Gerald Ford slept here

Vt. hotel keeps photo spread of former president's ski trip

By John Curran, Associated Press Writer December 27, 2006

STOWE, Vt. --Gerald Ford slept here.

And skied here. And ate here. And frolicked in the snow with an attractive blonde whose name wasn't Betty.

Long before he became a congressman, an accidental president and a "Saturday Night Live" punch line, the nation's 38th president was featured in a 1940 spread in Look magazine, a copy of which hangs in the Green Mountain Inn here.

A framed display copy of the five-page pictorial, entitled "A New York girl and her Yale boy friend spend a hilarious holiday on skis," adorns a corridor wall, across a narrow hallway from the women's room; a dog-eared original is kept separately by the inn's general manager as a keepsake.

"The Inn takes great pride in the fact that Gerald Ford was here," said Patti Clark, innkeeper of the 104-room inn, showing a copy upon request Wednesday.

Ford, who died Tuesday at 93, was a fresh-faced law student when he posed for the magazine with Phyllis Brown, of New York.

"Only five years ago, if a New Yorker had suggested `Let's go skiing for the week end,' he would have been classified as a wise guy," the story begins. "Today, he gets serious attention, for ski trains have put snow-packed hills within easy reach of the metropolis."

The ensuing pages chronicle the couple's adventure, starting aboard the New Haven Railroad's "Ski Meister," which they ride north to Stowe before taking rooms at the 19th-century inn. "Trips like this cost $25 to $30 apiece--$12 to $14 for train fare, $3.50 a day for room and board in hotel or farmhouse, $5 to $10 for incidentals," according to the text lead-in.

The pictures tell the rest of the story: "Gerry" and "Phyllis" tying their skies to a taxicab for the ride to Toll House Slope, Gerry on bended knee, tending to the bindings of her ski boots, the couple ascending the mountain on a rope tow, their sleigh ride off the mountain to the Ranch House for lunch.

After skiing past dark, they repair to a piano room at the Inn. "After a hot dinner at the Inn, they loaf, sing, drink beer, dance, talk skiing -- and so to bed," one caption reads.

The pictorial ends with the two headed home, showing Ford kissing Brown goodbye before he gets off at New Haven and she continues on to New York.

While it isn't prominently displayed, the Look magazine article still attracts plenty of attention, according to Clark. "It gets to be a bottleneck, when people see it -- especially the history buffs," she said.

On Wednesday, visitor Robert Coenen, 66, of Cheshire, England, looked it over.

"Ford was a regular sort of fellow, I guess," he said. "He took over when you were in dire straits with Nixon."

Ski areas coping with iffy weather

Ski areas coping with iffy weather
By Bonnie Obremski, North Adams Transcript
12/27/2006 11:56:21 AM EST

Wednesday, December 27

Officials with two ski resorts in the region said Tuesday that while warm, wet weather has dampened lift-ticket sales, business is still good, and the slopes are set to "shred" — enthusiasts' lingo for ready for downhill speeding.

Man-made snow has more than made up for the dearth of the natural stuff at Jiminy Peak in Hancock, and close-by Mount Snow in Vermont picked up a few inches of powder Tuesday.

"People have the perception that there's no snow because they're looking in their backyards and not seeing any," Christopher Lenois, communications manager at Mount Snow in West Dover, Vt., said. "We're 3,600 feet up. Someone 25 minutes away in Bennington could say it's raining, and I look outside the window here and it's snowing."

Still, most of Mount Snow's fluffy stuff so far was blasted from the bellies of snow machines. Just 25 of the mountain's 106 trails are open — five of the open trails are "top-to-bottom" trails.

"We've been behind projections and we're not breaking sales records," Lenois said.
In an effort to boost the season's slow start, Lenois said several Vermont ski resorts gathered two weeks ago to mail out special-delivery packages to the state's meteorologists.

"We got some Cabot cheese and put it into coolers packed with snow from our slopes," he said. "It's to say, 'See? We've got snow. We'll even send it to you.'"

Jiminy Peak Mountain Ski Resort has 14 of its 44 trails open. Director of Marketing Betsy Strickler said overall sales are below average, but the lodge is completely booked through the new year and calls for reservations continue to stream in.

"We've noticed some interesting trends," Strickler said. "Our 'Get Skiing' and 'Get Boarding' learning programs have increased in participation numbers over last year."

She said the warm weather might actually be fostering a timid athlete's comfort with learning a new sport. "It's not the worst year," she said of the weather. "One year, five years ago, we didn't open until the second week in December." The resort opened this year just after Thanksgiving.

"We've had warm winters in the past," Strickler said. "But every year, we work our way through."

Forecasts show natural snow may fall again on Mount Snow and on Jiminy Peak this week as the daily high temperatures continue to drop. Efforts to reach officials at Bosquet Ski Area in Pittsfield and Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont for this article were unsuccessful.

The industrious snow blowers at Okemo

I can hardly believe the picture to the right but they are pretty impressive at making the snow at Okemo. Right now its warm and possibly drizzly, but look at this aerial view from this morning of Okemo's main mountain.

They have harnessed that 70 million gallon snowmaking pond well. These are the things you don't hear about much when a resort makes infrastructure improvements, but really deliver value in a sketchy season. And given global warming trends, its getting harder and harder to believe that Northeastern skiing will deliver consistnent natural snow in the future.

Weather

Northeast Weather
Upper Rockies Opening

Atta boy !

"I got to party and socialise at an Olympic level" -- Alpine skier Bode Miller, the 2005 overall World Cup champion, on his Olympic achievements after arriving in Turin as the great American hope but leaving without a medal.

For Skiers, Too Soon to Panic?

For Skiers, Too Soon to Panic?
By DAVE CALDWELL

BURLINGTON, Vt., is usually a snow-covered city in December. But the weather has been so mild in the last month that snowfall is being measured by the meager inch, not by the traditional foot, and Brook Tabor, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office there, has become an unofficial concierge for the Burlington area.

Frustrated skiers, without enough slopes to schuss down, are calling the Weather Service office to get tips on good shops and restaurants. “We’re trying to give them some alternative things to do,” the cheerful Mr. Tabor said by telephone on Tuesday.

Throughout the Northeast, the ski season is lurching out of the gate because it has just been too balmy. Ski areas across the region are reporting less snow than usual, fewer trails open and temperatures often too warm for snow making.

But, the real question is this: Is it too soon for skiers and resort operators to panic?

The answer, for now, they say, is no. But resort employees and skiers in the Northeast tend to be optimists. They say the region’s season does not begin in earnest until Christmas, and long-range forecasts are calling for a winter that will be a little cooler and wetter than normal — good news for skiers, if not shovelers.

“When this season is over, despite the slow start, I think people will look back and say it’s been a pretty good winter,” said Herb Stevens, an independent meteorologist from North Kingston, R.I., who is known as the Skiing Weatherman.

The ski crowd does not appear worried, either. Most resorts say reservations for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day are running normal — even a bit above normal for some — and ski clubs are not yet canceling trips to the slopes. “Every year, it’s iffy until you get to January,” said Lore Conway, of Tuxedo, N.Y., who is the president of the 100-member German Ski Club of New York.

What the lack of snow and the warm weather have done, more than anything, is scrub some of the excitement from the start of the season — think of it as the Psyche Effect. When it snows, even in New York City, skiers tend to flock to their neighborhood ski shop for a new pair of skis or even a hat and start gazing north with longing.

“It’s just a big time of year for us, and wet weather is not what we want,” said David Wingard, a buyer for Paragon, an outfitter in Manhattan, referring to the city’s recent warm, rainy days. Even yesterday, temperatures in New York strained toward 60 degrees — and that just doesn’t promote thoughts of heading out and hitting the slopes.

Mr. Wingard, who skis and snowboards, was at Hunter Mountain, 125 miles north of Manhattan, on Tuesday. He said it felt more like late March than mid-December. Paragon has usually scheduled ski trips to Hunter for its customers by this time each year, but not so far.

And going farther north isn’t much of a help. Mr. Tabor, the Weather Service meteorologist, said that November in Burlington was the second warmest on record, with an average temperature of 42.8 degrees — or an all-important 10.8 degrees above freezing. He said the Weather Service recorded a half-inch of snow in November atop Mount Mansfield, the state’s tallest peak (and the site of Stowe Mountain Resort). The previous low for the month there was seven inches in 1964. The average temperature of 34.6 degrees broke a 40-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees.

Not only do ski resorts want cold weather so snow will fall, but they also need cold weather to make snow artificially and to keep it from melting into slush.

Some meteorologists are blaming the weather on a weak El Niño system in the Pacific. And temperatures, they say, are expected to remain warmer than average until nearly Christmas. And there is always the specter of global warming.

