California company really likes Jackson
JACKSON, Wyo. – William Wecker and 20 employees are relocating from California to Jackson. But their business has nothing to do with tourism or real estate. He has what is called a location-neutral business, but location has everything to do with his decision to move to Wyoming.

“We happen to be a company that can do our business from anywhere in the world,” he said. But while Wyoming’s reduced taxes and less stringent regulations played a part in his decision to relocate to Wyoming, Jackson Hole’s attractions were crucial, he said.

“There are few places with the attraction of Jackson Hole,” he said. “It has a small-town nature in a magnificent setting that also has a world-class airport and a high-quality school system.”

The Jackson Hole News&Guide explains that the company bills itself as providing “statistical and mathematical consulting services” and “data analysis,” primarily for pharmaceutical companies. The company reviews the efficacy and potential side effects of drugs that companies are trying to bring to market.

Most of the company’s 20 employees have doctoral degrees in mathematics or master’s degrees from prestigious schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The company is an example of how some business leaders in the valley are successfully pitching Jackson to attract new jobs from industries that don’t require much more than a good airport and a fast Internet connection,” said the newspaper. Except, in this case, the company found Jackson Hole on its own.

Real estate project moves toward OK
EAGLE – While the Great Recession certainly stopped the building and population boom in its tracks, developers continue to think that the market will pick up again for new housing product.

A case in point is a project mid-way between Vail and Eagle, at a hamlet called Wolcott, which is hard by Interstate 70 and the Eagle River. Plans have been afoot for development of the raw land there for decades, but Eagle County commissioners are reviewing the final iteration for what would yield 577 residential dwelling units.

The broader expectation is that population growth will resume. Eagle County grew at between 60 and 90 percent per decade after the Vail ski area opened in 1962, finally slowing down to just 25 percent in the first decade of this century.

Population experts in Colorado expect the growth to pick up again. From fewer than 5,000 in 1960, the county now has 52,000 – and should reach 72,000 by the end of this decade, they say.

Youngsters invited to advise elders
ASPEN – Aspen is a place with a committee for almost everything. It now has a “next generation advisory board” that is intended to represent the interests of 20- to 40-year-olds to the city government.

The Aspen Daily News explains that the idea came out of focus group sessions held in 2011, combined with the City Council’s goal of doing more to engage the younger demographic.

“If you … see who is coming to (City Council) meetings, it really is that older demographic,” said Mitzi Rapkin, community relations director for the city government.

“It would be easier to say (the younger generation) is just apathetic, but I don’t believe that.”

Mixed feelings over avalanche tragedy
GEORGETOWN – Privately, and publicly, too, people are saying that the five victims of an avalanche they provoked near Loveland Pass absolutely should have known better. They violated every rule in the book.

It was, said one mountain town newspaper editor, like being warned that if you went into a bar, there would be a moderate chance of a knife fight – and going in anyway.

But in Crested Butte, which was more or less home to two of the victims and the lone survivor, softer words of remembrance were used. The two victims were “fixtures in the snowboarding and skiing communities,” and one had a fiancé. “The sorrow being felt in this community and beyond is incomprehensible,” said the Crested Butte News.

Why did this have to happen? Obviously, it didn’t. The Colorado snowpack is often unstable during winter, but this year had a particularly weak base. Spring brings compaction, but the storms that delivered heavy snow in mid-April further ran up the odds of avalanches.

Evidence of the risks had been delivered just two days prior to the gathering of five snowboarders and one skier. A snowboarder died on Ptarmigan Hill, south of Vail Pass, after being snowmobiled to the top of a north-facing slope called Avalanche Bowl.

With that fact along with its analysis of snow physics, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center warned of the instability, especially on steeper, north-facing slopes near timberline. The gathering had been called, at least in part, to celebrate increased awareness of avalanche safety.

What exactly were they thinking, marching onto the mountain, below a slope of 41 degrees? Responding to that obvious question, The Denver Post points to a 2004 study by avalanche researcher Ian McCammon, who studied 715 avalanche accidents from 1972-03.

