SAM Magazine - Whitefish, Mt., July 6, 2007 - Whitefish (formerly Big Mountain) CEO and President Fred Jones has announced that he is retiring. Jones, who is expected to be retained by the resort as a consultant, will be replaced by Daniel Graves. Jones leaves the resort during a period of transition for the brand. Last month the ski area change...

SAM Magazine-Guatemala City, Guatemala. July 5, 2007-The International Olympic Committee has chosen the Russian resort of Krasnaya Polyana and the adjacent town of Sochi to host the 2014 Winter Games, beating out Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea. "The Winter Olympic Games in Russia for the first time in our history stand as a his...

SAM Magazine-Lincoln, N.H., July 5, 2007-New Hampshire's Loon Mountain has started a $10 million investment on the resort's South Peak expansion. The development, which is expected to open in December, features a new high speed quad, which will serve approximately 50 acres of intermediate and advanced terrain. The area will be accessed by an additi...

SAM Magazine-Selva Gardena, Italy, July 5, 2007-A swath of improvements in the Italian Dolomiti Superski region this summer includes high speed quads, gondolas and additional snowmaking. The new lifts include a new covered detachable quad chairlifts in Cortina d'Ampezzo and Val di Fiemme/Obereggen. Val di Fiemme/Obereggen will also add more snowmak...

Australian Resorts Plant Seeds For Snow SAM Magazine-Melbourne, Australia, July 5, 2007-With preliminary results in from three years of cloud-seeding tests, Australian resorts are pushing the New South Wales government to continue the program. Cloud seeding trials begun in 2004 aimed to increase snow depth in the target area by 10 percent. A s...

SAM Magazine--Lakewood, Colo., June 29, 2007--In a move designed to address the aging population of Boomer skiers, Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, has declared that 60 is the new 50. Ironically, the move coincides with Berry's own 60th birthday tomorrow, June 30. "Age is a frame of mind," declared Berry, rather ...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Ut., June 28, 2007-Park City will be the home of USSA's new national training center. Dubbed the Center of Excellence, the facility will be a state-of-the-art structure with world-class facilities designed to improve athletic performance. Construction on the $22.5 million center will begin this summer, with groundbreaking Ju...

SAM Magazine-Buffalo, Wyo., June 28, 2007- The auction sale of Big Horn Mountain Resorts-consisting of Big Horn Ski Resort and its sister resorts Meadowlark Lake Resort, Deer Haven Resort, and Wilderness Ranch-has been postponed until July 3, to give potential buyers more time to assess the properties. The auction includes all the buildings, equipm...

SAM Magazine-Broomfield, Colo., June 28, 2007-Vail Resorts (VR) will donate $5 from the sale of each 2007-08 Heavenly season pass sold between now and December 2007 to residents impacted by the Angora fire currently ravaging the South Lake Tahoe area. The program is expected to raise about $75,000. By early Thursday morning, the South Lake Tahoe...

SAM Magazine-Danbury, N.H., June 26, 2007-Industry veteran Bob Fries is the new president of Ragged Mountain. Fries will be responsible for all facets of resort operations, including skiing, golf, and real estate. Fries takes the position after a five-year stint as co-owner and president of Bolton Valley, Vt. He previously served as president of...

SAM Magazine-Telluride, Colo., June 26, 2007-Dave Riley will become the new president and CEO of the Telluride Ski and Golf Resort in late July. Riley has been president and CEO of Mt. Hood Meadows ski resort, where he has worked since 1993. Telluride has operated without a CEO for the past few years-since the days when Booth Creek managed the a...

SAM Magazine-Killington, Vt., June 26, 2007-Powdr Corp.'s new management at Killington and Pico has restructured its workforce, laying off many longtime, year-round employees as a result. Officials said the job cuts touched all departments and levels. The company did not release numbers, but affected employees estimated that 30 to 90 people lost th...

SAM Magazine-Denver, Colo., June 26, 2007-The Colorado Tramway Safety Board has cleared the Aspen Skiing Company of any wrongdoing in conjunction with a Feb. 19 incident that involved a 10-year-old German girl who fell approximately 60 feet from a chairlift at Aspen Highlands. The Board voted 4 to 3 to dismiss the complaint. The girl, who was in...

SAM Magazine-Aspen, Colo., June 22, 2007-The Colorado Tramway Safety Board (CTSB) has received a complaint from the family of a girl who fell off an Aspen chairlift last winter. Celine Ofenito, age 10, slipped and fell approximately 60 feet off of Aspen's Cloud 9 lift in February. The girl suffered several injuries as a result of the fall, includin...

SAM Magazine-Portland, Me., June 22, 2007-Maine ski resorts fought off a brutal early season to post a modest gain of 1 percent on total skier visits for the 2006-07 season. The gain came in the face of a 6.7 percent downturn on the year for the Northeast region, and a 6.9 percent drop for the nation as a whole. Late-season storms saved the stat...