In August, Neptune Mountaineering will launch “Second Send,” selling pre-owned mountaineering apparel, footwear, camping and skiing equipment. A gear buy-back program will start in mid-August with sellers paid in cash or store credit. That inventory will go on sale Labor Day weekend.

“We’re talking about it as a used gear ecosystem, because there is still so much life left in some of the high-quality goods that our industry puts out,” said store owner Maile Spung.

The store was founded in 1973 by Gary Neptune, a Boulder mountaineer with several major ascents to his credit, including Mount Everest. He sold the store when he retired in 2013, and there were two intervening owners before Spung took over in 2021. She also owns the Ute Mountaineer in Aspen, which, like Neptune, is a legacy store.

Neptune won’t be the only second-hand mountaineering shop in the metro area. Others include Feral mountain gear in Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood and Wilderness Exchange near downtown in LoHi.

“There are a lot of economic factors that are at play, in that everything is getting more expensive in our consumers’ lives,” Spung said. “We really want to make sure we’re lowering the barrier to entry. We believe everyone should have access to the outdoors.”

Another factor at play is uncertainty over tariffs placed on gear manufactured overseas.

“Every couple of days we’re getting emails from our vendors about price increases,” Spung said. “Even with the uncertainty around the tariffs, the vendors are building in price increases to protect themselves. Unfortunately, that passes along to the consumer.”

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Jared Hedges, 48, was originally arrested on March 21 at Taos Ski Valley and was charged with sexually assaulting a member of Team Summit Colorado, a youth ski club at Copper Mountain that focuses on developing young athletes.

The team had been visiting the ski area and several team members were staying in cabins with coaches. The preteen skier, whom The Denver Post is not identifying, said Hedges groped and assaulted him after the boy laid down to sleep.

Prosecutors dropped the charges against Hedges in April to allow for additional investigation of the case. A grand jury returned an indictment on two felony charges Wednesday, said Joseph Casados, a spokesman for the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in New Mexico.

Hedges did not return a request for comment Monday. He served as head coach for the team’s alpine racing program for skier under 14 until his arrest in March.

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Arapahoe Basin’s ski season is scheduled to close on June 15, but some skiers and riders won’t be putting away their gear for the summer.

Copper Mountain’s Summer Hike Park, a terrain park open through the summer, is scheduled to open on Friday. The park will have about a dozen rail features and will be open Fridays through Sundays into September. Day passes will be priced at $25. A season pass goes for $199.

Resort crews build the park by pushing leftover snow from adjacent slopes on top of remaining snow just above the Center Village. Skiers and riders will hike a short distance to access the park.

Arapahoe Basin suspended weekday operations last Sunday, but it will reopen this weekend, Friday through Sunday. On Tuesday, spokeswoman Shayna Silverman said June 8 was the scheduled closing date while leaving open the possibility that another weekend would be added if conditions allowed. On Wednesday, she announced a new closing date of June 15.

“Considering our (weather) forecast and conditions, June 15 will be our last day of the season without further extension,” Silverman said.

Summer operations, which include hiking, mountain biking and a via ferrata, are scheduled to begin June 27.

Lifts will be in operation this weekend from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. with two lifts in operation on the front side of the mountain. A  big part of season-ending skiing there features fun and frivolity with the formation of Lake Reveal, a pool of snowmelt that forms high on the mountain in June for crazy pond-skimming exhibitions..

In a blog posts over the weekend, chief operating officer Alan Henceroth reported that it began to appear Saturday afternoon and will continue to grow through the week.

“The ‘late showing’ of the water is an indication that the snowpack is deep and strong up high,” Henceroth wrote. “A deep and strong snowpack is needed to extend the season further into June. These are all good signs.”

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It’s a good thing he did. Siegel, the founder — and until recently, the only employee — of a startup called Raide that makes gear and apparel for skiers and runners, won the top prize Thursday in a competition for outdoor industry companies held in conjunction with the Outside Festival, which unfolds this weekend in Civic Center Park. Siegel was one of five finalists out of 200 submissions who gave five-minute presentations before a panel of five judges at the Denver Public Library.

