REVELSTOKE, B.C. — While avalanches can and have continued into June, it was an average or below-average year for avalanche fatalities in most parts of the West.
Only six deaths were recorded in Canada this past winter just concluded, compared with 11 the winter before and 29 two winters ago. Most of the deaths two years ago occurred in two incidents near Revelstoke.
The Canadian Avalanche Center attributes the lower death toll this past winter to more stable funding for its operations, greater public awareness of the dangers of backcountry activities, and its own success at disseminating information. With a hefty contribution from the Alberta government, the organization plans to expand its avalanche forecasting service to the Alberta side of the Rockies.
South of the border, avalanche deaths were also down in several places. Jackson Hole had only one death, compared with several during recent years. Colorado had six through mid-May, which is average. Colorado’s snowpack was uncommonly strong, because of more frequent snowstorms. With regular snow, the snowpack layers adhere to one another much better.
U.S. skier visits stick to 21 century pattern
DENVER, Colo. — The drought in the Pacific Northwest dropped the U.S. skier count last winter to 56.4 million, but that still came in as the fourth-busiest ski season on record. After stagnating at about 52 million skier days for about 20 years, skier traffic has increased substantially since the turn of the century. Ski industry officials say the increase is because baby boomers continue to ski even as their off-spring, the echo boomers or gen y, now take to the slopes.
The six-state Rocky Mountain region is up 2.4 percent from last year. The Aspen Skiing Co., with four resorts, reported a 4 percent increase in skier visits last winter, its third consecutive winter of growth after a decade of declines and stagnation. Vail Resorts and Intrawest have not announced their skier totals, but stock in Vail reached highs not seen since 1998 in anticipation of next month’s release of what is expected to be a very rosy third-quarter earnings. The basis for the earnings are a healthy ski season at the five ski areas owned by the company.
Big snowpack in California causes wonderful waterfalls
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — Thanks to extraordinary snowfall in the Sierra Nevada measured at 180 percent of normal, California waterfalls promise to be stunning this year, reports the Fresno Bee. Waterfalls are most spectacular in Yosemite Valley, which has nine measured at more than 1,000 feet tall.
"This is the year of the waterfall," said Chris Shaffer, author of "The Definitive Guide to the Waterfalls of Southern and Central California." "From now through early July we're going to have amazing conditions from the Kern River Valley all the way to Lake Tahoe. It's going to be one of the best years in recent memory."
Border collies called in to chase elk from Banff
BANFF, Alberta — Trained border collies were being taken to Banff to chase the elk out of town. The elk, say authorities, have become a nuisance and worse — a threat to public safety.
Fresh in the minds of many, points out the Rocky Mountain Outlook, is the situation in the 1990s, when Banff had several hundred elk in and around town, trampling vegetation, raiding gardens, and even occasionally threatening people. Just two years ago an elk charged an 8-year-old boy.
Even worse, the elk were attracting cougars. A woman was killed by a cougar in 2001, and another reported being stalked. "If there weren’t elk in town, if there weren’t deer in town, there’s no reason for carnivores to come into town because typically they do tend to avoid developed areas," said Andrea Kortello, a researcher who studied wolf and cougar interactions in Banff.
Parks Canada, which administers Banff National Park, removed 200 elk in the last six years, while a pack of 19 wolves picked off many others. However, winters have been mild and up to 30 percent of calves have survived in recent years. The elk, in turn, have favored the town as a sanctuary from the wolves.
Filmmakers planning mountain bike history
TRUCKEE, Calif. — Some people in Crested Butte might want to call a couple of filmmakers in Truckee with their version of the history of mountain bikes. The two filmmakers are a work on a documentary, and if a story in Truckee’s newspaper is a reliable guide, they seem to think the story is mostly set in Marin County, north of San Francisco.
Part of the story surely begins in Marin County, but about the same time people in Crested Butte were similarly fiddling around with old bicycles as a way of navigating dirt roads and trails.
The two filmmakers, Gregg Betonte and Vernon Felton, hope to do for mountain biking, what Stacy Peralta’s documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" did for the history of skateboarding. The Sierra Sun notes that creating a film detailed and accurate enough to keep cycling enthusiasts happy while at the same time capturing the human dream that will make the story appealing to wider audiences will be a challenge. They hope to show the film at Park City’s film festival in 2006 or 2007. The working title is "Klunker."
