Edgar Grospiron’s woes

Recent news regarding Edgar Grospiron centers on his termination as president of the Organizing Committee for the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP) in the French Alps. Edgar Grospiron had taken the helm of the organizing committee following Martin Fourcade’s withdrawal in early 2025 due to disagreements with local authorities.

The former Olympic moguls champion brought to the table his career as a motivational speaker and his prior involvement in Annecy’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics—a bid that had ended in a crushing failure and a decisive defeat against the South Korean city of Pyeongchang. That earlier steering body had suffered from a slow start, local power struggles, and the departure of key figures—most notably Grospiron’s own resignation as CEO in late 2010. 

In this context, the choice of Grospiron a was highly questionable one—as I noted last March—because, aside from professional experience that offered nothing relevant to the complex logistical undertaking of Games spread across the entire French Alps, he lacked the exceptional and wide-ranging experience required for such a challenging mission. 

Grospiron was the quintessential individualist, not the team player needed for the Olympic job. Furthermore, he did nothing to quell significant internal turmoil, particularly the persistent friction between the State, the host regions (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and PACA), and the committee regarding budget decisions and the final map of event venues. 

Regarding internal management, the organization saw a succession of staff departures and operational delays, as well as the commissioning of an audit into the workplace climate within COJOP. Among other issues, parliamentarians and the CNOSF publicly questioned the committee’s management and transparency, precipitating a crisis of confidence. 

Faced with all this and the risk of a deadlock less than four years before the Games, the COJOP executive board met yesterday to approve a major governance restructuring, effectively pushing the former Olympic champion out. 

Is Alterra feeling the heat yet?

After years of unbridled growth and blind optimism in spite of a warming planet, Alterra Mountain Company is now facing mounting corporate, legal, and operational headwinds that reflect longer-running structural challenges in the ski industry, culminating in recent executive departures and workforce layoffs. Denver based Alterra is another ski resort conglomerate that followed the model of Vail Resorts and that now owns and operates nearly 20 mountain destinations (such as Steamboat, Deer Valley, and Mammoth Mountain) and manages the multi-destination Ikon Pass.

It’s notable to mention that Park City is the only ski town where both companies operate. In contrast, Vail owns and operates roughly 42 mountains globally, leaning into a massive, highly standardized network. Alterra’s collection about half the size of Vail Resorts is supplemented heavily by Ikon Pass external partners.

Likewise, Vail optimizes a broad network access and regional feeder loops via its Epic Pass while applying a centralized, corporate-standardized guest and digital model across its network, while Alterra tends to preserve more independent, place-specific character and autonomy at its individual flagship resorts, but less efficiently. Jared Smith stepped down as CEO after a three-and-a-half-year run, leaving the executive committee—including former CEO Rusty Gregory and major stakeholders like KSL Capital Partners—to steer the company. 

Alterra just implemented corporate layoffs affecting year-round, full-time staff across Denver headquarters, remote roles, and various destinations, driven by an unaligned cost structure and slowed post-pandemic growth. In addition, the company alongside competitor Vail Resorts, Boyne, Powdr, and industry research firm RRC Associates, was hit with a federal class-action antitrust lawsuit in August 2026 alleging an overarching conspiracy to inflate season pass and lift ticket prices by coordinating and sharing confidential pricing metrics via dynamic-pricing platforms. 

This follows another federal antitrust complaint filed earlier in 2026 targeting anticompetitive bundling practices that forced skiers into high-cost multi-mountain bundles like the Ikon Pass by artificially hiking single-day window rates. Heavy reliance on mega-passes has frequently outstripped the physical carrying capacity of popular resort regions. These strains were worsened by historically poor western snowfall cycles during recent winter seasons, raising questions over the return on massive terrain expansions at flagship locations like Deer Valley, here in Park City. 

I’m not even mentioning the Elephant in the Room. It's simply global warming, a looming threat to Alterra and Vail Resorts business model. I suspect their management and shareholders are fast becoming spooked by this impending developing problem...

