Four Season Mountain Resorts on Public Lands

The Forest Service is actively working with resort developers to create new ski areas and to enlarge existing ones. Can anyone think of a valid reason WHY?

There is no need for expanded capacity. The number of persons using existing ski resorts has been on a steady decline for over a decade. Yet, ski area expansion is one of the "hottest" recreation related undertakings of the USFS. Why the rush to turn public lands into private ski resorts?

For the developers the answer is simple... Real Estate Speculation, second home sales, conversion of Ski Areas into Four Season Mountain Resorts.

But why is the USFS a willing "partner" in this effort? Why are they going out of their way to grease the skids for all this unneeded development?

Surely it couldn't be that the USFS would sell out our public lands simply to receive additional revenue. Our forests aren't being given to developers for a miserly 1.5% cut of gross revenues. Or are they!?

 


Image courtesy of: Save Our Canyons

 

Links of Special Interest

  • Lolo Peak's future stirs heart strings

    • ("What I found out was this: A ski area is not about skiing, it's about making great wealth out of real estate," said Daniels. "It all has to do with the value of the base property, and the real winners are not the skiers but the landowners.")

     

  • Beeliners skip over proletariat

    • (For Colorado wild land and fire dispatcher Woody Hesselbarth, the Beeline is a chilling portent for public lands in America. He says the natural corollary of the Beeline is a national forest system in which access is based on who pays more money: The campsite near the creek costs more than the one near the latrine, hunters who buy pricier permits receive exclusive rights to prime gaming areas, and ski runs with the most powder are reserved for the highest bidders.)

     

  • Big ski resorts have been kept at bay by public interest some groups worry changes to the law may hamper that

    • ("The thing we struggled with and future chiefs will struggle with is the idea of limits," said Dombeck. "We as a society are not very respectful of limits, we think we can overcome them through technology. But all the resources out there are finite and there's always more people.")

     

  • Ski resorts are for everyone

    • (Sunday, September 08, 2002 - Environmentalists long have complained that Colorado's recent ski-area expansions weren't designed to accommodate increased recreation demand but to bolster real-estate sales and rentals. The ski industry denies the accusations. But Copper Mountain, one of Summit County's most popular snow sport destinations, has handed industry critics some powerful ammunition. Last year, the resort's Beeline Advantage program offered customers who rented condos and other lodging special privileges, such as bypassing lift lines and riding the lifts 15 minutes before everyone else.)

     

  • Former Aspen journalist's new book targets ski industry

    • (The book's central premise is that these companies, and other ski area operators, have lost sight of the real values in skiing and instead are focusing on building cookie-cutter, theme-park ski villages designed to sell real estate and separate skiers from their money.)

     

  • Environmentalists Battle Growth of Ski Resorts

    • ( Greg Walcher, Colorado's newly appointed director of the state Department of Natural Resources, has watched the Rocky Mountain economy shift dramatically to tourism from mining, grazing and logging, partly because of environmental opposition to extractive industries on public lands. Now he worries, he said, that: "Some people want to slow tourism down, then shut it down. It would be a horrible mistake not to take them seriously.")

     

  • Have ski resorts left us snow blind to real costs

    • ("Let us also make an honest assessment of the real impacts that ski resorts are bringing to sensitive mountain environments. The footprint is hardly benign.")

     

  • Ski industry eagerly awaits fee revisions

    • (Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) have recently introduced bills into their legislative houses in Congress that would replace the existing fee structure with a friendlier, less intricate system for ski areas renting public lands for their operations.)

     

  • Land swap generates public discussion

    • ("People don't go skiing anymore," he said. "The whole experience now is what's important - the shopping, the dining, the atmosphere. That's what attracts people with money.")

     

  • The slippery slope of ski resort survival

    • ("Ski areas thus find themselves in a kind of arms race: They grow new business mostly by stealing each other's customers. They have done so with multimillion-dollar expansions - most of which have taken place on national forest land.")

     

  • Solitude Plan Includes New Lifts, Alpine Slide

    • ("I don't like where the industry is headed," Kelner said. "I don't think any of the resorts have enough visits to justify anything they're doing. The prices have climbed and climbed and climbed. They are trying to outprice locals.")

