WINTER WEATHER FORECASTS: THE LONG VIEW

Well, the long-range winter weather forecasts are in, and they have something for everyone. For the science-minded, it’s shaping up to be a big La Niña year. What’s that mean? Both AccuWeather and the National Weather Service say that the Pacific Northwest will be colder and wetter, and that the southern tier, from California to the Carolinas, will be dryer and warmer. In between—the central Rockies, Midwest, and Northeast—will be in a “wintry battle zone,” as AccuWeather’s long-range meteorologist Joe Bastardi puts it, with bouts of warm and cold air and all manner of precipitation. In Canada, he predicts, this winter “will be as harsh as last year’s was gentle.”

Digging deeper, NOAA predicts above-average precipitation mid-winter for the lower Midwest. AccuWeather foresees a fast start on winter in late November and December in the East, but a nationwide thaw in January, and for much of the country’s middle latitudes, greater than normal temperature swings throughout the winter generally.

If those forecasts leave you hot and bothered, the Old Farmer’s Almanac might bring you cheer. Its crystal ball presents a contrarian view: colder than normal across the eastern third of the country, with a strong storm track across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions and a series of Alberta Clippers across the northern Plains, Great Lakes, and New England. Resorts elsewhere might wish to stick with the science guys: For the west, the Almanac sees a warmer than normal winter for the Rockies and West Coast, and dryer except for areas of heavy precipitation in the Pacific Northwest.

WARREN MILLER DISAPPEARS FROM SKI FILMS

In an ironic legal twist, ski film legend Warren Miller can be his usual self anywhere he wants, except in ski films. After Miller, the man, appeared in a film by Level 1 in 2009, Warren Miller Entertainment, the company, sued, claiming it owned exclusive rights to Miller’s name, voice, and likeness. An arbitrator recently determined that the man is his own being outside of ski films, but in ski films, WME owns him. The decision left both sides claiming a victory of sorts. But as a practical matter, Miller the man refuses to appear in a WME film, and WME is not likely to grant him permission to appear in others’ ski films. However, Miller is relaunching the Warren Miller Company, which supports young entrepreneurs, including filmmakers, and several projects are said to be racing ahead. That’s something to be thankful for.

JOB HAZARD ASSESSMENTS MADE EASIER

Now that NSAA has posted a set of Job Hazard Assessments (JHAs) in the members’ area of www.nsaa.org, it’s easier for resorts to comply with regulations requiring these documents. The templates, in Word document form, allow managers and department heads to adapt the templates to a resort’s operations and local environment. The list of 10 jobs covered includes snowmaking, grooming, lift ops and maintenance, rental, and terrain parks.

NSAA’s Dave Byrd emphasizes the templates are not a final solution, but a starting point for managers to describe the resort’s own procedures and practices.

Why the increased focus on JHAs in the past year or so? Because they are required by OSHA, and OSHA has been stepping up its enforcement actions. Its budget for doing so has increased 28 percent from 2008 to 2011, Byrd says, and OSHA has targeted winter resorts as one of eight industries to receive heightened scrutiny. If you haven’t been tending to this part of the business, now might be a good time to do so.

DO SKIERS AND RIDERS WANT PRIVACY?

It was bound to happen: a new product blocks resorts from accessing personal data which they can now collect via scanners and RFID chips in lift passes.

The Ski Pass Defender is a simple plastic folder that fits over a ski pass to prevent it from being read, except for scanning at a lift. Creator and former ski instructor Jonathan Lawson admits that RFID technology can provide a lot of fun and useful data for skiers and riders, but worries that there may also be a downside to giving resorts access to too much information about one’s whereabouts. What if a person just wants a quiet, private day on the hill? More paranoid folks suspect resorts may use the data for marketing purposes or to identify speeding downhillers, or to deactivate passes remotely.

The product arrives just in time to counter services such as Vail Resorts’ EpicMix, which gives passholders the option of interacting with social media and tracking their day on the mountain (and provides Vail Resorts with data it might use for marketing purposes).

WHISTLER IPO: SIGN OF THE TIMES

The planned Whistler IPO demonstrates just how much the resort financing game is changing. Canada’s Globe and Mail sees it as a dividend play, not a growth-stock story, citing flat revenues and earnings for the past several years. This may well signal a major change in perception on the part of investors and Wall Streeters. It’s far easier for a mature resort such as Whistler to deliver a 5 percent dividend a year rather than 5 or 10 percent annual growth, as a straight stock play would demand. It also sounds a lot like the REIT model, where steady dividends matter most, and growth is secondary. Peak Resorts’ purchase of Wildcat further affirms the REIT model: Peak’s areas are owned by Entertainment Properties Trust, while Peak runs the areas under a long-term lease.

Fifteen years ago, Intrawest, Vail Resorts, Booth Creek Resorts, and the American Skiing Company had conglomerated about a third of the annual skier visits in the U.S. American Skiing has since dissolved, Booth Creek is all but gone (having sold Northstar-at-Tahoe and Waterville Valley in October), and Intrawest has been deconstructing over the past year.

STICKY? THIS WEB TOOL IS LIKE GLUE

Want a way to keep web visitors on your site for, like, ever? Or even 10 minutes, which is practically forever in web-time? Multi-media web developer VTour has created an interactive experience for that. It combines video, photos, maps, and other elements in a game-like platform, customized to individual resorts. In Mammoth Mountain’s iteration, the average length of engagement is 12 minutes. Angel Fire Resort adopted it for its new country club, where users explore the lavish setup for an average of almost 11 minutes.

Interactivity is the key. Users decide where they want to go and what to see. Unlike traditional video, VTour's hub-and-spoke infrastructure lets the user choose a hub and switch between audio, video, 3-D animation, even closed captioning. The technology allows siteseers to ski a run, cruise the terrain park, or check out the rooms in the hotel. At any point, they can beam from one location to another, or better, link to an online reservations systems for rooms, tickets or lessons. You can experience it at the resort sites above or www.experienceVTour.com.

SUNDOWN VERDICT REAFFIRMS RISK DOCTRINE

A jury returned a unanimous defense verdict in October in the case of James Malaguit v. Ski Sundown, upholding the assumption of risk doctrine. Malaguit was 15 years old in 2006 when he went off a terrain feature in Sundown’s terrain park. He reverse rotated and landed on the back of his head and neck, rendering him a quadriplegic. Malaguit alleged that his injuries were the result of the area’s negligence. The jury deliberated for less than an hour and a half--a remarkably short period--before deciding in favor of Sundown. Along with the recent case at Mt. Baker, where a woman was found mostly liable for her injuries inflicted by falling snow after she sat in an area marked as unsafe due to falling snow, Malaguit suggests that juries are beginning to place greater responsibility on individuals to protect themselves.

SHORTSWINGS

Jay Peak plans to harness cow power (methane gas derived from manure) to provide heat for its water park, set to open in 2012, thanks to the local power company’s efforts to milk the dairy business . . . With California’s rejection of a mandatory helmet law, New Jersey could become the first state to require lids on kids under age 18, if the State Assembly passes and the governor signs a bill working its way through the legislature. That could happen by New Year’s, but given this political season, nothing is certain . . . Park City was hoping to induce 500 locals to take part in a “Thriller Snow Dance” Oct. 29; last year’s inaugural event drew about 100 and produced little natural snow, but plenty of early-season snowmaking weather; early natural snow is this year’s goal . . . Think your tubing hill is pretty killer? Les Arcs, France, is building a nearly 2-mile-long, 1,300-vertical-foot toboggan run for this winter. It’s aimed at teens and adults willing to assume plenty of risk . . . Tamarack Resort’s future was in limbo (again) at press-time after a bankruptcy judge rejected a $2 million bridge loan intended to get the resort open for the 2010-11 season, and with the impending loss of the area’s land lease from the state of Idaho, which was demanding a $250,000 payment by November 5.