Podcast #174: Blue Knob, Pennsylvania Owners & Management

06/11/24 • 95 min

This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 4. It dropped for free subscribers on June 11. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:

Who

Scott Bender, operations and business advisor to Blue Knob ownership

Donna Himes, Blue Knob Marketing Manager

Sam Wiley, part owner of Blue Knob

Gary Dietke, Blue Knob Mountain Manager

Recorded on

May 13, 2024

About Blue Knob

Click here for a mountain stats overview

Owned by: Majority owned by the Wiley family

Located in: Claysburg, Pennsylvania

Year founded: 1963

Pass affiliations: Indy Pass and Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackouts (access not yet set for 2024-25 ski season)

Closest neighboring ski areas: Laurel (1:02), Tussey (1:13), Hidden Valley (1:14), Seven Springs (1:23)

Base elevation: 2,100 feet

Summit elevation: 3,172 feet

Vertical drop: 1,072 feet

Skiable Acres: 100

Average annual snowfall: 120 inches

Trail count: 33 (5 beginner, 10 intermediate, 4 advanced intermediate, 5 advanced, 9 expert) + 1 terrain park

Lift count: 5 (2 triples, 2 doubles, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Blue Knob’s lift fleet)

Why I interviewed them

I’ve not always written favorably about Blue Knob. In a state where shock-and-awe snowmaking is a baseline operational requirement, the mountain’s system is underwhelming and bogged down by antiquated equipment. The lower-mountain terrain – Blue Knob’s best – opens sporadically, sometimes remaining mysteriously shuttered after heavy local snows. The website at one time seemed determined to set the world record for the most exclamation points in a single place. They may have succeeded (this has since been cleaned up):

I’ve always tried to couch these critiques in a but-damn-if-only context, because Blue Knob, considered purely as a ski area, is an absolute killer. It needs what any Pennsylvania ski area needs – modern, efficient, variable-weather-capable, overwhelming snowmaking and killer grooming. No one, in this temperamental state of freeze-thaws and frequent winter rains, can hope to survive long term without those things. So what’s the holdup?

My goal with The Storm is to be incisive but fair. Everyone deserves a chance to respond to critiques, and offering them that opportunity is a tenant of good journalism. But because this is a high-volume, high-frequency operation, and because my beat covers hundreds of ski areas, I’m not always able to gather reactions to every post in the moment. I counterbalance that reality with this: every ski area’s story is a long-term, ongoing one. What they mess up today, they may get right tomorrow. And reality, while inarguable, does not always capture intentions. Eventually, I need to gather and share their perspective.

And so it was Blue Knob’s turn to talk. And I challenge you to find a more good-natured and nicer group of folks anywhere. I went off format with this one, hosting four people instead of the usual one (I’ve done multiples a few times before, with Plattekill, West Mountain, Bousquet, Boyne Mountain, and Big Sky). The group chat was Blue Knob’s idea, and frankly I loved it. It’s not easy to run a ski area in 2024 in the State of Pennsylvania, and it’s especially not easy to run this ski area, for reasons I outline below. And while Blue Knob has been slower to get to the future than its competitors, I believe they’re at least walking in that direction.

What we talked about

“This was probably one of our worst seasons”; ownership; this doesn’t feel like PA; former owner Dick Gauthier’s legacy; reminiscing on the “crazy fun” of the bygone community atop the ski hill; Blue Knob’s history as an Air Force station and how the mountain became...

