Rob Katz

Rob Katz is Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of Vail Resorts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome back to the Bob Web Sens podcast. My guest
today is ROBCATS, CEO and chairperson to Build Resorts. Rob,
how'd you come up with the idea for the epic Pass?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, Bob, it's great to be here. I appreciate you
having me on the show. And yeah, the team and
I came up with the idea way back, thinking about
how do we provide stability to a business that everybody
thought was totally dependent on whether and uh, it was
critical for us to do that to make obviously the

(00:46):
financial situation for our company better, but it was also
critical for us to do that to provide more stable employment,
more stable dynamics for our local communities. And so you know,
it's really been quite transformational.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
So was the main goal to even out revenue or
to what degree was it to raise the revenue or
to get more skiers involved.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
The main goal was really to get people to buy
their skiing before the season began, so that we'd have
more consistent visitation year in and year out, and that
people would you know, ski more even you know during
times when maybe the snow wasn't as good. But then
we also felt like because we were reducing the price
so much that it would ultimately, yeah, we'd get more

(01:35):
people into the sport. And actually, when you look back
over the last you know, twenty years, we've seen real growth.
Best you know, two years ever in the US ski
industry history was two of the last three.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So do you think that the epic pass alone has
driven that increase or do you think it's got more
coming out of COVID or other factors.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think there's no doubt that COVID helped in terms
of I think you know, we were a local option
for people to take, you know, vacations too, and it
was outdoors, so that definitely helped. But I think last
year was maybe a better because last year wasn't a
COVID related year, and if anything, I think we were
seeing kind of a decline from the COVID peaks, But

(02:23):
last year I think highlighted that. Yeah, probably COVID activated
a bunch of dormant skiers. But when you look even
you know, look over twenty years, you know, the peak
year way back when was probably in the high forties.
Then it was the low fifties, and it was a
mid fifties, then you know, the high fifties. Now we're
in the low sixties. So I think you've seen this
pretty consistent, you know, increase, and I would say it's

(02:45):
it's probably some corollary effects. So because the Epic Pass
and then you know the Icon Pass and all the
other passes that have been created since, because they've stabilized
the industry, it has made the industry safer to invest.
And so you've seen a lot more money go into
ski areas around North America, actually around the world. And

(03:06):
so it's quite a heyday in terms of the amount
of new projects, new upgrades that you're seeing, and I
think that has also brought people into the sport.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, you have a business background, you come up with
the idea of the Epic Pass. Tell us about the
actual process of running the numbers. How do you come
up with the numbers the spreadsheets to say this is
a good idea.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, Well, for the Epic Pass itself, we knew right
we were reducing the price of a season pass for
us from I think it was sixteen hundred or seventeen
hundred dollars and we reduced it down to six hundred dollars.
So we knew right away that there were a whole
bunch of people who were buying season passes from us,
we were going to lose money on them right at
the outfit, and so we factored that in and then

(03:56):
what we were saying was how many additional people could
sell an Epic pass too, And then a part of
that was how many people would be new, you know,
kind of coming into At that point, we only had
five resorts, so how many would be new people and
to Veil be for Greek, Breckenridge, key Stone or Heavenly,
And then how many people would be lifted ad buyers

(04:17):
that might have skied two days, three days, five days,
but with the Epic pass right, they'd ski eight days
or seven days. In other words, we were looking for
both building frequency from people and then bringing new people in.
And so we looked at all that and actually in
the first year of the Epic Past we were it
was great. We sold a lot of passes, but it
was nowhere near what we thought it could be. And

(04:39):
it really taught us that to really convince people to
use a new product one takes a long time, and
two marketing was going to be critical to how we
delivered on that.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
I happened to be in Veil the day was announced.
I walked down to the gondole and was shocked. But
tell me about the marketing challenges and how you reach
the potential ski audience today.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, well, I think, by the way, I do remember
that day as well. I was in Veil. I think
we were doing news hits from the from the basement gondola.
I think at that time, I can't remember. And then,
you know, we also had a mad rush of people
who were going in to buy the past because they
all thought we had made a mistake and so they

(05:28):
were convinced that we were going to take it away
and you know, reverse the whole thing. You know, at
that time when we launched it, the real challenge was, Yeah,
like most people thought that if you were going to
buy a season pass, you only did that because you
were a local. And so most destination skiers, even if
it made sense for them to buy the past, they

(05:48):
weren't looking at it because they just didn't think that
that was for them. And so back then it was
hard because we didn't have emails for everybody, we didn't
have everybody's data, we didn't have any of that. So
we were really focused on a lot of traditional media
approaches in terms of you know, getting into some display
ads and online, a bunch of traditional ads that we

(06:11):
were running still in a lot of the ski magazines
or newspapers, and then we were doing a lot of
kind of I don't know, unique stunts of sorts. So
I had to show how many, you know, we had
people skiing every mountain, We had people, you know, showing
how you could use it to you know, ski throughout
the year and what you could.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Do with it.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
So, you know, it was it was much tougher. Today
we're in a totally different spot, right We have emails.
You know, we have like twenty five million people in
our database. You know, we have you know, basically almost
everybody who has skied is somehow in one of our databases,
unless you know, you kind of have a home and
asspen and have never stepped foot in one of our

(06:49):
resorts or something like that. And now, yeah, we had
a heavy effort to email people. So our goal was
really to get away from traditional meat media advertising or
even digital advertising and really focus on how to communicate
one to one with the guests over email, which served
us incredibly well and responsible for a huge amount of

(07:10):
our growth over the past fifteen to twenty years. Over
the last three to four years, it's really shifted because
email has become kind of degenerated as a channel. People
don't open email, especially younger folks twenty to thirty really
don't open email. And so what we're doing right now
is we're pivoting towards social channels. We're pivoting towards direct

(07:32):
engagement through our app and on mobile, and so we're
really kind of moving that one to one relationship into
a different spot.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
So where'd you grow up?

Speaker 2 (07:42):
I grew up in Nurshell, New York, about thirty minutes
north of Manhattan, famous for the I think it was
the Dick Van Dykes show exactly supposedly took place there.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Okay, And what did your parents do for a living?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
My mom was an artist and my dad was a
local attorney.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
In How many siblings did you have?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
I have one younger sibling, a brother.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
And what is he up to?

Speaker 2 (08:13):
He is in the mortgage finance business. Lives still back east,
living in West Hampstead of Long Island.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
So what kind of kid were you?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
What kind of kid was I? I was? You know,
I was very into being active for sure, and you know,
within my family. I was kind of the first one
to get the bug to go skiing. It definitely, you know,
growing up. You know, I think that certainly the history
of my family, you know, coming over from Eastern Europe
and then settling and living in the Bronx and in

(08:47):
Queen's Originally, yeah, like there was no skiing and anybody's background.
But I did a couple of class trips to Hunter Mountain,
and even though I was you know, skiing in jeans
and I was soaking and I'd be on the bus
right back, it was, yeah, I really got I really
got into it. And then I was lucky that my cousin,

(09:08):
first cousin and my uncle, you know, they their family
really got into skiing and they started skiing around the Northeast,
and then I would tag along with them, or sometimes
my whole family would tag along with them, and they
ultimately bought a house at Stratton, and so I did
wind up spending kind of from I don't know, fifteen
to twenty skiing at Stratton. I actually remember at twenty

(09:28):
I took my first trip out to Vail. I remember
I was twenty one or twenty two, I can remember,
and my cousin had to give me like tips on
how to transition my style from skiing on the ice
in the east to the powder out west.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
So well, how much were you skiing in those days
from age fifteen to twenty or even earlier than that.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, probably ten to twenty days, maybe a year in ten,
you know, something in that, depending on you know where
we took drips ten to fifteen. I mean it's certainly,
you know, it was still a long drive, and even
the trip to Hunter was a big, a bit of
a schlub. So certainly not something I was doing day
in and day out. But but it was every year,
you know, it was something I cared about. I was
an avid. I loved you know, going up to the

(10:14):
resorts and watching Warren Miller, you know clips on TV
that I was, you know, would get you jazzed up
for the next year, going to like the local ski shops,
uh and you know looking at new gear. Did you
go to Hickory and Tweed Hickory Tweet? No, I think
it was it was it was it paragrine or pedigree

(10:35):
or I can't remember. It's in white planes. It was
like a really good ski shop there. But I also
wound up just because I, you know, didn't have to
grow up with a lot of resources, so a lot
of my stuff was hand me downe from somebody else.
Was fun.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Okay, in school, what kind of kid were you like?
President of the class or a loaner? Were you involved
in sports? What were you like?

Speaker 2 (11:01):
I was definitely I was not president of the class,
but wasn't a loner either. I was more kind of
in the middle. And actually my personality type is right
on the edge between introvert and extrovert, so that's the
kind of would define me a little bit. Was into sports,
but also, you know, I was into I was, you know,

(11:22):
much stronger in math and science than I was in English,
and so wound up, you know, kind of leaning in
that direction. And then ultimately, you know, when I went
to college, I went to the engineering school at the
University of Pennsylvania because that's what I thought I wanted
to be, only to find out that engineering is really hard,
so I switched to something So I switched to something

(11:42):
easier and went into business.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Okay, tell me about being on the knife edge, the
line between introvert and extrovert, and how that manifest itself.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, I think it manifests itself in that I think
I have the ability to be extrovert, and so I
think that has certainly served me well was you know,
I think the I'm not sure I fully when I
took the CEO job in Veil at two thousand and six.
I don't think I fully understood how extroverted I would
have to be. But that has helped tremendously. But the

(12:15):
introvert side comes out in yeah that when I'm not
at my job and I'm not you know kind of
you know, doing that for work. Yeah, I'm not running
around to parties. I'm happy to be home, you know,
with a quiet evening, you know, with friends or family
or whoever. So definitely, and I can easily spend yeah,

(12:36):
oodles of time on my own. But I would say
I get a lot of energy. And it's one of
the reasons I came back as CEO, you know, I
left at the end of twenty twenty one and then
come back came back you know, this past May and
twenty twenty five. And one of the things I've loved
the most is the energy that I get from the
you know, broader community here at fail Resorts and in

(12:57):
the industry because it's yeah, so much passion and so energizing,
So that that's how I can kind of be in
both worlds.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
So when you are home, you're not working in your alone,
how do you spend your time?

