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Mountain News: It's a good time for squeezing a buck

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Lodges in ski towns are getting fuller even if hoteliers aren't necessarily getting richer as tourists continue to pick over the market for bargains.

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Lodges in ski towns are getting fuller even if hoteliers aren't necessarily getting richer as tourists continue to pick over the market for bargains.

At Incline Village, on the shores of Lake Tahoe, bookings are tracking up 10 to 15 per cent compared to last year at Vacation Station, a collection of 100 cabins, condominiums and rental homes. Reservations had dipped 35 to 40 per cent two years ago.

But profits have lagged, says Don Cauley, general manager. "We are giving up revenue in order to get people to come back," he tells the Northern Nevada Business Weekly. "We are recovering somewhat, but we are nowhere near where we were two or three years ago."

Snowfall will probably push or drag the rate of recovery.

"Eventually, snow will really get into the equation - this time of year we start to do the snow dance," Les Pederson, of a lodging property called Squaw Creek, told the Business Weekly.

Snow is already part of the equation at Steamboat Springs, Colo., where the ski area going into Thanksgiving had received one-third as much as was received all of last winter.

With snow on their side and the economy edging forward, Steamboat ski officials hope for a strong winter. The Steamboat Pilot reports that local government officials aren't so sure.

They assume fewer sales tax collections because there will be 11 per cent fewer available passenger seats on incoming flights. Fewer seats are available this winter because the community had to cut back on its revenue guarantees - the result of having to pay out to cover guarantees during the last two winters, when fewer people were flying.

One lodging agency reports offering gas coupons of $50 to $100, depending upon length of stay, hoping to nudge skiers into committing to Steamboat vacations by driving.

The Aspen Times reports that lodges there continue to sweeten their deals. The Little Nell hotel, a high-profile, high-rent property operated by the Aspen Skiing Co., is offering free lift tickets and extra nights. The St. Regis Aspen also has add-ons.

"I think everybody is out there looking for a deal, even those that don't need a deal," said John Speers, general manager of the Little Nell.

Bill Tomcich, president of Stay Aspen Snowmass, a reservations agency, reports a hotel industry saying that three-star guests can afford five-star accommodations at four-star prices.

The average daily rate for rooms booked by Stay Aspen Snowmass fell from $440 two winters ago to $383 last winter, mostly because of free days tacked onto multi-day deals. But hoteliers have been reluctant to actually discount room rates for fear of consumer resistance if the economy starts charging like the bulls of Pamplona.

The average daily rate charged by hotels in mountain resorts of the West dropped nine per cent in two winters and six per cent last season, according to the Mountain Travel Research Program.

Where will prices end up this winter? Tomcich says it's too soon to tell.

But with new five- and four-star hotels opened this winter or last in Vail, Deer Valley, Northstar, Telluride, and Snowmass, it's a good time to be a well-heeled penny-pincher.

 

Vail still tops single-day prices

VAIL, Colo. - Top lift-ticket price for ski areas this year - at least until Aspen decides what it will charge - is Vail. The company is charging $99 per day for walk-up customers during Christmas Week, Presidents' Weekend, and the weeks of spring break. At other times, the rate is $94.

Not many people pay that, of course. For a few hundred more you can get a season's pass.

Aspen, reports The Aspen Times, might match or beat that price, given that it will charge $192 for a two-day ticket. Presumably, the one-day ticket will be a smidgeon higher.

Jeff Hanle, the company's spokesman, said single-day lift tickets account for about 10 per cent of sales revenue per season at the company's four ski areas.

Other one-day prices, as compiled by the Times, are: Telluride, $98; Steamboat $97; Deer Valley, $94; and Sun Valley $94. There's also some place in Vermont called Stowe, which is charging $89.

 

Butts finally banned

KETCHUM, Idaho - Ketchum's last - and oldest - bar has succumbed to the marketplace and banned smoking.

The Casino, which went into business in 1920, 16 years before Averell Harriman's Union Pacific Railroad created North America's first destination ski resort, banned the butts a week before Thanksgiving.

A bartender tells the Idaho Mountain Express that the smoking was causing the bar to lose too many customers. To announce the ban, the bar placed posters on the wall alongside images of a stern-looking Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger, a frequent Ketchum/Sun Valley visitor, ironically has a well-known fondness for stogies.

