{"id":2452412,"date":"2019-12-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317874"},"modified":"2019-12-19T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T17:00:00","slug":"story-of-the-decade-the-2010s-in-aspen-and-the-roaring-fork-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/story-of-the-decade-the-2010s-in-aspen-and-the-roaring-fork-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Story of the Decade: The 2010s in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/12\/cover-atw-121919-1-1024x682.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/12\/cover-atw-121919-1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/12\/cover-atw-121919-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/12\/cover-atw-121919-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/12\/cover-atw-121919-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/12\/cover-atw-121919-1-2048x1363.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>The glow from the Lake Christine fire on July 3, 2018 in Basalt, Colorado.<\/strong><br \/><em>Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Each decade in modern Aspen has a distinct identity. The rebirth of the old mining town as a would-be utopia and ski resort in the 1940s. The ski bum revolution of the 1970s. The glitz and \u201cAspen Extreme\u201d fashions of the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">So what defined the 2010s?<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">It\u2019s the EDM-soundtracked era of Strafe jackets and Aspen Blondes at the Aspen Brewing Company, of uphilling and SUP-ing, of Roaring Fork Swap and Sky Mountain Park and Snowmasstadon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">It was a remarkable economic bounce-back from the Great Recession. Some argue it\u2019s the moment when the billionaires actually forced out the millionaires and anybody with less than seven figures in the bank fought futilely for scraps. When downtown Aspen\u2019s buildings got bigger and too many long-running local businesses shuttered. A period when Aspen typified a divided country\u2019s widening economic inequality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">But, on the bright side, it was also the decade that brought Snowmass Base Village and a new midvalley community at Willits Town Center, when Aspen got serious about climate change and the Roaring Fork Valley meaningfully addressed the community\u2019s struggles with mental health. When the nation rooted for locals competing in three winter Olympics and Aspen hosted the World Cup Finals and Colorado got legal weed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">As the decade winds down, this is an attempt at a rough first draft of history for Aspen in the 2010s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Pick up the Dec. 26 edition of the Aspen Times Weekly as we look at the questions that will define the 2020s in the Roaring Fork Valley.<\/p>\n<h2>THE HOUSING CRISIS GOT WORSE.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Despite the decade-long drumbeat of government initiatives, new affordable housing developments and land acquisitions to grow the number of deed-restricted homes in the Aspen area, it only got more difficult for people to live near Aspen on Aspen wages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">A recent housing study found the housing shortage in Aspen and Snowmass grew from about 2,500 in 2001 to a shortfall of 3,000 in 2017 and projected a 3,400-unit deficit by 2027. That\u2019s despite new Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority developments like Burlingame Ranch II over the decade and despite current plans for more workforce housing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">It\u2019s the main contributor to a labor shortage that ski- and service-industry leaders now recognize as an existential threat to Aspen\u2019s ability to continue operating as a world-class resort. As restaurateur Ryan Sweeney put it to the Times last month: \u201cWe are reaching a breaking point in this town.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">After the post-recession tourist economy started booming again around 2012, available jobs began outpacing available housing by the thousands. Disruptive forces like the Airbnb short-term homestay service took remaining free market rentals out of the reach of people who live here and can\u2019t buy in a place where the gap between median home price and what the average family can afford is $1.4 million, exacerbating the long-running trend of new luxury vacation homes replacing scraped long-term rentals.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>BUT PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION GOT WAY BETTER.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>With a key $25 million federal grant in 2011 and local planning that stretched back to 2001, the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority launched the nation\u2019s first rural bus rapid transit system in 2013, with new buses, lanes and stations. Ridership has trended upward from 4.85 million annual riders pre-BRT in 2008 to exceeding 5.2 million in 2017. Convenient and dependable, the system transformed the way locals move around and commute, with express buses running between Aspen and Glenwood Springs as frequently as every 10 minutes during peak hours.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">By 2017, an estimated 7,500 people were commuting daily to Aspen and Snowmass from downvalley and a growing number were coming from more affordable but farther-flung communities as distant as Parachute and Gypsum.