Speaker 1:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange, at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're Inside the ICE House: our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership, and vision and global business; the dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years.
Each week, we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs, and harness the engine of capitalism, right here, right now at the NYSE and at ICE's exchanges and clearinghouses around the world. Now, welcome Inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Josh King, of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh King:
If you heard our podcast a couple of weeks ago with Dr. Matt Provencher of the Steadman Clinic in Vail, you know I was in the midst of what's known as a busman's holiday, where I took our Inside the ICE House microphones with me to the ski slopes as I recorded a couple episodes high in the Rocky Mountains with our portable recording kit, after, of course, dropping about 30,000 vertical feet or so per day on average during my brief little sojourn to visit my friends, Douglas and Liz Smith.
Today, the second of two episodes recorded in Vail. What to say about this oasis built into the Gore Range, which runs for about 60 miles northwest to southeast through Grand Summit in Eagle counties, forming the western boundary of Middle Park at the headwaters of the Colorado River? It's impossible to talk about this place without mentioning the legacy of the legendary Pete Seibert. Pete was a kid from Sharon Massachusetts who loved New England winters.
An expert skier, he got even better training on New Hampshire slopes under the tutelage of Austrian masters who fled the March of totalitarianism across Europe in the late 1930s. When it was America's job to turn back that tide, Pete joined the Army in 1943 at age 18. His unique skills were best put to use in the 10th Mountain Division, training at Fort Hale, Colorado, about 20 miles south of Vail. Pete was wounded in action in Italy at the Battle of Riva Ridge, returning to Colorado to convalesce and pursue his dream of building a ski resort to rival the best of Europe.
And so he did. Pete's legacy endures today at Vail Mountain Resort, the flagship of Vail Resorts. NYSE took a symbol MTN, which Pete founded in 1962, with his friend Earl Eaton and a small group of investors. His initial stake of $55,000 bought 520 acres along Gore Creek that now serves as the gateway to 5,289 acres of skiable terrain on leased land from the US Forest Service. Using my Epic Pass, I traversed a lot of them the week I was in Vail.
Vail Resorts reported its first quarter 2024 earnings back on December 8th last year, so we're soon to get an update. Back then, CEO Kirsten Lynch told investors that the company delivered quarterly revenues of $258.6 million, divided by about 172 and a half million dollars of revenues for its mountain segment, and about $81.8 million on its lodging segment. Looking forward to having about 2.4 million guests for the year at its now 41, get that, 41 North American, Australian, and European resorts.
The company, which has earned accolades as one of America's most trustworthy companies from Newsweek, and one of America's best large employers from Forbes, counts Vail Mountain, Breckenridge, Park City, Whistler, Blackcomb, and Stowe among its premier properties, along with Andermatt-Sedrun in Switzerland, and Perisher, Hotham, and Falls Creek Resorts in Australia, all available on the company's industry-changing Epic Pass.
Vail is passionate about providing what it calls an experience of a lifetime to their team members and also their guests, and its epic promise to reach a zero net operating footprint by 2030. The company also owns or manages a collection of hotels under the Rock Resorts brand, a portfolio of vacation rentals, condominiums, and branded hotels located in close proximity to its mountain destinations, as well as the Grand Teton Lodge company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
One of the most long-standing members of the Vail Resorts team, which now numbers about 50,000 employees across its mountain, corporate, hospitality, media, real estate, retail, and transportation lines of business is Beth Howard, Chief Operating Officer of Vail Mountain. Over the course of Beth's 38 years at Vail Resorts, she's worked in nearly every capacity hosting skiers on the mountain, from the slopes to the restaurants that keep us sustained before, during, and after our day on magnificently manicured corduroy.
Beth got her start as an intern from the University of Northern Iowa, and since has scaled the summit of the ski industry, iconic peaks, legendary back bowls. As Vail likes to save itself, it's like nothing on earth. Our conversation with Beth Howard on scaling the mountain, on building the team, on serving the guests on and off the slopes, and on sustaining the environment. It's all coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Welcome back Inside the ICE House. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen, and please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts so other folks know where to find us. Our guest today is Beth Howard, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Vail Mountain, part of Vail Resorts, that's NYSE ticker symbol MTN. Beth's been in her role since 2019, but first started her career with the company in 1985 as a college intern in the food and beverage division at Beaver Creek Resort. Beth, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House. It's great to talk with you here in the Rocky Mountains.
