SAM Coverage
Claire Walter
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Cheap and Deep
Aaron Brill has built a little ski area. A simple little experts-only ski area. A simple little experts-only ski area with just one used…
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It Ain’t Just Skiing
The ski schools at Aspen are shooting for a 90 percent return rate, a dramatic contrast to the 15 percent industry average. Of course,…
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Colorado’s Price Wars: Bonanza or Bubble?
Jimmy Carter was in the White House the last time an adult season pass at a major Colorado resort cost $200. But that was…
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Introducing…(drum roll) Blacktail, Montana!
When Blacktail Mountain, Mont., cranks up its lifts around Thanksgiving, it will be the first new ski area on U.S. Forest Service land since…
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Timeshare Is Reborn
The term “timeshare” became a dirty word in the resort real estate business in the 1980s. Buyers, mostly in the low- to middle-income bracket,…
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Offbeat Advertising: A Campaign That Worked
One magazine page stood out from last season’s abundance of virtually interchangeable ski area advertising that featured gorgeous skiers on great snow under cornflower…
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Renaissance In The Rockies
Even as skier visits in Colorado were inching toward the magic 10-million mark over the past few years, smaller ski areas in the state…
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Outfitting For Fitness
A fitness center can be a guest amenity, a profit center, a link with locals or a combination of all three. Whatever its manifestation,…
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In-House Network Tv- A New Kind Of Messenger
Ski-V is a different kind of closed circuit broadcasting network made up of state-of-the-art hardware plus easy-to-use software. The new television system, which debuted…
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Pow Wow Packs A Punch
There’s been a lot of talk about the burgeoning overseas-skier market. Ski resorts that participated in a huge travel-trade show called 1991 Discover America…
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Vic-Vac Sells With Service
If Mickey Smith has his way, Victoria Vacations won’t be a secret for long. Smith, formerly majority owner and operator of Advance Reservations in…
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Saalbach Snubs Snowmaking
In June 1988, the FIS Congress in Istanbul selected Saalbach/Hinterglemm, Austria, as the 1991 World Championship site on the first ballot — the first…
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Snowmaking And Grooming Win The World Cup
Just when U.S. ski areas succeeded in garnering a series of World Cup opening races, the weather across the country performed a rare sequence…
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Going Public Relations
The vast majority of ski areas have not hired public relations agencies, nor do they feel they can afford to do so. On the…
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Finding Lost Skiers
Increasingly, ski areas are taking a hard line about costly search-and-rescue missions for skiers who ignore posted warnings and stray from patrolled terrain. In…
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The Freebie Hustle
“Robert Wilkinson” visited a number of ski areas in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania last season. As a “staff editor of Ski magazine, he…
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Snowmakers Ice Sugar Mountain
A Southern ski area is only as good as its snowmaking system, so when Dr. Tom Brigham—who easily deserves the epithet, the Father of…