By LISA BRITTON

Baker City Herald

Snow-covered Gunsight Mountain and the wintry Elkhorns have a splash in the January 2011 edition of Sunset magazine, which dedicates four pages to the Anthony Lakes Ski Area.

The magazine, based in Menlo Park, Calif., has a circulation of about 1 million across 13 western states, according to its Web site.

Janet Dodson, marketing director at Anthony, said there’s no way to know what inspired the magazine to visit the ski area.

“Articles like that, we pitch them for so long,” she said.

Different tourism organizations, from the local chamber of commerce to

statewide Travel Oregon, pitch stories for regional attractions.

Regardless of why it happened, everyone’s happy it did.

“It does so much,” Dodson said. “The credibility of the articles is fantastic.”

The Sunet story highlights Anthony’s legendary powder and low prices,

as well as recommendations for food (Barley Brown’s Brew Pub) and

accommodations (the Geiser Grand Hotel) in Baker City.

Alice Trindle is on the board for the Baker County Development

Corporation, the private nonprofit that owns the ski area. She also

markets the area through the Eastern Oregon Visitors Association.

“A lot of our pitches are through Travel Oregon,” Trindle said.

She said it’s tricky to attract outside publications these days.

“The media is changing so much on what stories they’ll run, what writers they’ll send out,” she said.

And now it’s not just about newspapers or magazines – story ideas are sent to Web sites and blogs as well.

“We’ve really seen such a change in the way we pitch stories, whether for a print publication or a blog,” she said.

Magazines, for instance, sometimes schedule stories two years in advance.

But even if it’s long in coming, the exposure is still appreciated.

“It’s a wonderful coup for us,” Trindle said. “The exposure is so

targeted for the niche market we’re targeting for Anthony Lakes.”

That outside market they want to entice, she said, is families with a higher income.

“It highlights the time of year that we really need the business, and

says we do have a winter product,” she said of the article.

But, she said, Anthony depends on the locals who frequent the slopes.

“It’s our ski area now, and we want to make it successful because it’s ours,” she said.