Who
James Early, CEO of Curia Financial, which will soon be known as Alpine House Research
Date Recorded
Nov. 5, 2026
The Takes Up Top
I briefly discuss Indy Pass’ rad new destination upgrade, which gives skiers an extra three days to split among 13 destination resorts in North America and Europe starting at $199 adult and $129 kids. I’ll write a longer piece on this, but here’s a teaser:
I also talk about Jackson Hole’s Golden Ticket program, which gets season passholders at any ski area half off lift tickets on at least 39 dates over the 2026-27 ski season. As an aside, Jackson Hole enters the ignominous $300-plus lift ticket club, with a $339 peak-day walk-up rate for this winter:
About Vail Resorts
About the Epic Pass
Why I interviewed him
As most of you know, I nearly dropped dead two years ago. I was pretty happy when I didn’t, and wrote what was essentially a gratitude post about all the things that were cool about being alive. One of the things I mentioned was the Motley Fool investment site.
The Motley Fool, like investing itself, is a sprawling, baffling place. But at its heart, it is a stock recommendation site with a philosophy of identifying good companies, buying and holding them long term, and ignoring daily market fluctuations. I’ve subscribed to their basic services for years, and have found that if I just do what they say (mostly, counterintuitively, nothing), my monies do good.
Anyway, James is a skier and an investor, and he reached out when I wrote that. I recognized his name from Fool bylines - he ran an income investor portfolio at the site that beat the S&P 500 for 10 consecutive years. He’d long ago moved on from Motley Fool, but we started up a dialogue, and he invited me onto his Curia Financial podcast last year, where I made a relatively bullish argument for skiing in general, and a relatively bearish argument for Vail Resorts’ growth prospects as the company reached the limit of how many skiers it could squeeze into a static portfolio.
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. A Hong Kong-based company called Oasis has accumulated a 9.6 percent stake in MTN stock, and is waging a proxy battle to replace two sitting Vail Resorts board members with its own nominees: former Disney CEO Bob Chapek a mysterious fellow by the name of M. Ashton Hudson. Meanwhile, Gregory S. Meyer, a Florida-based financier, nominated himself for a board position and pulled together an impressive document outlining how he would steer Vail Resorts toward growth. One thing all of these parties have in common is that they believe Vail’s Epic Pass-united, 42-resort portfolio is the company’s greatest strength and therefore have no desire to break up the company. Adding to the confusion is Matthew Prince’s ongoing, unrelated pressure campaign to purchase Park City from Vail Resorts.
It’s all very confusing, and I recorded another podcast today with John Taylor, a seasoned business reporter who’s been documenting the proxy drama for the Vial Daily. I’ll release that deep analysis of the proxy battle tomorrow, but first I wanted to get with James to see how MTN stock looks from an investor’s point of view. Because looking at the numbers, Vail’s growth story seems to have stopped when resort acquisitions did:
But is this just a natural equilibrium that many companies reach when they’ve maxed out their addressable market, or is it a pause in a company that’s shifting from growth-by-acquisition to growth-by-a-strategy-it-hasn’t-found yet. Could Vail, for example, get back to adding Epic Pass partners, as Alterra has continued to accumulate in large numbers for its Ikon Pass?
Or did Vail’s 2021 Epic Pass price cuts ultimately undermine the company’s growth by prioritizing volume over experience?
And how realistic is it to expect lift tickets to fill the 12 percent Epic Pass unit sales drop Vail reported in September after the company spent two decades destroying the product?
And how much does stock price even tell us? After all, some of the largest companies in the world stumbled mightily on their journey to greatness:
James, with his deep understanding of the stock market and Vail Resorts’ story, helps center us.
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 takes up top:
Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I’m your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Thursday, November 5th, 2026. There is so much happening.
01:57:07.000 --> 01:57:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Today on The Storm, a seasoned investor breaks down the fundamentals behind Vail Resorts’ declining stock price.
01:57:15.000 --> 01:57:22.000
Stuart Winchester: why he thinks Vale’s growth days are over, and whether Epic should be fighting Icon for marquee partners.
01:57:22.000 --> 01:57:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Plus, an IndyPass destination upgrade, and how to get half off at Jackson Hole on 39 dates this season?
01:57:28.000 --> 01:57:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Let’s get into it all right now. I’m the storm. First.
01:57:33.000 --> 01:57:36.000
Stuart Winchester: I will be headed to New England tomorrow.
01:57:36.000 --> 01:57:52.000
Stuart Winchester: I love New England. I don’t love driving in New England, but I like being in New England. And I will be at the first New England Snovana show, which is at the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlboro, Mass. That is not in Boston, west suburbs-ish, I don’t know. Boston folks, correct me if I’m wrong.
01:57:52.000 --> 01:58:06.000
Stuart Winchester: But it’s a Boston-ish event, easy to get to from anywhere in New England, and I will be doing two live interviews on stage. Friday, tomorrow, at 5.30 Eastern, I will be interviewing Eric Mogensen.
01:58:06.000 --> 01:58:14.000
Stuart Winchester: who runs Black Mountain, he runs the IndiePass, and we’re certainly going to talk about this new destination product he has, and he runs Entebeni System.
01:58:14.000 --> 01:58:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Supplier for independent ski areas. Then on Saturday at 2:05 on the main stage, I will be interviewing Killington managing partner Bill Gross and longtime Killington president Mike Salamano. That one is going to be awesome.
01:58:29.000 --> 01:58:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Love Killington. Sunday, my good buddy, Sean Sutner, will be interviewing the owners of Wachusett, one of the most popular sea areas around, one of the busiest, certainly, based on acreage. Uh, the Crowleys and the Stimson family, that will be at 1:15 on Sunday.
01:58:47.000 --> 01:58:53.000
Stuart Winchester: He said his goal is to get out there before the Pats game starts, so… so you’re all aligned there, New England.
01:58:53.000 --> 01:59:00.000
Stuart Winchester: If you want to get tickets absolutely free to Snowvana, use this code, THESTORM26.
01:59:01.000 --> 01:59:03.000
Stuart Winchester: All lowercase.
01:59:03.000 --> 01:59:04.000
Stuart Winchester: All one word.
01:59:04.000 --> 01:59:09.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, let’s get into some news today. Indy Pass just announced.
01:59:09.000 --> 01:59:17.000
Stuart Winchester: an upgrade, and it’s an interesting product. It is a… called a destination add-on.
01:59:17.000 --> 01:59:22.000
Stuart Winchester: And what this product is, is if you already have an IndiePass.
01:59:22.000 --> 01:59:37.000
Stuart Winchester: You can, for $199 adult, and $129 for kids, that’s what they start at, they say it depends on when you bought the pass, and also if you have the plus or the base, I believe. So there’ll be some variability, but those are the starting prices.
01:59:37.000 --> 01:59:40.000
Stuart Winchester: And what that gets you…
01:59:40.000 --> 01:59:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Is 3 extra days total.
01:59:45.000 --> 01:59:51.000
Stuart Winchester: to split between the 13 destinations. So, it’s sort of like…
01:59:51.000 --> 01:59:53.000
Stuart Winchester: If you bought…
01:59:53.000 --> 01:59:56.000
Stuart Winchester: An epic local pass.
01:59:56.000 --> 01:59:58.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
01:59:58.000 --> 02:00:09.000
Stuart Winchester: With the Epic Local, you do get 10 days to split between Beaver Creek, Bale, and Whistler, but think about if that was an add-on. So basically.
02:00:09.000 --> 02:00:14.000
Stuart Winchester: you can do 10 days at Whistler, you can do 3 days at Whistler, 4 days at Beaver Creek, 3 days at V.
02:00:14.000 --> 02:00:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and those mountains are not on the Indy Pass. So let me show you what mountains are included.
02:00:19.000 --> 02:00:22.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’m going to share my screen here.
02:00:22.000 --> 02:00:28.000
Stuart Winchester: If you are watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube at Storm Ski Journal.
02:00:28.000 --> 02:00:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And what you see here is the Destination Upgrade Mountains. Now, 5 of them are in Europe, and I’m gonna do a full written breakdown of this, and this is the kind of thing that the Storm Skiing Newsletter is great for, because I just can’t cover all this very well.
02:00:44.000 --> 02:00:54.000
Stuart Winchester: talking to you, especially if you’re just listening to the podcast. But it’s really cool because it includes 5 ski areas in Europe, and, you know, if you’re going all the way to Europe.
02:00:54.000 --> 02:01:02.000
Stuart Winchester: two days is not a lot if you’re at a place like Skiwelt or Innsbruck, where they have a dozen ski areas-ish.
02:01:02.000 --> 02:01:06.000
Stuart Winchester: to choose from. So, you can… you could do…
02:01:06.000 --> 02:01:17.000
Stuart Winchester: You get 2 days of ski welt anyway, and 2 days at Innsbruck anyway. You could do… could add 2 days to your ski welt trip, do 4 days of ski welt, then you have 1 day left, maybe you do that at Innsbruck. But, there’.
02:01:17.000 --> 02:01:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Konertal Glacier, Pitztal Glacier, these are all in Austria, and then over in Switzerland, Leucherbad Torrent. And again, I’m gonna do a full breakdown of those, uh, on the Storm Skiing Journal, and I’m hoping to get that out later today. Today’s really tight.
02:01:32.000 --> 02:01:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Tomorrow. But, let’s go to what I do know better, which is North America. And the… the…
02:01:37.000 --> 02:01:43.000
Stuart Winchester: The destination add-on does not include any ski areas in IndyPass’s most.
02:01:43.000 --> 02:01:54.000
Stuart Winchester: popular region, which is New England, New England because they have Jay Peak and Smuggler’s Notch in Waterville Valley, uh, Saddleback, maybe they’re worried about volume, I don’t know.
02:01:54.000 --> 02:02:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, but I do know that the Destination Atom will work at Big White in BC. That’s awesome, because Big White is huge, one of the best ski areas in BC. Now, that’s a high bar. I’m saying…
02:02:08.000 --> 02:02:17.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m not saying it’s top three, I’m saying it’s top dozen, right? Castle Mountain, which is not…
02:02:17.000 --> 02:02:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Probably a top dozen resort. Uh, but then you get 49 degrees north and in Washington. 49 degrees north is so awesome. One high speed quad, 1600 vertical feet to the top. Huge acreage, awesome glades. Silver Mountain. I’ve pimped this one so many times. It is right off Interstate 90. You drive 2 minutes off, you.
02:02:35.000 --> 02:02:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Park in a gigantic flat parking lot. You take a gondola 3 miles up to the mountain.
02:02:42.000 --> 02:02:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Huge stats, huge snowfall, low skier visits. Silver Mountain is the hidden gem of American skiing.
02:02:49.000 --> 02:02:59.000
Stuart Winchester: You can then pop down to Brundage, Idaho. Another ski area that is growing, they have two high-speed quads now at Brundage, big expansion plans. Right down the road is Tamarack.
02:02:59.000 --> 02:03:15.000
Stuart Winchester: And Tamarack has, I believe, three high-speed lifts, and they have big expansion plans as well. Tons of snow. Brundage and Tamarack are in this awesome snow belt. Silver is too, where it gets about 300 inches of snow a year. 49 North can get that much as well. Then, you also get…
02:03:15.000 --> 02:03:17.000
Stuart Winchester: You can also use the destination pass.
02:03:17.000 --> 02:03:29.000
Stuart Winchester: at Red Lodge, Montana, and I think Red Lodge is sort of like the forgotten Montana ski area. Big Sky and Whitefish get all the credits, and Bridger Bowl. Those three get most of the skier visits.
02:03:29.000 --> 02:03:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Red Lodge is amazing. Got a cool little town, right down the street. Can’t stay on the mountain, but whatever. Red Lodge, the town.
02:03:35.000 --> 02:03:45.000
Stuart Winchester: And, uh, just great skiing. Great old-school skiing, man. Just awesome terrain, huge. Again, I’ll do the full acreage breakdowns and everything on Storm Ski Journal. Then…
02:03:45.000 --> 02:04:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Powderhorn and Powderhorn, of course, owned by Pacific Group Resorts, they are putting in a second high-speed quad this year, so each of their two pods will be served by a modern lift. They’re replacing that seven… they already replaced that 7,000-foot-long double chair that served the West End, and they put in the West End Express, so.
02:04:02.000 --> 02:04:18.000
Stuart Winchester: considerably redistribute traffic around Powderhorn. Powderhorn’s great, man. I skied it last year with my family. Awesome, awesome mountain. The whole family can enjoy it. Really cool, really diverse, really varied terrain, awesome views down to the mesa. So I’m pumped for this new product from IndyPass.
02:04:18.000 --> 02:04:19.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s…
02:04:19.000 --> 02:04:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Again, it’s an add-on, it’s not 3 extra days at each, it’s not… you know, it’s 3 extra days to split between these 13 ski areas. But it’s, I think, a really cool product to… to…
02:04:32.000 --> 02:04:38.000
Stuart Winchester: boost Indy’s destination appeal and make it a little more competitive with Epic and Icon, because the truth is.
02:04:38.000 --> 02:04:42.000
Stuart Winchester: A lot of people just want to go somewhere and settle in for a week.
02:04:42.000 --> 02:04:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
02:04:44.000 --> 02:04:59.000
Stuart Winchester: You can do that at Sun Valley with 5 or 7… or, well, I guess you can’t do that on an Icon Base, but you can do that at Sun Valley with 7 days on the Icon Pass. You can do that with the Epic Pass with, you know, a week at Breckenridge, or maybe you want some Keystone days in there. But this allows.
02:04:59.000 --> 02:05:03.000
Stuart Winchester: If you if you want to.
02:05:03.000 --> 02:05:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Escape the crowds. You don’t like the MegaPass madness.
02:05:07.000 --> 02:05:17.000
Stuart Winchester: You gotta get out of Colorado I-70, you gotta get out of the Wasatch, you gotta get out of Lake Tahoe. Look at this string of mountains here. Tamarack, Brundage, Silver.
02:05:17.000 --> 02:05:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Red Lodge.
02:05:18.000 --> 02:05:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, I…
02:05:19.000 --> 02:05:34.000
Stuart Winchester: I’ll say it again and again and again, if you’re not doing those mountains, do them now, because this is not going to last forever. People are going to figure out that there is big mountain skiing without big mountain crowds, with good snow.
02:05:34.000 --> 02:05:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, they’re a little lower elevation as Colorado, so not quite as reliable, uh, but they’re gonna figure it out, so get there now so you can say you were there. All right, also.
02:05:43.000 --> 02:05:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Cool news out of…
02:05:46.000 --> 02:05:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Jackson Hole. Uh, Jackson Hole does this every year, actually, so it’s not really news, it’s more of just…
02:05:52.000 --> 02:05:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Reaffirming. So if you have a season pass at any ski area in the country.
02:05:58.000 --> 02:06:09.000
Stuart Winchester: You can get half off of Jackson Hole lift tickets on 39 days, at least, at a minimum, this ski season. So, from November 27th to December 11th.
02:06:09.000 --> 02:06:20.000
Stuart Winchester: That’s a 14-day span. You can get lift tickets right now, they’re on Jackson Hole’s website, starting at $84.75, going to $135.60.
02:06:20.000 --> 02:06:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and then, obviously, that goes away for the holidays, and tickets get more expensive, which we’ll talk about in a minute. Then, from January 4th to 15th, that’s an 11-day span. The tickets are $144.08 if you have a season pass elsewhere.
02:06:33.000 --> 02:06:47.000
Stuart Winchester: And from March 22nd until the close of the season. Right now, that’s set at April 4th. Jackson doesn’t often extend, but once in a while, in a big winter, they will, I think. But right now, that’s 14 days at the end of the season, anywhere between 118.
02:06:47.000 --> 02:07:01.000
Stuart Winchester: $65 and $152.55, so that’s $118.65 to $152.55. They really took that half off, literally. So… so that’s a really good deal, but then I want to show you… it’s… it’s really…
02:07:01.000 --> 02:07:11.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know. I know I beat this to death, but I’m gonna keep… keep beating it to death, because I think it’s important, and I think it’s a story, and I think that…
02:07:11.000 --> 02:07:16.000
Stuart Winchester: it matters. So, these are the peak lift ticket prices.
02:07:16.000 --> 02:07:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me, let me share my screen again here at some resorts in the United States this year. This is basically everyone who I’ve tracked down, and this is not by any means a complete list. So, so check this out. I’m sharing my screen again. So for those of you listening, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll read this off for you. It starts with sunlight, Colorado.
02:07:33.000 --> 02:07:40.000
Stuart Winchester: $109 lift ticket, and Sunlight’s on the Indy Pass, by the way. It’s not on the destination upgrade, but it’s on the.
02:07:40.000 --> 02:07:43.000
Stuart Winchester: put in two, well, a brand new quad.
02:07:43.000 --> 02:07:50.000
Stuart Winchester: and a used triple from Arapahoe Basin that only had 20 years on it. So…
02:07:51.000 --> 02:08:02.000
Stuart Winchester: they really modernized. Like, they had riblet doubles up until last year, and it’s a couple thousand vertical feet almost on sunlight, so that’s a heck of a bargain for 109. It’s right down the road from Aspen. It’s kind of on your way as you get.
02:08:02.000 --> 02:08:16.000
Stuart Winchester: And then you start to go up, you know, you got this tier of, like, Taos and Solitude, 185, 199, you know, New England’s getting up into the 200s, and then you get, you know, Snowbird, I mean, 239, I never thought I’d say this, but the…
02:08:16.000 --> 02:08:31.000
Stuart Winchester: that kind of sounds like a deal for Snowbird at this point, because once we get up into the 300s, and here’s all the ski areas that are above 300 this year, all right, uh, all four Aspen Mountains, so Highlands, Aspen Mountain, Buttermilk, and, uh.
02:08:31.000 --> 02:08:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Snowmass. Snowmass now is on the Icon Base Pass, in case you missed that memo. So you get 5 days in your Icon Base Pass with blackouts. At Snowmass, none of the other Aspen mountains. So, but if you just walk up and buy a lift ticket, it’s $309. So, Icon.
02:08:46.000 --> 02:09:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, Breckenridge, it’s 332, Vail Property. Here’s our guy, Jackson Hole, checking in at $339 for a walk-up peak lift ticket. So, I don’t know, get the Mountain Collective or get the Icon, uh, because you do not want to pay that. Steamboat, that’s Alterra Mountain, 34.
02:09:03.000 --> 02:09:16.000
Stuart Winchester: On peak days, Deer Valley is $349, that’s another Alterra property. Park City, that’s a Vail property, $369 for a peak day lift ticket walk-up. Vail Mountain, $374, and Beaver Creek!
02:09:16.000 --> 02:09:24.000
Stuart Winchester: This is the first time I’ve seen Beaver Creek cost more than Vail, ever, and I don’t know who made this decision.
02:09:24.000 --> 02:09:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Because it… it’s so nominally stupid. It’s like, okay, let’s make the Beaver Creek lift ticket $18 more.
02:09:33.000 --> 02:09:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Than Vail Resort’s $374 lift ticket. As though that calculates…
02:09:37.000 --> 02:09:49.000
Stuart Winchester: with anyone’s consideration. They, you know, they walk up to the little counter at Beaver Creek, oh, it’s $392, let’s go down to Vail, it’s only $374 down there. No one does that. These prices are just dumb.
02:09:49.000 --> 02:09:52.000
Stuart Winchester: And as long as they stay this high.
02:09:52.000 --> 02:09:59.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t think that giving 30% off these prices, which is what Vale’s doing 30 days ahead of time, or doing half off.
02:09:59.000 --> 02:10:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Epic Friends is going to close the gap in their 10%.
02:10:03.000 --> 02:10:17.000
Stuart Winchester: decrease in Epic Pass unit sales this year for numbers during the season. And you know what? Credits avail. At least they’re doing something. Altera is not… these are just the prices. And yes, they’re cheaper right now if you buy in advance.
02:10:17.000 --> 02:10:34.000
Stuart Winchester: And last year, they did do some Icon Buddy discounts. If they did it this year, I missed it, but let me look into that. Okay, so that is Jackson Hole. Now, we’re going to talk about Vale today, and we’re going to talk with James Early, who is an institutional investor, CEO.
02:10:34.000 --> 02:10:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, at this investment company. It’s called Kyria Financially. Super, super seasoned, and I’ll go through his bio when I introduce him. But I want to set this up for you a little bit, because we don’t…
02:10:45.000 --> 02:10:52.000
Stuart Winchester: really get into the particulars of the Vail Resorts proxy war, and what that means, basically, is…
02:10:52.000 --> 02:10:57.000
Stuart Winchester: There are activist investors who are trying to nominate.
02:10:58.000 --> 02:11:08.000
Stuart Winchester: a total of 3 new board members to Vail Resorts’ board, and they’re trying to get some independent voices in there. Vail…
02:11:09.000 --> 02:11:19.000
Stuart Winchester: So, two of them have been nominated by Oasis Capital, which is a… a investment firm which has accumulated a… about a… not quite, but almost a 10.
02:11:19.000 --> 02:11:22.000
Stuart Winchester: share of Vail Resorts stock.
02:11:22.000 --> 02:11:33.000
Stuart Winchester: And they are nominating two different board members, and I’m gonna go over them later today. I’m gonna have a great reporter from the Vail Daily on, and we’re gonna talk.
02:11:33.000 --> 02:11:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, we’re gonna talk with John Taylor all about this, he’s gonna break it down for us, but I just wanna go through it quickly. So, Oasis has two board nominees, uh, that they are… that they are.
02:11:42.000 --> 02:11:51.000
Stuart Winchester: for nomination. Uh, Gregory Meyer is an independent, self-nominated nominee and Florida-based financier, and he is nominating himself.
02:11:51.000 --> 02:11:57.000
Stuart Winchester: This has nothing to do with Matthew Prince, who wants to buy Park City.
