Radio frequency identity (RFID) chips embedded in season ski passes allow snow riders to effortlessly glide through lift lines without fumbling under multiple layers of long underwear to dig out a pass so a disgruntled lift operator can scan it and allow them up the mountain.

That would seem like a good thing for both the ski area and the snow rider – the all-encompassing term for both skiers and snowboarders – but the snow sports industry has now taken RFID technology a step further by tying in credit card information for on-mountain purchases and linking up to social networking and terrain tracking apps.

Vail Resorts’ new EpicMix app, for instance, allows snow riders to create an account and keep track of where and how much they’ve skied. They can then share that info with friends on Facebook or other social networking platforms.

According to ESPN, identity theft expert, former Vail Resorts employee and current Loveland ski instructor Jon Lawson says that’s a problem. He’s worried about hacking, identity theft and ski companies using the information in workers’ comp or guest liability cases.

Lawson has developed a simple way to block the RFID called “Ski Pass Defender” that he’s says is flying off the shelves along with the snow flying in the high country and more resorts coming online every day.

Consumers of the $15.95 aluminum sheaths that slide down around a ski pass and block radio waves are motivated by a number of reasons, Lawson told ESPN. “Some are anti-corporate. Others — like me — say, ‘I choose not to give that information, I choose not to be tracked.’”

Playing hooky on a powder day, for instance, could be a compromising issue if a boss somehow hacks your account. A paranoid proposition, for sure, but stranger things have happened.

RFID backers, of course, say the information a hacker would receive is useless, just a string of numbers, and Vail Resorts representatives insist the RFID chip number is kept in a separate database, secure from a guest’s personal information in another database.

Lawson says he was let go from Vail Resorts’ Breckenridge ski area after refusing to shut down his Ski Pass Defender. Now he’s laboring at smaller, less corporate Loveland and selling his foil product for a sizeable sum. Seriously, only in Colorado.

Could I-70 gridlock be fixed by restricting truck traffic? (Photo courtesy of i70solutions.org)

Hickenlooper told the Colorado Independent that the ability to get quickly from urban areas into the mountains is “what makes Colorado Colorado. That’s what makes us different.” He recommended the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) look at banning westbound truck traffic on Friday afternoons and eastbound trucks on Sunday afternoons.

Not surprisingly, ski industry and trucking industry representatives contacted by the Colorado Independent have widely divergent views on the topic.

“Mayor Hickenlooper’s idea that truck restrictions be explored deserves consideration as well,” said Melanie Mills, president and CEO of Colorado Ski Country USA, the statewide ski industry lobbying group. “On-time [freight] deliveries are important to all, including ski areas, so this would have to be done thoughtfully and strategically.”

Greg Fulton of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association trucking lobby said such a proposal could have dramatic economic impacts, impeding on-time deliveries both in Colorado and across the nation and adding costs not only for truckers but also the many businesses that rely on prompt freight deliveries.

“Last year was probably one of the lowest freight volumes and number of trucks out on that [I-70] corridor [because of the recession], and we still ended up seeing significant issues and it really didn’t have much to do with trucks,” Fulton said. “You just have a substantial volume of people traveling up to the ski areas in the state, and the issue that needs to be dealt with is how do you better disperse or distribute that part of it.”

Not to worry, according to a CDOT representative who told the Colorado Independent that Hickenlooper’s idea wouldn’t fly anyway.

“It’s not going to happen,” said CDOT spokesman Bob Wilson, who added federal laws prohibit such restrictions on truckers, who pay a large share of the taxes for the highways and “have the same rights as anyone else.”

But a CalTrans spokesman told the Colorado Independent that California, under an agreement struck with the major trucking companies in that state, has been restricting truck traffic on I-80 over Donner Pass since the 1960s. That stretch of interstate connects Sacramento to the ski areas in and around Lake Tahoe.

“We try not to mix trucks and tourists when the weather is bad,” CalTrans spokesman Mark Dinger said, adding the state provides parking areas and can ticket truckers who violate the ban.

Colorado’s trucking lobby spokesman Fulton discounts what’s being done along I-80 in California: “It’s a very minor thing. It’s not anything close to what we have up there [on I-70]. It isn’t even proximate.”

He suggests the ski industry needs to do more to limit the skier traffic on peak weekends.

“Maybe they need to take a page out of what some of the gambling areas have looked at, which is providing incentives for people to get up there earlier or leave later, essentially providing greater incentives for people to ski during the week and other things,” Fulton said.

