Compiled by Allen Best
BANFF, Alberta — The Banff, Lake Louise Tourism Bureau is beginning to target skiers from Korea, China, and Mexico.
Across the West, tourism businesses have becoming increasingly aware of the potentially staggering impact of tourists from China. The door for Canadian resorts will open when the Chinese government grants "approved destination status," which the Canadian Tourism Commission expects will happen soon.
However, a story in the Globe and Mail this week stated that China was withholding approved destination status for Canada as punishment for Canada not turning over China’s most wanted fugitive, Lai Changxing. Lai has claimed refugee status and fought a lengthy legal battle to avoid deportation. China says he was involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country’s history.
In the five years since Canada began negotiating approved destination status 63 other countries have concluded the same agreement in much less time, according to the Globe and Mail.
Approved destination status allows a country to advertise tourism in China and to receive Chinese tour groups.
Last year China passed Japan as the biggest Asian tourism source, with 24 million Chinese travelling abroad. One study cited by the Globe and Mail estimated that 1.9 million Chinese tourists would be keen to visit Canada if permitted. However, without approved destination status only about 75,000 Chinese visit Canada each year, most on business.
Ski resorts in the Banff area have also begun courting Mexicans, who already frequent eastern Canada (as well as Colorado) resorts in large numbers.
Meanwhile, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, the Banff-area resorts hope to continue to grow their existing strong markets. British skiers represent close to 40 per cent of destination skiers, while air service from Germany has improved. Meanwhile, Japan’s economy, although still sub-par, is finally recovering.
But Canadian resorts have their hands full, most importantly because of the strength of the Canadian dollar. While business and conference markets are expected to grow 10 per cent in the United States this year, little of that money is expected to find its way to Canada. Moreover, Canadians looking to make their dollars go further are likely to head south of the border.
Gay ski week numbers sliding
ASPEN, Colo. — In its 28 th year, the Aspen Gay and Lesbian Ski Week was attracting fewer skiers than before even if it remains bigger than other gay ski weeks that are staged at resorts across the West.
Whistler’s event, now in its 13 th year, is probably the biggest, with 40 parties and other productions spread across seven days. There are also gay skier weeks at Mammoth Mountain and in Summit County, both in Colorado (Breckenridge, et al) and in Utah (Park City, et al). As well, Telluride has a gay week.
Just what the organizers of the Aspen Gay and Lesbian Ski Week intend to do about the slippage, if anything, is not entirely clear, but they do hope to get more money from the City of Aspen. To that end, this year they are more precisely documenting the number of attendees, their economic profile, and the economic impact to Aspen.
Real estate tax for Jackson?
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Government officials in Jackson Hole will be watching the Wyoming Legislature with keen interest this winter to see whether counties will be allowed the choice of adopting a real-estate transfer tax. By one proposal being discussed, the tax would yield $36,000 on a sale of a $1 million home, with the money to be split between the towns, in this case Jackson, and Teton County.
Some Colorado counties and ski towns have such a real-estate transfer tax, although a constitutional amendment passed in 1992, called Tabor, blocks the adoption of the tax by any other jurisdictions.
Kennedy to speak against Bush
ASPEN, Colo. — Robert F. Kennedy has been recruited by the Aspen Skiing Co. to deliver his fire-and-brimstone dose of evangelical environmentalism during the X Games in late January.
"He’s not a geeky science guy from D.C. He writes for Rolling Stone (magazine)," explained Auden Schendler, the company’s director of environmental affairs. Schendler told The Aspen Times that he does not expect many of the 20,000 to 30,000 people expected at the X Games to try to get to see Kennedy, but they will be aware of his message through media coverage.
Kennedy recently issued a book called "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy." He’ll be speaking on Friday, Jan. 28, at the Wheeler Opera House.
Epic pineapple hits Silverton
SILVERTON, Colo. — Silverton and other towns of the San Juan Mountains are still digging out after a storm, called the Pineapple Express, that left up to 15 feet of snow in some areas.
