Mountain Town News
All about Scrapple
TELLURIDE, Colo. — The event has roots in Telluride via Ketchum, Idaho. In 1998, a film was made in Telluride that had a plot revolving around a drug dealer living in a fictional 1970s Colorado ski town called Ajax. The drug dealer is trying to make enough money to buy a house for himself and his disabled brother.
The film developed a loyal following in Ketchum, the town that predates Sun Valley. In 2007, locals there organized the annual Scrapple Fest.
“Scrapple just evoked everything groovy about mountain town lifestyle,” said Greg Hedin, a resident of Ketchum who co-founded the annual festival there. “It started with just a little party in our backyard, and it’s just gotten bigger and bigger. Now, we’re up to 100, 150 people showing up to the festival every autumn.”
Now, Telluride is hosting its own Scrapple Fest, complete with a pig roast and a pig chase (mimicking a pivotal scene in the film).
Games ski corporations play
PARK CITY, Utah — Vail Resorts and the Powdr Corp. were scheduled to meet in the courtroom this week. They’ve been tangling in court documents and in the press for some time now.
Powdr owns a number of ski areas, including Park City Mountain Resorts. Vail owns a number of ski areas, and several years ago leased The Canyons, located next to Park City Mountain Resort. When it did, it also assumed Talisker’s fight with Powdr.
Talisker owns much of the land on which Park City Mountain Resort operates, and Park City leased the land in what The Denver Post describes as a “sweetheart” deal of $150,000. Then, in 2011, Park City failed to renew its lease. Talisker sued, and after it handed off operations to Vail Resorts, Vail has served Park City with eviction papers.
A number of stories were written about the issue last week in Utah, but the most interesting was in The Denver Post. Reporter Jason Blevins points out that in leasing The Canyons, Vail was willing to pay (technically, lease) the ski area for more than 20 times earnings before interest, taxes, deprecation and amortization, or EBITDA.
“That’s very high. Most of the resorts sold in the last decade went for less than 10 times resort EBITDA,” he says.
Why so much? JMP securities analyst Whitney Stevenson, who tracks resorts, said that Vail’s willingness to pay a higher price is an indication of how confident it was that it could win the case and gain control of Park City Mountain Resort.
“It was outrageously expensive,” he told the Denver Post. “They would not have paid that if the deal for Park City was not in there.”
In its January filing, Vail Resorts reported spending $3 million on litigation over the Park City property and was planning to spend another $7.5 million.
Ski area launches fitness program
ASPEN, Colo. — Like those working for Vail Resorts, employees of the Aspen Skiing Co. had better shape up.
The Aspen Daily News reports that the company, which operates four ski areas and has 3,400 employees during peak winter months, launched a company-wide “Mind, Body, Spirit” program last fall.
The program is aimed at preventing injuries and encouraging longevity. Part of the program is a fitness test designed to measure flexibility, agility, and balance. Jobs that require lifting also have a repetitive weight-lifting test. Those employees who fail have 30 days to try again. They can also get advice from a personal trainer. Those who fail the test twice are moved to a different section of the company with less-taxing physical requirements.
just missing the front page in 16th. Six men made the podium stage, including five in the top ten. In this event Calvin moved up one spot to take second; Cole Williams was fourth; French, fifth; Gooch, sixth; Connor Staley, ninth; and Erik Eisen 11th.
The racers’ hopes of racing in the final day of the championships appeared doubtful on Sunday, after the mountain received almost 10 inches of new snow. But after several delays the race got underway.
Mammoth placed six men in the top 15 against 85 of the best U14s in the Far West division after the first run. After the second run, Calvin, who took first in the first run, held on to his lead to take the win, with teammates Williams in second; Staley in fifth; French in seventh; Davenport in 13th; Eisen in 14th and Cody Jayne, who placed 15th in both runs, only to be edged out by .16 to end up 16th. On the ladies side, Carkeet and Yguico held first and second after the initial run, with Carkeet leading by .22. In the second run Carkeet again dominated the race, while Yguico slipped to third. The pair ended up first and second overall.
Part way through the year-end awards ceremony, Mammoth U14 coach Kara Munsey came to the stage and told the story of a special young athlete who persevered through a very difficult time, never giving up. The young man she presented with the Far West Skiing- 2014 Andrea Mead Lawrence Sportsmanship Award was non-other than Mammoth’s own Cody Jayne.
The final award was the Alex Cushing Team Series Award. The Mammoth U14 team had consistently put members on the podium throughout the year, but Mammoth wasn’t the only team with winning athletes. The Squaw Valley and Sugar Bowl teams, which had traded the cup back and forth over the years, had their fair share of talented racers who made it regularly to the podium throughout the season.
Yet it was Mammoth’s U14s who won the overall cup for the first time in many years. As the team rushed to climb on the podium, Calvin, undeniably one of the shining stars of the U14 Championships, took center stage and raised the giant trophy high above his head. Just as he did, the wind picked up and the skies began to shower snow crystals like glittering confetti over the group of jubilant athletes.
