Who
John Paul Bradley, General Manager of Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort, New Mexico
Date Recorded
Nov. 9, 2026
About Sipapu
Owned by: Mountain Capital Partners, which also owns:
Year founded: 1952
Pass affiliations: Unlimited on Power Pass, Power Pass Select, and Power Pass Core
Base elevation: 8,200 feet
Summit elevation: 9,255 feet
Vertical drop: 1,055 feet
Skiable acres: 189
Average annual snowfall: 185 inches
Lift count: 6 (1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 double, 2 carpets)
Why I interviewed him
That’s a nice trailmap, built out considerably since MCP Managing Partner James Coleman purchased the bump from the founding Bolander family in 2000.
But it’s a McNothingStuffing compared to how Sipapu could scale under an expansion plan that the U.S. Forest Service recently accepted for environmental review:
Here’s the proposed lift specs - proposed lifts A and B below match with the long dotted lines above:
Absurdly, amazingly, the gray-shaded area on the map above represents the entirety of the legacy ski area:
Can they do it? I hope so.
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
Take up Top - Ikon’s new partners
Stuart Winchester: All right, let’s start today with changes to the Icon Pass. I say changes, but really I mean changes and additions. Icon Pass just keeps adding mountains at an unbelievable rate. They’ve added more than 40 ski areas.
01:10:56.000 --> 01:11:07.000
Stuart Winchester: in the past 2 years, and when I say past 2 years, I really just mean since spring of 2025, so really it hasn’t even been 2 years since they’ve added all these mountains.
01:11:07.000 --> 01:11:22.000
Stuart Winchester: And some of them are the little bonus mountains, and some are full partners. One of the changes, though, that is not a new mountain that Deer Valley added, or that Icon added today, was a little bit of a departure for Icon Pass.
01:11:22.000 --> 01:11:24.000
Stuart Winchester: So…
01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:37.000
Stuart Winchester: when the Icon Pass debuted in 2018, all of the ski areas that were on Icon Pass at the time were included on the Icon Base Pass, and they… many of them had blackouts, as many of them do today, but.
01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Jackson Hole, Alta, Aspen, all of those mountains, Deer Valley, were on the Icon Base Pass with five days.
01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:47.000
Stuart Winchester: In 2020.
01:11:47.000 --> 01:11:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Jackson Hole and Aspen left Icon Base, and they went to something called Icon Base Plus, and it was…
01:11:55.000 --> 01:12:04.000
Stuart Winchester: an add-on you could buy, but in general, most people would still get the full Icon Pass. Uh, in 2022, Deer Valley and Alta.
01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:16.000
Stuart Winchester: followed Jackson Hole and Aspen off of the Icon Base Pass, and Sun Valley and Snow Basin, which had newly joined after leaving the Epic Pass, decided to also be exclusively for Icon Base.
01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:18.000
Stuart Winchester: But we started to see…
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Stuart Winchester: what we’ve always seen with Altera, the ability to be really creative with the IconPass, and one of the things that they’ve done is change access.
01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Quite a bit. And they’ve done this to…
01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Experiment to flex to try to get the crowd levels correct.
01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: And sometimes they take away access, and sometimes they add access. So in this case, the Deer Valley access they took away on IconBase in 2022, Altera, which owns Deer Valley and IconPass, of course.
01:12:52.000 --> 01:13:08.000
Stuart Winchester: is adding some Icon Base Pass access back. They’re adding 3 days, though, not 5, so this is a unique thing. There is no other ski area on Icon Base Pass that has a 3-day tier, and I’m not exactly sure.
01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:20.000
Stuart Winchester: how they arrived at that three days. I am scheduled to host the president of Deer Valley, Todd Bennett, very soon on the podcast, and I will ask him to break this down for us. But nonetheless, if you have an Icon Base Pass, you do get three days.
01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:29.000
Stuart Winchester: at Deer Valley on it this year. Remember, Deer Valley is only for skiers, no snowboarders allowed, similar to Alta up the road. And…
01:13:29.000 --> 01:13:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Deer Valley has nearly tripled in size over the past 3 seasons, so if you haven’t been to Deer Valley in a while.
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Stuart Winchester: I mean, it already felt pretty big, because it’s Utah, and you can ski almost anywhere, but…
01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:46.000
Stuart Winchester: They added…
01:13:46.000 --> 01:14:02.000
Stuart Winchester: more than the size of Deer Valley to the back end of it, basically they call it the Wasatch Back, so if you keep driving out of Park City, and it’s actually a lot more pleasant to get to Deer Valley now, because what the expansion allowed them to do was to build a new village, the Deer Valley East Village.
01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:14.000
Stuart Winchester: You don’t have to drive through Park City to get there anymore, and Park City traffic is always a nightmare, so what you can do is just get off the highway, make one turn, and there you are in Deer Valley East Village, and the…
01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:20.000
Stuart Winchester: new Lyft network connects really seamlessly to Legacy Deer Valley, so…
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Stuart Winchester: They’ve done a really good job with it. I’ve not skied the entire expansion.
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Stuart Winchester: But I skied quite a bit of it the year before last and was really impressed with the way that the whole thing was coming together. So, you know, Deer Valley is not to be mistaken for cottonwood skiing. It is a very different thing. It is positioned differently. It is a, a different.
01:14:41.000 --> 01:14:48.000
Stuart Winchester: level and kind of skiing, even though they’re really right next door to each other, but uh… but that is, I think, cool.
01:14:48.000 --> 01:15:01.000
Stuart Winchester: of Icon to do that, and Altera to do that, and to give a little access where they have a little more to give. You know, they have 5,000 acres to fill, and they used to have 2,000, and I’d imagine you could probably fit a few more skiers on there, especially when you’re excluding snowboarders.
01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:04.000
Stuart Winchester: This echoes what…
01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Icon Pass did with the Aspen Mountains, right? I mentioned that Aspen had left the Icon Base Pass in 2020, and…
01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:20.000
Stuart Winchester: This past year, this past spring, for the 2026-27 ski season, Aspen said, you know what?
01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:27.000
Stuart Winchester: That still makes sense for Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk, but not for Snowmass. And… that makes sense to me, because Snowmass.
01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Traditionally gets more skier visits than all the other three Aspen Mountains combined. So you still, if you have a full icon pass, will have seven days to use between the four Aspen Mountains. But if you have an icon base, you can use five at Snowmass. It is not good at.
01:15:43.000 --> 01:15:55.000
Stuart Winchester: the other ski areas. And Altair has done little tweaks like this for years and years. You know, at first, when they first bought Crystal, it was unlimited on Icon Base. And they said, oops, too many people. Made it unlimited on full Icon. Oops, still too.
01:15:55.000 --> 01:15:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Let’s…
01:15:56.000 --> 01:16:08.000
Stuart Winchester: give Crystal its own pass. Uh, not enough people, so they went back to full, uh, unlimited access on full Icon, and 5 days with holiday blackouts on Icon Base.
01:16:08.000 --> 01:16:15.000
Stuart Winchester: And with Arapahoe Basin, when they bought Arapahoe Basin, they said, you know what?
01:16:15.000 --> 01:16:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh… let’s just do full Unlimited on Icon, full Icon. And then, after a year of that, they said, you know what? We can do Unlimited on Icon Base as well, and without Holiday Blackouts, because they’re adjusting to…
01:16:29.000 --> 01:16:35.000
Stuart Winchester: volume. And they’re saying, okay, we need more, we need less, and they’re going up and down. And it’s something you don’t see.
