🚲 Boulder County bike access fight

Good morning, Stoke Crew. Hope everyone has an amazing Tuesday and finds some time this week to get outside and enjoy the beautiful outdoors!

Also wanted to acknowledge the passing of Andy Lewis, also known as Sketchy Andy, he was a dreamer and an adventure seeker. Rest easy, big man!

Lots of good stuff to cover today. Hope you guys enjoy :) Stay STOKE - Tyler

In today's report

• ⛷️ Skimo could return for the 2030 Olympics
• 🚵 Riders fight a Boulder County bike ban
• 💰 Vail Resorts pass sales slip after a brutal winter
• 💧 El Niño is back, and it's looking strong

Skiing

🥇 Skimo eyes a 2030 encore

⛷️ Skimo could be back on the Olympic stage in 2030. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) executive board and the French Alps 2030 organizing committee have proposed adding ski mountaineering to the next Winter Games, with a full IOC vote set for June 24 and 25 in Lausanne.

• The 2030 plan goes bigger than the debut. Organizers proposed five medal events: men's and women's individual, men's and women's sprint, and the mixed relay. The individual race is the key addition, the format that best shows skimo's endurance and route-finding.
• Skimo made its Olympic debut this past February at Milano Cortina, where 36 athletes competed in three sprint-and-relay events. It earned its spot through a one-off rule that lets the host country, in this case Italy, add sports to its own Games.
• France led the medal table in skimo with three medals and the sport is booming across the Alps, which makes the French Alps Games an ideal home for it.
• IOC reviews are using TV, digital and spectator data from Milano Cortina to decide what stays, and skimo's numbers reportedly held up well!

Why It Matters: This is great news for American racers like Cam Smith and Anna Gibson, who are already pointing at 2030. A second Games on the calendar gives U.S. skimo a reason to fund development and build a deeper team!

🎿 Killington and Pico are spending another $25 million this summer, pushing their two-year total past $65 million since independent owners bought the Vermont resorts from POWDR in 2024. The headliner is a new fixed-grip Doppelmayr Snowdon Quad (about $7.5 million, 33% more capacity) replacing the 53-year-old Snowdon Triple by next season. Snowmaking returns to the Conclusion trail after nearly a decade, and a temporary rope tow will reopen Pico's Outpost terrain.

Why It Matters: This is independent ownership flexing: fast, focused spending on lifts, snow and terrain. Doubling down on snowmaking is also a smart hedge against the warm, dry winters rattling the rest of the country.

Biking

🚫 A bike-access showdown near Boulder

🚵 Lyons mountain bikers are up in arms over a Boulder County plan that could limit bike access on certain days at Hall Ranch and Heil Valley Ranch. The county calls it "alternating trail use." Riders call it what it is: an alternating-day bike ban.

• The pushback is loud. About 70% opposed the idea in a county survey that drew 7,522 responses, four times the usual turnout.
• The justification is thin, opponents say. The county logged just a 4% conflict rate.
• Bike shop owner Dave Chase says nearly every business in town leans on the riding scene, and a letter from 38 residents (17 of them business owners) warns it would push riders into pirate trails elsewhere.
• Commissioner Claire Levy spearheaded the pilot after hearing hikers felt squeezed at Heil ranch. She says the county won't restrict both Hall and Heil at once. Commissioners take it up at a June 30 work session.

Why It Matters: Towns that embrace riders cash in. Bentonville turned singletrack into a $159 million economy, and Colorado's own Grand Junction, Fruita, and Crested Butte built real money on trails. Lyons has spent years cultivating that vibe, and a weekend bike ban risks handing that economy to the next town over.

Business

📉 Epic Pass sales finally slip

💰 Vail Resorts posted a rare decline in early pass sales, with sales down about 10% for next season, the steepest early-season slump since the company launched the Epic Pass in 2008. The hangover from one of the worst ski winters in half a century is real.

• The numbers behind the slump are ugly. Skier visits across the country hit their lowest level since 1991-92, and Vail's own visits fell 12.5% to 14.8 million, the biggest year-over-year drop in company history.
• CEO Rob Katz called it one of the most challenging winters ever, especially in the Rockies. He thinks buyers are delaying, not bailing, pointing to 2011-12 when spring sales lagged then recovered by fall.
• The advance-commitment model did its job. Even with visits falling, pass and lift revenue fell only 3.5% to $1.4 billion, because skiers had already paid before the lifts turned.

Why It Matters: This ripples straight into mountain towns. Spending in Colorado's resort communities fell 5% over the core season, and those tourism taxes fund everything from buses to affordable housing. A down year on the hill becomes a budget problem on Main Street.

🔥 The STOKE VOTE

Environment

🌧️ El Niño's back, and strong

💧 El Niño is officially here. NOAA issued an El Niño Advisory on June 11, confirming the warm Pacific pattern has formed and is expected to strengthen into the 2026-27 winter. For skiers, that's the first real signal of what next season's snow might look like.

• This one could be a heavyweight. NOAA puts a 63% chance on it reaching "very strong" status by November through January, which would rank among the biggest El Niño events since records began in 1950.
• Forecasters give it effectively zero odds of flipping to La Niña, with El Niño running at 99% or higher through the heart of winter.

Why It Matters: After the worst winter in half a century, every skier in the West wants to know if next year will be better. A strong El Niño doesn't promise a record breaking powderrrr season, but it does load the dice to our favor in the west!

Seth's Take: My friend Seth runs a weather page on Facebook with over 10,000 followers, called Seth's Weather Report, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with it. Every now and then I reach out to get his take on things, so here's what he's saying about El Niño.

"Implications for CO: Generally favors a more active southern storm track with higher than average precip for the front-range (Den/Bou) and southern CO during fall and winter. The northern mountains / northwest CO is still more uncertain in terms of above/below average precip.

Also favors warmer than average temps across much of CO. It will likely be hot during parts of the summer into fall but hopefully more precip. Bottom line: likely a much more active pattern for CO next fall / winter. Fingers crossed!"

Check out his facebook page here

📚 Trailhead Trivia

What year did Vail Mountain first open for skiing?

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Answer!

1962 (December 15, 1962)