Storm Skiing 10/3/2026: Holiday Valley’s Chairlift Diaspora with GM Dennis Eshbaugh
The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast
Who
Dennis Eshbaugh, President and General Manager of Holiday Valley, New York
This is Dennis’ second appearance on The Storm Skiing Podcast:
Date Recorded
Oct. 2, 2026
About Holiday Valley
Owned by: Win-Sum Ski Corp, which Holiday Valley’s website describes as “a closely held corporation owned by a small number of stockholders.”
Year founded: 1957 (opened Jan. 7, 1958)
Pass affiliations: None!
Base elevation: 1,514 feet (bottom of Snowpine Quad)
Summit elevation: 2,324 feet (top of Tannenbaum)
Vertical drop: 736 feet (skiing from the top of Tannenbaum to the bottom of Snowpine would be tricky but not impossible if a skier poached the summit-top walking trails and didn’t mind a little uphill; however, it would not be a great run; the most consistent quality vert would be lapping the Mardi Gras sixer, which is roughly 693 vertical feet.)
Skiable acres: 290 trail acres, but 90 percent-ish of the trees are open enough to ski through (though the trailmap has few marked glades), when there’s sufficient natural snow. Which is often.
Average annual snowfall: 180 inches
Lift count: 13 (1 six-pack, 3 high-speed quads, 7 fixed-grip quads, 2 carpets) – Cindy’s fixed-grip quad chairlift scheduled for replacement with a high-speed quad ahead of winter 2027-28.
Why I interviewed him
We are in the midst of a Great Aerial Lift Reset in the United States. Halfway through this decade, U.S. ski areas have already built nearly the same number of new lifts as they did from 2010-2019:
The last Great Aerial Lift Reset (GALR) came in the 1980s and ‘90s, when ski areas of means discarded not-terribly-old-fixed-grip-lifts and replaced them with detachables.
The difference between GALR 1900s and GALR 2020s is that, in the previous era, most large ski areas were willing to sell their discarded lifts to small ski areas. Today, many hesitate. Holiday Valley does not hesitate. Since the 1990s, the busiest, most aggressively modern ski area in New York State has sold eight chairlifts to seven ski areas in six states. An eighth floated south until it ended up, improbably, in the Andes Mountains of Chile:
Why does Holiday Valley do this? Operators who prefer to sell off the carriers as firepit accessories and scrap the rest often vaguely wave toward liability concerns. But I’m unaware of any injury lawsuit involving a relocated chairlift that blames the seller. Another common argument for scrapping older lifts is that detachable technologies are improving so rapidly that earlier generations of high-speed machines are too outmoded to bother moving. This is certainly true of most lifts built in the 1980s, but 1990s models have proven more durable – Boyne has relocated four within its system, and Holiday Valley’s 1996 Garaventa-CTEC detachable quad is now Corralco’s El Volcan Express.
So when Holiday Valley announced recently that their next lift replacement would be a 2027 detachable quad to replace the 35-year-old Cindy’s fixed-grip quad, the question was not whether they would sell it, but to whom (Holiday Valley also occasionally moves lifts internally).
And when Vail Resorts announced earlier this week that Park City would replace three 1990s chairlifts with two new machines, I thought it was fair to pressure the company to either re-use the lifts or offer them for sale. The three lifts in question are highlighted below. While they’re among the oldest machines on the mountain, they’re not old by U.S. chairlift standards.
I’ve held off reaching out to Vail for comment, as I anticipate seeing reps from Park City at the annual Ski Utah media event next week in New York. Vail knows how to move lifts – Hunter moved the Broadway fixed quad over to the Hunter East beginner zone two years ago, and moved a then-19-year-old bubble detach quad across Okemo in 2021. The last aerial lift relocation from a Vail-owned mountain that I’m aware of is Heavenly’s Powderbowl Yan triple, retired in 2004 and moved to independent (and then-private) Echo Mountain, Colorado in 2005.
If Vail decides to repurpose these Park City lifts elsewhere in their portfolio, fine. But if I see one more social media post humble-bragging about a $50,000 chair-sales donation from a lift worth 10 or 20 times that number, I think it’s fair to question whether the world’s largest ski company is putting its resources and scale to the highest and best use.
Transcripts
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Stuart Winchester: My guest today has been president of Holiday Valley New York since 1995, and general manager since 1989.
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Stuart Winchester: With 13 lifts serving nearly 300 acres of terrain on 750 vertical feet. Holiday Valley is one of the largest and busiest ski areas in New York State. It is also one of the snowiest, averaging 180 inches of lake effect snowfall.
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Stuart Winchester: per winter. He is also, like me, a proud brown dad. Dennis Eshbaugh joins me. Dennis, welcome back to the storm. How you doing today?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: I’m doing great. Good morning, Stuart, and thanks for the introduction, and uh… yes, and congratulations on your daughter at Brown, that’s outstanding.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, she seems to be loving it there. She’s in her fourth or fifth week, and uh… just, what a cool town. I’d never been up there, and I just expected Providence to be another city, but it’s very leafy and fun and collegey.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: I had the same experience in our first visit. I’d never been to Providence before Kate went there, and yeah, it’s a great, great town, and a great place for a great school.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and I didn’t realize this, but Brown is older than America.
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Stuart Winchester: So, it’s one of the… one of the few universities, yeah. All right, Dennis, we’re coming off a pretty…
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah, hard to fathom, isn’t it?
