No skiing below Pebble Creek

The crazy thing is that it looks like the new VC will actually save money in very few years -- I recall the construction budget was around $2.5 million [...]

Yes, I did find a reference that the VC cost about $2 million . . . in 1966!
The combined budget for both the new VC and the Inn upgrades is about $30 million.
The only estimate I found for VC-only costs was $11 million, but that was way back in 1999.

Two questions:
1. At this time of year, what is the approximate ratio below-treeline of foot traffic (i.e., hikers and climbers combined) to skiers (or I suppose, attempted skiers, illegal skiers, etc.).

2. Back at the end of October, when I was helping a friend's friend keep his monthly streak going:
picasaweb.google.com/jshefftz/MuirOct31
(yes, he was really cutting it close that month!), although the road had been clear for several straight days, the gate didn't open until some absurdly late hour in the morning.  Given the early sunset that time of year, such a late opening cuts short any daytripper's safety margin.  (Oh, plus the VC bathrooms were closed, even the ones accessed from the outside.)  I think that NPS actions & attitudes like that contribute to the opinions expressed in this thread. 

When they ticket people for riding their bicycles on closed paved roads (Sunrise, last year) [...]

!!!
So was this b/c . . . bikes are never allowed there no matter what the road status? . . . all access was supposed to be restricted (not merely vehicles)?

Now anyone reading this thread is on notice that you shouldn't ski there.

Don't you think you are doing more harm for your cause with statements like that.????

Even aside from the rather off-putting phrasing of the “notice,” this is coming from a poster entitled “skipole” whose profile includes no email address, no website address, and overall no hint as the anonymous poster’s actual name – that sure is an interesting form of official notice.

At the risk of sounding naive, this seems a bit overkill. All of the backcountry skiers I know (myself included) are some of the biggest environmental advocates around. We will go out of our way to preserve our playgrounds. Skinning on snow ruins plantlife? Seems to me that the efforts at conservation would be better spent on other groups (i.e. the thousands of tourists that visit our parks each month). I won't skin if the snow is too thin because I'd rather walk. And I won't walk on a bush or plant or flower or whatever if I can help it. However, I know I weigh a lot less than even 2 feet (maybe even one foot) of condensed snow this time of year.

I agree with Jason_H. Most places in the world would feel blessed to have 5 feet of snow during the high winter. And we're supposed to stay off??

... what has been done to control the animals from destroying their own vegetation? ... Olympic NP spent tons (million or more?) of money in public processes (EISs & response to public uproar) in trying to eliminate mountain goats from that park, even when faced with credible scientific challenge to their poorly supported claim that the native goat was not native to the park ... What is MRNP going to do about the marmot explosion that occurs each spring?

As one who has been in the federal conservation business for more than 40 years, I have seen the change in the NPS from a focus of preserving and managing parks for the enjoyment of the people to one of preserving parks for biodiversity.  I believe the American public is in real danger in losing most of its access to backcountry recreation on federal lands. I personally and professionally don't see a conflict between recreation and biodiversity, just a greater management challenge.  I remember reading large reports on outdoor recreation in America that Washington's Scoop Jackson (I got them from him in 1974) had completed by the CRS and that the Exec branch tried to bury to deny the increase in demand for outdoor recreation and the increased costs that would follow.  In my experience, the last 4 administrations & associated congresses have failed to fund federal outdoor recreation programs (and even as my time in the Pentagon revealed, basic maintenance of even military domestic infrastructure) adequately--see Vogtski's comments--whereas timber, mining, drilling, concessionaires, capital improvements like buildings that benefit local economies, and programs sought by paid lobbyists and very passionate and organized interest groups are routinely funded [like long sentences?].  In the last 7 years, the Bush admn has adopted the biodiversity preservation for parks because, IMHO, it is a way of not funding parks (you don't need to fund what you want to keep people out of--let nature do it).  Likewise, recreation, road, & trail maintenance has been underfunded in the Forest Service (if you don't want logging, you don't get roads).

Of course the solution is antithetical to a backcountry ethos: organize, be a group member, spend more time in meetings, raising money, raising h*ll, etc.  I'm starting to do a bit of that around here after retiring from federal service because I was getting burnt out on mediating/resolving biodiversity/natural resources/interest group conflicts.