01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:43.000
Stuart Winchester: with Epic Pass. They don’t really tweak that much. I wish they would play with it a little more. I think some of their.
01:16:43.000 --> 01:16:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Really high volume ski areas like Mount Snow and Breckenridge and Keystone don’t necessarily need to be unlimited on the Epic Local Pass. So, but onward with Icon. So Icon, another creative thing they’ve done is they’ve added these bonus mountains over the past.
01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Several years, and…
01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:14.000
Stuart Winchester: they try to say that they’re not on Icon Pass, but if you have an Icon Pass, and only a full Icon Pass, it doesn’t work on the Icon Base Pass. Full Icon, you get 2 days at a bunch of little ski areas all over the country.
01:17:14.000 --> 01:17:25.000
Stuart Winchester: I think there’s 14 of them now that they’re up to, and they added 3 more today, and they’re in the Midwest. So they added 3 ski areas that actually were original.
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Stuart Winchester: Back in 2019, IndiePass Partners, they were, I think, I believe.
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Stuart Winchester: the first ski areas ever in the Midwest to sign up for IndyPass. And they’re all owned by the same fellow, the same family, the Schmitz brothers, and Rick Schmitz has been on this podcast before, he’s an excellent guest, he’s scheduled to be on the podcast again later this week, so we’re gonna talk about this.
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Stuart Winchester: at length, but those three ski areas are Little Switzerland, Nordic Mountain, Crystal Ridge, think sort of Milwaukee Metro, and I realize Nordic Mountain’s a bit north of there, but essentially, they’re three small ski areas that.
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Stuart Winchester: Will?
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Stuart Winchester: And as a collective.
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Stuart Winchester: Mirror the same strategy that Vail has been trying to do for a long time when it bought, for example, Wilmot Mountain, which is nearby Little Switzerland, right? Metro Milwaukee, kind of between Milwaukee and Chicago. Or when they bought Afton Alps, when Vail bought Afton Alps or Mount Brighton.
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Stuart Winchester: Afton Ellis in Minnesota, Mount Bryant in Michigan, and basically they say, okay, if you’re an Epic Pass, or if you’re an Icon Pass holder, then…
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Stuart Winchester: You can get a couple of days at your local mountains, and you can use it to go out west. Now, obviously, this is a little bit different, because Icon has, after several years of basically ignoring the Midwest, so for years and years, from 2018 on, after.
01:18:45.000 --> 01:18:48.000
Stuart Winchester: The Aircon Pass debuted. They really only had…
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Stuart Winchester: Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands in Michigan at all as part of their Midwest network. And I always thought that was a mistake. And, and they had them only, I think, because Boyne, which owns Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands, also owns Big Sky and Summit of Snoqualmie and Mount.
01:19:04.000 --> 01:19:09.000
Stuart Winchester: and Brighton in Utah, and Sunday River in Sugarloaf in Maine, so…
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Stuart Winchester: Altera was incentivized, I believe, to play nice, but I think they finally are starting to get it. And so, they’ve added… Icon has added a bunch of ski areas around the Midwest over the past couple of years, and not all the bonus mountains.
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Stuart Winchester: are in the Midwest. You have, like, Grouse Mountain in BC, you have Tamarack out in Idaho. On the East Coast, you have Cranmore in New Hampshire, and Jiminy Peak in Massachusetts, and Butternut in Massachusetts, but a lot of them have.
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Stuart Winchester: the owners of Cabra Fay, Tim and Pete Meyer, to talk about why they left IndyPass and joined Icon ahead of the 2026-27 ski season. And now…
01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:58.000
Stuart Winchester: The Schmitz brothers are doing the same with their three mountains, and Icahn had also added Buck Hill.
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Stuart Winchester: and Wild Mountain in Minnesota. And it also, this past spring, and those were all bonus mountains, so two days at each, this past spring, it actually added three really well-run mountains, those in the Midwest Family Ski Resorts family.
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Stuart Winchester: So, Lutzen, which is the largest ski area in the Midwest, and Granite Peak, which makes total sense with these mountains today, because Granite Peak is central Wisconsin, and if you’ve got a couple days of Little Switz or Crystal Ridge, you can…
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Stuart Winchester: Check those off and you get five or seven days up at Granite Peak. And then also Snow River, which is up in the Snow Belt and Upper Peninsula of Michigan, is owned by Midwest Family. So each of those joined as five or seven day partners. So you have a nice.
01:20:44.000 --> 01:20:51.000
Stuart Winchester: little Midwest network, all of a sudden, at least in the Upper Midwest, for the Icon Pass, which you didn’t have before.
01:20:52.000 --> 01:20:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Then we have one more.
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Stuart Winchester: I don’t know, I wouldn’t call these…
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Stuart Winchester: new partners, necessarily. The ICON is framing it as expanded access, so Ishgul…
01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:09.000
Stuart Winchester: In Austria. So they added this one last year.
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Stuart Winchester: And Ischgl, you can ski from Ischgl to Somnon over in Switzerland, and it just… they just come together, and you ski over the mountain peaks, you don’t need a passport.
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Stuart Winchester: So don’t worry about that. But they actually added some more ski areas in Austria’s Pasnown Valley.
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Stuart Winchester: I’m not gonna say these wrong, these correctly, probably, but the scariest they added to the Ischgl package are Galtur.
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Stuart Winchester: Koppel, and C. So Galtur.
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Stuart Winchester: well, never mind, you can just look them up and see, and I’ll do a write-up of this on stormskiing.com, but essentially, those join Ishkel, Somnon, so…
01:21:47.000 --> 01:21:52.000
Stuart Winchester: These are not additional resorts that you get more days at, they do…
01:21:52.000 --> 01:21:58.000
Stuart Winchester: take days away… well, they don’t take days away from Ishmael, but they share days with them. So…
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Stuart Winchester: that then becomes part of a… these three that I just said, go through capital and C.
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Stuart Winchester: Along with Ishkot and Somnon, you have 7 days with Full Icon.
01:22:07.000 --> 01:22:11.000
Stuart Winchester: 5 days with IconBase to split between them.
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Stuart Winchester: So…
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Stuart Winchester: That’s icon, man. They just keep adding, they keep adding, they keep adding. It’s amazing to see. I love it. I love how dynamic they’re being. I love how creative they’re being. I love how much the portfolio continues to grow. And really, I would love to see Vail and the Epic Pass get back to partnering with more ski areas.
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Stuart Winchester: And, you know, a fair argument to make is, okay, well, that’s fine, but why do you think that Epic Pass costs 30% less than ICON? Because they don’t have to pay out partners. And I understand that. I’m just saying, as a consumer, looking at these things as the two major mega passes that I have to pick from.
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Stuart Winchester: right now, Icon has been building the more dynamic roster and the more expansive roster as far as sheer variety of ski areas that you’re able to access over the past several years. So…
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Stuart Winchester: More to come on that, more complete write-downs are always in writing on stormskiing.com.
01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Before I get to Sipapoo, I want to tell you about my partner.
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Stuart Winchester: Island Snowbus.
01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Hey there. Shout out, New Yorkers, Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn.
01:23:19.000 --> 01:23:23.000
Stuart Winchester: We’re not exactly in ski country here, in case you haven’t noticed.
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Stuart Winchester: But we can get to skiing! I always tell people, there are 200 ski areas in a 6-hour drive of New York City.
01:23:29.000 --> 01:23:30.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
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Stuart Winchester: You can do a lot of variety, but you do have to… it is a slog. You have to wake up in the middle of the night, drive by yourself, drive home.
