LEADVILLE, Colo. — The giant Climax Mine, the world’s largest producer of molybdenum ore, shut down in 1981, causing the layoff of nearly 3,000 people and transforming Leadville into a bedroom for Vail and Summit County.
Since then, the mine has briefly resumed operations three times when the price of molybdenum rose, only to shut down again when prices dropped. But when prices skyrocketed three years ago, the new owner, Phelps Dodge, did not reopen. Instead, it announced a more long-term strategy, with a probable reopening in 2009 and only then after erection of a new $250 million processing mill.
This news has produced hurrahs in Leadville, and Stephen Voynick believes they are justified. "It seems that Leadville is about to become one of the very few Western mining towns to ever get a second chance from the mining industry," Voynick writes in the June issue of Colorado Central Magazine.
Voynick is surely the most knowledgeable journalist about molybdenum mining in Colorado. He worked at Climax more than 30 years ago, and in the 1990s he wrote a well-regarded history of the Climax Mine.
Unlike previous owners of the mine, Phelps Dodge has deeper pockets, says Voynick. This gives it more leverage. Instead, of scrambling to reopen Climax to make a quick buck off the current high prices, it doubled production at its Henderson Mine and Mill, which is located about halfway between Silverthorne and Winter Park. With Henderson making money, Phelps Dodge can now more methodically plan renewed mining at Climax that is more efficient and lucrative. Pointedly, this mining is to resume as the Henderson deposit is depleted. In this way, Phelps Dodge discourages competitors from developing deposits, avoids glutting the market, and keeps prices high.
Those prices bottomed out at $2.50 in the post 9/11 slump, soared to $38.50 last year and have since settled at $24. Most analysts predict a long-term price of $15 to $20 per pound, which is sufficient to ensure the profitability of future moly mining -at Climax. Cash costs for production have ranged from $5 to $6 per pound for production, although perpetual water-treatment costs and end-of-mine reclamation efforts will increase the overall costs.
Where does this leave the proposal, now three decades old, to create a molybdenum mine on Mt. Emmons, adjacent to Crested Butte? Voynick points out that any company that tries to mine Mt. Emmons is going to face nasty, lengthy battles in state and federal courts and in the court of public opinion. And Phelps Dodge, he notes, cares about its image.
"Even if a mining company wins the legal battle to mine Mt. Emmons, its image will surely suffer," he says.
"So why should Phelps Dodge take on a fight in Crested Butte, when Leadville will welcome it with open arms? Remember, too, that even after many decades of large-scale mining, Climax still has an estimated 470 million pounds of recoverable moly — nearly twice the amount of Mt. Emmons."
Phelps Dodge, he notes, walked away from the Mt. Emmons project in March, leaving it with U.S. Energy Corporation. U.S. Energy is now looking for a partner to develop the deposit.
As for the Henderson Mine, it is a finalist, along with South Dakota’s Homestake Mine, to become a major underground physics research laboratory once mining ceases.
Crested Butte mulls dog hitching-posts
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Telluride and Crested Butte are two mountain towns still small enough that going to the post office and walking the dog can be done on the same mission. But in Crested Butte, those best-laid plans have been scuttled — at least temporarily — by a new postal policy that bans dogs from being tied up outside while their owners are inside transacting business.
To that end, Crested Butte officials are mulling the idea of instituting several dog hitching posts in the town. The idea was rejected four years ago, reports the Crested Butte News. Fears remain that the proposed hitching posts could yield dog bites.
However, a report from town officials in Telluride, which has had hitching posts for some years, maintains that the concept is tenable. There, puppy-parking is limited to 30 minutes, and dogs cannot be tied up in places, such as to cars, where they could get into vehicular traffic. How much any of this is enforced is another matter, says a private source in Telluride.
Crested Butte expects to take up the issue in July.
Hewing to middle ground of growth
KETCHUM, Idaho — Ketchum, Sun Valley, and the broader region of Blaine County are trying to plot a future that hews to the middle ground. There can be, says the Idaho Mountain Express, no other way.
The easy answer is to just slam the door on growth, notes the newspaper. If U.S. laws even allowed such attempts, "the door would have been slammed long ago and half of the people reading this page wouldn't be here," the newspaper noted wryly.
