To ski or not to ski?

Auntie Ruth—ever a one-woman dogpile of contradiction—loves downhill skiing, as do so many in Sacramento. She goes up once or twice a year, and never on a weekend, playing hooky from work, driving up leisurely, skiing ’til her legs ache (usually before the telltale sunburn sets in) and then the sore drive home.

Resolutely she dresses badly for ski culture: old pants, demure jacket and funky headwear. Proud as an ugly peacock.

Oh, the speed of it (give Ruth an intermediate hill and she looks good); oh, that smooth weightless feeling of gliding down, down the hill; oh, that little tension when she ever-so-slightly catches an edge (that chill up the spine: Is today the day Auntie Ruth falls and breaks her butt?).

Love, that many-splendored, rosy thing.

But.

Environmentally, downhill skiing offers a million reasons to fall out of love, offseason and on. There is something jagged and scarred about the Sierras in summer: the gashing of the treeline, which adds to erosion and undercuts the forests’ availability to habitat. And also renders a green mountain just plain ol’ ugly.

The ski lift roars as it lifts you up the hill, and woe is the thought as to all the gas being guzzled. (And never mind when they actually have to make the snow, as in this strangely warm season.)

And then there’s the steady crawl of development into places that might have gone untouched—often development by and for the 1 percent, those who can afford the lift ticket and the condo, while the rest of us are driving for hours, belching out more carbon emissions than usual just for those brief bursts of chill thrill.

Enter the Ski Area Citizen’s Coalition (www.skiareacitizens.com). It rates ski resorts in four categories—Habitat Protection, Protecting Watersheds, Addressing Global Climate Change, and Environmental Practices & Polices—and then award a letter grade. Top ranked in the country? Squaw Valley, and bully for them. Alpine Meadows and Sugar Bowl also made the top 10. The worst in the region? Homewood got a “D.”

Jumping back into the dogpile of contradictions, SACC notes that the numbers of skiers has grown less than one-tenth of 1 percent per year since 1978. With Squaw Valley merging with Alpine Meadows and the implied suggestion of new chairlifts and the opening of backcountry wilderness, do we need it? Does Ma Earth? Does Aunt Ruth?

Resolutely—and contarily—naw.