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Uh? You know, I'm I I have a few things
that I yeah, I'm super passionate about. One is cycling.
You know, used to be both road and mountain. Too
many injuries, so now more mountain and gravel a lot less,
no more technical mountain biking. I'm kind of too old
for it. Uh. And yoga has been like become a

(13:35):
really critical part of my life. Uh. And yeah, staying
staying in shape certainly, yeah, you know. And then I'd
say reading, walking, hiking, being outdoors, spending time with my kids. Uh,
all of that has es central traveling. Uh you know,
I you know, to me, like my ability to decompress

(13:59):
is is really important. I don't think I could be
good at my job if I didn't have like enough
time to actually unlind And yeah, that to me is
also just doing what's comfortable in the moment.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
And in this job, does the phone ring, does email
come in at all hours or is it more regular
business schedule? You know, during the day, eight to six whatever,
and occasionally on the weekend.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, I would say, one, the phone never rings, so
I don't. I rarely answer the phone if somebody did call.
So I do rely on either emails or text as
a communication channel for me, And I would say most
of it is, yeah, normal business hours, I don't. I

(14:52):
personally don't try and generate a lot of emails. Yeah,
you know, at night or over the weekends. I think,
you know, I think maybe I probably did do that,
you know, I just when I started to CEO is
thirty nine, I probably was in that mode for a
little bit. But you kind of quickly learn that if
you want long term success, like you can't burn yourself

(15:14):
out or everybody else out around you. So I kind of,
you know, ease back on that now. That said, like,
you know, I'm going to visit the resorts, I'm going
to meet people within the industry, I'm going to make connections,
I'm going to meet investors. So there's a lot of hours.
I mean, you know when you add it all up
in terms of what gets dedicated to the company, But
I don't know. For me, it's you know, I think

(15:36):
working at Veil resorts allows you to align who you
are with what you do. And I'm a skier and
so you know the fact that I get to work
on that is uh, yeah, I don't view it as
work and life balance. Is just my life.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
And how many kids do you have?

Speaker 2 (16:01):
I have two kids, and what are they up to? Yeah,
older son who's twenty seven, who works in New York
at a startup, and then a younger son who's twenty
five and is, yeah, working in North Carolina doing ceramics
and pots ceramics and farming.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
So they're growing up with you. You start to work
at Bill Resorts. You know, there's many issues here, whether
you force your kids to ski, whether they come to themselves.
Were your kids into skiing?

Speaker 2 (16:32):
My kids are into skiing right from the get go,
so I did not have to force them whatsoever. And
you know, it's been Yeah, one of the most amazing
experiences of my life has been watching their progression on
skis and getting a chance to ski with them, and
of course the faithful day coming down high line at

(16:56):
Vale where they were waiting for me instead of the reverse,
and you know, it was like a very humbling moment
realizing I was getting older, and I was never going
to catch them again. That was the end of that.
And now that's pretty much anytime, like the three of
us went ski. We've been to Japan twice to ski

(17:17):
and the last time we did some Helli skiing and
sharabetsu and it. You know, the three of us went.
We had an amazing day and they were absolutely like
they were caretaking me. There was nothing happening in the
reverse on that front.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Well, Warren Miller said, there's one day that you and
your kids ski at the same ability.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Okay, so you're at Penn Engineering isn't a good fit?
Your mother was an artist. You could have gone into
a lot of things. Why did you go to Wharton
in business?

Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know, I felt like, I mean I said this
at the time, and maybe it was a line to
get myself into Wharton, But but it's turned out to
be true, Which is I still love, you know, kind
of math and science, and I'm definitely an analytic person.
But I like the social component of Maybe it goes
back to the introvert extrovert thing. I like the social
component of business. I like the fact that relationships mattered

(18:15):
in business, and in a way the arc of my
business career. You know, I started in private equity. I
started investment banking, then in private equity, but really made
this decision that I didn't want to do private equity
forever because I liked the connection. I like the team,
I like being part of a group, and so that

(18:35):
initially was what I liked about business versus engineering.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, you graduate from Wharton, how do you get a job?
Is your first job Apollo?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
No, my first job was I went out and looked
for a variety of different jobs, mostly in banking, and
I wound up with I think getting like three different offers.
One was like an options trading, which I didn't want
to do. The other was working at an investment bank
called Drexel Burnham of Mike Milkan fame, and then the

(19:09):
last was at a private equity firm called I think
it was a CDC. And you know, now it would
seem obvious that you would go to the private equity firm,
but at the time, like private equity wasn't really a
big to do as much as it is today, and
so it felt like going to an investment bank made
the most sense. You know, Drexel at that point was
already under investigation, so there was a bit of a

(19:31):
cloud over the company. And I remember going out on
my cell dinner after I got an offer from Drexel
and the VP was telling I was telling the VP,
I wasn't sure that I wanted to go to Drexel
because they were under investigation, and the VP looked at
me and said, you know, you seem like a smart kid,
and you know what I'm telling you, don't worry about that.

(19:52):
You come to Drexel. You're going to have an amazing experience,
and even if things go wrong, you'll tell everybody for
the rest of your life that you worked together. And
it turned out to be totally true. And then, yeah,
I wound up, you know after Drexel.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Really, wait, so you went to work for Drexel. How
long till it blew up?

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Eighteen months?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
And then what, you're just out of college. You make
this decision. How do you rescue yourself from that?

Speaker 2 (20:23):
It was I thought like my career was over, but
I wound up Yeah, having an opportunity to Yeah, a
lot I did. I really worked hard when I was
a Drexel and I had made a lot of good
relationships and now all these people went to all different
firms across Wall Street, and so yeah, I think it

(20:45):
actually wound up being this huge blessing in disguise for me.
The people who ultimately started Apollo Leon black Mark Rowan,
they wound up, you know, they were working on Apollo
at the time, but they didn't have anything, and so
they they wanted to know if I want to go
with them, but they said they couldn't pay me. I said, well,

(21:05):
I needed money, and so I wound up taking a
job at Smith Barney in their financial restructuring group for
about six months, and then in August of nineteen ninety
they called me again and said, oh, you know we
are now, we have money and where we can pay
you if you want to come over and join us.
And so I wound up making the move in August

(21:26):
of nineteen ninety to join Apollo. When at that point
there I was the sixth person, you know, in the
New York office. We're working in offices that we rented
from somebody else month to month. I had a computer
that we rented by the month. It was. It was
a long way from the Apollo of today.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Okay, what was your relationship with the other five people
such as they invited you, and what did you think
was going to work about Apollo?

Speaker 2 (21:57):
My relationship was really with this two guys, one of
whom was Mark Rowan, who's currently the CEO of Apollo,
and I'd worked for them while I was at Drexel
as an analyst, and it was really they. I mean,
I had some contact with Leon and John Hannon, but
really it was it was you know, these other guys
that brought me along. And what I thought for me

(22:18):
as a young kid was that having money and investing
money would allow me to have a much I'd get
more experience, and it allowed me to do a lot
more than being on the banking side, where you're selling
to clients, where those clients generally don't want to hear
from a twenty three year old. But if we're investing

(22:39):
from Apollo, then that's something that yeah, I thought I
thought could could help boost my career, which which it did.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
So what did you start out doing it? Apollo?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
We were looking for, you know, traditional buyouts. We certainly
were looking for like other private equity firms, but a
lot of what we were doing was looking for or
companies that were in financial distress, companies that were good
companies but had taken on too much debt, and then
we were willing to then go invest in those companies,
or invest in the debt of those companies, and then

(23:14):
try and restructure them so we could have an ownership state.
And that ultimately was how I got connected with Fail
because Veil at that time, back in nineteen ninety one
was owned by a company called Gillette Holdings, which was
like a little personal conglomerate of George Gillett, and the
company had fail the Mountain Packer Land, a meat packing company,

(23:38):
and then three television stations, and so we wound up
making a big investment there and ultimately taking control, and
then we sold off the meat packer and the television
stations and wound up with what was then called Veil Associates.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
So whose idea was it? An invest in bail? And
how did you end up on the board?

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I think you know it was you know, I think
I had done a lot of the initial work, but
folks like Leon and Mark, I mean everybody. At that point,
we were small enough that everybody weighed in on any investment.
So I think there was a view that that all
of us had that you know that Veil was a
unique business. And then at that point it was Veil
in Beaver Creek that it was a unique business that
was really not being valued appropriately by people, and so

(24:26):
we thought we could invest in it. So we closed
ultimately took control of that company at the end of
nineteen ninety two, and then in nineteen ninety six we
were taking the company public as Veil Resorts. And that's
when I went on the board.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Okay, you went behind the years. You have any imposter syndrome?

