Silverton Mountain Gets New Owners

Silverton Mountain is known worldwide for the unique big mountain skiing experience created by Aaron and Jen Brill.  The ski area was founded, built and has been continually operated by Aaron and Jen Brill since its inception in 1999 when Aaron first moved to Silverton.  Aaron came to Silverton with the intent and determination to build a new ski area from the ground up.  Brill’s vision was for an all-expert ski area with a focus on big mountain adventure vs real estate development.  In the 1980’s and 1990’s the ski resort industry was primarily about the development of condos and real estate sales, making Silverton Mountain a standout for what it wasn’t as much as what it was.  When Silverton Mountain opened in 2001 it became the first ski area to consist of all expert skiing with no easy way down, with no clearcut trails, no grooming, and no real estate development “All Thrills and no Frills”.  

At the time, the ski industry had little interest in expanding expert skiing options at existing ski resorts because the intermediate skiers were the ones buying the high-priced condos.  As the ski industry watched the success at Silverton Mountain unfold, other resorts followed suit with more terrain expansions targeted at expert skiers.    

Silverton Mountain announced that it was acquired this week by a Colorado based business called Heli Adventures Inc led by Andy Culp as CEO and Brock Strasbourger as President who both live in Colorado. The Brill’s stated that after nearly 25 years within the volatile ski industry they are looking forward to being able to focus on family.  

The Standard sat down for a Q&A with Aaron and Jen Brill to discuss the interesting history of Silverton Mountain and what to expect in the future.

Silverton Standard: It’s been nearly 25 years of operating Silverton Mountain, what influenced your decision here?

Aaron Brill: It’s been an honor and a pleasure building Silverton Mountain from the ground up.  We never thought we would ever sell the ski area, but the volatility of the ski industry has increased year after year, and we realized the ski area really needs a better capitalized owner to deal with that in the long term.  We saw so many friends lose their successful businesses during Covid that they had worked at tirelessly for their entire lives, it was an incredibly sobering moment.  When the Colorado government in March of 2020 shutdown all ski areas on a whim, it took all we had to keep things going. 

Silverton Standard: I bet there have been plenty of challenges over the years, what other notable challenges would be at the top of the list?

Aaron Brill: Every day is a challenge, and that’s one of the reasons why we love the ski industry!  Every day is different and requires problem solving and quick adaptation.  Some of the biggest hurdles over the last 25 years would be getting the initial BLM approval for the ski area.  This was a herculean task to convince the BLM 25 years ago that this was a good idea.  The BLM did not understand or administer ski areas at the time, and they were not sure what to do when a 27-year-old snowboarder (me) walked into their office with plans for a backcountry ski area.  Back at that time my vision was very simple so I thought it would be easy.  I was going to put a lift on private property that was adjacent to BLM public land and let skiers access the mountains unfettered.  

Jen Brill: Yeah, the BLM only allowed us 10 skiers a day that first year!  How crazy is that, just 10 skiers a day at a ski area but that’s what we dealt with.  Then the following year they granted us 20 skiers a day, and then the following year 40 skiers a day.  Starting a new business is always hard, but we didn’t anticipate those artificial hurdles being imposed upon us the first few years.  Nowadays our BLM relationship is much, much better.

Aaron Brill: There are so many challenges that we encountered, but the most unique perhaps was when Red Mountain Pass closed due to the Ruby Walls rockslide in January of 2016. The rockslide took out a section of Highway 550 above Ouray in the narrowest section of the highway.  The mountainside was still unstable and CDOT was trying to figure out how best to address the issue, but the Highway was the critical corridor to Silverton and there was talk of keeping 550 closed for the entire winter.  I volunteered Silverton Mountain’s unique big mountain technical experience and our heli skiing helicopter and we were brought into the job.  Our role was to climb the mountain each day and dangle from ropes on the dangerous unstable bluff and send loose boulders down the mountain and then to drill and place rock netting on the cliff via helicopter. It was incredibly dangerous work that involved our ski guides, helicopter, pilot and crew including myself that were literally dodging death each day. In hindsight it probably wasn’t worth the risk of life for us to be there during the winter, but at the time we felt that Silverton needed the road open and we were going to get it open. We knew we were the only ones with the skills and balls to get it done during the winter vs waiting for summer.  On that job one of our crew caught on fire from a spark while dangling from a rope on the cliff and several other times the heli rotor was nearly impacted by rockfall while hovering inches away from the cliff while hoisting netting into place.  We are accustomed to doing dangerous things but this was all time dangerous work, but we got it done safely and without incident.

Jen Brill: That’s Aaron’s best skill set. Finding ways to accomplish dangerous things in a safe manner. There was also the memorable mega avalanche cycle in March of 2019 when the road to the ski area was buried under 20 feet of debris that took weeks to clear and the only way to get the guests who drove all the way to Silverton (the long way as Red Mountain was also closed for weeks) was via helicopter. Or the big avalanche cycle of 2005 which tore out the powerline to the ski area and when we rented a large generator on a trailer to keep the ski area open, the truck driver from the flatlands of Albuquerque slid off the road 300 feet into a vertical ravine and put the generator in the creek.

