Caberfae Peaks with Pete Meyer – Making Skiing a Family Affordable Adventure

And during the winter months, we do stay laser

focused on skiing and snowboarding.

There's a lot of other resorts that put in other attractions like zip lines

and alpine slides and mountain biking.

Things like that.

We don't.

We refer to those as distractions.

We want to be the best skiing, snowboard resort that we can possibly be.

Hello everyone.

Welcome back to Ordinary People, Extraordinary Things.

I am your host Cliff Duvernois.

Right now it is ski season and I love to ski.

So imagine my surprise to find a ski resort in Northern part of the lower

Peninsula that's got a real focus on being the family affordable option.

And I'm talking about Caberfae Peaks.

Today I'm joined with one of the co-owners of Caberfae Peaks.

And that would be Pete Meyer.

Pete, how are you?

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: I'm doing very well, thank you.

And I didn't know that, I didn't know that was the name of the podcast, but

I'm definitely a very ordinary person.

So this, this will fit well.

Great.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about where you're from and where you grew up.

So I grew up in the town of Cadillac here.

I'm currently employed in at Caberfae Ski Resort.

It's a family business.

My dad and my uncle got into it back in the early eighties.

There's a tremendous amount of history with Caberfae.

Caberfae was one of the first ski resorts to open in not only the

Midwest, but the entire nation.

So there's a tremendous amount of history.

It opened in, uh, 19 37, 38.

And operated for a long time as a non-profit entity.

Um, and it started under the combination of the Civilian Conservation Corps,

the, uh, US Forest Service and the local Chamber of Commerce.

So they opened it, cut the first ski trails in, put the first rope toes

in, and then ran it for a long time.

And then in the seventies, they, I should say the late, the mid to late

sixties, they wanted to raise some funds to put in a couple chairlifts.

And, and they did that.

They sold stock to some individual members and ski club members and

ended up buying the chairlifts and weren't able to, uh, pay for it.

So it ultimately ended up filing for bankruptcy.

So that's when it went from public to private.

And then my family got involved after that point in time.

So they, they had ended up buying it from the bank in the early eighties.

So this was your, this was your father

and your uncle who bought it?

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: That's correct, yeah.

You grew up practically in the ski business?

I did, I grew up, as, you know, grew

up on the, on the hill skiing.

I grew up, uh, working here pretty much every department helping wherever

I could, just because I had to.

And then when I graduate, yeah, exactly.

When you grew up in it, you can't really get away from it.

So then when I, when I graduated high school, I couldn't get to,

I couldn't wait to get away.

You know, not only from here, but the town of Cadillac as well.

And, uh, is the last thing on my mind was coming back here.

But as you move away, I went to, went to school at University of Notre Dame

and, uh, head of accounting degree.

So I'm a certified public accountant.

Practiced public accounting for three years in Chicago and then a couple

years out in Denver after that.

So that was great experience.

I got exposed to a lot of different businesses in a very short period of time.

After that point in time, I just started communicating with my dad

and he was recruiting me pretty heavily to come back and ended up,

So what was it that made you move back?

My dad actually was going through some,

some health problems at that time.

He was having a knee replacement.

They had, uh, a couple of key personnel leave here.

And so he just wanted to look into some kind of transition or exit strategy

for him and, and was recruiting.

Recruiting pretty hard.

I ended up, had a lot of discussions with my wife and we.

We ended up coming back.

And subsequently had a lot of conversations with my cousin Tim, who

at that time was uh, working at Winter Park, Colorado as a ski patroller.

And he had been out there for 10 years.

And I knew it would be a little bit better if we, we came back and did it together.

So, in communications with him, he ended up moving back.

Six months after, after I came back here.

And so he now runs the mountain operations, everything on the hill.

He'll, he overlooks the, uh, snow making, the grooming, the ski patrol the

maintenance of, of, of all that as well.

The chair lifts and I pretty much have everything else or the more the base

area and the business end of things.

