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Can father’s outrage be understood, forgiven?

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — A tentative agreement has been reached on the punishment to be meted out to a Denver-area man who assaulted a 16-year-old girl on the slopes of the Steamboat Ski Area.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — A tentative agreement has been reached on the punishment to be meted out to a Denver-area man who assaulted a 16-year-old girl on the slopes of the Steamboat Ski Area.

The man, Randell Berg, 52, had attacked and punched the 16-year-old girl, a snowboarder, after the girl collided with Berg’s 8-year-old daughter. Witnesses said Berg punched the girl several times in the head and neck while yelling profanities. Berg told police that, after making sure his daughter was OK, he "just lost control."

In an agreement with the district attorney’s office, Berg is to plead guilty of misdemeanor third-degree assault. He is to be given a year of probation, take eight hours of anger management classes, perform 80 hours of community service, and serve a two-day jail sentence.

Prospectors said Berg’s criminal history was minimal, as he had only been convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct nearly 30 years ago. The county judge, James Garrecht, said he thought the punishment was lenient, but indicated he will approve the deal, once given supporting documents. "No one should ever be assaulted on a ski slope," he said. "It’s outrageous a grown man would attack a woman. It’s even more outrageous for that woman to be a young girl."

Berg’s attorney, Larry Combs, said Berg admitted his guilt without hesitation, and is humiliated by his actions. "He’s never treated someone so badly in his life."

Why did he do it? "He has explained to me that it was just a flash of anger that he couldn’t control," the lawyer explained. "Some would say it is the natural instinct of a father fearing of his daughter’s safety."

The attorney further said that Berg had never been observed acting in anger. "He’s not impulsive by nature."

Gondola to link Breck, ski area

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Vail Resorts has pulled the trigger on a major investment in transportation at Breckenridge. Partnering with the town, which is chipping in $6.7 million, the ski company is committing $13.3 million toward a gondola.

That gondola will result in a more seamless experience for Breckenridge visitors, preventing the need to ride buses from the town’s parking lots to the various base areas. As such, notes The Denver Post, the traffic congestion that is a hall mark of Breckenridge should ease, although the new system does nothing to improve the clogging of Highway 9 from Breckenridge to Frisco, where motorists using Interstate 70.

Colorado still on record pace

DENVER, Colo. — Mother Nature still seems to be in charge in the ski industry. Those ski areas with great snow this year are doing wonderfully in terms of skier visits.

Skier numbers released by Colorado Ski Country USA show the state’s ski areas continuing to march toward the elusive mark of 12 million skier days. The previous record, just less than 12 million, was set in the 1997-98 ski season. Since then, war, travel jitters and most persistently drought have combined to reduce skier numbers.

But not all is equal within Colorado. The resorts most blessed by snow – along I-70 and north – are up nearly 7 per cent over last year. Less triumphant gains are being made by the destination resorts farther removed from Denver and, in the case of Telluride, have less snow this year.

The snow also helps explain the bounce in the stock of Vail Resorts, which has four ski resorts blessed by this winter’s munificence. The company reported that Keystone, the ski area closest to Denver, has seen the largest bump in skier traffic, 13.5 per cent, followed by Breckenridge at 11.5 per cent. These skier visits produced a 15 per cent growth in revenue from mountain operations.

As the old saying goes, Mother Nature can make a ski executive look brilliant or like a loser.

2,500-sq.-ft. would be threshold

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — A proposal to sharply increase fees on houses in an effort to increase the fund of money available for affordable housing is being considered by town officials in Jackson and commissioners in Teton County.

The new fee schedule would apply to all homes of 2,500 square feet or more. Above that threshold, a fee for 15 per cent of all construction costs would be charged based on a cost of $150 per square foot. The developer of a 4,000-square-foot home pays $2,240 as per the current formula. The proposed formula would bump the fee to $33,750.