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>MARK HUNT BOUGHT UP DOWNTOWN ASPEN.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>The downtown core of Aspen was controlled and defined by fewer and fewer players through the decade, with developer Mark Hunt bursting on the scene in 2013 and 2014, buying 13 commercial properties downtown and since then spending more than $100 million \u00ad\u2014 with financial backers unknown to the public \u2014 to buy and redevelop swaths of the commercial core. Hunt and his backers\u2019 splashy downtown play was enough to overshadow the Hecht family, whose purchases and redevelopments on the east side of downtown dominated development debates in the early part of the 2010s and whose build-out of \u201cHechtville\u201d on the blocks adjacent to the new Aspen Art Museum has reshaped Aspen\u2019s business district.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>WHILE THE CITY STRUGGLED TO REIN IN DEVELOPMENT.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Debate around new development and mourning lost buildings and businesses are nothing new for Aspen. But angst grew through the 2010s and birthed a new political anti-growth movement in the city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The Given Institute, a beloved building designed by Harry Weese in 1972 and built on a property long held by the Paepcke family, was demolished in 2011 to make way for a private family compound. Favorite old Aspen restaurants like Little Annie\u2019s Eating House, Main Street Bakery, the Weinerstube, Johnny McGuire\u2019s and Boogie\u2019s Diner closed in quick succession.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cI am sad,\u201d longtime local hotelier Terry Butler told the Times in 2016. \u201cOur mom-and-pops are vanishing. I just don\u2019t want our downtown core to lose the heart and soul of our mountain town.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">As small hotels like the Aspen Mountain Lodge and Hotel Lenado were razed and rebuilt as private properties, a City Council lodge incentive package sought to save existing smaller lodges through financial sweeteners and breaks on affordable housing requirements. It passed in August 2014 but the council repealed it after a petition campaign led by future city Councilman Bert Myrin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Voters in 2015 then passed a measure that took the power to give breaks to developers out of the hands of elected leaders, putting any variance or exemption on the ballot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The anticipated pace of downtown development was so fast that the city passed a 28-foot height restriction on buildings in 2012 and an emergency ordinance in 2016 that completely froze all development applications in the commercial core while officials rewrote the land use code.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">A citizen committee worked on a policy to ban chain stories in 2016 and the city passed a version of it in 2017, though its many exemptions disappointed supporters. The city also passed a new land use code in 2017 aimed at taming downtown development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThis period is going to be remembered for that height restriction and for losing local businesses,\u201d Mayor Torre concluded.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>SKICO ENTERED THE PASS WARS.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Vail Resorts\u2019 Epic Pass reshaped the ski pass market following its introduction in 2008, incentivizing skiers who don\u2019t live in a ski town to buy in with an affordable pass to multiple resorts. Its success threatened the viability of expensive one-resort lift tickets like Aspen\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Aspen Skiing Co. got in the game in 2012 when officials hatched plans for a ski pass to rival Vail\u2019s. The Mountain Collective was born as a collaboration among four independent resorts and added additional ski areas in the winters that followed. Skio\u2019s owners, the Lester Crown family of Chicago and KSL Capital Partners, took the competition a step further in 2017: They formed what would become Alterra Mountain Co. and went on a resort-buying spree. In 2018 Alterra rolled out the Ikon Pass, which granted access to 14 resorts owned by Alterra and several other affiliated ski areas, such as Aspen-Snowmass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The Ikon\u2019s first winter included some local backlash against the new Aspen skiers, who were blamed for perceived longer lift lines. CEO Mike Kaplan called the griping \u201cblatant snobbery.\u201d This winter brings a new reciprocity program for Aspen Premier Pass holders, allowing access to all the Ikon mountains.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>EXTREME WEATHER &amp; CLIMATE CATASTROPHE HIT HOME.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Drought and wildfire were the norm throughout Colorado and the West in the 2010s. Following the prolonged local drought of 2017 and 2018, the near-calamitous Lake Christine Fire raged in the midvalley beginning July 3, 2018, and kept burning into the autumn. Sparked by an illegally used tracer round at the Basalt Public Shooting Range, it would burn more than 12,500 acres on Basalt Mountain, evacuate 500 households, destroy three homes, threaten whole neighborhoods and \u2014 as flames hit energy infrastructure \u2014 very nearly shut down the upper valley\u2019s electrical grid. The fact that nobody died and that more homes weren\u2019t lost is to the credit of the hundreds of local and federal firefighters who beat back the flames and became the local heroes of the decade.