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Show Finally it snowed! The ski resort operators are all smiles. Some opened immediately imme-diately they have faith that there's more comingor were afraid that if they took time to pack it the sun would come out and it would be gone. A couple of others took another day to groom the courses, and complete packing, pack-ing, knowing if more didn't come they'd get several more days out of what they got, if they had a good pack before skiers got on it. -0- One report tickled us. They reported 12 inches of old snow and 2-4 inches of packed powder. Sounds pretty pret-ty good, doesn't it? Well, 12 inches of old snow packed could be anything from a coating of frost to about an inch thick. Two to four Inches of packed powder would be a covering of oi'ie'-eijbiJi - one -half an inch. T" r No wonder them ski operators oper-ators are smiling it's a whole lot better than what they had! -0- One operator boasted 80 inches of snow right up to f" closing last spring. That's accumulative snowfall for the whole season. In actual- J ' ity, there wasn't more than 18-20 inches on the ground at any time. That's what we call a snow job. -0- A couple of thousand skiers can move more snow in a day than a half a dozen bulldozers. bulldoz-ers. That's why smart operators op-erators would rather take more time to pack it right. (Continued on Page 2) son. The Bulldogs had their best night and the Tigers their worst. It likely wont happen again. Danny Hill is one of the top coaches in the state, and he certainly knows how to get his boys up for a game. But Coach Nielsen is also one of the top coaches In the state. Both have taken their teams to state the last four years. Hill won twice and holds a slight edge at this point. Anyone care to bet who has the edge after ten years. We'll take Nielsen. -0- We keep getting invitations to review the entertainment at the Gaslight Dinner Theatre. Thea-tre. They are almost always on Tuesday night when we can't possibly make It. The invitation is for either us or our representative. The instant invitation is toBrod-erick toBrod-erick Crawford in "Born Yesterday", next Tuesday. Have we got any volunteer theatre critics for the COUNTY NEWS? HERE'S MORE ABOt'T JUST BETWEEN If they don't, without continued con-tinued replenishment, there are soon lots of bare spots in the middle of the course. We learned tosklatCrest-ed tosklatCrest-ed Butte, Colorado. That was when it was popular with the local folks and the ski team from Western State College at Gunnison. It was long before be-fore B.Callaway got Involved with a resort there, and influence in-fluence peddling with the Dept. of Interior. In fact, at that time Vail was alogcabln with one gas pump, beer and hamburgers, and there weren't any ski tows or condominiums. con-dominiums. -0- Later we were acquainted with Trollhaugen hDresser, Wise. Because of haphazard snow conditions, they spent $400,000 for snow-making equipment. It'll cost a million mil-lion dollars now. If there is a point to this column that's it. Lots of ski operators oper-ators are talking of such purchases pur-chases af ter losing out on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, plus the skiing ski-ing in between. They're talking about industrial-type bonds with communities or local businessmen busi-nessmen running their face for the money to purchase them. Trollhaugen made it work, but then it's only 40 miles from Minneapolis and St. Paul, and more people than Inhabit Utah. We believe it might be a good investment for resorts that have a big enough draw to pay it out with a Thanksgiving opener. Certainly, it'll make two inches of powder last as long as twelve Inches without that base. But Utah's big draw is its beautiful powder snow. All of the advertising is pitched at the greatest snow In the world. It isn't likely that the out -of -staters will flock to Utah slopes for man-made snow. So, if there's not enough local traffic to cover the overhead we think it's a bad investment. -0- Don't hit the panic button over a single loss to Gunni- |