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A new twist on an old t-shirt theme

PARK CITY, Utah - "I went to Utah and all I got was this other wife," says one of the T-shirts at a new store in Park City.

PARK CITY, Utah - "I went to Utah and all I got was this other wife," says one of the T-shirts at a new store in Park City.

The store's T-shirt is one of many that pokes fun at the polygamy once practiced by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormons. Mormons condoned polygamy until about 1889 - not long after the United States made it clear that Utah would not be given statehood as long as polygamy was tolerated.

A church president in 1890 reported getting a directive from Jesus Christ to ban polygamy - and voila, by 1896 Utah was in the fold. Now, polygamy is practiced only by church splinter groups.

Although Park City from its mining roots to the present has relatively few Mormons, the proprietor of this new shop, Amber Smith, is an LDS church member. "We don't want to be hateful to polygamist people, or to be rude, but to lighten the mood," she told The Park Record .

 

Vail/Beaver Creek set benchmark

VAIL, Colo. - Although relatively few people will pay it, the single-day lift ticket price at Vail and Beaver Creek this winter will peak at $108 during Christmas week, then drop to $102 in early January. The peak at Breckenridge during Christmas will be $104, and at Keystone $99. Aspen drew the line at $99, reports the Aspen Times , as did Telluride.

 

La Niña a blessed thing

JACKSON, Wyo. - You think people don't like to backcountry ski in Jackson Hole? More than 600 people attended the Skinny Skis Avalanche Awareness Night in Jackson recently. And according to the Jackson Hole News & Guide , there were cheers every time that the phrase "La Niña" was mentioned.

If not a record, La Niña weather pattern has dumped great volumes of snow on Jackson. The comparison with last winter's sparse offerings are particularly striking.

These early and regular snows have created relatively stable snowpack, meaning that avalanches won't occur as easily. Still, they remain possible, particularly during storm cycles. One sensitive point for state highway officials is the potential for avalanches onto the highway caused by skiers on nearby Mount Glory.

"We need to stay out of there on high-hazard days," said Jamie Young, an avalanche technician for the Wyoming Department of Transportation. "We need to show some consideration for the people below you."

 

Epic storm delivering rain

VAIL, Colo. - The storm that drenched Los Angeles, and made Las Vegas drizzly and cold, was expected to create snowfall of epic proportions in Colorado. And on mountain slopes it seemed to be doing just that.

But below 9,000 feet, rain seemed to be the norm, at least in the Vail area. The town, elevation 8,150 feet, has had its fair share of droughts and snow-less Christmases, but the winter rains of recent years have become far more common than was the case for the first several decades of the resort's existence.

 

Plea bargain stirs outrage

AVON, Colo. - Vail has been taking it on the chins in bicycling blogs and e-mails. There are calls for a boycott, even demands that the stage of the Quizno's bicycle race, scheduled for next August, be moved elsewhere.

But was Vail just an innocent bystander?

The case revolves around an accident that occurred last July west of Vail, in an unincorporated area called Edwards. A recently certified anesthesiologist from New York City was riding a bicycle along a highway when he was hit from behind by a Mercedes. The driver of the Mercedes careened into the borrow pitch adjacent to the road, then drove off.

The driver of that car was a 52-year-old money manager from metropolitan Denver who owns a vacation home in the area. He had neither been drinking nor using drugs and, for that matter, he wasn't driving very fast, maybe 30 mph.

So what happened? The Vail Daily, which covered the trial extensively, explains that a key element was a diagnosis after the accident. A doctor testified that the driver suffered from a severe case of sleep apnea. Victims of the disorder stop breathing, anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, often repeatedly through the night. It makes them drowsy throughout the day.

If he fell asleep - the driver said shortly after the accident that he had blacked out - it's possible that he didn't know he had hit somebody, waking up when he hit the ditch. He was arrested shortly after he stopped at a store to see what was wrong with his car.

District Attorney Mark Hurlbert - he was the prosecuting attorney in the Kobe Bryant case - decided to offer a plea bargain to the driver, sparing him a felonious criminal record and increasing the likelihood that the man could continue to make money and provide retribution to the victim.

The case was controversial locally and nationally. The Vail Daily , in an editorial, found anything but Solomon-like justice. Put the sleep-apnea defense before a jury, said the newspaper, "This plea bargain frankly stinks."

The 34-year-old victim hissed contempt at the doctor who testified about the sleep apnea. The victim suffered spinal cord injuries, bleeding from his brain and damage to his knee and scapula, according to court documents.

"He will have lifetime pain," his attorney, Hal Haddon, an attorney on behalf of the parents of JonBenét Ramsey, said. "His ability to deal with the physical challenges of his profession - liver transplant surgery - has been seriously jeopardized."

So what does Vail have to do with any of this? Not much, as the district attorney is actually from Breckenridge and the nearest town was Avon. Both are stages on the bicycle race.

 

Money for marketing

KETCHUM, Idaho - Ketchum city officials have agreed to give the new Sun Valley Marketing Alliance $400,000 for the first year of operations, while the Sun Valley City Council was asked to provide the same amount. The organization has already retained a San Francisco-based marketing firm, Eleven Inc., to assemble a plan for marketing the Sun Valley resort area. The alliance must demonstrate quarterly that it's accomplishing measurable marketing goals, notes the Idaho Mountain Express.

