Article details Thompson evening

ASPEN – In April,The New York Timescarried an account of what was described as a typical evening at the home of Hunter Thompson, the writer, who lived for several decades at Woody Creek, a hamlet near Aspen.It was, said the essayist Rich Cohn, about 5 p.m. one day last autumn, and Thompson had just gotten out of bed.

“’Clear a path,’ he shouted. He stumbled across the kitchen and fell into the chair at the counter. He nodded to the man across the room, his friend, the local sheriff, who had shown me the way to the house. He reached out his right hand, and the drink was there, just there, ice clinking. Thompson opened the drawer to his left. It was filled with narcotics. As he looked inside, the sheriff said, ‘I’ll go into the other room while you do your drugs, Hunter.’

“He sank a straw into a plastic container and took some cocaine onto his tongue. He returned to the drawer constantly in the course of the night, getting cocaine, pills, marijuana, which he smoked in a pipe – the smoke was soft and tangy and blue – chased by Chivas, white wine, Chartreuse, tequila and Glenfiddich. The effect was gradual, but soon his features softened and the scowl melted and his movements became fluid and graceful. By midnight, the man who had emerged a bleary-eyed ruin hours before was on his feet and swearing and waving a shotgun, and another show had opened in the long run of Hunter S. Thompson.”

Thompson killed himself in February, and in June, the Aspen Valley Medical Foundation announced a conference about what it considers to be the gravest threat to the Aspen-area community: alcoholism and substance abuse. The conference planning began well before Thompson’s suicide, which was among several linked – if perhaps obliquely in the case of Thompson – to drugs and alcohol.

The Aspen Times reports that, for all its wealth, Aspen has no “sober house,” where people trying to get clean of substance abuse can connect with those who can guide them.

‘War for the floor’ hits Telluride

TELLURIDE – Like everywhere else, the prices of land and other real estate in Telluride have been rising rapidly. A case in point is the value of 572 acres of

bucolic land immediately to the east of the town.

The town wants it kept as open space, but the owners want the right to develop. This struggle of wills has been the cause of numerous volleys during the last five years in whatThe Telluride Watch calls “the war for the floor.”

A town-ordered appraisal shows the parcel is worth nearly $26 million, or $7 million more than it was worth two years ago. An appraisal done on behalf of the owners looked at other resort areas of Colorado and even Wyoming’s Jackson Hole to find comparisons. Those comparisons yielded an appraised value of $51 million.The Watch reports that most observers assume, based on little more than instinct or common sense, the ultimate cost of the property will wind up somewhere between the two. The town threatens condemnation but has been ordered to mediation.

Sierra Nevada boom expected

TRUCKEE, Calif. – The Sierra Nevada is currently home to about 600,000 people, most in California but some in several Nevada counties near Lake Tahoe. But that population could conceivably quadruple in the next 35 years, warns the Sierra Nevada Alliance, a consortium of environmental groups.

Mirroring a pattern similar to what is projected for Colorado, most of the population growth is projected to occur in the foothills on large lots in semi-rural areas in a style sometimes called exurban. While the pattern of development is different than cities, the effects such as pollution and traffic are much the same. Much of the development is expected for the area on the western side of the mountain range, relatively close to Sacramento, Bakersfield and Fresno.

“Population in and of itself really isn’t a problem,” said Joan Clayburgh, the alliance’s executive director. “It’s how well we plan for it.”

The alliance suggests that more counties need to have master plans, while existing master plans should be updated. Moreover, only a third of the 23 counties that govern the Sierra Nevada have plotted areas of private land that deserve protection from development.

But Tim Leslie, a California state legislator from the Lake Tahoe area, told the Associated Press that he fears overburdening private property owners with restrictions on developing or altering their land.

Open space also ranchers’ factory

CRESTED BUTTE – Pretend you’re driving down the road in a sparsely settled mountain valley, and on the left and on the right are hay fields, some with cattle grazing in them. What do you see?

