Top Five Fridays: June 7, 2024
Lead Image: A new era is upon the world of freeride, as the FIS has just officially recognized it as a sport, clearing the way for its path to the Olympics. Image: Freeride World Tour on Facebook
#1: We’re Having Our Second Annual Warehouse Sale! Show Up and Save an Insane Amount of Money:
We highly recommend making your way to our warehouse sale this summer if you can. For those who make the trip, insane discounts await. Check out the Facebook event page for more details.
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the June 7, 2024 edition! If you were hoping we would start off with the nice, calm preview of this week’s news like we usually do, you’re unfortunately out of luck because WE’RE HAVING ANOTHER WAREHOUSE SALE!
That’s right folks - after hosting our first warehouse sale last summer, in which we opened our doors to the public for the first time ever, we’ve decided to do it again. If you weren’t one of the over 1,000 people who checked out our sale last summer, here’s a quick summary of what you missed: a party atmosphere featuring the lowest prices ever on a huge selection of our inventory. Following last year’s overwhelming success, we’ve decided to do it all again this Summer, on Saturday July 20th and Sunday July 21st, with:
Up to 80% off hardgood brands like: Atomic, Blizzard, Elan, Head, Nordica, Salomon, and Volkl.
Over 50% off apparel from brands like: Flylow, Helly Hansen, Norrona, Bogner Fire & Ice, Spyder, 686, Black Crows, Strafe, The North Face, Cotopaxi, and more.
Over 50% off accessories from brands like: Darn Tough, Giro, Hestra, Marker, Smartwool, Smith, Swany, and many more.
We’ll also have boot fitting staff on hand, a ton of junior equipment, snowboard gear, and even deals on season lease packages and tunes.
Now if you’re wondering what the catch is, there is one small catch: this is an in person event only, specifically at our warehouse. There’s a good reason for that though: the only way we’re able to offer the level of discounts that we’re planning is by cutting out the admin costs typically involved with online sales. By skipping the online-ordering portion of our business model, we’re saving money on lower order processing costs, no picking & packing of orders, and no shipping costs. In other words, our all-in costs on each sale is lower, so we’re passing those additional savings directly on to you.
While we know it’s not feasible for all of our readers to make it to this sale, we highly recommend putting the weekend of 7/20-7/21 on your calendar and making the trip to our warehouse in Stowe, VT if you can. Even if you’re from out of town, it makes for the perfect excuse to plan a weekend trip to our town, where you can hike, bike, swim, and dine as much as your heart desires. While we typically tend to avoid sales pitches here on Top Five Fridays, some occasions simply call for it, such as when you can save a tremendous amount of money on brand new, name brand ski gear. To learn more about this, check out the event page that Jeff just set up on Facebook.
#2: 2024 FIS Summer Congress Outcomes: Freeride Voted in as an Official Sport, 2024-2025 Calendars Confirmed:
The most significant news coming out of this summer’s FIS congress? The unanimous decision to recognize the sport of freeride. Up next: Olympic inclusion. Image: Freeride World Tour on Facebook
In other, less self indulgent news this week, we’ve also got some pretty big updates from the FIS, as the organization held their 55th annual conference on Wednesday. At this annual meeting, the group takes care of a number of important matters each year, with each of its member nations voting on a number of changes, elections, inclusions of new members, and more. For our purposes, the annual meeting typically amounts to a bunch of housekeeping for the FIS, with a couple of very interesting referendums. This year was no different, as motions were approved, council members were elected and re-elected, and Guinea-Bissau and Qatar were both voted in as associate members. But, beyond the paperwork, two big decisions were also made: the sports of freeride skiing and snowboarding were recognized as official FIS disciplines, and the 2024-2025 FIS World Cup Alpine schedule was confirmed.
