Basalt in the Fall

Fall doesn't arrive until Sept. 23, but in Colorado's high country, the aspens already are starting to turn.

"There's kind of a golden haze," said Elizabeth Phillips at the Basalt Chamber of Commerce near Aspen. The same reports are coming in from Salida and Durango - the golden season is drawing nigh.

What kind of a color season will it be? Glorious or dismal? The word from at least one expert - spectacular.

"The summer moisture and recent evening cooling patterns should make for excellent aspen viewing," said Michael Grant, biology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

As is the case every fall, not everyone agrees.

"I wouldn't want to contradict a Ph.D., but I'm not sure I want to say it's going to be great," said Chuck Kostecka, district forester for the Colorado State Forest Service in Woodland Park. "It looks like it's starting to go a little bit early."

It may go quickly without vibrant color, he added. Kostecka said he's seen a lot of leaf fungus, which can cause leaves to suddenly drop without changing color.

The wet summer promoted a lot of leaves, but the cool, wet conditions stunted root growth and that also can cause a poor color season.

The consensus is whatever will be, will be, and fall foliage aficionados should keep a close eye on the mountainsides for the next few weeks.

Already there are pockets of gold above 9,000 feet on the Pikes Peak Highway.

The gold there and elsewhere in the state will spread to the mid- elevations (about 7,000-9,000 feet) this week and be in its prime in the lower elevations by the last week of the month, Grant predicted.

North-facing slopes, which are generally the coolest locations, will be the first to show color.

Often, large patches of aspens turn color at the same time while others nearby may still be green.

That's because the group of trees is connected like a string of lights controlled by the same switch, Grant said. The trees reproduce by sending out underground runners from their roots, which sprout as new trees but remain connected underground by a common root. They share the same genes that determine the timing of the color change.

To keep track of the changes as they happen, call the U.S. Forest Service fall color hotline, (800) 354-4595 and press 2 for Rocky Mountain States.

It's updated weekly.

Or check the Forest Service Web site, www.fs.fed.us/news/ fall.shtml.

One of the world's wealthiest enclaves is in the throes of a midlife crisis.

Aspen, a graying, groomed resort for the well-heeled, has begun to lure a whimsical new generation of clients, and Glitter Gulch retailers say they are stretched thin trying to cater to the paradox.

Realtors peddling houses at an average sale price of $4 million are still celebrating. And adventure-hunting hipsters, answering Aspen Skiing Co.'s siren call for snowriders at its four ski mountains, are rallying.

But Aspen's shopkeepers and restaurateurs, torn between the courtship of both the mega-rich and the frugal, are suffering.

Commercial rents in Aspen are the highest in the state, about $120 per square foot in annual rent, compared with $25 to $35 per square foot in Boulder's Pearl Street shopping district. Merchants say the high rents keep them from adjusting to meet the desires of their changing customer base.

The situation in Aspen's retail core is so desperate that a consultant hired by the city described it as "an embalmed downtown." In recent years, more than a dozen of Aspen's most august shops and restaurants have shut down.

The 117-year-old Aspen Drug store -- built to supply soot-faced miners who spilled into town from the Midnight and Smuggler mines -- became an office that sells time shares in 2002.

In this city of 5,900 people, images of movie stars, $20 million castles and over-the-top opulence are fading. Their replacements: local ski stars, $3 burritos and over-the-terrain park bravado.

Aspen's evolution into a youth mecca began on a cloudless Sunday in April 2001, when SkiCo chieftains welcomed hordes of snowboarders to Aspen Mountain.

Dropping the ban on single-plankers at the city's namesake hill was the bellwether in Aspen's shift from quiet-by-design country club to a playground open to all comers -- at least all comers with $68 for a lift ticket.

Just two years ago, the famed 24 Hours of Aspen ski race, sponsored by Audi, was the signature event in Aspen, drawing crowds capable of buying $50,000 Audis.

Last fall, Audi backed out, and the SkiCo switched gears. It threw a rollicking Thanksjibbing Weekend, with new-school snowriders gliding down handrails and sliding up and across a 32-foot steel wall hammered into the snow. More than 4,000 people packed the town.

