DAM new brew, has a hint of Paris cafe

DILLON – A few years ago, when the Denver Art Museum, or DAM, hosted an exhibition of Van Gogh’s works, it commissioned the Dillon Dam Brewery to do a special brew in commemoration.

It worked out well, so they’ve collaborated again. This time the brew is to celebrate a new show called Passport to Paris, a focus on French art from the late 1600s to early 1990s. But how do you capture this in something that you quaff after a day of skiing?

In a press release from the museum, Dillon Dam brewmaster Cory Foster explained that he chose to brew a type of steam beer with elements of both lagers and ales. In researching the art and artists in the show, he said he was struck by the impressionists’ work depicting nature.

“I saw a lot of light, sunshine and faded blue skies in these paintings, so I immediately thought that this should be a light, yet complex, beer to represent the bright colors and deep shadows.”

Foster describes his beer as a “ray of sunshine in a glass.”

Indeed, the outdoors was a strong theme in the paintings, says Angelica Daneo, curator of painting and sculpture at the museum. She points to new technology, the invention of the paint tube in 1841, that allowed artists to record the ever-changing light and colors of the outdoors onto their canvases.

She adds that she would like to imagine Pissarro and Renoir enjoying this new beer while seated at an outdoor café in Montmartre.

 

No special regs for pit bulls in Breck

BRECKENRIDGE – In August, two loose pit bulls attacked a beagle on Hoosier Pass, located south of Breckenridge. The beagle was severely injured and a Summit County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed one of the pit bulls.

Should certain breeds of dogs, presumably pit bulls, be banned from Breckenridge, the town asked residents. The Summit Daily News reports little support. Just 193 people indicated support while 1,159 posted their thumbs down.

“There are no bad dogs really, just bad owners,” one person wrote on a Facebook page. “Proactive measures are better in the long run.”

 

New rules regulate uphillers in Summit

SUMMIT COUNTY – New rules for the uphillers in Summit County, Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain require guests to both acquire a hiking pass and sign a waiver before marching up those ski areas.

Breckenridge, Copper and Keystone, meanwhile, will no longer allow pets to accompany the uphillers. And those same three ski areas will limit uphillers to times outside normal operations, reports the Summit Daily News.

 

Luck with ice climbers in the Banff area

BANFF, Alberta – Lucky. That’s the bottom line in this story about six ice climbers who were caught in an avalanche south of Banff. One man was buried up to his armpits, while a woman was buried upside down with only her boots showing. She wasn’t breathing when retrieved from the snow, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, but she survived.

A public safety area for the Kananaskis chided the group for not having avalanche gear, such as shovels, probes and transceivers. It wouldn’t have changed this outcome, but with a different avalanche, it could have.

 

How WWW II slowed mountain resort plans

JASPER, Alberta – World War II absolutely froze the aspirations for developing mountain resorts. In Aspen, plans were being laid for a ski resort from the foundations of the old mining enterprises. They were put on hold for five years.

Jasper was a railroad town first, but in 1940, a highway finally arrived. The Jasper Fitzhugh explains that it meant a world of difference: 85,000 visitors vs. 21,000 people the year before.

“Jasper seemed set to prosper. Then, war broke out again, and visitors stopped coming,” explains the Fitzhugh.

Aspen saw some traffic during World War II from nearby Camp Hale, the training site from 1942 to 1944 of the famed 10th Mountain Division. Jasper saw war-time soldiers, too, many of them Americans, but mostly in passing trains. Bands turned out to welcome them and wish them good journey.

After the war, Aspen’s development into a major resort was more rapid. Downhill skiing operations began in 1946, and the arts and cultural scene blossomed under the patronage of a Chicago industrialist, Walter Paepcke. If slow to take off in the 1950s, Aspen by then was firmly on a path as its second career as a resort.

 

Grizzly deaths just a little complicated

BANFF, Alberta – The leading reason for the death of grizzly bears in the Banff National Park area is the railway that bisects the park. Park officials, as well as conservationists and the Canadian Pacific Railway, all are concerned. Spilled grain has been identified as a key reason why the grizzlies hang out along the railroad tracks.

But the story is actually much more complicated, says Colleen Cassady St. Clair, the lead researcher from a University of Alberta team. “We also know bears use the rail as a travel corridor because it is easier to travel there than in adjacent areas,” she told the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

The bears are also drawn to other food found in the right-of-way, including dandelions, horsetails and buffalo berries.

