Thinking about snow, boundaries, and where we can play

This shouldn't be the future of New England winters, though it appears from last year and the start of this year that we may be on such a track. Out West, however, snow does still exist. So I've decided to start a mini-series on access to snow and solutions for maintaining safe but open access to the backcountry so many take for granted. Much of this was written earlier for an environmental policy course, feel free to email me at benxcski at yahoo dot com if you're interested in learning more or would like to read the whole work.

     Large potential for friction exists between groups of skiers, the ski areas themselves, local law enforcement, state legislatures, and the USFS among other actors. While public land access during the off-season is relatively straight-forward as ski areas are not in operation and avalanche risks are low, the issue and safety of access to bordering non-permit land during the operating season of ski resorts is much more complex and deserves analysis. This paper will enumerate and classify the numerous actors involved in ski area boundary policy, and with these actors in mind, will develop and analyze a set of factors currently affecting boundary policy.

     Current boundary policies, which include signed access points, open but marked boundaries, and roped off, no-crossing boundaries, are influenced by a number of historical and current ownership issues, safety considerations, rescue coordination, and state laws. Some factors leading to these complexities are avalanche control, rescue costs and coordination, hazardous terrain, other access routes to non-permit lands, and state and federal liability laws. User education and technology is also useful in determining safe boundary policy, and is thus within the scope of this paper. Public land access is the main issue at stake, and in this case the legality and applicability of such access involves government leasing policies, application of local and state legislation in opposition of federal policy, and the role of ski areas in controlling or patrolling areas beyond their permit boundaries.
     The recommendations developed through an analysis of current policies, laws, and technologies will be applicable to and designed around western ski areas, as these are the areas with the most conflicts and controversy surrounding their current boundary access policies. The feasibility of implementing these recommendations will rely on extensive collaboration between users, ski area operators, the USFS, and other actors outlined in the paper. While the 2010 Ski Area Recreational Enhancement Act allows for fee-based use on permit lands for summer activities, there is little to no research so far into boundary access during the summer in these situations, thus limiting the scope of the analysis to the winter environment. The themes present in the recommendations, however, will be adaptable to similar access issues over boundaries, as long as similar factors are involved.