Storm Skiing 10/22/2026: Vail Pushes Back on Proxy Fight + Jackson Hogen on Selecting Ski Gear in the Digital Age

Who Josh Bean, General Manager of Lee Canyon, Nevada Date Recorded Oct. 20, 2026 About Lee Canyon Owned by: Mountain Capital Partners, which also owns: Year founded: 1965 Pass affiliations: * Power Pass: unlimited * Power Pass Select: 12 shared days with Arizona Snowbowl, Purgatory – holiday blackouts apply * Power Pass Core: 4 shared days with Arizona Snowbowl, Purgatory, Brian Head – holiday blackouts apply Base elevation: 8,510 feet Summit elevation: 9,370 feet lift-served | 11,289 feet hike-to Vertical drop: 860 feet lift-served | 2,779 feet hike-to Skiable acres: 235 Average annual snowfall: 161 inches Lift count: 7 (4 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 ropetow, 1 carpet) In my conversation with Josh, I noted that Lee Canyon’s chairlifts were all built this century, a rare circumstance for an American ski area. That’s true, with an asterisk - the Sherwood triple arrived used at Lee Canyon in 2005, from then-sister resort Alpine Meadows (both were then owned by Powdr; Alpine Meadows is now part of Alterra’s Palisades Tahoe complex). If we include the machine’s dozen years in California (and we must), the Sherwood clocks in as Lee Canyon’s elder, at a still-not-so-old-for-a-fixed-grip-triple 33 years (I’m also not 100 percent certain that this is only the lift’s second life, as it may have been relocated to Alpine in 1993): Why I interviewed him Just three years after completing the intermediate-oriented Ponderosa expansion, Lee Canyon is adding the long-planned West Bowl pod looker’s right of Bluebird: The new Skytrac fixed-grip quad serving the terrain will rise about the same number of feet as neighboring Bluebird and Sherwood, but will land a bit higher, finally edging Lee Canyon close to a four-digit vertical drop. Skiable acreage jumps from a modest 195 to a still-modest 235, though Lee Canyon has always lowballed its terrain footprint. But owner Mountain Capital Partners (MCP) may just be pouring concrete for the mansion they want to build above. Well, the mansion is already built, Lee Canyon just needs an elevator to access the nearly 2,000 vertical feet of steep alpine bowls towering above the lifts. It could be America’s Kicking Horse or Revelstoke, a community bump promoted to international freeride destination, with the addition of a single megalift. Here’s Lee Canyon today, as shown on Google Earth, (which has not yet added the trails cut for West Bowl) - future lifts could run as high as the top of Lee Peak (Charleston Peak, rising in the distance, is the highest point in the county, and is not on anyone’s ski area plans): The basic ingredients for mega-expansion - someone to build it and someone to ski it -are all there. Meaning we have an operator who would be happy to spend unreasonable sums of money to build an unimaginably awesome ski experience for the enormous numbers of skiers who already live nearby or could easily get there via Vegas’ gigantic airport. Lee Canyon sits close enough to Las Vegas that the Grinch could ride his fucked-up dog-deer sled from the top of Lee Peak to The Strip and loot enough cheer to cancel Christmas for a century. And MCP would like nothing more than its very own Snowbird or Jackson Hole (besides the one they already have in South America), to make their Power Pass go KaBoom. Resort officials have already begun talks with the U.S. Forest Service on a master development plan update that would sanction Lee Canyon’s transformation into Super Lee Canyon. Of course this is America, not Canada, so instead of rapidly building Revelstoke or Kicking Horse on the site of its small ski hill, MCP is likely on a collision course with a righteous mob of pinecone enthusiasts, guardians of various species of endangered pebbles, astrologists and oil painters who need viewshed integrity to practice their craft, and like five cranky a******s whose idea of a fun ski day is hiking uphill for several hours wearing 50 pounds of gear for one powder run that they’d rather not share with all the dorks w

