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Show M A-18 The Park Record Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, December 15-18, 2018 OUNTAIN TOWN NEWS More Dogs on Main A Roundup of News from Other Western Ski Resort Communities ALLEN BEST Mountain Town News Do your pushups, but also be clear on your aims in life ASPEN, Colo. — Klaus Obermeyer celebrated his 99th birthday in Aspen recently with a Bavarian band, servings of apfelstrudel mit schlag and scores of friends, family, and coworkers. The celebrated purveyor of winter sporting wear was in his customary good cheer when Scott Condon of The Aspen Times later caught up with him. “There’s so much new. It’s a dynamic world that we’re living in and dancing in, which makes it very wonderful,” he explained. “It never gets to wondering, ‘Oh, what should we do next?’ There’s always opportunity to make things better.” Obermeyer, who founded Sport Obermeyer in 1947, said a fundamental operating principle for the company, as for his life, has been to “create win-win situations. Never make a win-lose. That keeps everybody happy. Our suppliers are happy, our dealers are happy, and consumers are happy. So whatever it takes to get a win-win, that’s kind of the thing to do.” In longevity, it helps to have good genes. A great-grandfather of his lived to be 112. If he lives to 103, he will have skied for 100 years. He takes care not to eat more food than he can burn off in exercise. He swims a halfmile every day, very slow, breaststroke and on his back, half of it. “I think we (receive) by nature a gift by having a body. If we don’t use it, it goes to hell, so it’s really important to keep using it. Do pushups and whatever you can to keep it going.” The near-centenarian also testifies to the virtue of aikido, the martial arts discipline. “In aikido, you don’t hurt your partner, you control your partner,” he explained. “If you hurt him, he may come back two days later and hit you with a two-by-four. Aikido brings about peace. Aikido exists spiritually as well as physically. The older you get, the more you use of the spiritual part and a little less on the mat.” Obermeyer also spoke to Condon about the importance of intentionality in life. “It’s kind of like a dance on a floor that’s moving. But you always end up where you aim for. Aim is a very important thing in one’s life. If you aim up Aspen Mountain, you’re not going to get up Red Mountain. It’s a powerful thing,” he said. Recycling the dairy before the boutique hotel goes up SILVERTHORNE, Colo. — The old Robinson Dairy located along the Blue River in Silverthorne has largely been taken down. In its place will arise a hotel, a very small one, to be created from 16 prefabricated shipping containers. The working title for this small hotel: The Pad. The Summit Daily News explains that Rob Baer and Lynn Parrish Baer chose to disassemble the old dairy using a technique called green deconstruction. They’re trying to recycle the building as best can be done. Parts of this creative deconstruction were easier than others. The old-growth redwood siding will get incorporated into the new hotel. Railings, doors, cabinetry and lighting can get recycled through programs such as Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore. But other things like the roof, framing, and Styrofoam will, for various reasons, get carted off to the landfill. Up the road a couple miles at Dillon, officials have started debating a question that returns again and again in ski towns: How tall is too tall in buildings, even amid mountains that climb to 12,000 feet and higher? Dillon town codes allow buildings up to 50 feet in the business core, plus another 8 feet for non-inhabitable architectural elements. Codes allow lesser heights in outlying districts. A recently approved condo complex called Uptown 240 will actually be able to reach 68 feet, because of a variance. That, explains the Summit Daily, has triggered the new debate. One sentiment is that the code needs to be more straightforward, to let developers know explicitly what will be allowed and what will not. Another thought is that developers, if they cannot build vertically, will instead build horizontally, to achieve the same mass. By Tom Clyde Individual-1 Composting program turns profit, lengthens landfill life ASPEN, Colo. — The composting program operated in conjunction with the Pitkin County Landfill, has not only been reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it’s actually turning a profit. The Aspen Times reports the composting operation in 2017 made almost $371,000 from sales of soil and other composted byproducts. This is in stark contrast to another composting operation at a landfill about 50 miles west that loses more than $329,000 a year. Cathy Hall, the landfill director in Pitkin County, credits a program called SCRAPS as a primary reason for the success of the composting program. The joint Aspen-Pitkin County program has put bear-proof bins at various locations where the compost can be deposited. It was launched with aid of a $200,000 grant from the Colorado state government. Rates also matter. Regular landfill trash costs $86 a ton. Compostable material costs $15 a ton. That has induced businesses to participate in composting. City Market, the dominant grocery retailer in Western Colorado, began composting in January. It’s a subsidiary of Kroger, one of the nation’s major grocery retailers, which began a “Zero Hunger-Zero Waste” initiative in January. In Aspen, this has meant that the grocery store fills three commercial-sized Dumpsters with compostable material thrice weekly. City Market stores also operate in Vail, Avon, Carbondale, and other towns along I-70 and in the Roaring Fork Valley. Idaho summit spurs fiery conversation on climate KETCHUM, Idaho — As snow piled higher and cold deepened, deep thinkers from Ketchum and Sun Valley gathered to ponder various futures, including one of more wildfires. If natural, fire was rare when skiing came of age as a sport and industry in the mid-20th century. As of 1985, in Blaine County— where Ketchum is located—no wildfire had occurred in decades. Now, there’s more woody material with higher energy and less moisture. That produces more energy out of any given square foot of fuels now as compared to the 1985-1994. This contributes to the quick spread and extreme nature of wildfires burning across the West. “What used to be high is now simply average,” said Matt Filbert, a wildfire expert with the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho. “Consequently, if there’s a fire, it grows quickly.” Fires are getting bigger. Relatively close to Ketchum, the Beaver Creek fire in 2013 burned 111,000 acres. Filbert said conditions have ripened for a 200,000acre fire. Think also of the sagebrush steppes. Historically, sagebrush-covered terrain in the Wood River Valley would burn every 30 to 100 years, he said. Now, it’s burning every 5 to 15 years. At mid-elevation forests, the fire interval used to be 120-plus years. What does it mean if wildfire season lasts seven months a year instead of five, as in the 1970s, asked Katherine Himes, director of the McClure Center for Public Policy. Wildfires have quadrupled in the western United States since 1986, she said. A new policy in Yellowstone to make wolves more afraid? COOKE CITY, Mont. — To see wildlife in Yellowstone you need to go to the Lamar Valley, on the park’s northeast side, where there are buffalo aplenty but also wolves. And so it was several years ago that two Colorado visitors rounded a bend in the road to see a mob, 80 or so people, both young and old, their most common denominator being optical equipment glued to their eyes. These were the wolf watchers and, when we had squeezed our Subaru through them and joined their ranks, there were wolves lounging thereabouts in the relative heat of a warm October afternoon. The wolf pack kept its distance there, along Pebble Creek, until the shadows grew long, then one by one, and by pairs, they arced their bodies across the road 100 yards or so from the wolf-watchers and vanished into the dark timber and the coming dark of night. These wolves seemed wary, given their circumstances. Nobody will shoot them in Yellowstone National Park, but just a few miles away, outside the park boundary in Montana, there’s a hunting season for wolves. Montana allows up to four wolves to be killed annually. The Jackson Hole News&Guide says it’s among the most conservative harvest quotas in a state that does not cap harvests in most areas. But it’s too many in the mind of Deby Dixon, who lives in Gardiner, Mont., who tells the story of a wolf called 926F that was habituated to people such as the wolf watchers of the Lamar Valley. It was legally killed near Cooke City. Doug Smith, the senior wildlife biologist in Yellowstone, told the News&Guide he wants to adopt tactics that cause wolves to be more wary of people. Now, when he and others see wolves crossing the road, he leaves them alone. He’d like a new policy that condones hazing wolves, using either paintballs or beanbag guns. The National Park Service in 2002 looked into the issue. At that time, Smith was among those who concluded that aversive conditioning and hazing wouldn’t be effective at reversing the behavior of Yellowstone’s 100 wolves who, when they wandered outside the park, weren’t wary enough of people pointing guns, not cameras, at them. More howls about wolves in the Rocky Mountains DURANGO, Colo. — A couple of ranching organizations in Colorado were fit to be tied after a pro-wolf forum was held recently in Durango with only one speaker of a similar mindset on the program. “When it comes to wolves, if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” said Charly Minkler, who is president of the La Plata County Farm Bureau. In a lengthy letter submitted to the Durango Telegraph, the ranchers said they were clearly shunted aside at the forum sponsored by the Sierra Club and the Durango-based San Juan Citizens Alliance. Colorado is in the middle ground for wolves. Gray wolves transplanted into the Yellowstone area have been loping south. In 2004, one was hit and killed on Interstate 70 about 30 miles west of Denver. Since then, there have been frequent reports about single, male wolves. However, there has been evidence of a pack. Wolves will eat cattle. In Canada, a 2011 study conducted in southwestern Alberta – think south of Banff – found that cattle made up to 45 percent of wolves’ diets during grazing season. The study author, Mark Boyce, an ecologist at the University of Alberta, told the Canada Observer that it was important to understand the context. Ranchers in the study area will take yearlings into the backcountry, where ranchlands abut mountain wilderness, during spring and then return in October to round up the fattened herds. “Wolves just can’t resist the stupid yearlings,” Boyce told the Observer. Joe Englehart, who spoke in Durango, ranches in that part of Alberta but asserts that cattle and wolves can co-exist. He spoke at the forum in Durango. In 2016, he also spoke with the Rocky Mountain Outlook in Canmore. He said that in 2003, when he had about 2,000 cow-calf pairs and then about 600 yearlings, he began to have “quite