American Skiing Company announced the sale of the Killington and Pico Ski Resorts, plus all other properties in the Killington area including the Wobbly Barn to SP Land Company for $83.5M. The deal, which also includes the assumption of $5M in debt by SP Land is set to close by April 30. Public details of the transaction have been posted with the Securities and Exchange Commission and can be viewed in the SEC's Edgar database.

SP Land is an LLC who majority owner is Eiger Investments. SP Land was formed in 2004 to acquire the development rights to real estate in the Killington area to develop a Village and other properties at the base of Killington. It acquired the real estate, valued at $58.5M from American Skiing Company during a financial restructuring in May 2004. At the time, it was reported that Killington LTD, the operating company for the Killington Resort wholly owned at the time by ASC, held a 25% stake in SP Land.

While no other information on the sale has been provided publicly, we have been receiving calls from friends who work at the resort who have participated in meetings this morning to announce the transaction. Previously, it was rumored that Powdr Corp of Park City Utah would be purchasing Killington from ASC. While Powdr Corp is absent from any of the public pronouncements, employees are being told in some of the meetings that Powdr Corp will be brought in by SP Land to help operate the resort, after completion of the transaction in April.

It should be an interesting spring. Let it snow!

3:45 PM Update - Letter from B.J. Fair CEO of ASC to ASC Employees
with more information on sale and role of Powdr Corp

To: All ASC Employees
From: B.J. Fair
Date: 2/20/07
Re: Sale of Killington and Pico

It is with mixed emotions that I inform you that we have entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Killington and Pico resorts. We had hoped to announce this transaction simultaneously with Mount Snow and Attitash, however extended negotiations prevented us from doing so.

As was the case with our other recently announced sales, this decision was not made in haste nor ever taken lightly. Since our real estate restructuring in 2004, it became apparent that future real estate development at Killington and the resort operations would be best controlled by a single owner. Our ongoing discussions with SP Land and their current interest in the real estate at Killington led to their purchase of the Killington and Pico resorts for $83.5 million, plus $2 million of capital leases as well as other liabilities.

Though challenging from a personal and professional perspective, it is in the company's best interest to realize the opportunities created by the performance of our resorts and the current favorable market conditions. While parting with the Killington and Pico teams will be difficult for many of us, the value created for the company's stakeholders is tremendous and will leave us with substantial liquidity to focus on our remaining operations in Maine and Utah. As I wrote to you on Friday, the sale of five of our resorts will have a significant impact on our organization. I want to reiterate that we are aware of these impacts, and we will be meeting with employees as soon as possible to discuss these changes.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of April. Concurrent with the closing, SP Land and Powdr Corp. will have formed a new venture to operate Killington and Pico. Powdr Corp., based in Park City, UT, is an established operator of six winter resorts in the western U.S. Prior to the close of the sale, Killington and Pico and all of our other resorts will continue to operate under the normal course of business without interruption. We will work with the SP Land and Powdr teams during this period to facilitate a smooth transition at Killington and Pico.

With winter a bit late in arriving in the East, many guests will be arriving for the first time at our resorts in the coming days. Our guests have come to expect a very high standard of each of our resorts, and we will continue to offer the same service that has become of hallmark of ASC. Again, I am counting on your professionalism, consideration and support as we work through this transition period. Thank you.

B.J. Fair
President and CEO

Killington Peak 

As I look out my office window, I see beautify snow capped mountains with a bright blue cloudless sky. It looks warm and inviting. What a total fake out!

Stepping outside to take the snow stake picture this morning, I was greeted with -2 degrees and a very blustery wind. When I drove up to the mountain to take a picture of Killington peak, I encountered more of the same. Inn guests and friends did go out this morning for a few runs, but most made a hasty retreat to the various Killington base lodges, or their favorite mid day watering hole. All of this is supposed to pass this evening as a clipper system moves through the area. Of course, while it will get warmer for tomorrow, snow and clouds will return, replacing todays bright sunshine. Let it snow!

Snow Falling at Birch Ridge 

Presidents holiday weekend is in full swing at Killington with light snow continuing to drape the area in a blanket of white.

While I have not had the opportunity to get out on the slopes in the last 2 days, my friends are reporting that once the mountain worked through wind delays on Saturday, that skiing and riding were fantastic. Of course, because of the wind, some of the conditions were variable. Waist deep powder is being reported from most of the less travelled woods trails and various secret stashes. Superstar on the other hand has been scoured clean by the wind so in comparison to most of the other trails it is skiing a little slick. Devils Fiddle and Vertigo and Ovation were all reported open with good coverage. Overall, it should be a great holiday week for skiing and riding at Killington. Let it snow!

