Podcasts about Whistler

Liz and Sarah examine what's working (and what's not) over on their HIH Substack. They love live videos but are wary about overloading readers' inboxes. In their new segment in honor of Dolly Parton, Cup of Ambition, they talk about why it's important to define your ambition. What is it you actually WANT? Then Liz gives a Hit to the fearless Megan Stalter, and Sarah gives herself a Bomb for being inconsistent with her Chickening Out newsletter. This week's Hollywood Hack is great for organization and pleasing to look at: the Steele Canvas Elevated Truck. Finally, Sarah recommends Whistler by Ann Patchett. Sign up for Liz & Sarah's free weekly Substack newsletter at ⁠⁠https://happierinhollywoodpod.substack.com⁠⁠ and Sarah's Chickening Out Substack at ⁠⁠https://happierinhollywood.substack.com⁠⁠. They'll come right to your inbox! Get in touch on Instagram: ⁠@Sfain⁠ & ⁠@LizCraft⁠ Get in touch on Threads: ⁠@Sfain⁠ & ⁠@LizCraft⁠ Visit our website: ⁠https://happierinhollywood.com⁠ Join our Facebook group: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/HappierinHollywood/⁠ Happier in Hollywood is part of ‘The Onward Project,' a family of podcasts brought together by Gretchen Rubin—all about how to make your life better. Check out the other Onward Project podcasts—⁠Happier with Gretchen Rubin⁠, and⁠Side Hustle School⁠ . If you liked this episode, 'S please subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends! LINKS: Megan Stalter: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11005835/ Steele Canvas Elevated Truck: https://www.steelecanvas.com/products/elevated-truck-permanent-canvas-3bu?variant=712931675&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=cse&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23507190718&gbraid=0AAAAACaJfDslJgf3Y7ScpNxDpGRkpaktT&gclid=CjwKCAjwwrPVBhA1EiwAv_YO-VIQ2f2GtPNBnX4NcoLeAJKjfpjxstk2J92-qJx0XJDiVXBXEWXe0BoCTDMQAvD_BwE Whistler by Ann Patchett: https://link.amazon/B0eeK2FzQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And the racing didn't disappoint.

Choice Classic Radio presents The Whistler, featuring today's episode titled “The Return.” Please consider supporting our show by becoming a patron at http://choiceclassicradio.com We hope you enjoy the show!

Whistler delivered one of the wildest World Cups of the season. Asa Vermette took his 2nd Elite World Cup win, while home favourites Finn Iles and Jackson Goldstone somehow missed the final. Lachlan Stevens-McNab was flying before a tiny mistake took him out of the results, and 30,000+ fans turned the new Whistler track into an absolute madhouse. Andrew Neethling and Sven Martin break down the racing, the brutal conditions, the youngsters taking over, the massive crowds, the biggest crashes and everything else that made Whistler so special.

It's been years of rumours but the Whistler World Cup finally hits the series and goes off with a bang, big name DNQ's, big drama DSQ's, spectator injuries and Canadian fans who were too polite to properly storm the key hole at the end of the race!Join us for the usual unfiltered take on what went down at Whistler, along with plenty of side quests as per usual.

Italy has a leaning tower, Whistler has a leaning tree - see it while you can!

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is tomorrow. Nesters Market are also hosting their monthly 15% discount day tomorrow; the next All Candidates meeting is at the Maury Young Arts Centre on Thursday; the last WORCA toonie ride of the year is this Thursday; and there are a couple of Ski and Snowboard movie premieres to get us pumped for Winter!

Blind Racing, World Cup und neue Enduro-Gerüchte. Dennis und Texi sprechen darüber, warum Blind Races gerade so viel Spaß machen: unbekannte Trails, wenig Vorbereitung und einfach mal wieder Rennen fahren, ohne alles vorher tausendmal zu analysieren. Dazu geht's um den Downhill World Cup in Whistler, die aktuelle Rennszene und erste Rumours rund um eine mögliche neue Enduro-Rennserie. Texi erzählt von seinen eigenen Erfahrungen zwischen Downhill und Enduro, von wilden Momenten auf dem Trail – und warum man vielleicht einfach öfter eine Startnummer ans Bike hängen sollte. Und ganz nebenbei steht bei Dennis offenbar schon die nächste Rennfahrer-Generation in den Startlöchern.

I'm Chris Hall, this is the Downtime Podcast, and you're tuned into your Whistler post-race show with Olly Morris and Chris Kilmurray. It’s nearly the end of the season, which means I’ll have invoices to pay from our awesome experts, Neko, Olly and Chris, for the time they’ve given us all over the year. This World Cup coverage doesn’t have any brand backing, so it’s your Patreon support that helps me pay those invoices and to keep this coverage coming your way all season long. There’s still time to help out by signing up from as little as £3 a month over at patreon.com/downtimepodcast. To say thank you, we’ve got race jerseys from Tahnée Seagrave, Danny Hart, Andy Kolb, Anna Newkirk, Gracey Hemstreet and Martin Maes to give away to lucky Patreon supporters once the season ends, so get signed up now. Whistler delivered and we saw some of the biggest time gaps all season long. With a three day drive to deal with, Neko hit the road (or possibly the bar), so Chris Kilmurray joins me and Olly to delve into the details of what went on. With the challenging travel schedule for all involved this week, we decided to hit the Lake Placid pre-race chat at the same time. So sit back, hit play and listen to this Whistler post-race show and Lake Placid pre-race show combined with Olly Morris and Chris Kilmurray. Podcast Stuff Patreon I would love it if you were able to support the podcast via a regular Patreon donation. Donations start from as little as £3 per month. That's less than £1 per episode and less than the price of a take away coffee. Every little counts and these donations will really help me keep the podcast going and hopefully take it to the next level. To help out, head here. Merch If you want to support the podcast and represent, then my webstore is the place to head. All products are 100% organic, shipped without plastics, and made with a supply chain that's using renewable energy. We now also have local manufacture for most products in the US as well as the UK. So check it out now over at downtimepodcast.com/shop. Newsletter If you want a bit more Downtime in your life, then you can join my newsletter where I'll provide you with a bit of behind the scenes info on the podcast, interesting bits and pieces from around the mountain bike world, some mini-reviews of products that I've been using and like, partner offers and more. You can do that over at downtimepodcast.com/newsletter. Follow Us Give us a follow on Instagram @downtimepodcast or Facebook @downtimepodcast to keep up to date and chat in the comments. For everything video, including riding videos, bike checks and more, subscribe over at youtube.com/downtimemountainbikepodcast. Are you enjoying the podcast? If so, then don't forget to follow it. Episodes will get delivered to your device as soon as it's available and it's totally free. You'll find all the links you need at downtimepodcast.com/follow. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google and most of the podcast apps out there. Our back catalogue of amazing episodes is available at downtimepodcast.com/episodes Photo – Nathan Hughes

This episode is a special one — Kate Atkinson joins me to talk about Our Noble Selves, her wonderful new novel set at the 1951 Festival of Britain. We talk about her traumatised journalist hero Harry Flynn (nearly named Quinn, and nearly given a much darker backstory), the real dog behind fictional character Mrs Betty, and the working title she changed at the very last minute. Kate also reveals her dream writing location is not a beach or a cabin, but Specsavers, and delivers the most devastating answer in this podcast's history to the crucial biscuit question.Before that, a spoiler-free look at three books I've been reading:Endless Night, Agatha Christie — no Poirot, no Miss Marple, a slow start that turned into one I couldn't put downCall Me By Your Name (graphic novel edition), André Aciman — a beautiful, reflective illustrated edition of the love story, not one for the kidsWhistler, Ann Patchett — a book everyone else is raving about; I liked it, didn't love it, and that's entirely on meFeatured book:Our Noble Selves, Kate AtkinsonThat's this episode — spoiler-free reviews of Endless Night, Call Me By Your Name, and Whistler, plus Kate Atkinson on Our Noble Selves.This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts on your browser — watch it here.Get in touchQuick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.comQuick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome listeners to Episode 360 of Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast. In this episode, your tour guide, David Garrett Jr., continues Scouring through the Sixes for episode 20. The featured reviews are Scared to Death (1946) and pairing it with Resident Evil (2026). Both films center on a narrative arc built around an inevitably doomed main character whose fate is sealed early on, framing the entire movie as a tragic countdown. I also got to see these films for Mini-Reviews: Saw 3 (2006), Final Destination 3 (2006), The Nice Ones (2026), The Whistler (2026), Chum (2025) and a short film of Curbed (2025). I hope you enjoy coming on this journey with me! I hope you enjoy coming on this journey with me!Time Codes:Intro: 0:00 - 2:47Mini-Reviews: 4:33 - 29:05Scared to Death (1946) Trailer: 29:05 - 30:44Scared to Death (1946) Review: 30:44 - 40:46Resident Evil (2026) Trailer: 40:46 - 43:11Resident Evil (2026) Review: 43:11 - 55:13Outro: 56:43 - 59:33Social Media:Email: journeywithacinephile@gmail.comWritten Reviews: https://horrorreview.webnode.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dgarrettjrTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/buckeyefrommichLetterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/davidosu/Instagram: davidosu87Threads: davidosu87Journey with a Cinephile Instagram: journeywithacinephileThe Night Club Discord: Journey with a CinephileJoin Screamify: https://shorturl.at/Z6b9l

Left alone at a Ninth Avenue bus stop on the day a U.N. ambassador is kidnapped, a detective's girlfriend picks up a ringing pay phone and hears a stranger tell her the ransom is on its way to the pickup.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Sound of Terror” (October 27, 1978) ***WD00:46:38.792 = 2000 Plus, “Robot Killer” (August 30, 1950) ***WD (LQ)01:15:05.861 = The Unexpected, “Finale” (1947-1948)01:30:44.877 = Unsolved Mysteries, “Mystery of the Zombie” (1936) ***WD01:45:15.177 = Dark Venture, “Miser” (December 09, 1946)02:15:10.870 = The Weird Circle, “Declared Insane” (July 22, 1943) ***WD02:42:16.034 = The Whistler, “Murder Is Blind” (June 04, 1945)03:12:50.864 = Strange Wills, “Penthouse Orphan” (October 26, 1946)03:42:25.859 = Witch's Tale, “King Shark God” (August 14, 1935) ***WD04:08:31.299 = X Minus One, “Field Study” (February 20, 1957)04:30:06.135 = Tales of the Frightened, “Man In A Raincoat” (1957)04:35:04.428 = Beyond The Green Door, “Dr. James Neal And Bowler” (1966)04:39:36.543 = ABC Mystery Time, “Sherlock Speckled Band” (May 01, 1956) ***WD05:03:09.941 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0785

Unknown Broadcast opens six doors into old-time radio horror and suspense for Halloween. Parents are trapped downstairs while their toddler wanders alone above them in The Cellar Door; a dying man tells of a hidden room and its ghosts in Quiet Please.Hear The Locked Room, The Cave, The Cellar Door, House on Sycamore Road, The Room Where Ghosts Live, and Behind the Locked Door. Featuring CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape, Suspense, The Whistler, Quiet Please, and The Mysterious Traveler. Settle in for ghost stories, hidden dangers, and the fear of being unable to get out. What waits on the other side?Bonus episodes & support: https://weeklyspooky.com/joinMore scary stories: https://weeklyspooky.com/Story submissions: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

Originally broadcast Tuesday, September 27, 2022Hour 1 - The Whistler, originally broadcast September 27, 1942, 84 years ago, Jealousy.  A sick woman is sure that her husband is trying to kill her so he can be with another woman. She therefore decides to make the first move. Hour 2 - Father Knows Best starring Robert Young, originally broadcast September 27, 1951, 75 years ago,  Billiard Table.  Jim's bought a second-hand billiard table in not very good shape.  A fishing hook that rips the top of the table leads to more problems. Also, Claudia, originally broadcast September 27, 1948, Mr Tucker Helps Out.  Claudia telephones David in the hospital...and speaks to the butler!Hour 3 - Gunsmoke starring William Conrad, originally broadcast September 27, 1954, The Helping Hand.  Steve Elser is just about to be lynched for cattle rustling, but is saved by Marshal Dillon. Matt gives young Elser a chance, but this might be a mistake.   Also Part 4 of a 5-part Yours Truly Johnny Dollar story, The Meg's Palace Matter, originally broadcast September 27, 1956.  A trip to sea on "The Lily Ann" that starts like an ordinary fishing trip. Somewhere on board lurks a man with murder in his heart and his next intended victim...Johnny Dollar! 

The crew has been slacking on podcasting. No one likes excuses, so we won't give you any. Good news is the World Cup circus has arrived in North America, and we are on site in Whistler to document potentially the most anticipated DH race of the century. With Jason and Dak both in the same time zone and town, they caught up for a quick catch up before the weekend chaos begins. 

We're in Whistler courtesy of adidas bike. We sat down in a terrible podcast set-up to talk about our experience so far, riding the iconic trails, our track walk with Brendan Fairclough and Josh Hill and loads more! Get a deal on a GoPro Mission HERE and get 10% off with code THERIDECOMPANION Get early access & ad-free episodes → https://www.patreon.com/theridecompanion This episodes sponsors:- SKS Germany → Learn more about SKS products and the new shock pump at https://www.sks-germany.com/en/  - Get 15% off Invisiframe kits, decals & more with code REFRESHANDRIDE: https://www.invisiframe.co.uk - WORX → 15% off with code THERIDECOMPANION at https://uk.worx.com/aff/theridecompanion/ You can also support our long term partners: Marin Bikes → marinbikes.com/gb Focus Bikes → focus-bikes.com SRAM: sram.com/en/sram adidas FiveTen: adidas.co.uk/five_ten invisiFrame: 15% off with code REFRESHANDRIDE at invisiframe.co.uk Manta Sleep → 10% off with code theridecompanion tinyurl.com/theridecompanion HUEL → 15% off with code RIDE: huel.com/ Mudhugger → Get 10% off with code ridecompanion10 at themudhugger.co.uk Compex → 20% off with code THERIDECOMPANION: compex.com/uk/ Igloo → igloocoolers.com/ Kecks → https://kecks.co.uk use code THERIDECOMPANION for 10% off Feedback Sports: feedbacksports.com WORX → 15% off with code THERIDECOMPANION at https://uk.worx.com/aff/theridecompanion/ HKT Products → 10% off with code PODCAST at hktproducts.co.uk Follow The Ride Companion Instagram @theridecompanion YouTube @TheRideCompanion Olly Wilkins Instagram @odub_23 YouTube @owilkins23 YouTube clips and BTS channel @moreridecompanion Get official Ride Companion merch, find old episodes and more theridecompanion.co.uk

Elizabeth showed up to this one running on fumes (maybe it was the equinox?), so she led with book recs instead of righteous fury: The Correspondent, a Cannon Beach impulse buy called Sipsworth that apparently defrosted something in her chest, and Ann Patchett's Whistler, devoured in a single 24-hour fugue state.Then she got to the actual reason you're here. A woman on Threads posted her list of everything she no longer gives a f**k about now that she's in her 60s — DNF-ing bad books was a highlight — and Elizabeth loved it, stole it, made her own version, and then had the audacity to actually think about it for five seconds. Which ruined everything. Because every one of these lists, hers included, is secretly the same tired plotline as “passing the torch”: you get old, you get tired, you gracefully fade into a beige cardigan and stop taking up space. Congratulations on your subtraction era.So she goes to war with the words “invisible” and “irrelevant,” asking the extremely reasonable question of invisible to whom, exactly, because her kids see her fine, her clients pay her actual money to see her, and the neighborhood dogs are big fans. Turns out the whole invisibility thing was never a law of nature — it was marketing, aimed at an audience that was never worth auditioning for in the first place. There's also a detour into the grandmother hypothesis, which is a real anthropological theory about women in Tanzania whose foraging may have single-handedly kept humanity alive, deployed here as evidence that older women aren't fading extras, they're the load-bearing wall of the whole operation.She wraps by flipping the script entirely: instead of another list of what she's given up, she runs through everything she's making more room for now that she's stopped performing for an audience that was never real — opinions, pleasure, ambition, curiosity, her own intuition — and asks you to send yours.Sign up. No audition required. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.radiantbadass.com

Snow in the Alpine today; lots of rain in the valley - but we're due a sunnier and drier weekend! The UCI World Cup Downhill is underway; the Brandywine Boogie is tomorrow, and lots lots more! ^_^

Originally broadcast Saturday, September 24, 2022Hour 1 - Mr President starring Edward Arnold, originally broadcast September 24, 1950, 76 years ago, Null and Void.  The widowed president faces problems not only with his son, but with a battle over tariffs. Hour 2 - The Whistler, originally broadcast September 24, 1945, 81 years ago, The Man Who Died Twice.  $400,000 says there's no honor among thieves. Also Claudia, originally broadcast September 24, 1948, 78 years ago, Claudia Visits the HospitalHour 3 - Gunsmoke starring William Conrad, originally broadcast September 24, 1955, 71 years ago, Indian White.  Dennis Cullen, raised as  an Indian but really a white boy, leaves to join the Cheyenne during an Indian uprising.  Also Part 1 of a 5 part Yours Truly Johnny Dollar story, The Meg's Palace Matter, originally broadcast September 24, 1956, 70 years ago.  Johnny is hired by "Byron Kane" of the Intercoastal Maritime and Life Company to investigate a restaurant in Cod Harbor, Massachusetts, which is run by "Meg."  

Choice Classic Radio presents The Whistler, featuring today's episode titled “Blue Alibi.” Please consider supporting our show by becoming a patron at http://choiceclassicradio.com We hope you enjoy the show!