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Stuart Winchester: crummy winter in parts of the country, but it was pretty good in New York, and I… I didn’t ski Holiday Valley last year, but I did get out to Hollomont Buffalo Ski Center, had really good turns there. How was last winter for Holiday Valley?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, the first thing I want to make an observation on is Jane pointed out that you were here in Western New York and didn’t ski with us. So you were duly noted, but the year was good. It was a touch late on the start. We opened a week later than anticipated.
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Stuart Winchester: Sorry.
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Stuart Winchester: Sorry.
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Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Snowfall was average, I think it was in the 186 range, but the consistency of the snow was outstanding. And so the snow year was good, the ski conditions were good, and it was a really solid winter.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I’m sorry I missed. If you want to feel even worse about that, where I blew past you to go ski is Ohio.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Oh, my goodness! Hey!
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Stuart Winchester: I went and skied all over Ohio and then hit Buffalo on the way back.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Oh.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Ohio’s important, it builds skiers.
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Stuart Winchester: It does, it does. And they’re all… four of the five are owned by Vail, and there’s one independent still, so it’s interesting to see all the contrasts. And I wrote that up a little while ago. So, so last time you were on the pod.
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Stuart Winchester: Dennis, and one thing I keep telling my listeners is, one thing I like about doing shorter pods is I can have folks like you on more often, because I talk to you all the time, and bother you all the time, and text you all the time, but I haven’t had you on the pod in 3 years, and you’re a great guest, so it’s great to get you back.
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Stuart Winchester: But you were… you were about… or you were starting the process, or you had just announced you were upgrading Mardi Gras to a six-pack, and that was gonna be the fourth generation for Mardi Gras, and that… that detached quad you were shipping down to Chile. So…
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Stuart Winchester: just talk about that. The first six-pack at Holiday Valley, you know, three seasons in, how do you like it?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, I would say we love it. You know, it’s a great lift. It’s a Doppelmeyer and a great piece of machinery. Of course, like everything, you know, technology continues to improve.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, the six-pack aspect, I mean, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been in this business a long time, and although I’d be perfectly comfortable to ski T-bars, uh, customers today don’t expect that. Um, and, and as the technology improves and the ability to have.
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Stuart Winchester: Right.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, larger seating capacity. Uh, I think there’s a real benefit there in many different aspects. So, um, that lift in particular, we didn’t actually increase our uphill capacity that much. We went from, I think, a design of 2,400 to, I think, that lift is 2,880, so.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: We’ll round it to 2,900. Um, but the comfort of the chairs, the seating, the ability for large groups, uh, it’s been a winner for us.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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Stuart Winchester: Has it changed the way people use the mountain and the way they distribute themselves? So in other words, given the choice of the six right here or the four here, do you find more people going here than you used to or any other patterns you’ve noticed?
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Stuart Winchester: And how that might have shifted how skiers use Holiday Valley.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah, I don’t believe it actually has changed the pattern. I mean, Mardi Gras is a really critical lift, because it links the main base area, although there are, you know, four different ways that you can access the mountain, you know, parking areas and access lifts.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, really five, um, with, uh, the shoe chair.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: But what it has done is it’s made it convenient and it’s a big stepping stone. A, if you arrive here, whether you’ve got a group of family and you’re trying to go up and get into the upper area or get into Hidden Valley or whatever, it’s also the lift, basically the transitional lift. We have a wonderful beginner’s area.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: You know, beginner terrain is critically important, in our opinion, and it’s a great transition lift to get people up into a really good variety of green terrain.
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Stuart Winchester: At this point in Holiday Valley, you know, I made the comments when I was introducing you, Dennis, that Holiday Valley is often, maybe always, the busiest ski area in New York. At this point in your evolution.
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Stuart Winchester: is it more about just taking better care of the skiers that are here, or you still consider Holiday Valley to be in growth mode as far as, yes, we can handle more capacity? So when you get a six-pack, is it about shortening lift lines, or is it about saying, hey, we have a six-pack, more people come here?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, that’s an important question. And I guess our view, my view, is it’s sort of like a tree.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: If it’s not growing, it’s dying, and so you always have to… you always have to look at growth, but… but we’ve always been believers in evolution versus revolution, and… and so as you evolve this area, um…
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, I don’t think there’s an opportunity for double-digit growth, but we can certainly continue to grow, serve more people.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, watch the transition of how people ski when, their patterns, uh, and make sure that we’re providing, uh, what they’re, you know, meeting their expectation, providing what they want.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: So I have the trail map up for those watching on stormskiing.com, or on YouTube at Storm Ski Journal, which helps make a little more sense. And Holiday Valley, it’s this…
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Stuart Winchester: It doesn’t really look like this, but the trail map does a really good job of capturing everything without having insets and all these different things, so it really skis like a bunch of distinct ski areas, so it kind of looks like a long ridge on this trail map, but it skis much more like a bunch of.
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Stuart Winchester: different peaks. So, you know, Mardi Gras, Dennis, this is… those are your fourth generation Lyft, and Holiday Valley has upgraded Lyfts at a faster clip than probably anyone in the country, or at least as fast as anyone in the country, and you’re on your fourth generation of many different Lyfts. You recently announced what I believe is a.
