Sneak Peek of the Week
Busy beavers serve as frontline firefighters
579,603
Acres burned by three megafires in Colorado in 2020
The industrious beaver — once deemed a pest in the West — could help rescue drought-savaged landscapes from wildfires.
The beaver as a heroic firefighter may seem like some cartoonish mascot alongside Smokey Bear, but a new study by the Geological Society of America shows that beaver-dammed riverscapes fared far better than other zones during catastrophic wildfires.
“Every presentation I’ve seen in the last handful of years that has to do with these big fires, there’s an … aerial photo of a sea of black with this green island in the middle,” said Clay Ramey, fisheries biologist for the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District. “That’s the beaver pond.”
The study published in January by the geological society was led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities ecohydrologist Emily Fairfax. She investigated three megafires in Colorado in 2020 — Cameron Peak, East Troublesome and Mullen — that together burned 579,603 acres.
Using the latest infrared and optical satellite imagery, as well as on-the-ground research, a team of scientists assessed stream health within the burn zones. Then they compared stretches of stream that had beaver dams to stretches without.
“Beaver-modified riverscapes are resistant to megafire-scale disturbance,” the study authors wrote. “This resilience is directly attributable to beaver dam- and canal-building activity.”
Beaver dams and their ponds create green islands known as fire refugia: patches that either don’t burn or barely burn, providing refuge for animals during the fire and after.
“Beavers are built-in fuel thinners,” Fairfax told Sun freelancer Bay Stephens. “They cut trees. So even when you’re not in the pond … they are still harvesting the surrounding area and thinning that fuel out. So they really do create this multi-layered fire resistance.”
>> Click over to The Sun on Friday to read Bay’s story
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In Their Words
Alterra Mountain Co. boss Jared Smith riffs on Arapahoe Basin, the cost of skiing and when the resort operator might go public
Jared Smith spent nearly 20 years with Ticketmaster before joining Alterra Mountain Co. in 2021. The resort operator’s CEO is a relative newcomer to the resort world, and his ascendancy to the corner office at Alterra Mountain Co. marks a pivotal moment for the resort industry that has typically elevated its insiders and veterans. Smith brings fresh eyes to the insular resort world. This week, Smith sat down with Sun reporter Jason Blevins at the annual Mountain Travel Symposium at the base of his company’s Palisades Tahoe ski area in California. Their conversation roamed from the challenges facing the resort industry, the power of decentralized decision-making, the acquisition of Arapahoe Basin and when his company might go public.
Some highlight quotes from Smith:
“The ski industry is as complex a business that, I think, exists on Earth.”
“We had a terrible start to this season.”
“I say to our team all the time, there’s two products in the world that I’m aware of that people will refer to in a possessive. It is my mountain. Or it’s my sports team.”
“I know what it’s like to run the only publicly traded company in your industry and one that’s easy to hate.”
“A-Basin is a great example of ‘It’s not the ownership. It’s the operator. It’s the approach.’”
In response to a question about whether the Ikon Pass will remain limited at Arapahoe Basin: “Maybe some sort of hybrid pass.”
“It is ungodly expensive and hard to bring a family of four skiing right now.”
“Right now 60% of our non-pass visitation is still booked on the phone. Sixty percent. When was the last time you bought anything on the phone?”
“We have to find ways to get people to the hill, into a lesson with an instructor who can help them enjoy the mountain in a way that encourages them to come back.”
“So this business, it just eats capital.”
In response to the recent news about a $3 billion “single asset continuation vehicle” investment in Alterra Mountain Co.: “So for where we are right now, this was the best outcome for us with consistency of ownership, consistency of strategy and consistency in investment. It was a home run.”
>> Click over to The Sun next week to read the Q&A
Breaking Trail
Eldora Mountain Resort challenges ski patroller vote that approved union representation
800
Number of ski patrollers and lift mechanics in the United Professional Ski Patrols of America, up from 270 in 2020
Ski patrollers at Eldora Mountain Resort have overwhelmingly approved unionized representation, but the company that owns the resort is challenging the results of the recent vote.
An Eldora spokesperson said the resort company “learned that improper conduct impacted the ability of our patrollers to participate in an election free of improper influence or coercion.”
Eldora objected to the fact that union representatives and ski patrollers did not want to include votes by volunteer ski patrollers.
“Patrollers have the right to vote. If certified, a union would represent all patrollers,” said the spokesperson in an emailed statement. “Therefore, all patrollers deserve to have a voice and their vote considered.”
Eldora ski patrollers voted 29-3 to join the United Professional Ski Patrols of America union, which is part of the 700,000-worker Communications Workers of America District 7. The ski patroller union has grown in recent years as resort workers at Big Sky in Montana, Breckenridge, Loveland and Purgatory voted to unionize. Lift mechanics at Park City in Utah and Crested Butte Mountain Resort have joined the United Professional Ski Patrols of America. Patrollers at Aspen Snowmass, Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Park City, Steamboat, Stevens Pass in Washington and Telluride have been represented by unions for years.
This month, ski patrollers at Keystone voted to unionize in a 68-7 vote, reflecting a shift from the 2021 vote at the Summit County ski area that rejected unionization by a single vote. Patrollers at Whitefish ski area in Montana voted 24-1 last month to join the ski patroller union. Solitude patrollers in Utah also voted 23-10 to unionize this year, while patrollers at Palisades Tahoe in California rejected collective bargaining.