Speaker 2 (24:47):
You know, yes, in a lot of moments, you know,
especially because I was pretty young, and so you know,
it was often that people treated me as as young,
and I think, yeah, I had out of half imposter
syndrome and half a little bit of a chip on
my shoulder that you know, that I could carry my
own even though I was young. And so you know,

(25:09):
I tried to kind of go back and forth between
those two.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Things and what were the issues back then running Bill
Resorts Bill Associates, Yeah, how we.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Could turn it into a more consistent business, right it
was it was about like how do we skiing? At
that point, people who own ski resorts, for the most part,
either use them to sell real estate at the base
of the ski resort or they were just a complete hobby,
you know, kind of trophy asset like a sports team.

(25:41):
And so we were trying to do we were trying
to make the ski business itself the main business and
not real estate, and we were trying to run it
more professionally, not like, you know, like just just a toy.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Okay. Whose idea was it to focus on the mountain
as opposed to real estate date.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
I think I think actually George Gillette, I think probably
before we owned it, I think started some of that,
But then we really felt like, you know, the real
estate development business was just a very different business and
and that we could you know that ultimately skiing, just
like a lot of other parts of travel hotels, resorts, casinos,

(26:25):
cruise lines, like there's there should be a place in
that for for a ski resort. And so, you know,
I think we decided that that's where we were going
to focus. And one of the big ways that we
wound up making a kind of decision or investment behind
that was when we bought Keystone and Breckinridge. Uh, you know,
because once we did that, then obviously we were making

(26:46):
an even bigger bat on the broader.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Skis inherently skiing is a seasonal business. You have all
this money, Why invest in such a challenged business that
has a imited time span and it's depending on mother nature?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, well, I think that is that's long, you know,
has long been the challenge within the industry is why
do that? I think I think the seasonal component of
the business is unique, but it's also not. We're not
the only business that is seasonal. So lots of parts
of travel, you know, are seasonal as well. Obviously, you know,
there's amazing you know travel, you know, businesses and in

(27:27):
warm weather locations that in the you know are great
in our winter, but in this our summer, you know,
don't make any sense. I think one of the benefits,
at least of ski resorts is that they're pretty amazing
places to travel in both the winter and the summer,
even though you don't ski in the summer. So I
think that gave us some confidence that there was some
year round support and you could, even if we weren't

(27:48):
going to make the money in the summer, there were
jobs for people, so you could have more consistent employment.
Things like that. I think all the weather, Yeah, that
was that that was a challenge, and I think we
initially felt like the way to try and diversify was
maybe buying more resorts, being in other businesses. So we
initially spent a bunch of time investing in lodging, investing

(28:09):
in retail, but no until we really put out the
Epic Pass, you know, which is a little ways after that. Yeah,
I think the business still traded at a pretty reduced
multiple because of them.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
We're in this picture. Do you meet your wife?

Speaker 3 (28:29):
I met my wife in let's see in nineteen ninety two,
and actually she was with me when we made the
first investment and when we closed our investment in Veil
back in nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
So, you know, my wife unfortunately passed away earlier this year.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh God, trying to hear that.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
That's okay, But yeah, she's very much always with me
because she you know, has Yeah, it has been on
this bail ride with me from the very beginning.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Was ill.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, yeah, she was.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Unfortunately, So how do you cope with that?

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, it's hard. It's not a simple thing, that's for sure.
But you know, I'm a I'm a big believer in
yeah that, you know, I don't know focusing on your
own emotions, focusing on your own mental well being. I
mean this was all before I went through the last
you know, a couple of years with her. It's critical

(29:33):
so and that I think that plus yeah, amazing, you know,
family with both of my kids and the relationship that
I have with both of them. Lots of other family,
lots of friends, colleagues, Yeah, like anyone. That's how you
get through, you know, the tough times.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, but you go home there's no one there.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
That's true. That's not easy, but you know, you learn
that life. There's a lot of things that happened in
your life that you are amazed by and you feel
like are good fortune. And there are things that happened
that are tougher. And yeah, I think for me, at
least I try and you know, understand that that's going
to be part of the journey, you know, one way

(30:16):
or the other. But not easy, that's for sure. Not easy.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Did that have any factor in you coming back to
the CEO job.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Not really, I think, uh, you know, I think at
the end of the day, the you know, the board
made a decision that they thought it was time to
make a change, and once they did that, it was
really about for me. Obviously I was going to be
supporting the company no matter what, but did I want
to raise my hand to do this on a more

(30:55):
extended basis and more permanent basis. And for me it
was you know, yeah, less about my wife and what
happened there and much more about my passion for the
company and the people who work here. Kind of understanding
that maybe the better part of my entire working life
has been associated with skiing in one you know, shape

(31:18):
or another, And yeah, that I wanted to see, you know,
through this next phase of the sport.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Okay, what are all the revenue streams of bill resorts?
To this point, you say you're focusing on the mountain,
which of course is lift tickets, ski school, food. But
you hang out and Veil long enough and they say, well,
Veil owns these retail shops. So what are all the
revenue streams?

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, so I think on the mountain it's obviously lift
tickets and you know season passes are you know, lift
access in total right or critical plus? Yeah, then you've
got ski school and food you know, up on the mountain.
Then we have rentals, which is a big business and
a lot that we think we can change there. Uh,
and then in the base we also have I call

(32:10):
it like more specialty technical retail stores. That's part of
our business. We're we're not really in broader you know,
the further way you get from technical you know, ski
gear and stuff like that. It's not really where we
play in our retail business. We do have a collection
of hotels, We do have a collection of condos that
we manage, so that makes up our hospitality business. But

(32:32):
but we are really a ski company and we you know,
have circled back to that over the years, we've thought
about the company has tried different ways to expand, We've
thought about are there different ways for us to expand,
And in all of those scenarios, we really come back
to know at our core, the thing we do better
than anyone else in the world is skiing and stillboarding.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
So what percentage of revenue is driven from the hill,
lift tickets, food and ski school rentals, not retail, not accommodations.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, I don't have it off the top of my head,
but but yeah, the vast majority of our revenue does
come from the mountain. So I mean it is you know,
i'd say off mountain off mountain retail and lodging is
a much smaller percentage, and I think even more even
smaller when you think about the profitability of those businesses
versus the profitability of the mountain.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Okay, where are the growth opportunities in the ski industry?

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, I think, you know, for us, I think it's
on a couple of fronts. I believe actually that there
we're going to see a sea change in the sport
over the next five to ten years from what we've
seen over the last ten to fifteen. So I think
what's defined the sport over the last you know, ten
to twenty years has been passes, right, and obviously US
coming up with the Epic Pass, and then Icon and

(33:51):
Mountain Collective and the Indie Pass here, and then you've
got other passes in Europe and elsewhere. That has been
the defining feature. We've also seen a lot of investment
go into the resorts, but most of that has gone
into lists and including for us, we've spent a huge
amount of money on loot. I think when you look
to the future, it's going to be different. First, I
think we've probably reached a little bit of a maturity

(34:13):
level on passes the last two years, we've seen actual
declines in past visitation when you look at you know,
the industry across America.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
But we are we talking about past sales or the
number of days people use the pass.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
The number I'm talking on this one of the number
of days people visit on a path. So we've seen
that actually decline versus increases actually in visitation from lifting.
It's that's the first time we've seen that in years too.
You've seen obviously our you know, we had explosive past
growth over fifteen years, but even in the last four, right,

(34:49):
our past sales growth has been up fifty percent, But
over the last two years you've seen it decline, you know,
two percent to three percent. With Icon, you're seeing their
pass to you know, kind of stabilize this year as well.
They're not growing what they were either, and so I
think you're going to start to see a shift towards
lift tickets being actually the next focus area for us

(35:10):
and everyone else, which is how do you sell to
the remaining people? Seventy five percent of our visits come
out of pass but that still leaves a big chunk
of the market out there. How do we now go
after that? Market, how do we elevate the resort brands
one by one rather than just the Epic brand. That's
one piece which we think, actually and I think COVID

(35:30):
actually showed that there are a lot of people who
know how to ski. That's not really the huge issue.
The issue is how do we get them to the
mountain in more years? How do we get them in
the years they come to ski more days, how do
we kind of continue to build that engagement. So that's
something we're very focused on. And then how do we
get the skiers who we have to bring their friends

(35:52):
and families, which is one of the reasons why this
year we introduced the Epic Friends Ticket, which gives fifty
percent off to any passholder if they bring somebody to
the mountain on their lifting it. So that's something that's
really critical for us. The other piece is we think
there's an opportunity to completely change how people use gear,
own gear, rent gear when they're going up on the mountain.