The filmmakers are looking for archival footage, photos, bikes and arts from the early days of mountain biking. The phone number of their company, Side Effects Productions, is 530.550.7469.
Jackson’s elk antler arches to be restored
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — The famed arches of elk antlers in Jackson are falling into disrepair. Local Rotarians have set out to repair and restore the arches, which are located on the four corners of the town square. The cost is estimated at $80,000 per arch.
Set for Marilyn Monroe near Ketchum salvaged
KETCHUM, Idaho — As in most other ski towns, trailer courts and other types of lower-cost housing in Ketchum are getting razed to make way for high-end real estate. But to stanch the loss, the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority has stepped in with a $3 million purchase of a trailer park with 42 homes.
In the process, they’re also preserving the set for a small but pivotal scene in Marilyn Monroe’s 1956 film, "Bus Stop."
But in saving the lower-end housing, they’ll need to upgrade it, reports the Idaho Mountain Express. The trailers are currently served by septic systems. To get financing for a more central sewage system, they’ll need to upgrade the park’s appearance.
No stinking Home Depot or other vestiges of cities
BELLEVUE, Idaho — After instituting a moratorium on new stores of more than 20,000 square feet, planning commissioners in Bellevue, located downstream from Sun Valley and Ketchum, have set out where in the sand to draw the line.
The largest store now is 28,000 square feet, but existing laws allow up to 72,000 square feet. In the background is the potential for chain stores. The Idaho Mountain Express notes that The Home Depot representatives have met with town officials to talk about a "boutique" store.
"I came to this community for the strong sense of identity and strong sense of community that I think is often deteriorated with large-scale retailers," said Aaron Domini, community planner for Citizens for Smart Growth. More blunt yet was local resident Ken Allen. "I do not want a big urban city or anything that represents that," he said.
Growth causing Eagle to go postal
EAGLE, Colo. — First the post office outgrew its downtown location in Eagle, located 30 miles west of Vail. Now, the post office near the interstate highway is getting congested. The town has been growing at an annual rate of 12 percent per year.
The upshot is that town officials are asking that the Postal Service begin home delivery. The Eagle Valley Enterprise reports that the nearby gated-home community of Cordillera, best remembered as the site of Kobe Bryant’s infamous sexual encounter, has recently started home mail delivery. The woman in Bryant’s tryst is from Eagle.
An affordable ski town? Does such a thing exist?
BANFF, Alberta — Starbucks has tacked on a 10 percent surcharge to its prices in Banff and Whistler as compared to other locations. The company says it’s because of the higher cost of doing business in a resort town.
However, the prices remained the same at Canmore, located only 15 miles (25 kms) downvalley
from Banff. The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that locals in Banff were mixed in their reaction, some thinking they should get a break because the cost of living is already high, others reasoning that it’s just another example of the demand-and-supply nexus.
Meanwhile, in Whistler, residents continue to grouse about the price of everything. Those prices are the center of discussion as the municipality considers a proposed law that would ban larger stores, presumably targeting franchise retailers. The goal would be to retain Whistler’s individuality. The flipside is that some locals have had about as much individuality as they can afford. Alison Taylor, a staff writer for Pique, says whoever decides to keep out the franchise retailers better have a backup plan for making Whistler more affordable
Intrawest plans employee housing at Panorama Village
INVERMERE, B.C. — Intrawest plans to erect two employee housing buildings with about 100 units at its Panorama Village Resort, located 12 miles from Invermere. Currently, staff housing is mixed in with guest housing, a mixture that the company prefers to end. The resort has existing staff housing for 20 percent of its peak season staff, notes the Invermere Echo.
Eagle County looking to require greener buildings
EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — For all the money that has been pouring into real estate in the Vail- and Aspen-influenced Eagle County during the last decade, you’d think that some of the new homes would have been built to high standards to avoid energy consumption. After all, what’s a few hundred thousand dollars when spending $2 million, $3 million, or even $10 million for a house and lot?
That energy efficiency has happened only rarely, and so now county officials will be considering a prod if not an outright stick to force efficiency.
Drawing upon regulations already in place in Aspen and Basalt, county planners are drawing up regulations that would require structures that employ more energy-efficient designs and technology. Perhaps pertinent to the issue is that a change in county commissioners in January resulted in a plurality that is much more prone to government intervention in the interest of environmental goals.
