Snow-short story seriously scary
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Apprehension continues to grow in Colorado as snowfall, although improving, remains far below average. Coming on top of severe drought last year, water managers and fire marshals fear a hot, dry summer ahead.

Oh yes, significant storms moved through the Rocky Mountains in recent weeks, allowing ski areas and trade organizations to dispatch flurries of photos showing face shots and other delights.

“The best skiing in two years,” said one instructor at Vail over Presidents’ Weekend.

But the larger story is of catch-up. Storm sequences have been like Just-in-Time shipping. After an awful December, just enough snow arrived to meet minimum needs of Christmas. Then, following a sunny, dry and cold January, more storms arrived just in time for Presidents’ Weekend.
Still, the Aspen Skiing Co. was unable to open all the terrain at its four ski areas until February. Around Vail, south-facing slopes are mostly bare.
Steamboat has fared better than most. By mid-February, according to Steamboat Today, the ski area had received as much snow as it did by closing day in April last year. That’s not saying all that much, however.

By the measure of snow-water equivalent of snowpack, conditions are on-the-edge-of-your-seat scary. The Vail-based Eagle River Water and Sanitation District has a chart on its website that compares this winter with conditions in 2012, the terrible drought winter of 2002, and then the 30-year average. If average is Pikes Peak, this year so far looks like a foothill.

Dillon Reservoir, located between Breckenridge and Keystone, is one of the major sources of water for metro Denver, and it’s only now 66 percent full, compared to 90 percent on average this time of year, reports the Summit Daily News. A huge spring storm could yet help refill reservoirs. It’s happened before. For now, Denver officials have barred use of parks for soccer play, to prevent damage to fragile grass.

It will remain Gay Ski Week in T’ride
TELLURIDE – Telluride this week is hosting Gay Ski Week, which draws 1,000 to 1,500 people to what both local newspapers describe as a spirited, fun and sometimes flamboyant affair.

Did anybody say risqué? Consider a new event this year: “Dick’s Night-out.”

“We always try to be edgy,” said event John McGill, co-founder of Gay Ski Week.

Both The Watch and the Daily Planet mused about the changing context for Gay Ski Week. Since the event started in the early 1990s, gays have become much more broadly accepted in general society. Younger people, in particular, are less inclined to use “gay” and “straight” as singularly defining. Sexual orientation is just one attribute among many.

“It would be great if someday we can live without labels,” said McGill, but added: “We’ll still call it Gay Ski Week.”


Whistler eager to limit shopping bags
WHISTLER, B.C. – A new report that Whistler residents and visitors use 4 million plastic bags per year has indignant town officials calling for a ban.

“I’m aghast at the statistic,” said Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden. She has company, as other elected officials also support putting the kibosh on the free, disposable bags, as Aspen and Telluride have already done.

Another statistic has them troubled: The world’s oceans now have six times more plastic particles than they do plankton.

Yet another statistic had the council confused. While Whistlerites liberally use free plastic bags, a survey showed that 76 percent favor eliminating the bags. What gives?

Nicolette Richer, the municipality’s environmental coordinator, explained that it’s like seatbelts: everyone knew seatbelts were a good idea, but few used them until it became the law.

Administrator Mike Furey advises caution and wants more time to devise a response short of a bag ban. Council members accepted his advice – but said they wouldn’t wait long, reports Pique newsmagazine.

Stakes high for deep forest forays
WHISTLER, B.C. – Search and rescue crews have been busy at Whistler. While the number of calls has stayed constant, the emergencies have become more dire as more and more snowmobilers and extreme skiers have been heading into the backcountry.

“We’re seeing multiple broken bone and collapsed lungs, things like that,” explained Brad Sills, team manager for Whistler Search and Rescue.
“Gravity and velocity are two physical properties we should always be in awe of, and if you’re riding a snowmobile at 80 kilometers an hour and the environment suddenly changes ... that’s an awful lot of force that’s going to be exerted on your body.”

Of 70 calls during the annual reporting period, 31 required use of helicopters, something that Sills said is becoming more common as people head deeper into the backcountry.

Telluride moves carbon footprint bar
TELLURIDE – Give Telluride this much: in 2006, town officials pledged to reduce carbon emissions 7 percent below 2005 levels by 2012. They’ve achieved that within the realm of municipal operations.

Karen Guglielmone, the town’s public works director, tells the Telluride Daily Planet that the first efforts were the lowest-hanging fruit: turning off computers, using more efficient lighting and so forth.

But the town has also invested in solar energy production, at a farm west of Telluride, and then purchase of electricity produced at one of the waterfalls in the box canyon.

Of course, it’s one thing for the municipal government to reduce its carbon footprint, but the government accounts for only 3 percent of total energy used in the town limits. Guglielmone says encouragement and perhaps incentives are needed to get businesses, organizations and families to follow suit.

