Author: Jason Blevins
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Colorado Fourteeners Initiative to buy Mount Shavano summit
MOUNT SHAVANO — The trail to the peak widens as it reaches the alpine tundra. Soon, it’s a slanting scar, 20 feet across and 3 feet deep. Chunks of tundra are sliding into the trough of rubble. “So much is moving. It crumbles from the uphill side and smothers the downhill side. It’s a real…
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Salida OK’s community of 200 tiny homes to help ease housing crunch
The Salida City Council on Tuesday approved a plan to build 200 tiny homes on a riverside parcel, marking what could become the nation’s largest tiny-home community and a showcase for a potential solution to Colorado’s housing crisis. “I think most people are standing back to see if this thing will be successful,” Salida’s interim…
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To build a better trail, Colorado Fourteeners Initiative is buying the summit of Mount Shavano
MOUNT SHAVANO — The trail to the peak widens as it reaches the alpine tundra. Soon, it’s a slanting scar, 20-feet across and 3-feet deep. Chunks of tundra are sliding into the trough of rubble. “So much is moving. It crumbles from the uphill side and smothers the downhill side. It’s a real double whammy,”…
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Avalanche educators grapple with social media impact
BRECKENRIDGE — Emery Rheam’s video showed teenagers spinning backflips into deep powder blanketing an avalanche starting zone on Teton Pass in Wyoming. The thousand people watching in the Breckenridge conference center — snow scientists and guides gathered for the annual International Snow Science Workshop — winced, shook their heads and grumbled. Those kids, Rheam said,…
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Personal trainer from Gold Hill sets recond with 57 fourteeners in 32 days, eight hours
“The last 36 hours have been pretty intense.” Welcome to the understatement of the month. Joe Grant woke up in Frisco Thursday morning, got on his bike, pedaled up Argentine Pass, climbed the adjacent fourteeners Grays Peak and Torreys Peak and returned to Georgetown that afternoon. After a bit of food he got on his…
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Zipline builder’s newest creation is one-of-a-kind aerial adventure over cliff-lined Seven Falls
A dozen years ago, Sarah Shrader’s brother showed up on her front porch in Grand Junction, fresh from a zipline-building trip to Alaska. He had boxes of paperwork and a bunch of tools loaded into his tired van, and a big paycheck in his hand. Shrader fired up an old Mac, downloaded Quickbooks over dial-up…
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260,000 hikers scramble up Colorado’s 14ers each year, spending big in nearby towns
It might seem like every other person in Colorado is hiking a fourteener on any given summer Saturday. While it might not actually be that crowded, the state’s highest peaks do count about 260,000 summit-scrambling trips every year. All those feet headed to the 54 highest points in Colorado each year deliver $70.5 million in…
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USA Pro Challenge dies with departure of race chief Shawn Hunter
The USA Pro Challenge is no more. Shawn Hunter, the driving force behind the wildly popular pro cycling stage race across Colorado, said Tuesday he is not pursuing the race for 2017. Hunter in February announced the race would not traverse Colorado this summer in what would have been its seventh year as he labored…
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Colorado Gators boasts Bruce, the largest alligator in the West
Jay Young measures successful missions with intact digits. “I can still count to 10 without taking off my shoes,” says the owner of the San Luis Valley’s Colorado Gators Reptile Park who this week traveled to Idaho to retrieve what is likely the largest alligator in the West. “It was quite an adventure,” Young said. “He…
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Colorado breaks tourism record with 77.7 million visitors spending $19.1 billion
For the fifth year in a row, Colorado hosted a record number of tourists who have left a record amount of cash in their wake. The Colorado Tourism Office on Wednesday reported that 77.7 million visitors to the state in 2015 spent an all-time high of $19.1 billion, generating $1.13 billion in state and local…