Sunshine Ski Village and a Lawsuit

By: In: The Sharp Edge

Sunshine Ski Village of Banff in Alberta Canada is having PR and labor problems.

The Calgary Sun notes:

The son of Sunshine Village owner Ralph Scurfield being told he couldn’t ski out of bounds was the catalyst to the firing of four employees, a wrongful dismissal suit claims.

The legal action, filed in Calgary Court of Queen’s Bench, seeks compensation for senior manager Chris Chevalier and three others dismissed after a dispute with Taylor Scurfield.

I often regard ski patrollers with a touch of disdain, but they serve an important purpose.
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Big Powderhorn and Broken Windows

By: In: The Sharp Edge

By broken windows I mean the economic fallacy many fall for that destruction of property is good for the local economic scene. That is, when someone has their windows broken the victim must hire carpenters, window makers, glass makers, etc to replace the broken windows and that contributes to the economic prosperity of a community.

Not right, the loss of the owner of the broken windows offsets any gains made by the people who labor to repair the damage. So too with the Big Powderhorn fire, the local construction industry will gain a boost, the owners are going to suffer sleepless nights and depressed numbers of skiers, but at least (I guess) they have insurance and are covered on the loss. Nobody wishes the fire would have occurred.

However, I do see one bright spot in the disaster.
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Trivial Pursuits

By: In: The Sharp Edge

The Wisconsin Skier takes snow sports seriously. However, one must realize as serious as it is, it is still a trivial pursuit mostly an activity to satisfy the adrenaline junkies we all are. Let us face it, all of us are adrenaline addicts. How else do you explain the tendency all of us have to go back to dangerous/treacherous situations we got out of, and relive those moments fondly?

We sit around campfires and tell the stories and laugh and chuckle. However at the time they may have been full of fear and horror, but if we survived (and better yet survived uninjured) we crave that action.

Your trip down a ski run may have been ill advised and horrific but it was voluntary.
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Stamp out (Ski) Pr0n

By: In: The Sharp Edge

Eric Wagnon (@SkiingExaminer) posts a piece on his website decrying the state of ski films aka ski pron:

Yes, I am impressed by the skilled athletes and eye-popping scenery of ski films… for about ten minutes at a sitting. At this point, I’ve seen professional skiers nail incredible lines heli-skiing in Alaska. I get it. They’re really good. Ski porn works fine as video wallpaper in the apres-ski bar, but focusing on it for 90 minutes gets a bit tiresome.

Having spent about 1,000 days field producing and directing in an almost 20-year career as a television producer, I can also appreciate the logistics involved in capturing the stunning images in ski films. Taking the terrain and vagaries of natural light and weather into consideration, the DP of a ski film could have one of the toughest jobs in movie making.

This is a topic I have tracked over before here.
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Speed Traps on the Ski Slopes

By: In: The Sharp Edge

I recently picked up on this conversation over at Chinese Downhill on speeding on the slopes. The discussion points this article out: at Zeta Page News:

The speed limit was put in place in certain areas where less experienced skiers are trying to learn the sport. Reckless behaviors of others have caused 10 percent of all collisions in Park City and Deer Valley. A report in the Salt Lake City Tribune states that reckless skiing is now considered a Class B Misdemeanor.

Ski patrollers will be monitoring the slopes in search of people disobeying the speed limits or skiing recklessly. The ski patroller can now call the police, and the offenders may find themselves in court. If a reckless skier is called to court, the patroller will be called in as a witness to the incident. If skiers are found guilty of reckless skiing, they will be fined 1,000 USD and face a six-month jail sentence.

So far, there exist such ordinances in Utah and in Europe.
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Ski Pass Defender

By: In: Equipment, Skiing, The Sharp Edge

Not too long ago I was “followed” by an outfit promoting a piece of gear you could put your RFID chip containing ski pass into (bigger resorts use RFID containing passes to expedite the process of checking your pass for validity prior to loading onto a chair). I don’t think that is a bad idea, especially for season passes. Any piece of paper, plastic, or what-have-you uniquely tied to you has the potential of leading to identity theft.

However, the folks at Ski Pass Defender seem to be more worried about the good guys than the bad guys.
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Politics Here?

By: In: The Sharp Edge

Those of you who know me personally, understand I pay close attention to the politics of government, and in fact have been hands-on involved with campaigns and local party activities. Those of you who know me through this website of mine may or may not be able to guess what side in the debate I favor (though, if you are coming from Facebook or Twitter you will be able to gather a solid idea of where I am coming from), but that (I hope) would be a blind guess.

Lately as we get close to the November general elections, the politics of governance is creeping onto this site. That political-creep is ultimately under my control but read on to see why I am making my decision to allow that content to remain.
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Bring Back the Adventure Card!

By: In: The Sharp Edge

The ski resorts located in what we refer to as big snow country used to participate in a joint marketing adventure. In the pre-season they would sell what they titled an adventure card. Purchasing one was the same as purchasing one lift ticket at each of the participating resorts.

What ever happened to that?
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The 2010-2011 Ski Season

By: In: The Sharp Edge


No, I am still not ready to forget about sunshine, warmth, our garden, our yard, and so on. However, let us face facts, for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere temperate zone realize winter is not all that far away, at the moment I do not view winter with the same enthusiasm as many of my fellow ski industry friends do. I could deal with some more of those never-ending days and temperatures in the 90° F range. Yes, you heard me right on that one.

I have always been a person who has been pretty happy right where I am at.
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Sugar is Sweet

By: In: Resorts, The Sharp Edge

One story I have been following the last month or so is the attempts to bring Sugarloaf Mountain back into the ski business. Being I live West of Lake Michigan and Sugarloaf is on its East shore I am not following too closely but fellow ski writer Jason at the MI Ski Report has been following the story very closely.

Normally, one would think such a story would be rather uncontroversial, a fellow comes in and wants to buy the resort and bring it back into operation and business. That means jobs and income for people and not just at the resort but around the community. Not everyone will stay at the resort, people need gasoline and cola for the drive back home, and so on.

So what is the big controversy surrounding the possible resurrection of Sugarloaf Mountain?
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