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Mountain News: Businesses optimistic about summer

PARK CITY, Utah - Optimism about increased tourism this summer prevails in Park City. Hoteliers tell the Park Record that they expect 20 to 25 per cent gains this summer in occupancy compared to last summer.

PARK CITY, Utah - Optimism about increased tourism this summer prevails in Park City. Hoteliers tell the Park Record that they expect 20 to 25 per cent gains this summer in occupancy compared to last summer. But as has been the case during ski season, flat or lower rates will be necessary to achieve this.

Ralf Garrison, of the Mountain Travel Research Program, predicts an even more robust summer, with gains of 40 per cent in July and August as compared to 2009. Increased occupancy, he says, may also allow rates to rise again.

Garrison reported that occupancy in March this year at the ski resorts he monitors in the West was up 9.6 per cent. But, of course, room rates had dropped.

Unemployment rate up

JACKSON, Wyo. - The unemployment trough of the current recession was two to three times as deep in Jackson Hole as the downturn following the dot.com bust and the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Unemployment peaked at 11.7 per cent last November in Teton County, which is roughly the same as Jackson Hole. Since then, that number has receded - but part of it is a matter of unemployment benefits running out, explains the Jackson Hole News & Guide . Still, judging from the number of classified ads for workers in the newspaper, the economy seems to be tepidly recovering.

At the peak, about 1,200 people from the accommodations and food services sector were getting unemployment benefits, and 580 from the construction trades.

 

Real estate down 20 to 40 per cent

ASPEN, Colo. - A new report by the Aspen Appraisal Group documents a 20 to 40 per cent tumble in real estate values in Aspen since they peaked in 2007, and also shows a similar decrease in rents for commercial spaces.

The top-end market has been in rough shape, with just three sales of houses priced higher than $20 million in 2008 and 2009. Doing somewhat better are well-located homes in the $9 million to $15 million category.

Commercial space has an 8 per cent vacancy rate, high enough that national retailers have been showing an interest, wrote Randy Gold, a principal in the firm. He said it's a good time to acquire Aspen-area real estate - provided the buyer can afford to hold onto the property for at least five years. Aspen will recover more rapidly than Snowmass Village, however.

 

A more perfect ski town

TELLURIDE, Colo.  - When the ski lifts in Telluride closed, Seth Cagin and family of The Watch newspaper traveled to the Alps to ski and compare notes. He toured the high-end resorts of Zermatt, Verbier and Chamonix - and found much to like with each. And, as he has in the past, he returned with the belief that Telluride needs to bolster its draw as a destination for tourists, similar to those alpine resorts, to become what he calls a "more perfect ski town."

"In the harsh aftermath of our great real estate bubble, there seems no doubt that Telluride has lost its innocence," he writes. "And yet the die is not entirely cast, either. Though we have squandered far too many opportunities, there are great possibilities ahead. Unlike Chamonix, or Verbier or Zermatt, we have not yet entirely fulfilled our destiny.

"We might still realize our potential to be something more, that rare place where the lift-served skiing is indeed great (like Verbier), the mountaineering is unfettered (like Chamonix) and, hardest of all... our community is intact (like Zermatt)."

Cagin believes that the community needs to get behind the operator of the ski area, currently led by Dave Riley, which has been in an expansion mode. A crucial part of the company's vision is expansion into a backcountry valley called Bear Creek.

Significant dissent exists within the Telluride community. Responding to Cagin's comments, one blogger said: "Some of us think that monolithic development around a single entity's business model is one that will not serve the best interests of the many. ...Some of us think that saving Bear Creek for posterity and not putting it under central control is a great idea."

 

Which side did Mark Twain camp?

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. - When a young man, Mark Twain traveled to the Sierra Nevada and briefly had ambitions of becoming a logger. In Roughing It , his masterful travelogue of his journeys, Twain - his given name was Samuel Clemens - later wrote about traveling to Lake Tahoe and camping out on a giant granite boulder.

But where exactly was that boulder? The Sierra Sun reports that historical buffs continue to argue about the precise site. Some say it was in Nevada, while others insist it was in California.

A proposal has been made to name a site near Incline Village, on the lake's northeast shore, the Sam Clemens Cove. This is in Nevada. Supporters point out that Twain wrote about a "huge flat granite dining table," and they can point to just such a granite boulder - if it is now six feet underwater much of the year, due to a more recent dam erected on the lake that has raised the water level.

But historical researcher David Antonucci tells the newspaper that this claim is balderdash. "It's a situation where Nevada wants to claim that Mark Twain was there, which would make them like any chamber of commerce," he said. "I guess they would have a hard time accepting that he camped in California."

