SAM Magazine - Somerset, Pa., September, 2007 - The Buncher Company has announced that the organization has finalized the purchase of Hidden Valley Four Seasons Resort. The 1,500 acre resort was formerly owned by the Kettler family who has operated the resort since the early 1980's. Terms were not disclosed. The 1,500-acre ski area features 28 t...

SAM Magazine - Ketchum, Id., September 5, 2007 - The USFS has announced the containment of the Castle Rock fire, which burned nearly 50,000 acres and threatened the ski resort of Sun Valley. According to the USFS, mop up operations and rehabilitation of fire lines will be the primary focus of operations over the next few days. According to the U...

SAM Magazine-Sun Valley, Ida., Aug. 31, 2007-The western side of Sun Valley Ski Resort is under extreme pressure from the Castle Rock Fire, with crews struggling to prevent the unpredictable blaze from torching the ski area itself. The fire, which has kicked up several spot blazes on the resort itself, has also forced the evacuation of several Ketc...

SAM Magazine-Broomfield, Colo., Aug. 30, 2007-Skiers and snowboarders can buy four days at Keystone Resort or Arapahoe Basin for $129 with the 4-Pack pass, on sale through Oct. 14. The 4-Pack is non-transferable and must be purchased in person, and comes with major holiday blackout days-Christmas Martin Luther King, Presidents among them. The 4-Pac...

SAM Magazine-Val Gardena, Italy, Aug. 30, 2007-Val Gardena is replacing a fixed grip triple chair with a new high-speed detachable quad. The new Sole chair will have a capacity of 1,800 people an hour and is one of six being installed in the Dolomiti Superski region this summer. The Sole chair brings the total number of high-speed detachable quads ...

SAM Magazine-Wilmington, N.Y., Aug. 21, 2007-Whiteface will nearly complete development of its permitted skiing and riding options with the construction of 3.7 miles of additional terrain, for a total of 24.5 miles, by December 2008. The New York ski resort is limited to 25 miles of trails by its operating permit. Whiteface's Lookout Mountain ex...

SAM Magazine-Big Sky, Mont., Aug. 21, 2007-Big Sky has started a two-year project to increase skier access on expert-oriented Lone Peak, currently served only by the resort's Lone Peak Tram. The first stage of the project is installation of a fixed grip triple chair, the Dakota Lift, part of a two-lift system that will provide a second access po...

SAM Magazine-Tahoe City, Calif., Aug. 9, 2007-Jim Kercher is the new General Manager of Alpine Meadows Ski Resort, which was recently purchased by JMA Ventures from Powdr Corp. A long-time Californian who worked at Alpine Meadows from 1976 until 1990, Kercher has spent the last 17 years at a variety of major resorts, mostly as a ski school an...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, Aug. 8, 2007-Recriminations are swirling around the $100 million July 15 sale agreement that would transfer The Canyons from American Skiing Company (ASC) to Talisker Corp. For the moment, the sale is on hold, perhaps until a Colorado court rules on a temporary injunction by Oct. 1. But eventual resolution of all the i...

SAM Magazine-Aspen, Colo., August 8, 2007-The industry took a step closer to the $100 adult day ticke last week when Aspen raised the price for a single day on the slopes during that resort's 2007-2008 season to $87, a $5 increase from last season. While $82 itself seems steep for a day of skiing, Aspen didn't have the most expensive ticket in the ...

SAM Magazine-Orlando, Fla., Aug. 8, 2007-CNL Income Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on lifestyle properties, has acquired the assets of Sugarloaf and Sunday River, Maine. In a simultaneous transaction, Boyne USA Resorts acquired the stock of the American Skiing Company subsidiaries owning the resorts and sold the asse...

SAM Magazine-Chewelah, Wash., Aug. 8, 2007-49 Degrees North has obtained $45 million in funding from Pacific Northwest real estate venture capital firm US Resort Venture, LLC. The 2,450-acre resort is expected to undergo several phases of development, featuring a 40-acre village as well as a variety of lodging and residential properties. The ski...

