A bankruptcy battle has broken out at the idled Elk Meadows ski area, where developers couldn’t raise enough money to build an exclusive gated community in the mountains above Beaver.

The Winter Dew Tour, the world’s premiere season-long winter action sports tour, announced that Mount Snow Resort will host the third and final stop Feb. 5–7, 2010 of the Tour’s second season. The Winter Dew Tour showcases top winter athletes from around the world competing in freeskiing (slopestyle and superpipe) and snowboarding (slopestyle and superpipe) for both men and women.

Last week we learned locusts were swarming in Ethiopia, wiping out crops vital to the survival of local people. Now we hear grasshoppers are invading Tooele County, Utah, near Salt Lake City. They’re all over the ground, with people crunching them underfoot. The infestation is “worse than anyone can remember,” AP reports.

Utah’s ski industry fell short of a sixth straight record-setting year, with the recession causing the number of skier days last winter to drop 6.5 percent from the previous season to 3,972,984. While the state’s decline surpassed the national average, which fell 5.5 percent, it was slightly less than the 7.2 percent drop in the Rocky Mountain region, which draws more skiers than any other part of the country.

Snowbird’s ski season is over. Rain on Monday and Tuesday put the finishing touches on what turned out to be a 194-day season at the Little Cottonwood Canyon resort. It received 621 inches of snow in that span. Resort officials had hoped to stay open until June 14, but rain showers accelerated a melting process already streaming along because of warm May temperatures.

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are expanding their property empire — they’re buying a ski cottage in US snow sports mecca Park City, Utah.

Just months after they splashed out on a new home in New York’s Tribeca neighbourhood, the celebrity pair is eyeing a romantic holiday home in the ski resort.

Spies who spotted them househunting during a visit to Park City in April tell Us Weekly: “They love snowboarding, and when they were in town recently for a wedding, they looked at lots of homes.”