It’s heavenly time in mountain towns
It’s the most heavenly of weeks in mountain towns. Nights are cool, days sparkling. While the lowlands bake, the summer monsoons have arrived to ease the threat of wildfire and produce the blooms of wildflowers.

“Paradise Divide is living up to its name,” reported Mark Reaman, of the Crested Butte News, referring to a wondrous area in the adjacent Elk Range. “There is indeed a bounty of wildflowers up high above 10,000 feet.”

Musical and theatrical performances are equally compelling, and so are the venues for learned talk that have become more common in ski towns.
At Aspen, among the latest high-brow talkfests is the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference. It’s sort of a more public version of Sun Valley’s Allen & Co. gathering of media moguls.

In his appearance at Brainstorm Tech, Dave Stern, commissioner of the National Basketball Association, explained how Twitter and other new media are boosting the popularity of professional basketball.

“Even this season, when we were locked out, even if they were tweeting that Stern is an idiot or a nincompoop, they were tweeting … Social media has given an opportunity for our community to really stay occupied,” said Stern, according to an Aspen Daily News account.

Also speaking was Google chairman Eric Schmidt, along with executives from Facebook, LinkedIn, Disney, Comcast and the Washington Post, among others.

Tina Brown, the editor who was the regenerative force of The New Yorker in the 1990s and is now the co-owner and lead editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, also was in Aspen, at a different venue, talking about the shifting media landscape.

Mitt Romney also appeared in Aspen in recent weeks at a fund-raiser hosted by Susan Crown – a member of the Crown family, owners of the Aspen Skiing Co. In what may be indicative of news far beyond Aspen, she was a firm supporter of Barack Obama in 2008 but was angered, according to an Aspen newspaper, by Obama’s stance on Israel. This time, she’s throwing her lot with Romney. She’s got company. The Aspen Daily News reported the gathering produced $2.5 million for Romney’s campaign in a place where 74 percent of votes in 2008 went to Obama.

Romney was also in Jackson Hole, where he was the featured attraction at a $30,000-a-head dinner hosted by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Sources told Jackson Hole News&Guide that donors were given a “remarkable level of access,” including a 30-minute, unscripted question-and-answer session. He talked a lot about foreign policy.

For those of lesser means, Jackson Hole had plenty to offer. Country queen Emmylou Harris was to sing, a Greek comedy was being performed, and the artist Jeff Ham had an art show of his images of General George Armstrong Custer on display.

For those interested in the environment, an ecologist from Colorado was to discuss the effect of nitrogen deposition in lakes of the Tetons, and a Utah geophysicist was scheduled to talk about the “Shaky Tetons and Breathing Yellowstone.”

Sun Valley boosters seek airline funding
KETCHUM, Idaho – The push is on in Sun Valley and adjacent towns to approve a 1 percent sales tax for securing direct flights from San Francisco and other distant cities. The tax, proposed for a five-year trial period, would generate an estimated $2 million a year.

Steamboat, Jackson, Telluride and Crested Butte all provide revenue guarantees to airlines. There is usually a partnership between the ski company and local taxing districts. In every case, at least some local public money is used. In the case of Vail, public money is used only for summer flights, while Vail Resorts alone posts winter revenues guarantees.

Sun Valley boosters, who say their resort has fallen behind others in the Rocky Mountains, want to create a sturdier financing platform. They say the $2 million in annual revenues generated by the proposed sales tax would allow them to arrange a daily direct flight from San Francisco beginning in 2013, and one or two other major markets in subsequent years. The San Francisco flight would yield an incremental 20,000 visitors per year, providing $34 million to the local economy.

Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall says locals would pay only 20 percent of the sales tax, reports the Idaho Mountain Express. Visitors, of course, would pay the rest.

The Ketchum-Sun Valley resort area currently has a minuscule flight program as compared with the giant resorts of the West. Total enplanements last year at the airport in nearby Hailey totaled 53,000, with direct flights only from Seattle and Los Angeles.

The Sun Valley Co., operator of the ski area, was the sole financier. It would continue to post 50 percent of flight revenues. Carol Waller, director of Fly Sun Valley Alliance, says the company has agreed to boost its financial stake.

