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High marking claims victims

REVELSTOKE, B.C. - In reporting the deaths of three more snowmobilers caught in an avalanche triggered by high marking, the Revelstoke Times Review hints at puzzlement.

REVELSTOKE, B.C. - In reporting the deaths of three more snowmobilers caught in an avalanche triggered by high marking, the Revelstoke Times Review hints at puzzlement.

Less than a year ago, two people were killed and dozens partially buried near Revelstoke as the result of high marking on a nearby peak.

This time, the deaths occurred north of Golden. Two fathers and their sons had been caught in the slide, and three of them died.

 

Can ski towns become something else again?

JACKSON, Wyo. - Voters in Aspen and Breckenridge last November approved new or increased lodging taxes, to be used for tourism promotion, as did those in Jackson and Teton County. But Jonathan Schechter, an economic analyst who writes for the Jackson Hole News&Guide , argues for outside-the-marketing box thinking as the valley's residents consider how to spend the $2 million annual proceeds they will get next year.

In making his case, Schechter points to precedent, that of the oilman John D. Rockefeller, who in the 1920s and 1930s purchased 33,000 acres of land in Jackson Hole, eventually transferring it to the federal government when Grand Teton National Park was established in1943.

Rockefeller, said Schechter, had vision - and acted on it.

"Rockefeller could see that, without some sort of long-term vision and related action, the northern part of Jackson Hole valley would become a mishmash of random development, billboards, and the like. In contrast, his preference was for unimpeded scenic vistas."

With two big decisions- how to spend the $2 million in lodging tax money and a new land-use plan for the valley - now in front of it, Jackson Hole should reassess its long-term strategy for economic sustainability. It doesn't, Schechter believes, lie with tourism as conventionally configured. Instead of entering into a marketing war with every other resort trying to lure visitors, he said, Jackson Hole should use the money to "catalyze our efforts to shape a 21 st century economy."

Schechter makes the case that three things are clear when looking ahead: A portion of the community will continue to enjoy great investment-generated wealth; real estate sales won't return to their pre-bust levels for quite a while; and improved and cheaper technology will make it easier to work from anywhere.

"And because lifestyle is becoming an increasingly important factor in where people choose to live, those who can afford to live anywhere will continue to be attracted to Jackson Hole," he said.

Meanwhile, in Canmore, Alberta, tourism leaders are hewing to a more conventional approach. The Rocky Mountain Outlook explains that 13 hotels in Canmore and nearby Kananaskis have voluntarily levied a 3 percent tax on hotel rooms, yielding a $250,000 annual fund to be used for marketing of tourism. The strategy adopted by the Canmore council last year calls for leveraging special events to promote tourism and hence economic growth.

 

 

Rush Limbaugh ribbed

VAIL, Colo. - Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators got a chance to chew on Michelle Obama a bit after her visit to Vail in the company of the two Obama daughters. After a day of skiing, the Obamas - minus the president, who stayed in Washington - dined at a local restaurant, enjoying a meal of short ribs.

"The problem - and dare I say this? - is it doesn't look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary dietary advice," said Limbaugh on his radio show while reporting that the ribs consisted of 1,575 calories per serving with 141 grams of fat.

Not so, said restaurateur Kelly Liken, who told the Vail Daily , that in fact, most of the fat on the braised ribs had been cooked off, leaving the serving at just 600 calories - and far short of the 6,000 calories that a skier can burn off during a day.

Not all readers were persuaded. "Yeah, right, 600 calories. And I just heard the Pope converted to Buddhism," wrote one reader from New York City. And another reader, from Wyoming, found it incredulous that somebody skiing would consume 6,000 calories while he burned fewer than 500 calories while on the treadmill for three miles.

The Vail Daily , whose reporting on the subject was cited in the Washington Post , also noted that the meal consisted of a pickled pumpkin salad with arugula and wild mushrooms and sautéed kale - the latter grown in a greenhouse at an elementary school in nearby Eagle.

Locovoristic thinking was also in the news in Telluride. Thirty miles west at Norwood, a meeting was held to discuss the potential for creating a food hub for distribution of beef, vegetables and other locally originated food. "I want to reduce how far our food has to travel," said organizer Ken Haynes. "The more food travels, the less nutritious it is."

 

Worst ski flick ever?

DENVER, Colo. - The movie was advertised as dreadful, probably the worst skiing movie ever made. And, after a viewing on Saturday evening at Denver's Film Society, that seems a fair description of the star-starved Snowbeast . While some reviewers have tried to find redeeming value, this reviewer could only find solace in seeing Crested Butte, where the movie was filmed.

A made-for-television horror film, apparently modeled on Jaws , it was first broadcast in 1977.

The plot featured a certain Rill Lodge and Ski Resort, where a 50 th Annual Winter Carnival was underway, as well as a thin love triangle, an aging Olympic skier coping with his post-skiing mission in life, and then... missing skiers.

