Top Five Fridays Ski Industry News - Episode 185 - October 18, 2025

Hey skiers, I'm Jeff from SkiEssentials.com. I'm Bob. Happy Friday. Welcome back to our Top 5 Friday Ski Industry News videos. We missed last week, right? Yes. Yeah, I don't remember why, but apologies because I'm pretty sure we missed last week. It was the... We put the comparison up instead. Yeah, yeah, there was... I think we just ran out of time. That very well might have been the case. So yeah, welcome back. I'm excited to be here. I think it's going to be a pretty quick one, but I've also... I've said that like several times in the past and it ends up being exactly the same. That's how you know that we're going to go get some tangents and some extra material. Yeah, totally. Before we get into that, our comparison series is still ongoing. This week we did the kind of wide front side comparison, which was 76 to 82. That went up yesterday. That was a fun conversation. I like the narrower skis. Yeah, and we always joke about how some people are very entrenched in their beliefs that that is like almost too wide, and then other people that will never ski anything less than 110. You know, there's just very clear divisions. Yeah, well, people have their opinions, and rightfully so. But yeah, you're right. It is always entertaining to see the differences in the perceptions and opinions. And the veracity at which they will defend their stance. Yes, absolutely. People are passionate about their ski opinions, which I like. I'm passionate about my ski opinions. That's why I'm here. I wasn't. I feel like it'd be a weird career choice. I guess I'll talk about skis. I don't know. So yeah, that's ongoing. We had that fall sale that just wrapped up earlier this week, but we do have some new outlet price drops that just went into effect last night. It's basically all skis. I believe there were 59 different 2024 skis that just had their prices, you know, just an extra little amount shaved off. And some of them, it was like more than another 10%. So definitely some significant price drops in certain spots. So take a look at that. That'll run through the weekend through, I believe, most of next week. And then I was going to say, and then those prices may go back up, but more realistically, then those products will actually just be gone. Last grasp, probably. We're kind of getting there for a lot of things. I was looking through inventory numbers on 2024 skis as we were going through that stuff. And yeah, there's a lot of single digits in there. There aren't many double digits left. Some short sizes and some long sizes left over. A lot of skis still have technically full size ranges, or at least close, but it's just like single, it's like one 176. And then once that's gone, we're never going to get any more. So anyways, take a look at that. Maybe you'll find something that strikes your fancy. And then you ready for news? Yeah. So kind of a fun week for news. First topic of the week, it's snow. That's about it. I mean, like yesterday morning, I even drove around my neighborhood before coming in because there was inversion. So if you drive up to the top of Still Hollow, towards Pinnacle, you get the view over the valley to Mount Mansfield. Right. It was stunning. Yeah. It was unbelievable. As much as we kind of joke about people that pull off to the side of the road and take pictures out of their cars, like, yeah, that was me yesterday. So yeah, I downplayed it a little bit there, but it really was absolutely breathtaking. And we did get a pretty substantial amount of snow. It didn't snow all the way down into town here, or if it did, it melted immediately. I didn't see it. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if technically a snowflake hit Main Street. We got hailed on at soccer practice on Tuesday. It's frozen. Yeah. Frozen precipitation. So yeah, Mount Mansfield got about a foot up at the summit. And I think a lot of people skied pretty much top to bottom. A lot of people skiing up top. Yeah. And actually looked pretty decent up top. Kudos to all those adventurous folks that are getting up there. I'm saving my legs for what's to come. Talk about enthusiasm. They got it. It's great to see. So yeah, 12 inches fell on Mansfield. Whiteface got 14. And then supposedly there's a storm headed to Colorado, Utah this weekend that could bring considerable snowfall there. Yeah. I mean, it's October. It has begun. This is what happens. Yeah. So pretty exciting. Second topic of the week, Bob, I don't really know what this means, but it's like we've come full circle as a society because Line Skis has made a snowboard. If you had told me that they had been making snowboards all this time and we just didn't know about it, I'd be like, yeah, that sounds about right. Oh, really? It seems like it fits. I mean, you could basically take a Pescado and put a couple of snowboard bindings on it and you're off you go. No, you're not wrong. It's just it's funny for me. And I feel like I probably grew up with Line Skis more than you did. It perfectly aligned with my age and my life. Like Line from day one was like pretty