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Mountain News: Small wetlands on ski trail has a huge biodiversity

Compiled by Allen Best TELLURIDE, Colo. — Something of an outdoor museum in Telluride’s new intermediate expansion area, Prospect Bowl, is being monitored by a wetlands expert. The wetlands, called fens, are 10,000 old.

Compiled by Allen Best

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Something of an outdoor museum in Telluride’s new intermediate expansion area, Prospect Bowl, is being monitored by a wetlands expert. The wetlands, called fens, are 10,000 old. And, although only a few acres in size, the fens support 20 per cent of all plant species in Colorado, says Dr. David Cooper of the University of Colorado.

"They support an unbelievably high proportion of the biodiversity in Colorado given their miniscule area," Cooper told The Telluride Watch. "For plants, but for animals as well," he added.

Like peat bogs, fens are created over a long time, in this case at a rate of about eight inches per thousand years. Unlike peat bogs, however, fens are fed by groundwater constantly and completely, so that oxygen does not reach the plant waste, thus preventing decomposition. Hence, the great biodiversity.

One part of Cooper’s work is to determine whether the ski area expansion is affecting the fens. Ski runs cross the fens, and so the snow is compacted. As such, the snow becomes a conductor and the soils begin to freeze. "These soils may not have frozen at any time in the last 10,000 years," Cooper said. "We’re concerned with how it may affect plant growth."

Nonetheless, Cooper said he is sure the ski area development has not jeopardized the fens. "They have done a phenomenal job of altering their plans and approaches in ski area development and landscape management," he said of the ski area operator, Telluride Ski & Golf Corp.

The ski area was required to pay for Cooper’s work, at $100,000, as part of a court-supervised settlement for an intrusion to wetlands elsewhere near Telluride. A county government and two towns are also chipping in $5,000 each.

Avalanche school teaches lessons learned in Canada

SILVERTON, Colo. — The San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado may have the most avalanche-prone snowpack in the United States. Certainly, the highway that traverses the west side of the mountains, Highway 550, can claim that distinction.

It’s only appropriate that the nation’s oldest avalanche school is located in Silverton. Founded in 1962, the school’s students have changed little over the decades, but the depth of snow science has.

Still, knowing what causes avalanches is not the same thing as taking care to avoid them, points out the Durango Telegraph. A recent study in Canada showed that 75 per cent of avalanche fatality victims had received some avalanche-awareness training. Survivors again and again told of their drive to cut first tracks overwhelming their logic and good planning.

The Silverton Avalanche School has reviewed this finding and adjusted its curriculum accordingly. "People need to understand that backcountry travel is a constant series of decisions," says Bruce Conrad, director of the school.

Dean’s Aspen ski-bumming recalled by bosses, friends

ASPEN, Colo. — Erstwhile Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean spent 10 months in Aspen ski-bumming, but he seems not to have left the impression that he was of presidential timber.

"I remember him well. He was just a loser," remembers Trudy Erhard, the former owner of the Golden Horn restaurant, who employed Dean as a dishwasher in 1971-72. "But lots of kids in Aspen in the late ’60s and early ’70s were totally lost," she told The Denver Post. Erhard, a Republican who later moved to Vermont, where Dean served as governor, has never been a fan of his politics.

After graduating from Yale University, Dean received a medical deferment from the draft because of a fractured vertebra. While doctors consulted by The Post say the condition is legitimate grounds for not being drafted, neither did it prevent him from skiing. He also poured concrete for a while.

A high school classmate who sometimes joined him in Aspen on weekends recalls him as a "very aggressive skier… He wasn’t Jean Claude Killy but he didn’t kill himself falling down either," said Taylor Pyne.

While Pyne seems to have acknowledged stories of Dean’s beer-drinking and pot-smoking, he suggested a somewhat quiet existence. "I’m not going to say he was a choirboy, but as far as orgies and rock ’n’ roll parties and stuff like that, I’m sorry. I’m going to disappoint you."

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to .. develop

WINTER PARK, Colo. — The Winter Park-Granby area is supposed to be the "next big thing" in Colorado. Intrawest has taken over the ski area, and plans to put together a railroad-themed village at the base while other developers are crafting million-dollar "cottages" in the woods and sagebrush around the two towns.

The big question in all this is where will the water come from to service all this development? This isn’t a desert – it’s actually among the soggiest areas in the American West. But Denver and other Front Range cities, as well as farmers, long ago began diverting water under the Continental Divide, and now take about 75 per cent of the flows from Grand County, where the resorts are located. And given how Denver and its suburbs are growing, they would like to expand that to 83 per cent.

The latest word out of Winter Park is that county officials have been negotiating with Denver representatives, in the hopes of coming up with an agreement that allows this baby to be shared by both. "A lot of our water needs and solutions have to do with Denver using some flexibility in their collection system," explained County Commissioner James Newberry to the Winter Park Manifest.

Telluride latest on round for neighbourly fisticuffs

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Telluride is the latest among ski towns to have a night at the fights. More than 600 people ponied up $60 each to watch their neighbours beat at each other in what in older days were called "smokers."

