The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast

Stuart Winchester
  • 4.8 (271)
  • Wilderness

Everyone’s searching for skiing’s soul. I’m trying to find its brains. www.stormskiing.com

  1. 23h ago

    Storm News 10/28/2026: Sundance Expands Again With Second High-Speed Quad

    Who Chad Linebaugh, President of Sundance Resort, Utah Date Recorded Oct. 27, 2026 About Sundance Owned by: Two investment groups: Broadreach Capital Partners & Cedar Capital Partners Located in: Sundance, Utah Year founded: 1969 Pass affiliations: Power Pass & Power Pass Select: 3 days Base elevation: 6,096 feet Summit elevation: 8,250 feet Vertical drop: 2,154 feet Skiable acres: 580 Average annual snowfall: 275 inches Lift count: 10 (2 high-speed quads, 4 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 3 carpets) Why I interviewed him I last hosted Linebaugh on the podcast in 2022, as the resort was prepping for its upper-mountain Wildwood expansion: The beginner- and family-focused terrain pod was a brilliant way to open upper-mountain vistas to a demographic often sequestered to the bottom of the hill. The expansion could have been a nice period to end a paragraph of change at Sundance, one which had included the mountain’s first high-speed lift, Outlaw Express. But Sundance wasn’t finished. Last year, the resort announced another terrain expansion, this time on the backside high peak, with 165 new acres stapled to the south side of the resort: The new lift - Sundance’s second high-speed quad, opens this winter and will load near the Wildwood base: Sundance is in a rough spot: lower, smaller, and shorter than the megaplexes churning international visitors through the grand parlors of the Cottonwoods and Park City. But the bump is making a run, even without hitching itself to the Epic and Ikon super-collectors. It’s a damn fine story, and a damn fine place to ski. Transcripts There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them. Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. Zoom Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the president of Sundance Resort in Utah. Sundance is in the midst of a big expansion that includes 165 acres of new terrain and the ski area’s second high-speed quad. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:46.000 Stuart Winchester: The ski area offers a 2,150-foot vertical drop served by 10 lifts. He has worked at the ski area since 2006. He is a very good friend of the Storm, making his second appearance on the podcast. Chad Leinbaugh joins us. Chad, welcome back to the Storm. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:35.000 Chad Linebaugh: Mm-hmm. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.000 Stuart Winchester: Always good to catch up. How you doing today? 00:03:48.000 --> 00:04:04.000 Chad Linebaugh: Stuart, I am fantastic. It’s great to be back with you. Love connecting with you and all of your network that you’ve built. I mean, it’s incredible the reach that you have. You know, when I was on your podcast years ago, it was just incredible how many people commented. So thank you for having me. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:06.000 Chad Linebaugh: Having me back on. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Stuart Winchester: So, I’m gonna jump right into this. You’re welcome anytime, Chad. I wanna jump right into this expansion, because nothing gets me riled up. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:26.000 Stuart Winchester: in a good way, like an expansion. I just had Brandi Hammond right up the road from me the other day to talk about her expansion, and Utah is just exploding. So just to give the listeners and viewers an orientation here. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.000 Chad Linebaugh: Yes. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:34.000 Stuart Winchester: if they’re watching on YouTube at Storm Ski Journal or on stormskiing.com. So, a few years ago. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:37.000 Stuart Winchester: Sundance was basically from here. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Stuart Winchester: down, so it basically, it started at the Outlaw Express, and went up to, uh, the top of the peak on Red’s Lift here. So, when Chad and I were talking last, in 2022, they were adding this whole beginner expansion. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:05:03.000 Stuart Winchester: They had just added this high-speed quad, the high-speed quad to replace this big, complicated up and over lift that was awesome, but I would imagine a nightmare to maintain. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:07.000 Chad Linebaugh: Yes, and that was a 25-minute Lyft ride, right? That old fixed grip, now down to 7 minutes. 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:06.000 Stuart Winchester: Y-yeah. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:15.000 Stuart Winchester: Right, and they had this… they put in this little stairway lift instead to reach you back up. Uh, and they were about to put in this beginner expansion, then… 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:30.000 Stuart Winchester: Last year, they told me they were doing another expansion, and they opened part of that last year, and are opening the full thing this year. So that’s… I set the table. Chad, fill in the blanks for us. Just, first of all, just tell us about the expansion. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:36.000 Stuart Winchester: what we’re getting lift-wise, terrain-wise, and how you anticipate that it’s going to change Sundance? 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 Chad Linebaugh: Yeah, that’s great. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:57.000 Chad Linebaugh: this will be our most transformational year in Sundance Resort history. And in your very kind intro, I was the general manager in 2006, but I actually started working here in 1994, so my time goes back even earlier. No, no, no, it’s fine, I’ve been here 32 years now. I only mention that because I’ve seen. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:51.000 Stuart Winchester: Oh. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.000 Stuart Winchester: Oh, my bad. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:12.000 Chad Linebaugh: such a transformation of this place. And even before I worked here, when I was a teenager kid in, you know, 1985, is when that Reds lift, at the time it was called Arrowhead lift, was put in. That was a big mountain expansion. But I guess I’m just saying, I can tell you, this is, from a historical perspective. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Stuart Winchester: Right. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:29.000 Chad Linebaugh: our biggest transformational year. And as I was thinking about coming on this, uh, this podcast with you, Stuart, I thought there’s three things that we’ve really been trying to solve here at Sundance. One is, you know, high-speed chairlifts, right? Because most skiers and riders absolutely want high-speed chairlifts. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:30.000 Stuart Winchester: Mmhm. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:46.000 Chad Linebaugh: And I am so happy to now make this statement, which is, once this new chairlift opens, Electric Horseman, you can ski 100% of our mountain from those two high-speed chairlifts. To your point, we still have other lifts. We’ve got, uh… we’ll have, you know, 5 other fixed-grip chairlifts, we’ve got the Magic Carpets. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Stuart Winchester: Amazing. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:59.000 Chad Linebaugh: which gives the full experience, but you can ski the entire mountain, front and back mountain, from just simply those two high-speed chairlifts. So that’s… and we can dive in deeper on all this. The other thing is snowmaking. I mean, we all know. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:10.000 Chad Linebaugh: how important snowmaking is nowadays. And last year is a great example of that. We had our lowest natural snow year on record, and yet we still operated a really successful, complete winter. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:28.000 Chad Linebaugh: So we have completely revamped our snowmaking system over these past 5 years, and again, we can dive into some of those details. And then lastly, it would be the lodging experience here. You know, we have transformed the arrival, the lodging experience, by building the Inn at Sundance Resort, which opened last February. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:44.000 Chad Linebaugh: So this will be our first full winter with it, and it’s placed this beautiful, um, designed hotel in 63 rooms, right in the base of the village, literally steps away from Outlaw Express, you know, the high-speed we built a few years ago. 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:58.000 Chad Linebaugh: And it’s transformed the experience, and of course, we can dive deeper in that, but to me, as kind of the intro, it’s those three things, right? It’s adding the high-speed chairlifts, it’s completely new snowmaking system, and then adding the Innit Sundance, and it’s really transformed the. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:09.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah, let’s talk about each of those in turn here, Chad, and I want to start with what you said about high-speed lifts. So, again, I’m showing the trail map here. So, this reds lift… 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:24.000 Stuart Winchester: is not old. It’s a 2016 quad, right? And when this was put in, you still had a quad on the front side as well, this long fixed-grip quad that had dated back, uh, quite a ways to… well, actually only to 1995, but still. So. 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:14.000 Chad Linebaugh: That’s right. Yeah. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.000 Chad Linebaugh: Right. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.000 Chad Linebaugh: Mm-hmm. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:25.000 Chad Linebaugh: Yep. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:31.000 Stuart Winchester: so much has changed so fast in t