Colorado Ski Country’s Mills said that’s already being done.

“Ski areas are and will continue to offer great incentives to off-peak skiers, but the Monday to Friday work and school week and limited hours of winter daylight place very real limits on the ability of Front Range skiers to move to off-peak times,” Mills said. “The fact is, we have to look at realistic, incremental improvement strategies for the corridor and implement them now.”

Some observers are concerned that a preferred CDOT alternative for improvements along I-70 released earlier this month is too pie-in-the-sky and will obscure more practical short-term fixes like Hickenlooper’s idea.

The CDOT plan calls for $20 billion in improvements over the next 40 years, including $10 billion for high-speed rail. It would involve interchange improvements, widening some sections and adding more tunnel capacity in places. However, funding remains a huge question mark for any of the components of the CDOT plan.

Interstate 70 traffic into the mountains. (Photo courtesy of i70solutions.org)

Still, mountain towns like Vail and Avon – where preparations are already underway for the 2015 World Alpine Ski Championships — can dream. And politicians can continue to make fixing I-70 a campaign issue ahead of the November election and likely many future elections to come.

“We might host the Winter Olympics in Colorado, and if we did, certainly the I-70 corridor would be a part of the travel pattern … and those private companies that want to showcase what amazing work they can do to the world might want to use Colorado as a model,” said Jeanne Nicholson, a Democratic Gilpin County commissioner running for the state Senate District 16 seat currently held by Democrat Dan Gibbs.

Running for a seat held by Gibbs, who made transportation a signature issue, Nicholson says it will take a healthy mix of private and public funding to fix gridlock on I-70 for tourists and locals. Gibbs is leaving the state Senate and seeking a seat on the Summit County board of commissioners.

Nicholson’s Republican opponent in the Senate race, Evergreen commercial real estate developer Tim Leonard, told the Summit Daily News that the state’s ski industry should stand on its own two feet, offering “a better product at a lesser price” in order to compete with other states. Nicholson is in favor of increasing funding to market the Colorado skiing and tourism industries.

Leonard did not respond to emails and phone messages requesting comment for this story.

“Tourism is an industry in Colorado that provides a lot of jobs and doesn’t harm the environment in ways that other industries can. For example, what just happened in the Gulf of Mexico,” Nicholson said, referring to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. “You’re not likely to have a major long-term negative environmental impact with tourism, but you are going to be able to create jobs.”

She said a Denver and Colorado bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics could boost the state as a global tourism destination. Harry Dale, a Clear Creek County commissioner and president of the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority, which drafted a $1.5 million study for the Colorado Department of Transportation on high-speed rail along I-70 and I-25, says simple economics may force the issue sooner.

“A lot of people have said the only way you’re ever going to build a transit system in the I-70 corridor is to get an Olympics because that will create the motivation to do it,” Dale told the Colorado Independent in an earlier interview. “I think when we get to $10 a gallon for gas in the next five to 10 years that might do it too.”

In Vail, former ski company executive and current town council member Andy Daly has previously said fixing I-70 may take a bid similar to the Salt Lake City in 2002: “I look at how Salt Lake got their interstate highway system rebuilt in anticipation for the Salt Lake City Olympics, and I think having a new, state-of-the-art, world-class transit system to the mountains would be essential for a really successful bid for the … Winter Olympics.”

The United States Olympic Committee opted not to bid for the 2018 Winter Games, instead focusing on the failed 2016 Chicago Summer Games that went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The next opportunity for Colorado, which once was awarded but later rejected the 1976 Winter Olympics, would be 2022.

Vail and Beaver Creek will be well-positioned for such a bid, at least from an alpine skiing facilities and organizational standpoint. Already the hosts of two world championships (in 1989 and 1999), Vail this year was awarded the 2015 championships — second only to the Olympics in ski racing prestige – and has already started the planning process.

The state Senate today passed SB 196 (pdf), which dictates vehicles must travel at least 10 mph below the posted speed limit in the left lane on Interstate 70 hills with a 6-percent grade. Failure to do so or move over into the right lane will earn drivers a $19 ticket. Now the bill, sponsored by Sen. Dan Gibbs (D-Silverthorne) and Rep. Christine Scanlan (D-Dillon), moves to the House.

