TRAILBLAZERS :: PAUL MATHEWS
ing cabins; that required building roads and sewer and water lines everywhere, all for little lots. Ski areas had huge park- ing and transportation issues. We got them to stop that and to focus everything into a pedestrian court with underground parking. They refused at first, saying they could not afford underground parking, but we showed them that they cannot afford not to have it. You’ve got to do it. But the same? Ski runs are pretty much the same. That hasn’t changed dra- matically as far as I can see. How do you see resort planning evolving over the next 50 years? I doubt we will see as many new resorts as we had in the last 50. The good sites have been chosen, so there’s not so many around. And then to get through the bureaucracy we have is complicated and expensive, so I think we will just see the evolution of existing resorts. We’re on the second and third remakes of differ- ent resorts. Your support of smaller areas, often at deep discounts, has helped more than 30 ski areas. Tell us about it. It’s just giving back. We can do it, you know? The cost for us is not so high, and it’s not real dollars, it’s just staff time— often me doing it myself. We get these small areas set up so they are going in the right direction, so that when they start growing, they can continue that growth. The smaller ski area is usually the one that is closer to where people live, and that gives the whole population access. And if they like it, then they will go take that longer trip to Whistler or somewhere once a year.
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we are doing 300,000 to 400,000 more vis- its per year because of Peak 2 Peak. That’s winter and summer. The Peak 2 Peak completely made summer. Before this, summer was a bit of an afterthought. We were doing maybe 60,000 a summer, and now we’re doing 450,000, I think—so, a big change. It worked. You’ve designed several Olympic ven- ues. How did that work come about? We started in like '81 or '82. Calgary had won the '88 Olympics, and they were going into the wilderness area and developing three different mountains for three events just to host the Games. The Alberta government asked me to see if we could find one place that could host all of the Olympic Alpine venues, plus be a feasible and financially-viable recre- ational ski area afterwards. That led to nearly six months of work, looking everywhere from the U.S.– Alberta border all the way up to Banff, and we found Mount Allan (Nakiska). We started designing it, working with FIS, and we found routes for the men’s and ladies’ downhills and also the tech- nical events, and we built them. They hosted the Games successfully, and that’s quite a viable ski operation now. We worked on the 2002 Olympics at Snowbasin (Utah), and then for Whis- tler in 2010, we needed no new design. In 2005, I was designing a new ski resort in Russia, and [the head of the Russian Olympic committee and the Russian minister for sport] asked us if we could design it so they could host the Olympic Games in 2014. I said, yes. Then, for 2018, in Korea (Pyeongchang), we did the free-
1. Beijing Olympic freestyle venue presentation, 2017.
2. Sierra Nevada, Spain, site inspection, 2002. Left to right: Eduardo Valenzuela, mountain manager; Mariano Gutierrez, CEO; Paul Mathews, Ecosign; Hans Timmerman, mountain operations director.
style venues. For 2022, we got the job in China (Beijing) as well.
Are there commonalities for ski resorts worldwide that transcend culture? Are there idiosyncrasies? Well, gravity is pretty consistent around the world, so that part is always the same. Generally, you go up the mountain on a mechanical lift and ski down a trail that’s been groomed. But the base areas and villages are quite different. The base area arrange- ments—parking and transportation and all that—are a cultural thing; it’s unique to each spot. For instance, skiing in Japan is hav- ing a huge resurgence. So, in resort plan- ning, you keep in mind how people dine, how they get there. We work to learn and understand those needs. Over 50 years, what’s the biggest change you’ve seen, and what remains the same? The biggest change is high-speed lifts. With lift capacity up, now we’re doing 3,000 to 3,600 passengers an hour. That’s a huge change from double chairs at 1,200 an hour. I also like very much the trend of hav- ing warm beds in the resort village at the base instead of real estate and cabins. In Finland and other spots, they were build-
What’s your favorite spot on a mountain?
For me, very often it is just a viewpoint somewhere. I like Sun Peaks Resort (B.C.) very much. If I had a role model, [Sun Peaks founder] Al Raine would be it. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give that little boy on the Breckenridge rope tow? I’d say, “go to school and move to the mountains,” which is exactly what he did. To have worked in 46 countries on over 1,000 projects? It’s been a very good ride.
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