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Mountain News: Thin majority supports Olympics at Tahoe

LAKE TAHOE, Nev./Calif. – The push continues in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area for a bid to host the Winter Olympics.

LAKE TAHOE, Nev./Calif. – The push continues in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area for a bid to host the Winter Olympics. A poll commissioned by proponents found that 51 per cent of those surveyed support the idea of Reno and Lake Tahoe hosting a future Olympics, while 31 per cent do not. The remaining 18 per cent are unsure, reports the Associated Press. Squaw Valley, which is in that same general area, hosted the Olympics in 1960, unleashing a great deal of development. Much of the existing infrastructure dates from the 1950s and 1960s. Hosting the Olympics, say some supporters, would trigger infrastructure improvements.

 

Vail still shopping for a partner

VAIL, Colo. – Vail’s town council is still looking for a partner to redevelop Timber Ridge, the 198-apartment complex located on the north side of Interstate 70, across from Cascade Village. Timber Ridge is the town’s largest affordable housing complex, and it would have gone into the private sector, presumably to be developed for the high-end market, had town officials not stepped in to buy in 2003. The town still owes $22 million on the property, and maintenance costs are substantial.

But the town has now talked with three potential partners in the redevelopment, and found all proposals lacking. First was Corum Real Estate Group, then Vail Resorts and, most recently, a development company from Dallas that is working on plans to redevelop the Lionshead parking structure, located across I-70. The rental units are currently leased for use by employees of Vail Resorts. The town would like to see the land redeveloped, probably with a mixture of market rate and most assuredly affordable housing.

 

Woman killed by falling tree

BANFF, Alberta – A 30-year-old nanny was killed by a falling tree at a golf course in Banff. The woman was walking with the two boys in her charge and their father when they paused to observe elk. At that point, wind toppled the dead tree, hitting her on the head and hitting one of the young boys in the foot. The boy suffered only a minor injury, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

The death was described as a freak occurrence, but it was not unique. In summer of 2003, two young sisters from Canmore were killed when a gust of wind toppled an 18-metre spruce tree in British Columbia’s Kootenay National Park. And then, last autumn, a man was killed in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park while hiking.

 

Tribe volunteers greenhouse gas reports

IGNACIO, Colo. – The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has announced it will voluntarily report its greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Climate Registry. The registry has enlisted 39 U.S. states, seven Canadian provinces, and six Mexican states, plus three tribal nations. “We are hopeful that the federal government and others will continue to build upon the work the Climate Registry has done,” said Clement J. Frost, the tribal chairman of the Southern Utes, in a press release.

Although they once roamed across the Colorado mountains and in adjacent areas, the Southern Utes are now based on land south of Durango. Although considered relatively worthless, the land turned out to have vast concentrations of oil and gas deposits. Using that wealth, the tribe has now invested broadly in real estate and other ventures in metropolitan Denver and other cities, in the process becoming one of Colorado’s most influential groups and one of the nation’s wealthiest native groups.

 

Book documents legend of McCoy

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. – A new book called “Tracks of Passion” has been published, and most of its 368 pages are comprised of photos. But within those photos and accompanying text is a profile of Dave McCoy, the legendary founder (and until relatively recently, manager) of Mammoth Mountain.

The Sheet wanted to know how much of the McCoy story is real, and how much myth? “I’d say 98-2,” replied author Robin Morning. “Sure, some of the adulation is a bit much, but the stories he tells, the things he’s done, when you cross-reference them, they’re true.”

One example: He would casually mention how he likes to ski jump. Then she would find an old news clipping about McCoy landing a 65-footer.

 

Losing beds, growing tourism

DURANGO, Colo. – The tourism business continues to grow in Durango, even as the city loses hotel and motel rooms, some 350 of them altogether in the last five years. Tourism officials believe there are about 1,700 rooms available.

One motel is being converted into condominiums, and another into a pharmacy, and so on down the strip. Room rates vary tremendously, from $30 per night in mid-winter to up to $300 in summer, the busiest season in Durango, owing in part to the narrow gauge railroad and also to the proximity of Mesa Verde National Park.

Al Harper, owner of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, says he’d like to see about 1,000 more rooms. “We hear about ‘Well, we can’t do this or that because the airlines won’t come,’ but if you don’t have the facilities for tourism, the airlines aren’t going to come. The hotel developers see the need and something’s going to happen, but even in a perfect world, we’re a year and a half away with the city planning processes,” he said.

 

Door may close on gated subdivisions

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – The planning commission for Teton County has recommended that new gated communities be barred. A staff planner says there are anywhere from 5 to 20 gated communities in Teton County. One of those gated developments, a place called Teton Pines, is the declared primary home of Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide, in an editorial, concurs with the recommended ban. “Gated subdivisions create an ‘us and them’ environment, an atmosphere alien to Jackson Hole,” says the newspaper in an editorial. “Gates in Jackson Hole should be used to keep the cows in. That’s all.”

One dissenting voice is from a planning commissioner Joe Palmer. “I can think of people who would need a gated community,” he said. “So I don’t think it’s wise to forbid them.”

