trailmap has been permanently abandoned. In what Diamond calls “the most successful ‘ski-resort contraction’ in history,” Caberfae moved tons of earth from the bottom of two peaks to the top, boosting its vertical drop from 270 to 485 feet. “Their vertical expansion of two central peaks was accompanied by a horizontal contraction from the far-flung borders and the closing of a dozen-plus lifts, which they could never adequately cover with snowmaking,” Diamond writes. By the early 2000s, when Tim Meyer and his cousin Pete inherited the operation from their fathers, who’d had the vision to transform it, Caberfae looked like this:For context, the Shelter run far skier’s right on the 2004 map sits between the two chairlifts on the 1980 map. But they weren’t done yet. Today, Caberfae looks like this:The backcountry terrain, which is ungroomed and open only when natural snow allows, brought some of the old Caberfae back into the active resort footprint. They’re far from done: in the podcast, we talk about a massive project that will add a new lift and a third peak for the 2022-23 season, future development of the Backcountry, and more. “We try to do a little bit each year,” Meyer tells me in the podcast.I’ve been waiting 25 years to have this conversation. Caberfae may be the most constantly evolving ski resort in America. It’s like a mansion that the owners can’t stop renovating. How we went from a ropetow kingdom bereft of snowmaking to a modern resort forged out of vision, willpower, patience, grit, and determination that, four decades after the family acquired it, is still a work-in-progress, was a story I’d been waiting my entire skiing life to hear.What we talked aboutThe glory of the wild ropetow-laced and low-rise Caberfae of the early 1980s; lift relics still in the woods; why that terrain was abandoned and why it’s likely gone forever; growing up on the slopes of Caberfae and why Meyer lit out for Winter Park, Colorado - and what finally drew him back; running a ski area as a multi-generational family business; the kind of place where you’ll find the owner roaming the grounds in snowboots and clutching a walkie-talkie; who had the vision to transform Caberfae from an antique into a modern ski area; the incredible engineering feat of building two artificial peaks from Michigan clay and sand; improvisational construction; how the mountain stabilized the peaks; how building South Peak in the 1980s stabilized the business; the nearly 40-year-old South Peak triple is here to stay; why the ski area has changed the grade of select runs over the years; developing North Peak; why the ski area added a new triple to North Peak in 2016 and why it left the adjacent quad in service; the virtues of triple chairs; whether the ski area ever considered a six-pack for North Peak; the quirky I-75 run; why the ski area put a fence up between Smiling Irishman and Canyon; why the mountain re-opened part of the old Caberfae as an ungroomed natural-snow area; the old T-bar line hidden like a secret videogame level in the woods; the potential for chairlifts or terrain expansion in the Backcountry; why the ski area leaves its woods intact; the two retired Hall chairlifts sitting at the base of the ski area and whether they could ever come back into service, possibly as a single lift; the timeline for the third peak, what it will be called, and what kind of lift it will have; which lift is coming down to accommodate the expansion; the return of Bo Buck; the sentimental anguish of tearing the last ropetow out of the former king of the ropetows; why it could return one day; renovations on the Skyview Day Lodge; crockpots in the day lodge: “if you live in Michigan, you should have the opportunity to ski”; why Caberfae has never focused on terrain parks; going from almost zero snowmaking in the early 1980s to a modern fleet; why the mountain doesn’t push for the late spring close; how Caberfae went from selling seven golf season passes to nearly 400 and how they applied the philosophy to the $99 discounted ski season weekend or weekday pass; how that turbocharged the business; why the mountain raised the pass price to $149 last year after more than a decade at $99; the Indy Pass; why season passholders have to pick up a new metal wicket ticket each time they arrive at the ski area; the ski area’s unique lift ticket designs; why metal wickets are probably part of Caberfae indefinitely; the ski area’s colorful trailmap and when they’ll introduce a new one; why the ski area continued its relationship with Liftopia/Catalate after its troubles last year; how the 2020-21 Covid season went at Caberfae; and Covid adaptations that may stick around for future seasons. From the air, it’s easier to see how Caberfae has been scultped over the decades. Strategically placed trees make the place ski bigger than it looks. Photo courtesy of Indy Pass and Caberfae Peaks.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview I actually thought February 2020 was a great time for this interview, and that’s when we initially recorded it. But the audio was compromised, filled with a conversation-from-space crackle that I couldn’t scrub out. The Storm Skiing Podcast was just four months old at the time, and I hadn’t perfected the harder-than-you’d-think art of recording a two-way conversation. I kept thinking I could resolve the issue and delayed posting. Then Covid hit. By the time I’d admitted defeat, skiing seemed small and ski area operators were preoccupied with survival. By the time the 2020-21 season came around, I was embarrassed to go back to Meyer to ask him to re-do a thing he had already done. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I fired off a bashful email asking if I could have another hour of his time. Tim graciously and immediately agreed. This has been an eternal to-do list item and it is liberating to cross it off.Caberfae is the southern edge of big-time Midwest skiing. Going up the 2016 Doppelmayr triple chair on North Peak, which runs alongside a 1992 CTEC quad.Why you should ski CaberfaeCaberfae was an inaugural Indy Pass partner in the Midwest, a family-owned, family-centric Up North ski area where crockpots line the baselodge ledges and the lifties are not temp workers trucked in from the hinterlands but locals who return to their posts year after year. The place is absolute joy, no pretense, no arrogance, as down-home as Up North gets. As Meyer says in the podcast, their market is the recreational skier. That’s another way of saying it’s mostly absent of hotshots and speedsters and flippidy-doo parksters. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. This is a crowd that just loves skiing for the motion and the thrill of it, for the sensation of downhill freefall. I’ve never been to a happier ski area.The terrain is unique for the Midwest. The artificial hills create a sensation of above-treeline skiing that is otherwise absent between Sugarloaf and Loveland. At the same time, Caberfae has eschewed the Midwest urge to clear-cut its small hills to accommodate the downhill masses – trails thread through the forest on the lower mountain, especially on North Peak and off the Shelter Chair, and the wall of trees segregating the baselodge from the slopes create a sensation of rambling bigness unusual for the Lower Peninsula. Plus, wicket tickets:Photo courtesy of Indy Pass and Caberfae Peaks.There’s one more thing. Crossing into Michigan by land invariably takes you past signs welcoming you to “Pure Michigan.” The 13-year-old slogan extolls the state’s vast forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, but it has been commandeered by prideful Michiganders to evoke the tireless community DIY spirit of the people themselves. When I arrived in Manhattan nearly 20 years ago, the most difficult cultural adjustment was how reliant average New Yorkers were on paid labor for even mundane tasks. No one in Michigan – at least the community I grew up in in Michigan – pays anyone to do anything they can do themselves. Ever. The concept of hiring movers, for example, still confounds me, and I moved myself – at great hassle but little expense - at least 10 times within Manhattan before settling in Brooklyn five years ago. My point here is that Meyer and his family are Pure Michigan in that sense. When I say they engineered the most dramatic transformation of a lift-served ski area in the history of U.S. skiing over the course of four decades, I mean they engineered it. They drove the heavy equipment and they transformed glacial bumps into above-treeline peaks one shovel-load at a time and they cut the trees and reshaped the land and made the improbable inevitable. When I met Meyer on the slopes of Caberfae, he was walking across the base area in a snowsuit, carrying a crackling walkie-talkie. And you can tell in this interview, by the way he describes his sense of duty to the ski area and to his family, and maintains a crockpot-friendly Caberfae with ticket prices almost anyone can afford, that this guy and the people around him are Pure Michigan in the most elemental way. The Shelter Double is a 1967 Hall. Caberfae plans to replace the short lift with a brand-new Doppelmayr triple serving a new peak for the 2022-23 ski season, dramatically improving the experience of getting out of the base area. The old Hall will go into storage along with two others of the same vintage, possibly to be re-purposed at a later date.Additional resourcesThis 1949 trailmap distills the zany rambling chaos that once defined Caberfae and continues to animate its spirit:Even those intimately familiar with the modern Caberfae will have a hard time deciphering what they’re looking at in this 72-year-old depiction of the ski area.A few more items of interest:Lift Blog’s inventory of Caberfae liftsMore classic Caberfae trailmapsChris Diamond’s Ski Inc 2020 has a wonderful write-up of Caberfae (pgs. 128-132). The book is worth a full and repeated read for anyone interested in the modern lift-served skiing landscape.I wrote this story about a 5-year-old who hitched a ride on the Shelter Double with me a couple years ago.Another essay, this one documenting my inaugural ski season rambling over the Michigan flatlands as a teenager:I have no photographs documenting that season. Not one. But I remember the sequence of days perfectly, the huge snowy canvas of Up North rolling out before me as I traversed the supergrid of state highways and interstates, one by one ticking off the lift-served areas that we all presumptuously called mountains but were barely hills, the largest of them 550 vertical feet from top to bottom.To me they may as well have been Vail. After a return to single-chairlift Snow Snake, I stood in dumbfounded amazement at the base of Caberfae, four or five chairlifts sprawling across its two humped peaks poking like a giant snowy camel from the flatlands outside of Cadillac. I descended them like an inept paratrooper dropped at velocity over a decline, my gear twirling apart from me in acrobatic freefall with each concussive wipeout. Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

