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Show A-12 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, June 1-4, 2019 The Park Record M OUNTAIN TOWN NEWS A Roundup of News from Other Western Ski Resort Communities ALLEN BEST Call us to find out how much money your rental property can generate Best Vacation Rental Service 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 Best Property Management Company 2018 | 2017 | 2016 435–571–0024 • parkcityvacationrentals.com Reservations@parkcityvacationrentals.com Want the results of a recent competition or updated standings? Don't worry, The Park Record always keeps score. Mountain Town News Records tumbled in winter of big snow, which lingers SALT LAKE CITY – It snowed last winter in places where it didn’t the year before, making all the difference in the world. Colorado’s San Juan Mountains were the very definition of parched last year. But the snowpack as of May 23 stood at 374% of average. In Silverton, organizers of the Hardrock 100, an endurance race at an average elevation of 11,000 feet, were hedging their bets whether the event, which is scheduled for July 19-21, will be possible. Dale Garland, run director, told the Durango that he and others are “cautiously optimistic.” The race was canceled in 1995, because of too much snow, and in 2002, because of too much smoke from the Missionary Ridge fire near Durango, about 30 miles south. This year, the road to Animas Forks, a one-time mining hamlet at tree line, was covered as of last week with 100 feet of snow. Avalanches may have torn out other sections of backcountry trail. Downstream on the Animas in New Mexico, organizers of a river festival told the Farmington Times that there might actually be too much water in the Animas River. The Gunnison River drainage also had a huge amount of snow for late May, 334% of average for May 23. At Crested Butte, this meant no driving across Kebler Pass to Paonia or Aspen. “Typically we get it open by Memorial Day weekend,” Gunnison County commissioner Jonathan Houck told the Crested Butte News. “This was not a typical winter.” Across the Elk Range at Aspen, economic records tumbled during the winter. December started slow, a hangover from last year’s drought, but then retail sales from January through March rose $15 million, a 5.9% increase from the previous year. March was a bonanza, with a total take of $ 95.8 million, a record, reported the Aspen Daily News, citing city tax auditor Anthony Lewin. This was all about the skiing economy, of course. Occupancy for the ski season was 61.7%, according to Destrimetrics, the resort reservations tracking firm. Jeff Hanle, spokesman for the Aspen Skiing Co., said snow was the major story, although inauguration of Alterra Mountain Co.’s Ikon Pass did help push numbers higher, he said. In Utah, the Ikon Pass may have had something to do with a record number of skiers, but Nathan Rafferty, who heads the state trade organization, pointed to a more certain suspect: snow. “We have a saying in the ski industry: ‘It’s the snow, stupid,’ when we all sit around and think we’re the most brilliant marketers and have got it all figured out,” Rafferty said at a press conference covered by The Park Record. Utah, through last week, had topped 5.1 million skier days, a record, and also a 24% increase over the prior, snow-short winter. In 2000-2001, just as the state was gearing up for the Olympics, it was below 3.3 million skier days. New Eagle River Park adds to Eagle’s portfolio of amenities EAGLE, Colo. – Eagle continues its transformation from a ranching center to that of an amenity-laden mountain town, this time with the addition of a river park. Residents of the town of 7,000 people, which is a half-hour down-valley from Vail, approved a half-cent sales tax for four years, long enough to raise $5.8 million. The money was used to reconfigure the Eagle River with concrete blocks, the better to raise water levels and continue the boating season for kayakers and other rivers users. Originally, points out Mayor Anne McKibbin, an archaeologist by profession, the river had meandered more leisurely. When Interstate 70 was constructed in the late 1970s, the river was pushed about 100 yards away from bluffs and toward the town, causing it to flow straighter and hence more rapidly. Water parks have become the rage in Colorado in the 21st century. Vail was among the first, creating a kayak course through the middle of the town. Breckenridge, Glenwood Springs, and perhaps two-dozen others have followed. In some instances, the new river parks reflect a new recognition of the value of the rivers, assets that were long ignored or at least relegated to industrial necessities, much like the water treatment and sewage treatment plants. In Eagle, the park takes the space that was long dedicated to parking by long-haul 18-wheel trucks. In Steamboat Springs, an eponymously named street along the Yampa River was formerly occupied by businesses, such as the local electrical co-operative, that could be lots of places. Shops and restaurants catering to the tourist trade were a block away, along Lincoln Avenue. Now, the river street is almost as lively as the main street. Several restaurants offer river-side dining. You can still see rivers ignored. One striking case is at Durango. It has a lovely river-side park favored by boaters. But downstream a mile, a giant big-box retail is built almost to the edge of the riparian area– with only the delivery doors fronting the lovely Animas River. Eagle sees this river park as a central feature for future development. The town, says McKibbin, a river rafter herself, cannot dictate what the owner of the largely undeveloped property along the south bank of the river do. But if they chose to develop, the town sees multi-family housing overlooking the river. Celebrating Eagle’s achievement was Jon Stavney, director of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments. Earlier in his career, he was a town trustee, mayor, and then town manager in Eagle during a time when Eagle was reimagining itself. “A river is a placemaking and economic development opportunity,” he observed in an op-ed published in the Vail Daily. In 2014, as Eagle began imagining the river park, he and other town leaders traveled to Salida, a high-desert town located in the shadow of 14,000-foot peaks which has had a river festival called FibArk since 1969. Some businesses have completely flipped their front doors away from F Street, the town’s main corridor, to the river and a new pedestrian corridor. In Golden, where Clear Creek emerges from the foothills into metropolitan Denver, improvements “changed an overgrown stormwater chute into a vital pedestrian corridor that enhanced and activated adjacent properties and connected disparate parts of the city,” he wrote. Steamboat bans plastic in response to student prods STEAMBOAT SPRRINGS, Colo. – Steamboat Springs has joined eight other towns and cities in Colorado, in banning single-use disposable bags. The ban that takes effect Oct. 1 will be applicable to four large stores in Steamboat, those of more than 10,000 square feet in size. The stores can provide paper bags at 20 cents a bag. Council members, reported Steamboat Today, agreed that that’s just enough to get people to start taking reusable bags. The fees collected will be used to support a new waste-diversion outreach program, but some money will also be used to give out reusable bags for free. Some property management companies already do provide the bags in units. Stores can retain 5 cents of each bag fee for their own use. The council’s action was pushed by high school students during the last year. Vail students up to task of creating teen-friendly places VAIL, Colo. – A virtual reality tour of summer in Vail for winter visitors has a prototype. As demonstrated to the town council members recently, users could mount a bicycle and, with aid of a laptop, get a virtual reality peek of riding on Vail Mountain’s trails in summer. The Vail Daily explains that the idea was among many hatched by seventh- and eighth-grade students at Vail Mountain School. They were given the challenge in a class called Design Thinking to imagine more teen-friendly spaces in Vail. Other ideas include Chess & Chill, a place where young people could do homework, buy soft drinks and snacks, but yes, practice their chess moves. Two other students concluded that many teens visiting Vail wanted to do more than shop and eat. Ergo, the idea of a padded maze in which kids could bounce off each other. Most of the ideas required space in a place where space Please see Mountain Town, A-14 S U M M E R C A M P See our Scoreboard on page B-5. JUNE 10 - AUGUST 16 ADVENTURE CAMPS SUMMER BLAST SPORTS CAMPS Join Basin Recreation for a summer of fun! Try a sport with our baseball, basketball or tennis camps. Get outside for mountain biking or a Teen Adventure Day. Take a walk on the wild side in our H20 Adventure or All Out Adventure camps. www.basinrecreation.org (435) 655-0999 |