🏔️ USFS hands off the Maroon Bells

Good morning, Stoke Crew. Hope everyone had a nice weekend. THE STOKE REPORT recently partnered with the nonprofit Friends of Berthoud Pass, which supports free backcountry avalanche education and plenty of other good causes in the Berthoud Pass area. They're hosting an event on November 12, and you can see more below. Hope you can be there. Cheers!

Stay STOKED - Tyler

In today's report

• 🏔️ Pitkin County gets the Bells
• 🎬 Friends of Berthoud Pass event
• 🎿 An FWT Final lands at Snowbird
• 🚠 Aspen chairlift goes to battery
• ❄️ Vail proxy fight update

Public Lands

🌲 Pitkin County takes the Maroon Bells

🏔️ The Bells have a new manager. On Oct. 30, forest officials approved a five-year permit that puts Pitkin County in charge of the Maroon Bells Scenic Area. The Forest Service keeps the land and signs off on the county's plan every year. What the county takes on is the road, the campgrounds, and the trails visitors actually use.

• The Forest Service has been losing more than $300,000 a year on the place. The county will put at least 18% of revenue back into the Bells rather than pay it to the feds. "This is not about revenue generation," said Gary Tennenbaum, who runs Pitkin County Open Space and Trails.
• Expect to pay more. The county floated $33 a night to camp (up from $15) and a $30 vehicle day-use fee (up from $10).
• Back in September, the Forest Service said this decision would go through as a categorical exclusion, a fast-track that avoids a full environmental study. Pushback from conservation groups got a 15-day comment period added. Critics at the Center for Western Priorities and Wilderness Workshop still think Pitkin can handle the job.
• Next up is the 2027 operating plan. Staffing levels and a game plan for the backlog are both on the county's to-do list.

Why It Matters: Pitkin County stepping up keeps the Bells in public hands. The sad story is that the Forest Service can't afford to run one of the most popular places in Colorado. Tennenbaum has said "one day, the county could give this back" if federal funding improves. Driving or camping at the Bells will cost more. The upside is that the money stays at the Bells, aimed at trails, campgrounds, and a repair list that's been piling up for years. That's a better deal than watching the place fall apart or go to private management.

Partnerships

🎿 Ski Berthoud Pass? This night is for you!

🎬🍺 Beacons & Brews is back for year two! Friends of Berthoud Pass is taking over Denver's Oriental Theater on Thursday, November 12 for a night of community-made backcountry films, a short avalanche safety talk, a fundraising raffle, and a round of sponsor films to close it out. Last year's debut sold out to a crowd of 500 and became the biggest fundraiser the nonprofit has ever had!

The films come from the community. After last winter's rough snow year, they asked people to send in 90-second to 5-minute clips of making the best of a bad season. Skiing, boarding, sledding, ice climbing, whatever got you out there. The crowd picks "Best of the Fest" by applause, so bring your loudest friends.

• Where your money goes: Friends of Berthoud Pass has run free avalanche education on the Front Range since 2004, with classroom talks and on-snow sessions taught by volunteer instructors. Raffle proceeds keep those classes free and help keep access to the pass open.
• The raffle: Win some sick gear from brands like Rab, Flylow, La Sportiva, Weston, Stio, and more!
• The details: Doors at 6:30 PM, films at 7:30 PM. All ages, bar with ID. Tickets are about $21 and comes with one free raffle ticket. Additional raffle tickets are available for purchase at the venue. The Oriental Theater, Denver. See you all there!

Why It Matters: A lot of Front Range skiers and riders learned the basics of avalanche safety in a free FOBP class. One night at the Oriental helps keep those classes free for the next crew coming up. It's also a solid way to get fired up for the season and meet some cool like-minded people. Yeeeew!

🎟️ Grab tickets here!!!

Skiing

🏔️ Freeride stop in Utah

🎿 Snowbird is hosting an FWT Final this season. The YETI Snowbird Pro has a weather window of March 16-22 on Mount Baldy. It's the Tour's first stop at the Bird since 2014.

• The marquee zone is Baldy's Amphitheater. Freeride coach and former Tour rider Andrew Pollard says it ends in "15 to 40 foot airs out the bottom." He added that "the coolest part about it is it's right in front of the crowd."
• FWT CEO Nicolas Hale-Woods has the numbers to back a U.S. stop. Americans make up nearly half of the roughly 11,000 licensed freeride competitors, a count that includes juniors and qualifiers. Yet most stops are in Europe. He wants the Tour "Not only in Alaska, but in the heart of where riders come from."
• Freeride's Olympic debut comes in 2030 in the French Alps. Whether it gets a Utah stage in 2034 is still up to the International Olympic Committee.

Why It Matters: For years, the comp side of freeride has been centered in Europe while a huge share of its riders live in the United States. Putting a final at Snowbird, with U.S. Ski & Snowboard co-presenting, gives American freeride a home stage right as the sport heads into the Olympics.

🚠 Snowmass's Elk Camp chairlift has a backup battery that pulls double duty. It keeps the six-pack spinning through an outage, then helps the local utility after the lifts close. Aspen Snowmass announced it on Oct. 29 and says no chairlift had a battery backup before this one.

• The battery puts out 900 kilowatts, a step down from the 1,250-kW generator it took over for. The resort says the swap avoids about 144 tons of CO2 a year.
• After 4 p.m., the lift is done for the day but the battery isn't. Holy Cross Energy can tap its stored power to cover demand peaks. Holy Cross gets 92% of its power from renewables, and those peaks are where it still leans on non-renewable sources.

Why It Matters: There are thousands of chairlifts across the country, and every one of them needs a plan for when the power goes out. If more of them end up on batteries, that's a lot of diesel that never gets burned or hauled up a mountain. Stoked to see it here in Colorado!

💼 Ron Baron is voting with Vail. Baron Capital, the firm he founded, owns about 18% of Vail, and it'll back the company's own slate of board nominees at the Dec. 14 meeting. Baron says that under CEO Rob Katz, Vail "has the right strategy to return to sustainable earnings growth."

Quick refresher. Activist investor Oasis owns about 9.6% of Vail and is running its own picks for the board. Vail says two of them came to the fund through Matthew Prince. He's the Cloudflare CEO who wants to buy Park City Mountain.

• On Oct. 30, Oasis dropped those two, Picabo Street and Bryce Roberts. Former Disney CEO Robert Chapek is still running, and so is M. Ashton Hudson.
• A settlement is on the table. Oasis founder Seth Fischer reached out to Katz about one on Oct. 22, and four days later the two sides signed a confidentiality agreement so they could talk about a deal to call off the board fight.
• Share counts are frozen for this vote. Whatever anyone held on the Oct. 19 record date is what they get to vote.

Why It Matters: This fight is really about what Vail should be. One side wants a single network of 42 resorts, and Oasis has floated selling some mountains. What are your thoughts?

🔥 The STOKE VOTE

What else is going on

Sage Cattabriga-Alosa will run Natural Selection's ski tour as its new director, taking over from Mike Douglas.

Diesel above $6 a gallon is raising resorts' snowcat grooming bills, and pass prices could feel it next season.

Valle Nevado skis into December, a first for the Chilean resort, with 24-plus feet of snow fueling a record season.

A National Guard Black Hawk hoisted a hypothermic hiker off Colorado's Four Pass Loop after a night in hip-deep snow.

Jimmy Chin's Everest film follows Jim Morrison's first North Face ski descent.

📚 Trailhead Trivia

Half Dome shows up on a U.S. coin, next to a famous naturalist. Which coin is it, and who's the naturalist?

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Answer!

The 2005 California state quarter, with John Muir!