Who
Andy Bigford – former Editor-In-Chief of Ski magazine, former General Manager of Warren Miller Entertainment, Adjunct Professor at University of Colorado Journalism School, editor or author of several books, including Warren Miller’s autobiography, Freedom Found, and Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 with the late Chris Diamond.
Date Recorded
Oct. 27, 2026
About Eldora
Owned by: Powdr, which also owns
Located in: Nederland, Colorado
Year founded: 1962
Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass and Ikon Base Pass: unlimited access
Base elevation: 9,265 feet (bottom of Corona quad)
Summit elevation: 10,599 feet (top of Corona quad)
Vertical drop: 1,335 feet
Skiable acres: 680
Average annual snowfall: 300 inches
Lift count: 10 (1 six-pack, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 3 doubles, 1 poma, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet)
Why I interviewed him
Two years ago, Park City-based Powdr shocked everyone by selling Killington, the busiest ski area in eastern North America, to a group of independent investors:
But the ski conglomerate, which at its height owned 11 ski areas, wasn’t finished: Powdr announced that it also intended to sell off Eldora, Colorado; Silver Star, British Columbia; and Mount Bachelor, Oregon:
Eight months later, Powdr pulled Bachelor off the market, but kept the other two resorts at the yardsale. On July 8 of last year, the company announced that the small town of Nederland, Colorado had entered an agreement to purchase Eldora:
Town of Nederland, CO Intends to Purchase Eldora from POWDR
The town of Nederland, Colorado signed a letter of intent today to purchase Eldora ski area from POWDR, which has owned the mid-sized ski area since 2016.
A few months later, Powdr sold Silver Star to cross-town rival Pacific Group Resorts:
Jay Peak Owner PGR Purchases Silver Star, B.C. from POWDR
Man, where do they come up with this stuff?
But updates on Eldora were few and spare. Earlier this month, ski journalist and longtime Eldora local Andy Bigford blasted the sales process in a SAM opinion piece, saying it was time for Powdr to pull the offer from Nederland:
It sounded good for a minute, a tiny town banding together to buy the local ski resort, thereby securing control of its future in this righteous fight against corporate skiing. The idea was extremely popular; hundreds of headlines across the country essentially declared it a done deal, with the town then leveraging the cash flow to solve its many challenges.
As it turns out, there was never a realistic plan nor the resources and expertise for Nederland to purchase Eldora Mountain Resort for the hefty price tag of $120 million.
The owner, Powdr, offered the town every opportunity in what has devolved into an almost two-year process. Now Powdr needs to end this drama, return to operating a ski area and focus on its core stakeholders: The tens of thousands of visitors who support this use of public land, and the resort’s 750 employees who depend on it.
So far, neither Powdr nor Nederland have budged, but escalating costs and a sense that no one’s at the steering wheel may force a course correction sooner than later. What sort of correction? Andy and I discuss.
Additional resources
Eldora’s 2011 U.S. Forest Service masterplan map:
Powdr ownership timeline:
Transcripts
There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.
Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.
Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.
Zoom
Stuart Winchester: My guest today has spent nearly 50 years in ski-related publishing. He has worked at newspapers in Breckenridge and Aspen, and is a former editor-in-chief and publisher of Ski Magazine, and former general manager of Warren Miller Entertainment.
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Stuart Winchester: He served as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Journalism School and has written or edited at least four books, including Warren Miller’s autobiography, Freedom Found, and Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 with the late Chris Diamond.
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Stuart Winchester: He is a fellow Michigander, living as a transplant, but unlike me, he is actually living up in the mountains of Colorado. Andy Bigford is my guest. Andy, welcome to the storm. I am so fired up to finally get you on the show. We’ve been talking for years. How you doing today, Andy?
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ABigford: Thanks.
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ABigford: I’m doing well, Stuart, and sorry about your wolverines, but things will get better.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, man, it’s alright. Highs and lows, we’re still less than 3 years from the natty, so I’ll take the long perspective on it. So, Andy, the…
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Stuart Winchester: there’s a million things we could talk about. You’ve been in this industry forever, and… and I could probably have you on the show every week and talk about something different, but the particular reason I asked you on this week was you wrote this great column for Sam Magazine.
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Stuart Winchester: saying that, essentially, Powder, the Park City-based company that has owned Eldora since 2016, and had been in the process of selling Eldora to the town of Netherland, a small town near Boulder, uh, in… near…
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Stuart Winchester: Eldora, obviously in Colorado. And, and to give the listeners and, and readers a little context, Eldora is small by Colorado standards, 1400 vertical feet, 460 acres, seven chairlifts, just one high speed. That’s a six pack.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, so it’s a scary area in need of some capex, like they all are, I guess. But…
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Stuart Winchester: This process — I wrote this column last July when Netherland announced, hey, we’re going to buy this, or Powder announced that Netherland was going to buy it. This was after the successful sale.
