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Colorado - Wed. 10/07/26 |
A Free Business Publication from Alpine Bank
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COLORADO HONORS ALPINE BANK’S COMMITMENT TO CONSERVATION
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Alpine Bank has received a 2026 Innovation Spotlight Award from the Colorado Green Business Network, recognizing the bank's longstanding commitment to conservation and community giving. The award highlights Alpine Bank's Environment Loyalty Debit Card, which helps support organizations that restore, preserve and protect local ecosystems. Through the bank's Loyalty Debit Card program, Alpine Bank donates 10 cents every time a customer uses their card, directing funds to causes that matter most to them. In 2025 alone, the Environment card generated more than $563,000 for nonprofits focused on conservation, stewardship and environmental education across Colorado.
"Receiving this recognition is especially meaningful because it reflects the collective efforts of our customers, employees and communities," said Alpine Bank Senior Vice President Pete Yang, chair of the bank's Green Team. "Every purchase with an Environment Loyalty Debit Card helps support the people and organizations working to care for the places we all love. That's what makes this award special. It belongs to our customers as much as it does to Alpine Bank." Alpine Bank's commitment to environmental stewardship stretches back more than 25 years. The employee-led Green Team supports conservation efforts throughout Colorado through volunteer projects, community partnerships and sustainability initiatives. Alpine Bank is also a 100 percent Green Power User, sourcing all of its electricity from renewable energy sources.
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NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS AWARDED TO FRANCIS HALZEN FOR ASTRONOMY BREAKTHROUGHS
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Belgian particle physicist Francis Halzen was awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to astronomy and his work on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. “Francis Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers who have provided us with a fantastic instrument,” said Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, on Tuesday. “His tenacity and scientific vision have paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.” As the spearhead behind the IceCube Neutrino project, Halzen wanted a way to capture and study astrophysical neutrinos—tiny, electrically neutral subatomic particles from deep space. Neutrinos with extremely high energies are created in the same environments as other types of particles, but unlike other particles, neutrinos reach Earth without changing direction or losing energy. This means they can provide information about distant galaxies that isn’t available in any other way.
Halzen, who is 82 years old and based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, first presented his vision for capturing high-energy neutrinos at the South Pole—a giant particle detector buried deep in the Antarctic ice—in 1988. Speaking after the announcement, Halzen said how surprised he was to receive the prize. “I have to emphasize how lucky I was,” he said. “When we started this project, everybody realized this was maybe a good idea, but very few thought it would work, including myself.” “It was a long journey, but it finally worked,” he said. Halzen will receive the 12 million Swedish kronor, or roughly $1.2 million, prize.
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TRUMP ALLOWS CHEAPER, DYED DIESEL ON HIGHWAYS TO BLUNT HISTORIC FUEL COST SPIKE
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President Donald Trump has allowed the use of cheaper, red-dyed diesel, typically reserved for farm operations, to be used more broadly in an attempt to bring down record-high fuel costs. The tax-free diesel is typically used by farm equipment, construction machinery, trucks and other off-road vehicles. The U.S. national average price of diesel topped $6 a gallon in September for the first time ever, as fuel supply disruptions triggered by the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran pushed up transportation costs across the country. Americans are spending about $700 million more per day on gas and diesel than they did a year ago.
The order also directed the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the Dept. of Defense, to defer collection of the federal excise tax on highway diesel through the end of 2026, without interest or penalties. The Treasury is also directed to “explore pathways to eliminate the obligation to pay the deferred taxes” altogether. The Group of Seven nations also agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude reserves, after pressure from Trump who had floated a ban on U.S. exports of the fuel.
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CRIPPLE CREEK'S ICE CASTLES CANCELED OVER HIGH TEMPS, WATER ISSUES
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Concerns about high temperatures and water availability mean that the popular Ice Castles attraction in Cripple Creek won’t happen this winter. The all-ice extravaganza typically includes ice slides, caverns, archways, sculptures, and crawl tunnels, along with an ice bar for themed cocktails. As of last year, the event had expanded to Silverthorne, with five locations nationwide, including in New Hampshire. However, “mild weather last season throughout the country were challenges for the organization,” according to a statement from the town. “As a result, they are scaling back the number of sites they will be opening this coming season. “While Cripple Creek has an ample supply of water to host the event, there are areas within Teller County that are facing significant water issues, which was also a concern for Council and Ice Castles while discussing the event for this season,” the city added.
