Who
Belinda Trembath, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
Date Recorded
Nov. 9, 2026
About Whistler
Owned by: Vail Resorts, which also owns:
Year founded: 1966 (Whistler), 1980 (Blackcomb), merged 1997
Pass affiliations:
Epic Pass: unlimited access
Epic Local Pass: 10 holiday-restricted days shared with Vail Mountain and Beaver Creek, both in Colorado
Epic Day Pass: one to seven days, with or without restricted days included, on the top tier only
Edge Card (restricted to residents of Washington and British Columbia): available in 2-, 5-, and 10-day increments, with or without holiday restrictions; 5- and 10-day passes purchased by April 12, 2026 include unlimited access from opening day through Friday, Dec. 11, 2026; 5- and 10-day passes purchased from April 13, 2026 to May 25, 2026 include one bonus day
Base elevation: 2,215 feet/675 meters
Summit elevation: 7,159 feet/2,182 meters
Vertical drop: 5,280 feet/1,507 meters
Skiable acres: 8,171
Average annual snowfall: 404 inches/1,170 centimeters
Lift count: 31 (5 gondolas, 1 pulse gondola, 1 eight-pack, 4 six-packs, 8 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 3 triples, 1 T-bar, 7 carpets)
Why I interviewed her
In August, I wrote a piece describing ski area operators’ low-key panic that U.S. America would do the most U.S. American thing possible and switch to permanent daylight savings time:
Ski Industry Resists Congress' Permanent Daylight Savings Time Proposal
The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast does not support a move to permanent daylight savings time. And I’m sorry Time Bro, but The Storm likes the biannual clock change and thinks you would fare poorly should you wake up one day as a character in a time-travel movie.
While reporting that story, I discovered something kind of astonishing: Canada - or at least, British Columbia - had out America-ed America, saying “yes we’d like the sun to rise after 9 a.m. at the height of winter”:
And I thought “well that’s gonna be a problem.” Maybe especially for the largest ski resort on the continent, which had little choice but to go along with the time change.
And it was time for a Whistler update anyway. Because it’s Whistler and because it had been a couple years since my last pod and because apparently Dr. Seuss designed their new Showcase chairlift:
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
The take up top: Peak Resorts brass back in the game
Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I’m your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Tuesday, November 10th, 2026.
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Stuart Winchester: Today on The Storm, Whistler head Belinda Trimbath joins us to break down what permanent daylight savings time means for North America’s largest ski area. And she will also give us an overview of the new showcase fixed trip quad.
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Stuart Winchester: replacing the high elevation T-bar on Blackcomb, including why this machine will load lower than the old lift.
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Stuart Winchester: Also, a cool local multi-mountain pass that most of you have probably never heard of, and the former owners of Peak Resorts aim to get back into the ski business?
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Stuart Winchester: We’ll get to all that in just a moment. First, I want to thank…
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Stuart Winchester: My longtime partner, Profile Search International.
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Stuart Winchester: Profile search.
01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:30.000
Stuart Winchester: is the Ski Industry Talent Acquisition Experts.
01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Profile Search has more than 30 years of experience as the only executive search and recruitment firm in the entire world that focuses 100% on the ski industry.
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Stuart Winchester: As you know, whether you’re a skier or a ski area operator, running a ski area is only getting more complicated, and sometimes it is difficult to understand what you even need to compete.
01:07:53.000 --> 01:07:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Let alone who can help you to do that.
01:07:56.000 --> 01:08:11.000
Stuart Winchester: This is where Profile Search comes in. They have an intimate understanding of what it takes to run a modern ski area, and, more important, they know who the people are who can help you make that happen, and they know who’s available.
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Stuart Winchester: Profile search has offices in the United States and Canada, and they can find and negotiate with the right leaders for your team.
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Stuart 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.
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Stuart Winchester: Alright, let’s start with the former owners of Peak Resorts possibly getting back into skiing. So, this is a really interesting headline.
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Stuart Winchester: That popped up last week, and I didn’t have time to address it because it broke late in the week when I was done recording podcasts. The headline is Brothers Who Sold $264 Million Ski Empire to Vail Resorts Set to Buy Snowy Range Ski Area.
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Stuart Winchester: So, the brothers that they are referring to are… the Boyd brothers.
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Stuart Winchester: And the article, this is from Cowboy State Daily, this is a Wyoming newspaper.
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Stuart Winchester: Quote, In 2019, the Boyd family sold its $264 million Peak Resorts ski empire to Vail Resorts. Now, three Boyd brothers are staging a return, and it’s happening in Wyoming.
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Stuart Winchester: Jesse Boyd confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that he, his brothers Jason and Joshua, and his best friend Brendan Ryan are buying Snowy Range Ski Area west of Laramie.
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Stuart Winchester: Alright, so Snowy Range is interesting. This is the ski area that actually joined Icon Pass this year on the 2-day tier.
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Stuart Winchester: And the relationship makes more sense than maybe it sounds like from a distance. So, Snowy Range is kind of small, uh, but it is there in southeast Wyoming, and the closest big ski area to it is Steamboat.
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Stuart Winchester: So for years and years, Snowy Range had this special pass deal with Steamboat where you could add a five day Steamboat pass onto your Snowy Range season pass for some reasonable amount. It was $300 or something, and I could go look up the exact prices, but.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, this year…
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Stuart Winchester: Altera replaced that, Altera meaning Steamboat owner Altera.
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Stuart Winchester: Replace that with the…
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Stuart Winchester: option for Snowy Range Pass holders to buy a 3-day Icon Session Pass, which I’ve already told you is a terrible product, but you can get half off of that product, and I guess the good news is you’re not stuck with just Steamboat anymore. You can also go to, say, Winter Park, or.
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Stuart Winchester: Copper Mountain, or…
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Stuart Winchester: Solitude, if you want to go use that product out in Utah, although it doesn’t work at Alta Snowbird, Snow Basin, or Deer Valley. But…
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Stuart Winchester: Nonetheless, the Boyds are buying Snowy Range.
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Stuart Winchester: Icon Deal and All, from Aaron and Becky Maddox, who have owned the ski area since 2010. The Maddoxes did a great job. They had never run a ski area, but they rebuilt all five lifts. So, even though they’re…
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Stuart Winchester: older lifts, they are refurbished, so they’re in good working order. Uh, Boyd was not planning, necessarily, to get back into the ski industry, he tells the Cowboy State Daily, but he fell in love with the mountain, and…
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Stuart Winchester: In case you think this is an instance of, okay, he’s gonna go all Booth Creek, and do what Gillette did, and build another…
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Stuart Winchester: Ski Empire, he has this really great quote that…
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Stuart Winchester: He gave to the Cowboy State Daily.
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Stuart Winchester: Jesse Boyd, this is, uh, from the Cowboy State Daily. Jesse Boyd said he could foresee buying a couple more resorts, but they’re… but they aren’t out to rebuild the 17-resort public company they once helped run before its sale to Vail Resorts.
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Stuart Winchester: Quote, no more empire building, Boyd said. To be honest with you, we just love the ski industry, we love to ski, and we just miss being around it. So, a couple things that are interesting about that. Number one.
