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By Allen Best

Pot ban a bust

WHISTLER, B.E. – Whistler’s mayor was among those calling for decriminalization of marijuana.

“It would be regulated,” explained Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden. “Prohibition has been a failed policy, and the cultivation and trade of marijuana is in the hands of gangs.”

She said that the impact of gangs in the distribution of marijuana in Whistler has been minimal, but it’s quite another matter in other parts of British Columbia.

“We do know that gangsters do come to Whistler from time to time, but for those communities that have heavy gang influence, they’ve got a level of violence in the community that is simply unacceptable,” she said.

The mayor had voted for a resolution adopted by the Union of British Columbia Municipalities. Also voting for the resolution was a councilor from Squamish, a town down-valley from Whistler. He admitted to using marijuana for medicinal purposes, but wanted the conversation expanded to recreational use.

“Everyone is basically fed up. We have a law that doesn’t work.” She told the Pique newsmagazine the resolution was a good step toward forcing the conversation at the provincial and federal levels. “That is where it should be, but they just haven’t had the …courage to deal with the issue,” she said.

Ferment it and eat it

JACKSON, Wyo. – Michael Pollan, the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and other best-selling books, was in Jackson Hole recently to give a talk. He’d never been anywhere in Wyoming before, but was told that it was cold there, with long winters.

Given those long winters, should they eat fruits and vegetables when not much locally produced food of that sort is available, the Jackson Hole New& Guide asked him.

“Fermentation,” he answered. “We forget that people have dealt with these questions for thousands of years. Before refrigeration the way people ate vegetables in the winter was to put them up in the fall. That was how people got their vitamin C in the winter months. They didn’t ship in oranges.”

He added: “I’m not a fanatic locavore. I think there is a place for moving food around the country or the world. I just think we shouldn’t get in a position where we’re dependent on food from other places.”

Although not much of a hunter himself, Pollan told the News & Guide that he believes hunting is a “very important part of eating sustainably. Most of the animals we hunt, principally deer, have become pests, and their populations need to be controlled. And their meat therefore doesn’t have a big carbon footprint. It’s really solar-powered food. These are animals that eat in the wild.

“And then there’s also the added advantage that the hunter deals with the full moral complexity of eating animals. The hunter confronts that in a way that most of us don’t.”

Will airport economics work?

VAIL, Colo. – Almost from its opening in the late 1980s there has been talk about whether the airport at Gypsum, about 38 miles west of Vail, will accommodate international flights without stops along the way for customs.

That talk has become more serious in recent years, although no decision is pending, awaiting completion of a study. However, in interviews with the several candidates for Eagle County Commission, the Vail Daily finds everybody signaling support.

The most insightful comments, however, came from the lone incumbent, Jon Stavney: spending $3 million to build a custom facilities is not the real barrier. The question, he said, is whether flights from Mexico City (Toronto and Montreal are also possible sites of originating flights) will deliver enough passengers to justify the ongoing expense of federal customs officials.

Smartphones glitch WiFi

KETCHUM, Idaho – Ketchum has pulled the plug on its effort to have wireless interconnectivity throughout town. Not only was the WiFi system somewhat expensive to maintain and with large gaps in coverage, but it’s been bypassed by the rise of smartphones, which do not require a wireless network to access the Internet.

The WiFi system was installed after Allen & Co., the investment firm that holds the well-known conference at nearby Sun Valley each July, awarded a $100,000 grant. Maintenance costs for the city have been reduced to $17,500, but the coverage needed additional investment to improve signals. It is, city officials decided, time to move on, reports the Idaho Mountain Express.

Optimistic about hydrogen 

CANMORE, Alberta – Having made a fortune in oil and natural gas, Guy Turcotte is now pushing hydrogen and fuel cells as the wave of the future.

A native of Alberta, Turcotte founded oil companies, Chauvco Resource and Western Oil Sands, the latter of which was sold in 2007 for an estimated $6.6 billion. He is also chairman of Stone Creek Resorts, a real-estate development company in Canmore.

Turcotte was in Canmore to share his excitement about hydrogen and fuel cells. He’s also chairman of Western Hydrogen, a Calgary-based company that is seeking to develop and commercialize hydrogen manufacturing technology.

Turcotte, according to the Rocky Mountain Outlook, said the technology exists, and now it’s a time to scale up the infrastructure to accommodate it.

“They now have all the technical specs met. They just need volume,” he said. “There’s not a lot of hydrogen stations around here … but in countries like Japan (South) Korea and Germany, those guys are planning multi-service stations.”

Whistler has had 20 buses operated by hydrogen fuel cells since late 2009, the largest such fleet in North America. The short-term verdict is that they are responsible for far fewer emissions of carbon into the atmosphere.

Harder than anticipated 

TELLURIDE, Colo. – A developer of a 300-kilowatt solar array near the airport on a mesa above Telluride is having a hard time making the numbers work. The developer, Erdman Energy Enterprises, is seeking a power purchase agreement with the local electrical cooperative, San Miguel Power Association.

In an interview with the Telluride Watch, project manager Dirk de Pagter blamed limitations imposed by wholesale supplier Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which provides power to cooperatives serving Durango, Crested Butte, Winter Park and other more rural areas of the Rocky Mountains.”

Tim Erdman, the chief executive, said he wanted to demonstrate how simply a solar farm could be installed. “Somehow, I am demonstrating the opposite,” he told The Watch.

Renewable fund at $9 million

ASPEN, Colo. – In 2000, Aspen enacted something called the Renewable Energy Mitigation program, which was arguably the first carbon tax in the United States.

The program said that all new houses above 5,000 square feet or those with such amenities as snowmelt system for driveways, outdoor swimming pools and other big energy consumers in a cold climate had a choice. They could either provide renewable energy sources themselves, or pay into a mitigation fund.

That fund has now collected $9 million, and $5 million of it has been awarded to 80 projects in the Roaring Fork Valley, where Aspen is located. Those projects range from a car-share program in Aspen to a solar photovoltaic system at a building for non-profit organizations located down-valley in Carbondale.

By Allen Best

Hydrogen buses test well

WHISTLER, B.C. – The 20 buses in Whistler powered by hydrogen fuel cells are about halfway through their five-year pilot phase. Despite minor problems, the experiment is working out well, officials tell Pique Newsmagazine.

One complaint is that the hydrogen is manufactured in Quebec. Even so, it represents a 60 percent decline in emissions, a reduction to be increased further with completion of a sodium chlorate plant in North Vancouver in 2013. Local emissions from the buses, of course, are virtually non-existent: Just a few drips of water coming out the tailpipes.

Flags over Grand Lake

GRAND LAKE, Colo. – If Aspen can have a festival focused on macaroni and cheese, why can’t Grand Lake, the town located at the west entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, have a week-long celebration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.

The Sky-Hi News says the festivities include a “patriotic parade, plenty of flag-waving, a Constitution trivia contest, and more. The event was capped by what was called the Forefather’s Fireworks Extravaganza, which seemed to offer a good excuse to set off the fireworks that couldn’t be used on July 4, when fire danger gripped Colorado.