The Storm Skiing Podcast is sponsored in part by:Mountain Gazette - Listen to the podcast for discount codes on subscriptions and merch.Helly Hansen - Listen to the podcast to learn how to get an 18.77 percent discount at the Boston and Burlington, Vermont stores.WhoBrian Heon, General Manager of Sunday River, MaineRecorded on February 2, 2021Why I interviewed him Because if you’re listening to this podcast, you can probably never get enough Sunday River. It’s big. It’s amazing. It’s important. And we all need it even if we never go there. For the Northeast to have a ski industry, it needs big, highly functional, ever-evolving ski areas that will forever stoke the aspirational let’s-go-bigger instincts of the beginners being tugged sideways up town ropetows. Sunday River is pretty much where things top out in New England. It has peers, but it really doesn’t have betters, even if there’s a little more howl and rip at Sugarloaf or Stowe or Sugarbush. It has scale and variety and lifts everywhere and if aliens landed on our planet and for some reason chose rural Maine as their disembarkation point they would probably conclude that the mountain was a giant factory for snow manufacturing. Which I suppose it is. And has to be. What it lacks in natural snowfall, it makes up for with cold cold temps, and Sunday River blasts out the artificial snow as well as anyplace on the planet. Running it is a titanic effort, and I wanted to get the perspective of the guy who had just taken on one of the biggest jobs in Northeast skiing.Photo courtesy of Sunday River Resort.What we talked aboutHow a career in skiing began in the melting flatscapes of Florida; working at The Canyons under the American Skiing Company and Mount Snow under Peak Resorts; running the legend that is Wildcat; when the original general manager of your ski area shows up with a shoebox full of old photos and stories of the sweaty pre-OSHA past:… when Vail buys your mountain; de-icing lifts after 13 years of swimming in Utah fluff; landing at Sunday River as Covid aftershocks were first reverberating across the landscape; life in Bethel; the scale and complexity of the resort’s operations as compared to Wildcat; how former GM and current President Dana Bullen’s role has evolved since Heon joined the mountain; Boyne Resorts’ company culture; an update on Sunday River 2030; RFID finally; Merrill Hill expansion plan and timeline; what’s next for lifts at Barker, Jordan, Aurora, North Peak, and South Ridge; potential new trails and glades on top of the existing footprint; snowmaking goals; some crowd-sourced snowmaking questions; why rusty pipes aren’t always bad pipes; what types of guns we may see at Sunday River in the future; ideas for improving the ski flow for the public around the race courses; a follow-up question about Boyne’s quest to eliminate boilerplate in New England; whale-mania; the fallout from the resort’s cyber-security hack earlier in the season and how they’re preparing for future incidents; preparing for Covid ops even as circumstances shifted constantly in the run-up to ski season; how that plan has evolved as ski season marched onward; whether the Sunday River-Killington first-to-open rivalry will return post-Covid; and Covid-era ops changes that may stick around indefinitely.