Idiots want to build gondola, conference centre and casino in Canmore

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Where do you draw the line? Do you want a gondola up Yamnuska too? I can't climb Hike to the top of that, because I'm not a climber Hiker but I don't go demanding that I should have access. It's closer to Calgary, so there is another plus!

It's OK to accept there are some things you will never do. As has been mentioned, there are plenty of alternatives. Yes, they are a little farther drive, but they exist. How many times have you done them? Bored of them yet? The Norquay lift has fantastic views, better than you would get on Lady Mac, and it's not like it is at capacity. How many times have you done that?

Fixed that for you.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Where do you draw the line? Do you want a gondola up Yamnuska too? I can't climb to the top of that, because I'm not a climber but I don't go demanding that I should have access. It's closer to Calgary, so there is another plus!

Actually you can. There are a number of walk up routes on Yam. But just to answer your question, exactly there. I would draw the line at building a gondola up Yamuska. Yes. That is the line for this very very slippery slope of out of control gondola building.

They used to close Yam for falcons all the time. I'm not sure if they do anymore or if it saved any falcons. But I was ok with that cause I could go climb Ha Ling instead. So instead of demanding you get to the top of things you simply haven't put the effort into getting to the top of (I'm sure there is a route on Yam you could do if you hired a guide or learned the skills you need to climb yourself)...you have the beautiful grace of ability to go find something else to climb that is within your skill set.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Where do you draw the line? Do you want a gondola up Yamnuska too?

OMG yes, can we?

[Locke]

Gondolas everywhere!!

[Looch City]

I will only support this idea if at the top of the gondola, they build one of these:

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Sliver

The point with Canmore is you can keep building because it isn't in a national park. People are going to be coming anyway. I'd rather attract them away from Banff/Lake Louise and into Canmore. If you need more houses, hotels, camping spots, just build them to accommodate the demand. It's much easier there than in the Park.

Who gives a fata if I share one or more opinions with Sheila Copps? Has she even weighed in on this? I don't follow her career enough to know what I'm supposed to take away from that comment.

Yeah well wildlife gets squeezed out of every urban development. I don't think as humans we need to apologize for also needing space to live and recreate. I'm allotted a lot fewer hectares on this earth than your average Canadian bear so I'm not going to lose to much sleep about it.

A conference centre is small, anyway. Like, do you even have any concept of just how enormous and undeveloped the land is in the rockies? There's enough space for a GD conference centre. Like, go to Google Earth, and start zoomed in on Canmore. Then start zooming out. It doesn't even register as a blip relative to its surrounding area. If some people want to risk their capital to enhance the area for more people to enjoy, they should be able to.


There are thousands and thousands of square miles of mountains all around Canmore. Go hike wherever you want. If one of 1 million trails get disrupted, boo hoo.

Back in the mid 90's when they put the development limit on Banff, Copps, who was in charge of it, said exactly what you said "The point with Canmore is you can keep building because it isn't in a national park." As if a line on a map makes a difference to wildlife. You can't just keep packing people and hotels into the valley. You claim it's full of space, but it's not. There is an extremely limited amount of develop-able land, which is why they built a huge chunk of residential on an alluvial fan against all warnings form people who knew what they were talking about. Remember how well that turned out?

There are capacity limiting factors to growth, like roads, space to build, and yes, wildlife corridors. The more you encroach on them, the more negative human-wildlife interactions occur. But ya, you don't actually care about that anyway.

Originally Posted by Sliver

I'm pretty sure you use the highway that tore through the mountains to get to the spots you like to hike. Do you fill up for gas and grab a bite to eat while you're there, too? Ever stayed at a hotel there? Gone skiing? Did you enjoy all of that development? But you draw the line at one more building? Sorry, you'd have a leg to stand on if you walked from your house through fields and forest to get to you favourite hiking spots, but since you hope on the twinned #1 and put 'er in cruise control at 120km/h while munching on a Big Mac I have a little less sympathy for your anti-development point of view.

I grew up in Canmore, I watched it go from a town of 3500 to 14 000 people. And ya, I used to roll out of my back yard, hop on my bike, or go for a hike without touching a road. Now I've got to go farther and farther, traversing an abandoned golf course to get to some trails. Many are totally gone, or closed half the time for wildlife activities, becuase animals have been forced so far up the valley the only space left is where there are trails.

You say that as long as someone is willing to finance it, why should we care? Because take a look at the abandon golf course. They ran out of money after destroying the land. Now it sits empty, unusable by anyone and not even generating tax dollars.

[Weitz]

Where is this abandoned golf course?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sliver

The point with Canmore is you can keep building because it isn't in a national park. People are going to be coming anyway. I'd rather attract them away from Banff/Lake Louise and into Canmore. If you need more houses, hotels, camping spots, just build them to accommodate the demand. It's much easier there than in the Park.

Who gives a fata if I share one or more opinions with Sheila Copps? Has she even weighed in on this? I don't follow her career enough to know what I'm supposed to take away from that comment.



Yeah well wildlife gets squeezed out of every urban development. I don't think as humans we need to apologize for also needing space to live and recreate. I'm allotted a lot fewer hectares on this earth than your average Canadian bear so I'm not going to lose to much sleep about it.

A conference centre is small, anyway. Like, do you even have any concept of just how enormous and undeveloped the land is in the rockies? There's enough space for a GD conference centre. Like, go to Google Earth, and start zoomed in on Canmore. Then start zooming out. It doesn't even register as a blip relative to its surrounding area. If some people want to risk their capital to enhance the area for more people to enjoy, they should be able to.



There are thousands and thousands of square miles of mountains all around Canmore. Go hike wherever you want. If one of 1 million trails get disrupted, boo hoo.