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Stuart Winchester: A couple more, okay, uh…
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Stuart Winchester: Snowy Range…
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Stuart Winchester: is an interesting one, right? Because, yes, it’s a feeder, but all the things that you would feed into are pretty much already owned, except for maybe, I don’t know, like a Grand Targhee, but, I mean, that’s owned, obviously, just not owned by a multi-resort company.
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Stuart Winchester: And, uh, the Boyds, all their experience was, at least ski operations experience, at least as far as I’m aware, of directly running ski resorts with Peak Resorts, was in the East. So they started in Missouri, back in the 1970s, when Boyd’s father, Tim.
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Stuart Winchester: founded Hidden Valley Ski Area in Missouri. And then he started another one, and then they eventually bought a bunch of ski areas. They bought Paley Peaks in Indiana, and they bought Boston Mills Brandywine in Mad River in Alpine Valley in Ohio, and they bought.
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Stuart Winchester: a bunch of skiers in Pennsylvania, and they bought Hunter in New York, and they bought Mount Snow in Vermont, and they bought Wildcat in At.
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Stuart Winchester: in New Hampshire, and they actually… Crotchett was abandoned, done, overgrown, and they brought it back.
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Stuart Winchester: And they…
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Stuart Winchester: you know, they… they bought the old high-speed quad, uh, out of a closed Vermont ski area, and they rebuilt it at Crotchet, and… and they reopened it, and it’s a thriving ski area today. Great night skiing. Now… now those… that was a history of…
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Stuart Winchester: peak in no particular order, right? They picked those things up all at different times, and they sold to Vail in 2019, and that was around the time when.
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Stuart Winchester: The size of Vail, resort-wise, more than doubled in a couple years, and then COVID hit, and it was obviously an awkward adjustment period. Anyway, it looks like they’re getting back into it. I would love to connect with them. I’m going to continue to follow this story.
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Stuart Winchester: Cowboy State Daily did a really good job breaking it all down, and…
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Stuart Winchester: The, uh, the Maddoxes, who had bought Snowy Range in 2010 again, said that the offer was too good to refuse, so I have no doubt that…
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Stuart Winchester: the Boyds will do a great job running Snowy Range. Alright, little…
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Stuart Winchester: Multi-mountain pass note.
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Stuart Winchester: And this is going to be interesting for those of you who live, in particular, in Northeast PA, and I’ve talked about this pass before in the newsletter. So it’s the WNEP Ski Pass, and the WNEP Ski… well, it’s the WNEP Ski Card, okay?
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Stuart Winchester: It’s not really a pass, but essentially, for $149.99, you buy the WNEP ski card, and WNEP is just an ABC affiliate in Northeast Pennsylvania.
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Stuart Winchester: And it comes with 1 ticket each at 8 different ski areas, and it’s some pretty good ski areas, we’ll get into those below. There are some blackout dates. December 24th to January 3rd.
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Stuart Winchester: January 16th to 18th is MLK weekend, and February 13th to 15th, that’s President’s weekend, but…
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Stuart Winchester: It’s a great deal, $150 for 8 Lyft tickets, and here are the places.
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Stuart Winchester: Camelback, and I just had…
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Stuart Winchester: Hosted a featured Camelback on the podcast, and…
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Stuart Winchester: That was a lot of fun because Jason Bayes is, is really, is a skier. He’s a skier who gets Camelback and he’s really led a turnaround there and the locals I speak with seem quite happy with it. Uh Mountain Creek, uh you know, I love Mountain Creek 1000 vertical feet, high speed lifts.
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Stuart Winchester: Yes, it’s in New Jersey, but it is right there for you. Shawnee Mountain. Shawnee is awesome. Uh, Shawnee is…
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Stuart Winchester: you never know this from afar, but it is one of the most sophisticated ski areas around, and the reason I say that.
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Stuart Winchester: Is that they’re just always out in front of technology. They automated snowmaking way, way ahead of everyone else. They have a high speed quad. It’s awesome beginner train from the top to the bottom. And if it snows, they got some fun little trees. They don’t put them on the trail map. Ski Big Bear, another awesome family place.
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Stuart Winchester: This one is also on IndiePass.
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Stuart Winchester: Muskie Big Bear’s on there. Sawmill. Sawmill is, uh, not so modern, and they have a bunch of…
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Stuart Winchester: old T-bars and…
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Stuart Winchester: This was the last time I was at this place. I saw four kids load a triple cha…
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Stuart Winchester: Four kids load a triple. And the lifty did not stop them. I was like, alright, I guess it’s that kind of place. I saw Mill’s Fun, though. It’s… it’s a little backwards, but I love it. Swain is really cool. It’s one of these…
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Stuart Winchester: strange ski areas that has just a really very random-feeling trail network. This is a lot of fun to explore, it feels very video game-like.
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Stuart Winchester: And this is… this is the flagship. Whiteface! You get a day of whiteface on this thing. I mean, a Lyft ticket of whiteface probably costs $150.
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Stuart Winchester: on a Saturday. So, whiteface, biggest vertical in the East, and…
01:17:02.000 --> 01:17:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Another PA Mountain. Montage. Love Montage. Big fan of owner Charles Jefferson, and the work that he has done there on that 1,000 vertical foot mountain.
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Stuart Winchester: Lots of good, fun terrain there, and uh…
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Stuart Winchester: Mid-Mountain Base Lodge. So it’s kind of… it’s kind of a weird place for the Northeast. But anyway, WNEP ski card, you can get that… I don’t know, just Google WNEP ski card, and you can buy it online. It’s a nice little multi-mountain pass to have to pop around if you’re too late for Indy.
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Stuart Winchester: if maybe you don’t want to put out for an Icon or an Epic Pass. Alright, let me tell you about Island Snowbus, since we’re on the New York region here. Island Snowbus is a great option for Long Island and Queens and Brooklyn skiers.
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Stuart Winchester: If you are tired of waking up in the middle of the night and driving all the way up to the bump and back in one day, Island Snow Bus could be your hack. They have pickouts throughout Suffolk and Nassau counties, and in eastern Queens, near the Whitestone Bridge.
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Stuart Winchester: Allen Snowbus plans single and multi-day trips to some of our best ski areas in the Northeast, including Whiteface, Jay Peak, Stratton, Gore, Killington, Bel Air, Jimmy Peak, Elk Mountain, Mount Snow, Hunter, and Platykill.
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Stuart Winchester: They will perhaps add some more mountains, do a bonus trip if a big storm rolls through.
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Stuart Winchester: Island Snowbus does offer packages. They will roll in the lift tickets, or you can just do transportation if you already have your own Epic or Icon Pass.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it’s an early pickup, but get there, crash out, and you’re refreshed when you arrive, got people to ski with.
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Stuart Winchester: Wonk out on the way home.
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Stuart Winchester: Or, you know, socialize. Maybe you’ll meet your future spouse on an Island Snowbus trip. So, go check out their calendar for 2026-27 at islandsnowbus.com, and slam in the code STORM for $50 off your first trip.
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Stuart Winchester: at islandsnowbus.com.
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Stuart Winchester: Alright, I am fired up to get to Whistler, Chief Operating Officer and VP, Belinda Trembath. Let’s do it!
Whistler Interview:
Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the vice president and chief operating officer of Whistler Black Home, the largest ski area in North America with nearly three dozen lifts serving 8,171 acres of terrain on a mile high vertical drop.
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Stuart Winchester: Whistler is one of 42 ski areas operated by Vail Resorts across three continents. She also oversees Vail’s three ski areas in Australia, Parisher, Falls, Creek, and Haslam.
