Ski resorts across the country are leaning more heavily on snowmaking guns as warmer, shorter winters threaten a business model based on snow. In Colorado, the reliance on man-made snow has been essential to the start of the 2021-22 ski season, with all of the state’s 13 major river basins reporting precipitation through November well […]
National Ski Areas Association
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Snow may not be piling up at Colorado ski resorts this season, but anxiety sure is
It wasn’t that long ago that ski resort operators lost sleep over snowfall. Then they had to fret over once-in-a-lifetime protocols to limit the spread of contagion at their ski areas. Now, the worries are stacked even deeper, with affordable housing, dwindling numbers of workers and ever-lengthening lift lines joining the perennial fretting over snow […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Up to 55 injured skiers and snowboarders arrive at Colorado emergency rooms each day, analysis shows
Chris Arnis was with his crew, carving spring snow on his home hill. It was a good Sunday for the lifelong skier. It was a little shy of 4 p.m., March 15, 2015, when it happened. Arnis, a ski coach in Steamboat Springs, hit some deep ruts where a speed-controlling fence had just been pulled […]
Posted inBusiness, COVID, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Struggling ski resort industry frets over Trump’s ban on immigrant worker visas
The ski resort industry, reeling from early closures in March, suffered another major blow this week when President Donald Trump extended a ban on visas for immigrant workers through the end of the year. Citing soaring unemployment, Trump’s proclamation applies to H-1B visas used by technology companies, H-2B visas and J-1 visas. The resort industry […]
Posted inBusiness, COVID, News, Outdoors
The ski resort industry is hoping for federal relief from its $2 billion in coronavirus losses
Dave Byrd has spent the past two weeks dispelling the notion that ski areas won’t feel the pain of the coronavirus shutdown because they pulled the plug so late in the season. “This is roiling everyone,” said the director of regulatory affairs for the National Ski Areas Association, which last week estimated the country’s 460 […]
Posted inColoradans, News, Outdoors
Telluride’s avalanche-battling arsenal: WWII cannons, 3D mapping and discipline
MOUNTAIN VILLAGE — Taj Simon is charging up the narrow, windswept ridge. “Come on dad. Let’s go!” he yells to his father, Garrett, who is carrying the 7-year-old’s skis. The valley locals are atop Black Iron Bowl, a steep basin below Telluride’s Palmyra Peak, a good 20-minute hike up from the top of the Prospect […]
Posted inColoradans, News, Outdoors
Two years after woman’s fatal fall at Granby Ranch, Colorado’s chairlift safety review remains ongoing
Two years after a Texas woman was thrown from a chairlift and killed at Granby Ranch, Colorado has not put in place safety recommendations listed in a state investigation of her death. The process has been slow and quiet, with the first proposals for change expected late this spring. The Colorado Tramway Safety Board, working […]