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview Because Sunday River has a new general manager for the first time since 2006. Brian Heon arrives from rowdy Wildcat, the New Hampshire legend now stacked into Vail’s Epic portfolio, with a couple decades of experience and an eagerness for a challenge. He found one, stepping into, well, 2020, arriving in May to try and puzzle together a Covid-era operating plan for a resort he’d never operated. It’s one of the most challenging situations imaginable at one of the most complex and scrutinized ski areas in New England. With eight months at the helm and several weeks of Covid-era operations behind him, I thought now was a good time to check in and see how Sunday River was adapting to our Very Weird Times and how Heon was sinking into his new home.Photo courtesy of Sunday River Resort.Why you should go there I don’t have a lot to add to what I said about Sunday River when I interviewed resort President and then-GM Dana Bullen last February. This is a spectacular mountain, and a must-ski for anyone who wants to truly experience and understand Northeast skiing.Additional resourcesThis is the latest of many Storm Skiing Podcasts with Boyne Resorts, parent company of Sunday River. Click through below to listen to the others:Boyne Resorts President and CEO Stephen KircherLoon Mountain President Jay ScambioSunday River President and General Manager Dana BullenBoyne Resorts President and CEO Stephen Kircher – Inside the Covid-19 ShutdownSugarloaf President and General Manager Karl Strand, Part 1 – Sugarloaf 2030Sugarloaf President and General Manager Karl Strand, Part 2 – After the ShutdownAlso:Lift Blog’s Sunday River lift databaseA history of Sunday River trailmaps – the resort’s development throughout the 80s is astonishingPhoto courtesy of Sunday River Resort.COVID-19 & Skiing Podcasts: Author and Industry Veteran Chris Diamond | Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher | Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway | NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak| Berkshire East/Catamount Owner & Goggles for Docs founder Jon Schaefer | Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis Cofounder Jeff Thompson | Doppelmayr USA President Katharina Schmitz | Mt. Baldy GM Robby Ellingson| Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory | NSAA Director of Risk & Regulatory Affairs Dave Byrd | Schweitzer Mountain President and CEO Tom ChasseThe Storm Skiing Podcasts: Killington & Pico GM Mike Solimano | Plattekill owners Danielle and Laszlo Vajtay | New England Lost Ski Areas Project Founder Jeremy Davis | Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway | Lift Blog Founder Peter Landsman | Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher | Burke Mountain GM Kevin Mack | Liftopia CEO Evan Reece | Berkshire East & Catamount Owner & GM Jon Schaefer| Vermont Ski + Ride and Vermont Sports Co-Publisher & Editor Lisa Lynn | Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith | Loon President & GM Jay Scambio | Sunday River President & GM Dana Bullen | Big Snow & Mountain Creek VP of Sales & Marketing Hugh Reynolds | Mad River Glen GM Matt Lillard| Indy Pass Founder Doug Fish | National Brotherhood of Skiers President Henri Rivers | Winter 4 Kids & National Winter Activity Center President & CEO Schone Malliet | Vail Veterans Program President & Founder Cheryl Jensen | Mountain Gazette Owner & Editor Mike Rogge | Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows President & CMO Ron Cohen | Aspiring Olympian Benjamin Alexander | Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Parts One & Two | Cannon GM John DeVivo | Fairbank Group Chairman Brian Fairbank | Jay Peak GM Steve Wright | Sugarbush President & GM John Hammond | Mount Snow GM Tracy Bartels | Saddleback CEO & GM Andy Shepard | Bousquet owners and management | Hermitage Club GM Bill Benneyan | Powder Magazine Editor-in-Chief Sierra Shafer | Gunstock GM Tom Day | Bolton Valley President Lindsay DesLauriers | Windham President Chip Seamans Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

