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Going over the edge in Banff

BANFF, Alberta – Two skiers in Banff National Park probably didn’t listen to their mothers when they said, “Stay away from the edge.”

In two separate incidents, the skiers fell off the sides of mountains when cornices gave way under their feet.

Grant Statham, visitor safety officer for the national park, told the Rocky Mountain Outlook it was “amazing” that both survived.

One man, in his mid-30s, walked away with bruises and scratches after he fell 100 to 150 meters. The cornice collapsed and the man fell onto a 50-degree slope of snow and rocks. He lost all equipment save for one ski, which he used to brake himself. He had been in a party of 10 people skiing in whiteout conditions.

The other victim fared worse, suffering a broken leg and back injuries, after tumbling nearly 500 meters through steep, rocky areas. This was in the off-piste area at the Sunshine ski area. He had taken a peek over the edge – a nearly fatal mistake.

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Wandering onto thin ice undoes 50 elk

ALPINE, Wyo. – In late March, as many as 50 elk wandered onto the thin ice of Palisade Reservoir, which straddles the Idaho-Wyoming border, holding back the Snake River. Then the ice gave away. All apparently died.

The Jackson Hole News&Guide described it as an “unusual but natural occurrence,” and pointed to something similar in late December in Colorado. In that case, about 20 died after falling through the ice in Echo Canyon Reservoir near Pagosa Springs.

A local resident, John Stephenson, told the News&Guide that as a hunter he found it kind of a waste. “I’d like to see those on dinner plates rather than thrown out in the river.”

In addition to falling through ice, elk sometimes die en masse from other causes. In 2004, 300 fell dead after eating toxic lichen in the Red Rim area of south-central Wyoming.

In Colorado, 56 elk were killed by lightning in 1999 about 4 miles from the summit of Mt. Evans, southwest of Denver. What was then the Colorado Division of Wildlife also reported various other incidents of bighorn sheep and elk being killed by lightning when above treeline in Colorado. In addition, 53 caribou had been killed by lightning in Alaska in 1972.

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Information highway, not gravel road

ASPEN – Residents in rural areas of Pitkin County want improved broadband capacity and at lower prices. The Aspen Daily News reported that elected officials hope to pursue a public-private partnership that will deliver the service.

Kevin Ward spoke on behalf of residents of Old Snowmass, located about 12 miles from Aspen. Having broadband in this century is not “good to have ... It is essential,” he told county commissioners.

The current private service he described is a “disaster.”

The operator of a camp that services the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities said that the service costs $600 a month for 3 megabytes of upload or download speed. In Denver, the cost is $30 for 30 MB speed.

County Commissioner Rachel Richards called rural broadband in Colorado an “information dirt road” rather than a highway.

What seems to be at issue is a state law, SB-151, which was aimed at limiting government from competing with private enterprise. But critics say that the bill has stymied competition and slowed the expansion of service to more remote areas, while keeping prices high.

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Bend limits home vacation rentals

BEND, Ore. – Elected officials in Bend are limiting the proliferation of vacation rentals. They now require existing and new rentals to get permits, which must be renewed annually. New rentals can be no closer than 250 feet from existing home rentals.

The Bend Bulletin explains that the cluster of home rentals in residential areas arose because of complaints in several neighborhoods. The number of permits rose from 8 in 2006 to 89 now.

In Aspen, elected officials adopted a law that allows any property owner to put a home or condo into the rental pool. Since then, 273 permits have been issued.

What has changed? Representatives of two property management companies tell the Aspen Daily News that little has changed, except that the town is now collecting tax revenues on rentals. From 2012 through mid-2014, the city collected $95,401 through the vacation home rental program.

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Live off the grid not for everyone

WHISTLER, B.C. – Live off the grid? Sounds slightly romantic, but a set of authors who do, warn that it’s a lot of work and, in the end, isn’t the way everybody should live.

