Новости

Image: Aravis Lodge/Skiweekender Nieve Mundo (Ski Press)-Santa Weekend at Sunday River Gets Even Stranger, World’s Newest Ski Resort Opens in Korea, Kicking Horse Announces Early Opening And Record Snow Conditions, Foundation Stone Laid for Second European Intrawest Resort, Copper is First With its Superpipe, Demolition of Original Parts of “Ugliest Resort In The Alps” Begins, The Snow Ghost Awakens, La Clusaz Ski Chalet gets Greener, Doppelmayr Turnover up By Nearly A Fifth Santa Weekend at Sunday River Gets Even Stranger Up to 250 Santa Clauses and nationally acclaimed band Strangefolk will respectively grace the slopes and stage on the weekend of December 1st to 3rd during the 7th Annual Santa Weekend at Sunday River. Santa Sunday historically brings hundreds of skiing and riding Santas to the slopes. The 7th annual event serves as a fundraiser for the Bethel Rotary Club’s Christmas toy drive. Participants are required to wear Santa costumes and gather at 11 a.m. at South Ridge for photos. In exchange for a minimum donation to charity of $10, the Santas will receive free skiing and riding for that day plus two additional lift tickets valid until December 14th. Pre-registration is required for this event, which is limited to 250 jolly characters. Costume requirements and registration instructions can be found at www.sundayriver.com. Strangefolk will kick off this season’s Bud Light Concert series with shows on December 1st and 2nd at Thumpers in the White Cap Lodge. Strangefolk has been on the jam band scene for 15 years, growing from a folksy duo performing in their hometown of Burlington into a five-member band that tours nationally and has a loyal fan base. The band combines elements of rock, bluegrass, folk, and blues with their unique song writing, three-part harmonies, and soaring lead guitars. World’s Newest Ski Resort Opens in Korea New ski resorts are a rarity in Europe and North America but over the past five years several hundred new ski areas have opened in asia. Most of the new venues are rudimentary hills in China, which now boasts more than 300 ski areas – moving in to the world’s top ten by volume if not the number of lifts/ski runs overall. However international quality ski resorts have opened in Eastern Russia and 2010 Olympic host candidate runner-up Korea, which is also a finalist in the decision for host venue for the 2014 Games (to be decided next year). Korea’s newest resort, scheduled to open on Friday, December 1st, is Land’s High 1 in Gangwon Province. The resort has 18 trails, more than half of them graded black or double black diamond, served by five chairlifts named after Greek gods (Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Athena and the previously unknown Victoria). Trails are up to 32.3kmn long ands total 21km – the vertical drop is 680m. Land High 1 will operate a train exclusively designed to transport skiers and their equipment between the nation’s two major cities - Seoul and Busan - and Jeongseon Station, near the resort. The operators hope the service will appeal to skiers disillusioned by traffic jams that are common at peak periods when heading to the existing ski resorts in Gangwon Province. Kicking Horse Announces Early Opening And Record Snow Conditions With more snow on the slopes than anyone can recall for this time of year, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in British Columbia is starting the 2006-07 season with an early opening and surreal powder conditions. With a mid-mountain snow accumulation of over 350cm (12 feet), the most in the area by far, the resort announced it can’t hold back the powder hounds any longer and plans to open early for the season on December 2nd. Originally scheduled to open on December 15th, the resort plans to open up the mountain for weekend skiing on December 2nd and 3rd and on December 9th and 10th before moving to its seven-days-a-week operating schedule on the December 15th. “For the last couple of weeks we’ve been watching the snow come down on the mountain and just couldn’t believe our eyes,” said Michael Dalzell, Resort Director of Sales and Marketing. “All the locals have been eager to get up there and sample the epic conditions and we thought an early opening would be a fantastic treat for our loyal guests,” he said. www.kickinghorseresort.com Foundation Stone Laid for Second European Intrawest Resort The first stone of “Les terrasses d’Eos” the first building within the new Intrawest resort village being built at Flaine in France has been laid. Les terrasses d’Eos is a four-star tourism residence made up of 91 apartments, the first part of Flaine Montsoleil village, which will ultimately have 2,400 beds. As with Intrawest’s first European development, Arc 1950 – Le Village beneath Arc 2000 in Les Arcs, which is now virtually complete, the development pre-sold prior to construction within hours. Again in similarity to the Les Arcs development, the new Intrawest development will be a marked contrast to some of the original 1960s and 70s French concrete architecture in adjacent resorts. The original Flaine development was built to a stark Bauhaus architectural style. The completion date of “Les terrasses d’Eos” is summer 2007. The full resort is due to be completed by 2012. Intrawest is looking at other existing European ski areas to build lift-linked resorts within, including a site on the Swiss Four Valleys, near Verbier. Copper is First With its Superpipe Copper Mountain in Colorado has stolen a march on the rest of the northern hemisphere by opening what’s believed to be the first superpipe of winter 2006-7 (Besides indoor and year-round glacier pipes in Europe and Japan) World class skiers and riders dropped in to make the most of the 140m (450ft) Main Vein Superpipe, situated in full view of the village just above Burning Stones Plaza. An integral part of Copper’s landscape, the Main Vein is the venue every Saturday afternoon for spectacular demos featuring members of Copper’s Freeride Team. Holidaymakers can watch the action on the superpipe, which opened on November 23, as they enjoy a late lunch or early après-ski at a number of restaurants and