Our Own Calendar Boys
Welcome to December in the Summit County Uncovered Premier Calendar for 2004. Claiming it was for charity, David Barry, Intrawest Colorado; Roger McCarthy, Keystone Resort; and Greg Finch, Arapahoe Basin bare all for the Summit Foundation. McCarthy has these words of wisdom about the experience: “If you do this, make sure you get January so everyone can get the jokes out of the way and you don’t have to revisit the experience all over again a year later when December rolls around.”
World Record Lesson
It started out as a simple way to entertain families at Marmot Basin on Family Day Weekend in Alberta, Feb. 14-16. But the area’s attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest ski lesson ever grew into a hugely successful promotion for ski and snowboard schools generally.
“It’s given us a good chance to promote what ski and snowboard schools do, and point out that there are highly trained professional instructors throughout North America,” said Brian Rode, VP of marketing and sales at Marmot. “This event has drawn a lot of attention from the general media to the value of lessons.” The ski area did radio, TV and newspaper interviews ahead of the event, and many media came out to cover the world-record attempt itself.
So just how big was it?
The class, led by instructor Randall Purvis with 15 other instructors assisting, included 339 skiers and 105 snowboarders (although the snowboarders will not count toward the record, since this was a ski lesson, after all). Purvis and his assistants organized the class into pods based on ability, and then Purvis led his charges through a series of skill-building exercises aimed at stance and balance. The class worked through a few structured turns and then formed the longest serpentine line in ski school history. (It will take a few months to determine if a record was set and to get it into the record book.)
“For such a little idea, it’s amazing the spinoff benefits it’s had,” says Rode. —RK