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Stuart Winchester: third generation for Cindy’s Quad. Do you want to tell us about what’s going on at Cindy’s?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, I’m glad to, and I also had to give you a compliment, uh, Stuart. You do a better job of keeping track of the statistics than I do, um, and that is important, and, you know, that generation of lift and that evolution. Cindy’s, you know, first started as a double chair, went to a quad, um.
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Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: And, uh, uh, that lift is… was 1991 when it was installed, and yeah, this is the third edition. Um, so, yeah, what happens and why? Um…
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Dennis Eshbaugh: You know, the first thing is we’re fortunate, I guess, that we’re in a position where we can continue to evolve the technology of our lifts. Every lift, whether it’s 10 years or whether it’s 60 years old, safety is really all about maintenance and operation.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, and that’s critical for every operator today, and I think everybody in the industry knows and appreciates that. Um, so what do you accomplish with a new detachable? Well, convenience, of course, is wonderful. Speed, uphill, I mean, the throughput.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: for, um, you know, the avid skier, the expert skier, um, is amazing, and I think it’s important for the expectation of today’s guests. Um…
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Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, expert skiers in, you know, the era of the 70s and 80s, on a typical Saturday, you were lucky to make 20 runs, because you spent most of the day in lift lines or on a slow-moving lift.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: And, you know, time is critically important to people. People ski shorter days than ever, and that… I don’t see that changing. Um, and… and so an avid skier can come here on that Saturday and get those 20 runs in an hour and a half.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Now, um…
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Dennis Eshbaugh: the beauty, I guess, of a detachable or high-speed, A, it allows the throughput, increases the uphill, uh, reduces the time, increases, basically, your ability as a skier to get up and down. Um, but then what it really also does for every skier.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: that, you know, that, uh, comfortable load and unload, it goes a long way. And, uh, it’s great for families, great for new skiers, great, you know, to get into the sport. Quite frankly, as an advanced skier, I think probably you see this, Stuart, uh, it’s easy to sometimes not pay attention.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Uh, because lifts are so easy to get on and off today.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you know, last time I spoke with you, Dennis.
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Stuart Winchester: Yodler, the Yodler Express quad, was 2 years old, and that had replaced a 20-year-old fixed-grip quad, and I asked you.
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Stuart Winchester: did you have hesitation about doing that, or something like that? And you said, yeah, I really, you know, pressed the team on why we needed to do that. So, here we are, 5 years after, and Cindy’s is not quite as short as Yodler, but.
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Stuart Winchester: It’s a fairly short lift for a detachable, 2,000-some feet, so…
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Stuart Winchester: I guess you did find there was enough to like about a short detachable to continue building them, or are there other factors at play here?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, there are always other factors, but it starts with the customer. And one of the messages that I heard, actually a good friend of mine that is an avid skier and excellent skier.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: He said Yoda Yodler basically transformed his scheme because of, because of his ability to get um more runs in more vertical in a shorter period of time. And, you know, I, I personally, I wasn’t driven.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Uh, from that perspective as much, but I recognize the importance. Uh, in the case of Cindy’s, um, it’s more blue terrain, uh, although it has access to, to other, uh, little steeper pitches. Um, it’s got a, uh, ratio off of it, and uh.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Fox Fire, which is important terrain.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: But the other thing that happens as you change a lift out, in our case, I mean, we’ve got a skier that’s been here a long time. We’re continuing, you know, to try to make it better, perfect what we can.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: it gives us an opportunity, um, to make some changes, which we have. You know, that first alignment.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: When the original double was built in 1978, the area was different at that point in time.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: interconnecting lifts up at the top were different. The golf course and the summer aspect was different. The circulation, etc. So one of the beauties of replacing Cindy’s and and putting this this new lift in this year is we’re making significant improvements in the infrastructure base area around it, changing some things in the golf course and the number one tee.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: moving the base of the lift so we have an improved milling area for the skier, as well as we’re actually going to gain some beginner terrain because of the former alignment, and moving it slightly west. So there are a lot of things that many of our skiers might not.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: initially noticed, but they will make the ski resort better.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: So, for folks familiar with Cindy’s in this busy area right here, the load station will move in what direction from where it is right now?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, from where your arrow is now, it’ll move slightly right. And then if you move even further right, you’re actually in the area where the number one tee is for the golf course. And so, you know, there’s a few things. There’s a golf irrigation.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: a reservoir right there that’s getting relocated to open that up, and then we’re going to have the ability, if you… if you look at the alignment of Mardi Gras, just to the west or to the right, uh, north wind slope parallels that, and again, this NIHU’s map, which is an outstanding map, does not.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: reflect the complexity and the depth of the mountain faces. But Northwind is a really important slope that parallels Mardi Gras, and it’s going to allow us to actually improve that bottom and interconnect where it comes into Cindy’s, what we call the East Complex. So, yeah, it’s, you know, these are small things, but I think.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
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Stuart Winchester: Right.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: I think they’re really good things to make good skiing, better skiing.
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Stuart Winchester: And so you have a slightly different load, you’re still unloading at the same spot up top, Dennis?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Actually, we moved the top as well. We are changing some of the alignment, the tree line. The lift is no longer going to be on the Cindy Slope. It’s actually going to be further west of that, and it will come off really at the eastern top, or when you’re looking at the map on the left.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: top edge of Foxfire, right where your, uh, arrow is. Um, it will still have good access to the Cindy’s, uh, mountaintop, uh, warming hut. It’ll have great access onto the slope.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: the lift towers disappear off of Cindy’s Slope, which we’re really excited about.
