Ski Area Operations Seminar and Planning classes

It's amazing how close the end of the school year is. Friday night is graduation and a week from now I'll be back in South Dakota.

For the past three weeks or so a lot of second-year Ski Area Operations students have just had two classes- Ski Area Operations Seminar and Ski Area Planning.

In Ski Area Operations Seminar we have heard about Paul Rauschke's journey to the ski industry. We have also heard from Steve Hill who is Director of Rental and Retail at Aspen Ski Corporation; C.A. Lane who is Winter Park's General Manager / Director of Mountain Operations; and Allison Kohn, a Level IV groomer at Beaver Creek Resort. According to the course schedule, this week we will be hearing from Dave Byrd who is the Director of Education and Risk for the National Ski Areas Association and Geoff George who is the Lift Maintenance Lead Mechanic for Keystone Resort.

I think the best description I could give of Ski Area Planning is the one in the course syllabus. "Design and clearing of ski trails and locating support facilities approved in long range ski area development plans are the topics of this course. Emphasis will be given to computing skiing capacities and balancing of facilities, lift and trail capacities with various environmental constraints.".

So far in the class we have covered "The language of Ski Area Planning", computing ski area capacities, balancing capacities, Feasibility Studies and Master Planning, Colorado's Joint Review Process, Environmental Impact Statements and Issues, Construction Planning Processes, Lift and Trail Construction, Snowmaking and Utilities Planning and Construction, and Water Supply and Sewage Treatment Facilities. We also had a guest speaker come in to explain the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to us.

We have learned to shoot grade which determines what type of trail we have and the appropriate skier density. We have learned that a beginner skier expects to ski 2,000 vertical feet but an advanced skier expects to ski 20,000 vertical feet. We have learned that the average car arriving at a ski area has 2.7 passengers and requires a 300 square foot parking spot. Base area lodges should be able to accomodate 20-35% of your skiing guests at one time and you should have 1 toilet for every 50-60 persons. In determining ski area facilities and expansion you must take these factors into account. Your lift and trail capacities need to be equal to your parking lot capacity which needs to be equal to your facilities capacities. You should also aim to have a 20% beginner, 60% intermediate, and 20% advanced trail mix.

For our final project we creating possible designs for the "Lake County Winter Recreation Area". We were told that we were to include some sort of lift, a tubing hill, a terrain park, that we needed to relocate one building, and that we should build a small lodge. Most of our designs also include lighting and expanding snowmaking. Based on my own computations, the area could handle 205 guests at one time Sunday-Thursday and on Friday and Saturday when I am working with longer hours, the area could do 342 guests at one time. Being that I do not spend much time in the terrain park, I am also learning a lot about the spacing of features.

Food for thought: A skier density of 50-100 skiers/acre is appropriate on a beginner trail, but on an advanced trail, that number is closer to 10 or 15. Why do you think this is? I'd enjoy hearing your opinions.