Rating: 
Summary: Growth for Growth's Sake
Review: A thought provoking book, and in my case a bit like preaching to the choir. I found Clifford's book well plotted, researched and documented in this touchy area of Big Business versus Environmentalism. I have seen most of the growth issues Clifford speaks of come to fruition living and working here in Aspen, Colorado. Included from my viewpoint as a law enforcement officer the impact that these re-constructed "Company Towns" can have on the inhabitants of Oz. The seasonal nature of the ski business lends itself to just what the ski industry demands and gets in its workers. Short term, no investment, minimal wage earners that could care less about the "skiing experience" you and I will be paying for, much less them contributing anything to the town itself. It's actually getting hard to find a "lift op" that knows the mountain well enough to tell you what's open and what's closed here. Many workers here are now imported from South America to fill the low paying jobs the ski hills provide. What Clifford pens of the shadow cast on the worker bees and their lives is what I deal with every day as a deputy sheriff for our county. The domestic violence, substance abuse and other crimes are very real if not underplayed by the powers that be including our local media. These can stem from long hours, low pay and too many people crammed into too small of a space due to high rents and unavailability of affordable housing. With the additional problem of culture clash creating friction between the workers themselves, the results are inevitable. The impact on the localized environment Clifford writes of is clear. When more and more water is lobbied to be taken from our local aquifer (in our record drought) for snowmaking, (read, "Cadilac Desert", by Marc Reisner) to the changing of the migration patterns of our local wildlife. We are seeing record numbers of conflicts between residents and visitors with the black bear, deer, elk and even with the mountain lion with wildlife paying the price. Caused in combination with reduced range, changing local climate and more encroaching construction as real estate is touted as the prime bottom line fattener. All the while skier numbers are dropping throughout Colorado. Aspen longer has a tourist/skier driven economy, rather it's coffers are filled from construction and second home sales. Fewer people on the slopes is fine by me, in a selfish way. Aspen SkiCo even tried an ad campaign that touted "Uncrowded by Design" which wasn't inacurate. But as our town creeps closer and closer to one large gated community, it smacks of the mining industry that once dominated our state, then dried up, mostly disapearing leaving us holding the collective bag for the damage done to our waterways, hillsides and towns. This is including deep damage to the dreaded "E" word; Environment. All in all a good read with a bit of a pessimistic view of the solution. Clifford's book glimpses the increasing chasm between the proletariat and those that can afford skiing in today's destination resorts. His latest work was a fine piece while leaving me with the feeling that if the big planners and developers want to play a New York street hustler's ponzi scam on some of the resort towns using the very finite number of skiers, OK. Every business has the right to go broke on its own. Only one organism continues to grow until the death of its host; cancer. And, as Clifford documents, the damage left behind can be fatal to those that claim the place as home. His earlier offering, "Falling Season" was my favorite, but a less weighty tale than taking on corporate bottom line.
Rating: 
Summary: Words from a Vailite
Review: As a life-long Vailite, and an active board member of Colorado Wild and the Ski Area Citizens' Coalition,
I have found Mr. Clifford's book invaluable. We have known for quite some time that the sport of skiing
is in trouble and that the recent corporatization of skiing and associated development is causing enormous
stress on ski towns and the environment. Clifford has concisely and coherently expressed the problems, chosen
superb and telling examples and given citizens of ski towns throughout the country a lot to think about.
Rating: 
Summary: bellyflop
Review: Clifford is a journalist and he personalizes issues and focuses on details that don't illustrate as much as they trivalize. He wants this to be a book about the ski industry but it is really about Vail with anecdotes about other players thrown in if Clifford thinks they are juicy. He defines the golden years of skiing to be that time when he was in his mid-twenties. He wants to get rid of the big corporations to return to that period. He wants to blame the financial markets for all of the enviornmental and social issues of the rocky mountains. I kind of doubt if ski towns were ever as idyllic as has he would like to remember them. Co-ops and non-public companies can be just as short-sighted and just as rapacious as public ones. And even if the resorts drive the economy there are a few other trends and relationships that deserve some blame. The Latino racism / exploitation thing that Clifford describes is less of an issue in California than it is in Colorado, and I don't think it applies at all in the Northeast or British Colombia. (Somebody obviously washes the dishes and makes up the beds in those resorts, but the issue of undocumented aliens may be a local one.) The water for snowmaking issue is not relevant in BC (or even at Mamoth with their coastal weather patterns) - and I suspect that Hal has glossed over the nuances between the Northeastern resorts (mainly on private land with lots of snowmaking necessary for operation) and the front-range areas (mainly public land and snowmaking necessary mainly to extend the season.) Water rights have been a contentious issue in the West as long as there have been competing users and at least the snowpack gives up it's runoff in the spring. The top end resorts are clearly not about skiing - duh - but that only applies to the developments in the highest rung and doesn't provide much insight into the industry as a whole. If you're going to bring up Pellican Butte (which is irrelevant to any of the organizations he addresses) why not talk about Early Winters where the community - or possibly the outside environmentalists - prevailed? If you're going to talk about Silverton Mountain why not talk about all of the lost ski areas in the same range? There are some interesting debates inherent in this issue - conservation vs. recreation, tourism as an extractive industry, regulation of development, commodification of leisure, - etc. But the resort is not the sport and it isn't even the community and when Clifford wants to blame everything on the impersonal corporate bad guy he ends up sounding like another anti-globalization [supporter].
