SAM Magazine-Ellicottville, N.Y., Jan. 12, 2011-Holiday Valley plans to build an Adventure Park, including an aerial ropes course and a mountain coaster, for the coming summer. The Aerial Park will open in June and the mountain coaster a bit later. Outdoor Ventures Group of Southport, Conn., will design and build the Aerial Park. Its platforms ...

SAM Magazine-Boise, Idaho, Jan. 12, 2011-Judge Terry Myers has removed Tamarack Resort from federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and sent the dispute over the resort's future back to state court. What this means for the area's long-term future is not immediately clear. A potential buyer has bid $40 million for the resort. But Credit Suisse, ...

SAM Magazine-McLean, Va., Jan. 12, 2011-Winter Trails, a series of free, learn-to events for snowshoe and cross-country organized by Snowsports Industries America (SIA), drew good crowds to more than 80 local events across the country on Saturday, Jan. 8. Favorable weather in almost every part of the country helped boost attendance at comparable ev...

SAM Magazine-Albany, N.Y., Jan. 11, 2011-Three privately-owned neighbors of state-owned Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills are crying foul over the number of free lift tickets Belleayre makes available to gain visits, often at the expense of the private areas. Hunter Mountain and Windham Mountain used the state Freedom of Information Law to unc...

SAM Magazine-Broomfield, Colo., Jan. 10, 2011-Vail Resorts (VR) reported increases in visits and revenues from several departments for the season through Jan. 6, 2011, compared to the prior year through Jan. 7, 2010, which was an historically weak period hampered by poor early-season snow. Total skier visits for VR's six mountain resort properti...

SAM Magazine-Grangeville, Idaho, Jan. 10, 2011-Idaho Sewing for Sports has chosen "to be part of the solution in our nation's, and the world's, current economic situation" by keeping its staff fully employed and performing community service, rather than laying off employees and contributing to unemployment when business is soft, said company CEO Gu...

SAM Magazine-Boise, Idaho, Jan. 4, 2011-U.S. bankruptcy judge Terry Myers has lifted a stay on two lifts at Tamarack Resort, allowing Bank of America Corp. (BAC) to repossess them. It's likely that BAC will try to sell the lifts to Tamarack's eventual buyer, or to another resort for reinstallation elsewhere. BAC now owns a mile-long detachable q...

SAM Magazine--January 3, 2011--Across the state of Maine, ski areas reported a fast start to the 2010/11 winter season following a timely blizzard, which dumped up to two feet of snow on December 27. According to Melissa Rock at Shawnee Peak and Kevin Rosenberg at Mt. Abram, "the new snow was followed by three days of beautiful weather, which resul...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, Dec. 31, 2010-Slopestyle skiing has been added to the International Ski Federation's (FIS) Freestyle World Ski Championships this February at Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resorts. The slopestyle event, one of three new sports being considered for inclusion in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, will be held at Park Ci...

SAM Magazine-Hancock, Mass., Dec. 31, 2010-In what could be a harbinger of holiday visits nationwide, Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort set a single-day skier visit record on Dec. 30, topping the previous record by 15 percent. A 20-inch snowfall just prior to Christmas has brought out the crowds. With 7,874 total visits, Jiminy set records for both da...

SAM Magazine-Franconia Notch, N.H., Dec. 31, 2010-It's been 26 years since a lift turned at Mittersill, N.H., but that changes Jan. 1 when Cannon Mountain opens the new Mittersill Double Chair. Mittersill has become a popular sidecountry destination for Cannon skiers, but the last time there was an operating lift at Mittersill was in 1984, when the...

SAM Magazine-Carraabasett Valley, Maine, Dec. 30, 2010-Investigators from the Maine board of elevator and tramway safety said that high wind was a contributing factor in the chairlift derailment Tuesday during their preliminary findings. The investigation itself is ongoing, according to Sugarloaf spokesman Ethan Austin. Doug Dunbar, a spokesman ...

SAM Magazine-Carrabassett Valley, Maine, Dec. 28, 2010-The Spillway East Chairlift at Sugarloaf, Maine, experienced a rope derailment Tuesday morning, with seven people reported injured. The injured persons, including three children, were treated and transported to local hospitals. None of the injuries were believed to be life-threatening. The rema...

SAM Magazine-Meadowlands, N.J., Dec. 24, 2010-Lenders for New Jersey's star-crossed and stalled Meadowlands Xanadu shopping complex say that mall king Triple Five, which owns the Mall of America, will take over the planned entertainment and retail mecca. Xanadu includes what could be the first indoor ski slope in the U.S. Triple Five expects to ...

SAM Magazine-Donnelly, Idaho, Dec. 24, 2010-Tamarack Resort owner Jean-Pierre Boespflug has proposed Green Valley Holdings as buyer of Tamarack. The Idaho-based investor group has bid $40 million for the resort. Green Valley is headed Larry Givens, an Idaho construction company owner, Matthew Hutcheson, a pension fund consultant. Other bidders,...