Beth Howard:
Well, good morning, Josh, and thanks for having me.
Josh King:
Now, I don't geek out as much as Stuart Winchester on the Storm Skiing podcast, but I've become friends with Stuart because he covers all sorts of mountains. I'm not going to press you on all the details of the major announcement that you put out last week about some of the upgrades, but I was wondering, as I was skiing up and down your lifts, and your Bowls, and your Back Bowls, what else can you do to improve it? Yet here you are with a big announcement. Quick summary, please.
Beth Howard:
Yes, we just recently went through the process of updating our master development plan, which I think you're referring to. We hadn't updated it since 2018, and we typically like to have a five to 10 year outlook on what could be possible on the mountain. We went through that in partnering with the US Forest Service. It's a long process, very detailed, and it was really capturing all of the possibilities on how we could improve the guest experience, circulation, infrastructure, where our pinch points might be.
That was our lens really through how we could enhance the guest experience. There's a high focus on lift upgrades, restaurant upgrades, just how the mountain flows, some redundancy out of our portal lifts for the initial upload each day. That was really a hard look at this mountain and how we could make it better.
Josh King:
If you're a longtime Vail visitor, Vail skier, and you read the report in detail, what would you be most excited about in 36 months' time?
Beth Howard:
I think our guests might be most excited about a new gondola coming out of Lions Head.
Josh King:
Yeah, sure, that would be exciting.
Beth Howard:
Significant lifts replacement. We have Chair 21 coming out. We would look at, in many cases, if you read through the master development plan, it's increasing the efficiencies of the lifts, so people are spending less time getting to the experience and more time in it. I think that's always what we look at is how we can improve every aspect of this mountain.
Josh King:
Vail Mountain's updated master development plan was accepted by the US Forest Service, and outlines proposed future improvements for the resort. These projects aren't approved or planned, but the MDP guides the long range vision for the resort. Talking about every aspect of the mountain, Beth, it's about eight o'clock Mountain Time as we are gathering around the microphones. Your lifts will be spinning for customers in about 55 minutes at nine. How's the season going so far for you?
Beth Howard:
It's nice to start to see a regular cadence of snow. That didn't really start happening till mid-January, so we had an interesting start to the season, where it was a warmer drier start, but now we are into more of a typical pattern for Vail Mountain and for the Rockies, where every few days, we're getting two to six inches. We just had two inches overnight.
It's snowing now, and next week, we have another storm coming in. I think when we get into that cadence of snow storms, I'm really pleased with the offering we can then give on the mountain, because we're full footprint, all acres, all trails going, and the conditions are phenomenal right now.
Josh King:
What's your own personal routine, as both overseeing the whole mountain, but also being a skier yourself? Do you get turns in? What's your usual routine?
Beth Howard:
Yes. On any given day, I'm pretty much a creature of habit. In the morning, I'm in by seven and I am going through our morning dashboards, the grooming reports, and our lift configuration, and meeting with my vice president of mountain operations. We have a 10-minute huddle each morning, just talking about is there anything mechanical or electrical that we need to deal with on the lift fleet, for example? How was it grooming, how's our staffing? What was our snowfall, what's our outlook for the next day?
We align first thing in that morning, so I call it my power hour from seven to eight. I'm in and I'm just getting foundationally set for the day, gathering the information, talking to our mountain VP, and then as we go and open the mountain at 8:30, we have a full hour and a half where we've already aligned, and we're checking in with all the operations who are out in the field and deploying staff, so we can hit that 8:30 and we are ready for the day.
Then once we are open and I hear on the radio, "All scheduled lifts are operating," which is one of my favorite radio calls, then we just execute the day. Typically, I can get out, I like the early mornings, I like to make sure that we have a good start to the day, because I feel if we have a good start and upload with our guests, that first impression, the rest of the day flows pretty well. Then we will go out on a Saturday, I'm always out on Saturdays.
