February 5, 2008 – The operators of cross-country ski trails in Washington’s Methow Valley, located on the east slopes of the North Cascades, are joining the “greening” of the cross-country ski industry. The Methow Valley Sport Trails Association (MVSTA)-a non-profit organization that maintains the communities trails for year-round, non-motorized use-recently became the first cross-country ski system in the country to go carbon neutral.

Given MVSTA’s mission to operate trails in an environmentally sound manner, MVSTA staff and board began investigating viable ways to address the organization’s carbon emissions last summer. “We researched bio-diesel for our five grooming machines, but the limitation of bio-diesel is low temperatures and we couldn’t afford to have the whole fleet of groomers come to a halt when it got really cold, so we started looking for alternative solutions”, said MVSTA executive director Jay Lucas. Through a partnership with TerraPass (www.terrapass.com), MVSTA calculated their annual carbon footprint by adding up and offsetting all emissions generated by trail grooming, transportation, and office energy use. Voila-carbon neutral!

Launched in 2004, TerraPass is the leading consumer retailer and marketer of greenhouse gas reduction offsets. TerraPass works by funding clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction projects throughout the U.S. and purchasing carbon credits from the Chicago Climate Exchange. Over 75,000 TerraPasses have been sold to individuals, families, and businesses to balance out the global warming impact of their flying, driving, and home energy use. Together, TerraPass customers have reduced more than 700 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, the primary cause of climate change. Every TerraPass offset purchase and marketing claim is verified by the Center for Resource Solutions, an independent, non-profit auditor.

MVSTA encourages their trail-users to take action as well. This fall MVSTA added a section to their travel planning web page (www.mvsta.com) educating visitors about the TerraPass program that allows individuals to offset travel emissions. MVSTA development director, Danica Kaufman, shared her enthusiasm for the new program. “In the Methow Valley, the economy depends heavily on tourism and TerraPass offers visitors who value the quality of our natural environment the opportunity for an ecologically-friendly vacation.”

In April, Kaufman and board president Don Portman will attend the Cross-Country Ski Areas Association annual meeting in Colorado to share MVSTA’s story with other xc ski resort operators across the country. Portman, a primary instigator of the Methow’s xc-ski trail system 30 years ago added, “Cross country skiing is all about enjoying the natural beauty of winter. Of course we want to do all we can to protect the environment”.