But Christine Walker, the director of the Teton County Housing Authority, urges no exemptions be given to houses of less than 2,500 square feet. All houses contribute to the need for community-based, affordable housing, she said. Median price for single-family houses sold there last year was $750,000, reports the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

In Idaho’s Blaine County, where Ketchum and Sun Valley are located, county commissioners are also talking about an impact fee for larger houses to help pay for affordable housing.

Rash of suicides in Jackson Hole

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — In the popular mind, middle-aged white males are supposed to have the world by the short hairs. But a rash of suicides in Jackson Hole suggests the world isn’t that simple. Seven middle-aged people, five of them men, have killed themselves in the last year and a half.

In noting this disturbing phenomenon, the Jackson Hole News & Guide did not explicate the circumstances of each individual victim. Some may not have been well-heeled. But the last victim, Stephen Kapelow, 64, had survived several bankruptcies while a rock and roll promoter several decades ago before amassing a fortune worth $500 million as a developer. Diagnosed with clinical depression, he had tried several times in recent years to kill himself.

Wyoming leads the states in its suicide rate, and Teton County, where Jackson Hole is located, leads Wyoming. That said, the newspaper found nothing specifically to explain the high suicide rate. It did, however, report the great pain of friends and families of those who had killed themselves.

Arts given private boost

VAIL, Colo. — Despite a few efforts along the way, Vail has never attained a reputation for its arts and humanities. Athletics has remained king.

But a behest by a retired couple in Vail could change that. Kent Logan, who sits on the Vail Town Council, and his wife, Vicki, have pledged $60 million to the Denver Art Museum. Much of the pledge will be given to the museum after Kent, 62, and Vicki, 59, die.

While about half of the value is constituted in the 550 pieces of art, the gift also includes the 15,000-square-foot house in which the Logans live and an accompanying private gallery, which together are valued at $15 million. The Logans have also given an addition $5 million for maintenance. It is expected that the home and gallery could be used for private shows and as a retreat for art scholars.

The Logans told newspapers in Vail and Denver that they wanted to boost Denver’s rapidly energizing reputation as an art centre. The couple married in 1985 atop Vail Mountain. He was an investment banker in San Francisco before retiring to Vail in 2000.

Elevated gas not worth the price

ASPEN, Colo. — Aspen has lost another round in its argument that city residents are being over-charged for the natural gas they burn, because of the higher elevation. The town is located at 7,900 feet.

Natural gas delivers a certain number of BTUs of energy per volume, but in the lower atmospheric pressure of higher elevations, the volume increases, explains The Aspen Times. However, the heating capacity does not increase. Ergo, there is less heat per set volume of natural gas.

With this in mind, the City of Aspen sued the local provider of natural gas, Kinder Morgan, charging that city residents are overcharged vis-a-vis other customers serviced by the company. Kinder Morgan has now won twice on procedural grounds, with first a district court and now the Colorado Court of Appeals agreeing that Aspen’s proper venue for venting the complain is with the Public Utilities Commission, not in the courts.

Aspen city officials are deciding whether they want to appeal the case to the Colorado Supreme Court, take the complaint to the PUC, or do nothing. "I don’t believe we would get a very sympathetic hearing from the PUC," city attorney John Worcester told the Times without explanation.

But, for that matter, Kinder Morgan disagrees with Aspen not just on procedural grounds, but also on substantive grounds. Dan Watson, retail president of Kinder Morgan, said that the lower atmospheric pressure of higher elevations is factored in at the company’s border stations, which are points where natural gas flows from main transmission lines into the cities. Worcester said that Kinder Morgan agrees that a given volume of gas in Aspen offers 5 to 9 per cent less heat when burned than the same volume of gas at a lower, but unspecified elevation.

Out-of-towners studied

CANMORE, Alberta — Call them double-nesters, second-home owners or, to be clinically precise, non-resident property owners. In Canmore, they’re called "out-of-towners," and they’re the subject of a new study being launched by an academic geographer from Mount Royal College.

