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Vail hoping to steal market share

VAIL, Colo. - Vail Resorts Inc. continues to calculate how it can steal market share from other resorts while building real estate at the base of Vail Mountain.

VAIL, Colo. - Vail Resorts Inc. continues to calculate how it can steal market share from other resorts while building real estate at the base of Vail Mountain.

Ever Vail, this gleam in the company's eye, has already been in the planning for a decade. It would cover 12 acres, connect to the ski mountain via a new gondola, and has a price tag of $1 billion.

There would be 428 housing units, and in announcing revised plans, company officials emphasized that 60 per cent of buyers would likely be new to Vail. The company identifies the price range as $350,000 to $450,000, at the low end for slope-side housing units of 1,500 square feet in Vail.

"We're opening up the capacity for new people to come here," said Tom Miller, project manager for Ever Vail.

From the outset, Vail Resorts had described the project as one designed for new generations of buyers, Gen X and Gen Y.

"We believe we'll be one of, if not the only, resort community that's going to be able to market new product - that's going to pull people away from these other resort communities," said Kristin Kenney Williams, speaking at a recent meeting covered by the Vail Daily .

Plans also call for a 102-room hotel plus 15,564 square feet of retail, which is 30 per cent less than what was previously announced. Now, the company says it doesn't want to compete with existing business. It does, however, plan a 13,000 square-foot specialty grocery store plus 1,400 parking spaces.

Also in the works: an 80-foot indoor climbing wall.

 

Naturalists scoff at via ferrata

BANFF, Alberta - Earlier this year officials from Parks Canada announced they'd review a proposal to install a thrill ride called a via ferrata. The via ferrata would not be directly related to the natural landscape of Banff, but would draw additional visitors, supporters say.

A group called the Bow Valley Naturalists disagrees, insisting that Canadians want national parks as places "where the natural world may be experienced on its own terms: no gimmicks, no bells and whistles," in the words of Mike McIvor, in a letter excerpted in the Rocky Mountain Outlook .

Writing in the same publication, Jeff Gailus insists that "this push for more, more, more is being driven largely by the apparently shameless business lobby in Banff National Park, especially ski hills looking to enhance the summer use of facilities that Parks Canada policy already recognizes as less than appropriate ..."

"Reading between the lines, we can all see that the real impetus for via ferrata and other titillations is to make commercial operators in our national parks 'competitive' (and more profitable) with their counterparts outside the parks," he continues.

"If Whistler gets a bigger amusement park than Banff does, well, then Banff should get to expand its amusement facilities too. Unless this is exposed for what it is, we can expect to see, over time, the need for a never-ending list of titillations and amusements that will be necessary to keep pace with so-called progress."

The argument in Canada parallels a similar one in the United States, where ski areas which operate on national forest land have been seeking clear authority to expand summer-time activities that, like via ferrata, might be called amusement park-type attractions, but in majestic outdoor settings.

 

Bark beetles play Scrooge

DILLON, COLO. - Trees, trees, everywhere - and not one for the parlor. Or, as is said nowadays, the great room.

That's the story in Summit County, where 79 per cent of the land is administered by the U.S. Forest Service. But because of the bark beetle epidemic, most of the lodgepole pine trees have died or are dying.

That has left a sea of snags, as standing dead trees are called, and the lodgepole pine are notoriously shallow rooted. Foresters expect them to fall within a few years.

To ensure that none fall on people cutting trees for Christmas, the Forest Service has decided not to sell any permits this year. As well, the agency officials think they don't have enough young trees yet to offer to the public.

 

Shop local campaigns rejuvinated

PARK CITY, Utah - Shop-local campaigns, a staple of chambers of commerce for time immemorial, are wearing new clothes these days.

In Telluride, Colo., the shop-local campaign is being pulled by the effort to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Agreeing with a local environmental group called the New Community Coalition, the Telluride Town Council recently agreed to review municipal purchases to encourage in-town buying, when practical.

In Telluride's case, much of the purchasing gets done at Montrose, 65 miles away, where Wal-Mart and other such big- and middle-box stores can be found.

In Utah, the Park Record takes aim at on-line Christmas shopping. "What has Amazon done for you," asks the newspaper. The editorial points out that taxes on local purchases fund the free bus service in Park City and provide money for grants given to local non-profits.

"Turn off the computer and get outside," advises the newspaper.

 

Vail debates value of sculpture

VAIL, Colo. - What is art worth? The Vail Town Council has revisited that famous question in deciding the fate of an outdoor sculpture that has been in storage for the last five years.

The art was originally commissioned in 1999 to be placed in Seibert Circle, at Vail's oldest and still most prominent ski portal. It was created by a Texas artist, Jesus Moroles. But people just didn't hang out at the art, a series of stones, meant to represent Vail and the Gore Valley in which it is located.

At length, the town put the art into storage and replaced it with something that worked out better.

