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To submit a news item send an email to press@mountainnews.com. The Industry Report is published by Mountain News Corp., which also publishes OnTheSnow.com Editor-In-Chief: - Craig Altschul Executive Editor: - Roger Leo President & Publisher: - Rob Brown Managing Director: - Chad Dyer Advertising Information: - sales@mountainnews.com Subscriptions:
Archives: - September 2009 - August 2009 - July 2009 - June 2009 - May 2009 - April 2009 - March 2009 - February 2009 - January 2009 - December 2008 - November 2008 - October 2008 Recent Posts: |
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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Another Hidden Valley Averts A Land GrabBy Craig Altschul 
General Manager Bill Brandes went to the Wildwood City Council to seek permits to pave a parking lot, add some snow tubing lanes, and a new, larger maintenance building. Seems reasonable, right? Well, as OnTheSnow.com Regional Editor Mike Terrell puts it, "Brandes must have felt like he had run into ghosts of Jesse James and his gang." "I've never run into local politics like this," Brandes told Terrell. "They wanted us to pay them $250,000 or give them two acres of our land for the improvements. It was like a bunch of clowns trying to exhort money or something. I was shocked, and so was my owner Tim Boyd." Hidden Valley is part of the lineup of small ski areas owned across the Heartland by Boyd. "If we wouldn't go along with that request, they were going to limit our hours of operation so that we could conduct no activities on the property between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. That would have shut down our snowmaking operation because, in Missouri, those are the prime hours for us to make snow with limited cold weather. "It was an unbelievable response. We were blind sided." Brandes said Hidden Valley has withdrawn its request for the improvements from the city council, which will allow them to continue to operate as usual for at least this season. "We don't know what next year will bring, but this season we will be open as usual with our midnight skiing on weekends." Local skiers and riders have rallied around the ski area and started a Save Hidden Valley Web site www.savehv.com. They have rallies, started a blog, and making their support for the ski area loud and clear. Brandes says this little town was just incorporated in 1995, well after the ski area was part of the landscape. Terrell says the blogs show how the ski area has been a positive force in the lives of a lot of people in that area. Hidden Valley long has been appreciated and valued by St. Louis skiers and riders. "Granted it's not big, but it has a decent 282-foot vertical drop for this area of the Heartland. The ski area generates between 62,000 and 72,000 skier visits, depending on the weather," Terrell said. What It Means: Bad as it is, Jesse James had nothing on today's Congress. Power is clearly an enemy of powder in this situation. That's all the Hidden Valley stories for this issue. « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Comments
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Posted by: joe vittengl Devil's Head Resort | October 6, 2008 10:04 AM
