Photo credit: Park City Mountain. SAM Magazine—Denver, Colo., Dec. 23, 2015—Despite prolific snowfall since the beginning of November at western resorts, the most recent Mountain Market Briefing by DestiMetrics—a company that tracks resort performance in mountain destinations—found that early booking patterns are ...

SAM Magazine—Washington, D.C., Dec. 23, 2015—SnowSports Industries America (SIA) is reinventing the SIA Snow Show with an updated format, and shifting it nearly two months earlier. Starting in December 2017, opening day of the event will be the first Tuesday of December, and will follow a shortened, three-day schedule—reduced from...

SAM Magazine—Gaylord, Mich., Dec. 23, 2015—Otsego Club & Resort has appointed Jeff Morrison as its new director of ski operations. Morrison’s responsibilities include overseeing all ski area operations and growing the resort’s summer business. Jeff’s ski industry career began in 1983, when he served as a ski ins...

SAM Magazine—Whistler, B.C., Dec. 23, 2015—Blackcomb has signed an agreement with the Whistler Blackcomb Freestyle Ski Club (WBFSC) and the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association (CFSA) to build a national training center for freestyle skiing on Blackcomb Mountain. The facility will consist of a permanent mogul course, airbag training area,...

SAM Magazine—Dover, Vt., Dec. 22, 2015—With the reality of this mild start to the winter in much of the eastern half of the continent sinking in, a handful of resorts are embracing it. Operating summer attractions during Christmas week may not be something any resort had in the plan, but Blue Mountain, Ontario, reopened a host of &ld...

SAM Magazine—Park City, Utah, Dec. 16, 2015—By a narrow margin, ski patrollers at Park City voted on Monday to unionize. The preliminary tally was 97-94. The vote means all of the nearly 200 patrollers at the resort—comprising both the Park City base area and Canyons Village base area—will be joining the United Profession...

SAM Magazine—Silverton, Colo., Dec. 9, 2015—Tim Petrick is joining Silverton Mountain Ski Area and Silverton Mountain Guides Alaska Heli with the kickoff of the 2015-16 season. Petrick, most recently president and CEO of K2 Sports, has spent the majority of his career in executive level positions for companies including Powder Magazi...

SAM Magazine—Broomfield, Colo., Dec. 3, 2015—Vail Resorts came out with two major initiatives yesterday, each with the company’s employee base in mind: the EpicPromise Foundation, to support employees’ educational development and general well-being; and an employee housing program. The EpicPromise Foundation is a public c...

SAM Magazine—Campton, N.H., Dec. 3, 2015—Dan Egan, extreme skiing legend and founder of Degan Media, has received the 2016 North American Snowsports Association's (NASJA) Mitch Kaplan Award for Excellence in Snowsports Coverage. The award is presented annually to the journalist whose work and spirit best captures the enthusiasm a...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Dec. 1, 2015—Gerald F. (Jerry) Groswold, longtime head of Winter Park resort and a former board member and chairman of both Colorado Ski Country USA and NSAA, died Nov. 26. He was 84. Jerry was renowned for his involvement with Winter Park Resort, which began in 1939—he carried water as an eight-year-old fo...

Photo credit: sundayriver.com SAM Magazine—Dover, Vt., Dec. 1, 2015—Cold weather settled in just in time for resorts in the Northeast to make enough snow to open for Thanksgiving weekend, with 18 different areas kicking things off between Nov. 24 and Nov. 28. Most had limited terrain compared to the same time a year ago, when...

SAM Magazine—Sheridan, Wyo., Dec. 1, 2015—The Antelope Butte Foundation (ABF), a non-profit organization dedicated to reopening Antelope Butte Ski Area, has received two significant donation commitments for its project to resurrect the facility, which has not operated in a decade. Jan Allen of Cosner Construction confirmed a $213,000...

SAM Magazine—Hunter, N.Y., Nov. 30, 2015—Peak Resorts has entered into an agreement to purchase Hunter Mountain, located in the Catskill Mountains of New York, for cash consideration of $35 million plus the assumption of two capital leases estimated at approximately $1.8 million. Hunter Mountain generates approximately $27 million (unau...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Nov. 19, 2015—Despite a relatively warm start to the fall, recent snowstorms out West and snowmaking conditions in the East have a number of resorts opening for the season just ahead of Thanksgiving weekend. Colorado has seen multiple snow storms roll through in the past week, giving many areas the base needed to...

SAM Magazine—Boston, Mass., Nov. 17, 2015—David Ingemie, president of Snowsports Industries America (SIA), was presented with the 30th annual BEWI Award during a luncheon in his honor on Nov. 13 at the Seaport World Trade Center on Boston Harbor. BEWI Productions president Bernie Weichsel, the award’s namesake, called David &ld...