The second part of a three-part series in the Colorado Independent by David O. Williams about the prospects of Denver landing the 2022 Winter Games ran over the weekend, focusing on how such a move would brighten the prospects of high-speed rail along I-70.As Vancouver shut down the highway to…
If you’ve ever dreamed of wearing your drinking water? How about drinking from your clothes? Now you can do both with CamelBak’s wearable ShredBak, the first wearable hydration system.Released late last year, the ShredBak holds 72 ounces of water in a compressed state that keeps it from slogging and churning…
The buzz about Denver Bike Sharing started about a year and a half ago when the Democratic National Convention set up a temporary bike-share program downtown. Now the city is on the cusp of joining bike-sharing cities like Paris, Rome, and Montreal by launching the real deal April 22-26.Dubbed Denver…
It’s a Monday night in Fraser, and the Crooked Creek Saloon looks like the place to be an hour after the lifts close at Winter Park. The crowd is a nearly ideal mix of blue-collar locals and younger ski-bum types who combine to outnumber tourists by an approximate ratio of…
Spring is upon us. Despite its snowy start, I have a feeling it will end with mud. It’s the perfect time to get out of town for a weekend or a week in search of adventure, warm weather, or dry earth — or some combination of the three. …
So we covered the Open Water-meets-Aspen Extreme epic Frozen before it opened in January. The trailer and the concept of a thriller about something as boring as sitting on a chairlift in the dark made me laugh quite a bit, but not enough to try and see the movie. Its…
Sure enough, the bill guaranteeing rafting companies passage on established routes through private property died (at least for now) in the Colorado Senate, the Associated Press reported in the Aspen Times Friday. (See the most recent OTE post on the issue here.) Sparked initially by a fishing resort near Gunnison…
I braved spring break at Winter Park earlier in the week and had one of my best days ever skiing Mary Jane Tuesday. At the bar at the Club Car, I talked to a pass-holder and the bartender about the price tag on next season’s Rocky Mountain Super Pass, and…
From Denver’s very own Cyanide Stitches comes the perfect face-cover for spring days that don’t require the heavy-duty facial protection of the Beard Head, but still cry for a complement of faux facial hair (as pictured on creator Amber Glenn here). Or fangs. Or bad teeth.Each Insta-Face Bandana is embroidered…
I’m beat after a long day skiing — Nordic in the a.m. and downhill at Winter Park in the p.m. It’s time for a burger and a couple of beers, so I head to the Winter Park Pub and park my ass on the barstool closest to the wall. Inside…
On Monday, I decided to get some cross-country practice before the white stuff goes the way of the Wicked Witch of the West. I picked a beautiful blue-sky day to work some of the rust off at Devil’s Thumb Ranch, northeast of Winter Park. The rust was a little thicker…
Old Man Winter is about to croak. Daylight savings time is toast. Squirrels and birds are working their way onward and upward on our ski mountains. The vernal equinox is on March 20; in one week and one day, this winter is technically one for the books.So, the top 5…
The first edition of the Denver Snow Show ended a month ago, but SnowSports Industries America (SIA) has just reported that the move from its longtime home of Las Vegas reversed an ongoing downward trend by setting a six-year high-water mark for attendance. From the release:…
As much as I like my Ween, I hate wearing earbuds when I’m cruising down a slope or riding my cruiser in Denver. I want to hear the skiers and ‘boarders on the slopes as well as the bikes and — most importantly — cars and trucks on the road…
Last month, a Department of the Interior memo leaked and broke the story that the Obama administration was considering establishing 14 national monuments in nine western states, including the Vermillion Basin in far northwestern Colorado. Republicans and property-rights hardliners have since been lashing out at the idea, denouncing the Clinton…
In Crested Butte, both the pro- and anti-development forces await word on the future of Snodgrass Mountain from the U.S. Forest Service’s Region 5 Deputy Regional Forester Jim Peña, the Crested Butte News reports. After local U.S.F.S. honcho Charlie Richmond kiboshed the resort’s proposed expansion onto Snodgrass Mountain last fall…
House Bill 1188, the controversial proposal to allow rafting companies to cross through private property on historically established routes, is now in committee of the state Senate. (Read a February OTE post on it here). According to this Summit Daily News story, its chances of making it into law are…
Legendary Telluride ski bum “Captain Jack” Carey passed away on Lizard Head Pass last summer after a truck hit his bike. The New Hampshire transplant and Ophir resident was an world-class hang-glider, skier, biker, and hiker, and beloved by the community he’d been a big, smiling part of for over…
The good people over at Science magazine are blogging that too much ski wax is probably not a good thing. Apparently ski wax has a lot of stuff besides wax in it, including some nasty junk called perfluorinated octanoic acid (PFOA), and that’s not the best thing to have in…
Between two epic days at Monarch to start off the week, there was of course a night in Salida. My belly’s growl silenced by an Amica’s pizza, I stopped in to watch the U.S.-Canada hockey match at the Tenderfoot Tavern.Some mountain bars are none too fond of outsiders, but this…
An R2 unit for skiers looking to hone their skills without any of that pesky human interaction, the Moticon SkiGo consists of: A) a computerized brain (pictured above); B) insoles that detect your velocity and position, and thus whether you’re making good or bad turns; and C) an earbud that…
So CDOT was metering again yesterday, and I-70 again predictably turned into a parking lot at the tunnel, ending many a getaway with an interminably slow slog back to Denver. Critics are not too happy about the practice, claiming it turns a three-hour drive into a five-hour drive for no…
