The Ski Area and the American Landscape         We have learned to recognize American ideals in almost any landscape form presented to us. From the attempted protection of pristine wilderness to the unhindered blight of urban sprawl, American societal ideology is interwoven with connection to the American landscape. The ski area is an interesting subject to examine. The obvious benefits and costs to American society brought by ski areas and the symbolism attached to the use of those areas will be emphasized in this paper.         The image immediately quickens my heart. In the background a swath of trees frame of a groomed ski run cut down the center by a high speed, four person ski lift. In the foreground a professional snowboarder, Tom Gilles, soars 20 feet above the lip of a manmade halfpipe at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, California. I’m salivating because, of the many things that I enjoy, snowboarding makes me completely content. I love harnessing gravity for my own pleasure. I love getting out into nature. I am an environmentalist, and a good day of snowboarding on the mountain helps me to reconnect with the nature I wish to devote my life to protecting.         Many environmentalists agree that ski areas are as good as super highways in our national forests. The clearcutting of forest ecosystems to furnish ski areas with wide, clear runs has destroyed habitat and brought eroded runoff to previously unpolluted streams. I’ve always been aware of this dark side to ski areas. Supporting ski areas has been my vise as I try to lead a low impact life.      I realize that ski areas do give a valuable opportunity for people to get out into an area more natural than the city.  However these areas have been sterilized and reformed to create a theme park for our enjoyment. We trade one type of human development for another. Along with the rest of the American landscape, ski areas have been modeled to our expectations and needs, not allowing the land to remain as it is meant to be.         Just as the ski area is symbolic of America’s subordination of wilderness, skiing and snowboarding are a perfect metaphor relating to man’s historic relationship with nature.   Virgin powder, fresh snow, untouched white wash.  All these terms for a powder day create images of peace, nature, and solitude.  New snow is the most attractive surface to ski or snowboard on. However, once on the hill one finds a frustrating and sometimes violent rush for fresh tracks.  The whole point is to find the virgin powder and leave you mark.  Harnessing and dominating nature in our own little way, the snowboarder defiles the new wild beauty.          It is a very dominant male picture that I paint, but the historical subordination of nature was very driven by patriarchal values of control and domination.  Of course, fresh powder comes almost nightly in the mountains, and the tracks from a snowboard leave no permanent damage.  However, the ski area is a permanent fixture of the American landscape.  This landscape that our European ideals shaped does not allow for natural cycles.  Ski areas dotting our western mountain ranges have caused irreversible damage to our natural areas.   Mining, logging and road building have created much more of a problem, but the symbolic nature of the ski area stands as yet another attempt to conquer wildness.         Back to my image; My initial excitement abates as I look at the image from another perspective.  Tom Gilles, the hero, shown going higher on a jump than any before is composed well in the photo.  His feat supersedes the importance of the background where one sees the angles of the lights, lift poles, and trees only to add to Gilles impressive achievement.  However, Tom is really only adding to what I believe is a society headed at break neck speed to collapse.  He is a professional snowboarder who travels the world receiving corporate sponsorship from entities such as NIKE and Gatorade.  His athletic skill is exploited to gain support for corporations that abuse worker rights and pollute groundwater.   His trick is just one of the hundreds portrayed in the Snowboarder Magazine every month.  I noticed recently that the magazine holds more ads than articles.   The use, by business, of professional athletes, beautiful people,  and beautiful places to sell products is an accepted influence and concrete element of the American Landscape.  Billboards, clothing, television, magazines, banners at ski areas surround us with corporate logos.     We are prodded to consume and accumulate more than the next guy.   This ideal is one specific to America in its exhausting all-encompassing manner.  Basing our country on the conquering and subjugation of nature has brought us to this point in our society.  A country so rich with natural resources allowed pioneers to cut as many trees, dam as much water, and mine as much material as possible.  Even today the “American Dream” deals still with one upping the rest of the country;  Make as much money as fast as possible, and don't worry about humanity or the environment. We are taught that everyone else is competing with us (not being exploited by us) and natural resources are inexhaustible.      Ski areas encourage the less wholesome aspects of the American Landscape ideology.  Corporatization, environmental naivete, unquestioned glorification, and subordination of nature are symbolic elements of ski areas.  Tom Gilles will continue to soar overhead, and ski areas will continue to sell prepackaged nature, but I go forward questioning why I have sacrificed my ideals.  I plan on buying a pair of snowshoes(with logos) and a backpack(with logos) with which to carry my snowboard(with logos).  Fresh powder turns in the backcountry may still symbolize my masculine subordination of mother nature, but I won’t be supporting an ecologically damaging corporate ski complex in the middle of my national forest.