Why some wear stilettos in Wyoming
JACKSON, Wyo. – If not to the level of Imelda Marcos, Jackson Hole has closets full of shoes. Ferreting out the fashionistas, the News&Guide found one women with 80 pairs but also plenty of women who still treasure high heels, despite living in a place where they seemingly have little utility.

“Frankly, I’m from New York,” said an art gallery owner. “I can hail a taxi in 4-inch stilettos. I can pretty much go jogging in heels if I want to.”
Another woman tells the News&Guide that she went shoe crazy when still a child. Born with a club foot, she was forced to wear orthopedic shoes until the second grade.

“My mom took me to the store, and I picked out these shoes that were red and blue suede with white leather stars on them, because they were the loudest thing I could find. I was so happy to get out of hideous, orthopedic-style shoes.”

But even men can have closets brimming with foot coverings for every occasion. Lindsay Wood, the News& Guide reporter, talked to Jay Pistono, a ski, fishing and mountain guide. He arrived in 1978, a time when Jackson was still plenty cowboy.

Pistono tells the paper he never has owned a pair of cowboy boots, but he does have 26 to 30 pairs of specialized shoes for all weather conditions and situations.

“It’s all based on function,” he said. “I don’t think I have a pair of shoes that would display a fashion statement.”

By like many, Piston favors Italian shoes. Unlike the Gucci and Prada and Dolce Vita mentioned in the profiles of women, he likes boot-maker Scarpa. “Those people (Italians) know how to make shoes,” he said.

As for Imelda Marcos, the widow of deposed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, she had 2,700 pair, give or take a few dozen.

Hirsute billionaire develops Park City
PARK CITY, Utah – Aspen and Jackson don’t have the monopoly on billionaires in ski towns. The Park Record reveals that John Paul DeJoria, the bearded and ponytailed icon for Paul Mitchell hair products, is a partner in a major redevelopment plan being prepared for Park City.

DeJoria, who is No. 92 on the Forbes magazine list of wealthiest Americans, said he has been buying and developing properties in Park City for more than 20 years.

The newest project, at Bonanza Park, would involve a mix of residential and commercial properties, perhaps in the same buildings, what is called multi-use.

Window-peeping lion shot in Whitefish
WHITEFISH, Mont. – Mountain lions have been in the news in several ski towns recently.

In Whitefish, a 100-pound lion was shot after peering into the window of a house. While the big cat may have been curious, wildlife officials told the Whitefish Pilot they want cats to have a deep fear of people.

“When you see them in the middle of the day, walking around looking in windows, it’s lost some fear of people,” said Jim Williams, of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “In this case, it was clearly not normal behavior.”

In Whistler, B.C., a cougar that was spotted near a home acted more naturally. It bolted. Pique reports two mountain lions may have been seen in a down-valley community, Squamish. A wildlife official says it’s not uncommon to see tracks of cougars there, as well as those of coyotes and wolves.

Steamboat’s snowfall tops the charts
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Black and white, night and day, best of times and worst of times.

Last winter, Steamboat was without snow at the start of last ski season. This winter, a blast of storms before Christmas left Steamboat with almost 67 inches of snow in town, good enough for the sixth-highest total in December, reports Steamboat Today.

Whistler has also had bountiful snow, getting 11.3 feet of snow during December, the most in a decade. “We started calling it Deepcember,” said Nate Rigos, a spokesman for the Whistler Blackcomb ski area. The record for the ski area during December is 12.5 feet.

Less doomsday talk, more adaptation
BANFF, Alberta – While some have looked to scientists to nail down the risk of the changing climate, others have turned to the insurance industry, which is a master of actuarial tables.

And those risks are large, says Robert Tremblay, director of research with the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that Tremblay was recently in Banff for the “Water Energy and Climate Security in a Changing World” conference. He said that damage caused by fire didn’t change from 1993 - 2009. But during that same time, water and rain damage more than doubled, from 17 percent to 35 percent. Wind damage has also increased.

He called for adaptation. “We need to protect society and economies from the impacts of more frequent severe weather events. The science is there. We need to adapt.”

From the insurance perspective, Tremblay sees need for better infrastructure, such as storm sewers, to accommodate big rainstorms, even if the public favors recreation and cultural amenities. “We need to invest more in infrastructure, less in opera houses and ice rinks.”

But some adaptation techniques might not be all that expensive. He cited the example of a better-designed nail that can keep roofs secured better during hurricane winds.

He also said that it’s time to quit talking about doomsday and more about how to adapt to extreme weather events.

