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Another tourist train proposed for B.C. Interior

Compiled by Allen Best INVERMERE, B.C. — There continues to be talk of another tourist train into the British Columbia Interior. The operator proposing the new service, Rocky Mountain International Railtour Co.

Compiled by Allen Best

INVERMERE, B.C. — There continues to be talk of another tourist train into the British Columbia Interior.

The operator proposing the new service, Rocky Mountain International Railtour Co., already carries 50,000 passengers annually on tours across the Canadian Rockies, starting at Calgary before continuing to Kamloops, and also from Jasper to Kamloops, in both cases continuing on to Vancouver.

In this plan, scheduled to begin in 2006, the company would begin the three-day tour at Calgary, continuing on to Golden, Invermere, Cranbrook, and Fernie, continuing back to Lethbridge and Calgary. Stops would be at Golden and Cranbrook, or Fernie. Promoters say that 80 per cent of those on the trains would come from outside of Canada.

The Invermere Valley Echo reports that an initial trial run of the excursion train is expected in June in order to probe interest. However, no formal discussions have been held with Canadian Pacific Rail, which owns the tracks, as to costs and schedules.

Balance tourism strategy with wildlife

INVERMERE, B.C. — Wildlife impacts are the key issue not only with the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort near Invermere, but more generally the British Columbia long-term tourism strategy. So says Brian McLaughlin, a councillor in Invermere.

Writing in the Invermere Valley Echo, McLaughlin says he doesn’t doubt there are buyers for real estate at Jumbo Valley. From Panorama to Fernie to Whistler, the strength of the market for resort real estate is clear, he says. And the area has all the potential to attract amenity migration. Furthermore, there is the potential of three million people in Calgary by the year 2025.

But if the tourism strategy is to succeed, it must be met by an "equally aggressive provincial wildlife habitat management program," he says. He endorses, for example restrictions of motorized vehicles in time and space. Without such restraint, he suggests, projects like Jumbo Glacier Resort will have short-term gains, but little lasting value.

68,000-square-foot home fit for prince

ASPEN, Colo. — No matter how the common folk are doing in Saudi Arabia, the aristocracy is living luxuriously, as is evident from a recent report in Aspen.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, is expanding his existing 53,000-square-foot house in Aspen by 15,000 square feet. He also has a 7,500-square-foot house nearby.

Bandar has owned property in Aspen since the early 1980s, about the time he became the ambassador. How much time he spends in Aspen is something of a mystery, reports the Rocky Mountain News, but the amount of taxes is not. Last year alone he paid $205,000 in property taxes. He also gives liberally to local non-profits and other organizations.

Whether he wants to or not, Bandar will also be giving money to energy-efficiency programs in Aspen and broader Pitkin County. A program encourages energy conservation in building designs. Those developers who install heated pavers, outdoor swimming pools, and other things that consume a great deal of energy are required to contribute to the Renewable Energy Mitigation Program. To atone for his latest environmental sins, Bandar is paying $110,000 into the fund.

With this expansion his base home will have 21 bedrooms, 26 bathrooms, a racquetball court and a garage large enough to accommodate at least 10 cars.

Noisiest jets may be banned

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Directors of the Jackson Hole Airport at their April meeting will consider a ban on private Stage 2 jets, an older model that is said to create as much noise as a 747. The issue has been festering for at least four years.

In its editorial, the Jackson Hole News & Guide explains that especially after Sept. 11 but also because of a burgeoning upper class in Jackson Hole, the quiet of Grand Teton National Park is being shattered more often by the din of the noisy jets. The airport is located within the national park.

Initial attempts to clamp down on the private jets were overruled by the Federal Aviation Administration, which by virtue of its funding had say-so in such matters. But Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas then got a law passed exempting the airport, because of its location within a national park, from the FAA authority.

The newspaper reports that the airport board is being lobbied by several, anonymous owners of Stage 2 jets to restrict landing times rather than an outright ban. For the airport board, says the newspaper, the choice is clear. "It should choose the public interest of a quiet national park over the special interest and convenience of a few anonymous private jet owners."

