Work Hard, Play Hard
Mammoth Mountain is doubling the size of its slopeside coworking space.
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
What a surprise: people love working remotely on the side of a mountain and taking ski breaks every hour or two. “The Fort,” the High Sierra’s first coworking space that opened for business last season in Mammoth Mountain’s Main Lodge, proved very popular among the Silicon Beach and Silicon Valley crowd—so popular, in fact, that the resort has announced it will expand The Fort to 1,000 square feet, making it the largest slopeside coworking space in the country.
“Is coworking the business center of the future or a basic amenity that today’s workforce has come to expect?” asks Matthew Jung, director of The Fort. “Through the demand for memberships [to The Fort], I’d say it’s both.”
The Fort was the brainchild of current Alterra Mountain Company CEO and former Mammoth Resorts leader Rusty Gregory, who understood that the resort’s clientele love the outdoors, but also need to work for a living, necessitating a space where they could do both: Come for the weekend to shred, then stay for the week to work. Mark Browlie, Mammoth Mountain President and COO, latched onto the idea and has invested significant capital into the remote workplace expansion. This includes outfitting The Fort with high-speed internet, conference rooms, and spaces to make private phone calls.
“You can post up, plug in, and refuel your mind and soul,” Matthew Jung, director of The Fort, said in a press statement. “It’s the only place where you can take a conference call at 3 p.m., click into your [bindings] and catch the last chair.”
The Fort also exists as a 4,000-square-foot space in downtown Mammoth Lakes, and once the on-mountain expansion is complete, the two locations will have capacity for 1,000 memberships, up to 100 people working at Mammoth per day, and 30 members working from the on-mountain location at any one time.
What will this kind of work-play flexibility and convenience run you? A 12-month membership comes with a $1,188 price tag (or $99 per month), though that includes the full 2018-’19 Ikon Pass (valued at $1,049). There are also other membership options—from $25 daily drop-ins to weekly and monthly rates—for those who think they’ll only occasionally want access to The Fort.
Mammoth’s coworking playground also hosts private summits, and The Fort has become a popular company retreat and event site. The team over here at SKI is looking forward to receiving an invite to check out The Fort’s new digs and see what this work-life balance is all about. Because, what do SKI Mag editors know about working remotely from the slopes?
Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed The Fort’s 12-month membership fee as $2,400. This article has been updated to reflect the correct 12-month membership fee of $1,188.
