The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast

WhoBelinda Trembath, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb, British ColumbiaDate RecordedNov. 9, 2026About WhistlerOwned by: Vail Resorts, which also owns:Year founded: 1966 (Whistler), 1980 (Blackcomb), merged 1997Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited access* Epic Local Pass: 10 holiday-restricted days shared with Vail Mountain and Beaver Creek, both in Colorado* Epic Day Pass: one to seven days, with or without restricted days included, on the top tier only* Edge Card (restricted to residents of Washington and British Columbia): available in 2-, 5-, and 10-day increments, with or without holiday restrictions; 5- and 10-day passes purchased by April 12, 2026 include unlimited access from opening day through Friday, Dec. 11, 2026; 5- and 10-day passes purchased from April 13, 2026 to May 25, 2026 include one bonus dayBase elevation: 2,215 feet/675 metersSummit elevation: 7,159 feet/2,182 metersVertical drop: 5,280 feet/1,507 metersSkiable acres: 8,171Average annual snowfall: 404 inches/1,170 centimetersLift count: 31 (5 gondolas, 1 pulse gondola, 1 eight-pack, 4 six-packs, 8 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 3 triples, 1 T-bar, 7 carpets)Why I interviewed herIn August, I wrote a piece describing ski area operators’ low-key panic that U.S. America would do the most U.S. American thing possible and switch to permanent daylight savings time:While reporting that story, I discovered something kind of astonishing: Canada - or at least, British Columbia - had out America-ed America, saying “yes we’d like the sun to rise after 9 a.m. at the height of winter”:And I thought “well that’s gonna be a problem.” Maybe especially for the largest ski resort on the continent, which had little choice but to go along with the time change.And it was time for a Whistler update anyway. Because it’s Whistler and because it had been a couple years since my last pod and because apparently Dr. Seuss designed their new Showcase chairlift:TranscriptsThere 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.ZoomThe take up top: Peak Resorts brass back in the gameStuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I’m your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Tuesday, November 10th, 2026.01:06:38.000 --> 01:06:54.000Stuart Winchester: Today on The Storm, Whistler head Belinda Trimbath joins us to break down what permanent daylight savings time means for North America’s largest ski area. And she will also give us an overview of the new showcase fixed trip quad.01:06:54.000 --> 01:07:02.000Stuart Winchester: replacing the high elevation T-bar on Blackcomb, including why this machine will load lower than the old lift.01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:13.000Stuart Winchester: Also, a cool local multi-mountain pass that most of you have probably never heard of, and the former owners of Peak Resorts aim to get back into the ski business?01:07:14.000 --> 01:07:18.000Stuart Winchester: We’ll get to all that in just a moment. First, I want to thank…01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:23.000Stuart Winchester: My longtime partner, Profile Search International.01:07:23.000 --> 01:07:25.000Stuart Winchester: Profile search.01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:30.000Stuart Winchester: is the Ski Industry Talent Acquisition Experts.01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:41.000Stuart Winchester: Profile Search has more than 30 years of experience as the only executive search and recruitment firm in the entire world that focuses 100% on the ski industry.01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: As you know, whether you’re a skier or a ski area operator, running a ski area is only getting more complicated, and sometimes it is difficult to understand what you even need to compete.01:07:53.000 --> 01:07:56.000Stuart Winchester: Let alone who can help you to do that.01:07:56.000 --> 01:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: This is where Profile Search comes in. They have an intimate understanding of what it takes to run a modern ski area, and, more important, they know who the people are who can help you make that happen, and they know who’s available.01:08:11.000 --> 01:08:18.000Stuart Winchester: Profile search has offices in the United States and Canada, and they can find and negotiate with the right leaders for your team.01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:31.000Stuart Winchester: You can reach out to Profile Search directly at profilesearch.com, or contact them by email or phone, or send me a note, and I will connect you directly with this expert team.01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:43.