 

Survivor’s story was of thoughts, not bears

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – In 2005, Steamboat Springs resident Charles Horton set out by himself for a cross-country ski outing in the nearby Flat Tops Wilderness Area. Then he had an accident. Unable to move, he spent nine days by himself, suffering from frostbite and hypothermia and losing 30 to 35 pounds.

Help finally arrived, and his story has been told many times, most recently in a production that was broadcast this week on the Discovery Channel. He told the Steamboat Pilot that he liked this production.

“The story, to me, is my feelings,” he told the newspaper. “It’s much more mentally how I dealt with it and not wrestling lions, coyotes and bears. Oh my!”

Groups he has talked with in the past were looking for an adventure story, about how nature was out to get him, he said. But that wasn’t the case for him. He says he has spent the last eight years trying to put into words the things he recognized and learned from the experience.

 

Colorado voters in a just-say-no mood

TELLURIDE – Despite all the news of increases in retail sales, improved lodging and a general warming of the real estate market, people in ski-anchored mountain valleys of Colorado voted as though still in the grip of the Great Recession. Very few proposals for tax increases were approved.          

The one clear exception was marijuana, where proposals for substantial taxes were approved by overwhelming margins. Voters in Eagle, for example, approved a tax rate that could yield up to a $5 tax on a single sale of marijuana for recreational purposes.

Telluride has considered voting for legalization of marijuana, and it supported taxing sales. But town residents rejected a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages by a 69-to-31 percent margin.

In the broader San Miguel County, voters by a similar margin rejected a tax on residential electrical bills that would have yielded $170,000 annually, to be used for efforts to dampen greenhouse gas emissions. County Commissioner Joan May attributed the defeat to an inability to explain the “complicated concept of how this could effectively reduce energy use.”

In Summit County, the same trend was found in the defeat of a new property tax intended to raise $800,000 annually to fund a scholarship program for child care. But county voters were OK with extending an existing tax, this one to fund a project called Right Start, which seeks to improve quality, availability and affordability of early care and learning for local families.

In Steamboat, reallocation of an existing tax was also authorized, this one steering lodging tax proceeds to trails and a promenade along the Yampa River.

In the Winter Park-Granby-Grand Lake area, voters rejected a school tax for improved technology. They also rejected a tax increase to support local libraries.

The most existential election may have been in Red Cliff, a place of 300 souls, almost as many dogs, and precious little level ground, even by standards of Colorado mountain towns. It has lived paycheck to paycheck for a good many years.

The town is betting that a newly approved 5 percent sales tax on marijuana can help the municipal budget, but also sought a property tax hike. Without it, Mayor Scott Burgess told the Vail Daily, the off switch may be flipped. “You may see us turning off street lights, getting rid of the town’s TV service,” he said.

 

Do pot greenhouses constitute agriculture?

ASPEN – What’s agriculture? That simple question is proving very hard to answer in Pitkin County, where a marijuana entrepreneur named Ron Radtke wants to build 19,000 square feet of greenhouses along Woody Creek.

You can’t help but think of the late Hunter S. Thompson, who lived in the Woody Creek Valley and made no secret of his fondness for marijuana and other then-illicit drugs.

Now, Colorado is making marijuana legal, and the question in Aspen is where can it be grown. The Woody Creek parcel is zoned for agriculture, but a neighborhood group opposes the greenhouses. In the words of one resident, marijuana cultivation could attract crime and draw “low life, drug-induced employees.”

Pitkin County has already approved one 24,000 square-foot pot greenhouse. But there’s little consensus, reports the Aspen Daily News, about how season-extending greenhouses should fit into the future of rural Pitkin County.

The issue before the commissioners was summarized by one of their own, Rachel Richards. “What most people have thought of when they’re talking about agricultural character is hayfields and pastures,” she said. “Greenhouse ag is something new, and we may classify marijuana cultivation as a non-agricultural use.”

The commissioners, says the Daily News, are finalizing their rules for the recreational marijuana industry, whose first businesses could open in January.

 

Whistler gears up for legal marijuana

WHISTLER, B.C. – Whistler continues to gear up for what seems to be the inevitable adoption of legalization of marijuana sales for recreational purposes.

Pique Newsmagazine reports that the municipal council has asked for zoning to regulate the research, development, production and distribution of marijuana grown for medical purposes.

The new laws governing medical marijuana in Canada will take effect next April, when the government will license commercial growers, who will deal directly with buyers. Health Canada will simply license and inspect the producers.

– Allen Best

For more go to www.mountaintownnews.net