Around the Mountains: Widow dies 45 years to day after fatal avalanche

OURAY — Forty-five years ago, a minister and his two daughters were driving the highway between Ouray and Silverton. It’s one of the most spectacular — and dangerous — segments of highway in North America. The minister, the Rev. Marvin Hudson, was scheduled to perform Sunday services at the First Congregational Church.

It was mid-morning, and Hudson had stopped to put on chains when an avalanche roared down, killing him and his two daughters.

The Silverton Standard reports an eerie echo. The widow, Mary Hudson, died March 3, on the 45th anniversary of the avalanche. She was 87.

1,200 Democrats turn out in Jackson Hole

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — By the numbers, it was an astonishing show. Teton County, which is virtually the same as Jackson Hole, has about 20,000 residents, of which about 6,600 are registered Democrats.

About a third of them turned out for the county convention. Four-fifths of them voted for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

The Jackson Hole News&Guide didn’t say the last time that many people showed up for a meeting — possibly, because it hasn’t happened before. But usually, at county assemblies, only a few dozen people show up.

That Wyoming’s few votes still matter in this year’s exceedingly tight race primary between Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is itself uncommon. But clearly, Wyoming is enjoying being on the national stage, something other than fly-over country.

Park City bags it for a possibly big runoff

PARK CITY — The snowpack is now at 126 percent on the lee side of the Wasatch Range, but that’s enough for city officials to take precautions against flooding during spring runoff. They usually get 5,000 sandbags, but this year ordered 10,000, at 30 cents each. Cost: $3,000.

“We would be fools not to,” said Hugh Daniels, who manages emergency programs for the city. “Have you looked and seen how much snow is out there?”

The last time Park City had this much snow was only three years ago. There was not significant flooding that year. However, a great deal depends upon the timing of the warmth. A cool spring followed by sudden heat could result in swollen creeks, officials tell The Park Record.

Meanwhile, in Basalt, 18 miles downstream from Aspen, city officials are conferring with residents of two mobile home parks along the Roaring Fork River, reports The Aspen Times.

Hardrock mining outfit at Silverton adds staff

SILVERTON — The talk of renewed hardrock mining around Silverton continues. The Standard reports that Colorado Goldfields has hired two managers, for exploration and environmental affairs. The exploration manager, Dean Misantoni, has 27 years experience in small, producing underground operations in Colorado.

Analyst predicts mining firm to pull plug at Crested Butte

CRESTED BUTTE — There are plans to develop a molybdenum mine near Crested Butte. But is one of the partners in that venture about to pull the plug?

That’s the conjecture of John A. Kaiser, an analyst who tracks high-risk Canadian securities in his review of Kobex Resources, a firm based in Vancouver, B.C.

“What they didn’t understand is that the rules for permitting in Colorado aren’t mine-friendly, and this could be dragged on for some time,” Kaiser told the Crested Butte News. “They’re now glumly aware that this is much, much more difficult.”

Kobex raised more than $28 million for the project, but has already spent $8 million in rehabilitating the existing Keystone Mine and must now decide whether to bore a $14 million tunnel, called a drift, 3,600 feet into the mountain, to get a better idea of the richness of the ore deposit.

Reporting increasingly impatient stockholders, Kaiser said he’s betting Kobex will withdraw from the project.

Local opponents concurred that time is on their side — at least in the short term. “”We all believe that Kaiser is right in concluding that this is a process that could go on for 20 or 30 years, or longer,” said John Norton, special consultant to the Crested Butte Mountain Resort, the ski area.

Still, Kaiser, wasn’t willing to completely bet against the mine. It just might be a mine that Kobex may not be involved in.

“The prize is enormous,” said Kaiser, who has a firm called Kaiser BottomFish Online. “The core (ore) is worth $6 billon, and the overall value is $36 billion at today’s prices.” Even if Kobex withdraws from the project, landowner U.S. Energy Corp. may hold on, as it has much deeper pockets.

Meanwhile, the Crested Butte Town Council is lying low. The town has ordinances to protect its watershed from the impacts of mining, and as such it will serve as jury should an application be submitted. As such, it cannot show impartiality in advance.

Not all townspeople understand this legal principle. “I would really appreciate it if you come out of the woodwork,” one local resident complained to the council recently.

The town manger, Susan Parker, pointed to efforts by the town council to protect the community, to see a change in legislation governing mining on federal lands. “We’ve done more in the last 18 months than this community has done (for years),” she told the newspaper.

Telluride won’t cater to extremes of biking

TELLURIDE — If you’re a mountain biker at Telluride, there’s no real place to throw the wheels down a steep fall line — not legally, at least.

That’s not to say it doesn’t happen. In fact, it’s getting to be a real problem at the Telluride ski area. The Forest Service, which administers the land, says the trails tend to go straight down fall lines, resulting in erosion that removes the shallow forest earth down to bare rock. When that happens, mountain bikers go elsewhere, to repeat the scaring, erosive process. Thus created, the ravines tend to enlarge even more over time.

At some ski areas, such as at Whistler and Blackcomb, operators have catered specifically to extreme mountain bikers. That will not happen at Telluride.

The reason, said Dave Riley, chief executive officer of the Telluride Ski and Golf Co., is there isn’t enough money to be made to worth the while. Some of the mountain-bike parks in North American work best when they are near a large city, he went on to explain. “If you can get a high level of participation, then you come close to breaking even,” he said.

