Sustainability

Telluride is defined by its natural environment, and is a model of a vibrant and healthy community. Recognizing this, Telluride Ski Resort invited Dr. Brian Nattrass and Mary Altomare to work with their teams to develop a road map towards sustainability. Nattrass and Altomare have also successfully worked with Starbucks and Nike to help develop their long term sustainability plans.

As a result of the work with Nattrass and Altomare, Telluride has evolved its efforts to cover a broad range of conservation initiatives and educational endeavors, including watershed protection, water and energy conservation, waste reduction and recycling and air quality.

Here is a summary of our efforts over the past decade:

2021

• Snow fence installations around the mountain naturally collected snow and protected wind-exposed areas
• Integrating GIS technology as a tool in morning meetings, mission assignments, and daily communication has resulted in less run time on pumps, thus reducing our snowmaking needs and power consumption
• Fleet efficiencies lighter machines, increased capacity, and more efficient engines utilizing monitoring and governing
• Using new lighter trucks and UTVS has caused a reduction in fuel and oil usages, as well as overall lower running costs by decreasing miles driven (due to the increasing capacity of work trucks)
• Monitoring of engines using new engine-tuning equipment is being utilized to ensure all machinery is operating in its most efficient range
• Groomers are operating Tier 4 machines that permit operation at 1350 RPMs rather than 1550 RPMs
• Landscapers have switched to electric trimmers and are exploring alternatives to herbicides
• A Hydro-Mulcher was purchased to decrease topsoil erosion and increase green space
• Trail crews has purchased new more efficient chainsaws
• Reduce the amount of single-use containers, their departments are purchasing common use items (e.g., chainsaw bar oil and gas-mix, sunscreen, earplugs) in bulk
• Office, tool shed, and work shed have been fitted with motion-activated light switches and high-efficiency LED lights
• Grooming department has provided insulated water bottles to the crew to decrease single-use containers
• Accounting department started going paperless a few years ago and has moved another one of their processes to a digital format
• Forest Health projects around the mountain are used to reduce fuels for wildfire and improve forest resiliency and reused as fuel for on-mountain stoves and fireplaces

2020

• Developing a companywide initiative to encourage every employee to participate in creating efficiencies and reduce waste

2019

• Reduced lift runtime at Oak Street Lift due to low ridership, resulting in 30% reduction in electrical at this lift
• Food and Beverage is analyzing trash and recycling programs, we no longer have plastic straws

2018

• Installation of low-energy snow guns
• Installation of new weather station for remote operations
• Purchase and rehabilitated an existing building, Mountain View Apartments, for employee house close to work, decreasing commute to work distance. 30 units
• Accounting moved into paperless processing saving approximately 24 tons of paper in 3 years.
• TSG has engaged in spruce beetle mitigation for over 15 years with the guidance and aid of the USFS.

2017

• Installation of new boilers in the ski school and ticket sales building that are 95% efficient

2016

• Telluride Ski Resort implemented company-wide light retrofits, 60 W bulbs have been switched to 11 W
• Replaced snowmaking guns and lines with more efficient technology
• Replaced fiberglass trail signs with locally-made, handcrafted wood signs

2015

• Upgraded snowmobile and ATV fleet with 4-stroke model
• De-rated snow cats

2014

• The Vehicle Maintenance department has replaced low MPG vehicles with more
• Fuel efficient vehicles to decrease gasoline usage
• Snow cats have been equipped with idle sensors to control extended idle times and conserve fuel.
• Snow cats have been governed to set maximum RPMs during operation to limit fuel consumption.
• Snowmaking capital projects include improving efficiency of system by installing new air/water lines and 75 new low energy snow guns.
• New water distribution lines have been installed to allow lower mountain system to operate on gravity vs. pumping to eliminate need for electric power to distribute water.

2013

• Telluride continued lighting upgrades.

2012

• Started the lighting retrofit project in its Administration and Ski School buildings
• Added 10 high efficiency snowmaking guns.

Have feedback or ideas? We would love to hear it.

Email: Reviews@telski.com