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Mountain News:

Utah expects more skiers

Compiled by Allen Best

PARK CITY, Utah — Early season bookings were apparently so good that Kip Pitou, president of Ski Utah, a trade organization, predicts a 5 to 8 per cent increase in skier visits this winter for Utah. He cited Web site hits, bookings, and ski pass sales as cause for his good cheer.

But the calendar will be challenging. Bill Malone, who heads the chamber of commerce in Park City, points out that Christmas week will have weekend bookends, instead of straddling two different weeks. Easter, which is a mental bookend for many skiers, this year falls in March, instead of April.

Still the ski areas in and around Park City tallied a record 1.4 million skier days last winter, and a record crowd also dropped by during summer, causing Malone to echo Pitou’s sunny optimism.

While resorts in Utah had good October snows, not much happened after that. Still that early season bragging got lots of publicity, not the more usual its-the-week-before-Thanksgiving-and-the-slopes-are-bare reality.

Banff looks to bar-watch

BANFF, Alberta — Banff has been looking at Whistler for ideas about how to tame the violence at bars. Among the ideas is a bar-watch program.

According to a report in the Banff Crag & Canyon, the idea is make nightclub and bar owners, as well as taxi drivers, aware of undesirable individuals. In this "behave or be banned" world, a patron ejected from one bar would be prohibited from entering another. The bars would be linked by two-way radios, as would police.

The program was reported to have been in place for five years in Whistler, with apparently good success.

Too much housing?

VAIL, Colo. — Judgment day is nigh in Vail and the Eagle Valley. There, after 9/11 and the stock-market slide threw a wet blanket on the high-end real estate market, most of the construction was in low-end "affordable housing." Several large projects with hundreds of units were launched.

Among those projects now going on line is the 142-unit Middle Creek project, a conglomeration of apartments, a day care centre, and assorted other amenities located along Interstate 70 mid-way through Vail. The apartments range from one to three bedrooms, and rent ranges from $730 to $1,800 a month. Parking spaces are additional.

When the $24 million project was being reviewed two years ago, many opponents said the units were not needed, as there was a glut of lower-cost housing. That remains true, but affordable housing proponents say it’s only a matter of time – probably not long, either – before the low-end housing market again becomes as tight as a drum.

For now, the rental situation is as loose as a goose, with a vacancy rate of nearly 20 per cent in Eagle County, looser even than it was last year. And in Lake County, a key bedroom community, it’s at 26 per cent. Lots of vacancies, however, does not necessarily mean cheap rent. Eagle County had the state’s highest median rent, $1,082, higher even than Aspen. These figures were compiled before ski season.

Elsewhere in Colorado, Aspen’s vacancy rate was 11 per cent (down from last year), Steamboat Springs 12 per cent, and Summit County at 14 per cent (up sharply from last year).

Still, despite the vacancy rates, resort areas are generally plugging ahead with programs to put local workers into housing. After years of contention, for example, Aspen is now moving toward the first phase of the Burlingame housing project. Unlike the apartments in Vail, the Aspen project will have various types of for-sale housing, perhaps ultimately 197 units and more than 40 bedrooms. Total costs could run $71.3 million.

Meanwhile, in Vail, the question for now is whether this new Middle Creek apartment complex, which one critic compared to a housing project in inner-city Chicago, will get the renters it needs. The question should be answered by Christmas.

’70s about to end

WINTER PARK, Colo. — It’s been some years since you could drive your car to within a few yards of the ski trails at Winter Park. A hotel and assorted shops are found there now. The resort has quad lifts, expensive hamburgers, and boundaries that make the ski area about half the size of Manhattan.

Still, Winter Park has the feel of a resort with at least one foot in the ’70s. That is to change, soon. Denver, which owns the resort, two years ago leased the resort to Intrawest, with the understanding that Intrawest would reach deep into its pockets to gussy up the ski product while also building one of its base-area villages. Plans are now out for that village, with eventually 24 new shops and 1,500 dwelling units. Construction – if water for the project can be found – starts in two years.

The Winter Park Manifest, pondering the coming changes, says this coming ski season "might be one more for yesterday than today, one more for memories and nostalgia than dreams of tomorrow. … Enjoy it."

Sales may hit $2 billion

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — The Vail Daily reports that total real estate sales in Eagle County through October hit $1.7 billion, toppling the old record set four years ago. At the current rate, sales are expected to edge over $2 billion.

Condomania sweeps Telluride

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Real estate activity through October in the Telluride market set a new one-year record of $511 million. That bests the old record set four years ago.

The story in Telluride has been condominiums, nearly all at $500,000 and up. "Lars Carlson, of Peaks Real Estate, told The Telluride Watch that a year ago there were 15 to 20 available below that price. Now, there are only four or five. "Small condos of no real distinction in Telluride are selling for $600 a square foot," said another agent, Jim Lucarelli.

Low interest rates explain some of the buying frenzy, but Mike Shimkonis, another agent, believes rates could double without slowing the parade. Part of what is going on, he says, is that people nearing retirement age are making Telluride a base of operation for their businesses. "It’s now as much about a lifestyle as it is about living in a ski area." In other words, the surge in retiring baby boomers that has been talked about for so long is finally happening.

Sense of community is seasonal

ASPEN, Colo. — Everybody is always talking about "sense of community" in ski towns. Roger Marolt, a columnist in The Aspen Times, says it’s not something that can be quantified.

"It's not about how many people live here full time. It's not about a ratio of year-round residents to second-home owners. It's not even about ski-bums-turned-commuters," he writes.