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Stuart Winchester: Did they go… you’re cutting a new line in the woods?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Yes, yep. Yeah, actually underway right now. We don’t have final engineering drawings, but we do have tower alignments, profiles are complete.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, and so our hope is that we will actually get the foundations for the tower line in, uh, in October and November. Um, you know, the Europeans have been doing 2-year lift installs for some time.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that’s true.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: And it was slow to reach the US.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: But when we did that on Mardi Gras, it was really wonderful in what it did to allow, I guess, a better pattern, if you will, as far as schedule of construction, direction of the top and bottom terminals, you know, and all the equipment that interfaces with that.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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Stuart Winchester: Um, so you’re actually doing this one in a two-year cycle as well, so…
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah, if we get this tower line complete, and we’re a little tight on time on this, but I think we will. We’ll have the foundation lines ready, and I just lost power for the fourth time this morning. You can probably see that on your screen, Stuart.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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Stuart Winchester: I can, but your connection’s still good, so…
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Okay.
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah, well, we’ll see how the auxiliary battery backup holds up.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, we’ll see, uh, if a more, if a more important service at, at Holiday Valley needs, uh, that energy than, than this podcast, then, uh, I can, I can connect with you later. So, okay, so we’ll get a new Cindy’s, that then sounds like it’ll be ready for 28, 29 season?
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Dennis Eshbaugh: Yes, that’s the goal was 27, 28. Yes, next.
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Stuart Winchester: Or…
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Or 27, 28, I’m sorry.
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:52.000
Stuart Winchester: 27, 28. Okay, perfect. So, at that point, Dennis, you’re gonna have… Cindy’s will be a 37-year-old fixed grip quad, right? This chair you take out.
00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:45.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yep. Yep.
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:57.000
Stuart Winchester: And Holiday Valley, more than almost any other ski area.
00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.000
Stuart Winchester: that I’m aware of in the country. The only other one that’s…
00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:16.000
Stuart Winchester: done this nearly as much as Deer Valley, has been really, really good about either repurposing your lifts on your own slopes, or selling them to other ski areas, and you did an inventory for me last year, and it was 8.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Okay.
00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:33.000
Stuart Winchester: lifts that had gone on to other ski areas, and you said they were in, in Chile, and you, and that’s the, uh, Coralco lift, the, the old Mardi Gras one, New York Mass, that’s Catamount’s, Catamount Quad, and that was the old, the older, that 20 year old, the older, uh, this, Cindy’s double went up to.
00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Ragged and is now retired. Uh, and then the Schoolhouse double went to Four Seasons. That’s unfortunately now a closed ski area. He is trying to sell it. Uh, maybe you can buy it back. Uh, and the, uh, Snow Pine double went to Toggenberg, which unfortunately is also closed, but as far as I know, the lift is still there.
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:59.000
Stuart Winchester: I couldn’t… I couldn’t find which Lyfts you had sold to in West Virginia, Wisconsin, in Montana. I don’t know if you remember them off the top of your head, but…
00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.000
Stuart Winchester: In every case.
00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:08.000
Stuart Winchester: These lifts have gone to ski areas that probably couldn’t have afforded a brand new chairlift.
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.000
Stuart Winchester: But still got…
00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:19.000
Stuart Winchester: a good enough new-use lift that they were able to refurbish to continue to evolve their mountain. So.
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Just philosophically.
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Is this something that’s important to you? Is this just a business transaction? You’re like, highest bidder, take off with the lift. How do you view this? Because it’s been a pattern for decades.
00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:50.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, I would say, you know, probably in the early days, it was a business transaction. I mean, you know, you watch… you always watch every dollar you have. That’s important. You know, the old adage, if you watch the pennies, the dollars take care of themselves. Um, you know, that’s an old adage. But, um…
00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:05.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: No, I think we look beyond that. You know, I think it’s really important to a lot of areas to have, you know, a lift that’s affordable, and a used lift, you know, can help them get there. You still have to comply, of course, with.
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:19.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, whatever the code requirements are. And, uh, you know, that’s pretty straightforward. Um, the idea of repurposing, um, you know, I think is really important. I think it’s good, you know, environmental stewardship.
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:24.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, I think it’s good for the, you know, the operator and the industry in general.
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:36.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: I also understand the complexity, especially for bigger companies. The manufacturers, you know, they have some concerns relative, I think, just to liability, because they’re, so to speak, out of the loop.
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:44.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, uh, and there’s certainly, you know, I think some scaries that would look at this and say, I… I…
00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:57.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: I’m not willing to accept the liability of selling a lift to someone else. Um, there’s risk in everything we do. Um, you know, our belief is that it’s good for other operators and good for the industry.
00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you think that you just have a higher risk tolerance than maybe the average ski area operator? Because you’re also one of the few ski areas that still self-installs, as far as I’m aware, and I’m not, I guess, I’m not sure if you’re doing that with Cindy’s, but you do have a high degree of expertise there.
00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:24.000
Stuart Winchester: You’ve done this so much. I just wonder, do you have a higher risk tolerance for risk, or is the risk exaggerated?
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:27.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yes?
00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:41.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Uh, to all those questions. Um, so, yeah, why do we do it? Well, we do it because we have Jim Curtis as Director of Mountain Operations. This will be his 23rd lift installation. Jim started as a young man here.
