The Mountain Town is Dying

Interesting post from theinertia.com.  Worth reading.

http://www.theinertia.com/mountain/shred-statement-the-mountain-town-is-dying-and-whistler-is-exhibit-a/

Well, hmmm. Where to start.

Funny that he says that whistler, of all places, should get more terrain before a water slide or two. The place is immense. How much bigger could it get? Does he think high speed quads and gondolas grow on trees? More, more, more. Me, me, me.

Love to know this persons story. What financial comforts or non comforts he grew up with and is now living with. He spent twelve years in Whistler. I am always curious as to how most anybody can spend so much of their lives as young people, well, just skiing. There are those that work a lot, and those that don't work at all.

But, if he really wants to get to the bottom line as to why "ski towns" are dying or dead In some cases, look no further than income inequality, worldwide. There's your problem. There are too many wealthy people who need trophy homes to fill a niche in their portfolio, and too little land and housing around the worlds ski areas to accommodate both them and the middle classes. So, the value of mountain real estate just goes to the moon, and now has destroyed the very fabric of any sense of community in these places. Nobody approaching normal (and that's actually pretty comfortable in America. If you ski a lot, or even live in a "ski town", you're doing well) can afford to live in these places, and large swaths of them are ghost towns filled with million dollar homes, because the owners are only there two weeks a year, and then off to one of their three other homes around the world. A home built by public and private interests in "affordable housing" developments in Summit County, Co., goes for about 400,000 and up. Yup, 400,000 is now the ski town equivilant of section 8.
I thought that the real estate crash would mean the end of this absurd pricing in ski towns, but, no, as we have seen, the rich have gotten much richer since then, and are raping any sense of community everywhere for ski bums. First world problem, if there ever was one. That's why I wonder where this writer came from. If he's some trust funder, even a low level trust funder, living off an income that doesn't require work, well, screw him. It's that kind of money that is destroying it for the mortals. Get a real job.

I can't speak to the author's background, I happened on this and I thought it was worth sharing.  My thing is, does a ski resort really need a water park? I think not.

Income inequality, you hit the nail on the head.  Years ago a friend moved to Whistler and worked as a snowboard instructor.  A person who came within a hairsbreadth of making Canada's 1998 Olympic snowboarding team.  Tended bar on the side.  Two jobs and she lived hand to mouth.  She was basically sleeping under a house foundation, outdoors.

People are buying trophy houses because resorts are seeing more profit potential selling real estate than from lift tickets etc. Not a pretty picture.

Peter Minde wrote

People are buying trophy houses because resorts are seeing more profit potential selling real estate than from lift tickets etc. Not a pretty picture.

I don't see this as anything new. Killington & Vail & Snowbird were built on this premise. It started as the whole timeshare & condo thing, these were tailored to the upper middle class. You sell a timeshare for what turns out to be a fortune per unit (take the sum of the sale of all 50 weeks and the price was astronomical) or a Condo where you build them like crap and then don't show the real cost of maintenance to redo the whole thing a few years in the future when the developer is long gone and the place is falling apart. Build'em cheap, don't pay your subcontractors, sell them fast and bankrupt the business and walk away with a boat load of cash - the American dream. Most of that cash has been farmed out and the middle class can no longer afford to pay for one house let alone two and the smarter ones have seen what the end result is anyway. So know all you have left is to sell a life style through the coffee table magazines and suck in the 1%ers and let the resort staff sleep under a foundation somewhere or drive 50 miles a day to work.

I think that you can't consider villages built around a ski area to really be considered a mountain town.  LP, Stowe, Steamboat are towns with a personality and a soul.  Killington, Stratton, Vail are just lodging and real estate developments purpose built to make money off a ski area.  I used to own a cabin in Killington and used it some in the summer when it's was like a ghost  town.  Killington has no soul it's just about money.

I never thought of Snowbird as a big real estate ski area, there isn't much there in the canyon. Did they develop real estate in Sandy near the mouth of LCC?

I sure wouldn't consider those places you mentioned mountain towns either. I think the point of the article is that even the soulful true mountain towns are just unlivable for regular people so maybe that makes them less real or dying as the author suggested.

I agree it's not something new but it is getting worse. Maybe the title and theme should have been that the ski bum is dying?

Coach Z wrote

I think that you can't consider villages built around a ski area to really be considered a mountain town.  LP, Stowe, Steamboat are towns with a personality and a soul.  Killington, Stratton, Vail are just lodging and real estate developments purpose built to make money off a ski area.  I used to own a cabin in Killington and used it some in the summer when it's was like a ghost  town.  Killington has no soul it's just about money.

Stowe a mountain town with personality and soul? *barf* You are saying Killington is all about the money but not Stowe? Really? Good grief, the town of Stowe is not a place I associate with personality and soul. But everyone views those qualities different. At least with Killington, there is no pretense: K is the Beast, go to K to have a good time and ski. Go to Stowe to spend money.

I think the notion of a "mountain town" in general is dubious. Faux on mountain "villages" have always been awful. But I don't really associate any town as contributing to a ski area's draw or character. Towns are just things that slow me down in getting to the mountain. I guess those that overnight and care about off mountain things to do and see may feel differently. I just don't see those things as anything other than things to work around and avoid. Perhaps a difference between someone destination tripping and overnighting versus day tripping that lives in the mountains.

What is a mountain town?  I guess we all know what mountains are, so it rests on "what is a town?"

