“I was just so grateful to be out there, where I was and doing what I was doing”

[ by Than Acuff ]

As the reigning World Cup halfpipe skiing champion and the first athlete, skier or snowboarder, to ever land a switch dub cork 1440, Aaron Blunck was poised to keep his momentum going into the 2021 season.

“Things were looking good, I was feeling good and ready for the season,” says Blunck.
Then on October 13 Blunck’s halfpipe ski season looked to be over when he crashed during a training run at a U.S. Ski Team camp in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

“I had landed the switch dub cork 1440 once but was over there trying to perfect it,” says Blunck.
In one of those attempts to perfect it, Blunck crashed into the edge of the halfpipe and crumpled to the bottom with a lacerated kidney, broken pelvis, six broken ribs, a bruised heart and a bruised lung. And, for all intents and purposes, it was the end of his 2021 season.

“It was, without a doubt, the worst crash of my life,” says Blunck. “I was told that with the kidney injury, most people are bedridden for six months.”

Remarkably, after just four months, Blunck stepped up on the X Games podium in Aspen on Friday, January 30 to receive the silver medal.

His initial intention following the crash in Switzerland was to simply get back on skis by March and focus his efforts on a complete recovery for the long term.

“I just had this motivation that I had to come back from this,” explains Blunck. “Not necessarily to compete but to get back so I can have a life when I am older.”

Two months later the doctor monitoring his kidney injury cleared him to ski. He followed that up with a check-up from Dr. Griggs in Crested Butte and Griggs gave him the framework to return to action starting with visualizing the first step of getting into the gym and then going from there. One thing led to another and Blunck was back on his skis on Christmas Day.

“That was the greatest Christmas present I could have asked for,” says Blunck.

He then decided the comeback was on and committed to getting in shape and getting back into the halfpipe. Still, it wasn’t until a U.S. Ski Team camp at Copper Mountain a week before the X Games that he knew for sure.

“I thought that if I don’t feel good at the camp, I can’t do X Games,” says Blunck. “I didn’t want to take a spot from some kid that had been training hard for the past eight months. But I got to Copper and I started feeling good.”

The decision was made and Blunck was set to compete in the X Games. Yet, expectations and goals remained somewhat muted for an athlete that would typically be headed to Aspen with X Games gold on his mind.

“I felt I could probably put myself into that competitive mindset again,” says Blunck.
The X Games started as a cathartic experience for Blunck as he took the time to appreciate exactly what was going on around him.

“I was just so grateful to be out there, where I was and doing what I was doing,” says Blunck.
He landed the first two of his four runs and remained cognizant of the significance of the moment.

“I didn’t care what the result was, I was just so happy to land my first and second run,” says Blunck.

He admits he was a little over-zealous on his third run but when he slipped into the start for his fourth and final run, a friend said, “you got this, you’re back.”

Blunck carried that energy into the halfpipe and finished off the same run that won him the Grand Prix at Mammoth Mountain last year to push into second place where he remained to take home the silver medal.

“I just felt so with it at that moment skiing and I couldn’t believe what I had just done,” says Blunck. “To come back from my worst injury ever to being back where I left off.”

Unfortunately for Blunck, while he is near 100-percent, the halfpipe competition season and the 2022 Winter Olympic Games qualifiers remain in the air.

“Right now, everything is either postponed or cancelled,” says Blunck. “We just have to sit and wait and see what the rest of the year looks like.”

In the meantime, bags and skis are packed and Blunck is bound for Taos, New Mexico this week.
“I’m going storm chasing,” says Blunck.

Bipartisan compromise a selling point

[ by Mark Reaman ]

Optimism reigned Tuesday afternoon as local and national politicians expressed confidence over a Zoom call that the CORE (Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy) Act will make it into law this year. U.S. senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper along with Congressman Joe Neguse, introduced the public lands protection legislation that has ties to Gunnison County and would impact both Curecanti and Thompson Divide into both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Bennet, Hickenlooper and Neguse, along with county commissioners from impacted counties, including Gunnison County commissioner Jonathan Houck, all emphasized the local and bipartisan efforts involved in crafting the bill that will protect more than 400,000 acres of public land.

“This is one of the most meaningful pieces of legislation I’ve worked on while in the senate,” said Bennet. “Republicans and Democrats worked together on the ground to figure out compromise. This was a bill written by Colorado, not Washington and it is the most significant public lands bill for Colorado in over a quarter century.”

“It is so important that local communities made this push,” added Hickenlooper. “It is breathtaking that so many county commissioners worked on and supported this whether they were Democrats or Republicans.”

Neguse noted that the legislation would boost the state’s recreational economy and he said it is clear that it came about as the result of careful collaboration between a variety of groups that worked on it for more than a decade.

“Gunnison County is so lucky to have been in the middle of the conversations that started with local communities,” said Houck. “Both Thompson Divide and Curecanti are important to the county as is all public land. Clean air and clean water is protected in part from protecting public lands and Coloradans have always been good public stewards of these lands. We are grateful to have been a part of this team.”

Overall the legislation protects more than 400,000 acres of public land in Colorado, establishing new wilderness areas and safeguarding existing outdoor recreation opportunities to boost the economy for future generations. Approximately 200,000 acres between the Roaring Fork and North Fork valleys will be protected from the impacts of new oil and gas leasing with Thompson Divide. Local governments, ranchers, recreationalists, and business owners have been requesting this permanent withdrawal for over a decade. It would also establish the boundary around the 43,000-acre Curecanti National Recreation Area, formally making it an official unit of the National Park System. The area was established in 1965, but has never been designated by Congress.

Hickenlooper was this week appointed to the senate’s Energy and Natural Resources committee and that should help him to shepherd the legislation through the committee and Senate. “It will take a lot of work to get it done but it means a lot to have the support of people from both political parties,” he said. “It is a beautiful bill and the sooner it is passed, the better.”

Bennet admitted that given inherent dysfunction in the senate, it might be tougher than it needs to be to push it along. “But the great strength of the bill is that it has bipartisan support across the Western Slope.”

