Eagle County

It's dual timeline, so Tyler Zahn's in the present, but I've got a helicopter crash that happens, a Black Hawk helicopter crash.

The, the HATS team that, in real life, operates out of Eagle County, uh, they, they crash, uh, a helicopter up near the ghost town of St. Elmo, and it's a dual timeline.

So, uh, we actually start off the book in 2016 when ISIL's starting to do some uprising in, uh, northwest Iraq.

Uh, so it's the first book I've had some military stuff in, and I was able to use some of my own military experiences over Iraq to write those helicopter scenes, along with the help of two Black Hawk pilots.

The nearest airport, given its need for flat land, is 35 minutes away here, although many visitors choose to fly into here, the far larger Denver International Airport.

Either way, Vail Resorts has made sure it's convenient to actually get to Vail itself with its Epic Mountain Express, offering $99 shared shuttles for the two-hour trip from Denver or $49 ones for the quicker drive from Eagle County Airport.

For those that would balk at the prospect of sharing a shuttle, they also offer $319 private SUVs on the same 35-minute drive.

In all cases, as long as it's Epic Mountain Express, Epic Pass holders, of course, get rewarded with 20% off.

A 20-minute drive away, assuming one pays for the $425 a year Vail employee parking pass.

This gets closer to the 28% of income financial experts recommend spending on housing.

To get under that 28%, it's going to require an apartment with roommates somewhere like Eagle or Gypsum, more than 30 miles or 50 kilometers from Vail.

Vail Resorts understands this financial impossibility, and their fix is to act as both the employer and the landlord with their employee housing program, offering hundreds of rooms near the resort for five or $600 a month.

Drew Shaw, Aspen Public Radio News.

Eagle County has launched a new resource guide to help residents deal with power outages.

This comes after a long outage in July prompted lots of public safety questions.

The guide can be found at ecemergency.org. It's got information on how to prepare for and deal with extended power outages and communication disruptions.

Our next story is from Axios.

State wildlife officials confirmed a new gray wolf pack in Eagle County and a boom in pups this year, marking a major milestone for Colorado's controversial wolf reintroduction program.

The voter-approved effort is entering a new phase as breeding packs become established, exactly what wildlife officials have been hoping for.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife recognized the formation of the Piney Ridge Pack, bringing the state's total to five packs, four of which have been reproducing this year.

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In local news, the two candidates running for Eagle County Sheriff wanna prevent license plate reader technology from being misused.

Aspen Public Radio's Hannah Weaver reports.

In August, the Institute of Justice found more than 200 cases of law enforcement officers around the country abusing the data, like for romantic stalking.

Eagle County Sheriff James Van Beek, a Republican, says there haven't been any local cases like that.

He's running for re-election and says he's implemented a few policies to prevent misuse.

The agency keeps the data in its systems for 60 days, and outside agencies have to agree to only use the data for law enforcement purposes.

Now, I know something about evacuations, and I can tell you this is not an evacuation.

The release helpfully points out that Eagle County's airport is about seventy miles away, roughly an hour and a half by car, and that the airport in Rifle is available for those flying private.

Available.

You know, the way that a mot- Motel 6 is available.

Hey, I owned a ton of land out in Colorado.

I sold it a couple of years ago, but I owned a whole bunch of land in Eagle County, and it was up Squaw Creek Road in Edwards.

So...

That's the first