Big butterflies, giraffes and Bud Light
CRESTED BUTTE – Did you hear about Crested Butte’s big party, the one sponsored by Bud Light that brought in 1,300 contest winners to “Wherever” for a night of revelry?
There was considerable heartburn before the event, and some indigestion still remains. But Mark Reaman, editor of the Crested Butte News, says it was otherwise close to a home run.
“This was (really) fun,” he reports. “It wasn’t all unicorns and sunshine (but pretty close both literally and figuratively).”
Models were dressed like giraffes and butterflies, a Mariachi band played, the sun shone on Vanilla Ice, the drummer from Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show band played in the pizza parlor, KC and the Sunshine Band were there, as was DJ Stella and many, many others.
What had caused the angst was, in part, the idea of essentially renting out three blocks of the town’s main street, Elk Avenue, to Anheuser-Busch.
Was this really so bad? “We in essence lease it to the Pro Challenge (bicycle race) but pay them a lot of money,” he observes.
Reaman also noted the greatest surliness coming from what he calls the mid-timers, as distinguished from the old-timers and the new residents. He says he doesn’t buy into the idea that the Crested Butte “brand” was damaged by letting a multi-national corporation into “our little mountain village.”
“We don’t live in a brand, we live in a valley filled with people who like to be outside the mainstream and try new things,” he says. “This event fits that bill and it brought in people who understand the mindset.”
The deeper issue that divided Crested Butte, he says, was what he describes as a “middle-school clique scenario.” The Town Council had worked with merchants, and they were all in the know. But general townspeople were not until just two weeks beforehand. This was, he says, analogous to the cool kids and the nerds who weren’t invited to the dance.
“Remember that keeping secrets never works,” he says. And he reminds townspeople to continue to be a community that is “open to new experiences – and fun.”
Tempers flare over sale of marijuana
BRECKENRIDGE – Tempers have been rising in Breckenridge. At issue is whether cannabis can be sold in shops along the town’s bustling Main Street.
Just one store, Breckenridge Cannabis Club, operates downtown, as it has for five years, after Colorado began allowing medical marijuana. Four other stores are located in a service district called Airport Road.
Now, of course, Colorado allows the sale of cannabis simply for pleasure. The Town Council, in a 3-2 vote, chose to allow other stores in the downtown district.
That has plenty of residents offended, reports the Summit Daily News, including Peter Ellefson. “Do you know how to ruin an idyllic and family friendly mountain town?” he wrote on a website seeking support for banishment of marijuana sales to the suburbs, Breckenridgestyle. “We’ll see panhandlers just like in Boulder and Berkeley.”
Of course, Breckenridge has had the Gold Pan since before it became a ski resort in the 1960s. It’s a bar on Main Street that at least used to have a reputation for attracting ski town derelicts. And the only murder in recent years occurred after rowdies left another bar in the family friendly business district.
What makes the current pushback more puzzling is that Breckenridge had consistently been at the forefront of legalization. In 2009, 73 percent of town voters elected to decriminalize the possession of 1 ounce or less of marijuana for people 21 years and older. Three years later, 70 percent voted along with a majority of other Coloradans to legalize marijuana altogether for adults.
The Associated Press reports that more recreational pot than medicinal marijuana was sold in July, a first since recreational sales began in January. The state has some 500 medical shops, but fewer than 200 recreational shops.
Vail buys Park City for $182.5M
PARK CITY, Utah – The long-standing drama in Park City ended last week when Powdr Corp. announced it was selling its lifts, water rights and other assets of Park City Mountain Resort to Vail Resorts.
For its $182.5 million, Vail Resorts also gets the name of the ski area. Just how it will use the name remains speculative. It will retain the name for the existing ski area, but will it also connect Park City with the Canyons and use one name for both resorts?
When he spoke with reporters in Park City, chief executive Rob Katz talked about linking the two resorts with a lift. With this interconnecting lift, Vail could then have bragging rights to a single ski area of 7,300 acres – the largest in the United States.
For a long time, that distinction went to Vail Mountain. After its expansions at the turn of the century, Vail ended up at 5,289 acres. One skier tried several times to ski all the named runs, and it took him about a week.
But then came Montana’s Big Sky. By amalgamating various smaller ski areas, including Moonlight and the Yellowstone Club, Big Sky now has captured the bigger-is-better sweepstakes with 5,750 acres.
That’s just the United States. The title of biggest in North America goes to Whistler Blackcomb with 8,171 acres.
Grizzly who killed hunter given reprieve
BANFF, Alberta – Provincial wildlife officials have decided to leave a sow grizzly and her cub alone, despite the death of a hunter who was apparently mauled by the sow.
The bear acted defensively, not predatorily, said Glenn Naylor, the district wildlife officer. “We feel strongly (the hunter) was suddenly in a situation where he was in close proximity to two of the most dangerous situations you can encounter with a grizzly bear.”
Not only did the sow have a cub, but they were also feeding on the carcass of a mule deer. The hunter, a resident of Calgary, had been hunting bighorn sheep in the area, called the Kananaskis Country.
“In a situation like this, we are into September, it wasn’t a great berry season this year, and to be able to kill or find a dead animal this time of year is a huge thing for a bear,” Naylor told the Rocky Mountain Outlook. “So they are going to be ultra-defensive.”
Naylor says grizzly bear maulings remain rare and should be weighed against the number of times these same bears encounter people and do nothing.
Identity of aggressive bear unclear
JACKSON, Wyo. – The body of a man was found Sept. 12 in the Teton Wilderness, north of Togowotee Pass, and the preliminary pathology report indicates the Utah man died from blunt force trauma, probably the result of a bear bite.
But what kind of bear?
WyoFile reports that tracks and hair of grizzly and black bears were found at the site. What provoked the attack is also unclear. “Were there cubs involved, a food cache …” said Jason Hunter, a supervisor with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
Since 2010, four fatal grizzly attacks have occurred in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, two in the national park involving day hikers, notes WyoFile.
Will Tesla drive tourists to Lake Tahoe?
RENO, Nev. – Reno has first shot at becoming the site of a Tesla lithium ion battery factory. Tesla founder Elon Musk hopes to produce 500,000 electric-powered vehicles annually by 2020.
The Nevada Legislature must first approve the $1.25 billion in tax incentives proposed by Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. He projects that the huge factory – up to 10 million square feet in size – will deliver a $100 billion economic windfall to Nevada over the next two decades.
Will some of that money lap onto the shores of Lake Tahoe, about an hour from Reno? That’s the question that the Sierra Sun asked local leaders. Another 6,500 wage-earners in Reno can’t hurt, they say.
– Allen Best
Campaign money flies over Squaw Valley vote
SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. – The spending is starting to rise as the two sides make their public cases whether Olympic Valley, better known as the base area for the Squaw Valley ski area, should incorporate and become a municipality.
KSL Capital Partners, the owner of Squaw Valley and adjoining Alpine Meadows, doesn’t want the incorporation and has spent $253,000 in the first seven months of the year to explain why. Incorporation supporters, banded into a group called Save Olympic Valley, spent $297,000.
The Sierra Sun further explains that spurring the debate were the plans by KSL to redevelop and expand the base village to add nearly 1,500 bedrooms, 840 lodging units, and a 90,000-square-foot Mountain Adventure Camp.
Those favoring incorporation say that a town government would allow more direct control, while KSL argues revenues wouldn’t support the expense of municipal operations.
Aspen hits bump in road on carbon goal
ASPEN – In 2005, Aspen, the municipality, proclaimed that as part of its Canary Initiative, it aspired to use only electricity from renewables by 2015.
That’s next year, and the city has a ways to go. The city electrical utility is already 75 percent carbon-free, but it has hit several bumps. The first came after the city spent $7 million to create hydroelectric power in two local creeks. Town residents, by a narrow margin, said stop. While the vote was advisory only, the City Council seems to have no taste for returning to that plan.
Another option is whether Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, which already provides much of Aspen’s electricity, will allow it to buy more wind and get rid of the coal-based power it has contracted to buy.
The Aspen Daily News reports that MEAN staff have, in the eyes of Aspen, been kind of mean. After all, if Aspen gets rid of its coal-fired generation, what’s to stop others from doing the same? And that could leave the Nebraska power provider with too few customers for its coal-fired power plants and what are called “stranded assets.”
While MEAN mulls its options, Aspen also continues to sift through its options. Another possibility is buying electricity produced by burning gas from a landfill in Iowa.
– Allen Best For more, go to mountaintownnews.net.