“I honestly can’t remember it being this warm this late,” said Bill Saydah, a resident of Rivervale, N.J., who has been a member of the New York Ski Club since 1954.

The impact of the warm weather in the Northeast is being magnified this season, partly because last year’s ski season was widely considered to be memorable, and because the slopes in the West are off to a strong start. Vail, in Colorado, has 27 of its 33 lifts open and 177 of 193 trails, with 27 inches of snow at midmountain; a foot of powder fell between Sunday and Wednesday.

But back in the Northeast, “it’s nothing like what we would expect to see in the middle of December, but it is a marked improvement over two weeks ago, when I was out playing golf,” said Sandy Caligiore, who works for the Olympic Regional Developmental Authority, which oversees activities at Whiteface and Gore mountains in upstate New York, among other places.
So far this year, he said, skiers are finding other things to do in and around nearby Lake Placid, like taking a bobsled or luge ride or spinning around the outdoor skating oval that is open to the public.

Nothing has been scrapped from the schedule at Whiteface or Gore so far even though a United States of America Snowboard Association event scheduled to be held at Whiteface tomorrow has been postponed until Jan. 7. “We’re fighting the fight at this point,” Mr. Caligiore said.
Some skiers are content to be patient. John Sadowski, who lives in Allendale, N.J., and who has skied for 40 years, said the season has been normal for the 150-member Telemark Ski Club, which meets in Brooklyn and has a lodge in Pittsford, Vt., not far from Killington. But it is still early.

“This is purely personal, but skiing has always been a January-February-March sport for me,” he said. “I’ve always considered March to be the best time to ski because the weather is better, the light is better and in general, the conditions are better.”

MEANWHILE, the ski areas and resorts are doing what they can. Rich Edwards, a spokesman for the Catamount Ski Area in western Massachusetts, said Tuesday that 6 of Catamount’s 32 trails were open, compared with the usual 10 or so at this time of year.

Hunter’s spokeswoman, Jessica Pezak, was not optimistic. “We might not have snow for Christmas,” she said, “and we almost always do.” She added that melting snow is hard to groom and that heavy traffic on the slopes tends to push that snow into the ground.
Hunter’s neighbor, Belleayre, has opened 6 of its 47 slopes. “We’re kind of used to ups and downs in the weather,” said Pat McVitty, the area’s marketing director.
Mr. Saydah said the New York Ski Club has scheduled a New Year’s Eve party at its lodge in Center Berlin, N.Y. He did not sound sure that many of the club’s 100 members would ski at nearby Jiminy Peak in the Berkshires or at Okemo Mountain Resort, in Ludlow, Vt.
Bonnie MacPherson, a spokeswoman at Okemo, said 32 of its 117 trails were open Tuesday — an average number. But she added that business has been slow, as it has been at most places.
“We had 100 inches of snow at this time last year,” said Judy Sweeney, who manages Snow Ridge Ski Resort in Turin, N.Y., between Utica and Watertown. As she spoke, Snow Ridge had not opened. Usually, Ms. Sweeney said, all 22 of Snow Ridge’s trails are open by now. At least, Snow Ridge could take a little solace that larger resorts have also had trouble making, and keeping, snow.

Killington Resort, the skiing giant in southern Vermont, opened Nov. 23, then closed Dec. 1 and 2 because of rain and warm weather, and then opened again. Closing after opening, said Killington’s spokesman, Tom Horrocks, was very unusual. “It really deteriorated,” he said of the conditions. “There was really no way around it.”
It then got cold enough to make snow and, as of Tuesday, Mr. Horrocks said, roughly 40 trails were open. On the same date last year, 60 trails were open at Killington. Forty-six trails were open on Dec. 12, 2004, he said, and 75 were open on Dec. 12, 2003.
Mountain Creek, a smaller resort in Vernon, N.J., 47 miles west of Manhattan, is not open at all. Mountain Creek has powerful machines that could pile a foot of snow inside Giants Stadium within an hour, but it has not been cold enough.
“It’s New Jersey, and we’re used to weird December weather,” said Shannon McSweeney, a Mountain Creek spokeswoman. “More often than not, something unusual happens during the month.”
Ms. McSweeney said late Wednesday that Mountain Creek had decided to open two runs tomorrow and Sunday, only a week behind its scheduled opening. She was hopeful that the weather would turn colder and stay that way.
“We know everybody’s dying to get out in the snow,” she said.
Sometimes, the only thing skiers and operators can do is look to the skies — as they used to say in 1950s science fiction movies — and wait for a bank of leaden snow clouds to roll their way. “We’re the eternal optimists in this business,” Ms. MacPherson said. “You have to be.”

Interesting Links

Snowless yet stylish in Europe

Tragedy at Keystone

Quite a Character

Has Beaver Creek turned into a locals place?

A local's report from somewhere near Gstaad

Night Skiing

Skiing in Japan

(picture is from Adam Clarke on Skimag.com)

Snow Making at Okemo

It looks like they are still making snow at Okemo, but things are starting off quite slow for skiing in the East. It hasn't been consistently cold enough to generate real snowfall.

We did get Jennifer some ski's over the weekend, a new pair of Head's in 150 cm length, on a seasonal lease. They look fine and are all tuned/adjusted for her boots. Hopefully the weather will be more cooperative by Christmastime. If you poke around in here you can find Jenn's boots, I think

Cops on the Mountain (VDN)

Note that Colorado is pursuing collisions on the mountain that are deemed to be reckless, malicious or cause with significant injuries. What used to be simply boorish behaviour is now being handed over to the criminal justice system. As someone who witnessed and been involved in some serious collisions (on both sides!) it is no surprise that local governments are getting involved. When tourists get killed/hurt, and business is damaged because of negligent behaviour, government starts to care. Rather amazingly, the Eagle county DA has secured felony convictions in some cases. A felony pretty much permanently impairs a person for the rest of their life for just an incredible variety of things.

Cops: Snowboarder hit 8-year-old

Man allegedly ran down mountain and into bar, where he was arrested
Matt Zalaznick
December 2, 2006

VAIL — A snowboarder ran away after colliding with an 8-year-old girl who was skiing on Vail Mountain Saturday afternoon with her father, the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office said.The snowboarder, 22, took off down the mountain when the girl’s father, who was described as “very upset,” told the young man ski patrol had been notified of the collision that occurred shortly after 2 p.m. at the bottom of the Born Free run near the Lionshead village base of the mountain, said Sgt. Greg Daly of the Sheriff’s Office.“He left his snowboard at the scene and made his way down the mountain,” Daly said. “There might have been a physical exchange between the father and the snowboarder — that’s the subject of an ongoing investigation.”Neither the name of the snowboarder, who Daly said lives in the Avon area, nor the girl were released. Daly said he did not know where the girl lived.The snowboarder was tracked down later Saturday afternoon by ski patrollers, Vail police officers and sheriff’s deputies, who found and arrested him in Garfinkels, a bar near the bottom of the mountain, Daly said.The man was charged with skiing while impaired by alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident, both petty offenses and violations of the state’s Skier Safety Act, Daly said.“He initially denied being involved but decided to tell the truth,” Daly said of the suspect. “He did admit to consuming alcohol.”The girl was taken to Vail Valley Medical Center and released later Saturday, Daly said. The man remained in jail Saturday evening and the incident is still being investigated, Daly said.

Ski-Resort Deals Hit Brisk Pace

Ski-Resort Deals Hit Brisk Pace, And High Prices

Private-Equity Firms Scoop Up Mountains, Add Luxury Items;
Aging Skiers Alter the Terrain
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
December 2, 2006; Page B1
Wall Street Journal

What's the must-have item this ski season? A resort.

Some of North America's best-known ski areas have changed hands in the past year, in some cases fetching record prices, as private-equity firms and wealthy individuals are pouring money into mountains. Buyers have snapped up everything from destination resorts like Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia to smaller ski hills in New York and Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

Mammoth's Superpipe in California was the first halfpipe to open this season in North America.
New owners are betting that with the number of ski resorts declining, the remaining players will get a bigger slice of the market. Private-equity firms think they can better compete because they have what many former owners lacked: access -- via generous debt markets -- to truckloads of money to add new lifts, restaurants and boutique shops. They plan to squeeze out further profits building hotels and selling houses and condominiums to second-home buyers.

Analysts expect more ski-resort deals in the months ahead. "I think the pace of deals will remain brisk," says Chris Woronka, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in New York. "We are only in the early to middle innings of activity in the ski industry."

