OFFICIAL I70 BITCH THREAD....

[The SnowShow]

I think it's time to build some more ski areas.

New ski areas on Cameron Pass, in RMNP, Guenalla Pass on the 285 side, west side of Pikes Peak. Let the virus spread.

On a serious note...what if Echo was expanded to be the ultimate beginner/slightly intermediate skier's mountain....I'm talking the best greens anywhere. I bet that would divert 1/2 the ski traffic off I70 at Evergreen.

[Telemarketeer]

Why would people commute to CB for the weekend right past Monarch? Same reason they drive past LL to go to Breck I guess.

If I were a Franger, (which generally means intermediate skier anyway) I'd stay in Salida or BV for cheap and ski Monarch. Cheaper, good snow (more than CB most years), pretty mellow, fun mountain and affordable towns that aren't overrun with tourons.

The only thing CB has is terrain, and really, most frangers can't handle that anyway.

But yeah, I don't know how much longer people can stand the I70 shitshow. But they do it. Every fucking weekend, they just keep coming back.

I think that the only way the state is going to get a solution to the problem would be if we got the Winter Olympics. That would give the surge of cash needed to actually make meaningful changes to the transportation system to the mountains. Tunnels, Trains, alternate routes, etc.

[glademaster]

That's a great idea. We've been here with our thumbs up our asses until you came along.

I didn't think it was a revolutionary idea, it was an off the cuff comment, but based on the prickliness of your response, I'm guessing you have something substantially bigger than a thumb up your ass at the moment.

[summit]

I think that the only way the state is going to get a solution to the problem would be if we got the Winter Olympics. That would give the surge of cash needed to actually make meaningful changes to the transportation system to the mountains. Tunnels, Trains, alternate routes, etc.

That'd be nice... but we had them once... then we told them we changed our minds because we didn't' want to spend the money or get so developed. IOC will never give CO the Olympics again.

[bendtheski]

The drive to most front range resorts isn't usually too bad from Georgetown, and home prices were relatively reasonable when we bought 8 years ago.

Now demand is so high that IMO homes are way overpriced, and you still have to deal with the shit-show, if only for 12 miles to Loveland.

Still, my worst commute has taken just over an hour, which really isn't that bad. It's worse when the highway shuts down just as I'm rolling out the driveway, and the town fills up with gapers that clog the streets for an additional 30-45min after the highway re-opens.

Georgetown PD has begun turning people around, rather than allow gridlock in town during closures. This seems to be pissing off both motorists and local businesses, but the alternative is to allow the town to fill up so badly that it takes an ambulance 10+ minutes just to get on the highway.

No easy solution, but as a skier and a 911 dispatcher, I think I have a pretty good idea of what constitutes an actual emergency. Traffic delays and road closures that much more often than not could easily be anticipated and avoided; well, can't say I have a ton of sympathy. Not being able to get an ambulance to Loveland or an injury MVA on the highway because gapers have blocked both lanes and the shoulder, now that's a problem.

On a side-note, please do not attempt to follow the ambulance running emergent through traffic to save time. It's illegal, and kind of douchey to put the patient and crew at greater risk.

Stay safe folks!

[summit]

On a side-note, please do not attempt to follow the ambulance running emergent through traffic to save time. It's illegal, and kind of douchey to put the patient and crew at greater risk.

Stay safe folks!

Called surfing the wake.

What happens is all the people who pulled off for the ambulance will pull right out in front of the tard following the ambulance because they don't check their rear view. BAM. SMASH. And now we need 2-4 more ambulances which are 1-2 hours away. Have fun hanging out in the winter air with your smashed windows, smashed bones, and smashed face.

[Telemarketeer]

That'd be nice... but we had them once... then we told them we changed our minds because we didn't' want to spend the money or get so developed. IOC will never give CO the Olympics again.

Yeah, people always say that, but I doubt the IOC would hold a grudge that long. It just takes $$$ and they'd forget all about the snub. Plus, most of the IOC weren't even around when that happened.

I would fucking move if we got the Olympics though.

[hatchgreenchile]

Why would people commute to CB for the weekend right past Monarch? Same reason they drive past LL to go to Breck I guess.

If I were a Franger, (which generally means intermediate skier anyway) I'd stay in Salida or BV for cheap and ski Monarch. Cheaper, good snow (more than CB most years), pretty mellow, fun mountain and affordable towns that aren't overrun with tourons.

The only thing CB has is terrain, and really, most frangers can't handle that anyway.

But yeah, I don't know how much longer people can stand the I70 shitshow. But they do it. Every fucking weekend, they just keep coming back.

