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Restrictions sought for young ATVers

SILVERTON, Colo. — San Juan County officials are preparing to step up efforts that they hope will reduce the number of young users of off-highway-vehicles in the backcountry around Silverton.

SILVERTON, Colo. — San Juan County officials are preparing to step up efforts that they hope will reduce the number of young users of off-highway-vehicles in the backcountry around Silverton.

What most drives public officials is a concern about safety of the drivers. Forest Service regulations require only that drivers be at least 10 years of age. But county officials believe these young drivers tend to be reckless, endangering themselves in the high roads in the rugged topography around Silverton. As such, they want off-highway drivers to be at least 16, the legal driving age in Colorado, and insured.

A lesser concern is that younger drivers tend more toward irresponsible off-road driving on delicate above-timberline tundra and in other sensitive areas.

The first step is adoption of a law that formally prescribes a minimum driving age on county roads. But to put teeth into that law the county commissioners are looking into hiring a part-time staff member for the sheriff’s department who will patrol backcountry roads.

Yet another issue is consistency of laws among various jurisdictions in the San Juan Mountains. Many OHV riders cross passes in the Telluride-Ouray-Silverton-Lake City area. That means four counties, three national forests, and the Bureau of Land Management property could be crossed in a (long) day of riding. Rules about OHV use vary, and the county commissioners hope for more consistency.

Snow groomer charged

TELLURIDE, Colo. — A sophomore from Telluride High School died after falling off a snow groomer and getting crushed. The driver has been charged with criminally negligent homicide.

Police chief Dale Wood noted that the charge implies that while the driver erred in overloading the snow groomer, the error was not one of omission, rather than intent. In addition to two passengers in the cab, the driver, Aaron Apanel, 26, had allowed six skiers and snowboarders in the cargo area on the back of the groomer. Police say the vehicles have international symbols that say "no passengers" in the cargo area.

Apanel was ferrying the passengers 800 feet up the ski area to an after-hours photo shoot. Ski patrollers arrived at the scene of the accident within minutes, but Brooks "Hoot" Brown, 16, was pronounced dead after being taken to the local medical clinic. A competitive slopestyle freeskier, he had just been ranked 20th in his age group at U.S. Nationals, says The Telluride Watch.

Affordable housing scrapped

MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, Colo. — As is the case in most of the mountain resorts, the twin-towns of Telluride and Mountain Village have been wrestling with the teeter-totter issues of affordable housing and open space. The towns estimate they collectively need 1,000 units.

Earlier this winter, Telluride residents emphatically chose to proceed with condemnation of land at the town’s entry for open space, rejecting a compromise that would have yielded some of the land for affordable housing. Some estimate the cost of preserving the eye-pleasing open space, not including legal fees, will run to $35 million, if the condemnation succeeds.

If affordable housing is not provided at home, the need is usually exported. That’s what Mountain Village figured to do, putting 103 acres under contract about 10 miles to the southwest along the San Miguel River. The property would have yielded 112 units.

But in the face of protests from the Nature Conservancy and other environmentally-oriented foes, Mountain Village has withdrawn the plan, reports The Telluride Watch. "We probably all know in our gut that this isn’t the right thing to do on this lot," said Penelope Gleason, president of the Mountain Village Owners Association.

Nature Conservancy representative Mallory Dimmitt cited noise and other impacts to riparian and wetlands areas, plus interference with elk and deer migration.

But the problem remains, and among those problems is a lack of dirt that is considered appropriate. "Within a 30-mile radius, this is the only substantive piece of real estate," claimed Davis Fansler, mayor of Mountain Village. He insists that Mountain Village should not be left holding the bag for what he described as a "regional crisis."

There seems to be a great deal of finger-pointing. Mountain Village, before it became a town, was authorized by San Miguel County, which had no exacting standards regarding affordable housing. "We didn’t create the Mountain Village," protested Jonathon Greenspan, a town councilman. "The county put the density and zoning in here."

For that matter, while Telluride has taken a deliberate stab at providing affordable housing, it also imports much of its workforce from outlying communities.

