Welcome to the Storm’s short-form, news-focused podcast. Don’t worry, I still write long-form newsletters. Paid subscribers can leave a comment in the article below, or by joining The Storm’s chat (also below). I’ll respond to some comments in the next episode, which is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 16.
Transcript update
Following up on yesterday’s feedback, there are now two transcripts available for each podcast:
Substack’s transcript: This transcript is auto-generated when I upload the podcast file to Substack, which is the platform that hosts stormskiing.com. This one is cool because you can click on any block of text and the audio will jump to that point in the conversation. Click the “transcript” button above to access.
Zoom’s transcript: Zoom automatically generates this transcript as I record. It should be more or less identical to Substack’s transcript, but with names attached to each quote block. The downside of this transcript is that you can’t teleport to that point in the pod by clicking on the text block, as you can with Substack’s. Another downside: the timestamps are off, since I typically start recording prior to the start of the podcast. I’ll work on cleaning this up.
So until the robots get smarter, we’re stuck with two different transcripts. Both are auto-generated, and I don’t proofread either one, as that would be the fastest way to make sure my quick-turnaround, up-to-date podcast turns into a slow-turnaround, out-of-date one. My hope is that Substack will soon hire or invent or weld from raw iron a robot that’s smart enough to know who’s speaking when. I’ll just keep following the robots around and using their hyper-intelligence until they decide to kill me.
The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)
Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I’m your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, and I am very excited today to bring you a conversation with the General Manager of Monarch Mountain, Colorado, Chris Haggerty. Now, I’ve never featured Monarch either on the long-form pod or on the short-form pod.
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Stuart Winchester: There’s never really a reason behind that, other than this is just kind of when it happened. If you run an area, a ski area anywhere in America, I do want to talk to you. I’ve just never had the opportunity to feature Monarch before, so we will talk about Monarch in just a little bit here.
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Stuart Winchester: Part of the reason why we’re talking about Monarch is because they were one of two Western Mountains to this year join Snow Operating’s Snow Pass. Now, the Snow Pass, if you missed the news, it works a lot like the Indy Pass or the Mountain Collective Pass, where you get two days each.
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Stuart Winchester: at a set number of ski areas. In this case, it’s planned to be 14 ski areas for the 2026-27 ski season. And…
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Stuart Winchester: That product went on sale last Tuesday. I had Snow Operating CEO Joe Heschen on the podcast to talk through it with us.
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Stuart Winchester: Couple days later, I got an email from Snow Operating saying, Hey, guess what? Our first round of Snow Operating and Snow Triple Play, which are two different products, and I’ll explain the difference in a moment, sold out. So we’re taking it off sale. We’re putting it back on sale next Monday, September 21st.
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Stuart Winchester: at 10 a.m. Eastern. It will be $349.99 for Snowpass, and $184.99 for Snow Triple Play. Still a pretty good deal. Those products at full price.
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Stuart Winchester: the prices that Snow Partners gave me, and they anticipate selling both products through Christmas Eve, December 24th, just like they did last year with the first season of the Triple Play.
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Stuart Winchester: They, the final prices they anticipate will be 3 99 99 for snow pass and 1 99 99 for snow triple play. So you get a nice little discount, particularly with the snow pass, $50 off if you buy it in the next round. So let’s talk a little bit about the snow pass because.
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Stuart Winchester: When this product debuted.
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Stuart Winchester: I… I’ve been saying for years, there’s 4 national ski passes, right? There’s obviously Epic and Icon, and those have some season pass unlimited tiers at certain mountains.
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Stuart Winchester: And a limited number of days at other partner mountains. And then you have Indian Mountain Collective, which essentially worked the same way, 2 days at each ski area that is on their roster. Uh, Mountain Collective is more expensive, tends to be your bigger, more high-end resorts, Snowbird, Jackson Hole.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, Sun Peaks up in Canada. And Indy tended to be the lesser-known ski areas, but still some really dynamite stuff there, and a lot more ski areas. Mountain Collective always has around 30, and Indy is more like 250, not counting their cross-country.
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Stuart Winchester: ski areas. So, I always thought there was probably room for a fifth national pass, but I wasn’t sure, and as time went on, and more and more mountains joined multi-mountain passes.
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Stuart Winchester: I…
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Stuart Winchester: I thought, okay, maybe there’s not room for a fifth national pass. Maybe everyone who’s…
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Stuart Winchester: who wants to join a pass has, because I know Indy, uh.
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Stuart Winchester: Now, I’m not saying they don’t have standards, but they’ll let just about anybody on the pass just to help them get that exposure and that national marketing. But Snow Operating, the outfit that owns Mountain Creek in New Jersey and the indoor big snow ski area in New Jersey, they launched.
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Stuart Winchester: their Snow Pass, and it’s a pretty good roster. Here, I’m gonna share my screen for those of you watching on video, and if you’re not watching on video, don’t worry, I’m gonna talk through it. So, here’s the Snow Triple Play East roster, and here’s the Snow Pass roster. Now, the Snow Pass has 14 ski areas on it.
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Stuart Winchester: And you get 2 days at each ski area.
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Stuart Winchester: The Snow Triple Play has…
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Stuart Winchester: 23 total ski areas on it, and you get 3 days total.
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Stuart Winchester: across all 23 ski areas. That’s why it’s so much less expensive. The most days you can use at any ski area is 2, so you can’t buy this as a 3-pack Force A Gore Mountain, alright? So, that’s the first important.
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Stuart Winchester: distinction is that Snow Triple Play is a much more limited basket of days. You also don’t want to assume that they have the same roster. Just because something’s on Snow Pass doesn’t mean it’s on Snow Triple Play, and vice versa. Snow Triple Play right now has a pretty…
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Stuart Winchester: Big roster that I wish was on the, uh, Snow Pass, because it has Jiminy Peak in, uh, Massachusetts, and also Cranmore in New Hampshire, which is jointly owned. It has Platykill up in the New York Catskills.
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Stuart Winchester: It has all these summit ski areas around Quebec. It has Bromont, one of the great eastern townships ski areas. Uh, so that’s Snow Triple Play. Snow Triple Play does not have anything in the west. It’s all east. It’s all east coast, either eastern Canada or eastern New York.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, Snow Pass has… it’s a pretty interesting roster, and it’s a great roster for a very particular type of skier. Now, it does have two ski areas in the West, uh, Snow King, which has been controversial, I’m gonna set that aside, and Monarch, which we’ll talk about in a moment.