Snowmaking may save some ski areas
WHISTLER, B.C. – Daniel Scott, a professor at the University of Waterloo, has been working in climate models since 2003, trying to paint a picture of how ski areas will be affected by rising temperatures.

That’s somewhat difficult, given that we don’t know for sure how much temperatures will rise. But even the most optimistic scenarios see rising temperatures and declining snow. In the worst-case scenario, he tells Whistler’s Pique newsmagazine, skiing may not be economically viable in several ski areas at lower elevation. In New York state, for example, the “lake-effect snow” could turn into “lake-effect rain.”

But he tells Pique that a report he expects to release this year will make a strong case for a greater reliance on snow-making, although he acknowledges that won’t be possible for all resorts.

“It’s not doom and gloom for the entire ski industry, which is what the media has portrayed in previous studies,” says Scott. “What we see when we model all 103 resorts (in the Northeast) is that we’ll get a contraction and concentration of the ski industry into high-elevation areas of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Closer to the coast, in Connecticut and Massachusetts, it may not be as viable because you get a moderating effect of the ocean and warmer temperatures.

Scott says some resorts might need to close. But even if they continue to get snow, this should be a concern for destination resorts of the West, notes Pique. After all, these low-lying ski areas serve as feeder areas, getting people interested in the sport.

In the long run, notes Pique, that could mean fewer potential customers for Whistler.

Aspen Skiing makes case for activism
ASPEN – Between 2000-11, Aspen Skiing Co. held its greenhouse gas emissions flat, despite a 41 percent increase in revenues.

But that’s not enough, says the company in its 2012 sustainability report.

“Most businesses trying to be sustainable focus on greening their operations and products,” the report says. ”But that’s not nearly enough to stop climate change, and therefore doesn’t achieve true sustainability. That’s why corporations must become climate activists, pushing for large-scale solutions.”

Very specifically, Aspen Skiing sees the big solutions being at the federal level, where so far only tiny answers – such as subsidies for wind turbines – have been found.

Meanwhile, in the Aspen municipal government, city officials are trying to plot their way forward after city voters in November displayed a lack of faith in one of the city’s renewable energy projects. That project called for the city to basically recreate its hydroelectric system abandoned 50 years ago in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Already, the city’s electrical utility can boast a carbon-free portfolio of 75 percent, owing to a combination of local hydroelectric facilities and wind power in Nebraska and Wyoming. Installation of turbines on an existing dam near Telluride will push that to 89 percent. The turbines on local creeks in Aspen would take it to 97 percent – close to the 100 percent called for in the city’s 2005 climate manifesto called the Canary Initiative.

Some opponents saw the diversions as damaging to the ecosystem, while others wondered whether the city was being totally honest about its plans.

After the vote, city officials postponed further work on the Castle Creek Energy Center. Now, they are asking the public for alternatives – but with certain restrictions.

“We favor them to be completely baked,” city utilities project director Will Dolan told the Aspen Daily News. Instead of more solar, the city wants to know where. And the project needs to be local or semi-local. It also needs to be something that can be completed by 2015, in accordance with the Canary Initiative timeline.

Too, it cannot involve buying carbon credits. The idea must be about actually generating local electricity.

Biomass plants still a tough nut in West
TRUCKEE, Calif. – Using biomass to create electricity has proven difficult in mountain towns of the West. Despite the enormous numbers of dead and drying trees, commercial developers have found obstacles at every turn.

In the Tahoe Basin, Placer County has been working for several years to develop the Cabin Creek Biomass Energy Facility. The facility, if completed, would draw wood from a 30-mile radius to create two megawatts of electricity.

The U.S. Forest Service supports the project, arguing that it would reduce the wood in the forests, thereby lessening the risk of major wildfires.

But not so fast, says the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our main concerns have to do with proper accounting of greenhouse gas emissions from biomass combustion,” says senior staff attorney Kevin Bundy.

“We need to get away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible – but a lot of recent science is showing that biomass power generation can be very intensive in terms of greenhouse gas pollution,” he adds. “My interest is primarily in trying to ensure that biomass carbon accounting is done as accurately as possible so that local communities can make informed decisions rather than just rely on potentially inaccurate assumptions.”

He adds that biomass plants create a long-term demand for fuel that could create additional pressure for more harvesting. His group questions how much wood is available.

In Colorado, planning continues for two biomass plants, at Pagosa Springs and at Gypsum. The Gypsum plant would be five times larger than the one in California, and necessary permits have been awarded. But the developer in an e–mail to Mountain Town News several weeks ago said full financing has not been secured.

– Allen Best