The Sunriser | How boot packing helps keep ski runs safe

---

Good morning, Colorado.

Contrary to what your internal holiday-shifted calendar may be telling you, today is in fact Tuesday. If you ask me, there’s nothing like a cup of coffee and some morning news to get us back on track to start the week.

This morning, we’ve got a newsletter overflowing with good stories — from boot-packing crews burrowing through deep powder to stabilize snowpack to residents taking mental health needs into their own hands in the high country. So let’s get reading, shall we?

THE NEWS

OUTDOORS

Copper Mountain volunteer boot packers stomp trails to reduce avalanche danger and conserve snow

Boot packing crews at several Colorado ski areas spend early-season weeks stomping through steep powder to stabilize snowpacks. The list of unpaid volunteers to boot pack — an important part of avalanche mitigation — sits at 75 for Copper Mountain and there’s a long waiting list, Jason Blevins reports.

READ MORE

---

EDUCATION

Colorado’s governor wants colleges to hold tuition below inflation. His budget doesn’t provide money to do so.

Gov. Jared Polis’ proposed higher education budget doesn’t provide Colorado’s colleges and universities enough money to hold in-state tuition increases to 2%, even though he’s stated it was a goal of his to keep college tuition low. Rising costs mean colleges and universities will have to increase spending by more than what Polis is proposing just to maintain the status quo, Brian Eason explains.

READ MORE

• Does innovation status boost schools’ test scores? New Colorado report finds “mixed bag” of results. A report by Keystone Policy Center found that students who attend innovation schools did not do better on state math and literacy tests last spring — and in many cases performed worse — than students who attend traditional district-run schools and independent charter schools.
• School discipline can lead Colorado students into the justice system. When school officials rely on seclusion rooms and suspensions and disproportionately hand out punishments, breaking the school-to-prison pipeline is difficult.

---

ECONOMY

In Grand County, community is a mental health resource

A new behavioral health strategic plan in Winter Park and Fraser relies on very little outside funding and heavily on the insights of residents with “lived experience” with the goal of training adults to help their neighbors struggling with mental health in the high country, Tracy Ross reports.

READ MORE

• New migrants face fear and loneliness. A rural Colorado town has a storied support network. The Fort Morgan migrant community has become a boon for newcomers, nearly all of whom arrive from perilous journeys to new challenges: pursuing asylum cases; finding a paycheck big enough to cover food, an attorney and a roof; and placing their kids in school, all while facing the threat of deportation.

---

BUSINESS

Colorado ranchers, processors have a beef with advocacy groups over perceived environmental impacts of meat production

Large ranching operations have been targeted by activists accusing them of contributing to environmental degradation, including contributing to climate change. If an activist group working toward a ballot measure for 2024 gets its way, the lone cooperative processing plant in Delta, where ranchers slaughter and process their meat, will be eliminated altogether, Monte Whaley writes.

READ MORE

• Pair of wolves released in Colorado part of Oregon pack that killed livestock. Oregon wildlife officials permitted federal officials to kill four wolves from the large Five Points pack, which supplied two of the wolves that were just released in Colorado.

---

MORE NEWS

• Colorado governor pardons 21 people and reduces sentences of 7 others, including man convicted of murder.
• Aurora paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide in Elijah McClain’s death.
• Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future.
• Former Colorado funeral home operator gets probation for mixing cremated human remains.
• “You are the father!” Maury Povich declares to Denver Zoo orangutan.

---

THE COLORADO REPORT

• Hit by a scooter rider, then by hospital bills, this Denverite has found justice hard to find. Since a group of four scooter riders exited a ramp on Cherry Creek Trail directly in front of Greg Caicedo on his bike early in October, he’s dealt with hospital stays, physical therapy and the frustrating experience of trying to find someone to assume liability.
  — Denverite
• Hayden cowboy becomes first rookie bareback world champion in history. 20-year-old Keenan Hayes became the 2023 PRCA bareback riding world champion in Las Vegas on Saturday — the first such world title to be held by a cowboy in his first year of professional riding.
  — Sky-Hi News
• Troubled towers: Breaking down Denver’s distressed office properties. BusinessDen debuted a list and map of office buildings in downtown Denver and the Denver Tech Center that are either already in foreclosure, in default or that have recently exited default — and the list contains some of the most iconic buildings in the metro area.
  — BusinessDen 🔑
• Spirals carved into Colorado rocks thousands of years ago could be ancient calendars. Longtime Colorado Sun readers already know all about the well-supported theories that some of the buildings at Mesa Verde were used as astronomical observatories. But new findings from Polish researchers in the area have added a series of carvings found higher up the canyon to the potential astronomical tools used by the Ancestral Puebloan cultures who lived there thousands of years ago.
  — ScienceAlert

🔑 = source has article meter or paywall

THE OPINION PAGE

COLUMNS

• Colorado Supreme Court ruling in Trump case is just what our country needs. The brave professionalism of the Colorado Four should make us all proud. Will they inspire the U.S. Supreme Court?
  — Craig Silverman
• Can the U.S. Supreme Court find a way to say Trump’s disqualification didn’t follow the Constitution? Just wait and see. The Colorado Supreme Court’s novel decision was controversial and might well lead to chaos. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t right.
  — Mike Littwin
• Kudos to Colorado Reps. Ruby Dickson and Said Sharbini for being profiles in courage. Two now-former Colorado state representatives have just set a new example for what leadership can look like, and they did it by leaving.
  — Trish Zornio

COMMUNITY

• Colorado lawmakers should focus on prevention, not criminalization, to protect health care workers from violence. During the 2024 session, state legislators need to support bills to reduce the risk and find ways to prevent workplace violence.
  — Colleen Casper, Executive director of the Colorado Nurses Association

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggest writers or provide feedback at opinion@coloradosun.com.

SunLit

In “Break Heart Canyon” a chance encounter introduces conflict, love interests

Right from the start, as they’re both shopping for supplies at the general store, we know Ryker Landry is smitten by the red-haired widow. And in Gini Rifkin’s Colorado Authors League award-winning romance, the bad guys quickly make their threatening presence known — further setting the stage for a story that melds a traditional Old West love story with historical events in 19th-century Colorado.

READ AN EXCERPT

• Interview with the author. Rifkin was looking for a period and setting for her next novel when she came across the Bone Wars, a time when paleontologists competed for bones and fossils in what also was called the Great Dinosaur Rush, much of which took place in Colorado. Mix in romance, add a real-life solar eclipse for dramatic (and metaphorical) effect, and she’d created a winning formula.

---

We hope you have a great start to the week and we will see you back here tomorrow!

— Olivia & the whole staff of The Sun

Corrections & Clarifications

Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.