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Show amenities, explains Charlie Lansche, the director of marketing and communication for the resort. Beyond faster lifts “there are other services we need to _ develop’ to compete, “Lansche noted. “We need to provide good restaurants, day care and children’s programs. That's expected.” safety bindings. A skier could be outfitted head to toe, clothing and equipment, for as little as $100. A perusal of the lunch time deck of Deer Valley’s Silver Lake Lodge or Park City’s Mid-Mountain Lodge by contrast, would find outfits going for $2,000 to $3,000. Times have definitely changed, but some argue that when adjusting for inflation, Ski resorts are diversifying activities, too, Lansch explained. “A lot of resorts, like Vail (Colorado), have tubing parks. They also have a disco at mid-mountain,” he said of Vail, “and are doing different things to create excitement. You will see more of that.” That's a far cry from what we were doing 20 years ago, let alone 100. Although skiing grew as recreation through the 1920s and ’30s, thanks in some measure to Norwegian immigrants and the Wasatch Mountain Club, the first ski tow in Utah wasn't built until 1938 at the mining camp of Alta. Up until that time, people were happy to hike up the mountains. And ski jumping became very popular, not only as a skill but also as a spectator sport. According to Kelner’s history, an Austrian mechanical engineer who dazzled the members of the Wasatch Mountain Club with his skiing, designed and built the first ski tow with left-over parts from mining operations and other hardware he could scrape together. “By spring 1939, for 15 cents per ride, skiers could be pulled up 2,630 feet for an advertised grand and glorious thrill of dashing over the snow at break-neck speed,” Kelner wrote. Quite a contrast when compared to “the average daily non-resident daily expenditure of $226,” according to Ski Utah for the 1996-97 ski season. The average skiing tourist spent even more in the Park City area prices have not increased that much. Maybe not. Everything is relative. Looking back, Kelner believes skiing in Utah began to change to the Utah ski industry about 1963 when the Treasure Mountain Resort in Park City captured a $2 million grant from the Kennedy Administration to erect a gondola. “They wanted to turn Park City into another Aspen,” Kelner said in an interview. “They've done an admirable job of taking a pleasant place and turning it into something only the rich can afford.” MOUNTAIN TIMES PHOTO A quaint mom & pop-style resort, Powder Mountain offers a lot of great skiing, but lacks cuisine and fine wine. - $312 a day that season. The least part of that expense is the $54 or $52 they shelled ‘out on a lift ticket at Deer Valley or Park City Mountain Resort. Following World War II, the soldiers of the US Army’s 10th Mountain the Collins sincle chairlift at Alta and the Millicent sincle chairlift at Brighton in 1947. Baby Boomers who grew up skiing the Wasatch Mountains might recall that in the early to mid-1960s lift tickets were from Division $2.50 to $3.50. Still adventuresome, skiing came home from Italy with skis in hand and spread across the west to build dozens of ski resorts - mom and pop operations by today’s standards. Nonetheless, it may have served as a foundation of sorts for today’s ski industry. In his rich and interesting history of skiing seemed anything but an industry. Lodges served hot cocoa and sandwiches but were little more than rustic structures with picnic tables and benches. Loose-fitting stretch pants were the vogue during that period, but the first buckle in Utah, Kelner, among other things, looks leather boot was just Coming available and if at the beginnings of Alta and Brighton, as well as Solitude, Park City and Snowbird. He youte skis didn’t reach 18 inches over your looks back at the first chairlfits in the area, time that someone came up with an idea for head, they were too short. It was about that Kelner, who has written three backcountry ski guides with his co-author David Hanscom - the third to be released next year - is one of Utak’s chief critics of expanding ski resorts and what has become the ski industry. “T's totally ghastly,” he says of the growth of all the ski resorts. “They have done everything to discourage people like me, know, the locals, from going up there.“ you Much of the blame lies with real estate development in conjunction with ski resorts, Kelner argues. “When real estate became associated with skiing it was the beginning of the transition from a mom and pop thing to skiing becoming big business. I can’t imagine people wanting to ski through mountain subdivisions, like at Deer Valley.” Rather than being a quiet, soulful experience, Kelner complains that large ski resorts are noisy and crowded and have little to do with pure skiing. “Skiing used to be this inti- mate thing where youd go up with a friend. Now you've got to share the experience on a chairlift built for six with a group of people from New Jersey.” Kelner, who has been skiing the Wasatch for over 40 years calls the build-out of resorts and accompanying real estate the “second rape of the West.” “All these people who keep talking about all the money this industry brings in never talk about how much money goes out. A lot of profits aren't going to Utah corporations but are going back out of state. But money is exactly what is behind the growth of the ski industry. To some degree Kelner is right: Snowbird, built in 1972, is owned by Texas millionaire Dick Bass. Treasure Mountain in Park City morphed into the Park City Ski Area when transplanted Californian Nick Badami bought it in the early to mid-1970s. Recently, however, Badami sold to Ian Cumming, a Utahn. Deer Valley was built in the mid-1980s with out-of-state money. Not so long ago Brighton was purchased by an out-of-state © firm. And ParkWest, which had become S Wolf Mountain was purchased last year by a the American Skiing Co., also an out-of z state firm. Solitude continues to Utahns, although the resort about five years ago. And Alta the same corporation that has Pee vb oo mal inlet = be owned by & changed hands is still owned by run it since the @ @ = 5 KOeyCR pate LOND 3.23345 |