01:23:38.000 --> 01:23:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Ski by yourself, drive home alone after the day if you’re tired of that.
01:23:43.000 --> 01:23:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Try Island Snowbus. Island Snowbus has pickups throughout Suffolk and Nassau counties and in eastern Queens near the Whitestone Bridge.
01:23:51.000 --> 01:24:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Island Snow West plans single and multi-day trips to some of my favorite ski areas in this region, including, here’s an awesome list, Whiteface, Jay Peak, Stratton Gore, Killington, Bel Air, Jiminy Peak, Elk Mountain, Mount Snow, Hunter, and Palat.
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Stuart Winchester: Could even see some others added to that list if a big storm rolls through and Island Snowbus puts together a pop-up trip.
01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Island Snow Bus offers packages that include lift tickets and transportation, or, if you have your own pass, you can just do the bus ride, use your Epic and Icon, or Snow Pass or Indy Pass when you get there.
01:24:22.000 --> 01:24:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Island Snowbus is an early pickup, but then you crash out, be ready to ski upon arrival, and you can find a ski buddy, all these other folks looking to socialize on those buses to check out Island Snowbus’ 2026-2027 winter calendar.
01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Visit Island Snowbus dot com.
01:24:38.000 --> 01:24:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Hit that with code STORM at checkout for $50 off your first trip.
01:24:44.000 --> 01:24:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Again, islandsnowbus.com.
01:24:46.000 --> 01:25:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, let’s get to our talk about Sipapu. Been doing a lot of New Mexico love lately, and it is an underappreciated ski state, and JP, who’s gonna talk to us now, has been working there for 25 years. To issue a small correction, I say a few times in this podcast.
01:25:04.000 --> 01:25:20.000
Stuart Winchester: that he began in 2003. He actually told me that he was James Coleman’s first ever hire after he purchased CPAPU on June 1st, 2001. So, apologies to JP and James and CPAPU and MCP for getting that wrong.
01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:25.000
Stuart Winchester: But that does not at all diminish from the story is an awesome story. So let’s get to it right now.
Sipapu Interview
Stuart Winchester: My guest today has been the general manager of Sipapu, New Mexico since 2007.
00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Sipapu offers 215 acres of terrain on a 1,055 foot vertical drop served by six lifts and is one of three ski areas in New Mexico and nine in the United States and 11 total operated by Mountain Capital Partners.
00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:17.000
Stuart Winchester: He has worked at the Scariest since 2003. John Paul Bradley joins us. JP, welcome to The Storm. How you doing today?
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John Paul Bradley: I’m doing really well. Thanks for having me on.
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Stuart Winchester: And how bad did I mess up the name of the ski area?
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John Paul Bradley: Uh, not, not terrible. It’s, uh, sea papu.
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Stuart Winchester: See, Papu, okay. Yeah, I always get that one wrong. So, the reason that I wanted to connect is there’s a master development plan that has been floating around in various drafts for decades. You finally have, it appears, some movement on it, and I realize.
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John Paul Bradley: Waiting.
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Stuart Winchester: it’s a process, and there’s an environmental review process, and that’s ongoing. But before we…
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Stuart Winchester: see where you’re at in the process. I just want you to lay out the plan for us, and what it would look like at full build-out, and I’ll bring up…
00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:17.000
Stuart Winchester: the plan here. So here’s the… here’s the blueprint. So tell us what’s going on here, JP, in this… in this, uh… so this is for the viewers and listeners, and for those watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube at Storm Ski Journal. This…
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Stuart Winchester: gray shaded box is the legacy ski area, so you can see there’s a massive expansion. So break this down for us, what would Sea Papoo look like?
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Stuart Winchester: If this plan comes fruition.
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John Paul Bradley: Yeah, so the…
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John Paul Bradley: area that you highlighted there. That’s our existing permit area that we’ve had a special use permit with Forest Service since 1952, and that’s 215 acres. It’s on the map. It looks huge, but it’s interesting if you zoom way out, you know.
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John Paul Bradley: um, satellite level, it is still… we’re just a speck on this massive ridgeline, um, here in the San Greta Cristos, and uh…
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John Paul Bradley: Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Um, it’s just a… it’s just a dot. Um, but it’s, uh…
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: Right.
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John Paul Bradley: You know, we’ve been in this current permanent boundary, like I said, since 1952, and we don’t stop growing. We just keep growing. We’re known to be family friendly.
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John Paul Bradley: Um, and very affordable, and that happens to be a good niche for us, and we just keep growing.
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John Paul Bradley: and we’re just kind of starting to outgrow. It’s… it’s starting to feel pretty tight, um, most weekends and holiday periods, um, and even mid-weeks now. And what this would really do is…
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John Paul Bradley: it’d actually make it feel like we’re skiing at Zipapu 40 years ago. I mean, it would just spread us out again. Um…
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John Paul Bradley: You know, we…
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John Paul Bradley: we’re just over 1,000 vert. This would get us to about 1,500 vert. Um…
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John Paul Bradley: James D. The the permitted acreage is like, I said, 215. The expansion or the proposed area is 915 additional acres, so it’d give us a total of 1,130 acres to work within, and.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:26.000
John Paul Bradley: It would be about an additional 200 acres of skiable terrain.
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John Paul Bradley: Bringing us to about 245 total skiable acres within that 1,100 acres.
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John Paul Bradley: As you can see, despite decades of going through this process, we have not figured out how to make the mountain any steeper.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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John Paul Bradley: Um, it’s, uh, but from a skiing demographic standpoint, like, it is perfect. It’s intermediate and beginner terrain, um, and gets us higher up in elevation.
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John Paul Bradley: Better snow retention. It kind of rolls around to the more north exposure. Again, better retention. Yeah, it’s just, it’s got a lot of cool things for it. It would be, we’re looking at a high speed.
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:25.000
John Paul Bradley: detachable, that chair A, um, out of the base area there, and we’ve kind of looked at doing something like what we’re doing over at Snowball, where it’s, uh, the gondola cars every once in a while.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, that’s cool.
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:41.000
John Paul Bradley: Because you can see up top there, there’s just amazing beginner training. Like, we go up there, I get up there in the winter and stuff, and there’s just this beautiful beginner terrain up there. And what we envision is being able to load ski school into a gondola car, get them up top.
00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:56.000
John Paul Bradley: And they can can learn up there in this great environment up top. And then if they’re not not there yet, ready to ski down, we can load them back up, get them back down off the mountain, not overtrain them, convince them to come back again tomorrow.
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:11.000
John Paul Bradley: and and just also talk through like, Hey, look how much additional train you could come back and learn. So so that’s kind of the the key lift that we’re looking at there. And also up top would be a.
00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:15.000
John Paul Bradley: A lodge up top, so…
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:30.000
John Paul Bradley: Grandma can go up there and hang out as well, you know, and enjoy the, the area. And then, and then phasing out, then there’s a chair, chair B down canyon, we call it the west side lift in, in house here. And again, just these.
00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:38.000
John Paul Bradley: Beautiful long fall line intermediate trails. They would just be, they’d be great.
00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, this would be an incredible expansion, and you mentioned the Mountaintop Lodge up here, and I love Mountaintop beginner areas, and the reason I brought up this Google Earth map is you can see that… and this, obviously, this is… you know this already, but if people are just.