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Stuart Winchester: The core of the Snow Pass, and the reason why it makes sense, is because of the south to north line of ski areas that it offers. So if you buy the Snow Pass, again, goes back on sale for $349.99 next Monday, September 21st.
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Stuart Winchester: You would get two days each at Bel Air, which is in New York’s Catskills.
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Stuart Winchester: Gore.
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Stuart Winchester: higher up in the Adirondacks, and Whiteface, which are all owned and run and operated by the state, all fantastic ski areas. So it’s 2 days at each of those, that alone would be worth $350.
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Stuart Winchester: Then you add in the fact that you get two days at Mountain Creek, which is right there in New Jersey, uh, two days at the indoor snow dome, big snow American dream. Uh, if you have kids, two days at Butternut and two days at Mount Southington in Connecticut. Uh, Butternut is in Massachusetts. They’re both day drive distance from New York City.
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Stuart Winchester: Let them wander around, let them explore. They’re both, uh, especially Butternut. It’s very up-to-date, very modern lifts, very, very well-run ski area. So…
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Stuart Winchester: You have a really great little, you know.
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Stuart Winchester: 5, 6, 7 ski areas that really make sense. Now, Ski Martok doesn’t really make sense. It’s all the way up in the middle of nowhere in the, in the Atlantic provinces in, in Canada. Uh, and, and Pleasant Mountain makes less sense. It’s, it’s up in Maine and, uh, harder to get to from, from the folks who would likely buy this as.
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Stuart Winchester: But what you have to ask yourself is, okay, the snow pass, that’s a pretty good deal, right? It’s $349.99 for 2 days each of 14 mountains. Then you look at Indy.
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Stuart Winchester: And Indy Pass is 254.
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Stuart Winchester: uh, alpine ski areas, and it just went off sale for $429 for the base pass. So, it would be 2 days each at all of these, and the… the plus pass, the ND plus pass, was $469. It had no blackouts. Now, the other thing to know about Snow Triple Play.
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Stuart Winchester: and snow passes, there are a lot of blackouts, okay? So, a lot of these are holidays, you probably expect that. Uh, you know, here I see Big Snow, Oak Mountain, Plattekill, a lot of holiday blackouts, Butternut holiday blackouts, Gore, uh, Bel Air. Bel Air, though, you want to stop.
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Stuart Winchester: Bel Air is blacked out every Saturday and Sunday. That’s a big deal, because when do you probably want to go to Bel Air if you’re someone skiing around with your little kids? Probably on a Saturday or Sunday. So, you want to be really careful and really look at these, uh, these blackout dates before you pull the trigger.
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Stuart Winchester: on the snow pass. So…
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Stuart Winchester: So if you have a snow pass, I I’m calling it.
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Stuart Winchester: A national pass, kind of, uh…
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Stuart Winchester: out of anticipation, right? It’s more of a, I think they’ll get there, sort of designation, because right now.
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Stuart Winchester: it’s not really a national pass, right? You have one small skier in Wyoming, one small skier in Colorado. Is someone who lives in New York’s metro really going to travel to Colorado just to ski that because they have a snow pass, right? Because it’s not cheap to get up to Colorado.
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Stuart Winchester: And there’s a lot of much bigger mountains out there. So… so I think that Snow Pass, much like Indy did when it started in 2019, will grow into a national… a true national pass. Uh, for now, just based on the reputation of the operators, uh, the fact that I think that they will be able to grow this thing, the fact that I…
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Stuart Winchester: know their relationships with folks all around the country, and how much folks like working with them, I am assuming that this pass will grow up, and if it does, Monarch will be the OG Western partner. So, let’s talk more about Monarch now, and I’m gonna bring.
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Stuart Winchester: Chris Haggerty in.
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Stuart Winchester: And we will, uh… Chris, how you doing?
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Chris Haggerty: I’m doing well today, Stuart. How are you?
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Stuart Winchester: I’m doing great. All right, you passed the sound check, so I’m going to give you an intro here. Joining us now is the general manager of Monarch Mountain, Colorado. Monarch has six chairlifts serving 1,017 acres of terrain, including the 377-acre no-name expansion that opened last winter.
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Stuart Winchester: Monarch’s 10,727-foot base elevation is the third highest in American skiing.
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Stuart Winchester: Prior to taking the top job at Monarch in 2024, he spent 21 years as general manager of Mountain Creek, New Jersey. Chris Haggerty is my guest. Chris, welcome to The Storm. Awesome to connect with you. I’ve really been wanting to spotlight Monarch for a long time now, and I’m so hyped we get to.
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Chris Haggerty: Yeah. Thanks for having me, and I’m excited to be here and chat Monarch. It’s a special place, so excited to share some discussion about it.
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Stuart Winchester: So, the New Jersey to Colorado pipeline is maybe not necessarily a well-trod one, although there are a surprising amount of IntraWest vets working in the ski industry because of its relationship with IntraWest, but talk to us about…
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Stuart Winchester: Getting to Monarch, and you were taking over for Randy Stroud, super experienced guy, he was retiring, uh, he’d been there 23 years, a decade as GM, and he stayed on, I believe, for, for a year. So, talk to us about going from New Jersey, where they have a lot of snowmaking, because they have to.
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Chris Haggerty: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: to Monarch, where they have no snowmaking, and just what that adjustment period was like, and how you settled into the role.
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Chris Haggerty: Yeah, just a quick story is that, you know, as you mentioned, I was at Mountain Creek for a long time, and, you know, really where I found my love for the ski industry, and after college, I had taken a trip out to Colorado and got my first taste of, like.
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Chris Haggerty: the Rockies, right? So it’s always been something in the back of my mind. Um…
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Chris Haggerty: And I ended up stumbling upon Monarch. I hadn’t been to Monarch before, and I was like, oh, this place looks pretty cool. It definitely screamed the ski independent. I definitely wanted to.
