Curiosity may have killed the bear
STANLEY, Idaho – Curiosity killed the cat, and it may have also been the undoing of a black bear in Idaho.
The Idaho Mountain Express tells of a trio of hunters who had been rafting down the Middle Fork of the Salmon in search of bighorn sheep. They were sleeping in the River of No Return Wilderness one night when one of the three men awoke to feel something pulling on his hair. He felt blood. Then he heard breathing.
The 29-year-old man frantically reached for his .357-magnum pistol, but could not find it. When the bear fell backwards and sat down, another of the hunters fired a gun loaded with birdshot into the bear’s chest and neck.
The bear scrambled up a nearby tree. Bad decision. The hunters killed it.
Injuries to the man’s head required no stitches, but they did show marks of canines both top and bottom.
A predatory attack? Not likely, says Jon Rachael, a state wildlife manager in Idaho. Perhaps the bear had become conditioned to people by finding food around them. Or, just possibly, the bear was curious about the hunter’s head and was trying to figure out what it was.
No consensus yet on mandating helmets
WHISTLER, B.C. – In November 2013, a teenaged visitor from Brazil set out on his board on a rainy, foggy day on Grouse Mountain, located in North Vancouver. He did not return. When the body was found, it had evidence of blunt force head trauma.
The Brazilian was not wearing a helmet at the time. Should he have been required to wear one? And would it have saved his life?
Timothy Wiles, a coroner, issued a statement saying that use of helmets can reduce the risk of serious injury in certain scenarios. But, he said, “there are currently no regulations mandating helmet use in the Province of British Columbia.”
The ski industry in western Canada, including Whistler Blackcomb, has resisted mandates while encouraging helmet use. The Canadian Ski Council points out that snow sports helmet use in British Columbia increased from 32 percent to 86 percent over the last dozen years.
Head injuries were responsible for 26 percent of all ski-related deaths and 20 percent of all snowboard related deaths in British Columbia between 2007and 2013.
Whistler’s Pique Newsmagazine says opinions vary greatly on how much value helmets provide in preventing head injuries. One researcher, Dr. Natalie Yanchar, in 2012, issued an opinion that “without question” helmets lower the risk of serious head injuries.
However, Dr. Jasper Shealey of the Rochester Institute of Technology, described by Pique as perhaps the world’s preeminent researcher on snow-sport helmets, has previously stated that there is a lack of any “clear evidence” that helmets are effective in reducing alpine sports fatalities.
Then there’s the issue of helmet standards. Some think that standards must be adopted, to ensure that helmets truly afford protection. One source told Pique that some helmets being sold offer little more protection than an ordinary hat.
Aspen and Abetone now are sister cities
ASPEN – Aspen is getting to have a large, extended family. The newest sister-city is Abetone, Italy. Earlier this year, a delegation from Aspen went to Abetone to say hi and so forth. Last week, a group from Abetone stopped by Aspen.
This sister-city relationship was forged by Steve Skadron, the mayor of Aspen, who has an interest in encouraging an economy in Aspen that revolves around backcountry athleticism, such as in the design of ski boots and so forth. Abetone has some of those folks, as well.
Aspen now has sister cities in Japan, Argentina, France, New Zealand, Germany and Switzerland.
Another brick in the Aspen malls
ASPEN – Aspen has started thinking about where it can get its next ton of bricks, for occasional use in its two downtown pedestrian malls.
In the early 1970s, the pedestrian malls were created, replacing streets. The bricks, 500,000 of them, came from St. Louis, where they had been manufactured around 1900. More than 60 percent of the bricks were used to create the malls. Since then, reserve bricks have been needed here and there to replace broken bricks.
Now, just 20,000 remain, which will suffice for the needs of the next three to five years. After that? Aspen’s historical preservation office advises buying bricks that are “sympathetic” to the originals, but not necessarily replicas.
Pot-preneuers offer the goods in Summit
BRECKENRIDGE – OK, cannabis can now be purchased legally in Colorado. But how do you ingest it?
Smoking, of whatever substance, remains strictly verboten in most hotels and other lodging properties. It’s a no-no in public.
The Denver Post, in its Cannabist section, reports a variety of entrepreneurs have created a variety of mood-altering opportunities for visitors to Summit County. One of them is at the Breck Haus, a four-bedroom, two-bath in Breckenridge that is priced on Airbnb at $420 per night and $300 in the off-season.
“A loaded Sky Glass bong awaits on the living room table for an immediate smoke to help you get settled,” the Post explains. Also: ashtrays, a Volcano Vaporizer, and a dab rig.
As for tobacco use? Only outdoors.
Construction picks up, but still lags 2007
PARK CITY, Utah – It seems like forever since the construction crews were this busy in Park City. As measured by building permits, construction had surpassed $100 million for the year as of August, a pace slightly ahead of last year.
But the construction pace remains a shadow of its boom-boom, rah-rah years from 2004-07, reports The Park Record. The record for building permits was set in 2007, and that was just a scotch shy of $300 million.
Tech leg needed to create sturdy stool
JACKSON, Wyo. – Wyoming has a three-legged stool for an economy. It needs a fourth leg on that stool says Bob Grady.
Grady is a partner in a private equity firm called Gryphon Investors and also has his finger in national politics, telling the Jackson Hole News&Guide that he’s “quite friendly” with about half the Republican candidates for president.
Wyoming, he says, needs to diversify its economy, as Gov. Matt Mead proposes to do.
“If we want to take advantage of the tremendous energy wealth that’s been generated to prepare ourselves for the next couple decades, and if we want to give Wyoming students another pathway to have other careers when they come back to Wyoming, we need some additional legs to the stool. “(Mead) always says that in Wyoming, energy is the biggest employer, tourism is second, agriculture is the third big industry. He would like technology to be the fourth leg of the stool.”
How is that possible? Wyoming is remote, Grady acknowledges, but he thinks that the investment in a 100-gigabyte fiber loop around Wyoming has addressed that remoteness.
Another mine spill, same old arguments
CRESTED BUTTE – If not for the spill of contaminated water from the Gold King Mine near Silverton in early August, last week’s spill from a mine above Crested Butte might not have been noticed.
The spill from the Standard Mine was small, 500 to 600 gallons compared to the 2 million gallons that turned the Animas River in Durango mustardy orange. Too, nobody appeared to be terribly concerned about the spill at Crested Butte, even though the contaminated water got into Coal Creek, which flows through the middle of Crested Butte and is in fact the town’s primary source of drinking water. The impact was described by town officials as “negligible.”
But U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, who represents both areas in Congress, saw a disturbing trend. Both spills had been caused by contractors working for the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans – including Tipton, who was elected with strong Tea Party support – have been attacking the EPA as an out-of-control federal agency that needs to be reined in.
– Allen Best
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