DEVELOPMENT
Park City resort named Ski Team training site
The USSA board of directors has approved a proposal submitted by the Greater Park City Company to maintain a year-round National Training Center at the Utah resort. Park City will be using $100,000 of its own funds to renovate existing facilities for lodging and to construct jumps, slalom runs and ski touring trails which, when completed, will be maintained by the USSA.
According to USSA president William F. McClure, Park City was selected for its ideal Alpine and Nordic ski-training terrain and snow, as well as its proximity to Salt Lake City and the transcontinental jetport there.
The National Training Center will be located in the area of the gondola mid-way station and, according to resort general manager A. W. “Woody” Anderson, “will in no way interfere with recreational skiers.”
The University of Utah Medical Center and the university’s Physical Education Department will cooperate by offering facilities to the teams. The university and other nearby institutions will also offer college-level courses for racers, and Park City has offered to set up a programs for racers interested in ski resort management. —Barbara Wicks
Aspen Ski Corp. files stock offer
Aspen Skiing Corp. has offered 300,000 shares of common stock to the public through an underwriting group headed by Faulkner, Dawkins and Sullivan Securities Corp. of New York. Half of the offering are new shares being sold by the company while the remaining 150,000 will be sold for the accounts of existing shareholders.
According to ASC president Darcy Brown, “Money from the stock sale is being used to finance facility expansion at two of the Aspen Skiing Corp.’s four areas, Snowmass and Breckenridge.” ASC also operates Aspen Mountain and Buttermilk, both located in Aspen.
Duluth plans metro ski area
Duluth, Minn. has announced plans for an $8 million municipal year-round recreation area in the western part of the city, tentatively named Spirit Mountain. Covering 70 acres, the area, preliminary plans reveal, will include two chairlifts, a T-bar, nine trails, snowmaking over the entire area and lighting for night skiing on four runs.
The first phase of development, at a cost of $2.7 million, will include construction of a central 500-skier-capacity recreation building, ice-skating rink and purchase of maintenance vehicles as well as the cutting of trails, construction of lifts and installation of lights and snowmaking.
Area expansion in Ontario
More than $4 million was spent by Ontario’s 113 commercial ski resorts in preparation for the current season, according to the province’s Ministry of Industry and Tourism. The expansion and improvements include new ski areas, new lifts, additional snowmaking, enlarged housing facilities and improved slope grooming.
The Ministry’s annual survey of Ontario ski facilities also cited these tidbits: This year skiers will have a choice of 38 chairlifts, 123 T-bars, 30 pomalifts, 4 J-bars, 184 rope tows, 46 areas with snowmaking equipment, 505 open slopes, 371 downhill trails and 58 areas with cross-country trails. All ski areas, reports the survey, have club chalets and most offer overnight accommodations, ski rentals, instruction, night skiing, tobogganing, snowmobiling, sleigh rides, skating, dancing and apres-ski entertainment.
Ammo freebees nixed in Utah
The Intermountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service has adopted a “pay as you blow” policy toward avalanche control at ski areas in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon.
This year the Forest Service, which is now being charged by the Army for slide control ammunition, will no longer supply free ammo to the ski areas and is passing on the burden as “a cost of doing business.”
Ammunition costs for avalanche control, SAM has learned, will run close to $25,000 at Snowbird alone, another $10,000 at Alta. The decision, understandably, is not a popular one with local resort owners, and they, as well as Alta and Salt Lake City officials, are protesting the action.
According to Alta mayor Bill Levitt, the Forest Service waited until just before the opening of the ski season to announce the new policy, forcing areas to come up with the cash for the ammunition in order to open on schedule. Ski areas were formerly paying for transportation of the ammunition. —Barbara Wicks
Loveland tunnel nears completion
Colorado’s Straight Creek Tunnel, which will carry traffic 900 feet under Loveland Pass, is finally nearing completion. The massive tunnelling effort, plagued by labor disputes, cave-ins that required redesign and reshoring of the tunnel and a controversy over a woman engineer’s right to enter the tunnel, is well over a year behind schedule.