Update Portillo

 

After being closed for 25 days, as of Sunday, August 9, 2026, the Chilean side of the road to Portillo has been cleared. Authorities have established controlled traffic specifically for people with reservations at the Portillo ski resort for the weekend. 

The Paso Los Libertadores and the international Route 60-CH to Mendoza, Argentina, is still officially closed. While the Chilean side has been cleared, the Argentine side remains the bottleneck, with snow-clearing work still underway. Today’s report says that the international crossing could open during the coming week, but there is still no official reopening date.

The resort hotel had planned its 2026 winter season from June 27 through September 27, but had to delay its partial opening to July 4. If we add to it more than 3 weeks of forced closure, the operators have lost a tremendous portion of its earning potential. This sadly illustrates too well the challenges of the ski business. 

On Saturday, I pieced together the video that’s available below, from Portillo’s outstanding network of webcams, to give a good sense of what’s happening on the slopes. The video is best viewed on a tablet or a computer screen as visible skiers are tiny creatures! 

Weather predictions for next winter…

The latest outlook from the NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center just came out and covers pretty much the upcoming snow season including January, February and March 2027. 

It shows a recognizable El Niño pattern beginning to emerge with wetter conditions across much of the southern United States, drier weather across portions of the northern Rockies and increased odds of above-normal temperatures across large sections of the country.

These maps do not predict exact snowfall totals or individual winter storms. However, they provide what should be a good early indication of where the storm track may favor wetter, drier, warmer or cooler conditions during the 2026–2027 winter. 

As far as Park City is concerned you can see it for yourself: Temperatures trending higher and precipitation the same as normal. We’ll see, as always time will tell, and come early April, we’ll compare predictions against realities to see if any came close to what NOAA predicted….

Too much of a good thing

Portillo, the Chilean ski resort was supposed to open for skiing on June 27. It couldn’t as snow was not there on time. It did the weekend later with snow making on its Plateau ski runs, but on July 14 the access road was closed as a massive snowstorm began on Wednesday, July 15, 2026.

Over 5 meters (16+ feet) of total snow has piled up across the resort area since the system hit. Ski Portillo has remained closed and isolated due to the high volume of snow and safety precautions. 

Unofficial local forecasts and resort communications suggest that the closure could realistically impact travel until the first few days of August 2026. The Chilean Highway Department and Guardia Vieja local authorities manage Route 60 (the highway to Portillo). 

Clearing the road will require an immense amount of time to dig through the deep snowpack, clear stranded freight trucks, and complete extensive avalanche mitigation work. 

Ski Portillo's management said that once a safe weather window finally opens, they will first attempt to transport stranded guests to and from the resort via helicopter before the highway is fully cleared for public vehicles. 

While some central Chilean resorts like Valle Nevado have managed restricted 4x4-only openings for residents and staff with bookings, the severe high-mountain corridor leading to Portillo remains strictly impassable. 

Be careful of what you wish for!

Roland Collombin, 1951-2026

Roland Collombin was a legendary Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer, two-time World Cup downhill champion, and Olympic silver medalist. He passed away on July 10, 2026, at the age of 75 following a two-year battle with cancer. 

A ski daredevil, Collombin dominated downhill racing in the 1973/1974 ski season before sustaining some devastating spinal injuries that cut his career short at 24. He captured back-to-back Downhill Crystal Globes in 1973 and 1974. 

Taming the notorious Streif, he won the dangerous Hahnenkamm downhill race in Kitzbühel twice, in 1973 and 1974, setting a course record during his second victory. Collombin’s high-risk, high-reward racing style led to a tragic relationship with the Oreiller-Killy piste in Val d'Isère. In December 1974, he suffered a severe spine injury during a training crash that sidelined him for the entire season. 

In December 1975, as he attempted a comeback, he crashed violently at the exact same spot, fracturing two vertebrae and was temporarily paralyzed. That jump became known as "La Bosse à Collombin" (the Collombin Bump). In these days, I was ski instructing at Avoriaz and working as a volunteer on January 12, 1974 on the Jean Vuarnet downhill course there, and Collombin’s passing brought back some key memories. 