Ruts and Bagel at the top the
Little Pico Chair. Notice the wind blown snow. 

Today was a study in contrasts in the Killington area. On the one hand, ASC has sold another resort, and it is not Killington. On the other hand, the Valentines day blizzard is still with us, and there is a lot of untracked powder in it's wake.

We woke up today to the news that the American Skiing Corporation has sold 2 New England Resorts. No, the resorts were not Killington and Pico, but Mount Snow in Vermont, and Attitash in New Hampshire. The sales price is approximately $73.5M. if you want more information on the sale you can find ASC's release on the Security and Exchange Commissions website. How this impacts the rumored sale of Killington is anyone's guess.

Now back to Skiing and Riding... Almost!

Because of the Valentines day storm, some friends of mine from our old ski house decided to come to Killington a day early. Usually they ski the weekends. But they decided to come up and ski Friday to try to bag some fresh powder. Because of very high winds, most lifts at both Killington and Pico were not operating on Thursday, leaving the promise of untracked powder. Because of lighter crowds, we decided today we would head out to Pico, and run the trails off the Summit Express Quad from the top of Pico Peak. Fresh, untracked powder was waiting...and it still is!

We arrived at Pico to find that not only would we not be skiing the summit, but that only 3 chairs were operating; the Little Pico Triple, the Golden Express Quad, and the Bonanza Double. We basically had 1/3rd of a mountain to ski... and we covered it all.

Off the Little Pico Triple, A slope was very wind blown and boney in places with some exposed rock. B slope had some nice coverage, but it too was wind blown. There was a 30 MPH or so wind at the top of Little Pico which was packing the snow down pretty good. I was on my powder ski's, some Volkl Vertigo's. They are about 6 inches wide with no side cut, great for skiing deep stuff but a lot of work in small wind blown bumps... so it goes.

The terrain off the Golden Express Quad was in nice shape. The best run was probably Gold Rush. It was a toss up on Swinger and Lower Pike as you neared to bottom. All of the trails had some nice powder on the edges, if you did not mind knocking some tree branches out of the way. Just to tease us, the Summit Express Quad was running ever so slowly. The lift attendants were cleaning it off to get it ready for the weekend. If you are at Pico early on Saturday... remember.. fresh powder at the summit!

We stayed out about 3 hours this morning at Pico. When I got back to the inn, I had a message that Bill B and Howie had called around 9:30 requesting a breakfast meeting at Johnny Boy's. It appears that while I was staring at a closed Summit Express Quad at Pico, they were staring at no operating lifts at Killington. They did not even put their boots on at the Killington Base Lodge before heading out for breakfast. So I guess Pico was the right choice this morning after all! Let it snow!

Merisa on Birch Ridge 

In over 2 years since the snow stake has been in position at the inn, the previous record high was 13 3/4 inches, set on December 20, 2005. Yesterdays storm blew that away. The reading at the snow stake this morning was 27 1/2 inches. Total snow fall for yesterdays storm was 20 inches at the inn as of 10 AM this morning. I did take a reading at Midnight last night. The stake registered 34 inches, which would have yielded a 27 inch snow fall. However, over night, the light fluffy powder has been settling and the wind has also been compacting the surface. Since I take the readings in the morning, we will stick with a 20 inch snowfall; the highest snow fall we have had in 3 years no matter how you measure it.

Unfortunately, snow fall that large is not good for my skiing. It results in too much work around the inn. Combining yesterday and today, I have been outside with the snow blower for over 10 hours taking care of the property. Of course... I am not complaining.... after all I asked for this to happen. No matter, our staff has had the opportunity to get out. Todays picture is of Merisa, one of our servers, who is also a ski instructor, taking a few turns on the hill in front of the inn. She saw this hill of untracked powder and she could not resist. Now if we could only have a little more snow! Let it Snow!

Rime in the snow 

It is a blizzard. Snow started early in the morning. By 2:00 PM, about a foot of new snow has accumulated at the inn with heavy snow falling at a rate of 2 to 4 inches an hour.

