Commute Update

Week #2 of the challenge has flown by! This week was a little less adventurous than week #1. I carpooled with some friends this week as we traveled for our jobs and telecommuted one day. Great ways to save money, use less gas, and improve productivity!

I stopped into one of our local bike store this weekend to ask how many of their customers commute from roughly where I live to downtown where I work. There are actually quite a few; however, most don't bike the entire 20 miles, but park at their store (~ 5 miles away from downtown) and ride the greenbelt. I wondered to myself if this was in the true spirit of commuting to work? It would burn more calories through exercise and be a nice ride, but probably not save a lot of money and maybe just a little bit on gas. According to Bicycle Universe, it take only 13 extra minutes to bike that far, so my commute time would be roughly equal. I wonder how many more lbs of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions it would save? I've thrown down a challenge to a co-worker to bike the greenbelt with me into work. We'll see if this happens!

Statistics:

Telecommuting- 17.9 lbs of greenhouse gases saved for the week
Carpooling-we traveled 300 miles in the carpool, so rid -sharing for the trip saved 198.4 lbs of greenhouse gases and saved ~$20

Total savings for the past two weeks- approximately $60
Total GHG-333 lbs. produced
Total GHG saved-234 lbs.

I wish there was a grease bus here

Usually my mornings consist of a picturesque tour of the concrete jungle. Retaining walls, exit ramps, merge lanes, the continual hum of the engine behind my playlist of choice. Driving the interstate everyday is just depressing, no other way to put it...it's not the Appalachian Trail. Afternoon gridlock and freak-outs to get there in time is a norm that makes me visual cortisol being expelled from some poor jaundiced gland in my body. 

Today wasn't too bad. 

Yes, I almost missed the first pick-up because I had to drive to the park-and-ride and managed to hit every school zone and red light on the way, but in the end I made it on time by a hair. I had the bus to myself for the first 15 minutes. I found out that there are some commuters that work downtown that ride in. There are also a lot of students that ride the bus to the university. I didn't have to worry about anything except for the content of the book that I started. I listened to my playlist and the next thing I knew I was there...about 50 minutes later. It normally takes me 20 minutes, so yeah I lost some time; however, I got to work the same time I normally do since I left earlier. Two observations, I felt like I was transported back to my college years in some ways. Maybe it was the Greenpeace book and REM I was listening to. Maybe it was the carefree nature of not having a car and pulling the chain to request a stop and walking into work that made things feel different. Second thought was how I imagined drivers. It was almost like this western sense of "I have a car, therefore I should drive".  I also realized that I could've picked the bus up closer to my office if I would've looked up at the bus stop signs. I've been noticing more of bus and bike signs the past three days. That's kinda cool. It's like I am learning how to navigate my city for the first time. 

Final tally for today-18 lbs of greenhouse gases saved! $3.71 saved on gas, which pretty much was negated by the bus ticket price. Half a gallon of gas saved. It appears that the monthly total will tell the truth.

If you think you know your city, try something different. Change your point of view and rediscover how to navigate it aside from your norm. 

I'm going to call the bike shop. I'm pretty sure these folks have it figured out. I'm pretty sure that they have a different view than the retaining wall and the tales of the Rainbow Warrior. I want to hear their stories and to be honest I want to see this commute from that point of view.

Chillax in the tube

It's on...commuter challenge

I feel pretty good about my personal efforts for selecting sustainable products and I try my best to implement activities at home where I can conserve water, recycle, and use less energy. Transportation, I'd have to say is my weakest link.

So... over the next month I will participate in various commuting options to and from work and will be reporting my challenges and surprising finds here on my blog in an effort to improve my understanding of ecofriendly options and the cost and emissions of driving. The Smart Trips Commuter Challenge program challenges communities and businesses  to explore alternative forms of commuting that includes mass transit, biking to work, telecommuting, and carpooling.  I'm so on with this...except for the fact that I live 20 miles away from work. I'm committed to try a few different modes this month including the bus, telecommuting, and carpooling. If I can convince my neighbor down the road to bike with me... we'll give it a try. Might take all day, but I'm ready. 

This seems simple enough; however, I quickly learned that because of my commuting distance it will require some real planning on my part. The city where I live doesn't have a subway and the bus system runs within what I can determine is maybe a 15 mile radius...a problem for this suburbanite. I have no problem navigating and jumping on a subway. I've used buses in many cities in the US, Japan, and Europe, but what I found out about my city is that this will take some planning...so I walked down to the bus station to look at the schedules and discuss routes with a transit authority. I have three options, none of which involve me being picked up even remotely close to my house. I'm going to have to either drive or bike 8 miles to the nearest bus stop and then take the local in. It's going to take an hour to get to work once I get on the bus (I'm packing my Greenpeace biography to read on the way, ha). 

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. 

Planning!!

My eyes are already open. 

