The sale of China Peak to Invision Capital will see the longstanding resort bundled with two other properties as part of an annual pass. Photo via China Peak

With the sale of China Peak closing in early December, questions arose about potential changes at the longstanding ski resort, but President and General Manager Tim Cohee says that operations at the resort will be business as usual moving forward — with a few added opportunities for skiers in the Valley and throughout California.

In 2021, Karl Kapuscinski, a member of Chicago-based Invision Capital, purchased Mountain High Ski Resort in Southern California, continuing a trend of resort consolidation in the interest of increasing guest accessibility throughout resort systems via season passes.

After the purchase of Mountain High Ski Resort, China Peak was the geographic “middle ground,” positioned between Mountain High in Southern California and Dodge Ridge Mountain Resort in Northern California as the closest three ski resorts on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.

After the sale of Mountain High in 2021, Cohee said Kapuscinski began contacting him hoping to add China Peak to the growing family of California ski resorts owned by Invision.

“The more resorts you can put together on one [season] pass, generally speaking, the more attractive the pass and the more passes you sell,” Cohee said. “Karl looked at it and said…’we’re missing the whole central part of the state.’”

Initially, Cohee and his ownership pushed back on the idea, citing successful 2021 and 2022 seasons that saw China Peak recover from several challenging years of drought.

Eventually, after several months of consistent purchase requests from Kapuscinski, Cohee and his managing partners agreed to sell, setting a closing sale date of Dec. 9.

“We set that date because we said, ‘We didn’t want to be screwing around with this once we get rolling with the season,’” Cohee said. “On the morning of Dec. 9, we closed the deal; they stuck to their word, and we closed it in 60 days.”

Cohee added that given the nature of the transaction, between Forest Service permit transfers and staffing transfers, the 60-day period was a tight window in which to close the sale.

The sale, however, was not the end of Cohee’s time with China Peak; in fact, Kapuscinski and Invision aimed to retain Cohee to manage China Peak’s operations.

“They were pretty insistent that I stay,” Cohee said.

The sale creates an opportunity for the three resorts to create a single pass for customers to enjoy the three resorts under the same ownership group.

Despite selling the resort to an investment capital group — often a move made by businesses seeking financial security — Cohee said that the sale had nothing to do with finances. China Peak saw plenty of success with a new snowmaking machine installed in 2018.

Prior to the installation of the machine, the resort felt heavy effects of the ongoing drought, operating with a machine only capable of “patching” areas of snow rather than blanketing the mountain in skiable snow.

“Places like Snow Summit, Bear Mountain, Heavenly, North Star and Mammoth — those are your really big snowmakers in California,” Cohee said. “They have big enough systems that they can open up ski runs in two or three days.”

After investing in a $4 million snowmaking machine, the resort was able to pay off the machine within the first year of its operation.

“We were not in any sort of financial situation,” Cohee said. “In fact, that’s the reason that we didn’t want to sell — because we were in such good shape.”

This year, leadership at the resort will remain relatively unchanged as will day-to-day operations. Cohee, whose two sons work with him at China Peak, hopes to continue to develop his sons, who are 26 and 29, into managing leaders with the goal of pivoting into a marketing specialist for the three resorts in the future.

Over the next year, Cohee anticipates moving away from his role as president and general manager to oversee the marketing and revenue operations of the three resorts operating in California.

Besides behind-the-scenes ownership changes, China Peak will also undergo several improvements to existing infrastructure on the mountain, as well as one large new project. A new ski lift, purchased in 2022, will be installed following the 2023 season.

The resort will also aim to improve their existing chair lifts. However, the improvements will not affect the season.

Parking, lift lines and mountain space are not issues for Cohee, adding that the existing structures, features and amenities will not see additions in the coming years so much as improvements.

“The most dramatic thing that people are going to see in the next few years is some pretty significant lift upgrades,” Cohee said.

And here’s the most important question: How’s the Powder?

“It’s been incredible,” Cohee said. “Something like this happens maybe once a decade; the last time it snowed like this early was the year we bought the resort in 2010.”

In 2010, the resort opened on Thanksgiving, something that had not happened again since then — until this year.

But Cohee said a large amount of seasonal success is based on timing. The most recent storm, in particular towards the end of December, came at a challenging time for the resort.

“Unfortunately, we got hit with weather at the exact wrong time,” he said. “From a financial standpoint, all the gains we made up until Christmas by having this fantastic early opening…we unfortunately gave a lot of that back this last week.”

Cohee estimates around 20,000 skiers hit the slopes during the Christmas holiday. This year, he estimated the resort saw around half of that total.

But with the additional snowfall, he anticipates a long 2023 season, setting a hopeful goal of April 16 as the resorts’ final week of the season.

If we have one of those freak spring storms where it snows late in the season then we’ll continue to stay open,” Cohee said. “At this point, if it’s a normal spring, I would say we go until the 16th of April.”