Occasionally we like to cast our eye backwards to see where we came from because it can sometimes shed light on what we are about today. This time we pick 10 years ago because it might well have been the start of today’s feverish consolidation activities. The previous year had seen George Gillett buy Vail/Beaver Creek for what turned out to be a song. And now…
It was in 1986 that Mammoth Mountain, Calif., picked up its neighbor, June Mountain, with owner Dave McCoy expressing a distant dream of linking the two with lifts… Magic Mountain, Vt., bought adjacent Timber Ridge Ski Area. (Neither is operational today, though Magic is trying to re-open.). . . S-K-I, which at that time consisted of Killington and Mount Snow only, had been taking a long look at Snowshoe Ski Resort in West Virginia, which was being operated by the courts. They offered $4.5 million for the assets and announced a planned $3.5 million program of improvements. Then they withdrew the whole package when the court announced a “continuation of the hearings to consider other offers.” S-K-I indicated, however, that it was “actively looking all over the country for ski resort opportunities.” Snowshoe eventually sold to a Japanese group in 1990, which eventually sold the resort to Intrawest in 1995.
Speaking of Intrawest, it was 10 years ago that this company, a Vancouver-based real estate development firm, bought Aspen Skiing Corp’s one-half ownership of Blackcomb, B.C. Significantly, the president of Blackcomb was Hugh Smythe, who joined the Intrawest team and became the driving force behind their change of focus to ski and resort development properties. Smythe was quoted as saying he was delighted to have Blackcomb’s ownership “repatriated” and looked forward to developing its benchlands—”the best recreational real estate opportunity left in Canada,” he said. But at that time his sights were not yet on Mont Tremblant, Quebec.
Aspen’s divestiture, incidentally, is a reminder that the Blackcomb involvement was part of Aspen’s bigger imperial agenda that included Breckenridge, Colo, and investments in Fortress Mountain, Alberta and the proposed Early Winters resort in Washington.
Other Issues
There was another happening in 1986 that was to have a fundamental impact on the industry and that was the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. SAM ran articles by Dick Houlihan, who brought the combined insights of a CPA and ski area president to bear in his analysis. The legislation, which forced everyone to come to grips with the concept of “passive income,” did away with a number of tax shelters from which the ski industry had long benefitted. “This is a matter of extreme importance to many destination areas,” wrote Houlihan. “It can generate far-reaching effects on many ski areas and skiers across the country.”
A New Voice
At Ski Magazine Week in December 1986, George Gillett, after one season of operating Vail, gave a tough speech with a simple message, the core of which seems the embodiment of the NSAA Summit 10 years later: 1) Learn what your customers want (the research component) and then give it to them; 2) Stop slamming each other and let’s go sell skiing together, have some fun and perhaps make some money; and 3) The kids of America are the future.
Lift Building
On the lift-building front, investment was very heavy by today’s standards. No less than 94 new lifts went in for the 86-87 season, “which ranks it fourth in gross numbers in the past 10 years,” reported SAM. In VTFH, it was second with 146,353.2, which was only a hair under the record 150,402.4 set the previous year.
Lifts were getting much bigger: the average had risen to 1,554 VTFH, which SAM labelled “astonishing.” In Colorado alone, three gondolas went in (Poma’s huge, 6-passenger Silver Queen at Aspen, Von Roll/Habegger’s at Keystone and Doppelmayr’s monster 8-passenger monster at Steamboat); also, seven detachable quads and a fixed-grip quad. These 11 lifts alone averaged 44,175.5 in VTFH. Also, the Midwest got its first detachable—a Borvig/Leitner at Spirit Mountain, Minn.
Overall, quads were already gaining on triples, though exactly half of the 82 chairlifts built were still triples.
Miscellaneous
Sherman Adams, who founded Loon Mt., N.H. after serving as that state’s governor and also as chief of staff to President Eisenhower, died at 87… NSAA and SIA were working together on a joint marketing program called “Let’s Go Skiing, America.” …Aspen had its 40th anniversary celebration soured by its patrollers who voted overwhelmingly to organize.
