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Mountain News:

This year’s winner for scary bear story

Compiled by Allen Best

ASPEN, Colo. — For most people in Aspen this summer, the bears have been an inconvenience. For Tom Isaac, it’s been a terrifying experience.

A bear or bears have invaded all parts of his house, igniting a burner on his stove but also leaving "business" on a bed, reports The Aspen Times. But these incidents pale in comparison to what happened on the night of Sept. 20.

Isaac was awakened by the sound of cabinets in his kitchen being opened, and drawers and shelves in the refrigerator getting banged around. Then he heard the sound of heavy steps shuffling down the hall toward his bedroom. Isaac, who broke his neck in the early 1980s, leaving him extremely limited use of his hands and no use of his legs and unable to get in and out of bed on his own, was unable to move. But he sensed the bear six feet away on the other side of his closed bedroom door.

All Isaac could do was pray the bear didn't burst through his bedroom door. He eventually could no longer hear the bear and managed to drift asleep.

Later, state wildlife officers discovered a 500-pound bear called Fat Albert had been in the area, including his house. Oddly, the bear didn't leave a scratch on the cabinet or break the refrigerator.

Jackson Hole a major spigot

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — As it becomes ever wealthier, Jackson Hole is becoming a major spigot of money for political candidates.

Through July, Teton County residents had given $1.3 million to federal candidates and causes, reports Jonathan Schechter, a columnist for the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Fifty per cent went to Republican causes, 40 per cent to Democrats and 10 per cent to independents and ostensibly independent causes.

By federal law, the names are a matter of public record. Several individuals have given between $50,000 and $100,000 this year. Of course many people get cranky when Schechter prints their names in his column. In response, some potential donors at local fundraisers have used their residences in other states (most major donors have multiple residences) when making their contributions.

Revelstoke wants tourist train

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — A tourist train is still interested in stopping at Revelstoke, but apparently the town needs to sell itself.

The Revelstoke Times Review says that the operator of the Rocky Mountaineeer will be testing out a Golden-Cranbrook-Nelson run for tourists this October on one of the Canadian Pacific rail lines.

The question is, once passengers arrive in Nelson, do they just get a shuttle ride to Kelowna and fly back to Calgary where they began their trip, or do they ride the train up the Columbia River valley to Revelstoke as part of a possible loop tour of the region? And, more specifically, why would they want to spend several days in Revelstoke during the summer.

Revelstoke leaders were advised to begin thinking in terms of the swelled numbers expected in British Columbia in response to the 2010 Winter Olympics at Whistler and Vancouver.

Third IPP possible

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — With a 45-megawatt hydroelectric power plant recently opened near Revelstoke, Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. is now investigating the feasibility of a third power project for the Revelstoke area.

"It's a nice little site, maybe about five megawatts capacity," said Ross Keating, CanHydro president. The site, on English Creek, is located 15 kilometres west of Revelstoke off of the Trans-Canada Highway. While among the smallest of CanHydro’s projects, it would be easy to connect to the provincial power grid.

The British Columbia government is encouraging the construction of small hydro power plants by partially exempting them from property taxes payable to the province.

‘Mild utopia’ challenged

AVON, Colo. — A developer who started talking about erecting a 20-storey-tall condominium complex in Avon, at the base of Beaver Creek, has been curtly informed that the ski and development company Vail Resorts will do all it can to block the project.

The company is prepared to spend "unlimited resources, repeat, unlimited resources to muster whatever opposition is needed to send this terrible proposal to the graveyard it deserves," said Adam Aron, chief executive officer of Vail Resorts.

"While there may be in some projects a compelling public benefit to change the current 105 feet height limit by a storey or two, there is no public benefit imaginable to support allowing a 20-storey building to go forward in the Vail Valley," Aron said. "Such a proposal is totally out of keeping with our mild form of utopia that exists in the Vail Valley," he added.

