⛷️ A first for Word Cup Ski Racing

Good morning, Stoke Crew. Hope everyone had a solid weekend. Late October in Colorado is a strange mix of last bike rides and first ski talk, and I'm here for both! Clocks fall back this Sunday, so squeeze in those after-work laps while there's still light. Here's the report.

Stay STOKED - Tyler

In today's report

• ⛷️ Moltzan's first win, by a hair
• 🏔️ Ned's Eldora bet gets an earful
• ❄️ Snow guns are roaring again
• 🚵 Bike trails, less red tape
• 🚲 Juliana bikes are going away
• 🏂 Burton adds a board member
• 🐻 Cubs & pups

Skiing

🎿 Ski season's getting real

⛷️ Paula Moltzan finally won!. It came Oct. 24 in Sölden, Austria, where the 2026-27 World Cup got underway. She'd never won a World Cup race before, and this was start No. 149. Lara Colturi of Albania was the runner-up, a hundredth of a second slower.

• STOKE! She's 32. No woman in World Cup history was older when she got her first win. Before Saturday, she'd stood on the podium 10 times without a win.
• Her skis were new, too. Van Deer brought her on this spring, and Sölden was her debut on them. Eight-time overall champ Marcel Hirscher started the brand, and until Moltzan it had only ever outfitted men. She spent the summer helping Van Deer design skis for women.
• She came to Colorado at 16 to race for Ski and Snowboard Club Vail. At the University of Vermont, she was NCAA slalom champ as a freshman.
• Shiffrin ended up seventh. Third went to Emma Aicher of Germany.

Why It Matters: The U.S. women just got a second racer who can win a GS. Shiffrin is shifting more of this season toward GS and super-G, so the team could have two Americans in the hunt on any given race day. That's a real upgrade for a squad that has leaned hard on one superstar.

💰 Nederland's bid for Eldora just got an earful from locals. The town of roughly 1,500 signed off on a $120 million purchase in January, to be paid with bonds backed by Eldora's own revenue. The first contract lapsed in April.

• Money is the sore spot. Deal costs paid so far come to about $1.2 million. A failed purchase means a bill of roughly $2.5 million.
• The town is reworking it as a sale-leaseback, because investors wanted less debt and better security. Nederland is chasing about $20 million in donations.
• Former town board member Dallas Masters told the board it had "put a $2.5 million bet on a roulette wheel."
• Board members aren't budging. Billy Giblin said quitting now would "flush that $2.5 million down the toilet." Once the mayor closed the Eldora discussion, most of the audience headed for the doors.
• The board plans a full review of Eldora spending at its Nov. 5 meeting.

Why It Matters: A tiny mountain town trying to buy its local ski area is about as bold as local government gets. I love the idea of locals owning their hill. But a bet this big only works if residents trust the people placing it, and right now that trust looks shaky.

❄️ Colorado's snow guns are roaring again. Cold air came back Sunday night, Oct. 25, and Keystone, A-Basin, Breck, and Loveland all made snow into Monday. None of the early openers has named a day yet. Keystone opened Oct. 25 last year and A-Basin the next day, so this year's race is running behind.

Recreation

🏔️ Bikes might get into more National Parks

🚵 Getting bikes onto park trails could soon take a lot less paperwork. A Park Service proposal, published Sept. 1, would hand most of those calls to each park's superintendent. Comments close Monday, Nov. 2.

Here's what it takes today. Even for a hiking trail the park already has, the regional director gets the final word. First, the park has to take public comment twice, run an environmental review whether federal law calls for one or not, and write a bike-specific plan. The Park Service says even "a 20-foot paved path connecting a parking lot with a visitor center" needs that plan.

• Under the proposal, the superintendent decides after public notice.
• E-bikes would automatically be OK on park roads and lots that cars can use.
• The International Mountain Biking Association is on board, with conditions. Its asks are clearer language on enforcing good trail design, and no automatic e-bike access every time a trail opens to bikes.
• To weigh in and give your comment, click here!

Why It Matters: If you've ever ridden up to a park boundary and hit a "no bikes" sign, this is your window. Name the park and the trail you'd ride, and say why. Ten minutes on regulations.gov before Nov. 2 is a pretty good trade for better access :)

Business

💼 Santa Cruz and Burton

🤷🏼‍♀️ Juliana bikes are going away. Santa Cruz is retiring the Juliana name, so no new bikes will carry it. The news first appeared as a website note in mid-October, and the bike press picked it up Oct. 21.

