The Problem of Too Many Skiers
For many touring center operators, the question is no longer how do I get people to use my trails, but how do I keep my trails from becoming too crowded. Three years ago overcrowding was a dream; last year smaller and medium sized centers with limited kilometers of track began to hear skier complaints about crowded conditions. Cross-country skiers are turned off by crowds on the tracks and by the waiting game.
Waiting cross-country style is waiting at the top or bottom of a hill as a line of skiers tries to make it up or down, standing patiently at a trail intersection while a stream of skiers pass, stopping at a tricky corner to avoid the tangled bodies lying in the snow, trying to pass slower moving skiers who are taking up all the lanes of traffic and finally trying to get the car out of the lot fast enough to beat everyone onto the road to avoid a traffic jam all the way home.
The waiting game is only part of the skiers problem. There’s also the safety: the more people out on the tracks, the more chance for accidents to occur. Then there’s the intimidation factor: better skiers hurtling past the more timid tourer causing him to want to leave or to fall into the woods. Intimidation and fear equal lost customers and poor public relations.
Looking at the problem from the center’s point of view, trail pressure can be more expensive than it’s worth. Maintenance and personnel costs rise in proportion to the number of skiers on the tracks. More traffic generally means a touring center will have to widen trails for additional skier safety. This means time and money spent over the summer. Inseason, increased skier traffic means tracks have to be regroomed and retracked more often.
Then there’s the added cost of basic safety. More traffic equals more signs, more regular patrols, and the necessary trail sweeps at the end of each day. Safety, as many center operators found out last year, is now very much a part of track preparation. Skiers are beginning to blame their slightest injury on the tracks condition rather than their inability to ski. A California touring center reported a drop in annual accidents from 60 to 9 when they began to erase the tracks on all corners and downhills.
Another problem with increased traffic is getting people to pay. There’s hardly a touring center in the United States whose trails can’t be skied free by the enterprising fee avoider. Last year, Jerry Berard general manager of Telemark Lodge in Wisconsin said, “If I were planning a series of trails again, they would spin off a hub so we could make sure everyone had a ticket and we could monitor the skiers with a few personnel.”
Berard said that he had tried having trail patrollers sell tickets out on the tracks, but found that it did not work.
Other operators have tried having their Nordic patrol ski backwards on all one way trails collecting fees, or placing check points at strategic trail intersections.
It’s a dilemma. Touring centers need more people on their tracks to survive; overcrowding brings in more money but generates less profit and goodwill.
What are the alternatives? One answer is to raise prices to a level that will keep the crowds at a manageable level. This is fine for areas on private land, but nearly impossible for areas located on Forest Service land.
The next alternative is to borrow an idea from Alpine areas and cut off ticket sales at a certain number. This can be very effective in controlling the numbers of people on the trails, in keeping maintenance low, and safety high. It also creates what I call the “Studio 54” effect, that is people who get turned away crave to get it. The more you have to turn them away the more they want to come and ski.
The root of the problem is, of course, the lack of new touring centers around the country. With more skiers taking up the sport, the existing centers will get more traffic. If the increased traffic is not absorbed by existing and new centers, people will turn away from cross-country just as many have from Alpine skiing because they feel crowded.
It is the duty of touring center operators and owners to work with both the NSAA and NSTOA (National Ski Touring Operators Association) for more touring center area development and the opening of new lands for touring center location. It may sound familiar to the plea Alpine industry people have been making for years and it is becoming just as critical. The sport needs room to grow and by banding together cross-country entreprenuers can make things happen.
Cross-country skiing is recreation, a chance to get away from the cares of the workaday world. Preserving the uncrowded nature of the sport while making a decent profit should be the goal of every touring center operator.
