Bear season riles the Rocky Mountains
WHITEFISH, Mont. – From Central Colorado to British Columbia, it’s been a bad month to be a bear – and occasionally a person.
In Revelstoke, B.C., officials killed five bears that had wandered into town. The bears had been eating garbage, bird seed, compost, fruit trees and pet food. The Revelstoke Times Review says the berry crop at high elevations is nearly nonexistent.

No such excuses were offered at Crested Butte, where a 500-pound black bear was shot after it invaded a house. “He wasn’t scared of me in the least,” a man told officers.

Apparently the bear was afraid of others, who chased him out of the house and into the woods. A few hours later the bear was seen in a vehicle. That did it. Officers chased the bear and shot it. It was found dead the next morning, reports the Crested Butte News.

In Montana, two grizzlies were shot and killed in separate locations. The Whitefish Pilot reports a 370-pound grizzly was killed after it approached homes in Whitefish, broke into a chicken coop, and scarfed up dog and cat food. Worried that the bear might be a danger to people – and not just their property – wildlife officials authorized the killing.

Also in Montana, near Red Lodge, an older, heavier bear was “euthanized,” according to the Carbon County News, because of its reputation of killing cattle on a ranch. It was the second cattle-killing spree for the grizzly.

In the panhandle of Idaho, another grizzly bear was killed, but not until after having killed one of its would-be killers.

Finally, In British Columbia, wildlife officials killed three cougars that were making themselves entirely too much at home in back yards in Squamish, near Whistler.

“When one of the cougars was located, it was just kind of rolling around under a trampoline in a back yard with people around. It had no concern whatsoever, and not only that, some of the complaints indicated the cougars had an interest in people. So there was the risk that an attack could occur,” wildlife officer Chris Doyle told Pique Newsmagazine.

Meanwhile, Durango is experiencing a relatively tame bear season, as berries and acorns are abundant in the local backcountry.

Violence hits a small grow operation
TELLURIDE – It may not compare to the drug war in Mexico, but the Telluride community was unsettled by the invasion of a Norwood home by two men wielding guns that looked like AK-47s.

The two men seized several thousand dollars of cash, a gun, and then cut down and hauled off a large amount of marijuana growing on the property.

The two male inhabitants of the house had medical-marijuana cards, allowing them to possess marijuana and grow up to three plants each. They had exceeded that limit, but it was still considered a noncommercial operation.

The intruders beat the two residents and forced them to the ground at gunpoint, then bound their hands and ankles with duct tape. They were then pitched into a shed, beaten again and threatened if they did not reveal the location of valuables. Later, a neighbor stopped by, and she was also taped, pistol whipped and tossed into the shed.

Bill Masters, sheriff of San Miguel County, said he was surprised at the violence, but not the theft.

 “It was basically 12 hours of terror,” Masters told the Telluride Daily Planet. The victims finally freed themselves by chewing through the duct tape.

Masters, who has long been known as an opponent of the War on Drugs, said he believes that Colorado’s more liberalized laws governing growing and selling marijuana will likely produce more reports of these kinds of incidents. “They’ve been occurring for a long time, but have mostly gone unreported,” Masters said.

But in at least one sense, the armed bandits were bunglers. The marijuana plants they stole were still eight weeks from maturity, and hence of an inferior quality.

New backcountry hut takes shape
BERTHOUD PASS  – In truth, the old Second Creek cabin afforded little more separation from the elements than a good four-season tent. A new cabin near Berthoud Pass should do better.

The old cabin was built by volunteers in 1958. An A-frame with 250 square feet, it had just three layers of plywood on the ground serving as flooring. For all its primitiveness, it has always been a popular attraction, winter and summer. With downtown Denver 50 miles away, and at 11,380 feet, it is just two rumples away from the Continental Divide.

In the 1990s, Andy Miller and other local backcountry skiers began taking steps to deliver a better cabin, along the lines of those built by the 10th Mountain Division between Aspen and Vail.

“It’s astounding it stood for 53 years, because there really wasn’t all that much to it,” he says.

Miller’s group got permission in 2001 from the U.S. Forest Service to build a new hut. More difficult yet was raising the money. The $220,000 in hand was good enough to start the 1,700-square-foot cabin, not finish it. Nonetheless, it is expected to be ready by Christmas 2012.

The new hut will also have solar collectors, and it was designed to milk a maximum amount of passive solar. It will sleep 16, plus four volunteers.