There doesn't seem to be a town center at Killington.

Stowe looks more like a town physically. Stowe is great to ski, but the town drives me nuts. If you ski to the end of the day on a weekend and you are staying somewhere affordable you're in a big traffic jam. At least it used to be that way last time I was there.

I like North Creek :)

This article is about living in mountain towns and the culture of that, not about being a weekend warrior from the suburbs.

Others have said it before but I can attest to the truth that it's been a long time since the employees could live anywhere near the resort, at least in anything like comfort. My first season, at Alpine during the 95/96 season, I lived way up in Truckee. Great town but nowhere near the hill. When I worked at Killington, I started the season renting a room in a defunct hotel, located under a shitty bar ON THE ACCESS ROAD.  The place was a dump, I had to share a fridge and kitchenette with total strangers and often didn't have hot water. As bad as it was, I was happy because I was  ON THE ACCESS ROAD and had a BAR upstairs. What could be better? Before too long, I came home to find a big "condemned" sticker on the door, warning me that it was illegal to even go inside to get my stuff. So I found another snow maker with an empty bedroom and moved in with him, all the way over in Lake Bomoseen, a 40 minute drive. Eventually I had to evacuate that place on short notice too but that's another story.

Peter Minde wrote

I can't speak to the author's background

I like this guy's job title: "Writer/Photographer/Stoke Ambassador"  I'd like to go back to school and get a PhD in Stoke.

I think the Whistler situation arises in towns that are completely defined by their ski area.  Unfortunately, I think this tends to be the majority of small towns with ski areas, but not all.  Take for example Mount Bachelor.... Many people in my region consider Bend OR to be a "mountain town."  I've been there a few times, and it looks to be thriving.  The ski area is about 20 minutes from the Western edge of town.  There is plenty of wealth in the Bend area, but there are also lots of dirt-bags living paycheck to paycheck in the name of riding snow every day.  There are no real-estate developments within 20 minutes of the ski area... as soon a you hit the access road, you are in the national forest, therefore development around the ski area is strictly regulated by the USFS.  Bend is pretty big, so there are many other jobs in addition to those in the outdoor recreation space.  

My town is similar with the exception that our ski area is more of a community facility as opposed to a destination resort like that of Mt Bachelor.  Acreage wise, Mission ridge has the potential to become a destination area, but many in my community have fought against this type of development.  800 acres was purchased last year for "potential village development."  The local wagons are circling in an effort to fight this type of development.  Currently, you can live comfortably in Wenatchee without a career job, and get your season pass at Mission for $299 (the 18-24 yr old price).  The cost of living on the East side of the Cascades is one of lowest in the country.  Hopefully it stays this way for the long-term.   Downsides: brutal valley heat along with wild fire danger in foothills during the summer.

With Stowe im not talking about access road tbut the valley itself.  I know poeple that live in the area from Waterbury thru to Morrisville.  It's a nice place to live with a good deal going on round round.

sounds like that author of the piece use to be a ski bum and went back to try to relive it.  You can't go back.

Coach Z wrote

sounds like that author of the piece use to be a ski bum and went back to try to relive it.  You can't go back.

He sounds like a high school Harry.

"The older you get, the better you were", etc.

Almost laughably ironic....he longs for the good ol' days of the WSSF before corporate greed and priorities took over.....yet misses the point that all that he highlights about the years ago WSSF was in fact corporate-driven. Whatever, dude.

And is the corporatization of a mountain community really a bad thing in the long run? Can't say I like it personally, but if one impact of Whistler going too commercial is that it ultimately drives folks to another area (like Revelstoke) that eventually flourishes....that's a bad thing? Would some of these "up and coming" mountains even exist if it weren't for the migration of incubating dirtbag skiers setting up shop in those towns?

Anyhoo....still loving our time in NC. Not up as often during spring as I was in winter, but was cool to have 4 neighbors that I barely know stop and chat this weekend....A welcoming community is not easily replicated.

I agree with Benny here. Must have been nice to live in Whister for 12 years, then come back and complain (not that he didn't make good points about the WSSF - I was kind of disappointed last year when I expected a huge party). Also agree about the inequality stuff.

I think it's true that if you're looking for "soul", you're not going to find it at resorts that non-skiers have heard of. Benny is right that they are just another place for rich people to keep their money. Property taxes in these towns should go up exponentially with square footage so that people stop building these monstrosities that I ski by at Deer Valley, Telluride, etc.

Yeah, I think the best idea is to go to a lesser known mountain and establish a good thing there. Someone had a good post in the TGR forum about it last year:

All these "cool" little mountain towns are as they are because of the hard work and creativity of the people that came before you. If you want to enjoy their efforts right now, then you're just a tourist who has to pay the price of admission. Otherwise, have the vision to find somewhere affordable with potential, commit, and start making it into the place you want to be: build the trails and the cabins, clear the skiing lines, organize the events, get involved in the politics, grow the food, brew the beer. It's the long game, but ultimately the only really satisfying one. The American West is littered with beautiful little backwater towns with potential.

Places like all living things are born, grow up, and eventually die, or they are at least dead to the normal folks like us. The soulful places are still out there, they are just waiting to still be discovered. Think Terrace BC, Ely Nv., and Butte Montana for examples. Sure you can barely make a living in those places now but either could you in Telluride or Jackson 40 years ago.