00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:05.000
Stuart Winchester: watching, if you’re down here, you’re just kind of looking at the other side of the canyon. But if you get them up here, they really can see kind of the scale. And I think when you’re trying to sell a beginner.
00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:07.000
Stuart Winchester: on skiing.
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:12.000
Stuart Winchester: The views in the high alpine are part of it. Is that some of the thinking here?
00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:31.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, and again, like, the mountain, it’s almost, in a way, kind of an upside-down mountain for us, right? Because the steepest terrain in our… is in our current permit area, and it rounds… the mountain kind of rounds out up top, and I… being up there and stuff, it kind of makes me think of, like, um, Lion’s Head at Vail.
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:42.000
John Paul Bradley: Right, where it went up top, the beginner terrain up top. And then think of the views from up there. Um, and same here. Being able to look north and see the, um…
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Yum.
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:47.000
John Paul Bradley: Like the Wheeler Peak Wilderness area to the north and above tree line stuff.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Stuart Winchester: So as you, again, we’ll talk about timelines and such, but it’s not like, oh, this would be open next season, right? You, you would imagine a phased deployment. So would the idea be to start here with this lift A near the, the core where you said that, that you would consider a chandela and the, and the B?
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, the lodge up top here.
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000
John Paul Bradley: Absolutely, yep.
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:13.000
Stuart Winchester: And do you think that would come with Chair C, or would that maybe be another…
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.000
John Paul Bradley: Yep.
00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Hey, he’s there.
00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:15.000
John Paul Bradley: No, it’s not.
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:32.000
John Paul Bradley: I think, you know, it’s let’s get in and get it done. And in chair C is such a key part of that beginner terrain. And when you look at our existing area, our base area is so small and so tight, and we’re known as a beginner area.
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:35.000
John Paul Bradley: We need to provide that product up there.
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. And another part of the plan I saw was five additional parking areas along the highway here. Would those be near the lifts?
00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:51.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, you can see them… the majority of the parking is on the north side of the highway.
00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:55.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, and then slightly east of us, up Canyon.
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. Okay.
00:23:55.000 --> 00:24:03.000
John Paul Bradley: And then there’d be like an overflow parking down Canyon. That’s the Canyon Tiamayas trailhead area.
00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.000
Stuart Winchester: So as far as, uh…
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:09.000
Stuart Winchester: As snowmaking goes, I thought there were two…
00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:24.000
Stuart Winchester: interesting things about snowmaking here, JP. One was that it was really framed in your master development plan as better use, or more efficient use, of water rights you already have. So, just talk about that, and how.
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:30.000
Stuart Winchester: You would go about this so you’re not actually using more water before, but you’re getting more.
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:36.000
Stuart Winchester: effective snowmaking on the trails, or more snowma… or more trails covered with snowmaking.
00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:40.000
John Paul Bradley: Well, right now, our trails, we…
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000
John Paul Bradley: People describe it as skiing.
00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:58.000
John Paul Bradley: western snow on an eastern ski area. Our trails are very narrow right now, um, and so these would be larger trails up high. And so, when you think about the snow fence effect of trees.
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:11.000
John Paul Bradley: um, in trail corridors, our runs are a little narrow for that, and so we miss that snow fence kind of effect. Um, but I think what we’re talking about there is…
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:27.000
John Paul Bradley: Our plan is to build out snowmaking infrastructure while we’re out there on as much terrain as possible. Right now we don’t have water to put everywhere, but it would be, I think an analogy that I’ve used that kind of sticks well is if you’re remodeling your house.
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:38.000
John Paul Bradley: and you really wish you had a light switch in the guest bedroom, and you finally get the chance to put it in there, and the contractor’s like, well, that’s gonna be expensive. And you’re like, but…
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:41.000
John Paul Bradley: When I need that light switch, it’s really nice to have it.
00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:58.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s kind of like that. We want to make sure that we have the infrastructure built so that then when we might need to go hit a hot spot or a high-traffic area, we have the ability to do it, but we’re just going to have to do it with still just our existing water rights.
00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I mean, I mean, there’s some benefits to the community as well. And, and I spoke with your colleague, Jason Bellamy over at Pajarito recently about their massive snow making expansion. And really that was a partnership with a number of government agencies because that infrastructure could be reused. He explained.
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:33.000
Stuart Winchester: for firefighting purposes, and… and I saw that… that… that Sipapu, in… in 2022, for the Calf Canyon Hermit’s Peak fire, you actually were able to deploy your snowmaking system. Talk a little bit about that experience, and… and how you would hope that a new, more robust snowmaking system might.
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Increase those capabilities.
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:46.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, that was quite the experience. Um, the fire got… that was the largest fire in New Mexico history. It got, uh, 2.4 miles as the crow flies from our permit boundary.
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, jeez.
00:26:46.000 --> 00:27:02.000
John Paul Bradley: And we really made ourselves a resource for the firefighters. We had a cell tower, we had a designated helipad that was known, just became a resource. We had generators and stuff on site.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:09.000
John Paul Bradley: was able to work with the, uh, flight commander, and we went up on the mountain, and really was able to kind of…
00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:25.000
John Paul Bradley: Talk through what it would look like to open up a corridor to pump water 1,000 vertical feet up the mountain, to put it in a heli well so that the Hueys could come across, dip, and keep going. And when they.
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:42.000
John Paul Bradley: Looked at how many trees they wanted to cut down. I was like, I need those trees for shade. And, uh, we ended up just pumping, uh, filling tanker trucks, um, in the base area, and they drove, drove tanker trucks up the road and filled. Um, but that, that experience gave us the opportunity to really.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:54.000
John Paul Bradley: work hand-in-hand with the flight commander to understand what they’re looking for. And, um, so when we look at those ponds at the top of the mountain and understanding that then.
00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.000
John Paul Bradley: Those.
00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:08.000
John Paul Bradley: helicopters can gain elevation empty, dip, and then deploy out, and the efficiencies there, um, we really wanted to make sure that we consider.
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:14.000
John Paul Bradley: just initially building it in, cutting, like, um…
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:20.000
John Paul Bradley: a flight path for those, uh, for those pawns. And we have a couple pawns in there, um…
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:22.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s really…
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:29.000
John Paul Bradley: to analyze all three locations. Don’t anticipate all those locations being ponds, but we…
00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:32.000
John Paul Bradley: We gotta get out there and analyze it. So that’s why they’re showing up multiple ones.
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:39.000
Stuart Winchester: And at its full build, I mean, would you ever be to 100% snowmaking on the trails, or is that just not possible, given the part of the world you’re in?
00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:43.000
John Paul Bradley: With our existing water rights, it wouldn’t be possible.
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, let’s talk about…
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:48.000
Stuart Winchester: the.
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:56.000
Stuart Winchester: the growth here, because sometimes expansions are to attract more skiers. Sometimes they’re to move.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:11.000
Stuart Winchester: the same amount of skiers around, and sometimes it’s just to take a little pressure off, and it seems like you’re in the latter category, where… so I found a few stats kicking around, so when you started at the ski area around 2003, I think skier visits around 10,000 a year.
00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:26.000
Stuart Winchester: They were around 25,000 by 2007 and 2024 to 25, which is the last figure I saw 54,000. So talk about that volume. What’s driving it? You think if it’s, if it’s local factors like population or if the skier is just better.
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Stuart Winchester: and how you hope that this Master Development Plan will help.
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, um…
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:40.000
John Paul Bradley: When James Coleman bought the property, and we were doing 10,000 skiers.