Most people in ski towns see “open space,” but ranchers see a factory of sorts. After all, that’s the point of growing hay and grazing cattle – to get “beef” readied for market. And, more to the point, they don’t want their prerogatives with this factory space tampered with by government regulations.

That’s the gist of a small controversy in Gunnison County, where the road between Gunnison and Crested Butte remains largely the province of ranchers. But the Spann family, ranchers well-known in the West for their alliance with environmental groups, wants it made clear that hay meadows and open space are two different things.

“The hay meadows are part of our business,” said Lee Spann. “They’re not there for viewsheds.” Spann says that ranchers need the flexibility to sell small parcels and conduct other small businesses. The issue, reports theCrested Butte News, arises in conjunction with a new county land-use plan being drafted.

New Aspen Ideas Festival sells out

ASPEN – It’s talk season in Aspen, with an endless array of intellectual posturing and jousting on tap during coming weeks.

New to the schedule is the Aspen Ideas Festival, which will feature six days of talk with an impressive lineup of well-known noggins on July 5-10. Among the 120 people of high-IQ talkers will be U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, television interviewer Charlie Rose and Harvard prez Lawrence Summers. Also on tap will be Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Jordan’s Queen Noor.

The three- and six-day passes to the festival sold out well in advance, although a website for The Aspen Institute, the sponsoring organization, says there is a waiting list. The website, however, does not specify a price. Maybe brainfests in Aspen are like real estate. If you must ask the price, you probably can’t afford it.

– compiled by Allen Best

Bison may be reintroduced in Banff

BANFF, Alberta – Habitat is being studied in Banff and other Canadadian national parks in the Rocky Mountains with the idea of reintroducing bison. Bison were commonplace in the 19th century, accounting for half of all ungulates seen by explorers but disappeared as the century continued.

However, much “heavy thinking remains to be done before the giants are brought in,” reports theRocky Mountain Outlook. Park and wildlife officials want to consult with ranchers on lands outside the parks, as well as hunters, guides and backpackers. They are also studying how bison have worked out in Yellowstone National Park.

Chicago-Vail flights start slowly

EAGLE VALLEY – New summer flights between Chicago and Eagle County, which serves primarily the Vail market, have started slow – so slow that government money will probably be spent to cover basic operating costs of United Airlines.

Airplanes need to be 60 to 70 percent full to cover costs. The Chicago flights are starting the summer at about 40 percent full. Kent Meyers, an air program consultant, said fares had started out too high as compared with flights from Chicago to Denver.

This is, notes theVail Daily, in sharp contrast with direct flights from Dallas begun three summers ago. Almost no subsidies were needed to cover costs of those flights.

Gang descend on Glenwood Springs

GLENWOOD SPRINGS – Often, smaller-town police chiefs are quick to warn about the invasion of gangs from big cities. In Glenwood Springs, the local police chief, Terry Wilson, was saying something very different.

“We have had, over the years, small groups that are conducting themselves in ways that are consistent with the way gangs would act,” he told theGlenwood Springs Post-Independent.

He made the remarks after Glenwood’s annual Strawberry Days festival. The newspaper reports that two groups of teen-agers stood on opposite sides of an intersection on the first fight, flashing gang signs. A police officer the next day told a man to take off his gang colors and emblems or he couldn’t go inside the carnival. The man refused, and swung. Finally, a fight broke out, with most of the participants being Latinos from different towns up and down the Roaring Fork Valley, where Aspen and Glenwood Springs are located.

Wilson said the gang-like trouble has been isolated to the festival during the last several days for reasons he does not fully understand.

Ketchum embraces mixing uses

KETCHUM, Idaho – Add Ketchum to the list of ski towns now embracing mixed-use zoning. The town is looking at revising the uses permitted in the light-industrial district to include housing.

If housing is created in this zone, a third of it must be “affordable,” reports theIdahoMountain Express. The intent is to ensure housing for such firms as Scott USA, the manufacturers of ski goggles and other sporting goods, which has an office there.

Compared to several of the larger ski towns, Ketchum is light on deed-restricted affordable housing. Only some 40 have been built or are under construction, but 40 more are on the horizon.