Paradise paradox
Thoughts on Bode Miller's visit, mental-health access in resort towns

It’s great to see a celebrity figure giving back. Last time I saw Bode Miller was at his New Year’s Eve party in 2001, just before his name became synonymous on the world skiing circuit. We grew up one town away in northern New Hampshire learning to ski at our beloved Cannon Mountain, home to steep sheets of ice far from the powdery playground of the Rockies. He mastered the art of speeding, and I mastered the art of floating. His was a lucrative pursuit, mine was a selfish indulgence in neurochemistry. 

With Miller’s new film, “Paradise Paradox,” this champion is now taking on the next Olympic challenge: mental health struggles in ski towns. Wow! Finally, I thought, as I viewed the trailer the week before his talk at Fort Lewis College. This is a topic I basically lived for a decade in Crested Butte. 

As beautiful as these dreamy locations are, there are nightmares lurking just under the magic carpet. By sparking the conversation, we are looking where we didn’t want to look before to try to save people’s lives. And it’s well overdue. As stated in the film, ski towns have seen a massive surge in suicide in the last decade; quadruple the rate of the rest of the nation.

Personally, my list is long. I shudder at even considering the names of fallen friends from my decade in Crested Butte. I keep them in my heart, making small homages to their memory, gazing northeast toward CB from the summit ridge of Purgatory before beginning another blissful plunge. I wonder, if someone had reached out to them, they would still be here today – skiing with me or maybe, having said “to hell with winter,” lounging on a beach in Mexico with their kids?

Was there enough access to mental health care that could have turned the tide in their most tumultuous times? In a world run by profit-hungry insurance companies, the answer apparently is no. A lot of health insurance plans do not cover mental health. Hopefully, the awareness generated by these efforts can move that boulder.

Throughout the film, stories from around Vail evidenced the lack of access and stigma around mental health. Fortunately for Eagle County, their coffers are deep enough to build a whole new facility for this issue. Miller admitted openly that for other small towns, this hill is much steeper.

After the film, the panel opened to a Q&A session. Miller’s most poignant comment, which drew a large applause, regarded how inefficient our federal government is at addressing the issues of small-town America. Unfortunately, I was not selected to ask my question to the panel. Luckily, upon conclusion of the event, as the crowd had departed, I was able to meet with Miller on stage. 

We reminisced about the “good-ole days” in Franconia, N.H., when a single parent could afford to take their family skiing and we could hitch-hike back to town after a day of shredding. We both commiserated about how much skiing has transformed. I mentioned my years of driving snowcats in CB (now owned by Vail Resorts), a place where the cost of living has skyrocketed, while wages have gone nowhere. We peered around the proverbial elephant in the room by concurring that wealth inequity in America has reached a ludicrous stage.  

As I finish typing this column in a café in Durango, I glance over at a real estate brochure showcasing the finest properties in the region. My jaw drops as I stagger to imagine how many locals could afford a home in the town where they live. I wonder about the droves of people “moving” to our community to buy second, third or nth homes; so interested in being a part of the community that they only visit a few times a year and rent it out to vacationers for instant profit. Meanwhile, in a market inaccessible to the hourly worker, I have never met a worker who celebrates joyously as they rush to their second or third job in an endless hamster wheel. In reality, it is this burnout that can push one down the depression spiral. 

The dictionary defines “community” as: “the people with common interests living in a particular area.” The key word here is “living.” Visiting your nth home for a few weeks a year and driving the cost of living through the roof is the antithesis to community. This threat is real. I watched it gut CB of the community it once was, and many former residents wrote similar articles verbatim. I applaud our local government for limiting the number of short-term vacation rental permits. But, the realist in me is skeptical that this alone will keep working class residents in what has become a trophy town. This morning, I parked in front of another small “Great Deals” house for sale. Listed price only $852,000. What a deal! How many hours a minute would one have to work at the local ski-hill, school or restaurant to sit down with a loan officer? 

The morning after Miller’s talk, community members organized a panel of mental health experts. Miller brought up an observation he made during his years skiing around the world. He mentioned that, unlike in America, workers at ski resorts in Europe are valued. Whether it was the cleaner, the bellhop or the taxi driver, people were compensated appropriately, and that led to a sense of community. He noticed “we” as a culture, as opposed to the “I” culture prevalent in this nation. He related that people valuing each other in the work sector leads to the age-old network called community, which has been severely eroded here. Given how social media has damaged how we treat each other, is there still hope in a “we” culture? Maybe, if instead of looking at our screens, we see each other and are available in the here and now. Hopefully, this kind of buy-in can offset the other buyin’ to build back the resident communities we need to thrive.