Mountain Town News
Snow King gets investment
JACKSON, Wyo. – Finally, some breathing room for Jackson Hole’s “other” ski area.
Snow King Mountain, unlike the bigger ski area with the couloirs and so forth, is within the town of Jackson. It’s respectably steep and within six blocks of the famous elk-antlered arches of town square.
For years the ski area has lost money during winter; $500,000 annually, according to the owners, who made their case public several years ago.
Non-profit public ownership was one option. Bridger Bowl near Bozeman, Mont.; Bogus Basin near Boise, Idaho; and Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colo., are all operated by non-profits.
In Jackson Hole, public or non-profit ownership didn’t look like viable options. Instead, new investors were recruited, and now they are putting $8 million toward paying off debt.
“The infusion of cash will clear the way for more investment and new development,” explains the Jackson Hole News&Guide.
Crucial to the investment was the decision by the town council to fast-track approval of an alpine coaster on private land owned by the resort at the base of the mountain. The partners intend to also invest in a lift extension on the mountain.
$50 mil promised for upgrades
PARK CITY, Utah – Vail Resorts announced on Monday that it will invest $50 million in capital improvements at Park City and Canyons in making it the largest ski resort in the United States as measured by acreage.
Assuming approval by local authorities, the two ski areas will be connected by an eight-passenger high-speed gondola. In addition, two existing lifts will be upgraded and restaurants will be improved or expanded.
Not least, the Colorado-based company will invest $5 million in “catch up” maintenance and upgrades at Park City and improve snowmaking in a vital interconnect area.
Blaise Carrig, president of the mountain division of Vail resorts, called it “one of the most ambitious and impactful plans undertaken at any resort in industry history.”
With the interconnection, the two resorts can boast of 7,300 acres, pushing Park City/Canyons ahead of Big Sky’s 5,750 and Vail Mountain’s 5,289. Whistler Blackcomb, however, will remain numero uno in América del Norte at 8,171 acres.
What will this combined ski area be called? No word from Vail just yet.
Vail gets heart lab, physicians
VAIL, Colo. – No more helicopter flights to Denver for those on the edge of death from cardiac arrest in Vail. Vail Valley Medical Center in January will have a state-of-the-art cath lab and two coronary experts.
One of those physicians, Dr. Jerry Greenberg, specializes in interventional cardiology, and the other, Dr. Nelson Prager, specializes in electrophysiology, heart rhythm disturbances, and coronary artery disease.
“As Vail’s aging population requires greater healthcare support and expanded services, the hospital is responding to accommodate this need,” says Doris Kirchner, chief executive of the hospital.
New brewer seeks to reverse flow
FAIRPLAY, Colo. – The Western Slope of Colorado gets about 80 percent of the precipitation in Colorado, but 30-some tunnels, canals, and other conveyances divert water eastward across the Continental Divide.
The new South Park Brewing Co. hopes to reverse that flow, at least a small bit. The new craft brewer is located in Fairplay, which is 34 miles from Breckenridge but across the Continental Divide. Like most everything in Fairplay, the brewery hopes to make money by selling its beers in Breckenridge and elsewhere in Summit County.
This new craft brewery is part of a major trend. The Brewers Association says the United States has 3,100 breweries, nearly all of them low-volume in production, with another 2,000 now being planned or under development.
Air rights bought to save view
ASPEN, Colo. – In a rare if not unique case, the buyers of a penthouse in downtown Aspen have also purchased the “air rights” above an adjacent building to ensure preservation of views of Aspen Mountain from the penthouse.
The purchase of the 5,053-square-foot condominium penthouse along Hyman Avenue had set a record for real estate in Aspen at $3,126 a square foot, or $15.8 million altogether.
The penthouse buyers also purchased air rights above an adjoining property that is home to a restaurant. No price of the air space was reported.
Chris Bendon, Aspen’s Community Development Director, told the Aspen Daily News that he has heard of other easements of “view planes” being sold, but said “it’s not common.”
Ski pole company gets Kickstart
PARK CITY, Utah – A Kickstarter campaign by a Park City-based manufacturer of bamboo skiing and hiking poles yielded $26,000 with a week in the campaign to go; well above the $17,000 goal.
Bryon Friedman’s Soul Poles has made high-end customized bamboo poles for the last two years. They cost $129 and above and are marketed as environmentally friendly.
To create a line of lower-cost poles, starting at $69, he wants to cut down on production costs by using an injection mold, explains The Park Record. But for that, he needed financial investors.
Ozone depletion theory
JACKSON, Wyo. – If not in the United States, it’s almost certain that 2014 will be the warmest year globally in recorded history.
That fits in with a pattern. Most of the available evidence supports the theory of greenhouse gas emissions. The theory holds that solar energy travels through the atmosphere in waves and then, like a greenhouse, cannot radiate back into space because of the lid of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
But Peter Ward, a retired geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey who lives in Jackson Hole, thinks the theory depends upon a flawed assumption about how radiation travels through the atmosphere.
“To this day, if you ask physicists how light travels in the atmosphere or in space, it travels in waves or as photons,” he said. “All of the radiation codes used to calculate the models about climate change assume that energy travels through the atmosphere as waves.”
That’s wrong, he believes. Ward instead believes the Earth’s warming has been caused by depletion of the ozone layer, which is 12 miles from the earth’s surface.
“When ozone is reduced (depleted), more of this sun-burning, cancer-causing radiation reaches Earth, cooling the ozone layer and warming Earth,” Ward says.
“This ultraviolet energy is 48 times hotter, 48 times more energetic than infrared radiation absorbed by greenhouse gases.”
Ward has a Ph.D. from Columbia University and once headed the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. In other words, he has some scientific cred.
He tells the Jackson Hole News&Guide that he has been unable to get any audience in the scientific community – and, for that matter, not much of one elsewhere. His YouTube video, called OzoneDepletionTheory.info, was seen just 127 times in the week after he posted it.