Moroles's star has been rising, however, and some local art dealers in Vail think that the piece might now be worth $2 million. That led to a proposal to get the art out of the municipal closet and into more prominent display in a park. The cost of additional placement was estimated at $260,000.

Some critics say the town could use the money to better advantage. But Margaret Rogers, a city council member, sees the Moroles's art as a draw, especially among Texans. "Art lovers - that's a niche in the travel industry we'd like to get a bigger piece of," she told the Vail Daily .

A prominent local activist, Jim Lamont, who directs the Vail Homeowners Association, has been skeptical. "What down the road, do we need to do to keep the economy afloat?" he asks. "I'm of the mind that art installations don't do it."

 

New bones to the inventory

DENVER, Colo.-The number of bones recovered from the reservoir near Snowmass Village continues to grow. Officials from the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, which has been given authority to curate the Ice Age bones, last week reported that 600 bones have now been tallied.

The number of animals has also grown: the scientists now figure they have remains of eight to 10 American mastodons, four Columbian mammoths, four Ice Age bison, two Ice Age deer, and one Jefferson's ground sloth.

The discovery stands as unusual in many contexts. Such a great number of American mastodons have been found in just one area in only a couple of other places in North America. Too, the bones remain exceptionally well preserved. One mastodon tusk remained white after tens of thousands of years.

According to a press release posted at the museum's website, scientists think there's a good chance of recovering well-preserved DNA from some of the fossils.

Then, too, the fossils from high elevations have previously been underrepresented.

"There have been suggestions that high altitude environments might have harboured different communities, or had a different story of change, but since fossils representing them are so rarely found, no one has known for sure. Now is our chance to see what they are like," said Dr. Daniel Fisher, a mastodon expert from the University of Michigan and a consultant to the excavation.

 

Real estate market thawing

VAIL, Colo. - If prices remained far below what they were three years ago, real estate activity has been picking up in Vail and the broader Eagle Valley. Part of this has been due to somewhat relaxed lending procedures.

Mortgage brokers and bankers tell the Vail Daily that deals can be done more easily now than a year ago, but the process remains far more demanding than during the boom years.

It used to be that even people without much proof of their income could secure loans with little documentation. Sarah Jardis, president of Central Rockies Mortgage, a company based in Avon, told the newspaper that those days are gone - probably forever.

But they can still get loans. They just have to prove income. If the proof is shown in income taxes, they should be able to get loans.

Bill Walsh, president of the Alpine Bank in Avon, told the newspaper that mortgages for condo-tels - short for condominium units partly used for hotel rooms - have become easier, helping such projects as the Westin Riverwalk.

But the shadow of the recession still hangs over the market, says James Wilkins, of FirstBank of Vail. "The floodgates are not open," he said. "The local real estate market is still uncertain."

 

Grinding dancing on outs

JACKSON, Wyo. - A policy adopted at Jackson Hole High School prohibits overtly sexual dancing, kissing or making out, as well as touching private parts and replicating sex acts. The policy also addresses drug, alcohol and tobacco use at school dances, as well as what kind of music can be played.

A school official tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that the policy was not created to correct past behaviors, but to ensure that there is no behavior to be corrected in the future.

"Front to front and front to back dancing is acceptable, but both dancers must remain completely vertical at all times," the policy says.

The policy also requires that music played for dances must be suitable for radio broadcast, meaning that profanity has been expurgated.

 

Kit Carson's legacy debated

CRESTONE, Colo. - A familiar debate has returned in a proposal to rename one of Colorado's highest peaks, 14,165-foot Kit Carson Peak. Residents of the nearby town of Crestone are petitioning to give the peak a new title, Mount Crestone.

As reported by the Colorado Springs Gazette, the proposal is partly a referendum on the legacy of Kit Carson, the mountain man who became a celebrity in the 1840s when he became a guide for John Charles Frémont.

But those who want his name removed describe Carson as a war criminal, reports the Gazette.

"They point to his brutal 1863-64 campaign against the Navajo, when, acting under orders from the Union government, he led a march of destruction through their territory. When they surrendered, some 8,000 were compelled take part in a 300-mile forced march to New Mexico, where they lived in captivity for several years, losing many of their numbers."

One of the 104 petition-signers describes him as a "shameful character of U.S. history."

Others say that locals have always called it Crestone Mountain - although two other peaks in the neighbourhood also bear the name Crestone.

The U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which has jurisdiction over names of geographic feature on public lands, will review the proposal in the next few months.

Even if Carson's names get expurgated from that mountain, it would remain in many places of the West and Great Plains. His name graces towns, counties, a national forest and a river.

But if Carson's bloodied hands are to cost him geographic remembrance, then what is to happen to Frederick Pitkin? He was elected as the second governor of Colorado on a platform of "Utes Must Go," and then ordered what was seen by the Utes as the invasion of their reservation in northwestern Colorado. This led to their forced exodus to Utah.

Pitkin County, home of Aspen, is named after him, as is a street in Frisco, a hamlet near Crested Butte and perhaps many other geographic features in Colorado. Where do you draw the line?