 

New snowmobiles louder, more polluting

JACKSON, Wyo. - It was widely believed that the newest snowmobiles were quieter and less polluting. But a handful of environmental groups that monitor snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park say the new models actually pollute more and are louder than those produced in 2004.

No explanation was given for this counterintuitive trend, although larger engine size would seem to be the causative factor. But the environmental groups used the discovery to stress their belief that travel should be restricted to snow coaches. Jack Welch, special projects coordinator for the BlueRibbon Coalition, a snowmobile advocacy group, told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that the newest snowmobiles still meet standards set up for use in Yellowstone.

Bottled water rejected

BANFF, Alberta - Two resort towns in Canada - Whistler, B.C., and Banff, Alberta have taken steps to ban sales of bottled water in municipally operated facilities. The argument is that bottled water really offers no improvement over ordinary tap water and, since it is put into plastic bottles made from petroleum and typically hauled long distances, creates a large carbon footprint.

Whistler seems not to have agonized over the decision, but a representative of Nestlé, one of the major bottling companies, took issue with the town's action. "Bottled water has the smallest carbon footprint of any bottled beverage," declared John B. Challinor II, director of corporate affairs, in a letter published in Pique .

He said his company was willing to explore options that might allow Whistler to meet its environmental sustainability requirements yet give consumers unfettered access to what he claimed was the "healthiest bottled beverage available to them."

In Banff, councillors debated unintended consequences of not having bottled water at the community recreation center. John Gibson, a dentist in Banff, said sports drinks are a poor alternative to water, as studies have shown sports drinks corrode children's teeth.

Councillors also believe they need to do marketing. Leslie Taylor, a councillor, said users should be informed of the high quality of Banff's drinking water. "A lot of people truly believe what is in the bottle is healthier than what comes out of the tap. That's a triumph of marketing."

The Rocky Mountain Outlook reported that Banff councillors hoped a dispensary of chilled water for bottles would meet consumers halfway.

Community garden has a downside

CANMORE, Alberta - At first blush, a community garden sounds great in Canmore. Lots of communities have been pitching in on such enterprises. But then, Canmore is not in a typical setting, notes the Rocky Mountain Outlook . The newspaper quibbles with the town's decision to allocate space for a community garden, and one of the disagreements is about the sort of harvesting types that it might attract. "In Canmore, a garden may attract a 600-pound grizzly," noted the newspaper.

 

No negligence found

REVELSTOKE, B.C. - No charges will be filed against organizers of an informal event near Revelstoke in March which was followed by the death of two snowmobilers.

The two snowmobilers had been high-marking on Boulder Mountain after an event called the Big Iron Shootout. But the event itself was limited to a drag race on a flatter part of the mountain.

"Once that was done, a fairly large group of people decided on their own to go to Turbo Bowl and do some high-marking, or watch some others do high-marking," said Sgt. Rob Vermeulen of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "There was no evidence that the organizer of that loosely organized first event encouraged participants to go to that location."

Vermeulen told the Revelstoke Times Review that investigators found no evidence of criminal negligence.

 

Feds slow to step in

KETCHUM, Idaho - An independent investigation has concluded that federal regulators acted too late when they took over the First Bank of Idaho in April 2009.

The report from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Inspector General found that the Ketchum-based bank relied heavily on risky construction and land loans and didn't keep enough cash on hand given the risk of those loans. By the end of June 2005, the bank's land/construction loans were 12 times the limit recommended by the Office of Thrift Supervision.

From December 2007 to December 2008, the "non-performing loans," in which customers were not making their payments, increased from $2.2 million to $18.2 million. When the Office of Thrift Supervision finally acted in late 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. had to pay $174 million to cover bank deposits.

The report found that the Office of Thrift Supervision had failed to take "Forceful and timely actions to address unsafe concentrations in high-risk lending."

Immigration quandary illustrated

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. - Edgar Niebla's story illustrates the profound difficulties of the U.S. debate about immigration. Niebla, who is 27, arrived in the United States illegally when he was 7.

After graduating from a high school in the Aspen area, he recently completed his law-enforcement training at the Colorado Mountain College police academy. Ironically, he was arrested last week and taken to metropolitan Denver. Just as surprising, he was then released instead of being put on a bus to return him to Mexico.

"Edgar is the poster child for national immigration reform," said Brendan Greene, a regional organizer for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. "He's well-known and respected throughout the (Roaring Fork) Valley, and even the whole state. He's a church youth group leader and has been working to become a police officer."

At a rally held in his support, a police academy instructor named John Goodwin spoke. "Edgar is a good student who became a good friend. To send him to Mexico would be like sending him to the moon. He's not from Mexico; he's an American."