EU Resorts Clean Up 30 Metric Tons of Garbage

Top 10 Chairlifts

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Skiers drop a lot of stuff while they're riding the chairlifts. A couple of years ago, SKI ran a story about Steamboat's annual mountainside spring cleanup and some the the treasures volunteers have found: diamond earrings; $10,000 in cash and drugs (which were handed over to police); a prosthetic leg. But the item found most often during cleanup weekends is a lot less exotic: cigarette butts. Volunteer crews at resorts in the EU found over 30,000 extinguished butts under one run alone, according to a recent report by The Mountain Riders environmental group. We're not quite sure how to take this news. On the one hand, more than 3,500 volunteers showed up to clean ski runs this year, a 1,000-person improvement over last year. On the other hand, who knew skiers were such a bunch of smokers? And littering smokers, at that?

A quick poll round the SKI offices found that the most exciting thing we've ever found was a pair of Dynastar Omesofts under the #2 chair at Taos. (It was like finding a Neanderthal's jaw on an archeological dig.) So we ask you, Skimag.com readers: What's the best thing you've ever found under the chairlift? Money? A single, lost ski boot? Irrefutable proof of a Yeti? Log in and tell us in the comments below.

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Top 10 Chairlifts

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