How about a snowboard-only resort?

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. Taos will drop its ban on snowboards effective on March 19, but Michael Pearlman, sports editor of the Jackson Hole News&Guide, doesnt see it as a forward march of civilization.I dont subscribe to stereotypes of snowboarders as disrespectful, but theres no question that they use a mountains terrain differently, he writes. If youve never seen a snowboarder wipe a steep, narrow chute clean of snow, kneel underneath a blind rollover, or lay waste to a powder field that could have housed the untracked turns of a dozen skiers, then you havent spent much time in the mountains. He notes a challenge issued in December by Jake Burton, founder of Burton Snowboards, offering a $5,000 reward for the most creative video showing snowboarding on one of the (now three) remaining ski resorts that bans snowboards. Until the remaining elitists and fascist resorts lift their Draconian ban, there should be no rest, no justice, says the promotional video issued by Burton.Pearlmans response to Burton: Take those millions of dollars youve earned by selling snowboarding as a countercultural alternative to skiing and purchase a small resort and ban skiers.

WHISTLER, B.C. – Is Whistler overbuilding? Thats the charge of Lennox McNeely, a local resident who recently had a letter in Pique. McNeely sees a vicious cycle of building hotel accommodations despite a supposed limit that force the resort to come with more attractions that will draw sufficient people to fill the beds.Lets get off this treadmill of ignoring the limit of bed counts and allowing new hotels to be built, and then having to flog new activities, largely endangering the environment, in order to prop up the occupancy of these same hotels.At least partly the source of McNeeleys annoyance is the new high-altitude gondola between the Whistler and Blackcomb ski areas being built by Intrawest, the ski area operator. It has little to do with skiing and a lot to do with a superlative it will be the highest gondola in North America.

KREMMLING, Colorado The chips will soon start flying in Kremmling. Located between Winter Park, Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge and Vail, Kremmling is an old sawmill town that is soon to get a plant that converts the dying and dead lodgepole pine of surrounding forests into pellets that can be burned in home stoves. The plant, reports the Middle Park Times, is expected to operate continuously, with 18 to 20 people employed. By providing a market for the dead trees, the threat of catastrophic fire to mountain homes is expected to diminish.