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Mountain News: Aspen marketing green-ness

ASPEN, Colo. – In its winter marketing program, the Aspen Skiing Co. is tooting the horn even more loudly this year about the dangers of global warming. Advertisements warning of the dangers were placed last winter in two magazines, Ski and Outside.

ASPEN, Colo. – In its winter marketing program, the Aspen Skiing Co. is tooting the horn even more loudly this year about the dangers of global warming. Advertisements warning of the dangers were placed last winter in two magazines, Ski and Outside. This year, similar “save snow” ads are planned in six ski and outdoor magazines, plus newspapers. In addition, the company is sending compact fluorescent bulbs to 40,000 of its most loyal customers.

The Aspen Times reported that while the ski company may have the zeal of a reformist on this issue, it also makes good business sense. An annual survey of the company’s customers two winters ago showed that 36 per cent were more likely to return because of the company’s environmental practices, and last winter that number rose to 39 per cent.

The implication is simple, says The Times: If the company is recognized for its green stance, it could lure prospective customers as well as satisfy many of the existing ones.

In Vail, there was a bit of skepticism about Aspen Skiing’s marketing initiative. The resort experience is nothing if not carbon intensive, noted the Vail Daily in an editorial, so if Aspen’s advertisements succeed in drawing more customers, they will be counter-productive to the stated mission of saving snow.

 

Revelstoke anxious; prices rise

REVELSTOKE, B.C. – The anxiety of change continues in Revelstoke, where the big, new ski area is to open at Christmas.

Even before the ski area plans were completed, Revelstoke had begun to attract urban refugees. Now, rents are rising rapidly, anywhere from 50 to 100 per cent, according to the laments at a special meeting called Renter’s Voice. “There’s a lot of pain, a lot of anxiety, and quite a bit of anger” in the community, said Brian Summer, a social worker who organized the meeting.

“If we turn this town into a Whistler or Canmore, I don’t think I’ll be able to live here,” said Tom Dickson.

David F. Rooney, editor of the Revelstoke Times Review, observes a “kind of social Darwinism — think of it as survival of the richest — at work here.” He adds: “And if we’re not very, very careful, the town and community we love so much will be gone forever… replaced by people for whom this is just a nice place to spend a few months of the year.”

Writing from Salt Lake City, George Ott warns Revelstoke that it may become like Park City. His experience there, circa 1979, was of a place with “no traffic lights, and when the ski season ended the town rolled up the sidewalks and went elsewhere for 6 or 7 months of the year. Life was good, the snow was deep, and rent was cheap. Hindsight being what it is, the only thing I would change is I would have bought more property earlier.”

“Live today like it might be your last in Revelstoke,” he added, “because that day is coming.”

 

Developers object

MAMMOTH, Calif. – Construction is down sharply this year in California’s Mono County, where the Mammoth ski area is located.

The Sheet newspaper doesn’t offer speculation as to the reasons, but does report that the slower market has caused developers to voice objections about new affordable housing mitigation requirements. When the regulations were being adopted, the market was strong, and they were silent. They claim they were blindsided by the mitigation fees, which have rendered projects unprofitable.

In some cases, county authorities agree. The fees assumed a specified square-footage of commercial space will yield X number of employees. But that one-size-fits-all approach was indeed too punishing to self-storage businesses, where there are very few employees and lots of space.

 

Half off spec houses

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – The real-estate market in ski towns of the West has been humming along, despite the shudders nationally. The high-end market seems unaffected.

But the first evidence is coming in that the national woes are affecting the outlying areas. The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports that two speculatively built homes in Victor, Idaho, which is located across Teton Pass from Jackson Hole, have been sold for less than half their listed prices.

 

Boutique condo-hotel planned

TRUCKEE, Calif. – An upscale boutique condo-hotel of 35 rooms is being planned for Truckee. The goal is to keep some travelers who would normally go to the Squaw Valley ski area or Incline Village, an upscale town along the shores of Lake Tahoe, says Art Chapman, president of FMA Ventures. The Sierra Sun reports support from other businesses in rapidly upscaling Truckee.

 

After the fire, new rules

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – With last summer’s Angola Fire, which burned 275 homes in forests along the banks of Lake Tahoe, still fresh in mind, authorities in Placer County are drafting an ordinance that would ensure defensible-space. The proposed law would require 100 feet of defensible space around buildings, and if that space extended into an adjacent property that is undeveloped, the fire district would have the ability to order fuel removal — if necessary, at the cost of the neighbouring lot owner.

 

Gondola link proposed

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Plans have been formalized in Steamboat Springs for a gondola that will link a real estate and commercial development about a mile from the ski area to the base area.

The project, called Wildhorse Meadows, already has a commercial complex, and a large residential component is planned, with an abandon-the-car-and-walk emphasis. Construction is expected to be complete in time for the 2009-2010 ski season.

While more extensive use of gondolas has been discussed in ski towns for decades, their enormous cost has precluded them — until now. Breckenridge now has a gondola from its parking area near the town core, a considerable distance from the ski slopes. A new gondola is going into place that will connect Avon with Beaver Creek. A gondola is also planned at Vail, to link a new real-estate project called Ever Vail to the slopes.

In Steamboat, the gondola will be a fixed-grip pulse gondola, with cabins accommodating six people. It will take the gondola cars 4 minutes, 30 seconds to get to the ski area’s base. The gondola will be manufactured by Leitner-Poma, which has a manufacturing plant in Grand Junction.

 

Critter overpasses studied

BANFF, Alberta – In the effort to make sure that populations of wildlife don’t bear the full brunt of our highways, Banff surely is the leader in North America, and probably the world.

