Mountain Town News
By Allen Best
The Bigfoot Whisperer?
BANFF, Alberta – Banff National Park will soon be on the Discovery Animal Channel show “Finding Bigfoot.” A bigfoot research organization called Sylvanic claims to have documented a bigfoot in Banff and Kootenay national parks through hair samples and on video. An episode of the TV series will investigate those claims.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook observes that the publicity might well draw tourists. “We’re always thrilled when people want to come and explore the landscape, but this is certainly a new twist to it,” said Julie Canning, chief executive of Banff Lake Louise Tourism.
A tantalizing market
WHISTLER, B.C. — China remains a tantalizing market for tourism operators and resort real estate developers in the West.
Construction of several major ski resorts in China now underway could foster interest in skiing that will eventually produce customers in North America, says a planning consultant from Whistler who has been retained to guide Chinese.
“I think these resorts are going to bring a lot of customers to Whistler in the future,” said Paul Mathews, head planner and director of Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners. The firm helped design Whistler Blackcomb, Mont Tremblant and Sun Peaks, all in Canada, plus resorts in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and in many nations, both in Europe and in Asia.
In China, Ecosign is now helping plan Beijing Secret Garden, a $1 billion, four-season resort located about 250 kilometres (155 miles) west of Beijing. It is located next to the Great Wall of China. Plans call for 22 lifts with capacity of 18,720 skiers, and a bed base of 125,366 units. That’s more than twice the development cap of bed units in Whistler.
Elsewhere in China, Ecosign has completed a master plan for a resort in Jilin Province that would have nine hotels at Changbaishan International Tourism Resort. That resort complex is to open in November 2012 with a capacity of 7,000 skiers per day.
“The middle class and upper middle class are growing like crazy,” Mathews said of China. “They think that skiing and mountain resorts are a really cool thing. That’s a place where they can go show off their style and also meet a lot of people (like them.)”
Prior experiences in Russia and the Ukraine suggest the resorts will get swamped with latent demand.
Because most customers will be new to skiing, the new Chinese resorts will have more beginner trails.
“I would say it takes 3 to 10 years to build a true, committed skiing family,” Mathews said. “They try it once or twice the first year, they rent their equipment. Then, if they like it, they get their own clothes and equipment, they get enough technique to navigate blue slopes. If they get to that point they get pretty hooked.
“Then they’ll start traveling to regional resorts (and) invest in real estate.”
Don Murray, also an Ecosign planner, said hard-core Chinese skiers will inevitably want to visit ski resorts in Canada, the United States, and Europe. And Whistler’s relative proximity puts it in a good position. Flight time between Beijing and Vancouver is 9 hours, compared to 12 to 14 hours to the Alps.
Save the Shoe Tree!
PARK CITY, Utah – Something called Shoe Tree exists in Park City’s original residential neighborhood, now called Old Town. Various shoes dangle from its branches, something of an ad hoc statement of surrealism.
Locals mostly seem to be fond of it. When a real estate development as built at the site several years ago, developers took care to leave the tree in place.
“It was funky. It was historic. It had been there a long time,” explained Harry Reed, a member of the development team. “We wanted them there. They were part of the atmosphere then. They still are.”
But Janet Kaul, who has been visiting Park City since 1974, finds nothing interesting about the Shoe Tree, which has now become a row of trees decorated with dangling sneakers, clod-hoppers and other assorted footwear.
“It looks like a trash heap,” she told the city council. “I, for one, don’t think old tennis shoes are a real romantic idea.”
The Park Record interviewed a local resident who said the tradition started when his brother, a veteran of Vietnam War, visited him in Park City. Wincing from the pain of blisters on this heels, he removed his combat boots and bathed his feet in a stream. As he did so, the local resident took the boots and pitched them into the tree – where they remained for four or five years.
“I thought the city would come and say this isn’t right, you’ve got to take them down,” he said. “I’m surprised (the Shoe Tree) is still there.”
Celebrating Mac and Cheese
ASPEN, Colo. – Macaroni and cheese may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Aspen. Just the same, the very first Aspen Mac & Cheese Festival will be held this coming weekend, with up to 19 restaurants participating in this decidedly niche festival.
Keith Bulicz, a city employee charge with organizing the festival, said he Googled in search of something comparable, and could find nothing of the sort across the United States.
The festival is being underwritten by a $1,500 grant from the city government, which during the last two years has been deliberately seeding more unconventional festival ideas during the shoulder seasons.
Buyers want smaller
TELLURIDE, Colo. – Real estate activity in mountain resorts has mostly improved this year, but not consistently so.
July sales in Aspen were down 16 percent compared to the same month last year, according to a report from Land Title Guarantee Co. The Aspen Times notes a roller-coaster year, with some months up, others down, but a general trend of strong improvement. Real estate sales are likely to exceed those in both 2009 and 2010 – and with a surge at the end, could exceed those of 2008.
Telluride properties have sold well, but the mansions in Mountain Village, located at the other end of the gondola, remain overpriced, even after reductions of 9 to 30 percent from 2007 peak prices, said Mike Shimkonis, of Telluride Properties.
“The prices have dropped, but properties haven’t moved. They probably need to go lower,” he told The Watch.
Fined for going motorized
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – For certain actions, there must be consequences, the Forest Service has decided. The agency has fined the operator of a mountain bike race an undisclosed sum for using motorized means of clearing snow from a designated non-motorized trail.
The owner of the Firecracker 50 mountain bike race told the Summit Daily News that the snow was still five feet deep for long segments of the race course. He estimated it would have been 160 person hours to shovel by hand.