Vail hustling for summer biz

VAIL, Colo. – Vail is boosting its budget to market its allures to the outside world for next summer by 8 percent, to $2.57 billion.

The Vail Daily says that the Vail Local Marketing District wants to grow the percentage of out-of-state business from 56 to 60 percent of the total, and to bring back more international visitors during summer. The share of summer guests from international locales dropped by half from 2010 to 2012.

Colo towns explore air link

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Telluride wants Crested Butte to pool resources to draw in a new low-cost air carrier to deliver visitors to both resorts from the Phoenix and San Francisco areas.

Planes by the airline, which hasn’t been identified, would land at Montrose, which is already the primary portal for visitors to Telluride, about an hour away. Crested Butte is two hours distant.

To make the deal work, the two resort communities would have to scrape together a minimum of $650,000, maybe $1 million, to market the flights, explains the Crested Butte News.

There is some concern as to whether the flights would have the 90% load factors that are predicted as another matter. Flights to ski markets average 60 percent, according to flight consultant Kent Meyers, and he points out that the originating airports would be in suburban locations. The airport that would serve the Phoenix area is 45 minutes away from the major Phoenix airport.

Bike race has wheels

ASPEN, Colo. – After two years, the U.S. Pro Cycling Challenge appears to have strong wheels. But Aspen is somewhat worried about the financial commitment of hosting the event, tabulated at $1 million this year, although offset by increased lodging and spending by visitors.

By Allen Best

Reading the tea leaves

KETCHUM, Idaho – It’s the season for business conferences as ski town officials huddle to plot their competitive strategies.

In Ketchum and Sun Valley, an economic development group called Sustain Blaine is planning to hear a panel talk about location-neutral companies. Group officials say they get two calls a month from companies interested in relocating their businesses to the Sun Valley area, but only two companies per year end up doing so. What are the barriers to relocation of such businesses?

Also on the agenda in Sun Valley is a talk by Joseph Kasputys, founder of HIS Global Insight, which will probe global and national economies.

In Colorado, something similar is underway in Steamboat Springs. The community already has a more diverse economic base than most. It has 1,000 employees in location-neutral businesses. Among them is SmartWool, the maker of socks for rugged activities, and The Industrial Company, an international construction company, which both began operations in Steamboat and retain corporate headquarters. Outdoor recreation manufacturing employs more than 400.

Tom Kern, director of the local chamber, points out that healthcare has 1,000 full-time employees, energy and mining another 1,000.

“What the economic summit is trying to do is have the community devise a strategic plan regarding its future direction as it relates to economic development. Obviously, tourism will have a large part in that strategy but what are this community’s priorities as it relates to these other industrial clusters that presently reside here?” Kern tells Mountain Town News.

And in Whistler, a high-level brain trust of representatives from the municipal, hotel, ski area and other sectors has been summoned to help spend $6.35 million in provincial money.

While doing so, members of the Economic Partnership Initiative are expected to pool information about the impact of the global financial crisis, changing visitor travel and demographic patterns, exchange rate fluctuations, resort competition, revenue uncertainty, new emerging markets like China, increased global awareness of Whistler in the wake of the 2010 Olympics. and social media and other marketing shifts.

Vail tests health-related tourism

VAIL, Colo. – Vail continues to explore how it can make a better income through what is broadly called medical tourism.

It’s a rubber-band expression that can, depending upon who is speaking, refer to such traditional things as spa treatments and wellness seminars. Also traditional has been the hosting of conferences and seminars to attract medical practioneers.

In the early 1990s, Vail gained another revenue stream when Tahoe-based orthoepeadic surgeon J. Richard Steadman set up business. The clinic continues to draw the rich and famous, including professional athletes, to have their shoulders and knees worked on, but more ordinary people, too. Now, a third of the hospital nights at the adjacent hospital are because of the clinic.

Now, Vail is ramping up efforts to draw visitors for health reasons. One aspect is to draw conferences and other such meetings. The Vail Valley Partnership has added a staff member to specifically recruit medical groups and meetings. Chris Romer, the partnership’s president, reports that this has grown to more than one-fourth of the group business.

Altogether, the hospital and medical groups could account for as much as 6 percent of the towns’ economic base, according to Stan Zemler, the town manager, who spoke recently at a forum covered by the Vail Daily.

Another initiative is to promote seminars and activities appealing to people interested in physical fitness. That’s always been Vail’s forte, but this has a different tact.

Another effort involves special event programming. Last weekend,  an event called Living at Your Peak was held in Vail. There were sessions titled, “ Stress and Biological Aging: What’s lifestyle got to do with it?” and “Nutrition Translated.”

Participants had the opportunity to road bike through Vail with Freddie Rodriguez, who promised to tell stories from the Tour de France. Mt. Everest climber Ellen Miller  explained how interval training and using heart-rate monitors and zones can be used to best advantage. And professional tennis legend Martina Natrilova gave the keynote.

Jasper wants to test air service

JASPER, Alberta – Elected officials in Jasper have agreed to throw in $8,000 toward a $40,000 study to determine the feasibility for regional air service out of the local airport.

The Fitzhugh, the local newspaper, reported that the study was precipitated by the announcement made by WestJet that it had purchased 40 new jets to use for regional service.

Why wouldn’t WestJet and other airlines study the feasibility themselves? In the airline business, that’s the way it works, explained Maggie Davison, chief executive of the Jasper Tourism. Local communities must be aggressive in attracting service.

Main Street redevelopment

PARK CITY, Utah – Major renovation of two-story building on Park City’s Main Street is about to begin. When finished, the building will have four stories. The Park Record says the building is owned by Ken Abdalla, who has acquired several properties along the commercial street in the last several years.

No more butts in Jackson 

JACKSON, Wyo. – The Virginian, the last bar in Jackson Hole to allow smoking indoors, has done a 180. The Jackson Hole News&Guide reports smoking was banned four months ago to enable managers to evaluate the effect on business, and the ban will continue at least several months more. General manger Mike Kraft did acknowledge that the bar’s clientele has changed.

By Allen Best

The bigger the better 

TAOS, N.M. – Bigger and better. That’s the perennial quest of ski areas. It’s also a good marketing angle, near as good as having excellent snow.

Now, the Taos Ski Valley has a lot to talk about. The Taos News reports that the U.S. Forest Service has approved expansion of expert terrain at the resort by 60 percent.

Maybe this will improve business. Taos has had good snow two of the last three years. Four years ago, it dropped the ropes to snowboarders. But while skier visits increased, they weren’t as much as was hoped, said Gordon Briner, chief operating officer. “That’s why we think these improvements are important.”

A Forest Service official said the improvements are needed to allow Taos to compete with other ski areas in the Rocky Mountains.

“I am confident that, collectively, the projects approved will help Taos Ski Valley to reclaim its competitive standing in the Rocky Mountain Region,” said Diane Trujillo, acting supervisor of the Carson National Forest.

