So How Much Did the Recession Hurt Ski Areas?

If you expected traffic to ski areas to be down this season, you'd be right. According to an AP story published on the site of KOB-TV, New Mexico, there were 57.1 million "skier visits" across the country, a year-to-year decline of 5.5 percent. (The 2007-08 had seen a record turnout of 60.5 million.) Coincidentally, traffic to all Colorado resorts dropped a total of 5.5 percent. (Technical note: You have to take numbers from Vail Resorts and add them to numbers from Colorado Ski Country USA. Vail does not belong to that trade association.)

Not all declines in traffic were equal, however. Aspen Ski Co reported a drop of 7.6 percent. The Snowmass Sun reports that traffic was the lowest since the 2003-04 season.

Beaver Creek traffic increased 1.3 percent, and Vail actually saw an increase of 3.3 percent. Both resorts are owned by Vail Corp, which reported an overall drop of 3.5 percent. That must mean that traffic to the company's other resorts--Heavenly, in the Tahoe area, and Keystone and Breckenridge in Summit County, Colorado--dropped fairly significantly.

Who Starts Snowboarding, Who Stops, and Why?

Writing at Transworld Business, Mike Lewis talks about trends in snowboarding and skiing--how many people participate, why, and what the ski and snowboard industry is doing to keep them going back for more.

It's a long article, so I'll just highlight a few statistics.

- Nearly 3 in 4 snowboarders are boys or men. No surprise there, if you look at your local hill.
- Historically, only 15 percent of people who try skiing or snowboarding return for a second day.
- A 10-year effort by the ski area association has raised that rate to ... 16 percent.
- Even among people who snowboard regularly, 25 percent drop out during any given year, for reasons relating to health, work, interest, family, or finances.
- The "typical' snowboarder went snowboarding 10 days during a season.
- During 2007, over 5 million people went snowboarding at least twice.
- Only 10 percent of snowboarders are 35 and older. Still, that makes for a half-million riders 35 and up.

Here's an approximation of the number of snowboarders for each season, with a 2-visit per season minimum:

1994 - 2,061,000
1995 - 2,254,000
1996 - 3,711,000
1997 - 2,516,000
1998 - 3,635,000
1999 - 3,313,000
2000 - 4,347,000
2001 - 5,343,000
2002 - 5,589,000
2003 - 6,309,000
2004 - 6,572,000
2005 - 5,987,000
2006 - 5,204,000
2007 - 5,063,000

Notice that participation has been going down ever since it peaked in 2004. Why? I don't know.

Most of the article deals with industry efforts to reverse the slide and retain first-time participants. The focus is on youth and minorities. Only 10 percent of companies focus on "older" adults. And "older" isn't defined, so it may be 25 to 34!

The article also reminds us that people take up snowboarding for different reasons. Roughly half do so for the challenge, while while a quarter look for the social benefits. And of course someone can have more than one motivation, either in a given time or over time. I started skiing for social reasons, but took up snowboarding for the challenge.

By the way, I wonder if those numbers look the same if you're talking about skiers.

For more on this topic, see the statistics page of GraysOnTrays.com.

Bling Bling? No Thanks

I like Flow bindings, so I was disappointed to see they've gone "bling bling."

Behold, bindings with 24k gold.

Ridiculous.

Who is Core, What's Wrong with Snowboarding, and Why Not Make a Buck? A First Draft

Hang out in the snowboarding world long enough and you may encounter complaints about a particular snowboarder or snowboarding company "selling out." You will also hear talk about people who are "hard core" or simply "core," people who may be the salvation -- or curse -- of snowboarding.

I'm an amateur sociologist, and even took a couple of graduate-level courses. So please bear with me if it seems like I'm trying to overanalyze things. It's in my blood, and after all, it's not like this is the height of snowboarding season, so what else are we going to in snowboarding besides talk about it? At the risk of being the "crotchety old man" that one blogger feared becoming (I am a man and I am older than the two bloggers whose words I'm going to respond to), here's my first draft on the subject. (Note: I'll revise it in time to adjust for the mistakes I made when I wrote this, half-asleep.)

The impetus for this post is an essay by "The Angry Snowboarder," titled "Where snowboarding went wrong."

