Tom Fortune discusses managing Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Mountain Resort

Extra broadly, the early period of mom-and-pop operations has given solution to what some describe as a company arms race to scoop up ski areas and roll them into nationwide go packages like Vail Resorts’ Epic, which Heavenly is a part of, and Alterra Mountain Co.’s Ikon. These are likely to funnel excessive volumes of skiers to particular resorts when the snow is nice in a single area, and complaints about lengthy raise strains and ski site visitors are louder than ever.

Snowboarding is steeped in custom, however the pandemic compelled a rethinking of norms and a modernization of enterprise practices. Whereas ski areas have embraced modifications to their operations, some capital enhancements bespeak the strain Tahoe resorts really feel to maintain tempo with developments at snowboarding locations throughout the West and even overseas (see Palisades Tahoe’s new $65 million mountain gondola).

In lots of respects, Heavenly is on the heart of those dynamics, and Fortune helps steer its future. Not solely does he handle Heavenly straight, he additionally oversees Northstar and Kirkwood as vp and chief working officer of the Tahoe area for Vail Resorts, the business goliath that owns 41 ski resorts all over the world. He additionally serves as chair of the business affiliation Ski California and sits on the board of the Lake Tahoe Guests Authority.

Fortune, who grew up close to Stevens Move Ski Resort in Washington and has lived in South Lake Tahoe for 13 years, is a lifer. He met his spouse at a ski space. The couple raised their three youngsters at ski areas, and all three now work for ski areas within the West — and can little question elevate their very own households at ski areas.

“That is my forty fourth ski season. I’ve seen all of it,” mentioned Fortune, seated behind his workplace desk at Heavenly. “I say that, and now one thing bizarre will occur.”

He shortly knocked on wooden — the behavior of a person whose enterprise is topic to Mom Nature’s mysterious rhythms.

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Inside Heavenly’s dispatch heart, a cavernous area with a single porthole in a single wall for air flow, Fortune and two operators seemed over six screens feeding data on climate forecasts and chairlift operations. The workplace is the resort’s brainstem: it fields emergency calls, coordinates rescues, communicates with ski patrol and displays each facet of the mountain.

“Just about something that must be dealt with comes by way of right here,” Fortune mentioned.

The ten-week spate of unceasing climate that subsided in mid-January made for a difficult begin to winter for all of Tahoe’s 10 main resorts. At Heavenly, excessive winds and heavy snow, in addition to a 2-day energy outage, grounded the resort’s centerpiece gondola, which picks up skiers in downtown South Lake Tahoe, for all however a number of days through the busy vacation season. When it shuts down, it successfully bifurcates Heavenly into two small resorts — one in Nevada, one in California — severely limiting skier mobility.

In these instances, Heavenly will get an earful from annoyed skiers on social media. Some are cynical concerning the accuracy with which ski areas report the happenings on their mountains; they consider resorts exaggerate snow depths and conceal raise closures for worry of dissuading potential clients.

Below Fortune, Heavenly has grow to be vigilant about posting moment-by-moment updates to Twitter and Instagram on raise operations and mountain situations. Generally Fortune addresses commenters straight on the platforms. That type of transparency is turning into the norm, particularly at bigger resorts that typically draw a number of thousand skiers a day.

“Visitors are happier once they know what’s happening, even when it’s not excellent news,” Fortune mentioned. “It’s a superb route to be heading, as an business.”

Leaving the workplace, Fortune stopped at a poster printout of the Caldor Fireplace burn zone tacked to the wall. “This brings again some recollections,” he mentioned.

A yr and a half in the past, Caldor burned 222,000 acres within the Sierra and got here inside a quarter-mile of Heavenly. Through the top of the blaze, South Lake Tahoe was evacuated for 3 weeks. Cal Fireplace staged its incident command in Heavenly’s car parking zone, whereas the resort ran its snowmaking weapons around the clock to stave off an ember ignition. Fortune decamped to a resort at Northstar in Truckee and coordinated protection from there.

Having hundreds of firefighters at Heavenly “was type of reassuring,” he mentioned. “I actually consider our snowmaking saved the hearth from burning the entire mountain.”

The ski business broadly acknowledges local weather change as an impediment to enterprise however has stopped wanting recognizing it because the existential menace to the exercise some consultants make it out to be. Fortune is optimistic that resorts can survive in the event that they refill on snowmaking gear and develop their summertime choices to vacationers as Heavenly has with its year-round gondola and gravity-powered on-mountain curler coaster.

“Over the course of my 44 years, winter was once actually constant,” Fortune mentioned. “Now, we’re having to study to deal in extremes all yr lengthy.

“Know-how will enable us to maneuver alongside, however I don’t consider local weather change goes away,” he mentioned. “It’s actual, and it’s type of scary.”