Who

Scott Bender, operations and business advisor to Blue Knob ownership

Donna Himes, Blue Knob Marketing Manager

Sam Wiley, part owner of Blue Knob

Gary Dietke, Blue Knob Mountain Manager

Recorded on

May 13, 2024

About Blue Knob

Click here for a mountain stats overview

Owned by: Majority owned by the Wiley family

Located in: Claysburg, Pennsylvania

Year founded: 1963

Pass affiliations: Indy Pass and Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackouts (access not yet set for 2024-25 ski season)

Closest neighboring ski areas: Laurel (1:02), Tussey (1:13), Hidden Valley (1:14), Seven Springs (1:23)

Base elevation: 2,100 feet

Summit elevation: 3,172 feet

Vertical drop: 1,072 feet

Skiable Acres: 100

Average annual snowfall: 120 inches

Trail count: 33 (5 beginner, 10 intermediate, 4 advanced intermediate, 5 advanced, 9 expert) + 1 terrain park

Lift count: 5 (2 triples, 2 doubles, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Blue Knob’s lift fleet)

Why I interviewed them

What we talked about

Previous Episode

Podcast #173: Kirkwood Vice President & General Manager Ricky Newberry

This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 2. It dropped for free subscribers on June 9. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:

Who

Ricky Newberry, Vice President and General Manager of Kirkwood Ski Resort, California

Recorded on

May 20, 2024

About Kirkwood

Click here for a mountain stats overview

Owned by: Vail Resorts

Located in: Kirkwood, California

Year founded: 1972

Pass affiliations:

Epic Pass: unlimited access

Epic Local Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts

Tahoe Local Epic Pass: unlimited access with holiday blackouts

Tahoe Value Pass: unlimited access with holiday and Saturday blackouts

Kirkwood Pass: unlimited access

Closest neighboring ski areas: Heavenly (:43), Sierra-at-Tahoe (:44) – travel times vary significantly given weather conditions, time of day, and time of year.

Base elevation: 7,800 feet

Summit elevation: 9,800 feet

Vertical drop: 2,000 feet

Skiable Acres: 2,300

Average annual snowfall: 354 inches

Trail count: 86 (20% expert, 38% advanced, 30% intermediate, 12% beginner)

Lift count: 13 (2 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 6 triples, 1 double, 1 T-bar, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Kirkwood’s lift fleet).

Why I interviewed him

Imagine this: 1971. Caltrans, the military-grade state agency charged with clearing California’s impossible snows from its high-alpine road network, agrees to maintain an additional wintertime route across the Sierra Crest: Highway 88, over Carson Pass, an east-west route cutting 125 miles from Stockton to US 395.

This is California State Route 88 in the winter:

A ridiculous road, an absurd idea: turn the industrial power of giant machines against a wilderness route whose wintertime deeps had eaten human souls for centuries. An audacious idea, but not an unusual one. Not in that California or in that America. Not in that era of will and muscle. Not in that country that had pushed thousands of miles of interstate across mountains and rivers and deserts in just 15 years. Caltrans would hammer 20-foot-high snow canyons up and over the pass, punching an arctic pathway into and through the howling angry fortress of the Sierra Nevada.

And they did it all to serve a new ski resort.

Imagine that. A California, an America that builds.

Kirkwood, opened in 1972, was part of the last great wave of American ski resort construction. Copper, Northstar, Powder Mountain, 49 Degrees North, and Telluride all opened that year. Keystone (1970), Snowbird (1971), and Big Sky (1973) also cranked to life around this time. Large ski area building stalled by the early ‘80s, though Vail managed to develop Beaver Creek in 1980. Deer Valley opened in 1981. Outliers materialize: Bohemia, in spite of considerable local resistance, in 2000. Tamarack in 2004. But mostly, the ski resorts we have are all the ski resorts we’ll ever have.

But there is a version of America, of California, that dreams and does enormous things, and not so long ago. This institutional memory lives on, even in those who had no part in its happening. Kirkwood is an emblem of this era and its willful collective imagining. The mountain itself is a ludicrous place for a commercial ski resort, steep and wild, an avalanche hazard zone that commands constant vigilant maintenance. Like Alta-Snowbird or Jackson Hole, the ski area offers nominal groomed routes, a comfortable lower-mountain beginner area, just enough accommodation for the intermediate mass-market passholder to say “yes I did this.” This dressing up, too, encapsulates the fading American habit of taming the raw and imposing, of making an unthinkable thing look easy.