As I walked back from the bus station to work, I started noticing more bike path signs throughout the downtown and bicycles parked out front of buildings. Downtown is really biker friendly! I'm starting to think that there is a whole bike-commuting culture that I've never hung out with before! I hope to find out who these guys/gals are and that they'll share some secrets with me. We have a ton of bike shops and as an outdoor recreation, my city has great options. Question is...is suburban commuting an option? Suicidal? I'm trying the bus first. 

So many choices, but nothing close! They nixed the express from the suburbs earlier this year. That would've been nice...

I get to log my mode of transportation daily on the Smart Trips website and it immediately calculates cost and emissions. This is where I hope to see how I measure up. In the two days that I've driven, it's cost me $18 and I've produced 85 lbs of greenhouse gases. Yikes. Time to get commuting. 

The concept of community sustainability at a ski resort

Usually around this time the year I start breaking out my snowboard boots, just to try them on, to get "that feeling". Sometime in late August, I'll even strap into my board and listen to the bindings squeak. Summer is a long wait for those that don't reside near a volcano in Oregon (so jealous of instagram pics of summer camps, y'all...) or have mucho cash to fly south of the equator.

This time of the year is also when most, if not all, of the resort maintenance is occurring. Snowmaking systems are being repaired or upgraded, lift maintenance, maybe even some lodge facelifts. So I wondered, which resorts were making upgrades or adjustments? Here's one great resort project to highlight, earlier Mountain Riders Alliance had teamed up with Mt. Abram and was deep into a project they had spent time sourcing contributions via crowd funding in 2012 to implement a model of the sustainable mountain playground-complete with solar, wind, environmental Best Management Practices, and micro-hydro turbines (maybe that was in Alaska). The approach really resonated with me, a triple philosophy of community, environment, and a desire for a sustainable winter.

First off, from a community perspective, this is a eureka moment. When people actively participate, they have "skin-in-the-game" so to speak and they take ownership to prevent failure. Investor involvement, foundational funding, crowd-funding like Kickstarter is a great way to get this sense of ownership and dollars. Community is vital in education of the environmental issues, for example how their energy and water consumption can be easily tracked, so why can't yours? Education is also communicating at the consumer level, developing partnerships that benefit the community-not only where you live, but the snow-sports community as a whole. Community and sustainability seemingly go hand-in-hand in fact. Bill McKibben makes several good points about community in his book, Eaarth that I found highly applicable to this project:

• Scale
• Definition
• Connection
• Personal use

McKibben makes a point first about how we need to think about different scale. The size of the institution should reflect the size of your project. The project we are undertaking (in his reference to climate change and hunkering down) requires a different scale-he suggests that we need to think about neighborhoods and blocks. "Is the business sustainable and demographic to support to large infrastructure investment hoping to lure a crowd or focus on local support?" Interesting...deja vu.

He suggests that we need to rescue the community and make sure it becomes a prosaic term in the lexicon. Sure enough for me, I mean I'd like to think that I was part of this bigger scene hanging out with the cool kids on Mt. Hood in the summer, but my friends are working here and riding on the lake and dreaming about snow and when season passes go on sale. My community is reality, so I should start there.

McKibben suggests that "embracing local doesn't mean abandoning the connection to something larger". Thank God! We all have to dream, right?!

Lastly and what I paraphrased as "personal use", he suggests small farms where composting and building up soil counts. I think this comes full circle to the enlightening concept of the small resort aka ski area that MRA is partnering with. Taking the mountain in Maine and having the community buy-in and support, and demonstrating the concept to a larger extended community of snow enthusiasts is a bridge in facing what the POW/NRDC report highlighted to many-economic impact and livelihood at stake. Think about it...

Burton's Stance on Sustainability

Have you seen Burton Snowboards new sustainability website? Click here to take you to the website.

Image: Burton.com

Make sure you check it out! You can learn about their Green Mountain Project collaboration with Mountain Dew, their instagram awareness campaign with POW, a partnership with Bluesign for fabric selection, organic gardening plots at their headquarters, an award-winning pedal-to-work program, and much more!

Season Kickoff!

Who's ready?! I blab and blog about it in topographic expressions...

Ski Resort Natural Resource Management

I must have rewritten this article five different times over two months. The topic of natural resources is something that I am very passionate about. I'm a decent technical writer and I've also been know to wax poetically; however, I can't seem to weave together my thoughts on what I thought I understood were landscape-level resource management issues with mountain recreation and the expansion of our playgrounds. Maybe it's a balancing act between loving something to death and moving forward with minimal impact.