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:51.000
John Paul Bradley: we had nothing to lose. Or we had everything to lose, maybe that’s a… and, and so we, we just, we tried anything and everything to get people here. And…
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, we just pushed really hard to market the place, and…
00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:59.000
John Paul Bradley: There’s been families coming here for…
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:12.000
John Paul Bradley: Like, 60 years. Every year, they’re here for Christmas. And and they know it. They know it’s a great place. And just more people keep discovering us. Our price point has been huge.
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:25.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, the investment that MCP has continued to make in the infrastructure has helped, for sure. Um, but marketing has been massive, part of it, part of the growth. Um…
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.000
John Paul Bradley: What…
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:34.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s interesting, right? So we really try hard to be affordable.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:35.000
John Paul Bradley: I mean.
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:46.000
John Paul Bradley: to the core. We know we’re in a very poor part of the community… part of the country, part of the state, and we want to make sure that skiing is accessible to everybody.
00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:52.000
John Paul Bradley: But we also want to make sure that it’s a good experience for our guests and a good experience for our staff.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:01.000
John Paul Bradley: And to do that, we despite wanting to, we’ve have to drive our prices up to slow down the velocity of people coming.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Hmm.
00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:04.000
John Paul Bradley: This gives us the opportunity.
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:07.000
John Paul Bradley: to give more people that freedom to ski.
00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:13.000
John Paul Bradley: because we’ll be able to have more capacity for them and we can actually keep our prices low. So.
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I mean, to be, I mean, Mountain Capital Partners still does so much to keep things affordable. The free power pass for kids up to age 12, and then your sister resorts were all doing lift tickets as low as $9. Did Sipapoo participate in that as well? And can you tell us a little bit about.
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:38.000
Stuart Winchester: That and how you’re — again, if you are participating, you do have to meter it. So you can’t have $9 Lyft tickets for everybody all the time.
00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:47.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, no, we’ve… we have $9 tickets on sale right now, um, and we’ve been doing $9 tickets for years and years, so it, uh…
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:57.000
John Paul Bradley: it works. It’s great. It gets people here. They… they get hooked. And that’s what we want, right? We want more people in this… this winter sports family, so…
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:06.000
Stuart Winchester: One of the things that Jason was excited about at Power Rito was with the snowmaking expansion, he planned to go to 7-day schedule for the first time. Are you at Sipapu already at 7 days?
00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:10.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah. We’ve been at seven days for I as long as I know.
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:22.000
John Paul Bradley: As long as we… I’ve been here, they’ve been 7 days. I’m not sure if the bowl liners are running 7 days a week back in the 60s and 70s, but yeah, we’ve been, for at least the last 26 years, we’ve been 7 days a week.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Sorry, I really like your perspective here because you’ve been there.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:44.000
Stuart Winchester: since shortly after James Coleman bought the place in 2000, right? And for a long time, that was… he just kind of built that place up, and didn’t buy other… or start buying other ski areas until 2015 or 2014, bought Power Rito, and added a bunch more, 2015 Purgatory and Snowball.
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:30.000
John Paul Bradley: Yep.
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And then in 2023, another one of your neighbors, uh, Sandia Peak. I’m just curious here, JP, as… as Pajarito joined the family, and then Sandia Peak, are you getting more…
00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:10.000
Stuart Winchester: excitement locally around having a network, having options, having different skiers and go-to, and then… locally, and then go up to Purgatory or Snowbowl for a vacation? Is that a phenomenon that’s happening?
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, we see our pass holders.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:20.000
John Paul Bradley: They you know, they’re they’re really like a Santa Fe Albuquerque local base.
00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:35.000
John Paul Bradley: But then they can afford to get up to, say, a purgatory maybe once or one or two weekends out of the year. And so the passes work really well for that. And I think the other thing that’s really been neat about it is when we think back to like when.
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.000
John Paul Bradley: So when Pajarito came online.
00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:56.000
John Paul Bradley: They had some really dry years, and they were still able to come over here and ski those pass holders. And that just really helped build that skiing community. And I think that’ll continue with Sandia. I mean, we see it. It’s just fostered throughout the…
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:59.000
John Paul Bradley: the company and all the resorts.
00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:10.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m curious, because of the neighborhood you’re in, how you’ve gone about positioning yourself against, for example, Ski Santa Fe, which the Abruzzos do a really nice job with right down the road, they’re constantly putting in new stuff, they got a little more vert, they have.
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:20.000
Stuart Winchester: more skiable acres. You’ve got Taos, this world-class place farther north in the state, but not too far of a drive away. So as you look to make Shipapoo competitive.
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:27.000
Stuart Winchester: What has been the enduring appeal of come here rather than these larger places that surround us?
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:38.000
John Paul Bradley: I… man, you’re gonna… I’m gonna give away my secret, right? Um… it’s so…
00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:45.000
John Paul Bradley: we’re a small resort. I’m… I’m setting skis, I could be flipping burgers, I’m out making snow or driving a cat.
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:59.000
John Paul Bradley: I’m out scanning tickets, and I will see a Taos Pass, a Santa Fe Pass, um, and right there along with ours. Um, talking with guests, they… they…
00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:10.000
John Paul Bradley: they come to New Mexico, and they… maybe they stay in Taos, and they’re just knocking off a resort each day, right? It’s, um… it’s the…
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:16.000
John Paul Bradley: the car dealership. When you go buy a car, you go down to the.
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:32.000
John Paul Bradley: Street that has seven car dealers. Well, same thing in New Mexico, right? Like if you’re in Santa Fe or in Taos, like you’ve got multiple resorts within an hour. And so it’s really solid. And I think we’re just going to build upon that, that strength that we have as a region.
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:36.000
John Paul Bradley: And we all have different things to offer.
00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:42.000
John Paul Bradley: and… and I think that’s part of the niche of New Mexico, is… it’s… it’s a special spot.
00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, well, you won’t be small for too much longer, hopefully. So I’m gonna go in the history here of this master development plan, and I appreciate that it’s been happening since the nineties and you weren’t there for the full history of it, but just with whatever institutional knowledge you have.
00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Stuart Winchester: the, uh… it seems as though you’re still acquainted with the Bollanders, or Bollanders, the founding families there. So, can you just talk us through.
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Stuart Winchester: The evolution of this plan…
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Stuart Winchester: where you’re at now, and why it seems as though you… or how you were finally able to get a little bit of momentum.
00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.000
John Paul Bradley: Oops. The Bolander family, um…
00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:23.000
John Paul Bradley: First submitted…
00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:30.000
John Paul Bradley: this master plan concept. And when you look back at those those maps.
00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:37.000
John Paul Bradley: The mountain’s the same, the aspect’s the same. It’s amazing how when we go out and we lay it out.
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:41.000
John Paul Bradley: how similar it looks to like what the ball landers laid out.
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:46.000
John Paul Bradley: Because the amount hasn’t changed.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:51.000
John Paul Bradley: The maps are a lot prettier now than 40 years ago, but.
00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:36:51.000 --> 00:37:00.000
John Paul Bradley: So essentially, you know, the bowlanders were a small family-ran resort, and they went through the…
00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:17.000
John Paul Bradley: Master bottom process or the the NEPA process. And and you kind of basically just were like, okay. Well, we got through it. And that was the old method back in the day where you kinda went and you you spent a ton of money and proposed it all.
00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:12.000
Stuart Winchester: There.
00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.
00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:24.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, and… where now, we can submit, get something accepted, and then…
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:25.000
John Paul Bradley: Submit.
