The 1997-98 ski season is the first year since I have been writing season wrapups in which everyone—well, almost everyone—is happy. With the exception of the deep and west south, every region in the country and Canada had a very good season with snow, warm temps and lots of demand. What more can we ask…except maybe for El Niño to come back again soon.
California
“Fabulous year,” gushed Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Association. “Several resorts are on their way to record years,” including Heavenly, Sugar Bowl and Mountain High. Roberts predicted the state may hit seven million skier visits, very close to the all-time best mark of 7.2 million.
On the down side, there were a record number of fatalities on the slopes, but after the two early season celebrity deaths (Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono), “the media got tired of writing about helmets and skier safety,” Roberts said. “The helmet issue is no issue whatsoever here.”
Also no issue was the Asian currency crisis (“the Asians were never here anyway,” Roberts said). The international market continues to grow. Over the winter, the state and private businesses teamed up to form a new $12.5 million annual campaign to market California overseas with Roberts as chairman. “Skiing’s going to get a damn big slice of that effort,” he promised.
Pacific Northwest
Despite early negative predictions about El Niño, which hurt season pass sales, Oregon and Washington resorts rebounded to post outstanding seasons, according to Doug Campbell, president of the Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association. Resorts having especially strong years included Stevens, Timberline, Bachelor, Mt. Hood, Mt. Baker, Crystal and White Pass.
“I think overall we’ll be right around last year’s numbers (2.7 million),” predicted Campbell.
Utah
Utah got a taste of 2002 when the Olympic spotlight on Nagano also shone on Utah, the next site of the quadrennial winter spectacle.
“Between all the Olympic publicity, record-breaking snowfall in February and a Presidential visit that same month, we felt like all eyes were on Utah,” said Amber Older, communications director at Ski Utah. “We couldn’t have asked for better publicity if we had gone out and bought it.”
All the good publicity should translate into about three million skier visits, predicted Older.
Colorado
Despite publicity of a different sort—the highly visible death of Michael Kennedy December 31, followed by the Denver Broncos’ march to the Super Bowl that kept fickle front-range skiers glued to their TV sets, combined with less than steller snowfall courtesy of El Niño— Colorado is on track to break the 12 million skier-visit mark for the first time.
Two good stories out of Colorado this season were the re-openings of Cuchara and Berthoud Pass. Cuchara, which was known for poor snowfall in the past, actually led the state in base depths several times during the season.
A hard-to-figure story was the helmet bill introduced in the Colorado legislature after the Kennedy death. The bill called for helmets for practically every sport except skiing, including bicycling and roller blading. Yet, when the local TV stations covered the bill, they only showed footage of skiers. Go figure. The bill died. Resurrected was a statewide international tourism effort. The state has been operating without a coordinated tourism effort for about five years, but a new $1 million annual marketing campaign is largely funded by Denver International Airport and aimed mainly at the U.K. and Germany.
Midwest
Except for the southernmost ski areas, the past winter was an unusually pleasant one for Midwest ski areas.
“The weather was warmer than usual so we didn’t lose business to those bitterly cold weekends we sometimes have,” said Chris Stoddard, president of the Midwest Ski Areas Association.
Among areas reporting increases in business were Cascade Mountain, Wisc., Perfect North Slopes, Ind., Crystal Mountain, Mich. and Indianhead Mountain, Mich. Crystal Mountain, and Alpine Valley and Cascade in Wisc., are installing quad chairs this summer, the first year in the Midwest that more than one quad is scheduled to be installed.
“It’ll be interesting to see how all those quads will impact the perceptions of the market here,” Stoddard said.
Southeast
Except for the extreme southern areas, the Southeast “had a good year,” reported Tony Waddell, president of the Southeast Ski Areas Association. “The most significant thing to me was that the damn skiers came out in droves. There was good skier response in spite of a January that was wetter than usual.”
Northeast
It was an average year in the Northeast in terms of skier visits; above average in terms of legislation. No less than nine, count ’em, nine ski helmet bills were introduced into the New York State legislature. So far they’ve all died.
Although total skier visits in New York will be only slightly better than last year (about 3.3 or 3.4 million), the state’s learn-to-ski program doubled. The state-funded program, which is tied into the “I Love NY” ad campaign, had about 6,000 participants in its second year.
“We’ve had two lean snow years, yet this new program concept, which we developed over those same two years, has doubled each year,” said Rob Megnin, president of Ski Areas of New York.
In the “live free or die” state of New Hampshire, the big legislative news wasn’t about a helmet law (not even motorcyclists are required to wear helmets in the Granite State), but about making skiing the state’s official sport. Go New Hampshire. The law hasn’t passed yet, but it has lots of backing especially after this season, which could be a record-breaker. Loon (nine percent ahead) and Cannon (30 percent ahead through mid-March) were leading the charge.
Despite the lack of snow in the urban markets, Vermont was also on track to a healthy “just about average” year. “We’re running about eight percent ahead of last year,” said Molly Kerr, marketing director at the Vermont Ski Areas Association, predicting visits will top off at about 4.2 million.
Canada
Nothing bad to report here. Despite a severe January ice storm that closed a few resorts in Quebec for as long as two weeks, Claude Peloquin, president of the Quebec Ski Areas Association, predicted skier visits will be up over last year. “Generally speaking, people are very happy with the season,” he said.
Don McIlveen, president of the Ontario Ski Resorts Association, also reported that most operators in his province were “on target with projections.”
Ditto in the far western provinces, said Jimmie Spencer, president of Canada West Ski Areas Association. “El Niño, with warmer temperatures, provided some very nice weather conditions for skiing this winter.”
Amen.