Reflecting the intense interest in ski resorts, shares of Vail Resorts Inc., a large operator of ski properties, hit a record high of $44.39 during Thursday's trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

In October, New York investment firm Fortress Investment Group LLC completed the purchase of Intrawest Corp. for $2.8 billion in cash and assumed debt, a buyout deal that included the Stratton ski resort in Vermont, Copper Mountain resort in Colorado and Whistler Blackcomb. That followed deals for Mountain High Resort, in Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, which was purchased last year by private-equity firm Valor Equity Partners, of Chicago, and Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, also in California, which was bought late last year by a group of investors led by Greenwich, Conn.-based Starwood Capital Group Global LLC, which is led by Barry Sternlicht, former chief executive of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.

That deal valued Mammoth at $365 million, or about 10 times annual cash flow, according to the company, which ski-industry analysts and executives say was one of the highest premiums ever paid for a resort. In a separate transaction Starwood Capital and its investors, which include Mammoth Chief Executive Rusty Gregory, paid about $100 million for mountainside real estate that they plan to develop into homes, condominiums and hotels.

Industry analysts say rising investor interest may have played a role in American Skiing Co.'s decision in July to explore "strategic options" for its Steamboat resort in the Colorado Rockies. The Park City, Utah, company declined to comment.

In the past two years, New York's Windham Mountain and Camelback in Pennsylvania have changed hands, and last year two partners at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers bought a stake in Bear Valley Mountain Resort in California and have poured $6 million into the area. CNL Income Properties, an unlisted real-estate investment trust based in Orlando, Fla., has purchased two resorts this year: Bretton Woods in New Hampshire and Cypress Mountain in British Columbia.

Ski resorts are in some ways a perfect target for private-equity firms, which buy businesses in hopes of selling them for a profit after improving them. The resorts generally have low debt, and their upscale clientele is less affected by economic fluctuations. But for investors, ski resorts come with plenty of risk. Despite efforts to become year-round venues, resorts remain a seasonal business largely dependent on Mother Nature to provide good snowfall. Resorts have spent millions updating their snowmaking equipment over the past decade, but the resort business still has generally better years when there is more natural snowfall, according to the National Ski Areas Association. Warmer weather in some areas is creating a market for snowmaking equipment that functions more efficiently at higher temperatures.

The new players in the ski-resort business are also buying into a softening real-estate market that could hurt demand for second homes and condos.

And there's the issue of the aging skiers and snowboarders: The average resort visitor last season was 35.1 years old, up from 33.2 in the 1997-98 season, according to the NSAA. About 30% were 45 or over. While the industry has recorded a string of record seasons -- 59 million skier visits last year, compared with an average of about 55 million over the past decade, according to the Lakewood, Colo., industry group -- a good chunk of the ski population could be ready to hang up their equipment. (Skier visits include daily mountain visits, from season-pass holders to night skiers and walk-up lift-ticket buyers.)

Investors say all of this is precisely what makes ski areas attractive. Over the past two decades, competition has pushed hundreds of smaller resorts out of business because the areas couldn't afford upgrades or snowmaking equipment to weather lean snow years. There were 478 ski areas in the U.S. last year, compared with 735 in 1984, according to the NSAA.

A look at the blueprints for California's Mammoth Mountain shows what some of the private-equity folks have in mind with their new acquisitions. Most of the skiers at Mammoth, near Yosemite National Park, drive five or more hours from their homes in Southern California, and three-quarters come just for the weekend, according to the resort. Mammoth's investors think planned air service and a dash of the resort treatment will have the area buzzing all week long.

The mountain is already tipping toward a higher-end resort, and its new investors plan to accelerate that. Next year Mammoth plans to open its first luxury hotel, a 230-room Westin next to a gondola that connects the nearby town of Mammoth Lakes to the ski area, a six-minute ride. The town could also use a nightclub and more-upscale restaurants and more high-end hotels, says Marc Perrin, managing director with Starwood Capital. "We feel there's a need for a five-star brand in Mammoth," he says.

On the real-estate front, Mammoth's new owners estimate there is room for about 3,000 new units, including hotel rooms, timeshares, and single-family homes.

Other newly purchased resorts also are getting a makeover. Mountain High has added Italian and Mexican food to its cafeteria, tripled the size of its outdoor seating area, and bought the neighboring Ski Sunrise and renamed it "Mountain High North." The new owners of Bretton Woods plan to spend $20 million sprucing up the resort, including renovations to the 200-room Mount Washington Hotel, which was built in 1902 and was upgraded with central heating just six years ago, as well as a convention center and spa.

Randy Frankel, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., last year purchased Windham Mountain in Windham, N.Y., where he has owned a home for a decade. In the off-season, he spent $5 million on three new lifts, an ice-skating rink and a restaurant with an open-hearth fireplace and a menu of "creative comfort food." Mr. Frankel says he plans to develop dozens of single-family and condominium residences over the next five to 10 years.

This isn't the ski industry's first ownership shake-up. In the 1990s, companies including Intrawest, Vail Resorts, of Broomfield, Colo., and American Skiing began buying ski areas and consolidating them. Both Vail and American Skiing went public in 1997. While Vail's stock is soaring today, American Skiing stumbled from the beginning. Lugging a large debt load, it has since sold assets, had a merger plan fall through, and its shares now trade over the counter for less than $1.

Write to Conor Dougherty at conor.dougherty@wsj.com1

Links about Europe + a poster

Where to go in Europe
More on Gstaad
How to Ski Gstaad
More Gstaad reviews
Gstaad fights image

Skiing in the Northeast

It looks like December is going to be a lost month for skiing for me, btw.

This might make you dizzy

Okemo opened over the Thanksgiving weekend, with extremely limited terrain, basically just the upper part of World Cup. Someone cheerfully strapped a helmet camera on and made this video, which is linked here. It can make you dizzy.

Opening Day on World Cup via a Helmet Cam

Heh.

A good deal on ski magazines

A couple of years ago I heard about a discount ski magazine offer from a ski club I was a member of. This person offers pretty heavily discounted subscriptions to various ski magazines. For example

Ski $7.95
Skiing $7.95
Powder $8.95

Just drop an email to Sean O'Brien seaneobrien@msn.com and tell him I sent you his way. I stopped subscribing to Powder personally, but still get the other two, even though Skiing is kind of lame. The reason these subscriptions are so cheap is that the mailing lists for these magazines are worth a lot to direct mail marketers, who want to sell you package ski deals or slopeside condos. The magazines subsidize the circulation to get names to sell to marketers (yes, nearly every single kind of magazine does this).

Also Okemo has been blowing snow for the last few days, with hopes of opening a few advanced trails for Thanksgiving weekend. Here's a picture from Monday, Nov 21.

AKR

Honeymoon to Gstaad booked

We just got our honeymoon hotels and train passes booked. Jenn and I are going to go skiing in Gstaad in March. Neither of us have been there before but we've (individually) been to some of the other resorts in the Swiss Alps. I'm looking forward to the trip; it's a place I've long heard read about.

The plan is to fly out the day after the wedding. We fly to Geneva, connecting through Milan, and then hop a train to Gstaad. I've taken the train from the airport before when we went to Zermatt and it went pretty smoothly. The Swiss have taken a fairly comprehensive approach to mass transit in their small nation, so it felt pretty seamless. After all the hullaballoo of the wedding ceremony and associated events it will be nice to get some quiet time to ski and relax with each other.

Around the Mountains from the Summit daily news

Around the Mountains: Park City plants seeds for diversity

BY ALLEN BEST
summit daily news
November 12, 2006

PARK CITY, Utah - Park City's government continues to plants seeds in an effort to diversify its economy from its tourism and real estate moorings. The latest such seed is a $10,000 grant being given to the Oquirrh Institute, a think tank that takes on issues of interest to state governments.

The plan is for the Oquirrh Institute to relocate from nearby Salt Lake City, open an office, and then hold conventions twice a year. Next year, for example, a conference about oil shale is planned. Organizers project an attendance by 200 people, with an injection of $80,000 into Park City's economy.

The leader of this institute is Jim Souby, who was executive director of the Western Governors' Association for 13 years, reports the Park City Record.

Whistler hopes to get authority to cut trees

WHISTLER, B.C. - Whistler municipal officials may have a larger hand in managing the adjoining forests by next year. The forests belong to the provincial governments, but the municipality is applying to manage the forests under the Community Forest Program.

Officials believe there is enough wood in the forests to fill approximately 200 logging trucks, reports Pique. However, while the city may make some money, the greater benefit is that it will have a larger say in ensuring that aesthetics, recreation and tourism are taken into account in the management decisions.

Steamboat booking shoot past last year

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Bookings for ski vacations continue to be well ahead of last year's pace in Steamboat Springs.

Bob Milne, whose company manages 875 units, reports phone call volume of 30 percent and bookings of 20 percent ahead of last year. He tells the Steamboat Pilot & Today that a 10 percent increase over last year will be realistic when all is said and done. Milne also reports an increase in visitor days, up to 5.7 days per visit, compared to 5.5 days last year.