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, let’s start with the former owners of Peak Resorts possibly getting back into skiing. So, this is a really interesting headline.01:08:44.000 --> 01:09:00.000Stuart Winchester: That popped up last week, and I didn’t have time to address it because it broke late in the week when I was done recording podcasts. The headline is Brothers Who Sold $264 Million Ski Empire to Vail Resorts Set to Buy Snowy Range Ski Area.01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:05.000Stuart Winchester: So, the brothers that they are referring to are… the Boyd brothers.01:09:05.000 --> 01:09:10.000Stuart Winchester: And the article, this is from Cowboy State Daily, this is a Wyoming newspaper.01:09:11.000 --> 01:09:22.000Stuart Winchester: Quote, In 2019, the Boyd family sold its $264 million Peak Resorts ski empire to Vail Resorts. Now, three Boyd brothers are staging a return, and it’s happening in Wyoming.01:09:22.000 --> 01:09:35.000Stuart Winchester: Jesse Boyd confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that he, his brothers Jason and Joshua, and his best friend Brendan Ryan are buying Snowy Range Ski Area west of Laramie.01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:45.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, so Snowy Range is interesting. This is the ski area that actually joined Icon Pass this year on the 2-day tier.01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:58.000Stuart Winchester: And the relationship makes more sense than maybe it sounds like from a distance. So, Snowy Range is kind of small, uh, but it is there in southeast Wyoming, and the closest big ski area to it is Steamboat.01:09:58.000 --> 01:10:15.000Stuart Winchester: So for years and years, Snowy Range had this special pass deal with Steamboat where you could add a five day Steamboat pass onto your Snowy Range season pass for some reasonable amount. It was $300 or something, and I could go look up the exact prices, but.01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:17.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, this year…01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:22.000Stuart Winchester: Altera replaced that, Altera meaning Steamboat owner Altera.01:10:22.000 --> 01:10:25.000Stuart Winchester: Replace that with the…01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:41.000Stuart Winchester: option for Snowy Range Pass holders to buy a 3-day Icon Session Pass, which I’ve already told you is a terrible product, but you can get half off of that product, and I guess the good ne… Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

WhoJohn Paul Bradley, General Manager of Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort, New MexicoDate RecordedNov. 9, 2026About SipapuOwned by: Mountain Capital Partners, which also owns:Year founded: 1952Pass affiliations: Unlimited on Power Pass, Power Pass Select, and Power Pass CoreBase elevation: 8,200 feetSummit elevation: 9,255 feetVertical drop: 1,055 feetSkiable acres: 189Average annual snowfall: 185 inchesLift count: 6 (1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 double, 2 carpets)Why I interviewed himThat’s a nice trailmap, built out considerably since MCP Managing Partner James Coleman purchased the bump from the founding Bolander family in 2000.But it’s a McNothingStuffing compared to how Sipapu could scale under an expansion plan that the U.S. Forest Service recently accepted for environmental review:Here’s the proposed lift specs - proposed lifts A and B below match with the long dotted lines above:Absurdly, amazingly, the gray-shaded area on the map above represents the entirety of the legacy ski area:Can they do it? I hope so.TranscriptsThere 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.ZoomTake up Top - Ikon’s new partnersStuart Winchester: All right, let’s start today with changes to the Icon Pass. I say changes, but really I mean changes and additions. Icon Pass just keeps adding mountains at an unbelievable rate. They’ve added more than 40 ski areas.01:10:56.000 --> 01:11:07.000Stuart Winchester: in the past 2 years, and when I say past 2 years, I really just mean since spring of 2025, so really it hasn’t even been 2 years since they’ve added all these mountains.01:11:07.000 --> 01:11:22.000Stuart Winchester: And some of them are the little bonus mountains, and some are full partners. One of the changes, though, that is not a new mountain that Deer Valley added, or that Icon added today, was a little bit of a departure for Icon Pass.01:11:22.000 --> 01:11:24.000Stuart Winchester: So…01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:37.000Stuart Winchester: when the Icon Pass debuted in 2018, all of the ski areas that were on Icon Pass at the time were included on the Icon Base Pass, and they… many of them had blackouts, as many of them do today, but.01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:45.000Stuart Winchester: Jackson Hole, Alta, Aspen, all of those mountains, Deer Valley, were on the Icon Base Pass with five days.01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:47.000Stuart Winchester: In 2020.01:11:47.000 --> 01:11:55.000Stuart Winchester: Jackson Hole and Aspen left Icon Base, and they went to something called Icon Base Plus, and it was…01:11:55.000 --> 01:12:04.000Stuart Winchester: an add-on you could buy, but in general, most people would still get the full Icon Pass. Uh, in 2022, Deer Valley and Alta.01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:16.000Stuart Winchester: followed Jackson Hole and Aspen off of the Icon Base Pass, and Sun Valley and Snow Basin, which had newly joined after leaving the Epic Pass, decided to also be exclusively for Icon Base.01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:18.000Stuart Winchester: But we started to see…01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:30.000Stuart Winchester: what we’ve always seen with Altera, the ability to be really creative with the IconPass, and one of the things that they’ve done is change access.01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:33.000Stuart Winchester: Quite a bit. And they’ve done this to…01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:37.000Stuart Winchester: Experiment to flex to try to get the crowd levels correct.01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:52.000Stuart Winchester: And sometimes they take away access, and sometimes they add access. So in this case, the Deer Valley access they took away on IconBase in 2022, Altera, which owns Deer Valley and IconPass, of course.01:12:52.000 --> 01:13:08.000Stuart Winchester: is adding some Icon Base Pass access back. They’re adding 3 days, though, not 5, so this is a unique thing. There is no other ski area on Icon Base Pass that has a 3-day tier, and I’m not exactly sure.01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:20.000Stuart Winchester: how they arrived at that three days. I am scheduled to host the president of Deer Valley, Todd Bennett, very soon on the podcast, and I will ask him to break this down for us. But nonetheless, if you have an Icon Base Pass, you do get three days.01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:29.000Stuart Winchester: at Deer Valley on it this year. Remember, Deer Valley is only for skiers, no snowboarders allowed, similar to Alta up the road. And…01:13:29.000 --> 01:13:39.000Stuart Winchester: Deer Valley has nearly tripled in size over the past 3 seasons, so if you haven’t been to Deer Valley in a while.01:13:39.000 --> 01:13:44.000Stuart Winchester: I mean, it already felt pretty big, because it’s Utah, and you can ski almost anywhere, but…01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:46.000Stuart Winchester: They added…01:13:46.000 --> 01:14:02.000Stuart Winchester: more than the size of Deer Valley to the back end of it, basically they call it the Wasatch Back, so if you keep driving out of Park City, and it’s actually a lot more pleasant to get to Deer Valley now, because what the expansion allowed them to do was to build a new village, the Deer Valley East Village.01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:14.000Stuart Winchester: You don’t have to drive through Park City to get there anymore, and Park City traffic is always a nightmare, so what you can do is just get off the highway, make one turn, and there you are in Deer Valley East Village, and the…01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:20.000Stuart Winchester: new Lyft network connects really seamlessly to Legacy Deer Valley, so…01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:25.000Stuart Winchester: They’ve done a really good job with it. I’ve not skied the entire expansion.01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:41.000Stuart Winchester: But I skied quite a bit of it the year before last and was really impressed with the way that the whole thing was coming together. So, you know, Deer Valley is not to be mistaken for cottonwood skiing. It is a very different thing. It is positioned differently. It is a, a different.01:14:41.000 --> 01:14:48.000Stuart Winchester: level and kind of skiing, even though they’re really right next door to each other, but uh… but that is, I think, cool.01:14:48.000 --> 01:15:01.000Stuart Winchester: of Icon to do that, and Altera to do that, and to give a little access where they have a little more to give. You know, they have 5,000 acres to fill, and they used to have 2,000, and I’d imagine you could probably fit a few more skiers on there, especially when you’re excluding snowboarders.01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:04.000Stuart Winchester: This echoes what…01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:13.000Stuart Winchester: Icon Pass did with the Aspen Mountains, right? I mentioned that Aspen had left the Icon Base Pass in 2020, and…01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:20.000Stuart Winchester: This past year, this past spring, for the 2026-27 ski season, Aspen said, you know what?01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:27.000Stuart Winchester: That still makes sense for Aspen M… Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

WhoJohn Taylor, principal at John H. Taylor Consulting, reporting for the Vail Daily. Email John at [email protected] Date RecordedNov. 5, 2026About Vail ResortsAbout the Epic PassWhy I interviewed himVail Resorts (stock ticker MTN), is in the midst of a proxy battle, which is Finance Bro speak for when individuals whom the company doesn’t want on their board of directors are nominated to be on their board of directors. Professional Finance Bro James Early joined me on the pod yesterday to help us understand Vail’s stock journey, and why all these unwelcome folks (Vail refers to them as “dissident” candidates) might be disappointed enough with MTN’s financial performance to try joining the board of a company that doesn’t want them on its board.It was an awesome conversation, but it was just part one of my blockbuster serial: Proxy Bros 2026. For part two, I reached out to John Taylor, a former business reporter who retired to Vail a decade ago but is not retired enough to not absolutely crush a series on MTN’s drama for the Vail