The night before the race, I got together at “Chez Caroline”, a Morzine bar-nightclub, with my friend Jean-Pierre Chatellard, then coach of the French team and Scott Henderson, coach of the Canadian downhillers that would soon become the “Crazy Canucks”. 

These days, even though I loved ski instructing, I was desperately looking for a year-round job, instead of this seasonal job, I also had no real desire to set up a souvenir shop or run a restaurant in Les Lindarets for the rest of my life. 

Just the three of us downed a bottle of whiskey among other beverages. While reminiscing and conversing, Chatellard whom I had not seen since 1972 in Australia, gave me a few serious leads for jobs in the ski industry that I followed to the letter and finally got me into me inside that area of the ski biz. 

The next day as we were side-slipping a frozen race-run, I was experiencing the worst hangover of my entire life, but I survived and Roland Collombin won that race! 

Will the Saudis rescue the ski business?

Faced with global warming, the ski industry should logically turn to Saudi Arabia, based on its rather foolish plan or dream to build a ski resort. You read it correctly, Saudi Arabia has been planning to build an ambitious, year-round outdoor ski resort named Trojena in its mountainous desert region of the country's northwest. 

However, following ballooning costs and shifting priorities within the broader NEOM giga-project, Saudi officials have halted major construction contracts, indefinitely delaying the resort. 

Just for those like me who didn’t know it, NEOM stands for "New Future."It is a combination of two words, NEO: The Greek prefix for "new", while M is the first letter of "Mostaqbal," the Arabic word for "future" or most probably Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who envisioned the project. 

One bad news linked to that location is its low latitude at 28.10° The planned resort is situated roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of the Gulf of Aqaba coast in the Sarawat Mountain range of the Tabuk Province reaching 8,530 feet (2 600 meters) above sea level which is a bit of a stretch in being generous! By comparison: 

• Afriski Mountain, Lesotho, latitude 28.8° S , base altitude 3,050 meters (10,010’). 
• Oukaïmeden, Morocco, latitude 31.2° N. altitude 2,600 m to 3,200 m (8,500 to 10,500') feet). 
• Portillo, Chile, is 32° S, base altitude 2 880 m (9,450’) 

At Trojena, winter temperatures occasionally drop below freezing. The resort was designed to offer 30 kilometers of ski slopes featuring both real snow (via massive artificial snow-making operations using desalinated water) and year-round synthetic "dry" slopes. 

The place’s architecture featured a "vertical ski village," a massive man-made freshwater lake suspended by three large dams, ultra-luxury hotels, and a crystal skyscraper comparable in height to the Eiffel Tower, The project was specifically designated to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games, marking the first time the event would be held in a desert nation. 

Despite several years of heavy construction and the erection of massive steel frameworks, NEOM developers terminated several multi-billion-dollar contracts (including a massive dam project and a major steel supply deal). 

The project's costs reportedly swelled to $38 billion, causing the kingdom to pivot its investments toward core industrial, AI, and logistics infrastructure, pushing completion and the hosting of the Winter Games into after 2030, at the very least. NEOM has stopped short of declaring the project dead. 

So, I guess our nearby low-altitude Deer Valley East expansion will have to wait in order to reap some useful feedback and lessons learned from the Saudis…

Ski tech celebrity

It used to be that being a ski technician with a ski company on the mighty World Cup circuit used to be a relatively lowly job, at least 50 years ago when I was running Look ski binding racing program. Not anymore, that position has since evolved into the celebrity status.

At least, this was the impression I got, when I learned that Niklas Skaardal, son of former ski stars Karin Köllerer and Norwegian great Atle Skaardal, was officially named, late April 2026, Shiffrin's new Atomic ski technician (skiman). 

Skaardal was coaching with the Austrian Ski Federation when he agreed to join the Atomic service team as a ski technician responsible for preparing and maintaining the equipment of Mikaela Shiffrin — the most decorated Alpine skier in the history of the sport. 

The 24-year-old former Austrian national team skier began his work officially on May 4th, before attending his first in-person meetings with the superstar at her regular early-season training bases in Copper Mountain, Colorado. He was mid-renovation on a farm in the Tennengau region when the phone call came that would change the course of his career. 

The former racer, who ended his career in 2024, most recently worked for the Austrian Ski Federation, where he coached the Vorarlberg talents Jakob Greber and Moritz Zudrell."This is an honor for me," Skaardal said of his new role, making it a step closer to celebrity status. 

My point for this whole blog is that the move is highly unusual as in my old world, a ski tech would have aspired and even killed to become a coach but certainly not the other way around! Now that the once discounted profession has become so visible, I might, in a future next life, choose to become the tech of a famous female ski champion, who knows?

Dave Jacobs’ Spyder saga (Part Two)

At the beginning, Jacobs started designing race sweaters for his sons as he became convinced that the equipment available to young skiers was falling short — not fast enough, not protective enough, not built with real racers in mind. Rather than wait for the industry to catch up, he decided to build something better himself. 

He started small as a mail-order operation run out of his Boulder home, offering a race sweater designed with a competitor's eye for performance. It didn't stay small for long. The turning point came when Jacobs designed a pair of navy blue racing pants with yellow ribbed padding for protection. 

Fellow racers thought the pads looked like spider legs — and Jacobs, ever attuned to a good idea, ran with it. In 1978, he formally named the brand "Spyder," from the Ferrari Spyder, one of his favorite cars. What began as a homemade fix for junior racers grew into a global performance-apparel company. 

Jacobs pushed Spyder to focus relentlessly on aerodynamics and materials science, chasing the same margins that mattered to him as a racer — fractions of a second, degrees of warmth, ounces of weight. 

That focus paid off: Spyder went on to become an official apparel supplier to both the US and Canadian Ski Teams, outfitting athletes at the highest levels of the sport, including the Winter Olympics. 

Colleagues and competitors alike have long placed Jacobs among a small group of ski-industry pioneers who built their businesses the same way they raced — by identifying a problem on the hill and refusing to accept it. His path, from a kitchen-table mail-order business to Olympic podiums, became something of a legend within the ski community. 

Unfortunately after bouncing from private equity groups to incompetent investors, the brand is now defunct, and that’s really too bad. Jacobs is survived by his family, including the sons whose junior-racing days first inspired him to pick up a needle and thread. His broader legacy, though, extends to the countless skiers around the world who have raced — and stayed warmer, safer and faster — in gear built on the principles he first sketched out decades ago. 

David Jacobs was a true ski industry visionary who will be missed dearly. RIP. 

Dave Jacobs, 1933-2026 (Part one)

The former alpine racer and coach who built Spyder, one of skiing's top brands, died early this month. He was 92. Jacobs's life was centered on nearly every level of ski racing, from the start gate to the factory floor. He began as a competitor, by becoming in 1957 the first Canadian to win a national downhill championship, a breakthrough that established him as one of the country's top skiers of his era. 

Jacobs was born in Montreal, Canada, and began skiing at age 13. At 21, he won the Quebec Kandahar, and from 1957 through 1961 was a member of the Canadian National Ski Team. In 1957 he captured the title of Canadian Downhill Ski Champion, and was the top-ranked member of the Canadian FIS Team the following season. 

He later moved from racing into coaching, taking on the role of the Canadian National Ski Team's first full-time head coach from 1964 to 1966. In that position, Jacobs worked closely with a rising generation of Canadian athletes, applying the technical instincts he'd developed as a racer to help shape their training. In 1965, Jacobs was contacted by Bob Lange and asked if the Canadian team was prepared to test the boots. 

When they did, Dave Jacob said that "they were really bad boots," so he traveled to the factory in Dubuque (Iowa) and suggested a number of technical improvements to be made on the product. In June 1966, three pairs of re-designed boots incorporating the required changes were made available to the Canadian team when they trained at Mt. Hood; Gerry Rinaldi, Rod Hebron and Nancy Greene tried them on, went skiing, and they thought they were great. 

At Portillo, Jacobs repaired and rebuilt racers’ Lange boots then and there, and wrote copious reports home to the factory. As a result, the boot evolved, growing higher and stiffer. This is when the boot started to become popular with top racers. Nancy Greene started winning on the brand new World Cup circuit wearing Lange. That same year, Lange-Jacobs Inc was formed and in 1967 opened a small factory in St. Jerôme, near Montreal, to assemble the boots. 

This is where I became aware of him. After that company merged with Lange USA in 1969, David moved to Boulder, sat on the board of directors, and was the company's vice president from 1969-1972. During this time, he designed the first Lange competition ski boot, which became the hallmark of World Cup ski boots and predecessor to the Lange race boots used today. Jacobs's most lasting contribution, however, came after his coaching career ended. 

It's in 1978 that he started what would become a world-famous sportswear company right out of his Boulder kitchen. Stay with us for the rest of the story...

Gérard Brémond, 1937-2026

Born in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt on 22 September 1937,Brémond met the 1960 Olympic champion Jean Vuarnet † in the early60s and with him developed the Avoriaz ski resort near Montriond, my home town.

This new ski spot wasn’t easy to conceive and develop given its extremely rugged setting and terrain. In fact, Avoriaz came to be asa perfect confluence that happened from a resort concept without automobiles, just like Zermatt (Vuarnet’s idea) and the integration of the architecture that would seamlessly hug the cliffs and the natural surroundings (Bremond’s vision). 

He didn't follow the easy path of developing resorts along the line of  Les Arcs, La Plagne, Flaine or Le Corbier that were totally unimaginative and, let’s admit it, woefully cheap looking and ugly. 

Instead, Brémond seeked a creative architectural team headed by Jacques Labro, Jean-Jacques Orzoni, and Jean-Marc Roques that made the site unique in its field, and probably ended up costing much more than planned, given its complexity when it opened up in 1967. 

Eventually, it evolved into simpler, easier to build buildings as it expanded. In 1973, Brémond introduced the "Pierre & Vacances" vacation lodging concept that went on to achieve remarkable success, barely slowed by the 2020 COVID pandemic. 

Although I never had any personal contact with Gérard Brémond, his pivotal role in the creation of Avoriaz had a positive influence on my young years and played a significant role in launching my professional career. He also leaves behind a legacy of construction projects that innovated the leisure and tourism industry, while remaining closely integrated with their natural surroundings.

Jacques Martin, 1944-2026

Jacques Martin passed away on June 15 at age 81. He was one of three partners in Sidas, a company founded in 1975 by three French ski instructors, including him, Loïc David and Gaby Pellicot and based near Grenoble, France. 

 David, the company’s visionary, got the idea from seeing a human footprint on some Hawaiian beach and thought that similarly looking molded insoles would make ski boots far more comfortable. Lacking specialized tools, he famously molded his very first prototype inside a kitchen oven dish. 

This initial ingenuity grew into SIDAS, and the subsequent launch of their Conformable brand, which became synonymous with custom footbeds. It later expanded into the medical fields as well as into sport-shoes. 

In 2003 as the founders retired, the company was sold to a new management group that is still running it to this date. Before that transfer, Jacques Martin was the administrative and financial guy, while Loïc David was the front marketing man and Gaby Pellicot handled the technical and production side of the enterprise. 

When I was distributing Koflach in the US in the mid 90s, I seriously considered becoming the distributor for Sidas in America, and was in close contact with Jacques and Loïc for a while, but in the end, I decided against it as I determined that the business potential was too limited for the work involved.

Park City’s last patch of snow

Same thing every year. June 16 holds a special significance to me. On that day in 1985 as I was house-hunting and had rented a large camcorder to shoot a movie of the house we bought in Park City, for my wife to see and hopefully, get her stamp of approval. 

There was a bull-eye window in the house, and through it, I accidentally captured Jupiter Peak with a tiny snow patch left just below the summit, just like you can see on the picture below! 

