Ice climbing heats up winter in Ouray
OURAY – A calico cat sat in the highway that bisects Ouray one night last week, unfazed by passing traffic because, in fact, there was none. Nights this time of year are quiet in Ouray.
Like most mining turned tourist towns, some 80 percent of all of Ouray’s sales tax revenues occur within three months of summer, and most of that in just six weeks. During those weeks, you hear a lot of accents from Texas.
Winters remain relatively quiet, but they used to be much more sleepy. Mayor Pam Larson recalls that 20 years ago only two motels, at best, remained open through winter and just one restaurant.
Today, it’s a far livelier place during winter with several hundred motel rooms available, as well as a variety of restaurants and shops. A big reason for the new vitality is ice climbing.
It began as something of an accident. A pipe conveying water into the town sprang a leak and, in the cold temperatures, produced a nice wall of ice on a narrow gorge in the winter shadows. In short order, somebody realized that this could be a good thing.
Now, the ice is intentionally created every fall, providing challenges for everybody from children and beginners to some of the world’s best.
“There is literally nothing like it in the world,” said Nate Disser, of San Juan Mountain Guides.
He estimated the ice park has 13,000 user days each winter, 84 percent of them nonguided.
Access to the ice park is free, although, of course, motel rooms are not.
Gay marriages continue across West
KETCHUM, Idaho – More gay marriages in ski towns of the West.
In Ketchum, Mayor Nina Jonas officiated at the wedding of two city employees, Jennifer Smith, who directs the parks and recreation department, and Heather Johns, a city information services coordinator.
In Telluride, Maren Korpela and Jess Bauer are now legally married. They run a catering company in Telluride but first met five years ago on a kickball field in Minnesota, where they were teammates. They vacationed in Telluride soon after and then moved.
Aspen had two marriages of gay couples. Robin Margolin and Laurie Cohen-Ringler traveled from Denver to Aspen because, as they told the Aspen Daily News, they had celebrated some of their best moments there. But Tom Pritchard and his partner, Jody Rhone, spend most of their time in Aspen. They are architects. Each of the two couples has been together for more than 20 years.
Shout-out for more meatless Mondays
TRUCKEE, Calif. – The Tahoe Truckee Unified School District has decided to take part in the “meatless Monday” campaign by offering only meatless meals in school cafeterias.
To John Merryfield, a resident of Kings Beach, one of the towns along the shore of Lake Tahoe, this is good news.
“We grow up being told that we need to eat meat to get protein and that eating animals is normal and natural,” he writes in a letter published in the Sierra Sun.
He cites one school in New York that went totally vegetarian, with a result of improved attendance, test scores and energy.
Cracking the whip on vacation rentals
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The municipality of South Lake Tahoe has cracked down on homeowners renting out their properties but not collecting sales and lodging taxes.
Lake Tahoe News reports that the city conducted an audit of one vacation home rental and then collected $14,800 in transient occupancy taxes. The owner denied the illegal activity, but a criminal investigation showed the owner had been renting the home since at least 2008.
Another case yielded $24,000 in fees paid as a result of past rentals. El Dorado County is also pushing a good neighbor program in prosecuting clandestine home rentals.
Truckee River reduced to a trickle
RENO, Nev. – The Truckee River that flows off the Sierra Nevada has been reduced to a shallow stream as it flows through Reno. The Associated Press notes that outfitters who normally send rafts down the river through October shut down at the end of July this year. The flows in the river at the California-Nevada stateline were the lowest in two decades for this time of year, dropping to 70 cubic feet per second at Reno.
Vail moves toward plastic bag limits
VAIL – The formal vote has yet to be taken, but the Vail Daily surmises from statements made at a recent Town Council meeting that the town will soon adopt some sort of ban on plastic grocery bags.
The ban has been kicked around since 2009, about the time Telluride adopted its ban. Aspen, Breckenridge and other mountain towns in Colorado and California have since followed suit, although with somewhat different approaches.
The Daily reports strong vocal support for a ban, both from members of the public and from council members. “I’m not worried particularly about the impacts on guests,” said Craig Moffet, a councilman. “It’s not that burdensome.”
But Mayor Andy Daly is a bit wary of the proposed bag fee as a way of financing the public education program. “The town can afford to pay for its own education efforts,” he said.
Canmore mulls flood mitigation
CANMORE, Alberta – Canmore continues to evaluate the cost of flood mitigation. The town got hammered in June 2013 with flooding of Cougar Creek that threatened 181 homes along its banks and, in fact, with water that could have invaded the downtown.
To buy the houses would, according to city officials, cost $91 million. Instead, the city is pushing an expensive mitigation plan.
This extensive mitigation would cost $40 million and would involve building a large retention structure, standing 30 meters (more than 100 feet) tall.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook notes that in addition to Cougar Creek, two other creeks in Canmore also pose significant threats. However, in the case of Three Sisters and Stone Creeks, they have not been developed on both sides. As such, if houses and other development are precluded, the creeks can be allowed to flood in those undeveloped areas, with a lower cost of mitigation.
Of special concern in Canmore is the potential for landslides during deluges. If the rain causes landslides, the debris can create temporary dams. When the temporary dams burst, the flooding downstream can be far worse.
Since the end of glaciation about 13,000 years ago, there have been about 13 such torrential floods in Cougar Creek.
Building activity continues to pick up
TELLURIDE – Many ski town newspapers tell of development proposals moving through the review pipeline.
In Telluride, officials with San Miguel County are reviewing two different residential developments outside of Telluride.
One of those projects would involve 20 single-family residential lots, and the other 15 single-family residential lots. The Telluride Daily Planet says the county is asking for a .2-acre piece of property to be reserved for a larger affordable housing project in one of the neighborhoods.
In Crested Butte, Dallas-based Cypress Equities has submitted an application to annex 44 acres of land into the town with the idea of developing 115 housing units.
In Steamboat Springs, developer Curt Weiss has broken ground on 14 townhomes. The units were originally approved by city officials in 2009, Steamboat Today notes.
And in Ketchum, the company that has approval to build a hotel is seeking an extension. The project has been more than 10 years in the making and finally got approved in 2010 for 119 rooms and 19 condominiums.
– Allen Best
More stories from mountain towns of the West can be found at mountaintownnews.net.