Mount Ashland Association Drops the Ball, Again
I have been riding Mt. Ashland for the past ten years, ever since I moved here. Over the years I have become disgruntled with the manner in which the Mt. Ashland Association runs our Mountain. High lift ticket prices, dangerous conditions on the mountain, rude middle aged employees who think they are police, overcrowded parking lots, ice covered roads, dishonest managers (when I was employed there), and complete disregard for the fact that this is a locally-owned mountain, have led me to write this article. The opening day of 2005-2006 season put in perspective how bad it really is.
I awoke at six-thirty on opening day, with a Cheshire cat grin, to get fresh tracks on our mountain. I ate a hearty breakfast of hot rice cereal and some mate. With board under my arm and boots on my feet I hiked down to Siskiyou Boulevard to hitch a ride up the mountain with some fellow riders. The drive was quick and beautiful as always. While going around dead man’s curve, or what ever you call the dangerous last curve when ascending the mountain, I was admiring the full view of Mt. Ashland and then I noticed: tracks everywhere.
I arrived around nine, which was good because any earlier and the Mountain wouldn’t have been open, right? I waited inline for my lift ticket only to find that the printer was down in the outside ticket office. No matter, I went inside to the rental office to purchase my thirty-nine dollar day ticket. Before purchasing my ticket the gentleman in front of me attempted to buy a morning half-day pass, which Mt Ashland doesn’t provide. Over the years Mt. Ashland has done many things to address the desire for half day morning passes except issue them. My favorite (illogical answer) to the dilemma was issuing vouchers good for a few dollars of the difference between a half-day afternoon pass and a full-day pass. Why not just issue a half-day morning pass? There are many locals who work jobs that only allow them to ride their mountain in the morning. No attempt this year was made to provide the service the gentleman in front of me asked for; he was told it was a full day wait three and a half hours until twelve-thirty. Having already heard the answer to my own question I bought a full day-pass, and promised myself to get a full thirty nine dollars of use out of it.
The Cheshire-cat smile I awoke with at six-thirty was still plastered across my wind-blown face when I stepped into my bindings and took my first run. The snow crunching beneath me as I rode is a familiar feeling at Mt. Ashland, where we have more ice days than snow days in the beginning of the season. I thought to my-self that the snow seemed soft enough to enjoy though, especially once I get to the top where it should be some untracked runs at nine fifteen in the morning on opening day. To my surprise while riding up the antiquated aerial chair lift I saw, again, that every trail worth riding had been tracked up. Suddenly I remembered the view on the ride up, tracks everywhere. I figured it was some employees and ski patrol riding that morning before the town arrived, a right often enjoyed by employees at ski resorts (something I myself have done). To my utter shock though was that the majority of the tracks I encountered were at least twenty-four hours old, which I could tell by their hardness, created from the freeze the night before. The Cheshire-cat grin was finally gone.
How could this be that the top of the mountain was entirely ridden the day before? The top of Mt. Ashland is only accessible by lift, snow mobile, or snowshoes. The tracks were too numerous and spread out to be from people with snowshoes. The only thing that came to mind was that employees had been riding on Wednesday and Thursday when the snow was fresh and the mountain was closed. While riding back up on aerial chair I heard two older gentleman (season pass holders) talking about the same tracks I had just noticed. They had come to the same conclusion as I had but with additional knowledge. It seemed that one of them knew a member of the ski patrol and that on Thursday he had let him know how nice riding the snow was up on the Mt. I continued to listen to their conversation and conclusion that the Mt. is no longer run for the people of Ashland; now it is run for the Association. Just about this time the lift came to an abrupt stop that left the chairs swinging so wildly that I had to grab the post between the chairs and hold on tight as first I saw the ground then the horizon and back and forth until my chair finally stopped swinging as roughly. I am used to these stoppages on the lift but this felt different, more violent. I could here the lift ops screaming back and forth trying to figure out what happened, apparently no one had turned the switch to stop the lift, it happened on its own. I noticed another peculiar sight on the mountain while swinging from the aerial chair, the two foot tree tops that were sticking up out of the snow on the aerial chair-line had nothing marking the danger they presented, just an open run. I started to wonder if the mountain should even be open yet. My next run was down Caliban, a run which I enjoy high speeds. I was able to find some good snow because the run had not been groomed but as soon as I had enough speed to be having fun the groomed part of the run came into view and the golf-ball sized chunks of ice came under my feet.