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:47.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, and it has built probably more ski lifts than a lot of people that are in lift manufacturing business.
00:24:47.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Uh, so, yeah, we’ve got a team in, in, uh, Mountain Ops here that, you know, they’re proud of their lift installations, they know their lifts inside and out. That serves us, our customer, and everyone, and, and quite frankly, you know, we’re pretty proud of their work, and they’re proud of their work.
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um…
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: As far as the risk tolerance, you know, I think part of risk tolerance.
00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:15.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, comes with…
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:31.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: being a bit of a technocrat and really understanding what the risks are, measuring them, going through, you know, the process management, if you will, steps of saying, you know, what are the real risks? You have to also, you have to look at what you are risking, of course.
00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:38.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, you’ve gotta have, uh, a solid team behind you. We’ve gotta…
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:50.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: we’ve got a company, and our board has rarely transitioned, that has been incredibly consistent. It’s a small group that stands behind what we do, and has for 60-some years.
00:25:50.000 --> 00:26:03.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, so… yeah, the answer is yes to all of those things, but is there risk? Of course there’s risk. Um, is it, uh, made, hopefully, um…
00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, a sound decision? Yeah, we believe so.
00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I, I’m, I’m just not aware of any move.
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Moved chairlift that ever got the original seller in legal trouble and in a lot of the smaller ski area operators that I speak with, and we were both up at the ski areas of New York and Pennsylvania convention last week.
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:25.000
Stuart Winchester: And one of their biggest…
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:36.000
Stuart Winchester: concerns is that as consolidation accelerates, and you have large players owning a lot of mountains, some of these large players seem unwilling to.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Put their lifts on the secondary market.
00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:40.000
Stuart Winchester: And…
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:46.000
Stuart Winchester: it’s almost at the point where in New York and in Pennsylvania, it might be almost an existential.
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:55.000
Stuart Winchester: crisis, because they have 60-year-old haul lifts, and there won’t be anything to replace them. So when you have something like Cindy’s, I mean, I’d imagine the first thing you think of is, can we use.
00:26:55.000 --> 00:27:08.000
Stuart Winchester: And if not, what does that process look like? Do you… I imagine you know everybody in New York. Do you reach out and say, hey, you want this lift, or do you just advertise it? How does that… like, if someone’s listening to this and they’re like, oh man, I want that 2,000-foot-long quad.
00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:28.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, yeah, that’s a very good point. It’s not like, yeah, you call it up and, you know, ski lifts are us, or whatever, right? It lists the thing. We actually are just in the process of putting together, basically, a listing of, you know, what the original equipment is, the current equipment.
00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: the condition of the lift, the hours of operation, etc. Um, there are a handful of really good people in the industry that are involved in lift construction.
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:55.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, there are, I guess, probably 4 or 5 scaries that have already, uh, approached, uh, us and said we’d like to be contacted. Uh, I actually… I had an individual that I’ve known a long time, uh, reach out this week and say.
00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, could we make a deal with you before… before the lift is listed? Um, which is a nice problem to have, uh, whether or not that works out, I don’t know. Um…
00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:18.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: So, yeah, it is a bit of word of mouth, though, actually. And we’ll see how it goes, right? I’ll know more six months from now.
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:32.000
Stuart Winchester: So, just from talking to people around the industry, your Holiday Valley has a really excellent reputation for lift maintenance, so people are very happy to buy a lift from you. I’m gonna ask a question that you may not answer. I’m wondering…
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:39.000
Stuart Winchester: if you can tell us anything about how much these tend to sell for. And the reason I’m asking…
00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Is because a lot of the larger operators, uh.
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, they will… when they take down an old lift, they will auction the chairlifts.
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:56.000
Stuart Winchester: And they will put them online. And then they will donate all that money to charity, which is great. And they say, we donated $75,000 to XYZ. Fine.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.000
Stuart Winchester: But I’m curious, if they would have sold the Lyft.
00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:01.000
Stuart Winchester: and donated the proceeds.
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Stuart Winchester: how much more valuable is the intact machine? And I know sometimes a Lyft is just toast.
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:13.000
Stuart Winchester: But, you know, Bill, not too long ago, took out a 40-year-old fixed-grip quad at Mount Snow, and…
00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:25.000
Stuart Winchester: basically recycled it. So… so is there anything you can tell us about how much the lift is worth versus the chairs for something like, say, Yodler when it was 20 years old and you sold it, or Cindy’s, which is about double that?
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:37.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: I think that’s harder to do today than it was 10 years ago. There were more lifts, I think, available and being sold, and the market was probably better understood or better known. It’s been interesting when I’ve talked.
00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:46.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Uh, with my peers in the industry that… that are really involved in lift construction in the… in the last 6 months or a year, um…
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:52.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: everyone’s afraid to give you, so what should the list sell for? And everyone starts looking at their toes.
00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:01.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, you know, from an experience standpoint, uh, I would say, uh, Lyft would sell anywhere from.
00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:17.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Bottom would be 5% of value of a new one if the lift is really in poor condition, needs a lot of TLC. 10% of a value of a new lift is probably a common number, and 15 or 20 if it’s exceptional.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:20.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, so…
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, what does that mean? I would guess that lift, the machinery for that lift today, uh, probably would be in the range of contract of $2.5 to $3 million to buy a new fixed-grip quad today of that size.
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:36.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: But I’m not really sure.
