SAM Magazine—Denver, June 21, 2012—Summer travel is sizzling in western mountain destinations. On-the-books occupancy for the month of June was up 16.2 percent compared to the prior June as of May 31, according to data from the Mountain Travel Research Program (MTRiP). Bookings for the six month period, June through November, are up 17....

SAM Magazine—Hartford, Conn., June 19, 2012—The Connecticut Appellate Court upheld a jury verdict in a case brought against Ski Sundown, Conn., by James Malaguit, who was rendered quadriplegic in a 2006 accident at the ski area. In October 2010, a jury found that the plaintiff was responsible for his own injuries and that the ski area w...

SAM Magazine—June 13, 2012—During its annual meeting, held yesterday at Mount Sunapee, Ski NH released its end-of-season numbers, which were down approximately 21%. New Hampshire hosted 1.9 million skier visits, down from 2.35 million in 2010/11. The state also hosted 96,000 xc visits and 93,000 tubing visits during the 2011/12 season. ...

SAM Magazine—Denver, June 11, 2012—Several water districts and the Colorado petroleum industry have filed amicus briefs to support a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Colorado against a 2011 Forest Service regulation requiring winter resorts to grant certain water rights to the Service. The original lawsuit, filed by the National...

SAM Magazine--June 11, 2012--According to NZCity, more than 6,000 skiers and snowboarders flocked to Queenstown's Coronet Peak and Canterbury's Mt Hutt—a record-breaking opening weekend in the South Island. NZ Ski CEO James Coddington says they've never had more than 3,000 people through for opening weekend at Mt Hutt before. ...

SAM Magazine—June 11, 2012—According to published reports, a massive wildfire in New Mexico has damaged ski lifts at Ski Apache. The area fought the blaze, which has burned more than 35,000 acres in the Lincoln National Forest, with its own snowmaking equipment, setting up guns around its base lodge to ward off the flames. That effort, ...

SAM Magazine—Evergreen, Colo., June 8, 2012—Echo Mountain Ski resort will be sold via a sealed-bid auction, with bids due by August 2. Racebrook and its auction affiliate, Sheldon Good & Company, are conducting the sale. Echo, 35 miles west of downtown Denver, is situated entirely on private land. Owner Gerald Petitt paid $800,00...

SAM Magazine—Kelowna, B.C., June 6, 2012—Big White and Silver Star resorts, which had been under a single ownership for a decade, have split apart following the death of former owner Desmond Robert Schumann in April. Schumann, who bought Big White in 1985 and Silver Star Mountain Resort in 2001, is widely credited with making both re...

SAM Magazine—June 6, 2012—Valle Nevado, Chile, and Mammoth Mountain, Calif., are pleased to announce a new sister resort partnership effective May 2012. Valle Nevado, located 90 minutes from Santiago, and Mammoth Mountain, located in Central California, are two of the largest and most popular resorts in their respective countries, and a...

SAM Magazine—June 6, 2012—The Vermont Ski Areas Association (VSAA) announced that Vermont ski resorts recorded 3,903,171 skier and rider visits, just 5% off of the ten-year average and 11% off of 2010/11, which logged 4,365,906 visits. Despite low natural snowfall during the 2011-12 ski season, snowmaking and grooming enabled Vermont...

SAM Magazine—June 6, 2012—Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA) announced today that its 22 member resorts hosted 6.16 million visits, an 11.4% decline from last year. Vail Resorts, which is not a member of CSCUSA, reported a 9.8% decrease in visits at all of its resorts, including those in California. With Vail's Colorado resorts talli...

SAM Magazine—June 5, 2012—The Utah ski and snowboard industry announced 3,802,536 million skier day visits during the 2011-12 winter season, down 10 percent from the previous season’s 4,223,064. Low snow totals plaguing resorts nationwide and the persistence of a wavering economy are credited for the decrease at Utah ski and snowb...

SAM Magazine—Boise, Idaho, June 5, 2012—Bank of America has acted on its threat to remove the Wildwood Express chair lift at bankrupt Tamarack Resort. The bank has hired Highlander Ski Lift Services & Construction of nearby McCall to dismantle and remove the lift, and much of the work has already been completed. According to Paul...

SAM Magazine—Charleston, W. Va., May 30, 2012—Jim Justice, owner of The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, has agreed to purchase Wintergreen Resort. The Wintergreen Partners' board of directors approved the merger agreement last Friday. If, as expected, the Class A Equity members of Wintergreen also approve the deal at a m...

SAM Magazine—May 30, 2012—NASTAR, the largest public grassroots ski race program in the world, announced a new partnership with Aspen/Snowmass, Colo., to serve as the host resort for the 2013 and 2014 Nature Valley NASTAR National Championships. Skiers from approximately 45 states, ranging in age from three to 90, will compete at the re...