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Chris Haggerty: you know, if I was going to relocate, wanted to find an area where the resort and the local community both had that kind of just feeling of community and stuff. So a monarch was it. And I was blessed to step in after Randy Stroud, and we shared a season together. So I got to learn a lot of institutional knowledge from him.
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Chris Haggerty: Um, but also bring my viewpoints coming from New Jersey in an area where, you know, we’re not…
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Chris Haggerty: maybe blessed with natural snow. Um, so last year was, like, a challenging winter, and, um, I was ready for it, because I was like, man, 120 inches, like, if you gave me that in New Jersey, we’d be celebrating for years, right? So, um, you know, just kind of a unique perspective, but…
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Chris Haggerty: um, definitely happy to be here, and just pumped to keep the Monarch kind of spirit going forward.
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Stuart Winchester: So you’ve been there for a couple years, one full year as GM, and one of the… there’s been tons of stuff coming out of Monarch, it’s amazing for a small ski area, which is why I wanted to get you on. So you recently joined the Snow Pass, one of two Western partners to join the Snow Pass, which gives pass holders.
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Chris Haggerty: Thank you.
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Stuart Winchester: Two days at Monarch. I don’t think there’s blackouts on that, but correct me if I’m wrong now. Now, Multimon Pass has been around for years and almost everybody in Colorado is on either Epic or Icon if they’re large and if they’re small, a lot of them have joined Indy. So the option has been there for years.
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Stuart Winchester: Why was it finally time for Monarch to join a multi-mountain pass, and why the snow pass?
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Chris Haggerty: Yeah, two parts there. I think on the, I mentioned it before, we’re ski independent as our tagline, right? Part of independence is like the definition is freedom.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Chris Haggerty: Right? Like, you make your own choices. You do what you wanna do.
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Chris Haggerty: we’ve been approached in the past for IndyPass, and, you know, it wasn’t right for us because it kind of went against our spirit of being independent. Like, we want to be able to work with who we…
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Chris Haggerty: who we choose at any given moment, um, and that just isn’t something that, um, is available through the Unipass, so… so we’ve passed on that. Um, we were even approached about it this year. Um…
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Chris Haggerty: As far as Snowpass goes, they respect that. They’re all about, hey, you want to work with XYZ Pass, go for it. And obviously, I’ve spent some time working with the Snow Partners group.
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Chris Haggerty: You know, from my perspective, that group is all about, um…
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Chris Haggerty: you know, rising tides lifts all boats, right? And, um, you know, for me personally, they’ve opened doors for me, right? And helped me throughout growing in my career, so, um…
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Chris Haggerty: We’re down.
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Stuart Winchester: I want to share, because you’ve sort of created your own… I’m sharing my screen now, if you can see that, and hopefully the folks watching can as well, and if you’re listening, I’ll talk through it. So, Monarch has…
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Chris Haggerty: Thank you.
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Stuart Winchester: not joined a pass, necessarily, but you’ve kind of built your own pass, and what I have on the screen right now is a list of Monarch’s reciprocals, and it’s a pretty amazing pass all in and of itself, so if you buy a Monarch season pass, which I believe now is, what, $6.59, less if you renew.
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Stuart Winchester: It comes with a lot of reciprocal days. Some of the big ones that people probably are really attracted to, 3 days at A-Basin, 3 days at Copper. Now there’s blackouts on that, but still, it’s freaking Copper Mountain. Uh, 3 days at Purgatory. And then, uh, 3 days each at all of the Mountain Capital Partners-owned skiers, which Purgatory.
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Chris Haggerty: Mm-hmm.
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Chris Haggerty: I’ll do that.
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Chris Haggerty: Yes.
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Stuart Winchester: Also, Arizona Snowball. And there’s a bunch more. I don’t want to list them all, given our time constraints here today. But talk about this reciprocal program, because essentially, you’re saying you’re going to give pass holders of all these mountains.
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Chris Haggerty: Yes.
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Chris Haggerty: Sure.
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Stuart Winchester: free visits to Monarch in exchange for your pass holders getting free visits there, so…
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Chris Haggerty: Oh.
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Chris Haggerty: Yes.
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Stuart Winchester: whatever you did or didn’t like about IndyPass, it does pay per visit, so what was attractive about.
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Chris Haggerty: Just a second.
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Stuart Winchester: this, and why did it make sense to do these free visit exchanges with other ski areas?
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Chris Haggerty: We look at it as other skiers are not our competition, right? There’s 350 million people roughly in the United States. Less than 5% actually ski or snowboard, right? So there’s a lot of people out there that just need to be introduced into the sport.
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Chris Haggerty: Um…
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Chris Haggerty: rather than trying to fight for visits between resorts. So… so one of the things is just…
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Chris Haggerty: How do we get more people skiing and snowboarding, which is obviously a huge conversation you could talk about forever. But with this one, it’s just like, hey, these are other resorts that are interested in also giving their pass holders as well as ours.
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Chris Haggerty: allow our pass holders to try each out while still knowing that, like most people that have a copper pass, they’re not migrating to Monarch because they came here for two days.
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Chris Haggerty: they’re bought a Copper Pass for a reason, they love that, and they’re like, yeah, if I could get two days over at Monarch, cool. Same thing with our Monarch guests, like, they… they… they love Monarch, they want most of their days to be here, and if we could break it up for them, um, you know, a couple times a year, or they could go to A-Basin and Copper, then.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
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Chris Haggerty: That adds a lot of value to them and gives them that flexibility to move around and go where it works for them.
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Stuart Winchester: You know, Monarch is small by Colorado standards, but it always surprised me to see that it actually does have a pseudo national following. And I get emails from people all over the country that say they buy the Monarch Pass because it gives them all those reciprocals and they come out and they like to support the small ski area.
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Stuart Winchester: I want to get your take on something here, Chris. I’m going to share my screen again, and I want to share a chart that I made.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh, so, so this is a chart of Monarch’s skier visits since 1997, up to 2024 to 25, right? And I’ve compiled these from all kinds of different places, and I have a little bit of a gap there. But as you, as you see right here, they’ve been going steadily up, right?
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Stuart Winchester: So, so you were averaging below $200,000 for most of the, of the 2010s, you know, much lower some years, and now you’re pretty steadily adding, averaging over $200,000. Now, last year, I don’t have your numbers, I’m, I’m sure that they were, uh, pretty bad, but.
