Look who’s 40: Eisenhower Tunnel
DILLON – The world’s highest vehicle tunnel is now 40.

At 11,155 feet in elevation, the Eisenhower bore of the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnel provided a lower, faster alternative to Loveland Pass, a two-lane route coifed with hairpin curves that reaches nearly 12,000 feet high.

Located 50 miles west of Denver, the tunnel pierces the Continental Divide and immediately made the nation’s largest ski areas more accessible to a large metropolitan population but also a major international airport. With improved access, the ski areas continued to grow with double-digit gains through the ‘70s and into the ‘80s.

Dismantling the geography of Colorado was an important precursor for the dominance of the state’s mountain resorts in today’s marketplace. Before the tunnels, California arguably had the better claim as the front-edge of mountain resorts. Squaw Valley hosted the Winter Olympics in 1960, and Mammoth was the busiest ski resort in the country.

But then came the four-lane highway from Denver and the blossoming of Breckenridge, Vail and other resorts. Sometime during the growth spurt, Vail surpassed Mammoth and hit 1.6 million annual skiers, the benchmark it has hugged for many years, even as Beaver Creek has become a major ski area in its own right.

Such a highway tunnel had been talked about since the 1930s and probably would have happened at some point regardless of federal action. But passage of legislation by the U.S. Congress in 1956 hiked gas taxes and provided 90 percent funding for federal interstate highways.

Construction of Eisenhower began in 1968 and was completed at a cost of $117 million. The Colorado Department of Transportation says today the cost would be $1 billion to $1.5 billion. A second hole, for east-bound traffic, was completed in 1979 at a cost of $145 million.

While the tunnels enabled expansion of the ski areas, the heaviest use occurs during summer. The highest 24-hour traffic count, 50,918 vehicles, was recorded Aug. 2, 2009. The highest-three-day weekend, 148,300 vehicles, occurred a week later.

But fresh snow can bring out the travelers, too. The highest one-hour traffic count occurred on March 9, 2007.

Ski towns drink more, but are thinner
ASPEN – Prostate and breast cancer are the most common types of cancer in both Aspen and Colorado, but Aspen has a higher incidence of skin cancer than does the rest of the state, which has the nation’s highest mean average elevation.

“You can attribute that to folks being outside all the time, doing all the activities and things that they do here,” said Jordana Sadella, of Community Health Services, a nonprofit group.

Reviewing health statistics, the group found more common use of alcohol among locals, as 73 percent of adults reported having had at least one drink of alcohol in the past month, compared to 64 percent of Coloradans and 59 percent of adults in the United States. The rate of illicit drug use in Pitkin County was as high as 8 percent, compared with 2 percent for the United States.

But Aspenites are thinner. Only 18 percent of Pitkin County residents are overweight, and 12 percent are obese. In contrast, 36 percent of Coloradans are overweight and 20 percent are obese. Colorado has the lowest percentage of obese residents in the country, although that number is on the rise.

Early to den, grizzlies to emerge soon
BANFF, Alberta – Early to den last fall, grizzly bears in Banff National Park are expected to soon emerge for the summer, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Parks Canada was able to nail down the exact dates for 11 local grizzly bears because they have been collared with GPS telemetry. The matriarch of the Bow Valley, a sow with three offspring still underpaw, was the first to enter a den, on Oct. 12, and the latest female denned on Nov. 9. The male grizzlies denned between Oct. 30 and Dec. 3.

Previous research showed that bears in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta spend, on average, 4½ months of the year in or near their den sites.
Grizzly bears almost always dig their own dens, but, on occasion, they will use a natural chamber such as a cave or hollow tree. They typically dig a tunnel that opens up into a slightly larger chamber.

Studies elsewhere, including Yellowstone, suggest that grizzly bears may be heading into the dens later, and emerging earlier, than ever before because of the changing climate. But Steve Michel, a human-wildlife conflict specialist for the park, pointed out that there’s significant annual variability. “It’s not a rule to say that every year we’re seeing bears denning later here.”

Canadian dollar slides, but not too far
WHISTLER, B.C. – Back in the good, old days, Whistler had lots of American visitors, because the Canadian dollar traded so weakly against the American dollar, making vacations in Canada cheaper for Americans.

That was a decade ago, early in this century. And the number of visitors to British Columbia then dropped by about a third as the Canadian dollar strengthened.

Now, the Canadian dollar is slipping again. It’s at 97 cents on the U.S. dollar, and is expected to drop to 95 cents within the next few months. Will that yield more Americans?

Maybe, but not immediately, several experts tell Pique Newsmagazine.

“We’d love to see it go back to the old days when it was a big discount (for Americans to travel to Whistler), but the reality is that the overall effect on business would only happen when the dollar gets below 85 percent. At least, that’s my belief,” said Stuart Rempel, vice president of market and sales for Whistler Blackcomb.

“We’re certainly not going back to the days when a (U.S.) dollar was a dollar and a half, but we’re winning back the market with the value we have today.”

Wayward skiers saved by technology
ASPEN – Electronic technology continues to find its way into the backcountry, as witnessed by a story in the Aspen Daily News about five local skiers who got caught in inclement weather while skiing to a backcountry hut.

En route to the hut, they encountered a large avalanche that spooked them. Returning toward Aspen, they found more evidence of avalanches. That did it. They decided to dig a snow cave and hunker down for the night as temperatures dropped and winds picked up.

One of the skiers had a next-generation personal locator beacon. By using a satellite signal that can be connected via Bluetooth to a smartphone, the beacon allows the user to exchange text messages with an emergency communications center run by a monitoring company. He summoned help.

That company contacted the Aspen-Pitkin County Commissioners Center. There were some problems, but emergency crews dispatched several snowmobiles to retrieve the group, which was at 11,000 feet in elevation.

Woman charged in heroin death
AVON – A 24-year old woman has been accused of negligent homicide in the death last month of a man who overdosed on heroin and other drugs. Roommates of Matthew Williamson of Avon called authorities in February to report he was not breathing. The district attorney in the Vail-Breckenridge area says that Kaile Leigh Wilson has been charged with drug distribution, reckless death and criminally negligent homicide.

The Vail Daily goes on to report that prosecutors say that a more lethal strain of heroin has been circulating in the Vail-Breckenridge area. As such, prosecutors also want to make dealers aware of the “very serious consequences” they will face if caught distributing it.

– Allen Best