MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Three Mammoth ski patrollers were likely asphyxiated by gas spewing from the volcanic vent around which they were erecting a fence.
The Associated Press explains that the patrollers were high on 11,053-foot Mammoth Mountain, at a vent called a "stink hole," because of its rotten-egg smell. The vent was surrounded by a plastic net fence to keep skiers away, but the latest of storms that have dropped a record 52 feet of snow on Mammoth this winter had all but buried the fence.
The ski patrollers had gone there to reposition the fence 50 feet upslope of the vent. The snow collapsed, two patrollers dropped into the vent and, although conversant upon landing, fell silent within a minute or two. The third patroller, carrying oxygen that had been brought to the scene, then attempted to rescue them, but was similarly overcome.
Yet a fourth ski patroller, who was wearing an oxygen mask, then went into the vent, but also fell unconscious. A fifth patroller then held his breath, jumped into the vent, and hooked a rope to the fourth patroller, and they were both pulled out.
The dead were identified as John "Scott" McAndrews, 37, a one-year veteran; James Juarez, 35, a five-year veteran; and Charles Walter Rosenthal, 58, a university researcher and snow expert who had been with the patrol 34 years.
Rosenthal went in first to try to get the others "without regard for his life, probably knowing more than the others about the dangers," said Rusty Gregory, chief executive officer of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
Banff ups hotel tax
BANFF, Alberta — Banff hoteliers have approved an increased bed tax of 2 per cent, and provincial officials in Alberta are also chipping in money for an expanded marketing campaign. Marketing will be devoted to the rapidly growing population in Calgary, but also in the bordering provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
Also to be targeted are New Yorkers, as there are now direct flights to Calgary, notes the Banff Crag & Canyon. Following the United States, the United Kingdom is the biggest foreign market, followed by Japan, Australia and – soon – Mexico.
Jackson Hole tram makes last trip
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — With AC/DC’s song "It’s a Long Way to the Top" blaring on the loudspeaker, the tart smell of marijuana in the air, and beers and a bottle of whisky passing around, the last tram car open to the general public went up Jackson Hole’s major ski mountain on the final Sunday in March.
Aboard the car were former Olympian and Jackson Hole ski school founder Pepi Steigler, who had been on hand when the tram debuted in 1966, as well as various other long-timers.
The ski company announced last fall that this would be the last year of full-time service for the tram, which many believe is key to Jackson Hole’s identity as a ski resort. Safety issues were cited.
For now, a double-passenger chairlift will be installed with extra heavy cable, the better to withstand gale-force winds.
Where the $25 million for a replacement will come from has been the ongoing story in Jackson Hole. Owners, who say they have essentially made no money from the ski operation, have said they will pay $5 million. They sought money from Wyoming’s Legislature, but were rejected. In turn, they rejected lining up private partners.
Meanwhile, the Jackson Hole News & Guide offers a clue of how the owners may be rustling together money. The company has secured a $15 million bank loan. It is building a modest-sized on-mountain restaurant, which ski area president Jerry Blann says should improve the cash flow.
Finally, the company has sold a three-acre lot at the base to a developer who plans to build a 50-unit five-star condo-hotel. Although terms were not divulged, the company had advertised the property at a cost of $10 million.
The developer, Crescent Mountain Resources, is a newly formed subsidiary of Crescent Resources, of Charlotte, N.C., which itself was formed more than 40 years ago by Duke Energy. Crescent Resources has developed everything from country clubs to shopping centres to industrial parks, notes the newspaper. This is the company’s first foray into developing property in a ski valley in the West.
Spring starts to rock ’n’ roll
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Spring has swaggered into Colorado’s Summit County, causing disruptions left and right.
The Summit Daily News reports rocks, some as large as the hood of a car, bouncing down onto the road between Dillon and Frisco, which crosses Dillon Dam, forcing closure of the road. One fell with sufficient force to split a Jersey barrier. Meanwhile, a frost heave pushed rocks into a water main in Breckenridge, fracturing the main.
The real excitement, however, is not expected to commence for some time. With snowpacks well above normal, the high-water time when the snow at 9,000 to 11,000 feet melts is expected to cause quite a roar and crowd homes built along creeks and rivers.
Thoughts turn to wildfires
SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — County commissioners in Utah’s Summit County, like their counterparts in Colorado’s Summit County before them, are now talking about enacting laws that would mandate brush-clearing, also called creating defensible space. The intent is to avert destruction to homes in the so-called urban-wildlands interface.
Other resort counties with a great deal of rural development, including Colorado’s Eagle County, in the Vail-Aspen area, have similarly enacted such laws in recent years.
Meanwhile, in Colorado’s Summit County, officials are offering $50,000 to citizens, homeowners’ associations, and others to reduce the risk of wildfire, "We’re looking for people who have thought about a project, how they’re going to pay for it, who’s going to do the lugging and pushing," Commissioner Bob French told the Summit Daily News.
