Probably like many of our readers, we are dazzled by the pyrotechnics on the ski area acquisition front. With $288 mill to buy a couple of resorts here, a $250 mill IPO to raise the cash there, $18 mill for infrastructure over there and $24 mill for modernization around the corner—well, you know, pretty soon you’re talking serious money.
Alas, the race is also on as to which ski area agglomerate accounts for the most skier/boarder-days. Three of them are very close, with each pushing to break the five million barrier. (Because the counting of skier visits is such an arcane discipline—with some areas under-reporting for tax reasons and others over-reporting for promotional reasons—this magazine avoids as much as possible the use of claimed numbers.)
Meanwhile, we find it relaxing to deal with news about the re-opening of Mio Mountain in Michigan, with the expectation of doing somewhere between four and five thousand skier visits. We wish new owners Dan and Cecilia Boyer great success.
And we love the initiative of Messrs. Bortaski and Zizus in re-opening Vermont’s Magic Mountain, closed since 1991, even if it is only for a truncated schedule of weekends and holidays.
Likewise, we congratulate Missouri area operators Boyd and Grenier for their initiative in purchasing Paoli Peaks and creating a three-area conglomerate called Peak Resorts.
And best wishes to Karl and Michelle Kapuscinski on their purchase of Ted and Susan Motschman’s Mt. La Crosse in Wisconsin.
It is in the energy and resourcefulness of people like these that the future of our industry lies. And read on page 41 about what other smaller areas are doing. There are plenty of encouraging things happening in our little industry.