Everywhere on the mountain that had been groomed was covered in ice balls. Do the employees know how to use their equipment? The runs became very dangerous because of this faulty grooming. I am an advanced rider that can tackle most conditions, however balls of ice littering the run was a new challenge even for a ten-year rider. After managing not to break anything on the bottom half of Caliban I decided to go into the lodge for some tea. As I walked into the lodge I noticed that they had done some remodeling during the summer time, adding a wall to the right of the entrance to control the flow of customers and a new staircase that looked very nice (although I’m not sure that there was anything wrong with old stair case). I waded my way through the customers that had just paid stadium prices for institutional food and attempted to order some tea. The cute young girls at the counter exchanged bewildered looks with each-other. Finally one of them rustled around under the counter and pulled up two bags of tea. “Orange or Raspberry?” she asked with a giggle. Apparently these choices struck her as odd as they did me. I denied the tea and sat down to rest.
A friend sat down next to me and plopped his bagel down with disgust. “What’s up?” I asked. He proceeded to tell me that they only had plain bagels, they didn’t toast it and the cream cheese was grossly inadequate and not spread. I looked closer and saw a quarter size blob of cream cheese stuck between two cold halves of a small plain bagel. Unfortunately this is the standard modus operandi for the Association.
The Mt. Ashland Association seems more interested in cutting corners than they are in providing a service to the residents of Ashland. With my experiences on opening day I started to ponder the question of the multi-million dollar expansion to be overseen by the same Association that can’t groom its mountain properly.
This community is exceptionally divided over the issue of expansion. We have seen protests for and against the expansion, we have done exhaustive environmental impact studies that have yielded mixed results, we have changed environmental standards that were deemed too hard to reach, and as of now the expansion moves forward without ever asking if this Association is competent enough to handle a project that could feasibly pollute our fragile water shed. Our watershed already makes Bear Creek unusable in the summer because of low oxygen and high temperatures, which would most likely be added to by sediment from more treeless areas.
It has been said that the expansion is for Ashland and surrounding area residents. However when you look at the proposed expansion there are numerous beginner (green circle) and medium (blue square runs) and not one full expert (black triangle) run is being added to the mountain.
A proverb exists on Mount Ashland and it goes as follows, “If you can ride Mount Ashland you can ride anywhere.” Because of the technical nature of our mountain, we are very advanced riders who do not need more beginner runs to lure more people to the mountain from out of the area, to fill up our lines and our parking lots and our septic tanks. Is this expansion really for us?
Recently the Association has stated it no longer feels that it is necessary to publish their financial records for citizens to re-view. Why the un-accountability? Transparency is imperative to community programs. If they are not willing to share their financial records why should the city (the citizens) support bigger and better financial endeavors? Moreover, the Association is looking for a new manager this year? Why on earth would a business want to undertake an expansion and the hiring of a new Association manager in the same year. This is just another on the long list of inexcusable, irresponsible behavior from the Mount Ashland Association.
