Wow, this forum is the land of "NO." Against my better judgement in getting involved in pointless internet arguments, I feel the need to comment. From the handful of you that actually contribute, it seems that the majority of you think that the MRA model is ridiculous. I guess they should give up on this hopeful and forward- thinking concept and build an amenity filled, real estate based "resort" utilizing the cheapest power -that being dirty coal- that caters primarily to wealthy skiers from the Big City. The MRA concept may fail because of the economics of energy, from poor weather, from another economic meltdown, or from any number of other reasons, but then again it may succeed and become a model that others will follow. Perhaps it will even revolutionize the industry and make skiing more affordable and thus more popular among those not fortunate enough to be able to afford a $8000 week of skiing at Vail. I would assume that you are all on this forum because you love the sport, the mountains, the lifestyle and the freedom that you get from skiing, so I wonder why you aren't offering more constructive criticism to help MRA succeed instead of simply bashing it, and Soul Skier's posts. He is excited and optimistic about the project and he has a lot of ski industry veterans that are part of the MRA team. What is so wrong with that? None of you are being asked to invest against your will or are being forced to ski at such areas, so what is the harm in giving them some support.
On the ski bums issue, those of you that haven't lived -and I mean in long-term sense, not just a season- in ski towns have scant knowledge of what it is like. Saying you do is the equivalent of me saying I know all there is to know about living in Manhattan or L.A. because I spend two weeks a year there visiting family. "In Search of Powder" explores the impacts of those of us that made our living in these towns and finally had to give it up because it became to difficult. The ski bum metaphor is a convenient and colorful way to illuminate this and I recommend reading the book (I finished it this week) so that you will have a better understanding of these forces. I know something about ski towns and ski town culture since I grew up in them and have spent most of my life in them and working in the industry. I've also been called a ski bum quite a bit, but I've never considered myself one since living in the mountains was much more to me than skiing as much as possible for as little as possible. In fact, I always thought that my life's work would be in the industry, but now people like myself; professionals, skilled workers, families; all those people that make communities -well, communities- are being driven from ski towns by the economics of the current "company town" resort model. Most of you on this forum don't know, or don't care, as you only go for a week or so a year, but there are many that do, just as you care about what happens in your community.
The resort model that many of you defend has resulted in both social and environmental losses. You can't have a healthy community when the majority of the homes are unoccupied 70% of the year, the average age of the population that does remains is in the mid-50's, your school enrollments decline 10-20% a year, the majority of your public employees live in towns 45 minutes to 2 hours away, and those folks that want to raise families cannot afford to do so without winning the lottery. Economic factors such as those that face Lake County, south of Eagle County and Vail, threaten communities that don't even have ski resorts. Since a significant portion (upwards of 40%) of Vail's lowest wage workers live in Leadville (a 50 minute drive on a good day), Vail gets the benefit of their labor and the tax income that results from that labor, while Lake County, the poorest (or 2nd poorest depending on the year) county in the state, gets none of the economic benefits and has the burden of providing public services for these laborers and their children. Thus the Town of Vail spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000/year on flowers for the roundabouts in town while Leadville struggles to provide the most basic services and education.
The comment that someone posted about not caring if workers have to commute an hour to the resorts totally overlooks the environmental externalities of high-density urban sprawl in fragile high-alpine environments. On the I-70 corridor through Eagle County, one enters the urban zone in East Vail, and doesn't exit it until Wolcott (with the exception of Dowd Junction where the highway fills all available ground), a total of 25 miles of high-density development, including buildings in excess of 10 stories in height, all in a valley that never exceeds 2 miles in width. Areas on the valley walls are developed up to the elevation of 9500 feet and the only relatively flat ground left is taken up by golf courses. This same "down valley sprawl" is occurring everywhere there is a ski resort in the West. The impacts of this development on wildlife have been profound as they no longer have places to winter. When I was a kid and in my first year in Vail, in 1987, it wasn't uncommon to see a few hundred head of Elk in the meadows of Eagle-Vail, Edwards, Bachelor Gulch and Beaver Creek. Now all of that land has been developed and the last time I saw any Elk was 6 struggling animals on a steep hillside in Dowd Junction in 2004. They are gone, not moved elsewhere, not hiding in the woods, they simply have all died out. I can go on: habitat destruction, air pollution, water pollution, traffic jams... the impacts of the single industry, single company ski resort reaches far beyond the immediate environs of the ski area itself.
