SNOWBLOG commentary

A Ski Resort Overdevelopment Rant

By Bob Berwyn, 2-05-07

I’ve been in a bit of a ranting mode lately on the topic of ski resort development, and a few people who commented on a recent piece about all the ski “village” hoopla we have to put up with here in Colorado rightfully pointed out that my tone was perhaps a bit whiny. OK, I’ll blame it on the lack of snow. Other than one decent storm early in the month, January was dry. Good powder was hard to come by. And a string of bone-chilling days with single-digit highs didn’t improve my outlook — nothing against the cold, as long as there’s some fresh fluff to along with it, and that just hasn’t been the case. So how cold was it? Cold enough that a U.S. Air Force unit practicing winter survival skills near Arapahoe Basin Ski Area ended up being evacuated from their encampment by ski patrollers and snowcats after a few members of the unit suffered some frostbite. The cold weather “did a number” on the detachment’s equipment, the Summit Daily News reported, adding that the wind-chill factor drove temps into the 40-below range.

So if our elite military units can’t handle the downright uncivilized weather we’ve been experiencing, I reserve the right to keep right on whining until it snows. I’ll start by reporting a threat I got after describing (I thought pretty accurately) the mindless, soulless push to plaster every possible square inch of ground around here with over-sized, energy hogging condo complexes jutting right up against public lands designated for what is supposed to be a natural recreation experience (that would be skiing). Turns out that some people felt my characterization of their activities could somehow affect their job prospects. So I got a nasty email with a generic “If-you-don’t-stop-I’ll- contact-my-lawyer” message. So much for the First Amendment. To be sure, I considered backing off for a split-second, but truth be told, I am just so over the “I’m-just-doing-my-job” line. It’s a cop-out. We deserve better answers from the people who are responsible for promoting the cancerous, unsustainable growth that threatens to turn our mountain communities into hollow shells.

With that said, let’s revisit another proposed development, this one just a few miles down the road from Vail, the original mega-resort. Near the back side of Vail Ski Area, on Battle Mountain, a clever Florida developer is looking to redevelop a polluted Superfund site as part of a ritzy private ski and golf community. The Superfund site is on about 150 acres, while the larger project is slated for a total of 5,312 acres.

New West has had two recent blogs on this project, both referencing an interesting Denver Post story on Battle Mountain that focused on the potential benefits of the development as a clean-up tool for the Superfund site. What got lost in that reporting, however, is that Battle Mountain development is highly controversial in its own right, based on its potential cultural and economic impacts to the small towns nearby, not to mention a significant hit to wildlife habitat and other natural resources.

Give the developers credit — they hired a former local newspaper editor to run their PR campaign, and he did a heck of a job deflecting attention away from those big-picture questions by spinning the Superfund angle of the story. But with a Feb. 14 meeting on Battle Mountain fast approaching, the Friends of Battle Mountain group is eager to point out among other things that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for the project to assess effects on threatened lynx. Turns out there’s more — much more — to this story than the cleanup of an old Superfund site. Check out the action alert sent out by Colorado Wild, as well as the comments submitted to the USFWS by a coalition of 13 conservation groups, and get the full skinny (from the environmental perspective) on the Battle Mountain plan here.

And it turns out I’m not the only one ranting about this stuff. Coldstream Creative, a group of California skiers and filmmakers, has recently released a new documentary called “Resorting to Madness.” The flick features extensive interviews with journalists like Dan Glick (“Powder Burn") and Hal Clifford ("Downhill Slide"), all trying to create awareness about the same issue: That our seemingly endless rush to over-build these fragile mountain valleys with high-priced second homes and vacation rentals is a tangible and imminent threat to mountain culture and environment. “Resorting to Madness” also includes a great segment with Andrea Mead Lawrence, a double Olympic skiing gold medal winner who served as a county commissioner in Mono County (home to Mammoth Mountain) and became an outspoken community activist. The film also touches on sensitive subjects, including how large development corporations have the clout to subvert the public process with their political connections. Check out a trailer of the movie here, and contact Coldstream Creative to arrange for a showing in your mountain town. Its future may depend on it.

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