     

  • Skiing is just frosting on the cake for ski industry

    • (The ski industry, you see, isn't about skiing anymore. Skiing (and I include snowboarding in this term) is a minor sidelight, a bit of window dressing for the main event in ski towns now: Real estate development. Ski season is over; money season is year-round.)

     

  • Forest Boss' Canyon Policies Prompt Concerns

    • ( "Given the economics of ski resorts today, said Sinclair Oil Vice President Clint W. Ensign, extensive real estate development is the only way to make such facilities economically feasible.")

     

  • Snowbasin Is Becoming a Slippery Slope

    • ( "The move is part of [Forest Supervisor] Weingardt's mission on the Wasatch Front, obeying orders from Washing to mend fences with Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude ski areas and encourage them to become four-season destination resorts.")

     

  • Environmentalists cry foul over the new federal Ski Fee Bill  [IMPORTANT]

    • ( "Congress passed a Republican-sponsored bill last week that will cut down administrative costs for ski resorts and the U.S. Forest Service by untangling the complicated formula under which the resorts pay for the use of public land. The so-called Ski Fee Bill sparked opposition from Democrats on financial grounds. But that view obscures a deeper concern by environmentalists: the bill's virtual guarantee of sanctuary for the resorts when they renew their federal leases.")

     

  • Forester led civic panel promoting ski project

    • ( "The U.S. Forest Service official who helped develop the agency's plan that backs a new Klamath Falls ski area also served as President of the Klamath Falls Chamber of Commerce pushing for approval of that project...Conservations had hoped for no development and were alarmed by Shall's dual role.")

     

  • Environmentalist oppose "Super Vail" expansion

    • ( The proposed expansion would destroy or fragment most of the wildlife habitat in the area. If forest plan standards are weakened every time a proposed project will not comply with them, then the standards are worthless, said Colorado Environmental Coalition.)

     

    Vail Cartoon
    Rob Pudim/Vail Beaver Creek Times

     

  • Forget widgets, we sell wilderness

    • (This expansion at Vail is largely about selling to Europeans. Because some 85 percent of the world's skiers live outside the United States, Vail sees easier markets to invade, especially in Europe... Are we selling our wilderness to Europeans, and if so, is it all that much different than selling our old-growth timber, those massive trees of the Pacific Northwest, to the Japanese? )

  • Master Service-Wide Memorandum of Understanding (SMU)

    • ( The purpose of this SMU is to establish a general framework of cooperation between the USDA Forest Service, U.S. Skiing, and NSAA, in partnership to achieve the common goats of managing and promoting active participation in alpine recreation and sports by all people in a manner that emphasizes: 1.    public/private partnerships in developing recreational facilities,   2.... )

  • Alta Lakes development

    • ( The Leucadia Corp. unveiled plans to trade lands with the U.S. Forest Service and develop 20-acre parcels near Alta Lakes. "I have serious concerns for their proposed development plan. I wonder how much respect they have for the community process," said County Commissioner Jim Craft.)

  • Santa Fe ski area growth enrages locals

    • ( For a while, Ski Area Containment Coalition members thought even the Forest Service was sympathetic. Then flip-flop, Forest Supervisor Delfer reversed his stance and approved the development, angering nearly everyone except ski area owner Benny Abruzzo. "They didn't look at protecting the forest. They looked at protecting Abruzzo's wallet", said Santa Fe Mayor Debbie Jaramillo.)

  • Coalition tries to put freeze on ski lease

    • ( A coalition that opposes leasing the Mount Sunapee Ski area called the proposal a give-away, saying it will expose the mountain to environmental harm while leaving the taxpayers with the bill for past investments. "(Okemo) has just negotiated an amazingly profitable deal," Scott said. "The question you have to ask is why the state didn't have quality management on our side of the table.")

  • Proposed ski resort does a face plant

    • ( For two years a Forest Service study team looked at the project's potential environmental impacts. What they found most troublesome were Kummer's plans for the valley below the mountain, particularly wetlands and riparian areas, much of which Kummer owns. Finally, the team concluded the ski resort was simply a magnet Kummer would use to lure real estate buyers. "skiing appears to be a secondary amenity to real estate development around the base of the mountain," it wrote.)