Daily:* Oct. 30: Florida financier Meyer lays out detailed plan for Vail Resorts if named to board* Oct. 31: Baron, Prince duke it out as Vail Resorts proxy battle heats up in flurry of filings* Nov. 3: Oasis unloads on Vail Resorts in proxy fight, citing long lines, overcrowding, rising food prices* Nov. 4: Halftime in Vail Resorts proxy battle is prime time for assessing all the playersTaylor describes proxy fights as an “arcane” world, but he does a nice job of making it legible for McBrosephs like me. I’ve been working on a longer written overview of everything that’s been going down, but - again - the new pod format gives me more latitude to bring in smart people to talk about complicated things while I write 8,000-word stories that should be eight one-thousand word stories.TranscriptsThere 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.ZoomStuart Winchester: Okay. My guest today has been reporting on Vail Resort’s proxy fight for the Vail Daily. He is the principal for John H. Taylor Consulting and a former Forbes bureau chief and business reporter for the St. Pete Times, Florida Trend, and Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money Magazine.00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:55.000Stuart Winchester: He eventually pivoted doing research for money managers and built a team of researchers at the Duane Kniff firm, where they managed roughly $11 billion in assets. He retired to Vail in 2017. He is also a member of the board of advisors to the Rogel Foundation.00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:01.000Stuart Winchester: Cancer Center. John Taylor is my guest. John, welcome to The Storm. How is life in Vail, Colorado today?00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:13.000John Taylor: Well, there’s a little bit of snow up there at the top, but alas, it’s supposed to be mid-50s next week, so not sure that they’re gonna have much open other than the usual two runs and one lift.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that’s a fine bull elk behind you. Is that… is that a trophy of yours?00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:22.000John Taylor: No, it is not. I bought this house furnished.00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:31.000John Taylor: And we originally thought we would get rid of that, but the owners told me that it cost them $30,000.00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:46.000John Taylor: So that was one factor in keeping it, and the second was I couldn’t figure out how the hell we were going to get it out of here. And so, it’s interesting, because little kids will come in and look at it, and they’ll point and go, oh my god, look how big that is. I say, go upstairs and look at the back.00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:33.000Stuart Winchester: Oh!00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:56.000Stuart Winchester: 30 grand, man, I should become a taxidermist. I didn’t realize it was that lucrative.00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:57.000John Taylor: Well, just to give you an idea how dumb I am, Stuart, I had a bear…00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:10.000John Taylor: And on the other wall And somebody asked me if they could have it. And I went, oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead, take it. And then the owners told me that was $3,000. I said.00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:03.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:11.000Stuart Winchester: Oh my gosh.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:17.000Stuart Winchester: Well, there you go. All right, John, so let’s get into this Vale proxy fight.00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:33.000Stuart Winchester: I have a pretty educated audience, but why don’t you start us off with a little proxy fight 101. You’ve called it a very arcane world. So what is a proxy fight and who are the players in Vale’s proxy fight right now?00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:40.000John Taylor: Okay, a proxy fight is pretty simple, because it all comes down to anyone who owns stock in Vail Resorts can vote.00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:47.000John Taylor: Uh, and X percent probably never do in any of these elections, but, uh, so.00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:50.000John Taylor: They’re entitled to vote.00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:58.000John Taylor: Management will put up, in this case, nine incumbent directors for re-election.00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:15.000John Taylor: And you can elect, if you are a shareholder, to nominate your own board candidates. In this case, there is a group based in Hong Kong called Oasis Management that owns about 9.6% of the stock.00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:28.000John Taylor: And they originally put up four, uh, board candidates, including Peekaboo Street, um, and I guess the other well-known name was, uh, Bob Chapek, who was the former CEO of Disney.00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:30.000John Taylor: And…00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:42.000John Taylor: Another sort of weird sidelight to this is one investor who owns almost no stock