CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ON DONNER SUMMIT?

Peter Mayfield, Royal Gorge LLC's environmental consultant, led a small group of people on last week's ramble, which covered the parcel on which Royal Gorge LLC hopes to build "Ski Camp". As reported by some who attended, Mr. Mayfield seemed to have very little discomfort with the apparent disconnect between showing everyone the beautiful stands of trees, rock outcroppings, and animal tracks in the snow, and calmly pointing out where the condos and parking lots would be built. Mr. Mayfield's take on 650 or so units, complete with a hotel being built, obliterating all the beauty he was pointing out? According to The Union, "This land has large capitalization now. That has to be dealt with, Mayfield said."

No, "I think I'll never see a  poem as lovely as a tree," for Royal Gorge LLC's employee Peter Mayfield. More like, "there are no beauties in all creation, as valuable as Royal Gorge's capitalization." In other words, when profit is the end-all and be-all, no one's going to mind it when those trees fall.

Mr. Mayfield had a map showing the proposed development, a photo of which is posted on "Save Our Summit" (www.saveoursummit.org/development.html#ski_camp_map). This map had the ski runs erased, but, curiously, showed the Mountain Restaurant, which was thought to be extinct. The map also showed the same number of units as proposed before, and the condo hotel. Daft, considering there's now no link to Sugar Bowl?  How does Royal Gorge LLC think they'll fill it? And why would they want to resurrect a restaurant looming over us all?

Here's my guess- a Convention/Events Center-- the ultimate in transient occupancy. What if Royal Gorge, trying to make lemonade out of the sour lemons they've been dealt, is planning on building a condo-hotel with huge rooms, so they can schedule meetings for large business groups, dance competitions (ever been to an Irish Feis?), and events where everyone dresses up like hobbits and elves-- you get the picture.

Maybe they could have a Global Warming conference at their hotel events center, where everyone talked about how much carbon they generated coming all the way up to Donner Summit for their event?

Ending on a cheerier note,  please watch this video-- here's a lawyer with the right kind of attitude-- he'd be a good mentor for those of us opposed to over the top development at Donner Summit/Serene Lakes

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=9917dabfd9497d6a7acac064ba0baf87568e4bda