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This was surprising, FS royalty mix.

jryoung

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This kind of blew my mind to see the revenue mix for the Forest Service. I cant help but wonder if the ski resort piece of the pie is so large because it isn't subsidized. This is pure speculation but I have to assume their lease rates are nowhere near as low as those for grazing, timber and minerals, or more bluntly, just not subsidized)

https://www.fs.fed.us/blogs/world-class-winter-sports-your-national-forest

(Cant get the image to attach, but it's in the link above)
 
Definitely interesting. I wonder what the percentage of land tied up with ski areas looks like in relation to minerals, grazing, and logging. Granted, no one is going to be hunting ski areas, but it would be interesting to see how many acres are tied up.
 
Got me thinking Gerald and I found this. Not sure how new the data was tho. Roughly 182,000 acres is tied up in ski resorts. 0.9%. In contrast to a out 96 million acres of rangeland. Out of roughly 193 million acres of land.
 
I went snowboarding for the first time in 10 years a couple of weeks ago. I could have run 87 cow/calf pairs at $1.43 for the price of the lift ticket.

Your lift ticket includes costs for land lease, improvements, parking, liability insurance, labor to operate and maintain, taxes, snow making, profit, ect.. Your point? Public land managers favor food production over recreation. No surprise to me.
 
That is really interesting JR. I'm not a big fan of ski resorts on public land, and would have a tough time seeing myself support any new leases in areas I recreate. That said, I use them too. I think you're right on with subsidization. Just imagine if agricultural lease rates were 2/3 of market value. That pie would look different.
 
Sounds to me JR that your biggest issue here is grazing subsidies. IIRC you are, or at least were in the HEAVILY subsidized solar energy sector. To be blunt, I find grazing/food production subsidies more palatable than solar energy subsidies. That's JMO however. ;)
 
That is really interesting JR. I'm not a big fan of ski resorts on public land, and would have a tough time seeing myself support any new leases in areas I recreate. That said, I use them too. I think you're right on with subsidization. Just imagine if agricultural lease rates were 2/3 of market value. That pie would look different.

I take it you don't ski or only ski Big Sky as that's about the only area in the west I know of that is on private land.

Gerald Martin, the three biggest bulls my family has taken were on ski areas during the fall before the mt opened, and I know a couple of people who have killed bears at Bridger bowl... so not sure what that comment is about.
 
Sounds to me JR that your biggest issue here is grazing subsidies. IIRC you are, or at least were in the HEAVILY subsidized solar energy sector. To be blunt, I find grazing/food production subsidies more palatable than solar energy subsidies. That's JMO however. ;)

My libertarian leanings have oft cause me to dream of an end to ag subsidies (and other industry subsidies) and a move to something closer to a true free market (with appropriate social safety nets and modest required regulation - I am not a pure ideological libertarian), but it has been a pipe dream for so many years that I have just blocked it out of my mind - give it away for free for all I care at this point - just don't let the leasees post it as private.
 
My support for ski areas has dwindled. It doesn't matter how big they are they always want more, and they want to add summer recreation now. Both of which add impacts to wildlife. I've switched to AT gear. I don't get very many turns in compared to previous years but I feel a lot better at the end of the season.
 
My libertarian leanings have oft cause me to dream of an end to ag subsidies (and other industry subsidies) and a move to something closer to a true free market (with appropriate social safety nets and modest required regulation - I am not a pure ideological libertarian), but it has been a pipe dream for so many years that I have just blocked it out of my mind - give it away for free for all I care at this point - just don't let the leasees post it as private.

About where I'm at...give it away as long as they take care of it, leave enough for wildlife, and I can access it.

The pittance that is collected is hardly worth the bother, purely symbolic IMO.
 
I take it you don't ski or only ski Big Sky as that's about the only area in the west I know of that is on private land.

Gerald Martin, the three biggest bulls my family has taken were on ski areas during the fall before the mt opened, and I know a couple of people who have killed bears at Bridger bowl... so not sure what that comment is about.

That’s good to know. I had assumed ski areas would be off limits or too crowded to have opportunities to hunt. I don’t ski nor do I live near FS ski areas.
 
Sounds to me JR that your biggest issue here is grazing subsidies. IIRC you are, or at least were in the HEAVILY subsidized solar energy sector. To be blunt, I find grazing/food production subsidies more palatable than solar energy subsidies. That's JMO however. ;)

I really don't have an issue with this at all, it was just a surprise to see the mix and I would have never had guessed ski resorts would have been so significant. We can talk energy subsidies, their complexities and who really benefits from them another day.
 
Ski areas leasing federal land in CO (and I bet elsewhere) are seasonal tenants. All operations on federal lands get vetted through an exhaustive EIS process. Their permits have start/end dates, specific uses allowed & excluded, and are structured to allow such undisturbed wildlife uses as elk calving. Cutting trails in modern practice improves wildlife habitat. When the ski area is defunct, a few access roads, some concrete blocks and slabs are all that remain on the landscape. Snowmaking consumes energy yet conserves water.

Ski area leases have an indirect-but-massive (-) impact on wildlife, however. The real estate that is developed on all private land around ski resorts obliterates winter range for game herds. And winter range is the single greatest limiting factor on these herds.

I am among those opposed to the giveaway subsidized federal lease rates for mining, oil/gas, timber, grazing; listed in order of each's habitat destruction multiplied by exaggerated corporate profits.
 
It makes sense to me that the fees paid by ski resorts is significantly larger. It's like the "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco products and the graduated income tax rates. Ski resorts don't produce anything and are most often used by the wealthy.

I'm not saying fees for mining, oil/gas, timber, and grazing should not be increased.
 
Ski resorts don't produce anything and are most often used by the wealthy.

I would love to see stats that support that, I can't imagine the average hunter in CO has an income significantly lower than the average skier in CO. Sure lots of wealthy people ski, but the same could be said of hunting. The average local skier is likely on par with your average resident hunter, whereas your out of state tourist skier is similar to your out of state/guided hunter. I'm sure an average ski vacation cost more than a hunt, but their aren't many families of 4 where the whole family is going guided elk hunting.

About 500,000 CO residents skied each year compared with 259,000 total hunters. CO has more skier days ~12.6 Million than hunting and fishing days combined ~10.5 million, which means that skiing gets lots of people outdoors, and has a relatively low habitat impact as skiers are confined to a relatively small portion of public lands in the state comparatively. Not to mention skiing has a huge economic impact to the state.

If you are talking pure economics and/or public lands being put to the best use, defined as public land users recreating on their land, then skiing definitely beats out hunting and fishing.

I'm not trying to pit skiing against hunting, but rather suggesting skiing is another great activity that fits well into the mixed use goal of public lands.
 
wllm's ox is being gored! You bring some good facts to the table wllm in defense of skiing. Amazing how so many people have such a hard time with the "multiple use" concept.
 
One other thing. Royalty data was from 2015. Many N F timber sales were litigated at that time. Imagine what the timber sales royalties would be if the litigation was removed.;)
 
The average local skier is likely on par with your average resident hunter

I don't have any data, but I would guess that the average hunter has above average income.

To be clear, I don't have anything against skiing or even having it on public land. I was just pointing out that skiing is a recreational activity that people are willing to spend a lot of money on and expect to be taxed more...as compared to other uses.
 

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