nominated himself for a board seat. And so.00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.000John Taylor: Technically, there… so what happens is…00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:55.000John Taylor: Both of these sides are soliciting. They get a list of every shareholder. So it’s equal. Everybody has access to this. It goes out.00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:57.000John Taylor: You have…00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:14.000John Taylor: pretty much an endless stream of what they call proxy solicitations, because I could get one from Vail Resorts, read it, and go, oh, this makes great sense, I’m gonna vote for all of their nine guys. Then two days later, I get one from Oasis, and it’s attacking Vail Resorts and criticizing it for this, that, and the other thing, and go.00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:21.000John Taylor: oh, you know, I sort of believe that, so I’m gonna not, you know, vote for their guys. So, in the end, um…00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:29.000John Taylor: it’s basically a simple election. Now, where this becomes much more complicated, or pe… Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

WhoJames Early, CEO of Alpine House Research (known as Curia Financial when we spoke)Date RecordedNov. 5, 2026The Takes Up TopI briefly discuss Indy Pass’ rad new destination upgrade, which gives skiers an extra three days to split among 13 destination resorts in North America and Europe starting at $199 adult and $129 kids. I’ll write a longer piece on this, but here’s a teaser:I also talk about Jackson Hole’s Golden Ticket program, which gets season passholders at any ski area half off lift tickets on at least 39 dates over the 2026-27 ski season. As an aside, Jackson Hole enters the ignominous $300-plus lift ticket club, with a $339 peak-day walk-up rate for this winter:About Vail ResortsAbout the Epic PassWhy I interviewed himAs most of you know, I nearly dropped dead two years ago. I was pretty happy when I didn’t, and wrote what was essentially a gratitude post about all the things that were cool about being alive. One of the things I mentioned was the Motley Fool investment site.The Motley Fool, like investing itself, is a sprawling, baffling place. But at its heart, it is a stock recommendation site with a philosophy of identifying good companies, buying and holding them long term, and ignoring daily market fluctuations. I’ve subscribed to their basic services for years, and have found that if I just do what they say (mostly, counterintuitively, nothing), my monies do good.Anyway, James is a skier and an investor, and he reached out when I wrote that. I recognized his name from Fool bylines - he ran an income investor portfolio at the site that beat the S&P 500 for 10 consecutive years. He’d long ago moved on from Motley Fool, but we started up a dialogue, and he invited me onto his Curia Financial podcast last year, where I made a relatively bullish argument for skiing in general, and a relatively bearish argument for Vail Resorts’ growth prospects as the company reached the limit of how many skiers it could squeeze into a static portfolio.Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. A Hong Kong-based company called Oasis has accumulated a 9.6 percent stake in MTN stock, and is waging a proxy battle to replace two sitting Vail Resorts board members with its own nominees: former Disney CEO Bob Chapek a mysterious fellow by the name of M. Ashton Hudson. Meanwhile, Gregory S. Meyer, a Florida-based financier, nominated himself for a board position and pulled together an impressive document outlining how he would steer Vail Resorts toward growth. One thing all of these parties have in common is that they believe Vail’s Epic Pass-united, 42-resort portfolio is the company’s greatest strength and therefore have no desire to break up the company. Adding to the confusion is Matthew Prince’s ongoing, unrelated pressure campaign to purchase Park City from Vail Resorts.It’s all very confusing, and I recorded another podcast today with John Taylor, a seasoned business reporter who’s been documenting the proxy drama for the Vial Daily. I’ll release that deep analysis of the proxy battle tomorrow, but first I wanted to get with James to see how MTN stock looks from an investor’s point of view. Because looking at the numbers, Vail’s growth story seems to have stopped when resort acquisitions did:But is this just a natural equilibrium that many companies reach when they’ve maxed out their addressable market, or is it a pause in a company that’s shifting from growth-by-acquisition to growth-by-a-strategy-it-hasn’t-found yet. Could Vail, for example, get back to adding Epic Pass partners, as Alterra has continued to accumulate in large numbers for its Ikon Pass?Or did Vail’s 2021 Epic Pass price cuts ultimately undermine the company’s growth by prioritizing volume over experience?And how realistic is it to expect lift tickets to fill the 12 percent Epic Pass unit sales drop Vail reported in September after the company spent two decades destroying the product?And how much does stock price even tell us? After all, some of the largest companies in the world stumbled mightily on their journey to greatness:James, with his deep understanding of the stock market and