Craig's Report - August 20, 1997


I'm afraid it has been almost two months since I updated this report. So much for my grand plans of frequent summer updates. :-(

It's been a nice summer here, with warm weather and lots to do. The big news has been the sale of the ski hill to Charlie Locke of Lake Louise fame. Charlie's company (Locke Stock and Barrel) already owns Lake Louise, Nakiska, Fortress and Wintergreen making it the major player in the Banff/Calgary ski market. Speculation is rampant as to what changes this will bring, but hard facts are hard to come by. The area has been renamed Fernie Alpine Resort on the grounds that there were other places named Snow Valley (but no others named Alpine Resort?) and that they wanted to promote it as summer and winter area.

The sale of the lots in the new subdivision is underway and it sounds like there might be two new hotels being built on the hill for next season. It also would appear that the lift expansion for the 98/99 season will go ahead, although there is lots of speculation about whether it will follow Heiko's plan. There are of course new lift rates and while the day pass has only gone up two bucks to $36, the seasons passes have taken a pretty fair hit unless you are a senior or maybe a student. Note the change in how the GST is handled. There are also a lot of multiarea options available.

The proposed trailer area below the new subdivision has apparently been cancelled by the new owners, but the trailers will be allowed to stay in the upper parking lot one more year.

As ski season approaches I will be doing some refurbishing of my web page and I welcome any suggestions. I have already expanded FernieTalk with areas for classified adds and an Ask Charlie! section which the ski hill has promised to monitor and answer.

I have also acquired a new digital camera (Kodak DC120) which takes much better pictures than the old camcorder/Snappy arrangement, albeit at the lost of the super motor drive feature. It will be interesting to see how it works for ski shots, but here are a some summer shots taken in the last couple of weeks:

Cedar Bowl From the top of Haul Back

Boomerang from near the bottom

Cedar Bowl again, this time from near the top of the Boom chair

Have a great summer, because it's almost over. :-)

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