Ice Castles, which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2025, has moved around Colorado in the last few years as it sought to find spaces with the right temperature and amenities, like access to water and sufficient drainage. Opening in Silverthorne was something of a homecoming since that was where the “first commercial Ice Castles came to life,” founder Brent Christensen told The Denver Post in a 2025 statement. Last year was also the first time the installation had reached Summit County since the pandemic, when it ceased operating in Dillon. The 2025-2026 ski season was also devastating for Colorado ski resorts due to near-record warm temperatures and low snowfall, according to Colorado Ski Country USA. The group, which represents 12 Colorado ski resorts, estimated that skier visits statewide declined nearly 24 percent, from 13.8 million during the 2024-25 season to 10.5 million this season.
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HEAD OF COLORADO DEPT. OF HUMAN SERVICES RESIGNS
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Gov. Jared Polis announced the resignation of Colorado Dept. of Human Services Executive Director Michelle Barnes in a news release Tuesday. Neither Polis nor Barnes gave a reason for her departure in statements accompanying the announcement, and state officials either declined to elaborate or couldn’t be reached. Polis thanked Barnes for her years of service and work to support Coloradans “in all stages of life,” including those dealing with substance use disorders, young people needing safe homes and people with disabilities.
Barnes was hired as executive director of the Dept. of Human Services in 2019 and has faced considerable scrutiny in recent years, including through an outside investigation launched after employee complaints about toxic work culture and abusive leadership. Discord within the Dept. of Human Services drew enough attention to prompt state officials to hire an outside firm, Flynn Investigations Group, to investigate the department earlier this year. The department's deputy executive director for community partnerships, Minna Castillo, will take over leading the department of human services "on a short-term basis," according to the news release.
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CMC, PARTNERS TO RECEIVE MORE THAN $9 MILLION OVER 5-YEAR PERIOD
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Colorado Mountain College, partnering with seven regional hospitals, last week was awarded $1.86 million annually to “expand high-demand health care education and build a stronger pipeline of skilled professionals for rural hospitals and communities across western and southern Colorado,” a CMC news release says. The funding is being provided through Colorado’s Rural Health Transportation Program via grants from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Partner hospitals include Aspen Valley Health, Valley View Hospital, Grand River Health, Vail Health, Salida Hospital District, St. Vincent Health and San Luis Valley Health.
The program is intended to expand educational and sustainable career opportunities in rural Colorado and support better health outcomes for rural Colorado residents. It also is aimed at filling high-need jobs and addressing persistent shortages in occupations related to diagnostic imaging, surgery and other rural hospital operations. Partnering hospitals will work with CMC to expand the college’s existing radiologic technology program and “develop new pathways in advanced imaging, sterile processing and surgical technology.”
- The money will allow CMC to double the capacity for its new radiologic technology associate’s degree program, which this year attracted 140 applicants for 12 spots.
- Nationally as of 2025, radiologic technologists and technicians earn a median annual salary of just over $80,000, and MRI technologists earn a median salary of just over $95,000 annually.
- Partnering hospitals reported that it takes about 128 days to fill a position for a CT technologist, 221 days to fill a job for MRI technologists and 72 days for surgical technologists.
- Over the five-year grant period, it is estimated that CMC will prepare over 200 health care professionals, with a goal of placing more than 75 percent of graduates with the partnering hospitals or other rural health care providers.
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ASPEN ENDED THE SUMMER WITH OCCUPANCY DOWN
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The Aspen Chamber Resort Association released their most recent Destination Marketing Report to Aspen City Council in an information update on Monday, which confirmed occupancy was down 4.5 percent this August compared to August of last year. According to the executive summary for August, this year had an occupancy rate of 69.1 percent, while 2025 reported 72.3 percent. The report also noted the average daily rate increased to $845 from $839 year-over-year, a 0.7 percent increase from last August. The Reservations Activity Report highlighted a similar trend and paid occupancy decrease in the town of Snowmass Village, from 56.9 percent in August 2025 to 47.1 percent in August 2026. The average daily rate also increased from August 2025, which reported a $326 rate, to $342 this August.
