This was not a normal ski resort. That much was obvious as soon as I joined a group of skiers waiting in line for the first ‘lift’ of the day, and instead of a chair or a gondola, a large, red, snow cat pulled up, driven by a bearded man in a broad-brimmed, black stetson with wrap-around shades. Reversing one caterpillar track, he spun the heavy machine around in a neat circle, to reveal three rows of steel benches bolted to the back. “Jump on,” he said, and off we went.
As we chugged our way up the hill, I began to get a sense of the place’s geography. The rolling hills and rocky crags of Utah’s Wasatch range extended for miles in every direction, with obvious lines everywhere. It had been snowing non-stop for several days, and in the valley beneath us, the town of Eden was still blanketed by a thick, cappuccino froth of cloud. But up here on Powder Mountain, the skies were blue, crisp and clear. The landscape looked wild and empty, and all of it was covered in fresh, new snow—sparkling invitingly in the cold, morning sun. If this sounds a little like paradise, it certainly felt like it as I dropped in, following my guide, Josh Smith, through chest-deep powder. Recently, however, this paradise has come under threat.
In September 2023, Reed Hastings—one of the co-founders of Netflix, whose net-worth, according to Bloomberg, is $6.15 billion (£4 billion)—bought a majority stake in Powder Mountain. Almost immediately, Hastings declared his intention to increase the price of season passes for winter 2024-25. To the horror of many locals, he also announced plans to make a large chunk of Powder Mountain private, justifying the moves by pointing to the resort’s ongoing financial difficulties. Only people who paid an annual membership fee set to range from $30,000-$100,000 (£22,000-£75,000), and homeowners who shelled out for his planned “Powder Haven” chalets, on land that cost around $2 million (£1.5 million) per plot, would be allowed to use certain lifts, it was announced.
“On forums, skiers started calling him Greed Hastings”
The headlines practically wrote themselves. Local blogs and newspapers characterised it as a classic case of the out-of-touch billionaire vs. the ordinary folk. On Facebook groups and forums, skiers started calling him “Greed Hastings.” It was as if an all-powerful tech god had just bought this beloved, powdery garden above Eden, and was casting aside those who couldn’t afford it.
When I visited in February 2024, however, I discovered that the reality on the ground was a little more nuanced than it appeared online. There were lively debates about the potential impact on Powder Mountain’s future, but it wasn’t all one-sided. Like the resort itself, there was more to this story than first appearances.
House of Cards
“Not many people know this, but we actually have the most in-bounds skiable terrain of any resort in North America,” said Josh Smith, as we sat on the appropriately-named Paradise chairlift after that epic first run. It’s a remarkable claim. After all, Powder Mountain’s infrastructure is minimal. There are no hotels, or anywhere for the public to stay on site. Just a daylodge at the base, two mountain restaurants, and a carpark. There’s not even space for a permanent guides’ office. I’d met Smith that morning in a yurt next to the piste.
Powder Mountain’s lift system looks laughably small on paper too, with just six chairs, one magic carpet, and a T-bar. But when you add in the areas accessible by “unconventional lifts” (as the snow cats are labelled on the piste map) its 3,433 hectare ski area is bigger than any in the US, and larger even than the 3,307-hectare, combined ski area of Whistler-Blackcomb, usually thought of as North America’s biggest.
As its name suggests, Powder Mountain also has an enviable snow record. “We get over 360 inches on average a year,” said Smith, equivalent to more than nine metres a season. (By comparison, even high-altitude European resorts like Tignes get around seven.) The continental conditions in the Wasatch also means their snow is low in moisture content—the famously light powder that the Utah state tourist board markets as “the greatest snow on Earth”.
Unsurprisingly, given these natural assets, PowMow, as it’s affectionately known, inspires fierce loyalty among the tight-knit community who ski here—Smith included. “It’s one of the coolest things about the place. There’s a handful of people who’ve been working here probably since it opened,” he said. A mellow snowboarder with a massive beard, Smith used to teach here full time himself, but now does occasional guiding shifts while running a craft kombucha brewery. “It means I still get the season pass,” he said. “Which is important, because there’s usually a waiting list of like, two years.”
