New app tackles ski lift buddy connection for friendlier Colorado slopes

A Summit County native is trying to solve a familiar problem on Colorado's ski slopes: meeting great people on the mountain, then never skiing with them again.

Donny McCauley, a Summit High School graduate and current University of Colorado student, is the founder of ShredHead, a free app designed to help skiers and snowboarders find each other on the mountain and keep those connections going.

"It's a ski networking app designed for skiers and snowboarders to connect and organize where their friends are riding," McCauley said.

The idea didn't come to him on skis, but on a mountain bike ride. McCauley said he ran into friends on the trails and realized how useful it would have been to know they were all riding in the same place at the same time. Then he started thinking about how often that same situation plays out on ski lifts across Colorado.

"If you meet somebody on the chairlift and get their phone number, you're probably never going to contact them again," he said. "But if there's an app that holds that surface-level connection and that ambiguity that belongs to skiing, that connection can last a lot longer."

Maccauley explained that ShredHead lets users see which resorts others are riding at, what days they plan to ski, and their general skill level. The goal, he says, is to make it easier to find your ski buddies and bring them together with minimal effort.

"When you go to Breck, you can see who's riding at Breck," he said. "It keeps it public, and it keeps it safe."

McCauley said the app already has thousands of users, including college ski club members, and he said it has the potential to gain traction with people who move to ski towns without an established group of riding partners. Matei Fawzy, a ShredHead user, said the app helped him find people who match how and where he likes to ski.

"Sometimes when I ski alone, I want to hit some gnarlier terrain," Fawzy said, laughing. "It's always nice to ski with a buddy. The app can help find more advanced skiers, you know, match up on the mountain so you can be safe." That flexibility also appeals to visitors, like Brayden Yorek from Louisiana, who says he ended up skiing alone when the rest of his friends hit the lodge.

"You'd be introduced to something new," Yorek said. "So, you get on the app and say, 'meet me here,' and suddenly you've got a group."

McCauley said the bigger picture is about recreating the sense of local ski community he grew up with in Summit County and making it accessible to everyone, even first-time visitors.

"We want to make skiing feel more local to everyone," he said. "The app is very easy to use, and that's the goal, that anybody can use it."

ShredHead is currently focused on skiing and snowboarding, but McCauley said he's considering expanding into other outdoor communities, including mountain biking and surfing. The app is free to download and available now on the Apple App Store.