But nothing about Kirkwood is easy. Not the in or the out. Not the up or the down. It’s rough and feisty, messy and unpredictable. And that’s the point of the place. As with the airplane or the smartphone, we long ago lost our awe of the ski resort, what a marvelous feat of human ingenuity it is. Kirkwood, lost in ...

Next Episode

Podcast #175: Whistler Blackcomb Vice President & COO Belinda Trembath

This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 10. It dropped for free subscribers on June 17. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:

Who

Belinda Trembath, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia

Recorded on

June 3, 2024

About Whistler Blackcomb

Click here for a mountain stats overview

Owned by: Vail Resorts (majority owners; Nippon Cable owns a 25 percent stake in Whistler Blackcomb)

Located in: Whistler, British Columbia

Year founded: 1966

Pass affiliations:

Epic Pass: unlimited

Epic Local Pass: 10 holiday-restricted days, shared with Vail Mountain and Beaver Creek

Closest neighboring ski areas: Grouse Mountain (1:26), Cypress (1:30), Mt. Seymour (1:50) – travel times vary based upon weather conditions, time of day, and time of year

Base elevation: 2,214 feet (675 meters)

Summit elevation: 7,497 feet (2,284 meters)

Vertical drop: 5,283 feet (1,609 meters)

Skiable Acres: 8,171

Average annual snowfall: 408 inches (1,036 centimeters)

Trail count: 276 (20% easiest, 50% more difficult, 30% most difficult)

Lift count: A lot (1 28-passenger gondola, 3 10-passenger gondolas, 1 8-passenger gondola, 1 8-passenger pulse gondola, 8 high-speed quads, 4 six-packs, 1 eight-pack, 3 triples, 2 T-bars, 7 carpets – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Whistler Blackcomb’s lift fleet) – inventory includes upgrade of Jersey Cream Express from a quad to a six-pack for the 2024-25 ski season.

Why I interviewed her

Historical records claim that when Lewis and Clark voyaged west in 1804, they were seeking “the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” But they were actually looking for Whistler Blackcomb.

Or at least I think they were. What other reason is there to go west but to seek out these fabulous mountains, rising side by side and a mile* into the sky, where Pacific blow-off splinters into summit blizzards and packed humanity animates the village below?

There is nothing else like Whistler in North America. It is our most complete, and our greatest, ski resort. Where else does one encounter this collision of terrain, vertical, panorama, variety, and walkable life, interconnected with audacious aerial lifts and charged by a pilgrim-like massing of skiers from every piece and part of the world? Europe and nowhere else. Except for here.

Other North American ski resorts offer some of these things, and some of them offer better versions of them than Whistler. But none of them has all of them, and those that have versions of each fail to combine them all so fluidly. There is no better snow than Alta-Snowbird snow, but there is no substantive walkable village. There is no better lift than Jackson’s tram, but the inbounds terrain lacks scale and the town is miles away. There is no better energy than Palisades Tahoe energy, but the Pony Express is still carrying news of its existence out of California.

Once you’ve skied Whistler – or, more precisely, absorbed it and been absorbed by it – every other ski area becomes Not Whistler. The place lingers. You carry it around. Place it into every ski conversation. “Have you been to Whistler?” If not, you try to describe it. But it can’t be done. “Just go,” you say, and that’s as close as most of us can come to grabbing the raw power of the place.

*Or 1.6 Canadian Miles (sometimes referred to as “kilometers”).

What we talked about

Why skier visits dropped at Whistler-Blackcomb this past winter; the new Fitzsimmons eight-passenger express and what it took to modify a lift that had originally been intended for Park City; why skiers can often walk onto that lift with little to no wait; this summer’s Jersey Cream lift upgrade; why Jersey Cream didn’t require as many modifications as Fitzsimmons even though it was also meant for Park City; the complexity of installing a mid-mountain lift; why WB had to cancel 2024 summer skiing and what that means for future summer seasons; could we see a gondola serving the glacier instead?; Vail’s Australian trio of Mt. Hotham, Perisher, and Falls Cr...