Steamboat Pilot & Today

Should the city build more baseball fields to accommodate Triple Crown? Let's look at this from a purely business point of view.

Steamboat normally attracts a certain type of summer visitor because of its heritage of skiing, fly fishing, backpacking, vintage cars and more recently golf, tennis, Strings in the Mountains, walking the trails and the Botanic Park. These are all quiet and individualistic activities that attract quiet and individualistic people.

Triple Crown, on the other hand, attracts people who want team activities accompanied by much enthusiasm, bright lights and noise. The quiet people, both residents and visitors, object to this intrusion. The populations do not mix. In the long run, the noisy will drive out the quiet. We're driving out our natural clientele, and that's not good business. Many business people wish we did not have Triple Crown.

If the community were going to spend money on improving summer tourism, would it not make sense to build facilities that are compatible with our core visitor group and with our own residents who "want their summers back"?

Suggestions would be: use the Steamboat airport for a weekend of vintage auto races, build another golf course (the community supported and voted for Haymaker), do more balloon rodeos, pay for fly-in subsidies, subsidize fly-fishing classes.

This list is from five minutes reflection. A study could reveal many more and better ideas.

We can do better than chasing the easy bait of Triple Crown.

C. Robert Enever
Steamboat Springs