What’s amazing is that this winter was our worst snow year ever, and yet after an excellent 1984-1985 snow season, we have as much snow left this year not to mention even more around the main bowl and Portuguese Gap, thanks to some cool weather in April, May and June. 

Amazing isn’t it?

 

Disappointing skier visits!

At long last, I just heard about Utah’s skier visit numbers for the 2025-2026 winter season. At just 4.8 million (an amount rounded up it seems, to suggest a bit less in reality) this represents a drop of 26.2 % for our 15 ski resorts compared to the previous season, a significant decline, even more than Colorado’s down by 24%. 

It was also a large drop-off from the record-setting 7.1 million visits recorded when Utah received a record-high snowfall during the 2022-2023 season. A Ski Utah spokesperson said that “...The big takeaway from this year is that it really is just an anomaly, and the ski industry here in Utah is really at the mercy of Mother Nature.” 

I wish I could agree that it’s just an “anomaly” when in fact, I believe, it’s more the beginning of a trend, showing that global warming is here to stay, should be taken much more seriously and won’t go away any time soon. 

Historically, Utah experienced its lowest snow-pack on record, which reflects the amount of water in new snowfall, but many resorts also struggled to maintain operations because of record-warm temperatures throughout most of the winter. Long, warm periods between storms and warmer precipitation that produced more rain in higher-elevation areas than is the case typically, while also making it difficult for them to produce artificial snow. 

What this dismal season tells me is something about politics. Short-sighted politicians are woefully unable to address long-term needs, like global warming and have no problem sacrificing long-term solutions for short-term gains. Not only in the US where Trump and his republican allies are turning their back to the environment, but also in Europe where the sacrifices required from a sound climate protection strategy seem unaffordable in their short-term lens.

FIS Johan Eliash on thin ice?

It’s in 1996 that I met Mr Eliash, in person, for the first and only time. The self-proclaimed billionaire had just acquired Head skis in 1995 and would serve as its active Chief Executive Officer for over 25 years, until 2021. He stepped down as CEO following his election as President of the International Ski Federation (FIS) in June 2021. He has since maintained his role as Head’s Chairman of the Board, and his family remains the company’s majority owner. 

I had flown to New York to interview for the job of President of its US subsidiary. I thought I made an excellent presentation, but Eliash preferred Dynastar’s Carl Helmetag to me, finding me too aggressive for his own style, and saving me a relocation to Maryland. The stodgy Vermont resident barely lasted 3 years on the job probably, because Head’s owner was a little tyrant. 

Today, Johan Eliasch is seeking another term as president of the FIS, but his re-election campaign has triggered a bitter divide. He is facing strong opposition from major Western ski nations over his financial management, centralized control, and unique Georgian nomination. 

Eliasch is aiming to extend his tenure as FIS president, but his campaign has been mired in political drama and pushback from within the sport. Because neither of his home countries (Sweden and Great Britain) were willing to back him, Eliasch acquired Georgian citizenship and was nominated by the Georgian Ski Association.

The most influential national ski associations—including Norway, the United States, Austria, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Canada—sent a joint letter strongly opposing his continued leadership. Because of Vion’s cushy job at FIS in Bern, the French have remained silent. Critics and opposing federations cite two main points of tension. 

First, opposing nations claim that the federation's financial reserves and stability have deteriorated significantly since Eliasch took office in 2021. Eliasch has pushed for aggressive centralization of media and marketing rights against traditional European federations’ wishes that want to keep both autonomy and revenue, leading to accusations that he runs the FIS autocratically. 

Eliasch faces a heavily contested field of four other candidates seeking the presidency. The election battle and control of the FIS governing body will be decided in five days at its upcoming Congress in Belgrade, Serbia. Once a little dictator, always turn into a big one!

Michel Rudigoz, 1944-2026

The legendary ski coach and restaurateur Michel Rudigoz passed away Friday, May 29, from Alzheimer disease, at his home north of Ketchum, Idaho. He was 81. Born on July 29, 1944 in France, became one of the most successful US Olympic Alpine ski coaches in history, leading both the men’s and women’s national teams in the late 1970s and 1980s. 

In 1982, he led the American women’s team to the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Nations Cup, a season-long competition in which points are tallied by individual nations. At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, he guided racers Debbie Armstrong and Christin Cooper to gold and silver medals, respectively, in giant slalom and slalom. 

He began his ski coaching career in Tignes. He also preceded me at Mt. Buller where he taught skiing in 1967 and 1968. In 1972, Sun Valley ski coach Lane Monroe met Rudigoz in the Alps and asked him to come to the US to coach. Rudigoz landed in Sun Valley, and eventually took on the role of coach of the US men’s Alpine team in 1978, leading accomplished racers such Phil Mahre, Steve Mahre and Andy Mill. 

He then assumed leadership of the women’s team, becoming known as a master motivator who praised his skiers’ talents but pushed them to always ski faster. In the mid-1980s, Rudigoz bought “La Provence” from our longtime friends, the Dussers in Ketchum, before opening “Chez Michel” down the road, and got involved as a coach for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. 

In 2011, Rudigoz was inducted into the Sun Valley Winter Sports Hall of Fame, one of a variety of awards and accolades he would receive.

The evolving Avoriaz’s image (Part Two)

The reindeer as Avoriaz mascots were short lived when it was realized that they couldn’t find good sustenance and climate in Avoriaz, in fact a few ran away and had to be wrestled back from nearby Switerland. At the same time, as the resort grew in popularity, a switch has to be made to horse-drawn sleigh from the valley with their owner-conductors. 

That explain why the reindeer logo was dropped, even though the visual could have been switch to stylized silhouettes of skiers, snowboarders, mountain climbers, mountain bike riders, etc, as they exist Olympic-style. 

In addition, the local ski school caved in from the French ski instructor syndicate to adopt their national uniform, the town of Morzine forced also the issue of merging its name with Avoriaz creating a new logo and jettisoned all the previous Avoriaz specific branding. 

The “Festival du Film Fantastique” (Sci-Fi film festival) was also a flimsy attempt to attract the French celebrities to the resort and lost it reason of being as the lodging grew but not in terms of quality and amenities that well-to-do skiers were looking for. 

In the process, Avoriaz became the perfect product tour operators were looking for, sacrificing the more ritzy type of clientele targeted initially, thus accelerating the stagnation of its lodging quality that was quickly no longer in line with a more affluent clientele’s expectation. 

It’s also that Avoriaz found itself diluted with the giant interconnect “Portes de Soleil” that also blurred its unique image. The “British invasion” spurred by Easy Jet creating a hub in Geneva over the ashes of Swissair didn’t help either, bringing herds of loud and young kids to the mountain. 

With more care and a more robust strategy, Avoriaz could have remained a ski resort like Courchevel or St. Moritz in Switzerland, but the appeal of a quick, easy buck is probably what persuaded developer Gérard Brémond to change course and go with mass tourism (including Club Med) and alter his initial plans, so the rest is now history...

The evolving Avoriaz’s image (Part One)

From its inception in 1963, the French ski resort of Avoriaz had a very strong and very distinct branding that really placed it ahead of its times from a marketing standpoint. This was later abandoned by plain laziness, lack of good thinking and proper decision-making, but this is just my opinion. 

What remains true is that Avoriaz’s original branding was anchored in its avant-garde architecture, being entirely car-free, and promoting a skier’s hideaway or aerie (repère de skieurs) with its location over a cliff promontory and the exotic, albeit gratuitous reindeer-drawn sleigh as part of its logo. 

It’s widely believed that the first logo, depicting the stylized reindeer was designed in the mid-1960s under the direction of Gérard Brémond, Avoriaz developer. Unlike traditional resorts that outsourced their communication to external agencies, 

Avoriaz's initial graphic identity was created directly within the Avoriaz Architecture Studio (led by Jacques Labro, Jean-Jacques Orzoni, and Jean-Marc Roques). The choice of the reindeer, was a bit of a fluke and it stemmed directly from the concept of a 100% pedestrian-friendly resort. In 1966, to ensure transfers on the car-free slopes, Gérard Brémond brought real reindeer from Lapland to pull the few sleds available and that’s the reason why the animal thus became the resort's immediate graphic symbol. 

