SAM Magazine--Marco Island, Fla., May 25, 2006--The National Ski Areas Association announced that, based on prelimary estimates, national skier visits for the 2005/06 season will set an all-time record at 58.8 million visits. The previous record was set in 2002/03 with 57.6 million visits. Confirmation of the record will be made once all resorts...

SAM Magazine-McLean, Va., May 16, 2006-Overall sales for the winter sport market (including specialty and chain stores) rose 4 percent, to $2.3 billion for the August 2005 through March 2006 period, compared to $2.2 billion a year earlier, according to the SIA Retail Audit. Unit sales were up 6 percent. For the season, strong sales through December...

SAM Magazine-Salt Lake City, May 16, 2006-Utah resorts achieved their third consecutive record-breaking year for skier visits in 2005-06 as they topped 4 million for the first time. Utah skier days are at 4,045,030, up 3.8 percent over the previous season, with Snowbird sure to add a few thousand more before it closes at the end of May. Visits to U...

SAM Magazine--May, 15, 2006, Oregon--The Pacific Nortwest Ski Areas Association announced that Oregon is on track for a record-breaking year and Washington had its second best. On the heels of one of the worst seasons in memory in 2004/05, great snow conditions allowed areas in the Pacific Northwest to rebound nicely. Oregon still has three areas i...

SAM Magazine--May 12, 2006, New Hampshire--Wildcat Ski Mountain in Pinkham Notch, N.H., is up for sale again. The area features 225 acres of sliding on 47 trails and 2,112 feet of vertical. Accessing the terrain are three triples and a quad. The area operates on a 40-year extendable lease and there are 37 years remaining on the current lease. ...

SAM Magazine--Blakeslee, Penn., May 12, 2006--Peak Resorts announced that Jesse Boyd will take on the GM position at Big Boulder and Jack Frost ski areas. Peak Resorts took over the operation of both areas during the winter of 2005-06 under the direction of Dave Grenier, executive VP of Peak Resorts. Grenier will continue to be involved with Jesse ...

SAM Magazine--May 10, 2006, Vancouver, Canada--Thanks to the sale of real estate holdings at Mammoth Mountain, Intrawest saw its total company EBITDA for the third quarter jump to $136.5 million, up from $109.5 million for the same period last year. (EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, income taxes, non-controlling interest, depreciation an...

SAM Magazine--May 8, 2006, Missoula, Montana--It's back to the drawing board for the proposed Bitterroot Resort in Montana. According to published reports, the Forest Service rejected, for the second t ime, a proposal by rancher Tom Maclay to develop Forest Service land above his ranch into a ski resort. Last year, the resort submitted a proposa...

SAM Magazine--May 8, 2006, Portland, Maine--Maine's assumption of risk law was tested last week when a tuber brought her case all the way to the state's Supreme Court. The Court threw out the lawsuit and upheld the definition of skiing which includes "sliding downhill on snow or ice on skis, toboggan, sled, tube, snowboard..." In its decision, t...

SAM Magazine-McCall, Ida., April 28, 2006-Brown's Industries, Inc. and Snowy Peaks, LLC, both owned by long-time Brundage Mountain Company co-owners Judd and Diane DeBoer and their family, have purchased the 50 percent ownership stake previously held by the J.R. Simplot Company. The purchase givefs the DeBoer family full ownership of the resort. ...

SAM Magazine-Bretton Woods, N.H., April 28, 2006-The Mount Washington Resort at Bretton Woods, which includes the ski resort as well as the Mount Washington Hotel and golf course, has entered into an agreement with Celebration Associates and CNL Income Properties, Inc., to sell the resort, subject to the completion of further due diligence. U...

SAM Magazine-Missoula, Mont., April 25, 2006-Rancher and would-be resort developer Tom Maclay last week resubmitted a special-use permit application for a scaled-down resort on National Forest land adjacent to his 3,000-acre property in the Bitterroot Valley. Maclay seeks to develop 1,780 acres in the Bitterroot National Forest for skiing and ri...

SAM Magazine-Government Camp, Ore., April 25, 2006-Richard L. Kohnstamm, who transformed Timberline Lodge into a national skiing institution in the 1950s, died last Friday after becoming ill at his family's cabin on Mount Hood. He was 80 years old. Kohnstamm assumed management of the Depression-era Timberline Lodge in the early '50s, after it h...

SAM Magazine--Woodbury, Conn., April 20, 2006--SAM Magazine is pleased to announce this year's SAMMY Future Leadership Awards. First up is Alexa Bernotavicz, mountain operations director at Wildcat Mountain, N.H. Next is Yves Juneau, sales and marketing director of Quebec's Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham resorts. Third is Steve Kruse, director of mo...

SAM Magazine-McLean, Va.. Apr. 19, 2006-Retail winter sports sales remained sluggish in February, but overall sales for specialty and chain stores nonetheless totalled $2.2 billion for the August 2005 through February 2006 period, up 6 percent from $2.1 billion a year earlier, according to the SIA Retail Audit. Unit sales were up 7 percent. Sales r...