Banff National Park now has 24 structures intended to make the four-lane Trans-Canada Highway more permeable to wildlife. Two of them are broad overhead structures, similar to what is being proposed across Colorado’s Interstate 70, near Vail Pass, while the other 22 are underpasses made up of open-space bridges and large culverts.

But how well do they work? Since 1997, the structures have been used 400 times. What isn’t clear is whether it’s 400 different grizzlies that are crossing, or one bear that is crossing 400 times.

Researchers have documented a dramatic increase in grizzly bear use of the structures in the last decade, with more and more crossings recorded every year. But now, using barbed wire that snags grizzly hairs, they are doing genetic studies to document who is using the structures and how. For example, is crossing the structures a learned behavior and is it being passed along from mother to offspring, explains Mike Sawaya, a wildlife researcher in the midst of a three-year cutting-edge DNA project.

“Obviously, these structures are expensive, what we really need is more scientific data to show what the benefits are, and at least objectively evaluate the merit of these mitigation efforts,” said Sawaya.

In Colorado, wildlife activists are monitoring the work in Banff to see if it will provide evidence for their efforts to get overpasses across I-70 near Vail and elsewhere between Denver and Grand Junction. Monique DiGiorgio, executive director of the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, said the DNA research is “dealing with a complex issue at its core.”

Biologists call I-70 the “Berlin Wall to wildlife.” Proving their point is the road-kill deaths of three imported lynx and also the first documented wolf in Colorado in about 60 years. Congress last year allocated $420,000 to study the feasibility of a highway overpass.

 

New ski area pursued

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The idea of another ski resort in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City, continues to be pursued. The proposed resort is on land owned by Kennecott Land, an arm of the same company that owns the world’s largest open-pit copper mine, which is located nearby. The base area would be 6,200 feet, reports the Salt Lake Tribune, rising up to 9,350.

 

25 mph a very big deal

HAILEY, Idaho – Surely the law of inverse proportions was at work in Hailey, located 18 miles downvalley from the resort towns of Ketchum and Sun Valley. There, town authorities have posted a speed limit of 25 mph on the highway through the town. This is the same highway that connects Ketchum/Sun Valley with the outside world.

Town authorities say the slower speed limit was posted to improve safety, not to inconvenience commuters or tourists.

But an Idaho state legislator is so annoyed he intends to sponsor legislation that would remove authority from towns for setting the speed limits of highways that run through them. He, and many others, think the speed limit should be increased.

Judging by the comments blogged on the Idaho Mountain Express website, this is a very, very important issue to the locals.

“The only thing they are protecting are the drunks stumbling from one bar to another across the highway,” wrote one blogger. “Bellevue has always marched to the beat of a different drummer,” said another blogger scornfully. “Get a life — aren’t there more important things to worry about?” questioned another.

 

Durango aims to get bigger

DURANGO, Colo. – Durango Mountain Resort, the former Purgatory ski area, has plans for bigger and better during the next 20 years.

During that time, reports the Durango Telegraph, the ski area would like to expand its capacity by roughly a third, to 9,600 skiers a day. It also wants to expand its terrain by 22 per cent, add 10 lifts, and substantially boost its snowmaking capacity.

The public doesn’t seem to have much to say about the ski area expansion, but there is a lot of comment about the impacts of the ski area’s development on private lands, says Richard Speegle, the recreation project manager for the federal land agencies. The ski area is on U.S. Forest Service property, but a great deal of real-estate development is occurring.

One party skeptical of the expansion is Colorado Wild. “Our general concern is that ski areas should not expand unless there is a specific demand,” said Ryan Demmy Bidwell, the group’s executive director.

 

Latino demographics changing

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Some 33 per cent of kindergarten students in Jackson Hole schools are Latino, but only 11 per cent of senior high students are Latinos. Are they dropping out?

Not so, say Teton County School District officials. The story, says Gary Elliot, principal of Jackson Hole High School, is that the number of Latino students in lower grades is increasing more rapidly.

That said, the newspaper cites evidence that the Latino population, after growing rapidly during the late 1990s, is now leveling off. However, the demographics within the Latino population are changing, with more young women now arriving, in addition to the young men.

 

Autumn is potluck season

SILVERTON, Colo. – Saturday is the last day of the season for the narrow-gauge steam trains from Durango, and although Silverton Mountain Ski Area dispatched photos of a snowboarder on Sunday, it’s not really ski season yet.

That makes it potluck season, says Amy Swonger, now a 10-year resident of Silverton who dispatches a column to The Telluride Watch.

“Now is the time when Silvertonians get to know each other better, and it’s the honeymoon period for those who moved in during the summer — the virgins of high mountain living.”

She suggests that potlucks are best scheduled with elk hunters, after their hunts.

 

Upgrade of electrical line not welcomed

OPHIR, Colo. – Change is coming to Ophir, a mountain-side town about 10 miles from Telluride, and the locals don’t much care for it.

The old electrical transmission lines that run through Ophir, on their way to Telluride, are being upgraded. The wooden poles, which some residents had come to think of as being like dead trees, are being upgraded with steel plating and crossboards. “It’s an eyesore,” said Ophir Mayor Jon Gerona.

For the moment, the power line is also Telluride’s Achilles heel. An avalanche near Ophir took down the power lines a couple of years ago, demonstrating just how vulnerable Telluride’s economy is to its electrical supply in the outside world. Tri-State Generation and Transmission wants to upgrade a more direct line into Telluride, but has been opposed by landowners on the mesas that the line would traverse. Those landowners want to see the power line underground as it crosses their property. Tri-State says that would be prohibitively expensive.