SAM Magazine—May 24, 2012—QBurke Mountain Resorts, LLC, a company headed by businessman Ariel Quiros has acquired Burke Mountain Resort, Vt. Quiros, along with Bill Stenger, president and co-owner of Jay Peak Resort, Vt., purchased the Jay Peak Resort from Mont Saint-Sauveur Valley resorts in June 2008. The ownership of QBurke Mou...

SAM Magazine—Denver, May 24, 2012—The U.S. Forest Service, responding to the NSAA lawsuit regarding water rights, claimed last month that the Forest Service has the legal right to attach restrictions to the water rights included in ski area permits. The issue will eventually be settled in the courts, with NSAA due to file its legal brie...

SAM Magazine—Denver, May 18, 2012—Despite a 15 percent decline in skier visits in the 2011-12 season, lodging properties at 16 western mountain destinations experienced only a 2.8 percent decrease in actual occupancy for the season, according to the most recent data distributed by the Mountain Travel Research Program (MTRiP). The averag...

SAM Magazine—Jackson Hole, Wyo., May 17, 2012—Despite receiving below-normal snowfall last season—100 inches less than average, and 200 inches less than in 2010-11—Jackson Hole recorded its second-highest skier visits total ever, 479,000, just a few thousand short of its all-time high. The area profited from having enough sn...

SAM Magazine—Vernon, N.J., May 15, 2012—Mountain Creek Resort has filed suit against Everest Indemnity Insurance Company in an attempt to force the insurer to pay a claim under the resort’s weather insurance policy. The court’s ruling could have a broad impact on how such insurance is written in the future. The Mountain C...

SAM Magazine—Eden, Utah, May 11, 2012—Wolf Creek Utah Resort, Wolf Mountain Ski Resort and a number of buildings and other assets, including development property, will be sold at auction on Friday June 1. In all, more than 3,000 acres of mountain valley property is for sale. Auction parcels include an 18-hole championship golf course...

SAM Magazine—San Antonio, Tex., May 10, 2012—National resort visits totaled an estimated 51 million this past season, a decline of 15.7 percent from the previous year’s record total of 60.54 million, according to the Kottke National End of Season Survey. The total was the lowest since 1991-92. Visits were down in all regions, a...

SAM Magazine—Waterville Valley, N.H., May 7, 2012—The Boston Red Sox and Waterville Valley Resort are teaming up via a three-year deal that makes them corporate partners through 2014. The deal includes Waterville Valley lift ticket giveaways, exposure on the centerfield scoreboard and in the EMC-level suites, presence in the Fenway P...

SAM Magazine—Park City, Utah, May 2, 2012—Now in its third year, SAM's Summer Ops Camp will head west to Canyons, Utah, from September 4 to 6. The Summer Ops Camp is a hands-on educational and networking event that gathers resort managers and operators from around North America to explore the exciting opportunities in four-season at...

SAM Magazine--May 2, 2012--Vail Resorts, Inc., released lift ticket sales, ski school and other ancillary results from the 2011/12 season, as compared to the same approximate time period last year. The measurements are from the beginning of the ski season through April 22, 2012, and are compared to the beginning of the ski season in 2010 through Ap...

SAM Magazine—April 26, 2012—In spite of postponing its opening by one week due to minimal snow conditions, Whitefish Mountain Resort, Mont., is more than pleased with the finish of the 2011/2012 ski season. Although snowfall and skier visits were down in December, the resort reported more snow in January, February and March in 2012 than...

SAM Magazine—Salt Lake City, Utah, Apr. 24, 2012—Twenty prominent business and community leaders have formed a coalition to support SkiLink, which would connect Canyons and Solitude via gondola. They hope the project will pave the way for additional links between resorts and the eventual creation of the largest multi-area “ski cir...

SAM Magazine—Woodbury, Conn., April 18, 2012—SAM Magazine is excited to announce the winners of the 2012 SAMMY Leadership Awards. The three recipients prove that to be successful in the mountain resort industry takes a lot of energy, enthusiasm and, above all, passion. The 2012 SAMMY winners are: Jody Churich, ...

SAM Magazine—Seattle, Apr. 18, 2012—Eight legends of skiing were inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall Fame in a ceremony here last Saturday. Among the honorees were ski area developers Nick Badami and Phil Gravink, ski show producer Harry Leonard, ski historian Mason Beekley, speed skier and writer Dick Dorworth, and competitor...

SAM Magazine—Squaw Valley, Calif., Apr. 18, 2012—Below average snowfall and snowpack, combined with record-breaking warm temperatures, led to a 3.9 percent decline in occupancy at Western mountain destinations during March compared to the same month last year, according to the Mountain Travel Research Program (MTRiP). Similar declines w...