Houck said bundling separate pieces of legislation into this CORE Act should help make it more attractive to the legislators in Washington. “These lands belong not to us living nearby but to all the American people,” he said. “We have seen increasing use of public lands by the public not just as a result of the coronavirus but before that. These landscapes are meaningful to people.”
Bennet admitted that given inherent dysfunction in the senate, it might be tougher than it needs to be to push it along. “But the great strength of the bill is that it has bipartisan support across the Western Slope.”

Of the total land protected, about 73,000 acres are new wilderness areas, and nearly 80,000 acres are new recreation and conservation management areas that preserve existing outdoor uses, such as hiking and mountain biking. The bill also includes a first-of-its-kind National Historic Landscape at Camp Hale to honor Colorado’s military legacy and prohibits new oil and gas development in areas important to ranchers and sportsmen.

The CORE Act unites and improves four previously introduced bills: the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness, and Camp Hale Legacy Act; the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act; the Thompson Divide Withdrawal and Protection Act; and the Curecanti National Recreation Area Boundary Establishment Act.

USFS provided a letter of support for coal company; conservationists request expedited emergency motion

By Katherine Nettles

An ongoing dispute over road construction and coal mine expansion in areas of the Gunnison National Forest has taken a turn favoring the coal mine’s interests, at least temporarily.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) modified a cessation order last week to allow the West Elk Coal Mine to resume bulldozing the forest and constructing and expanding drill pads within the Sunset Roadless area.

In June, Mountain Coal Company cleared a nearly mile-long road through aspen groves and scraped two one-acre drilling pads to expand the mine. The state (DRMS) ordered the company to stop the work on June 17 after determining that the mine had not maintained its legal right to enter the Sunset Roadless Area.

The case between Mountain Coal Company and Gunnison County-based High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA) is still awaiting its day in federal court, but in the meantime DRMS modified its cessation order on September 17, to allow the coal mine to continue its development there.

HCCA responded the next day, September 18, by filing a motion for expedited consideration of their emergency motion urging a federal court to halt further construction in the Roadless area permanently and requiring the coal mine to mitigate the environmental impacts of its efforts. That motion is still pending.

The area in question is part of the Gunnison National Forest within the North Fork of the Gunnison River watershed, in northwest Gunnison County. The Forest Service adopted the Colorado Roadless Rule in 2012, prohibiting road construction in designated areas, but granted an exception for the coal mining area development known as the “North Fork Exception.”

HCCA, together with WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Wilderness Workshop, filed a lawsuit in 2014 to protest the move, beginning several years of legal actions and alleging that the “North Fork Exception” was unlawful to begin with.

In 2017 the conservation groups again sued Mountain Coal Company for “illegal bulldozing and carving out drill pads” within the Sunset Roadless Area. In March 2020 the U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruled in favor of HCCA, maintaining that the U.S. Forest Service broke the law by opening thousands of acres of roadless forest in Gunnison County to future coal mining. However, Mountain Coal Company continued its development there this summer.

The Forest Service was informed of Mountain Coal’s plans and did not protest. “Satellite photos show that the coal company continued scraping and widening two drill pads even after the district court in June formalized the circuit court’s order. Construction was finally halted when the state issued a cessation order June 17, banning Mountain Coal from any surface-disturbing activities in the Roadless forest associated with the mine expansion,” according to HCCA.

DRMS cited in its modified cessation order a letter from the U.S. Forest Service stating that the coal mine’s actions were permitted on the federal lands.

In a press release from HCCA, the conservation group stated that this action from DRMS “likely means construction work can resume, despite a March court order banning road building in the Sunset Roadless area.”

“The unfortunate decision by the state effectively sanctions illegal road-building and bulldozing in some of the wildest public lands in Colorado,” said Matt Reed, public lands director for HCCA. “I am extremely concerned that it gives the green light to Mountain Coal Company and other polluters to ignore the law with impunity.”

“The modified order is based on a U.S. Forest Service letter saying Mountain Coal had a legal right of entry when it bulldozed the road and constructed two drill pads. That’s despite the March order from the U.S. Court of Appeals that banned road building. The state’s order allows Mountain Coal to use the illegal road and drill pads and bulldoze more drill pads from this road,” continues the HCCA press release.

“It’s outrageous that Colorado caved to the Forest Service’s endorsement of Mountain Coal’s sneaky, illegal bulldozing operation,” said Allison Melton, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The company ignored court orders, decimated a Roadless forest and then twisted the truth to justify it. Now the Forest Service and the state are rewarding this bad behavior and helping to destroy pristine national forest.”

The appeals court ruling that the Forest Service broke the law in approving the “North Fork Exception” sent the case back to the U.S. District Court with instructions to end the coal mine exception, which also means ending road construction, as HCCA noted.

Conservation groups are asking for expedited ruling on their emergency motion that was filed in the U.S. District Court in Denver to enforce the earlier ruling that banned construction.

“It’s beyond disappointing that Colorado is letting the coal industry run roughshod over the state’s treasured public lands,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “They’re rewarding a rogue coal company by sacrificing the state’s backcountry.”

Located in the West Elk Mountains between the towns of Paonia and Crested Butte, the West Elk mine is one of the largest coal mines in Colorado.

The Colorado Roadless rule protects more than four million acres of Roadless forests in Colorado from most road construction and commercial logging.

And as for voting by mail, “We have it down”

By Katherine Nettles

In less than a month, orange-striped ballots will be on their way to more than 11,000 registered voters in Gunnison County for the general election on November 3. Election officials are calling it “Election Week” rather than “Election Day” this time around, to reflect the process of casting ballots well in advance of the November deadline. And voter numbers are projected to be record-breaking this year.

As many states are preparing to count mail ballots for the first time on a large scale for a general election, Colorado is preparing to do it for the second time, having enacted mail-in voting for all registered voters in 2013. Gunnison County election officials say they—and Colorado in general—are ready and well versed at the process. What they aren’t ready for is a lot of foot traffic on Election Day, however. So vote early, and vote by mail or ballot drop box, said Gunnison County elections director Diane Folowell.