Because of a four-hour flight delay, Siegel landed in Denver at 2 a.m. Thursday. The competition, called Outside Ignite and organized by the Boulder outdoors media company Outside Interactive Inc., began at 10 a.m. In addition to the judges, the room was full of potential investors.

“It was the largest group that I’ve ever pitched, so I was nervous,” said Siegel, 33. “But once I got on stage, I was fine. I just needed to rip the band-aid off and get it done.”

Outside Inc., which is based in Boulder, created the Outside Festival last year to promote Colorado’s outdoors industry. It attracted 18,000 people to Civic Center Park, and organizers say they expect 25,000 this weekend. The company added the Ignite competition this year to support start-up companies.

“I love the idea of a pitch competition being associated with the Outside Festival, especially being hosted in Denver,” said Ariana Ferwerda of Denver, an Ignite judge. “There is such a blossoming outdoor and start-up scene here. Giving those founders the ability to get in front of a lot of people, share their ideas and ultimately seek investment is such a cool opportunity for them.”

Ferwerda knows the pressures of starting a company. She founded Halfdays, a women’s outdoor apparel brand.

“It was really difficult, especially in the early days, to get in front of investors,” Ferwerda said during a break in Ignite presentations. “I’ve been in their shoes and I understand how hard that is.”

Siegel founded Raide, which means steep in French, in October of 2023. It makes packs, accessories and apparel for skiing and trail running. Siegel previously worked for The North Face and SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket-making company. He was a mechanical engineer there from 2013-15.

“SpaceX was amazing, one of the best work experiences ever,” Siegel said. “I was working on making sure nothing in the rocket broke from vibrations. A super-high paced, high-pressure environment.”

He moved to Carbondale two years ago and began his entrepreneurial pursuit. Winning the Ignite competition was worth $100,000 in cash, media, and legal services.

“I think the concept is really exciting,” Siegel said. “I think there needs to be more room for outdoor companies to get the word out for the industry to support them. That’s what puts innovation in the market. It’s cool to combine that with a competition and awesome networking opportunities.”

The Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, which is a division of the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, partners with Outside Inc. and Visit Denver to put on the Outside Festival. It’s designed to celebrate and promote the state’s $17-billion outdoor recreation industry.

Outside Inc. chief executive Robin Thurston, a former competitive cyclist, compares the pressures of entrepreneurship to “chewing glass and getting punched in the stomach all day.” His entrepreneurial career began in 2009 with a digital mobile fitness tracking startup that offered maps via iPhone apps. Today, Outside Inc. reaches 80 million users through 25 media, digital, and technology platforms.

“To celebrate these entrepreneurs is such a big deal,” Thurston said. “As an entrepreneur, it’s really hard to get venues to be in front of investors, to be in front of potential consumers and get that visibility, as well as perfecting your pitch – how you think about your business and what you want to do with it. This is year one (of Ignite), but I feel like there is the opportunity for this to get bigger and better, and really grow how to discover the next generation of businesses that are going to have a big impact on the outdoor industry.”

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Two-time Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin finally feels “like myself again” after recovering from a ski racing crash last season and lingering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Shiffrin described in an essay for The Players’ Tribune released Friday the physical and mental hurdles she needed to clear after her serious spill during a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont, on Nov. 30. In the crash, something punctured Shiffrin’s side and caused severe damage to her oblique muscles.

“Everyone knows what it feels like to have a bad cough. But PTSD … it’s not like that,” the 30-year-old from Edwards, Colorado, wrote. “It comes in all shapes and sizes. Everyone experiences it in their own way, and no two cases are exactly alike.”

Shiffrin was leading after the first run of the GS that day in Killington. With the finish line in sight on her final run, she lost an edge and slid into a gate, flipping over her skis. The all-time winningest Alpine World Cup ski racer then slammed into another gate before coming to a stop in the protective fencing. To this day, she doesn’t know what led to the puncture wound, only that it was “a millimeter from pretty catastrophic,” she told The Associated Press.

