Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Winter Park businesses still want gondola link

Compiled by Allen Best WINTER PARK, Colo. – At Winter Park there has been talk of a gondola for at least 20 years.

Compiled by Allen Best

WINTER PARK, Colo. – At Winter Park there has been talk of a gondola for at least 20 years. The base of the ski area is about two miles away from the core of the town, and the town merchants believe – with a great deal of proof – that they’re missing out. They want a connecting gondola to, in effect, put them at the base of the slopes.

With deep-pockets Intrawest now running the ski area, there was some hope that the $20 million gondola would finally be built. But Intrawest remains non-committal, and in fact there is evidence to suggest that Intrawest has no plans to build a gondola, at least not in the next few years. And that, reports the Winter Park Manifest, has a large number of business owners and the town council concerned if not annoyed. Some are even willing to talk about helping build a gondola.

Does Intrawest have any motivation to do so? On the face of things, it would seem not. The company is readying plans to begin a major real estate project at the base. Why share with the down-valley businesses?

The Manifest pointed to a recent article in Ski Area Management, on that very subject of linking ski areas and ski towns. That article posed the question of whether the "villages" that Intrawest has been cranking out like cookies need connect to local populations if they are to work.

Bear-bells on front-doors?

ASPEN, Colo. — How bad is the bear situation in Aspen and surrounding Pitkin County? Bad enough, says state wildlife officer Kevin Wright, that "if you leave your windows or doors open, the chances of a bear entering are high."

The bruins are a savvy lot, he told The Aspen Times. One bear known as Fat Albert poked his head into a house recently while a family was eating lunch. That scared him away, but only to an adjacent house that was vacant.

Even leaving candy wrappers inside vehicles is discouraged. As well, the various governments in the area all have bear-friendly regulations that require homeowners to use bear-proof garbage containers and prohibit them from providing access to food sources, like dog food and grills.

Wright, who killed four bears last year, has two ideas, says The Times. First, people could attach bells to their screens, so they won’t be surprised when a bear ambles into the house. The Times didn’t say whether he was smiling when he said that.

Another trick is to partially fill a balloon with ammonia, blow into it and tie it. Hang the balloon in an area where the bear enters and place a yummy scent on the outside of the balloon. The curious bruin will bite or claw it and the nasty ammonia will scare it away. That trick doesn’t work every time, but the success rate has been high, Wright said.

Cut trees to cut fire danger

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — Parks Canada has issued a plan to remove trees from within and around Lake Louise in order to reduce the threat of a major wildfire.

"We’ve done an excellent job of suppressing wildfires, so all around us is a similar old-age forest, almost 100 years old, that is primed for a significant wildfire," said Ross MacDonald, a spokesman for Parks Canada.

The agency wants to reduce the vegetation within the hamlet and around the upper lake area by 30 to 50 per cent, reducing the laddering ability where a ground fire could build into a canopy fire.

Locals, reported the Rocky Mountain Outlook, seemed impressed with the plan, while realizing that for a few years the area will look logged.

Slumbering through debate

CANMORE, Alberta — A report to the Canmore Council identifies the need for up to 2,000 units of perpetually affordable housing during the next 20 years, as well as an additional 33 acres of free land and possibly zoning changes to accommodate secondary units in places where they are now forbidden.

In Canmore, the limited public comment so far falls into two schools of thought: 1) It’s strictly a business problem that the business community should solve; and 2) that it’s a community-wide burden that should be borne equally among all sectors. Said the Rocky Mountain Outlook, "Canmore residents are notorious for slumbering through the early phases of any debate."

Film festival adds bucks

PARK CITY, Utah — Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival is big business. A new government study reports that this year’s 10-day festival resulted in visitors spending $41.1 million in Utah, including $29.5 million in Summit County. That produces more money for Summit County than the two Outdoor Retailer markets that are held in Utah each year.

This year, new innovations caused more people to spend time on the slopes amid the movies. But most impressive is the ink. Park City’s name this past winter got mentioned in 1,900 articles written in U.S. daily and weekly publications, hitting 322 million readers and 102 million television viewers, reports The Park Record.

Who is a tourist?

DURANGO, Colo. — Tom Wolf said you can never go home again. Just the same, Will Sands did so recently. He puts out the Durango Telegraph, but grew up in nearby Telluride. Going home again, he reports, means strolling down a gauntlet of insults – the sort of insults he used to toss out when he was a youngster.