The key point seems to be that snowboarding is "inaccessible." Among the reasons or symptoms:

Snowboarding is costly
Analysis: Yes it is. I don't know what to do at it. Even Midwestern ski areas with 300 feet of vertical charge $40 or $50 a day (and sometimes more) for a lift ticket.

There are at least two reasons for this. One, it costs money to turn lifts, make snow (an essential in the Midwest), groom snow (also essential in the Midwest), buy liability insurance, and so forth. The second reason is that it's what the market will bear.

I don't know enough about the hardware side of snowboarding to comment. But again, manufacturing costs are only one factor in determining the price of a product; the other factor is what the end customer will willingly pay.

Solution: For lift tickets, buying a season pass can pay off. Use other strategies, too, such as coupons, buddy passes, Liftopia, and the like. For hardware, buy at the right time of the year, buy leftover stock, and go to second-hand sources.

"The industry is kidding themselves when it comes to the average rider."

I would like to look at survey results. But I think the younger crowd dominates, even though I don't like it.

"Snowboarding has sold out."
Analysis: I don't know what to make of this, as I'm not sure what it means.

"It has become a part of pop culture and mainstream media. It's not like it was even 10 years ago, everyones mother really is doing it."
Is this a good or a bad development? Put me down for "good." It promotes healthy living, personal development (setting and achieving goals, etc.), and family activities--all good.

"Still there's been a steady decline in participants from both returning and new."
This is not limited to snowboarding. Skiing has the same problem, or at least a similar one--its market is aging.

"The big business side of the industry has only seen the bottom line which is the almighty dollar. This is where the segregation between marketing and the average rider begins."
Analysis: It's easy to bash 'the almighty dollar," and sometimes that is appropriate. (Quick example: If someone offers to pay me to poison your water supply, there's only one moral response. Don't.) But generally, prices are incredibly powerful ways of telling us which goods or services people prefer, and in which quantities.

If a company makes a buck off of me, it's because it gives me something that I value--more than holding the money, and more than what I could spend with that dollar.

The snowboarding industry says that its core market is age 13-21. They're leaving a lot of money on the table by neglecting the 22 to 35 year old group.
Is this true? If you look at rider surveys, it probably makes sense to concentrate on the youth market. Yet it's also true that the 22 to 35-year old age group has more money to spend, though not necessarily more time. And as someone who belongs to an even older age group, I'd emphasize that yes indeed, people 36 and up buy snowboarding gear and lift tickets, too.

But here's the challenge: Are there enough of us to make raising the age limit on the target market worthwhile? If a company that turns from the youth market to the adult market make the same amount of money? If, instead of dropping the youth market, it simply adds an adult unit, will it suffer so much in the youth market (distracted focus, kids won't want to buy "you're father's snowboard," etc.) that it loses money?

I don't know. I do suspect that some adults would appreciate the chance to buy a board that isn't geared for the an adolescent market.

"The ultimate rise in prices besides inflation is the fact Ski Resorts are more or less Real Estate Companies now. So for them to afford making more condo's, hotels, and retail space they just raise prices."
If this is an argument that real estate development causes lift ticket prices to increase, I would probably disagree. As I said above, there are certain costs to running lifts, and that's regardless of whether the people who run the ski operations are selling condos on the side.

On the other hand, it's possible that for some people, expensive lift tickets are a good thing, since they perceive that high prices signal high-quality service. I suspect that's a minority segment of the population, however.

There are other points made in the post that I haven't covered here, by the way.

THE FOLLOW-UP
Courtney Wilson, who writes at The Lady in Shred. She describes her site as "just a blog to enrich the lives of female snowboarders," but I think it's great to see targeted sites.

She writes in response to the Angry Snowboarder post with one of her own, titled Is accessibility really where snowboarding went wrong?
I'm not sure what to make of the idea of snowboarding "going wrong," as the term suggests that snowboarding has a quasi-religious status, or is perhaps a grand social movement with principles that must be honored, or at the least, an organization that has drifted far from its vision statement.

None of those apply. Snowboarding is a sport, an activity, an interest that many people share. But that's all.