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Damn.
00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:44.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: And so but I’ll I’ll throw that. That’s a lot of a lot of words. 10%. So.
00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:42.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:53.000
Stuart Winchester: That’s extremely helpful, actually, and I’ve never heard anyone break it down quite like that before. So, when you make these deals, and let’s say somebody does buy Cindy’s, and…
00:30:53.000 --> 00:31:03.000
Stuart Winchester: I know you have that expertise to self-install. Would you then take it down and then offer to help them put it back up if they wanted, or do you just sell it and say, get your own engineering?
00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:14.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah, that’s… that is a very good and important point. Um, we only take them down, uh, because we want to control everything on our property. And when we sell the lift, it is FOB, our parking lot.
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:28.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, we have equipment to help them load. For example, the Mardi Gras lift that went to Chile, um, was packed into containers. It was fascinating. Uh, and the team that came and did that did an outstanding job.
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:45.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, so we do not offer, uh, any outside, uh, off-premise. Uh, we really… we’ve got our hands full keeping track of our own equipment and machinery, and uh, uh, we have control of that, we know our systems, but we’re really not set up to be out on the road, uh, installing.
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:47.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Installing ski lifts for others.
00:31:47.000 --> 00:32:05.000
Stuart Winchester: And I’d imagine that would change that liability equation quite a bit. I had Jimmy Ackerson, the general manager of Caralco in Chile, who bought your old Mardi Gras lift on the pod, and he talked about that process of moving the lift from Western New York to Chile. And I mean, it took them a couple of years to do everything because it was such a distance.
00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:05.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Mm-hmm.
00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:10.000
Stuart Winchester: So that was a really impressive project. So let me…
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:12.000
Stuart Winchester: I’ll ask you…
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:27.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Before you ask the question, I’m just gonna add, and I think Jimmy, and I listened to that podcast, you did a great job with him. He’s an impressive guy. And they did an outstanding job with that lift. They needed some US support and assistance to get it done.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:19.000
Stuart Winchester: Thank you.
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:32.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: But they really did a great job in that install.
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it looks really cool. Have you gotten down there to ride it?
00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: I have not. I have not.
00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:43.000
Stuart Winchester: What a trip that would be, right? To ride your old Lyft in South America. So let me give you a…
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:38.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah.
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yes.
00:32:43.000 --> 00:33:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, well, it’s not really a hypothetical, but I’m, I’m just curious if you have any thoughts on this. So, so Vale Resorts is going to install two new lifts at Park City. They’ve been trying to put these lifts in for a long time. So they are taking out a 1996 Garaventa CTEC six pack and replacing it with an eight pack. That’s the silver load ch.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:11.000
Stuart Winchester: They are taking out two Garaventa CTEC triple chairs. One is a 95, one is a 93, and they’re replacing those two lifts with one lift, a six pack.
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:16.000
Stuart Winchester: So to me, I sit here and look at these and I say, okay.
00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:25.000
Stuart Winchester: 30-year-old fixed-grip triples are probably in great shape, especially for a mountain like Park City that doesn’t have night skiing. Uh, that 1996 six-pack.
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:33.000
Stuart Winchester: certainly probably didn’t have as many hours on it as your 93, I think it was, Lyft that you… it was a 96 as well.
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:36.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: It was a 96 as well, but a day-night operating ski lift, yes.
00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, sure. Yeah.
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:44.000
Stuart Winchester: So I’m trying to lean on Vale a little bit and say, don’t scrap these things. Somebody needs them. Somebody will pay you real green money for them.
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:58.000
Stuart Winchester: If Vail was hesitating, and you just… if you had a consultation with someone trying to decide what to do with these lists, what would you tell them about your experience, and about how concerned or not they should be, and the sort of…
00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.000
Stuart Winchester: goodwill they could get by selling these.
00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:05.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: So I’m advising Vail.
00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:20.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Wow, that’s impressive because Vale, of course, it’s an incredible company with some of the best and the brightest. And that question would be better answered by my friend Bill Rock, who does an outstanding job as the president of Vale.
00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes. He’s been on the pod.
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:23.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, I… I think…
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:39.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, I’m not… I’m not in Vail’s shoes. Um, that is a big company, and they have done an incredible job with the structure and to make the resorts work. Um, and, you know, part of being successful, of course, is being true.
00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:43.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: You know, to basically your own mission, and what you can and can’t do, and do well.
00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:50.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: So, you know, would I like to see Vale sell lifts that you just described? Yes.
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: um…
00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: But I’m not sure that I could give Bill or anyone else in the organization advice on how to do it. I think that it gets more complicated because the manufacturers are very hesitant to support used lifts, and I think one of the things that’s important for buying a used lift for a skier, if they’re going to install one, is.
00:34:56.000 --> 00:34:57.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:27.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: They need to make sure that they have a pipeline and support system for parts and service, etc. And now, if Jimmy Ackerson can do that at Caralco, I think anyone can do it, right? Because he’s in South America, and he’s got all sorts of barriers.
00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:41.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: but… but that is important, and… and I understand if Vail doesn’t want to be in the middle of that. Um, uh, would I like to see them sell their lifts? Yes. Uh, but if they… whether they should or not.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:43.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Only they all can decide.
