What would Yvon Chouinard do? Letter to the editor. Unpublished.

What would Yvon Chouinard do?

Lead by example.

1. Make all City owned and operated buildings net zero. That includes APCHA. Replace “City of Aspen” with “Pitkin County” copy and paste.

2. Make all new City building projects net zero. Replace “City of Aspen” with “Pitkin County” copy and paste.

3. Make all City vehicles EV. Replace “City” with “County” copy and paste.

4. Do not hand out a single City of Aspen subsidy to a company which isn’t net zero. Replace “City of Aspen” with “Pitkin County” copy and paste.

5. Do not hand out a single City of Aspen grant to a non-profit or entity which isn’t net zero. Replace “City of Aspen” with “Pitkin County” copy and paste.

These are not radical suggestions.  After all I haven’t suggested we give every deer, elk, bear, mountain lion, chickadee, nuthatch, blue spruce, lodgepole pine and wildflower an absentee ballot….we should because those are what make “Aspen Aspen”… but that would be radical and I doubt you’d get the bears to vote in March.

Lead by example, that is what I expect of my representatives and my government. Do more-300 City employees can make a bigger difference than any single citizen.

Gofundme bail for climate protesters 
@sunrisemvmt
#GreenNewDeal

Subsidies for Billionaires.... letter to the editor

$800,000

Under the fig leaf of reducing cars in Aspen we are poised to subsidize a multi billion dollar company with $800,000. Do we get stock options with that?

1. Rideshare does not reduce vehicular  traffic- anywhere. If it’s successful it increases the number of vehicles.
2. Rideshare has about 5 drivers in the valley.  We have no drivers because there isn’t any money in it. Want to increase the number of drivers? Have our 300 City staff take one rideshare a week. I can give you coupons.
3. Rideshare does not reduce your carbon footprint (see point #1) if you want to reduce the carbon footprint - subsidize some electric cars with that $800K- for the police force, for existing livery services, gift the down payment to 800 lucky Aspen citizens for their first electric car.. (have an EV lottery instead of an APCHA lottery) … any one of these would reduce our carbon footprint.
4. Airports, airports, airports. It’s about the airports…. and if you really want to reduce the number of cars during ski season you will take one of those mini buses and start direct bus service from baggage claim to Aspen. Next open communication between Grand Junction, Eagle, DIA and Aspen airport transit authorities when ever there is an airport closure to stop “dead heading” aka one way trips and returning to Aspen empty.
5. High volume events like Xgames, New Year’s Eve, Food & Wine bring in rideshare drivers (mostly from Denver) …. drivers without local business licenses and without local knowledge (hilarity ensues when they try and use GPS in the RFV). That’s where your “new” drivers come from… places with a lower cost of living … just like the rest of the service industry… which means … you guessed it… more traffic.

Rideshare is a free market business model with a lot of venture capital and to date only successful in a high volume urban 24/7/365 environment. We are rural resort with a seasonal economy and marginal connectivity…. and chances of having enough empirical data to find trends for our economy are slim to none… Do not try and shovel an $800K metro model into an Aspen size sack. 

See the previous post for more "mobility" talk.

Mobility letter to the editor

Mobility lab $2.5 million…. and another “ask” on the ballot for RFTA… uhhuh.

No, I don’t believe that a cappuccino machine at Brush Creek will reduce the number of cars in Aspen. I believe what would help is a reliable public transportation service where you never wait more than 10 minutes, which does not use hwy 82 (please, no more HOV on the right,  ever), which scales the size of transport to the number of riders and which is Green. R&Ding that type of solution is worth $2.5 mil.

Repeating old LTEs: pay for the bus with a credit card or phone at every stop.  Buying passes in Aspen or paying with cash is sooooo 20th century.

Have a  small buses picking up direct from baggage claim at the airport and going into Aspen. Our guests can’t find the bus stop, they can’t find the underground passageway; and they’re constantly trying to cross 82 at one of the most dangerous intersections on the most dangerous road in the State. It doesn’t matter that the bus is free if they can’t find it or they die trying.

Have a local bus which meets up with Bustang. That would be “local” not just BRT because if you can walk to a local stop that bus will not connect to a BRT in time to get you to Bustang.

Let’s add late night down valley buses for the “worker bees” who leave after closing time. Make it a “quiet bus”.

Driving livery - both limo and rideshare- for 3 years the greatest opportunity  I can see to conserve is when the airport is closed (snow, wind, wildfire- whatever). There are just as many people trying to get into Aspen as trying to get out and yet most of us drive to another airport and come back empty. The answer is simple- the implementation is difficult- a dispatch service which all livery services can opt into for all Colorado airports. This would match riders to incoming drivers who want to return home. It could cut the number of livery vehicles down by half. It could reduce the traffic just when the roads are the most dangerous.