SAM Magazine-Hancock, Mass., Aug. 8, 2007-Jiminy Peak's wind turbine, installed over the summer as part of a green initiative, has begun operation. Named the Zephyr following a contest that involved locals and passholders, the turbine is expected to produce an average of 5,000 kWh per day for a total of 150,000 kWh during the month of August. With ...

SAM Magazine-Tahoe City, Calif., July 31, 2007-San Francisco-based real estate investment firm JMA Ventures has completed its purchase of Alpine Meadows. No sale price has been disclosed. Art Chapman,president of JMA Ventures, has a vested interest in the area. "My family and I have skied here for decades. My kids grew up skiing here," he said. ...

SAM Magazine-Salt Lake City, July 31, 2007-Online Media, host of the popular First Tracks!! Online Ski Magazine, is launching UtahSkiAndSnowboard.com, a new digital magazine focused on the Utah ski and snowboard experience. "Utah has the best skiing and riding in the nation, and probably the world," said Marc Guido, UtahSkiAndSnowboard.com's edi...

SAM Magazine-Wrightwood, Calif., July 24, 2007-Mountain High has become the latest addition to the CNL resort stable. CNL Income Properties, Inc., has purchased Mountain High for $45 million from Valor Equity Partners. Current management remains in place, with a 20-year lease with the option of two 10-year renewals. Karl Kapuscinski, president o...

SAM Magazine-Newry, Me., July 23, 2007-Sunday River and Sugarloaf, Me., will offer a joint season pass next season. The new pass will debut Aug. 15, with prices starting at $299 for restricted mid-week passes and maxing out at $799 for an adult non-restricted pass. The two resorts were recently purchased by Boyne USA from American Skiing Company. ...

SAM Magazine-Mountain Creek, N.J., July 19, 2007-Mountain Creek is significantly upgrading its freeriding facilities. It's part of a long-term commitment for the resort, which was one of the first ski areas to commit heavily to the freeride market. The resort's initiative focuses on redeveloping its South and Bear peaks into freeride zones, as w...

SAM Magazine-Crystal Mountain, Wash., July 18, 2007-Crystal Mountain is adding a double chair that increases the resort's available terrain by a whopping 77 percent. The chair, a Doppelmayr, will have a 10-minute ride that will access approximately 1,000 acres, bringing the resort's total lift-served terrain to 2,300 acres. The Northway double will...

SAM Magazine-The Canyons, Ut., July 18, 2007-American Skiing Company (ASC) is selling The Canyons ski area to the Talisker Corporation, a privately-held global real estate development company based in Toronto, Canada, that has significant assets in Park City. Upon completion of the sale, expected to occur by the end of the third quarter, ASC will n...

SAM Magazine-Ischgl, Austria, July 18, 2007-Two Austrian resorts are adding lift capacity this summer. Ischgl's lift company, Silvrettaseilbahn AG, is replacing its workhorse six-passenger Fimbabahn gondola with a two-stage eight-passenger model with heated seats. In Kitzbühel, a new eight-seater high-speed chairlift is replacing two fixed-grip ...

SAM Magazine-Vancouver, July 18, 2007-Intrawest has named Andy Wirth executive vice president of sales and marketing and chief marketing officer. In his new capacity, Wirth will be responsible for all aspects of Intrawest's global sales and marketing and will assist in developing and communicating the company's vision and strategy, driving market s...

SAM Magazine-Concord, N.H., July 12, 2007-The New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development has hired John DeVivo to be the new general manager for Cannon Mountain Resort and Franconia Notch State Park.DeVivo assumes his new role on Friday, July 13th. DeVivo had previously been vice president of mountain operations at Attitash R...

SAM Magazine-Salida, Colo., July 12, 2007- This winter, Monarch season passholders can ski free or at a discounted rate during the 2007-08 winter season at nine other Western ski areas. The resorts that Monarch has partnered with for this program also offer similar free or discounted rates at Monarch to their passholders. Colorado skiers have lo...