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Stuart Winchester: You know, in relation to what your past numbers were.
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Stuart Winchester: So here’s my question.
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Stuart Winchester: Monarch was supposed to be one of the ski areas that got squeezed out by Epic, squeezed out by Icon. That was one of the big worries. Uh, independent ski areas can’t compete. We’re seeing the opposite, because I’ve put some things on this timeline.
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Stuart Winchester: So, for example, 2007, IntraWest buys Steamboat. Uh, 2008, the Epic Pass launches. 2009, Powder buys Copper. Uh, the Mountain Collective launched in 2012. Uh, Mountain Capital Partners bought Purgatory in 2015. Powder bought Eldora the following year.
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Stuart Winchester: Uh In 2017, Alterra combined Steamboat and Winter Park in 2018, they launched the icon pass. Uh And then we had the 20% epic price cut in 2022. So all these things you think, ok, Vale and Alterra putting their mountains on sale. These are big world famous mountains, Steamboat Vale Mountain.
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Stuart Winchester: Monarch must be getting crushed. No, it’s not. Why?
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Chris Haggerty: I think it’s a couple of reasons. Number one is we’ve just stayed true to who we are. And as the population has grown in the front range, like since 2010, Denver and Colorado Springs have grown by about 20%.
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Chris Haggerty: Right? So there’s just more people, um, that are finding Monarch, and they’re, they’re like, wow, we like this, this is what we want. You know, you also throw in the fact that, um, I-70, for those in Colorado, are pretty familiar with, like, the traffic that is.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Chris Haggerty: created there on the weekends and it’s not for everybody. So thankfully the drive to Monarch currently is a pretty attractive one, a lot less traffic. And I give credit to our ownership group, our current ownership group. They bought the resort in.
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Chris Haggerty: 2002. And part of it was, you know, a little bit of a passion project. Right? Like, they had come here and just really liked the vibe at Monarch and and wanted to protect that. And what they’ve been able to do is, number one, protect it.
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Chris Haggerty: Um, by not selling, you know, to, to one of the larger players, um, to just investing into our, our core, um, like deferred maintenance projects and those types of things, and then being really committed to the no name project, which we talked about and, and making sure timing was right on that and.
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Chris Haggerty: Um, that we were a healthy company before we jumped into that, so we didn’t need a lifeline from, you know, someone else. So, um, there’s kind of a lot of pieces that go into it. Um, and it’s also worth noting that, like, our pass holders, like, and I think this goes to the growth, like, once people find us.
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:25.000
Chris Haggerty: Um, our pass holder, uh, renewal rate is about 85% every year. Um, and the industry standard, depending on where you, you know, who you ask, it’s somewhere between, like, 55% and 62%.
00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:42.000
Chris Haggerty: Um, and, and most of the 15% that we lose as we’ve dug into it is because of, uh, we have a lot of season pass holders from Fort Carson, um, military base outside of Colorado Springs, and they’ve just moved out of the area, right? So, um, I think our growth is partly due to, like.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:49.000
Chris Haggerty: Once people come here and they discover it and they love it and they just keep coming back and we’re just building upon that.
00:30:49.000 --> 00:31:06.000
Stuart Winchester: So you have owners that are willing to invest and that’s really important. And Randy Stroud, I interviewed him, not on the podcast, but just for an article a couple of years ago. And he told me, and I’m not sure if this ended up being true, but their intention was to pay for the entire no name expansion in cash, including a brand new SkyTrak.
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:22.000
Stuart Winchester: triple chair, or Doppelmayr, I can’t remember what it was offhand, but regardless, it spoke to a very stable operation. Now, meanwhile, you still have some pretty old lifts, some pretty old infrastructure on the front side of the mountain, and recently Monarch’s.
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Master Development Plan was accepted by the U.S. Forest Service, which, for the listeners, just means that they said, okay, we’ll let you consider doing these things on a project-by-project basis in the future. I have a lot of questions about the Master Plan, but first.
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:52.000
Stuart Winchester: I want to focus on one that you called out, that Monarch Mountain called out in its first blog post announcing acceptance of the Master Plan, and it was about snowmaking. And Dan Torsell, the longtime GM of Ski Cooper, told me a long time ago when he came on this pod that.
00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:04.000
Stuart Winchester: that Ski Cooper and Monarch were the only big lift-surf ski areas in Colorado that don’t have snowmaking. I think Silverton is too, but that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. So, uh, you have it in your master development plan.
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:19.000
Stuart Winchester: to a sort of rudimentary snowmaking system that would allow you to open early. But, this is a quote from your blog, quote, Before anyone panics when they read about snowmaking, let me assure you that Monarch is committed to remaining 100% all natural.
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Snowmaking has been a part of our previous MDPs, Master Development Plan, and we have chosen not to implement it as we truly believe that natural snow provides the best skiing experience. This continues to be the case as snowmaking is in the plan to cover all bases, but we will not implement anything unless Mother Nature gives us no other choice.
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Care to expand upon that at all?
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:53.000
Chris Haggerty: Definitely. And yeah, and we are committed to that. And I actually, last summer, I spoke in front of some of the locals and pass holders, and when I let them know that we were committed to.
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Or elaborate.
00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:09.000
Chris Haggerty: 100% all natural. That was the loudest cheer we got all day. So, like, that’s what our, that’s what our guests want. That’s what we want. Um, as far that, you know, snowmaking has come a long way, and, and it is a necessity for a bunch of resorts.
00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:19.000
Chris Haggerty: Um, we’re not at that point, um, and we’re gonna push as far as we can, um, leaning into, like, snow farming and everything else before we ever, um.
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:35.000
Chris Haggerty: have snow… have snowmaking. But, you know, in the Master Development Plan, it’s in there because, like, part of putting things into that document is because it’s a conceptual document. It’s, like, it’s designed to be a 15-year document. If it’s not in there.
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:51.000
Chris Haggerty: The Forest Service really doesn’t even consider something. So if 15 years from now we’re like, we need to put snowmaking in and it’s not in there, we’d have some challenges. I will say our base elevation being basically 10,800 feet.