His report jibes with others from elsewhere in Steamboat Springs, which had uncommonly good snow early last year. Both trends - earlier bookings and longer stays - are also in sync with what is being reported elsewhere in the ski industry this year in Colorado, and the travel industry even more generally.

Steamboat also is benefiting from an expanded program of direct flights that was announced last spring. The number of booked passengers is up 7.8 percent compared to last year, and 20 percent ahead of two years ago.

Winter Park and Fraser sharing courts, more?

WINTER PARK-FRASER - The towns of Fraser and Winter Park, which are located cheek by jowl, continue to explore how they might become more like one. So far, the courtship amounts to little more than a peck on the cheek.

This year the two began sharing basic court functions. Two judges can remain, but the idea is to have two court operations that are not significantly different. Another intergovernmental agreement is being prepared that will combine building departments.

Three scenarios are being explored: additional sharing, Fraser joining Winter Park, or complete unification of the two towns. In addition, there's the do-nothing option.

Fraser is the older of the twin towns. It was created in 1904, when railroad tracks from Denver arrived, although not formally incorporated until 1953. Winter Park was first a railroad camp called West Portal, and in time Hideaway Park, after the ski area was created in 1938. It was incorporated in 1978.

'Biggie-size' is no longer home mantra

PARK CITY, Utah - The 1990s were the decade of "Biggie-size" applied to everything from French fries to homes. Now, that trend is ebbing.

"People were going bigger, bigger, bigger," says Scott Jaffa of Jaffa Group Architects in Park City. "Now I see a trend where they want to go smaller and more efficient."

Another Park City architect agrees. "The mega-home is going to become more rare, but people are still going to spend on what they consider quality items," says Bill Mammen.

Both architects detect a stronger demand for "green building," in which homes reduce their needs for energy, water and other resources.

"One of the trends I see now is more clients are asking for green building materials and tankless water heaters," Jaffa told The Park Record. "We are retrofitting a client's heated driveway with a solar hot-water system versus using a boiler."

Mammen said he has been trying to improve operating efficiencies of homes in Park City since he arrived in 1978. "In the '90s, people didn't care at all," he said. "Now people are asking for it."

Added Jaffa, "Whether you believe in global warming or not, we need to conserve. We just can't keep throwing away everything."

Jackson joins climate protection agreement

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. - Add the Town of Jackson to the list of municipalities that have committed to taking action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Like Frisco, Park City, and several other mountain towns in the west, Jackson is joining the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative.

The town, in the words of public information officer Shelley Simonton, has been "dribble-drabbling along" in efforts to become more energy efficient. It has, for example, converted to the more efficient compact-fluorescent light bulbs, even if they cost more money up front.

But town officials were energized to do more after attending a conference in Aspen devoted to global warming. Jackson Mayor Mark Barron says what he heard in Aspen convinced him that Jackson is on the right course in trying to densify the existing town footprint, curbing rural sprawl.

One of the first steps in its commitment to the mayors' pact will be to create an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is to reduce emissions below the 1990 baseline.

Mayors who sign the agreement commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their own cities and communities to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 through actions like increasing energy efficiency, reducing vehicle miles traveled, maintaining healthy urban forests, reducing sprawl and promoting use of clean, renewable energy resources. The agreement also calls for Congress to pass legislation that sets meaningful timelines and limits on emissions through a flexible, market-based system of tradable allowances among emitting industries.

NYT has a piece on Ludlow, Okemo's town

Hey how bout that? The NYT writes up a little article in the real estate section about Ludlow, home to our beloved Okemo mountain.

Also a few other articles in other papers, which are more recent.

NYT Article on Ludlow
Boston Herald on Okemo
Stamford Advocate on Okemo

Lift Tickets

As expected, lift ticket prices are still going up, especially in areas without competition for the ski dollar, and in areas which know they are true destinations. There are enough deals out there that only 10% of people really pay the walk up , full freight price. One thing to note - many lift ticket deals are specifically not on the internet. They are advertised locally, or in print media, because resorts don't want to cannibalize their full price sales to tourist traffic. In general, for our Western trips, I have had minimal success in getting lift pass discounts. Vail gave us a mild discount for buying a multi day ahead of time but Aspen, Sun Valley, Targhee, Lake Louise, Whistler etc..... nothing beyond the walk up window multi day discount (which may be $1 - $2 per day off, which is weak).

Sun Valley Ticket Prices = Ouch!
Lift Ticket Deals
More lift ticket packages
More deals
Why prices go up

White Lies (from WSJ)

White Lies

Forget who has the fastest lifts or the coolest runs. What really matters to skiers is more basic: Who can make the best -- and most -- fake snow.

By CONOR DOUGHERTY
November 4, 2006; Page P1

Colorado's Arapahoe Basin Ski Area has no hotel, no spa and it costs nothing to park in the dirt lot that sits at the base of the mountain. Last month, it claimed bragging rights that eluded bigger players like Aspen and Vail: It was the first resort to open for skiing this year. That wasn't a gift from Mother Nature -- most of the snow was manmade. The single open slope stood out like a racing stripe on an otherwise green mountain.

As ski season gets underway, there's a battle brewing in some key regions over who can make the best fake snow. From California to Maine, resorts are installing new tower-mounted guns designed so the fake snow descends in a trajectory more like the real thing. They're laying pipelines and building huge reservoirs to ensure a steady supply, and blanketing top-of-the-mountain runs once covered mainly in real snow. These massive systems now make snow so good that some hardcore skiers say they prefer it -- and resorts are starting to brag about it. Vermont's Killington, for instance, touts its "Signature Snow."

More is on the way. Some resorts, worried about how climate change could shorten their season, see manmade snow as a form of insurance. But faking it is costly -- up to $10,000 a day. There are also environmental concerns. Installing or upgrading systems can change the terrain, some critics say. Others worry it's a drain on water supplies; blanketing a big resort can use millions of gallons of water each year.

A lot is riding on the quantity and quality of a resort's manmade snow. Private-equity firms are snapping up ski resorts and looking to boost profits, while real-estate developers are pushing more ski timeshares, condos and hotel rooms. A growing number of terrain parks, popular among snowboarders, are molded out of manmade snow. And the high-speed lifts that reduce lines have an unintended consequence: With skiers taking more runs, the snows gets worn down much faster and needs a fresh coat.

Manmade snow is no longer just a supplement to what Mother nature provides. It is the main reason why some resorts can open as early as mid-October and stay open with good snow until May. Some skiers say the fake stuff holds up better during a day of heavy skiing.
The first thing Nick Ward checks before he hits the slopes is what might be termed the fake-snow report: He goes onto the resort's Web site to see how much snow the mountain made the night before. And when he gets to the mountain, he follows up with ski patrol to get the details on which runs to hit when. "Did they start with the left or start with the right?" he says. "You're always scouting for intelligence."

One of Mr. Ward's favorite runs is a double black diamond at Sugarbush in Vermont called "F.I.S." ("Freaking Impossible Slope"), where last year the resort upgraded its snowguns with new nozzles that make softer powder. The resort says the new equipment allowed it to keep F.I.S. open 153 days last year, about two weeks longer than the year before.

The uncertainly of weather, always a concern for ski resorts, has become an even bigger topic of conversation amid the warming trend. Some climatologists are predicting a temperature change of around two degrees over the next 30 years. Such changes aren't likely to affect larger resorts at higher altitudes, but could hurt ski areas that are already operating in marginal snow conditions, most notably in the Southwestern and Midwestern states.
Some snowmakers are preparing for that eventuality. Jim Horton, general manager of York Snow, which makes snowmaking equipment, attended a global-warming conference in New Zealand last month to learn from Australian and New Zealand resorts that are struggling with less snow. "We're trying to look for ways to make snow more efficiently in higher temperatures," he says.

Snowfall has been up and down in recent years. U.S. resorts got 216 inches of snow last year, the best in a decade. Despite that, though, resorts averaged 856 hours of snowmaking, up 7% from the same period a year earlier, and the first increase in three years. This year, the National Weather Service is predicting a drier-than-normal winter in the Pacific Northwest and Montana, which would mean less natural snow, but wetter conditions in Central and Southern California.
In Vermont, Stowe recently dug out a 111-million-gallon pond that doubles its snowmaking capacity. In British Columbia, Whistler Blackcomb has added 65 snowmaking guns in the past year; 30 of its 225 guns turn on automatically when the temperature gets around 28 degrees. A new $500,000 air compressor at Jackson Hole will allow the resort to make more snow.

