Outdoors
Home page: Skiing at Sugar Mountain Resort, photo by Todd Bush. Above: Appalachian Ski Mtn, photo courtesy of App Ski; Beech Mountain Resort, photo by Sam Dean
To Live and Ski in Dixie
By Tom McAuliffe
As the nation celebrated the 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps Monday, November 10, both Sugar and Beech Mountains let loose a prodigious snowmaking display as the winter’s first arctic clipper arrived just hours before. While Beech Mountain’s show proved more a systems check, Sugar Mountain Resort fittingly greeted the first alpine riders Tuesday, November 11, Veterans Day.
You could say the High Country ski industry had survived a multi-front five-year war of its own, not only maintaining the status quo, but miraculously growing to new heights through the COVID years and Hurricane Helene, which changed the mountain landscape forever.
Chalk up another “first resort open” for Sugar Mountain and its owner Gunther Jochl, who set the precedent for November openings with his arrival to Avery County in 1976. And while “purists” deride each early opening, even his competitors cheer the early press. Alpine riders love it.
“We’re not here just to sell lift rides,” Jochl intoned some years ago. “We’re in the ski business.”
The folks at Beech and Appalachian Ski Mountain are ready to join the fray Thanksgiving week, and command impressive snow making arsenals too. The three family-owned ski resorts are giants in their own right, attracting tens of thousands of riders annually and delivering upwards of $300 million in direct and indirect spending region wide. Together they generate a synergy of competition that drives each to innovation and refinement. This is the kind of ‘war’ where everyone wins, especially the winter sports enthusiasts of Dixie.
Sugar Mountain: A Decade of Refinement
The transformation at Sugar, founded in 1969, began in earnest in 2014, thirty-eight years after a young ski instructor and Munich-trained mechanical engineer first walked onto the property in 1975. As capital partner Dale Stancil gave Jochl plenty of rein, the resort grew. Featuring the area’s biggest vertical drop of 1,200 ft. from the peak of its “Flying Mile” the resort developed legions of fans. By 2014, the resort belonged to Jochl, and a comprehensive campaign to modernize the resort began.
First came “Gunther’s Way,” the most significant new slope addition in the High Country in decades.
The high speed detachable six-seat “Summit Express” followed and in the ensuing years every lift was replaced, including new detachable lifts for Oma’s Meadow, formerly known as Big Red, and Easy Street, perhaps the longest beginner/intermediate terrain in the High Country. A new fixed lift for intermediate run “Big Birch” was the final piece of the mountain puzzle.
More than $25 million in expenditures marked the last decade, as Jochl celebrates his 50th season on the mountain next November.
Beyond what is visible to riders, Jochl notes “money went into automatic systems, pumps and snowmaking. All to make our ski season more dependable.”
Jochl has surrounded himself with leaders of many seasons at Sugar, most notably wife Kim, an eight-year member of the US Alpine Ski Team, and former World Junior Champion in the Combined. Kim’s twin, Krista, the perennial ambassador for Sugar Mountain, competed in two Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway and Alberta, Canada. The twins’ brother, Erich Schmidinger, a champion racer in his youth, works hand in hand with his brother-in-law, Andrew Jochl, a mechanical engineer in his own right, to provide the boots on the ground for the mammoth enterprise. “They are a strong team from an operational standpoint,” the senior Jochl said. “They complement each other well.”
Ski School Director Len Bauer enters his 40th season at Sugar, 36 years as the man in charge. Bauer brings a unique perspective to his longevity at the resort with this year’s recruiting class of new ski and snowboard instructors. “We have an exceptionally strong group of instructors and that’s particularly rewarding to me,” Bauer said, adding that “eight of our new candidates for instructor went through our Sugar Bear Ski School as children,” a program catering to kids between four and ten years of age. Adding more experience, Blowing Rock’s Doug Washer returns for his 43rd consecutive year to Sugar’s Ski and Snowboard School.
As the ski boom continues with no end in sight, Bauer’s experience is more important than ever.
And while Sugar was last to the party with internet booking and Radio Frequency Identification embedded in each lift ticket, the newly renovated ski rental area offers streamlined spaces, lockers, and clothing rentals. “It will be smoother than it was,” Jochl allowed, noting that half-a-million-dollar investment he expects it to be. And antithetical to lifers like Bauer, the management of the rental operation is in the hands of affable Dexter Brewster, a twenty-something mountain bike enthusiast in the summer and a rider in winter.