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:34.000
John Paul Bradley: for approval of individual projects. And so I’m talking with the bull owners like, well, we spent all our money, and then we didn’t get to do it.
00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:37.000
John Paul Bradley: And then and then.
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:44.000
John Paul Bradley: Long story short, we, you know, James buys the property, and then we resubmit, um…
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.000
John Paul Bradley: a new master plan, and it’s kind of just…
00:37:49.000 --> 00:38:01.000
John Paul Bradley: Been knocking on the door for a lot of years trying to get the ability to go through the NEPA process. We’ve done lots and lots of public meetings.
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:06.000
John Paul Bradley: And it’s just, it’s great that now we finally get the chance to look at the environment.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:13.000
John Paul Bradley: voice its opinion right and and go through the the Nepa process. But it’s just been.
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:26.000
John Paul Bradley: a long, hard road to get through it. The Carson National Forest had a new forest plan amendment.
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.000
John Paul Bradley: or a new forest plan a couple years ago, and.
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:42.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s identified this area as future development, recreational development, and calls out Sipapu. So it helps that we’re in that plan.
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:44.000
John Paul Bradley: But…
00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:48.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, without going into the weeds of it, it’s…
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:52.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s just taking a long time.
00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:54.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Do you get the sense that…
00:38:54.000 --> 00:39:10.000
Stuart Winchester: the community attitude in general is embracing it more than maybe it did 20 years ago. You see different things in different parts of the country, but I was speaking to some folks recently who run scary as in New England, and there was.
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:30.000
Stuart Winchester: a time in New England when it was very difficult to get expansions and such done because of the reflexive environmental opposition, and that seems to be evolving, at least in certain communities, to a point where they’re beginning to value the recreational aspect of it, because not everyone wants to ski at a super-packed ski area all the time, right? They want a little more.
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:40.000
Stuart Winchester: room to move around. So what’s your sense of how much community opposition remains as you look to advance this plan?
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:53.000
John Paul Bradley: I expect to see some. And we’ve met with a lot of key stakeholders over the last seven or eight years. And.
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:11.000
John Paul Bradley: My sense is that folks understand, let me say, folks that maybe are opposed or have opposition, they understand the economic benefits of the skier being here. We are a very solid economic driver.
00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:13.000
John Paul Bradley: And they get that.
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:17.000
John Paul Bradley: There’s also just that…
00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:23.000
John Paul Bradley: They’re not making more land. And I understand that.
00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:24.000
John Paul Bradley: And…
00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:40.000
John Paul Bradley: I think we were really trying to strike that balance of, they’re not making more land, so let’s manage the resource that we already have disturbed in the surrounding area, and keep it as tight as possible. Um, but yet.
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:58.000
John Paul Bradley: I think you’ve mentioned it in a couple of podcasts back. There’s not many new skiers in the United States right now. And the best way to grow is to grow around one that already exists. And so I anticipate there, I think there’s always opposition, right? With everything, right? We just got through the election.
00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:40:58.000 --> 00:40:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:13.000
John Paul Bradley: There’s there’s everybody has an opinion. So, but, you know, I’m excited to be able to go through the NEPA process finally and and get those comments written down, get the perspective of the environment.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:19.000
John Paul Bradley: And then come away with a plan that we can look at and see what we can work with.
00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:21.000
Stuart Winchester: And to be clear.
00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Sipapoo, it looks to me is exclusively a day ski area. There’s nowhere to stay on site, I don’t believe, and that remains the plan, is that right?
00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:46.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, we actually, no, we have, uh, 47 lodging units on, on site. Um, yeah, and, and, and it, again, it, it kind of matches a blend with our, um, being affordable. It, it, we will see the.
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, do you? Okay.
00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:42:01.000
John Paul Bradley: Boy Scouts show up and want to build igloos and camp out in our campground to folks who want a nice unit with a hot tub like it’s all across the board. And so, yeah, we have 47 lodging units on site.
00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Are they condos? Are they grouped around the lower chariot?
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:22.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, we have a, like, 16 units that’s a, uh, kind of a standard, um, motel. And then everything else is, um, units like suites that have, like, kitchenettes, um, and whatnot. So, because people, you know, we’re out here, so a lot of people bring everything they need.
00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that’s true.
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:24.000
John Paul Bradley: for their for their ski trip.
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Is the hope to bring more… is the hope to build more units, then, if the ski area expands?
00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:37.000
John Paul Bradley: We have some some property in the baser that we’re looking at for additional lodging. Yep.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, JP, let’s wrap up today by talking about what you’ve already done, because since…
00:42:44.000 --> 00:43:02.000
Stuart Winchester: James came along in 2000. There’s been a lot of changes. The most recent was this double chair up here was a really old Homa from, I believe, from the sixties. So tell us about this project, why you did it, and how happy you are with it now that you had a season.
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.000
Stuart Winchester: to work with that lift, I believe.
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:10.000
John Paul Bradley: So, that lift and that whole zone there, like, if you were to draw a line from the bottom of that lift.
00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:13.000
John Paul Bradley: perpendicular across the whole mountain.
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:21.000
John Paul Bradley: That zone, from there up, we pretty much don’t make snow. And that’s what’s exciting about this master plan, is we’re just going up into more of that zone.
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:25.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, but yeah, this, this lift over here, lift number three.
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:35.000
John Paul Bradley: It was a 1978 high-speed detachable platter lift, um, hydraulically driven by a diesel engine, so I think it’s gotta be one of the only in the country like that.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:45.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, it used to run parallel to lift number 1, um, when it was first installed in, in 78, on the run called No Whiners.
00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:50.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, and, and, and.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:44:00.000
John Paul Bradley: in 1983, Lift 1 was installed, and… and really, the… the platter just… it didn’t get used at all. And so, when James bought the property.
00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:05.000
John Paul Bradley: We we took down lift number 3 and installed it.
00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:22.000
John Paul Bradley: where the map shows there, and then we also had picked up a a 1986 riblet triple chair, 90 series from was it Alpine Valley, Wisconsin, and that’s 4, and that’s all tree skiing runs up there.
00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Nice.
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:28.000
John Paul Bradley: And it was interesting. I think maybe in hindsight, we would have swapped those two lifts.
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:29.000
Stuart Winchester: All right.
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:30.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, because we had a…
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:36.000
John Paul Bradley: a really nice lift to get you into advanced terrain, and we have a advanced.
00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:39.000
John Paul Bradley: Surface lift to…
00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:52.000
John Paul Bradley: access beginner runs. Um, and so Ski Santa Fe, they… they replaced their… they… they replaced their Super Chief a couple years ago, and then they took the old Super Chief, and then they reinstalled it.
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:59.000
John Paul Bradley: and took out their Bambi lift, and so we purchased the Bambi lift from them, and installed it here.
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:07.000
John Paul Bradley: with where the… where the platter was. Um, and yeah, the bruisers take great care of their equipment. It…
00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:22.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s an old machine, but we’ve, you know, had it re-engineered and built that last year. Had to be the funnest project I’ve ever done, building a checklist. Absolutely a blast. And what’s so neat about it is now we can get some of those.
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:39.000
John Paul Bradley: folks out of the base area and up into that zone, and it’s just beautiful up there. And we just watched families last year. They get up there, and they just stay up there. In the past, when we built Lift 5 back in 2015.
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.000
John Paul Bradley: And that really helped.
00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:56.000
John Paul Bradley: this lower zone. But what we see is people just they just stay on that cause. Otherwise we have Sassafras and Bambi, which is really just a catwalk service road. It’s really kind of an access route to other trails on the mountain.
