STOP vehicle idling at ski areas
By Roger Lohr

At almost every ski resort there is a drop-off area where vehicles (let’s face it, many are SUVs) are idling while waiting to pick up or drop off family members.

If you a numbers-oriented person, consider that most vehicles in the parking lot may idle a few minutes each and multiply to get the result on a daily basis, weekend days, on a monthly basis, and for the entire season. What a waste!

A professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer College of Engineering found that for every hour spent idling, a vehicle uses a half gallon of fuel and spews 9.7 pounds of carbon emissions (diesel engines waste .8 gallons and spew 19 pounds of emissions).

And what about the common responses? Well, they are just wrong. Frequent restarting does not harm the engine. After 10 seconds idling, more gas is wasted than restarting the vehicle. In fact, idling may damage the engine because of the condensation that builds up. And, fuel-injected engines only need 30 seconds to warm up. These statements are facts, not opinions.

What can ski area operators do to decrease the amount of idling at ski resorts? Have parking lot attendants ask people to please turn their engines off. Arm the attendants with some simple information about idling and implore them to be friendly. Post simple signs, particularly in the drop-off area, that asks people to please turn their engines off when parked. It will save them money. It will reduce pollution. It will protect their health, your clientele’s health, and your health.

Individually, we may not readily have the power to stop the poisonous plumes of coal-fired electricity plants, but on a daily basis, we can all do something that, when multiplied out, will make a difference.


Annoying Things Ski Resorts Do
German ski writer Christoph Schrahe and British ski writer Patrick Thorne have each clocked more than 20 years writing about ski resorts all over the world, and between them have visited about 100 North American ski areas.

Inspired by SAM’s series of “Mountain Spy” features, they wrote us to rant about their experiences in dealing with ski resort media departments over the years.


Website Updating By Patrick
My job has been transformed completely by the Internet. In theory, everything I need is just a few clicks away!

Er. . .well, a few hundred clicks by the time I’ve waded through all the cyber garbage to try to find some hard facts. All I want is a phone number for a hotel or the total lift stat.

And when I finally find the right site, it’s the summer site! That’s right, it’s August and no-one is thinking about skiing. Especially the resort’s media staff, they’re probably on vacation. But my editor is nagging me for delivery so he can get his publication out before winter.

And when I do find a winter site, full of news like a new lift going up, there is no date on the story. Is this ’07-’08 news, or is it some story for ’06-’07?

Can it get worse? Well, yes, let’s try “logging into a secure media area” (yeah, right) and “your log-in details will be forwarded to you shortly.” But I actually want information now, in my time zone, so I have the information now, when I’m working on it.

Keep Chris and Patrick happy: Websites should be regularly updated, with dated material, clear, concise, comprehensive information, no secure media zones, and be available 365 days.


Answering Machines by Chris
I almost never get the marketing people personally, they are either on vacation or in a meeting and they never call back. I don’t know if they don’t care about getting free publicity in Europe, or if they’re intimidated by having to call a German guy back (really, I am a soft little pussy cat).

The best zero response I got was a resort in Colorado who didn’t reply to e-mails, online forms or messages on answering machines. OK, this was when Germany did not support Bush’s Iraq war and I thought Germans were probably not welcome in Colorado, so I tried to do my utmost to prevent them from being visited by any of us—I left them out of the Guide.

Keep Chris and Patrick happy: Pick up the phone people!


E-mail contacts by Patrick
I like a media address that is press@someskiresort.com. An address that doesn’t change, whatever the staff do. When I have jenny.smith@someskiresort.com and Jenny has gone on her merry way to some better marketing job, I don’t want to have to keep updating my address book, re-introducing and explaining myself to whomever the new guy is.

But I do want it to go straight to press@someskiresort.com, not to info@someskiresort.com (which is where I always end up each time Jenny moves on, which seems to be about three times a season at some resorts).

Keep Chris and Patrick happy: One direct media e-mail address. (I don’t mind staff having individual ones as well, but I need a central point for initial callback and fallback when things go wrong).


Picture Perfect By Chris
A lot of the marketing people do not seem to know what a trail map with high resolution for printing purposes really means and, instead, direct me to the little jpeg on their website.

It also seems it is almost impossible to receive updated trailmaps for the upcoming winter before October—deadline for guidebooks is usually by the end of June.

It’s a real and rare treat to find a quality image library, too. Pictures are either old, there’s a limited selection, the resolution is poor, or you need password access.

Keep Chris and Patrick happy: Get trail maps for next season prepared early so we can help you tell people about them. Provide a print-quality version and make sure you have a good online image library that’s easy to access.