While paid occupancy statistics for this past September have not yet been actualized or confirmed, ACRA’s pacing numbers for Aspen do expect a 2.1 percent increase, from 49.2 percent in September 2025 to 50.2 percent, in 2026, according to the ACRA Reservations Activity Report from Aug. 31. The report expects Snowmass to see an 18.5 percent increase, from 27.8 percent last September to 32.9 percent in paid occupancy this September.
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WHITE RIVER NATIONAL FOREST TO CONDUCT VISITOR SATISFACTION SURVEY OVER THE NEXT YEAR
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Members of the public may encounter contract employees conducting public surveys in the White River National Forest over the next year. The surveys will be conducted through Sept. 30, 2027. The National Visitor Use Monitoring survey is a Forest Service program designed to estimate how much people actually recreate on national forests and grasslands, what activities they engage in while there and how satisfied they are with their visit. The White River National Forest is the nation’s most visited national forest, with more than 14 million visitors in recent years.
Contract employees will be out in all types of weather conditions, wearing bright orange vests with signs that read “traffic survey ahead.” The public could encounter these employees at developed and dispersed recreation sites and along Forest Service roads. About one-third of participants will also reportedly be asked to complete a confidential survey on recreation spending during their trip to measure the economic impact to local information. The survey is conducted every five years. For more information, visit FS.USDA.gov/about-agency/nvum.
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STEAMWORKS BREWING CO. OPENS PUB AT DURANGO-LA PLATA COUNTY AIRPORT
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Passengers flying out of Durango-La Plata County Airport can now enjoy a local craft beer and a freshly prepared meal from Steamworks Brewing Co. while waiting to board their flights. The airport announced the opening of the new Steamworks Hub, giving passengers access to one of Durango’s most popular restaurants after passing through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint. The addition comes as the airport undergoes a major renovation aimed at modernizing DRO. Previously, many of the airport’s concession options were located before the TSA screening area. The move to put a local restaurant in the DRO post-security area was driven by new concessionaire Sky Dine, a South Dakota-based company.
Sky Dine was selected as DRO’s new concessionaire in 2025, replacing Tailwind Concessions. The Steamworks Hub menu features a variety of the restaurant’s favorites, including the Southwest Salad, Southwestern Burger, fish and chips, mac n’ cheese and nachos. HomeSlice pizza also will be available by the slice as a grab-and-go option. The pizzas will be prepared at HomeSlice, taken to the airport and cooked on-site by Sky Dine. The hub also will offer several Steamworks beers, including the Colorado Kolsch, Steam Engine Lager and Sultan of Stoke IPA. The airport also will welcome Desert Sun Coffee Roasters as a post-security coffee kiosk in early November, continuing its focus on featuring local brands.
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COLORADO SNOWSPORTS MUSEUM STAFFER, FORMER SPORTSCASTER TO RECEIVE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD AT HALL OF FAME CEREMONY
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Ron Mooney has lots of stories to tell — none of which, on their own, would stand out as a sole reason for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Colorado Snowsports Museum’s Hall of Fame ceremony on Saturday. Rather, the accolade reflects an accumulation of a life obsessed with snowsports, a career based in storytelling, and a journey around the globe that ultimately landed him in Vail, where he now spends his days as a tour guide and historian for the museum. Mooney, raised in New Jersey, recalls as a child going to Vernon Valley-Great Gorge “to have our skis fall off in the ice and rain,” he said with a laugh. While his love for snowsports developed at a young age, it converged with his professional ambitions when he was taking a semester off from college at the University of Delaware (before ultimately transferring to and graduating from the University of Denver).
At the time, he was still working for the campus radio station and decided he would drive over 400 miles to cover the Lake Placid Winter Olympics. “I went there, and I took my little tape recorder, cassette tape recorder, and every single person, athlete, celebrity I saw, I would try to interview for as long as they would stand. And then when I filled up the hour cassette, I would send it back to Newark, Delaware, and they would play clips of it …. that is my very first Olympics,” he said. From there, Mooney went on to cover numerous Olympic Games and dozens of World Cup competitions in what he described as “a very non-traditional type of experience,” as a local hire and a jack-of-all-trades in the media pit. In the late 1990s he moved to Park City, Utah, where he worked for the Salt Lake Tribune. This is also where he would meet his wife — a Colorado native, who he credits with bringing him back to Vail.
