Love for Smuggs

[Benny Profane]

Stuart did a podcast with Bill Stritzler, the long time current owner of Smuggs.

November 2021

Podcast #63: Smugglers’ Notch Owner Bill Stritzler

Listen now | Why New England's largest remaining independent ski area is one of its best

www.stormskiing.com

It's a family business. Of course, so were Triple Peaks and Peak Resorts before VR made offers that were too good to turn down.

William P. Stritzler
Owner and managing director
Bill has been with Smugglers' Notch since 1987 and purchased the resort in 1996. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Stritzler was employed by AT&T from 1973-1986 and held a number of senior marketing positions before becoming Corporate Vice President in charge of mergers, acquisitions and new business ventures, reporting to AT&Ts President. From 1960-74 he was employed with Wells Fargo & Company in San Francisco where he was a Vice President of the bank and President of the information system subsidiary. Most recently Bill received the Vermont Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year Award for 2016!

Lisa M. Howe
President
Lisa joined her father, Bill Stritzler, and the Smugglers’ team in 2002. She is responsible for Marketing, IT, HR, Quality Assurance and Owner Contracts. Lisa holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago where she studied Economics. Prior to joining Smuggs she was a business consultant and marketing director in the United States, Japan and Europe.

Retirement and legacy trust fund setting up.

If the gondola happens, RE over in that Smuggs condo development and further out will be a good buy.

 

[Harvey]

Do you mean Smuggs or Pico? I've spent a day at each during northeast ski trips between 2015 and 2019. Happened to luck out and ski powder those days. Good fun to be had in the trees with soft snow.

I've skied Smuggs. Hate to see it connected to Vail.

I haven't skied Pico. Hate to see it connected to Vail.

 

[MC2]

I've skied Smuggs. Hate to see it connected to Vail.

I haven't skied Pico. Hate to see it connected to Vail.

Seems like you have already done the one that’s further away so the other one should be easy. Pico is cool.

Go on a snowy Tuesday for one of the best kinds of skiing: touring, on the nicely manicured trails of a closed ski area, with lots of fun, like-minded people, but without the hassle of lifts & crowds.

 

[x10003q]

There are only a couple of ways this connection happens -

The most obvious is if Smuggs ownership gets the price they want from Vail and sells to Vail. Vail would then have to replace the doubles on Madonna and Sterling (at a minimum) with high speed lifts.
The other way this happens is if Smuggs ownership resurrects the Act 250 6pack plan that might have been approved in 2005 to replace the double on Sterling and eventually file an Act 250 plan to replace the double on Madonna with some kind of high speed lift in order to service the hordes coming over the mountain from Stowe.

It is funny how this finally became public.

 

[MarzNC]

The source article linked in the Liftblog entry is worth a read.

June 1, 2023

Connector lift eyed for Stowe, Smugglers’ Notch resorts

A new gondola-style connector lift is being planned for Stowe Mountain Resort’s Spruce Peak and Smugglers’ Notch Resort’s Sterling Mountain, documents provided by the resorts to the Vermont Agency of

www.vtcng.com

 

[raisingarizona]

If?

Hahaha!

I think it’s basically already done.

 

[SayvilleSteve]

I think it’s basically already done.

Sadly I am of the same mind. And I think it's both: the gondola and Epic.

 

[raisingarizona]

Sadly I am of the same mind. And I think it's both: the gondola and Epic.

It absolutely is.

Things change. That’s life. I don’t ski out east so I don’t have any personal feelings about this. I don’t get hung up on things like this at all to be honest. I think Taos is about to change a lot as well. It seems to be gaining popularity and on more folks radars now since a lot of the other cool places are becoming more crowded. Ski areas are businesses so I don’t think we should expect them to not make moves that improve their profitability. It seems like Smuggs has been in need of improvements for a good long while. Regardless of our feelings about change at that resort the old infrastructure is going to need replacements and upgrades and that costs money.

 

[SayvilleSteve]

The infrastructure improvements will be welcome at Smuggs, for sure. If it ended at faster chairs and a few more people that would be fine. I fear that it could become way too overcrowded and commercialized like Stowe or new management could truly run it into the ground like Epic seems to be doing with Hunter. But those changes are still a couple of seasons away and I'll certainly be skiing there this winter. And who knows, maybe this will alleviate some of the problems at Stowe and make it skiable* again.

*I am unfortunately a mostly weekend skier, especially that far north.

 

[Campgottagopee]

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