Still The Lady gets the discussion off to a helpful start by clearly identifying a problem she seeks to explain: Why has the number of people in snowboarding declined? (To be complete, I should pull out my participation surveys, but it's late and I need to get to bed.)

She says "I blame greed, egos, and unrealistic expectations."

Greed.
Courtney faults companies for having merely a short-term vision. That's certainly possible, and business history is littered with companies that took the short-term path and suffered--or went kaput.

She then mentions that Gene Simmons has entered the snowboarding industry. Is that a problem? I say bully for him for having an idea and running with it. That's business. Will it be a financial success? Will people respond? I don't know. SHOULD people respond? I wouldn't. But I'm not going to complain if you do. It's your choice.

"While there are a few companies who are trying to make it with their integrity in tact, there is absolutely no way they can compete with Burton, K2, and Quiksilver."

I have some idea what integrity means in general, and even what it means in business, but does it mean something unique in snowboarding?

"Even those companies you think are against the man are trying their hardest to be the man. Core means poor. Bottom line. Fortunately this economy might be our chance to ditch all the high-power execs who are ruling the industry. Let’s face it, snowboarding isn’t going to make you enough money to buy a yacht and cruise around the world when you retire. My hope is that the next couple of seasons will shake out everyone who isn’t doing this for the right reasons."

I'm more confused than I was before, after reading this. OK, I have an idea what "the man" is all about, but generally I'm not moved by rants against "the man." One reason is that, as the text suggests, people who claim to be against "the man" (now who is he anyway?) are simply "the man" trying to pull a fast one on you through false advertising.

And what does "core means poor" mean? Who is "core" and how do we identify them? The best I can figure is that "core" is some soul, obsessed by snowboarding, laboring away building boards by hand, who ends up losing everything when a company headed by a CEO who knows squat about snowboarding steals market share by flooding stores with mass-produced junk.

And?

Meh. So what. Stuff happens. Beer is the only industry I can think of off the top of my head that has seen a resurgence of the craft producer.

Why do my-heart-is-in-this producers get squashed soulless, impersonal corporations? Because they can't compete in the real world in which people have unlimited wants and limited means (not just money but also time to seek out producers). So little guy working in his garage turns out 100 boards a season while Behemoth Boards sells 100,000 a year. Who has done more to expand snowboarding?

EGO
The 100 Day-a-year-rider drives the lifestyle of this sport. And at the end of the day people want to buy into the lifestyle.

Of course we need these riders as the mascots of snowboarding. But we don't need them hating on people who are only riding 5 days a year. Chances are those recreational riders are funding their pay checks and allowing them to ride that much. Resort locals need to be a little more grateful and stop hating on people who can’t ride 100 days and be stoked that they’re having fun on the mountain.

And all you shop bros out there, check your ego at the door.

DO people want to buy into a lifestyle? Some do. Others don't. Oh, I do find the idea of moving to the mountains to be attractive--for a while. Then I think of the family, friends, familiar sites (and sights) I'd have to leave behind, and it becomes less attractive. I don't think I'm alone in this.

As for shop workers or 100-day people "hating on people who are only riding 5 days a year," it might help if recreational riders take this attitude: I don't care. Sure, I know that people who live in mountains can mock tourists (it's not just snowboarders, it's common to the resort industry generally), people who ski or snowboard in jeans or wear neon one-pieces, etc.

Even so, Soup Nazi aside, you're not going to grow your business by insulting your customers. So the diagnosis is largely on the mark, though I don't know how big a factor it is in the decline /stagnation in snowboarding participation.

UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
This isn't an explanation for "the downfall of snowboarding" as much as it is a caution.

Snowboarding is "always going to be expensive and it's always going to take a certain type of personality to embrace it .... Until it’s as easy as watching NASCAR, it’s just not going to be that popular."

True enough.

Too Little Time to Hate

Call me crazy, but I think that the opportunities offered by snowboarding, skiing, and other wintertime activities are too enjoyable to worry about how other people enjoy them.

Even as we wind down snowboarding's third decade, the alleged feud between skiers and snowboarders still gets press. (Sometimes the attitudes are in fact not friendly; witness some online discussions when Taos Ski area announced that it would open its terrain up to snowboarders.)

