At some point, most skiers and snowboarders grapple with the ‘what-if’s” that go along with thrill of heading down a snow-covered slope. Perhaps this is what fuels the success of Lee Canyon’s Feel Good Fridays program benefiting High Fives Foundation, a nonprofit that provides resources for mountain sports athletes with life-altering injuries. The nonprofit recently announced results of fundraising efforts last season across POWDR Company ski areas including Lee Canyon and its sister resorts Boreal Mountain in California and Colorado’s Copper and Eldora Mountains. Lee Canyon checked in at no. 1 for the 2018/19 season, with Feel Good Fridays raising $20,826, bring the program’s three-year fundraising total to more than $50,000.
Lee Canyon launched Feel Good Fridays in 2017. The program runs every Friday in March, offering guests $25 lift tickets where $5 is donated to High Fives Foundation. A festive event, Lee Canyon provides live music and giveaways.
“Call it a friendly sibling rivalry for a good cause among our sister properties,” said Jim Seely, Lee Canyon’s director of marketing. “Our areas are all very unique, but as a part of the POWDR family we are very aligned in our commitment to giving back to our respective communities in ways that are meaningful for our guests, staff, and the greater community. We want to thank Lee Canyon’s guests and our POWDR family for creating a positive impact on the lives of skiers and snowboarder facing significant challenges that result from grave injuries.”
In recent years, Lee Canyon has regularly engaged its season passholders and guests to contribute to the greater good.
In 2016, Lee Canyon launched the Chris Ruby Cup benefitting the Nevada Donor Network, a nonprofit that coordinates, recovers and allocates lifesaving organs and tissues for Nevada transplant patients. Held annually in January, Lee Canyon donates 100 percent of proceeds from the fun, all-levels ski and snowboard race to the nonprofit while encouraging people to register as donors at the event. Roughly 500 new organ donors have registered at the race, which honors the life of Chris Ruby, a 20-year old local snowboarder who lost his life in 2014. As an organ donor, Ruby’s organs and tissue helped more than 90 patients.
ECHO Donate Life is a nationwide initiative focused raising awareness of organ and tissue donation in multicultural communities like Las Vegas. The goal is to have communities engage in meaningful discussions about donation and organ transplantation.
In 2018, Lee Canyon launched Spread the Warmth, a coat drive supporting Project 150, a Las Vegas-based nonprofit that assists to more than 6,000 disadvantaged high school students in Clark County. The drive gave hundreds of coats to local youth and raised $5,000 from corporate partner Skye Canyon.
Lee Canyon’s other initiatives include its Junior Rangers program run with US Forest Service. Since its debut in 2017, more than 200 local kids have attended the five-day winter and summer programs learning to become stewards of their environment, which is a core value for the area.
A part of POWDR’s Play Forever initiative, Lee Canyon and its sister resorts have reduced carbon emissions by 49 percent over the last decade. The goal of Play Forever is to protect the environment while inspiring participation.
At Lee Canyon, some of these measures include the 2011 installation of a solar panel and battery bank
allowing the resort to be entirely off the electrical grid, saving 140 gallons per night by charging the solar battery bank to power IT and food and beverage during non-operating hours. Lee Canyon has installed LED lights throughout the resort, saving two to three gallons of diesel per hour during daytime hours; this saves roughly 5,000 gallons of diesel every ski season.
Lee Canyon offers its staff carpooling incentive programs, and more than 60 percent of its 200 employees take advantage of the program. A guest carpooling app is currently in beta testing.
“On average, a busy winter day means up to 8,000 cars on the roads in the Spring Mountains, and our goal is to get 10 guest carpools per day to alleviate traffic on mountain roads and decrease carbon emissions,” explains Seely.
Other parts of Play Forever at Lee Canyon include cutting out single-use plastic materials at the resort through a water bottle filling station and providing reusable water bottles for all staff.
To learn more about Lee Canyon, please visit www.leecanyonlv.com.
About Lee Canyon
Lee Canyon is located approximately one hour from downtown Las Vegas in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Established in 1964, Lee Canyon offers guests 195 acres of terrain, 27 trails accessed via three chairlifts, 250 acres of hike-to terrain, and a lift-served tubing hill. Averaging more than 161 inches of snowfall annually, Lee Canyon offers ski and snowboard coaching, terrain parks, and lodge amenities such as dining and retail, as well as a host of summer activities. For more information, please visit www.leecanyonlv.com and follow Lee Canyon on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Lee Canyon is part of POWDR, an adventure lifestyle company.
