Compiled by Allen Best
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Two years ago residents of Crested Butte and Gunnison County voted to enact a sales tax, which raises about $1 million per year for transportation. Of that, about $850,000 last year was allocated to guarantee revenues for airlines that provide direct flights from Houston, Newark, and other major cities.
The program seems to be yielding new customers. There were 3,500 more passengers into Gunnison—Crested Butte Regional Airport last year, even if somewhat comparable gains were reported at other destination ski resorts.
But promoters say it’s time to raise the ante if Crested Butte wants to keep up with other destination resorts. Kent Myers, a consultant who during the past 20 years assembled direct flight programs at the Vail-Beaver Creek ski areas as well as Steamboat, is calling for direct investment by partners such as the real estate industry, the ski area operator, and others. If they have money directly invested, he says, they will be more inclined to promote the flights themselves.
And what if they don’t promote the flights? Planes will not fill up consistently so that airlines will be willing to do it on their own.
That said, it should be noted that from Sun Valley to Jackson Hole to Vail, many direct flights to ski resorts are subsidized. Even after 15 years of direct flights, for example, Vail Resorts Inc. still has been spending about $1 million annually for revenue guarantees. Steamboat, with an even longer track record, puts up $2 million a year in guarantees.
In calling for private investment, the Crested Butte leaders point to financing packages at both Steamboat and Telluride that include a mix of public tax levies and private contributions. Telluride’s tax, for example, generates $1 million, and is met with $500,000 from the ski area operator and $800,000 from other businesses, primarily members of the real estate community. That works out to $2.3 million.
Steamboat has a new $1.2 million lodging tax that will be met by about $1.25 million in contributions from the ski area operator, for nearly $2.5 million. Vail Resorts has so far shouldered all the burden of direct flights to Eagle County, but has begun approaching the Vail-area hotel community and even Aspen with the suggestion that the funding base be broadened.
Ski area would cater to city kids
EVERGREEN, Colo. — California’s Mountain High has been the talk of the ski industry for the last few years. Despite having only 220 acres, the ski area that is located within a 45-minute drive of downtown Los Angeles last winter posted more than 600,000 skier visits. Most were snowboarders of various ethnic groups.
Now, the owner of a ski area within 35 miles of the state capitol in Denver hopes to use something of the same formula to reinvent the Squaw Pass ski area. The ski area, although located at an elevation of 10,500 feet, has been closed for 30 years. Two years ago, Gerald Petitt purchased it for about $700,000 and this past summer spent money to provide the essential snowmaking.
But even without snowmaking, there was enough snow – about a foot and a half – at the site to enable skiing. "Snow is the least of my worries," said Doug Donovan, the ski area planner. The more general infrastructure requirements and expenses were the greater concern. The ski area plan was to go before the Clear Creek County commissioners on Wednesday, Nov. 17.
In general, demographers who have studied the ski industry say the one clear potential for growth is by catering to the growing ethnic groups, particularly Latinos, found in urban areas.
Extreme thinking at Aspen
ASPEN, Colo. — While most ski resorts continue to offer all manner of sweat-by-the-bucket "extreme" athletic events, Aspen plugs away at its reputation as a summer-time gathering place of mind, body, and spirit.
The latest in that regard is the Aspen Ideals Festival, which is to be held next July. Co-sponsored by Atlantic Monthly magazine and hosted by the Aspen Institute, the event is to have six days of lectures, panel discussions, and classes in what might be called an "extreme thinking" event.
Among the 40 confirmed speakers are primatologist Jane Goodall; author Toni Morrison; Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, New York Times columnist David Brooks; and TV newsman Charlie Rose. Topics for the festival presentations will range from American values to environmental issues, and ethical dilemmas in science and medicine.
Boomers go west
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Developers and real estate agents at resorts across the West have begun to think about the impending boom of retiring baby boomers. Just as younger people have been flocking to ski towns and resort valleys for a generation or two, boomers are being drawn to the beautiful places of the West. Among the hot-spots for this new freshman class of senior citizens will be Colorado and Wyoming, says the AARP.