The 1.69-mile-long roadway, whose opening is slated for late February or early March, will save skiers traveling to Colorado ski resorts along Interstate 70 over an hour’s travel time. The Colorado legislature has voted to name the tunnel in honor of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.—Lois Barr
Bigwood area, Sun Valley neighbor, plans ’73 opening
Bigwood ski area, 12 miles north of Sun Valley, Idaho, is scheduled to open in December 1973 with five trails, two lifts and 2,900 vertical feet. Bigwood officials say a day lodge, 2,000 feet above the valley floor, and a base lodge will also be ready in 1973.
The area is situated on Forest Service land in a recently designated 750,000-acre National Recreation Area; two lift lines and one trail have already been cut. Sprenger Land Investment, Inc. of Sun Valley is the developer of the resort. —Barbara Wicks
ACQUISITIONS
Glen Ellen sold; MacDonald directs
The Glen Ellen Corporation, operators of the Glen Ellen ski area in central Vermont, has been sold by owner/general manager Walt Elliott to an investment group headed by Vermont realtor Gina C. Van Loon for a reported $2 million.
The investment firm, whose principals include Miss Van Loon and Massachusetts business consultant Ken Brown, purchased all assets of Glen Ellen, including 1,600 acres of land and all existing ski facilities.
Sno-Engineering, the Franconia, N.H.-based ski area consulting firm, has been brought in to refurbish the area’s facilities. Robert MacDonald, former general manager at Madonna Mountain, also in Vermont, has been named as the area’s new general manager. Taking over MacDonald’s post at Madonna is Ron Thompson of Stanmar Homes, the firm which is now managing the area for owner Thomas J. Watson.
Mt. Ascutney bought by investor group
Mount Ascutney ski area, Brownsville, Vt., has been sold by owner Walt Paine to a group of investors headed by Boston investment broker John Giles. The 12-year-old, 820-acre facility was bought by Giles, Springfield, Vt., attorney Parker Ainsworth, Brockton, Mass., stockbroker William Gurley and Ascutney general manager Bob Paron.
Paron, who becomes secretary and director of the investment group, and the Kissing Bridge Corporation, the Glenwood, N.Y., ski area management firm, will continue to operate Ascutney. The new owners have already doubled the snowmaking facilities at the area.
Virginia developer buys Blue Knob area
Bryce’s Mountain Resort, Inc., of Basye, Va., has purchased an 82 per cent ownership in Blue Knob Development Corp., operators of the Blue Knob ski area in Claysburg, Pa. The dollar amount of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Blue Knob recently obtained options on approximately 3,000 acres of land adjacent to the ski area, where a major year-round resort is planned. With a 1,200-foot vertical, the area will be extended another 600 feet with additional chairlifts. Condominiums, golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools, riding stables and central water and sewage are also planned.
It is anticipated that there will be reciprocal privileges between the Bryce Mountain and Blue Knob areas, three hours distant from one another, and a newly proposed ski area, Lost River, in West Virginia, a half-hour drive from Bryce Mountain, also being developed by Bryce money. When completed, the resort complex will be one of the largest of its kind in the East.
Killington, Sunday River in purchase talks
The Sherburne Corporation, owner and operator of the Killington, Vt. ski resort, has reached an agreement with Sunday River Skiway Corporation to purchase a controlling interest in Sunday River, the Maine ski facility located near Bethel.
Sherburne president Preston Leete Smith said that the agreement entails the sale of 13,000 shares of Sunday River common stock to the Sherburne Corp. The authorized capital stock of Sunday River consists of 25,000 shares of common stock, all of which was issued and outstanding at the conclusion of the purchase.
Newly elected officers of the Sunday River Skiway Corp. are Smith, president; Martel D. Wilson, Jr., vice president and treasurer and Foster T. Chandler, Jr., vice president. The three officers also comprise the executive committee of the corporation.
The area, located off U.S. 2, six miles north of Bethel in western Maine, includes a 5,100-foot double chairlift, three T-bars, 14 miles of trails, a base lodge, snowmaking and trail-grooming equipment, in addition to land at the base area.
Lomma plans private resort at Innsbruck U.S.A.
Innsbruck U.S.A., a New York State-owned ski area near Binghamton, N.Y., has been bought by Lomma International, a manufacturer of miniature golf courses.
A spokesman for Lomma says the firm intends to turn Innsbruck into a private four-season family resort with the addition of a swimming pool, tennis courts, horseback riding and a golf course at the base of the mountain.
