Jackson Hole leaves deep footprint

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Jackson Hole has taken stock of its carbon footprint, and it’s not a pretty sight. An analysis of electricity, natural gas and heating records show that each resident is responsible for 37 metric tons per year of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.

The national average is 24 metric tons.

“Such statistics show that Jackson Hole, known for fostering a land conservation ethic, has developed an economy that relies on massive energy consumption,” notes theJackson Hole News&Guide’s Thomas Dewell, in reporting the analysis.

“The numbers are just staggering,” said Michael Miller, president of Teton Power, whose company helps organizations and individuals find ways to decrease their carbon footprint. “We’re energy pigs, and to live where we live is energy intensive.”

He noted that the valley economy is “completely unsustainable without outside input. There is no such thing as a salad grown in Jackson Hole during the winter.”

Even though 10 percent of Jackson Hole’s electrical consumers have signed up for hydroelectric, wind and other forms of “clean” energy, as a practical matter, even the renewable energy economy depends upon natural gas being extracted to the south in the Pinedale area, the nation’s leading poster child for oil and gas development.

The drive to use renewable energy will require even more natural gas development, because wind and solar energy require backups that can be turned on immediately, said John Bargas, manager for communications for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States.

Aspen was among the first to inventory its carbon footprint as a part of its Canary Initiative. Similar efforts are also under way in the counties where Crested Butte and Telluride are located, among others.

War on Terror riles Summit County

SUMMIT COUNTY –The Summit Daily News thinks that the war on terrorism needs to be better connected at times with common sense. What provokes the newspaper’s grousing is diversion of traffic from across Dillon Dam, a shortcut between the towns of Frisco and Dillon.

Concrete barriers are being installed along the road upon the advice of the federal government, which says the barriers will make it more difficult for anybody to sabotage the dam. The dam and reservoir are owned by the City of Denver.

In just the first week, 56,000 cars were re-routed – although it’s probably worth pointing out that the alternative route, Interstate 70, parallels the dam road, requiring only a few more minutes of driving. However, scenic pullouts, including one that provided a history of the dam, will be permanently lost.

Many other changes across the Colorado mountains have been instituted since Sept. 11, 2001. Almost immediately, restrooms at the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel complex were closed to the public. Dam facilities at Ruedi Reservoir, near Aspen, were similarly closed.

In Steamboat Springs, a new courthouse was relocated to the edge of town, because the existing courthouse site in the downtown area had too little room for all the mandated security areas. At Gypsum, 34 federal transportation security workers were hired, at federal wages, to screen passengers and baggage at Eagle County Regional Airport.

In Glenwood Springs, the public was no longer allowed to freely enter the offices of the White River National Forest, but was instead screened before being allowed through a locked door.

Breck copes with skiers’ deaths

BRECKENRIDGE –The death 11-year-old boy who slammed into a tree on the edge of an intermediate ski trail at Breckenridge has John Wolters, a visitor from Texas, wondering about grooming policies. It’s not the first such death – two other skiers also died at Breckenridge last year after hitting trees.

Writing in theSummit Daily News, he points the finger in two areas: First, shaped skis have made it much easier for beginner skiers to rapidly ski with confidence.

“They go from bunny slopes to the intermediate slopes overnight. Therein lies the tragedy. It appears from my unscientific research that most of the deaths occur from hitting objects on intermediate slopes,” he says.

“These accidents could be prevented or lessened in severity,” Wolters goes on to say, “if the resort management companies – Vail Resorts in this case, would alter their slope-grooming habits. If they would leave a 5- to 8-foot area ungroomed near

the trees and obstacles, there would be fewer skier deaths.

Blogging on the newspaper’s website, a reader identified as Tom Clancy thinks the recommended solution unworkable. “Any death is a tragedy, but building berms along the sides of all blue runs to prevent beginners from crashing into trees is a bit far-fetched,” he says. “I think a much better idea is for beginning skiers to take some lessons so they can learn how to turn, stop, stay in the middle of the run and properly bail out before getting too close to the edge.”

Redford the talk of two towns

PARK CITY, Utah – It’s that time of year when Park City is in the news of New York City, Los Angeles and just about every other place where people pay attention to cutting-edge cinema.

The Park Recordsays actor Robert Redford spoke at the opening of his 24^th annual Sundance Film Festival. There would be, he announced, “a new kind of spirit” at this year’s festival, one that welcomes fresh collaborations of poetry, art and music into film.

“In past years, filmmakers have been connected to the generation of baby boomers, trying to hang onto something of value,” Redford explained. “Now, there’s a new group that’s saying, ‘We don’t want to mirror what’s come before. We want to do something new, so just get out of our way.’”

Meanwhile, in Truckee, Calif., Park City has also been in conversations. It’s an old railroad town, but the old railyards are being redeveloped into a New West sort of place, with a three-story boutique hotel and other such resort-related goodies. Among the proposed components, reports theSierra Sun, would be a movie theater.

The developer, Rick Holliday, says he has two very interested operators of the theater, “but my main guy is Robert Redford. He says he should have done Truckee for the film festival; it’s more real than Park City.”

At least for now. Park City was once an old mining town.

Crested Butte boasts centerfold

CRESTED BUTTE – Heidi Montag must be a woman of extremes. After growing up in Crested Butte, she’s now in Los Angeles, where she has been a star of MTV’s hit reality show “The Hills.” A regular in the fanzines, she is also the cover girl on this month’s issue ofMaxim, which seems to be the Playboy Magazine for males of Gen Y.

The Denver Post, under a headline about “Crested beaut,” reports a “revealing pictorial” of the 21-year-old inMaxim, and a quick dance across the Internet shows the surgically augmented lass in plenty of skimpy bathing suits.

And just think, if she were still in Crested Butte this winter, she’d have to be bundled up to her eyeballs to handle the 30-below nights.

USFS tries to regenerate aspen trees

NORWOOD – The U.S. Forest Service is hoping to cut about 200 acres of low-elevation aspen trees that appear to be dying out, with the hope that the cutting will provoke the trees to regenerate roots, called suckers.

The aspen trees are old, and so their dying is not a surprise. But what is happening in the San Juans, and elsewhere in the West is that aspen trees are not regenerating as often as expected. This particular area is about 45 miles air miles northwest of Telluride, on the Uncompahgre Plateau.

“Because aspen regenerates primarily through root suckering, some managers and scientists feel that clear-cutting before sudden decline advances too far is the best way to regenerate a new stand,” said a press release.

Parking scarce at Vail Resorts

VAIL – How good has the snow been at Vail recently? The parking situation partly tells the story. The town has 2,350 parking spaces in its two major garages, plus hundreds more in other, private parking garages.

Still, on a recent Saturday there were nearly 1,000 cars parked along the frontage road. It was the ninth time this winter that cars have overflowed the garages onto the frontage road.

“It’s a good problem to have,” said Stan Zemler, the town manager.The Vail Daily notes that there are 800 additional spaces in possible future developments near the ski lifts. The overflowing parking lots have been a problem since about 2000. The greater concern is having people unloading and walking on a busy road.

— Allen Best