On the road again

How many hours did we spend on the road over the past week? Three vehicles for thirteen travelers. Is that reasonable? We drove all the way to Santa Fe and back. Is that reasonable? Is it efficient? It's hard to say. It's about 1500 miles round trip. That's 4500 miles total. How badly did we effect emissions? I have no idea. What about monetary costs? I didn't pay for it, so it was good for me. But in my dad's 40-gallon Suburban tank, it cost nearly $100 for each tank. I think it took about three full tanks to make the trip.

That doesn't include driving up and down the mountain every day for snowboarding. We weren't the only ones that made that drive, either. On a good day, it takes at least 45 minutes to make the drive one way. These were bad days. The weather was questionable at times and too many people didn't know how to drive on ice (I would have been one of them if I had been driving). Hundreds of vehicles made (make) that drive every day.

Not only is it physically dangerous on icy/snowy days like the days we were there, but I imagine it is more environmentally dangerous than we realize. The hours it took us to drive down the mountain in traffic were filled with bad exhaust and oil consumption. I find it ridiculous. We, as snowboarders and skiiers, and the environment around us would be much better off if we weren't making that drive twice every day we want to participate in that type of recreation.

Now, is having lodges at the ski basin a solution to this issue of safety and car emissions? I'm not sure. Other environmental concerns come into play when you talk about building lodges and keeping people up there, who will have do everything they usually do. Everyday activities can surely be destructive to the environment as well. My only other thought was to have a lift that runs all the way from the bottom of the mountain up to the top or to have a carpooling system to save on all the cars driving up and down the mountain every day.