The culprit, as you might have guessed, was a big-footed-type character who can occasionally be heard roaring in the woods adjacent to ski slopes that, on the busiest weekend of the year, mysteriously were always empty.

The script was written by Joseph Stefano, whose credentials otherwise included the 1960 thriller, Psycho , and directed by Herb Wallenstein, whose other TV work included Star Trek and The Brady Bunch.

The film seemed to be intended for parody - or maybe was. After all, the county sheriff in the movie is called Paraday, who had one of the movie's great lines. He asks the resort operator's grandson to identify a victim. "Maybe I'll recognize her when I see her face," said the lodge operator. Said the sheriff: "She doesn't have one."

So, why would anybody pay good money ($12) to see a dreadful movie? The notice in Denver's Westword , an alternative weekly, billed it as an "abomination that is a classic in no sense of that word," and invited patrons to put on their most dreadful one-piece ski suits in a chance to win a weekend of lodging and skiing at Crested Butte. The shows were sold out.

 

New Sun Valley airport

KETCHUM, Idaho - A consultant has reported that the cost of a new airport to deliver skiers to the Sun Valley market will run around $189 million, or $40 million more than what was previously estimated. Although not without dissent, a portion of the resort community has been pushing for a new airport for the last decade.

The existing airport, while relatively close to Ketchum and Sun Valley, has restrictions that preclude the sort of air traffic enjoyed by airports serving Aspen, Vail and Jackson Hole. A new airport would, however, be farther away, about a 45-minute drive.

 

 

Natural gas protestor on trial

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - In 2008, Tim DeChristopher stood at an auction conducted by the federal government and bid $1.8 million for the right to drill for natural gas on parcels near Arches and Canyonlands national parks, near Moab, Utah, and bid up the price on many other parcels.

But he had no intention of paying, nor does he have apparent income. Instead, DeChristopher, who can be seen as the latest in a long string of non-violent protestors, was merely trying to gum up the effort to extract gases.

He was subsequently charged by federal prosecutors, and his trial began on Monday in Salt Lake City.

He has explained himself often, including twice at Telluride Mountain Film in recent years. His mission, he explained, was to draw attention to climate change and the need to shift away from fossil fuels. A backcountry guide before his monkey wrenching of federal mineral leasing, he said he felt driven to protect the flora and fauna and, without much premeditation, decided to play havoc with the federal government's mineral leasing program.

Relating the news of DeChristopher's trial, The Telluride Watch noted a march in Salt Lake City to highlight support for his cause. Among those expected to participate were the actress Darryl Hannah, a part-time resident of the Telluride area; author Terry Tempest Williams, who lives near Arches National Monument; and the singer Peter Yarrow, of the former folk singing group Peter, Paul and Mary.

 

Ski valleys still mostly white, if more Hispanic

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. - The Census Bureau numbers are out, and Summit County has tilted slightly from being a lily-white guysville.

The Summit Daily News reports that during the last decade the ranks of women swelled from 41.8 percent of the total population to 43 percent. But while the number of people who identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino has grown, more than 90 per cent of the total population identifies itself as white.

Across Vail Pass in Eagle County, however, there has been a much larger Hispanic population for nearly a century, owing to an influx of miners from New Mexico. But those who identify as Hispanic or Latino now compose 30 per cent of the population, although almost exactly half of school children in local public schools are Hispanic.

Aspen also remained overwhelmingly white, although Mayor Mick Ireland observed that local Latinos were likely undercounted. Down-valley at Carbondale they were found to constitute 39 per cent of the population, reported The Aspen Times .

 

Editor of Aspen Times dies

ASPEN, Colo. - Bil Dunaway, the long-time owner and publisher of The Aspen Times , died recently at the age of 87.

He led a colorful life, and his experience with the 10 th Mountain Division during World War II was not necessarily the most exotic. He did, however, receive a bronze star for his duty on the famous Riva Ridge, resisting a German counterattack.

He was born in Persia (now Iran), the son of a Lebanese-American woman and an economist from Missouri. When Dunaway was in ninth grade, the family moved to Switzerland, where he learned to ski, and then to New Jersey.

But while in the 10 th Mountain, he was actually stationed in West Virginia, where he taught rock climbing. After the war he earned a master's degree in sociology from Harvard, learned French, skied on Mont Blanc, the first ever ski-descent of Europe's highest peak, and then edited a new magazine called Skiing for a couple of years.

After being fired from that job - many others were, as well - he landed in Aspen, where he broke his leg in a ski race. That resulted in him wandering into the office of The Aspen Times , then and now located next to the Hotel Jerome, which he purchased in 1956 and owned until 1994.

The Aspen Times , in telling his story, recalls that he supported a strike by ski patrollers, crusaded against the Vietnam War, and editorialized in favor of affordable housing for employees - something that he did as a business owner. He also editorialized against serving food on cold plates.