I'd be ok with some National forest being sold to someone with the vision to make progress on the gridlock of the last 55 years between outdoor recreation and environmental causes. Fee
What if the traffic in Tahoe isn’t Alterra's fault or Vail's fault even if their solutions are as exciting and aggressive as the bunny hill was to Shane McConkey?
The soul of skiing is being crushed under the weight of its own popularity and our collective love of the outdoors. But before we point fingers at Vail and Alterra and decree the bogeyman of corporate greed, let's take a hard look at the real issue: a mismatch between supply and demand that's been decades in the making.
Cut Supply, Increase Demand, Complain & Repeat -> Population Boom & Resort Decline: - California’s population has doubled since the last major ski resort was built in 1972. (Northstar) Meanwhile, we’ve lost 20-30% of our ski areas in California and around 50% nationally.
More Active Skiers, Less Terrain-> Skiers and Snowboarders are breaking records for skier days with 65.4 million visits in 22/23 and participation in winter sports has surged by 35% since 1996 with even more activity happening off piste among backcountry users.
Saturdays are for Snowmobiling/Skinning/Cross Country-> In an attempt to escape the crowds many have turned to other activities such as Snowmobiling, only to find overcrowded trailheads and parking combined with the closure of 200k acres of snowmobiling terrain in Tahoe National Forest and even more in the Stanislaus National Forest where only 13% is open to sledders driving more users into the same trailheads and same traffic creating user conflict.
The High Cost of Stasis:
As the much-needed environmental movement rose to prominence in the 1970s the development of terrain to service the growing population basically stalled while the cost and time it took to attempt new terrain became affordable only to mega-corporations.
As a result, there have only been a handful of new ski areas and arguably 1-2 major resorts built in the US since 1981. All other attempts have failed.
Yet, Japan, with a similar landmass to California and triple the population, boasts 17 times more ski areas than California. That's 500 options versus our paltry 27 ski resorts in California.
Skiing is too Expensive:
Why is skiing so expensive? An unspoken part is the conflict between our competing desires for recreation and preservation. We sit in traffic complaining on social media while donating to causes that actively oppose much of the progress we seek. “Corporate Greed” is an easy response but what corporation is to blame for the $10’s of thousands of dollars of paperwork and years I’ve spent trying to build a garage at my house? Stifling regulations and NIMBYism plague any attempt at expansion or development. This works in favor of the large, entrenched resorts and mega-corporations and kills any chance for new terrain at the starting line. The cost of navigating red tape and battling lawsuits in California has inflated the price of everything, from your lift ticket to that garage you're trying to build.
We can't afford to be paralyzed by competing interests because the outcome is clear to even the most short-sighted winter sports participant or mountain town local:
Our Options:
- We can build and develop where there is none.
- We can improve and optimize where infra already exists. Or
- We can do nothing while the local and visitor populations simmer.
Those who love the outdoors and want to see more people experience, enjoy and appreciate it need to pick a path and we need to do so with vigor. We need to shed the first generation conservation and preservation mindsets and replace them with a new imagination for how people experience nature.
A History of Frustrated Visionaries:
-> Walt Disney, challenged by the Sierra Club, passed before he could open Independence Lake or Mineral King, resorts designed to address traffic with trains and gondolas connecting it to a highway rather than creating a new version of Highway 89.
-> Bill Hewlett blocked expansion at Coldstream Canyon, favoring personal preference over increased access and potential traffic solutions that could have been serviced by train and near Interstate 80. If we truly value wilderness, is preventing development on land that abuts the interstate the best place to block development?
-> Troy Caldwell has a chance to open new terrain in his lifetime at White Wolf between Alpine Meadows and Olympic Valley but will he be young enough to ski it the way he imagined when he bought it? Will I?
-> Next, Peter Christodulo has mustered the courage, or arrogance, or insanity, or unshakeable vision and passion depending on your point of view to attempt new lift-served terrain in the Ruby’s. Will he be able to build it? Five others have tried in that area and failed since 1955.