Natural snow and manmade snow share the same two ingredients -- water and cold -- but one difference is easy to appreciate: the price. Between labor, water and maintenance, a big resort can spend $1 million a year making snow, says Mr. Horton, of York Snow. Snowmakers are also dependent on the same forces they are paid to defy: the weather. Because snow is easier to make at lower temperatures, a resort can spend about twice as much making snow at 30 degrees than at 20 degrees.

But it's still cheaper than no snow. Killington last year recorded just 186 inches of natural snow, three-quarters of its average snowfall -- and had to contend with 15 inches of rain between December and March. To keep the mountain open, the resort had to exceed its snowmaking budget by 25%. The result was enough snow to cover 3,000 acres of slopes a foot deep.
Beyond the financial costs, there is the environmental price, and snowmaking uses great quantities of the two most-precious resources: water and energy. At Sunday River in Maine, snowmaking accounts for as much as 80% of the resort's energy expenses. Resorts have to buy millions of gallons of water and pump it across many acres and up thousands of vertical feet. In some cases, the removal of water has been shown to harm fish and increase the concentration of toxic metals in mountain streams.

Arizona Snowbowl in Flagstaff, Ariz., has been trying for years to install snowmaking systems, but has been blocked by lawsuits from environmental groups who have expressed concerns over the a plan to make the snow from reclaimed waste water. Native American tribes also object, saying the expansion would defile lands they hold sacred.

Resorts say all snowmaking operations have to be signed off on by regulators. "If somebody has a snowmaking operation in operation today, the appropriate state and federal authorities have reviewed and approved all of the projects," says Michael Berry, president of National Ski Areas Association. A number of resorts have been taking steps to be more environmentally friendly. Vail, Crested Butte and others have started paying extra for wind power to run their resorts, while Aspen powers its Snowcats on biodiesel.

Nationally, snowmaking has increased 57% over the past decade, according to the National Ski Areas Association. But snowmaking, like the mountains and the weather, has its own set of regional differences. Eastern resorts tend to make snow throughout the year and on a majority of their slopes. Stowe, in Vermont, makes snow on 80% of its mountain, while about 90% of the runs at Maine's Sunday River have manmade snow.

The smaller resorts in states like Maryland and Pennsylvania likely wouldn't exist without artificial snow: Camelback Ski Area in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains has made snow on all of its runs for more than a decade. Western resorts use snowmaking mostly to ensure they open on time and to freshen up the most heavily skied runs. Vail, for instance, makes snow on about 7% of its mountain, Utah's Deer Valley, about 30%.

But even in the West, early openings are a potent marketing tool, especially for small resorts like Arapahoe Basin. "You get energized for the season," says Jonathan Hurthle, a computer-equipment salesman. Mr. Hurthle in September bought a $400 five-mountain pass that includes Arapahoe Basin and Vail. When A-Basin opened a few weeks later, he drove two hours from his home in Boulder, Colo., to ski a single run for one hour.

Manmade snow is also a concern to the private-equity firms that have started snapping up ski resorts in deals that often include hundreds of millions in debt. In the past year, private investors have purchased resorts including Whistler Blackcomb and Mammoth Mountain. Marc Perrin, a managing director with Starwood Capital Group Global LLC, says snowmaking factored into his firm's decision to buy Mammoth, which sold for $365 million.

"Mammoth had huge investment in snowmaking equipment," he says. "We felt comfortable that in years that when there wasn't a lot of snow we could make snow and break even, or be profitable."

There are a handful of U.S. companies that make snow gear, and several dozen worldwide. The latest technology are guns mounted on 30-foot towers that allow resorts to make snow that's more powdery because the extra air time gives the water more chance to freeze.

Recently, as winter temperatures have trended warmer, snowmaking companies have moved toward equipment that can function in those conditions. Charles Santry, president of Snow Economics in Natick, Mass., says his company's first models worked best at temperatures below 23 degrees; today's models work efficiently at 28 degrees.

To make snow, snow guns spray water into the air, first hitting it with a jolt of compressed air that breaks the stream into tiny droplets that can freeze in just a few seconds. To speed this along, many snowmakers add a protein-based compound known as "Snowmax." Some resorts have switched over to "fan guns" that use less compressed air (instead they break up the stream with a higher-pressure water gun and a specially designed nozzle).

Ski resorts experimented with snowmaking in the 1940s, and it was embraced by the broader ski industry after a drought hit many Western resorts in the late 1970s. Despite the many leaps snowmaking technology has taken, artificial snow still tends to be harder under your skis. Some skiers, including racers, prefer manmade snow because it can be more consistent. "It stays glued together," says Eric Bress, a contractor from Denver.

Last year, the Arizona Snowbowl was open only 15 days because of a drought, compared with 139 days the previous year. Without manmade snow to guarantee a reasonably long season, the resort has been reluctant to invest in upgrades, like new lifts.

Snowbowl's general manager J.R. Murray says when he goes looking for the 500 seasonal employees he needs, from lift operators to restaurant employees, he "can't tell the applicant when they'll start, how long they'll work or how much they'll be paid."

"If they have to choose between going to work at the Snowbowl and going to work at Denny's, Denny's is guaranteed," says Mr. Murray.

Upcoming openings

It looks like some of the Colorado front range resorts are going to open up this weekend, based on the heavy snowfall they've had recently, and their ability to draw local metro Denver visitors to their mountain. The more western resorts in Pitkin and Eagle counties, reliant on destination visitors, seem to holding on for more normal opening dates.

I can't really tell what's going on up in Vermont; it seems like its been cold but not super cold. Normally we start to get a little snow up at the cabin by late October, so we'll see how it's going when we go up there tonight. I still need to get more firewood delivered, especially before the lawn gets covered in snow.
A quick peek over to some Swiss bloggers sites revealed that some of the die hards have started to get out on the smaller local oriented mountain running drag lifts and the what not. Most of these seemed to be tilted toward locals testing new gear they had purchased. Unfortunately, fall is one of the times it is most expensive to buy new gear. However, if you need things this is the most obvious time to go shopping for it, unless you have to test gear/clothing on the mountain. Some on mountain stores justify their prices because they let you test things and return/exchange them if you don't like the way it feels on the hill. That can make sense for some things. The internet is great for low prices and a wide spectrum of things, but mission critical gear like boots/jackets etc has got to be inspected in person and tested. If they don't fit/feel right , it will just cause problems all season, and the time/money investment in getting those right is really worth it. Hopefully that gear will last a long time too; I've used my boots for ten seasons and my jacket for eight.

Hitting the Slopes (from the WSJ)

Hitting the Slopes
By AJA CARMICHAEL
October 24, 2006; Page D4

Amid several strong ski seasons, a number of airlines are pairing with hotel resorts to offer discounted deals in unlikely areas to nudge travelers to swish down slopes.

Last year's huge snowfall and 3.5% increase in ski visitors for the 2005-to-2006 ski season are leading to predictions of jam-packed resorts. A rush of deals offered by airlines and some resorts, however, demonstrates there's still room left for travelers.

According to the National Ski Areas Association in Lakewood, Colo., the low-cost deals are an effort to fill vacancies at the start of the season and between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. "Reservations are through the roof," says Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association. "Travelers will have to work very hard to find deals during the [Christmas] holiday weekend."

Some ski analysts say deals in the Northeast region are more likely as the area plans to rebound from a bad snow season, while the Pacific region begins to taper out deals as it recovered from bad weather in the 2004-to-2005 season.

Delta Air Lines is pairing with ski resorts in Canada and four major U.S. ski-tourism states. Among the promotions, SkyMiles members can earn 20% off lodging for a minimum five-night stay at the Big Sky Resort in Big Sky, Mont., plus one full day of skiing at the half-day rate. Stay Aspen Snowmass in Aspen is offering an extra day of skiing, riding or a third night free for travelers reserving two-day lodging and lift trips before Dec 1.

UAL Corp.'s United Airlines is promoting round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations and ski-lift tickets. Savings on vacation packages range from $50 on a trip totaling from $850 to $1,600 to $350 off reservations amounting to $5,000 or more.

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines cut ski-trip prices for the Lodge at Vail in Vail, Colo., Inn at Keystone in Keystone, Colo., and other resorts. For $1,620, two adults flying round-trip from Chicago can reserve a lodge for a five-night stay at the Lodge at Vail. At Keystone, two adults flying round-trip from Dallas can book a five-night stay in a suite for $1,408.