Shiffrin wrote in The Players’ Tribune it was “difficult to explain what the pain felt like. But the closest I can get would probably be, it was like … not only was there a knife stabbing me, but the knife was actually still inside of me.”

In late January, Shiffrin returned to the World Cup circuit. The giant slalom, though, remained a cause of anxiety and she skipped the event at world championships.

Ever so steadily, she’s working on overcoming the mental trauma surrounding the GS as she gears up for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games. She won an Olympic gold medal in the discipline at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

She’s been working with a psychologist to conquer her mental obstacles.

“I can admit that there were some extremely low moments,” recounted Shiffrin, who won her 100th career World Cup ski race in February. “Times when I started second-guessing myself, or was critical of myself because I felt like I was letting what happened mess with me so much. It was like: Come on, Mikaela, people have had way worse crashes than that, way worse injuries. Those people got through it. What is wrong with you?

“On particularly bad days, I’d question my motivation, or whether I still wanted to do this anymore. In my head, I’d be saying to myself: You know what, I kind of couldn’t care less if I ever race again.”

She and the therapist began looking at her recovery through the prism of PTSD.

“With me, I also think it’s possible that the crash I had at the beginning of 2024 in Cortina, and then Killington happening. … that those two crashes maybe built on one another,” Shiffrin said. “I talked with my therapist about that, and she let me know that past trauma, or a history of traumatic events, can sometimes affect your reaction to new traumatic events.”

She lost her dad, Jeff, five years ago in a home accident. Her fiancé and fellow ski racer Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway is still recovering from a serious ski crash on Jan. 13, 2024.

“Maybe when I crashed and got that puncture wound, maybe that was kind of a perfect-storm situation for PTSD to take hold,” Shiffrin wrote.

Shiffrin said one thing that’s helped is “getting back to a place of joy.” She closed her essay with: “All I can do is smile with appreciation. Because, finally …. I feel like myself again.”

___

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

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She was replaced by Rob Katz, her predecessor, who previously ran the Broomfield-based company for 16 years.

“As Vail Resorts continues to execute its strategic priorities and transformational initiatives, the board believes now is the right time for this leadership transition,” said Bruce Sewell, lead independent director of the board, according to a news release. “Rob has a strong track record of driving innovation and executing consistent performance at Vail Resorts and has played a critical role in the development of Vail Resorts’ operations and long-term strategy for over the past three decades.”

Patrick Scholes, a Wall Street analyst who covers the travel industry for Truist Securities, cited dismal stock performance and the company’s negative image in the minds of many skiers as reasons for her ouster.

“The first and most obvious thing is the share price under-performance under her leadership,” Scholes said. “You can just pull up a chart of Vail Resorts and see the stock getting cut in half during that time — and this is against a very strong overall stock market comparative performance.

“Every year, they’d give financial guidance (to investors) at the beginning of the season, and for the last three years they’ve missed,” he continued. “You only get so many opportunities as a well-compensated CEO to miss your financial expectations.”

Shares of Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN) traded at around $355 a share right before Lynch was appointed CEO in November 2021. Shares closed at $151.50 on Tuesday, right before her dismissal, a decline of 57%. The price had dropped as low as $129.85 on April 8, a level not seen since March 2016. In a sign of relief, investors pushed the share price up more than 11% on news of Lynch’s departure.

A damaging 12-day ski patrollers’ strike at Park City Mountain Resort in Utah that occurred over the 2024-25 Christmas-New Year’s holiday season was one of several events that hurt the company’s image, Scholes said.

“What a black eye on the company,” Scholes said. “Who ultimately gets blamed for that? The head of the company. That was not a good look for Vail. From investors I’ve been talking to over the last year, (it was) just extremely frustrating. I think the board, they had to act.”

Lynch’s tenure got off to a rocky start in the winter of 2021-22. The company slashed Epic Pass prices, which brought about a surge of pass sales, but several of the company’s resorts went into the season under-staffed. That was due in part to the omicron COVID variant and high housing prices in mountain communities, but Vail Resorts felt a backlash in social media and national news stories alleging everything from long lift lines to unplowed parking lots, limited terrain and frustrated, overworked employees.

