Archive for the 'Environment' Category

Arapahoe Basin Opens Montezuma Bowl

If you missed it last weekend: “Colorado powder hounds will get access to a new lift-served playground this week, as Arapahoe Basin announced the opening of Montezuma Bowl for Friday, Jan. 11. The 400-acre terrain expansion boosts the size of A-Basin by about 80 percent, a significant addition by any measure, especially for a small mountain that already skis big.” Will the new lift-served land overfill the already too-crowded parking lots? Will back-country skiers head somewhere else to play? Time will tell.Read more at New West Snow Blog.

MakeSnowNotWar.com Deals

From James: “MakeSnowNotWar.com has great organic clothing and its all 20% off right now. Just type in ‘myspace20′ as the promo code.” The shirts are pretty simple and look great plus they’re 100% organic–check ‘em out and visit their MySpace page.

Alpinist Film Festival offsets carbon footprint

This season Alpinist Magazine is hosting a film festival in Wyoming (which is a short-enough drive from Colorado, right?):

The 2008 Alpinist Film Festival will take place January 17-20, 2008, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In addition to the Snow, Surf and Stone nights, which showcase, respectively, the world’s best skiing, surfing and climbing films, a new People’s Choice Ceremony will screen the People’s Choice award winners from the preceding evenings, allowing the audience to choose the 2008 Grand Prize award winner.

This year’s beer sponsor is none other than Fort Collins’ New Belgium. Certainly reason enough to go, right?

Learn more about the 2008 Alpinist Film Festival.

Not only does it sound like a great time, the festival will offset it’s entire carbon footprint (and then some):

In keeping with the Alpinist’s commitment to preserve the places of our inspiration, the 2008 Alpinist Film Festival will offset its estimated carbon footprint with the purchase of renewable energy. All energy consumed by the 2008 Festival–from the travel of the speakers and the audiences to snow removal, the delivery of films and the ink consumption for posters and banners–will be accounted for in the estimated carbon footprint. In order to eliminate unaccounted carbon, an additional ten tons of offsets, nearly double the Festival’s estimated footprint, will be purchased.

Read more about the green initiative details.

The festival is sponsored by Patagonia which (via it’s founder, Yvon Chouinard) is known for pioneering the ‘green movement’ back in the 1980’s.

Tickets are not yet available but you can visit their site and learn more about prior-year’s festivals. Colorado Snow may be there this year to cover the events–stay tuned.

La Nina: Predicting less precipitation

Recent predictions from the Wester Water Assessment (WWA) say that we might get higher temperatures and lower snowfalls this season:

Expected La Niña impacts during October-December 2007 season are above average precipitation in the Pacific Northwest (including western Wyoming) and below average precipitation in the Southwest, including parts of Colorado. There is an increased chance of above average temperatures over all of the Intermountain West (Intermountain West Climate Summary).

Not cool… literally.

“Green” Marketing Hits the Slopes

Brand Connections, an advertising company, has spent years and over $10 million to buy up a network that targets the outdoor enthisiasts.

Some big advertisers have already signed up. Coca-Cola’s Odwalla brand is planning a campaign on the network this fall to promote its line of juices, health drinks and nutrition bars at ski resorts.

“People who are in the outdoors naturally want to preserve it. …Those consumers are looking for brands whose values align with their own,” says Chris Brandt, marketing director for Odwalla. Through its marketing, the brand promotes its commitment to the environment by pointing to several initiatives it undertakes. Among them: It uses recycled materials in its packaging to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills. (WSJ)