I think that the only way the state is going to get a solution to the problem would be if we got the Winter Olympics. That would give the surge of cash needed to actually make meaningful changes to the transportation system to the mountains. Tunnels, Trains, alternate routes, etc.

Monarch is small, low vert and largely boring. Big mystery why noone goes there.

CB is a guaranteed 4 hours one way, rain or shine. I70 sucks, but if you're not in the shitshow, it's less than 90 minutes for most FRers. A 350K+ condo in CB and 4 hour one way commute to avoid I70? That's nuts! Plus, more 2nd homes that sit largely empty and drive regional costs up are just what ski towns need more of.

New ski areas, how many times have we beat that horse to death? Sending thousands of cars up the Cache to a Cameron Pass ski area (Leave the Rawah Wilderness alone) ? You'll be fishing dozens of cars out of the Poudre river whenever it snows. New ski areas on Guanella / Pikes Peak that were already attempted and failed? Geezus. Plus, if you could drop wilderness boundaries and wanted a great site, I'd start with the Gores or Zirkels/Sierra Madre. Guess what that requires? I-70! Maybe the clickbait articles saying Trump will sell off protected public lands happens and this gets a little easier to pull off

[summit]

NEW SKI AREA?

What was the last new ski area opened in the US? Was it Silverton 15 years ago? And they had to piece it together out of BLM and mine patents and still it almost didn't happen between environmentalists and other land holders.

What is far more common is a ski op goes under and the USFS eliminates the SUP so nobody can ever operate a ski area there again. We've seen a ton of that in the last 2-3 decades just in CO. Berthoud Pass Lodge is ashes as is the ski resort/cat op. There used to be a ski resort in Jeff Co (Arapahoe East). There used to be a ski resort on Guanella Pass (Geneva). Etc.

Did you not notice that the there is unprecedented power for lobby groups to stop any new development or permitting on public land? That environmental advocacy is no longer about conservation, only preservation? It has been that way for a while now.

It is why it is a multi-decade push for a ski area to expand a few hundred acres.

You see, in the United States, the outdoors is now supposed to be only for wildlife (or with enough money, sometimes, drilling). That cannot happen immediately. So we will slowly kill rec SUPs, restrict trails, etc, slowly, forever, because any time anyone want's a new SUP all the Sierra Club supporters in Manhattan will get a warm fuzzy by demanding that nobody be allowed in the forests to keep them pure because humans are pure evil, but they saved some tree they will never see. More Wilderness! Less people! No fucking way will they allow a new ski area on public land!

So add gargantuan barriers to entry to the spectre of climate change, and who would ever fund a new ski resort?

We don't have an alpine culture in the US and we never will.

I would fucking move if we got the Olympics though.

I would just take the whole month off, and travel the world while someone AirBnB'd my place for the price of my whole year's mortgage.

[Telemarketeer]

Monarch is small, low vert and largely boring. Big mystery why noone goes there.

You know how many thousands of Frangers and gapers make the I70 drive of 4 hrs each way to ski green and blue groomers for a few hours before hitting the bar? Pay triple for a hotel room in Breck, go to a restaurant with a 2 hr wait, pay for parking all weekend, sit in 45 minute lift lines all day, etc. I'd take the Monarch option all day long. It's not about the skiing for most people, that is my experience from over two decades of living in the middle of it.

[Telemarketeer]

FYI here's your "new" ski area:

http://snowbrains.com/42-years-gone-...ifts-for-2017/

Apparently a lot of Steamboat locals are excited as they are a little disenfranchised with their current ski hill.

[glademaster]

I know there was a pissant little hill there before, but I would say that Revelstoke "opened" in the last 15 years, and Kicking Horse not much before that (again, tiny hill that became a true destination in terms of terrain). Eagle Point is a new ski area in central Utah, Cherry Peak is a new resort near the Utah/Idaho border, and Powder Mountain installed 2 new chairlifts adding close to 1,000 acres of terrain for this season.

These places aren't huge, and I know it's only a couple examples, but people are at least trying to open new ski areas, and at least here, appear to be able to secure the land and financing needed to give it a go.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Should have got here last year!!!

Very interesting and humorous how people's perspective is dependent on how it "use to be". Some anecdotes from my perspective.

1. Increasing, the people with money use there money to avoid the busy times and the busy places. The 8-5 M to F in the cube farm is becoming less and less common.

2. You Front Rangers bitch about the commute, the Mountain Town residents bitch about the people that stay for the weekend. Often, when leaving the Jane on a Saturday, 75% of the cars are going to town, not the city.

3. The snow in Colorado is really concentrated. Frank Zappa posted a maps once but the reality is that you've got the divide and a few other mountain ranges that could support a ski area.