So I'll oversee the, the ticket office the rental operations, the ski shop,

all the food and beverage outlets, the hotel, the housekeeping accounting,

and all the marketing and HR.

Now, one of the things that initially attracted me to come to

Caberfae was the fact that you guys have the tallest hill in the lower peninsula.

We do.

We do.

So we actually have the highest lifts serve peak in the in, in all of Michigan.

So there are higher points in Michigan, but they don't

have a, a lift on top of 'em.

And there's also some ski resorts with more vertical.

But our top is higher than, than those other elevations.

One of the things I would like to explore with you is

this family affordability that you have with your particular ski result.

And, and I say that because what brought really brought it to my

attention was when I took a break from skiing and I went over to grab a meal.

I was shocked that I could get burger fries and a soda for $10, which,

put you on competition with the king, the clown, and the colonel.

You know?

Right.

It's like going to McDonald's, you know.

So talk to us a little bit about, keeping those prices that way.

Cuz on, and I ask that question because a lot of ski resorts are expensive.

But it seems like you are a very family affordable option.

You hit the nail on the head right there for us.

And that kind of defines who we are and what we wanna be.

A we want to provide value.

We want people to come here and walk away from here saying, Hey, that was, that was

a really good time and that was worth it.

I, I want to do that again.

And we do that in a number of different ways.

One, we try to provide a good on hill experience with the

snow making and the grooming.

Two, we try to provide value with the, with the food and

other things when we're here.

But more importantly, we started with some of the lift ticket value.

And it's a little bit higher now.

But it really created value for families.

So you could have a family of four could spend less than $400 and then

they can recreate all winter long on weekends, Saturdays, and Sundays

and days that they can recreate.

You know, it really made it a family friendly place.

On top of that, we I think are one of the best ski resorts in

the area that allow people to bring in their own picnic lunches.

So we have quite a, a crockpot scene here.

It's pretty neat.

We used to allow them into our main lodge, the big red building here.

We had crockpots on the lower level and then the cafeteria on the upper level.

Two summers ago we renovated an, an old dilapidated lodge

called the Skyview Lodge.

That was built in the early sixties and had a lot of had

a lot of issues structurally.

It had been leaking ever since I could remember.

The roof always leaked since, ever since I've been alive.

So we, we had a structural engineer come out and assessed that and

then ended up renovating that extensively, uh, last summer.

And now that whole lodge and that entire square footage is, is dedicated

to, uh, to crockpots or, or those families packing picnic lunches.

So now to this day, you know, we wanna be very family friendly.

We want to be very welcoming.

We want to know your name.

We have a lot of longtime employees that, that know a lot of the customers and

it's, and it's neat to build that rapport and welcome 'em back year after year

So with running a ski resort, what would you say are some of the

biggest challenges that you have to face?

Well, I think number one is, is weather.

You know, we, we battle the ever-changing weather in, in

Michigan and Northern Michigan.

And number two is staff.

You know, we have over almost 225 to 230 employees here.

And it, it is just a lot to manage with, with the staff.

A lot of 'em are part-time seasonal.

A lot of 'em are high school kids, college kids.

So between those two things, those are probably the most aspects

of, of operating a ski resort.

And I know as far as the weather goes, you can kind

of stack the deck a little bit in your favor cuz like you said before,

you've got the snow machines out there on the mountain to produce snow.

We, we did, and we didn't always have that.

When Tim and I moved back, it was, we had a lot of deferred maintenance.

You know, my dad and my uncle had just done a phenomenal job of, of

redeveloping the ski ski resort.

They had put in a couple chairlifts, redeveloped the hills, added vertical

to the hills built a big day lodge, added the golf course, built a rental,

rental, building this ticket office, the pool out in front of the hotel.

So they did a lot of just really good things.

And then we just, you know, we became very focused on um, just refining those things.

And also,

Tim and I still talk about it to this day.

It's it was a really marginal year and we barely could make enough snow to get open.

And we had one run open during the whole holiday week and we survived on one run.

