The NASJA 2010 annual meeting was professionally enriching –and most importantly, it was a blast too!

Thanks for letting me in –just a simple, aspiring “snow flack.”

Sun Valley Resort really gave us the royal treatment. But I later learned that Sun Valley gives everyone the royal treatment. That’s why they are among the world’s greatest ski and boarding destinations.

The only reason I didn’t post sooner is that after NASJA 2010, I went downhill. A lot. Initially at Brain Head Resort, with 26 inches of fresh powder, and then at Snowbird with about a foot of the greatest snow on earth. Sure I am bragging, but with all due respect to Mungo Jerry, it’s the wintertime that we crave…it’s in the wintertime that we carve.

But I digress…

From meeting Roger Leo on the flight into Hailey to riding the shuttle back to the airport with Cindy Burr and her dad, along with Jeff Wise from Stowe, attending NASJA 2010 will go down as among my best days on the job.

Entering the Round House on Wednesday afternoon, I knew not a soul. Within minutes I was buddying up with Roy Rodriguez and his bride. Then Curtis Fong took a seat, followed by Karl Weatherly and Dan Giesin.

“I can’t remember ever being as warmly, and immediately welcomed into such a tight-knit group of people in my life,” to quote Troy Hawks, National Ski Areas Association.

And I was just two-drink-tickets into NASJA 2010.

By the end of the first day I also had met: Martin “Duck Tape” Griff, who gregariously shared his new found interest in gin & tonics; President Bob Cox, who only weeks earlier introduced me to NASJA; and Tony “The Actuary” Crocker.  And as the sun went down, I learned that I shared Midwestern roots with Mike Terrell, Charlie Coane and Brundage’s Rick Certano.

By the end of NASJA 2010, other members I had the pleasure of meeting included Harriet Wallis, Rob Brown, Mary McKhann, Bob Goligoski (Native American name is “Goal I Go Ski”), Gretchen Besser and Rose Marie Cleese (and those noted below).

I am already looking forward to NASJA 2011. Where else might I demo Anton Gliders and share a gondola, a “hot pool,” a drink, a meal and/or a laugh with all those noted above and other snowsports icons like John Fry, Bernie Weichsel and Wayne Wong.

Other NASJA 2010 highlights in no particular order:

• Giesin’s “I can’t speak louder, I am married” comment at the general meeting (may have been the best line of NASJA 2010.) 
• Riding the gondolas with Richard Weir and his fiancée, Susan, lobbying for their wedding to be a kegger…a nice kegger, but a save-the-money-for-skiing kind of wedding.
• Breakfasts with Dick Fosburg, Don Wiseman, Dick Dorworth and Lou Whittaker.
• Lunches with Peter Schroeder, Risa Wyatt, Claudia Carbone and Bob Goligoski.
• Unsuccessfully trying to stump Jerry “The Jukebox” Hoffman’s knowledge of lyrics.
• Peter Hines explaining how I could fix my laptop, which kept the overall NASJA 2010 attendance cost down.
• Meeting fellow Snow Flacks & Marketeers: Cindy Burr, Jen Butson, Lauren Dreitzler, Jessica Flynn, Chad Jones, Bonnie MacPherson, April Russell, Jack Sibbach and Jeff Wise.

Sun Valley has been on my list of to-do ski areas for many years and this March it became a "been there and done that".  It is now one of my favorite spots to put down the planks and let 'em run!

From the ambiance of apres' ski to the steeps of the many down-hill runs, Sun Valley is a 'happening' place to be.  Our lodging at the Sun Valley Lodge was second to none, and the quick shuttle rides to the gondola and quad chairs took just minutes.

The folks at Sun Valley went out of their way to make our NASJA group welcome.  It was a job well done and will be one to be remembered for a long time to come.

My ski tips go up to April Russell of Brundage, Kellie Kluksdal of Idaho Division of Tourism, Mark Thoreson and the rest of the staff at Sun Valley for making our NASJA trip a huge success! 

Dan Cassidy

Ski Tracks & INside the OUTside Freelance Writer

from the GREAT State of Maine

Getting back to basics at Sun Valley

By Matt Boxler

SUN VALLEY, Idaho – If there exists a fountain of youth, surely it flows in Sun Valley. Here, time has a wonderful way of not mattering. These mountains, these people, have the power to bridge generations in a shared sense of all that has been – and still is – possible.

Rich ski history resides in mountain towns all over this country – including New England – but no place on earth celebrates its heritage like Sun Valley.

I was introduced to this storied place for the first time last week with my 12-year-old daughter, Catie, during the annual meeting of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association. For two New Englanders from two generations who love the sport of skiing, arriving here felt as though we were landing at the epicenter of the sport’s universe.

More importantly – in typical Sun Valley fashion – arriving here brought a father and daughter closer together.

Catie and I strolled the halls of the famous Sun Valley Lodge, pausing at each of the framed photographs that chronicle brief moments in the resort’s unparalleled history that dates back to 1936. Along the way, we ran across Ernest Hemingway, who wrote much of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” while staying as a guest on the second floor; Lucille Ball (Catie tells me she loves “I Love Lucy,” the theme of a sleepover party she once enjoyed at a friend’s house); Stein Ericksen (she recognizes from skiing Stein’s Run at Sugarbush, Vt., where he once served as ski school director). We pass by Bette Midler, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, too many to mention here.

We view images of skiing royalty: Andrea Mead Lawrence (a Vermont native), Jean-Claude Killy, Billy Kidd, Otto Lang, Bud Werner. We learn about the Olympic champions Sun Valley has produced – Gretchen Fraser, Christin Cooper and, Catie’s favorite, Picabo Street (she insists the next day that we rip down Picabo’s Street beneath the Flying Squirrel chair on Bald Mountain).

We stop at a photo of Muffy Davis, perhaps the most talented of all the Sun Valley ski racing children. Muffy grew up competing alongside Picabo, her friend and classmate, until a horrific downhill training accident on Baldy crushed her back left her paraplegic at age 16.

Davis went on to become valedictorian of her high school class and later graduated from Stanford University. She returned to these mountains and to ski racing, going on as a member of the United States Disabled Ski Team to win multiple medals at the Paralympic Games, two World Cup overall titles, a World Championship, five World Cup titles and more than 25 World Cup medals. She has summited two 14,000-footers, including the first wheelchair ascent of Colorado’s Pike’s Peak.

Sun Valley is a very humbling town.

Each evening in the hotel, Catie and I watch on TV the continually looped 1941 film, “Sun Valley Serenade,” starring Sanje Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller and Milton Berle. She was transfixed. (This from a kid I can’t pry away from the teen dramadies of Disney Channel).

She especially enjoyed the big band music, the vintage ski outfits, the blankets handed to skiers as they were loaded onto the single chairs (dad, why don’t they still do that?), and the chase scene where “Karen” confounds “Ted” the whole way down Baldy. She asked about the technique required to turn those towering wooden skis compared to how we do it today.

She doesn’t ask why the film is void of color.

During the days … we ski. It’s the reason for our visit. The sun is abnormally high overhead for 9 a.m. We amass vertical like never before (Bald Mountain boasts an incredible 3,400 vertical feet from top to bottom). We run gates side-by-side on lower Cozy, cruise Greyhawk and Hemingway, have lunch on the sun-drenched patio at Warm Springs Lodge.

We marvel at the steepness of the “green” circle trails on Seattle Ridge, black diamonds anywhere else in the country. We drop into the Baldy Bowls after the sun has had a chance to soften the surface. We cruise lower Broadway, Olympic Lane. We never even get to Dollar Mountain, where it all started.

We end our day exhausted in the 101-degree outdoor pool, joining others just like us … old, young, smiling.

(A NASJA member since 1989, Matt Boxler’s website can be found at www.mattboxler.com)

As a fledgling teenager growing up in the heart of Central Wisconsin’s Dairy Land, I fell in love with skiing after my first day on the slopes of nearby Rib Mountain. I wrote about skiing in my English class, day dreamed of sliding down the slopes in math class, and chose to paint the U.S. Ski Team logo on canvass for my art class. Little did I know that one day I’d find myself traveling through the Great State of Idaho touring ski areas with some of the foremost ski journalists in the country.

The 2010 NASJA meeting was a milestone moment for me. Sure, I may have been surrounded by old farts, but I can’t remember ever being as warmly, and immediately welcomed into such a tight-knit group of people in my life. (I’m 41 which isn’t exactly young, but in this crowd…well…I’ll save that for another story.)

These folks might be hot-shot ski writers and photographers, but you’d never know it by meeting them. And the genuineness didn’t stop there. From Brundage President and GM Rick Certano and Communications Director April Russell, Bogus Basin’s PR Guru Gretchen Anderson and her team of Mountain Hosts, and Sun Valley GM Tim Silva, PR Pro Jack Sibbach and Mark Thoreson – these resorts spared no detail in showcasing their top-rate operations. The skiing was great, the eating was even better, and the story telling along the way was nothing less than a treasure. (Unfortunately I’ve already forgotten many of these stories, damn this getting old!)

This is just a brief reflection of my first NASJA meeting, but in reality, the experience has left a book of memories I’ll cherish for a lifetime. North America is home to the best ski areas in the World, and this of course can only come as a result of the tireless efforts of the most esteemed ski area executives in the business. It’s only fitting that their stories be shared to others through the writings and images created by this incredible group of authentic ski journalists who share an intense fervor of the sport, and a true passion for sharing their stories with current and future generations. 

Thank you, all of you.

Best, Troy Hawks, National Ski Areas Association