Utah's 13 active resorts recorded 4,082,094 skier days in the winter of 2006-07, the fourth consecutive year in which a new high mark was set. A skier day is defined as one person visiting a ski area for all or any part of a day or night for the purpose of skiing.
The total was only 19,906 more than the prior winter's record number. But it is additional evidence that post-Olympic increases in national visibility enabled well-equipped resorts to overcome a quirky weather pattern and snowfall totals far below normal.
"I've talked to more people, including the ski resorts, who said 'Wow, I'm kind of surprised.' But we just hung in there and the momentum of the last couple of seasons really carried us," said Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, marketing arm of the state's ski industry.
"The destination crowd did it," he said.
That is a good crowd to have. Ski Utah's skier/snowboarder survey for the 2005-06 season determined out-of-state visitors spend an average of $269 per day. Utahns spend $46.
The 2005-06 season was a good snow year. Alta, which always receives the most snow of all Utah resorts, had a seasonal cumulative total of 637.5 inches, down from a wondrous 697.5 inches the winter before but significantly better than this past season's 401.5 inches.
Several protracted dry spells this winter left a dispirited local populace waiting at home for conditions to improve. But outside of a couple of valuable storm surges around the Christmas holidays and Presidents Day, the high-pressure doldrums that kept snow-bearing storms at bay dominated the weather pattern.
Observed Solitude Ski Resort spokesman Jay Burke: "Our season pass holders were good to us. Destination visitors were very good to us and what I like to call the armchair skiers in Salt Lake, the ones who don't buy preseason passes, they just found other things to do this year with the snow being lackluster."
Locals are a resort's "bread-and-butter," but come and go with the snow, said Rafferty.
"They can look out their windows in the morning and decide whether to go up skiing or boarding," he said, noting that the 2005-006 survey found that locals accounted for 56 percent of the state's skier days.
Being lower in elevation, snowmaking and grooming are especially important to Park City's three resorts - The Canyons, Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley. Those three resorts recorded 1,746,333 skier days last winter, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier.
"Given the challenges we faced related to snow, it makes me believe in the resiliency of our product," said Park City Chamber & Visitors Bureau executive director Bill Malone. "People work hard to get their Christmas reservations in early. They have a lot of confidence in what the ski resorts are able to do with snowmaking, good grooming and Mother Nature."
Rafferty calculated that ski-related tourism contributed more than $700 million to the state's economy last winter. He thanked the Utah Office of Tourism for helping the resorts to advertise their product to out-of-staters by contributing several million dollars in the past two years for promotional campaigns.
Those advertising dollars helped the state capitalize on the international spotlight of having staged the 2002 Winter Olympics.
"I certainly believe the Olympics started the ball rolling in terms of creating a widespread view of the credibility of our product," said Park City's Malone. "A lot of people had their eyes opened by the [television] coverage or their visits here. A lot of them have wanted to 'kick the tire" since then."
Enough to boost Utah into third place nationally in 2006-07 skier visits. Colorado still leads with almost 12 million skier days and California is second.
But last winter, the Beehive State surpassed Vermont, whose numbers were down 7 percent to 3.8 million after a horribly slow start cost most resorts Christmas and the Martin Luther King Day holiday period.
mikeg@sltrib.com