While energy-efficient designs normally cost more at the front end of construction, they save homeowners money in the long run. Still, even rich and richer people tend to resist spending more money then they have to at the outset, assuming they will sell the house before they make back their investment in energy efficiency.
The Vail Daily interviewed several individuals involved in the building sector and, perhaps surprisingly, found that a stick might be welcomed, since voluntary efforts have been so minimal. "My personal thought is we’ve had long enough to kind of get it together ourselves," said Diane Scherr, marketing director for R.A. Nelson, one of the valley’s premier high-end home-construction companies. "If we have a governmental entity or guidelines in place, I’m behind that 100 percent."
Dan Koelliker, vice president of a consulting engineering firm, said the technology exists, and it’s a matter of making it popular. However, the cost does derail some plans to make projects LEED-certified, he acknowledged.
Something similar has gone on with smoking bans. While bar owners have been reluctant to ban smoking within their own premise, worrying that their regulars will flee to a tavern that does allow smoking, many have asked for bans, so everybody operates under the same rules.
Debate about new ski area continues to heat
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — The debate about the new ski area and real estate project at Crested Butte is heating up. From the tone of letters and columns in the Crested Butte News during late May, the tea-kettle is nigh on to whistling.
The first volley over the bow came from the High Country Citizens Alliance, Crested Butte’s foremost environmental organization. The group hasn’t said no to the new ski area, called Snodgrass Light, but it is highly dubious. Then came the Gunnison County commissioners, who are questioning whether enough affordable housing is being incorporated into the base-area real estate.
John Norton, who engineered the sale of the ski area to Tim and Diane Mueller and stays on as a consultant, has responded with a prickly tongue of his own. Taking aim at "all the citizens in our county who have independent incomes, government jobs, and mortgages paid off," he lambasted the supposed plan of Snodgrass opponents. Those opponents, he said, seek to "promote genteel decay" and rout the "forces of ambition and growth."
He specifically skewers the county commissioners, who he accuses of pandering with populist but non-sensical sayings. "Sound bites sell!" he chides. He accuses the Crested Butte Town Council of conceiving "hare-brained schemes." He also suggests that the prevailing climate is enough to force the Muellers, who have plunked down $15 million into the resort since buying it last fall, to wash their hands of Crested Butte and move on.
Norton has supporters in the community. "I am sick and tired of the critics in this community who want their ‘cake and eat it too," lamented one letter-writer, Fran Wickenhauser. "You cannot have it both ways. We all saw the economic climate and business pessimism that prevailed prior to the Muellers coming in and rescuing CBMR and the skiing operation from ultimate bankruptcy."
Said another reader, "Charles Jennett, "If we drive (the Muellers) off, we will be back in the’80s with every thing in receivership and wages much lower."
The background for this is a sequence of years in which Crested Butte has faltered as a resort. Although founded in 1961, the same year as Steamboat and Breckenridge (and a year before Vail), it continues to do about 300,000 ski days a day — far fewer than the 500,000 to 600,000 that Norton says is necessary to make a destination ski resort work. Being four hours from Denver, it’s too far away to get day skier traffic.
The plan to get Crested Butte up to the necessary critical mass is to create more of a bed base, a $200 million plan which is partly at issue in this flurry of letters, and also create the new ski area across the road from the existing one. The difference is that the new ski area will have primarily intermediate ski trails, which the existing ski area almost entirely lacks. To hold the interest of visiting skiers for a full week, says Norton, Crested Butte needs more variety. Or, as Bob McCann, a writer put it, the intermediate trail offerings on the mountain get "very, very stale after four days of skiing."
Costco invited into Eagle, but with a big, big string
EAGLE, Colo. — The Eagle Town Board has been between a rock and a hard place. It has had 12 percent average population growth for the last several years, and that sort of growth is likely to run up some big bills in future years as roads need to be replaced. Tax revenues, which in most Colorado towns comes largely from sales tax, have lagged far behind the population growth.
That’s part of the story. Another part of the story is, "How do you define the good life." To many, Eagle already has a high quality-of-life because, despite being 30 miles from Vail, it remains a quintessential small town. To others, the quality of life could be improved by having the sort of stores that they must now drive 130 miles to find in either Denver or Grand Junction.