SAM Magazine—Broomfield, Colo., Apr. 18, 2012—Vail Resorts has joined conservation groups in supporting Senator Mark Udall and Congressman Jared Polis in their efforts to designate additional wilderness and special management areas in Eagle and Summit counties, home to Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, and Keystone. The areas under cons...

SAM Magazine—Park City, Utah, April 16, 2012—Continuing a three-year wrangle, Park City Mountain Resort and its landlord, Talisker, remain in negotiations regarding PCMR’s lease of much of its ski terrain, despite a series of legal moves in the courts. Last week, Talisker responded to a lawsuit filed by PCMR in early March, in ...

SAM Magazine—Boise, Idaho, Apr. 16, 2012—Pension fund trustee and investment adviser Matthew Hutcheson, who bid $40 million for Tamarack Resort in 2010, has been arrested on 31 counts for defrauding two pension funds under his control. The indictment charges that Hutcheson used the money in his effort to buy the Tamarack resort as well ...

SAM Magazine—Washington, D.C., Apr. 13, 2012—Snow sports retail sales were down 12 percent in units and 4 percent in dollars through the end of February, according to the RetailTRAK, released by SnowSports Industries America (SIA) and The Leisure Trends Group. Sales totaled $3.2 billion. Sales declined most for accessories, down 15 p...

SAM Magazine--April 12, 2012--Vail Resorts, Inc. (VR) today announced that the company has closed on its acquisition of Kirkwood Mountain Resort at Lake Tahoe, Calif. Vail Resorts now operates three mountain resorts in the Lake Tahoe region and together with Heavenly Mountain Resort and Northstar California. The transaction, which included the ski ...

SAM Magazine--April 11, 2012--Powderhorn, Colo., is celebrating the end of its first season under new ownership with good results. The season started on August 4, 2011, with the purchase of the 45-year-old western Colorado resort by Andy Daly and Ken, Tom and John Gart. While most resorts had to open late or close early this season, Powderhorn ...

SAM Magazine-Aspen, April 5, 2012-While many Colorado resorts experienced skier-day declines in the face of a warm, dry winter, Aspen/Snowmass saw visits increase through February, and they could end up for the season. The reason? Aspen's position as a true destination resort. Through the beginning of March, Aspen room occupancy was up 8.4 perce...

SAM Magazine--April 5, 2012--Actor Bruce Willis has announced that he would be willing to give his small Idaho ski area, Soldier Mountain, away to the right non-profit group. Soldier Mountain operates two chairs and one rope tow on permitted Forest Service land (about 1,150 acres). According to published reports, one such nonprofit group, the So...

SAM Magazine--April 5, 2012--Fifty-two years after the Olympic flame was first ignited in the Tahoe region, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and Nevada Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki announced the formation of the Lake Tahoe Winter Games Exploratory Committee (LTWGEC) today, a new joint California Nevada initiative to develop an Olym...

SAM Magazine--April 3, 2012--TechnoAlpin, founded in 1990 in Bolzano (Italy) and a major player in snowmaking, (35% market share in Europe) has just formalized the acquisition of all the activities of Johnson Controls Neige (JCN) in France, Italy and the U.S. JCN is a snowmaking equipment market leader in France with 60% market share and 30% worldw...

SAM Magazine--April 3, 2012--Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker signed the "Skier Safety Act" today defining the responsibilities of both participants and ski area operators. Wisconsin Ski Industries Association (WSIA), representing 32 ski areas across the state, expressed gratitude to Representative Pat Strachota and Senator Glenn Grothman for thei...

SAM Magazine--March 30, 2012--According to the Cache Valley Daily, Utah's Cache County Board of Adjustment upheld the planning commission's approval of a conditional use permit for the proposed Cherry Peak Ski Area this week. Logan Checketts, who owns the property where Cherry Peak would operate, was first granted the permit in February, but sev...

SAM Magazine--March 28, 2012--The NY-state-owned Belleayre Ski Center has found a new overseer with the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), which operates both Whiteface and Gore Mountain for the State of N.Y. Until now, Belleayre was under the control of the Department of Environmental Conservation. The move is expected to benefit Be...

SAM Magazine-Newry, Maine, Mar. 26, 2012-Weather-challenged resorts in the East and West are declaring their commitment to guests by making snow, extending their seasons, or offering free skiing and riding. As most Eastern ski resorts are closing for the season in the wake of last week's unprecedented heat, Sunday River, Sugarloaf, and Loon Moun...

SAM Magazine--March 23, 2012--Bolton Valley, Vt., officials announced that the Vermont Land Trust has signed a contract to purchase the 1,161 acres of terrain that host the Bolton Valley Nordic and backcountry trails. The Vermont Land Trust's purchase price and related expenses is $1,850,000. Because of the property's statewide significance, th...

SAM Magazine-Invermere, B.C., Mar. 21, 2012-The B.C. government has approved development of the long-stalled Jumbo Glacier Alpine Resort, which could become the country's first year-round glacier-based ski resort if environmental appeals don't cause further delays. The resort will be located in the Purcell Mountains on an old sawmill site, not far ...