So what’s the answer ultimately? While the speculation in Telluride is that a major affordable housing complex is likely in the town of Norwood, 20 miles away, many continue to see the ultimate landlord, the U.S. Forest Service, as the final answer.

Along the I-70 corridor, Vail Associates, as the predecessor of Vail Resorts was then known, made an effort in the early 1990s to get use of Forest Service land to house ski area employees. Human capital was as essential to running a ski area as snowmaking or cafeterias, argued the company. But the Forest Service rejected that idea, arguing that as long as the ski company used its own property to develop high-end real estate, it had no right to ask for use of government land. Since then, in fact, Vail has developed a great deal of employee housing.

But while the ski industry has remained essentially flat, the mountain valleys have also grown rapidly. In Aspen, for example, the ski company has only 2,000 employees at its peak, compared with 16,000 year-round jobs.

Park City gets more parking

PARK CITY, Utah — City officials in Park City have cut the ribbon on a new 305-space parking structure in the town’s century-old Old Town shopping district. With the new spaces, created at a cost of $5.75 million, the Old Town district now has 1,300 parking spaces, most of them free. It is, boasts the town in a press release, enough to rival any suburban shopping centre.

While Park City gets more parking spaces, it’s also getting more riders on its buses. The bus system, the second largest in Utah, two years ago got its first millionth rider of the year on June 2. Last year the millionth rider of the year was recorded on April 12. This year, say town officials, it was March 23.

Soldier’s body emerges

BISHOP, Calif. — A soldier from Minnesota who died during a training flight in the Sierra Nevada during World War II was finally buried last week in his hometown of Brainerd, Minn.

Leo Mustonen was 22 when he boarded a navigational plane that took off from an airfield in Sacramento in 1942 for a flight in California’s Central Valley. The plan slammed into 13,710-foot Mt. Mendel, in Kings Canyon National Park, between Bishop and Fresno. Hikers in 1947 discovered the plane wreckage.

Two ice-climbers ascending Mt. Mendel last October noticed the body emerging from the ice. About 20 per cent of the body was visible, as well as a parachute that had not been deployed. The body was 900 feet below the summit. Still unrecovered are the bodies of the three others aboard the flight.

Why is the body now appearing? In an interview with the Fresno Bee last October, Park Service scientist Annie Esperanza said the snow and ice of the glacier creep slowly, shifting over time. The glacier has advanced and receded with weather changes during the past six decades.

Many more World War II plane wrecks are believed to remain in the Sierra Nevadas and also in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Ban on ground-level housing extended

KETCHUM, Idaho — Last October Ketchum’s city council enacted a moratorium that was intended to block the creation of residential housing on the ground floor of the downtown business district. The council has now extended that moratorium for a year.

The first-floor residential units are "not in anyone's best interest, so we took action," explained Mayor Randy Hall. The ordinance explains that the city believes the displacement of retail shops by residential redevelopment is a threat to the city’s ability to collect sales tax, and hence will ultimately crimp the city’s ability to pay for essential services.

Ketchum has been at work on a master plan that seeks to revitalize the downtown area. It has contracted with a consultant, Idaho-based Tom Hudson, to help formulate zoning changes, streetscape plans, and the potential transfer of development rights. Form-based zoning is being used. City officials hope they can get the new plans into place this summer, thus ending the moratorium.

Everest contemplated

WINTER PARK, Colo. — At age 54, ski-shop owner Jack Gernstein of Winter Park is going over his list of to-do’s in life. Chief on this list is climbing Mt. Everest, and then four other of the highest peaks on each continent.

Gerstein is no rank amateur, as he has already climbed Denali, North America’s highest, and Aconcagua, South America’s highest. And he has climbed to within 1,000 feet of the summit of Everest before. This time, he says, he’s more patient, more at ease. "My mind is different this time," he told the Winter Park Manifest. "I’m more comfortable with my age. I’m much more tranquil and peaceful. And confident. I know what’s coming."

Out of the Hole, into the black

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Whether to be out in the country or to get more for their real estate dollar, people in resort towns are always pushing into exurban areas.

That trend in the Jackson Hole has resulted in a larger number of people commuting across Teton Pass, which can be treacherous in winter, to Star Valley, as well as Idaho’s Victor and Driggs. The state line is straight, even if the geography is ragged.