02:11:57.000 --> 02:12:15.000
Stuart Winchester: he… he thinks the Epic Pass should exist, but it should be asset-light. Oasis does not agree. Oasis wants to keep Vail Resorts together, so does Gregory Meyer. They think that the portfolio is the power of the company. So, you know, it’s… it’s a tug-of-war between that, but Matthew Prince is… is not nominating one.
02:12:15.000 --> 02:12:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And, actually, Oasis dropped… they had 4 nominees, they dropped 2 of them.
02:12:21.000 --> 02:12:26.000
Stuart Winchester: After Vail Resorts attempted to make a connection between.
02:12:26.000 --> 02:12:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Matthew Prince and Oasis by pointing out in a letter to investors that Matthew Prince had introduced two of the.
02:12:35.000 --> 02:12:40.000
Stuart Winchester: board nominees to Oasis just a week before their nominations. So.
02:12:40.000 --> 02:12:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Oasis then dropped them.
02:12:43.000 --> 02:12:48.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’ll just give you the names real quick here.
02:12:48.000 --> 02:12:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Let me.
02:12:50.000 --> 02:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Find them all.
02:12:52.000 --> 02:12:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Um…
02:12:54.000 --> 02:12:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, here it is. Okay.
02:12:56.000 --> 02:12:59.000
Stuart Winchester: So, the nominees are…
02:12:59.000 --> 02:13:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Bob Chapek, this is from Oasis, he’s the former CEO of Walt Disney. Um, M. Ashton Hudson, he’s a partner at Value Acquisition Fund, which sounds like something made up or something on The Simpsons.
02:13:10.000 --> 02:13:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and then those are two who are nominated by Oasis. Oasis withdrew…
02:13:15.000 --> 02:13:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Bryce Roberts in Peekaboo St.
02:13:17.000 --> 02:13:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Because those were the two that Vale tried to draw a connection to Matthew Prince with. Uh, Oasis says, no, we have no…
02:13:24.000 --> 02:13:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Nothing to do with Matthew Prince, we don’t even agree with what he wants to do. We think that the company needs to stay together. So, there’s a proxy war going on, and this all leads up.
02:13:35.000 --> 02:13:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Two.
02:13:37.000 --> 02:13:51.000
Stuart Winchester: the annual stakeholder-stockholder meeting, stockholder meeting, on December 14th, 2026, which will be virtual, and that is when we will get our vote, and that is when we will see if the activist investors are able to take, uh…
02:13:51.000 --> 02:13:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Seats on the board.
02:13:53.000 --> 02:13:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And it seems as though…
02:13:57.000 --> 02:13:59.000
Stuart Winchester: According to…
02:13:59.000 --> 02:14:06.000
Stuart Winchester: the reports in the Vail Daily from John Taylor that Vail has some good institutional support with.
02:14:06.000 --> 02:14:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Baron Capital, which owns 18.3% of MTN stock, that’s Vail’s stock ticker. So, the odds of…
02:14:14.000 --> 02:14:27.000
Stuart Winchester: this activist takeover succeeding, uh, seem low at the moment, but who knows? Things change all the time, right? Who would have thought 15 years ago that the Vail Resorts would own Park City and Whistler and…
02:14:27.000 --> 02:14:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Stowe and Seven Springs and, you know, Brighton in Michigan, so…
02:14:33.000 --> 02:14:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Things are weird, the world is weird, it changes fast, and uh…
02:14:38.000 --> 02:14:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And we don’t know, we don’t know the future, which is why we are gonna get a good…
02:14:44.000 --> 02:14:59.000
Stuart Winchester: floor under us. We’re gonna get a good ground here. We’re gonna talk to James. James is great. Uh, James will break down the basics of Vail stock for us, what it means, how to think about stocks, how to think about Vail’s story, uh, how… whether or not Vail is still a growth company, and then later on.
02:14:59.000 --> 02:15:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, with Avail Daily, I’ll drop down… I’ll break down the details of the proxy war a little more, but let’s get to James. James is awesome. First, however, before we get to James, I want to tell you about my partner, Island Snowbus.
02:15:12.000 --> 02:15:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Man, it’s November. It’s warm here in New York.
02:15:15.000 --> 02:15:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Long Island and Queens skiers, Brooklyn skiers. Well, you know what? It’s gonna get cold. It will, and they have lots of good snowmaking, and the Catskills have some good elevation. So, why don’t you check out Island Snowbus? Because what you can do with Island Snowbus, look, just book the trips now, don’t even think about it.
02:15:32.000 --> 02:15:36.000
Stuart Winchester: The mountains will be open before you know it. You can go.
02:15:36.000 --> 02:15:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Instead of waking up in the middle of the night and driving up.
02:15:39.000 --> 02:15:46.000
Stuart Winchester: and then driving back by yourself, you can just go to a pickup, one of their pickup points throughout Suffolk and Nassau County.
02:15:46.000 --> 02:16:02.000
Stuart Winchester: and eastern Queens through the Whitestone Bridge, and that will take you directly on single or multi-day trips to places like Whiteface, Jay Peak, Stratton, Gore, Killington, Bel Air, Jiminy Peak, Elk Mountain, Mount Snow, Hunter, and Platykill. Oh, look at this, I got a Pl.
02:16:02.000 --> 02:16:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, Platykill is not a sponsor, but, uh, if you run a ski area and you send me your shirt, I’ll wear.
02:16:08.000 --> 02:16:13.000
Stuart Winchester: If a big storm rolls through, then Island Snowbus will do a pop-up trip.
02:16:13.000 --> 02:16:24.000
Stuart Winchester: They have packages that are just the bus, or just the bus and overnights, if you do a multi-day trip. So if you have an Epic or Icon, you can not worry about the lift ticket, but they will provide that if you don’t have it.
02:16:24.000 --> 02:16:38.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s an early pickup, but hey man, crash out, meet some folks, you got people to ski with, maybe you’ll meet your spouse, who knows? So, check out the 2026-27 winter calendar at islandsnowbus.com, and use code STORM.
02:16:38.000 --> 02:16:44.000
Stuart Winchester: or $50 off your first trip. That’s the code STORM for $50 off at islandsnowbus.com.
02:16:44.000 --> 02:16:46.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, let’s get to James.WEBVTT
00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Where is…
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Test, test, test, test, test.
00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Tesla.
00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:21.000
James: Hey, Stuart, how you doing?
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:23.000
Stuart Winchester: How you doing? I’m doing great, thanks.
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:26.000
James: Good. Yeah. Sorry for the delay. And thanks for being flexible. Appreciate it.
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:33.000
Stuart Winchester: No, no big deal. I really appreciate you squeezing me in. I, uh, I know it’s a busy time, um, and we could kind of talk forever about just…
00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Stocks and skiing and stuff, but we’ll try to keep it to, like, 30 minutes.
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:37.000
James: All good, all good.
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:41.000
James: You got a new studio, it looks like?
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:51.000
Stuart Winchester: A new background. It’s a… Green screen. Yeah, yeah. I… yeah, I told my wife… you know, my wife does anything aesthetic that has to do with the storm. Um…
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:46.000
James: Oh, cute. Oh, I see. Got it. Gotcha. Cool. Cool. Cool.
00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:50.000
James: Yeah, so…
00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:06.000
Stuart Winchester: And, uh, and so she’s, she’s very into this. She edits it, she’s doing all the socials now, she’s, she’s really, uh, crushing it. Yeah. Well, she’s a professional TV editor, and she’s been doing that for 15 years. So she’s my secret weapon.
00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:58.000
James: Oh, wow.
00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:01.000
James: That’s great. Yeah.
00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:05.000
James: Ah, okay, okay.
00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:13.000
James: Gotcha. That’s wonderful. Yeah, I think I read that. You wrote about that somewhere at some point. Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, cool. Well, uh, I… do you have a hard out at any certain time?
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:14.000
James: Yeah.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:22.000
James: No, no, I’m flexible. I mean, you know, I saw the time. You’re shooting for roughly 30 minutes. Is that accurate?
00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah, roughly. So, if I get you out of here by 11 Eastern, is that…
00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:24.000
James: Okay.
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:41.000
James: Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Yeah, I mean, whatever, you know, just whatever the natural course to, you know, I was gonna, you know, if you’re, I was just looking at some industry data that I, nothing, nothing you don’t know already, but just kind of, I could take two or three minutes to kind of set the stage.
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay. Okay.
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:54.000
James: for Vail. Um, you can always edit that out, or your wife could edit it out later if it’s too basic, but, uh, it struck me as interesting just how slowly growing this industry actually is.
00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, I think… so, how I was gonna set this up, I think that’s a pretty good transition. So, I was basically gonna say, kind of, how you and I met, you know, through a mentioning fool, and kind of how I think about investing, and I learned a lot of that, and then just tell us, you know, how…
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:55.000
James: Oh.
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:03.000
James: Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah.
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Stuart Winchester: how your house, you know, Curia, Alpine, how you look at an investment like Vail, and I think there’s a pretty good transition into setting that up, so…
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:20.000
James: Yeah. Okay, perfect. Yeah, that’s perfect. Yeah, so I’ll just kind of run with that after you tee me off then.
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And I…
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you…
00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you have, like, disclosure rules? Should I ask you up top, do you own MTN?
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:39.000
James: I don’t own it. I mean, if I did, I would disclose it. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, there’s technically not a legal requirement for me to disclose… there should be, frankly, in the publishing business, but technically there’s none.
00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay. Okay, well…
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Well, let’s just throw it in there just for…
00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:42.000
James: Yeah, yeah, I’m not ash… I would tell you if I did, but I don’t.
00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay, great. Alright, well, let’s get going, then I’ll introduce you, and we’ll get into it.
00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:47.000
James: Sounds good.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:47:00.000
Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the CEO of Kyria Financial, soon to be known as Alpine House Research, which is a group of stock analysts committed to bringing you better investing.
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Stuart Winchester: He is also a managing partner of Tamarack Advisory, which provides advisory services for investment brand strategy and transactions. Prior to joining the team at Kyria in 2025, he was director of research and analysis for The Motley Fool, where his income investor research product beat the S&P 500.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:33.000
Stuart Winchester: 10 out of 10 straight years. He was also CEO of Stansberry China and Chief Investment Officer of BVAE. James Early is my guest. James, welcome to The Storm. Really excited to have you on to talk about one of my favorite side hobbies besides skiing, which is the stock market.
00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:35.000
Stuart Winchester: James, how you doing today?
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:40.000
James: I’m doing great, Stuart. You’ve impressed me already with your research. You do your homework.
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Hey, I like to come prepared, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. You know, I want to start off the top. I don’t own any MTN stock.
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:51.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know if you do through, or if Curia Alpine House does.
00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:56.000
James: I don’t either. I’m actually a little surprised that you don’t own it, but that’s interesting.
00:47:56.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, I didn’t get in early enough, but by the time I got around to MTN, it was… I think it was already in the triple digits, so… But let’s start by setting this up for my listeners, because…
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Stuart Winchester: we met because I mentioned Motley Fool in one of my articles, and that I was…
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:26.000
Stuart Winchester: I had an affinity for the service, and I still do. I’ve been a subscriber to their paid services for a dozen years, at least. And I love their strategy, which… there’s a lot of different parts to it. Basically, it’s geared toward long-term investors.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Buy good companies and hold them forever. Look for first movers and founder-led companies. I love this saying, water your flowers, not your weeds. So, counter-intuitively, when stocks go up in price, that’s… that’s sometimes when it’s… when you buy more, rather than the… you know, you don’t…
00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:34.000
James: Thank you.
00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Try to catch a falling knife. Don’t invest money you’ll need for the next 5 years. Don’t invest directly in stocks if you don’t have the nerve to watch your investment go down by half, or… or…
00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:42.000
James: Yep.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:49:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Or all the way. And I’ll throw in Warren Buffett’s, be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. So I look at, for example, AI infrastructure stocks, which I really like. They cratered after the election. I think it’s an opportunity. I’m just, I’m very, like.
00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:20.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, consumer guy, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but all my stuff comes from there. So, that’s the setup for kind of how we met and how we connected. I’m curious what the philosophy is of Curia slash Alpine House.
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:32.000
Stuart Winchester: in relation to what I just said, and then how do you approach a stock like MTN, which is Vail Resorts’ stock ticker, as you consider what to recommend, what to buy?
00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:49.000
James: And I may take issue with what you said, Stuart. I think you know a lot more than you say. I mean, you gave a little master class in investing right there. In a way, it’s complicated. In a way, it’s not complicated. It’s a social science. Economics is a social science, but it’s one that masquerades.
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:49:49.000 --> 00:50:06.000
James: as a mathematical one. And I think people who see through that tend to do better than those who don’t, even though you can always get lucky, it’s possible to get lucky whether you’re skillful or not. Uh, my philosophy at my… the hedge fund where I originally worked at, at Motley Fool, and now at Alpine House, remains the same, which is.
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:22.000
James: Look for companies that are fundamentally adding economic value and try to buy them at cheaper than average prices. Now, that’s a lot harder to actually execute than just to explain in a sentence, but at the end of the day, nobody really knows.
00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:32.000
James: what a stock is. I mean, some kind of legal claim on a company’s ownership, some kind of fire sale right in a bankruptcy sale. To some people, it’s a pattern-producing instrument. Chart followers.
00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:46.000
James: But most of the big money moving the market over the long run agrees it’s essentially the earnings or the free cash flows, your share of that, of a business. Eric Oh, predict those, and you can have good investment results.
00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:52.000
Stuart Winchester: So, people get really hung up on the stock price, James, and I…
00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:03.000
Stuart Winchester: one of the first things I learned from Fool is that, yes, the price matters, but here’s… I’m gonna share my screen here. So for those of you watching on YouTube at Storm Ski Journal, or.
00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, on stormseeing.com. So, I have 6 charts here. This is MTN, this is Vale. You can see it went up and down, up, and now it’s down. This is Tesla, okay? Lots of downs. This is Shopify, lots of downs.
00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:08.000
James: Mm-hmm.
00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:14.000
James: Yep.
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Nvidia, look how low it was for so long. It was a crap stock, and now it’s the biggest company in the world, I believe. This is Netflix, way down. It’s down again. This is Amazon.
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, lots of peaks and valleys.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:35.000
Stuart Winchester: and this is MTN, and obviously these are very different kinds of companies. What I was trying to demonstrate here.
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:41.000
Stuart Winchester: is that no stock really goes 45 degrees. But from your point of view.
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:50.000
Stuart Winchester: how much should we read into the stock price, and when do we get concerned, and how do we sort it out from… Because, you know, sometimes there’s…
00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Trump announces a tariff and everything goes down. You know, it has nothing to do with the company. Sometimes the stock goes down because the company is really messing up. So, so how do you think about stock price and how do we determine when, uh oh, Shopify is dead or, oh, we should buy more.
00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:54.000
James: Yeah.
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Stuart Winchester: And that’s what I did.
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000
James: Yeah, I…
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:26.000
James: Yes, sir, this is one of the most important questions in all of investing. Uh, and there’s, uh, frankly, there’s a lot of survivorship bias, especially among newer companies. Uh, Amazon, one of the companies you mentioned, was down at 1.94 or 96%. It then went on during, like, the, the, the crash of the tech bubble.
00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:13.000
Stuart Winchester: So.
00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:42.000
James: There were all these headlines. Amazon is dead. The business model doesn’t work. We all knew Amazon was going to die anyway, right? It then went on to rise more than 50,000%. Okay, so that looks silly if you’re an Amazon doubter, right? You look silly, but for every Amazon.
00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:59.000
James: I think there were, like, 900 other e-commerce companies trying to be in Amazon. I think we’ve had 2,500 car companies come and go in the US, and Tesla is one of the survivors, right? But there’s a huge failure rate, so you kind of need to look at both sides of the data here.
00:52:59.000 --> 00:53:14.000
James: I think on the stock price, it also depends on what kind of company it is. If you’re talking about an electric utility or a sewage company or some kind of boring steady company, you might get closer to that 45 degree upslope.
00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:23.000
James: you know, these companies here, they’re all kind of relatively risky, sexy, exciting growth companies. Uh, that said, at the end of the day, I think most people tend to get.
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:39.000
James: Much of their money from growth stocks. And I’ll give you one boring stat and then we’ll move on. Uh, Hank Bessembinder, a professor at Arizona State University, looked at roughly the past 100 years of stock returns in the US and found that just 3.2% of stocks.
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:52.000
James: contributed almost all of the returns. In other words, it’s a small number of companies driving, basically, all your investment returns. So, if you want to win, you’ve got to get those few winners.
00:53:52.000 --> 00:54:04.000
Stuart Winchester: So let’s talk about MTN stock in particular. So this is Vail Resorts, and again, I have their long-term chart up here, and you know, this is… if you look back to, I believe, 1997 was their IPO, and it just…
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Went along at 20 bucks or so, and then it started to go up and up. Really reached a high here in 2022, 352-ish, and now it’s down to about half of that. So, when you look at this chart, and I always like to chart people who, uh.
00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:32.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, try to do the… the dips and the patterns. I… I look at them as, like, you know, phreniology? The, like, study of… of your head, and, like, what… what it says about your… this is, like, an 1800s… that’s kind of how I think about that.
00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.000
James: Yeah, yeah, yeah, your head bumps and whatnot, yeah, yeah.
00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:31.000
James: Yeah.
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Looking at this chart, we can talk about the reasons why this dipped. Is this, how do you read this?
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:56.000
James: This is a an existential question of, you know, when is this company done with its growth phase and ready for Florida retirement? And that’s slightly exaggerated, but essentially I read this and I’m, I’m, I’m.
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:11.000
James: Skeptical, and I’ll share some data as to why I’m skeptical about the long-term future, Stuart, but the question was, Vail had great growth for, let’s say, 15 years, roughly speaking, or some period of time when they were transitioning to.
00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:27.000
James: The pass model, which is sort of the SaaS equivalent software as a service equivalent in the physical infrastructure world of skiing. Uh, and, and people were, investors were assuming trees were gonna grow to the sky. Uh, they’re starting to realize, no, they won’t.
00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:41.000
James: And so the question is, that’s not a long-term trajectory. In other words, it was probably a one-off bump. Admit it, maybe it’s a long-term bump, but a bump. And now, what do things look like.
00:55:41.000 --> 00:56:00.000
James: going forward now that things have stabilized. I think that was… there was sort of an identity confusion among investors as to whether Vale was a growth stock or sort of a long-term dividend-paying stock, and it was a growth stock for a while, and now it’s shifting to the latter, and that’s why… that’s what you see the story…
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:03.000
James: Uh, sort of playing out in the stock price.
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and Molly Fool has recommended this on two services, their Stock Advisor core service, and then their Dividend Investor most recently. They do have, Stock Advisor has the stock on hold right now. I don’t know if Dividend Investor does, but let’s, you know, that’s the stock, that’s the price. I mean, it hasn’t.
00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:23.000
Stuart Winchester: And it crashed completely. So, so.
00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:35.000
Stuart Winchester: From my, again, layman’s point of view, maybe we’re seeing the transition from a growth stock to a value stock. It’s still kicking out a dividend. There are some debt concerns and everything, and we can look at those, but…
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Is that the way that you look at it, or do you think this could still be a growth company?
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:59.000
James: It’s definitely not a growth company, it’s quite the opposite. In fact, it’s a shockingly non-growth company, and I was looking at some data, Stuart, and this might be useful for someone who’s listening or watching who’s relatively new to the space. This is just NSAA data, it’s fairly well-known. I ran the math, though. U.S. skier visits… and by the way.
00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:15.000
James: Caveat, as you would point out, the quality of a skier visit has increased dramatically over the years. A long time ago, it could be just going to Billy Bob’s rope toe and spending a dollar on a hot dog. You know, now you’re paying Rob Katz a $392.
00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:26.000
James: Beaver Creek price for a family of four, you’re staying in the Vail Lodging, you’re getting lessons, you know, massage, whatever else they monetize, right? So, it has gotten better, but there’s still something to this data. Anyway.
00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:42.000
James: 50.1 million skier visits, 1978, 1979. Last year, 53.1 million. That is a compound annual growth rate, Stuart, of 0.12%. That is rounding error. That is rounding error over.
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:59.000
James: You know, not quite 50 years, but, you know, 47 years. So skiing is not that growing, not growing fast at all. Unique skier participants, same data set, 30 years actually, NSAA data 0.73%.
00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:16.000
James: Compound annual growth rate. The US population over those past 30 years has grown at 0.84%. So skiing is not keeping up with population growth. And I’m going to put on my demographer hat and just speak analytically. Skiing has an ethnicity problem.
00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:36.000
James: Skiers are 89% white, and that’s neither good nor bad. It’s a descriptive statistic, but it becomes bad financially when you notice that in 2020, the last census, there were 199 million white Americans. By 2060, the number is projected to be 179 million.
00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:51.000
James: So, basically, 90% of skiing’s demographic is a shrinking demographic. Other groups, I mean, Asians, 7% of the U.S. population, 5% of the skiing population, that’s pretty good, and they’re probably catching up, right?
00:58:51.000 --> 00:59:11.000
James: it’s hard if you’re coming from a different ethnicity. Uh, my son’s best friend is African American, and I think this year, I’m gonna get him out skiing, but it has taken some effort. I think we’re the only ones in his social group who skis, and let’s face it, it’s expensive. I mean, I’ll pay to take him out, right? But it’s expensive, it’s far… it takes driving time, it’s cold.
00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:27.000
James: You’re probably going to suck at it the 1st 1 or 2 times, so that having that sort of social group to support you is important, and that’s the bridge that the industry and that Vail Resorts has to cross if I’m running a financial model going out a few decades.
