Sierra Nevada peak soon to be named
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. – A peak in the Sierra Nevada hitherto identified only by its elevation of 12,240 is to soon be officially named Mt. Andrea Lawrence, in honor of the late conservationist and ski racer.

Lawrence was a three-time Olympian who remains the only American double-gold medalist in Olympic alpine skiing. That success occurred in Oslo, Norway, in 1952.

Later in life, she turned her passion to land conservation and environmental preservation while also serving as a member of the Board of Supervisors of Mono County, where Mammoth is located. She died in 2009.

The Sheet explains that the peak is on the border of the Ansel Adams Wilderness, just east of Yosemite National Park, all of this due east of San Jose.

A bill calling for the designation passed Congress with just a handful of dissenting votes. There is no reason to doubt that President Barack Obama will sign the bill into law.

The peak is located next door to Mt. Amelia Earhart, named after the famous aviator of the 1920s and 1930s.

Two ski patrol veterans killed in slides
TRUCKEE, Calif. – The death of two ski patrollers, one at Alpine Meadows and another at Snowmass, highlights yet again the randomness of avalanche fury.

On Dec. 24, Alpine Meadows 28-year veteran Bill Foster, 53, had taken refuge in a presumably safe area while a fellow ski patroller tossed an explosive. The ensuing avalanche broke higher and wider on the slope than expected, representatives of the ski company said.

With ski professionals trained in avalanche rescue all around, Foster’s location in the avalanche debris was identified within one minute, and it took another eight minutes to dig him out. They immediately began administering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

It wasn’t enough. Foster died later on Christmas day at a hospital in Reno.

“Nine minutes is reasonably quick” for recovery of a victim from an avalanche, Brian Lazar, forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, told Mountain Town News. “Your chances of survival drop precipitously after 15 minutes.”

That said, it doesn’t imply that everyone who is recovered within 15 minutes will survive. Some people die from trauma during the avalanches. Others pass out in two or three minutes.

On Sunday, Dec. 30, Patricia “Patsy” Hileman, a 26-year veteran of the Snowmass Ski Patrol, was killed in an avalanche while skiing in a permanently closed area.

The Aspen Daily News described it as in an area containing the most extreme terrain at Snowmass. What she was doing in the permanently closed area was not explained and is, perhaps, unknowable. Aspen Skiing Co. representatives said that she was passionate about her job, her co-workers and skiing.

Good, bad news for Lake Tahoe clarity
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – When still going about life as Samuel Clemens, the writer later known as Mark Twain visited Lake Tahoe and was struck by the remarkable clarity of the waters.

A report this year from the Tahoe Environmental Research Center finds that in 2011, lake clarity improved during winter and worsened during summer.

The improved clarity of winter was likely due to improved stormwater drainage control measures in communities bordering the lake, which has 72 miles of shoreline.

Researchers hypothesize that warmer water temperatures are allowing the exponential growth of an algae cell, particularly in the surface layers of the lake. This may be a result of the warming climate.

A report in the Sierra Sun notes further that the effects of the warming climate have not been uniform. The melting of snow at the lake level, just shy of 6,300 feet, now occurs about two weeks earlier than it did in 1961. But 600 feet higher in elevation, no meaningful change has occurred in the timing of spring snowmelt since measurements began in 1956.

“It’s important to remember that although scientists are quantifying climate change, the impacts vary depending on location,” notes the Sierra Sun.

Ski towns grapple with new pot law
MT. CRESTED BUTTE – Stoners are easier to deal with than drunks, says the police chief in Mt. Crested Butte. Just the same, elected officials in this slope-side municipality don’t want to see marijuana easily available.

“The selling of marijuana, whether it’s medical or nonmedical, is not very consistent with a resort town,” said Gary Keiser, a councilman. Earlier, some of Vail’s council members took much the same stance.

In the wake of a statewide vote in November to decriminalize marijuana, ski towns and other local jurisdictions are trying to make sense of how to respond. Voters some years ago had similarly decriminalized possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes, although in reality, the distinction between medical needs and recreational enjoyment was blatantly blurred.

Still, marijuana use, whether to thwart cancer pain or merely to chill, remains a criminal offense under federal law. The federal government has made it clear that prosecution is a low priority. Still, Colorado and other states where marijuana has been decriminalized must now sort through this legal no-man’s land.

