The Outsider | Plowing through precipitous powder, sans skis, for avalanche mitigation, snow conservation

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Copper Mountain deploys snow-stomping skiers in the war on avalanches

Volunteer boot packers work their way down Copper Mountain’s Spaulding Bowl on Dec. 13 in Summit County. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

“Every flake is gold.”

— Bill Blair, head of mountain operations at Copper Mountain

Number of boot packers deployed at Copper Mountain every December

COPPER MOUNTAIN — The hardy skiers shoulder their skis and wade into the waist-deep powder atop the steep Patrol Chute in Spaulding Bowl. Reed Ryan, the ski area’s snow safety boss, warns the crew of looming avalanche hazards.

“We may hear some whumpfs. We may see some cracking. That’s fine. That’s what we are here for,” he says as the line of boot packers begins toddling down one of the steepest lines at Copper Mountain.

They stamp their ski boots deep into the snow, mixing the powder on the top layer with the sugary facets closer to the ground. When they’ve trampled Patrol Chute, they move over to the next. It’s a grueling day for the volunteers.

Copper Mountain is not the only Colorado ski area that relies on dedicated snow stompers to mitigate avalanche hazards. In the early months of the ski season, boot-packing crews parade through precipitous powder at Aspen Highlands, Crested Butte and Silverton Mountain. The soldiers in Colorado’s perennial war on avalanches earn ski passes and lift tickets.

The boot-packing skiers — sorry, knuckledraggers, this is a skier-only gig due to your nonreleasable boards — also serve as snow conservationists. Back before boot-packing, snow would pile deep in the early season, ski patrollers would hurl explosives and mountainsides of snow would slough to valley floors. That was a waiting game that meant ski terrain opened much later in the season. Now, as skiers plug through powder to mix faceted early-season snow on the ground with fresh layers, they compact and stabilize the snowpack, which means skiers can get into the steeps much earlier.

“We want to keep the snow up where we can ski it,” says Bill Blair, a former Copper Mountain ski patroller who now works as director of mountain operations. “Every flake is gold.”

>> Click over to The Sun next week to read this story

Ayn Rand is spinning as Ouray landowner donates acres in Galt’s Gulch

Ridgway ice climber Jonathan Zaugg celebrates after finishing the speed climbing competition during the 2022 Ouray Ice Festival. (Erin McIntye, Ouray County Plaindealer)

“Isn’t this the way society should operate?”

— Eric Jacobson, Ouray landowner

$17.8 million

Annual economic impact of ice climbing in Ouray

Libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand finished her magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged” while summering in Ouray in the 1950s. She said she based her hero John Galt’s capitalist sanctuary on the mountain town — a utopian enclave where profit reigns supreme known as Galt’s Gulch.

“And now, isn’t it funny, Ouray is thumbing its nose at Ayn Rand,” Eric Jacobson says.

Jacobson owns about 30 acres in the dramatic Uncompahgre River Gorge next to town. And, defying the capitalistic vibe that Rand infused in all her writings, he’s giving a chunk of his land to the city and county so the two governments can more easily operate the Ouray Ice Park.

The old adage about Ouray, Jacobson says, is that when community leaders have an issue, they buy a six-pack for a discussion.

“Where in places like Telluride, they hire consultants and lawyers,” said Jacobson, who revived the dormant Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Power Plant atop Bridal Veil Falls above Telluride in the 1990s. “I’m responding the way the town has always worked with me. Ouray has always been really good to me. Goodness is rewarded with goodness. Isn’t this the way society should operate?”

The deal that hands over about 8 acres of Jacobson’s land to the city and county helps to ease concerns over liability. As a private landowner, Jacobson said his attorneys and insurers fretted about lawsuits from injured climbers, especially in recent years as the venerable Colorado Recreational Use Statute appears unsteady. The law protects landowners who allow recreational users to access their land for free, but those protections appear wobbly following a federal appeals court decision in 2019 that awarded $7.3 million to a cyclist injured on a washed-out trail at the Air Force Academy in El Paso County.

Since that 2019 decision, landowners have closed trails on 14ers or sold their land. Some require all visitors to sign waivers releasing the owners from liability should someone get hurt. Lawmakers plan to propose an amendment to the Colorado Recreational Use Statute next month to better protect landowners who let people recreate on their lands.

But Jacobson isn’t waiting for lawmakers. He’s handing over property on the south end of the gorge to assure permanent public access to a section of the Ouray Perimeter Trail, the Ice Park Trail and a trail used for the annual Hardrock 100 endurance run. (He’s getting a parcel for a tiny home as part of the agreement.)

“The goal was: How do we make sure the Ice Park is going to be around for the next generation without having to worry about being on private land? This collaboration has solved that problem,” Peter O’Neil, the ice-climbing executive director of the nonprofit that runs the park, told Mike Wiggins at the Ouray County Plaindealer. “It’s a huge win for the community. No other way to say it. It’s an incredible, generous contribution from Eric.”

The Ouray City Council unanimously approved the agreement Monday. The parties formally signed it Tuesday night at Mi Mexico restaurant in Ouray, where a crowd gathered over pitchers of margaritas to cheer and applaud the historic pact.

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10 new wolves in Colorado as North Park ranchers plead for permission to kill two

Wolf 2303-OR, a juvenile male from the Five Points pack in Oregon weighing 76 pounds, races away Monday from transport crates that carried him and four other wolves to Grand County. (Jerry Neal, Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

Cows, dogs and lambs killed or injured by a pair of collared wolves in North Park in recent months

When wolves that roamed down from Wyoming in 2021 come to kill Don Gittleson’s cows, he goes for his pen and paper. He wishes he could grab his gun.