anti-snowboard. Like that was kind of their stance of just like because at that time, you know, late 90s, like a lot of it was like the snowboard world, like pointing fingers at skiers and being like, you're lame, like we are cool. Right. And then Line basically did that to snowboarders. Like they had a T-shirt, they had a whole ad slogan that was your mom rides a snowboard as like a negative, like insulting thing. So it's just it's fun for me that they've come full circle and now they're making a snowboard and they're doing it. I think the perfect way like their promo video for it was just all their ski athletes like trying to make snowboard content. And I just I just love that they're doing it with like with authenticity. And that authenticity in their case is just like, we're not really snowboarders, but we have a lot of fun. They've always just seemed I'm surprised that they were antagonistic, I guess, because they as a company, it seems very pro snow sliding. Yes. You know, and then like they're inclusive with like the Pandora being a unisex line. Like I'm just. Yeah, I don't think they were ever like I don't think they were ever maliciously antagonistic or like didn't do it with like a serious voice. Right. It was more like kind of poking fun at snowboarders for doing the same thing and just like this fun, like kind of back and forth. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's I think it's all pretty fun. Yeah. Again, like it makes perfect sense to me that that company would make snowboards. Well, now they do. All right. So you already had Bob as a market apparently. Third topic of the week. Excuse me. IndyPass has acquired Black Mountain, New Hampshire. We've been talking about the kind of relationship between IndyPass and Black Mountain for about a year now. They kind of swooped in after they announced closing. So they have actually acquired it. And their plan is to operate the mountain kind of as is this season with IndyPass being in charge of the operations. And then their plan is for twenty five, twenty six ski season to transition to a co-op business model, which we have kind of locally here to us with Mad River Glen. Right. Seems to work out well for them. Yeah. I was not I guess I wasn't clear that IndyPass had this type of functionality to their corporate structure. Like the operational side. Yeah. I wasn't really sure either. I guess they do. And I don't really know if they're just responsible for like implementing the operations team. Right. Or if they are just like taking an existing IndyPass operations team and like planting it there. I could see it. I guess I just didn't know that they had like operations team. I just thought that they sold. Sold lift tickets that went to independent mountains. Yeah. It is interesting. You learn something new every day. Yeah. So pretty interesting. I've never skied there. I just when I grew up skiing at Loon, there was always billboards for Black Mountain and not to be confused with Black Mountain of Maine just over the border. I have skied Black Mountain of Maine over in Rumford. Yeah. And like also like that mountain has had like opening. Yep. Issues as well. I can't recall if they're open or operational or not, but. I believe they are. Yeah. Black Mountain Maine is the one with like the huge Nordic ski network. Like the whole side is like hike to access. Yeah. That's like newer. Yeah. But like I spent a lot of time there growing up at Nordic ski races. They were like the one of the elite venues for Nordic races. Black Mountain in New Hampshire on their billboards, their slogan was all height, no weight. Like you're not waiting in a lift line. Yeah. Like a lot of vertical for no lift line. Well, it's right next to Wildcat. Yep. That's kind of how I think of Wildcat. Pretty direct down the fall line mountain. Yeah. No, it looks like nice winding terrain and trail. I don't know. Get over there. And you can go to Storyland. Right. I don't know if it's open in the winter, but. Storyland. Yeah. Is it? I don't know. Yeah. There must be like, do you think there's crossover at some point? You mean? Like April? Yeah. I was thinking of a different crossover, like IndyPass buying, operating Storyland. And then you get like two days at Storyland and Santa's Village. In your IndyPass. Yeah. Whale's Tale. All those. You could be onto something here. Or Cog Railway. Yeah, why not just, why not take like the Mega Passes and expand it to like everything? Other attractions. Like, why can't, why can't my golf membership also be wrapped into an Epic Pass? I mean, that's what like the Killington, that like Beast 365 Pass. You just get everything. You get everything. Downhill mountain biking, golf. Yeah. Skiing. Yeah. The future. I think it's gonna, I think it's all moving that way. Anyways, fourth topic of the week. I did not see this one coming. I would tell you that you were lying to me if anybody told me that they did anticipate this. Ted Ligety has joined DPS as the head of product performance. I agree with you, Jeff. This is one of those ones that I thought would come out on April 1st. Yeah. You know, you read the- Kind