“Taos Ski Valley is unique in the ski industry, where it is renowned for steep, adventurous terrain and uncrowded slopes.”

Other expansions of ski area are also going forward on federal lands. Aspen Skiing Co. is expanding 250 acres at Snowmass, the busiest of its four resorts.

Vail Resorts, meanwhile, now has the authority to move forward with an even larger expansion at 550 acres at Breckenridge. Unlike Taos, which the Forest Service says has uncluttered slopes, the Forest Service justified the Breckenridge expansion because of how many people are already skiing there.

In a column published in The Denver Post, local resident Steve Lipsher finds the justification for the expansion wanting. “More mediocre skiing at a resort that already offers a ton of mediocre skiing,” he writes.

Lipsher says he’s skeptical the expansion will thin out crowds. That, he says, would require new lifts. Rather than spreading out the crowds, each new expansion attracts only more people, the result of the resort’s marketing efforts and the public’s constant desire for newer, bigger, better.

More Mac ‘n Cheese!

It’s the shoulder season, the time when ski towns attempt to put butts in beds with themed special events.

While Crested Butte hosted a somewhat conventional Chili and Beer Festival this past weekend, Aspen held its Mac ‘N’ Cheese Festival. Last year, the event’s first, drew 1,500 people. Some 4,000 were expected this year. It’s believed to be the only such festival in the country.

Some local restaurants in this high-end town last year were skeptical about a special event built around a pasta dish generally considered at the lower end of the food order. Not so Tico Starr, chef at Rustique Bistrow, who won first place last year. This year he ordered 65 pounds of pasta, 45 pounds of mushrooms, 50 pounds of gruyére cheese, six gallons of cream and three bottles of truffle oil. The mushrooms are to be soaked in herbs and flavorings like garlic and lemon zest.

In Whistler, the city government has appropriated money for the long-tenured Writer’s Festival a new event called Spirit Within Festival. The latter will focus on the the First Nations peoples who live near Whistler. In the United States they would be called Native Americans.

Pique Newsmagazine reports that Whistler tourism leaders are still trying to nail down plans for what is described as a signature fall festival that is intended to integrate arts and culture, sport and activity.

“Signature events have been shown to have the most impact on room night sales in the resort,” explained Michelle Comeau, the communications manager for the resort.

Scientists study tree deaths

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – From British Columbia to New Mexico, many forests have been struggling. No news there. Trees, like people, grow and die. They’re not static, immutable.

But the intense droughts of 2002 and again of this year, combined with generally warming temperatures, have my eyes open. There have been the giant lodgepole pine beetle epidemics, and also a decline of aspen trees, which composed a fifth of the trees in Colorado. Drought has been identified as at least a contributing cause in both cases.

Sam Pankratz, a forester with Colorado’s state government, told the Crested Butte News that it took until 2008 to see the full impacts of the 2002 drought.

Pankratz told the News that stresses on trees are native to the landscape. Assessing the overall health of the forest is better done over the long term, and not just looking at individual droughts, such as 2002 and 2012.

“As forest managers, we’re managing a forest that can sometimes live 400 years,” he said. “And while anecdotal evidence suggests a drier trend, it’s important to remember there are other factors at play, including 100 years of fire and disease suppression,” he said.

But his takeaway message is that over the long term, warmer temperatures and drier weather can add up.

That’s also the message in New Mexico, where a study is underway at Bandelier National Monument.

“Combine drought with warmer temperatures, and it’s no surprise trees are croaking,” notes the Santa Fe New Mexico. “But how fast do they die? Does it depend on the species?” Will some species survive no matter what? What will be the impact of massive tree die-offs on the climate, agriculture, watersheds and people?”

A team from Los Alamos National Labs is mapping out the exact process by which a tree dies when stressed by lack of water and prolonged heat.

The big question is how much of this change is driven by human-caused global warming. Nate G. McDowell, from the Las Alamos lab, says that’s not clear.

“Now, are trees dying because of (rising carbon dioxide and temperature levels)? That’s what we can’t say for sure,” he told the New Mexican. “But, there are a bunch of lines of evidence suggesting that they are.”

He added: “I can’t say this with absolute certainty, but I don’t expect there to be conifers in Los Alamos or Santa Fe County in 50 years.”

Will park amuse? 

PAGOSA SPRINGS, Colo. – Pagosa Springs has wonderful hot springs, and magnificent scenery. It was one of the Colorado mountain towns that Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his family passed through on their way to “Wally World” in that 1983 movie “Vacation.”

But would the Griswolds be inclined to stop in Pagosa if there were a chairlift, an alpine coaster and a tree-top zipline tour, which are among the roadside attractions planned by city officials at a community park called Reservoir Hill.

“It’s all about growing tourism in the community,” said Dave Mitchem, town manager. “It’s all about helping downtown businesses.” The town has more than 30 empty storefronts, he said.

The Durango Herald reports fears that a community park will be commercialized. Local resident Norm Vance predicted it would “destroy the ambiance of a nice, peaceful park to have mechanized and motorized amusement rides.”

The city owns the 110 acres and has a ski lift, which it dismantled and moved from an abandoned ski area elsewhere in Colorado. Total cost of creating the new amusement park would be $4.3 million, and city officials aren’t sure whether to form a public-private partnership to run the amusements or seek voter approval for an issuance of a bond.

The Herald notes that the local newspaper, the Pagosa Sun, has described the project as ill-conceived, unlikely to produce much revenue, and a misuse of public land. “Such amenities will not draw additional tourists here, nor will they keep tourists downtown,” the newspaper said.

By Allen Best

Can you have too much music?

JACKSON, Wyo. – Lovers of contemporary music were in heaven this summer in Jackson Hole. There were shows by up-and-coming bands and well-known performers like Emmylou Harris every third night during July and August. Many were free.

Too much of a good thing? Those who charge money for shows told the Jackson Hole News&Guide that the freebies hurt. “It’s hard to get that cover ($20) out of people, because they could see up-and-coming to big-name bands for free,” said promoter Dom Gagliardi.

How much will people pay? Concert-bar promoter Harper Hollis said he tries to keep the cover charge down to $5. At $10 to $15, customers turn around at the door.

Killing bad bears hard for law

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – In a moving, poignant essay published in the Crested Butte News, state wildlife officer Chris Parmeter tells about having to kill a three-year-old bear that he had come to know well.

“This is part of my job as a district wildlife manager, a part that I despise,” he wrote. He told of being summoned to a house in a rural subdivision where a bear had repeatedly tried to invade to get food. There was no choice but to kill the bear. But that did not make him feel good about what he had done.

Parmeter said he first encountered the bear in a Dumpster, when it was a cub, and then again several times more. “He’d pull down birdfeeders and I’d give out ‘Living with Bears’ brochures to the homeowners. A month later I’d see the birdfeeders out again, right against the picture window.”

