Making millions: Steamboat Resort’s ‘Kings of Vert’ rule Ikon leaderboard

With 100 Olympians and counting, Steamboat Springs is famous for being home to more Olympic athletes than any other city in the nation, thus earning its nickname “Ski Town, USA.” 

Beyond the glitz and glitter of the Olympic influence, however, is a Western ski town of just over 13,000 people, many of whom enjoy playing in the snow and skiing or riding daily on Steamboat Resort’s Champagne Powder. 

Currently, five of the top 10 skiers and riders on the Ikon Pass leaderboard for vertical feet reside in Steamboat Springs. One of those skiers, Joe Brougher, listed as “Joseph B,” is in a class by himself.

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On March 30, the 57-year-old made history at Steamboat Resort by becoming the first skier to officially track 5 million vertical feet skied at the resort in a single season. He also remains the active leader among all Ikon resorts this season. 

Brougher spent 118 days skiing this season. He covered 5,003,967 feet in that span with 2,806 lifts.

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To garner inspiration, Brougher goes by a number of sayings and mental notes that keep him going even when his knees begin to fatigue. A patch fixed to his coat urges him to keep pushing by saying, “I don’t stop when I’m tired, I stop when I’m DONE.”

Brougher said that, while riding Steamboat Gondola each morning, he would take time to calm his mind and meditate. The most important reminders of all are written on the fingers of his gloves, telling him to “Have fun” and “Hydrate.” 

Once departing from the gondola, Brougher would click into his skis and go about his day, living by his motto: “Ski what the mountain gives me.”

Brougher also believes he is wasting time if he is waiting in line. He said what he loves most about skiing for vert is figuring out the day-to-day flow on the mountain, anticipating where the crowds are going to be and skiing where they are not. 

On a normal day, he can average 9,000 vertical feet per hour using four lifts — Sundown, Stormpeak, Pony and Thunderhead — without lapping the same runs over and over again. 

“The mountain is a puzzle every day because you have different weather, different crowds and lift stoppages,” he said. “Your body is different. The visibility can be different run to run. You have to react to the circumstances and have a plan. For me, it made it extremely fun. It was a different way of skiing.” 

Four days after Brougher hit 5 million feet, 48-year-old snowboarder Jeremiah Arnold broke another Steamboat record by becoming the first rider to reach 4 million vertical feet in Steamboat Resort’s recorded history.

“Each vertical foot is a foot of fun,” Arnold said. “Four million feet of fun is pretty good.”

Arnold added that, at the start of the season, he had not set any goals for vertical feet. Instead, he simply wanted to get on the mountain every day and make the most of it in light of his 40-minute commute to Steamboat from the Stagecoach area.

As of this week, Arnold’s “perfect season” was still intact. He usually arrives at the mountain by 9 a.m. each day and rides until 2 p.m. At least one day per week is reserved for a family ski day, in which Arnold enjoys the mountain with his wife, Rochelle, and 13-year-old son, Dylan.

While Middle Rib is Arnold’s preferred run on the mountain, he said it is important to keep moving around the resort and find the pocket that offers the best weather and conditions in the least busy area. Arnold is a self-described powder chaser, as he tries to go where the best snow is and loves to ride through the trees. 

“The trees for me, that’s what makes it,” Arnold said. “You can ski here for 25 years and still find new places and stashes to go to every year. If you fight through some tight stuff, all of a sudden it opens up and there’s a part I never knew about.”

Arnold said he was inspired on the mountain last winter, and the consistent snowfall reignited his passion for riding. Beyond the snow, it was the people. Arnold enjoys greeting the shuttle drivers and lifties every day on the mountain as well as fellow skiers and riders who share the joys of the resort.

Arnold believes there are several local skiers who do not track themselves on the app and have probably collected just as many days and vertical feet as Brougher and Arnold have. 

“It’s not just the few you see on that leaderboard; those are just the people that happen to track,” Arnold said. “There are people who are up there every day or most everyday for long periods of time just because they love it.” 

Tracking or not, it is safe to say what Arnold and Brougher have accomplished is remarkable.

Brougher said his perfect season came to an end around his 80th day at the end of February when he traveled to Indiana with his wife, Kelly, to celebrate her father winning an award.

The return trip back to Steamboat is when Brougher realized what he had ahead of him. He was sitting at 2,950,000 vertical feet and had 39 days of skiing remaining before he headed back to Indiana for the summer on April 1. If he averaged 53,000 feet per day for the remaining days, he knew he could reach 5 million.

The only problem was 53,000 feet every day for more than a month is easier said than done.

“In previous years, my longest streak of 50,000-foot days was only nine days,” he said. “Mathematically, it was possible — 53,000 is not that difficult to ski in Steamboat — but to do it every day for 39 days in a row was the challenging part. We had one day with the wind stoppage and I only got 4,000, but I had completed the 5 million on (March 30). I did it in 38 days.” 

During that time, Brougher recorded 1 million vertical feet in 18 days, marking the shortest amount of time he’s ever taken to reach that mark. He also took his 10,000th recorded ski lift since he started tracking his progress on the app five seasons ago. Brougher was on Vagabond when he hit the elusive 5 million-feet mark. 

Each day getting off the mountain, Brougher had a whole routine with a massage gun to work his muscles toward recovery. He iced his knees and would give them a pep talk each morning. After all the hours on the mountain this season, he lost about 22 pounds this winter. 

Going for something like a perfect season or a vertical foot record is not for the faint of heart, and to reach that feat, Arnold recommends being kind to your body and equipment early on. 

“One of the biggest things with going every day is you have to start off kinda slow,” he said. “You have to ease into the season a bit to get your body in shape, and then you can start going a lot. People get excited at the beginning of the year, but if you want to go all the way, you have to ease your way into it.” 

Regardless if someone is chasing Olympic gold, a local resort record or just hoping to get a few turns in each week, Arnold and Brougher both agree that it should be for the love of the snow. Above all else, skiing and riding is meant to be a fun adventure, never a chore. No place embraces that more than Steamboat Springs. 

“When you talk about it, sometimes it sounds like work, but there wasn’t a day out there that I was working,” Brougher said. “It was fun. I was having a blast, and if you ever rode a lift with me, you saw that I had a smile on my face, especially if there were skis on my feet.”