The airline subsidy is being sold primarily as a way to generate new tourism. Currently, 77 percent of airline passengers are either second-home owners or tourists. But the sales tax is also being pushed as a way to help sell more real estate and attract business people who need frequent and easier access to the outside world.

Jackson Hole adds winter direct flights
JACKSON, Wyo. – The flights options into Jackson Hole will increase this coming winter, with three new flights which will boost overall available seats by 10 percent.

The local agency that arranges flights with airlines has three new nonstop flights from San Francisco, Minneapolis and Newark. Two of the three are being induced with revenue guarantees, reports the Jackson Hole News&Guide. With the additions, Jackson Hole now has flights from 10 cities, including Denver.

Public contributions accounted for less than 10 percent of the total funds raised to post revenue guarantees, Mike Gireau, chairman of the Jackson Hole Air Improvement Resources, told the newspaper.

Real estate grows in drips and drabs
BIG SKY, Mont. – From across the Rocky Mountains come reports of quickening real estate sales and even renewed home construction.
In Bozeman, the Daily Chronicle reports work began on more than 140 homes during the first half of the year, a pace only slightly behind the peak boom year of 2006.

More broadly, Gallatin County has had an 86 percent increase in construction of new homes, while Park County – home to Livingston, another portal to Yellowstone National Park – has had an 80 percent increase.

In Big Sky Resort, located about an hour from Bozeman, real estate broker Jerry Pape reports a few builders are starting to build homes on speculation again. But he was also cautious. “I think, in general, the market is picking up. But again, like I said, it’s not going to be quick. It’s going to be in drips and drabs.”

In Park City, the first half of 2012 yielded the highest number of sales since the corresponding period of 2006, before the housing market crash. But, as in Montana, the news from real estate offices is a tempered one. “I feel like we’re in recovery,” said real estate broker Jess Reid. “That’s the good news. The other side of that is that recovery is frustratingly low.”

From Steamboat also comes subdued optimism. Through June, sales volume recorded through the multiple listing service was $167 million, reports the Steamboat Today. That’s compared with $143 million last year for the same period but is dwarfed by the $519 million in 2007, at the height of the exuberance.

Telluride revisits real estate offices
TELLURIDE – Telluride recently revisited the issue of how many real estate and professional offices should be allowed to occupy the main drag. In 2007, the town adopted regulations capping the space for bankers, lawyers and brokers at 21 percent of commercial space.

The thinking behind such regulations – adopted in Vail in the early 1970s and other ski towns in recent years – is that a resort needs to have retail shops, bars and restaurants. There’s a feeling in Telluride that there are too few shoppers, and perhaps too many real estate offices, even now.

“Nobody is going to want to stay in a town that is one-third office spaces,” said Bob Saunders, a councilman. “We need a business district that has places for people to go shopping.”

But George Harvey, a veteran real estate broker, said the zoning regulations that limit professional offices are trying to solve the wrong problem. “What is this solving? Potentially, this is an inhibitor to good-paying jobs in town. Yes, people should be able to shop for pots and pans and stuff, but they also should be able to shop for real estate.”

A portion of the council, according to The Telluride Watch, decided that it was a moot point. After all, said Ann Brady, the existing limit hasn’t been breached. “The heart of the matter is we want more people on main street,” she said. Lowering the amount of space available to real estate offices, she added, won’t achieve that.

Humans and horses get weekend trail use
BOZEMAN, Mont. – From Bozeman comes news about several time-share trails. Any users – including hikers, horseback riders, motorcyclists and mountain bikers —are allowed to use the trails on weekdays. But on weekends, the trails are reserved exclusively for horseback riders or people on foot on alternating days, explains the Daily Chronicle.

In Colorado, a mountain bike rider was before the Ridgway Town Council to sound the alarm about renegade bike trails being built on federal and state lands. The mountain biker, according to The Telluride Watch, worried that the renegade trails will stunt the planning of legitimate mountain bike trails.

Coalition grows in support of gondola
PARK CITY, Utah – The Park Record reports a swelling coalition in support of a gondola that would link ski areas on both sides of the Wasatch Range. The Lift Utah Coalition added 30 members to the original 20.