Upon first hearing the ideas of Florida-based Keith Jennings of Pelican Bay Development the week before, Avon town officials had told Jennings he had a tough sale before him with the community. "Two months ago we had the controversy over a 150-foot flagpole," notes Councilman Peter Buckley. "It’s going to be a tough sale."

Jennings said he needed a building 250 feet tall to get the 220,000 square feet of residential, 60,000 square feet of commercial, and room for 240 cars on his one-acre lot. He seems to have garnered the support of the homeowners in the adjoining Avon Center complex, who preferred tall and skinny to shorter and bulkier. "Better tall and slender than one big block," said homeowner group rep George Pakozsi.

Jennings predicts his project will deliver the critical mass that will entice national franchise retailers and also draw a ski lift from nearby Beaver Creek. However, another major project that anticipates a gondola terminus is also now in the works.

All for tank control

GRANBY, Colo. — In Granby, they’re still hashing out the Marvin Heemeyer rant he made and taped and mailed to his brother shortly before rampaging through the town on a bulldozer.

In the tape, Heemeyer talked about his perceived enemies, including Patrick Brower, editor of the local newspaper, the Sky-Hi News. Heemeyer accused Brower of being a pot-smoking liberal and Army brat. Brower had this to say in response:

"From where I sit, to be called a liberal by Heemeyer is somewhat of a compliment. Liberals like me think there should be a ban on homemade and armored tanks. We probably would have differed on that point. I’m all for tank control. He probably wasn’t.

"But what really hurt was when he called me an ‘Army brat,’" Brower further confided in his weekly column. "Such a statement represents calumny of the worst kind, and I simply won’t stand for it. Darn it, I was a Navy brat, not an Army brat. And to this day I’m proud of the distinction, whatever that distinction is."

Ritz-Carlton clears hurdle

MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, Colo. — A proposed 96-foot-tall hotel project in Mountain Village, adjacent to the ski slopes of Telluride, has cleared another hurdle. Little in the way of governmental approval now remains in front of developer Robert Levine’s proposal, which he says will be managed by Ritz-Carlton or some other four- or five-star hotel operator.

In this second hurdle, 80 per cent of voters refused to overturn the town council’s approval. A similar election in June yielded the same basic conclusion.

Town leaders believe that Mountain Village, which is located on a mesa above the town of Telluride, needs more people and more activity to make the town work as a business proposition. The hotel is supposed to achieve that and also provide room for a post office, an ice-skating rink, and so on. It also gets 100 hotel rooms. But the key to underwriting all this is the sale of real estate, 24 condominiums.

To get this all under essentially one roof means going about 30 feet higher than what the town’s building regulations normally would allow. That, in turn, means blocking some views of the San Juan Range from the adjacent time-share lodge, which was the primary source of opposition.

Telluride founder dies

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Joe Zoline, who founded the Telluride ski area in 1974, has died. A child of Russian immigrants, he had grown up in Chicago during the Great Depression and had worked his way through the University of Chicago. From there, he became a top corporate lawyer, and then a chief executive. Among his firms was Carte Blanche, one of the first credit cards.

Zoline and his wife, Jebby, had owned a ranch near Aspen beginning in 1955, where the couple summered and where he got his fundamental understanding of mountain towns. He began the Telluride project in 1968, the ski area opened in 1974, and he sold it to Ron Allred and Jim Wells, developers from Avon, at the base of Beaver Creek, in 1978.

The Telluride Watch says that Zoline hoped to prevent the sprawl at Telluride that he had seen result from Aspen’s early success. However, he had foreseen the creation of Mountain Village, the mid-mountain town, and the Prospect Bowl ski area expansion, which opened two years ago.

Marketing money controversy

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Two years ago, residents in the Crested Butte and Gunnison areas increased the lodging tax to 4 per cent, raising $700,000 for marketing efforts. As well, the town of Mt. Crested Butte allocated $450,000 from an admissions tax. A new tourism association was put in charge of doling out the money.