MARKETING
New Hampshire area group boosts ‘Ski Closer’
In yet another demonstration of there’s-economy-in-numbers marketing, seven southern New Hampshire ski areas have joined forces to remind southern New England skiers that there’s plenty of skiing in their own backyard.
The group—which includes Temple Mt., Crotched Mt., Onset, Woodbound Inn, Pinnacle Mt., the Inn at East Hill Farm and Fitzwilliam ski area—calls itself Monadnock Region, Inc. The consortium aims to convince the local skier, says Monadnock Region exec Ken Reynolds, that “he can save driving time, liftline waiting and considerable money if he’ll just look us over.”
Vail staffers bone up at ‘Smile School’
Keeping guests happy has always been the primary goal of any ski resort, and at Vail recently this meant a “Smile School” for all employees.
Leading the five one-day sessions was Linda Logan, a senior instructor in Trans World Airline’s Breech Training Academy who used the concept of group encounter to stress sincerity and pride in doing one’s job. Keeping communication lines open, both internally and between guest and employee was shown to be the key.
The idea of the Smile School originated with assistant mountain manager Jack Mills who, while shaving one morning, saw a TV commercial showing how Amtrak, the intercity train corporation, was giving its employees “how to win friends and influence people lessons.” And so the connection was made—why not Vail? Smile everyone.
Loon Mountain begins local rail service
Colby Russel, general manager at Loon Mt., N.H., has put customer service right on track. Russel has added a 1938 Orenstein & Koppel steam locomotive and passenger-car train shuttle service to haul skiers back and forth between the area’s parking lot and the gondola base station.
The 2,400-foot round trip is being provided at no cost to skiers, and future plans call for the addition of a nursery and adult club car. Years ago the Loon Mt. region was a network of narrow-gauge railroads which linked logging centers together.
Japanese kick off patch contest
A World Cup for ski patches? That’s what the Japanese have proposed, and the contest is already underway. The Japanese Sports Fashion Association, headquartered in Tokyo, has asked the world’s ski areas to join in a World Ski Patch Contest in which areas are being asked to send in five of their patches with an explanation (name location and area features) to the federation (address: Kokusai Kyiryoku Kaikan, 1-5 Hibiya Koen, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo), which will put them on display in Japan’s principal cities.
Visitors to the exhibits will be handed voting cards on which they will note their favorite patches. Prizes will be awarded for the first through sixth places, with cups going to first, second and third place winners. The competition ends January 31.
New York: Signs of the times?
Perry Williams, owner of the Snow Ridge ski area in Turin, N.Y., says that although the New York State Department of Commerce has been doing probably more than any other state to promote skiing within its boundaries, the state highway department has been doing less.
The problem, Williams explained during a meeting of the New York State Winter Sports Council at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in October, is that owing to the non-existence of signs along the state’s highways, skiers simply can’t find the ski areas.
With that, Williams proposed that the council ask the highway department “to embark on a program of suitably marking with direction signs the ski areas of the state, both public and private.” Williams, who just happened to have a copy of his resolution already drafted and copies made, also suggested that council members urge adoption of the resolution to their state legislators.
Sign pollution? No, says Williams, just a small assist in getting New York’s ski promotion program to pay off.
Porcupine joins Big Snow Country
State-operated Porcupine Mountain has made a Big Four out of the previous Big Three in Big Snow Country, Inc., a non-profit corporation based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Porcupine this season joined Big Powderhorn, Indianhead and White Cap Mountain in Big Snow Country promotion efforts, snow reports and the central lodging and reservation directory. The ski areas provide 43 miles of skiing on 60 trails served by 19 lifts. Accommodations for about 7,000 exist in the local area.—James Ward
LAW
New lift law for California
Ski lift safety has now been signed into law in California with a package of lift safety bills that passed the California legislature and were recently mandated by Governor Reagan. Plans to implement the program—which some California area operators had termed “unnecessarily strong” (see “California Looks At Its Lifts,” Summer SAM)—are now underway at the state Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Industrial Safety.
One measure directs the DIS to adopt the lift construction safety standards promulgated by the American National Standards Institute (B77.1-1970).
The bills, which were first introduced by Los Angeles assemblyman Charles Warren early last year, “can give California one of the best ski lift safety programs in the world,” say proponents of the legislation.
Required under the new law are: inspection of lifts at least twice a year; standards for qualifications of ski lift operators; immediate reporting of all personal injuries, whether suffered by employees or the public; DIS jurisdiction over all lift facilities, whether places of employment or not.