  2. 2d ago

    Storm News 10/27/2026: Andy Bigford Says Powdr Should “Pull the Plug” on Selling Eldora to Nederland

    The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast wants Jurassic Park to happen in real life. Who Andy Bigford – former Editor-In-Chief of Ski magazine, former General Manager of Warren Miller Entertainment, Adjunct Professor at University of Colorado Journalism School, editor or author of several books, including Warren Miller’s autobiography, Freedom Found, and Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 with the late Chris Diamond. Date Recorded Oct. 27, 2026 About Eldora Owned by: Powdr, which also owns Located in: Nederland, Colorado Year founded: 1962 Pass affiliations: Ikon Pass and Ikon Base Pass: unlimited access Base elevation: 9,265 feet (bottom of Corona quad) Summit elevation: 10,599 feet (top of Corona quad) Vertical drop: 1,335 feet Skiable acres: 680 Average annual snowfall: 300 inches Lift count: 10 (1 six-pack, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 3 doubles, 1 poma, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet) Why I interviewed him Two years ago, Park City-based Powdr shocked everyone by selling Killington, the busiest ski area in eastern North America, to a group of independent investors: But the ski conglomerate, which at its height owned 11 ski areas, wasn’t finished: Powdr announced that it also intended to sell off Eldora, Colorado; Silver Star, British Columbia; and Mount Bachelor, Oregon: Eight months later, Powdr pulled Bachelor off the market, but kept the other two resorts at the yardsale. On July 8 of last year, the company announced that the small town of Nederland, Colorado had entered an agreement to purchase Eldora: A few months later, Powdr sold Silver Star to cross-town rival Pacific Group Resorts: But updates on Eldora were few and spare. Earlier this month, ski journalist and longtime Eldora local Andy Bigford blasted the sales process in a SAM opinion piece, saying it was time for Powdr to pull the offer from Nederland: It sounded good for a minute, a tiny town banding together to buy the local ski resort, thereby securing control of its future in this righteous fight against corporate skiing. The idea was extremely popular; hundreds of headlines across the country essentially declared it a done deal, with the town then leveraging the cash flow to solve its many challenges. As it turns out, there was never a realistic plan nor the resources and expertise for Nederland to purchase Eldora Mountain Resort for the hefty price tag of $120 million. The owner, Powdr, offered the town every opportunity in what has devolved into an almost two-year process. Now Powdr needs to end this drama, return to operating a ski area and focus on its core stakeholders: The tens of thousands of visitors who support this use of public land, and the resort’s 750 employees who depend on it. So far, neither Powdr nor Nederland have budged, but escalating costs and a sense that no one’s at the steering wheel may force a course correction sooner than later. What sort of correction? Andy and I discuss. Additional resources Eldora’s 2011 U.S. Forest Service masterplan map: Powdr ownership timeline: Transcripts There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them. Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. Zoom Stuart Winchester: My guest today has spent nearly 50 years in ski-related publishing. He has worked at newspapers in Breckenridge and Aspen, and is a former editor-in-chief and publisher of Ski Magazine, and former general manager of Warren Miller Entertainment. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:59.000 Stuart Winchester: He served as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Journalism School and has written or edited at least four books, including Warren Miller’s autobiography, Freedom Found, and Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 with the late Chris Diamond. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:14.000 Stuart Winchester: He is a fellow Michigander, living as a transplant, but unlike me, he is actually living up in the mountains of Colorado. Andy Bigford is my guest. Andy, welcome to the storm. I am so fired up to finally get you on the show. We’ve been talking for years. How you doing today, Andy? 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.000 ABigford: Thanks. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:18.000 ABigford: I’m doing well, Stuart, and sorry about your wolverines, but things will get better. 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:27.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah, man, it’s alright. Highs and lows, we’re still less than 3 years from the natty, so I’ll take the long perspective on it. So, Andy, the… 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:40.000 Stuart Winchester: there’s a million things we could talk about. You’ve been in this industry forever, and… and I could probably have you on the show every week and talk about something different, but the particular reason I asked you on this week was you wrote this great column for Sam Magazine. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Stuart Winchester: saying that, essentially, Powder, the Park City-based company that has owned Eldora since 2016, and had been in the process of selling Eldora to the town of Netherland, a small town near Boulder, uh, in… near… 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:13.000 Stuart Winchester: Eldora, obviously in Colorado. And, and to give the listeners and, and readers a little context, Eldora is small by Colorado standards, 1400 vertical feet, 460 acres, seven chairlifts, just one high speed. That’s a six pack. 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:19.000 Stuart Winchester: Uh, so it’s a scary area in need of some capex, like they all are, I guess. But… 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:30.000 Stuart Winchester: This process — I wrote this column last July when Netherland announced, hey, we’re going to buy this, or Powder announced that Netherland was going to buy it. This was after the successful sale. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:45.000 Stuart Winchester: of Tillington and Pico, the busiest ski areas combined in the East, to a independent group. Uh, and it was after Powder said, no, we’re not gonna sell Bachelor after all. Uh, and it was right before they successfully sold Silver Star to Pacific Group Resorts. So. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.000 Stuart Winchester: There’s been a lot of transactions, and Powder’s done this forever. 00:10:49.000 --> 00:11:01.000 Stuart Winchester: but this one is proving to be particularly problematic. So, lay this out for us, Andy. What in the world is going on at Netherland in its attempts to purchase Eldora from powder? 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:17.000 ABigford: It is problematic, and you set the table pretty well for Powder and John Cumming. And so it is a bit of a local obsession for me, even though I look at national and international trends. 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:32.000 ABigford: This is my home ski area. It’s been 30 years that I’ve been skiing there, and it skis a lot better than 1,400 feet of vertical. And I did go through 20 years. We had a Hall of Fame ownership. It was a pretty good owners. 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:48.000 ABigford: They didn’t have a ton of money, just like the ski business, but they made it work. We could park right next to the lift ski powder, and then John Cumming and powder came along, and they started to invest money in it, and. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.000 Stuart Winchester: Mmhm. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:40.000 Stuart Winchester: Mmhm. 00:11:48.000 --> 00:12:03.000 ABigford: They put in probably 40 million excess in capital, and they put in the 1st detachable and a new parking lot. Expanded parking lot was a huge, a new lodge, and. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:23.000 ABigford: Little Eldora rose up to become something of an icon poster child. And they’re unlimited on that pass. And their skier visits almost doubled in that time. And there were trade-offs. I mean, there was more traffic. Saturdays became very difficult. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:38.000 ABigford: but it became much, much better ski area, and it was a signal that I saw up close that you know this can actually work. And here’s an example right next door. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:53.000 ABigford: Powder has decided to divest some ski areas. They used to be, you know, in the big in the top 4. They’re deciding to do other important things that John Cumming has on his plate. So they wanted to sell Eldora. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:13:09.000 ABigford: They had a lot of operators knocking on the door. And as it turned out, after selling Killington to the local billionaires, Powder and John Cumming could sell to a municipality. Not only that, but at a high price. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:25.000 ABigford: And this was a great win for independent skiing. And from the get-go, there was a gulf between anybody who ran a ski area and had a sense of what was going on in Eldora, even that ran a business, said. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:41.000 ABigford: there’s no way this town can run a ski area that dwarfs in size. You know the onion headline. You know it was David bites Goliath, you know. It would be more like Eldora would buy Nederland, but. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:57.000 ABigford: As it turns out, they went into a long process, and the town sold it to its residents as not taxpayer money, but we will pay for municipal rev