Trying to change behavior rarely works. Plugging existing behavior into new easier patterns... that has potential. JM2¢

Plus ça change.... 

Lake Christine Fire continued

 

July 10

Okay this is going to be a long update.  It ain't over till it's over. Here's the executive summary: After El Jebel was saved by extraordinary firefighters the monster moved up Basalt Mountain and set it on fire. The monster kept eating beetle kill through old growth forest and wildlife habitat, exploding pinions and turning them into rockets which shot across the mountain making spot fires on both the East and West steeps which fueled it's march towards the North and Gypsum.  As I write this extraordinary efforts from an army of firefighters, first responders, helicopter pilots, water truck drivers, and all manner of support teams have reached 87% containment.  It's almost impossible to imagine how rough the terrain is where this battle rages.... but here is the view from where I am... 

July 10 and Basalt Mountain is smoking from spot fires.

There was the promise of rain on July 11

 

...but nothing up on the Heights... this was my view driving back to the ranch...

 

July 12

Having missed the "parade" for the firefighters I made a little sign.

You can see Basalt Mountain smoking in the background.

 

Because a sign has two sides....

Helicopters were flying over head 

The mountain was still smoking

 

...and the heli crews were working....

 

... and the view at night left no doubt..

 

July 13

... and the mornings began to fill with smoke...

 

making for spectacular sunsets

and ominous sunrises 

 

July 18 brought wind

 

The Pyrocumulous grew

 

and grew

 

July 18

 

July 19

 It ain't over till it's over

 

Midnight July 20-21 it was time to bug out again.

July 21

Coming home from Denver on I70 the smoke from Lake Christine turned the sky orange 

 

July 22!!!

RAIN!!!!

Look closely 00.07"

 

Report for July 23... the monster is still growing...

 

in the afternoon two more RAIN events

bringing another 00.13" 

 

July 27

more smoke and moving north on the East side of Basalt Mountain

 

The big kids move in next door....

 

July 28

 

Total for Saturday 00.18"

Woohoo!!!!!

 

and with the rain and the helicopters the result today is:

 

87% containment

WOW

The evacuation orders have been lifted 

I still have helicopters overhead. 

link to the first blog post on the Lake Christine Fire

Electing the election, letter to the editor

It’s not the first time moving the election day has been suggested but it just may be the first time a sitting City Councilman has come out against it. On Facebook it’s turning into a full out Bert vs Skippy rock ‘em sock ‘em. If you can get past the accusations of SkiCo liftie zombies casting votes for their Ice King overlord or upstart “kids” gerrymandering by dates instead of districts I ask my fellow Aspen voters to look at the science, specifically how your state of mind effects the way you vote.

We vote differently when we feel economically solid than when we feel strapped. March is when the majority of us who work in Aspen are feeling giddy and overwhelmed with work… when the cash is at least a plentiful as the snow. By May we’re in deep hangover phase. You’re wondering how the winter money melted so fast and if it will ever come again while spending all your time and resources to clean things up for summer. The short answer- when you’re feeling strapped you’re less likely to vote and if you do vote you're a lot less likely to vote smart. Seriously… there are studies… lots of them.. the 2013 study from Harvard springs to mind.."For an even starker example of how financial concerns can weigh on people's minds, Mullainathan and colleagues traveled to rural India, where sugar cane farmers typically are paid only once per year. "The month after the harvest, they're pretty rich, but the month before – when the money has run out – they're pretty poor," he said. "What we did is look at the same people the month before and the month after the harvest, and what we see is that IQ goes up, cognitive control, or errors, goes way down, and response times go way down.”



Sound familiar?

Simply put…

More voter turnout = good for democracy
Smarter voter = good for democracy
March elections = both of the above.

Lake Christine Fire

I was driving my Tesla Limo for the last ride of the day July 3rd. My riders were two pilots from the private Airport in Aspen and they were booked into the Element Hotel at Willits just the other side of highway 82 from Basalt. As we came out of Snowmass Canyon directly in front of us was a column of smoke... and as we got closer flames... which I estimated at 90' high. My first comment "This isn't good." My second comment "If they don't get a big slurry bomber on that right now......" Having seen the effect of a slurry bomber on the 2002 Panorama Fire by my place in Missouri Heights I knew just how effective they could be... and that's what I wanted to see... a big beautiful slurry bomber out of the Grand Junction airport ..."

