Sorry for the TGR content, but this idea has been thrown around in NY as well... not going anywhere though. Maybe VT will lead the way?
http://www.tetongravity.com/story/ski/t ... in-vermont
Sustainable BC
Re: Sustainable BC
Amazing difference in the kind of things people go through in different parts of the nation. That "problem" set is almost unimaginable in the West. And the legal structure is so different to make it further unimaginable. As is the solution, for that matter.
Another good reason to feel blessed to have moved West at a young age.
We ski through the trees, for the most part, we don't make ski runs, not even poor, "unsustainable" ones.
What the hell is a "sustainable ski run" anyway? I think that is part of what eludes me. A lot of the Green thing seems to have evolved beyond what I used to think it meant and how far I am willing to go in its name. For me, being "Green" is mostly "leave it (and me) alone." That seems to have changed.
Leave your problems behind. Move west and vote republican.
(((WARNING!! Stop BEFORE you reach the Socialist Republic of Kalifopornia, you don't want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire! )))
Another good reason to feel blessed to have moved West at a young age.
We ski through the trees, for the most part, we don't make ski runs, not even poor, "unsustainable" ones.
What the hell is a "sustainable ski run" anyway? I think that is part of what eludes me. A lot of the Green thing seems to have evolved beyond what I used to think it meant and how far I am willing to go in its name. For me, being "Green" is mostly "leave it (and me) alone." That seems to have changed.
Leave your problems behind. Move west and vote republican.
(((WARNING!! Stop BEFORE you reach the Socialist Republic of Kalifopornia, you don't want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire! )))
-
MikeK
Re: Sustainable BC
You know I could give you a bunch of bullshit about what it means to be sustainable, but really to the point: it's development you can get away with without pissing too many people off about.
Thing is, here is the east, our land has been raped and pillaged since Europeans started settling here. Eventually people realized that wasn't a good idea or the land was too rugged to be developed... so we started 'protecting' it. This all happened about the same time the national park system came to be. It was a big conservation movement in the country and applied out west as well as out east. Thing is, white men had raped the east for a lot longer already. But don't worry, we're getting there out west - it's just more lands started to become protected earlier or there wasn't anything there that anyone wanted.
So anyway now you have this huge divide of people in the east. Those you can call eco-nazis, and those you can call greedy fucks. It's a constant battle. The eco-nazis want to save every natural resource they can and the greedy fucks just want to develop it into condos, log it, or mine it. In reality, most real people fall somewhere in the middle... I do. I understand peoples need to use natural resources, and I understand business and the economy, but also understand the desire to keep things as natural as we can and let the forests go back to their natural states (we have very few old growth forests in the east). Of course this all excludes the facts that forests are often naturally wiped clean by fires and storms, but fires from humans aren't kosher, and neither are ones that threaten towns or what the sportsmen want to kill during hunting season. Are you seeing a trend here? Too many people wanting control of too little land...
So we come up with is the sustainable thing. Which basically means we are going to kill a few trees and destroy the natural landscape so people can ski, but only enough so it somewhat resembles a real, virgin forest from a distance. It's the same as hiking trails, bike trails or campsites. They all leave impact, they all show human abuse, but they are generally less egregious than resorts or structures. They still have some natural character. Obviously the best for the forests are to leave them be. Obviously the best for the economy is to build resorts and condos... so it's sort of balance.
You ever see those COEXIST bumper stickers? It's something like that... if you had a rusty Subaru you would understand.
Thing is, here is the east, our land has been raped and pillaged since Europeans started settling here. Eventually people realized that wasn't a good idea or the land was too rugged to be developed... so we started 'protecting' it. This all happened about the same time the national park system came to be. It was a big conservation movement in the country and applied out west as well as out east. Thing is, white men had raped the east for a lot longer already. But don't worry, we're getting there out west - it's just more lands started to become protected earlier or there wasn't anything there that anyone wanted.
