May 24--NEW ORLEANS--Travel safety, security, war, a deepening recession and lousy snowfall plagued the start of the past ski season. But still the nation's ski hills posted their third most crowded ski year ever with 54.2 million skier visits. 

"The ski industry performed significantly better than anyone could have imagined," said Nolan Rosall, a founder of RRC Associates, the Boulder-based market research group that surveys the nation's ski areas each year. "This really shows the resiliency of the industry." 

RRC Associates presented a preliminary survey of the country's ski areas at the annual National Ski Areas Association rally in New Orleans on Thursday. 

The survey charted everything from regional skier visits to season-pass sales to growth in ski lessons and snowboarding. 

Overall, the nation's ski areas saw a 5.5 percent decrease in skier visits from the record 2000-01 season, when the areas logged a highest-ever 57.3 million visits. But the 2001-02 ski season is the third busiest in the history of the ski industry, closely following the 1993-94 season. 

Rosall said Colorado's ski areas were down about 3 percent to 4 percent from last year, although he wouldn't release specific numbers for any state. 

The survey counted 18.2 million skier visits in the Rocky Mountain region, which includes ski areas in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. That's a 5.9 percent drop from the record 19.3 million in 2000-01 and a 0.4 percent drop from the 1999-2000 ski season. The long-term average for the Rocky Mountain region is 17.1 million visits. 

Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association in Lakewood, said California's Mammoth ski area saw a record year, bumping Keystone from its perennial seat as the third most popular resort in the country. Vail and Breckenridge will again share top honors as the nation's most popular resorts, Berry said. 

In the 1980s, the peak year saw a total of 53.9 million skier visits nationwide. The lowest in the 1980s was 46.7 million skier visits. In the 1990s, the highest year saw 57.3 million skier visits and a low of 50.8 million. 

"The whole range we are operating in has moved up 5 million," said Rosall, noting the ski industry's increasing efforts to retain new skiers, upgrade facilities and offer discounted season passes. "It sure looks like all this work is starting to show some fruit." 

"We've raised the floor, and we've raised the ceiling," said Chris Diamond, president of Steamboat ski area. "These are great trends and we've got the echo boomers on the horizon, and the baby boomers aren't bailing out like they projected to." 

Even Utah, which was bracing for a serious downturn in skier visits because of the deluge of non-skiing Olympic crowds, was down only 9 percent. 

"That's a lot better than where we thought we would be," said Kip Pitou, president of Ski Utah, the marketing group that represents Utah's ski hills. "We were ready to be down 30 percent." 

The resorts of the Northeast, which saw paltry snowfall throughout the season, suffered a particularly sharp drop in visits in 2001-2002, dropping 10.5 percent from the previous season to 12.3 million visits. The ski areas in the Pacific Northwest, where the Pacific-fueled jet stream pummels the coastal ranges with bountiful snow, enjoyed its best season in two decades, with 11.8 million visits. 

Despite the good news, it wasn't all wine and roses for the ski industry, particularly in the Rocky Mountain region, where soaring season-pass sales are eroding the amount of money a resort makes off each skier visit it logs. Four years ago, Rocky Mountain resorts retained 60 percent of the revenue it generated with each visit. This season, the ticket yield for Rocky Mountain resorts was 51.2 percent, the lowest of any region in the country. 

Season-pass sales in the Rocky Mountains have climbed from 5,813 for each of the 53 resorts RRC surveyed in 1998 to 8,929 for each resort in 2002, a 54 percent jump and the most season-pass sales of any region in the country. 

Nationwide, the average ticket yield was 63.4 percent in 1994 and declined to 54.4 percent this past season. 

"It's amazing where we ended up," said Roger McCarthy, head of Breckenridge ski area. "These are some of the most encouraging signs I've seen in 10 years." 

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(c) 2002, The Denver Post. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MTN,