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Stuart Winchester: of Tillington and Pico, the busiest ski areas combined in the East, to a independent group. Uh, and it was after Powder said, no, we’re not gonna sell Bachelor after all. Uh, and it was right before they successfully sold Silver Star to Pacific Group Resorts. So.
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Stuart Winchester: There’s been a lot of transactions, and Powder’s done this forever.
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Stuart Winchester: but this one is proving to be particularly problematic. So, lay this out for us, Andy. What in the world is going on at Netherland in its attempts to purchase Eldora from powder?
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ABigford: It is problematic, and you set the table pretty well for Powder and John Cumming. And so it is a bit of a local obsession for me, even though I look at national and international trends.
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ABigford: This is my home ski area. It’s been 30 years that I’ve been skiing there, and it skis a lot better than 1,400 feet of vertical. And I did go through 20 years. We had a Hall of Fame ownership. It was a pretty good owners.
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ABigford: They didn’t have a ton of money, just like the ski business, but they made it work. We could park right next to the lift ski powder, and then John Cumming and powder came along, and they started to invest money in it, and.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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ABigford: They put in probably 40 million excess in capital, and they put in the 1st detachable and a new parking lot. Expanded parking lot was a huge, a new lodge, and.
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ABigford: Little Eldora rose up to become something of an icon poster child. And they’re unlimited on that pass. And their skier visits almost doubled in that time. And there were trade-offs. I mean, there was more traffic. Saturdays became very difficult.
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ABigford: but it became much, much better ski area, and it was a signal that I saw up close that you know this can actually work. And here’s an example right next door.
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ABigford: Powder has decided to divest some ski areas. They used to be, you know, in the big in the top 4. They’re deciding to do other important things that John Cumming has on his plate. So they wanted to sell Eldora.
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ABigford: They had a lot of operators knocking on the door. And as it turned out, after selling Killington to the local billionaires, Powder and John Cumming could sell to a municipality. Not only that, but at a high price.
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ABigford: And this was a great win for independent skiing. And from the get-go, there was a gulf between anybody who ran a ski area and had a sense of what was going on in Eldora, even that ran a business, said.
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ABigford: there’s no way this town can run a ski area that dwarfs in size. You know the onion headline. You know it was David bites Goliath, you know. It would be more like Eldora would buy Nederland, but.
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ABigford: As it turns out, they went into a long process, and the town sold it to its residents as not taxpayer money, but we will pay for municipal revenue bonds.
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ABigford: through resort revenues. And Eldora was spitting off cash at that time. And so it looked, you know, like it was somewhat feasible. And so anybody that looked at it from the outside said, there’s no possible way.
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ABigford: And yet locals were behind it. A lot of locals thought, you know, hey? Something different than Vail resorts. And this is an important takeaway is that you know the the reaction to just.
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ABigford: being able to control it ourselves versus having an outside company come in. It’s very strong, and there was no question that that existed, and, as it turns out, the town.
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ABigford: does not have the experience, the resources, the revenue to do any of this. They went into a lengthy process with powder. They tried to unsuccessfully sell the revenue bonds. They couldn’t do it.
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ABigford: They don’t have any plans for the future that they can share, and their silence has been part of the issue. And so it’s come to a logger’s head where their purchase agreement is no longer in effect with powder.
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ABigford: and they had a town council meeting just last Tuesday, and residents were very angry, very angry, and they were smart people and former selectmen and former mayors, and there was very much anger expressed at this meeting, I think.
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ABigford: the town pretty much gave them the Heisman, and and critically, they have spent 2.5 million that they don’t have in due diligence. So now what was going to be paid for by.
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ABigford: resort revenue is now the town’s liability, and people are very angry about that. It shouldn’t surprise you. That’s what it costs to do due diligence. And so that’s the you know. That’s the bottom line. But.
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ABigford: The town doesn’t have the money to pay this, and they’re positioning it as their leaders are saying that that we’re going to flush this money down the toilet if we don’t move forward.
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ABigford: It’s created a lot of angst, and it’s made an opening, for I think, for powder where they can say, Hey, look! We tried. We tried to do this right thing. And now we got to go back to running a ski area. And the reason you do that.
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ABigford: is because of your customers, and you clear away the black cloud, and you do it for your staff. And so Eldora has never been Nederland ski area. It’s always been Boulder counties, and with the icon pass it became because.
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ABigford: you have a spreadsheet that addresses this. Probably there are probably 250,000 icon pass holders from Denver to Fort Collins, which is the range for for Eldora. It might be more, and.
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ABigford: They can draw them in. So Eldora’s lift ticket revenue, 75% of it comes from Icon.