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Stuart Winchester: Belinda from Bath is my guest. Belinda, welcome back to the storm, so great to catch up. How are you doing as we get closer and closer to winter here?
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Belinda.Trembath: I’m great, Stuart. Thanks so much for having me back on the show. It’s obviously a really exciting time of the year here as we prepare for our opening later next week and welcome a whole lot of new employees and returning employees to the resort.
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Stuart Winchester: Well, it was about 2 years ago, a little over 2 years ago, actually, that you were last on the podcast, and I, you know, we could catch up on Whistler probably every month. I mean, there’s always so much going on, right? And as I said, it’s such a big, busy, important mountain. But the reason in particular that I wanted to speak to you before this season starts.
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Stuart Winchester: is what I have up on the screen right now for those watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube at Storm Ski Journal is a chart showing.
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Stuart Winchester: the differences between sunrise times normally at Whistler Black Home, which is this blue line, which shows that at its latest, the sun will come up about quarter after 8 in the morning, and the time that it will come up is the red line this winter, because.
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Stuart Winchester: Why, Belinda? Tell us what’s going on and how you’re dealing with it at Whistler Black H.
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Belinda.Trembath: Well, earlier this year, we learned that the province of British Columbia had decided to stay on daylight savings time moving forward. So no time zone change. So not last weekend, the weekend before, everybody just stayed on the same time instead of…
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Belinda.Trembath: switching their clocks. And so, you know, the impact of that when you step back and look at your operation is such that you really need to think about, you know, how we care for our employees and how we care for the guest experience out there on snow. So as your chart suggests, it’s…
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Belinda.Trembath: going to get light well after 9 o’clock during the peak part of our holiday season. So, the team really had to spend a lot of time this summer looking at how we adjust our operating hours to best meet the needs of our employees and our guests. So, I can share a little bit more about what that looks like.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, please do.
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Belinda.Trembath: But that’s… that’s certainly the reason.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, please do. Yeah, let’s, let’s get into it because I, you know, in my head I’m just like, oh, just move everything back an hour, right? If you used to open at eight, open at nine, but nothing’s ever that simple. So yeah, what, walk us through what this means for you, your team, and the, the, the skier.
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Belinda.Trembath: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: planning to visit Whistler, especially if they’re used to… because I know everyone I talk to at Whistler has a routine, like, I park here, and I go here, and this is my lift, and you know, no one does it randomly, so there will be impacts.
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Belinda.Trembath: That’s exactly right, Stuart. Like, you know, people do experience their resort in their own unique way, whether they’re, you know, traveling up from, um, south of us, from Vancouver or Squamish, um, or whether they’re indeed staying here in the village. And so, what we really had to think about during the course of the summer, when we were assessing.
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Stuart Winchester: Yep.
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Belinda.Trembath: the no time change was really understanding the different upload patterns of our different types of guests and how we would best move everyone out of the base areas, caring for folks that are maybe taking a little longer to enjoy a breakfast in the hotel versus folks that are…
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Belinda.Trembath: heading up the highway and wanting to get out on snow as early as possible. And then, of course, we’ve got our lesson programming to care for as well. And just, you know, ensuring that the experience for guests stayed as close as it has been in the past, but obviously caring for the fact that we have less.
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Belinda.Trembath: daylight in the morning. So, in simple terms, we took the decision to move our operations 30 minutes later in the morning, and then 30 minutes later in the afternoon. Because, of course, that was a key part of the conversation for our team as well, was to ensure that people were able to get the same amount of time on snow throughout the winter. So.
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Belinda.Trembath: 9 o’clock opening in the early part of the season, closing at 3.30 in the afternoon. Some of our high alpine lifts close a little bit earlier than that as we start to move back towards the village. We’ll stay on those hours through January, and then around BC Family Day or President’s Week.
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Belinda.Trembath: we’ll switch back to an 8.30 opening and a 4 o’clock closing. So really, yeah, half an hour change, but also that means that our lesson times will move by half an hour, and that will just allow us to.
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Belinda.Trembath: hold those guests so that they can start their day just that little bit later. Parents have a bit more time to get the kids ready to get out on snow, and then we’ll take those folks up the lift after 9.30.
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Stuart Winchester: So, Belinda, that’s interesting. So, it’s an hour time change, but you only shifted to the mountain times a half hour. Just take us into that decision and why that was the right one.
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Belinda.Trembath: Look, it was really around, we felt if we went another half hour, so 9:30, we would probably end up with more people wanting to get up the mountain at the same time. And the objective here is to try and phase the demand for our gondolas out of the village in a way that closely represents what we’ve experienced in the past, where our local guests and folks coming up from Vancouver are probably going to be.
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Belinda.Trembath: keen to get up there early. And then our guests that have travelled in from the US, from Australia, from Britain, they’re staying in the village. They tend to take a little bit more time to get out on snow. And of course, just managing our programming with lessons and so forth. So it seemed a bit late to be putting kids out on snow at 10 o’clock in the morning. Really want to help mum and dad out.
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Belinda.Trembath: Get them out there just that little bit earlier.
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Stuart Winchester: So, it looks like 9 o’clock through the heart of the season will be the opening time. So, because some people will take my chart too literally… now, this is…
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Stuart Winchester: These are estimates, and they are based on a website that has sunrise times, but the sunrise…
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Stuart Winchester: is not the same time as when you have usable light, right? So, as you can see, the sunrise may be after 9 at some points during the winter, but what does the sunrise time actually mean for.
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Stuart Winchester: when Whistler is usable by the general public.
00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:29.000
Belinda.Trembath: So, you know, we’re certainly thinking, yes, at 9 o’clock, um, when people start uploading in the morning, it’ll probably feel a little bit dark in the base areas, but the beauty of that is, as they’re heading up the gondolas, they’ll probably catch some pretty incredible sunrises. So that in itself is going to be…
00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:54.000
Belinda.Trembath: A little different from perhaps what we’ve been able to offer in the past because people will be up there just that little bit earlier. Of course, if we’d gone the full hour, then the experience would be akin to what people previously experienced. But it’s conceivable that it’ll be a little bit dark first thing in the morning. It certainly is feeling that way now already, but enjoying a little bit of extra daylight at the end of the day is a treat.
00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:03.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, it’s conceivable that people will be loading gondolas when it feels a little dark, and by the time they get to the top, they’ll be ready to hit the snow.
00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:19.000
Stuart Winchester: What do you think that means on the back end? And you just referenced this. Whistler already has the best opera scene in North America by consensus, and I would imagine that part of what feeds that is daylight. And not to say that people don’t party in the winter, but.
00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Certainly, everyone loves some sunshine. Do you anticipate a little…
00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:36.000
Stuart Winchester: boost to the bar scene, the opera scene, as we have a little bit later sunlight… sunsets? You know, during the holidays, frankly, when people are festive and getting together.
00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:52.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, look, I think, you know, thanks for calling out the RPRA scene. It’s certainly something that the town here are very proud of, and I think all of the operators that have businesses that nest around the base of our mountains are looking at how we activate and really encourage people to.
00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:19:52.000 --> 00:20:09.000
Belinda.Trembath: Come and celebrate at the end of the day. I know the hair farmers will be playing at Merlins, and they’ll be looking forward to entertaining folks. And of course, being out on the patio when it’s a little bit lighter might be a little more appealing, too. So certainly the local businesses are excited about the opportunity.
