Occupy Alta

Our Public Land, Their Private Discrimination

Of the three remaining ski-only holdouts in North America, Alta Ski Area in Utah stands apart as the one that truly matters. While nearby Deer Valley wallows in its manufactured exclusivity for trust-fund babies and Mad River Glen clings to folksy Vermont tradition, Alta sits on public land funded by taxpayer dollars while systematically excluding an entire community of mountain users. It’s time we reclaimed what’s rightfully ours.

Here’s the fundamental injustice: Alta operates on United States Forest Service land. Your tax dollars, my tax dollars, all snowboarder’s tax dollars help fund the infrastructure, avalanche control, and forest management that makes Alta possible. Yet we’re banned from riding terrain that we literally help pay for. It’s taxation without representation, mountain-style, and it’s completely unacceptable.

Alta isn’t some private circle-jerk like Deer Valley where rich assholes can exclude whoever they want on their own dime. This is public land managed by the United States Forest Service, leased to Alta under a special use permit that should serve all Americans, not just those who happen to slide on two planks instead of one.

The snowboard community has already tried the legal route, and the courts failed us. In 2014, Wasatch Equality, a nonprofit organization including pro snowboarder Bjorn Leines, filed suit alleging Alta’s ban violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The case directly challenged whether a ski area has the right to prohibit or single out certain users’ access to federal public land that’s supposed to be open to everyone. It was exactly the right question, but we got exactly the wrong answer.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that concluded Alta had the right to enforce its discriminatory policy because the U.S. Forest Service didn’t influence the decision and therefore it wasn’t “state action” that could amount to discrimination. This legal technicality allowed the court to sidestep the fundamental issue: taxpayer-funded discrimination on public land. The ruling was a cowardly punt that prioritized legal loopholes over equal access principles.

What makes this decision even more infuriating is that it essentially gives Alta legal cover to continue their taxpayer-funded apartheid. The court basically said that as long as the Forest Service doesn’t explicitly endorse the discrimination, they can look the other way while their permittee excludes half the mountain-sliding population. It’s a green light for segregation with government approval through willful ignorance.

Let’s be clear about what we’re dealing with here. Alta’s Little Cottonwood Canyon terrain is legendary. We’re talking about some of the most consistently deep, light, and rideable powder in North America. The Baldy Traverse, High Rustler, and the backside bowls. This is terrain that every serious powder rider dreams about accessing. While Deer Valley’s groomed runs appeal mainly to people who think skiing is a fashion show, Alta offers the kind of natural snow conditions that define what mountain riding should be about.

The cruel irony is that Alta’s terrain is perfect for snowboarding. The wide-open bowls, natural halfpipes, and endless powder fields would provide some of the best snowboard experiences on the planet. Instead, we’re forced to watch from the parking lot while skiers access terrain that would be transcendent on a snowboard. It’s like being banned from your own backyard.

Alta’s justification for the ban has always been transparently weak. They claim it's about “tradition” and “preserving the skiing experience,” but what they’re really preserving is artificial scarcity that makes their clientele feel special. Unlike Deer Valley’s openly elitist, adrenochrome-drinking approach, Alta wraps their discrimination in mountain culture rhetoric, pretending they’re protecting some sacred skiing heritage. They’ve even made their discrimination a marketing tool, with slogans boasting about being snowboarder-free plastered all over the mountain, including at lift ticket windows and near the entrance gate that connects to Snowbird.

The comparison to Snowbird, sharing the same canyon and the same legendary powder, makes Alta’s position even more absurd. Snowbird proves daily that world-class terrain and snowboarders coexist beautifully. Their powder days are just as epic, their mountain culture just as authentic, and their operations just as successful. The only difference is that Snowbird treats all mountain users with equal respect.

What makes this particularly galling is the public land aspect. This isn’t about private property rights or free market choices. This is about a private company using public resources to exclude American citizens based on equipment preference. Imagine if a concessionaire in Yellowstone decided to ban people wearing certain brands of hiking boots, or if a national forest campground excluded tent users in favor of RV owners only. The outrage would be immediate and justified.

This is where the snowboard community needs to step up. We’ve been too passive about this injustice for too long. While Deer Valley can exclude us from their two-planker wanker zone and their new monstrosity, shit-show called The Mayflower, Alta’s public land status makes their discrimination both illegal and morally indefensible.

The economic argument is straightforward. Snowboarders represent roughly half of all mountain sliding participants. Alta is essentially excluding 50% of their potential customer base to preserve the comfort of skiers who can’t handle sharing the mountain. From a business perspective, it’s insanity. From a public service perspective, it’s discrimination.

The tactical approach should be multi-pronged. Legal challenges to the Forest Service permit conditions. Organized protests highlighting the public land access issue. Economic pressure through boycotts of Alta-related businesses. Social media campaigns exposing the fundamental injustice of taxpayer-funded discrimination. Political pressure on representatives to address equal access on public lands.

But most importantly, we need to reframe this conversation. This isn’t about snowboarders begging for acceptance at some exclusive club. This is about a individuals and a community demanding equal access to public resources that we help fund and maintain. Alta doesn’t own Little Cottonwood Canyon … we all do. They’re merely the contracted operator, and their permit should reflect equal access principles.

It’s time to occupy Alta! Not with tents and protest signs so much, but with legal challenges, economic pressure, and the unstoppable force of Americans demanding equal treatment on their own public land. The mountains belong to all of us, and it’s time Alta remembered that fundamental truth.

The powder will still be deep, the terrain will still be epic, and the mountain culture will still be authentic when snowboarders finally get the access we deserve. The only thing that will change is that justice will finally be served on the slopes we help pay for. Who’s with me?!