One Two Ski: Elevated Entrepreneurs

Such an amazing first week in Sun Peaks! Fresh snow every other day (77cm this week), lots of cheerful conversations on chairlifts, joined a few different groups of new friends for skiing and socializing, and feel like we’re starting to get our ski legs after spending nine days out of ten on the slopes. Simon’s favourite run is rather appropriately called Mid Life Crisis off Morrissey Chairlift and we both love Spillway for its steep section of bumps. But we've discovered the West Bowl (above) and looks like there is going to be huge variety there!

One of our new friends is Steve (left), from the Toronto area and owner of an apartment in Hearthstone Lodge. With his wife, Sandra, he’s a regular in Sun Peaks, taking a week at Christmas and then returning for several more separate weeks throughout the season. Sporting his 25-year-old Spyder suit, he gets attention from all the young lifties who admire its vintage look. “It’s still perfect and really warm,” he says. “It cost $1200 at the time, same price as my truck back then!” While the truck has long ago expired, he’ll be rocking the retro Spyder for many seasons to come, I think. Definitely worth the investment and everyone knows him around the slopes for the vintage vibe.

We woke up on New Year’s Eve to 28cm of fresh and were champing at the bit at 8:20 at the Morissey lift (where the locals all throng on a powder morning). Three hours of ploughing the pow later, we returned exhausted but exhilarated for brunch. Power outages curtailed some of our plans later that day – trees falling on the power lines with all the heavy snow which had reached 40cm by then. The evening’s torchlight descents were cancelled (no lifts running) and so was the Big Air competition but the fireworks went ahead. What was difficult was to find anywhere in the village to eat or drink. Only three places have generators and one of those was on the blink – and all three places were full to bursting by 6:30pm when we ventured out. Had we gone just around the corner to Vertical Café we would have discovered LED lights and fondu sets which ended up feeding 80 people that night, many of whom sat outside (it was a warm evening and everyone was bundled up for the firework display). But we had fun anyway back at our condo, playing board games by romantic candlelight, our gas fire keeping us warm, plenty of cheese, chocolate and wine and we were able to get to bed early enough to be among the few earlybirds on the New Year’s Day slopes. Amazingly empty and tranquil that morning, we had the no-hangover advantage to be able to monopolize all that gorgeous snow. We’re gradually getting a handle on the layout of the 4270-acre resort (second largest ski area in Canada) but still rely heavily on local advice and guidance. And there’s still masses of terrain to explore even after a week of skiing.

Popped in for coffee next morning to Vertical Café where Rupert is now working. There we met owners Rob and Tanya O’Toole who I’ll be interviewing soon for an article in my ski entrepreneur series. Striding ahead of the rest of Sun Peaks, they specialize in vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free, organic and local for their most of their drinks and food. The savvy couple, who’ve lived and worked in Sun Peaks for many years, saw the trend in Squamish and brought their ideas to Vertical Café last February. They entered the annual Chili Cook-off with a vegan chili but didn’t tell people right away to see their reactions – no-one guessed it was meat-free. They came third in the competition and first in the chili and beer pairing category. A huge achievement for these newcomers in the fiercely fought competition between Sun Peaks finest restauranteurs.

Bumped in to Reuben and Morwena (right) from the UK on a chairlift the other day. They come from Worthing on the south coast, coincidentally just a few miles away from where we were born. Total beginners, they had arrived at Sun Peaks around five days before and were managing to ski the whole of Five Mile, taking their time, but getting down in 45 minutes. It was their kids who had taken the initiative and coaxed them down the first time! They had progressed enough after the first few days to take the Crystal Chair to the very top of the scenic range, and green runs dotted all over the resort were giving them an all-mountain high-altitude experience. Instead of staying in the village at this peak time of the year, they had rented a car and were staying with friends down in Kamloops, coming up to ski each day. “I don’t usually like driving on holiday,” said Reuben. “But as there are six of us it saved us a lot of money to stay down in the valley.” The only problem he had was on New Year’s Eve when the 28cm dump overnight meant that his vehicle couldn’t make it up the hill but the rental company allowed him to swap for a four-wheel drive for the rest of the stay which was far superior. Why Canadian rental companies don’t automatically provide everyone with four-wheel drive cars during winter has always baffled me!

Here’s the next blog in my series of Ski Entrepreneurs:

Glade Goggles - perfect in pow

Working Where you Want

Coworking spaces are on trend these days, especially in bucket-list locations like ski resorts. One of the first to set up collaborative workspace in the mountains was Elevate in Breckenridge which was set up three years ago. "It's right in downtown Breckenridge within walking distance to the Peak 9 base area," says co-founder, Amy Kemp who had previously tested the concept in Frisco. "It was launched by me and two other founders (James Lee and Dave Knell) in Breck."

