Daniel Scott

And so they, you know, they're publicly traded, they have access to capital that a small independent is not going to have.

And they also have regional diversification.

So if you have a bad year, as you mentioned, Salt Lake City, some of the, you know, late ski season, late snow season.

but Vermont and New Hampshire and Colorado or California have a great year, it offsets any impacts.

And so it can get one or two other ski areas or a handful of them through a rough time so that if Vermont has a couple of bad years in a row,

For a small independent, two or three years back to back of poor seasons might be all they can take.

Their cash reserves are out.

They're out of business and who's going to buy you at that point?

You've just seen the climate risk.

Whereas if they're part of a conglomerate like a Vale or Altera, the bigger company can keep you afloat through those couple bad years and then hopefully things turn back to profitability.

Yes, some people have called it the Disneyfication of the ski industry.

But at the same time, I think...

Many places that even have been bought up by some of the conglomerates are still able to keep their sort of local community culture alive of that ski culture.

And it depends.

Some locals will have argued they've lost some of that.

But that, I think, really depends.

It's very destination specific.

So, you know, that is the hope that you can you can reap some of the benefits of being part of a larger organization with access to capital that will help you upgrade your snowmaking and your lift facilities and others.

If you're one of the most climate resilient ski areas in your region, you're going to gain market share over time.

But you need to have the access to capital to maintain that skier experience.