Podcasts about Purgatory

“Is doubt normal in OCIA?” Many individuals experience uncertainty and anxiety during their faith journey. This episode also addresses the authority of the Church in determining the canon, the nature of purgatory in relation to earthly time, and the interpretation of the Old Testament in light of God’s love. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 01:40 – I'm in OCIA. I'm committed to joining but is it normal for doubts and anxiety to cloud the mind? 15:25 – How is the argument for the authority of the church in deciding the canon not circular? 29:00 – How does time in purgatory work in relation to time on earth? 41:45 – Do we take the Old Testament literally? My non-Catholic friend can't believe that a loving God would allow those horrible things to happen? 51:06 – Is there a line where prayer to the saints can become sinful?

WhoDoug Fish, founder of the Snowvana ski show and Indy PassDate RecordedSept. 30, 2026About SnowvanaSnowvana is a “winter kick-off festival” (a ski show) scheduled for a four-city 2026 tour:Use the code “storm26” to snatch a free ticket here for any 2026 Snowvana show.Check out the list of free and discounted lift tickets available onsite at each show. Why I interviewed himIf we trust the metonymic origin story of our surnames, then Doug Fish is a descendant of “a catcher or seller of fish,” probably sometime before the invention of the printing press. I cannot think of anything that I understand less than fishing. Specifically, how a person can be good at it. My experience with fishing is that you cast a line in the water and nothing happens while you get drunk. But my buddy's brother could go out on Sanford Lake in a rowboat and return an hour later surrounded by like 50 fish. Every damn time. And I was always just astonished like whatever inherent traits you need to be good at fishing that dude has them.I don't know if Doug Fish is good at fishing, or if he even likes it. I do know that he's good at skiing, and that he likes it. And whatever fishing ability he may or may not have inherited from Alabaster Fish of the 12th Century, he certainly possesses some of the traits of great fishermen: patience, instinct, and the ability to do hard things that no one else can figure out.Organizing and launching the Indy Pass is probably one of the great achievements of modern skiing, in that it proved that any ski area - and therefore nearly any skier - could join the multimountain pass club. While Indy wasn't a novel or new concept, Fish was able to achieve the heretofore impossible task of organizing far-flung ski areas into a coalition with patience, persistence, and a low-key, no-pressure approach devoid of Big Ski's ego. Once Fish sold Indy Pass, he tried something even harder: replicating the success of his Portland ski show across the country. To me, that sounds even more impossible than fishing, and does not include the benefit of a cooler MGDs on the boat floor. But whatever is inside of Fish that made the Indy Pass work, it's making the recently faded ski show work too. I've attended Snowvana in Portland and Milwaukee, each time as a paid speaker. I'm scheduled to host live conversations with Indy Pass/Entabeni/Black Mountain owner Erik Mogensen (Friday, Nov. 6) and Killington owner Phill Gross and president Mike Solimano (Saturday, Nov. 7), at this year's New England show. I don't endorse Snowvana over any competing shows, but I do think ski shows in general offer a fun atmosphere, and a cool way to participate in skiing when you can't actually go skiing.BackgroundFish has appeared on The Storm Skiing Podcast four times, each time solely as a representative of the Indy Pass:TranscriptsThere are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don't know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.ZoomStuart Winchester: My guest today is the founder of the Snowvana Winter Kickoff Festival and also founder of the Indie Pass. Now in its 10th year, Snowvana gathers skiers, ski area operators, and retailers in Portland, Oregon.00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:46.000Stuart Winchester: Seattle, New England, and Wisconsin.00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: The Indy Pass, which Fish founded in 2019 and sold in 2023, but is still involved in, delivers skiers two days each at more than 300 ski areas around the world for winter 2026 to 27. He is making his fifth appearance on the Storm Skiing Podcast. He is Doug Fish. Doug, welcome back.00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: How's it been? Been way too long.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.000Doug Fish: It has to. I know. I miss you.00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:21.000Stuart Winchester: I know. Well, it's been way too long on the pod, and I was just talking before this, in my little intro, before you joined, that this is one of the reasons I wanted to do a different format pod, because.00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:24.000Stuart Winchester: I talk or text you all the time.00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:25.000Doug Fish: Yeah, yeah, no worries.00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:39.000Stuart Winchester: And I haven't had you on the pod in 3 years. So, there's no reason for that, because we love hearing from you, and your episodes always do really well. And we will be working together here a little bit on one of these Snovana appearances in a bit. We'll get to that.00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:42.000Stuart Winchester: First, though, I do want to pick up…00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:40.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:47.000Stuart Winchester: where we left off in that pod three years ago. You had just sold IndiePass to Eric Mogensen.00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:48.000Doug Fish: Get it.00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:56.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, who has gone on to since, also by Black Mountain, and runs a technology company. He was on the podcast recently, and has been a couple times. Just…00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:56.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:04.000Stuart Winchester: First of all, tell us how you're still involved, and give as candid of an assessment as you can of.00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:10.000Stuart Winchester: where the Indy Pass is once you… once you let that baby go.00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:11.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:22.000Doug Fish: Well, it was a little difficult to let the baby go, but I felt at the time that it would be in good hands, and I'm happy to report that it is in good hands.00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:15.000Stuart Winchester: No.00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.000Doug Fish: Um, you know, my country… my employment agreement ran out.00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.000Doug Fish: Almost two years ago.00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:35.000Doug Fish: And I'm still involved, you know. Eric and I extended it, and we keep extending it, and…00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:45.000Doug Fish: I believe in in what he's doing. I certainly believe in the past. I think that Eric has done a great job of.00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.000Doug Fish: Staying true to the mission and the brand promise of IndyPass.00:18:50.000 --> 00:19:00.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, as long as that continues, I will… I will be involved in some capacity. I'm kind of the Colonel Sanders of the IndyPass now.00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:08.000Doug Fish: I and you know I get to be a little a bit of an ambassador. I go to some of the trade shows.00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000Doug Fish: I ski with people.00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.000Doug Fish: It's… it's a pretty good gig, you know.00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:15.000Stuart Winchester: When you said Colonel Sanders, I mean, are you…00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.000Stuart Winchester: What I thought you were doing is still…00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:23.000Stuart Winchester: Recruiting new partners? Is that not the case?00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:37.000Doug Fish: Yeah, I've been. That's what I've been primarily focused on recruiting and maintaining relationships, you know, and and helping grow from a hundred to 300 resorts in the last 3, 3 and a half years, which is pretty incredible growth. And.00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:49.000Doug Fish: you know, I can't take all the credit, but, um, you know, when you can focus on just one thing, you can be a lot more effective, and I've been focused on that.00:19:49.000 --> 00:20:04.000Doug Fish: But Eric has assembled a great team, and I've kind of handed that that part of the the effort off to Nick Niebus and a couple other people on Eric's team that are recruiting new resorts, and, as you can see from the latest release, that's.00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:06.000Doug Fish: Going pretty well.00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:12.000Doug Fish: Um, and I, you know, I think there's some other exciting news in the, in the, uh…00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:21.000Doug Fish: Uh, coming up in the future, I won't spill the beans, but, um, you know, there's always cool things happening there, and I'm just really thankful to be involved.00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:38.000Stuart Winchester: It's been really fascinating to watch the evolution of not just the Indy Pass, but the Pass landscape as a whole. And coincidentally, we started our brands in the same year. Obviously, you've been at this game for a long time, but the Indy Pass launched in 2019, and that's when I came around.00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:30.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:41.000Stuart Winchester: observing the industry.00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:57.000Stuart Winchester: the pass landscape for as long as you've been directly involved in it. And I think the way I always look at this, Doug, is Vail normalized the notion of a multi-mountain pass as an everyday product for the everyday skier, not just a niche product for locals.00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:58.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:04.000Stuart Winchester: And then ICON copied that model, and your contribution to it, which I think was…00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:07.000Stuart Winchester: Extremely important was.00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:17.000Stuart Winchester: taking that idea and normalizing the idea of the non-alpha ski area, non-destination ski area, and you do have some of those, you do. But…00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:18.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:25.000Stuart Winchester: the idea that if you put together Brundage and Mission Ridge and Silver Mountain and White Pass.00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:25.000Doug Fish: Okay.00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:40.000Stuart Winchester: That would be an attractive pass together, right? Because those ski areas, they're, they're good, they're big ski areas, they have lots of snow, but they're not destination ski areas, they're not things people would have thought to fly to, but you had this insight, okay, but if I put them all together, that's pretty cool.00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:29.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.000Stuart Winchester: And so I'll give you some numbers and I'll let you react to this.00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:52.000Stuart Winchester: So, the first season of IndiePass, you launched with, you know, your first list of 10, and maybe you had 50 by the end of the year. Right now.00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:04.000Stuart Winchester: if you look at, uh, Epic, Icon, Indy, Mountain Collective, and the new Snow Pass from Snow Partners, there are 451 ski areas around the world.00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:11.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, between those 5 passes. A little bit of overlap between a few of them. 267 in the United States.00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.000Doug Fish: Yeah, thank you.00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.000Stuart Winchester: 55 in Canada, 61 in Europe.00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:17.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and 53 in Japan.00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:19.000Stuart Winchester: I mean, as you…00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:25.000Stuart Winchester: As you kind of reflect on how this landscape has changed.00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:33.000Stuart Winchester: I've asked this before, but I'll ask again, does this surprise you? I mean, how well this worked and how much it caught on?00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:37.000Doug Fish: No, it doesn't surprise me at all.00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:39.000Doug Fish: It's basic economics.00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:44.000Doug Fish: You know, lift tickets were getting super expensive, and.00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:05.000Doug Fish: a lot of people are getting priced out of the sport, and I mean, even if you want to ski at Vail resorts or Altara resorts. You know you you really have to get a pass if you want to ski more than a few days, and so it doesn't surprise me at all. It's just a it's a good deal. Any pass is the best deal of all.00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:19.000Doug Fish: You know, whether you use it as a regional pass, you know, you go 4 or 5 days in New England, or you take it and you hit the road and hit 25 resorts. It's the best deal in skiing, and it always has been.00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:24.000Doug Fish: So, you know, people respond to deals. That's…00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000Doug Fish: That's, uh, you know, the most of… most, uh…00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:39.000Doug Fish: effective word in advertising is free and cheap comes a second, I think. So it doesn't surprise me a bit.00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.000Stuart Winchester: So we're starting to see a little bit of churn, and we've seen this since the days of the Max Pass.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:45.000Doug Fish: Okay.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:59.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and, you know, the Epic Pass and Mountain Collective sort of trading partners around. We've seen less of it, maybe, than I expected at the top end of Epic and Icon. We're starting to see a little in Indy. You've had some partners leave, you've had some partners who have gone to different passes.00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:50.000Doug Fish: Yeah. Okay.00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:53.000Doug Fish: Yeah, exactly.00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:00.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:05.000Stuart Winchester: What do you… so, the reality is it's a good idea, and people copied it, and that's a free market, and that's how compet.00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.000Stuart Winchester: My question for you is, what do you think?00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:20.000Stuart Winchester: IndyPass has to do to make sure that it stays relevant, that the coalition stays together, that it stays an attractive.00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:18.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000Stuart Winchester: product for both skiers and ski area operators as Eric takes it into the future.00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:27.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:32.000Doug Fish: Well, two things. I think that any of us, Lauren.00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.000Stuart Winchester: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:41.000Doug Fish: I apologize, too. I got a derm.00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:40.000Stuart Winchester: All good.00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:43.000Doug Fish: Um…00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:51.000Doug Fish: In order for Dandy Pass to remain relevant, they need to continue to be an affordable option for consumers.00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.000Doug Fish: and continue to deliver value for the resorts.00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:07.000Doug Fish: And value in, you know, the quality of the visitors, the guests, the amount of check they write, and the amount that they pay for each visit.00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:11.000Doug Fish: And if they can continue to do that, then they will…00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:14.000Doug Fish: They will outlive you and I both.00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:28.000Doug Fish: Um, and, you know, yes, we have over 300 resorts now, you're bound to lose a few now and then. And, you know, we took a hit this year, a few people left, that was unfortunate, but we added…00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:17.000Stuart Winchester: Thank you.00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:38.000Doug Fish: quite a few more. So, you know, it's going great. I'm proud of what they're doing over there, and I'm proud to be associated with it still.00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:54.000Stuart Winchester: So you're playing… I mean, your name comes up all the time, as you said, from listening to the first few podcasts of this shorter version that I'm doing now, or trying to make them short, is… wow, everyone has a lot of opinions about Doug Fish, but so does Doug Fish.00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:50.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:03.000Stuart Winchester: So, so you're clearly still living large in the minds of, of everyone who's involved in the IndiePass or works with it, but you're…00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:18.000Stuart Winchester: Main focus, I think, now, is on Snowvana, which… I copied this language, I don't want people to think I'm being corny, when I say it's a winter kickoff festival. I copied that from your press release, because I didn't really know what… like, I want to call it a ski show.00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:25.000Stuart Winchester: but you seem to not want to call it a ski show. So, what is… what is Snovana, and…00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:24.000Doug Fish: Well, that's a ski show.00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:28.000Stuart Winchester: And what are you trying to accomplish with it?00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:26.000Doug Fish: Good, good.00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:43.000Doug Fish: It's all those things. It's a enhanced ski swap. You know, you can call it anything you want, but, um, we started Savannah in 2016, so this is our 10th anniversary, and, um.00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:30.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:54.000Doug Fish: You know, Snowvana is a place for everyone to gather at the beginning of the season, you know, and we certainly didn't invent that. I think Warren Miller did.00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:10.000Doug Fish: originally, and I remember as a kid going to Warren Miller films, and I was just in awe of of all that, and it was a just, you know, getting stoked for the coming season. It was just an annual pilgrimage.00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, over the years there's been, um.00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:31.000Doug Fish: you know, hundreds of ski shows, 50 ski shows across the country, big shows. And you know we we I have always been involved in events. I was in the concert business for almost 20 years, and my.00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.000Doug Fish: At the beginning of my career.00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:46.000Doug Fish: And, uh, I just, you know, when I was a kid and was in high school, we used to, you know, put on keggers and sell cups for a buck. So, you know, events are in my blood, and I love it, and…00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:42.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:45.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:27:46.000 --> 00:28:01.000Doug Fish: you know, when I sold the IndyPass, I sold my marketing agency, but I kept Snowvana, because, you know, I thought it'd be fun to keep it going, and… and uh… the young man who…00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:06.000Doug Fish: helped me, um, helped me, um.00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.000Doug Fish: Grow the Indy Pass.00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.000Doug Fish: Didn't want to go with Indy Pass. He didn't want to move to Colorado.00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:19.000Doug Fish: So I said, well, why don't you come and run Snowball? And we'll keep that going.00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:26.000Doug Fish: And it was actually his idea to, um, to expand it. He said, you know, I think this is a model that we can scale.00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:38.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, I looked at him, I said, okay, you do all the work, and I'll help with the marketing, and I'll finance the operation, and, you know, here we are.00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:39.000Doug Fish: That was, uh.00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:44.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, so you're doing… you started this 10 years ago, and you're taking it around the country.00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:50.000Stuart Winchester: But you said ski shows have been around forever, right? So, you said there's been 50, 100 ski shows.00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:49.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.000Stuart Winchester: How is…00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:57.000Stuart Winchester: What happened to all those shows? Aren't they still there? Are you still competing with them?00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.000Stuart Winchester: And if so, it doesn't seem like a… like a market that's super ripe for disruption, right? Like, once you…00:28:58.000 --> 00:28:59.000Doug Fish: Here.00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:04.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:16.000Stuart Winchester: have a ski show, you kind of own the market, it would seem like. So, I guess rewind for us a little bit, maybe I should have started there. What have ski shows traditionally been in America, and.00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:09.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:19.000Stuart Winchester: What's happened to them over time?00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:31.000Doug Fish: Well, ski shows have been, you know, what's Nirvana? It was kind of a kickoff festival, a gear sale, and I think they kind of collapsed under their own weight.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:40.000Doug Fish: You know, the Windy City Ski Show had a 40-year run. The Boston Ski and Snowboard Expo had a 60-year run.00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:49.000Doug Fish: uh, the Denver show. There's been ski shows in all the major northern markets, even in, you know, Dallas had a big show for many, many years, Atlanta.00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:03.000Doug Fish: And, um, but the cost of putting on these shows, these big shows, 100,000 square foot shows, is just too much. And, uh, at the same time, as these big shows started to go away.00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:18.000Doug Fish: ski swaps proliferated, you know, in every gymnasium and, you know, high school cafeteria across the country. You know, small ski resorts have a ski swap and a kickoff, you know, festival in the fall.00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:22.000Doug Fish: All over the country, there must be hundreds of ski swaps.00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:39.000Doug Fish: And so we looked at that and said, well, you know, ski swaps are great, but you can't get out of there fast enough. You know, when there you rifle through all the stuff and maybe you find a gym and you get a good deal, but, you know, there's no reason to stick around.00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:55.000Doug Fish: And what we try to do is create a festival atmosphere. We still have the ski swap. We have a consignment swap, which is a fundraiser for a local nonprofit. And then we have a huge gear sale and we work with local retailers.00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:04.000Doug Fish: So, you know, there's a lot to choose from, but there's lots of really good deals. And, um, but there's…00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:16.000Doug Fish: you know, there's fun stuff to do, too. We have films, we have live music, we have a bar. Um, you know, we do stupid stuff like, uh, frozen t-shirt contests and barefoot skis.00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:19.000Doug Fish: Um, so…00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:25.000Doug Fish: Yeah, there's just, you know, there's a lot of fun activities happening.00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.000Doug Fish: And, um…00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:38.000Stuart Winchester: So, so, so that's, that's all right, that's all right. So.00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.000Doug Fish: Sorry, I got interrupted too.00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:42.000Stuart Winchester: Is there a… is there an inflection point when the ski…00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:54.000Stuart Winchester: show stopped working. I want to point to COVID in 2020 that probably killed a lot of them for a year and then forever, but that's probably too simple of an explanation.00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:50.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:00.000Doug Fish: Yeah, COVID I think was, you know, put a fork in a lot of the big shows.00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:08.000Doug Fish: Um, you know, a lot of promoters decided not to… not to come back. Um, but, you know, I think that the…00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:15.000Doug Fish: It's very tough. These municipal convention centers are just extremely expensive.00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:27.000Doug Fish: and I think you know that's that was part of it. And you know, online sales. And you know all the all the things that kill retail right? Because these are retail events.00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:37.000Doug Fish: And so, you know, we kind of, we took a year off for COVID too. In 2020, nobody was doing events.00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:35.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:42.000Doug Fish: Well, we came back in 2021 and it was our best show. We were the first.00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:54.000Doug Fish: show to come back and give it a go in 21 at the Oregon Convention Center. And the place was packed, and it was because people were just starving for.00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:11.000Doug Fish: you know, human connection. You know, they've been cooped up in their house for a year, and they came out in droves. And, you know, this is what, you know, these shows give us, is that human connection.00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:56.000Stuart Winchester: Something.00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:21.000Doug Fish: You know you can buy skis online. You can buy anything online. But you know the the community comes together and and.00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:28.000Doug Fish: It's, you know, we call it AI for the ski business, authentic interaction.00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:33.000Doug Fish: You know, we need more of that, not less of it. And it's…00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.000Doug Fish: It's just a it's a cool thing.00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:51.000Stuart Winchester: So how are you getting around the cost piece, though? I mean, if you want to — they left Chicago because of cost. It seems like that's because Chicago costs a lot. So you're going into Boston this year, and we'll talk about that in a minute. That's not a cheap market.00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:42.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:47.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:00.000Doug Fish: No, well, we're going into the suburbs. We're hitting the suburbs now, you know, we're in West Seattle, in a suburb of Seattle.00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:55.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:58.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:11.000Doug Fish: Uh, we're in a suburb of Milwaukee and Franklin, Wisconsin, and we're in a suburb of Boston, out in Marlboro. It's about 40 minutes west of town.00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:19.000Doug Fish: And they call it, uh, West Metro. And, um, you know, these venues are smaller.00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:22.000Doug Fish: They're about 50,000 square feet versus 100.00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:37.000Doug Fish: and they're way less expensive. We don't have to deal with union. You know the cost of a union labor, and you know nothing against unions. But.00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:52.000Doug Fish: they can drive the cost up. And and you know, General Motors and Ford, you know, they can do an auto show there. No problem. They've they've got deep pockets. We can't. And I think that's why some of these big shows, you know, finally threw in the towel.00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:46.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:59.000Doug Fish: And, you know, the venues we're in, they're not as fancy. We're in a World War II airplane hangar in Seattle.00:34:58.000 --> 00:34:59.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:14.000Doug Fish: you know, at a in a in a park in West Seattle. It's a really cool building. But believe me, you know, it's it's it's not fancy. And so that's the that's the difference. And and.00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:25.000Doug Fish: we're able to charge 5 bucks in advance. Kids are free. The booth cost is reasonable for for vendors, and.00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:27.000Doug Fish: You know, it works.00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so you… the timeline's interesting for those who are following along. So you started Snovana in 2016, launched Indie in 2019. I'm curious…00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:44.000Stuart Winchester: how one may have fueled the other. In other words, and I know you've been in skiing and in the ski industry for decades, but…00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: Once you…00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:58.000Stuart Winchester: established IndiePass, and you made all these connections all over the country, I have to imagine that greased the wheels a little bit for Snowvana, because a big part of this, and we'll talk about this in a minute, is.00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:07.000Stuart Winchester: when you go there, most of the regional ski areas have booths set up. And not just the Independents, it's Vail and Altera, I've been at a bunch of the ones that I've been to.00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:04.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:08.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:12.000Stuart Winchester: In their mountains, in the bigger mountains, all over the place, so… so…00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.000Stuart Winchester: Do you think, I guess…00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:24.000Stuart Winchester: I guess the question is, how did IndiePass fuel the growth of Snowvana, or do you think that this would be taking off the way it is either way?00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:33.000Doug Fish: Oh, I think Snowvana and the work we were doing at the agency with a number of ski resorts all led to the.00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:36.000Doug Fish: the idea behind the Indy Pass.00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:42.000Doug Fish: And certainly the IndyPass connections that I've made have helped us expand.00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:52.000Doug Fish: Snowball on it. There's no question. You know, we just we're moving into the Boston market this year for the 1st time, and we have 37 resorts signed up.00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:59.000Doug Fish: That's pretty good for a first-year show. We have 70 resorts across the country. I think it's closer to 80 now.00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:08.000Doug Fish: And, you know, it's the only place where you're gonna see, uh, Epic Pass, Icon Pass, and Indy Pass all in the same room.00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:16.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, that's the way it should be. You know, we want to be Switzerland and invite everyone in, because that's what the consumer wants.00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:27.000Doug Fish: you know, people want to want to interact with all those companies. And and so yeah, indie pass. There's no question it. It helped us.00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:29.000Doug Fish: You know.00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:31.000Doug Fish: break into new markets.00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:46.000Stuart Winchester: So if you look at the four markets you're in this year and, you know, Portland is the logical one, that's your home base and has been for a long time. Then you have Seattle, you have Milwaukee in the Midwest, and you have, you know, we'll call it Boston or New England or whatever you want to. It's in Mass.00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:40.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:47.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:55.000Stuart Winchester: Right? So, one thing I always appreciated about the Indy Pass is that you didn't just make it a Western Pass, you went into the Midwest right away.00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:56.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:13.000Stuart Winchester: You went into New England right away. So talk about each of those four markets and, and why it makes sense to do ski shows there because for, for example, in the Midwest, you could have, you could have gone to Detroit, you could have gone to Grand Rapids, you could have gone to Chicago, you could have gone to Indianapolis.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:06.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:23.000Stuart Winchester: chose Milwaukee, which is, you know, everyone's heard of Milwaukee, but it's not necessarily, like, the capital of Midwest, like Chicago is. So just talk us through those markets and your…00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:14.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:29.000Stuart Winchester: Slow expansion across the country, and you're kind of thinking behind where you're choosing to do this.00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:40.000Doug Fish: Yeah, good question. Um, so Seattle was a no-brainer. You know, we knew that we were drawing people out of Seattle for the Portland show. It's three, three and a half hours to Seattle.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:48.000Doug Fish: And we were drawing a pretty good crowd, so… uh, there hasn't been a show in Seattle for a decade. It's a great ski market, you know, they have…00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:55.000Doug Fish: 3 phenomenal resorts within an hour of downtown Seattle, Stevens, Crystal.00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:11.000Doug Fish: Summit. That's no qualming help at all. So you know, we found a venue up there that was affordable, you know, an old airplane hangar. And you know, we put a show up there, and it did well. And so we thought, Okay.00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:18.000Doug Fish: Uh, we didn't really want to go to California, uh, so we started looking east because.00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:21.000Stuart Winchester: You, you didn't wanna go to California, why not? I mean, that's a huge market.00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:30.000Doug Fish: Um, yeah, it is a huge market, and, you know, maybe we'll go to the Bay Area. There's a big show down in LA called Ski Dazzle that's still going, a big show.00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:31.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:32.000Doug Fish: And, um…00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:44.000Doug Fish: Uh, but to my knowledge, nothing significant in Northern California, so we may go there someday. But, um, you know, where we… where we went, it's really…00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:52.000Doug Fish: you know, I knew that the Indy Pass was going to be successful back east because there's so many resorts, and more importantly, so many people.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:55.000Doug Fish: And, and so.00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:03.000Doug Fish: We started looking to the east and Milwaukee, you may think, well, that's kind of a weird place.00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:23.000Doug Fish: Wisconsin's the number four ski state in the country in terms of number of ski resorts. And Michigan is number three. So, you know, or maybe it's number two, but yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of passion in the Midwest. And I knew that from working with the resorts out there.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:15.000Stuart Winchester: It's 2.00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:35.000Doug Fish: you know, Rick Schmitz has been a great ally and supporter of mine, and you know we've been friends for many, many years, and he said, Hey.00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.000Doug Fish: Uh, come and do a show in Milwaukee, and I'll help you promote it, and…00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:54.000Doug Fish: you know, there just happens to be a big sports complex right there at the base of Crystal Ridge, which he owns. And, um, you know, they had space that would work for a show, so we popped a show in there, and it worked.00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:10.000Doug Fish: Um, and then we were all set to go into Chicago next, you know, kind of an eastward progression, uh, either Chicago or Detroit, and, um, I got a call.00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.000Doug Fish: from a friend of mine in New England. They said, Hey, Snowbound is leaving Boston.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:20.000Doug Fish: You guys should come out here and do a show.00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:38.000Doug Fish: And I thought, oh my gosh, that's the best ski show market in the country, you know, it's been going for 65 years. And so Quinn McIntyre and I jumped on a plane in early December, when there was absolutely no snow, by the way, in the West.00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:58.000Doug Fish: And so we, of course, took our gear, and we spent a week in New England skiing some phenomenal powder at Loon, and Jay Peak, and Bretton Woods, and Black Mountain, and, you know. But we also, you know, met with a few venues back there, and found one that made sense out in Marlboro.00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:51.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:09.000Doug Fish: Uh, a nice suburb of… of Boston, and… and made the decision right then, okay, we're gonna do this. We signed a 3-year lease, or 3-year contract for… for the space.00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:14.000Doug Fish: And here we are. We're in Boston.00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:19.000Stuart Winchester: So, so to, so to clarify for listeners, Snowbound still exists. It moved to the Mohegan Sun.00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:23.000Stuart Winchester: Casino in Connecticut. So that show, indeed, will still go on.00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:29.000Doug Fish: Yes. Yeah, they didn't go away, they just moved… they just changed locations, and… and they're a couple hours from Boston now, so…00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so, so…00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:31.000Doug Fish: Thank you.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:32.000Doug Fish: Go ahead.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:48.000Stuart Winchester: So each of these shows you go to and, you know, the gear is great and I'm sure that's why a lot of people go. I'm obviously super into the ski area, so when I go and I look at the deals tab on Snovana.com, the first thing I see at the top of each.00:42:48.000 --> 00:43:05.000Stuart Winchester: list of ski areas that will be there, and their deals are free lift tickets for Willamette Pass, when you're out in the Western shows, uh, I believe in the Midwest, you get one free at Little Switz, or Nordic, or Crystal Ridge, then out East, it's Black Mountain Maine, and there's some others as well, I'm just…00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:53.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:02.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.000Doug Fish: Okay.00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:08.000Stuart Winchester: Highlighting some. So, talk a little bit about…00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:07.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:25.000Stuart Winchester: that, because, I mean, you pay $5 to get in, and this is… it's funny, because it's kind of a throwback to the pre-pass era, when you kind of have to collect your own pass, and find all these coupons, and, you know, Warren Miller would have, like, a free ticket to Sugarbush or whatever, so… so just talk a little bit about that, and what.00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:20.000Doug Fish: Yeah, right.00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:21.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:23.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.000Stuart Winchester: attendees can expect to find their deals wise.00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:36.000Doug Fish: Oh, yeah. Well, that's what motivates people is deals. We say the deals are great and the stoke is free.00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:39.000Doug Fish: And yeah, I, you know.00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:45.000Doug Fish: Can't help but mention in Boston, we have Black Mountain of Maine.00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.000Doug Fish: Neshoba.00:43:47.000 --> 00:44:03.000Doug Fish: and Mcintyre, all giving away free lift tickets for your with your admission. And yeah, so 5 bucks, or for 5 bucks you probably get. I don't know. That's 200 bucks worth of lift tickets, and that that's before you know all the other swag that people are giving away.00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:50.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm, sure.00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:14.000Doug Fish: So, yeah, I mean, it takes a lot to get people off the couch to come down and park and, you know, go to an event. And, excuse me.00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:19.000Doug Fish: So we try and pack as much value into the ticket as we can. Um…00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:39.000Doug Fish: And all the resorts are there with deals. There'll be 37 resorts in Boston and 70 across the country. They're all offering deals of some kind, whether they're selling a season pass for a discount or a three pack or a daily lift ticket.00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:43.000Doug Fish: And that's what people want.00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:44.000Stuart Winchester: 8. Yep.00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:52.000Doug Fish: And, you know, those are just the lift tickets. The gear is… the deals on the gear is what really brings people in.00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:06.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, we can… I can confidently say that we've got some of the best selection of new and slightly used gear for 40% to 80% off.00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:14.000Doug Fish: And, you know, we spend all summer collecting it from manufacturers, from reps, from, you know, demo fleets.00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:30.000Doug Fish: And the retailers that we work with in each market, they also, you know, they bring last year's stuff that didn't sell. They bring maybe their lease fleet that, you know, they're retiring. And there's just some incredible deals, and…00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:36.000Doug Fish: You know, people will walk out saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:40.000Doug Fish: If they can spend the time, you know, looking around.00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so, so, lip ticket deals, gear deals, another thing you'll find there, uh, at least at the Boston show, is me and I will be doing live interviews on Friday with Eric Mogenson, the owner of IndiePass and IntoBenny. Then on Saturday…00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:51.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:13.000Stuart Winchester: I will be hosting live on stage at Snovana Boston, or Suburban Boston, or New England, or whatever you want to call it. The owner of Killington, Phil Gross, and also the president, Mike Solomano, who I've had on my podcast before, but this will be our first live event. This is the third time I've done this sort of event.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:05.000Doug Fish: Uh-huh.00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:20.000Stuart Winchester: For Snowvana, I did one last year with Lonnie Gleiberman of Mount Bohemia at the Milwaukee show, and I did one.00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:29.000Stuart Winchester: I think maybe it was the year… two years before that, in Portland, with a panel of general managers. It's been a lot of fun, and… and, you know, that's a…00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:25.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:46.000Stuart Winchester: That's a disclosure. I've worked, I guess, for Snowvana because these, you know, I don't do these things for free. It's, it's a, it's a business, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a business deal. And, um, and those things take a lot of work, as you know, but, but that, that's just one example. All right.00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:38.000Doug Fish: No.00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:48.000Stuart Winchester: Talk about just…00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:59.000Stuart Winchester: I guess quickly just run through the dates of the other shows, and the sorts of things that people can expect to be on the stages, or other things I haven't mentioned yet.00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:00.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.000Doug Fish: Excuse me.00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:08.000Doug Fish: We don't spend a lot of time with speakers. You're kind of the only one, Stu.00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:12.000Stuart Winchester: That's not true. Sean Suttner, my friend, is doing one the next day.00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:12.000Doug Fish: Yeah, the great Sean Sutner.00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:23.000Doug Fish: Yeah, Sean Suttner from the Worcester Gazette and Telegram will be there on Sunday interviewing the ownership team from Wachusett.00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:21.000Stuart Winchester: Crowley's.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:42.000Doug Fish: But yeah, I mean, we have live music. We've got, you know, frozen T-shirt contests this year. We're launching the pray for snow dance contests. And we've got this thing called the Sumo Bowl. It's a inflatable boxing ring and 2 inflatable beer cans. You put these on your body, and.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:50.000Doug Fish: you try to knock your buddy down, and if you do, you're entered to win a pair of skis. I mean, it's just stupid stuff, but people love it.00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.000Stuart Winchester: Right, right.00:47:50.000 --> 00:48:04.000Doug Fish: And so those are happening at all the shows. Great gear sales, lots of resorts, free lift tickets. The great Stu Winchester in Boston this year.00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:56.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:15.000Doug Fish: And and then, you know, we've got this thing called the cream of the swap. It is a special section in the gear sale.00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:07.000Stuart Winchester: Don't oversell it.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:30.000Doug Fish: in the ski swap where we feature a lot of higher end product, mostly, you know, brand new 2627 demo skis. It's all mount. They're all mounted. They've been skied 2 or 3 times.00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:38.000Doug Fish: And there's just some incredible deals there, 40% to 50% off on essentially brand new gear.00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:53.000Doug Fish: And, um, so you'll find those features at all of the shows. Each market, you know, had some slight differences and, you know, based on what's going on locally and how the venue's laid out, but…00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:03.000Doug Fish: You can go to our website and check out what's different in each show if you want, what the different deals are. All the deals are listed.00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:10.000Doug Fish: Uh, that, you know, the resorts are giving away, or the retailers are giving away for, you know, discounting.00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so don't hold me to this, because they could change, so check the website, please, before you go. But right now, I'm scheduled to interview Al… Excuse me.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:36.000Stuart Winchester: Eric on Friday, November 6th at 5.30pm Eastern, and Phil Gross and Mike Solomano of Killington at 2pm on Saturday, November 7th. Those are in Marlboro, Massachusetts. So the… the only thing that I think we can hold Doug to at this point.00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: is… is the dates. So, Seattle, Washington, October 16th to 18th, at Hangar 30 in Magnuson Park.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:50.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the Portland show is October 23rd to 25th at Portland Expo Center, where it's been for several years.00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:51.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:49:50.000 --> 00:50:06.000Stuart Winchester: The show that I'll be at will be in Marlboro, Massachusetts, November 6th to 8th at the Royal Plaza Trade Center, and you wrap the season in Franklin, Wisconsin at the Crystal Ridge Ski Area, or the Mosh Performance Center, November 13th through 15th, and again, we won't.00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:13.000Stuart Winchester: resorts and everything else, because I'd imagine you're adding more all the time. You do have a special treat for my listeners, Doug.00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.000Doug Fish: Yes, we do.00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:16.000Stuart Winchester: If they want to go to any of those, right?00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:22.000Doug Fish: Yeah. Thank you, Stu, for having me on, and thank you to your listeners for, you know, listening to this podcast.00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:30.000Doug Fish: Um, if you want to go to Snow Vaughan and check it out, because you're a fan of Stuart Winchester, you can get a free ticket.00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:47.000Doug Fish: And oh, the code. So there's a promo code. Go to our website, snovana.com, and, you know, click on Buy Ticket, and the promo code that'll get you a free ticket is THESTORM26. THESTORM, all lowercase, 26. You should put that up on the screen.00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:49.000Doug Fish: Stu, um…00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:51.000Stuart Winchester: I will have my editor do that.00:50:50.000 --> 00:51:02.000Doug Fish: Okay, good. And, uh, yeah, get a free ticket, come down, get some, you know, some swag, some free lift tickets, and find a deal on a pair of skis, or a snowboard.00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, any… so that's for this year…00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.000Stuart Winchester: You have any sense of where you want to go next?00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:14.000Doug Fish: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got Philadelphia booked for 2027 through 2019.00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:13.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, really?00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:33.000Doug Fish: We will be in the King of Prussia suburb of Philly. Quinn McIntyre, my colleague, is from Philadelphia, so he's pretty stoked about that. And so we'll be there, and then, you know, we're looking at some other potential.00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:34.000Doug Fish: expansions.00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:40.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, and do you anticipate these 4 locations returning for 27, or is it too soon to say?00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:55.000Doug Fish: Oh, yeah, we anticipate all of them just, you know, going gangbusters this year, and we'll be back, but, you know, it's like an election. You never know how it's gonna go until election day, and uh…00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:07.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, Doug. Well, look, I appreciate you coming on the show again. I never know where I'm gonna see you next. You mentioned you were in New England last December, and I had gone up there for the Ski New Hampshire media event they hold every December, and…00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:56.000Doug Fish: So…00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:23.000Stuart Winchester: I turned around at one point, and there's Doug Fish and Quinn walk through the door. I was like, the last thing I… the last people I expected to see at the Ski New Hampshire media night, because you guys are usually, uh, locked into the West Coast at that time of year, but… but it was a pleasant surprise, so, uh, next time I see you, hopefully.00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.000Doug Fish: Bye.00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:19.000Doug Fish: Yeah. Okay.00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:28.000Doug Fish: Yeah, hopefully it will, Stu, and it's always a pleasure. It's great to be back on the show.00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:33.000Stuart Winchester: You too, man. Talk to you soon.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:40.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was Doug Fish, founder of IndiePass and Snovana.00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:56.000Stuart Winchester: Let's do a little quick reader react, listener react, and then we'll get outta here for today. So there you got some reaction to the podcast that I put out on Monday with Pajarito, New Mexico, general manager Jason Bellamy.00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:12.000Stuart Winchester: Gary Luft says, as a New Mexico local, I am pumped about Powerito getting these upgrades. I've been a pass holder at Ski Santa Fe, but this year I'm going with MCP's Power Pass. Thanks to Stuart for giving some attention to our great unknown.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:25.000Stuart Winchester: to those outside of New Mexico, mountains. You're welcome, Gary. I, uh, love all ski areas, and I'm sorry I have not given more love to New Mexico in the past, though I have done a couple of Taos podcasts. So the Power Pass, for those who.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:32.000Stuart Winchester: don't know what Gary's talking about is… is Mountain Capital Partners owns about a dozen ski areas, including two down in Chile, and… and…00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:48.000Stuart Winchester: The power pass is, is basically their epic pass, right? It's the unlimited pass at all of their mountains, not unlimited at the Chilean ones, but you can see all the footnotes on their website. Uh, the point is it, it, there's three different versions and the cheapest version, it's 4 49 right now, I believe.00:53:48.000 --> 00:54:05.000Stuart Winchester: gets you unlimited access to Pajaritos, Sapapu, and Sandia Peak in New Mexico, and it gets you quite a bit of access at MCP's other resorts as well. The full unlimited version is unlimited at all of MCP's U.S. mountains, including really, really good ones like Purgatory, Arizona Snow Bowl.00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:18.000Stuart Winchester: I've also got Lee Canyon on there, which is a super gorgeous ski area outside of Las Vegas I talked about the other day. And again, the PowerEater upgrades he's referring to are… PowerEater's just putting in this massive snowmaking system that's…00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:23.000Stuart Winchester: Doubling is a fire suppression system, so it's, uh, it's super… it's a…00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:40.000Stuart Winchester: Partnership with local governments that they're doing this through. So it's, it's a really cool model that hopefully other ski areas around the West can learn from and copy. Jeremiah Kay says, interesting episode. I think wildfire mitigation will be an increasingly important component of helping get snowmaking permitted in the West.00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:50.000Stuart Winchester: 100% agree. Jeremiah Kay continues, The ski school and MCP episodes back-to-back got me thinking about urban opportunities to learn and progress as a skier.00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mostly because I always thought MCP should acquire the Outpost Ice Rink at the base of the Sandia Tram, and put their version of the indoor part of Woodward in that facility.00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:13.000Stuart Winchester: Would love an update episode on the state, urban, indoor… uh, state, I think he's saying state of urban slash indoor ski areas. I know you covered Big Snow well, not sure what happened to Alpine X.00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:21.000Stuart Winchester: Much like Epic and Icon add small feeder hills, I wonder if they will add something like Snowbond to a past product.00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:38.000Stuart Winchester: A little surprised we don't have Woodward Brooklyn in a warehouse somewhere. Yeah, I think, Jeremiah, that that would get back to Doug's earlier comment about why the urban ski shows mostly died. It's just the expense. You don't… and the Brooklyn warehouse, as you well know.00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:40.000Stuart Winchester: is not inexpensive.00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:55.000Stuart Winchester: thing to find these days, even though they still look like they're 150 years old, because they are. I don't know what happened to AlpineX, either. I check in with them for an update once in a while, and they keep answering my emails, but there's nothing to report. I would imagine they're caught up either in permitting.00:55:55.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: or financing hell, and probably both. Continuing, Allison says, this pod does a great job showing the appeal of smaller, out-of-the-way resorts. Thank you very much, Allison. That is a core part of the storm. I love ski areas, large and small. Patrick says, I had to rewind to double-check after listening to the first 10 minutes.00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:30.000Stuart Winchester: You recapped the exciting things MCP has done while mentioning every ski area except Arizona Snowball. Later, it made more sense. You discussed Snowball specifically with Jason and called out the potential for Power Rito to follow the same transformative storyline, and you probably planned that all along.00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:42.000Stuart Winchester: This was a great interview about a skier I'd love to check out one of these days, and maybe snowmaking will make it more feasible. Yeah, you know, Patrick, it's interesting. There's a little nuance there in that that big snowmaking project?00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:57.000Stuart Winchester: I believe all happened before MCP bought Snowbowl, so I hesitate to give them credit for it. I do give them credit for all the things they've done since, you know, putting in the Chadala and.00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:12.000Stuart Winchester: really revamping that ski area, and… and uh… I think the power pass and everything else has been great for it, and I think MCP's doing a… a great job across their portfolio, so… so you're right. It was… it was, uh, something I didn't get to till later, and… and I'm always…00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:13.000Stuart Winchester: a little bit…00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:22.000Stuart Winchester: indecisive about how much credit they should give her, but I am working on a separate podcast that's going to focus on that, so stand by for that.00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:24.000Stuart Winchester: Scott Abraham…00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:39.000Stuart Winchester: Bajarito, Powerito, Powerino, don't care what AI calls it, had one of the best powder days of my life 15 years ago or so. Girlfriend in Santa Fe, who worked at Los Alamos, drove her up on Thursday and headed for the mountain, 2 feet afresh since they closed Monday.00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:54.000Stuart Winchester: Over the groom, helly skiing quality, amazingly friendly locals who were delighted to show off their mountain to the tourists from Seattle, and green chili on my inexpensive burger, of course. Might have to visit her again this winter and sneak up on Thursday. Alright, Scott's a tough critic, so…00:57:54.000 --> 00:58:03.000Stuart Winchester: if he likes something, uh, that's a good sign that it's probably pretty good. So that's an endorsement, uh, from someone who typically complains about everything.00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:20.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Aiden says, in the last comment, I was referring to Scaria operations and management programs when he said SROM, or similar at several colleges. Thanks again for the great work. So Aiden was referring to a previous comment he made in an episode when he said, uh, you should find out more about SROM programs in your…00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:27.000Stuart Winchester: And I said, you're right, I should, because I have no idea what they are. All right, thank you, Aiden, for clarifying that. That will be our show for today.00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:43.000Stuart Winchester: Please go to stormskiing.com and subscribe to the Storm Ski Newsletter. You can start with the free tier and the very best way to up to support my mission of independent ski journalism is to upgrade to the paid tier, which will give you the ability to interact with the podcast and all of the written content.00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:50.000Stuart Winchester: below the paywall, which typically is about 80% of the storm. Been a little slow lately, but like I said, it will pick up.00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:52.000Stuart Winchester: You can rep the storm.00:58:52.000 --> 00:59:05.000Stuart Winchester: like this hat if you're watching, uh, with hat, shirt, hoodie, go to stormskiing.myshopify.com. Please follow the storm on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, at Storm Ski Journal. Till next time, stay well, stay safe.00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:21.000Stuart Winchester: I'm Stuart Winchester, and I'll talk to you again very soon. No show tomorrow on Thursday. I'm recording a couple on Friday. We'll put one out Friday, one out Saturday. That's the plan anyway. General managers of Mount Southington, Connecticut, and our good friend Dennis Eshbaugh.00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:25.000Stuart Winchester: who has run Holiday Valley in New York for decades.00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:32.000Stuart Winchester: Till next time, stay well, stay safe. I'm Stuart Winchester, and I'll talk to you again very soon.00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:36.000Stuart Winchester: All right, sorry, you'll have to smooth me out a little at.00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:38.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so, uh…00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:40.000Stuart Winchester: Just a couple notes.00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:42.000Stuart Winchester: Um…00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:44.000Stuart Winchester: There's, uh…00:59:44.000 --> 00:59:48.000Stuart Winchester: At the end, Doug says a discount code.00:59:48.000 --> 00:59:55.000Stuart Winchester: Storm, lowercase, 26, and he wants us… he said, put that up on your screen. I said, I'll ask my editor to do that. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Boyle is back in open mic hell.  New here? This podcast is best experienced from the beginning. Start with Episode 1 - Day 1 here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2JgKkhVHML52uyNRvcvkGv?si=uXMVkkdfTh2ky49nO3MJvw I'm Quitting Alcohol is a daily sobriety podcast hosted by Australian comedian David Boyle. If you're wondering how to stop drinking, thinking about quitting alcohol, or already on your sobriety journey - this is the most honest account of what it actually looks like. Recorded every single day since the day he quit drinking - thousands of episodes, not one missed. Raw, unfiltered, real recovery. No script. No filter. No drinks. Just one day at a time. Covering everything from alcohol addiction and withdrawal to sober living, mental health, and what life looks like years into recovery - told with humour, honesty and zero corporate wellness speak.

