Ullr Mountain Ops.
EventsSeptember 10, 2026

Ullr at SAM Summer Ops. Camp 2026

Ullr at SAM Summer Ops. Camp 2026

Last week I spent three days in Gatlinburg at SAM's Summer Ops Camp. Ullr sponsored camp this year, and we also got to use Ullr as the official camp app.

115 people from ski areas and suppliers all over the world showed up for three hot days across three mountaintop venues: Boyne Resorts' Gatlinburg SkyPark, Anakeesta, and Ober Gatlinburg. The SAM crew wrote a great recap of the whole program, so I won't repeat it. I'll share what stuck with me, and then get into the fun part: running a conference on mountain ops software.

A few things that stuck with me

Camp kicked-off with an evening walk through Boyne's newly expanded SkyPark: landscaped boardwalks, the new Tulip Tower, the SkyBridge, then barbecue and bluegrass on the mountaintop. Day two was Anakeesta in the morning and evening, with the aerial tram over to Ober in between for summer tubing, the Cloud Catcher zip line, and the bike park. Anakeesta is mid-way through a $100 million upgrade, including a new, all-glass gondola and a new mountain coaster. The night side of the park with the Astra Lumina walk and the new Firefly canopy walk was really impressive.

The Gatlinburg SkyBridge sign at SkyPark, with the bridge stretching across the valley behind it
The Tulip Tower and suspension bridge at Gatlinburg SkyPark in evening light, with the Smokies behind
The Crystal Express gondola cabins at Anakeesta's summit terminal
Campers gathered at the Anakeesta entrance plaza in the morning
A bear statue in overalls surrounded by jack-o'-lanterns, dressed up for fall
The Summer Ops Camp logo on the big screen at Ober Gatlinburg, with the summer slopes behind
Campers taking in the view of the Smokies from an observation deck
Campers walking through a glowing ring of light and mist on Anakeesta's Astra Lumina night walk

Three sessions stood out to me.

  1. Claire Humber on the psychology of outdoor design. SE Group's Claire opened camp with a talk on views, scale, balance, and the sensory pieces that make a guest feel at home and a little in awe. What got me was how much of that work snow does for free in the winter. Take it away and you're left with a question most of us never ask: how do you keep a summer park from feeling like a ski resort in the off season?

  2. David Kenworthy on discoverability. MMGY's David shared new research on how hard it is for guests to find a resort's summer offerings, especially now that so much of that finding happens through AI and agents. That one hit me twice. Once on the product side: how do I make Ullr condition reports easy for an agent to find and read? And once as a small business owner trying to get found myself.

  3. Mistica Walker and Ben Botelho on "Summer Bummers." Risk management is Ullr's bread and butter, so I'm always excited to hear from Mistica. It was really interesting to hear the summer-specific considerations that don't show up on a winter checklist. A lot of the gaps they described are documentation gaps. Who inspected the coaster this morning, what they found, and whether anyone can prove it six months later. Those are exactly the gaps Ullr was built to close, and a big part of why we've been pushing into summer ops.

Ullr as the official event app

Ullr is built for mountain operations. It has tasks, custom forms, mapping, asset tracking, and push notifications. It doesn't have a "conference mode". So we set camp up as if it were a resort and stretched the mountain tools to do conference work. Every camper got an invite by email, registered, and landed in a "Summer Ops Camp" resort in the app (in the same way that an employee would be added to your mountain).

It was a fun way to use Ullr, and it showed how flexible Ullr can be in adapting to different use cases.