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.About Bear DenTranscriptsThere 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. 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.Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the CEO of Bear Den Partners, which operates four New England ski areas. His family has operated 1,180 vertical-foot Berkshire East, Massachusetts since 1976, and acquired 1,000 vertical-foot Catamount on the New York-Massachusetts border in 2018.01:14:24.000 --> 01:14:53.000Stuart Winchester: In 2025, the family teamed up with a local group to acquire 2,057 vertical foot Burke Mountain out of receivership. And earlier this year, Bairdan purchased a majority stake in Smuggler's Notch, which with 2,610 vertical feet, 1,060 acres across three mountains, and 322 inches of average annual snowfall, is one of the largest, snowiest, and most fun ski areas in eastern North America. John Schaefer is my guest. John is a very good friend of the storm, and I welcome him back.01:14:53.000 --> 01:14:56.000Stuart Winchester: How is life leading up to ski season, John?01:14:56.000 --> 01:14:58.000Jonathan Schaefer: Oh, is what?01:14:57.000 --> 01:14:59.000Stuart Winchester: How is life?01:14:58.000 --> 01:15:01.000Jonathan Schaefer: How is life? It's good.01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, what delayed you today?01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:03.000Jonathan Schaefer: I'm, uh…01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: Uh, a skunk. So I'm a little tired. I have some Diet Pepsi here to kickstart the day, but my dog got a skunk, uh, first thing, which is great.01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:05.000Stuart Winchester: Good.01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:07.000Stuart Winchester: Let's go.01:15:08.000 --> 01:15:10.000Stuart Winchester: Thank you.01:15:14.000 --> 01:15:16.000Stuart Winchester: Massachusetts.01:15:14.000 --> 01:15:19.000Jonathan Schaefer: And it was better once I opened the door and it all came wafting into the house.01:15:18.000 --> 01:15:28.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, God, Berkshire's living. All right, well, I appreciate you fighting through that and joining us here, John. So, let's talk smugs, first of all, because.01:15:28.000 --> 01:15:44.000Stuart Winchester: You know, Bill Stritzler, I have a ton of respect for what he did at Smuggler's Notch, and how he's maintained the atmosphere, and it's consistently voted one of skier… by skiers as one of their favorite mountains, one of the best family mountains. It's also just a badass expert mountain.01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:46.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the… the…01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:48.000Stuart Winchester: the…01:15:48.000 --> 01:16:04.000Stuart Winchester: issue that comes up over and over again is, of course, the chairlifts. There are 7 haul lifts. They are a combined 392 years old. Uh, they are a combined 29,439 feet long. That's 5.58 miles. Uh, Madonna is the oldest.01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:21.000Stuart Winchester: 6,719-foot-long 1963 haul, it got a new top terminal in 2002, which I believe is the drive terminal. Sterling is the next longest, it's a 1964 haul, and the Village Lift is the next longest at 5,155 feet, that's 1967, so…01:16:21.000 --> 01:16:28.000Stuart Winchester: those are sort of the three main lifts, and then there's some other little lifts, Madonna 2 and a T-bar and such, but… but John…01:16:28.000 --> 01:16:39.000Stuart Winchester: I think everyone wants to know, what are you gonna do about the Lyft fleet at Smug's, because you have a contingent that loves the old Lyfts and doesn't want you to, but you have another contingent that's like…01:16:39.000 --> 01:16:44.000Stuart Winchester: That's why I don't go there. So what do you have in mind? What can you tell us?01:16:43.000 --> 01:16:59.000Jonathan Schaefer: Well, I mean, it's a problem that's highlighted by all the fun facts you just gave us here. And give you credit for that, going back to the announcement letter and post that you did.01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:01.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um…01:17:01.000 --> 01:17:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: It's the balance between preservation and conservation, right? I mean, it's an environmental argument, it's a scary management argument, it's… do you preserve it, and do you keep it just exactly like it is?01:17:04.000 --> 01:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:17:12.000 --> 01:17:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: Or do you conserve an asset on into the future? And that's a fancy way of saying that, nice try, you're not going to quite get the answer today.01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: I mean, we have to have some reality here, right? Which is…01:17:28.000 --> 01:17:31.000Jonathan Schaefer: Those lifts are in excellent shape.01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:40.000Jonathan Schaefer: maintenance going on through the years and decades will become harder and harder and harder. And we're gonna have to address the problems.01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:43.000Jonathan Schaefer: before they become problems. So.01:17:43.000 --> 01:17:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: Eyes wide open.01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: We are looking at everything at Smuggler's Notch, including the lift system.01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: Also, in perfect honesty, there isn't just.01:17:55.000 --> 01:18:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: a single plan that's gonna work there. You know, there's not.01:18:01.000 --> 01:18:08.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, there's not an endless pool of capital to go through and replace. How many? How many lineal feet of lift is that.01:18:07.000 --> 01:18:10.000Stuart Winchester: 29,439.01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: I mean, that's just under six miles of lift line.01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:18:14.000 --> 01:18:18.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah, that's a lot right? And it's a pretty big, angry mountain.01:18:16.000 --> 01:18:17.000Stuart Winchester: Right.01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:23.000Jonathan Schaefer: So when you look at that hillside and you contemplate driving.01:18:23.000 --> 01:18:25.000Jonathan Schaefer: Concrete up to the top, or…01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:29.000Jonathan Schaefer: I mean, you're flying helicopters in, and it's a massive project.01:18:29.000 --> 01:18:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:18:29.000 --> 01:18:32.000Jonathan Schaefer: So, we have to just do…01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:48.000Jonathan Schaefer: the right amount of work to keep that mountain, you know, going and thriving into the future. But also, you know, to your point, you know, people love it. You know, people love these mountains. They love them to death sometimes. We don't want that to happen.01:18:49.000 --> 01:19:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um, but we respect everybody's point of view and we're just gonna have to work with our community to, to sort of telegraph those changes when they come up. And right now there's, uh, there's no major changes. You know, I don't have a.01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: an SE group plan that I can peel off the desk here and lay it out in front of you and show you exactly what's going on. I think that we've been around long enough that we got an idea, but we're not quite there yet.01:19:12.000 --> 01:19:27.000Stuart Winchester: I think the big question for Smugs that I've been trying to figure out for a while is, if you want the throwback experience in New England, you just drive an hour down the road to Mount River Glen, and they have a single chair that goes 2,000 vertical feet, and they have great terrain, and they've put a lot of money into creating.01:19:27.000 --> 01:19:38.000Stuart Winchester: the facade of being a 1940s ski area. But it's modern, they groom, they make snow below 20-whatever, 100 feet. So, the question, I think, for Smuggler's Notch is.01:19:29.000 --> 01:19:30.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:19:38.000 --> 01:19:54.000Stuart Winchester: Is there room for a second throwback ski area in New England, and do you want it to be that? Do you want, for example, to say, no, we'll never put in a high-speed lift, like smug should have slow lifts even if they're, even if they're new, uh, or, you know, the lift.01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:59.000Stuart Winchester: The trail footprint should stay. Do you have any thoughts on modernization?01:19:56.000 --> 01:20:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: I mean, it really gets to capacity, Stuart. And this is, this is, it's like this, it's almost like the saber metrics of skiing, right? Like where the numbers, what do they mean? I'm sitting here at Berkshire East and pardon the screwdriver, it's my pointer.01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:20:03.000 --> 01:20:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:20:12.000 --> 01:20:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: I've got two lifts in front of me.01:20:14.000 --> 01:20:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:20:14.000 --> 01:20:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: One's a high speed quad that moves around 600 people per hour, and one's a sky track quad.01:20:22.000 --> 01:20:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: with over twice as many chairs. It does. It's rated to move up to 2,400 people per hour.01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:29.000Stuart Winchester: Wait, your high-speed quad moves 600 people an hour?01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:30.000Jonathan Schaefer: 1600.01:20:29.000 --> 01:20:31.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay.01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:33.000Jonathan Schaefer: Sorry, I may have misspoke.01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:37.000Jonathan Schaefer: And we can bump it to 1800.01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:20:37.000 --> 01:20:42.000Jonathan Schaefer: But you know, right out here I got a fixed script that moves more people than a high speed.01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:20:43.000 --> 01:20:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: Now…01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: up the road from me is another mountain, Berkshire Snowmason. It no longer exists. It was founded by a World War II vet. And he has a great quote from the early 1960s, where he says.01:20:55.000 --> 01:21:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: People care more about how they go up the mountain than how they look coming down it.01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:11.000Jonathan Schaefer: And at the time, he was complaining about a ski lift that went in at Jiminy Peak, where he had T-bars, and he felt that he had been left behind. So there's a lot of different emotions. There's, like, the raw numbers.01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:15.000Jonathan Schaefer: Fixed scripts are great. They a lot of butts in the air. My dad.01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: I think it was talking to Everett Kircher, and that's what Everett used to tell him. He used to say.01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:25.000Jonathan Schaefer: Their butts are in the air, you know, and not on the hill.01:21:24.000 --> 01:21:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:31.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so you either have people in a line, on a lift, or on a trail.01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:35.000Jonathan Schaefer: If you accelerate one of those numbers, they're gonna show up someplace else. It's just…01:21:35.000 --> 01:21:38.000Jonathan Schaefer: Physics. There's no way around it.01:21:36.000 --> 01:21:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:21:38.000 --> 01:21:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so you gotta look at all that stuff when you do this work. And you know, while I don't have a solid answer, I do have a commitment to doing our best to.01:21:47.000 --> 01:21:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: to getting the right answers for the resort.01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:50.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: And for our customer base. And in terms of nostalgia, there's never going to be a point.01:21:55.000 --> 01:22:01.000Jonathan Schaefer: where there's not a nostalgic lift, you know, in the foreseeable future at Smuggler's Notch.01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:22:01.000 --> 01:22:08.000Jonathan Schaefer: But the the question is that lift appropriate for the terrain? Is it the right one? Is the wrong one?01:22:06.000 --> 01:22:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:22:08.000 --> 01:22:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: But inevitably, I mean, your stats tell all, you know, we're we're gonna be doing something at some point.01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think there's two good models that I look to of…01:22:18.000 --> 01:22:35.000Stuart Winchester: really atmospheric ski areas that have upgraded without losing that cachet. One is A-Basin, where the oldest lift, I think, is 2007 Zuma, and they have a combination. They have a high-speed quad, a high-speed six-pack, two long fixed-grip quads, and when they replaced the Pella Vicini.01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:52.000Stuart Winchester: double chair, I think in 2020, they just replaced… it was a 1970s lift, they replaced it with a brand new double chair that was made, I think, by Doppelmeyer. Same exact specs, it's just a new machine. The other example is Alta, which, if you go back to the 90s, had a bunch of double chairs just all over the mountain.01:22:52.000 --> 01:23:05.000Stuart Winchester: have consolidated most of those to one line and replaced them, almost all but Wildcat Double, with high-speed chairs. So, looking at those two models and thinking about it, and people still love those ski areas because they're the ski areas.01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:20.000Stuart Winchester: Looking at those two models, do you start to get a sense of, like, is it really that it's a 1962 Hall double that people care about, or is it more that you create, as you said, a chair that matches the terrain? Do you get any inspiration from those other skiers as you think about this?01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah, I mean…01:23:24.000 --> 01:23:37.000Jonathan Schaefer: I would say, we've all been to a place, whether it's a restaurant or a ski area, I mean, I love to ski, so I've skied all over the world, and you go someplace, and you go back to it, and somebody did something to screw it up, and it pisses you off. I mean, that's really what.01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:23:37.000 --> 01:23:42.000Jonathan Schaefer: And we've all seen it. We've all experienced it.01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: Then we've also seen thoughtful design.01:23:45.000 --> 01:23:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um…01:23:47.000 --> 01:23:54.000Jonathan Schaefer: when we took over the Hermitage Club during COVID and started operating it, there was 27 point-of-sales.01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:57.000Jonathan Schaefer: on the first floor alone.01:23:56.000 --> 01:23:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:23:57.000 --> 01:24:07.000Jonathan Schaefer: just to handle food and beverage. Right? And so you start to add it up. And it's like, Wow, you know, if maybe if they just designed the food and beverage system better.01:23:58.000 --> 01:24:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:24:07.000 --> 01:24:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: you could have gotten through it with a a lot less point of sale, folks, and.01:24:12.000 --> 01:24:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: design is really critical, it's scariest. And… you really have to understand what you're doing when you make a 30, or 40, or 50, or, in Smug's case, 60-year investment in a ski lift.01:24:15.000 --> 01:24:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:24:24.000 --> 01:24:26.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um, because…01:24:26.000 --> 01:24:34.000Jonathan Schaefer: You don't wanna fly that concrete up that mountain more than you have to. You know, you don't wanna undo it down the road. So.01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:41.000Jonathan Schaefer: Again, there's a lot of factors that go into how to tweak a mountain and what makes sense and what doesn't.01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: And how not to ruin it. Um…01:24:45.000 --> 01:24:58.000Jonathan Schaefer: And, and that's, it's a big, it's a big task, you know, with a lot of responsibility that we definitely, you know, we, we're not just gonna go in there willy-nilly and start throwing stuff around and start moving things. ‘cause that, that is how you screw it up.01:24:48.000 --> 01:24:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.01:24:58.000 --> 01:24:59.000Jonathan Schaefer: Oh.01:24:58.000 --> 01:25:15.000Stuart Winchester: Do you think you have a priority, John, between Morse, generally considered the beginner mountain, Sterling, generally considered the intermediate mountain, and Madonna, generally considered the expert mountain, as far as where you think upgrades should be concentrated first, infrastructure-wise? And we can also talk about snowmaking here, which I know you've already announced.01:25:16.000 --> 01:25:28.000Jonathan Schaefer: It sort of matches the, the available equipment to the mountain, I would say. You know, there's, there's certain, there's certain things we, we gotta figure that out. That's, that's, that's what the next six months of my life will be focused on.01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:28.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:25:28.000 --> 01:25:33.000Stuart Winchester: So talk about the snowmaking upgrades that you've already announced at Smugs, and what you hope to achieve there.01:25:33.000 --> 01:25:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: So this some going into the sale. We had a pretty good understanding of of some of the broad strokes work that needs to get done, and snowmaking is always a huge.01:25:45.000 --> 01:25:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: a huge factor for us.01:25:47.000 --> 01:26:01.000Jonathan Schaefer: And how we approach resorts, you know, it's literally, you go up the mountain, and you come down the mountain. And ideally, you come down on as many different trails as possible, and with as good of conditions as possible, and that's the snow aspect.01:26:00.000 --> 01:26:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:26:01.000 --> 01:26:07.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so, we always start there, you know that. Uh, smugglers, each mountain always has different, sort of.01:26:07.000 --> 01:26:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: Assets, you know, it's like…01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:16.000Jonathan Schaefer: You buy a house, it's got a great kitchen, you don't like the bathroom, right? And then vice versa.01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:23.000Jonathan Schaefer: Smugs… so we laid out what we thought needed to happen at Smugs, then you sort of do the low-hanging…01:26:23.000 --> 01:26:35.000Jonathan Schaefer: medium hanging, high hanging fruit, you know, to achieve the goals. And where, and we wanted to spend money where you would, the skiers would see the first, every dollar yielded the greatest results.01:26:35.000 --> 01:26:38.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so we focused a lot this year on.01:26:38.000 --> 01:26:52.000Jonathan Schaefer: fixing broken things and and dilapidated equipment, putting in fixed infrastructure on the hill. So the snowmakers themselves don't have to lug things around the less lugging they do on.01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:26:52.000 --> 01:26:56.000Jonathan Schaefer: big, difficult mountains in the northeast, the more snow they tend to make.01:26:56.000 --> 01:27:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: And then really incorporating, uh, the snowmaker's experience into the upgrades, so that they felt that they were part, you know, of defining what that list was gonna be. And so, it's Smuggler's Notch, right? So there's 3 mountains, so it's…01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:26.000Jonathan Schaefer: It's everything times 3. You know, there's broken thing. There's the fixed equipment that needs to be put on the hill. So we attacked each one of the the areas of the the resort, and tried to address bottlenecks or issues that could unlock a lot of.01:27:26.000 --> 01:27:36.000Jonathan Schaefer: potential out of the system. And it's sort of the first salvo. You know, you… scary operations, you know, the way you fix mountains, it's like waves on a beach. You get…01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:41.000Jonathan Schaefer: You get a capital plan in January, you start to execute, if you're lucky, by April.01:27:41.000 --> 01:27:49.000Jonathan Schaefer: The wave falls on the beach and then your next thing you know, it's November and you're back into operating and you gotta do it again. And there's this cycle.01:27:48.000 --> 01:27:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.01:27:49.000 --> 01:27:57.000Jonathan Schaefer: This is what we could get done this… this year on a short, you know, transaction window, and then love plans for next year's, too, and…01:27:54.000 --> 01:27:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:27:57.000 --> 01:28:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: Those will probably have more meaningful impact.01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:17.000Stuart Winchester: Well, where are you at, John, on… you know, one thing I liked about when Eric Mogensen bought Black Mountain in New Hampshire is the… it's such a fun mountain, but the top was rarely open. They have a double chair that goes to the summit, but it has a mid-station, and for years and years, sometimes the summit wouldn't even open, and he made a commitment right away, hey.01:28:17.000 --> 01:28:26.000Stuart Winchester: run the lift to the top as much as possible, and he has, including all the way into May the last two years. How much have you thought about.01:28:26.000 --> 01:28:41.000Stuart Winchester: Getting Madonna open a little earlier in the season and, and consistently making sure that peak is open, uh, as late as possible because that's sort of, I mean, Sterling's a lot of fun, but, but Madonna is the alpha peak, right? That's the, the biggest lift, the biggest vert, the toughest terrain. That's what people think.01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:48.000Stuart Winchester: when they think of the challenging terrain as smug. So have you thought much about Madonna and its operating schedule?01:28:47.000 --> 01:28:53.000Jonathan Schaefer: The bottlenecks aren't really Madonna. It's everything that leads to Madonna.01:28:50.000 --> 01:28:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:28:52.000 --> 01:28:53.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:28:53.000 --> 01:28:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: And that's what we went to fix.01:28:55.000 --> 01:29:03.000Jonathan Schaefer: with the snowmaking system. So if you can chew through everything else, like, you gotta get beginner terrain open, you have to get…01:28:57.000 --> 01:28:58.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:29:03.000 --> 01:29:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: something for your your pass holders as fast as possible, and if that fast thing becomes faster.01:29:06.000 --> 01:29:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:29:10.000 --> 01:29:15.000Jonathan Schaefer: or those bottlenecks disappear, then we're we're hitting Madonna.01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:20.000Jonathan Schaefer: earlier. So it it has a cascading effect throughout the whole system.01:29:20.000 --> 01:29:36.000Stuart Winchester: So speaking of pass holders, let's talk about passes. So since I was just talking about Eric and Black Mountain, let's talk about Indy Pass. So you were an early adopter of Indy Pass, going back to 2019, put Berkshire East on it, catamount right away. As soon as you bought.01:29:30.000 --> 01:29:32.000Jonathan Schaefer: Okay.01:29:36.000 --> 01:29:52.000Stuart Winchester: Burke, or were involved in Burke, it switched over from an allied mountain to full, and you just added Smugs, which is huge for IndyPass holders. You now have Jay and Smugs. I mean, four days of those alone is worth the price of an IndyPass, let alone the other dozens of mountains you have there. So talk about.01:29:48.000 --> 01:29:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: Correct?01:29:52.000 --> 01:30:06.000Stuart Winchester: your relationship with IndyPass, and ultimately why you recommitted… because they're one-year contracts, right? So why you recommitted by adding all four of your mountains, including Smugs, which you haven't had a winter to run yet, onto Indy?01:29:59.000 --> 01:30:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:16.000Jonathan Schaefer: Indy's a really important piece for, you know, independent skiers in the country. And we, I used to have debates with different people pre Indy Pass.01:30:15.000 --> 01:30:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:30:16.000 --> 01:30:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: And one of the debates was, and I won't name them, was around.01:30:21.000 --> 01:30:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: Could there ever be a pass that represented those types of mountains?01:30:27.000 --> 01:30:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:30:27.000 --> 01:30:34.000Jonathan Schaefer: Because, let's just be… let's face it, you have the Epic Pass, which has Vail and Whistler, and…01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:42.000Jonathan Schaefer: when Doug branded the IndyPass, he gave a voice to a whole, you know, quite frankly, the majority of the ski world.01:30:42.000 --> 01:30:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:30:42.000 --> 01:30:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: Which was feeling a little left out at the time.01:30:45.000 --> 01:30:46.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:30:45.000 --> 01:30:51.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so it's done a lot for small ski areas across the country.01:30:50.000 --> 01:30:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:30:51.000 --> 01:30:59.000Jonathan Schaefer: But it's certainly done a lot for ours at Berkshire East and Catamount. So we're, what, 5 or 6 years in at having Indy at those resorts?01:30:58.000 --> 01:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:30:59.000 --> 01:31:01.000Jonathan Schaefer: We've certainly been.01:31:01.000 --> 01:31:18.000Jonathan Schaefer: sort of like Indy Pied Pipers along the way. It, it wasn't necessarily a layup that we were gonna do it at Smuggler's Notch. You know, it seemed obvious maybe from the outside and we'd have to get there. But our commitment really is, is to the full pass holders and the ticket holders of a resort.01:31:03.000 --> 01:31:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:31:16.000 --> 01:31:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:31:19.000 --> 01:31:36.000Jonathan Schaefer: First, you know, they're, they're sort of our primary constituents and what India Smugs allows us to do is we, we are very experienced with using the capacity controls in any pass at our other mountains. So we, a reservation system at Berkshire East and Catamount.01:31:32.000 --> 01:31:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:31:36.000 --> 01:31:48.000Jonathan Schaefer: that allows, you know, for only certain number of capacity per day. And we're pretty experienced on managing, you know, weekly, or monthly, or daily, even, on how we want to handle that.01:31:40.000 --> 01:31:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:31:48.000 --> 01:31:56.000Jonathan Schaefer: So we felt comfortable with not overwhelming the mountain. And what happens is, I think one of my critiques of the ski business is it's like…01:31:56.000 --> 01:32:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, with the multi passes, you have this slosh of people, you know, you fill a bucket full of water. It's like you got a Home Depot bucket and you're walking down the street with a bucket and it inevitably spills out and gets you wet.01:32:10.000 --> 01:32:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: And to me, that slosh is what happens when you have.01:32:14.000 --> 01:32:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: unlimited access everywhere. Right? So if Berkshire East, for example.01:32:21.000 --> 01:32:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: was…01:32:23.000 --> 01:32:29.000Jonathan Schaefer: was in a huge pass product, and we happened to get 3 feet of snow, which happens occasionally.01:32:29.000 --> 01:32:37.000Jonathan Schaefer: and 50,000 people show up at Berkshire East, that slosh would break the town, it would break the mountain, it would break everything, right?01:32:36.000 --> 01:32:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:32:37.000 --> 01:32:52.000Jonathan Schaefer: And we don't wanna have that. We actually do care about the experience at these mountains. That being said, it's important to fill up the excess capacity so we can do the snowmaking upgrades and we can do the resort upgrades that at Smuggler's Notch or the any of the other mountains that you will see the snowmaking.01:32:52.000 --> 01:32:57.000Jonathan Schaefer: you will see the improvements. And so we have to optimize.01:32:57.000 --> 01:33:02.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, around the midweek and the non busiest times.01:33:02.000 --> 01:33:08.000Jonathan Schaefer: And then, once once that stuff starts to happen, the snowmaking improvements.01:33:08.000 --> 01:33:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: More people start to show up in off-peak times. You feel that energy?01:33:12.000 --> 01:33:17.000Jonathan Schaefer: And then you got something to work with. And so.01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:33:17.000 --> 01:33:20.000Jonathan Schaefer: I think that's where we're headed with that relationship, and, you know…01:33:20.000 --> 01:33:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: Uh…01:33:22.000 --> 01:33:35.000Jonathan Schaefer: it's also why we didn't do the Four Mountain Pass right out of the gate. You know, I think a lot of people wondered, well, will there just be a Bearden Pass? And Bearden, you know, our core mantra is distinctly local. Like, we love.01:33:35.000 --> 01:33:41.000Jonathan Schaefer: these mountains. We love the people that make them up and the history and the legacy of those resorts.01:33:41.000 --> 01:33:51.000Jonathan Schaefer: And we care about, you know, doing our best to be caretakers, you know, so that the mountain we buy is still recognizable by the people.01:33:51.000 --> 01:33:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: who utilize it, you know, 10 or 15 years from now when they come back to it.01:33:55.000 --> 01:33:59.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so not overwhelming.01:33:59.000 --> 01:34:05.000Jonathan Schaefer: not having overwhelming numbers is a it's a real. I mean, it's probably the thing I've thought about most this year.01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so you have a couple different levels of competition here. You have the other big multi-mountain passes, you have your four mountains and your different pass products, and you're kind of competing with yourself a little by being part of India. Now we're seeing.01:34:21.000 --> 01:34:36.000Stuart Winchester: Other competing passes, the Snow Pass, run by Snow Operating, start to follow that model of two days at each mountain, and they got some really nice ones out of the gate, Whiteface and Gore. Do you think that Indy Pass will remain important long.01:34:36.000 --> 01:34:52.000Stuart Winchester: term to you as you… as you build up, you know, you have four mountains to work with, that's a pretty attractive little portfolio, especially the way they run north-south, with Catamount being two hours from New York City, and Smuggs being this great destination, and everything in between, and all easy to get to off the freeway. So… so what…01:34:44.000 --> 01:34:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:34:52.000 --> 01:34:57.000Stuart Winchester: long… as you think about passes long-term, do you think you'll stay on a multi-mountain pass? Do you think.01:34:57.000 --> 01:34:59.000Jonathan Schaefer: I mean, uh…01:34:59.000 --> 01:35:05.000Jonathan Schaefer: We're we're into hypothetical worlds. We're we're into indie. We like indie. So.01:35:01.000 --> 01:35:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:35:03.000 --> 01:35:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:35:05.000 --> 01:35:08.000Jonathan Schaefer: Why don't you tell me where you think the market's going and we'll.01:35:08.000 --> 01:35:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yes, sir.01:35:10.000 --> 01:35:27.000Stuart Winchester: I'm liking the competition. I'm liking that there's a lot of different options for consumers right now. I think the Indy Pass is, it's the largest pass coalition ever assembled in the history of the world that I'm aware of. And I just think for consumers, particularly in New England to have.01:35:16.000 --> 01:35:17.000Jonathan Schaefer: Okay.01:35:21.000 --> 01:35:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:35:28.000 --> 01:35:51.000Stuart Winchester: Those mountains, Smuggs, Jay, Waterville. And Berkshire East is such a great mountain, too, and it's almost always a top 10 on Indy Redemptions, which surprised me. So, I love where you're going. I also love the Bash Badge. Can you talk about the Bash Badge at Smuggs? Because you actually have the Bash Badge Plus, which maybe they had before, I don't know if that's new. And if that concept could roll out across your other mountains, and I know you're not…01:35:34.000 --> 01:35:35.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:35:51.000 --> 01:35:58.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Mr. Price Guy, so I can throw the prices up here. Um, the…01:35:58.000 --> 01:36:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: Well, the bash pads fits between a day ticket and a full pass, you know, just sort of.01:36:01.000 --> 01:36:03.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:36:04.000 --> 01:36:15.000Jonathan Schaefer: Functionally and emotionally. And it's an important piece of the product, and we've… we have evaluated it across the board. There was a… it's… it was funny, you know, it's funny not funny. We hadn't communicated it yet, but um…01:36:05.000 --> 01:36:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:36:16.000 --> 01:36:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: A lot, there was so much concern out of the sort of the smug social media.01:36:20.000 --> 01:36:22.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:36:21.000 --> 01:36:32.000Jonathan Schaefer: around their prob… quote-unquote, they are probably going to get rid of the bash badge. I'm they. They were never going to get rid of the bash badge. It's an important part of the puzzle, and uh…01:36:26.000 --> 01:36:27.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:36:29.000 --> 01:36:31.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:36:33.000 --> 01:36:36.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, it speaks to…01:36:36.000 --> 01:36:39.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know what you're saying about the industry.01:36:39.000 --> 01:36:41.000Jonathan Schaefer: Indy's an important funnel.01:36:40.000 --> 01:36:42.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:36:41.000 --> 01:36:51.000Jonathan Schaefer: for visitation for us. You know, Bash Badge is an important funnel. People get so… you get so locked into your routine, right? Even your social media routine, or your…01:36:48.000 --> 01:36:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:36:51.000 --> 01:36:57.000Jonathan Schaefer: web presence routine. So you're only exposed to what you're exposed to. And.01:36:57.000 --> 01:37:13.000Jonathan Schaefer: the reality is, it's tough business, you know. The winters are tough. There's a the ex. The equipment's extremely expensive, and we have 13 weeks to really get after it each year. Yeah, we need to be as in front of as many people as possible, so they can come up and.01:37:13.000 --> 01:37:18.000Jonathan Schaefer: rent from our homeowners and buy food in the kitchens and.01:37:18.000 --> 01:37:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: Ski awesome terrain. So that's…01:37:22.000 --> 01:37:37.000Stuart Winchester: Let me break down this product real quick because I think it's so good. So the Bash Badge, you pay $159 upfront and then you get $30 lift tickets or $20 half-day lift tickets for the entire season whenever you show up. The Bash Badge, Bash Badge.01:37:37.000 --> 01:37:44.000Stuart Winchester: Plus is $249, has the same deal, but it's sort of a pseudo-season pass, because you get…01:37:44.000 --> 01:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: direct-to-lift, you know, unlimited days from opening day, which is usually around Thanksgiving, through December 18th, and then from March 22nd through the end of the season, which at Smuggs is somewhere between the first and third weekend in April, usually. I don't know if you want to push that at all. But that is an awesome product. I mean, is this something that you want to roll out across the portfolio?01:38:05.000 --> 01:38:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: We're evaluating it. Yeah. All the mountains are different, right? So that's…01:38:06.000 --> 01:38:07.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:38:08.000 --> 01:38:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:38:10.000 --> 01:38:15.000Jonathan Schaefer: which may work, something that may work great, and I'm not, this is more generic.01:38:15.000 --> 01:38:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: at Burke may not work at Catamount. You just pulled up Catamount there, right? That's a different user base.01:38:17.000 --> 01:38:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:38:18.000 --> 01:38:19.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:38:21.000 --> 01:38:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: Different demand profile. Right? So.01:38:25.000 --> 01:38:28.000Jonathan Schaefer: These mountains are going to run.01:38:28.000 --> 01:38:42.000Jonathan Schaefer: relatively independently, but also, we want our guests to know what to expect when they go to a Bear Dam Mountain, which is that independence, the quality, the focus on the fundamentals, you know, good snow, um…01:38:30.000 --> 01:38:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:38:40.000 --> 01:38:42.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:38:42.000 --> 01:38:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: and efficient operations. I mean, it's… the weather's ever-changing, so you can't always promise it, but…01:38:47.000 --> 01:38:51.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, you'll certainly get our best effort in any given time.01:38:51.000 --> 01:38:55.000Stuart Winchester: How would you know, John, like, what would be your sign?01:38:55.000 --> 01:38:58.000Stuart Winchester: that you were messing up SMUGS, that you were going in the wrong direction.01:38:58.000 --> 01:39:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: Well, I'm sure I'd hear about it.01:39:01.000 --> 01:39:10.000Stuart Winchester: As a… as a skier, what do you not want smugs to be? Because you're a skier, I mean, you… you know, you've skied every day of your life that…01:39:10.000 --> 01:39:13.000Stuart Winchester: you know, has been… there's been snow on the ground, I believe.01:39:13.000 --> 01:39:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:39:14.000 --> 01:39:16.000Jonathan Schaefer: I, um…01:39:16.000 --> 01:39:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: For me, it's that overwhelming presence of just, you know, you're on a trail and.01:39:22.000 --> 01:39:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: You feel like you're gonna get.01:39:24.000 --> 01:39:30.000Jonathan Schaefer: just overrun, and you're just… you want to go home. I mean, I've had ski days where.01:39:30.000 --> 01:39:32.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um…01:39:32.000 --> 01:39:34.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, for example.01:39:35.000 --> 01:39:38.000Jonathan Schaefer: My wife and I did a trip to a.01:39:38.000 --> 01:39:40.000Jonathan Schaefer: a larger, you know.01:39:40.000 --> 01:39:52.000Jonathan Schaefer: Northern Mountain a couple years ago, and I was invited to an event, and I couldn't get the person who, you know, I get comp tickets, it's just one of the perks, who was there to comp the ticket, and…01:39:47.000 --> 01:39:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:39:52.000 --> 01:40:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: So it's like, oh, I'll go through the ticket line and really experience a day trip, you know, as the general consumer of one of these resorts, you know, which, you know, I'm generally at smaller mountains doing our thing.01:40:03.000 --> 01:40:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:40:04.000 --> 01:40:05.000Jonathan Schaefer: And…01:40:05.000 --> 01:40:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: I think almost 500 bucks of ticket fees later.01:40:09.000 --> 01:40:11.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.01:40:10.000 --> 01:40:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, we're in the middle of an overrun.01:40:15.000 --> 01:40:16.000Jonathan Schaefer: Trail.01:40:16.000 --> 01:40:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:40:16.000 --> 01:40:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: My wife, who's an advanced intermediate, was just like, can we go home to Berkshire East?01:40:22.000 --> 01:40:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, so.01:40:22.000 --> 01:40:24.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:40:24.000 --> 01:40:33.000Jonathan Schaefer: if I feel like I want to go home right now, as much feels like home to me. I had a lot of great skiing there this winter. I brought my daughters up, and.01:40:26.000 --> 01:40:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:40:28.000 --> 01:40:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:40:33.000 --> 01:40:37.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, there's awesome terrain. We're looking at the map here.01:40:37.000 --> 01:40:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: it feels like a western mountain. I mean, it it's big enough that the whoever cut the trails, there's there's grade reversals to uphills to big rolls to.01:40:39.000 --> 01:40:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:40:47.000 --> 01:40:52.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, snow-covered trees, and I know it's not always like that, but we just had the best.01:40:52.000 --> 01:40:54.000Jonathan Schaefer: Few weeks of skiing this year.01:40:54.000 --> 01:40:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:40:54.000 --> 01:40:59.000Jonathan Schaefer: And you can really let it rip. Woods are awesome.01:40:59.000 --> 01:41:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: Great family experience. That's what home feels like. And.01:41:04.000 --> 01:41:11.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, I'm I associate with myself, you know, in in general, with people that appreciate that. And.01:41:10.000 --> 01:41:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:41:11.000 --> 01:41:17.000Jonathan Schaefer: That's we're here to curate this and to grow it, but not ruin it.01:41:17.000 --> 01:41:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: And that's very subjective, right? So we have to run good businesses, and we're never gonna make everybody happy. But I think in the effort we give.01:41:27.000 --> 01:41:29.000Jonathan Schaefer: People will appreciate it.01:41:29.000 --> 01:41:31.000Stuart Winchester: The more…01:41:31.000 --> 01:41:35.000Stuart Winchester: skiing changes in New England, the more…01:41:35.000 --> 01:41:46.000Stuart Winchester: people love what Smuggs is, and I'm looking at the trail map here for those watching on YouTube or StormSkiing.com, and what you see back here is Stowe. Now, I love Stowe. I think it's the best mountain.01:41:46.000 --> 01:41:48.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah, me too.01:41:46.000 --> 01:42:04.000Stuart Winchester: in New England. I just love the fall lines, I love the skiing. Vail purchased it, of course, in 2017. Bill Strissel, the former owner, had proposed a gondola from Sterling across, which is much flatter than this, across to Stowe.01:42:04.000 --> 01:42:14.000Stuart Winchester: Is that idea dead? Is that still something you would consider? You can still walk between Stowe and Smugs, of course, but is a potential lift something you're considering?01:42:14.000 --> 01:42:25.000Jonathan Schaefer: Uh, you know, I think we're considering getting back to where we were, which is… I think it would be awesome to skin up Sterling, but they don't allow it, and um…01:42:25.000 --> 01:42:28.000Jonathan Schaefer: come over to smugs and go back and forth.01:42:28.000 --> 01:42:39.000Jonathan Schaefer: we're not in the market for paying for that lift, and I read the reviews online, just as well as everybody else, on what locals thought about it, so… that's not the…01:42:31.000 --> 01:42:32.000Stuart Winchester: Right.01:42:39.000 --> 01:42:43.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, I want to develop a great great relationship with those guys and the Gm. There.01:42:43.000 --> 01:42:52.000Jonathan Schaefer: Started at Mount Snow, and we have a ton of mutual friends. And he's very, very, very well respected, you know, within the Vail organization.01:42:52.000 --> 01:42:54.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so is awesome.01:42:54.000 --> 01:42:56.000Jonathan Schaefer: But, um…01:42:56.000 --> 01:43:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah, I think that I have trail run it all summer and fall, and it's a it's a great trail. I was there, and I think it was 1997. Somebody dumped a snow cat into the pond trying to drive across it. I saw the snow cat as a 17 year old or 18 year old.01:42:57.000 --> 01:43:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Mike's a good dude.01:43:01.000 --> 01:43:03.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:43:04.000 --> 01:43:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:43:08.000 --> 01:43:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.01:43:12.000 --> 01:43:14.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, man.01:43:12.000 --> 01:43:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah, um…01:43:15.000 --> 01:43:17.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah.01:43:15.000 --> 01:43:17.000Stuart Winchester: Is it still there?01:43:17.000 --> 01:43:20.000Jonathan Schaefer: No, some other… I think they got out with a scooter.01:43:17.000 --> 01:43:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:43:20.000 --> 01:43:21.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um…01:43:21.000 --> 01:43:39.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you know, I mean, Mike's a great guy, and I skied with Mike in April, and folks don't understand this, and I beat it to death, but unless you're from the region, and I didn't understand it until I moved out here, Northern Vermont is so good. I mean, 322 inches of snow, that's the second snowiest.01:43:39.000 --> 01:44:02.000Stuart Winchester: In the east that Smuggs gets, of course, JP gets a little more, and maybe they get the same. I don't know, people measure things different, but last year I was supposed to take my family to Tahoe in April. I canceled it, went to Stowe and Killington instead, and we got a couple of powder days of Stowe in April. It is really, really good skiing up there, and there's tree skiing more often than not. So, I mean, you've got such a prize up there, and if people have not been up there.01:44:02.000 --> 01:44:08.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, go now so you can watch the evolution. Uh, John, I wanna…01:44:06.000 --> 01:44:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: I'm gonna try to text you a picture here, Stuart. I've got me pounding the Lincoln Gap and I think 2003.01:44:08.000 --> 01:44:10.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:44:14.000 --> 01:44:15.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:44:15.000 --> 01:44:18.000Jonathan Schaefer: But I I grew up skiing up there.01:44:18.000 --> 01:44:22.000Jonathan Schaefer: And the scheme is awesome.01:44:22.000 --> 01:44:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: The, um…01:44:25.000 --> 01:44:33.000Jonathan Schaefer: There's there's nothing like it. And it's it's it's not. You know it. It is Northern Vermont, right? It's not.01:44:31.000 --> 01:44:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:44:33.000 --> 01:44:34.000Jonathan Schaefer: Banff.01:44:34.000 --> 01:44:35.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:44:35.000 --> 01:44:40.000Jonathan Schaefer: And it's okay. There's great communities. There's great.01:44:40.000 --> 01:44:48.000Jonathan Schaefer: There's great people. There's a huge legacy of people that love these mountains and care for them. And utilize them.01:44:42.000 --> 01:44:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:44:48.000 --> 01:44:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: So.01:44:50.000 --> 01:44:56.000Jonathan Schaefer: We're just lucky to be the next man up here, and we're fired up to do a good job about it.01:44:55.000 --> 01:45:19.000Stuart Winchester: I'm fired up that you bought it. There was a lot of chatter that Vail may buy it and combine it with Stowe. Again, love Stowe, but I do think that the Northeast in any ski region benefits from having strong independent operators. I'm pulling up Burke's old trail maps for those following along here. So Burke, the trail network's been similar for years and years, but there used to be some more lifts. So here we're going all the way back.01:45:19.000 --> 01:45:27.000Stuart Winchester: 1983, when Burke was sponsored by Camel. Can you imagine? Camel cigarettes, guys.01:45:25.000 --> 01:45:28.000Jonathan Schaefer: One of our ski coaches was a, um…01:45:28.000 --> 01:45:30.000Jonathan Schaefer: A Marlboro man.01:45:29.000 --> 01:45:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so you see different lifts here. So you see the Summit lift, which was replaced. Now this is a high-speed quad. And there was another lift over here. So looking at Burke's modern trail map here, John, I believe there's some room for expansion out here. I believe you could probably infill some lifts. So what are your thoughts on Burke now that you've had a year running that guy?01:45:51.000 --> 01:45:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: I think Burke's an awesome mountain.01:45:55.000 --> 01:46:02.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, if we're talking about the trail map, we've got the green section down here in Sherbourne, which is one of the best beginner mountains.01:45:59.000 --> 01:46:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:46:02.000 --> 01:46:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: And that was a little bit of a.01:46:04.000 --> 01:46:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: Surprise for me, because I spent most of my time at Burke on Warren's way.01:46:09.000 --> 01:46:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:46:10.000 --> 01:46:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: facing, and then…01:46:12.000 --> 01:46:18.000Jonathan Schaefer: Big Dipper. I think we raised the first Eastern Cup there the day after the Pats won their first Super Bowl.01:46:18.000 --> 01:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.01:46:18.000 --> 01:46:20.000Jonathan Schaefer: Okay.01:46:20.000 --> 01:46:25.000Jonathan Schaefer: Which was awesome. Middlebury showed up with no time to inspect, because it was a late night, but it was…01:46:25.000 --> 01:46:28.000Jonathan Schaefer: Lots of energy, um…01:46:28.000 --> 01:46:39.000Jonathan Schaefer: And then the Upper Mountain, and you can kind of see, if you go back up to the Upper Mountain, just how steep… you see where all the black diamonds are in the middle, in the double blacks? That's just a feature of the resort, so…01:46:32.000 --> 01:46:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:46:34.000 --> 01:46:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Mm-hmm.01:46:39.000 --> 01:46:41.000Jonathan Schaefer: It's hard to get…01:46:41.000 --> 01:46:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, there's a total lack of green trails from the summit, and that's a priority for us, is increasing that blue access over the next couple of years.01:46:50.000 --> 01:46:55.000Jonathan Schaefer: But also, you know, we've done a ton of snowmaking that work there. I think we…01:46:56.000 --> 01:47:02.000Jonathan Schaefer: We knocked out… we were able to cut 500 hours of snowmaking time.01:47:02.000 --> 01:47:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:47:02.000 --> 01:47:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: Year over year.01:47:04.000 --> 01:47:05.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.01:47:04.000 --> 01:47:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: and open more terrain, far more terrain than the year prior. And so.01:47:07.000 --> 01:47:09.000Stuart Winchester: Amazing.01:47:10.000 --> 01:47:13.000Jonathan Schaefer: We, uh…01:47:14.000 --> 01:47:29.000Jonathan Schaefer: We are doing a lot more work this year. And so last year, it's like the wave on the beach analogy. We were able to throw a big wave up on the beach and we got a ton of stuff done. But this year, it's a lot of the interconnections and sort of like finishing off the work. I'd say we got 80% of the way home last year.01:47:16.000 --> 01:47:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:47:23.000 --> 01:47:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:47:29.000 --> 01:47:30.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:47:29.000 --> 01:47:39.000Jonathan Schaefer: And this year, a few more guns, filling in some holes, moving water around more effectively.01:47:37.000 --> 01:47:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.01:47:40.000 --> 01:47:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: I think people are going to notice maybe even as big a difference as the year prior. Midburg Lodge is getting some updates.01:47:46.000 --> 01:47:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:47:48.000 --> 01:47:49.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yeah, it…01:47:48.000 --> 01:48:15.000Stuart Winchester: How did that translate business-wise, John? You know, Burke had sort of been, it had been in receivership for nine years when you purchased it, and it was part of the whole Jay Peak scandal, and Jay Peak got purchased in 2022 by Pacific Group Resorts, but Burke was still orphaned, and not that there weren't capable folks running it, but the first thing you did was, I think, triple snowmaking capacity. So how did that translate business, skier visits-wise? What can you tell us about last year at Burke and the kind of momentum you were able to establish there?01:47:55.000 --> 01:47:56.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:48:16.000 --> 01:48:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: So I do believe that energy at a resort is a very palpable thing. You can either feel it, or you can't. You know, you've all been places, and it's like, oh, what happened to the restaurant? And it's like, oh, the chef left, and.01:48:27.000 --> 01:48:31.000Jonathan Schaefer: You just know it's over yet.01:48:31.000 --> 01:48:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know the receivership was. It was sort of like slack tide for that mountain for almost a decade, you know, is not really coming or going, and I think our us stepping up and the grand family's commitment to the resort, which is runs really deep.01:48:48.000 --> 01:48:54.000Jonathan Schaefer: was able to bring some of that, inject that energy. And then the next step.01:48:54.000 --> 01:49:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: is, and I've been doing the Ted Lasso analogies with you for years, but it's like getting people, not only the resort staff, but the guests to believe.01:49:04.000 --> 01:49:15.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, that it is a great mountain. There's phenomenal glades. You know, I… I was stuck on Warren's Way half my life whenever I'd be there, but, you know, so it was a revelation what the glades were like. Um…01:49:15.000 --> 01:49:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: in the… in the acquisition period, and then skiing them last year. It's a… it's a great mountain. I don't think it's ever really had its chance. I think we're the seventh or eighth ownership group. That thing is like a…01:49:27.000 --> 01:49:41.000Jonathan Schaefer: a ship without a rock, without a lighthouse that ships keep running into, and we're gonna try to avoid being the next ship that breaks apart on those rocks right there. But I think there's a really thoughtful way to do it.01:49:41.000 --> 01:49:54.000Jonathan Schaefer: quite frankly, it's shocking how close it is to people. You know, I don't think people realize that it's really not that much further from Boston than a Mount Snow or a Killington. Obviously, it doesn't have the scale of those resorts. Um…01:49:54.000 --> 01:49:57.000Jonathan Schaefer: But it does have that sense of community.01:49:57.000 --> 01:50:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: it's a great mountain, it's a beautiful hotel, and… and the town itself is full of wonderful restaurants, largely supported by Kingdom Trails and skiers, you know, so it's a very adventurous… we did a kickoff party there, and…01:50:10.000 --> 01:50:11.000Jonathan Schaefer: I mean, there's…01:50:11.000 --> 01:50:13.000Jonathan Schaefer: Eight Olympians.01:50:13.000 --> 01:50:18.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, at the kickoff party that live in and around that town.01:50:18.000 --> 01:50:19.000Stuart Winchester: Incredible.01:50:18.000 --> 01:50:31.000Jonathan Schaefer: And it attracts a really diverse set of outdoor adventurers, and it's a… it's a throwback community. And uh… I think as our guests start to discover it, you know, in the wintertime, I think a lot of people discovered it for KT.01:50:31.000 --> 01:50:33.000Jonathan Schaefer: Which we're also doing a lot of work.01:50:33.000 --> 01:50:40.000Jonathan Schaefer: With to integrate with Kingdom trails, and we're the largest single owner of Kingdom trails, and so it's.01:50:40.000 --> 01:50:44.000Jonathan Schaefer: you know, people start to feel that energy. And.01:50:44.000 --> 01:50:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: Again, we're here to work it and to build it and, you know, do our best to caretake it.01:50:50.000 --> 01:51:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it looks far north, John, but it's right off I-91, and I agree, there's some of the best glades in New England. Let's talk quickly about Berkshire East, where you've teased an expansion for several years, I believe, right over in this area.01:51:02.000 --> 01:51:05.000Jonathan Schaefer: We're going on a decade, I think.01:51:04.000 --> 01:51:09.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Is it right over here? Am I pointing to the right place? Farlookers right on the trail map?01:51:05.000 --> 01:51:06.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:51:09.000 --> 01:51:13.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um, it goes from the wind turbine.01:51:12.000 --> 01:51:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:51:14.000 --> 01:51:17.000Jonathan Schaefer: Where the thunder writing is, somewhere right in there.01:51:14.000 --> 01:51:15.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:51:16.000 --> 01:51:18.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Yeah.01:51:17.000 --> 01:51:26.000Jonathan Schaefer: in between Mohawk and Thunder down over towards those fields at the lower left. I would say it's not well represented on on this map. But.01:51:25.000 --> 01:51:32.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so there's more terrain. Is it basically in here, or is it over on this side?01:51:30.000 --> 01:51:35.000Jonathan Schaefer: It's thunder is sort of like the off ramp for it. So it's the return.01:51:34.000 --> 01:51:38.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, so you would go into Thunder off the back of the mountain?01:51:37.000 --> 01:51:42.000Jonathan Schaefer: You would go off of… you see where Rogers World is? The lift would go through Rogers World.01:51:39.000 --> 01:51:41.000Stuart Winchester: Here.01:51:41.000 --> 01:51:42.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:51:42.000 --> 01:51:43.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um…01:51:44.000 --> 01:51:49.000Jonathan Schaefer: Through to the wind turbine, and there'd be 3 or 4 trails back there, and…01:51:46.000 --> 01:51:47.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:51:49.000 --> 01:51:52.000Jonathan Schaefer: It hasn't quite launched yet.01:51:49.000 --> 01:51:51.000Stuart Winchester: Thank you.01:51:52.000 --> 01:52:04.000Jonathan Schaefer: But again, you know, it's easy to cut this stuff, it's easy to build it, it's harder to actually operate it and take care of it, so we keep optimizing our resort, you know, and the snowmaking there, and then…01:52:04.000 --> 01:52:08.000Jonathan Schaefer: Hopefully, we'll get to a point here where that's doable again. So.01:52:08.000 --> 01:52:23.000Stuart Winchester: And you took out a triple chair that was based this summer right here. That was a used lift from Ski Rio New Mexico. I think the plan was to put it over here. I don't know, it looks like you could probably serve it with the existing lifts, but any thoughts on lifts or not as part of the expansion?01:52:13.000 --> 01:52:14.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:52:24.000 --> 01:52:26.000Jonathan Schaefer: It would require a lift, yeah.01:52:25.000 --> 01:52:27.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Okay.01:52:26.000 --> 01:52:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: So.01:52:27.000 --> 01:52:45.000Stuart Winchester: But not… it doesn't sound like, uh, like you can put a timeline on it, and last time you were on, you also talked about a potential expansion at Catamount. Again, I'm looking at the trail map. Uh, if you look at the far right side of the trail map, I believe that's where the potential expansion was. Any thoughts on… on that, or are you pretty happy with Catamount as it is?01:52:31.000 --> 01:52:32.000Jonathan Schaefer: No.01:52:45.000 --> 01:52:47.000Jonathan Schaefer: We are, uh…01:52:48.000 --> 01:53:03.000Jonathan Schaefer: I would say that we're never complacent, right? So the idea of happy is very temporal and focused on what's going on. I think at all these mountains, we're focused on snowmaking. Folks will see some snowmaking upgrades at all the resorts.01:52:54.000 --> 01:52:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:53:03.000 --> 01:53:06.000Jonathan Schaefer: So in terms of lift layouts, you know it's.01:53:06.000 --> 01:53:15.000Jonathan Schaefer: Those are private landowners that you happen to point out up there, so they may or may not be the right, you know, people to point your mouse at.01:53:10.000 --> 01:53:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:53:14.000 --> 01:53:15.000Stuart Winchester: Right.01:53:15.000 --> 01:53:24.000Jonathan Schaefer: it's all on the table, right? And it's just a matter. Now my job is to really, you know, look at four resorts and what their needs are.01:53:16.000 --> 01:53:18.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:53:23.000 --> 01:53:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:53:24.000 --> 01:53:27.000Jonathan Schaefer: and advance the ones that make the most sense.01:53:27.000 --> 01:53:39.000Jonathan Schaefer: from resort to resort to resort, and categorize those. And a lot of what we've been doing this year, I mean, this conversation has been very appropriately anchored in, um, sort of asset upgrades.01:53:40.000 --> 01:53:45.000Jonathan Schaefer: But I'm trying to build an organization that can really thoughtfully run this.01:53:45.000 --> 01:53:50.000Jonathan Schaefer: these resorts and do a good job with it and build the right team.01:53:50.000 --> 01:53:57.000Jonathan Schaefer: And so a lot of the governance and organizational work that we've done this year will really help support those.01:53:57.000 --> 01:54:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: going forward into future years. So.01:53:58.000 --> 01:54:16.000Stuart Winchester: So talk a little about that. Actually leave us with that today, John, because I just find the Schaefer family story so compelling. You know, Roy drove his station wagon out from Michigan full of kids and just, you know, bought this junky mountain and fixed it up, you know, just out there buying scrap from all over the country.01:54:09.000 --> 01:54:10.000Jonathan Schaefer: Okay.01:54:16.000 --> 01:54:23.000Stuart Winchester: And, uh, then handed it off to you and your brother, who modernized it. And, and you've, you've built, uh…01:54:23.000 --> 01:54:30.000Stuart Winchester: you know, you've built now this four-mountain portfolio, so a couple elements to that is, number one, if I have this right.01:54:30.000 --> 01:54:43.000Stuart Winchester: you actually sold Catamount Berkshires to Bearden, so you're no longer the owner, you're an employee, probably for the first time, really, in your life, you know, and not part of a… necessarily a family-owned thing.01:54:38.000 --> 01:54:39.000Jonathan Schaefer: Mm-hmm.01:54:41.000 --> 01:54:44.000Jonathan Schaefer: Outside is an ice cream.01:54:43.000 --> 01:54:47.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so what's that transition been like, I guess?01:54:47.000 --> 01:54:56.000Stuart Winchester: emotionally, and how do you handle that professionally? Like, going from, you know, your dad out there with a hammer, you know.01:54:56.000 --> 01:55:05.000Stuart Winchester: nailing up some snow gun to, uh, I know that's not how you put up a snow gun, but, um, but to, you know, running a professional organization that oversees four mountains in three states.01:54:59.000 --> 01:55:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: Yep.01:55:06.000 --> 01:55:26.000Jonathan Schaefer: Evolve or die, right? So I couldn't be more fired up about it. There's Ken Graham and I had the opportunity to build five years of trust. We worked on Burke for four or five years. And that could be, you know, five calls a week or one call every five months. You know, it's hard to say, but we really stuck it out together.01:55:07.000 --> 01:55:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:55:14.000 --> 01:55:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:55:22.000 --> 01:55:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:55:26.000 --> 01:55:43.000Jonathan Schaefer: and had a good understanding of of who we were as people and as families. You know their their dad's a Michigan family, too. They are a Michigan family. The grandfather was a ecologist working for the University of Michigan. So it's a lot of shared family history here. Ski racing.01:55:40.000 --> 01:55:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:55:43.000 --> 01:55:58.000Jonathan Schaefer: And that's important when you do this stuff because these, you're in it for the long haul. You know, you jump into rapids with somebody and you want to know what they're about. And so we had that opportunity and it wasn't as spontaneous as it may have seen on the outside.01:55:58.000 --> 01:56:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:55:59.000 --> 01:56:00.000Jonathan Schaefer: So…01:56:00.000 --> 01:56:05.000Jonathan Schaefer: There's there's also pieces of the organization that I always wanted to bring.01:56:05.000 --> 01:56:11.000Jonathan Schaefer: You know, I wrote my Berkshire operator manual in 2015, and it was clunky, and…01:56:11.000 --> 01:56:12.000Jonathan Schaefer: Um…01:56:12.000 -->