Those are typically our busiest days of the week, and we will go out, work the portal lifts, we'll go out and just follow the guests around the mountain, where we can help with the experience anywhere we can. It's very hands-on. I love it. I love being out on the mountain with the employees and the guests, and just seeing the joy that we bring them.
Josh King:
Back East, Beth, it's sort of the new normal, freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw, a couple of good snow making days followed by rain up in the Catskills where I usually ski. It's been sub-28 degrees for the better part of eight days, but now it's going to be in the fifties in a couple of days. Has that created challenges for other Vail-owned resorts on the Epic Pass? What's the prognosis for Eastern skiing overall, do you think?
Beth Howard:
I don't have experience on the East Coast with skiing. I'm absolutely spoiled, having spent most of my time in the Rockies and then a couple of years out in Tahoe at North Star where I got kind of a taste of that type of weather pattern. I think our operating teams are so talented in how they use their snow making. If you get into a cycle, even with us here, we don't have that extreme rain, 20 below zero, whatever it may be that we deal with here. Those teams, I'm so impressed with what they do on the East Coast, because they have to adjust.
They may be rebuilding trails every few days because of a rain event or whatever it may be. Here in Vail, it's so consistent. We set up this mountain, and we build it from mid-October up through our opening, and it is just consistent. We're not dealing with those kind of extreme weather patterns. Yeah, I admire them. I don't have experience to speak from any level of expertise on the East Coast operators, but yeah, I'm impressed with what they're able to do.
Josh King:
I ski at this place called Windham Mountain, which is a couple miles away from one of Vail's newer properties, which is Hunter Mountain, and there's a lot of hubbub this year as the new owner, Sandy Bell, has bought the place up with an eye toward creating a year-Round club. It's that even been renamed the Windham Mountain Club, which has our long time season pass holders and day trippers really tied up in knots.
The way Douglas talks about his life in Vail, he says spring, summer, fall are sometimes even better than winter. In this industry, is it go year round or die?
Beth Howard:
I can speak for Vail. We are much more a year-round resort than we were when we came to be 61 years ago. It was pure skiing back when we first created it, I think, not me created it, but our founders and this community and the pioneers. I think what we try to do here as a community working together is really having four seasons at this resort, that all four seasons can be a wonderful experience for those who live here and for our guests visiting.
We've been able to really make more of a year-round experience here. Yeah, Douglas is right. The four seasons here in Vail are amazing, and we get to enjoy every one of them. I think that's part of the beauty of the Vail Valley.
Josh King:
I was having a little Après with Douglas at the fall line when I was out there. Looking at the decorations on the walls, it's festooned with beautiful photography from the great mid-century photographer, Slim Aarons, who really knew how to capture the alpine lifestyle. There's a great Slim Aarons photo of Squaw Valley, its founder, Alec Cushing, holding court at an ice bar atop the mountain.
Beth, you are a famed practitioner of the peak experience with your champagne toast at North Star and your cookie time at Beaver Creek. To what extent do amenities like that and the food and beverage excellence sell the skiing experience, versus what you're talking about, this consistent powder, grooming, lift network, and snow making?
Beth Howard:
Yeah, I think it all matters in the experience. I'm biased towards the food and beverage experience because I spent 30 of my 40 years in food and beverage in the ski industry, and I always felt that the food and beverage has to match the mountain or it's [inaudible 00:15:22]. When you're out there, most everyone's going to take a break, or they're going to stop into a restaurant, or we did bring back ice bars last winter as our nod to our 60th, and people just loved it. It's that nostalgia and the way it used to be.
It's so important, and I think whether it's cookie time, or the champagne toast, or we have strudel going over here in Vail, I always felt those little touches and the details matter to our guest experience, and anywhere we can inject those into the day of our guest does have a positive impact on that guest.
Josh King:
I've read Warren Miller's autobiography, Freedom Found, and sort of a student of Alec Cushing in the development of the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw, now Palisades Tahoe. I love Stein Eriksen Lodge and staring at all the memorabilia in the glass-enclosed cases in Stein's lobby. What do you take away from the heritage of North American skiing now, as many decades as you've been a part of it?
