I met Todd Clarke, the new General Manager, for Sunrise Park Resort in the front office of Funland — the child daycare center. It is the off season for the Resort so it was pretty quiet with only one dedicated employee working the front office. Clarke was running back and forth between the offices on the right side of the building and back over to the daycare center where he had created a makeshift desk at one of two long tables that were pushed together in an L-shape. He greeted me and then we sat at the tables about six feet away from each other. I could tell by his demeanor and his attire (shorts in November) that he was going to fit in just fine. It takes more than shorts and demeanor to run a ski hill, but I believe that the Sunrise Board of Directors have found someone that has the know-how with the industry background who will truly make a difference. 

He came here from Virginia where he managed a resort called Wintergreen. He spent 11 years reshaping and reformulating it into an exceptional resort with a 35 million annual revenue. “It was smaller overall as a mountain,” he tells me. “But, was a much bigger business enterprise.” 

As a kid, Clarke skied whenever he could. He went to high school in Vermont, where one of the sports just happened to be ski racing, and he also worked as junior ski patrol. He went to college in Utah where his curriculum centered on mountain resorts and a variety of different commercial recreation management programs.

His career took him to Alaska where he worked at Alyeska Resort (collectively for 12 years) — a large resort with 1,610 skiable acres, 76 trails and over 669 inches of snow annually. Then, he went to Deer Valley, Utah and worked during the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. He reported to an office in a 20-something-story office building — a fish out of water and his first experience with the Olympics, but he discovered that he couldn’t envision being anywhere else except right at the mountain resort itself. After the Olympics, he became the manager of marketing and events as well as partnership marketing for Heavenly, Steamboat, and 

The Canyons.

Moonlight Basin, located in Big Sky, Montana, was his next adventure in mountain management. It was a blank canvas and America’s newest resort at the time. They built villages and chairlifts and what Clarke would call the “greatest experience for the guests.” From the moment guests arrived and parked, there was a perfect thought path throughout.

I asked Clarke why he chose to come to Sunrise and he told me that he had “mildly” heard of the ski hill, but he didn’t know anything about it. He looked into the history and ownership of Sunrise and then he visited the area. It took him a number of days to bring all of the information together, but what he saw was a “gem potential.” “It is a 1,200 acre mountain, which is a good size compared to the other competitors in Arizona.” He explained. “It has facilities and multiple day lodges that you don’t commonly see in a resort environment. Apache Peak, for example, is such a premium building. It really has the bones of something excellent. With the necessary restoration and planning, we can help it evolve back to what it is capable of.” He solely chose Sunrise because there was a real potential to bring it to a high level of success and it would enable the Tribe to have an asset for many years to come.

So what, you’re probably wondering, will he do to bring Sunrise Park Resort up from near 

ground zero? 

The first thing skiers/boarders will experience this winter season, are the systems and the processes. “All of the point of sale — every product we sell at Sunrise has been gutted out and built back properly in the system,” Clarke told me. “So transaction times will be noticeably less.” He heard that Sunrise was notorious for long lines and somewhat painful experiences; “So, we are absolutely eliminating that!” He promises. “None of the lifts at Sunrise have ever had a maze,” he says, “so if they entered the lift line, it was sort of a lack of creative sorting of people and many times, it created congestion.” The goal, he tells me, is 20 minutes or less — whether it is the line at the chairlift or ordering food. To help speed things up, they are working to move the majority of purchases to an “online pre-purchase,” so that anyone who buys their tickets or any other services they offer online, in advance, pays a lower price than on-site. 

They are completely revamping all of the food and beverage menus and will be offering higher quality food at better value in a quick and efficient manner — including serving food at the bar. They will be featuring daily specials so the “regulars” will get alternative choices — “not things that we want to serve, but things our guests are looking for.” Clarke iterates: “We want everything to be seamless and fast so that at the end of the day, everyone will experience our improvement in quality.” His goal isn’t just doing something half-way, but to be fully present with a well thought-out plan. 

Clarke is very particular when it comes to grooming. He saw enough pictures where some slopes weren’t groomed and in his opinion, would have appealed to a larger array of people. “My philosophy is that you don’t necessarily groom wall to wall —groom every slope — but if you do provide a grooming path — a suitable turning radius grooming path, you can create a more diverse trail.” His goal is to primarily have all top-to-bottom trails at a very acceptable level of grooming with possibly some alternative terrain outside of that. His daily schedule will be to arrive at the chairlifts first thing in the morning well before the public arrives, ride up, and do a photo of the day to examine how things look. He is determined not to under-deliver. 

Clarke told me that Fred, the groomer at Sunrise, has two scenarios pertaining to this year’s snow prediction. It’s going to be warmer and dryer, or it’s going to be wetter than usual. Clarke’s forecast: the indicators are out there. “We have gotten two storms — September 30 and October 12,” Clarke reminds me. “September’s storm was off-the-charts-early — which, by the way, put 8 inches on the top of Sunrise Peak.” So, he believes the early indicators point to a good winter. “We’ve been seeing reasonably cold temperatures at night,” Clarke says. “As each day goes by, we are working toward a colder cycle.” He is optimistic, but states: “We can’t change it if it’s not, but we are going to put every action item in motion to make it the best possible.” They can make snow. However, the first week in November they will be making upgrades to the pump and seal at Lake Ono. After the pipe work on the mountain is completed, and the tests run, they will be ready to turn on the fans. “It’s a pretty old infrastructure, so we have put together a proposal for a complete revamping of the system in the future,” says Clarke. They do have very computerized and efficient TA Fan Guns, which have on-board air compressors and can operate independently, except for needing a water source. The snow making crew will start paying attention to weather cycles — temperatures and humidity (cold temps and low humidity for extended time periods) — to run the equipment when everything comes together. They will look for the first windows — typically a 7-10 day window — to have multiple opportunities and that’s when they will start making snow. December 3rd is their target opening day. “If you look at history,” Clarke says. “half of the time it’s past that day and half of the time it’s at or before. It’s the mark date, but if we can move quicker than that, we will.”

Some of the rooms will be open at the hotel around mid-December after they install a new boiler system and water heating system. As they conclude winter, they will be restoring all of the base-area buildings and then they will repair lift six (Cyclone). They plan to have all of the mountain elements open by the 2022/23 ski season. 

If you haven’t purchased your 2021/22 season pass yet, you have missed the early bird special. However, Sunrise has among the lowest pricing in North America. “I hope our customers really understand what an exceptional value it really is,” Clarke stresses. “If you compare it to what has happened to the ski industry in the past few years, the rest of the world went way over the cliff on pricing! Sunrise, on the other hand, has remained pretty reasonable and it will be their goal to keep it that way moving forward. Obviously, the improvements they need to make will cost money, but right now their pricing is based on not having 100 percent of everything. “Even when we do have everything complete,” says Clarke, “we are not going to jump off that cliff like everyone else. Our goal is not to over price but to price it well and provide an exceptional experience that our customers return to.” 



Todd Clarke hasn’t been unsuccessful in the past and he doesn’t plan on it now. He says the current Board of Directors for Sunrise are exceptional and very supportive and that is the instrument that will make Sunrise Park Resort successful.

Go to www.sunrise.ski to find everything you need to plan an exceptional experience at Sunrise Park Resort.