Some things have changed Smoking, of course, is becoming taboo. Women beating on other women is now part of the night. But the girl-girl stuff apparently doesn’t end just there. According to one viewer who confided to The Telluride Watch, the night’s most interesting moments were provoked by the between-fights ring girl.

Shedding more clothes with each successive bout, tantalizingly flickering her twice-pierced tongue as she stalked the ring, she had the boxing fan mesmerized. Then, in an exclamation mark, the ring-girl engaged in some very, very enthusiastic, affectionate encouragement of a female boxer.

The same promoter has put on shows in Crested Butte and Steamboat Springs, and he will soon stage slugfests in Vail and Winter Park.

Saudi billionaire stirs Jackson Hole rumours

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, ranked as No. 6 on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people, vacationed for the better part of two weeks in Jackson Hole. With a fleet of white Ford Excursions, hefty security, and a 35-member entourage that occupied most of the new Four Seasons Resort hotel, he was hard to miss.

Rumours swept the valley, says the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Some were false: No, he did not rent 37 Hummers, draining the supply of a three-state radius. But yes, he asked that the resort keep the ski lifts running late to accommodate his party. By the way, he brought his ski instructors from Aspen. And as for the swank Four Seasons, the staff was instructed to call him "his royal highness."

Alaweed, 46, is the grandson of King Abdul Aziz, who founded Saudi Arabia. He owns 24 per cent of the Four Seasons chain, and with a net worth pegged at $17.7 billion, owns a lot more of corporate America.

Selling empty spaces as a way to fill hotel beds

WINTER PARK, Colo. — "Wide Open Spaces" is tentatively the new ad campaign for Winter Park and the Fraser Valley.

"Steamboat has the barn. Jackson Hole has the Tetons. When (Boulder-based consulting firm) Merge Creative showed us research they conducted with locals and on the Front Range, they proved that what people identify us with is wide open spaces," said Catherine Ross, director of the Winter Park/Fraser Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Skiing secondary at Park City during film festival

PARK CITY, Utah — For 10 days every January, skiing becomes secondary at Park City as some 40,000 people arrive for the Sundance Film Festival.

This year attendance was reported to be slightly down, but still big. One owner of a private club complained to The Park Record that local authorities had begun enforcing occupancy limits, which cost him $40,000 to $70,000.

This year, the ski areas began a new strategy to get some business out of the film festival. Festival-goers were given vouchers, and each of the three ski areas – Deer Valley, The Canyons, and Park City Mountain Resort – offered 20 per cent discounts on lift tickets. No reports yet of how many people this offer flushed out of darkened theatres onto the white slopes.

String of robberies in the Vail Valley

VAIL VALLEY, Colo. — The Vail Valley started the new year with a string of three robberies in three weeks.

The first robbery was of a bank in Edwards, the second of a lodge in Vail, and the third of a fast-food restaurant in Avon. Two of them occurred at 8 a.m. on Sunday mornings. In those cases the robber wielded either a shotgun or a rifle, and in another case a pistol. The third robbery was on a Tuesday. In that case, school administrators locked schools in the 50-mile-long valley for several hours, presumably to prevent hostages from being taken.

Wilderness advocates drum up support from businesses

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — Proponents of expanded wilderness designation of public lands in Idaho have been drumming up support from businesses with the argument that wilderness is good business.

"Protecting wilderness is an important component of an economic strategy what will lead to a more diverse, more stable, and more prosperous local economy and a brighter future for Idaho children," said Andy Munter, co-owner of Backwoods Mountain Sports in Ketchum.

At issue, explains the Idaho Mountain Express, are roughly 500,000 acres of contiguous, road-free wildlands between Ketchum and the towns of Stanley and Chalis. The former is strongly dependent on recreation, but the latter fervently believe in livestock and timber harvesting. A compromise proposes to give these more traditional communities land allocated to industrial development in exchange for their acceptances of wilderness designation.

Three skiers die after hitting trees at Jackson

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Three skiers died during January after hitting trees at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. One of the three victims was wearing a helmet.

All of the crashes, says the Jackson Hole News & Guide, came after a prolonged dry spell marked by temperatures consistently well below freezing. Much of the terrain at the resort, which is known for its step and difficult runs, was covered with hard-packed and icy snow.

Elk killed after they refuse to leave town

BANFF, Alberta — Two cow elk that had been loitering in the town site of Banff were recently killed by park wardens.

The officers had tried to scare the elk off, using dogs to chase them, firing "bangers" and even rubber bullets. The elk, however, stood their ground. When the two were trucked away from the town, they marched back, perhaps thinking they would lead an easier life among people than among cougars and wolves. Finally, after 156 efforts at "aversive conditioning," reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, the wildlife officers gave up and shot the two elk.

If the elk had not been dispatched, the wildlife officers reasoned, the elk might have charged people, as occurred frequently a decade ago, but not in recent years.