Beth Howard:
I think that was probably one of the biggest lures that I had coming to the ski industry and being in it my entire career is that looking back to how skiing and riding came to be, the passion that the pioneers of skiing had, and just that culture of going out, and enjoying the mountains, and each other, and creating something so special.
I love the nostalgia, and I'm very similar to you, going in and just looking at the history on photos in some of these restaurants and lodges, to me, just gives me chills.
Josh King:
I spent some time at the Colorado Ski Museum right above the parking lot when I was out in Vail. Your rich history traces back to its founding by World War II veteran and member of the 10th Mountain Division, Pete Seibert, and the local rancher, Earl Eaton, over six decades ago. The resort's inception in 1962 stemmed from their looking around, exploring this untouched terrain. In light of Pete's legacy, how does Vail Mountain honor the contributions and pioneering spirit of its founders?
Beth Howard:
Yes, Pete, I got to know Pete when I first started out here in Vail, and he was just an incredible person and visionary. I also met Earl a few times, but they were such visionaries. Having their experience over in Europe during World War II, they were able to take that experience and bring it here, and stand at the top of our Back Bowls and just go, "We have something very special here."Just having that vision was what created Vail, and eventually the town of Vail and this incredible community.
I think in reading Pete's books, he always talked about Vail was really for everybody. It wasn't just for the expert skiers who did ski the deep powder or the double diamonds. It was for everyone. Talk about a visionary, because when we talk about being inclusive, and the future of our sports inclusivity, and bringing new people into a sport, he already had that vision. Maybe not that deep in how we're thinking at this time, but he knew what he had here, and yeah, thankful for him.
Josh King:
You've spent nearly four decades now in Pete's domain, Vail Resorts, progressing from a food and beverage college intern in 1985 from the University of Northern Iowa. I see your name tag of your origin spot on your jacket, as everyone at Vail has to, now overseeing all aspects of the Mountain, which is Vail Resorts' flagship. Was skiing always a part of your family routine growing up? Were your parents skiers? How did it all start for you?
Beth Howard:
Well, I'm probably one of the most unlikely COOs of Vail that you would ever imagine, because I grew up on a family farm in Iowa. We were not skiers. I was in sports, so love sports, every sport there was that you can have in Iowa. We did make trips up to Afton Alps in Minnesota when I was a kid, and it was about three hours from our farm, so I love skiing.
We didn't do it much, but when this opportunity came up out here in Colorado as an intern, I just jumped on it. As soon as I arrived, I said, "I need to find a way to never leave here," because it is such a great place. Yeah, I learned skiing out here, but didn't grow up as a skier, other than those trips up to Afton Alps.
Josh King:
If you missed the formative years from '62 to '85 when your tenure starts, you've still, from '85 to the present, seen such a span of its history. I talked also with Dr. Matt Provencher at the Steadman Clinic while I was out there. In many ways, folks like George Gillette, President, Mrs. Ford, Dr. Richard Steadman, established the identity of the place, just like Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Nicholson put their mark on Aspen.
How would you describe the evolution of Vail over the past four decades, from what Pete originally described, to what I saw a couple of weeks ago?
Beth Howard:
Yes. I would say the common thread that carries from Pete and Earl from the very beginnings is that commitment to excellence. That has been the common thread through all chapters of our company. When I came in 1985, George Gillette was the owner. Our company was just Vail and Beaver Creek. Beaver Creek was in its infancy. The village had been completed, and the footprint it is today was evolving.
I think when George was here, I remember being a 22-year-old, and he was all about guest service, and high speed quads, and really put his mark on that piece of it for our Mountain, but the excellence was always there. You speak about this name tag, George was adamant that you put your hometown and state, because it's a way to connect with the guests. That's why we're a name tag resort, and our whole company is, but that was the reason. I remember that from George. George was always out with us.
Yeah, I learned a lot from him, and then have taken that foundation of excellence through whether it was George as the owner, or when we went into the private, and then public, and then acquiring, and growing. I've been here through all of those chapters of our company, and it's been fascinating to see it, and also to be a part of it, and also to grow with it.