Send us Fan MailTherese Leigh is a sports physiotherapist, clinic owner, mentor, and leader who has spent more than 20 years working in high-performance sport. Her career has taken her through multiple World Championships and Olympic Games, senior roles with national sport organizations, and the development of systems and protocols that continue to support athletes and practitioners today.In this episode, Therese shares the path that took her from an early love of skiing and a formative knee injury to physiotherapy school, international sport, and eventually entrepreneurship in Whistler. We explore the lessons she carried from the fine dining industry into clinical practice, the demands and sacrifices of elite sport, the burnout that can accompany a relentless work ethic, and the importance of learning to communicate, set boundaries, and stay connected to the people who matter most.Therese also describes how she is applying high-performance rehabilitation principles to Whistler's mountain professionals. For ski patrollers and others whose careers, sports and lifestyles depend upon their physical capacity, returning to basic function is not enough. They must be exceptionally fit, strong, and prepared for the unpredictable demands of mountain work. Through partnerships with CSI Whistler and other community stakeholders, Therese is helping build what she calls a podium-level approach to occupational rehabilitation.This is a thoughtful conversation about care, community, leadership, and legacy. Therese reflects on the mentors who shaped her, the importance of collaboration across professional disciplines, the responsibility of developing the next generation of therapists, and her own evolving effort to balance ambition with relationships, presence, and a life outdoors. Her story is a powerful reminder that meaningful work is not only about what we accomplish, but also about the systems, communities, and people we strengthen along the way.If you liked this EP, please take the time to rate and comment, share with a friend, and connect with us on social channels IG @Kingopain, TW @BuiltbyScott, LI+FB Scott Livingston. You can find all things LYM at www.LYMLab.com, download your free Life Lab Starter Kit today and get busy living https://lymlab.com/free-lym-lab-starter/Please take the time to visit and connect with our sponsors, they are an essential part of our success:www.ReconditioningHQ.comwww.FreePainGuide.com 