So anyway now you have this huge divide of people in the east. Those you can call eco-nazis, and those you can call greedy fucks. It's a constant battle. The eco-nazis want to save every natural resource they can and the greedy fucks just want to develop it into condos, log it, or mine it. In reality, most real people fall somewhere in the middle... I do. I understand peoples need to use natural resources, and I understand business and the economy, but also understand the desire to keep things as natural as we can and let the forests go back to their natural states (we have very few old growth forests in the east). Of course this all excludes the facts that forests are often naturally wiped clean by fires and storms, but fires from humans aren't kosher, and neither are ones that threaten towns or what the sportsmen want to kill during hunting season. Are you seeing a trend here? Too many people wanting control of too little land...
So we come up with is the sustainable thing. Which basically means we are going to kill a few trees and destroy the natural landscape so people can ski, but only enough so it somewhat resembles a real, virgin forest from a distance. It's the same as hiking trails, bike trails or campsites. They all leave impact, they all show human abuse, but they are generally less egregious than resorts or structures. They still have some natural character. Obviously the best for the forests are to leave them be. Obviously the best for the economy is to build resorts and condos... so it's sort of balance.
You ever see those COEXIST bumper stickers? It's something like that... if you had a rusty Subaru you would understand.
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MikeK
Re: Sustainable BC
I forgot to post this last night. Jacques and Francois have learned a valuable lesson from the beaver 
[video][/video]
[video][/video]
Re: Sustainable BC
I did some natural resource and recreation classes once upon a time, and I remember a lot about the central difference between the eastern lands and the western lands (recreation wise) was that when all the original colonies were created, there was no such thing as public lands, everything was private land and a series of (essentially) easement agreements had been worked out over the centuries as to what constituted trespass, acceptable use of game/fish and other resources. When the USA came about, we canonized the private rights of landowners as Common Law. But when the western lands came under our control, the belonged in their entirety (essentially, exclude documented private holdings) in mass to the federal government. The rules they presented with over their lands is very different from what is entombed in the laws of the East.
In the West, I am assumed to have right of passage across federal lands not otherwise restricted, but no rights to take game without an explicit permit. Or to take commercial amounts of timber, or to make roads etc. In the east, the landowner is allowed to do pretty much what he wanted from the beginning.
Nowadays, you guys have been voting in all manner of restrictions on what a citizen may do with his land, and who has what kinds of expectations as to what you may do on it.
The similar seeming restrictions in the West actually derive from different backgrounds, but are being influenced by the same kind of desires, mainly from politically active Sierra Clubber types... people who live in huge anthills hundreds or thousands of miles from the actual lands they are trying to affect. This has led to a difference between what people in cities expect to see and what is actually going on, but for Gods sake, don't tell them people about the reality. The fantasies they live by are worth HIUGE MONEY to people who like to create such granfalloons for the purpose of power/control and wealth.
So we end up with bullshit like the idea of a "Sustainable" or "Green" ski run.
If you are skidding along three feet above the ground or more, whats not green? You are having less impact than a deer crashing through the same terrain... It all looks pretty funny when filtered through my bullshit filters...
Its like beer goggles for socially compulsive busybodies. It makes them think everything looks good, that they themselves are socially important and that they and their buddies are making a positive difference.
When the reality is very much more ambiguous and less certain. From what I have seen, social engineering almost always achieves poor results and is even so very often counter productive to the original intentions.
I think I am trying to say that I think I would prefer "unsustained" ski runs. Leave the trees and bushes where they are and go around or even through them. If you need to cut them down, then do so, and make no effort to "sustain" the route. If someone in 10 years want the new bushes cut down again, they will worry about that when the time comes. Create or don't create, but make no attempt to "sustain" an artificial structure.
