The End Of The World As We Know It

December 17th, 2006 at 06:17pm Michael Conniff 2

It looked like the end of the world Sunday at Snowmass, and not just because the fog and the powder came like it was going nowhere soon. EVen so I’m not talking about the weather–I’m talking about the new Elk Camp gondola, the first irrefutable sign that Aspen Skiing Company’s designs on Snowmass Ski Area will indeed be fulfilled.

The new gondola is an idea beyond great by almost any measure. The airborne Jetsonian vehicle will whisk and whoosh the hordes from the nascent Base Village up the gut of Snowmass just short of Cafe Suzanne. The new Rocky Mountain transit line will no doubt relieve the unbelievable compression at Fanny Hill, and spread the masses across the mountain with mechanical alacrity.

So why am I bummed by this particular form of progress?

Because it’s the end of the world as I knew it at Snowmass.

In the handful of years I’ve lived in the valley, my path of least resistance on the weekends has always been to head over to Two Creeks, on the far side of the mountain, there to find the tiny base where crowds never ever seem to congregate. You’d take the lift up from there to Elk Camp, and on that side of the mountain you often had things pretty much to yourself, with only a smattering of the hordes found on Fanny Hill.

Those days ended the minute they threw the switch on the Elk Camp Gondola. Now I understand the logic of it: there’s no way you can argue as Snowmass starts to fill in the blanks of its lift system. But I can still mourn, can’t I? No more quiet days on those quiet Elk Camp runs. Even Two Creeks is sure to be discovered by the masses.

There are no doubt other quiet moments to be found on the mountain–I know you’re out there– but I don’t have to like the new gondola just because it will be great for the greater good. For me, the mountain will never be the same, no matter how many people tell me how much better things will be.

Entry Filed under: Snowmass, Aspen Skiing Company, Ski Business, Fractional Post, Base Village