Josh King:
During your tenure in food and beverage, you crafted a couple notable dishes and experiences, such as the renowned Epic Mountain Burger, documented in that 2011 New York Times article. It could be Sunday River in Maine, or it could be Jackson Hole in Wyoming, the Riverhouse Barbecue in Big Sky. What goes into the Epic Mountain Burger, and what about burgers and skiing make the skiing experience?
Beth Howard:
Yes. Well, gosh, the Epic Mountain Burger, I'll go back and give you a little bit of context around that. In my food and beverage career, at the time that the Epic Mountain Burger was released, I was overseeing our food and beverage line of business for our company. That was the four years that I was in a corporate role.
I remember at the time, we said, "You know what? Of all the wonderful offerings we give, signature dishes, and healthy options, and gluten-free, and vegan, everyone still likes burgers. If we're going to be in the burger business, let's make the best one that we can." The Epic Mountain Burger was born, and it was really around fresh, never frozen. It was about a custom bun. It was about our special sauce, two patties, special cheese, just the whole package.
It was really one of the first menu items we took across all of our F&D operations across the company. At the time, it was 11 resorts. It became kind of our stake in the ground, that we're going to have the best burger, and we're going to be the best at food beverage. It matters with the guest experience, and that's how it was created.
Josh King:
If a person is so passionate about that side of the business, I am curious what sort of attracted you to lead the resort as a whole? You were, as you said, Vice President of Mountain Dining and Clubs for all the Vail Resorts before getting your first opportunity to lead North Star in 2014. Why make the move away from your stock-in-trade, your bread and butter, as it were?
Beth Howard:
Yeah, it's great, bread and butter. I think when I reflect back, when I went into my corporate role as vice president of all of our restaurant operations, I hadn't really had asked myself, "What's next," because I had hit the pinnacle of where I was going to go in food beverage with our company. There was nowhere else to go, so I had to really think deeply like, "Well, what's next?" I knew for sure that I loved our company. I knew that I didn't want to leave the ski industry.
During all those times in food and beverage, I sat on senior leadership teams, and worked for COOs, and just incredibly talented people and senior leaders. I had exposure to all aspects of the resort during that entire time, and I really fell in love with it. I thought, "Well, what's next?" The answer became, "Well, I would really like to throw my hat in the ring to maybe one day lead a resort." At that time, I shared that interest with my leader, and asked the question, a very vulnerable question, "What are my gaps? What would I need to do to round out my skillset to even be considered to lead a resort?"
That's a big leap. Our company has a culture of feedback and leadership development, and when I shared that, the feedback I got was, "You've got decades of operational experience, but you don't really have the technical side of mountain operations," which I didn't. I got to enter into a camp leadership program where I was assigned an executive committee mentor. I had a stretch project, and I had an individual development plan, which was learning the technical side of mountain operations.
Those three components played out for over a year. While I was overseeing our company's F&D operations, I was at the same time in this development program, preparing me for a resort leadership role. That was invaluable to me. Then the opportunity came, and I got my first GM assignment out at North Star in California.
Josh King:
Talking about the technical side of mountain operations, a lot of folks who make a trip out west once a year or ski regularly from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon, if they make it that far, they don't have a full appreciation of what goes on between 4:00 PM and nine in the morning: making snow, grooming it, servicing the lifts, checking for avalanche danger, preparing the next day's breakfast and lunch, looking at those menus.
You operate sort of a Disneyland on snow. Take us behind the scenes like we would with the cast members of Disneyland to talk about what the team is doing when the lifts aren't spinning.
Beth Howard:
Yes, I love that question. I think at the end of the day, we wrap up the mountain operations with our guests. We do final sweep around 4:30. At the same time, our grooming fleet is starting to deploy across the mountain. Once all of our guests are down, patrol has swept the mountain, all of the baffles and ropes and things are tidied up, so our groomers can go and groom our mountain.
Each day at 2:00, before that night shift of grooming, there is a grooming huddle request list from operations, saying, "Hey, we need some Cat work done here. We have a special event tomorrow, may perhaps let's do a special groom, signature groom on this run." We talk about if it's a snow cycle, it's a totally different approach to having our snow groomers put travel routes on readily available for the ski patrollers when they go up first chair to do snow control work, and deploying our lift operators.
