Moonlighting in Montana
A ski area few people have heard of is installing perhaps the longest lift in America this summer. The area, Moonlight Basin, sits on Montana’s Lone Peak, next to Big Sky. It’s so close to Big Sky, in fact, that the two areas share a lift and a handful of trails—the land belongs to Moonlight, the lift and trails are under Big Sky’s control.
Moonlight is sort of a reluctant resort. The developer, the Moonlight Basin Ranch, owns 25,000 acres on the north side of Lone Peak, where it has created a sizeable resort community two miles from the base village at Big Sky. In the past, Moonlight and Big Sky have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Moonlight sought to extend this relationship with Big Sky to include the new lift and terrain, but the two sides couldn’t agree on a structure for that to happen. So Moonlight is striking out on its own. The area will encompass the existing Pony Express lift (in the past, primarily an access lift for Moonlight homeowners), the Iron Horse and the new Northface lift, an 8,700 foot long Doppelmayr CTEC detachable six-pack. The lift has 1,865 of vertical. Overall, the area will include about 25 to 30 trails encompassing 265 acres, plus tree skiing and a hike-to, 300-acre, 1,200-vertical-foot bowl.
While Big Sky and Moonlight remain joined at the hip, there will be no combined lift ticket yet. The Iron Horse lift will be open to all skiers with a Big Sky Resort ski pass or a new Moonlight ski pass. Skiers and riders are otherwise restricted to either of the two resorts’ lifts and terrain, unless they purchase tickets to both areas. However, Moonlight’s newly named CEO and general manager, Burt Mills, former mountain operations manager American Skiing Company, says he will “put out there my side of a cooperative deal,” to make it easy to access both areas. Moonlight, he adds, “is an additive experience to Big Sky. We hope to work through the integration issues.”
A Year for the Record Books?
NSAA’s unofficial tally of 57.6 million skier/rider visits tops the record of two years ago by a slim .6%. The total was achieved with near-record visits in every region of the country except the Pacific Northwest.
Perhaps the most significant region was the Midwest. It had very little snowfall prior to February, but consistent cold temperatures permitted snowmaking operations to flourish—and visits jumped by 18% from year-earlier totals. The Northeast endured a stretch of severe cold weather as visits rose 17%; the Southeast, fueled by heavy snowfall, also rose 17%.
But are the 2002-03 results really this good? Some industry players look at this year’s rosy numbers, recall some adverse market conditions, and suggest that the visit total is too high. How is that possible? Season’s passes now make up 27.5% of skier/rider visits, a figure based, in part, on estimates of how many days passholders ski or ride (an average of 18 days for customers, 17 days for employees) at areas that don’t scan tickets. The estimates provide room for error, certainly. On the other hand, if season’s pass usage was wildly overcounted, the average yield per ticket would go down. And this past season, yield went up slightly. The relative consistency of the ticket yield number makes the figure for total skier/rider visits appear realistic, if not exact.
Assuming that the numbers are at least close to being correct, there are three ways to view these results. With near-record attendance in many regions of the country, the resort business can’t get much better than this. Or, given the relatively adverse effects of a sluggish economy, impending and actual war with Iraq, and travel concerns over terrorism, there’s still plenty of room for this year’s totals to rise even higher in the near future. Or finally, the results are false. Take your pick.
Colorado for Sale
It’s the best of times, the worst of times for two of Colorado’s marquee independent resorts, Telluride and Crested Butte.
By early June, Telluride owner Hideo “Joe” Morita received up to 12 bids for investment in or outright purchase of the resort following a late-March announcement that the resort was looking for investors. Among the suitors: Aspen Skiing Company, former Vail president Andy Daly, and Okemo principals Tim and Diane Mueller (whose “no comment” talks loud and clear). Daly told SAM that the timetable for negotiations was uncertain, but that he expected the process would move quickly, so that a new investor/owner could get involved well in advance of the coming winter.
At the same time, Crested Butte lost a potential buyer when Texas-based Phoenix Property Co. cancelled a preliminary deal to purchase the resort, citing uncertainty over future expansion onto Snodgrass Mountain.
American Skiing Company Cuts Staff
Chief operating officer Mark J. Miller left his position at American Skiing Company in June, part of a continuing effort to streamline the corporate structure at ASC. ASC will not fill Miller’s position, and it has been slow to fill the vacant position of marketing vice president (Chip Carey of The Canyons has been filling that role on an interim basis).
The move to eliminate Miller’s position is a measure of the pressure public companies face to be profitable. Miller’s departure was announced almost simultaneously with ASC’s third-quarter and nine-month results, which showed modest declines compared to year-ago revenue, profit and loss figures, despite superb conditions at its Eastern resorts and continued growth at The Canyons in Utah.
If Chair 10 Goes, So Goes Vail
Is the loss of traditional values in ski areas inevitable? Vail’s Chair 10 could become a test case for this question at the nation’s most popular resort.
No one’s officially proposed that Chair 10, a creaky old double which serves the expert-only bump runs of Highline, Blue Ox, and Prima, be replaced with a high-speed quad. But Vail Trail journalist Tom Boyd can see the handwriting on the trail map, and he’s determined to nip the idea in the bud.
His concern is reasonable enough. From a management standpoint, making Chair 10 a detachable would vastly speed access to Vail’s Two Elk restaurant, China Bowl, and Blue Sky Basin.
But such a transformation would destroy an important piece of Vail’s character, Boyd says. Chair 10 is one of the last refuges of Vail’s top skiers, the cornerstone of the local experts’ ski culture. “Lost in languid tranquility, slightly slower than a mule train, and creaky as a rheumatic old man, Chair 10 supports a small but essential counter culture on the otherwise bigger-and-faster Vail Mountain,” he wrote last April. Quads full of tourists will ruin the vibe and kill the experience.
Boyd points out that at many ski areas, from Snowmass (the Cirque) to Alta (almost any lift), the top expert terrain is accessible by slow, old-fashioned lifts. Their primitive nature mirrors the raw challenge of the terrain and creates a less-populated, serene and natural setting. It’s that special quality that areas must conserve, he argues.
Local response to Boyd’s article has been “phenomenal,” he says. He plans to create a bumper-sticker campaign, do t-shirts, and raise money once the faithful return in the fall. And there’s a chance that Vail will listen: Boyd says that Brian McCartney, Vail mountain manager, is sympathetic to the cause. Whether that translates into preservation of Chair 10 remains to be seen.
Tenney Glacier Trapped on Cargo Ship
A wildcat strike at the Port of New York put Tenney Mountain’s plan to introduce summer tubing and jibbing on ice, at least briefly. The all-important Infinite Crystals Snowmaking (ICS) system had been stuck on a ship in port since May 14. As a result, Tenney moved its scheduled opening date from June 13 to June 28.
As Blue Pages reported last issue, Tenney will use the ICS system to offer on-snow tubing during July and August; and on October 1, Tenney will open a longer trail that will be used primarily by competitive skiers and snowboarders for pre-season training.
Squaw Valley’s Military Salute
In late March, Squaw Valley showed its support for the Iraq war by inviting active military personnel to ski and ride for free for the rest of the season. A total of 2,455 members of the Air Force, Marines, Army, Navy, and Coast Guard took up the offer. Most were from bases in California and Nevada, but some came from as far away as the East Coast. Now, if the resort ever finds its security threatened, it can count on support from all branches of the military.
