Top 5 Fridays Ski Industry News - Episode 177 - July 26, 2024

Hey everyone, it's Bob from SkiEssentials.com. And I'm Matt. Matt and I are here. We got your Top 5 Fridays. Jeff is away again today. I think he's got club championships coming up, so he's fine-tuning the game and taking advantage of a beautiful day out there, to be honest. Yep, the pressure's on. Yeah, when the chips are down. So good luck to Jeff this weekend and club championships up there at Copley. And for Top 5 Fridays today, we got a couple of housekeeping things going on. First of all, just a big thanks for everyone that came out last weekend for the warehouse sale, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It was really, really cool to see everyone just like pretty darn excited about skiing, snowboarding, outdoor stuff, the deals, like it was just like it was a festive environment. Absolutely. I definitely left feeling ready for winter. Yeah, it's infectious, don't you think? Like when people start coming at you and their interest then becomes your interest. Right. Always fun to kind of feed off other people's excitement. So that went really, really well. And then to piggyback off of that, we are having a flash sale for our outlet coming up starting this weekend. So it's supposed to run $7.26 to $7.30. That is an additional 10% off of anything that's in our outlet, which consists of over 1,500 products. Matt, I'm sure in customer service, you got some questions about people wanting the warehouse sale prices online. Correct. This, I feel, is getting close to that. Very close. I don't think it's exactly the same thing. We have specific warehouse sale prices, but anything in our outlet, 10% off. So that's getting you a lot closer to those warehouse sale prices. So if you want it to come, but you couldn't, then really that's like the bulk of the inventory that was available. Right. So check that out. I made a specific note here, Matt, a 2024 Stokely Montero AX for $779.40 with this sale. Is that like $500 off? Maybe more. Maybe more. That's warehouse sale pricing pretty much. I thought that was a good deal. That one caught my eye on the outlet. So if you're looking for a Montero AX from 2024, this is the weekend to do it. Maybe the Revolt 96, that was $225.00. Could it be under $200? I don't know. You got to check that one out. No promises. We also have Armada Declivity 102s in a $188.00 for a very good price. So if you're looking for a $188.00 Armada Declivity 102, check that out as well. And then this lovely ski behind us here, the Bent Chetler 120 from Atomic. We did that review yesterday, Jeff and I. So if you haven't checked that out, make sure to do so. Some great kind of first person accounts of the ski in general, the construction, kind of the highlights from Chris Bent Chetler when Jeff was out there in Utah earlier this winter. So just a really nice kind of first-hand account of this ski from theory to practice. So check that out too. Anything else there, Matt? Don't think so. On with the news. I think you nailed it. Okay, we were just chatting about Olympics before. Summer Olympics, which are coming up. Is it tonight? Opening ceremonies, you were saying? I think it's tonight, yep. So I hope everyone enjoys that. From the winter perspective, we are getting word from Forbes and KSL and Salt Lake that that venue has won the Olympic bid for 2034. So a return to Salt Lake City. Last time it was 2002. And from what I remember, it was a really good Olympics. I don't know if I was up and walking around. I bet I was sitting there watching it, crying or something. No, I remember pretty vividly that the venues were great in Salt Lake for 2002. And hopefully they'll even boost that for 2034. With this, they kind of get a boost of infrastructure upgrades, transportation systems. They're talking about like a green loop around. Promenade. A promenade on Main Street. I love a promenade. Yeah. And from being when we were in Salt Lake this past spring, it was pretty interesting to see just how well set up that place is for city and mountain activities. So it's super close and just really a nice overall venue. Alpine events at Snow Basin. Deer Valley has a great venue for moguls and aerials. Park City, I think it's freestyle stuff. Terrain Park, Half Pipe, whatnot. And then Matt, our author, was speculating about Snowbird as a free ride event. I think that'd be pretty sweet. But I think they're going to need a gondola. Does this pave the way for the gondola to get fast tracked? I would imagine, but I'm going to put my opinion in there and I hope not. Okay. Fair enough, Matt. I'm anti-gondola as well. But yeah, I think it's important to note that those big and little Cottonwood Canyons are not on the Olympic venue. Not because there isn't fantastic skiing there, but because of those very specific traffic issues. So hopefully, this will kind of shed some light on those and kind of force them to figure out something in the