Ski Resorts Get Creative to Fill the Summer Slopes.
Ryan Locher, who has the enviable title of "mountain manager" at Virginia's Bryce Resort, was in Italy for an international grass-skiing championship when he saw pictures of a coming attraction: a snow-tubing ride that required no snow. Instead, the Italian system replaces the cold stuff with a long chute of molded plastic that is draped down a mountainside. Riders are pulled up the mountain in inner tubes by the same tow used for snow tubing, but once they get to the top, they barrel down the chute's fake grass.
"I gotta have a few of those," Locher thought. Last year, three of them arrived at Bryce -- the first ever in the United States, so far as Locher knows. Then the mountain manager at nearby Massanutten Resort got a look at them, and late this spring, they arrived on Massanutten Mountain.
It's all part of the never-ending quest -- from tubing on plastic to lifts that carry mountain bikes -- to bring you to area ski resorts long before, and long after, the ski season.
"The ski resort business is changing," explains Deanna Painter, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania's Liberty Mountain Resort. "It's very costly to have a lot of land and a big facility, and there has to be a way to attract people all year long."
Thus the inventions: skiing on grass with tank treads attached to your boots; tobogganing on wheeled sleds; zooming down the mountain on a device that's a cross between a snowboard and in-line skates. And now, the latest, tubing down the mountain.
One of the off-season offerings at area ski resorts with summer lodging rates, is Massanutten Resort (1822 Resort Dr., Massanutten, Va., about 130 miles from Washington, 540-289-9441, Massanutten Resort holds numerous special events. Two 18-hole golf courses and a water park are the biggest and most obvious attractions. The resort also arranges rafting and tubing trips on a nearby river, and has a miniature golf course; tennis, basketball and volleyball courts; a skate park; chairlift rides; and horseback riding.
A wide range of classes is offered, including arts and crafts, yoga, couples massage and a healing herbs workshop. The mountain tubing ride is open only during the week. Double rooms begin at $96 a night. Condominiums are also available.
Another is Bryce Resort (1982 Fairway Dr., Basye, Va., about 115 miles from Washington, 800-821-1444, Bryce Resort offers swimming, boating and fishing on a 45-acre private lake and is a center for grass skiing -- you wear regular ski boots and use regular poles but attach something similar to tank treads to your boots.
Ski slopes are also used off-season for mountain boarding -- a cross between snowboarding and skateboarding -- and the resort claims to have the first mountain tubing park in the United States. (One of the tubing slides has banked curves, making a more exciting ride than a straight path down the slope.)
Among numerous other outdoor adventures: horseback riding, miniature golf, tennis and summer sports camps. Condos, townhouses and chalets are rented for a minimum of two nights by private agencies listed at the Bryce Web site and begin at $210 for two nights. ...Read more here
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