So is anyone here ever excited to get more terrain at a ski area

[rmnpsplitter]

Ski lifts are so juvenile.... I'm holding out until we get a cable car to the top of Chaos Canyon.

Haha ya or an escalator to the summit of longs! Who wants to climb that bitch anyways...

Luckily this will never be an issue in my favorite bc spot cause the NPS would never allow it here. It is strange though cause you go to other major parks and there is lots of development within park boundaries. It seems rmnp has managed to stay away from that and even went as far to remove what was once a great little ski hill for locals. Can't complain much though cause I can get a couple laps in before work and never have to worry about it being too tracked out

[whyturn]

I dont understand your question.
Are you
A A realator
B A basshole
C A skier
D A concerned citizen

generally expansion causes something to be pushed and give into the force of the expanding object. When trapped in a vacuum air tends to, wait, what was your question...........

[Buster Highmen]

Whatever your personal beef is with me, you need to get over it, I dont care. You should know this about me by now.

My question is about the general attitude in expansion threads. A twelve year old knows that each situation is different, but overall I would argue this board is pretty anti-development. This is a thread to discuss it.

As evidenced by the responses in this thread, your supposition is baseless with regard to a majority. So you're 11?

Don't take it personally. There's lots of stupid assholes on this chatbored.

[MakersTeleMark]

Has Buster ever triple posted before? Quite the expansion of your repertoire.

[astralboy15]

Not really an expansion, I guess. But when Mt. Hood Meadows added in the Vista lift it was stupid but it wasn't. It opened zero new terrain but I do feel like it has really thinned out the crowds in/around the Cascade and MHX served areas. Same deal as when they just recently replaced yellow. No new terrain, but it gets everyone out of the MHX area faster and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing.

When they put in all the gates into what is now PR, I think that has thinned people out too. I guess that stuff was "closed" before and it was an "expansion." Maybe it has pissed off some locals, but I haven't spent a full winter there in a while so I don't really know.

I think in some cases opening up boundaries can have the same effect that adding a new lift would.

[brutah]

I'm all for more lift served skiing, so long as it is for exciting terrain and doesn't impact natural habitats like Lynx.

I've always found Lynx habitat impact concerns to be a stupid consideration since Canadian Lynx are mostly NOCTURNAL and may have a range of 300sqmi (40 Vails)!

Cutting and few acres of trees and grooming a few runs doesn't do shit to a Lynx.

almost all human powered winter recreation has negative impacts on lynx.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1....CO;2/abstract

Researchers and managers have hypothesized that coyote (Canis latrans) incursions into deep snow areas, facilitated by packed trails created by snowmobiles, may negatively impact lynx (Lynx canadensis) populations through interference or exploitation competition. In response to this hypothesis, federal agencies have limited snowmobile use within potential lynx habitat. We used aerial track counts and ground tracking to compare coyote activity in deep snow areas with and without snowmobile trails on the Uinta Mountain Range of northeastern Utah, USA, and 3 comparable sites in the Intermountain West to test this hypothesis. Our analysis suggests that snowmobile trail presence is a good predictor of coyote activity in deep snow areas. Over 90% of coyote tracks observed in our study areas associated with a snowmobile trail were within 350 m of the trail. Snow depth and prey density estimates influenced whether a coyote returned to a snowmobile trail. Our results suggest that restrictions placed on snowmobiles in lynx conservation areas by land management agencies because of the potential impacts of coyotes may be appropriate.

^^^here is just one example about how human activity negatively affects Lynx.

but basically any skin track, snow cat track, snowmobile track allows coyotes/wolves access to areas that normally they wouldn't be able to get into in deep snow which decreases prey for the lynx since the cats normally don't compete with the canines in the winter. and in winter when every meal can mean the difference between life or death, missing a meal because a coyote already got to it could be devastating. Lynx may have huge home ranges but traveling those huge distances requires a lot of calories (just like it does for you and me) so increased competition during the winter when resources are already scarce is can result in the death of the animal that got there too late.

just because humans are diurnal and most other mammals are nocturnal does not mean that humans have no affects on other mammals. that's pretty ridiculous reasoning right there.

[summit]

I look at a lot of animal tracks that get put in my skin tracks. Never seen coyote tracks.

As for a ski area, the small critter population booms because there are people dropping food EVERYWHERE from the lifts to the summit lodge. Lynx treats...

But, anyway, a ski area constitutes a truly tiny portion of a lynx's range and a minuscule portion of the mountainous areas overall. I contend that if the building of a ski area expansion leads to a coyote out-competing a lynx, that lynx was going to die anyway. The premise that you argue would say that snowmobilers and skinners have 1000x the impact on Lynx that a ski area does. Better ban leaving the pavement... it's for the kitties.

[Dhelihiker]

It depends on the terrain

[Micol]

I think with lift tickets it opens up another debate about whether mountains are getting to profit hungry in general, as I highly doubt that is just covering costs plus a given margin.

Yes, cause making $3 million a year in bumfuk Colorado is making plenty. Then apply these numbers to your big skier day visit resorts. Greed. These areas exist on public lands.