SAM Magazine-Buffalo, Wyo., July 11, 2007-Big Horn Mountain Resorts, which had recently offered to sell the Big Horn Mountain Ski Resort, Meadowlark Lake Resort, Deer Haven Resort and the Wilderness Ranch through an auction process, remains the properties' owner. No bids were received for the purchase of all four resorts by a single bidder-Big Horn...

SAM Magazine-Carrabassett Valley, Me., July 11, 2007-Sugarloaf will host the 2008 U.S. Alpine Championships, the second time in three years it will host the championships. The resort also hosted the U.S. Alpine Championships in 2006. "Sugarloaf has been a great host for us and has a strong history of outstanding races," U.S. Alpine Director Jess...

SAM Magazine-Crans-Montana, Switz., July 11, 2007-Swiss resort Crans-Montana has embarked on extensive improvements to the mountain's snowmaking system. The resort hopes the upgrades will allow it to provide adequate snow cover with only 70 hours of work when the weather cooperates. The aim is to provide a consistent skiing surface by the Christmas...

SAM Magazine-San Francisco, Calif., July 11, 2007-The California Ski Industry Association reports that California resorts hosted 6.2 million visits last winter, a drop of more than 20 percent from the 7.8 million skier visits the areas recorded in the 2005-06 season. The state has averaged 7.3 million visits over the past ten years. "The culprit...

SAM Magazine-Snowmass, Colo., July 11, 2007-The developers of Snowmass Mountain's new resort village are seeking to make the $2 billion project one of the first developments of its kind to be chosen for the new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Pilot Neighborhood Development certification program. Developer Related WestPac say...

SAM Magazine - Steamboat, Colo., July 8, 2007 - Steamboat has announced that the northern Colorado resort will aggressively market itself to New York skiers and is putting its money where its mouth is by adding additional airplane seats on direct flights from New York to the ski town. The flights, scheduled for Saturdays, will have the potential to...

SAM Magazine - Whitefish, Mt., July 6, 2007 - Whitefish (formerly Big Mountain) CEO and President Fred Jones has announced that he is retiring. Jones, who is expected to be retained by the resort as a consultant, will be replaced by Daniel Graves. Jones leaves the resort during a period of transition for the brand. Last month the ski area change...

Australian Resorts Plant Seeds For Snow SAM Magazine-Melbourne, Australia, July 5, 2007-With preliminary results in from three years of cloud-seeding tests, Australian resorts are pushing the New South Wales government to continue the program. Cloud seeding trials begun in 2004 aimed to increase snow depth in the target area by 10 percent. A s...

SAM Magazine-Selva Gardena, Italy, July 5, 2007-A swath of improvements in the Italian Dolomiti Superski region this summer includes high speed quads, gondolas and additional snowmaking. The new lifts include a new covered detachable quad chairlifts in Cortina d'Ampezzo and Val di Fiemme/Obereggen. Val di Fiemme/Obereggen will also add more snowmak...

SAM Magazine-Lincoln, N.H., July 5, 2007-New Hampshire's Loon Mountain has started a $10 million investment on the resort's South Peak expansion. The development, which is expected to open in December, features a new high speed quad, which will serve approximately 50 acres of intermediate and advanced terrain. The area will be accessed by an additi...

SAM Magazine-Guatemala City, Guatemala. July 5, 2007-The International Olympic Committee has chosen the Russian resort of Krasnaya Polyana and the adjacent town of Sochi to host the 2014 Winter Games, beating out Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea. "The Winter Olympic Games in Russia for the first time in our history stand as a his...

SAM Magazine--Lakewood, Colo., June 29, 2007--In a move designed to address the aging population of Boomer skiers, Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, has declared that 60 is the new 50. Ironically, the move coincides with Berry's own 60th birthday tomorrow, June 30. "Age is a frame of mind," declared Berry, rather ...

