Two very different pictures of how the ski resorts fared out of this storm.
First, here’s a web shot of A-Basin, which reported a dismal 2 inches as of this morning (and still half of Denver went there for their ’snow day’ off work):
And here’s Monarch, which opens Nov. 25 (COME ON GUYS, OPEN EARLY!)
Wolf Creek, which opens Oct. 31, is reporting 2 feet in 2 days from the storm. Yipee!
No, I’m not talking about the NHL team off to an amazing start.
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center says, with all the early-season snowfall in the mountains, there have already been five human-triggered slides since Oct. 5, in Rocky Mountain National park and off Jones Pass, Independence Pass and Loveland Pass.
Nobody was seriously hurt, but in four of the slides, back-country skiers were swept downhill.
“Because of the early snow, there’s a better chance that a thick weak layer will form at the bottom of the snowpack,” director Ethan Greene said. “We haven’t seen conditions like this in the last four or five years, so people who have learned avalanche awareness during this period may not appreciate that things which were appropriate last year may not be safe this year. This could be a different and potentially more dangerous year than they’re used to.”
And the really bad news: Since it’s early season, in a slide, you’re more likely to meet rocks and trees that would be snow-covered later in the season.
As Dave’s post below shows (welcome back, BTW), ski season will soon be here in earnest. Let me be the first to urge all the weekend warriors out there to get in shape now, or suffer later.
Check out this week’s Out There story on ways to get in shape for skiing and riding. I know skiers and riders may scoff at the notion of having to physically prepare for going down a mountain, but many of us forget - at least I do - in the long off-season, just how much an exercise this stuff is.
The Summit Daily News reports sheriff’s deputies have been busting early-season skiers at A-Basin for smoking pot in the parking lot.
“If you’re going to flaunt it in our face and do stupid things while we’re on foot patrol, you sometimes get caught,” Sheriff John Minor said Tuesday. Six people have been ticketed since skiing began Oct. 9.
Maybe they can start ticketing snowboarders coming down the mountain swilling PBR tall boys and cutting me off instead?
BTW, after a long dry spell since the earliest opening of ski season in decades, the mountains are finally getting a little snow today. Here’s a web shot of A-Basin:
Monarch skiers, fret not. They’re finally getting some snow there too:
Writer Bill McKeown picked this up yesterday since I, like 19 percent of the country, was out sick yesterday:
Comments 14 | Recommend 1
The South Rampart Range Shooting Range, closed after a fatal shooting in July, could be reopened if the U.S. Forest Service finds partners to make substantial improvements to the popular shooting area.
Pike National Forest Supervisor Bob Leaverton said today he would consider reopening the range, on Rampart Range Road above Garden of the Gods, if certain conditions are met.
Those include: a substantial clean-up of the range; improvements to the infrastructure; and a full-time, on-site manager.
Leaverton said he would consider a land-exchange proposal should a private group or another government agency want to assume ownership and management of the range.
The agency in the coming months will look for partners to help make the improvements, Forest Service spokeswoman Barbara Timock said today.
The range was closed July 21 after Otis Freison, 25, of Aurora, was shot in the chest when someone in his group was removing bullets from a weapon.
The shooting range was used by 40,000 people a year. It was established in 1990 but has been plagued in recent years by trash, drinking, heavy use and safety issues. The July fatality was the first at the range.
The Forest Service considered closing the range in 2007, but officials instead opted for physical improvements, including new berms and backstops to prevent bullets from winding up in water below the range. Tests showed no lead contamination in streams.
From the AP:
People who have never seen snow or built a snowman are getting a chance to do it in Colorado, in a big way.
The Colorado Tourism Office launched a contest Monday to give three snow virgins an expenses-paid, three-month trip to Colorado, January through March. With help from local instructors and guides, contest winners will sample winter activities like snowmobiling, skiing, snowshoeing, dogsledding, the all-important apres ski cocktail hour, maybe even ice climbing — then Facebook, YouTube and Twitter about it.
Winners also will visit Colorado restaurants, hot springs and spas.
Applicants are asked to submit videos to http://www.snowatfirstsight.com explaining why they should win. People can visit the Web site to vote, and 10 finalists will get trips to Colorado to audition.
The Colorado Tourism Office is spending about $150,000 on the contest. That’s less than the $250,000 it spent on a promotion last year to erect a virtual ski hill and “bring Colorado” to New York City.
The office’s budget was cut from $20 million last year to $15 million this year as the state tried to close a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall. Tourism officials hope the new contest builds buzz for Colorado on social media networks, with contest winners posting daily updates.
The idea is to show Colorado through the contest winners’ fresh eyes, whether they’re from the U.S. or not, tourism office director Kim McNulty said.
Contest organizers figure entrants might be students, job seekers, retirees or those who can arrange for time off work — basically the crowd that might go on a reality TV show.
The winners will stay at spots around the state. Exact locations were still being confirmed.
WORST. TOURISM PROMOTION. EVER.
For anyone out there keeping score, A-Basin opens today, two days after Loveland. And it’s an, um, powder day, with 2 fresh inches of snow overnight for the white ribbon of death. And from the web cam shot, it looks like people are waiting a long time to do it. Funny, when Loveland opened Wednesday there was practically no line. I guess that’s the difference of a mountain where you can use your Vail Resorts ski pass……
It certainly feels like skiing weather down here in town, but these clouds are low and lazy and the weather isn’t hitting the high country. Here’s Woodland Park this morning:
Here’s Monarch Pass tonight:
There’s a chance for more snow in the mountains every day Thursday through Monday. Suh-weet!
Kindly ignore my amateur photography skills.
The Denver Post has a story about how a photographer captured a kingbird riding and harassing a red-tailed hawk at a park north of Burlington.
I normally find bird-watching about as much fun as watching golf on television, but I gotta admit: Best. Bird picture. Ever.
And here’s what the kingbird might look like if it was watching Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, episode four:
Ski resort operator Intrawest, which runs Copper Mountain, Winter Park and Steamboat, announced today that this season it will “recommend that all skiers and snowboarders visiting its resorts wear helmets.” Nothing new there, right? Resorts have been touting the safety benefits of helmets for years.
But new this year, these resorts will also require helmets for all children and teenagers (17 and under) taking part in terrain park and ski/snowboard school programs, and helmets will be a standard part of youth gear rentals. In past years, parents could opt out of requiring their kids to wear helmets.
Next season, the company will require all employees to wear helmets while on duty.
There’s no mention of requiring helmets for adult skiers, but you have to wonder if that’s where we’re headed in a few years.
That would be fine with me. I always wear a helmet since I had a massive yard sale and almost got a concussion the first time I ever skied, five years ago at Monarch.
Among the Out There staff, three out of four of us wear helmets.
UPDATE: Yes, you are right. Vail in April announced similar rules for employees and kids taking lessons.
You are right about it snowing right now too. Wow! Here’s A Basin:
Check out this amazing, and at points almost unbearable, video:
http://www.vimeo.com/6581009
Rescue efforts have kicked into high gear for the Pikes Peak llama, which has been spotted for several weeks wandering above treeline on Pikes Peak, chasing the train and trying to make friends with bighorn sheep. How it got there is a mystery, though it probably escaped from a trailer, since the Rockies aren’t known for having wild llamas.
Check out the full story here.
Meanwhile, here’s what the llama would look like if it was watching The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, episode three:
The National Weather Service says 4 to 8 inches are expected tonight and Thursday above 10,000 feet. More importantly, sub-freezing temperatures might let the snow guns at A-Basin and Loveland restart, after warm temperatures of this week brought their gear-up for ski season to a screeching halt.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
SNOWING THE SKIERS: Forget those skiing Web sites that aggregate snow conditions; turn on your iPhones instead. A team of economists at Dartmouth College has discovered that ski areas report 23 percent more new snow on weekends, but, unsurprisingly, “there is no such weekend effect in government precipitation data.” The lead researchers, Eric Zitzewitz and Jonathan Zinman, surmised that ski resorts with difficult terrain and near cities would benefit most from weekend skiers, so that was where reports were likely to be exaggerated the most. That is what they found, until near the end of their study, when a new iPhone application made it easier for skiers to comment on snow conditions in real time. “Exaggeration falls sharply,” the economists report, “and much more at resorts with better iPhone reception.” The preliminary name of the study? “Snowed: Deceptive Advertising at Ski Resorts.”
You can read the entire study here.
Is shaping up to be Ken Burns’ worst idea. Seriously, is anyone still watching this plodding, glacial-pased thumbsucker?
It’s a better sleep aid than Ambien.
The much-touted Ken Burns documentary “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” began last night on PBS. How the filmmaker managed to stretch the story of the national parks into six episodes I have no idea.
After the first hour, I was sure that not only would this be the most boring documentary in history, but that I no longer had the desire to actually see any of these places. Burns’ obvious adoration for the subject comes through, and people who have a lot of time on their hands, or can’t actually make it to see Yosemite, may enjoy hours of the narrator waxing eloquently about the beauty of these places, but I’d rather just step outside and look at a mountain.
Sorry Ken, “The Civil War” was a great epic, but, as Andy remarked a little while ago, that at least had shooting.
Interesting back-and-forth over the past couple of days between Colorado Springs councilman Scott Hente and The Gazette’s editorial writer.
Thursday, an editorial questioned how the city can prosecute Douglas Bruce for trespassing while one councilman, Hente, has publicly admitted to trespassing on the Incline. Here’s a bit:
“Hente told The Gazette’s opinion department he knowingly trespassed for years, ignoring the written notice. He stopped a year ago because of health and “public relations” concerns.
Hente said his trespassing differs from Bruce’s for two reasons: “Number one, I stopped; number two, I’m working within the system to legalize the activity,” Hente said.
So he’s no different than Bruce, who has stopped collecting signatures at Costco. Furthermore, Bruce is working within the system to restore the city directive that defended gathering signatures in places of public accommodation.”
Hente fired back with a letter in Sunday’s paper. Here’s the juiciest part, in which he accuses Gazette employees of committing the same crime:
“Oh, back to that hypocrisy thing: before The Gazette casts stones in my direction, maybe it should look inward. Several Gazette employees (and yes, I know their names) are also avid users of the Incline. I admit my hypocrisy; maybe The Gazette should do the same.”
OK, I’ll come forward and admit I’ve never done the Incline - not because it is trespassing, but because I can think of other ways to fight crowds and dodge dog doodoo.
From our news partners at KOAA:
People traveling to the top of Pikes Peak have been seeing something white and we aren’t talking about snow.
For about a month now tourists and workers on the Peak have been seeing a white llama. The llama has been seen daily about 1000 feet from the summit and he has started hanging out with the native Bighorn Sheep in the area. Workers with the Pikes Peak Cog Railway say the lone llama seems pretty friendly and walks up to the train when it is full of people and sometimes follows the train for about a mile. Rangers with the Pikes Peak Highway have attempted to catch the llama, and they say they can get close, but when they reach for the animal, he lopes off.
Click here for the whole story.
They started making snow Monday at Loveland, two days ahead of schedule, thanks to a cold front that brought accumulating snow to much of Colorado’s high country.
That’s three days earlier than last year. Both Loveland and Arapahoe Basin, you may recall, opened Oct. 15 last year. It remains to be seen when A Basin will fire up their snow guns, but web cams show they got a bit of snow from this storm too:
And there is better news. Summit County and the foothills, including the Palmer Divide, could get another 6 to 12 inches tonight through Wednesday night. A winter storm watch is in effect.
While I am bemoaning the passing of summer, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
UPDATE: A-Basin said this afternoon they will begin making snow tonight (Tuesday.) So I guess the race really is on now.