And we're looking at each other afterwards, and we're thinking,

you know, that's, that's a little too close for, for comfort.

So really since that year, we have invested very heavily in

snow making year and year out.

And, uh, right now we have a completely different snow making than we did snow

making system than we did 15 years ago.

So now we can make a tremendous amount of snow in a very short period of time.

We're going through more freeze thaw cycles, where we have good weather

and then it, and then it warms up 40 degrees or it might, rain,

Which we just went through.

Right?

And then the temperature dropped.

And thankfully today we received five inches of natural snow overnight.

So that does the same thing that our snow making will do, is it will

refresh that snow service and bring it back to a good skiing condition.

But had we not got that, we would've been making snow to do the same

thing that that natural snow did.

And we, and we have snow gun towers, fixed towers everywhere throughout the hill.

Uh, so we can turn on, turn the guns on, run 'em, run 'em at night.

Mix it in to the existing base and then ski on it the next day.

And it's and it's been good.

It's been a nice process.

And with that I think our customers are learning to be

more confident in ski conditions.

You know, not just with us, but other, other resorts in

northern Michigan as well.

They, they also have very good snowmaking systems and it's, and it's

been a good thing for the industry.

Yeah, cuz sometimes you gotta help mother Nature along.

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: We absolutely do.

When you're talking about installing like all

these machines and, and everything in else that's, that's in there.

The question I'm, I'm kind of curious about is the recovery of that cost.

Cause I know that it's not cheap to get those machines.

And it's, it's, got 'em all up and down the mountainside cuz it's not,

you just can't put snow in one area.

You gotta have it from the top of the hill all the way down to the bottom.

So what kind of balance do you do between, yeah, we've gotta get

some new equipment in here versus keeping this family affordable?

So it's a great question cuz cuz the answer to

the snowmaking question isn't, isn't just about buying some snow guns.

You know, it's way more complicated than that.

So not only do you need the, the snow guns, but you also need the the source

water capacity, which would be the wells the coming, the pumping capacity, which is

the pumps from the pumphouse, the piping capacity, which is make sure your, your

pipe's not undersized and you have enough piping underground to, to handle the flow.

And then the, the electrical capacity, cuz you, you have an underground

of, you know, electrical web of all, 440 volts run into each snow gun.

Water lines running into each snow gun.

You gotta keep everything in a balance and it's not just an easy

answer of buying a couple snow guns and putting 'em here, right.

For us, you know, we only had a a very few number of portable guns back then.

And now, , we have over 150 snow guns and a lot of 'em are on fixed towers.

Which, which makes it, it makes it a lot easier cuz with the portable,

you have to, the nice thing about portable is you can use it to make snow

in, in several different locations.

But you al you also have to, you know, manually dig out that gun,

move that gun, get it outta the way, push the snow, groom it.

So with towers, it makes it quite a bit easier to do that process.

You just need more of 'em.

But so we continue to.

That process and, and you know, we can't really put a price on, on snow making.

It's just so important.

Without getting the snow made and some runs open.

We, we can't sell a lift ticket.

We can't sell a cheeseburger, can't rent any equipment, can't sell any lessons.

So everything starts with the snow.

And with that, we are going to take a quick

break to thank our sponsors.

When we come back, Pete's gonna share with us how Caberfae wants you to keep enjoying

the ski sport, how parents can overcome that sting of always buying new equipment

for growing children, and what the future holds for all of us at Caberfae Peaks.

See you after the break.

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Welcome back to Ordinary People, extraordinary Things.

Today I'm chatting with Pete Meyer, co-owner of Caberfae Peaks.

Pete, you mentioned before that you have a ski school.

If you would share with us why beginners, and actually almost

anyone for that matter, should attend ski school at least once.

You know, ski school is such an important

part of, of every ski resort, cuz a, when people come here, uh, we want

'em to learn and have a good time.

If they can learn the fundamentals and learn how to stop and learn how

to turn and ski under control, this sport becomes really, really enjoyable.

it does.