Our competing desires for preservation and outdoor recreation crowd everyone into the same roads, on the same days, in the same 4-5 towns. The entire ski industry of California is effectively 2 large neighborhoods. Mammoth and Tahoe.
The Choice is Ours
Let's not pave paradise. But, let’s also not continue on the predictable path of today.
We need conservation and environmentally minded organizations to come to the table with a more realistic balance between preservation and enjoyment, between cost accessibility and bloated operating costs, between this year vs. in this lifetime.
Development and being good stewards indeed aren’t mutually exclusive but it sure seems like loggerheads 99% of the time, and that lack of progress is starting to really boil over.
Simply put, more people want less of a resource and until our mindset changes, we’re all just funding competing lawyers, fighting on social media and hurting the culture of our communities.
We know the old game, fight and sue for progress/block progress. We know this makes everything slow, expensive, and contentious.
Let’s create a new game where these competing interests collaborate rather than compete.
We start by agreeing that the current resort infrastructure in Tahoe has reached a breaking point, the future is predictably negative on current course and speed and something must change.
Let's give both sides a deadline and they must present the community an aligned and recommended plan or it goes to a coin flip.
Can’t agree? Ok you have a 50/50 chance of seeing your most unfavored outcome become real.
Sadly that might be too simplistic of a solution but the overly complex path of today is reaching a potentially worse breaking point.
The problems of our ski towns stem from our love of the environment and outdoors and our unwillingness to recognize the tradeoffs we need to make.
In the meantime, we sit in traffic, post on instagram and attack Vail and Alterra ignoring the real problem of the Sierra Squeeze.
I think it is time for a new environmental movement and a challenge to the status quo that better aligns the interests of user groups, mountain communities, national forests and public and private lands. The pendulum has swung too far and at the current course and speed, Tahoe will be a parking lot in the future, albeit with basically the same amount of lifts, terrain and parking sports as the 1970’s.
Wonder how much they'd consider selling their children for?
This will be awful, just like much that is to come less than 48 hours from now.
Yeah, I think the pace of all this is going be overwhelming. Which is part of the strategy.
I'd be ok with some National forest being sold to someone with the vision to make progress on the gridlock of the last 55 years between outdoor recreation and environmental causes. Fee
What if the traffic in Tahoe isn’t Alterra's fault or Vail's fault even if their solutions are as exciting and aggressive as the bunny hill was to Shane McConkey?
The soul of skiing is being crushed under the weight of its own popularity and our collective love of the outdoors. But before we point fingers at Vail and Alterra and decree the bogeyman of corporate greed, let's take a hard look at the real issue: a mismatch between supply and demand that's been decades in the making.
Cut Supply, Increase Demand, Complain & Repeat -> Population Boom & Resort Decline: - California’s population has doubled since the last major ski resort was built in 1972. (Northstar) Meanwhile, we’ve lost 20-30% of our ski areas in California and around 50% nationally.
More Active Skiers, Less Terrain-> Skiers and Snowboarders are breaking records for skier days with 65.4 million visits in 22/23 and participation in winter sports has surged by 35% since 1996 with even more activity happening off piste among backcountry users.
Saturdays are for Snowmobiling/Skinning/Cross Country-> In an attempt to escape the crowds many have turned to other activities such as Snowmobiling, only to find overcrowded trailheads and parking combined with the closure of 200k acres of snowmobiling terrain in Tahoe National Forest and even more in the Stanislaus National Forest where only 13% is open to sledders driving more users into the same trailheads and same traffic creating user conflict.
The High Cost of Stasis:
As the much-needed environmental movement rose to prominence in the 1970s the development of terrain to service the growing population basically stalled while the cost and time it took to attempt new terrain became affordable only to mega-corporations.
As a result, there have only been a handful of new ski areas and arguably 1-2 major resorts built in the US since 1981. All other attempts have failed.
Yet, Japan, with a similar landmass to California and triple the population, boasts 17 times more ski areas than California. That's 500 options versus our paltry 27 ski resorts in California.