For the bear, says Parmeter, the choice was easy: four hours of picking berries, one by one, versus four minutes munching down birdseed for the same caloric gain.

People whose behavior – leaving birdfeeders and other food accessible to bears – always wanted the animals kept remain alive, but taken elsewhere. But in the end, they created the circumstances that left wildlife officers with no choice but to kill it.

Slowing the growth gorillas 

ASPEN, Colo. – Mayors of Aspen from 1973 to the present assembled recently to share notes in a public forum. The first of them, Stacy Standley, had initially arrived in Aspen in 1966, poor and a college drop-out, but taken with the town.

Over beers with other 20-somethings, he expressed his unhappiness with the direction he saw Aspen going. It was headed toward real estate development, with a gutting of everything about Aspen that had drawn them in the first place.

“To get that vision in Aspen, we had to have a vision, and the mission was to get control of the process in some way, and to do that you had to have passion,” he said at the forum, which was covered by the Aspen Daily News.

“To me, it really came down to that, a shared vision, a mission and a commitment, and a passion to see it through to the end. Really (Aspen) was just doing business as usual by the people who had lived here forever, and God bless ‘em, they didn’t see this bulldozer coming down Highway 82 that had nothing but growth gorillas in the cage on the back.”

Says the Daily News: “The rest is history, as Standley was elected mayor in 1973, served for six years, and the battle between members of the community and developers began that is still being waged to this day.”

Bill Stirling, mayor from 1983 to 1991, said it wasn’t until the 1980s that people began to view Aspen as a potential source of wealth, a commodity.

When he arrived in Aspen in the 1960s, 80 percent of the people lived and worked there. By the end of his mayoralty, about 45 percent of people lived and worked in town.

Snowmass now #2

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. – Come winter, Snowmass will be the second largest ski area in Colorado. The addition of 230 acres that has been in the works for about a decade will give Snowmass 3,362 skiable acres. Largest is Vail, which has 5,289 acres. The Aspen Daily News reports that a new $15 million restaurant is set to open this winter at Snowmass.

Wonders at Whistler 

WHISTLER, B.C. – Looking back on a busy summer, people in Whistler are now thinking ahead to ski season.

The ski area operator is kicking off a promotional campaign called “Wonders at Whistler Blackcomb.” Skiers and snowboarders will be encouraged to “map” their wonders by uploading photos and video to the WB Wonderground website.

Season passes at Whistler Blackcomb this year are $1,489 if purchased by Oct. 8.

Locals want cheap passes

WHITEFISH, Mont. – Reading about all the swell, low-cost season passes now available in Colorado’s I-70 corridor and California’s Tahoe Basin., skiers at Whitefish Mountain Resort wonder why they have to pay so much.

The Whitefish Pilot reports discontent on the Internet after the resort announced it would charge $550 for a season pass. Compare that with Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass, which costs $639 and allows unlimited skiing at 10 resorts.

Deep discounts are possible when you do big numbers, responded Nick Polumbus, the marketing director at Whitefish Mountain. Whitefish does 290,000 skiers annually; Vail and Breckenridge about 1.6 million each.

More realistic comparisons are to Bozeman’s Bridger Bowl ($580) and Big Sky ($999), or Durango ($819) or Crested Butte ($999), he said.

Squaw Valley growing rapidly 

SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. – The new owners of Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows continue to pour money into the two ski areas, with another $24 million in capital improvements planned for this winter.

Topping the list: snowmaking. Worse than almost any other ski resort, Squaw was high and dry well into January this year.

A new high-speed six-pack chairlift is another planned improvement.

After buying first Squaw and then Alpine, Denver-based KSL Capital Partners announced plans for a five-year, $70 million upgrade to the two resorts. The company was founded by former executives of Vail Resorts.

Meanwhile, Squaw continues forward into government review with its plans to nearly double the bed-base and expand amenities. Included are plans for an aquatic center, an entertainment center and indoor zip lines, reports the Sierra Sun.

Chevis Hosea, the senior vice president of development for Squaw Valley Real Estate, said the improvements are designed to provide a better destination ski experience. Altogether, the upgrades are intended to provide a “critical mass of bed base for international financial stability and to compete with all the other great alpine ski resorts in the world.”

By Allen Best

More courses than golfers 

VAIL, Colo. – Is the Vail resort complex oversupplied with golf courses? You could make that argument, as several of the valley’s 17 public and private clubs have struggled enormously in the wake of the Great Recession.

In the 1980s, a columnist for a now-defunct newspaper in Vail joked that someday it would be possible to golf continuously from Vail to Glenwood Canyon, a distance of nearly 50 miles.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, developers seemed determined to make that come true. There was even a proposal to build a golf course atop an abandoned landfill. At another location, a developer proposed to cap an old pile of mine tailings and create a golf course, as was done at Anaconda, Mont.

Then golfing, as had happened with tennis in the 1970s and skiing in the 1980s, started losing its luster. The growth flattened, nationally as well as at mountain resorts.

Those golf courses that suffered most substantially in the Vail area were those farthest from the ski slopes and resort centers of Vail and Beaver Creek. Brightwater, a project located south of Gypsum, about 45 miles from Vail, is now in bankruptcy. A beautiful course called Adam’s Rib, south of Eagle, reportedly sold very few memberships and has revised its fees.

Harry Frampton, managing partner of Avon-based East West Partners, which has built golf course-based higher-end real estate, says there are two problems with Vail-area golf. First, the season lasts only three or four months. Second, he thinks too many of the golf courses take four to five hours to play, too much commitment given dozens of other things to do.

Frampton, an avid golfer, told the Vail Daily that in a survey of his company’s high-end real estate buyers, 20 percent had been driven by golf. It’s still important, he said, but golf does not drive the economy of the Vail Valley.

Research done for the Vail municipal government that showed hiking was the top activity of summer visitors.

Debate about ski interconnect

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The debate about a gondola called SkiLink that would link ski resorts, Canyons and Solitude, located on opposite sides of the crest of the Wasatch Range, has been heating up.

Democrats, environmentalists, and Salt Lake City seem to be on one side of the argument, and Republicans and at least some of the ski areas are on the other. Proponents want to take the federal government out of the decision-making. To that end, U.S. Rep. Bob Bishop, a Republican who represents Park City, has introduced a bill in Congress that would require the Forest Service to sell the two ski areas, Solitude and Canyons, 30 acres of land.

A counterpart from the Democratic party, Rep. Joel Briscoe, of Salt Lake City, says the bill before Congress “subverts the democratic process – and process matters. It sets an awful precedent for other public lands in Utah.”

If the bill goes through Congress, the decisions would be made by local officials in Summit County, where Park City is located, and in Salt Lake County. Salt Lake City gets its water from the canyons of the Wasatch area, including those that contain the ski areas of Alta, Solitude, Snowbird and Brighton.

