Mountain news & notes
ByEastern After-Shock
In a coincidental show of on-snow solidarity, 35 snowboarders in white one-piece suits hiked the slopes of ski-only Mad River Glen in Vermont on December 15 – the same day the co-op owned ski area was unveiling its newly refurbished single chair (that’s right, a brand new single-seater). After an apparent photo shoot mid-slope (see all the images at mikeriddellphotography.com/mrgburton/), the “poachers” rode down.
Bad Cows
Eight cows escaped from a trailer that opened just as the driver pulled intoa McDonald’s in Weber County, Utah, reports The Associated Press.
“Maybe they were going to hop in the freezer (and) save the middleman,” said a sheriff’s deputy. A two-hour roundup of the 800-pound cows was dubbed “Operation Hamburger Helper.”
–Betsy Marston, High Country News
Bad Ass
In Surprise, Ariz., some locals had their sensibilities spanked by a signfor Bad Ass Coffee, a rival to Starbucks that hadn’t even opened yet. This“crosses the line of good taste,” miffed residents told the ArizonaRepublic, though the paper explained that the name simply describes “amaladjusted donkey.” One homeowner protested that “We all have smallchildren and we don’t want to swear around them.” The franchise is basedin Salt Lake City.
–Betsy Marston, High Country News
Crockett Kin Bags Bear
According to legend, Davy Crockett “killed him a bear when he was only three.” Tre Merrit, a five-year-old descendant of the frontiersman, has reportedly kept the streak alive, bagging a 400-pound-plus black bear in Arkansas. “It came from the thicket and it was beside the road and I shot it,” said the boy, who the Associated Press said was carrying a “youth rifle” while hunting with his grandfather. In other badass babes-in-the-woods news, a Santa Fe 4-year-old slammed a four-pound trout on the Pecos River last summer, using a Scooby Doo rod bought from Wal-Mart by her father.
Mountain Mid-Terms
The Ski Area Citizen’s Coalition released its ‘Environmental Scorecard’ for the eighth straight year, giving A to F letter grades to North America’s snow vendors. Grading for relative green-ness on a laundry list of criteria including development, endangered habitat preservation and water conservation, the Scorecard offers its own pass/fail opinion on how each ski area is operating. An honor roll “A” was bestowed on Aspen Mountain as newcomer Squaw Valley (a poor performer in the past) was noted as one of the “comeback kid” resorts for an environmental turnaround. The Scorecard gave “F’s” to areas such as Copper Mountain and Breckenridge, apparently because they will or recently had opened new ski terrain. Check the grades yourself at www.skiareacitizens.com
Hot Plates
In the 1990s a certain circus took the Utah Division of Travel to court in an attempt to halt its license plate proclamation of “The Greatest Snow on Earth.” The judge ruled in favor of Utah’s powder. Those ubiquitous black letters on a white background just got an upgrade with a profile of the Wasatch Mountains with Utah resident and three-time Olympian carving a turn. “I can’t wait to stop at a red light and notice that I am the skier on the plate in front of me,” says Voelker.