Skiing is too Expensive:
Why is skiing so expensive? An unspoken part is the conflict between our competing desires for recreation and preservation. We sit in traffic complaining on social media while donating to causes that actively oppose much of the progress we seek. “Corporate Greed” is an easy response but what corporation is to blame for the $10’s of thousands of dollars of paperwork and years I’ve spent trying to build a garage at my house? Stifling regulations and NIMBYism plague any attempt at expansion or development. This works in favor of the large, entrenched resorts and mega-corporations and kills any chance for new terrain at the starting line. The cost of navigating red tape and battling lawsuits in California has inflated the price of everything, from your lift ticket to that garage you're trying to build.
We can't afford to be paralyzed by competing interests because the outcome is clear to even the most short-sighted winter sports participant or mountain town local:
Our Options:
- We can build and develop where there is none.
- We can improve and optimize where infra already exists. Or
- We can do nothing while the local and visitor populations simmer.
Those who love the outdoors and want to see more people experience, enjoy and appreciate it need to pick a path and we need to do so with vigor. We need to shed the first generation conservation and preservation mindsets and replace them with a new imagination for how people experience nature.
A History of Frustrated Visionaries:
-> Walt Disney, challenged by the Sierra Club, passed before he could open Independence Lake or Mineral King, resorts designed to address traffic with trains and gondolas connecting it to a highway rather than creating a new version of Highway 89.
-> Bill Hewlett blocked expansion at Coldstream Canyon, favoring personal preference over increased access and potential traffic solutions that could have been serviced by train and near Interstate 80. If we truly value wilderness, is preventing development on land that abuts the interstate the best place to block development?
-> Troy Caldwell has a chance to open new terrain in his lifetime at White Wolf between Alpine Meadows and Olympic Valley but will he be young enough to ski it the way he imagined when he bought it? Will I?
-> Next, Peter Christodulo has mustered the courage, or arrogance, or insanity, or unshakeable vision and passion depending on your point of view to attempt new lift-served terrain in the Ruby’s. Will he be able to build it? Five others have tried in that area and failed since 1955.
Our competing desires for preservation and outdoor recreation crowd everyone into the same roads, on the same days, in the same 4-5 towns. The entire ski industry of California is effectively 2 large neighborhoods. Mammoth and Tahoe.
The Choice is Ours
Let's not pave paradise. But, let’s also not continue on the predictable path of today.
We need conservation and environmentally minded organizations to come to the table with a more realistic balance between preservation and enjoyment, between cost accessibility and bloated operating costs, between this year vs. in this lifetime.
Development and being good stewards indeed aren’t mutually exclusive but it sure seems like loggerheads 99% of the time, and that lack of progress is starting to really boil over.
Simply put, more people want less of a resource and until our mindset changes, we’re all just funding competing lawyers, fighting on social media and hurting the culture of our communities.
We know the old game, fight and sue for progress/block progress. We know this makes everything slow, expensive, and contentious.
Let’s create a new game where these competing interests collaborate rather than compete.
We start by agreeing that the current resort infrastructure in Tahoe has reached a breaking point, the future is predictably negative on current course and speed and something must change.
Let's give both sides a deadline and they must present the community an aligned and recommended plan or it goes to a coin flip.
Can’t agree? Ok you have a 50/50 chance of seeing your most unfavored outcome become real.
Sadly that might be too simplistic of a solution but the overly complex path of today is reaching a potentially worse breaking point.
The problems of our ski towns stem from our love of the environment and outdoors and our unwillingness to recognize the tradeoffs we need to make.
In the meantime, we sit in traffic, post on instagram and attack Vail and Alterra ignoring the real problem of the Sierra Squeeze.
I think it is time for a new environmental movement and a challenge to the status quo that better aligns the interests of user groups, mountain communities, national forests and public and private lands. The pendulum has swung too far and at the current course and speed, Tahoe will be a parking lot in the future, albeit with basically the same amount of lifts, terrain and parking sports as the 1970’s.
Maybe selling a bit is the solution to the Sierra Squeeze?
Is $TRUMPcoin an accepted form of payment for federal land purchases?
Given the point of that is expressly to bribe the fuhrer, I'd hazard a yes.