“Who here has a business impacted by these tariffs?” asked the speaker at the lectern. Hundreds of hands reached for the ceiling of the standing-room-only convention hall. The angst was palpable at this week’s Outdoor Retailer trade show as the outdoor industry hunkered under painful, punitive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump in his trade […]
Outsider
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Colorado is gearing up for its “biggest river surfing season ever”
Surf’s up Colorado. With new river parks, big flows and a swelling roster of whitewater surfers itching to carve after last summer’s meager trickles, the river surfing wave is about to flood Colorado. “The biggest river surfing season ever is on tap,” says Mike Harvey, the river park engineer and co-founder of Salida’s Badfish SUP. […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors, Outsider, Politics and Government
Colorado wildlife officials are reluctant to OK gray wolf reintroduction. So advocates want voters to do it.
After 40 years of battling to restore wolf populations in the Southwest, Northern Rockies and Great Lakes states, the legal, political and biological war for wolves is coming to Colorado. But this time it could be voters — not federal and state wildlife managers — pushing the only state in the Rocky Mountains without wolves […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Growth, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider
The politically connected owner of a Glenwood Springs quarry wants a massive expansion. Residents are preparing for a fight.
GLENWOOD SPRINGS — The beeping trucks and growling earth movers echo across the canyon overlooking the Colorado River. The Mid-Continent Quarry limestone miners blast cliff walls, crush and process debris into aggregate and truck it down into the valley, where a riverside tourist town bustles with shoppers, hot spring soakers and gondola riders. Glenwood […]
Posted inCulture, Environment, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider
Cody Townsend is skiing North America’s 50 classic lines — and worries climate change makes some “last descents”
Cody Townsend was at the top of his game in 2014. His career as a pro skier was soaring. His talents were harvesting awards. And standing atop a plunging, high-consequence line in Alaska as the cameras rolled and the helicopter hovered, he pondered the 60-foot cliff way below his skis. “It was something I would […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Aspen stakes claim as the premier human-powered playground as skiers ditch lifts and traffic to walk uphill
“Alpine skiers are getting bored,” said Erik Lambert, a businessman searching for a mountain to anchor an all-uphill resort. “They are sick of crowds. They are sick of traffic. I think people are ready for a cultural shift.”
Posted inCulture, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Showers, catered meals, wine lists: Colorado’s newest backcountry ski huts are following Euro and Canadian model
RED MOUNTAIN PASS — Their moms were not pleased with the plan. Four 20-something pals from the Midwest were preparing to go backcountry skiing in the San Juans, around Red Mountain Pass. Their parents had read news reports of an avalanche — the first of the Colorado season — involving a student in an avalanche-education […]
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Parents of young skiers push for Colorado chairlift safety as lawmakers renew tramway board
A growing chorus of parents with skiing kids are urging Colorado lawmakers to add teeth to the legislation renewing the Colorado Passenger Tramway Board into 2030, asking that the panel be given broader leeway to safeguard the state’s chairlifts. With the recent injury of a 6-year-old girl who fell from a chairlift at Eldora […]