The Resort Monopoly Game Continues

If I were 89 years old and running a ski resort, I think it'd be time to step down and let the younger lads run the show. The only problem with the scene playing out in Mammoth is that the "show" is now the resort version of Monopoly with Intrawest and Vail as the two contenders. Sure the McKoy's sold a large portion to Intrawest in 1995, but it's the too often told story of another family run resort selling to a real estate company disguised as a ski resort caretaker. The Full Story

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Discrete Blowing Up

The Wasatch's newest (only?) clothing company, Discrete, is taking off. Discrete's simple, yet sylie beanies, visors, headbands and tees are being worn by a plethora of Utah athletes like Jamie Pierre, the Greeners, and Squaw/SLC's JT Holmes, which means they'll soon be gracing the pages of ski mags worldwide.

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Ostness is Back and Badder than Ever

If you're not a frequenter of Newschoolers.com or numerous Wasatch Front resorts, powder stashes, or gap jumps, you may not have heard that Kris Ostness is producing another movie. Just fills you with glee, doesn't it? Bigger, better, and badder than his previous Wind-Up Films projects, the Teddybear Crisis is a creative collaboration like you ain't never seen. Well, actually, you can see it at the Teddybear Crisis website. Check it out right now--the trailer itself is nearly a feature-length movie.

Edit
When you get to Teddybear Crisis, copy the link to the trailer into the address bar of Quicktime.

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Ice Climbing Competition in....Iowa?

So you live in the middle of no-where Iowa and you want to do a little ice climbing? You can either hop in your trusty Subaru and drive to Ouray, or just set your navigator for Cedar Falls Iowa, give Don Briggs a call and you're ready to start silo climbing.

This past weekend in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the second annual Silo Summit ice climbing competition was held. An invite only competition between midwest college students, the Silo Summit is the dream child of Don Briggs, ice climbing junkie and University of N. Iowa professor. He's such an ice junkie that he even wrote a book about how to turn your neighborhood silo into an ice climbing mecca. It doesn't get any more core than this. If you live within 5 hours of good natural ice, you've got nothing to gripe about - get out there and climb!

The tall silo on the left had thick ice on it until last weekend's 50 degree temps caused the ice to come crashing down, thankfully when nobody was around.







SILO SUMMIT COVERAGE

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The Cost of Doing Business Oversees?

This doesn't suprise me one bit, but it dissapoints me. I suppose the silver lining is that it's not one of my "preferred" companies, but needless to say it's within our industry. Former Vans VP Scott Andrew Brabson and an associate recieved $4.7 million (yep, million) from Chineese manufacturing locations as a bribe to keep the orders flowing.

Looks like he'll get some time in the slammer but he's sure enjoyed the ride along the way with his loot.

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Utah Govenor Huntsman Guarantees Funding for the Utah Avalanche Center

At the second annual Backcountry Awareness Week Fundraiser Dinner, Utah Govenor Jon Huntsman admitted that he was "a dweeb" - referring to his lack of skiing skills. While speaking at the event held at Snowbird, he was very personal and humble in admitting that although he isn't that good at skiing he is very committed to backcountry awareness and committed over $100K in funding to backcountry awareness, 25K of that going directly to the Utah Avalanche Center. I found him to be quite personal in his speach as he challenged backcountry travlers to reach out to others and communicate information to others who are new to the backcountry.

All in all, it was a good speach and there may be hope for the backcountry community in finding an allay in the governors office.

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