I want to say that I do not think Davey Pitcher is motivated by profits and greed! THe greed word was intended to describe the publicly traded companies rolling up ski areas and leveraging. I think Pitcher et al have done remarkable things and think from a skier perspective first and foremost.

Wolf Creek
Davey Pitcher is the CEO of an $11 million family business.

"By Colorado standards, this is a modest operation. Vertical relief, from the top of the highest lift to lowermost skiing, is about 1,600 feet, more of a Catskill-size drop than alpine West, where major areas have verticals in the 3,000s and up. On a big day during either of the seasonal peaks—Christmastime and spring break—Wolf Creek sometimes entertains upward of 6,000 skiers and snowboarders, but most days many fewer. Last season's skier days totaled about 198,000, some 10 percent less than the record 223,000 skier days in the 2006–07 season. By comparison, Colorado's mighty Breckenridge Resort once reported 1.63 million skier days in a single season.

But snow isn't the whole story. The Pitchers know just what to do—and not do—with Wolf Creek. The mission, per Pitch: "Selling ski tickets...That's where the money comes from." More than 80 percent of last year's receipts came from skiing. All sub-businesses—restaurants, shops, bar—are not run as profit centers but, as Pitch says, as "amenities to the public."

However, $2.2 million ain't just public amenities. Food cost 20%/80% profit, shop gross profit average 50%. Translates to at least $1,000,000 straight to bottom line profits.

Looking at the 2009–10 season's revenue, which came to just more than $11 million, Davey does more number crunching and comes up with another figure. He begins speaking mournfully about what a marginal business this is. The mood goes with the time of year, six months since last ski season ended—"No money comin' in. But money going out!" Then, having led me through some of the heavy expenditures—payroll ($4 million plus), maintenance ($2 million-ish), the half a million for insurance, $200,000 or so to lease the area's land from the U.S. Forest Service—he figures what is left, to be divided among the seven shareholders in the family-held corporation that owns Wolf Creek. "Ummm, so let me just run a number here for a minute," Davey says, then comes back seeming pleasantly surprised. "It's actually a bit more than 20 percent for this last season."

Not a bad margin for a niche business in serious boondocks that depends on people coming many miles in the wintertime to put boards on their feet and have fun. Davey declines to make broader, comparative claims about Wolf Creek's performance. "I don't know what the industry standard is," he says. "I've only got one business." "

[~mikey b]

I look at a lot of animal tracks that get put in my skin tracks. Never seen coyote tracks.

I've seen coyotes walking in skin tracks and snowmachine tracks at VP. Not tracks - live animals.

[Bromontana]

While I drool over numbers like that, people managing of most areas have a boss telling them to do better. Enter the nonsense..

[Micol]

While I drool over numbers like that, people managing of most areas have a boss telling them to do better. Enter the nonsense..

Agreed on the corp areas. But, just think of driving heavy equipment, flying heli's, skiing sick pow terrain, eating "Salazar" beef burgers and green chili and getting paid $3mil a year. I would venture to say that might be 90% of this community's dream life. maybe 99%

The downside is obviously losing co-workers and guests to accidents.

[powski3]

I've seen coyotes walking in skin tracks and snowmachine tracks at VP. Not tracks - live animals.

One day last year I watched a coyote from the Little Cloud lift go tearing across Regulator Johnson at mach speed and then yard sale tomahawk face shot when he hit the deeper pow under the lift. It was awesome. Then he switched course sprinting directly up the fall line and beat us up the hill. He was getting after it. Didn't get the message about no dogs in the canyon, apparently. Not sure how he felt about expansion though.

[brutah]

I look at a lot of animal tracks that get put in my skin tracks. Never seen coyote tracks.

As for a ski area, the small critter population booms because there are people dropping food EVERYWHERE from the lifts to the summit lodge. Lynx treats...

But, anyway, a ski area constitutes a truly tiny portion of a lynx's range and a minuscule portion of the mountainous areas overall. I contend that if the building of a ski area expansion leads to a coyote out-competing a lynx, that lynx was going to die anyway. The premise that you argue would say that snowmobilers and skinners have 1000x the impact on Lynx that a ski area does. Better ban leaving the pavement... it's for the kitties.

that's illogical. there has been many instances where species A has gone extinct because humans indirectly made it possible for species A to out compete the original species B in that specific niche. secondly, the premise that i was arguing said nothing about the impact of snowmobilers/skinners vs. ski areas, i think ski areas vs. snowmobilers/skinners impact is probably more complicated than i want to get into here. and don't worry wildlife biologists ARE conducting research that will probably lead to the closure of specific areas in the winter to help save lynx and bobcats. especially in your neck of the woods.

furthermore, you should brush up on your animal track id if you've NEVER seen coyote tracks in a skin track. I have spent plenty of time skiing in colorado, coyotes are there, i've seen them and their tracks in the winter. Even saw fresh scat when I was up at a hut this past april in the vail pass recreation area at around 11000 feet. of course there was no deep snow at 11000' in april where we were and the coyote could have hiked all the way up on dirt.

in the bigger picture, lynx are probably fucked like the rest of us. climate change isn't going to be nice to any winter specialist. might as kill yourself now, less humans on this planet would probably help things out the most

but let's not let this thread drift too much, we're talking about ski area expansion not the third greatest extinction earth has seen.

p.s. I'd like to see research that says ski areas increase the small critter population. sheer numbers might increase but i bet diversity decreases greatly. and biodiversity is what makes the world go round.