meantime. Going back to that, I do think free ride skiing should be in the Olympics. Like Free Ride World Tour? Like Free Ride World Tour. Well, I think that being an FIS umbrella is certainly paving the way for that. A good prerequisite to have. Yeah, for sure. So congratulations to Salt Lake City. I've always been a fan of venues being repeat hosts as they don't have to start from the ground up and go from there. Salt Lake and Vancouver seem like really good options here in North America for that. Like when it was in Beijing or Korea or whatever it was, they basically built a ski mountain and then they used it for that singular purpose and then it went away. So I think it's nice to kind of use these existing venues and just have more repetition. I don't think anyone's too upset by that. I don't know. Do you think it'll ever come back to Lake Placid? I hope so. Hopefully there's still snow there by that time. Well, I mean, they made it all in Korea. Sochi? That was Russia. I think they did a similar thing though, right? Yeah, they did. But that was weird because the town and the mountains were hours apart. So there were weird transportation issues for that too. But beautiful area. I remember being pretty impressed by that. So yeah, congratulations to Salt Lake City. Topic two, Marcel Herscher is returning this year. We had touched on this back in April when he unretired. He is skiing under Dutch affiliation as opposed to taking a spot which he, I guess, did not earn from an Austrian teammate. He's kind of starting at his other origin of nationality, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, something like that. Multinational. But yeah, this article from SkiRacing.com just highlighting what he's expecting and what he's looking forward to doing for this year. I had to read it twice because on one hand it said he wants to return and win. But then I crossed that out because it didn't seem like that was the case. It seemed like he wanted to enjoy and participate from time to time. So if he wins, then cool. If he wins, then cool. Which I think that this is interesting. It's like a lower pressure expectations side. But Matt, can people like this, Marcel Herscher, Tom Brady, these ultra competitive people, can they not go 100%? No, they don't settle for second best. I bet he's going to come out the gate swinging. But how long has he been retired, do you know? Not long. Two years, maybe? I don't know. He's still got it. Yeah, and I think that a lot of racers, they get stronger going on. I remember reading that the smaller muscles, like your core muscles, take longer to develop, which is why you don't see a whole lot of 18-year-olds in speed events. Right. Because they don't have these long-term muscles, kind of like old man strength. Gotcha. So that's kind of what maybe Marcel is banking on that. That and just the mental aspect of it too. He's had years to build his confidence and how to approach a race, and that's a huge asset. And that is a huge advantage, I would imagine. Physicality is one part of it, but the mental aspect is at least another half. So he's got that. I don't know, flicking up for him. Yeah, and you know, you're going to be the sudden star of the Dutch ski team. Yeah. But he still has to earn FIS points to kind of re-spin into the World Cup circuit, which I don't know, could take one race, could take 10. So we'll see how that goes. Good luck to Marcel on his enjoy and participate from time to time on retirement tour. That's how I approach Ski Bomb. Totally. Number three, a little bit more local here, Noah Dynes. I'm sure if any of you are on any type of skiing social media platform, this guy's kind of all over the place. He's going for a new record of three million human powered vertical feet. So uphill, three million. This article is from SkiMag.com. Although, like I said, if you're anywhere in the social media circles of the ski world, this guy's been popping up more and more, especially as he closes in on previous records. So Greg Hill, two million in 2010, broken by Aaron Rice in 2016 with 2.5 million. So these are big numbers. They're big commitments. You're a skinner here at Stowe. It's 2,000 per run, right? Up and down, 2,000 vert. Yep. So they estimated he needs to average 10,000 a day. So that's five laps. What's your record? One and a half. Okay. I was going to say, if it's one, that's still okay. Yeah. I usually only just do one morning when I go up and he passes you probably twice as you do it once. He is so fast. Super nice guy. Always smiling going up and it's always so disheartening. You see him go down. He comes down. So he's up there earlier than you. So you see him go down, pass you, go down again and then pass you again by the time you reach the top. It is just insane how fit he is and the commitment too. I love that his saying is, I still love skiing when I wake up in the morning and as long as I still am excited to go ski in the morning, I'm going to keep