In the late 1800s, as gold miners moved through the Colorado Rockies, they came upon the would-be ski resort of Aspen, with Mount Sopris as its crown jewel. The land was rich, but also sacred to the indigenous Ute tribe, who cursed their visitors out of despair. Anyone who slept in the shadow of Mount Sopris would be doomed never to leave.

As an unnamed buyer circles Grand County’s privately owned Granby Ranch ski area, a roiling circus of family, lenders, and homeowners are assailing resort owner Marise Cipriani.

It’s not a pretty scene at the picturesque 5,000-acre ski and golf resort along the Fraser River, which Brazilian developer Cipriani has owned since 1995 and, put on the market for an undisclosed price a year ago.

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They tried to kick blocks of snow from the cornice, hoping a tumbling chunk might trigger an avalanche. “All we were getting were crumbles. We just couldn’t get a big enough block to go,” said Bryan Wickenhauser, a champion ski mountaineering racer from Gunnison. “So yeah, there was some hesitancy. But we were all committed. No one was going the other way.”

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James Niehues knows North America’s ski resorts better than most people – not because he’s skied them all, but because he’s painted many of them.

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The owners of Alyeska Resort have announced that they have sold all the assets of the resort, including 300-room Hotel Alyeska at the base of Alaska’s largest mountain.

Fifty years ago, a bunch of ski areas in New England had the idea to provide a consistent platform to serve up snow conditions information so that you, the skier and snowboarder, would know exactly what the conditions were at the mountain. 

SnoCountry, Inc. is proud to announce Snapshot television host Halley O’Brien, is in contention for an Emmy® Award in the Boston/New England NATAS Chapter.

Aspen Skiing Company and KSL Partners are purchasing four California resorts, including Mammoth Mountain.

Moving quickly after purchasing Intrawest resorts, a new Aspen-based ownership group announced it has bought Mammoth Mountain and three other resorts in the Southern California mountains.

The heretofore unnamed entity, formed by Aspen Skiing Corp. and KSL Capital Partners, said it will close this fall on a sale of a quartet of areas including Mammoth Mountain, June Mountain, Snow Summit and Bear Mountain.

The announcement comes on the heels of the group’s industry-rocking purchase of Colorado’s Steamboat and Winter Park, Quebec’s Mont Tremblant, Vermont’s Stratton, Ontario’s Blue Mountain and West Virginia’s Snowshoe. The four Aspen mountains and Squaw Valley-Alpine, a KSL property, will come under the umbrella of the new group but will continue to operate independently.

Because both purchases aren’t expected to be finalized until next fall, resort-specific season tickets will be honored for next season. So will the M.A.X. Pass, Rocky Mountain Super Pass and Mountain Collective that overlap into the partnership’s new portfolio in various ways.

“We had greater plans for Mammoth but the Great Recession and then some less favorable weather, interfered with our strategic aspirations in a finite life investment vehicle,” said Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital Group that owned Mammoth and the other resorts “We know Aspen and KSL have the experience, commitment, and balance sheet to help make our vision a reality.”

No upgrading plans have been announced yet, but indications are that the new entity has the capital to put into improvements at these resorts – for both winter and summer. However, official statements have noted that coordinating e-commerce technology among all the resorts will a high priority in order to expand the marketing capabilities of all the mountains.

The move by Aspen Skiing Corp. to acquire and consolidate some 15 resorts under the Aspen-KSL roof is seen by industry officials as a response to Vail Resort’s two-decade effort to acquire 14 resorts across the U.S. and Canada.

BEWI President Bernie Weichsel, Okemo's Tim and Diane Mueller, and Brian Halligan congratulate award winner Betsy McKeever. (Martha Wilson)

The 2016 BEWI Award was presented to two top sales executives from New England mountain resorts, Betsy McKeever, Group Sales Manager at Vermont’s Okemo Mountain, and Andrew Noyes, newly appointed VP of Operations and formerly Director of Sales & Revenue at New Hampshire’s Loon Mountain. 

Future just got brighter for Whistler Blackcomb with purchase by Vail. (Whistler Blackcomb)

Holders of Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass will have to wait a season before adding another 8,000 acres to their winter portfolio, after Vail Resorts announced the purchase of Whistler Blackcomb for more than $1 billion.

Longtime Midwest Ski Areas Association (MSAA) Executive Director Chris Stoddard has stepped down after 25 years, and Amy Augustine Reents, who has been active in the Midwest ski industry for the past 25 years, has been named the new President/Executive Director.  

Vail Resorts, which purchased Wilmot Mountain, located between Chicago and Milwaukee, in January, has announced that they will spend $13 million to completely transform the guest experience at one of the nation’s oldest ski areas. The ski area first opened in 1938.

Mt. Hood Meadows staff gathered recently at the Oregon resort to honor four employees who have worked at Meadows for 40 or more seasons.

Overall business at mountain destinations in the Rocky Mountain and Far West regions received a boost for winter bookings during January lifted by local and regional visitors according to the most recent Mountain Market Briefing by Denver-based DestiMetrics. 

Retiring Snowsports Industries America (SIA) president David Ingemie was presented with the 30th Annual BEWI Award at a luncheon in his honor on Nov. 13 at the Seaport World Trade Center on Boston Harbor as the Boston.com Ski & Snowboard Expo got underway.

Booking momentum into the winter months is pacing slower for the first time in more than three years, even though robust occupancy and revenue figures for September contributed to the third consecutive record-breaking summer at western mountain resorts.

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) has completed its new employee housing units in the town of Jackson. The three building complex, housing 94 workers is the first of its kind for the Jackson Hole community.

Public relations industry leader Ed Lewi, founder of the New York Capital Region public relations agency that managed media relations for the XIII Olympic Winter Games, media relations and marketing efforts for The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) since the late 1970s, and produced the annual Albany Ski Show, has died. He was 81.

Pennsylvania may well be on its way to establishing itself as a formidable "ski state" particularly among Millennials, according to a new research study conducted for SkiPA by RRC Associates. A contributing factor is Pennsylvania's close proximity to several major metropolitan areas including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington DC, Baltimore and even the Harrisburg-York-Lancaster corridor.

John C. Bintz, a member of the Michigan Ski Hall of Fame and founder of Apple Mountain, has died at the age of 84.From its beginnings in 1964 to 1984, the time he decided to retire and sell Apple Mountain, 800,000 students had participated in its “learn to ski” program.