Eco-friendly ski resorts?

Hi readers, I've been MIA all weekend because of a rad trip I took to Tahoe. Not taking advantage of the incredible snow just wasn't an option, and after spending 3 days shredding (ha), I'm thoroughly worn out and ready to start blogging again.

On my way home, I was thinking about eco-friendly ski resorts and their actual level of "greenness." I remembered an article I'd read in Outside magazine last year, and so I dug it up to refresh my memory. As we all would have guessed, as much as they're trying to do in the industry, greening ski resorts "is putting lipstick on a pig. Name another sport with as much impact on public lands—clear-cut runs, heavy machinery, millions of schussers in the wilderness in winter. And for every ton of carbon saved by an energy-conscious Aspen or Vail or Telluride, you could point to another planeload of jet fuel burned to get there and another new forest of fudge shoppes and condos in what used to be elk habitat. 'There are a lot of things they're doing well, but you cannot deny the long-term and permanent impacts of the industry,' says Myke Bybee, a public-lands specialist at the Sierra Club."

And Myke (really? With a 'y?') is right. But at the same time, few industries get such a large number of people outside and enjoying that same wilderness, appreciating the powder runs through the pines or the views of the mountains from the lifts. If people don't get out and enjoy these beautiful places, they won't miss them when they're gone. So despite skiing's indisputable environmental impact, the sport can't be all bad. Let's continue to encourage resorts to reduce their carbon footprint and avoid urban sprawl, bringing about the necessary changes to make sport as sustainable as possible. Like Auden Schendler says in the Outside article "In a sustainable world, you're probably not going to fly or ski all that much. But in the interim…" let's enjoy the wilderness responsibly.