Guest Commentary
Lessons From Tamarack Resort
The entire episode hints at the larger question of what type of society we want to live in.By Lee M. Spencer, Guest Writer, 3-28-09
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| Site of the Robert Trent Jones golf course | |
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Tamarack Resort closed on March 4th, the latest in a long line of boom and bust stories in the West. Located 90 miles north of Boise, Idaho, it was first major ski, golf and lake resort to open in the US in over two decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, Tamarack and CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug failed to generate enough revenue from real estate sales to keep operating. As a skier, former Tamarack employee, cattle rancher, and Idahoan, I wish to write a few words in reflection.
I don’t have to say this is an economic disaster for the over 200 employees and the general area. Some of the discussion has been that Tamarack would have made it if the economy just wouldn’t have slumped. It would be more accurate to say it never would have got off the ground if (opening in December 2004) it hadn’t caught the end of the largest housing bubble in history.
Tamarack attracted only 27,000 skier visits this season, far less than neighboring Brundage Mountain. Locals didn’t ski there. To them it was known as Tam-a-scam, Glamarack, and finally, when it all went down, Tamtanic. This sentiment was partly due to them lamenting the loss of their Valley. And it was partly due to the dislike being mutual. Upper management openly told us during meetings their goal was to make it a private hill, open only to property owners or people who pay club fees of thousands of dollars. This required a certain degree of hubris, as the ski course falls almost entirely on public land.
This is why you could find powder at Tamarack for a week after a storm, while at Brundage it’s gone within the day. This was a remarkable sacrifice, given the devotion to powder skiing in Valley County.
The entire episode hints at the larger question of what type of society we want to live in. Do we want to live in a society like America was (with notable exceptions) toward the middle half of the 20th century? That was a society of one class of people, who sent their children to public schools, and were protected by public police officers, and drank public water. Or do we want to be a society like Mexico, with an ultra-rich class, living in gated communities protected by private security, sending their children to private schools, and drinking private water? The general population gets what remains. Tamarack was a gated community whose distance from town negated the need for a gate.
Consider the principles behind which Tamarack was founded: lack of concern about local people or the environment, private incursions on public property, massive amounts of debt, funneling money and power to those who already have them, class divides, opulence, and so on. They’re strikingly similar to the policies either explicitly endorsed or highly associated with neo-liberal economic policies. This isn’t some abstract concept; neo-liberalism is championed by both political parties, and is written into domestic economic policies along with trade agreements such as NAFTA. The negative affect these policies have on every one of our lives can be neither underestimated nor dismissed.
It is sometimes thought that neo-liberal policies are good for the economy at the expense of the environment (Tamarack was fined $185,000 by the EPA for violations of the Clean Water Act). We are now even more certain that they are a disaster for the environment and the economy.
Was West Mountain not creating wealth when it was providing us with clean air and water, wildlife habitat, trees, hunting grounds, and native grasses which were utilized by family ranches? Why is it only wealth when we put boundaries around it and exclude people? This isn’t wealth creation, it’s wealth usurpation.
It is important to provide outdoor recreation opportunities. But it just doesn’t make any sense to build new ski resorts. Global warming continues to loom over the head of the entire industry. The percentage of skiers who are beginners is decreasing. We are losing community hills, the lifeblood of the sport. The one segment that is growing rapidly is backcountry skiing. New and expanding resorts take away prime areas from this sector, and are highly resented for doing so.
In 1864, George Perkins Marsh wrote that the earth was given to us “for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate waste.” When we give the earth back to the future after the short time it was in our hands, they will wonder what happened on West Mountain.
The author, a graduate student in natural resources, ski patrolled at Tamarack.
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Comments
It is "effect" (noun) not "affect" (verb).
The Fifties was not a classless society at all. While Americans may have shared a sense of purpose and identity (at least the white people) in the postwar era, that's because of the forced focus of WWII.
Et cetera.
I'm kind of amazed that Mr. Spencer, for all his angst about the destruction of West Mountain, supposedly, had no problem signing on as a patroller to catch those week-long remainders of pow. So the mountain was ruined but the skiing was still pretty good, hah?
There may still be value for Valley County to capture from Tamarack. It depends on how much infrastructure is still in place after the bankruptcy circus folds its tent. The time might be over for the grandiose visions of the elite, but regular folks might be able to make it work for them.
One thing about Idahoans either left or right they be hating on somthing. They dont forgive and they dont forget.
I like Brundage and Tamarack and the backcountry here is the some of the best in the US. I ride pow at Brundage for a few days after the storm the tighter the trees the fresher the snow.
People will get sick of the more popular places in the west and people will continue to come here. I talked to guy today at Brundage who was stoked on the area and liked the small town friendly vibe. He was from Oregon.