The bill is meant to ease congestion on I-70, the main east-west corridor between the Front Range and Western Slope, which becomes a westbound parking lot on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings as city dwellers escape to the mountains. The reverse is true on Sunday evenings.

Scanlan and Gibbs also co-sponsored SB 184 (pdf), which urges the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to install moveable “zipper lanes” by next ski season along a 15-mile section of I-70 between Georgetown and Floyd Hill.

The moveable barriers would allow CDOT to establish three lanes of westbound traffic and just one lane of eastbound traffic during peak hours Friday and Saturday and then reverse the process for returning traffic at peak times Sunday evening.

“People from the Front Range want to enjoy the mountains and people in the mountains understand how important tourism is to their economies,” Scanlan said in a release. “The prospect of a four-hour drive ends up costing our state more than just time.”

A 2007 Denver Metro Chamber study concluded the state loses $839 million a year in tourism and business revenue due to I-70 gridlock.

CDOT is already conducting a study on the proposal, and officials said they don’t need a state law to make it happen, but lawmakers content the bill will make it easier to sell the plan to the federal government.

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A significant portion of the destination skier markets at Vail and Beaver Creek, posh ski resorts McInnis once represented in the 3rd Congressional District, is made up of wealthy Mexican and South American tourists, who may go elsewhere if the Republican is elected and makes good on his pursuit of a Colorado immigration law similar to the one recently adopted in Arizona.

Immigration rights groups have condemned McInnis for comments he made on a conservative radio program Wednesday, but political observers in the high country wonder if McInnis even considered the possible economic implications for his former constituents.

“A big part of the 3rd CD, which he used to represent, is agriculture and tourism, and both markets are heavily dependent on immigrant workers, HB-1 visas and green-card workers, so it was a serious part of his district economically, and yet I don’t ever recall him stepping forward with a solution when he was in office,” said Debbie Marquez, a Mexican restaurant owner in Edwards, a town about 15 miles west of Vail.

Such guest worker programs have been held up by the lack of congressional action on immigration reform, presenting significant hiring challenges for the Colorado ski industry in recent years. But Mexican tourists also pump significant dollars into the state’s tourism tax coffers, and Arizona now faces a slew of potential boycotts because of its “toughest-in-the-land” new law.

“The Mexican tourism market really helped us in the resort this year during another down year and extended the ski season so we had better numbers than I was expecting at the end of March and early April,” said Marquez. “The economic impact [of an Arizona-style law in Colorado] would be severe.”

The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a travel alert to Mexican nationals, students or tourists traveling or living in Arizona, warning them to carry proof of citizenship or risk being harassed by police, who now are directed to detain people if there is “reasonable suspicion” they are in the country illegally.

“Under the new law, foreigners who do not carry the immigration documents issued to them when entering the United States may be arrested and sent to immigration detention centers,” the travel alert reads.

“Carrying the available documentation, even before the law comes into force, will help avoid needless confrontations. As long no clear criteria are defined for when, where and who the authorities will inspect, it must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on behalf of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, decrying the new law and advocating for immigration reform:

“The Arizona immigration law will likely hinder federal law enforcement from carrying out its priorities of detaining and removing dangerous criminal aliens. With the strong support of state and local law enforcement, I vetoed several similar pieces of legislation as governor of Arizona because they would have diverted critical law enforcement resources from the most serious threats to public safety and undermined the vital trust between local jurisdictions and the communities they serve.”

Marquez, also a Democratic National Committeewoman, said McInnis is engaged in a cynical political ploy.

“McInnis is being threatened by his opponent for the Republican primary [Evergreen businessman Dan Maes],” she said. “Indications are that both candidates will end up on the ballot at the Republican assembly, so McInnis has to do something to make himself appeal to the conservative base.”

Also Wednesday, state Sen. Dave Schultheis (R-Colorado Springs) blasted U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder), who now represents Vail and Beaver Creek in the 2nd Congressional District, for comments he made comparing Arizona to a police state where immigrants will be treated like second-class citizens the ways Jews were treated in Nazi Germany prior to World War II.

“The fact is we already have that system in existence here,” said Marquez. “The people that are undocumented in this country and in Colorado are already living it. Jared’s just stating his beliefs. He’s a moral person. He’s an ethical person and he’s vocal about his opinion on the class system and he puts his money where his mouth is.”

Polis founded the New America Schools in Colorado and New Mexico, charter schools that teach English to new immigrants.