We need to have safe snowmobile and ski and ride routes so they can deploy to their locations. When we're in snow making cycle, that's going on as well. Our snow making will go around the clock, and we close that terrain if we have temperatures. In the early season, it's a different dynamic, where snow making is going on, the grooming comes in. Once we let the snow making piles drain and dry out, the groomers come in, knock it all out, and put it into a surface.
There's different phases of this mountain, and it is fascinating just to see, to go home. I'll leave at the end of the day, we've had our 3:00 huddle with operations. We have our grooming plan, we're looking at the weather, and we have our plan before we leave on what we intend to execute the next day. Then when I'm meeting with my VTA Mountain operations at seven, we're saying, "Okay, where are we? Did this really happen? How's our grooming looking?"
It's really putting this mountain together, and making sure that when the guests arrives for that 8:30 upload, they don't really need to worry about what we've just done overnight. We want them to show up and have a great time, and they've got a great product.
Josh King:
On day two that I was out there, Doug and I had lunch, one thing he pointed out, and I see the signage that you have up all around the resort about the commitment to sustainability and getting to net-zero. Doug said, "Look at this. Beth has put fresh drinking water, recyclable cups or re-washable cups right there for everybody, and yet there's a freezer full of bottled water for sale that people will buy and toss in the trash."
I know you're, in one hand, trying to encourage sustainability, but does it get frustrating to you that people still want to buy disposable containers and not sort of take at least this one small step towards sustainability?
Beth Howard:
Yes. I'll give a little more context around this as well. I'm happy Douglas pointed out our recycle and composting stations. We are transitioning from single serve to durables. Those, when you saw the Pepsi cups at our water stations, those we just rewash and we use, that's a step forward. The plastic bottles, we do sell those. Some people want to take a bottle of water with them and stay hydrated, so there is a guest desire for that.
We do fully recycle those plastic bottles, so everything you see up there, we are recycling, composting, anything we can to reduce anything going to the landfill. It's an evolution, and we'll see as we go on, more durables being introduced. We have redesigned our dish rooms, our bus stations, which you probably saw at Mid-Vail, and really are trying to make sure that we get to this low footprint on our environment. The durables, you'll see more and more of.
Josh King:
Beyond what you have right off I-70 in Colorado at the flagship resort, Vail Resorts currently operates 41 locations around the world, but there is a lot of anticipation around the 42nd resort. In November, Vail announced its intention to acquire Crans-Montana Mountain Resort in Switzerland. When that deal is consummated, it'll mark the company's second ski resort in Europe.
How does collaboration and communication among the COOs, the GMs, and the executive team led by your boss, CEO, Kirsten Lynch, work when new destinations are added, or when current ones require increased help and guidance, you need to mentor someone who is put in a new leadership position like you were mentored when you asked for a leadership role?
Beth Howard:
Yeah, well, I'd first say that it's incredibly exciting to have resorts in Europe. They're incredible resorts, and I think it truly aligns with our growth strategy to expand into Europe with our resort network, and creates incredible value for our pass holders around the world now. I think when we see these new resorts come in, we kind of just put our arms around, and bring them into the family and welcome them. We have a very robust best practice form that we work throughout the year, whether it's snow surface or lifts.
Josh King:
Do they send people to train with you or to watch your operation to learn?
Beth Howard:
We have. I remember [inaudible 00:32:03] last year, we had their Mountain Ops team come here to Vail, and I got to spend a lot of time with them, skiing and sharing information. They can see how we're looking at it, and we learn from them as well. We do a lot of cross-sharing, and it's always exciting when we have a new resort coming into our portfolio. Yeah, we want to support them all we can.
Josh King:
Not necessarily wanting to bring a little post-traumatic stress disorder to this conversation, but Beth, the COVID pandemic created a lot of new skiers, which is a good thing. Epic Pass created a lot of new skiers at Vail. A lot of us remember the lift line apocalypse of February, 2020, after Vail got 38 inches in 48 hours, which I guess was a top five snowfall in your 60-year history, prompting the crowds. Then you had to offer a written apology. Can you bring us back to that weekend, your exercise in crisis management, and how you reflect on it now?