In climbing, we see ten thousand routes created everywhere. But up until about twenty years ago, nobody tried to "sustain" the routes "officially". If someone wanted a route rebolted, they did it or not. If a route went into obscurity, it slowly became reclaimed in a sense to the original wild nature... chalk washes away, the pins fell out, the bolts rusted away. Only the GOOD routes got rebolted, the popular routes. Now Climbers got "ASCA" which is a bunch of do-gooders with a tax writeoff as a charity of some damn sort, a "non-profit" that takes in money and pays it out to certain others\ to go out and rebolt everything with a 1/4 inch drive bolt, much less a simply bad one. this means that anything that ever hit a guidebook is eventually going to get someone wanting to "sustain" the route to preserve their precious first ascent or just to get a sack of free swag and the feeling of do-good importance...
I think I am against "sustainable" Ski runs... and "sustainable" rock climbs for that matter. Given a hundred years, them new bolts and "sustained" ski runs are going to be a hard as hell to "unsustain" by those people (cultures) who no longer ski/climb, want to ski or who ski/climb in totally different ways.
Given how dramatic has been the changes in cultures and equipment in the last 100 years, how can you even WANT to try and make permanent recreational facilities? We do almost nothing the same as 100 years ago, our sports are almost all newer than that... baseball, football, downhill skiing, scuba, almost all bike sports, boat sports and snow sports are NEW sports, NEW ways of having fun.
I think you guys are wasting your time trying to hew permanent features into a flowing, constantly changing cultural matrix of what we consider recreation today, much less for the future. If you want something for todays needs, take it and do it; but make no attempt to make it "sustainable" throughout time. You cannot. You SHOULD not.
Does anybody think it makes Sense to have a fucking SKI MOUNTAIN built in Tokyo? That IS sustainable... but WHY? Skiing in Tokyo is a screaming waste of indoor space, and it cannot be scaled up to match with a doubling population, who would want a shitload of new skiiers living in Tokyo? The cost to benefit ratio is ridiculous low, but they built it anyway. Even if in the future they are going to teat it down or re-purpose it into something else totally. Incredibly inefficient and ultimately stupid misuse of resources... It amde some people HUGE profits, and that is why it was built, not for proper sport.
"sustainable recreation??" I'm obviously confused, eh?
In the West, I am assumed to have right of passage across federal lands not otherwise restricted, but no rights to take game without an explicit permit. Or to take commercial amounts of timber, or to make roads etc. In the east, the landowner is allowed to do pretty much what he wanted from the beginning.
Nowadays, you guys have been voting in all manner of restrictions on what a citizen may do with his land, and who has what kinds of expectations as to what you may do on it.
The similar seeming restrictions in the West actually derive from different backgrounds, but are being influenced by the same kind of desires, mainly from politically active Sierra Clubber types... people who live in huge anthills hundreds or thousands of miles from the actual lands they are trying to affect. This has led to a difference between what people in cities expect to see and what is actually going on, but for Gods sake, don't tell them people about the reality. The fantasies they live by are worth HIUGE MONEY to people who like to create such granfalloons for the purpose of power/control and wealth.
So we end up with bullshit like the idea of a "Sustainable" or "Green" ski run.
If you are skidding along three feet above the ground or more, whats not green? You are having less impact than a deer crashing through the same terrain... It all looks pretty funny when filtered through my bullshit filters...
Its like beer goggles for socially compulsive busybodies. It makes them think everything looks good, that they themselves are socially important and that they and their buddies are making a positive difference.
When the reality is very much more ambiguous and less certain. From what I have seen, social engineering almost always achieves poor results and is even so very often counter productive to the original intentions.
I think I am trying to say that I think I would prefer "unsustained" ski runs. Leave the trees and bushes where they are and go around or even through them. If you need to cut them down, then do so, and make no effort to "sustain" the route. If someone in 10 years want the new bushes cut down again, they will worry about that when the time comes. Create or don't create, but make no attempt to "sustain" an artificial structure.
In climbing, we see ten thousand routes created everywhere. But up until about twenty years ago, nobody tried to "sustain" the routes "officially". If someone wanted a route rebolted, they did it or not. If a route went into obscurity, it slowly became reclaimed in a sense to the original wild nature... chalk washes away, the pins fell out, the bolts rusted away. Only the GOOD routes got rebolted, the popular routes. Now Climbers got "ASCA" which is a bunch of do-gooders with a tax writeoff as a charity of some damn sort, a "non-profit" that takes in money and pays it out to certain others\ to go out and rebolt everything with a 1/4 inch drive bolt, much less a simply bad one. this means that anything that ever hit a guidebook is eventually going to get someone wanting to "sustain" the route to preserve their precious first ascent or just to get a sack of free swag and the feeling of do-good importance...
I think I am against "sustainable" Ski runs... and "sustainable" rock climbs for that matter. Given a hundred years, them new bolts and "sustained" ski runs are going to be a hard as hell to "unsustain" by those people (cultures) who no longer ski/climb, want to ski or who ski/climb in totally different ways.
Given how dramatic has been the changes in cultures and equipment in the last 100 years, how can you even WANT to try and make permanent recreational facilities? We do almost nothing the same as 100 years ago, our sports are almost all newer than that... baseball, football, downhill skiing, scuba, almost all bike sports, boat sports and snow sports are NEW sports, NEW ways of having fun.
I think you guys are wasting your time trying to hew permanent features into a flowing, constantly changing cultural matrix of what we consider recreation today, much less for the future. If you want something for todays needs, take it and do it; but make no attempt to make it "sustainable" throughout time. You cannot. You SHOULD not.
Does anybody think it makes Sense to have a fucking SKI MOUNTAIN built in Tokyo? That IS sustainable... but WHY? Skiing in Tokyo is a screaming waste of indoor space, and it cannot be scaled up to match with a doubling population, who would want a shitload of new skiiers living in Tokyo? The cost to benefit ratio is ridiculous low, but they built it anyway. Even if in the future they are going to teat it down or re-purpose it into something else totally. Incredibly inefficient and ultimately stupid misuse of resources... It amde some people HUGE profits, and that is why it was built, not for proper sport.
"sustainable recreation??" I'm obviously confused, eh?
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MikeK
Re: Sustainable BC
Did you watch the movie about the Beavers?Rokjox wrote: "sustainable recreation??" I'm obviously confused, eh?
Re: Sustainable BC
This is what I think is sustainable. Or is not, according to the future weather.
Mt. Carter, Sawtooths (Idaho)
Sustainable caloric inputs enhanced with vitamin B in preparation. I think thats Mt. Thompson in the background.
Sustainable slope conditions. the way out goes down and left under the slopes you see.
This was sustainable for a while... see the little bump at the bottom of the frame? Somebody didn't quite make it. ...me, I think....
Is this what you call Green?
Mt. Carter, Sawtooths (Idaho)
- Its not what you can do sober that matters.
- ski what you see.
- Oooof. a soft spot and face track with two front flips.
Is this what you call Green?
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MikeK
Re: Sustainable BC
Hey look who's back!
Yeah that's sustainable... you don't have any trees!
Yeah that's sustainable... you don't have any trees!
Re: Sustainable BC
BC needs no trails....Will use logging roads if they exist but cutting trails isn't part of the BC.....Trails belong at ski areas....We hand clip....but that opens up natural openings that might rip you to shreds trying to get there....Thinking Rox has you Mike but will wait and see....TM
Re: Sustainable BC
I can't believe I'm finally saying this, but...Well put TM! Isn't that the point of BC skiing? To get away from the trails and grooming and all the people that those things bring. Not much of a sense of adventure/discovery when there's trails already cut, groomed, and populated!Teleman wrote:BC needs no trails....Will use logging roads if they exist but cutting trails isn't part of the BC.....Trails belong at ski areas....We hand clip....TM