But here's something I was not aware of: an anti-snowboarder sentiment within snowboarding. Perhaps naive, I was surprised how vulgar and anti-human at least one expression of this sentiment was.

Karine Ruby won the first Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, at the 1998 games. In the words of one recent article about her, she became "the most decorated female snowboarder in the world, with 2 Olympic medals, 6 world championship titles and 67 snowboard World Cup victories."

Unfortunately, that article was her obituary in the New York Times. On a mountain climb, she fell 70 feet to her death.

The Times included one passage that some people might find incendiary. Here it is:

"'In the snowboarding world, she was an unavoidable icon,' Joel Franitch, the French Skiing Federation's director of snowboarding, said in a telephone interview. 'It's a huge loss for the sport."

Did you see the offending text? "French Skiing Federation."

What gives?

Here's the answer. The Olympic games are run by the International Olympic Committee, or IOC. For each sport, the IOC picks which governing body sets the rules for who can participate. When the IOC decided it wanted to have snowboarding in the games, it had to pick which organization to deal with. There was an existing organization for snowboarders, but the IOC instead picked FIS, the worldwide skiing organization. That move provoked some anger among snowboarders, and the world's leading snowboarders refused to participate.

Over 20 years later, a few people are not willing to let that sleight go, as revealed by the following conversation I had on Twitter with a party I'll call "AS." My comments are preceded by "GOT." I've done some editing, if you can't tell.

AS: honestly was Karine Ruby a f---ing saint or something? Her skis were stuck together and called a snowboard

GOT: Karine Ruby a saint? No. But she was a pioneer, champion snowboard racer, etc. Too much anger there? Why?

AS: pioneer of what keeping snowboarding in the ski genre? Racing isn't snowboarding, she's dead people deal with it

GOT: Still mad about the role of FIS? You *are* an angry dude. I beg to differ: snowboarders *can* race.

GOT: BTW, remembering someone's contributions and life is in fact a way of dealing with death. Is that a problem?

AS: hard booting carvers are nothing more than spandex wearing wannabe skiers that couldn't hack it ski racing

AS: also how many people knew and remembered her before she died? These are the same people that suddenly cry about it, that's sad

GOT: Spandex ain't my thing either, but live and let slide, I say.

And I still do. I'm not a hardbooter, though I'm intrigued by it and may try it out sometime. I seldom watch snowboarding or skiing events (for one thing, they're hard to find on TV), but I do think that the death of anyone who has accomplished something and has a lot of life ahead of them is a sad, and a loss to many people. No man is an island, and all that.

So whatever you enjoy doing on the snow, do it, enjoy it, and be grateful for the opportunity to do it. And don't hate. Save your energy for something productive.

Toddling Times

Jesus said "unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). Some people might say that snowboarding is heavenly, and there are certainly some comparisons between learning to ride and being like a toddler.

First, consider the act of getting to stand up when your feet are locked into the bindings. It's awkward, isn't it? It reminds me of the difficulty that a toddler faces when learning how to stand up from a seated position.

Next, consider the joy of discovery. Toddlers are natural scientists, exploring everything they see, and often taking great joy in finding something new. One activity that makes a toddler happy is learning how to use a slide. There's a "whee" factor in making the trip down the slide. Like snowboarding, it involves gravity, sliding, fun, and a bit of fear.

Any other ideas? I'll be adding them as I think of them--or add your own observations in the comments section.

Last Gasp 2

Once again a few us got together at Arapahoe Basin. It was a great time of snowboarding, sharing meals, and just hanging out, with some older riders. Even resorts elsewhere close for the season in March or April, A-Basin keeps going into June. Our gathering this year was May 13 and 14.



(Yes, you can go snowboarding in May!)

DEALING WITH THE ALTITUDE
This was my third visit to Summit County, and my second for snowboarding. As the name suggests, it's definitely an "at altitude" place. A-basin, Breckenridge, Copper, and Keystone, all in the county, have a base elevation of at least 9,200 feet.

So during my first visit there (a Labor Day weekend back in 2005 or so), I experienced some mild altitude sickness. When I returned for snowboarding last year, I got a prescription for Diamox, a commonly prescribed drug. It helped.