He even has a name for it: Super Hippydom. "As Telluride kids we specialized in heckling tourists from the chairlift and providing faulty directions downtown. When Telluride Bluegrass rolled through town, we preyed on innocents, selling powdered lemonade disguised a fresh-squeezed by a couple of sliced lemons. Any dust-covered car with Texas plates always suffered greatly. Parked on the streets of Telluride for only a matter of minutes, cryptic writing would appear almost magically on the dusty surface: ‘Stay Away,’ ‘Go home,’and ‘Leave your daughters.’"

As Super Hippies, he says, "we were all a little insecure about our place in Telluride. We also felt like our paradise had been invaded."

Now he’s one of the insulted tourists. "Let me guess. You all are tourists, right," slurred one woman who emerged from a bar last winter as Sands and companions happened by.

This summer, planning to attend the bluegrass festival, he got on the Internet to buy a ticket and in a chat-room was advised to "Stay Away!" by somebody identified as Super Hippy. "The event is now detrimental to the town’s fragile environment and true locals don’t appreciate your company THAT much," said the posting.

Sand went anyway, enjoyed himself fully, and returned to Durango with a modified attitude about tourists. In the tourists that visit Durango he sees the people who will pay his bills – and allow him to be a tourist at Telluride again next year.

Bigger jets, less space

BLAINE, Idaho — Servings of French fries got bigger, and so have houses. Why should private jets be any different.

At Friedman Memorial Airport, quarters are getting tighter, in part because of the bigger jets that people use to fly to conferences and other getaways. Sun Valley Aviation general manager Mike Rasch said an increasing number of larger corporate jets with wider wingspans reduce available space. Two of the popular new generation Gulfstream 5 jets with 20-foot wider wingspans take the space of three Gulfstream 4 jets.

If the airport runs out of space, pilots may have to deliver their passengers and then park at Twin Falls or Boise, even conceivably their home airports.

Or, the visits could take commercial service, but then these are the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and assorted other billionaires.

Hardrock Hundred a pain

SILVERTON, Colo. — The Hardrock Hundred Endurance Run sounds absolutely brutal. As the name suggests, it covers 100 miles but the more important statistic may be the vertical, 33,000 feet of up and then 33,000 vertical feet of down, much above timberline.

It’s so difficult that some of the biggest names in ultrarunning have either failed to finish or have never shown up for the race, which this year started and ended at Silverton, elevation 9,300 feet, but with loops through the nearby towns of Telluride and Ouray along with a jaunt up 14,136-foot Handies Peak.

Only half of runners make the 48-hour cutoff. The course record is 26 hours and 39 minutes, but the runner who set that record tried to run too fast this year and was forced to drop out.

"Such is life in the Hardrock Hundred where suffering and inspiration walk hand in hand through a country that is as amazing as it is rugged, and as beautiful as it is threatening," reports The Silverton Standard. The newspaper also noted that such self-inflicted punishment doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that younger people are attracted to. Instead, the majority of runners are in their 40s and 50s.

Several other sweat-and-adrenaline races are being held in Silverton this year. While another old mining town, Leadville, is broadly known for its runners, Silverton could well go the same route. "Whether one is an ultra-runner, a mountain runner or a fun runner, Silverton’s the place to be in the height of summer," proclaimed the Standard.

Hydrocarbons boom returns

PITKIN COUNTY, Colo.–"Gas field" isn’t the first phrase that would come to the mind of most people in conjunction with Aspen. But The Aspen Times reports that the first proposal to drill a natural gas well in Pitkin County in more than 40 years has been submitted to the U.S. Forest Service.

The site is located about 40 miles west of Aspen toward the end of a giant swath of hydrocarbon-rich public lands that sweep northwesterly across Colorado. If the exploration firm finds reserves that are economically feasible to produce, the Forest Service will perform another review of a broader plan to build a pipeline and other infrastructure needed for production.

The proposed well is in what is called the Wolf Creek Storage Field, which produced 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas from 1960 to 1972. More recently, the well field is used to store natural gas obtained elsewhere, then piped to customers in Aspen and other Roaring Fork Valley communities during winter months.

Interior plans for resorts

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — Mindful of the economic engine that has been created at Whistler, the provincial government in British Columbia continues to outline a strategy for creating the infrastructure for tourism development in the province’s Interior.