Beth Howard:
Yes, I do remember that day well, and I never will forget it. I think it was one of those extraordinary snowstorms where it snowed for 48 hours straight, just feet and feet of snow. It was not typical of how snow cycles are on this mountain. We had made our plans, knowing that we were in this snow cycle, positioning Snowcats up on the mountain overnight, making sure all our travel routes were ready. We had so much snow that the snow control work with patrol took days in some cases, just digging out and making sure that everything was safe.
I think the pent-up demand for powder, it was a top five snowstorm, people came from everywhere. When that storm cleared out, [inaudible 00:33:49], we didn't have our full footprint in the mountain open because we were still doing snow control work. We were not going to open anything that wasn't safe. The terrain we did open, people, they seeked it out and they enjoyed it. That's where we had some of those long wait times in Tier 5 in particular. We learned a lot from that. We have all types of new protocols in if we get into an extreme snow cycle like that, but for me, that was a once in a career event.
I learned a lot. Yeah, I put on an apology to our guests because I felt we could have communicated better in the moment. Terrain, it was kind of very dynamic, like, "What's patrol getting prepared? Can we open it or not?" Then depending on what we could open, that would be where our pinch points were created, in where we need to deploy staff, and make sure that we were providing the best experience we could in those conditions. I felt that I need to own it, and I think people appreciate it, and we learned a lot from that day.
Josh King:
If that was now three years in the rear view mirror, some of the lessons actually put to use managing distribution around the mountain since then, different ways in which you plan for that, and this is something that Stuart Winchester loves to harp on, but getting people out of Gondola One and out of Lions Head up to sort of the more remote parts of the mountain, just because it's better to spread people around, what's the best way to do that?
Beth Howard:
One of the best ways is to ensure that all four of our portal lifts are ready to go right at 8:30, and as we progress, all the lifts, as they get to the top, are ready, and it just flows across the mountain all the way over to Blue Sky. I think it's just readiness, making sure that we are operationally ready to have that great first impression, and get our guests up and circulated.
We do strategically groom certain runs and trails to circulate guests around this mountain. That's a big part of the guest experience, so we don't have these pinch points or bad experiences by putting everyone in a concentrated area.
Josh King:
At the beginning of this year, just thinking about how sustainable our whole industry is, the Colorado Climate Center reported that the state has warmed over 1.5 degrees in the last 40 years, caused snow pack to accumulate later in the season, you were talking about that in the snow cycle earlier, and the melting date for the snow pack to happen a little earlier than it has in the past.
To what extent maybe has your snow making improvements helped to mitigate the impact of these fluctuating temperatures, but tough to have technology try to overcome mother nature?
Beth Howard:
Well, one of the big steps we took here, and you mentioned snow making, was in 2019, we put in an extensive state-of-the-art snow making system at the higher elevation of our mountain. Everything above Mid-Vail, mid-mountain and above, we put in concentrated snow making, which have many weather stations in them. Each one will only make snow when the conditions are optimal, so we have very efficient snow making. We're at a higher elevation, so whatever we make early season stays.
Before we had that snow making system, we had just one lower run up Born Free, which is in Lions Head, but it was a hit-and-miss if we could get early season opening dates because of the lower elevation where that trail sat. By moving our snow making up to a higher elevation, we gained more certainty around hitting a November early opening date each year, which we've proven out, and then we're able to put down a strong base that will fold into the spring when we get those warmer temps.
We feel we have a really good package of trails and experience for our guests from early season all the way through mid-April.
Josh King:
My first trip to Vail was probably in the late 1980s. Coming back just a couple of weeks ago, the changes were stark. Then talking to Doug, who's pretty involved in town affairs, he points out, "This shopping center is about to get stripped. That lot is about to get rebuilt. This, that," there's so much things that are actually going on, and yet the age-old question of where to house staff who are so important to making your experience work on a seasonal basis.
I think the town has just 5,300 permanent residents. How is growth being managed, do you think, in the town, and how does the resort work with the local government to see that it all works?
