Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 6, 1995 TAG: 9502090006
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Gibson is the editor of the Ski Tripper (trip as in going places and not as in falling down). It is a newsletter aimed at a market that he calls the "discerning mid-Atlantic skiers," who not only ski near home, but also out West and in New England. He publishes it from his home in Roanoke, where his wife, Jamie Hendry, lays it out on the home computer, although her name does not appear on the masthead.
Started last year, Ski Tripper is published monthly November through March and has a modest circulation of several hundred readers. It is eight pages in length, with a subscription price of $18.
What you get for your money, Gibson believes, is information beyond the "Gee whiz, did you know there's skiing in the South?" mentality. Skiing has been around long enough - actually, 35 years this season in the Southeast - for it to be covered with a critical eye, Gibson believes.
"All the information that skiers get now, basically, is from the resorts: the ski conditions reports, the brochures, the ski shows," he said.
Even the stories that appear in travel magazines and newspapers often are done by free-lancers who are guests of a resort and inclined to put a positive spin on everything from lodging to lift lines.
"We just sort of show the true side of things, to balance it out a little bit," Gibson said. "We aren't trying to put people out of business by being overly negative. We just want to show the complete picture. We are the consumer voice for skiing."
In the February issue of Ski Tripper, for example, Gibson calls Wintergreen, near Waynesboro, "the most lavish ski resort in the mid-Atlantic and one of the most superbly planned and successful in the East."
Then after five paragraphs of praise, he writes:
"OK, we're getting carried away with the compliments. The downside to Wintergreen is that everything is expensive, with lodging the main culprit. Being isolated in a rural area, Wintergreen property is the only choice - you won't find any cheap hotels nearby."
Then Gibson offers some advice:
"If you want to stay, your best bet is to rent a condo and pile as many people into it as you can. I usually go just for the day."
It is the kind of writing that may not win many friends among resort operators, but then, Gibson isn't looking for any. A statement on the masthead of Ski Tripper says, "In order to maintain independence, no advertising is accepted."
Nor are favors, such as lift tickets, lodging and meals, which are common amenities among ski and travel writers.
"That is part of the promise of being able to critically view things," said Gibson, who is a free-lance writer and past president of the Roanoke Ski Club. "They don't know that we are there."
They do afterward, however. In the December issue, Gibson reported: "Sugar Mountain [in Banner Elk, N.C.] and Whitetail [in Mercersburg, Pa.] are waging a fierce race to pass the $40 lift ticket barrier; each has raised its weekend price to $39. Remember when the $20 mark seemed astronomical?"
Gibson has some advice about the steep prices you are likely to find at any resort on a weekend: "Don't pay them," he says. "There are many deals out there."
Some examples:
In December, Snowshoe-Silver Creek, in Pocahontas County, W.Va., offered a two-day instructor's seminar that included lift tickets, a video analysis of your skiing and a cheese and wine party for $50. Rooms were $35.
"Don't want to be an instructor?" Gibson asked in an article he titled How to Ski Cheap. "You don't have to."
Boot maker Dolomite, Gibson points out, offers a free lift ticket at several resorts just for trying on a pair of their boots. That's worth a trip to your shoe shop, he advised.
There also are discount coupon books, senior citizen rates, package deals, ski-club group rates, frequent-skier programs and various other means of chopping bucks off the price of a lift ticket if you are willing to look for them.
What you won't find a lot of in the mid-Atlantic region are bumps, Gibson said. Moguls, those table-size mounds of snow on a slope, are viewed as a nightmare by many skiers in this region, who believe resort operators do well when they flatten them with quarter-million dollar grooming machines.
For Gibson, moguls are the kind of challenge that can give skiers a rush.
"There are skiers who would like to see more bumps" without having to go out West or to New England to find them, he said.
Whitetail has gotten the message. The Pennsylvania resort has a mogul run, which is a steep, 100-yard stretch covered with hard bumps that gives skiers the feeling of going down a giant staircase. There's even mogul racing, and Whitetail is promising to let still more runs "bump up" for people who believe skiing has something to do with nature.
It is the kind of falling-down program that likely will merit a good review in the Ski Tripper.
Subscriptions are $18 from Ski Tripper, P.O. Box 20305, Roanoke, 24018. A free sample is available by writing or by calling 772-7644.
by CNB