00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:40.000
James: in addition to… and I know global warming is not killing skiing, you came on my podcast and very articulately made that case, right? It’s kind of battling against snowmaking technology, but let’s be honest, fast forward 50 years, 60 years, 70 years.
00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:54.000
James: At least at the margin, Stuart, we’re going to be going higher up and farther north, so if I run a long-term valuation model on Vail Resorts, it doesn’t look good once things get farther out.
00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:57.000
Stuart Winchester: So that’s looking toward the future. And.
00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:04.000
Stuart Winchester: As we saw from that stock chart, failed resorts grew for a long time. So let’s look at the past.
01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:20.000
Stuart Winchester: And look at some of these growth stats. So again, I have on my screen a chart that is maybe a little hard to read, but what you’re seeing here, this red line, this is the one I want to talk about right now. Okay, this red line is number of Epic Pass units sold, and that’s a…
01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:16.000
James: Mm-hmm.
01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:34.000
Stuart Winchester: corporate term, it means an Epic Day Pass, it means an Epic Local Pass, it means a Northeast Value Pass, any kind of product is one sold. And every year, from 2008 to 9, which was the first year of the Epic Pass, every single year, unit sales went up.
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:36.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:51.000
Stuart Winchester: They really went up in 2021-2022 when Vail cut the price by 20%. Great winter, 22-23, so they went up again, but then they’ve had declines two years in a row. These are 2% declines. These are in…
01:00:52.000 --> 01:01:09.000
Stuart Winchester: These are in, uh, abbreviated numbers so I can make all this other stuff fit, which I’ll explain later. But 2.3 million Epic passes, 2.25 million last year, so it’s declined for two consecutive years. The numbers that Vail reported in September were year-to-date unit sales were down.
01:00:56.000 --> 01:00:57.000
James: Yep.
01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Stuart Winchester: 12 percent a year over year, and that’s not a final number, we’ll get the final in December. And also, the, and I don’t have this on the chart, uh, sales dollars, so that’s different, so you sell a million Epic Passes, or let’s say you sell 10 Epic Passes, and they’re $100 each, then you sold.
01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:39.000
Stuart Winchester: $1,000 in unit sales. Now, I’ll explain that to you. Explain that to listeners. So, sales dollars have never declined, even with the unit declines, and we may be seeing the first ever sales decline of Vail Resorts. So, before we get to some of the reasons why.
01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:46.000
Stuart Winchester: There, Vail may have hit a wall here, James. How concerning is it for you, when you look at a stock.
01:01:46.000 --> 01:01:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And it has… its growth story was built fundamentally on changing a business model, and they did it not just for themselves, but for all of skiing, because they… what they did is they took the season pass.
01:01:57.000 --> 01:02:13.000
Stuart Winchester: And they moved it into, into spring, so, and they made it really cheap, and they made lift tickets really expensive, and so they incentivized people to buy passes before the snow ever came, so they were trying to, uh, weatherproof a weather dependent.
01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:29.000
Stuart Winchester: industry, and that worked, like, look at this, whoosh! All the, I mean, they sold, you know, 200,000 Epic Passes the first year, and, and, and, you know, they’re, they’re 10x-ing that. That’s great, but they seem to have hit a wall. How concerning is that for you that, that when, when a company’s core story.
01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Changes.
01:02:31.000 --> 01:02:33.000
James: In this case.
01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:51.000
James: with a company with high fixed costs that basically can’t do anything else, it’s, it’s very concerning. I mean, there are certainly many companies, Stuart, that have changed their business model, uh, was it Samsung, a fish market or something, I forgot what it was, but changed their business model drastically over time. YouTube was a dating.
01:02:51.000 --> 01:03:11.000
James: platform, and for some companies, like YouTube, it could work a little bit better. For Vail, they’re stuck doing what they’re doing. And let me just praise Rob Katz. I mean, here’s a guy who, let’s be honest, he is not a soul-of-skiing kind of guy. He’s a soul-of-money kind of guy. He comes across like the Homer Simpson boss.
01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:26.000
James: Uh, you know, true story, I booked a 7pm restaurant reservation near me, and I got there at 7.01, and the guy said, oh, sorry, Rob Castle’s already got your table. I’m kidding, that’s not a true story, but, like, he comes across as that kind of guy. But you know what? That’s exactly what happened.
01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:34.000
James: the industry needed. He has this brilliant idea. He’s a very charitable guy, by the way. I respect that very much about him.
01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Or he’s donated hundreds of millions of dollars.
01:03:34.000 --> 01:03:51.000
James: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, God bless Rob Katz in that regard. He, you know, he’s sharp, he’s definitely better at dealing with Wall Street than being kind of a brand ambassador to Main Street. But that said, his idea was, guess what? Let’s figure out a way to transfer the weather risk to the consumer.
01:03:51.000 --> 01:04:06.000
James: Now, in exchange for that, we’ll create this diversified pool, which gives them more choice. That’s why they’re willing to do that and gives us more diversification, kind of like a law firm having different practice areas, right?
01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:21.000
James: Brilliant idea. And, you know, you’ve seen the results, right? You read some of that data. It’s 13.4% skier visit drop, last fiscal year 2026, which ended in July, but Lyft revenue just fell 3.5%. I think resort net revenue.
01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:40.000
James: But my point is, it’s working if you look at it in a one-year sense. The issue we’re seeing is someone says, you know, crap, yeah, I paid for that winter, but that was kind of a so-so winter in the Rockies, where Vale’s portfolio is strong.
01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:57.000
James: Maybe I’m not gonna renew. And that’s why I think it was 12% you mentioned those pre-sales, uh, uh, the sales for the, the upcoming winter passes are down. So there’s a little bit of a lag time, but now we’re starting to see that lag time happen. And I think just stepping way back to the real answer to your question is.
01:04:57.000 --> 01:05:13.000
James: They found the ceiling, right? They had a good thing. They squeezed the juice out of the orange, but the orange doesn’t have unlimited juice. And now they know this is as far as they can take this past model. Trees don’t grow to the sky.
01:05:13.000 --> 01:05:22.000
James: They apparently grow to 200 whatever million pass units and that’s it, right? Or 1,000, sorry.
01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, this chart is very hard to read because of all the abbreviations, numbers I had to do to squeeze it in. But I want to parse some of these things. So this huge growth right here.
01:05:26.000 --> 01:05:28.000
James: Yeah.
01:05:32.000 --> 01:05:37.000
Stuart Winchester: from 1.4 million to 2.1 million Epic Pass, something like a 40% jump.
01:05:34.000 --> 01:05:35.000
James: Yeah.
01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:38.000
James: Okay, the COVID bump, basically.
01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, it was also, what they did is, is they dropped, um.
01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:43.000
James: 20%. It’s some kind of discount. Yeah, yeah.
01:05:41.000 --> 01:05:49.000
Stuart Winchester: uh, price is 20%. So, so they, they front-loaded it and said, oh, let’s get more people in the ecosystem.
01:05:49.000 --> 01:06:01.000
Stuart Winchester: And they kind of had some bad luck, where there were all of a sudden a lot of supply chain problems, there were a lot of labor shortages, like, all these sort of meta-economic factors.
01:06:02.000 --> 01:06:17.000
Stuart Winchester: It contributed to maybe a less than great ski experience. And this I’ll point out, and this is important. So, so this was a 20% price cut. This was a $20 an hour wage. So, so in this year, they were still working with their lower.
01:06:17.000 --> 01:06:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Wages, which was, you know, at some places in Ohio and such was not, uh, very competitive. So what, what do you think, before we get into some of the other reasons why the past sales may have leveled off, what do you think when a company does this, when they discount their core product?
01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:44.000
Stuart Winchester: in order to increase volume long term. Do you think in general that’s a good strategy? Is it an alarm for you? And what do you think of it in the case of Vail?
01:06:44.000 --> 01:07:03.000
James: Pricing is really hard to figure out in business, Stuart, particularly for something like this. And frankly, even though the past model was, you know, not a new thing, they didn’t really know the limits. And now, obviously, they’re finding them.
01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:11.000
James: Um, on the bad end, we have something called channel stuffing, right? Which is when a company lowers the prices too much, it kind of gets a bunch of people in, but maybe…
01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:19.000
James: they’re not renewers, they don’t stick around, like, kind of lower-quality customers. Uh, I wouldn’t call this that, uh, but it’s…
01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:35.000
James: A half of a step in that direction. In other words, what we’re seeing now, and I haven’t, I don’t know chapter and verse nearly as well as you do, Stuart, but it looks like the people who are falling off the Vale customer group base are not the, the long, you know, whole season past people.
01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:51.000
James: They are the, uh, you know, 4-day, whatever, you know, the shorter versions of that. So, in other words, relative to Icon, that, to my knowledge, did not lower their prices as much, although they did sometimes, right? Uh, Vale has probably gotten a little bit more popular.
01:07:38.000 --> 01:07:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Hmm?
01:07:51.000 --> 01:08:05.000
James: price-sensitive customer that, uh, they’re, you know, good human beings, I’m sure, but in a business sense, we would say they’re not as high quality a customer, and so those people are going to be more economically sensitive to this, that, and the other, and we’re seeing that.
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:22.000
Stuart Winchester: What I have on the screen now is the comparison of Epic versus Icon prices over time. They started out at par when Icon debuted in 2018 to 19. And this is a lot of data because it’s start and final. So each one is one year.
01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:28.000
Stuart Winchester: bars is one year. So, and they kept in par, but then when Vale did their price drop in 21-22.
01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Altera just kept going. So their Icon Pass started at $9.99 that year, the Epic Pass was $7.83. This year, the Icon Pass started at $13.99, and Epic started at $1,089. So we’re looking at about a 30.
01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:31.000
James: Yep.
01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:59.000
Stuart Winchester: difference between them. I don’t have Icon sales data, James, and nobody that I know of does. However, I did have an interesting anecdote. I talked to… there’s a company called Mountain Capital Partners, and they operate 11 ski areas in the United States and Chile, and.
01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:56.000
James: Yep.
01:08:59.000 --> 01:09:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Their nine US skiers are primarily in the southwest. So Nevada, four corner states, they have one up in Oregon. They had a terrible winter, but I was, I hosted one of their general managers on the podcast, Josh Bean from Lee Canyon, Nevada, and he told me that power pass sales, it’s like their epic pass. It’s an unlimited pass.
01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Elder Mountains, it is up. Uh, and that surprised me, because they had terrible winters, but what it told me…
01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:21.000
James: Hmm. Okay.
01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.000
Stuart Winchester: is when I look at Mellon Capital Partners, they’re consistently investing.
01:09:29.000 --> 01:09:40.000
Stuart Winchester: new lifts, new snowmaking, uh, extending… they’ll extend seasons into May. Arizona Snow Bowl has stayed open into June. This is a ski area that, 25 years ago.
01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:48.000
Stuart Winchester: operated for four days a year, one year, because they didn’t have good snowmaking. So Mountain Capitalist has really transformed it. I think Vail’s…
01:09:42.000 --> 01:09:44.000
James: Hmm. Okay.
01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:50.000
Stuart Winchester: He’s suffering from, uh…
01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Maybe, uh, maybe they’ve lost the popular narrative.
01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:58.000
Stuart Winchester: When you see companies that…
01:09:58.000 --> 01:10:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Don’t…
01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:05.000
Stuart Winchester: that aren’t resonating with customers like they used to.
01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Is that something that you see here where Vail maybe just kind of lost the core consumer with…
01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:27.000
James: I think so, and I think I know what you’re getting at. I mean, look at me. I was an Epic Pass holder for many years. I’ve switched to Icon, and frankly, I should give Vail another chance, right? They have made some changes, but…
01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:17.000
Stuart Winchester: No, no, no, yeah.
01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:43.000
James: Some of the stuff they’ve done, you know, with the workers, with the mountain communities. Good luck. As a side point, they’ve bought as many resorts, I think, as they can realistically. I mean, there’s an apocryphal quote about Alexander the Great saying Alexander wept.
01:10:43.000 --> 01:11:01.000
James: when there were no more worlds left to conquer, and apparently he actually said he wept because he couldn’t get his worlds working, operating right, you know, correctly, which is more fitting to Vail anyway, but, you know, I think Rob Katz is about as welcome as Alexander the Great in many of these mountain towns these days, right? I mean.
01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:11:01.000 --> 01:11:18.000
James: It, it’s, he’s got, they’ve got a PR problem and selling tickets for $392 for one day doesn’t help, okay? Doesn’t help. And that DNA, that vibe, I mean, I use the word predatory when you were on my podcast, I’m gonna.
01:11:09.000 --> 01:11:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:11:19.000 --> 01:11:37.000
James: And that’s a bit hyperbolic, but maybe not wildly hyperbolic. It doesn’t feel like this is a company that’s on my side. And Gen Zs make up the largest cohort of skiers. These are the hardcore skiers. I don’t know. I think Vail leaves a bit of a bad taste in their mouth.
01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:54.000
James: For, for, you know, uh, businesses that may sell to Vail alike. So I, I don’t know how to articulate it in a single sentence, but I do agree they have an image problem. You tend to get a lot of the, the, the newer, newer hardcore skiers, if that makes sense. But then they say, oh, you know what, this.
01:11:54.000 --> 01:12:06.000
James: Something a bit icky about this company. I’m switching to Icon because I prefer the mountains. I’m switching to IndyPass because I want to support these mom-and-pops, and I’m okay riding the slow lift. Whatever it is, there’s something.
01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and IndyPass sales are also hitting records, I’m told. I don’t have numbers, but that’s what the IndyPass officials tell me. So I thought it was really weird, and my investor’s ear and my…
01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:28.000
Stuart Winchester: skier’s ear, both caught this in the last earnings call with Rob Katz, and I think Rob’s great, he’s been on this podcast, super articulate guy, but one thing that I found really strange.
01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Was, so they added a new metric this year called, uh, pass days. So they were saying that even though unit sales were down 12%, pass days were only down 10%. What they were getting at is that our season pass holders, our epic pass holders, our epic local, our.
01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Tahoe Value Pass, they’re sticking around. What we’re seeing is softness in the Epic Day Pass, as you said earlier.
01:12:52.000 --> 01:13:03.000
Stuart Winchester: And he had this… he repeated many times that they weren’t worried about it because they thought that Lyft tickets would fill in the gap. So I have up some Lyft ticket prices here.
01:13:03.000 --> 01:13:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And Vail Mountain this year will peak out at 374 $374. Uh Beaver Creek 392. Uh I think this is, this is Park City is 369 and Breckenridge is 332. Now, now Vail has two different programs for discount lift tickets. One is epic friends. So if you know an epic pass holder, you can get half off these prices.
01:13:21.000 --> 01:13:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Still a lot, but it’s like, okay, you roll your eyes, and maybe you pay it. But, if I’m like…
01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:44.000
Stuart Winchester: I live in Atlanta, or Houston, and I ski a week a year, I don’t know anyone with an Epic Pass, right? And I might not have one, and I didn’t think of this in advance. And by the way, Altera is just as bad with day lift tickets, and they don’t have these programs, so uh… so it… this is a more of an industry-wide destination problem.
01:13:31.000 --> 01:13:33.000
James: Yeah.
01:13:37.000 --> 01:13:38.000
James: Yep.
01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And then they also have, uh… Vail also has 30% off the tickets 30 days in advance. It’s still not a great discount. And the really weird part about this to me, James, is when you look… this is my chart, going back to the dawn of the Epic Pass.
01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:12.000
Stuart Winchester: And all these mountains were under $100 a lift ticket. I know there’s inflation, but these are rates well beyond inflation, right? So, so, uh, BRAC was 92 and, and, and Vail and Beaver Creek were $97 back in 2008 to 9, but Vail has spent.
01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:19.000
Stuart Winchester: almost 20 years destroying the lift ticket. They basically made it an unbuyable product.
01:14:19.000 --> 01:14:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes, they have a couple programs to try to boost that, but…
01:14:23.000 --> 01:14:32.000
Stuart Winchester: does that alarm you as an investor when it’s all about… it was all about Epic Pass, Epic Pass, Epic Pass, it has to be 75% of our visits have to be Epic Pass.
01:14:32.000 --> 01:14:39.000
Stuart Winchester: and they tried… they disincentivized lift tickets in every way they can, and now they’re trying to lean on lift tickets? Like, how do you transl.
01:14:39.000 --> 01:14:55.000
James: I guess I’m not surprised. I mean, yeah, yeah, from a PR optics standpoint, it doesn’t look good, right? The thing they were kind of bashing, they made almost untenable. I mean, taking a family of four skiing at Beaver Creek, 400 bucks a pop, I mean, with rentals, I mean.
01:14:55.000 --> 01:15:10.000
James: Come on. And what a what a barrier. What a barrier to getting started. Thanks to this. And now they’re back to embracing it. But, you know, that’s standard business practice for public companies. Just do whatever works. And frankly.
01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:27.000
James: I mean, I don’t. Yeah, it’s kind of a turnabout, so to speak. But that’s the life cycle. That’s the Florida retirement stage that Vail is at right now. They’ve gotten the juice out of the lemon, out of the orange, whatever. Now making the stair step, whatever analysis you want to use.
01:15:15.000 --> 01:15:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:43.000
James: They’re stuck, Stuart, trying to get little operational efficiencies, try these little gimmicks, 30% off for 30 days in advance. Your buddy can ski 50% off, whatever. And I’m not against those, but they should be trying those realistically using the Pareto principle.
01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:15:43.000 --> 01:15:59.000
James: In my experience of business, maybe one out of five of those things is gonna really work and that’s okay. So fast forward two, three years, they’re probably gonna have a different set of those things or they lower the price on the pass, but then there’s some like hidden fee, service fee like Airbnb, right?
01:15:47.000 --> 01:15:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:15:53.000 --> 01:15:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:15:59.000 --> 01:16:10.000
James: They’re gonna bundle little tricks, uh, they’re trying to make the food better, trying to have a better rental experience, and again, like, they should be doing those things, but, like.
01:16:10.000 --> 01:16:18.000
James: whereas they were dealing with mountains before, they’re dealing with molehills now. It’s not really their fault.
01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:27.000
James: it’s just the nature of the business. Going back to those numbers that I shared, you know, way below 1% growth. This is a slow growth industry.
01:16:27.000 --> 01:16:40.000
James: So getting profit, which is the thing that drives your stock price, is going to depend on squeezing more and more money out of those, you know, fewer or relatively few well-heeled people who come to the resorts.
01:16:40.000 --> 01:16:44.000
Stuart Winchester: So let’s talk about that issue of.
01:16:44.000 --> 01:16:59.000
Stuart Winchester: They’re kind of at capacity, right? Because another number that I have here on this chart is I have Epic Pass partners. That’s this orange line right here. And you can see that, you know, when the Epic Pass debuted, there were five mountains on it. Now they have 71. That seems pretty good.
01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, they… when the Upper Pest debuted, they owned 5 mountains, and now they own 42. What we see here is they… they did a big…
01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:19.000
Stuart Winchester: surge of partners and buying and acquisitions from 2015 to 16 to 19 to 20, and that pretty much paralleled this growth in Epic Pass sales, and they’ve really stopped.
01:17:19.000 --> 01:17:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Both buying and and I understand the point about.
01:17:22.000 --> 01:17:31.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, maybe they can’t buy anymore, there’s antitrust concerns at a certain point. Uh, however, with the partner number, if we… if we compare this to…
01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, to Icon, let me find my…
01:17:36.000 --> 01:17:49.000
Stuart Winchester: thing here. Look at… look at how Icon has grown, and how many ski areas they’ve added. So, when… when Icon debuted in 2018, Vail had 44 mountains on the Epic Pass, and the Icon Pass had 50.
01:17:37.000 --> 01:17:39.000
James: Yep.
01:17:49.000 --> 01:17:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Fast forward, and in 2026, the icon passed 103.
01:17:53.000 --> 01:17:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail has 73, and they really stopped adding partners and acquisitions around…
01:17:59.000 --> 01:18:03.000
Stuart Winchester: COVID, and they’ve bought a few. So…
01:18:04.000 --> 01:18:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Is that a mistake? Should they be trying to add partners and follow more of the ICON model, or is that maybe an indication that ICON.
01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:17.000
Stuart Winchester: The.
01:18:17.000 --> 01:18:23.000
Stuart Winchester: the price is higher because they have so many partners. What do you think about just the size? Because you can’t… yeah.
01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:23.000
James: Yeah, you know…
01:18:23.000 --> 01:18:41.000
James: Yeah, it’s hard for me to guess. It’s sort of an elasticity of demand question, to use an economics term. We don’t know exactly how much adding those incremental resorts drives revenue. Of course, it depends a lot on which incremental resorts we’re talking about. Maybe Vail has done some math and says, you know what?
01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:18:41.000 --> 01:18:55.000
James: We’ve surveyed, and our average customer doesn’t really care if we own one more tiny ski area in the middle of nowhere or not. Maybe they do. I don’t know. Icon apparently has done different math. And, you know, frankly.
01:18:49.000 --> 01:18:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:18:55.000 --> 01:19:11.000
James: It could get Vale’s financial position. Let me just say it’s still strong, okay? I would still say it’s strong, but they’ve gone off the top of my head from having almost a billion dollars in pure cash and over a billion dollars if you ca- count some, you know, sort of near cash current assets to.
01:19:11.000 --> 01:19:23.000
James: I think the pure cash now is about $240 million, and their debt is now over $3 billion. Still, good financially. I’m not saying it’s in bad shape, but…
01:19:23.000 --> 01:19:41.000
James: They don’t want to be spending money willy-nilly. And I realize these contractual deals don’t necessarily entail a lot of CapEx. So that may be part of it. I think another part of it, and this is pure speculation on my part, but with the contractual participants, it might be a little bit harder to get them on board with pricing.
01:19:41.000 --> 01:19:52.000
James: uh, things like that, that Vail may want to have more, or Rob Katz probably may want to have more control over, uh, and maybe you don’t get that same level of control, uh, with the contractual deal. So.
