Time Machine: 10 years ago, Vail Resorts takes over lease on Canyons Resort
Courtesy image/Justin Olsen
10 years ago
May 29. 2013
Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz announced that the company had signed a long-term lease deal to operate the Canyons Resort near Park City.
The original lease between Vail Resorts and the Toronto-based Talker Corp., which owns the roughly 4,000 acres of skiable terrain, is for 50 years, with an option for six 50-year extensions, the Vail Daily reported.
Vail Resorts also intended to take over a lawsuit with the Park City ski area over a lease for 3,700 acres on the upper reaches of the Park City ski mountain, the Vail Daily reported.
“If Vail Resorts prevails in the suit, Katz said the company will have access to the Park City ski area property, which is much of the terrain at that resort,” the Vail Daily reported.
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20 years ago
May 28, 2003
A train derailed near Dotsero due to thermal misalignment, igniting a small fire near the confluence of the Eagle and Colorado rivers.
The train was on its way from Winter Park to Glenwood Springs on Amtrak’s westbound California Zephyr line and contained two mail cars and nine passenger cars. The mail cars derailed but remained upright and did not incur serious damage. The passenger cars remained on the track and did not lose power. The passenger cars contained 235 people; no injuries were reported.
“Passengers in the train’s nine passenger cars waited about two hours before being told the remaining portion of the train would continue on to Glenwood Springs,” the Vail Daily reported.
30 years ago
June 4, 1993
Vail Associates was preparing to submit expansion plans to the U.S. Forest Service for the Two Elk Creek area, including the bowls named Super Bowl, Pete’s Bowl and Commando Bowl (now known as Blue Sky Basin), the Vail Trail reported.
“Loren Kroenke, project manager for the Forest Service, said agency planners and VA planners have been meeting to address areas of concern, such as lynx habitat and elk-calving areas,” the Vail Trail reported. “In doing so, they hope to allow VA to defuse many potentially controversial issues in its formal application.”
The forest service was required to fully document the expected off-site impacts, the Vail Trail reported.
“However, those off-site impacts cannot be used as the basis for deciding whether to allow ski-area expansion,” the Vail Trail reported. “The Forest Service views off-site impacts, such as parking in Vail and traffic congestion and the need for housing, as falling under the purview of local government.”
40 years ago
May 27, 1983
Renowned sculptor Claes Oldenburg, in an interview with the Vail Trail, said after selecting a site near Gore Creek in Lionshead, he and Coosje van Bruggen began contemplating a 60-foot fishing pole as a piece of public art for Vail.
“But it took a long time to arrive at that because I started with a ski, and a ski pole, and lots of other things,” he said. “The fishing pole had been in our minds because of another project which involved the Pacific Ocean. But it didn’t seem suitable for an ocean, so we moved it inland and decided to try it at the Vail site. It’s very good, because it has a certain affinity with the ski pole, at least the original ski pole as I remember them, when they were made of wood, or sometimes bamboo. And it has that curve, when it’s in tension, which is reminiscent of the curve of the ski pole, which was a part of the original formulation. So we tried it there and it seemed to work out. There are a number of other reasons, too. The line, for example, relates to the activity of the gondola, the taut line. And that seemed to us also to be related to fishing, the stretched line. So the way we work, we think on two levels, one of form, and one of content, and try to bring them together.”
50 years ago
June 5, 1973
The Eagle Town Board increased water rates for commercial users, increased water tap fees and establish a Capitol Improvements Fund.
“Although our present water system is designed to produce 700 gallons per minute, due to the high rate of turbidity during our critical water need period it now operates on about a 60 per cent efficiency rate,” said Eagle Mayor Bill Miller, as quoted in the Eagle Valley Enterprise. “Last year’s figures show that the system was not sufficient to handle water needs in the critical months of July through September … Any increase in population will put a load on the system that it will not handle.”
The mayor said that water meters have revealed that commercial users require an average of 250,000 gallons of water per quarter, while the average resident uses about 40,000 gallons.