4. Infrastructure development for mountain recreation just ain't happening.

5. If you've got your foot in the door in Colorado, make it work for you. It is just gonna keep getting busier until we run out of water.

[hatchgreenchile]

FYI here's your "new" ski area:

http://snowbrains.com/42-years-gone-...ifts-for-2017/

Apparently a lot of Steamboat locals are excited as they are a little disenfranchised with their current ski hill.

Interesting! They claim 300". Should be a cool option. I dig some low angle aspen glades.

[summit]

FYI here's your "new" ski area:

http://snowbrains.com/42-years-gone-...ifts-for-2017/

Apparently a lot of Steamboat locals are excited as they are a little disenfranchised with their current ski hill.

Interesting... all on private land. Looks flat. I still give a thumbs up.

[Telemarketeer]

It is just gonna keep getting busier until California runs out of water.

Mostly on point, fixed just one little error.

[Telemarketeer]

Interesting... all on private land. Looks flat. I still give a thumbs up.

Apparently, something I read somewhere said there might be a few surprisingly steeper pitches. But I doubt that's what they are going for anyway. Any new ski area is looking to appeal to families (Silverton excluded).

I'll go ski it when they open.

[BFD]

http://ski.curbed.com/2016/3/24/1129...sion-colorado-

[billyk]

http://ski.curbed.com/2016/3/24/1129...sion-colorado-

Mixed feelings. On the one hand, I say cool! On the other hand, I foresee ticket prices going up at one of the more affordable hills that always has deep snow. My early season forays to Colorado will get more expensive, and probably more crowded.

[The SnowShow]

All these environmentalists get worked up about new ski areas but how about thousands upon thousands of people idling on I70 for 40+ miles, back and forth each weekend day, year round? That can't be good.

I'm not sure why Guenalla Pass's or Pikes Peak's ski areas didn't work, but times are very different now than they were even 10 years ago. I'm sure a lot of front range families would go to a smaller hill off I70 on the weekend if there were other options.

[summit]

I think Guanella Pass was killed by the Season Pass Wars.

I heard Pikes Peak was killed by variable snow year to year and no water rights to make snow.

[Telemarketeer]

I think Guanella Pass was killed by the Season Pass Wars.

I heard Pikes Peak was killed by variable snow year to year and no water rights to make snow.

A good site for finding the answers:
http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/lost/genevabasin.html

Geneva Basin might not be a bad one to reopen. I might be one of the few, but I sure miss Berthoud pass ski area. Had some great times there and at least all that terrain was patrolled. I'd say that it is even busier now than it ever was back then though.

[hatchgreenchile]

All these environmentalists get worked up about new ski areas but how about thousands upon thousands of people idling on I70 for 40+ miles, back and forth each weekend day, year round? That can't be good.

I'm not sure why Guenalla Pass's or Pikes Peak's ski areas didn't work, but times are very different now than they were even 10 years ago. I'm sure a lot of front range families would go to a smaller hill off I70 on the weekend if there were other options.

To dent I70, you would need some high quality options. Maybe you should circle a few areas you're thinking about on 285 and 14 that would be good ski areas and could collect plenty of skier visits. Good luck.

Again, there are no high quality options just sitting there for the taking. They are buried in wilderness, inaccessible, not ski area friendly terrain (ex. Buffalo Pass, Flat Tops), low on snow or will be fought tooth and nail by NIMBYs & environmentalists for all sorts of reasons. Revising wilderness or NPS boundaries for recreational development isn't happening. If someone even suspected a lynx passed through there in 1984, you're fucked!

Sidecountry development is the low hanging fruit. Copper has Jacques Basin & South Tucker primed and ready. Loveland has dry Gulch. Steamboat has the golf course. A Basin is going for Steep Gullies/Beavers and Breck just got 550 acres on Peak 6. Easier sell and integration.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I think Guanella Pass was killed by the Season Pass Wars.

Yep, as was Berthoud Pass Ski Area (sort of). That's where the whole Colorado Gems idea came from. Many industry insiders were surprised that the original Buddy Pass promotion got by Anti-Trust.

The argument was, and I supposed still is, that IntraWest and Vail are pricing season passes such that they are in violation of predatory pricing and unfair trade practice laws.

So an interesting questions is "Would you pay more to go to a non-Epic non-Rocky Mountain Super Plus Resort"?

My feeling is that for most people, the traffic is a much bigger deal than crowds on the hill.

[summit]

Always wondered if North & South Twin Cone peaks just off 285 right at Grant/Geneva Pass Rd got enough snow? Large area with decent pitch there for blues greens blacks and wouldn't require maintaining 11 miles of Geneva Pass Road.