(36:14):
I think that is a part of everyone needs to
have gear before you can go up in the mountain, right,
that is a prerequisite. But you look at that market
and the way that business is set up and basically
you have a whole bunch of people who own gear
who don't use it that often. Even people who ski
ten days a year and own gear think they need
to own gear. Well, that gear is just sitting in

(36:34):
their closet for the other fifty one weeks of the year.
And obviously then you know, yes, there are a painful
of people that ski eighty days one hundred days a year. Sure,
owning gear makes sense. Then you've got all these people
who are renting gear and their gear rental process is
just not improved that much of the last fifty years.
They're not necessarily getting the best gear. It's not easy

(36:55):
for them. You know, they don't know what ski or
booth they are going to get. And in our minds
like that's right for a complete overhaul and something we're
going to be focused on quite a bit over the
next five years, that there's really no reason for most
people to own gear and everyone should be able to say, hey,
I just want to know that the ski I want
and the food I want is going to be ready
for me at the mountain whenever I show up, and

(37:18):
we feel like, yeah, over the long haul, that's something
we can deliver on. Ski school is another one where
we see real growth by digitizing the experience. Another business
that has not changed, you know, again in twenty thirty years.
Obviously the course ski lesson is not going to change.
But we can track people's progress, right the instructor can

(37:38):
track their progress and provide that either to the guests
or to their parents. We can provide photos and video,
we can have video analysis. You know, all the things
that you're seeing that exist out there, but none of
that has been brought into the ski industry that you know,
we think we can do. And the last piece i'd
say is even on the food side, I think I

(37:59):
think we lost our a little bit on food during COVID.
Obviously we couldn't do what we wanted to do during COVID,
which is fine, but I don't think we fully brought
back what food service can be to the to our resorts.
And that's something we're going to be focused on. And
you see what's going on on food in all kinds
of entertainment venues, and I think the ski industry has
an opportunity to kind of follow that trend.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Okay, breaking it down, you talk about all these people
who know how to skate, what's the number one friction
point that's preventing them from being on the hill.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, what we see is that for the person who
knows how to ski, it's the ease of the vacation.
So I think people have a sense that it's still
a difficult vacation and gear is a big component of
that difficulty. So you know, if you own gear, then
you've got to schlep your gear to the resort. If
you don't own gear, then you've got to worry about

(38:53):
renting gear, and you don't know what you're going to get.
You don't know that you're to get the boot you want,
or even if you own boots, you don't know what
ski exactly to get what condition it's going to be,
And there's you're waiting online or you're you know all,
there's all these little pain points around gear that I
think are a real challenge. Two. For sure, there's a
I think a view of Yeah, people want to feel

(39:13):
comfortable when they're up on the mountain. I do think
like there's been huge advances in both apparel technical apparel,
which you know certainly I know when you started skiing,
when I started skiing, went completely different. Uh, And then
on the booth. What huge change has happened in boots
that I think within the industry people kind of understand,
but outside the industry, I don't think people will realize,

(39:35):
which is the Boa buckle on boots. So Boa is
a technology that was you know developed, I know it
because it's you know, it's used extensively on cycling shoes
where it's essentially a cable that runs through the shoe
and then you screw down the cable and then you
when it's time to release it, you kind of push
a button. It just releases and you can step out

(39:55):
of it. But it really creates a kind of custom
fit to the shoe. Well that was introduced into boots
I think it was two years ago and has now
created this sea change. So three years ago, we're the
you know, one of the biggest specialty ski retailer in
the world. You know, three years ago we sold no
boots with the Boa buckle. Today, fifty percent of the

(40:16):
boots we sell have a Boa buckle because people really
perceive it to be so much more comfortable and customized.
That is going to be a big change, and especially
as we were the first ones to introduce this into
our rental program. So once we do that, it really
has an opportunity I think to make people realize that
between the gear, between the apparel, between how we can

(40:37):
get the gear to you, Yeah, that we've eliminated a
lot of those pain points. Even the digitizing of ski school.
We think right now, when you drop your kid off
at ski school, you wait in a line, you can't
find you an instructor. So we're coming up with ways
again using the same technology other people are doing to
make that much much quicker. So as a parent, you know,
yeah that when you're bringing your two or three kids

(40:59):
to the mountain, all these pain points can go away.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Okay, it's been well documented that baby boomers, who grew
up before the business was mature, when it was growing,
are reaching their sunset years. How do we get new
skiers into the industry.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, I think one of the great things is that
that's happened, you know, in many respects, because we are
seeing obviously we couldn't have had record years the last
couple of years without that, and we are seeing you know,
kind of what the people call the echo boom, right
the kids of the baby boomers. And what we're seeing
is is that we you know, the think we owe
a lot to two trends. We talked about the season

(41:40):
past tun which I think has helped, you know, keep engagement.
But the much bigger trend was really Jake Burton, right,
and Jake Jake Burton inventing the snowboard when he did,
and of course everyone hated it, you know, all the
industry you know, kind of existing folks, and it was
banned across so many resorts. But of course, you know,
rather than it being like a problem for the ski industry,

(42:03):
and saved this games and introduced not just snowboarding, but
then action sports and the X Games and the Do
Tour and you know, Red Bull and whatever. Right, all
of that during the winter, that kind of you know,
action sports dynamic happens on ski resorts, and I think
that created this connection. Plus the athletes like Sean White

(42:26):
and everybody's come after him on that side of the sport.
Plus including all those action sports in the Olympics, which
we'll you know, see this year. Those things really provided energy.
So all of a sudden, I think as you were
the kid of a baby boomer, you had, you know,
it was cool to go on the mountain again, and
the terrain parks. I think, I'm sure you'll remember this pub.

(42:49):
Like used to be that if like kids tried to
make a feature, you know, create a job, or create
you know, a rail or use a log to you know,
do tricks on the ski resorts would come by and
mow them all down, and you know, because they thought
it was a hazard. And now obviously the ski resorts
are creating these things, and so those kids have a
sense that they are placed on the mountain, that they

(43:10):
can go that no parent is going to go through
right there, and that I think has that separation and
that identity piece has helped a lot. So I actually
think we're in a really good spot there. I think
where we're not at a good spot as a sport
is that the industry is, yeah, just predominantly white, like
you know, and and so we have not made inroads

(43:31):
in yeah, minority communities here, especially the African American and
the Latino community, and that I think, you know, even yes,
you know, people bring up, oh there's income, Yeah, there's
a piece of that, but if you're just for income,
the sport is still wildly underrepresented there. But that's where
all the growth is coming. Population growth and so I

(43:53):
do think the sport ultimately has to find ways to
to be more welcoming and to bring in a broad
set of communities. I mean that's going to be critical
as you think about the next ten to twenty years.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Okay, I was growing up in the sixties and seventies.
I said skiing was cool. It was a middle class sport.
Needless to say, there wasn't the income an equality of today.
If you say you're a skier today, unless the person
you're speaking with is also a skier, they're immediately going
to speak of the cost. They say, oh, you're rich,

(44:25):
You're going skiing, You're rich, when really skiing has never
been less expensive, primarily because of these passes. How can
this narrative be changed? How can people see that it's
not so expensive, which will then lower the hurdle to
them participate in.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, well, I think it's like i'd say, it's two pieces,
and I agree with you, Bob about that. I think,
you know, look, the good news is we've seen a
lot of increase in demand for ski resorts, especially amongst
high and travelers, and there are no new ski resorts
being created, So it does create a you know, kind
of unique supply demand dynamic that has pushed pricing up.

(45:10):
I think it's what you say is right, and I
think it's on us to continue to go out there
promoting the fact that, you know, if you buy a pass,
you're skiing at prices, whether it's a one day pass
or full season pass, you're skiing on prices that, yeah,
are one of the best values in any part of travel,
for sure, But there are other parts, like certainly taking
the lesson is expensive, and you know, certainly buying food

(45:34):
on the mountain is expensive, and we could talk about
each one, but there are aspects, and you have to
buy gears. So when you compare going you know, on
a ski vacation to some of their options, it's a
little tougher. Now that said, really important to remember, like
as I brought up, like I started skiing at Hunter Mountain.
I did not start skiing at Veil. Most people don't
start their ski you know, journey at Veil or Park City.

(45:56):
And actually it's still pretty reasonable right to go to
most of these small resorts either for both for lift tickets,
lift tickets and rental packages, lift tickets, rental and food packages.
So it's at all these smaller resorts and local resorts
that you know, we have to make sure that the
that yeah, being able to come into the sport remains available.

(46:17):
And you know, our mantra is, we want to make skiing.
You know, we came up with the Epic for Everyone
a while back because we want to make this yeah,
really open and inclusive opportunity for everybody. Now that said,
it's expensive, like to run a ski resort, and it's
expensive to you know, run a mountain restaurant that is
so costly to build at twelve thousand feet and that

(46:40):
you only run one meal a day for four months.
You know, like it's hard to make money in the
restaurant business doing that. So there are things that are
not going to be cheap. But but you know, look,
you can show up on the mountain buying a discounted
lift ticket or buying a path, put a sandwich in
your pocket, and you're skiing next to a billion narrative
fraction of the cost.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
But why are lessons at Veil the major resorts not
the feeder resorts. Why are they so expensive? I grew
up when if you took a group lesson, it was
more about whether you wanted to do it or not.
Take instruction. Private lessons were always more expensive. But if
you're a kid going to ski school, I'm talking about

(47:29):
a young kid, four or six whatever, and you have
no equipment, it's basically five hundred dollars a day, which
is a pretty significant cost.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
For a group lesson at veil As five hundred dollars
a day. That sounds a little bit, but whatever, we're
a four.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
To six year old in our condo and it's basically
four hundred and fifty foot I didn't believe it myself,
but once you look at the statistics, you know they
get equipment whatever. It literally is that expensive.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Oh yeah, with rentals, yeah it could be, and with
skiing it could be. I guess what i'd say is
it is there's a part of this that is the
supplied demand piece. So we actually, i'd say there's some
pretty compelling opportunities to get when you combine lift access
and lessons together, and you can get rentals as part

(48:25):
of all of that. And I think, you know, we'd
have to look at the time off year you're going,
but I know that there are some pretty compelling opportunities
at most of our resorts. But there is a piece
that yeah, like we have a there is a certain
limit on capacity in terms of how many kids we
can actually bring in, and so there's the yeah, there's
a cost piece to it. And it's also you know,
as we I like to remind people, despite the fact