[tommyvee]

I've always found Lynx habitat impact concerns to be a stupid consideration since Canadian Lynx are mostly NOCTURNAL and may have a range of 300sqmi (40 Vails)!
Cutting and few acres of trees and grooming a few runs doesn't do shit to a Lynx.

Agreed, but what does matter to a far-ranging, low population density species like lynx is habitat connectivity, and Colorado does pretty poorly on that measure. Although DOW has measured lots of lynx movement across I-70, clearly I-70 makes a formidable barrier for north-south travel, pretty much a night-and-day killing zone. So ski area expansions that drive more road travel definitely impact the lynx. And real estate expansions that cut off travel corridors eliminate habitat connectivity too.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/SiteColl...inColorado.pdf

Interstate 70 (I-70) bisects Colorado and contains some of the most heavily traveled segments of highway in the state. As such, it may impede Canada lynx (Lynx Canadensis) movements between the Mosquito Range of central Colorado and the Front Range in the northern part of the state. Identifying where lynx have successfully crossed I-70 will inform decision makers tasked with siting overpasses/underpasses for wildlife use, managing adjacent lands for lynx and other wildlife, and reviewing projects that may impact corridors of movement

Canada has done a whole lot of work with wildlife bridges and crossings, but Colorado has done next to nothing. So people who are concerned with threatened species in Colorado would do well to focus their efforts on safe road crossings, instead of fighting for the few acres of forest that might be impacted by a ski area expansion. Ski area real estate clearly has a much bigger habitat impact than expanding runs, but there is some connection between the two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing

Habitat fragmentation occurs when human-made barriers such as roads, railroads, canals, electric power lines, and pipelines penetrate and divide wildlife habitat (Primack 2006). Of these, roads have the most widespread and detrimental impacts (Spellerberg 1998). Scientists estimate that the system of roads in the United States impacts the ecology of at least one-fifth of the land area of the country (Forman 2000). For many years ecologists and conservationists have documented the adverse relationship between roads and wildlife. Jaeger et al. (2005) identify four ways that roads and traffic detrimentally impact wildlife populations: (1) they decrease habitat amount and quality, (2) they increase mortality due to wildlife-vehicle collisions (road kill), (3) they prevent access to resources on the other side of the road, and (4) they subdivide wildlife populations into smaller and more vulnerable sub-populations (fragmentation). Habitat fragmentation can lead to extinction or exterpation if a population's gene pool is restricted enough.

The first three impacts (loss of habitat, road kill, and isolation from resources) exert pressure on various animal populations by reducing available resources and directly killing individuals in a population. For instance, Bennett (1991) found that road kills do not pose a significant threat to healthy populations but can be devastating to small, shrinking, or threatened populations. Road mortality has significantly impacted a number of prominent species in the United States, including white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), Florida panthers (Puma concolor coryi), and black bears (Ursus americanus) (Clevenger et al. 2001). In addition, habitat loss can be direct, if habitat is destroyed to make room for a road, or indirect, if habitat quality close to roads is compromised due to emissions from the roads (e.g. noise, light, runoff, pollution, etc.) (Jaeger et al. 2005). Finally, species that are unable to migrate across roads to reach resources such as food, shelter and mates will experience reduced reproductive and survival rates, which can compromise population viability (Noss et al., 1996).

In addition to the first three factors, numerous studies have shown that the construction and use of roads is a direct source of habitat fragmentation (Spellerberg 1998). As mentioned above, populations surrounded by roads are less likely to receive immigrants from other habitats and as a result, they suffer from a lack of genetic diversity. These small populations are particularly vulnerable to extinction due to demographic, genetic, and environmental stochasticity because they do not contain enough alleles to adapt to new selective pressures such as changes in temperature, habitat, and food availability (Primack 2006).

The relationship between roads and habitat fragmentation is well documented. One study found that roads contribute more to fragmentation in forest habitats than clear cuts (Reed et al. 1996). Another study concluded that road fragmentation of formerly contiguous forest in eastern North America is the primary cause for the decline of forest bird species and has also significantly harmed small mammals, insects, and reptiles in the United States (Spellerberg 1998). After years of research, biologists agree that roads and traffic lead to habitat fragmentation, isolation and road kill, all of which combine to significantly compromise the viability of wildlife populations throughout the world.

As opposed to straw-men, actual flesh-and-blood humans tend to make case-by-case decisions on expansions. Personally I am fine with most of Eldora's expansion, happy with the growth of areas like Silverton, but feel that Vail/Breck are big enough already, and the consensus among my friends is similar. I have never met the person who opposes all ski area expansions anywhere, anytime although such a person may exist.

[Bromontana]

I have never met the person who opposes all ski area expansions anywhere, anytime although such a person may exist.

tongue in cheek. If it offends you I'll delete.