At Deer Valley Stein Eriksen broke ribs, wrist, and collarbone when he collided with a small boy…and Stein had been skiing for 75 years! Some of the injured or killed wore crash helmets, some did not. The primary reason for the deaths, however, is severe overcrowding on Forest Service land leased to ski areas.

The first year Vail opened in the early 1960s, I was filming there and one of the days Vail sold only eight lift tickets. The skiers could use any or all of the acres on Vail’s Forest Service Permit. The Permit charges the ski area a complicated percentage of every lift ticket sold. The Forest Service uses the money to maintain the rest of what it does for a living.

On that same Vail/Forest Service permit last winter, as many as 26,000 people were trying to keep from running into each other on a busy weekend day, but many of them were unsuccessful. On such a day, over 20,000 people skied at Aspen, another 20.000 at Breckenridge, 23,000 at Keystone, and there was a giant crowd at Copper and Arapahoe Basin. Probably over 100,000 people were out there trying to avoid each other. They were on perfectly groomed snow with easy-to-ski-on shaped skis and high performance ski boots. And many of them spent their day trying to get back in line at the bottom sooner than someone else.

Then there were over 50,000 cars heading back to Denver in the evening for the seven-hour, 115-mile trip. Overall, there is something wrong with this picture.

You are Part of a Possible Solution
I have a couple of friends who bought a lot of real estate before the recent bust and they are now bankrupt and trying to sell some of their real estate. At this point in history the federal government is also bankrupt so why doesn’t the government sell or lease some of its real estate to ski resorts? One reason, of course, is that there would be a big hew and cry from the Sierra Club and legions of tree huggers who hide and wait for something to shout about. The Sierra Club is not a tax deductible, do-good foundation but a sophisticated corporation that works hard at keeping you from having more acres on which to make your turns when you go to the mountains in the winter. And I have heard rumors that the CEO of the Sierra Club is paid over $500,000 a year plus a Smokey-the-Bear costume to wear at the Club’s annual, fund-raising, Halloween party.

What can you do to get more legal, ski-able acres so you don’t have to break the law all of the time by skiing in powder snow, out of bounds? Here is where to start:
1. First make friends with your local Forest Service people. Find out who favors having the Forest Service earn more money by enlarging ski resorts.
2. Take pictures of some of the existing ski runs this summer. Get shots showing a lot of grass growing and no debris. Let the pictures show what is mostly the case: Clean runs with good land for grazing sheep or cattle or riding mountain bikes.

3. Form some letter-writing committees and tell it like it really is over the next year—-summer and winter. Write to your elected officials and newspaper editors. Think what it would be like if you could simply ski from Vail to Copper Mountain or Beaver Creek. What if you could ski from Mammoth to June Mountain! Why can’t you? The only reason you can’t is that winter sports people have never spent evenings in meetings and burnt midnight oil writing letters that speak out forcefully.
4. Locate one or two local or regional politicians and get them a pair of skis and a season pass for next winter at your favorite resort. Take them out and give them ski lessons so they can find out what real freedom is all about. Keep in mind that the government owns millions and millions of acres of mountains in the west and all you and I need is a small percentage more of that land for skiing and boarding.

Remember this: Every time you ski down a hill you experience a psychological purge of any negative thoughts. It’s impossible to have a single negative thought while you are making turns down the side of a mountain. It doesn’t matter whether you are skiing or riding, the only thing is you and the mountain working together.

So get to work. The next twenty years of ski resort expansion is in your hands. If you get started this summer, seventeen or more people might not die skiing or snowboarding in Colorado next winter.


Editor’s Note: This is one in a Tahoetopia series written by Warren Miller, legendary ski cinematographer. For other columns by Warren, see the Warren Miller section of tahoetopia.com.