The challenge from Eldora Mountain Resort owner Powdr is a first for the United Professional Ski Patrols of America.
“None of the other campaigns have encountered a company that is looking to decertify the vote and throw it out completely,” said Ryan Dineen, the president of the Breckenridge Ski Patrol union and local organizer for the United Professional Ski Patrols of America Local 7781, which now has more than 800 resort-worker members at nine ski areas, up from 270 in 2020.
The Eldora patrollers are hoping to get benefits that include improved overtime pay, health insurance benefits and better pay for veteran workers.
Paid patroller turnout for the election was 76%, but only half of Eldora’s 14 volunteer patrollers voted.
“Our focus throughout this process has been to ensure that every patroller can trust that the election process is fair, that their voice and vote are appropriately considered, and that the final outcome is true and accurate,” reads the statement from the ski area spokesperson.
The National Labor Relations Board is scheduling a hearing to address the challenges and issues raised by the ski patroller union and the resort operator.
Patrollers at Vail Resorts-owned Breckenridge this season finalized a contract that improved pay and benefits for workers at the country’s busiest ski area. Patrollers at Park City Mountain Resort and Stevens Pass — both owned by Vail Resorts — will begin contract negotiations this year.
“Being able to share our contract progress at Breckenridge with other patrollers is motivating them,” Dineen said. “We fully expect the progress we have made in the last year will continue into next season.”
The Guide
Watching a wolf die in a Wyoming bar
Cody Roberts told the bar he had rescued a lost cattle dog. Then he dragged a muzzled, injured wolf into the Green River Bar in Daniel, Wyoming.
“It didn’t want to go,” a bar patron told WyoFile reporter Mike Koshmrl, whose reporting reveals the stark challenges facing states with very different laws for managing wolves. “Like you know when your dog doesn’t want to go to the vet?”
The sad video of the dying wolf huddled on a bar floor has gone viral, with news outlets around the world picking up a story first reported by Emily Cohen, a reporter with community radio station KHOL.
After several bar patrons posed with the wolf Daniels had run over with his snowmobile, the female wolf died.
“He was a jokester about it,” the eyewitness told Koshmrl, “while it was just sitting there bleeding to death.” (That bar patron alerted Wyoming wildlife officials to the abuse of the wolf at the bar on Feb. 29 and Daniels was fined $250.)
Wolves in most of Wyoming are managed as predators, which means there are very few regulations on how and when a wolf can be killed. Koshmrl last year reported how hunters were luring wolves into Wyoming from Colorado and legally shooting them.
The Center for a Humane Economy this week offered a $15,000 reward to anyone who has more evidence that leads to Roberts serving time in prison.
The image of the dying wolf will galvanize wildlife advocates and amplify calls for better federal protection of wolves as the predators roam a wider landscape laced with divergent management strategies.
>> Click here to read Mike’s story
Federal lawmakers unanimously approve largest-ever package of outdoor recreation legislation
The outdoor recreation movement surged this month as federal lawmakers unanimously approved the largest-ever legislative package repping the outdoors.
The U.S. House’s overwhelming support for the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experience Act — or Explore Act — marks a big moment for the nation’s surging outdoor recreation industry. The package of bills streamlines permitting for outfitters, supports long-distance bike trails, increases funding for urban green spaces and protects rock climbing in wilderness areas.
“There’s really not a lot of disagreement when it comes to outdoor recreation,” U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas who co-sponsored the Explore Act, said in a news conference last week. “This is a big deal. It affects all areas of the country.”
That quote from Westerman seems a bit disconnected. While outdoor recreation is heralded as a better option for rural communities that totally rely on agriculture, mining or oil and gas development, it is hardly void of disagreement.
There are wilderness groups vehemently opposed to the Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act, which directs federal land managers to create uniform policies that allow climbers to use, place and maintain permanent fixed anchors in wilderness. The opposition to a national monument around the Dolores River is equally strident. Hunters and anglers are frustrated as other types of outdoor recreation users elbow into public lands. Mountain communities at the gateway to parks and national forests are stressed as outdoor recreation participation soars. Outdoor recreation is loaded with controversy and impacts.
One of the most impressive efforts in the expansion of outdoor recreation in the past five years is the industry’s inclusivity, enrolling traditionally siloed groups into a unified camp. Bikers and hikers, motorized users and wilderness campers, snowboarders and skiers, backcountry explorers and RVers all have rallied under the outdoor recreation banner to support policies that improve access to the outdoors and bolster the rising industry.
The unified industry is emerging as a social, cultural and economic juggernaut — stirring a $1.1 trillion impact on the U.S. economy. It behooves the champions of outdoor recreation to stay focused on mitigating the impacts of outdoor recreation while trumpeting its benefits, without pretending outdoor recreation is a gilded panacea.
Still, for D.C. lawmakers who struggle to find any shared ground, unanimous support for any legislation is noteworthy and the passage of the Explore Act bodes well for the nearly identical America’s Outdoor Recreation Act winding through the U.S. Senate.
— j
Corrections & Clarifications
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