This year, I didn't take any Diamox with me. That was a mistake. I usually have a fitful sleep my first night in the mountains (even at a lower elevation such as Vail or Aspen), but that night was bad. I woke up feeling short of breath, and like someone was sitting on my chest. I was so tired and weak that at breakfast I could barely lift my spoon from the cereal bowl to my mouth. But I decided to gut it out, and planned to take it easy the first day.

Once I got to the mountain, I was fine, but I ended the day early, at about 12:30. I got in enough riding to be satisfied, and took a nap in the afternoon. I went to bed early that night, and woke up a completely different person.

So the lesson for flatlanders: Read up on altitude sickness, take precautions, and talk to your doctor if you're concerned.

GETTING THERE
You can get a nice airport if you spend $5 billion, and Denver International Airport is pleasant, as far as airports go. It's the home base of Frontier Airlines, on which I got a decent through not spectacular deal the week before I left. Frontier has a three-tier pricing system, which is somewhat confusing, but if you pay $25 more than the lowest fare, you get to check two bags without an extra fee, plus you get to watch DirectTV.

The day before my flight, I booked a van ride with Colorado Mountain Express, for $82. The driver was tour guide and naturalist, giving us a history lesson on the various towns that we drove past en route to the county, as well as pointing out wildlife by the road. We saw prairie dogs, sheep, and buffalo. They delivered me to the door of my condo.

Before I left the airport I noticed the counter for Big Sky Shuttle, which goes from DIA to Summit for $65. I don't know if they offer door-to-door; be sure to ask.

DINNER
My flight arrived earlier than expected, so I got an earlier shuttle, which meant that I could meet everyone for dinner rather than, as I had planned on, arriving at the condo after dinner. Being able to meet some folks before the first day of riding was a pleasant addition to the trip. We ate at a Mexican restaurant, which offered adequate food.

THE CONDO
Our condo was between Keystone to the east (A-basin was a few miles further east) and Silverthorne to the west. It had four bedrooms, and if you wanted to pack people in them, could have, I'm guessing, slept 16 people or more. It had six levels, if you count the front entrance and the kitchen (separated by a few steps) as being on separate levels. I stayed in the loft, meaning at times that I felt like I had to combine chores so as to minimize the trips I took down to the kitchen or (a few steps below that) the living room. Overall, it was a fine setup. Steve found it on VRBO.com. I highly recommend the site.

TICKETS
If you have time and are willing to do some work, you can often get by without buying tickets at the window. I used Liftopia.com, which claims to offer discounted tickets, but the system was rather screwy the day I tried it. It claimed to offer me 2 days for $67, but when I clicked through, it wanted to charge me twice that. I backed out and selected a different option, and paid $45 a day. That saved me ... not a lot of money. Only $3 off the end-of-season window price of $8. On the other hand, there's a hill around here that charges that during high season, for 300 feet of vertical and about 125 acres.

If you go, you can try Liftopia, but if you don't get a good deal, see if you can get a "scalper" in the parking lot. Pass holders can "sponsor" friends (or people they've just met) for a discounted price. You may also find, as I did, someone in the parking lot hawking some surplus vouchers. I could have gotten one for $30. Bummer that I missed that.

THE FACILITIES AND STAFF
Vail it isn't; the A-basin parking lot was dirt, reminding me of many a Midwestern lot. The base day lodge is an upgrade from Midwestern day areas, but equal to or arguably a step below what you might find at some Midwestern areas such as Lutsen or Granite Peak. The mid-mountain Black Mountain Lodge is only a few years old, and looks it. We ate lunch there both days; expect to pay ski-area prices for your food. (Meatball sandwich with two sides: north of 10 dollars.) It's a comfortable place to hang out, though (showing my age, part 1), I thought the music on the outside loudspeakers was too loud. It was tuned to an XM music channel, and (showing my age, part 2), I didn't recognize any of the songs until an Eagles tune came wafting towards me. One nice thing about the Black Mountain Lodge: The food service was moved out on the patio, buffet/cookout style. I dropped my plate of food before I even got a chance to eat much of it. The staff saw the incident and gave me a whole new plate of food without question.