 

Tea Partier will bless request

ASPEN, Colo. - Ultra-liberal Aspen now has a congressman who identifies with the Tea Party. A logical question is whether that congressman will support the application by Roaring Fork Transit Authority for $25 million in federal assistance to help with a new bus system connecting Aspen with outlying communities.

Should be no problem, said U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton after hearing a 30-minute presentation. The funding proposal is well along. But in the future, he said, the federal spigot will be tightening. "We've got real economic challenges," he said.

In addition to this and other one-time grants, the federal government gives the bus agency $800,000 annually for operations, or about 3 per cent of the agency's total operating budget, notes The Aspen Times .

 

Ringo on the move

ASPEN, Colo. - Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach, have placed their 3,200-square-foot cabin located outside of Aspen on the market. Real estate agents say that the couple liked the house, but after 20 years decided they didn't use it often enough to continue ownership. The property includes 16 acres along the Roaring Fork River, and the asking price is $4.5 million.

 

Time runs short for rabbits

CANMORE, Alberta - What does Canmore, located at the gateway to Banff National Park, have against a few thousand bunny rabbits hip-hopping around?

Not all that much, except that rabbit do-do has caused some parents to warn their children against playing in yards and parks, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook . Perhaps more significantly, town officials worry that the rabbits will attract too many cougars and other predators.

The feral rabbits are the descendents of pets let loose. The town was split on whether to whack the wacky wabbits in 2007, but the city has now allocated $50,000 to deal with them.

 

CB champions up early, uphill

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. - Ski area operators at Crested Butte are championing the uphilling at the ski area and adjacent area called Snodgrass Mountain. Ski executives for a number of years have been known to strap skins onto their skis to go uphill every morning before the lifts start.

That practice now continues with Ken Stone, the chief operating officer, and Tim Mueller, the ski area president. Most mornings, there are 30 people and 20 dogs going up the mountain at 6:30 a.m., notes the Crested Butte News. However, the ski area prohibits uphilling between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

 

Idling now illegal, sort of

PARK CITY, Utah - After a few years of gentle nudging, Park City has adopted a law that limits idling to three minutes.

Backers included the school district plus two of the local ski areas, Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort. A business group in the town's premier shopping district along Main Street also endorsed the proposal, reports The Park Record.

That said, the new law leaves enough exemptions to drive a truck through: emergency vehicles, vehicles defrosting windows, anytime it's below 32 degrees or above 90, vehicles stuck in traffic, and on and on.

 

Truckee to tap wind

TRUCKEE, Calif. - Four years ago, the Truckee Donner Public Utility District was caught in a quandary. It had planned to buy into a new coal-fired power plant in Utah, but a public concerned about producing more greenhouse gas emissions objected.

But if not coal, what? The utility has pushed conservation, and now it is investing in wind-generated production near Idaho Falls, Idaho. The utility, one among several investing in the project, hopes to get 15 of the 58 megawatts of production when the farm begins operations in 2012.

The Sierra Sun says the project developer is the Utah Associated Municipal Power systems, a non-profit agency that providers power in the intermountain West.

 

Composting effort begins

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. - In a very limited way, a composting program has started in the Aspen-Snowmass Village area. Two restaurants have begun segregating food scraps and other compostable materials, which will be ground up at the local landfill.

Ashley Cantrell, environmental health specialist for Aspen, explained that she had scrounged through the contents of trash trucks to figure out how much could be composted. In one truck, she found 73 per cent.

The program is starting with restaurants because they provide the biggest bang for the buck, she told The Aspen Times. "About 30 per cent of what we're throwing away is compostable. At a restaurant, it's up to 70 per cent."

Compostable materials include not only food, but also plain paper products such as paper plates and napkins, and cardboard items such as milk and egg cartons.

The landfill already composts yard wastes and wood chips with biosolids from the sewage treatment plant, creating a nutrient-rich loam that is used as a soil additive. It will sell for $34 per cubic yard starting next year.

 

Open space to rule

HAILEY, Idaho - Two ranches with an aggregated total of 4,600 acres located near Hailey, about 10 miles from Ketchum and Sun Valley, have been sold.

One of those parcels had been identified as a potential site for what would have been essentially a new town for workers in Sun Valley, Ketchum and Hailey. The Urban Land institute had identified the site as a viable location in 2006.

But the new owner Harry Hagey, told the Idaho Mountain Express that he and his wife, Shirley Hagey, are not subdividing he property. He further said they had not decided on a conservation plan, but that is their intent. Conservation easements also are in place on 1,500 acres of the properties.

 

A few too many

ASPEN, Colo. - The alcohol that George Aldrich II drank wasn't enough to kill him outright. But it probably caused him to make a terrible, terrible mistake.

After being reported missing for two weeks, the body of the 28-year-old lift operator was found 100 feet below a bridge. Investigators believe that he mistakenly got off a public bus at the wrong stop, then realizing his mistake, began walking along the road. They believe he died instantly as a result of his injuries.

A toxicology report found his blood-alcohol level was 2.94, which is more than three times the level considered too intoxicated to drive in Colorado, notes The Aspen Times.

Alcohol in the last 20 years has been the cause of similar deaths in both the Vail and Winter Park areas. In the Vail case, a man started walking home from a bar named Paddy's late one night and ended up frozen to death along the river. In Winter Park, a man died near his condo after a night of drinking.