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Mountain News: DAM new brew has a hint of Paris café

DILLON, Colo. — A few years ago, when the Denver Art Museum, or DAM, hosted an exhibition of Van Gogh's works, it commissioned the Dillon Dam Brewery to do a special brew in commemoration. It worked out well, so they've collaborated again.
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DILLON, Colo. — A few years ago, when the Denver Art Museum, or DAM, hosted an exhibition of Van Gogh's works, it commissioned the Dillon Dam Brewery to do a special brew in commemoration.

It worked out well, so they've collaborated again. This time the brew is to celebrate a new show called Passport to Paris, a focus on French art from the late 1600s to early 1990s. But how do you capture this in something that you quaff after a day of skiing?

In a press release from the museum, Dillon Dam brewmaster Cory Foster explained that he chose to brew a type of steam beer with elements of both lagers and ales. In researching the art and artists in the show, he said he was struck by the impressionists' work depicting nature.

"I saw a lot of light, sunshine and faded blue skies in these paintings, so I immediately thought that this should be a light, yet complex, beer to represent the bright colours and deep shadows."

Foster describes his beer as a "ray of sunshine in a glass."

Indeed, the outdoors was a strong theme in the paintings, says Angelica Daneo, curator of painting and sculpture at the museum. She points to new technology, the invention of the paint tube in 1841 that allowed artists to record the ever-changing light and colours of the outdoors onto their canvases.

She adds that she would like to imagine Pissarro and Renoir enjoying this new beer while seated at an outdoor café in Montmartre.

No special regs for pit bulls

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — In August, two loose pit bulls attacked a beagle on Hoosier Pass, located south of Breckenridge. The beagle was severely injured and a Summit County sheriff's deputy shot and killed one of the pit bulls.

Should certain breeds of dogs, presumably including pit bulls, be banned from Breckenridge, the town asked residents. The Summit Daily News reports little support. Just 193 people indicated support while 1,159 posted their thumbs down.

"There are no bad dogs really, just bad owners," one person wrote on a Facebook page. "Proactive measures are better in the long run."

New rules regulate uphillers

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — New rules for the uphillers in Summit County, Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain require guests to both acquire a hiking pass and sign a waiver before marching up those ski areas.

Breckenridge, Copper and Keystone, meanwhile, will no longer allow pets to accompany the uphillers. And those same three ski areas will limit uphillers to times outside normal operations, reports the Summit Daily News.

Luck with ice climbers

BANFF, Alberta — Lucky. That's the bottom line in this story about six ice climbers who were caught in an avalanche south of Banff. One man was buried up to his armpits, while a woman was buried upside down with only her boots showing. She wasn't breathing when retrieved from the snow, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, but survived.

A public safety group for the Kananaskis chided the group for not having avalanche gear, such as shovels, probes and transceivers. It wouldn't have changed this outcome, but with a different avalanche, it could have.

How WW II slowed mountain resort plans

JASPER, Alberta — World War II absolutely froze the aspirations for developing mountain resorts. In Aspen, plans were being laid for a ski resort from the foundations of the old mining enterprises. They were put on hold for five years.

Jasper was a railroad town first, but in 1940, a highway finally arrived. The Jasper Fitzhugh explains that it meant a world of difference: 85,000 visitors vs. 21,000 people the year before.

"Jasper seemed set to prosper. Then, war broke out again, and visitors stopped coming," explains the Fitzhugh.

Aspen saw some traffic during World War II from nearby Camp Hale, the training site from 1942 to 1944 of the famed 10th Mountain Division. Jasper saw war-time soldiers, too, many of them Americans, but mostly in passing trains. Bands turned out to welcome them and wish them good journey.

After the war, Aspen's development into a major resort was more rapid. Downhill skiing operations began in 1946, and the arts and cultural scene blossomed under the patronage of a Chicago industrialist, Walter Paepcke. If slow to take off in the 1950s, Aspen by then was firmly on a path as its second career as a resort.

Grizzly deaths a little complicated

BANFF, Alberta — The leading reason for the death of grizzly bears in the Banff National Park area is the railway line that bisects the park. Park officials, as well as conservationists and the Canadian Pacific Railway, all are concerned about why. Spilled grain has been identified as a key reason why the grizzlies hang out along the railroad tracks.

