Category: Environment

After wildfires burn through vegetation and scorch soils, there’s an increased risk of erosion, flooding and debris flows. On Basalt Mountain, the unusual topography added a new layer to the hydrology.

“I’m coming to Aspen mostly because, frankly, it’s where lots and lots of people in the financial industry come to play, and the financial industry — the biggest banks and asset managers in the world — are increasingly the focus of efforts to try and slow down climate change.”

The Gunnison sage-grouse disappeared from Pitkin County in the 1960s; in the 1990s, it was extirpated in Eagle and Garfield counties.

In addition to drier soils, aspen forests across the world are under stress from human activities such as mining, logging and urban development — as well as from some of the very wildlife they help support.

Pitkin County is warming, the number of frost-free days is increasing and snowpack is declining, with notable impacts on the underpinning of modern Aspen’s economy: snow and skiing.

Open Space staff is now proposing firm deadlines; any business who misses the deadline wouldn’t be eligible for a permit.

As awareness of the potential effects of climate change grows, so does anxiety and grief about the seriousness of the crisis.

The plan hinges on an agreement with CDOT. Pitkin County actually only owns about a tenth of an acre, and the rest of the property that people know as Penny Hot Springs sits in a CDOT right of way.

There are now moose in just about every drainage in the upper Roaring Fork River valley, but wildlife officials can’t pin down specific numbers.