There’s something odd about sitting in the shade in high desert, sun beating in the mid 80s and my laptop pinging with ski-related emails. Ski Utah’s alert is about George Jedenoff, who, as reported in last week’s Short Swings!, plans to spend his 100th birthday next week taking a few runs at the top of Snowbird. A quick search of[Read More…]
I’ve spent the past several days in downtown Chicago. Maybe it’s the nice weather or the pleasure of being in a big city after an extended post-season stay at our desert place, but Chicago is wonderful. The architecture is impressive, as was the tour boat through downtown explaining the broad variety of design. While I was working, my wife took[Read More…]
Congratulations to the 2016-17 Trail Masters! Trail Masters are those senior skiers whose number of days skied last season matched or exceeded their ages. Seventy-seven qualified, compared to 42 in 2015-16, the first year Trail Masters were recorded. At the top of the list is our oldest Trail Master, Fredi Jakob, who skied 83 days at age 83. Fredi’s home resort[Read More…]
Is The US Ski Industry Becoming A Duopoly? If So, Will It Mean Higher Or Lower Priced Passes For Seniors? Denver-based KSL Capital Partners recently joined privately owned Aspen Skiing Co to acquire Intrawest’s six resorts and four in southern California owned by Mammoth Resorts. It’s the newest 800-pound ski resort gorilla. The other is Vail Resorts. Two gorillas. Twenty-two[Read More…]
We spent last weekend with the kids. Not our own children who live far away or are busy with their own spawn. These are a group of younger friends, ranging from early 30s to late 50s. They’re all single. They enjoy hiking, making food, talking about ideas. It was tiring and terrific. We walked them to the rock art[Read More…]
And, You Like SeniorsSkiing.com. The most recent SeniorsSkiing.com reader spring survey explored how readers spend a typical ski day and how much they spend in the process. As with earlier reader surveys, this one had a 27% response, unusually high in the world of print and digital magazines. It shows that the SeniorsSkiing.com community is enthusiastic and engaged! We plan[Read More…]
88-94 Year Old Female Skier for TV Commercial. A talent agency in Vancouver is looking for an older female skier. She must be 88-94, live in North America, and be available to travel to Whistler to participate in filming, May 27 – June 5. According to Sonya Bertolozzi, president of Canada-located Reel Athletes Agency, the assignment is for a car[Read More…]
To Our Readers It’s cold where I’m writing this. I drove several hours yesterday to get here. One hour of it was through flurries; at least one-half hour through blizzard. I got the stoves working, changed into warm clothes and had a few sips of single malt. Then I started reading the hundreds and hundreds of answers to our survey[Read More…]
End of Season House Cleaning We’re moving out of Salt Lake City. Anyone who has gone through the exercise knows about getting rid of stuff. You categorize three ways: stuff you need; stuff you think you need; stuff you know you don’t. Which brings me to skis, boots, and clothes. I have seven pairs of skis and enjoy all of them.[Read More…]
Sometimes Coming Up With Content For This Weekly Column Is Challenging…Especially Now That The Season Has Ended. In season, resorts and others seeking publicity provide us with a steady stream of options to consider. That’s dried up. So this week, I went through the ski-related photos I’ve snapped and forgotten about…until[Read More…]
Most areas have turned off the lights on ’16-’17. Nonetheless a few places in North America are still operating. They include Blackcomb Mountain, Snowbird, Mammoth, Squaw Valley, Mt Bachelor, and the place that skis 12 months a year, Timberline Lodge. Over the years I’ve heard about sand skiing. The following are associated with sand boarding, but I’m sure if you[Read More…]
A WOW Ski deal for Senior Skiers! The day before Alta closed for the season, a few ski companies were set up to demo products. One was Liberty Skis, a Colorado ski maker specializing in bamboo. I tried the Variant 87 and now own a pair. The “87” indicates the width of the ski under the boot, considerably narrower than[Read More…]
People I’ve met love the Mountain Collective Pass For those prepared to travel, it’s a no-brainer. Two day passes at any number of well-known ski resorts for $399. I purchased one a few weeks ago for next season and quickly encountered the dark side of this attractive product: weak Customer Support. I made the non-refundable purchase and was then prompted[Read More…]