01:19:52.000 --> 01:20:10.000
James: ultimately, I’m not in the boardroom. I don’t know what it is, but it’s probably a factor. I mean, there’s obviously a… obviously, but there’s a proxy battle of sorts going on with Vail. There’s an activist investor that thinks they shouldn’t own so many mountains. It’s too expensive. They should simply.
01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:18.000
James: make contractual deals like IndiePass, or like Vale does, and Icon does to some extent, and that’s probably related to this, too.
01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you know, looking at… so I have a chart up now of the number of partners added to passes each year since 2018, and you can see in the last 2 years.
01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:29.000
James: Yep.
01:20:29.000 --> 01:20:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Icon has added 38 partners. Vale has added six. They were all in Austria. Now, these aren’t 38 Jackson holes.
01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Robcat said in one of the earnings calls earlier this year, I believe, he said, we would always rather own.
01:20:44.000 --> 01:20:49.000
Stuart Winchester: But Telluride does help us sell Epic Passes. Do you think…
01:20:49.000 --> 01:21:04.000
Stuart Winchester: the Vale should be aggressively fighting Altera and Icon for these Alpha Mountains. Like, should they be trying to sign Jackson Hole? Should they be trying to sign Boyne Resorts with Big Sky? Should they be trying to sign Powder with Snowbird? And just saying, you know, doing…
01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:21.000
Stuart Winchester: You know when Netflix started just throwing $20 million at comedians, and it seemed foolish, but it was really a big driver of this sort of original content they had. And I don’t know if that was a good idea or not, it’s just the first example that popped into my head. But do you think that Vale could grow if it tried to fight back?
01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Altera is really running circles around them from a roster point of view right now.
01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:40.000
James: Yeah, they are. You know, in the old days, Altair maybe had a little bit better mountains, but I, I think it’s, it’s, uh, it’s looking more and more like that. I, I, this might be a weird answer. I think yes, with their current strategy, they should fight. If they’re gonna be premium price, do that.
01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:50.000
James: get those, get those, you know, uh, you know, bellwether kind of mountains. If they’re gonna be the indie, if they’re gonna be the discount guy, then, then be that. Don’t be in the middle.
01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:55.000
James: And right now, it’s looking like they’re kind of, like, drifting into the upper middle.
01:21:55.000 --> 01:22:10.000
James: And that’s probably, I mean, look, they still got Heavenly, still got a ton of really great resorts, but, uh, if, if Icon keeps buying up these crown jewels, uh, I mean, there’s only a handful left, right? But, uh, that’s, uh, that’s a ding for the premium customer.
01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:15.000
James: You know, my Wall Street-type friends tend to have IconPass, not Vail.
01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and for a minute, Vail did have Sun Valley and Snow Basin, but then they switched to Icon, and they’re also on Mountain Collective. So I want to end on this here, James.
01:22:27.000 --> 01:22:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail has had a lot of success in the United States. They only have one resort in Canada.
01:22:33.000 --> 01:22:38.000
Stuart Winchester: They intimate that their Australian operations are profitable.
01:22:38.000 --> 01:22:55.000
Stuart Winchester: They go to Europe, buy a couple ski areas in Switzerland. The activist investor proxies I’ve read are really down on that idea to, to set this up a little bit. There’s about 4000 ski areas in Europe, which is about two thirds of all the ski areas in the world. It’s a very different culture. You are not gonna be able to charge €300 for a lift ticket.
01:22:55.000 --> 01:23:03.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know how appealing the multi-pass model is there. I’m not saying it can’t work, maybe I lack the vision, but…
01:23:03.000 --> 01:23:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Those acquisitions happened under Kirsten Lynch, the CEO who was there in Rob’s internal. Rob was still chair of the board, okay, so he’s still culpable, but…
01:23:13.000 --> 01:23:15.000
Stuart Winchester: What do you think of?
01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Vale going into Europe? Was it a mistake or is that really their opportunity to get back to growth?
01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:40.000
James: No, I think it’s a mistake. Their model is based on high day ticket prices to encourage the pass. Europe is just culturally averse to that. Literally, it’s a thought experiment. The only way it can work is if Rob Katz went up and bought all the areas in one little area of Europe.
01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:52.000
James: And then he could do that, right? And just knowing Europeans, that’s not gonna go over very well. So, yeah, I think it was a mistake. I don’t think they have much room to run internationally. It’s more of a…
01:23:52.000 --> 01:24:08.000
James: Just an eyeballs thing to convince American buyers. Oh, guess what? We got a few resorts here and there in Japan and Australia, in Europe, wherever. I don’t think there’s great economics outside the U. The model is just too predatory for the rest of the world.
01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah, it’s, uh…
01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:14.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know, they… what about Canada? Could…
01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:26.000
James: Yeah, I mean, it’s a little closer to the US, right? And Americans could go there, too. So I’d be a little bit more bullish on — I mean, Canada is technically international, but it’s nothing like Europe.
01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:24:26.000 --> 01:24:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, I mean, the language is the same, the culture, well, for the most part, except Quebec. And there’s 300 ski areas there, and they own the busiest one. Alterra owns the second two busiest, which are Blue Mountain and Mont-Tremblant, in reverse order of busyness. So there’s definitely a great ski culture in Canada.
01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:37.000
James: Yep.
01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:53.000
Stuart Winchester: James, since I’m not an expert on this, is there anything important I left off, any points about Vail stock, and just their strategy as a company that you want to leave us with today?
01:24:53.000 --> 01:25:08.000
James: Well, you know, I would say, well, first of all, the proxy thing is going to be interesting. I mean, they might get, the challengers, Oasis might get a board tour seat if they can convince some of these bigger shareholders, you know, BlackRock, I forgot who’s some of the owners, but big picture though.
01:24:57.000 --> 01:24:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:25:08.000 --> 01:25:12.000
James: If you’re looking at buying Bell Resorts.
01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:19.000
James: I would almost ignore the chart. I would think of it… it pays a pretty good dividend now. I forgot, 5… couple percent, right? Um…
01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay. I’m not sure, but…
01:25:19.000 --> 01:25:38.000
James: buy it as a long-term, steady, boring dividend stock, nothing else, okay? That is the company’s new identity. Uh, it had great growth in the past. This is a case, this is an example where the past does not equal the future. The past cannot be extrapolated into the future. It’s not.
01:25:38.000 --> 01:25:53.000
James: their fault, okay? In fact, it’s to their credit. They help save skiing. They help find a more financially viable model for skier and ski company alike. That’s great. You know, the whole industry owes Rob Katz.
01:25:53.000 --> 01:25:54.000
James: That debt of gratitude.
01:25:54.000 --> 01:26:04.000
James: Uh, at the same time, that can be taken too far. We’re seeing a little bit of that, right? I mean, you can have too much Robcats, and maybe we got that, but there’s the right amount, uh, and it’s been a bl.
01:26:04.000 --> 01:26:17.000
James: but going forward, you know, the industry still has to contend with those rough demographics. So, uh, if you’re gonna invest, uh, invest with modest expectations, and maybe then you’ll be okay.
01:26:17.000 --> 01:26:21.000
Stuart Winchester: To get a… just take the nerd level up just one notch.
01:26:21.000 --> 01:26:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail Resorts is generally considered, like, an entertainment, travel, leisure stock. It sounds like what you’re saying is that it’s almost more of a real estate investment trust at this point, where it’s just steady income, but not…
01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Big growth.
01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:53.000
James: For… correct, correct. And frankly, to that point, I mean, we have been in a market, and maybe we’re transitioning, where the abstract, high-tech, you know, cash flows coming way into the future, AI kind of stuff has been all the rage, and in-person, in real life, physical assets, boring, old-model businesses have been kind of like…
01:26:54.000 --> 01:27:10.000
James: You know, not appreciated, beaten down, right? So things may pick up a little bit for Vale if we see that AI slump, if, you know, apparently half the, the projected or planned data centers aren’t actually gonna be built. And if, if AI kind of comes down, the market may fall back in love.
01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:15.000
James: With old economy stocks, but it’s still an old economy stock at the end of the day.
01:27:14.000 --> 01:27:32.000
Stuart Winchester: So, I’m sorry, one more thing. I keep telling you it’s the last thing, but based on this, and gosh, ski companies publicly traded do not have a good record. Now, I do think the multi-resort model, I mean, Boyne has been doing it for 80 years, and it can work. As publicly traded companies, it’s…
01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Ben Dicey, do you think Altera Mountain Company should go public?
01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:38.000
James: Ah, geez.
01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:59.000
James: I, I wouldn’t if I’m them. Some companies are just a better fit for public markets and some are not. And if you’re growing, the, the number of public companies in the US over the past, let’s say 20 years has gone from 8,000 to like, I think fewer than 4,000 now because of the advent of private equity money companies, it’s a pain in the butt. It costs a couple million dollars in compliance fees and a big hassle and it’s.
01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:27:52.000 --> 01:27:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.
01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.
01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:12.000
James: you know, it’s basically a financial colonoscopy you gotta do with all the auditing to be public. And companies say, you know, I just don’t want that, the time, the money, the mental energy. Uh, so we’re seeing fewer companies public.
01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:27.000
James: And the market just doesn’t understand some models as well as others, and, you know, maybe now they’re kind of getting the picture, but it’s very easy for them to have overly inflated expectations, and we saw that with Vail stock price based on.
01:28:27.000 --> 01:28:38.000
James: what thing… the way things look to be going, uh, but in truth, underneath, under all the excitement, this is a boring, steady, slow-growth industry, so if I’m Altera, I’m staying private.
01:28:38.000 --> 01:28:41.000
Stuart Winchester: So if you like what James has to say, and I have a…
01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:45.000
Stuart Winchester: A surprisingly, like, very well-educated audience.
01:28:45.000 --> 01:29:00.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’m not sure why that is, I think just because skiing is, uh, you know, kind of a highbrow sport, and you need some, as, you know, resources to be able to do it, and also there’s just not that much ski journalism these days, but my point is, what is your.
01:29:00.000 --> 01:29:09.000
Stuart Winchester: kind of customer, and how can people find you if they like your approach, they like what you’re saying, and they want to come and invest with you? Or, you know, get your recommendations?
01:29:08.000 --> 01:29:13.000
James: Sure, sure, yeah, I mean, my customer is typically someone who has, you know.
01:29:13.000 --> 01:29:29.000
James: Let’s say a six-figure or maybe even five-figure stock portfolio who wants to pay a bit for — not a lot, a bit — for independent investment research. And someone’s welcome to either curiofinancial.com or in a few days, depending on when you’re watching this.
01:29:29.000 --> 01:29:45.000
James: Alpine House Research, which is a more mountainy sort of name. I’m, I’m a mountain lover. I also do ice climbing. I also do cross country skiing in addition to downhill skiing. Um, do them all. Alpine house research.com. We can get you a free report, get you set up, uh, if, if you want to check out.
01:29:35.000 --> 01:29:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.
01:29:45.000 --> 01:29:47.000
James: What I do.
01:29:46.000 --> 01:29:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Is it like Fool where you make recommendations on a regular basis or is it more tailored?
01:29:48.000 --> 01:30:05.000
James: Correct. Yeah, correct. Recommendations and they’re, they’re bread and butter kind of, uh, you know, cash flow gener- I, I ran for, for 10 years the largest dividend stock newsletter probably in the world. I’m a little more broadly focused now, but it’s, it’s always about economics. I’m not.
01:29:51.000 --> 01:29:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:30:05.000 --> 01:30:07.000
James: chasing the flavor of the month.
01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:25.000
Stuart Winchester: All right. Well, that is James Early. Thank you so much, James. I really appreciate that, man. Let’s do this again sometime, because this is a long-term story, as we said, and I found that really interesting, and I think that insight would be great for my listeners as well, because the stock market is a bit abstract for a lot of us. So, thank you so much for sharing everything with us today.
01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:35.000
James: Sir, my pleasure, and thank you, sir, for being a voice, pretty much a lone voice in ski journalism. You have created a category, and it’s adding a ton of value, and I respect what you do greatly.
01:30:35.000 --> 01:30:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Thank you. Yeah, I had a professor in college who said, if you want to be a writer, find something no one else is writing about and write about only.
01:30:40.000 --> 01:30:55.000
Stuart Winchester: And, uh, you know, it was timing. Good timing. So, uh, but thanks so much, James. I really appreciate those sentiments, and I appreciate you and what you’re doing to help people invest smart, because, man, every time I try to tell one of my friends.
01:30:55.000 --> 01:30:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Like, the fool philosophy?
01:30:58.000 --> 01:31:11.000
Stuart Winchester: most people just don’t have the nerve for it. I see them get into it, and they buy something, and it just dropped. Like, my buddy bought some Nvidia at, like, $130, and it went up to, like, $180, and then it dropped to $100, and he sold, and I was like, dude.
01:31:11.000 --> 01:31:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Gotta trust the process.
01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:28.000
James: Yeah, and the human mind, we’re wired for a caveman world, right? Uh, not wired for a stochastic social science process where someone described it like it’s betting on horse races, on a horse race, but the betting itself determines the outcome. So that’s the hard part, but, but.
01:31:15.000 --> 01:31:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:31:28.000 --> 01:31:38.000
James: That’s also good, because you’re trying to exploit those cognitive weaknesses of other people, so if you can be a bit more patient, a bit more beady-eyed and steady, you can probably profit.
01:31:33.000 --> 01:31:34.000
Stuart Winchester: So.
01:31:38.000 --> 01:31:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, look at some of those charts I showed earlier. I mean, man.
01:31:41.000 --> 01:31:45.000
Stuart Winchester: $1,000 in the right place, and you’re on your yacht. All right, James.
01:31:43.000 --> 01:31:47.000
James: It’s a gut-wrenching ride on the way. All right, Stuart.
01:31:45.000 --> 01:31:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. All right, man. Really appreciate your time today. I’ll talk to you soon. This should be out later today.
01:31:50.000 --> 01:31:53.000
James: Sounds great. Thanks a lot, man. Appreciate that. Cool.
01:31:51.000 --> 01:32:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, thanks, man. Alright, I’ll, uh… alright, that was great, thank you so much. Um, and uh, when you have the new, uh, website, just shoot me the link and I’ll update the… yeah, okay.
01:31:59.000 --> 01:32:06.000
James: OK. Oh, sure. Yeah, it will do. Yeah, it should be up in a couple of days. Yeah. And yeah, thanks. It’s great questions. I mean, you do fantastic research, just amazing.
01:32:02.000 --> 01:32:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
01:32:04.000 --> 01:32:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Oh, thanks.
01:32:06.000 --> 01:32:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Thanks, thanks. It’s, uh… well, like I said, I have a Veiled Daily Reporter on later, and he’s really following the proxy stuff. He’s, you know…
01:32:12.000 --> 01:32:16.000
James: Okay, he’s got chapter and verse on that then, yeah.
01:32:14.000 --> 01:32:28.000
Stuart Winchester: yeah, he’s put out, like, 5 different articles looking at the proxies, and what they’re saying, and who they are, and, you know, what Vale’s saying about them, and what Oasis is saying about Vale, and… so he’s gonna break down the drama, and this was a very good primer of, like.
01:32:25.000 --> 01:32:27.000
James: Yeah.
01:32:28.000 --> 01:32:35.000
Stuart Winchester: what is the stock, and what does it mean, and what is the context of it, is exactly what I was hoping for, man, so thank you so much.
01:32:34.000 --> 01:32:38.000
James: Oh, super, super. I mean, good luck with the Vail call later today, too, the guy.
01:32:35.000 --> 01:32:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, alright.
01:32:37.000 --> 01:32:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, thanks so much. All right, James, talk to you soon.
01:32:38.000 --> 01:32:39.000
James: So.
01:32:44.000 --> 01:32:47.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, that was James Early.
01:32:47.000 --> 01:32:56.000
Stuart Winchester: The CEO of Curia Financial, soon to be Alpine House Research, that was awesome and and hopefully you.
01:32:56.000 --> 01:33:05.000
Stuart Winchester: If you’re not real familiar with the stock market, hopefully maybe that gives you a little courage to go in just as a general philosophy thing.
01:33:05.000 --> 01:33:10.000
Stuart Winchester: That you don’t have to worry about charts and day trading and…
01:33:10.000 --> 01:33:15.000
Stuart Winchester: options and all these things. You can really just find good companies.
01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:26.000
Stuart Winchester: hold them, and let that value grow without doing anything other than clicking buy and being patient. So, uh, anyway, I will, uh, get back into my lane here, which is…
01:33:27.000 --> 01:33:33.000
Stuart Winchester: The Storm Skiing Journal. And I want to read some, I want to grab some reader feedback here.
01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:38.000
Stuart Winchester: I can have a zillion tabs open, and I am not opening any of the right ones.
01:33:38.000 --> 01:33:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Here, to get to this.
01:33:41.000 --> 01:33:45.000
Stuart Winchester: And you’ll say, Stu, you should be more prepared.
01:33:45.000 --> 01:33:47.000
Stuart Winchester: I agree with you.
01:33:48.000 --> 01:33:50.000
Stuart Winchester: But sometimes this happens.
01:33:50.000 --> 01:34:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, uh, Patricia might clean that up and edit, she might not. Alright, so, I want to start first with… I had some more comments, I only had one comment on the story I put out on Sunday, uh, one last tour of old Aspen Mountain. So, so that was a story that…
01:34:05.000 --> 01:34:12.000
Stuart Winchester: was available, the full story for paid subscribers of the Storm Skiing Journal. You can upgrade to pay at stormskiing.com.
01:34:12.000 --> 01:34:14.000
Stuart Winchester: And.
01:34:14.000 --> 01:34:22.000
Stuart Winchester: the, uh… the free subscribers got some, they got the introduction, but they didn’t get the full story, and they can’t comment on it. So here’s some comments.
01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Gustav says, “Aspen and especially Aspen Mountain is where I learned the basics of skiing in the mountains. It’s a special place that I think I judge other areas against.
01:34:32.000 --> 01:34:48.000
Stuart Winchester: 1A was a great lift for lapping, by the way, especially for spring skiing when you made the last runs, jumping over slag piles to hit snow below, and thinking we were the last group to a ski trail before it was too melted out. Yeah, so I had said, Gustav was saying, I had said there that 1A wasn’t great for laps, and.
01:34:48.000 --> 01:34:56.000
Stuart Winchester: I actually met an Aspen local recently, and I asked her what she thought about 1A coming out, and she said, oh, it was one of my favorite lifts to lap, and so…
01:34:56.000 --> 01:35:14.000
Stuart Winchester: All that says is that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, because I… I just must have missed what’s great about it. I always just used it to get up the mountain to Ruthie’s, uh, and then to the intended high-speed quad at the top, and usually I just take the gondola at the top. Scott Abraham says, when I am on Ajax, I realize I was born with the wrong.
01:35:14.000 --> 01:35:29.000
Stuart Winchester: There are people I should belong to. When I roll out of my 92 Aerostar all-wheel drive in the commuter lot, I know God made a huge mistake. I choose from the two gorgeous Obermeyer onesies that Klaus himself sold to me in 97.
01:35:29.000 --> 01:35:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Grab my wood topskin Wagner custom skis that I bought for $200 in a consignment shop, and take my 50-seat limo to the base. I pass for royalty and am recognized as a fellow oligarch by my peers.
01:35:42.000 --> 01:35:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Instead of ratty Helly Hansen gear and leg breaking Rozzies, I am surrounded by properly dressed stylish recreational skiers from the Upper West Side, not decrepit scribblers from Brooklyn. I can search for my dream woman who will support me in the style to which I want to become accustomed, including a season pass and an SUV.
01:35:59.000 --> 01:36:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Wondering if her moguls are natural or man-made, or if that overly tight facial skin would split open if she took a faceplant. I can guess if the fur collars are real or actual dead mammals.
01:36:10.000 --> 01:36:27.000
Stuart Winchester: I belong and know I am destined to rule over plebeians like Michigan grads. My kind of skiing I must return, but the gas would be prohibitive that I can always pose with fellow oppressors at Deer Valet, where I wear the Wagnerstein Ericsson gave me, and also know I am among the chosen.
01:36:28.000 --> 01:36:43.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, well, Michigan grads, don’t worry about the gas price, Scotty. Des says, subscribed in order to comment for two reasons. One, I am back as a subscriber to support the storm. I stopped subscribing when things tapered off a bit and I wasn’t finding myself finishing many of the articles.
01:36:43.000 --> 01:36:55.000
Stuart Winchester: but I’m enthused by the recent resurgence and podcast reboot. I should have subscribed right after hearing the Matthew Prince episode, but I dawdled, then I read the teaser for this and was reminded what I was missing.
01:36:55.000 --> 01:37:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Good luck, Stu. What you do is important and should be supported, and I hope to stay along for the ride this time. Well, thank you, Des. First of all, before I read the second part of your comment, I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you.
01:37:07.000 --> 01:37:17.000
Stuart Winchester: uh, your patience through the evolution, and I get it, it’s a discretionary purchase, and I so appreciate everyone who supports the Storm Skiing Journal podcast.
01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:34.000
Stuart Winchester: with a paid subscription. I also understand that sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes you decide that you’re not using the product enough to justify the expense. Uh, sometimes you decide that, you know, you lose interest in skiing, maybe. I get all that. I don’t take it personally, but I’m really hyped up that the new format.
01:37:34.000 --> 01:37:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Got you back involved and, and I will get back and I am getting back to some longer writing pieces like this Aspen piece. Number two, I spent today at Ajax as part of a week long Aspen trip and spent most of my day there at Heroes. Our group had most of the terrain to ourselves, found a lot of untracked spots in the trees.