Rating: 
Summary: A fundamentally dishonest look at the modern ski industry
Review: Downhill Slide will almost certainly play well among class warriors, ski town kvetches and the Chicken Little faction of the environmental movement. But if you're looking for objective analysis and honest debate over real issues, look elsewhere. Hal Clifford questions almost every statement made by senior industry managers (backing many with snide comments), but treats pronouncements made by industry opponents - including some based on patently false assumptions - as gospel. In Clifford's world, ski resort managers are highly biased, but environmentalists, EPA staffers and disgruntled former ski resort and Forest Service employees are objective beyond question. This simply isn't the case. An honest assessment of the issues related to ski development would examine the motives and views of those opposed to mountain development as diligently as it does those who favor it. Clifford assails, correctly, the piecemeal approach by which some ski areas obscured their growth plans during the permitting process. But he places all of the blame on resort operators and totally ignores the no-growth movement's direct responsibility for the creation of that tactic: subversion and abuse of regulatory and public comment processes. These abuses, which result in a staggeringly expensive and indeterminate permitting process, are well documented; it's no wonder that resorts attempted to keep their public and financial exposure small. He also ignores the fact that a growing number of progressive resorts now conduct their planning and permitting processes openly and invite environmental groups to participate. An objective book would at least acknowledge these efforts and give fair assessment of the questionable tactics used by some industry opponents. Instead, Downhill Slide assumes that resorts and related real estate developments are uniformly creeping environmental disasters overrunning the mountains (in fact, skiing's footprint on the land is tiny; a fraction of one percent of the public lands in the mountain states are impacted by ski development). Clifford especially despises the concept of the modern ski resort village, which can be viewed as a response to the environmentally irresponsible sprawl that occurred around the base of ski areas decades ago. The new villages concentrate visitors on a small footprint, leaving more open land. So why isn't this a good thing? In Clifford's view, it's because they're built for transient guests, rather than providing a year-round haven for ski bums and colorful oddballs, and because developers can make money building them. Clifford is correct in noting that some resort communities have essentially become second-home vacation retreats so expensive that resort workers can't afford to live there. Clearly, the industry could be more diligent in providing housing for staff. But resorts already do better job housing low-income workers than do most non-ski communities. Nor is anyone is forced to work (or live) in one. The book's biggest stretch is the suggestion that social ills such as racism, alcoholism and domestic abuse in some areas of the Rockies are the fault of (and, by extension, the responsibility of) the ski industry. The argument is fallacious - both post hoc ergo propter hoc and as a splendid example of affirming the consequent. Clifford even implies that ski resorts are responsible for the presence of illegal aliens (apparently, that responsibilty falls to Vail, not the INS)- but cites not one case in which a ski resort ever recruited or hired an illegal alien, even by oversight. Finally, Downhill Slide advances the premise that three companies, which between them represent about 30 percent of the US market - have driven the sport into a death spiral making the sport accessible only to the super-rich. This is utter nonsense. 30 percent of market share, split three ways, can't possibly conrol an entire industry. Besides, skiing has always been an expensive sport, and relative to disposable income - especially considering the ticket deals out there currently - skiing is actually more affordable to more people today than it was 50 years ago. That the sport hasn't grown (Clifford repeatedly hammers on that point) has far less to do with price than it does with with demographics, weather conditions over the past decade, competing recreation options and inept marketing. Stripped to its essence, Downhill Slide is a plea - backed by fallacies of logic, appeals to pity, false dilemmas and half-baked environmental and social concerns - for things to be the way they used to be. Clifford openly states that he misses ski town life of old. Fair enough. But humans cannot freeze themselves in one moment in time. Such a freeze is what Clifford desires - and advocates - in holding up a handful of niche resorts in unique market situations as the model for how ski resorts should be run. That many ski areas which once operated in similar ways have gone out of business isn't mentioned. Nor is the fact that skiers and snowboarders vote with their wallets. Most clearly prefer the experience provided by larger resorts. Clifford's prescription would kill skiing, not save it. He's welcome to patronize the niche resorts - indeed, they'd no doubt love his business. But to suggest their model is the only acceptable approach to skiing is arrogant beyond belief. So is Downhill Slide.
