SAM Magazine--Aspen, Colo., June 10, 2004--Colorado Ski Country USA reported the state hosted more than 11.2 million skier visits this season as in-state visits fell, destination numbers stabilized, and several international markets rebounded. The total represents a 3.4 percent decline from the 2002-03 season. "For the first time in seven years,...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, June 10, 2004--American Skiing Company reported a loss for the nine months ended April 25 of $38.4 million, slightly less than the $42.8 million loss a year earlier. The company credited increased season's pass revenues, cost controls and coordinated marketing for the improved financial performance despite a slight de...

SAM Magazine--Rossland B.C., June 4, 2004--A private investment group led by Howard Katkov of San Diego has purchased Red Mountain Resort for an undisclosed amount. With a recently approved community plan in hand to guide future development, the new ownership expects to construct 1,300 dwelling units and 70,000 square feet of commercial space ov...

SAM Magazine--Rossland B.C., June 4, 2004--A private investment group led by Howard Katkov of San Diego has purchased Red Mountain Resort for an undisclosed amount. With a recently approved community plan in hand to guide future development, the new ownership expects to construct 1,300 dwelling units and 70,000 square feet of commercial space ov...

SAM Magazine--McLean, Va., June 7, 2004--Overall sales at ski and snowboard specialty and chain stores for August through March increased a mere 0.6 percent in dollars during 2003-04 season, to $2.21 billion, compared to $2.20 billion for 2002-03, according to the end-of-season SIA Retail Audit. In snowboards, both equipment and apparel sales in...

SAM Magazine--Savannah, Georgia, May 19, 2004--Seven new members were elected to the National Ski Areas Association's board, along with a new chairman. Taking on the top spot is David Crowley, president of Wachusett Mountain, Mass. Crowley previously served on the executive board as vice chair. He replaces Sugarbowl's Rob Kautz. Also elected are...

SAM Magazine--Savannah, Georgia, May 17, 2004--The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) released the preliminary skier visit numbers for the 2003/2004 season which are projected to be 56.8 million, the third best season on record. The numbers are down 1.3 percent from the 2002/2003 season which set the all-time record of 57.6 million. The Pacif...

SAM Magazine--Big Bear Lake, Calif., May 14, 2004--Big Bear Mountain Resorts (BBMR) areas Bear Mountain and Snow Summit totaled nearly 800,000 visits this past season. As a result of positioning Bear Mountain as a snowboard and ski pipe and park mountain and downplaying those features at sister area Snow Summit, the two areas have developed two ...

SAM Magazine--North Woodstock, N.H., May 14, 2004--New Hampshire recorded its third best winter in the past decade, posting 2,044,422 alpine skier and snowboarder visits. The figure is slightly above the state's 10-year average and down just 9 percent from last year, the state's second-best ever. Mid-season estimates were for visits to fall by 10 t...

SAM Magazine--Oceanside, Calif., May 13, 2004--TransWorld Media is launching TransWorld Business, a new monthly trade magazine for retailers, that will cover the skate, surf, and snowboarding industries. The new title will debut in September and incorporate elements of, and replace, TransWorld SNOWboarding Business, TransWorld SKATEboarding Busines...

SAM Magazine--Vancouver, B.C., May 13, 2004--Intrawest recorded improved revenues for the fiscal 2004 third quarter ended March 31, 2004 despite reduced skier visits. Total revenue for the quarter was $437.3 million compared with $402.5 million for the same period last year. Total Company EBITDA was $128.1 million compared with $125.5 million in...

SAM Magazine--Scranton, Pa., May 10, 2004--Montage Mountain Ski Area, owned by Lackawanna County, is for sale. The minimum sale price is $9.6 million in cash. Three potential bidders have shown interest, including one group led by Joe Aichholz Jr., owner of nearby Blue Marsh Ski Area. A northern Poconos ski area is also said to be interested. The c...

SAM Magazine--Salt Lake City, Utah, May 10, 2004--Utah's 13 ski areas achieved record attendance this past season, with 3,386,141 skier-rider visits. That is three percent above the previous best season (2000-01) and seven percent better than 2002-03. And the record will grow, as Snowbird is still open through May 31. Ski Utah credited early and...

SAM Magazine--Telluride, Colo., April 23, 2004--Telluride Ski & Golf Resort has named Raymond Jacobi as the company's new chief executive officer (CEO). Jacobi will oversee all aspects of resort operations, sales, marketing and management as well as the overall growth and development of properties recently purchased by the resort's new majority ...

SAM Magazine--Lakewood, Colo., April 23, 2004--Troy Hawks has been named managing editor of the NSAA Journal, effective May 3. Hawks joins NSAA after a decade-long writing and editing career that includes positions with several mountain newspapers and contributions to national trade and consumer magazines, among them SKI, Fly Rod & Reel, Rocky M...