01:37:51.000 --> 01:38:09.000
Stuart Winchester: All despite being a few days post-multiple footstorm, and being a decently crowded day on the rest of the mountain. I don’t know if that is typical, whether your typical Ajax gear is more in it for the cruisers or the scene, or we were just plain lucky, but it remains one of my best days skiing and core memories from our Aspen trip.
01:38:09.000 --> 01:38:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Lapping double black powder tree runs in my dreams for years. I would make the arduous trek to Aspen again, get detoured to Grand Junction and ride a bus and all, just for a repeat of that day. It’s a special spot and shouldn’t be overlooked. Yeah, I mean, the… the…
01:38:24.000 --> 01:38:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Interesting thing about the Aspen complex of Four Mountains is that the vast majority of skiers go to Snowmass. Snowmass gets more skier visits in general than Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk combined. Now, it’s also much larger than those mountains.
01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:44.000
Stuart Winchester: But Aspen is a very tough mountain. Aspen Mountain has no green trails. It is…
01:38:44.000 --> 01:38:48.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s narrow, it’s steep, it’s intimidating.
01:38:48.000 --> 01:38:55.000
Stuart Winchester: And I do think that that moderates the number of skiers, especially heroes. Heroes is a special spot.
01:38:55.000 --> 01:38:57.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s one of those pods that…
01:38:57.000 --> 01:39:15.000
Stuart Winchester: is not quite legendary yet, but will get there as one of the great lift-surf skiing pods in all of America. But it is just too much for most people. There are some blue runs in there, but, you know, it’s wild, wild terrain, and I love it, and I’m really glad that Aspen did that.
01:39:15.000 --> 01:39:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Matt Hart says, a place where the beer flows like wine, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little place called Aspen. That was a quote from Lloyd Christmas.
01:39:27.000 --> 01:39:39.000
Stuart Winchester: I will admit, I don’t know who that is, but I probably should. But thank you, Matt, for that comment. Thank you, Des, for that comment. Thank you, Gustav, for that comment. Scott, I don’t know.
01:39:39.000 --> 01:39:41.000
Stuart Winchester: We’ll see.
01:39:41.000 --> 01:39:44.000
Stuart Winchester: I appreciate your interest.
01:39:44.000 --> 01:39:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, that will be our show for today.
01:39:49.000 --> 01:39:53.000
Stuart Winchester: And I want to ask you to please.
01:39:53.000 --> 01:39:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, by the way, I will have a lot more coming on the Veil Proxy fight. I have a… a written…
01:39:59.000 --> 01:40:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Primer coming, hopefully today.
01:40:02.000 --> 01:40:06.000
Stuart Winchester: I also have an interview with very…
01:40:06.000 --> 01:40:22.000
Stuart Winchester: keyed-in reporter at the Aspen Daily, uh, I’m sorry, not the Aspen Daily, at the Veil Daily, John Taylor, who’s been just crushing it in his coverage of the Veil proxy war, and he will join me actually later today, and I’ll put that podcast out on Friday to break down exactly what’s happening.
01:40:22.000 --> 01:40:37.000
Stuart Winchester: in that proxy war. If you want to get those pieces of content the moment they’re live, please subscribe to the Storm Skiing newsletter at stormskiing.com. The very best way to support the Storm is to upgrade to a paid subscription at stormskiing.com. Start with the free.
01:40:37.000 --> 01:40:41.000
Stuart Winchester: If you like it, if you want to see what’s below the paywall, which is about 80% of.
01:40:41.000 --> 01:40:51.000
Stuart Winchester: then you can upgrade to the paid. Uh, you can also rep the store with a… storm with a shirt, hat, hoodie. Go to stormskiing.myshopify.com.
01:40:51.000 --> 01:40:56.000
Stuart Winchester: You can follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok at Storm Ski Journal.
01:40:56.000 --> 01:41:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Until next time, stay well, stay safe. I’m Stuart Winchester, and I’ll talk to you again very.
01:41:03.000 --> 01:41:05.000
Stuart Winchester: That was the outro.
01:41:06.000 --> 01:41:08.000
Stuart Winchester: This is the intro.
01:51:04.000 --> 01:51:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Hi. Oh, you’re done.
01:51:06.000 --> 01:51:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:51:09.000 --> 01:51:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Um, I did this, but I couldn’t figure out the Zoom thing. Uh, but I still have to record the intro, and I’m gonna do that right now, I’m just like, uh…
01:51:17.000 --> 01:51:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Speaking a few things. He was really good interview.
01:51:28.000 --> 01:51:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Nice.
01:51:30.000 --> 01:51:31.000
Stuart Winchester: people and.
01:51:37.000 --> 01:51:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Coming today. When’s your second time? Four o’clock.
01:51:41.000 --> 01:51:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Whatever.
01:51:43.000 --> 01:51:46.000
Stuart Winchester: We’ll do it. It’s here? What do you mean? No.
01:51:49.000 --> 01:51:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Sorry, what time is it?
01:51:51.000 --> 01:51:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Four.
01:53:47.000 --> 01:53:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh.
01:56:05.000 --> 01:56:06.000
Stuart Winchester: So sweet.
01:56:28.000 --> 01:56:30.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, I’m gonna record my intro now.
01:56:42.000 --> 01:56:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Is it Thursday?
01:56:58.000 --> 01:57:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I’m your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Thursday, November 5th, 2026. There is so much happening.
01:57:07.000 --> 01:57:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Today on The Storm, a seasoned investor breaks down the fundamentals behind Vail Resorts’ declining stock price.
01:57:15.000 --> 01:57:22.000
Stuart Winchester: why he thinks Vale’s growth days are over, and whether Epic should be fighting Icon for marquee partners.
01:57:22.000 --> 01:57:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Plus, an IndyPass destination upgrade, and how to get half off at Jackson Hole on 39 dates this season?
01:57:28.000 --> 01:57:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Let’s get into it all right now. I’m the storm. First.
01:57:33.000 --> 01:57:36.000
Stuart Winchester: I will be headed to New England tomorrow.
01:57:36.000 --> 01:57:52.000
Stuart Winchester: I love New England. I don’t love driving in New England, but I like being in New England. And I will be at the first New England Snovana show, which is at the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlboro, Mass. That is not in Boston, west suburbs-ish, I don’t know. Boston folks, correct me if I’m wrong.
01:57:52.000 --> 01:58:06.000
Stuart Winchester: But it’s a Boston-ish event, easy to get to from anywhere in New England, and I will be doing two live interviews on stage. Friday, tomorrow, at 5.30 Eastern, I will be interviewing Eric Mogensen.
01:58:06.000 --> 01:58:14.000
Stuart Winchester: who runs Black Mountain, he runs the IndiePass, and we’re certainly going to talk about this new destination product he has, and he runs Entebeni System.
01:58:14.000 --> 01:58:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Supplier for independent ski areas. Then on Saturday at 2:05 on the main stage, I will be interviewing Killington managing partner Bill Gross and longtime Killington president Mike Salamano. That one is going to be awesome.
01:58:29.000 --> 01:58:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Love Killington. Sunday, my good buddy, Sean Sutner, will be interviewing the owners of Wachusett, one of the most popular sea areas around, one of the busiest, certainly, based on acreage. Uh, the Crowleys and the Stimson family, that will be at 1:15 on Sunday.
01:58:47.000 --> 01:58:53.000
Stuart Winchester: He said his goal is to get out there before the Pats game starts, so… so you’re all aligned there, New England.
01:58:53.000 --> 01:59:00.000
Stuart Winchester: If you want to get tickets absolutely free to Snowvana, use this code, THESTORM26.
01:59:01.000 --> 01:59:03.000
Stuart Winchester: All lowercase.
01:59:03.000 --> 01:59:04.000
Stuart Winchester: All one word.
01:59:04.000 --> 01:59:09.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, let’s get into some news today. Indy Pass just announced.
01:59:09.000 --> 01:59:17.000
Stuart Winchester: an upgrade, and it’s an interesting product. It is a… called a destination add-on.
01:59:17.000 --> 01:59:22.000
Stuart Winchester: And what this product is, is if you already have an IndiePass.
01:59:22.000 --> 01:59:37.000
Stuart Winchester: You can, for $199 adult, and $129 for kids, that’s what they start at, they say it depends on when you bought the pass, and also if you have the plus or the base, I believe. So there’ll be some variability, but those are the starting prices.
01:59:37.000 --> 01:59:40.000
Stuart Winchester: And what that gets you…
01:59:40.000 --> 01:59:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Is 3 extra days total.
01:59:45.000 --> 01:59:51.000
Stuart Winchester: to split between the 13 destinations. So, it’s sort of like…
01:59:51.000 --> 01:59:53.000
Stuart Winchester: If you bought…
01:59:53.000 --> 01:59:56.000
Stuart Winchester: An epic local pass.
01:59:56.000 --> 01:59:58.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
01:59:58.000 --> 02:00:09.000
Stuart Winchester: With the Epic Local, you do get 10 days to split between Beaver Creek, Bale, and Whistler, but think about if that was an add-on. So basically.
02:00:09.000 --> 02:00:14.000
Stuart Winchester: you can do 10 days at Whistler, you can do 3 days at Whistler, 4 days at Beaver Creek, 3 days at V.
02:00:14.000 --> 02:00:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and those mountains are not on the Indy Pass. So let me show you what mountains are included.
02:00:19.000 --> 02:00:22.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’m going to share my screen here.
02:00:22.000 --> 02:00:28.000
Stuart Winchester: If you are watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube at Storm Ski Journal.
02:00:28.000 --> 02:00:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And what you see here is the Destination Upgrade Mountains. Now, 5 of them are in Europe, and I’m gonna do a full written breakdown of this, and this is the kind of thing that the Storm Skiing Newsletter is great for, because I just can’t cover all this very well.
02:00:44.000 --> 02:00:54.000
Stuart Winchester: talking to you, especially if you’re just listening to the podcast. But it’s really cool because it includes 5 ski areas in Europe, and, you know, if you’re going all the way to Europe.
02:00:54.000 --> 02:01:02.000
Stuart Winchester: two days is not a lot if you’re at a place like Skiwelt or Innsbruck, where they have a dozen ski areas-ish.
02:01:02.000 --> 02:01:06.000
Stuart Winchester: to choose from. So, you can… you could do…
02:01:06.000 --> 02:01:17.000
Stuart Winchester: You get 2 days of ski welt anyway, and 2 days at Innsbruck anyway. You could do… could add 2 days to your ski welt trip, do 4 days of ski welt, then you have 1 day left, maybe you do that at Innsbruck. But, there’.
02:01:17.000 --> 02:01:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Konertal Glacier, Pitztal Glacier, these are all in Austria, and then over in Switzerland, Leucherbad Torrent. And again, I’m gonna do a full breakdown of those, uh, on the Storm Skiing Journal, and I’m hoping to get that out later today. Today’s really tight.
02:01:32.000 --> 02:01:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Tomorrow. But, let’s go to what I do know better, which is North America. And the… the…
02:01:37.000 --> 02:01:43.000
Stuart Winchester: The destination add-on does not include any ski areas in IndyPass’s most.
02:01:43.000 --> 02:01:54.000
Stuart Winchester: popular region, which is New England, New England because they have Jay Peak and Smuggler’s Notch in Waterville Valley, uh, Saddleback, maybe they’re worried about volume, I don’t know.
02:01:54.000 --> 02:02:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, but I do know that the Destination Atom will work at Big White in BC. That’s awesome, because Big White is huge, one of the best ski areas in BC. Now, that’s a high bar. I’m saying…
02:02:08.000 --> 02:02:17.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m not saying it’s top three, I’m saying it’s top dozen, right? Castle Mountain, which is not…
02:02:17.000 --> 02:02:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Probably a top dozen resort. Uh, but then you get 49 degrees north and in Washington. 49 degrees north is so awesome. One high speed quad, 1600 vertical feet to the top. Huge acreage, awesome glades. Silver Mountain. I’ve pimped this one so many times. It is right off Interstate 90. You drive 2 minutes off, you.
02:02:35.000 --> 02:02:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Park in a gigantic flat parking lot. You take a gondola 3 miles up to the mountain.
02:02:42.000 --> 02:02:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Huge stats, huge snowfall, low skier visits. Silver Mountain is the hidden gem of American skiing.
02:02:49.000 --> 02:02:59.000
Stuart Winchester: You can then pop down to Brundage, Idaho. Another ski area that is growing, they have two high-speed quads now at Brundage, big expansion plans. Right down the road is Tamarack.
02:02:59.000 --> 02:03:15.000
Stuart Winchester: And Tamarack has, I believe, three high-speed lifts, and they have big expansion plans as well. Tons of snow. Brundage and Tamarack are in this awesome snow belt. Silver is too, where it gets about 300 inches of snow a year. 49 North can get that much as well. Then, you also get…
02:03:15.000 --> 02:03:17.000
Stuart Winchester: You can also use the destination pass.
02:03:17.000 --> 02:03:29.000
Stuart Winchester: at Red Lodge, Montana, and I think Red Lodge is sort of like the forgotten Montana ski area. Big Sky and Whitefish get all the credits, and Bridger Bowl. Those three get most of the skier visits.
02:03:29.000 --> 02:03:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Red Lodge is amazing. Got a cool little town, right down the street. Can’t stay on the mountain, but whatever. Red Lodge, the town.
02:03:35.000 --> 02:03:45.000
Stuart Winchester: And, uh, just great skiing. Great old-school skiing, man. Just awesome terrain, huge. Again, I’ll do the full acreage breakdowns and everything on Storm Ski Journal. Then…
02:03:45.000 --> 02:04:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Powderhorn and Powderhorn, of course, owned by Pacific Group Resorts, they are putting in a second high-speed quad this year, so each of their two pods will be served by a modern lift. They’re replacing that seven… they already replaced that 7,000-foot-long double chair that served the West End, and they put in the West End Express, so.
02:04:02.000 --> 02:04:18.000
Stuart Winchester: considerably redistribute traffic around Powderhorn. Powderhorn’s great, man. I skied it last year with my family. Awesome, awesome mountain. The whole family can enjoy it. Really cool, really diverse, really varied terrain, awesome views down to the mesa. So I’m pumped for this new product from IndyPass.
02:04:18.000 --> 02:04:19.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s…
02:04:19.000 --> 02:04:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Again, it’s an add-on, it’s not 3 extra days at each, it’s not… you know, it’s 3 extra days to split between these 13 ski areas. But it’s, I think, a really cool product to… to…
02:04:32.000 --> 02:04:38.000
Stuart Winchester: boost Indy’s destination appeal and make it a little more competitive with Epic and Icon, because the truth is.
02:04:38.000 --> 02:04:42.000
Stuart Winchester: A lot of people just want to go somewhere and settle in for a week.
02:04:42.000 --> 02:04:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
02:04:44.000 --> 02:04:59.000
Stuart Winchester: You can do that at Sun Valley with 5 or 7… or, well, I guess you can’t do that on an Icon Base, but you can do that at Sun Valley with 7 days on the Icon Pass. You can do that with the Epic Pass with, you know, a week at Breckenridge, or maybe you want some Keystone days in there. But this allows.
02:04:59.000 --> 02:05:03.000
Stuart Winchester: If you if you want to.
02:05:03.000 --> 02:05:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Escape the crowds. You don’t like the MegaPass madness.
02:05:07.000 --> 02:05:17.000
Stuart Winchester: You gotta get out of Colorado I-70, you gotta get out of the Wasatch, you gotta get out of Lake Tahoe. Look at this string of mountains here. Tamarack, Brundage, Silver.
02:05:17.000 --> 02:05:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Red Lodge.
02:05:18.000 --> 02:05:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, I…
02:05:19.000 --> 02:05:34.000
Stuart Winchester: I’ll say it again and again and again, if you’re not doing those mountains, do them now, because this is not going to last forever. People are going to figure out that there is big mountain skiing without big mountain crowds, with good snow.
02:05:34.000 --> 02:05:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, they’re a little lower elevation as Colorado, so not quite as reliable, uh, but they’re gonna figure it out, so get there now so you can say you were there. All right, also.
02:05:43.000 --> 02:05:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Cool news out of…
02:05:46.000 --> 02:05:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Jackson Hole. Uh, Jackson Hole does this every year, actually, so it’s not really news, it’s more of just…
02:05:52.000 --> 02:05:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Reaffirming. So if you have a season pass at any ski area in the country.
02:05:58.000 --> 02:06:09.000
Stuart Winchester: You can get half off of Jackson Hole lift tickets on 39 days, at least, at a minimum, this ski season. So, from November 27th to December 11th.
02:06:09.000 --> 02:06:20.000
Stuart Winchester: That’s a 14-day span. You can get lift tickets right now, they’re on Jackson Hole’s website, starting at $84.75, going to $135.60.
02:06:20.000 --> 02:06:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and then, obviously, that goes away for the holidays, and tickets get more expensive, which we’ll talk about in a minute. Then, from January 4th to 15th, that’s an 11-day span. The tickets are $144.08 if you have a season pass elsewhere.
02:06:33.000 --> 02:06:47.000
Stuart Winchester: And from March 22nd until the close of the season. Right now, that’s set at April 4th. Jackson doesn’t often extend, but once in a while, in a big winter, they will, I think. But right now, that’s 14 days at the end of the season, anywhere between 118.
02:06:47.000 --> 02:07:01.000
Stuart Winchester: $65 and $152.55, so that’s $118.65 to $152.55. They really took that half off, literally. So… so that’s a really good deal, but then I want to show you… it’s… it’s really…
02:07:01.000 --> 02:07:11.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know. I know I beat this to death, but I’m gonna keep… keep beating it to death, because I think it’s important, and I think it’s a story, and I think that…
02:07:11.000 --> 02:07:16.000
Stuart Winchester: it matters. So, these are the peak lift ticket prices.
02:07:16.000 --> 02:07:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me, let me share my screen again here at some resorts in the United States this year. This is basically everyone who I’ve tracked down, and this is not by any means a complete list. So, so check this out. I’m sharing my screen again. So for those of you listening, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll read this off for you. It starts with sunlight, Colorado.
02:07:33.000 --> 02:07:40.000
Stuart Winchester: $109 lift ticket, and Sunlight’s on the Indy Pass, by the way. It’s not on the destination upgrade, but it’s on the.
02:07:40.000 --> 02:07:43.000
Stuart Winchester: put in two, well, a brand new quad.
02:07:43.000 --> 02:07:50.000
Stuart Winchester: and a used triple from Arapahoe Basin that only had 20 years on it. So…
02:07:51.000 --> 02:08:02.000
Stuart Winchester: they really modernized. Like, they had riblet doubles up until last year, and it’s a couple thousand vertical feet almost on sunlight, so that’s a heck of a bargain for 109. It’s right down the road from Aspen. It’s kind of on your way as you get.
02:08:02.000 --> 02:08:16.000
Stuart Winchester: And then you start to go up, you know, you got this tier of, like, Taos and Solitude, 185, 199, you know, New England’s getting up into the 200s, and then you get, you know, Snowbird, I mean, 239, I never thought I’d say this, but the…
02:08:16.000 --> 02:08:31.000
Stuart Winchester: that kind of sounds like a deal for Snowbird at this point, because once we get up into the 300s, and here’s all the ski areas that are above 300 this year, all right, uh, all four Aspen Mountains, so Highlands, Aspen Mountain, Buttermilk, and, uh.
02:08:31.000 --> 02:08:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Snowmass. Snowmass now is on the Icon Base Pass, in case you missed that memo. So you get 5 days in your Icon Base Pass with blackouts. At Snowmass, none of the other Aspen mountains. So, but if you just walk up and buy a lift ticket, it’s $309. So, Icon.
02:08:46.000 --> 02:09:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, Breckenridge, it’s 332, Vail Property. Here’s our guy, Jackson Hole, checking in at $339 for a walk-up peak lift ticket. So, I don’t know, get the Mountain Collective or get the Icon, uh, because you do not want to pay that. Steamboat, that’s Alterra Mountain, 34.
02:09:03.000 --> 02:09:16.000
Stuart Winchester: On peak days, Deer Valley is $349, that’s another Alterra property. Park City, that’s a Vail property, $369 for a peak day lift ticket walk-up. Vail Mountain, $374, and Beaver Creek!
02:09:16.000 --> 02:09:24.000
Stuart Winchester: This is the first time I’ve seen Beaver Creek cost more than Vail, ever, and I don’t know who made this decision.
02:09:24.000 --> 02:09:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Because it… it’s so nominally stupid. It’s like, okay, let’s make the Beaver Creek lift ticket $18 more.
02:09:33.000 --> 02:09:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Than Vail Resort’s $374 lift ticket. As though that calculates…
02:09:37.000 --> 02:09:49.000
Stuart Winchester: with anyone’s consideration. They, you know, they walk up to the little counter at Beaver Creek, oh, it’s $392, let’s go down to Vail, it’s only $374 down there. No one does that. These prices are just dumb.
02:09:49.000 --> 02:09:52.000
Stuart Winchester: And as long as they stay this high.
02:09:52.000 --> 02:09:59.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t think that giving 30% off these prices, which is what Vale’s doing 30 days ahead of time, or doing half off.
02:09:59.000 --> 02:10:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Epic Friends is going to close the gap in their 10%.
02:10:03.000 --> 02:10:17.000
Stuart Winchester: decrease in Epic Pass unit sales this year for numbers during the season. And you know what? Credits avail. At least they’re doing something. Altera is not… these are just the prices. And yes, they’re cheaper right now if you buy in advance.
02:10:17.000 --> 02:10:34.000
Stuart Winchester: And last year, they did do some Icon Buddy discounts. If they did it this year, I missed it, but let me look into that. Okay, so that is Jackson Hole. Now, we’re going to talk about Vale today, and we’re going to talk with James Early, who is an institutional investor, CEO.