Wednesday, Polis issued the following statement at a press conference denouncing the new Arizona law and calling for comprehensive immigration reform, which would include some level of amnesty and a guest worker program:

“The American people want action on immigration reform. The people of Arizona want action, the people of Colorado want action. The people of America are frustrated, rightfully so—frustrated with widespread violations of the law, with lack of border security. What is national sovereignty if we don’t even know who’s here and there’s millions of violations of the law every day?

“But it is Congress that needs to act to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The people of Arizona want a solution. They have sunken to desperate and unconstitutional means and have sent a signal to us, here in the Capitol, to take action to fix this important issue. It should take no courage for members of Congress to support immigration reform.

“It would take blind courage to oppose or refuse to act on immigration reform, because the people of this country want us to fix this issue and fix this problem. And if the American Congress fails to act, the people of this country and the people of Arizona will elect a Congress that will solve this issue.”

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The Aspen Daily News reports 57 foreign ski instructor set to work for the Aspen Skiing Company learned last week they won’t be hired for the coming season because the SkiCo balked at a new Obama administration rule change to the H2-B visa program requiring employers to pay travels costs for international workers.

Aspen was already planning to significantly curtail its H2-B visa hires because of the down economy and rising unemployment numbers in the United States, but it still planned to hire some foreign workers who are skilled seasonal employees who often work year-round because of the seasonal difference between the northern and southern hemispheres.

“These people were vital and important employees,” SkiCo spokesman Jeff Hanle told the Daily News. “It certainly wasn’t an easy decision.”

The last several years have been tough for longtime H2-B workers in the ski industry, many of whom have been returning to Colorado resorts for 10 or more years and add an international flavor for destination resorts.

The Colorado ski industry had been seeking a seasonal exemption for returning foreign workers so they wouldn’t count against the H2-B visa cap. But under the Bush administration that exemption was caught up in seemingly endless immigration reform debate – not exactly a high priority for the Obama administration either given the ongoing battles over health care and climate change.

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In 2006, the Broomfield-based ski, hotel, retail and real estate company began purchasing enough wind credits to account for 100 percent of the electricity consumed at its ski areas and other properties in Colorado, California and Wyoming.

Computer-processor manufacturer Intel Corporation topped the list with 46 percent of its total consumption covered by REC purchases, or 1.3 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power (defined by the EPA as electricity generated from renewable sources such wind, solar, biomass or small-scale hydro). By comparison, Vail Resorts’ total consumption amounts to about 151.3 million kWh.

The EPA itself comes in at 14th on the list with 285 million kWh of REC purchases, or 100 percent of its consumption. Vail ranks behind heavy-hitters like Pepsi (2nd), the U.S. Air Force (8th) and Starbucks (18th), but ahead of retail giants like Staples (27th), Lowe’s (32nd) and Safeway (36th).

REC purchases aren’t embraced by all renewable energy advocates. Some say RECs allows companies to wantonly consume energy and buy offsets from the overall grid without directly contributing to renewable generation.

However, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz this past season engaged in an effort to reduce the company’s overall energy consumption by 10 percent through a variety of efficiency initiatives. And the company has been researching and implementing a variety of renewable energy projects, from small-scale hydro using local streams to solar panels on ski-area buildings to biomass projects.

Auden Schendler, the Aspen Skiing Co.’s executive director of sustainability, acknowledges the inherent hypocrisy of the overtly consumptive Glitter Gulch trying to combat climate change but also argues Aspen can use its international spotlight to effect real change before it’s too late.

In his new book, “Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution,” Schendler lays out his own formula for sustainable living, and in an article in Sunday’s Aspen Times, he answers detractors who say Aspen is engaged in green washing on a grand scale.

Just as Aspen may consume more resources than most American towns its size, Schendler says the United States uses a disproportionate share of the world’s energy resources. And because it’s impossible to make moral judgments about energy use, he argues humans must collectively fix the system and reduce their carbon footprint.

Speaking before a University of Denver panel studying the impacts of immigration, Ritter said the 2006 laws adopted during a special legislative session –- setting stricter standards to receive state benefits –- have made it more difficult for tourism-based industries to find workers.

This ski season, in the wake of the overall economic meltdown and rising unemployment nationally, ski areas have actually been turning foreign workers away. But in the past the industry was heavily reliant on H2-B visas for workers from Europe, South America and Australia who operate chairlifts, staff restaurants and hotels, teach skiing and drive buses.

Most industry experts, though, say the biggest hurdle for ski areas trying to attract foreign workers has been congressional gridlock over comprehensive immigration reform.

Industry executives want to increase the number of H2-B visas and allow workers to return season after season, but Congress has lumped that request in with the debate over illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America.

Ritter on Thursday also said the agricultural industry along Colorado’s Front Range is being hurt by a lack of workers because of the 2006 laws.

The DU panel is expected to produce a report with policy recommendations on immigration issues in December.

Holiday crowds enjoy record snow on the slopes. (Photo/Crested Butte Mountain Resort)

Nero may have fiddled while Rome raged in flames, but the fur-clad folks who frequent tony winter retreats such as Vail and Aspen apparently prefer to ski while the nation plunges into the depths of economic despair.

Those who for decades complained bitterly about the ever-escalating price of a ski-lift ticket (both Vail and Aspen charge about a C note these days) never stopped to think about the relative cost compared to the other posh pursuits of the not-so-idle rich.

Skiing is a relative bargain compared to maintaining a stable of polo ponies, gassing up the Gulfstream or pointing the yacht toward Tahiti. So even in the waning days of the unregulated and mostly quite lucrative Bush administration, cruising corduroy snow and kicking the tires on a new starter castle in the mountains was still all the rage over the holidays.

Auto companies may be seeing sales decline between 30 and 50 percent, but ski areas (in Colorado at least) were only off by about 6 or 7 percent compared to the early part of last season. That’s remarkable given the collective angst on the part of snow peddlers earlier this season when ski industry execs were predicting 20 to 25 percent declines in business.

And just eight short months ago, some Vail business officials and politicians were worried about being overwhelmed by skiers clamoring for the ski company’s six-mountain, unrestricted season ski pass called the Epic Pass (sold for what critics claimed was an unbelievably low, low price of $579).

Vail Resorts Friday reported that through Jan. 4, which includes the critical Christmas-to-New Year’s holiday period, skier visits to its five resorts (Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Vail in Colorado and Heavenly, Calif.) were only off by 5.8 percent compared to the very strong 2007-08 ski season.

The publicly traded company did report that total lift ticket revenue was down 7.5 percent for the same period compared to last season; bookings for its hotel properties were off 14.8 percent; and ski school was off by about 20 percent.

“As we expected, the current economic environment has certainly impacted the beginning of the 2008-09 ski season with season-to-date skier visits down year-over-year,” Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz said in a prepared statement. “However, despite the challenging environment, total skier visits were actually up over the prior year for the peak two-week holiday period ended Jan. 4.”

So the season that started at most resorts in mid-November has been a bit of a bust (as expected), but holiday revelry in the high country was at an all-time high. The same, apparently, was true at other resorts.

Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA), the nonprofit industry lobbying group that represents 22 of the state’s ski areas (although not the four Vail Resorts mountains), reported Wednesday that its membership saw much higher numbers than originally anticipated.

CSCUSA cited record and near-record snowfall totals, cheap gas, lower airfares and a host of bargains offered to entice penny-pinching powder hounds.

“Last week, we saw stronger visits than we had anticipated,” CSCUSA President and CEO Melanie Mills said in a release. “The weather trumped the economy and Colorado Ski Country USA resorts came out strong.”

Most Colorado resorts were near or had already exceeded 200 inches of snow, or about 16 feet, so far this season, and in most cases that’s more than half the annual average (with three of the snowiest months still to come).

Labor shortages that plagued the state’s ski areas the last several years, prompting many resort operators to import workers from Europe, Australia and South America, have eased significantly, with domestic laborers now more inclined to take low-paying service-sector jobs.

In fact, some foreign workers have arrived in ski towns only to find a lack of jobs compared to the last season.

Meanwhile, mountain real estate markets continue to take a major hit, but not quite as bad in some places as might be expected.

In Eagle County, home to Vail and Beaver Creek ski areas, residential sales were off 27 percent through the end of November compared to the same period in 2007, but overall sales still managed to top $2 billion for the fifth straight year.

With only one month left to tally (final figures will be available in February), 2008 won’t come close to the record of nearly $3 billion in total sales in 2007 – a mind-blowing figure given the county has a year-round population of just under 50,000 people.

Still, the average sales price for a single-family home in Eagle County in November was $1,299,753.

This is not subprime country.