We are delighted to share with you our new podcast mini-series ‘Voices of the North' made in collaboration with Talent Norway. In this podcast series we will introduce you to some of the finest talents and rising stars of the North and bring you the voices of cultural and artistic leaders of Scandinavia. In our first episode we explore ‘Peak Performance: Art in Context'. In today's society, the arts are constantly being tested and challenged. Many art forms are affected by local restrictions and government regulations, and performers may be limited or even prohibited from practising and performing. Others may seek alternative ways of sharing and expressing their art. How can the art sector respond and react to these and others societal challenges? What can society do to help artists through these challenging times? And what can we do on a communal level? How can we help artists achieve their best and facilitate an environment that promotes peak performance? And what can an individual artist do to get through these challenging times while still being able to stimulate their performance and creativity? To help us answer these important questions we are joined by three special guests: Jarle Aambo (Norwegian sports official, CEO of Igloo Innovation and the Norwegian High Performance Cluster) Tom Henning Øvrebø (clinical psychologist, research fellow at the Norwegian School of Sport Science and former UEFA Elite referee) Audhild Dahlstrøm (Head of Knowledge and Initiatives at SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge and board member of Talent Norway) Hosted by HarrisonParrott's Karoline Melstveit. Audio edited by Merlyn Thomas and theme music composed by Robert Cochrane. Voices of the North is a part of the agreement and collaboration between Talent Norge and SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge, Samfunnsløftet. Together they ensure that exceptional talents have access to artistic support programmes where they live. The Culture Bar is a podcast series created by HarrisonParrott focussing on conversations in culture and the arts.