For Mooney, he ultimately found the dedicated gig he wanted, in the place he wanted to be. “I couldn’t be any happier to be in Vail. It’s the greatest place in the world, I think,” he said. Ron Mooney, a tour guide and historian at the Colorado Snowsports Museum, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the museum’s annual Hall of Fame ceremony. But that doesn’t mean the story’s over. “I’m only 68, and I’ve got as much energy as I had when I was 28,” he said. “So, something’s coming up, I just don’t know what it is.”
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VAIL RESORTS CEO-BACKED TRUST AWARDS $1.1 MILLION TO EXPAND YOUTH ACCESS TO WINTER SPORTS
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The Katz Amsterdam Charitable Trust, founded by Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz and his late wife, Elana Amsterdam, is awarding more than $1.1 million to organizations helping young people access skiing and snowboarding this winter. The grants, awarded in partnership with Vail Resorts, are expected to help around 2,500 youth participate in winter sports through 18 organizations across the country. SOS Outreach, which operates programs in Summit County and other mountain communities, received the largest award at $279,445. Other major recipients this year include the National Brotherhood of Skiers and the Chill Foundation. The funding is part of a $10 million, multiyear commitment from Katz and Amsterdam aimed at reducing barriers to participation in winter sports.
Since the initiative began in 2020, participating organizations have connected more than 13,000 young people with skiing and snowboarding. SOS Outreach combines outdoor recreation with mentorship and leadership development. Across organizations supported by the grant program, 303 participants moved into mentor roles during the 2025-26 season, with about 400 more expected to do so this winter. For more information about the newly awarded grants, visit KatzAmsterdam.org.
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DENVER HOME SALES DIP TO LOWEST LEVELS SINCE U.S. WAS ON VERGE OF 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS
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Metro Denver home sales reached a monthly low not seen since September 2008, when the U.S. financial system was on the verge of collapsing.
- The cost of a 30-year mortgage spiked to 7.5 percent as the month came to an end. But the full weight of more expensive debt may not show up in the market until October and November.
- The number of homes sold in an 11-county region encompassing Denver fell to 2,849 in September, down 11.7 percent from August and 21.4 percent from a year earlier.
- Pending sales, a measure of future activity, fell 6.1 percent from August and 13.4 percent from year-ago levels, indicating a softening is ahead over the next couple of months.
- The median price of a single-family home sold last month was $635,000, down 2.1 percent from August and flat with year-ago prices.
- Condo and townhome prices fell 1.2 percent on the month and 6.3 percent on the year to $365,500.
- Measured across the first three quarters of the year going back to 2022, the median sales price of single-family homes in metro Denver has held eerily steady at $650,000. The one exception was in 2023, when it dipped down to $635,000 across the first three quarters. Condo prices, by contrast, have gone from a YTD median of $405,000 two years ago to $385,000 this year.
- As rate shocks shook up would-be buyers, sellers stayed in the game, with new listings staying flat between August and September and dropping only 1.5 percent from year-ago levels.
- In August, 36.1 percent of listings in the Denver region had a price reduction, and in Colorado that share was 32.3 percent, the highest ratio of any state in the country and above the U.S. rate of 26.3 percent.
- Colorado, which for years had tighter than average inventory, is now looser. August had 4.5 months of listings available given the pace of sales compared to a 3.9-month supply nationally.
- The inventory of homes and condos for sale in metro Denver, at 13,567, represents the highest total for a September in 15 years, and is up 3.7 percent both monthly and annually.
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MARKET UPDATE - 10/06/2026 Close
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(Courtesy of Alpine Bank Wealth Management*)
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Canadian dollar (per U.S. dollar)
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Mexican peso (per U.S. dollar)
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30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac 10/01/2026)
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*Not FDIC insured. May lose value. Not guaranteed by the bank.
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Alpine Bank is an independent, employee-owned organization with headquarters in Glenwood Springs and banking offices across Colorado's Western Slope, mountains and Front Range. Alpine Bank serves customers with retail, business, wealth management*, mortgage and electronic banking services. Learn more at alpinebank.com.
*Alpine Bank Wealth Management services are not FDIC insured, may lose value and are not guaranteed by the bank.
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