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ABigford: And of that group, of that group, probably a quarter or a third come from Denver, largely, and North Denver or Fort Collins and south of that.
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ABigford: What’s interesting is that there isn’t really a big issue at stake here. You would think maybe the town would come out and say, we’re not going to do an unlimited icon pass. That’s our plan. There’s too much traffic.
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ABigford: They’re not. They know they need that to keep the ski area going. And there isn’t a real issue like that. It’s not like black and white.
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Stuart Winchester: Right.
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ABigford: What concerns me is they can’t come up with the money to run the ski area, and they have no foundation to run a ski area. They have no expertise, and they have no plan for capital improvements.
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ABigford: They’re going to be on a tight budget with an 8.5, probably 9% junk bond to pay for this. And they don’t have a plan, you know, hardly to pay the employees, much less to do necessary improvements.
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ABigford: to take Eldora to the next step. So it’s you know, it’s disconcerting. And you know, I’ve learned that there was a good deal of support for an independent operator, you know, and this just isn’t the right situation.
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ABigford: You know, it sounds good. And nationwide, we’re going to be seeing more and more resorts try to be independent. But they got to have funding. They got to have.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
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ABigford: you know, expertise. And that’s what we learned.
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Stuart Winchester: So, so let’s look at, let’s, let’s look at Powder’s part in this here. It seems like maybe they have a little blind spot from all the.
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Stuart Winchester: I’ve talked to a lot of sellers and a lot of buyers of ski areas, and the sellers…
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Stuart Winchester: almost always take on the responsibility of making sure that the person they’re selling to has that expertise you’re referring to. And, you know, Powder’s a good operator. They run Copper just down the road. They run Snowbird, one of my favorite ski areas anywhere.
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Stuart Winchester: And they’ve run Park City and Alpine Meadows in the past, but we’ve seen them flub things, right? They lost Park City on a technicality. You know, you lose your trophy property because someone didn’t sign something, and Vail came and punched you in the mouth and took it off your lunch tray.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, you know, we…
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Stuart Winchester: We also saw them say, we’re gonna sell Bachelor. No, we’re not. Yeah, we’re gonna sell Bachelor. So, there’s not necessarily always a consistency of process. Going, like, drilling down into powder, and I realize you’re not.
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Stuart Winchester: in their offices.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, but…
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Stuart Winchester: What do you think is keeping them from pulling this deal? And what would you tell them to do if you were advising them?
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ABigford: Yeah, I think it comes down to the owner, John Cumming, who’s got bigger fish to fry with the portfolio from his deceased dad, and um…
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ABigford: they are gonna start to get out of the ski resort business, and he’s been an outlier. He always has. He’s famously silent. He took a roll of the dice. It was a beautiful situation where he could sell to a town.
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ABigford: you know, at the highest price, and he just needs to step back from this and get back into running resort. So I would say you did everything you could, and it’s time to, you know, clear this off your plate and get back to running the resort, and uh…
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ABigford: He’s, you know, he was forewarned about this. So, Stuart, you’re not incorrect. You know, they knew it was a risk. Powder knew, you know, there was a time, there was environment. It was before this last very difficult season.
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ABigford: Maybe there was a way, but there isn’t. And they’ve tried everything. And so it’s time to get back to business.
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Stuart Winchester: How much of a warning sign was it… let’s talk about 303 Ski. It was a group of what you termed industry heavyweights who were…
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Stuart Winchester: I believe they were consulting with Eldora on the purchase and the right way to do it. I might not have it exactly right, but tell us about 303 Ski, why that fell apart, and what that may have told us about the state of this process.
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ABigford: Yeah, and they were formed to make their own effort to buy Eldora. So they were just like the Killington billionaires, but they didn’t quite have that much money.
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ABigford: And, you know, they were led by a strong group, and it included Blaise Kerig, who was the former Vail Resorts president, and he’s acquired a lot of ski areas.
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ABigford: So he was going to get involved. He gave us a lot of, you know. We were encouraged to see his name. It also had that that.
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ABigford: Justin Gold, who sold his his peanut butter fortune. He’s a Ned resident. He was involved in the grip, which was was led by Whitey, and I’m blanking on his last name. They went as high they were in the bidding.
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ABigford: and they could. They were businessmen without a lot of ski industry experience. They went as high as maybe 90, 95 million, and they couldn’t justify it. They couldn’t see going higher. So at about the same time the town of Nederland.
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ABigford: had.
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ABigford: decided that this could be their future. It would put them on the map, and they were going to make a bid for it. And it came out at the same time that 303 Ski was realizing that, you know, it wasn’t going to come up with enough money.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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ABigford: So they combined together very briefly, and it was, you know, quickly determined that they couldn’t go on. You can’t have a town with a private, you know, partnership going after tax-free muni rev bonds, and there were all kinds of difficulties.