Bill proposes lease extension, improvement credits
If a bill introduced recently by Lake Tahoe, Calif., Congressman Buzz Johnson gets the Capitol nod, ski area developers may find loan money looser and area investment in general far more attractive.
According to a report by the National Ski Areas Association, Johnson has asked Congress to extend leases to National Forest lands up to 50 years, 20 years longer than is allowed now. Johnson’s bill also calls for improvements by the area operator, such as buildings and other construction, to become property of the operator and not the Forest Service.
The system for computing rents would also be changed under the bill from the present gross fixed assets formula to a straight rental agreement. In addition, the 80-acre limitation on what the Forest Service is allowed to lease would be abolished.
The longer leases and ending of the acreage limitation on leases, together with the vesting of title on improvements, according to Johnson, would make possible easier borrowing. It would also, Johnson pointed out, “provide more certainty of tenure and security of investment.”
Johnson said that the profit margin for the ski area industry is about four per cent and this, together with the limitations created by the restrictive conditions put on leases and construction now, makes it difficult for area operators and developers to get construction money.
SUPPLIER NEWS
Bombardier names new distributors
Four new distributors have been appointed by Bombardier Ltd. to market the company’s tracked vehicles for ski areas in the western U.S.
The distributors, who will work with Bombardier district manager Garth Cook, are: Lift Engineering Inc., Carson City, Nev. (Jan Kunczynski; northern California, northwest and southern Nevada); Amarosa, Inc., Wrightwood, Calif. (Heinz Steinmann; southern California); Foltz Sales Co., Boulder, Colo. (Dennis Foltz; Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming); Ski Facilities, Inc., Seattle, Wash. (Don Nitschi; northern Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington).
Representatives of the four distributorships participated this fall in vehicle service and market planning sessions in Salt Lake City for Bombardier’s line of Skidozer ski slope equipment. The distributors will handle Skidozer equipment as well as a line of high-flotation, off-road tracked vehicles for use in snow and parking lot clearing, utility, construction, farming, logging and fire-fighting applications.
Copper Addendum
If you were wondering who supplied the uphill transport at Copper Mountain, Colo., featured in our last issue, we forgot to mention it—Heron Poma. Heron began installation work on four double chairlifts at Copper last May and testing was completed in October, just prior to Copper’s November opening. The project involved over seven miles of cable, 75 intermediate towers and 700 chairs. Heron’s installations service nearly 2,400 vertical feet at Copper.
Conap pays first dividend
Conap, Inc., manufacturers of Conacast urethane sheave liners, has announced payment of its first annual dividend.
Conap, with over 150,000 common shares outstanding, all privately held, paid its dividend of 10 cents per common share on December 1 of this year.
In announcing the move, Conap president Russell M. Houghton said, “We are extremely pleased that the operations of the company now permit recognition of the role our stockholders play in our business. We look hopefully to the future, and we anticipate continued growth in 1973 and beyond.”
Thiokol names new sales reps
In new sales appointments at Thiokol Corporation, Gordon J. Hine, formerly with Thiokol’s design department, has been named to represent the company’s products and services in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Arthur A. Nelson, Jr., a retired Marine Corps colonel who has been involved for a number of years in tracked-vehicle development, will now represent Thiokol in southern New York State, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Hine, an engine specialist with Pratt & Whitney before joining Thiokol, will work out of the firm’s main office in Logan, Utah. Nelson will maintain offices at his home in Middletown, R.I.
MEETINGS
Eastern operators vote to support ASTM research
The Eastern Ski Area Operators Association, at its annual meeting earlier this year in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., voted to contribute $500 to the American Society for Testing and Materials. ASTM, the recognized standards-setting body in the U.S., has begun work on writing ski equipment standards in an attempt to bring greater safety to skiing. The group’s efforts have up to this point been focused primarily on ski bindings.
In presenting the contribution, ESAOA president Cal Coniff said, “As an industry, we are constantly striving to offer good, safe skiing to the public, and we feel the work ASTM is currently doing is very important to our industry.”
“Town Meeting” prompts debate at N.E. Council fete
Close to 100 representatives of the New England winter sports scene had some thorny questions thrust at them in a simulated town meeting in Portland, Me., last October. But the ski area operators, the ones who stood to get most severely scratched, emerged pretty much unscratched.