Unknown Broadcast brings six old-time radio thrillers from fogbound streets to haunted seas. A war veteran helps a stranger home and becomes entangled in murder; treasure hunters encounter the captain of a sunken galleon. Hear In the Fog (CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Two If by Sea (Escape), The Man in the Fog (Suspense), Seascape (The Whistler), The Murder Ship (Inner Sanctum), and The Sea Phantom (Dark Fantasy). More than three hours of vintage radio suspense mix murder mysteries, espionage, and ghostly encounters. Who can you trust when you can't see what's ahead?Bonus episodes & support: https://weeklyspooky.com/joinMore scary stories: https://weeklyspooky.com/Story submissions: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

Originally broadcast Tuesday, September 20, 2022Hour 1 - Counterspy starring Don Maclaughlin and Mandel Kramer, originally broadcast September 20, 1949, 77 years ago,  The Case of the Postal Pirates. A parcel post theft ring.  A little black box catches a revolver in mid-air. A one-fingered typist punctuates sentences with bullets.Hour 2 - The Whistler, originally broadcast September 20, 1942, 84 years ago,  Fog. A young fisherman with a brief spell of amnesia has killed an enemy, but remembers nothing about it.  Also, Claudia, originally broadcast September 20, 1948, 78 years ago, An Autumn Evening at Home. Hour 3 - Gunsmoke starring William Conrad, originally broadcast September 20, 1954, 72 years ago,The FU.   It appears that Al Clovis has shot Onie Becker in the back, killing him. Clovis leads Marshal Dillon and Chester out of town so the bank can be robbed.  Also Part 4 of a 5-part Yours Truly Johnny Dollar story, The Imperfect Alibi Matter, originally broadcast September 20, 1956, 70 years ago.   Up pops an eyewitness and drives the final nail into the wrong coffin! 

