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ASPEN - Both the Aspen Skiing Co. and Vail Resorts are boasting of their environmental good deeds, if in different ways.
The Aspen Skiing Co. is taking out ads in the October issues of both Outside and SKI magazines. Those ads address global warming says David Perry, the company's executive vice president. "This campaign will definitely be a departure from the standard ski resort ad. But what's the No. 1 goal of advertising? It's to stand out and get notice," he tells the Denver Post.
He told the Post that a customer survey done by Aspen Skiing Co. recently showed that 30 percent of its guests view a ski resort's environmental stewardship as being of "high importance," up from 10 percent only five years ago.
The company has also joined a lawsuit that attempts to require the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions caused by automobiles. The case was filed by a dozen states and several other groups, including the Sierra Club.
Meanwhile, Vail Resorts is also embracing the green theme. The company is adding a dollar surcharge onto the fees for season passes, online lift tickets, and hotel rooms, but giving the customers the opportunity to instead keep the dollar. Rob Katz, the company's CEO, said he expects less than 25 percent will opt out of the program.
The money - the goal is $600,000 - is to be used for forest improvement projects in the White River National Forest of Colorado, where Vail has four of its ski areas, and around Lake Tahoe, where it has its fifth ski area, Heavenly. The money will be administered through the Montana-based National Forest Foundation.
Sloan Shoemaker, director of the Wilderness Workshop, told the Vail Daily the well-intentioned program highlights the chronic underfunding of the Forest Service, because it amounts to plugging a leaking dike with a thumb.
County commissioners say no uranium mining
TELLURIDE - The national debate about whether nuclear power should be a growing part of the energy answer is not an academic one in Telluride. Telluride lies just outside of a belt of low-grade uranium deposits that, because of the spiking prices, are becoming economically feasible to mine. In fact, six uranium mines are scheduled to open in Colorado and Utah.
At issue is whether the federal government should lease tracts in this uranium belt west of Telluride. The San Miguel County commissioners, who normally meet in Telluride, say no - at least not at this time.
"As long as we as a society have not solved the problem of what to do with the toxic radioactive waste involved in nuclear processing, and energy generation, I believe it is irresponsible to continue to mine more uranium ore," County Commissioner Art Goodtimes told The Telluride Watch. "And that doesn't even take into consideration the huge danger of nuclear weaponry."
The county commissioners more formally say that uranium mining threatens the tourism, recreation and real estate development sectors that are at the current foundation for the Telluride-anchored economy of San Miguel County.
Ungulates using new underpass near Banff
CANMORE, Alberta - Most underpasses and overpasses along four-lane highways are for cars. But the TransCanada Highway, in and near Banff National Park, has both crossings and underpasses that are specifically designed for wildlife. The wildlife crossings are wider than the car crossings, and they have turf, not asphalt.
And from all evidence, they seem to be working. A new underpass located just east of Canmore has had 900 animals - mostly deer, but also coyote, sheep, elk, plus a handful of bear, wolves, and cougars - use it since its October 2004 opening.
Encouraging the animals to use the underpass is the installation of six-feet-tall fencing in lateral areas, to keep the animals from crossing the highway.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook says the fencing has essentially prevented elk, deer and moose from crossing the highway. Their carcasses, once a common sight on the highway, are now rare.
The cost of the underpass so far is $1,443 per animal passage ($1,603 Cdn), although that cost will go down as more animals cross it.
Activists and government officials along Colorado's Interstate 70 have looked at the work on the TransCanada in their efforts to make I-70 more permeable to wildlife.
Durango frets about height of buildings
DURANGO - Durango continues to wrangle about how high it should allow buildings in its downtown district. The current law caps heights at 70 feet, but in fact most buildings are two and sometimes three stories high. One of the town's most prominent structures, the Strater Hotel, is 53 feet.
But a raft of plans for new hotels and condominiums call for higher heights. One would be nearly 65 feet. Another proposes 62 feet. A third 58 feet. Land and construction costs are causing developers to maximize their holdings, Tim McHarg, a senior planner for the city, told the Durango Herald.
The city council has adopted a moratorium limiting building heights to 55 feet while it considers the changes underway in the downtown district.
Free posts boxes end in Steamboat
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Postal patrons in Steamboat Springs for several years had both free boxes at the post office but also the opportunity for home mail delivery. No more. Postal officials now say it's $24 a year to rent a box, or else erect neighborhood cluster boxes.
Postal regulations governing small mountain towns have always been a sore point. The U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free to people in rural, agricultural valleys and to houses in most older neighborhoods of the United States. But people in small towns had to pay to rent boxes. They had no choice.
Several years ago, the Postal Service began providing options of free boxes or free home delivery. But the delivery has a catch. As in new suburban areas, cluster boxes must be erected. Partly because of conflicts with snow removal, people in Steamboat have been slow to erect neighborhood cluster boxes, reports The Steamboat Pilot & Today.
Reunion of workers at old-style lodge held
GRAND LAKE - An unusual reunion was held in August at the Grand Lake Lodge, located at the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
There, some 675 mostly former employees assembled to reminisce and celebrate and/or commiserate the passing of an era. The lodge is likely to be sold by the James family, which has owned it since 1952, and the property will be more extensively developed for high-end real estate. Some celebrants had worked there even in the 1940s.
The lodge, which was opened in 1920, is similar to Yellowstone's Old Faithful Inn and the other lodges built in the early 20th century at or near the national parks. Although accessible by car only in summer, and then for the somewhat adventurous, Grand Lake was arguably Colorado's elite destination resort in the 1920s. Colorado's first destination ski resort did not open until 1946.
The lodge still has that knotty-pine charm, coupled with superb service provided by cadres of teenage and college-age seasonal workers. The Sky-Hi News explains that many of the workers included more than one generation of a family. Also, the summer jobs were often cauldrons of romance, as among the reunioners were 30 married couples.
Battle of the ages to be in streets of Gunnison
GUNNISON - For whatever reasons, the producers of a B-grade movie called "Alien vs. Predator 2" have chosen to set this epic battle within a town called Gunnison.
Sticklers for accuracy, at least in some respects, they plan to use business names from the streets of Gunnison, but will actually do the filming in the towns of Port Moody and Port Coquitlam, located in British Columbia's metropolitan Vancouver. Gunnison, located at about 8,000 feet, is surrounded by sagebrush and hay fields of timothy and brome. The two B.C. towns, as their names indicate, are located at sea level along Vancouver Bay.
Why Gunnison? Eylem Sonmez, clearance coordinator for the production company, a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox, said she didn't really know. "They were looking for a small town surrounded by the mountains," she told the Crested Butte News.
The film is expected to be released in the middle of 2007.
The Aspen Skiing Co. is taking out ads in the October issues of both Outside and SKI magazines. Those ads address global warming says David Perry, the company's executive vice president. "This campaign will definitely be a departure from the standard ski resort ad. But what's the No. 1 goal of advertising? It's to stand out and get notice," he tells the Denver Post.
He told the Post that a customer survey done by Aspen Skiing Co. recently showed that 30 percent of its guests view a ski resort's environmental stewardship as being of "high importance," up from 10 percent only five years ago.
The company has also joined a lawsuit that attempts to require the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions caused by automobiles. The case was filed by a dozen states and several other groups, including the Sierra Club.
Meanwhile, Vail Resorts is also embracing the green theme. The company is adding a dollar surcharge onto the fees for season passes, online lift tickets, and hotel rooms, but giving the customers the opportunity to instead keep the dollar. Rob Katz, the company's CEO, said he expects less than 25 percent will opt out of the program.
The money - the goal is $600,000 - is to be used for forest improvement projects in the White River National Forest of Colorado, where Vail has four of its ski areas, and around Lake Tahoe, where it has its fifth ski area, Heavenly. The money will be administered through the Montana-based National Forest Foundation.
Sloan Shoemaker, director of the Wilderness Workshop, told the Vail Daily the well-intentioned program highlights the chronic underfunding of the Forest Service, because it amounts to plugging a leaking dike with a thumb.
County commissioners say no uranium mining
TELLURIDE - The national debate about whether nuclear power should be a growing part of the energy answer is not an academic one in Telluride. Telluride lies just outside of a belt of low-grade uranium deposits that, because of the spiking prices, are becoming economically feasible to mine. In fact, six uranium mines are scheduled to open in Colorado and Utah.
At issue is whether the federal government should lease tracts in this uranium belt west of Telluride. The San Miguel County commissioners, who normally meet in Telluride, say no - at least not at this time.
"As long as we as a society have not solved the problem of what to do with the toxic radioactive waste involved in nuclear processing, and energy generation, I believe it is irresponsible to continue to mine more uranium ore," County Commissioner Art Goodtimes told The Telluride Watch. "And that doesn't even take into consideration the huge danger of nuclear weaponry."