My goal right now is to make $1 million a year. I want to do it working only 40 weeks of the year and never more than 40 hours in a given week.I don't know exactly how I'll get there yet. That's the point.A lot of you are doing some major self-sabotage when it comes to your goals. Most of us were never taught to want things. As kids, wanting something usually ended in disappointment. Then we became adults, lost the structure and momentum, and got on the conveyor belt. But the pursuit of a goal is inherently rewarding, whether or not you ever hit it. It feels better to try and fail than to sit in the comfort of complacency.In this episode, I break down why goals matter and the 3 traps that keep you stuck in goal purgatory._______________________________________________________Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.comTrack: Urban Legend by Musical Bakery⁠https://tunetank.com/track/3362-urban-legend/

The Matt Slick Live (Live Broadcast of 09-29-2026) is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). Matt answers questions on topics such as: The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues! You can also email questions to Matt using: info@carm.org, Put "Radio Show Question" in the Subject line! Answers will be discussed in a future show. Topics Include: What are The Essentials That One Needs to Believe to Be Saved?/Abraham's Bosom/Eli's Sacrifice no longer Acceptable/ Matt Recounts a Discussion with EO Adherents on Communion/ A Caller Comments on Matt's Recent Debater's Tactics/Did All The Church Fathers Believe in Purgatory?/1 Cor. 3:15, Saved Through Fire?/ A Former Roman Catholic asks What Happens to The Followers of Roman Catholic Doctrine?/ September 29, 2026

In the premiere episode of Advancing the Line: AI in Manufacturing, SME's Tim Wilson sit down with Adam Marsh, CEO of Ledge Inc., to explore how artificial intelligence is moving beyond corporate hype to deliver practical value on the machine shop floor. Marsh, a Penn State industrial engineer and quality systems specialist, explains why small and medium manufacturers should look at AI not as a job-replacing disruption, but as an operational calculator that relieves lean teams from administrative bottlenecks, complex compliance documentation, and quoting backlogs.

Harbinger Showcase is a weekly podcast featuring highlights from Canada's #1 coast-to-coast community of politically and socially progressive podcasts. On this episode we look at what being sovereign within a united Canada means for the province on ALBERTA ADVANTAGE, explain how Mark Carney's investment summit maple-washed a giant corporate giveaway on THE BREACH SHOW, explore explore polymarket and sports betting on THE END OF SPORT and unpack Sierra Club Canada's new strategic plan on THE ENVIRONMENT IN CANADA.   This episode is brought to you by the new University of Manitoba Press release Confronting the Resurgent Right, a series of essays exposing the deep roots and new threats of Canada's regressive right edited by Miriam Edelson.  Find it at uofmpress.ca.Harbinger Showcase is syndicated to community and campus radio and heard every week on CKUT 90.3FM in Montreal, at CFUV 101.9FM in Victoria, at CIVL 101.7FM in Abbotsford, at CHLY 101.7FM in Nanaimo, at CJSR 88.5FM in Edmonton, on CJUM 101.5FM and CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg, at CiTR 101.9FM, CJSF 90.1FM and at CFRO 100.5FM in Vancouver, at Hamilton's CFMU 93.3FM, at Radio Laurier in Waterloo, at CJTM 1280AM in Toronto, at CJAM 99.1FM in Windsor, at LOCAL FM in St John, New Brunswick and at CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Find out more about the network, subscribe to the weekly newsletter and support our work at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Harbinger Showcase is a weekly podcast featuring highlights from Canada's #1 coast-to-coast community of politically and socially progressive podcasts. On this episode we look at what being sovereign within a united Canada means for the province on ALBERTA ADVANTAGE, explain how Mark Carney's investment summit maple-washed a giant corporate giveaway on THE BREACH SHOW, explore explore polymarket and sports betting on THE END OF SPORT and unpack Sierra Club Canada's new strategic plan on THE ENVIRONMENT IN CANADA.   This episode is brought to you by the new University of Manitoba Press release Confronting the Resurgent Right, a series of essays exposing the deep roots and new threats of Canada's regressive right edited by Miriam Edelson.  Find it at uofmpress.ca.Harbinger Showcase is syndicated to community and campus radio and heard every week on CKUT 90.3FM in Montreal, at CFUV 101.9FM in Victoria, at CIVL 101.7FM in Abbotsford, at CHLY 101.7FM in Nanaimo, at CJSR 88.5FM in Edmonton, on CJUM 101.5FM and CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg, at CiTR 101.9FM, CJSF 90.1FM and at CFRO 100.5FM in Vancouver, at Hamilton's CFMU 93.3FM, at Radio Laurier in Waterloo, at CJTM 1280AM in Toronto, at CJAM 99.1FM in Windsor, at LOCAL FM in St John, New Brunswick and at CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Find out more about the network, subscribe to the weekly newsletter and support our work at harbingermedianetwork.com.

