Guest Commentary

Tamarack Resort closed on March 4th, the latest in a long line of boom and bust stories in the West. Located 90 miles north of Boise, Idaho, it was first major ski, golf and lake resort to open in the US in over two decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, Tamarack and CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug failed to generate enough revenue from real estate sales to keep operating. As a skier, former Tamarack employee, cattle rancher, and Idahoan, I wish to write a few words in reflection.

I don't have to say this is an economic disaster for the over 200 employees and the general area. Some of the discussion has been that Tamarack would have made it if the economy just wouldn't have slumped. It would be more accurate to say it never would have got off the ground if (opening in December 2004) it hadn't caught the end of the largest housing bubble in history.

Tamarack attracted only 27,000 skier visits this season, far less than neighboring Brundage Mountain. Locals didn't ski there. To them it was known as Tam-a-scam, Glamarack, and finally, when it all went down, Tamtanic. This sentiment was partly due to them lamenting the loss of their Valley. And it was partly due to the dislike being mutual. Upper management openly told us during meetings their goal was to make it a private hill, open only to property owners or people who pay club fees of thousands of dollars. This required a certain degree of hubris, as the ski course falls almost entirely on public land.  [more]

Western Resorts Watch

With a full courtroom behind him, the attorney for the owners of Tamarack Resort in Valley County, Idaho asked district court judge Patrick Owen Thursday to authorize an emergency re-opening of the lodge and ski operations. "The process has been anything but transparent,” said lawyer Steve Millemann of McCall, outrage in his voice.

The attorney for Doug Wilson, the court-appointed receiver for Tamarack, said they had no choice but to shut down operations Wednesday evening at 5:00, stopping the ski lifts and snow cats and closing the entire resort to the public. But Millemann claimed they were not asked for input of any kind about the decision.

Millemann said, “This is a matter of the utmost gravity. We do not make this request lightly. Nothing can damage the collateral more than for the resort to lie fallow.”

Wilson’s lawyer Douglas Pahl responded that with $1.5 million left in the fund to oversee the reorganization or shutdown of Tamarack, to use it to generate small income from lift tickets would produce short-term liabilities that would add to Tamarack’s problems. “We don’t have the money to operate the resort in a responsible way,” he said, claiming reopening would be financially remiss. “If no other funding becomes available, there would be a hard shutdown that would damage the property even more.”  [more]

Boise is Buzzing

Sunday Feb. 8 the is the start of competition in the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games, which last until the 13th. Venues all over Southern Idaho will see competition involving more than 3,000 athletes from an astonishing 85 countries.

Seven sports make up the Games: Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, floor hockey, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and speed skating.

Special Olympics Idaho is an organization devoted to helping people with intellectual disabilities on and off the playing field. “By working to remove obstacles, change attitudes and open minds, Special Olympics Idaho provides opportunities for its athletes to demonstrate courage, experience joy and share their gifts, skills and friendship with the world,” their mission statement declares.

Here’s the full schedule of events, which will be held at Bogus Basin, Sun Valley, Qwest Arena in Boise, Expo Idaho in Garden City, Ponderosa State Park in McCall, and Idaho Ice World in Boise.

A spokeswoman for the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games says Vice President Joe Biden is expected to visit Idaho on one of the final days of competition. According to Kirsten Suto Seckler, the exact date is still being worked out between the White House and Games officials.   [more]

Commentary

Instant everything on TV this morning revealed that in the stimulus package, $650 million is earmarked for converting boxes to make all analog TV sets in America digital. That will make every weekend sports fan have to drink four more bottles of beer before the football yard lines begin to get a little bit fuzzy. This will require more beer to be brewed, more sales and deliveries to be made and the trickle down theory becomes real – especially when it is beer trickling down the belly of a former high school third-string football player. The newly stimulated beer brewing economy will surge and all because of that little black box that changes an old coat hanger into an outer space electronic receiver.

Instead, I think some of these billions of dollars should be spent on ski equipment. Think about this trickle-down effect:  [more]

Snowblog

According to the Denver Post on January 7, “Snow Trumped Recession” when it came to the holiday ski season. In fact, even more people visited Vail during the holidays this year than last year. According to the story, “‘History has shown us that skiers are devoted to their sport and even in a slippery economy they will find a way to get out there, especially if the snow is really good,’ said Jennifer Rudolph, spokeswoman for Colorado Ski Country USA, which has 22 member resorts.”

However, the Bulletin in Bend, Oregon, reports dismal holiday numbers. The weather was bad (who wants to ski in “frozen fog” anyway?) but the poor economy took its toll as well. According to Alana Audette, the President and CEO of the Central Oregon Visitor’s Association, “Central Oregon’s lodging community reported occupancy declines ranging from 10 to 30 percent over the holiday period.”

I’m curious. Is snow or recession the stronger motivator?  [more]

Skiing and Business

Ski film legend Warren Miller, who at age 84 continues to write for the NewWest.Net Snowblog and other outlets, likes to tell the story of how he lived in a tiny trailer in the Sun Valley parking lot and started his film career with a camera bought on borrowed money. In fact, his childhood and teen years are full of stories of how he made a few cents - and eventually a few bucks - on various entrepreneurial ventures.

That experience helped lead Miller and his wife Laurie to focus their charity, the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation, on teaching entrepreneurship to kids. In February, the first Montana program of the Foundation will kick off at C.S. Porter Middle School, with the aim of teaching not only the nuts and bolts, but also the values of being your own boss and building your own business.  [more]

Guest Commentary

Santa Claus has come and gone and left the best present of all, powder snow in abundance all over the west.

Here in Montana, the skiing is beyond description as in perfect.

Our guests have come in from a day of skiing with frost-bitten gums from smiling so much, because “The snow covers any blemishes that the earth might have.” And it does!  [more]

Guest Commentary

When I walked out of the Round House on Sun Valley’s famous Baldy Mountain in 1947 I was followed Gary Cooper, his wife Rocky and their ski Instructor to ride the single chair to the top. Several times during his vacation Gary said to me, “be sure and come visit me in Hollywood when the snow melts. I’ll even get you onto a movie set where I’m working.”

I was instinctively aware that once the snow melted we would have absolutely nothing in common, other than the fact that we both lived in Southern California. After World War II, successful and rich unfortunately became very closely associated and rich became a very negative term to many people who weren’t.

I think that the definition that fits rich better is ‘Economic Stratification.’  [more]

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