It all depends whose rating it is.

As y'all know, for as much as I like the New York Times for its news coverage, I'm troubled by their focus on luxury when it comes to travel. A case in point is the story that ran last Sunday, titled The Ski Issue — Going Green, Luxuriously.

The premise of that story: Can luxury and green mix?

Yes, all those snowmaking guns and high-speed lifts soak up untold amounts of energy, but thanks to eco-friendly capital improvements, skiers can schuss down the mountain this winter with a somewhat clearer conscience. Snow guns are using oil-free air compressors, mountaintop restaurants are being powered by solar panels, and carbon offsets can be purchased as part of your lift ticket. Ignore the S.U.V.'s crammed in the parking lot, and skiing might also seem like a sustainable sport.

The NYT piece then went on to inventory green improvements to many ski resorts across the U.S. and Canada … as well as resort real estate developments it likens to the Las Vegas strip.

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort was touted at the conclusion of the story, for two reasons: 1) offsetting 100 percent of its energy usage with wind, biomass and other renewable energy sources, and 2) Hotel Terra — the first in a collection of green hotels launched by the Terra Resort Group.

The Times' piece got me wondering: on an objective scale, how green are the resorts they mentioned?

The Ski Area Citizens Coalition issues an annual rating called The Ski Area Environmental Scorecard, and claims it's a non-industry, independent mechanism that gives skiers and boarders a way to assess the environmental performance of their favorite resorts. While this scorecard is only applied to western ski areas, I thought it would be interesting to see how some of resorts the Times covered held up when they were rated according to these criteria:

• Impacting Roadless Areas
• Logging Old Growth Forests
• Purchasing clean, renewable wind energy
• Using cleaner burning, biodegradable biodiesel.
• and much more

Aspen and Park City earned "A" ratings. Crystal Mountain and Crested Butte earned "Ds" and Breckenridge earned an"F". How about our local resort? Jackson Hole Mountain Resort earned a solid "B."

With ratings in hand, I went back to to see why the Times even included Crystal Mountain, Crested Butte and Breckenridge in the story? I wasn't surprised to see that it was "style over substance" in each case:

• Crystal Mountain renovated its cafeteria-style Summit House from a chili-and-cheeseburger joint into a fine-dining establishment, serving up Swiss fondue and amazing views of Mount Rainier.
• Crested Butte's moldy gothic building has been torn down and will be replaced by a 92-room luxury studio and retail complex called the Cimarron. And a former Club Med has been turned into a slopeside luxury hotel with spa.
• Breckenridge's new children's learning school, Mountains of Discovery, combines traditional ski lessons with an Amazing Race-style hunt for slopeside landmarks.

To be fair, in its coverage of Breckenridge, the Times points out:

• the new BreckConnect gondola, which opened last December, is saving some 20,000 gallons of fuel each season by reducing shuttle usage between Main Street and Peak 8.

But that's the only green improvement mentioned for any of the three resorts — no wonder they scored so poorly on the Ski Area Environmental Scorecard.

One can only wonder why the Times felt compelled to mention these resorts in its coverage of green ski resorts. I also wonder how the non-western resorts mentioned in the Times story would rate on the Ski Area Environmental Scorecard?

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

Popularity: 15%