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast wants you to know that there is skiing in New Mexico. Even beyond Taos. Subscribe for constant journeys into such improbable ski realms:WhoJasen Bellomy, General Manager of Pajarito, New MexicoDate RecordedSeptember 28, 2026Also discussedUpgrades across Mountain Capital Partners' portfolio (see chart below), and reader reaction to last week's pods - especially the EuroSki ep with Iain Martin.About PajaritoOwned by: Mountain Capital Partners, since 2014; company also owns:Year founded: 1957 - predecessor ski area, Sawyers Hill, founded nearby by the same ski club in 1944Pass affiliations: Power Pass, Power Pass Select, Power Pass Core - unlimitedBase elevation: 9,000 feetSummit elevation: 10,440 feetVertical drop: 1,440 feetSkiable acres: 280 trail acres + unspecified glade acreage (though Bellomy urges caution in the glades)Average annual snowfall: 125 inchesLift count: 6 (1 fixed quad, 1 triple, 3 doubles, 1 carpet) - view Lift Blog's inventory of Pajarito's lift fleet.Why I interviewed him“Ski New Mexico,” you say? Those three words underwhelm, but the stat sheet suggests that skiers miss out by dismissing New Mexico:Those are respectable vertical drops, and some nice acreage with modernizing lift fleets. Taos gets all the Ikon/Mountain Collective destination attention, and deserves it, after building seven new aerial lifts and otherwise sweeping the place clean over the past dozen years. But just about every New Mexico ski area is investing: Angel Fire props up the state's first sixer for winter 2026-27, just a year after dropping a second quad, Rake's Rider, onto its east side to spread skiers out between blues and blacks:Ski Santa Fe, Ski Apache, and Red River have collectively built or relocated another five lifts in the past decade. Tiny, super-south Cloudcroft seems like a mess, with little online presence and minimal operations (the bump lacks snowmaking). But overall, New Mexico is a bit of a big-mountain secret, with dry desert snow when it comes.The key to this improbable kingdom is base elevations among the highest in America:It's not quite Colorado, but they're high:And it's high enough to get us to nine active New Mexico ski areas in 2026, which is probably nine more than most people think the state has. But even cloud addresses are not enough to keep these survivors around forever. They need snowmaking. Taos' system - a big part of the mountain's modernization under billionaire Louis Bacon, who bought the ski area in 2013 - runs to nearly 11,000 feet. But the smaller areas are building more firepower too. MCP, which operates one-third of those ski areas, stapled together a nice system at Sipapu, the company's first acquisition, in 2000. Now, after years of negotiations, MCP is working with state and Los Alamos County officials on an $18 million snowmaking modernization plan for Pajarito:A five-mile pipe will shuttle water approximately 2,000 vertical feet up from Los Alamos to Pajarito's summit reservoir. But this is not just a snowmaking project: firefighters will be able to tap hydrants along the five-mile route or dip the 10-million gallon reservoir with helicopters. The impact, MCP officials believe, will be substantial, and could mirror the turnaround of the company's Arizona Snowbowl ski area. Prior to running a 15-mile-long snowmaking pipe 3,000 feet up from Flagstaff, Snowbowl's seasons swung wildly, from 162,000 visits in winter 2000-01 to just four operating days the following season. Now, Snowbowl is consistently one of the last ski areas in the nation to close, with a 185-day 2024-25 season that ended on June 1. Repeating that success at Pajarito would, according to officials, give skiers seasons up to 140 days long - more than double the ski area's traditional 60-day winter.So yeah, ski New Mexico, Man. It's weird, I know. Down there in the desert. But there's water if you get creative and work together. (Now we just need to see if MCP can repeat some version of this deal at snow-starved Sandia Peak.)Additional reading* A Ski profile of Pajarito by Nick Heil, 2016* Pajarito's blog tracking the snowmaking projectTranscriptsThere are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don't know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. I only included my conversation with Jasen in this transcript - you can read my editorial on MCP or my reaction to reader's comments in the other transcript, but frankly I'd either listen to them or skip those sections.ZoomStuart Winchester: My guest today has been the general manager of Powerito New Mexico since 2023.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:26.000Stuart Winchester: Bajarito's predecessor ski area, Sawyers Hill, was founded by top American scientists and soldiers working on top secret research, including the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos during World War II.00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: In 1957, the Los Alamos Ski Club moved the facility up to Pareto, where today, 5 chairlifts serve 1,440 vertical feet on 280 skiable trail acres, plus glades. Pareto is one of 13 ski areas operated by Durango, Colorado-based Mountain Capital Partners.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:52.000Stuart Winchester: and one of three that the company operates in New Mexico, including Sipapu and Sandia Peak.00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:09.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to joining the team at Power Reno, he worked at Saddleback, Maine, Sugarbush, Vermont, Pratchett, New Hampshire, and all the way back at the start of his career as a lifty at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. He served a tour in the Marine Corps and spent several years working in air traffic management technologies.00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:16.000Stuart Winchester: Jason Bellamy is my guest. Jason, welcome to The Storm. So good to have you. How is life in the mountains of New Mexico today?00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:24.000Jasen: Oh, man, thanks for having me. Super excited. Uh, busy. And wet, currently.00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:38.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, yeah, yeah, it's… I'm out on the East Coast, it's been raining all weekend, so… so I… look, I know you got a ton going on, so let's jump right into it. The headline, if you go to Powerito's website right now, which, by the way, if I'm saying the name of the scary wrong, you.00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:48.000Stuart Winchester: 2700% more water for snowmaking, so lay this out for us, Jason. What did Powerito's snowmaking system look like before, and what are you…00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:50.000Stuart Winchester: Building up.00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:57.000Jasen: So, historically, it was about 2010 that we were able to.00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:04.000Jasen: while it was still operated by the Los Alamos Ski Club, they put in a very bare-bones snowmaking system.00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:10.000Jasen: and captured surface runoff in the springtime to fill a 10 million gallon pond at the top of the mountain.00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:17.000Jasen: The runoff did not yield enough water to fill that pond.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Jasen: So for…00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:35.000Jasen: pretty near a decade, there's been this effort to get a pipeline connecting the county to the Ski Hill for both wildfire suppression and firefighting capabilities, as well as solidifying the future for the Ski Hill.00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:43.000Jasen: That pipeline is going to provide us with about, we'll be able to cycle that pond about six times a winter.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:55.000Jasen: Um, which, with 60 million gallons, we should be able to make about 300 acre-feet of snow. So, theoretically, when we're done with this, we could cover the entire mountain with 12 inches of man-made snow.00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:13.000Stuart Winchester: So talk about, I guess, to start with, just that pipeline. I mean, there's echoes here of Arizona Snowbowl, your sister mountain, which ran a pipeline all the way down to Flagstaff from its mountain. And from the press materials, it looks like this is being run up.00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:20.000Stuart Winchester: from Los Alamos. So how long is that pipeline? Where does it start? And what does the effort look like to put that in?00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.000Jasen: Yeah, great question. Um…00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:39.000Jasen: The project started over half a decade ago, the real nuts and bolts of it. It's a really complex project. It involves running that pipeline across DOE land, Llano property, Santa Fe National Forest. We had to get the county, the state, and the federal government.00:38:39.000 --> 00:39:01.000Jasen: behind it, and it's amazing how everyone's come together. So, after about five or six years of negotiating and all the legal work required, we were able to break ground. The pipeline's about five miles long, and as a result of previous wildfires that have sparked up from the overhead power lines, we decided to go ahead and put the power underground as well.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:03.000Jasen: Um, so…00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:16.000Jasen: The… we're also running fiber infrastructure in the road associated with the project so that we can create backhaul to Albuquerque to solidify our communications for the community as well.00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:20.000Jasen: There's a lot more going on with this project than just water.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:22.000Jasen: Oh.00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:23.000Jasen: The…00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:36.000Jasen: there'll be 4 booster stations to push the elevation to get it to the mountain, and then it'll tie into a 250,000 gallon tank, which will energize all the fire hydrants along Camp May Road.00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:42.000Jasen: And then from there, we push it to the summit pond out of a pump station.00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:52.000Stuart Winchester: So, so we're looking here at the, at the map of, uh, here's Puerto Rico and then here's Los Alamos. Does the, does the pipeline come from up from the.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:59.000Jasen: It does. It starts down just on the corner of the DOE property at the bottom of Camp May Road.00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:03.000Jasen: It's a few thousand feet down, um…00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:05.000Jasen: Once you get…00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000Jasen: Yes.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:10.000Stuart Winchester: Click around, here's Camp May Road, where it meets up with West Road.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:10.000Jasen: So, on… on…00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:21.000Jasen: Yes, uh, just to the, uh, I guess that would be east on West Road. If you scroll your mouse to the corner there, you can see there's a tank right there.00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:29.000Jasen: We built another half million gallon tank there, and then that's where the first booster pump will reside.00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:45.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Well, that is a major project. I mean, just talk about the effort of that. I, you know, I guess it's a partnership. Did you share in the cost of construction of all this? And what did it take to run a pipeline five miles?00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:50.000Stuart Winchester: And I'm not sure what the elevation is it starts at, but I imagine you have to also push that water up.00:40:50.000 --> 00:41:06.000Jasen: It's close to 2,000 feet of elevation gain, and it is a financial partnership. It's probably one of the first of its kind where we've got federal, state, local, and private dollars to accomplish the mission.00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:55.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:10.000Jasen: It's really just amazing to see the support.00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.000Jasen: And everything come together. Los Alamos and Mountain Capital Partner developed a.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:22.000Jasen: an agreement. So, the state was, uh…00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:29.000Jasen: basically funded with a grant, the project, um, for $8 million, and then FEMA's kicking in.00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:30.000Jasen: Um, so…00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:40.000Jasen: an amount to be determined to bury those power lines. Historically, Los Alamos has been very affected by two, um, huge wildfires.00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:53.000Jasen: With hundreds of millions of dollars in, um, asset loss. So, the water getting up there, and Parito, the way it sits, is kind of like a frontline defense to protect the town and the lab.00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:54.000Jasen: Oh.00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:59.000Jasen: So, it's amazing that everything's come together the way it has.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I want to linger on that water point for a moment here, Jason. You know, I never really appreciated this until I was talking to some of the guys who run ski areas in Southern California, and I believe this is your pond right here.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:15.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, which you anticipate being full, and I'm not sure if there's an older picture, if that's what.00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:12.000Jasen: Yes, it is.00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:18.000Stuart Winchester: So so.00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:19.000Jasen: That's pretty current.00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah, so this is Google Earth. So I was speaking with Robbie Ellingson, who runs Mount Baldy, right above Los Angeles, and Carl Kabasinski, who runs Mountain High, just there, I guess, a little bit east of the city. And the way they explained it to me, I never thought about this, was…00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:41.000Stuart Winchester: When they have these full ponds in the summer, the helicopters can just come and dip the pond.00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:57.000Stuart Winchester: ponds for fire suppression. And so I, I guess that would help answer the question of, you know, we always hear about water shortages in the, in the West, right? So, so how is the ski area building, you know, all this snow making, don't we have better things to use water for? So, so just talk about that relationship.00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:05.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, with… with the, uh, firefighters and… and the firefighting infrastructure this is creating, as well as being useful for snowmaking.00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:18.000Jasen: But yeah, you brought up two interesting points there, sir. First and foremost, yes, they will be able to dip out of the pond. We're also putting in a dry hydrant so that we can hook pump vehicles up to it.00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:20.000Jasen: Um…00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:32.000Jasen: The other thing, I think Mountain High in California, one of the things they did when that fire came through there was they energized their snowmaking system in the summer and just turned on all the snow guns.00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000Jasen: And from what I understand, that that had a beneficial…00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:50.000Jasen: outcome. Um, it could have been a lot worse, apparently. So, there's a bunch of different things, and we've got water now that we can push, you know, multiple locations across the mountain as we build out our pipelines.00:43:50.000 --> 00:44:01.000Jasen: in our snowmaking infrastructure. So we're gonna put water across this 750-acre piece of land that is pretty critical in the defense of Los Alamos.00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:08.000Jasen: And then the other thing you mentioned, which I hear a lot, is how can we waste all this water for skiing?00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:21.000Jasen: But fundamentally, if you consider what mountains are, they're a storage device for water during the wintertime. We take the water from the earth, we pump it up the hill, yeah, we're using energy, but we're conserving the water on the hill.00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:36.000Jasen: as stored water, and in the springtime it melts and goes back into the aquifer. So 80 to 90 percent of the water that we use is going to go directly back into the land. I mean, what we're losing is what we lose to sublimation through evaporation into the atmosphere.00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and in the fires in the past where a couple of Poweritos lifts were damaged, having this on site would theoretically have at least mitigated the damage to some point. So what I have up on the screen here, Jason, as you know, but for the folks watching on stormskiing.com or YouTube.00:44:54.000 --> 00:45:09.000Stuart Winchester: is, uh, your phased snowmaking plan. So just talk us through this. Is this year one, year two, year three, or… or how do you… how do you envision or plan for this to play out in real life? And then, you know, here's…00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:14.000Stuart Winchester: Pario's trail map for reference, but just to see the snowmaking plan.00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:24.000Jasen: This was originally the concept that we were going to roll with. Like any major project, there's speed bumps in the road.00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:35.000Jasen: So we've had to pivot a little bit. Um, we're putting a lot more resource into the actual delivery of water in year one, so we had to scale back a little bit of the on-hill distribution.00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:43.000Jasen: For this winter, we're gonna add about 50% in snowmaking coverage, acreage wise.00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:50.000Jasen: Uh, we did not get into the pump stations. We're working on engineering and design of, um, future pump stations.00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:52.000Jasen: Right now…00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:02.000Jasen: We're at about 1,000 GPM, gallons per minute, for production pumping capacity, and next year we plan to increase that by 400%.00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:07.000Jasen: Um, final design build out of 4,000 gallons per minute.00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.000Jasen: which…00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.000Stuart Winchester: And yeah.00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:11.000Jasen: Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, final of 4,000 gallons per minute. You have some trails in white here that are not phased. Do those already have snowmaking, or do you want to keep some stuff natural? I see your famous kind of front four steepies here. A couple of those are white. So, talk to us about the white trails and what's planned for those.00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.000Jasen: So, those will just be… those will be El Natural?00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:41.000Jasen: Classic, you know, old school bump runs and let Mother Nature take care of those.00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:49.000Stuart Winchester: All right, so another interesting thing about Pyroido, Jason, is…00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:57.000Stuart Winchester: It's the only major New Mexico skier area, other than Angel Fire, that does not operate, as far as I understand it, on U.S. Forest Service land.00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:12.000Stuart Winchester: So who does own the land? You referenced a lot of different entities here. I know there's a partnership with the county. Does MCP own the land? Was that given to the county? Take us through the land ownership and the sort of different parties that are involved here and have an interest.00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.000Jasen: So, the land historically was…00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:22.000Jasen: Um, owned by the Los Alamos Ski Club.00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:28.000Jasen: Through over the course of time, they did some land exchanges with DOE.00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.000Jasen: So back in 14 when the ski club needed support.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:49.000Jasen: Um, James and Mountain Capital got involved, and originally, MCP was going to assume the liabilities of the ski area and operate the ski area. The bank didn't like that arrangement, so it took about 3 or 4 years to get through the legal work.00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:58.000Jasen: And currently, the majority of the land is owned by MCP. That was a requirement from the bank to transfer the liabilities against the assets.00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:05.000Jasen: And then there's one shoulder over on the west side that was originally part of, um…00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.000Jasen: I believe it was the Dunnigan family owned it.00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:17.000Jasen: And they gave it to the ski club, and there was a first right of refusal on any future transfer of the west side.00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:32.000Jasen: So currently, we're still working through the legal details on that. And in the transfer of the land, the ski club said once the pipeline was established and operational, that they would be willing to transfer the remaining land to MCP.00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:39.000Jasen: So that's happening here pretty quickly, and there's still… there's a bunch of legal work to satisfy the first right of refusal.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:46.000Jasen: Um, but essentially, Parrito, the 750-acre parcel, is completely privately owned.00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:48.000Jasen: Oh.00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:50.000Jasen: Which is pretty rare in the West.00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. So you're a little late to snowmaking, but it's… in some ways, I would think…00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:01.000Stuart Winchester: an advantage to install a snowmaking system, kind of…00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:17.000Stuart Winchester: from whole right now, because the technology's gotten so good, right? You can start low energy, you can start with automation, if you want. Talk to us about who you worked with, whether it's SMI or HKD or whoever, uh, to plan out your snowmaking system, and what sort of technology.00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:21.000Stuart Winchester: you're able to deploy to make sure you get the most snow out the most efficiently.00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:27.000Jasen: Yeah, great question. So, the partners that we've most…00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:33.000Jasen: We worked with, uh, Torrent is working with us on some of the pump stations.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:46.000Jasen: The pipe design layout, electrical. Brandon, I'm sorry, Jeff and the guys from Slope Works have been here supporting the physical installation.00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:55.000Jasen: And because of the history of Puerto Rico, we originally had a — it was a TechnoAlpin system. So we've got some legacy TA gear here.00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:04.000Jasen: And then, we've also started working with SMI on some of their equipment. One of the things that, um…00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:11.000Jasen: we're balancing is… there's so much need in terms of how much infrastructure we have to build and how much equipment we have to purchase.00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:16.000Jasen: So we're kind of balancing the future with today's needs.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:22.000Jasen: Automation is not inexpensive, so we're doing kind of a semi automation.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:34.000Jasen: where we can run actuators on the hydrants, but it's not a full-blown system. The original system that was installed back in the early 2010 period, um…00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:41.000Jasen: That system didn't work out very well for Power Reno, so we've pivoted and moved in a different direction.00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:58.000Stuart Winchester: So, you know, you've had snowmaking for a while. I'd imagine you got some guys who are pretty good at it. I saw one of your videos, you brought in a fellow from Pennsylvania. I always say that Pennsylvania is home to some of the best skier operators in the world because they have to be masters.00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:14.000Stuart Winchester: of snowmaking, because if you don't have it, you're just not going to open. I know you're an East Coast guy yourself, so what have you done as far as, okay, you got this great new system, have you brought in some folks who are more experienced with snowmaking to help out? Are you confident you have the experience yourself?00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:18.000Stuart Winchester: What's your plan to make sure you get the most out of the system right away?00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:36.000Jasen: So we got Brandon on board and one of the things that's challenging at every skier across the country is staffing. So for this winter we really need to nail it and we reached out to Seasonal Labor Solutions.00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:29.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:42.000Jasen: And they have a team of professional snowmakers that basically do the Never Summer.00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:55.000Jasen: Um, so after the guys get done making snow for the Birds of Prey up in Colorado, a couple of those guys are gonna come down and support us this winter for the season to make sure that we get it right.00:51:51.000 --> 00:51:52.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:01.000Stuart Winchester: Awesome, so they're coming straight to you from Beaver Creek. That's… that's impressive. That's good. And, you know.00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:00.000Jasen: Yeah!00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:09.000Stuart Winchester: Tell us how much it helps to be part of a larger group like Mountain Capital. I'm particularly interested because this Arizona Snow Bowl.00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:24.000Stuart Winchester: story just amazes me, how they… and I realize this was done before MCP arrived, but they ran the pipeline all the way up from Flagstaff, and, you know, Arizona Snowbowl, in the 2001-2 season, was open 4 days, and did 3,000 skier visits.00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:39.000Stuart Winchester: Last year, even in a bad winter, it was open 134 days, 185 the season before that. They keep it open until June a lot of years, and that's a sister mountain of yours. So we're talking about Arizona, you know, high desert.00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:51.000Stuart Winchester: Probably, I would imagine, a pretty similar climate to what you're dealing with. How much have you learned from talking to them, and how valuable is it to have that support sort of in-house, so to speak?00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.000Jasen: Oh, yeah, it's critical.00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:10.000Jasen: It's funny that you picked up on that. The storyline behind Power Rito and Snowball, I mean, you couldn't draw a more parallel story. It's the same thing. And realistically, you know.00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:08.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:18.000Jasen: what they did in Arizona is exactly what we plan on doing in New Mexico. Um, the…00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:27.000Jasen: Part of that is, you know, our philosophy is skiing first, and it's, you know, as soon as we can open, and as long as we have snow, we're gonna run a chairlift.00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:39.000Jasen: And I do believe New Mexico is ripe for the picking. I think Puerto Rico is slated to become the king of spring. There's a lot of great mountains here, but everyone shuts down like the first or second week of April.00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:43.000Jasen: And that's not the vision that we have for Power Reno at all.00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:49.000Jasen: Well, we plan on having margaritas on the deck, Cinco de Mayo, and hopefully a lot.00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.000Jasen: Few more weekends after that.00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:55.000Stuart Winchester: So, so Pat Ridley, looking back at historical skier visit data was.00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:10.000Stuart Winchester: One of the least busy ski areas in New Mexico, you know, Cloudcroft obviously barely operates, but uh someone within MCP whispered to me that they think that Parito within a few years could be the busiest ski area in New Mexico with these upgrades.00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:12.000Stuart Winchester: Is that is that the aim?00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:16.000Jasen: That's… that's kind of the goal, yeah.00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so how thorough will the transformation be? Because I saw this in some of your materials. Power Radio averaged 60 days open per season. You want to increase that to 120 to 140. Does that mean… I'm not sure if you go 7 days a week right now, and you have the snow, but…00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:36.000Stuart Winchester: But just talk to us about what that could mean for the skier if you're able to achieve that.00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:45.000Jasen: Well, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. I mean, the economic impact for the community, the labor…00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:46.000Jasen: um…00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:52.000Jasen: Bottom line is, yes, we are going 7 days a week, effective this winter.00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:54.000Jasen: um…00:54:54.000 --> 00:55:05.000Jasen: And the plan is, you know, Thanksgiving, as soon as we can get open. Two years ago, we got a monster storm, and I think we were the only skier in the southwest other than Wolf Creek open.00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:11.000Jasen: And we were busier that day than we were the previous winter. So there's the demand.00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:12.000Jasen: Oh.00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:22.000Jasen: So, from the very first cold snap, and we've designed and built the new snowmaking system that we put in this year to be able to open it with about 40 hours of snowmaking.00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:23.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:33.000Jasen: So, we're looking to do things quite a bit differently, and be super aggressive. Uh, and the plan is, you know, we'll run 7 days a week into April.00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:44.000Jasen: And then as the demand tails off, and the snow starts to melt, we'll run weekends until we just can't anymore. So, my goal is Thanksgiving to May every year.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:49.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Okay. And what's the, what's the sort of alpha trail that opens first, closes last? I don't know, maybe they're different.00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:52.000Jasen: Uh, it would be Pussycat.00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:55:52.000 --> 00:55:55.000Jasen: It's kind of shaded, it's in between the two peaks.00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.00:55:55.000 --> 00:56:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, is that one of those, uh, double black bumpers off of the mother lift?00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:07.000Jasen: No, it's off of Aspen. It sits in the saddle between Aspen and Mother. Um, it's a blue square.00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:04.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:11.000Jasen: But it's a really great fall line trail.00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:26.000Stuart Winchester: So, so let's talk about the Aspen lift. So the Aspen lift was one of those ones that was damaged in the 2011 fire. It is, uh, a 1982 SeaTac triple 1,143-foot vertical rise, 3450 length, so a pretty substantial.00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:36.000Stuart Winchester: lift, and, and I think your most important lift out of your base. So, so you got a lot, you're, uh, spiffing that lift up. Take us through Aspen and what you're doing with it this offseason.00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:43.000Jasen: Yeah, so as you pointed out, um, our historical average is about 60 days. Um, that lift.00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:45.000Jasen: um…00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:54.000Jasen: Because of the limited seasons, we looked at that lift and said, you know, all this snow in the world isn't going to do us any good if we can't get the people to it.00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:06.000Jasen: So, we went through… we have major lift projects in the works, but we have to do this piece by piece. The first piece was get the water. Second piece is be able to use the water.00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:16.000Jasen: So as a stopgap for the meantime, we went through and rewired the entire lift, all new controls, new drive.00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:19.000Jasen: New hydraulics for the brake systems.00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:23.000Jasen: We just did the return bull wheel bearing this summer.00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:33.000Jasen: Basically, everything short of the steel and the carrier has been updated, and the goal there was really reliability.00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:39.000Jasen: So when you show up to Puerto Rico this winter, you're not gonna see a sexy new lift, but you're gonna have a very reli.00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:55.000Stuart Winchester: So, so Aspen Triple's getting an upgrade, and then your rest of your lift fleet, you have 3 doubles. Uh, this Beginner is an 81 Seatech. Uh, Mother is a 76 Riblet double. Uh, Spruce…00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:14.000Stuart Winchester: is a 69 riblet double, and then Townsite is a 94 quad, so I imagine you're pretty happy with Townsite, but what are some of those projects that you're eyeballing? What can you share with us, Jason, about, ultimately, I mean, because once you double the season, the revenue should follow, right? You should be able to make some investments.00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:18.000Stuart Winchester: What would you like the Lyft fleet to look like, ultimately, at Pareto?00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:32.000Jasen: I think currently we're looking at, um, the next… the first focus would be updating Motherlift, um, and I do suspect, based on conversations that we had, that that lift, uh, winds up being a detachable.00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:38.000Jasen: Townsite, I'm really glad you brought that up. That's a 1994 Lyft.00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:43.000Jasen: That exposure got heavy, uh, burn scars during the fires.00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:48.000Jasen: And that lift, as a 94, doesn't even have 4,000 hours on it.00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:49.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:53.000Jasen: So that lift is in pretty, pretty new shape in terms of wear.00:58:54.000 --> 00:59:05.000Jasen: Um, so, the big focus right now, the next piece is, uh, getting the mother lift done, uh, with the new lift, and we've got some other things that we're talking about doing in association with that.00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:15.000Jasen: That peak overlooks the Valle Caldera, which is an absolutely amazing, breathtaking piece of New Mexico landscape. So there's a lot of…00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:33.000Jasen: a lot of opportunity with the detach. Um, discussions around Chandler have been thrown around. Um, the idea being is, you know, from the top of that peak, having a, um, potentially a banquet, um, event center at the top of the lift, and being able to use that in the off-season for.00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:38.000Jasen: Dinners and different type of corporate functions and stuff like that.00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, everyone I talk to, Jason, just tells me that weddings are going off. They're so busy, they can't keep up. It's just, it's such a natural thing, and now folks are starting to think about it, especially in the East. It's really popping. Any thoughts on spruce? I mean, I love an old riblet double.00:59:54.000 --> 01:00:04.000Stuart Winchester: you know, they look cool, uh, there's a couple hundred of them still spinning, but, you know, probably won't last forever. Any ideas for spruce long-term?01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:13.000Jasen: I think, Spruce, that lift, uh, based on the parking lot, there's a stairwell that goes right up to it. It's a really popular lift.01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:00:13.000 --> 01:00:27.000Jasen: It's a redundant lift. You can ski off at Aspen and get the whole middle of the mountain, but that lift does have tremendous value. That would probably be the second lift that we look at.01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:38.000Jasen: The timing on that, I'm not sure. We haven't really gotten that far in the master planning. Um, but based on that profile, I would imagine that that becomes a fixed-script quad.01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:48.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. And, and do you like where the lifts are? You like the layout? They, they did a good job that your predecessors or, or do you wanna move anything around, like as far as where it loads or lands?01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:58.000Jasen: I think there might be a slight realignment on the mother lift. That lift doesn't truly go to the top of the… there's a few feet of elevation that you can gain.01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:04.000Jasen: so that the alignment would kind of come down between, um, Mother… Big Mother Trail and Pussycat.01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:11.000Jasen: And land a little bit closer to the base area, in that triangle of trees at the bottom there.01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:14.000Jasen: And the…01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:26.000Jasen: But realistically, I mean, the scientists and all the folks that worked on this project back in the day did a really great job of laying out the mountain.01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:29.000Stuart Winchester: Is there, yeah, go ahead.01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:28.000Jasen: And…01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:38.000Jasen: Oh, I just… the other thing I think that's kind of cool to know, I don't think that there's a larger ski area in the country that was built by volunteers.01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, no, I don't think so either. There's a lot of, uh…01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:50.000Stuart Winchester: of ones that I'm sure you know from your time in the East that were started with Civilian Conservation Corps, but that wasn't volunteer, those was putting men to.01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:55.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and I… most volunteer-built ski areas are, like.01:01:55.000 --> 01:02:11.000Stuart Winchester: A rope tow and a couple of trails like this is, this is impressive. I, I cannot believe what they did here is, you know, looking around and I, and I know you explained the land situation. Is there any potential for expansion in any direction or, or is this the footprint that you're working with for the foreseeable future?01:01:57.000 --> 01:01:59.000Jasen: Yeah, yeah.01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:15.000Jasen: There's…01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:26.000Jasen: A couple things. So, Camp May is a campground. The county has approached us about doing a management agreement. With the water line, they're going to be able to put water in.01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:30.000Jasen: It's a primitive campground right now. It's beautiful.01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:33.000Jasen: A lot of people come up here to escape the heat.01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:34.000Jasen: um…01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:43.000Jasen: The way this bowl is laid out, it's amazing. When I first got out here, we had, you know, we were skiing on 60, 70 inches of snowpack, and the mountains…01:02:43.000 --> 01:02:45.000Jasen: That we're looking at.01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:56.000Jasen: are completely bare. It's just the sun angle. Uh, it's… coming from the east, it's just… it's pretty trippy. But, um, I think we're pretty much…01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.01:02:56.000 --> 01:03:04.000Jasen: the footprint that we're in right now is pretty much, I think, about what it's gonna be, just because of the aspect.01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:08.000Jasen: And, you know, where we can hold snow.01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:23.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, two more quick things for you, Jason, I'll let you go. This one's kind of for your more hardcore. I saw in one of your posts that the Crazy Mother Terrain Park was being, uh, quote, regraded into a regular run. Does that mean you're not going to have a terrain park at Barrio this season?01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:32.000Jasen: No, the exact opposite is true. With snowmaking, it gives us the ability to ensure that we can build quality parks.01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:27.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:48.000Jasen: One of the things that I am really passionate about, I grew up ski racing, so getting consistent seasons so that we can host USSA races, support USASA, we want to have events and we want to grow.01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:54.000Jasen: the foundation for our sport to make sure that it survives for the next several generations, so…01:03:54.000 --> 01:04:03.000Jasen: Those pieces, the train parks, the available train for ski racing, and all the ancillary stuff that comes with that, we're 100% behind.01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:17.000Jasen: I've got… I saw a lot of pushback, and I've heard a lot of pushback about the Crazy Mother Train Park getting bulldozed down. The problem was, is that stuff hasn't… hadn't been used in years. Um, they built some really big stuff, and it was too…01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:14.000Stuart Winchester: Really?01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:21.000Jasen: It was too large. We didn't have progression to get to that level.01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:26.000Jasen: When we need something like that, we'll build it again.01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:40.000Stuart Winchester: I've heard the same thing from operators all over the country. Those big ones, they're impressive and people like to look at them, but in reality, they're expensive and not a lot of folks use them or have the skill to use them. So that's a pattern I've seen all over the country.01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:45.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, so the last thing I wanted to touch on here, Jason, I mean, I…01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:52.000Stuart Winchester: I mention this every time I talk about MCP, but I think it's hard to… I can't mention it enough. I mean, the PowerPass…01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:56.000Stuart Winchester: This thing is unbelievable. Kids 12 and under are free.01:04:56.000 --> 01:05:12.000Stuart Winchester: Everyone. No parent purchase required. And right now, the PowerPass Core, which is unlimited at your ski area in Sipapu and Sandia Peak, and has lots of access to the other ski areas in MCP's portfolio, it's $449. I mean, it was $299 if you grabbed it early.01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:21.000Stuart Winchester: But talk a little bit about that power pass, and do you think people in Los Alamos really get it? Like, kids 12 and under are free, do you hit the schools, do you hit that hard?01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:14.000Jasen: Yes.01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:28.000Jasen: We do, um, we… it's amazing how the message just doesn't resonate loud enough.01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:35.000Jasen: But when you look at our organization, Skiing First, like, that's real. That's like the Bible.01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.000Jasen: And one of the things I think everyone within the organization looks at is.01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:55.000Jasen: How do we strip back the barriers to access? Price is number one. So the 12 and under ski free, I mean, that's just something that the entire organization just firmly believes in. We want to cultivate and grow our sport, and we feel like there's no better way.01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:58.000Jasen: Than to get kids involved at an early age.01:05:58.000 --> 01:06:01.000Jasen: And then the pass pricing for, um…01:06:01.000 --> 01:06:13.000Jasen: Every year that I've been with MCP, springtime comes around and the pass pricing discussion comes up, and it's not even a discussion because, like, they're not increasing pricing, and they're really proud of that.01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:19.000Jasen: Another thing that we're doubling down on this year, which is really cool, is $9 Lyft tickets.01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:22.000Jasen: I mean, 9 bucks, with a $10 resort credit.01:06:23.000 --> 01:06:25.000Stuart Winchester: We're basically free.01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:29.000Jasen: We're paying you a dollar, you know?01:06:27.000 --> 01:06:32.000Stuart Winchester: That… and is that… that's not every day, is it?01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:47.000Jasen: No, that's… it's limited availability, but when we launch, um… I think Purgatory, Snowbowl, and Brian had a launch ticket, so if you hop on the computer right now and you say, I want to go ski on such and such day, you can get a $9 ticket with a $10 resort credit.01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:06:42.000 --> 01:06:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:50.000Stuart Winchester: That's incredible.01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:53.000Jasen: It's not gonna last all winter, but… I mean, the deals are out there.01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:51.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:06:51.000 --> 01:06:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.01:06:53.000 --> 01:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and you have, uh, so is it a… when you have a $9 day, is there a limited number of $9, and it goes up to $10 or $11?01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:08.000Jasen: It's incremental. Yeah, it's an extremely dynamic pricing system.01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:03.000Stuart Winchester: et cetera.01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:04.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay.01:07:04.000 --> 01:07:06.000Stuart Winchester: All right, well…01:07:07.000 --> 01:07:12.000Stuart Winchester: That's… and have you… have you rolled those out yet at Pareto?01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:15.000Jasen: We plan to launch our tickets in the next couple weeks.01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:18.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, do you know how many days we'll have that $9 price?01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:23.000Stuart Winchester: Is it, like, one or two, or is it, like, dozens.01:07:23.000 --> 01:07:27.000Jasen: No, in October, it'll be, like, 80% of the season.01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:26.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:07:26.000 --> 01:07:36.000Stuart Winchester: Oh my gosh, okay. All right, well, set your timer. All right, I'll leave us with this, Jason, because I have a lot of listeners on the East Coast.01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:29.000Jasen: Yeah.01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: And who have never skied Parado. I imagine most people haven't skied Parado because New Mexico is sort of like the forgotten ski land. Uh, but a lot of my listeners have skied the places that you've worked at. So I know you grew up at Hunter Hunter's Madness. I love Hunter. There's nothing else like it.01:07:53.000 --> 01:08:08.000Stuart Winchester: But it's just, it's just New York City sort of transposed onto the ski slope. Uh, Crotchet, more of a college scene, kind of like, you know, they have the high speed quads, a lot of night skiing, you know, a lot of like beer in a lap. Uh, Sugarbush.01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:25.000Stuart Winchester: More of a resort, lots of natural snow, great skiing, you know, gets busy, but people get spread out around the base, and it has, obviously, the two mountains. And Saddleback is just, like, this glorious, you know, highest elevation in the east, up there. Uh, it doesn't get too busy, because it's far from everything.01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Of those four.01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:33.000Stuart Winchester: that my listeners are probably familiar with a couple. What is Powerito? Which one is Powerito most like, and why?01:08:34.000 --> 01:08:45.000Jasen: Interesting question. Uh, yeah, New Mexico, the land of enchantment. Um, when I moved out here from the East Coast, everyone asked me why I was leaving the ski industry.01:08:44.000 --> 01:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:54.000Jasen: The lack of awareness… New Mexico's the best-kept secret. You can fly into Albuquerque, grab a rental car, not hit any traffic, and be a skier in less than 2 hours. It'.01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:49.000Stuart Winchester: There.01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: Love it.01:08:54.000 --> 01:08:57.000Jasen: But Paul Rito, I would say…01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:09.000Jasen: I would say it's very similar in feel to Saddleback. Saddleback is kind of a hidden, quiet gem. It's just far enough you have to pass everything else.01:09:03.000 --> 01:09:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:12.000Jasen: On a busy day at Parrito.01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:18.000Jasen: Because we have 300 acres and we only have fixed scripts getting you up the hill.01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:31.000Jasen: the downhill to uphill ratios are a lot different than what most skiers are today. Throughout my life, I've seen detaches go up where there used to be a double, especially at… Hunter's a perfect example, right?01:09:31.000 --> 01:09:38.000Jasen: When I started skiing there, there was a summit double chairlift, and now there's, I think, 3 different detaches that put you at the top of that mountain.01:09:38.000 --> 01:09:46.000Jasen: Um, so we've increased the uphill capacity and not addressed the downhill capacity, and I think it's watered down.01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:57.000Jasen: the experience a little bit. Powder Retail is the way it used to be. You get to the top of the mountain, and you ski down a trail, and even on a powder day, you have the trail to yourself. It's amazing.01:09:57.000 --> 01:10:01.000Jasen: It's it's what I fell in love with as a kid.01:10:01.000 --> 01:10:04.000Jasen: And Paul Rito still has that.01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:13.000Stuart Winchester: That is an awesome vision. And I read here and there that the Glades are pretty good, and that's something else Saddleback has. Talk to us about the Glades at Power Reno.01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.000Jasen: Yeah, the… with some of the, um…01:10:19.000 --> 01:10:26.000Jasen: When we get sufficient snowpack, you can go into the trees, but with all the burn scars and stuff.01:10:26.000 --> 01:10:30.000Jasen: You really want to be cautious about the woods. Um…01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:35.000Jasen: I'm actually trying to get the tree message removed from our marketing campaign.01:10:33.000 --> 01:10:36.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, I see. Okay. Okay.01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:48.000Jasen: So, uh, I would really define Palo Rito more as… there's certainly trees to get into, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not a J Peak, if you will, um, but…01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:54.000Jasen: It's in-your-face fall line skiing, more so than I think most in New Mexico.01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's true.01:10:53.000 --> 01:10:56.000Stuart Winchester: But you are allowed in the trees when there's snow?01:10:56.000 --> 01:10:58.000Jasen: Oh, yeah.01:10:57.000 --> 01:11:13.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. And, uh, just one last thing, just because I… this popped into my head. Saddleback was doing some really cool things with, like, portable rope tows in their terrain park, their lower level, uh, by, like, the Sandy Lift when they put in the new one. Were you involved with all that before you came out?01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:16.000Jasen: I, I was.01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and so that's kind of cool. I really like rope tows for terrain parks because they, you know, you can lap, lap, lap without having to ride a lift. Is that something you've thought about for Power Radio at all?01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:33.000Jasen: Yeah, as a matter of fact, uh, if you want to pull up the trail map, I'll show you kind of what I got thinking here.01:11:29.000 --> 01:11:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let's do it.01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:35.000Jasen: So…01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:37.000Stuart Winchester: Here's a trail map.01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:41.000Jasen: Yeah, so the bottom of Lone Spruce…01:11:42.000 --> 01:11:48.000Jasen: Right now, we're having a hard time to really… the beginner lift…01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:53.000Jasen: On a busy day, we don't want to add a lot of traffic on that lift.01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:11:53.000 --> 01:12:04.000Jasen: Down here below East Road on the bottom of Daisy May and the bottom of Lone Spruce, there's a perfect little triangle in there when we're not running spruce lift.01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:16.000Jasen: The thought process is potentially for next year. We're on a surface lift up along the looker's left side of the bottom of Daisy May.01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:24.000Jasen: So that if that lift isn't running, that parking lot is the easiest access to snow, so you could boot up in your car, ride up.01:12:24.000 --> 01:12:30.000Jasen: We've got snowmaking down in there, and that could be the beginning of our future, um…01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:35.000Jasen: uh… beginner level terrain park, and that lift would…01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:35.000Stuart Winchester: That's awesome.01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:40.000Jasen: would give you the bottom of Lowen Spruce, the bottom of Daisy May.01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:12:40.000 --> 01:12:43.000Jasen: And also access from that parking lot back to the lodge.01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:53.000Jasen: So, exactly, think of what, you know, the lodge is below the train park at Saddleback, but essentially kind of the same thing that we did at Saddleback.01:12:49.000 --> 01:12:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so…01:12:53.000 --> 01:12:55.000Stuart Winchester: That's really cool.01:12:53.000 --> 01:12:56.000Jasen: To access that lower section.01:12:56.000 --> 01:13:00.000Stuart Winchester: And with a portable rope tower, would you put something more permanent in?01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:03.000Jasen: Probably something a little more permanent.01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:13:04.000 --> 01:13:05.000Jasen: Um…01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:09.000Jasen: Because even when we do replace Sloan's spruce lift.01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:17.000Jasen: You know, do you really want to ride… if you're just looking to nail a couple features, do you really want to ride a 6 or 7 minute chair?01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:17.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:21.000Jasen: When you can just loop and cycle that lower area.01:13:23.000 --> 01:13:32.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's awesome, Jason, and I imagine being right above a city, you have a good, you know, young skier demographic for that, so…01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:42.000Stuart Winchester: All right, Jason, listen, I really appreciate all this. This is, uh, it's really exciting, and now I've skied a little in New Mexico, but I gotta get out there, and I'm always telling people these kind of…01:13:42.000 --> 01:13:58.000Stuart Winchester: fringe areas, if you're coming from the East Coast, they see… they're as big as an East Coast ski area, and there's no one there. And they're wonderful skiing, so this sounds, uh… this first time I focused on Power Reno, it sounds kind of like that if you were an East Coast skier coming out.01:13:59.000 --> 01:14:08.000Jasen: Yes, yes. Even on the busiest of days, it's just… it still amazes me how awesome the terrain is. And you know.01:14:08.000 --> 01:14:16.000Jasen: all of the places I've worked, we've talked about some of the different skiers I've worked at, um, in the East. The other thing that I think is important to note.01:14:16.000 --> 01:14:17.000Jasen: Because of…01:14:17.000 --> 01:14:20.000Jasen: Just the quantity of people.01:14:21.000 --> 01:14:28.000Jasen: At 3 or 4 o'clock, the trails get stomped. I mean, you're down to, like, boilerplate, everything's scrapped off.01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:46.000Jasen: And, uh, that was the other thing that blew my mind when I got out here. The quality of skiing from 8 AM to 4 PM is pretty consistent. Like, you just don't get that, oh, you know, I'm going to the pub to have a beer because it's already scraped off at 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock, you know. It's just, it's great skiing from first chair to last.01:14:34.000 --> 01:14:35.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:37.000Stuart Winchester: Awesome. Yeah.01:14:41.000 --> 01:14:42.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:14:47.000 --> 01:15:02.000Stuart Winchester: Incredible. All right, Jason. Well, I'm going to come test that theory hopefully this winter. If not, I'll make it out at some point and hope to take a couple turns with you. So thanks so much for all your time, especially I know how busy you are. It's a huge project. I really appreciate it.01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:05.000Jasen: Thanks a lot, Stuart. It was awesome talking to you. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Today we're diving into one of the most debated realms in Christian history: Purgatory. We're going beyond pop culture clichés and fiery stereotypes to trace how the idea of a purifying afterlife evolved over thousands of years—from mystical visions and burned handprints to Dante's iconic mountain and Martin Luther's Reformation. Is Purgatory clearly laid out in Scripture, or is it a complex doctrine stitched together across centuries? WELCOME TO RELIGION CAMP!

