Ski resorts work together to build better eco practices, keep slopes sustainable
You don't usually see ski resorts working together, usually, their main goal is to usher skiers and riders to their resort, and hope you don't notice the others. On Wednesday, that sense of rivalry was put aside for something bigger than all of them; keeping Colorado skiing sustainable for years to come.
At the 2023 Ski Conservation Summit (hosted by Copper Mountain), representatives from multiple different mountain agencies got lumped together in a room to talk about best practices, new ideas, and fresh projects they've jumped into to help make skiing a more eco-friendly business.
The list of organizations that came together Wednesday includes:
· Colorado Ski Country USA
· Breckenridge/Keystone
· POWDR Corporation
· Echo Mountain
· Arapahoe Basin
· Sunlight Mountain Resort
· Southwestern University Students + Dr. Jennie DeMarco
· Colorado State University Graduate Student
· U.S. Forest Service – Regional Office + White River National Forest + Dillon Ranger District
· Eldora Mountain
· Copper Mountain – Play Forever Sustainability Team
· Friends of the Dillon Ranger District
· Summit County Safe Passages
· Denver Zoo
· Walden Hyde
· Representative from Congressman Joe Neguse's Office
· EcoMetrics
· Peak Ecological
All of this comes at a special challenge, according to Mike Nathan, Sustainability Manager at Arapahoe Bassin.
"The steepness and gradient of the rocky soil makes erosion very very significant," Nathan said. "So if you had no best practices in place at all, if we didn't work closely with the forest service and all their specialists to identify areas of concern and even suggest best management practices to address 'em, yeah, you could royally screw a place up."
"When most of these ski areas were built, there wasn't this kind of ethic."
Now, each mountain is pooling its ideas to help protect the earth in the age of climate change. Jeff Grasser, the Sustainability Manager at Copper Mountain, said they're working on getting vegetation to hold season after season for two reasons; help stop erosion of the hills, and help absorb excess carbon. They're using a mixture of 27 different wildflower and grass species to try and get something to stick, but it's hard when half the year there is snow on the hill, and then also people skiing on top of that.
"Because of the continued disturbance of skiing, those ecosystems don't take the next step," Grasser said. "That's where our biodiversity comes in."
Meanwhile, at Eldora, Hunter Wright, Director of Sustainability said the resort has worked to replace wetlands they needed to remove for construction, trying to mitigate the kind of damage that comes with doing business.
"I think any business that has impacts on the environment, it is their responsibility to make sure that they have the least impact possible," Wright said.