Opponents see the SkiLink as a Trojan horse for future ski area expansions. A map of proposed and rumored ski-resort expansion shows the terrain near the top of the Wasatch canyons not currently used by ski areas would be consumed by the ski areas. “It would transform the Wasatch into developed ski-resort areas on an action-by-action, piece-by-piece basis,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, who was an environmental planner before gaining public office.

Taxpayers challenge carbon tax

WHISTLER, B.C. – The United States remains divided in a cultural war, and climate science has been sucked up into the chasm, leaving the nation fundamentally unable to create a cohesive response.

In Canadian, the federal government is drunk on the vast revenues from its deposits of bitumen, otherwise known as tar sands, if you dislike the mining, and oil sands, if you approve. It, too, has no consensus about howt o move forward on containing greenhouse gas emissions.

While California still is putting together the structure for a cap-and-trade system, British Columbia did what most economists said made a lot more sense: put a tax on carbon and let the market figure out how to reward innovators.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is making the case for dropping this grand experiment. The tax was introduced in 2008 and now costs 6.67 cents per litre of gasoline.

The federation clams that of the $1.2 billion raised by the tax each year, only $228 million goes back to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts. The remainder is given out in the form of venture capital and industrial property credits, or for research and development.

Boomers decline, millenials rise

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Baby boomers are starting to retire, and many are moving to mountain towns for their golden years. No news there, right? But Patrick Phillips, president of the Urban Land Institute, downplays the economic impact of that phenomenon. Instead, during a recent presentation in Steamboat Springs, he said that boomers as a group will be challenged to achieve their ultimate retirement lifestyle. Many will be cash-strapped and unable to make the big move to the mountains.

Instead, Phillips advised Steamboat to continue to focus on making room for millenials, the children of baby boomers, and otherwise being attractive to investment capital?

How to do so? According to a report in Steamboat Today, Phillips urged Steamboat to continue to invest in amenities.

The climate, mortgage nexus

BOZEMAN, Mont. – Speakers on a panel in Bozeman recently observed that climate change and the subprime mortgage crisis share two trends: they had early signs that some people ignored or denied, and they can strain the economy, reported the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

Speakers representing sportsmen and environmental groups on a recent panel said that climate change is a threat to Montana’s economy and way of life. “We believe that sportsmen are actually among the first to recognize climate change, even if they don’t say the word,” said Bill Geer, who has spent 39 years with fish and game organizations, including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Pilot, plane at fault in Reno crash

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Transportation Safety Board determined earlier this week that deteriorated locknut inserts found in the highly modified North American P-51D Mustang airplane that crashed during the 2011 National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nev., allowed the trim tab attachment screws to become loose, and even initiated fatigue cracking in one screw. The condition reportedly led to aerodynamic flutter at racing speed that broke the trim tab linkages, resulting in a loss of control and the eventual crash.

According to the NTSB report, on Sept. 16, 2011, the experimental, single-seat “Galloping Ghost,” piloted by veteran air racer Jim Leeward from Ocala, Fla., was traveling at 512 mph on lap 3 of a 6-lap race when it experienced a left-roll upset and high-G pitch up as it passed Pylon 8.

The airplane’s vertical acceleration peaked at 17.3 G, causing incapacitation of the pilot. Seconds later, a section of the left elevator trim tab separated in flight. The airplane descended and impacted the ramp in the spectator box seating area, killing the pilot and 10 spectators and injuring more than 60 others.

“Contributing to the accident were undocumented and untested major modifications made to the airplane, as well as the pilot’s operation of the airplane in the unique racing environment without adequate [in-flight] testing.” Lawsuits against the Galloping Ghost’s owners and Reno Air Races organizers have been filed. -NTSB

By Allen Best

Multi-resort pass part of trend

DENVER, Colo. – The fundamental story in the ski industry for the last 15 years has been how companies will compete with Vail.  The new Mountain Collective pass announced last week by Aspen, Jackson Hole, Alta and Squaw Valley can be seen as a response.

Costing $349, the pass offered two free days at each of the four resorts, after which pass holders are entitled to purchase lift tickets at 50 percent discount.

Rick Kahl, editor of Ski Area Management, called it a “really smart move” on the part of the four ski area operators.

“You have these sort of iconic ski areas on the same ticket. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to ski two of the four, and if you ski three of them, you’re in fat city.”

It’s also an obvious response to the Epic Pass offered by Vail Resorts. That pass, which costs $659 for the full national benefits, allows buyers unlimited skiing at the four ski areas owned by Vail in Colorado plus Arapahoe Basin, a close ally, and the three ski areas now owned by Vail in California.

Inside the ski industry, the Epic Pass has been seen as a home run for Vail Resorts. It has allowed the company to lock in customers the summer before, evening out income – and delivering revenue even in low-snow years, such as last winter.

The Vail Daily talked with Will Marks, who analyzes Vail Resorts for JMP Security. He said he believes the new Mountain Collective pass will have a minor impact on sales of the Epic Pass. But he said he does believe that discounted pass products are the wave of the future within the ski industry.

David Belin, a ski industry analyst for RRC Associates, a research and consulting firm, said he believed the new pass was crafted carefully so as not to cannibalize any of the resorts’ client bases.

“They are leveraging each other’s customers to generate interest,” he told the Aspen Daily News.

Similar pass programs have also existed among smaller ski areas. For decades, the very small ski areas in Colorado have offered something called the Gems pass, which offers discounts.

More recently, Colorado’s Monarch Mountain has assembled a friends-with-benefits package that now has expanded to 31 ski areas, including five smaller ski areas in Europe, along with nine in Colorado, five in New Mexico, and others in Arizona, Michigan, California, Wyoming and Utah. Also: Revelstoke and Red Mountain in British Columbia.

Meanwhile, British Columbia ski areas are poling dollars to increase their marketing. A campaign by the province’s 13 destination resorts has tripled in the last three years to a budget of $1.8 million next winter.

Design firm makes Outside list

WHITEFISH, Mont. – From the stories in ski town newspapers in the West, you might think that Outside Magazine found groovy employers in each and every one of them to put on its list of good people to work for.

One of them was ZaneGray Group, located in Whitefish. It’s a  design and marketing firm, and mid-day skiing or early morning single-track rides are very much permitted, as long as the work gets done.

“We balance work with family and having a full life,” said Reed Gregerson, president of ZaneGray, in an interview with the Whitefish Pilot. “It’s nice to have Outside recognize what we’ve been doing.”

Rockies mining rebounds

CREEDE, Colo. – The San Juan Mountains will soon be alive with the sound of high-powered mining drills, with new or expanded mining ventures planned at Creede, Silverton and Ouray as the result of rising prices for metals.

Similar plans had been in the news five to six years ago. But like the saws and hammers at construction sites, they were silenced by the recession.

In Creede, a company called Rio Grande Silver is seeking support to further explore the potential of silver deposits that would justify a new portal. The exploration would yield an added payroll of 40 employees, reports the Alamosa Courier.

On the west side of the San Juans, permits are moving forward for a mill at Silverton and a mine near Ouray, according to The Denver Post. The mining at Ouray would put 70 people to work to extract lead, copper, zinc and silver.

