SnowNews

Overcrowding on the ski slopes

"The ski slope are like an anthill", complains Californian lawyer Tim Sanford who has been skiing for more than twenty years. "I go skiing to relax", he continues "and to me it's not relaxing to constantly feel like I'm moments away from being creamed by somebody." The problem is a mixture of low-cost season passes, faster lifts with no lift queues but lots more people skiing and the wider lines taken by carvers and snowboarders. The resorts see the solution in expansion but as Ed Ryberg, a Forest Service winter sports specialist for the Rocky Mountain region, explains, "The difficulty of expanding a ski area is that the process is detailed and provides for a lot of public input. You also have (local governments) with jurisdiction, and addressing their issues can be quite time-consuming.". It is certainly a problem Europe's crowded resorts have run into with the small resorts around the Mont Blanc valley recently abandoning their link-up.



TOUGH Crowd

posted by davidof @ 11:07 AM