(48:47):
that you know, we've done a lot with passes to
make the sport more stable, the truth is is that, yeah,
our business still goes up and down based on the weather,
which is a little trickier. But if you look at
every part of the travel business, and I'm sure you know,
and you're traveling at peak times, it's expensive. But that
is just the reality of how how you know, I
think life has gone during that. But and by the way,

(49:10):
even if you went to Keystone, it would be a
hell of a lot less expensive than going to Veil.
I mean a Veil and Beaver Creek. You're at, you know,
two of the best resorts on the planet, and everything
is going to be a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Those of us who've been around, no, certainly at Deer
Valley and Sun Valley and Snowbasin who have the same
owner of the holding family, the food is spectacular. How
come that could never be replicated A.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Veil well, I would I would tend to say that
there are places within Veil that I think the food
is really amazing. You know, certainly if you're going to
two out obviously if you're going to be sitting down
at the time. Figuring to wild Wood, I think no
doubt that Eagle's Nest and Midvale, I think there are
opportunities for us to you know, definitely improve there. But

(50:00):
over to Beaver Creek, I think you'd see very similar food,
absolutely as good food as Sun Valley or Snowbasin or
Deer Valley. I think those resorts it's important to remember
right Vale Park City, Whistler, Breckinridge, these resorts are much
much larger. They do many many more people, and one
of the prioritiestr USS is to make sure that we're

(50:20):
moving as many people as we count through the restaurants,
and the people have a way to sit, and it
is a little bit harder to get the high touch service.
But if you go to a North Star, if you
go to a Beaver Creek, yeah you're gonna get that
same experience that you get at some of these other resorts.
But yeah, if you want to if you want more
big Mountain scheme, right, which is a little different, and

(50:41):
you want that kind of larger experience, then no, you're
gonna get. But I would put yeah, the overall experience
a bail up against any resort in the world when
you include everything the terrain, the food, the lyft network,
the quality of the lift, the quality of the snow.
That to us is like you have to look at
it in total.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
Okay, you talk about lifts. You referenced for a long
time Veil was announcing after the ski Seeson began new
lifts here and there. That has tapered off. Is that
a result of the lowering of the stock price. What

(51:20):
will we be thinking, you know, both in terms of
expansion and replacement going forward.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Yeah, no, not at all. We have not. We have
not gotten ease back on that at all. I think
in twenty one twenty two, we announced what we called
the Epic Lift Upgrade, where we literally I think upgrade.
I think it was I have to remember the exact numbers,
like twenty lefs across the network. We spent like three
hundred and fifty million dollars per year or something. A

(51:48):
huge investment. I mean, I would say, I think when
you look at fail even at fail right. Over the
last four to five years, you've seen a lot of
new lifts go in so much that when you think
about Vail As Mountain, there are very few lifts that
are left to upgrade, right, And you think about the
new lift that went into the back Balls you know
now called seventeen. You think about the upgraded chair and

(52:10):
Game Creek, you think about obviously the upgraded Northwoods upgraded
Chair four. Obviously going back further, the Gondol upgraded seventeen.
So now the question is like where on Veil. You know,
there's there's almost no fixed grip lifts anymore. Everything's high speed.
We've upgraded a lot of the highest traffic lifts from
four to six person. So now the question is, well,

(52:31):
where do you focus on the experience and where can
you make a difference. You know that to us is
it's we're not backing off at all. And obviously, you
know you look at the number of lists we put
in across our what we'll call our big destination resorts, Keystone, Breckenridge,
Beaver Creek, Vale, Park City, and Whistler. Yeah, I mean
that those you could put those mountains up against any

(52:53):
mountain in the world in terms of the quality of
their lift network and the investment that's been put in,
and there are unrival But but yeah, like at some
point it's what I said earlier, Like I think that
where we have to invest as a company is not
necessarily just in lifts. We have to use technology in
a completely different way. I think skiing is a sport

(53:15):
that it lends itself to using technology again to remove
the pain points, you know, making sure, making it easy
to do all the things that you're doing on the mountain,
to buy your ticket, buy your path, to buy ski school,
to reserve something, to see what food is available, to
rent skis, all of these things are things that you know.
You should never be waiting on a line. You should

(53:36):
never be waiting on a line for lift tickets. You
should be able to navigate the entire mountain understanding all
of you know, where there's lift lines or not. That
technology piece, I think we've made great strides in this
beginning those works and efforts, but we're nowhere near like
best in class, and that to me is as important
as that either. But the lift piece, I think it veiled.

(53:57):
Maybe you have an idea of a lifted veilue you
want to replace, But.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
No, when I come to Veil, I'm listen what people
don't realize about Veil other than a couple of beginner lists.
Every single lift is a high speed lift and has
been for a while now. Some other resorts are starting
to catch up. But as I say, when you talk
about the lift network at Veil, it's beyond belief, which

(54:23):
brings me to another issue, which is perception. Okay, they
show pictures go viral online of the lines at the
gondola on a powder day. Little do people know people
are lining up at six thirty in the morning, the
lift isn't even open. Then there are pictures in the
back bowls chair five before chair seventeen was installed on

(54:48):
a powder day people go to ski sun up sundown
bowls and it created a line. Not only is there
a new lift for someone like me, that's the last
place I'm going to go on a powder day because
I know more people are going to go there. So
this perception a Veil as being an overcrowded, not consumer

(55:14):
oriented company. The whipping boy. Is it something that you
shrug your shoulders and say there's nothing I can do
about it, or can you turn it around? I mean,
just at Veil, the chair five at second iteration was
a triple for decades. You wanted to upgrade it too
high speed. All the locals went berserk. Oh the ski

(55:35):
of the powder is going to be skied out. Whatever
turn it into high speed. No one ever said another word.
So the locals don't like change. Is this something that
you just have to shrug your shoulders or is there
any way to turn this around?

Speaker 2 (55:53):
I think yeah. So obviously I've been around the industry
and Veil resorts a long time, and so for me one,
what you're saying about Veil and about crowding is exactly right,
which is I think I tell people all the time
that we're not We're not trying to avoid, right, some crowds.

(56:13):
Sometimes that's the reality of having a popular place that
people want to go to and what it's like on
a peak moment. You know, you know, I don't know,
I've traveled a lot. I know you do tubea like
anywhere I go between christmin years, Christmas and years is crowded,
and so you know, or by the way you go
to a try and get into like a playoff game

(56:36):
in any sport, it's crowded. Go to the super Bowl,
it's crowded. Try and get across Manhattan at rush hour,
it's crowded. Like I think, in the end, our job
is to constantly be making improvements and ensure that while
it may make for good social media content for a moment,
in the end of the day, the guests who were
there that day, they understand that the totality of the

(56:57):
experiences such that they like it now. By the way,
of course, like there are people who say our resorts
are too expensive and too crowded, Well, that doesn't make
any sense. There are people who say that our resorts
are so crowded we've ruined the sport and no one
goes anymore. That doesn't make any sense either. Obviously, if
we're too crowded, it's because people are coming. Ninety seven

(57:17):
percent of our lift lines are less than ten minutes.
As that I am sure you remember skiing back in
the day. Yes, you waited way longer on a lift
line than you ever do today because the lists were
so slow. In terms of the perception thing, I think
there's a component of our company that by our very existence,
you know, brings on a lot of this negativity and

(57:40):
that part of it I do shrug my shoulders down,
and I don't think that there's really much I can
do about the fact that people take pleasure in showing
those photos or trying to make fun of Veil at
different times. But there's also things that we do that
you know, I think don't go well and where we
own it and we have responsibility, and I think our
company can do a much better job of avoiding those

(58:02):
moments when those moments happen, rectifying them quickly, and most importantly,
communicating better with people. And I think one of the
things when I look back, you know, especially of this
last year, is that, you know, I think our company
has to do a better job of both owning the
issues through and through, you know, and not making any

(58:22):
excuses or bones about it, but then also standing up
for ourselves about all the great things that we do
and stand for and represent the amazing people who work
here and on that I'm not going to be I
will not take a defensive stance at all. I'm going
to lean into that. And that's the message that I've
been sending as I've been going around our resorts and
our communities, is that you know, we like, you know,

(58:44):
at the end of the day, I have a lot
of respect for you know, four Seasons, and you know
and Marriott and Riz Carlton and Mandarin Oriental sixth Sense
and all the rest of six Senses, all the rest
of them. They do an amazing job with Geest Service.
But of course they're talking about two or three hundred
rooms at most. They're running an experience that's indoors on

(59:05):
the ground, you know, climate controlled environment, like we are
trying to run an experience for in some cases twenty
to thirty thousand sometimes at Whistler people at ten to
twelve thousand feet in a storm. Yeah, we are not
going to hit the mark every day all the time.
The thing we have to do better, though, is we've

(59:26):
got to own when we don't hit the mark, rectify
it and then yeah, you know, like keep leaning forward.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
So how come al Tarra You never hear anything negative
about al Terra and the Icon past, never, And it's
even more extensive.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
I think they First of all, I think there was
a lot of negativity about Icon and crowding in the
first year or two that they that they came out,
and a lot of chatter about that and a lot
of chatter about how ski passes were rooting the industry,
both epic and icon but you know, I think, obviously one,
we're PubL company and so we are much more transparent.
Everything that happens with us is out there for everybody

(01:00:06):
to see, and we report regularly. And we are the leader.
I mean, you know, like that's just the way it goes.
We are the big fish in this pond. We are
the leader. We're both the leader in terms of innovation.
We're the leader in terms of how we set prices
and products around the industry. And I understand that that's
gonna We're going to take arrows with that. I'm okay

(01:00:28):
with that, but yeah, but it doesn't you know, just
because I can shrug my shoulders a little bit at
that doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to
constantly improve and do better.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
What did you learn from Park City? Granted you were
not the CEO at the time, What did you learn
from Park City ski patrols strike during the Christmas holiday
which limited the amount of open terrain on the mountain.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Yeah, I think it was, yeah, very difficult experiences for guests,
and therefore, right are really something that we never want
to see happen again. I'd say, you know, lessons for
us are one. You know, we've you know, we've had
a number of unions before Canyons. You know that Ski
Patrol really started from when we bought the Canyons, and

(01:01:17):
they had a Ski Patrol union before we bought them.
But we've negotiated many contracts right with them with other
unions that we either inherited or came you know, or
showed up recently, including three different union contracts after the
parts of the struct So I think we have a
long history of being able to figure out a way
to resolve these things before they ever get to them.