Relic Radio Thrillers features The Whistler this week. We'll hear his story from August 27, 1945, titled, I'll Trade You Murder. Listen to more from The Whistler https://traffic.libsyn.com/forcedn/e55e1c7a-e213-4a20-8701-21862bdf1f8a/Thriller963.mp3 Download Thriller963 | Subscribe | Spotify | Support Relic Radio Thrillers

I share what I learned from being around a two-time MVP and why the real edge is living in your own internal world. I also break down my Everesting 29029 climb in Whistler and the mindset that carried me through the messy middle when my body tried to quit. • spotting the difference in elite habits through a 5 a.m. workout • humility and presence as signals of true confidence • building a mental man cave or mental she shed • main character energy as a daily choice not a slogan • trusting yourself instead of copying someone else's template • Everesting 29029 planning, pacing, and why fueling matters • the dinner gamble, bonking hard, and getting off the mountain safely • making decisions before pain shows up so you don't negotiate later • consistency and “consistent daily actions” as the real separator • crawling seasons and sprinting seasons that both move you forward • resilience as knowing when to push and when to rest • the emotional breakthrough that turns suffering into pride • greatness as simplicity repeated one step at a time So get yourself in a DG Mindset Academy. We're starting here September 21st. I'm telling you, it will change your life.If you're ready to stop consuming information and start creating real transformation, the DG Mindset Academy is where the work happens. Learn how your mind, subconscious patterns, nervous system, and identity shape your reality so you can heal, grow, and perform at your highest level. Join a community of people committed to becoming who they were truly meant to be.Find out more here

I'm Chris Hall, this is the Downtime Podcast, and you're tuned into your Whistler pre-race show with Chris Kilmurray. Don’t forget, if you enjoy these shows and want to support us in making them until the end of the season, we’d really appreciate your support. This series is fully independent, we don't have brand backing. Putting it together means paying Chris, Neko and Olly for their time, and getting to races where possible to bring you the best coverage we can. It's a big commitment, and it only works because of you. Last season, a few hundred of you stepped up and made it happen and we've stoked that more of you have been helping out this season too. It’s not too late to get involved and to say thank you, we’ve got race jerseys from Tahnée Seagrave, Danny Hart, Andy Kolb, Anna Newkirk, Gracey Hemstreet and Martin Maes to give away to lucky Patreon supporters very soon. So if you're into World Cup downhill and want the best insight going, head to patreon.com/downtimepodcast and support from as little as £3 a month. It genuinely makes a difference. The final races of the 2026 season are here and for the first time, World Cup racing heads to Whistler. Join me and Chris Kilmurray as we dig into the challenges of this unique 1199 track, what it really means for World Cup mountain bike racing to be taking place in Whistler, the championship battles to watch and much more. So sit back, hit play and listen to this Whistler pre-race show with Chris Kilmurray. Podcast Stuff Patreon I would love it if you were able to support the podcast via a regular Patreon donation. Donations start from as little as £3 per month. That's less than £1 per episode and less than the price of a take away coffee. Every little counts and these donations will really help me keep the podcast going and hopefully take it to the next level. To help out, head here. Merch If you want to support the podcast and represent, then my webstore is the place to head. All products are 100% organic, shipped without plastics, and made with a supply chain that's using renewable energy. We now also have local manufacture for most products in the US as well as the UK. So check it out now over at downtimepodcast.com/shop. Newsletter If you want a bit more Downtime in your life, then you can join my newsletter where I'll provide you with a bit of behind the scenes info on the podcast, interesting bits and pieces from around the mountain bike world, some mini-reviews of products that I've been using and like, partner offers and more. You can do that over at downtimepodcast.com/newsletter. Follow Us Give us a follow on Instagram @downtimepodcast or Facebook @downtimepodcast to keep up to date and chat in the comments. For everything video, including riding videos, bike checks and more, subscribe over at youtube.com/downtimemountainbikepodcast. Are you enjoying the podcast? If so, then don't forget to follow it. Episodes will get delivered to your device as soon as it's available and it's totally free. You'll find all the links you need at downtimepodcast.com/follow. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google and most of the podcast apps out there. Our back catalogue of amazing episodes is available at downtimepodcast.com/episodes Photo – Clint Trahan / Crankworx

Few contemporary novelists have captured the complexities of family, friendship, and the ties that bind as beautifully as Ann Patchett. Over the past three decades, she has become one of America's most celebrated writers, earning the PEN/Faulkner Award. Patchett also owns Parnassus Books in Nashville. In this episode, Past RI President Stephanie Urchick explains Patchett's connections to Rotary before Scott Simon sits down with the author to discuss her new novel, Whistler.

This week on From the Front Porch, it's an episode of Off the Shelf with Annie & Ashley! Annie is joined by friend, cousin, and former colleague, Ashley Sherlock, to chat about what they're reading – but also what they're watching, listening to, and buying. To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 599) or download and shop on The Bookshelf's official app: Annie reading:  ● Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson ​(October 6th, 2026) ● American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams  ● See You Next Tuesday by Kate Staymon-London    Ashley reading:  ● The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson  ● Whistler by Ann Patchett  ● The Land and Its People by David Sedaris  ● Don't Trust Fish by Neil Snapson    Annie watching:  ● Sterling Point  ● Not Suitable for Work  ● Ted Lasso  ● One Night Only  ● The Devil Wears Prada 2    Ashley watching:  ● Voicemails for Isabelle    Annie listening to:  ● The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian ● Gracie Abrams  ● Olivia Rodrigo  ● Noah Kahan    Ashley listening to:  ● This Music May Contain Hope by Raye ● Monthly playlists  ● Feel Good Piano    Annie buying:  ● Football decor    Ashley buying:  ● Writech pens  ● Stickers  ● Lunch at The Lost Kitchen    From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf's daily happenings on Instagram and Facebook, and all the books from today's episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.  A full transcript of today's episode can be found here. Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.  This week, Annie is listening to The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. Ashley is reading Persuasion by Jane Austen. If you liked what you heard in today's episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. We're so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week. Our Executive Producers are...Beth, Cammy Tidwell, Jammie Treadwell, Joseph Shorter IV, Kimberly, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Stephanie Dean, Gene Queens and Wendi Jenkins.

This week, John Tefteller and radio historian Dr. Joe Webb are wrapping up our epic, 10-week saga into the  The Whistler radio series, landing with one of the very last episodes from 1955. The story follows a husband who believes he has found the perfect way to hide his infidelity, by turning to murder. But as listeners of The Whistler knew, carefully planned crimes never unfolded the way they should, and secrets always had a way of catching up with those who tried to bury them. It's a tried-and-true formula that listeners came to expect from the series, and we get them all here. John and Joe discuss how Armed Forces Radio Service recordings and home recordings helped save broadcasts that networks once considered disposable. There is a show notes website! Dr. Joe has created a site dedicated to this series! https://sites.google.com/view/whistlershownotes/home  Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discussions, and the latest podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/881779245938297 Our theme music is "Why Am I So Romantic?" from Animal Crackers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KHJKAKS/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_MK8MVCY4DVBAM8ZK39WD

In 2017, a mountain biking crash on Moab's Porcupine Rim left Skye Chaney with a spinal cord injury, seven broken ribs, and a fractured sternum. In this episode, Skye takes us from that first ride back on an adaptive mountain bike to the gravel roads of Central Oregon and beyond, tracing a path that's carried him through Whistler, Arizona, Jackson Hole, Whitefish, and his home trails in Bend. We talk about what it actually takes to dial in an adaptive setup for gravel-specific riding, how he made the jump from mountain biking to gravel, and the moment — mid-mechanical, mid-storm, or mid-nowhere — when a ride goes sideways and you have to problem-solve your way home.Skye is candid about cycling being a different way into the same things every rider chases — freedom, challenge, speed, dirt, grit, and a good day outside. For anyone standing at the edge of gravel riding, wondering if it's for them, Skye has a straightforward answer: just try. We close out talking about what's next on his list — new routes, new events, and the trails still calling his name.-------------------------------------------------This podcast is produced by Dirty Freehub, a nonprofit organization that publishes hand-curated (and great!) gravel cycling Ride Guides. Our mission is to connect gravel cyclists to where they ride through stories about culture, history, people, places, and lands with the hope that they will become involved as advocates, volunteers, or donors with organizations that protect and preserve recreation spaces.Our Podcast Channel  / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Connection ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our Ride Guides / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dirty Freehub⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our Ask / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠

A young engineer brings his pregnant wife home to the Philippine mountains, where his grandmother insists the only thing that will quiet his beheaded grandfather's ghost is the head of his wife's grandfather.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Head Hunters” (September 27, 1978) ***WD00:45:52.459 = The Saint, “Unhappy Homicide” (November 06, 1949) ***WD01:09:54.844 = Theater 1030, “Trespassers Will Be Experimented Upon” (1968-1971) ***WD01:38:42.359 = 2000 Plus, “Flying Saucers” (August 23, 1950) ***WD02:07:49.317 = The Unexpected, “Solid Citizen” (1947-1948)02:23:16.951 = Unsolved Mysteries, “Lizzie Borden Case” (1936) ***WD02:37:06.346 = Dark Venture, “The Man In 206” (December 02, 1946) ***WD03:06:26.739 = The Weird Circle, “Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym” (1943) ***WD03:34:00.029 = The Whistler, “Escape to Danger” (May 28, 1945)04:04:39.189 = Strange Wills, “Autograph Girl” (October 19, 1946)04:35:23.151 = Witch's Tale, “Mannequin” (September 11, 1933) ***WD05:00:00.000 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0775

Sarah and Chrissie (@ChrissieWhitley) dig into their very different relationships with big books, from what counts as "big" and knowing when the moment is right to what makes a long book worth the extra pages. They also share some of their favorite big books — and a few they wish had been shorter. This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!). CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog. Highlights Where Sarah and Chrissie each draw the line between a regular book and a big book. Is a 700-page book intimidating … or an invitation to settle in? When, and why, are they most likely to pick up a long book? Does format or genre change how big a book feels? What makes a book actually deserve its high page count? Some of their favorite big books … and a few they really wish had been shorter. Some Favorite BIG Books Chrissie 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (2017) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [30:38]  The Princes of Ireland (The Dublin Saga, 1) by Edward Rutherfurd (2004) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [33:36] Fox by Joyce Carol Oates (2025) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [35:54] Red Comet by Heather Clark (2020) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [39:10] Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [42:45] The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers (2021) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [44:30]  Sarah 11/22/63 by Stephen King (2011) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [32:31]  I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb (1998) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [34:32] A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (1989) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [37:23] The World According to Garp by John Irving (1978) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [37:25] Natchez Burning (Penn Cage, 4; Natchez Burning, 1) by Greg Iles (2014) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [41:19]  Wanderers (Wanderers, 1) by Chuck Wendig (2019) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [43:40] Other Books Mentioned War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869) [30:06] The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1846) [30:07]   The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne (2017) [31:43]  Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd (1987) [33:49] London by Edward Rutherfurd (1998) [33:53]   The Rebels of Ireland (The Dublin Saga, 2) by Edward Rutherfurd (2006) [34:19]  Whistler by Ann Patchett (2026) [38:04]  Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (2011) [40:23] Some BIG Books That Felt Too Long Chrissie Ordinary Monsters (The Talents, 1) by J. M. Miro (2022) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [48:39] Wellness by Nathan Hill (2023) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [51:24]  Sarah City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg (2015) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [45:39]  The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy (1986) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [49:51] Other Books Mentioned The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (1987) [46:06] The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg (2024) [48:05]  Books From the Opening Discussion The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (1989) [9:24] The Brightness by Chad Harbach (October 27, 2026) [11:47] I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb (1998) [14:07] Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, 1) by Sarah J. Maas (2012) [14:51]  Outlander (Outlander, 1) by Diana Gabaldon (1991) [19:05]  1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin (2025) [22:12] Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry (1974) [22:19] Generations by Jean M. Twenge, PhD (2023) [22:26]   Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (2026) [26:13]  The Elements by John Boyne (2025) [29:08]  A Court of Forgotten Memory (ACOTAR, 7) by Sarah J. Maas (January 12, 2027) [29:39]  Other Links The Gilmore Guide to Books | Catherine's Review of Ordinary Monsters

This week I sat down with Gloria Xiong, Assistant Professor of Government at Colby College, and Jessica Chen Weiss, the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, to discuss their new Foreign Affairs essay, "How China Found Its Most Potent Weapon: The Real History of Beijing's Rare Earth Dominance." The story everyone tells is one of foresight — a master plan hatched by Deng Xiaoping and now coming to fruition. Gloria and Jessica argue the reality was far messier: reform-era export mania, environmental catastrophe, defiant local governments, scarcity anxiety, and a lesson in chokepoint weaponization that Beijing learned from Washington. Getting the story wrong, they argue, feeds an action-reaction spiral that neither side started and neither fully controls — and with the Busan truce expiring in November, the stakes could hardly be higher.09:31 — "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths": what Deng Xiaoping actually said, and how a quote got recruited for a story he wasn't telling12:33 — Why the master plan narrative is so irresistible across the partisan spectrum in Washington15:40 — The cheap and dirty origins: reform-era export mania, thousands of small mines, and rare earths sold "at the price of cabbage and dirt"19:06 — The West as co-author of the chokepoint: offshoring the pollution, and the stockpile that was never built21:53 — Beijing's struggle to control its own industry: quotas, "crime rings," and the partially failed 2002 consolidation25:13 — September 2010: what really happened with the "embargo" against Japan, and why Beijing may have learned about it from Japanese customs28:47 — Fans and fire hoses: how bottom-up nationalism can commit Beijing to coercive postures it didn't choose32:13 — The debate inside China after 2010: protectionists versus Hong Feng's warning against using rare earths as "political chips"35:44 — The 2015 WTO ruling: China complied — was it a rule-taker, or did it simply lack the tools to do anything else?38:06 — Learning from Washington: Huawei, the Export Control Law, the China Rare Earth Group, and what distinguishes learning from planning40:24 — The 2022–2024 ledger: what's the evidence for an action-reaction spiral beyond the timeline?44:25 — April 2025: coercion or bureaucratic pileup? Thirty licensing officials and a 74% collapse in magnet exports47:46 — October 2025: the extraterritorial rule that mirrored the Foreign Direct Product Rule, and the Busan truce52:32 — The countdown to November: hawks in both capitals, "mutually assured disruption," and Xi's coming state visit55:29 — The limits of leverage on both sides: yttrium, Japan's diversification, and China's own resource insecurity58:32 — From crime rings to two national champions: has the Wild West been tamed, and are central-local relations "fractured"?01:02:21 — Prescriptions: positive reciprocity, licensing Chinese technology, and managing interdependence rather than escaping it01:05:51 — Everyone else: Myanmar, Congo, Australia, and how Beijing thinks about third countries that don't want to choosePaying It ForwardGloria name-checked Wendy Leutert of Indiana University, who works on the reform and global expansion of China's state-owned enterprises and, with Isaac Kardon, on Chinese investment in global ports; Ning Leng of Georgetown University, author of the award-winning Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party State in China; and Ketian Zhang, who has written extensively on Chinese coercion and maritime disputes.Jessica first acknowledged the scholars whose research the essay drew on but couldn't cite in Foreign Affairs: Cory Combs of Trivium China, Arthur Kroeber, Henry Farrell, Duleep Singh, and Julie Klinger. She also flagged Jack Zhang, who runs the Trade War Lab at the University of Kansas, and Kyle Jaros and Sara Newland, who are writing a book on subnational economic statecraft — work that has shaped her thinking on disaggregating what the United States wants, not just what China wants.RecommendationsGloria: Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer — a book she first read in a college writing seminar and returned to as she heads back into the classroom.Jessica: The Scientist and the Spy by Mara Hvistendahl, which she uses to close her SAIS seminar on Chinese foreign policy as a reminder about proportionality; and Ann Patchett's new novel Whistler.Kaiser: Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, the 1972 Pulitzer winner — a novel about mining camps in the American West and one of the most fully realized characters in American fiction.Also mentioned: Jessica's recent interview with Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on The Foreign Affairs Interview podcast, and her interview in The Monitor, the newsletter of the Carter Center's U.S.-China Perception Monitor.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Davi and Olly are back together to discuss the serious issues at S4P Bike Park, whether Red Bull Cerro Abajo could take mountain biking mega mainstream and their upcoming trip to Whistler for the UCI Downhill World Cup. In this episode Olly explains what has been happening at S4P Bike Park, and why after years of personally investing time and money into the trails the is under serious threat of closure due to anti social behaviour. The lads also talk Red Bull Stuttgart Cerro Abajo. Olly shares what it took to build the urban downhill course, what it felt like to see the streets packed with spectators and why urban downhill could become mountain biking's answer to Supercross. There's also a full preview of the upcoming Whistler trip, including Davi taking the cheapest Marin Alpine Trail to the world's most famous bike park, Olly travelling with an e-bike, the return of World Cup downhill to Whistler and the content they hope to create while they're there. Let us know what you want to see from Whistler and nominate someone from your local riding community who deserves to be recognised as a TRC Igloo Trail Boss below! Get early access & ad-free episodes → https://www.patreon.com/theridecompanion This episodes sponsors:- SKS Germany → Learn more about SKS products and the new shock pump at https://www.sks-germany.com/en/  - Get 15% off Invisiframe kits, decals & more with code REFRESHANDRIDE: https://www.invisiframe.co.uk - WORX → 15% off with code THERIDECOMPANION at https://uk.worx.com/aff/theridecompanion/ You can also support our long term partners: Marin Bikes → marinbikes.com/gb Focus Bikes → focus-bikes.com SRAM: sram.com/en/sram adidas FiveTen: adidas.co.uk/five_ten invisiFrame: 15% off with code REFRESHANDRIDE at invisiframe.co.uk Manta Sleep → 10% off with code theridecompanion tinyurl.com/theridecompanion HUEL → 15% off with code RIDE: huel.com/ Mudhugger → Get 10% off with code ridecompanion10 at themudhugger.co.uk Compex → 20% off with code THERIDECOMPANION: compex.com/uk/ Igloo → igloocoolers.com/ Kecks → https://kecks.co.uk use code THERIDECOMPANION for 10% off Feedback Sports: feedbacksports.com WORX → 15% off with code THERIDECOMPANION at https://uk.worx.com/aff/theridecompanion/ HKT Products → 10% off with code PODCAST at hktproducts.co.uk Follow The Ride Companion Instagram @theridecompanion YouTube @TheRideCompanion Olly Wilkins Instagram @odub_23 YouTube @owilkins23 YouTube clips and BTS channel @moreridecompanion Get official Ride Companion merch, find old episodes and more theridecompanion.co.uk

Choice Classic Radio presents The Whistler, featuring today's episode titled “Fatal Error.” Please consider supporting our show by becoming a patron at http://choiceclassicradio.com We hope you enjoy the show!

After losing her best friend, Ann Patchett poured all that love into her new novel, Whistler. Bringing platonic love to the fore, alongside the unearthing of the past and a reckoning with our own mortality; we sat down to speak with her about what it means to love and to lose, what she's learned as a bookseller about reading and why the most important thing for any writer is getting your posture right.

