Why Aren't We Electing Skiers as Politicians?
Looking to the outdoors–out the proverbial window–Hornsby long ago told us to watch out.Look out for the back room boys that say the smoke is going to blow away. Look out for the men who say it's okay, sitting in a building far away.Eerily prescient, his words are as pressing as ever for anyone concerned with the preservation of our world outside of golf cart paths and boys club boardrooms. Miles from any BLM office, and at a remarkably troubling clip, a paradigm shift in environmental government policy is in motion.It's not hard to wonder if those spearheading this movement–namely President Donald Trump and his on-again, off-again friend Elon Musk–spend any time outside, let alone in the wilderness. How else can you explain their approach to government? Marooned and protected in the urban ballast of Mar-a-Lago and Starbase, they take their DOGE axe to the federal budget, ostensibly cutting waste.
To what end? Amidst an historic drought, federal firefighting crews have seen their ranks decimated by DOGE cuts, then, in the confusion, departments have asked some of those employees to return. Thousands of forest service workers have been furloughed, while the wanton use of tariffs has caused massive uncertainty in the outdoor industry. All of this theorized by some to be just the beginning in a long strategy to diminish our public lands to the point of fallowness that they will be unmissed as they come under the scythe of industry. While that ultimate end remains conjecture, the last few months have been a shocking counterpoint to what had become a comfortable status quo for the outdoorsperson–that stewardship of public lands and the conservation of wilderness for posterity was not only a given, but permanent. That feels as fraught as ever in a new administration that eschews not only decorum, but anything resembling an ethos of conservationism.And Trump is not alone. While the Republican-backed behemoth funding measure–the hyperbolically titled One Big Beautiful Bill that is in front of Congress now–at first had some of its teeth pointed at claiming public lands removed, the Senate decided to actually increase the amount of land for sale, further threatening protection for clean water, clean energy, and the like.So what can we do in such a time? My take: be it city council, state legislature, even the White House, we need to elect outdoors people to office. We need skiers, hunters, wildland firefighters, dog park users, e-bike riders–anyone who prioritizes the beauty of our natural world–in power.But it's more than that. We have to build our coalition. Millions in this country, billions the world over, still don't have the ability to take part in the overly gatekept outdoor world. If the public lands and the pursuit of happiness outdoors stand a chance at longevity against current headwinds, it is in a democratized outdoor culture. And as it stands now, the outdoor lifestyle is mostly enjoyed by a certain few with the means to take part–an oligarchy of sorts. Sound familiar? Many are working to change this, but this work remains yet unfinished.
Building our ranks can seem counterintuitive. Trailheads are packed post-Covid, and our mountain towns have become busier than ever even as local voting blocs have been pushed out by buyers from cities who could afford second homes. But the more folks who have a stake–the more middle-class voters who can remain in mountain towns, the less NIMBY our approach to those with means who do come–the better chance we stand at coming together, influencing policy, and protecting what is to many of us our greatest resource.The wilds are eminently worthy of protection. Out there, where a cell phone tower can't ping you, one finds solidarity not only with nature, but themselves and others. Running in Couloir's October 1997 issue, the late ski guide and writer Alan Bard poignantly spoke to the power of beautiful, wild places. 'It becomes important then, in fact essential, to savor and share these places and feelings,' he wrote. 'When we travel far afield to ski, we often find not just some intoxicatingly remote landscape but the convoluted topography of our own souls.' Today, bound by smartphones and online echo chambers, the world desperately needs the grounding power of the outdoors.Many before us have long taken to promulgating an outdoors ethos, or have even lobbied in Washington for stronger protections for the natural world. Summer camps nationwide have for decades taught the next generation the power and poise that one can learn from being self-sufficient in the wilderness. Edward Abbey–though insensitive, problematic, and now overly-worshiped by a gear-heavy, Instagram-bound outdoor culture he would have abhorred–himself took a more philosophical if extreme route, endlessly writing on the wilds while fantasizing how Karo syrup and a little sand might work together to diminish a bulldozer's engine. Perhaps, in a few hearty souls, Hayduke indeed lives.And there's Protect Our Winters (POW), arguably the best-known, most professional advocacy group in all the outdoor canon. A bonafide lobbying outfit, POW and their affiliates have even testified before Congress, working from inside the establishment for the benefit of not only climate change awareness, but a slew of other pressing environmental issues. The groundwork is there. What remains is the mobilization of the outdoor culture at a large enough scale to propel our rank to office.
And people are looking for an alternative to the staid political status quo. In the wake of his spat with Trump, Musk polled X users, asking if a new party should emerge out of this schism. Of the millions who responded, 80 percent did so in the affirmative.But what about a movement borne not out of a rivalry between oligarchs, but on inclusion, humanity, nature, and a shared belief in the transcendence of those tenets?That would be something to rally around.
Why Aren't We Electing Skiers as Politicians? first appeared on Powder on Jun 17, 2025
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