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Mountain News: Mountain film probes population bomb

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Whether at 26,000 feet or at sea level, Telluride Mountainfilm takes on existential issues with big gulps.
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TELLURIDE, Colo. — Whether at 26,000 feet or at sea level, Telluride Mountainfilm takes on existential issues with big gulps.

The festival — held in Telluride on Memorial Day, but with highlights then taken to other ski towns of the West through the year — began in 1979, patterned after an Italian festival devoted to adventure and mountains.

"At our roots, our core, we are about mountains and adventure," says Peter Kenworthy, executive director of the festival. "But since the 1990s, we have also been about — as the mission statement says — issues that matter."

This year, the festival has a day-long session devoted to population — appropriate, given that the world population is now tipping over the seven billion mark, says David Holbrooke, festival director. Among those speaking will be Paul Ehrlich, author of the seminal tome, The Population Bomb, from 1968.

Also returning this year to debut his new series about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s is celebrated filmmaker Ken Burns.

The Telluride Watch notes that what may best epitomize the festival was the 1991 appearance of Sir Edmund Hillary, who was celebrated not only for his stature as the first confirmed climber to reach Everest's summit, but also for his work building schools in impoverished Nepal.

"It wasn't just mountaineering anymore," writes Peter Shelton. "It was the things that mountaineers saw out there and what moved them to give back."

Adventure tourism program set for next year

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — Thompson River University plans to launch an adventure tourism program in autumn 2013. The program currently accepts 50 students a year and offers courses in the Revelstoke area such as advanced ski touring and avalanche training, notes the Revelstoke Times Review.

Immigration paperwork cited for worker layoffs

PARK CITY, Utah — Park City's preeminent five-star hotel has fired an unspecified number of workers after a random audit by U.S. immigration authorities revealed that invalid or inaccurate or incomplete information had been provided on I-9 forms.

The Park Record said that the chief executive at the Stein Eriksen Lodge declined to say which countries the employees were from. Some of the employees had worked at the hotel for years and others just for a season. They will be invited to return pending the submittal of complete information.

The case had provoked the hotel to use the e-Verify on-line system to check whether someone is eligible to work in the United States.

What happens in Rio now affects Snowmass

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. — Reflecting the shifts in the world economics, the business level at Snowmass and Aspen now varies greatly depending upon when the Brazilian holiday of Carnival is held.

Last year, the Carnival was held in March, and rooms in Snowmass filled. This year, it shifted to February. February lodging was up 16 per cent, reports the Aspen Daily News, while March was down nearly 13 per cent.

Cougars sometimes share the commissary

JACKSON, Wyo. — Cougars, also called mountain lions and puma, are solitary creatures unless mating or raising young. Or so the conventional wisdom was. Now comes evidence from the Gros Ventre River in Jackson Hole that they're more sociable diners.

The Jackson Hole News&Guide reports that researchers have noticed two-family feasts as they followed one of the mothers. The study still has not concluded whether the cougars are eating well enough to sustain their population in the growling presence of wolves which use a definite team approach to securing elk meat.

Rec centre bikes let riders juice up

EDWARDS, COLO. — People pedalling the stationary bicycles at the recreational field house at Edwards should feel connected as well as healthier.

The bicycles produce electricity that is fed into the grid. There's no expectation that the bicycles produce all that much, but they do give riders a sense of just how difficult it is to keep the lights and heat on.

A recent analysis shows that the field house is spending 64 per cent less on energy use per square foot than an average commercial building in the United States.

The facility has big fans, R-50 ceiling insulation, and radiant heat in the floor.

Colorado ice gone

DILLON, Colo. — Last year, the clock placed on the ice of Dillon Reservoir by the Rotary Club of Summit County stayed topside until May 23. This year, Father Time took a chill dip on April 11.

It was the earliest ending ever in the 47-year history of the contest.

Previously, the earliest day for the clock to drop was April 28, which occurred in the extreme drought year of 2002, notes the Summit Daily News.

Possible water restrictions

VAIL, Colo. — It's going to be a rough year for water in the Vail Valley, according to local water officials. They are telling homeowners, landscaper and others that there's a possibility that outdoor watering will have to be restricted.

Although the storm over the weekend undoubtedly improved the picture somewhat, the view last week was that this could be the worst year ever.

"2002 was the worst thing we had seen," said Lin Brooks, general manger of the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District. "It was the worst drought Colorado had seen since like the 1750s, according to tree-ring data, and this one is so much worse, or at least shaping up to be much worse."

Since 2002, said Brooks, the water district has increased reservoir capacities, added new water tanks, and created better plans to optimize streamflows.

"We've done all these things, and that should reduce the likelihood of having to have outdoor water districts," she told the Vail Daily. "But that being said, this drought is much worse than 2002."

More names than you can shake a stick at

GRANBY, Colo. — Henceforth everything is to be known as Granby Ranch. And what was it before?

You have to go back to the late 1960s, when a Bavarian-style development patterned after Vail was predicted for the property called Val Moritz. When the resort finally did open in 1982, it was Silver Creek and then, in a re-branding effort, SilverCreek.

Later came SolVista Ski Basin, although the real-estate component was called Granby Ranch and the golf course Headwaters.

Now, all is to be reannointed as Granby Ranch some way or another: Ski Granby Ranch, Golf Granby Ranch, and so on through the various amusements of bicycling, fishing and home buying.

Granby Ranch representatives tell the Sky-Hi News that there's never a good time to do a complete rebranding of this magnitude, which is expected to cost several hundred thousand dollars. But sooner was better than later. "Why continue to build equity in brands that are going to change," said Kyle Harrison, the director of development for the real-estate division.