Top Five Fridays: June 13, 2025
Alex Hall & Mac Forehand celebrating podium finishes at last season’s World Championships. One of these two has already qualified for next year’s Olympics. Can you guess who? We’ll tell you in highlight #3! Image: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on Facebook
#1: With the Final Fiscal Report from Former Vail CEO’s Tenure Now Complete, it’s Katz’s Turn. His Vision? European Expansion:
In our world, it’s not hard to get caught in a news bubble. Sometimes it helps to hear what the mainstream media has to say about our little world. Enter: Jim Cramer..
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the June 13, 2025 edition! It’s been three weeks since Vail Resorts fired Kirsten Lynch as their CEO and replaced her with Rob Katz, who’s back for his second stint in the role. While you might have been hoping that Vail news would’ve died down by now, it very much hasn’t. We’ll start the week by bringing you up to speed with Katz’s latest comments on European expansion and the latest Vail earnings report, before turning the page to a post-mortem for Peak Skis, news from the U.S. Ski Team, and updates regarding winter around the world. With a ton to discuss, let’s jump right in.
Love it or hate it, the major headlines this week continue to be dominated by Vail Resorts and Rob Katz. Last week, just as we were finishing up our report, Vail released their 2025 fiscal third quarter results. Quick math tells us that this is an occasion that occurs four times a year, but it’s something we cover far less often. This time though, given the changing of the guard, we thought it would be worth taking a quick look at this report as it’s the last one that falls under Kirsten Lynch’s umbrella. From here out, all financial reports will be under Katz’s leadership.
So, how did she do in her final quarter? Well, there really shouldn’t be any surprises here. Epic Pass sales are down about 1% compared to the same period last year, while revenue from those sales is up 2% thanks to a 7% price increase. In other words, Vail has sold less Epic Passes but made more money by raising prices. Noting that this is a multi-year trend, it should also make sense that visitation to Vail resorts saw a 7% decline from February - April this season as compared to last year. Again, not a surprise: less pass sales equals less visitors. Ultimately what this latest fiscal report tells us is two things: things continued to trend in a worrisome direction last quarter, but financially speaking, Vail is still in a position where they can turn things around. From here, it’ll be up to Rob Katz to right the ship.
Speaking of Mr. Katz, the other story we caught this week stems directly from comments he made during the earnings call with investors regarding growth opportunities for Vail Resorts. At present, there is some perception around the ski resort industry that growth potential has been maxed out as multipass expansion has slowed. Simultaneously, if you think back to last Fall, there has been plenty of talk and speculation regarding Vail’s interest in European expansion as rumors circulated last September regarding the company’s interest in buying LAAX. When we covered that story, we also shared some insights into what was believed to be Vail’s (helmed by Kirsten Lynch) strategy in regards to European expansion. This week, we have further confirmation of those values thanks to Katz’s comments.
In case you didn’t catch our recap in the Fall or don’t feel like revisiting it, these are the biggest takeaways. First, Vail is definitively interested in European expansion. While we’ve certainly seen proof of that as they continue to add European resorts to their partner program, Katz’s comments all but confirm that Europe is what Vail sees as its next growth opportunity, with a specific focus on creating a European multipass. In his words, “It took many years for even our pass product, let alone the rest of the industry to follow, and of course it would take time for that to happen (in Europe)… But if you look at it over the long haul, we certainly think there is a compelling opportunity, not only for us, but for the industry itself there.” In other words, confirmed: Vail will be continuing to grow its European empire. The question is, how?
That answer is much less straightforward due to a conflict between Vail’s preferred business model and the existing landscape of European ski areas. For a full explanation of this, we recommend checking out our coverage from September 6, 2024, which also cites an excellent article from NZZ.ch. The quick explanation though, is that Vail prefers to own and operate the resorts on the Epic Pass, while European resorts would generally prefer to become pass partners. As such, Vail is being forced to be patient with its expansion plans, and intends to embrace the partnership model in the meantime.
