Colorado Ski Resorts Begin Race To Open First This Season

First Tracks:

Arapahoe Basin, CO - A day after fellow annual competitor in the race to open first, Loveland Ski Area, began snowmaking in Colorado amidst an early season snowstorm, nearby Arapahoe Basin fired up its snowguns in anticipation of the ski season ahead.

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Comments

[wadenelson1]

The carbon footprint of the ski areas is enormous.

It's essentially a nuclear arms race. Whoever opens first makes a lot of profit.

Instead of waiting until after Halloween, when Mother Nature will provide all the snow they could possibly need, instead they manufacture snow.

It requires an ENORMOUS expenditure of energy to compress air and pump water up the sides of mountains in order to make snow.

It ought to be outlawed. Shift the season from October-March to December-April, and EVERYONE would be a winner, including the ski areas themselves, who would make a GREATER profit by saving all the expense.

Right now, by April, everyone's sick of skiing and the resorts close weeks before they run out of excellent snow.

But greed once again strikes, and as long as individual resorts are allowed to open earlier, the faster buck comes to the one who does so.