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Mountain News: Design teams working on wildlife overpasses

Crested Butte considers alternatives to traditional ski model

Mt. CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. - At length, ski area officials in Crested Butte seem to accept that they're not going to build a ski resort on Snodgrass Mountain, at least not the traditional type with multiple lifts.

For nearly 30 years, the ski area operators have been trying to build the much bigger ski area, using the moderate slopes of Snodgrass, located across the valley from the existing ski area. Community opposition and then inertia by the operators themselves twice before foiled the expansion plans.

A decade ago, ski area owners began pushing again for the expansion. They insisted they needed more intermediate terrain, to be able to compete with places like Aspen, Summit County and Vail. For visitors, most of whom had intermediate-level skills, the ski area was boring after maybe three days.

But the community remained divided, and the Forest Service last year said it didn't want to get involved in the spat. To the indignation of the ski area operators, the agency refused to accept the proposal.

Now, after meeting with the agency's representatives recently, ski area officials seem to accept there will be no "traditional" lift-served resort on Snodgrass, reports the Crested Butte News .

"The Forest Service made it clear they don't foresee traditional skiing on Snodgrass, but in the end they are open to looking at new options with us," said Ken Stone, the chief operating officer at the ski area.

Added Stone: "We are going to look at this through a new set of goggles. We want to separate ourselves from other resorts."

Stone went on to say that the ski area sees alternatives, including gravity-fed mountain biking, snowcat skiing, and some sort of expanded backcountry skiing.

"Longer term, alpine touring is a growing part of the ski market, and we can bring that in more," said Stone. "We do think there are still ways to get intermediate skiers over on Snodgrass. There is a lot of intermediate terrain over there."

The News says it's still possible a ski lift could be built on the mountain, although the circumstances are not clear.

Meanwhile, ski area officials have now turned their attention to carving additional intermediate terrain out of the existing ski mountain, which is laden with black-diamond and double black-diamond terrain.

 

Assessed valuation down a third

EAGLE, Colo. - The changed fortunes of the economy of Vail and Eagle County are evident at every turn. Just last year, an 11,000-square-foot home at the Cordillera Valley Club, located 10 miles west of Vail, was on the market for $9.5 million. Last Thursday the house was sold by auction. The winning bid was $4.6 million.

For homeowners, thinking they were sitting on bonanzas of ever-escalating property values, this has all come as a shock, of course. But now the waves have hit local governments, who must figure out how to reduce services and costs in proportion to reduced revenues. Eagle County's appraised valuation has dropped from $3.5 billion two years ago to $2.5 billion this year.

 

Flights nosedive on tax declines

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. - With lodging rates ratcheted down, lodging taxes collected have declined 35 per cent in Steamboat Springs during the last two years. And that means fewer plane seats available to future customers.

The lodging tax is a key funding source for the airline program. Like several other resorts, including Vail and Telluride, Steamboat Springs provides money to airlines if the airlines do not carry enough passengers.

Last year Steamboat cut back the number of available seats by 13 per cent, and a similar cut is planned for this coming winter. But Sandy Evans-Hall, executive vice president of the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association, warns against cutting back too much, because fewer tourists will then mean less lodging revenues, and hence a downward spiral.

The Steamboat Pilot reports that local officials are considering whether additional tax revenues can be lined up. The marketing district, which arranges the flights, is using $500,000 of its $1 million reserve fund for this winter's flights.

 

Banff businesses sorting trash

BANFF, Alberta - Commercial properties in Banff will have to start sorting their garbage if they want to save money. The municipality has instituted a new system for businesses, allowing them to sort their waste into separate containers for food matter, cardboard and then the general trash.

Businesses will be charged the most for trash that must be hauled away. The cost of hauling away food will be 20 per cent less, and cardboard 40 per cent less.

The lesser costs reflect the fact that they don't have to be put into landfills but can instead be used for composting or recycling. What is left - the true garbage - must be trucked an hour away to a landfill near Calgary, explains the Rocky Mountain Outlook .

A lodge manager, Frank Denourden, tells the newspaper that finding space for processing and storing the waste is the largest challenge. Getting staff buy-in was easiest. "If you take the time and work through it and explain to them, it'll work," he said.

 

Grizzly maulings go to court

BANFF, B.C. - The case of two Australian tourists who were mauled in 1995 by grizzly bears in one of the campgrounds in Banff National Park was sorted out in a two-week trial recently.