While there are local schools, some 40 Wyoming kids daily cross the pass – a journey of about an hour, to be safe – to attend schools in Jackson, which are generally considered superior to those in outlying areas. Still, it’s an expensive proposition. Some parents figure it costs them $1,200 per year to help pay the transportation costs of car pools.

Why all this commuting when it costs so much? One of the parents, Erica Tremblay, tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that her family moved to Alta, on the far side of Teton Pass, for the lifestyle. "It’s so peaceful, so quiet, so beautiful," she explained. But now, they can’t afford to move back to Jackson, where real estate prices have been rising more briskly. To get a home in Jackson comparable to their current home would require $1 million.

The parents would like the school district to dispatch a bus or mini-van for their children, but the school district dislikes that idea. Teton Pass, among the steepest in the Rocky Mountains, has grades of 10 per cent. By comparison, the steepest grades on Colorado’s Interstate 70, at Vail Pass and the Eisenhower Tunnel, are only 7 per cent.

Costco latest big box in corridor

GYPSUM, Colo. — As in so many mountain valleys, the Eagle Valley has been having its own big-box drama during the last few years. First, a Home Depot and Wal-Mart Supercenter were installed in Avon, west of Vail. But even then the down-valley towns of Eagle and Gypsum were talking about big boxes of their own.

Now it’s clear that Gypsum, long the orphan-child of the Eagle Valley, is getting the Costco. The store, located halfway between Vail and Glenwood Springs, is expected to produce $80 million in sales, with Gypsum getting the bulk of taxes. The neighboring town of Eagle had first dibs on the 159,000-square-foot store. However, the town board rejected a development that would have accommodated it, in part because of community anxiety about whether a big-box store is acceptable. Many would prefer to foster independent-owned stores.

While Eagle awaits those non-national independent retailers and restaurateurs to bud, Gypsum is getting more, and more. Another development company, Washington D.C.-based Next Realty is now proposing 300,000 square feet of commercial space on a reclaimed gravel pit. The Eagle Valley Enterprise reports potential tenants include a large home-improvement store, a pharmacy, and a bank, as well as restaurants, offices, and small retail stores.

This suburban-style development is part of a major buildup of the Eagle Valley. Current population projections estimate that Eagle County – which also includes a portion of the Aspen area – will grow to a population of 88,000 in the next quarter century, but up to 117,000 people if more of the work-force housing is absorbed. The population last year was about 50,000.

No next-of-kind found

COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. — A national organization wants to commemorate a cop gunned down in an old mining town of Colorado 126 years ago, and that has provoked a search for descendents of the slain cop.

But modern-day cops have had little luck. They can’t even find the grave of the fallen police officer, reports the Summit Daily News.

The records show that in July 1880 a police officer named Michael O’Neal was killed when he attempted to quell a disturbance in the town of Kokomo. Kokomo was located between Leadville and what is now Copper Mountain. What remained of the town in the 1960s, which wasn’t much even then, was uprooted, the graves moved to Breckenridge, and the town site covered with tailings from the nearby Climax molybdenum mine.

Summit County Sheriff John Minor attempted to locate next-of-kin, but struck out. About all of substance that can be determined is that the slain police officer was 28 and had, until shortly before becoming a cop, been a saloonkeeper. He will be immortalized in Washington D.C. in an engraving dedicated to fallen peace officers.

Firefighters need help

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — There’s some heartburn in Steamboat Springs about the ability of the fire department to respond to a major fire. As the city has grown in population and territory, the fire department has not grown proportionately.

The result has been more calls for help, which has caused Steamboat to call in outlying communities to the west and south for help, explains The Steamboat Pilot and Today. Bryan Rickman, who is chief of a fire protection district based in Hayden, 27 miles west of Steamboat, says his department has been called to assist Steamboat more times during the past three months than in the rest of the past 32 years.

Steamboat has 12 full-time firefighters. The recruitment of non-paid volunteers has slackened since pension benefits were withdrawn.