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:59.000
John Paul Bradley: And and it’ll just become a luge.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:19.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, and so, by getting them up on this Lift 3 zone, they can now ride it, right? So they’re not scared to go over there. Um, it’s… they’re just gaining skill set, and then they can navigate back down off the mountain. Um, and it’s just… it’s absorbing a whole group of folks that would have just stayed in the base area.
00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:25.000
John Paul Bradley: Or it would have just been congestion on Sassafras and Bambi. So it’s really working out well.
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:28.000
Stuart Winchester: And what made that project so much fun to work on?
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:31.000
John Paul Bradley: Um.
00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:36.000
John Paul Bradley: just working with the engineers.
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:51.000
John Paul Bradley: out there with the surveyors, digging the holes, pouring the concrete, tying the rebar, you know, setting the towers. Just every step of the process was a blast. And just knowing how we were improving the mountain so much.
00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:53.000
John Paul Bradley: At the end of the day, yeah.
00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Had you been as involved with Jackalope, and this is that Lift 5 you were referring to, I believe, and this was a brand new lift, so maybe a little different than taking out an old one, but how did it compare to putting in this lift more than a decade ago?
00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:22.000
John Paul Bradley: The quad there, that was installed when Purgatory did the Legends lift. So it was the same year. And that was a turnkey with Palma.
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:39.000
John Paul Bradley: We worked hand in hand quite a bit with them, but we were, at the same time, we were building Howdy and the Badgers Trail and clearing that lift line corridor. And we had, we were installing snowmaking that year. So we had quite a few things going on.
00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:47.000
John Paul Bradley: So, we’re somewhat involved, but not near as hands on as as with the with Bliff three.
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:57.000
Stuart Winchester: So you got a lot of good experience, and I imagine that you’d have a lot of fun with the expansion if you ever made it. You know, JP, I talk to scary leaders all over the country, and…
00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:09.000
Stuart Winchester: 23 years is a long time to stay at one place, and certainly there are advantages of it, and I get that, and I get the stability. But I also get that.
00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:27.000
Stuart Winchester: there’s opportunities all over the country for this. So I have to imagine, and I’m assuming here, but I have to imagine that you stayed here at Sipapu because you wanted to, and because there’s something about it that appeals to you, but can you articulate that for us? Why have you been there.
00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:34.000
Stuart Winchester: so long? What is it that keeps you there, rather than trying to, I don’t know, go run Taos or something?
00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:45.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, well, I was born and raised in southern Colorado, grew up skiing at Wolf Creek, um, and I worked there in their children’s ski school, and it was a blast.
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:56.000
John Paul Bradley: And, um, went to Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, got a degree in skier operations, and thought I would go back to Wolf Creek. And I appeased my mom, wasn’t gonna be a ski bum.
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:58.000
John Paul Bradley: Uh, and then…
00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:15.000
John Paul Bradley: I, my professor was like, hey, there’s a small skier in New Mexico because I had mentioned like, hey, I want to, I want to do all this. This is so fun. I get it. Oh, I’m learning how to drive cats. I want to do that. I want to work on this. I want to make snow. And he’s like, you got to go find a small ski area that you can do that. And.
00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:20.000
John Paul Bradley: And I met with James and Bruce Bolander, and uh…
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:29.000
John Paul Bradley: At a NSA conference, and I came down here and skied, and James offered me the job, and I was just…
00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:37.000
John Paul Bradley: ecstatic. I was so excited just to be able to go do everything I’d learned in school. Um, and…
00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:45.000
John Paul Bradley: I wasn’t going to, you know, I grew up on a farm, so I’m not raising wheat and alfalfa anymore. Farming still instead.
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:54.000
John Paul Bradley: And at… at some point through the process, yeah, you’re right, it’s great getting the phone call to say, hey, you want to come work here or there? It’s flattering, it’s awesome, it’s…
00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s great to be recognized. And.
00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:01.000
John Paul Bradley: But at some point, I was out there, and I was sitting in a snowcat.
00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:04.000
John Paul Bradley: That I convinced James to let me buy.
00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:10.000
John Paul Bradley: On snow that I’d made with a snow, with the snow gun that I’d bought.
00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:14.000
John Paul Bradley: That ran through pipes that I had buried.
00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:19.000
John Paul Bradley: And it just was, it’s just home. And.
00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:25.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, I I it really is just a special place.
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:31.000
John Paul Bradley: And to be able to stick around somewhere long enough to see the flywheel spin.
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:33.000
John Paul Bradley: is so rewarding.
00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it’s it.
00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:34.000
John Paul Bradley: So.
00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:53.000
Stuart Winchester: just laying out just the high-level changes that I see, right? Because the things that I pointed to, you know, new lifts, snowmaking, that’s what we can see from the sky. But on the ground, I’m sure that that’s just, you know, that’s just the paint on the walls. There’s a lot behind the walls.
00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:57.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, you said you grew up skiing at Wolf Creek, and…
00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:13.000
Stuart Winchester: I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t love Wolf Creek, right? Snowiest ski area in Colorado has some natural blessings that you probably won’t ever have at Sepapu, you know, with the, with the snowfall totals, you’ll get big storms, I’m sure. But, but Wolf Creek just has that little snow pocket.
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:09.000
John Paul Bradley: Oh.
00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:15.000
Stuart Winchester: But there are things that.
00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:22.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, culturally, you can recreate. So, what is it about Wolf Creek, as you think back about.
00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Growing up there, skiing there, why you liked it so much.
00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:31.000
Stuart Winchester: What are the things that you’re trying to make sure Sipapu also is or does?
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:42.000
John Paul Bradley: Yeah, I mean, I feel fortunate to be able to have worked at Wolf Creek with the Pitcher family and Kingsbury and Davey and Roseanne and just.
00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:49.000
John Paul Bradley: they run such a great operation up there. My dad started working there as a lift-off in 1978, and…
00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:51.000
John Paul Bradley: And and so.
00:51:51.000 --> 00:51:55.000
John Paul Bradley: I was up there skiing all the time, and…
00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:58.000
John Paul Bradley: You know, I was trying to figure out, well, what am I going to do?
00:51:58.000 --> 00:51:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:00.000
John Paul Bradley: Uh, and…
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:05.000
John Paul Bradley: When I realized I could turn this into a career.
00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:17.000
John Paul Bradley: my 18-year-old self didn’t realize that Wolf Creek was such a special place, because that’s where I grew up. Little did I know that that is one unique spot.
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:19.000
John Paul Bradley: Um, but…
00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:23.000
John Paul Bradley: It’s also ran very well, and…
00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:32.000
John Paul Bradley: I think that’s where my takeaway is, is being able to have a quality product that.
00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:38.000
John Paul Bradley: you’re able to pass on your passion of the sport.
00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:49.000
John Paul Bradley: through the products you create to others, and to be able to see them, those other folks. In my role, being able to watch a family.
00:52:49.000 --> 00:53:01.000
John Paul Bradley: for the first time doing something, and a group of local kids just having a great time in the park, and just all the different experiences that we get to create as operators is really neat. And…
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:09.000
John Paul Bradley: And I was able to kind of see some of that at Wolf Creek, and I think that’s what I…
00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:24.000
John Paul Bradley: try really hard to do is to be able to create experiences for folks. Or, you know, even when we’re up there working on tree runs and stuff, we’re just looking at how they could ski and envisioning how others are going to enjoy it. And I think that’s just.