The whole negative "sleep in the bed you made" from a Boise County or Treasure Valley local just sums up some of the fools around here.We are pratically neighbors I dont wish for your area to crash and burn. just stay down in the valley dOOd. And keep your head in that smelly place you call your ass.
Many of our first resorts were founded by 10th Mountain Division refugees looking for a reason to stay in the mountains they loved. "Real estate" was just a shelter from the storm.
Somewhere along the way, the ski biz got turned on its head and real estate became the reason for more lifts and expanded resorts. When a Carnival Cruise Line exec was hired to manage Vail in the early 90's, I knew that an industry founded by skiers for skiers had changed forever.
Thankfully there are still places like Bogus and Brundage, where the original spirit of the sport lives on. Powder to the people!!
If this resort is located on public land, and the county and taxpayers are now stuck with the associated costs of this failed development, it's the community that are the real losers. The real shame is that the project went forward in the first place, since the ski resort was only developed as an excuse to sell real estate.
After a full day of skiing and with empty bellies, we headed to the lodge for dinner. Though there were people in the restaurant eating, we were told we would have to wait an hour until the restaurant opened for dinner. No problem. Off we went to the bar area in search of snacks. As soon as we squeezed into a spot in the crowded lounge, a waiter plopped a huge tray of chips and cheeses in front of my wife. Jokingly she said to the waiter "thanks, you shouldn't have". Snootily he replied, "These snacks are for Whitetail Club members only. Are you in the club?" "What is the Whitetail Club?" said my wife as she drooled into the brie. The bar manager, standing nearby, quickly came over to apologize but the damage was done. The snooty attitude of exclusiveness, combined with our low blood sugar, had turned us off. Who knows, we may have joined the Whitetail Club if we had been invited to partake with a smile and a just a hint of friendliness.
We took our hunger to the local Subway and never went back to Tamarak. Maybe it's not fair, but that single incident colored our perception of the resort. If we want a high end resort, we head over to Sun Valley where, by the way, we've always been treated like royalty. During 70 years of actually serving royalty, the folks at SV have realized, it's best to treat everyone as if they're in the White Tail Club.
Something wrong with your story. "Whitetail Club" is the very exclusive enclave at the Whitetail Lodge on the lake at McCall, about 20 miles away from Tamarack. The Whitetail Lodge was renamed "The Shore Lodge" recently upon a change of ownership. It now caters to the public. Good story, wrong venue.
I've also measured the sky in Montana and found it to be precisely the same dimensions as ordinary sky, leading to much confusion. The recent plane crash has been attributed to pilot error as the sky isn't any 'bigger' than normal. He ran out of sky thinking it was big as advertised.
Thank you for an interesting piece. You raise some important questions about the west, public land, wealth, and policy. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Tamarack is just another remnant of the late 20th Century crap that sprouted and took shallow root. You're right- it had much less to do with the resort itself than all the hyper-inflated real estate paper it could generate as money makers for the to big to fail banks.
Tamarack, the Yellowstone Club, and hundreds of other projects all geared toward exclusivity were doomed from the start. It was only a matter of time before the collapse happened. I hope that the current trend of the wealthy away from this conspicuous nonsense becomes permanent- the po' folks will always give away too much for a good paying job, even if it's short and leaves behind much damage and no long-term benefit.
I echo Becky's comment that no homes were built on state land. All were built on long held former private ranch land. The Ski lifts, mountain bike trails and summit ski patrol hut were built on Idaho state forest land leased from the state.
Remember that this state forest was formerly logged. Years ago, the Idaho legislature dedicated all revenues from state forest use to finance new school construction and ongoing school/Department of Education operations. Although I am not certain, I believe that Idaho state forest revenues were the primary, and possibly the only, source of education funding for the state.
When the logging industry went belly up a few years ago, the state education department had a problem. That is, until Tamarack came along. Tamarack abandoned its predecessor's labored and unsuccessful attempts to get federal ski permits for the nearby federal forest land, and instead, sought permits from the Idaho legislature for the adjoining state forest land. I believe that Tamarack's annual lease payment for that small parcel of difficult-to-log slope was far in excess of any logging revenue ever hoped for. The rest is history.
It remains to be seen whether or not Tamarack will keep its 40 year lease and make its next annual payment to the legislature. If not, the legislature faces the funding problem once again, and this time when we have state-wide and nation-wide hurt, making no viable alternative funding easy to find. Of course we can raise taxes.
So you see, depending on your values and viewpoint. there is good and bad in every decision. Nothing is perfect. And to sit there and do nothing is imperfect as well. We live to try.
I would be pleased to learn what parts of my message are inaccurate.
Doremus