“Off-grid living can teach volumes about ethical and responsible consumption, resource conservation, sustainability, resilience and adaptation,” write Phillip Vannini and Jonathan Taggart, who wrote the book and have a forthcoming documentary called – what else – Life off the Grid.

“Yet it is not the answer to global energy scarcity,” they add.

“It makes little sense, from a planning and engineering perspective, to isolate ourselves into small, separate, fully independent atom-like homes. It makes more sense to pool and share resources whenever possible, and to all play a fair role in doing so ... Our energy futures won’t be characterized by a simple, magic solution but rather by many diverse renewable resource technologies sensitive to local conditions and responsive to changing needs and intelligent, responsible demand.”

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Lloyd Wright pavilion remembered

BANFF, Alberta – Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect, designed a recreation pavilion in Banff in 1911. Tourism was booming in Banff, and the federal government wanted to showcase Canada’s first national park to the upper class. Wright had a name with cachet.

But the building didn’t last. It had flooding problems, and in 1938, the pavilion was demolished.

Now, the recreation grounds along the Bow River are being developed, but town officials have no plans to recreate Wright’s building. Randall McKay, the town’s planning and development manager, said the site will be marked and the story told in documentary fashion. But there will be no attempt to recreate the building.

There are practical considerations, such as limited space, but McKay says there’s something more. “I also have serious trepidations with reconstructed and replica buildings and view them as a falsification of history,” he said.

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Baby boomer motel in Jackson to tumble

JACKSON, Wyo. – If it hasn’t already, the Western Motel will soon be demolished, and with it a relic of Jackson Hole’s post-World War II boom in automobile tourism.

The motel was built in 1954, but at some point in recent years became an “overflow” motel, taking customers when other, presumably more modern, lodges were filled. Then, beginning in 2007, it became employee housing.

Lately, the property was sold to companies from Utah and Oregon, who intend to build a 121-room Marriott-branded hotel.

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High altitude can help and hinder health

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Does thin air at higher elevations help or hinder health? Scientists at the University of Utah say yes: new studies suggest the reduced oxygen at high altitude works both ways.

In the first study, researchers found that reduced oxygen, called hypobaric hypoxic, can lead to depression in rats. The results were published in the March edition of High Altitude Medicine and Biology.

The study bolsters the argument that physiological changes triggered by low oxygen at higher altitudes can contribute to depression. What those changes are, and whether they also occur in people, will be the subject of future studies.

But scientists in previous studies have also found evidence that altitude is an independent risk factor for suicide. In 2012, the eight states that comprise the Intermountain West – Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico – had suicide rates exceeding 18 per 100,000 people, compared with the national average of 12.5 per 100,000, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

The high rate of self-inflicted death in the Intermountain West has earned the region a gloomy moniker: the Suicide Belt, noted a press release issued by the University of Utah.

Perry F. Renshaw, professor of psychiatry at the University of Utah and senior author of the study, said a potential cause might be low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter thought to contribute to feelings of well-being and happiness. Hypoxia impairs an enzyme involved in synthesis of serotonin, possibly leading to depression.

The studies involving animals imply that drugs such as Prozac may not work when serotonin levels are low.

“The fact that both depression and suicide rates increase with altitude implies that current antidepressant treatments are not adequate for those suffering from depression at altitude, leading to high levels of unresolved depression that can contribute to higher levels of suicide ideation and suicide attempts,” said Shami Kanekar, a research assistant professor of psychiatry at the university and lead author of the study.

In the second study, researchers found that the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, decreases substantially as altitude increases. In Utah, for example, the rate of diagnosed ADHD cases is about 50 percent of states at sea level.

Why? One possible reason, University of Utah researchers believe, is that higher levels of dopamine are produced as a reaction to hypoxia.

Researchers say that all of the states in the intermountain West rated well below average for the percentage of children diagnosed with ADHD.

 

– Allen Best

For more, go to mountaintownnews.net.