Real estate agents in Jackson Hole note that their area already has much to offer retiring boomers. Existing educational opportunities range from classes in Italian to Native American studies. Also, the resort valleys offer much to do physically beyond the toned-down athletics normally associated with retirement villages.
Ketchum considers new suburb
KETCHUM, Idaho — The Idaho Mountain Express is warning of sleepy-headed planning decisions in the Wood River Valley. There the county government has approved a new zoning overlay that could result in a new clustered population of 3,500 to 4,000 people in an unincorporated enclave, nearly matching the existing population of both Ketchum and Sun Valley.
This turns on its heels the decades-long consensus among local governments that high-density developments belong in the cities, not in the more rural unincorporated county. But with Ketchum and Sun Valley both embracing blueprints that call for low building densities, the high-density development was almost guaranteed to be pushed outside their boundaries, says the newspaper in an editorial. Now those towns will have to answer such questions as where will 1,800 to 3,000 cars from this new suburb park?
Children escape pit unharmed
CANMORE, Alberta — A miracle was proclaimed when injuries to a trio of youngsters in Canmore were limited to several boo-boos. The evidence would seem to vindicate that judgment.
The context was a giant windstorm that had toppled an estimated 1,500 trees in the Bow River Valley. After the winds had relented, Frank Barbaro went to work with a chainsaw to break down the trunk of a massive tree that had fallen across his lawn. Three small children played in the well of the tree’s former roots. When he had the tree reduced to about 14 feet, the weight of the roots pulled the remaining tree upright – trapping the children.
Hearing a cry from the pit, Barbara and his wife Michelle, immediately figured out what had happened. Seemingly just as quick, neighbours began arriving, explains the Rocky Mountain Outlook.
The rescuers tried to lean against the tree to lay the tree back down, a strategy that allowed them to remove one of the children. But the other two remained buried, even if one could see light. Finally, the tree tipped back of its own accord, allowing the final two children to be snatched from the tomb. Responsibility was assigned to divine intervention. No broken bones or even bruises were found on the children.
Bear-proofing may be tighter
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — City officials in Steamboat Springs are considering stiffening regulations intended to discourage human-bear encounters. As in most other mountain towns in Colorado, bear incursions into residential and business districts escalated last summer because of meagre natural food for the bears.
The existing law, which was adopted in 2001, requires wildlife-resistant trash containers for any garbage left outside other than during the hours of 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, the law was not enforced until this past summer.
Now, the city is considering a law that would mandate that all trash be kept in wildlife-resistant containers. A Colorado Division of Wildlife-approved 95-gallon trash can costs nearly $200 at a local hardware store, The Steamboat Pilot notes.
Regulations governing trash were also stiffened at Aspen and Beaver Creek this summer after bears began lingering in residential areas in numbers that would have been staggering only a few years ago. In some cases, residents reported feeling unsafe leaving their homes, and in some cases bears made a habit of breaking into and entering houses.
Integrating Latinos studied
HAYDEN, Colo. — Although more slowly than Aspen, Vail, or Jackson Hole, the immigrant population in Steamboat Springs area has now reached an eyebrow-raising level. The mass is sufficient that local officials in the Yampa Valley are now meeting regularly to discuss how to integrate the new residents into the local communities.
The greatest needs are those of Latinos, principally from Mexico. Officials and the immigrants agree that a high priority is explaining laws in the United States, and that better ways to distribute information to Spanish speakers is needed. As well, there is a need for more translators to help at doctors’ appointments and court proceedings, reports The Steamboat Pilot.
CB returns to land of the living
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Crested Butte’s ski area is opening in mid-November this year, about a month ahead of the last several years, a signal that after several years of faltering the resort is returning to the ranks of the living.
