Alex Kaufman takes new job at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon!

After leaving Attitash Mountain in New Hampshire several years back to take a position at Sunday River, Alex Kaufman built a reputation in the ski industry through his positive work at promoting, no only Sunday River, but the sports of skiing and snowboarding in general. Many of us "locals" got to know Alex quite well through the years and his collaboration with us as a group has been nothing short of awesome.
It was announced a couple days back that Alex has taken a new role at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon. Owned by Powdr Corp, Bachelor is a mammoth ski are that exists on a dormant volcano and is home to an average of 350 inches of snow a year. This is a great opportunity for Alex and while there are many of us in the east who will miss him, we wish he and his wife luck on this journey and thank him for his hard work!

Your Mountain's Expanding... April Fools!

Okay, so I’m one of those gullible folks that falls for just about every April Fools prank in the book. Yesterday was a day where ski enthusiasts had a field day with April Fools jokes on seemingly every alpine forum. Sadly, I fell for a good number of them. Perhaps the one that made me want to slap myself the most was a “press release” on the Sunday River Community Forum that was perfect from the format to even some of the details of the announcement. As if last month’s public announcement of the new Chondola wasn’t enough, one of the moderators, who is an employee of Freeskier Magazine, posted a fake press release regarding expansion to the western flank of Jordan Mountain. Such an expansion plan was drawn up over a decade ago under the direction of Les Otten and is still a viable option for the resort. Why this worked? Sunday River announced spending upwards of $20 million through this summer of which only $14 million has been accounted for, so trail expansion along with the history of the plans made it believable, especially with the huge increase of skier visits this year. Why this shouldn’t have worked? The author noted that the 200 acre development would be serviced by a new 6-pack. That would be unrealistic with the feeder lifts all being quads. Anyway, many of us took the bait. Other fictional press releases from online forums around the area included the finalization of the Killington-Pico Interconnect with a two way high-speed quad, despite POWDR Corp indicating this was not in their immediate plans, Sugarloaf’s expansion to Burnt Mountain, which was perhaps the most believable as the mountain has indicated plans are being drawn for the expansion, and the most ludicrous being an expansion at Crotched Mountain that would not only reopen the closed side of the resort, but also link the two to now defunct Temple Mountain via a tram taken from Cannon. I’m not sure anyone bought this one, but the funniest part about it was that the article said Cannon was replacing the iconic Tram with a Chondola. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not so sure I’d like that chairlift ride!