Right.

And it's also about safety too.

You don't want to go up there when you can't do that.

So we put in a large emphasis on that.

Our ski school does a great job of teaching.

They teach all kinds of of levels, but the majority of which are beginner levels.

And it's great to continue to introduce people to the sport

of skiing and snowboarding.

And the ultimate goal with these instructors is to have

this person want to come back.

Right?

I always tell the instructors they're the only employee that gets to spend a

whole hour with one customer at a time.

You know, customer might call, you get a phone call, you get the quick interaction

at the ticket window or quick interaction in the cafeteria and the rental.

But get they get a whole one hour or maybe two or whatever

they've booked with this person.

So they'll have the most significant impact, whether that person's gonna

come back and ski, you know, not just at Caberfae but anywhere to convert

them into more of a, a skier for life instead of a one-time skier.

So they can have a profound impact.

And it's very, very, important.

What do ,What do you look for in a ski instructor?

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: You know, it's, it's, uh, it's

interesting cuz we can our staff will teach them how to teach.

They really just need to be able to identify and relate with the person.

They have to understand what they wanna get out of the lesson.

Uh, cuz once you get beyond a beginner level, lesson.

They, people want different things.

You have to be able to understand that and give it to 'em.

And you have to be able to identify with them and, and give 'em what they want.

Make 'em feel comfortable, and at ease, and ultimately be safe.

And have a good time.

And have fun.

It's all about the, it's all.

about fun.

It definitely is.

And then another aspect of your business that you have is actually

selling the ski equipment as well.

What are some things that people should think about if they're

saying, you know what, I'd like to get this season pass to Caberfae.

And equipment rental is a part of that equation as well.

You could, you definitely rent equipment here, but I know it's, for

some people out there, it's a little bit better to buy their own equipment.

So what are some things that people should be thinking about

if they're looking at equipment?

You know, it's always better to buy it.

It's just easier to have it every day so you don't have to

go through the rental process.

Our pass prices were so low.

We did have a lot of pass holders that would come and rent.

Uh, you know, just trying that out each time they came up.

Um, and then ultimately once they get into their own equipment, it's better,

it's better for them and it's better for us and their experience here.

We don't have a retail ski shop, but we do have a, a demo center in shop

where we'll buy some of the brand new and latest and greatest skis from

some of the leading manufacturers.

And what's neat about our, our program is, is skiers can try before they buy.

So that's one thing you can't do in a retail ski shop.

Cuz different, all ski, ski different ways.

Uh, some one person might really like this ski.

Who's a really good skier and not like another ski.

And the other person would come in and have the exact opposite

opinion just because they feel different underneath your, your foot.

So it's nice to be able to, to go out and try it and then they

can, and then they can buy it.

And so we'll sell off that demo fleet at the end of the season.

Uh, they're on sale now and then, uh, we'll buy another,

another set next season.

But a lot of times, we'll, we'll partner with other retail ski

shops cuz we'll carry the same skis that they have in the shop.

So early season, if they would come out, Hey, I really like to ski.

Okay, hey, you can head into, head into town at the local

ski shop and, and get it there.

Or, or other ski shops in areas like Grand Rapids or in other popular areas.

And with regards to the ski equipment, from what you're saying

is it's better to actually try the skiing first before you get the equipment?

Well, I think so for two different

way, two different reasons.

One, at the beginner level, you, somebody might not wanna make the

investment in ski equipment, right?

And they'll come out and they can rent.

Okay?

Once you know you like it and you wanna buy a pair and you don't,

and you're looking to buy a new pair, it's really nice to be

able to try it before you buy it.

Absolutely.

Just because you, you're gonna pick the right ski for you.

You're not gonna walk outta the store with one that looks nice,

but then you don't, don't really like it when you're on the hill.

And if you're looking for affordable options there's a list

of ski swaps, around the entire state that all happen pre-season.

They usually happen September, October, and November.

Uh, we always have a list of those that we refer out to

people looking for equipment too.