Between the two highlights, the one that’s making a bigger splash in the world of skiing is the official recognition of the sport of Freeriding. As you might recall, the FIS acquired the Freeride World Tour back in December of 2022, marking the first step down this path. At that time, the news was met with a mix of trepidation from those with concerns about the future of the sport, as well as some excitement regarding what it means for the growth of the sport and opportunities for the athletes. Since the acquisition back in the final month of 2022, the Freeride World Tour has hosted two seasons with very little noticeable change. Part of the reason for that is the fact that it hadn’t yet been recognized by the FIS as an official sport. This week’s decision changes that as freeride was unanimously approved by vote at this year’s congress.
While it may seem like a superficial distinction, official recognition of freeride marks the next step towards including the sport in upcoming Olympic games. Working backwards, in order to be included in the games, there needs to be an organization such as the FIS that provides a unified ranking system on a global scale. By recognizing freeride, the FIS is providing that structure so that athletes can begin earning points in a system that would make them eligible to qualify for the Olympics. In other words, prior to this announcement, the world of Freeride has been somewhat fractured, with multiple, siloed point systems existing at different levels in different regions. Now, with the FIS’s efforts, the hope is that a unified point system will make it possible to compare athletic performance on a global scale. In doing so, it also creates a path for national teams to begin creating and supporting athletes in the freeride discipline. Just like the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team has teams for alpine, cross country, freeski, freestyle, and more - the hope is that the inclusion of Freeride within the FIS will ultimately result in teams like the USST Freeride Team. This, of course, brings a whole other round of questions to what it means for the junior levels of the sport and development pipeline, but let’s take this news one update at a time. For now, the good news is that freeride skiing and snowboarding is officially recognized by the FIS, and one step closer to becoming an Olympic sport. The bad news, depending on who you ask, is that freeride skiing and snowboarding is officially recognized by the FIS, and one step closer to becoming an Olympic sport. Regardless of which side of the aisle you find yourself, you can learn more about this story from the official press release from the Freeride World Tour.
Finally, before we round out this highlight, we want to really quickly share an update from the alpine side of the FIS, where this week’s congress confirmed the calendar for the year ahead. We briefly discussed this back on May 10th when the preliminary schedule was released, but this week’s news let’s us know that the schedule has been finalized. As such, we now know with certainty that the women’s circuit will be racing in Beaver Creek for the first time since 2015, on December 14-15th. We also know that Sun Valley, Idaho will be the host for the biggest event of the entire schedule: the 2024-2025 Championships. With races scheduled for Killington and Mont Tremblant in late November and early December, followed by back to back weekends of Men’s and Women’s downhill racing at Beaver Creek from December 6-15th, and nearly a full week of competition featuring the best skiers in the world at Sun Valley from March 22-27th, there truly has never been a better time to witness FIS World Cup racing in North America. To learn more about these events, and to see a list of all the FIS World Cup events being held in the United States (regardless of discipline), check out the report from the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team.
#3: In the Aftermath of Colorado’s Supreme Court Ruling on Liability, Ski Resorts and Parallel Industries Seek Clarification Amidst Concerns:
A crucial part of the ski resort experience, a recent courtroom decision regarding chairlifts could have vast implications for business viability across a wide range of businesses. Image: Colorado Ski Country USA on Facebook
For our third highlight this week, we have a somewhat dense, albeit important piece of news to share that acts as a continuation of a highlight we brought you just two weeks ago, when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that ski resorts cannot use liability waivers as a means to undermine laws that hold them accountable for injury to guests. Seeing as we covered that story in full just recently, we’ll avoid a recap here, and instead just get on with this week’s update: The Colorado Sun has just published a follow up piece that addresses the “what happens next” aspect of the story.
As you might assume, throughout this case, ski resort operators emphasized the potential impacts of the decision. Specifically, they voiced concerns that if they were unable to be protected by liability waivers, then the cost of their insurance would rise significantly. More specifically, they expressed concern that the increased cost of insurance could have significantly detrimental impacts to both small and mid-sized ski resorts, as well as programs for kids, as it’s believed that younger participants would be more at risk of being involved in a serious accident. One of the revelations made in this week’s article is that concerns for the diminished power of liability waivers extends past the ski resort industry. In the article, Colorado’s rafting industry as well as “a network of youth camps” were also highlighted as businesses in which the outcome of this case would likely have an impact. Extrapolating that thought process further, it’s easy to see how the case has immediate implications on really any number of businesses that currently issue liability waivers, particularly for the involvement of youth. In other words, while the actual impact of the decision has yet to be seen, there are growing concerns from a number of industries that the outcome of this case will result in unsustainable increases in insurance rates.
