Top Five Fridays: October 13, 2023
Lead Image: This week, a wide range of states and resorts in the West saw their first snowfall, including Oregon’s Mt. Bachelor, where a full 5” was reported. More on that below! Image: Mt. Bachelor on Facebook
#1: Winter is Knocking: Snow Reported Across a Wide Swath of the West:
A shot from Alta, highlighting recent snowfall, backdropped by autumnal colors. Image: Alta Ski Area on Facebook
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the October 13, 2023 edition! This week, we’re kicking things off with a bang as we appear to be approaching winter’s doorstep. While we reported on the first signs of snow all the way back in mid August, this week marks the first time that a wide swath of the west finally got real snow. In Tahoe, Palisades shared multiple photos in which their peaks are clearly dusted with snow. To the East, in Colorado, multiple ski areas reported seeing their first signs of snowfall as well. Keystone in particular celebrated the weather, announcing that they’d also fired up their snowmaking equipment with plans to open as soon as possible. While it’s still too early to have a specific opening date, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin, and Loveland all hope to open sometime in October- meaning within the next 2-3 weeks. Next door, in Utah, ski areas in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons are also reporting significant snowfall. While we haven’t heard official reports at the time of this writing, some forecasts were calling for up to 16” of snow by this morning. Finally, rounding out the highlights of known snowfall is Mt. Bachelor, in Oregon, where the resort officially reported 5” of snow earlier this week. So, while we know this isn’t the most in depth, earth shaking, breaking news we’ve ever reported here on Top Five Fridays, it might just be the most exciting news of the year, every year. No, it’s not ski season quite yet, but with measurable snowfall hitting several states this week, we know that it won’t be long before we’re all back on snow. Until then, sit tight, watch as many ski movies as you can, and stay up to date with the latest ski news right here, on Top Five Fridays. Now, let’s get on with the show.
#2: The Freeride World Tour Announces a New Venue, Updated Qualifying System, and Full 2024 Calendar:
Next up this week is some exciting competition news! It’s typically right around this time each year that the Freeride World Tour announces their schedule for the upcoming season, and in its first full year under FIS ownership, event organizers haven’t strayed an inch from the game plan. Well, in terms of their timing anyways. In terms of the calendar itself, there actually are a couple of noteworthy changes. Highlighting that list of adjustments is the addition of a new venue being added to the schedule, nestled in between the Kicking Horse, BC stop, and the Fieberbrunn, Austria stop. As you might recall in previous years, there’s typically been a few weeks between the final stop of qualifiers and the start of final two stops on the tour. With the addition of the Georgia stop, there is now only one week between Kicking Horse (the third stop on this year’s tour) and the next event. It’s also worth noting that no venues have been removed from this year’s calendar, meaning that rather than the typical schedule of 5 stops, this year’s tour now features 6 total. While it’s clear that this move has been made by the FIS to boost viewership and interest in the sport, the verdict is still out as to whether or not this will simply be too physically or logistically demanding for athletes. As fans, we love it. As rationalists, we’ll have to wait and see how this move plays out.
In addition to the additional venue location, subtle changes have also been made to the points and qualifying systems. First, in terms of points, we believe the previous experiments with bonus points in the finals events have come to an end as they weren’t mentioned in the official calendar announcement. Don’t quote us on that as there’s always a chance that they’ve matured into “assumed rules” that don’t bear highlighting, but in previous announcements the extra points for top finishers during the two finals stops have been called to attention. Secondly, with four stops before finals, athletes’ qualifying scores will now be calculated based on their best three results. In other words, their lowest qualifying score will be dropped. Knowing that the world of Freeride can be a bit cruel and unfair as things like conditions changing, malfunctioning equipment, or a host of other unlucky scenarios can cause any athlete to fall on any given day, this new rule should reduce the consequences suffered from a stroke of bad luck.
Finally, the last thing we want to call to attention with this year’s Freeride World Tour has nothing to do with the calendar at all. Instead, it’s a reminder that this is the first year that the FWT will be under full FIS ownership. Last year, we saw very little, if any, changes with the broadcast as the FIS bought the FWT in December, making it too late to make any significant adjustments. This season however, could be different. If you’ll recall back in the Spring, we shared with you the FIS’s first ever five year plan. In that document, there was a section highlighting improvements to broadcasts, which included concepts like showing rider stats on screen, such as speed, elevation, heart rate, etc. While we don’t know if the FIS is ready to roll this type of viewing experience out yet, we do know that their goal is to elevate the broadcasts across all of their sports, so we’ll be interested to see what they bring to the FWT table this season, if anything. Until we find out when the tour kicks off at Spain’s Baqueira Beret in late January, we recommend checking in with the Freeride World Tour directly to learn all there is to know about this year’s schedule.