“Is Purgatory an invention?” This question leads to a discussion on the nature of purgatory and its biblical foundations. Other topics include addressing doubts about a young earth with a family member and how to engage a lukewarm friend about returning to faith. The conversation also touches on the validity of baptism and the moral implications of suicide. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 02:05 – How would I answer the claim that purgatory is an invention to excuse people from sinning in their lifetime? 10:33 – My brother-in-law stopped believing because he no longer believes in a young earth. How do I walk through this? 16:20 – How do I approach my lukewarm friend to bring him back to the faith? 22:25 – When I was baptized, I didn’t care. Was it valid? 30:25 – How do I explain to someone that suicide is objectively wrong? 39:15 – 2 Maccabees references praying for the dead but are there any other references in the OT or jewish texts? 46:00 – What resources do you recommend to start learning about the early Catholic Church? 49:10 – My mother left Catholicism for the Assembly of God. She doesn't want to return because she said the Church wasn't feeding her. What can I say to her to get her to reconsider?

I've had north of a hundred authors on this show. This one stuck with me differently, and it's because of one word: Purgatory.Geoff Curtis spent nearly thirty years building a career in healthcare communications. Title, expertise, platform, the whole thing. Then the company was acquired, his role went redundant, and all of it disappeared at once. What followed wasn't a reinvention arc. It was the discovery that he'd spent his adult life using work to avoid feeling anything.He picked purgatory on purpose. As he puts it, words like transition imply progress, and he wasn't making any.The other choice that makes this book different: most people write about this from the far side, after they've figured it out. Geoff is writing from inside it. Three years out and still working through it. There's no five step plan in here, and some readers are frustrated by that. I think it's the reason the book works.The idea I keep coming back to is his separation of three things we tend to mash together. Livelihood, identity, and self-worth. Livelihood puts food on the table. That's all it has to be. The trouble starts when livelihood quietly becomes identity, and identity becomes self-worth. Then losing the job isn't a financial event, it's an existential one.We also got into something that isn't in the book. Four weeks before we talked, Geoff did the Hoffman Process. Eight days, completely unplugged, thirty nine strangers, fifteen hours of prep work and days running 7:15 in the morning to 9:30 at night, all aimed at understanding which of your behavior patterns you inherited from your parents. He says he wishes he'd written the book afterward.Fair warning, this one is heavier than most. Depression, grief, his father's death, and a lot of honesty about patterns neither of us is done with.In this episode:Why he chose purgatory over transitionLivelihood versus identity versus self-worthThirty years of running on external validationRunning as emotional suppression, and how to tell it from progressNew metrics for happiness, and why the old ones keep coming backInvesting in yourself, therapy, and the Hoffman ProcessWhy people doubt themselves inside corporate, not just outside itThe imposter syndrome nobody on his team ever mentioned to each otherEverything is a choice, and why we only price the downsideABOUT THE GUESTGeoff Curtis spent nearly thirty years in healthcare communications before an acquisition made his role redundant. He's the author of Embracing Your Own Purgatory, written from inside the transition rather than after it, and he now runs a nonprofit he built with his wife that works with college students.LINKSThe book: Embracing Your Own Purgatory — Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere books are sold Author site: https://geoffreycurtis.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreycurtis/THE IDEAS WORTH KEEPINGLivelihood is not identity is not self-worth. Three things, and we let them fuse. "Livelihood puts food on the table. If you don't make the livelihood the identity, then you're good."Transition implies progress. Purgatory doesn't. That's why he picked the harder word.Running versus progressing. Both are fine, but you have to evaluate the ending. Why did you leave? Bored, burned out, actually moving toward something? Skip that and you rinse and repeat for thirty years.Closer to right than quick. The nonprofit took two and a half years instead of the five months his old metrics demanded. That gap is where the real work happened.Realism as a Trojan horse. Geoff's admission that he uses "I'm a realist" to smuggle in negativity is the sharpest self-observation in the episode.You're not your patterns. The Hoffman framing: you absorb your parents' patterns as a kid to stay close to them, rebel against them as a teenager, then repeat them under stress for the rest of your life until somebody shows you where they came from.The conversation nobody has. Geoff and a former direct report both had imposter syndrome the whole time and never said a word. "I always thought you had it together, and I wanted to make sure you thought I had it together."TIMESTAMPSEstimated from the transcript. Spot-check and shift for cold open and sting.00:00 — Why this book landed differently01:31 — Why he chose the word purgatory02:46 — Not brave enough to say we're unfinished02:51 — Brett: I think I was in purgatory while still employed03:53 — His wife knew it was going to hit him before he did05:08 — Identity, self-worth, and what work was really providing05:49 — Thirty years of running on external validation06:48 — Why there's no path out in the book, only questions08:30 — Livelihood is not identity is not self-worth09:35 — Separate the money from the mission10:49 — The college senior who wants success and fun12:36 — First generation college, and the expectations that come with it13:49 — Running when things get uncomfortable14:25 — Evaluate the ending, or you'll repeat it15:45 — Running as emotional suppression, and his father16:35 — Love the process and eventually the process loves you17:30 — Three years out, and building new metrics for happiness18:57 — The old metrics never fully stop flashing back20:00 — Brett talked his way back into a full time job because it was comfortable21:18 — Geoff turns it around: how much was external pressure?22:58 — What changes when you finally become value driven24:20 — Following energy as a compass25:17 — Why the nonprofit took two and a half years, and why that was right26:52 — First dollar out versus being methodical29:41 — Why you'd be a better leader now than you were then30:25 — Gen X and the refusal to invest in ourselves31:25 — The Hoffman Process, eight days unplugged33:06 — The patterns you inherited and repeat under stress35:44 — Getting comfortable being uncomfortable36:58 — Doing the uncomfortable thing, and how the podcast started37:41 — The nonprofit as his uncomfortable thing40:17 — People are doubting themselves inside corporate now41:50 — The imposter syndrome nobody admitted to each other43:00 — Everything is a choice, and we only price the downside44:15 — Negativity as an inherited pattern46:15 — The quarterly business review Brett runs with his wife48:11 — Why most of the book's feedback is coming from men QUOTES"Words like transition mean progress. In purgatory, there's a lot less progress." — Geoff"We're too focused on being finished, and not brave enough to say that we're unfinished." — Geoff"Livelihood puts food on the table. If you don't make the livelihood the identity, then you're good." — Geoff"We're tying how we feel to what somebody else thinks about us. That's an interesting psychological juxtaposition when you sit down to think about it." — Geoff"Things don't need to be quick anymore. They need to be closer to right than quick." — Geoff"I use my realism to mask my negativity. It's almost a Trojan horse." — Geoff"He said, I always thought you had it together, and I wanted to make sure that you thought I had it together." — Geoff, on imposter syndrome with a former direct report"I convinced them to hire me full time. In hindsight it made no sense. But it was comfortable." — Brett"You're not being let go because you don't have the skills. Drop you into any situation and you know more than ninety five percent of the people in the room." — BrettQuestions or guest ideas

Asking God for signs? Are souls in Purgatory already forgiven? Are we speaking to the convinced? Join us for Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders.

Week 3 .......Pats > Steelers, Ron is not pressing the panic button. QBs are going down! plus we have the usual suspect.

|TF| S4 EP 2 | How can you know that you're saved? And if you've received the Holy Spirit, should you be certain of your salvation? This week on Thinking Faith, Deacon Eric Gurash and Dr. Brett Salkeld respond to a Miller High School student's question about assurance of salvation and the Catholic understanding of hope. Along the way, they explore baptism, the Holy Spirit, Ignatian discernment, purgatory, and why Catholics and Protestants can approach the question of being “saved” so differently. When it comes to salvation, where should our confidence ultimately rest? 02:14 Salvation Question Setup 02:57 Mailbag From Students 04:54 Assurance vs Hope 05:47 Protestant Roots of Assurance 08:58 Quicksand of Self-Doubt 10:47 Sacraments and Agency 13:39 Catholic Answer 14:59 Hope and Salvation Anxiety 15:40 Theological Virtue of Hope 16:14 Feelings and the Holy Spirit 17:24 Ignatius and Discernment Anchors 19:55 Hoping Hell Is Empty 21:06 Purgatory as Restorative Hope 25:44 My Hope Is in Jesus 26:43 Closing

Mark Booth is the author of several comprehensive books including The Sacred History: How Angels, Mystics, and Higher Intelligence Made Our World, The Secret History of the World,  The Secret History of the Universe: How Ancient Wisdom Made the Modern World, and The Secret History of Dante: Unearthing the Mysteries of the Inferno. Mark explores the esoteric and initiatory dimensions of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, linking the poet's vivid journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven to the ancient mystery-school traditions that survived in the Knights Templar. He examines Dante's close connection to Brunetto Latini, the Templars' influence on the poem's cosmology and imagery, and the ways Dante's unconsummated love for Beatrice elevates romantic love into a cosmic, spiritual force. Booth also discusses how Dante's experience of initiation beneath the streets of Florence, his portrayal of contemporary figures in Hell, and his vision of a universe moved entirely by love reveal a hidden mystical current running through medieval Catholicism and Western culture. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:09 Dante and Beatrice 00:12:51 Knights Templar origins 00:21:08 Templars and Dante 00:27:41 Virgil as guide 00:32:37 Templar persecution 00:37:14 Church and occult 00:42:13 Popes in hell 00:44:50 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on Monday, August 31, 2026) For a complete, updated list with links to all of our videos, see https://newthinkingallowed.com/Listings.htm. Check out the New Thinking Allowed Foundation website at http://www.newthinkingallowed.org. There you will find our incredible, searchable database as well as opportunities to shop and to support our video productions – plus, this is where people can subscribe to our FREE, weekly Newsletter and can download a FREE .pdf copy of our quarterly magazine. To order high-quality, printed copies of our quarterly magazine: NTA-Magazine.MagCloud.com Check out New Thinking Allowed's AI chatbot. You can create a free account at awakin.ai/open/jeffreymishlove. When you enter the space, you will see that our chatbot is one of several you can interact with. While it is still a work in progress, it has been trained on 1,600 NTA transcripts. It can provide intelligent answers about the contents of our interviews. It's almost like having a conversation with Jeffrey Mishlove. If you would like to join our team of volunteers, helping to promote the New Thinking Allowed YouTube channel on social media, editing and translating videos, creating short video trailers based on our interviews, helping to upgrade our website, or contributing in other ways (we may not even have thought of), please send an email to friends@newthinkingallowed.com. To download and listen to audio versions of the New Thinking Allowed videos, please visit our new podcast at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/new-thinking-allowed-audio-podcast/id1435178031. Download and read Jeffrey Mishlove's Grand Prize essay in the Bigelow Institute competition, Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death, go to https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/docs/1st.pdf. You can help support our video productions while enjoying a good book. To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: Is There Life After Death? click on https://amzn.to/3LzLA7Y (As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.) To order the second book in the New Thinking Allowed Dialogues series, Russell Targ: Ninety Years of ESP, Remote Viewing, and Timeless Awareness, go to https://amzn.to/4aw2iyr To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: UFOs and UAP – Are We Really Alone?, go to https://amzn.to/3Y0VOVh To order a copy of Charles T. Tart: Seventy Years of Exploring Consciousness and Parapsychology, go to https://amzn.to/4oOUJLn

In this episode of The Brand Called You, host Ashutosh Garg sits down with Geoff Curtis, author and philanthropist, to discuss his transformative journey from a successful corporate career to finding purpose through mentoring and philanthropy.Geoff shares insights from his book Embracing Your Own Purgatory, reflecting on professional identity, leadership, navigating transitions, and embracing vulnerability.Key topics include the personal meaning of “purgatory” beyond its religious connotations, the challenges executives face when their identities become closely tied to their careers, managing imposter syndrome, and creating a “purpose plan” for meaningful life changes.Whether you're a high achiever or navigating a major transition, Geoff's candid reflections offer an opportunity to pause, reflect, and explore a more authentic sense of purpose.Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more leadership lessons and stories of transformation.

The Drive explained how the Colts seem stuck, too good to bottom out but not good enough to be in the postseason.

Today’s Topics: 1, 2, 3, 4) William discusses the truth about Purgatory and where it is found in numerous places in Sacred Scripture and was a universal belief in the Church from the beginning.

