Telluride Ski Area in the News
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Venue a Triumph for Telluride’s First World Cup
by Telluride Watch
Published: December 16, 2009
WORLD CUP RACER – Canada’s Matthew Morison carved around a gate in Tuesday’s parallel giant slalom held on Misty Maiden. Morison went on to win the event. (Photo by Brett Schreckengost)
TELLURIDE – “Sunny Telluride opened its doors to the world's best snowboarders Tuesday as the LG FIS World Cup kicked off with the first of two parallel giant slalom competitions,” is how the news blitz from Telluride’s debut World Cup event went global Tuesday, Dec. 14, at approximately 6 p.m., mountain time, after the medals were handed out for the first day’s competitions.
Telluride Ski and Golf Co. CEO Dave Riley was still flying high Wednesday morning on the string of successes that led to the perfect-pitch launch of the historic event. “We’re very excited to be hosting the World Cup in Telluride for the first time,” he said. Riley praised the Telluride community for its teamwork to make sure “things are going right. The community has really come together to help make this a success.”
International Ski Federation (FIS) and U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) officials are happy, too, he said. “From every indication I’ve seen, the FIS and USSA folks as well as the competitors,” he said, “are extremely impressed with Telluride.
“I was talking with some of the high-level officials today,” Riley said Wednesday, “with USSA, and they’re basically just thinking they’ve found the promised land.”
Riley went on to predict even better things to come. “I’ll put it this way,” he said. “The World Cup, I believe, will be a catalyst for Telluride on an international level.”
American athletes did not fare well in Tuesday’s competition, with Fraenzi Maegert-Kohli of Switzerland and Matthew Morison of Canada winning the event, while Michelle Gorgone (Boston) finished 11th for the U.S.
In the first of five Olympic qualification events for the discipline, “Maegert-Kohli was followed in the women's results by Germany's Amelie Kober in second and Kimiko Zakreski of Canada in third,” summed up writer Lindsey Sine, on the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn. website.
American coaches had no excuses for their lead athletes’ less-than-stellar performances. “It was a very disappointing day, from my side,” said U.S. Snowboarding Alpine Head Coach Jan Wengelin. “We've had great support from Telluride with the training on the hill, so there are no excuses.”
A problem took out Gorgone, the sole U.S. woman in the finals, on her first run, sticking her with a hefty time differential she was unable to make up; she finished 11th.
“On the second run she made up a lot of time on the other rider's advantage,” Wengelin said, “but it wasn't enough.
“Could she have made it?
“Yes, she could have,” he answered his own question.
In the men's race, Austria's Benjamin Karl was second and France’s Mathieu Bozzetto ascended the podium in third place.
Americans Justin Reiter (Steamboat Springs) and Chris Klug (Aspen) had aimed for a podium finish, for the home crowd, but, after finishing a slim margin behind their counterparts in the first run, they too were unable to catch up.
Klug wound the day out in 15th and Reiter in 16th.
“It's there in all the athletes, but they just need a little bit of work and a little bit of confidence to go in the right direction,” Wengelin said.
“We've just got to look ahead to Thursday,” when the racing resumes, with the second PGS competition and Visa Snowboardcross Cup races on Saturday.
But Telski’s Riley, sounding more coach than CEO, predicted great things for the Americans in upcoming events. “They’re looking forward to doing well in Bordercross,” he said of the U.S. team. “They did well at Copper Mountain in the half-pipe, last weekend; America did well in the half-pipe. We’ve got a very strong lineup in Bordercross, too,” he added. “We’re all waiting and watching to see how the competitors will do this weekend.”
After a record year, skier days drop Down about 8 percent, Telski says, to 415,000
By REILLY CAPPS, Writer
Published: Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:01 PM CDT
Getting bigger while much of the rest of the economy was getting smaller, the Telluride Ski and Golf Company CEO said that adding terrain in Revelation Bowl helped attract skiers.
But, still, amid a global economic downturn that saw vacationers cut back their trips or stay closer to home, the number of skiers who spent a day on the Telluride slopes dropped an estimated 8 percent off of last season, Telski said.
The full numbers haven’t been counted yet. But CEO Dave Riley estimated that skier days dropped to the level of two to three years ago.
“This would be considered a good year if you look over the past five years,” Riley said.
The ski area ended up with 415,263 skier days. Telski extended the season by a week in early April, and skiers took advantage of great late-season snowfall. That upped the total of skier days somewhat, though not as much as Telski would have liked.
“It wasn’t quite what I was hopping for in that last week,” Riley said, “but it was still a lot of fun.”
Last year, aided by a record or near-record snowfall, Telski reported about 450,000 skier days and grew by 5.5 percent over the previous year, even as the Colorado ski industry as a whole reported a drop.
Telski’s estimated 8 percent drop in skier days is a little bit higher than the average drop reported in mid-March by Colorado’s ski industry trade organization. On average, Colorado ski resorts saw skier days drop by 5.9 percent from the season before, according to Colorado Ski Country USA.
“Considering the global recession, the fact that we are a true destination resort — meaning that we don’t have a big city to draw off of — this clearly should be viewed as a good year,” Riley said.
Telluride, being hard to get to, may have suffered from travel fatigue as skiers stayed closer to their homes on the Front Range or the Coasts.
A spokesperson for Colorado Ski Country USA said that, though the skier days from across the state won’t be released until June, she’s heard that ski areas closer to population centers have seen their skier days hold steady.
“People want to ski, but they’re finding ways to do it that are conducive to the economy,” said Jennifer Rudolph. (She thought that the deep snow that fell in April may have helped ski resorts inch back toward last year’s numbers.)
It’s a trend that appears to be true on a national basis, too. As Front Range resorts fared better than Colorado’s far-flung ones, resorts closer to mega-cities may have fared better than Rocky Mountain ones.
Parker Riehle, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, said Vermont resorts would see a drop in skier days. But many skiers from the big population centers on the East Coast decided to stay close to home.
“We’re literally getting phone calls to the office we’ve never heard before,” Riehle said, from skiers who normally commit to coming West but were coming to Vermont instead.
Telski CEO Riley believes the addition of the Revelation Lift, which added about 400 acres of skiing in a gorgeous craggy canyon, attracted skiers.
“People, they’re all talking about Revelation,” Riley said. “It’s an incredible location and view, and the snow is typically deeper in that location because it catches the snow just right.”
And he believes Revelation, along with the new Palmyra Peak and Gold Hill Chutes, helped Telluride buoy its skier days.
“The word is getting out there in terms of new terrain,” Riley said. “Whenever you open new terrain, it takes three years for the world to figure it out. So we’ve still got more to gain out of the expansion.”
