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Mountain News: Jackson Hole aims to be ‘Geneva of the Rockies’

Compiled by Allen Best JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Can dramatic scenery inspire global peace and progress while also filling local hotel rooms? That seems to be the ambition of a new organization, the Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs.

Compiled by Allen Best

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Can dramatic scenery inspire global peace and progress while also filling local hotel rooms? That seems to be the ambition of a new organization, the Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs.

The organization recently held its first conference, called the U.S.-China Clean Energy Initiative, a weekend gathering of international bankers, environmentalists, scientists and government officials to address global warming.

Jackson Hole has served as a high-stakes meeting ground before. In a 1989 article titled Where the Elk and the Diplomats Roam, New York Times reporter Timothy Egan dubbed Jackson Hole "The Geneva of the Rockies." Then Secretary of State James A. Baker was meeting with his counterpart from the Soviet Union, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, to talk about chemical warfare, nuclear missiles, and such. The intent, said Baker, was to use "one of the garden spots of the earth" to help inspire global solutions to questions of war and peace.

From a less ethereal perspective, chamber director Steve Duerr told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that the mission of the new center dovetails with his agency’s agenda of creating "sustainable business," by drawing visitors during a time when tourists are few, and not harming the valley’s natural resources.

Wally World ad isn’t from Canmore

CANMORE, Alberta — Canadian television viewers will soon see a Christmas commercial for Wal-Mart that suggests the setting is scenery-blessed Canmore. In fact, in-store scenes were shot in Calgary, outdoor shorts in Golden, B.C. For that matter, Canmore doesn’t even have a Wal-Mart, nor does Wal-Mart have plans to build there.

Still, the local tourism director told the Rocky Mountain Outlook that the television exposure "can’t help but be a positive thing" for Canmore.

Historian says Ed Abbey started a stupid argument

BOULDER, Colo. — Ranchers vs. environmentalists? It’s a time-wasting dispute, says environmental historian Patrician Nelson Limerick.

"Edward Abbey was successful in throwing everybody off track for a while with his attack on ranchers in the mid-1980s, and that was kind of a waste of time because, if the ranchers had collapsed economically and sold out to developers, then Edward Abbey would have played a role in the creation of more condos in the West," she said in an interview in Divide, a new magazine.

"It doesn’t take the deepest ecological science to know that if your goal is preservation of habitat for wildlife, then you are so much better off with the ranchers than you are with the condos and the big houses spread around the landscape."

That said, she conceded that coalitions between ranchers and enviros will always be precarious "and probably have to be renegotiated every morning."

‘Fear and loathing’ first in letter after murder of JFK

ASPEN, Colo. — The day President John Kennedy was assassinated, Hunter S. Thompson wrote a letter. It was, he believes, the first time he used the phrase "fear and loathing," one that turned up frequently in the titles of his books and articles several years later. Thompson provided a copy of that letter to the Aspen Daily News.

"There is no human being within 500 miles to whom I can communicate anything – much less the fear and loathing that is on me after today’s murder," he wrote. "God knows I might go mad for lack of talk. I have become like a psychotic sphinx – I want to kill because I can’t talk."

In the letter Thompson reports "the death of hope" and fearing a world in which Lyndon Johnson would be president. He vows resistance.

"The only hope now is to swing hard with the right hand, while hanging onto sanity with the left. Politics will become a cockfight and reason will go by the boards. There will have to be somebody to carry the flag."

He ended the letter: "Send word, if you exist."

Law intends to reduce fire risk to the interface

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As Thanksgiving approached, Congress was nearing approval of a Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The stated intent of the law is to reduce potential harm to communities near national forests and other public lands from wildfires.

A key sponsor of the bill, Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., went so far as to describe the law as "among the most important reforms to forest policy since Theodore Roosevelt first created the national forests nearly a century ago." Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who is strongly tied to national environmental groups, had dropped his opposition, saying that the bill as modified promises to reduce severe wildfire damage to communities without gutting environmental laws.

The law more than doubles the amount of money available for forest thinning projects, and it also streamlines judicial review of thinning projects. Environmental organizations had feared logging companies would be unleashed to plunder forests that posed no fire risk to communities. That fear was partially answered by a provision regarding old growth.

How much will this law affect ski resort communities? Generally with less immediacy than other locations. Forests most at risk are low-elevation forests, such as of ponderosa pine, where burn cycles of 20 to 30 years have been suppressed for most of a century. Higher-elevation forests typically have burn cycles of 100 to 500 years.

As such, the fire danger there tends to be not as high, although when fires will occur they can be intensely hot.

In the Vail Valley, a plan was already underway to burn and cut 3,000 acres among a more general project area of 15,000 acres of lodgepole pine hit hard in recent years by bark beetles.