Meanwhile, the town has its own stepped-up goal to meet. By 2020, it has pledged to reduce its carbon footprint by 20 percent. The easiest way to do that is to install a hydroelectric component in the town’s new water treatment plant.

Pot ‘tourism’ may come to Colorado
DENVER – Want to get high? You could go to Colorado, if Colorado legislators approve the recommendations of a task force.

The state’s voters in November approved a constitutional amendment legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. One of the thornier issues of implementing this wish is whether to allow non-residents to indulge, what has been called marijuana tourism.

The task force agreed that the constitutional amendment approved by voters says nothing about restricting use to Colorado residents, reports The Denver Post. If lawmakers agree, says the newspaper, visitors would be free to buy and smoke marijuana.

The reasoning of one task force member, Rep. Dan Pabon, a Democrat from Denver, is that imposing a residency requirement “would almost certainly create a black market for recreational marijuana in the state.”

But tourists might not be able to buy much, maybe as little as an eighth of an ounce per transaction.

Individual jurisdictions, including ski towns, have mostly imposed moratoriums on commercial sales until state lawmakers adopt regulations. With that in mind, Steamboat Springs recently banned clubs set up by businesses to allow marijuana ingestion. The constitutional amendment does not allow public use, only private use.

Price of walk-up lift ticket hits $129
ASPEN – Which one is at the top of the heap, Vail or Aspen? Based strictly on single-day lift ticket prices for Presidents’ Day Weekend, Vail has that distinction with its $129 walk-up price, while Aspen jumped to $117. Deer Valley came in at $107.

Few people pay these prices. All ski companies push multiday lift ticket purchases through discounts. Vail Resorts sells a four-day ticket for $384 if purchased at least a week in advance, while Aspen Skiing charges $396 for its four-day package.

Of course, for not much more, $679, Vail Resorts sold a season pass this year good at 10 ski areas, and with benefits at other resorts in the United States and Switzerland. But the catch was that you had to commit early.

Big boo-boo in the restaurant backroom
ASPEN – If true, it must have been the mother of all restaurant boo-boos. A woman has filed a lawsuit against one of the more upscale restaurants in the Aspen-Snowmass Village areas, alleging that the restaurant served her a glass of bleach.

She immediately jumped up and ran to the bathroom to vomit as her throat began to burn and swell.

The Aspen Daily News, reviewing the lawsuit, says a restaurant employee told the husband the waiter likely had picked up a water jug soaking in bleach solution, believing it to be drinking water. The woman was treated by paramedics, but the lawsuit says she continues to suffer medical problems.

Senior-care facility moves ahead in Eagle
EAGLE – Rules have been amended in Eagle, located 30 miles west of Vail, so that a 150,000 square-foot senior-care facility can be built. Local officials note that such a facility has been talked about off and on since the 1970s. “We won’t be a true community until we are multi-generational,” said Yuri Kostick, mayor of Eagle and a local planner.

Eagle County government has committed $6 million toward construction, and the county is applying for a $12 million grant. A Minnesota-based nonprofit called Augustana Care, which has contracted to operate the facility, has pledged $1 million. That leaves a shortfall of $3 million.
The first phase of the project is to have 22 skilled nursing beds, 20 assisted living beds, 12 memory-care beds and 10 others.
The project will employ 60 people.

Aspen mayor talks about buying lodge
ASPEN – One of just a handful of small lodges remaining in Aspen goes to a foreclosure auction in March, and Mayor Mick Ireland wants his fellow council members to consider bidding on the 26-room bed and breakfast.

The property was purchased for about $8 million in 2006,reports the Aspen Daily News.

Ireland said he has no burning desire to operate a lodge, but he is concerned that the lodge will be razed to make room for a single-family house or some other high-priced real estate that is inimical to the town’s resort economy. “I’m concerned about a viable business turning into a residential property,” he tells the Daily News.

Aspen-area retirement community gets an OK
BASALT – A proposal to create a 148-unit retirement community in Basalt, located 18 miles down-valley from Aspen, continues to move forward, but with a potentially show-stopping question yet unresolved.

The plans by the Aspen Valley Foundation include 78 independent-living units and 18 cottages for seniors who need little or no special medical care, explains the Aspen Times. Another 28 units will have assisted living provisions, and 24 will have skilled nursing.

So far, so good. But what about the affordable-housing requirements of such enterprises, as is required of other residential developments? After all, even if you don’t include the units that include some level of medical care, the others are “skewed toward the wealthy,” in the words of one planning commissioner in Basalt. But increasing costs will be passed onto customers, potentially precluding those of lesser means, a developer representative said.

The Aspen Times says the planning commission approved the plans but left this affordable housing question for the town council to decide.

– Allen Best