New directions for NSAA
The news stories starting on Page 14 of this issue give the reader the outlines of what hopefully will be a sound, long-range solution to what has been an intolerable situation between ski area industry suppliers and NSAA — an unnatural abrasion between buyer and seller. The news story tells the present, and points to the future. This is positive and good. And this magazine does not intend to wallow in the horror stories that produced the crisis in the first place.
NSAA has a new executive director, Cal Conniff, of Mt. Tom, in Holyoke Mass. When we asked a fellow eastern ski area operator about Cal, the answer came through loud and clear: “I don’t really have much small talk about him. I only know that I have worked with him for years in various ski area groups and state organizations, and Cal is the kind of guy who accepts responsibility for a job and then lets nothing stop him from completing it. He is thorough, workmanlike and completely professional.”
This is the kind of man NSAA’s new executive director is, and that bodes well, indeed.
What bodes even better for a good, sound ski area industry future is that the self-styled “young hungries” on the NSAA Board have climbed off the high horse that was the recent NSAA, and have shown an imagination and a flexibility that has been sorely lacking recently.
In the Spring 1973 issue of SAM we wrote an editorial entitled, “For a Supplier Voice.” We said, in part, “To this end, we think it might be very useful if there were an association of ski area suppliers who could give NSAA and its show managers the input necessary for the planning of successful trade shows.” In the Summer issue of SAM, after Ski Area Suppliers Association (SASA) was formed, we wrote, “We think that SASA has the opportunity of doing something constructive for the whole industry. It can help NSAA in the planning of its mid-winter slope-grooming and snow-making demonstrations, it can give NSAA some valuable input on the national trade show and it can be responsive to the needs of areas in providing further organized supplier buyer contacts.”
Well, things seem to be working out pretty much as we had hoped. SASA did indeed come into existance, and announced a marketing plan — a series of trade shows. The plan was based on the marketing needs of the suppliers, which in turn were based on what the market — the ski areas — wanted.
Sure, at the time, there was all sorts of nonsense rumored around about SASA trying to destroy NSAA. Personalities were discussed, and their motivation. In the meantime, the natural law of the market place was coming into its own, NSAA and SASA looked into the whites of each other’s eyes, and each knew the other was serious. And each knew they needed each other.
NSAA adopted the SASA regional trade show program (except for the Canadian show activities which SASA plans to handle), and at that point there were no losers — just winners. Because what is evolving is natural and sensible.
And our most fundamental conclusion is that we were right in urging a supplier voice. It did the trick. It accomplished many marketing goals. To those who committed and involved themselves in providing that voice, all suppliers owe a deep debt of gratitude. We hope that suppliers attending Hunter Mt. mid-winter meeting will broaden the base of SASA’s membership, elect a slate of officers and set goals and objectives. Because, make no mistake about it, SASA should continue to exist. And NSAA — the new NSAA — says it wholeheartedly agrees.
Likewise, the whole of NSAA is in the debt of the young hungries within the NSAA Board who understood, and who applied a healthy pragmatism to move NSAA back into the mainstream of reality. Much remains to be done. The financial problems of NSAA remain. Its needs are substantial and increasing, and the causes are compelling, according to their directors. Here we must say that some communications work is needed, because little has been done to convince the membership of these needs — let alone the non-voting associate (supplier) membership which supplies at least 40 per cent of the total budget.
Executive Director Conniff has his work cut out for him. But at least he starts with the nagging trade show and supplier problem pointed in the direction of solution. We wish him luck, and pledge him our fullest cooperation.
A fine new regional program
The program proposed by Eastern Ski Areas Association (we use their proposed new name) is eminently sensible. It is hard to see how there could be any opposition to it. We applaud its authors.
It says, “Let’s tackle only those things we can do, and only those things which benefit us, and which others cannot do better.” That sounds obvious, but how many well-meaning organizations have foundered precisely because they violated these simple precepts!
They want to get internal communications with a monthly newsletter, and work to improve the sport’s image through external communications. Thirdly, they want to get their members the most useful sort of trade show exposure, and coordination is planned to this end with SASA and NSAA.
All laudable objectives, and fully realizable.
. . . and others that continue
As we have said in recent editorials, we greatly believe in the efficacy of active regional and state ski area associations. With good leadership, they can address themselves to specific situations and get things done. The Colorado group is an example (Ski Country USA and RMSAOA now merged). Their lift seminar earlier this year drew widespread praise.
Another example is the Midwest Ski Areas Association, with its well-organized and well-attended trade show. The Pacific Northwest group has long been well-organized and their lift maintenance seminar also rates high marks.