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ABigford: But that was in play at one point.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I was trying to…
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ABigford: You know, and they have, they have gone, you know, they’ve been out of the picture for 15 months.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you made the point that a municipality running a ski area is rare, and I was trying to think of examples. I think maybe Diamond Peak in Tahoe, which from everyone I’ve talked to, it has somewhat of a dysfunctional.
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Stuart Winchester: management structure because there’s too many people who want it to be their private ski area. I can’t think of a lot more. I can think of a lot of non-profit ski areas, like Bridger Bowl and Bogus Basin, that invest all their money back in and are run well.
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ABigford: Right, right.
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ABigford: Yep.
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Stuart Winchester: But, you know, it would seem as though…
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Stuart Winchester: A town, even a small one, could set up a structure.
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Stuart Winchester: to support that. But what… is there something uniquely…
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Stuart Winchester: Complicated about a municipal government as opposed to.
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Stuart Winchester: You know, the, the 100 people who own Bogus Basin, it’s kind of like a co op or, or Bridger Bowl is, is more, uh, I actually don’t know if they’re, if they’re run by, uh, by Bozeman or not. But anyway, uh, is, is there something uniquely weird about a town or complicated that, that makes it just.
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Stuart Winchester: Not a good owner, or is it just this town?
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ABigford: The town does not have a great track record. And so, you know, I think it deserves further study to see the difference between municipal ownership and nonprofit ownership.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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ABigford: But you know they just, Stuart. They didn’t have the resources. They don’t. They don’t. They don’t have what they need, and you know, maybe somehow they could get it together. I mean, they’ve certainly learned from this. But.
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ABigford: Um, I, you know, it’s, it’s not an ideal situation. They don’t have a lot, you know, they have a very minority of people from the town that actually work at the ski area. Um, you know, a relative minority, um, who make up the visitation there.
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ABigford: So there’s a little bit of a feeling of Boulder County and beyond skiers that Eldora is being held hostage by the town of Netherlands desires to put itself on the map. And this just isn’t the right way to go about it.
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Stuart Winchester: All right, so let’s talk a little bit about Eldora and what it’s realistically going to take to run this place in a modern Colorado. Because as you point out, Colorado is one of the most competitive, it is the most competitive ski market in America. It’s home to a quarter of skiable terrain, a quarter of skier visits.
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Stuart Winchester: Here is the trail map for Eldora, okay? Like we said, it’s small. One high-speed lift going up here, for those watching on stormskiing.com or YouTube at Storm Ski Journal. And, you know, a really mess of really old lifts over here in the beginner terrain, and then you have some long, slow…
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Stuart Winchester: Fixed quads over here. Now, people who…
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Stuart Winchester: you know, Eldora has to compete against Copper, and Winter Park, and Arapahoe Basin, and all of the Vail Mountains. So, from your point of view.
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Stuart Winchester: what does Eldora need to do to modernize to stay relevant? And yes, the Icon Pass has been very successful, but everyone else is upgrading all the time, right? Especially in Colorado. So what do they need to do to modernize this mountain? And…
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Stuart Winchester: What sort of owner would they need to be able to pull that off?
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ABigford: Yeah, and it really presents a good, you know, challenge for us deep thinkers about what a resort does to.
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ABigford: position itself for you know what’s ahead. And and we’ve had our 1st detachable and expanded parking lot and a new beginner’s lodge. And you know, what do you do next? And we are already behind the curve, because times are.
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ABigford: tough right now, and we need to stay competitive. So because of the popularity of the Icon Pass and the type of skiers that draws, and the fact that Eldora.
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ABigford: has become a strong intermediate and above mountain, the natural return on investment is to replace the very popular old fixed Corona lift with a detachable.
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ABigford: So that’s the next move. That’s the cheapest, best immediate return. All right. So you’re over there. You’re seeing where Corona is, and that would access a great, you know, the Salto Glades and Moose, and not just Corona, but a couple trails that were cut recently.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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ABigford: that really took advantage of that terrain that seems, you know, that is a better expert range. So that’s where the thinking has evolved to. Now, if we go back to.
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ABigford: pre-Icon Pass, we wanted to be Boulder County’s beginner ski area. So, when we look not just at.
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ABigford: short-term return on investment, but on long-term impact on growing the sport. There’s one for you. Um, we would put in the new Jolly Jug lift, which is low angle, it is southern facing, and um…
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Stuart Winchester: Is that this one?
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ABigford: That’s off the top of the Alpenglow lift, and that has been approved.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh, there it is.
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ABigford: So, it’s just waiting. Now, the difficulty with that, why it would be a great step up from the Little Hawk beginner terrain to Jolly Jug to Alpenglow and Corona, but it’s south-facing, and it requires new snowmaking.