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I still write long-form newsletters. Paid subscribers can leave a comment in the article below, or by joining The Storm's chat (also below). I'll respond to some comments in the next episode, which is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 16.Transcript updateFollowing up on yesterday's feedback, there are now two transcripts available for each podcast:* Substack's transcript: This transcript is auto-generated when I upload the podcast file to Substack, which is the platform that hosts stormskiing.com. This one is cool because you can click on any block of text and the audio will jump to that point in the conversation. Click the “transcript” button above to access. * Zoom's transcript: Zoom automatically generates this transcript as I record. It should be more or less identical to Substack's transcript, but with names attached to each quote block. The downside of this transcript is that you can't teleport to that point in the pod by clicking on the text block, as you can with Substack's. Another downside: the timestamps are off, since I typically start recording prior to the start of the podcast. I'll work on cleaning this up.So until the robots get smarter, we're stuck with two different transcripts. Both are auto-generated, and I don't proofread either one, as that would be the fastest way to make sure my quick-turnaround, up-to-date podcast turns into a slow-turnaround, out-of-date one. My hope is that Substack will soon hire or invent or weld from raw iron a robot that's smart enough to know who's speaking when. I'll just keep following the robots around and using their hyper-intelligence until they decide to kill me.The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, and I am very excited today to bring you a conversation with the General Manager of Monarch Mountain, Colorado, Chris Haggerty. Now, I've never featured Monarch either on the long-form pod or on the short-form pod.00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:11.000Stuart Winchester: There's never really a reason behind that, other than this is just kind of when it happened. If you run an area, a ski area anywhere in America, I do want to talk to you. I've just never had the opportunity to feature Monarch before, so we will talk about Monarch in just a little bit here.00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:27.000Stuart Winchester: Part of the reason why we're talking about Monarch is because they were one of two Western Mountains to this year join Snow Operating's Snow Pass. Now, the Snow Pass, if you missed the news, it works a lot like the Indy Pass or the Mountain Collective Pass, where you get two days each.00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:37.000Stuart Winchester: at a set number of ski areas. In this case, it's planned to be 14 ski areas for the 2026-27 ski season. And…00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:45.000Stuart Winchester: That product went on sale last Tuesday. I had Snow Operating CEO Joe Heschen on the podcast to talk through it with us.00:10:45.000 --> 00:11:01.000Stuart Winchester: Couple days later, I got an email from Snow Operating saying, Hey, guess what? Our first round of Snow Operating and Snow Triple Play, which are two different products, and I'll explain the difference in a moment, sold out. So we're taking it off sale. We're putting it back on sale next Monday, September 21st.00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:13.000Stuart Winchester: at 10 a.m. Eastern. It will be $349.99 for Snowpass, and $184.99 for Snow Triple Play. Still a pretty good deal. Those products at full price.00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:24.000Stuart Winchester: the prices that Snow Partners gave me, and they anticipate selling both products through Christmas Eve, December 24th, just like they did last year with the first season of the Triple Play.00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:40.000Stuart Winchester: They, the final prices they anticipate will be 3 99 99 for snow pass and 1 99 99 for snow triple play. So you get a nice little discount, particularly with the snow pass, $50 off if you buy it in the next round. So let's talk a little bit about the snow pass because.00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: When this product debuted.00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:53.000Stuart Winchester: I… I've been saying for years, there's 4 national ski passes, right? There's obviously Epic and Icon, and those have some season pass unlimited tiers at certain mountains.00:11:53.000 --> 00:12:08.000Stuart Winchester: And a limited number of days at other partner mountains. And then you have Indian Mountain Collective, which essentially worked the same way, 2 days at each ski area that is on their roster. Uh, Mountain Collective is more expensive, tends to be your bigger, more high-end resorts, Snowbird, Jackson Hole.00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:23.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Sun Peaks up in Canada. And Indy tended to be the lesser-known ski areas, but still some really dynamite stuff there, and a lot more ski areas. Mountain Collective always has around 30, and Indy is more like 250, not counting their cross-country.00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:36.000Stuart Winchester: ski areas. So, I always thought there was probably room for a fifth national pass, but I wasn't sure, and as time went on, and more and more mountains joined multi-mountain passes.00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:37.000Stuart Winchester: I…00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:41.000Stuart Winchester: I thought, okay, maybe there's not room for a fifth national pass. Maybe everyone who's…00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:44.000Stuart Winchester: who wants to join a pass has, because I know Indy, uh.00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:58.000Stuart Winchester: Now, I'm not saying they don't have standards, but they'll let just about anybody on the pass just to help them get that exposure and that national marketing. But Snow Operating, the outfit that owns Mountain Creek in New Jersey and the indoor big snow ski area in New Jersey, they launched.00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:15.000Stuart Winchester: their Snow Pass, and it's a pretty good roster. Here, I'm gonna share my screen for those of you watching on video, and if you're not watching on video, don't worry, I'm gonna talk through it. So, here's the Snow Triple Play East roster, and here's the Snow Pass roster. Now, the Snow Pass has 14 ski areas on it.00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:18.000Stuart Winchester: And you get 2 days at each ski area.00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.000Stuart Winchester: The Snow Triple Play has…00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:27.000Stuart Winchester: 23 total ski areas on it, and you get 3 days total.00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:43.000Stuart Winchester: across all 23 ski areas. That's why it's so much less expensive. The most days you can use at any ski area is 2, so you can't buy this as a 3-pack Force A Gore Mountain, alright? So, that's the first important.00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:59.000Stuart Winchester: distinction is that Snow Triple Play is a much more limited basket of days. You also don't want to assume that they have the same roster. Just because something's on Snow Pass doesn't mean it's on Snow Triple Play, and vice versa. Snow Triple Play right now has a pretty…00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:15.000Stuart Winchester: Big roster that I wish was on the, uh, Snow Pass, because it has Jiminy Peak in, uh, Massachusetts, and also Cranmore in New Hampshire, which is jointly owned. It has Platykill up in the New York Catskills.00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:30.000Stuart Winchester: It has all these summit ski areas around Quebec. It has Bromont, one of the great eastern townships ski areas. Uh, so that's Snow Triple Play. Snow Triple Play does not have anything in the west. It's all east. It's all east coast, either eastern Canada or eastern New York.00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:45.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Snow Pass has… it's a pretty interesting roster, and it's a great roster for a very particular type of skier. Now, it does have two ski areas in the West, uh, Snow King, which has been controversial, I'm gonna set that aside, and Monarch, which we'll talk about in a moment.00:14:45.000 --> 00:15:00.000Stuart Winchester: The core of the Snow Pass, and the reason why it makes sense, is because of the south to north line of ski areas that it offers. So if you buy the Snow Pass, again, goes back on sale for $349.99 next Monday, September 21st.00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:05.000Stuart Winchester: You would get two days each at Bel Air, which is in New York's Catskills.00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:07.000Stuart Winchester: Gore.00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:16.000Stuart Winchester: higher up in the Adirondacks, and Whiteface, which are all owned and run and operated by the state, all fantastic ski areas. So it's 2 days at each of those, that alone would be worth $350.00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:33.000Stuart Winchester: Then you add in the fact that you get two days at Mountain Creek, which is right there in New Jersey, uh, two days at the indoor snow dome, big snow American dream. Uh, if you have kids, two days at Butternut and two days at Mount Southington in Connecticut. Uh, Butternut is in Massachusetts. They're both day drive distance from New York City.00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:42.000Stuart Winchester: Let them wander around, let them explore. They're both, uh, especially Butternut. It's very up-to-date, very modern lifts, very, very well-run ski area. So…00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: You have a really great little, you know.00:15:46.000 --> 00:16:03.000Stuart Winchester: 5, 6, 7 ski areas that really make sense. Now, Ski Martok doesn't really make sense. It's all the way up in the middle of nowhere in the, in the Atlantic provinces in, in Canada. Uh, and, and Pleasant Mountain makes less sense. It's, it's up in Maine and, uh, harder to get to from, from the folks who would likely buy this as.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:13.000Stuart Winchester: But what you have to ask yourself is, okay, the snow pass, that's a pretty good deal, right? It's $349.99 for 2 days each of 14 mountains. Then you look at Indy.00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:16.000Stuart Winchester: And Indy Pass is 254.00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:34.000Stuart Winchester: uh, alpine ski areas, and it just went off sale for $429 for the base pass. So, it would be 2 days each at all of these, and the… the plus pass, the ND plus pass, was $469. It had no blackouts. Now, the other thing to know about Snow Triple Play.00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:50.000Stuart Winchester: and snow passes, there are a lot of blackouts, okay? So, a lot of these are holidays, you probably expect that. Uh, you know, here I see Big Snow, Oak Mountain, Plattekill, a lot of holiday blackouts, Butternut holiday blackouts, Gore, uh, Bel Air. Bel Air, though, you want to stop.00:16:50.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: Bel Air is blacked out every Saturday and Sunday. That's a big deal, because when do you probably want to go to Bel Air if you're someone skiing around with your little kids? Probably on a Saturday or Sunday. So, you want to be really careful and really look at these, uh, these blackout dates before you pull the trigger.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.000Stuart Winchester: on the snow pass. So…00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:14.000Stuart Winchester: So if you have a snow pass, I I'm calling it.00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:18.000Stuart Winchester: A national pass, kind of, uh…00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:24.000Stuart Winchester: out of anticipation, right? It's more of a, I think they'll get there, sort of designation, because right now.00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:40.000Stuart Winchester: it's not really a national pass, right? You have one small skier in Wyoming, one small skier in Colorado. Is someone who lives in New York's metro really going to travel to Colorado just to ski that because they have a snow pass, right? Because it's not cheap to get up to Colorado.00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:56.000Stuart Winchester: And there's a lot of much bigger mountains out there. So… so I think that Snow Pass, much like Indy did when it started in 2019, will grow into a national… a true national pass. Uh, for now, just based on the reputation of the operators, uh, the fact that I think that they will be able to grow this thing, the fact that I…00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:11.000Stuart Winchester: know their relationships with folks all around the country, and how much folks like working with them, I am assuming that this pass will grow up, and if it does, Monarch will be the OG Western partner. So, let's talk more about Monarch now, and I'm gonna bring.00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.000Stuart Winchester: Chris Haggerty in.00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.000Stuart Winchester: And we will, uh… Chris, how you doing?00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:20.000Chris Haggerty: I'm doing well today, Stuart. How are you?00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:37.000Stuart Winchester: I'm doing great. All right, you passed the sound check, so I'm going to give you an intro here. Joining us now is the general manager of Monarch Mountain, Colorado. Monarch has six chairlifts serving 1,017 acres of terrain, including the 377-acre no-name expansion that opened last winter.00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:44.000Stuart Winchester: Monarch's 10,727-foot base elevation is the third highest in American skiing.00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:59.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to taking the top job at Monarch in 2024, he spent 21 years as general manager of Mountain Creek, New Jersey. Chris Haggerty is my guest. Chris, welcome to The Storm. Awesome to connect with you. I've really been wanting to spotlight Monarch for a long time now, and I'm so hyped we get to.00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:10.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah. Thanks for having me, and I'm excited to be here and chat Monarch. It's a special place, so excited to share some discussion about it.00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:23.000Stuart Winchester: So, the New Jersey to Colorado pipeline is maybe not necessarily a well-trod one, although there are a surprising amount of IntraWest vets working in the ski industry because of its relationship with IntraWest, but talk to us about…00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:40.000Stuart Winchester: Getting to Monarch, and you were taking over for Randy Stroud, super experienced guy, he was retiring, uh, he'd been there 23 years, a decade as GM, and he stayed on, I believe, for, for a year. So, talk to us about going from New Jersey, where they have a lot of snowmaking, because they have to.00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:41.000Chris Haggerty: Mmhm.00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:47.000Stuart Winchester: to Monarch, where they have no snowmaking, and just what that adjustment period was like, and how you settled into the role.00:19:48.000 --> 00:20:07.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, just a quick story is that, you know, as you mentioned, I was at Mountain Creek for a long time, and, you know, really where I found my love for the ski industry, and after college, I had taken a trip out to Colorado and got my first taste of, like.00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:12.000Chris Haggerty: the Rockies, right? So it's always been something in the back of my mind. Um…00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:28.000Chris Haggerty: And I ended up stumbling upon Monarch. I hadn't been to Monarch before, and I was like, oh, this place looks pretty cool. It definitely screamed the ski independent. I definitely wanted to.00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:50.000Chris Haggerty: you know, if I was going to relocate, wanted to find an area where the resort and the local community both had that kind of just feeling of community and stuff. So a monarch was it. And I was blessed to step in after Randy Stroud, and we shared a season together. So I got to learn a lot of institutional knowledge from him.00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:58.000Chris Haggerty: Um, but also bring my viewpoints coming from New Jersey in an area where, you know, we're not…00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:15.000Chris Haggerty: maybe blessed with natural snow. Um, so last year was, like, a challenging winter, and, um, I was ready for it, because I was like, man, 120 inches, like, if you gave me that in New Jersey, we'd be celebrating for years, right? So, um, you know, just kind of a unique perspective, but…00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:21.000Chris Haggerty: um, definitely happy to be here, and just pumped to keep the Monarch kind of spirit going forward.00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:37.000Stuart Winchester: So you've been there for a couple years, one full year as GM, and one of the… there's been tons of stuff coming out of Monarch, it's amazing for a small ski area, which is why I wanted to get you on. So you recently joined the Snow Pass, one of two Western partners to join the Snow Pass, which gives pass holders.00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.000Chris Haggerty: Thank you.00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:54.000Stuart Winchester: Two days at Monarch. I don't think there's blackouts on that, but correct me if I'm wrong now. Now, Multimon Pass has been around for years and almost everybody in Colorado is on either Epic or Icon if they're large and if they're small, a lot of them have joined Indy. So the option has been there for years.00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:00.000Stuart Winchester: Why was it finally time for Monarch to join a multi-mountain pass, and why the snow pass?00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:15.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, two parts there. I think on the, I mentioned it before, we're ski independent as our tagline, right? Part of independence is like the definition is freedom.00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.000Chris Haggerty: Right? Like, you make your own choices. You do what you wanna do.00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:31.000Chris Haggerty: we've been approached in the past for IndyPass, and, you know, it wasn't right for us because it kind of went against our spirit of being independent. Like, we want to be able to work with who we…00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:43.000Chris Haggerty: who we choose at any given moment, um, and that just isn't something that, um, is available through the Unipass, so… so we've passed on that. Um, we were even approached about it this year. Um…00:22:43.000 --> 00:23:00.000Chris Haggerty: As far as Snowpass goes, they respect that. They're all about, hey, you want to work with XYZ Pass, go for it. And obviously, I've spent some time working with the Snow Partners group.00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:05.000Chris Haggerty: You know, from my perspective, that group is all about, um…00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:17.000Chris Haggerty: you know, rising tides lifts all boats, right? And, um, you know, for me personally, they've opened doors for me, right? And helped me throughout growing in my career, so, um…00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:40.000Chris Haggerty: We're down.00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:52.000Stuart Winchester: I want to share, because you've sort of created your own… I'm sharing my screen now, if you can see that, and hopefully the folks watching can as well, and if you're listening, I'll talk through it. So, Monarch has…00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:46.000Chris Haggerty: Thank you.00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:07.000Stuart Winchester: not joined a pass, necessarily, but you've kind of built your own pass, and what I have on the screen right now is a list of Monarch's reciprocals, and it's a pretty amazing pass all in and of itself, so if you buy a Monarch season pass, which I believe now is, what, $6.59, less if you renew.00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:24.000Stuart Winchester: It comes with a lot of reciprocal days. Some of the big ones that people probably are really attracted to, 3 days at A-Basin, 3 days at Copper. Now there's blackouts on that, but still, it's freaking Copper Mountain. Uh, 3 days at Purgatory. And then, uh, 3 days each at all of the Mountain Capital Partners-owned skiers, which Purgatory.00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:08.000Chris Haggerty: Mm-hmm.00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:16.000Chris Haggerty: I'll do that.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:25.000Chris Haggerty: Yes.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:39.000Stuart Winchester: Also, Arizona Snowball. And there's a bunch more. I don't want to list them all, given our time constraints here today. But talk about this reciprocal program, because essentially, you're saying you're going to give pass holders of all these mountains.00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:34.000Chris Haggerty: Yes.00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:38.000Chris Haggerty: Sure.00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:46.000Stuart Winchester: free visits to Monarch in exchange for your pass holders getting free visits there, so…00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.000Chris Haggerty: Oh.00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.000Chris Haggerty: Yes.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:52.000Stuart Winchester: whatever you did or didn't like about IndyPass, it does pay per visit, so what was attractive about.00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:49.000Chris Haggerty: Just a second.00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:57.000Stuart Winchester: this, and why did it make sense to do these free visit exchanges with other ski areas?00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:15.000Chris Haggerty: We look at it as other skiers are not our competition, right? There's 350 million people roughly in the United States. Less than 5% actually ski or snowboard, right? So there's a lot of people out there that just need to be introduced into the sport.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:17.000Chris Haggerty: Um…00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:23.000Chris Haggerty: rather than trying to fight for visits between resorts. So… so one of the things is just…00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:39.000Chris Haggerty: How do we get more people skiing and snowboarding, which is obviously a huge conversation you could talk about forever. But with this one, it's just like, hey, these are other resorts that are interested in also giving their pass holders as well as ours.00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:10.000Chris Haggerty: allow our pass holders to try each out while still knowing that, like most people that have a copper pass, they're not migrating to Monarch because they came here for two days.00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:28.000Chris Haggerty: they're bought a Copper Pass for a reason, they love that, and they're like, yeah, if I could get two days over at Monarch, cool. Same thing with our Monarch guests, like, they… they… they love Monarch, they want most of their days to be here, and if we could break it up for them, um, you know, a couple times a year, or they could go to A-Basin and Copper, then.00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:37.000Chris Haggerty: That adds a lot of value to them and gives them that flexibility to move around and go where it works for them.00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:52.000Stuart Winchester: You know, Monarch is small by Colorado standards, but it always surprised me to see that it actually does have a pseudo national following. And I get emails from people all over the country that say they buy the Monarch Pass because it gives them all those reciprocals and they come out and they like to support the small ski area.00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:59.000Stuart Winchester: I want to get your take on something here, Chris. I'm going to share my screen again, and I want to share a chart that I made.00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:14.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, so, so this is a chart of Monarch's skier visits since 1997, up to 2024 to 25, right? And I've compiled these from all kinds of different places, and I have a little bit of a gap there. But as you, as you see right here, they've been going steadily up, right?00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, so you were averaging below $200,000 for most of the, of the 2010s, you know, much lower some years, and now you're pretty steadily adding, averaging over $200,000. Now, last year, I don't have your numbers, I'm, I'm sure that they were, uh, pretty bad, but.00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:33.000Stuart Winchester: You know, in relation to what your past numbers were.00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:35.000Stuart Winchester: So here's my question.00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:48.000Stuart Winchester: Monarch was supposed to be one of the ski areas that got squeezed out by Epic, squeezed out by Icon. That was one of the big worries. Uh, independent ski areas can't compete. We're seeing the opposite, because I've put some things on this timeline.00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:04.000Stuart Winchester: So, for example, 2007, IntraWest buys Steamboat. Uh, 2008, the Epic Pass launches. 2009, Powder buys Copper. Uh, the Mountain Collective launched in 2012. Uh, Mountain Capital Partners bought Purgatory in 2015. Powder bought Eldora the following year.00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:21.000Stuart Winchester: Uh In 2017, Alterra combined Steamboat and Winter Park in 2018, they launched the icon pass. Uh And then we had the 20% epic price cut in 2022. So all these things you think, ok, Vale and Alterra putting their mountains on sale. These are big world famous mountains, Steamboat Vale Mountain.00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:25.000Stuart Winchester: Monarch must be getting crushed. No, it's not. Why?00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:45.000Chris Haggerty: I think it's a couple of reasons. Number one is we've just stayed true to who we are. And as the population has grown in the front range, like since 2010, Denver and Colorado Springs have grown by about 20%.00:28:45.000 --> 00:29:00.000Chris Haggerty: Right? So there's just more people, um, that are finding Monarch, and they're, they're like, wow, we like this, this is what we want. You know, you also throw in the fact that, um, I-70, for those in Colorado, are pretty familiar with, like, the traffic that is.00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:50.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:17.000Chris Haggerty: created there on the weekends and it's not for everybody. So thankfully the drive to Monarch currently is a pretty attractive one, a lot less traffic. And I give credit to our ownership group, our current ownership group. They bought the resort in.00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:33.000Chris Haggerty: 2002. And part of it was, you know, a little bit of a passion project. Right? Like, they had come here and just really liked the vibe at Monarch and and wanted to protect that. And what they've been able to do is, number one, protect it.00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:53.000Chris Haggerty: Um, by not selling, you know, to, to one of the larger players, um, to just investing into our, our core, um, like deferred maintenance projects and those types of things, and then being really committed to the no name project, which we talked about and, and making sure timing was right on that and.00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:11.000Chris Haggerty: Um, that we were a healthy company before we jumped into that, so we didn't need a lifeline from, you know, someone else. So, um, there's kind of a lot of pieces that go into it. Um, and it's also worth noting that, like, our pass holders, like, and I think this goes to the growth, like, once people find us.00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:25.000Chris Haggerty: Um, our pass holder, uh, renewal rate is about 85% every year. Um, and the industry standard, depending on where you, you know, who you ask, it's somewhere between, like, 55% and 62%.00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:42.000Chris Haggerty: Um, and, and most of the 15% that we lose as we've dug into it is because of, uh, we have a lot of season pass holders from Fort Carson, um, military base outside of Colorado Springs, and they've just moved out of the area, right? So, um, I think our growth is partly due to, like.00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:49.000Chris Haggerty: Once people come here and they discover it and they love it and they just keep coming back and we're just building upon that.00:30:49.000 --> 00:31:06.000Stuart Winchester: So you have owners that are willing to invest and that's really important. And Randy Stroud, I interviewed him, not on the podcast, but just for an article a couple of years ago. And he told me, and I'm not sure if this ended up being true, but their intention was to pay for the entire no name expansion in cash, including a brand new SkyTrak.00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:22.000Stuart Winchester: triple chair, or Doppelmayr, I can't remember what it was offhand, but regardless, it spoke to a very stable operation. Now, meanwhile, you still have some pretty old lifts, some pretty old infrastructure on the front side of the mountain, and recently Monarch's.00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:36.000Stuart Winchester: Master Development Plan was accepted by the U.S. Forest Service, which, for the listeners, just means that they said, okay, we'll let you consider doing these things on a project-by-project basis in the future. I have a lot of questions about the Master Plan, but first.00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: I want to focus on one that you called out, that Monarch Mountain called out in its first blog post announcing acceptance of the Master Plan, and it was about snowmaking. And Dan Torsell, the longtime GM of Ski Cooper, told me a long time ago when he came on this pod that.00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:04.000Stuart Winchester: that Ski Cooper and Monarch were the only big lift-surf ski areas in Colorado that don't have snowmaking. I think Silverton is too, but that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. So, uh, you have it in your master development plan.00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:19.000Stuart Winchester: to a sort of rudimentary snowmaking system that would allow you to open early. But, this is a quote from your blog, quote, Before anyone panics when they read about snowmaking, let me assure you that Monarch is committed to remaining 100% all natural.00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:37.000Stuart Winchester: Snowmaking has been a part of our previous MDPs, Master Development Plan, and we have chosen not to implement it as we truly believe that natural snow provides the best skiing experience. This continues to be the case as snowmaking is in the plan to cover all bases, but we will not implement anything unless Mother Nature gives us no other choice.00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.000Stuart Winchester: Care to expand upon that at all?00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:53.000Chris Haggerty: Definitely. And yeah, and we are committed to that. And I actually, last summer, I spoke in front of some of the locals and pass holders, and when I let them know that we were committed to.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.000Stuart Winchester: Or elaborate.00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:09.000Chris Haggerty: 100% all natural. That was the loudest cheer we got all day. So, like, that's what our, that's what our guests want. That's what we want. Um, as far that, you know, snowmaking has come a long way, and, and it is a necessity for a bunch of resorts.00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:19.000Chris Haggerty: Um, we're not at that point, um, and we're gonna push as far as we can, um, leaning into, like, snow farming and everything else before we ever, um.00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:35.000Chris Haggerty: have snow… have snowmaking. But, you know, in the Master Development Plan, it's in there because, like, part of putting things into that document is because it's a conceptual document. It's, like, it's designed to be a 15-year document. If it's not in there.00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:51.000Chris Haggerty: The Forest Service really doesn't even consider something. So if 15 years from now we're like, we need to put snowmaking in and it's not in there, we'd have some challenges. I will say our base elevation being basically 10,800 feet.00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:02.000Chris Haggerty: has helped us out, right? Like, as weather patterns has changed, and temperatures have rised, and winters are, you know, different every year, um…00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:13.000Chris Haggerty: we've been pretty lucky because of that base elevation, where we're… we are seeing snow, where other resorts are seeing some of that other precipitation falling, right? So, um…00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:30.000Chris Haggerty: you know, and then I mentioned the snow farming, like, we're… we're gonna do everything we can, like, on that side of things, right? And that's all the way from, like, fences strategically placed throughout the mountain, whether they're permanent or temporary, to catch the snow when the winds are coming from whatever direction.00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:47.000Chris Haggerty: And we do early season, we take the snow in the parking lots and we plow it all up and get it into one of the corners and then our groomers take it from there and start to build our base in the base area. So we have some different techniques to try to insulate us as much as possible.00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:53.000Chris Haggerty: And we're going to keep going that way as long as Mother Nature allows us to.00:34:53.000 --> 00:35:09.000Stuart Winchester: So snowmaking, it sounds like, is Monarch's emergency parachute. Meanwhile, there are a lot of big chairlift upgrades outlined on the master development plan. So Monarch has had substantially the same footprint for decades until last season's snowmaking upgrade.00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:24.000Stuart Winchester: And like I said before, more and more skier visits, and you were still running, with the exception of the 1999 Pioneer lift, the quad that was put in, with a lot of older double chairs. So Breezeway is a 1968 hall, Garfield is a 1969 hall, Panorama is a 1980 hall.00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:40.000Stuart Winchester: Tumbling as a 1981 hall. Those are all doubles. Now they've all gotten new drive terminals. So I understand they're, they're more modern in their actual functioning than, than in their look. However, the capacity is probably not a whole lot more than maybe it would have been. The master development plan proposes.00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:43.000Stuart Winchester: Replacing all of these with.00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:54.000Stuart Winchester: is advanced of a lift as a high-speed quad. Now, I realize you wanna… maybe the same reason as somebody… you say high-speed quad because you can always take it down, easier to go down than up, but talk us through…00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:05.000Stuart Winchester: your lift upgrade plan, and whether you think that high speed would be good for Monarch, or if you think that maybe fixed grip is the way you want to stay.00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:09.