Get Big Pivots

Mid-November and still the flowers bloom, awaiting the killing frost. It will come, of course, but this warmth verges on eerie. During my midnight walk I wore a thin jacket that, I decided, was more than necessary.

On Sunday, in Winter Park, we prowled around the construction sites behind the former Beavers, a lodge. This all used to be wetlands, and a part of it still is. The houses built and planned now severely crowd the wetlands along the Fraser River. In other places, this would be scandalous.

Perhaps more disturbing yet was an advertisement on Ski Idlewild Road for a new housing development. The virtues of this enclave of second homes/duplexes/townhomes? Balconies, covered parking and—air conditioning.

Yes, in Winter Park, Colorado, elevation 9,121 feet, just two miles from where Edna Tucker once arose at all hours of the night to religiously record the plunging winter temperatures for dissemination across the land. Fraser was once in competition with Truckee, Calif.; Big Piney, Wyo.; and a few other places for the dubious distinct of being the chilliest place in the land (As for the title of “nation’s ice box,” International Falls, Minn., has now asserted its legal right to that title.).

A few years ago, a former planner in Vail confided to me that it had become standard to have air conditioning there in lodging units. It wasn’t so much the temperature as it was a way to drown out the sound of I-70. It meant that the buildings had to be just a little higher for all the ductwork.

New resort properties well shielded from the constant roar of I-70, though, also routinely have air conditioning. It has become expected by consumers. It’s not enough to open the window, as we once did.

Windows on my 1889 bungalow in metropolitan Denver also remain shut during summer. I bought the house in 1998 and painted the screens that I found in the basement—but never put them on. Quite a chore, of course, and also of limited use. The screens transmit sound, and this has become a very noisy neighborhood as it has become a place for motorcycle riders to be seen—but especially heard. Internal combustion engines of all varieties are a noisy bunch, and some people artificially inflate the noise.

Then there’s the air quality. Denver has high ozone levels in summer, healthy enough that I can sometimes feel it. People such as myself, with compromised lungs, are advised to keep our windows and doors closed. With the wildfire smoke of recent years, it’s even worse. Plus, temperatures have been rising.

Why the air conditioners in Winter Park? It doesn’t have an ozone problem. To clean the smoke? Might it be the rising temperatures?

I worked there in the early 1980s for about four years, and a warm day was in the high 70s. Nights always cooled. Maybe the temperatures have changed there more rapidly than I realized. Or maybe the real estate developers and savvy buyers understand the future better than I. — Allen Best, Nov. 16, 2021

Allen Best
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