A-basin is famous for "the beach," an area in the parking lot where people cook out and drink. We didn't stop there, however.

The lifts (at least the ones I used) are at least triples, and reasonably fast. On the other hand, the trail map should include more information--in particular, the time required to travel each lift as well as the elevation gain made by each.

THE MOUNTAIN
The stated statistics include an area of 900 acres, split between the original basin (490 acres) and the Montezuma Bowl (410 acres), which became lift-served during the 2007-08 season. (Prior to that you had to hike out of it.) The expansion increased the relative importance of advanced (black) and expert (double black/ex) terrain. Intermediate terrain became 122% larger, the advanced terrain became 340% larger, and the expert/extreme became 211% larger. Overall, 207 of the 900 acres (23%) are rated expert, leaving about 500 acres for us mortals. (For what it's worth, Colorado law defines "extreme terrain" as having a 50 degree average pitch over a minimum distance of 100 feet.)


(In front of the East Wall, 2008 photo)

The A-basin trail map claims a vertical rise of 2,270 feet, which is respectable. But most people will find that to be a misleading number, since it comes from subtracting the base elevation (10,780) from the elevation at the top of the 13,050 at the top of the Upper East Wall. To get to the Upper East Wall, you have to hike from the top of the Lenawee lift (which someone on the mountain told me was at 12,450). That's a 600 foot vertical hike, so for most people, the available vertical rise is only 1,670 feet. Respectable, certainly, but less than, say, the 2,030 of Aspen's Buttermilk, a place with a much, shall we say, milder reputation.

PLAYING ON THE MOUNTAIN
We were all advanced riders, with perhaps an expert thrown in for good measure. Two guys who normally ride soft boots hooked up with a younger guy who spends a lot of time on hardboots, to try hardbooting. I figured that being at altitude was enough of a challenge, so I kept my setup.

On the first day that I was there, we warmed up by taking laps off Exhibition, the lower lift in the front basin. It's a got a mix of green and blue runs, but nothing too difficult. The blue runs, in addition to being somewhat steeper, a generally more narrow.

If I recall correctly, we moved on to take laps on Lenawee, which serves the upper reaches of the front side. Most if not all of the area served by the Pallavicini lift (mostly black and double black) was closed, since the Pali lift was closed. We could have taken a traverse to ride down the lower east wall (which we did last year), but at least when I was there, nobody in our group did.

After some laps on Lenawee, we went to the Montezuma bowl. You have to ascend a short distance to get there, maybe 50 feet. It's not a horrible climb, but enough to make you want to unstrap your board and carry it.

Most of the Zuma bowl was closed, but the intermediate terrain down the middle was open. The top pitch looked like it might be trouble (steeper and hardpacked) but wasn't bad. The most troublesome spots, in fact, came once the grade leveled out some. Some areas had been groomed. They weren't anything like fine corduroy, but there were certainly rideable. But if you got off the (ex)groomers, you were likely to get some nasty, bumpy, frozen snow, sort of like trying to ride on frozen mashed potatoes--or worse.

After three, four or five trips through Zuma, we returned to the front side. I left about 12:30, since I had more than enough riding for the day. I slept off much of the afternoon, which helped me immensely the next day.

On the second day, the Zuma bowl was closed, so we spent most of our time lapping the Lenawee chair. The hardboot guys worked on their technique and tweaking the equipment, and I simply enjoyed taking nonstop laps. By the way, the ride from top to bottom was somewhat less than I had expected. At the end of the day, it took me 10 minutes to ride from the top of Lenawee to the base. I wasn't bombing it (the snow was too chopped up for that), but I also didn't stop to rest along the way.

THE PEOPLE
I enjoyed meeting everyone in our group, and learned something different from each of them. We had a couple of gearheads, an instructor, and two (ex)southerners, who provided some accents I haven't heard that often in the mountains. We talked about snowboarding techniques, families, ski schools, and other topics. Back at home, I usually ride alone, but having riding and dinner companions is a great component of big-mountain riding.


(Some of the riders, on top of the ridge separating the front bowl from the Montezuma bowl.)

NEXT YEAR!
A newcomer to our group said that we ought to meet again next year. He even suggested a name: Last Gasp 3. I like it. What do you think?