Since then, the company has been the frequent target of negative attention on social media.

“The negative reputation in the skier community — some of it deserved, some maybe not — had gotten away from the company,” Scholes said. “It lost the narrative of the quality experience.”

In an open letter to employees, Katz called Lynch a “transformative” leader and thanked her for her 14 years with the company.

“I am grateful for her leadership over these past three and a half years, during some of the most challenging times that our company has faced as we navigated dynamic events post-pandemic,” Katz wrote. “While our board felt that at this time, in this environment, it was the right decision to make a change, I, and the entire board, have a tremendous amount of gratitude for all that Kirsten has accomplished and for her immense contributions.”

Katz previously ran the company from 2006-21.

“My most important goal in returning as CEO,” Katz wrote “is ensuring we align with all our stakeholders to deliver an Experience of a Lifetime for our employees and guests while driving financial success for our company, so we can continue to invest in and do the work we all love.”

Per a resignation agreement that Vail Resorts’s Chief Human Resources Officer Lynanne Kunkel and Lynch signed on Monday, Lynch’s effective resignation date was May 22. She will remain as a strategic advisor at the company with full pay and health benefits until September 2025.

Lynch will receive a one-time lump-sum payment of $2.25 million, the equivalent of two years of her base annual salary. She is also entitled to a pro-rated bonus for the fiscal 2025 year, which ends July 31 and will be awarded her outstanding stock options.

Lynch had another $5.2 million coming in stock awards that will vest or become hers upon departure. That was as of last summer, but the current number should be close to that. That is beyond the $2.2 million severance payment.

Denver Post staff writer Aldo Svaldi contributed to this report.

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The 122-page document had been in the works two years ago, but it was put on hold for seven months after A-Basin’s previous owner, DREAM, announced it was selling the area to Alterra Mountain Company pending U.S. Department of Justice approval. The sale finally closed last November and planning resumed.

Ski areas update their master plans with the U.S. Forest Service every decade or so. But even after the agency officially “accepts” those plans — a process that can take up to a year — individual projects must be approved on a case-by-case basis.

As expected, no terrain expansions are being planned, but an additional 395 parking spaces would be added and two small gondolas would be built — one from the upper parking lots to the pedestrian tunnel that accesses the base area, and the other from the base area to a building supporting a new learning area at Sawmill Flats. A detachable quad chairlift would be built from that building to mid-mountain, providing access to the Lenawee Express lift, which runs from mid-mountain to the summit.

Moving ski school operations to an on-mountain beginner area would reduce congestion in the landlocked base area. The current ski school facility in the base area could be converted to accommodate restaurant seating.

Other improvements would include adding 65 acres of terrain covered by snowmaking, which would nearly double A-Basin’s snowmaking acreage, and installing new avalanche mitigation hardware for remote operation that would be safer for patrollers to operate.

Improvements for summer operations would include the addition of 10 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails and four tiny 150-square-foot cabins with outdoor decks at midmountain that would be available for day-use rental. A-Basin could also add summer camping in its parking lots. Campsites would include picnic tables and RV hookups with vault toilets and trash removal.

“More than anything, we’re really focused on fixing the guest and employee experience in our existing area,” said chief operating officer Alan Henceroth. “I’m excited to be able to park a few more people so a few more people can have a good time. I’m excited to help our avalanche program. I’m excited that we can be a little more responsive with snowmaking and get more terrain open a little faster.”

He’s also looking forward to serving beginners better with the new learning area.

“We don’t have a lot of green terrain,” Henceroth said. “The proposed gondola and the proposed detachable quad will optimize the ideal teaching terrain that we do have.”

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A-Basin began implementing a parking reservation system during the 2024-25 winter season, requiring parking reservations on weekends and select holidays in all of the ski area’s main lots through the height of the season.

