Busy Day at Lake Tahoe

I went on the USF trip to Squaw Valley Resort today, departing campus at the oh so early hour of 5 am. Traffic on the way up to the mountain was heavy but moved at a moderate pace. When the weather is bad, the combination of heavy traffic and lots of snow can reduce the flow of cars to a near stand still and tack several hours on to the normal four hour drive. When we pulled into the parking lot it was nearly full and a steady line of SUVs and four wheel drive vehicles continued to pour in after us with no end in sight. Looking back down at the parking lot from the tram I could see that all of the lots were full and cars were beginning to park along the edge of the road.

Due to the huge traffic volume, it is no wonder that car companies and ski resorts have a strong relationship. Ski resort patrons are the natural targets of marketing campaigns by car companies because most people who go to ski resorts drive themselves, usually meaning they own their own car, and also because the majority of skiers are affluent consumers who buy new cars fairly often. At my home mountain of Stowe, in Vermont, the resort has a partnership with Chevrolet making Chevy "the official vehicle of Stowe Mountain Resort," and several of their shiny new SUVs and trucks are parked next to the base lodge. Stowe is like many other US ski resorts that have entered into promotional agreements with car companies, however these car companies aren't trying to market all of their models, but rather focus specifically on their all-terrain and four wheel drive line up. Companies like Subaru, Audi, Ford, and Chevrolet are all heavily marketed at ski resorts.

Now, it took a conversation with my European friend on the ski lift today for me to realize the irony of this situation. Global warming is here, and we know its here even as governments including our own, intentionally shield the public from such information. Cars, specifically fuel inefficient vehicles like SUVs and four wheel drive trucks are adding greatly to the problem, while at the same time it would be relatively easy to reduce the problem by switching to more fuel efficient vehicles. One would think in an industry like skiing, where global warming will have a tremendously negative impact, that the companies in that industry would have more foresight geared toward survival and longevity instead of focusing on the bottom line for today.

My "European friend" is actually Tito Hubert, a USF junior like me, with whom I share a passion for snowboarding and the natural environment. On the lift today he told me about the small Swiss ski town of Zermatt where cars are not allowed, except the electric kind, which of course was declared dead in the US this year by the film, "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

Ski resorts make a business of giving people access to the beautiful outdoors, I would like to see them also take more responsibility for the mountains and environment which has helped them become profitable companies. As the US consumer continues to back away from the SUV market in search of more economical vehicles it is possible that the problem will to a large extent fix its self. However as was evident today by the majority of SUVs in the Squaw parking lot, ski going consumers seem to be resisting this trend and still largely prefer the kind of vehicles that they can depend on to plow through mother winters nastiest, and also the kind of vehicle that companies have made synonymous with the ski industry, through marketing.

I'm waiting for the day when I see a Smart Car with a roof rack full of skies zoom up the road to Squaw. Maybe then there will be enough room for all the cars to fit in the parking lot.