Patroller still going at 65
VAIL, Colo. — Senior citizen and ski patroller aren’t often used together, but both apply to Vail’s Buffalo Mikottis. He arrived in Vail in 1965, and intended to leave after a few years, but of course, never did. Had he known he would stay, he told the Vail Daily, he would have saved his money and invested in land.
Mikottis, who won’t divulge how he got his nickname, can remember when 4,000 people a day was the record at Vail Mountain (it’s now more than 21,000), and he can remember when it took days, not hours, for Sun Down Bowl to get skied out on a powder day.
As is, the 65-year-old Mikottis is doing well enough that he no longer works summers as an electrician, but instead takes them off. He intends to keep patrolling "as long as they’ll have me." An on-mountain cafeteria, Buffalo’s, is named after him.
Forest Service retiree cries wolf
WOLF CREEK PASS, Colo. — A former Forest Service employee who has been involved in most major ski area decisions in the last 15 years in Colorado says authorization of a road to a major real estate development at the base of the Wolf Creek ski area was flawed in two ways.
Ed Ryberg retired last September after a long career with the Forest Service. He told The Denver Post that – contrary to the declaration of the Forest Service supervisor who authorized the road – a Bush administration appointee had meddled in the decision-making process.
"It’s not often you get a deputy undersecretary involved in an easement issue," Ryberg told the newspaper. He said Dave Tenny, the deputy undersecretary for natural resources and the environment in the Department of Agriculture, made it clear early in the study that he wanted the road approved. "At that meeting, we were basically told by Tenny to help these guys and address their issues," Ryberg said.
In March, the Denver Post documented the political campaign contributions of the developer, Billy Joe "Red" McCombs to various politicians, primarily Republicans from Texas, and his support of the appointment of Tenny’s boss, undersecretary Mark Rey.
Colorado Wild, a ski area watchdog group, has long alleged political meddling in the case. McCombs intends to build about 2,200 housing units next to the ski area on private land he obtained in a land exchange 20 years ago. There is currently no housing at the ski area.
Ryberg also said that the environmental impact statement is flawed. That EIS has a no-action alternative, as all EIS’s do. In this case, the no-action alternative was for McCombs to access the development using the unpaved, single-lane Forest Service road leading from the highway to the project. The Forest Service took McCombs at his word that this could be done, but it was not realistic, said Ryberg.
The (slight) benefits of drought
BOULDER, Colo. — It turns out that even drought can have a silver lining, one that reduces global warming.
Scientists from the University of Colorado-Boulder say thinner snowpacks, such as were experienced in recent years in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, result in less insulation of forest soils, cooling them and slowing the metabolism of microbes within the soils.
With larger snowpacks, those microbes are working harder and release large amounts of carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gases attributed to the world’s warming climate.
"I view this as a small amount of good news in a large cloud of bad news," said Russell Monson, a professor in the university’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. Results of the study appeared in Nature, a journal. The experiments were conducted on Niwot Ridge, which is located in the Front Range between Boulder and Granby.
Additional research at Niwot Ridge by other scientists finds that spring has been arriving up to a month earlier due to warmer temperatures. Increased heat and less moisture stresses the trees, resulting in them being able to absorb less carbon dioxide. Monson noted that more carbon is stored in forests, in hilly or mountainous terrain, than other ecosystems.
Carbon dioxide levels hovered at around 250 parts per million for thousands of years, but began climbing rapidly with the Industrial Revolution which began in the 1700s. Current levels are at 380 parts per million.
Two ways to measure snow
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The 447 inches of snow received at Steamboat Springs this season fell 18 inches short of breaking the record set in 1996-97, and also snowfalls received in the 1983-84 and 1995-96 seasons, reports The Steamboat Pilot & Today.
But those in Steamboat long enough to know told the newspaper that the consistent quality of snow this year made it better than a fourth-place showing.
"To me, what made it stand out was that it was soft, cold, winter snow, and that feels so good on old knees," said Jeff Hirschboeck, a 37-year ski patrol veteran. "We had days where four inches fell on top of snow the previous day followed by three inches the next day and seven inches the next. That's what people come to Colorado for."
"It seemed like the first 80 days of the season it was face shots every day," said Jeremy Johnston, a ski shop worker.
The sun also rises in the west
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — It was a cold, cloudy night in January when astronomer Paul Guttman returned from Reno to Incline Village. Cresting the hill, the Tahoe Basin below him, he was surprised to see what appeared to be the sun rising over Squaw Valley, to the west.
The "sunrise" was, in fact, the reflection of Squaw's nighttime slope lights, yet more lights in an array that is causing diminished visibility of the night sky.
"The problem just keeps being compounded," Guttman told the Tahoe Daily Tribune. "We're just at this point where we have this knee jerk impulse that we need to illuminate everything."