No charges in skier death at Telluride

No charges in skier death at Telluride

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 12, 2006

MONTROSE — A grand jury has decided not to issue an indictment or report in the death of a 16-year-old boy who fell from a SnoCat snow groomer at Telluride Ski Resort.District Attorney Tom Raynes announced the grand jury’s decision Wednesday in the death of Brooks “Hoot” Brown in March.Mountain Village police have said Brown was among people riding on the back of a SnoCat operated by resort employee Aaron Apanel when Brown fell off and became tangled in its tracks. The machine wasn’t designed to carry passengers in the back.Police arrested Apanel on suspicion of criminally negligent homicide.Resort representatives did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday on the grand jury’s decision not to indict anyone.Raynes said laws keeping grand-jury investigations secret prevented him from elaborating on the investigation.Mountain Village police investigator Robert Walraven said he respected the grand jury’s decision.“As the officer involved in the case, I’m obviously disappointed, based on the facts of the case, but I do respect their opinion. We’ve done everything we can for Hoot Brown in pursuing justice in his death,” he said.

Tremblant - Condo booked

Now that we've all got flights booked, I went ahead and booked the condo since there were only a few of them left. We have a 2 bedroom suite at the Sommet des Neiges from Jan 11 to Jan 15. The unit has a King and two Queen beds, plus a sofa bed if Yuji (or someone) wants to join us as well. I also pre-purchased 3 day liftpasses for Andy, Sean and myself since we got 20% off for that. Check in time is 4:30 pm.

Great picture of the village

Our total is a little confusing but is approximately $490 USD for lodging/skiing. It will be less if another person comes along and inhabits SofaCity, but we're fine either way. Once I figure out how to interpret the bill (8 different taxes, and it's not clear what applies to what) I will provide a precise billing number. I'd like to get that sum (what it may be) by November 5.


I'm assuming Andy can convoy to Tremblant with Sean, and back with me and Jenn. Presumably we'll have two rental cars.

Tremblant Summary

Here's the current plan, which is now booked. This is updated as of Tuesday Jan 9

Dates:
Jan 11 Thursday evening -- flight / drive to Tremblant
Jan 12 Friday -- ski and have fun
Jan 13 Saturday -- ski and have even more fun
Jan 14 Sunday -- lather , rinse , repeat
Jan 15 Monday afternoon -- drive / flight back home after brunch

Most of us will need to schedule Jan 12 as a holiday; but most employers offer Jan 15 off.

Travel:
Jenn and I have booked airline tickets (using FF miles on AA). If you want to convoy with us, drop me a line and we may be able to coordinate on that. For those considering using miles, I suggest you check your carriers web site and put a hold on reward seats. Reward seats are scarce around holiday weekends. SPAM has discovered a company that does bus transfers from Montreal to Tremblant; it takes about 2 hours and costs about 90 USD roundtrip with 3-4 scheduled trips per day. The airport is too far away, and the holiday too short, for casually ferrying people back/forth from the mountain/airport like we have done on some Western trips.

Directions:
Link to the blog post about this Blog link to Directions

Flights:
I am leaving JFK on 1/11 at 7:50 pm arriving at Trudeau at 9:20 pm. I am leaving Trudeau on 1/15 at 2:10 pm arriving at JFK at 3:48 pm. SPAM has also booked his flights; he is arriving at Montreal on 1/11 at 3:45 pm and departing from Montreal on 1/15 at 11:25 am. We three are all on American Airlines. Andy arrives on 1/11 at 3:15 pm and leaves on 1/15 at 6:15 pm via AirCanada. It would look like Sean and Guano can convoy together at least from Montreal to Tremblant, and Andy return with Jennifer and I.

Car Rental: I've booked a rental car at the airport from Jan 11 to Jan 15. We are assuming we are dropping off Andy on the way back.

Lodging:
We have booked a ski in / ski out , fireplace & hot tub equipped condo in the pedestrian village. You can take a look at their virtual tour here : Tremblant Condo
A two bedroom suite will fit our small group well, and that link should have all the amenities the property offers. As of October 10, we have now booked this.

Costs:
Update -- I spoke with Tremblant central reservations last week. They have only 4 of the K+2Q's Condo's left. In awe of Guano's ability to drink/rant, they are offering a "DingDong" promotion for January bookings paid for before November 15. Basically if you book more than 3 nights, you get 20% off the lodging plus 20% off lift tickets if you prebuy 2 of those for 3 days. They quoted me:

Lodging only regular rate (all in but in CAD): 1890 CAD
Lodging plus 3 adult 3 day lift passes: 1516 CAD lodging + 480 for 3 passes = 1996CAD (!) because of discount. Each extra pass is 161 CAD, an ok deal too.

Basically the second deal is a lay up unless you can't book by November 15. The lady stated that Sommnet des Nieges was a little more spacious / modern compared to the Modern la Montaigne we were also considering, but that both were good. If we all got 3 days passes, probably not needed, it would be about $485 USD per person for lodging / passes, assuming we have 4 attendees. That's ok for 4 nights lodging / 3 days skiing.

Important Information for US Travelers
For US guests who will be traveling by air after January 23, 2007, we remind you of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) implemented by the United States Department of Homeland Security and Department of State. The WHTI requires all travelers, including U.S. citizens, to present a valid passport or other document, or a combination of documents that denote identity and citizenship when entering the United States.
TRAVELING BY AIR: Starting January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport, Air NEXUS card, or U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Document.
TRAVELING BY LAND OR SEA: Good news! If you plan to cross the US border by land or sea, including ferries, you do not require documentation until January 1, 2008.
APPLYING FOR A US PASSPORT: U.S. citizens can visit the State Department's travel website at http://www.travel.state.gov/ or call the National Passport Information Center at 1.877.487.2778; TDD/TTY: 1.888.874.7793 for information about applying for a passport.

Next Steps:
Drop us a line and/or put a hold on some flights. Everyone has paid and I will be issuing partial refunds to Andy and Sean.

Status:
Lodging, Flights, and Lifts are booked. If you are interested let us know feel free to join us by booking a room in an adjoining property. We can advise on that; Tremblant is good value in general.

Links to whet your appetite:
First Tracks on Tremblant
Ski mag on Tremblant
Revisiting Tremblant
Whistler of the East

If you look in your newest SKI magazine, you'll see that Tremblant was voted #1 in the East, which it seems to regular hover around.

I look forward to seeing you, and getting up in the north country.

Arv

Health & Fitness: Training for ski season (from LA Monitor)

Health & Fitness: Training for ski season

KIM LAZARUS, D.C. Special to the Monitor

With the hopes of a good ski season, training now will pay off later. Some of the areas you want to focus on when training for the ski season are balance, lateral movements, flexibility and strength training. Explosive exercises like plyometrics are also good training.

Downhill skiers turn with lateral movements that involve many muscles from the hips to the ankles. Being able to compensate for these obscure movements involves the ability to bring the muscles back to a neutral position.For example, if you were to run and suddenly fall into a small hole, would you twist your ankle or would your muscles compensate and return back to neutral without injury?

The ability to do this is called proprioception. Proprioceptive training involves exercises that have a wobble factor to them. A wobble board, theraball and a foam roller are a few examples of devices that can be used for these exercises. When a muscle gets challenged to compensate for imbalance, the properly conditioned muscle seems to gain an ability to compensate when put under pressure.Flexibility training can be important in the prevention of a strain syndrome. When a muscle is under stress in its contractile state and cold weather becomes a factor, a muscle tightens up, pulling on the tendon, which can cause tearing.

Because you are sitting on the chair lift in between runs, the tendency is to tighten up. Moving your legs while on the lift may help keep blood flowing to them. Proper supplementation and staying hydrated can also assist in the prevention of injuries.Strength training for the arms and legs is critical. Two leg workouts per week at least two months prior to the start of ski season is recommended. Squats, lunges, extensions and leg presses are a few good strengthening exercises.

A personal trainer could be extremely helpful in organizing a good program for preseason training.When strength training is combined with speed and agility training, a skier will add explosive power to their skiing. Interval training and plyometric exercises are examples of this type of training.Plyometrics are exercises that involve quick, explosive moves and may be mixed with more moderate cardio types of moves to achieve higher performance for the skier.Other exercises that have been used include wall sitting. This exercise is an isometric exercise to strengthen the thighs. Lean against the wall with your back flat to the wall and slide your back down the wall. Your feet should remain about shoulder width apart and out away from the wall. When you slide down, make sure your feet are out in front of you and your knees do not extend over your feet. You will feel your thighs burn within the first minute.

Strengthening the shoulders, arms and abdominal muscles will keep your balance in tact as well as preventing fatigue throughout your ski day.No off-slope conditioning is as good as the actual art of skiing, but your ski season will be more rewarding if your physique is conditioned prior to the season. Now is the time to get started!

Dr. Kim Lazarus is the co-owner of the Los Alamos Fitness Center and a local chiropractor.