00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:49.000
Stuart Winchester: So let me ask you this question. What sort of goodwill or good karma or just…
00:35:49.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, friends have you made selling to places like Toggenberg and Four Seasons and Catamount and Ragged that don’t have the cash flow that Holiday Valley does, I’m assuming, and that probably helped them take the next step in their… well, two of them are out of business, so maybe not, but…
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh.
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Right.
00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Stuart Winchester: What sort of goodwill has they gotten you?
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Alright.
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:21.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, well, I think probably some industry goodwill. Certainly, the long-tenured, uh, people in the industry, um, I think respect that. Um, you know.
00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:37.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Tom Sanford and I have been friends for decades, and he’s an outstanding guy, and he’s done a lot of impressive things in this industry, including being the Eastern rep for Doppelmeyer for a long, long time. Tom still does some consulting and work, and uh…
00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:47.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: You know, I think if there’s a guy that would know how to put the pieces together to get a lift reinstalled, it would be Tom. There are other experts as well.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:36:47.000 --> 00:37:03.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Do I get goodwill from Tom when we sell a lift and we see that happen? Absolutely, because, you know, he’s a believer in skiing and the industry, and he does a great job of helping every operator, whether you’re Vail, or whether you’re the smallest area.
00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:14.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: whether, you know, you know, in the case of John Goodfellow, who decided to retire and didn’t have a successor at Four Seasons, and that Morvig lift is now standing there looking for a new buyer.
00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:29.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, but I also appreciate that John’s, you know, situation, and it’s time to call it a day, that his land, you know, outside of Mandalus and Syracuse is far more valuable.
00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:33.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: It’s something other than a small ski area.
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:33.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:50.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, Dennis, I’ll ask you one more Lyft question, then I have one more thing for you. This has been the Great Holiday Valley Lyft discussion of 2026. Any insight on what might be next? Shoot Quad is 33 years old, Sunrise is 34, and then.
00:37:50.000 --> 00:38:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Snow Pine, I believe, is on its third location. I think it rotated through Mardi Gras and Morningstar, so that one’s, I don’t know, maybe 40 years old or something, but it…
00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:01.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Has a new, has a new motor room.
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:05.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: That new term, the whole new base terminal. But very true. Yep.
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah. Okay, so any of those, if you’re thinking about what you’re gonna do next, or you’re like, stop spending my money, Stu, go.
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:26.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, yeah, they’re all on the list. What’s interesting, I talked about, I enjoy riding a T-bar. You’re always skiing, right? I’m a tiny minority of skiers today.
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm, yeah.
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: it’s funny to me, Cindy’s has great exposure, it’s a wonderful lift to ski, especially in the afternoon, because it gets great sun, has great visibility, and it’s a ride that’s long enough that you can have a conversation.
00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:59.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: And that is one negative about detachables. I mean, it’s like you’ve got to have an elevator speech ready, right? Because you’re not on the lift very long. I would say of our customers that have talked to me about Cindy’s. For everyone that has said, I can’t believe you’re taking away that lift and putting another detachable lift.
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, I won’t be able to talk to my friend. Well, there’s 3 or 4 people that’s saying, thank God for getting rid of the slow lift.
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:21.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, I do think, though, that those lifts that you just named, whether it’s Eagle or Chute, um, Snow Pine, there’s still a value there for a fixed grip lift and a purpose. Um, I think sometimes people, avid skiers that are making a lot of turns and a lot of runs.
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:36.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: will then go and look for a fixed grip to kind of catch their breath a bit. Um, but with all that said, um, I would say probably, uh, would be Eagle would be next in line, and it’s also the oldest, uh, of that lineage.
00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:38.000
Stuart Winchester: And eagles…
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:41.000
Stuart Winchester: a shorter lift, right? So…
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: It is. Yes, it is. Yep, yep.
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:53.000
Stuart Winchester: And would you be looking at… I mean, I guess it’s… it’s a little longer than Yodler, so would you be looking at detach over here, or… or is what you’re saying here is… is we’re going to consider each lift, we’re not committing one way or the other.
00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yeah, I wouldn’t commit today, but I’m… but I’m confident that the pressures from, you know, our team would be… it needs to be a detach, that’s who we are.
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. Okay.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: That’s what our customer expects.
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Right, right.
00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:22.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, Dennis, last thing I want to ask you about today, and that’s been enough lift talk, I think, for now, but you are one of the most prominent ski areas in America that is still not part of any multi-mountain pass.
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:31.000
Stuart Winchester: And I believe when I asked you this question in 2023, your answer was, never say never. You know, we’re aware of it. We’ve been approached.
00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Any update on that? Any current thinking about multi-mountain passes? Ready to say yes or no either way?
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:52.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: The answer today is no, but it is also never say never. I don’t think that’s changed. I think obviously they continue to gain presence and broader reach.
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:40:52.000 --> 00:41:04.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: I think probably half of the ski areas, uh, in the US now are part of some sort of multi-area pass. Uh, so the independents definitely are shrinking. Um, there’s a purpose.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: We’re fortunate, I think, in that, you know, we started…
00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: you know, following with the night programs of great introduction, low, you know, for for the beginner, not not low for the introduction of skier for for beginner skiers. With multiple day ticketing right? Primarily nights. It’s evolved beyond that and the complexity of what we offer.
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:38.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Fortunately, today, between, you know, our customer base and what we offer, we’re able to stay singularly focused on what we do. And I do worry a little bit from a…
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:50.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: customer perspective, um, you don’t want to overcomplicate life for the customer. Um, you know, you want to provide the best game you can. You need to be true to who you are and your security, and we’re all different.