McCammon identified six human factors in more than 95 percent of the accidents. For example, consistency, in which people stick with original assumptions and ignore new information about potential hazards. Or something called the “expert halo,” in which group members ascribe avalanche safety skills to a perceived expert, reported the Post’s Jason Blevins.

Then, there is the social facilitation, which sees groups tending toward riskier decisions, and scarcity, or the “powder fever,” that can overwhelm backcountry travelers hunting for deep, untracked snow.

Whistler debates ‘green-ness’ of hydro
WHISTLER, B.C. – The letters section of Whistler’s Pique Newsmagazine is rife with missives debating the merits of in-stream hydroelectric projects.

British Columbia, with all of its water, has plenty of such projects already producing electricity. Greg Funk writes that the province already has 45 independent power projects, 33 being developed, and more than 800 applications.

Funk opposes additional projects. He says the electricity being produced  by the new hydroelectric structures must be subsidized. California, with its ambitions to shrink its dependency on carbon-based electricity, could be a candidate to buy high-priced electricity but considers it as unenvironmentally friendly.

What’s not to like? Impacts to fish, he says, and by extension to bears and bald eagles, which prey on fish, says Funk.

An opposite point of view was expressed by Sheldon Tetreault, who points out that Whistler has just one hydroelectric project on Fitzsimmons Creek. The resort’s Peak 2 Peak gondola passes overhead. “I’ve ridden the gondola many times with tourists from all over the world, and not a single one has even noticed the power project.”

Wildlife crossings get financial nudge
KREMMLING – A hedge-fund manager who owns a ranch along the Blue River, just south of Kremmling, has donated $4 million to road work that would be designed to reduce collisions with deer and other wildlife.

Paul T. Jones II of Greenwich, Conn., owns the Blue River Ranch, and he had previously donated $945,000 to kick-start improvements to Colorado Highway 9. The road is a key link between metropolitan Denver and Steamboat Springs, but it is also considered to be among Colorado’s most dangerous for motorists because of wildlife movement.

In the last 20 years, the Colorado Department of Transportation reported 16 deaths and 191 injuries in the stretch of highway that would be rebuilt. C-DOT plans a wider and straighter highway, but also five underpasses and two overpasses, all designed to allow wildlife to migrate without crossing the road. The overpasses would be the first of their kind in Colorado. Eight-foot fences along the highway would funnel wildlife toward the crossings.

The entire project would cost $46 million, but the local component would be $9 million. An additional $4.43 million is needed to meet that goal.

Talking about carbon in many ski towns
WHISTLER, B.C. – While it’s been a snowy and somewhat cold spring in the Rockies, the bigger picture is that of warmer and shorter winters. That’s exactly what the theory of greenhouse gas emissions predicted, and climate scientists say there’s a connection.

Most economists say that the only way we can begin to move away from carbon accumulations is by exacting a tax on emissions. With such a tax, companies will have an incentive to shift to renewables or to figure out ways to sequester the carbon from coal, natural gas and oil instead of allowing it to rise into the sky.

To date, British Columbia is one of the few places on the planet to enact such a tax. After five years, it has been broadly accepted by residents, reports Bob Barnett, publisher of Whistler’s Pique Newsmagazine. It’s also being talked about in Alberta, he notes, although there it’s being talked about as a “fee.”

Alberta has an ulterior motive. The province’s economic growth has been heavily dependent on development of oil, especially that derived from bitumen found in oil sands. New pipelines of export, both to British Columbia and the U.S. Gulf Coast, have been bitterly opposed by various factions.

While ranchers in Nebraska fear leaks from the Keystone XL pipeline will contaminate water and soil, climate activists argue that the infrastructure must not be allowed to expedite the accelerated release of carbon into the atmosphere.

Most prominent of climate activists is Bill McKibben of 350.org. He was in Telluride twice in recent years to argue the case for reduced carbon emissions. He would fit in again this year on the panel of Mountainfilm, where the Moving Mountains symposium on Memorial Day weekend will be all about climate change. Among the speakers at that symposium will be the Aspen Skiing Co.’s Auden Schendler, who has argued that the ski community’s highest priority should be to make the case for federal legislation.

– Allen Best