Vail brings back physical trail maps for those who love them

VAIL — Trail map nerds, rejoice.

A physical trail map to have and to hold, free of charge, is available to those who ask for one at Vail Mountain this season.

Vail did not offer trail maps during the 2020-21 season, but just as the trail map itself changes from year to year, so has the policy on printing and distributing those maps.

At Golden Peak, the trail map from Vail’s 2019-20 season currently remains framed in a large display outside the ticket window. If you approach that ticket window, however, and ask for an updated rendition of the ski area, the worker will gladly provide you with a physical map of Vail for the 2021-22 season, folded in the same format you remember from the dispensers at the mountain loading areas.

Those map dispensing machines are long gone at Vail, along with their tissue-dispensing cousins, but while a physical map for the 2020-21 season wasn’t printed, in 2021-22 Vail has gone back to supplying physical maps.

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It’s part of a compromise between having no physical map at all, like last season, and having a seemingly endless supply available for future eBay sellers to capitalize upon.

Vail spokesperson John Plack said maps are available “for free by request across our mountains.”

Average snow total lowered

Several subtle differences can be observed when comparing the map offered by the Golden Peak ticket window and the map on display in front of it.

The map clearly shows the adjustment of the boundary area to exclude the run formerly known as The Narrows in the aspen trees near the Gondola One. While that run has been removed, a new run called “Jake’s Way” has been added in the Golden Peak area of Vail. The run formerly known as Cheetah Gully is no longer marked on the trail map, as well, but the Cheetah Gully terrain area has been open this season and is still listed as in-bounds.

The 2021-22 map also says Vail’s average snowfall is 350 inches per year, down from the 354 inches Vail has claimed as its as average in recent years.

Vail’s professed average snowfall total has jumped around quite a bit in the last decade; on the 2010-11 trail map it was also listed as 350 inches, but after a good snow year in 2010-11, the 2011-12 trail map listed Vail’s average as 366 inches, with a message listed on the front of the map: “Last year, we saw an incredible 524 inches of snowfall.”

The 2011-12 season was conversely light on snow, however, only recording about 160 inches according to snowfall tracker snowpak.com and Vail Daily coverage from that time. Vail Mountain does not share its historic snowfall totals publicly and did not provide the Vail Daily with the numbers following an early season request.

While the 2012-13 trail map also claimed a 366-inch average, by the 2014-15 season Vail’s trail map had been readjusted to list the snowfall average as 354 inches. Vail continued to claim this 354 inches in the years that followed (354 is still listed as average on Vail.com), but the 2021-22 trail map has returned to the 350 inches Vail claimed in 2010.

Over the course of the decade in which Vail adjusted its annual average from 350 to 366 to 354 and now back down to 350 inches, the resort has not come close to reaching any of those numbers. Vail’s best snow year in the last decade came in the 2015-16 season, when Vail recorded 305 inches on snowpak.com.

Sustainable since 2003

The lagging snowfall totals of the last decade have not gone unnoticed at Vail Resorts, where climate change is constantly being referenced by executives. Indeed, even Vail Resorts’ industry-changing Epic Pass is a product of climate change, Vail Executive Chairperson Rob Katz said in a recent interview with the Storm Skiing Podcast.

“The number of resorts in the U.S. were declining – significantly, actually – in the ’80s and ’90s, and we were talking about why, what was that issue, and we really focused on weather variability, and we also were talking about the fact that it was likely to get worse with climate change coming, and happening,” Katz said. “The question, then, was how would you address that, there were a lot of environmental moves that we could make, and did make, to do the right thing for the environment, but how could we actually make a change in the business model to help protect both our company, our employees, and our communities? And so we said if we could get people to buy their skiing before the season began, well then that would be a way to do that.”

The environmental moves Katz referenced had been touted on Vail Mountain’s trail maps since 2003 when the resort included a reference to the “Sustainable Slopes” initiative.

“We promote renewable energy, resource conservation, recycling, wildlife habitat preservation and environmental education,” Vail wrote on its 2003-04 trail map, along with a reminder to guests to “Pack it in, pack it out; carpool and use public transportation; reduce, reuse and recycle; share the mountains and respect all wildlife habitat closures.”

But until recently, no policy adjustment had been made regarding the trail maps themselves and the disposal nature of the resort’s distribution system. Vail Mountain spokesperson John Plack said as part of Vail’s efforts to create zero waste for landfills, and also as one of the learnings that came from the pandemic, Vail is now piloting the reduction of printing paper trail maps.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability, we continue to make progress on Commitment to Zero – our goal to achieve a zero net operating footprint by 2030,” Plack said. “Commitment to Zero creates the opportunity for one mountain resort operator to have a big impact on preserving the environment through our three pillars: zero net emissions, zero waste to landfill, and zero net operating impact on forests and habitat.”