  3. 5d ago

    Storm Skiing 10/23/2026: Powder Mountain CEO Brandi Hammon on Expansion, $99 Lift Tickets, & New Lifts

    The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is not responsible for the content of this newsletter. Who Brandi Hammon, President and CEO of Powder Mountain and Powder Haven, Utah Date Recorded Oct. 22, 2026 About Powder Mountain & Powder Haven Powder Mountain and Powder Haven are two sides of one interconnected ski area. The general public can ski anywhere, but they can only ride the lifts on the Powder Mountain side. The Powder Haven lifts are reserved for the ski area’s private homeowners. Located in: Eden, Utah Owned by: Reed Hastings Year founded: 1972 (as Powder Mountain; Powder Haven terrain carved out in 2024) Pass affiliations: None Lift-served base elevation: * Powder Mountain: 6,905 feet (bottom of Paradise Express) * Powder Haven: 6,326 (bottom of Primetime Express) Lift-served summit elevation: * Powder Mountain: 9,004 feet (top of Lightning Ridge lift) * Powder Haven: 8,882 feet (top of Mary’s lift) Lift-served vertical drop: * Powder Mountain: 2,099 feet * Powder Haven: 2,556 feet Skiable acres: 8,000 total * Powder Mountain: 5,000 * Powder Haven: 3,000 Average annual snowfall: 345 inches Lift count: 15 total (5 high-speed quads, 6 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 poma, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet) * Powder Mountain: 9 (3 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 poma, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet) * Powder Haven: 6 (2 high-speed quads, 4 fixed-grip quads) Why I interviewed her A very dumb story about a very dumb person, Volume III Last year, Powder Mountain’s communications team reached out to ask if I would like to host resort owner and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings on The Storm Skiing Podcast. Why yes, I believe I can squeeze him in, I replied. Great, they said. And one more thing: Reed would like to record the podcast onsite here at Powder Mountain. Which OK I guess, if I absolutely have to I will fly to Utah and ski on your awesome gigantic mountain. And besides I’m already scheduled to ski around Idaho in a few weeks so I’ll just plan to fly through of SLC and roll through Pow Mow on my way out the door. The logistics would be a little wacky, but I’d make it work. Cool? Cool. See you soon. On interview day, I woke up at 4 a.m. in Twin Falls, Idaho, a roughly three-hour, mostly-interstate drive from Powder Mountain. Traffic rolled smoothly in the predawn, and a bit after seven I was driving up the resort’s long access road among heavy snowfall. As instructed I parked in the special Rich Person lot at Pow Mow’s summit and went into the special Rich Person Building, where after some fussing the attendants allowed me to enter and pillage the Rich Person Buffet. I was early and I sat alone and an attractive couple sat beside me and I suppose mistaking me for a fellow Rich Person began chatting with me, and, though tempted to invent a story about how I was a big-game guide for Rich People interested in hunting things like rhinos and Siberian tigers and yes Bigfeet are real and we know where to kill them, I told them I was a journalist here to interview Reed. And they said OMG he’s doing so great we love it and everything is awesome and they spent all their time there skiing mach pow. Well all their time that they weren’t in the Bay Area, they told me, which was less and less these days, since they were now retired. And this confused me because they both looked to be about 35, so I guessed that either they had invented, like, the microchip or something else equally at the center of the Robot Takeover or that maybe they had reverse-engineered aging and were actually 175 years old and I nearly quizzed them on Antietam to see if the Never-Forget day-of angst seemed overly familiar to them but by then Pow Mow’s team had arrived to escort me to Reed. In the upper room of a nearby condominium we reorganized furniture and I assembled my mobile interview kit of cameras and microphones and halo lights. Reed arrived and he was a perfectly pleasant fellow as I’d expected and I interviewed him and Pow Mow Chief Creative Officer Alex Zhang against a full-wall window’s view of nuclear Wasatch pow. We talked for maybe 50 minutes and then Reed, clearly anxious to snowboard the foot or so of fresh awaiting us, excused himself because what’s the point of owning a mountain if you just sit inside answering some idiot’s questions about chairlifts on a pow day? So I thanked him and he left and before voyaging out myself into this wonderful Utah thumper I wanted to quickly download the Zoom files to make sure everything was tight and would you listen to this: Listen to what, Stu? Stu? There’s no sound. Am I doing it wrong? No. You’re not doing it wrong. I am just showing you how the interview that I had traveled thousands of miles in circles for came out. I mean it came out great. Other than the fact that I didn’t record any sound. Otherwise Man I totally f*****g crushed it. The second I realized that I had blown one of the biggest interviews of my career by omitting what most people would consider to be the most important part of an interview which is the sound of people saying things, which was like the second after Reed left, I felt about as s****y and stupid as I ever have in my entire life. I’ve never been so miserable skiing as I was that day even though the snow was deep and the trails were empty and Pow Mow had set me up with a guide and access to the Rich Person Private Lifts. Still I hoped somehow I’d recorded the audio somewhere on the many cameras and devices I’d had running. At my hotel that night I checked everything and checked it again and checked it again and then concluding that no sound existed and all I had was useless video of important people in a room against a snowy window I slept for like 12 hours because that’s what I do when I’m stressed is just leap down the go-to-sleep escape hatch and disappear from the world. So that happened. Pretty simple story, really: I agreed to do something that I did not know how to do (record an in-person podcast), and then failed to adequately prepare for it, and then unsurprisingly blew the whole thing because well I didn’t know what the f**k I was doing. I just assumed Zoom would have a safeguard. But there is no safeguard. The safeguard is not having a moron in charge of the setup. Well who hired that guy? Anyway I tried a bunch of different things to salvage the footage, including AI lip-reading apps so I could at least produce a transcript. This… did not work. And Pow Mow’s team kept being like Brah when’s the story going up? And I kept being like well I f****d it up but I think I can salvage something just hold on and we went back and forth like that three or four times and eventually I assumed they just gave up and I was kind of relieved even if I remained deeply disappointed in myself and my ability to do simple things like record a video which literally my cat can do if I leave my phone open on the kitchen table. So I was surprised a few weeks ago when Powder Mountain’s team reached out and said hey how about we give this another shot there Big Guy? And I was like are you sure you got the right guy you remember what happened last time? But this time instead of asking me to pretend like I’m an actual professional journalist who does things like go places they let me just record the interview from my basement in New York with my cat photo-bombing and Brandi set up by those nice big windows (different windows, I believe) in Utah. And she was great. And this whole section has nothing to do with Pow Mow and you’re probably like thanks for nothing Bro I still don’t understand all this Powder Haven business and which lifts are coming and which ones are going, I mean it’s like the Sneetches on the Beaches over there we don’t know which one was that one or which one was who. And my apologies McBroseph but you’re just gonna have to listen to the interview I guess. There’s a transcript that you can see on a desktop computer machine above by the video viewer, but no Zoom transcript today because guess what I f****d that up too and you’re probably like Bro you just have to hit the “robot record” button how could you possibly get that wrong? And it’s like I don’t know Man sometimes living in the future is great like how doctors keep intercepting my mortal wounds and keeping me alive. But then again when living in the past I would just hit the “on” button and the TV would show me a channel and now I can watch anything ever made anytime I want but it takes me 10 minutes to turn on the TV and find the proper app and sign in and locate the show and then God help me I push the wrong button and send the television into some sort of Settings Hell where I can adjust the brightness and tone but really all I wanted to do was watch Dark Matter. And I don’t know dude if that box was real I might just slip in and take a look around for a world where phones are still wired into the wall and have no purpose other than to enable talking to people who are in another room somewhere else. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