00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:02.000
Chris Haggerty: has helped us out, right? Like, as weather patterns has changed, and temperatures have rised, and winters are, you know, different every year, um…
00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:13.000
Chris Haggerty: we’ve been pretty lucky because of that base elevation, where we’re… we are seeing snow, where other resorts are seeing some of that other precipitation falling, right? So, um…
00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:30.000
Chris Haggerty: you know, and then I mentioned the snow farming, like, we’re… we’re gonna do everything we can, like, on that side of things, right? And that’s all the way from, like, fences strategically placed throughout the mountain, whether they’re permanent or temporary, to catch the snow when the winds are coming from whatever direction.
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:47.000
Chris Haggerty: And we do early season, we take the snow in the parking lots and we plow it all up and get it into one of the corners and then our groomers take it from there and start to build our base in the base area. So we have some different techniques to try to insulate us as much as possible.
00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:53.000
Chris Haggerty: And we’re going to keep going that way as long as Mother Nature allows us to.
00:34:53.000 --> 00:35:09.000
Stuart Winchester: So snowmaking, it sounds like, is Monarch’s emergency parachute. Meanwhile, there are a lot of big chairlift upgrades outlined on the master development plan. So Monarch has had substantially the same footprint for decades until last season’s snowmaking upgrade.
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:24.000
Stuart Winchester: And like I said before, more and more skier visits, and you were still running, with the exception of the 1999 Pioneer lift, the quad that was put in, with a lot of older double chairs. So Breezeway is a 1968 hall, Garfield is a 1969 hall, Panorama is a 1980 hall.
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Tumbling as a 1981 hall. Those are all doubles. Now they’ve all gotten new drive terminals. So I understand they’re, they’re more modern in their actual functioning than, than in their look. However, the capacity is probably not a whole lot more than maybe it would have been. The master development plan proposes.
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Replacing all of these with.
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:54.000
Stuart Winchester: is advanced of a lift as a high-speed quad. Now, I realize you wanna… maybe the same reason as somebody… you say high-speed quad because you can always take it down, easier to go down than up, but talk us through…
00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Stuart Winchester: your lift upgrade plan, and whether you think that high speed would be good for Monarch, or if you think that maybe fixed grip is the way you want to stay.
00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Chris Haggerty: Yeah, fixed script is, you know.
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:24.000
Chris Haggerty: Well, let me back up. A lot of that is in there because it’s got to be in there if we choose to do that. And with no name opening, there’s a lot of unknowns as far as, like, how is that going to change skier traffic around the mountain, right?
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:41.000
Chris Haggerty: One of the things we worked with the SE group, so they’re, you know, a company that helps ski areas, right, with all sorts of development projects, big and small. And one of the things that they do is they do this density analysis, right? And it’s a complicated, you know.
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Chris Haggerty: Analysis that takes on a lot of different data, but basically it’s like they look at your uphill capacity based on the speed of the lift, the size of the lift, the length of the trip up, the time, and then what terrain it accesses from that lift.
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:14.000
Chris Haggerty: And, like, an optimal score where, like, you have, like, perfect harmony from uphill and downhill is, like, a hundred percent. If you’re below that, you’re actually putting fewer people up the hill, that the downhill terrain can handle.
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:34.000
Chris Haggerty: Monarch, in our current state, sits at a 56%. So basically, like, when you ski the runs at Monarch, even on our busiest day, because of the capacity that we have at our lifts, like, you have, like, semi-private runs, right? If we were to do all of our lift upgrades in the 2025 MDP.
00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:49.000
Chris Haggerty: we would actually get to an 84% density analysis. So even still, you wouldn’t feel overcrowded on the runs. So knowing that, we’re like, wow, well, we don’t need to right away push for any kind of high speed lifts.
00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:58.000
Chris Haggerty: Um, and in fact, again, things that our guests like about them is twofold. Number one, it’s like…
00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:11.000
Chris Haggerty: that slow metering from a fixed grip lift just adds, like, this extra time, right? Like, part of why we ski and snowboard is because we like to just disconnect, right, from reality for a little while and, like, be out in nature and, like.
00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:21.000
Chris Haggerty: you know, our guests like taking a step back and slowing things down here, and it feels like things are just moving a little slower. And second, one thing that we feel is like a…
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:36.000
Chris Haggerty: a strong differentiator for us is, um, having a fixed grip lift. Our lift operators have to be at, like, the load point, and, um, you know, bumping the chairs and helping our guests on, and.
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Chris Haggerty: It’s this, like, human interaction piece that, like.
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:56.000
Chris Haggerty: You don’t get everywhere else, especially with some of the newer lifts where, you know, it’s everything’s so automated, um, which has its value, but for us, again, with who Monarch is and taking that step back in time a little bit like that, that face-to-face interaction.
00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:14.000
Chris Haggerty: like, so many of our reviews are constantly calling out our lift operators, like, oh, yeah, I remember so-and-so, like, he’s awesome, he helped me on, or he just said hello, or he remembered what kind of skis I’m wearing, or told me about this secret powder stash, which… another benefit of a slower uphill capacity is, like.
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:23.000
Chris Haggerty: Monarch, even though it’s smaller in size, doesn’t get tracked out. Like, you get powder turns at the end of the day on a powder day.
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:34.000
Stuart Winchester: So the, I’m gonna share my screen to, to talk about this next bit. So those are the lift upgrades that you’re proposing. There’s also two, and I’m, I, so for those watching.
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:49.000
Stuart Winchester: On YouTube or stormskiing.com, I have the master development plan, conceptual plan up. There’s also two infill lifts. Okay, so there would be this planned NNB lift, which is a redundant lift in the No Name Basin expansion. This is the new lift that opened last year. And then there’s this…
00:39:49.000 --> 00:40:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Plan, divide, express. So, again, it’s two more lifts on the same footprint. And I didn’t see in the master plan, maybe I missed it, that you do have all this cat skiing terrain over here, so…
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:10.000
Stuart Winchester: So, talk us through the logic of putting in more lists to serve the same amount of terrain, and if you’ve considered.
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:18.000
Stuart Winchester: moving lift surf skiing into the cat skiing, as Targi did with its peaked mountain expansion a couple of years ago.