Missouri whistler blower comes forward HR 1 full 2428 Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:58:49 +0000 J6vsitJdrPg5L0DztiDR89AbyLcFe9Tt news MIDDAY with JAYME & WIER news Missouri whistler blower comes forward HR 1 From local news & politics, to what's trending, sports & personal stories...MIDDAY with JAYME & WIER will get you through the middle of your day! © 2025 Audacy, Inc. News https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=ht

Four thousand light-years from Earth, a survey ship deep inside the Crab Nebula picks up something on its locator that no human built, and within the hour both crews understand the same thing: whichever ship leaves first can be followed home, so neither one can be allowed to leave.A NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR: I've been on an old-time radio kick recently, listening to shows like “The Whistler”, “Dimension X”, and “Strange Tales”. One of my favorite shows is called “X-Minus One”.  It was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series that was broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC radio. At the end of each episode they tell you where the stories they used came from before they adapted them for radio – and one of those sources was the publication “Astounding Science Fiction Magazine”. I jumped online to see if there were old copies I could look at, and I found a book – an anthology of many of the stories from that magazine. The book was published in 1954. The story was entitled “First Contact”, written by Murray Leinster in 1945. The story is credited as one of the first instances of a universal translator in science fiction. So influential is the story that it won a retro Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1996.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-firstcontactSOURCES and RESOURCES: “First Contact” by Murray Leister from “Astounding S-F Anthology”: https://amzn.to/3zhbBWiWeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 13, 2026LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