It may be the end of the season, but now is when next year’s equipment is evaluated. Bootfitters from around the nation converged this week on Mt Bachelor to test next season’s crop of boots. MasterFit organizes the unique annual event, and in the past, the knowledge gathered there was the basis of the annual boot review features in Ski[Read More…]
Mary Anderson, who in 1938 co-founded REI, the nation’s largest consumer cooperative, died March 27. She was born in 1909 and lived to 107. She and her husband, Lloyd, began during the Depression importing high quality ice axes from Austria and selling them to fellow climbers. They formed a cooperative, a business model popular during the Depression in which members[Read More…]
Masikryong Ski Resort , North Korea Baby-faced supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, built a luxury ski resort on Taehwa Peak, a 4,460′ mountain in Kangwon Province. It was constructed in 10 months by the Korean People’s Army. The cost is estimated at US $ 35+ million. It has nine blue and green runs, a ski school and a children’s snow park. The[Read More…]
For me, this has always been a melancholy time of year. Most North American lifts stop running, and the joy of winter shifts to summer diversions. Some people use the time to push their limits. Years ago, I’d drive to New Hampshire to ski Tuckerman’s Ravine on Memorial Day. It was an Eastern skier’s rite of passage. When older and[Read More…]
Like generations of more recent vintage, SeniorsSkiing.com readers are comfortable making online purchases. Nintey-five percent of the respondents to the most recent SeniorsSkiing.com reader survey reported they were “satisfied” with purchasing lift tickets online from ski areas and from ticket aggregators like Liftopia. And more than half of the respondents reported that they’re likely to purchase ski apparel, such as[Read More…]
Mike and I want to report on our progress and thank readers, editorial contributors, advertisers, and online collaborators for your support. We also want to ask for a favor. SeniorsSkiing.com is starting the fourth year of publication. We went online in April 2014. During that time we’ve grown from a handful of page views each month to almost 35,000 during[Read More…]
Skiing’s Silly Season starts this weekend with the annual ritual of the pond skimming competition. They’re generally associated with live music, costumes, BBQ, beer and LOTS OF FUN. Seven Springs (PA), Stratton (VT), Mt Snow (VT), Nashoba Valley (MA) and others have theirs scheduled for Saturday. Many others will be in April. Mt Bachelor‘s (OR) is the latest I found —[Read More…]
Tuesday I was sledding with grandkids in Manhattan’s Central Park. I arrived a few days earlier in New York unprepared for winter; felt it from head to toe. Wednesday, I stepped out of Salt Lake International Airport into 75F. The resorts are reporting temps in the 40s and 50s. It’s expected to cool off later next week. My experience in[Read More…]
Contributor Harriet Wallis snapped this pic on her way down one of the Cottonwood Canyons connecting Salt Lake City with several resorts. Mountain goats are visible from the road this time of year. They maneuver the narrowest ledges like they’re strolling Main Street. Thanks for the picture, Harriet! CALIFORNIA Dennis Quaid’s band, The Sharks, will kick off Squaw Valley’s Toyota[Read More…]
Deep Powder Cat Skiing: $25 Per Run We’ve carried several articles about Powder Mountain, the enormous, old-fashioned resort about an hour northeast of Salt Lake International Airport. It was purchased a few years ago by a group of investors, and improvements are underway. It’s the go-to place for untracked powder long after the other resorts have been skied out. The[Read More…]
Vacation Week Snow In The Sierra and West, Ski Colorado E.D., K2 Pinnacle Review, 99 1/2 Ski Hero, Adieu SKIING Magazine, DIY Boot Horn, Idaho’s Friendly Brundage. It’s been mid-season, vacation week madness everywhere. Snow, snow, snow in the West. Even snow in the East! We have lots of news this week, especially the block-buster item that you may[Read More…]
POW POW Not every reader has experienced the joy of powder skiing. Showing skiers scribing graceful lines on blank fields of bluish white is part of our skiing media culture. As those of us who pursue the experience well know, finding untracked, especially in a resort setting, is elusive. Powder is ephemeral and eagerly sought out. When there’s a dump[Read More…]