SAM Magazine--Vancouver, B.C., April 22, 2004--Intrawest has combined all of its travel and resort businesses into the newly formed Leisure and Travel Group, which includes Intrawest's mountain and warm-weather resorts, lodging and central reservations businesses, and Club Intrawest. This group of businesses generated $650 million in revenues in fi...

SAM Magazine--Sandpoint, Idaho, April 22, 2004--Ron Nova, VP of Operations for Schweitzer Mountain parent company Harbor Resorts, is Schweitzer's new GM. He replaces Tom Fortune, Schweitzer's GM for the past 5 years, who is resigning to join a local real-estate company. Nova has spent most of his career at Stevens Pass, also owned by Harbor Reso...

SAM Magazine--Boulder, Colo., April 21, 2004--Marc Peruzzi has been named editor-in-chief of Skiing Magazine. He replaces Perkins Miller, who was recently promoted to vice president, managing director of Mountain Sports Media, Skiing's parent company. Peruzzi began with Skiing in 2002 as senior editor and served as acting executive editor for mo...

SAM Magazine--Wolf Creek, Colo., April 16, 2004--The owners of Wolf Creek Ski Area are opposing a planned second home development on 288 acres in the midst of the resort's 1,300-acre permit area, arguing that the project, which would be one of the largest in Colorado, would destroy the character and the nature of the minimalist ski area. Wolf Cr...

SAM Magazine--Woodbury, Conn., April 13, 2004--Ski Area Management Magazine (SAM) is pleased to announce this year's recipients of the SAMMY Future Leadership Awards. The awards, now in their seventh year, honor those in the wintersports industry whose strong innovative leadership demonstrated at mid-career shows exciting promise for even more acco...

From April 1-4, over 300 ski and snowboard industry executives gathered at Copper Mountain, Colorado, at a summit geared to take over the roles that the Transworld Industry Conference and Ski Industry Week once played. By uniting the two conferences, Transworld Snowboarding, Mountain Sports Media and Snowsports Industries America, hope to provide a...

SAM Magazine--Keystone, Colo., April 6, 2004--Twenty-seven skiers and snowboarders, including two adaptive athletes, from 22 different resorts were named to the Next Snow Team at Keystone this past weekend. The team, chosen at the Next Snow Search finals, culminated three days of competition that drew 200 tweener athletes ages 9 to 13 from 51 North...

SAM Magazine--Washington, D.C., April 2, 2004--Sixty-seven U.S. ski resorts are urging U.S. Senators to pass the bi-partisan global warming bill introduced by John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). A companion measure has been introduced in the House of Representatives. "Winter is short enough already. It's time to start fixing the g...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Colo., April 2, 2004--Colorado's ski industry generates $2 billion annually and provides 31,000 jobs, according to a report released by Colorado Ski Country USA. The ski industry accounts for more than a quarter of the state's $7 billion tourism revenues. Resorts take in nearly $1 billion themselves, while estimates of reve...

SAM Magazine--Big Bear Lake, Calif., Mar. 26, 2004--A forest fire that burned 400 acres led to the evacuation of Bear Mountain and Snow Summit ski areas late Thursday, and Bear Mountain remained closed Friday. By late Friday the fire was under control, though, and both areas will be open on Saturday. Neither area suffered significant damage. The...

SAM Magazine--Boulder, Colo., Mar. 25, 2004--Perkins Miller has become vice president, managing director of Mountain Sports Media, a new position at the company and part of a restructuring effort aimed at developing the group's multi-media capabilities. Miller was most recently editor-in-chief of Skiing Magazine. In his new role, Miller assumes ...

SAM Magazine--Winter Park, Colo., March 25, 2004--Explosives used for avalanche control were stolen from the Winter Park ski area last weekend. On Monday morning, ski resort patrollers found that an undisclosed number of high-explosive Trojan Boosters, cylinders packed with pentaerythritol tetranitrate, had been taken from a locked storage shed...

SAM Magazine--Donnelly, Ida., March 25, 2004--Jim Spenst is joining Tamarack Resort as vice president of operations. Spenst is currently vice president of mountain operations for Copper Mountain Resort, and will remain in that position through the current season. At Tamarack, Spenst will oversee lift operations, the Alpine and Nordic trail syste...

SAM Magazine--Avon, Colo., March 23, 2004--In "Operation Freedom Lodging," Keystone and Breckenridge are offering 1,000 complimentary room nights to troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for R&R. Rooms are available between April 1 and December 16. A soldier from any branch of the military who has served on active duty for more than 30 days...

