Skiers find more ‘hot zones’ on the mountain

On opening day of the ski season last year at Mt. Spokane, Bill Geibel got stuck on top of the mountain in a blizzard.

Geibel owns a wireless Internet service provider in Spokane called Air Pipe. He was working with an employee to fix a technical problem at a mountaintop transmission tower when the storm hit. They ducked into a control room and spent the night, then called mountain manager Brad McQuarrie in the morning. Resort staff came and helped them off the mountain.

As a result, visitors to Mt. Spokane this ski season will be able to surf the Internet at the day lodge through a free wireless connection, commonly called a “hot zone.” In addition, images from a mountaintop webcam will be beamed to the ski resort’s Web site so skiers and snowboarders can see current conditions.

“We wanted to return the favor,” Geibel said. “We offered to build, at our expense, some relays for wireless to provide Wi-Fi Internet within the lodges and on one of the slopes.”

Obviously, there’s a benefit to Air Pipe as well, which will be able to use the new equipment on top of Mt. Spokane to reach into a new service territory stretching north toward Blanchard, Idaho. And there’s the public relations boost that comes from news stories like this one.

But Geibel said he also wanted to do something nice for McQuarrie and the nonprofit ski resort.

“He always helped us gain access to the mountain,” Geibel said. “There’s a road to the top, but a couple of months out of the year, you can’t drive in or ride a snowmobile in. He’s helped us gain access to support our equipment and he’s never asked for anything in return.”

Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint is the only other of the five local resorts that has wireless connectivity in its village. Schweitzer has had several “hot spots” in the past and is preparing to make the entire village a hot zone for this ski season, said manager Ron Nova.

McQuarrie sees the hot zone as one more service the mountain can provide to visitors, especially parents who come up and hang out in the lodge while their children ski.

“You could even sit outside with your laptop and get onto it from the way I understand it,” McQuarrie said. “It’s zero dollars out of pocket for the capital improvement.”

Downtown Spokane’s 100-square-block hot zone, which went live last summer, has attracted national attention as a model for technological innovation. Owners of laptops and personal digital assistants with Wi-Fi capability can get on the Internet throughout the downtown core without having to plug into anything.

But Geibel said free wireless connectivity is becoming more common. The Spokane Valley Mall’s hot zone should be up within a couple of weeks, he said, and companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks offer the service within many locations.