The Good The True And The Beautiful

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:04]your people.

[00:00:06]Your people your employees.

[00:00:13]>> Frozen pipes, no hot water, even no heat. Those are the complaints coming from Breen Ridge Ski Resort employees living in employee housing. They say they have submitted maintenance requests to make their homes livable again in these freezing temperatures, but they say they've been widely ignored by their parent company, Veil Resort. As of 2026, giant corporations like Veil and Alterara have bought up almost every ski resort in Colorado, making it the ideal vacation destination for the elite and wealthy, leaving the community members to fend for themselves.

[00:00:50]>> Come on, Tucker.

[00:00:54]Tucker, if you want to be skiing in Highlands, you need to learn how to carry your own stuff.

[00:00:58]>> Okay.

[00:01:00]>> Is that all it takes?

[00:01:04]>> My name is Tucker Livingston. I was born in Aspen, Colorado, and was raised by a very outdoorsy family and strong community.

[00:01:12]O >> Most of the locals and local families are people who have been living there for a long time. Not only that, but they understood that Aspen was a special place, a place that should be celebrated as well as protected. So, the good people of my community were always very giving of themselves and willing to help anyone in need. However, as I got older, I started to notice something that bothered me.

[00:01:39]>> Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the vlog. Today I'm going to Aspen, Colorado.

[00:01:44]>> Aspen had become the poster child for overpriced ski resorts in Colorado, setting the model that if people are willing to pay a premium price for something, then we should exploit them for that. This idea really bothered me.

[00:01:58]People shouldn't have to pay so much money to be able to enjoy the mountains.

[00:02:02]The mountains are for everybody. In the late 80s and early 90s, larger corporations saw how much demand there was for the ski industry. They began buying, trading, and developing these family-owned ski resorts with little regard for the communities that were left behind.

[00:02:20]This is Paul Anderson, a local author and journalist and living embodiment of the Aspen idea.

[00:02:26]>> Adler recognized in Aspen something. He said, "Aspen represents the conflict of two triads. The Platonic, the good, the true, and the beautiful, and the mchavelian, money, fame, and power.

[00:02:48]>> People want to live the platonic ideal and make money. Is that possible to do simultaneously?

[00:02:57]Not without compromising certain values.

[00:03:00]One day I was working at a local ski shop in town when I overheard a conversation between my co-orker and a customer. This man had written a book.

[00:03:08]It was titled Albert Schwitzer and the birth of the Aspen Idea. The book was about an event that took place in Aspen in 1949 shortly following World War II.

[00:03:17]The idea was to try to restore some morals in humanity to the people following the atrocities of the war.

[00:03:23]This event triggered a cultural renaissance in Aspen, which piqued my interest because I had never heard this story before, and it sounded completely counter to what these super elite and giant corporations were currently doing to Colorado. So, I read the book and interviewed the author to find out more.

[00:03:38]>> The Aspen idea is the nurturing of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit.

[00:03:43]And that's what people come here for.

[00:03:45]They come here for the body to ski or to hike to be in the mountains, the mind to think about philosophy, the world of ideas and the spirit. When the body and mind come together on a singular purpose, it elevates the spirit. Aspen was blessed with this event in 1949 that gave it a stance that today needs to be lived up to. Those 2,000 people were gifted with this experience that maybe had never been done before. They had access to the speakers that were giving the lectures. They listened to the music and then they looked at the mountains around them which are sublime and beautiful.

[00:04:35]>> I was born 10 years later so things were were happening already by the time I was born and my mom would drag me to events at the various venues whether at the music tent or the pepka buildings. I got to see the greatest thinkers of our time coming to Aspen to share what they were doing. Paul McCriedi came and and introduced the the Gossamer Albatross and the Gossamer Condor which were the first humanpowered flight and Steve Jobs came and introduced his first Apple computer and and a litany of people both in the arts in in literature, music um and design and innovation all came and and uh and shared what they were doing with a room full of people who were also designers and artists. I'm currently studying at Western Colorado University, which is 30 minutes outside of Crest.

[00:05:24]>> Veil Resorts announced this morning it is buying Crested But Mountain. So, I interviewed a couple of my buddies to figure out more about what it takes to live here.

[00:05:41]I think the economics of it eventually is going to have to change. You know, >> we all know the struggles we're going through. It can be so hard to make money here sometimes. Um, but yeah, honestly, there are some nights where I'm like, I might have to skip dinner. I would rather be doing what I'm doing the next day than worrying about dinner the night before. I have my own exterior painting company, snare removal company, and be doing that. It's how I support myself in my lifestyle. Ride dirt bikes and go snowboarding, skate, do whatever I want.

[00:06:11]It's awesome. and love being my own boss instead of being a slave to veil.

[00:06:22]In the high Rockies of Colorado, snow comes early and stays late. Once men clawed these mountains for silver and gold, cursed the snow, and built with their wealth a town called Aspen.

[00:06:35]>> Aspen was losing ground from its highest ideals. they were being eroded by the real politic of capitalism. I think about capitalism as the the the the religion of the Mchavelian triad. It's it it's it's about competition. It's about competing.

[00:07:00]Cooperation is what allowed the human species to survive. Without cooperation, human beings probably would not have survived.

[00:07:11]>> It's like you kind of almost have to work at the mountain to afford it because they're now season pass is like 11 $1,200 or whatever.

[00:07:21]>> That's one of the biggest reasons why I work at the mountain so I can get a free pass.

[00:07:24]>> Yeah, that's why I did it, too.

[00:07:26]>> Yeah.

[00:07:27]>> And this year, I didn't even buy a pass cuz >> cuz [ __ ] bail.

[00:07:32]>> Yeah, cuz [ __ ] bail. They don't care about anyone. They're fun suckers.

[00:07:38]It's They're ruining the They're ruining the culture, ruining this town, ruining the sport. They're ruining everything.

[00:07:46]But that's just me.

[00:07:50]>> There's a lot to think about about how Aspen h has let so many people down. But I'm not buying into it. It's a dynamic place. It's changing. Some things have changed for the worse. It's gotten more crowded, more congested, more polluted, more expensive. But the fact is, um, Aspen may be going down the tubes, but the rest of the world's going down the tubes faster, and I'm going to stay as long as I can. If you really want to be an Aspen, because you get what Aspen's about, you'll make the sacrifice to come. And I see it happen over and over again. And the sacrifice is great. We get a community of people who really, really want to be here. They want to be here more than they want to be anywhere else on the planet. and they'll do whatever it takes and I want to help them and I want to encourage them and I think Aspen is still available to them.

[00:08:41]If somebody's moving here and really wants to be a part of the community and fit in, they'll soon discover that all the artificial stuff, the consumption, the big house, all that stuff is um isn't going to make them happy. Maybe they can brag to others for a while about how nice their house is or how big their jet is or something, but the fact is the happiness comes through, you know, serving others in the community selflessly, perhaps not getting anything back from it. So, so maybe Aspen serves as a great example for people who are on this path to to to learn what's important at the end of the day, what's really important. We either move into a platonic state or probably face the perishing of humanity or severe cataclysm.