00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:37.000
Chris Haggerty: Yeah, so no name is actually was a part of our cat skiing terrain. So we did take a little bit of that. That redundant lift out there is just because we’ll see what happens, how many people just access the terrain and no name. And if we ever need a second lift there, then.
00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:55.000
Chris Haggerty: um, we’ll consider it. As far as further into cat skiing terrain, um, you know, our current MDP outlines our next 15 years, so we’re not looking to push any further into that. Um, we also have, um, the Mirkwood terrain, which is a little bit of a hike-to terrain.
00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:04.000
Chris Haggerty: Um, between, like, the front side and no name, and we get… that’s… that’s the area we most commonly get asked about a lift, and uh…
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:12.000
Chris Haggerty: I will tell you from my, uh, initial conversations with owners, it’s… it’s not a, um…
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:27.000
Chris Haggerty: the answer isn’t no, we’re not putting a lift there, it’s a expletive no, we’re not putting a lift there. Um, we take pride in having, like, being a small mountain, but still offering, like, all these other things, right? Which one being hike to terrain, um, which is pretty cool for…
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:31.000
Chris Haggerty: a small mountain like this. And then that, um…
00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:41.000
Chris Haggerty: the Divide Express, right, that would get us all the way from the base area to the summit on the front side. Um, that… that is one that we’ve, you know, had some…
00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:55.000
Chris Haggerty: serious discussions about, and, um, you know, it probably… number one, it would just, you know, allow guests to not have to take two lifts to get to the… to the summit on the front side. Um, but also, if we…
00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:06.000
Chris Haggerty: explore, um, summer operations in the future. You know, having a high-speed, you know, detachable lift gives you more flexibility to do that.
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:13.000
Chris Haggerty: So that kind of, you know, would add into that if we get to that point.
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:24.000
Stuart Winchester: So let me ask a stupid question, because that’s what I’m here for. So Garfield Lyft, as I said, was built in the 60s. Pioneer Lyft came along in 1999. So I would have thought, okay, they cross over each other.
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Because they, they retroactively built Pioneer and didn’t realize it. Uh, I would have thought, hey, the master plan is an opportunity to straighten those out so they don’t have to cross over each other. Maybe I’m overthinking it and it’s not that complicated, but, but talk about this interesting crisscross pattern you have here and, and why that’s where Garfield and Pioneer are slated.
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.000
Chris Haggerty: Mm-hmm.
00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:45.000
Stuart Winchester: to continue to exist, even if you were to upgrade their lifts.
00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:05.000
Chris Haggerty: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know that I have the best answer. We do have a proposal to shift the base of the bottom terminal of Pioneer uphill a little bit, just because the terrain is a little more desirable there. And obviously, if we needed to add the Divide Express, we need to open that area up.
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:06.000
Chris Haggerty: um…
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:21.000
Chris Haggerty: but other than that, right, we just kind of… we like the terrain that they serve right now, we don’t really have a better spot, so the lifts crisscrossing wasn’t like a, oh man, we need to change this. It wasn’t something that we were focused on solving, um, in a way.
00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.000
Chris Haggerty: I think it’s kind of a little cool, I guess.
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Stuart Winchester: I do like criss-crossing lifts, so I’m glad we’re doing this one a video, because every time I bring this up, I get tomatoes thrown at me. Uh, Monarch skier visits have gone up and up, as we said. However, as they’ve gone up and up, there’s still nowhere to stay on the mountain. There never has been. Uh.
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:51.000
Stuart Winchester: a philosophical choice? Is that just a practical matter of, hey, the Forest Service owns the land at the base? Is it both? Talk us through why there’s nowhere to stay at Monarch as a drive ski area only.
00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:55.000
Chris Haggerty: Yeah, there’s a couple of reasons.
00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:02.000
Chris Haggerty: And, you know, one of them, again, I’ll say our pass holders and our guests, like…
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:18.000
Chris Haggerty: are pretty vocal about not wanting that, right? Like that’s what separates Monarch. We’re not that resort that has the big base village. And again, that’s not to knock those resorts. I think that that’s, you know, I’ve gone to those resorts as a guest. I think it’s awesome.
00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:38.000
Chris Haggerty: I think another side of it for us is we’re really focused on our community, right? We’re a small mountain ski area and there’s a small mountain community 15 miles from where we are that has a really cool, the town of Salida has a really cool downtown, a main street.
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:52.000
Chris Haggerty: Um, with a ton of restaurants, a ton of mom-and-pop-owned shops, right? And, um, you know, we’re our largest, uh, driver for winter visits, and, and, you know, um…
00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:01.000
Chris Haggerty: in the wintertime, and we want to make sure we embrace that community. If we moved a village up onto the mountain, like.
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:16.000
Chris Haggerty: Salida is going to suffer. All those guests now are going to stay in the lodging up at Monarch versus in town. And we want to be good community partners and be like, no, here, you guys should be the ones to have lodging. And we live.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Chris Haggerty: all of us live in the community as well, and we want to see those restaurants, you know, stay active all year round, the mom-and-pop shops, like, you know, thrive. So part of it is just, like, wanting to be a part of something bigger, right, in that larger community, rather than.
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:38.000
Chris Haggerty: moving everything up to… to Monarch.
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Stuart Winchester: So if Snowpass skiers do decide to come out and visit Monarch, they’ll stay in Salida, most likely, and drive up that day. So leave us with this, Chris, because Joe Heschen, the CEO of Snow Partners.
00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Said we get so caught up on stats, but stats aren’t aren’t always the thing and and.
00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:04.000
Stuart Winchester: when you look statistically at Monarch, it’s 1,100 vertical feet.
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Lift serve drop. That’s 25th in Colorado. Uh, 1017 acres that ranks 17th in Colorado is bigger than Aspen Mountain. I’ll point, I’ll point out, uh, it’s 308 inch average annual snowfall is good, but it’s, it’s good for ninth best. It has the third highest base, as I said, but the 12th highest summ.
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:28.000
Stuart Winchester: It has those older lifts in a state that has 120 high-speed lifts, and there’s nowhere to stay on the mountain, so…
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:34.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m just stating those facts, right? So what’s your pitch to someone to come.
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.000
Stuart Winchester: use that snow pass, and try out Monarch.
00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:44.000
Chris Haggerty: Yeah, the big one is to start with, we’re 100% natural, right?
