An avalanche today at Squaw Valley USA claimed the life of longtime ski patroller Andrew Entin. He was 41.
Entin. . . was working on avalanche controls about 8 a.m. when he was caught in a slide and partially buried, Squaw Valley Fire Department spokesman Pete Bansen said. . . . Another member of the ski patrol dug him out while emergency crews responded to the scene, but he later died at Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, Bansen said. . . . Squaw Valley USA said in a statement that Entin suffered multiple fractures and trauma. The cause of death was under investigation. Entin’s hometown was not immediately known.
Tahoe has received more than four feet of snow in the last 24 hours.
Idaho’s Tamarack Resort, which filed for bankruptcy protection in mid February, 2009 is now set to close on March 5, 2009 and stay closed until finances get sorted out, according to a story in the Idaho Statesman.
The financially imperiled Tamarack Resort will close March 5, spokesman Ken Rider said Friday night. . . .How long is unclear. . . .”It’s a new development. We’re still working on it,” Rider said. . . .He believes it was a judge’s decision to close the resort, which has been run by San Diego, Calif.-based receiver Douglas Wilson Co. since October. . . .Douglas Wilson will issue a formal announcement over the weekend, he added.
Sadly, we never even got the chance to ride the classicly financed real estate development resort. We hear it’s pretty dope.
Look like the pristine, white, mountain town of Park City in Utah’s Summit County in general is noticing an increase in crime thanks to an invasion of gang members, according to as story titled: Gangbangers Aren’t Boy Scouts, on Mountainnews.com.
Despite Park City’s playground image, it may be time to start locking doors and windows. . . An investigative report in the Salt Lake Tribune claims there are now 120 documented gang members from 20 gangs, with ties to Summit County. Another 60 people have been tagged as “persons of interest.” That’s up nine fold from a year ago. Further, 75 percent are predominately Latino, with many coming from California. “Their families move here for employment,” says Burton. . . “Fifty percent of Park City’s gang members live in Salt Lake City and have jobs in Park City or Summit County,” said Burton. “They take construction jobs or resort jobs or have friends up here.” Burton says some gang members work in the tourism industry as hotel shuttle drivers to make drug sales easier.”
Apparently, racism is still alive and well in Utah. At least they’re not blaming this on snowboarding.
It went something like this: Mason Aguirre, Steve Fisher, Shaun White for the men, and Torah Bright, Kelly Clark, and Hannah Teter for the women. Looks like it was a pretty wet day at Northstar-At-Tahoe. Follow the jump for the release. [click to continue…]
A chair on Whistler Blackcomb’s Harmony lift dropped eight meters to the ground on Wednesday thanks to a “broken bolt,” according to a story in the Vancouver Sun.
The incident is the second involving Whistler chairlifts since December 16, when part of the Excalibur gondola collapsed after a support tower filled with water which later froze and buckled the pole. It was later revealed that a technician had performed a safety check on the Excalibur tower just minutes before the collapse.
Luckily, no one was on the lift at the time,
[Link: Vancouver Sun]
These are the avalanche stories we like to hear: A 100 foot-wide slab of snow broke loose on the Slide Mountain side of Mt. Rose in an out-of-bounds area. The search was called off at 2:20 PM after crews searched the area for several our they finally called off the search after deciding that it was unlikely that anyone was caught in the avalanche, according to a story in the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
In all seven search and rescue personnel and four search and rescue dogs from Squaw Valley Ski Patrol and Washoe County Search and Rescue combed the site for about 3 hours by ski and snowshoe for any potential victims. . . .Regan said rescuers did not receive any type of transceiver signal coming from beneath the snow.
Would be nice if all avalanche stories ended like this.
The palatial mansion that Target rented as Shaun White’s homebase for the X Games 13 at Buttermilk is on its way to foreclosure according to a story in the Aspen Daily News.
A notice of election and demand — a document that starts a foreclosure proceeding in Colorado — was filed on the property Dec. 22. The 14,000-square-foot palace that Target Corp. rented out for its extreme athletes is set to be auctioned off on the steps of the Pitkin County Courthouse on April 29 unless the $4.6 million note securing the property is satisfied.
The “Target House” was a spec house that was reportedly finished last fall and “was listed for $26 million but was recently marked down to $19.5 million,” the paper said. Ah, the X Games glamor fades so quickly, doesn’t it?
While we were at the SIA Show it seemed that no one in the snowboard business was being effected by the economy. But it appears that Mammoth Mountain is not floating blissfully along. The LA Times is reporting that the mountain has laid off 101 employees.
CEO Rusty Gregory, in an interview with KSRW radio, or Sierra Wave, confirmed that 101 employees have been fired and other cost-cutting measures were enacted to make up for a sharp drop in skier-visits. . . . Revenue at the Eastern Sierra resort, which offers some of the world’s finest skiing and snowboarding, is down 21% from preseason projections. And the projected number of skier visits for this season has been reduced from 1.4 million to 1.1 million. . . . Gregory said 10 senior managers received 5% pay cuts. Vacation time has been shortened and gas allowances have been eliminated. Gregory, however, assured that none of the cuts will jeopardize the safety of visitors.
And to think we always figured if things ever got really bad we could always get a job as a lift op. Guess not.
“The more I’ve learned about Fortress, the less comfortable I’ve become,” says Jackson Turner, who follows the company at New York-based Argus Research Co. “There’s just this drip, drip, drip of bad news.” He recommends selling the shares. Only one of nine Fortress analysts tracked by Bloomberg rates them a buy. . . . Fortress is a prime example of what happens when the secretive world of hedge funds collides with the public disclosure required of listed companies. Two years after its initial public offering, Fortress remains a tangled web of subsidiaries and partnerships that analyst Turner says is anything but transparent.
Wouldn’t you know it: right when everyone is packing to head to the desert (i.e. Las Vegas for SIA) Mammoth gets the best dump of new snow it’s had all season.
A massive winter storm pounded Mammoth Mountain, dumping nearly five feet of fresh snow at Main Lodge in the last four days. . . . After unseasonably warm temperatures earlier this month, this storm delivered exactly what Mammoth needed. Although it was a warm storm, precipitation was all snow at Main Lodge (elevation 8,953ft). On Saturday, temperatures dropped significantly and by Monday morning when the skies cleared, temperatures were down in the teens, leaving . . . snowboarders with a perfect bluebird powder day.