Aspects of this plan were outlined at a recent meeting attended by 175 delegates at Rossland, B.C. One plan is to develop new tourist-passenger train service. So far, $836 million is targeted for transportation.

Also getting a great deal of attention are plans to transform the smallish ski area at Revelstoke, called Mt. Mackenzie, into a major destination resort. To do so will take $270 million in capital investment, but the project is expected to produce 6,000 construction jobs as and 3,000 permanent jobs.

All of this planning comes in the face of a major demographic shift in the other direction. As mining and logging operations have declined in the Interior, people have been moving to urban areas along the coast.

Backhoes carve up ranches

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – No where in the Rockies has there been so much attention paid to preserving the pastoral landscape as in the area between Crested Butte and Gunnison.

Even so, vacation homes have been encroaching. The latest news is of 29 new home sites being carved by a project called The Reserve on East River. Lots are priced at between $1.25 million and $2 million. They are 35 acres in size, the minimum amount of land under Colorado that large parcels can be subdivided without getting specific governmental approval. The project has been in the works for three years, reports the Crested Butte News.

Bulldozer to stay under wraps

GRANBY, Colo. — At least for now, the concrete-and-steel armoured bulldozer that rampaged through Granby on June 4 will not be displayed, even to raise money.

The promoter of a musical concert at nearby Winter Park had proposed displaying the bulldozer to help raise money for damages in Granby. The prevailing sentiment in Granby seems to be against doing so, and most also don’t seem to like the idea of keeping it in a garage and charging admission, even if it does raise money.

"I don’t want to do anything that would glorify this guy (Marvin Heemeyer, the bulldozer operator) in any way," said Glen Trainor, the undersheriff in Grand Çounty who risked his life in an attempt to stop the bulldozer.

Some want to see the 70-ton bulldozer cut up for the estimated $4,000 to $6,000 it would yield in scrap.

$5 million interfaith chapel

MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, Colo. — The physical setting of Mountain Village, located adjacent to the ski slopes of Telluride, is heavenly. But after 11 years of existence, the town still has no church.

Two men, a pastor and a physician, have hatched a plan to change that. They envision a 7,000-square-foot architectural masterpiece that they believe can be assembled for $5 million. It would be an interfaith place of worship, and also part of the town’s economy, used for both conferences and weddings, reports The Telluride Watch.

Truckee climbing on information highway

TRUCKEE, Calif. — Truckee is already bisected by both a transcontinental highway and a transcontinental railroad. Now, it wants to get on the information highway, but it’s more expensive than was expected.

The Truckee Donner Public Utility District now is borrowing $24 million to build and operate the proposed fibre-to-the-user system until it becomes profitable and self-supporting. That’s $7 million more than was previously projected.

Despite the increased costs, says the Sierra Sun, the district expects the broadband service to start earning more than its cost within three years, with any other capital expenses repaid within eight years.

New infrared cameras may reduce roadkill

INVERMERE, B.C. — By standards of Colorado’s I-70 or Utah’s I-80, the traffic on the highway between Banff and Radium Hot Springs is light, only 5,000 vehicles on a typical summer day.

Still, 22 large animals – from moose to bighorn sheep – have been killed this year on roads in the Kootenay National Park, and more can be expected to follow. The carnage is such that wildlife biologists attribute declining elk populations in the late 1980s and well into the 1990s to highway mortality.

To make the highways more permeable, 24 wildlife crossing structures and fencing have been installed along the Trans-Canada Highway as it winds through Banff National Park.

As well, a new system was tested during the last two years in Kootenay National Park. The system uses infrared cameras to detect wildlife close to or on the road. The sensors can detect body heat even during rain and snow and in the dark, alerting drivers with flashing lights. However, a verdict on the effectiveness of the system seems to be out.

Tahoe gets more smelly, dirty sorts

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — An increasing number of dirty, unkempt, odiferous people are showing up in Lake Tahoe this summer – hikers stopping in for a regular meal and a shower during their five-month-long attempts to cover the entire distance of the 2,750-mile long Pacific Coast Trail.

In reporting this, the Tahoe World has no hard numbers, but instead anecdotal reports that at least more people are trying to become "hike-through" hikers of the trail. Inducing the greater ambition seems to be the lighter equipment such as one-pound sleeping bags and tarps that weigh even less.

Something like 300 people begin the trail every year in early May, hoping to complete it by September. It begins at Campo, Calif., and ends just north of the Canadian border.