More Tremblant Details

I've been looking into flights, and prices out of the NYC area on the Friday before MLK weekend are a little high, for such a short flight. I am thinking I might just fly up there Thursday night, using frequent flyer miles, and return a little earlier on Jan 15. As a practical matter, it means the schedule for me would problably look like

Jan 11 Thursday (evening) fly/drive to Tremblant
Jan 12 Friday ski
Jan 13 Saturday ski
Jan 14 Monday / MLK (mid afternoon) drive/fly back to NYC

I am going to call them to find out what rates/availability are for in village suites or condo's are like. Hopefully not many Americans will be up there so holiday rates and crowds will be kept down. I'll revert back, but I'll probably look for a two bedroom suite.

Arv

PS: here's a picture of mid Vail as of today which was a place we often had lunch during our last trip there

Can you identify the movie?

Ray, people will ski Ray. They'll come to Mad River for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up in the parking lot not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at the single chair as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you ski, you'll say. It's only $35 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and trees they lack. And they'll ski Paradise; hit the woods all afternoon. They'll find some glades and fresh track,. And they'll ski bumps and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic powder. The snow will be so deep they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will ski Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been Mad River Glen. America has rolled by like an army of groomers. It has been groomed to cordouroy, tracked up and groomed again. But Mad River Glen has marked the time. This mountain, this single chair: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will ski Ray. People will most definitely ski.

From an amusing thread over on epicski.
http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.php?t=40868&page=2

Colorado sees early snowfall

WINTER PARK, Colo., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Colorado had an early snowfall in thehigh country over the weekend, getting residents revved up for ski season, KMGH-TV in Denver reported.Winter Park saw heavy snow Saturday, good news for Winter Park Ski Resort. Although the resort does not open until mid-November, the snow is a sign thatcrowds will be back soon." Oh yeah. There's a lot of people who start jumping up and down and breakingout their skis and tuning up their equipment for sure," says Darcy Morse,spokeswoman for Winter Park Ski Resort. Steamboat Springs got about six inches of snow Saturday. The Colorado Department of Transportation had snowplows out, but said verylittle snow was sticking to the roads.

Some descriptions of Tremblant (lots of click throughs)

I hope these whet your appetite a little bit for our winter jaunt to Tremblant:

This is a pretty good description from FirstTracks
First Tracks on Tremblant

And here is Ski magazine's puff piece
Ski mag on Tremblant

More puffery about honeymooning there, but a nice picture
Revisiting Tremblant

And of course, it wouldn't be complete without a comparison to the Whistler of the East
Whistler of the East

Ski Trip 2007 ?

A few of you have started to inquire about possible ski trips in 2007, so here's some quick thoughts on this.

As most of you know, I'm getting married in March of 2007 (details forthcoming) and that will affect future ski trips in a variety of ways. I'm going to be using up a chunk of vacation time for a honeymoon, which generically reduces 07 season ski travel, but hopefully we can fit in a trip in the early part of the season.

These jaunts are truly one of the highlights of the year for me, and I don't want to end this ancient and honorable tradition, so I hope people can still find the time/resources for a compact adventure. It's always been appreciated how much people have sacrificed and juggled their lives around to get to these ski revivals.

I hope we can still reunite for an extended weekend in the first half of the season. Hypothetically, what do you guys think about

Martin Luther King Weekend
January 12 - 15, 2007

I'd like to meet at an easily accessed mountain, and stay ski on/ski out, even if we'll pay for that privilege. For a short trip, I begrudge the air/ground travel time even more than normal. I once had a great trip to Mont Tremblant in Quebec and would suggest that, although there are other mountains that meet the requirements. For a place that is not so far away , it feels remarkably European. Tremblant's village is probably more festive (and couples friendly -- even for non skiiers) than the places we usually go to. So consider this an opportunity to bring along significant others, whether they ski or not. We had a great time on the last ski trip to Canada when Guano brought his bitch, Midnight, along for the ride. She was a Very Good Girl and didn't snoop in the trash once.

Here's their official web site - Tremblant link

Anyways, let me know what you all think.

Okemo owners to switch to 'green' energy

Joining the trend of other ski areas in going to renewable power. I'm not sure what this really means other than flaunting moral superiority. Until people really want to live lower energy consumption lifestyles (less travel, less imported goods, smaller houses, just generally less of everything) none of this is really going to make a material dent in energy usage. But I guess it helps for marketing or something.

------------
Okemo owners to switch to 'green' energy

August 19, 2006

By Johanna Sorrentino
Southern Vermont Bureau

LUDLOW— When it comes to addressing the worldwide problem of greenhouse gas emissions, Okemo Mountain Resort Owner Tim Mueller said, you've got to start somewhere.That's why Mueller and wife, Diane, are purchasing enough renewable energy certificates from Sterling Planet, a retail renewable energy provider, to power all the electrical needs of their three ski resorts, which include Okemo, Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado and Mount Sunapee Resort in New Hampshire."It's the New York Cities, not the Ludlows and Crested Buttes, that are the real problem. What we can do is small," he said. "It's about setting examples, rather than making an impact."By purchasing power from the national grid using the certificates, the Muellers are investing in the renewable energy sources provided by Sterling Power.Sterling Power provides energy through a variety of sources, including solar, wind and methane gas.The Muellers requested certificates for wind power. Tim Mueller said it is easy to invest in wind power because so much of it is available. He supports its use as a source of energy.Vermont needs to look more closely at possible locations for wind farms, he said. Though aesthetics is a concern at some locations, he said, if something isn't done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the alternative will look even worse."Everyone wants to be green, but as soon as someone proposes something it gets shot down," he said.Mueller said he and his wife chose to purchase certificates, rather than build their own turbines, because "there are people that do that a lot better than we could."The Muellers will purchase 27 million kilowatt hours of Sterling Planet's renewable energy certificates through a contract they signed with Gunnison County Electric Association, a member-owned, nonprofit cooperative located in Colorado.Mueller said snowmaking demands the most amount of energy. The lodges are heated with oil and propane in the eastern resorts and with natural gas in Colorado.He said Okemo Mountain uses the most amount of energy because it is larger than the other resorts.Though Mueller would not disclose how much money the three resorts are spending on the certificates, he said it is roughly 15 percent more than what they were spending on electricity previously.Public Relations Director Bonnie MacPherson said the volume of renewable energy the Muellers will be using will prevent an estimated 18,800 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.Recent surveys of resort guests have indicated a growing sensitivity to environmental issues, she said. "People want to spend their money where renewable energy is supported," she said.Some of the money the Muellers are spending on energy certificates for Crested Butte will be used to help develop wind power in Colorado through a collaboration between the Colorado Governor's Office of Energy Management and Conservation and Sterling Planet. Mueller said there are no such collaborative programs exist in Vermont because there are so few sources of wind energy in the state.Parker Riehle, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, said Okemo is the only resort in Vermont hat uses its own funds to purchase energy certificates.Because of erratic weather patterns in the past few seasons, which have been linked to global warming caused by greenhouse gases, resorts are starting to take more seriously the consequences of relying on conventional energy, Riehle said."It's whatever we can do to help," he said.Riehle said it is too early to tell which options for supporting renewable energy will prove most attractive to resorts. "The biggest hurdle is the expense," he said.

Contact Johanna Sorrentino at johanna.sorrentino@rutlandherald.com

The new SKI magazine just hit the mailbox

I'm looking forward to kicking back and reading it over a lazy Labor Day weekend.

Some advice on buying skis

This looks like a pretty good blog about skiing Utah, worth looking at. In particular, this post seems relevant: Some advice on buying skis

Unrelated to skiing, well almost totally

Jim sent me this picture of (circa 1993 or 1994?) from when we used to work at Kidder, Peabody down in Hanover Square. It was a bulge bracket white-shoe (and white shirt!) American investment bank, brought down by heavy losses on the Treasury bond desk. Maybe this is rose colored backwards-looking sunglasses, but it was particularly festive working there. The guy to my left (Ed Lardner) came on a couple of our ski trips, notably to Lake Tahoe and Vermont, but I have not heard from him in some years. I'm guessing this picture must have been from a now defunct Mexican margarita shack on the South Street Seaport. Rather amazingly I think everyone in this picture -- other than Ed -- is still working in the finance/trading business still.

I'm seeing the orthopoaedist this afternoon again; my Achilles tendon has not responded all that well to ArthoTek. Moving this weekend may have inflamed it mildly again too.