Owners of these noisy Stage 2 jets can buy the quieter Stage 3 jets for $6 million. A less expensive alternative, at $1.3 million, is a noise-muffling device that can be installed on the Stage 2 jets.

I-70 noise too much

VAIL, Colo. — In Vail’s ongoing effort to control noise pollution, police are being dispatched to Interstate 70, which bisects the town, to enforce the 65 mph speed limit.

It’s the latest in a broad strategy to quell the growing highway din that for many Vail residents is becoming a quality of life issue. One town council member, Dick Cleveland, reports that his 10-year-old deck has become basically unusable. Such reports are common in those neighbourhoods located at the same level or higher than the freeway.

Trucks are only part of the problem, but the town did discuss the idea of banning jake brakes, a move sure to offend truckers. Instead, they have decided instead to work with truckers. One idea being explored is to set up truck trailers along the interstate or adjoining frontage roads. The hope is that this wall of trailers, combined with reduced speeds, will quell noise by 2 or 3 decibels in residential neighbourhoods.

Intrawest lays out formula

WINTER PARK, Colo. — Intrawest has issued its vision for a "rustic yet civilized" new base village at the Winter Park ski area.

It’s an ambitious and sometimes amusing 39-page report, called a storyline, that attempts to define the essence of Intrawest’s product at Winter Park 10 years from now. If the document, Intrawest professes a vision that will allow Winter Park locals to have their cake and eat it too. They want to get the critical mass necessary to compete with the big resorts without actually becoming big themselves.

Of course, everything is always relative. Some people left Winter Park 25 years ago complaining it was getting too big and refined even then. More recently in another Colorado town, Silverton, Aron Brill is creating a small ski area. To some, he is a brave pioneer returning skiing to its "soulful" roots, while to others he is just another developer.

In Winter Park, it’s a mantra among locals that they don’t want to be no stinkin’ Vail. Or, for that matter, Breckenridge, with its foo-foo ski mountain. Even Steamboat Springs. The goal, then, is to "make Winter Park more like Winter Park."

Intrawest professes it can do this. It will not, it insists, create another European-inspired village, but will instead create something that has authentic Colorado roots. There will be a couple of hotels, lots of residential housing, and a museum about trains (a heavily used railroad runs through the middle of all this). Visitors into this new village can expect to be surprised by bakers pulling loaves of bread from ovens in front of windows. Perhaps a highlight of all this authenticity will be a hot spring created amid granite-looking rocks.

Intrawest envisions Winter Park and the broader Fraser Valley becoming more gentrified and tourist-friendly, partly through a 31-mile bike path. At the same time, the surrounding "wilderness" is a selling point to the rest of the world. Sometimes, this selling is to be blatant. For example, the document suggests creation of a "Wilderness Culture Club," an organization of merchants, artists, and artisans who are to co-ordinate local cultural activities.

Soul of Skiing found in box

DOTSERO, Colo. — After a disappearance of some years, the soul of skiing has been re-discovered. A resident of Vail Valley Estates, a trailer park located in Really Dry Gulch, near Dotsero, found the soul of skiing while doing some spring cleaning.

A. I. Glatson, the trailer resident, told the Vale Daily that he found the soul, along with a big picture of Farrah Fawcett and a "Just Say No" bumper sticker, in a Charmin’ tissues grocery store box. Glatson, a local custodian, said he has no idea how the soul of skiing ended up in the box, or how the box ended up in his shed.

The soul was first reported missing several years ago and it was the subject of a book, "Downhill Sighed," written by Cal H. Lifford. In that book, Lifford accused the "big three" publicly traded ski companies – Vail Resorts, Intrawest, and American Skiing – of stealing the soul of skiing and forcing all other competing ski areas into a life of sin.

Lifford also linked the big three of skiing to Saddam Hussein, the downturn in the economy, and a rare, unpleasant two weeks of cloudy weather that last winter visited usually sunshine-splashed Grand Junction, Colo.