02:10:34.000 --> 02:10:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, at this investment company. It’s called Kyria Financially. Super, super seasoned, and I’ll go through his bio when I introduce him. But I want to set this up for you a little bit, because we don’t…
02:10:45.000 --> 02:10:52.000
Stuart Winchester: really get into the particulars of the Vail Resorts proxy war, and what that means, basically, is…
02:10:52.000 --> 02:10:57.000
Stuart Winchester: There are activist investors who are trying to nominate.
02:10:58.000 --> 02:11:08.000
Stuart Winchester: a total of 3 new board members to Vail Resorts’ board, and they’re trying to get some independent voices in there. Vail…
02:11:09.000 --> 02:11:19.000
Stuart Winchester: So, two of them have been nominated by Oasis Capital, which is a… a investment firm which has accumulated a… about a… not quite, but almost a 10.
02:11:19.000 --> 02:11:22.000
Stuart Winchester: share of Vail Resorts stock.
02:11:22.000 --> 02:11:33.000
Stuart Winchester: And they are nominating two different board members, and I’m gonna go over them later today. I’m gonna have a great reporter from the Vail Daily on, and we’re gonna talk.
02:11:33.000 --> 02:11:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, we’re gonna talk with John Taylor all about this, he’s gonna break it down for us, but I just wanna go through it quickly. So, Oasis has two board nominees, uh, that they are… that they are.
02:11:42.000 --> 02:11:51.000
Stuart Winchester: for nomination. Uh, Gregory Meyer is an independent, self-nominated nominee and Florida-based financier, and he is nominating himself.
02:11:51.000 --> 02:11:57.000
Stuart Winchester: This has nothing to do with Matthew Prince, who wants to buy Park City.
02:11:57.000 --> 02:12:15.000
Stuart Winchester: he… he thinks the Epic Pass should exist, but it should be asset-light. Oasis does not agree. Oasis wants to keep Vail Resorts together, so does Gregory Meyer. They think that the portfolio is the power of the company. So, you know, it’s… it’s a tug-of-war between that, but Matthew Prince is… is not nominating one.
02:12:15.000 --> 02:12:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And, actually, Oasis dropped… they had 4 nominees, they dropped 2 of them.
02:12:21.000 --> 02:12:26.000
Stuart Winchester: After Vail Resorts attempted to make a connection between.
02:12:26.000 --> 02:12:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Matthew Prince and Oasis by pointing out in a letter to investors that Matthew Prince had introduced two of the.
02:12:35.000 --> 02:12:40.000
Stuart Winchester: board nominees to Oasis just a week before their nominations. So.
02:12:40.000 --> 02:12:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Oasis then dropped them.
02:12:43.000 --> 02:12:48.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’ll just give you the names real quick here.
02:12:48.000 --> 02:12:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Let me.
02:12:50.000 --> 02:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Find them all.
02:12:52.000 --> 02:12:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Um…
02:12:54.000 --> 02:12:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, here it is. Okay.
02:12:56.000 --> 02:12:59.000
Stuart Winchester: So, the nominees are…
02:12:59.000 --> 02:13:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Bob Chapek, this is from Oasis, he’s the former CEO of Walt Disney. Um, M. Ashton Hudson, he’s a partner at Value Acquisition Fund, which sounds like something made up or something on The Simpsons.
02:13:10.000 --> 02:13:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and then those are two who are nominated by Oasis. Oasis withdrew…
02:13:15.000 --> 02:13:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Bryce Roberts in Peekaboo St.
02:13:17.000 --> 02:13:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Because those were the two that Vale tried to draw a connection to Matthew Prince with. Uh, Oasis says, no, we have no…
02:13:24.000 --> 02:13:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Nothing to do with Matthew Prince, we don’t even agree with what he wants to do. We think that the company needs to stay together. So, there’s a proxy war going on, and this all leads up.
02:13:35.000 --> 02:13:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Two.
02:13:37.000 --> 02:13:51.000
Stuart Winchester: the annual stakeholder-stockholder meeting, stockholder meeting, on December 14th, 2026, which will be virtual, and that is when we will get our vote, and that is when we will see if the activist investors are able to take, uh…
02:13:51.000 --> 02:13:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Seats on the board.
02:13:53.000 --> 02:13:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And it seems as though…
02:13:57.000 --> 02:13:59.000
Stuart Winchester: According to…
02:13:59.000 --> 02:14:06.000
Stuart Winchester: the reports in the Vail Daily from John Taylor that Vail has some good institutional support with.
02:14:06.000 --> 02:14:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Baron Capital, which owns 18.3% of MTN stock, that’s Vail’s stock ticker. So, the odds of…
02:14:14.000 --> 02:14:27.000
Stuart Winchester: this activist takeover succeeding, uh, seem low at the moment, but who knows? Things change all the time, right? Who would have thought 15 years ago that the Vail Resorts would own Park City and Whistler and…
02:14:27.000 --> 02:14:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Stowe and Seven Springs and, you know, Brighton in Michigan, so…
02:14:33.000 --> 02:14:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Things are weird, the world is weird, it changes fast, and uh…
02:14:38.000 --> 02:14:44.000
Stuart Winchester: And we don’t know, we don’t know the future, which is why we are gonna get a good…
02:14:44.000 --> 02:14:59.000
Stuart Winchester: floor under us. We’re gonna get a good ground here. We’re gonna talk to James. James is great. Uh, James will break down the basics of Vail stock for us, what it means, how to think about stocks, how to think about Vail’s story, uh, how… whether or not Vail is still a growth company, and then later on.
02:14:59.000 --> 02:15:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, with Avail Daily, I’ll drop down… I’ll break down the details of the proxy war a little more, but let’s get to James. James is awesome. First, however, before we get to James, I want to tell you about my partner, Island Snowbus.
02:15:12.000 --> 02:15:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Man, it’s November. It’s warm here in New York.
02:15:15.000 --> 02:15:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Long Island and Queens skiers, Brooklyn skiers. Well, you know what? It’s gonna get cold. It will, and they have lots of good snowmaking, and the Catskills have some good elevation. So, why don’t you check out Island Snowbus? Because what you can do with Island Snowbus, look, just book the trips now, don’t even think about it.
02:15:32.000 --> 02:15:36.000
Stuart Winchester: The mountains will be open before you know it. You can go.
02:15:36.000 --> 02:15:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Instead of waking up in the middle of the night and driving up.
02:15:39.000 --> 02:15:46.000
Stuart Winchester: and then driving back by yourself, you can just go to a pickup, one of their pickup points throughout Suffolk and Nassau County.
02:15:46.000 --> 02:16:02.000
Stuart Winchester: and eastern Queens through the Whitestone Bridge, and that will take you directly on single or multi-day trips to places like Whiteface, Jay Peak, Stratton, Gore, Killington, Bel Air, Jiminy Peak, Elk Mountain, Mount Snow, Hunter, and Platykill. Oh, look at this, I got a Pl.
02:16:02.000 --> 02:16:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, Platykill is not a sponsor, but, uh, if you run a ski area and you send me your shirt, I’ll wear.
02:16:08.000 --> 02:16:13.000
Stuart Winchester: If a big storm rolls through, then Island Snowbus will do a pop-up trip.
02:16:13.000 --> 02:16:24.000
Stuart Winchester: They have packages that are just the bus, or just the bus and overnights, if you do a multi-day trip. So if you have an Epic or Icon, you can not worry about the lift ticket, but they will provide that if you don’t have it.
02:16:24.000 --> 02:16:38.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s an early pickup, but hey man, crash out, meet some folks, you got people to ski with, maybe you’ll meet your spouse, who knows? So, check out the 2026-27 winter calendar at islandsnowbus.com, and use code STORM.
02:16:38.000 --> 02:16:44.000
Stuart Winchester: or $50 off your first trip. That’s the code STORM for $50 off at islandsnowbus.com.
02:16:44.000 --> 02:16:46.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, let’s get to James.
James Early Interview:
Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the CEO of Kyria Financial, soon to be known as Alpine House Research, which is a group of stock analysts committed to bringing you better investing.
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Stuart Winchester: He is also a managing partner of Tamarack Advisory, which provides advisory services for investment brand strategy and transactions. Prior to joining the team at Kyria in 2025, he was director of research and analysis for The Motley Fool, where his income investor research product beat the S&P 500.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:33.000
Stuart Winchester: 10 out of 10 straight years. He was also CEO of Stansberry China and Chief Investment Officer of BVAE. James Early is my guest. James, welcome to The Storm. Really excited to have you on to talk about one of my favorite side hobbies besides skiing, which is the stock market.
00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:35.000
Stuart Winchester: James, how you doing today?
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:40.000
James: I’m doing great, Stuart. You’ve impressed me already with your research. You do your homework.
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Hey, I like to come prepared, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. You know, I want to start off the top. I don’t own any MTN stock.
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:51.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know if you do through, or if Curia Alpine House does.
00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:56.000
James: I don’t either. I’m actually a little surprised that you don’t own it, but that’s interesting.
00:47:56.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, I didn’t get in early enough, but by the time I got around to MTN, it was… I think it was already in the triple digits, so… But let’s start by setting this up for my listeners, because…
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Stuart Winchester: we met because I mentioned Motley Fool in one of my articles, and that I was…
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:26.000
Stuart Winchester: I had an affinity for the service, and I still do. I’ve been a subscriber to their paid services for a dozen years, at least. And I love their strategy, which… there’s a lot of different parts to it. Basically, it’s geared toward long-term investors.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Buy good companies and hold them forever. Look for first movers and founder-led companies. I love this saying, water your flowers, not your weeds. So, counter-intuitively, when stocks go up in price, that’s… that’s sometimes when it’s… when you buy more, rather than the… you know, you don’t…
00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:34.000
James: Thank you.
00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Try to catch a falling knife. Don’t invest money you’ll need for the next 5 years. Don’t invest directly in stocks if you don’t have the nerve to watch your investment go down by half, or… or…
00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:42.000
James: Yep.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:49:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Or all the way. And I’ll throw in Warren Buffett’s, be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. So I look at, for example, AI infrastructure stocks, which I really like. They cratered after the election. I think it’s an opportunity. I’m just, I’m very, like.
00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:20.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, consumer guy, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but all my stuff comes from there. So, that’s the setup for kind of how we met and how we connected. I’m curious what the philosophy is of Curia slash Alpine House.
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:32.000
Stuart Winchester: in relation to what I just said, and then how do you approach a stock like MTN, which is Vail Resorts’ stock ticker, as you consider what to recommend, what to buy?
00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:49.000
James: And I may take issue with what you said, Stuart. I think you know a lot more than you say. I mean, you gave a little master class in investing right there. In a way, it’s complicated. In a way, it’s not complicated. It’s a social science. Economics is a social science, but it’s one that masquerades.
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:49:49.000 --> 00:50:06.000
James: as a mathematical one. And I think people who see through that tend to do better than those who don’t, even though you can always get lucky, it’s possible to get lucky whether you’re skillful or not. Uh, my philosophy at my… the hedge fund where I originally worked at, at Motley Fool, and now at Alpine House, remains the same, which is.
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:22.000
James: Look for companies that are fundamentally adding economic value and try to buy them at cheaper than average prices. Now, that’s a lot harder to actually execute than just to explain in a sentence, but at the end of the day, nobody really knows.
00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:32.000
James: what a stock is. I mean, some kind of legal claim on a company’s ownership, some kind of fire sale right in a bankruptcy sale. To some people, it’s a pattern-producing instrument. Chart followers.
00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:46.000
James: But most of the big money moving the market over the long run agrees it’s essentially the earnings or the free cash flows, your share of that, of a business. Eric Oh, predict those, and you can have good investment results.
00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:52.000
Stuart Winchester: So, people get really hung up on the stock price, James, and I…
00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:03.000
Stuart Winchester: one of the first things I learned from Fool is that, yes, the price matters, but here’s… I’m gonna share my screen here. So for those of you watching on YouTube at Storm Ski Journal, or.
00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, on stormseeing.com. So, I have 6 charts here. This is MTN, this is Vale. You can see it went up and down, up, and now it’s down. This is Tesla, okay? Lots of downs. This is Shopify, lots of downs.
00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:08.000
James: Mm-hmm.
00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:14.000
James: Yep.
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Nvidia, look how low it was for so long. It was a crap stock, and now it’s the biggest company in the world, I believe. This is Netflix, way down. It’s down again. This is Amazon.
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, lots of peaks and valleys.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:35.000
Stuart Winchester: and this is MTN, and obviously these are very different kinds of companies. What I was trying to demonstrate here.
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:41.000
Stuart Winchester: is that no stock really goes 45 degrees. But from your point of view.
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:50.000
Stuart Winchester: how much should we read into the stock price, and when do we get concerned, and how do we sort it out from… Because, you know, sometimes there’s…
00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Trump announces a tariff and everything goes down. You know, it has nothing to do with the company. Sometimes the stock goes down because the company is really messing up. So, so how do you think about stock price and how do we determine when, uh oh, Shopify is dead or, oh, we should buy more.
00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:54.000
James: Yeah.
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Stuart Winchester: And that’s what I did.
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000
James: Yeah, I…
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:26.000
James: Yes, sir, this is one of the most important questions in all of investing. Uh, and there’s, uh, frankly, there’s a lot of survivorship bias, especially among newer companies. Uh, Amazon, one of the companies you mentioned, was down at 1.94 or 96%. It then went on during, like, the, the, the crash of the tech bubble.
00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:13.000
Stuart Winchester: So.
00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:42.000
James: There were all these headlines. Amazon is dead. The business model doesn’t work. We all knew Amazon was going to die anyway, right? It then went on to rise more than 50,000%. Okay, so that looks silly if you’re an Amazon doubter, right? You look silly, but for every Amazon.
00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:59.000
James: I think there were, like, 900 other e-commerce companies trying to be in Amazon. I think we’ve had 2,500 car companies come and go in the US, and Tesla is one of the survivors, right? But there’s a huge failure rate, so you kind of need to look at both sides of the data here.
00:52:59.000 --> 00:53:14.000
James: I think on the stock price, it also depends on what kind of company it is. If you’re talking about an electric utility or a sewage company or some kind of boring steady company, you might get closer to that 45 degree upslope.
00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:23.000
James: you know, these companies here, they’re all kind of relatively risky, sexy, exciting growth companies. Uh, that said, at the end of the day, I think most people tend to get.
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:39.000
James: Much of their money from growth stocks. And I’ll give you one boring stat and then we’ll move on. Uh, Hank Bessembinder, a professor at Arizona State University, looked at roughly the past 100 years of stock returns in the US and found that just 3.2% of stocks.
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:52.000
James: contributed almost all of the returns. In other words, it’s a small number of companies driving, basically, all your investment returns. So, if you want to win, you’ve got to get those few winners.
00:53:52.000 --> 00:54:04.000
Stuart Winchester: So let’s talk about MTN stock in particular. So this is Vail Resorts, and again, I have their long-term chart up here, and you know, this is… if you look back to, I believe, 1997 was their IPO, and it just…
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Went along at 20 bucks or so, and then it started to go up and up. Really reached a high here in 2022, 352-ish, and now it’s down to about half of that. So, when you look at this chart, and I always like to chart people who, uh.
00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:32.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, try to do the… the dips and the patterns. I… I look at them as, like, you know, phreniology? The, like, study of… of your head, and, like, what… what it says about your… this is, like, an 1800s… that’s kind of how I think about that.
00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.000
James: Yeah, yeah, yeah, your head bumps and whatnot, yeah, yeah.
00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:31.000
James: Yeah.
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Looking at this chart, we can talk about the reasons why this dipped. Is this, how do you read this?
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:56.000
James: This is a an existential question of, you know, when is this company done with its growth phase and ready for Florida retirement? And that’s slightly exaggerated, but essentially I read this and I’m, I’m, I’m.
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:11.000
James: Skeptical, and I’ll share some data as to why I’m skeptical about the long-term future, Stuart, but the question was, Vail had great growth for, let’s say, 15 years, roughly speaking, or some period of time when they were transitioning to.
00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:27.000
James: The pass model, which is sort of the SaaS equivalent software as a service equivalent in the physical infrastructure world of skiing. Uh, and, and people were, investors were assuming trees were gonna grow to the sky. Uh, they’re starting to realize, no, they won’t.
00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:41.000
James: And so the question is, that’s not a long-term trajectory. In other words, it was probably a one-off bump. Admit it, maybe it’s a long-term bump, but a bump. And now, what do things look like.
00:55:41.000 --> 00:56:00.000
James: going forward now that things have stabilized. I think that was… there was sort of an identity confusion among investors as to whether Vale was a growth stock or sort of a long-term dividend-paying stock, and it was a growth stock for a while, and now it’s shifting to the latter, and that’s why… that’s what you see the story…
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:03.000
James: Uh, sort of playing out in the stock price.
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and Molly Fool has recommended this on two services, their Stock Advisor core service, and then their Dividend Investor most recently. They do have, Stock Advisor has the stock on hold right now. I don’t know if Dividend Investor does, but let’s, you know, that’s the stock, that’s the price. I mean, it hasn’t.
00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:23.000
Stuart Winchester: And it crashed completely. So, so.
00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:35.000
Stuart Winchester: From my, again, layman’s point of view, maybe we’re seeing the transition from a growth stock to a value stock. It’s still kicking out a dividend. There are some debt concerns and everything, and we can look at those, but…
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Is that the way that you look at it, or do you think this could still be a growth company?
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:59.000
James: It’s definitely not a growth company, it’s quite the opposite. In fact, it’s a shockingly non-growth company, and I was looking at some data, Stuart, and this might be useful for someone who’s listening or watching who’s relatively new to the space. This is just NSAA data, it’s fairly well-known. I ran the math, though. U.S. skier visits… and by the way.
00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:15.000
James: Caveat, as you would point out, the quality of a skier visit has increased dramatically over the years. A long time ago, it could be just going to Billy Bob’s rope toe and spending a dollar on a hot dog. You know, now you’re paying Rob Katz a $392.
00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:26.000
James: Beaver Creek price for a family of four, you’re staying in the Vail Lodging, you’re getting lessons, you know, massage, whatever else they monetize, right? So, it has gotten better, but there’s still something to this data. Anyway.
00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:42.000
James: 50.1 million skier visits, 1978, 1979. Last year, 53.1 million. That is a compound annual growth rate, Stuart, of 0.12%. That is rounding error. That is rounding error over.
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:59.000
James: You know, not quite 50 years, but, you know, 47 years. So skiing is not that growing, not growing fast at all. Unique skier participants, same data set, 30 years actually, NSAA data 0.73%.
00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:16.000
James: Compound annual growth rate. The US population over those past 30 years has grown at 0.84%. So skiing is not keeping up with population growth. And I’m going to put on my demographer hat and just speak analytically. Skiing has an ethnicity problem.
00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:36.000
James: Skiers are 89% white, and that’s neither good nor bad. It’s a descriptive statistic, but it becomes bad financially when you notice that in 2020, the last census, there were 199 million white Americans. By 2060, the number is projected to be 179 million.
00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:51.000
James: So, basically, 90% of skiing’s demographic is a shrinking demographic. Other groups, I mean, Asians, 7% of the U.S. population, 5% of the skiing population, that’s pretty good, and they’re probably catching up, right?
00:58:51.000 --> 00:59:11.000
James: it’s hard if you’re coming from a different ethnicity. Uh, my son’s best friend is African American, and I think this year, I’m gonna get him out skiing, but it has taken some effort. I think we’re the only ones in his social group who skis, and let’s face it, it’s expensive. I mean, I’ll pay to take him out, right? But it’s expensive, it’s far… it takes driving time, it’s cold.
00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:27.000
James: You’re probably going to suck at it the 1st 1 or 2 times, so that having that sort of social group to support you is important, and that’s the bridge that the industry and that Vail Resorts has to cross if I’m running a financial model going out a few decades.
00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:40.000
James: in addition to… and I know global warming is not killing skiing, you came on my podcast and very articulately made that case, right? It’s kind of battling against snowmaking technology, but let’s be honest, fast forward 50 years, 60 years, 70 years.
00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:54.000
James: At least at the margin, Stuart, we’re going to be going higher up and farther north, so if I run a long-term valuation model on Vail Resorts, it doesn’t look good once things get farther out.
00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:57.000
Stuart Winchester: So that’s looking toward the future. And.
00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:04.000
Stuart Winchester: As we saw from that stock chart, failed resorts grew for a long time. So let’s look at the past.
01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:20.000
Stuart Winchester: And look at some of these growth stats. So again, I have on my screen a chart that is maybe a little hard to read, but what you’re seeing here, this red line, this is the one I want to talk about right now. Okay, this red line is number of Epic Pass units sold, and that’s a…
01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:16.000
James: Mm-hmm.
01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:34.000
Stuart Winchester: corporate term, it means an Epic Day Pass, it means an Epic Local Pass, it means a Northeast Value Pass, any kind of product is one sold. And every year, from 2008 to 9, which was the first year of the Epic Pass, every single year, unit sales went up.
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:36.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:51.000
Stuart Winchester: They really went up in 2021-2022 when Vail cut the price by 20%. Great winter, 22-23, so they went up again, but then they’ve had declines two years in a row. These are 2% declines. These are in…
01:00:52.000 --> 01:01:09.000
Stuart Winchester: These are in, uh, abbreviated numbers so I can make all this other stuff fit, which I’ll explain later. But 2.3 million Epic passes, 2.25 million last year, so it’s declined for two consecutive years. The numbers that Vail reported in September were year-to-date unit sales were down.
01:00:56.000 --> 01:00:57.000
James: Yep.
01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Stuart Winchester: 12 percent a year over year, and that’s not a final number, we’ll get the final in December. And also, the, and I don’t have this on the chart, uh, sales dollars, so that’s different, so you sell a million Epic Passes, or let’s say you sell 10 Epic Passes, and they’re $100 each, then you sold.
