Intrawest finished its first quarter of 2006 well above last year, with total revenue up 18% to $550.9 million and EBITDA up 24.7% to $136.5 million from $109.5 million last year. However, due to a change in the estimated depreciation on resort assets, income from continuing operations slipped 2.8% to $61.0 million or $1.23 per diluted share from $62.7 million or $1.31 per diluted share last year.

Resort and travel operations revenue increased 8.3% to $386.2 million from $356.6 million in 2005. Revenue from Intrawest’s mountain segment increased from $275.7 million to $289.9 million, while revenue from the non-mountain segment increased from $80.9 million to $84.6 million.

Whistler Blackcomb saw a 15% increase in skier visits compared with 2005 when all British Columbia operations experienced heavy rainfall in mid-January followed by warm, dry conditions through mid-March. Intrawest believes there is some lingering effect from the sub-standard ski season last year and in spite of near record snowfall, Whistler Blackcomb's skier visits were 3% lower than 2004.

In Colorado, Copper and Winter Park benefited from the best snow conditions in years with combined skier visits up 9%. In the East, the Christmas strike and seven weekends of either rain or extremely low temperatures reduced Tremblant's skier visits by 8%. Poor weather also impacted Stratton and to a lesser extent Snowshoe, where skier visits declined by 11% and 5%, respectively. Blue Mountain and Mountain Creek were not as impacted by the weather with skier visit increases of 5% and 2%, respectively.

Superior weather and snow conditions in 2006 at Intrawest’s British Columbia operations increased EBITDA by $4.6 million, however this was significantly below expectations. In Colorado, excellent conditions and record skier visits increased EBITDA in the quarter by $4.9 million. These positive factors were offset by a number of negative factors, including the direct and lingering impact of the workers' strike at Tremblant.

The increase in revenue from the non-mountain segment during the quarter was primarily due to a 6.6% increase in adventure-travel tour revenue at Abercrombie & Kent to $72.3 million from $67.8 million. A&K saw good growth in tour revenues from most major destinations, particularly East Africa, India, and Egypt.

In the non-mountain segment, an increase of $2.0 million in EBITDA at A&K was due mainly to tour sales growth and improved tour yields was offset by a decrease of approximately the same amount in EBITDA at Sandestin.