Copper Mountain – With fresh snow dusting the high peaks of the Ten Mile range, Summit County ski-resort executives had reason for optimism Friday – for this winter and beyond.
Skier numbers are rising, international tourism is skyrocketing, the Generation X demographic slump is over and resort officials are crowing about the slopes being cool again for a new youth movement.
“We’ve ridden through the downward trend. … We’re sustaining on the upper end (with older skiers) and growing on the lower end. Our kids’ programs are going gangbusters,” Roger McCarthy, the head of Breckenridge and Keystone resorts, said at the annual winter preview by Summit County’s rival resort operators.
Given such bright hopes, the state’s ski areas once again are humming with major crowd-pleasing improvements and eagerly anticipating the winter, even while giving Mother Nature a helping hand through snowmaking operations that began at nearby Loveland ski area Friday morning.
“You hear that sound?” McCarthy asks in a promotional video as he watches heavy equipment digging foundations for a new ski lift at Breckenridge that will be the highest in North America. “That’s the sound of capital investment. I love that sound.”
Home to Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Keystone, Summit County hosts more skiers annually than the entire state of Utah, and its economy still is based in large part on the ski season.
Gary Rodgers, the general manager at Copper Mountain, talked about generating “excitement” and “energy” through features such as a new half-pipe visible from the main base area and an expansion of extreme snowcat skiing on Tucker Mountain.
Alan Henceroth, chief operating officer at Arapahoe Basin, showed off the new rental shop and ski school that is replacing an antiquated building at the base of the small resort. And he spoke hopefully of winning Forest Service approval for a terrain expansion into Montezuma Bowl by winter 2007-08.
McCarthy touted major investments in infrastructure at Keystone and the Summit Lift on Breckenridge’s Peak 8, which will rise to 12,800 feet above sea level and open a large swath of terrain previously accessible only to hikers.
Meanwhile, the race is on to get summer construction wrapped up before the snow flies.
“We’re only four weeks from opening,” A-Basin’s Henceroth said, pointing to an Oct. 21 target date that would best last year’s record for the earliest opening at the resort by a day.
Last winter, Colorado’s 25 resorts posted their third-best winter ever, and this year officials are targeting the record of 12 million visits, said Rob Perl man, executive director of Colorado Ski Country USA, the industry trade organization.
“Everyone,” McCarthy said, “is really champing at the bit and ready to go.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
