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Tourists Warned of Blood-Thirsty Wildlife

(Crested Butte) While the bright lights sparkle in the snow of another day in another paradise, tourists are warned that just outside the resort perimeter hungry creatures lurk. One only has to venture forth, more than an inch but less than a mile, from this fortified perimeter to realize that wild animals, not humans, control the night.

Yes, while a false sense of security permeates the daylight hours, at dusk predators jockey for position on the food chain. Hungry cats, groggy bear and an occasional moose wait in ambush for the hapless straggler, the meandering drunkard, the inattentive cross-country skier returning from a day’s jaunt.

“It may look calm, collected,” said one local police deputy, “but it’s a wilderness out there. Even though there are a lot of us we can’t be everywhere at once, especially in the back country. They don’t put it in the tourist brochures, but we cannot guarantee the safety of our visitors anywhere outside the town limits after dark.”

Area of major concern through May

At mid-winter authorities say they control Gothic Road, most of the Bench and about three miles up Kebler. In addition tourists are relatively safe from town to Riverbend and Peanut Lake but beyond those markers it’s risky. Wolves, Bengal tigers, woolly mammoths and even an elusive Sasquatch are on the prowl after dark, looking for dinner, or perhaps just a good time at a tourist’s expense.

“Again, we suggest that visitors limit their outdoor experience to the slopes and stay within the gridlock when the sun goes down,” said the deputy, who worked at a Dallas zoom before joining the local police farce.

Local developers, many of whom are working around the clock to expand the sanctuaries of Homo Sapiens, contend that man is making strides in his attempts to take back the wilderness but that it all takes time.

“We are constantly confronted with the element that believes that wild carnivores have a place in the action,” said Alfredo Bastante, a spokesman for the fledgling Crested Butte-Aspen Tunnel Coalition. “Once we begin drilling under Pearl Pass we’ll give wild animals a run for their money.”

The tunnel, not yet approved by officials from Gunnison and Pitkin Counties, would allow speedy travel from the two ski towns and give Crested Butte the much desired access to I-70 while opening up trade routes for Aspen as well as the Crystal River Valley.

– Pepper Salte