Western Colorado University is becoming an institutional hub for the outdoor recreation industry and the Gunnison River Valley as a hotbed for outdoor businesses
Western Colorado University
Posted inOutdoors
Colorado college students work with outdoor businesses to solve challenges
Students from Colorado Mesa University, Colorado Mountain College and Western Colorado University offer solutions, perspectives for eight outdoor businesses as part of the Wright Collegiate Challenge
Posted inOutdoors
Western Slope university students working with outdoor businesses as part of Wright Collegiate Challenge
Outdoor industry students at Colorado Mesa University, Colorado Mountain College and Western Colorado University are helping nine businesses and nonprofits solve challenges.
Posted inEnvironment
There’s a crappy situation in Colorado’s backcountry: too many pooping hikers
Outdoor recreation groups hope handing out poop-disposal kits will cut down on the problem piling up on Colorado’s public lands
Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider
Wright Collegiate Challenge enlists Colorado students to solve outdoor business challenges
When the International Ski Federation — or FIS, the governing body of all things skiing — officially banned ski waxes with fluorocarbons last season, Peter Arlein kept getting the same questions from race techs and ski shops: What do we do with all this forever-chemical wax? “Shops were saying, ‘Well I guess we’ll just put […]
Posted inEducation, News, Outdoors
The new standards for testing outdoor gear are being created by Colorado university students
GUNNISON — In the basement of the new Paul M. Rady engineering school at Western Colorado University, professor Greg VanderBeek directs six students using a horizontal bandsaw to cut 2-inch steel tubing. “Remember, perfection happens at the welding table,” VanderBeek says as the students measure. Soon the students are grinding corners and welding a frame […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Economy, Education, Housing, News, Outdoors
Crested Butte lured an outdoor publication to town as a tourism bid. Now overrun by visitors, the partnership must evolve.
CRESTED BUTTE — The headquarters for Blister, an online publication known for longform outdoor gear reviews, occupies a converted conference room in the Elevation Hotel and Spa at the base of Crested Butte Mountain Resort. Built-in racks ringing the room store dozens of skis for reviewers to take out. The slope-side location allows Blister’s editor […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Environment, News, Outdoors
Crested Butte’s new camping rules are restoring resources and producing few complaints — so far
CRESTED BUTTE — On a Saturday morning at the end of July, Aaron Drendel, a recreation staff officer with the U.S. Forest Service’s Gunnison Ranger District, walked through Musicians’ Camp, a group camping area along the Slate River. Recent rain seemed to have scared some campers away, leaving several sites empty, but Drendel was focused […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: A college degree is two things: something you earn, and something you own
Is Colorado higher education a product or a service? Answer: Yes. Higher Ed in Colorado needs to be both, for the state to get the most out of its investment. Any successful business, organization or institution carves out its place in the market partly by clearly identifying and embracing its source of competitive advantage and […]
Posted inBusiness, Economy, Housing, News, Outdoors
Students who kept Colorado’s resort-town economies alive during COVID are now headed back to school
A sign outside Butte Bagels advises customers that this popular breakfast stop, in the alley behind the Crested Butte post office, is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. A gaggle of tourists gathers close to peer at the sign, at the “help wanted” sign next to it, and through the darkened windows before they give up and […]