This is not the first time the soul of skiing has been reported. A newspaper in Winter Park last year claimed the soul had been discovered in an old, deteriorating lodge at Berthoud Pass, either the bathroom or the kitchen. There had also been many reports of the soul of skiing being discovered, kind of like a Virgin Mary in a spaghetti bowl, in the snows at a new ski area near Silverton.

Glatson said he is keeping the soul in his shed, and may try to sell it at a garage sale spring along with his extra microwave oven the next time April Fool’s Day rolls around.

Spring has sprung

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Across the Rockies, balmy, extraordinarily spring-like conditions were reported in the final weeks of March.

In Vail, lifts were evacuated two days running because of lightning. Meanwhile, portions of the mountain were closed because of heated, "rotten" snow that resulted in people breaking through the surface. While not uncommon in the unpacked backcountry areas, such rotten snow is almost unheard of on packed and groomed ski slopes.

In Steamboat Springs, a couple from Columbia, Ga., was spotted shopping in short sleeves. They said they thought it was about as warm in Steamboat Springs as in Georgia. While that wasn’t actually the case, reported The Steamboat Pilot, the couple could be excused for thinking so.

"As quickly as winter came on this year, it is showing no intention of lingering," wrote Ron Matous in the Jackson Hole News & Guide in a report about a backcountry excursion.

At Steamboat, Vail, and probably many other resorts, rumours were rife of early closings of ski areas. While executives pledged to stay the course, remaining open until previously scheduled mid-April dates, the disappearing snow was clearly on every one’s mind. When a small storm went through Colorado over the weekend, public relations crews were hastily making the most of the new stuff to trumpet the virtues of spring skiing.

Time-out for big-box retailers

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The Steamboat Springs City Council has enacted a 90-day moratorium on new big-box retail development.

The city has been grappling with the issue of big-box retailers for two years, but the catalyst for this moratorium was the announced arrival of a Gart Sports store into a 30,000-square-foot location. Community organizations normally on both sides of growth issues came together in urging the moratorium.

Existing city regulations have nothing specifically to say about big-box retailers, except that any building if store signs were removed, should not be recognized as a franchise by its architecture.

In an interview with The Steamboat Pilot, City Councilman Paul Strong explained that a day at the city’s economic summit last year was devoted to big boxes.

"There is a great concern that the proliferation of formula stores across America is causing cities to lose their individuality," he reported. "By formula stores, I mean stores that look and operate the same wherever they are located, causing the places they are in to be the same as every other place, turning America into ‘Generica,’" he explained.

"Steamboat’s feel and ambience, he went on to explain, are key to Steamboat’s appeal as a destination tourist resort. "If our city begins to look like the towns where our visitors live, we will lose most of what differentiates us from other resort communities. I feel it is vital to our economy to try to protect this."

At the same time, he acknowledged that big boxes do provide goods at generally lower prices, and as such could be seen as an affordability issue, alongside affordable housing.

Steamboat is looking at various ideas from elsewhere. In 1994 Fort Collins, Colo., began requiring an economic impact statement before big-box retailers were allowed and also enacted special architectural and design standards in an attempt to soften the typical aesthetic harshness of the franchises.

More than some other resort towns, Steamboat has taken a tough stance on the large retailers. A decade ago, the city stood firm in requiring Wal-Mart to back off from its business-as-usual building plans. Now, Wal-Mart and many other national franchises are willing to come more closely to meet the design and review requirements of mountain communities.

Bison killed by gases

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — Five bison found dead in early March were probably killed by poisonous gases emitted from geothermal vents, the National Park Service says.

Park officials believe that a cold front created a cap in the basis along the Gibbon River, and the steam and toxic gases – both hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide – remained close to the ground, because they are denser than air. The former gas is easily identified by people because of its "rotten egg" odour.

According to a report in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, the fairly constant winds in the Yellowstone area dilute and disperse gases so that it would be "almost unheard of for a park visitor to be overcome by toxic fumes."

Not so animals. In 1889, six bears and one elk were found in an area now called Death Gulch. Seven dead bears were reported in the area in 1899.