  4. 6d ago

    Storm Skiing 10/22/2026: Vail Pushes Back on Proxy Fight + Jackson Hogen on Selecting Ski Gear in the Digital Age

    The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Who Jackson Hogen Date Recorded Oct. 22, 2026 The take up top On Monday, Vail Resorts issued a note to investors encouraging them to vote against the slate of board nominees endorsed by Oasis Capital, which is attempting to seize control of the company. I mostly cite Town Lift’s article on the note in my analysis. Why I interviewed him Jackson has been rooted in the worlds of ski manufacturing, distribution, sales, and testing for decades. For many years, he ran Real Skiers, a website that offered bespoke expert ski advice. While he’s stepped away from the site, he remains dialed into how the forces of e-commerce, private equity, and ski media disintegration have, separately but simultaneously, irretrievably transformed an analogue world of precision tools into an online bazaar of click-my-affiliate-link guesswork reviews. It’s disheartening, but perhaps not catastrophic – select legacy ski companies continue to improve their products, specialty shops remain equipped with staff that can appropriately match equipment to your profile, and objective ratings – while difficult to pinpoint in the five-star-these-very-good crapstorm of Amazon rando rankings – do exist. Where? We discuss. Transcripts There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them. Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. Zoom Stuart Winchester: My guest today is a ski industry insider going back decades. He was the editor of realskiers.com, which offered expert ski gear advice. His decades-long ski industry career includes stints as a ski designer, binding and boot product manager, freestyle competitor, retail salesman, risk management lecturer. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:16.000 Stuart Winchester: Ski instructor and extreme camp ski coach, marketing director, resort feature writer, television host, screenwriter, and author of the excellent book Snowbird Secrets, which is about snowbird, but also will teach you how to ski. He is a very good friend of the storm. He is the pontiff of powder. He is Jackson Hogan. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:21.000 Stuart Winchester: Jackson, welcome back to The Storm. Long overdue. How you doing today, Jackson? 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:19.000 Jackson Hogen: Oh. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:37.000 Jackson Hogen: So good to see you, Stu. Well, at this age, every day is a little different. The aging process, as many people have noted, is not for pussies, and it has certainly been a challenging year in that regard. But I’m skiing, I’m golfing, I’m doing exactly what I want to do. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:30.000 Stuart Winchester: Okay. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:53.000 Jackson Hogen: I may not be doing it as well as I used to, but I’m still in the game. So that’s all I can ask for. And I’ve got a lot of great friends to go skiing with. So, you know, skiing is, I’ve tried to take care of skiing all my life and now it’s time for skiing to take care of me and we’ll see how that goes. 00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:06.000 Stuart Winchester: Well, one of the changes in the past year, as I mentioned in the intro, was that you dispensed with your responsibility for real skiers, so just… I guess first reflect on… 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000 Stuart Winchester: what you… 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.000 Stuart Winchester: hope your legacy is with Real Skiers, and then what you did with it. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.000 Stuart Winchester: In the end. 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:20.000 Jackson Hogen: Sure. Who knows what one’s legacy will be? What I tried to do. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:36.000 Jackson Hogen: was do the best job I could imagine doing to try to give people accurate ski buying advice. Turns out, over the long run, that’s a very expensive proposition. It takes a ton of effort and time, because you have to corral ski testers, cajole them, you know, they have to have a. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:50.000 Jackson Hogen: methodology that’s easy to communicate, you have to have test cards that are both digital and paper. Digital turned out to be a disaster, because whatever software outfit was building my little interface. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:24:06.000 Jackson Hogen: Would invariably fail the night before the first big ski ski event, so it was, it was fraught with challenges left, right, and center, but in the end, the reason I attracted the audience I did get was they, they knew that I was. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.000 Jackson Hogen: Trying… 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:13.000 Jackson Hogen: As hard as humanly possible to get them an unbiased, clean look. 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:28.000 Jackson Hogen: at the principal ski market. In other words, I already told people, I don’t care that you go backcountry skiing. Yes, it’s great, bravo, I don’t cover that. I cover lift service terrain that real people go pay real money to go ski, and they want to get the most from that experience. 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:42.000 Jackson Hogen: And they could be female testers, so I had to try to get female testers. I remember hauling all my women’s ski up to Squaw and putting it in a rental space so that the female instructors at Squaw could go and ski on them. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:46.000 Jackson Hogen: I worked literally every single day to try to get. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:49.000 Jackson Hogen: The best result, as, as… 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:56.000 Jackson Hogen: as grounded in a real world process as possible. 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:58.000 Jackson Hogen: So… 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:13.000 Jackson Hogen: I kept my audience because I kept that promise, to constantly try to do my very best, although as things wound down, that became increasingly difficult. This… the substructure of the whole ski market collapsed. 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:14.000 Jackson Hogen: Um… 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:30.000 Jackson Hogen: The dirty little secret of everybody’s ski test going back decades is that it is paid for. You don’t just show up with your skis and say, here, I want you to test these. You show up with your skis and a check to go test these. 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:32.000 Stuart Winchester: For the… a check for the ski area? 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:45.000 Jackson Hogen: No, no, for the testing entity, for a ski magazine, for skiing magazines, for anybody who’s running a ski test outside, you know, there’s a bill attached with getting your skis into that ski test. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.000 Stuart Winchester: Testers. 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:37.000 Stuart Winchester: Testing. Okay. 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:49.000 Stuart Winchester: Okay, so the manufacturers were paying ski, skiing, etc. 00:25:48.000 --> 00:26:08.000 Jackson Hogen: Yeah, and I knew that. I didn’t start out where they ended up in terms of… I didn’t have the clout to just say, well, $77,000 and you’re in. I started at very modest fees, but built it up based on readership, and based on the fact that, yeah, this thing has traction, and it’s real, and it has value. 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:50.000 Stuart Winchester: Okay. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.000 Jackson Hogen: But, this is the big but. 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:36.000 Jackson Hogen: The ski industry went into a sort of, well, not sort of a tailspin. It was a genuine tailspin. And it’s been in it, at least at the retail level, for at least five, six years. And at the wholesaler level, what that has meant is each one of those five years began with optimism and said, we’re going to be up 20%. No one ever kept their job by going to the boss’s office and saying, hey, we’ll only be down 20% this year. That’s not a winning proposition. So everyone. 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay. 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:42.000 Jackson Hogen: submits a budget to the parent company and to the boss, saying, this is what I think we’re going to spend. 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:49.000 Jackson Hogen: On the marketing page, I was down near the bottom of that budget. I wasn’t at the top. There were other priorities ahead of me, darn. 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:48.000 Stuart Winchester: Mmhm. 00:26:49.000 --> 00:27:00.000 Jackson Hogen: So when they… when they suddenly realized that for the second year in a row, third year in a row, fourth year in a row, fifth year in a row, they blew their forecast by Pollyanna numbers, which are never gonna meet. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:10.000 Jackson Hogen: And you… where do you start your cuts? Well, you don’t start it at the top, you start your cuts at the bottom. So, myself and anyone like myself. 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:22.000 Jackson Hogen: went to the cutting room floor, um, starting about, I don’t know, 4 years ago, making it, you know, financially less feasible to continue. I shouldered on for as long as I could. 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:30.000 Jackson Hogen: Until there was, as Gertrude Stein might have said, there was no there there. 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:

  5. Oct 21

    Storm Skiing 10/21/2026: Lee Canyon’s Big Expansion Ambitions, with GM Josh Bean

    Who Josh Bean, General Manager of Lee Canyon, Nevada Date Recorded Oct. 20, 2026 About Lee Canyon Owned by: Mountain Capital Partners, which also owns: Year founded: 1965 Pass affiliations: * Power Pass: unlimited * Power Pass Select: 12 shared days with Arizona Snowbowl, Purgatory – holiday blackouts apply * Power Pass Core: 4 shared days with Arizona Snowbowl, Purgatory, Brian Head – holiday blackouts apply Base elevation: 8,510 feet Summit elevation: 9,370 feet lift-served | 11,289 feet hike-to Vertical drop: 860 feet lift-served | 2,779 feet hike-to Skiable acres: 235 Average annual snowfall: 161 inches Lift count: 7 (4 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet) In my conversation with Josh, I noted that Lee Canyon’s chairlifts were all built this century, a rare circumstance for an American ski area. That’s true, with an asterisk - the Sherwood triple arrived used at Lee Canyon in 2005, from then-sister resort Alpine Meadows (both were then owned by Powdr; Alpine Meadows is now part of Alterra’s Palisades Tahoe complex). If we include the machine’s dozen years in California (and we must), the Sherwood clocks in as Lee Canyon’s elder, at a still-not-so-old-for-a-fixed-grip-triple 33 years (I’m also not 100 percent certain that this is only the lift’s second life, as it may have been relocated to Alpine in 1993): Why I interviewed him Just three years after completing the intermediate-oriented Ponderosa expansion, Lee Canyon is adding the long-planned West Bowl pod looker’s right of Bluebird: The new Skytrac fixed-grip quad serving the terrain will rise about the same number of feet as neighboring Bluebird and Sherwood, but will land a bit higher, finally edging Lee Canyon close to a four-digit vertical drop. Skiable acreage jumps from a modest 195 to a still-modest 235, though Lee Canyon has always lowballed its terrain footprint. But owner Mountain Capital Partners (MCP) may just be pouring concrete for the mansion they want to build above. Well, the mansion is already built, Lee Canyon just needs an elevator to access the nearly 2,000 vertical feet of steep alpine bowls towering above the lifts. It could be America’s Kicking Horse or Revelstoke, a community bump promoted to international freeride destination, with the addition of a single megalift. Here’s Lee Canyon today, as shown on Google Earth, (which has not yet added the trails cut for West Bowl) - future lifts could run as high as the top of Lee Peak (Charleston Peak, rising in the distance, is the highest point in the county, and is not on anyone’s ski area plans): The basic ingredients for mega-expansion - someone to build it and someone to ski it -are all there. Meaning we have an operator who would be happy to spend unreasonable sums of money to build an unimaginably awesome ski experience for the enormous numbers of skiers who already live nearby or could easily get there via Vegas’ gigantic airport. Lee Canyon sits close enough to Las Vegas that the Grinch could ride his f****d-up dog-deer sled from the top of Lee Peak to The Strip and loot enough cheer to cancel Christmas for a century. And MCP would like nothing more than its very own Snowbird or Jackson Hole (besides the one they already have in South America), to make their Power Pass go KaBoom. Resort officials have already begun talks with the U.S. Forest Service on a master development plan update that would sanction Lee Canyon’s transformation into Super Lee Canyon. Of course this is America, not Canada, so instead of rapidly building Revelstoke or Kicking Horse on the site of its small ski hill, MCP is likely on a collision course with a righteous mob of pinecone enthusiasts, guardians of various species of endangered pebbles, astrologists and oil painters who need viewshed integrity to practice their craft, and like five cranky a******s whose idea of a fun ski day is hiking uphill for several hours wearing 50 pounds of gear for one powder run that they’d rather not share with all the dorks who like riding machines uphill. It woud be rad if I’m wrong and the USFS just says “wow this looks awesome” and everyone else says “it would probably be smart to maximize opportunities for organized, mechanized outdoor recreation in this three-million-person car-dependent s**t-sprawl of American gaudiness so we have something on the fun-stuff-to-do spectrum that sits between Going Shopping and Getting Lost in the Desert,” but the more likely outcome is that we collectively f**k this up and fight about it for 25 years and in the end nothing happens at all. Transcripts There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them. Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. Zoom Stuart Winchester: I’ll introduce you, and we’ll get into it. My guest today is the general manager of Lee Canyon, Nevada. Lee Canyon offers seven lifts on an 860-foot vertical drop. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:27.000 Stuart Winchester: The Mountain is one of 13 ski areas operated by Mountain Capital Partners in the United States and Chile. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:43.000 Stuart Winchester: He started as a summer worker in 1994, and has been with the mountain, with a few little breaks, went up to Park City ever since. Josh Bean joins us. Josh, welcome to the Storm. So awesome to have you. I have to say right off, Lee Canyon, I think, is one of the most. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:49.000 Stuart Winchester: beautiful ski areas in America, and I can’t imagine how cool it must be to look out your window and see that every single day. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:50.000 Josh Bean: No, it’s, uh, definitely an island. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:07:06.000 Josh Bean: the desert. So fun to drive up to every morning to get out of that desert floor and come up to 8,600 feet. Not a lot of people get to do that every day. So definitely a great place to work and a fun environment to be in. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:57.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:02.000 Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:11.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I can’t overstate… 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:25.000 Stuart Winchester: I think part of the reason I was so surprised is how close it is to Las Vegas. I came straight from the airport. The airport there is kind of a stinker. The bus took forever. Maybe I just had bad luck, or maybe it’s always like that to get to my rental car, but once I was in the car. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:30.000 Stuart Winchester: I don’t know, maybe I think it took a half hour, maybe a little more or less from the airport. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:45.000 Josh Bean: Yeah, it’s about 35 minutes from, uh, downtown Las Vegas, the Strip. Um, you know, our freeway systems are catching up, so it’s a… the travel’s easy to get up here, and you know, once you get outside of the city, you know, it’s a free-flowing highway right up to us, and. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:51.000 Josh Bean: Um, kind of a neat, uh, drive up here. You… you pass through, um… 00:07:51.000 --> 00:08:01.000 Josh Bean: it’s 6 different climate zones, so it’s the same as driving from Mexico to Canada in 16 miles. So, uh, a unique drive as well. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:56.000 Stuart Winchester: Mmhm. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:07:59.000 Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:19.000 Stuart Winchester: It’s incredible. I just… everyone that looks at… I think Lee Canyon probably gets overlooked because of the small vertical. There’s obviously a lot more above the lifts, and we can talk about that in a bit, but do you find that folks. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:32.000 Stuart Winchester: once they get out there, they’re like, oh, wow. You know, it doesn’t have the stats, but it has that big mountain feel just because of what’s going on all around you at the end of that canyon. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:38.000 Josh Bean: Yeah, I think people, uh, come up and they’re a little awestruck at, you know, it’s like a mini version of the Alps, uh, just… 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:37.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:52.000 Josh Bean: you know, protruding out of the desert floor, and, you know, it’s a very picturesque environment, and if you come here right after a storm, I think, you know, our off-piste stuff is something to be reckoned with on all the West Coast. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:40.000 Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000 Josh Bean: Um, I know that… 00:08:54.000 --> 00:09:01.000 Josh Bean: Two of my top five days have been right here in a 160-foot vertical of just… 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:09.000 Josh Bean: amazing powder that we get on those great years. And, you know, with El Nino looking like it is this year, we’re really. 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:11.000 Josh Bean: for one of those seasons. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:34.000 Stuart Winchester: Yeah, 860 can ski plenty, and that’s a good enough pod. Let’s talk here, Josh, and for those watching on YouTube at Storm Ski Journal or on StormSkiing.com, this is Lee Canyon’