The original design played on visual ambiguity as the clean, geometric lines of the animal's antlers were drawn asymmetrically to directly echo the broken lines and silhouette of the resort's first buildings (Hôtel des Dromonts). A few years later, for advertising posters and graphic variations, they used graphic artists to refine and solidify this unique and avant-garde visual identity. 

The branding treatment was mirroring Avoriaz modernity like no other ski resort. The personnel even wore black and orange uniforms! One key Avoriaz employee, the late François Fallin, became a critical artist who tirelessly hand-painted most of the ski resort signage in white lettering bordered by a yellow and orange stripe with rounded corners keeping branding consistent and unique for many years…

Tomorrow, we’ll see why Avoriaz branding has devolved and what should have done instead...

Vail Resorts sales down

According to Vail Resorts, the multi-resort conglomerate that’s also a publicly traded company, said that skier visits, lift revenue, and other season-to-date metrics were down for the North American ski season through April 19, 2026, compared to the same period through April 20, 2025, due to “one of the most challenging winters in history across the western U.S.,” according to Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz, who noted early sales of 2026-27 season passes were also down. 

Throughout North America, season-to-date skier visits were down 14.9 percent, with total lift revenue down 5.6 percent year-over-year as of April 19. Warmer weather and lack of snow pushed down other revenue sources, with ski school down 12 percent, dining revenue down 11.7 percent, and retail/rental revenue off 6.6 percent compared to the prior year period. 

Visitation for both destination and local guests experienced the largest impact in the Rockies, where visitation declined 25 percent. This seems to match what I’ve seen in Park City on and off the slopes this winter, and the June 2026 third quarter report should confirm these numbers and tell us more about the 2026-27 season pass sales performance...

Global Skier Visits Hit 399M for 2024-25

Global skier visits reached a record 399 million in the 2024-25 season, surpassing the previous high of 392 million set in 2018-19, according to the 18th edition of the International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism, compiled by Laurent Vanat. It covers 68 countries with some 5,800 “equipped outdoor ski areas covered with snow,” 2,000 of which it considers “ski resorts.” 

The 399 million milestone is a 7.8 percent year-over-year increase in visits and marks the highest visitation total of the 21st century. The report indicates that after a nearly 50 percent drop in global skier visits during Covid-impacted 2020-21, the industry has regained momentum, with most markets now meeting or exceeding pre-pandemic averages. 

Visitation increased in all major regions year-over-year from 2023-24 to 2024-25, with many countries, including the US, Italy, and Russia, surpassing their pre-Covid five-year averages. Japan and Germany have yet to return to pre-pandemic visitation levels. By size, major ski areas (of which the report counts 53) accounted for 22 percent of total visits in 2024-25, while large ski areas (687) logged 53 percent. The world’s 4,099 small ski areas netted 17 percent of visits, while medium ski areas (961) claimed 8 percent of visits. 

The season-pass model (like Epic, Ikon) continues to shape demand, though the report suggests it may be nearing an inflection point in the US Meanwhile, globally, rising window ticket prices may be outpacing revenue per skier visit, putting pressure on yield. Notably, the 2024-25 season reinforced a growing decoupling of visitation from natural snowfall. Despite below-average snow that season in parts of Europe and North America, skier visits held steady or grew, supported by snowmaking, operations, and strong demand. 

Of an estimated 150 million skiers worldwide, 33 percent hailed from Asia and the Pacific, 20 percent from America, 20 percent from Western Europe, 14 percent from the Alpine countries Austria, France, Italy, Lichtenstein, Slovenia, and Switzerland, 11 percent from Eastern Europe and Central Aisa, and 2 percent from the Middle East and Africa. Enough ski stats for today!