(01:01:40):
So that's one piece. We certainly a lesson that we
need to make sure we've exhausted every possibility before we
get to a strike. I think another piece though, is, yeah,
we need to be more prepared in a strike, which is,
you know, I think there are a lot of lessons
we took for things that we could do differently if
there was a strike again. And we hope there's never
a stroke, but if there was, because of course, like
we are going to operate through a strike, and I

(01:02:02):
think there's a lot of things that I feel much
more confident about that we would be able to do
today that we couldn't do that or didn't do that.
The last thing is, I think, you know, one of
the things that was a challenge for us during that
strike was also our own employees had a hard time
providing the experience that they wanted to provide during the
strike because they were under attack right from the union,

(01:02:24):
from other people in the community. And I think, you know, certainly,
in a moment like that again, I personally would you know,
be on the ground and the whole company would put
their full support behind anyone and everyone who's trying to
keep the resort operating in ways that I don't think
we did the fullest, you know, last go round. So
I think there's some some quick learnings, But of course

(01:02:44):
the biggest one is we don't want to We want
our employees on the mountain, and we want our patrol
or any other group on the mountain to be to
be there providing the best work at the cap.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
What about the insanity of the lift situation in Park
City and all the negative you ordered, We're going to
install a lift, they stopped at the latest legal cases,
you can't do it. You as a company pivoted brilliantly
and said, well, we'll move that lift to Whistler. But
if this is anybody looking at this situation, why would

(01:03:26):
you not want another lift? First of all, park City
is a megalopolis. If you talk about parking, most people
don't park anyway. And then you have the guy with
the town lift now saying he wants to buy I mean,
he gets all this press even though it's a non starter.
Is this something that is unsolvable? You know, it bleeds
into the other issue of you mentioned earlier. They're not

(01:03:48):
building any more new ski areas. There are economics involved,
but the conservationists are insane. They stop mineral King of
Disney in the sixties, Grand tar our Gee can't even
Expand what can you do when there's this huge disconnect
between a small segment of the public that doesn't even

(01:04:09):
seem rational.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Yeah, I agree, I think it's I would say it's
that was a difficult dynamic and one that you know,
we certainly feel that the community made the wrong decision
about that, and we announced shortly after I came back
that we're going to absolutely get in front of the
community again, and the council to put those back in.

(01:04:31):
There'll be you know, new lefts that we're going to buy.
But because we do want to see those lists go in.
We also have a base, you know, a development at
the base area of that mountain that we think is critical,
especially now with the Olympics coming. We think we need
to that's an eyesore, you know, the area at the bottom,
and we should be upgrading it. And honestly, for our company,
we don't really make money doing any real estate development.

(01:04:52):
We really bring in other people to do it. We're
just trying to get done, don't you know. We're happy
to add parking, We're happy to add whatever you know
to make things better. It works for us too, but
it just has to be something that's doable. Somebody has
to financially be able to make sense of it. And
so I think I think there's maybe some shifting going
on within the community and understanding that even if they

(01:05:13):
need to be really sensitive to growth, that yeah, like
turning down improvements and upgrades is not something that long
term is going to be good for them, you know.
I think, yeah, they're in every single community there there
are contingents of people that are just anti growth no
matter what and I think, you know, we have a
pretty good track record, by the way, including within Park City,

(01:05:34):
of doing upgrades, putting in improvements, and I think it's
you know, sometimes we get their setbacks to that, and
I think that was certainly a moment of a setback
with the Park City left. But we just have to
stay at it, you know, I mean, and it is
on us to figure out a way through the communities
to ensure that we can find some way to align

(01:05:55):
with them to keep making upgrades. And I think the
good news is again I think I could really say
with every single one of our major resorts, Yeah, we've
got a pretty good long term track record of getting
things done, even if there are momentary settlements.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Okay, al Terra started. It is not a completely comparable
company in that a lot of the skieries are not
actually owned by Alterra, but they made a big point
that they were going to leave management of the ski
areas local and maintain their character. Now, on some level,

(01:06:33):
I'm rolling my eyes by virtue of the fact a
lot of these skieries still have old slow lifts, etc.
You came in, you moved the operation to the front
range from the Vale Valley and concentrated management. Now, just
putting a little additional point in this. I know people

(01:06:54):
in Vale who own retail businesses, restaurants, and they're not
happy with the fact that there is no individual advertising
unveil to their perception that most of the advertising is
for the overall company, the Epic Pass. So a couple

(01:07:14):
of things here to what degree is local management important?
And secondly you talked about this change, is there going
to be more emphasis and what might that look like
on the individual resort as opposed to the overall paths?

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Yeah, so both one, I would say we have local
management and everything. Of course at every single one of
our resorts. We have an incredible track record of promoting
the local management of our resort from within, and we
move people around between resorts so that the people who
are running our resorts are from the ski industry, of
the ski industry, grew up in the ski industry. And yeah,

(01:07:53):
we have huge pride in that. It is true that
I absolutely believe that if we want to run a
successful company, that we have to have certain things that
we do together as a team. Just like every other
company that does leisure or whatever, they don't have every
single resort or property running off on their own. But

(01:08:14):
that said, yes, you know, people have told me that
we've homogenized the resorts, and I think you and I
both know that that's ridiculous and that if you go
to Vail, it doesn't feel anything like what it's like
in Keystone, or if you go to Heavenly or if
you go to Beaver Creek or Recordage, and those are
the five resorts we had back in two thousand and two,
and then they're nothing like. Right, no part of the

(01:08:36):
experience is alike. But I think that if you want,
I mean, at the end of the day for us,
you know, and this was true for the icon piece too,
But think about it from our perspective, we moved right.
We went from ten or twenty percent of our business
on a pass to seventy five percent of our business pass.
I think that has saved our company and providing stability.
It has saved the industry. And to do that, we

(01:08:59):
needed to get all of our resorts at least aligned
on how we actually drive revenue. But to the point
I made earlier and you just mentioned, yes, we to
make that kind of a sea change, fundamental move in
the industry, we had to put all of our resources
behind the epic brand, behind the past product. We had

(01:09:20):
to make Lift tick. It's absolutely expensive because we wanted
people to move from Lift tickets to the past. All
of those were essential pieces. But now, no, I think
we understand that we need to do a better job
promoting each individual brand. You will absolutely see that. You
will absolutely see that for Vail, we need to activate

(01:09:40):
through events, social media, video content at every resort so
that people understand the excitement of each one of those brands.
And I think absolutely I think we can be criticized
for not having done enough of that, and I think
you're going to start to see that change, you know.
Now that said, I think, you know, for a lot

(01:10:01):
of these communities, I think one of the things they
have to think about is is it that they want
more people coming or not. Like we get criticized on
both sides of that with some people. You know, like
we wanted to put you know, affordable employee housing in
a fail a lot of people didn't want that. You know,
We've got a project that we've you know, we want
to put in a West Lionest and now we're finally
making progress in that. But for a while, there are

(01:10:22):
a lot of people that didn't want to see that,
So it's attention, you know, and then you get people saying, yeah,
well you're not driving enough business. So some of this,
I would say, is we just have to realize as
part for the course, like you're going to get some
of this feedback, it's going to sometimes seem contradictory, and
it's our job and my job to navigate through all
of that. One of the things I said when I

(01:10:42):
came back was that it's my job to find ways
to align all of our stakeholders right, our our shareholders,
our employees, our community members, and our guests. Like that's
my job, Like how do I navigate through all of
that and thread that needle? And it is a you know,
you're not always going to get it right, but I
think we have to constantly be thinking about how we

(01:11:03):
do that because I think that's how we have had
long term success.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
Just going back to one of your points about people
saying the resources are the same, they couldn't be more different.
The only thing that's similar are the bones of the websites,
which any corporation would say, hey, yeah, that's a way
to do it. Where are you know? It is a
public company. Where are the growth opportunities for Veiled Resources?