Before any expansion occurs on Mount Ashland the Association might want to consider the following suggestion (just one) from a long time local rider. Instead of spending millions on expanding the mountain, make what we have better. Please update our lifts (maybe use the high speed lift the Association has in the shed), ask the city to negotiate a new contract with the forest service that allows us to stay open later in the spring when all the good snow is, buy adequate grooming equipment and learn how to use it, $199 season pass all year long for residents of Ashland, work closer with the Oregon Department of Transportation to provide better service on heavy snow days, put up a new sign on “dead man’s curve” that says five miles per hour and slow in big letters, adequately train your employees, and last but not least provide free ski corral in order to deter the rising number of thefts on the mountain. When the Mount Ashland Association finally starts running our mountain for us, then maybe, just maybe, we should expand into the watershed above our town. Moksha Mokma
I awoke at six-thirty on opening day, with a Cheshire cat grin, to get fresh tracks on our mountain. I ate a hearty breakfast of hot rice cereal and some mate. With board under my arm and boots on my feet I hiked down to Siskiyou Boulevard to hitch a ride up the mountain with some fellow riders. The drive was quick and beautiful as always. While going around dead man’s curve, or what ever you call the dangerous last curve when ascending the mountain, I was admiring the full view of Mt. Ashland and then I noticed: tracks everywhere.
I arrived around nine, which was good because any earlier and the Mountain wouldn’t have been open, right? I waited inline for my lift ticket only to find that the printer was down in the outside ticket office. No matter, I went inside to the rental office to purchase my thirty-nine dollar day ticket. Before purchasing my ticket the gentleman in front of me attempted to buy a morning half-day pass, which Mt Ashland doesn’t provide. Over the years Mt. Ashland has done many things to address the desire for half day morning passes except issue them. My favorite (illogical answer) to the dilemma was issuing vouchers good for a few dollars of the difference between a half-day afternoon pass and a full-day pass. Why not just issue a half-day morning pass? There are many locals who work jobs that only allow them to ride their mountain in the morning. No attempt this year was made to provide the service the gentleman in front of me asked for; he was told it was a full day wait three and a half hours until twelve-thirty. Having already heard the answer to my own question I bought a full day-pass, and promised myself to get a full thirty nine dollars of use out of it.
The Cheshire-cat smile I awoke with at six-thirty was still plastered across my wind-blown face when I stepped into my bindings and took my first run. The snow crunching beneath me as I rode is a familiar feeling at Mt. Ashland, where we have more ice days than snow days in the beginning of the season. I thought to my-self that the snow seemed soft enough to enjoy though, especially once I get to the top where it should be some untracked runs at nine fifteen in the morning on opening day. To my surprise while riding up the antiquated aerial chair lift I saw, again, that every trail worth riding had been tracked up. Suddenly I remembered the view on the ride up, tracks everywhere. I figured it was some employees and ski patrol riding that morning before the town arrived, a right often enjoyed by employees at ski resorts (something I myself have done). To my utter shock though was that the majority of the tracks I encountered were at least twenty-four hours old, which I could tell by their hardness, created from the freeze the night before. The Cheshire-cat grin was finally gone.
How could this be that the top of the mountain was entirely ridden the day before? The top of Mt. Ashland is only accessible by lift, snow mobile, or snowshoes. The tracks were too numerous and spread out to be from people with snowshoes. The only thing that came to mind was that employees had been riding on Wednesday and Thursday when the snow was fresh and the mountain was closed. While riding back up on aerial chair I heard two older gentleman (season pass holders) talking about the same tracks I had just noticed. They had come to the same conclusion as I had but with additional knowledge. It seemed that one of them knew a member of the ski patrol and that on Thursday he had let him know how nice riding the snow was up on the Mt. I continued to listen to their conversation and conclusion that the Mt. is no longer run for the people of Ashland; now it is run for the Association. Just about this time the lift came to an abrupt stop that left the chairs swinging so wildly that I had to grab the post between the chairs and hold on tight as first I saw the ground then the horizon and back and forth until my chair finally stopped swinging as roughly. I am used to these stoppages on the lift but this felt different, more violent. I could here the lift ops screaming back and forth trying to figure out what happened, apparently no one had turned the switch to stop the lift, it happened on its own. I noticed another peculiar sight on the mountain while swinging from the aerial chair, the two foot tree tops that were sticking up out of the snow on the aerial chair-line had nothing marking the danger they presented, just an open run. I started to wonder if the mountain should even be open yet. My next run was down Caliban, a run which I enjoy high speeds. I was able to find some good snow because the run had not been groomed but as soon as I had enough speed to be having fun the groomed part of the run came into view and the golf-ball sized chunks of ice came under my feet.