Silverton Standard: What changes have you seen in Silverton over the past 24 years?

Jen Brill: In 1999 there were very few businesses open in the winter.  Aaron was living in his car, using the pay phone at the Triangle Motel (there was no Silverton cell service at that time) and the computer at the library to write business plans while he was getting the ski area built.  Thankfully the Brown Bear Café was one of the only restaurants open and had a salad bar or Aaron probably would have gotten scurvy as he was eating tuna and ramen every day.   It’s been great to see so many new businesses that have opened and new families in school, and of course tons of new residents since the ski area started. 

Silverton Standard: What would you consider your most significant accomplishment in Silverton?

Aaron Brill: We are extremely thankful that Silverton/San Juan County welcomed us and have been so supportive all of these years, as we could not have done it without their support!  We are also very proud of our team who consist of the very best people we have ever met! Many of our employee team we have known since they were college kids and now they have their own kids and are homeowners.

Silverton Standard: Long ago when you first started there were naysayers with predictions of doom and gloom regarding avalanche safety, but it appears as if the opposite has happened? 

Jen Brill: We are really proud of our perfect safety record and the state of the art snow safety program we developed, and during our watch we have been able to avoid any avalanche fatalities.  This is a testament to our amazing crew and our dedication to our guest’s wellbeing.

Aaron Brill: Pretty much all of the premier ski resorts with major avalanche issues have had fatal accidents in their history.  Silverton Mountain operates in a much more challenging snow climate than anywhere else in the US, yet has been able to maintain a perfect safety record.  This is incredibly hard to accomplish. Unlike other ski resorts which all have some low angle terrain to work with and can keep their steep terrain closed after large storms, 100% of our terrain is steep avalanche terrain that we open every day so we are really proud of that.

Silverton Standard: What’s next for Aaron and Jen Brill?

Aaron Brill: I still love ski guiding and guide every single day of the winter in Alaska.  We will continue to own and operate Silverton Mountain Guides Alaska (SMG AK) which is the premier heli skiing operation in Alaska.  SMG AK is the only operation that is open for the entire winter season in Alaska (from October through May) and I guide every single day of the entire season up there.  We have the most terrain of any operation in North America with more than 25 million acres and I really enjoy sharing that experience with our guests. 

Jen Brill: Because we are out flying everyday all season long and since this will be our 17th season operating in AK, we have such intimate knowledge of a massive amount mountains across all of Alaska it’s really awe inspiring.  We are pretty much able to fly our guests every day as we have local tree skiing for storm skiing and usually at least one of our zones will have flyable weather so weather down days are practically nonexistent.

Aaron Brill: And…It’s not out of the question that we build another ski area someday building upon what we learned in Silverton.  Silverton Mountain will never be duplicated, it’s such a unique and special place and a legitimate Top 5 ski area in the US. I get regularly approached by people wanting my assistance to build a new ski area, but I haven’t had the bandwidth. I have had my eye on locations with even bigger mountains over the years, so you never know…

Silverton Standard: What are some of your favorite Silverton moments you have experienced?

Jen Brill: My favorite is being in the tent at the end of the day and hearing from dozens and dozens of skiers glowing with happiness and saying how their ski day was the best of their entire lives!  But Shaun White’s secret halfpipe was perhaps the most amazing thing we have been a part of.  It was a huge engineering feat for us, as well as being incredible to have a 1hr primetime NBC TV feature during the winter Olympics and also a segment on 60 Minutes on CBS.  Only Aaron could sell to Redbull a plan for them to pay for a helicopter for the full season allowing Aaron to fly around and blast snow from high above down into the basin deep enough to build a superpipe out of all-natural snow. Redbull spent more than a million dollars on the project in Silverton and is something that will never be replicated.

Aaron Brill: My personal favorite is the deepest of powder days spent with my wife Jen on the mountain.  Jen has sacrificed a lot for Silverton Mountain and been tasked with most of the non-glamorous jobs.  Although I get credit for being the “visionary” it simply wouldn’t have happened without her.    Being able to have created a skiing/boarding experience that has brought so much joy to so many skiers and boarders has been amazing!   

Silverton Standard: What’s the status on the new lift?

Aaron Brill: As much as we tried, the second lift will not be going in this season.  Finding the right used lift took more time than expected.  I know some people will think the second lift was just about making the ski area more marketable, but Grady and I have been talking internally about putting in a second lift for the past 5 years.  

Silverton Standard: What does the future of Silverton Mountain look like?

Jen Brill: Andy Culp and Brock Strasbourger are energetic hardcore skiers first and foremost.  They also operate a heli skiing business in Canada and are super passionate about skiing.  We only considered parties with a similar passion for skiing and those who fully believed in our employees.  Silverton Mountain is our baby, but our employee’s wellbeing moving forward was a requirement when considering doing this.  We rejected other more lucrative offers from people who didn’t have what we felt was the right vision for Silverton Mountain, so we believe that Andy and Brock are the right fit. They have a proven track record and are great with guest services which will be a huge asset to our ski community.