The economy is in the pits and there's no magic wand in sight. So why are Tahoe-area ski resorts building like it's 1999?

It's all about the future.

The investments – more than $56 million at Squaw Valley, Northstar, Heavenly and Kirkwood – are geared to transform Tahoe's mountain resorts into year-round destinations rivaling anything to be found in competitor states Colorado and Utah.

"What's happening is that you have new ownership looking down the road 20 years. They're very strategic thinkers," said Bob Roberts, president of the California Ski Industry Association, a trade group representing 29 snowsports resorts in California and Nevada.

Leading in the ambitious makeover department is Squaw Valley USA, which on Sept. 27 announced a merger with neighboring Alpine Meadows to create what is poised to become the largest ski resort on the West Coast. For skiers and riders, the deal means unprecedented access to a combined 6,000 acres of lift-served terrain at season pass prices starting at $399.

Squaw and Alpine, 10 minutes apart on Highway 89, share a ridgeline but are separated by privately owned land. They will be connected by shuttle bus this season, and an eventual chairlift link is anticipated.

The merger comes less than a year after Squaw's new owners, KSL Capital Partners, pledged $50 million to finance a "renaissance" in service and facilities over the next five years. That makeover will go ahead as planned, said Andy Wirth, the former Squaw CEO who heads the new parent corporation, Squaw Valley Holdings LLC.

Cultural changes in store for Squaw are likely to do as much as the merger to shake up the status quo on Tahoe's North Shore. The renaissance initiative, which kicks off with a $15 million injection this season, is geared, in a nutshell, to turn around Squaw's reputation as a formidable, experts-only preserve known at times to present a hostile front to outsiders.

"We went through extensive customer research to understand who skis Squaw, who doesn't and why," said Wirth, detailing the yearlong preparations behind the pending makeover.

"What we heard, and what in some cases confirmed our intuition, is that Squaw is seen as being somewhat unfriendly, exclusive and not that approachable," he said. "We recognize that our level of service has not been contemporary and in keeping with a world-class mountain experience. Our capital investment in enhanced service is geared to attack that. We want to broaden our appeal."

One of the most visible changes this season will be new signage to help skiers and riders navigate the resort's notoriously unlabeled terrain. "Part of the reason we're seen as exclusive is that our maps don't have trail names and our trails don't have signs," said Wirth. "We have to change that."

By the end of the year, 200 signboards assigning formal names to previously unmarked slopes and identifying them by degree of difficulty will be installed. A new trail map is being developed, along with state-of-the-art technology that will "literally allow people to hold a phone up to the mountain" and access a database, updated every five minutes, to see which lifts and runs are open, closed or being held for avalanche control, Wirth said.

"As simple as it sounds, the technology is very sophisticated."

Squaw is not the only resort kicking up powder on the North Shore. Nearby Northstar, which was purchased by Vail Resorts last year, is pumping $30 million into heightening its profile with a new lift, new lodge and expanded terrain.

Meanwhile, Homewood Mountain Resort is anticipating environmental approvals this fall for lift upgrades and a new commercial and residential development at the base area. Approved but still in the financing stage is a $250 million Boulder Bay redevelopment project across the lake in Crystal Bay, Nev. While not directly tied to a ski resort, the project is intended to transform the face of the community and feed customers to the slopes.

On the South Shore, Vail-owned Heavenly Lake Tahoe, which opened an elegant new lodge last year, is spending $5 million on a new children's ski-school building and extensive realignment of runs to alleviate crowding and expand terrain. In combination with Northstar, Heavenly will offer passholders 7,800 acres to slide on, said Russ Pecoraro, director of communications. Kirkwood, meanwhile, is soon to unveil a $5 million Mountain Club face-lift, along with a $1 million facility that will serve as a hub for its backcountry education and access programs.

Down the road on Highway 50, Sierra-at-Tahoe, on its own since Booth Creek Resorts peeled off sister resort Northstar, is adding backcountry snow-cat tours and beefing up its family-friendly offerings.

"We're excited to be able to do our own thing without having to run it up the flagpole of a major corporate structure," said spokesman Steve Hemphill. "It makes us very nimble and allows us to make great decisions."

And the splurge in capital isn't limited to Tahoe. South of the basin, Mammoth Mountain, which draws largely from the Los Angeles market, is dumping $75 million over the next four years into capital improvements.

It all points toward positioning California, and Tahoe in particular, as a winter destination capable of competing on the world stage, says Roberts of the California Ski Industry Association.

"We no longer have the Alex Cushings and Dave McCoys (founders of Squaw and Mammoth, respectively) using their vision of 'If we build it, they will come,' " he said. "We have very strategic people involved with these major ownership corporations."

A wild-card piece of that strategy is looking ahead to the possibility of a bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

"If in fact we were to get active with a bid – and there is a committee – the expectation would be that there would be significant infrastructure in terms of highways and communications," said Roberts. "It's infrastructure that determines our industry's ability to compete in the Western Hemisphere and now with China."

One infrastructure idea being tossed around in cyberspace is an aerial tramway, similar to one developed for public transportation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that would run between Truckee and Tahoe City and deliver skiers to Alpine and Squaw. A ferry system could also help clear highways should an Olympic bid become reality. Light rail is not out of the question.

But those are pipe dreams for now. More relevant in the short term is the continuing vitality of a snowsports industry that is thriving in a down economy, thanks in large part to discounted season passes and other marketing tools that keep skiers and snowboarders coming up the hill even as daily lift-ticket prices creep toward the century mark.

Roberts notes that at some resorts, season pass sales account for 40 percent of business.

The Squaw-Alpine merger and pass program, which comes on top of the Heavenly-Northstar partnership formed last year, broadens Tahoe's appeal for its core drive-in market as well as for those being courted from afar, he said.

Another good snow year, industry watchers agree, could see the registers ringing up record sales. The 2009-10 season hit an all-time spike with 8.1 million skier/rider visits, almost 1 million above the five-year average of 7.2 million, said Roberts. The 2010-11 season could have been a record-buster had not persistent and heavy snowfall interfered with people's ability to get up the hill from Sacramento and the Bay Area.

"The axiom still holds," Roberts said: "If there is good snow, we will have good business. Historically, a good snow year trumps a bad economy."

Let the flurries begin.

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