It is unfair to single out a few, and we do so only to make the point. The smaller area gets its most immediate and direct benefit from its local and regional associations, and we think their vitality is as important as the vitality of the national organization.
A SAM Editorial
What Next?
The ski industry has a good record of self-regulation as evidenced by the ANSI Safety Requirements. This standard is a fine effort. It provides for the public safety, yet is made workable and reasonable by the input of the professionals in the industry. There is really no question that a similar code would have been developed if industry hadn’t led the way. The only difference is that it would have probably been more difficult to apply.
Now, the industry faces a similar challenge — the need for an Environmental Code. Environmental standards for development are in the wings. The question is who will bring them to centerstage. I think the industry will be most comfortable with self-imposed standards.
Actually a good start has already been made with the recent NSAA Forest Service Planning Considerations for Winter Sports Development. Certainly environmental standards cannot be as explicit as the NSI Safety Requirements, but further expression of intent along the lines of the Planning Guidelines is needed for the many aspects of ski area development and management.
The industry has already demonstrated the leadership ability with ANSI. The Forest Service is ready to help. It’s time to get on with the job.
Roy Feuchter
Assistant Director of Recreation,
Forest Service, Washington, D.C.
. . . and a footnote
We agree with Roy Feuchter above, and quote from our Speak-out column in the Spring ’72 issue: ” . . . NSAA should be working out its own responsible environmental standards, and then urging these on the appropriate legislatures. The standards thus proposed should be tough, just as the tramway code provisions were . . . Inaction by NSAA on the environmental front will be self-defeating; rearguard action will be ineffectual. The only course for NSAA is bold leadership . . . forward.“
A SAM Editorial
On professional ski journalism
Eastern Ski Writers’ Association, an organization of professional journalists, recently adopted an “Ethics” by-law to its constitution. This by-law reminds members their job is to report, photograph and comment on the news related to skiing, and not to promote various aspects of the ski industry.
Members are told that they shall in no manner attempt to coerce courtesies or considerations from any element of the ski industry, in exchange for favorable comment.
Several writers and broadcasters who thought that by-law to be just so much “window dressing” found themselves with their memberships revoked after hearings by the board of directors.
What ESWA is really striving for is real freedom for its members. Freedom to write and comment on skiing much the same way a professional reporter would cover any beat. The problem is, too many ski writers have been in the business of promoting skiing, rather than covering it, for too long.
Ski writers must realize when they are objective about skiing, they are not putting the knock on “their” sport. If a young lefthander can’t get the ball over the plate he belongs in the minor leagues, and it’s the baseball writers’ duty to say so. If an area operator can’t keep his lifts and trails safe and well maintained, he too belongs in the minors and the ski writer had better be ready to say so.
However, as we strive to promote a professional objective approach to ski journalism by the writer, we have to ask the operator to take the same track. The professional ski writer is not the enemy. He is not someone to try and con, trick, or bribe. Perhaps if the operator is forthright, candid, honest and above board, the writer will be the same.
The operator who reports fresh powder, when the fresh powder resembles blacktop, or tells the world a trick skier fell in the parking lot and hides the fact he fell on the hill, is asking for the same treatment that the writer who tries to coerce lift tickets for a “friendly” column or two deserves.
The time for professional ski journalism is now. ESWA is making a serious attempt to give it a start, let’s all give it a chance.
Don A. Metivier
Glens Falls Post-Star and Times
Pres., Eastern Ski Writers’ Assoc.
On measuring beauty
One of the more fascinating projects of the U.S. Forest Service is the development of what they call “The Visual Management System.” It is, they say, “a set of guidelines governing the inventory of important aspects of the scenery resource and the establishment of objectives for management and protection of that resource.” It is too complex a system to detail here, so let us describe it—albeit inadequately—as a way to quantify the aesthetics of the great outdoors. (I use the following definition of “quantify”: to give quantity to something previously regarded as having only quality.”) Thus, in addition to being able to measure the size, geological composition, flora and fauna density and other such resource descriptions, we will be able to measure its appeal to the human eye. The aesthetic quality of a piece of real estate will be measured and described according to certain formulae.