Another of PowMow’s USPs has always been that it limits ticket sales, both for daypasses and season tickets, so the slopes never feel busy. “Uncrowded by Design,” is the resort’s marketing slogan, and the locals are keen to keep it that way. “People joke that if you love skiing Powder Mountain, you don’t talk about it,” Smith explained. It’s not that they don’t welcome visitors. In The Powder Keg, the resort’s only après bar, the atmosphere is warm, bordering on rowdy. But locals are understandably protective over this little slice of paradise.
The King’s Gambit
All of which makes Hastings’ plans for a shake-up sound pretty risky—especially given the resort’s history with outside owners.
In 2006, Powder Mountain’s founding father, a sheep rancher named Alvin Cobabe, retired at the age of 88 and the resort was bought by a luxury hotel conglomerate. They had big ideas about building five new villages, and a golf course, but locals were appalled, and went to court to stop the development. They raised funds for their case by putting on a play called The Curse of the Powdervillans.
Since then, however, the whole landscape has changed. Unlike European ski resorts, where land ownership is often shared and elected local officials usually have a say, the ski industry in America has always been the preserve of private business. In the past decade, two companies have come to dominate the landscape. Vail Resorts and the Alterra Mountain Company own 80 different ski resorts between them, and with their super season passes—the Epic Pass from Vail, and Alterra’s Ikon Pass—they offer access to 70 more.
Such is these companies’ market dominance that they’re often compared to McDonalds and Burger King, or Coke and Pepsi. But perhaps a better comparison would be Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Their enormous purchasing power means they can dictate terms to any resort that wants to be included on the super passes, and deliberately or otherwise, they’ve squeezed many independents out of business. They get accused of treating partner resorts like franchisees, and trying to create a homogenised skiing experience. Quirkiness, it’s said, is not encouraged.
In the past decade, many of Utah’s big-name resorts have been snapped up by this growing duopoly. Alterra bought Deer Valley in 2017, and nearby Solitude in 2018. Vail Resorts purchased Canyons in 2013, and merged it with Park City the following year. So far, Powder Mountain has stayed independent. But that’s brought its own set of problems.
With no major town nearby, no international reputation to speak of, this family-run resort was never exactly a money-spinner. But mounting costs, falling margins, and its policy of limiting liftpass numbers made it increasingly un-viable as a business. In 2013, a group of tech bros—led by a 23 year old called Greg Mauro—bought the struggling resort. Fuelled by venture capital and an unfounded confidence in their own exceptionalism, they announced plans to turn the resort into a “hipster Davos”—as Forbes magazine put it. But in the 10 years that followed, not a lot happened. Meanwhile, the mountain’s mountain of debt continued to grow.
“Hastings spent $100 million of his own money to write off the resort’s debts”
By the time Reed Hastings stepped in last September, the resort was at serious risk of closing down completely. After buying it for an undisclosed sum, the first thing he did was pump in $100 million (£75 million) of his own money to write-off its debts. “That’s why there’s a lot of people who see Hastings as actually kind of saving the resort,” Katie Van Riper, Powder Mountain’s head of marketing told me over a pitcher in the Powder Keg.
And Hastings didn’t stop there. Over the course of this summer, his new team—led by him personally, as CEO—installed four brand new chairlifts. While one of these will sit in the newly-privatised area, the other three—costing $20 million (£15 million) in total—were much-needed upgrades to the public lift system.
One of the lifts he replaced was 50 years old. Hastings’ longterm business plan, Van Riper explained, is to use the income from the private membership and property sales to invest in the rest of the resort—a unique public-private model that would ensure its independence. “The previous owners created a huge splash, with all these big plans, but they achieved very little,” she said. By contrast, Hastings, “you can tell, is just someone who gets things done.”