“He’s a great guy with a lot on his plate,” Jochl said of Brewster with muffled understatement. “He fits in well within our organization.”
Another notable improvement at Sugar will be lighting for night skiing, necessitated by downed light poles wrought by Hurricane Helene. “We brought in portable lights last season,” Jochl noted. “The new permanent LED lights are better now and skiers will see the difference.”
So as always it seems, Sugar is ready for another banner year, including its popular NASTAR weekends and the 20th Edition of the Sugar Mountain Ski and Snowboard Adult Race League held Monday nights beginning January 5 and concluding February 9.
“Gunther has built a team,” wife Kim said, who, as marketing director and the de facto face of the resort, concluded, “We are a dedicated team.”
The Ascendancy of Beech Mountain
When the Costin family came into ownership of the Beech Mountain Ski Resort in the ’80s, the once shimmering winter sports showplace was in distress. The alpine village, designed by architect Claus Moberg and brought to life by the Robbins Brothers in the late ’60s, was in disrepair. It took a full generation to bring the echoes of ‘Edelweiss’ into earshot once again when Ryan Costin was handed the family jewels in 2008. Fresh out of Western Colorado’s Resort Management program, young Costin implemented all the right moves in a calculated campaign to return the patina to a faded jewel.
In that span of time, water and compressed air delivery systems were modernized to deliver the goods to a growing fleet of snowmaking guns. Snow grooming equipment was upgraded, and as time and capital permitted, the picturesque village received much needed repairs and paint.
Over time, the 1967 vintage chairlifts were replaced with new fixed-grip chairs. Terrain Park areas were integrated into the traditional downhill slopes, and the hip vibe of the early ’70s returned. The Beech Mountain Brewery took an honored place in the mix, including the 5506’ Bar and its breathtaking view from the top of the slope complex which caught the eye of a new generation of Beech Nuts.
An intriguing relationship developed between the resort and Lees-McRae College (LMC) in Banner Elk, which fifty years earlier was home to national championship ski teams. That relationship waned in the ’80s but has re-emerged in a new collaboration with the school. Costin fostered a Tourism & Resort Management program at LMC, providing classroom space in the main Lodge, and christening the facility in the name of Dr. Thomas Brigham, arguably the father of southern skiing. “Doc” Brigham would leave his mark on Beech, Sugar Mountain, and later, Snowshoe, West Virginia.
Hannah Sheets takes over as director of ski and snowboard instruction where she’s worked throughout her high school years. Haley Lowman takes over Beech’s large rental program that features skis and boards by Rossignol and a new Wintersteiger tuning machine. Hunter Thompson heads retail in the village while Kenneth Stanford oversees Pete’s Way, the newly christened terrain park. Kenneth’s dad Mike heads the Beech Mountain ski patrol with a dual role in customer service. Multi-talented marketing director Talia Freeman has proved herself a leader for more than a decade in a role that includes developing young talent.
“We’ve put together a great mix of men and women in what was predominantly a male-dominated industry,” Costin said.
Along with the addition of the college curriculum, Aaron Maas, who had already made his name as the chief beer maker for the Beech Mountain Brewery, was handed coaching duties for the revitalized LMC ski and snowboard team in 2016. LMC racers would qualify for the nationals in five of the next seven seasons. After winning ten individual national titles, and 25 visits to the podium, the programs were elevated to Varsity status from club level. Scholarship money flowed to recruit better racers and Coach Maas earned the U.S Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association Coach of the Year Award for 2024.
And to top the year off, Maas returned for the season’s first snowmaking with a medal from the Great American Brew Festival for his prized Vienna Lager. You could say he’s on a roll.
Visitors to Beech this winter will enjoy “Flex” ticketing, first introduced at App Ski Mountain. Half-Day, Day, and Full-Day tickets are available for sessions of 4, 8, or 12 hours. Once you pass your first lift gate your session begins, a crowd-control technology proved viable with the advent of Radio Frequency ID cards. Gone is the cumbersome lift ticket check at the loading station.
