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Much ado about who goes where

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. - Ski towns are like family, but as in many families, plenty of bickering goes on. Take Crested Butte. Everybody loves the b.c. - the backcountry, that is.

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. - Ski towns are like family, but as in many families, plenty of bickering goes on.

Take Crested Butte. Everybody loves the b.c. - the backcountry, that is. But as has been occurring now for 15 years or more, some skiers and snowboarders are buying snowmobiles to eliminate the sweat and get dibs on the choice backcountry slopes.

One local skier recently complained about planning to ski the Slate River, north of Crested Butte, and encountering seven snowmobiles while strapping skins onto her skis.

"I almost threw up from the smell. I turned around and left," said Melanie Rees.

"My opinion - turns should be earned. If you don't want to earn them, ride lifts. I don't understand how anyone could consider themselves to be an environmentalist if they use snowmobiles," she said.

In Crested Butte a decade ago, there was also some public squabbling as skiers complained about snowshoers messing up their trails.

Now, in Park City comes news of grousing among users of an area called Round Valley. The open-space areas have a groomed track, and slow skiers are being annoyed by fast skiers, and some skiers are cranky about people walking, reports The Park Record .

And then there are the dog-walkers, and everybody gets annoyed by those who don't pick up their dogs' doo. Much ado about nothing? Not with hundreds of dogs running around on any given day.

 

Time for new environmentalism ?

ASPEN, Colo. - How much of an emergency is the climate? That's the question at hundreds of sites across the West now as renewable energy projects bump up against environmental considerations.

Consider Aspen, which began operating a hydro plant in 1893, becoming one of the first cities to have electrified streetlights. Then, in 1958, it abandoned the small hydroelectric plant on Castle Creek, as power produced by coal-fired plants and the big dams of the West was slightly cheaper.

Several years ago, city officials began pushing to reinstall a plant. The 1.2-megawatt plant would deliver about eight per cent of the power supplied by the city's utility department. Stated another way, it would deliver about one-sixth of all the power used by the Aspen Skiing Co. to run its four ski areas, including lodges and restaurants.

But it hasn't been easy. Most thorny have been objections from people with homes along Castle Creek, whose waters would be diverted to generate the electricity, before being released downstream. Some local environmentalists warn of damage to fish.

Writing in The Aspen Times , energy and climate activists Randy Udall and Auden Schendler argue that the threat has been overblown. "We are not talking about Glen Canyon Dam here or mountain top mining," they said. "This run-of-the-river project has been studied nigh unto exhaustion, and the robust conclusion is that it's environmentally sound."

The two activists concede that the Castle Creek homeowners are making a sacrifice, but say it is "for the greater good, for lower emissions."

"Scientists tell us we need to cut emissions 60 to 80 per cent by mid-century. We don't need to trim them a little, we need to slash them a lot," they say in an op-ed published in The Aspen Times .

"To achieve that goal, Americans are going to have to embrace a new kind of environmentalism the way the German and Danes and Spaniards have, where responsible energy production in our backyards and on our rooftops and local streams is not something to oppose, but something to celebrate, where Aspen gets kudos not just for our bottomless powder but for our clean power."

 

Solar panels helping treat Telluride waste

TELLURIDE, Colo. - Some 500 solar panels have been installed on top of the wastewater treatment plant that serves Telluride and Mountain Village.

Public works officials say the panels will produce 200 megawatts annually, or about 10 per cent of the electric needs of the plant, which is one of the single largest users of electricity in the region. The project cost $600,000.

In 2008, mayors of Telluride and adjacent Mountain Village announced their joint intent of obtaining 100 per cent of the communities' electricity from renewable sources by 2020. They have a long ways to go, but this year Telluride plans to start studying the potential for tapping local creeks to produce electricity in micro-hydro plants.

 

Sheriff, ski area disagree

TELLURIDE, Colo. - Who should pay the tab? That's the question in Telluride, where the sheriff's department has been called out twice in recent weeks to rescue skiers from Bear Creek, the tantalizing but sometimes dangerous drainage adjacent to, but outside the ski area.

Forcing the question is Bill Masters, the long-time sheriff of San Miguel County. "I'm going to run a ski area called Bear Creek. It's a new career, I think," he joked in a conversation with the Telluride Daily Planet

Masters argues that the ski patrollers should be dispatched to Bear Creek to rescue in-trouble skiers. According to current policy, the ski patrollers have to punch out, then joining the rescue squad under the sheriff's supervision.

"It's wrong that the ski patrolmen have to go off the clock and rescue people who are side-country skiing."

Dave Riley, the chief executive of the ski area, said he understands the sheriff's frustration, "but if the ski areas is going to take responsibility for what's happening outside our permit area, then the permit areas needs to be expanded."

This story has been evolving since the late 1980s, when four people were killed in avalanches in the valley, causing the U.S. Forest Service to close backcountry gates from the ski area. In the last decade, the Forest Service has restored the backcountry gates - not that the lack of legal access ever stopped many people from slipping from the ski area into Bear Creek.

During the last few years, Riley has been talking about the potential for expanding ski area operations formally into Bear Creek.

Riley told the Daily Planet his company could manage the Bear Creek Valley. "For anyone to say we need to step up and take a bigger role, my answer is, let us. But we're not going to do it halfway. It's either part of the permit area, or it's not."