I'm pretty sure you use the highway that tore through the mountains to get to the spots you like to hike. Do you fill up for gas and grab a bite to eat while you're there, too? Ever stayed at a hotel there? Gone skiing? Did you enjoy all of that development? But you draw the line at one more building? Sorry, you'd have a leg to stand on if you walked from your house through fields and forest to get to you favourite hiking spots, but since you hope on the twinned #1 and put 'er in cruise control at 120km/h while munching on a Big Mac I have a little less sympathy for your anti-development point of view.



It's not at the expense of everyone; they intend to provide products/services people will want to use. It's for other people (while they naturally make a profit themselves for a return on their investment). If their golf courses are unprofitable, it will be addressed. Not your concern.



Okay, well hiking gives you an opportunity to walk around with a pretty backdrop. Why don't you go walk around Dover. It's the same thing, really. Why go to Hawaii when you go to the water park at West Ed. Same thing, just a prettier backdrop.

Your argument makes no sense unless you're arguing that there is no value in being somewhere beautiful.



Except these areas are losing some of their appeal because they're so jam packed with people it's barely fun to go sometimes. Have you done Johnston Canyon recently. It's brutal with how many people are there. We need at least three Johnston Canyons. Development should be encouraged.

It's so funny you're saying how nice Johnston Canyon is. I bet anything there were the GGGs and Fuzzes in the 1970s using your exact arguments against it.



Who gives a fata about five bears? If the multiple towns, highways, golf courses, trails, houses, restaurants, hotels, etc. etc. are fine, one more attraction to add value to our tourism industry isn't going to hurt.

My philosophy is keep crowds confined to impacted spaces. So Johnston canyon is a good model. It's disappointing they didn't widen the walkway when they shut it down for renovations to make it better at handling crowds. Also if you live in Calgary you should only do Johnston canyons from September to May when it isn't crowded and a wonderful experience.

I would also support the expansion of non-mechanized trail building. I don't mind the addition of the Norquay via Feratta as it was an already impacted area and allowed the expansion of activities that a person could do. Would I support a second one? Absolutely not.

I was anti-skywalk because they are stupid.

The alps suffer because of the gondolas and skiing everywhere development we don't need the Rockies to look like that.

My biggest fear with the Gondola is that it wouldn't be popular enough gets abandoned and then becomes an eyesore like the helipad that's already up there. Outside of the sulphur mountain one all the others have skiing to help offset the costs of maintenance and operating.

Each new development must offset its impact. The trans Canada highway has a huge benefit and huge impact. The onus is on the proposer of the development to prove that the impact is worth the cost.

And to be fair they do this with trails as well. The Macarther pass trail has effectively been closed due to its impact on bears. This is a positive thing.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Where is this abandoned golf course?

just west / northwest and pretty much adjacent to Stewart Creek. IIRC is was the 2nd 18 hole course to be built as part of the Three Sisters developement but they went bankrupt and that put an end to the course which was already partially built at the time. You can clearly see it on Google maps, fairways shaped and cleared, sand traps, ponds etc. all there.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.05875.../data=!3m1!1e3

[InglewoodFan]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Because take a look at the abandon golf course. They ran out of money after destroying the land. Now it sits empty, unusable by anyone and not even generating tax dollars.

As a complete aside, I had no idea this abandoned golf course existed. Just found it on google maps.

I worked in Exshaw for a couple of years in the 80's, still kicking myself that I never bought a place in Canmore back then. It was pretty damn cheap, the whole place was a lot different than it is now.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by InglewoodFan

The cement plant has been in Exshaw in one form or another since 1906. I would hazard that a big portion of the concrete built structures of Calgary were made with Exshaw cement. The limestone deposit is there, and the railway is there. It was a good place to put a cement plant.

Hopefully it doesn't offend your sensibilities too much to know that Canmore was a coal mining town at around the same time.

Ya and Fort Calgary was originally setup to protect the fur trade.

Well if the plant was there first then I guess it has a right to be there and isn't an eyesore after all. If we could just get rid of that national park that just gets in the way of more development.

[4X4]

Would it be ok to build on top of this abandoned golf course?

[troutman]

Bike flow track proposed for Benchlands
http://www.rmoutlook.com/article/Bik...lands-20160616

[polak]

Am I the only one that thinks the Exshaw plant is cool?

Looks like something out of Blade Runner when it's dark.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Would it be ok to build on top of this abandoned golf course?

They are trying to get permission to turn some parts of it into housing. I think that because as a golf course they could designate it as a partial wildlife corridor there is resistance to that idea.

[worth]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

If you want to take a gondola up a mountain there are plenty of options. Lake Louise, Sunshine, Norquay and Sulphur Mountain, all within an hour. At least Sunshine and Lake Louise have some hiking opportunities at the top, Lady Mac has one dangerous trail to the top. Can you imagine the number of stories of idiots falling to their deaths once this is built? Right now it is a big day to get to the top, this will make it an easy jaunt to the dangerous section.

For those who don't know, here is a good shot of the top. You can see the helipad below, which is where the top of the gondola would be. Now imagine 50 idiots pushing their way around with a selfi-stick up here.

Spoiler!

Do you know these people? They are my friends.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by worth

Do you know these people? They are my friends.

No, just a quick google search and it nicely illustrated the danger at the peak and the heli-pad below.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

No, just a quick google search and it nicely illustrated the danger at the peak and the heli-pad below.

It'll be fine once they build a nice restaurant and gift shop, along with a stairway to the peak.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It'll be fine once they build a nice restaurant and gift shop, along with a stairway to the peak.

As long as they have speakers that play "stairway to heaven" all the way up.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

As long as they have speakers that play "stairway to heaven" all the way up.

I'm sorry, that's noise pollution and completely unacceptable. We need to protect what parts of nature we can.