Ballots will be mailed out of Denver on Friday, October 9, said Folowell. So people can expect to have them by Tuesday, October 13 or Wednesday, October 14 following Columbus Day.

The initial ballot mail-out for Gunnison County will contain 11,525 ballots. “We will continue to mail after that,” said Folowell, as new registrations come in on a daily basis.

“If you wait to vote in person on November 3, you will be waiting in a line,” said Folowell. As she has done for years, Folowell encourages people to cast ballots well in advance to avoid delays and now, to stay safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are preparing for a total of between 14,000 and 15,000 voters,” she said. That is up from 10,500 ballots counted in the last general election in 2016.

The local elections division is hiring 25 to 35 additional temporary staff to prepare for the task.

As for the increase, county clerk and recorder Kathy Simillion notes, the county population has grown, and it is a time of high energy in the electorate.

“I think the county has grown substantially in the number of voters, and it is the political climate,” agreed Folowell. “This is an off-the-charts election.”

There are commissioner races in Districts 1 and 2; regional measures; state measures and of course the national races.

Voter registration

People can register to vote or change their address up until 7 p.m. on November 3, but after October 26 ballots will not be mailed out and anyone who registers will have to vote in person. To check your voter registration status, register to vote or change your address, visit www.govotecolorado.gov, visit the Gunnison County elections office in the Blackstock Government Building in Gunnison or call the local election division at (970) 641-7927.

If you have recently moved or changed your post office box number, ballots cannot be forwarded to new addresses or post office boxes and voter registration information must be updated. The Gunnison County Motor Vehicle Office now automatically registers all people renewing or obtaining a driver’s license as well, unless they opt out.

The deadline to register online to vote is Monday, October 26. If you miss this deadline, you will not receive a ballot by mail, but you can still vote in person at a voter service and polling center.

Voter safety and ballot security

Folowell said she has no concerns about voter security or post office delays. Her office receives daily updates from Donna Walker, the Colorado/Wyoming political/election coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service, regarding any issues nationwide that the USPS is facing.

“We get totally current updates from her… and I can tell you there is not any reason, as far as we’re concerned, for voters to be concerned about the postal service. I believe that a lot of that [national concern] was false information, from all kinds of sources. We have not seen any interruption of mail,” said Folowell.

She also says there have been no ballot boxes removed within the county, and the ballot scanners all belong to the county and are all intact.

“No part of our voting equipment or counting equipment or tabulating equipment is connected in any way to the internet,” said Simillion.

“The state of Colorado has the highest security practices in place of anywhere in the United States,” adds Folowell.

Folowell says those who are concerned about national questions of election security and mail-in voting should simply use the ballot boxes located throughout the county. “Once they do receive their ballot, people can avoid using the mail service by just placing it in one of our 24-hour secure drop boxes,” she advises. “It’s easier on the voter, and keeping them safe health-wise. I think it’s a win-win for the voter.”

The ballot drop boxes are under constant video surveillance, and will be available for 15 days prior to Election Day.

In Crested Butte there is a ballot box at Crank’s Plaza near Town Hall and at the Parish Hall; in Gunnison there are two at the Blackstock building; and at Western Colorado University (WCU) there is one on the south lawn behind the Student Services building.

There will be in-person voting available in Crested Butte at the Queen of All Saints Parish Hall (limit two people at a time) for the four days leading up to Election Day, at WCU for two days leading up to Election Day and outside only in Gunnison at the Blackstock building. “We can’t speak for other states and what they are going through becoming a mail-ballot state, but Colorado’s got this down,” said Simillion.

“We have it down,” echoed Folowell of the local ballot processing methods. “We are a model for other states regarding accuracy and transparency.”

She recognizes that it may be a rough election for other states new to the mail-in process. “We have a lot of different things that are affecting that. We have a lot of angry people. We have a lot of passionate people and it’s coming out in different ways. We have the pandemic, which is creating some of all that, and it all ties together and it’s a huge election. It’s an epic election.”

Folowell’s advice: “When you get your blue book in the mail from the legislative council in Denver, sit down with a cup of coffee, go through it. That’s what my husband and I do. And then vote your ballot and drop it off.”

“And we want to remind people that there will be a back side to this ballot, so make sure to look at that and fill it out too. We don’t want people to miss any part of this ballot,” said Simillion.

The future of carbon and climate modeling

by Allen Best

Last week Part 1 looked at John Harte’s experiment, started in Gothic in 1991, to study global warming. This week we relay what has evolved from that first project.

This article is from Big Pivots, an e-magazine focused on climate change, energy and water in Colorado. For a free e-mail subscription, go to BigPivots.com.

Scientist John Harte was and remains friends with Tim Wirth. They both were, and still are, part-time residents of Crested Butte. Harte says his friendship with Wirth was only incidental as he worked out the design for Warming Meadows in 1988, even as Wirth was busy in Washington, D.C. trying to draw national attention to the threat of global warming.

In his role as a U.S. senator from Colorado, Wirth helped with the staging of testimony in June 1988 by James Hansen from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. With sweat dripping from his brow, Hansen said there was a “high degree of confidence that greenhouse gas emissions and global warming were incontrovertibly related. “It is already happening now,” he said.

Hansen’s testimony was the No. 2 story in the New York Times the next day. The lead story was that a new law had failed to stem the flow of immigrants from Mexico.

People in Colorado mountain towns that summer took note of Hansen’s testimony, because it was a hot summer, by mountain standards. Yet the threat of global warming, like Washington, D.C., still seemed distant.

The threat of warming is less distant now, if overshadowed for much of this year by concerns that a stray cough from an unmasked stranger could send you to the hospital—that is, until the wildfires arrived with their suggestion that this will become the new normal.

But for places like Crested Butte, there’s good reason to wonder whether tourism, like the mining that preceded it, will in time wane. Since the 1990s, Crested Butte’s summer tourism has bustled with greater liveliness than its ski economy. It self-promotes, not without good cause, as the Wildflower Capitol of Colorado. One of its signature pre-COVID events was a wildflower festival.