Breckenridge big ski expansion

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – The U.S. Forest Service has approved expansion of the Breckenridge ski area. The approval gives the ski area the right to use an additional 550 acres of terrain, four-fifths of it lift-served and the remainder hike-to. The terrain will require two new lifts.

The main purpose of the Peak 6 expansion is to reduce skier congestion and waiting time for lifts, said Scott Fitzwilliams, supervisor of the White River National Forest. The ski area has twice in recent years been the most visited ski area in the Untied states, surpassing longtime heavyweight Vail Mountain.

The expansion had been fought by backcountry skiers, who argued that the ski area was poaching their powder.

Trying to rejoin the A League

KETCHUM, Idaho – The Los Angeles Lakers instantly returned to the ranks of elite teams in the National Basketball Association by acquiring talented center Dwight Howard.

Ketchum and Sun Valley, the original ski destination resort, have also been attempting to get back to the elite ranks. That strategy of the last 10 years has involved upgrading the bed base with new hotels. So far, the effort has been without success.

The other major thrust has been to improve accessibility by upgrading the air links. To deepen the pot for minimum revenue guarantees for airlines, boosters in the valley want to levy a 1 percent sales tax in Blaine County and the individual towns.

But, as usual, there’s a curious irony here. To ensure easier access, boosters hope to charge visitors more once they arrive. The sales tax they are designing would most specifically target purchases by visitors. Very specifically, they are thinking about levying the tax on car rentals and lodging, while sparing restaurants, which are frequented by locals.

The Sun Valley community is also awaiting an environmental assessment that will determine whether the CRJ-700 jets can be flown into the local airport. The jet can accommodate 76 people, compared to the 30-passenger capacity of the Embraer 120, which currently flies into the airport.

New owner of Jackson hotel 

JACKSON, Wyo. – The 204-room hotel at the base of the Snow King ski area, the in-town ski area in Jackson, has been purchased by a company that plans to invest more than $20 million in an upgrade.

The purchaser, JMI Realty, is a subsidiary of the John Moores family of San Diego. The company, in turn, has contracted with Benchmark Hospitality International to manage it.

“The bones of this building are incredible,” said Greg Champion, chief operating officer of Benchmark. But the rooms are aging and don’t command top dollar, just $200 per night, reports the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Snow King Holdings, the prior owner of the hotel, will retain the adjoining ski area. To bring the ski area into profitability, Manuel Lopez and other owners want to install a zip line, terrain parks, ice climbing and a bike park. Snow King Holdings has talked about more snowmaking and an alpine coaster. The group just secured a paragliding service, Lopez said.

Lopez and his partners also retains about 90 percent of the development rights associated with the resort’s master plan. That entitles owners to develop about 450,000 square feet of buildings, Lopez said.

By Allen Best

Rolling out the unwelcome mat

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Crested Butte residents are being urged to overcome their natural tendency toward friendliness and instead summon up their most aggravating qualities and behavior, at least during bear season.

In July, with drought very much reducing the crop of backcountry berries and nuts, bears have been much in evidence. Bears have invaded several homes, and in one case killed the house dog. In another case, a bear killed a dog just outside the town.

J. Wenum, the state wildlife officer, told the Crested Butte News that the “more a bear feels unwelcome, the less likely it is to stick around or come back. Do something to make it feel unwelcome. Bang pots and pans, yell at it. Make it uncomfortable.”

About 104 miles away, on the opposite site of the Elk Range, a 450-pound bear evaded police by scrambling through an alley behind The Gap, a clothing store, and then surprising shoppers at a Farmers’ Market, tearing through a Honeypot Alpaca Farms booth before climbing a tree. The Aspen Daily News says the bear hung out in a tree, most definitely a tourist attraction, before stealing away at dusk.

Wildlife officials tell the Aspen Daily News that the number of bears in town substantially increased in early August. One of them, a cub, walked through the putt-putt golf course, then later wandered through the municipal parking garage.

In Telluride there was outrage after state wildlife officers killed a bear that they believed had broken into a home. That is standard policy for bears in Colorado. Several council members objected, citing the lack of overwhelming proof of the bear’s identity.

“If I were a bear in Telluride today, I would consider defecting to Syria, because it’s safer,” said Councilmember Thom Carnavale.

Affordable housing is no bargain

WHISTLER, B.C. – A new housing survey in Whistler finds what might seem like a surprising conclusion. Last winter no employers reported having problems finding employees because of lack of affordable housing.

Ski towns in the United States may have had a similar situation, but it should be remembered that business was altogether lousy last winter and the recession has substantially lowered prices of housing. Canada might have had the sniffles in the last several years, but overall the economy there — especially in the west — has been much stronger.

What’s going on in Whistler? Sifting through the evidence, Pique Newsmagazine publisher Bob Barnett finds that businesses figured out how to do more with less during lean times leading up to the Winter Olympics in 2010. The number of full-time equivalent jobs fell by 18 percent over a decade’s time.

After a decade of robust growth in the 1990s, says Barnett, Whistler has become a maturing resort. Some consolidation is expected, he says, but also warns that this balance may only be temporary.

In Canada, much more than the United States, the baby boom generation is tilting demographics. As they move into retirement, labor shortages can be expected.

“We may be getting comfortable with the current situation – the workforce well-housed and businesses running leaner than ever. but the formula will change again,” he says.

Like Wal-Mart, but different stuff

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Cocaine has had enough of a presence in Telluride that it was a line in a lyric from the song “Smuggler’s Blues” by Eagle Glenn Frey. And today, that presence still continues.

A drug task force recently made six arrests, seized $30,000 in cash, and a kilogram of cocaine. Those arrested are all from Mexico, with no permission to be in the United States. Other immigrants were among those who gave police the information needed to make the arrests, a key law-enforcement official told The Telluride Watch.

“It’s interesting that our own immigrant community is really concerned about this, enough to call me and give me the information we need to help these cases move along,” said Bill Masters, the long-time sheriff of San Miguel County. “They don’t want these clowns dealing drugs, either.”

Weekly Wikipedia skirmishes

ASPEN, Colo. – Check out the Wikipedia entry for the Aspen Skiing Co. and you may well find some remarks that suggest the company is a bully. Ditto for the art museum in Aspen.

In both cases, the reporting was probably done by Lee Mulcahy, a former ski instructor who has been banned from the property of both and is suing the owners and chief executive of the ski company.

For example, explains the Aspen Daily News, you may discover that the ski company fired a singer who sang an unfavorable song about rich people in one of the company’s bars during après ski.

“He’s been doing it for awhile,” said Jeff Hanle, the spokesman for the ski company, speaking of the information Mulcahy has posted on the Wikipedia site for Aspen Skiing. “We have taken it down and it goes back up.”

In his interview with the newspaper, Mulcahy portrayed himself as a David battling Goliath, and, in the case of the art museum, he’s conceded defeat. “I gave up since they have a staff of 20-plus people,” he said.