 

Deer, drivers pay heavy price for collisions

KREMMLING, Colo. - The death toll of wildlife-vehicle collisions was in the news in mountain towns both in Colorado and Wyoming last week.

In Colorado, the Sky-Hi News announced that billionaire hedge fund manager Paul T. Jones, who founded Tudor Investment in 1985, has donated $805,000 with the goal of reducing the potential for collisions along Highway 9, a few miles south of Kremmling. He owns a ranch there along the Blue River, halfway between Breckenridge and Steamboat Springs.

Mule deer forage daily among the sagebrush hillsides above the highway during winter, venturing down to water at night. In 1985, a couple from a nearby ranch was returning home in their small car when the driver of an oncoming pickup truck swerved to avoid a deer and ran into them head-on, killing both.

 

Some say the narrow road needs shoulders, and others say drivers need to slow down. The posted speed is 65. But another idea is to build underpasses, to allow deer and elk safe passage.

In Wyoming, long-time hunting and fishing columnist Paul Bruun reports the winter toll. "Snowbanks littered with dead mule deer continue to blacken my winter mood," he writes in the Jackson Hole News&Guide .

He argues that Jackson Hole, while always extolling its love for wildlife, doesn't practice what it preaches. Hurriedness is at the core of the problem -- and perhaps misplaced priorities. He takes aim, among others, at "workers in a hurry, mobile phone-chatting and - texting Gen Xers, scheduled haulers, tourists and Suburban-wielding ice hockey and soccer player transporters."

When rallying against more developments on hillsides, every Jackson driver adopts a pro wildlife image, he points out. So why, when they're behind the wheel, does such an impatient hurry-up mode prevail?

 

Jackson Hole economy still slow

JACKSON, Wyo. - It's a great winter in Jackson Hole. The major ski area, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, cut the prices of ski passes, and snow has been excellent, some 402 inches as of March 1.

But still, the economy falters, at least compared to the libertine free spending of the good old days, say five years ago.

The ski area has more skier days, but not necessarily more income. Several restaurants tell the Jackson Hole News&Guide that business is actually down. This is particularly true of those places that cater to locals.

The major story seems to be the continued lack of construction. One lumber yard reports having 16 employees, compared to 32 only two years ago. Banks aren't lending, homes are being foreclosed, and it's easier to buy a home than build a new one.

 

Four hotels approved,but no money to build

KETCHUM, Idaho - For years, Ketchum kept losing hotel beds. So, about a decade ago, it decided to get back into the tourism business again. It revamped regulations, authorizing more innovative financing techniques. After a prolonged debate, it approved four different hotel projects during the last three years.

Together, the four hotels would represent $2 billion in investment. At least some of the properties would deliver to Ketchum and its ski area, Sun Valley, the kind of elegant four-star lodging found at Aspen, Deer Valley, and Jackson Hole, or for that matter Vail, Beaver Creek and Whistler.

But timing is everything. None of the four projects is going forward. Banks aren't lending money for hotels right now, and private investors are tepid, too.

"We spent all those years trying to get approved, and when we finally did, there was no market," said Jack Bariteau, developer of a project called Hotel Ketchum. He estimates construction costs of $65 million for the four-story hotel he plans in the resort city's downtown area.

"We'll get it built," he said, and reports nascent discussions with investors. But, he added, "The question is when."

Lisa Horowitz, director of community and economic development in Ketchum, takes the same position. "I think we're going to see all of these projects," she said. "It's just a question of when."

Because of incentives from the city government, she believes a project called the Bald Mountain Lodge may be first to break ground. The city gave developers $6.6 million in incentives to break ground by June 2012 and have the hotel built by 2014. After that, the incentives drop sharply.

Two other base-area projects have been approved for large acreages. The Warm Springs Ranch would cover 77 acres. Helios Development, the owner and developer, has scaled back plans, making them "less ambitious and more realistic," according to company spokeswoman Joy Kasputys. She said the company no longer uses Park City-based DDRM Greatplace as the lead on the project.

The largest project is a 138-acre base village proposed by the Sun Valley Co., the owner and operator of the ski area of the same name. Wally Huffman, who oversees planning and development, said he'd like to start putting in streets, water sewer and utilities this year, but even that is uncertain.

He said the 19-acre hotel core is contingent on financing from outside partners. The development, as well as the ski area, is owned by the Holding family of Utah and Idaho.

 

Colorado mining mess

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Memories of a Colorado gold-mining disaster are being mentioned as officials in a California county weighs their positions about wishes to continue exploratory mining on federal land between Mammoth Lakes and Lake Tahoe.

The disaster in Colorado was called Summitville. Located in the southern part of the state, near the Wolf Creek Ski Area, the cyanide leaching went awry, poisoning 15 miles of the Alamosa River. The Vancouver-based mining company paid $30 million but went bankrupt, and U.S. taxpayers paid another $195 million as of 2006.

In California a company called Cougar Gold has spent $7 million in exploratory work in an area called the Bodie Hills. Also located near the Nevada border, a ghost town named Bodie is among the icons of flash-in-the-pan mining towns of the West.

The land is in a wilderness study area now. Should county officials lobby for release of that land to mining?

Mono County commissioners are split on the idea, reports The Sheet . Some would like to see added employment, because there just aren't many jobs in that vicinity, about 30 miles north of Mammoth Lakes. And mining company representatives scoff at any association with the Colorado disaster. Some mines don't even use cyanide, nor has anybody proposed an open pit mine, they say.