Summit County Citizens Voice

One of the links in our weekly blog-o-ram leads to a blog about U.S. Forest Service efforts to develop a new paradigm for public land management.

Jackson Hole news

This week’s blogorama begins in Jackson Hole, where ski resort officials said skier days dipped about 5.6 percent from last season to a total of 413,684 — not as bad as it could have been, given the poor snowfall in the northern Rockies and the still-shaky economy. That’s the assessment from our blogging friends at JH Underground, who also reported that Mother Nature finally stepped it up a notch in early April, delivering 5 feet of snow in the past week. Jackson Hole president Jerry Blann also said spending by guests climbed enough during the second half of the winter that the resort will move ahead with some on-mountain improvements that could include a snowmaking upgrade. The April powder prompted Grand Targhee to stay open an extra week, through April 18, with $39 tickets for adults and $19 tickets for pre-teens. Get the details at JH Underground.

JH Underground also took a sharp poke at former VP Dick Cheney in a blog post based on reporting in the Times of London, a conservative paper that charged Cheney colluding to keep innocent people imprisoned at Guantánamo. The Times report is based on statement from a former chief of staff to Colin Powell, filed as part of a lawsuit by a Guantánamo detainee. The gist of the report, as recapped by JH Underground, is that the Bush administration knowingly kept innocent people in prison for political ends. “Remember that next time you bump into Cheney at Kmart or Whole Grocer,” JH Underground concludes. Read the post and subsequent comments here.

Denali-bound
Over at Lou Dawson’s Wild Snow blog, the team is still preparing for a Denali climb. One recent post include great detailed information on a Denali repair kit and advice on practicing stove repair at home, where it’s easier. The Wild Snow blog stream as always includes great product reviews, including this riff on Colorado-made Icelantic skis, and another post on the quest for super-light backcountry skis.

More blogorama after the break …

Social ski media?
Then there’s Vail Resorts latest foray into social media with yet another corporate sub-web site, which is leaving many people wondering whether it’s the “social” part, or the “media” part that the Broomfield-based company doesn’t get. The whole idea of social media is the organic, grassroots outward flow of information, so watching old-school Wall Street-run companies trying to co-opt the scene by centralizing and controlling the information flow would be amusing if it weren’t so scary. Here’s what I mean: There are plenty of regular folks out there tweeting, blogging and posting pics of skiing in Colorado. In an ideal social media environment, VR would compile those sources and provide links to them. Instead, the company wants to consolidate information into a web site that it controls, which leads to … yep, another corporate web site. Still, it could end being a sweet deal for someone who doesn’t mind being a corporate drone. Skinet.com reported on the Snow Squad here. The word is that a handful of skiers and boarders will score free Epic Passes, along with some other schwag in exchange for blog, video, Facebook and Twitter content. More info here.

Spring mountaineering
Colorado Mountain Journal, our favorite outdoor blog in Colorado has a great post compiling useful beta on some alpine-style couloir and chimney climbs in Rocky Mountain National Park, including well-know routes like Dreamweaver on Mt. Meeker.

New photoblog
We’re also checking out some sweet photography at Fly’s Picture Place, a companion site to our favorite Routt County blog, Outta The Cornfield. Since a picture is worth (at least) 1,000 words, we’ll leave it at that. Great outdoor shots from some of the lesser-known corners of the Western Slope.

Steep shots
We also wanted to turn you on to the Steep Shots blog by Golden-based writer and photographer Emily A.P. Mulica, who recently contributed a few stories to Summit Voice, including this story on a Wyoming bear encounter. Steep Shots runs as an every-other-week column in the Fort Collins Coloradoan and we’re hoping to feature more of Mulica’s writing soon.

Citizen’s voice
We also read with great interest this post by Salida Citizen publisher Bill Donovan, explaining the vision for the online news and discussion forum for the Chaffee County town. Donovan makes no bones about the fact the Citizen is intended to provide an alternate viewpoint to local right-of-center, for-profit media sources. The Salida Citizen was one of the first places we looked at we started up Summit Voice, and some of the parallels are instructive for our vision of providing an online alternative new source for Summit County.

Forest planning
We’re also reading the Forest Planning for a New Century blog, put together by a group of people involved in a far-reaching forest planning process that will ultimately help determine how national forests are managed. Some of the discussions at this site go well beyond daily forest management issues to more of a philosophical long-term at  public lands management. One recent guest post by a former deputy Forest Service chief addressed the importance of watershed planning as a component of forest plans, to which we can only say, Amen, since too often land-use planning is disconnected from water planning.

Filed under: blogs, writing Tagged: | blog mashup, blogs, Summit County Colorado, Summit County News