This episode Brian and Nez put on their winter coats and head to North Peak, Alaska to seek out the big man in the Red coat in 2020's FATMAN.    Join The Action Returns Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/841619946357776   Follow The Action Returns on IG and Twitter: Instagram: @theactionreturns Twitter: @action_returns    

This week the Beer Nuts explore better beers for Oktoberfest from SanTan, Pocock, Frankenmuth, North Peak and Shiner!  Please follow us on Twitter @BeerNutsPodcast, or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/beernutspodcast/

The Storm Skiing Podcast #13 | Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.Who: Dana Bullen, President and General Manager of Sunday River, MaineWhy I interviewed him: Because Sunday River, sprawling and varied and improbable, is one of the finest physical manifestations of New England can-do grit and individual initiative. This is what the mountain looked like in 1961 (The main hill rising from the parking lot is Barker):It hadn’t evolved much by 1984:And then, all of a sudden, a decade later, it looked like some kind of vast European ski circus dropped on the western edge of Maine. The 1994 trailmap:The vision to transform the mountain from a backwater to something that could roll up next to Killington in the parking lot and be like, “what?” belonged, of course, to Les Otten. But since Boyne pulled the mountain off of the ASC gurney in 2007, they have made a serious commitment to, as Dana says in our interview, bringing the rest of the resort up to the standards of the best-in-the-region skiing. I wanted to get a better sense of how the mountain would continue to evolve on top of one of the best trail and lift networks in the Northeast.What we talked about: Sunday River 2030; working with Boyne to decide what to upgrade; Bethel and how it’s tied to the mountain; RFID coming next season; doubling snowmaking capacity; why Killington usually wins the race to open and why Sunday River won’t compete for last to close; what’s planned for Barker and sorry it won’t be next season; how the Gould Academy T-bar helped take pressure off Barker this season; why they’re upgrading the Jordan lift; how new lift technology helps limit wind holds; any new lifts at Sunday River will not be high-speed quads; the Hermitage Club’s six-pack bubble will not end up at Sunday River even if Boyne buys it; could Sunday River join Oktuplefest?; solving the uphill-capacity-versus-downhill-traffic equation when deciding which new lifts to install; you won’t believe how many chairlifts are at these Austrian resorts that Dana just visited; near-term updates for the White Cap quad; overhauling the resort’s core with upgrades to the South Ridge and North Peak quads; why they’ll update the fixed-grip Aurora quad; why some lifts not currently scheduled for an upgrade may get one anyway; why the Locke Mountain Triple is OK even though it dates to 1984; how Sunday River is evolving its culinary offerings with everything from sushi to a burger bar to local coffee and beer; new real estate developments and how this is not ASC redux; the difference between working for Boyne and ASC; the potential over the very very very long term to develop three additional peaks beyond Jordan Bowl; the mountain will consider adding more terrain on existing peaks as lift capacity increases; where that new terrain may be; how they maintain the glades and yes they will add more; the legacy of Les Otten, how he’s still involved with the mountain, and how often he skis there; skiing and living on Merrill Hill, which will be Sunday River’s ninth peak; how the mountain rebuilt so quickly after last summer’s disastrous pump-house fire; why Sunday River has night skiing, who uses it, and why it won’t expand; why there’s no Ikon Rage to be found on the mountain; the New England Pass in the age of Ikon; what Gould Academy is and its relationship with Sunday River; summer business; why Sunday River shut down its bike park and whether it could ever return.  The White Cap Quad on a cold December morning. What I got wrong: I’ve gotten the sense from talking to various folks who decide which lifts to invest in that there are inherent properties to high-speed lifts that make them slightly less durable than fixed-grip lifts over the long haul, but Dana clarified that this isn’t necessarily true – high-speed lifts are more complicated and have more parts, but more maintenance can extend their lives as long as fixed-grip lifts in general.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview: Last week, Sunday River unveiled their 2030 plan, an outline of how Boyne will continue to build out the resort over the next decade. While the Sunday River hardcore may have preferred to see more direct terrain expansions or detail about lift enhancements, especially on Barker, the plan is a pragmatic acknowledgement that Sunday River’s future hinges upon building up the assets surrounding the already expansive trail base. This means making Sunday River more of a true modern resort, with better food, better lodges, updated on-mountain residences, more summer activities, modern conference space, and the spa-type stuff that’s expected from families with diverse vacation aspirations. But it also of course means continuing to build up the beastly snowmaking system, ditching my beloved wicket tickets for RFID technology (Sunday River and Sugarloaf are surely among the largest mountains in the country that haven’t made this switch yet), and upgrading a half dozen lifts. While Dana was not forthcoming on lift details, Boyne’s decades investing in state-of-the-art lift technology should reassure concerned skiers that whatever goes in there will be top notch. Sunday River provides a sense of being on the edge of the wilderness.Why you should go there: Because why would you not? The literal only thing Sunday River has working against it is distance from population centers, but that is of course an asset once you arrive. If you know how to move around the mountain, you can avoid liftlines most of the time. And there’s plenty to move around – I don’t know if there’s a more balanced mountain in New England, with more varied ways for skiers of all levels to move between peaks and end to end across the resort. A low intermediate can move from the top of Jordan Bowl to the White Cap lodge in one meandering and astonishing run, while experts can find trouble off of almost any peak if the snowpack is cooperating. The distinct peaks and pods can feel like separate ski areas, each with a personality, even as a skier moves seamlessly between them. Sunday River doesn’t get as much natural snow as the Vermont monsters, but they make up for it with a snowmaking system that could bury Fenway Park in half a day. If you have an Ikon Pass, make a weekend for this one – it’s worth the extra drive.Sunday River wraps peak after peak into the distance, offering a seemingly endless ski experience.The Storm Skiing Podcast is on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts. The Storm Skiing Journal publishes podcasts and other editorial content throughout the ski season. To receive new posts as soon as they are published, sign up for The Storm Skiing Journal Newsletter at skiing.substack.com. Follow The Storm Skiing Journal on Facebook and Twitter.Check out previous podcasts: Killington & Pico GM Mike Solimano | Plattekill owners Danielle and Laszlo Vajtay | New England Lost Ski Areas Project Founder Jeremy Davis | Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway | Lift Blog Founder Peter Landsman | Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher | Burke Mountain GM Kevin Mack | Liftopia CEO Evan Reece | Berkshire East & Catamount Owner/GM Jon Schaefer | Vermont Ski + Ride and Vermont Sports Co-Publisher & Editor Lisa Lynn | Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith | Loon Mountain President and GM Jay Scambio | Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

