COVID-19 & Skiing Podcast #9: Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory – “We’re Continuing to Strengthen Our Offerings”

05/05/20 • 60 min

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Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.

What this is: This is the ninth in a series of conversations exploring the ski industry fallout from the COVID-19-forced closure of nearly every ski area on the continent in March 2020. Click through to listen to the first eight: author Chris Diamond, Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher, Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway, NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak, Berkshire East/Catamount Owner & Goggles for Docs founder Jon Schaefer, Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis Cofounder Jeff Thompson, Doppelmayr USA President Katharina Schmitz, Mt. Baldy GM Robby Ellingson

Who: Rusty Gregory, Alterra Mountain Company CEO

Why I interviewed him: Because as skiing has evolved into a megapass-anchored duopoly that has trained consumers to feel entitled to cheap access to as many mountains as possible, the consequences of those large players’ decisions has been amplified considerably. When Vail and Alterra shut down their entire North American networks of nearly 50 ski areas on March 14, the impact reverberated in immediate and wide-ranging ways that would have been difficult to imagine even five years ago. Now, as both step out of the wreckage and try to make good with passholders still fuming about shortened seasons while acknowledging that next season isn’t close to being assured, we are collectively witnessing the kind of real-time business adaptation that normally takes years to occur. How Alterra resets the Ikon Pass now will influence not only how smaller mountains adjust their offerings, but what skiers’ pass expectations will be long after Covid-19 has burned out. Looming over all of this is the possibility that the 2020-21 ski season could be a very dystopian, socially distant affair, with capacity limits and restricted access to just about everything. How Alterra is evolving in the shutdown’s aftermath and preparing for the possibility of a very odd 2020-21 season is one of the most important stories in skiing right now.

Alterra’s Steamboat ski area in February 2020.

What we talked about: How the shutdown progressed and the catalysts behind the ultimate decision to close; how using Crystal Mountain as a laboratory told them social distancing at massive ski areas was unsustainable; the chaos and uncertainty of March 14, which turned out to be shutdown day; the creeping atmosphere of fear in ski towns as the virus spread; the impossible decision of shuttering 15 North American ski resorts in the midst of peak season when hundreds of thousands of skiers are planning on booting up the next day; second-guessing the shutdown decision and how long those doubts lasted; dealing with Angry Ski Bro in the moment; Dude Brah are you really going to shut Squaw when we’re about to get dumped on?; managing thousands of layoffs and furloughs and helping move those who wanted t...

Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.

Who: Rusty Gregory, Alterra Mountain Company CEO

Alterra’s Steamboat ski area in February 2020.

Previous Episode

COVID-19 & Skiing Podcast #8: Mt. Baldy, California GM Robby Ellingson – First to Reopen

Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.

What this is: This is the eighth in a series of short conversations exploring the ski industry fallout from the COVID-19-forced closure of nearly every ski area on the continent in March 2020. Click through to listen to the first seven: author Chris Diamond, Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher, Magic Mountain President Geoff Hatheway, NSAA CEO Kelly Pawlak, Berkshire East/Catamount Owner & Goggles for Docs founder Jon Schaefer, Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis Cofounder Jeff Thompson, Doppelmayr USA President Katharina Schmitz

Who: Robby Ellingson, General Manager of Mt. Baldy, California

Why I interviewed him: Because Ellingson figured it out. After Lookout Pass, Idaho, became the last ski area on the continent to freeze its lifts on March 25 to help stop the spread of COVID-19, I figured the season was done. Even if Mammoth or Arapahoe Basin or Snowbird or Killington did have enough base and enough staff left hanging around to open up again when the curve flattened on the coronavirus outbreak, it seemed unlikely that they would have the will to do so. They’d lost weeks of fat March and early-April spring break revenue, and many of them don’t make much or any money on late spring skiing. Why bother? Mt. Baldy bothered. In a limited, careful manner, with pre-registrations and parking lot check-ins and metered access throughout the day, the mountain is conducting a micro-experiment on behalf of the entire North American ski industry to see if there’s a way to make skiing work in a socially distant world. When the lifts stopped at most of the nation’s largest ski resorts on a frantic Saturday-into-Sunday jumble of panic and confusion in mid-March, no one really understood yet what was going on, how bad it was going to get, and how severe and widespread a shutdown needed to be in order to arrest the disease’s spread. We don’t necessarily have a good long-term understanding of those things just yet, but the ski industry’s doers and managers have had a good long stretch to think through some approaches that may allow lift-served skiing to survive until the scientists can put a stake through coronavirus’ heart. I wanted to see how that experiment was going, if it was sustainable or practical, and what it could mean for the 2020-21 ski season.