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ABigford: And that requires water that we don’t have right now. We’re in the middle of a drought. So, what do you do?
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Stuart Winchester: Right. Right. So, so…
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Stuart Winchester: You need professional management, and that’s why Killington worked. Phil Gross said from day one, we’re keeping Mike Solomano and the leadership team who’s been there under powder. They did a great job. And I skied around with Phil, and it was very enlightening, actually, because.
00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:47.000
Stuart Winchester: He’s just, like, a fan of the ski area. He skis it like anyone else. He clearly has no say on the operations. He leaves it to them. He’s like, oh, I don’t know if that lift is running today, and I don’t know, you know, I hope this trail is open, and so he’s not on the walkie-talkie saying, hey, uh.
00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:59.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m the rich owner, do what I want. He actually deferred to them. Did we just not see that happen with Netherlands? Was there just not that concession that.
00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:06.000
Stuart Winchester: I mean, were they actually going to try to run it as a town park, rather than leaving it to the hiring professional ski area management team?
00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:20.000
ABigford: Yes, so that’s what we don’t know, Stuart, and it’s troubling, and we think, to read between the lines, that they would have needed to.
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:39.000
ABigford: engage with powder to have them oversee the resort into the future, maybe for several years, and let them do their thing. 303 is gone. There’s a lot of speculation about what the mayor might do, or the town council, and how they could be involved.
00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:56.000
ABigford: but it’s better left. It’s a very complex, very difficult business, much harder than running the town of Nederland, and I would like to see it in professional hands. And so those are the people that need to make the decision. And meanwhile.
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:02.000
ABigford: We just kind of go through a period of uncertainty, so we don’t really know.
00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, as we look around the Colorado landscape, let’s just complicate this ownership potential a little bit. So most of Eldora’s surrounding mountains are owned by Powder Altera or Vail. I think the Justice Department made it clear when it investigated.
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Elterra’s purchase of Arapahoe Basin, that a basin in Winter Park and Steamboat were enough in Colorado. I don’t think Vail’s getting any more in Colorado.
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Bale Beaver Creek, Breck, Keystone, and Crested Butte. Powder will still have cop.
00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:41.000
Stuart Winchester: There could be an outside, like a Mountain Capital Partners or a Boyne that could come in and, you know, someone who really knows how to run a ski area.
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:59.000
Stuart Winchester: You also have several independents in Colorado still. You have Sunlight, you have Monarch, and it’s interesting, I interviewed the GM of Monarch the other day, and what surprised me when I looked was Monarch skier visits in the Epic and Icon era have just gone up and up and up and up and up, even when they didn’t expand until last year, and they have a bunch of old double chairs.
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Not that much terrain or vert. So, so there’s obviously a place in Colorado for, for small scale.
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:07.000
Stuart Winchester: key areas.
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you think there is an independent ownership model for Eldora?
00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Or would you rather see an experienced, proven company come in and buy it?
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:36.000
ABigford: You know, it’s a good question, and I would, you know, an independent would be great. I think they have to partner with the Icon Pass, and so it’s become more difficult to sell a ski resort because.
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, yeah.
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:53.000
ABigford: You don’t just have the seller and the buyer. You have the national pass. Icon, Epic, whatever it is. So it’s almost like a third party negotiation. And their scan rate that they’re going to get is critical. And is it going to keep going? And what were the circumstances?
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:33:53.000 --> 00:34:10.000
ABigford: where they came up with it. So it is much more, and so most of the operators that knocked around, um, you know, some of them were independent, but they oftentimes had a tie-in to, to, like, an IconPass.
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:26.000
ABigford: So that’s that’s the way it’s been. And, you know, I think the relationship with Altera Icon is, is, you know, going to have to continue on. And as Eric Resnick will tell you.
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:42.000
ABigford: from Ksl. Which which runs owns Altera, you know, doing this franchise system where they have owned resorts and franchise resorts like Aldora. It’s a lot harder.
00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:57.000
ABigford: But it can be more rewarding, too. So we have kind of a situation nationally where it’s owned Vail Resorts versus owned slash franchise, which is Icon, and we’ll see where it goes.
00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you think, and I agree with you, Icon needs to stay, but I want to take a look at A-Basin’s evolution real quick. So A-Basin was unlimited on the Epic Pass for years, and Vail was doing all kinds of Summit County passes that were $300, $400, and it just got insane at A-Basin. So Al Hansroth, longtime CEO, said, goodbye.
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:20.000
Stuart Winchester: And he went and he got on Limited Icon and Mountain Collective.
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:33.000
Stuart Winchester: And he wrote a series of notes, he does his Al’s blog, and he said, our skier visits are way down, but our revenue is up, and our experience is way better. Is there a world where Eldora.