Dr. Barbara McNicol says she wants to know such things as why they are choosing Canmore to locate, whether it’s as an investment or for recreation, and whether they intend to will the property to heirs.

"Because I’m a geographer, I’m looking at the land attributes and the culture, because they (the out-of-towners) are looking for something more than just amenities," she told the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

This is the first effort to study Canmore’s booming out-of-towner market, and it is welcomed by the town’s mayor, Ron Casey. "If you’re trying to address everyone’s needs in the community," he said, "you need to know who you’re trying to serve and what some of those expectations might be."

The further mysteries of snow

MAMMOTH, Calif. — Snow is often made up of more than hydrogen and oxygen. Often, there are what are called impurities – in the case of Mammoth, magnesium and sodium from the Pacific Ocean, and nitrates and sulfates picked up in the California Central Valley. In fact, the first runoff of spring is usually highly acidic, due to the mineral content, explains snow scientist Walt Rosenthal in an interview with Mammoth’s The Sheet.

While that acidity is of interest to those who wonder how fish and amphibian populations may be affected, Rosenthal has an angle that might be of interest to backcountry skiers. Through his work toward a doctorate, Rosenthal hopes to understand how impurities could speed the formation of bonds in the snow, which could help understand when avalanches do – and don’t – happen.

ESL school draws worldly crowd

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — English-as-a-second-language is expected to become a major income producer in British Columbia’s Revelstoke.

A new school expects to takes well-heeled students from Taiwan, Mexico, and perhaps other countries, teaching English while showing them the hot springs, mountains, and many other delights of the Revelstoke area. Students are expected to arrive with $2,500 in spending money, in addition to the $650 per month paid to families to host them, explains the Revelstoke Times Review. Altogether, the spinoffs to the economy are calculated at $500,000 annually.

A group of 30 Taiwanese students are the inaugural class at the school. School director Keith Stevenson hopes for happy, satisfied and English-proficient students who, in turn, will produce more students.

Ex-ski instructor sued

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — A former ski instructor at the Steamboat ski area is being sued by the ski area operator for taking money for ski lessons. Because the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. has the lease for use of the federal lands, it has the exclusive right to offer ski lessons.

A lawyer for the man, Kenny Porteous, says that the ski company filed the lawsuit to send a message. "They’ll spend more on legal fees than Kenny Porteous is worth," attorney Ralph Cantafio told The Steamboat Pilot. He contends the bigger issue is the company’s treatment of current and ex-employees. "It’s a very scary prospect for the local community to be thought of as a disposable and entities to be disregarded," he said.

Further sharpening the tension is the potential that the U.S. Forest Service may file criminal charges against Porteous, based on allegations he was teaching ski lessons for hire without a permit on federal land elsewhere in the Routt National Forest.

Snowshoe’s first haul remembered

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — Skiing in the West is rich with the lore of the mailmen who trekked across the ranges on primitive skis hauling heavy bags. Crested Butte commemorates its mailman, Al Johnson, with an uphill-downhill telemark race held in late March every year. Breckenridge remembers its "snowshoe itinerant," Father John Dyer, who toted mail bags to Leadville and other mining towns between Sunday sermons espousing Methodism.

But earlier than either of those two came John A. "Snowshoe" Thompson. The 150th anniversary of his inaugural ski trip across the Sierra Nevada is being celebrated this month in California. The Norwegian-born Thompson was farming in California in 1856 when he agreed to haul the 60- to 100-pound mailbags from Placerville to Genoa, Nev., a hamlet on the shores of Lake Tahoe, a distance of 90 miles.

While modern backcountry skis weight about five pounds each, Thompson’s handcrafted oak skis weighed 25 pounds and were 10 feet long. Skis in the 19 th century were often called "snowshoes."

Alas, while Thompson delivered the mail twice monthly for years, he seems to have been paid only $100, despite his plea to Congress for belated reimbursement. He died at age 49, and he is buried in Genoa, where his headstone is carved with a pair of skis.