Eagle County/Vail also see real estate on rise

VAIL, Colo. — Add Eagle County to the list of resort areas where the real estate seems to be turning around. The year started slow, but sales in the last three months look to push 2003 sales close to last year’s final tally of $1.5 billion.

The largest company, Slifer, Smith & Frampton, reported that October beat the previous best month on record by 37 per cent.

Approximately two-thirds of sales, and one-third of total dollar volume, were from what the Vail Daily described as "entry-level" housing, $500,000 or less. The top end properties, $1 million plus, were responsible for a fifth of sales and a third of dollar volume.

Butte owner wants to appeal to GP crowd

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Crested Butte once hosted the X Games. Could the GP Games be next?

That’s what Tim Mueller, who expects to buy Crested Butte Mountain Resort by Jan. 1, insinuates is in store for the mountain. "The mountain is the mountain," he says of Crested Butte’s extreme terrain. "I would never get away from the extreme skier, but it needs to be rounded out so that the family knows that Crested Butte is more than just an extreme paradise."

To get more intermediate skiing, Mueller intends to pursue the expansion of lift-accessed skiing onto Snodgrass Mountain, he told the Crested Butte News, The Forest Service approved Snodgrass in 1982, but Crested Butte did not act on it, and then by 1996 the community was opposed. After several tough economic years, caused partly by drought but more importantly by the faltering destination skier market, community opposition to that expansion has significantly softened.

California team sinks money into Telluride

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Joe Morita, the son of Sony founder Akio Morita, has new partners at Telluride. After discussions with several suitors, including long-time ski industry executive Andy Daly and the Aspen Skiing Co., Morita has chosen Chuck and Chad Horning, partners in a real estate investment firm based in Anaheim, Calif.

No changes are expected during this ski season, and it’s not clear what the new joint venture may mean for Telluride, says the Telluride Planet. Also unclear is how much real estate is included in the deal.

Morita in 1999 became a partner with Jim Wells and Ron Allred, who had been involved with Telluride since the 1970s. They eased out entirely in 2001, and Morita invested $14 million in the Prospect Basin expansion. Advisors urged Morita to rebalance his sizable international investment portfolio.

Booth Creek Ski Holdings, which operates six small ski areas, has managed Telluride in Morita’s absence. Chris Ryman, president and CEO of Booth Creek, is negotiating with the new joint venture on his company’s future involvement.

Scenery also good for hospital patients

SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — As it turns out, scenery is also good medicine. In choosing the location for a new hospital for Summit County, reports The Park (City) Record, one consideration is the view from rooms. Those views, as well as the hospital’s appearance, are important facets in healing of patients, explained Randall Probst, a hospital administrator.

Officials calculate they can break even if they get only 50 per cent of local patients who are now going to hospitals in nearby Salt Lake City or Heber Valley.

Vail uncertain about skiing as it used to be

VAIL, Colo. — At Vail, you can still find skiing as it used to be. It’s called Chair 5, a three-seater that serves the original Back Bowls. It moves reasonably fast, or as fast as is expected of old-technology lifts, but a powder day can produce 45-minute lift-line waits.

Now, Vail Resorts is floating the idea of a detachable quad lift there, and the Vail Daily reports still surprisingly light comment on such a bold idea, but enough to at least temporarily overshadow talk about Kobe Bryant, open space, and other topics of the day in the Eagle Valley.

Those appalled at the supposed progress being proposed include Pepi Gramshammer, a ski racer and one of Vail’s first and most prominent hoteliers, and Kent Rose, a former mayor. But Vail Daily editor Don Rogers quips that the lift should have been called Forever, and the lines get so long that you can develop relationships.

No surprise here: More I-70 lanes

I-70 CORRIDOR, Colo. — This one was about as surprising as cold weather during winter. State and federal highway officials announced that they don‘t see any mass-transit options in the near future for steadily more crowded I-70, a critical link between Denver and about two-thirds of Colorado’s ski areas. Instead, they want I-70 to be widened to three lanes for about 40 miles, so that drivers from Denver will have three lanes all the way into Summit County.

Key governments from Idaho Springs, Summit County, Vail and Eagle County had lobbied hard for a monorail or some other more environmentally friendly mass-transit device, even while conceding that such technology has not yet been proven. But several acknowledged that these lesser highway widenings were badly needed. Residents of Idaho Springs and other communities where the highway is to be widened in an already narrow canyon were predictably not pleased.

Kayak water rights cause Steamboat area concerns

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Several years ago, Vail and Breckenridge filed for instream flow rights for the water that flows through their kayak parks. Now, after spending $100,000 in configuring the Yampa River, Steamboat Springs is looking to do the same. But unlike Vail and Breckenridge, Steamboat has a lot of upstream neighbours. Some of those upstream neighbours, among them Oak Creek and Yampa, are fidgety and annoyed.