SAM Magazine-Broomfield, Colo., June 28, 2007-Vail Resorts (VR) will donate $5 from the sale of each 2007-08 Heavenly season pass sold between now and December 2007 to residents impacted by the Angora fire currently ravaging the South Lake Tahoe area. The program is expected to raise about $75,000. By early Thursday morning, the South Lake Tahoe...

SAM Magazine-Buffalo, Wyo., June 28, 2007- The auction sale of Big Horn Mountain Resorts-consisting of Big Horn Ski Resort and its sister resorts Meadowlark Lake Resort, Deer Haven Resort, and Wilderness Ranch-has been postponed until July 3, to give potential buyers more time to assess the properties. The auction includes all the buildings, equipm...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Ut., June 28, 2007-Park City will be the home of USSA's new national training center. Dubbed the Center of Excellence, the facility will be a state-of-the-art structure with world-class facilities designed to improve athletic performance. Construction on the $22.5 million center will begin this summer, with groundbreaking Ju...

SAM Magazine-Denver, Colo., June 26, 2007-The Colorado Tramway Safety Board has cleared the Aspen Skiing Company of any wrongdoing in conjunction with a Feb. 19 incident that involved a 10-year-old German girl who fell approximately 60 feet from a chairlift at Aspen Highlands. The Board voted 4 to 3 to dismiss the complaint. The girl, who was in...

SAM Magazine-Killington, Vt., June 26, 2007-Powdr Corp.'s new management at Killington and Pico has restructured its workforce, laying off many longtime, year-round employees as a result. Officials said the job cuts touched all departments and levels. The company did not release numbers, but affected employees estimated that 30 to 90 people lost th...

SAM Magazine-Telluride, Colo., June 26, 2007-Dave Riley will become the new president and CEO of the Telluride Ski and Golf Resort in late July. Riley has been president and CEO of Mt. Hood Meadows ski resort, where he has worked since 1993. Telluride has operated without a CEO for the past few years-since the days when Booth Creek managed the a...

SAM Magazine-Danbury, N.H., June 26, 2007-Industry veteran Bob Fries is the new president of Ragged Mountain. Fries will be responsible for all facets of resort operations, including skiing, golf, and real estate. Fries takes the position after a five-year stint as co-owner and president of Bolton Valley, Vt. He previously served as president of...

SAM Magazine-Portland, Me., June 22, 2007-Maine ski resorts fought off a brutal early season to post a modest gain of 1 percent on total skier visits for the 2006-07 season. The gain came in the face of a 6.7 percent downturn on the year for the Northeast region, and a 6.9 percent drop for the nation as a whole. Late-season storms saved the stat...

SAM Magazine-Aspen, Colo., June 22, 2007-The Colorado Tramway Safety Board (CTSB) has received a complaint from the family of a girl who fell off an Aspen chairlift last winter. Celine Ofenito, age 10, slipped and fell approximately 60 feet off of Aspen's Cloud 9 lift in February. The girl suffered several injuries as a result of the fall, includin...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, June 21, 2007-American Skiing Company (ASC) plans to dissolve itself now that it has agreed to sell Sunday River and Sugarloaf, Me., to Boyne USA. As a result of the move to dissolve the corporation, ownership of the remaining ASC resort, The Canyons, will pass to Oak Hill Capital Partners, currently the majority stock...

SAM Magazine--North Woodstock, N.H., June 20, 2007--Ski NH reported a total of 1,960,251 visits for the 2006-07 season, which is three percent less than last season. Thanks to warm temps and little snow in New England for the first half of the season, visits were off in the state by 40 to 60 percent as of Martin Luther King weekend. Once the weathe...

SAM Magazine--Copper Mountain, Colo., June 14, 2007--Colorado Ski Country USA announced that the state set a new visit record during the 2006-07 season with 12.56 million skier visits. It's the second year in a row that Colorado's 26 ski and snowboard resorts have set visitation records, although this past season's 12.56 million visits bested last ...