The county commissioners more formally say that uranium mining threatens the tourism, recreation and real estate development sectors that are at the current foundation for the Telluride-anchored economy of San Miguel County.
Ungulates using new underpass near Banff
CANMORE, Alberta - Most underpasses and overpasses along four-lane highways are for cars. But the TransCanada Highway, in and near Banff National Park, has both crossings and underpasses that are specifically designed for wildlife. The wildlife crossings are wider than the car crossings, and they have turf, not asphalt.
And from all evidence, they seem to be working. A new underpass located just east of Canmore has had 900 animals - mostly deer, but also coyote, sheep, elk, plus a handful of bear, wolves, and cougars - use it since its October 2004 opening.
Encouraging the animals to use the underpass is the installation of six-feet-tall fencing in lateral areas, to keep the animals from crossing the highway.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook says the fencing has essentially prevented elk, deer and moose from crossing the highway. Their carcasses, once a common sight on the highway, are now rare.
The cost of the underpass so far is $1,443 per animal passage ($1,603 Cdn), although that cost will go down as more animals cross it.
Activists and government officials along Colorado's Interstate 70 have looked at the work on the TransCanada in their efforts to make I-70 more permeable to wildlife.
Durango frets about height of buildings
DURANGO - Durango continues to wrangle about how high it should allow buildings in its downtown district. The current law caps heights at 70 feet, but in fact most buildings are two and sometimes three stories high. One of the town's most prominent structures, the Strater Hotel, is 53 feet.
But a raft of plans for new hotels and condominiums call for higher heights. One would be nearly 65 feet. Another proposes 62 feet. A third 58 feet. Land and construction costs are causing developers to maximize their holdings, Tim McHarg, a senior planner for the city, told the Durango Herald.
The city council has adopted a moratorium limiting building heights to 55 feet while it considers the changes underway in the downtown district.
Free posts boxes end in Steamboat
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Postal patrons in Steamboat Springs for several years had both free boxes at the post office but also the opportunity for home mail delivery. No more. Postal officials now say it's $24 a year to rent a box, or else erect neighborhood cluster boxes.
Postal regulations governing small mountain towns have always been a sore point. The U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free to people in rural, agricultural valleys and to houses in most older neighborhoods of the United States. But people in small towns had to pay to rent boxes. They had no choice.
Several years ago, the Postal Service began providing options of free boxes or free home delivery. But the delivery has a catch. As in new suburban areas, cluster boxes must be erected. Partly because of conflicts with snow removal, people in Steamboat have been slow to erect neighborhood cluster boxes, reports The Steamboat Pilot & Today.
Reunion of workers at old-style lodge held
GRAND LAKE - An unusual reunion was held in August at the Grand Lake Lodge, located at the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
There, some 675 mostly former employees assembled to reminisce and celebrate and/or commiserate the passing of an era. The lodge is likely to be sold by the James family, which has owned it since 1952, and the property will be more extensively developed for high-end real estate. Some celebrants had worked there even in the 1940s.
The lodge, which was opened in 1920, is similar to Yellowstone's Old Faithful Inn and the other lodges built in the early 20th century at or near the national parks. Although accessible by car only in summer, and then for the somewhat adventurous, Grand Lake was arguably Colorado's elite destination resort in the 1920s. Colorado's first destination ski resort did not open until 1946.
The lodge still has that knotty-pine charm, coupled with superb service provided by cadres of teenage and college-age seasonal workers. The Sky-Hi News explains that many of the workers included more than one generation of a family. Also, the summer jobs were often cauldrons of romance, as among the reunioners were 30 married couples.
Battle of the ages to be in streets of Gunnison
GUNNISON - For whatever reasons, the producers of a B-grade movie called "Alien vs. Predator 2" have chosen to set this epic battle within a town called Gunnison.
Sticklers for accuracy, at least in some respects, they plan to use business names from the streets of Gunnison, but will actually do the filming in the towns of Port Moody and Port Coquitlam, located in British Columbia's metropolitan Vancouver. Gunnison, located at about 8,000 feet, is surrounded by sagebrush and hay fields of timothy and brome. The two B.C. towns, as their names indicate, are located at sea level along Vancouver Bay.
Why Gunnison? Eylem Sonmez, clearance coordinator for the production company, a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox, said she didn't really know. "They were looking for a small town surrounded by the mountains," she told the Crested Butte News.
The film is expected to be released in the middle of 2007.
