by The Editors on October 1, 2009
Intrawest, the company that operates nine resorts in North America, wants everyone to protect themselves by wearing helmets when they ride on their mountains, according to a press release sent out today.
Intrawest will recommend that all skiers and snowboarders visiting its resorts wear helmets and there will be mandatory helmet requirements for all children and youth(1) participants in Ski and Snowboard School Programs as well as all students participating in freestyle terrain park programs, regardless of their age.
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by The Editors on September 28, 2009
The bargain lift-ticket seller Liftopia.com has added Whistler/Blackcomb, Killington, Mammoth Mountain, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, and Stowe, to its list of discounter resorts this season, and rounded up $1 million more in funding, according to a story on TechCrunch.
Liftopia allows ski resorts to offer variable pricing for tickets based on much how traffic they anticipate seeing on the slopes — in other words, resorts can lower their prices if they think they’re going to have a slow day the same way an airline does if a flight might not fill up. Some resorts have been able to do this to a limited extent with ‘peak season’ tickets (a ticket for Christmas time would cost more than one a month or two later), but up until now they haven’t had a good way to adjust their pricing on a daily basis. Liftopia gives them this option.
Definitely something worth checking out this season. . .
[Link: TechCrunch]
by The Editors on August 6, 2009
Struggling international resort owner Intrawest has sold two French resorts we’ve never heard of, according to a story on Metronews.ca.
Vancouver-based Intrawest said it has agreed to sell the lodging and commercial operations at Arc 1950 Resort in Savoie and the Flaine Montsoleil Resort in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps. . . The price was not disclosed.
We’re going to go ahead and guess that this won’t be the last asset Intrawest sells in coming months.
[Link: Metronews.ca]
by The Editors on August 4, 2009
After fire crews had the first fire 100 percent contained, another five-hectare fire sparked up in the Ruby Bowl on August 3, 2009.
A 20-person crew has water on-site and is working to establish a guard on the west flank of the fire. . . Throughout the day there may be air support supplied to the ground crew should it be required. . . The Ruby Bowl terrain is very rocky, with minimal alpine vegetation and is isolated from the more commonly accessed portions of Blackcomb Mountain.
No structures are currently in danger.
[Link: Vancouver Sun]
by The Editors on July 31, 2009
Blackcomb Mountain was evacuated yesterday at 3 PM after a lightening strike started a forest fire that has grown to 75 hectares in size, according to a story in The Province.
The fire was sparked by lightning yesterday night at Crystal Ridge near Crystal Hut and the Crystal chairlift, said Ellie Dupont, coastal fire information officer. . . “Anytime there is a slope or a wind, it grows faster,” she explained. She was unsure of how the winds are moving on the mountain. . . . “At this point, forest service helicopters are dropping buckets of water and water bombs are en route,” said Alex Halbert, spokesperson for Whistler Blackcomb.
Blackcomb Mountain is completely closed today (July 31, 2009).
[Link: The Province and CBC.com]
by The Editors on June 5, 2009
Looks like even the rich are driving into a few ditches in this economy as the exclusive members-only Yellowstone Club resort gets sold in bankruptcy for $115 million dollars, a fraction of the $470 million previously offered by the buyer Boston Based CrossHarbor, according to a story on the Frequency: The Snowboarder’s Journal.
At the height of the luxury real estate boom, the 13,600-acre club in Montana’s Big Sky area north of Yellowstone National Park attracted such high-profile names as Bill Gates, Dan Quayle and cycling star Greg LeMond. To join, more than 300 members bought multimillion dollar mountain properties and submitted deposits of at least $250,000.
In a January 2009 essay on NewWest.com former ski filmmaker and Yellowstone Club founding Director of Skiing Warren Miller said the reason the club has not yet reached it’s ultimate goals is because of a few high profile divorces among the club’s 320 members.
And then a contentious divorce by the founders of the Club, the Blixseths, has temporarily delayed the fulfillment of the dream that every member has come to expect. Having one of those ugly divorces in my own background, I know that when you split your married financial nest egg in half, it takes a long time to recover.
Looks like even exclusive resorts can be ruined by love.
[Link: Associated Press via Frequency and NewWest.com]
by The Editors on May 13, 2009
American Insurance Group, the company that owns Vermont’s Stowe Mountain Resort announced today that they are putting the resort up for sale according to a story in the Burlington Free Press.
“We’re actually putting Stowe up for sale. So it’s official now,” Peter Tulupman, spokesman for AIG, told The Burlington Free Press this morning. . . Tulupman declined to comment on how much American International Group Inc. — which is mostly owned by the U.S. government after a sequence of federal bailouts in the wake of Wall Street’s collapse last fall— is seeking for the iconic resort which includes the lavish Stowe Mountain Lodge and the mountain’s operations.
As we learned in Hal Clifford’s book Downhill Slide resorts are all about the real estate that surround them and it is a buyers market right now. Anyone?
[Link: Burlington Free Press via Yobeat]
by The Editors on April 24, 2009
Whistler Blackcomb’s President and COO Dave Brownlie says that while he can’t comment on Intrawest or its owner Fortress Investment Group, LLC and how the companies are going to solve their $1.7 billion debt crisis, he doesn’t think Whistler Blackcomb will be sold, according to a story in Pique News Magazine.
“I can say that Whistler Blackcomb is seen as a core asset to the success of Intrawest,” said Dave Brownlie on Tuesday afternoon. . . “As a result, I am very confident that Whistler Blackcomb is not up for sale at this time.”
Sounds like something we’ve heard from more than a few CEOs on the eve of a sale.
[Link: Pique News Magazine]
by The Editors on April 13, 2009
Vail Resorts has announced that starting with the 2009-10 winter season all employees snowboarding or skiing on on the clock at any of its five resorts will be required to wear helmets, according to a story on Forbes.com.
Vail also will require helmets for all children age 12 and under who take group lessons through its schools, and helmets will be part of the resort’s children’s rental packages unless parents or guardians sign a waiver.
We expect to see more of this in the future. And it sounds like a good idea.
[Link: Forbes.com]
by The Editors on April 1, 2009
On Sunday March 30, 2009 Whistler’s Peak 2 Peak Gondola had to be shut down after a “drive motor on the on the new conveyance’s acceleration/deceleration mechanism malfunctioned,” according to a story in The Question.
No guests were in danger either during or after the shutdown, which occurred on Sunday at 12:46 p.m. and last 19 minutes, WB communications officer Amber Turnau said on Monday (March 30). Guests inside the sky cabins at the time were kept abreast of the situation by intercom, she said.
Sounds like someone got a 19 minutes thrill view of Whistler Blackcomb that they won’t soon forget. And we’re still not riding that beast.
[Link: Question]
Intrawest, the company that operates nine resorts in North America, wants everyone to protect themselves by wearing helmets when they ride on their mountains, according to a press release sent out today.