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Flash flooding in the area of the burn scar followed in summer 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Lake Christine came after years of campfire bans, canceled firework displays, water-use restrictions and warnings from scientists that fire and flood were inevitable in a warming climate. The factors that created the tinder-box conditions in the local forest are expected to persist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">In between the fire and floods in Basalt, extreme winter weather brought a historic and landscape-altering avalanche to the mountains in spring 2019, including an unprecedented mile-wide slide on Highlands Ridge, another that covered Castle Creek Road in debris and slides that tore through swaths of forest on Independence Pass. Statewide, the season\u2019s avalanches killed eight people.<\/p>\n<h2>WHILE LOCAL LEADERS GREW BOLDER ON CLIMATE CHANGE.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Political support for renewable energy development and sustainable building transformed through the decade. Sometime between voters\u2019 rejection of the city of Aspen\u2019s Castle Creek hydro-electric plant in 2012 and Pitkin County commissioners\u2019 unanimous approval of a new 35-acre solar farm this year, the winds shifted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Early in the 2010s, climate action gestures like municipal plastic bag bans and Skico replacing incandescent lighbulbs with efficient ones earned environmental plaudits. By the end of the decade, valley leaders were aiming for global impact. Mayor Steve Skadron went to Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference and Skico officials went to Washington to lobby on climate, while the company integrated climate activism prominently into its operations, including the \u201cGive a Flake\u201d campaign that encourages and enables skiers to contact national leaders to act on climate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cWe\u2019re all doing a lot individually to green up our open operations, green up our lifestyle, but it\u2019s not enough,\u201d Skico CEO Mike Kaplan said in 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The city of Aspen\u2019s electric system went 100% renewable in 2015, with Mayor Skadron making the case around the world that the Aspen model could be duplicated and scaled for larger grids. This year, Basalt and Pitkin County declared climate emergencies and pledged to overhaul operations aimed at net-zero energy use.<\/p>\n<h2>ESPECIALLY HOLY CROSS ENERGY.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Local climate activists, the Community Office of Resource Efficiency and Skico began setting their sights on the board of directors of Holy Cross Energy in 2009, campaigning for new candidates that would prioritize clean energy and get off of coal-burning plants. Normally sleepy electric co-op elections became hotly contested affairs and local proxy battles for global climate action, with environmentalists winning out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">With the new leadership, by 2017, the utility was on the vanguard of clean energy development and hired new CEO Bryan Hannegan straight from his tenure at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Aggressively adding renewables to its mix, the utility \u2014 serving some 43,000 residents in Western Colorado \u2014\u00ad has outpaced its renewable goals and expects to reach 70% carbon-free electricity by 2021, about 10 years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cHoly Cross basically became a climate organization, thanks to the evolution of the board,\u201d Skico Senior Vice President of Sustainability Auden Schendler said.<\/p>\n<h2>MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES IMPROVED.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>The Aspen Hope Center changed the conversation about mental health in the valley and transformed how crises are handled since its founding in 2010. The valley\u2019s outsized suicide rate and prevalent mental health struggles were already well known, but a 2009 needs assessment found a crippling deficit in access to help during a crisis. The nonprofit \u2014 initiated by Sandy Iglehart following her daughter\u2019s death by suicide \u2014 addressed the deficit with a 24-hour crisis line where a human will always answer the phone and developed stabilization programs that get people help without institutionalizing them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cWe needed a place where there was no barrier to treatment, no appointment times, no wait times,\u201d Iglehart said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The center hosted a town hall that filled the Wheeler Opera House in 2014, following a stretch of four suicides in a two-week period, and launched a \u201cWe Can Talk\u201d outreach and education program to spread the word about the Hope Center\u2019s services and de-stigmatize mental health issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">By the end of the decade, the Hope Center was serving about 900 high-risk clients annually and guiding an average of 45 people a year through the stabilization program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThe Hope Center was the tipping point,\u201d said Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, noting additional positive strides in the 2010s like voter support of the Healthy Community Fund tax to bankroll human services and the addition of an Aspen Police Department officer devoted to assisting homeless, addicted or mentally ill people who had previously ended up in jail.