00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:16.000
Belinda.Trembath: And, you know, we’re going to have to watch how people behave and respond to no time change.
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.000
Stuart Winchester: So, beyond the guest experience, I mean, before the guests can even…
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Think about getting on the mountain. There’s employees, and I would imagine you probably have a couple thousand at the peak of winter. So I have the trail map up here, and Whistler Blackcomb’s just incredibly complex for many reasons. I mean, you have the main base area here with the village where everything comes together, and then you have Creekside over here.
00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:51.000
Stuart Winchester: But as you get up, I mean, there’s such temper… fluctuations in temperatures, in treeline, you have avalanche control that needs to be taken care of up here, you have all these off-piste zones above the piste, so just talk a little bit about…
00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.000
Stuart Winchester: your…
00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Patrollers…
00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:05.000
Stuart Winchester: And your snow surfaces teams in particular, and what this means for them from a scheduling and management point of view, because, wow, they already have a lot to do.
00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:22.000
Belinda.Trembath: They do, and luckily they’ve got a little bit more time now in the mornings, but of course their shifts in the afternoons will start that little bit later, given, um, or certainly in the early season, you know, we’ll have folks out on the snow until after 3.30, so until after final.
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:39.000
Belinda.Trembath: So we’ve been massaging schedules, working really closely with the patrol and mountain safety teams to ensure that we can get our high alpine terrain open as early and safely as possible. And then, of course, our snow surfaces team, so our grooming team and snowmaking team.
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:55.000
Belinda.Trembath: Um, we’ll be well and truly ready and off the snow. But, you know, we have had to think about, um, the personal aspects of this as well. You know, the school hours haven’t changed, daycare hours haven’t changed, so, you know, there’s been a lot of thought and consideration going to.
00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:16.000
Belinda.Trembath: how our operating hours and then our prep time does impact our teams. And we’ve really sought to minimise that, but to maximise the opportunity for people to get out on snow. And of course, investments in our remote avalanche control systems will really help us. We’ve got a couple of those units going in on Blackcomb.
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:25.000
Belinda.Trembath: for the first time, and one on Whistler, and so really looking forward to seeing the impact that they make, um, for the team to be able to get that high alpine terrain open.
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I was going to ask how visual AVI control is at this point, because more and more ski areas are going to those Gazprom launchers. So I guess the timing is fortuitous here. It’s an interesting point you bring up that the rest of society stays on the same schedule.
00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:58.000
Stuart Winchester: I, I don’t know about the history of this in Canada, but in the United States, we had permanent daily savings time for a minute in the seventies. And one of the reasons why we got rid of it very quickly was because the kids waiting for the school buses so early in the morning.
00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:01.000
Stuart Winchester: So it’s interesting about Whistler because.
00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:09.000
Stuart Winchester: it’s a bit of a company town in that it’s the main thing going on. I’m surprised that no one else.
00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:15.000
Stuart Winchester: did shift around the mountain’s schedule. You know, I know that when you’re…
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:22.000
Stuart Winchester: when you’re running this mound, you also have your hands in a lot of local community stuff. Do you know if they talked about that? Was that a consideration?
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:43.000
Belinda.Trembath: I don’t believe it was disgusting. I mean, there was definitely an option from the province that you could ask to carve out your town from the change, but really that adds even greater complexity when you consider that we have both guests and employees traveling from north of here, from Pemberton, and from south, from Squamish. So I’m quite pleased that that…
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh.
00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:58.000
Belinda.Trembath: that level of complexity was left out of it, but it certainly does mean that locally we need to ensure that, yeah, we’re caring for the fact that kids need to be dropped off at school and collected. It does give families a little bit more time in the morning.
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:02.000
Belinda.Trembath: But yeah, it’s certainly a consideration.
00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Maybe your after-school programs would pick up a little bit.
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:15.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, and there’s some terrific after-school programs that are available locally, and so, you know, those will come into play for those families, as they normally do.
00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:26.000
Stuart Winchester: So, I don’t know how big of a constituency this is, but it’s a constituency that I hear from a lot because of my particular audience of people who ski a lot. Is there… I know that there are at least some people.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:34.000
Stuart Winchester: who wake up very early in Washington and drive up to Whistler for the day, or to start their weekend, or, you know, to save on an overnight.
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:39.000
Stuart Winchester: They’re gonna lose an hour. Have you heard from this group? Any concern from them?
00:24:39.000 --> 00:25:05.000
Belinda.Trembath: We actually, we haven’t yet. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes, because of course, yeah, we do have quite a lot of folks that travel up either for the day or for the weekend from Seattle and from the broader Washington area. And so I think it’ll be, or the broader Seattle area, should I say, Washington state. So yeah, I think it’ll be really interesting to see how those folks handle the timing of their arrivals and departures.
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:10.000
Belinda.Trembath: But hopefully we’re giving them a bit of a hand by, you know, not opening ellipse until 9 o’clock.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:12.000
Stuart Winchester: So I was I looked up.
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:28.000
Stuart Winchester: When I was getting ready for this, if they had daylight savings time in Australia and, and according to the internet, uh, just the southeast provinces, so, so Queensland and the other ones know. So is this something that you have some experience dealing with as far as.
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Your resorts being on a different time zone than adjacent districts, and any pain points that might cause?
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:54.000
Belinda.Trembath: I would have to answer that question in the negative. I haven’t really dealt with it. We certainly do have guests in our Australian resorts that travel some distance, but they’re used to those time zone changes when they’re moving between the northern, western, and southern states. Um, but as far as, you know, really thinking about.
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:08.000
Belinda.Trembath: Um, the daylight hours that we’re dealing with now are certainly the daylight we’ll have to work with in the morning. Um, that is a unique challenge, and the team are… the team are up for it, but I’m afraid I’m not able to bring some experience from the Southern Hemisphere into that conversation.
00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah, it’s gonna be an interesting experiment. I know that the operators that I speak to in the United States are quite concerned.
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.000
Stuart Winchester: And I think that…
00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:34.000
Stuart Winchester: With British Columbia acting as a laboratory, hopefully you will learn some things to be able to share with us if this comes our way. So let’s talk about, Belinda, the new showcase lift. So getting a brand new lift at the top of Black Home, there’s.
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Always been a lift there, of course, but you’re replacing it, so… so tell us…
00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:44.000
Stuart Winchester: About this project, what we’re getting, and why it was time for an upgrade.
00:26:44.000 --> 00:27:01.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, look, I’ll start with the time for an upgrade first. So, you know, that T-bar has been in operation now for a couple of decades at least, and it was getting more challenging for us to open that terrain. The uphill track was getting steeper, as we’ve seen.
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:19.000
Belinda.Trembath: some of the glacial recession, and so the team had to work pretty hard to get the track into shape to be able to open that terrain. And in the last few years, it’s meant the terrain hasn’t really been available until, I would say, February, March, and probably into March at best. So.
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Belinda.Trembath: we decided that we would, um, replace that T-bar with a… with a fixed-grip quad chair, and, um, worked with Skytrak over the summer to install that lift. It certainly… I would describe it as a simple lift in a complex location, being high alpine terrain, and…
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:53.000
Belinda.Trembath: You know, the team have done an incredible job to work around the glacier to ensure that we were able to get the towers into solid rock, and we’re really excited about what that investment is going to provide for our guests on Blackcomb.
