Alta Ranks Among Top in Environment

by Erik Olsen on

Here’s yet another reason to love one of my favorite ski areas in the West: Alta.

According to a new report out from Colorado Wild, an environmental group based in Durango, CO, the resort ranks among the top ski areas in the West in how they manage the environment around the ski area. This is not so big a surprise to those who know and have skied Alta, which limits the number of skiers who can come on a given day and is generally off-limits to snowboarders (not that I have anything against MOST snowboarders).

The Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition report rates 77 Western ski areas on a matrix of environmental policies, such as preservation of undeveloped areas, so-called ”green building” practices and energy and water use. Sundance (Robert Redford’s area) and Alta resorts were ranked in the Top 10, but Idaho’s Sun Valley received a D on the report card, notching 45.5 points on a 100-point scale. Deedle deedle deedle. The fact is, lots of ski areas these days are overbuilding and over-developing. Have you been to Mammoth lately? It’s becoming fricken Disneyland. (they get a “C” in the report). These are important issues, and it’s wise to bring them into the public view lest our mountains become polluted, over-built amusement parks.

Geotourism

by Erik Olsen on

New fads and trends in travel come and go, but one that I kind of hope sticks around awhile is something called Geotourism. The term was introduced (or partly so) in 2001 by the magazine National Geographic Traveler and basically is a type of tourism that (taking a breath) sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place-its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents. (whew).

What this basically means is that when you travel, you need to invest yourself in the place a little bit, you need to visit with an attitude of protection and preservation….in other words, don’t go looking for a Taco Bell, don’t buy all the cheesy tourist crap you can find and by all means don’t lambaste the locals for NOT taking American dollars.

The site says that Geotoursim has taken off…even through there are just three countries so far who have signed the so called Geotourism Charter, the document that lists principles for good destination stewardship and enriching travel experiences. And it’s a rather odd assortment of countries at that: Norway, Honduras, and Romania. But as I said, it’s a great concept in theory, and now lets see all travelers try to live up to it.

Flying Green

by Iva Skoch on

It’s been on my mind lately. How much harm are we doing to the environment, flying around in fuel-guzzling jumbo jets? Being a large city dweller, I haven’t owned a car for years. However, I’ll jet around any chance I get.

On a per-passenger basis, flying is still less damaging than driving. (Here’s a nifty carbon calculator to see how much CO2 your next flight will generate.) However, airplanes do burn a lot of fuel and generally push pollutants up higher in the atmosphere than cars (the effects of which are being debated).

Fortunately, there is some hope for the guilty-minded. Some companies are offering the ability to pay for carbon-sequestering, sometimes by paying to have trees planted to offset carbon emissions, including Myclimate.org and TerraPass. Information about these programs is available on the web, including recent articles in the NY Times and Wired, and MyClimate’s site carbonoffsets.org.

Expedia, apparently, now offers to sell you offsets directly, charging $5.99 per 1,000 pounds of CO2, or about the amount from a 2,200 mile flight.

Spain’s Shrinking Beaches

by Neil Woodburn on

Looking at buying some beachfront property in Spain?

According to a recent report from Spain’s Ministry of the Environment, such a purchase would be a rather poor investment. Sure, you can enjoy it for summer vacations for perhaps the rest of your life, but if you want to pass it on to your children, it might not exist anymore.

The report claims that Spain’s beaches will shrink an average of 50 feet by 2050 thanks to global warming. As water levels rise, and stronger weather conditions swallow up the coast, entire beaches will eventually disappear. Beachfront holiday homes and resort hotels will be inundated with water and investments will float away.

You know what this means? Smart investors should buy cheaper properties a little further inland because those are the ones that will be beachfront in 45 years.

See? There is a bright side to global warming after all.

The Salton Sea’s Troubles

by Erik Olsen on

So sad the Salton Sea. It severely sucks to see the saline spot suffer so.

I was rooting around the Outside archives like a hungry pig and dug up this goodie from the writer William T. Vollmann. You know Vollmann. He just penned a seven-volume treatise on violence called Rising Up and Rising Down that will be read in schools someday (if it isn’t already). The New Yorker also called him one of the twenty best writers in America under forty.

So you can expect some expert word-smithing when you read this piece on the tragedy of the Salton Sea in California. It is superbly written, and not only shows off Vollmann’s skills as a writer, but makes you a bit sick to your stomach in general at the state of the sea itself. It ain’t pretty.

So maybe this shouldn’t be the first thing you read this morning. Perhaps, then, you should bookmark it for later. Go have a smoothie or something first.