Can sagebrush ecosystems be celebrated as readily? Today, as you drive the 29 miles down valley along the East River to Gunnison, dropping 500 feet in elevation, the montane ecosystem gives away to high desert. The annual precipitation decreases by more than half. Where Crested Butte is surrounded by wildflowers, Gunnison is in a sea of sagebrush. That is likely Crested Butte’s future.

The subterranean dance

But as much as Harte hoped to predict above-ground impacts, he was just as attentive to what was happening underground.

“Climate change can alter the quantities of carbon sequestered in plants and soil, resulting in feedbacks that either enhance or retard the anthropogenic buildup of atmosphere carbon dioxide,” Harte explains in Ecosystem Consequences of Soil Warming.

“Such feedbacks are especially likely in montane and high-latitude ecosystems where soils are carbon rich, vegetation is sensitive to climate variables, such as snowmelt date and length of growing season, and climate change is expected to be large due to snow albedo feedback.”

From 1991 forward, he was trying to discern the implications for atmospheric carbon in this dance with the subterranean. For 28 consecutive years, twice each summer, Harte took four soil carbon measurements in each of the five heated and each of the five control plots, resulting in a unique and accurate record of changes in soil carbon.

The measurements were to depths of 10 cm. and occasionally to 25 cm. Those areas nearest the surface have the most carbon, he points out.

“We found a 25 percent loss of soil carbon going to the atmosphere as CO2, which, on a large spatial scale, would translate to a huge incremental warming,” he says.

Harte hoped for a still-longer run at Gothic with Warming Meadows. Continued warming until 2050 could, he pointed out, predict climate effects in that ecosystem to the end of the century. But the costs, if not staggering at about $15,000 a year, including $6,000 for electricity (produced mostly at coal-burning power plants), persuaded funders it was time to move on.

“It led the way for a type of research that is now very common,” says Ian Billick, director of RMBL who first arrived in Gothic as an undergraduate student in 1988. The experiment cannot perfectly foretell the effects of warming on other regions, says Billick, but the intense study can “provide insights, even if not perfectly, that help us think about the entire world.”

By way of example, Billick points to work on human diseases that often start with fruit flies or mice. “Not because they are perfect models for humans, but because they are way easier and cheaper to start with. We can’t study everything about everywhere, so places like Gothic serve as starting points that serve as a model for understanding all of the Earth’s ecosystems,” he says.

Seeking mountain patterns

Six years ago, a new effort was launched in the hopes of finding patterns in mountainous places across the world, to better detect general trends in the effects of warming on species loss on diversity and ecosystem function. It’s called WaRM, which stands for Warming and (species) Removal in Mountains (some acronyms come easier than others).

Among the 11 cold-weather sites in the WaRM network around the globe is Kluane Lake in the Yukon Territory. The chief investigator at that site, Jennie R. McLaren, who teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso, observes on her website that woody shrubs are replacing grasses in both tundra ecosystems and the Chihuahua Desert where she lives.

In July 2019, after the power was cut off to the warmed meadows, a small backhoe trundled up the trail to excavate narrow pits 1.5 meters deep. Several dozen scientists then gathered for a month to collect samples of 30 to 40 plant species and 30,000 or so microorganisms.

“Essentially we had to destroy the [Warming Meadows plots], but it’s really important because half the carbon is stored below 20 cm,” explained Stephanie Kivlin a month later.

“Putting this all together will be really interesting, but this will take time,” said Kivlin, who teaches at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville.

The core question motivating these pits was whether the soil carbon at this greater depth responded differently from that closer to the surface. Sensors had all along kept track of heat and moisture relatively close to the surface.

A secondary and related question is whether rising temperatures above ground alter interaction among the species living underground.

Better climate models

Researchers hope this second phase of Warming Meadows, the underground work, may yield a high-profile paper, perhaps in Science, the prestigious journal. The goal, says Kivlin, is to “understand how ecosystems are going to respond to warming. That includes plants above ground, plants below ground, and all the carbon and nutrients and microorganisms, including the carbon that plants are picking up from the atmosphere and putting into their roots. We want to understand how the entire ecosystem responds.”

Another researcher, Aimée T. Classen, also traveled to Gothic to study the link between soil and climate change. “I have always had an interest in soil, and it turns out that soil harbors a lot of carbon,” she says. “It harbors more than the atmosphere or the terrestrial biosphere.”

Classen taught middle school for three years awhile working weekends in a soil laboratory before returning as a student to earn a Ph.D. “It was such a neat mashup of ecology and chemistry,” she says. Unlike the layperson, she understands something about “all these crazy microorganisms” that are part of the web of life. Now directing the Aiken Forest Science Laboratory at the University of Vermont, she wonders about things about which most of us have absolutely no notion. For example, how will those tens of thousands of microorganisms in the soil react to warming temperatures? And do the microorganisms absorb the atmospheric carbon through the roots of plants? Or will they emit more carbon themselves? “I spend all my time thinking about this,” she says.

This post-Warming Meadows study, Classen says, will almost certainly be used to build better climate-change models. Billick, the RMBL director, agrees. “This will be the first good estimate of deep soil carbon response to warming,” he says.

So, as you take your next hike out into the backcountry, consider that what lies underfoot may be just as interesting and important as what you see above ground. As for those wildflowers, try to image sagebrush as being just as beautiful. Not the easiest thing to do, but try.

Working with the Forest Service

by Cayla Vidmar

With wildfire season fast approaching, Vail Resorts is preparing for the approval of the revised Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) vegetation management plan, which will help abate wildfire danger on the slopes. The plan is separate from a larger sustainability and environmental plan the company is bringing to Crested Butte.

From early summer 2019 through the beginning of 2020, Australia took center stage when bushfires destroyed around 40 million acres, according to the Weather Channel, including infrastructure at Selwyn Mountain Resort in the Snowy Mountains, located about seven hours south of Sydney. Areas that sit in the wildland-urban interface, such as ski resorts, are particularly at risk for wildfires, making the revision of the outdated vegetation management plan at CBMR increasingly important.