As well as the investment in public lifts, Van Riper pointed to his policy of halving the price of night-skiing tickets, to make Powder Mountain more accessible to local kids after school. “Of course, some people don’t like certain lifts being made private,” she said. But given the choice between that and the mountain closing completely, or being forced to sell to an industry giant, she believed most locals would prefer it in the long run. Smith, who sat next to her as she spoke, nodded. “If it stops it being bought by Vail Resorts or Alterra, I think that’s a good thing,” he said.
Stranger Things
On one of our last runs of the day, Smith and I rode a zone called “Woody’s World,” cutting through a birch forest and emerging onto the side of a road. We were well below the level of the resort, and seemingly miles from anywhere. Before long, however, several other skiers turned up. And then one of those old American school busses arrived, and the doors hissed open—another of PowMow’s ‘unconventional lifts’. “It used to be driven by a guy called Woody, who worked here for like 60 years,” said Smith. Hence the name.
This is one feature Hastings has promised to keep. And where the old snow cat zones are served by the new lifts, he’s promised that the cats will move further out, opening up more terrain. “I really think he gets it,” Katie Van Riper told me. Hastings, she believed, understood that there was more to Powder Mountain than just the bits he’d bought—the bricks and mortar, the balance sheets and title deeds, the flywheels, chairs, and cables. “I hope so,” I said, looking around.
The Powder Keg was rammed and raucous. In the corner, a long-haired band was covering the Grateful Dead. As they picked up the tempo, two women who everyone seemed to know jumped on the table and started to dance. Powder Mountain might not be a normal resort, I thought. But you could tell, just by looking, that it was a special one.
Ogden: Putting the ‘Wild’ in Wild West
Ogden, the city closest to Powder Mountain, has always been an outlier in the buttoned-up Mormon state of Utah, according to local historian Katie Nelson, who runs tours. The east & west legs of the transcontinental railroad met here in 1869, bringing all kinds of colourful characters to town.
The Brothel Madam: Belle London
“In the 1890s, a notorious madam known as Belle London was the most powerful person in Ogden,” Nelson said. “She had the police in her pocket, and ran a string of brothels behind her London Ice Cream Parlour—which you can still see on 25th Street today.”
The Gunslinger: Thomas Todd
“When a wealthy resort owner named Pat Desmond went bankrupt in 1888, he blamed Todd,” Nelson said. “One fateful night they met outside the Capital Saloon. Desmond reached for his gun, but Todd shot first.” Despite dozens of witnesses, Todd walked free. “People reckoned Pat Desmond had it coming,” Nelson explained.
The Hotel Murderer: Fanny Dawson
“In 1916, Fanny Dawson was accused of running a murder ring out of her hotel,” Nelson said. “They said she lured wealthy punters out of casinos, and fed them poison drinks. But nothing was ever proved...”
The Jazz Queen: Anna Belle Weakley
“Anna Belle Weakley was called the Queen of 25th Street,” Nelson said. “She opened her jazz club with sax legend Joe McQueen in 1947. Segregation was still in force, but she had one rule—everyone got in, regardless of race. All the greats played here: Louis Armstrong, Dizzie Gillespie, everyone.”
Snow How
Where to stay
With no public hotels at Powder Mountain, we stayed at the quirky Compass Rose Lodge, in the nearby village of Huntsville. Run by Jeff Hyde, a local skiing legend, it’s home to the town’s best coffee shop, and boasts its own built-in observatory. Astronomers David Rady and Scott Roberts run brilliantly informative stargazing tours.
Where to eat & drink
Open since 1879, Huntsville’s Shooting Star Saloon is one of the oldest in the country, and serves “the best damn burger in the west.” The space is tiny, but the vibe is unparalleled.
Other attractions
Huntsville’s Gold Rush Art Gallery is a fascinating place to learn about local mining history. Owners & photographers Cory & Jessica Schuman run historic mine tours.
Guides & tours
Tristan’s trip was supported by Visit Ogden, who organise the historic Ogden Tour (see above) and Visit Utah.
