After Snow: The Case for an Alpine Public

Abstract

In an era of climate transition, alpine skiing demands reexamination: What happens after snow? This thesis envisions the ski resort as a public terrain for contested remediation rather than a privatized, extractive enclave. Focused on the Telluride Ski Resort in Colorado, the project examines the ski mountain as a designed landscape—clear-cut, regraded, and reshaped—while tracing the industry’s corporate consolidation and shift from natural to artificial snow. Telluride has taken drastic measures to sustain skiing’s illusion in a warming world, expanding its snowmaking network and turning water into frozen infrastructure. To counter this artifice, the thesis proposes new alpine infrastructures: solar screens to shield glare, revegetated clearings to act as windbreaks, and regraded micro-topography to retain natural snow. Through land stewardship, privatized operations are transformed into a public resort. Rather than projecting skiing’s end, After Snow proposes a designed transition, tying the sport’s long-term survival to the creation of an alpine public.