00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:40.000
John Paul Bradley: That’s so fun. You work through something, and then you make something better. Well, now you’ve made a bottleneck somewhere else. Then you get to go work through that, and then you fix that. It’s this constantly evolving thing. You never get tired of it.
00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, the last piece of that, I guess, is, you know, Wolf Creek, as you mentioned, is run by the Pritchards, and the Pritchard family also owns Discovery up in Montana, but I don’t think they, like, run them together. I think it’s sort of a coincidence, like, you know, you and your uncle both own cars or whatever.
00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:58.000
Stuart Winchester: So, uh, you know.
00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Has it been challenging to recreate that magic being part of a bigger company? I realize you weren’t for the first, you know, 8 years or so that you were the general manager there, or has that…
00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:18.000
Stuart Winchester: So, not been an issue, really, as far as keeping the individual identity while you’re part of a bigger company.
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:36.000
John Paul Bradley: That’s funny. I was like, wait, I am part of a bigger company. You’re right. Yeah, absolutely. Right. That is wonderful. That has been a great resource for all the small areas that MCP is working with and keeping going.
00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:28.000
Stuart Winchester: That answers the question, I think.
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:42.000
John Paul Bradley: right, and infusing capital into, like, that’s huge. Um, but…
00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:58.000
John Paul Bradley: every resort you’ve ever skied at has its own personality. And and that’s Sipapu right? We have our own personality, and that’s not changing. As is, you know, the personality of Paharito, or Sandy, or Snowbowl, or Willamette. So it’s.
00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:03.000
John Paul Bradley: We all still have our own personality.
00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Love it. Alright, JP, I think I’ve taken enough of your time today, but thank you so much, and best of luck as you move through this process. I know it’s a lot of…
00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, paperwork, but it, but it seems like you have a good, uh, perspective where you’re able to see what it is in the end and, and appreciate that. So, so best of luck to you and, uh, and hopefully I can get out there and ski at some point because I’ve not skied a sea papu and I, I think I’m overdue.
00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:14.000
John Paul Bradley: Mm-hmm.
00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:32.000
John Paul Bradley: I think you should come enjoy all of New Mexico. So.
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thanks, JP. Really appreciate your time.
01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was John Paul Bradley, General Manager of CPAPU New Mexico. That was awesome. Thank you so much for that, JP. Really appreciate it. That is… I can’t believe the number of expansions that MCP has either done.
01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Or has in the works. So I hope they can get it through the process. I know they’ve been working on that one for a long, long time. All right, let’s get some reaction to my podcast last Thursday with James Early, CEO of Curia Financial, which he was changing the name to Alpine House Research.
01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Maybe that’s done by now, but we talked about Bear Resorts stock. So let’s get some reader reaction to that. And again, paid subscribers can respond to these articles on stormskiing.com and I will read them on the pod.
01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Some of them.
01:02:49.000 --> 01:03:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Mimi Ma says, given that most of the resorts for the lift ticket price graph are destination resorts, perhaps Alta should be included instead of Sunlight. The full price for Alta seems to be $203 non-peak and $224 peak. Yeah, I don’t know, Mimi, those are just the prices I grabbed.
01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, that I have so far, and I think I looked at sunlight because it happened to be there when I looked up something else, and I just threw it on there. So there really wasn’t any…
01:03:17.000 --> 01:03:34.000
Stuart Winchester: any reasoning there, but yeah, Alta’s definitely getting expensive. Uh, Scott Abraham says, on the Indy announcement, brilliant move for the exact reasons you delineate. 70 bucks a day for quality hills is a good deal. It makes longer visits more attractive for those who don’t wander around in a van like me.
01:03:34.000 --> 01:03:44.000
Stuart Winchester: If I didn’t already have something like 20 tickets in the Okanagan between Icon and Indy, I’d buy it just for Big White. Same for McCall with Brundage and Tamarack, yeah, for sure.
01:03:46.000 --> 01:04:02.000
Stuart Winchester: River Rogue says, P.S. had a wonderful time at Castle 20 years ago. Undiscovered, uncrowded, and great terrain and very affordable. I think the main lift was a T-bar with a very long ride time of, like, 20 minutes. James Early said, I skied Castle a few years ago. Low snow year, but still a ton of fun.
01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:19.000
Stuart Winchester: River Rogue says, don’t diss my favorite stock, BRK. Bought many moons or decades ago. No diff, but it just floats up and up between periods of nothing. My hold period is forever. Thank you, Warren and Charlie. Now for something else.
01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:28.000
Stuart Winchester: A friend’s dad was a Wall Street pro. He bought BRK as an IPO, held it for a year, doubled his money, and sold all of it. Tears come to my eyes.
01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:43.000
Stuart Winchester: James Early replied, I’m a long-term Berkshire holder as well, have gone to every meeting since 2018, more than BRK’s 5 million percent return since 1965. Warren and Charlie have made an immense contribution to investing in business culture.
01:04:43.000 --> 01:04:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Can’t replace the irreplaceable.
01:04:46.000 --> 01:05:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Lane David said, just finished watching the interview with James Early. Excellent interview, and I say that as a PhD economist, avid skier, and avid Graham and Dodd investor who owns a small MTN position. Thank you, and keep up the great work. Safe travels. Thank you all.
01:05:01.000 --> 01:05:07.000
Stuart Winchester: very much for those comments. And also, I wanted to add one more thing, because I…
01:05:07.000 --> 01:05:17.000
Stuart Winchester: when I introduced on that podcast the Indie Destination add-on, I was very dismissive of Castle Mountain in Alberta, and that wasn’t intentional.
01:05:17.000 --> 01:05:27.000
Stuart Winchester: it was because of the way that the map is set up, and I was reading fast. For some reason, I mistook Castle for some of the southern BC ski areas.
01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Like, Sasquatch, and that…
01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:39.000
Stuart Winchester: wouldn’t have been a great addition to the Destination Pass. Not that it’s a bad mountain, it’s just not necessarily a destination, so as soon as I…
01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:43.000
Stuart Winchester: processed what Castle was.
01:05:43.000 --> 01:05:44.000
Stuart Winchester: I…
01:05:44.000 --> 01:05:53.000
Stuart Winchester: regretted saying don’t bother with it. So, Castle is a great mountain, it’s huge, lots of great terrain, and they actually refurbished an old high-speed quad.
01:05:53.000 --> 01:06:05.000
Stuart Winchester: there from one of the Banff Mountains just a couple years ago, so it’s a… it’s a good, big mountain that’s getting better and doesn’t have the volume like the Banff ski areas. Alright, that will be our show for today.
01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, next up, we have lots of good stuff coming this week. I will have Whistler President Belinda Trimbath. I’m actually recording that today, and we’ll get that to you tomorrow. Later on this week, I will have…
01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Rick Schmitz.
01:06:22.000 --> 01:06:36.000
Stuart Winchester: everyone knows Rick, who’s in the Midwest. He runs 3 ski areas, uh, Little Switzerland, Nordic Mountain, and Crystal Ridge, and those were the 3 that I referenced at the beginning of the pod. I joined the Icon Pass bonus tier, so I’m gonna get the scoop.
01:06:36.000 --> 01:06:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Please go to StormSkiing.com and subscribe to the Storm Skiing Newsletter to get all of those conversations and everything I write the moment it is live.
01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:50.000
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Stuart Winchester: Until next time, stay well, stay safe. I’m Stuart Winchester, and I’ll talk to you again very soon.