And there will be two toilets, designed to compost, even in the thin, often frigid air found just below tree line. It may not be the complete answer, but Miller expects far fewer wads of toilet paper littering the landscape after spring snowmelt once the new toilets become available to day skiers in the Second Creek bowl.

Fire greatest threat to Aspen area
ASPEN – By the odds, fire is the single greatest threat to Pitkin County, more than floods and landslides, and certainly more than tornadoes and earthquakes.

That’s according to a new report prepared by county emergency personnel. The study reports a 23 percent chance in any given year of a wildfire that spreads across 75 acres or more. Less likely, but with far greater consequences, is a wildfire of catastrophic proportions. “Depending on the size of the wildfire, and its location, the loss of life and amount of damage could be catastrophic,” reads the report.

The report credits Pitkin County with “taking great leadership in mitigation and prevention of wildfires,” but notes the lingering possibility of a “fire that quickly burns out of control.”

About 58 percent of all structures in the county are located in what is often described as the wildland-urban interface, and of those structures, 77 percent are located within higher-risk areas. Regulations governing new or expanded homes in the high-hazard area mandate more stringent building materials.

Wildfire, too, is the greatest threat facing Telluride and its gondola-linked sibling, Mountain Village.
“It’s time to move forward and start doing some things,” said Judy Schutza, the district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service. “We need defensible spaces around the communities and around homes.”

The Daily Planet reports that a task force of local governments, the ski area operator and the federal government hopes to effect actions on both sides of the federal-private boundary. Just where the money needed to thin trees will come from seems to be in doubt, but there is hope.

Right wing lays plans in Beaver Creek
AVON – It’s well known that some of the nation’s leading politicians and business interests meet behind closed doors in ski towns, but usually it’s in Aspen and involves liberals.

Now comes a report, courtesy of Mother Jones, of a gathering of conservatives in Beaver Creek this summer. Headlining the meeting was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as well as billionaires and arch-conservatives David and Charles Koch. Citing a clandestine recording, the magazine quotes

Christie introducing David Koch. “I said to myself, ‘I’m really impressed and inspired by this man. He is my kind of guy,’” said Christie in introducing Koch.

The magazine insinuated that the Kochs influenced Christie to drop out of the 10-state pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Christie denies he had a conversation about RGGI with the Koch brothers.

The billionaire brothers, in addition to being art patrons in New York, are oil barons from Wichita, Kans. They are noted for their rejection of science that finds great potential risk from greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere.

Aspen rethinks plastic bag tax
ASPEN – Aspen has had a change of mind about imposing a fee of 20 cents on plastic bags. Now, several members of the City Council want to flat-out ban them.

“Why don’t we just get to the ban right now if that’s what we want to do,” said Adam Frisch, a councilman, at a recent meeting covered by The Aspen Times.

But there’s a hiccup if Aspen does veer course. It had talked with two other local municipalities, Basalt and Carbondale, and there had been something of a consensus that a fee, instead of a ban, was the way to go, and they were better off working in unison.

Mick Ireland, the mayor, argued against changing course. “Now we’re gonna throw them under the bus and say, ‘We didn’t really mean that. Thanks for the time, but we have a better idea,’” he said. “I don’t like that.”

Still more dissent came from Derek Johnson, who said he believes a total ban would impose a hardship on visitors. He said he believes retailers are headed toward some sort of solution to providing plastic bags on their own.

Resorts see mixed economic picture
BRECKENRIDGE – Go figure. From across the region come reports that it was a pretty healthy summer in mountain towns, at least in terms of collections of sales taxes. In Breckenridge, for example, collections were up nearly 18 percent over last year. Those in July were up 5 percent. And lodging during August was up 21 percent compared to last year.

Real estate, however, took a dive during July, as the U.S. Congress was in gridlock about spending. In Aspen, for example, sales were half of the volume of last year. No reports have surfaced of August sales.

Bicycle Friendly upgrades Steamboat
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Steamboat Springs has been bumped up to gold status by a group called Bicycle Friendly Community.
It joins 13 other communities with a similar distinction, including Breckenridge and Fort Collins. Boulder is one of just three platinum-level cities nationwide – a distinction that Steamboat bicycle proponents would also like.

Some of the local bloggers, however, were unimpressed. Maybe the award will provoke Steamboat to create a reality that matches the materials that had been submitted, said one.
– Allen Best