⛰️ A new National Park?

Good morning, Stoke Crew. No witty opening today! Just some good news from the outdoor world that we live for and love :)

Hope you're all doing awesome and as always stay STOKED - Tyler

In today's report

• 💼 Ikon gets a new CEO
• 📈 Vail buyout continues
• 💰 Nederland needs $20M for Eldora
• 🏆 Asa wins the World Cup overall
• 🪨 A 64th national park? Almost.

Business

❄️ This week in the industry

💼 The Ikon Pass has a new boss. Alterra Mountain Company named Kelly Vohs CEO on October 5, and he starts October 19. He isn't a ski-industry lifer. Vohs is an ex-Green Beret who ran Blackstone-owned companies for over a decade.

• Hotels came before Blackstone. He ran the Waldorf Astoria Chicago and the Boca Raton Resort & Club as general manager, and he was the opening GM at the Conrad Chicago.
• His Blackstone run included the top job at LivCor, a Chicago apartment manager. Roughly 500 apartment complexes were his to run there. Most recently, he was CEO of the software company SafetyCulture.
• He's walking into a tough stretch. Jared Smith's exit took effect when last season ended. Since then, a board committee with former CEO Rusty Gregory has run the show, and Alterra recently cut some corporate jobs.
• There was talk of Alterra leaving Colorado. Instead, it's staying in Denver and moving into the old Denver Post building.

Why It Matters: Alterra's owners just hired an operator, not a ski-industry insider. That tracks for an investor-owned company coming off a terrible winter and a round of layoffs. Ikon is a massive network now, and the job is running it tighter without losing the stuff skiers actually care about.

📈 Oasis isn't done buying. The hedge fund now owns 9% of Vail Resorts, up from 7.4% a week earlier. Its September 29 filing counts 3,222,085 shares. The whole position cost Oasis about $456 million.

Quick beta on why that 9% gets attention. Once an investor owns more than 10% of a public company, federal securities law treats it as an insider. Trades have to be reported within two business days. Any profit from buying and selling inside six months can be clawed back by the company.

• The latest buying added about 600,000 more shares in a week, roughly $83 million worth.
• Oasis thinks Vail's stock price doesn't reflect what its 42 resorts are really worth. It wants Vail to look at selling some mountains. It's also pushing for changes to costs, the guest experience, and how Vail treats mountain towns.
• Only a handful of funds own more of Vail. Shareholders decide the board at Vail's annual meeting, and Vail hasn't put that on the calendar yet.

Why It Matters: Every Epic Pass holder has skin in this, even without owning a share. Oasis keeps hammering the guest experience and mountain-town relations, which are exactly what pass holders gripe about. Whoever controls the board shapes the lift lines, the food, and the price.

💰 Nederland needs $20 million to close on Eldora. The town of about 1,500 is still trying to buy Eldora for $120 million. Now it's asking donors for $20 million, and Colorado itself is the first funder the town has called.

Quick beta on why donors suddenly matter. The deal runs on revenue bonds, so investors get repaid only from the revenue that Eldora brings in. A thin winter is a risk, and after last season, they want more protection.

• The original purchase agreement expired April 30, and Powdr says it isn't obligated to sell. In an August 27 email to Gov. Jared Polis's chief of staff, Mayor Nichole Sterling said Powdr needed an answer fast so it wouldn't "put the mountain back out to market."
• The fix is a sale-leaseback deal. The investors' side would own the land and lifts on paper, and the town would rent them to run the mountain. If Eldora can't pay, investors still have the land to fall back on, not just ticket sales.
• The $20 million in donations would cover the upgrades: a summit lodge, a new Corona lift, summer operations, and a bigger Jolly Jug. That means less borrowing.
• The town has sunk about $2.5 million into lawyers and consultants, and that money's gone if the purchase falls apart. The town still hopes to close this season, with no firm date.

Why It Matters: Community-owned skiing lives and dies on financing. Revenue bonds put every bad winter straight onto the lenders, so of course they want collateral and a cushion.

Nederland's real problem is time, not money. Until there's a signed deal, Powdr holds the cards, and every month of delay makes it easier to shop the mountain somewhere else. Finding $20 million fast is the whole ballgame.

🔥 The STOKE VOTE

Biking

👑 Durango's World Cup king

🏆 Asa did it!! Durango's Asa Vermette owns the 2026 World Cup downhill title. He locked up the overall at the Lake Placid finale on Sunday, October 4. Aaron Gwin is the only other American man who's done it, and his last title came in 2017.

• He's a rookie, too. Only one other rider ever won the elite overall as a rookie, and that was Nicolas Vouilloz.
• It almost didn't happen. Asa crashed near the top of his first qualifying run and sat 55th, 12 seconds back. He had to sneak into the final through round two.
• Asa finished eighth in the final for 1,442 points and a 66-point margin.
• He won the opener in South Korea, his first elite race ever. Then he won again at Whistler the weekend before Lake Placid. Last season, he was second in the junior standings.

Why It Matters: Since Gwin's last title in 2017, the overall has gone to everybody but Americans. Now a 19-year-old from Durango has it, and he did it as a rookie. This puts U.S. downhill biking on the map, and the kid is just getting started!

Environment

⛰️ A new National Park?

🪨 Rock on! Chiricahua National Monument in southeast Arizona is in line for a promotion to national park. Senators passed it without a single objection on September 30, and now it waits on President Trump. A signature makes it Arizona's fourth, and number 64 in the country.

Quick beta on what changes. Chiricahua is already a Park Service site, so this is mostly a name upgrade. The boundary doesn't budge from about 12,000 acres. Willcox and Cochise County are counting on the park label to draw a bigger crowd.

• Calvin Coolidge protected it in 1924. Think volcanic spires and balanced boulders on a sky island between two deserts, the Chihuahuan and the Sonoran.
• The catch is staffing. The Park Service has shed more than 4,000 jobs (lame!) since Trump's second term began, and the White House wants about $736 million cut from park operations for fiscal 2027 (also lame!).
• Chiricahua is already feeling it. Three of its projects sit on Interior's "low priority" list, including emergency mold work in staff homes. Meanwhile, $16 million is headed toward a blue paint job for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Why It Matters: A public lands bill sailing through the Senate with zero objections feels rare these days, and that's worth celebrating. But a park is only as good as the people who run it. Congress is handing the Park Service a bigger name to live up to, with fewer rangers to do it.

📚 Trailhead Trivia

Colorado has four national parks. Can you name them all?

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Answer!

Rocky Mountain National Park

Mesa Verde National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park