Speaking as someone who's lived in Denver for 6 years - my highly unpopular opinion is that skiing sucks.<p>People who head up for a grand ski holiday:<p>- Create obscene amounts of traffic
- Suck at skiing on the mountain (and create hazards for people who know how to ski)
- Are overwhelmingly wealthy (another example of wealthy people destroying nature, up there with excessive air travel)<p>Expensive ski resorts:<p>- Drive up the cost of living for everyone in the area, not all of whom are rich enough to not care about costs
- Destroy nature, both in physical footprint and energy needed to operate lifts, snowcats, and all the surrounding infrastructure
- Are a way to keep poor people out of public lands
- Are ugly af (my opinion)<p>Personally, I've stopped skiing because it:<p>- Requires driving up treacherous, icy roads, often in the dark, for multiple hours - while in rush hour traffic
- Is no longer within my risk-tolerance
- Is not fun to navigate thousands of tourists who don't know how to ski, as well as worry about a maniac flying by at 70 mph and nearly clipping me
- Is an exhausting way to spend a weekend (or weekday that I take off)<p>"What about the poor ski bums?" - find a new hobby. Being poor so you can go skiing every day is a lifestyle choice, not a fact of nature. The ski community contributes nothing of interest to our culture other than stupid catch phrases and music videos of them backflipping for the thousandth time.<p>/endrant