More than 100 avalanches hit the highway that connects Durango, Silverton and Ouray during the storm cycle. While any respectable storm can trigger more than 20 slides, veteran avalanche forecaster Jerry Roberts told The Denver Post that the wetness of the recent snow made it exceptional. The avalanches that ran in some areas took out trees that were 75 to 100 years old.
"If you weren’t nervous, you weren’t paying attention," said another avalanche forecaster, Mark Rikkers.
"One of the funny things a person will notice after spending some time in Silverton, is that folks around here tend to talk about avalanche paths almost as if they are people," noted The Silverton Standard’s Jonathon Thompson.
Indeed, avalanches do get personal. In the past, avalanches have shut off Silverton to the point that people were running out of toilet paper. This time, it was just three days, but more unusual were the avalanches that simultaneously closed Wolf Creek and Lizard Head passes, isolating Durango from the rest of Colorado.
However, perhaps most hammered was the Silverton Mountain Ski Area, which reported 12 feet of snow in 15 days. Avalanches kept the county road between Silverton and the ski area closed for six days and also knocked out the electricity line. A couple of backup generators were imported to operate the ski area’s sole lift, but one of those generators ended up in a creek. At last report, the ski area was expecting to open after 10 days of down time.
In Silverton, people were hard-pressed to keep up with the falling snow. A town law mandates that cars not be parked on the town’s main street between the hours of 2 a.m. and 7 a.m., causing some residents to question where they were supposed to park. Town trustees offered little sympathy and no reprieves.
"I have six vehicles, and it took an hour and a half for me to dig one out this morning so I could get to work," said Mayor Jim Huffman while the storm was still belting the town. "That’s living in Silverton."
T’ride vulnerable to brownouts
TELLURIDE, Colo. — The law of inverse proportions was at work in Telluride recently. A woman from the slope-side town of Mountain Village wrote a letter objecting to the town’s support of gay ski week. The letter provoked a flurry of other letters from people outraged at her stance. As well, the story got attention in both Denver and in Aspen.
In the end, "it was all a lot of noise about nothing," says Seth Cagin, publisher of The Telluride Watch, who likened the controversy to a "crazy person yelling fire."
Far more important – potentially devastating to Telluride, Cagin said – were avalanches that twice knocked down power lines, demonstrating once again how vulnerable the region’s economy is to a disruption in supplies of electricity.
Last year, an avalanche took out a transmission line near the nearby community of Ophir, causing rolling blackouts for 36 hours in Telluride and at the ski area. Power was knocked out again in mid-January this year when avalanches knocked down the same line, if at different spots.
Only circumstances precluded rolling blackouts once again, noted Cagin. Furthermore, had the avalanches occurred in more remote locations, where crews could not gain access, then Telluride might have faced rolling blackouts until spring – spoiling the biggest ski season in several years.
Telluride has been warned of its vulnerability for about six years. There are two power lines servicing the region. The larger, 115-kilovolt line (the one knocked out temporarily the last two years) comes from Durango to the south by way of Silverton and Ophir. The smaller, 69-kv line comes from the west.
Tri-State Power and Generation wants to replace this smaller line with one providing more capacity, but property owners on the beautiful mesas over which it passes have objected. They want the power company to pay for the cost of placing it underground. Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission has ruled that the power company must absorb the cost only to the extent that it’s comparable with replacing the existing and now antiquated line. The property owners may pay the balance.
"A ton of studies have been done, and as far as I can tell, there is no good alternative," says Cagin. While who pays for the underground line gets figured out, Telluride remains vulnerable to not only rolling blackouts, but even to losing power altogether. "We are totally vulnerable to losing our ski season," he says.
However, the story of this Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Telluride is much more difficult to tell than one letter from an anti-gay zealot, and it got virtually no attention outside of Telluride. The great irony is that Telluride is the world’s birthplace of alternating current, which was discovered by L.L. Nunn early in the 20 th century as a way of keeping the mines operating.
