Development
Forest Service approves Copper Mountain in Colorado
The developers, Copper Mountain of Denver, have been planning the new resort for about three years, but they needed permission to build because most of the 3,000-plus acres are in the Arapahoe National Forest.
About $4-6 million will be invested in the area by its planned 1972-73 ski season opening. Charles Lewis, Copper Mountain general manager, said that five lifts will be built, including a gondola, three chairs and a beginner’s area lift.
Aspen Highlands sets skier-visits record for 1970-71 season
Aspen Highlands recorded a record number of skier days last season, according to figures released by the U.S. Forest Service. The 1970-71 period saw an increase of more than 65,000 skier visits over the past year for a total of 208,946. This is a 45 per cent jump over the 1969-70 season figures of 143,580 skier visits.
The ski school also showed gains last season, registering a 22 per cent increase in ski lessons.
Ground broken for new summit lodge at Hunter Mountain
Israel and Orville Slutzky, area general managers, have announced the beginning of construction of the new Hunter Summit Lodge, to be ready in time for the 1971-72 ski season at Hunter Mountain ski area in New York.
The new lodge will be located between the summits of “A”, “F”, and “Z” lifts and accessible from all three. Management says it is ideally located for those who ski the upper part of Hunter Mountain and Hunter Mountain West.
According to architect Al Hartheimer, it will look like a spiral concrete castle growing out of a rock on top of the Colonel’s Chair. Said Hartheimer, “The building will be a warm cave in the winter for cold skiers and in the summer a cool castle for warm vacationers.”
Great Gorge North to open on schedule; Playboy builds hotel
With construction on schedule, the Great Gorge ski area in New Jersey plans to open the new Great Gorge North area at the beginning of the 1971-72 season. Great Gorge North will be connected to the rest of the area, renamed Great Gorge South, by a 4,600-foot chairlift and a three-mile novice trail.
Also under construction are seven new trails on the face of Hamburg Mountain, several of which will be rated expert. The main trail, Pipe Line, has a vertical drop of 850 feet and is 3,200 feet long. “This is going to be one of the finest trails around.” said area president Jack Kurlander, “and the Ski Patrol will only allow qualified skiers to use it.” Beginning and novice skiers will use Chicken Little and Bunny Buster, respectively, two teaching areas located near the North Base Lodge.
“All the new trails will be lighted, thus making Great Gorge the largest night skiing facility in the world,” Kurlander said. The two areas will have a total of eight double chairlifts and two tows, bringing the combined uphill capacity to 12,000 skiers per hour.
Also scheduled to open in December is the 700-room Playboy Club Hotel resort complex, adjacent to Great Gorge North and to be connected to the area by a 36-passenger tramway. Many learn-to-ski and ski week packages will be offered for the first time this season in conjunction with the Playboy Hotel. Under the direction of Luis Schafflinger, the ski school will offer GLM as well as the American Technique.
Technology
New York: Big Tupper felled by lightning; Bluemont by fire
Two New York ski areas were seriously damaged during the summer—one by lightning the other by fire.
The Big Tupper area at Tupper Lake, deep in the Adirondacks, had its chair lift, power plant and drive terminal on the lift knocked out when a mid-summer electrical storm destroyed them and toppled the lift.
This community-owned area was quickly being rebuilt by the end of the summer and area manager Ed Fletcher expected that all damage would be repaired and a new trail cut by the time the first snows fall.
The area base lodge at Bluemont was completely destroyed in a mysterious fire whose origins were never discovered. Bulldozers swept the debris aside. The area, located south of Buffalo, will have a new all-steel base lodge by early December, area manager John Eberhardt said.—Floyd King
Chairlifts, new designs mark Pullman Berry’s first year in lift field
It all started 103 years ago—with the Palace Car, forerunner of the railroad “sleeper.” Pullman, Inc., a company that has since branched from the transportation equipment field into engineering and construction, is now firmly into the ski lift business as well.
Pullman Berry Lifts, begun as a Pullman-Berry metal venture just eight months ago, now has six chairlift installations planned for Taos, N.M., Sunday River, Me., and at areas in Nebraska, Massachusetts and New York.
A supplier to the steel industry of oxygen lances, Berry Metal Company was acquired by Pullman in May 1969. President Walter Berry, having been involved in the design of a cable car lift for a Berry Company-owned mountain in Georgetown, Colo., broached the idea of manufacturing lifts to Pullman. The company bought it, organized Pullman-Berry Lifts and brought in a staff with over 30 years’ experience in the lift design/fabrication field.
According to a company spokesman, though the production impetus has up to this time been on chairlifts, designs are now on the drawing boards for gondola, cable car and monorail systems as well.
People
John King is the new general manager of Sugarbush Valley, Vt., L. Damon Gadd, president of the area, has announced. King, most recently general manager of Whiteface Mountain, New York, has been in ski area management for nearly 20 years. He is also a director of the Eastern Ski Area Operators Association, and a past president and director of the National Ski Areas Association.
Gloria C. Chadwick has been named director of marketing at Big Sky of Montana, Inc. She will handle advertising, marketing and public relations as well as development of the area’s convention and athletic programs.
Miss Chadwick was most recently national coordinator of NASTAR, which, in the three years of her guidance, grew from eight areas to 80 areas and from 3,000 participants to 59,000.
Karl Pfeifer, one of the primary developers of the Graduated Length Method of ski instruction and the developer of the Head-Way GLM program, has become director of the Big Bromley ski school, Fred Rogers, the area’s general manager, has announced.
Pfeifer, who runs Head Ski Company’s Head-Way program, will continue with Head-Way, traveling and teaching instructors while Head handles promotion.
Claire Walter has been appointed head of the new ski marketing services division of Davis & Morgan, a New York public relations firm specializing in leisuretime and sports activities. Before joining the agency, Miss Walter was managing editor at SKI Magazine. Prior to that she was managing editor of SKI’s trade publications SKI BUSINESS and SKI AREA MANAGEMENT.