The new system is ingenious, and is obviously the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of bright and knowledgeable people. It is still being developed and thus is not yet gospel. Not being estheticians ourselves we are not sure we understand it. Thus we neither endorse nor condemn it. But we admit it does make us a little nervous. It presumes to turn anyone into an instant evaluator of the quality of beauty, and to do so with objective measurements. All the person has to do is substitute into the formula and out comes a neat judgment. (That’s unfair. Actually, a system of overlays is used, and a vague idea of how it all works can be gained by reading the following: “Quality standards are a direct reflection of the relative value of the scenery as determined by the variety class and sensitivity level inventories. They are found by combining the two overlays for variety class and sensitivity levels and assigning the appropriate quality standard from the chart.” We recognize it is unfair to quote out of context like this from a talk by Al Grapel, a very bright Forest Service Landscape Architect, and the reader should in no way judge the system based on this quote.)
No matter what is validity, we worry about any sort of doctrinaire approach to the subject of aesthetics, especially when it has a way of picking up the force of law. Thus, we find absolute judgments being made that the trails of such-and-such a mountain are ugly, or that such-and-such a top bullwheel housing is displeasing to the eye. This may be fine as a subjective opinion, and it may even be fine as the subjective opinion of a group of people, but we doubt if any one person or any group of people, majority or not, are necessarily “right” when it comes to judging aesthetics.
At a recent seminar put on by the Forest Service, Steve Bradley sounded the note of warning that is being echoed here. Bradley is a highly articulate, highly sensitive professional ski area manager. He is a past and distinguished president of NSAA. Speaking to the Forest Service personnel assembled, Steve made some forceful, extemporaneous remarks which we caught on tape, and which we excerpt here:
“Suddenly we are becoming guardians of the public aesthetic. Think of that when you go home to the people you are going to be training—young, eager zealots . . . sincere young people who may or may not be adequately prepared for this. It’s an awful responsibility, isn’t it?
Think of these subjective assumptions we are making all the way along the line: “Sharp lines on a trail are ugly.’ Are they really? Well, somebody has made an assumption, ‘Yeah, thats an ugly thing, a sharp line. It ought to be softer. It is much more like Nature that these things be soft.’ And since man is there, he should therefore imitate Nature more than he should carve out his own works. But often our assumptions become general rules, and our general rules become absolute restrictive programs.
We’re making assumptions that design that reveals function is visually displeasing. Is that so? Does the National Academy of Design support this kind of thing? Does the public even? You know, if we didn’t have a great love for functional design, why would the world’s history of art be so full of magnificent examples of naked girls? There is no more glorious functional design than that!
But maybe the assumption is that the functional design and layout of a ski area is displeasing to the eye. Is it indeed? I don’t know whether we’ve got concensus on this question, or not . . . “
Philosophically, Bradley is on very sound ground to be challenging the concept of a universal aesthetic. To imitate nature or not to imitate it has always been a universal question for which there is no universal answer. The English curving herbaceous garden border, melting into a natural background, can be contrasted with the formal, rectangular, ordered, severe lines of the Continental garden. Is one ugly and the other pleasing to the eye?
In the 18th century, the age of Reason, it was fashionable in some circles to deplore the more disordered manifestations of nature, such as the Alps, because they were so obviously inferior to the ordered, intelligent works of man. To the intellectual of the day the Grand Canyon would probably have been considered an ugly scar on an otherwise ordered landscape. To emulate “nature” in those same times was to build fake ruins, since what was more “natural” than the works of Nature’s one reasoning creature, Man? We may chuckle today, but not too loudly since a later age may find it hilarious that we tried to cut ski trails to make them look like burn areas. (For some reason, nobody says much about emulating Mother Nature when she launches a rock slide and gouges out a bold and bald path with sharp lines and few sculptured edges!)
Our point is a difficult one to get across. We are very much for the concern and awareness of everyone’s aesthetic responsibilities when building a ski area, or expanding one. We merely want to caution against glib assumptions. We happen to think that Copper Mountain in Colorado is going to be one of the great ski resorts of the country, and we are second to none in our admiration for what has been done there (See SAM cover story on Chuck Lewis, Fall, 1972), but we get distinctly uneasy when their aesthetic design criteria for trails suddenly are posed as the touchstone against which all trails should be measured.
We suggest that successful trail design criteria start with what are described as “skier dynamics”, continue with all sorts of considerations such as exposure, wind, traffic (call them all “functional considerations”) and that how much the thing looks “natural” to motorists driving by on the road (or by airplane passengers peering down from 37,000 feet) is of minimal importance, the environmentalists notwithstanding.
To put it all succinctly, we are quite happy to trust the inherent “mountain sense”, and environmental concern of the hard core ski area operator. Forty years of ski area development he has done pretty darned well, and he has not lagged behind, but rather he has led the way, in responding to the legitimate environmental concerns of our times.
