That is one view.

The other is that a bit of fun works itself out at this time of year as a number of American resorts try to claim the earliest opening date. It gets people in the mood for the winter ahead and starting to think about skiing and snowboarding.

Normally it's a contest between Loveland and Arapahoe basin in Colorado, who interestingly seem to share the honours over the course of time.  This year a small ski resort near Las Vegas almost won.  It was just 3 hours behind Loveland.

See the PlanetSKI news story here.

It got me thinking about PR and spin in the ski industry.

It is a bit like all the fuss that used to be made over the French wine, Beaujolais Nouveau, as people raced to get it to the bars, restaurants and clubs to be drunk.  It was a wine that liked to be drunk young of course, but it didn't require Harrier jump jets and helicopters to get it out that swiftly.

The marketing people turned it into a text book exercise in product promotion.

A similar thing happens in the US as the resorts battle it out to open first or claim the earliest ever opening date for their respective resort.

The media covers it extensively with the build up, the satellite TV trucks turn up to film the opening complete with the obligatory countdown and interviews with people saying how amazing the whole experience is.

This year in Loveland the press found, once again,  Nate “Nate Dogggg” Nadler, who was on the first chairlift of the season for the 14th year in a row.

“It’s just amazing. The snow conditions are just the best I’ve ever seen on the opening day,” Nadler said. He camped out at Loveland from 3 O'clock on Tuesday afternoon. But how did he know when it was opening?

The reality is that the snow cannons are switched on for as long as the night-time temperature allows, deals and tip offs are done behind the scenes and, hey presto, one resort claims the crown. 

Other resorts then try to claims their earliest season opening dates and then quite often then shut down for weeks on end and resume business at the end of November. It makes for a good photo in the local papers.

Some would argue that a resort fires up its cannons at a financial and environmental cost, manages to push a bit of man made snow around to cover a simple beginners run for a few hours one morning and that is it.

But then should I blame the resorts?

No, I should probably look in the mirror as they really only do it for publicity purposes and as content editor of this ski web site I asked one of our reporters to write the story and follow it last week on our news pages.

We are a hypocritical bunch in the 4^th estate.

But we all have to use that Private Eye reporter, Phil Space.

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