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Aspen seeks foreign visitors

ASPEN, Colo. – The Aspen Skiing Co. is looking to gains this year in its all-important business among international visitors. Two years ago 15 per cent of Aspen’s skier days came from international visitors, and last year it was 18 per cent.

ASPEN, Colo. – The Aspen Skiing Co. is looking to gains this year in its all-important business among international visitors.

Two years ago 15 per cent of Aspen’s skier days came from international visitors, and last year it was 18 per cent. But this year it may become larger yet, says David Perry, the No. 2 executive in the company. Aspen has four ski areas. Snowmass being the largest.

Aspen is becoming less expensive to foreign visitors because of the flagging strength of the U.S. dollar. For example, when Perry arrived in Colorado from Whistler five years ago, the Canadian dollar was worth $0.62 compared to the U.S. dollar. Now, it trades at $1.08.

Top markets for Aspen are Australia/New Zealand, United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Germany and Canada.

But Aspen’s skier days have actually declined in the last decade, even as other ski areas in Colorado have grown. Perry discounts the comparison to the growing resorts along the I-70 corridor. “We have a pure long-haul destination resort and have achieved our results without the frustration of weekend crowds,” he said.

About 39 per cent of skiers at Aspen-Snowmass fly into Aspen. Another 36 per cent fly into the Denver airport and take ground transportation to Aspen, and 11 per cent use the Eagle County Regional Airport near Vail.

Aspen, more than many other resorts, suffered last year as a result of disruptions in airline service. However, offered airline seats are up 12 per cent for this winter.

 

Banff calls for car-free zone

BANFF, Alberta – A trade group called Banff Lake Louise Tourism is calling for a car-free pedestrian zone on the main drag in Banff similar to what is found in Whistler and Boulder, Colo., or for that matter, Aspen and Vail.

Council members don’t necessarily disagree, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, but first want to see the results of the $22 million that was spent this year to gussy-up the strip.

 

Fast food town?

KETCHUM, Idaho – Everybody’s complaining about high prices in the Wood River Valley.

The town manager in Ketchum, located at the foot of the Sun Valley ski area, is decamping for a similar job in Durango, Colo. He’s getting $153,000 a year, plus a generous retirement package and other benefits. He says it’s because he doesn’t think he can afford to retire in the Ketchum area, because of the cost of living.

In a letter published in the Idaho Mountain Express, Cindy Williams looks at things from the other end of the income spectrum. What the valley needs, she says, are more fast-food restaurants. It just has McDonald’s and Subway, but it could use Taco Bell, KFC and a few others, she believes.

“This valley has its eyes closed to the middle and lower classes,” she says. “It seems people are only interested in keeping high-priced restaurants running in this valley.”

 

Where men are boys

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Those crossing Teton Pass from the west are greeted with a sign that says: “Howdy stranger, yonder is Jackson Hole, the last of the Old West.”

That slogan is perhaps outdated. After all, this is a place from which people commute to Manhattan, are armored in Lycra and Gore-Tex, and can claim one of the highest per capita incomes in the United States.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide is sponsoring a contest to see what people might say that might be more appropriate. To get the ball rolling it offers several ideas of its own: “Our chai complements your chi.”

Or perhaps, “Jackson Hole, where California plays and Mexico works.”

A local pundit in 1999 suggested yet another: “Welcome to Jackson Hole, where men remain boys and women work three jobs.”

 

$100 million expansion planned

ASPEN, Colo. – The hospital in Aspen will soon embark on a $100 million, seven-year expansion. That plan is to expand the 70,000 square foot hospital to 200,000 square feet.

The hospital opened in the 1970s with 49 patient beds, but then downsized to 25 as medical care shifted to outpatient treatment. The resulting 25 beds allowed the Aspen hospital to qualify as a small, rural facility under federal standards, making it eligible for $1 million per year in Medicaid payments. With plans to expand, this time to 39 beds, the hospital will no longer be small enough to qualify for that funding, explains The Aspen Times.