SAM Magazine - Whitefish, Mt., June 14, 2007 - The Montana ski resort of Big Mountain, outside of Whitefish, has announced that the ski area is launching a new branding and positioning initiative for Big Mountain Resort. As a result, Big Mountain will change its name to Whitefish Mountain Resort As part of the resort's positioning strategy, the...

SAM Magazine - Salt Lake City. Ut., June 13 - Utah ski resorts set the state's fourth consecutive record for skier visits, racking up 4,082,094 skier days. The total bucked a national trend, which saw skier days slip 7% on the year overall. "We've seen some strong growth over the past five years." Commented Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty. "M...

SAM Magazine - Broomfield, Co., June 13, 2007 - Lucy Kay has been named chief operating officer of Breckenridge Resort. Kay, formerly the vice president of marketing for Keystone and Breckenridge, will assume the reigns of COO immediately. Kay is a familiar face around Summit County, where she's been involved in the ski industry for the past twenty...

SAM Magazine-Warren, Vt., June 8, 2007-Skier visits declined 7 percent in Vermont last season, according to Vermont Ski Areas Association (VSAA). In 2006-07, Vermont ski areas tallied 3,820431 visits, down from the approximately 4.1 million skier visits in 2005-06. The decline was consistent with numbers across the country: total skier visits acros...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, June 6, 2007-Boyne USA is purchasing Sunday River and Sugarloaf/USA, Me., from American Skiing Company (ASC) for $77 million in cash. Boyne will also assume $2 million in debt and other liabilities. "We are excited to bring almost 60 years of resort experience to the New England market," Stephen Kircher, Boyne's pre...

SAM Magazine-Lakewood, Colo., June 4, 2007-Tim White, NSAA director of education, has resigned to become executive director of the National Ski Patrol (NSP), effective June 18. His appointment comes after nearly two years of internal turmoil for the organization, which had left its direction unclear. To that point, White told SAM, "I want to make i...

SAM Magazine - Vancouver, B.C., May 29, 2007 - Intrawest has announced that the company has appointed Michael Forsayeth as chief financial officer. Forsayeth will head Intrawest's global financial operations, reporting directly to president and COO Alex Wasilov. Based out of Intrawest's global headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, Forsayeth has ser...

SAM Magazine - Boulder, Co., May 29, 2007 - Mountain Sports Media, the owners of Ski and Skiing Magazines, Warren Miller's SnoWorld and SkiNet.com have announced the acquisition of SnowGallera.com by MSM. SnowGalleria.com, an online collective of retailers which sends business via the web to specialty retailers, was launched by Descente/DNA COO ...

SAM Magazine - Minturn, Co., May 23, 2007 - A private resort outside of Vail has won preliminary approval from the Minturn Planning Commission. Last night the Commission recommended that the Minturn Town Council approve the Ginn Development Company's private ski and golf community located outside the town on Battle Mountain. The proposed ski area, ...

SAM Magazine-McLean, Va., May 24, 2007-Total dollar sales for wintersports specialty stores rebounded from a midseason slump, finishing at $1.8 billion, just one percent off last year's total, according to the end-of-season Retail Audit conducted by Leisure Trends Group for SnowSports Industries America (SIA). Overall unit sales and average retail ...

SAM Magazine, May 24, 2007--Stanislas Gregory Myerhof, the first of the two members of the Earth Liberation Front group-"the Family" responsible for the Vail arsons-has received a 13-year sentence. Myerhof, who pleaded guilty for 62 counts including the 1998 fires at Vail, which burned the Two Elk Lodge and other buildings, was known as the "Tec...

SAM Magazine-Bonita Springs, Calif., May 17, 2007-Source Interlink Cos., a magazine, CD and DVD distributor controlled by Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle, has agreed to buy the Enthusiast Media division of Primedia, which includes Powder, Snowboarder, Hot Rod, Motor Trend and other special interest publications, for $1.2 billion. Source Inter...