Unknown Broadcast collects six old-time radio mysteries spanning political intrigue, wartime danger, and deadly relationships. Machiavelli steers a young man toward a false confession; a Korean War mission sends minesweepers into peril. Hear Down the Garden Path (CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Wild Oranges (Escape), Needle in the Haystack (Suspense), Harvest of Death (The Whistler), The Ghost in the Garden (Inner Sanctum), and Cornelia (Quiet Please). More than three hours of classic radio suspense move from a threatened coastal household to a marriage poisoned by hatred.Bonus episodes & support: https://weeklyspooky.com/joinMore scary stories: https://weeklyspooky.com/Story submissions: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast supports bears, quadrangles, and liberal interpretations of The Iliad. Sign up for the free or paid newsletter to get updates on none of these things. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I will still write newsletters too. 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 Monday, Sept. 14.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 September 10th, 2026, and we have some big, big news in Ski World today.00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: So one of the things that I focused on since launching the storm in 2019 is the rapid.00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:30.000Stuart Winchester: Exponential growth in US based multi mountain ski passes and one of the biggest icon pass today released five new partners for the 2026 to 27 season. So I'm gonna break those down for you.00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:46.000Stuart Winchester: I am going to talk a little bit more about IndyPass and some of their partner shuffles. Then we are going to be joined by IndyPass owner, Eric Mogenson, who will give us a breakdown on all things happening with Indy, Black Mountain, and Entebeni Systems.00:06:46.000 --> 00:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: reader reaction, but I want to jump right into Icon Pass. Icon hits us today with, as I said, 5 new ski areas, 3 are full partners, and those… which means 7 days on the Icon Pass.00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:06.000Stuart Winchester: 5 days on the Icon Base Pass. All 3 are in Asia.00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:13.000Stuart Winchester: The first is Matarau, Japan. That will be ICON's 10th ski resort in Japan.00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:28.000Stuart Winchester: And then, Icon, last year, was the first U.S.-based pass to add a ski area in China, and Icon adds two more today, though they're nowhere near the ski area that it added last year. They are sort of close.00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:47.000Stuart Winchester: to each other. So, we're gonna break those down first, and then ICON added two mountains to its two-day tier, uh, which it calls Bonus Mountains, which ICON insists are not ICON Pass members, uh, but I insist they are, because you can access them with your ICON Pass. Therefore, they are on.00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: the Icon Pass, no matter what Altera tells us. So, let's start with Montreal, Japan, and if you're on…00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.000Stuart Winchester: The…00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: If you're on the video, I'm going to share my screen here because we're going to do a little visual helping.00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.000Stuart Winchester: All right, so let's take this away. All right, so the first one I want to break down.00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.000Stuart Winchester: is…00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:26.000Stuart Winchester: Madarao, Japan, and I've actually written about this ski area before, because they were an IndiePass member, and this is the article that I wrote back in 2023, when Madarao joined IndiePass, and Indie's been a big leader in.00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Bye.00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:40.000Stuart Winchester: building out a network in Japan. So, the ski resorts in Japan are interesting. I've not skied there, but I've been there in the summer and ridden the lifts around.00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: And the skiing is very much like a mix of…00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:58.000Stuart Winchester: The Cottonwoods and New England. And what I mean by that is, if you're looking at the screen here, you can see the stats on Mattarau. 512 inches of average annual snowfall.00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:12.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but not a lot of vert, 1,444 feet, and as you can see from the trail map, if you're looking here, it's not a big trail footprint. So, what I mean when I say Cottonwoods is the snowfall, and when I say…00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:29.000Stuart Winchester: New England, I mean the size. They tend to be not huge vert, sort of compact. If they do have a lot of vert, like the Jacuba Valley ski resorts that are on Vail, they tend to go, uh, kind of straight up and be side by side. You don't have a lot of the mega resorts as you would have.00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:40.000Stuart Winchester: in North America, or especially in Europe. So, it's good that the passes are all building density in Japan, because the ski areas are not…00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: This is not a place that you would go to necessarily.00:09:43.000 --> 00:10:02.000Stuart Winchester: like Vail Mountain and spend a week, or like Whistler. Another thing I want to note about Japan, you can see here that Matarau has some glade zones marked. In a lot of cases, skiing off-piste or in the trees, even though that's what Japan is known for, in a lot of cases, my understanding is that that's pretty heavily policed and forbidden.00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:17.000Stuart Winchester: So you really have to research your ski areas before you go over to figure out which ones will actually allow you to go off-piste, which is what most of us want to do, right? If we're coming from North America, we're going there for the big powder. Japan is a little more of an on-piste tradition.00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:21.000Stuart Winchester: a little bit more like Europe. So, I…00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:33.000Stuart Winchester: there's… to underscore the scope of what we have now available to us in Japan as U.S.-based pass holders. So, with the addition of Madarao today.00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:49.000Stuart Winchester: Now, 53 ski areas in Japan have joined the Epic, Icon, Indy, or Mountain Collective Passes. And I actually, I want to show you something I have that's really cool. So, I have this gigantic chart, and it's kind of…00:10:49.000 --> 00:11:04.000Stuart Winchester: it's kind of hard to navigate, but I'm slowly making it a little bit better. And so this is a chart that's variously called a bunch of different things. Right now, I'm calling it the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sometimes it's been the Passmaster.00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:17.000Stuart Winchester: 5,000. And I just kind of change the name whenever I want, but the link is always the same. And what I've… it's a really slow Google Sheet, and I definitely need a better platform, but if you go, there's all these tabs.00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: Down at the bottom, and again, this is where it's nice to have the video, so you can see what I'm showing you here. So I have all these tabs. One of the tabs is all MegaPass ski areas. So I have this divided up, and these are just little tables that pivot off the main table, so all the stats are up to date.00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.000Stuart Winchester: So first, I have this…00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:42.000Stuart Winchester: chart here with all ski areas that are on any U.S.-based pass, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second.00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: Then I have…00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:59.000Stuart Winchester: all U.S. ski areas, then I have New England, I have Japan, so let's pause on Japan for a moment. 53 ski areas, 11 Epic, 10 Icon, 32 Indy, 1 Mountain Collective. You can see all the stats down here. Again, not big.00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:16.000Stuart Winchester: skiable acre footprints, and really, Japan measures things differently than North America. They tend to measure snowpack rather than inches of snowfall. I did find a good average annual snowfall chart on Powderhounds, which is a great site that I'll talk more about.00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:25.000Stuart Winchester: for international research of ski areas. But if you see these acreage totals, you know, there's really nothing much.00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:35.000Stuart Winchester: Here's Niseko United, it's 2,100 acres, that's 5 ski resorts combined, right next to each other. Rasutsu is, uh, is 2,000, but most of these are under…00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:51.000Stuart Winchester: 500, so you really prepare yourself for that. It's one place, I think, Japan, where it would help to get a guide. Everything tends to be pretty cheap once you get on the ground. In Japan, the lift tickets are nothing, so having someone to show you around and show you where you can go under the ropes.00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:57.000Stuart Winchester: is a good idea. And, you know, I want to jump ahead to reader feedback for a moment. So I had…00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:14.000Stuart Winchester: this comment from Allison Wood. She said, I look forward to seeing your future efforts. I know there's enough in American skiing to discuss, but I'd be curious if you would further discuss European Alps destinations. It seems to be growing in popularity due to competitive pricing versus U.S.00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:28.000Stuart Winchester: Western resorts. A week at Big Sky appears to be the same price as a week in Switzerland for those in the Eastern USA. The answer is absolutely yes. I do want to cover the Alps and Japan and all of these international destinations more.00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:43.000Stuart Winchester: I don't have the personal on-the-ground knowledge base with those ski areas that I do with the U.S. ski areas, so I'm reaching out to my contacts in Europe, in Japan, who know these resorts intimately, and I'm gonna bring them on the show to try to help us make sense, because if you go back.00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:47.000Stuart Winchester: We go back to the Encyclopedia Britannica for a second.00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.000Stuart Winchester: You'll see that…00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.000Stuart Winchester: The, uh… if I can get to it…00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so Japan has 53 ski areas, Canada has another 55, and most of us can sort those out easily enough. The harder ones is Europe. I mean, Europe, there's 61 ski areas, and sometimes a ski area in Europe is, you know.00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:21.000Stuart Winchester: 10 ski areas that put together are as big as all the ski areas in Utah. So I really need some help to break those down. But that's the great thing about this new format is that it will allow me to bring in more voices more frequently since there's more frequent shows. All right.00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:38.000Stuart Winchester: Icon also today added two ski areas in China, and the best site to just get the basics of any ski area in the world is, I've found, skiresort.com. They have a profile of every ski area. They tend to keep it up to date. I don't know who runs the site.00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:54.000Stuart Winchester: I would like to connect with them at some point, but this is really my go-to for… so this is Betahu, I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong, one of the ski areas that ICON added in China, and they have all the basic information, the elevation, which is not high, it's all in meters, obviously, out of the U.S.00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:01.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, what I really like is the lift breakdown and the trail map. So, the… the thing about the ski areas in China.00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:07.000Stuart Winchester: is just like everything else in China, they're pretty much brand new. I read this really interesting.00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:13.000Stuart Winchester: quote in the New York Times several years ago, and the notion.00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:16.000Stuart Winchester: was basically China…00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:31.000Stuart Winchester: stayed pretty much in the 19th century for all of the 20th century, and then it got to the 21st century in about 10 years. So, you go there, there's high-speed rail, everything's new, there's new buildings. The ski resorts are new as well, and you can see this in their lift fleet. I mean, this…00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.000Stuart Winchester: You know, they have a…00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:49.000Stuart Winchester: six eight-person gondolas, one six-person gondola, two high-speed six-packs, three high-speed detached quads, no fixed grip lifts at all, and then you take a look at the trail map, and again, this is probably a little more like Japan, where these are.00:15:49.000 --> 00:16:03.000Stuart Winchester: a little bit smaller ski areas than what we're used to, uh, as far as the Mountain West. But, you know, it's all very well interconnected. I would expect a lot of on-piste skiing. You know, with a… with a immature ski culture, I wouldn't expect a lot of glade stuff.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:19.000Stuart Winchester: to be developed. Kind of talking on my rear end, to be honest, because I've not skied in China or even been to China, but these are my perceptions with the different ski cultures I know. I'll try to track down someone who knows better. Here's the other Icon Pass resort, Lake Songwa Resort, and I want to make…00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:30.000Stuart Winchester: that we kind of have an Aspen-Crested Butte situation going on here, so Sangua and, uh, this other one they added, uh…00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:49.000Stuart Winchester: Beidou, there, as you can see on this Google map, they're 24 miles apart in the mountains, but it looks like about a 4-hour drive, so there's not really a road through the city. It's the same kind of deal with Aspen and Crested Butte, where they're pretty close, but it's a long drive around. These are seasonal roads that Google doesn't know about, so it's about a 5-hour drive in the winter.00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.000Stuart Winchester: I believe. So…00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: We have these, and then, if you want to go to China to experience skiing, Icon gives you the means to do so. And then, Icon added…00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:16.000Stuart Winchester: to their 2-day tier, which again, they're saying is not IconPass. I want to talk about the 2-day tier a little bit in general. So, Icon started this 2-day tier.00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:23.000Stuart Winchester: last year, and I think what they were trying to do is mirror what Vail did.00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:37.000Stuart Winchester: with its feeder ski areas and all these little places that are bought all over the country, Mount Brighton in Michigan, and Afton Alps in Minnesota, and Wilmot in Wisconsin, and all the resorts around Cleveland.00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:49.000Stuart Winchester: and you know, Alpine Valley. And then there's the names escaping me. Boston Mills, Brandywine. I just skied there and did a write-up on it. So so yeah, they're.00:17:49.000 --> 00:18:04.000Stuart Winchester: Vail bought up all these ski areas. Well, Icon, instead of doing that and buying, has added two days only on the full Icon Pass, which is currently $1,449, uh, two days to 11 different ski areas around the country.00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:19.000Stuart Winchester: It's been growing that list. Silver Star was one last year, and it converted to full Icon, but right now, if you're on the screen share, you can see the 11 that are currently on the Icon Pass two-day roster. So we…00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:23.000Stuart Winchester: had today the additions of Cabarfay Peaks in Michigan.00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:37.000Stuart Winchester: In Wyoming, we had snowy range. So Caberfay Peaks is actually, it's an awesome ski area. It's one of my favorite ski areas. I grew up about an hour and 15 minutes from there.00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:40.000Stuart Winchester: And with Cabot Fay, it…00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:55.000Stuart Winchester: It's a really fun place. They're constantly building it up. And what the cabaret you see today is very different than the cabaret that existed a long time ago. It basically used to be a two mile sprawl of rope tows and starting in the 1980s.00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the families that owned it dug up from the bottom here.00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:07.000Stuart Winchester: and added to the top. So they went from a couple hundred vertical feet to 485 vertical feet, and it continued to…00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:18.000Stuart Winchester: expand, and they have another expansion in the works over here on Green Mountain. Should be coming 27-28, and I'm gonna have Tim and Pete Meyer from Calgary Fay Peaks on next week to talk about that a little more.00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:20.000Stuart Winchester: And then we have…00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:36.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's Snowy Range, Wyoming, and Snowy Range might seem like a little bit of a weird one, but Snowy Range is actually very logical. They've had a long-standing relationship that's in southern Wyoming. It's not, it's only a couple hours from Steamboat. They have a long-standing relationship with Steamboat.00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:51.000Stuart Winchester: to a snowy range season pass for 300 and some dollars this year. They changed that to half off in a 3 day icon session pass, which is good at Steamboat and several other mountains. And now, if you have a full icon, you would also get 2 more days at Steamboat.00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:54.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, or you would actually get 2 days at Snowy Range.00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:00.000Stuart Winchester: if you were, you know, wanted to escape the crowds at Steamboat one day. So, we are gonna…00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.000Stuart Winchester: Come back to…00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:16.000Stuart Winchester: IndyPass in a moment. Actually, I have one more IndyPass update, then I'm gonna go to Eric. So, Mission Ridge and Blacktail in Washington have left IndyPass.00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:19.000Stuart Winchester: Hold on, let me just…00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:25.000Stuart Winchester: So Eric, I'll be right there.00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.000Stuart Winchester: We'll get to Mission to Blacktail in a minute. I'm gonna bring Eric in.00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.000Stuart Winchester: And I'm going to stop my screen share.00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Eric?00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:43.000Erik Mogensen: What's up, man?00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:57.000Stuart Winchester: How you doing? Joining us now is the director of IndyPass, the founder of Entebeni Systems, and the operator of Black Mountain, New Hampshire. Eric Mogenson is a good friend of the storm, and he joins us now from where? Where are you, Eric?00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:05.000Erik Mogensen: I am, uh, calling in from Black Mountain, New Hampshire, our new home, and I'm up at the Alpine Cabin.00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:18.000Stuart Winchester: I want to start on the Alpine Cabin. Tell us what the Alpine Cabin was when you arrived at Black Mountain and what it has turned into from what it is and from a revenue standpoint.00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:07.000Erik Mogensen: Yep.00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:34.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, so, um, I spend the first 8 to 10 hours of my day working with our engineering and product teams, and most of it is in front of a computer or on the phone, but by 5 PM I try to be up here on the mountain every.00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:52.000Erik Mogensen: night. Like, doing trail work, on the excavator, snowmaking, lift work. But I keep a desk up here in the summer. Couldn't keep a desk here in the winter. Um, but I do keep a desk up here so that when I have an idea, or I want to come write something down, or I want to watch a YouTube video, or do something, this place is super productive for me.00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:11.000Erik Mogensen: It's like my peaceful, happy place in the summer. In the winter, there is nothing peaceful about this place. This, this place rages, uh, European style. So, when we took over Black Mountain, the Alpine cabin, the credit card receipts from the Alpine cabin the year before.00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:22.000Erik Mogensen: were $38,000, uh, for the season in sales. Um, and the year after, our first year that we took it over, it was over $300,000.00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:29.000Erik Mogensen: Um, and then our second year, it was over $600,000, and most of that comes down to champagne.00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:38.000Erik Mogensen: But don't look at champagne as something you drink. Champagne is something that you use to celebrate. And so I think.00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:50.000Erik Mogensen: The long-winded answer to your question is, is the Alpine cabin is truly a place to celebrate the sport and culture of skiing, and people are definitely holding on to that.00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:03.000Stuart Winchester: It's an amazing space, and if folks aren't familiar with Black Mountain, that's the main double chair to the summit right behind you, and it goes right over the alpine cabin. It's a party scene, and it's a lot of fun.00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:00.000Erik Mogensen: Oh, yeah.00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:20.000Stuart Winchester: Going from $38,000 to $600,000, 20X in revenue, I mean, Eric, that's the kind of revenue stream that could change the path of a lot of small ski areas. Is that replicable, do you think, at some of these smaller family-owned ski areas around the country that.00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:25.000Stuart Winchester: are really tied to old revenue models and just need a little spark.00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:32.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I don't know if you can scale the champagne necessarily, but you can definitely scale.00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:51.000Erik Mogensen: the focus on the culture of skiing. And I think that's really what the independents do so well, is that, you know, the wood fireplaces smell authentic, the people are very authentic, the ski trails are authentic, they're weird, they're quirky, the lifts are slow, right?00:23:51.000 --> 00:24:06.000Erik Mogensen: Those a lot of people look at those things. We've been programed as skiers to see those things as liabilities. They're actually our biggest assets. And so, yeah, the Alpine, you know, the Alpine cabin was a little 200 square foot patrol shack.00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.000Erik Mogensen: that sold some, you know, beer and hot dogs.00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:21.000Erik Mogensen: But we never looked at that as a liability. We never looked at that as, hey, we need to go build a 20,000 square foot mid-mountain lodge, take on a ton of debt.00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:32.000Erik Mogensen: Um, we really looked at it as an opportunity, and I think every single small ski area has that exact same opportunity to focus on the authenticity of the product that they deliver.00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:48.000Stuart Winchester: There's been a ripple effect, too. I mean, what can you tell us about skier visits before and after you purchased it? Because Black, for background, for people who are not familiar with Black, the reason you own Black is because they announced they were closing on Facebook. They said, we're done. The skier has been open since 1930, whatever.00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:57.000Stuart Winchester: said, we're done, this was 3 years ago, and you said, no. And you tried to find a buyer, looked for a year, uh, and decided to buy it yourself. So, so…00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:03.000Stuart Winchester: You took a dying skier, what did the skier visits revenue look like when you got it, and what do they look like today?00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:15.000Erik Mogensen: It was about $700,000, $750,000 in top line revenue when we bought the whole ski area. Yeah, including the $32,000 in hot dogs and beer at this cabin.00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.000Stuart Winchester: That's the whole ski area.00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:12.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:27.000Erik Mogensen: Um, so it was the entire ski area. I don't quite know what the skier visits were. Um, we know what the ticketed visits were, but I would guesstimate that the skier visits were somewhere between, you know, 10 and 15,000.00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:43.000Erik Mogensen: Um, in our second year, we took it to $2.5 million in top line revenue. Um, we've surpassed $5 million, uh, here in our 25th or 26th month. And skier visits, you know, all in, including employees and the whole thing, right about 55,000.00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:48.000Erik Mogensen: So it's been a big turnaround. It's been interesting, learned a lot.00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:50.000Erik Mogensen: And.00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:56.000Erik Mogensen: I think this is 100% doable by most of the smallest areas on the planet.00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000Erik Mogensen: You just have to realize that if you want a different and better result, you have to take different and better action.00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I mean, you proved me wrong, because I, you know…00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:16.000Stuart Winchester: I thought Black had maybe just had its time, because it's surrounded by two Vail Own Mountains and Cranmore, which is a high-speed lift. Sunday River is right down the road. Uh, you have intense competition from Epic.00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:26.000Stuart Winchester: and… and Black Mountain is not an especially snowy mountain, like, say, Smuggler's Notch, we'll talk about in a minute. I… I didn't know if… if it had enough aura.00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:38.000Stuart Winchester: But it seems like you've either tapped the aura or created it, and really turned it around, and really given me a lot of hope that a lot of the ski areas that we see around the country, that…00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:45.000Stuart Winchester: Seem to be up against this modernization curve, they can't quite get ahead, might be able to take other routes to get there.00:26:45.000 --> 00:27:00.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, and I think, too, Stu, it's worth noting, like, yeah, I'm proud of what we've done here, but there's a lot of really good operators out there that have done this, too. You know, having grown up in Buffalo, which I'll call, like, the Eastern Midwest of the Midwest.00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:10.000Erik Mogensen: Right? There's really well-managed ski areas that focus on the food and beverage, that focus on the authenticity, um, that drive a ton of other revenue.00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:23.000Erik Mogensen: Um, that are creative, uh, in that way, and I think we just have to be accepting of those things. We have to be accepting of them, we have to share what works, uh, share what doesn't work, and collaborate, um.00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:29.000Erik Mogensen: And and then we'll be fine. We'll be fine. These little skier is have a huge advantage.00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:39.000Erik Mogensen: in the fact that they are… they are run by authentic and passionate people. That… they… they are… they are run…00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:46.000Erik Mogensen: not as a profit center. Um, and yes, they need to be profitable to be sustainable and have reinvestment, right? But…00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:51.000Erik Mogensen: These little ski areas have such a remarkable advantage over some of the big areas.00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:57.000Erik Mogensen: and and how they're managed and what their direction looks like. We just have to take advantage of it and talk about it more.00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:06.000Stuart Winchester: this is just the beginning of the story, too. All right, let's switch over to Andy Pass, and, you know, my questions around Black, when you were initially taking it over, were…00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:24.000Stuart Winchester: how many retro ski areas does New England have room for in a market? Like, Mad River Glen has crafted its whole image around being this retro ski area. You know, they groom, they make snow up to 2,000 whatever feet, the single chair is a 1940 whatever, but they rebuilt it in 2007, so…00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.000Stuart Winchester: It is a well-maintained place.00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:42.000Stuart Winchester: as sort of like a museum. It's… it's… it's… the facade is old school, and it skis that way, but really, it's… it's been well tended to. Smuggler's Notch is another one of those that feels like 1960s, around 1960s haul lifts, including.00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:57.000Stuart Winchester: One of the longest in the country, the Madonna lift. Uh, and I saw black in that same mold and said, okay, how many of these do we have room for? But Smuggs is, at the end of the day, a awesome ski area, and you added it to IndyPass. I mean, how big of a victory is that for New England skiers?00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.000Stuart Winchester: to now have Smuggs, Jay, Waterville, all these ski areas on the one pass.00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:11.000Erik Mogensen: I mean, look, you've got… you've got Smogs, you've got Jay, you've got Bolton, you've got Cannon, you've got Waterville, um.00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:28.000Erik Mogensen: we've really leveled the playing field in the East, and it's exactly what we intend to do in other places of the country, and also around the world. Uh, and I think what we're proving here in New England, there's been a lot of focus with IndyPass in New England over the last two years, and a lot of that has to do.00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:44.000Erik Mogensen: With Black Mountain and our move and our things there. But what we're proving we can do here, we are going to replicate in other markets. There's no question in my mind. And I think what we're going to replicate is the fact that you don't have to be epic. You don't have to be iconic.00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:50.000Erik Mogensen: to be a really stable, well-earning business. You can be part of an independent group.00:29:50.000 --> 00:30:09.000Erik Mogensen: and still push and plow forward, and compete. So, you know, and I… look, I don't judge a ski area by its vertical. Don't judge a ski area by how many high-speed lifts it has. I think that's the mistake that we keep getting pulled into in skiing. And our… it's the mistake that we make as well as operators, and we…00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:16.000Erik Mogensen: we pass that mistake on to the consumers, right? Bigger is not better, it's just bigger.00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:33.000Erik Mogensen: Faster is not better. It's just faster, right? More lifts. Sure, that sounds great, but you have to pay for those lifts as well. And so that is going to there's that money doesn't just come from the sky that that money is going to be passed on to the consumer.00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:41.000Erik Mogensen: And the more and more we continue to do that, the more and more expensive and exclusive skiing's gonna become. So, again, I'll bring it back to…00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:51.000Erik Mogensen: One of the greatest advantages these places have are being small, are having slow lifts, are being independent, are being authentic. And that's exactly what Smugs is.00:30:51.000 --> 00:31:01.000Stuart Winchester: However, SMUGS also has 2,600 feet of vertical, 1,000 acres of skiing, and 322 inches of average snowfall. The numbers do help.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:08.000Erik Mogensen: They do, but I'll leave the numbers to your spreadsheets that I can barely understand at this point.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.000Stuart Winchester: The numbers do help, though, it's offline.00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:10.000Stuart Winchester: Well, that makes two of us and probably everyone else.00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:11.000Erik Mogensen: Those will speak for themselves.00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so having Jay and Smugs on there is an awesome combo. You know, I think that…00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:28.000Stuart Winchester: Indy and Doug before you, when Doug… I know Doug's still heavily involved, but the founder of the Indy Pass, Doug Fish. I think you have done a great job of building these little nodes of skiing.00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:44.000Stuart Winchester: around the country, and now around the world. So the… the donut hole has always kind of been Colorado, Utah, Tahoe, and that's because that's where Epic and Icon logically went. Those are the three biggest ski markets. But I want to talk a little bit first about the Midwest, where.00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:59.000Stuart Winchester: Indy built a really nice network, and you have a lot of ski areas in the Midwest. You have… 37. Uh, you've had some big departures this year. Lutzen, Granite Peak, and Snow River, run by Midwest Family Ski Resorts.00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:16.000Stuart Winchester: Went over to Icon, and Lutzen is, for the listeners, biggest ski area in Minnesota. It skis like a New England ski area. Granite Peak, you know, lots of high-speed lifts. Charles Skinner really turned that place from a dump into something nice. And the Snow River's on the come up. It's in a nice snow belt in Michigan.00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:19.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, you know, how much…00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:27.000Stuart Winchester: Did you see those as drivers of IndyPass sales in the Midwest? And how concerned, if at all, are you that they departed?00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:41.000Erik Mogensen: Well, look, let's… let's talk… I mean, the moose in the room here is that that… that loss sucks for us. Like, there's no way around it. Um, it… it… it's a bummer. It stings. Uh, I really like Charles Skinner. I really like Charlotte. I think they're both.00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:57.000Erik Mogensen: really great operators. They're very, very smart. They're very, very sharp. We had a we had a great call around when we kind of showed them what the revenue was in their last season, and we talked through it, and very, very amicable. I've always relied. Have some great, you know, dinner conversations with Charles.00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:12.000Erik Mogensen: And and I think they're great. They they have to make a move. They made a business decision to go to Icon and Icon makes that very, very, very attractive. You know whether or not that initial sales pitch.00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:29.000Erik Mogensen: translates into the long-term vision? I don't know. I firmly believe that, you know, Midwest skiers are some of the most authentic and purposeful, you know, skiers on the continent, and they'll figure it out. I think we have lots of options, there's no question.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:38.000Erik Mogensen: But none of them are going to be quite like those Midwest family resorts. And so we'll have to see what happens. It stings, but I don't.00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:42.000Erik Mogensen: What I've really learned about Indy is that.00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:47.000Erik Mogensen: Our our strength is in the diversity of of.00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:56.000Erik Mogensen: the resorts that we've put together. It's not on a… it's not on a single one resort, or a single resort operator. Um, so…00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:01.000Erik Mogensen: I hate losing resorts, but I'm never afraid to lose them and/or replace them if necessary.00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:12.000Stuart Winchester: So, when they go to ICON, there's a couple different tiers for ICON. So, Midwest family went to the traditional 7-5 tier of 7 on full ICON, 5 on ICON base. Today.00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:19.000Stuart Winchester: I kind of announced that Cabaret, a former IndyPass partner that actually just left Indy, was a founding member in 2019.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:32.000Stuart Winchester: left for Icon. That news just broke. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Buck Hill similarly left Indy for Icon today, a couple of years ago. Is that too new to process, or what are your thoughts on Cabra Fact?00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:48.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I think it's exactly the same where, you know, we, we, you know, Cabrifay is a great ski area. Um, we're sad to see them go. We, you know, look, they're independent for a reason. They get to make their choice. They've made their choice. They're going to go to Icon. The consumers can make their choice of where they go and where they want to.00:34:48.000 --> 00:35:05.000Erik Mogensen: they want to spend their time and money. You know, we're going to fight as hard as we can to drive as much value for the operators and the consumers as possible. I can tell you, we had some people that had left for that icon two day product that now want to come back because of the payout.00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:04.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:22.000Erik Mogensen: Or lack thereof. So, look, none of this is static. One thing I can absolutely guarantee everybody on the pass and everyone listening to this is, is this is going to happen every single year forever. You're going to have people come, you're going to have people go. And we're all going to think it's way more consequential.00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:33.000Erik Mogensen: than it actually is. The reality is, is that indie sales for the last 7 seasons continue to go like this, and we're directing more and more.00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:39.000Erik Mogensen: revenue, meaningful revenue to these independent resorts. And that's not going to stop.00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. The, uh… another place you have…00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.000Stuart Winchester: Good.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:55.000Stuart Winchester: cluster is the Pacific Northwest. Mission Ridge and Blacktail, which are jointly owned, recently announced that they left, and I reached out.00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:57.000Stuart Winchester: to…00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mission Ridge.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:06.000Stuart Winchester: COO and GM Matt Neubauer, and I just asked him, you know, what's going on, and this was his email, this is a quote.00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mission Ridge's agreement ran through the end of the 25-26 season, and we declined to seek a new one. Being independent means making the calls we think are right for the mountain long term.00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:32.000Stuart Winchester: So, that's basically echoing what you just said, the mountains will make the right decision. Uh, Blacktail's situation is different. This is a continuation of the email. Uh, they reached out to establish a new agreement before the old one ended and did not get engagement on it. Indy did reach out after passes, went back on sale September 1st, but by then, Blacktail had moved on.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:42.000Stuart Winchester: and was preparing for the season ahead. So that was the rationale that I have for Matt. He didn't want to talk about it further publicly, but that was his on-the-record statement.00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:59.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I, I, you know, look, Stu, I, I think as good as it is for your ratings, you know, I, we're not gonna hang out every, every scary as, you know, laundry and every single conversation. Um, I would disagree with how that was had. I think, I think one of the greatest things about India is we have.00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:09.000Erik Mogensen: 300-plus resorts around the world. One of the hard things about Indy is that we have 300-plus resorts around the world. It's a lot of contracts to manage, it's a lot of things.00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:07.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:19.000Erik Mogensen: I could, like, tell you from the ski area operating, um, perspective, like, I feel everything's nice and chill all summer, and we're doing really good, and then all of a sudden it's, you know.00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:35.000Erik Mogensen: September 1st, and it's like, wow, we got a lot to do in the next 60 days before we make snow. And I think every single ski area operator runs through that. Uh, and there's a lot going back. Stu, sometimes I have to go look at your spreadsheets to understand who's on the pass.00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:52.000Erik Mogensen: That's why we usually give everything to you ahead of time so that you can, like, count them up and do the math and do everything. So it's hard. But I would say, that team at Blacktail is world class. Jesse is and is incredible. We've I've always had a great relationship with Jesse.00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:08.000Erik Mogensen: We'd welcome them on the pass. I don't think that that's changed. And I think that Blacktail and Mission Ridge are two very different ski areas. And I'm really fascinated and hopeful that they figure out a way.00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.000Erik Mogensen: how to make the whole thing work between the two of them.00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you still have a really nice set of resorts out there with White Pass, and 49 Degrees North, and Mount Hood Meadows, and Bluewood, and Brundage, and Tamarack. And Tamarack's interesting, because so Tamarack, and I want to clarify this, I've actually gotten a lot of inquiries about this, people emailing me telling me my charts are wrong.00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, which… which happens, you know, they're… they're big and… and, uh, unwieldy, so I get things wrong, but that's… they're always a work in progress. But, uh, they're telling me Tamarack's not in the past because they joined Icon today, which… which obviously they did. Uh…00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.000Stuart Winchester: So what's going on with Tamarack? Are they on Indy?00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:59.000Erik Mogensen: Tamarack's on Indy, um, you know, we're excited about Tamarack, we've always been excited about Tamarack. Again, Scott, really great operator, um, super smart guy, great ownership group.00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:13.000Erik Mogensen: You know, I think we could probably comment on that a little bit further. But you know my job is not to speak for these resorts, Stu. My my job is to support them, and there's a difference between supporting them and speaking for them.00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:20.000Erik Mogensen: So, I'll always support them, and what Tamarack decides to do and where they decide to sit is good, but.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:23.000Erik Mogensen: I'm comfortable saying that Tamarack's on Indy.00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, in general, you know, when Buck Hill joined the Icon 2 Day last year, you said adios. I think that's what was my understanding from a distance, correct me if I'm wrong. What was different about the Tamarack situation? Why are you making the exception for Tamarack?00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:52.000Erik Mogensen: Look, I think, look, Icon's aggressive. They're aggressive. They're trying to add as many people as they possibly can to that two-day pass. You know, I think that there's a lot of promises on that, and I think they have a very aggressive sales team.00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:08.000Erik Mogensen: Which is which is good. They're they're, you know, trying to replicate what Indy has done. So we'll just have to see what happens. But I would say that I would I would say that, you know, I have a I have a good relationship with a couple people over in that organization.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:15.000Erik Mogensen: And I think they're trying to figure out what they're going to do. But there's no question that we're in, you know, pretty intense competition right now.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let's…00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:32.000Stuart Winchester: wrap up on that. Let's talk about Snow King, because the Indy Pass, you know, part of the reason the Indy Pass is able to grow so fast, from my point of view, was Doug had this great insight that the ski areas that Epic and Icon were overlooking.00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:38.000Stuart Winchester: Did have value collected onto a pass, and when you put them all together as a dynamite product.00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:47.000Stuart Winchester: and now I think, as you said, ICON's going for that, and then you have the Snow Pass, and the Snow Pass, uh…00:40:47.000 --> 00:41:02.000Stuart Winchester: has signed Snow King as a partner, and that's a long-time Indy Pass partner, and I can read these emails if you'd like, or you can just talk through it yourself on how you see the Snow King.00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:03.000Stuart Winchester: um…00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:05.000Stuart Winchester: conflict here.00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:20.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, look, I wouldn't really say that there is any controversy here. I think Snow King is staying on Indy. Um, you know, Ryan and I never discussed any sort of litigation, and I connected him directly with you so that he could, you know, explain the situation for himself.00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:36.000Erik Mogensen: Look, again, it's not my job to get out in front and speak for these resorts. These are really great resorts with phenomenal and sophisticated operators, and they can speak for themselves. So, what I can do, Stu, is, you know, say, hey, Ryan.00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:43.000Erik Mogensen: you know, you're on Indy, and you're not on the snow pass, copy you on that email, and then you can read the email to the group.00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:46.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, the email…00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:50.000Stuart Winchester: from Ryan said.00:41:51.000 --> 00:42:06.000Stuart Winchester: Stuart, hi Stuart, this is Ryan Stanley, General Manager of Snow King. That is correct, we're going to remain on the Indy Pass this upcoming season and also offer two free tickets to the Snow Pass holders without receiving compensation, meaning Snow King will not receive compensation.00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:16.000Stuart Winchester: We are fairly desperate for some skier visits and are working on an offer for free and or $20 tickets to other pass holders as well. You know, I…00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:18.000Stuart Winchester: Ran this…00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:20.000Stuart Winchester: Bye.00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:22.000Stuart Winchester: Snow pass and.00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:26.000Stuart Winchester: I can read this email from Joe Heschen that he sent me today.00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:33.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, he said, Hi Stuart, I'm a bit confused by how this has become so complex. As stated, we have signed a signed agreement with Snow King.00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:43.000Stuart Winchester: While I would like to keep their details confidential, you are welcome to share ours. Our goal with this is not to profit, but rather to gather a group to work together for the betterment of the industry.00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:56.000Stuart Winchester: And then, it sounds like Snow King will be working with Indy and Snow Pass this season, which is great news for them. Thank you. Go Hessian. So, from Snow Pass's point of view, Snow King is still on both passes.00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:16.000Erik Mogensen: I don't know, Stu's starting to sound like a big old, you know, fun high school group text message here. I don't, I, you know, I don't know what to tell you. Um, again, I think Ryan's email's pretty clear. I'm not gonna speak for Ryan, not gonna speak for Joe. Um, they're definitely, you know, Snow King is definitely on the Indy Pass. We're definitely gonna pay them, just like we have.00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:21.000Erik Mogensen: every year. We're definitely gonna push a lot of visits to them. Um, you know, I'm not…00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:33.000Erik Mogensen: entirely sure, uh, beyond that. Uh, and, and, you know, Ryan, again, Ryan's a really smart guy. I've enjoyed talking to him. Um, I've spent a…00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:49.000Erik Mogensen: few, you know, longer phone calls, and he is desperate for skier visits, and I get that. He's a small skier area in the shadow of Jackson Hole, and doesn't have a ton of population to pull from. Most of the population that's coming through is destination visits.00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:57.000Erik Mogensen: And he needs more skier visits. We… we want Snow King to get skier visits. We… we… and if Ryan wants to comp…00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:07.000Erik Mogensen: you know, snow pass holders, or icon pass holders, or epic pass holders, then that's fine. I think that's great. But just because Ryan is going to comp.00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000Erik Mogensen: the Snow Pass doesn't mean that he's on the Snow Pass, and just because Ryan is going to comp Icon Pass holders, that doesn't mean that he's joined the Icon Pass. Um, all I can come down to, again.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:27.000Erik Mogensen: is that Snow King's on the Indy Pass, um, and from our perspective, they're giving some free tickets to some of the other passes.00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:35.000Erik Mogensen: Hopefully, that checks everyone's box for early September ski area drama.00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:43.000Stuart Winchester: All right, it is an ongoing story. I just have a lot of conflicting information from…00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:56.000Erik Mogensen: What we should do is just, you know, get Uncle Joe on the call, and get Ryan on the call, and you on the call, and we all talk about it, right? Like, I think it's… I don't think it's that complicated, and frankly, it's not that big of a deal.00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:12.000Erik Mogensen: And I question the intentions behind making it a big deal. I think that, you know, Snowpass is definitely looking for us to bite into a controversy, and we're just not going to.00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:22.000Erik Mogensen: We're just not going to. We… our job is to focus on the independent resorts and make sure that we drive more visits to more independent resorts.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:23.000Erik Mogensen: more often.00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:31.000Erik Mogensen: It's really simple, you know, and I think, I think in general too, Stu, like, you know.00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:26.000Stuart Winchester: Do you? Yeah.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:46.000Erik Mogensen: What I've gotten from a lot of our operators and partners and people in skiing is they're just very confused by this. And again, it might be good for ratings or listeners, but there is no litigation here.00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:56.000Erik Mogensen: there is no problem with Snow King. They're a great, valued partner. You know, this comment, you know, an idea around democratizing skiing, right? Like.00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:08.000Erik Mogensen: you know, let's let every resort build their own reciprocal deal with, you know, Jersey Joe's commission-based software pitch, right? That's cute, that sounds nice, but in practice, IndiePass exists for a reason.00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.000Erik Mogensen: It's a lot more work for skier is and most importantly.00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:20.000Erik Mogensen: It's much more fragmented and a confusing product for the consumer. A single pass with a single price point.00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:22.000Erik Mogensen: And a lot of partners.00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:28.000Erik Mogensen: you know, mitigates the patchwork of one-off deals, and that's the whole reason IndyPass exists.00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:37.000Erik Mogensen: More people skiing more often at independent resorts, right? Like, we redirect tens of millions of dollars a year to independent operators.00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:48.000Erik Mogensen: Arguing that somehow the absence of the IndyPass is better for the industry is nonsensical at best. It would just give Icon and Epic a more…00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:51.000Erik Mogensen: More opportunity to eat our lunch. So…00:46:51.000 --> 00:47:02.000Erik Mogensen: you know, we can… we can dive into all the muddy details all day long, but I don't see any controversy here. We're super excited to have snowpack… I mean…00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:04.000Erik Mogensen: Snow King.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:15.000Erik Mogensen: on the Indy Pass. Um, and, you know, maybe you just have to come up with a different color for it on your spreadsheet, like some sort of gradient between the two. Whatever you want to do, we trust you.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:32.000Stuart Winchester: Let me zoom out a little and make this a little more conceptual, because you've told me before that IndyPass doesn't make money, and I believe you're still sticking to Doug's original ratio of 15% for admin, which I doubt covers admin. So 85% traditionally was paid out to the resorts, correct?00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:49.000Erik Mogensen: Correct. Oh, yeah. Still the case. Yeah. No, I mean, look, we, we, you know, 85% of every passport just goes back to the independents. And remember, look, we, we take 100% of our money in on credit cards. We pay the ski resorts in check cash. Right. So we're also eating that credit card fee.00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:36.000Stuart Winchester: Is that still it? Okay.00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:59.000Erik Mogensen: So now you're down to, you know, 12% in change. Running a pass like this, it's not profitable. We never looked at this as being profitable.00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:53.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:10.000Erik Mogensen: I really bought IndyPass because I knew that Doug was going to exit and needed to exit, and I thought some of the other people that would buy the pass.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:21.000Erik Mogensen: would view it more as a media company or a marketing opportunity, and less of something that I think is very important for the independents. So…00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:39.000Erik Mogensen: Uh, you know, Snowpass has committed to giving 80% back, um, to the resorts in their first year, and then something else beyond that, right? And the difference between 80% and 5%, right? You know, it sounds like 5%, but if you actually do the math, that's a 25% difference.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:49.000Erik Mogensen: Uh, and so we pay every resort the same percentage back of their, you know, top ticket price. We've always done that, um, so…00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:55.000Erik Mogensen: That's what we do, that's what we've done, that's what worked, and that's what we.00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:59.000Stuart Winchester: So to zoom out to the conceptual level a little bit here, I want to look at…00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:09.000Stuart Winchester: Snow King's neighbor, Jackson Hole. Okay, so Jackson Hole is on Icon. They're also on Mountain Collective. You've taken a pretty firm stand that Indy.00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:16.000Stuart Winchester: partners should be exclusive with Indy. If you're looking at a ski area like Snow King that is desperate for.00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:18.000Stuart Winchester: for visits.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:24.000Stuart Winchester: why cut that pathway off? Why is it important to make indie exclusive and not say, okay.00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:39.000Stuart Winchester: case by case, if you're, uh, you know, certain resorts, if we don't have an exclusivity agreement with you, like, maybe you want to give, you know, Brundage a higher payout because they're a destination and… and to be exclusive, but maybe some of these other ones, you give them all the tools in the toolbox. What…00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:42.000Stuart Winchester: Why is that not an option? Or is it an option?00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:48.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I just, I think it complicates things, number one. Number two, I just don't find it very equitable. The great thing about IndyPass, look, I get…00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:58.000Erik Mogensen: There's a lot of conversations all the time when we have a larger resort wanting to join, or has joined, or wants to renew about getting a bigger payout.00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:08.000Erik Mogensen: What I can tell you for as long as I own and run IndyPass, I'm going to treat every single resort the same. I'm not going to make special side deals.00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:14.000Erik Mogensen: That's just what we're going to do. I think it's a mistake to do that.00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:20.000Erik Mogensen: Everyone's going to get the same. Everyone's going to be the same. Everyone's going to get the same percentage payout.00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.000Stuart Winchester: It.00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:23.000Erik Mogensen: No special deals.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:37.000Stuart Winchester: So let me wrap on that point. So you added Smugs, your New England network is lights out. You know, like I said, Jay, Smugs, Cannon, Waterville, Saddleback, and a bunch of smaller places, including Black Mountain. Doug was concerned when he started the pass.00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:48.000Stuart Winchester: About dilution in the marketplace, and if you put too many ski areas in a market, you would both cannibalize their season pass, and drive down their yield, or their eventual payout.00:50:49.000 --> 00:51:04.000Stuart Winchester: you have filled in a lot more density, and when I've asked you about it in the past, you said that's a data-driven decision, so can you break that down for us, and what gives you confidence that adding smugs is not going to take away from.00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:08.000Stuart Winchester: Fulton Valley, or Jay Peak, or Cannon, or Titus.00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:23.000Erik Mogensen: Well, we know exactly how many pass holders we're adding every single year, right? We, we have a unique control over how many passes we sell, right? So we have, we know the data that comes in on one lever and we 100% control the amount.00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:43.000Erik Mogensen: of passes in that lever that we sell. So it's just simple math, right? It isn't even that complex of a spreadsheet. Uh, you wouldn't even have to have it in a spreadsheet. So we need to add enough customers to make sure that we don't over dilute Bolton's payout or those things. And what's remarkable is the data shows us this is, I think now our fourth season.00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:49.000Erik Mogensen: of owning and operating the IndyPass is that we just keep going in the right direction.00:51:49.000 --> 00:52:04.000Erik Mogensen: And that's the reality. Like, JPEAK and Bolton's payout, the check that they get from IndyPass and take to the bank to pay their bills and buy more chairlifts and more snowmaking pipe and pay their employees, is only getting bigger and bigger.00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:08.000Erik Mogensen: With smugs on the pass. And again, I cannot.00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:23.000Erik Mogensen: reiterate enough how sophisticated of an operator these guys are. Like, the DeLauriers are smart. They see the numbers, you know? Christian Knapp at PGRI, he sees the numbers. Steve Wright, these are smart guys. John Schaefer, the…00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:27.000Erik Mogensen: Really smart. You know, if they figure it out.00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:30.000Erik Mogensen: I think that that itself.00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Jay has been, uh, has recommitted to Indy several times, uh, through one-year contracts. All right, Eric, IndyPass is still on sale?00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:56.000Erik Mogensen: Uh, 80 Pass is on sale right now, yes. I think what we've announced is we've said tomorrow's the day. I think we could go into midday Saturday. Um, it's… it's hard to tell, right? We look at a couple numbers, we look at people that have put things in their cart, and what the potential conversion rate is, and where things go, and…00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:01.000Erik Mogensen: the geography around them. We definitely have a very firm ceiling on what we're gonna sell.00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:10.000Erik Mogensen: When we're going to sell that through, that's the hard part. But yeah, we've identified that tomorrow's the day.00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:16.000Stuart Winchester: And this will be the end of 26-27 IndyPass sales guaranteed, or is there a chance for a flash December sale or something?00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:30.000Erik Mogensen: There is never a guarantee of anything in this thing. We are talking to some pretty major additions as well that I think would be meaningful, and we'll have to decide if that's a this year thing or a next year thing with them.00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:20.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:46.000Stuart Winchester: I mean, you've already added over 40 new partners. India has more partners than Epic, Icon, Mountain Collective, Snowpass, and Mountain Collective Capital's Powerpass combined around the world. So you're saying we should expect or could expect more partners?00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:32.000Erik Mogensen: Alright.00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:49.000Stuart Winchester: In advance of the 26-27 winter?00:53:48.000 --> 00:54:02.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can tell you that there will definitely be some more. And I think, Stu, it's actually about 60 new additions. And I know you don't like to count the cross-country ski areas, but we should maybe find a separate tab for them on the spreadsheet.00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:12.000Erik Mogensen: Every ski area matters to us here, whether it's cross country or downhill or big or small. I think that's what makes us different.00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you know, I didn't start stop counting them out of malice. I stopped because I couldn't really understand them, and the maps kind of looked like a brain scan, and some would leave, and it was just a lot. I was already trying to track too much.00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:44.000Stuart Winchester: I will take that piece of advice, though, and I will see if I can find a place where they make sense. Eric, really appreciate everything today, appreciate everything you're doing with Indy and Black Mountain, and look forward to catching up with you again really soon.00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:49.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah. Thanks so much, Stu. Keep those spreadsheets going, dude.00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:47.000Stuart Winchester: Alright.00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:51.000Stuart Winchester: That's all I do.00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:52.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I know. See ya.00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:53.000Stuart Winchester: All right, take care.00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:53.000Erik Mogensen: Bye.00:54:55.000 --> 00:55:05.000Stuart Winchester: All right, that was Eric Mogensen, director of IndyPass, owner of Black Mountain, responding to some of the questions.00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:21.000Stuart Winchester: initial conversation I had with Joe Heschen the other day. So, uh, that's great. We have no more clarity on Snow King, and this episode went a little off the rails, because I need to… there's gonna be a lot of experimentation here, guys.00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:35.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the… the opening take, I'm realizing, I don't know if I should be recording that before the guest. I think maybe I need to start with the guest, because otherwise, I end up having to cut myself short. So…00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.000Stuart Winchester: I want to get to some reader reaction.00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:42.000Stuart Winchester: To close us out today.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:44.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:47.000Stuart Winchester: The first comes from…00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:49.000Stuart Winchester: Matt Hart.00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:03.000Stuart Winchester: He said, really, this is in reaction to Brian Norton's interview yesterday about Loon Mountain's expansion. Matt Hart, really good, loved Brian's description of the expansion and how they will make it work from an operations point of view.00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:06.000Stuart Winchester: Catcher's mitt for snow, love it.00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:21.000Stuart Winchester: And then, and then Matt asks, did he give you grief for calling the Timbertown expansion that little one LOL? I, no, he didn't, but, but it is, I mean, it was a 30 acre expansion on a huge ski area. So, uh, I don't know, maybe, I think they, uh.00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:36.000Stuart Winchester: you know, I'm always the tourist, so anytime I'm asking these guys anything, they… I think that it sounds a little ridiculous, because they live it every day of their life. It would be like them asking me a question about my cats, you know, it's something that I'm around every day.00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:46.000Stuart Winchester: All right, this is a comment from Robert, a paid subscriber, which is the way you can interact with the show is to be a paid subscriber to the Storm Skiing Podcast.00:56:46.000 --> 00:57:00.000Stuart Winchester: Robert says, again, of the Brian Norton pod yesterday, great second effort. Are you planning to stick to a drop time of about 4 p.m. Eastern time? What is your anticipated schedule? Daily, four days a week, three?00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:07.000Stuart Winchester: 4pm drop makes for a nice way to wrap up the day, at least for those in a compatible time zone.00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:22.000Stuart Winchester: And then Brian Bench, paid subscriber, says, ditto on sharing the anticipated schedule. We humans are creatures of habit, and so would be great to know when we can generally expect these to land. Excited for your chat with Eric today. Well…00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:23.000Stuart Winchester: Brian.00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:26.000Stuart Winchester: I have an amazing guest.00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:29.000Stuart Winchester: scheduled for…00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:46.000Stuart Winchester: Sep