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:55.000
Belinda.Trembath: this coming winter.
00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:17.000
Stuart Winchester: So let’s talk about one of those towers here real quick, and I’ll bring up this great picture your team put on Instagram. Check that out if you’re watching this. It’s basically, if you’re not watching it and you can’t see the video, imagine a lift tower coming straight out perpendicular from rock, and then a lift tower sitting on top of that. So Belinda, tell us what we’re looking at here, because it looks like Dr. Seuss.
00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:32.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, so you’re looking at Tower 5 there on the new showcase quad, and effectively, as we were finalizing the alignment of that lift and getting into the exact locations for the tower footings.
00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:51.000
Belinda.Trembath: we did discover that, um, there was more glacial ice under bedrock that we weren’t able to pick up in our initial LiDAR mapping that was done for that terrain, and so we had to get a little more creative and, um, worked with SkyTrak, worked with our engineers, and came up with a solution that.
00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:10.000
Belinda.Trembath: you know, our understanding is this has been done in a number of locations across Europe, and in fact, we had a similar tower, smaller scale, um, on the original red chair over on Whistler Mountain. So, um, I think by the time… what you’ll find, Stuart, and what people will find, um, when they’re skiing this terrain during.
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:27.000
Belinda.Trembath: The winter is typically we would expect that there will be snow almost right up to the top of the rock face that it’s mounted on. And so you won’t really notice it in the winter because the snow really does accumulate up at that elevation.
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:39.000
Belinda.Trembath: it certainly, um, created some interest, and I guess it… it… you know, it’s similar to some of the other incredible installations that we have at Whistler Blackcomb that people are still talking about, like the peak-to-peak gondola.
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:51.000
Stuart Winchester: So you’re going with a chairlift up here, and that had been a T-bar for a long time, and you know, there’s a lot of noise online about why that was, and why a chairlift.
00:29:51.000 --> 00:30:05.000
Stuart Winchester: would not have been possible for this location. Clearly it is, because I’m looking at one right now, but what are the challenges of putting in a chairlift on this train? And I think you alluded to it there with why you had to put this.
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:13.000
Stuart Winchester: tower in sideways. But just talk us through this, and ultimately how you decided that a chairlift was better than going with another surface lift.
00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:29.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, look, I think, um, certainly you’ve got a little bit more flexibility around alignment with a chairlift. So, you know, at T-Bar, we really… we were running out of locations. That T-Bar had actually been, you know, we’d moved towers, we’d been really working with…
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:47.000
Belinda.Trembath: with the lift manufacturer, with Doppelmayr, to try and keep it going over a number of years, but it just wasn’t possible to keep it going in a location that would be suitable for guests to be able to safely travel uphill on. So, you know, the best… the next best option was to look at installing.
00:30:47.000 --> 00:31:06.000
Belinda.Trembath: a chairlift, and, you know, we were very confident going into the project that we’d be able to stay well and truly back from the remaining glacial ice in that location. And, you know, it’s a really important part of the guest experience here. You know, people love skiing high alpine terrain, whether it’s the terrain that’s serviced directly.
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:24.000
Belinda.Trembath: um, by the lift underneath it on… on Horseman Glacier, or whether it’s, uh, providing access over to… to Blackcomb Glacier. So, um, yeah, it’s… it’s, you know, being in a high alpine location, we obviously got in there as early as we could to start that chairlift installation at the end of last winter.
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:41.000
Belinda.Trembath: I think we had 200 days total to build or construct the project, which is really not a lot of time, particularly when you consider that the travel time for our employees and our subcontractors to that location every day was probably around an hour round trip.
00:31:41.000 --> 00:32:01.000
Belinda.Trembath: And so, you know, and in more recent weeks, it’s gradually been impacted by snowfall, and so it’s, yeah, it’s a challenging location to operate in, and full credit to the team that have been behind the installation, and, you know, we had a really good working relationship with our contractors, both local and with the Skytrak team.
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Let’s talk about location here a little bit. I have up here a trail map from around 2019, and the Hortsman T-Bar has been gone for several years now. And this was the old location of the Showcase T-Bars. If you’re looking at this map, it’s the top of the Glacier Express.
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:28.000
Stuart Winchester: 7th Heaven Express. Is… does the new chairlift, Belinda, more or less follow this same line as the T-bar with the same load and unload, or can skiers expect a different experience?
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:46.000
Belinda.Trembath: It is almost on the same alignment. I would say that at the unload at the top, it’s probably a little bit over to the looker’s left of the initial showcase T-bar unload, and then the load actually is down closer to where that Horseman T-bar used to load back in the day, so it gives people a.
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:56.000
Belinda.Trembath: About another 400 metres, which really does make it a little bit more of an interesting repeat ski, which we expect to see a little bit more of in that location.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:09.000
Stuart Winchester: I know people miss the Hortsman T-Bar just because it made it so easy to get the 7th Heaven, and I know we talked about this a couple years ago, but I’ll check in here. Now that you have a new showcase lift going in, do you have any thoughts about putting in another Hortsman lift?
00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:27.000
Belinda.Trembath: Uh, we don’t. I mean, certainly there’s not the opportunity for us to consider a T-bar, so it would take quite a significant investment to potentially link that with some other form of lift, whether it be a gondola or otherwise. Um, but I really think, you know, the focus right now is.
00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:37.000
Belinda.Trembath: is to get people circulating in that Blackcomb High Alpine and enjoying the Blackcomb Glacier and the new showcase lift.
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Stuart Winchester: So, the choice of a fixed-script quad totally makes sense to me, but I had to actually double-check this when I looked it up. So, Whistler has…
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:52.000
Stuart Winchester: 5 gondolas, 1 8-pack, 4 6-packs, 8 high-speed quads. This will be the only fixed-grip quad.
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:59.000
Stuart Winchester: at Whistler Blackcomb. I thought that was kind of amazing. You also have, uh, three triple chairs scattered throughout the mountain. So, you know, I…
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:09.000
Stuart Winchester: I realize it’s a short lift, I just think, you know, folks skiing around Whistler, everything’s fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, and they get to the slow lift up top. Can you just talk us through why that was… why that lift made sense there.
00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:26.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, for sure. Look, I think, you know, it is, um, it is a short ride. It’s about a 7-minute ride, and there are thresholds that we always consider when we’re thinking about whether a lift ought to be, um, a detachable or a fixed grip, and ride time is one of those. I think the other thing, too, is.
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:48.000
Belinda.Trembath: You know, constructing a lift in that location and putting the sort of large format detachable quad with much bigger load and unload stations would have been far more challenging for the team and a much bigger footprint. So we really wanted something that was low footprint that suited that terrain.
00:34:48.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Belinda.Trembath: And then the capacity of the lift, we feel, is about right in terms of the balance of the terrain that it allows our guests to access, and that’s important too. So, you know, really thinking about the length of the journey, or the time the journey takes, the size of the footprint of the lift, and then, of course, the capacity of the terrain that that.
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:13.000
Belinda.Trembath: Lyft is serving and we really feel that the investment is well balanced from that perspective.
