With so much talk of politics and disasters and financial upheaval swirling round us, let’s take a moment to reflect on how good it is to be in Colorado with ski and snowboarding season but weeks away.
Forgive us this guilty pleasure, but dude, we totally applaud the upgrades taking place at several Colorado ski resorts.
Seriously. Many businesses depend on the millions of skier and ‘boarder visits Colorado’s resorts attract each year. From mom-and-pop equipment rentals, to condo owners, to restaurants and bars and hotels, to transportation suppliers and airlines and all manner of businesses in between, the state’s mountain resorts can mean success or failure. At the end of the season, the industry means $2.6 billion to the state’s economy, says a 2007 report by Colorado Ski Country USA.
Yet Colorado’s mountains aren’t the only ones out there with sick snow and wild rides, so sitting on your assets while hotspots flourish in neighboring states like Utah, or far away in British Columbia, isn’t good business.
Last year in the United States, single-day ski and ‘boarder visits to resorts set a record 60.5 million, according to Michael Berry, the president of the National Ski Areas Association. That compares to 12.5 million in Colorado.
“There’s a good competitive spirit,” Berry tells us. “Everybody will always look to the other places to gauge the experience.”
To remain attractive, Colorado’s resorts are spending more than $200 million this year to offer high-speed lifts, expanded snow-making equipment, gondolas, new terrain and more. And if we remember correctly, there was no dearth of spending in recent years.
Vail Resorts has invested $115 million in improvements this year, from a new and expanded gondola in Keystone, to new ski schools and restaurants, as Elizabeth Aguilera reported in Sunday’s Denver Post.
“A lot of these are not things people are demanding,” said Rob Katz, Vail Resorts’ chief executive, of the improvements. “We as a company want to be ahead of the curve, whether that is with environment, hotels, lifts or technology.”
Winter Park has added a gondola from its free parking area to a new village area. Telluride is opening the new Revelation Bowl. Crested Butte is expanding its Teocalli Bowl. You can practice aerials on trampolines at Copper Mountain, and take those tricks to a new superpipe on Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain.
In these days of economic uncertainty, when high fuel prices could keep the riders away, the improvements might prove risky, especially when you consider nothing works if the snow is subpar.
But skiers and ‘boarders appreciate risk. It’s nice to see Colorado’s industry going big.