In Telluride, San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters, a long-time opponent of the War on Drugs, admitted to discomfort in addressing what the law allows. “I’m not thrilled,” he told The Telluride Watch.

The Crested Butte News reports that police chief Hank Smith said he wasn’t advocating for retailers of marijuana, but he believed they would pose fewer problems than bars and liquor stores.

“Just about every officer I know would much rather deal with somebody who was stoned than somebody who was drunk, whether it’s driving or domestic disputes or whatever,” he said. “Those people are much less aggressive than someone who is drunk,” he said.

But he also expressed reservations about the impact of marijuana on driving.

“It’s impossible to enforce right now and we know you can establish an objective test for that just like you have with alcohol … If you’re going to put a lot of energy into marijuana enforcement, that’s the first place it should be put, because that’s a threat to society generally.”

The News explains that the town officials are clear they don’t want marijuana for sale. But less clear is how regulations can be altered to prevent the growing of marijuana inside homes.

Telluride looking to diversify economy
TELLURIDE – Every ski town is always looking to diversify its economy, cushioning the seasonal swings and buffering itself from the vagaries of weather. Telluride has been no exception.

Now comes an intriguing initiative called Telluride Venture Accelerator. As explained by The Telluride Watch, the idea is that the community would serve as a home to a think tank and a retreat for aspiring entrepreneurs. In Telluride, they would be mentored by those with expertise.

Budding entrepreneurs would be awarded cash grants of up to $30,000, plus $8,000 to cover travel and living expenses, plus shared workspace in Telluride where they might bounce ideas off each other.

The foundation for the idea is the existing talent within Telluride, both of residents and second-home owners, who would mentor the entrepreneurs.
“Telluride just might have the highest per capita number of venture capital/private equity people in the country,” said Paul Majors, chief executive of the Telluride Foundation. These are people, he added, who are interested in helping build new businesses “because that is what they like to do.”

In exchange for this assistance, the Venture Accelerator is to take 4 percent equity stake in participating companies, potentially creating a fund with which the program can be expanded.

“Donors are migrating away from traditional philanthropy, and that’s especially true of a lot of the people in Telluride,” Majors told The Watch. “They are at a point in their lives where they want to give, and the Telluride Venture Accelerator fits their interests.”

The first solicitation drew 100 applications by the November deadline. Three winners will be announced in early January. The applications involved ideas involving food, tourism, health and wellness, education and energy.

ACLU tells Jackson prayer unacceptable
JACKSON, Wyo. – Officials in Jackson are moving forward with plans for a nonsectarian prayer at a town-sanctioned rodeo series next summer despite a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union.

A rodeo operator last summer had continued to use specific components of Christianity in his opening prayer at the rodeos, despite warnings from town officials that his prayer had to be nonsectarian. The prayer issued as acceptable to town officials opens with “Father” while asking for protection of contestants, but omits Christian references.

Town officials thought they were slicing a path through the middle, allowing participants of all faiths to find in the prayer something within their own religions while shying away from the Constitutional ban on state-imposed religions.

But the ACLU said any prayer should not be allowed at a government-sanctioned event, because it puts nonbelievers into an uncomfortable position.

Some Christians have protested that this is a matter of freedom of speech. But a representative of the ACLU told the Jackson Hole News&Guide that it’s not. “They are correct in that a private citizen has the right to express their freedom of speech,” said Jennifer Horvath, the ACLU staff attorney. “The difference here is it’s a town-sponsored act. The town controls the content of the rodeo.”

Aware but no panic button about climate
WHITEFISH, Mont. – If not panicked by the shifting climate, Whitefish Mountain Resort has taken it into consideration. But did it have anything to do with placement of a new lift on the mountain’s northside.

Spokeswoman Riley Polumbus says the lift was in the plans since the mid-1980s and really had nothing to do with the slow-starting winter last year that caused the ski area to open a week late.

“It’s a concept that we had years before climate change even became a term,” she says.  She also noted that the first year Whitefish, then called big Mountain, opened, autumn hung on so long that the lifts didn’t start operating until Dec. 14. That was 65 years ago.

But a new report from two University of New Hampshire researchers released recently points to clear evidence of warming winters. In Montana, according to the report, winter temperatures have increased 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 40 years, and by the end of the 21st century may rise an additional 5 to 7 degrees.

– Allen Best