00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Chris Haggerty: you want natural snow, it is a definitely a different feel, even as good as snowmaking is these days, like, come check it out. And this, and the second part is, um, the people that are at Monarch are a unique group, right? Like, we’re, we’re.
00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Chris Haggerty: past the characters, whether you work here or you’re a guest here. And, um, we’re looking out for each other, right? Like, it’s not, um, it’s not judgmental, like, no matter what you show up wearing or what your ability is, like, we just want everyone here to have a fun day on the mountain.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:37.000
Chris Haggerty: whether you’re the extreme person out in the cat skiing terrain, hiking Mirkwood, the Never Ever, or the SnowTuber, which I love SnowTubers, you know, I think that’s who we all are at our core. Um, you know, it’s just… it’s just a cool vibe that you gotta just come check it out, and our track record’s saying that.
00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:40.000
Chris Haggerty: People love it once they find it. So give it a shot.
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:51.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m always telling my readers that these old lifts, these hauls, these riblets, they’re not gonna be around for a whole lot longer, right? There’s still hundreds in operation, but they don’t last forever.
00:47:51.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Stuart Winchester: And the best thing you can do to memorialize them, you can’t really preserve them forever because they’re functional machines, right? But go ride them. And right now, Monarch, along with Lost Trail, is probably the best place in the West to go and ride all Old Hall Liftley. And I understand, again, they’ve been updated.
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:23.000
Stuart Winchester: But the aesthetic is similar. So, alright, Chris, look, I gotta take my own advice and get out there and ride those hauls with you this winter. It was really great to talk to you. I really appreciate you coming on. I can’t wait to catch up and hopefully make some turns together this winter.
00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:27.000
Chris Haggerty: Yeah, thanks a lot for the time and look forward to seeing you out here at Monarch.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:29.000
Stuart Winchester: All right. Talk to you soon. Thanks so much, Chris.
00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:30.000
Chris Haggerty: Thank you. Bye.
00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was Chris Haggerty, the General Manager of Monarch Mountain. That was really fun, I’m really glad that he came on. Uh, Randy Stroud, just to be clear, the former GM, it’s not that he ever didn’t want to come on the podcast, it’s just that.
00:48:47.000 --> 00:49:00.000
Stuart Winchester: I covered Monarch in a different way for the story about the expansion. So he was very good to the storm as well. I do want to tell you that today’s podcast is brought to you by Profile Search International.
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:08.000
Stuart Winchester: If you want to find a great leader for your mountain team, I want to introduce you to the pros at Profile Search International.
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00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:59.000
Stuart Winchester: Directly at ProfileSearch.com, where you will find their email or phone number. You can also send me a note. I will be happy to connect you directly with this expert team. My email address is skiing at substack.com. Alright, we are going to wrap up today.
00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:05.000
Stuart Winchester: With some reader reaction to yesterday’s podcast on…
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:22.000
Stuart Winchester: with Midwest skiers, Matt Zabranski, and there wasn’t a lot of feedback. I think, number one, because the Midwest doesn’t get as much feedback in general, but also because I published this one pretty late, I think I put it out at 8 or 9 at night, and so folks may just have not had a chance.
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.000
Stuart Winchester: really process it yet. So…
00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Nell says…
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Midwest Skiers, meaning MidwestSkiers.com, Matthew Zbrensky’s site, is a regional treasure. The ride-throughs are so thorough, and what Nell means by that is.
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, Midwest Skiers puts up on their YouTube channel a, hey, look, here’s the trail map at, say, Trollhagen, Wisconsin. Here’s all 32 trails, whatever it is.
00:50:52.000 --> 00:51:03.000
Stuart Winchester: and then it rides the reach for the GoPro, and tells you about them, and gives you a really specific breakdown, uh, with some great graphs. So the production quality is really, really good. So, I second that now. Really good.
00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:15.000
Stuart Winchester: breakdowns of the ski areas from Midwest Skiers. Eric Morris says, great Midwest content, it’d be great to talk to the Dean of Southern Skiing, Randy Johnson, who wrote Southern Snow, the new guide to winter sports.
00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:31.000
Stuart Winchester: Couldn’t agree more, Eric. If you know him, I would love an introduction. I am not acquainted with Mr. Randy Johnson, but I would love to meet him, as the South has certainly been an undercovered region from my point of view, and not on purpose, just because there’s…
00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:44.000
Stuart Winchester: a little different culturally than the rest of the United States from a ski point of view, and I have not sunk as far of roots in there as I would like to, especially since I’m not too far from those ski areas. There was also…
00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:47.000
Stuart Winchester: We’re not getting as much action on the chat, but here’s one.
00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:57.000
Stuart Winchester: question on the chat, and this is not to do with the podcast from yesterday, but I want to talk about it a little. What will it take for Vail Resorts to turn around? That’s from Saurabh Jain.
00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:06.000
Stuart Winchester: And commenter Slappy said, redefine what success looks like and suspend the dividend and stock buyback. Of course, those last two may be non-negotiable.
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:24.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m not going to get out of my lane and talk too much about dividends and stock buybacks, though I do like stocks and follow that world nominally. It’s certainly nothing that I’m an expert to speak on. What Vail needs to do to turn around, I think, is very simple, and I’ve said this many, many times.
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Stuart Winchester: And I’ve written about it.
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Stuart Winchester: many times, and we’ve talked about it on the podcast many times, is they need to treat every single ski resort like it’s Vail Mountain, and every single guest like they’re the President of the United States. They…
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Stuart Winchester: They need to make sure that.
00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Stuart Winchester: the experience of a lifetime ethos is transferred to any Skiera, whether it’s Beaver Creek.
00:52:48.000 --> 00:53:03.000
Stuart Winchester: or it’s Mad River, Ohio. And that has not always seemed to be the case since Vail Resorts purchased Peak Resorts in 2019 and sort of doubled the size of its owned resort portfolio within a year’s span. Now.
00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Certainly, Vail has recently recommitted to.
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Stuart Winchester: To that sort of quality, and we’ll see how that plays out.
00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:13.000
Stuart Winchester: I think…
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:19.000
Stuart Winchester: maybe a little more shuffling with the Epic Pass, uh, maybe a higher-priced.