The purpose behind the cooperative office was to offer mountain-based office facilities in a networking environment. "Elevate was the first coworking space in Summit County to provide a space and place for entrepreneurs, remote workers, innovative brands to come together and be more productive," Kemp describes. "We have a slew of coffee shops in town and those are fantastic places to eat, drink and meet, but often times they’re busy, loud and not conducive to networking or hosting a video conference call."

The trio also wanted Elevate to serve as a catalyst for helping to diversify the local economy and provide a community and innovation hub in Summit County: "We’re on a mission to make a more vibrant community where locals can live, work and play. We want more locals to have opportunities for careers - and higher paying jobs." There are plans to expand with announcements on the horizon.

Blue Challenger

New, Novel, Now....

This inspirational incubator for novel new businesses is now home to Glade Goggles – a goggle, helmet and accessory brand set up by Curt Nichols in early 2018. “We chose Breckenridge because we needed to hit three criteria: a vibrant ski town location, a coworking space for us to work out of, and reasonable proximity to Denver,” says Nichols. “As a ski brand, it was paramount to move our operations to a place where we could live and breathe skiing, and interact with our customer base on a daily basis. This allows us to create products collaboratively with our customers, create compelling content quickly and easily, and test out new gear before we push it out for sale.”

Glade Goggles

Curt skiing Six Senses Breckenridge

Testing Ground

The Breckenridge background is perfect for Nichols’ business with its mix of all types of skiers and snowboarders from top level pro athletes to first timers:

“It is the ideal product market fit testing ground”.

Merch includes frameless polarized lens goggles, goggle cases, neck tubes, hats, and t-shirts – everything described with powerful prose. For example, the bestseller - and award-winning - Challenger goggle is portrayed as: “A lethal fusion of unflinching durability and supreme comfort……. engineered to duck a few ropes and charge through the whiteout.

With cutting edge anti-fog and anti-scratch mirrored coatings, 100% UV protection, multiple lens options, and a double lens system, the Challenger goggle has you covered no matter what the mountain throws at you.”

Good Things, Small Packages

Outside the typical “big box” brands, Nichols believes that Glade Goggles is nourishing a national need: “Our aim is to create a more fair experience for skiers and snowboarders across the country. Our market is dominated by incumbent players who are all owned by parent companies and have no relationship with the vast majority of skiers and snowboarders.”

Orange Challenger

Mountain Messages

With more affordable goods, Glade is also able to provide simpler and more meaningful customer experiences, with products centered around community and strong narratives. “Somewhere along the way the message of skiing was lost, and we're here to bring it back,” he says. “Breck embodies this spirit of community, camaraderie, and adventure - the pillars of what we believe skiing is really about.”

Glade Goggles

Piste Partnerships

Using a wide array of marketing channels, Glade reaches customers via email and Instagram (@gladeoptics). “These are important ways for us to communicate our vision to our customers and open up dialogue with them,” he explains. Partnerships are also pivotal in advertising this elevated entreprise. “We have had ads on the Breck Free Ride bus, and partnered with local businesses to help spread the word as well. Last winter we partnered with Ski Butlers to offer same day delivery of our goggles anywhere in town.” Ski Butlers, which was launched by Bryn Carey from a Park City garage in 2004, is now operating in 48 ski resorts worldwide, changing the way skiers and snowboarders rent gear and reducing the luggage load for ski vacation travel. "We do try to use local vendors when possible and we have an extensive list of local partners at each location, which Steve could certainly expand on in terms of the Breckenridge and Vail markets," says Ski Butlers' spokesman Nikki Bongaerts. "We have five core values and one of them is to give back to our local communities." The company gets involved in community service and non-profits and prefers to support local businesses in each of their ski towns in acknowledgement of how they first started in Park City.

Glade Goggles

Multi Tasker

Nichols is now a skier but switched over from snowboarding a few years ago. The move from Denver has really facilitated improvements in his skiing performance and experience: “Breck is incredible because of the range of inbounds terrain, including some of the best high alpine stuff you can find anywhere on the continent. There is also close proximity to really high quality backcountry skiing and riding right here in our backyard. I ski about 100 days a year - year round!”

His take on the mountain lifestyle: “What's not to like – every day presents a new opportunity to scare yourself or do something you've never done before.”