On Building Ski Fences

Photo: Jon Kovash

Mountain Gazette blogger Jon Kovash muses about that design classic of mountain towns, the ski fence:

If you live in a ski town, you can amass old skis with a perusal of ski swaps, free boxes and dumpsters. Most prized are skis without bindings because the bindings are a pain in the ass to remove. If you want a tall fence, with the advent of short skis, the old 200s will be harder to find. For colors, I prefer just going with the random cacophony of industrial day-glo, which gives you a kind of happy camo look, but you can also look for matches or color groupings.

The trouble is, you can't build one if you live in some planned development — "The Turds at Elk Meadow" — because of all the covenants.

And as Kovash experienced, some towns like Telluride reject "new vernacular architecture that supports our lifestyles and doesn't hog energy" because it doesn't fit the Mining Era historic-district look.

Leadville or Salida or Walden would probably let you build one though.