But the story is actually much more complicated, says Colleen Cassady St. Clair, the lead researcher from a University of Alberta team. "We also know bears use the rail as a travel corridor because it is easier to travel there than in adjacent areas," she told the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

The bears are also drawn to other food found in the right-of-way, including dandelions, horsetails and buffalo berries.

Survivor shares story

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — In 2005, Steamboat Springs resident Charles Horton set out by himself for a day cross-country ski outing in the nearby Flat Tops Wilderness Area. Then he had an accident. Unable to move, he spent nine days by himself, suffering from frostbite and hypothermia and losing 13 to 16 kilograms.

Help finally arrived, and his story has been told many times, most recently in a production that was broadcast this week on the Discovery Channel. He told the Steamboat Pilot that he liked this production.

"The story, to me, is my feelings," he told the newspaper. "It's much more mentally how I dealt with it and not wrestling lions, coyotes and bears. Oh my!"

Groups he has talked with in the past were looking for an adventure story, about how nature was out to get him, he said. But that wasn't the case for him. He says he has spent the last eight years trying to put into words the things he recognized and learned from the experience.

Colorado voters in a just-say-no mood

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Despite all the news of increases in retail sales, improved lodging, and a general warming of the real estate market, people in ski-anchored mountain valleys of Colorado voted as though still in the grip of the Great Recession. Very few proposals for tax increases were approved.

The one clear exception was marijuana, where proposals for substantial taxes were approved by overwhelming margins. Voters in Eagle, for example, approved a tax rate that could yield up to a $5 tax on a single sale of marijuana for recreational purposes.

Telluride has considered voting for legalization of marijuana, and it supported taxing sales. But town residents rejected a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages by a 69-to-31 per cent margin.

In the broader San Miguel county voters by a similar margin rejected a tax on residential electrical bills that would have yielded $170,000 annually, to be used for efforts to dampen greenhouse gas emissions. County Commissioner Joan May attributed the defeat to an inability to explain the "complicated concept of how this could effectively reduce energy use."

In Durango, 56 per cent of voters said "plastic please" in overturning a city council-enacted fee of 10 cents per plastic shopping bag at the city's largest grocery chains. But a tax proponent told the Durango Telegraph that, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, "We'll be back."

In Summit County, the same trend was found in the defeat of a new property tax intended to raise $800,000 annually to fund a scholarship program for child-care. But county voters were OK with extending an existing tax, this one to fund a project called Right Start, which seeks to improve quality, availability and affordability of early care and learning for local families.

In Steamboat, reallocation of an existing tax was also authorized, this one steering lodging tax proceeds to trails for bikes and a promenade along the Yampa River.

In the Winter Park-Granby-Grand Lake area, voters rejected a school tax for improved technology. They also rejected a tax increase to support local libraries.

The most existential election may have been in Red Cliff, a place of 300 souls, almost as many dogs, and precious little level ground, even by standards of Colorado mountain towns. It has lived paycheck-to-paycheck for a good many years.

The town is betting that a newly approved five per cent sales tax on marijuana can help the municipal budget, but also sought a property tax hike. Without it, Mayor Scott Burgess told the Vail Daily, the off switch might be flipped. "You may see us turning off street lights, getting rid of the town's TV service," he said.

Do pot greenhouses constitute agriculture?

ASPEN, Colo. — What's agriculture? That simple question is proving very hard to answer in Pitkin County, where a marijuana entrepreneur named Ron Radtke wants to build 19,000 square feet of greenhouses along Woody Creek.

You can't help but think of the late writer Hunter S. Thompson, who lived in the Woody Creek Valley near Aspen and made no secret of his fondness for marijuana and other then-illicit drugs.

Now, Colorado is making marijuana legal, and the question at the courthouse in Aspen is where can it be grown. The Woody Creek parcel is zoned for agriculture, but a neighbourhood group opposes the greenhouses. In the words of one resident, marijuana cultivation could attract crime and draw "low life, drug-induced employees."