The difference? The ski area has new owners, Tim and Diane Mueller, who have invested a great deal of money in snowmaking. As well, says John Norton, the former president of the ski company (and still a consultant), the Muellers just want to test drive their new ski area.
Crested Butte rose in the ski magazine rankings from last year, getting to No 11 in the Skiing reader poll and No. 19 in Ski. Why the difference? Writing in the Crested Butte News, Norton explains that Ski has a somewhat older, family oriented readership – exactly the sort that Crested Butte is aiming to get with its expanded grooming program, its real estate expansion, and its hoped-for expansion onto an intermediate-mostly mountain called Snodgrass. For now, the steeps have earned the resort a reputation among the younger and more radical-minded downhill sliders.
Sawmill lays off 80
REVELSTOKE, B.C. — A cedar sawmill in the Revelstoke area has laid off 80 employees in what the Revelstoke Times Review says could be a harbinger of things to come. Dennis Powell, general manger of Paragon Wood Products, cited the rising Canadian dollar as the major reason for the closure.
Newspapers in British Columbia have been reporting job layoffs in the extractive industries of logging and mining even as the provincial government pushes for development of tourism as well as real estate premised upon recreation and leisure.
Baker rises to occasion
ASPEN, Colo. — The manager of a bakery in Aspen is being called a hero after saving a motorist from drowning.
Rob Carney shrugged off the accolade. "Anybody else would have done the same thing," he told The Aspen Times. "I'm just glad that I was in the right spot at the right time."
The driver of the car had suffered a seizure. Seizing the wheel, his girlfriend turned the car off the highway but could not stop it. She bailed out of the car before it went into a shallow pond located on a golf course.
Finding Carney in the vicinity, she returned with him to the pond to find the driver inside the car, the windows rolled up, with water rising rapidly. Carney grabbed a rock, waded to the car, and broke a window. He then grabbed the driver by the collar and yanked him out.
The driver had never suffered a seizure before and was stunned, unable to remember anything. By then, only the submerged lights indicated the presence of the car.
Construction traffic ‘horrific’
TELLURIDE, Colo. — "Horrific" has been one of those trendy words lately, like "trumps" and "one of a kind."
Originally, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, horrific had a narrow, precise meaning: "causing horror; terrifying." But as used in public discourse, it has come to mean most anything. Or so it would seem from a report in The Telluride Watch.
There, a real estate development is provoking heavy construction traffic with up to 70 trucks grunting their way through the town. Residents of the East Telluride neighborhood showed up to complain about the intrusion that some called "horrific."
Depression strikes in fall
DURANGO, Colo. — Has the world been a sad, gloomy place for you lately? You’re not alone. Late October and early November are times of increased depression.
At Durango’s Fort Lewis College, an estimated 150 students were expected to be screened for depression in what psychologist Susan McGinness said is typically the busiest time of the year for the college's counselling centre. However, this spike in cases of depression is not related to seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, which is related to seasonal reductions in daylight.
Size matters
SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — In the old days, meaning before the 1960s, Summit County had something of two economies: ranching and farming toward the east side, and the mines of Park City at the west side.
Now, the Park City area is all resort-oriented or exurban development out of Salt Lake City. The east side continues to be more agriculture oriented and also markedly more conservative.
Now, after elections that showed the unchallenged dominance of the west-side, resort-oriented voters, there’s a call for expansion of the county commission. It now is at three members, but the proposal would expand it to five.
According to the Park Record, the idea has strongest support from the west side – as a way of giving better representation to the east side. But the commissioner who represents the east side, which would presumably benefit most, opposes the expansion, in part because it would add an annual cost of $100,000 to county expenses, but also because in general he opposes any government that is larger.
There is also some talk in Eagle County, which is where Vail is located (and some suburbs of Aspen exist), of expanding the county commission to five members. Among resort counties, Jackson Hole (Teton County) and Pitkin County (Aspen) are already at five.