I went up to the mountain this morning to take a few turns. At 9:00 AM the mountain had received 6 inches with heavy drifting over 2 feet in places. Today was definitely a powder day. I had my wide skis on. They just float through the snow. Howie and I stayed out until around 11:00, by which time many of the trails were getting chopped up. Also, the K1 gondola was experiencing wind delays. We experienced blizzard conditions on North Ridge with very high winds and blowing and drifting snow. We felt it was getting a little dangerous, so we headed out. What was interesting was that at the K1 base lodge, although there was heavy snow falling, there was virtually no wind.

Birch Ridge covered in snow

The inn at this point is buried in snow. When I returned, I was outside about 2 hours doing my snow blowing chores. I will be returning outside right after posting this blog to resume. This is one of those storms where the snow is coming down so hard, you almost need to stay outside to move it away it is accumulating so fast. But, we are at a ski resort so.... Let it Snow!

Highline from the K1 Gondola 

It was a brisk -8 when we left the inn this morning. But the sky was bright blue, and there was no wind. Other than an extra layer under the jacket, it had the makings of a great ski day.

We started out doing laps on on the K1 Gondola. Our first run took us down Upper Downdraft across Great Northern to Highline. All were beautifully groomed and glorious for cruising. For our next loop, we decided to do Downdraft top to bottom. it was in great shape, except as is usually the case this time of year, the lights went out on lower Downdraft. It was completely in the shadow of the mountain, and since we had been in bright sunshine at the peak, it took a few spooky turns on the steepest section of the trail for our eyes to adjust. We finished up with another loop on Highline. We noticed that we were doing the same route and keeping pace with a local group affectionately called the "IRT". We decided we needed to slow the pace down a bit so we headed over to Bear Mountain.

We did a few laps down Bear Trap, Bear Claw and Wildfire. Outer Limits looked OK so we decided to give it a try. As we were going up the OL lift, someone in the chair in front of us dropped their goggles at roughly lift pole 7. When we got to the top, we discovered that it was an english school group. The instructor with them stopped me and asked me if on my way down OL if I would mind recovering the goggles. No problem, so off we went. No problem except upper OL was polished to a high gloss finish. Skid, turn, slide, I made my way over to lift pole 8 and went under the ropes. I skied down in the powder, found the goggles, and retreated back to the slide for life. (I should have skied all the way down in the roped off area. The snow was great. But I did not for fear of hitting some snow making hoses.) Mid-way down OL, the resort had groomed the snow whales on skiers left. They provided a nice carving surface to negotiate the lower half of Outer Limits. While it was probably not pretty going down OL, being a good samaritan has it owns rewards. (And I got to officially duck under the ropes!)

The team rescues Carolyn, a visitor from the UK stuck on Skye Burst

We took a quick break then did a few more loops, ending up in the Super Pipe on Dream Maker. We decided after the pipe to take the Skye Peak quad up to the top, ski Skye Burst to Cruise Control and play in the Needles Eye area for a few turns before going home. Nope.. Not today.

When we got near the top of the Skye Peak lift, we saw a skier about 10 feet from the peak frozen solid and screaming. The snow surface was a little slick, but all in all it was not bad. Plenty of snow to maneuver in. I skied down to find out if we could lend some assistance. When I got there, I discovered an English girl (we have a lot of visitors from England at Killington this week) absolutely terrified, shaking, and crying her eyes out. The people she was with had skidded her off the top of Skye Peak, where she proceeded to freeze with fear. She was totally stuck in place and shaking. The people she was with had just left her there. They were no where to be found.

I skied around her and got on the down hill side to keep her from sliding if she fell. Howie got in position above her to keep people from running into her. Then Bill B skied up beside her and tried to coach her to get her moving. After a couple of minutes, we were able to calm her down a little bit. Bill was then able to get her to side slip down to the junction of Frost Line (get out your maps... it is a little used green trail 200 yards below the top of Skye Burst). From their, Bill got her into a snow plow wedge and we skied with her around Great Eastern to the Snow Shed Cross over and down to Snow Shed. This whole process took about an hour, and since the temperature was in the single digits, we had all gotten a little cold.

Bill B and I did one more run on Super Star before calling it a day. Super Star was ok, nothing to write home about, but we needed to have a good hard run to finish the day after spending the last hour in a side slip.

Tonight, all eyes are to the sky. Local forecasters are calling for 2 storms the next 2 days. Tonight's storm is supposed to cover the area with about 6 inches of fluff. The storm on Wednesday and Thursday is supposed to leave over 2 feet of snow around the area. If that happens, it will be the largest snow storm the area has seen since Hurricane Wilma on October 25/26 in 2005. Let it Snow!