Squaw Peaks!

While I wait for the rain to subside (and the ground to possibly dry up) before I bike, a little note from sustainable cow.  I'm going skiing this weekend!!!  It's my favorite sport these days, with endless variation (tree skiing, jumping, moguls, groomers) and challenge (tree skiing, jumping, moguls).

This season, two of my friends and I got season passes to Squaw, which I just discovered is ranked best out of all the ski resort for environmental policies.  See http://www.tahoeloco.com/archives/3627.  They were ranked on habitat protection, protecting watersheds, addressing global climate change, and environmental practices and policies.  Not that that affected our purchase, at the time we just wanted to get in on their 60 year anniversary deal and my Kirkwood vote was trumped.  Oh democracy.  

Good to know though!  Ski resorts aren't exactly environmentally friendly.  They ruin the natural landscape for slopes, encourage development, and those pesky snow makers/lifts/thousands of people driving up from the bay.  And in the summer, when the snow is gone, the impact is so much more apparent (as you can see from my trip to Whistler last summer, above).  But from all the "Keep Tahoe Blue" bumper stickers I see and from the actions of my fellow ski buddies, it's clear that more exposure to nature means more deep seeded environmentalists. 

It's a beautiful place.