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:30.000
Stuart Winchester: So just real quick check in, because last time I spoke to you, we were just getting ready to, or you were actually in the process of building Jersey Cream, and this was, this is an old map, that’s a four, but it’s the same line, and it’s a six pack now, and, and you were in the process in, in talking me through the complications of it.
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Curious of your impressions of that lift or how happy you are with it two years later.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:49.000
Belinda.Trembath: Oh, look, it’s been terrific. Historically, we did see some fairly significant lineups at Jersey Cream. It’s a popular area, services a lot of intermediate terrain. It’s fairly weather resilient. It’s certainly terrain that we get open.
00:35:49.000 --> 00:36:07.000
Belinda.Trembath: earlier in the season, when we start to look at our opening plan for later next week, I would imagine that Jersey Crane will be right up there at the top of the list, so it certainly made a huge impact to, um, to the circulation of skiers in that area, and we really hope that the addition of the showcase will help to.
00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Belinda.Trembath: move people around on Black Home, you know, in a way that they haven’t been able to experience previously.
00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:34.000
Stuart Winchester: So last year was the first year of the Epic Friends discounts, where Epic Pass holders were able to distribute half-off Lyft tickets, depending upon the pass they had, a certain number of them. I’m curious how that program worked out at Whistler. Did you see big uptake? I know you had a lot of international folks, maybe they fly in, they might not necessarily know.
00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:39.000
Stuart Winchester: an Epic Pass holder, but just curious on how that program resonated locally there.
00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:59.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, I mean, I think… I think without sort of hitting on the… the sort of direct impact on Whistler, I think the important thing to call out there is we… whilst we do enjoy, um, a lot of visitation from… from the US, from Australia, from other parts of the world, we also have a really loyal local market that we draw from.
00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Belinda.Trembath: I would call, you know, I would say from Seattle, um, right up north of us and, and across Canada and, and those people were able to take advantage of their Epic Friend tickets. You know, the, the folks that live down in Vancouver able to bring friends and family up and, and so I think, you know, we saw.
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:27.000
Belinda.Trembath: great benefit from the introduction of that program, and I think that, you know, often these things take a couple of years to embed, and we’ll certainly see people taking advantage of the tickets this year as well.
00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:23.000
Stuart Winchester: There.
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:35.000
Stuart Winchester: So, curious, from your perspective, as overseeing the Australian resorts, you know, one of the analysts on the last earnings call actually asked Rob Katz, he said.
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:48.000
Stuart Winchester: what would make you give up on Australia? He said, nothing. We’re very happy in Australia. Those are good operations. Uh, from however many thousands of miles I am away, all we hear is how bad the winter was in Australia. But talk us through…
00:37:48.000 --> 00:38:01.000
Stuart Winchester: the last winter at the Vail Resorts in Australia, and reasons you may have for optimism. I realize it was a tough winter, but it seems like you spent several years also fortifying those resorts for such an event.
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:16.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, I mean, I certainly watched last winter from afar. I wasn’t in the role that I’m now in, but I was incredibly impressed with how the team approached the weather conditions that they were served. And, you know, when you think about perisher…
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:29.000
Belinda.Trembath: extending their season well through September under really challenging conditions. I think the team did an incredible job to make snow when they could make snow, get terrain open. You know, Australian resorts are…
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:47.000
Belinda.Trembath: Um, have a lot of, you know, groomer operators with years of experience that are, that are used to pushing snow, and um, yeah, I think generally the team did a really good job under the challenging conditions, and um, certainly think that there’ll be a lot of Australians who, as they always are, who are keen to get on a plane and.
00:38:47.000 --> 00:39:07.000
Belinda.Trembath: and come and ski in our North American resorts, and, you know, Whistle Blackcomb is certainly a big drawcard for our Australian pass holders, and of course, we have a lot of staff from Australia, so friends and family is always a big component of folks coming over and visiting their kids who are enjoying a gap year.
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:08.000
Belinda.Trembath: For two.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:22.000
Stuart Winchester: So, for people thinking about a trip, I mean, for me, the skiing’s always… that’s really my main thing that I’m interested in, right? But you do have a lot of what you call signature events. Fire and Ice Show, Peak to Valley Race…
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:35.000
Stuart Winchester: World Ski and Snowboard Festival. Can you talk us through those a little bit, Belinda? And also, Vail has really been very out front about, okay, we’re gonna really ramp up our food this year, so it’s not always…
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.000
Stuart Winchester: clear at Whistler, necessarily, what is…
00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:51.000
Stuart Winchester: mountain-owned food and what is not, because you have that, you know, interaction with the village, and more so than maybe some of your sister resorts in the United States. So, just talk us through this experiential part of Whistler.
00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:11.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, I mean, I’m happy to start with the food. I come from Melbourne in Australia, which is a foodie destination, so I’m pretty keen on food, and I know it’s a really critical part of the guest experience when you’re on the mountain skiing. So, we do operate all of the huts and the lodges on the mountain here at Whistler Blackcomb, and we have a few.
00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:30.000
Belinda.Trembath: bars down in the base areas, so Merlin’s GLC and Dusty’s, which is a famous bar at the base of Creekside. And, you know, for this year, we’re doing a few things. I mean, we’ve been on a rebuild, I would say, since COVID. We’ve refurbished a number of our venues. We’ve been looking critically at the.
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:46.000
Belinda.Trembath: at the quality of the ingredients that we’re serving in our menus. We’re looking at the presentation. This year, the focus has been on renovating the lower floor of the roundhouse. So, Pikas is getting a full refurbishment.
00:40:46.000 --> 00:41:01.000
Belinda.Trembath: New cafe bar, a menu that’s really been inspired. I think the team have really looked to draw on local produce and local dishes. So you can expect to see dishes incorporating salmon, incorporating some really hearty.
00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:22.000
Belinda.Trembath: dishes from the land, we’re calling it, where, you know, we’re serving a quarter chicken with lovely roasted vegetables and mash, and then if you’re not up for a quarter chicken and a flatbread is more your speed, then they’ve come up with some really nice flatbreads to serve in that location too. So, looking to mix it up a little bit and probably provide an experience that.
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:38.000
Belinda.Trembath: That fits nicely between our full service restaurants. So between Christine’s on Blackcomb and Steep’s on Whistler, which are favourites with locals and international guests alike. And then of course our quick service locations are getting.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:58.000
Belinda.Trembath: a menu upgrade as well. So, um, across 14 of our destination and regional destination resorts, we’ve been working to, um, really create a better experience for those who are looking for a quality hamburger, um, hot dog, mac and cheese, chili, and these are all items that we find our guests, you know, they enjoy.
00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:13.000
Belinda.Trembath: eating whilst they’re on holidays, and they know they’re burning those calories out on the slopes. So, I can certainly attest, I’ve tried all of the food, and I’m really excited to see how our guests respond to those initiatives this year. And then.
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:32.000
Belinda.Trembath: You know, we’re also looking at adding some… some activations on Mountain. You know, we know that people want to stay up on the Mountain, maybe enjoy some live music. Um, over on Steeps, we’ve, um, refurbished the patio there. We’ve got some really lovely fire pits, and we’re going to do a, um, a bit of a champagne toast.
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:50.000
Belinda.Trembath: for guests to be able to enjoy. And then on Christine’s, we’ve got an outdoor bar set up there for the first time, and really looking forward to people being able to enjoy the Christine’s patio with such incredible views across the valley and down towards Green Lake.