Bioneers conference in Durango

DURANGO, Colo. — A bioneers conference – short for biological pioneers – was being planned for Durango, with workshops, films, and other things that celebrate the earth’s environmental solutions as well as problems.

"There’s quite a bit of awareness about the problems," conference co-organizer Will Hays told the Durango Telegraph. "There are also solutions out there, and we know how to fix a lot of the problems. We don’t necessarily need more science. We need action."

In talking about sustainability, said Hays, it’s necessary to "talk about restoration because we’re behind the curve." As for sustainability, Hays’ partner, Grace MacElveen, explained that it "creates a situation where all needs are met in the present and the condition for meeting those needs in the future are all addressed. It also hinges on the premise that I can’t meet my need unless you’re meeting your need."

Much is already happening, she said, She pointed to the local sustainable agriculture movement that is growing, an increasing number of alternative fuel sources for buildings and automobiles, and growth in natural building techniques.

Trails integrated into growth

DURANGO, Colo.–No matter which you way you look from Durango – north, south, east and probably west – somebody has plans for major building in what amounts to an explosion of new homes, roads and other urban infrastructure.

One project alone, called Grandview, plans 2,200 homes plus a new hospital, while another project, called Oakridge, wants 1,700 homes plus a golf course, schools, and businesses.

Seeing all this coming, a tails advocacy group called Tails 2000 is working to ensure that new trails are incorporated into these projects and that existing trails do not fall prey to expansion, reports the Durango Telegraph.

Of particular concern is the popular Telegraph trail system, a network of more than 30 miles of trails that lie on both public and private land. We worked very hard with developers and the city to get trail access points and trails integrated," said Bill Manning, executive director of the group.

Aspen has X Games, and now Vail has Why Games

VAIL, Colo. -- With the Aspen Skiing Co. now committed to hosting the X Games for the next three years, rival Vale Resorts has announced its own four-day event next winter, the Why Games.

Like the X Games, which are fundamentally designed to appeal to Echo Boomers, the Why Game are also intended to appeal to this up-and-coming generation. But instead of daredevil stunts on Turbo-propped snowmobiles and girl snowboarders missing teeth flying over canyons of snow, as was seen at the X Games, Vail thinks the next generation will be more interested in matters of the intellect.

"Extreme has gone mainstream, but all of that will soon be downstream, water under the bridge," explained Adam "Mountain" Aron, COE and chairperson of the bored for Vale Resorts. "In the future, we see the echo boom generation that counts being attuned to intellectual pursuits. They want some brainy pursuits as part of their recreation – they want to know the whys of the world."

Vail is said to be considering scheduling the games beginning April Fool’s Day of every year.

Candidate wants to kick government out

PARK CITY, Utah — Linda Kelsch, 54, is running for the state legislature from the district that includes Summit County. She is affiliated with the Personal Choice Party.

"I believe the state Legislature is too involved in pushing their morals onto Utah citizens," she told The Park Record.

She would, she said, oppose a constitutional amendment barring marriage between people of the same sex. "I am not threatened by that. I don’t need to control what they do," she said of gay marriages.

She also wants governments to butt out of the illegal but frequent polygamous households of Mormon fundamentalists. She reports a positive experience growing up in a polygamous household in Salt Lake City. "I had such a loving family," she recalls of her childhood.

Mormons at first embraced polygamy marriages, where a man takes more than one wife, but after being barred from joining the United States for about 30 years, church officials decreed a new policy. That was in 1890, six years before statehood.

Forest Service wants ski lodge torn down

BERTHOUD PASS, Colo. — The U.S. Forest Service continues to want the old ski lodge atop Berthoud Pass demolished.

However, reports the Winter Park Manifest, the agency is open to proposals for a business, such as a convenience store, that would also take on responsibilities for collecting trash, providing public toilets, and clearing snow from the parking lot at the 11,312-foot pass. The agency also sees the business as a staging area for travelers on the increasingly well-traveled Continental Divide Trail.

The building was erected in 1939, two years after a ski area began operations there with Colorado’s first chair lift. But business slackened after key segments of Interstate 70 were completed in the 1970s, making new, bigger, and lower-elevation resorts in Summit County nearly as accessible.

