Stairway to heaven?

by Amy Maestas

Blog Last Updated; 3/1/2010

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Stairway to heaven?

Some might call it that. Last week, Telluride Ski Resort put in place a stairway on Gold Hill to connect Chutes 8 and 9 on the left side of Palmyra Peak.

A la Chamonix, France, the stairs and bridge, which are more than 1,000 feet long and the bridge 24 feet long, give skiers a route to the chutes and the powder fields of Palmyra Basin. Telluride executives say, "The French Alps resort of Chamonix, and the Aiguille du Midi - Mont Blanc in particular, provided inspiration for this project."

It was a pretty incredible engineering feat. Check out the series of installation photos on Telluride Ski Resort's blog: http://blog.tellurideskiresort.com/blogs/davesblog/archive/2010/02/24/gold-hill-9-bridge-amp-stairs-installed-this-morning.aspx.

A first time for everything

Last fall, the Colorado Tourism Office launched a unique, if not contrived, campaign to draw media attention to the state. The campaign is called Snow at First Sight. The office put out a call for people to enter a contest ? all based on snow. Its intent was to find three people who have never seen or experienced snow and then bring them to Colorado for adventures. Those winners would travel the state and blog, take photos and videos and essentially, rave about how great Colorado's snow is.

The winners ended up being from Melbourne, Australia, Atlanta, Ga., and Kailua, Oahu in Hawaii.

They started their three-month adventure in early January. Since then, they've been sharing their thoughts and fun on blogs. If you want to know what they have to say about Colorado and snow, follow them here: www.coloradosnowatfirstsight.com and also on Facebook, where you will have the chance to recommend what they do if they end up in your town: www.facebook.com/snowatfirstsight#!/snowatfirstsight.

GOP candidate buys Alta Lakes

In a surprising turn of events, former eBay chief executive officer and now California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman recently bought Alta Lakes, just outside Telluride. Whitman owns Skyline Ranch, which is nearby.

Whitman bought the properties from Silver Mountain Industries, which reportedly planned to build a neighborhood there. That raised the hackles of conservationists and environmentalists, who wanted to see the area remain in a pristine state. Does that mean Whitman is killing those plans?

Hard to say. Whitman's spokespeople have not said what she intends to do with Alta Lakes, though the popular thinking is that she'll conserve the land. San Miguel County Planning Director Mike Rozycki told the Telluride Daily Planet (www.telluridenews.com/) that he's under the impression the billionaire bought the land for conservation purposes. As the newspaper article stated, in the past Whitman has donated money toward other Telluride conservation efforts, most notably the effort to save the Valley Floor, the expansive open space at the town's entrance.