The North Park rancher has confirmed that a wolf collared by Colorado Parks and Wildlife — known as No. 2101 — has killed or injured seven of his cows, including a calf last week, six of his neighbor’s cows and four working dogs. Another wolf — No. 2103 — killed three lambs in November at Philip Anderson’s North Park ranch.

Gittleson’s letter lands days after Colorado Parks and Wildlife released five wolves this week in a remote corner of Grand County. The pair of Jackson County wolves are responsible for about 20 injured or killed domestic animals in the past several months.

Gittleson, in a letter to Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials, asks: Do 20 mauled or dead animals qualify the wolves as “chronically depredating?” Under the Colorado wolf reintroduction plan, that means the wolves can be shot. But the plan does not clearly define what makes a wolf “chronically depredating.” The Colorado plan says wildlife officials will make that determination on a case-by-case basis.

“We are working on it,” said Reid DeWalt, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife assistant director who has worked on the reintroduction plan since voters approved wolves in 2020.

Gittleson needs a permit to kill a wolf. He and Anderson are waiting for a response from wildlife managers who are busy ferrying new wolves into the state.

“The burden of proof of predation lies upon the person that pulled that trigger or the landowner. And so if I couldn’t prove it, you might be visiting me with an orange suit on and I wouldn’t want that to happen. I’ve got a family here and I’ve got this ranch I got to take care of that and I don’t want to spend my time in Cañon City (prison) or wherever they put me,” said Anderson, former head of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association.

If the most recent attack on Gittleson’s calf “does not meet the definition of problem wolves, I would question what will,” he wrote in his letter to Colorado Parks and Wildlife leaders.

>> Click over to The Sun on Friday to read this story

Mental health first aid starts with saying the word suicide

Stephanie Pierce, an executive director of Tame Grand County, interacts with guests of a pumpkin-painting event at her office Oct. 30 in Fraser. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

“I need you to look me in the eye and tell me if you have plans to kill yourself.”

— Jen Fanning, executive director of the Grand County Rural Health Network

49,449

Number of suicides in the U.S. in 2022, a record high

For decades, just about every American had a chance to take a first-aid course and learn how to save a person’s life with things like CPR.

Now, there’s another type of first-aid that helps people better intervene in a crisis.

Mental Health First Aid is a national program that helps people better assess a risk of suicide, listen to struggling friends and guide them to help.

It starts with knowing when to ask a simple question: “Are you thinking about suicide?”

It’s not “Are you thinking about hurting yourself?” or “Are you going to do something crazy?” It’s got to include the word “suicide” or “kill yourself” — use the most direct, precise and real language possible.

The notion that using the word suicide can prod someone to take their own life has been debunked. It’s the word that elevates discussions into interventions that lead to professional help.

“I need you to stop. I need you to turn around. And I need you to look me in the eye and tell me if you have plans to kill yourself,” said Jen Fanning, the executive director of the Grand County Rural Health Network in Hot Sulphur Springs, describing how she led a friend to help several years ago after taking a Mental Health First Aid course.

As the impact of the country’s mental health crisis takes hold, there is a growing call for everyone to be prepared to step into a person’s life and say the right words that could stop a suicide. That means adding the local crisis hotline onto our phones and making calls with friends and family — even a stranger — and helping them find the growing number of resources available for people in crisis. (Dial 988 to access a national hotline. In the Eagle River Valley, a 24-hour crisis team is at 970-306-4673. Visit coloradocrisisservices.org to find local hotlines and services.)

The number of suicides in the U.S. last year reached an all-time high of 49,449. So far this year, the Grand County Rural Health Network trained 75 people in mental health first-aid, including adults, high schoolers and employees at Winter Park ski area.

Meanwhile, the number of therapists and professional mental health providers in mountain towns dwindles. Obtuse insurance practices that make providers spend more hours on paperwork than with patients, coupled with the spiking cost of living in the high country, is behind the decline. Many communities have built mental health services on marijuana taxes, which are in steep decline.

It’s time for rural residents to step in and start playing a role in their neighbors’ mental health. It starts with de-stigmatizing mental health issues and talking openly and frankly about suicide. In the past month in Eagle County, the group Speak Up Reach Out has hosted two films: The Liv Project’s “My Sister Liv,” and Bode Miller’s “Paradise Paradox.” Summit County pro skier Drew Peterson will soon begin touring a new film that follows his groundbreaking short film “Ups and Downs,” which unveiled his mental health struggles and haunting battle with suicidal thoughts.

We are making progress. We are talking about suicide and building systems where people in crisis can find quick help when they need it most. A 10-year effort in Grand County is yielding results, with new initiatives and programs that increase awareness and access to mental health and substance abuse resources.

Colorado Sun reporter Tracy Ross, who knows the Grand County community well, spent time with the architects of the county’s revamped mental health campaign.

“Mental health is so big and all-encompassing, and there are so many factors that impact it,” Fanning told Ross.

It starts with stigma reduction and access to services. There’s immediate response and ongoing treatment. But once the growing roster of Grand County partners saw how effective the first steps were, they wanted to “keep peeling back the layers of the onion. We wanted to address our community’s needs and get to the core of the mental health problem,” Fanning said.

>> Click over to The Sun next week to read Tracy’s story

— j