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, fixed script is, you know.00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:24.000Chris Haggerty: Well, let me back up. A lot of that is in there because it's got to be in there if we choose to do that. And with no name opening, there's a lot of unknowns as far as, like, how is that going to change skier traffic around the mountain, right?00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:41.000Chris Haggerty: One of the things we worked with the SE group, so they're, you know, a company that helps ski areas, right, with all sorts of development projects, big and small. And one of the things that they do is they do this density analysis, right? And it's a complicated, you know.00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:57.000Chris Haggerty: Analysis that takes on a lot of different data, but basically it's like they look at your uphill capacity based on the speed of the lift, the size of the lift, the length of the trip up, the time, and then what terrain it accesses from that lift.00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:14.000Chris Haggerty: And, like, an optimal score where, like, you have, like, perfect harmony from uphill and downhill is, like, a hundred percent. If you're below that, you're actually putting fewer people up the hill, that the downhill terrain can handle.00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:34.000Chris Haggerty: Monarch, in our current state, sits at a 56%. So basically, like, when you ski the runs at Monarch, even on our busiest day, because of the capacity that we have at our lifts, like, you have, like, semi-private runs, right? If we were to do all of our lift upgrades in the 2025 MDP.00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:49.000Chris Haggerty: we would actually get to an 84% density analysis. So even still, you wouldn't feel overcrowded on the runs. So knowing that, we're like, wow, well, we don't need to right away push for any kind of high speed lifts.00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:58.000Chris Haggerty: Um, and in fact, again, things that our guests like about them is twofold. Number one, it's like…00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:11.000Chris Haggerty: that slow metering from a fixed grip lift just adds, like, this extra time, right? Like, part of why we ski and snowboard is because we like to just disconnect, right, from reality for a little while and, like, be out in nature and, like.00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:21.000Chris Haggerty: you know, our guests like taking a step back and slowing things down here, and it feels like things are just moving a little slower. And second, one thing that we feel is like a…00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:36.000Chris Haggerty: a strong differentiator for us is, um, having a fixed grip lift. Our lift operators have to be at, like, the load point, and, um, you know, bumping the chairs and helping our guests on, and.00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:40.000Chris Haggerty: It's this, like, human interaction piece that, like.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:56.000Chris Haggerty: You don't get everywhere else, especially with some of the newer lifts where, you know, it's everything's so automated, um, which has its value, but for us, again, with who Monarch is and taking that step back in time a little bit like that, that face-to-face interaction.00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:14.000Chris Haggerty: like, so many of our reviews are constantly calling out our lift operators, like, oh, yeah, I remember so-and-so, like, he's awesome, he helped me on, or he just said hello, or he remembered what kind of skis I'm wearing, or told me about this secret powder stash, which… another benefit of a slower uphill capacity is, like.00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:23.000Chris Haggerty: Monarch, even though it's smaller in size, doesn't get tracked out. Like, you get powder turns at the end of the day on a powder day.00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:34.000Stuart Winchester: So the, I'm gonna share my screen to, to talk about this next bit. So those are the lift upgrades that you're proposing. There's also two, and I'm, I, so for those watching.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:49.000Stuart Winchester: On YouTube or stormskiing.com, I have the master development plan, conceptual plan up. There's also two infill lifts. Okay, so there would be this planned NNB lift, which is a redundant lift in the No Name Basin expansion. This is the new lift that opened last year. And then there's this…00:39:49.000 --> 00:40:04.000Stuart Winchester: Plan, divide, express. So, again, it's two more lifts on the same footprint. And I didn't see in the master plan, maybe I missed it, that you do have all this cat skiing terrain over here, so…00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:10.000Stuart Winchester: So, talk us through the logic of putting in more lists to serve the same amount of terrain, and if you've considered.00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: moving lift surf skiing into the cat skiing, as Targi did with its peaked mountain expansion a couple of years ago.00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:37.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, so no name is actually was a part of our cat skiing terrain. So we did take a little bit of that. That redundant lift out there is just because we'll see what happens, how many people just access the terrain and no name. And if we ever need a second lift there, then.00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:24.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:55.000Chris Haggerty: um, we'll consider it. As far as further into cat skiing terrain, um, you know, our current MDP outlines our next 15 years, so we're not looking to push any further into that. Um, we also have, um, the Mirkwood terrain, which is a little bit of a hike-to terrain.00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:04.000Chris Haggerty: Um, between, like, the front side and no name, and we get… that's… that's the area we most commonly get asked about a lift, and uh…00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:12.000Chris Haggerty: I will tell you from my, uh, initial conversations with owners, it's… it's not a, um…00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:27.000Chris Haggerty: the answer isn't no, we're not putting a lift there, it's a expletive no, we're not putting a lift there. Um, we take pride in having, like, being a small mountain, but still offering, like, all these other things, right? Which one being hike to terrain, um, which is pretty cool for…00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:31.000Chris Haggerty: a small mountain like this. And then that, um…00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:41.000Chris Haggerty: the Divide Express, right, that would get us all the way from the base area to the summit on the front side. Um, that… that is one that we've, you know, had some…00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:55.000Chris Haggerty: serious discussions about, and, um, you know, it probably… number one, it would just, you know, allow guests to not have to take two lifts to get to the… to the summit on the front side. Um, but also, if we…00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:06.000Chris Haggerty: explore, um, summer operations in the future. You know, having a high-speed, you know, detachable lift gives you more flexibility to do that.00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:13.000Chris Haggerty: So that kind of, you know, would add into that if we get to that point.00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:24.000Stuart Winchester: So let me ask a stupid question, because that's what I'm here for. So Garfield Lyft, as I said, was built in the 60s. Pioneer Lyft came along in 1999. So I would have thought, okay, they cross over each other.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:41.000Stuart Winchester: Because they, they retroactively built Pioneer and didn't realize it. Uh, I would have thought, hey, the master plan is an opportunity to straighten those out so they don't have to cross over each other. Maybe I'm overthinking it and it's not that complicated, but, but talk about this interesting crisscross pattern you have here and, and why that's where Garfield and Pioneer are slated.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.000Chris Haggerty: Mm-hmm.00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:45.000Stuart Winchester: to continue to exist, even if you were to upgrade their lifts.00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:05.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I have the best answer. We do have a proposal to shift the base of the bottom terminal of Pioneer uphill a little bit, just because the terrain is a little more desirable there. And obviously, if we needed to add the Divide Express, we need to open that area up.00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:06.000Chris Haggerty: um…00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:21.000Chris Haggerty: but other than that, right, we just kind of… we like the terrain that they serve right now, we don't really have a better spot, so the lifts crisscrossing wasn't like a, oh man, we need to change this. It wasn't something that we were focused on solving, um, in a way.00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.000Chris Haggerty: I think it's kind of a little cool, I guess.00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:40.000Stuart Winchester: I do like criss-crossing lifts, so I'm glad we're doing this one a video, because every time I bring this up, I get tomatoes thrown at me. Uh, Monarch skier visits have gone up and up, as we said. However, as they've gone up and up, there's still nowhere to stay on the mountain. There never has been. Uh.00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:51.000Stuart Winchester: a philosophical choice? Is that just a practical matter of, hey, the Forest Service owns the land at the base? Is it both? Talk us through why there's nowhere to stay at Monarch as a drive ski area only.00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:55.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, there's a couple of reasons.00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:02.000Chris Haggerty: And, you know, one of them, again, I'll say our pass holders and our guests, like…00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:18.000Chris Haggerty: are pretty vocal about not wanting that, right? Like that's what separates Monarch. We're not that resort that has the big base village. And again, that's not to knock those resorts. I think that that's, you know, I've gone to those resorts as a guest. I think it's awesome.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:38.000Chris Haggerty: I think another side of it for us is we're really focused on our community, right? We're a small mountain ski area and there's a small mountain community 15 miles from where we are that has a really cool, the town of Salida has a really cool downtown, a main street.00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:52.000Chris Haggerty: Um, with a ton of restaurants, a ton of mom-and-pop-owned shops, right? And, um, you know, we're our largest, uh, driver for winter visits, and, and, you know, um…00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:01.000Chris Haggerty: in the wintertime, and we want to make sure we embrace that community. If we moved a village up onto the mountain, like.00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:16.000Chris Haggerty: Salida is going to suffer. All those guests now are going to stay in the lodging up at Monarch versus in town. And we want to be good community partners and be like, no, here, you guys should be the ones to have lodging. And we live.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:35.000Chris Haggerty: all of us live in the community as well, and we want to see those restaurants, you know, stay active all year round, the mom-and-pop shops, like, you know, thrive. So part of it is just, like, wanting to be a part of something bigger, right, in that larger community, rather than.00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:38.000Chris Haggerty: moving everything up to… to Monarch.00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:53.000Stuart Winchester: So if Snowpass skiers do decide to come out and visit Monarch, they'll stay in Salida, most likely, and drive up that day. So leave us with this, Chris, because Joe Heschen, the CEO of Snow Partners.00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:58.000Stuart Winchester: Said we get so caught up on stats, but stats aren't aren't always the thing and and.00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:04.000Stuart Winchester: when you look statistically at Monarch, it's 1,100 vertical feet.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:21.000Stuart Winchester: Lift serve drop. That's 25th in Colorado. Uh, 1017 acres that ranks 17th in Colorado is bigger than Aspen Mountain. I'll point, I'll point out, uh, it's 308 inch average annual snowfall is good, but it's, it's good for ninth best. It has the third highest base, as I said, but the 12th highest summ.00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:28.000Stuart Winchester: It has those older lifts in a state that has 120 high-speed lifts, and there's nowhere to stay on the mountain, so…00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:34.000Stuart Winchester: I'm just stating those facts, right? So what's your pitch to someone to come.00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.000Stuart Winchester: use that snow pass, and try out Monarch.00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:44.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, the big one is to start with, we're 100% natural, right?00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:59.000Chris Haggerty: you want natural snow, it is a definitely a different feel, even as good as snowmaking is these days, like, come check it out. And this, and the second part is, um, the people that are at Monarch are a unique group, right? Like, we're, we're.00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:18.000Chris Haggerty: past the characters, whether you work here or you're a guest here. And, um, we're looking out for each other, right? Like, it's not, um, it's not judgmental, like, no matter what you show up wearing or what your ability is, like, we just want everyone here to have a fun day on the mountain.00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:37.000Chris Haggerty: whether you're the extreme person out in the cat skiing terrain, hiking Mirkwood, the Never Ever, or the SnowTuber, which I love SnowTubers, you know, I think that's who we all are at our core. Um, you know, it's just… it's just a cool vibe that you gotta just come check it out, and our track record's saying that.00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:40.000Chris Haggerty: People love it once they find it. So give it a shot.00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:51.000Stuart Winchester: I'm always telling my readers that these old lifts, these hauls, these riblets, they're not gonna be around for a whole lot longer, right? There's still hundreds in operation, but they don't last forever.00:47:51.000 --> 00:48:08.000Stuart Winchester: And the best thing you can do to memorialize them, you can't really preserve them forever because they're functional machines, right? But go ride them. And right now, Monarch, along with Lost Trail, is probably the best place in the West to go and ride all Old Hall Liftley. And I understand, again, they've been updated.00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:23.000Stuart Winchester: But the aesthetic is similar. So, alright, Chris, look, I gotta take my own advice and get out there and ride those hauls with you this winter. It was really great to talk to you. I really appreciate you coming on. I can't wait to catch up and hopefully make some turns together this winter.00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:27.000Chris Haggerty: Yeah, thanks a lot for the time and look forward to seeing you out here at Monarch.00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:29.000Stuart Winchester: All right. Talk to you soon. Thanks so much, Chris.00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:30.000Chris Haggerty: Thank you. Bye.00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:47.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was Chris Haggerty, the General Manager of Monarch Mountain. That was really fun, I'm really glad that he came on. Uh, Randy Stroud, just to be clear, the former GM, it's not that he ever didn't want to come on the podcast, it's just that.00:48:47.000 --> 00:49:00.000Stuart Winchester: I covered Monarch in a different way for the story about the expansion. So he was very good to the storm as well. I do want to tell you that today's podcast is brought to you by Profile Search International.00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:08.000Stuart Winchester: If you want to find a great leader for your mountain team, I want to introduce you to the pros at Profile Search International.00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:18.000Stuart Winchester: They are the ski industry talent acquisition experts, and they are the only executive search and recruitment firm in the entire world that is 100% focused on the ski industry.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:31.000Stuart Winchester: ProfileSearch has used their intimate understanding of skiing and related industries, and of available candidates worldwide, to place hundreds of transformational leaders at the best and most progressive ski areas over the past 30 years.00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: Profile Search has offices in the US and Canada. They find and negotiate with the right leaders for your team, which sometimes you don't even know that you need in this era of online everything and big data. You can reach Profile Search.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:59.000Stuart Winchester: Directly at ProfileSearch.com, where you will find their email or phone number. You can also send me a note. I will be happy to connect you directly with this expert team. My email address is skiing at substack.com. Alright, we are going to wrap up today.00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:05.000Stuart Winchester: With some reader reaction to yesterday's podcast on…00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:22.000Stuart Winchester: with Midwest skiers, Matt Zabranski, and there wasn't a lot of feedback. I think, number one, because the Midwest doesn't get as much feedback in general, but also because I published this one pretty late, I think I put it out at 8 or 9 at night, and so folks may just have not had a chance.00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.000Stuart Winchester: really process it yet. So…00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:30.000Stuart Winchester: Nell says…00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:41.000Stuart Winchester: Midwest Skiers, meaning MidwestSkiers.com, Matthew Zbrensky's site, is a regional treasure. The ride-throughs are so thorough, and what Nell means by that is.00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:52.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Midwest Skiers puts up on their YouTube channel a, hey, look, here's the trail map at, say, Trollhagen, Wisconsin. Here's all 32 trails, whatever it is.00:50:52.000 --> 00:51:03.000Stuart Winchester: and then it rides the reach for the GoPro, and tells you about them, and gives you a really specific breakdown, uh, with some great graphs. So the production quality is really, really good. So, I second that now. Really good.00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:15.000Stuart Winchester: breakdowns of the ski areas from Midwest Skiers. Eric Morris says, great Midwest content, it'd be great to talk to the Dean of Southern Skiing, Randy Johnson, who wrote Southern Snow, the new guide to winter sports.00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:31.000Stuart Winchester: Couldn't agree more, Eric. If you know him, I would love an introduction. I am not acquainted with Mr. Randy Johnson, but I would love to meet him, as the South has certainly been an undercovered region from my point of view, and not on purpose, just because there's…00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:44.000Stuart Winchester: a little different culturally than the rest of the United States from a ski point of view, and I have not sunk as far of roots in there as I would like to, especially since I'm not too far from those ski areas. There was also…00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:47.000Stuart Winchester: We're not getting as much action on the chat, but here's one.00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:57.000Stuart Winchester: question on the chat, and this is not to do with the podcast from yesterday, but I want to talk about it a little. What will it take for Vail Resorts to turn around? That's from Saurabh Jain.00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:06.000Stuart Winchester: And commenter Slappy said, redefine what success looks like and suspend the dividend and stock buyback. Of course, those last two may be non-negotiable.00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:24.000Stuart Winchester: I'm not going to get out of my lane and talk too much about dividends and stock buybacks, though I do like stocks and follow that world nominally. It's certainly nothing that I'm an expert to speak on. What Vail needs to do to turn around, I think, is very simple, and I've said this many, many times.00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:25.000Stuart Winchester: And I've written about it.00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:37.000Stuart Winchester: many times, and we've talked about it on the podcast many times, is they need to treat every single ski resort like it's Vail Mountain, and every single guest like they're the President of the United States. They…00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:40.000Stuart Winchester: They need to make sure that.00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:48.000Stuart Winchester: the experience of a lifetime ethos is transferred to any Skiera, whether it's Beaver Creek.00:52:48.000 --> 00:53:03.000Stuart Winchester: or it's Mad River, Ohio. And that has not always seemed to be the case since Vail Resorts purchased Peak Resorts in 2019 and sort of doubled the size of its owned resort portfolio within a year's span. Now.00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:08.000Stuart Winchester: Certainly, Vail has recently recommitted to.00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:11.000Stuart Winchester: To that sort of quality, and we'll see how that plays out.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:13.000Stuart Winchester: I think…00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:19.000Stuart Winchester: maybe a little more shuffling with the Epic Pass, uh, maybe a higher-priced.00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:22.000Stuart Winchester: Full pass to to.00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:37.000Stuart Winchester: help traffic some of the more popular ski areas, and maybe some more options. They do a really good job, actually, with the Epic Regionals, with the Tahoe Local, the Northeast Local, and the Summit County Local. So, I think Vail's done a nice job with that. And I think…00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:45.000Stuart Winchester: From my experience, Vail executives, and I've hosted many of them on this podcast. They're very receptive to criticism.00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:47.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and they are…00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:53.000Stuart Winchester: Willing to listen and change and evolve. I'm not sure.00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:57.000Stuart Winchester: If that always comes through.00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:04.000Stuart Winchester: Outside of direct lines of questioning, if that makes sense. So, so the, the owning of mistakes and saying, okay, you know what?00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:19.000Stuart Winchester: we messed up because Paley Peaks was only open 25 days a year in 2021, or whatever it was. There was a year when a lot of its Midwest ski areas were extremely restricted, or the COVID restrictions and everyone else, but the local ski area operators there.00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:24.000Stuart Winchester: we're out competing them. Uh, you know, when Vail first bought Wilmot, Wisconsin.00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:27.000Stuart Winchester: In 2016, there…00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:38.000Stuart Winchester: their… or maybe that was 2012. They bought Afton Alps, Wilmot, and Mount Brighton in some order, two of them in 2012 and one in 2016. Anyway, there was a great article I read that said.00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:49.000Stuart Winchester: what Wilmot skiers can expect, and Wilmot's a small ski area outside of, well, it's broad, it has a lot of lifts, outside of Wisconsin and Chicago, uh, Milwaukee and Chicago.00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:56.000Stuart Winchester: And what they said was, we're gonna bring Western standards to the Midwest, right? And that was very out front. Dale spokespeople were saying that.00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:11.000Stuart Winchester: You never hear them say that anymore, and it's not clear that that is the standard, and I had a very nice time at Wilmot when I went two years ago, and super friendly staff, and all the lifts were running, even though clearly they didn't need to be, because it was a Monday, and hardly anyone was there, so I'm certain they were.00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:19.000Stuart Winchester: losing money on that day, and yet they still did their best to provide an experience. I'm just not…00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:21.000Stuart Winchester: It's just not always…00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:31.000Stuart Winchester: super clear throughout the portfolio, particularly in the Lower Midwest, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, uh, in some of the Pennsylvania ski areas, Mid-Atlantic.00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:36.000Stuart Winchester: that that this is their operating philosophy. So I think that.00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:38.000Stuart Winchester: I think Vail's better than most…00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:49.000Stuart Winchester: than you would think, scrolling through social media. Uh, in general, I've been to pretty much every Vail resort in North America, other than, I think, the two in Missouri and Paoli Peaks.00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:07.000Stuart Winchester: And I generally have a really good time and a positive experience, and I find the staff friendly, and that's a super important thing to me. I love that Vail puts bars on all the lifts. I love that they're focused on safety in general, that they help police speed. As someone who skis with my kids, that's important to me.00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: So I generally have a pretty good experience. I think…00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:29.000Stuart Winchester: there's a little too much gum in the machine, maybe, when it comes to communicating these things and owning and correcting mistakes. So, anyway, with that, I will leave Vel alone for today, and you're probably wondering why I haven't yet covered the new Slate.00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:44.000Stuart Winchester: of proposed board members by Oasis Capital for Vail Resorts. I don't want to get too into the weeds on stock stuff, but I do have some thoughts on that. I want to wait till I have a little bit more time to break it down.00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.000Stuart Winchester: So I thank you for coming today. I hope you enjoyed that podcast episode.00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:58.000Stuart Winchester: If you are not already subscribed to the Storm Skiing newsletter, please click over to stormskiing.com and subscribe.00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:14.000Stuart Winchester: That will come right to your inbox. It is not only podcasts, I do a ton of writing. And if you want to upgrade to a paid subscription to the Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, that will give you everything below the paywall, which is a lot of really deep analysis.00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:29.000Stuart Winchester: that I do on the lift service ski industry, particularly in North America, and especially in the United States. Also, if you're a paid subscriber to The Storm at stormskiing.com, that is the only way to interact with the podcast, because I'm only reading comments from the.00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:30.000Stuart Winchester: Previous.00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:47.000Stuart Winchester: Day's podcast and only paid subscribers can comment. Only paid subscribers can join the chat, which is the second way that they can interact with the podcast. If you want to rep the storm, we have a swag store. You can buy shirts, hats, et cetera, at stormskiing.myshopify.com.00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:48.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:52.000Stuart Winchester: Please follow me on YouTube. YouTube is…00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:55.000Stuart Winchester: Where we will increasingly.00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:02.000Stuart Winchester: It'll be increasingly important to us, and right now, we don't have that many subscribers there. Uh, everything is going there, but it's just not…00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:12.000Stuart Winchester: made it into the cultural fabric of that site just yet, so please follow me at Storm Ski Journal on YouTube. Also, Instagram, which I post on more during the winter season.00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:27.000Stuart Winchester: I will be back tomorrow, or I'm scheduled to be back tomorrow, with, and this is one a lot of people have asked me for, a conversation with the general manager of what I think was perhaps the most improved ski area in the country last year, Camelback.00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:38.000Stuart Winchester: Pennsylvania. If you're rolling your eyes, if you live out west, I encourage you to tune in anyway, because the story of Camelback is a really good story of how do we do things wrong?Stuff referenced in the pod:Monarch's amazing season pass reciprocal network:A full breakdown of Monarch's U.S. Forest Service masterplan:Conversation with Snow Partners' CEO Joe Hession: Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Friends of the Rosary,Today, September 15, is the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, with the devotion of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. The two titles focus on Mary's spiritual martyrdom and her sufferings with her Divine Son.The feast dates back to the 12th century and was especially promoted by the Cistercians and the Servites. The Seven Dolors of Mary refers to the seven swords that pierced her Heart, as Simeon had foretold.The seven sorrows of Mary:The prophecy of Simeon, (Luke 2:25-35)The flight into Egypt, (Matthew 2:13-15)Loss of the Child Jesus for three days, (Luke 2:41-50)Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary, (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17)Crucifixion and Death of Jesus, (John 19:25-30)The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross (deposition from the Cross), (Psalm 130; Luke 23:50-54; John 19:31-37)The burial of Jesus, (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47)Mary stands with Jesus in sorrow, and she teaches us how to remain faithful when love is painful. The Church is one Body, and suffering borne with Christ can become communion rather than isolation.Our Lady of Sorrows is the patroness of people named Dolores, Dolais, Deloris, Dolorita, Maria Dolorosa, Pia, and Pieta.In Italy, the title of Our Lady of Sorrows is Maria Santissima Addolorata. She is the patron of many Italian cities. In southern Italy, there is La Festa della Madonna dei Sette Dolori (the festival of the Seven Sorrows of the Madonna), also called the Madonna dell'Addolorata Festival.Today, Roman Martyrology also commemorates St. Nicomedes, an early Roman martyr of unknown date, and St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510), who wrote a treatise on Purgatory and a Dialogue between the soul and body—two outstanding documents of Christian mysticism.Ave Maria!Come, Holy Spirit, come!To Jesus through Mary!Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.Please give us the grace to respond with joy!+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New YorkEnhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play• September 15, 2026, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Originally Aired: 09/11/26 – We review In Alaska. We talk with Programmer Peter Kuplowsky of TIFF's Midnight Madness Program and also with actor Ruby McGurrin of Purgatory. The post Geek Hard: Episode 848 – Alaska is Purgatory at Midnight appeared first on Geek Hard.

