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As reported on OntheSnow.com, “Skiers and snowboarders trying to help the environment have been given a little boost.” The article is referring to a $25,000 grant that Lake Tahoe-based online ticket retailer, Snowbomb.com, has been awarded to continue to develop its online ride-sharing program. Snowbomb.com rolled out this new service for Kirkwood resort during the 07/08 season and will use the grant awarded by the Placer County Pollution Control District (PCAPCD) to extend and market the online ride-share tool to other resorts such as Alpine Meadows, Homewood, Sugar Bowl and Squaw Valley.

Now I’m all for saving the environment, but shouldn’t we take a closer look at the repercussions of such a conservative act before extending carpooling opportunities to the greater Tahoe region? As we all know, hippies love a good carpool, and the last thing we need is a serious hippie infestation on the hill. I vote that Snowbomb use this grant money to conduct a proper longitudinal study over the next few years to determine if there is a causal relationship between carpooling and the increased migration of hippies to ski mountains. Otherwise we could learn only too late that hippies are to ski resorts what zebra muscles are to lakes or the elm bark beetle was to the elm tree – an invasive species whose sole purpose is to suck the life out of its host.

Since the effects of, “hippie squatting” have already been well documented here in the Bay Area (Haight-Ashbury in S.F., Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley just to name a few) we should make certain that carpooling does not extend the hippie’s territory to the Sierras. Just think of the toll a serious hippie infestation could have on a winter economy already hobbled by climate change. This is what I predict will happen:

Anyone that gives a hippie a lift TO the mountain sure as hell isn’t going to give him a ride BACK. They’re gonna tell the hippie a bogus meeting spot and ditch him for the ride home, praying the smell of patchouli isn’t permanent. Within a matter of weekends you could have 30 or 40 hippies camping in parking lots from Alpine Meadows to Heavenly. Drum circles as far as the eye can see will form while other hippies will offer ‘hugs for nugs’ only to scream in your face for being “bourgeois” when you politely decline their embrace before hopping on the gondola.

Once the emaciated dogs on hemp leashes make their appearance in the extreme park we will have reached the tipping point and all is lost. The ski industry will have gone the way of the elm tree or the American auto industry. Ten years from then a Mad Maxilian Barter Town will emerge in its place and complete anarchy will prevail.

Caption: Cause and Effect of Hippie Migration to Sierras over ten years

So if we choose not to evaluate the real cost of mountain carpooling, will this be the future? Will we give away our beloved Sierra Nevada playground to hippie anarchists just to save this ubiquitous “environment” that scientists speak of? I for one will do my part and continue to drive solo to the mountain in my Escalade, thank you. And if this grim prediction becomes our reality…don’t forget that I told you so.

See you on the hill, hippies.