 Photo coming into Basalt July 3, 2018

At the Element Hotel, as ash was falling on the Tesla, the pilots decided they might want to change their hotel plans. I drove them to the Westin in Snowmass and by the time I turned the car back towards Missouri Heights an hour later the beast had taken hold....

Photo at the Basalt stoplight.

No Slurry bombers... but some helicopters with "bambi buckets" which carry about 40 gallons dipped out of the Roaring Fork River and the Kodiak Ski Lake behind the Tree Farm at Willits.

 

See that tiny dot? That's a helicopter and below it is a water bucket. 

 That night I didn't get much sleep as I watched the red glow get bigger from my deck....

The week before driving into El Jebel looked like this:

 On the morning of July 4th it was a different story:

July 4 is a big day for driving and I also like our little parade in Aspen. I packed up the dogs- took them to doggie daycare and spent a little time at the parade.

I kept looking at my phone - twitter and FB- looking for fire updates.  I was pretty much glued to the Lake Christine Google Fire Map.

The photos were not looking good and it certainly wasn't getting any smaller.  #lakechristinefire

I left the parade- picked up the dogs- when back down valley to get my old BMW "bugout" car which I keep packed and ready to go in case of emergency.  The fire was still in back of Basalt but hadn't jumped the ridge to El Jebel or started up Basalt Mountain. It looked like it might be going in the opposite direction up the Frying Pan....

 

View from my deck July 4 afternoon. 

I checked my roof sprinklers

 

Kept looking at the fire....

and the water in the cistern.

 

Watched the fire....

 Tried to sleep.....

 

Things seemed ok "ish" until the early hours of July 5.

You've probably seen the photos- the fire jumped the ridge into El Jebel and ate the side of a mountain in about 60 seconds flat... that's when the evacuation orders came for Missouri Heights. The truly spectacular photos are of the hill behind Whole Foods. Here's the link to Wildfire Today...

 As I drove past El Jebel with the dogs in the "bug out bimmer" I saw thousands of spot fires all over the hill.  Every time you thought you were out of the fire zone there would be another single spiraling tower of flame shooting out from the middle of the mountain side as if there were pipes down to hell playing organ music for the devil. One small burst of wind had almost eaten El Jebel and another burst of wind could eat whatever it wanted... whenever it wanted....

"Snow" is what I thought.... "It's gonna take snow to stop this monster."

Later that morning with my friend Karen's help I went back to the Missouri Heights place to rescue the Tesla (I can only drive one car at a time... Elon should work on that autopilot thing...)

We passed hills smoking with spot fires.

and checkpoint after checkpoint

and rescued the Tesla... (yeah!)

 

and I started doing a lot of round trips to Denver because the commercial flights in and out of Aspen were limited due to wildfire restrictions.... 

 

Coming home from another DIA trip the rain at the top of Independence was welcome but the glow from the Lake Christine Fire told me another story.  

I was able to return home for brief visits Saturday, Sunday and Monday... but as always keeping a wary eye out to Basalt Mountain and watching the leaves on the trees for any breath of wind....

I ate breakfast at Home Team at the Inn at Aspen a couple of days ago. They've just installed a new Tesla supercharging station and with all the trips to Denver I'm trying to keep the batteries topped up... My waiter and I shared evacuation stories and then he showed me a picture of his home in El Jebel. His home had been saved... 10 feet from his front door the ground was black.... that's how close it came to burning his home. Gracias a Dios.

I'm back at the Ranch and the Lake Christine Fire still burns on Basalt Mountain. There are 30 homes still under mandatory evacuation and we all wait and watch... praying for rain ... and hoping for no wind .... and no lightning.... 

The Fire map is steady at about 6000 acres but we know at any moment it could turn..... for photos and videos of the Lake Christine Fire click on The Aspen Times slideshow (with some spectacular photos from Peter McBride- one of our many local NatGeo photographers) and 9 News video 9 News has a lot of video you just have to get past the ads....

It ain't over till it's over. Basalt Mountain is still smoking.

 

Thanks to all my friends who have helped me with support- in words and deed.

Thanks to the firefighters, hot shots, helicopter and bomber pilots who worked so hard and are still working to keep lives and property safe from the flames.

Thanks to this little tight knit community... we are all in this together... and if you ever doubt that look back on the 4th of July 2018.

How you can help:

Lake Christine Fire: Wildland Firefighter Foundation from Outside Adventure Media on Vimeo.

Go Fund Me for those who lost homes:

Bill and Andee

Cleve

Levi

Martinez