Avalanches claim riders
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Avalanche deaths near ski areas are common place as skiers and snowboarders duck the ropes or even leave the backcountry gates from near the tops of ski areas to seek out the virginally wonderful but sometimes deadly slopes of powder found in the backcountry.
Such was the case of a 27-year-old man from Sandpoint, Idaho, who was killed in an avalanche adjacent to The Canyons, a resort at Park City. Originally from North Dakota, he had graduated as a pre-med student. As of the last report in the Park Record on Sunday evening, rescuers were expecting to find still more bodies.
Unusual to the point of rareness are avalanches that occur within ski areas. One of those rare cases occurred at Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort, which is located 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas. There, a 13-year-old snowboarder was swept from a chairlift. His body was found six hours later.
The ski area has operated for 40 years and is located at an elevation of 8,510 feet.
Time share sales explode
ASPEN, Colo. — To nobody’s surprise, the end-of-year tally for real estate sales in Pitkin County revealed a new record of $1.6 billion, compared to $1.27 billion four years before. The old record had been breached by November. Of special note was the 26 per cent increase in the average price of sales. A report from Land Title, a company, showed explosive growth in sales of fractional ownership, a.k.a. time share, now accounting for 18 per cent of all sales.
Paid parking 10 years old
ASPEN, Colo. — Aspen recently observed the 10 th anniversary of paid parking in its downtown area. It was a quiet remembrance, quite unlike the cacophony that greeted the policy on Dec. 30, 1994.
In the protest, cars and pickups were to circle city hall while blasting their horns for three minutes. "It was unbelievably loud," former mayor John Bennett told The Aspen Times. Bewildered tourists held their ears and ducked inside shops. A cardboard version of a parking meter was burned outside City Hall. And a Sierra Club member, protesting the protest, wandered among the autos wearing a gas mask and carrying a sign that read, "Honk if you love dirty air."
Then, after 14 minutes, the protest ended, and several weeks later paid parking much more quietly began. When the matter went to a public vote several months later, it was endorsed overwhelmingly.
The Times explains that even opponents can see value in the new policy. Too many spaces were being hogged by workers in local stories. Forced to pay, they stopped monopolizing the spaces. The move, said one business, was painful but necessary.
The town now uses the $1.2 million annually that it collects from parking to subsidize the free in-town bus shuttles. Meanwhile, the initial 37 pay-and-display parking meters have been expanded to 60. The town was the first in North America to try the new style of parking meters – centralized machines that disperse vouchers for display on the dashboard, rather than single-space meters on poles lining the curbs.
Effects of climate change studied
REVELSTOKE, B.C. — A conference devoted to how climate change will affect the forests in the Interior areas of British Columbia will be held in Revelstoke April 26-28.
The United Nation’s-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that during the next 50 to 100 years, the global mean temperature will warm at a rate more rapid than anytime during the past 10,000 year, notes the Columbia Mountains Institute, which is conducting the workshops and seminars.
Speakers are expected to describe the implications to forest disturbances and biodiversity posed by climate change and other topics of interest to foresters, biologists, ecologists and others.
Two frozen bodies found in car
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Sheriff’s deputies found a 32-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman, both from Mexico, inside a car in Mammoth Lakes. The Mammoth Times says the two were frozen, but says only that the circumstances of the deaths were being investigated.
Condo prices rise 60 per cent
DURANGO, Colo. — Real estate prices have been ratcheting up rapidly in Durango and its suburbs, but also at the ski area of the same name, about 17 miles away.
Almost stunning was the 60 per cent escalation last year in prices of townhomes and condominiums. The median price is now $241,000 in Durango. Single-family homes rose in price only 16 per cent last year in Durango and in the nearby town of Bayfield.
Meanwhile, the base area project at the Durango Mountain Resort is gaining momentum. Real-estate salesmen told the Durango Telegraph that five years ago there was a glut of old condominiums for sale. "Sometimes there were 10 to 12 properties for sale in just one complex. You couldn’t give property away," said broker Cathy Craig. "Right now, there are less than a dozen properties for sale in the base area. People are snatching everything up."