00:42:50.000 --> 00:43:11.000
Belinda.Trembath: There’s a real focus from the team here on activating on-mountain and, of course, at the end of the day, people being able to enjoy the apres that we discussed earlier in the conversation, which Whistler is very famous for. So, yeah, looking forward to a great season from an on-mountain dining perspective and very proud of the work the team have been doing.
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:17.000
Belinda.Trembath: Um, to improve that experience over the last few years, and this year will be no exception.
00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:21.000
Stuart Winchester: So y’all feel like you’re on target for that November 20th opening?
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:42.000
Belinda.Trembath: Yeah, we are. I spoke to our VP of Mountain Operations this morning, and it looks like we’re in for some snow over the weekend, and so we’re on target. We’re feeling good about the winter. Lots of staff, fresh-faced staff, arriving over the course of the last couple of weeks, and I find that really energising as I get around the resort and chat to them, get to meet them.
00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:48.000
Belinda.Trembath: They’re wide-eyed and ready for an experience, for sure.
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:56.000
Stuart Winchester: I hope it’s a snowy one, Belinda. I really appreciate you making time for me, especially here in November, your busiest time of year. So, thank you so much. Good luck with the season.
00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Belinda.Trembath: I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks, Stuart.
Listener Reaction:
Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was Belinda Chabath, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb. It’ll be really interesting to see.
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:38.000
Stuart Winchester: how not only Whistler, but the rest of BC handles that time change.
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:39.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, the…
00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:44.000
Stuart Winchester: The fact that it doesn’t sync up with the rest of society is.
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Interesting. Because, yes, school buses are gonna run at the same time.
00:44:49.000 --> 00:45:01.000
Stuart Winchester: government stuff is gonna run at the same time, so… we’ll see what happens, it’ll be interesting, it’ll be interesting to see if Canada sticks with the experiment or abandons it, as the United States did in the 1970s, or…
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Or, if the United States ends up following that part of BC, because BC…
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:12.000
Stuart Winchester: has a couple different time zones. I believe they actually both ended up going to permanent daylight savings time, so…
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:18.000
Stuart Winchester: That was Belinda. Always great to catch up with Team Whistler.
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Let’s get some…
00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:27.000
Stuart Winchester: listener reaction here. So, I published a couple of articles last week.
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:31.000
Stuart Winchester: And we’ll go first with…
00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:38.000
Stuart Winchester: my interview with John Taylor from the Veil Daily, which I put out on Friday, recorded on…
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Thursday…
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Aiden says, and again, if you’re a paid subscriber to the Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, first of all, thank you very much, and second, that is how you are able to interact with the podcast. Aiden says, when a majority of the typical skiers are complaining about the same things, they are most likely problems.
00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Typical skiers keep hearing the same things like, we will, but it hasn’t happened yet.
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:12.000
Stuart Winchester: I and many others want to go ski said places with not only it having reasonable lift tickets, but also not feeling like you are the minority because you aren’t a wealthy individual with disposable income.
00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:22.000
Stuart Winchester: And this can be, in some cases, why one is trying to buy said areas from Altera, and Vail can be appealing to the typical skier.
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:32.000
Stuart Winchester: I myself have a bucket list of ski areas I want to hit, and I know the Vail and even Altera ones are going to be on the back end because they are so expensive without forking out for the Mega Pass.
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:47.000
Stuart Winchester: On the worker side, I would assume there are ones in the industry who may never want to work for Vale for the various reasons current and past workers say. In my opinion, the workers make the mountain, not the wealthy individuals, while those wealthy individuals do allow the mountains.
00:46:46.000 --> 00:47:00.000
Stuart Winchester: to profit more. You won’t be able to even cater to the wealthy without the workers. Luckily, you have many who love the industry enough to deal with the problems that shouldn’t be problems. Thank you for that comment, Aiden. Thank you for the support. I do want to say I…
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:03.000
Stuart Winchester: in general, find that Vail has really…
00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Nice employees in really good employees I do.
00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:14.000
Stuart Winchester: think, anecdotally at least, because I haven’t had any bad experiences.
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:16.000
Stuart Winchester: of note.
00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:29.000
Stuart Winchester: that $20 an hour minimum wage that Vail Resorts started in 2022, I think it really did help them set their floor higher with the sorts of individuals they could recruit. And I do want to clarify.
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:36.000
Stuart Winchester: what I was saying when John and I discussed the management shuffle at Vail, I…
00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:41.000
Stuart Winchester: that is not… when I point out that Vale switches leaders a lot.
00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:46.000
Stuart Winchester: at their mountains. That is not an indictment of the people who are doing it.
00:47:46.000 --> 00:48:00.000
Stuart Winchester: And that is not saying that they’re not qualified for those jobs. I’ve interviewed many of them and met most of them, and I find them to be professional and intelligent and organized and have good leadership characteristics and good character in general.
00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:03.000
Stuart Winchester: And every employee I talked to avail.
00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:07.000
Stuart Winchester: likes working for Vail because they know they can move up.
00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, I do think that…
00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Depending upon…
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Stuart Winchester: the community dynamic. Uh, sometimes…
00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:25.000
Stuart Winchester: When you switch the top leader so often, that can have detrimental effects on the computer community that lead to things like the…
00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:33.000
Stuart Winchester: repossessed land in Vail, where Vail wanted to build employee housing, which should have been a unanimous cause, but was instead…
00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:39.000
Stuart Winchester: The town of Vail spent millions of dollars to condemn the land and take it from them and preserve it.
00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and also the lifts in Park City.
00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:44.000
Stuart Winchester: That they’ll tried to put in.
00:48:44.000 --> 00:49:00.000
Stuart Winchester: 4 years ago. We just discussed one of them, Jersey Cream, it ended up in Whistler. Uh, the other one, the 8-pack, ended up over… well, the 8-pack’s on the Whistler side, Fitzsimmons, and Jersey Cream is over on the Blackholm side. Either way, they were both supposed to end up in Park.
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:02.000
Stuart Winchester: The…
00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:06.000
Stuart Winchester: The employee thing… I don’t know, I…
00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:09.000
Stuart Winchester: I think Vail, in general.
00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Stuart Winchester: has a good…
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:19.000
Stuart Winchester: sort of infrastructure for that, it’s at the top levels where I worry if it’s the best thing for the resorts and the communities or not.
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Scott Abraham says, great reporting on the machinations behind all this corporate skullduggery. I’m a financial ignoramus and had no clue on what games are being played. This is quite an education. As you know, I’m also a sworn enemy of Vale since they debased some of my favorite hills and support anything that might cause VR.
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:53.000
Stuart Winchester: to up its game and restore Whistler and Park City to their former glory. Hope springs eternal, but alas, this pod brought me back to reality. I’m a big fan of family ownership, or of rich guy like Prince buying a toy and treating a mountain as a treasure to be preserved rather than exploited. I’ve known a couple of those guys and loved their passion and commitment.
00:49:53.000 --> 00:50:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Keep up the good work. This big business soap opera is fascinating. Thank you, Scott, for that. And thank you, Aiden, for your comments.
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, this is on my Vail Resorts Proxy Fight for Dummies article. I had a few comments, which I will read. Mark Fisher runs Unofficial Alpine blog, which I’m a big fan of. Mark Fisher says, from one ski rider to another, your intro into this piece was amazing. I loved it.
