Governor Cuomo announced this past Friday that this year's
skiing season has begun, and opened up Gore and Whiteface Mountains to the
first of the eagerly-ski-ready public. The two mountains officially began
running yesterday. “New York is the proud home
of some of the best skiing and snowboarding trails and facilities in the entire
Northeast,” Cuomo said. “Whether you’re an expert skier or snowboarder, or
someone who’s always wanted to try, there is no time like the present to get
out and experience more of what New York has to offer. As Gore and Whiteface
mountains officially kick off the 2014-15 season, I encourage all New Yorkers
to plan a trip to one of our state’s world-class mountains.” Gore Mountain has
been producing snow since Wednesday and with over two miles of trails and runs
covered to start, seems to be well ahead of their expected timeline. Snowmaking
at Whiteface has been underway since the 7th, and in combination with natural
snowfall, has allowed for three runs to be open already at that resort. In
addition to their great start with snow, Whiteface is off to a great start from
an environmental standpoint as well. They have purchased more than 100 high
efficiency snow guns that they will be utilizing this season. The guns cut back
on energy consumption by running more efficiently and producing snow at a
higher relative capacity. Both mountains are open temporarily for the time
being and will close this coming Saturday, but will re-open full time on the
28th! Overall, getting everyone into the spirit of winter with new
Whiteface Mountain
http://www.whiteface.com/files/styles/images/public/Whiteface_The_Olympic_Mountain.jpg?itok=6gGuQfiS
Hearing that these mountains are starting to use more energy efficient snowmaking machines is very reassuring! I think skiing is a conflict many of us in this class have. It is something I really enjoy doing (though I'm terrible at it), but is definitely one of the most impactful Adirondack hobbies in terms of land use. It is definitely a way to interact with nature, and experience the landscape, but it involves clearing massive tracts of land, and installing huge machines both to bring people up to the top of the mountain, and to make snow. Ultimately, how different is it from snowmobiling, which definitely has more of a stigma with it than skiing does? I'm not saying that we can't appreciate the land for it's ability to let us enjoy these activities, but we should think about our biases before trying to determine which Adirondack activities are worse than others.
ReplyDelete