Vail Resorts’ story, helps center us.TranscriptsThere 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.ZoomThe takes up top:Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I’m your host, Stuart Winchester. It is Thursday, November 5th, 2026. There is so much happening.01:57:07.000 --> 01:57:15.000Stuart Winchester: Today on The Storm, a seasoned investor breaks down the fundamentals behind Vail Resorts’ declining stock price.01:57:15.000 --> 01:57:22.000Stuart Winchester: why he thinks Vale’s growth days are over, and whether Epic should be fighting Icon for marquee partners.01:57:22.000 --> 01:57:28.000Stuart Winchester: Plus, an IndyPass destination upgrade, and how to get half off at Jackson Hole on 39 dates this season?01:57:28.000 --> 01:57:33.000Stuart Winchester: Let’s get into it all right now. I’m the storm. First.01:57:33.000 --> 01:57:36.000Stuart Winchester: I will be headed to New England tomorrow.01:57:36.000 --> 01:57:52.000Stuart Winchester: I love New England. I don’t love driving in New England, but I like being in New England. And I will be at the first New England Snovana show, which is at the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlboro, Mass. That is not in Boston, west suburbs-ish, I don’t know. Boston folks, correct me if I’m wrong.01:57:52.000 --> 01:58:06.000Stuart Winchester: But it’s a Boston-ish event, easy to get to from anywhere in New England, and I will be doing two live interviews on stage. Friday, tomorrow, at 5.30 Eastern, I will be interviewing Eric Mogensen.01:58:06.000 --> 01:58:14.000Stuart Winchester: who runs Black Mountain, he runs the IndiePass, and we’re certainly going to talk about this new destination product he has, and he runs Entebeni System.01:58:14.000 --> 01:58:29.000Stuart Winchester: Supplier for independent ski areas. Then on Saturday at 2:05 on the main stage, I will be interviewing Killington managing partner Bill Gross and longtime Killington president Mike Salamano. That one is going to be awesome.01:58:29.000 --> 01:58:47.000Stuart Winchester: Love Killington. Sunday, my good buddy, Sean Sutner, will be interviewing the owners of Wachusett, one of the most popular sea areas around, one of the busiest, certainly, based on acreage. Uh, the Crowleys and the Sti… Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

WhoShaun Sutner, Snowsports columnist for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette & Telegram.com.Date RecordedNov. 2, 2026The take up topThe modern accessibility of western skiing is mostly due to a pair of transportation revolutions that slashed travel time into harsh, high, and once-remote mountains over the past several decades. The first is the Interstate Highway System, which cracked the Colorado Rockies, the Wasatch, Lake Tahoe, New England, and other regions open to the masses. The second has been the quiet increase in direct flights from major population centers into rural airports such as Jackson, Vail-Eagle, Friedman (Sun Valley), and Yampa (Steamboat). The success of the Epic and Ikon passes is at least in part due to the ease with which skiers in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Los Angeles can reach airports near otherwise-walled-in-by-nature destinations such as Big Sky, Snowbird, Taos, and Aspen. My favorite is American Airlines’ early-morning direct flight to Vail-Eagle out of JFK, which, when considering the two hours travelers pick up flying west, puts me on Vail’s Born Free Express before lunchtime.So small changes in airline routing can impact skier patterns in a big way, which is why I took the first few minutes of this show to itemize a few subtractions and additions to ski-town plane routes ahead of this winter. Here’s The Travel article that I referenced in my overview.Why I interviewed himYou may have caught part one of SutnerFest yesterday. If not:That show focused on acquisitions and mountain upgrades. In this episode, we talk through our favorite New England ski areas, and itemize the New England ski lifts we think are most in need of updating. I did a similar exercise with Matthew Zebransky of Midwest Skiers in September:TranscriptsThere 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.ZoomStuart Winchester: Alright, joining us again is Sean Suttner, very good friend of the Storm. He has been covering New England skiing as the snow sports columnist for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette and Telegram.com for more than two decades. Sean Suttner joins us once again.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:45.000Stuart Winchester: Sean, let’s break down some resorts. So… so we’re gonna… we’re gonna give our…00:38:45.000 --> 00:39:01.000Stuart Winchester: Five favorite New England resorts. We might have some bonus ones, and mine are not necessarily in any particular order, but I’ll let Sean go first, and then I’ll give mine. We’ll just alternate back and forth, and I did this with Matthew Zabransky in the Midwest. It was a lot of fun.00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:51.000SutnerS: Oh?00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:07.000Stuart Winchester: So, Sean, give us your first and let us know, are these in order or not? Because I can’t order mine.00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:10.000SutnerS: Wait, so it’s like a snake draft, or I just