SKIING / BOB LOCHNER : Polls Make Vail No. 1, but This Voter Doesn’t

Ask 10 well-traveled skiers to name their favorite place to slide downhill, and you’re likely to get 10 different answers.

It’s especially notable, therefore, that Vail, 100 miles west of Denver in the Colorado Rockies, enters 1992 as North America’s No. 1-rated ski resort for the third consecutive year.

Says who? In this case, it’s the readers of two magazines, Ski and Snow Country, each of which conducted a poll during the off-season.

Ski’s readers, in ranking the top 40, seemed biased against California. They made Mammoth Mountain the state’s best at No. 21. This was due partly to Mammoth’s poor, snow-short 1990-91 season, before its extensive new snow-making system was installed.

In the Pacific Region, Mammoth was voted the favorite weekend destination, while Snow Summit and Bear Mountain were 1-2 for day trips, according to Ski.

Snow Country, using a formula that combined reader opinions with ski area size, listed four California resorts among the first 14--Heavenly Valley fourth, Squaw Valley sixth, Mammoth Mountain 12th and Northstar-at-Tahoe 14th.

Whistler/Blackcomb, in British Columbia, was rated second in the Snow Country poll, just ahead of Steamboat, Colo., and fourth in the Ski poll, after second-place Deer Valley, Utah, and third-place Snowmass, Colo.

Regardless of how, say, nine other skiers might rank their favorites, here’s one purely subjective top-10 list, based on sheer fun, both ski and apres -ski:

1. Sun Valley, Ida.; 2. Squaw Valley; 3. Keystone, Colo.; 4. Deer Valley; 5. Whistler/Blackcomb; 6. Aspen, Colo.; 7. Beaver Creek, Colo.; 8. Mammoth Mountain; 9. Yosemite (including cross-country); 10. Taos Ski Valley, N.M.

A couple of disclaimers: The East is ignored, because this is about skiing on snow, not ice; and Steamboat is omitted, mainly because of a lack of personal knowledge of the resort. Maybe it’s the best of all, who knows?

As for Vail, it’s fine--for some skiers. For others, it’s just a bit too urbanized, a nice place to visit while staying at nearby Beaver Creek.

Despite the recession, several western ski areas undertook major expansion plans for the 1991-92 season.

At Big Bear, Snow Summit spent $2.6 million and Bear Mountain about $5 million in capital improvements this year.

In the Sierra, besides Mammoth’s $5-million project, the sums spent on snow-making equipment included $2 million at Heavenly, $1.5 million at Bear Valley’s Mt. Reba, $1 million at Incline’s Diamond Peak and an undisclosed portion of the $2.5 million expended on all items by Sierra Ski Ranch.

In addition, Heavenly, which is owned by Japanese investors, reported $3 million in other expenditures.

The prize for snow-making outlays, according to the United Ski Industries Assn., goes to Sun Valley, which paid $8.1 million for a totally computerized system that covers more than half of the resort’s groomable terrain.

However, the biggest spenders were in Colorado, where Beaver Creek added 110 acres of skiing with its Grouse Mountain development; and Keystone poured $32 million into a fourth mountain, the 256-acre Outback, complete with its own day lodge, gondola, two quad chairlifts and an automated snow-making operation.

Skiing Notes

The Alpine World Cup circuit is on its holiday break until the weekend of Jan. 4-5. . . . The International Ski Federation has approved a $250,000 exhibition race for downhill skiers Jan. 28-30 at Bormio, Italy, with $83,000 of that purse going to the winner. This is nearly double the then-record $45,000 that Italian slalom specialist Alberto Tomba earned in his two-race World Cup sweep at Park City, Utah, last month.

The U.S. Pro Tour goes abroad for races Saturday through Monday at Schladming, Austria. . . . The men on the tour will compete in three California events this winter--at Heavenly Jan. 23-26, at Squaw Valley Feb. 6-9 and at Snow Summit Feb. 20-23. . . . The women will be at Squaw Valley March 6-8 and at Sierra Summit March 20-22.

The third and final event in the $150,000 Tournament of Champions, for slightly older racers, will be held at Heavenly on Jan. 4. Speed skier Franz Weber and Michela Figini, two-time World Cup champion from Switzerland, won the first stage at Steamboat. The following week at Deer Valley, 1984 Olympic downhill gold medalist Bill Johnson edged 64-year-old Stein Eriksen by 0.06 of a second to join Christin Cooper, the ’84 Olympic giant slalom silver medalist, on the podium.