Oktoberfest is in full swing, the boys sample beers from North Peak and Mikkeller, and Toxic Holocaust and Gatecreeper get reviewed. Recorded 10/13/19

CHESTNUT AMBER ALE 7.0% ABV | 15 IBUFrom North Peak: With each sip of Gnarl Chestnut Amber Ale think about the wild boar and his passion for nature. This earthy style is toasted and sweet, blending caramel notes with amazing chestnut flavors. Hop aromas of floral and citrus combined with a beautiful hue of coppery amber. Enjoy and be kind to our forests.John 18 www.esv.org/John+18/Beer Rating: 3.75 out of 5.What do you want to know? What do you want to drink?Let me know. Email pastormatt@holycrossoxford.com or text 248-274-4676.

We thank you for getting us to 1,000 total downloads since we've started this project. Also thanks for voting in our bracket challenges so far.  We can't wait for the new show on you tube red called COBRA KAI. We learn something new about the NHL and some possible life changing technology of the future. Beer selection this week was Arc Angel from North Peak brewing co. #CHC Help support us on our Patreon Page Twitter – @CornerHCPodcast Facebook – CornerHouseChronicles Instagram – @CHC_Podcast Website – www.CHCPodcast.com Logo created by Steven Biondo @Steveomatictattos

This week the Beer Nuts explore better Barley Wines from Weyerbacher, North Peak, Jackie Ohs, Arcadia Ales, Kuhnhenn, and Mother’s Brewing. Plus they have another edition of the Hipster Tipster!  Please follow us on Twitter @BeerNutsPodcast, or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/beernutspodcast/

Beers New Belgium Lips of Faith Clutch Brickway IPL * Great Divide Orabelle North Peak Dauntless Mad River Barleywine Ale * Omnipolllo / Mikkeller Prince & Pauper * Provided By Brewer Rankings: Jeff: 1. Prince & Pauper 2. Great Divide 3. Mad River 4. New Belgium 5. Brickway 6. North Peak Greg: 1. Prince & Pauper 2. Great Divide 3. Mad River 4. North Peak 5. Brickway 6. New Belgium Social: @craftbeerradio on Twitter CBR on Facebook CBR on Google+ Support CBR: Subscribe or Donate Review CBR on iTunes CBR Amazon Store Extras: Preshow Postshow

Beers New Belgium Lips of Faith Clutch Brickway IPL * Great Divide Orabelle North Peak Dauntless Mad River Barleywine Ale * Omnipolllo / Mikkeller Prince & Pauper * Provided By Brewer Rankings: Jeff: 1. Prince & Pauper 2. Great Divide 3. Mad River 4. New Belgium 5. Brickway 6. North Peak Greg: 1. Prince & Pauper 2. Great Divide 3. Mad River 4. North Peak 5. Brickway 6. New Belgium Social: @craftbeerradio on Twitter CBR on Facebook CBR on Google+ Support CBR: Subscribe or Donate Review CBR on iTunes CBR Amazon Store Extras: Preshow Postshow

It's 2017 and they SN boys are back! Welcome to the first podcast of the new year! We start the show with our beer of the week. Nick brings us another selection from North Peak. This is called "Mellow" and it's a Cherry Hibiscus beer. Very nice! Shane kicks off the show with a few podcasts he has discovered recently. They are audio dramas called "The Message" and "Lif-e.Af/ter". **SPOILER ALERT** at the 27:54 mark we do start talking about this show in great depth, and spoil many parts of it. If you want to experience the show for your self, we recommend skipping to 40:54 until you listen yourself. Next Nick brings us the topic of, not just Netflix originals, but streaming services in general and how they are making things easier for cord cutters with great content. Finally, Andy brings us his thoughts on rhythm games, specifically Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Plus a whole lot of outro goodness. Let us know what you think! Connect with us on social media and get the word out! Email: podcast@sketchynonsense.com Twitter: @sketchynonsense Facebook.com/sketchynonsense patreon.com/sketchynonsense "Rainbows", "Upbeat Forever" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week the Beer Nuts explore better holiday beers from Great Lakes, Deschutes, Sierra Nevada, Shorts, North Peak, & Harvey’s Brewery.  Thank you for listening on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, & ChristopherMedia.net!