  • Discover Why Resort Real Estate is BOOMING   INTRAWEST - The Mountain Developers

    • ( It's been said that the popularity of recreational sports and mountain living is fueling "the last great real estate boom of this century and the first great boom of the next." Intrawest believes so. We've built our future on it. You can too. )

     


    Find Out More from   INTRAWEST- The Mountain Developers

     

  • Conservation Coalition Challenges Forest Service Assault on Pelican Butte

    • ("Putting a big timber sale and ski development right smack in the middle of this unprotected wilderness area is absurd," said Ken Rait, conservation Director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "Let's protect Pelican Butte for the wilderness that it is, not cut it down and develop it.")

  • Winter Park undertakes makeover  ("Inside Denver" 2/6/98)

    • ( Denver officials and Winter Park management have signed a deal with Houston developer Gerald Hines to build a $300 million base village. The first phase of the development will includes 200 condo units right next to the base area's high speed lift. Ultimately it will provide 7,368 pillows and 154,000 square feet of space for restaurants, bars and boutiques. During the 1996-97 ski season, Winter Park's skier days fell about 20,000 from the 1995-96 season.)

  • Colorado resorts battle for skiers

    • ( The resorts have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new lifts and trails to compete for the national market and needs to entice the fussy Colorado skier to help pay for them."All you have been hearing for the last five years is that the ski industry is flat ... you've got to get more people. This will get more people," said Joan Christensen, a Winter Park spokeswoman.)

  • Winter resorts are riding the edges in search of markets and profitability [ very good! ]

    • ( "We're trying to appeal to a broader audience than just the hard-core skiers and/or hikers and bikers. We need to determine the things that appeal to them and bring them to the mountains. Health clubs, spas -- anything that people do in their leisure time will be offered at ski areas over the years. These amenities are already being offered, upgraded and enhanced and marketed to a greater level than before." )

  • The Booming Economy & Ski Industry Trends

    • ( A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that major ski resorts across the country are in the midst of one of the largest building drives the industry has seen, and much of the building is in non-skiing facilities. The objective is to attract and accommodate a growing number of families by providing multidimensional opportunities for both skiers and non-skiers, including day care centers, teen nightclubs, amusement parks, and activities like tubing, ski bicycling, snowshoeing, and ice skating. The success of Adventure Ridge at Vail is a good example of this trend.)

  • Changing Your Complexion from Ski Area to Mountain Resort

    • ( There is more to the transition from ski area to destination resort than building a couple of hotels at the base of the mountain and calling it a 'village'. Four seasons, not just one. To be economically viable, a destination resort must function year round. Golf, tennis, swimming and other water sports, scenic lift rides, mountain biking and hiking are common recreational pursuits offered at mountain resorts during the summer months. Conference facilities provide a draw for spring and fall visitation. Shopping, the most popular form of recreation in North America, is a year round attraction. Mountain resorts should capitalize on the natural beauty of their surrounding environment, which is perhaps the biggest attraction of all. )

  • Theme Park on Vail

    • ( A coalition of environmental groups has warned that a proposal to approve a summer "theme park" on Vail mountain, which will consist of a climbing wall and an in-line skate park, cannot legally be made under the existing Forest Service special-use ski permit. And it called for hearings, which would include citizen participation and environmental reviews. These activities, which may begin this summer, would be part of a high-intensity recreation complex on Vail mountain known as Adventure Ridge. Already, a greatly expanded winter operation includes nightly activities such as tubing, snowmobile trips, restaurants and free gondola rides to get people to use the facilities.)

     

     
    Ski Area Citizen's Coalition: 
    Mission Statement: 

    Increasingly consolidated by multi-national ski corporations, the industrial tourism of downhill skiing threatens alpine forests through duplicitous ski area expansions actually geared for real estate development. Colorado Wild will work to contain this growing threat by building coalitions with those seeking to conserve the quality of life in ski towns, and with environmentally and socially aware winter sports enthusiasts.

    		 Colorado Wild,
    P.O. Box 1525,
    Boulder, CO 80306. 

    For further information contact: 
    Ski Area Citizen's Coalition
    Jonathan Staufer, 
    jonathan@coloradowild.org

     

     

  • Bigger And Better

    • ( Colorado resorts are always trying to enhance each visitor's experience. This season Colorado resorts are collectively spending a record $150 million in capital improvements in order to do just that. Here is a list of what's new and improved.)