Networks in conflict

GRANBY, Colo. — Granby is struggling through an effort to recall the town’s mayor. The sources of discontent are not particularly clear, but Sky-Hi News publisher Patrick Brower believes the story can be broken down into good ol’ boy vs. good new boy networks.

In the good ol’ boy network, issues are dealt with in communications that are face to face, often over coffee or through extended family connections, he observes. Most small towns have that good ol’ boy network. But as a place grows, he says, it increasingly relies upon its more formal government network. Formal governments are more constrained by laws that are intended to provide a level playing field.

As such, the town officials were barred by law from talking with fire board members when the firefighters – Brower says in a demanding and haughty demeanor – came in with a proposal to waive normal zoning for a new fire station. "Direct person-to-person (not in a board meeting) discussion might have smoothed some ruffled feathers," writes Brower. He adds that he hopes the current brouhaha will bring the two networks – the good ol’ boys and the good new boys – closer together. The election is set for early April.

Moose destroyed

GRAND LAKE, Colo. — State wildlife officers killed a moose that attacked a 92-year-old man in Grand Lake, which is located at the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Wildlife officials report they can find no clear reason for the attack, although they suspect the animal may have been in pain. An examination of the carcass showed the moose had five broken ribs, one of which punctured the chest cavity, and two vertebrae which had separated. Those injuries are consistent with the kind received when hit by a car.

The victim, Louie Heckert, was reported by the Rocky Mountain News to be in satisfactory condition in a hospital. He was, by all accounts, a lively, outgoing person. Gene Stover, a saloon-keeper in Grand Lake, told the newspaper he had never seen him touch a drop of alcohol, although he and his wife, who died just three years ago, danced every Saturday at his bar. His son, Chuck Heckert, who lives in Park City, said Louie had visited Florida and Europe in the last two years, despite being afflicted with an eye disease called macular degeneration.

This is the second moose attack in Grand Lake within the last two weeks, although it is not certain whether the same moose was involved. In the first attack, a woman was knocked to the ground and stepped on by a charging moose that had been startled by her unleashed dog.

 

More fracas about village

WOLF CREEK PASS, Colo. — The fracas over the intentions of Red McCombs, the billionaire co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, to develop a huge resort complex at Wolf Creek Pass continues. At the heart of the issue is whether the Texas-based McCombs has improperly influenced the federal government to give him access across Forest Service land.

"The whole thing from beginning to end smells to high heaven," Rep. Mark Larson, a Republican from Cortez, told the Durango Herald. Larson wanted the Colorado Legislature to pass a resolution condemning the plans for Village at Wolf Creek. However, legislators refused, but instead sent the resolution to the House Agriculture Committee for consideration. A legislator who represents the area most directly involved in the dispute sits on that committee.

That area, Mineral County, approved plans for 2,100 housing units and 4,500 parking spaces in what is now forest-covered land next to the ski area. Almost alone among Colorado ski areas, Wolf Creek has no overnight lodges.

The case is bipartisan in that Larson is a Republican, but critics contend that McCombs, the developer, used cash donations to key Republican lawmakers from Texas to gain influence in Congress and in the Bush administration. The legislator from Mineral County who objected to the resolution, Rafael Gallegos, is a Democrat.

Two lawsuits are already pending on the project, and Jeff Berman of Colorado Wild, a watchdog group of national forests, predicts that a third lawsuit is likely. He told the Herald he expects the Forest Service will approve the 250-easement across the national forest. In turn, Colorado Wild will allege the environmental impact statement was improperly created.

Helicopter noise an issue

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The woof-woof-woof of helicopters bearing sightseers at Lake Tahoe is generating some on-the-ground growling. The Sierra Club and others say that the helicopters are getting to be too much for human ears and also a danger to eagles.

Commercial helicopter tours say that they avoid skimming over the lake, and hence pose no disturbance. They blame the complaints on a few bad eggs. But Jim Hildinger, a resident of South Lake Tahoe, says all the helicopters collectively add up to a disruption of the basin’s serenity, an instance of the few marring the vacations of the many.

The Tahoe Daily Tribune notes that while helicopters are now banned in the Grand Canyon, such a uniform ban would be impossible at Lake Tahoe, because private land is mixed with federal land.