Frosty weather causes lull
KETCHUM, Idaho — Only 94 skiers were counted at Sun Valley’s Bald Mountain and Dollar Mountain resorts on one recent day, the fewest in at least 28 years. Almost all lifts were closed due to 40 mph winds that gusted to 64 mph. And if that wasn’t enough, there were lightning strikes and a soggy combination of rain and snow.
Despite the lull, Sun Valley was on pace to record the busiest ski season since the 1996-97 season, when 436,000 skier days were recorded. Ski area officials expect this season’s final count to fall at between 410,000 and 415,000, reports the Idaho Mountain Express.
Leadville mine may reopen
LEADVILLE, Colo. — Glad tidings abound in Leadville, where the giant Climax Mine is expected to resume extraction and processing of molybdenum ore by as early as 2009.
The mine, which is located between Copper Mountain and Leadville, with Vail and Breckenridge close by, has been operated for only two brief stints since 1981. No mines currently operate in Lake County, an abrupt change given its historical foundations.
Unlike the late 1970s, when the payroll bulged to 3,200 people, only 300 employees are expected to be needed. The mine’s owner, Phelps Dodge, told reporters that a new, more efficient infrastructure is being installed at a cost of $200 million to $250 million. Before all this can happen, several studies and government permits will be necessary.
A company spokesman told the Vail Daily that labourers and truck drivers will stand to make $12 to $15 an hour, and electricians and mechanics up to $25 an hour. That’s more or less the going rate for such tasks at the nearby resorts, although presumably plenty of people in Leadville will opt for the shorter commute.
But Leadville-area leaders tell reporters that they don’t want Leadville to become a one-trick town again. Since the mine closed 25 years ago, Leadville has struggled to establish an economy based on cultural and heritage tourism, but with only modest success. Mostly, it’s a bedroom for the resorts along I-70.
Hope rises for old mines
DURANGO, Colo. — Mining regions of the Rocky Mountains are littered with old mines, many of them still yielding arsenic, cadmium and zinc that pollute streams and rivers. As well, there are some natural sources of these heavy metals in many mining areas.
While mines voluntarily became more circumspect in the 1930s, and were forced to improve even more by federal laws enacted in the 1970s, mines and dump piles remain major problems in places like Colorado’s Summit County and the Animas River basin around Silverton.
With the original owners long gone in many cases, so-called good Samaritans would like to step in to address the pollution, but fear doing so because of the potential for continued liability under existing laws.
That fear is illustrated in the Vail area, where Viacom, which had assumed ownership of the company that had mined the property until 1977, has spent $70 million in cleanup. But the company is required to continue treating contaminated water that is expected to flow from the mine in perpetuity. Cost of treating the water is $1 million per year.
Attempts by Congress to shield good Samaritans from liability have snagged for various reasons. Environmental groups distrust efforts to amend environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Superfund legislation. The mining industry has disliked other proposals.
But three new bills have been introduced in Congress this year, and members of a group concerned about acidic mine runoff in the Silverton area are rooting for one introduced by Rep. John Salazar. That bill proposes a time-limited pilot program applicable to only the Animas River drainage. That is unlike other proposals, which call for uniform changes across the West.
Bill Simon, coordinator of the Animas River Stakeholders Group, says he believes the proposal could be approved because the stage has been set. "All the necessary studies have been done in the watershed to know what will be necessary to bring this large watershed into compliance with the Clean Water Act," he said.
Among the basin’s 1,500 mines, Simon’s group has identified 174 mines from which water is draining and another 158 mine dumps and tailing impounds that are particularly polluting. The group, which is a collaboration of local, state and federal agencies, assorted landowners, mining companies, environmental groups and others, has been working on the problem since the mid-1990s.
Four days for June
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Ski operations at Mammoth’s June Mountain will be reduced to four days per week next year. The problem, explains the ski company’s Rusty Gregory, is that it makes too little money when running seven days a week.
Gregory said June Mountain generates $3 million per year in revenues and costs $2.7 million to operate. That leaves $300,000 to plow back into capital improvements, when $30 million to $50 million is needed. He believes more operating slack time will yield an extra $450,000.
Police warn of gang members
PARK CITY, Utah — Although conceding that gangs are not yet a significant problem in Park City, police say they are keeping tabs on gang members fleeing from California’s Central Valley.
Police in the town of Porterville, between Fresno and Bakersfield, report "a lot" of suspected gang members have "stumbled" upon Park City, drawn by relatively well-paying jobs.
Park City police suggest more innocent motives. "It’s not so much they’re coming up here to commit crimes," said Phil Kirk, a police lieutenant in Park City. The gang members are "trying a fresh start," he explained. The gang most in question seems to be the Norteños gang, a violent bunch by reputation.
