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Mountain News:

Enviros advised to link sacred with the profane

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — If the environment is sacred, as most environmentalists would say, then how do you get support for protecting it?

That is an ongoing discussion within the environmental movement. Most people connect the sacred with the spiritual, and for many people that means churches. But in Jackson Hole, only 24 per cent of people attend church regularly – compared to 50 per cent nationally.

Other similarly outdoors-oriented ski towns and resort valleys in the West have similar no-show numbers because, as Jackson Hole writer Jonathan Schecther points out, "Many of us manifest our spirituality in nontraditional ways, especially by being out in nature."

Schechter argues that environmentalists must hold their noses and face the reality that a high-quality environment correlates with making money. He points out that Teton County, where Jackson Hole is located, has among the highest per-capita income in the United States, but with its proximity to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, it lies at the epicenter of arguably the healthiest ecosystem in the Lower 48.

Environmentalists have no choice but to link the sacred and the profane, he argues, because the profane – making money – has become the pre-eminent secular god.

"In this age, free-market economics is the world’s dominant paradigm, its pre-eminent secular god. Like it or not, capitalism is accepted, if not embraced, by more people than any religion. And while it’s taken capitalism a couple hundred years to reach this point of pre-eminence, it’s now the closest thing the world has to a universal philosophy."

What remains, he concedes, is creating economic tools that make the ironclad argument that conservation in particular, and environmentalism in general, are good for the economy.

Environmental writer Todd Wilkinson, also writing in the News & Guide, observes that when Grand Teton National Park was expanded 60 years ago, some local ranchers – including several who went on to become national political leaders – predicted economic malaise. They feared Jackson Hole’s economy would suffer from the reduction in ranching, never anticipating the much greater gain in the tourism and now the recreation and leisure economies.

Plastic may slow glacier melt

EISGRAT, Austria — Older people in Neustift im Stubaital, the village below Austria’s Eisgrat Glacier, remember that their grandparents sent a priest up into the mountains to appeal to God to stop the encroaching glacier.

Now, they pray for an end to the heat that threats the jobs of about 1.2 million Tiroleans in the Alps dependent in some way on glacier skiing.

Glaciers in Austria have been melting so rapidly, reports the Associated Press, that researchers have placed football field-sized swathes of white polyethylene on top of the snow, in an attempt to deflect the summer sun and hence slow the melting.

AP says these outsized doormats aren’t new at Austrian ski resorts or, for that matter, elsewhere in the world. Ski lift towers in glaciers are particularly sensitive, as thawing ice shifts, causing workers to reanchor the supports regularly.

But then came the summer of 2003, when record temperatures and lack of snow accelerated the melting, even exposing tree trunks of long-gone forests in the middle of ski slopes. In response, one ski area operator, Wintersport Tirol AG & Co., contacted scientists. Last year, they began covering large areas – about 5 per cent of the company’s four ski areas.

Similar work is being done in Switzerland, where glaciers have lost almost a fifth of their total area between 1985 and 2000, melting at a rate seven times faster than during the period of 1850 to 1973.

Andrea Fischer, a researcher at Innsbruck University, said it’s not possible to save whole glaciers, only slow the shrinkage. She says the greenhouse gases that are partly causing the climate change must be reduced, but also notes that climates are constantly changing.

"The problem with most people is that they don’t want anything to change – not their jobs, not their relationships and definitely not the weather," she said.

Mammoth No. 2 in skier visits

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — In the 1970s, before Vail overtook it, Mammoth was the busiest ski resort in North America. Last winter, it got back in the game, posting 1.5 million skier days. That still leaves it behind Vail, but ahead of Breckenridge and everybody else.

The Mammoth Times credits a record snowfall of 607 inches, a variety of lodging packages, and a 256-day operating season that began early in last October and continued until July 4 th . However, Mammoth’s skier numbers have been steadily increasing since the late 1990s. The new total this year breaks a 19-year-old record.

Barney McLean dies at 88

DENVER, Colo. — Ski legend Robert "Barney" McLean has died at the age of 88. He was born in Lander, Wyoming in 1917, and began skiing at the age of 4. He grew up in Hot Sulphur Springs, which is between Winter Park and Steamboat Springs, and got his start as a ski jumper there.

Switching to alpine racing, he excelled in all disciplines, going on to win many prestigious titles, including the Alta Cup at Alta, the Harriman Cup at Sun Valley, and the Roch Cup in Aspen. In 1948 he was captain of the U.S. Olympic ski team. After his career as a ski racer, he was a shop foreman for the well-known Groswold ski Co. in Denver and then later spent several decades as a ski industry representative, traveling around the country but living in Denver.

Aspen’s Klaus Obermeyer, founder of the Obermeyer skiwear company, called McLean "very honest and fair." A former Aspen resident, John Litchfield, said that McLean was associated with the sport of skiing basically from the time it began in the United States in the 1930s.

$50 million upgrade for CB

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Tim and Diane Mueller, owners of the Crested Butte ski area, announced that they want to plow $50 million in upgrades into their ski area during the next five years.