For the inaugural and second year, we met during the second full week of May. While we were blessed with 8 inches of fresh stuff last year, we didn't do as well in the snow department this year. Maybe we should make our next meeting during the first full week of May. That way, we might benefit from more snow, but still be able to get mud season rates for lodging, and have fewer crowds than during the peak season.

Skiing and Riding on the Plains

Some ski areas are owned and run by big companies (think Vail Resort) or enterprises that can boast of world-class terrain (think of the Aspen Ski Company). Then there are the industrialists who have a ski business on the side.

The March/April 2009 edition of Enterprise Minnesota (article not online) has a one-page write-up of Vern Anderson and Paul Anderson, who are the brothers behind Andes Tower Hills.

ATH is about 50 miles east of the Minnesota-South Dakota border, so don't expect half-hour runs. Neither the company web site nor the 2008-09 season brochure give any indication of the vertical drop, though OnTheSnow.com says it's 290 feet, on 35 acres.

So none of the three words in the name--Andes, tower, hills--is that informative. But you make do with what you have. At least that was the motto of hill owner Vern Anderson, who says "I've always enjoyed the winter ... and as a family we really enjoyed skiing." Since the nearest lift-served terrain (Powder Ridge, 300 vertical feet and 60 acres) was 75 miles away, "the only solution, Anderson decided, was to build a ski resort himself."

Today, the magazine says, ATH gets 60,000 visits a year. That's a pretty good amount of traffic, considering that the county the hills is in has a population of just over 38,000.

Anderson is the CEO of Douglas Machine, so he turns the operations over to manager John Bitner. Bitner talks up the area's vibe: "We--flat out--have the best family atmosphere for skiers and snowboarders in the state of Minnesota. That's what's unique about us." Anderson, for his part, says "Seeing kids and families have a really great tine. That's what's exciting."

If you're one of those people who chafes at the commercialization of winter sports (my attitude: Meh), think of Andes Tower Hills, and many other small places like it, where the passion of owners and managers keep the wheels turning.

It's Snow Good

As I looked out my kitchen window this morning, I saw an unusual sight: 3 inches of new snow. Had this happened a month ago, I would have been happy. Now I'm simply annoyed.

Why? While the season for snowboarding and skiing continues in some places in the Rockies, here in the Midwest it's all but over, with only one or two areas still open. The nearest one is 4-5 hours away. Any place within a short drive has been closed for at least one week, and in most cases, longer than that. They're not going to re-open, and the little snow that we've received isn't enough to be useful.

At this point, the new snow is simply signals a delay of the coming of summer.

So at this time of the year, in this place, I say "down with snow!"

A Look at Minnesota and the North Shore

Go to a convention and you'll probably come home with a bag of swag: Product samples, t-shirts with vendor logos, mouse pads, what have you. My recent convention to Lutsen, Minn. for the annual meeting of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association was no different.

Whoever put the swag bag together did a good job of assembling a collection of items that not only have some homestyle flavor that reflects on the host state. All (with one exception) came from companies in Minnesota, and most items were made there as well.

The samples included:

* A "Market Tote" from GraniteGear, a company that sells bags and various containers for hiking, canoeing, and other outdoor activities. The Tote is a polyester replacement for a grocery bag, meant to keep plastic and paper bags out of landfills.

I like it well enough, but at $14 per, it's not something I would buy myself. It's supposedly a green product, but being green requires either spending a lot of green to buy more one tote (I seldom come back from the grocery story with only one bag of food) or making several trips a week to the store, which is a waste not only of time but of fuel. The company says it donates a portion of its profits to combat global warming. I suspect that its target market are the people who fret about their "carbon footprint." I wonder how much of a carbon footprint was created to ship the bag from Vietnam (where it was made) to the U.S.?

* A thick folder of brochures and such containing tourism information from five different organizations based on or near the North Shore. The North Shore, which appears at the northeast triangle of Minnesota if you look at a state map, is one of the state's natural treasures. It features forests, mountains, and of course Lake Superior. In the winter, it has opportunities for downhill and cross-country skiing, dog mushing, snowmobile riding, snowshoeing, ice fishing and other activities.