00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Stuart Winchester: right sizes? 400,000 sounds like a lot of skier visits for a skier of that size. Maybe it spreads out well, I don’t really know, I haven’t skied Eldora in a while. But do you think that, you know, a 7-5 day Icon deal could maybe help Eldora…
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:54.000
Stuart Winchester: maybe make it a little bit more manageable? Or is it just, you know what, it’s working from a revenue point of view, and that’s not the thing to fix?
00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:12.000
ABigford: Yeah, and so what we’re looking at is parking lots, and that’s always been the muffler for A-Basin, is the limited parking. And Alan has gone through everything, and we’ve seen him evolve into what it is now.
00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh.
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:30.000
ABigford: And, um, I would guess A-Basin probably does more skier visits, and it’s just because they open on October and they close in June. They have a much longer season. So for the, you know, for the near future, I see Eldora, um.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:50.000
ABigford: sticking on the unlimited icon, but everybody’s different. And, you know, I mean, you can, you know, you can dissect the full-on icons, which is a steamboat and a copper, which have a big percentage of icon redemptions.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:02.000
ABigford: versus the limited, which is Steamboat, which is Snowbird, one of your favorite places, Alta, and it’s an interesting look at that. Um, it does play an important role, so…
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:07.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, Andy, let’s finish up with this. You signed off your…
00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:23.000
Stuart Winchester: your column in Sam Magazine saying Powder should pull the plug with… you said they have three options, and the column was a couple weeks ago, so… so can you go through what you currently think, and maybe they’re the same, Powder’s options are.
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:25.000
Stuart Winchester: And what they should do.
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:47.000
ABigford: Yeah, I think the, I think that the only path for powder is to gracefully remove itself from this process. It’s got more than enough momentum to do so. Avoid the angst that’s going to appear in, you know, that’s going to show in the town. They’re already.
00:37:47.000 --> 00:38:06.000
ABigford: well past the expiration of their purchase agreement, so they’re not legally encumbered. Um, the town is stuck with a $2.5 million loss. That’s tough. And, um, but you’ve got to move on from that. And it’s apparent now.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:23.000
ABigford: more than ever that, you know, Powder really needs to put its intention on customers and staff and just get back to running in the ski area. They tried, it didn’t work out. So, you know, put the numbers first and get back to running a ski area.
00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:29.000
Stuart Winchester: When you say get back to running the ski area, as you said, you’re a long-time Eldora local, you’ve probably skied there hundreds and hundreds.
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Were they not running it as well last year?
00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:48.000
ABigford: You know how it is, Stuart. Every employee there will tell you that things are normal, that they’re marching ahead, that it’s just like another season. But, you know, we know that there’s a dark cloud hanging over the future of it.
00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:38:48.000 --> 00:39:04.000
ABigford: And who’s going to own it? And is it going to be an unusual, never tried before ownership? And that’s what you can remove. And you need to remove it for all the people that frequent that place and that support it.
00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:08.000
ABigford: And, you know, enough is enough. We tried.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:19.000
Stuart Winchester: And how much did the last winter, which was not great, complicate the town’s intentions to purchase? Because I think it probably laid bare.
00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:24.000
Stuart Winchester: When you have a bad winter, you really need to know what you’re doing and have some backup.
00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:41.000
ABigford: I think that that was part of the reluctance of bond buyers to go into this unknown thing. I mean, would you buy a bond at 8.5% not knowing what the future was going to hold?
00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:55.000
ABigford: And they’ve got a lot more information than we do. So this last season, this points to the difference between, like, a Vail Resorts. They sell all those Appy Passes, they get the money.
00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:11.000
ABigford: When you look at a franchisee with an icon, they don’t get the money unless they do the scans. So it hits their pocketbook and it’s, you know, it can be painful. So it’s a step back and going into this season.
00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:14.000
ABigford: It’s important to note that.
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:29.000
ABigford: Here in Colorado, most of our ski areas only have about 20% snowmaking. That’s all we’ve really needed. We rely on Mother Nature, and Eldora has always been very different since the.
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:40.000
ABigford: tell Ertl days in that they’re 100% snowmaking. It’s windy, and they have different type of weather, so they need the snowmaking, therefore they need the water.
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:51.000
ABigford: to make the snow. And we know what’s going on with the drought. Water is a premium, so, you know, it’s gonna be a challenge.
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:40:51.000 --> 00:41:00.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, Andy, really appreciate you coming by today. I know you’re trying to retire. I don’t think writers can ever really retire. Are you working on anything you want to tell us about?
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:28.000
ABigford: I am Stuart, and I’m working on a Ski Ink 2030 book in memoriam to Chris Diamond, who ran Steamboat and who basically led the way on the last couple of Ski Ink books. And I promised I would do it. And I was very involved in that one and the previous one. And I have to tell you that I’ve delayed it because I don’t know what’s going to happen.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Ooh, love it.