But municipal politicians and bureaucrats are annoyed about how the association has spent the money. It does not, for example, want to pay for Crested Butte’s Fat Tire Bike Week or Gunnison’s Cattlemen’s Days. Or perhaps not in the way that organizers of those events want. The Crested Butte News reports that a summit meeting on the subject is expected.

Vail gets memorial park

VAIL, Colo. — At long last, Vail has something akin to a cemetery. An 11-acre memorial park has been opened where the names of those departed will be memorialized on flagstones, boulders, rock benches, as well as trees or a rock wall. People may also spread cremated remains in the park, but no burials will be permitted.

Since the mid-1980s, the town had debated where, or if, to build a cemetery. It even had a cemetery planned, and the design had won an award, but town residents vetoed the idea. The new memorial park will likely have room for 4,000 names. Vail residents of at last five years duration will have the cheapest rates, followed by Eagle County residents, and then all others.

Gas deposits make Utes wealthy

CORTEZ, Colo. — In 1880, the miners of Colorado talked the federal government into kicking the Utes out of the mountains of Colorado, allowing for the construction of Aspen, Telluride, and other mining towns. The Utes were put onto reservations in the arid, seemingly worthless deserts. The next century wasn’t a pretty one for the Utes.

Then, in the 1990s, natural gas deposits were discovered on the Ute lands in the Four Corners area, and now the Utes have become incredibly wealthy. The tribe distributes $30,000 per person per year. Tribal elders, those 55 and older, receive $55,000 a year.

Still, that’s only 10 per cent of the $2 billion in assets now held by the 1,400-member tribe, and some members want more, reports The Denver Post. But tribal leaders say the natural gas deposits will be depleted, which is why they have hired financial advisors, to ensure money for future generations.

Third man in Halloween beating sentenced to jail

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — The third of three men convicted in a Halloween night beating death on Breckenridge’s main street two years ago has been sentenced. Two of the men received 28-year prison sentences, and the third an 18-month sentence.

The three men beat to death Cody Weiland after an early morning argument in a restaurant was followed into the street. After that, says the Summit Daily News, "some Summit residents found themselves locking their doors at night, and thinking twice about leaving the door unlocked in the dark corner of the parking lot."

The newspaper suggests that Summit County is becoming more afflicted with violent crimes, but offers no real evidence to back up that statement or a companion one, namely that Summit County has lost its innocence. Murders, particularly during the years of cocaine binging, were fairly common in the high country of Colorado during the 1980s, despite a much smaller population. However, public beatings such as the one in Breckeridge, were admittedly rare, if non-existent.

Homeowners require bear-proof containers

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. — Homeowner groups in Beaver Creek have passed new laws mandating bear-proof trash containers in areas where bears are common.

One "problem bear" was killed by wildlife officers earlier this summer, a second was shot by a homeowner when he said it became aggressive, and a third was trapped and tagged for identification for possible destruction if it continues to become a problem, notes the Vail Daily.

Hypothermia blamed in death of lost hunter

DURANGO, Colo. — Hypothermia was blamed in the death of a 40-year-old restaurant manager who became lost while hunting northwest of Durango.

He had talked with both of his parents, either by radio or cell phone, after becoming lost, and said he was finding shelter. But searchers believe that he became wet and cold, causing his body temperature to drop, in turn causing him to become confused. He drowned in a creek about three-quarters of a mile from the road, reports the Durango Herald.

Helicopters needed to remove busted Bronc

SILVERTON, Colo. — A couple of years ago, a Bronco somehow got off the road near the summit of Engineer Pass and rolled. The site is far above timberline on a steep slope of scree in the Silverton-Ouray-Lake City triangle.

The owner of the wreck wouldn’t remove it, and so finally the National Guard was persuaded to dispatch two helicopters to lift the junk to a place where it could be loaded onto a truck, reports the Silverton Standard.