 

Snowpack may drop 40-60%

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A new study by scientists at the University of California, Davis attempts to provide a glimpse of the changing climate for Lake Tahoe Basin during the next 90 years.

If you're a skier, it doesn't look good.

The study notes that there may be just as much precipitation, maybe even more. But in some years, all of it may come in the form of rain. Altogether, the snowpack may decline 40 to 60 per cent on average, and runoff may come up to six weeks earlier.

"While there is always some uncertainty when projecting this far into the future, the results appear reasonable," said John Reuter, associate director of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, an operation of the university.

The $260,000 study, paid for by federal land agencies, provides environmental managers and scientists with their first detailed glimpse of the potential impact of climate change on precipitation runoff, water quality and plant and animal resources in Lake Tahoe, Reuter said.

The report, entitled "The Effects of Climate Change on Lake Tahoe in the 21 st Century: Meteorology, Hydrology, Loading and Lake Response," also says that the clarity of the lake, already a concern, could worsen this century.

 

Aspen ski areas go locovore

ASPEN, Colo. - The Aspen Skiing Co. has announced that this season it will be using only locally produced, grass-fed beef for hamburgers at all of its 17 food-vending operations.

The company also announced it will use only fair-trade certified organic coffee and cooking oils with zero trans fat. It also vows that all otherwise [?] disposables will be either recycled or composted.

Vail Resorts several years ago launched something similar, with a push toward organic ingredients at its eateries.

 

Airports upgrading for new jets

ASPEN, Colo. - Airports in both Aspen and Telluride expect to be capable of handling a new generation of planes by this time next year.

In Aspen, the runway will be expanded by 1,000 feet next summer at a cost of $14.5 million. Airport officials tell The Aspen Times they are confident of funding by the Federal Aviation Administration, which normally pays 95 per cent of such expansions, using taxes collected on passengers, freight and jet fuel.

Resort and airport officials have long wanted the extension, as it will allow planes to take off with more weight, including passengers. This will become particularly crucial in summer, when the warm air of afternoons causes planes to carry fewer passengers. But this will also make the airport accessible to more types of regional jets.

At Telluride, the airport runway has been leveled and lengthened at a cost of $50 million. Now, the terminal must be expanded to allow waiting room for passengers going through security.

But before more money is spent, the Telluride-Montrose Regional Air Organization wants evidence that airlines will schedule flights to the airport. The organization will be talking with airlines in spring.

Also being considered at Telluride is whether commercial flights can be allowed after dark, say to 10 p.m., while excluding general aviation planes.

 

Jail has too few customers

EAGLE, Colo. - In 2008, when Eagle County commissioners voted to spend nearly $33 million to expand the jail by a third, to accommodate 120 prisoners, the curve lines all showed an uphill slope.

A report in the Vail Daily suggests that there were an average 96 prisoners then. But this year there have been an average 58. The commissioners are closing the jail until business picks up.

"We were housing an average of 20 prisoners per day outside the county," explains Commissioner Peter Runyon of the decision in 2008 to build the jail expansion.

"Will we need it (the added prison cells and beds) at some point in the future? You betcha," he said. "In two years or less, we may have to reopen it."

The newspaper seems to disagree on the economics of the deal, however. It points out that prisoners could be out-sourced to other jails for 27 years before the cost of doing so would catch up with cost of jail construction. That, however, assumes no growth in number of prisoners - defying the trend line for the last 50 years.

 

Ambulances creating sick people?

PARK CITY, Utah - If you get nauseated by vehicle exhausts, you don't want to hang out near ambulances. Even when stopped, they keep their motors running.

And that's what happened on Main Street in Park City recently. The ambulance had been called to help block traffic while employees of an electrical utility worked on a downed power line for about an hour.

At some point, residents of a nearby accommodation complained of the fumes, saying people were getting sick. But a fire chief said that ambulances had to keep running, as medical supplies could freeze if the engine was turned off.

Park City currently only asks that people not idle their cars and trucks, but will be considering a proposed ban this week. That proposal, however, would exempt emergency vehicles, reports The Park Record.

 

Allen Best publishes a newsletter covering mountain towns and valleys of the West. He can be found at www.allenbest.net .