Rating:
Summary: A Top-Notch Analysis
Review: Hal Clifford has meticulously interviewed sources on both sides of the resort-sprawl issue, allowing his ski-industry executives to hang themselves with their own statements. True, he is definitely on the side of the environment, and true, he is not immune to an occasional wry comment on their clueless behavior.
What the irate reviewers here ignore completely is his contention that the ski industry is no longer about skiing, but about fattenting the bottom line for themselves. In the process, they are sponging up vast tracts of irreplaceable, supposedly protected acreage, sometimes in cahoots with our government "guardians" of it.
I suspect those particular reviewers are stooges of the ski industry. Read their diatribes with that possibility in mind.
-- From a Ski Non-Bum
Rating:
Summary: Former consultant to the ski industry.
Review: I was impressed with the breath and depth of the analysis. The research was very thorough and added much to the credibility of the conclusions. Great work. It should be required reading for all full time residents of ski mountain communities. Most of all it should cause an awakening in elected officials of the communities and surrounding counties of the ski towns (except those who accept election campaign contributions from land developers). The book also reveals that the use of our public lands by developers, at bargain prices, needs further review...
Rating:
Summary: scholarly skiing
Review: it is clearly evident that clifford did a tremendous amount of research for this book and that makes it a truly interesting read. although he was a little too biased at times, he gives a thoughtful and unique perspective on the current status and future ramifications of the ski industry.
Rating:
Summary: It's a Breath Mint and a Candy Mint!
Review: There are two elements to Clifford's book. Foremost is his "deep environmentalist" screed. Other reviewers have accurately described the flaws in this thesis: Clifford is a ski-town leftist who really wishes that the rest of us would just go away. It is impossible for the reader to avoid his anti-free market rantings, they crawl through the chapters like head lice. I think Clifford has adequately struck a nerve, however, on his second theme: the homogenization of skiing. Many of us have stood on a slope in Vail, or Whistler, or Sun Valley and wondered where we are. I think Clifford is on to something about how this is the real reason that skier visits are flat and skiing is very different on the mountain than it is in the brochure. Surely, his prescription would make the disease worse. But, the geniuses who manage skiing in America had better fix the problem of the disney-ification of skiing. Their stagnant markets show it's a problem, and their investors will demand it.
Rating:
Summary: Good but could be better
Review: This book is much more accurate and readable than other recent ski industry tell-alls such as Powder Burn. The strength of the book lies in its central argument that the huge capital infusions into ski areas by big corporations (what he calls the resort "arms race") have done nothing to increase overall skier visits or investor share prices, while at the same time driving out those small areas unable to match these tactics. This short term thinking leads to a homogenization of the skiing experience. As a lifelong skier who grew up on a small hill and who now lives in one of the towns detailed by this book, I would say that Mr. Clifford's perception of this unfortunate trend is spot on. He also accurately recounts how the ski industry and the USFS categorically deny that ski area development has much greater off-site impacts than they would have the public believe. Finally he does an excellent job describing the political power of a big-time ski company in a small town. Based on personal experience, I would argue that he actually underestimates the reach of industry influence in state and local politics. However, I would partially agree with some of the other writers who panned this book. Are we skiers really such dupes that we go to a resort and can't seem to keep our wallet in our pocket? To lay the blame for poor spending habits at the feet of the ski industry is a stretch. Additionally, in specific instances (particularly surrounding the Vail Category III expansion and land trades in Eagle County, with which I am very familiar), Mr. Clifford omitted or failed to emphasize factual information that would have made his argument less cut-and-dried. To be fair, his assessment is generally correct, but in simplifying very complex issues he loses some critical points. If you enjoy mountain sports, this book is well worth your time. Just keep in mind that it's not a scientific study.
Rating:
Summary: typical
Review: This book is typical of the paranoid ethos that drives "deep environmentalism" relating to outdoor development today. Overall, I felt this book read more like an attention getting opinion column in the NYT's and although the content itself was well organized, this overarching perspective and bias ran throughout the book interfering with the objectivity of the subject matter. The portion of the book I found most rediculous was around organizational management designed to "separate the $$$ from the visitor." Do we not possess self restraint? This book takes a paranoid, "i see black helicopters in the sky" approach to common marketing problems and takes what was once reality to a creatively fictional level. Environmental extremism was also weaved through out all of the development discussion. if you are familiar with Ayn Rand, this book will feel much like Atlas Shrugged where idealist principals are applied to a fictional world to [dumb] advancement and innovation. Focusing on topics like engendrification, Clifford makes a plea for poor "locals" get get access to the inner sanctum of the ski community in these disneyland resorts as he calls them ignoring the reality of market forces and capitalism and instead focusing on more socialistic principals. I found this book useful in understanding the extreme perspectives of Mr. Clifford but "extremely" light on real world business value. The blow-hard glass house perspective is short on depth and big on far leftist rhetoric. A good read for a euridite, non-working, trustafarian looking to change the world at a grassroots level.
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