What we talked about: The story of Mt. Baldy’s March shutdown amid a storm cycle; how the mountain’s pre-shutdown social distancing plan informed its April re-opening; how they knew it was time to fire the lifts up again; the issues caused by cityfolk flooding the mountains throughout the closure; aiming for a low-key re-opening in a high-key world; what California has and has not closed and what that means for ski areas; when the government isn’t clear on their guidelines, are there even guidelines Bro?; applying the golf course model to skiing; if Costco and Best Buy can stay open, why not an 800-acre ski area operating at 10 percent capacity?; Baldy’s social distancing protocol, from buying the lift ticket to entering the parking lot to going up and away on the lifts; ...

Next Episode

Podcast #15: Mad River Glen General Manager Matt Lillard

The Storm Skiing Podcast #15 | Download this episode on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, and Pocket Casts | Read the full overview at skiing.substack.com.

Who: Matt Lillard, General Manager of Mad River Glen, Vermont

Welcome to Mad River Glen. The mountain welcomes you bit by bit, rewarding exploration.

Why I interviewed him: Because as the most invincibly independent mountain in the Northeast, Mad River Glen has a vital and underappreciated task: preserving skiing as skiing is no longer allowed to be, but as it always will be here, in this last and special place. No, you will not find the beartrap bindings or hatless crew-cut Austrians in knit sweaters of yore. Yes, you will find some (limited) snowmaking and probably more grooming than you’re expecting. But you will also find those things that are quintessential MRG: the single chair rising 2,000 dead vertical feet to the summit, the tangled Mordor of Paradise, the absence of snowboards, and the general sense of time-warp displacement interrupted only by the 102-centimeter-underfoot sticks you’re most likely rocking. If that sounds easy to pull off, then explain why every ski area in Vermont once looked like this and now they all look like a game of high-speed Chutes & Ladders. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and I can happily lap a high-speed lift all day long, but saying, “Yes, we’re going to have a single chair forever,” and then sticking to that by replacing the single chair with a new freaking single chair when you can’t Elmer’s the old one together anymore, is not such an easy feat in our hey-let’s-tear-down-this-25-year-old-sports-stadium-and-build-a-new-sports-stadium disposable society. And yet, Mad River Glen is not some deteriorating relic; the mountain has simply determined that updating does not always have to mean high-speed detachable lifts with cupholders and bottle service. It can mean a few more snowguns and a newer, better, but equal-capacity lift. I wanted to talk to the caretaker-in-chief to see how MRG was managing that constant balance of living museum and ever-improving experience.

The single chair mid-station.

What we talked about: The Covid-19 shutdown on March 15 and how fast the whole thing accelerated; how the mountain safely delivered their passholders one last ski day while preventing a flood of traffic after nearby Stowe and Sugarbush shut down; why they shut down uphill skiing several weeks later; why it’s so hard to limit the mountain to “locals only”; how the mountain helped out its employees after the early end to the season; the history and structure of the Mad River Glen co-op; why the MRG co-op has succeeded where so many similar efforts have failed; some background on the failed Magic Mountain co-op attempt; whether the co-op model could work as a template for independent mountains looking for a fair fight in a Megasaurus pass world; the bizarre reality but ultimate success of hosting this year’s annual co-op board meeting online; why MRG season pass sales are surging even as the economy craters and the Ikon and Epic passes amp up their Northeast offerings; what’s driving revenue north at the mountain in general; why offering discounted passes for people in their twenties is smart business; the mountains people are migrating from in favor of MRG passes; the mountain’s plan to update its season pass offerings with some kind of refund or deferral policy; whether MRG is considering joining the Indy Pass or Freedom Pass; the $3.50 madhouse of Roll Back The Clock Day; how the mountain recorded a 13.5 percent jump in 2019-20 skier visits with 48 fewer operating days than the record 2018-19 season; how much the ski area is planning for various social distancing scenarios for the 2020-21 season; what may be differ...