Once again John Tefteller and radio historian Dr. Joe Webb are here to continue our 10-part series featuring the popular radio series, The Whistler. Today we are featuring a story about a man who has built a comfortable life through deception and is now working with a blackmailer to take advantage of his wealthy wife. But when Mr. Penny threatens to reveal secrets from his past, the partnership quickly turns into a dangerous game. John and Joe discuss the talented writers behind the episode and the challenges of identifying many of radio's uncredited performers. There is a show notes website! Dr. Joe has created a site dedicated to this series! https://sites.google.com/view/whistlershownotes/home  Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discussions, and the latest podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/881779245938297 Our theme music is "Why Am I So Romantic?" from Animal Crackers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KHJKAKS/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_MK8MVCY4DVBAM8ZK39WD

As originally broadcast on Saturday, September 10, 2022  Hour 1 - The Adventures of Philip Marlowe starring Gerald Mohr, originally broadcast September 10, 1949, 77 years ago, The Rustin Hickory. A teacher from Ferndale, Nebraska, is in big trouble. A photo helps to end the confusion.  Hour 2 - Mr President starring Edward Arnold, originally broadcast September 10. 1950, 76 years ago,  I Beg Your Pardon. The President is in trouble over several pardons that he's issued. Also, Claudia, originally broadcast September 10, 1948, 78 years ago, After the Play Ends. Claudia plans to wear her costume home.  Hour 3 - The Whistler, originally broadcast September 10, 1945, 81 years ago,  Phone Call from Death. A woman's best friend is murdered while she's on the phone with the woman...or was she? Also Part 1 of a 5-part Yours Truly Johnny Dollar story, The Confidential Matter, originally broadcast September 10, 1956, 70 years ago. Ed Morgan, one of Johnny's best pals, seems to have embezzled $80,000 before his death.Thanks for enjoying these best-of shows while I take a little vacation!

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

Choice Classic Radio presents The Whistler, featuring today's episode titled “Gratitude” Please consider supporting our show by becoming a patron at http://choiceclassicradio.com We hope you enjoy the show!

A magazine writer who has spent a week seducing an ironmaster's wife in a Pennsylvania mill town accepts her husband's offer of a midnight tour of the blast furnaces, the night before she's due to run away with him.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Flash Point” (September 01, 1978) ***WD00:44:58.073 = Two Thousand Plus, “Veteran Comes Home” (July 05, 1950) ***WD01:13:38.923 = Dark Venture, “Only Inhabitant” (November 19, 1946) ***WD01:43:18.042 = The Weird Circle, “The Vendetta” (1943)02:10:34.180 = The Whistler, “The Man Who Bought Death” (May 21, 1945)02:40:04.994 = Strange Wills, “East of Hudson Bay” (October 12, 1946)03:09:43.018 = Witch's Tale, “Priest Of Sekhet” (May 08, 1936)03:36:20.706 = X Minus 1, “Venus Is A Man's World” (February 06, 1957)03:57:52.005 = ABC Mystery Time, “The Tale” (1956-1957)04:21:19.983 = Appointment With Fear, “Morning Glory” (July 18, 1943) ***WD(LQ)04:47:56.713 = Arch Oboler's Plays, “Adolph And Mrs. Runyon” (June 21, 1942) ***WD05:20:20.563 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0766

Want to know what kind of reader you are? TAKE OUR QUIZ: https://www.currentlyreadingpodcast.com/quiz   In this episode of Currently Reading, Meredith returns to discuss her current reads with Kaytee. They also deep dive into some lessons they've learned over 400 episodes of Currently Reading. Finally, Meredith highlights a bookish friend, while Kaytee brings a specific topic she's curious about.   Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site).   0:00 Welcome to Currently Reading 2:34 Bookish Moments of the Week 7:39 Current Reads 7:47 Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Kaytee) https://bookshop.org/a/79394/9780812973990  12:39 The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett (Meredith) https://bookshop.org/a/79394/9781668083710  20:04 Banana Ball by Jesse Cole and Don Yaeger (Kaytee) https://bookshop.org/a/79394/9780593473412  24:39 Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster (Meredith) https://bookshop.org/a/79394/9781986418416  31:46 Whistler by Ann Patchett (Meredith and Kaytee) https://bookshop.org/a/79394/9780063511637 42:09 Deep Dive: Things We've Learned From 400 Episodes 57:46 Before We Go 63:17 Wrap-Up   #books #reading #currentlyreading #podcast #currentreads ❤️ Support Us: Become a Bookish Friend on Patreon | https://patreon.com/currentlyreadingpodcast  Grab Some Merch on Zazzle | http://www.zazzle.com/store/currentlyreading Shop Bookshop dot org | https://bookshop.org/shop/currentlyreading Bookish Friends Receive: The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. August's IPL is a special murderful edition brought to you by Fabled Bookshop in Waco, TX.  Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller From the Editor's Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts Connect With Us: The Show:  Instagram | https://instagram.com/currentlyreadingpodcast Website | https://currentlyreadingpodcast.com/ Email | hello@currentlyreadingpodcast.com Substack | https://currentlyreadingpodcast.substack.com/ Youtube | https://www.youtube.com/@currentlyreadingpodcast Threads | https://www.threads.net/@currentlyreadingpodcast The Hosts and Regulars:  Meredith | https://instagram.com/meredithmondayschwartz Kaytee | https://instagram.com/notesonbookmarks Mary | https://instagram.com/maryreadsandsips Roxanna | https://instagram.com/roxannathereader Elizabeth | https://instagram.com/wacoreads Production and Editing:  Megan Phouthavong Evans | https://instagram.com/mostofmegansreads

Ann Patchett's newest book “Whistler” is a love story born from grief. In this TED Talks Daily Book Club interview, Patchett tells host Elise Hu about her writing process for the novel, where she finds inspiration and her unlikely second life as a bookstore owner. (This conversation was part of an exclusive TED Membership event. TED Membership is the best way to support and engage with the big ideas you love from TED. To learn more, visit ted.com/membership.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A young London couple rent a room in a house that has stood unlivable for four hundred years, and the one woman who has ever managed to live there tells them the tenants who never left are already expecting them.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Double-Take” (July 28, 1978) ***WD00:45:31.411 = The Weird Circle, “The House And Brain” (July 15, 1943)01:12:40.459 = The Whistler, “Accident According To Plans” (May 07, 1945) ***WD01:42:34.731 = Strange Wills, “Miser's Gold” (October 05, 1946)02:12:18.216 = Witch's Tale, “Power of Lucifer” (February 22, 1934) ***WD(LQ)02:38:53.520 = X-Minus one, “Caretaker” (January 30, 1957)03:00:31.427 = ABC Mystery Time, “Suicide Club” (June 07, 1956) ***WD(LQ)03:22:14.023 = Appointment With Fear, “And The Deep Shuddered” (November 20, 1945) ***WD03:47:57.688 = Arch Oboler's Plays, “Johnny Got His Gun” (March 09, 1940)04:17:48.094 = Barrie Craig, “The Paper Bullets” (December 05, 1951)04:47:10.982 = Tales of the Frightened, “Deadly Dress” (1957-1963)04:51:49.238 = Beyond The Green Door, “Morton Gale – Vacation In Maine” (1966) ***WD04:55:21.249 = Tales From The Tomb, “Do You Know Where The Children Are” (1960s)05:00:31.667 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0757