Who Three members of Greek Peak, New York’s leadership team: * Wes Kryger, President * Ayden Wilber, Vice President of Mountain Operations * Jarret Dulemba, Mountain Operations Manager Date Recorded Oct. 19, 2026 About Greek Peak Owned by: John Meier Located in: Cortland, New York Year founded: 1957 – opened Jan. 11, 1958 Pass affiliations: Indy Pass, Indy+ Pass – 2 days Base elevation: 1,148 feet Summit elevation: 2,100 feet Vertical drop: 952 feet Skiable acres: 300 Average annual snowfall: 120 inches Lift count: 8 (1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 3 doubles – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Greek Peak’s lift fleet) Why I interviewed them In March, Greek Peak hit the fast-forward button on a massive snowmaking upgrade. In a single offseason, the resort would lay 33,000 feet of snowmaking pipe and install 250 HKD semi-automated snowguns. Ski area officials had originally planned to spread the work over four years, but an expiring clean-energy credit from local power supplier National Grid accelerated the work. The $3 million project extended snowmaking nearly wall-to-wall at a long underserved ski area. While Greek Peak can benefit from Lake Erie lake-effect storms, whole tracts on the east side of the mountain would sit shuttered in lean years. No more. Among the trails outfitted with snowmaking over the summer, per Greek Peak’s announcement: I’ve always thought that Greek Peak, with its gladed acres and affordable onsite lodging and thousand vertical feet and lack of liftlines, was an underappreciated alternative to the Catskills and Poconos circus scenes. But these snowmaking upgrades were badly needed. A sadder development over the summer: Al Kryger, who helped build Greek Peak, passed away in August at age 87: Greek Peak President Wes Kryger, Al’s son, had talked a bit about his father on the podcast last year: Transcripts There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them. Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. Zoom Ayden Wilber is identified below as “bbaisley” Stuart Winchester: My guests today lead Greek Peak Mountain Resort in New York. Greek Peak has six chairlifts serving 300 acres on 950 vertical feet. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:25.000 Stuart Winchester: Wes Krieger is president of the resort since 2013, and he is a member of the Ski New York Hall of Fame. His family has been part of Greek Peak since the ski area’s 1958 founding. 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:46.000 Stuart Winchester: Aiden Wilbur has been vice president of mountain operations since 2019 and has worked at Greek Peak since 2013 and making his storm skiing podcast debut as Jarrett Dulamba. He has been Mountain Ops manager for the past five years. Wes and Aiden, welcome back to the storm. Jarrett, welcome to the storm for the first time. Always love catching up with the team at Greek Peak. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.000 Stuart Winchester: How you guys doing today? 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.000 WKryger: Good, Stuart, how are you? 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:58.000 Stuart Winchester: Doing real well, thank you. So, Wes, I want to sta

Who James Wheeler, co-owner of Toggenburg, New York Date Recorded Oct. 19, 2026 About Toggenburg Owned by: The Wheeler Family Year founded: 1953, closed since 2021 Base elevation: 1,248 feet Summit elevation: 1,763 feet Vertical drop: 515 feet Skiable acres: 83 Average annual snowfall: 160 inches Lift count: 3 (1 triple, 2 doubles) Why I interviewed him In August 2021, I wrote a post eulogizing Toggenburg, a Central New York ski area that was closing after 68 years: The cause of death: Peter Harris, longtime owner of the nearby Song and Labrador ski areas, had purchased Toggenburg with the explicit intent of closing it. “I struggled with the decision,” Harris told me at the time. “After much analysis, it seemed to be a logical decision, and I sincerely think this is better for the Central New York ski scene. I think we’re going to have a better experience, because obviously we’re going to have more resources to invest in the two remaining areas.” New York State Attorney General Letitia James disagreed. Fourteen months later, her office filed suit against Harris’ company, Intermountain Management, for violating the state’s antitrust laws. As I wrote at the time: With 14 months to investigate the sale, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has presented a different take. On Friday, she sued Intermountain Management – the umbrella company that owns Labrador and Song – “for buying its main competitor, Toggenburg Mountain, then shutting it down to direct skiers to its own mountains.” This action, James said, created a “complete, unchallenged dominance in the Syracuse area” – a monopoly – for what her office calls “season-pass skiing” around Syracuse, a violation of New York State’s antitrust law, the Donnelly Act. “even if the Toggenburg acquisition and closure did not establish or maintain Intermountain’s monopoly, it harmed, and continues to harm, consumers by eliminating a competitor without any procompetitive justification,” the court summons states. The state decided in James’ favor in March 2025, but said it needed more time to “decide the appropriate remedy for Intermountain’s anticompetitive conduct.” It took a year and a half to determine that remedy, but last Friday, the AG’s office announced the court-ordered solution: Harris had sold Toggenburg to new owners, who were determined to re-open the facility as a ski area: New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that Intermountain Management (Intermountain) has sold Toggenburg Mountain (Toggenburg) to a new owner who plans to rebuild and reopen it for the 2027-28 ski season, restoring competition among Syracuse ski resorts. In October 2022, Attorney General James sued Intermountain for buying its only competitor, Toggenburg, and shutting it down, forcing Syracuse skiers to the two resorts owned by Intermountain. In March 2025, Attorney General James won her case when a judge ruled that Intermountain violated state antitrust law by stifling competition when it shut down Toggenburg and instituted a “no poach” agreement preventing Toggenburg’s owner from hiring any Intermountain employees at his other New York ski resorts. Under a settlement with the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Intermountain today closed its sale of Toggenburg to Douglas Wheeler, a local business owner who plans to reopen the ski facility. “Competition among Syracuse ski areas means more choices and better prices and services for New York skiers,” said Attorney General James. “We’re putting an end to Intermountain’s illegal monopoly that allowed it to raise prices and take advantage of skiers. I am thrilled that New Yorkers will once again have access to Toggenburg Mountain, and I will always fight to protect consumers and workers from illegal monopolies that try to profit at their expense.” So who is Douglas Wheeler? Well, it turns out that, in true New York ski area fashion, Togg will be run family-style. When I spoke to him on Sunday, Wheeler deferred to his son, James Wheele

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