A-Basin Chief Operating Officer Alan Henceroth has credited the parking reservation program with allowing the ski area to offer unlimited access on the Ikon Pass while maintaining the guest experience. Unlimited access will only be available with the full Ikon Pass, while the Ikon Base Pass will continue to offer five-day access to A-Basin during the 2025-26 season.

Like the 2024-25 season, parking reservations will continue to cost $20 per vehicle with a free option for vehicles that carpool with four people during the 2025-26 season, Silverman said. But next season, reservations will only be required on Saturdays and Sundays between Jan. 3 and May 3, she said. Parking will continue to be free after 1 p.m. on weekends.

Read the full story from our partner at summitdaily.com.

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When it opens on May 12, Après at Govnr’s Park will feature beers from Summit County’s Broken Compass Brewing and Steamboat’s Storm Peak Brewing, as well as spirits from Breckenridge Distillery and Carboy. Each will be prominently featured, have multiple beers or pours on tap, and offer customers “a direct connection to the brands behind them,” the owners said.

And while “apres,” in this case, could be used to describe the entire ski season, which is now all but over, mountain “apres culture” in Colorado is year-round, said Kevin Webber, CEO of Carboy Winery, which owns Apres and oversees and Angelo’s Taverna in Denver and Littleton.

The mantra of “you move to the mountains for the winter, but you stay for the summer,” is the vibe that Webber wants to create. In addition to ski and mountain decor, Après will have 12 big-screen TVs for Broncos, Nuggets and Avs games.

Once Après opens, Carboy’s existing concept, a Mexican restaurant called Pancho Poncho, will close. Some of its dishes, like the tacos, will stay on the menu, but the biggest focus will be on what he called a “value-driven” menu, including a $13 burger, rare in the city these days.

One of the goals is to give people who live in the neighborhood a place with a similar feel to Govnr’s Park, the legendary bar and restaurant that ruled the corner of 7th and Logan Street for four decades before closing in 2018 and becoming Logan Street Restaurant & Bar and later Pancho Poncho. “There is a nostalgia for the old Gov’s Park,” Webber said. “You can’t really bring back and duplicate something like that, but this was a good way to give it a nod.”

For Broken Compass, Storm Peak and Breckenridge Distillery, the space will offer them a chance to operate taprooms in the city and to further their name recognition.

“We were the first new brewery in Summit County in [man] when we opened,” said Broken Compass owner Jason Ford. “We want to remind people we are up here and that we are still around. A presence in Denver can remind everyone we are here.”

The beer market is also getting tighter, so the taproom will provide a space for Broken Compass and Storm Peak to expand their distribution and sell more beer.

Après at Govnr’s Park, 400 E. 7th Ave., will host a grand opening party on June 7.

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The Elk Camp quad will be replaced by a high-speed six-person chairlift that will reduce wait times during ski season and increase mountain-bike haul capacity to the Snowmass Bike Park in the summer. In addition, a platter pull-style transport that has served the above-timberline terrain of The Cirque, which tops out at 12,530 feet, will be replaced by a T-bar, doubling its capacity and reducing ride time.

“The areas of terrain served by these lifts are some of the most popular on our mountain,” said Susan Cross, Snowmass mountain manager, in a news release. “These updates allow for guests to more smoothly access Snowmass’ classic wide-open slopes and sweeping vistas at Elk Camp, and the incredible variety of high-alpine terrain we have off The Cirque.”

The 56-year-old Ullrhof midmountain restaurant, located at the base of the Big Burn lift, will be dismantled and rebuilt. The new facility will double the capacity of the building to 500 seats. It is slated to open for the 2026-27 season.

Snowmass has more lifts and is larger than the other three Aspen-area ski mountains — Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk — put together. The Aspen Skiing Company is owned by the Crown family of Chicago, which was ranked 34th on the 2024 Forbes list of America’s richest families. It also is part owner of Denver-based Alterra Mountain Company, which owns Arapahoe Basin and Steamboat. and nine other resorts in five U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. Alterra also operates Winter Park, which is owned by the city and county of Denver.

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