Posts tagged winter
Winter Sports and Heart Health
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
According to a recent post in eTurboNews, “Skiers and other winter sports tourists who visit the Alps are at increased risk for heart attack due to low temperatures, high altitude and inadequate conditioning for intense physical exertion…”. The article further clarifies that, “The risk is greatest during the first two days of vacation…”, and that “People planning winter sports holidays in the mountains need to prepare themselves with regular exercise beforehand, the study authors suggested. Once at the resort, they should increase their level of physical activity gradually…”.
This is interesting news to me personally in that my wife used to be a cardiac rehab therapist in an earlier career and I know that she has plenty of tips that would range from the exercise regimen mentioned in the article to eating a heart healthy diet. The data cited in this study is European only, but I would suspect that it should translate to the American winter sports traveller as well, perhaps even more so as most Americans that ski or ride live at or near sea level and the average base level of Western ski resorts is far above (around 7-8,000 feet in CO and UT) the average mean altitude of where heart attacks in the study occurred – 4,429 feet.
Without correlating US data, it’s hard to know for sure if there’s similar trending of heart attacks with winter sports tourists, but it would certainly be easy for ski resorts to offer some basic safety information on heart health in terms of pre-trip exercise as well as acclimating and starting physical exertion at altitude at a moderate pace – perhaps a program along the lines of Go Sun Smart would be a helpful first step?
Additional Note : I wrote this post on the morning of September 6 (I try to schedule a few posts ahead of time to make the writing a bit easier by doing it in batches), our family attended Park City’s annual Miner’s Day parade later that morning and wound up steps away from a person who suffered a heart attack while waiting for the parade to start. I hope the best for that person but the freak timing gave me more thought that perhaps there are some things that tourism locales at altitude could do to help educate their guests on the effects of altitude.
Photo credit: Flick user katz2110
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Move Back the Ski Season?
21 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
During the weekly Marketing Chat Twitter chat last week, there was a good discussion about how it feels like winter (at least in the West), has moved back a week. I’m not a meteorologist, but it sure feels that way to me, particularly on a day like today, May 2, when it snowed here in Park City! The question seems to be evident, “Should ski resorts move their scheduled season a week or two later?”
Would an extra week or two of skiing in April really benefit most ski resorts? I say no. First, the first week or two of the season is almost critically important in terms of employee training, public relations and getting everything in order for the business critical Christmas/New Years break, which occurs (for better or worse) just a few weeks into the winter season. Second, the benefit of extending longer after most people’s thoughts have turned to spring and summer won’t attract many crowds and certainly doesn’t have the benefit of driving additional skier visitation the next season the way an early opening does.
Is this foreshadowing bigger issues to come for ski resorts in terms of climate change? I sure hope not, but for now, I hope that resorts don’t knee jerk too quickly on adjusting their seasons. What do you think, does it make sense for ski resorts to start adjusting their season dates?
Photo credit:
New Technologies for the Winter
02 years ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
It’s amazing how incredible the technologies that we use everyday have become. From the WordPress software that so many use to host our blogs, to the super computing devices that our cell phones now are. I’m writing this post on my new Motorola Droid phone, which I also used to take this photo of my blog (BTW, I just noticrd that there’s a ‘snow’ mode for the camera – I’ll definitely be testing that one out)!
This is all making me all the more excited for the upcoming winter season in that I can’t wait to see how we can use many of these new and yet to be developed. I’m excited about: iPhone, Android, augmented reality, social networking…it’s here, or will be soon.
What are you excited about for this coming winter? Feel free to say skiing and riding! 
Can it ever be too soon for winter?
02 years ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
The temperature dipped into the 30s this morning and it got me to thinking about the changing seasons and how I’m not quite ready for Winter to arrive yet. Yeah, I mean what I just wrote, I’m not ready for Winter yet…and this is coming from a life long skier and lover of the winter season. It’s just that I also love Fall, the smell of the leaves and also the chance to work on all those outdoor projects that have gotten pushed to the end of season without getting finished as well as all the projects stacked on my desk that should be finished before the lifts are scheduled to start spinning in exactly 2 months on November 21.
Ok, now that I wrote that, I just read that Loveland Ski Area in Colorado fired up their snowguns this morning and is planning to blow snow for at least the next few days – guess I better start digging out my long underwear and waxing the skis, I suppose I’m ready for a couple of early season runs, what about you?!