  6. Oct 20

    Storm News 10/20/2026: Inside Greek Peak’s Massive Snowmaking Upgrade

    Who Three members of Greek Peak, New York’s leadership team: * Wes Kryger, President * Ayden Wilber, Vice President of Mountain Operations * Jarret Dulemba, Mountain Operations Manager Date Recorded Oct. 19, 2026 About Greek Peak Owned by: John Meier Located in: Cortland, New York Year founded: 1957 – opened Jan. 11, 1958 Pass affiliations: Indy Pass, Indy+ Pass – 2 days Base elevation: 1,148 feet Summit elevation: 2,100 feet Vertical drop: 952 feet Skiable acres: 300 Average annual snowfall: 120 inches Lift count: 8 (1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 3 doubles – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Greek Peak’s lift fleet) Why I interviewed them In March, Greek Peak hit the fast-forward button on a massive snowmaking upgrade. In a single offseason, the resort would lay 33,000 feet of snowmaking pipe and install 250 HKD semi-automated snowguns. Ski area officials had originally planned to spread the work over four years, but an expiring clean-energy credit from local power supplier National Grid accelerated the work. The $3 million project extended snowmaking nearly wall-to-wall at a long underserved ski area. While Greek Peak can benefit from Lake Erie lake-effect storms, whole tracts on the east side of the mountain would sit shuttered in lean years. No more. Among the trails outfitted with snowmaking over the summer, per Greek Peak’s announcement: I’ve always thought that Greek Peak, with its gladed acres and affordable onsite lodging and thousand vertical feet and lack of liftlines, was an underappreciated alternative to the Catskills and Poconos circus scenes. But these snowmaking upgrades were badly needed. A sadder development over the summer: Al Kryger, who helped build Greek Peak, passed away in August at age 87: Greek Peak President Wes Kryger, Al’s son, had talked a bit about his father on the podcast last year: 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 Ayden Wilber is identified below as “bbaisley” Stuart Winchester: My guests today lead Greek Peak Mountain Resort in New York. Greek Peak has six chairlifts serving 300 acres on 950 vertical feet. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:25.000 Stuart Winchester: Wes Krieger is president of the resort since 2013, and he is a member of the Ski New York Hall of Fame. His family has been part of Greek Peak since the ski area’s 1958 founding. 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:46.000 Stuart Winchester: Aiden Wilbur has been vice president of mountain operations since 2019 and has worked at Greek Peak since 2013 and making his storm skiing podcast debut as Jarrett Dulamba. He has been Mountain Ops manager for the past five years. Wes and Aiden, welcome back to the storm. Jarrett, welcome to the storm for the first time. Always love catching up with the team at Greek Peak. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.000 Stuart Winchester: How you guys doing today? 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.000 WKryger: Good, Stuart, how are you? 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:58.000 Stuart Winchester: Doing real well, thank you. So, Wes, I want to start with your father, Al. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:04.000 Stuart Winchester: who passed away last year, and had a tremendous legacy with… 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:20.000 Stuart Winchester: Greek Peak with New York skiing, uh, with the community, uh, big personality, and we talked about some of his specific contributions when you joined me on the podcast, uh, last year. So, I wanted to give you an opportunity to reflect. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:29.000 Stuart Winchester: on Al’s legacy and what he meant to the resort and what he meant to you as we reflect on his passing? 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:37.000 WKryger: Yeah, I appreciate that. He, you know, he started with Greek Peak in 1958. 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:54.000 WKryger: you know, he was instrumental in the State of New York with some of the other operators, Dennis Shashbaugh, Danny Fuller, bunch of the guys, Russ Colton from Hunter, and they all started the. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:09.000 WKryger: saney ski areas of New York organization to help regulate the the industry, and they were instrumental in getting the Article 18. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:58.000 Stuart Winchester: Hmm. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:26.000 WKryger: passed, which is, you know, skiers and ski area responsibility code which has been very helpful in the industry and and copied pretty much across the Us. As as a. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:17.000 Stuart Winchester: Mmhm. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:38.000 WKryger: regulatory guideline for skiers in ski areas. So that that was a huge contribution to the industry. And. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:49.000 WKryger: you know, Al always wanted to, um, see the ski area expand, and then he got it into the four-season aspect with. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:13:03.000 WKryger: Building Hope Lake Lodge, an indoor water park in the Adventure Center with the zip lines and mountain coaster. So he definitely was an entrepreneur and. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:13.000 WKryger: We always joke about if you told him it couldn’t be done, that was exactly what he would try to do, and he was successful most of the time. 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:30.000 WKryger: For me, he was a great leader for me, a great dad, taught me a great work ethic. I told this story at his celebration of life. I was going to college. 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:42.000 WKryger: working at Greek Peak full-time, and I was the night mountain manager here, and, uh, living at home. I got home, uh, he asked me if all the snow guns had been started up. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:51.000 WKryger: and I said there were 4 more to go, and he threw my boots and me outside and told me not to come back until the last one was running. 00:13:51.000 --> 00:14:07.000 WKryger: So he definitely instilled the work ethic, you know, in the community, obviously had a great impact at his celebrational life. There were over 400 attendees that came to the resort to. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:12.000 WKryger: pay their respects. So I think definitely had a huge impact. 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:27.000 Stuart Winchester: So, the interesting thing about these multi-generational ski resorts, and in 2013, your family made the decision to sell to John Meyer, a local businessman, and you obviously stayed involved, and if folks want to hear that story, they can listen to the last Greek Peak episode that we recorded. 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:42.000 Stuart Winchester: Last year, but I’m always curious with these, Wes, as you grew up at the ski area, right, and you evolved from Rugrat running around the slopes to a guy getting thrown out of the house because you’re not doing it right, to the guy leading the resort, I’m curious how your relationship with your father. 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:46.000 Stuart Winchester: evolved, and… and how he… 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:56.000 Stuart Winchester: guided you and… and influenced you as you grew in your role at the resort, and… and grew as a man and an adult, and… and someone who… 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.000 Stuart Winchester: You know, he really couldn’t throw around anymore or throw out of the house. 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:11.000 WKryger: Well, I think he, you know, he definitely instilled a good work ethic. And he also. 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:27.000 WKryger: wanted to make sure that you had fun, that it was something you enjoyed doing. You know I also had horses, and was big into horse training and. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.000 WKryger: Did that and. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:44.000 WKryger: You know, he kind of guided me. He didn’t tell me I had to go one way or the other, but gave me the opportunities and, uh, as long as I worked hard, um, you know, he helped me move forward and a lot of times. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:16:01.000 WKryger: The people feel like working for family is easier, but in Al’s case, he expected more out of you than he did your counterparts that were working right next to you. So you always had to work harder. 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:06.000 WKryger: To prove to him that you were worthy of where he was guiding you, so. 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:22.000 Stuart Winchester: So, how hard was it for Al to step away? I… you know, the family ski areas can be quirky, and I always think about John Schaefer, who runs Berkshire East over in Massachusetts, and his father, Roy, fixed the place up starting in the 1970s, and, you know, John. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:36.000 Stuart Winchester: runs it, but he still says he’s below Roy, who still runs the parking lot into his 80s. Did Al ever truly step away, or was he always kind of hovering around the resort? What kind of retirement did Al have if he had one? 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:51.000 WKryger: Well, his house was right across from the mountain, so he could see from his living room pretty much everything that was going on at the area. So even when he wasn’t working here on a day to day basis. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:06.000 WKryger: He would call me just about daily and ask me, you know, what the heck’s goin

  7. Oct 19

    Storm News 10/19/2026: Toggenburg NY, Closed Since 2021, to Reopen Under New Ownership