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Yeah, I think we can absolutely grow visits. So I
feel I think that we have not done and especially
compared to where we've been the last couple of years,
I think there's a real opportunity for us to grow visits.
That's not going to be ten and twenty percent growth,
that's not the way the industry works. But getting back
to low single digit growth I think is definitely possible.
I think then getting price growth right above inflation also

(01:11:55):
very doable. And then really the big opportunities and the
big swing points for us are going to be around
you know, what we call kind of antilly revenue, but
is you know, ski school, rentals, and food. And I
think we have big opportunities in all three, particularly ski
school and rentals to really drive outsize growth. And we
haven't seen, you know, in the industry, we haven't seen

(01:12:17):
on our company and haven't seen in the industry before.
And then finally, I do think there are opportunities for
us to grow in Europe and for us to grow
in in Asia. Not something that's going to happen overnight,
but this is a global industry and a lot of
the change that we've seen that has been so successful
in North America, I think is still is making its

(01:12:38):
way around the world, but it's still kind of slow
to get there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Well, in terms of acquisition, even in Europe, there was
a local community that bought a ski area, so wouldn't
be purchased by one of the huge companies. What are
the opportunities and what are the strategies without revealing any
special sauce, yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
It's patient and the special sauce is patience. You know.
I think people tend to look at what we did
in North America in Australia and say, well, oh, it's
so obvious that you could do all of that. But
you know, as you probably remember, certainly back in two
thousand and five, in two thousand and four, yeah, nobody
thought there was any opportunity to acquire resorts in North America,

(01:13:21):
or even if you did, why would make any sense?
So yeah, I'm not you know, I know that it
takes time. I think in a way, right, I think
you're going to have some resorts in Europe there that
may make the same decision that the community and locks made,
and I think that's fine. But there's going to be
other resorts and other owners, right that meg see that.

(01:13:41):
Hey wait a minute, as we think about the next
five to ten years, maybe it makes sense to align,
you know, more strongly with one of these bigger players.
And you know, so when I look out five or
ten years, I'm quite confident we'll see some of those
opportunities come through.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
What would be the benefit to one of those large
resource and there are many Rubia balveasir goes on to
joining part of an overall company, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
I think you know a couple. But one is, you know,
the ski industry, and I think even more so in Europe,
right really has struggles with weather. Right, they are at
lower elevation than we are, and so you know, I
think as you think out over over time, I think
there's some real benefit to that. The other thing is
a lot of these lift companies, and they are lift companies,

(01:14:29):
as you know in Europe. So most of these lift
companies don't have city school, don't have food, don't have rentals,
don't have retail, don't have logic. So they those lift
companies can be exposed, right, I mean, because those are
pretty profitable areas of the business. And so I think
being part of a larger company, with the more consistent
capital that we can put in, the more consistent employees

(01:14:50):
that we can put in. I think those are opportunities
long term. I also think from a marketing perspective, there's
an opportunity for us to ultimately have a pass product
that is that it's more of a European based pass
product that can provide access to both Europe and North
America and really be a compelling product for like Germany
and the UK, which kind of do both. You know,

(01:15:14):
I think, yeah, there's not a lot of people in
France that are going to have a common ski in
the US. That's true with Austria, that's doue with Italy,
that's true with Switzerland. But in the UK and Germany,
I think we have real opportunities.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
So you have past partners. These are companies that you
do not own, but people who own Epic passes can
ski there. Just use one example, tell your ride, full
Epic pass owner get seven days to tell your ride.
How did the economics work on that? How is the
money split up?

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
I can't Those are confidential, so I can't really you know,
go into that, but obviously, yeah, there's there's an economic
arrangement that that we think benefits us in terms of
you know, tell You Ride is a good example. I
think we see tell You Ride is a very unique brand,
and the number of brands that are not owned by

(01:16:06):
al Terra or US, yeah, they're not that many as
you know, right that are that we really have could
move the needle and have the unique power that a
teal You Ride has. It's not the only one, but uh.
And so they see a benefit I think in getting
obviously revenue from us that they feel is more consistent
and stable, and we think that, you know, that's that

(01:16:27):
works out great for both of us. Now, of course,
it's true that a resort like Tell You Ride as
a resort we would own and in our minds, like
you know, we take we like to create networks where
we would be comfortable owning any of the resorts in
our network, which is maybe a little different than Alterra.
But the reason for that is, yeah, we don't. We don't.
We want to make sure the experience of that resort

(01:16:48):
is one that you know, we can get behind and
it's consistent. We also want to make sure that, yeah,
this is something that is for the long term we
don't really want to get into the game of adding
and subtracting partners over time, which sometimes can happen right
when you create a network. So in our minds we
do mean more owner operated as a as an MO,
but for key resorts, like I tell you right now,

(01:17:11):
we absolutely will We'll welcome them in as a partner.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Is that a pre use payment like if I ski
until you ride, they'll pays them a certain amount or
is it a different structure?

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
Yeah, they're all the agreements are confidential, so I can't
get into the specifics of it, but but I can't
say yeah, it's yeah. But of course there's an economic
you know, trade that we're making with them, where obviously
they're economically benefiting from that and we you know, in
some way right that we're paying them, and then obviously

(01:17:45):
we feel we're benefiting by getting more people on the path.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Do you think that these partners do at the they'll
own so many ski areas, is it worth it to
give up some of the revenue to independent past partners? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I think for us, I can't speak for al tara
an Icon, but for us, we feel like we are
very selective with how we put on partners, and we're willing,
you know, to walk away if we don't think that
that partner really adds as much. And the truth is,
you know, in the end of the day, like, yeah,
without any partners, we do feel like our network in

(01:18:22):
North America is incredible and the resorts we own, which
I think sometimes people lose sight of. You know, people
think that a Whistler and a Veil and a Breckenridge
and a park City, you know, are similar to you know,
a Jackson, you know, or even an Assmen and they're not.
I mean, they are. It's not saying that there always
are an amazing resource. They are, but in terms of size,

(01:18:43):
in terms of popularity, no, they're they're not. They're not equivalent.
And so for us, yeah, we understand that we've got
the resorts that you know, are really critical to the
overall ski market, and so at that point we're really
selective on just picking like who's going to add really
value outside of that, and we do think Tell You
Ride is one of those resources that does that for us.

Speaker 1 (01:19:06):
Okay, the Icon Pass is more expensive than the Epic Pass.
In addition, after covid Epic lowered the price, it has
since been raised, but we've also had inflation. How do
you calculate the price and is there a fear that

(01:19:27):
there's not that much headroom? You can't raise it too
much without turning people off.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Yeah, I can't. You know, in our minds, we keep
an eye on what Icon is doing on their pricing,
but we are pricing our passes based on what we
think is right in our own system between lift tickets
and passes. And you know, in our minds we've done
a lot of work on why we've come out with

(01:19:54):
the pricing that we have. We are actually going to
do even more work on that, you know, as in
the up coming years there's new tools available with AI
machine learning that allow us to take a complexity of
a lot of this and make sure that we've optimized everything.
And I think when you look at Icon in the
end of the day, they do a lot of discounting,
you know that we don't do like renewal discounts and

(01:20:16):
you know, bount money discounts and things like that, where
it's kind of like we have a little bit cleaner,
more consistent approach right to how we price, and I
think others within the industry sometimes have a little bit more. Oh,
here's the lead price, but then we have all these
you know, sales on the side. We don't tend to
do that. But yeah, for us, we see ourselves as

(01:20:38):
the price leader, like and setting the market for both
price and product. And again we do keep an eye
on what everybody else is doing, but a lot of
what we do is based on the analysis that we're
seeing in our own business.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
What about the concept of the so called black pass.
They have had it at Snowbird, they had a park
City before you owned it. They have it a copper which,
for an additional fee, you do not have to wait
in line or in a much much shorter line. What
is Veil Resorts philosophy relative to.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
That, Yeah, we don't. That's not something that that we
that we have been a fan of. You know, in
the end of the day, for us, we feel like,
you know that cutting the line is really reserved for
ski school, and in our minds that's because ski school
is you know, they are providing lessons to people and

(01:21:40):
so ultimately that's something that we think, uh, you know,
that's a part of that experience that we give. And
if there are people who just want to use it
as a line cutting option. That's fine. We we obviously
understand that and support that as well. Some people say, well,
but you know, it's so expensive. It could be you know,
at Veil at peak time, a private lesson could be

(01:22:02):
fifteen hundred dollars or whatever. But if you get a
group of four or five people together on a per
day basis to you know, to skip all the lists,
you know that they may think that's a reasonable option.
That is kind of our black path, and we feel
like we'd rather in our minds that if we've opened
up a black path, we absolutely withoud decountabalization from our

(01:22:24):
ski school and I think it would put pressure on
that and we maybe which is different than some of
these other resorts, but we're trying to drive as much
business into our ski school and with our instructors as
we possibly can. It's a good business for us, and
we think that creates a healthy dynamic for the instructors.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Okay, Epic Gear, is this really a business? You talked
about the pain points and going forward the Epic Gear.
I walk past the Epic Gear area every day when
I go to go skiing, and it's always two guys
who look like stoners who have their elbows on the

(01:23:01):
counter and there's almost no one there. And at the
end of the day, when people have to put their
skis on the rack, there's almost no one there. I
know that there is a delivery component. In addition, is
this a good idea that the public is really going
to accept? You know, there are a lot of good
ideas that the public doesn't go. And to what degree

(01:23:24):
has it it's already been in operation, to what degree
is it a business already?

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
So what I would say is this, I think the
core part of my epic gear. I mean, we kind
of we were testing a lot of things last year
in terms of like all the different components of what
an elevated experience on my epic year could look like.
But I would say that the core part it and
I think you can see it in the name itself.
Mypic gear is about you being able to pick the

(01:23:53):
gear that you want and either having that gear available
all season long, right if that's what you want, or
you can pick close in if you don't want to
tell us what gear you want all season long, but
you'll still be able to pick from our inventory of
the best gear and the best boots. The Boa Boots
as we talked about earlier. In our minds, that's that

(01:24:15):
is a sea change concept. We think it has huge
opportunity and could be a very big business in the
industry because ultimately, right now, the reason why people own
gear most people is because they don't really want to
own gear, but they own it because they want to
make sure when they get to the mountain that they've
got the boot and the ski that they want. The
reason why people when people rent gear, they don't own

(01:24:37):
it obviously, but then most people are not happy necessarily
with all the choices and options. A lot of people
feel like they're not getting the best gear, or if
they rent, they're not getting the same thing the next
time they go back. Maybe they had a boot or
they had a ski that they really like, but now
you don't know that you're going to get the same
thing next time. So people are kind of starting new
every time they go and rent. In our mind, that

(01:24:58):
is an antiquated approach to how people should use gear,
and so I do see this as a big transformational event,
but it's not easy to do. You could just imagine
all the logistics and the technology that's required to make
something like that successful. So we're going to You know,
this is not something that's an overnight It's not like
just creating a little app, you know, on your phone.