Pitkin County has already approved one 24,000 square-foot pot greenhouse. But there's little consensus, reports the Aspen Daily News, about how season-extending greenhouses should fit into the future of rural Pitkin County.

The issue before the commissioners was summarized by one of their own, Rachel Richards. "What most people have thought of when they're talking about agricultural character is hayfields and pastures," she said. "Greenhouse ag is something new, and we may classify marijuana cultivation as a non-agricultural use."

The commissioners, says the Daily News, are finalizing their rules for the recreational marijuana industry, whose first businesses could open in January.

Ideas Festival tackles the big topics

ASPEN, Colo. — The Aspen Ideas Festival in the summer of 2014 will get bigger yet. Already one of the nation's leading talkfests, next year it will have a third component, called "Spotlight: Health," with topics focused on medicine, health and health care, reports the Aspen Daily News.

There will be three other programming tracks, including "Confronting Climate Change." Costs are $1,800 for the health session and $3,000 for the others. But attendees are promised one-on-one time with speakers, which tend to include names you have heard of or names you will hear of.

BIKE TOWN OR SKI TOWN?

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Is Steamboat Springs going to be Ski Town USA or Bike Town USA? Can it be both?

Both titles have been used, the bicycle claim of more recent origin. Both claims involve the community-owned Howelsen Hill, whose Nordic trails have been a training site for Nordic skiers. Now, city officials want to allow mountain bikes, too, reports Steamboat Today.

Mountain bikers have taken to winter riding by using wider tires filled at lower air pressures. Grand Targhee Resort, in the Tetons, has found ways to incorporate both, as have other resorts.

"As this industry has grown and the sport has kind of evolved, we were able to talk to other resorts that had implemented this program and thought it would be a great fit for Howelsen and Steamboat," said Craig Robinson, Howelsen Hill's facilities supervisor. "As the technology has evolved, there is less and less impact from the bike."

Still, some people in the community have been grumbling that this is a wrong move, perhaps interfering with Steamboat's training of Olympic-caliber Nordic skiers and jumpers. The city council, according to Steamboat Today, may intercede in the matter and, at any rate, will have the final say.

Can you puff on 420 at ski areas in Colorado?

PAGOSA SPRINGS, Colo. —Where can you puff a joint? With recreational marijuana becoming legal in Colorado, that's the over-riding question for many. But really, the story hasn't changed at all at ski areas. It's illegal to smoke in public, same as before, and it's still against federal law. Most Colorado ski areas operate on federal land.

Still, how the ski areas operate is different. The Denver Post reports that at Arapahoe Basin, season passes of two public-smokers were seized and they were ordered to leave. At Wolf Creek, however, ski patrollers are leaving pot-smokers alone.

"Our patrol's job is not to bird-dog everybody when they smell marijuana," said Davey Pitcher, chief executive of Wolf Creek. An exception is if reckless skiing is involved.

But the U.S. Forest Service does have personnel to enforce federal drug laws. "They are up here quite often. They ski around. Sometimes, they ski around undercover," said Pitcher.

A Forest Service representative agreed that the rules are clear. "It's not their job to enforce federal regulations," said Paul Cruz, regional winter sports coordinator for the Forest Service in Colorado. "It's their job to inform."

The name for people in Crested Butte

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — What do you call yourself if you live in Crested Butte. A Coloradan yes, but more local yet?

In an election wrap-up, the Crested Butte News identifies "more than 700 Buttians" voting.

Kind of like Lilliputians, except bigger.

Ski area celebrates 50 years

JASPER, Alberta — The 50th birthday parties continue at ski areas this winter, including Jasper's Marmot Basin.

The Fitzhugh notes that Jasperites started skiing at the basin in the 1920s. In the 1950s, they were using snowmobiles to haul guests from the Athabasca Hotel. In 1961, a rope tow powered by an old army truck was installed. Another big step came in 1964 when Parks Canada granted a group of businesses a license to develop the hill. By 1990, not long after the big ski areas in Colorado, Marmot Basin had its own detachable quad lift. It has 1,500 acres of skiable terrain, respectable in any state or province.