  • Ski Area Permits Can Now Qualify For Environmental Exemption

    • (September 28, 1998--USDA Forest Service may reissue ski area permits with minimal environmental analysis, according to a decision announced today. Today's announcement provides for the reissuance of ski area permits under a categorical exclusion of the National Environmental Policy Act, provided there are no changes to the ski area's master development plan and no new facilities or activities are authorized.)

  • Should the Forest Service be in Partnerships with Ski Resorts?

    • ( Clearly, by forming a "partnership" with the ski industry, the Forest Service will compromise its duty to safeguard the national forest and to serve the public. This alliance will create a bias, whether actual or perceived, toward particular corporate actors and development of the forest for a particular type of use. Such a partnership will also undermine the public’s confidence in the Forest Service’s ability to approach its responsibilities in an objective fashion and thereby, will violate the law.)

  • Environmentalists warn that the Forest Service’s new Colorado mogul could be dangerous
    ( "Environmentalists like Roz McClellan see Laverty’s arrival as a harbinger of the Forest Service’s increased emphasis on recreation, which they feel could turn out to be more detrimental to public lands than even their perennial pet peeve, logging.")

  • Ski areas, governments eye détente
    ( "Jim Onken, a vice president for Copper Mountain owner Intrawest, noted that ski areas - which now are rapidly expanding into lucrative real estate development - first and foremost are in business to make money.")

  • Breckenridge plans draw fire
    ( "Critics contend that if the ski-area expansions and the potential real-estate development were considered together, the plans likely would call for more thorough, costly and time-consuming environmental studies to scrutinize the cumulative impacts on nearby wetlands, endangered species, the town and its human inhabitants.")

  • Ski Resorts Improve But Industry Flat
    ( Some observers say the sudden surge of money into Colorado resorts reflects ski corporations` expansion from the recreation business to the real estate business, an evolution that critics say will mean more million-dollar condos, empty chairlifts and less national forest land for wildlife.
          Jeff Berman, a vocal critic of Vail Resorts` proposed 885-acre Category III expansion in Vail and Peak 7 expansion at Breckenridge, says it`s all about real estate. "They are proposing ski area expansions that are geared toward upping the value of nearby real estate,". "Forest lands are being chewed up for expansions that are not even geared for skiing," he said.)

  • The goals is to make the state's attraction's viable year-round
    ( The ski industry believes the key is in the packaging. "We have Disneyland here, but we've got the real Disneyland. You can climb the Matterhorn; we've got Powder Mountain . . . and it's clean," she said. "We've got it. We just have to package it as well as Disney." )

  • Vail fires shed light on controversy
    ( "It's already the largest (ski) area in the country, and it's growing aggressively," she said. "But now it's being marketed as a four-season resort. The impacts to the landscape that were only occurring in the winter are now extended throughout the year.")

  • The Last Resort

    • ( Deer Valley is adding new runs that weave through condominiums. Is that a skiing experience designed by the natural terrain? Or a symptom of industrial tourism? In the end, no matter who is doing it, the money men are hoping that if they build it, the skiers will come. )

  • Information On Loveland Expansion  (source: Blue River Group, Sierra Club. )

    • ( The USFS decision memo states: " There will be no new access roads built.". Yet there were ATVs driving to the top along a new route, and the large tracked backhoe was brought to the top of the mountain where there was no previous road. If this type of public lands mismanagement upsets you, call, DECIDING OFFICER, PETER L. CLARK 970-498-1100 Forest Supervisor Arapahoe Roosevelt National Forest. )

  • Forests' Overseer Promotes Public Lands Partnerships

    • ( "At least one Utah environmentalist who has dealt with the Wasatch National Forest in battles over ski resort development wonders if the Forest Service doesn't give preferential treatment to its partners. 'For the most part, our recommendations and participation are simply ignored,' said Gale Dick of the Citizens Committee to Save Our Canyons. 'Frankly, we read about the overt recognition of the ski industry by the Forest Service with considerable alarm. This isn't the right role for the Forest Service. It should serve the public interest, not the ski industry.' " )

  • Skiing The World - Into The Next Millennium   (from: GoSki)

    • ( "With ever increasing global air communications and ski lift technology, there is the opportunity for some of the few remaining truly wild parts of the globe to be converted in to ski slopes." )

  • Armies of skiers are coming to Yellowstone

    • ( "We're concerned not only with the development of the ski hills themselves, but also how those areas become catalysts for widespread development - the cumulative impacts," says Dennis Glick, who gathered the numbers on resort expansions for the environmental group, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, in Bozeman. )

  • Powder Burn   (from: Outside Magazine)

    • ( "The bet at Vail Associates is that, though wealthy baby boomers are skiing less, they will still buy second homes. ... Sprouting like mushrooms after a rain, sprawling condo developments have burst forth at an unprecedented rate, and VA has managed to reap much of this harvest." )

  • The Unofficial Stop SuperVail Website

    • ( The evidence clearly shows that Vail’s CAT III expansion has nothing to do with skiing, only developing more ski-in, ski-out real estate. Don’t buy that Vail ski pass! For more information, call 303-492-6870. )

     

    Stop SuperVail
    Image by Mike Lewinski.

  • Minturn shows disdain for Cat III

    • ( "While Vail Associates continued to deny plans to create new base areas in towns near its proposed Category III bowl expansion, Minturn officials hammered away with their disdain for the project in a meeting before the county commissioners Thursday night. "Minturn opposes Category III," said Mike Gallagher, the town's mayor. "We never asked that a portal (to Vail Mountain) be put into our valley." )

  • EPA letter on Cat III puzzling to Forest Service,

    • ( "Development in nearby towns and on private property located near Category III, an 885-acre addition to skiing terrain on Vail Mountain, "could result in significant impacts to air and water resources in the Eagle River Basin," the EPA wrote in a letter to the county this week. "With potential acquisition of the Gilman property and future development of other base areas for the Vail ski area, we are increasingly concerned about the potential off-site environmental impacts from the Forest Service's decision on Vail Category III," the letter reads." )

  • Vail Ski Area Expansion

    • ( "Do we need more skiing terrain at the expanse of our wildlife and our quality of life? Five Colorado conservation groups announced that they have appealed the Forest Service's approval of the major expansion of the Vail Ski Area. The groups are: Colorado Environmental Coalition, Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club, Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Colorado Wildlife Federation and Ancient Forest Rescue." )

  • Vail Sues Miniturn

    • ( "The position that we're in with the threat to our water rights threatens the very existence of the town," Gallagher said. "This ski company is definitely out to destroy the town, and they have the money to do it. They are essentially holding their wallets to our heads and saying give up." )

  • Scoping comments for Vail's Keystone Ski Resort expansion

    • (This document raises questions pertaining to the current expansion proposal for Keystone Ski Resort and has been provided on the web to serve as a model "scoping letter" for responding to similar resort expansion proposals.)

  • VR defends decision to expand

    • ("This is happening all over the country," Staufer said. "They're basically expanding their ski areas to increase the value of real estate, and unfortunately, Wolf Creek falls into that same situation. It's a recent trend, and it's a result of the ski industry wanting to get into other businesses - namely real estate.")

  • Targhee land swap falls short
    ("The Squirrel Meadows-Grand Targhee land exchange reverses Forest Service efforts to reduce the pockets of private land owned within national forests. It ignores a growing chorus of criticism aimed at how the Forest Service cooperates with the ski industry. Walt Rule, retired Forest Service district ranger of Ouray, Colo., recently charged, "Ski area expansions have become fronts for real estate development, and the Forest Service should not be involved in such matters.")

  • Protesters defend wilderness
    (For Emily Wolf, a Boulder resident and member of the Sierra Club who locked herself to a cherry picker halfway up Vail Mountain, her passion is fury, and it's directed at Vail Resorts. "This is a corporation running our public land," she said, suggesting that Vail exerted undue influence over the U.S. Forest Service and other public agencies that approved the ski area's expansion.")

     

     

    This document was prepared by Wild Wilderness. To learn more about ongoing industry-backed congressional efforts to motorize, commercialize, and privatize America's public lands, contact:

    Scott Silver, Executive Director,
    Wild Wilderness
    248 NW Wilmington Avenue,  Bend  OR 97701
    Phone (541) 385-5261    E-mail: ssilver@wildwilderness.org

     

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