SAM Magazine--March 19, 2012--Colorado Ski Country USA's (CSCUSA) 22 member resorts reported a decrease in skier visitation during the second period of the 2011/12 ski season, which counts skier visitation from January 1 through February 29. During this mid-season time period, skier visits at CSCUSA resorts slipped by 5.2 percent compared to las...

SAM Magazine--March 16, 2012--The non-profit organization that runs Mt. Ashland, Ore., the Mt. Ashland Association, was granted the Forest Service permit to operate the ski area. Prior to the Forest Service decision yesterday, the city of Ashland held the permit, but the City Council voted last Fall to give it up in order to have better control ove...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, Mar. 16, 2012-The Alpine World Cup finals are still to come, but already USST athletes are primed to conclude one of the most successful seasons in history. The list of accomplishments is quite long: • Lindsey Vonn won her 16th career Audi FIS World Cup title. She also won her 53rd race, fifth-best all-time am...

SAM Magazine--March 9, 2012--Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) today filed a lawsuit against Talisker Land Holdings, LLC. The suit seeks to resolve a lease issue. "After extensive and, sadly, unsuccessful negotiations, we reluctantly took the initiative to file this lawsuit," says Jenni Smith, president and general manager of Park City Mountain ...

SAM Magazine-Washington, D.C., Mar. 7, 2012-Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month (LSSM) 2012 taught nearly 100,000 beginner lessons during January, program organizers estimate, up from 75,000 the previous year, despite a widespread lack of snow. To counter the uncooperative weather, many resorts focused attention on their snowmaking expertise to hel...

SAM Magazine-Salt Lake City, Mar. 7, 2012-The Utah legislature has passed a resolution supporting the long-dreamed-of Utah Interconnect, which would link Deer Valley, Park City, Canyons, Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, and Brighton. The resolution passed the Utah State Senate on Mar. 5, 22 to 7, and the House of Representatives on Mar. 6, 58 to 16, large...

SAM Magazine-Broomfield, Colo., Mar. 6, 2012-Vail Resorts (VR) saw its fiscal second-quarter net income drop 15 percent as the mild, low-snow winter kept customers away, especially at its Tahoe resorts. Increased ticket prices and room rates mitigated the drop in visits, or the decline would have been greater. This winter's weather has been espe...

SAM Magazine--Londonderry, Vt--March 6, 2012--One month after selling its 300th share, the threshold needed to begin the skier-owned Magic Partnership LLC at Magic Mountain was met. The ski area finished raising the maximum shares allowed for the investment with 333 shares sold at a price of $3,000 each for a total of $999,000. Much of this capital...

SAM Magazine-Big Sky, Mont., Feb. 24, 2012-For the first time, Big Sky will run the Lone Peak Tram to give guests access to the 11,166-foot peak and its 360-degree views, and offer guided Lone Peak Expeditions, starting in July 2012. The outings will involve riding a chairlift, the tram, and safari vehicle. The Tram has operated winters only since ...

SAM Magazine-Wildwood, Mo., Feb. 24, 2012-Peak Resorts plans to spend $2 million on a variety of improvements at Hidden Valley ski area for the 2012-13 season. Hidden Valley plans to expand skiable terrain by 30 percent, including a new 2,000 foot-long run that will be the resort's longest; blanket the new terrain with snowmaking; and add a quad ch...

SAM Magazine-Middlefield, Conn., Feb. 24, 2012-The town of Middlefield's Board of Selectmen last week approved a $1 million bid to purchase and reopen Powder Ridge ski area in the latest attempt to revive a hill that has been closed since 2007. The bid was made by the owners of nearby Brownstone Exploration & Discovery Park. Brownstone's managin...

SAM Magazine-Broomfield, Colo., Feb. 22, 2012-Vail Resorts will acquire Kirkwood Mountain Resort in a deal expected to close within the next month, making Kirkwood VR's third property in the Tahoe area and seventh overall. Purchase price is approximately $18 million. Vail Resorts is purchasing the ski resort as well as the undeveloped sites at t...

SAM Magazine-Stevens Pass, Wash., Feb. 20, 2012- Three skiers died in an out-of-bounds avalanche on the back side of Stevens Pass Sunday, including Stevens marketing director Chris Rudolph. The others were professional freestyle skiing judge Jim Jack and local John Brenan. A fourth person caught in the slide, pro skier Elyse Saugstad, deployed an a...

SAM Magazine-Denver, Feb. 17, 2012-Recent shifts in storm systems that brought much-needed snow to many western resorts came too late to boost early season destination travel, with hotel occupancy declining 3.7 percent during the month of January, according to the most recent data from the Mountain Travel Research Program (MTRiP). The booking pace ...