SAM Magazine—Silverton, Colo., Sept. 28, 2023—Colorado’s Silverton Mountain has been sold for an undisclosed amount to Andy Culp and Brock Strasbourger, owners of Aspen-based Heli Adventures, a heli-skiing and adventure travel company.  “It’s an honor to be in this position,” Culp said in an interview with the Aspen Daily News. “My...

 SAM Magazine—Idaho Springs, Colo., Sept. 21, 2023—Burwell Enterprises has sold Echo Mountain to Jogan Inc., LLC, for an undisclosed amount in a deal that closed Monday. The Burwell family acquired Echo in 2016 for $3.8 million, resurrecting the small ski area—located just 36 miles from downtown Denver—from bankruptcy.  “Our goal with ...

SAM Magazine—Big Sky, Mont., Sept. 20, 2023—In a move toward sustainable operations, Montana’s Big Sky Resort has transitioned to 99 percent renewable diesel fuel to power its snowcats, trucks, and other heavy equipment.  Also known as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), renewable diesel is derived from agricultural byproducts such as animal ...

SAM Magazine—Montville, N.J., Sept. 20, 2023—SNOW Partners has appointed Dempsey Mendrzycki as the new general manager of its Big SNOW American Dream indoor ski and snowboard facility, effective immediately. Mendrzycki previously held the role of risk and safety ranger (i.e., director) for both Mountain Creek (N.J.)—also owned by SNOW Partner...

SAM Magazine—Plymouth, N.H., Sept. 19, 2023—Extreme skier-turned-media professional Dan Egan has been named general manager of Tenney Mountain, N.H. Egan previously served as GM at the ski area, which was purchased by a new ownership group last year, from 2002 to 2004. He assumed the role in August. "I'm a big believer in independently owned r...

SAM Magazine—Natick, Mass., Sept. 18, 2023—The SAM Summit Series is set to embark on its sixth year with the theme “Kickstart Your Leadership Skills.” In the annual mentor/mentee leadership development program, emerging resort leaders engage and learn from top industry veterans on a variety of topics affecting ski areas. The program aims t...

SAM Magazine—Windsor, Colo., Sept. 18, 2023—With plans to open by Thanksgiving, 12-acre Hoedown Hill will become Colorado’s newest skiing, snow tubing, and sledding area. The project is the dream of Martin Lind, a third-generation Windsor resident and owner of real estate development firm The Water Valley Company.  Hoedown Hill is located a...

SAM Magazine—Steamboat Springs, Colo., Sept. 15, 2023—The thirteenth SAM Summer Ops Camp drew ski area and aerial adventure operators, experts, and suppliers from all over North America to Steamboat, Sept. 10-12, for three days of learning, networking, and hands-on fun in the name of growing non-winter business.  The host resort provided atte...

SAM Magazine—Harrisburg, Pa., Sept. 14, 2023—The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) is committing $10 million in capital improvements and is working with a locally-based company to grow four-season recreational opportunities—including the return of alpine skiing—at Denton Hill State Park in Potter County. ...

SAM Magazine—Winter Park, Colo., Sept. 14, 2023—After a slow start, the summer of 2023 will likely finish down slightly from last year for lodging properties in Western mountain destinations, but will still come very close to last summer's revenue record. According to the most recent monthly Market Briefing released by DestiMetrics, the busines...

SAM Magazine—Norway, Mich., Sept. 11, 2023—Norway Mountain, idle since 2017, has been purchased by a local family who plans to reopen the 160-acre ski and snowboard area situated in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for the 2024/25 season.  The Norway property, existing infrastructure, and an additional 50 acres outside of the area was purchased b...

SAM Magazine—Boston, Mass., Sept. 8, 2023—The producers of Snowbound and Snowvana, two of the largest remaining consumer ski shows in the nation, report a record number of ski resorts and exhibitors have signed up to participate in the events this fall.   PowderDaze, a retail sales event in Colorado at which local resorts often sell passes, ...

