Wintersports Rediscovered
Russia’s former president Vladimir Putin, a keen skier and personally instrumental in winning the 2014 Olympics for the Black Sea resort of Sochi, is reported to have bowed to growing pressure from environmental campaigners regarding the location of some of the venues for the Games.
Continue reading ‘Putin wants 2014 Winter Olympic venues moved’
The American Skiing Company has finally concluded the sale of its last resort to Talisker Corporatin and announced that it will cease trading once all obligations are completed. The company was established a little over a decade ago by entrepreneur Les Otten who began as an employee of Killington resort in Vermont.
Otten then became manager of the fledgling Sunday River resort, owned by Killington at the time, brought it up to international standard and became its owner.
Otten then began buying other areas in New England including Killington and Sunday River’s neighbour Sugarloaf – two of the last ski areas to be sold during the company’s period of decline. After establishing the American Skiing Company Otten extended his resort empire across the US to encompass 10 resorts including Heavenly (sold to Vail) in California and Steamboat (sold to Intrawest) in Colorado. The company took on a small ski hill near Park City, Park West, renamed it The Canyons, and grew it to be one of the largest ski areas in North America.
The Canyons was sold for $123 million to a subsidiary of Toronto-based resort operator Talisker Corporation. The resort had been put up for sale a year ago and initially attracted interest from Vail. In all, American Skiing raised about $600 million by selling its resorts, using the money to pay off debt and compensate preferred shareholders who wanted the company to be closed down. Talisker own interests in the two other Park City ski areas, Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort leading to unconfirmed speculation that the chances of a ski link between the three resorts, creating North America’s largest single ski area, may increase.
www.taliskercorp.com
Lake Tahoe based online lift ticket retailer, has been awarded a grant from the Placer County Air Pollution Control District (PCAPCD) to further develop and implement their ski/snowboard specific online ride sharing program created last winter season.
In the winter of 2008, SnowBomb partnered with Kirkwood Mountain Resort to launch the first version of the online ride sharing program on Kirkwood.com. Within 24 hours of the program’s launch more than 500 participants were registered and began sharing rides to the mountain. By season’s end Kirkwood had nearly 2,000 members interacting online and it is estimated that approximately 1,000 cars were kept off the region’s highways last season.
The $25,000 grant, awarded by the PCAPCD, will be used to further develop and market the user-friendly, online ride sharing software for use at several ski resorts in Placer County including Alpine Meadows, Homewood, Sugar Bowl and Squaw Valley USA.
“We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from the ski resorts in support of this program,” said Heather Kuklo, an air quality specialist and grant program planner for the PCAPCD.
And to see actual, quantifiable emissions reductions during the first year of integration really shows how much this program is going to not only help reduce traffic and emissions, but also benefit local businesses.”
Eurostar begins selling tickets to the French Alps direct from St Pancras International and Ashford International on Tuesday, July 15th.
Continue reading ‘Winter train service options from London to French Alps begin this week’
The Denver Post has reported that Colorado’s ski resorts are expecting to have to pay up to a third more in subsidies to airlines this winter in order to maintain services to the state’s ski areas due to the sudden spike in oil prices.
Colorado resorts, in common with leading mountain destinations across North America, provide guarantees of up to $2-million to airlines to protect them from possible losses in operating routes to the mountains in winter on marginal financial models.
Continue reading ‘Higher oil prices prompt Colorado resorts to pay more for airline services’
The main improvements for the coming winter to the Belleville Valley, one of the Three Valleys, the world’s largest lift-linked ski area, will be more snowmaking.
At St Martin de Belleville there will be improvements to the existing artificial snow system’s technical performance to increase efficiency, with maximum respect for the environment. In addition new snow making guns will be installed this summer on the piste Gros Tougne, and a new reservoir of 80 000m3 will be built to feed the snow supply at a cost of €2.5 million.
In neighbouring les Menuires there’ll be new snowmakings on the Bettex piste and improvement of the technical performance of the whole of the system, with all work carried out with a maximum respect for the environment in keeping with the lift company’s ISO 14001 certification status.
This summer new snowmaking is being installed on the Pelozet piste to improve the connection between Les Menuires and Saint Martin de Belleville. The project cost is €850,000.
The programme to improve the ski area also continues during the summer with terracing work and re-profiling on the following Enverses, David Douillet, Pelozet pistes as well as the snowpark.
The Summit at Snoqualmie has received the green light from the United States Forest Service to begin the installation of a new high-speed quad chairlift, named Silver Fir Express.
Located just East of The Summit’s Central Base Area , the new Silver Fir Express will replace the current Silver Fir triple chair, originally installed in 1988. Construction is expected to be completed in November, 2008, meaning the chair will be open to the public in time for the start of the 2008-2009 winter season.
Work is beginning this week on disassembly of the current Silver Fir triple chairlift. The project, costing an estimated $4.5 million, will continue throughout the summer and fall and involve the use of a helicopter to install the new chairlift towers. The process will be documented through photos and video on The Summit’s website.
While this new lift will serve the same terrain as the existing chair, ride times and lift capacities will be dramatically improved. The length of ride time will shorten from its current 10-plus minute ride to just over four minutes. Lift capacity will increase to 2400 skiers per hour.
We are very excited to break ground on this highly-anticipated improvement project. Silver Fir serves as a means of access to many of our gladed trails and allows for easy connectivity between two of our base areas - Summits Central and East,”
said Dan Brewster, general manager for The Summit.
This improvement marks the start of an exciting new phase at The Summit.”