go, uh, I just give by 5?00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:18.000Stuart Winchester: Just give your five, uh, and then I’ll… well, no, no, give… no, give one, break down why it is, and then I’ll do one.00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:17.000SutnerS: Give one. Okay.00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:20.000Stuart Winchester: And then we’ll switch back and forth.00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:19.000SutnerS: Okay.00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:22.000SutnerS: All right, I’m gonna give you Stowe as number one.00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:40.000SutnerS: That’s my number one favorite. I’ve been skiing it the longest. It’s what Vail is to national ski resorts, so is to New England ski resorts. It’s got the gnarliest skiing, the best vibe, the best opera. You can tell that to your producer.00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:24.000Stuart Winchester: I mean.00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:45.000SutnerS: Um, it is, uh, I don’t know, I don’t think, I think it’s unrivaled.00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:56.000Stuart Winchester: I agree, and that was my number one as well, and we won’t… I don’t think we’ll all be matched. Me and Sean did not share what we were doing here, but I think that…00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:54.000SutnerS: No.00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:00.000Stuart Winchester: Vail putting that six pack over where that triple was was brilliant.00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:08.000SutnerS: You cut out. I can’t hear you. Oh, I couldn’t hear that.00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.000Stuart Winchester: Great.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: Oh.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:09.000Stuart Winchester: Let’s see.00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:12.000SutnerS: Sorry, you froze briefly.00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:11.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, did I mute?00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:16.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, my internet connection is unstable, it says.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:21.000Stuart Winchester: Are you hearing me? No, it says mine. Are you hearing me?00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:20.000SutnerS: Well, bye.00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:21.000SutnerS: I’m hearing you.00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:23.000SutnerS: I’m hearing you.00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. All right. Okay, so let me…00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.000Stuart Winchester: start that one over, and I’ll just…00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:32.000SutnerS: Wait, you can’t keep the snow part?00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:42.000Stuart Winchester: No, no, no, I will, I will. Yeah, yeah, no, I’ll keep yours, I’ll just re-record mine. Um, and Patricia will, uh, will edit this nicely, I’ll just warn her that this is, uh…00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:38.000SutnerS: Okay.00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:47.000SutnerS: You’re freezing a little too. I never know if this is my connection or somebody else’s connection. Yeah.00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:44.000Stuart Winchester: Am I?00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:49.000Stuart Winchester: Gosh, it, uh… hmm.00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:51.000SutnerS: Now you’re fine.00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.000Stuart Winchester: Am I? Okay, look, look.00:40:51.000 --> 00:40:55.000SutnerS: Well, your little, uh, back’s headroom.00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:57.000Stuart Winchester: Sorry, am I alright? Yeah.00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:58.000SutnerS: A little. Now you’re fine. Now you’re fine.00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay. Well, let’s see how it goes. Alright, so…00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:09.000Stuart Winchester: So it’s cool you say that, Sean, because… and Sean and I did not share what we were gonna…00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:15.000Stuart Winchester: what our top 5 were, but Stowe is also my favorite ski area in New England. Here’s the trail map up.00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:32.000Stuart Winchester: What Vail did with putting this six pack over here with this awesome, awesome intermediate terrain over on Mount Mansfield was just brilliant because it really encouraged, because there used to be a triple and you had to climb all these stairs to get up there. And with a six pack here, it’s really taken a lot of pressure, I think.00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:50.000Stuart Winchester: off of the 4Runner quad and the gondola, and Stowe is just huge, and what I really, really, really love about it is that even the stuff that’s not marked Glades … Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe