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Mountain News: Central rez system to be studied by consultant

WINTER PARK, Colo. — With Intrawest now in charge at Winter Park, there are suspicions that the company is trying to muscle its way into a greater share of the lodging reservations.

Compiled by Allen Best

Some even whisper that the company-operated Winter Park Central Reservations steered customers toward Intrawest properties instead of the other 32 lodging properties. As well, there seem to be fears the other lodges could be culled from the roster altogether.

In response, Intrawest has hired Ralph Garrison, of the Denver-based Advisory Group, to conduct a summer-long review of operations. The review, said Winter Park general manager Gary LaFrange, is "not an attempt to walk away from Central Reservations."

Instead, LaFrange said the review is needed to assess whether the central reservations system now used is working, particularly because travel arrangements have been changed so much by the Internet.

"I don’t know what the right format is going to be in the future, but I do know that if we don’t look into this now, we’re going to wake up three years from now, and be way behind the curve," he said.

Sue Neuman, director of central rez, said that Garrison as an independent consultant, should be able to determine if, in fact, non-Intrawest properties have been slighted.

Snowboarding slows

DENVER, Colo. — The growth of snowboarding continues to slow, although it still outpaces the growth in skiing.

From growth rates of 21 per cent at the turn of the century, the pace slowed to 11 per cent and this year is expected to slow to 5 per cent, according to Nolan Rosall, of the Boulder-based research firm, RRC Associates. Still, that growth rate will push snowboarding to more than 31 per cent of all visits to the nation’s ski hills this season.

"That is still pretty solid growth," he told The Denver Post. "It will be higher than growth in skier visits. But it’s certainly not at the rates we saw 10 years ago."

Sale of snowboards has dropped off even more, from 30 to 40 per cent gains during the late 1990s to just 4 per cent for each of the last three years, according to annual surveys by SnowSports Industries America, a trade group.

Vail Resorts’ Bill Jensen reports a 50-50 mix of skiers and snowboarders at the company’s five ski resorts.

Snow is secondary

PARK CITY, Utah — With Utah closing in on 3.4 million skiers, a record season, The Park Record began asking who and what deserves credit. Oddly, snow conditions did not top the list.

Kip Pitou, president of Ski Utah, said the message about snow is more important than the actual snow. Ski Utah doubled its purchase of national advertising to 65 pages during this winter, he said. Individual resorts now occupy spaces where the equipment manufacturers peddled their goods. Despite what the National Ski Areas Association is saying, Pitou says that the ski industry remains flat, and the business plan is everything about stealing market share away from other ski resorts.

If quoted correctly, Pitou takes some odd routes through recent history in advancing his argument that advertising trumps snow. If snow conditions actually matter all that much, he says, then the 2002-2003 season would have been a sluggish one in terms of skier visits. It wasn’t; instead, it was the third best ever for Utah resorts, and tops for Summit County, which is where Park City is located.

And, if snow trumps advertising, then this past winter should have been far and away the best. It was, but not far and away. Snow in November and December was very good.

Not addressed in any of this analysis is the role of the Olympics in stimulating skier visits in later years.

But the story in Utah, seemingly as also in Colorado, is that the state government doesn’t provide the money for marketing that it should to the tourism industry. The grass always looks greener in the next pasture.

As elsewhere, ski industry leaders in Utah say the Internet is becoming more significant in driving business, but notably in conjunction with more conventional communication media. For example, the Park City Chamber/Bureau Web site spikes in visits every time Park City gets mentioned on CNN, in advertising pages of the ski magazines, or even by a directed e-mail blast, reports Bill Malone, president of the chamber.

Utah’s Summit County this year’s has 1.34 million skier visits, a record. Malone credits a new program launched by his agency for some of the surge. Called Park City Quick Ski Today and Ride Today, a.k.a. Quick START, it promotes Park City’s accessibility by offering to exchange airline-boarding passes for same-day lift tickets. The program, as was revealed by a required on-line questionnaire, yielded 47 per cent of customers who had never skied or snowboarded in Utah before. Malone suggests that the real strength of the program will come in yielding repeat business.

Lightning strikes twice

WINTER PARK, Colo. — It was quite a spring for lightning at resorts in Colorado. Several times lifts at Vail had to be cleared, even during March, because of lightning. While that alone is not particularly unusual, the resort’s lightning-detection system usually provides advance warning; these times apparently it didn’t work, or work fast enough.

And at Winter Park, lightning simultaneously struck three lifts on the Friday before the resort closed for the season. The strikes disrupted the electricity, and the lifts were put on backup power while they were unloaded. Nobody was hurt.

Strike potential remains

BANFF, Alberta — Should the scenery be part of the paycheque? Employees of Parks Canada are seeking a new contract, and there is some talk of a strike this summer.

In early April, the Rocky Mountain Outlook, located on the east side of the park, quoted sources saying a strike is not imminent. Heather Brooker, president of the national component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said she remained optimistic there would not be a strike, but that the government expects their employees to consider the beauty of the parks’ environments as part of their pay.

A week later, the Revelstoke Times Review quoted another representative of the same agency, Eric Dafoe, a shop steward for a local organization of 105 Parks employees, who said a strike remains a "distinct possibility." A vote was scheduled for April 21.

The negotiations come at a sensitive time for Parks Canada, as tourism to parks in the Canadian Rockies has been down due to the Sept. 11 attacks, SARS, and then last year’s forest fires. If the strike occurs it may impact tourism-based businesses, although essential services such as fire suppression won’t be affected.

Fire exhibit explores positives

BANFF, Alberta — What a quick trip it has been from Smokey Bear to this new, quasi-acceptance of fire. Consider a multi-artist exhibition now being presented at Banff’s White Museum of the Canadian Rockies that interprets the fires that raged there last summer.

With the exception of one oil painting, most of the pieces stray from the fear, devastation, loss, anger, and rage that many experience when confronted by fire, says the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

"Instead, the exhibitions explore, anticipate, and embrace the evolution of forest when touched by fire. "Even through the remains of blackened stumps, skeletonized trees, and violent bursts of orange, the pieces are overwhelmingly positive and hopeful for regeneration and life."

A Banff-area photographer was in – of all places – Antarctica, when he became inspired to help put on the show. There, he became aware of a U.S. program that facilitates first-hand experiences for artists to interpret the environment and operations in Antarctica. He and others brainstormed how to do the same in Banff.

Alex Taylor said exploring the many faces of fire allows for a better understanding of what the forest is all about.

"Although we perceive the aftermath of a fire as devastation or damage, I find a lot of beauty in it," he said. "It’s more a force of change than of devastation. It’s just that what we see as unchanging (the green forest) is actually just one phase in a continual cycle of change that’s older and much longer than our own life spans. In the last 50 years there have been very few events like 2003. Our only reference to the forest is of it being mature and green, not burnt. Both states are healthy."

Prescribed fire begins at Vail

VAIL, Colo. — Seven years after it was originally proposed, the first of several prescribed burns has been conducted on the outskirts of Vail. The purpose was in part to provide better habitat for bighorn sheep and elk, but also to provide a buffer between the town and any potential fire in the adjacent national forest.

The fire originally had been planned as a much bigger affair, but was opposed by a variety of residents. In response, the U.S. Forest Service and town officials down-sized the fire, breaking it into smaller areas, and having crews pile up debris.

A lingering concern of firefighters, reports the Vail Daily, is a town requirement of shake shingles, which are more fire prone. Some landscaping requirements also are believed to be in conflict with creating defensible space.

Air time now a topic for school

KEYSTONE, Colo. — Ten to 15 years ago, the story at ski resorts was of "reckless skiers." It seemed people were being knocked down, even killed, as never before.

In an effort to encourage "responsible" skiing, some resorts banned photos that showed anybody in the air. Skiers had to be on the snow.

But then came along the "freestyle" and "extreme" stuff, and all these no-air mandates have gone the way of Nehru jackets and other such artifacts of the past. In fact, as the Denver Post pointed out this winter, resorts are offering air instruction.

The newspaper observed a class at Keystone where students were being taught how to launch off a 6-foot-high ramp for some "really big air."

"Ten years ago, you would have had your pass pulled for showing the bottom of your skis," observed ski school director Chris Heidebrech. "The kids are going to do this stuff anyway," he said. "We might as well teach them the right way, so they can be safe."

The Post also reports that resorts in Colorado are diverging from the standards of the Professional Ski Instructors of America, which hasn’t developed a standardized curriculum of new "free-ride" instruction. The group’s executive director, Steve Over, acknowledged that the PSIA has followed the resorts in this case, but rejects the charge that the organization is too conservative. Some fads stick, others don’t, he says. He seemed to say that the PSIA waits to see which is which.

For ski resorts, reports The Post, the new-school courses in such things as catching big air and riding the rails are an effort by the ski areas to retain intermediate and advanced skiers and snowboarders who often reach plateaus in their learning, but are reluctant to spend a day finding new challenges in ski-school classes.

Hospital lays off staff

ASPEN, Colo. — Responding to a financial deficit that last year swelled to $5.3 million, Aspen Valley Hospital administrators have laid off 11 per cent of the hospital’s staff, or 34 employees.

Before the layoffs, the hospital had a staff-to-patient ratio of 1 to 9.65, about 3.34 above the Colorado average, reports The Aspen Times.

These layoffs and other personnel belt-tightening measures are projected to save the hospital $2.1 million a year. The problem is traced, in part, to faulty billing practices, which forced administrators to write off $11.7 million in uncollected bills.

Bike study claims no damage to trails

ASPEN, Colo. — The International Mountain Bicycling Associates has released a study that claims that mountain bikes don’t cause any more damage to trails than other uses, including hikers.

Claims that mountain bike wheels do cause more damage to trails are "unsubstantiated," according to IMBA’s Gary Sprung, a Crested Butte resident who conducted the study.

However, The Aspen Times didn’t have to go far to find even mountain bikers who didn’t quite bite on that rather brazen claim. Michael Thompson of Basalt, who was identified as both a mountain biking and hiking enthusiastic as well as a trail builder, said improperly constructed trails tend to channel rather than shed water.

Wheels cause more erosion than hooves or feet when the soil is wet, he said. However, properly designed and built trails can absorb the impacts of mountain bikes with little problems.

No income tax draws wealthy to Jackson

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — For the fourth time in six years, the Internal Revenue Service has reported Teton County as the nation’s wealthiest, based on income tax returns filed in 2002. The mean adjusted gross income of $107,694 is 2 per cent higher than that of Fairfield County, Conn.

In another statistical category, Teton County ranked first in per-capita income, the sixth time since 1995. Pitkin County, which is where Aspen is located, had led the previous year, but income levels there dropped nearly 30 per cent between 2001 and 2002.

What’s going on with all this wealth? Everybody knows, as the Jackson Hole News & Guide noted, that jobs in ski and resort towns don’t pay well.

Well, Jackson Hole has lots of amenities, beginning with Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, a ski area, a great flyfishing river, and so on. But most important is that Wyoming does not levy an income tax, explains Bob Graham, president of Real Estate of Jackson Hole. That causes lots of people who might be able to claim residence elsewhere to make Jackson Hole their primary residence.

"You could go to places like Vail or Aspen or Telluride or Big Sky, but you would not have the tax advantage you would achieve in the state of Wyoming," he said.

Also keeping Jackson Hole’s rates up are the fact that it’s not near a large city. That eliminates a lot of weekend second homes. And then people of money tend to cluster once they have found an interesting place with services, airport, and technology that allows them to stay connected to the rest of the world.

Of others on the top 10 list, one is a suburb of San Francisco, two are suburbs of Denver, and the rest are suburbs of New York City.

Cut all the claptrap about jobs Americans won’t do

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Efforts to increase the number of H-2B visas has at least one man in Jackson Hole steaming. Cut the clap-trap about H-2B visas being necessary for "jobs that American citizens won’t do," he says. They’ll do them, says Mike Craig, provided they get paid and are treated well.

"Let’s clear the air of this rancid lie once and for all. It’s not the jobs Americans reject, it’s the obscenely low wages with no benefits and being treated with less respect than a dog that Americans have a problem with," writes Craig, in a letter published in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

"I’ve talked to immigrant workers who live and work around Jackson. Many are working 10 hours a day or more without so much as a lunch break. And time-and-a-half for overtime pay? Forget about it. All at wages that weren’t good wages for Jackson Hole 15 years ago."

Politicians have said more visas will help mom-and-pop businesses, but Craig says that is a lie. Those mom-and-pops, he says, are big-wheel, high-end outfits like Vail Resorts and Four Seasons.

"What these ‘mom and pop’ multi-million dollar businesses want aren’t employees but legal slaves. If offered a decent affordable place to stay and an honest wage, there isn’t a job in Jackson Hole that wouldn’t be ably filled by an American citizen."

His advice is to send the "traitors of the working class," as he describes Wyoming’s congressional delegation, packing.

Pollution continues to impair visibility at parks

THE WEST — Air quality is getting better at some national parks in the West, but for the most part pollution continues to impair visibility.

A study completed a decade ago by the National Academy of Sciences found that the average visibility in the Western United States was 60 to 100 miles, or a half to two-thirds of what it would be without air pollution. USA Today reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is hoping to clear the air with new "regional haze" rules that target power plants and industrial boilers.

Theatre owners object to subsidy for competition

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Crested Butte is in a one-movie theatre valley, and the owners of that move theatre, called the Majestic, would like to keep it that way.

But the owners are annoyed beyond words because the new Gunnison Valley Economic Development Corporation, to which their Crested Butte Town Council gave $4,000 this year, has announced plans to recruit a theatre for Gunnison, the larger town located 27 miles away.

Owners of the Crested Butte theatre say even art films shown one night per month in Gunnison cut into their financial solvency. They have vowed to close shop unless the subsidy for a theatre in Gunnison is yanked.

Crested Butte Mayor Jim Schmidt told the Crested Butte News that he was dismayed. "It’s ridiculous that you give money to the (economic development commission), and the first thing that happens is that one of our businesses goes out of business."

18 wildlife crossings planned on highway

BANFF, Alberta — Eighteen wildlife crossings are planned in a four-laning of the Trans-Canada Highway in the area from Lake Louise to the British Columbia-Alberta border.

With only $50 million for the $160 million job, Parks Canada intends to prioritize its work in four-laning the 34-kilometre segment. The agency is working first on a 12 kilometre section where seven fatal crashes occurred in four years. This segment is expected to be done by the year 2007.

About a third of the eventual price tag will be devoted to environmental mitigation, including the 18 highway crossings. That’s more than one every two kilometres. As well, the highway will be lined with a 2.4-metre-high fence, made of metal mesh or wood or steel posts, to guide the animals onto the crossings. The primary wildlife crossings will be 60 metres in width. The recommendations came from University of Calgary wildlife expert Tony Clevenger after a six-year study. That area is already considered to be at the forefront in North America for accommodating wildlife migrations in a busy transportation corridor.

Special features are also planned to accommodate pedestrians and bicycle riders.

Lake Tahoe can expect waves of up to 33 feet

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — It’s happened in the past, so it will probably happen again. An earthquake of magnitude 7 will hit Lake Tahoe, as has happened several times during the past 10,000 years.

An earthquake of that force will generate waves of up to 33 feet high, said professor Rich Swichert at a well-attended lecture sponsored by the Squaw Valley Institute. The Tahoe World reports that Swichert advised listeners not to rush out for disaster insurance. Only in geological terms are Tahoe’s earthquakes frequent.

Aspen council kind of likes artificial turf

VAIL, Colo. — When Aspen’s Wagner Park was nominated as a candidate for artificial turf this spring, the protests were quick and easy. You’re going to make a plastic park? Like Vail?

But after touring two soccer fields in the Vail Valley where artificial turf is now in use, members of the Aspen City Council proclaimed themselves pleasantly surprised. "Feels pretty nice," conceded Mayor Helen Klaunderud.

"I’m more impressed than I thought I’d be. This is a really nice field," said the councilman known simply as Torre.

Still, it sounds unlikely that artificial turf will be put into place at Wagner Park, although it could well find use on a playing field somewhere.

As for plastic replacing natural materials, Vail also has had some internal debates on the subject. In 1986, the town council debated creating a new landscaping scheme for the main entrance to the town, using plastic boulders. Amid cries of plastic Bavaria, the council relented.

Moose shooter pleads guilty

PARK CITY, Utah — A man who shot a moose outside his home with a .357-caliber handgun one night this winter has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour crime of poaching and attempted criminal mischief, reports The Park Record.

A stray bullet from the gun fired by Victor Armendariz lodged in a wall of a home across the street, adjacent to a bedroom. Armendariz will have to pay $10,000 restitution to state wildlife authorities and $970 to his neighbour. As well, he could have to pay a $2,500 fine. The neighbour told sheriff’s investigators that Armendariz threatened him after killing the moose, saying "If you want to be safe in the neighbourhood, you had better be careful what you tell the police."