Skippress - Index

Skippress - US Vol. 7 No. 2 - Index

itopia?
Myles Rademan likes to tell a story about the day in 1995 when he arranged
for a small parade down Park City’s historic Main Street to celebrate Utah
having won the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics.
“There’s a photo that shows the one spectator that showed up,” said Rademan,
who, along with former Park City Mayor Brad Olch, was one of the chief architects
of the Utah bid. “But he may have just been trying to cross the street.”
During the Games, that same street became an international alpine spotlight.
Camera crews, ski-lebrities and passport-carrying powder-philes fi lled its
pedestrians-only pavement for more than two weeks.
Fast-forward fi ve years, and that single spectator would still be little more than
a face in the friendly crowd as everyone from ski companies to skiers, pro photographers
to pro riders, World Cup racers to weekend warriors have made a mad
powder dash to get a piece of Utah’s trademarked Greatest Snow on Earth.
“Utah is a total Mecca of ski and snowboard energy right now,” said professional
mogul skier Shannon Bahrke, who won a silver medal at Deer Valley at
the 2002 Winter Games. “Whether it’s halfpipe riders, downhillers, snowboarders
or freeskiers, Utah is winter’s open secret.”
Big-mountain movie stars like Jeremy Nobis, snowboard uber-shredder Shaun
White and gold medal-carver Ted Ligety are among the dozens of professional
sliders living and riding the Wasatch. Bahrke, who also won a World Championship
at Deer Valley, said lots of tall peaks, big bumps, deep powder, tough
gates and impeccably groomed halfpipes are among the many easy-to-access
amenities, and her move from Tahoe to Utah in 1998 was a key part of her
plan to be among “the best in the world.
“The access is incredible, the mountains are right beside you and you’ve got
this amazing community that really cares about skiing,” said Bahrke. “For me,
it’s the perfect place to be if your goal is to be an elite mountain athlete.”
“Utah is winter , s open secret.”
And it’s not just athletes straightlining to the Beehive State. Multi-milliondollar
outdoors companies are also betting their futures on the slopeside
surroundings of the Great Salt Lake.
Consider this: since the 2002 Winter Games, three of the world’s largest ski
companies — Rossignol, Atomic and Salomon — have left Vermont, New
Hampshire and Oregon, respectively, to establish US headquarters in Utah.
The US Ski and Snowboard Association broke ground this summer on the
Center of Excellence, a $22.5-million fi rst-in-the-world national headquarters
and training center for competitive snowsports. And in terms of skier visits,
Utah slammed a fourth consecutive record season, just edging out California
— behind #2 Vermont and ski-visit king and all-time #1 Colorado — to
become America’s third most-skied state.
But did the Olympics really cause all that? Alta and Snowbird have been famous
for their light-fl uffy powder for decades. Deer Valley has always had legendary
service, on the snow and off. And Park City has been both the philosophical
and physical home of the US Ski and Snowboard Association since 1988.
So what fl icked the switch?
“I think the thing people needed to see for themselves, that the Olympics
really opened their eyes to, was how much fun you can have here,” said Nathan
Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, the marketing arm for Utah’s ski resorts. “We
have amazing recreation, we do have a nightlife, yet up until 2002 the easy
angle was for people to depict Utah as a conservative state.”
Rafferty is referring to Utah’s Mormon heritage, and the fact that along with
blue skies and soft snow, most skiers also like to know that they can get a
stiff drink. “The Olympics proved they could,” Rafferty said, along with lots
of other high-altitude entertainment. “And they helped us turn the corner
from people thinking this was a second-tier destination to saying that now
they wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
Speak to Rafferty for more than fi ve minutes and the Salt Lake City airport’s
proximity to powder invariably comes up. Some of his PR stunts to prove just how
close have become legend… like fl ying in journalists from Boulder and Burlington
in the morning to ski seven different ski areas in a single day, yet still be home
in time for dinner, or, at the latest, in time to watch the evening news.
“Because we’re a hub [for Delta], we’ve got 114 non-stop destination fl ights,”
said Rafferty. “If we weren’t a hub, we’d probably have 40.”
Touching down in SLC, you can also catch an evening NBA game, and in the
morning, ride a city bus to the slopes. For those who want it to be, Salt Lake
City is still a ski town despite its metropolitan growth. According to Rossignol
North America President François Goulet, that synergy between the metropolitan
setting of Salt Lake City and nearby mountain setting of Park City
convinced the company that Utah provided something that they couldn’t fi nd
anywhere else in the US.
“When Quiksilver bought Rossignol, we had a unique opportunity to reorganize
our company at one single place that really refl ects what’s happening at the
heart of snowsports,” said Goulet. “And we found that from athletes to access
to overall vibe, Park City was the epicenter of that.”
Combining the cumulative piste-proven powers of Rossignol, Dynastar, Lange,
Look, Lib-Tech, Gnu and Roxy in one alpine think tank, Rossignol has created
the Mountain Center, a modern chateau of high-altitude industry that is equal
parts offi ces, R&D center, visiting shredder satellite space and après hangout.
Like a Justice League for alpine heroes, Goulet expects the Mountain Center
to place Rossignol at the center of mountain sports.
“A lot of the energy and innovation you see happening in snowsports culture is
happening here, right now,” Goulet said. “Snowsports have changed in the past
15 years; instead of trends coming out of Europe, they’re coming out of the
US, and especially the West. We can only benefi t from being a part of that.”
Far from being a one-hill wonder, the Park City-Deer Valley-Canyons corridor
where Rossignol set up shop is only one of several places in Utah to practice
powder pursuits. There are also the twin peaks of Snowbird and Alta in the
Little Cottonwood Canyon, Solitude and Brighton in Big Cottonwood, Robert
Redford’s Solitude south in Provo and the virtually undiscovered expanses of
Snowbasin and Powder Mountain to the north.
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Photo: Eric Schramm/Ski Utah