Lawyers on behalf of the two Australians contend that Parks Canada, the agency that manages the park, failed to take sufficient steps to warn them of a bear attack at the Lake Louise campground.

At the heart of the dispute, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook , is whether bear warning signs are sufficient protection for campers in bear country.

Lawyers representing Parks Canada argued that bear attacks are always possible, if not probable. The risk of lightning strikes is greater. Only one or two people per year in North America die of bear attacks.

On the flip side, lawyers for the men suing the agency contend that park officials should have taken additional security steps at the campground, including patrols at night, and that the defendants should have been given detailed warnings.

Testimony also revolved around an appearance by bears at the Lake Louise campground three days prior to the mauling. Bears apparently had ripped a tent. One witness described that sort of thing as a "very regular event."

Just the same, patrols were stepped up and campground staff was instructed to warn campers to be extra vigilant. Warning signs were also posted at washrooms and the kiosk.

Afterward, authorities rounded up two sets of bears, a sow and a cub each. One of the sets was killed, although without a clear link to the mauling. Both sows had been relocated to Banff from the Revelstoke area, where they had been identified as "problem" bears. The sow that was killed, however, was about half of the normal weight for a bear, and clearly undernourished, as was the cub.

 

Skiers want sleds regulated

JACKSON, Wyo. - A coalition of conservation groups has begun pushing the U.S. Forest Service to treat snowmobiles and other over-snow vehicles as "indistinguishable from other classes of (off-road-vehicles) in terms of impacts."

"Technology has changed. Snowmobiles go places where nobody imagined they could go," said Forrest McCarthy, public lands director with the Winter Wildlands Alliance, which is based in Jackson.

The Jackson Hole News says McCarthy's is one of the groups circulating a petition - not just in Jackson, but in snowbelt states with public lands. They contend that snowmobilers were improperly excluded from a 2005 federal rule.

The Idaho-based Blue Ribbon Coalition, an advocacy group for motorized users, rejects the call. "This is just another effort on the part of extremist groups to take another bite at the apple to try and get closures, to exclude any kind of motorized use," said Gregg Mumm, the executive director.

Mumm said that snowmobiles don't actually travel on the ground, so do not fall into the same category of motorized restrictions.

Newer, more powerful snowmobiles can stay afloat in powder snow more easily, allowing access to areas that backcountry skiers had long sought out for their quiet and untrammeled snow.

Among those contested areas are several near Togwotee Pass, located north of Jackson.

Elsewhere in the West, the snow skirmishes have been underway for decades. In Colorado, at Vail Pass, the Forest Service in the late 1980s began drawing together stakeholders to create ground rules. The result is a plan that specifies travel corridors and play areas for snowmobiles, but also specifies non-motorized zones.

 

Schwarzenegger vetoes ski bill

TRUCKEE, Calif. - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed legislation that would have imposed the toughest ski safety standards in the United States.

The law would have mandated ski resorts to prepare annual safety plans. Proponents say the mandated information would have given consumers more information in deciding whether to ski and snowboard.

"By obtaining data specific to the ski resorts, individuals and families would have been able to make informed decisions about their own snow sport experiences," said Dr. Dan Gregorie.

Schwarzenegger, according to the Sierra Sun, said that the bill might "place an unnecessary burden on resorts, without assurance of a significant reduction in ski and snowboard-related injuries and fatalities."

 

Hydroelectric project slowed

ASPEN, Colo. - Aspen officials have at least temporarily slowed their review of a small hydroelectric plant. The plant, as originally proposed, would save Aspen $41,000 a year in electricity costs and expand the carbon-free portfolio from the existing 75 per cent to about 80 per cent.

But people who live along the creek where the water would be temporarily diverted say that the amount of diversion would be unacceptable. Waterflows for a 2.5-mile segment of Castle Creek would be reduced to just 14 cubic feet per second for half the year, instead of the current two months per year. The Aspen Times reports that city officials are now talking about a compromise, no less than 19 cfs.

The project had seemed like a low-impact way to reduce the city's carbon footprint - and also a return to roots. Aspen had a hydroelectric plant from 1893 to 1958, but ceased operations when coal-fired generation as well as power from big dams became somewhat cheaper.

But Ken Neubecker, former president of Colorado Trout Unlimited, cautions against assuming small hydropower projects have no impacts. "Hydropower has a long history of good intentions now standing in the middle of decimated rivers," he says. "You just have to point at the Columbia (River), for crying out loud, not to mention all the others."

He added: "Hydropower - yeah, it's renewable. But it does a lot of damage if you don't do it right."