doing it. Man, that dude loves skiing. It seems like he's got a pretty casual attitude about it. Oh yeah. But that seems to be his personality where he's not doing something outside of himself to do this. He's just kind of accentuating the parts that are already there. He's doing it for him. He's not doing it for a brand or a sponsor. He just wants to do it to prove it to himself, which I really appreciate. And he's pretty interesting to see those little social media reels about him talking about what he eats or what he thinks about. He's just kind of an interesting dude. I don't know him personally, but I know he's up there at the mountain a whole lot. Have you seen his candy reviews that he does while he's walking up? No, but I'm interested as a candy fan myself. It's pretty fun. It's interesting that Stowe is kind of one of his... you don't need a 10,000 foot mountain. No. You need five twos. Yeah. So I think that that's interesting too that you can kind of chip away at it in smaller chunks as opposed to much larger chunks. That said, he is out at Mount Hood and to Chile just to keep the snow going throughout the year. And then it sounds like he plans on being in Stowe for the start of our season and hopefully finishing that goal and breaking those records. He's getting close already. He's at two million as of July 8th and he's 430,000 ahead of schedule as of today it sounds like. I'd be surprised if he doesn't make four. You think you're calling four? I mean, I don't know. Based on how he's going. Yeah. Maybe he'll link up with our friend Tyler down in Chile. Right. Yeah. For some South American adventures. Yeah. Well, yeah. Good luck Noah. Hope to see you back here in Stowe when you get here in the fall. Interesting stuff. Number four. A little bit sadder. We have the death of a pioneering skier Sylvain Soden. A Swiss skier. Died at 87 years old. This guy lived a full life, Matt. This is an obituary from Washington Post where we're getting our information here. And really just an inventor of extreme skiing. Although it doesn't seem like he would call it that. He would just call it skiing. Yeah. So pretty interesting stuff. I had never heard of this gentleman. And there is a nice little article. He's got a book. And then we'll kind of piggyback into edits because there was a movie embedded in the article, not in the edits. So we can touch on that in a second. But he was known as Skier of the Impossible. It's a pretty cool nickname. It's a rad nickname. Yeah. And that was the title of his book, Skier de l'Impossible. So, you know, just an incredibly kind of forward-thinking individual when it comes to what we think of as modern day freeride skiing or extreme skiing. This guy had it figured out back in the 60s. So sad to see him go. But again, seems like he lived a very, very full life. And yeah, I actually didn't. Himalayan Heli-Skiing was the name of the film at the bottom of the topic number four. So I don't think it's in edits, but definitely click on that. Shows him skiing large rocks. Did you watch that at all? I didn't, but I did see the quote of you can ski rocks, you can ski anything. Yeah. It's a pretty powerful quote. Doesn't have to be on snow apparently. Nope. And then we have a 4.5, a correction from last week. We weren't here to read it. And I honestly didn't read the article, but read the Schweitzer did not, in fact, renew the Selkirk lease. It was not a merger per se, but they just didn't renew the lease. So small correction there on our part. And then that's it for that. And moving into edits of the week. I did incorporate that as number three, Mr. So Dan's Himalayan Heli-Skiing. But number one edit Tuesday morning from Variance. Nice 15 minute jibby backcountry little film here. If you really want, go to 525 for a great crash sequence. Did you go there at all? I did, yeah. Oh man, there's a lot of... It's not a tomahawk when your body doesn't ragdoll, but they're head over heels in deep snow. Is it a scorpion? No, because they keep going. It's multiple flips. I don't know what... Maybe that's tomahawk. Maybe we'll hear about it in the Olympics. Maybe that's a trick. Also, did you see the guy hit his head on the fence? Yeah. Some pretty interesting stuff. Go to 525 if you just want to watch the crashes. Number two, War On style trailer. This is featuring Hank Billis, who is a former freeride, competitive freeride skier, now in the nursing profession and kind of a multi-talented athlete. Skis, snowboards, surfs, board-related activities. Yeah. So seems to have his own style going on. Yeah. And then that third, just incorporating Sylvain Soden's movie into the edits of the week. But yeah, pretty fun stuff, especially that crash sequence. That's it for Top 5 Fridays. Matt, anything you wanted to add or we good to go? Good to go. All right. Yeah. Have a great weekend, everyone. Check out the Outlet Flash Sale for some warehouse sale style prices, and we will see you next week. Bye.