Event waivers→Tasks + required forms
Every registered camper was automatically assigned an onboarding task in Ullr: sign your camp waiver. The waiver itself was an Ullr form attached to the task, so you couldn't mark it done without filling it out. Ober's own waiver lived in the same task as a link. Anyone who hadn't signed a couple of days out got a push notification with a direct link to their task. The signed waivers were searchable at check-in, and nobody had to dig through email.
Camp schedule→Calendar of tasks
All 29 sessions, tours, meals, and shuttle pick-ups went into a camp calendar in Ullr, each with a time, a location, and the speakers. When SAM tweaked the agenda in the last week before camp, we updated the app and everyone had the current version on their phone. No PDF v3-final-FINAL.
Timely updates & nudges→Push notifications
Dinner moved from one restaurant at Anakeesta to another, shuttle details changed, and when the Ober afternoon wrapped up people needed to know how to get back downtown. Each of those went out as a push to every camper's phone. Ullr also sent its usual automatic "your task starts in 15 minutes" reminders, which turned out to be a pretty good way to get 115 people to a session on time.
Venue maps→Ullr GIS & asset tracking
This is the part I'm proudest of. Before camp we entered the lifts, trails, and attractions at all three host venues into Ullr as real assets. Ober's Cloud Catcher zip line is in there as three spans and four platforms. The mountain coaster, the alpine slide, the tubing lanes, the wildlife habitat, and the bike trails are all mapped. Anakeesta's Crystal Express is a lift in Ullr with every tower placed, and the canopy walk, night walk, coaster, and shuttle stops are on the map. SkyPark's SkyLift and SkyTrail are in there too. Campers could open the app and see exactly where they were and what they were looking at.
The Ullr Tasks screen showing the September 2 camp schedule: breakfast, interactive tours, the walk to Ober Gatlinburg, and lunch, each marked completed
The camp schedule, as tasks
A stack of Ullr push notifications on a phone lock screen: a dinner location change, a wrap-up note for the Ober afternoon, an automatic task reminder, and a note that interactive tours are starting
Push updates on the lock screen
The Ullr map of Ober Gatlinburg with the Smoky Mountain Bobsled alpine slide selected, showing its status and Edit, Forms, and View Details buttons
Every attraction as a real asset on the map

How the tools apply on a real mountain

None of what we did at camp was a special build. The reason I wanted to write this up is that the exact same primitives are what a mountain would use on a normal Tuesday. The only thing that changes is what you put in them.

Tasks
⛺ At camp: session schedule
🏔️ On the mountain: maintenance and inspection schedules
At camp, a task was "Session: The Summer Playbook, 9:00 a.m., Anakeesta." On your mountain it's "Daily pre-op inspection: Hell Bender coaster, 8:00 a.m." or "Monthly cable inspection: Cloud Catcher span 2." Each one recurs, is assigned to a person, has a due time, and keeps a record of who completed it.
Forms
⛺ At camp: camp waiver
🏔️ On the mountain: inspection checklists, incident reports, logs
At camp, the required form on a task was a waiver. On your mountain it's a zip line daily checklist, a coaster pre-op inspection, an incident report, a lift stoppage log, or a salt log for the parking lot. Same mechanic: the task can't close until the form is done.
Push notifications
⛺ At camp: "dinner moved," "shuttles are leaving"
🏔️ On the mountain: weather holds, lift stoppages, task reminders
On your mountain it's a weather hold on the zip line, a lift stoppage, or a reminder that a crew member's inspection round starts in 15 minutes. That last one already fires on its own.
User groups & invites
⛺ At camp: onboarding 115 campers
🏔️ On the mountain: onboarding a seasonal crew
We onboarded a hundred-odd campers by email with no accounts to set up by hand. That's the same flow you'd use to bring on a seasonal crew as your season starts.
The map & Asset Tracking
⛺ At camp: three parks we don't operate
🏔️ On the mountain: your own lifts, trails, and attractions
On your mountain the assets are yours, and every one of those coasters, zips, canopy walks, lifts, and trails carries its own logbook and its own inspection schedule.

The map is the one I'd underline. Last month we introduced Ullr GIS, which opened Ullr up to any asset a crew is responsible for. Modeling Ober, Anakeesta, and SkyPark was a great example of how that holds up for summer attractions. A three-span zip line with intermediate platforms, a mountain coaster and each toboggan, a tubing park, rope bridges & platforms, a gondola with its towers, and a wildlife habitat with individual enclosures all went in cleanly, and each one can carry inspections, work orders, and history.

Thanks, and let's talk summer

Huge thanks to the SAM team for having us, and to the crews at SkyPark, Ober, and Anakeesta for hosting us. I learned a ton and had a really good time.

If you run summer attractions and you'd like to see how documentation, inspections, and maintenance would look for your coaster, zip line, or bike park in Ullr, I'd be happy to walk you through it. You can get in touch here, or grab any day and time that works for you on my calendar.

There's also more on the Ullr GIS & Asset Mapping page if you'd rather just look around first.

Back to all articles

Learn more about Ullr

See how mountain ops teams use Ullr across the resort.