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Mountain News: Vail celebrates 50 years

VAIL, Colo. It's birthday time for ski areas in Colorado. Vail this year turns 50, as does Steamboat. Telluride can count 40 candles. That first winter at Vail, like this one, started slow. Enough snow fell to accommodate practice by ski racers.
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BIRTHDAY BASH Vail celebrates 50 years as a resort destination. File photo

VAIL, Colo.

It's birthday time for ski areas in Colorado. Vail this year turns 50, as does Steamboat. Telluride can count 40 candles.

That first winter at Vail, like this one, started slow. Enough snow fell to accommodate practice by ski racers. But this was before snowmaking, and the slopes were so marginal going into December that marketing boss Bob Parker had the bright idea of getting Utes, from the Southern Ute Reservation in the Four Corners area, to perform a ritual dance. For whatever reason, snow followed the next day.

Warm and snowless autumns have not been rare in Colorado, but this one somehow seems more disturbing. By most accounts, it's even worse than a year ago. Records at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, near Crested Butte, show the driest fall from September to November in 39 years, reports the Crested Butte News.

It may yet be an epic winter. The Crested Butte News points out that it didn't snow until Dec. 7 during the last winter that Crested Butte had snowfall to the tail of a tall giraffe. That was five years ago.

Over the weekend, a storm rolled through Colorado, allowing ski areas to broadcast photos of skiers riding through what looked to be deep powder, to nudge people unsure about whether to commit to winter vacations off the sidelines. But in Vail, where grass still showed up through the snow, one resident was dubious: "This is not savior snow."

Vail will officially celebrate its first 50 years on Saturday, a time of vast changes in ski equipment, grooming skills, and uphill technology — plus expansive snowmaking systems. But far more dramatic changes seem certain during the next 50 years, because skiing still very fundamentally requires large and regular delivery of natural snow. That snow is increasingly doubtful.

Oh sure, the higher, colder ski areas like Vail can expect to get snow long into the future. But the climate models concur that winters will become shorter and warmer, rain more often replacing snow. Ski towns may gain business during the longer summer, as people flee hot lowland cities, but on balance they're likely to be losers, too, in this disruptive climate shift.

Aspen keeps climate change options open

ASPEN, Colo. — Aspen city officials are moving forward with purchase of water rights that they say will best serve the interests of the community as the global climate shifts to warmer temperatures.

The city council approved spending $511,000 to purchase 400 acre-feet of water annually from Ruedi Dam, a U.S. government facility about 48 kilometres from Aspen.

Colorado's water law is complicated, based on the idea that the oldest rights have first dibs, no matter where they are in a river drainage and no matter how much water the river is carrying that particular year. This stored water would allow Aspen to release water downstream, to meet the senior calls from farms and orchards near Grand Junction, while holding back spring runoff in its more local streams, called Castle and Maroon.

Why would any of this be necessary? Already, there is some evidence of long-term warming in Aspen. On average, peak runoff has moved to earlier in the year.

Whether Aspen will get more precipitation during winters in the future, or less, is an open question. Climate models are inconclusive. Dozens of computer climate models agree the future holds shorter winters and, overall, a greater propensity for rain in place of snow.

This would suggest the eventual need for more "buckets" of water collected during winter and spring, to be tapped later in the year. Since 1970, Aspen has had conditional water-storage rights on the two creeks that flow through the town. It has no active plans to construct the relatively small dams.

The Aspen Journalism Project reports that at a November meeting, a city official stressed that the dams would be a last-resort option. Nonetheless, by purchasing water from the federal reservoir, Aspen is keeping its local options open.

Banff puts out summer plans

BANFF, Alberta — The new owners of Norquay, a ski area near Banff, are willing to give up 42 per cent of terrain authorized for winter use to begin offering summer amusements such as via ferrata, which involves installation of a steel cable, ladder and holds fixed to rock for users to climb.

The business model for the ski area seems to be marginal. It's a locals' hill, with the Calgary and destination visitors favoring Sunshine and Lake Louise, farther to the west. Owners have indicated that their investment can be protected only by expanding operations to summer.

First broached last year, the idea of summer use was immediately controversial. At the heart of the dispute, explains the Rocky Mountain Outlook, is whether recreation is infringing upon areas used by wildlife, especially grizzly bears, during summer.

"I'm concerned summer use is going to further decrease the attractiveness of that corridor for wildlife movement," said Sarah Elmeligi, senior conservation planner with the southern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

"Grizzly bears in the Bow Valley are running out of more and more places where they can be a bear without being surrounded by thousands of people a month or hundreds of people a day."

Proponents said that grizzly bears and recreational activities can eco-exist, with attention to details, as has been done at Lake Louise. For example, visitors can be directed to shuttle buses, to reduce the number of cars from Banff.

"We know that we're in a wildlife corridor, and we want to mitigate as much as possible any human-wildlife interaction," said Peter Sudermann, a co-owner of Norquay. "We're very conscious of the wildlife movement."

But Elmeligi said that mitigation is not the real story. "All of the mitigation tactics that have been put in place at Lake Louise and all the ones they're going to put in place at Norquay are really just making the best of a bad situation," she told the Outlook. "It's reducing the potential impact, but it's not negating that impact, and it certainly isn't an environmental gain.

"These grizzly bears are getting so many mixed messages about how they should behave around people, it's next to impossible for a grizzly to know when to be wary, when to be comfortable, all these kinds of things," she added. "Summer use of Norquay further compounds that confusion."

The Outlook also talked with Monica Andree, executive director of the Association for Mountain Parks Protection & Enjoyment. She sees recreational use as more benign.

"When people criticize summer use at Norquay, they have a very narrow view of the national parks," she added. "There's no place for elitist point of views in national parks. Canada's national parks were recreated for Canadians, not to protect them from Canadians."

Avalanches a ghostly presence in Wyoming

JACKSON, Wyo. — The annual Skinny Skis' Avalanche Awareness Night in Jackson was expected to be a little more somber this year, reports the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Steve Romeo, described as a backcountry ski guru and one of the event's usual organizers, was killed in an avalanche last winter, one of three fatalities in the region.

Romeo was known for both the enthusiasm with which he attacked backcountry skiing, as well as for his pursuit of knowledge.

His death, said the newspaper, underscores the dangers of avalanches. Even the most proficient backcountry users are at risk when faced with the uncompromising power of an avalanche.

Drawing on data from the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center, the News&Guide notes a dramatic increase in avalanche deaths over the decades. The first recorded avalanche deaths in Wyoming were two mail carriers killed on Teton Pass about a century ago. Soon after, a freighter died in the same area, then a soldier in Yellowstone National Park.

But deaths by avalanche in the Jackson Hole area were relatively rare until the 1970s, when there were eight avalanche deaths in one decade. So far this decade 11 avalanche deaths have occured since 2010. All have involved skis, snowboards or snowmobiles.