Beginning in the 1980s the ski area lurched, some years open, some years not. Finally, two years ago, the latest owner announced a closing and the Forest Service said enough was enough. The two lifts were dismantled and shipped to resorts in Missouri and in Massachusetts.

The remaining lodge, says the Forest Service, does not meet the agency’s standards for image, aesthetics and overall quality. It estimates the cost of necessary upgrades to the roof and other repairs at $200,000.

Mountain to move for a longer runway

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Telluride is getting an airport runway that will be about 250 feet longer, but that distance – not quite a football field – won’t be easy.

That’s because the airport is located on a mesa, called Deep Creek Mesa, making take-offs and landings something like operations on an aircraft carrier. To extend the runway 250 feet requires extending the mesa by 250 feet, holding in this new land with a retaining wall that is 110 feet high and 500 feet wide. The cost of this new, longer runway and retaining wall will be $30 million. Of that, the federal government will pay 95 per cent.

The merits of this expansion were debated sometimes heatedly in the pages of the Telluride Watch for about a year. Some promoted it as a matter of improving safety, although observers say the longer runway increases safety only marginally. Others proclaimed the improvements as vital for potential commercial flights by a new generation of smaller jets that can travel about 1,500 miles.

Telluride’s main air portal is at Montrose, about 65 miles away, which can easily accommodate large jets. The Telluride airport is at about 9,000 feet, the highest airport in the United States that accommodates commercial carriers.

Lift riders stranded by electrical outage

BANFF, Alberta —Lift riders were stranded for 45 minutes at Ski Banff @ Norquay after electrical transformers shorted out, causing a small fire. Auxiliary power was used to slowly clear the lifts of passengers.

Another Banff-area ski resort, Sunshine Village, was down for a day and a half earlier in March because of a power failure, notes the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

New backcountry hut planned in Kootenay

BANFF, Alberta — A new backcountry hut is to be built by the Alpine Club of Canada in Kootenay National Park. The hut is to replace the Fay Hut, which was destroyed by one of the several lightning-caused fires that chewed through Banff, Kootenay and Yoho national parks last summer.

This new hut will be served by helicopters, which will fly out sewage collected in outhouse barrels while flying in cords of firewood, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Farm Bureau argues against new wilderness

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — In lobbying for a 5,000-acre designation of wilderness, a group of Wood River Valley business owners organized a letter-writing campaign arguing that wilderness brings more commerce. That, says a representative of the Idaho Farm Bureau, is a hasty conclusion.

John Thompson, the group’s director of information, says that less than 3 per cent of people who recreate on National Forest land use wilderness areas, and even most wilderness users spend less than a day. Even so, they have 4.6 acres close at hand to Sun Valley to choose from.

"If there was some evidence to suggest that our existing wilderness areas are helping generate more commerce than other public lands, there might be an argument here," he concluded. There is no such evidence, he asserts, nor evidence that will change with designation of additional wilderness.

Avalanche claims one snowmobiler in B.C.

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — A recently married man died in an avalanche and four other snowmobilers were also partially or totally buried. They had been snowmobiling near treeline in the mountains near Empress Lake, 60 kilometres southwest of Revelstroke.

Two of the riders dug themselves out, while another two were rescued by the others. They were all wearing avalanche beacons. The fifth person, the only member of the group not wearing an avalanche beacon, was buried for 30 minutes. The Revelstoke Times Review said the avalanche occurred on a 50-degree slope.

The Canadian Avalanche Association had issued a special warning for the area Friday, because half-a-metre of snow fell earlier in the week and the temperatures were rising. Both factors contribute to unstable snow packs, which make avalanches more likely, according to the CyberSpace Avalanche Center.

"It's a difficult time because the danger ratings are considerable," Ilya Storm, an avalanche forecaster with the association, said. "What that means is that natural avalanches are possible, but human-triggered avalanches are probable."

This is the eighth avalanche fatality in Western Canada this year and the second involving snowmobiles.