SAM Magazine—Eden, Utah, Sept. 6, 2023—Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings became the majority owner of Powder Mountain following a $100 million investment. Hastings acquired a minority stake in the ski area back in April. The new investment will develop the qualities that make Powder special, with a focus on bolstering infrastructure and...

SAM Magazine—Las Vegas, Nev., Sept. 6, 2023—Cleanup is underway at Lee Canyon after Tropical Storm Hilary caused significant flooding with flows of rock and debris settling in the base area that nearly buried lift load stations, forcing the resort to shut down its summer operations for the season.    “Our team is working with heavy machin...

SAM Magazine—Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, Sept. 6, 2023—Just days after it reported its first dusting of snow for the season, Solitude, Utah, will unveil the first phase of its new Solitude Bike Park on Friday, Sept. 8, with four new downhill mountain bike trails—six miles total—that range from easy to difficult.  “With this initial pha...

SAM Magazine—Park City, Utah, Aug. 29, 2023—Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. (PGRI) is making a series of executive changes to accommodate its growth and to align itself for future expansion. PGRI owns five North American mountain resort properties—Jay Peak, Vt.; Mt. Washington Alpine Resort, B.C.; Powderhorn Mountain Resort, Colo.; Wintergreen Re...

SAM Magazine—Kelowna, B.C., Aug. 28, 2023— More than 1,000 wildfires have scorched Canada this summer, marking the country’s fourth consecutive year of grappling with severe drought conditions. Courtesy of Panorama Mountain ResortMountain communities in British Columbia have been directly impacted and ski areas have stepped up to help. In a h...

SAM Magazine—Natick, Mass., Aug. 28, 2023—The 2023 Rise Up Challenge, sponsored by Leitner-Poma of America, highlighted up-and-coming lift mechanics and their lift maintenance teams from six ski areas across North America: Arapahoe Basin, Colo.; Deer Valley, Utah; Killington Resort, Vt.; Mansfield Ski Club, Ont.; Mt. Hood Meadows, Ore.; and Pow...

SAM Magazine—Park City, Utah, Aug. 24, 2023—Alterra-owned Deer Valley has partnered with Extell Development Company to operate the planned skiable terrain that was part of Extell’s adjacent Mayflower Mountain Resort project, adding 3,700 acres of terrain that will connect to Deer Valley’s existing network of trails, nearly tripling the skia...

THIS REPORT WAS UPDATED ON AUG. 25. SAM Magazine—Las Vegas, Aug. 23, 2023—Lee Canyon Ski and Snowboard Resort has closed its summer mountain operations for the season after an initial assessment of the damage caused by flash flooding associated with Tropical Storm Hilary led the U.S. Forest Service to indefinitely extend its closure of the ...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Aug. 22, 2023—Alterra Mountain Company closed on the purchase of Schweitzer in Idaho, bringing the company’s total year-round mountain destinations to 17 properties throughout North America.  “With the acquisition of Schweitzer, we are excited to expand our presence within the Pacific Northwest skier market,” said ...

In SAM’s Snow People, we highlight recent personnel moves that have been made in the mountain resort industry. From resort hires, promotions, and retirements to supplier news, awards and obits, we celebrate the people that make this industry thrive. PEOPLE JAY RYDD, DIAMOND PEAK RESORT Diamond Peak Resort has promoted Jay Rydd to operations ma...

SAM Magazine—Lake Geneva, Wis., Aug. 21, 2023—Midwest ski operators and industry suppliers descended on Grand Geneva Resort & Spa for the Midwest Ski Areas Association (MSAA) annual meeting and tradeshow, Aug. 13-16. Attendance for this year’s conference was strong, with Amy Reents, executive director of MSAA, reporting record attendance ...

SAM Magazine—Winter Park, Colo., Aug. 17, 2023—Data from research firm DestiMetrics, a division of Inntopia, has revealed that travelers to the western United States are booking summer lodging closer to their planned arrival date this year compared to previous years, but they’re still booking.  This was comforting news, after data in March ...

SAM Magazine—Australia, Aug. 17, 2023—Warm temperatures in July and into August have put a damper on snow conditions at Australian ski areas, but snow earlier this week and cold weather forecasted for the coming days have operators looking optimistically at a strong finish to the season. Hotham Mountain   “The whole of Australia experience...

SAM Magazine—Turin, N.Y., Aug. 9, 2023—An apparent EF-3 tornado with peak wind speeds of 140 mph damaged all three chairlifts and several structures at Snow Ridge Ski Resort on Monday evening.  The National Weather Service reported that the tornado touched down around 7:42 p.m. in the town of Lewis, N.Y., where it uplifted the roofs of two ho...

SAM Magazine—Banff, Alberta, Canada, Aug. 9, 2023— A power outage on the Banff Gondola, owned by attraction and hospitality company Pursuit,  stranded hundreds of sightseers at the top of Sulphur Mountain Monday night, leading some to eventually hike down in the middle of the night. The Globe and Mail newspaper suggested that as many as ...

THIS REPORT WAS UPDATED ON AUG. 14 SAM Magazine—Portland, Ore., Aug. 4—The role and impact of reciprocal pass agreements has been put in the spotlight as Indy Pass has requested its partner resorts terminate their reciprocal deals with Ski Cooper, Colo., whose large and growing roster of pass partnerships has put it in position to potentially ...

SAM Magazine—Teton Village, Wyo., Aug. 4, 2023 – After 31 years of ownership, Jay, Connie, and Betty Kemmerer have sold Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) to a group of local investors for an undisclosed amount. Owners of JHMR Connie, Betty and Jay KemmererThe Kemmerers, who purchased JHMR in 1992, said their highest priority was maintaining J...

SAM Magazine—Frisco, Colo., Aug. 3, 2023—Copper Mountain hosted the third annual Ski Conservation Summit on July 26. The event brings together local land managers and resort operators to share best practices and techniques to advance conservation efforts in their local environments. Courtesy of Copper MountainThis year, eight Colorado ski areas...

SAM Magazine—Lutsen, Minn., Aug. 3, 2023—Lutsen Mountains, part of Midwest Family Ski Resorts, has submitted a letter to the USFS asking it to defer a decision on the resort’s proposed $60 million expansion onto 500 acres of the Superior National Forest. Local Tribes retain recreational rights to the land under the 1854 Treaty, an agreement b...

SAM Magazine—Natick, Mass., Aug. 1, 2023—Voting is now open for the third annual Rise Up Challenge, a video contest highlighting a few skilled young lift mechanics who will no doubt keep chairs spinning at resorts for decades to come. This year, six resorts were chosen to submit a video, each featuring an up-and-coming mechanic from its lift ma...

SAM Magazine—Sun Peaks, British Columbia, July 25, 2023—Sun Peaks Resort has promoted Darcy Alexander, vice president and general manager for the past 32 years, to CEO. Alexander will focus on long-term strategy, investment opportunities, government relations, and real estate and infrastructure development. Meanwhile, current CFO Amy Blakeney ...

SAM Magazine—Franconia, N.H., July 25, 2023—Cannon Mountain director of sales and marketing Greg Keeler has been named as interim general manager of the ski area, effective Sept. 1. Keeler will succeed longtime GM John “JD” DeVivo, who has accepted the role of general manager of Antelope Butte Recreation Area in Wyoming, starting Sept. 6. ...

SAM Magazine—Tremblant, Quebec, July 17, 2023—One person has died and another is in critical condition in a Montreal-area hospital after a piece of heavy construction machinery struck a cabin on the Panoramic gondola at Mont-Tremblant Resort on Sunday.  Two people were riding in the cabin at the time of the crash. It’s believed the two were...

SAM Magazine—Salt Lake City, Utah—July 13, 2023—The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) yesterday released its final record of decision (ROD) to move forward with construction of a controversial eight-mile-long gondola in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Image credit: Gondola Works The ROD, the final step in the Environmental Impact Statement...

SAM Magazine—Winter Park, Colo.—July 13, 2023—Positive economic news during June spurred an uptick in advance summer reservations, according to DestiMetrics’ most recent monthly Market Briefing.  Data compiled through June 30 revealed that the booking pace increased and daily rates improved slightly after five months of softening compared...

SAM Magazine—July 13, 2023—Water has started to recede in Vermont after torrential rains and historic flooding in some mountain locations, with Killington, Magic Mountain, and Okemo among the most heavily impacted.Parking Lot of Magic Mountain. Courtesy of Magic Mountain Molly Mahar, president of Ski Vermont, said those ski areas are reporting...

SAM Magazine—Franconia, N.H., July 11, 2023—Longtime Cannon Mountain Ski Area GM John “JD” DeVivo will assume the role of GM of the non-profit Antelope Butte Mountain Recreation Area in northern Wyoming on Sept. 5. DeVivo will leave the state-owned Cannon on Aug. 31, after 16 years, and with a total of 33 years in the outdoor industry in th...

SAM Magazine—Mount Hotham, Victoria—July 11, 2023—Australia’s Mount Hotham Skiing Company has named Tina Burford as its new general manager. Burford comes to the position with almost four decades of experience, including 32 years at Perisher, where she served as resort services director.   In addition to her term at Perisher, Burford has...

SAM Magazine— Detroit Lakes, MN—July 10, 2023 – Detroit Mountain general manager Mark Knutson, 53, died Sunday, July 9 in a vehicle-involved biking accident on South Shore Drive in Detroit Lakes.  Knutson was riding his bike just after 7 a.m. when he was reportedly hit by a pickup towing a boat. Life saving measures were performed on Knutso...

SAM Magazine—July 10, 2023—Concern is growing among ski area operators in Vermont and New York, with damage already being reported in the wake of two days of torrential rains and historic flooding in the Northeast.Courtesy of Magic Mountain The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning through Tuesday morning, including the moun...

SAM Magazine—– Kremmling, Colo.—July 10, 2023—After three seasons of operation, Bluebird Backcountry, a ski touring-only area operated on a private ranch between Kremmling and Steamboat Springs, is permanently closing, citing future financing and the economy as factors. Bluebird Backcountry co-founder and CEO Jeff Woodward said that the bus...

SAM Magazine—Macungie, Pa., July 6, 2023—The Pennsylvania Ski Areas Association (PSAA) held its inaugural lift training program at Bear Creek, Pa., June 20-21. The biannual training supports PSAA’s mission to provide practical, hands-on lift training, and is being offered for free to all Pennsylvania ski areas, drawing nearly 100 percent att...

SAM Magazine—Alberta, Canada, July 5, 2023—Summer operations at Lake Louise Ski Resort are shut down until further notice and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have arrested and charged a 40-year-old man with arson after a fire on July 3 destroyed a 100,000 square-foot building that houses hundreds of resort staff.  About 160 employees...

SAM Magazine—Crested Butte, Colo., July 5, 2023—Lift mechanics and electricians at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) voted 7 to 3 to form the Crested Butte Lift Maintenance Professional Union, joining the Communications Workers of America (CWA) 7781. This is the second ski area lift maintenance crew in the country to unionize, following the ...

SAM Magazine—Denver, June 28, 2023—Two individual studies released by Snowsports Industries America (SIA) and Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) show positive gains in snowsports participation, and outdoor sports as a whole. Snowsports participation increased significantly in non-alpine activities such as winter running and hiking, with 61 per...

SAM Magazine—Auckland, New Zealand, June 27, 2023—Just weeks before the start of the 2023 Southern Hemisphere ski season, the central government of New Zealand has provided a NZD$5 million loan to bail out two financially struggling North Island ski fields that operate on Mt. Ruapehu.  Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL), the operator of Tūroa and Wh...

SAM Magazine—Bend, Ore., July 26, 2022—A Deschutes County jury ruled in favor of POWDR-owned Mt. Bachelor in a $15 million wrongful death lawsuit on Friday. The suit was brought against the resort by the father of a 24-year-old Bend snowboarder, Alfonso Braun, who suffocated and died after falling into a tree well within the resort’s boundary...

SAM Magazine—Aspen, Colo., June 26, 2023—James “Jim” Crown, an owner and managing partner of Aspen Skiing Company, died Sunday in a crash at the Aspen Motorsports Park, according to the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. Crown was in a single-vehicle accident, colliding with an impact barrier at the private, member-owned motorsports country...

SAM Magazine—Zanesfield, Ohio, June 26, 2023—Vail Resorts has promoted Alajos (Al) Fiel to the role of general manager of Mad River Mountain.

SAM Magazine—Franconia Notch, N.H., June 23, 2023—State-owned Cannon Mountain, which is part of Franconia Notch State Park, can move forward with major improvements to its iconic aerial tramway after the state legislature approved an $18 million appropriation to the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR) to fund “maintenance and ...

SAM Magazine—Stowe, Vt., June 22, 2023—Vail Resorts has named Shannon Buhler as the new vice president and general manager of Stowe Mountain Resort. She begins July 17. Buhler most recently served as senior director of mountain operations at Vail Resorts-owned Northstar California near Lake Tahoe. In a media release, Vail Resorts Eastern Regio...

SAM Magazine—Burke, Vt., June 22, 2023—An unnamed bidder has made an offer of an undisclosed amount to buy Burke Mountain Resort, according to a filing by Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed receiver in charge of overseeing the ski area.  Goldberg will continue to seek other qualified buyers, according to VT Digger. If a matching or higher ...

In SAM’s Snow People, we highlight recent personnel moves that have been made in the mountain resort industry. From resort hires, promotions, and retirements to supplier news, awards and obits, we celebrate the people that make this industry thrive. PEOPLE LAUREN BURKE, MT. BACHELOR, OR Mt. Bachelor has hired Lauren Burke as director of market...

SAM Magazine—Natick, Mass., June 15, 2023—SAM's 13th Summer Ops Camp—an immersive, hands-on networking and educational event—is heading to Steamboat, Colo., Sept. 10-12, 2023. This year’s camp curriculum will offer attendees a spectacular mountain environment and engaging activities. We’ll explore the positive effects of communit...

SAM Magazine—Montville, N.J., June 15, 2023—Snow Partners promoted Jeff Boliba to the newly formed role of chief growth officer. As CGO, Boliba will oversee strategic partnerships and future growth across SNOW Partners’ businesses, which include Big SNOW American Dream and Mountain Creek, N.J., SnowCloud, SNO-GO, and SNOW Operating.  Boliba...

SAM Magazine—Highmount, N.Y., June 14, 2023—A number of new capital upgrades including two new lifts and a 4,000-square-foot addition to the Longhouse Lodge are in the planning stages at Belleayre Mountain Ski Center after the New York Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) released its 2023 Unit Management Plan Amendment (UMPA). The rel...

SAM Magazine—Winter Park, Colo., June 14, 2023—Lodging properties at western mountain destinations are facing a more price-sensitive customer this summer, according to the latest Market Briefing from DestiMetrics, part of the business intelligence division of Inntopia. Data collected through May 31 from 17 mountain destinations in seven states ...

SAM Magazine—Broomfield, Colo., June 13, 2023—Vail Resorts showed strong visits and revenues for the fiscal third quarter ended April 30. That helped offset soft early-season, weather-related results in the Northeast and Tahoe regions, according the company. VR also reported that early season pass sales for 2023-24 were up 6 percent in units a...