 

Lots of diamonds in hotels

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – AAA, the automobile group, had announced its five-diamond ratings of lodging. Among the 100 in North America, five are at the base of ski slopes:

• Jackson Hole, the Four Seasons Resort, the only lodge in Wyoming.

• Whistler, Four Seasons, one of only two in Canada to be so distinguished.

• Aspen, the Little Nell.

• Beaver Creek, Ritz-Carlton.

• Park City, Stein Erickson Lodge.

 

Report notes shrinking glacier

BANFF, Alberta – Pyeto, one of the glaciers in Banff National Park, has shrunk by 70 per cent since it was observed in 1896. That statistic is contained in a report about the park by Parks Canada. The report notes greater changes underway and likely to accelerate. “Obviously, we are looking at managing climate change, but adapting to it, and mitigating the effects of climate change,” said Mike Murtha, senior park planner.

The report notes that, as predicted by global warming theory, minimum temperatures at Banff have been increasing faster than maximum temperatures, and winter temperatures have increased faster than spring and summer temperatures. For unexplained reasons, an exception has been noted at Lake Louise.

 

Forest fire threat continues to grow

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – It’s a nerdy, wonkish phase, and based on the acronyms, WUI, it’s pronounced woo-wee. That stands for the wildland-urban interface, and it’s a big, big deal in much of the West, where people have been flocking to stake out homes next to the trees, away from town centres.

There are several reasons to be concerned about the settlement pattern, but most prominent is the potential for fire. This year’s classic case was at South Lake Tahoe, where a campfire gone awry destroyed 254 homes in June.

For years, land managers had worried about an aging forest, and the sub-par winter in the Sierra Nevada — the latest in a string of drought years in the West — left the forest tinder dry. A similarly dry winter in Idaho was also the background story for a fire that licked uncomfortably to the edges of the ski town of Ketchum and even within the Sun Valley ski area.

Nationally, the Forest Service now spends 41 per cent of its budget on either fighting fires or reducing fuels. In California, it’s 50 per cent. There, firefighting costs have jumped from $10 to $20 million per year during the early 1980s to $100 million to $252 million in recent years.

Loss of life is also at issue. Seven firefighters have died this year, but during the decade an average 18 per year have died as a result of heart attacks, airplane crashes, or being burned to death.

Until recently, firefighters “saluted and went out and did it,” U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Don Smurthwaite told a team of reporters from the Associated Press. Now, “we will not ask a fire crew in a dangerous fire to defend a structure that has not taken precautionary steps. That’s definitely a change.”

Still, firefighters continue to die.

In the case of Lake Tahoe, restrictions on thinning projects of less than 100 acres have been loosened since last summer’s fire, as have regulations regarding defensible space.

Whether those changes will be of value is unknown, reports the Sierra Sun. But the verdict is in regarding work done since 1985 by a large subdivision called Tahoe Donner. It’s a very large subdivision, with 6,000 properties. Each property is assessed $1,000 per year for thinning and other work on the 3,474 acres of common area.

Other neighbourhoods, including one at the Northstar ski area, are beginning to fund their own forestry efforts, if on a smaller scale.

Meanwhile, settlement in these semi-rural areas continues, and geographers and economists continue to issue projections that forsee even more of this exurban — or perhaps it should be called “exural” — living.

 

To inspire, but not provoke

BANFF, Alberta – Should art inspire or provoke viewers? In Banff, it will be the former — to the distress of an artist who had been commissioned to create a piece in a highly visible location.

But the artist was rejected after informing members of the community’s public art commission that he was interested in creating artwork that “functions through some degree of provocation.”

“We feel strongly as a committee that any public art in Banff should reflect the natural splendor around us in a national park, while inviting residents and tourists to interact with and be engaged by the art, rather than being provoked by it,” said member Nan Hughes-Poole.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook explains that the committee is soliciting proposals from across Canada. The commission will be for $55,000.