Sixteen years ago, Costin drew up his first one-year plan followed by a five-, ten-, and then a 20-year plan. “It never stops; there is always something to do to keep up, to get better,” he said. “It’s an Olympic year and interest will never be higher. This summer we made cosmetic improvements to all exteriors of our buildings. The village takes a beating each winter and it’s a full-time job. But the look is fresher.”
Some might say the patina has returned to stay.
App Ski Mountain: Leader in Innovation
With his auspicious debut in 1962 as The Blowing Rock Ski Lodge, entertainment empresario Bill Thalheimer knew he was onto something. Following the record snows of 1960, winter recreation in the Blue Ridge Mountains was in for a major transformation. While opening to great fanfare, the ‘downs’ outnumbered the ‘ups’ and by 1968 Thalheimer’s dream was in the hands of a group of creditors who nominated local lumberman Grady Moretz (Thalheimer’s largest creditor) to stabilize the pioneering ski enterprise.
Rebranded Appalachian Ski Mountain, few could foresee the phenomenal success story in the making. Grady brought hands-on management and discipline to the resort along with ski patroller/instructor Jim Cottrell, whose French-Swiss Ski College was bent on teaching the South to learn to ski. Grady’s wife Reba built a ski shop/retail success as she kept a firm hand on expenses and bookkeeping. Snowmaking over skiable terrain grew more prodigious each year. A family-friendly vibe and unrivaled snow levels from its ever-growing snow making systems, a school-based field trip offering, and college P.E. credits derived from the French-Swiss Ski College weekend programs vaulted App Ski Mountain to newfound viability.
In 1997 Grady passed the mantle of general manager to his son Brad. Daughter Brenda and husband John Speckmann picked up where Reba left off. Two years later, App Ski Mountain became the last of the state’s resorts to welcome snowboarders to the mountain.
Today the mountain is arguably the premier terrain park provider in the state. Once empowered, gangs of volunteers with shovels and welding gear added features for park rats on skis and snowboards. Things are more sophisticated today, with a Park Pro 400 PistenBully guided by park director Chris Jones. Cutting his teeth on Beech Mountain, Jones has made his mark at Mammoth Mountain, CA, and was behind building the spectacular features at the X-Games.
Under the direction of Moretz, along with original park rat Drew Stanley, App Ski Mountain was the first to institute a park pass test to ensure a modicum of park etiquette and safety. And a new pilot program from ‘Precision Approach Sports’ provides a light display at the top jump on Appal Jam. It measures the riders’ speed displaying a green (G0) or red (NO) light to prevent over or undershooting the landing area. The display captures video footage the rider can then download on a phone or via e-mail.
“We want to give kids an outlet to maybe someday compete at a national level,” Moretz explained.
App Ski Mtn. was first to introduce on-line bookings, now setting arrivals in five-minute intervals to smooth out the process.
“We went to the interval approach—it’s like a golf tee-time—during COVID to space our customers apart,” Moretz said. “But it worked so well, even in our peak times, we’ve kept it in place.”
And they were first to introduce the ‘flex ticket’ so your ski session time begins when you do.
Their Midnite Blast session, with slopes open to midnight on weekends and holidays, makes the ‘flex’ ticket more versatile and valuable than ever.
As part of the Southern Division of the National Ski Patrol, ASM’s ski patrol was named Outstanding Alpine Ski Patrol, with Kim Davis named Outstanding Patroller.
Jim Cottrell’s retired now, having turned the reins of French-Swiss over to the Moretz family and directed by Frenchman Benjamin Marcellin. But his teaching philosophy remains. “Give me three days and you will always come back, prepared for all types of snow conditions,” he promised. And as the founder of Special Olympics in Alpine Sports in the South, Cottrell can point to the success of thousands of exceptional students over the decades.
But the bottom line at App Ski Mountain is snow making. Moretz can bury his slope network under three feet of snow in a little over 24 hours. “You can never have enough snowmaking,” Moretz said. “Every year we’re dedicated to increasing our capacity and you can see it in the finished product. But in this business, it all comes down to the weather.”
App Ski Mountain: appskimtn.com
Beech Mountain Resort: beechmountainresort.com
Sugar Mountain: skisugar.com