F Vail

tirolski said:
There’s acreage there. How much has snowmaking available?
Is there enough snow to spread out the Holiday masses?
It doesn’t take as much snow if folks are mostly standing in lift lines though.
Fails repair shops might even get some extra business too.
Click to expand...
Vail has 700+ acres snowmaking. That's ~15% of acreage while Vail is currently 70% open. The current 32 inch base is on the low side and could be stressed by holiday traffic in busy areas. I wouldn't go there during the holidays but its Summit County competitors have bases of 21-25 inches and are less than half open so will clearly be much worse. Lift lines are surely also worse in Summit County, see stat #4 above. And yes if I were going anywhere in Colorado next week I'd take my rock skis.

The farther you get from Denver, the more the crowds ease off. Beaver Creek and the Aspen areas may ski better even in low tide due to lower skier density.
 
Vail the mountain was founded by 10th Mountain Division veteran Pete Siebert in 1962. Many ski resorts grew organically out of existing mining towns or summer resorts. Vail, like Mammoth, Snowbird and Whistler, was developed from scratch explicitly due to its snowfall and terrain attributes as a ski area.

Vail evolved gradually into its current 800 pound gorilla. George Gillett was the owner starting 1985, immediately put in 4 high speed quads, kicking off that widespread process in the ski industry. Gillett's main business was radio stations. He got overleveraged and went bankrupt in 1997. Vail was then his most valuable asset, had to sell it to Apollo Management to pay off other debts.

Presumably Vail's first major purchase of Breck and Keystone in 1997 was by Apollo. Apollo spun off Vail as an independent company in 2003 with Apollo executive Rob Katz in charge. As most of us know, Katz oversaw Vail's massive expansion as a publicly traded company since then.
 
TonyC said:
Vail evolved gradually into its current 800 pound gorilla. George Gillett... got overleveraged and went bankrupt in 1997. Vail was then his most valuable asset, had to sell it to Apollo Management to pay off other debts.

Presumably Vail's first major purchase of Breck and Keystone in 1997 was by Apollo. Apollo spun off Vail as an independent company in 2003 with Apollo executive Rob Katz in charge.
Click to expand...
gobreck.com

Breckenridge Ski Resort History

Breckenridge Ski Resort is a world-renowned winter destination for skiers and riders, but it wasn't always that way. Breckenridge's humbling beginnings
gobreck.com gobreck.com
For some reason they don’t mention Apollo. 🤔
Guess they let a few chapters 11 out.
www.vaildaily.com

A look back at Leon Black and Apollo Ski Company’s acquisition of Vail Mountain

Leon Black, known locally as the founder of the company that would become the modern Vail Resorts, has been the subject of much national news in recent months.
www.vaildaily.com www.vaildaily.com
 
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The detail Apollo article states the Gillet bankruptcy and Apollo takeover was in 1991. That makes sense, because that's the time frame a lot of the Drexel junk bonds blew up.
 
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