Do people become angels when they die, or do human beings remain fundamentally different from angels for eternity? In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers apologists tackle some of the biggest questions about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. They discuss whether we will eat, sleep, work, have hobbies, or experience romantic relationships in Heaven, what the beatific vision will be like, and whether there are different degrees of heavenly glory. The conversation also explores whether someone in Heaven could ever sin again, how a loving God can allow anyone to go to Hell, why Hell is eternal, and whether a single mortal sin can lead to damnation. Finally, they address predestination and explain why Purgatory is necessary if Jesus has already paid for our sins. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 01:22 – Do people become angels when they die?  03:20 – Will we eat, sleep, work, or have hobbies in Heaven?  08:50 – Will there be marriage or romantic relationships in Heaven?  17:17 – How will I have any mind left over for anything else when I have the beatific vision?  21:16 – Are there different levels or degrees of glory in Heaven?  28:57 – Could someone in Heaven ever sin again or choose to leave Heaven?  35:30 – How can a loving God send anyone to Hell?  39:10 – Why is Hell eternal? Why can’t someone repent after death?  42:59 – Can someone go to Hell simply for committing one mortal sin?  45:12 – Does God predestine anyone to Hell?  50:38 – If Jesus paid for our sins, why is Purgatory necessary? 

What happens immediately after we die? In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers apologists explain what the Church teaches about death, judgment, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and the resurrection of the body. They explore the particular judgment and how it differs from the Last Judgment, whether souls go immediately to their eternal destination, and what it means to exist temporarily without a body. The discussion also covers what happens to our bodies after death, whether everyone—including those in Hell—will be resurrected, and whether we will recognize our family and friends in Heaven. Finally, they tackle a difficult question: if we remember loved ones who are in Hell, how can we still experience perfect happiness in Heaven? Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 02:38 – What happens immediately after we die?  04:45 – What is the particular judgment, and how is it different from the Last Judgment?  16:07 – Do we go immediately to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory when we die?  20:05 – What will it be like to exist without a body?   23:57 – What happens to our bodies after death, and when do we get them back?  33:20 – Will everyone—including those in Hell—be resurrected?  35:48 – Will we recognize our family and friends in Heaven?  47:40 – Will we remember people who are in Hell? If so, how could we still be happy?   

Robert H. Gudmestad, author of "The Devils Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War."

It's Witness Wednesday! Why should we care about people we've never met? At Georgia Tech, Todd challenges students to explain compassion from an evolutionary worldview, then talks with a Catholic student about purgatory, repentance, and what separates the Gospel from religious works. Segment 1 • Why should you care about someone suffering 5,000 miles away? • Can evolution provide a consistent reason for compassion and self-sacrifice? • You don't have to evangelize like Todd—find your own “fishing hole” and start with one person. Segment 2 • A Catholic student admits God isn't the number-one affection in his life. • If we've broken God's law, should we expect heaven—or judgment? • Is purgatory the answer to our guilt before a holy God? Segment 3 • Knowing Jesus died on the cross isn't the same as being born again. • What do repentance and faith actually look like? • Todd explains the crucial difference between the biblical Gospel and trying to earn salvation through religion. Segment 4 • One student thinks Christianity is basically karma: do good and good will come back to you. • “I'm not that awful of a person.” But what does God's standard reveal? • Christianity isn't about good people earning heaven—it's about guilty people being saved by Christ. ___ Thanks for listening! Wretched Radio would not be possible without the financial support of our Gospel Partners. If you would like to support Wretched Radio we would be extremely grateful. VISIT https://fortisinstitute.org/donate/ If you are already a Gospel Partner we couldn't be more thankful for you if we tried!

Body, blood, soul and divinity? Freedom in Purgatory? Synergism? All this and more on Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders.