a bit of wolf trouble.” By the next January, he’d lost upwards of 30 head. But then he made a point to understand wolves, and to keep track of where they were denning and also where they rendezvous. With that information, he was able to alter his grazing, reducing his losses to a more acceptable 4 or 5 head per year. In southwest Colorado, though, most livestock operations are much smaller, the letter from ranching organizations said, and have little capacity to absorb the costs that accompany wolves. And, of course, Yellowstone was brought up. There’s evidence that introducing wolves into Yellowstone trimmed the herds of elk, which has had good effects overall on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. But again, from the ranching community, comes a con to that argument: “Wolves didn’t heal Yellowstone, a man-made policy caused the imbalance and a policy change helped correct it.” This was an interesting news week. The Mueller investigation is plodding ahead, and we have sentencing for some of the Trump associates who have been convicted or pleaded guilty to various crimes. They are felonies, which are serious crimes, but none of the convictions is for something understandable like whacking somebody on the head in a dark alley with a lead pipe. There is a sense that Paul Manafort was flat out a Russian spy, but that’s not what he will be going to prison for. Like Al Capone, his problems are largely with his taxes. But we did get a pretty good look at all the terrible things that are coming down the pike at us. For example, all of the court filings in the Flynn, Cohen, and Manafort cases refer to Individual-1, whose name cannot be spoken. Individual-1 is a serous badass. For example, in one of the court papers, it was asserted that Individual-1 met in a bar in Florida with Lex Luthor, where they conspired to {REDACTED} {REDACTED}{REDACTED} {REDACTED}{REDACTED} {REDACTED} After that meeting, at the direction of Individual-1, The Joker then contacted Russian agents for the purpose of {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} And if that weren’t bad enough, there is clear and convincing evidence that Individual-1 in cahoots with Dumbledore {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED porn star {REDACTED} {REDACTED}{REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED} {REDACTED}. Well, that ought to keep you grinding your teeth all night. This Individual-1 is clearly a danger to the country, and must be stopped. If only there were some way figure out who Individual-1 is. The cable news folks are breathlessly reading the court documents live on TV, as they are being filed, and saying this is the beginning of the end for Individual-1. The long arm of the law is closing in, and it’s only a matter of time until his terrible misdeeds are fully known. There is clear evidence of {REDACTED}. Of course that could be anything from emailing the nuclear codes to a Nigerian Prince, or overdue parking tickets. It’s looking like Individual-1 was trying to get a loan from a sanctioned Russian bank to It also smells like bribing a foreign official, which is illegal whether you are a garden variety developer or President of the United States.” build a condo tower in Moscow. That would be illegal, unless, of course, the sanctions against the money-laundering Russian bank were lifted by somebody in power in the US. Getting permits to build a big project in Moscow is difficult. It’s not like getting a conditional use permit for a 14,000 square foot private indoor soccer field in Silver Creek. So to “expedite” the process, it’s looking like Individual-1 was willing to give the $50 million penthouse to Vladimir Putin. That would make Putin happy, and would also make it a prestigious address if you were the sort of person who wanted to live in the same building as Putin. That’s good for sales. It also smells like bribing a foreign official, which is illegal whether you are a garden variety developer or President of the United States. But to get into a position where Individual-1 could reverse the sanctions on the crooked Russian bank, build the hotel, give the $50 million penthouse to Putin, and get rich selling the condos, it would help if Individual-1 were elected President. So Russian intelligence stepped in to fill the void left by American stupidity, and we got the 2016 election. Or so it seems. But that is still supposition, because all the juicy stuff that matters is {REDACTED}. Instead, we know about Cohen’s taxi medallion business, Manafort’s $10,000 suits, and Flynn doing murky stuff that sounds a lot like being a double agent selling out the country, for which the prosecutors are recommending a punishment less severe than some kid smoking dope behind the 7-Eleven would get. It all makes perfect sense. Meanwhile, it looks like we are going to have another one of those partial government shut downs next week when the funds run out because Trump is insisting on Congress putting up billions to build the border wall (apparently the Mexican check to pay for it has been lost in the mail). Congress is balking at spending that kind of money on something that is of doubtful utility in actually accomplishing anything. Our new ambassador to the United Nations is a Fox News blonde with no foreign policy credentials. Trump denounced former Secretary of State, and former CEO of Exxon-Mobil Rex Tillerson as “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.” I wonder who hired him. You begin to think that until we can identify and remove Individual-1, we are {REDACTED}. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. sunDay in the Park By Teri Orr Inside the snow globe... My grandson no longer believes in Santa. It would be a little odd if he did. He is a 6-foot-2 human that weighs 240 pounds. His crazy blonde happy toddler curls are now cut close to his head. The cute jacket with the floppy bear ears is long gone. His pigeon-toed run has straightened out to a strong gait as a linebacker on his high school football team. The days of taking him with his cousins to “see the lights” or the Nutcracker or Santa have passed. When he is not studying or involved in a varsity sport, he has a group of friends who go to movies, have pizza nights and do other pretty normal high school stuff. And for the past few months — he has had a girlfriend. She is as short as he is tall. A smart sweet slightly sassy freshman too. He has one of those birthdays — after Thanksgiving — that starts to run into Christmas festivities. His mother does a good job of separating the events and some years the rest of us do and other years it just mushes into a combined gift. So besides a boring (for me) piece of ski gear he wanted — I was at a loss at how to do something special. I had seen photos of a giant gingerbread creation at Stein Eriksen Lodge. Since he doesn’t drive yet I suggested maybe Tyler might want to ask his girlfriend along to join us for a little drive and some holiday fancy hot chocolate. He thought that sounded kinda fun. I picked up the pair in a passoff from his parents in a grocery store parking lot in Salt Lake City. I drove up the canyon listening to their conversation about a lockout at their school the Friday before. There had been one kid — rumored to have a gun — who wanted to do harm. And the rumor expanded to include possible other students so an athletic bus en route to a meet was pulled over and the bags examined. They didn’t seem scared about the incident — they seemed trained to look at the situation and facts and move on. Being prepared and reacting to a school shooting is a part of their young lives. I remembered six years ago this week when I heard the horrif- ic news about 20 children and six adults who had been murdered on a school day at Sandy Hook Elementary School. My grandchildren were 9 and 10 and 11. And like parents and grandparents everywhere I couldn’t imagine the horror of dropping off your child or grandchild at school and never seeing them again. I had drifted in my thoughts and realized the kids’ conversation had shifted to the confession by Grace — she had never seen the Star Wars movies. They were an obsessive favorite of Tyler’s young life. The kids were light-hearted, debating movie merits as we drove up to the Lodge. And just for a few holiday winter wonderland hours we were living inside a snow globe where it was safe.” Once there — we headed up to the lobby and immediately saw the giant dragon’s head Viking ship made of gingerbread — brightly colored and smelling delicious. It was deemed “Pretty Cool.” We were seated at a table in the bar area with soft live jazz music and that spectacular view of the mountains and chair lifts. There were fires burning in all the fireplaces. It was an amazing sight — for a few minutes. But before our chocolate fondue was delivered, a very embarrassed waitress came over and said we needed to move to another table — we were seated too close to the actual bar for two guests under the age of 21. The kids were good sports as they moved us closer to the lobby and no longer with “those” views. I don’t know why we had been seated there in the first place if it was too close but I didn’t really blame our very young (new I suspect) waitress. I just found it all so sadly comical. I mean I have lived here for 40 years — I understand how quirky the laws are around alcohol in this state. But if I had been from out of state I might have been cranky. Since it would take a while for the table reset I encouraged the kids to wander the lobby. The thought that these kids — who talk about the possibility of school shootings on a daily basis in slightly world-weary practical terms could be damaged by their proximity to someone pouring a cocktail — seemed so silly. The table next to us — with two couples with heavy European accents — looked confused by our move. It did all feel like a bit of kabuki theater. When the fondue arrived the waitress went into the lobby to find the kids — they had been playing chess by the fire. The fondue lasted a long time with more conversations about their friends and their week ahead and plans for the holidays. I asked a few questions but mostly I just watched the pair enjoy the treats. We drove down to Main Street after and the lights were on full display — the Grappa grape — the Washo red. We made the stop I always make with The Grands — we stopped to wander in Dolly’s Bookstore. Grace met the cat sleeping on the books in the back of the store. Tyler found a football book he wanted. I had to convince Grace to choose a Christmas ornament. Back on the sidewalk as I unlocked the car I pretended not so see when they snuck a kiss on the snowy early evening under the lamp post. My daughter was waiting at my house and I passed off the teenagers with a giant hug from the giant human who is my grandson and a sweet thank you from sweet Grace. And just for a few holiday winter wonderland hours we were living inside a snow globe where it was safe. And that seemed like more than enough be grateful for this Sunday in the Park... Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record. She is the director of the Park City Institute, which provides programming for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. |