Everywhere on the mountain that had been groomed was covered in ice balls. Do the employees know how to use their equipment? The runs became very dangerous because of this faulty grooming. I am an advanced rider that can tackle most conditions, however balls of ice littering the run was a new challenge even for a ten-year rider. After managing not to break anything on the bottom half of Caliban I decided to go into the lodge for some tea. As I walked into the lodge I noticed that they had done some remodeling during the summer time, adding a wall to the right of the entrance to control the flow of customers and a new staircase that looked very nice (although I’m not sure that there was anything wrong with old stair case). I waded my way through the customers that had just paid stadium prices for institutional food and attempted to order some tea. The cute young girls at the counter exchanged bewildered looks with each-other. Finally one of them rustled around under the counter and pulled up two bags of tea. “Orange or Raspberry?” she asked with a giggle. Apparently these choices struck her as odd as they did me. I denied the tea and sat down to rest.
A friend sat down next to me and plopped his bagel down with disgust. “What’s up?” I asked. He proceeded to tell me that they only had plain bagels, they didn’t toast it and the cream cheese was grossly inadequate and not spread. I looked closer and saw a quarter size blob of cream cheese stuck between two cold halves of a small plain bagel. Unfortunately this is the standard modus operandi for the Association.
The Mt. Ashland Association seems more interested in cutting corners than they are in providing a service to the residents of Ashland. With my experiences on opening day I started to ponder the question of the multi-million dollar expansion to be overseen by the same Association that can’t groom its mountain properly.
This community is exceptionally divided over the issue of expansion. We have seen protests for and against the expansion, we have done exhaustive environmental impact studies that have yielded mixed results, we have changed environmental standards that were deemed too hard to reach, and as of now the expansion moves forward without ever asking if this Association is competent enough to handle a project that could feasibly pollute our fragile water shed. Our watershed already makes Bear Creek unusable in the summer because of low oxygen and high temperatures, which would most likely be added to by sediment from more treeless areas.
It has been said that the expansion is for Ashland and surrounding area residents. However when you look at the proposed expansion there are numerous beginner (green circle) and medium (blue square runs) and not one full expert (black triangle) run is being added to the mountain.
A proverb exists on Mount Ashland and it goes as follows, “If you can ride Mount Ashland you can ride anywhere.” Because of the technical nature of our mountain, we are very advanced riders who do not need more beginner runs to lure more people to the mountain from out of the area, to fill up our lines and our parking lots and our septic tanks. Is this expansion really for us?
Recently the Association has stated it no longer feels that it is necessary to publish their financial records for citizens to re-view. Why the un-accountability? Transparency is imperative to community programs. If they are not willing to share their financial records why should the city (the citizens) support bigger and better financial endeavors? Moreover, the Association is looking for a new manager this year? Why on earth would a business want to undertake an expansion and the hiring of a new Association manager in the same year. This is just another on the long list of inexcusable, irresponsible behavior from the Mount Ashland Association.
Before any expansion occurs on Mount Ashland the Association might want to consider the following suggestion (just one) from a long time local rider. Instead of spending millions on expanding the mountain, make what we have better. Please update our lifts (maybe use the high speed lift the Association has in the shed), ask the city to negotiate a new contract with the forest service that allows us to stay open later in the spring when all the good snow is, buy adequate grooming equipment and learn how to use it, $199 season pass all year long for residents of Ashland, work closer with the Oregon Department of Transportation to provide better service on heavy snow days, put up a new sign on “dead man’s curve” that says five miles per hour and slow in big letters, adequately train your employees, and last but not least provide free ski corral in order to deter the rising number of thefts on the mountain. When the Mount Ashland Association finally starts running our mountain for us, then maybe, just maybe, we should expand into the watershed above our town. Moksha Mokma