"The other easy answer–just let the type and location of new structures be determined by an unfettered and blind economy–is no answer either because it would damage our core values," instructs the Express. If so, the highway would be lined by big box stores, river access would be non-existent, and life altogether would be far uglier.
Both Ketchum and Blaine County must change, but they must order the changes, says the Express. Getting plans in place "will require elected officials to be courageous in the face of the proclivity of Westerners to dislike any kind of restraint."
"How smart the people of today will look to successive generations," concluded the paper, "will depend on what we pass on–vibrant cities and a sweet county where a fine balance has been struck between people and nature. Or a place trashed by blind and thoughtless growth, devoid of the things people once loved."
Second soldier from Eagle Valley dies in war
EDWARDS, Colo. — Vail and the Eagle Valley are coming to grips with the death of one of their own after John Shaw Vaughan, a lieutenant, in the U.S. Army, was killed by small arms fires in Mosul, Iraq.
Born in Vail, the 23-year-old had attended local schools and graduated from Battle Mountain High School in 2001. Another local resident, a graduate of Eagle Valley High School, was killed last year by a bomb in Iraq.
Leaving paradise for cities and fortunes
OURAY, Colo. — Among the pretty places of the West, Ouray is by no means a slacker. Set in a box canyon, it has hot springs, limestone cliffs, and oodles of old, Victorian houses. For many people, it is the quintessential mountain town, a veritable Shangri-La.
But the graduation supplement of the Ouray Plaindealer issued in May reports that the 16 graduates are off to New York, California, the Peace Corp and hopefully all manner of fortune, merriment and adventure around the world, but none intend to specifically stay put. For them, heaven can wait.
Telluride has foreclosed housing affordable options
TELLURIDE, Colo. — In the proud tradition of local newspapers, The Telluride Watch’s Seth Cagin has a habit of tilting against the local windmills. One of his long-standing contentions is that Telluride needs to house more of its own.
Affordable housing, of course, is a rallying cry in resort communities, but Cagin points out that to provide it, hard choices must be made. Telluride, he says, has made several key decisions to preserve open space at the expense of affordable housing. The most recent example was to proceed with condemnation of a large parcel at the entrance of the town, with the goal of preserving it as open space, at a cost of $29 million to $45 million. In doing so, the town rejected a compromise that would have included a large amount of affordable housing as well as some mansions.
"Today, there are only three classes of people who can truly call the immediate Telluride region home: Those who bought in early and have not yet cashed out (an aging population); those with inherited or accumulated wealth (an older population); and a small class of individuals who have managed to occupy one of our sharply limited supply of affordable housing units," writes Cagin, the newspaper’s publisher
"Nobody else needs apply," he adds.
"Housing will recede as our most pressing issue, simply because it has become virtually unsolvable," he continues. "Instead, we’ll be focusing increasingly on regional transportation, including road projects and bus systems."
He sees more service businesses, and their employees, relocating to Norwood, Ridgway, and Montrose, towns that are 40 to 70 minutes away in the best of summer weather and little traffic. In effect, Telluride — like many resort communities — is exporting its growth problems.
While Telluride, Mountain Village and the surrounding mesas will remain a highly desirable place to live, the Telluride "community" will become more regional, stretching to Utah, Montrose and who knows how far south toward Cortez.
"We may not have recognized it in so many words, nor have accepted it, but hasn’t most of this already happened?" asks Cagin. "And aren’t we OK with it? After all, in a very real sense, we chose it."
Reefer madness and Colorado resort areas
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — It uses a skimpy baseline, but the statistics show that the Crested Butte/Gunnison/Salida area has the highest percentage of failed marijuana tests in Colorado, with some 6 people among having flunked drug tests administered to 153 people.
Statistically, according to a report from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Aspen/Glenwood Springs/Vail area is close behind. Also ahead of the Colorado is the Durango area.
No surprise there, says Karen Vallecillo, who directs human resources for Aspen’s St. Regis Hotel. "The hospitality industry tends to attract people that would more likely be occasional drug users," she tells the Rocky Mountain News. But marijuana use, not meth use, is more likely in resorts, unlike rural areas.
Still, it doesn’t all add up. Telluride has a large reputation for drugs, but had fewer failed drug tests than Grand Junction.
