THREE FREE WEEKENDS IS GREAT; NOW TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Salazar, Permanently Waive National Park Entrance Fees

Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he was waiving national park entrance fees for three prime summer weekends (June 20-21, July 18-19 and August 15-16), a widely reported and welcomed pronouncement.

But I'm more interested in the back story.

To me, even though Salazar didn't say a word about it, his action seems to forecast a new philosophy coming out of the National Park Service (NPS), starting with this admission that ever-increasing fees are partly responsible for steadily declining park visitation. And ending, hopefully, with something I trumpeted two years ago in this column, making our national parks a free tradition.

LOCAL MICRO-CLIMATE CLEARS THE TRAILS EARLY

Yellowstone, Spring Hiking Hot Spot

In May, winter still clings tight to most popular hiking areas in the northern Rockies such as Glacier, Frank Church, Wind Rivers, Bitterroots, and Absaroka-Beartooth. This means cabin fever can become a pandemic in May as hikers anxiously wait until late June if not July for the snow to give up the trails.

But unknown to most hikers, they can enjoy fantastic early-season hiking--backpacking or day hiking--on many trails in the northern sections of Yellowstone National Park from early May to early June.

FESTIVITES START 4 PM, MAY 14

Cabela’s Billings Opening a Grand One

Beating gloomy economic doomsayers and continuing controversy stemming from its amenity land sales division, Cabela's is opening its doors in Billings on May 14.

And the "World's Foremost Outfitter" takes its Grand Openings seriously.

Guest Commentary

Lessons From Tamarack Resort

Tamarack Resort closed on March 4th, the latest in a long line of boom and bust stories in the West. Located 90 miles north of Boise, Idaho, it was first major ski, golf and lake resort to open in the US in over two decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, Tamarack and CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug failed to generate enough revenue from real estate sales to keep operating. As a skier, former Tamarack employee, cattle rancher, and Idahoan, I wish to write a few words in reflection.

I don't have to say this is an economic disaster for the over 200 employees and the general area. Some of the discussion has been that Tamarack would have made it if the economy just wouldn't have slumped. It would be more accurate to say it never would have got off the ground if (opening in December 2004) it hadn't caught the end of the largest housing bubble in history.

Tamarack attracted only 27,000 skier visits this season, far less than neighboring Brundage Mountain. Locals didn't ski there. To them it was known as Tam-a-scam, Glamarack, and finally, when it all went down, Tamtanic. This sentiment was partly due to them lamenting the loss of their Valley. And it was partly due to the dislike being mutual. Upper management openly told us during meetings their goal was to make it a private hill, open only to property owners or people who pay club fees of thousands of dollars. This required a certain degree of hubris, as the ski course falls almost entirely on public land.

MICROBREW MONTANA, AN END-OF-THE-YEAR COMMENTARY

Reflections from the Microbrew Trail

For the past year, I've been on the Microbrew Trail, visiting every brewery in Montana, except one, and posting articles on all 24 of them. You can read the entire series here.

Along the beer trail, I'm made a few observations about what might be Montana's fastest growing industry and thought I'd pass them on to microbrew-loving readers.

MICROBREW MONTANA

Blacksmith Brewing: Montana’s Newest Brewery, Montana’s Oldest Community

Well, here we are, at the end of the Microbrew Trail, my last taproom visit for this yearlong series of articles, and what did I find? An old buggy salesroom and blacksmith shop transformed into Montana's newest microbrewery, Blacksmith Brewing Company.

Is that Montana-esque or what?

Winter's here; grab your gear

Ski Boise’s Bogus Basin Starting Wednesday

Bogus Basin Ski Resort, Boise's local ski hill, will open for the 2008-2009 winter season Wednesday, December 17. Recent storms have delivered enough snow for the front of the mountain to open. Chairlifts 1, 2, 4, 7 and Easy Rider will run.

Steve Shake, V.P. of mountain operations, said, “We’ll open more of the mountain, including night skiing and riding, as we receive more snow.”

Since the weather outside is frightful, the potential for full mountain skiing soon looks delightful.

Operating hours for Wednesday thru Friday will be: 10:00am-4:30 pm.

The J.R. Simplot, Pioneer and Frontier Point lodges will be open. Bogus Basin Ski & Snowboard School will offer its full complement of lessons.

MICROBREW MONTANA

Quarry Brewing: Where They Dig Beer

In Butte, America, they dig things, like copper and silver, big statues on big hills, hunting and fishing, labor unions, big pits, and now, they dig beer, too, all because of Quarry Brewing, one of Montana's newwest microbreweries.

Butte has a long tradition of brewing beer and has many long-ago-closed breweries, but for many years, the Mining City has been without a brewery. Now, the Schnabels have come to town and fixed that problem, launching Butte's first microbrewery.

MICROBREW MONTANA

Bayern Brewing: The Only German Brewery in the Rockies

When you walk into some Montana microbreweries, you get the feeling you've stumbled across somebody's expanded home brew operation, but that is hardly the case when you visit Bayern Brewing of Missoula. It's more like you beamed yourself to Hamburg or Munich for real masterbrew instead of those "malt-flavored beverages" sold by mega-brewers.

In fact, owner Jurgen Knoller is mighty proud of being "the only German microbrewery in the Rockies." And he's always anxious to elaborate.