While rising rapidly, the prices remain only a third of those at some other base-area villages in Colorado, the real estate agents say. Also, the economies of Texas and Nevada, which constitute major markets for the resort, are regaining vigour. The ski area owners expect to ultimately erect more than 1,600 housing units.
Hat passed some more
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo.– Several weeks after the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean coastal areas, people in ski towns continue to pass the hat in small and major ways.
In Steamboat Springs, a couple was planning to offer child-care services at $10 an hour, with proceeds to go into tsunami relief. A spaghetti dinner and an art auction were being planned in Crested Butte even as the local contingent of massage therapist, acupuncturists, and Reiki healers banned together in committing wages from one day’s work to the American Red Cross. An unnamed local man pledged to match their contributions dollar for dollar.
In Jackson Hole, the family of Foster Friess, an investment manager and director of the Brandywine Fund, is offering to contribute a maximum of $2.5 million to help rebuild the Sri Lankan city of Galle but is seeking community contributions of $250,000. He became aware of this particular city’s plight because he has a new granddaughter whose mother hails from there.
In Vail and other resort towns, small efforts have similarly been launched. However, not everyone wants to hear about it. An anonymous phone caller to the Vail Daily said he had been to Denver and was sick about hearing about the 125,000 people dying. The news he wanted to hear from the Vail newspaper was about the 6 inches of new powder. Both figures, incidentally, have been revised upward.
Sentiments may have been even worse in Canmore, where two men (seen on surveillance cameras) heaved a rock through the window of the Avalanche Movie Co., a movie rental store, and made off with cans containing an estimated $1,500 to $2,000 collected for tsunami relief.
Exceptional snow but no record
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. — Storms that drenched the Sierra Nevada in late December and early January were exceptional, but no record breakers.
The Tahoe Daily News reports that 8.88 feet of snow fell during the two weeks period. The measuring stick against which records are measured is a one-week period in 1952 when 12.8 feet of snow fell.
Just the same, Tahoe is getting full again. Last fall there were stories speculating about the lake falling to record low levels. Now, the lake level is up 6 inches, with the existing snowpack promising to bring it back up another two or three feet. However, that will still leave several more feet before the lake rises above the rim.
Tahoe tsunami possible
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. — A large tsunami hit Lake Tahoe 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, and waves of up to 30 feet could hit again, crashing into South Lake Tahoe, where Heavenly Mountain is located, and Kings Beach.
Scientists say three fault zones underlie the lake, of which one is active. The frequency of large earthquakes is once very 2,000 to 3,000 years. As well, sections of the shelf around Tahoe have collapsed in the past, causing large tsunami waves.
One paleogeologist, Gordon Seitz, theorizes that a Tahoe tsunami could evolve into a seiche. A seiche is similar to the motion of water in a bathtub, with water swishing from shore to shore for hours after an earthquake.
Times torpedoes Telluride’s trucks
TELLURIDE, Colo. — None less than The New York Times has designated Telluride as a skier’s Shangri-la. "The snow is feather-light, the skies are turquoise, and the closest Wal-Mart is 65 miles away," explained The Times.
A Shangri-La it may be, but perhaps not paradise. For one thing, trucks grumble and snort into the town, provoking a town council member to recently propose that trucks be banned. The Telluride Watch says the discussion waned after the town manager pointed out that most of the trucks belong to the town, which uses them to haul out trash and unwanted snow.
Growth driving water study
WOOD RIVER VALLEY, Idaho — A comprehensive study is being launched to evaluate the water resources available in Ketchum, Sun Valley and other parts of Blaine County.
"We have a lot of anecdotal information, people talking about their irrigation wells dropping, residents at Indian Creek whose wells are dropping," said Sarah Michael, a county commissioner. "There's a lot of anecdotal information that water tables are dropping because of drought, because of growth, but we don't know."
Water experts agree that there’s no integrated understanding of the valley's watershed with respect to water quality and quantity, explained the Idaho Mountain Express. The newspaper notes that the county’s current population, now at 20,000, is projected to hit 50,000 by the year 2050.
