The Golden Eagle Awards, overseen in a partnership between SKI and the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), are the ski industry’s most prestigious honor for recognizing resort environmental programs and projects.

The resort awards are divided into three categories: small (fewer than 200,000 annual skier/boarder visits), medium (200,000 to 500,000 visits) and large (more than 500,000 visits). The Hero of Sustainability Award is designed to honor an individual making a difference in resort environmental performance.

Soda Springs won the Golden Eagle Award in the small ski area category for its Recycled Water Initiative. The ski area will lead by example in being the first resort in California to make snow using recycled water. The use of recycled water will preserve potable, surface, and groundwater supplies, and provide an alternate and sustainable source for snowmaking. Additionally, the snow that is made is effective water storage in the winter that is released back into the ground and surface water flows as the snow melts. In addition, 100 percent of energy used for the new snowmaking system is offset through the purchase of renewable energy credits.

Gore Mountain took the top environmental honors in the medium-sized ski area category for consistent leadership on environmental stewardship and enhancing the guest experience in creative ways that help both the planet and its business. Gore’s signature project was the signing of a 25-year solar energy contract for a 5.325 MW system that will offset 85 percent of Gore’s annual electrical budget. The first year’s savings for the project is estimated to be $213,043, and the cumulative savings is projected to be $9,985,787. Gore Mountain has demonstrated that a growing resort (its acreage and uphill capacity have increased 131 percent and 142 percent respectively over the last 20 years) can be sustainable and profitable, and serves as an industry model for sustainable growth.

Aspen Skiing Co. won the Golden Eagle Award in the large resort category for leveraging action on climate change with key audiences and in partnership with Protect Our Winters (POW), a nonprofit dedicated to engaging the outdoor sports community in the fight against climate change. This season, all 3,600 new Aspen/Snowmass uniforms featured the POW logo on the sleeve to spark conversation among guests and employees about climate change and how they can act in meaningful ways to solve the problem. Aspen trained every employee in climate science, communication, and the mission of POW prior to the season, and included effective collateral materials on chairlifts and in hotels to support the initiative.

SKI named Kristyn Lingenfelter a Hero of Sustainability for her efforts in implementing Squaw Valley’s Drink Mountain Tap program, a resort-wide ban of bottled water sales at Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows. The initiative inspires guests to rethink their daily habits by choosing reusable products over single-use items, while simultaneously reducing the total amount of plastic waste generated by the resort each year. In 10 years, this will add up to more than 8 metric tons of CO2 emissions saved by removing nearly 300,000 water bottles from production.

In addition to this program, Lingenfelter helped strengthen the resort’s partnership with POW and raise awareness on the effects of climate change by developing the POW Climate Cabin and POW Special Feature Wall at the Patagonia store in the resort’s Village.