Cuz that's a way to get it a little bit more economic.

Um, you're looking for used equipment and that just at least gets you in your

own, your own boots and your own skis.

That really helps.

There's also ski shops that have some really good kids trade-in programs like

Bill and Paul's down in Grand Rapids has a great program where kids grow outta

their boots pretty quickly and they grow outta their skis pretty quickly.

So not all families wanna make an investment in that when they're

gonna have to, buy a new pair in the next year or two years later.

So these are really nice programs that allow you to to K get your kid outfitted

throughout the growing years and not have to buy a new pair every year.

You've also made a really heavy investment

into leveraging social media to connect with your online community.

It's part of the industry here, like, one thing

that's neat is we get different weather than even where our main market comes

from, which is the greater Grand Rapids area or the Lansing area or

the Midland, Bay City, Saginaw area where people are driving up from.

It might not be snowing there, right?

But we're getting snow.

And it's really important to be able to, to show them that

and show 'em the updates.

Also, it's important to be able to show that our ability to

make snow and hey, we have snow.

Cuz there's a lot of cases they're sitting in their home downstate

and there's no snow on the ground.

They're not thinking about it.

And it's important to hey, to let them know.

Yes, yes, we're open.

Two, we have plenty of snow.

And three, the conditions are pretty good.

So come on up and, uh, and here's some looks into our social media to see.

And then we also work with, you know, we'll do a lot of posts locally here.

Just a lot of the timely stuff.

But then we have a, a guy by the name of Jeff Boss, who

owns and runs Montage Media.

And he does some of the higher end videos and some of that work.

And we have a nice relationship with him.

He started out just dabbling in some videos.

This is a great story too.

He was, he was, selling cars here in town and always had an interest

in doing some video production.

And we had a Facebook contest way back then.

And he actually won it.

Okay.

It was a one minute video and he put together this really neat video just

with his iPhone and, and it was neat.

And so we started communicating.

I'm like, Hey Jeff, we should do a little bit more of this.

And then, so I, we hired him to do a few more videos and he really, it

was his passion, it was his love.

And then he, and he came in and sat down.

We worked out an arrangement to, for the whole winter to work.

And then that gave him enough to quit his job.

And then he had enough business booked in the summer.

And so now, now he's blown up and doing fantastic and doing

a really good job on his own.

And probably doesn't need cabret as much as he did back then,

but we certainly sure need him.

And hopefully hopefully he sticks around.

Uh, I hope he does too because your guys' facebook page is,

first off, it's really active.

A lot of people engage with it.

And second off, I gotta give you compliments cuz your, your content

on there is just extraordinary.

I mean, I find myself evangelizing

Well, well thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

As far as like activities go, i, is it just

wintertime for Caberfae Peaks?

Are, is it also open in the summertime?

Do you do biking?

Cause I know some places do that.

Like they, they take the bikes up to the top of the hill and bikes down.

So we're, we are yes, we are a year-round business.

But at the same time we're very seasonal.

Probably, um, 85% of our business in the winter months.

Okay.

And during the winter months, we do stay laser focused on skiing and snowboarding.

There's a lot of other resorts that put in other attractions like

zip lines and alpine slides and mountain biking, Things like that.

We don't.

We refer to those as distractions.

We want to be the best skiing, snowboard resort that we can possibly be.

And those take resources away from that.

So we're gonna continue to do that.

We're gonna continue to expand our skiing, continue to improve

the base area, continue to improve the lift infrastructure.

We have plans to do even more.

So we just want to continue to stay focused on that.

As far as the off season we have a nine hole golf course.

We have a 39 room hotel, and our main summer business

is, is the banquet business.

So we'll do a significant number of weddings from mid-April

through early November.

And those are really neat because we have such a unique setting.

You know, since we're primarily a ski resort there's not much

happening in the summer other than some walk up golf traffic.

So a bride and groom could come and book the lodge.

But not only that, they could book the entire hotel.

They can do their rehearsal dinner here.