Medical care continues to improve

EDWARDS, Colo. — The improvement of medical and ancillary facilities along the fast-growing I-70 corridor continues. Among the newest additions will be a 12-bedroom, 11,000-square-foot "house" to be constructed next to the Shaw Regional Cancer Center, which his located about 10 miles west of Vail.

The house is to be available for those being given chemotherapy and other treatments at the cancer center, but who do not wish to travel home after their treatments. So far, fund-raisers have raised about 90 per cent of the $4.2 million they figure is needed. That figure includes a $1 million endowment for operations. Ground-breaking has occurred, and completion is expect in summer of 2007, reports the Summit Daily News.

Bode defender aims at media

KETCHUM, Idaho — Although ridiculed broadly across the country, Bode Miller has a fervent admirer in Ketchum and Sun Valley. Writing in the Idaho Mountain Express, Michael Ames said it was too late to hate Miller, who he describes as the "best American racer in a generation."

Ames instead takes aim at the "chattering classes of the mainstream media," claiming that Miller’s statements about drinking were taken out of context. And he says that Miller obviously was thumbing his nose at those media he does not respect. "TV and media right now… are totally mind-numbing and tedious," Miller said before the Olympics. Ames seems to think most people in ski towns would agree with Miller’s low opinion of reporters.

Avalanche count low, so far

SILVERTON, Colo. — Avalanches remain very much a possibility as spring approaches, as was evidenced by the death of a snowboarder in the backcountry east of Ogden, Utah, in recent weeks. Still, with the toll now at 13, it has been a light year in the United States for avalanches, with the last previous fatality occurring in mid-January.

In Canada, despite a weak foundation in the snowpack around Revelstoke, the scene of many of the 12 to 15 avalanche deaths in most years, only six deaths have been tallied this year.

But bad things can happen even as spring awakens, as has been made evident in the pages of the Silverton Standard in recent weeks. The newspaper is carrying the excerpts of a book in progress by Patrick M. Swonger, who is telling of an avalanche on St. Patrick’s Day in 1906. The avalanche killed 12 men who were at a remote mine.

While that death toll was notably devastating, avalanches annually claimed far more lives a century ago, when the San Juan Mountains and other parts of Colorado were crawling with miners, than they do now. Several dozen miners died in avalanches near Telluride early in one devastating winter. In 1899, a dozen miners and their families, mostly Italian immigrants, died near Silverplume. In 1885, 10 men out to seek their fortune in a mine at timberline near Leadville died in an avalanche that probably occurred during February, although their bodies were not recovered until May.

Aspen remembers doctor who delivered

ASPEN, Colo. — Some 600 people turned out in Aspen to celebrate the life of Harold C. Whitcomb, the doctor who had delivered virtually every baby born in Aspen for decades after he arrived in 1959. He was, reports The Aspen Times, remembered as a compassionate healer, a man of warm humour and infectious joy. Among the memories of the doctor was his leading a band down Main Street with a plunger. He was, more seriously, an expert on the stand-up bass and an early proponent of holistic medicine.

High-end owners not liable

FAIRPLAY, Colo. — Maury Reiber owns the highest of the high-end real estate in Colorado, the summit of Mt. Lincoln. At 14,286 feet, it’s the highest privately owned land in Colorado.

But increasingly in recent years, he and other owners of old mines that swaddle Lincoln and two other heavily mined 14,000-foot peaks in the vicinity made it clear they didn’t want others on their property. They are partly disturbed by vandalism, but more broadly about the liability of somebody falling in a mining shaft or in some other way getting hurt while on their property.

The case drew a great deal of attention last summer after a report was filed – incorrectly – that the trails to the peaks had been closed. The Legislature has subsequently passed a law that removes the liability of Reiber and other owners of property that are similarly crossed by popular hiking trails. The case could potentially affect access to two frequently climbed 14,000-foot peaks in the San Miguel Range near Telluride.