* A box of chocolates made by Gunflint Mercantile (no web site available), which was a welcome addition to the bag. A few of the chocolates served as a fine snack my first day in town.

* A beanie from Wintergreen Northernwear, which makes and sells all sorts of clothing suitable for arctic (and not-so-arctic) activities. It's sharp-looking hat with embroidered artwork, made in northeastern Minnesota. Since it's made by Americans and not, say, workers in Vietnam, it's rather spendy (retail value: $40), meaning that you could buy a comparable hat elsewhere, and put $10 or $20 to use elsewhere. But since it was in the bag of samples, I'll gladly add it to my inventory of winter hats. It works just fine, though it's a bit tight.

* A copy of the Cook County News Herald. Not Cook County, Illinois (population 5,200,000), but Cook County, Minnesota (population 5,200, more or less). The edition was from the week before the convention.

So why was it in the bag? Perhaps it's due to the front page story that offered a preview of our meeting, a week out. Nice touch. The article had this quote from Lutsen Mountains marketing manager Jim Vick: "A Denver writer would have a hard time selling a ski vacation story to his editor. But Cook County has so much more to offer [and it does]. A winter vacation story is different."

True enough, on all three counts.

* A small (50ml) bottle of syrup from Wild Country Maple Syrup. It's produced by a family operation in Lutsen. I'm looking forward to trying it out on pancakes, though at a retail price of $4.75, I may go back to Aunt Jemima. The comparison is somewhat unfair, as the sample comes in a fancy glass bottle, and AJ comes in a plastic jug. But even when you purchase Wild Country in a large plastic container, there's no contest in price: AJ: 20 cents at once; Wild Country: 54 cents. Is Wild Country that much better? Perhaps. But again, I might prefer to buy something cheaper and apply the difference elsewhere. There are some items where I'll gladly go upscale. Syrup? Probably not. But you may draw a different conclusion.

* Four sticks of wax from Fast Wax. I ought to wax my board myself, but I don't. It's a hassle, I'm resisting laying out the money for a good iron and the assorted equipment, and I don't need any more stuff cluttering my garage. If I waxed the board as often as I should, it would probably make sense to do it myself. As it is, I take my board to a shop a couple times a season and let them do it.

This is the second meeting at which I've received some wax. Now if I get an iron sometime, maybe I'll learn how to do it myself.

* A small package of lotion of Warm Skin. The company says its product has been "Torture-tested in such diverse climates as the North and South Poles, the Grand Canyon, and Mt. Everest." Supposedly it is as useful in summer as it is in winter. But since my skin dries out so much in the winter, I'll keep this product in storage until next snowboarding season.

The brochure that accompanied the package offered a challenge: Put this on one side of your face but not the other. Go skiing or riding and then see how you feel at the end of the day. This is one product sample that I'm going to try, and perhaps buy more of.

* Some notecards from three different artists on Minnesota's North Shore, including Rick Allen. A couple seasons ago, his work was used as promotional materials for Lutsen Mountains. Click on the link and look for two prints titled "Lutsen," and another called "Moose Mountain. I like its retro look, and I'm willing to overlook the fact it contains no snowboarders.

* A few items from the Indian Land Tenure Association. One is a newsletter about the organization, which works to promote land ownership among American Indians (a fascinating topic; click through to read more). Another item is a package of wild rice, a quintessential Minnesota food. To be truthful, I've never cooked wild rice, so I'm looking forward to trying it. One caution: It's not "minute" rice. More like "hour" rice.

* A related product, a Tankabar energy bar made of buffalo and cranberry. It's produced by a company based on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota. It's the only non-Minnesota company represented in the swag bag, but it's in the neighborhood. Looking through the company web site, I learned that there are over 400,000 bison in North America.

How about that? Go on a snowboarding trip and pick up a little bit of knowledge on biology, a different culture, and food.

How does the bar taste? I don't know. I'll try it soon.

* A copy of Lake Superior magazine, a regional "lifestyle" magazine focused on, as you can guess, the people in Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario who live near Lake Superior--and anyone who is fascinated by it.

All in all, it's a good collection of products that represent or offer insight into this part of the country.