According to Will Shoemaker, senior communications specialist with CBMR, the resort “has produced a revised vegetation management plan with assistance from Western Colorado University Master in Environmental Management students,” that, he says, replaces the “former, decades-old” document.

This management plan was approved in May by the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests (GMUG), and does address wildfires, says Shoemaker. “Specifically, it looks at what is most at risk based on density and age of trees,” he explained.

The plan would involve “glading in certain areas, closing some tree islands, monitoring for bark beetles and forest health, removal of infected trees, noxious weed spraying and replanting/reseeding.”

Shoemaker also noted that dead and downed trees are “regularly removed to reduce the risk of wildfire, and when fire restrictions are in effect locally, we change certain protocols.”

During certain weather events such as a red flag warning, Shoemaker explained, “Mountain Operations prohibits any open flame or welding on both public and private lands on which CBMR operates,” a measure, he notes, that is typically above and beyond requirements imposed by local jurisdictions or land managers. Red flag warnings, as described by the National Weather Service, are weather events during which high temperatures, very low humidity and high winds combine to produce circumstances of increased fire danger. In Gunnison County, a red flag warning mandates no open burning, such as campfires or for weed control.

Updating the vegetation management plan was a priority for CBMR prior to the Vail Resorts acquisition. “The U.S. Forest Service and CBMR rely on a strong partnership to be out front of the ever-changing natural environment,” says Shoemaker.

“CBMR is pretty well-off overall based on the mountain’s location and terrain,” according to Shoemaker, noting that the resort is surrounded on three sides by river valleys, and the forest on the mountain is broken up by ski runs.

With the acquisition of CBMR, the Vail Resorts vegetation management plan is one piece of Vail’s larger climate initiative, most notably its zero emissions by 2030 commitment. The Plum Creek Wind Project will be a large factor in achieving this goal, and is set to come online this year. The project will “address almost 100 percent of [Vail Resorts’] North American electricity use by bringing new energy to the grid,” the energy equivalent, Shoemaker notes, of powering 30,000 homes.

Other aspects of the company’s sustainability and environmental initiatives are already under way at CBMR, including the planting of 600 trees in the Double Top Glades in the East River zone, as previously reported in the Crested Butte News.

“Undermines years of collaboration…”

By Katherine Nettles

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its final decision on the Uncompahgre Field Office Resource Management Plan (RMP) on April 10, after a decade-long process of input from local government, the public and from state and federal leaders. But many of those involved in the long process are not pleased with the outcome.

While the BLM made some changes from its proposal phase to address concerns from the governor, the final decision is receiving significant pushback from environmental advocacy groups and from U.S. Senator Michael Bennet for opening up a majority of BLM public lands to potential extractive industries. These lands include the North Fork Valley, west of Kebler Pass and home to extensive agricultural production on Colorado’s Western Slope.

The RMP will provide guidance for the agency’s future. It applies to the management of approximately 675,800 acres of BLM-administered public lands and 971,220 acres of federal mineral estate across Gunnison, Montrose, Ouray, Mesa, Delta and San Miguel Counties. The April 10 record of decision describes how the BLM reviewed and dismissed 86 protest letters last year (including one from Gunnison County) for its proposed planning decisions.

“The BLM director denied the protests, and that decision is the final decision of the U.S. Department of the Interior,” says BLM Colorado State director Jamie Connell in an open letter to the public attached to the document.

The BLM did add some new stipulations for fluid mineral leasing based on concerns submitted by the governor’s office last year. The stipulation requires developing a mitigation plan in coordination with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), “to demonstrate that the overall function and suitability of big game winter range, migration and production areas will not be impaired.” It also stipulates that, regarding Gunnison sage grouse, CPW must be consulted on any proposed modifications to the birds’ habitat.

Matt Reed, public lands director of High Country Conservation Advocates, said this final decision is a “worst case scenario,” that could open up 95 percent of public lands in the area to oil and gas development and disregards the local input, to which the federal administration had promised it was committed.

“This plan really goes against everything that the North Fork Valley has asked for,” said Reed. “That’s troubling for a number of reasons. It compromises the integrity of the food systems. It also exposes front and center the hypocrisy of the Trump Administration. You hear this mantra of local control, echoed in moving the BLM headquarters to Colorado. Then you have this local initiative on how to balance the needs of local stakeholders and environment, and when a local initiative doesn’t line up with his interests the community overwhelmingly was ignored. It is totally unreflective of the best interests and desires of the community.”

Reed emphasized the ways the North Fork Valley is connected to Gunnison County, both geographically and culturally. “The North Fork watershed supports Crested Butte and Gunnison County for a number of reasons. Even though it’s a different watershed, that watershed is critically important.”

HCCA and the Crested Butte Farmers Market conducted a survey in 2018 that showed about 75 percent of the weekly farmers market products are sourced from the North Fork Valley, including wine, meat, dairy and produce.

“Our two valleys are increasingly connected. So many people from Crested Butte and Gunnison hunt and fish there, take trips to go to the farms and the wineries, and they come here to recreate. This relationship between these two valleys is important. So much opportunity for a sustainable future is being ignored. It’s not a reflection of the two communities that have a stake in this,” said Reed.

Representatives from the North Fork Valley Organic Growers Association (VOGA) visited Gunnison County commissioners in February to discuss the region’s economic ties to Gunnison County and urging continued advocacy to protect the North Fork watershed from oil and gas development.

The Western Slope Conservation Center, which worked on the North Fork Alternative Plan and included VOGA, released a response to the final BLM decision on Friday afternoon.

The response read, in part, “The most disappointing aspect of the final plan is that it undermines years of collaboration and local engagement, completely disregarding a community crafted plan for the North Fork Valley. In 2014, a diverse group of North Fork stakeholders, including agricultural, tourism, realty, business and conservation organizations, came together and developed a ‘community alternative’—essentially a locally grown vision and set of guidelines—for oil and gas management in the area … The balanced proposal would allow for the consideration of regulated energy development on up to 25 percent of the area’s federal lands with additional protections for lands important to hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation activities. The agency’s final plan ignores this community proposal, and in turn, dismisses the community’s own vision for a sustainable future and diverse economy.”

