Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #610329 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Amazon.com
On the face of it, this is the story of unsolved arson at a high-glamour resort, a mystery packed with suspects that range from crusty ski bums to radical tree huggers to the resort's own corporate honchos. But underlying this entertaining true-life plot is a greater theme that is playing out across America. Here, tensions mount between the progress-minded shareholders of Vail Resorts Inc., environmentalists, and locals who simply pine for the days when they weren't priced out of having a meal--or a life--in Vail, Colorado. Elsewhere, similar hostility brews over conflicting interests in pricey tourist regions like Taos, New Mexico; the Florida Keys; and the Hamptons of New York. So while Powder Burn is an intriguing tale on its own, it also serves as a snapshot of our country as it struggles with its final growing pains. The modern corporatization of Vail Mountain is in direct contrast to its past, when a hard-drinking fellow could ride his horse into a bar and turn himself into local legend. Daniel Glick, a special correspondent for Newsweek, masterfully uses his reporter's eye for detail to deliver the spirit and breathtaking scenery of the Rocky Mountain West. He introduces personalities in rapid-fire succession, but, to his credit, the reader never feels overwhelmed or confused. The descriptions are so vivid--from the environmentalist tracking lynx paw prints through the snow to the vacationing company president staking out a Disney World pay phone as he receives updates on the 1998 fire's damage--that they remain fixed in the reader's mind as the story unfolds. It's a story that makes interesting reading for skiers, environmentalists, or anyone intrigued by the unfolding drama in our last wild places. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

From Publishers Weekly
Early on the morning of October 19, 1998, several raging fires caused $12 million in damage to ski lifts and buildings in Vail, Colo. Because construction of a vast new ski area that had been vehemently opposed by environmental groups was slated to begin that very day, arson was immediately suspected, and investigations revealed that the fires had been deliberately set. However, although a radical environmental organization claimed responsibility, the identity of the perpetrators was never discovered, and many local residentsAdarkly noting that the episode brought Vail's owners some much-needed sympathetic press, as well as insurance money that allowed them to rebuild outdated facilitiesAcontinue to believe the resort itself masterminded the event. Though unable to answer the all-important question of "whodunit," Glick, a Newsweek special correspondent for the Rocky Mountain region, provides a fascinating account of the tensions and cultural juxtapositionsAsometimes merely odd, sometimes deeply unsettlingAthat lurk beneath the idyllic, ersatz-Tyrolean surface of America's largest ski resort. Colorado, Glick notes, is populated by a volatile mix of diehard environmentalists and ruthless real estate barons, counterculture ski bums and titans of industryAall of whom coalesce in, and are particularly passionate about, places like Vail. Indeed, federal investigators found themselves confronted with a bewildering proliferation of suspects for the fires: it seemed that everyone within a 50-mile radius of the resort had a serious grudge against its owners, whose corporate HQ was known locally as "the Death Star." Combining solid investigative reporting with engrossing accounts of high-stakes wheeling and dealing and tantalizing glimpses of the glitzy life of the superrich, this is an irresistible story which, in Glick's hands, also reaches provocative conclusions about the more wide-ranging conflicts that beset the so-called New West. (Jan.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Outside Magazine Feb 2001
"an alpine Midnight in the Garden of Evil . . . will delight anyone who's ever paid $6.50 for a slopeside latte."

Customer Reviews

Intriguing, but too much vulgarity and profanity
The book is interesting as an unsolved mystery, but everyone cannot be as guilty as they sound. I struggled a bit with the writing, and did not like all of the vulgarity and profanity. It did not add anything to the book, except to make me feel like I was overhearing conversations in a cheap bar. It was also apparent from the start that Glick does not like rich people (some peoople might call them successful). He could hardly talk about them in a civil tone. He used phrases like "Outrageous luxury", and "Trophyest of trophy homes."

Powder Burn
Powder Burn was a GREAT book that provided me with the information that i needed to know about the mystery of who tourched vail. I learned some stuff in my political geography class about this that is what got me interested in it and made me read it. I recommend it to all people who like mystery books with a small twist of history.

Rocky Mountain Whodunnit
Vail/Beaver Creek is probably my favorite vacation spot on earth in the summertime...about the only time of year I can afford it (and even then barely). This is a fascinating book, part history of Vail, part meditation on the issues surrounding growth in the affluent west (ie, how a resort for the rich and famous affects the locals and the environment), but largely a whodunnit surrounding the 1998 arson on Vail Mountain.

I wouldn't go so far at to call this a "Rocky Mountain version of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' " - Glick's writing isn't that smooth and his character development isn't that deep. But I am fascinated by this part of the country and it's a good story that he has to work with. In the end he presents all the available evidence and lets you draw your own conclusions - probably the best way to end considering that the arson itself remains unsolved.