Although expected, that investment stands in sharp contrast to the lack of money invested by the previous owners, the Calloway and Walton families, during previous years. It will buy several new lifts and 66 acres of new terrain, most of it moderate. Not least, an existing lift is to be converted into a "chondola," which means that it runs quad chairs during the day and gondola cars at night. Evening visitors would ride the gondola to a new lodge being planned for the top of the Red Lady lift. It will seat 30 people indoors and 200 outdoors.

In addition, Crested Butte hopes to create a new ski area across the road from the existing ski area, on what is called Snodgrass Mountain.

Slides pose risks

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Twice during the last two years avalanches have ripped down power lines serving Telluride, both the ski area and the town.

Power line authorities want to create a new line into the area from the west, but owners of scenic mesa-top ranches want the power company to put the lines underground, a more costly venture. The various parties continue to squabble about who will pay.

The Telluride Watch reports talk of encouraging homeowners to take efforts to provide their own energy, but the self-sufficiency is not seen as the answer for either businesses or the ski area. Lifts require vast amounts of electricity to power.

Bring on the condos

WINTER PARK, Colo. — Intrawest has announced it intends to get started next May in building real estate at the base of the Winter Park ski area.

The first phase includes two buildings that will yield 206 condominiums ranging in size from studios to two-bedroom locks-offs. Ultimately, Intrawest plans to build 1,500 residential units as well as 42,000 square feet of commercial space at the base area.

Tab for coffee is a jolt

PARK CITY, Utah — Everybody knows that restaurants in ski towns are expensive, and the bill at conference rooms is even higher. Still, eyebrows are being raised in Park City after the Restaurant Tax Advisory Committee ran up a bill of $128 for four pots of Starbucks coffee. The bagels-and-cream cheese tab came in at another $192, while $8 salads and $12 entrees were the norm.

The Park Record also reports that the committee also tipped a server at a hotel in The Canyons, where the group met, 45 per cent of the tab. The person who assigned the tip also happens to work at the hotel.

Living on handouts

ASPEN, Colo. — Three years ago a group in Telluride created a film called French Fries to Go, which told about using restaurant grease as fuel for diesel engines. It’s part of the biodiesel movement that has been getting a lot of play at Earth Day and bioneers conferences.

A couple, Holland and Lunda Duell, paid attention and outfitted their Ford pickup (conversion kits cost $1,000 to $4,000) and then drove across the country to visit Holland’s mother, who lives in Aspen. While in Aspen, reports The Aspen Times, the couple have been getting handouts from restaurants – handouts of the cooking oil that otherwise becomes a disposal problem for restaurants. Next stop on their biodiesel tour of the country is Washington state, to visit another set of parents, before they head to Mexico – where they hope to rely on oil handouts from tortilla factories.

Aspen’s constricted artery

ASPEN, Colo. — It’s now mostly four-lane highway from Glenwood Springs to Aspen, but every morning and evening traffic congeals to a crawl at the town’s bottlenecked entrance. The situation is such that it can take the better part of an hour for people to cover the five miles within Aspen during what cannot properly be described as "rush hour."

What to do? The Aspen City Council has been struggling with that for years. Voters rejected a solution that would have built more traffic capacity at the town’s entrance by invading open space.

New thoughts include restriping the pavement to create a buses only lane, thereby encouraging more use of mass transit. Others continue to hold out for light rail, something that has been talked about for a decade. And still another idea is to limit the number of commuters by rationing the approvals given to major new real estate projects.

"When do we say ‘no more cars in town?" asked Mayor Helen Klanderud. "At what point do we say, ‘Wait, you can’t have three major projects, four major projects, going simultaneously?’" she said.

While traffic levels in some months remain the same as those of 1993, the overall situation is nonetheless perceived as intolerable. "You’d better stop the bleeding now, or you’ll have a dead patient," said Klanderud. Another council member, J.E. DeVilbiss, thought the situation was beyond repair, likening the short-term solutions to that of smearing deodorant on a corpse.

Practising citizenship

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — A former Crested Butte resident, now two years removed to San Diego, wrote the Crested Butte News recently to comment on his most recent visit. Stewart Norquist was obviously touched by his last visit and the welcoming arms of former neighbours. How different from his life in the city, he said.

"Eye contact and smiles between strangers are like gold in a city of 1.5 million people who are all in a hurry, and after a while you stop trying to get yours returned. I had to remind myself to keep my head up and put my horns away as I walked down Elk (Avenue, Crested Butte’s main drag).… Whoever said ‘you can never go home again’ never lived in Crested Butte."

Tahoe gas prices tops

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — With gas prices of $2.76 as of July 19, South Lake Tahoe has the highest gas prices in the continental United States, reports the American Automobile Association.

Prices continue to climb

DURANGO, Colo. — Like virtually every place else with a heartbeat, home prices are lofting upward in Durango. The Durango Herald reports the median price of homes inside the city increased almost 19 per cent in the last year, although condominiums and townhomes increased even more rapidly, 42 per cent. Rural homes increased more slowly, 11 per cent.