01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:39.000
Stuart Winchester: $1,000 in unit sales. Now, I’ll explain that to you. Explain that to listeners. So, sales dollars have never declined, even with the unit declines, and we may be seeing the first ever sales decline of Vail Resorts. So, before we get to some of the reasons why.
01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:46.000
Stuart Winchester: There, Vail may have hit a wall here, James. How concerning is it for you, when you look at a stock.
01:01:46.000 --> 01:01:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And it has… its growth story was built fundamentally on changing a business model, and they did it not just for themselves, but for all of skiing, because they… what they did is they took the season pass.
01:01:57.000 --> 01:02:13.000
Stuart Winchester: And they moved it into, into spring, so, and they made it really cheap, and they made lift tickets really expensive, and so they incentivized people to buy passes before the snow ever came, so they were trying to, uh, weatherproof a weather dependent.
01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:29.000
Stuart Winchester: industry, and that worked, like, look at this, whoosh! All the, I mean, they sold, you know, 200,000 Epic Passes the first year, and, and, and, you know, they’re, they’re 10x-ing that. That’s great, but they seem to have hit a wall. How concerning is that for you that, that when, when a company’s core story.
01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Changes.
01:02:31.000 --> 01:02:33.000
James: In this case.
01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:51.000
James: with a company with high fixed costs that basically can’t do anything else, it’s, it’s very concerning. I mean, there are certainly many companies, Stuart, that have changed their business model, uh, was it Samsung, a fish market or something, I forgot what it was, but changed their business model drastically over time. YouTube was a dating.
01:02:51.000 --> 01:03:11.000
James: platform, and for some companies, like YouTube, it could work a little bit better. For Vail, they’re stuck doing what they’re doing. And let me just praise Rob Katz. I mean, here’s a guy who, let’s be honest, he is not a soul-of-skiing kind of guy. He’s a soul-of-money kind of guy. He comes across like the Homer Simpson boss.
01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:26.000
James: Uh, you know, true story, I booked a 7pm restaurant reservation near me, and I got there at 7.01, and the guy said, oh, sorry, Rob Castle’s already got your table. I’m kidding, that’s not a true story, but, like, he comes across as that kind of guy. But you know what? That’s exactly what happened.
01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:34.000
James: the industry needed. He has this brilliant idea. He’s a very charitable guy, by the way. I respect that very much about him.
01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Or he’s donated hundreds of millions of dollars.
01:03:34.000 --> 01:03:51.000
James: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, God bless Rob Katz in that regard. He, you know, he’s sharp, he’s definitely better at dealing with Wall Street than being kind of a brand ambassador to Main Street. But that said, his idea was, guess what? Let’s figure out a way to transfer the weather risk to the consumer.
01:03:51.000 --> 01:04:06.000
James: Now, in exchange for that, we’ll create this diversified pool, which gives them more choice. That’s why they’re willing to do that and gives us more diversification, kind of like a law firm having different practice areas, right?
01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:21.000
James: Brilliant idea. And, you know, you’ve seen the results, right? You read some of that data. It’s 13.4% skier visit drop, last fiscal year 2026, which ended in July, but Lyft revenue just fell 3.5%. I think resort net revenue.
01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:40.000
James: But my point is, it’s working if you look at it in a one-year sense. The issue we’re seeing is someone says, you know, crap, yeah, I paid for that winter, but that was kind of a so-so winter in the Rockies, where Vale’s portfolio is strong.
01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:57.000
James: Maybe I’m not gonna renew. And that’s why I think it was 12% you mentioned those pre-sales, uh, uh, the sales for the, the upcoming winter passes are down. So there’s a little bit of a lag time, but now we’re starting to see that lag time happen. And I think just stepping way back to the real answer to your question is.
01:04:57.000 --> 01:05:13.000
James: They found the ceiling, right? They had a good thing. They squeezed the juice out of the orange, but the orange doesn’t have unlimited juice. And now they know this is as far as they can take this past model. Trees don’t grow to the sky.
01:05:13.000 --> 01:05:22.000
James: They apparently grow to 200 whatever million pass units and that’s it, right? Or 1,000, sorry.
01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, this chart is very hard to read because of all the abbreviations, numbers I had to do to squeeze it in. But I want to parse some of these things. So this huge growth right here.
01:05:26.000 --> 01:05:28.000
James: Yeah.
01:05:32.000 --> 01:05:37.000
Stuart Winchester: from 1.4 million to 2.1 million Epic Pass, something like a 40% jump.
01:05:34.000 --> 01:05:35.000
James: Yeah.
01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:38.000
James: Okay, the COVID bump, basically.
01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, it was also, what they did is, is they dropped, um.
01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:43.000
James: 20%. It’s some kind of discount. Yeah, yeah.
01:05:41.000 --> 01:05:49.000
Stuart Winchester: uh, price is 20%. So, so they, they front-loaded it and said, oh, let’s get more people in the ecosystem.
01:05:49.000 --> 01:06:01.000
Stuart Winchester: And they kind of had some bad luck, where there were all of a sudden a lot of supply chain problems, there were a lot of labor shortages, like, all these sort of meta-economic factors.
01:06:02.000 --> 01:06:17.000
Stuart Winchester: It contributed to maybe a less than great ski experience. And this I’ll point out, and this is important. So, so this was a 20% price cut. This was a $20 an hour wage. So, so in this year, they were still working with their lower.
01:06:17.000 --> 01:06:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Wages, which was, you know, at some places in Ohio and such was not, uh, very competitive. So what, what do you think, before we get into some of the other reasons why the past sales may have leveled off, what do you think when a company does this, when they discount their core product?
01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:44.000
Stuart Winchester: in order to increase volume long term. Do you think in general that’s a good strategy? Is it an alarm for you? And what do you think of it in the case of Vail?
01:06:44.000 --> 01:07:03.000
James: Pricing is really hard to figure out in business, Stuart, particularly for something like this. And frankly, even though the past model was, you know, not a new thing, they didn’t really know the limits. And now, obviously, they’re finding them.
01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:11.000
James: Um, on the bad end, we have something called channel stuffing, right? Which is when a company lowers the prices too much, it kind of gets a bunch of people in, but maybe…
01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:19.000
James: they’re not renewers, they don’t stick around, like, kind of lower-quality customers. Uh, I wouldn’t call this that, uh, but it’s…
01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:35.000
James: A half of a step in that direction. In other words, what we’re seeing now, and I haven’t, I don’t know chapter and verse nearly as well as you do, Stuart, but it looks like the people who are falling off the Vale customer group base are not the, the long, you know, whole season past people.
01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:51.000
James: They are the, uh, you know, 4-day, whatever, you know, the shorter versions of that. So, in other words, relative to Icon, that, to my knowledge, did not lower their prices as much, although they did sometimes, right? Uh, Vale has probably gotten a little bit more popular.
01:07:38.000 --> 01:07:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Hmm?
01:07:51.000 --> 01:08:05.000
James: price-sensitive customer that, uh, they’re, you know, good human beings, I’m sure, but in a business sense, we would say they’re not as high quality a customer, and so those people are going to be more economically sensitive to this, that, and the other, and we’re seeing that.
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:22.000
Stuart Winchester: What I have on the screen now is the comparison of Epic versus Icon prices over time. They started out at par when Icon debuted in 2018 to 19. And this is a lot of data because it’s start and final. So each one is one year.
01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:28.000
Stuart Winchester: bars is one year. So, and they kept in par, but then when Vale did their price drop in 21-22.
01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Altera just kept going. So their Icon Pass started at $9.99 that year, the Epic Pass was $7.83. This year, the Icon Pass started at $13.99, and Epic started at $1,089. So we’re looking at about a 30.
01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:31.000
James: Yep.
01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:59.000
Stuart Winchester: difference between them. I don’t have Icon sales data, James, and nobody that I know of does. However, I did have an interesting anecdote. I talked to… there’s a company called Mountain Capital Partners, and they operate 11 ski areas in the United States and Chile, and.
01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:56.000
James: Yep.
01:08:59.000 --> 01:09:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Their nine US skiers are primarily in the southwest. So Nevada, four corner states, they have one up in Oregon. They had a terrible winter, but I was, I hosted one of their general managers on the podcast, Josh Bean from Lee Canyon, Nevada, and he told me that power pass sales, it’s like their epic pass. It’s an unlimited pass.
01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Elder Mountains, it is up. Uh, and that surprised me, because they had terrible winters, but what it told me…
01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:21.000
James: Hmm. Okay.
01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.000
Stuart Winchester: is when I look at Mellon Capital Partners, they’re consistently investing.
01:09:29.000 --> 01:09:40.000
Stuart Winchester: new lifts, new snowmaking, uh, extending… they’ll extend seasons into May. Arizona Snow Bowl has stayed open into June. This is a ski area that, 25 years ago.
01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:48.000
Stuart Winchester: operated for four days a year, one year, because they didn’t have good snowmaking. So Mountain Capitalist has really transformed it. I think Vail’s…
01:09:42.000 --> 01:09:44.000
James: Hmm. Okay.
01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:50.000
Stuart Winchester: He’s suffering from, uh…
01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Maybe, uh, maybe they’ve lost the popular narrative.
01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:58.000
Stuart Winchester: When you see companies that…
01:09:58.000 --> 01:10:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Don’t…
01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:05.000
Stuart Winchester: that aren’t resonating with customers like they used to.
01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Is that something that you see here where Vail maybe just kind of lost the core consumer with…
01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:27.000
James: I think so, and I think I know what you’re getting at. I mean, look at me. I was an Epic Pass holder for many years. I’ve switched to Icon, and frankly, I should give Vail another chance, right? They have made some changes, but…
01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:17.000
Stuart Winchester: No, no, no, yeah.
01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:43.000
James: Some of the stuff they’ve done, you know, with the workers, with the mountain communities. Good luck. As a side point, they’ve bought as many resorts, I think, as they can realistically. I mean, there’s an apocryphal quote about Alexander the Great saying Alexander wept.
01:10:43.000 --> 01:11:01.000
James: when there were no more worlds left to conquer, and apparently he actually said he wept because he couldn’t get his worlds working, operating right, you know, correctly, which is more fitting to Vail anyway, but, you know, I think Rob Katz is about as welcome as Alexander the Great in many of these mountain towns these days, right? I mean.
01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:11:01.000 --> 01:11:18.000
James: It, it’s, he’s got, they’ve got a PR problem and selling tickets for $392 for one day doesn’t help, okay? Doesn’t help. And that DNA, that vibe, I mean, I use the word predatory when you were on my podcast, I’m gonna.
01:11:09.000 --> 01:11:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:11:19.000 --> 01:11:37.000
James: And that’s a bit hyperbolic, but maybe not wildly hyperbolic. It doesn’t feel like this is a company that’s on my side. And Gen Zs make up the largest cohort of skiers. These are the hardcore skiers. I don’t know. I think Vail leaves a bit of a bad taste in their mouth.
01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:54.000
James: For, for, you know, uh, businesses that may sell to Vail alike. So I, I don’t know how to articulate it in a single sentence, but I do agree they have an image problem. You tend to get a lot of the, the, the newer, newer hardcore skiers, if that makes sense. But then they say, oh, you know what, this.
01:11:54.000 --> 01:12:06.000
James: Something a bit icky about this company. I’m switching to Icon because I prefer the mountains. I’m switching to IndyPass because I want to support these mom-and-pops, and I’m okay riding the slow lift. Whatever it is, there’s something.
01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and IndyPass sales are also hitting records, I’m told. I don’t have numbers, but that’s what the IndyPass officials tell me. So I thought it was really weird, and my investor’s ear and my…
01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:28.000
Stuart Winchester: skier’s ear, both caught this in the last earnings call with Rob Katz, and I think Rob’s great, he’s been on this podcast, super articulate guy, but one thing that I found really strange.
01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Was, so they added a new metric this year called, uh, pass days. So they were saying that even though unit sales were down 12%, pass days were only down 10%. What they were getting at is that our season pass holders, our epic pass holders, our epic local, our.
01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Tahoe Value Pass, they’re sticking around. What we’re seeing is softness in the Epic Day Pass, as you said earlier.
01:12:52.000 --> 01:13:03.000
Stuart Winchester: And he had this… he repeated many times that they weren’t worried about it because they thought that Lyft tickets would fill in the gap. So I have up some Lyft ticket prices here.
01:13:03.000 --> 01:13:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And Vail Mountain this year will peak out at 374 $374. Uh Beaver Creek 392. Uh I think this is, this is Park City is 369 and Breckenridge is 332. Now, now Vail has two different programs for discount lift tickets. One is epic friends. So if you know an epic pass holder, you can get half off these prices.
01:13:21.000 --> 01:13:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Still a lot, but it’s like, okay, you roll your eyes, and maybe you pay it. But, if I’m like…
01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:44.000
Stuart Winchester: I live in Atlanta, or Houston, and I ski a week a year, I don’t know anyone with an Epic Pass, right? And I might not have one, and I didn’t think of this in advance. And by the way, Altera is just as bad with day lift tickets, and they don’t have these programs, so uh… so it… this is a more of an industry-wide destination problem.
01:13:31.000 --> 01:13:33.000
James: Yeah.
01:13:37.000 --> 01:13:38.000
James: Yep.
01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And then they also have, uh… Vail also has 30% off the tickets 30 days in advance. It’s still not a great discount. And the really weird part about this to me, James, is when you look… this is my chart, going back to the dawn of the Epic Pass.
01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:12.000
Stuart Winchester: And all these mountains were under $100 a lift ticket. I know there’s inflation, but these are rates well beyond inflation, right? So, so, uh, BRAC was 92 and, and, and Vail and Beaver Creek were $97 back in 2008 to 9, but Vail has spent.
01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:19.000
Stuart Winchester: almost 20 years destroying the lift ticket. They basically made it an unbuyable product.
01:14:19.000 --> 01:14:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes, they have a couple programs to try to boost that, but…
01:14:23.000 --> 01:14:32.000
Stuart Winchester: does that alarm you as an investor when it’s all about… it was all about Epic Pass, Epic Pass, Epic Pass, it has to be 75% of our visits have to be Epic Pass.
01:14:32.000 --> 01:14:39.000
Stuart Winchester: and they tried… they disincentivized lift tickets in every way they can, and now they’re trying to lean on lift tickets? Like, how do you transl.
01:14:39.000 --> 01:14:55.000
James: I guess I’m not surprised. I mean, yeah, yeah, from a PR optics standpoint, it doesn’t look good, right? The thing they were kind of bashing, they made almost untenable. I mean, taking a family of four skiing at Beaver Creek, 400 bucks a pop, I mean, with rentals, I mean.
01:14:55.000 --> 01:15:10.000
James: Come on. And what a what a barrier. What a barrier to getting started. Thanks to this. And now they’re back to embracing it. But, you know, that’s standard business practice for public companies. Just do whatever works. And frankly.
01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:27.000
James: I mean, I don’t. Yeah, it’s kind of a turnabout, so to speak. But that’s the life cycle. That’s the Florida retirement stage that Vail is at right now. They’ve gotten the juice out of the lemon, out of the orange, whatever. Now making the stair step, whatever analysis you want to use.
01:15:15.000 --> 01:15:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:43.000
James: They’re stuck, Stuart, trying to get little operational efficiencies, try these little gimmicks, 30% off for 30 days in advance. Your buddy can ski 50% off, whatever. And I’m not against those, but they should be trying those realistically using the Pareto principle.
01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:15:43.000 --> 01:15:59.000
James: In my experience of business, maybe one out of five of those things is gonna really work and that’s okay. So fast forward two, three years, they’re probably gonna have a different set of those things or they lower the price on the pass, but then there’s some like hidden fee, service fee like Airbnb, right?
01:15:47.000 --> 01:15:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:15:53.000 --> 01:15:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:15:59.000 --> 01:16:10.000
James: They’re gonna bundle little tricks, uh, they’re trying to make the food better, trying to have a better rental experience, and again, like, they should be doing those things, but, like.
01:16:10.000 --> 01:16:18.000
James: whereas they were dealing with mountains before, they’re dealing with molehills now. It’s not really their fault.
01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:27.000
James: it’s just the nature of the business. Going back to those numbers that I shared, you know, way below 1% growth. This is a slow growth industry.
01:16:27.000 --> 01:16:40.000
James: So getting profit, which is the thing that drives your stock price, is going to depend on squeezing more and more money out of those, you know, fewer or relatively few well-heeled people who come to the resorts.
01:16:40.000 --> 01:16:44.000
Stuart Winchester: So let’s talk about that issue of.
01:16:44.000 --> 01:16:59.000
Stuart Winchester: They’re kind of at capacity, right? Because another number that I have here on this chart is I have Epic Pass partners. That’s this orange line right here. And you can see that, you know, when the Epic Pass debuted, there were five mountains on it. Now they have 71. That seems pretty good.
01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, they… when the Upper Pest debuted, they owned 5 mountains, and now they own 42. What we see here is they… they did a big…
01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:19.000
Stuart Winchester: surge of partners and buying and acquisitions from 2015 to 16 to 19 to 20, and that pretty much paralleled this growth in Epic Pass sales, and they’ve really stopped.
01:17:19.000 --> 01:17:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Both buying and and I understand the point about.
01:17:22.000 --> 01:17:31.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, maybe they can’t buy anymore, there’s antitrust concerns at a certain point. Uh, however, with the partner number, if we… if we compare this to…
01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, to Icon, let me find my…
01:17:36.000 --> 01:17:49.000
Stuart Winchester: thing here. Look at… look at how Icon has grown, and how many ski areas they’ve added. So, when… when Icon debuted in 2018, Vail had 44 mountains on the Epic Pass, and the Icon Pass had 50.
01:17:37.000 --> 01:17:39.000
James: Yep.
01:17:49.000 --> 01:17:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Fast forward, and in 2026, the icon passed 103.
01:17:53.000 --> 01:17:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail has 73, and they really stopped adding partners and acquisitions around…
01:17:59.000 --> 01:18:03.000
Stuart Winchester: COVID, and they’ve bought a few. So…
01:18:04.000 --> 01:18:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Is that a mistake? Should they be trying to add partners and follow more of the ICON model, or is that maybe an indication that ICON.
01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:17.000
Stuart Winchester: The.
01:18:17.000 --> 01:18:23.000
Stuart Winchester: the price is higher because they have so many partners. What do you think about just the size? Because you can’t… yeah.
01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:23.000
James: Yeah, you know…
01:18:23.000 --> 01:18:41.000
James: Yeah, it’s hard for me to guess. It’s sort of an elasticity of demand question, to use an economics term. We don’t know exactly how much adding those incremental resorts drives revenue. Of course, it depends a lot on which incremental resorts we’re talking about. Maybe Vail has done some math and says, you know what?
01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:18:41.000 --> 01:18:55.000
James: We’ve surveyed, and our average customer doesn’t really care if we own one more tiny ski area in the middle of nowhere or not. Maybe they do. I don’t know. Icon apparently has done different math. And, you know, frankly.
01:18:49.000 --> 01:18:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:18:55.000 --> 01:19:11.000
James: It could get Vale’s financial position. Let me just say it’s still strong, okay? I would still say it’s strong, but they’ve gone off the top of my head from having almost a billion dollars in pure cash and over a billion dollars if you ca- count some, you know, sort of near cash current assets to.
01:19:11.000 --> 01:19:23.000
James: I think the pure cash now is about $240 million, and their debt is now over $3 billion. Still, good financially. I’m not saying it’s in bad shape, but…
01:19:23.000 --> 01:19:41.000
James: They don’t want to be spending money willy-nilly. And I realize these contractual deals don’t necessarily entail a lot of CapEx. So that may be part of it. I think another part of it, and this is pure speculation on my part, but with the contractual participants, it might be a little bit harder to get them on board with pricing.
01:19:41.000 --> 01:19:52.000
James: uh, things like that, that Vail may want to have more, or Rob Katz probably may want to have more control over, uh, and maybe you don’t get that same level of control, uh, with the contractual deal. So.
01:19:52.000 --> 01:20:10.000
James: ultimately, I’m not in the boardroom. I don’t know what it is, but it’s probably a factor. I mean, there’s obviously a… obviously, but there’s a proxy battle of sorts going on with Vail. There’s an activist investor that thinks they shouldn’t own so many mountains. It’s too expensive. They should simply.
01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:18.000
James: make contractual deals like IndiePass, or like Vale does, and Icon does to some extent, and that’s probably related to this, too.
01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you know, looking at… so I have a chart up now of the number of partners added to passes each year since 2018, and you can see in the last 2 years.
01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:29.000
James: Yep.
01:20:29.000 --> 01:20:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Icon has added 38 partners. Vale has added six. They were all in Austria. Now, these aren’t 38 Jackson holes.
01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Robcat said in one of the earnings calls earlier this year, I believe, he said, we would always rather own.
01:20:44.000 --> 01:20:49.000
Stuart Winchester: But Telluride does help us sell Epic Passes. Do you think…
01:20:49.000 --> 01:21:04.000
Stuart Winchester: the Vale should be aggressively fighting Altera and Icon for these Alpha Mountains. Like, should they be trying to sign Jackson Hole? Should they be trying to sign Boyne Resorts with Big Sky? Should they be trying to sign Powder with Snowbird? And just saying, you know, doing…
01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:21.000
Stuart Winchester: You know when Netflix started just throwing $20 million at comedians, and it seemed foolish, but it was really a big driver of this sort of original content they had. And I don’t know if that was a good idea or not, it’s just the first example that popped into my head. But do you think that Vale could grow if it tried to fight back?
01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Altera is really running circles around them from a roster point of view right now.
01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:40.000
James: Yeah, they are. You know, in the old days, Altair maybe had a little bit better mountains, but I, I think it’s, it’s, uh, it’s looking more and more like that. I, I, this might be a weird answer. I think yes, with their current strategy, they should fight. If they’re gonna be premium price, do that.
