Kirkwood’s Cohee likely to buy Sierra Summit resort

By Kathryn Reed

Tim Cohee’s dream of owning a ski resort may be realized in a matter of days.

Long known as the voice of Kirkwood Mountain Resort’s ski report, as well as president 13 of the 17 years he’s been at the Lake Tahoe area resort, Cohee and a group of investors have put together a deal to buy Sierra Summit Mountain Resort.

Tim Cohee

The resort is 65 miles northeast of Fresno on Highway 168. It has 1,679 vertical feet, with a base elevation of 7,030.

“People should not jump to the conclusion I will leave Kirkwood and run (Sierra Summit) on a daily basis,” Cohee told Lake Tahoe News on Friday.

The paperwork was supposed to be signed March 5. This was the second delay. Now the deal is supposed to be consummated March 12 assuming all of the kinks can be ironed out. Escrow on the multimillion dollar deal would close April 30.

Snow Summit Ski Corp. is the seller. When they acquired the operation in 1981 they abandoned the China Peak name.

Cohee is used to owning businesses far from where he lives. He has owned a couple ski shops in Wrightwood in Southern California for a handful of years. He checks in on them and the house he owns about once a year.

Like most deals of this magnitude, there are a lot of moving pieces. For one, no paperwork has been signed. If it does go through, Cohee and his partners have someone in mind from outside of the Lake Tahoe area who could run the resort and therefore not require him moving there. Plus, he said the staff in place is good.

Cohee has been in the ski industry for 36 years, all but five of them he’s been in management.

Cohee doesn’t expect to have a conversation with the ownership and management team at Kirkwood regarding his role at that resort until all is done with the Central California resort.

Cohee envisions Sierra Summit, which may revert to its old name, to be a feeder resort of sorts for Kirkwood. The two could have season pass deals.