The occasion was the annual Winter Sports Conference sponsored by the New England Council. At the “town meeting,” which wound up the two-day program, snowmobile and environmental interests were at times at odds with the ski-minded members, and there were lengthy discussions pro and con. But in the voting, four rather loosely worded “articles” were carried easily.
The Council recommended that the use of snowmobiles be restricted to approved, specially designated areas; that New England states be encouraged to use more public funds for the promotion of winter recreation; that ski areas be allowed to expand to meet skier demand and that the development of ski touring facilities be encouraged.
Failing to pass was an article “to recommend that ancillary services around ski areas should assist in the capital expansion of recognized recreation facilities.” That was tabled after considerable comment on the wording, especially the use of the phrase “capital expansion.” Many thought it should have been worded “promotion.”
It was an articulate assemblage, with those representing ski areas or closely related interests making up more than a quarter of the total and those from various news media another quarter. Others present ranged from spokesmen for snowmobile associations to financial experts, foresters to equipment dealers and weather specialists to publicists.
Perhaps the toughest question of them all came during the opening business session of the two-day meeting, a panel on the development of a land-use policy. Edwin Rogers, proprietor of a Sugarloaf region inn and president of the Sugarloaf Area Association, said “Developer is a dirty word in Maine,” and asked, “How can the good ones get public opinion on our side?”
His answer, from John Christie, new owner of the Saddleback ski area at Rangeley and former general manager of Mount Snow in Vermont, sounded what was to be the keynote of the discussions.
“Communications,” he said. “I think that’s what it’s really all about. We’ve got to let them know that development relies on a certain quality of the environment.”
Environmental questions were at the core of almost every issue presented, and the communications gap was cited repeatedly.
Christie, a panelist on the land-use policy session, offered as an example a line of questioning that has created roadblocks for Vermont ski areas even after environmental criteria were met. “Should Vermont build any more ski areas?” is not a valid question, he said, but endless hearings have been called to debate it.
Another panelist, Paul K. McCann, executive secretary of the Paper Industry Information Office in Augusta, referred to the “enormous communications gap” in regard to the timberlands. “Too many people think the forests are going to be chopped up in cottage lots,” he said, while in reality “only a very small area has been diverted from timber management to development.”
While “cumbersome administrative procedures” came in for a good deal of mention, not only from Christie, but even from Dr. Donaldson Koons of Augusta, a member of Maine’s new Department of Environmental Protection, no one at the sessions disputed the need for good environmental legislation. Koons himself stressed a belief that the economic impact of recreational development in Maine in the future would be “very much larger” than that of industrial development.
Christie insisted that a good land use policy can be developed if those involved agree on three basic premises: “First, that it’s physically and sociologically impossible to put a chain across Interstate 91. Secondly, that more and more people are trying to avail themselves of recreational opportunities and, thirdly, that all developers are not land rapers taking someone else’s land for their own benefit. It can be done in a good way.”
Christie, Tom Corcoran of Waterville Valley, N.H., and Lee Jorgensen, new general manager at Mount Snow, all spoke in favor of the states using more public funds to support winter recreation.
Christie pointed to the big boost to the economy provided by the visitors, Corcoran, the many small businesses involved in the industry, and Jorgensen, the value of the expenditure as demonstrated in western states, especially Utah, where he was director of the Utah Travel Council prior to his recent move to Vermont.
Tony Egan of the Vermont Development Agency and a former public relations man for Glen Ellen, Vt., said that with budget cutting the order of the day the private sector must “do its homework and make its needs known” if it is to get state help.
Corcoran presented an article “To determine if the meeting favors allowing ski areas to expand to meet skier demand,” adding. “If this group won’t support this it will never be supported anyhere.”
He then went on, presenting what he felt were the reasons for expansion: a growth rate in skiing of 15 per cent annually, contributed to by the increases in leisure time and discretionary income and also by advances in skier safety; the benefit to the local economy; the fact that winter recreation development is concentrated in a small area, minimizing dangers of environmental damage; the sociological value of skiing, both as family recreation and as a life-long participant sport.
Corcoran said the only good argument he could think of against expansion is the undesirable ancillary developments, and increasing controls, he added, are taking care of that.
