Coming to Sierra in 2010.11

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMING IN 2010-2011 TO SIERRA-AT-TAHOE® RESORT
With upgrades to the beginner area and online, Sierra® Resort is making tangible improvements to the guest experience for the 2010-2011 winter season.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – September 8, 2010 – With upgrades to the beginner area and online, Sierra® Resort is making tangible improvements to the guest experience for the 2010-2011 winter season. Here is what to expect this season.

Easy Street - Two New Lifts and Four New Acres of Beginner Terrain

Beginning skiers and riders will be able to ride to the top of Broadway, Sierra Resort’s easiest slope, this winter on two new carpet conveyor lifts. The carpets, which are a total of 700 feet long, will make getting up the beginner hill a breeze, so skiers and riders can focus their energy on learning to come down the mountain. The carpets are part of Sierra Resort’s expanded beginner terrain, called Easy Street, consisting of 11 total acres of sculpted smart terrain™ that helps improve the learning curve for beginners. The gently banked turns and shaped features naturally guide skiers and snowboarders into turns and stops so that they are able to learn the fundamentals of skiing and riding more quickly. The increase in beginner terrain and the two new carpets will give students more time and more room on the snow with their instructor and are evidence of Sierra Resort’s commitment to being the best place to learn to ski or ride in Lake Tahoe.

Learn to Ski or Ride for $35 – back by popular demand

Adult beginners flocked to the $35 Learn to Ski or Ride package introduced last season because it offered incredible value for friends and family members who may have been considering learning to ski or ride, but were priced out of the sport. The $35 beginner package includes a 2.5 hour lesson, equipment rental, and lift ticket that allows access to the two new conveyor lifts on Easy Street, as well as Easy Rider Express and Rock Garden, two chair lifts that access the majority of Sierra Resort’s beginner terrain. It is available to adult skiers and snowboarders ages 13 and over and must be purchased online, 24 hours in advance. Limited quantities of the $35 beginner package are available. The package is available Sunday through Friday throughout the 10-11 winter season, excluding restricted dates*.

* Restricted dates include: December 18, 2010 through January 1, 2011, January 15 through 17, 2011 and February 21 through 27, 2011

Blizzard Mountain – Tubing, Snow Play, Snowshoeing

Blizzard Mountain will offer families a way to have fun in the snow with a rope tow accessible tubing lane and an expanded snow play and sledding area, all suitable for young children just starting to explore the outdoors in wintertime. The tubing lane takes the downhill experience beyond a day of sledding in the backyard while the sledding and snow play area allows the littlest ones to explore at their own pace, build a snowman, construct a fort and just generally have fun in the snow. Blizzard Mountain will also offer easy access to the three miles of marked snowshoe trails that gently wind through the forest out to a wide open vista point that is perfect for snow picnics, making snow angels or a game of snowshoe football.

Weekly Buy-One-Get-One Deals Via Text Message

Staying connected on the slopes this season will have its own set of rewards with exclusive text-only deals for subscribers. Guests planning a trip to Sierra Resort can sign up for weekly text message deals and take advantage of ongoing Buy-One-Get-One offers all over the resort including private lessons, t-shirts, lunch items, daycare, preferred parking, and demo equipment. Deals will change often and have to be redeemed at one time. Signing up is simple - text “DealAlert” to 29222, or click https://www.sierraattahoe.com/emailSubscriber.asp to create your E-Newsletter & Text Alert profile.

Guests on-site at Sierra Resort can get spontaneous deals on the day of their visit by texting “HotDeals” to 29222. Hot deals change daily and will include things like free lessons, free nachos at the Baja Grill, or $3 beers.

Interactive Web Site

Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort will introduce a new web site this fall developed with a brand transparent, social approach that capitalizes on real-time information feeds and customer feedback and will ultimately better serve guests. The transparent process began with Sierra Resort’s guests voting on their favorite design and providing feedback about what they wanted to see in the new site. The final site speaks to four different personas through specific photos and navigation customized to connect with the different guests that visit www.SierraAtTahoe.com. Social sharing features, such as Facebook’s “Like” button, will be integrated throughout the site allowing guests to share their favorite videos, photos and news from Sierra Resort’s website. This opportunity for more involvement and ownership by the end user is intended to create a more integrated relationship between the resort and guests.

2010 Silver Eagle Award for Environmental Education

Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort was awarded the 2010 Silver Eagle for Environmental Education – one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a winter resort – by CLIF Bar and the NSAA for its 2009 initiatives including a bottlecap recycling program with local elementary schools, Keep Sierra Clean day which annually removes more than 2,000 pounds of trash off the mountain, and Environmental Awakening, a video segment produced by legendary snowboard photographer Ian Ruhter for the inaugural TransWorld Team Shoot Out.

Also under the umbrella of Project: Green Sierra, the employee-driven initiative to make tangible impacts at the local level, Sierra Resort purchased close to 37,000 gallons of biodiesel during the 09-10 season and has closed the loop by sending its used vegetable oil back to Bently Biofuels for biodiesel production. Sierra Resort was the first commercial property on South Shore to initiate the Blue Bag recycling program in 09-10, diverting more than 9,000 pounds of recyclables from the waste stream, and is looking at the viability of a composting program for the coming 2010-11 season. Facility upgrades are green wherever possible – eight new waterless urinals have been installed in the Grandview Lodge over the summer, and eco-friendly cleaning and disposable products are used throughout the resort. The Green Lot allows anyone who drives to the resort in a hybrid vehicle to park up front, for free, in Preferred Parking.

Partners in Education

Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort and Lake Tahoe Community College in South Lake Tahoe have a longstanding partnership that offers students a myriad of opportunities to take their education outdoors into the surrounding mountains. Students at LTCC can register for winter quarter classes that teach telemark skiing, action sports filmmaking, skiing/riding instruction and avalanche awareness. The classes are all taught on the slopes of Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort, many by Sierra Resort employees. Students have access to specially priced lift tickets and support from resort operations and management to successfully complete assignments. Additionally, students are given the opportunity to shadow professionals at the resort to get experience. Over 30 students participated in the offered classes during the winter of 2009-2010, many going on to achieve PSIA and Avalanche Level I certification, film and edit their own videos, and begin a lifetime of fun in the mountains thanks to their experiences in the classes.

Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort: Keepin It Real
With over 100 acres of dedicated beginner terrain, four beginner-only conveyor lifts, a $35 adult beginner package, and a full compliment of multi-lingual PSIA Certified Instructors, Sierra Resort is one of the top places to learn to ski or ride in the western states. For freestylers, a commitment to innovative terrain parks has led to Sierra Resort being recognized by TransWorld SNOWboarding as a Top 10 Overall Resort as well as among the Top 10 Best Parks and Pipes in the nation. And for all-mountain skiers and riders, wind-protected slopes, incredible tree skiing, and 320 acres of backcountry terrain out the Huckleberry Gates make Sierra Resort a bastion of the authentic California ski experience. Easy to get to and always welcoming, Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort embraces skiers and snowboarders who want to escape from everyday life and enjoy the simple pleasure of winter in the mountains. Sierra Resort is a partner in recreation with the Eldorado National Forest.

The closest major resort to Sacramento, Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort is located just 12 miles west of Lake Tahoe and receives an annual average of 480 inches of snowfall.

For more information, visit www.SierraAtTahoe.com or call 530.659.7453.

Press Contacts
Kirstin A. Cattell, 530.543.3132
kcattell@sierraattahoe.com

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