A representative of Wikipedia told the Daily News that the public-sourced website has a policy that discourages companies or individuals from editing information about themselves to prevent the pages from being simply public relations outlets. But, said the online portal’s Matthew Roth, it happens all the time.

Next Prez gets real estate gains

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Regardless of whether it’s President Obama or President Romney come January, the economy will be improving. So says Lawrence Yun, who is the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

Yun spoke to realty agents in Steamboat recently, and he said that real estate trends are more encouraging than some national news organizations have been reporting, reports Steamboat Today.

“Right now, 15 percent of homeowners are underwater, not 33 percent, as CNN continues to report,” he said.

Fueling the recovery is population growth, he said. “America is one of the few advanced economies that still has respectable population growth,” he said. “The United States adds 3 million people very year. That’s 30 million in 10 years.”

He also noted the rising average sales price of homes in the Steamboat area, but said the turnaround is driven more by investors who see the value of buying low and collecting rent than it is by people who intend to use the vacation homes.

Sparring over overruns

KETCHUM, Idaho – At what premium are you willing to buy local? That issue has become prominent in a messy lawsuit in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area between the local school district and McKinstry, the Seattle-based energy services contractor.

McKinstry agreed to replace low-efficiency boilers and in other ways make eight school district buildings more energy efficient. The school district claims McKinstry agreed to do this work for $18.7 million. In fact, the bill came in at $25.8 million.

Who’s to blame? Fingers have pointed both ways. One of them is pointed by McKinstry at school officials. The company says the school district required that local subcontractors be hired, and that alone explains $1.7 million of the $7.2 million in cost overruns. School district officials, reports the Idaho Mountain Express, call this claim “disingenuous and misleading.”

By Allen Best

Chinese customers in Aspen

ASPEN, Colo. – The Aspen Skiing Co. has started casting seeds in China, hoping to grow business from the giant country of 1.3 billion people.

The Aspen Daily News, reporting from a local chamber meeting, says that representatives of the Little Nell, the ski company’s swank hotel, recently went to Shanghai to meet with travel agents.

Hotel manager John Speers explained that many wealthy Chinese send their children to U.S. schools. They can be more easily sold on a North American ski vacation while coming or going from their child’s school.

Aspen, said Speers, generally has what Chinese visitors would be looking for: high-end shopping and a healthy serving of cultural events.

To better accommodate Chinese visitors, he urged local businesses to study how to conduct transactions using UnionPay, which is the only provider of credit and debit cards in mainland China.

People keep on feeding bears

BANFF, Alberta – It’s mid-summer, and bears are in the news in nearly all the mountain towns.

In Banff National Park, a tourist on a tour bus recently flung a piece of meat at a 23-year-old grizzly sow and her yearling cubs, hoping to lure the bruins closer for a better photo.

“Absolutely shocking,” said Steve Michel, human-wildlife conflict specialist with the park.

“This is the sort of behavior we saw 30 or 40 years ago, and it’s certainly very concerning when we see that kind of disrespectful behavior in 2012, particularly to a bear that has been so successful in the landscape.”

The fear of bear biologists everywhere is that bears will connect people with easy meals, a connection that leads the animals to become demanding and hence threatening. Often, that means they must be killed.

In this case, there’s no evidence the bears have changed their behavior by approaching vehicles. “She’s been foraging on buffalo berries, so that’s a good sign she didn’t actually receive a food reward,” said Michel.

Nobody was charged with feeding the wildlife, and the tourists, who were from China, left.

BYOW OK in Whistler restaurants

WHISTLER, B.C. – Diners in Whistler can now carry their own bottle of wine to a restaurant.

The new rule, called BYOW, because it applies only to wine, was recently adopted by British Columbia. The practice is common around the world, although not in the United States. One restaurateur told Pique Newsmagazine that whatever got people out of the house was ultimately good for restaurants.

Romney rallies Colorado

BASALT, Colo. – Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and 10 of his best buddies, all of them Republicans, as he is, and governors, as he once was, shared the stage at a rally held in Basalt, located near Aspen.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert testified that based on what Romney did in turning around the corruption-tinged and financially troubled 2002 Olympics in Utah, he’s convinced Romney will do the same for the United States.

“I saw it happen, and the nation needs the same kind of turnaround,” Herbert said in an Aspen Daily News report.

Employees of Gould Construction, an excavating firm, were seen behind Romney, some of them wearing hard hats. Gould Construction benefited from illegal immigration, as did liberal, über-rich Aspen. A 2006 TV special with Tom Brokaw revealed the troubles Gould had in finding legally-documented workers construction projects for $14 an hour.

Squaw Valley expands bed base

SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. – When Denver-based KSL Capital partners purchased Squaw Valley in 2010, it was clear that the resort would be remade in the model of the destination ski areas of Colorado. That is happening.

Local government officials in California recently heard that KSL is applying to do a real estate project that will substantially add to the resort’s bed base. The resort has 100 acres planned for development. The first phase, of one million square feet, would use a quarter of that land. All told, Squaw Valley wants to create 1,275 units in various ownership configurations, according to a press release posted by Placer County.

Bust tied to Mexican cartels

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Cocaine continues to pop up in the news occasionally. Last year, there was a giant cocaine bust in Aspen, with connections to drug-traffickers in  Los Angeles. Now comes a story from Aspen that six people were arrested, all of them from Mexico.

The purchasers of cocaine in Aspen and Telluride were not identified, at least not in print, although it is gernerally assumed that they were local customers. The cocaine retailing operations are thought by officials to be  tied, through the supply chains, to weekly beheadings in Mexico as drug lords and gangs there compete for dominance.

Whistler airport on backburner

WHISTLER, B.C.—While aware of the advantage enjoyed by U.S. ski resorts with airports in close proximity, tourism leaders in Whistler say that developing an airport of their own remains a low priority.

Whistler’s best option is Pemberton, located a half-hour away, where an existing airport with a 4,000-foot runway exists. But making it suitable for direct flights from distant cites by large airplanes would require an extension of the runway to at least 6,000 feet. The viability of that continues to be studied, ski area officials tell Pique Newsmagazine. “It’s still a ways off,” said Dave Brownlie, chief operating officer at Whistler Blackcomb.

Assessing impact of coal trains

WHITEFISH, B.C. – Homeowners and others who live along the railroad tracks in Whitefish are assessing how they may be impacted if the export of coal from the Powder River Basin to China and other countries is increased. According to a report, the Western Organization of Resource Councils estimates current traffic on the Hi-Line route through Whitefish might be increased by 15 to 30 trains per day on top of the existing 30 trains.

Representatives of BNSF, the railroad company, dispute those claims, saying it’s unrealistic to assume all coal from the Powder River Basin will travel on BNSF lines or that all the half-dozen coal export terminals proposed on the West Coast will be built.

Summer economy roars

ASPEN, Colo. – While Aspen city officials continue to be cautious about what the future may hold and real estate sales are a perplexing, muddled story, the tourism economy is bursting at the seams.