While that reality has yet to materialize, those involved in the ski resort industry, as well as allies in parallel industries, are already making plans to work with legislatures to limit their legal exposure moving forward. Looking to Utah as an example, the hope in Colorado now is that through further legislation, the fine line between “gross negligence” and “just a little bit of negligence” can be further defined. In other words, in this particular case, the resort was found responsible for a degree of negligence that ran afoul of the law. The verdict in this case however, does not clearly define exactly where the line is drawn. For instance, if a guest runs into a lift tower, who is at fault? Or say a snowmaking pipe melts out over the course of a sunny spring day and becomes exposed, ultimately injuring a guest. What level of negligence would that reflect, and would the liability waiver clear the resort from responsibility? These are the types of questions that ski resorts and their partners will hope to clarify through legislation in the coming year, with the goal of having definitive answers to these questions in order to reduce ambiguity and therefore insurance costs. All told, this should be seen as an expected update, and the next logical step towards clarifying the gray area in this matter. To learn more about liability concerns and what happens next, check in with the Colorado Sun.
#4: New York’s Windham Mountain Club Scales Back Semi-Privatization Model, Ever So Slightly:
The modest town of Windham, New York, backdropped by the mountain that supports it. After last year’s tumultuous shift to a semi-private model, the resort has announced plans to refine its approach. Image: Windham Mountain Club on Facebook.
Finally, we end this week with a highlight that we just know some of you are going to get a kick out of. Just before the start of last season, in the first week of October 2023, New York’s Windham Mountain announced a transition to a semi-private model. While such an announcement was destined to be met with angry reactions from the public, the way in which Windham announced the move was seen as particularly tone-deaf, with new branding initiatives that essentially dismissed Windham’s long history as a staple in the local community. As such, a move that was always going to be at least somewhat controversial became wildly unpopular and a massive point of contention for both locals as well as the broader ski community that generally harbors disdain for the idea of privatization. Since that initial launch, Windham has deleted some of its most disliked posts on social media, and survived its first season as a semi-private resort. Now, with its first winter of operations in the rearview, Windham has announced some clarifications and adjustments for the year ahead.
This week, the Times Union shared the news that Windham Mountain has submitted updated operation plans to the Windham Town Planning board as part of the approval process required for the resort to receive permission to build new housing for members at its base area. While a bit of a formality, the submitted operation plan reveals the resort’s decision to scale back its semi-private access plans in regards to the exclusivity of access to the resort. This past season, Windham lowered the number of daily skiers at the resort from what was at one point a capacity of 7,000, to just 4,000. The resort also began selling $175,000 lifetime memberships to the club, with the ultimate goal of selling 1,500 memberships that will give members guaranteed access on any given day, as well as exclusive access to certain on-mountain amenities. In addition to the reduced daily skier volume and lifetime memberships, Windham also stopped selling daily lift tickets on Saturdays and Holidays, meaning those popular times were only for members and season pass holders. This week though, the mountain announced the decision to begin selling daily tickets again on Saturdays and most holidays, although they do reserve the right to withhold ticket sales on “a few Saturdays and two holidays.”
All told, this week’s update doesn’t reflect that significant of a change to the resort’s plans, but it does seem like the clarifications and adjustments might be just effective enough to soothe the public’s concerns. By capping the memberships available at 1,500, the resort is guaranteeing that even in a worst case scenario, a maximum of just over one third of the skiers and riders at the resort would be members, meaning just under two thirds of the guests would be members of the public. Additionally, the reintroduction of ticket sales on most Saturdays means that, with just a few exceptions, members of the community will be able to access the mountain whenever they’d like. We’ll see how this all plays out moving forward, but for now, we’ll take it as yet another learning experience as the trend of semi-privatization of ski resorts continues. For more on this, check out the report from the Times Union.