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Stuart Winchester: Full pass to to.
00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:37.000
Stuart Winchester: help traffic some of the more popular ski areas, and maybe some more options. They do a really good job, actually, with the Epic Regionals, with the Tahoe Local, the Northeast Local, and the Summit County Local. So, I think Vail’s done a nice job with that. And I think…
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Stuart Winchester: From my experience, Vail executives, and I’ve hosted many of them on this podcast. They’re very receptive to criticism.
00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and they are…
00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Willing to listen and change and evolve. I’m not sure.
00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:57.000
Stuart Winchester: If that always comes through.
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Outside of direct lines of questioning, if that makes sense. So, so the, the owning of mistakes and saying, okay, you know what?
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:19.000
Stuart Winchester: we messed up because Paley Peaks was only open 25 days a year in 2021, or whatever it was. There was a year when a lot of its Midwest ski areas were extremely restricted, or the COVID restrictions and everyone else, but the local ski area operators there.
00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:24.000
Stuart Winchester: we’re out competing them. Uh, you know, when Vail first bought Wilmot, Wisconsin.
00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:27.000
Stuart Winchester: In 2016, there…
00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:38.000
Stuart Winchester: their… or maybe that was 2012. They bought Afton Alps, Wilmot, and Mount Brighton in some order, two of them in 2012 and one in 2016. Anyway, there was a great article I read that said.
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:49.000
Stuart Winchester: what Wilmot skiers can expect, and Wilmot’s a small ski area outside of, well, it’s broad, it has a lot of lifts, outside of Wisconsin and Chicago, uh, Milwaukee and Chicago.
00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:56.000
Stuart Winchester: And what they said was, we’re gonna bring Western standards to the Midwest, right? And that was very out front. Dale spokespeople were saying that.
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:11.000
Stuart Winchester: You never hear them say that anymore, and it’s not clear that that is the standard, and I had a very nice time at Wilmot when I went two years ago, and super friendly staff, and all the lifts were running, even though clearly they didn’t need to be, because it was a Monday, and hardly anyone was there, so I’m certain they were.
00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:19.000
Stuart Winchester: losing money on that day, and yet they still did their best to provide an experience. I’m just not…
00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:21.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s just not always…
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:31.000
Stuart Winchester: super clear throughout the portfolio, particularly in the Lower Midwest, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, uh, in some of the Pennsylvania ski areas, Mid-Atlantic.
00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:36.000
Stuart Winchester: that that this is their operating philosophy. So I think that.
00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:38.000
Stuart Winchester: I think Vail’s better than most…
00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:49.000
Stuart Winchester: than you would think, scrolling through social media. Uh, in general, I’ve been to pretty much every Vail resort in North America, other than, I think, the two in Missouri and Paoli Peaks.
00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Stuart Winchester: And I generally have a really good time and a positive experience, and I find the staff friendly, and that’s a super important thing to me. I love that Vail puts bars on all the lifts. I love that they’re focused on safety in general, that they help police speed. As someone who skis with my kids, that’s important to me.
00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:13.000
Stuart Winchester: So I generally have a pretty good experience. I think…
00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:29.000
Stuart Winchester: there’s a little too much gum in the machine, maybe, when it comes to communicating these things and owning and correcting mistakes. So, anyway, with that, I will leave Vel alone for today, and you’re probably wondering why I haven’t yet covered the new Slate.
00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:44.000
Stuart Winchester: of proposed board members by Oasis Capital for Vail Resorts. I don’t want to get too into the weeds on stock stuff, but I do have some thoughts on that. I want to wait till I have a little bit more time to break it down.
00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.000
Stuart Winchester: So I thank you for coming today. I hope you enjoyed that podcast episode.
00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:58.000
Stuart Winchester: If you are not already subscribed to the Storm Skiing newsletter, please click over to stormskiing.com and subscribe.
00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Stuart Winchester: That will come right to your inbox. It is not only podcasts, I do a ton of writing. And if you want to upgrade to a paid subscription to the Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, that will give you everything below the paywall, which is a lot of really deep analysis.
00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:29.000
Stuart Winchester: that I do on the lift service ski industry, particularly in North America, and especially in the United States. Also, if you’re a paid subscriber to The Storm at stormskiing.com, that is the only way to interact with the podcast, because I’m only reading comments from the.
00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Previous.
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Stuart Winchester: Day’s podcast and only paid subscribers can comment. Only paid subscribers can join the chat, which is the second way that they can interact with the podcast. If you want to rep the storm, we have a swag store. You can buy shirts, hats, et cetera, at stormskiing.myshopify.com.
00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Please follow me on YouTube. YouTube is…
00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Where we will increasingly.
00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:02.000
Stuart Winchester: It’ll be increasingly important to us, and right now, we don’t have that many subscribers there. Uh, everything is going there, but it’s just not…
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:12.000
Stuart Winchester: made it into the cultural fabric of that site just yet, so please follow me at Storm Ski Journal on YouTube. Also, Instagram, which I post on more during the winter season.
00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:27.000
Stuart Winchester: I will be back tomorrow, or I’m scheduled to be back tomorrow, with, and this is one a lot of people have asked me for, a conversation with the general manager of what I think was perhaps the most improved ski area in the country last year, Camelback.
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Stuart Winchester: Pennsylvania. If you’re rolling your eyes, if you live out west, I encourage you to tune in anyway, because the story of Camelback is a really good story of how do we do things wrong?
Stuff referenced in the pod:
Monarch’s amazing season pass reciprocal network:
A full breakdown of Monarch’s U.S. Forest Service masterplan:
Monarch’s Updated Masterplan Is a Debunking Document for Bad Ski Industry Narratives
Monarch is not supposed to make it. Monarch is not supposed to matter. Monarch is short. Monarch is small. Monarch has no snowmaking. Monarch’s lift fleet is a Mad Max fever dream of scavenged and patched-together machinery. Monarch is 21 miles from the nearest town and more than 100 miles from the nearest interstate. Monarch is not on the Epic or Ikon or Indy or Mountain Collective passes. Monarch has been independently owned and operated for 87 years. Among Colorado’s 27 chairlift-served ski areas, Monarch
Conversation with Snow Partners’ CEO Joe Hession:
