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Mountain News: Backcountry beef burrito near Butte

Backcountry beef burrito near Butte CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – A remarkable story comes out of Gunnison County, where a quartet of backcountry skiers were astonished to find several cattle at 11,400 feet on a ridge northwest of Crested Butte.
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Backcountry beef burrito near Butte

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – A remarkable story comes out of Gunnison County, where a quartet of backcountry skiers were astonished to find several cattle at 11,400 feet on a ridge northwest of Crested Butte.

The ridge sits 2,500 vertical feet above the valley floor and has a pitch of at least 40 degrees. One of the skiers, Billy Laird, described the ridge as a "gnarly skinner for experienced backcountry skiers. It's (colloquially) called Heart Attack Ridge for a reason."

The cattle had apparently avoided detection when cowboys last fall herded cattle from high-country grazing. Something similar had happened the year before, when 11 cattle ended up at treeline near Conundrum Hot Springs, near the top of the Elk Range between Aspen and Crested Butte. All of those cattle perished.

In this case, the skiers used a cell phone to inquire if any local ranchers had missing cattle in that area. By the time they had skied down the slope, they had the answer — and the rancher was very appreciative of their offer to try to herd the cattle off the ridge.

Easier said than done, as reported by the Crested Butte News and Gunnison Country Times. Skinning back to the ridge, they found one cow that seemed dead and two buried in snow but still alive. The two living animals, one a yearling bull and the other a heifer — refused to wade through the snow.

Returning the next morning, this time with several more backcountry skiers, they wrangled the bull and heifer, put stuff sacks over their heads, with slits for breathing, hog-tied their legs and rolled them into tarps, which they tightened with ratchet straps, creating what the Times calls a "bovine burrito."

Because of the steepness of the slope, they were able to slide the cattle, which weighed 136kg to 227kg (300 to 500 lbs), down to the valley floor.

There, the bull breathed his last. He was butchered by the skiers, some of whom are hunters. As for the heifer, she was treated to hay, warm water and supplemental heat and, the rancher hopes, will live to create more cattle.

Ski towns vie for X Games

ASPEN, Colo. – With snowmobiles doing flips and up to 20,000 younger people at the base of the Buttermilk ski area, Aspen this weekend is opposite to its image as a slightly-stodgy resort for the world's über-elites.

But then that's the point of the X Games. To stay current, and not slip too far into stodginess, Aspen has been willing to invest in hosting an event that may not truly pay dividends for some years to come.

So are other destinations. ESPN, the owner of the event, announced this past week that Park City, in Utah, Quebec City and Heavenly and Squaw Valley, in the Lake Tahoe Basin of California and Nevada, were all in the running to host the event after Aspen's contract runs out in 2014.

Aspen last year upped the ante, with local governments and other organizations boosting their contributions to $545,000. Aspen Skiing Co. remains the primary host, but has not publicly disclosed its full package.

One curious footnote from the Lake Tahoe bid is that two ski company rivals, Vail Resorts, which owns Heavenly, and KSL Capital Partners, which owns Squaw Valley, are teaming up.

Buck naked and below zero

GRAND LAKE, Colo. – Cabin fever normally can't be cited as excuse for anything at least until February. So what do you make of the 43-year-old woman who was reported beating on windows and ripping down signs in the pre-dawn light of Grand Lake during one of the coldest weekends in recent years?

After stripping to the waist, she had disrobed entirely and laid down in the street before police arrived to whisk her to a medical clinic at dawn's early light, reports the Sky-Hi News.

Banff considers limiting franchise stores

BANFF, Alberta – Banff is gearing up for a major discussion about whether to limit the number of franchise stores, sometimes called chains.

A study commissioned by the Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association finds that limiting the number of chain stores in Banff would pose a "clear threat to economic prosperity."

Vancouver-based Vann Struth Consulting Group reports that while 20 communities in the United States restrict formula restaurants and retail stores, and Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island restricts fast-food outlets, the context is very different. Those other places have higher incomes, and an older age profile, and less reliance on the local tourist sector. Also, there is easier access to a full range of shopping and dining options in nearby communities than exist as alternatives in Banff, where the nearest community, Canmore, is 16 to 19km away.

Proponents of a cap on franchise businesses say that Banff should maintain a unique experience. The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that they have hired their own consultant, Howard J. Kozloff, who runs a real estate investment, development and advisory company based in New York City.

Banff has a number of chain stores, such as McDonald's, Starbucks and Safeway, but one business, a family owned bookstore of 43 years, went out of business after a chain store arrived. Arrival of chain business David's Tea has spurred concerns about the viability of the locally owned Banff Tea Company.

You call that cold?

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – January started cold in the Rocky Mountains, such as hasn't occurred for several years, sparking some questions whether it had finally gotten chilly enough to nip the epidemic of beetles that have killed broad swaths of lodgepole pines.

Temperatures staggered to 33 below on both sides of the Tetons, in Driggs, Idaho, and Jackson, Wyo. But it wasn't close to setting a record. "I've seen it a whole lot colder than this," Betty Chambers told the Jackson Hole News & Guide. "I've had it clear down to 60 below."

Peter Dennis, a retired teacher, told the same newspaper that preparation is everything. "There's no such thing as cold weather; just inappropriate clothing," he said.

It was a trifle warmer in Crested Butte, 30 below. "It feels like January is supposed to feel in this high-mountain valley," wrote Mark Reaman from the Crested Butte News, comparing it to the mountain-biking weather of a year ago.

"The snow squeaks, car engines groan, exposed skin stings, and there is no melting going on outside."

In Steamboat Springs, the average temperature through mid-January was only 4.2 degrees. Should the cold persist, meteorologists told the Steamboat Today, it would be the coldest average January in Steamboat records.

In Aspen, it was sufficiently cold to spur Scott Condon of The Aspen Times to wonder whether the bark beetles that have terrorized lodgepole pine trees since 1996 had been blunted.

Hard to tell, entomologists said. The spread of the bark beetle has already slowed, maybe because of the snowy winter two years ago that left plenty of water for the trees, making them healthier and more able to resist the beetles. Plus, the beetles have already gotten most of the vulnerable trees.

"Time will tell," said Barbara Bentz, a research entomologist with the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Center in Utah.

For the record, the last major influx of bark beetles in Colorado, which occurred from roughly 1939 to 1951, was finally stopped by a week-long deep freeze of persistent 30 and 40 below night-time temperatures.

China like U.S. in the '60s

ASPEN, Colo. – It's been a tough year for merchants of ski clothes and other accessories. Klaus Obermeyer, the patriarch of the sector, tells The Aspen Times that sales for his company, Sport Obermeyer, were down seven per cent, but it could have been worse. Because of the drought last year, the skiwear industry overall was down about 20 per cent.

Obermeyer started his business in 1947, while teaching skiing on Aspen Mountain. He remains active running the company and tells the Times that the hard times have made his company better. As for the future, he sees China as an emerging market because of ski areas being developed there.

"Skiing there is like it was here in the '60s," he said.

Many of Colorado's ski areas — including Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Vail and Steamboat — opened in the 1960s, as did Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee in the Tetons and dozens more ski areas across the West. Further, many of them enjoyed 10 per cent or more growth rates for 10 to 20 years.

Bag debate goes on

TRUCKEE, Calif. – Add Truckee to the list of mountain towns of the West investigating limitations of plastic grocery bags.

Telluride started the trend, followed by Aspen and Carbondale. In California, San Francisco and San Jose have also put the kibosh on the freebies that have come to mar the world's landscape.

The Sierra Sun reports that an online survey revealed nearly 70 per cent of respondents in favour of a ban. Some people, however, see trouble ahead.

"This is a tourist community," Truckee resident Eve Auch told the newspaper. "How many people do you think will come in for the wonders of Truckee and bring their own recyclable bags? It isn't going to happen."

But another area resident, Mike Clauss, said he believes that the plastic bans have now become common enough that visitors won't be ruffled.