Trailer court now gone from Banff
LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — The times are changing at Lake Louise. There, the final residents of a trailer court are being removed. The trailer park is an inholding in Banff National Park, and park officials say private holdings within the park are not permitted. As well, they say, the trailer park impinges upon the Bow River.
Geothermal tapped for house in Banff
BANFF, Alberta — A geothermal heating unit, which employs ground-source heat pumps, is being installed at a home in Banff. It’s a first for Banff, but an idea that home designers hope will spread.
Twenty 100-foot-deep wells, six inches in diameter, are being drilled into the ground and then filled with tubing. Inside that tubing, ethanol is circulated. It absorbs latent solar thermal energy. The ethanol soaks up seven degrees of heat and, via the heat pump, circulates the heat in both in-floor slab heating and forced-air heating. As well, it’s used to heat water.
In summer, the system is reversed, and the home’s excess is re-directed into the earth to achieve low-cost cooling.
Florian Junge, an architect with Calgary-based Habitat Design, says the system costs roughly $20,000 more than a high-efficiency natural gas furnace. Still, he figures the system will pay for itself in seven years.
Junge and his father, Peter, say that geothermal heating is common in Switzerland, where he grew up. "Over there, it’s nothing special," he tells the Rocky Mountain Outlook. But cheap energy in Canada provides little incentive to find less polluting ways to heat homes.
The home where all this is being installed will also have a graywater catchment system, trellised windows to allow winter sun while keeping out summer sun, and even a sodded/alpine meadow on some roof sections.
Woman criticized for attempt to trap bears
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The Tahoe Daily Tribune could not find anybody willing to criticize the character of Mary Lou Mosbacher. Described as elderly, but tough and very lively, she has lived in the thickly forested Christmas Valley for decades. She has been involved in community organizations. And until a couple of years ago, after her husband died of Alzheimer’s disease, she says she had no problems with bears.
Other residents along her street have also had problems. But alone among them she has erected a bear trap. While admiring the animals for decades, she says she now fears for her own safety.
And that has some bear activists cranky, as they believe she sees bears like mice, pests to be exterminated.
Cheryl Millham, director of the Tahoe Wildlife Care, which attends to injured wildlife, says the woman has a right to kill a bear if it enters her home. However, the trap is indiscriminate in that it proves no guilt. "Killing bears until she’s satisfied is wrong," he told the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Millham blames residents for leaving garbage out for bears, while Mosbacher blames tourists for feeding them.
Last year, a bear broke through two doors to her house, where she now lives alone. This year, a bear tore through a door to her basement, where she raises chicks. She also keeps ducks, chickens, and both miniature goats and a mini-horse in a barn.
She has bear-proof containers for her feed, and another one for her garbage. As well, she has a motion-sensing light at her stairway, and she’s looking into getting bear-hunting dogs from Europe, a robotic barking dog, and a surveillance camera.
"I love animals. I don’t want to kill the bears," Mosbacher said. "Used to love watching them, but I cannot allow these bears to harm my animals, me or my great-grandchildren."
Lately, says the newspaper, trespassers have vandalized her bear trap and poured ammonia on it.
Rainbow Family to gather near Steamboat
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The word "hippie’ is used often, but definitions are imprecise. Is it someone with long hair? Someone who uses drugs? Or is there something else that characterizes all so-called hippies?
The Rainbow Family of Living Light each summer puts on what The Steamboat Pilot describes as the "largest gathering of hippies in North America." But what does it take to be a member? "A belly button," says the newspaper, after interviewing one of the advance scouts and organizers for the U.S. gathering that will be held during the first week of July somewhere near Steamboat Springs.
An advance group from the Rainbow Family visited the area near Clark, about 20 miles north of Steamboat Springs. This is near the Zirkel Wilderness Area and also the center of the great blowdown of trees that occurred in 1997.
Rainbow Family first met in Colorado in 1972, on private and public lands near Granby. It meets at different places each year, usually on national forests. The group last met in Colorado in 1992. Among other criteria, the gatherings require a 100-acre meadow and fresh water
"You will see a very functional city of 60,000 people existing in harmony and peace, and showing an alternative to society," said a scout and organizer, who goes by the name Bodhi.
The Forest Service expects closer to 20,000 people, but still has concerns. The 1992 gathering had two deaths (due to drug overdoses), three births, five sexual assaults and 43 arrests on charges ranging from child abuse to wildlife violations.
