Scott wasn’t posting for a few days because he was off cat skiing in New Mexico. Before you get envious, however, consider whether there is any ski trip so mind-blowing that it would be worth being caught looking like this:
I am 99 percent sure that is the worst ski photo I have ever seen. Feel free to leave a caption suggestion in comments.
From the AP:
Wearing life vests and carrying paddles, commercial Colorado river rafters vowed Monday to fight for their right to navigate the state’s whitewater rivers after a Texas development company threatened to shut them down.
At a rally at the state Capitol, Duke Bradford, owner of Arkansas Valley Adventures, said his company guides about 23,000 tourists a year down five Colorado rivers. He is worried that a threat by Lewis Shaw II, president of Jackson-Shaw developers of Dallas, to file a civil suit would shut down a $142 million industry.
Bradford said Colorado law reserves the use of Colorado rivers for the people, not for landowners. The state attorney general has ruled commercial rafters cannot be prosecuted for trespassing, but that didn’t settle the civil dispute.
“He says we’re compromising his property rights. He’s coming to Colorado from another state and disputing our historical use of the river, threatening to shut us down,” Bradford said.
In December, the company sent commercial rafters a letter saying “there is no credible interpretation of legal statute, case or authorization permitting rafting, floating or any transit through or over private property.” Shaw threatened legal action if rafters or their customers touch the riverbanks or river bottom while on their property.
The property has been developed as a fishing resort on the banks of the Taylor River near Gunnison and the company contends rafters interfere with fishing.
Shaw said he gave rafters permission to use his property last year based on guarantees they would not interfere with fishermen. He said he was disappointed when hundreds of them took advantage of his offer, disrupting the fishermen, and he notified them he would not renew his offer this year.
“I have this property and it’s like people are boating on your front lawn,” he said.
The bill would give commercial rafters the right to navigate rivers in Colorado and limited rights to use the river banks to avoid obstacles. The House Judiciary Committee approved it on a 7-3 vote after seven hours of testimony Monday and sent it to the full House for debate.
Mark Schumacher, owner of Three Rivers Resort, said developers have already shut down rafting on the Lake Fork River after they persuaded the federal Bureau of Land Management not to reissue a permit. Permits are also issued by the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado State Parks.
Rep. Kathleen Curry, an unaffiliated lawmaker from Gunnison, said North Dakota and Colorado are the only two states west of the Mississippi River that don’t have strict protection for commercial rafters. She said Utah clarified its rules four years ago, making it clear rafters have access.
Curry acknowledged that rafters can interfere with fishermen and she said both sides need to respect each other’s rights. She said this issue has rippled throughout the West for decades, but states and the federal government have learned how to deal with it.
“I’d say rafting and fishing can coexist. That’s been out there for years, even though they might not be the best of friends,” she said.
Thomas Mowle, best-known in these parts as the El Paso County public trustee - the office that handles foreclosures - has been involved from the ground up in the effort to have a big chunk of the Rampart Range listed as a roadless area.
He has hiked and mapped the rugged area, and got the U.S. Forest Service to add 1,000 acres to the 30,000-acre area. The area runs along the east side of Rampart Range Road and is bordered to the north by Dakan Mountain Road and to the south by Balanced Rock Road.
He’ll give a slide-show presentation on the area Tuesday, Feb. 16, at All Souls Unitarian Church, 730 N. Tejon St. It’s open to the public.
Arapahoe Basin may not have much snow - a 30-inch base, with 1 inch of snow out of the latest storm - but their beachfront property is apparently still a hot commodity.
The Summit Daily News reports:
After Feb. 15, reserving one of the nine closest spots will cost $100 Monday through Thursday, and $150 for the peak times of weekends, holidays and April. Only six spots could be reserved last year for a fee.
The rest of the spaces in the first row are still free.
Read the whole story here.
Those prime spots are mostly reserved through April already, the resort says. That sounds like risky business to me, because you have to wonder, if they don’t get some dumps soon, how long into the spring their 30-inch base will last…..
Have you seen the snow totals at the resorts from the weekend storm?
0″ in Summit, 0″ in Aspen, a quarter-inch in Steamboat. Hell, 0″ in Silverton. Wolf Creek got 2″ - but Wolf Creek gets 2 inches on blue-sky days… in August.
Such a lame year.
From The Goat: A man in the Swiss alps survived 17 hours buried beneath an avalanche before a helicopter search spotted him. He survived with only minor hypothermia.
The really spooky thing is that he was buried beneath just 20 inches of snow. You always hear how the snow in an avalanche sets up like cement, but that’s a good example that, no, you should in no way expect that you can dig yourself out from a slide.
Stickers, the friendly porcupine that regularly fraternizes with skiers at Telluride Ski Resort, has been sent packing for needling the locals for food.
Apparently the little guy was so used to humans, he has been begging for scraps and, with poor eyesight, occasionally mistaking fingers for handouts. The ski area even put up a sign warning people about the “leaping attack porcupine.” Stickers was captured and released into the wild Wednesday.
“We hate to see Stickers go,” said CEO Dave Riley, in a report by Denver’s 7News. “But this was the responsible thing to do for the porcupine. We want to ensure a happy life for Stickers in the wild.”
Check out this jerky, sometimes nausea-inducing video of Stickers:
The American pika, a tiny critter that lives in loose-rock slopes in Colorado and throughout the Rockies, won’t receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that while global warming poses a threat to the animal, the species has enough colder, high-elevation habitat that it does not warrant protection.
The pika can’t tolerate body temperature above 104 degrees, and as the climate warms, it has disappeared from lower elevation areas in the Great Basin.
OK, so we’ve talked incessantly on this blog, a discussion repeated at dozens of other forums and message boards regarding Colorado skiing, about the general lack of snow we’re experiencing this year, especially in the central and northern mountains.
The El Nino weather pattern has been sending the storms south, heaping their love on Wolf Creek and causing power outages and floods in Arizona.As I write this, the East Coast is bracing for another major winter storm, while in Colorado we were lucky to squeeze a couple inches of fresh powder on top of the crust at ski resorts from the storm that passed through here Wednesday and Thursday.
NPR reports it is the strongest El Nino, a warming of Pacific Ocean waters, since 1997-98. It is expected to persist another month or two.
Read their report here.
Colorado Springs consistently ranks as among the fittest cities in the nation. We were number 2 last year (damn you, Salt Lake City!).
But how much of that can we attribute to altitude, instead of lifestyle?
A new study by German researchers found that obese people who moved to higher elevations lost weight, even without exercise or changing their eating habits, and continued to lose weight for four weeks after returning home.
The study looked at 20 obese men who lived at 8,700 feet above sea level in the Alps for two weeks. No restrictions were placed on what they ate, though they weren’t allowed to exercise. They lost an average of 3.3 pounds each. Researchers attribute the loss to the effects of thinner air on appetite and metabolism.
That’s about 2,500 feet higher than in the Springs, but it still makes you wonder….
Read about the study here.
I don’t often post gear reviews. In this economy, with a job as precarious as that of a newspaper reporter, the idea of shelling out 100 bucks for something that is not absolutely a necessity seems absurd.
But in honor of my two Out There colleagues, Dave and Andy, who both had kids recently and both are on leaves of absence, here’s a review of the latest kid-toting technology, for the parent who refuses to let a little thing like a child keep them indoors.
From the Gear Junkie:
Active parents who want to take their kids along hiking, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing have many choices in the category of kid carriers. A neat new option, the Boba carrier from Nap Inc., is made in Boulder, Colo.
The Boba, $99, is a “soft structured” carrier, meaning there is no frame for support. It is essentially a piece of rectangular fabric with foam shoulder straps and a waist belt. All the outer fabric is organic cotton.
Read the entire article here.
Funky ol’ A-Basin seems bent on turning into a real resort these days. Last year, we got new terrain on the backside. Next season, an honest-to-goodness high-speed quad replacing the Exhibition chair. After this, I fear, comes paid parking.
Here’s the release:
The new, high speed quad chairlift that will be constructed this summer at Arapahoe Basin has found a name – Black Mountain Express. Alan Henceroth, COO of A-Basin, put a call out to A-Basin aficionados to help name the lift. He received hundreds of suggestions from “Quadzilla” to “Chairway to Heaven.” After much contemplation and days of looking through suggestions by A-Basin management, some of them very entertaining, “Black Mountain Express” won the crown.
The new lift will replace the Exhibition fixed-grip triple chair located in the base area, which was installed in 1978. The new lift will have a capacity of 2000 people per hour, a length of 2877 feet and have a vertical rise of 719 feet. The ride time will be just under three minutes, half the time of the current lift ride from base area to mid-mountain.
Construction is scheduled for mid-June and will not impact the current season’s closing date (tentatively scheduled for June 6, 2010) or opening date next fall. The top terminal of the new lift will be slightly realigned uphill and to the west away from Black Mountain Lodge. The lower terminal will remain in the same location.
Track the new lift’s progress at:
http://www.arapahoebasin.com/ABasin/mountain/lift-construction.aspx
Well you’ve heard us extolling the merits of Wolf Creek all winter on this blog. Check out this week’s Out There story on this remote mountain, and how, thanks to the El Nino weather, they’re having an amazing year for business and snow, while much of Colorado suffers.
Ryan Waters, of Boulder, recently completed a 70-day trek across Antarctica with his partner, the first unsupported, unassisted — no food stashes, no wind-assisted kite skiing - crossing of the frozen continent on record.
They went 1,100 miles, and being purists, even turned down offers of cake and coffee from the only people they saw, at the National Science Foundation Station at the South Pole.
Read more about their adventure here.
You may want to take some Dramamine before watching.
This video shows the insane sport of speed gliding. You may recall that, in December, a man had to be rescued off Quandary Peak in Summit County after he crashed while speed gliding.
Well this is what it looks like when they do it right, as skier Antoine Montant skis, glides and then tumbles down some amazingly steep mountains and cliffs in the Alps.
I guess everything really is bigger in Europe…
Vail skier Lindsey Vonn continues her domination of the universe, gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Winter Olympics preview issue.
She’s easy on the eyes and seems to be emerging as the face of the American Olympics effort, much like what’s-his-name in 2008. Phelps. Oh, and apparently she’s a pretty decent skier too.
“Now I feel like I’m ready,” Vonn told The Associated Press after winning a super-G race at St. Moritz last weekend, her final World Cup event before the Games. “I’m definitely in the best shape I’ve ever been in. Mentally and physically prepared.”
The Breckenridge mansion that set a record for Summit County when it sold for $8.28 million was the scene of an explosion Tuesday night.
From the Summit Daily News:
One person was burned and taken to the hospital Monday in an explosion at a Timber Trail subdivision home where lacquer was being sprayed as a part of a remodeling project.
“Lacquer is highly flammable; we’re not sure how it ignited,” said Kim Scott, spokeswoman for Red, White and Blue Fire Protection District.
She said the room wasn’t ventilated, and the explosion didn’t appear to be intentional.
The incident occurred at 382 Timber Trail Road, the home that recently made headlines as the most expensive sale in Summit County history at $8.285 million.
At 6,565 square feet, the home was beyond the 6,000 square feet at which sprinklers are required. Scott said the damage could have been much worse if the room’s sprinkler hadn’t extinguished the fire.
A window was blown out, but there was otherwise minimal fire and water damage.
The greatest thing I have seen today:
“This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.” - Bill Murray, “Groundhog Day.”
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today in a depressing little burg in western Pennsylvania (I lived in Pennsylvania for 15 years and I can say that description is accurate for that part of the state.)
As the legend goes, that means we can expect six more weeks of winter.
Of course, what can this groundhog know about Colorado weather? Fortunately, the Denver Zoo has its own forecaster, a prairie dog named Digger that came out of his burrow last week and saw his shadow.
That’s good news for skiers, because here in Colorado, many of us are still waiting for winter to start. So let’s hope the large squirrels are right.
How bad has it been for the central mountains, where most of us Front Rangers ski? 75 percent of average for the year in the upper Colorado River Basin, 88 percent in the upper Arkansas basin. I’ll have a story in Thursday’s Out There about how the El Nino weather pattern, which is shifting the storms to the south, is also shifting skiers south, to Wolf Creek Ski Area, which currently has the deepest base in the Rockies.
The upper Rio Grande basin is 108 percent, and, of course, the SNOTEL monitoring site with the most snow? Wolf Creek Pass.