 

An icon of America

LEADVILLE, Colo. – A drill platoon from the U.S. Marine Corps stopped in Leadville to shoot a commercial against the backdrop of the Sawatch Range, Colorado’s loftiest. The marines had also shot commercials at other “iconic sites, including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Grand Canyon, as well as New York’s Times Square and the Independence Mall in Philadelphia.”

A spokesman, Sgt. Brian Griffith, told the Leadville Chronicle that the Marines hope to deepen their connection with Americans. “You look around you and you see America — the snow-capped mountains we all hear about. You see people who live the American lifestyle. You live the American dream. We’re here to protect it.”

About a third of Leadville residents commute an hour to two hours a day across the Continental Divide to work in Summit and Eagle counties, where Vail, Breckenridge and four other ski resorts are located.

 

A trickle from Telluride skiers

SILVERTON, Colo. – A proposal to ferry skiers from Telluride by helicopters to ski the backcountry in nearby San Juan County doesn’t set well with some folks in Silverton.

“They are coming in from Telluride, paying $950 a day to ski on San Juan County snow, and they never really touch the ground,” said local resident Julie Singer.

The Silverton Standard notes that Helitrax wants authority to ferry 600 skiers a year on public land around Silverton. County commissioners believe the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has forged a good compromise, but think Helitrax should also pay an impact fee to San Juan County.

 

Money for water

PARK CITY, Utah – Park City will be among the beneficiaries of the first-ever override of a veto by President George W. Bush.

The Park Record explains that the spending bill initially nixed by Bush included potentially $40 million for a water project to benefit the city and its various ski resorts, including Deer Valley and The Canyons.

The money is to be used to transport water from another basin to the north, called the Weber Basin. Park City lies at the headwaters and already consumes most of its native water.

Republicans allied with Democrats to override the presidential veto. Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman in Utah, said there should be concern about spending too much money — but not when it comes to water infrastructure.

“We in the West need to do everything we can do to maintain our water supplies and develop our water resources,” said Bishop.

 

New pioneers honoured

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Many towns recognize their pioneers, meaning the town’s first inhabitants. In Steamboat Springs, the Community Alliance of the Yampa Valley recognizes that town- and community-building is an ongoing affair. The group conducts something called the New Pioneers Gala. Among those so honoured this year was the Strawberry Park Elementary School Great Team, a collection of parents and teachers committed to making the new school as environmentally friendly as possible, notes The Steamboat Pilot & Today.

 

Commissioners get support on growth

DRIGGS, Idaho – The shouts may not all be over, but Idaho’s Teton Valley seems to have reached a tipping point about managing its land rush.

The valley is located on the west side of the Teton Range, and in many ways it’s just as beautiful as Jackson Hole, located on the east side. Development has been far slower, however.

That is now changing. Middle-income residents from Jackson Hole are moving to Driggs, Victor and surrounding unincorporated areas because they can buy far more for their money than what they can buy (if anything at all) in Jackson Hole. But retirees and vacation homebuyers also have begun to flood the valley.

Land use controls were limited, so two of the three county commissioners voted to adopt a moratorium. Opponents who saw this as a threat to their ability to benefit from rapidly escalating prices petitioned to get a recall election. The commissioners survived, and earlier this month they were re-elected by wide margins.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide says that opponents of the two commissioners “must now retract their claws and find a way to work with the majority and plan for gradual, and not breakneck, growth.”

 

High town goes deep

MONTEZUMA, Colo. – It may not be the sort of thing that a town would put on its “Hello Visitors” welcoming sign, but for the record, Montezuma has water pipes that go 11 feet into the ground.

The one-time mining town, located in Summit County, near the Keystone and Arapaho Basin ski areas, is at more than 10,200 feet in elevation. Engineer Joe Kracum of Glenwood Springs says frostline in most mountain towns goes only three to four feet deep, but it’s wise to put water lines down eight to 10 feet. In Montezuma, they’re going just a bit deeper.