ARAPAHOE BASIN BANS OVERNIGHT PARKING
The corner of Arapahoe Basin’s Early Riser parking lot, “The Beach,” has a long history as a late night springtime hot spot. Each year, diehard skiers return to camp overnight and form a temporary community not unlike Old West mining camps. But no more: A Basin has banned overnight parking.
Why kill the party? Too much success. As the overnight crowd has grown, drinking, partying, and sledding have led to property destruction. Not to mention environmental degradation: Garbage was getting out of control, and with no public restrooms open during the overnight hours, human waste was also piling up.
There are other practical issues, too. The mass of overnight vehicles makes snow removal difficult, and interferes with control work on the Little Professor slide path, which leads directly into the parking lot.
“We are sad to see the camping atmosphere end, but…the free-for-all atmosphere after hours in the Early Riser lot has to change,” said A Basin mountain ops director Alan Henceroth.
While A Basin was reluctant to uproot its diehard fans, officials from the U.S. Forest Service, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) expressed relief. Rick Newton, Dillon District Ranger, said, “The trash and human waste situation has reached an unacceptable level.” County Sheriff John Minor said, “The late night events going on in that lot cause reason for concern.” CDOT avalanche coordinator Ray Mumford, said, “Dealing with the campers in that lot has become one of the biggest headaches for our avalanche control program.”
Colorado Updates Safety Act
Colorado legislators are amending the state’s Skier Safety Act, one of the first of its kind when it was passed in 1979, to reflect changes that have occurred since it was last amended in 1990. In particular, the type of terrain that comes under the “assumption of risk” doctrine is expanding to include extreme terrain, terrain parks and halfpipes. Under the terms of the bill, freestyle terrain will be designated with an orange oval. A double-black diamond and the letters EX indicate “extreme terrain,” which is defined as terrain that includes a cliff drop of more than 20 feet and a slope with a minimum 50-degree average pitch. At press time, the bill had received preliminary approval in the Senate and passed in the House of Representatives. The legislature was expected to send the bill to Governor Bill Owens by the end of April.
KERRY GETS ON BOARD
Would Senator John Kerry, the odds-on choice to be the Democratic candidate for President, be good for the winter sports biz? A solid snowboarder, Kerry has received props for his riding. And he understands the value of a winter resort vacation. Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, has a spread in Sun Valley, Idaho, and that’s where Kerry rested up in early March after winning the Democratic primaries. Like millions of other skier/riders, he knows where (and how) to turn to get away from it all. If elected, he would be the most active winter sports fan since Gerald Ford or perhaps John Kennedy, as well as the first one-planking Commander-in-Chief.
Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Resorts generally coexist peacefully with their neighbors, even when they battle fang and claw for each other’s clientele. But that’s not the case at Lone Peak, Montana, better known as the home of Big Sky, the Yellowstone Club and newcomer Moonlight Basin. The resorts live too close for comfort.
First, Big Sky and the owners of Moonlight, who have developed substantial real estate and ski runs adjacent to Big Sky on Lone Peak, ended years of cooperation last year (some of Big Sky’s terrain and lifts are on land owned by Moonlight, whose homeowners in return enjoyed ski-in and ski-out access to Big Sky). This season, after Moonlight put up its own lifts and cut trails, Big Sky sued Moonlight over a variety of alleged infringements on Big Sky’s permit area and endangerment from Moonlight’s avalanche control work. Moonlight denies the allegations, claiming that many of the infractions were undertaken at Big Sky’s request.
Meanwhile, the Yellowstone Club has sued the Forest Service over ownership of the summit of Lone Peak. It seems that the Forest Service completed a land trade with Moonlight for the disputed turf at the same time Yellowstone owner Tim Blixseth was negotiating a trade of his own, and is seeking to have control transferred to him. This would give Yellowstone access to the peak as well, vastly expanding Yellowstone’s vertical and putting three resorts on Lone Peak’s contentious summit. Then the fun would really start.
ASPEN WINS THE TOUR OPERATOR WAR
2003-04 saw a return of the destination visitor, a healthy sign for the resort industry. But not all areas benefitted equally.
SkiTops, The Ski Tour Operators Association, representing 20 travel companies in North America, saw modest growth overall this past year. The biggest resort winner was Aspen/Snowmass, which several tour operators lauded for its aggressive pricing. Operators noted that, in previous years, Aspen has been beyond the means of many travellers, who jumped at the chance to experience it this year. At the other end of the spectrum, former value leaders Keystone, Breckenridge, and Copper Mountain saw a drop in tour operator visits, which some operators attributed to higher prices at these resorts. In addition, “Some of our clients are looking for a change and are seeking lesser-known resorts that maybe are not as crowded,” said one travel company owner, who said hordes of buddy-pass-toting locals are a turnoff.
Butt Business: Vive la Difference
From the war in Iraq to smoking habits, Europeans and Americans go their separate ways. More evidence: So many European skiers smoke that Val Thorens, France, is trying to persuade its visitors to dispose of their butts responsibly, instead of simply tossing them off the lift. During the resort’s spring cleanup, it retrieves as many as 30,000 from beneath one popular chair. Aside from being an eyesore, the butts create significant pollution, according to a resort spokesperson. So the area is encouraging smokers to treat butts as the garbage they are, and it is selling (at reduced cost) 2,000 pocket containers so that on-hill smokers can store their butts for proper disposal. The resort is careful, though, to point out it is not banning smoking.
On the other side of the ocean, the four towns of Colorado’s Summit County have done just that. As of the first of June, smoking will be banned in all public enclosed spaces. But since smoking on chairlifts will still be allowed, perhaps Summit County should invest in some of those pocket containers, too. No need to turn up our noses at all European ideas.
Pass Insurance Program Expands
Late last summer, Skier Insurance Services (SIS) introduced a new idea: insurance for loss of use of a season’s pass. It seemed like a good thing, with so many skiers and riders purchasing passes months before the season. For a mere six percent of the pass price, why wouldn’t a skier or rider insure their purchase against a season-ending injury? The answer: optimism (it won’t happen to me) coupled with lenient refunds from resorts (despite stated policies to the contrary). Just a bit more than 300 passholders purchased the coverage last season. Still, the response was strong enough to encourage SIS to expand the program for 2004-05. The company expects 20 to 25 resorts–from Beaver Mountain and the Chicopee Ski Club to Aspen and Mammoth–to promote the program along with pass sales, about double the number of last year. And it is extending insurance to other items skiers and riders purchase or rent on seasonal terms: lockers, preferred parking spaces, season-long lesson and race programs and kids’ rental gear among them. Now, if they could insure against glove loss or scratched goggles, they’d really be onto something.
Turning the tables in mideast skiing
How things can change in a decade or two. This past season, while Israel’s Mt. Hermon endured terrorist shelling, Lebanon’s top ski area at Faraya-Mzaar, which saw visits drop precipitously during the country’s civil war, has rebounded nicely. Lebanon is now considered a relatively safe destination and has become a popular winter vacation spot. As many as 5,000 skiers descend on the resort on a good weekend, most of them daytrippers from Beirut, one hour away. But Gulf Arab tourists are also heading to Lebanon’s slopes. “We have a lot of Saudi princes and most politicians from West Asia have visited Faraya-Mzaar once or twice,” says Maya Chams, the resort’s marketing director.
Perhaps what Warren Miller says is true: “If everyone skied, there would be no wars.” Or at least a demilitarized zone on Mt. Hermon.