SAM Magazine--McLean, Va., March 17, 2004--Overall sales for the winter sport market (including specialty and chain stores) increased 1.8 percent in dollars to $1.72 billion for August 2003 through January 2004, according to the SnowSports Industries America (SIA) Retail Audit. Unit sales were ahead 5.8 percent. Growing interest in Nordic and telem...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., March 17, 2004--Booth Creek resort operations revenues rose 2 percent for the first quarter ended Jan. 30, 2004, to $47,315,000, as earlier openings at Sierra-at-Tahoe and the Summit areas in Washington State offset a slower season in the East. Increased snow school, equipment rental, retail and food and beverage sales al...

SAM Magazine--North Creek, N.Y., March 12, 2004--The state comptroller has endorsed a proposal to link Gore Mountain and the North Creek Ski Bowl, create 2,500 new lodging beds and extend passenger train service from Saratoga Springs to North Creek, providing New Yorkers direct train service to the resort. Comptroller Alan Hevesi predicted the d...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Colo., March 12, 2004--Visits to resorts in Colorado were up 3.5 percent over year-ago levels in January and February, according to Colorado Ski Country USA. Areas recorded 4,982,652 visits during the period. Destination visits led the rise. Destination resorts hosted 1,582,555 visits (a 6.1 percent increase over 2002-03) i...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Mar. 10, 2004--Vail Resorts, Inc. reported a net loss for the six months ended Jan. 31, 2004 of $32.1 million, compared to a net loss of $8.4 million for the same period last year. Excluding charges for early extinguishment of debt and mold remediation at the Breckenridge Terrace employee housing, Vail's expected net l...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Mar. 10, 2004--American Skiing Company (ASC) lost $21.7 million in its fiscal second quarter ended Jan. 31, 2004, compared to a loss of $16.7 million for second quarter of 2003. For the first six months of fiscal 2004, net loss totalled $62.9 million, compared with a net loss of $55.8 million in the corresponding peri...

SAM Magazine--Fraser, Colo., Mar. 3, 2004--Marise Cipriani is repositioning her SolVista ski area again, changing the name to The Granby Ranch and marketing the ski area and its related real estate as an affordable mountain resort community. Cipriani purchased the SilverCreek ski area in 1995, and renamed it SolVista in 2000. The Granby Ranch co...

SAM Magazine--Killington, Vt., Mar. 3, 2004--In their continuing protest against high taxes on second homes, Killington voters approved a proposal to secede from Vermont and join the state of New Hampshire at the town's annual meeting Mar. 2. Vermont's Act 60 and Act 68, passed years ago, set higher tax rates for second-home properties than for ...

SAM Magazine--Ludlow, Vt., March 2, 2004--As of March 1, Tim and Diane Mueller are the proud owners of Crested Butte Ski Resort in Colorado. The Muellers, who own Okemo, Vt., and run Mount Sunapee, N.H., purchased the resort from the Callaway and Walton families for an undisclosed amount, though speculation puts the figure at about $50 million. ...

SAM Magazine--Big Sky, Mont., February 24, 2004--Boyne USA, the owners of Big Sky resort, have filed a suit against neighboring newcomer, Moonlight Basin Ranch. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the suit alleges that Moonlight Basin is trespassing on Big Sky property and endangering its employees and clients. The two areas share a boundary ...

SAM Magazine--Tupper Lake, N.Y., Feb. 19, 2004--A group of investors from Philadelphia has agreed to buy 6,400 acres, including the defunct Big Tupper ski area and thousands of acres around it, with the goal of creating a year-round resort. The Big Tupper ski area has been closed for the last four winters. Michael Foxman, one of the project's ei...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Feb. 19, 2004--Powdr Corp. has named Peter Curtis to be president and general manager of Park City Mountain Resort. Curtis replaces Vern Greco, who became chief operating officer of Powdr a week ago. "Peter is a seasoned industry veteran and has demonstrated strong leadership qualities in his six years at Park City...

SAM Magazine--Whitefish, Mont., February 17, 2004--Big Mountain announced that Frederic Jones has been named the new president and CEO, effective April 1, 2004. Jones replaces Michael Collins who resigned after 15 years at the helm. Most recently, Jones worked for Ski Country Advisors, a business valuation and financial consulting firm in Salt L...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Feb. 4, 2003--Vail Resorts has named Ian Arthur, senior director of marketing and brand management for Frontier Airlines for the past two years, as vice president of marketing for Vail and Beaver Creek resorts. He replaces Chris Jarnot, who has been elevated to head of marketing and sales for Vail Resorts. Arthur will ...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Feb. 4, 2004--Powdr Corporation has named Vern Greco senior vice president-chief operating officer. He will report to Powdr president and CEO John D. Cumming. "This change is intended to accomplish three things," said Cumming. "First and foremost it is our intention to capitalize on the success we have had the past...