00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:57.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: And fortunately today, we’re still fiercely independent, it’s working.
00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:58.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:08.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, and we have no plan to change. Uh, but I do think that never say never, you know, you always have to keep that in the back of your mind, and if you don’t, the world will move on without you.
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:06.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:19.000
Stuart Winchester: So, I wonder what it looks like in the other direction. So, it’s been 5 years since Vail bought Seven Springs, which I imagine you both pull equally probably from Cleveland, right? That’s sort of a… you could go either way?
00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:20.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Yes.
00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:37.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, and then Vail also has three ski areas around Cleveland, Boston Mills, Brandywine, and Alpine Valley that skiers could do as, like, a local, then go down to Seven Springs. I’m wondering if you’ve heard either way over the last five years, anecdotally, or I don’t know if you have data, that if you’ve either lost customers to the Epic Pass from that.
00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Or gain some, who said maybe they don’t want to be part of something that is so national of a coalition, they just want their local mountain.
00:42:45.000 --> 00:43:05.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, there we go. The answer is yes. We’ve lost some and we’ve gained some. You know, I’d like to think I’m smart enough not to pick a fight with Vail Resorts, right? But we don’t need to pick a fight with them. You know, they are who they are. That pass, the epic pass, and how it’s evolved and what they offer is incredible.
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:18.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Uh, we have a lot of our customers that buy Epic Passes. Um, have we gained skiers? Yes, our market share from Pennsylvania has increased, uh, as well as, uh, Ohio has increased.
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:33.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, does it have anything to do with Vail and the Epic Pass? I’m not so sure. I think it’s probably more impacted by the change in the Canadian traveler. Um, and, you know, there’s some border issues, there are concerns from the, uh, the Canadian perspective.
00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmm.
00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:34.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: And their dollar is soft.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:50.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Um, so, yeah, I don’t mean to belittle that question. It’s a good question, but the answer is yes, we’ve gained some and we’ve lost some. There are some people that, you know, are saying, oh, they’re independent, I’m going there. Uh, is that enough to make a ski area successful? I’m not so confident.
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:44:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you think it’s also a factor, Dennis, that… I think that your snow is just a lot more consistent than Seven Springs, and I don’t know if it was historically as far apart as it is now, because they’re on that high plateau in western PA. They don’t seem to be… they seem to be getting more rain these days, less big dumps, and you’re still getting 180 inches a year. Do you think that…
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:13.000
Stuart Winchester: Customers just going where the snow is.
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:27.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, I do think snow is critically important. I think snow making is part of it. I think we’ve done a really good job of staying focused. You know, the 700 gun system and over 50% of that is automated. Natural snow, though, trumps all.
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:15.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:28.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:40.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Right? But you’ve got to have a base to work with to begin with. So, snow conditions? Absolutely. And, you know, that’s incumbent on every one of us to make sure that we put the best snow surfers out we can every morning.
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:32.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: So…
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, you do a heck of a job, Dennis, and I promise I will not drive past Holiday Valley again without stopping in. So, thanks so much for all this today. I always appreciate the conversation and the candor, and I hope you get your power back.
00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:08.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Well, it’s on at the moment, so hopefully it stays on. Right. Stuart, thank you. You do an incredible job. I, uh… I don’t want to give you a big head, but there’s nobody in our business that does a better job, A, of understanding the stats and keeping track of them, and uh…
00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:59.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, Dennis.
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, thank you.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: You always ask good questions. So my best to you.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay, thank you very much, Dennis. Appreciate all that. Take care.
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:13.000
Dennis Eshbaugh: Bye-bye.
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:33.000
Stuart Winchester: All right, that was Dennis Eshbaugh at Holiday Valley, New York. So, you know, I don’t mean to keep, well, I guess I do mean to keep hitting bail over the head with this Park City Lyft stuff. And believe me, I am going, I am reaching out to try to get Park City’s perspective on this. I’m just.
00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:36.000
Stuart Winchester: seeding that conversation with…
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:51.000
Stuart Winchester: By putting a lot of thoughts out into the atmosphere that, hey, Vale, let’s not just take these lifts and solid chairs for 300 bucks and scrap the rest. Let’s see if there’s someplace else they can use them. If it’s, if it’s a Vale ski area, great.
00:45:51.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, but if it’s not a Vail ski area, there are lots and lots of places that would love to have a look at those 30 year old lifts and we’ll, and we’ll pay you good money for them. So, all right, we do not have reader reaction today because I recorded this episode on Friday, same day I recorded the Mount Southington.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:17.000
Stuart Winchester: Episode, and so I did the reader reaction then. But I will be back on Monday with a conversation with…
00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:22.000
Stuart Winchester: the General Manager of Mountain Creek, New Jersey, Evan Kovach.
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Evan and I have been trying to make that one work for a really long time.
00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:39.000
Stuart Winchester: If you want to support the Storm, please go to stormskiing.com and subscribe to the Storm Skiing Newsletter. That will get you new posts and podcasts right to your inbox the moment I publish them.
00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:48.000
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00:46:48.000 --> 00:47:04.000
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00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:11.000
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00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:17.000
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00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:22.000
Stuart Winchester: Until next time, stay well, stay safe. I’m Stuart Winchester, and I’ll talk to you again very soon.
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