But he says people know it when it’s there. "Everybody knows sense of community was strong in the ’70s. It was clearly diminished as the ’80s wore on and became almost extinct in the ’90s." That sense of community, he says, is most basically about the number of people that you recognize when walking the streets. "It occurs most often in the off-seasons," he adds.

Yet even the off-seasons are being squeezed – and at peril to the community psyche. "Between the crazy periods, we still need a little time alone to figure things out," he concludes. "Otherwise, our visitors and guests won’t be able to follow our leads and get it sorted out either. And isn’t that why they really come here, after all?"

Wi-fi is all the rage

FRISCO, Colo. — Wireless fidelity, often abbreviated to wi-fi, is all the rage in ski towns. Whistler’s town government partnered with a private entrepreneur last winter to introduce wi-fi in large chunks of the commercial area. Steamboat has wi-fi on its ski slopes this year. In Telluride, using one of the oldest networks in the country, there are 20 wi-fi networks

With wi-fi technology, computers with the proper equipment can join the Internet without a wire or telephone. The connection is 50 times faster than dial-up services.

Frisco has produced two wi-fi spots in the town’s Main Street district, seeing it as an economic development strategy, reports the Summit Daily News. In doing so, says Mark Gage, the town’s economic and community development director, the town has realized what many cities, hotels and restaurants already have, namely that it’s a relatively inexpensive way to attract visitors.

What’s wrong with trailers?

SILVERTON, Colo. — In the Silverton vicinity, a landowner has made neighbours cranky with an attempt to put a shipping container, as might be used on a train or truck, on a plot of land and calling it a house suitable for part-time residence.

The shipping container has been ordered off the plot as a violation of local land-use regulations, but Jonathan Thompson, editor of the Silverton Standard, suggests that maybe the ban is too strict. His argument is economic.

While Americans dislike trailers, and with some good aesthetic reasons, he says that lower-income workers need places to live. "To deny them the mobile home option, or to cram trailers into areas where they are less visible, is essentially to segregate the population by class," he explains. "This happens anyway, but it doesn’t make it right, nor does it create a healthy, diverse community."

Dogs, their doo an issue

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Where the estimated 5,200 dogs in Jackson Hole go and where they leave their dog-doo is at issue.

Town police in Jackson want dogs leashed in all public areas. They also want dog-owners to be forced to scoop the poop. The director of the local parks department would even like to see canines banned from all athletic fields, because of the mess. Town council members, however, aren’t so sure. Said one, "Dogs need some space to blow off steam."

Parallel issues are found on the surrounding national forests. The Forest Service wants to require that dogs be leashed along certain sections of popular trails, to prevent the dogs from chasing wildlife. Also, Forest Service representatives say that dogs are compromising water quality by frolicking in the streams, increasing sedimentation, and possibly leaving pathogens. The Forest Service estimates 80 pounds of dog-doo are generated daily on two popular trails that are commonly used by dog-walkers.

Stein goes green

PARK CITY, Utah — Park City’s Stein Ericksen Lodge has become among the most recent recruits to the wind-energy program. The resort purchased 100 blocks of electricity derived from wind energy. That will cost the lodge $2,400 more over the course of a year, but will prevent 10 tons of carbon dioxide emissions – about as much carbon dioxide as the average car emits in 275,000 miles of driving – as compared to electricity created at coal-fired plants.

Park City hopes to get 15 per cent of electricity users in the community into the wind-power program. Currently, 8.6 per cent are signed up. Two of the three ski areas are in the program, as is the city government itself.

Iraq war hits home

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. – The war in Iraq became more personal for some of those in Summit County when Justin Ellsworth, 20, was killed. A Marine, he had played football and wrestled at Summit County High School.

Crested Butte honours author

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — George Sibley has issued a book, "Dragons in Paradise: On the Edge Between Civilization and Sanity," a collection of essays that primarily describe his experiences in Crested Butte and Gunnison County during the last 40 years.

Most of the essays were originally published in Mountain Gazette, a monthly magazine in the 1970s that was restarted four years ago. The essays run the gamut from tales about his ski patrol days to a current archaeological dig. He told the Crested Butte News that he also explores the relationship between "old timers" and newcomers in mountain towns, and looks critically at the idea that the "simple life" can be obtained by moving to the mountains.

To commemorate Sibley’s new book, the Crested Butte Town Council proclaimed Dec. 4 as George Sibley Day. Among other jobs, Sibley published a newspaper in Crested Butte and was on the ski patrol there. Currently, he is an instructor at Western State College in nearby Gunnison.

Ketchum stewing over airport

KETCHUM, Idaho — People in the Sun Valley and Ketchum area are having a neighbourly spat – about where to put a new and larger airport. To expand the existing airport, which is located about a 25-minute drive south of Sun Valley, would require razing 70 homes, notes the Idaho Mountain Express.

The four sites still being reviewed would all be 60-something minutes from the ski slopes. That has Wally Huffman, general manager of the Sun Valley Company, arguing for something closer-in. The two airlines that now serve Sun Valley/Ketchum fear that passengers, if they have to drive that far, will elect to continue all the way to Boise to catch flights.

Water quality a worry

KETCHUM, Idaho — While growing more slowly than many resort areas, population increases in the Wood River Valley have several hydrologists questioning both the quality and quantity of water.

To that end, a two-year study is being proposed, reports the Idaho Mountain Express. Local agencies will have to decide whether to fund it. A great deal of anecdotal evidence exists and smaller studies have been done, but no big picture has been painted.