In the 2nd hour of today's show, Dukes and Bell analyze Dabo Swinney's defensive press conference following Clemson's opening loss and his refusal to adapt to the transfer portal. They also dive into the Falcons' quarterback hierarchy, debating Michael Penix Jr.'s readiness while taking calls from passionate fans about management's decisions(00:01:20) Falcons Giveaway and Dabo(00:05:58) SEC and Bulldogs Update(00:10:10) Falcons Quarterback Debate(00:13:40) Callers Discuss Penix(00:25:37) Management Assessment(00:36:14) Dabo's Presser Meltdown

Most books about life after a career transition are written after the author has figured it all out. Geoff Curtis wrote his while still inside the uncertainty. That intentional choice is at the heart of "Embracing Your Own Purgatory," and it is what makes his perspective so rare and so honest.After 30 years in biotech and pharmaceutical communications, Geoff exited his company and found himself in the disorienting in-between that so many high-achievers are completely unprepared for. He had the freedom. He had the resources. What he did not have was a roadmap for who he was without the title, the team, and the daily structure that had defined him for three decades.In this episode, Geoff and Michael explore why leaders who spend their careers focused outward on results, teams, and growth are often the least equipped for the inward work that a major transition demands. Geoff makes the case that rushing to the next thing, whether a board seat, a consulting engagement, or a new venture, is often a way of avoiding the more important question of who you actually are beneath the role you played.The conversation covers the uncomfortable reality that early career success can become a liability later in life, why men in particular are reaching out to Geoff after reading his book to share stories they have never told anyone, and how getting comfortable with uncertainty is not a sign of weakness but a prerequisite for genuine self-discovery.Geoff also discusses what he learned from observing young physicians who took time away from their careers to travel and returned as better clinicians, and why he believes the leaders who do this kind of reflective work in their 40s and 50s are better positioned for whatever comes next than those who never slow down long enough to look inward.If you have recently exited a company, are approaching a major career transition, or simply feel like your identity has become too entangled with your professional title, this episode will give you permission to sit with that discomfort a little longer and do the work that actually matters.Book: "Embracing Your Own Purgatory"Topics covered: Career transitions, business exits, identity after leadership, retirement planning, self-reflection, biotech and pharma industry, vulnerability in leadership, personal growth, purpose after work, life after business ownership Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The NBA has issued a punishment to the LA Clippers for salary cap circumvention and it's a doozy! What does it mean for the Clippers and for fantasy basketball in the coming months? And hey, Ben Simmons offseason workout videos finally did the trick! NEW ARTICLE - POST HYPE NAMES!: https://www.rotoballer.com/fantasy-basketball-post-hype-breakouts-2026/1918719?pa=OMS The Old Man Squad has a PATREON now. It's $1 and doesn't get a single benefit. It is entirely to support the mission here but won't change anything we do. https://www.patreon.com/cw/oldmansquad Follow Dan Besbris on Twitter: https://x.com/danbesbris Find Dan on the brand new BlueSky social network: https://bit.ly/3Vo5M0N Check out Dan's Google Sheet with Ranks, Weekly Streaming Schedule Charts & Injury Replacement Adds FREE! https://bit.ly/3XrAdEW Listen and subscribe on iTunes: https://apple.co/3XiUzQK Listen and subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3ACCHYe Float on over to the new Old Man Squad Sports Network YouTube page to watch videos from the network's top talent: https://bit.ly/46Z6fvb Join the Old Man Squad Discord to chat with Dan and all the other hosts: https://t.co/aY9cqDrgRY Follow Old Man Squad Fantasy on Instagram for all our short videos: https://bit.ly/3ZQbxrt Podcast logo by https://twitter.com/freekeepoints Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The 12th season of The Skeptical Shaman podcast is here, and this second half of our two-part episode highlights the undeniable creative and spiritual power of a well-defined Alter Ego. Jesse James, aka Billy Purgatory, literally wrote a series of stories about his demon-fighting alter ego, breathing some very real life into a very real aspect of himself. But Billy Purgatory isn't just a literary anti-hero: he's also Jesse's Villain Era shadow aspect, offending sensibilities left, right and center as he embraces his shamanic self and fights the armies of hell. In this two-part conversation, host Rachel White (of TOTEM Readings) chats with Jesse James, aka Billy Purgatory, all about how he's coming to grips with a world drenched in both  some very real (and often spooky) Woo and some real-deal anti-humanism in the form of the technocratic elite seeking to replace humans, human creativity and even our connection to spirituality with dumb, derivative machines.Jesse is dedicated to remembering the before times, building a veritable Library of Alexandria of recent, peak culture to remind us all of what we once had: freedom, fun and imagination. He's also seeking ways to resurrect his alter ego, perhaps on the pages of new stories or in his own life, as he explores the world of Woo with an eye to the pits of Hell!Rachel's LINKS:TOTEM Readings Website: https://www.totemreadings.comTOTEM Readings Substack: https://totemrach.substack.comRachel's Other Links: https://linktr.ee/totemrachPlease support the Sponsors of The Skeptical Shaman Podcast:Buy The Business of Woo book HERE: https://a.co/d/0g7EFJmMTOTEM + PUCK HCKY Merch Drop: https://puckhcky.com/collections/totemThe TOTEM Flower Essence Deck: https://a.co/d/gw16LsGThe TOTEM Flower Essences: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TotemReadingsATXTOTEM Spiritual Transformation Coaching: https://www.totemreadings.com/coachingTOTEM Business of Woo Mentoring: https://www.totemreadings.com/business-of-wooJesse's LINKS:Substack: https://substack.com/@jessejamesfreeman   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@billypurgatory        Please note: The views and opinions expressed on The Skeptical Shaman do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, protected class, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. And remember: sticks and stones may break our bones, but words—or discussions of religious or spiritual topics-- will never hurt us.

Hell isn't random chaos but a perfectly organized system. This book summary reveals the surprising logic behind its structure.

MARTOK IS BACK, BABY!! Also there's a lot of really heavy dramatic stuff happening and painful memories being bandied about and maybe a revelation or two... BUT MARTOK!! This is the 5th episode of Rich Masters' "Hold My Pocket, Bitch" Collection as chosen by and voted on by our patrons! You can join in and tell us what to watch by becoming a patron today! SUPPORT US ON PATREON WITH YOUR LATINUM! - www.patreon.com/mclasspodcast Need info about the show? Find it at www.mclasspodcast.com Follow us on BlueSky: @MClassPodcast.bsky.social And/or follow our personal accounts: jeffpennington.bsky.social joshhenderson.bsky.social Opening Theme by VidaZen Editing by Josh Henderson Art by Jeff Pennington

Father François Bandet, EP, was ordained a priest on July 22, 2009, for the Clerical Society "Virgo Flos Carmelii." He obtained a licentiate (2009) and a doctorate (2015) in Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (Italy) and a licentiate (2021) in Philosophy at the Centro Universitário Ítalo Brasileiro in São Paulo (Brazil). He collaborates with the Thomist magazine "Lumen Veritatis" and is currently a missionary in Brazil.   In Today's Show: As Catholics, do we believe that all that is good ultimately comes from God, while all that is evil comes from Satan? Why is it not ok for men and boys to wear baseball hats in church? ​For Catholics who practice the laying on of hands (as many charismatic Catholics do), do you think it's proper and formally allowed by the Catholic Church? How can one go directly to Heaven and skip Purgatory? And more. Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Have you ever wondered what happens after we die? Where does our to souls go after our death in this world?  Is "death" really the end?After the unexpected and tragic passing of my spouse two months ago, I have become more curious about what happens to the soul after we pass. Join me in a deep conversation with Father Seraphim Holland about what happens after we die.In this episode, we explore the Orthodox understanding of the soul after death, the significance of prayer for the departed, and the mysteries surrounding Hades, Heaven & Hell, the goal of Paradise, your guardian angel, saints, and the afterlife.Father Seraphim of Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church in McKinney, Texas shares insights on the power of praying for the departed, the meaning and importance of the 40 days after death, and understanding the afterlife, including the concepts of Hades and the toll houses. We also share our own personal grief stories, how faith and prayer can bring comfort and hope through life's challenges and losses.Donate to Father Seraphim of Holland's church St Nicholas Orthodox Church: https://www.orthodox.net/index.html#d... Donate to Kara's Go Fund me https://www.givesendgo.com/support-for-karaFind us on Social Media:Instagram →  @seraphimholland                         @herecomestroublexo                          @letsbefriends_podcastWant more? Let's be friends. Join the Friendship Membership. https://www.letsbefriendspodcast.com/...Want to read my memoir, Here Comes Trouble? It's available now. Order your copy.https://www.karamosher.com/storeOrthodox Christian Prayers for the Dead https://orthodoxprayers.com/prayers-for-the-deadDaniel's List for Prayers for the Departed - https://orthodoxprayers.com/daniels-listChapters00:00 Introduction and guest introduction03:39 Personal stories of loss and the importance of prayer07:51 Why do we pray for the dead? The love that sustains us12:01 The Orthodox understanding of the soul and life after death15:26 The significance of the forty-day commemoration18:15 Attachments, passions, and their impact on the soul22:01 Practical ways to pray for the departed27:43 Death as a return to God and the mystery of divine mercy34:38 How saints are recognized and their miracles38:19 The consciousness of the departed and their ability to remember41:16 Prayers, scripture, and the process of sainthood43:02 Practical prayer tips and closing thoughts44:43 Prostrations and Their Spiritual Significance45:12 Adapting Prostrations for Physical Limitations46:56 The Role of Prayer in Healing and Salvation49:31 Understanding the Afterlife: Hades, Purgatory, and Toll Houses55:02 The Journey of the Soul: From Death to Resurrection01:01:09 The Meaning of Joyful Sorrow and Grief01:07:30 Living as Strangers in a World Not Our Home01:13:48 Practical Steps for Spiritual Growth and Salvation01:16:00 Prayers for the Living and the Departed01:20:57 Building a Community and Church for Salvation

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick is joined by Dr. Joseph Boyne to discuss Flannery O'Connor's "Enduring Chill" as part of Short Story September. Visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for our reading schedule, articles, and a whole host of written guides.Asbury Fox, the failed New York writer who returns home to his mother's dairy farm convinced he is dying a tragic, Kafka-esque death, meets a rural doctor, two farmhands who refuse to share his resentment, and a deaf, one-eyed priest from Purrgatory who simply walks him through the Baltimore Catechism. What begins as another Southern Gothic confrontation with pride becomes something rarer in O'Connor: a dark comedy in which the protagonist desires of a romantic death are met with an enduring chill.Dr. Boyne and Dcn. Garlick draw out the story's autobiographical shadows, its critique of performative liberalism and abstract love of humanity, and the way O'Connor uses both the Jesuit in New York and the homely Father Finn to insist that meaning—and grace—cannot be manufactured from the self. The conversation lingers on the water-stain dove that descends as ice rather than fire, the question of whether the tale is comic or merely purgatorial, and what it means for those of us who prize the Great Books that education, by itself, is never enough. Listeners who have been scarred by “The Lame Shall Enter First” will find this one far easier to finish—and far more unsettling in its quiet demand that we keep living.Chapters00:05 — Podcast intro and the reading plan for Short Story September01:01 — Introducing Enduring Chill and Dr. Joseph Boyne03:21 — Why Dr. Boyne picked the story05:00 — Flannery O'Connor and the Southern Gothic tradition12:55 — The grotesque, violence, and grace in O'Connor20:32 — Asbury returns home and the education theme30:30 — Asbury's desire for a meaningful death and the Jesuit in New York41:42 — Dr. Block and Asbury's confrontation with illness50:00 — The dairy farm, the black workers, and failed communion57:13 — Asking for a priest and the dream sequence70:29 — Father Finn arrives and subverts Asbury's expectations80:31 — Randall and Morgan return85:34 — Dr. Block diagnoses the illness correctly87:40 — Final scene: the Holy Ghost in ice and the enduring chill96:23 — Closing reflections on O'Connor and the story's meaningKeywordsFlannery O'Connor The Enduring Chill short story analysis, Ascend the Great Books Podcast Short Story September episode with Deacon Harrison Garlick and Dr. Joseph Boyne of Tulsa Community College, Southern Gothic literature, Catholic short stories, Christ-haunted South, Asbury Fox character study, Jesuit priest Ignatius Vogle, Father Finn from Purgatory, Baltimore Catechism, Holy Spirit as ice instead of fire, undulant fever raw milk irony, performative liberalism and racial condescension, education versus practical wisdom, grotesque as medium of grace, O'Connor comedy versus tragedy, Good Country People comparison, lupus and autobiographical elements, Great Books education critique, upcoming Plato Republic series, Robert E. Howard Red Shadows Solomon Kane, Neil Gaiman Chivalry with Archduke Eduard Habsburg, Herman Melville Bartleby the Scrivener.

Purgatory. Praying to Mary. Transubstantiation. Are these and other beliefs in line with what the bible teaches?

The 12th season of The Skeptical Shaman podcast is here, and this second, two-part episode highlights the undeniable creative and spiritual power of a well-defined Alter Ego. Jesse James, aka Billy Purgatory, literally wrote a series of stories about his demon-fighting alter ego, breathing some very real life into a very real aspect of himself. But Billy Purgatory isn't just a literary anti-hero: he's also Jesse's Villain Era shadow aspect, offending sensibilities left, right and center as he embraces his shamanic self and fights the armies of hell. In this two-part conversation, host Rachel White (of TOTEM Readings) chats with Jesse James, aka Billy Purgatory, all about how he's coming to grips with a world drenched in both  some very real (and often spooky) Woo and some real-deal anti-humanism in the form of the technocratic elite seeking to replace humans, human creativity and even our connection to spirituality with dumb, derivative machines.Jesse is dedicated to remembering the before times, building a veritable Library of Alexandria of recent, peak culture to remind us all of what we once had: freedom, fun and imagination. He's also seeking ways to resurrect his alter ego, perhaps on the pages of new stories or in his own life, as he explores the world of Woo with an eye to the pits of Hell!Rachel's LINKS:TOTEM Readings Website: https://www.totemreadings.comTOTEM Readings Substack: https://totemrach.substack.comRachel's Other Links: https://linktr.ee/totemrachPlease support the Sponsors of The Skeptical Shaman Podcast:Buy The Business of Woo book HERE: https://a.co/d/0g7EFJmMTOTEM + PUCK HCKY Merch Drop: https://puckhcky.com/collections/totemThe TOTEM Flower Essence Deck: https://a.co/d/gw16LsGThe TOTEM Flower Essences: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TotemReadingsATXTOTEM Spiritual Transformation Coaching: https://www.totemreadings.com/coachingTOTEM Business of Woo Mentoring: https://www.totemreadings.com/business-of-wooJesse's LINKS:Substack: https://substack.com/@jessejamesfreeman   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@billypurgatory        Please note: The views and opinions expressed on The Skeptical Shaman do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, protected class, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. And remember: sticks and stones may break our bones, but words—or discussions of religious or spiritual topics-- will never hurt us.

Patrick explores Catholic doctrine’s nuances, from purgatory, prayers for the dead, and the Church’s teaching on sin and penance, while answering real questions from listeners about family, faith, and moral dilemmas. Catholic identity, civic responsibility, and responses to pro-abortion policies intersect with personal stories of loss, hope, and conversion. He weaves in music talk, estate planning, and glimpses of daily spiritual life, moving quickly from scripture to analogies that make doctrine feel immediate and alive. Joshua - If someone isn't Catholic, how do they make it through Purgatory? (00:36) James - What do you mean by Penance in regard to an indulgence? (07:36) Brandon – What’s an Al Green documentary and noticed that the Catholic service is quieter and more reverent than the Evangelical service. What is your take? (11:02) Theresa - Someone who called yesterday mentioned they were a Pope Pius Catholic. We must be obedient. (16:45) Doug - What about the Gov. of Massachusetts signing a bill that would allow abortion up to birth into law? How does this square with obedience to the Church? (21:53) Maria - My son's girlfriend did NOT ABORT! Thank you for your advice for them to move forward with their new baby. The baby lived for 15 min, was baptized, and then he passed. (28:18) Patrick shares emails from James and Doug Lucy (email) - Do you think it is reasonable for a husband and wife to take a pilgrimage to Italy without their children, and if so, what arrangements would you recommend to make sure the children are well cared for and that we can travel with peace of mind? (40:11)

In this episode Trent shares an excerpt from his recent chat with Pastor Eric Huffman @MaybeGodPodcast where they discuss the doctrine of purgatory. See the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv3Qq0FotEY To support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/counseloftrent [NEW] Counsel of Trent merch: https://shop.catholic.com/apologists-alley/trent-horn-resources/ Be sure to keep up with our socials! https://www.tiktok.com/@counseloftrent https://www.twitter.com/counseloftrent https://www.instagram.com/counseloftrentpodcast

On today’s show, Fr. Dave Heney invites you to “Ask Me Anything”. Pauline - Souls in Purgatory. I understand they can't pray for themselves, but can they pray for us? Andy - Medical ethics: When I was 20, I was involved in an accident and had a brain injury. Is it ethical to suspend artificial nutrition if I was to go into another vegetative state? Break 1 Emilia - Purgatory: My mom passed away 2 years ago. I'm wondering and praying for her. How do you know when they're out or do you just perpetually pray for them? Richard - Are all the fruits of the mystery of the Rosary focused on Jesus? Lori - When did the Luminous Mysteries come into existence and is it necessary to say them on a particular day of the week or can I stay with the regular 3 mysteries? Break 2 Julio - I have a problem with addiction. I've recently gone back to the Catholic Church. I've spoken to some people in the church about therapy in general. I heard some say it's not necessary and others say that it is necessary. Is it ok to go to therapy or not? Notes: Fr. Dave Heney's article on Old Testament Violence Old Testament Violence - Fr. Dave Heney Overcoming Pornography Addiction Integrity Restored – Our mission at Integrity Restored is to help restore the integrity of individuals, spouses, and families that have been affected by pornography and pornography addiction.

Episode 151 - Trek Threads | DS9 2-Parters (BONUS) First Flight loves ALL Trek and today we bring you a bonus episode that lets Abby and Chris reflect and chat about all the two part episodes of DS9. The episodes discussed are: Emissary, The Maquis, The Search, Past Tense, Improbable Cause/The Die Is Cast, The Way of the Warrior, Homefront/Paradise Lost, In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light, What You Leave Behind Feel free to let us know your thoughts on this thread or any Porthos' Picks, Grappler Ratings, Viewscreen On picks, VAMF and Flipping Duras Awards and/or your general thoughts so we can share them on our next Mail Bag episode.  (Please note, contributions might be shared on the podcast!)   Find Us on Bluesky, Instagram, Threads and Facebook:  @FirstFlightPod Abby: @abbymsommer Chris: @ShelfNerds    Find Us on YouTube: Chris' Channel : Completing the Shelf

Neil Finneran returns 3 years after buying a business so small it barely paid him a salary — now on pace for $800k.Register for the webinars: Learn to Avoid the #1 Reason Acquisitions Fail - TODAY!! - https://bit.ly/4qg4P9kLicenses & Regulatory Issues When Buying a Business - Tue, Aug 25 - https://bit.ly/4wTADDfTopics in Neil's interview:Neil's previous appearance on Acquiring MindsHis background in hedge fundsPain of buying smallManaging labor and no-showsImplementing a hybrid-pay model for techsThe acquisition that tripled his revenueChristmas lights services in the off seasonRising customer acquisition costsBarriers to entry in pest controlWhy his outcome diverged from Jesse Sunquist'sReferences and how to contact Neil:LinkedInMosquito Joe of Andover-PeabodyNeil's first appearance on Acquiring Minds: How to Survive Going from Hedge Funds to SMB OwnerJesse's most recent appearance on Acquiring Minds: 3 Years, $80k In: An Honest UpdateJesse's first appearance on Acquiring Minds: How to Widen Your Search to Buy a BusinessWork with an SBA loan team focused exclusively on helping entrepreneurs buy businesses:Pioneer Capital AdvisoryGet a complimentary IT audit for acquisition diligence or post-close transition.Visit inzotechnologies.com/eta.Contact Jenny to learn how Engage can run people operations in your acquisition:Jenny Thear: jthear@engagepeo.comConnect with Acquiring Minds:See past + future interviews on the YouTube channelConnect with host Will Smith on LinkedInFollow Will on TwitterEdited by Anton Rohozov and produced by Pam Cameron

"Don't try to be an on the spot exorcist". In a new interview of Vault questions, Father Martins shines some light on the role of spiritual authority, how to trust in God with our finances, and whether entire locations could experience genrational cursing.Thank you to our sponsors for today's episodeExodus90- Men, if you want to grow closer to God, then sign up for their St. Michael's Lent Challenge today. It's not too late! https://exodus90.com/exfilesCowboy Colostrum- Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code EXFILES at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/EXFILES.Magnesium, multiplied. 10 forms for total support. Go to https://qualialife.com/EXFILES to get 50% off and save an extra 15% with the code EXFILES.Forkful- Head to https://forkfulmeals.com/exfiles for 50% off your first order today!Chapters00:00 Cold Open: Demons Are Liars00:58 A Video Episode from San Diego01:29 When the Mother Is the Spiritual Head03:41 Retirement, Grain Bins, and Trust06:02 Do Souls Choose Their Parents?07:49 Can a Parish or a Diocese Be Cursed?09:55 Fr. Martins' Book Club14:25 Sponsor16:58 Shackleton's Scotch, Continued17:17 If Someone Manifests in Front of You21:56 Correcting the Record on Authority24:21 The Relic of Mary Magdalene26:56 Sponsor31:02 The Family Spiritualist32:13 Obsession, Vexation, and Evangelization35:48 Why He Won't Catalog Demons39:04 Free Will in Heaven, and the Seven Levels42:28 Three Places Where Heaven Touched Down46:14 Do the Saints Hear Silent Prayers?47:53 Immediate Judgment52:04 The Compulsion and the Rosary54:50 CloseSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Send us Fan MailEpisode Description (long — for podcast platforms)In this episode, I'm taking apart some of the biggest myths about the spirit world and mediumship — the ones that quietly create fear and keep people stuck in their grief.We cover:The myth of purgatory and being "stuck" after deathHow religious conditioning shapes what we expect from the afterlifeWhy your loved ones are never angry or disappointed with youThe truth about suicide and the afterlife (handled gently — see content note below)Whether mediums research their clients beforehandWhy a big following or long waitlist doesn't prove someone is (or isn't) legitimateAnd then — because you don't need a medium to feel close to someone you've lost — I walk you through a guided meditation you can return to any time, using a simple, repeatable practice to sit with your person again.The Chair the popular exercise Matilda performs at her live events is the meditation today - to help you connect with your loved ones who have passedNew WebsiteLive and Zoom EventsPatreonSupport the show

Hey everyone! this is the full Story for the Line series I've been doing, let me know what you thought of this series! 00:00 These Are The Rules to Follow to Survive The Line 01:30 – The Rules of the White Lines 03:55 – The Crimson Vortex 05:30 – The First Breach: The Monsters Emerge 08:45 – Reuniting with Sally 10:45 – Meeting Milo 13:20 – The Trumpets Sound 15:30 – The Price of Salvation 21:15 – Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory? 25:05 – The Fiery Wall (No Shortcuts) 29:00 – Sally's Deception 32:10 – The Escape Attempt 35:15 – Milo Reveals His Face 36:10 – The Memory 42:15 – The Truth of the Lake 46:10 – The Final Sacrifice 49:50 – Purgatory 53:28 This Is Why You Don't Break The Rules of The Line 56:10 – Reliving the Sin 01:01:45 – The Dive Bar of Lost Souls 01:07:15 – Milo's Transformation 01:12:45 – The Mission for Sally 01:17:15 – Crossing the Lake of the Dead 01:21:40 – The Gargoyle Attack 01:25:00 – The Tower of Absolute Evil 01:30:50 – Sally's Eternal Loop 01:34:50 – The Truth About Kevin 01:40:25 – The Final Purgatory 01:42:40 I Followed The Rules of The Line: This Is How I Survived 01:45:00 – The Block Warden 01:50:20 – The Giant Eye 01:58:15 – The Demon 02:08:45 – The Harpy Attack 02:14:10 – The Dark Man's Final Test 02:18:10 – Walking the Final Line 02:24:10 – Marshall's Betrayal 02:28:15 – The Ultimate Choice 02:30:20 – Final Redemption Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Why Aren’t You Catholic?” addresses common concerns about the Catholic faith, including the feeling of not being forgiven in confession and the potential consequences in purgatory. The discussion also touches on the nature of the papacy and its divine intention, as well as misconceptions about a works-based gospel. Additionally, practical advice is offered for introducing friends to Catholicism. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 02:13 – I don't go to Mass consistently. I don't feel forgiven from confession. Are there purgatory consequences? 20:52 – How do we know Papacy in its current form is what God intended. It seems like Peter was supposed to be first among equals. Polycarp and Anicetus were equals. 28:46 – I'm Not Catholic Cause I think Catholics preach a different works-based gospel. 43:55 – My best friend is a bartender. What's the best way to introduce my friend to catholic faith?

“Why aren’t you Catholic?” This question opens a discussion on the reasons some individuals hesitate to embrace the faith, including concerns about purgatory and the sacrament of confession. The conversation also addresses the nature of the papacy and its divine intention, as well as misconceptions about the Catholic understanding of salvation and works. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 02:13 – I don't go to Mass consistently. I don't feel forgiven from confession. Are there purgatory consequences? 20:52 – How do we know Papacy in its current form is what God intended. It seems like Peter was supposed to be first among equals. Polycarp and Anicetus were equals. 28:46 – I'm Not Catholic Cause I think Catholics preach a different works-based gospel. 43:55 – My best friend is a bartender. What's the best way to introduce my friend to catholic faith?

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the biggest losers of LeBron going to the Sixers before diving into a mailbag. Then, Bill's dad pops on to talk about the Red Sox turning the season around, the World Cup in Boston, the Jaylen Brown trade, and much more! (0:00) Intro (3:02) Losers of the LeBron signing (25:46) Mailbag (01:19:01) Catching up on Boston sports with Bill's dad Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Joe House and Bill's Dad Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices