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Home / Washington Business - January/February 2005 / Industry Profile: Playing in the Snow is Big Business |
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Industry Profile: Playing in the Snow is Big Business |
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Written On: January/February 2005 |
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Written By: by Daniel Brunell |
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Winter in Washington is not a sunny proposition. On the west side you have more than three months of rain, fog, clouds and large puddles everywhere. On the east side you have more than three months of cold, ice and haze over the vast, crunchy plains. Many of us just work through it waiting for the eventual warming of spring.
For some of us, however, winter is playtime. Washington’s mountains provide for many leisure activities. You could schuss on one of Washington 10 ski areas. Or you could cut through the forest on a high-powered snowmobile on some of Washington’s 3,000 miles of groomed trails. Also, one can enjoy countless opportunities for cross-country skiing, winter camping or a weekend sitting next to a fire in a mountain cabin.
All these fun and games aside, winter recreation in Washington is business. Our state is home to some of the leading manufacturers of outdoor and winter-sports equipment in the world. These manufacturers bring more than $190 million dollars a year into Washington’s economy. These companies range from the well-known brand names like REI, Eddie Bauer and MSR to the lesser-known names like Cascade Designs and Filson.
The appeal of Washington for these manufacturers has a lot do with our vast natural playground. “This is one of the greatest outdoor recreation areas in the world,” said Robert Marcovitch, president of K2 Sports of Vashon Island. “Our location provides a variety of terrain that one can enjoy all year round.”
K2 Sports is one the largest and oldest winter-equipment manufacturers in the state. K2 was started in the early 1960s by the Kirchner brothers. Both were avid skiers, but the skis that they were using were constantly bending and breaking. Fed up with constantly buying new skis, the Kirchner brothers developed some of the first modern composite skis. Since then, K2 Sports has expanded into a global company selling not only skis but snowboards, mountain bikes and inline skates.
K2 products can be seen cutting and slashing in the snow at all of Washington’s local ski areas, which lure more than 1.8 million skiers a year, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s economy. The ski areas vary from the ones near Seattle such as Snoqualmie Pass, Crystal Moun-tain and Stevens Pass to the ski areas that serve more rural parts of the state such as Hurricane Ridge and Bluewood. One resort in the middle is White Pass Ski Area.
Located along Highway 12 about an hour east of Yakima, White Pass is still primarily owned by the same investors and their families who turned the ski area into a for-profit business in 1956. Like the rest of the industry, White Pass has seen its number of visits steadily increase over the years to where it now averages more than 130,000 guests a year.
“Industry wide, things are going well,” said Kevin McCarthy, general manager of White Pass and secretary for the National Ski Area Association. “Nationally, the ski industry has set records for attendance for three of the last five years.”
At White Pass in particular, the growth in the industry has lead to a natural desire to expand. For more than 20 years, White Pass has had a proposal to expand the ski area to the Hogback Basin, an area just behind the resort. A provision of the 1984 Washington Wilderness Act removed the Hogback’s 800 acres of land from the wilderness area in a land exchange, thus allowing for the expansion.
Since receiving the rights to this land, White Pass has been in a constant fight to develop the Hogback area. White Pass plans to build a lodge and two ski lifts on the expansion area. However, these plans are still on hold as the development plan goes through countless numbers of permitting processes and public hearings. “Some catch phrases we like to use to describe the permitting nightmare are ‘process-predicament’ and ‘analysis-paralysis,’” added McCarthy. “There are so many federal land-use regulations they seem to trip over themselves.”
Another recreational activity that uses public lands is snowmobiling. There are more than 3,000 miles of groomed snowmobile track in Washington during the winter. All of the grooming costs of $2 million per year are paid for via snowmobile registration fees and gas taxes.
“The state grooming program has been a great success,” said Mark Gallatin, president of the Washington State Snowmobile Association. “The pay-our-own-way approach by the state has been very positive since its inception in the 1970s.” The Washington State Snowmobile Association acts as an umbrella group over 27 snowmobile clubs and 128 associate members spread throughout the state.
Snowmobiling is one of the fastest-growing winter recreation activities in the state. By current estimates, there are 39,000-registered snowmobiles in the state. The number of snowmobilers has been climbing at 6 percent a year for the last decade. “Our numbers might be minuscule compared to the Midwest, but we are growing at a much faster rate,” Gallatin said.
In terms of dollars, the industry is a big money maker for Washington. According to a 2001 Washington State University study, snowmobiling brings in more than $37 million in gas, food and lodging revenue alone. Snowmobile/trailer sales, clothing, accessories and repairs bring $87.6 million more into the state economy.
One of the places that has seen the direct effect of snowmobiling on the economy is Whistlin’ Jack Lodge on Highway 410. Snowmobilers are vital to Whistlin’ Jack’s, as Chinook Pass closes Highway 410 for more than five months of every year. This place has remained a favorite of snowmobilers from both the west and east side of the mountains. “We see a lot of snowmobiles during January and February,” said Doug Williams, owner of Whistlin’ Jack Lodge. “They constitute at least 40 percent of our business during the winter. Most are on day trips, some for the night.”
“The equation is simple, the more snow, the more business,” added Williams. This cold, hard fact is absolutely true. Washingtonians enjoy a vast array of activities during the winter in the mountains. These activities also play a vital part in our state’s economy.
These thoughts on Washington’s economy will be the furthest thing from your mind when zooming down a ski run or flying across the winter countryside at 30 mph on a snowmobile. That’s what the winter recreation industry is really all about.
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