The fundamental problem, writes former Banff park warden Sid May in an essay in the book Extreme Landscapes, is that the developed portion of Banff National Park, about 1 per cent, is about half the land that is naturally suited for wintering grounds for elk. As a result, elk congregate in Banff and Lake Louise, and the predators follow them. People are safe around neither predators nor prey. Elk hooves, he notes, can split a person wide open.

First conviction in Halloween beating death

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — The first of three men accused of beating to death another man on the Main Street of Breckenridge on Halloween 2002 has been convicted of manslaughter. He will be sentenced to no less than eight years in prison.

District Attorney Mark Hurlbert told the Summit Daily News that he will re-evaluate the evidence in hopes of getting the other two men convicted of second-degree murder, a stiffer charge. Hurlbert is also prosecuting basketball player Kobe Bryant in adjoining Eagle County.

The 36-year-old victim in Breckenridge, a father and husband, had been arguing with the trio, all 21 and 22 at the time, in a restaurant after Halloween parties. Witnesses said the three men chased the victim down the street after he left the bar, tackled him, then kicked him and beat him with a heavy military-style helmet. He died nine days later.

Hot springs complex planned at Ridgway

RIDGWAY, Colo. — A fancy hot springs and 64-room hotel is being planned in Ridgway, at the turnoff for Telluride. Either Marriott or Hilton will operate the hotel, the developer said last year.

As for the hot springs, none now exists at the site, says The Telluride Watch. If drilling to 1,000 feet fails to yield a geothermal source, then water will be heated conventionally, according to development representatives. However, there are grounds for optimism. Two commercial hot springs, one clothing optional and the other clothing mandatory, are located within several miles, the latter at Ouray. A variety of motels also have their own hot springs in Ouray.

County puts kibosh on gold mining techniques

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Although nobody is mining for metals in Summit County now, nor are any plans afoot to that intent, the county is banning open pit, heap leach, and cyanide mining.

This ban comes over the objections of the mining industry, which wants to preserve the option of processing once-discarded mining ores with cyanide as well as the heap leach method of extracting metals from those left-over ores. The industry argues that better laws and better technology will prevent a recurrence of a cyanide mine allowed 15 to 20 years ago in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. That mine, called Summitville, has left a mess that may take decades to clean up and at huge public expense.

While such disasters are unlikely, says the Summit Daily News in an editorial, "but why take a chance in Summit County, a highly developed tourist destination and residential community that is still dealing with water quality issues left over from mining that took place in the 1880s and through the middle of the last century? We say ban this mining technique."

Added the newspaper: "If conditions change, so can the law. But for the moment, the white gold lying on top of them is what we mine for a living."

Congressman shoots at Endangered Species Act

WASHINGTON D.C. — Next in the sights of U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, is dismantling the Endangered Species Act. But instead of rewriting the law wholesale, he plans to pursue incremental changes.

He indicated his strategy at a recent meeting with the Commodity Club, an informal network of agricultural lobbyists in Washington, reports the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times.

"The Endangered Species Act, whether you like it nor not, is the ultimate law of the land," Pombo said. "What we need to do is take it piece by piece."

Pombo, a fourth-generation rancher, has been gunning at the Endangered Species Act since he arrived in Congress in 1992. He views the law and many other environmental regulations as tyrannical. In the mid-1990s, when Republicans held a majority in the House, Pombo helped rewrite a proposed revision, but then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich decided that the proposal would be too controversial.

But today, says the Times, Pombo could probably get sweeping changes to the act through the House, although the more cautious Senate is thought to be far less willing to adopt bold revisions.

A year ago he became chairman of the committee, and he has helped move two of President Bush’s top legislative priorities, the comprehensive energy bill and a version of the Healthy Forests Initiative, through his committee. Both versions were more industry-friendly than the versions passed by the Senate.

Mechanic boasts of better exhausts for snowmobiles

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — Every mountain snowmobiler will want "The Thing" that Al Williams has created, says the Revelstoke Times Review. Those who find snowmobiles annoyingly noisy and obnoxiously smelly will probably want them to have it, too.

"The Thing" is an improved exhaust system. Existing exhaust systems were big and heavy, and also awfully expensive for just a can of tin, Williams told the newspaper. The design that makes this product and its successor, "Stealth Can," superior isn’t clear from the newspaper’s account, but it seems to key upon the work that a snowmobile is required to do in steep terrain in mountains. That steep topography, in turn, requires different equipment than what is needed on the flats, where 90 per cent of Canadian snowmobiles are used and hence for what they are designed. The new exhaust system is "virtually mute," he said. As well, he seems to think he can rid the exhausts of some pollutants.

Banff mayor wants to kill public smoking

BANFF, Alberta — Banff Mayor Dennis Shuler says he wants a ban on tobacco smoking in local establishments, as the town would be a "lot better smoke-free."

The mayor’s comment came after an appearance by Heather Row, a woman from the Northwest Territory who is terminally ill with lung cancer. A waitress for 40 years, her illness is attributed to second-hand cigarette smoke. She spoke in support of laws that would ensure smoke-free workplaces in Canada, reported the Banff Crag & Canyon,