Author Joseph Collins comes in to talk about his newest release The Gardener.  We talk about his books and the writing process.  We also run thru several North Peak beers and a couple others that are killer!  

John Gonzalez and Amy Sherman co-host "Behind the Mitten," a radio show and podcast about all things Michigan.On this show (which aired Sept. 5, 2015), John and Amy broadcast from North Peak Brewery in Traverse City.While at North Peak, they talked to Chief Financial & Chief Operating Officer Tony Grant, general manager and partner Mike Lloyd and brewer Dave Hale -- all about the great things happening at the brewery.And they made the announcement about teaming up with the Purple Community to raise money for cancer research. The program is called #Hops4Hope.At North Peak, drink a Diabolical beer, and $1 from each pint will do to the Van Andel Institute.Diabolical is this week's Beer of the Week.More info on North Peak at http://www.northpeak.net/np.htmlMore info on #Hops4Hope at https://www.facebook.com/PurpleVAIBehind the Mitten airs:*8 a.m. Saturdays on Mix 1049 on WBXX in Battle Creek http://mix1049online.com/*Noon Sundays on Talk Radio 1360 on WKMI in Kalamazoo http://wkmi.com/*6 p.m. Sundays on Newsradio WOOD 1300 & 1069 FM in Grand Rapids http://www.iheart.com/live/wood-radio-1069-fm-1300am-1165/Find the latest info and more details about "Behind the Mitten" at https://www.facebook.com/behindthemitten

Amy Sherman of "Behind the Mitten" appeared on WOOD Radio's "West Michigan Live" with Neal Dionne to talk about this weekend's show. Amy announces their promotion with Hops for Hope. This week they visit North Peak Brewing in Traverse City for the big Kick off.Visit: http://purplecommunity.vai.org/events/hops4hope Learn more about the North Peak Family at: http://www.northpeak.net/np.htmlBehind the Mitten airs:*8 a.m. Saturdays on Mix 1049 on WBXX in Battle Creek http://mix1049online.com/*Noon Sundays on Talk Radio 1360 on WKMI in Kalamazoo http://wkmi.com/ *6 p.m. Sundays on Newsradio WOOD 1300 & 1069 FM in Grand Rapids http://www.iheart.com/live/wood-radio-1069-fm-1300am-1165/Find the latest info and more details about "Behind the Mitten" at https://www.facebook.com/behindthemitten

1931: North Peak of Mount McKinley: from base to peak, it is the tallest mountain on land, and 3rd highest point above sea level on the entire earth. At 20,320 feet tall, its twin peaks dominate the horizon for much of the Alaskan wilderness, prompting the natives to call it Denali, meaning “the tall one.” Mount McKinley holds a prize for those daring enough to climb it, but the mountain is fierce. It will not give up its summit easily. The Fall Without End is a Hebanon Games Scenario. It can be found here. Side Chatter PLAYERS Josh – Father Gerard “Gerry” Bishop.  Awesome prototypical youth pastor. Lead Climber. Kris – Molly Joseph Beaton.  Hobbies include caligraphy and cookery. James – Leonard Bloom.  Aspiring author who gains ideas by adventuring.  Has not written anything yet. Nate – Oliver Beaton.  Esteemed journalist who hasn’t written anything for a long time. Zach – Clarence Barrow.  Runaway with dreams of a better, easier life than woodsmanship. Hannah – Robert Appleton.  A veteran of Mount McKinley, back to challenge the mountain again after losing his job. The post Call of Cthulhu – The Fall Without End (Part 1) appeared first on The Drunk and The Ugly.