I'm not saying "don't go skiing," I am saying you should care about the impacts your favorite pastime can have on other people and our shared environment, and you should be concerned about the legacy that you are leaving for future generations. What ever your favorite ski area, you should let them know that these things matter to you and learn more about them and how to mitigate them. If you still don't care, then you are are selfishly making life worse for the rest of us that do...
BTW Geoff, read the book and tell me how many of the "ski bums" in it receive any form of public assistance from you or anyone else? (answer: zero, most of them even own their own homes). In all my years of living in ski towns, I can't recall a single person that received so much as food stamps.
On the ski bums issue, those of you that haven't lived -and I mean in long-term sense, not just a season- in ski towns have scant knowledge of what it is like. Saying you do is the equivalent of me saying I know all there is to know about living in Manhattan or L.A. because I spend two weeks a year there visiting family. "In Search of Powder" explores the impacts of those of us that made our living in these towns and finally had to give it up because it became to difficult. The ski bum metaphor is a convenient and colorful way to illuminate this and I recommend reading the book (I finished it this week) so that you will have a better understanding of these forces. I know something about ski towns and ski town culture since I grew up in them and have spent most of my life in them and working in the industry. I've also been called a ski bum quite a bit, but I've never considered myself one since living in the mountains was much more to me than skiing as much as possible for as little as possible. In fact, I always thought that my life's work would be in the industry, but now people like myself; professionals, skilled workers, families; all those people that make communities -well, communities- are being driven from ski towns by the economics of the current "company town" resort model. Most of you on this forum don't know, or don't care, as you only go for a week or so a year, but there are many that do, just as you care about what happens in your community.
The resort model that many of you defend has resulted in both social and environmental losses. You can't have a healthy community when the majority of the homes are unoccupied 70% of the year, the average age of the population that does remains is in the mid-50's, your school enrollments decline 10-20% a year, the majority of your public employees live in towns 45 minutes to 2 hours away, and those folks that want to raise families cannot afford to do so without winning the lottery. Economic factors such as those that face Lake County, south of Eagle County and Vail, threaten communities that don't even have ski resorts. Since a significant portion (upwards of 40%) of Vail's lowest wage workers live in Leadville (a 50 minute drive on a good day), Vail gets the benefit of their labor and the tax income that results from that labor, while Lake County, the poorest (or 2nd poorest depending on the year) county in the state, gets none of the economic benefits and has the burden of providing public services for these laborers and their children. Thus the Town of Vail spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000/year on flowers for the roundabouts in town while Leadville struggles to provide the most basic services and education.
The comment that someone posted about not caring if workers have to commute an hour to the resorts totally overlooks the environmental externalities of high-density urban sprawl in fragile high-alpine environments. On the I-70 corridor through Eagle County, one enters the urban zone in East Vail, and doesn't exit it until Wolcott (with the exception of Dowd Junction where the highway fills all available ground), a total of 25 miles of high-density development, including buildings in excess of 10 stories in height, all in a valley that never exceeds 2 miles in width. Areas on the valley walls are developed up to the elevation of 9500 feet and the only relatively flat ground left is taken up by golf courses. This same "down valley sprawl" is occurring everywhere there is a ski resort in the West. The impacts of this development on wildlife have been profound as they no longer have places to winter. When I was a kid and in my first year in Vail, in 1987, it wasn't uncommon to see a few hundred head of Elk in the meadows of Eagle-Vail, Edwards, Bachelor Gulch and Beaver Creek. Now all of that land has been developed and the last time I saw any Elk was 6 struggling animals on a steep hillside in Dowd Junction in 2004. They are gone, not moved elsewhere, not hiding in the woods, they simply have all died out. I can go on: habitat destruction, air pollution, water pollution, traffic jams... the impacts of the single industry, single company ski resort reaches far beyond the immediate environs of the ski area itself.
I'm not saying "don't go skiing," I am saying you should care about the impacts your favorite pastime can have on other people and our shared environment, and you should be concerned about the legacy that you are leaving for future generations. What ever your favorite ski area, you should let them know that these things matter to you and learn more about them and how to mitigate them. If you still don't care, then you are are selfishly making life worse for the rest of us that do...
BTW Geoff, read the book and tell me how many of the "ski bums" in it receive any form of public assistance from you or anyone else? (answer: zero, most of them even own their own homes). In all my years of living in ski towns, I can't recall a single person that received so much as food stamps.