Carl Fisher, executive director of Save our Canyons, which opposes the gondola, says the members were predictable. “It is exactly the type of companies and industries I expected to join the coalition,” he said. “We’re primarily seeing developers and people who benefit from construction and real estate development. That has always been our No. 1 concern with the project: the potential development that would ensue from SkiLink.”

Swim pool gear not good for Athabasca
JASPER, Alberta – Rafts and tubes such as might be found in swimming pools are being used to float down the Athabasca River, and that’s not a good idea, say administrators of Jasper National Park.

“These are serious rivers,” says Steve Blake, a visiting safety manager. “The water temperature is a specific hazard, and the swift water, the high water we’re having now is a very specific hazard.”

Jasper’s Fitzhugh newspaper says Blake wants users to use the appropriate gear, including personal flotation devices, whistles or some other signaling device, and a length of rope.

Banff shelves talk of chain store quotas
BANFF, Alberta – After a decade of talking about it, elected officials in Banff have refused to go forward with even discussing a quota system for chain stores and restaurants.

The 2007 arrival of Indigo Books, a chain, and the closing of a family run store that had been in business for 43 years had added to the debate.
Susan Gilles-Smith, owner of the Banff Tea Co., has been trumpeting the call for regulation of chains. Her business is threatened by the recent arrival of Montreal-based David’s Tea.

“I would like to encourage council to have the courage to stand up, take a stand, and do what is right to protect our town from becoming a generic tourist town that has the same to offer as any other place people may visit. We are unique and beautiful, and our town could be a true reflection of that.”

Darren Enns, the senior planner for Banff, said Banff already regulates bed-and-breakfast operations and tax companies using a quota system.
But, by a 4-to-2- vote, the council shelved the question of quotas. Several in that majority believe that the free market will most wisely determine what’s best for Banff. “I don’t think it’s council’s position to put any more restrictions on economic development in town,” said Councilor Paul Baxter.

Jesus Christ not officially invited
JACKSON, Wyo. – The producer of rodeos at Jackson has been asked to shrink his prayer. The rodeos are held in partnership with the town and county government, and the producer at the Fourth of July began the event with a prayer that lasted four minutes.

Mark Barron, mayor of Jackson, said he is fine with having a prayer for participants, but described the prayer as one “delivered in a manner that excludes.”

The Jackson Hole News&Guide talked with one attendee, who said he thought he was going to a rodeo, not a revival.

The separation of church and state is a basic precept of the American Constitution, but what that means in practice is a sticky question. Mike Atkins, pastor of a local church, questioned whether the Buddhist prayer flags at the local middle school or those hanging over a public rescue station constitution an establishment of religion. He also cited the Fire Festival, which he said honors mountain gods.

“Either we allow it all or we don’t allow any of it, no matter how minute or shadowy,” he said in an e-mail to the mayor.

But Greg Miles, a town councilor, sees the issue differently. The rodeo is a partnership between the town, county and the rodeo operators. “This isn’t in the same category as an applicant that comes in during the holiday season to ask for permission to light a menorah on Town Square.”

Bears laid low by traffic collisions
BANFF, Alberta – At least six black bears have been killed on roads in Canada’s national parks this year, causing Parks Canada to urge drivers to slow down. An additional bear was killed on train tracks near Banff, although no grizzly bears have died in Banff, Kootenay or Yoho national parks.
The highway mortality for black bears is no higher than for last year. However, Parks Canada confirmed 477 deaths over a 20-year period in the seven national parks in the Canadian Rockies. Of them, 449 were the result of human interactions, the majority of them after being hit by trains, cars or trucks.

There’s some concern about the declines in the black bear population in the Banff area. There’s even greater concern about the viability of grizzlies.
In particular, biologists fear too many grizzlies are being killed after being drawn to scavenge for corn and other grain spilled from passing trains. In response to better understand bear movements in and around rails, 11 grizzlies have been fitted with GPS collars in Banff and Yoho national parks.

 

– Allen Best, http://mountaintownnews.net