Taken in totality, the news we’ve gathered from the earnings call is essentially this: under Lynch’s leadership, sales of Vail products and visition decreased, while revenue increased thanks to higher prices. Also under Lynch’s leadership, Vail laid the groundwork for expansion into Europe by acquiring what resorts it could and adding others to their Epic Pass partner program. Now that Katz is back, he hopes to build on the foundation Lunch put in place as he hopes to one day offer a European multipass that’s on par with what we have here in North America.
To learn more about this week’s news, check out the report from Vail Daily.
#2: All Signs Suggest That Bode Miller’s Peak Skis Has Called it a Day:
Peak Skis, we hardly knew ye. Image: Peak Skis on Facebook
Next up this week is a bit of news that’s unexpected, disappointing, and under-confirmed. Coming to us by way of a post on SkiTalk.com, is the news that Bode Miller’s Peak Skis has called it quits. Now, if you weren’t aware that Bode Miller even had a ski brand, and if SkiEssentials is your only source of ski news, well that would make sense. We’ve briefly mentioned the brand a couple of times here on Chairlift Chat, but being a direct to consumer brand, we had no real reason to share ongoing Peak Skis news. Afterall, why promote a brand whose skis we can’t sell rather than promoting brands that we’ve developed excellent relationships with? That would be dumb, and we are very not dumb.
Anyways, getting back to the story here, we learned this week that Peak Skis has somewhat unexpectedly, very suddenly, and without a word of their own decided to call it quits. Again, what little we know about this story comes to us by way of SkiTalk.com, as well as the fact that the Peak Skis website is no longer active. As such, the story we know is one in which Bode Miller and his business partner Andy Wirth fell victim to the glamourous side of business - overspending on marketing, inventory, and their retail space without earning the sales to match the spending. In retrospect, while we’re still surprised at how rapid the rise and fall for this brand was, there were signs that they were struggling to move skis. Back in February of 2023, the brand had a “Buy one get one 50% off” sale, which was followed by a “buy one get one” sale just months later. Both were unheard of deals and clearly represented the brand’s need to move its inventory as quickly as possible in order to keep up with the seasonality of the business, as well as free up financial resources.
The most disappointing aspect of this whole story though? The fact that the skis were actually reportedly really good. Not only was Bode directly involved in the engineering and design of the skis, but he brought his unique keyhole technology to the company. In short, this was a construction technique in which a small amount of material was removed from the core of the ski directly in front of the toe piece. It’s something that Bode began doing while he was competing on the World Cup circuit as a way of increasing torsional flexibility in his skis. While it’s hard to know for sure whether this technology made a significant impact on the skiing experience for its intermediate to advanced intermediate customers, we do know that by and large the skis were extremely well received. For us, that’s the disappointing part of all this. At SkiEssentials, we love seeing brands try new things, and we love when skiers have more options as compared to less. So, purely from a consumer perspective, we’re disappointed to say that Peak Skis and their keyhole technology seem to be a thing of the past after just a few short years. To learn more about this, check out the writeup from SkiTalk.com.
#3: The Stifel U.S. Ski Team Awards Have Been Given Out, Who Won What?
With a resume like this, it’s hard to imagine Alex Ferreira not getting invited back to the Olympics next winter. Image: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on Facebook
What’s this? U.S. Ski Team news as the third highlight this week? Weird, we know, but we figured we’d mix things up a little this week as the USST has just given us a couple of fun off-season stories to share. First up on that list is the news that the winners of the 2024-2025 Stifel Ski Team Awards have just been announced. Now in its third iteration, the Stifel Ski Team Awards are a celebration of athletes across all of the FIS’s ski disciplines, from alpine and freeski, to XC and para alpine, where athletes from each discipline vote for their choices for Athlete of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, Best Comeback, and Coach of the year. Winners for each category received a $1,000 check.
