UPDATE Originally planned as a grouping of nine, seven of the cell towers proposed by SkiCo passed muster. According to the Snowmass Sun, the other two were rejected on aesthetic grounds. The Snowmass Colorado Town Council asked Aspen Ski Company to rethink a plan for two 36-foot towers at the Two Creeks Base Area that would be more subtle in design. Council members called the current version “too impactful.” Earlier suggestions called for either one cell tower standing 50-feet tall, or two towers capped at 40-feet.
“Cell phone service is very poor at my house,” said nearby resident Jay Warren, “And every one of my neighbors would stand up and say, ‘Yes, we want better cell phone service.’ But if you ask them to make that trade, I can’t find a single one who’s going to make that trade because that’s why they moved here,” he added, explaining why many of the council members voted for aesthetics over safety for the remaining two towers.
“We have the world’s best ski area, and we have a level of expectation of communication, and we have some of the world’s worst cell phone coverage on this mountain,” Mak Keeling, SkiCo’s VP of Mountain Planning and Development told the Sun. “I mean, I hate to generalize like that, but our guests deserve to be able to make a phone call or send out a text message if they’re hurt, if they need to find a friend, whatever it is.”
Highlighting the extra safety measures afforded by good cellular service Keeling continued, “We all know people who have been stranded for who knows how long because they didn’t have the ability to communicate, and they had to wait for a random person to come by them. I don’t think that should be an expectation; I think we should expect that we can do a little better than that.”
However, council members like Alyssa Shenk put the responsibility for their own safety back on visitors, saying “Here’s the thing … I get that you want to be there for the people who get themselves in a bad situation, but there are lots of places in this area where you’re not going to have cell service and you’re going to get in a bad situation. You go up Castle Creek or Maroon Creek Road, any of these places, and we can’t protect everyone everywhere. If people are really concerned,” she added, “They should carry a Garmin device – I mean truthfully, if you’re really concerned for your safety.”
For the seven cell towers that were approved, construction is expected to begin in 2024. All parties acknowledged that there would always be some back-country areas beyond the range of easy communications, but for the ski resort area at Snowmass, the fate of the two aesthetically unappealing cell towers remains unresolved.
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