Mountain Resort Research Articles

Stream sediment and nutrient loads in the Tahoe Basin—estimated vs monitored loads for TMDL “crediting”

Total maximum daily load (TMDL) programs utilize pollutant load reductions as the primary strategy to restore adversely affected waters of the USA. Accurate and defensible "crediting" for TMDL reductions of sediment and nutrients requires stream monitoring programs capable of quantitative assessment of soil erosivity and the "connectivity" between erosive areas and stream channels across the watershed. Using continuous (15-min) stream monitoring information from typical alpine, snowmelt-driven watersheds [Ward (2,521 ha), Blackwood (2,886 ha), and Homewood (260 ha, Homewood Mountain Resort--HMR) Creeks] on the west shore of the Lake Tahoe Basin, daily sediment (and nutrient for HMR) loads are determined and compared with those developed from estimated load-flow relationships developed from grab sampling data. Compared to the previously estimated sediment load-discharge relationships, measured curves were slightly below those estimated, though not significantly so at Blackwood and Ward Creeks in the period 1997-2002. Based on average daily flowrates determined from calibrated hydrologic modeling during the period 1994-2004, average daily flowrate frequency distributions per year are determined from which load reduction "crediting" towards TMDL targets can be evaluated. Despite seemingly similar estimated and measured sediment load-flow relationships, annual "estimated" loads exceeded those "measured" by about 40 % for Ward and Blackwood Creeks and over 300 times for HMR Creek. Similarly, though less dramatic, estimated annual nutrient loads at HMR Creek exceeded those measured by 1.7 and 6 times for total nitrogen and total phosphorus, respectively. Such results indicate that actual measured load-flow relationships are likely necessary for realistic quantitative and defensible TMDL crediting.

Reorganization of urban spaces in a mountain resort

Fordist ski resorts must cope with internal and external pressures. These restrictions strain relations between the functional and symbolic rationale of the purpose-built resorts of the 1960-70s. In the larger context of a ‘return to local values’, increasing attention is being paid to the quality of the inhabited environment, even if only used for only short stays. To address the escalation of issues related to land coverage and landscape features, we need to ‘make do’ with the ski resort’s urban legacy, perceived as a (micro) territorial datum and a potential resource. The scenography of such mountain resorts is seen as a way of promoting micro-territorial resources. This research into the planning of tourist facilities focuses in particular on analysis of Gourette, a resort in the Pyrenees that chose to reorganise its urban spaces as part of a “requalification” project.

An Assessment of Tourism Benefits to the Becheeve People of the Obudu Mountain Resort, Cross River State, Nigeria.

This study examined the benefits of the tourism industry to Becheeve people of Obudu Mountain Resort in Cross River state, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected through questionnaire survey, interviews, field inventory and participatory rural appraisal methods. The data generated were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, percentages, averages, graphs, charts, frequencies and maps. An inferential statistics (Students t-test) was adopted to test the hypothesis of the study. The result of the analysis revealed that there is no significant difference in employment of indigenes and non-indigenes in the resort hotels (P>0.05, df=11, t=0.27). It is observed that, despite the high rate of tourism activities in the study area, the people are yet to enjoy the full benefits of tourism in terms of sustainable development and an adequate improvement in their standard of living. Based on these findings, it is recommended that adequate steps and measures be adopted to improve the standard of living of the people through the provision of training, capacity building, credit facilities, more tourism servicing establishments and provision of basic social amenities in the adjoining villages of the tourism business centre (TBC).

Socio-Economic Implication of Tourists’ Appraisal of the Obudu Mountain Resort, Cross River State, Nigeria

Socio-Economic Implication of Tourists’ Appraisal of the Obudu Mountain Resort, Cross River State, Nigeria

Practical applications of modeling to be highlighted at superalloys 2012

To read more about him, turn to page 10. To join TMS, visit www.tms.org/Society/Membership.aspx. H Superalloys are on the verge of yet another revolutionary step in their development through the application of modeling and simulation. The industries that rely on superalloys most heavily are pushing the boundaries of materials performance in their quest for greater effi ciencies and more cost-effective options. To address these challenges effectively, each superalloy must be closely tailored to its particular application with minimal development time and carefully optimized properties. This requires even greater understanding of the physical factors driving properties, using both extensive empirical relationship databases to guide the optimization strategies, as well as the development of fundamental models to fully address risks, such as stability and environmental interactions. Modeling and simulation are critical to mining the existing data for true understanding of alloy and process impacts on performance, to guiding further refi nement in composition and process, to shortening development times by eliminating testing and repetitive validation trials, and to more rapidly addressing production and fi eld usage issues. The practical application of modeling and simulation will be a particular focus at the 12th International Symposium on Superalloys, scheduled for September 9–13, 2012 at the Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Champion, Pennsylvania. Held every four years over a span reaching four decades, the symposium is considered the premier forum for the latest and most signifi cant innovations in superalloys. A particularly valuable aspect of the symposium is the refereed publication of all papers presented, resulting in an imPractical Applications of Modeling To Be Highlighted at Superalloys 2012

Specificities, Obstacles and Limits to Building Customer Loyalty in Mountain Resort Luxury Hotels

Customer loyalty in mountain resort luxury hotels is truly challenging; it presents specificities, obstacles and limits. We shall base our findings on the example of Courchevel, located in the Savoie region, in France, a resort renowned worldwide for its concentration of luxury and 5-star hotels with their star-winning chefs that testify to this. One rarely mentions customer loyalty there and the concept remains intuitive and empirical; it would require finer analyses, genuine competences and a better adapted communication. We shall in turn study the limits brought to the following aspects: profitability, staff loyalty, new technologies, promotion and communication, the evolution of the expectations of rich customers, of the gilded youth, gastronomy, innovation in services, the successive waves of foreigners… in a post-recession context in which the codes of luxury have evolved. Fifty or so qualitative interviews on the topic of customer loyalty were carried out in twenty or so hotels for this study between 2008 and 2010.

Alzheimer’s disease beyond Aβ

Many of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clinical trials have made it far enough down the pipeline to allow conclusions about targeting the amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) as a therapeutic approach. Based on these results, it is becoming clear that a multifocal approach to AD treatment is probably necessary. However, critical discussion beyond Aβ is necessary to enable the next wave of AD therapeutic targets. For this reason, the 2010 Keystone Symposium, ‘Alzheimer’s Disease Beyond Aβ’, was organized by JoAnne McLaurin and Tony Wyss-Coray to spark topical discussion and debate. While researchers struggled to get beyond that ever-present pathognomonic feature of AD, new and exciting evidence was presented that raised our awareness of what is around the corner for next-generation AD therapeutics beyond Aβ. This report will describe some of the highlights from Copper Mountain Resort throughout the meeting period of 10–15 January 2010 in Colorado (USA). Despite illuminating scientific presentations and intense discussions, a number of important questions remain concerning the best biomarkers and targets to focus on, and when and how to therapeutically intervene.

Meteorological Controls on Snowpack Formation and Dynamics in the Southern Canadian Rocky Mountains

Considerable spatial variability in snow properties exists within apparently uniform slopes, often resulting from microscale weather patterns determined by local terrain. Since it is costly to establish abundant weather stations in a region, local lapse rates may offer an alternative for predicting snowpack characteristics. For two Castle Mountain Resort weather stations, we present the 2003–2004 winter season weather and snow profile data and the 1999–2004 winter season lapse rates. A third site was sampled for small-scale spatial variability. Layer thickness, stratigraphy, temperature gradients, crusts, wind drift layers, stability, and settlement were compared between the sites and correlated with temperature, wind, and lapse rates. Average yearly snowfall was 470 cm at the Base and 740 cm at the Upper station. Average daily maximum and minimum temperature lapse rates are −6.1°C km−1 and −5.7°C km−1 when inversions are removed. Inversions occur mostly at night, adversely affecting lapse rate averages. Lapse rate modes are unaffected and most often −6.3°C km−1. Snowpack spatial variability is ∼25% of layer thickness and is controlled by wind and topography. Layer settlement is primarily related to initial snow thickness and wind drift. Snowpacks stabilize with age, unless rain crusts are present, which are important low-force failure horizons.

Book Reviews

Book Reviewed in this issues. Van Diemen's Land. By James Boyce Mapping Colonial Conquest: Australia and Southern Africa. Edited by Norman Etherington Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution. By Raelene Frances Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy. By Peter Cochrane Lucy Osburn, a Lady Displaced: Florence Nightingale's Envoy to Australia. By Judith Godden Australia's Muslim Cameleers: Pioneers of the Inland 1860‐1930. By Philip Jones and Anna Kenny Bishop of Magnetic Power: James Moorhouse in Melbourne, 1876‐1886. By Moma Sturrock Summer in the Hills: The Nineteenth‐Century Mountain Resort in Australia. By Andrea Inglis Anzacs and Ireland. By Jeff Kildea Designing Australia's Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful 1900‐1930. By Robert Freestone From the Hustings to Harbour Views: Electoral Institutions in New South Wales, 1856‐2006. By Marian Simms Jean Beadle: A Life of Labor Activism. By Bobbie Oliver The Coalminers of Queensland: A Narrative History of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union. Volume Two: The Pete Thomas Essays. By Pete Thomas and Greg Mallory The Little History of Australian Unionism. By Sean Scalmer The Voice of the Thunderer: Journalism of H.G. Kippax. Selected and introduced by Harry Heseltine Sir Ronald Wilson: A Matter of Conscience. By Antonio Buti Power without Responsibility: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to Howard. By Ann Tiernan John Winston Howard: The Biography. By Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen History's Children: History Wars in the Classroom. By Anna Clark John Grote, Cambridge University and the Development of Victorian Thought. By John R. Gibbins A.J.P. Taylor: Radical Historian of Europe. By Chris Wrigley Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart. Edited by Jürgen Matthäus and Klaus‐Michael Mallmann Prague in Black. Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism. By Chad Bryant Prague in Danger. By Peter Demetz Why is there No Labor Party in the United States? By Robin Archer Anti‐Americanism: History, Causes, Themes, 4 volumes. Edited by Brendon O'Connor Equality. By Stuart White The Political Communication Reader. Edited by Ralph Negrine and James Stanyer The Right Road to Radical Freedom. By Tibor Machan Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People. By John Harris

Mountain Resort Planning and Development in an Era of Globalization

Mountain Resort Planning and Development in an Era of Globalization

Mountain Resort Planning and Development in an Era of Globalization

Mountain Resort Planning and Development in an Era of Globalization

Earn CME in a winter wonderland at Practical Pediatrics

Skiing, snow tubing and stunning views will ac company the “Practical Pediatrics” course Jan. 24-27 at Copper Mountain Resort in Copper Mountain, Colo. Designed for pediatricians, family physicians and allied health professionals who care for children, the course combines question-and-answer

The epidemiology of illness and injury at the alpine venues during the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games

The Emergency Medicine literature has described levels of medical care for mass gatherings in the United States, including for the Los Angeles 1984 Summer and Calgary 1988 Winter Olympic Games. However, there are limited data to describe the type and number of illness or injury that may occur during mass gatherings in an alpine winter environment. To describe the epidemiology of illness and injury seen among spectators at the alpine and snowboarding venues during the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games, we conducted a retrospective review of the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Medical Care database for all patient encounters during the operational period of the Games at the alpine and snowboarding venues. The three venues included were: Deer Valley Resort (DVR), Park City Mountain Resort (PCM), and Snowbasin Resort (SBA). Each venue had a medical clinic located on site for spectators and another for athletes. Physicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians, and therapists staffed the clinics. The database was created by Intermountain Health Care (IHC) in conjunction with Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic staff and consisted of descriptive reports of all patient encounters from all venues including demographic, epidemiology, and outcome information. IHC maintains the database, and was the sole medical provider for the Games. Each venue had at least 6 days of competition events. Over the 19 days of the Olympiad, a total of 410,160 spectators and 3,961 competitive athletes attended the three venues. There were 841 spectators evaluated and treated at the venue clinics, and mobile medical staff treated 262 spectators. The top five spectator clinic diagnostic categories were: sprain/strain (n = 108), miscellaneous trauma (n = 103), respiratory (n = 88), miscellaneous medical (n = 69), and digestive (n = 52). Fifty spectators required transport to a hospital for additional care: 27 required transfer by ground ambulance and the remainder were transported by private vehicle. The overall spectator medical utilization rate was 26.9. In conclusion, the rate and acuity of patients seen at the alpine venues during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games was low. Nevertheless, we recommend full on-site physician and nurse staffing with advanced trauma and cardiac life support available during similar events.

The Changing Nature of Mountain Resort Management

Mountain resorts are facing significant environmental and market changes. The increasingly corporatised management structure and change in management style reflects the move away from single-focus resorts to comprehensive resort developments.

The 49° North Mountain Resort

Marketing at ski resorts presents an interesting challenge because of the variety of resort types associated with the industry. At one end of the marketing spectrum are the so‐called destination resorts that trade on an image of glitz and glamour. Much of the marketing talent needed to run such resorts is to be found in large corporate departments that promote everything from upscale real estate to televised events studded with celebrities. At the other end of the spectrum are small local resorts, often owned by entrepreneurs, whose marketing activities are for the most part limited to finding the right marketing mix for the sport itself. In contrast to the myriad of activities associated with larger facilities, smaller resorts tend to focus more on product, price, promotion, and place. An interesting problem develops when smaller resorts seek to leapfrog their current market position by expanding their size. This case study examines the 49° North Mountain Resort, a small, privately owned skiing facility in Washington state that is seeking to expand. Before investing in expansion activities, entrepreneurs must carry out an accurate assessment of market potential and financial risk – by no means an easy task. One possible technique for ascertaining risk is to link a forecasted growth in revenues to improvements in facilities and operations. An entrepeneur with some prior access to a history of market behavior clearly has an advantage over those with only a limited sense of how a radically new product or service is likely to perform. The present study provides data that should prove useful to anyone attempting to judge whether an expansion is desirable. It also describes the marketing mix that has brought some stability to the resort’s financial performance. Market and quantitative data are available for analysis, but are other factors important as well? Should the resort maintain its current marketing mix, or should it target a more lucrative market?

Variability of snow layer hardness by aspect and prediction using meteorological factors

The majority of slab avalanche accidents occur when the victim triggers the slide. Slab hardness is an important property affecting skier-triggered avalanches because hardness partially determines whether sufficient stress reaches the weak layer to cause failure and/or fracture. This study examines how new and old snow layer hardness varies with aspect and which meteorological variables most influence those changes. Slab hardness was measured with a ram penetrometer on north and south aspects from January through March, 2000 at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Continuous weather data were obtained from weather stations at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Analyses were carried out on new and older near-surface snow layers. New snow layer hardness increased most rapidly on the south aspect due to accelerated settlement and densification from warming by incoming shortwave radiation. With the exception of the surface layer, old snow layers, 2 months after deposition, became harder on the north aspect in comparison to the south aspect. A temperature index was calculated for the south and north aspects to describe the delayed effect of increasing temperature on increasing hardness through sintering, settlement, and densification. The south temperature index, maximum daily temperature, and the interaction between maximum daily temperature and incoming shortwave radiation were the most significant predictors of new snow layer hardness on the south aspect. The north temperature index, maximum daily temperature, and the previous day's wind speed were the most significant predictors of new snow layer hardness on the north aspect. The temperature index was the only significant predictor of old snow layer hardness on both the north and south aspects. The results of this research suggest that it may be possible to use meteorological factors to predict changes in snow hardness, which is an important component in predicting skier-triggered avalanches.

Development Harmonisation of Mountain Resorts Ropeway and Tourist Infrastructures in the Republic of Slovenia

Operation efficiency of mountain resort systems dependslargely on harmonious operation of the most important andtherefore most influential elements of ropeway transp01tationand tourist subsystems. Within the framework of a tourist subsystem,the extent and quality of tourist offer for long-stayingguests plays an essential role. Harm.onised development of theabove-mentioned elements ensures major utilisation and bettereconomic management of the entire system so that it may offerquality se1vices. First of all, the system enables permanent andenvironmentally friendly development of the systems that are asa rule in an absolutely sensitive alpine region.The article deals with some results of in-depth research onthe ropeway transportation system and the results of know-howtransfer into the actual environment of the Slovene mountainresorts.

Polystomatidae (Monogenea) of southern African Anura: Polystoma claudecombesi n. sp. parasitic in Rana angolensis Bocage

Polystoma claudecombesi is described as a new species of the Polystomatidae (Monogenea) parasitic in the urinary bladder of the anuran host Rana angolensis. This parasite was collected at three localities in South Africa, namely Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve in Natal province, Witsieshoek Mountain Resort in the north-eastern Orange Free State and Bovenste Oog in the province of Transvaal. It is the largest African polystome described to date. Prevalence at Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve was 4.0% and 2.7% in two successive years, with a mean intensity of 1.0 (n=25 and 36, respectively). One of the two R. angolensis from Witsieshoek was infected with 5 parasites. The diversity and distribution of southern African polystomes is also discussed.

Chapman Conference on Hydrogeological Processes Promotes Interaction

An AGU Chapman Conference, “Hydrogeological Processes: Building and Testing Atomistic‐to‐Basin‐Scale Models,” brought together over 70 Earth scientists from diverse fields to assess the state‐of‐the‐art and to discuss the means and mechanisms to build and test process models that produce probabilities rather than just possibilities. It became clear that this cross‐disciplinary group of hydrologists, petrologists, metamorphic petrologists, quantum mechanical chemists, fluid geochemists, acoustic and electrical geophysicists, and rock mechanics researchers shared a large overlap in their intellectual pursuits with a complementary overlap in their approaches and conceptualizations. Given the need to construct integrated and parametrically realistic coupled models of non‐steady state fluid flow, the meeting addressed the critical question of how to integrate the capabilities of individual disciplines.The conference was convened at the Loon Mountain Resort in Lincoln, N.H., from June 6 to 9, 1994, amid a minimum of black flies and a maximum of ambiance. The meeting initially organized itself into two philosophically contrasting styles of investigation: some wanted to extract and explore the broad generalities of hydrogeological processes (possible scenarios), while others preferred to examine the specifics of hydrogeologic processes with both theoretical studies and observations.

Community or Commodity?

There are differences between environmental and business interests towards development in mountain resorts. Is a place a community or a commodity? A key reason for this difference lies in the beliefs and values of the group, their ethics. Ethics are both the source of the problem and of the solution as mountain resort communities at tempt to implement sustainable development. Frontier ethics versus sustainability, and anthropocentric versus ecocentric thinking all have different impacts on the environment and economic decisions. The concepts of sustainable development, growth, community, commodity, carrying capacity, and other terms are defined. Then follows a discussion of the “Three E's”: Ethics, Environment, and Economics, the criteria for sustainable development. They must be considered together for any strategy to be successful. Mountain resort communities have the history, demographics, scale and physical attributes that make them ideal laboratories for applying new solutions to the ongoing challeng...