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By Warren Miller
October is the slow time of the year for ski resorts everywhere. The days are cool and the nights are cold. To stimulate business, ski resorts hold a lot of seminars, festivals, and other things to attract customers to stare at the high-speed quad chairlifts hanging limp in an autumn sky. There is something for almost everyone at every ski resort for everyday of the month of October.
Here are some of the reasons to go to a ski resort near you and the dates of the seminars in October that I have read about on their various websites.
1. Aspen, Colorado: Anniversary of “Opening of new employee house hunting season.”
2. Ski shops at every resort and in cities, too: “Get fit for Orthotics week.” Learn how you can make the Orthotic companies financially self-sufficient.
3. Ski towns anywhere: Deliver your skis to ski shop for edge filing and bottom tuning.
4. Vail, Colorado: World’s Largest Ski Swap and Tractor Pull on Vail rugby field.
5. Ski towns everywhere: Combination get-in-shape-to-ski and so-you-can-rent-it-basement-cleaning week.
6. Mammoth Mountain, California: How to winterize your old car instead of making monthly payment on a new one.
7. Whistler: Writers Festival, celebration of the literary arts and the written word.
8. Sun Valley Idaho: Anniversary of the finish of construction of the world’s first chairlift.
9. Mt. Tremblant, Canada: Autumn-Leaf-Color-Changing bus tours end. Autumn-Leaf-Colors-Changing bus tours begin in Stratton Mt. Vermont. Big Deal for motel owners everywhere.
10. Iron Mountain, Michigan: Used Snowmobile and Brain Bucket Swap at Thelma’s Bar and Grill parking lot adjacent to George’s rope tow and Miniature Golf Course.
11. Beaver Creek, Colorado: Ski slope landscaping seminar. Four days for only $1950. This includes lawn mower maintenance and environmentalist dodging.
12. Heavenly Valley, California: Psychic Convention. Séance’s in snow forecasting, reading fashion trends, find out what astrological sign your new employees should be under. Guest speaker is Shirley MacLean.
13. Steamboat, Colorado: Ski Industry Investing Seminar. What stocks not to buy, when to sell, how to read a prospectus. Featuring guest speaker, Former stock analyist and now trails crew chief, Drew Plenty.
14. Gymnasiums everywhere: Dry Land training officially starts.
15. Living rooms most places: Dry Land training secretly ends.
16. Sugarbush, Vermont: Time Share Condominium Seminar. Care and feeding of the fifty-one other owners who will be using your unit every year. Learn how not to wind up with Christmas week for your ski week. Learn how to trade your unit for a charter boat somewhere.
17. At a ski resort bank near you: Third Annual “Chapter Eleven Dodging” seminar. Includes classes in how to say “The check is in the mail,” in thirty-four languages.
18. Mt. Stowe, Vermont: Seminar sponsored by Dow Chemical Company: “Acid Rain and its effect on tree leaves and lift ticket sales.”
19. Aspen, Colorado: Little Nell Hotel. Celebrity watching seminar. How to crash a celebrity party. Can Michael Jordan really ski? Is Martina Navritalova really a hot racer? This and much, much, more will be discussed in this weekend long seminar featuring surprise guest speakers, such as the most important people who are out of work at the time.
20. Ski Shops everywhere: The end of the 50% pre-season discount sale.
21. Last chance to go to the bank to borrow the money for the discount ski equipment you put on hold during the July 70% discount sale.
22. Mammoth Mountain, California: Combination real estate salesman and ski instructor week begins. New ways to describe old techniques. How to spot a potential condo buyer in your class. How to turn your ski pupils into real estate commission dollars. How to trade common sense for real estate commissions.
23. Mammoth Mountain Ski Season officially opens with all lifts operating.
24. Queenstown, New Zealand: 87th Annual sheep herding, dipping, and shearing contest.
25. Verbier, Switzerland: Back by popular demand. Paragliding and First Aid classes will be held again this year because of so many injuries last year.
26. Boyne Mountain, Michigan: Snowboard Camp. Featuring lectures on, “How to get the money to buy one, what vintage clothes to wear, antiquing of new equipment, rad and trash talk translation.”
27. Timberline Lodge, Oregon: Annual Bighorn sheep hunt and ski the last run of the season before it snows this winter.
28. Vail Pass, Colorado: First annual Roller-blade Downhill Derby and Bandage Application Event. Meet at I-70 Summit toilets for start numbers. Competitors will receive “T” shirts and the first ten finishers will be given an I.Q. test.
29. Mt. Bachelor, Oregon: Annual installation of new members into the Lift Loaders Hall of Fame.
30. Telluride Film Festival: Categories include Skiing, Snowboard, Mountain Bike, Hang gliding, Skateboarding, Windsurfing and Mountain Rescue.
Reservations can be made online.
