Mountain Town News
By ALLEN BEST - MTN TOWN NEWS SERVICE
Crested Butte debates expansion of ski area
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo.—If the sentiments expressed at a recent meeting in Crested Butte are a reliable measure, the coming debate about the proposed expansion of the ski area onto Snodgrass Mountain will be another donnybrook. The Crested Butte News reports that most of the speakers at the meeting, which was attended by 150 people, had little good to say about the expansion.
Speakers had a general point of view that expansion will make Crested Butte too much like other ski areas, what Margo Levy, a former town council member described as “plain Vail-nilla.” The need for expansion is not yet imperative, she said. “We don’t have to do this now. If we rush into something like this now, we can never go back.”
Others saw the expansion area as just plain silly. Nancy Wicks said putting a ski area on a south-facing slope was inappropriate. “Maybe they could put greenhouses there.”
Too, there were echoes of wildlife conservation leader Dave Foreman, the Albuquerque-based proponent of the concept of rewilding the Rockies, who had spoken in nearby Gunnison.
“We should stop tearing down what we can protect and protect the wild heart of the Rockies,” said Kiki Dotzler.
But a dissenting point of view was offered by John Nichols, a local property owner. “We have a shortage of intermediate terrain,” he said, noting that 11,145-foot Snodgrass Mountain will offer mostly just that. He said locals and visitors have plenty of alternatives to Snodgrass for backcountry skiing. “We’re focusing on this like it’s New York City and there’s nowhere else to go,” he said.
The idea of expansion was first broached in 1982, then shelved first because of community opposition and then later, in the 1990s, because of the financial wobbliness of the ownership group, the Calloway and Walton families.
In 2002, as Crested Butte’s economy sagged to perhaps its lowest ebb in the town’s modern incarnation as a resort, the ski area owners began talking up the expansion once again. The idea, then continued under the newer ownership of Tim and Diane Mueller, is that Crested Butte has too little intermediate terrain to hold the interest of destination visitors more than a few days, and very few of them are able to ski the XX-terrain for which Crested Butte is known.
Clean air hard to find even in the rural West
PINEDALE, Wyo.—People want to move to rural areas, because the air quality is good. But the tide of news stories suggests that air quality, because of natural gas wells and gold mines, can be bad even in rural areas.
The Jackson Hole News&Guide reports that an air quality warning was issued in Sublette County, about 80 miles south, site of the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline oil and natural gas fields. Children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems were advised to stay indoors because of the ozone pollution.
Ozone pollution has also been a problem in the hot-spots for natural gas drilling in the Colorado. One of those gas fields is located west of Glenwood Springs. The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver newspaper, notes that those high ozone levels are partly to blame for high ozone levels in Denver. Between the two are many of Colorado’s ski areas.
Aspen continues research into assisted-care facilities
ASPEN, Colo.—Aspen is trying to get a better grip on who would be using an assisted-care living facility in the next few years as the baby boom population becomes what is formally classified as senior citizen age, or 60 and over.
The community already has one such assisted-care facility. However, it accommodates only 15 people. Also, it lacks the ability to give a fuller spectrum of care, such as might be provided by a nursing home, or what are called memory-support services.
By the simple math, assisted living will be a boom industry in Aspen during coming years as baby boomers enter their geriatric years. About 16 percent of the population of Pitkin County will be over 60 years old by the year 2010.
About 3 percent of the population, or 550 people, will be 75 or over. This does not include second-home owners, although some of them are expected to also want to live in Aspen permanently as their health and vigor decline.
Unlike earlier generations, who might have been expected to leave for warmer climates, a survey conducted in 2007 showed that many in Aspen’s existing workforce intends to remain in Aspen.
A new survey sent out recently to several thousand residents is now trying to assess the market for assisted care in the next few years.
“We are trying to determine who will use this facility in the next couple of years, not 10 years from now,” said Ken Canfield, a board member of the Senior Council, a citizen advisory group to Pitkin County.
Marty Ames, director of senior services for the county, said the responses will determine the next step, the financial feasibility. A major consideration will be the cost of land, she said.
Telluride & academics assess possible futures
TELLURIDE, Colo. (MTN)—The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are teaming up with local governments in the Telluride area to imagine potential futures.
The goal of the collaboration is to use advanced computer modeling techniques to project the 20- to 30-year economic, ecological and community impacts of various decisions that will be made during the next few years.
Unlike some other such studies, this one sets out to view Telluride in the context of its bedroom communities, including Norwood and Ridgway.
Banff food composting proclaimed a success
BANFF, Alberta (MTN)—The composting program in Banff is being proclaimed a success, with interest growing in the Bow River Valley.
In Banff, about half the trash is food waste. Of that food waste, nearly 70 percent can be composted. Not all restaurants are participating, but seven are, using dedicated bins that are then collected by the town’s garbage crews, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook.