Reed says the question now is litigation. “I don’t have any details on that. But this is the end of the administrative process for this. So that is a consideration,” he said.

Senator Michael Bennet also released a press release stating his objections to the BLM decision. “Rather than do the hard work to build consensus and balance interests, the Trump Administration’s energy dominance agenda in Washington overruled the concerns of Colorado counties. While this is a disappointing outcome, I will continue to work with the community on a path forward.”

It is not certain whether demand for oil and gas development will warrant any production in these areas. “Demand fluctuates,” said Reed. “But this plan allows a placeholder for it and encourages development, should that be economically desirable by the oil and gas industry. It created the idea that would be the primary focus of these BLM lands…. This strips away all the conservation, such as the alternative that would have created 177,000 acres of ecological emphasis areas, and that’s totally abandoned. Again, nothing surprises me in this administration but the degree of hypocrisy and ignoring community will is something I don’t understand.”

Reed concluded, “Because this plan will potentially be in place for decades, you can see a scenario where a lot of this area is developed for oil and gas. But we will be diligent in battling and fighting for this. It’s not like nothing can be done from here on out, but it’s certainly a rotten foundation.”

HCCA is also focusing on other planning processes under way, like the U.S. Forest Service planning for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre & Gunnison National Forests. Reed says he is optimistic that there is potential for more local input there, “so we don’t necessarily have an entire landscape saturated with this energy-first plan.”

“Those European kids are massive”

by Than Acuff

Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) u16 alpine ski racer Asher Weinberg lit up the alpine race scene last year as a first-year u16 racer, finishing the year ranked second in the downhill and fifth in the super giant slalom.

This year, as a second-year u16 athlete, he took it one step further as he won a giant slalom race at Winter Park in December to qualify as the lone male racer from the Rocky/Central Division, and one of six total young men and women from the United States, for a series of training and racing at Baqueira-Beret in northern Spain against the top u16 racers from six European countries in February.

“It’s the highest level of u16 racing you can compete in,” says Weinberg.

“Immersing our young athletes into the European experience of ski racing is a key component in elevating their approach to the sport,” adds Kristina Revello, Rocky/Central Regional development coach for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team. “The level of competition feels more intense and for each of our top-ranked athletes—there are 10 to 20 more at each race in Europe, for example. When you go to a ski race in Europe, the energy is palpable at every level and it’s exciting to be around.”

Weinberg headed to Spain February 3 and spent a week of training prior to the races with a revolving door of coaches. Revello traveled and coached the six alpine skiers along with a Slovenian coach, U.S. Ski and Snowboard head development director Chip Knight and even a Spanish ski tech.

“We had four days of training where we were able to ski on the venue in Baqueira-Beret and had training in both SG and GS. [Weinberg] was able to make small adjustments in his skiing that helped him on race day, points that he can take home to work on over the summer and into next season,” says Revello.

“I got a lot of different coaching and different feedback, which was super cool,” adds Weinberg.

Once he hit the snow, Weinberg already got a sense that things were different when it comes to racing in Europe. And he also soon realized that a u16 European racer is much different from a U.S. u16 alpine ski racer.

“Everything is so much more high intensity than in the U.S.,” says Weinberg. “Those European kids are massive, five foot ten inches and taller, super strong and super intimidating. They’re in the start gate and just yelling.”

Despite the late dinner hours, the town shutting down at 1:30 p.m. for nap time and the massive size of his opponents, Weinberg slid into the start gate focused on the course below him. His top result, and the top result among all U.S. skiers, came in the super-G, where he placed sixth. He suffered a hiccup in his two giant slalom races heading into the flats to finish 28th overall. Then the dual slalom was a bit tougher as the speed disciplines are more his strength.

“I went against this big Slovenian kid and I’m thinking halfway down I’m doing pretty good,” explains Weinberg. “Then I looked over and he was like three gates ahead of me. I got my ass kicked but it was still super cool.”

“Asher seemed to have an incredible experience and it was great to see him soaking up the entire atmosphere,” says Revello. “His mindset was great—super positive and taking in the experience. The staff could tell he was just so happy to be there. He had the best result for team USA in SG [super-G], coming in sixth out of a field of 50, behind a strong contingent of French and Austrian men who dominated the event alongside the Italians. In GS [giant slalom], Asher came in a respectable 26th. He didn’t move back or forward from his starting position of 27. Luckily, he will have time over the summer to work on his GS and I know he will come into next season very strong.”

Weinberg returned to the States and just wrapped up the coronavirus-shortened season with the Rocky/Central Regional Championships in Winter Park. Weinberg won the downhill race and then, despite re-injuring his thumb on a gate mid-course and binding issues, placed second in the super-G. He is currently ranked first in the nation among u16 skiers in the downhill.

Looking ahead, Weinberg is on his own for a while to stay sharp with the race season canceled until further notice.

“We start preparations for next season in April with a few short camps here in Colorado,” says Revello. “The focus really should be on conditioning until we can plan travel for on-snow projects, which right now is unknown with restrictions in place from the spread of COVID-19.”

“I may go to Italy for a camp two weeks this summer, a camp at Mt. Hood and a speed week at Mammoth but it depends if everything opens back up,” says Weinberg. “Right now I’ve been doing lots of backcountry skiing, running and staying in shape. It’s hard for me to stay inside for more than two hours—I have to go do something.”

“Asher has a propensity for speed events, super-G and downhill, and is a very good athlete in general,” says Revello. “He likes to go fast and isn’t afraid to work hard on the fundamentals. He really enjoys skiing and has a great mindset for growth as a person. This is something that will help him progress in the sport—building skills for each discipline is dependent upon overall athleticism and being open to working through the process, which can take an incredible amount of time. If you’re adaptable, strong and are willing to push yourself both mentally and physically, you will be able to continue making progress.”

Riding the wave of life

By Dawne Belloise

Once inside the door of Mountain Tails, you’re greeted by a lively black Aussie-border collie named Aura, who will dare you to throw a somewhat slimy, tattered dragon clenched in her smiling mouth. Behind the counter sits her master, Brandon Johanns, the store manager, who has the low-down on the best nourishment, toy, collar or costume for your fur baby, be it canine or feline. Brandon fell in love with his puppy after Aura, one of a litter of eight, ran up, jumped into his lap and then fell asleep. And with that, he knew they were meant for each other. “Working at the pet shop, I wanted a dog and was dreaming of an Aussie-border collie and the litter in Crested Butte South was just perfect timing.” Like most locals, Brandon is multi-faceted with a myriad of life stories and experiences.

A native son of Colorado, Brandon was born and raised in Colorado Springs. His father was a medical lab tech and later became a medical business administrator. His mom was crafty and artistic, a flower designer and interior designer. Growing up, Brandon’s family stuck pretty close to home with family vacations spent in places like Breckenridge and the Four Corners area. “I was really into school sports and ran cross country and track. My friends and I rode mountain bikes, BMX and did mountainboarding.” The latter, which he explains for the uninitiated, is like a snowboard with big off-road wheels. “It’s a really big skate board that you can strap into. We’d go find grass hills and mountain bike trails and go to the U.S. Open Mountainboarding competitions in Aspen.”

He tells that mountainboarding was started by two guys in Colorado Springs and is very big in Europe and Japan. In his early teens, in the mid-1990s, Brandon went to work at MBS mountainboards. “They paid in equipment and since we weren’t rich kids and couldn’t afford $500 boards, it was super cool.” He’d compete in Aspen and travel to other competitions in California and Kansas. “It’s really like a hillbilly underground sport,” Brandon laughs.

Brandon had his sights set on going to Western State College (now Western Colorado University) when he graduated from high school in 2005. He had already met with their cross country coach, who had invited him to join the team during his high school meet and greet. “But my dad heard it was nicknamed ‘Wasted State’ and nixed it, which is funny because I wound up here later anyway.”

Brandon instead enrolled at CSU in Fort Collins. “I was into psychology and they had a good cross country team too,” but the training was intense. “I got really burned out. The training was too much. I couldn’t balance my studies.” So he quit running and dropped out of the team to focus on academics, which opened up a bunch of free time, time that he used to pursue a new sport. “I started snowboarding. We’d go all over Summit County. I had only snowboarded a couple times when I was growing up.”

In the summers, he’d mountainboard and when the snow started flying again he became passionate about snowboarding, so much so that his studies became secondary.

“At CSU I was having trouble with math because there was no teacher. The class was done all on computer so I took a class at Front Range Community College, where there was an actual teacher. I was also able to take art classes, which I couldn’t do with my major at CSU.”

Brandon discovered that he had an interest in photography and signed up for a film—not digital—photography class. “Suddenly I was getting A’s.” At the end of that summer he dropped out of CSU to pursue photography, signing up for classes at Red Rocks Community College. “It made me really happy and it was the most enjoyable couple years of my life. I was learning and successful.” He also took a job at Elway’s in Denver. “Denver living was pretty cool. I enjoyed it. I had never lived in a big city. Colorado Springs doesn’t really have a city culture.” After finishing his photography studies, Brandon began freelancing as a wedding photographer and for Snowboard Colorado magazine.

He had still never been to Gunnison or the valley. “I had a mountainboard friend who had moved to Crested Butte and kept telling me that I needed to visit for Soul Train, so we drove from Denver, went to Soul Train and I had a really great time. I watched the Grand Traverse start at midnight. The next day, I fell in love with Crested Butte. I had run into a CSU college friend on Elk Avenue, Lulu Nelson, and we went and hung out. My friends were at a Grateful Dead tribute band at the Center for the Arts and because the show was almost over, they let me in.”

What moved him was what he saw inside. “There was a group of people dancing together like I had never seen before, they were dancing with so much joy and bliss and comfort. I felt that I had found a place I never knew existed, where people could be more authentic and be comfortable in their own skin. Living in the city, people were so self-conscious but here, they didn’t care, they were just having so much fun dancing together.” He packed up and moved to town during the winter of 2012. He started as a lift op and put out a roommate call on Craigslist. “I got a call the next day, and I moved into the hippie house on the mountain,” and he laughs that he’s been living there on and off ever since.

Brandon was also curious about inner spiritual work. “I wanted to put some energy into my spirituality, explore myself and what life is a bit more so I signed up with Judy Theis to study Reiki. I received my Reiki 1, 2 and 3 [certifications] as well as learning about how to ride the wave of life. It taught me a lot about myself and reality as well as healing past trauma.” At the same time during his first year here, he was exhibiting his photography at the now-defunct ArtNest. “It was such a cool collective and fun to meet all those creatives.”

But when his housing situation fell through, he ended up moving back to Colorado Springs. “I couldn’t find housing in Crested Butte. It was my first off-season experience and I didn’t know what to prepare for. I moved home and did construction work and saved up money. Then my buddy in Brooklyn invited me to come live with him. Photography played a big part of the decision since my buddy was the webmaster for Complex Magazine and had a lot of connections to big-name photographers. I got to see inside the industry and do more studio shoots that I hadn’t really done professionally before. We were shooting album covers and celebrities for magazine covers.”

The position, like many apprentice jobs, didn’t pay and you were expected to be thankful for the opportunity and experience. Brandon’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and to make a living in NYC, he came up with a fabulous idea. “I would sell Polaroids to people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. They’d get a photo of themselves and the whole iconic bridge in the background. I could make over $100 in two hours. For a while I thought Polaroids were going to be my art form because although it wasn’t digital, I didn’t need a darkroom.”

NYC, he recalls, was good and bad. “The subway, the energy and the traffic got to me. I was never worried about anyone messing with me, but the crowds and being in a tube underground… There were days I chose to stay in the apartment because I needed to decompress and recharge. I ended up spending a lot of time in the Greenwood Cemetery,” he says of one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in Brooklyn and the city.

