CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. - Nobody expected a gangbuster Christmas week this year in ski towns. And, from all available evidence, that's just the way it turned out.
Here and there have been crowds, but people continue to count nickels, unlike the days of old.
Consider Crested Butte, where skier days, spending and occupancy were somewhat on par with the previous year - when the dimensions of the Great Recession were being understood.
Still, the Crested Butte News ominously tells about one shuttle plane to Denver that had only four passengers. The passengers had to sit in the back rows of the plane, to balance the crew in the front.
Meanwhile, room rates continue to slide. One hotelier at Snowmass Village reports that even after discounts, tour operators now return wanting further discounts. The new normal is still in flux.
Snowpacks notoriously unstable
KETCHUM, Idaho - As had been predicted, the La Niña ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean have not blessed many ski areas in the West with snow this year. The sporadic snowstorms, combined with the cold, have resulted in the layers of snow found in many locations being very weak and more susceptible to avalanches.
At Sun Valley's marquee Bald Mountain, that has resulted in the bowls not being opened as of mid-January. "Right now, the natural snowpack in the bowls is as weak as I've ever seen it in all the years I've been here," said Rich Bingham, the snow safety director of Sun Valley Ski Patrol and a veteran of 43 years at the resort.
At Vail, a snowboarder left the ski area and ventured into backcountry area called Miller Cliffs. The Vail Daily reports that authorities found the man in an avalanche area, with no reason to suspect foul play.
Those out skiing in the backcountry have been advised to hew to moderate slope angles.
Snowpacks in the Rocky Mountains are notoriously fickle. Heat from the earth works through the snow to the cold atmosphere, in the process recreating the snowflakes into a sugary substance that in phases might resemble marbles.
Thermometers aren't liberals
VAIL, Colo. - Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the other talkathon right-wingers of radio and TV probably didn't take notice, but Don Rogers, editor and publisher of the Vail Daily , threw some spears their way.
"There's no longstanding downward trend, unless you follow a certain ideology beyond the bounds of evidence and even common sense," he says, responding to their argument that the world's climate is actually cooling.
Rather, he says, the evidence is compelling - and devoid of politics. "The thermometers aren't liberals," he says.
As for the cold winter in Houston, he would have Hannity, one of the talk-show people on Fox News, learn the difference between weather and climate.
Wolves trail skier
BANFF, Alberta - What would you do if you were by yourself, skiing at dusk in the backcountry and a trio of wolves stepped onto the same trail?
In a case in Banff National Park, the lone skier turned around, the wolves a respectful 30 metres behind her, and made her way back to the trailhead, stopping after 20 minutes to wave her poles and yell. That did the trick, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook . The wolves themselves headed off trail, and that's the last she saw of them.
Officials in Banff National Park say they don't believe the wolves meant the woman harm. They were just going in the same direction and, since it was cold, they got on the packed trail because it took less energy.
"In the winter, every calorie counts for wolves," said Melanie Percy, senior park ecologist.
Steve Michel, human-wildlife conflict specialist for Banff National Park, said wolf attacks are extremely rare. That said, he advised anybody seeing wolves to keep their distance - and not to get excited and start running. As in dogs, he said, that could trigger a predatory response by the wolves.
In Utah, however, a very different view was being expressed. "Wolves are ruthless," said Sen. Allen Christensen, a state legislator who is sponsoring legislation that, if approved, would declare that all wolves in Utah be destroyed or removed.
Christensen, who represents a portion of the Park City area, told the Park Record that he expected litigation between Utah and the federal government over his proposal if it gets approved.
Downsizing may cost millions
SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. - Bill Davidson, the owner of the Detroit Pistons, a basketball team, and the Tampa Bay Lightning, a hockey team, died last March, and his widow, Karen Davidson, says it's time to downsize.
She has put the 10-acre property at Snowmass up for sale with the asking price of $47 million.
Will she get it? The Wall Street Journal points to an even larger property in the neighbourhood with an asking price of $60 million that lately has been reduced to $47.5 million. But last summer a 10-bedroom property near Aspen sold for $43 million, which was believed to be the priciest residential U.S. sale in 2009.
The bottom line: Even in an economic bust, the rent is plenty high in Aspen and Snowmass, as are some of the houses.
Mayor makes case for hikers
TELLURIDE, Colo. - Telluride this winter has already hosted its first-ever World Cup competition, for snowboarders, but before that happened the mayor of Telluride was contacted by an emissary representing two snowboarders from Iran.
The Iranians hoped to compete in the World Cup event, and they were trying to secure visas for themselves, their coach and their manager. The snowboarders, Mayor Stu Fraser was told, needed a letter of invitation from a local official sent to the U.S. Consulate in Dubai.
Fraser, reports the Telluride Watch, agreed to write the letter. "Why couldn't I make the effort to be a friend," he said. "Politics shouldn't have anything to with this. Athletes should be able to do what it is that they do and what they're all about."
At length, the request was noted by the U.S. Consulate, although nothing ever seemed to come of Fraser's good gesture. But the case got him to thinking. He wrote a letter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asking for the release of the four American hikers seized after they crossed into Iran while trekking in the northern reaches of Iraq.
"Please set aside with me, for a short while, the tensions between our two countries and consider this humanitarian request," Fraser wrote.
So far, nothing has come of that, either.
Avalanche victim an archetype
JACKSON, Wyo.-When Outside magazine hired a photographer to shoot an essay on the homes of ski bums in Jackson Hole, the home of Mark "Big Wally" Wolling became an archetype. There was a kayak hanging from the ceiling, skis in the corner, a dirt bike propped up next to the bed.
That photograph was recalled by the Jackson Hole News & Guide last week after the death of Wolling in an avalanche. A ski patrolman at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Wolling was on the lip of Cheyenne Bowl on the morning of Jan. 6 when two explosive hand charges he deployed below him triggered the slide.
The slide carried Wolling over a 35-foot cliff and well down the 800-foot-long avalanche slope. To find Wolling, his partner used a radio transceiver beacon. He was not wearing a helmet and did not have a balloon pack or an Avalung. An Avalung is a device designed to allow a buried skier to breathe.
It took other patrollers 22 minutes from the time of the avalanche to the time they located and uncovered him from under 5 1/2 feet of debris. It took 32 minutes altogether between the time the avalanche occurred and when he arrived at a medical clinic at the base of the mountain. There, after eight minutes, a pulse was detected. He was in a coma, but on life support before dying at a hospital in Idaho.
Wolling, according to the newspaper, started working at the ski area on trail crew in 1978, and had been a ski patrol member since 1989.
"He stood out because of his size, fearlessness, permanent smile, good nature, bushy blond moustache and, to those who knew him best, big heart."
He worked during summer as a carpenter, but in winter it was all about snow. He was at all times the center of après ski crowds, a phenomenon called "Wally's World."
Rape drug suspected
SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. - Two men believed they were drugged while drinking alcohol in the bar of a local hotel. The Aspen Times had reported suspicions that the so-called date-rape drug, THB, or Rufinol, had been distributed in drinks elsewhere in nearby Aspen. The two men think they may have also been victims.
The pair had had five or six drinks at the bar. That's the last they can remember. One ended up in his own bed after a wild night in Aspen, and the other in a detox center down-valley in Glenwood Springs.
"We were mildly intoxicated," said Mike Pruess. "Ten minutes after taking the shot (of vodka), we don't remember anything."
"I'm absolutely distraught and scared," said Pruess, who had just moved there from Seattle. "It's unbelievably wrong."