Low level chuckle

Founder of Squaw Valley Dies

Alexander Cushing, 92, Resolute Founder of Squaw Valley

BY STEPHEN MILLER - Staff Reporter of the SunAugust 22, 2006

URL: NY Sun's Obituary

Alexander Cushing, who died Sunday at 92, was a tetchy and brilliant entrepreneur who created a primitive ski resort at Squaw Valley, Calif., and then brought the 1960 Winter Olympics there.
In 1955, Cushing convinced the International Olympic Committee to site the games there, thanks in part to a giant plaster model of the valley that he shipped to Paris at great expense. The bid — which may have had its genesis as a publicity stunt — was audacious, given that the competition was luxury Old World resorts like St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Innsbruck, Austria. Cushing's resort had but a single chairlift and two tow ropes, and minimal amenities. But it also had snow — an estimated 445 inches annually — and slopes up to 3 1/2 miles long with a 2,700-foot vertical drop. The single ski lift was, at 8,200 feet, said to be the largest in the world.
Initially funded by a $1-million California state pledge, preparations ended up costing many times that amount, and the recriminations echoed for years. Cushing bruised sensibilities in every corner as he coordinated construction of dormitories, ice rinks, stadiums, and other facilities. Irritated IOC officials declined to offer Cushing tickets even to the opening ceremony.
Yet the games came off in spectacular style, including a storybook victory by the underdog American hockey team over its reputedly invincible Cold War opponent, the Soviet Union. Americans Carol Heiss and David Jenkins won gold medals in figure skating.
"We should do pretty well here from now on," Cushing told Time magazine in 1959, observing the rapid growth of his resort. "Unless we hack things up, and we probably will."
With a bump from the televised Olympics, and blessed by proximity to Reno, Nev., and San Francisco, Squaw Valley flourished, although for decades it maintained a reputation for Spartan accommodations and rickety lifts that occasionally dumped passengers. In 1976, four passengers were killed in a cable car accident.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Cushing, then over 70, returned to developing with renewed vigor and upgraded every facet of Squaw Valley. "He ruthlessly spurned environmentalists, regulators, and shareholders," to whom he never paid dividends, his daughter, Alexandra Cushing Howard, said. Cushing spent "his life pursuing his vision to make Squaw Valley the best ski resort in the world," she said.
Cushing was born into high society and lived at first on East 70th Street, in a house designed by his godfather, William Delano. His grandfather had been a prosperous Boston tea merchant. His father, the artist Howard Gardiner Cushing, died when Alexander was just 4 years old, and much of the family's money disappeared in the crash of 1929. Yet Cushing grew up amid extravagance in Manhattan and Newport and learned, his daughter said, "a lifelong disregard for money."
He prepped at Groton, where he excelled at tennis, was a good-hit, no-field first baseman, and lousy at skiing — a sport he never excelled at. While attending Harvard, Cushing traveled the world during the summers, and when he managed to graduate a year early in 1936, he took off for a nine-month tour of the Far East. He then attended law school ("the alternative was going to work," he told Time) and briefly worked at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.
During World War II, he worked as a troubleshooter for the Naval Air Transport Service. At one point Cushing worked himself so hard that he ended up in a mental ward suffering from partial facial paralysis, a condition that continued to give him a frozen slight-scowl for decades.
In 1946, having moved reluctantly to practicing law on Wall Street, he became interested in investing in a ski resort. While on his way to Squaw Valley with friends, he stopped off at Vail to test the slopes and was buried up to his neck in an avalanche. His brother and best friend, Alexander McFadden, was killed. Shaken but not deterred, Cushing hiked in to Squaw Valley — there were no roads at the time — with Wayne Poulson, a Pan Am pilot who had already bought land there. The two would become partners in developing Squaw Valley, a partnership that quickly became acrimonious.
Cushing raised about $400,000 from Laurance Rockefeller and other friends, plus his savings and money from his wife, Justine, an heir to Fulton steamboat and Bayard fortunes. He trucked in old Air Force barracks to use as housing, had the big lift and rope tows installed, and prepared the area for skiing. Using his position as majority stockholder, he fired Poulson as president of Squaw Valley Development shortly before opening the resort, on Thanksgiving Day 1949.
Opening day was a minor disaster as workers went on strike, plumbing malfunctioned, and dinners were delayed. One of his daughters broke a leg, and somebody ran over his dog. Later in the season, as was to happen in each of the resort's first three years, an avalanche wiped out much of the skiing and destroyed the chairlift. In the fourth year, there was a flood, and in the fifth year, the lodge was destroyed by fire. Yet Cushing persevered.
Over the next few years, Cushing added more runs and improved the accommodations a bit, but according to a 1955 article in the Hartford Courant, by the time Squaw Valley won its Olympic bid, one of its chief selling points was that it was "a private, secluded community in a natural amphitheater completely separated from commercial influence and public interference." Whether or not the bid was initially planned as a publicity stunt, it certainly had the effect of raising Squaw Valley's profile, and well in advance of the 1960 games, it became a favorite of celebrities like Joan Fontaine and Bing Crosby.
"We had literally thousands of skiers up here last winter," Cushing told the Los Angeles Times in 1958. "Why, Doc Nelson down in Tahoe City must have set at least 250 broken legs."
Gangly and blessed with a distinctive shock of red hair, Cushing made an impression when he strode into rooms. He seldom worried what people thought, an odd characteristic for someone devoted to making people comfortable. "I'm terrible with the public," he told Time. "I don't like that professional, oily quality, but I guess I'm wrong. People at resorts like to say the owner talked to them. Here they say, ‘That sonofabitch Cushing didn't speak to me for the 13th consecutive day.'"
In the early 1970s, Squaw Valley began to drift as Cushing spent more time in Newport and elsewhere, returning perhaps once a month to make sure everything was working. Following the death of his second wife, Libby, in the mid-1980s, he found himself rededicated to building up Squaw Valley.
"And it occurred to me, ‘This is basically what you do with your life — it's this place here,'" Cushing told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. "But it comes to you, ‘Well this is what you do,' and the next question is, ‘Well is this the best you can do?' And you say, ‘Well, no. I'd never thought about it that way.It's not the best I could do. Well then, why don't you do the best you could do? I mean, what are you saving yourself for? Why don't you get at it?
"I really went back to work, is what it comes down to."
And he kept at it until shortly before his death, when there were no fewer than 31 lifts at Squaw Valley.

Alexander Cushing

Born November 28, 1913, in New York City; died August 20 at his home in Newport, R.I.; survived by his third wife, Nancy, his three daughters, Justine Cushing, Lily Kunczynski, and Alexandra Howard; six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.

Ski Carefully & Stop Suing Each Other

Skiers meet in court over alleged Vail collision

Associated Press

August 16, 2006

DENVER — An alleged collision between two skiers on Vail Mountain two years ago caused one to smash into a 6-foot-tall pole, leaving him with injuries that have resulted in 10 surgeries, he said in a civil lawsuit that went to trial in Denver federal court this week.Jason White, 24, a former competitive skier working at a Vail ski shop, sued the other skier, Michael Kaiden, alleging that their skis became entangled when Kaiden came up behind him and made a sharp right turn in April 2004.Kaiden, also a former competitive skier who lives in New York, disputed the claim, testifying Tuesday that the two never collided.White is suing Kaiden for $1.3 million in damages, arguing Kaiden was out of control and violating state law by failing to keep a proper lookout or failing to avoid a collision with a person skiing below him.Kaiden testified that he saw nobody in front of him just before the crash. He said he was turning to his right when he saw “at my 5 o’clock, someone coming right at me.”Kaiden said he turned sharply to the left and avoided hitting White, who then hit the post. Kaiden said he stayed nearby until ski patrol members arrived to take White to the hospital, and then filled out an incident report.Responding to a question from White’s attorney, Beth Klein, he testified he never called to check on White.“I didn’t know the guy, and I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “It wasn’t a major concern of mine.”Before the trial, which is expected to continue through Friday, U.S. District Judge Phillip S. Figa dismissed Kaiden’s claim that the Vail ski area should share some of the blame for erecting the post that White hit. Kaiden also is arguing that White was “comparatively negligent” and assumed a known risk when he went skiing.A friend of White’s who was skiing with him that day, Janel Ippolito, testified the two men were even with each other when Kaiden made a sharp right turn. In an incident report she filed the day of the crash, she wrote the men’s skis and poles may have hit each other, but that their bodies did not touch.She also testified that White has been able to return to skiing and working in Vail.

Vail, Colorado

Another good deal on a helmet

This is a pretty good deal for $28, although it's only in green and small sizes.

Back Country Outlet deal on helmet

As always the best time to buy ski gear is at the tail end of summer, before the new season's stuff is shipped to stores in the fall. I've used this vendor before, sometimes they have free shipping and no sales tax too, so they are great value.

Another good deal is on this ski bag for $20. These things get beat up so much you might consider replacing the one you have.

Back Country Outlet deal on Bag

Lastly if you are looking for a pair of the hard to find, and typically sold out and expensive Volkl 5*'s, you can get two year old ones for a half decent price ($500) here. I've never used this vendor before.

Volkl 5 Stars