"We are absolutely trying to employ a youthful attitude," says David Perry, the 49-year-old SkiCo executive who previously helped rebuild the bankrupt Whistler-Blackcomb resort into the most popular ski resort in North America. "If we've got a positive, forward-thinking, youthful attitude, other things just happen."

Things like city council-supported concerts on closed streets in downtown Aspen; like opening hyper-steep ski terrain that was closed for decades at both Snowmass and Aspen Highlands ski areas; like replacing World Cup races with "big air" jumping contests and rail-riding.

"Aspen is looking for a new energy in a new time," says Othello Clark, the dreadlocked competitive snowboarder who is bringing his wildly successful Aspen skateboard camps to Aspen Mountain with daily rail-sliding clinics.

The fattest jewel in Aspen's new-school crown is securing ESPN's Winter X Games through 2007. The games -- featuring a carnival of gravity-fighting athletes on skis, snowboards, snowmobiles and motorcycles -- pump $10 million to $15 million into the town's economy each year. The event drew 50,000 visitors earlier this season.

Aspen's city council agreed last month to contribute $100,000 a year to secure the X Games. The SkiCo is contributing exponentially more.

"This is really growing our pipeline of visitors. We are able to sell Aspen to a whole new audience," says Hana Pevny, president of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association.

Dozens of community leaders across the city call the marriage of Aspen and the X Games a perfect fit.

But X-Gamers and the crowd they draw are not the typical free-spending visitors who fill the town's cash registers. By comparison, the 5,000 visitors to Aspen's annual Food & Wine confab every summer inject up to $30 million into town coffers.

Aspen officials are hoping that they can maintain the Food & Wine crowd while also building the next generation of Aspen visitors, nose rings and all.

Young X-Game visitors may buy a $200-a-night hotel room with a parent's credit card, but they'll pack the room and eat take-out McDonald's.

"We need to infuse Aspen with a new energy," says Amy Gordon, owner of the Aspen Collections store for the past 20 years. She and her husband are having a "retirement sale" and shutting down the antique furniture store.

"We really are at a crossroads here." Sales tax revenue takes hit Catering to the rich and glamorous is an easy path. Sell one $10,000 dress, and there's a month's rent.

The high-end retail chain stores that arrived in Aspen about six years ago -- such as Christian Dior, Gucci and Louis Vuitton -- are posting strong gains this season.

"We are the only high-end resort in the world with luxury retailers. It's what makes Aspen unique," says the manager of one luxury store, who cited company policy in requesting anonymity. "Yes, there are growing pains in the retail community, but the luxury retailers aren't necessarily feeling those pains."

Even with the strength of the luxury chain stores, Aspen's sales tax revenue has fallen from $3.80 million in 1998 to $3.68 million in 2002. Estimates for 2003 show continuing decline, with sales tax revenue expected to fall to around $3.42 million.

Still, Aspen leads the state in gross retail sales among resort communities, with Vail and Steamboat Springs close behind.

But statistical declines are secondary to what many retailers see as Aspen "losing its soul." For those who must peddle thousands of pizza slices a month to make rent, or who moved to Aspen years ago to be a part of a funky community, nothing's easy.

"It's do-or-die time," says Shae Singer, who has been in business in Aspen for 18 years and owns the pooch-friendly Living a Dog's Life in Aspen and Sashae Floral Arts and Gifts.

"Only so many people can afford to pay $1,000 for a pair of pants. When I moved here, town was funky. Now, there's boarded-up shops, real-estate offices everywhere and chain stores. All they really want is to put the name Aspen on their paper bags. Rents here are putting the small businesses, the mom-and-pops, out of business."

The key to Aspen's economy is the richest of the nation's rich, those few barons who can afford $3 million for a vacation house they may tear down.

"We as a community, sometimes forget the impact of the second-home owner, and that's where our economy is growing," says Pevny, the chamber official, noting that second-home owners also are major contributors to Aspen's robust coterie of charities.

Those buyers pump millions into the city's coffers in the form of a real-estate transfer tax. Those taxes, which are estimated at $5.46 million for 2003, fund the city's housing program as well as functions at the city-owned Wheeler Opera House.