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:17.000
Stuart Winchester: I just, uh…
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:46.000
ABigford: And, um, you can say it’s sort of like having a baby, you just have a book, but, um, it’s not that easy, and I’d like to see what happens with the VR proxy battle, and with the new CEO at Altera, and to get a good.
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:50.000
ABigford: winner under our belt. So, that’s where I am.
00:41:49.000 --> 00:42:00.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s a great time to be writing about the evolution of lip service skiing, because there is a lot going on, and you are right in the heart of it, so thank you so much, Andy, for coming by. I really appreciate it. Let’s do this again soon.
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:01.000
ABigford: Thank you very much.
00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:08.000
Stuart Winchester: All right. Okay, so that was great. I’ll just record my outro, and this one I’ll put out later today.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:11.000
ABigford: All right, all right, that’s awesome. Let’s stay in touch.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, alright.
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:17.000
ABigford: I hope that, I hope you got what you needed and wanted. And so.
00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I’m…
00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I’m always happy to riff on, uh…
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Ideas for your book, just if you’re like…
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:25.000
Stuart Winchester: want to talk about trends or whatever, I’m just…
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:31.000
ABigford: Yeah, I, I’m, I mean, you know, I, I, the, the.
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:35.000
ABigford: Consumer wants a national pass.
00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:38.000
ABigford: And…
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:49.000
ABigford: they’ve shown that, and we did have a renaissance. It did grow our skier visits, unprecedented. I’ve never seen it in almost 50 years.
00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:42:49.000 --> 00:43:05.000
ABigford: But now it’s time to pay the piper and make the next difficult choice. Those days are over. The Renaissance is over. The mega passes have stalled, and the fierce independent spirit has grown, even when it’s funded by private equity.
00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:07.000
ABigford: So what happens next?
00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:11.000
ABigford: That’s why we watch and listen to you.
00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:26.000
Stuart Winchester: I know. It’s so fun, man. It’s so fun. I, I can’t wait. I, I wish the book was coming out sooner. I, I love these, these two. They were actually reading these books. Well, this one came out, I think, after, well, no, maybe before I started the storm, but they, they really got me inspired to start this whole newsletter.
00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Was reading you guys books.
00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:43.000
ABigford: Yeah, that’s really great to hear, Stuart. And the problem is that technology, I mean, it’s more of a daily or minute by minute story right now. And it’s hard to write a book. And that book was done at the, you know, it did, you know.
00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:59.000
ABigford: precede COVID, which we didn’t expect, but that was in an era before technology had taken a super advance, and part of me says, you know, you’re gonna write this in a book, you know, why can’t you get.
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:04.000
ABigford: The CEO, right? We don’t know, right?
00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.
00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:07.000
ABigford: So that’s where I’m stuck.
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:25.000
ABigford: So, I’m left more to a minute-by-minute, um, acknowledgement of how everything’s changing. I… I had hoped to publish in… in late summer 2027, so this coming late summer. I’ve delayed it to year… for a year to let it.
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:27.000
ABigford: Work itself out.
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:33.000
ABigford: And the heck with it after that. But right now, the Renaissance is over.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:35.000
ABigford: Isn’t it?
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m coming to terms with that myself. I think I’m…
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.000
ABigford: I’m just coming to terms with it now.
00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I don’t know if I am as convicted as you are. I think I need to see…
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:54.000
Stuart Winchester: One more normal winter.
00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:56.000
ABigford: That’s what I want.
00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Before I conclude, yeah.
00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:59.000
ABigford: We don’t know.
00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Because last winter, really, yeah.
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:09.000
ABigford: We’ve seen the slippage in the epic, and I still think that creating that idea.
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:11.000
ABigford: Was huge.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:27.000
ABigford: But Rob Katz himself says that Vail Resorts is not going to be known for the Epic Pass, which is hard to stomach, but will be known for the experiences it provides at Vail Resorts properties.
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:28.000
ABigford: in the future.
00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:30.000
ABigford: Do you buy that?
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:40.000
Stuart Winchester: No, no, and I don’t know if you caught this, but in his last earnings call, after talking about the Epic Pass for 20 years, and saying we want 75% of visits to be pre-sale.
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And spending 20 years crushing the lift ticket and ruining it as a product.
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Stuart Winchester: he all of a sudden couldn’t stop talking about Lyft tickets. He said, oh yeah, our Epic Pass sales are down 10%.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:58.000
Stuart Winchester: And I was like, seriously? How? $392 for a peak day at Beaver Creek, even half off, that’s a lot of money.
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.000
ABigford: Thank you.