If this happens, they fear that the ability of these towns to appropriate the water necessary to grow will be hampered, reports The Steamboat Pilot. Because of the emphasis on protecting open space around Steamboat, those towns are expected to be increasingly important bedroom communities.

Glenn Porzak, the water lawyer for Steamboat who pioneered the concept on behalf of Vail and Breckenridge, says it’s much ado about nothing. "I have heard a lot of people say the sky is falling. That is simply not the issue," he said. Recreational water rights usually are applied only from dawn to dusk, and from April to October, so other water users have plenty of opportunities to divert water without impacting the city’s recreational right, he insists.

Maybe, but County Commissioner Nancy Stahoviak of Oak Creek thinks Steamboat has no cause to hurry to file for the rights. "Maybe there is a good reason, but I haven’t heard it or seen it yet," she said.

County resents wolves put into Yellowstone

RED LODGE, Mont. — In Colorado, governments are gearing up for when wolves released into the Yellowstone region in 1995 begin trotting into the state. In Montana’s Carbon County, located on the northeaster corner of Yellowstone, county officials are anticipating the delisting of the wolf under the Endangered Species Act.

If delisted, the wolves will come under state control. Like Wyoming, Carbon County wants the wolves considered as predators. The commissioners for Carbon County, a land of ranches with a ski resort among them, also have made clear their displeasure with the wolf reintroduction.

"The commissioners are expressing their displeasure with the federal government forcing wolves upon their land and beyond the control of the local citizenry," the county’s attorney, Kemp Wilson, explained to the Carbon County News. The commissioners cited impacts to farmers, ranchers, and big-game hunters.

Park City and Moab vie to the windiest

PARK CITY, Utah — Among Utah towns, only Moab and Park City have agreed to a municipal competition to see who can buy most into a wind power program being sponsored by Utah Power.

Park City recently announced it would purchase 7.5 per cent of it energy from wind energy. The wind power costs more than electricity from coal-fired power plants, so the city plans to replace fixtures and appliances with more energy-efficient models. The next step is to get businesses involved. Three ski resorts – Deer Valley, The Canyons, and Park City Mountain Resort – have all agreed to buy 6 per cent of their power. Several businesses have also signed onto the Blue Sky program.

Bozeman, Crested Butte praised by USA Today

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — In its travel section, USA Today highlighted ski areas that it defined as "small enough and far enough off the freeway to feel remote," ones that "aren’t just corporate concepts; they’re real communities that happen to be near mountains that beckon dedicated downhillers."

In the West, the newspaper chose Crested Butte and Bozeman: Of Crested Butte, it said: "Free-thinking, outdoors-loving residents enjoy a lively party, from Mardi Gras celebrations to the coal miners’ polka fest. Cows outnumber residents 20 to 1 and downtown boasts dozens of one-of-a-kind shops, none of which sell fur."

Of Bozeman: "Rubbing elbows along Main Street are academics, artists, ranchers and more recently, an influx of urban refugees seeking the quiet life. The town exudes youthful exuberance, whether because of the college students (it’s the home of Montana State University) or the generally sports-crazed population."

Both descriptions are apt, but just one question for USA Today — don’t they know that Bozeman is large, has an airport nearby, and interstate running through it?

Jackson gets first ‘urban’ downtown building units

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Downtown Jackson has a new building that some are calling "Tribecca in Jackson," a reference to an area of New York City. The 42-foot-tall development has office space on the bottom floor and six residential apartments on the second and third floors – the first truly urban dwellings in the valley, says the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Cost of the uptown digs range from $256 to $406 per square foot.

Town residents, meanwhile, continue to argue the merits and imperfections of a rezoning that will allow even more such taller and bulkier buildings. Some say the bigger buildings will not benefit the community, while others maintain denser downtown building will reduce sprawl.

Vail backs away from war over jake brakes

VAIL, Colo. — Vail residents have been increasingly annoyed about the growing din from the highway that bisects it, I-70. Recently, town council members began gunning to prevent truck drivers from unnecessarily using the engine-compression brakes, commonly called jake brakes.

But a truckers’ lobbyist persuaded the council to postpone enacting a law to that effect backed by a $1,000 fine. Instead, the council is now talking about education of truckers, something that dissident council member Greg Moffet believes will be ineffective. Moffet, who lives within 100 yards of the highway, said nothing will change "without a gun to their heads," reports the Vail Daily.

An issue for 20 years, highway noise in Vail has become an increasing complaint in the last 5 to 10 years. The town continues to talk about erecting noise walls and also getting state authorities to reduce speed limits. Speed limits are officially 65, which means that most people drive 75. As vehicles increase speed, noise from them increases, in summer drowning out back-porch conversations.