• The name honors Juli Furtado. She won the women's race at the 1990 world championships in Durango, the first official mountain bike worlds.
• Santa Cruz put her name on a women's-specific Superlight in 1999 and says no women's-specific mountain bike came before it.
• Juliana spun off as its own brand in 2013. Underneath, each bike was a Santa Cruz. Juliana's versions got their own colors, a women's saddle, narrower bars, and suspension set up for lighter riders.

Why It Matters: If you ride a Juliana, nothing changes on the trail. It's a Santa Cruz underneath, and the warranty carries over. Women's-specific mountain bikes keep getting rarer, plenty of big brands have gone unisex.

🏂 Burton's board of directors has a new member! Caroline Brown was the global brand president at The North Face until July, and Burton announced Oct. 22 that she's joined its board.

• Her background is mostly fashion. Her first decade-plus was at Giorgio Armani, and she later ran DKNY and Donna Karan International as CEO. She also spent time as a managing director at Closed Loop Partners, backing sustainability projects in fashion and beauty.
• Her North Face run lasted just over two years. When she left, VF CEO Bracken Darrell said she'd "done a terrific job" shaking up the brand. Under her, it leaned back into trail, climbing, and snow gear.
• It caps a year of turnover at the top. John Lacy wrapped up nearly 29 years at Burton in June, the last stretch as CEO. Denny Bruce stepped into the top job Sept. 21.
• Burton is still privately owned, and it turns 50 in 2027. It all traces back to 1977 and Jake Burton Carpenter's barn in Vermont.

Why It Matters: Burton is stacking its leadership with people who know how to grow big outdoor brands. New people at the top bring new priorities. If you ride Burton, the thing to watch is whether the gear stays rider-first as the company chases growth.

🔥 The STOKE VOTE

Environment

🐾 A wild year for wildlife

🐺 It was a huge year for California's wolves. At least 42 pups were born across eight packs, topping the old high of 35 from 2024. The state now has 10 active packs, mostly in the northeast, and wolves keep turning up in new places, including one west of I-5 in Lake County. The southern Sierra pack has faded, though. Ranchers are feeling it too, with packs blamed for 21 livestock losses over the summer quarter.

🌲 Minnesota's lynx kittens likely made it. A Voyageurs National Park trail camera filmed a Canada lynx with two kittens in September 2025, a first for the park. The family was still together on camera March 31, so the Voyageurs Wolf Project thinks both kittens reached about a year old. Earlier studies had written off the park as too short on snowshoe hares to hold lynx year-round.

🐻 NOT STOKED: Cars keep hitting Yosemite's bears. Drivers had struck 33 black bears in the park this year as of about Oct. 22. That's the most since 2015 and already more than all of 2025. October alone accounts for seven strikes. Four of the seven died. Late summer and fall are dangerous because bears roam more while they fatten up for winter. The park dropped its reservation system for 2026, and a longtime bear advocate says the extra traffic is part of the problem.

🐻 NOT STOKED: Nanci Limbach's rescue in Silt usually raises five to nine bear cubs a year. By mid-October it had 32 of them. Spring frost and a dry summer wrecked what bears normally eat, so hungry sows abandoned cubs, and others lost their moms to euthanasia, a gun, or a car. The cubs eat about a ton of fruit a week. Once they're big enough, they'll hibernate near Sunlight Mountain and move to snow dens by snowmobile in February.

What else is going on

Snowmass Village's wildfire defense means thinning 9,000 acres around town, a $25 million job mapped by Vanderbilt modeling.

Utah and Colorado top the forecast for an early November storm that could leave 12 to 24 inches up high.

Texas climber Annie Sanders, 19, clinched the 2026 World Climbing Series women's lead title on a five-gold season.

Colorado's Prop 137 fight is lopsided: about $5 million spent for the wildfire and conservation measure, $6,300 against.

Three Russian climbers are retreating from Everest's West Ridge again, coughing and drained after a steep push toward 7,500 meters.

Mount Shasta's 19 rescues in 2026 are about twice normal, and most trace to late starts and ignored noon turnarounds.

📚 Trailhead Trivia

Moltzan just got her first World Cup win. Which American man holds the U.S. men's record for World Cup wins?

⚡ Share The Stoke

THE STOKE REPORT is a quick, no-fluff newsletter built for mountain lovers, adventure seekers, and those who enjoy a little Type 2 fun!

If you know someone like that, forward this email or send them to thestokereport.com. Thanks for spreading THE STOKE — it seriously means a lot!

If you ever have ideas, tips, or stories worth sharing, reply to this email. I'd love to hear from you.

Subscribe to THE STOKE REPORT

Answer!

Bode Miller, with 33. He's the only American man to win World Cup races in all five disciplines (downhill, super-G, GS, slalom, and combined), and he took the overall title in 2005 and 2008.