    Who James Wheeler, co-owner of Toggenburg, New York Date Recorded Oct. 19, 2026 About Toggenburg Owned by: The Wheeler Family Year founded: 1953, closed since 2021 Base elevation: 1,248 feet Summit elevation: 1,763 feet Vertical drop: 515 feet Skiable acres: 83 Average annual snowfall: 160 inches Lift count: 3 (1 triple, 2 doubles) Why I interviewed him In August 2021, I wrote a post eulogizing Toggenburg, a Central New York ski area that was closing after 68 years: The cause of death: Peter Harris, longtime owner of the nearby Song and Labrador ski areas, had purchased Toggenburg with the explicit intent of closing it. “I struggled with the decision,” Harris told me at the time. “After much analysis, it seemed to be a logical decision, and I sincerely think this is better for the Central New York ski scene. I think we’re going to have a better experience, because obviously we’re going to have more resources to invest in the two remaining areas.” New York State Attorney General Letitia James disagreed. Fourteen months later, her office filed suit against Harris’ company, Intermountain Management, for violating the state’s antitrust laws. As I wrote at the time: With 14 months to investigate the sale, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has presented a different take. On Friday, she sued Intermountain Management – the umbrella company that owns Labrador and Song – “for buying its main competitor, Toggenburg Mountain, then shutting it down to direct skiers to its own mountains.” This action, James said, created a “complete, unchallenged dominance in the Syracuse area” – a monopoly – for what her office calls “season-pass skiing” around Syracuse, a violation of New York State’s antitrust law, the Donnelly Act. “even if the Toggenburg acquisition and closure did not establish or maintain Intermountain’s monopoly, it harmed, and continues to harm, consumers by eliminating a competitor without any procompetitive justification,” the court summons states. The state decided in James’ favor in March 2025, but said it needed more time to “decide the appropriate remedy for Intermountain’s anticompetitive conduct.” It took a year and a half to determine that remedy, but last Friday, the AG’s office announced the court-ordered solution: Harris had sold Toggenburg to new owners, who were determined to re-open the facility as a ski area: New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that Intermountain Management (Intermountain) has sold Toggenburg Mountain (Toggenburg) to a new owner who plans to rebuild and reopen it for the 2027-28 ski season, restoring competition among Syracuse ski resorts. In October 2022, Attorney General James sued Intermountain for buying its only competitor, Toggenburg, and shutting it down, forcing Syracuse skiers to the two resorts owned by Intermountain. In March 2025, Attorney General James won her case when a judge ruled that Intermountain violated state antitrust law by stifling competition when it shut down Toggenburg and instituted a “no poach” agreement preventing Toggenburg’s owner from hiring any Intermountain employees at his other New York ski resorts. Under a settlement with the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Intermountain today closed its sale of Toggenburg to Douglas Wheeler, a local business owner who plans to reopen the ski facility. “Competition among Syracuse ski areas means more choices and better prices and services for New York skiers,” said Attorney General James. “We’re putting an end to Intermountain’s illegal monopoly that allowed it to raise prices and take advantage of skiers. I am thrilled that New Yorkers will once again have access to Toggenburg Mountain, and I will always fight to protect consumers and workers from illegal monopolies that try to profit at their expense.” So who is Douglas Wheeler? Well, it turns out that, in true New York ski area fashion, Togg will be run family-style. When I spoke to him on Sunday, Wheeler deferred to his son, James Wheeler, as the public face of the mountain. A phone call and a few texts later, and we were set up for this morning’s podcast, where I learned quite a bit about the future of a once-lost ski area. Transcripts There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them. Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. Zoom Stuart Winchester: My guest today represents the Wheeler family, who last week purchased Toggenberg Ski Area in New York. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:21.000 Stuart Winchester: The ski area, which has been closed since 2021, has three chairlifts serving 22 trails, and had been open since the 1950s. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:36.000 Stuart Winchester: The Wheelers plan to reopen Toggenberg for the 2027 to 28 ski season. James Wheeler is my guest. James, welcome to the storm. Thank you so much for joining us on such short notice. How does it feel to own a ski area? 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:55.000 James Wheeler: Stuart, thank you for having me. Uh, it is… it’s, uh, nothing short of a miracle right now. I mean, we’re still, uh, we’re very surprised that this has honestly, uh, gone through. We’re very happy to be where we are right now. Um, and just… the feelings, it hasn’t all set in yet. We’re still very, uh, shocked at some of the things that we’ve discovered. 00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:13.000 James Wheeler: Uh, we’re slowly trying to map out a game plan for which, uh, avenue to tackle first, uh, whether that’s the restaurant end of things, or the actual, the, uh, the mountain end of things, whether that’s snowmaking, or, uh, pumps, or snow cats. We are just getting a game plan and starting to get everything tackled. However. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:20.000 James Wheeler: The actual, the feelings of the matter, we’re just overwhelmed with joy and excitement to be able to bring this back to the community. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:25.000 Stuart Winchester: Lots to do, and it’s a whirlwind, but a long time building, and your family… 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:38.000 Stuart Winchester: as I understand it, at least from talking to your father, Doug, yesterday, and yourself, are not skiers. However, you have other attachments to Toggenberg that inspired this. So why did the Wheeler family purchase Toggenberg? 