As a reporter and editor for a number of publications in Colorado ski country, I had the opportunity to write a lot of articles about winter sports. Here are some of my favorites.
Written for The Guide to Ski the Summit, March 1992 Arapahoe Basin — just utter the name and you’ll quicken the pulse of almost any skier who knows the place. It’s called “The Legend,” but this isn’t any empty advertising slogan. Arapahoe Basin, also known as “A-Basin,” “The Basin” and even “Air Basin,” is one […]
From the Copper Cable — March 13, 1992 One of Copper Mountain’s “hidden” ski celebrities is Clif Taylor, a sales associate at Copper Mountain Real Estate (CMRE). He’s “hidden” because most people look to the Copper ski school for ski instruction. And he’s a celebrity because he’s a member of the National Ski Hall […]
From the January, 1993 Copper Cable One of Copper Mountain’s best TV ads was the one where they show steam shovels and whatnot trying to make “the perfect mountain.” The point of the ad was that you can’t make a perfect mountain, it just kind of has to happen. Nature, or something, has to […]
I wrote this for the mountain’s 20th Anniversary season in 1991. Since it was for a publication that was almost wholly dependent on revenue from the resort and surrounding businesses, I had to gloss over some of the more unseemly details. The destruction of the wetlands and beaver habitat, for one, is something that would […]
By Alex Miller Note: This story comes from an interview I did with Max and Edna Dercum at their home in Keystone in the fall of 1992, and which appeared in The Guide to Ski the Summit. I still recall this interview fondly, and I remember laughing a lot with Max and Edna as they […]
Mountain Gazette Unpacked July 2005 Call him the Iron Man of endurance skiing: Beginning Nov. 1, 2003, Rainer Hertrich has skied more than 438 consecutive days as of mid-January 2005. He has exceeded the 15-million-vertical feet mark and has, to the best of his knowledge, utterly destroyed the previous record for consecutive days held by […]
From Hemispheres (United Airlines) March, 2009 Imagine surfers going out of their way to hit the beach when the waves are at their lowest and staying home when they’re at their best. That’ll give you some idea of the way skiers treat our mountains here in Colorado. “Come in April,” I tell friends, and they […]
Vail Trail, Aug. 2008 It’s an interesting thing about the ski industry that some of the people involved in the “beginning” are still around. Of course, we’re talking about the modern, lift-served ski industry, which took off after World War II and involved many members of the famed 10th Mountain Division. According to a quick […]
April, 2007 For Mountain Gazette It was marketed as just a wacky, fun event, but at Copper Mountain, Colorado’s Eenie Weenie Bikini Contest, the real star of the show was the Great American Boob (with a few international hooters thrown in over the years as well.) In any given year, the ratio of female […]
It’s a slippery slope for ski areas trying to be environmentally sensitive Vail Trail, 2004 By Alex Miller Auden Schendler thinks he has the best job in the world. As the director of environmental affairs for Aspen Skiing company, Schendler spends his days trying to come up with new ways to make the resort […]
Alex Miller 