There's a lot we take for granted...snow, mind-blowing mountain scenery, a safe place to ride, and someone to pick up after the day is done. While some are long-gone back to their IPA and heat, the next shift is rolling in to groom, make snow,  re-stock, and get the machines fixed. Organized places make it easy for us to ride (resorts, ski areas, and their support networks) and are an integral part of the sport. Have you thought about the impact these areas we enjoy may have on the natural resources that make them so spectacular and how these areas are maintained? Timber resources are cut to expand trails, millions of gallons of water are used to make snow, and terrestrial and aquatic habitat is altered and can be impaired both in the short- and long-term. I wanted to focus this post on natural resource conservation and impacts of resorts and ski areas. Probably the most referenced online sources for these issues include the Ski Area Citizens Coalition report card and Sustainable Slopes. I read through several reports and references and when I thought I understood the concerns, I asked Hunter Sykes of Coldstream Creative and creator of the documentary Resorting to Madness to dig deeper and set me straight. 

A little background information: 

The Ski Area Citizens Coalition uses the following four criteria to grade western ski resorts in their current environmental performance:  

• Habitat protection
• Watershed protection
• Climate change
• Resort environmental policies and practices

The Top Ten and Worst Ten report cards are graded on: maintaining ski terrain within the existing footprint and preserving undisturbed land from development; protecting and preserving endangered species, environmentally sensitive areas, and wetlands; water quality and conservation; climate change; renewable energy and energy efficiency, transportation, and waste.

The US National Ski Areas Association, a trade organization for ski area owners and operators publishes an annual Sustainable Slopes report, highlighting ski area efforts towards an environmental charter for sustainable operations. The charter covers efforts in fish and wildlife management, forest and vegetation management, and wetlands and riparian areas, among other areas. I spent time reading several reports, focusing on the conservation efforts. Highlighted examples include native plant nurseries and revegetation, pine beetle surveys, drainage improvements, restoration of previously drained wetlands in adjacent national forests (through partnerships), low-impact ground disturbance bridges and erosion control during biking season, and protocols to document and implement ground disturbance projects. 

The issues:

Initially, I assumed that erosion from land disturbance and runoff, habitat fragmentation, and timber/vegetation management were probably the biggest natural resource issues based on the nature of trail expansion and the footprint. Erosion occurs when soil and rock break down over time and can become a problem when the sediment is transported into water bodies after rainfall, impairing aquatic habitat.  It seemed to me that year-round resort operations, such as mountain biking and hiking could impact soil stability and cause erosion; however, Hunter Sykes (also a former summer trail foreman) says that erosion and water quality impacts are minimal in the big picture and that trails are built and maintained to be as sustainable as possible. "The amount of erosion caused by spring run-off on graded trails, access roads, and from deep snowmaking piles are far greater in scope than any erosion from trails, " Sykes says and "in general, the only major water quality impacts that are attributable to ski areas are during infrastructure installation (buildings, lifts, roads, snowmaking) or when runs are being cut and/or graded.  In the latter case, runs that are cut and graded are equipped with  multiple diversion waterbars and anti-erosion matting and then reseeded, and after a year or two, are usually stable." While these impacts are important, climate change impacts to wildlife and habitat could become an additional concern. Hunter says "as climate change impacts are felt more, ski area terrain may become even more critical for some species survival. The impacts of the ski areas pales in comparison to the impacts of resorts, towns, roads and water use that surround them."

Hunter recently discussed the impacts of snowmaking by removing water from watersheds during critical low-flow periods and endangering the health of aquatic species  in Outside Magazine. He also discussed with me the potential problem of large, dense man-made snow piles from half-pipes, jumps, and race courses that can linger long into summer. "The melting water from the snow piles can weaken soils and increase flows in small streams, not accustomed to longer, higher flows."

So what about real estate development and expansion? I asked Hunter a question about how ski areas and resorts are implementing environmentally-friendly building design and smart growth concepts, including U.S. Green Energy Council LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings. I didn't really think about the difference between the definition of a "ski area" and a "resort",  but as Hunter pointed out, ski areas act really as a means to get people to the top of a hill versus resorts that offer second homes and condos, restaurants, shopping, and other activities more along the lines of a support service- the whole shebang. Both can be sustainable, but ski areas by the nature of their size have a smaller footprint and impact. There are a lot of LEED developments, both in operations and real estate design, but as skiing and snowboarding demographics change over time, both  areas and resorts are going to have to think about how to become more sustainable and future development.

Most resorts in the eastern US are on private land, versus those in the western US are often on US Forest Service or on other public lands. Land policy comes into play in both circumstances. Privately- owned ski areas can protect their land and restrict real estate development and commercial use through a conservation easement. For example, Stowe Resort placed a conservation easement in the Spruce Peak development with the Vermont Land Trust to protect 2,000 acres, 10  acres of ski terrain that were restored back to it's natural state. This option may not be available to areas and resorts on that do not directly own the land they operate, but understanding the land policy and motives may help us to understand if there is a balanced intent. 

Next time your legs are dangling from the chair lift and your are looking at the ground, think about how the land is being managed and what plants and wildlife occupy the space you like to ride. What happens in the deep forest far away from the snowcat's hum at night? Who is your unknown hiking partner in the summer? How can your ski resort both manage and share this place and maybe make it a little better?