Word: skis
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From the lush San Joaquin Valley in California to the Rocky Mountains, much of the West is suffering from severe drought. Worst hit is California, where the lack of significant rainfall since the autumn of 1975 cost farmers and ranchers an estimated $437 million last year, and snowless ski resorts have lost $7 million so far this season...
...from papers as far away as London. In the back of the crowded room, spectators stood on piles of law books and craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the defendant. Claudine Longet, 34, one of the town's beautiful people, was on trial for shooting her ski-ace lover, Vladimir ("Spider") Sabich...
Never has a ski season in the West got off to a more dismal start. Skiing is a $475 million annual industry in the Western snow country of California, Colorado, Idaho and Utah, and resort owners from the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevada count on taking in fully one-fourth of their profits during the holiday period between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Snow normally begins piling up by mid-November, and by Christmas it usually blankets the slopes in layers 40 to 50 in. thick...
...Idaho's 26 ski resorts, only one-Sun Valley-has even begun to function; it has skiing on artificial snow on just 2½ of its 50 runs. And in Colorado, where losses have mounted to $30 million, Senator Floyd Haskell has asked President Ford to declare a natural-disaster area. While awaiting official action, Vail Developer Peter Seibert hired local Ute Indians to perform a ritual snow dance. The results were negligible. Says Seibert: "We're getting a little snow, but it's just enough to cover up the cigarette butts...
Meanwhile, the blight of fair weather in the West has proved to be a bonanza for ski areas in the Northeast. These areas are operating at near capacity as vacationers switch to New England and upstate New York. To cap their good luck, last Wednesday some ski areas in the Northeast were hit by a near blizzard...