Beth Howard:
Yes. I work a lot with our town council and community members, and town manager, and we're having monthly coffees, and check-ins, and communicating all the time. We really are hand-in-hand in delivering this community and this experience on the mountain. It's so critical that I'm in constant communications and have a great relationship with our town governing body and the folks who live here. That is really healthy.
Yes, we are growing, and it's so successful here, and we're an international resort, high brand awareness. People love to come here and have this experience and for us, with the mountain working with the town, and working hand-in-hand through that process and that success, is something I'm absolutely committed to.
Josh King:
I've got my Epic Pass right here, which I'm happy to have in my wallet at all times, introduced in recent years really to transform Vail's business strategy to look more like this subscription economy that we see here at the New York Stock Exchange, more in technology businesses. How has the advanced commitment and the revenue that comes in when people make their payment for their Epic Pass instead of relying on daily ticket sales, transformed just not the finance and planning side of operating resort, but the customer experience as well?
Beth Howard:
I think it creates incredible value for our guests who purchase into any of our pass products, whether they want to ski one day or every day. I also see it as the advanced commitment or subscription models you spoke to really helps us gain stability as a business. As we go into the season, we know how many pass holders we're going to have. It gives us that financial stability to weather macroeconomic changes or weather variability, any of those things that can come our way in the ski industry. That advanced commitment really does give us that stability, and has been a real change in the industry.
Josh King:
The National Skiers Association has reported, I think maybe last year, there's a rising median age among skiers, primarily due to the Baby Boomer generation that first got on skis like I did in 1968 or so are reaching retirement and embracing the sport. Also, we know from the cost of a new pair of boards, and a helmet, and some heated gloves, and heated socks, that it's not an inexpensive sport.
Even though Epic delivers a lot of value, you still end up spending a lot of money on this year to year. Is there a concerted effort to attract younger skiers and create new skiers, new skiing families, and bring them to the ski resort experience?
Beth Howard:
There is, and we have been very intentional about bringing our youth and/or maybe underrepresented populations into the sport by breaking down those barriers. We have many programs where there's no fee for rentals and we'll give free lessons and give them, like in the kindergarten until fifth grade in Colorado, we give them ski passes and lessons to make the sport available and accessible. They're exposed to it, and hopefully generating this new pipeline of snow sports enthusiasts that will continue to thrive in the sport.
Josh King:
As we begin to wrap up, Beth, Vail Mountain and Vail Resorts commemorated its 60th anniversary in 2022, and is approaching its 62nd birthday this December. You talked about the revision of the master plan that was just put out, but what vision do you have in place for the resort's future as it embarks on its next, call it six decades?
Beth Howard:
Wow, six decades. Looking forward, I'll say that on any given day, my vision for this resort is we are going to execute with excellence in every aspect of the experience that our guest has. If we can look to our master plan as a guidance on how we can further improve it, whether it's circulation, lifts, restaurants, our snow surface, we will continue to focus on that. My vision is just continuous improvement on everything we do, and continue to make this our flagship resort.
Josh King:
Continuing to make it the flagship resort. You know what, Beth? I came out a couple of weeks ago, I got a junior in high school who wants to look at Boulder, and DU, and Colorado College. I think I'm going to come out in mid-April for two more days to check out your spring skiing. What's it going to be like?
Beth Howard:
Come back. I want to meet you in person. April can be one of the best months for skiing if those snowstorms hit well. People kind of moved on to summer sports in some cases, but come out. April can be fantastic. Love to have you back.
Josh King:
I'll see you mid-April, Beth. Thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House.
Beth Howard:
Thank you.
Josh King:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was Beth Howard, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Vail Mountain, part of Vail Resorts. That's NYC ticker symbol MTN. If you like what you heard, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so other folks know where to find us. Give us a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show, maybe hear from people like Beth Howard. Make sure to leave us a review, and email us at [email protected], or tweet at us @ICEHousePodcast.
Our show is produced by Lance Glynn, with production assistance, editing, and engineering from Ken Abel. Pete Ash is the Director of Programming and Production at ICE. I'm Josh King, your host, signing off from the library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:
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