01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:50.000
James: get those, get those, you know, uh, you know, bellwether kind of mountains. If they’re gonna be the indie, if they’re gonna be the discount guy, then, then be that. Don’t be in the middle.
01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:55.000
James: And right now, it’s looking like they’re kind of, like, drifting into the upper middle.
01:21:55.000 --> 01:22:10.000
James: And that’s probably, I mean, look, they still got Heavenly, still got a ton of really great resorts, but, uh, if, if Icon keeps buying up these crown jewels, uh, I mean, there’s only a handful left, right? But, uh, that’s, uh, that’s a ding for the premium customer.
01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:15.000
James: You know, my Wall Street-type friends tend to have IconPass, not Vail.
01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and for a minute, Vail did have Sun Valley and Snow Basin, but then they switched to Icon, and they’re also on Mountain Collective. So I want to end on this here, James.
01:22:27.000 --> 01:22:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail has had a lot of success in the United States. They only have one resort in Canada.
01:22:33.000 --> 01:22:38.000
Stuart Winchester: They intimate that their Australian operations are profitable.
01:22:38.000 --> 01:22:55.000
Stuart Winchester: They go to Europe, buy a couple ski areas in Switzerland. The activist investor proxies I’ve read are really down on that idea to, to set this up a little bit. There’s about 4000 ski areas in Europe, which is about two thirds of all the ski areas in the world. It’s a very different culture. You are not gonna be able to charge €300 for a lift ticket.
01:22:55.000 --> 01:23:03.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know how appealing the multi-pass model is there. I’m not saying it can’t work, maybe I lack the vision, but…
01:23:03.000 --> 01:23:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Those acquisitions happened under Kirsten Lynch, the CEO who was there in Rob’s internal. Rob was still chair of the board, okay, so he’s still culpable, but…
01:23:13.000 --> 01:23:15.000
Stuart Winchester: What do you think of?
01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Vale going into Europe? Was it a mistake or is that really their opportunity to get back to growth?
01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:40.000
James: No, I think it’s a mistake. Their model is based on high day ticket prices to encourage the pass. Europe is just culturally averse to that. Literally, it’s a thought experiment. The only way it can work is if Rob Katz went up and bought all the areas in one little area of Europe.
01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:52.000
James: And then he could do that, right? And just knowing Europeans, that’s not gonna go over very well. So, yeah, I think it was a mistake. I don’t think they have much room to run internationally. It’s more of a…
01:23:52.000 --> 01:24:08.000
James: Just an eyeballs thing to convince American buyers. Oh, guess what? We got a few resorts here and there in Japan and Australia, in Europe, wherever. I don’t think there’s great economics outside the U. The model is just too predatory for the rest of the world.
01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah, it’s, uh…
01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:14.000
Stuart Winchester: I don’t know, they… what about Canada? Could…
01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:26.000
James: Yeah, I mean, it’s a little closer to the US, right? And Americans could go there, too. So I’d be a little bit more bullish on — I mean, Canada is technically international, but it’s nothing like Europe.
01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:24:26.000 --> 01:24:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, I mean, the language is the same, the culture, well, for the most part, except Quebec. And there’s 300 ski areas there, and they own the busiest one. Alterra owns the second two busiest, which are Blue Mountain and Mont-Tremblant, in reverse order of busyness. So there’s definitely a great ski culture in Canada.
01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:37.000
James: Yep.
01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:53.000
Stuart Winchester: James, since I’m not an expert on this, is there anything important I left off, any points about Vail stock, and just their strategy as a company that you want to leave us with today?
01:24:53.000 --> 01:25:08.000
James: Well, you know, I would say, well, first of all, the proxy thing is going to be interesting. I mean, they might get, the challengers, Oasis might get a board tour seat if they can convince some of these bigger shareholders, you know, BlackRock, I forgot who’s some of the owners, but big picture though.
01:24:57.000 --> 01:24:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:25:08.000 --> 01:25:12.000
James: If you’re looking at buying Bell Resorts.
01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:19.000
James: I would almost ignore the chart. I would think of it… it pays a pretty good dividend now. I forgot, 5… couple percent, right? Um…
01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay. I’m not sure, but…
01:25:19.000 --> 01:25:38.000
James: buy it as a long-term, steady, boring dividend stock, nothing else, okay? That is the company’s new identity. Uh, it had great growth in the past. This is a case, this is an example where the past does not equal the future. The past cannot be extrapolated into the future. It’s not.
01:25:38.000 --> 01:25:53.000
James: their fault, okay? In fact, it’s to their credit. They help save skiing. They help find a more financially viable model for skier and ski company alike. That’s great. You know, the whole industry owes Rob Katz.
01:25:53.000 --> 01:25:54.000
James: That debt of gratitude.
01:25:54.000 --> 01:26:04.000
James: Uh, at the same time, that can be taken too far. We’re seeing a little bit of that, right? I mean, you can have too much Robcats, and maybe we got that, but there’s the right amount, uh, and it’s been a bl.
01:26:04.000 --> 01:26:17.000
James: but going forward, you know, the industry still has to contend with those rough demographics. So, uh, if you’re gonna invest, uh, invest with modest expectations, and maybe then you’ll be okay.
01:26:17.000 --> 01:26:21.000
Stuart Winchester: To get a… just take the nerd level up just one notch.
01:26:21.000 --> 01:26:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail Resorts is generally considered, like, an entertainment, travel, leisure stock. It sounds like what you’re saying is that it’s almost more of a real estate investment trust at this point, where it’s just steady income, but not…
01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Big growth.
01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:53.000
James: For… correct, correct. And frankly, to that point, I mean, we have been in a market, and maybe we’re transitioning, where the abstract, high-tech, you know, cash flows coming way into the future, AI kind of stuff has been all the rage, and in-person, in real life, physical assets, boring, old-model businesses have been kind of like…
01:26:54.000 --> 01:27:10.000
James: You know, not appreciated, beaten down, right? So things may pick up a little bit for Vale if we see that AI slump, if, you know, apparently half the, the projected or planned data centers aren’t actually gonna be built. And if, if AI kind of comes down, the market may fall back in love.
01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:15.000
James: With old economy stocks, but it’s still an old economy stock at the end of the day.
01:27:14.000 --> 01:27:32.000
Stuart Winchester: So, I’m sorry, one more thing. I keep telling you it’s the last thing, but based on this, and gosh, ski companies publicly traded do not have a good record. Now, I do think the multi-resort model, I mean, Boyne has been doing it for 80 years, and it can work. As publicly traded companies, it’s…
01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Ben Dicey, do you think Altera Mountain Company should go public?
01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:38.000
James: Ah, geez.
01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:59.000
James: I, I wouldn’t if I’m them. Some companies are just a better fit for public markets and some are not. And if you’re growing, the, the number of public companies in the US over the past, let’s say 20 years has gone from 8,000 to like, I think fewer than 4,000 now because of the advent of private equity money companies, it’s a pain in the butt. It costs a couple million dollars in compliance fees and a big hassle and it’s.
01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:27:52.000 --> 01:27:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.
01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.
01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:12.000
James: you know, it’s basically a financial colonoscopy you gotta do with all the auditing to be public. And companies say, you know, I just don’t want that, the time, the money, the mental energy. Uh, so we’re seeing fewer companies public.
01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:27.000
James: And the market just doesn’t understand some models as well as others, and, you know, maybe now they’re kind of getting the picture, but it’s very easy for them to have overly inflated expectations, and we saw that with Vail stock price based on.
01:28:27.000 --> 01:28:38.000
James: what thing… the way things look to be going, uh, but in truth, underneath, under all the excitement, this is a boring, steady, slow-growth industry, so if I’m Altera, I’m staying private.
01:28:38.000 --> 01:28:41.000
Stuart Winchester: So if you like what James has to say, and I have a…
01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:45.000
Stuart Winchester: A surprisingly, like, very well-educated audience.
01:28:45.000 --> 01:29:00.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’m not sure why that is, I think just because skiing is, uh, you know, kind of a highbrow sport, and you need some, as, you know, resources to be able to do it, and also there’s just not that much ski journalism these days, but my point is, what is your.
01:29:00.000 --> 01:29:09.000
Stuart Winchester: kind of customer, and how can people find you if they like your approach, they like what you’re saying, and they want to come and invest with you? Or, you know, get your recommendations?
01:29:08.000 --> 01:29:13.000
James: Sure, sure, yeah, I mean, my customer is typically someone who has, you know.
01:29:13.000 --> 01:29:29.000
James: Let’s say a six-figure or maybe even five-figure stock portfolio who wants to pay a bit for — not a lot, a bit — for independent investment research. And someone’s welcome to either curiofinancial.com or in a few days, depending on when you’re watching this.
01:29:29.000 --> 01:29:45.000
James: Alpine House Research, which is a more mountainy sort of name. I’m, I’m a mountain lover. I also do ice climbing. I also do cross country skiing in addition to downhill skiing. Um, do them all. Alpine house research.com. We can get you a free report, get you set up, uh, if, if you want to check out.
01:29:35.000 --> 01:29:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.
01:29:45.000 --> 01:29:47.000
James: What I do.
01:29:46.000 --> 01:29:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Is it like Fool where you make recommendations on a regular basis or is it more tailored?
01:29:48.000 --> 01:30:05.000
James: Correct. Yeah, correct. Recommendations and they’re, they’re bread and butter kind of, uh, you know, cash flow gener- I, I ran for, for 10 years the largest dividend stock newsletter probably in the world. I’m a little more broadly focused now, but it’s, it’s always about economics. I’m not.
01:29:51.000 --> 01:29:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:30:05.000 --> 01:30:07.000
James: chasing the flavor of the month.
01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:25.000
Stuart Winchester: All right. Well, that is James Early. Thank you so much, James. I really appreciate that, man. Let’s do this again sometime, because this is a long-term story, as we said, and I found that really interesting, and I think that insight would be great for my listeners as well, because the stock market is a bit abstract for a lot of us. So, thank you so much for sharing everything with us today.
01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:35.000
James: Sir, my pleasure, and thank you, sir, for being a voice, pretty much a lone voice in ski journalism. You have created a category, and it’s adding a ton of value, and I respect what you do greatly.
01:30:35.000 --> 01:30:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Thank you. Yeah, I had a professor in college who said, if you want to be a writer, find something no one else is writing about and write about only.
01:30:40.000 --> 01:30:55.000
Stuart Winchester: And, uh, you know, it was timing. Good timing. So, uh, but thanks so much, James. I really appreciate those sentiments, and I appreciate you and what you’re doing to help people invest smart, because, man, every time I try to tell one of my friends.
01:30:55.000 --> 01:30:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Like, the fool philosophy?
01:30:58.000 --> 01:31:11.000
Stuart Winchester: most people just don’t have the nerve for it. I see them get into it, and they buy something, and it just dropped. Like, my buddy bought some Nvidia at, like, $130, and it went up to, like, $180, and then it dropped to $100, and he sold, and I was like, dude.
01:31:11.000 --> 01:31:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Gotta trust the process.
01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:28.000
James: Yeah, and the human mind, we’re wired for a caveman world, right? Uh, not wired for a stochastic social science process where someone described it like it’s betting on horse races, on a horse race, but the betting itself determines the outcome. So that’s the hard part, but, but.
01:31:15.000 --> 01:31:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:31:28.000 --> 01:31:38.000
James: That’s also good, because you’re trying to exploit those cognitive weaknesses of other people, so if you can be a bit more patient, a bit more beady-eyed and steady, you can probably profit.
01:31:33.000 --> 01:31:34.000
Stuart Winchester: So.
01:31:38.000 --> 01:31:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, look at some of those charts I showed earlier. I mean, man.
01:31:41.000 --> 01:31:45.000
Stuart Winchester: $1,000 in the right place, and you’re on your yacht. All right, James.
01:31:43.000 --> 01:31:47.000
James: It’s a gut-wrenching ride on the way. All right, Stuart.
01:31:45.000 --> 01:31:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. All right, man. Really appreciate your time today. I’ll talk to you soon. This should be out later today.
Listener reaction and outro
Stuart Winchester: All right, that was James Early.
01:32:47.000 --> 01:32:56.000
Stuart Winchester: The CEO of Curia Financial, soon to be Alpine House Research, that was awesome and and hopefully you.
01:32:56.000 --> 01:33:05.000
Stuart Winchester: If you’re not real familiar with the stock market, hopefully maybe that gives you a little courage to go in just as a general philosophy thing.
01:33:05.000 --> 01:33:10.000
Stuart Winchester: That you don’t have to worry about charts and day trading and…
01:33:10.000 --> 01:33:15.000
Stuart Winchester: options and all these things. You can really just find good companies.
01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:26.000
Stuart Winchester: hold them, and let that value grow without doing anything other than clicking buy and being patient. So, uh, anyway, I will, uh, get back into my lane here, which is…
01:33:27.000 --> 01:33:33.000
Stuart Winchester: The Storm Skiing Journal. And I want to read some, I want to grab some reader feedback here.
01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:38.000
Stuart Winchester: I can have a zillion tabs open, and I am not opening any of the right ones.
01:33:38.000 --> 01:33:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Here, to get to this.
01:33:41.000 --> 01:33:45.000
Stuart Winchester: And you’ll say, Stu, you should be more prepared.
01:33:45.000 --> 01:33:47.000
Stuart Winchester: I agree with you.
01:33:48.000 --> 01:33:50.000
Stuart Winchester: But sometimes this happens.
01:33:50.000 --> 01:34:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, uh, Patricia might clean that up and edit, she might not. Alright, so, I want to start first with… I had some more comments, I only had one comment on the story I put out on Sunday, uh, one last tour of old Aspen Mountain. So, so that was a story that…
01:34:05.000 --> 01:34:12.000
Stuart Winchester: was available, the full story for paid subscribers of the Storm Skiing Journal. You can upgrade to pay at stormskiing.com.
01:34:12.000 --> 01:34:14.000
Stuart Winchester: And.
01:34:14.000 --> 01:34:22.000
Stuart Winchester: the, uh… the free subscribers got some, they got the introduction, but they didn’t get the full story, and they can’t comment on it. So here’s some comments.
01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Gustav says, “Aspen and especially Aspen Mountain is where I learned the basics of skiing in the mountains. It’s a special place that I think I judge other areas against.
01:34:32.000 --> 01:34:48.000
Stuart Winchester: 1A was a great lift for lapping, by the way, especially for spring skiing when you made the last runs, jumping over slag piles to hit snow below, and thinking we were the last group to a ski trail before it was too melted out. Yeah, so I had said, Gustav was saying, I had said there that 1A wasn’t great for laps, and.
01:34:48.000 --> 01:34:56.000
Stuart Winchester: I actually met an Aspen local recently, and I asked her what she thought about 1A coming out, and she said, oh, it was one of my favorite lifts to lap, and so…
01:34:56.000 --> 01:35:14.000
Stuart Winchester: All that says is that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, because I… I just must have missed what’s great about it. I always just used it to get up the mountain to Ruthie’s, uh, and then to the intended high-speed quad at the top, and usually I just take the gondola at the top. Scott Abraham says, when I am on Ajax, I realize I was born with the wrong.
01:35:14.000 --> 01:35:29.000
Stuart Winchester: There are people I should belong to. When I roll out of my 92 Aerostar all-wheel drive in the commuter lot, I know God made a huge mistake. I choose from the two gorgeous Obermeyer onesies that Klaus himself sold to me in 97.
01:35:29.000 --> 01:35:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Grab my wood topskin Wagner custom skis that I bought for $200 in a consignment shop, and take my 50-seat limo to the base. I pass for royalty and am recognized as a fellow oligarch by my peers.
01:35:42.000 --> 01:35:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Instead of ratty Helly Hansen gear and leg breaking Rozzies, I am surrounded by properly dressed stylish recreational skiers from the Upper West Side, not decrepit scribblers from Brooklyn. I can search for my dream woman who will support me in the style to which I want to become accustomed, including a season pass and an SUV.
01:35:59.000 --> 01:36:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Wondering if her moguls are natural or man-made, or if that overly tight facial skin would split open if she took a faceplant. I can guess if the fur collars are real or actual dead mammals.
01:36:10.000 --> 01:36:27.000
Stuart Winchester: I belong and know I am destined to rule over plebeians like Michigan grads. My kind of skiing I must return, but the gas would be prohibitive that I can always pose with fellow oppressors at Deer Valet, where I wear the Wagnerstein Ericsson gave me, and also know I am among the chosen.
01:36:28.000 --> 01:36:43.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, well, Michigan grads, don’t worry about the gas price, Scotty. Des says, subscribed in order to comment for two reasons. One, I am back as a subscriber to support the storm. I stopped subscribing when things tapered off a bit and I wasn’t finding myself finishing many of the articles.
01:36:43.000 --> 01:36:55.000
Stuart Winchester: but I’m enthused by the recent resurgence and podcast reboot. I should have subscribed right after hearing the Matthew Prince episode, but I dawdled, then I read the teaser for this and was reminded what I was missing.
01:36:55.000 --> 01:37:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Good luck, Stu. What you do is important and should be supported, and I hope to stay along for the ride this time. Well, thank you, Des. First of all, before I read the second part of your comment, I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you.
01:37:07.000 --> 01:37:17.000
Stuart Winchester: uh, your patience through the evolution, and I get it, it’s a discretionary purchase, and I so appreciate everyone who supports the Storm Skiing Journal podcast.
01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:34.000
Stuart Winchester: with a paid subscription. I also understand that sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes you decide that you’re not using the product enough to justify the expense. Uh, sometimes you decide that, you know, you lose interest in skiing, maybe. I get all that. I don’t take it personally, but I’m really hyped up that the new format.
01:37:34.000 --> 01:37:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Got you back involved and, and I will get back and I am getting back to some longer writing pieces like this Aspen piece. Number two, I spent today at Ajax as part of a week long Aspen trip and spent most of my day there at Heroes. Our group had most of the terrain to ourselves, found a lot of untracked spots in the trees.
01:37:51.000 --> 01:38:09.000
Stuart Winchester: All despite being a few days post-multiple footstorm, and being a decently crowded day on the rest of the mountain. I don’t know if that is typical, whether your typical Ajax gear is more in it for the cruisers or the scene, or we were just plain lucky, but it remains one of my best days skiing and core memories from our Aspen trip.
01:38:09.000 --> 01:38:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Lapping double black powder tree runs in my dreams for years. I would make the arduous trek to Aspen again, get detoured to Grand Junction and ride a bus and all, just for a repeat of that day. It’s a special spot and shouldn’t be overlooked. Yeah, I mean, the… the…
01:38:24.000 --> 01:38:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Interesting thing about the Aspen complex of Four Mountains is that the vast majority of skiers go to Snowmass. Snowmass gets more skier visits in general than Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk combined. Now, it’s also much larger than those mountains.
01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:44.000
Stuart Winchester: But Aspen is a very tough mountain. Aspen Mountain has no green trails. It is…
01:38:44.000 --> 01:38:48.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s narrow, it’s steep, it’s intimidating.
01:38:48.000 --> 01:38:55.000
Stuart Winchester: And I do think that that moderates the number of skiers, especially heroes. Heroes is a special spot.
01:38:55.000 --> 01:38:57.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s one of those pods that…
01:38:57.000 --> 01:39:15.000
Stuart Winchester: is not quite legendary yet, but will get there as one of the great lift-surf skiing pods in all of America. But it is just too much for most people. There are some blue runs in there, but, you know, it’s wild, wild terrain, and I love it, and I’m really glad that Aspen did that.
01:39:15.000 --> 01:39:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Matt Hart says, a place where the beer flows like wine, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little place called Aspen. That was a quote from Lloyd Christmas.
01:39:27.000 --> 01:39:39.000
Stuart Winchester: I will admit, I don’t know who that is, but I probably should. But thank you, Matt, for that comment. Thank you, Des, for that comment. Thank you, Gustav, for that comment. Scott, I don’t know.
01:39:39.000 --> 01:39:41.000
Stuart Winchester: We’ll see.
01:39:41.000 --> 01:39:44.000
Stuart Winchester: I appreciate your interest.
01:39:44.000 --> 01:39:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, that will be our show for today.
01:39:49.000 --> 01:39:53.000
Stuart Winchester: And I want to ask you to please.
01:39:53.000 --> 01:39:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, by the way, I will have a lot more coming on the Veil Proxy fight. I have a… a written…
01:39:59.000 --> 01:40:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Primer coming, hopefully today.
01:40:02.000 --> 01:40:06.000
Stuart Winchester: I also have an interview with very…
01:40:06.000 --> 01:40:22.000
Stuart Winchester: keyed-in reporter at the Aspen Daily, uh, I’m sorry, not the Aspen Daily, at the Veil Daily, John Taylor, who’s been just crushing it in his coverage of the Veil proxy war, and he will join me actually later today, and I’ll put that podcast out on Friday to break down exactly what’s happening.
01:40:22.000 --> 01:40:37.000
Stuart Winchester: in that proxy war. If you want to get those pieces of content the moment they’re live, please subscribe to the Storm Skiing newsletter at stormskiing.com. The very best way to support the Storm is to upgrade to a paid subscription at stormskiing.com. Start with the free.
01:40:37.000 --> 01:40:41.000
Stuart Winchester: If you like it, if you want to see what’s below the paywall, which is about 80% of.
01:40:41.000 --> 01:40:51.000
Stuart Winchester: then you can upgrade to the paid. Uh, you can also rep the store with a… storm with a shirt, hat, hoodie. Go to stormskiing.myshopify.com.
01:40:51.000 --> 01:40:56.000
Stuart Winchester: You can follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok at Storm Ski Journal.
01:40:56.000 --> 01:41:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Until next time, stay well, stay safe. I’m Stuart Winchester, and I’ll talk to you again very.