During June, the city recorded $44 million in activities subject to the sales tax, such as restaurant meals and lodging. That’s an increase of nearly 16 percent over the same month in 2011.

In Vail, the story is also of rapid growth in retail sales and lodging. June sales tax collections were the second highest ever.

In interviews with the Vail Daily, local officials responsible for marketing were happy to take credit for the gains. They said that they have become more sophisticated in the use of social media and other Internet-based marketing, but also that they have better connected specific users with specific activities.

“Instead of branding Vail as something for everybody, we’re really honed in on messages about events and activities people say they’re interested in,” said Mia Vlaar, a member of the Vail Local Marketing District Advisory Council.

But again, as in winter, when good snow makes heroes and heroines out of marketing people, there was something else going on in June, too. “It’s no minor detail that hot weather has driven people here,” said Beth Slifer, chair of the marketing council.

By Allen Best

Tornado second-highest in U.S.

IDAHO SPRINGS, Colo. – Tornadoes usually bring to mind flat land regions, such as Kansas and Alabama.

But every once in a great while, they can occur in the mountains, and meteorologist say a funnel touched down at 11,900 feet on a mountain west of Denver last Saturday.

The tornado on Mt. Evans the second highest ever recorded in the United States, reports The Denver Post. The highest was in 2004, at more than 12,000 feet in California’s Sequoia National Park, south of Mammoth Lakes.

Oil, grease, fat foul water works

BANFF, Alberta – Grease, fats and oils are fouling Banff’s wastewater treatment. It is, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, an expensive proposition for both the municipality of 8,200 people and for businesses, who contribute the bulk of the wastes and then suffer the consequences of sewer lines blocked by giant grease balls.

Municipal officials say restaurants and other businesses need to understand how to properly use and maintain grease traps and interceptors.

Store it, don’t pour it, they say.

Fire threat ebbs, rivers shallow

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Wildfires in Colorado, so much in the news during a searing hot and bone-dry June, have receded as a threat. At the center of the drought, Steamboat Springs received almost double its average rainfall for July, reports Steamboat Today.

Despite the rains, river flows remain modest. To help boost supplies, city officials in Steamboat instituted mandatory conservation measures. Outdoor lawn watering was banned altogether on Wednesdays, during mid-day and remaining watering allowed only every other day.

When a stumble is not a stumble

JACKSON, Wyo. – We often talk about stumbles in life. In most cases, they are just that, a lurch in our mission. But in Wyoming’s Teton Range, a stumble can be deadly.

Authorities in Teton National Park guess that Justin Beldin, 27, stumbled shortly after leaving the summit of Middle Teton. “My best guess it that this was a relatively innocent moment of inattention,” said Scott Guenther, the coincident commander.

The victim, described by friends as a “hell of a righteous dude,” tried to stop himself on steep rock for 5 to 20 feet before free-falling for “quite a ways,” to his death, Guenther told the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Meanwhile, a family of climbers summited the Great Teton, and the 6-year-old among them became the youngest ever to stand atop the 13,776-foot peak. He is one of three pre-adolescent children in the family to summit.

Messages to richest of rich

SUN VALLEY, Idaho –This year, Idaho followers of the Occupy Wall Street movement added spice to the annual Allen & Co. meeting of media businesses, politicians and celebrities.

The conference has hatched all sorts of big business deals. Whether hallway conversations will yield news in future months is too soon to know, of course.

But there was the usual stew of household names: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

TV host George Stephanopolous spoke, and Oprah Winfrey interviewed billionaire investor Warren Buffet. Also attending were Google chairman Eric Schmidt and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Greeting them were representatives of the Occupy movement, positioned along the public roads with signs bearing pointed messages. “Size does matter. Too big has failed,” read the message of protester Alex Neirwith.

“I can’t speak for anyone but myself,” he said when asked by the Idaho Mountain Express what Occupy protestors hoped to accomplish. “I wanted to make a statement against the increasingly disgusting income inequality in the country. I wanted to communicate to the one-hundredth of 1 percent that business as usual is over.”

The Idaho Mountain Express, however, notes a certain irony. To organize the protest, Occupy Boise had used the technology invented by one of the 0.01 percent attendees: Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg.

Aspen feels Aurora shootings

ASPEN, Colo. – Singer John Denver lived in Aspen, of course, and his funeral was held in Aurora, because that’s where his mother lived. Other than they’re both cities in Colorado, Aspen and Aurora would seem to otherwise have little in common.

Just the same, the massacre of 12 people in a movie theater loomed large in Aspen. Security at the Isis, the local movie theater, was heightened for a week, as patrons were required to open their bags and purses for inspection, reports the Aspen Daily News.

Elsewhere, the Aurora shootings came up in conversations at yet another of the talk-fests that now loom so prominently on the summer schedule of festivals in Aspen.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, a former national security official said that stopping the next James Holmes, the accused shooter in Aurora, would likely entail violating civil liberties.

Admiral Dennis Blair, the former director of National Intelligence, an advisory agency in the U.S. government, said government intervention has effectively prevented large-scale attacks, such as those by Al-Qaeda.

To prevent the sort of mass shootings as have occurred in recent years would require a higher level of surveillance and would require government agencies to share more information, he went on.

“The cost in civil liberties and privacy that we would have to pay to get our intelligence to that level would (be high),” Blair said.

The Daily News says another speaker identified the best way to deal with the threat of home-grown gun violence such as occurred at Aurora would be to better train first responders in how to identify potential threats.

While there are 12,000 FBI agents, there are two million first responders, pointed out Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Low-cost lodging is problematic

ASPEN, Colo. – Despite the massive construction in Aspen during the last decade, the amount of lodging available to the general public has slipped.

From 2009, the overall bed base declined 0.5 percent, according to a study commissioned by city officials. The sub-sector of condominiums, which includes fractional-ownership units, dropped 4.5 percent. The only gain was in the number of homes available for rent. But they mostly are in the category of deluxe accommodations.

City officials would like to see more lower-priced lodging options. The Aspen Skiing Co. concurs, but is dubious about the financial bookends.

“It’s hard to do economically because of cost of construction and price of land,” explained David Corbin, vice president for planning. “That said, we like the idea of having entry-level products so that a younger generation of skiers, not yet affluent, could come and enjoy Aspen and begin to make it their lifelong destination. We support that but acknowledge that it’s difficult to do.”

The ski company does see a niche for properties, such as its Limelight Lodge, that have limited service, relatively low numbers of employees compared to super-high-service hotels, and moderate prices but with pleasant and upgraded rooms.

“Aspen could use more of those kinds of beds,” said Corbin. “There is a lot of guest demand for that. It doesn’t have to be five-star.”

The company hopes to see another study, to better understand what type of new properties would be a best fit for the community.

Aspen has 10,085 visitor beds, compared to 8,772 in Snowmass, according to a study by the Mountain Travel Research Program.