Words: Trevor Husted 2017-10-30 16:40:49
Riding weekends near Salt Lake City, UT can be hectic. A large population of powder-seekers, long lines, powder panic and augmented weekend ticket prices can cause undue anxiety. Yet on a brisk Saturday morning in February, I stepped onto six inches of fresh snow at Powder Mountain in no hurry. The general manager was helping a resort employee chop out the steps to the modest Timberline Lodge, and the mountain’s marketing manager, Jean-Pierre Goulet, greeted me with a smile, despite the lack of lift lines. He had no stress for a dearth of customers—he was smiling because these laid-back vibes are by design.
That wasn’t always the case. But in 2013, the Summit Group (TSG) bought Powder Mountain. Cofounded in 2008 by five young entrepreneurs, this group has moved forward with the intention to reinvent the place using a new mold.
The Summit Group’s core values come from a community-based structure addressing global issues, environmentalism, artistic achievement, activism and entrepreneurship in a string of conferences and events hosted around the world known as the Summit Series. Driven by sustainable development, TSG focuses on slow growth and preserving the environment through low-impact, organic building. The strategy stands in opposition to the prioritization of large-scale, high-end real estate often found at North American resorts.
Powder Mountain is outside of Ogden, about 55 minutes northeast of Salt Lake City. It’s always been known for its down-to-earth feel, hidden outside the limelight of the other more recognizable resorts east of SLC. For 2016/2017, they expanded rideable terrain to 8,464 acres. They offer a gated-but-controlled powder run down to a road served by school buses and inbounds cat skiing, with everything from a single run to a full-day package. All this controlled terrain makes Powder Mountain one of the largest areas in the United States, but they’ve also capped their $79 lift tickets at 1,500 per day to curb crowding. With an average of 500-plus inches of snow a year, this means the supply of powder can meet the demand, and untracked turns last a little longer into the weekend.
Goulet has been with Powder Mountain for nine years, and speaks to the nontraditional approach of TSG. “The positive thing about the Summit Group is, while they want to develop [Powder Mountain] a little bit, they really respect the land and want to keep the vibe, the ma-and-pa feel, without overdeveloping.”
What that means is creating a village with 500 homes over three phases, with limits on home size and density to preserve open spaces. Although this may seem like a lot of real estate, Goulet feels Powder Mountain will be able to retain its down-home vibe. “With the capping of our passes and ticket limits, we can’t overgrow,” he says, “We really want to focus on it being a community resort.”
The vision is to have Powder Mountain serve as a spot for TSG’s exclusive gatherings of forward-thinking entrepreneurs in a four-season milieu. And while it may contain a certain essence of high-brow post-millennial utopianism, the immediate result for day-tripping riders is more powder to go around.
As we stepped out of a snowcat to a fresh blanket of snow, Goulet began strapping into a handcrafted snowsurf shape. It was, perhaps, emblematic of the vibe TSG is trying to create at Powder Mountain.
“It’s a new type of project concentrated on art and having different cultures meet on top of a mountain,” Goulet said. “It essentially brings people together from all over, and is a special place to check out for the beauty alone.”
And if fresh powder isn’t beautiful, I’m not sure what is.
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