Against this background a developer has shown up with plans for a big-box along Interstate 70, with Costco as his most likely tenant. The town board has said yes — but with several sinewy strings attached. The project, said the board, must include a single, national retailer capable of generating an average of at least $80 million in annual sales, a requirement that has the developer grimmacing. Also, the town trustees scheduled a community election by mail-ballot.
Costco is also considering nearby Gypsum. In similar situations, some towns have virtually given away the farm while trying to land the sales-tax generator. However, in this instance, the two towns are talking about a deal of sales-tax sharing along a 60-40 split. The town with the big box would get the larger share of revenues.
Philanthropist Vilar reduced to handcuffs
BEAVER CREEK, Colo.–Six years ago Albert Vilar was an exemplar of the American dream. A Cuban immigrant, he had gone into financials and in 1979 started Amerindo Investment Advisors, making early investments in Microsoft, Oracle, and American Online.
Surfing the high-tech boom, he has been able to give or pledge $200 million across the world, often to his beloved opera. In Vail and Beaver Creek he has given $10 million, which helped pay for a 530-seat theater bearing his name at Beaver Creek, perhaps the finest such performing arts facility in ski country.
But, in the dot-com bust Vilar’s Amerindo Advisors lost 90 percent of its value from 2000 to 2002. He became unable to make good on his pledges, drawing attention in Vail and elsewhere. Now, while the financial world is improving, his personal story continues to worsen.
An unidentified investor says that Vilar used the investor’s money as a personal piggybank in 2002, ironically in part to make good on some of his pledges. Altogether, Vilar is accused of stealing $5 million. He was recently arrested at the airport in Newark, drawing the attention of the New York Times and other newspapers.
It sounds like he found it easy to bond out of jail. Forbes magazine ranked him at the 327 th richest American last year, with a net worth of $950 million, notes the Rocky Mountain News.
Tahoe-area police arrest six in tip of drug iceberg
KINGS BEACH, Calif. — It sounds more like a parade than a drug bust. Some 125 police officers turned out to arrested six people at Kings Beach, located near Lake Tahoe. The six were charged with illegal immigration and various drug charges.
Methamphetamine, cocaine, and unspecific "other drugs" were reported to be the target. Police called the bust just the tip of the iceberg that is intended to "bring Kings Beach back to the people who live there," reported the Tahoe World.
Meanwhile, the beach-side town also frets about graffiti and other evidence of what some people say is a problem with gangs. "Whether they’re real gangs or wannabes, there’s real violence," said one business owner, John Evans. "It’s not as safe as it should be."
Mammoth police report big surge in meth cases
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Police in Mammoth Lakes are reporting escalated violence as a result of increased methamphetamine use.
The drug is trouble, but it also intensifies trouble, says Mike Donnelly, the town’s police chief. An issue that could be dealt with by one officer takes two or three officers when meth is involved, he told the Mammoth Times.
Frank Smith, a local drug cop, correlated the increased meth with changing demographics and lifestyles, but exactly what he meant was not clear. He identified both Caucasians and Hispanics, but said the more transient element is drawn to meth. He did not say construction workers tend to be involved, although the real-estate boom has hit Mammoth Lakes, too.
Meth is also attractive to poorer people, because it gives them extended high energy, allowing people to more easily work several jobs. While police see cocaine in Mammoth, it’s the drug of wealthier people. They expect to see it proliferate as Mammoth becomes a wealthier destination resort.
Third of teachers could retire in the next 5 years
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — The coming retirement of baby boomers has ski towns and resort valleys of the West bracing in several ways. On one hand, well-off boomers are expected to move to the ski towns in droves to enjoy the recreation and scenery. But employers are wondering how they can replace their own baby boomers who are retiring.
This demographic wrinkle is particularly worrisome in school districts. For example, a third of the 200 teachers in the schools of Jackson Hole will be eligible for retirement by the year 2010. Pam Shear, superintendent of the Teton County School District is concerned that those who arrive to replace them will be unable to live in Jackson Hole, where the average price of homes is now $500,000, but instead will be forced to commute from satellite communities such as Alpine, Victor, or Driggs, Idaho.
"You won’t see these people at the grocery store or dance competitions," Shear told the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
