I hope none of you will be offended by my posting to your list
(especially if you see this more than once), but this is an issue
our family is passionate about and that affects us deeply. We hope
you'll take a few minutes to go to our website and add your support.
Please tell your friends and if you have a website consider adding a
link on our behalf.

For your information, I've included info posted at
SkiJumpingCentral.com and also a recent article from the Denver Post
that nicely summarizes the situation.

Thanks so very much,
Kitty Reed
Evergreen, CO

Urgent Request From Winter Park
Ski area plans to remove jumps; PLEASE RESPOND

Please take a few moments to read this, click to their site,
respond ... and let others know! www.wpkids.org

The 65-year-old Nordic Ski Jumping Program at Winter Park (WP), CO
is in immediate danger and needs your help. Every Olympics since our
program began has included at least one Olympian who started his
jumping career at WP. A group recently formed, the Winter Park Youth
Programs Association (WPYPA), to make a last ditch effort to save
our jumping program. On March 3rd, Intrawest, the new
manager/developer of the resort, unilaterally announced that our 60m
and 40m jumps are slated for bulldozing this coming summer with no
plans for replacement nor an opportunity to for us offer a
compromise to preserve the program.

We are now looking for broad based support, for skiers and jumpers
from across the country to visit our website, www.wpkids.org and
electronically sign our "Community Letter of Support". The letter
will be to be used to counter Intrawest's apparent disregard for the
past, present, and future of our sport, our club, and our jumps.

Intrawest's contract with the city of Denver includes a
preservation clause requiring continuation of the youth programs at
WP to the same extent as in the 2001-2002 season. We believe this
clause requires keeping our jumping program and warrants public
discussion before the bulldozers roll. If you love this sport as
much as we do, please visit the website to register your support!


Unique qualities lost on Winter Park
By John Meyer
Denver Post Sports Writer
March 24, 2004

I talk a lot about the soul of skiing, but what if a ski area loses
its soul? What if a ski area that used to be unusually people-
oriented becomes like the rest of them, homogenized and bottom-line
driven, a place where skiers are just numbers on a balance sheet?
That's what I fear might happen at Winter Park, which is still owned
by the city of Denver but has been under the management of Intrawest
since December 2002.
Winter Park's management has decided to remove the ski jumps that
have been home to a successful entry-level jumping program since
1953 in order to expand the beginner area. It has refused to reverse
that decision despite a passionate community campaign to save the
jumps. If they aren't saved, Steamboat Springs will have the only
ski jumps in Colorado.
It's hard to argue with the cold, objective logic of the decision to
dismantle the jumps. An estimated 30,000 first-time skiers and
snowboarders will use the improved beginner area, which will grow to
10 times its current size. Only a few dozen children will be
affected by the demise of the jumping program. Why should a
corporation headquartered in British Columbia care about them? Why
should a corporation that uses alpine skiing to sell condos place
any value on nordic skiing?
To be fair, Intrawest has promised to invest $50 million in on-
mountain improvements in the next 10 years in exchange for the right
to develop land at the base area. Winter Park will get a makeover it
never could have received if the city hadn't taken on a corporate
partner.
"I'm not happy about having to make a decision that the nordic
program is going to go away, but I think we in all good faith have
taken a hard look at this thing," Winter Park general manager Gary
DeFrange said. "It's a shame when something like that goes away, but
there's not another ski area that supports it, because there just
isn't the demand for it."
But Winter Park has a heritage like no other Colorado resort, and
the jumps are part of that heritage. Winter Park was created as a
Denver mountain park in 1939 to provide recreational opportunities
for citizens of Denver. Generations of Denverites have grown up with
a special feeling for the place because it was where they learned to
ski, a place where they felt part of the family.
The Winter Park ski jumps gave Denver-area children the opportunity
to try ski jumping. Aurora's Dave Jarrett and Denver's Bob Holme
started on the road to the Olympics there. So did Grand Lake's Kerry
Lynch and Granby's Ryan Heckman, two of the best nordic combined
skiers in U.S. history.
Heckman first showed up at the Winter Park jumps when he was 10,
wearing blue jeans and gaiters. Six years later he was competing in
the 1992 Albertville Olympics.
"What I remember most about the program was the sheer quality of the
coaching staff and their devotion to helping even the guy with blue
jeans fulfill his dreams," said Heckman, who also competed in the
1994 Lillehammer Olympics. "I owe 90 percent of what I am today to
skiing, through my friendships, my activities in the Olympics, the
leadership it has taught me, the coaches who helped me become a
better person."
Dylan Reed, 10, of Evergreen, is one of the best young jumpers in
the Winter Park program. His mother, Kitty, said he "absolutely"
dreams of making it to the Olympics. He and his 11-year-old brother,
Austin, may have to quit the sport because moving to Steamboat isn't
an option for the family right now.
"They're taking it hard," Kitty Reed said. "Dylan says he'll never
ski there (Winter Park) again."
Jerry Groswold, who retired in 1997 after 22 years as Winter Park's
chief executive, says he's concerned about the demise of the jumps
and insists a resort should give back to the sport that sustains it.
It's hard to imagine Groswold even considering eliminating the ski
jumps when he ran the place, but he never had to answer to a
corporate master.
"Much of Winter Park's success comes from the fact that it has an
incredible history, it's been in the business for 65 years and most
of those years have been incredibly successful," Groswold
said. "It's also been successful because it's had some programs it
was willing to underwrite, like the ski jumping program, the Eskimo
Club (for kids), the disabled program. I think it's important that
the corporate culture says these things are important and they are
going to continue."
The group trying to save the jumps has a website (www.wpkids.org)
with some very moving testimonials to the value of the jumps,
including those of several former Olympians. But will it do any
good? Apparently DeFrange's decision is final.
"I am fascinated by Winter Park's apparent indifference to the very
soul of what has made Winter Park a success," Heckman said. "Ski
areas conjure up for marketing purposes things that Winter Park has
as its fundamental core. If they want to be another Breckenridge or
Keystone or Copper Mountain, that's fine, but understand you're
losing something that is extraordinarily valuable in the process."