SAM Magazine—Salt Lake City, Utah, Feb. 18, 2015—The Mountain Accord blueprint, which proposes to connect ski areas and other major recreation and economic centers via a multi-modal mountain transportation system in Utah’s Central Wasatch, is available for public comment through March 16. The Accord could have broad and varied imp...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Colo., Feb., 18, 2015—Aggregated mountain lodging revenues at 19 participating resorts in six western states are poised to eclipse the record business levels of the pre-recession 2007-08 season, according to the most recent data released by Denver-based DestiMetrics. At the current pace, revenues will end the sea...

SAM Magazine—Quebec City, Quebec, Feb. 16, 2015—The North American Snowsports Journalists Association (NASJA) honored four distinguished ski industry veterans during its Annual Meeting Feb. 7-11 at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City. Among those recognized, Al Fletcher, founder of Nashoba Valley ski area, Mass., received the...

SAM Magazine—Wintergreen, Va., Feb. 12, 2015—EPR Properties, a real estate investment trust (REIT), has purchased the assets of Wintergreen Resort in conjunction with its operator for the property, Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. Pacific Group Resorts will lease the property from EPR and manage the resort. “Wintergreen has great fa...

SAM Magazine—Seattle, Wash., Feb. 12, 2015—The Summit at Snoqualmie has closed Alpental, the only one of the four Snoqualmie resorts that was still open, due to the deteriorating snow conditions at the area, just before the President’s week holiday begins. On its website, the area said, “We’ve put up a solid fight a...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Colo., Feb., 9, 2015—Intrawest reduced its year-over-year second quarter loss for the period ending Dec. 31 and reported increased revenues for the quarter. The improvements were largely due to the company’s IPO in February 2014 and the acquisition of Blue Mountain, Ontario, in September 2014. The company r...

SAM Magazine—Littleton, N.H., Feb. 9, 2015—A community-wide effort is credited for bringing New Hampshire's Mount Eustis back into operation this season with a novel business plan: free skiing and snowboarding for all. Guests must sign a waiver, and the area is suggesting a $5 donation per day. Mount Eustis operated from 1939 to ...

SAM Magazine—Chehalis, B.C., Feb., 9, 2015—Hemlock Resort will not open this season due to warm temperatures and precipitation that has come in the form of rain rather than snow, while Utah’s Cherry Peak remains closed while new owners continue renovations on the base lodge. At Hemlock, “There’s zero, absolutely zer...

SAM Magazine—Telluride, Colo., Feb. 6, 2015—Members of the Telluride ski patrol will soon vote on whether to form a union, according to the Telluride Daily Planet. The report said patrollers filed a petition with National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 2 to have an election, which at least 30 percent of the group signed. All full-time...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Colo., Feb. 6, 2015—Nearly 400 mountain tourism and ski industry executives from destinations spanning North America convened Jan. 28 at the SIA Snow Show as part of The Assembly, a one-day forum that presents both a fact-based and knowledge-based assessment of the 2014-15 season at the midway point and identifies emerging ...

SAM Magazine—Mesa, Colo., Feb. 4, 2015—Four years after the purchase of Powderhorn Mountain Resort by Gart Capital Partners and Andy Daly, the resort is planning to invest $5 million in the coming year to improve the slopes for winter and summer recreation. Topping the list of capital investments is the installation of a Poma high-sp...

SAM Magazine—Fairport, N.Y., Feb. 4, 2015—Three new safety-related studies suggest that helmets reduce head injuries, ski and snowboard injuries overall are trending downward, and that terrain parks have not led to an increase in catastrophic injuries. All three studies are in the process of being published in the upcoming ASTM STP: Sel...

SAM Magazine—Danbury, N.H., Feb. 3, 2015—Ryan Schramm has been named general manager of Ragged Mountain Resort. Schramm, 36, joined the staff in 2010 and most recently served as director of business development, information technology (IT), F&B, and competitions. Prior to joining Ragged, Schramm, a lifelong skier, spent 11 years ...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Colo., Jan. 28, 2015—There’s stoke, and then there is the opposite of stoke. When Bill Jensen, former CEO of Intrawest, told a crowd of nearly 400 ski industry executives that from his view, 150 ski areas were in “the sunset of their existence” and an additional 150 ski areas could also be out of b...

SAM Magazine—Hancock, Mass., Jan. 27, 2015—State-wide travel bans in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York – all of which were subsequently lifted by mid-day Tuesday morning—were ordered in preparation for Winter Storm Juno that was expected to drop more than 2 feet of snow throughout the Northeast. The travel...