 

Plastic bag ban discussed

TAOS, NM. – The call for a ban on plastic shopping bags is sweeping the Rockies, from Alberta to New Mexico.

Taos is among those communities now considering a ban, both within the town and in the broader Taos County. The Taos News says one store, Cid’s Food Market, has ceased to give out plastic bags and has instead persuaded many Taoseños to use cloth bags.

The idea originated in Ireland, where a 15 cent tax is applied to each plastic bag given out in hopes of encouraging use of recycled plastic bags or of cloth bags.   In Canmore, Alberta, at the entry to Banff National Park, a plastics industry representative argues that banning plastic shopping bags will cause people to buy more plastic bags for use in their home trash containers. Only 15 per cent of the bags are discarded completely, says Grantland Cameron, of the Alberta Plastics Recycling Association.

Telluride’s homegrown environmental group, the Sheep Mountain Alliance, also wants a ban. But Kris Bartosiak says the initiative is misguided. Plastic bags consume 40 per cent less energy in production than paper bags, Bartosiak says in a letter in The Telluride Watch, and release up to 94 per cent fewer waterborne wastes through their production cycle.

 

A Whistler foundation

TRUCKEE, Calif. – Truckee is steadily getting more upscale. The newest refinement is a 109-room Marriott Residence Inn. Construction of the hotel is to start this summer on the site of the old town dump, reports the Sierra Sun.

 

Road tolls for thee

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Interstate 70 isn’t the only place where the idea of a toll road is being talked about. The last two miles of the highway into Telluride is owned by the town, which is finding its real estate transfer tax, although very large, still insufficient to carry the load of major infrastructure work. One of the key projects is maintenance of that road, and the task won’t come cheap.

“Whether or not it has a year or two left in it before it becomes the Santa Fe Trail is mostly a function of weather at this point,” says Frank Bell, the town manager. Among the ideas that he and Mayor Stu Fraser mentioned in a recent interview with The Telluride Watch is the idea of applying tolls. Just how serious they are about the idea wasn’t clear, but one blogger on the newspaper’s website had a succinct reaction: absolutely terrible idea.

 

Mining still a concern

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Although the immediate threat of development of a molybdenum mine at Crested Butte has receded, opponents — and local governments — are taking no chances.

The town council a year ago declared a moratorium on new developments in the town’s watershed, which is drained by Coal Creek. That time has been used to modify the regulations governing what can be done within that watershed. The revised regulations stipulate the standards for environmental quality that must be met by any major project. In other words they specify what standards must be attained, instead of saying what cannot be done. The regulations, which are still being reviewed, are believed to be more legally defensible.

Community groups also continue to gird for a long battle. There are two primary groups. One of those groups, the High Country Citizens’ Coalition, was formed 30 years ago to fight the mine. When that threat receded, the coalition went on to take on other tasks.

But with the “threat” — as the mine is seen from the community’s perspective — now returned, the coalition has many more guns than it did 30 years ago. One of the most powerful tools is a potentially influential legal firm with a significant presence in Washington D.C. The firm, DLA Piper, has a budget of $54 million annually for free legal work. One task of opponents, reports the Crested Butte News, is to get Congress to withdraw 5,000 acres of federal lands near Crested Butte from potential mineral development.

 

Was bar complicit in death?

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – From time to time, somebody wanders home from a ski town bar, then stumbles into a snowbank and dies. Such was the case in February, when Michael “Alphonse” Barbiere disappeared. His body was found recently, and while no evidence of drugs was found in his body, his urine showed an alcohol level of .11. However, there was no way to tell whether his blood alcohol was higher when he died, Summit County Coroner Joanne Richardson tells the Summit Daily News. There seems to be quite a bit of speculation and argument in Summit County about whether the bar that had been serving him alcohol was complicit in his death. He died of hypothermia.

 

Asthma concerns in mountains

TRUCKEE, Calif. – Even in mountainous counties, there can be issues of air quality. In one county in California’s Sierra Nevada, the problems are such that one in seven children has asthma. The Sierra Sun says that $288,000 has been allocated to reach out to local communities within the county for unspecified outreach purposes. The county extends from the foothills near Sacramento to the Nevada border, and includes portions of Lake Tahoe.

 

Mud season returns

MINTURN, Colo. – That time between ski season and summer is still called mud season, even though the dirt streets and roads, and hence mud, has disappeared from many mountain towns and resort valleys. But with the big snows of last winter, there could be mud this spring.

Such was the case just west of Vail, where a mountain known for its mudslides through the ages once again squirted mud onto a highway. One slide, in 1984, closed Interstate 70. After that, highway engineers inserted drainage pipes into the slow-moving mud in Meadow Mountain, to draw out the water that results in mudslides.

But at Carbondale, the results of this interim season were far more frightening. There, about 20 miles downvalley from Snowmass, a fire burned 1,000 acres, forcing the evacuation of 150 to 200 people from their homes.

The Aspen Times notes a common surprise that such a fierce fire could erupt on the heels of such a profoundly snowy winter. “Many locals haven’t taken the snow tires off their vehicles yet, and many are still feeling the wintertime blues from so many dreary days,” writes the newspaper’s Scott Condon.