And he also loved going to the art galleries, which, he says, “Were epic.” After four months of living with his friend in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, he realized the expenses of moving out and having his own place were more than he could afford. He had had his fill of NYC, plus, he was missing his Colorado, the lifestyle and its mountains.

Brandon landed in Boulder and worked at Natural Grocers as bulk foods manager. “In one year, that job taught me everything I needed to be manager at Mountain Tails.” He did a pop-up gear shop for Pearl Izumi, setting up at each stop of the U.S. Pro Challenge bike race. It gave him enough cash to move back to Crested Butte. “A room had opened again at the hippie house and I swooped back in.” It was the fall of 2015 and Brandon took a job working at Acme Liquor and also as a diver at Elk Avenue Prime. Mountain Tails had hired him to work a couple days a week but they quickly offered the full-time manager position to him when it became available. “When people come in to the store, they’re in such a good mood. I get to spend time chatting with people, especially the locals during the slower times. I get to spend time with their pets and the merchandise is super fun. I get to order toys and the cool collars and it’s all fun. I’m so grateful for that.” He’s been there over four years now.

This year, Brandon ran the Cart to Cart, a trail racing series. “I want to keep running and racing. I got back into running after 10 years of not doing it and one of my favorite things is running the trails here in the summer.” He’s run the Grin and Bear It, Living Journeys Half Marathon, the Park to Peak to Pint, placing second in the entire series the past two years. Of course, he’s still snowboarding in the winter and just discovered his love of splitboarding. “I’m just learning to get into the backcountry, and took my Avy-1 course with Irwin Guides.”

Brandon is home here and he feels satisfied. “I don’t see myself leaving Crested Butte because it has everything I want. Housing is really scary though because there’s not enough affordable housing. The big dream is to one day be a homeowner but I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. I love the hippie house, the location and my roommates, but it would be nice someday to have no roommates or just one roommate.”

For the time being, Brandon is living the dream, a boy and his dog. “I’m really looking forward to taking Aura running with me,” he says, now that she’s almost a year old, “and revisiting places and exploring with her.”

Rapid charger on the way

by Mark Reaman

Crested Butte is increasing the opportunities to charge electric vehicles and by the end of this summer could be considered a major charging hub for electric vehicles (EV). There are currently two charging stations in town, between the lot by the tennis courts at the Four-way Stop and the public parking lot at First Street and Elk Avenue. Those Level 2 stations take between four and eight hours to recharge an electric car’s battery.

But this summer a new rapid charging station will be coming to Crested Butte and that station could recharge a battery in less than an hour.

Community development director Michael Yerman told the Town Council that a partnership with the Gunnison County Electric Association (GCEA) would facilitate the rapid charger to be located in the public parking lot by the Crested Butte fire station. Such a station could charge an electric vehicle in 30 minutes.

“The Colorado Energy Office has identified Crested Butte as a priority area for an electric vehicle rapid charging station due to our location along a scenic byway,” Yerman informed the council in a memo. “There are limited locations in town with public parking and the necessary electric infrastructure available. GCEA and the town have identified the lot by the fire station as the preferred location.”

GCEA will be submitting a grant application for $30,000 to the Charge Ahead Colorado program. The GCEA would administer the grant, manage the charging station and commit $10,000 to the project.

GCEA chief executive officer Mike McBride said the action makes it easier for people to drive electric vehicles. “GCEA is excited to partner with the town of Crested Butte to provide a fast charge option for EV drivers. We recognize transportation as a critical area of focus in the town of Crested Butte’s Climate Action Plan,” he said. “GCEA members are also increasingly interested in taking action. We believe a robust public charging network makes it easier for both locals and visitors to drive electric vehicles. As GCEA’s power supply becomes more and more renewable, electric vehicles become an increasingly beneficial choice, and GCEA wants to make that viable for its members.

“Most EV charging occurs at home while owners are sleeping, etc.,” McBride continued. “And GCEA’s existing network of eight Level 2 charging stations goes a long way to filling the need for charging away from home. The planned DC fast charger takes it to the next level by charging batteries much faster, approximately six to eight times as fast as GCEA’s existing stations.”

The town will provide the location and commit the balance of the funds necessary for the charging station which is expected to be about $35,000 to $40,000. Those funds will come out of the town’s Climate Action Plan budget. The goal is to install the DC fast charger this summer.

“We want our community to be a beacon for zero tailpipe emissions in both the private and public sector, and we believe the increase in availability of public charging stations, especially rapid charging, will make a significant impact in that effort,” added Crested Butte planner Mel Yemma.

She noted that more Level 2 charging stations are slated for installation in the Town this June. Last fall, the town of Crested Butte received funding from Charge Ahead Colorado to install additional charging stations. Two Level 2 stations will be put in at the Town Hall and at the Crested Butte Marshals’ Office this summer. In the town’s five-year capital budget, five marshals’ vehicles and a town employee vehicle are up for replacement. All of these vehicles will be converted to electric and utilize these charging stations. The Marshals’ Office will be replacing one of its vehicles this year; they are currently planning to test a Tesla Model X vehicle later this winter to ensure that it works well within the town’s climate and with the marshals’ technical requirements.

“In keeping with the greening of town, they wanted us to look at electric vehicles for patrol,” explained chief marshal Mike Reily. “We looked at the potential all-electric vehicles and found a few which might meet our size and mobility requirements. Of the SUV models offered, only one, the Tesla X model, was a U.S.-made vehicle. We decided to explore the X as an option and will hopefully get one from Tesla soon to test and evaluate before we make a final decision on the 2020 purchase. Based on our usage patterns we believe the Tesla will be able to perform as a police car but getting our hands on one this winter will tell us whether that is true or not.”

The Town Hall charging station will be available to the public and will be free to use for 2020 and then on the same rate structure as the other two public charging stations. After installing this station, the town will transfer ownership of the station to GCEA.

“The town and GCEA have had a very positive relationship collaborating on installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure. We all agree that with these additional charging stations that Crested Butte is becoming a hub for electric vehicles and that will have sufficient public EV changing stations for the time being,” concluded Yerman.