Shoulder Season 1: It’s soon time to hike
Ski season isn’t over, but the end is nigh. (Seasonally, of course. Also, existentially. If the world gets another few bad winters, the ski resort economy in some countries will be in serious trouble. Doubt us? Check this collection of abandoned lifts and dirt slopes.) So it’s time to think ahead. To hiking. Or at...
Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast
Apologies if you woke up this morning and hoped for a day in which you didn’t feel lame. Because this isn’t going to help: Klaus Obermeyer just turned 100, and he has been celebrating the way a ski legend should, with a daily half-mile swim, long stints in the gym and, of course, skiing. Warned...
The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets
Age gives one a good, heavy rind. A durable crust that preserves the psyche and reduces the faint sting of left-handed compliments and micro-aggressions. Pride is still there, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that you do have limits. And failures. But still, repeated slights—no matter how subtle—get under the husk from time to time....
Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change
Yes, climate change is an existential threat to the planet, so you can’t really belabor the point. Yet, there are other things going on in the world. Since we’ve mentioned climate a number of times in the past month (including our last post), it’s probably time to move on. But we aren’t done just yet,...
When obsessions collide: Pensions, skiing and climate change
This will be of limited utility but we find it difficult to ignore a set of stories that tickle three—count ‘em—three of our current preoccupations. To begin: workers in France are in a major state of whip-up-idness over proposed changes to their pension system. Pensions…for younger American readers who don’t work for the government…were a...
Vail Speaks! Vail Speaks! (And More About Crowds)
On Wednesday, we complained about the poor communication from Vail Mountain concerning last weekend’s hideous lift lines; shortly thereafter, we got a statement from Beth Howard, the resort’s chief operating officer. It was too long a’coming but it did cover the bases: we’re sorry; here’s what happened; not our fault; safety first; we’ll try to...
Ski Passes Suck But Also Don’t
Let’s begin by noting what was all over the news in recent days: the lift lines at Vail were appalling last weekend. Does it feel a little good to see a horde of wealth-signaling skiers at America’s most wealth-signaling resort being forced to line up like refugees fleeing a war zone? No, no, it shouldn’t....
A mid-season reminder that (some) seniors ski free (or cheap) in (some) places
Ski resorts are expensive to operate. Leases, insurance, lift maintenance, lift-operator maintenance, those groomers high up on the mountain with their lonely headlights casting shadows across steep runs as you stumble back from dinner and drinks. When you factor in all that’s required to keep everyone safe and happy, those shockingly dear lift tickets are...
Every ski hill is Disney-fied
Most ski villages—that space at the base as you approach the lifts—can be divided into three starkly different subgroups: places that look like a municipal building with swanky pretensions, places that look like they were a sleepy town before skiing boomed, and places that look like they were dropped in whole by crane over a...
Time to Upgrade?
If you’ve been going outdoors over the past few decades—whether once a season or once a week—there’s a good chance you’ve already got the gear you need. And some extra stuff you picked up at garage and clearance sales. Maybe, with the advance of years, you decided to upgrade your sleeping pad to something a...
Indoor Kids: A Contrarian Opinion
Fast on the heels of our last dispirited post—on the reported decrease in the number of Americans willing to venture outdoors, leaving behind the comforts of fridge, recliner and screen—came two stories that provide an interesting nuance to the discussion. And maybe a reinterpretation. The first, from Colorado Public Radio, documents the strain placed on...
We are all the indoor kids
How did it happen that we—a once proud people, with our hands in the loam and our heads in the clouds—have devolved into a herd of shuffling, hunched wisps of digital consumerism? Why did we cast aside our inheritance—some of the most shockingly beautiful natural landscapes on the planet—to become grotesque, tech-necked screen addicts? Apologies,...