They can have a gift opening brunch.

They can do the wedding ceremony here.

So really, we have a lot of drive to destination weddings.

And a lot of our bride and grooms come from downstate just to get away.

And it's kind of neat cuz they can take over the entire resort and have a really

intimate setting and not have to leave.

Was the hotel original to this property, or was that something

that your dad and uncle added?

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: No, that was original.

That, that was built in the late sixties.

And that too was in really rough shape.

So we've completely renovated the inside, renovated the exterior.

We had no phones in the rooms.

And we had duct tape on carpet.

I mean, it was, it was not a place that many people wanted to stay.

Believe it or not, we've we've outlived the need for phones in the rooms.

Now.

We don't even, before it was a big deal and now, now it doesn't even matter.

So we are ahead of our time, I like to say.

I gotta give you credit for that because if you,

I would've told you you were crazy.

Cuz that I asked about the hotel because that over there seems like it's maybe

built like within the last 10 years.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks for saying that.

So we, we had, like I said, we had really focused on all of the, um, like

the deferred maintenance and snow making for the first 15 years we are here.

So those are things that you really can't put in the cover of the brochure.

Nobody really cares if you fix plumbing leaks in the hotel

or you're fixing snow making.

Basically they just expect it to work and they want it to work.

We completely redid the hotel, built new balconies and, and changed the,

the facade of that while working on the inside the whole time.

2017, we renovated the courtyard.

There used to be a broken down parking lot in between the two buildings.

Now it's a really nice outdoor wedding site and a nice ski to drop off.

And we mentioned the, the Skyview Lodge a couple years ago.

So we just continue to, to do the things that, that, that are much more noticeable

to the skier when they drive in.

What's next for Caberfae?

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: It's a great question.

We have some good plans this summer.

We're gonna continue some renovations on the backside of the Skyview Lodge.

We didn't get to that.

We ran out of time.

So we're gonna extend that, make that a little bit larger.

And then we're gonna add over a hundred seasonal lockers as part of that.

So we have a huge demand for that, uh, with skiers that

are seasoned pass holders, but hauling their gear back and forth.

This will give 'em a place to store their lockers and not

have to haul it back and forth.

So that's on the docket.

We're gonna continue with some hotel renovations, and we're gonna continue to

expand our skiing and work on that slowly.

And I also noticed tier two that you have

a building for ski club members.

Talk to us a little bit about that.

So that's a, that's a private ski club.

We don't own that.

That's, uh, that's owned by the members, so.

Oh, okay.

They're landlocked around us.

They have, obviously have access through us but they're all pass holders.

They all support cab.

They're our greatest fans and sometimes also our greatest critics at the time.

But we have a great relationship with them.

We enjoy them and, uh, a lot of 'em are personal friends of Tim and mine

and, and And it's a, and it's a, a really nice benefit to this resort.

There's a waiting list to get in.

So, you know, it's, it's a, there's a parking lot right there.

There's lockers in there, there's a, a little cafeteria in there.

So it's a really nice benefit for those people that are members.

If somebody's listening to this broadcast and they want to

check you out, maybe come on up here.

What would be the best way for them to find you online?

What would be the best way for them to go?

Oh, no doubt.

Just Google Caberfae or Caberfae Peaks.

And we should be the number one search result and click on that.

And I think the website's the best source of information.

We have a lot of information on there.

And as far as looking into pricing, we have a lot of, we do use dynamic

pricing for our lift tickets.

So generally the further you book in advance, the greater the savings.

If you buy a couple weeks in advance, you can get, you know, as

much as 40% off your lift ticket.

If you're gonna commit to us that far in advance where we don't know

what the weather's gonna be like, we're gonna give you a good deal

for committing that far in advance.

And so that tends to work pretty well for us as well, and a way

for people to continue to ski affordably and get a good deal.

Pete, it's been awesome having you on the show today.

Thank you very much.

Pete Meyer, Caberfae Peaks: I appreciate your interest.

Thank you.

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