When gasoline-inspired flames devoured the massive, splendid Two Elk restaurant atop Vail Mountain in October 1998, many people automatically blamed environmental activists. After all, a federal judge had just allowed the Vail ski area, already the nation’s largest and busiest, to expand into an area where evidence of the rare Canada lynx had been found […]
Allen Best
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
The mythic West and the billionaire
Only after looking over my shoulder as I left the Denver Art Museum did I realize the irony of the exhibit “Painters of the American West.” As usual, the blue neon Qwest signs flooded the Denver skyline. Behind both the art exhibit and Qwest, publicity-shy but firmly in charge, is Philip Anschutz, at last count […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Coyote killing continues
COLORADO On Jan. 11, the Colorado Wildlife Commission approved a nine-year, $2.6 million coyote-killing experiment in western Colorado. Some deer hunters, outfitters and sheep ranchers in the state have lobbied long and hard for coyote control, blaming the predators for a plummeting deer population. Deer have declined in Colorado for 40 years, and biologists say […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Ski area arms race dirties the water
Colorado critics say snowmaking should not be allowed
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Don’t step on a bomb
COLORADO During World War II, up to 17,000 soldiers, including the famed ski troopers of the 10th Mountain Division, trained at Camp Hale near the town of Leadville, Colo. The men learned to ski, climb rocks and bivouac in 30-below weather. David Brower, who wrote the division’s mountaineering manual, was there, as were Vail visionary […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Lawmaker accepts Babbitt’s challenge
COLORADO Western Colorado’s Black Ridge Canyon has the largest array of sandstone arches outside of Utah, second only to Arches National Park. What it lacks is over-arching protection. That may soon change. Republican Rep. Scott McInnis, from nearby Grand Junction, is proposing to make the 130,000-acre Black Ridge Canyon a national conservation area, with 72,000 […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
Turning the road builders around
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Roads are at the heart of the dispute on the White River National Forest. Gold miners around Breckenridge and silver miners around Aspen built the first roads, while livestock grazers improved Ute Indian trails for stock drives. Later yet came roads for power lines, […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
In their own words
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “It’s really a pivotal moment. The battle lines have been drawn. We’re pointing our fingers, but we’re pointing them pretty much at ourselves. We’re saying that we have to start exercising restraint in when and where we choose to recreate. A lot of people […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
‘They’re not good stewards of the land’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Gonzales lives in Minturn, Colo., and grew up hunting elk, deer and grouse with his father, who mined zinc and lead at the now-defunct Eagle Mine, near Vail. He prowled the backcountry roads in a four-wheel drive until two decades ago, when a […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
‘Managing for biodiversity is a mistake’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Lou Dawson, a guidebook writer in Carbondale, Colo., was the first person to ski down Colorado’s 54 “fourteeners.” He also hunts, jeeps, snowmobiles and once started an avalanche while downhill skiing out of bounds at Aspen Highlands, suffering an injury that still nags him: […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
The White River National Forest
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The White River National Forest is the very prototype of a New West forest. The Forest Service estimates that 34,000 people make their living from the forest, though that far underestimates its value. The forest is a huge backyard for those who live along […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
No luck for this lynx
On the morning of June 19, a truck driver hauling road base to the Vail ski expansion reported he had seen what he believed was a squashed Canada lynx on Vail Pass. He had. A radio collar revealed it was a small, two-year-old female, trapped in British Columbia in December and released into Colorado’s San […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Protests proceed at Vail
The White River National Forest near Vail, Colo., was a busy place on the morning of July 1. After a springtime break for the elk calving season, work was scheduled to begin anew on the controversial expansion of the Vail ski area, which will increase the size of North America’s largest ski area by 25 […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Wilderness developer Tom Chapman is back
VAIL, Colo. – One of Colorado’s best-known real estate speculators is back, but some say the deals he’s offering ought to be turned down. Tom Chapman has a history of buying private land in wilderness areas, threatening to build mansions, and then goading the U.S. Forest Service into buying him out or trading him valuable […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Lynx reintroduction links unexpected allies
SOUTH FORK, Colo. – “They’re back!” yelled wildlife biologist Gene Byrne in February, as a lanky-legged lynx, trapped in Canada, bounded from a cage in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. “They never left,” another Colorado Division of Wildlife officer, Bill Andree, said quietly. That exchange was symbolic of the lynx’s return to the Southern Rockies this […]
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Note: three sidebar articles accompany this feature story: a variety of concerned Coloradans speak out in their own words about Vail, “Anger on the web,” and an index of interesting facts about Vail and other Colorado ski areas. VAIL, Colo. – Diane Gansauer was on a future-of-skiing panel for activists a year ago when she […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Vail fires outrage community
VAIL, Colo. – Vail Resorts has never enjoyed so much support. The early-morning fires that destroyed cafeterias and other ski facilities atop Vail Mountain, causing $12 million in damage, have transformed the nation’s largest ski area into a victim. The Earth Liberation Front – Internet sites identify it as a splinter group of Earth First! […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
Looking for the missing lynx
EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. – Already the nation’s largest ski area, Vail may soon be even bigger. In September, the U.S. Forest Service approved a 4,000-acre expansion that has been in the works for a decade. If the decision holds and Eagle County approves the expansion, the resort will clear over 800 acres of new runs, […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Proposed ski resort does a face plant
After a 25-year battle, opponents of a proposed ski resort in Eagle County, Colo., have reason to celebrate. The brainchild of developer Fred Kummer, Adam’s Rib ski resort was slated for Forest Service land halfway between Vail and Aspen (HCN, 2/19/96). But after a two-year review, the agency frowned on Kummer’s plans for condos, restaurants […]