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:14.000
ABigford: most of the people in the business think is the stupidest thing ever, and when it was hatched 20 years ago, the epic pass when they didn’t even think they would sell 500,000, much less a million, and now 2 million. They never thought that far ahead to say.
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:22.000
ABigford: Where does this lead? And the bottom line, Stuart, is that mega passes stunt skier growth.
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:23.000
ABigford: Period.
00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:27.000
Stuart Winchester: You think they start…
00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:27.000
ABigford: Okay.
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, 6 of the last 7…
00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Winters were record winters.
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:37.000
Stuart Winchester: or see your visits nationally. So I guess I’m not following.
00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:42.000
ABigford: I’m making a distinction between participation.
00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:44.000
ABigford: Which you cite.
00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:46.000
ABigford: Participants.
00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:49.000
ABigford: Very big distinction.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, so you’re saying with the price of lift tickets and the focus on the highest price product? Yeah.
00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:03.000
ABigford: it scares people away. We went from being the cheapest thing around… we had a brief window where skiing went from being…
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.
00:46:57.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:21.000
ABigford: ridiculously expensive to too good of a price to pass on, and so… but the result of all that is now the focus is on ticket windows, and nobody gets beyond that to see all the many deals. They just see it’s $3.90 a day.
00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:26.000
ABigford: plus thousands for accommodations and things. So that’s where it’s hurt us.
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. I mean, we could have so many good conversations. I mean, yeah.
00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:35.000
ABigford: I know. So I don’t. And the truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know.
00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, part of the reason why I switched to the shorter format and got away from the longer…
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:58.000
Stuart Winchester: less frequent pods is… it was just getting too hard to keep up, and I needed something that focused in the moment, and that I could turn quick. And so I relate it to everything you’re saying, it’s… I’m seeing it in real time. I would always rather write, but the truth is, I can do this really fast and pump these out, so…
00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:13.000
ABigford: So, you know, put yourself in my shoes, Stuart. A book that changes in our industry, now printing a book using offset printing, it’s more than a three-month process.
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:30.000
ABigford: from sending them to to getting books back. It’s more than 3 months. It’s gone up a lot, and you know that’s the cheaper way to do it, and we always use a Canadian outfit called Friesens. You can go print on demand.
00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Wow.
00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I’m.
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:45.000
ABigford: But it’s much more expensive, and it’s smaller amounts, and it’s much more expensive. But you have, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it can be a couple weeks. So, you know, those are among the things that I’m, you know, I’m sort of challenged with.
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:57.000
ABigford: And three months will be, you know, it’s more like four months. Just imagine, you know, writing something and then waiting four months to have it published. Think about that.
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:03.000
Stuart Winchester: No, I know, I graduated J-School in 2008, so I kind of was just at the beginning of everything.
00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:18.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, switching around, so I… I didn’t live… I don’t have the lived experience, yeah. You know, I grew up without the internet, but I didn’t… I didn’t work without the internet, so I can only… every time I’m doing this, you know, I probably Google.
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:08.000
ABigford: Good for you for going that far.
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:24.000
Stuart Winchester: 50 things for every, you know, newsletter I write, and it’s just like…
00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:28.000
Stuart Winchester: You just had to remember things, and have the access, or just leave them out, or estimate.
00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:40.000
ABigford: I know, and when you do Google it, and I’m sure you use AI a lot, you know, you got to look at the source, because it’s not… it’s oftentimes not right, but…
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh yeah.
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, well, that’s why I build my own database, because I go… when I find a legit source, I put it in there, and then I’m like, okay, because I got tired of looking things up all the time, so…
00:49:47.000 --> 00:50:05.000
ABigford: Yeah, and you’re right about the expansions being equal to 15 ski areas out here in the West, those expansions, but at the same time, you know, Vail Resorts and the Robcats model is built on, it’s a closed business.
00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:12.000
ABigford: And that’s what, you know, sells, helps sell stock that, you know, there aren’t new.
00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:28.000
ABigford: Ski resorts coming in. There’s no competition. You can expand in your footprint, but, um, you know, it’s just another other interesting, you know, um, sidebar in this, you know, where you have 475 different stories.
00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.000
Stuart Winchester: That’s right.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, no, I think you’re absolutely right, and when I was reading through those lawsuits, I thought most of them were nonsense, but they did win me over on the fact that the.
00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:30.000
ABigford: That’s how many results there are.
00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Destination market has been captured and divided up in that.
00:50:43.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Stuart Winchester: that really can’t be expanded, um, and… and we’ve set ourselves up with a regulatory structure to make sure that’s so. So it can… yes, each resort can be expanded, but new resorts can’t. So you’re absolutely right. So, I don’t know, I gotta run right now, but uh… I think we could have a lot… I think we could do this again.
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:01.000
ABigford: It’s good catching up.