Corcoran’s motion carried easily in a voice vote—Fran York.
SCHOOLS
Area management gets campus focus in Vermont
Lyndon State College and Vermont Technical College have joined the growing list of schools that now offer ski area management courses as part of their curricula. The two schools joined together this fall to introduce a four year recreation-study program that enables students to major in ski area management or five other recreation fields.
William Geller, acting dean of students at Lyndon told SAM, “We saw the dramatic growth of the ski and leisure industry and realized that there would be a future need for specialists trained in specific recreation areas.”
Ski area students spend one year at Vermont Technical College learning the basics of ski area layout, construction, equipment operation and area design. Subjects covered at Lyndon include public relations and fiscal planning as well as ski school, retail store and rental shop management. Graduates, says Geller, will be awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Recreational Services and Administration.
Sno-Engineering, the New Hampshire-based ski area consulting firm, and nearby Burke Mountain are also participating in the program.
Camp programs set by Mt. Snow Ski Foundation
Mt. Snow aims to build Olympic skiers—and give them healthy doses of classroom work while they’re doing it. Lee Jorgensen, the Vermont resort’s general manager, and Thomas Meade, president of the Mt. Snow Ski Club, have formed a Ski Educational Foundation (MSSEF) that combines race instruction and classroom work for youngsters demonstrating high racing potential.
Five racing camps, featuring coaching in both Alpine and freestyle skiing, are already underway. Four of the training programs will run on weekends or holiday weeks; the fifth, a full-time tutorial program, began December 23 and will continue until March 31.
Entrance requirements are tough, with only those who have reached their 13th birthday and met necessary academic and athletic requirements being accepted. Students attend daily academic classes and receive daily coaching. A foundation staff member, accredited by the Vermont Board of Education, has been appointed to coordinate the students’ classes at Mt. Snow with their hometown school. Training fees are charged each student, with assistance provided by the foundation.
Ski schoolers back to school
The Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA), in conjunction with Denver-based High Yield Management Inc., has been conducting two-day seminars on ski school operation throughout the country this year. Two such programs, at Vail, Colo., and Boise, Idaho, were held in November and December. The last session, which still has openings, is scheduled for January 9-10 at the Holiday Inn in Albany, N.Y.
Divided into two parts, a “people side” and “dollar side,” the seminar, led by High Yield’s Ron Krenzel and Larry Steinmetz, covers such areas as employee control and supervision, communications, business forecasting and methods of increasing a ski school’s return on investment.
Costs for the seminar are $125 for the first registrant and $100 for each additional student from a non-PSIA ski school. Fees for PSIA members are $100 for the first person from a ski school and $85 for each additional.
AREA ROUNDUP
Timber Ridge, Vt., scheduled to become a private club within two years, opened this season with a 3,800-foot-long Hall double chairlift on an 800-foot vertical. The new lift will service more than four miles of trails . . . Skier service is the idea behind the new 2,500-square-foot rental ski shop and enlarged and carpeted base lodge at Mt. Tom, Mass. . . . Bretton Woods ski area in New Hampshire, scheduled to open in December, has delayed its debut another year. The on-hill facilities are near completion, but the condominiums and ski lodge facilities are not ready for use . . . Indianhead Mountain, Mich., is sporting eight new chalets, adding 80 beds to the area’s sleeping accommodations. In addition to the area’s golf course and convention facilities, there are now two new tennis courts . . . Aleyska, Alaska is building its second chairlift. The Riblet double chair, with a net rise of 1,273 feet, opens up miles of primarily intermediate terrain on the upper mountain . . . Another Riblet lift has gone up at Purgatory, Colo. Known as the Grizzly Peak lift, the double chair will give access to 200 acres of new skiing terrain, doubling the size of the area. Three new condominum complexes are also under construction at the area . . . With a $670,000 expansion project underway, King Ridge, N.H., is building a 3,600-foot-long Hall triple chairlift, three new trails for novice and intermediate skiers and a new $300,000 base lodge, all of which were scheduled for a Christmas opening . . . “747” is the nickname given to the new Borvig four-passenger chairlift at Powder Ridge, Conn. The lift has an uphill capacity of 2,400 skiers per hour . . . A new 7,400-foot-long “hair-raising” trail named Geronimo on a vertical drop of 1,900 feet will be making things tougher at Okemo, Vt. this season . . . Bousquet, Mass. has opened its 40th season with a 2,600-square-foot addition to its base lodge which houses an expanded food operation, a new lounge and additional customer services . . . Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl has given a new name and face to its old novice area, now called Hunter One. There is a new double chairlift as well as new slopes and trails. Hunter has also increased its snowmaking by 68 per cent. The expanded coverage includes Hunter West . . . A new 7,000-foot-long double chairlift from Heron-Poma will boost capacity at Powderhorn, Colo. to 2,320 skiers per hour this season and open three and a half new miles of intermediate skiing . . . Poverty Hill, N.Y. has reopened after an eight year hiatus with five new lifts; a Junior T-bar, two Mighty-Mites and two Dopplemayr T-bars. The area will have facilities for cross-country skiing and horse-drawn sleigh rides, and a 3,300-foot-long chair is planned for next season . . . Construction has begun on a three-story lodge near chairlifts 7 and 8 at Mammoth Mountain, Calif. It will house a cafeteria, rentals, sport shop, repair shop, lockers, restrooms and ticket windows. Completion is expected for the ’73-’74 season . . . Peek ’n Peak, N.Y. has installed a new sewage and water system to accommodate the area’s growth as it moves into year-round business. Now in the works are a new snowmaking system, covering 60 per cent of the area, a resort/hotel complex and an 18-hole golf course . . . A snowmaking system, two Thiokol chairlifts, a novice slope, two more lodges and additional parking space have been added at Berkshire East, Mass. as part of the major expansion program now underway there.
PEOPLE
- Al Bridges has joined Telluride, Colo. as general manager. He had been financial vice president of the Aspen Skiing Corp. for the past two years and, before that, financial vice president for Vail Associates.
In another Telluride appointment, Dick Lanning has been named director of the Telluride ski school. He was formerly with the Snowmass, Colo. ski school for two years. - Karl Pfeiffer, head of the Bromley, Vt. ski school and a founder and developer of GLM, has been named director of skiing at Bromley. Edward Trudel has been appointed assistant ski school director under Pfeiffer.
- Lee Yoder has been named general manager of the Blue Knob Development Corp., owner and operator of the Blue Knob Ski Area, Pa. He was formerly area manager and, before that, ski school director at Blue Knob. Bill Whitbread replaces Yoder as ski school director.
- Rudy Zeidler, a former member of the German national jumping team, has been named mountain manager for Jack Frost Mountain Ski Area, Pa. He was previously with Hunter Mtn., N.Y.
- Frederick Otto is the new corporate attorney of Vail Associates. Otto was previously branch manager of the Steamboat Springs office of the Denver law firm, Holme, Roberts and Owen. Gary L. Kehl has been named corporate controller of Vail Associates, where he has been accounting supervisor for the past 18 months.
- Patrick F. O’Donnell, Jr. has been named ski area manager for Kirkwood, the new $60-million ski complex near Carson Pass in the California Sierras. O’Donnell was most recently manager of Badger Pass ski area, Calif.
- George Madsen, formerly associate editor of the Aspen Times, has been named marketing director of the Aspen Skiing Corp. He replaces Curt Burton, who has joined the public relations department of Atlantic Richfield.
- John Plausteiner was named vice president for operations at Mt. Snow, Vt. He was formerly operations manager Dwight Blakeslee was appointed administrative assistant for Mt. Snow, moving from the hotel division of the resort complex.
In other Mt. Snow appointments, Morry Storm was appointed to the new post of director of sales and marketing for Davos, Inc., parent firm for Mt. Snow and Big Vanilla, N.Y. The new group is headed by Eugene McMasters, director of group sales and marketing, who previously served as director of marketing for Mt. Snow.
Bruce Schwebel was named sales director for Big Vanilla at Davos. Schwebel will remain as president of the National Amputee Skier Association. - Raymond Housley has been named associate deputy chief of the Forest Service. Housley had previously been director of the USFS Division of Recreation, a post that will now be filled by F. Leroy Bond. Bond was formerly associate director of the Division of Timber Management.
- Patrick O’Donnell, Jr., has been appointed area manager at Kirkwood, the new ski area complex near Carson Pass in the California Sierra. Most recently manager of the Badger Pass ski area, O’Donnell had served since 1968 in a variety of management capacities with the Yosemite Park and Curry Company.