of leaves you scratching your head a little bit. You see the post and you're like, no way. Yeah. And you know, like, I don't know. Strange things happen all the time. You know, maybe it's not gonna be that strange. No, it could be really cool. Yeah. It's just my like existing opinion of both of those entities. I did not, I didn't draw any correlation there. You know, when I think of Ted Ligety, I think of elite giant slalom skiing. And when I think of DPS, the last thing I think of is elite giant slalom skiing. Maybe that's why they're a perfect matchup for each other. Well, and I like that. Yeah. Like thinking outside the box, maybe DPS looked at their company and their skis and they're like, we need to pump some Ted Ligety into this. Right. And maybe Ted's like, I need to incorporate some- Some free ride. Free ride pow, carbon powered performance into my repertoire. Right. Yeah, you never know. I mean, the more we talk about it, it makes perfect sense. I don't know. I'm excited to see what happens. Right. Because I can't imagine that with somebody like Ted Ligety on board that the skis won't change. I mean, maybe their model, like existing models will stay, but there's no way that they won't come out with some very different skis. Yeah, but they've always been so specific and unique. I think that's why it's hard to kind of digest is because it's such a really individualistic ski. There's nothing else like it. And so changing it is hard for me to imagine. Yeah. But the video- Time will tell. It's a great example of watching Ted Ligety ski a DPS. In the little teaser or whatever, it's like, well, they can carve. Yeah, right. We've proven that too. Yeah, not as well. Not at the same level as Ted Ligety. Fair enough. Yeah. So yeah, exciting. I think people were starting to talk about what the future held for DPS, and I don't think that was where many people's minds went. And I'm excited that that's where we're headed. Yep. And it definitely follows my constant hope that no one tries anything anymore. Yeah, there you go. This is a perfect example of people trying stuff. Yeah. I mean, Line made a snowboard too. But according to you, they've always- They've always made snowboards. I really like your reaction to that one. And then lastly, we've got our edits of the week here. Five edits this week. The first one is more than just an edit. We have the full movie from Level One. It's called Wasteland. It's about half an hour long. I haven't watched the whole thing start to finish yet, but the parts that I have watched have been incredible, as is typically the case with Level One and their athletes. So take a look at that. And then we've got a short little edit from Henrik Harlow called Capital Ski. Spelled with two E's and no spaces. I don't know the significance of that. Shock factor? I don't know. And then we have Stand Corrected from Arsenic Anywhere. Shout out to Tall T Dan. And then we've got Roadside Attractions Season One, Episode One from Meaningfully Lost. Did you watch this one? No, not yet. This looks promising. Looks like a group of skiers that just went- They tried to find the most hidden places to ski. On the planet? I think in the country was my perception, but time will tell. This was only Episode One. All right. No, it looks like a cool- I can't think of anybody else that does something similar. It sort of had the 50 vibes, but more from an amateur perspective and in unpopular destinations. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I'm here for it. And then lastly, we have the athlete roster for the 2025 Freeride World Tour. And that's it. Sweet. Yeah, so actually heading into a beautiful autumn weekend here in Stowe that is not going to look very wintry, but it's really nice to have some signs of winter here. Yeah, I mean, the snow will be gone by- Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon. Maybe not on the top of the mountain. I mean, it's going to be 75 on Tuesday. Tuesday, right? Yeah. But that's just a blip. We'll be right back into, you know, it's true around here. We'll probably go from 70 to 15 in three days. Yeah. Yeah, it's a wardrobe nightmare. Yeah, it really is. It's hard to decide what to wear every morning. It's like the biggest challenge of my day right now. Well, it could be worse, I guess. It's so dark early. Yeah, and only getting darker. What time do you wake up? Like six? Lately, like four. That's aggressive. It's really dark at four. Not on purpose, but yeah, usually six. I have a hard time getting out of bed this year. I'm normally really good at like hopping out of bed right at six every day and it's just so dark. Yeah, you should be used to it. It happens every year. It's like the same darkness every year. Then the times change in what, like a month? I don't know when they do it anymore. And then I feel like it doesn't affect me as much. It's like this in-between period. There's like two months. Yeah. Where it's really dark in the morning. Anyways, hope everybody has a fantastic weekend. Hopefully you have some beautiful weather and some snowy views where you live like we do. And we'll talk to you next week. Bye.