While they make the town run, second-home buyers have forced real-estate prices so high that local workers have spent the past decade fleeing to cheaper confines downvalley. Towns like Basalt, Carbondale and El Jebel have felt growing pains from the Aspen exodus, with real-estate prices in those towns climbing. A median-priced home in Basalt, 20 miles northwest of Aspen, reached a record $416,000 last year.

Aspen's second-home owners stoke a real-estate bonfire that has raged for three decades, making Aspen the second-priciest market in the country after New York City.

Sales in the Roaring Fork Valley topped $850 million in 2003, up from $768 million in 2002. Aspen carries the valley's market, with 77 home sales and 158 condo sales accounting for $442 million in sales last year. The average home price in Aspen topped an all-time high of $4 million last year, and the price of the average homesite climbed to more than $2 million.

Big-name developers like Hyatt and Starwood are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into four new time-share projects, known as "fractional vacation ownership opportunities," marking the largest development boom in Aspen in decades.

These new projects, with four-week time shares costing up to $1 million, are promising to inject a steady stream of deep-pocketed visitors onto Aspen's streets.

One long-time hotelier thinks that will boost the city's retail fortunes.

"I think the advent of fractional projects in Aspen will have a strong positive impact on the retail business here," says Richard McLennan, general manager of the luxurious St. Regis Aspen hotel, which will spend $38 million this summer to convert 98 rooms into 24 time-share condos and build a 15,000 square-foot European spa.

So, as the old wisecrack asks on T-shirts hanging in shops along the city's increasingly lonely pedestrian mall, "How's your Aspen?"

"There is a ton of change right now, and everyone is trying to understand it," says Joe Nevin, a local ski instructor who teaches aging baby boomers to master ski moguls using very short skis. "There are a lot of things up in the air right now in Aspen, and everyone is wondering what it's going to look like when it all comes down."

Aspen has gotten its fill of snow this season, but the ski area has not received an abundant supply of workers.

The glitzy ski resortstill has 125 positions open this season. The jobs range from lift operators to child care providers.

``What's happened to us is we have had a few leases expire on mountain restaurants and we've assumed those leases, which added 300 positions to our ranks,'' said Jim Laing, vice president of human resources.

But Aspen Skiing Co. has come up with some creative ways to meet the shortage. The resort is offering local teachers a two-day-a-week pass if they commit to working for 10 days during their holiday breaks.

``We've had a very positive response,'' Laing said.

But Dave Conarroe, a business teacher at Aspen High School, said he hasn't heard of many teachers who will take the resort up on its offer.

``The people I've spoken to have already bought a pass or are going to be out of town or have made other arrangements,'' Conarroe said. ``But it's an intriguing deal.''

Laing, however, said the resort will have enough workers to cover the busy holiday season thanks in part to the teachers and college students who are home on break. But the ski area will still need to hire workers for peak times.

Many businesses in Aspen are in a similar bind.

``It's a problem across the board,'' said Bonnie Kowar, director of membership for Aspen Chamber Resort Association.

Kowar blames the labor shortage on a lack of affordable housing in the Aspen area. She said the starting price for a single-family home in the town of Aspen is $1.2 million, while a one-bedroom apartment in Aspen typically rents for $1,200 a month.

Kowar said most workers live in neighboring communities such as Basalt and Carbondale, where housing prices are cheaper. The association has tried to make the commute easier on workers by creating a special bus line and providing discounted bus passes for Aspen workers.

The organization also holds an online job fair every year to lure employees. A new program also matches high school students with local employers.

``We're looking for solutions,'' Kowar said. ``We're not just sitting back waiting for things to happen.''

Even ski areas where affordable housing is plentiful encounter labor shortages. Keystone, which has 1,100 competitively priced employee units, is still looking for 100 employees for this season.

``It's an ongoing process that quite frankly never ends,'' said John Reilly, head of human resources for both the Keystone and Breckenridge ski areas.

Reilly and others in the ski business say the seasonal nature of the industry often makes it difficult to find employees.