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Radical dreams for the New Year – re-inventing the resort experience

"The real magic of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." – Marcel Proust Sigh. Another year. Another short paddle down the mighty Chronos River. Some of us grew from the experience. Some of us just got older.
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"The real magic of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

– Marcel Proust

Sigh. Another year. Another short paddle down the mighty Chronos River. Some of us grew from the experience. Some of us just got older. But no one remained the same.

Know what I mean? Time is like that. One moment you're young (and talented and successful and sexy) and the next, well... let's just say you're not so young anymore.

But enough lugubrious musings. In honour of this being the first Alta States of the New Year, I've decided to step out a little. My story this week is set in the future — 2022 to be precise — and it's a tale about a reluctant ski entrepreneur who travelled back to the past to create a fulfilling future. Read on:

They said it couldn't be done. That I was crazy to even envision such a project. But I was convinced it would work. Call me contrary. Or cussed. Or stiff-necked even. Whatever. I've never taken kindly to being told I can't do something. So I decided to let the experts' mewling and idea bashing simply wash over me like a spring shower before a sunny day. In other words, I ignored them.

You see, I was convinced that the ski resort business had lost its way. Seemed to me that we'd gotten carried away with "technology" and forgotten all about "experience." It's like my old friend Eldon Beck used to say: "What we're seeing in modern culture is how much our high-tech 'stuff' is drawing people away from nature."

And that's exactly what I objected to. The old boys in the business all seemed to have their heads stuck up each other's butts. Their pro-stuff argument just didn't make sense to me. The only thing that their fancy high-tech lifts and million-dollar grooming machines and stupidly-expensive snow-making systems had succeeded in doing was to draw people away from the simple, magical, wonderful sensation of sliding over snow in winter time. And I meant to put that right.

Besides, the world had changed dramatically. The Great Recession of '08 seemed to have recalibrated a lot of people's souls. Suddenly they started looking for authenticity in their experiences. They wanted activities they could share with family members. They wanted to reconnect — in an honest way — with their natural environment.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. While the media seemed enthralled with the fattening of the population, a counter trend was all but ignored in those years. You see, at the other end of the lifestyle spectrum, people were getting way fitter. I mean if 7,000 cyclists can pedal their bikes from Vancouver to Whistler during a one-day Fondo event, surely we're seeing something of a fitness revolution here. And that, I was also convinced, would change the way people would seek to interact with their favourite mountain terrain. More variety, more self-propelled options, less on-hill management: This, I thought, is what these new outgoing, active participants would want.

Unfortunately that was getting harder and harder to find at modern ski resorts. Spurred on by Whistler's short-term success as an international destination, entrepreneurs across B.C. started building their own techno-heavy, Intradisney mountain villages. Sun Peaks, Kicking Horse, Revelstoke — they all followed the same model. And they all struggled.

Meanwhile, I was looking in the other direction. I wanted to build something simple, something honest, something real. In other words, I wanted to build an old-fashioned ski hill where the mountain experience was king; where customers weren't bankrupted after buying a day-ticket; where guests felt like partners in the adventure rather than shills at a carnival. So I did my research. I read about the old days. Studied the way ski clubs were formed and how they grew and eventually evolved into the first modest commercial ski hills. And finally I had my answer.

But first I travelled down to Silverton in Colorado to check out a similar ski-hill dream. While Jen and Aaron Brill's mountain project isn't exactly like the one I had envisioned for Sea-to-Sky country, it was close enough to give me hope. Essentially, the Brill's were inspired by early ski pioneers to build a no-frills operation on a 13,000-foot peak where sliding on snow is the sole attractor. No posh hotels, no five-star restaurants – no rock stars or Hollywood wannabe's or fur-coated debutantes. At Silverton it's all about riding. And it works. While the Brill's will probably never become millionaires, I didn't get the feeling that that was a big deal. The richness of their lifestyle, they told me, was good enough for them.

I returned to Canada convinced that a slightly modified version could work here too. I was imbued with a zeal that sneered at red tape, a damn-the-torpedoes enthusiasm that dared any bureaucrat to try and stop me.

And that, pretty much, is how the Cloudburst Mountain Ski Club was created. Given its success in recent years, I won't bore you with the arcane details of how I convinced Victoria to overlook the province's All Season Resort Development Guidelines and grant me a "variance." Suffice to say that I spent many hundreds of hours wooing bureaucrats and seducing politicians. I built graphs and wrote stories; quoted experts and offered case studies. It was touch and go there for a while. But in the end they bought into my vision.

But then what? I now had permission to go ahead with the pilot project. But I still had to find the shekels to build my dream. And that wouldn't be easy. Once again I was inspired by the country's early ski club stories. What if I could convince 1,000 people to each invest $1,000 in the project? You know, kind of like club initiation fees. It would be the first real test of my ideas. I mean, were there really 1,000 people out there who shared my dream? Who were searching for the same kind of mountain experience I was?

Seems like a no-brainer now. But ten years ago? I just didn't know.

And it was slow going at first. So I wrote more letters. Created more stories — went on radio and TV, became something of an online evangelist for the cause. And I was rewarded for my efforts. The trickle of support quickly turned into a stream of enthusiasts and finally became a flood of fanatics. And I soon had my seed-money.

It's funny now, you know. As I look around at what the Cloudburst Club has created over the last few years, I have to remind myself just how hard I had to work — how many tears I shed — to get the damn thing off the ground. Thank goodness, I'd kept my plan simple...

What you see here today, in 2022, is pretty much what I envisioned a decade ago. Our family-friendly day-lodge — constructed from re-cycled Whistler building material and locally logged lumber — is like a throwback to a bygone age. In fact, it's more a community centre than a modern ski lodge. Posters and pictures and topo maps and various memorabilia — old skis, boots, etc — grace the walls. Hand-made picnic tables cover the floor area. A modest concession stand in the corner sells coffee and hot chocolate and home-baked cookies and cakes. Nothing fancy. Nothing special. Just a functional base camp for high-mountain adventures. And people love it!

As any member of the club knows, it's the atmosphere inside that really sets this place apart. There's a sense of social connectedness in the day-lodge that is palpable. Big and little kids roll around the place like they own it. Moms, dads — grandparents even — they all seem comfortable here. Like they belong.

But in the end, it's the physical plant that really draws the riders to Cloudburst. Who would have thought that a ski hill with just one slow, four-seater chairlift (and no groomed or marked runs) would become such a success story? Frankly, I'm still scratching my head on that one.

Fortunately, I picked the right mountain for my project. You see the idea was to get riders into Cloudburst's stunning high country as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Unlike other mountain resorts, the chairlift wouldn't be used for yo-yo riding. It would be used, primarily, for access; the idea being that people would then don climbing skins and continue up the mountain under their own steam. That's why we could ignore the crushingly expensive high-tech, high-speed chairlift models of today. Old school, fixed-grip technology would work just fine for us.

And you know what? People constantly marvel at how restful they find our lift.

Still, I think the most significant part of my plan for Cloudburst was my conviction that people were increasingly interested in venturing further off the beaten path — as long as there was a safety net. So one of the club's biggest investments was on safety personnel. You know, hiring a strong team of experienced pro-patrollers who can handle avalanche-control work and on-mountain injuries and sundry mishaps. People in the business rolled their eyes when they saw my business plan. But now they're racing to copy it!

So there you go. A new model. A new snowsliding adventure. While Whistler-Blackcomb struggles to define itself for this new age, Cloudburst is thriving! Why? Because the club's executive is committed to simple mountain living. Go figure...