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">THE WORLD CUP WENT BIG, THEN WENT HOME.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>The International Ski Federation pushed Aspen Skiing Co. to update the old Lift 1A chair on the west side of Aspen Mountain, which serves the race course where World Cup races have regularly run since the 1950. Without action on the lift, the federation moved Aspen\u2019s November women\u2019s World Cup race from Aspen to Killington, Vermont, in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">But first, the FIS came back for a grand finale (for now) in Aspen in the spring of 2017, hosting the World Cup Finals on Ajax with festive international crowds and the ski world\u2019s eyes on Aspen. It marked the first time the finals were held outside Europe since 1997 and the first men\u2019s World Cup races in Aspen since 2001. But no public plans for a World Cup return have been announced since, as Skico slowly moves toward upgrading the lift. Speaking of which \u2026<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">BUT THE LIFT ONE BALLOT VICTORY COULD BRING IT BACK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>A proposal to redevelop the Lift One base area went to Aspen voters in March 2019, and passed by just 26 votes following contentious local debate and some $300,000 in campaign spending by its proponents. Opponents criticizing the project\u2019s lack of affordable housing and construction traffic spent about $15,000. The \u201cyes\u201d vote green-lit 320,000 square feet of commercial development, including the Lift One Lodge time-share project and a new hotel dubbed Gorsuch Haus, along with bars, restaurants, a ski museum and a new lift that might lure the World Cup back to town.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThat vote was the insight of the decade,\u201d said Mayor Torre, who opposed the development. \u201cThe community is here, but outside wealth and development won the day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Despite that vote, the future of Lift One is unclear heading into the 2020s and may be slow going, as Lift One Lodge developers Aaron and Michael Brown announced they were leaving their partnership with developer Jeff Gorsuch this summer, only to return to the table in December.<\/p>\n<h2>THE MIDVALLEY BLOOMED.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>A planned 500,000-square-foot mix of commercial and residential space called Willits Town Center near Basalt was stifled by the recession and sat dormant for three years until 2011, when Whole Foods Market came back on board and opened as its \u201canchor tenant\u201d in 2012. Slowly over the rest of the decade, the strip mall grew into a new urban center in the midvalley with diverse restaurants, retail shops, wellness and beauty services, condos, a hotel and a performance venue trial run of The Arts Campus at Willits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">A long-debated development across Highway 82, Ace Lane\u2019s \u201cTree Farm\u201d of 340 homes and 135,000 square feet of commercial space, finally won approval from the Eagle County commissioners in May 2019, clearing the way for yet more residential and commercial action in the midvalley.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>BASE VILLAGE GOT BUILT, FINALLY.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Snowmass Base Village, the 1 million-square-foot development at the bottom of Snowmass Ski Area, celebrated a grand opening in late 2018 after a long and bumpy road. The development to reshape Snowmass\u2019 base won approval in 2004 and construction started in 2005 but halted in 2008 as financing dried up in the Great Recession. It remained, in 2014, partially built and partially opened with a handful of businesses operating on the plaza beside a massive hole in the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Better late than never is the prevailing sentiment on Base Village, which quickly became a hub of Snowmass social life last winter and now includes the Limelight Hotel and amenities for kids and adults alike.<\/p>\n<h2>SOME RECREATION AREAS GOT CROWDED AND MESSY.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>The combination of Colorado\u2019s booming population \u2014 soon to surpass 6 million full-time residents \u2014 and the lure of social media likes combined to create a spike in overuse and tragic deaths in Aspen area recreation and backcountry areas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The U.S. Forest Service instituted reservation systems at Hanging Lake and Conundrum Hot Springs in 2018-19 to deal with overcrowding and ecological abuse, with more restrictions to come on popular backcountry hikes like the Four Pass Loop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Floating partiers were trashing the Northstar Nature Preserve and full-moon uphill ragers were doing the same on Buttermilk by 2015. Public information campaigns and public shaming largely quelled those problems by 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The summer of 2017 saw nine deaths by hikers and climbers in the mountains near Aspen, in what DiSalvo referred to as \u201cthe summer of death.