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:53.000 James Wheeler: Yeah, so I can say I was never much of a skier, and that goes for most of my family. I did a little bit of snowboarding when I was younger, and my sister did some skiing here or there. However, what really roots us to Taugenberg was. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:12:09.000 James Wheeler: My great-great-grandfather, back before Toggenberg was actually a ski resort, he owned the property for agricultural purposes. He raised Toggenberg goats on the property. And that obviously had since gotten sold to the Hickeys, who opened the mountain and ran that successfully for so many years. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:29.000 James Wheeler: And, uh, when it got shut down, I’m from Fabius, which is obviously where Taugenberg is, and it just, it really hurt the community. There were so many people devastated. The people that wanted their first jobs there, got their first jobs there, um, grew up skiing there, learned how to ski, and just missed the family-friendly atmosphere. And we… 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:45.000 James Wheeler: have been working for a little, uh, just under 3 years on trying to purchase and reopen that ski center. It’s been quite the… quite the battle for 3 years, but we’re very excited to be able to have it back, not just in our family, but in the community’s hands, uh, and ultimately. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.000 James Wheeler: work towards the reopening of this and bringing it back to Fabius. 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:54.000 Stuart Winchester: It’s incredible how much passion there could be in such a small community. 00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:04.000 Stuart Winchester: around such a small ski area. Did you ever get the sense that there was a despair that it would never reopen, or did folks always kind of know that. 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:08.000 Stuart Winchester: There was enough passion around the place that someone would figure it out. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:15.000 James Wheeler: So, I will say, I think there’s two different groups of people in that sense. There is, uh, there’s your group of people that… 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:30.000 James Wheeler: they’re so passionate about it, they definitely always saw it as a possibility, and I would say I would fit into that category, obviously, we’ve been working on it for so long. Um, we were able to see the Facebook pages, there’s a Facebook page called ReopenTOG with. 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:46.000 James Wheeler: over 3,000 followers on it that are just local people for the most part that have been, you know, supporting this and trying to get this, but you obviously have your group of people as well, or even in that Facebook page specifically, starting to watch people over

  8. Oct 15

    Storm Skiing 10/15/2026: Nub’s Nob GM Ben Doornbos on Lift Upgrades and Sticking With Indy Pass

    The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is raising money for a brain transplant so that I’ll remember to hit “record” before recording a podcast. Thank you for supporting this amazing cause: Who Ben Doornbos, General Manager of Nub’s Nob, Michigan Date Recorded October 15, 2026 About Nub’s Nob Owned by: The Fisher Family Year founded: 1958 Pass affiliations: * Indy Pass: 2 days, select blackouts * Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackouts Base elevation: 923 feet Summit elevation: 1,350 feet Vertical drop: 427 feet Skiable acres: 248 Average annual snowfall: 125 inches Lift count: 10 (4 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 double, 1 carpet, 1 ropetow) Nub’s Nordic map also shows a pretty cool overhead of how all the lifts match up with a topo map: Why I interviewed him Nub’s Nob is basically the Jay Peak/Wolf Creek/Mt. Baker/Bridger Bowl/Alta/Jackson Hole/Mount Bohemia/Mad River Glen of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. By that I mean it is a ski area with loyalists so fiercely devoted to the place that if a Random Internet Commenter dares offer an opinion that said ski area is anything other than a snowy Narnia dreamed up by and for Jesus as a reward for having endured human existence on Earth then that Random Internet Commenter shall have unspeakable crimes attributed to their name with such persistence and gruesome detail that the accused while innocent will come to believe themselves guilty and seek out an active caldera in which to hurl themselves. It’s hard to understand until you ski there but hard to not understand once you have. And lest I enrage the Nub’s partisans who will attempt to read into the nuances of this conversation some dastardly plot to tar the name of Nub’s by for example pointing out the true age of Purple chair I will just state unambiguously that The Storm has been a House of Nub’s fan since 1995 even though I spent half my inaugural visit tumbling down Chute like a beachball and am frankly still slightly terrified any time I glance at the trailmap believing subconsciously that it was not a lack of skill as a result of being on my seventh-ever ski day that caused my cyclical pinwheeling but rather an attribute of that trail that uniquely exposed my lack of ability to SnoSportSki and no amount of experience or preparation will save me. And I think this even though I have since skied Chute and all adjacent trails many times without dismembering myself. And no Nub’s Knob I am not dissing Nub’s just myself McBroseph so chill. Transcripts There is only one transcript today, which you may or may not be able to view at the top of this article, depending upon your browser and device. 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. There is no Zoom transcript today because Zoom didn’t work right. Just kidding there is no Zoom transcript because see the part where my brain isn’t good. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

See All (274)

4.8
out of 5
271 Ratings

About

Everyone’s searching for skiing’s soul. I’m trying to find its brains. www.stormskiing.com

Information

You Might Also Like