00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:28.000
Stuart Winchester: The probable reason is that I also know absolutely nothing about Vero Resort’s inner workings or how Wall Street works. As much as you dumbed it down, I still need the Absolute Idiot’s Guide.
00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, me too. I mean, you need someone smarter than me to write the… a dumber guide. River Rogue, in a food fight, who controls the red sauce wins, although the meatballs, in reference to the Vale board, pack a punch. Alright, River, thank you. Tim Harmon, I lived in Vale for a wonderful snowy 120-day season in Vale and VR.
00:50:46.000 --> 00:51:04.000
Stuart Winchester: have remained topics of great interest ever since. So many great insights in this podcast. The comments on leadership and tenure really stand out. At, I think Tim… Okay, so this is a comment on the article, but I think Tim is referring to my podcast piece that I was just reading comments from.
00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:07.000
Stuart Winchester: with the Vale Daily’s John Taylor. So…
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Continuing. So many great insights in this podcast. The comments on leadership and tenure really stand out. At Vail’s New Hampshire resorts, the GM job is a carousel of short-term ponies. By the time they learn the names of the people that make things happen, from snowmaking to food service to community connections and youth programs.
00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:34.000
Stuart Winchester: their short spin is over, and it all starts again. This breeds frustration and resentment among the natives, and it is fully avoidable. I’m just going to interrupt that comment. Tim.
00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:41.000
Stuart Winchester: runs a huge ski club in New Hampshire, not a… not a ski club, a youth racing program.
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:49.000
Stuart Winchester: And he’s a part of the board, or… anyway, so he’s speaking from experience here of…
00:51:49.000 --> 00:52:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Being a person in charge of several hundred families who has to interact with resort management and the sorts of headaches that you can encounter when that leadership is not stable.
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Tim continues, for Vail itself, with the whole I-70 corridor, part of the future of skiing depends on effective transportation. This is where European resorts really show the way. It is easy and cheap to get from Lyon, Grenoble, Turin, Zurich, and Geneva to great skiing. We just don’t have the infrastructure. Sadly, a tale as old as time.
00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:23.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’ll interrupt him again. Yeah, that’s not Vale’s fault. Like…
00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail, I think, is all about aerial transit. It’s…
00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:34.000
Stuart Winchester: the people on the ground who make it like you’re building the Pyramids of Giza anytime you want to build anything. It’s just…
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:49.000
Stuart Winchester: it’s way too hard to build things in America. Continuing, the biggest issue facing skiing is the old money problem. Skiers with money are where the margins are, and they’re getting older and older and older. Last chair time, youth programs, not expensive lessons, build multi-generational skiers. Prove me wrong.
00:52:49.000 --> 00:53:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Idea. You should use the SSJ, meaning Storm Skiing Journal, to help collect ideas for how to fix what ails VR and skiing in general. People could leave VM or send you messages. I’ll help you sort them. Great pod. Magnificent lettuce. Keep it up. Thank you. Thanks, Tim. I agree. My lettuce is magnificent.
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Scott Abraham, the false modesty is not fair to your talents, too. I did some ski scribbling myself back in the day, and both knew several of the best reporters and read the rest. You started the storm with passion, but little knowledge, and you have become simply the best writer on the ski biz I’ve ever read. I still know a lot of mountain folks, and they uniformly praise your understanding, perception, and writing talent.
00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Despite the hair, I could not resist. The latest evolution of the storm is well suited to an evolving and complex story like this kerfluffle. Because when even the oligarchs say Vale sucks, I have the bumper sticker on my van, the possibility of positive change is encouraging. But I want to see a lot.
00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:54.000
Stuart Winchester: more than better grossly expensive hamburgers. If you can educate and enlighten a financial ignoramus like me, you have real talent. You’ve come a long way from the snow tires, bro blogger, although I must admit, I miss that dude. A lot of fun.
00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:11.000
Stuart Winchester: I hope for VR the same dynamic. I hope for my mighty Ducks of Oregon, who have grossly underperformed this year. They have the talent and necessary basics, but have been badly mismanaged. May the comeback for Vail begin this year, as I pray it does, in a few hours against the loathsome suck-eyes. So, uh, thank you, Scott. That was very…
00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Nice comment on my writing. And he wrote that before the Oregon Ducks completely blew the Ohio State Buckeyes off the field on Saturday, which I watched with much delight. Alex Kaufman says, this is all deck chairs on the Titanic. There’s no improving.
00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:45.000
Stuart Winchester: That will ever bring Vail Resorts shares back to any price comparable to the Epic Pass growth years. That was a temporary upswing that is no longer available. Now it is just NOI versus debt service versus capital needs. And anyone doing skiers on behalf of shareholders will generally do that to a crappy corporatized level.
00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Until they realize they should sell some assets. Thank you, Alex. That was Alex Kaufman of the Late Wintery Mix podcast. Always appreciate your contributions. Brian W, awesome post. I especially loved this paragraph.
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Rather than Vail’s bland plan to vary ticket offerings, improve its food, modernize marketing, and encourage loyalty with improved technology, Oasis offers a hashtag out-of-the-box blueprint. We have identified concrete initiatives that we believe can help reinvigorate customer loyalty, restore growth, and deliver better outcomes for guests.
00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:27.000
Stuart Winchester: employees and shareholders, including varying ticket offerings, improving the food, modernizing marketing, and encouraging loyalty with improved technology. Oh, and also do some more stuff in the summertime.
00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:45.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, so that was Brian quoting me and me quoting Brian quoting me, which, thank you, Brian. I’m glad you enjoyed that. That is why I keep writing. One thing I think could be helpful, couldn’t tell if 290,000 shares is a lot or a little. After some math, it turns out it’s a bit below 1%.
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, uh…
00:55:47.000 --> 00:56:02.000
Stuart Winchester: I hear ya. I should have included that, and I didn’t. So, good call-out, I will do that for the future. Alright, that will be our show for today. I want to thank Belinda Tremoth very much, and for the team at Whistler, who always does an awesome job.
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:10.000
Stuart Winchester: of coordinating for me and keeping us up to date on what is happening at the biggest and busiest ski area in all of North America.
00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Got some more pods coming your way?
00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:22.000
Stuart Winchester: We have Little Switzerland, Nordic Mountain, and Crystal Ridge on the podcast later this week.
00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:30.000
Stuart Winchester: And we’ve got some big ones coming up in future weeks. We’ve got Big Sky scheduled, we’ve got another Loon pod, we’ve got Deer Valley coming up.
00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Got Boho coming back, Midwest.
00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, to get all those podcasts the moment they are live, please go to stormskiing.com and subscribe to the Storm Skiing Newsletter.
00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:50.000
Stuart Winchester: the very best way to support the storm is to upgrade to a paid subscription at stormskiing.com. That is also the only way to interact with the podcast, as the folks I just read did.
00:56:50.000 --> 00:57:01.000
Stuart Winchester: You can rep the storm with a shirt, hat, hoodie, other kinds of stuff at stormskiing.myshopify.com, that’s the storm store, stormskiing.myshopify.com.
00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:06.000
Stuart Winchester: You can follow Storm on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok at Storm Ski Journal.
00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Until next time, stay well, stay safe. I’m Stuart Winchester, and I’ll talk to you again very soon.