\u201d Mountain Rescue Aspen and local authorities launched a \u201cPeak Safety\u201d public information campaign in response, aimed largely at Front Range visitors, that raised awareness of the dangers of technical climbs in the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cWhen I got here during the recession in 2011, the question was, \u2018How are we going to get people to visit?\u2019\u201d quipped Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock. \u201cNow it\u2019s, \u2018How do we lock the door?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>SKY MOUNTAIN PARK WAS BORN.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>The county spent $17 million in 2010 to buy 800-plus acres of land from the Droste family, who planned to build a new subdivision on the rugged stretch of mountain situated between Aspen and Snowmass Village.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThere have been other great projects over the years,\u201d Commissioner George Newman said at the time, \u201cbut for what it offers the community, this is as great an achievement as we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">For mountain bikers, that proved true. Trails started opening on the property \u2014 dubbed Sky Mountain Park \u2014 in 2011 and it grew into a new recreational hub for the upper valley, complemented by a spate of new trail development in Snowmass Village and in the Hunter Creek Valley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The county\u2019s open space programs also helped fuel a re-emergence of local agriculture, which began leasing to farmers and ranchers in 2017 as the national locavore movement took hold in Aspen.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">SO WAS THE NEW ASPEN ART MUSEUM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>The doors opened on the new downtown Aspen Art Museum in August 2014, unveiling the $45 million lattice-wrapped building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban, solidifying Aspen\u2019s place as a force in the contemporary art world and ending (well, mostly ending) years of controversy over the three-story building\u2019s approval.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The road there included a public vote rejecting a museum on Galena Plaza (2009) followed by an unusual approval that came through a lawsuit settlement between the city of Aspen and a Hecht family development (2010).<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Free and open to the public, with affordable programs for kids and a popular caf\u00e9 on its rooftop, the museum steadily won over much of the local community, while the museum became a year-round tourist destination. By 2019, attendance had skyrocketed to 75,000 annually, tripling since 2008 at its old riverside location.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>A TROVE OF ICE AGE FOSSILS SURFACED IN SNOWMASS.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Backhoe driver Jesse Steele, in October 2010, accidentally unearthed the first of what would be some 36,000 Ice Age fossils at a Snowmass Village site that captivated the world. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Unsurfaced during a construction project expanding the Ziegler Reservoir, the dig site\u2019s bounty included fossilized bones of mammoths, mastodons and prehistoric plants while paleontologists noted the site\u2019s rarity for its high altitude and quality of preservation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThis is no ordinary discovery,\u201d Kirk Johnson, the Denver Museum of Science and Nature curator who oversaw the excavation, said in 2011. \u201cThis is something very special.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>AND WE LEGALIZED IT.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><span>Statewide votes in 2012 and 2013 cleared the way for recreational marijuana shops, which soon proliferated in Aspen. Jordan Lewis, of the Silverpeak cannabis dispensary, obtained the first retail license in Aspen and opened in 2013. More followed in Aspen \u2014 where they\u2019re now nearly as common as coffee shops \u2014 and throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. The last municipal holdout, Snowmass Village, allowed its first shop to open this winter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cIn the last seven years, it hasn\u2019t ruined our morality, it hasn\u2019t stopped people from coming to Aspen,\u201d Sheriff Joe DiSalvo said. \u201cTo the contrary, it\u2019s been a boon to Aspen and Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">For more details on the decade in cannabis, see related High Country column, page 20.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\"><em><a href=\"mailto:atravers@aspentimes.com\">atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/story-of-the-decade-the-2010s-in-aspen-and-the-roaring-fork-valley\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The glow from the Lake Christine fire on July 3, 2018 in Basalt, Colorado.Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times Each decade in modern Aspen has a distinct identity. The rebirth of the old mining town as a would-be utopia and ski resort in the 1940s. The ski bum revolution of the 1970s. The glitz and \u201cAspen Extreme\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 01:33:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}