The Rainbow Family gatherings are fairly well organized, and the group is premised on minimal environmental impact and peaceful co-existence. Still, that’s a lot of people in one area of the national forest, said Mike Zopf, director of the Routt County Department of Environmental health.
While local businesses typically enjoy a surge in business, costs of personnel from government agencies typically are also large, $750,000 in the case of the 1992 gathering in Colorado, as adjusted for inflation.
An unofficial website for the Rainbow Family (which insists on not having any official anything) describes the commonalities of "non-members" of the "non-organization" as this: "We're into intentional community building, non-violence, and alternative lifestyles. We also believe that Peace and Love are a great thing, and there isn't enough of that in this world. Many of our traditions are based on Native American traditions, and we have a strong orientation to take care of the Earth."
Colorado’s Playground a playground no more
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Travelers on Interstate 70 entering Colorado’s Summit County are greeted with signs proclaiming it "Colorado’s Playground."
But those signs are likely destined for the scrap heap, reports the Summit Daily News. Likely, the new sign will be the more simple: "Welcome to Summit County."
The old nickname has been the subject of many wisecracks, and it also sends the wrong message, says Sheriff John Minor. "We want to be known as a place with incredible recreational opportunities, but we don’t want to be known for a Mardi Gras-type atmosphere," he said.
Clear Creek County, located between Summit County and metropolitan Denver, has also replaced its signs in recent years. The old slogan, reflecting the county’s mining history, was: "A Blast from a Pastime." The new signs that say: "Mountains of Things to Do."
Criminal checks to be run on possible tenants
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — A 53-unit condominium complex called The Lodge at Lake Dillon in July will begin getting criminal background checks on future residents from local police. This may be a first in Summit County.
The Summit Daily News explains that the decision is a coincidence. First, the Dillon municipal police chief lives there. And second, there have been two arrests for cocaine and several seizures of marijuana, to the concern of complex managers. Also required of future residents will be documentation verifying legal U.S. residency.
Banff man survives 400-foot fall/tumble
LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — A 30-year-old Banff man miraculously survived a 400-foot tumble while climbing Mount Temple. The tumble occurred when he and a partner were about 1,300 feet below the summit of the 11,627-foot mountain. "To survive a fall like that in that type of terrain is extremely unlikely," said rescuer Brad White. The Rocky Mountain Outlook noted that the route chosen by the pair of climbers was a "serious" one, and that snow and avalanches found in early June made it less than ideal.
Hope gone for two women on Foraker
TALKEETNA, Alaska — Searchers have given up hope of finding two mountain-town residents, Sue Nott, 36, of Vail, and Karen McNeill, 37, of Canmore, Alberta — alive on Mount Foraker.
"It's no longer a rescue," said Kris Fister, spokeswoman for Denali National Park, told the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday.
The two women, who had been partners on several major expeditions, were last seen May 14 when climbing the 17,400-foot mountain. Unlike nearby Denali, also called Mount McKinley, Foraker gets far fewer climbers, and the route those chose, Infinite Spur, had not even been climbed in two years. It was described by Canmore’s Rocky Mountain Outlook as "one of the great plumbs for serious alpine climbers."
Fister said that even if the two climbers had all of their fuel containers with them, assuming none were in the backpack that was discovered at the base of the avalanche chute, their fuel would have lasted no more than 18 days. That would have left them without means to melt snow for 10 days. Without water, climbers grow dehydrated, increasing the probability of debilitating frostbite and hypothermia.
The Infinite Spur was climbed in 2000 by Barry Blanchard, a Banff-area climber and guide.
"It’s definitely off the beaten track," he told the Outlook. "Most of the action in Alaska is centered on the west buttress of McKinley, where there are tons of people around. Once you leave that area, Alaska is pretty remote; there might be one or two teams going for the Infinite Spur. That’s the big draw there. It’s a beautiful aesthetic line, great linear features. It’s like a blade of rock that joins onto the south face of Foraker. The architecture of the route is phenomenal. It’s a great route."
The route was known for its long — 9,000 feet — of intermediate level intensity. McNeill told the Outlook two years ago that she liked long routes because of the sustained intensity.
"Keeping it together when you accept that it’s not going to get easier. It takes full focus. And the experiences you have together are so intense."
