Podcast #205: Snow Partners CEO Joe Hession

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Who

Joe Hession, CEO of Snow Partners, which owns Mountain Creek, Big Snow American Dream, SnowCloud, and Terrain Based Learning

Recorded on

May 2, 2025

About Snow Partners

Snow Partners owns and operates Mountain Creek, New Jersey and Big Snow American Dream, the nation’s only indoor ski center. The company also developed SnowCloud resort management software and has rolled out its Terrain Based Learning system at more than 80 ski areas worldwide. They do some other things that I don’t really understand (there’s a reason that I write about skiing and not particle physics), that you can read about on their website.

About Mountain Creek

Located in: Vernon Township, New Jersey

Closest neighboring public ski areas: Mount Peter (:24); Big Snow American Dream (:50); Campgaw (:51)

Pass affiliations: Snow Triple Play, up to two anytime days

Base elevation: 440 feet

Summit elevation: 1,480 feet

Vertical drop: 1,040 feet

Skiable Acres: 167

Average annual snowfall: 65 inches

Trail count: 46

Lift count: 9 (1 Cabriolet, 2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Mountain Creek’s lift fleet)

About Big Snow American Dream

Located in: East Rutherford, New Jersey

Closest neighboring public ski areas: Campgaw (:35); Mountain Creek (:50); Mount Peter (:50)

Pass affiliations: Snow Triple Play, up to two anytime days

Vertical drop: 160 feet

Skiable Acres: 4

Trail count: 4 (2 green, 1 blue, 1 black)

Lift count: 4 (1 quad, 1 poma, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog’s of inventory of Big Snow American Dream’s lift fleet)

Why I interviewed him

I read this earlier today:

The internet is full of smart people writing beautiful prose about how bad everything is, how it all sucks, how it’s embarrassing to like anything, how anything that appears good is, in fact, secretly bad. I find this confusing and tragic, like watching Olympic high-jumpers catapult themselves into a pit of tarantulas.

That blurb was one of 28 “slightly rude notes on writing” offered in Adam Mastroianni’s Experimental History newsletter. And I thought, “Man this dude must follow #SkiTwitter.” Or Instabook. Of Flexpost. Or whatever. Because online ski content, both short- and long-form, is, while occasionally joyous and evocative, disproportionately geared toward the skiing-is-fucked-and-this-is-why worldview. The passes suck. The traffic sucks. The skiers suck. The prices suck. The parking sucks. The Duopoly sucks. Everyone’s a Jerry, chewing up my pow line with their GoPro selfie sticks hoisted high and their Ikon Passes dangling from their zippers. Skiing is corporate and soulless and tourist obsessed and doomed anyway because of climate change. Don’t tell me you’re having a good time doing this very fun thing. People like you are the reason s