Short Swings!
We need to adjust our skiing to our age.
Some readers will probably react with a “Mind your own business,” and that’s fine.
But I keep running into too many people beating themselves up on skis: either forcing old bodies to ski like they did when they were young, or not knowing how to adjust to a more age-appropriate technique.
Several years back I was skiing with a contemporary in her sixties. She skied like she did as a college racer. Impressive, but way to fast for my taste. I waited a long time at the bottom of a bumpy Snowbird trail where her husband met me after patrol had put her into the sled. Broken leg.
I tell everyone I ski with that I ski slowly. I turn a lot, aspiring to graceful form. There are two downsides: it can be tiring, and it makes me vulnerable to being struck by a speed demon. I frequently glance uphill. A few weeks ago while linking tight turns at trail’s edge, I glanced back and saw a youngish boarder on my tail. “Thanks,” she called out. “I enjoyed following your turns.”
Epic Pass Additions
The Vail-owned bundled pass has added Crested Butte, Okemo, and Mount Sunapee for next season.
Boyne Aquiring 6 Areas
They are: Brighton (UT), Cypress Mountain (BC), Loon (NH), Sugarloaf (ME), Sunday River (ME), and The Summit at Snoqualmie (WA).
Harlem Globetrotter on Skis
Globetrotter, Bucket Blakes took a lesson at Arapahoe Basin to promote the team’s March 16 – March 18 Colorado tour. The resulting short video is a refreshing treat.
Colorado
Copper Mountain will upgrade two of its Center Village lifts. American Eagle will become a combination gondola/chairlift. American Flyer will become 6-passenger high-speed bubble chair.
Winter Park will replace its Zephyr Express quad with a gondola.
Montana
Big Sky will replace its Ramcharger quad with North America’s first eight-passenger chair. The new lift, to be ready for next season, will have heated seats and blue bubbles. The older, high-speed Ramcharger will replace the much slower Shedhord double chair.
Quebec
Mont Tremblant will replace its Lowell Thomas chair with a detachable quad. Its main summit lodge, Le Grand Manitou, will be expanded.
Vermont
Snow gods seem to be favoring the Green Mountain State. Six to seven feet have fallen since beginning of the month. Great time to plan a Spring Skiing trip. This weekend will be filled with green snow and green beer as Vermont areas celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
Killington, part of the IKON pass, will continue to offer discounts on its season pass for seniors, 65-79. The pass for 80+ is essentially free (nominal processing fee required).
Stratton will replace its Snowbowl chair with a high-speed detachable.
High Fives Foundation
Jan and Judy Brunvand with their special edition Parlor Skis
Frequent contributor Jan Brunvand sent in this photo with his wife, Judy, holding her special edition High Fives Foundation Parlor Skis. Parlor gives 15% of its High Fives design sales to the non-profit which helps injured athletes reach their recovery goals. Jan is holding the trout skis Parlor made for the American Museum of Fly Fishing.
Reader Opinion: MAX Pass Replaced by Less Diverse IKON Pass
The MAX Pass offered skiers 5 days of unrestricted access to 44 ski areas ranging from local, family-oriented areas to large, destination resorts spread out evenly across the East and West.
The MAX Pass was available through Intrawest and included 5 of its resorts. My understanding is that the Boston area had the highest concentration of MAX Pass holders, and that Mt. Sunapee and Okemo ranked in the top 5 ski areas for total MAX Pass visits.
Last April, Intrawest was bought by KSL Capital Partners, a private equity firm investing in leisure properties, and Henry Crown, the owner of Aspen Skiing Company. They formed a new company called the Alterra Mountain Corporation (www.alterramtnco.com), self-described as “a curator of 12 premier mountain destinations”, including Mammoth, Squaw, and Deer Valley. Alterra replaced the MAX Pass with the IKON Pass, starting next season.
The differences between MAX and IKON are significant:
- 44 diverse ski areas offered under MAX reduced to 26 large, destination ski areas, which are now skewed to the West. 12 of the 26 resorts are owned by Alterra.
- Unrestricted ski days reduced depending on IKON level and specific resort.
- Elimination of the season pass-holder discount. Max Passes were only $199 for those that paid for season passes at participating ski areas.
Now, as a MAX Pass holder I am personally disappointed that this is a less diverse product with fewer choices. There are only 8 IKON areas in the East where a lot of Max Pass holders live and ski, and those are reduced to “destination” resorts.
With all of Alterra’s acquisition and start-up activity over the past year, the company appears to be using IKON as a way to push its owned properties.
With a little feedback from current customers, Alterra may still make some changes to return greater ski area diversity to IKON so it can be enjoyed by a broader base of skiers.
Mystery Glimpse: What’s The Story?
Dire Straits Require Heroic Acts.
Credit: New England Ski Museum
This week, a historic event for Mystery Glimpse. Can you identify the characters involved in the above picture? What’s going on? Where are they headed? Why? And yes, they are skiing.
Thanks to the New England Ski Museum, Franconia, NH, for hosting this jewel. Congratulations to NESM for opening its new branch in North Conway!
Last Week
Who, where, 1950.
Yes, Stein Eriksen is the racer and the event is the FIS World Championships at Aspen in 1950. This was the first FIS event held outside Europe when Aspen was open for only four seasons. Italy’s Zeno Colo missed sweeping all three events by losing the slalom by 0.03 seconds. Stein Eriksen placed third in the slalom.
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