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By Dan Davis www.trekkerphoto.com
Headline RSS FeedVote to save our stashes: Liberal ski-blogging scum for Obama
November 3, 2008 —
A rain squall with high winds passed through Vail last night and a quick glance at the tantalizingly chilly 10-day forecast has shifted my thinking from politics to powder.
While the rest of the nation (or at least the political geeks still locked into the 24-hour news cycle) are obsessing over polling numbers, catching interactive electoral map fever, I’m increasingly surfing over to the Weather Channel and weather.com.
Obama is now leading in Colorado by five points, but we could get up to five inches of new snow Election Day evening into Wednesday. You can tell by the stories on this site that I favor Colorado going blue again, but I’d be even more psyched for it to go white.
Just say no to red. It’s a hot color, and skiers hate heat, unless it’s toward the end of the season and we’re looking for corn snow under a sizzling cobalt sky. Blue is cool, and a color increasingly symbolizing an environmental and energy-policy stance more in line with our sport.
It’s harder for me every year as a lifelong skier to ignore studies showing our sport may not exist as we know it in 50 years, or to ignore my own observations from spending nearly 30 years of my life in colder more mountainous climates that are steadily getting warmer.
Last week was classic Colorado Indian summer. Highs in the 60s and low 70s; perfect biking weather. But we live here for the cold and the snow and charging down the mountain at high rates of speed while sliding on that snow. Not for balmy mountain breezes in November.
Even though oil and gas money built a lot of Colorado’s resorts and Texas skiers have long been Centennial State staples, the fact is even a lot of Republicans (and oilmen like T. Boone Pickens) are admitting renewable energy is the future.
So why is there still such a vigorous debate about defiling our public lands to tap America’s measly 3 percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves when we consume 25 percent and clearly need to be subsidizing alternatives to the same tune oil and gas has enjoyed for the last century?
I’m fascinated by the inherent conflict presented by the current natural-gas boom on Colorado’s Western Slope (see my story in Real News). The very tourism and outdoor recreation industry that brought so many of us here is threatened by the boom, but we seem to be proceeding as if they can coexist right next to each other for decades to come. There will be a breaking point.
I know jobs in our industry don’t pay nearly as well and that in some ways the real estate development industry skiing spawned in the 80s and 90s is arguably more harmful to mountain ecosystems than oil and gas, but at least skiing is seeing the green light, promoting alternative energy and green building practices.
Oil and gas is in it for the short haul, gone the moment the gas is and leaving mountain communities reeling when market prices fluctuate (look up the day the oil shale died on the Western Slope in 1982).
Skiers and people who love the mountain lifestyle are in it for the long haul (or at least until their knees give out).
5 Comments on "Vote to save our stashes: Liberal ski-blogging scum for Obama"
Mike Michaelson — November 3, 2008
I, too, want face shots. No, not THAT kind.
Mike Everts — November 3, 2008
Your point about global warming is well taken. I'm a life long skier too, born in Park City. But your belief in an Anthropological cause to the warming is misfounded. The oil & gas industry is not the cause of global warming and removing them and the energy they produce and the jobs they provide is not going to save your ski slopes. Alternative energy sources are great but they are not the end all. Mr. Pickens plan would not remove the need for natural gas production but shift it to other uses so you'll still need drilling on the western slope. I disagree with your premise that the ski industry and the natural gas industry can't co-exist. They can and they must. After a nice cold day on the slopes isn't it nice to warm up in the natural gas heated lodge or condo?
David O. Williams — November 3, 2008
Mike, don't get me wrong, I realize we can't just shut down natural-gas drilling overnight, and really, it's one of the cleanest-burning power sources. But the new drilling regs that are more environmentally friendly and a higher severance tax rate to get them to pay a greater share of infrastructure costs are not onerous and will not chase them out of the state. Meanwhile, let's pass some of those tax breaks on to renewable and truly green energy production like wind, solar and biomass. Years of warm winters have given us a mostly dead lodgepole pine forest we need to now utilize. European resorts are way ahead of us in this area. I know Dems have been part of the problem for decades, but they now seem to be providing more than just lip service on alternative energy and global warming.
Powder Predictor — November 3, 2008
Dave, have you learned nothing from my blogs. Weather.com is our grandmothers web site. And as we all know the Weather Channel is all we have on cable, however, there are many websites that give better and more local forecasts for our area. First, noaa.gov is a staple for me when I do my forecast. Clear and to to the point. Another favorite is the forecast at snowforecast.com. These guys give detailed forecasts for almost every resort in the west and a few in the East. And finally, my favorite is www.wunderground.com. Weather Underground is a site used by most transportation affiliates including the FAA. With web cams and weather station info, a fee of $10 per year will give you all access to any personal weather station in the country. Which leads me to my point for all visitors to Realvail.com. Soon we will have a link to my weather station in Edwards. Giving everyone one-click access to temps, wind, dew points, and pressure as near possible to Vail and Beaver Creek. Stay tuned. P.S. I'm just bustin' your chops Dave, can't wait to see you on the hill.
Reid
David O. — November 3, 2008
Ah Reid, my chops stand busted. Clearly I've been spending too much time on the political blogs and leaving my weather obsession unattended. Thanks for schooling me in the ways of the veteran front watcher. Can't wait to check out your Edwards weather station and see how much it differs from my West Vail deck cam. You guys tend to be a little toastier down there in skiburbia. Thanks for the knowledge. Blog on.