#3: Alterra to Buy Second Heli Skiing Operation, Prompting Serious Speculation on Our Part:
This week, Alterra announced plans to purchase Mike Wiegele Heli Skiing in British Columbia. While it doesn’t mean your Ikon Pass now includes free heli-skiing rides, it does mean that you’ll probably have the opportunity to buy into an experience like this at a discounted rate. Image: Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing on Facebook
Moving right along, our third highlight this week feels like the type of headline that feels niche at first glance, but makes us wonder about the future of ski resorts and the strategic plans being laid behind the scenes. Before we dive into that conversation, let’s start with the headline itself: Alterra has announced plans to buy Mike Wiegele Heli Skiing (MWHS) operations in British Columbia. In acquiring this company, Alterra will now own two heli-skiing operations in the same region of B.C.’s Rocky Mountain range, as they currently own and operate CMH Heli-Skiing and Summer Adventures. Now, for those of you jumping to conclusions and assuming that this means your Ikon Pass suddenly comes with free heli-skiing rides, let us stop you there: it doesn’t. Based on the way that Alterra has incorporated CMH into the Ikon Pass offering, what it really means is that as a pass holder, you’ll get benefits like early booking access and discounts - particularly on summer activities. Still, if you are someone with dreams of heli-skiing, this could potentially be big news as it could mean big savings for you.
Speaking of what this all could mean, let’s zoom out for a second and take a wider view on what’s happening here. Remember a few weeks back when we shared the news that Silverton Mountain had been purchased by Heli Adventures Inc.? While that company began as a heli-skiing outfit based out of Alaska, the company itself has grown into an adventure based vacation planner, offering curated trips across the world centered around activities like surfing, safaris, deep sea diving, and more. In that instance, an adventure company purchased a ski resort. In this case, what’s essentially a ski resort operator is increasing its holdings in a related, but certainly separate space: experience based vacations. This of course leads us to the question of: how different are Alterra and Heli Adventures, really? Both own ski resorts, both own heli-skiing operations, both sell vacation experiences to guests, and both have significant buying power. The difference is that Heli Adventures has what financial advisors would call a “diversified portfolio”, while Alterra remains singularly invested in the mountain lifestyle. While we don’t proclaim to be experts or psychics, we do proclaim to be passionate speculators, and our speculation is that there’s certainly a chance that a brand like Alterra adds non-winter based destinations to its portfolio at some point, and when it does, the Ikon Pass may begin to include a whole lot more than just ski experiences. Until these prophecies come true, you can learn all about this week’s news in the official announcement from Alterra.
#4: Inspired by Bluebird Backcountry, a New Italian Based Human Powered Ski Experience is Finding Early Success:
To give Homeland’s location some perspective, here’s a birds eye view of the entirety of Montespluga, Italy. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You can see how even a small uptick in ski tourism could have a big impact on the town. Image: Homeland's Official Website
Finally, we round out this week with a cool story coming out of Northern Italy, where a small ski operation inspired by Bluebird Backcountry is revitalizing a rural mountain town. To fully appreciate this story, let’s start at the start: during the depths of the pandemic. At that time, Tommaso Luzzana and Paolo Pichielo - friends, passionate skiers, and co-owners of an event agency - began ruminating on the concept of a human-powered ski resort. Already at that time, they were noticing how climate change was impacting Europe’s ski industry, and how the increased use of snowmaking seemed like a solution that only exacerbated the problem. With the rise of ski touring, they began thinking about the concept for a human-powered ski resort. Then, they came across news of Bluebird Backcountry, a ski resort that operated for a short period of time in Colorado, featuring only a base area, uphill routes, and no lifts. Empowered by the notion that their concept was already in effect in America, they decided to move forward with their venture. This past year, Luzzana and Pichielo launched their vision in a rural town called Montespluga, located right on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They called it “Homeland”.
In an article this week from the Financial Times, we’re treated to the full story about Homeland, including details of their business model as well as their immediately positive economic impact on Montespluga. Starting with their business model, it’s interesting to note just how different Homeland is compared to Bluebird Backcountry. While the concepts are born out of the same idea, Homeland doesn’t actually lease or own any of its terrain. Instead, they’ve simply marked out 11 uphill routes on publicly accessible land, and encourage guests to use their routes as a means of accessing the backcountry. There are no lift tickets required. Instead, Homeland acts as more of a basecamp for the area. In their modern, window-walled building in the town of Montespluga, Homeland offers all of the amenities and accommodations that any uphill skier might need. Rentals for those just getting into the sport, avalanche gear, equipment repair tools and services, guiding services, avalanche and uphill courses, coffee - you name it. In fact, while this article from the Financial Times bills Homeland as an uphill ski resort, that title more or less misses the mark. Instead, Homeland is more akin to a backcountry outfitter, who happened to mark their own ascent routes in an effort to draw more patrons to their region. That distinction is not an attempt to downplay Homeland’s efforts in the slightest - quite the opposite actually. In taking this lower-overhead approach, Homeland has been able to quickly establish a seemingly viable business model, while attracting tourism to the remote town. It reminds us more of the way in which mountain biking trail networks integrate with their communities than bonafide ski resorts. And while locals were apprehensive of the modern look of the new Homeland building, their concerns have quickly been outweighed by the economic boost it’s brought to the area.
Ultimately, this is what makes this story so interesting to us. We talk a lot about how there’s a lot of room in the world of skiing for a wide array of “ski personalities”. While the most obvious connection there is between the skier and their equipment, there’s also a need for there to be a variety of ways to access the mountains to accommodate every type of skier. From the glitz and glam based Aspens of the world, to rope tows in New Hampshire, heli-skiing operations in British Columbia, and simple base camps in rural Italy, the world of skiing is home to a wide array of preferences and skier types, which is why we love coming across articles such as this one that reveal yet another way in which we can all get out and enjoy the sport of skiing. To learn more about Homeland and/or to be enticed to plan your trip this winter, check out the full report from the Financial Times.