So, who won what? Well, in total there were 40 awards given out, so we’re not going to call out each and every result, but we will share some of the highlights. For us, the most interesting round of awards comes from the world of alpine racing, and not just because it’s a discipline we follow closely. If you read along with us this past season, you probably caught us giving effusive praise to Lauren Macuga on several occasions. As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones noticing her incredible season, as her teammates voted to give her the awards for both the Athlete of the Year and Most Improved. In what’s a pretty loaded team, the fact that Macuga took home two awards is pretty impressive.
Another award that caught our eye from the world of women’s alpine, was best comeback. Noting that Lynsey Vonn un-retired this year at the age of 40, was competitive all season, and then became the oldest woman to stand on an FIS podium after winning second place in the Super-G at the finals in Sun Valley - you might expect her to be a shoe in for the Best Comeback award. But nope, that award was given to Breezy Johnson, who also had an amazing comeback this season. As you’ll recall, she’d been suspended for the better part of two seasons as the result of whereabouts violations. When that happened, it was massively disappointing for Johnson and her fans as she’d been racing at the highest level of her life. This year though, she came back from the ban and picked up right where she left off, ultimately winning the Best Comeback award.
As for the other disciplines, there’s plenty of expected names, like Jessie Diggins and Alex Hall, as well as some other pleasant surprises, like double award winner Rell Harwood. We’ll let Jeff dive a bit more into the Freeski awards in the video version of TFF, but to see the whole list for yourself, you can head over to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team website.
Finally, before wrapping up our USST highlight, we want to quickly mention that the first four U.S. Ski Team athletes have been qualified for the 2026 Winter Olympics. From the freeski world, we know that Alex Ferreira will be returning to the Olympics to compete in halfpipe, while Alex Hall will be returning to the games to defend his Slopestyle gold medal from 2022, as well as compete in the Big Air event. On the freestyle side of things, 2022’s women’s moguls silver medalist Jaelin Kauf will be back to defend or improve her position in the same event, as well as competing in the dual moguls event. Meanwhile in aerials, Quinn Dehlinger has qualified for his first Olympics. We’ll have plenty more coverage of this nature as next winter’s games creep closer, but for now, check out this report from the U.S. Ski Team.
#4: Just As the Ski Season Comes to a Close in North America, So it Begins Anew in the Southern Hemisphere:
It’s the last weekend of operations for Arapahoe Basin, but that doesn’t mean the party’s over just yet! Image: Arapahoe Basin on Facebook
Finally, we’re officially passing the Winter baton this week, from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern, as ski season comes to a close here just as it gets underway in the South. This weekend, Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin will run its lifts for the last time, while Mammoth Mountain in California will do the same. As such, the North American 2024-2025 ski season more or less comes to a close as these were the last two resorts remaining. While it’s sad to see, it is June. Plus, there are still a few options left for northern skiers still wanting to ski. In Oregon, Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge continues to offer skiing on its glacier, while Beartooth Basin also plans to operate this weekend and might continue for an additional week pending conditions. If those won’t do and you’re willing to travel, then you have plenty of options as the ski season is just getting underway in South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Earlier today, Valle Nevado spun its lifts for the first time this year, becoming Chile’s first ski resort to open for the season after moving their opening date up a full week thanks to favorable early season snowfall. Not only that, but there’s plenty more snow on the way, with some forecasts calling for up to 5 feet in the coming days. Joining Valle Nevado in opening this weekend are neighboring El Colorado, as well as Cerro Catedral Alta Patagonia in Argentina. Next weekend, the season is expected to really get underway in South America as several other resorts are scheduled to open.
While those are the closest summer skiing options to us here in North America, they’re not the only ones. If you were to travel across the entire world, all the way to Australia and New Zealand, you’d find even more places to ski. In Australia, all the big resorts are currently open, including Perisher, Mt. Hotham, Thredbo, Falls Creek, and with more on the way. In New Zealand, Treble Cone, The Remarkables, Coronet Peak, and Cardrona are all expected to open this weekend as well. So, while the bad news is that the season here in North America is a wrap, the good news is that it’s just getting started south of the equator! To check which resorts are open where, we recommend searching your preferred region on On The Snow.