A major cost, a report in The Telluride Watch indicates, is liability.

Colorado isn’t as big as people think it is

LEADVILLE — After building dozens of backcountry ski huts in the 1980s and 1990s,the 10th Mountain Division has been lying low in recent years. Now, it is proposing to build another hut, this one near Tennessee Pass, between Leadville and Vail. Several local residents are very displeased at the prospect.

Tom Weisen, a backcountry guide who lives in nearby Red Cliff, says the area is already getting crowded, with snowmobilers and dogsledders, and huts will worsen the situation. “When are they going to stop building huts?” he wants to know.

Marjorie Westermann, a long-time resident of the area, with a home along Highway 24, frets about the impacts to Canada lynx and other wildlife. “Colorado isn’t as big as people think, and the wildlife are losing out.”

The 10th Mountain Division’s Ben Dodge says the proposed hut on public land would be easier to reach than Vance’s Cabin and, because it is on public land, will remain even if the private hut is sold.

The hut association operates 29 backcountry huts between Crested Butte and the Front Range, 14 of them on Forest Service land.

Steamboat looks down road for annexing tips

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The city of Steamboat Springs has not annexed land in 20 years, but it is now looking at 700 acres on the town’s west end, with hopes that housing there will retain the community’s rapidly disappearing middle class.

“We need housing,” said John Eastman. “Housing, housing, housing. We need housing for our work force because otherwise we’re not going to have a work force ... I don’t know if prices will get as high as at Aspen, but that’s where they’re headed.”

As it looks to annex, and perhaps gain 2,000 homes, Steamboat is consulting others who have gone before. Granby, located 70 miles east along Highway 40, has gone on an annexation binge. Mayor Ted Wang told a Steamboat forum recently that Granby realized in the early 1990s that it had choices to make.

“It was either grow or die,” he said. Since then, Granby has annexed 8,000 acres, nearly all of it land now being carved up for vacation homes that are being billed as lower-cost alternatives to those closer to I-70.

As reported by the Steamboat Pilot & Today, Wang told the Steamboat audience that Granby made some mistakes in its first annexation, but got better in later annexations.

“Don’t leave things out on the table during the negotiations, unless you really intend to leave them there,” he said.” Bargain hard. Don’t be afraid to ask and don’t be afraid to dig in your heels.”

The project in Steamboat seems a natural for both the town and the developer. If annexed into the town, the project can get urban densities that county officials are unlikely to award. The annexation was estimated to take 18 months.

Officials insist foreclosure rate is only minor increase

GRANBY — Newspapers in the mountain towns of Colorado keep looking for evidence of the tsunami of housing foreclosures hitting their communities. The real estate market has definitely slowed down, but nobody seems to find a wall of foreclosures about to crash.

A case in point is a report in the Sky-Hi Daily News, which reported that Grand County in the first two months recorded 29 foreclosures, compared to 59 for all of last year.

Christina Whistmer, the Grand County treasurer, said foreclosures are “only slightly up.” Susan Penta, the marketing director for Grand Elk, a housing project geared to the upper-middle-class vacation-home buyers maintained that that the second-home market is generally healthy. “The vacation home buyer generally has the discretionary income to withstand the current storm.”

But to Ross Cooney, who built three prize-winning homes in the $500,000 to $1 million category in Granby’s Grand Elk project, hoping to later find buyers, the current storm is substantial. “I really like Granby and I like Grand Elk. It’s a beautiful spot. But boy, the economy is a disaster.”

The newspaper also tells of a foreclosed property, originally priced at $800,000, which was sold at an auction for $350,000.

Real estate expected to be ‘flat, at best’ in Durango

DURANGO — The Durango-area real estate market continues to tread water. Bob Allen, a real estate analyst there, said home values in 2008 will be “flat, at best.” This flies in the face of press releases issued by the National Association of Realtors, which continue to argue that the market has been stable or stabilizing. “It just keeps stabilizing and stabilizing and stabilizing,” he said. The Durango Herald also notes that John Wells, of The Wells Group, sees fewer real-estate brokers locally by the end of 2008.

Taos Pueblo gets biomass burner for its greenhouses

TAOS, N.M. — Greenhouses serving the Taos Pueblo are now being heated by burning wood that has been gathered from a nearby forest. The Taos News reports that a forest fire in the mountains above the pueblo led to thinning of forest, to abate the fire danger. The rising price of hydrocarbon fuels is making greenhouses in colder climates impractical, notes the newspaper, but the pueblo wants to continue growing some of its own food.

Feathers ruffled about building in Mammoth

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Like a lot of ski towns, Mammoth Lakes is atwitter about the height of a proposed 112-unit condo-hotel. The building would average 48 feet, topping out at 77 feet.

There are the usual complaints from adjoining property owners about disruptions of view sheds, impacts to traffics and also the light pollution. But The Sheet reports a new twist: A member of the Audubon Society warns about the impact to two species of birds, tree swallows and common night hawks.

The birds eat insects, which can be found in the creek that runs through the site. The birds fly up to 100 feet on either side of the creek – and bam! Yes, he sees the birds flying into the building. “Putting a tall building with reflective glass so close to Mammoth Creek would cause a great threat to these birds,” said Kent Wells.