SAM Magazine--Keystone, Colo., Feb. 4, 2004--The U.S. Forest Service approved a 577-acre terrain expansion for Keystone Resort yesterday, making the above-treeline Erickson Bowl and Little Bowl available for snowcat skiing operations. The resort's Keystone Adventure Tours (KAT) will begin operations within in the next few weeks. "We are really e...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colorado, Jan. 30, 2004--Booth Creek has reported a loss of $5.4 million for fiscal year 2003, which ended Oct. 31, compared to a loss of $1.9 million in fiscal 2002. A decline in skier visits contributed to the wider loss. The company said that skier visits declined nine percent, from 2,154,000 visits in 2002 to 1,953,000 i...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Jan. 23, 2004--The saga of the failed sale two years ago of Steamboat ski area to Triple Peaks LLC, an investor group headed by Okemo owners Tim and Diane Mueller, is getting longer. On Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals ordered the issue back to trial, a ruling that Steamboat owner American Skiing Co. (ASC) plans to appe...

SAM Magazine--Portland, Maine, Jan. 15, 2004--Maine ski areas have taken advantage of New England's subzero freeze to make snow ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. "The Maine ski industry has been able to make snow during every single day in 2004," said Greg Sweetser, executive director of Ski Maine. All areas are opening new terrain for t...

SAM Magazine--McLean, Va., Jan. 1, 2004--Strong sales of junior gear and apparel and a rebound in the sales of snowboard gear during August through November kept retail sales at ski and snowboard outlets nearly flat with 2002, according to the SnowSports Industries America (SIA) Retail Audit. Overall, sales for the entire winter sports market (i...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Colorado, Jan. 12, 2004--Visits at Colorado resorts declined nine percent from year-ago totals, according to figures released today by Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA). From the start of the season, Oct. 28, through Dec. 31, 2003, total skier visits were 2,671,532, compared to 2002-03's record 2,942,555. This season's tota...

SAM Magazine--Park City, Utah, Jan. 9, 2004--Park City Mountain Resort will no longer host the "America's Opening" World Cup races in November, which has the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) looking for a new host site. "The challenges of an early season date are extraordinary," said Park City president and GM Vern Greco in explaining t...

SAM Magazine--Boulder, Colo., Jan. 7, 2004--Weather--too much snow, too much rain--dampened visits on some days during the Christmas-New Year's period. But the longer-than-usual holiday (from December 20 through January 4) and determinedly upbeat customers made this a strong, and in some instances record, holiday season for many resorts across the ...

SAM Magazine--Ludlow, Vt., Jan. 8, 2004--Tim and Diane Mueller, owners of Triple Peaks, LLC have entered into a Definitive Purchase and Sale Agreement to buy Crested Butte Ski Resort from the Callaway and Walton families, owners of Crested Butte Mountain Ski Resort, LLC and it subsidiaries. The Muellers signed a Letter of Intent for the purchase...

SAM Magazine--Bozeman, Mont., January 2, 2004--The ownership of the summit of the 11,166-foot Lone Peak, which is home to Big Sky, the Yellowstone Mountain Club and the new Moonlight Basin, is the subject of what is to become a court battle. According to the Billings Gazette, Tim Blixseth, owner of the Yellowstone Club, has filed suit against th...

The East decidedly had it the hardest during Christmas week, but the news gets better out West. Rain on Christmas Eve for southern New England, then temperatures that soared into the 50s and 60s over Christmas and the following weekend, made for a less-than-stellar holiday week for many ski areas in the Northeast. At Ski Bradford, just north of ...

SAM Magazine--Storrs, Ct., December 29, 2003--Marvin W. Kottke, 80, died of a sudden massive stroke on December 26, 2003. Kottke's work in the ski industry is well known after 14 years of preparing the Kottke End of Season Report for the National Ski Areas Association. Though the report has been assembled by RRC Associates since 1994, it still bear...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Dec. 24, 2003--Vail Resorts and Intrawest have reached an "amicable agreement" to divide the remaining developable assets, liquidate remaining partnership inventory, and ultimately to dissolve their Keystone development partnership. The partnership stems from Vail Resorts' purchase of Keystone in the mid-1990s, at which t...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., Dec. 17, 2003--A woman and her deceased husband's family won a $17.5 million award yesterday stemming from carbon monoxide poisoning at Vail Resorts' Snake River Lodge and Spa in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 2001. The award, the largest personal injury award ever in Wyoming, included compensatory but no punitive damages. Pla...

SAM Magazine--Vail, Colo., December 16, 2004--Vail Resorts, Inc., announced its first quarter numbers last week for the fiscal year 2004 (the quarter ended on October 31, 2003) and the news was mixed. It seems expenses outweighed revenue in quite a few areas, though the company claims it is making headway and that the results were better than antic...

SAM Magazine--Ligonier, Pa., December 16, 2004--A month ago, the owner of Laurel Mountain Ski Resort, George Mowl, announced that he had found a buyer in HomeSpan Financial Group. However, the sale was delayed last week by the untimely death of the president of HomeSpan, John Jones. Both parties claim that the sale will still go through but, in ...