(01:25:19):
It's a lot that goes into it. But ultimately, I
think it could be a real game Jinger.

Speaker 1 (01:25:23):
And to what degree do you feel responsibility for the
health of the manufacturers? Ski sales? Companies that make skeys
have gone way down. A lot of them are conglomerates
where they have other revenue streams. If theyil is purchasing equipment,
inherently it's a discount. Volume players get a discount, and

(01:25:44):
certainly there are special rental packages as someone is wanting
something of lesser quality. But if this my epic gear
is successful, it's going to affect the overall sales of
these companies.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Yeah, I think, you know, I'd say it's a shift, right,
So exactly how this plays out, I don't know, and
over what time period I do. It does matter to
me that these companies are healthy. I would say that
we also know that, you know, the retail business on
skis and boots is also challenged, right beyond certainly the

(01:26:21):
brick and mortar retail business is a challenging business. We're
obviously a big player in and that's a challenging business
given online dynamics. But of course, like for online, it's
not the same experience, right, people don't get to touch
and feel the product. So I think my concern when
I look out is like, if we're seeing struggling retail
dynamics for hard goods, what will that mean in the

(01:26:45):
long run if people can't touch and feel this product.
I think it could actually reduce the owner cycle of
replacement no matter what. And so in our minds like, actually,
this could be an opportunity where people get to touch
and feel without making this huge commitment the best gear
that's out there, right, And I actually think it'll bring
them closer and more passionate about the gear, which of

(01:27:07):
course means that when we're going to buy the new
gear and new options and you know, so it's yes,
just like the right, it's like everything like the music, right,
as you know, Well, it's not that the business goes away,
it's just in my shift, and I think that's something
we want to try and be on the front end.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
So at this point in time, how often do you
go skiing?

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
Well, I would say I don't know. What would I
say if I had to guess for this year, I'm
going to say twenty to thirty days, you know, something
in that in that range, i'd say my own skiing
tracks kind of most most people, which is, you know,
I was skiing forty to fifty days a year when
my kids were five to you know, nineteen, and once

(01:27:49):
my kids went off to college and now live on
the East Coast. Yeah, it's less, you know, and but yeah,
I mean so by the way, that's a recreation, recreational days.
I spent a bunch of time at our resorts or
getting on the hill to you know, do the work
part of it's differently, but yeah, I'm you know, this
is something yeah, I've loved since I was a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
Okay, so other than the twenty thirty days, how many
days are you on the hill when it's essentially air
quodes work?

Speaker 2 (01:28:22):
Oh I don't know either, Yeah, on the hill. And
I could be on the hill, you know, in the
non skiing season too, like and shoes or boots, but yeah,
you know, I would probably be I'll probably be in
ski resorts. Yeah, forty days, you know, at least forty
fifty days something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
So if you are deciding to go skiing. Where do
you go?

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
Well, as you know, Bob, I have I have a
house in Veil, and you know, I love all of
our resorts of course, like all my kids, but no,
I have a special connection with Bail that goes goes
back aways and obviously it's where you know, I spent teaching,
you know, and learning to ski with my kids them

(01:29:09):
learning to ski, and then meet skiing with them and
our family up there for countless holidays with you know,
my extended family or their friends. So like that. Yeah,
it's a very very special place for me. But yeah,
we've I've also gone with my kids, you know, and
my family and friends right to ski Whistler, which is
an incredible experience in ski Peak six at Breckenridge, or

(01:29:32):
off the Imperial Express or right Stone Creek, Shoots and
Beaver Creek, yeah, or the out back of Keystone or
nine to ninety at Park City. Plus I'm going to
ski other places like Snowbird and Deer Valley and Jackson
and all kinds of different places in Europe, Japan. So yeah,

(01:29:53):
I think it's one of the great things. And honestly,
you know what I'm most passionate about and why I
love the sport. It's like a every day is different,
the weather is different, the experience is different. But yeah,
I get to be outdoors doing something I love. And yeah,
having that be my job as well, that's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
So what's your strategy at fail you're starting? Where do
you go?

Speaker 2 (01:30:22):
Oh? For me, it depends on the day, I'd say, right,
it could be if it's a if it's a powder day, yeah,
I'm going up the gondola, you know, and then uh yeah,
over to Chair fourteen or down five and up seven
and up nine and yeah, back to Blue Sky. So
I mean, if I can get you know, if I'm up,

(01:30:43):
if I'm if I'm out there early enough, no, then
I'm skiing like Forever and Wow and Rickey Thridge, you know.
But then I'll go over maybe ski Genghis, right, you know,
So then I'm making my you know, all the way over.
So maybe I'm then skiing the slot and I'm skiing
Genghis and then I'm going back to Blue Sky and
going you know over to our earls and skiing CJ's

(01:31:06):
and you know, and and it's kind of taking a
couple of laps there then going back across and skiing
lovers Leap and then down to Pete's maybe doing one
run on resolution or two runs on resolution, you know,
then lunch, then back and then yeah, then I'll kind
of finish up my day skiing. You know, it's still good.

(01:31:32):
Then I'll be back skiing. Yeah, like all the other
you know. Now I'm skiing Opre Fou, I'm skiing you know,
maybe WFO or you know. Then I'm going into the
all the outer locations or into Teacup.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
Just to drill a little bit. So if you're not
out early, you will take the gondola to four and
then take the road all the way to fourteen and
then go to the back.

Speaker 3 (01:32:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
Probably, Well, I don't know, or I'm yes, I would
do that, or I would take I might even go
all the way over to depending on the day, go
over to the bottom of six, take six up and
then go from six the top of six to to ten,
ten to fourteen, fourteen up, or I might go down
to Yeah, take the take take the gondola up four up, down,

(01:32:24):
you know, to the bottom, and then maybe take slot
and then go up nine and then go into either
Teacup or Genghis. You know whatever, and then get from there.
Some of this also depends on like how good the
snow is in all the gullies, so how many cat
tracks are you taking to get back or can you
actually ski through the gullies to get to Yeah, the

(01:32:47):
base of the blue cut.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
Well that's what you know. People don't realize they talk
about the lines. I mean, if I have to start
at the gondola, if there's a big line at three
and four, I just take the road to ten. And
what people don't know. You know, you can ski down
half of the front side and take the road over
to six. Certainly once you get like ten, ten thirty,
there's no line at six, and there's never been a

(01:33:12):
line at ten. I don't know if I want to
give away all my secrets. But by the same token,
people are bitching about the lines. I don't get it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
I agree, well, you and I have the great fortune
of being able to do this and recreate in these
amazing places, and yeah, it's awesome and I feel super lucky.
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
Well, I guess I just want to leave it. People
don't understand the allure of skiing. You referenced it earlier. Yes,
you are outside b certainly if you're in the West.
Ten's not to be that cool. With the technical improvements
of the equipment or such that. It's not like the
old days, not like the old Duelfold days underwhere you

(01:33:54):
know they have much better runderwear. There's a thrill in skiing.
It's not like tennis. You don't have to be good
to enjoy it. As long as you're at the limit
of your ability. You could be on the beginner slope
and be thrilled. And unlike water skiing or so many
other sports, the hill is different. The hill changes certainly

(01:34:17):
if you go to another you know, people always ask
why I'm such a ski fanatic, and usually it's matter
have you ever done it? If you do not, everyone's
gonna love it, okay, But there's a certain magic even
go on, you know, social media. There's a woman you
know who learned how to ski in her twenties who
lives in breck skis one hundred days a year. You

(01:34:37):
just get the bug.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
There's the issue of ski bums now that people come
from Australia and South America. But I'll leave my rap
at that. It's been a great pleasure talking you. Let's
hope for a good snow season. Your ski areas are
starting to open. Oh one final question. Do you own
your equipment or do you use what's in Epic gear?

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Both? So, I own equipment, but as you can well imagine,
like I own a son, so many pairs of everything
that you know, I tend not to throw them away.
But I've also used my Epic gear, so I used both.

Speaker 1 (01:35:15):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
It was awesome, Bob. I really appreciate you taking the
time to have this conversation. You and I have communicated
going all the way back, and so yeah, an awesome,
awesome opportunity for me to talk to you and all
your listeners, and I hope to see you up on
the hill of Vail.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
Just one correction, because I feel guilty. When the Epic
Pass was launched it was still the high speed chair
because the gondola was installed in twenty twelve, and I
just want to go one step further. You know, listen,
I know a lot of Veil haters, et cetera. But
the infrastructure upgrades, you know what happened with north Woods

(01:35:56):
and now even game creaking the gondola. It's, as I say,
my only complaint with Vail would be wow. I wish
there could be more. You know, h territory open with
the rules looks the aside of rules. I know how
difficult that is in any of them. I'm gonna leave
it there, Rob, thanks so much for taking this time
with my audience. Till next time. This is Bob left

(01:36:19):
six