bars in the base area. www.coppercolorado.com Demolition of Original Parts of “Ugliest Resort In The Alps” Begins “Where to Ski and Snowboard”, one of the world’s leading guidebooks to ski resorts around the planet, is well known for pulling no punches. In its very first edition, back in 1994, the “skier’s bible” labelled the French resort of Les Menuires ‘The Ugliest Resort in the Alps’ – in contrast to the resort’s marketing material optimistically described the vaguely semi-circular main concrete structure as “the smile of the Alps.” By 1997, the editors had arrived at the solution, “One day, we confidently predict, they’ll simply knock the whole thing down and start again.” The bulldozers moved in on 21st November to demolish the apartment block ‘Les Clarines’. In its place, the highly regarded Alpine property developer MGM is to build a tasteful, chalet-style development, using wood and stone finishes that fit in well with the natural local environment in common with a wealth of new building across the French Alps over the past decade. The new development will be finished a year from now. Dave Watts, co-editor of Where to Ski and Snowboard, commented, ‘We saw the need for this bold step almost a decade ago; I’m delighted that Les Menuires has taken it at last. More recent developments on the outskirts of Les Menuires have been built in a much more sympathetic fashion, and we have always liked the local slopes, so it is great news that they are starting to knock down the central core and start again.” Les Menuires is one of seven key resorts in the Three Valleys, the world’s largest ski area. It was was built as part of a huge investment by the French government and the regional council of Savoie to boost the economy of Alpine communities after World War 2. Work started on construction of Les Menuires in 1964, and the resort was fully functional by 1967. The Snow Ghost Awakens Canada’s new longest six seat express chairlift, the Snow Ghost, loaded its first passengers last weekend at Big White in British Columbia as more than 4,000 skiers and riders showed up for Opening Day. This $7m state-of-the-art Leitner-Poma chairlift parallels the existing Ridge Rocket Express, and is 6190 feet, (1862 metres) long. Uphill capacity is 5,400 skiers per hour, and ride time is a quick six minutes. On Saturday, Big White opened Black Forest and Bullet Express chairlifts and the Mega Snow Coaster tubing park, skating rink, Happy Valley Day Lodge and Kettle Valley Steakhouse are fully operational. www.bigwhite.com La Clusaz Ski Chalet gets Greener The small tour operator Karibuni, which also runs Ski Weekender, has been building a reputation for its environmentally friendly operation at its green chalet, which sleeps 40 and is based near La Clusaz in the French Haute Savoie region of the Alps. The company has just been accredited by Climate Care for offsetting all chalet fuel costs, travel costs (airport runs and similar) and staff travel. The company already encourages its guests to offset their flights through Climate Care but from 2007 they will be including a nominal fee for all guests to offset their travel costs with Climate Care. The chalet itself recycles everything – paper, cardboard, tins, tetra packs and bottles and reminds staff and guests to turn off lights, not use too much water unnecessarily (they only change towels and sheets on changeover days, unless requested otherwise, to save water) and are in the process of installing solar panels into their self-catered chalet for all water and heating which will take effect from Spring 2007. “We are very aware that whilst skiing is our business it is crucial to be responsible and encourage all our guests to do the same,” said Jess Shirley-Smith of Karibuni. www.skiweekender.com Doppelmayr Turnover up By Nearly A Fifth During the financial year 2005/2006, the famous ski lift-building Doppelmayr Group increased sales by nearly 20 percent to 581 million Euro and has clearly maintained its position as the worldwide number one in the ropeway construction market. With 2223 employees, a total of 180 new ropeway projects were realised, many of them ski resort installations. Doppelmayr reports that it has been able to take advantage of the boom in the global ropeway market thanks to more competitive products and a worldwide presence in all segments of the market. The company’s home market of Austria, with 16% of its business, remains the largest with the greatest portion of sales; however business in terms of new installations in Austria has declined for the second year running. In contrast, France has increased its demand for new installations. Here as well as in Italy and Switzerland, the Group has succeeded in distinctly increasing turnover. The North American market has stabilised at a relatively high level. The markets in Eastern, South-Eastern and Central Europe increased considerably and have made a significant contribution to the Group results. With spectacular “world firsts” such as the new “Riesenräder” (Ferris wheels) in St. Anton am Arlberg, Austria, Doppelmayr’s innovative and technological leadership in the industry has increased impressively. During the period under report, 180 challenging and spectacular ropeway projects were realised. Investments by the company during the financial year 2005/2006 amounted to 26 million Euro (previous year 16 million Euro). The largest investments were made in the “Hohe Brücke” plant in Wolfurt as well as in the construction of the new building for a plant in Stetten, Lower Austria. The investments in the “Hohe Brücke” plant focussed mainly on the further improvement of quality and capacity, while in Stetten the optimum handling of Central and Eastern European markets was the main aim. The number of employees in the Group increased by 124 from 2099 in 2005 to 2223 in 2006. The aim of the future-oriented personnel policy is to further develop the technological, innovative and quality leadership of the Group. Doppelmayr reports key challenges for the coming year are high energy and materials cost but that its order book remains healthy and that it is confident of another good year in 06-07.