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Dave Shively

Dave Shively's outdoors column appears Sundays in the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Contact him at 871-4253 or e-mail dshively@steamboatpilot.com.

Steamboat Springs — It was a typical Friday evening in June on the Yampa River. A contingent of local kayakers enjoying the last rays of sunlight and egging each other on with playful hoots in the surf at Charlie's Hole. Downriver, a threesome of pint-sized paddlers no older than 15, in town for the river festival, wowed their shore-side parents by hucking paddles aside for some hands-free wave acrobatics in the D-hole.

I took out of the river and watched, thinking how fortunate these kids have it - already miniature masters of the river.

But then I turned around to see other spectators - a Hispanic family looking onto the same scene.

It's easy to forget that as skiers, riders, bikers, boaters and fly-fishers, denizens of gear-laden activities that require experience, money and time, we are the ones in the great minority.

And the ever-shifting county demographics will only broaden the rift between the outdoor haves and have-nots.

Roberto Moreno watched it happen to Summit County.

The long-time ski patroller and hotel developer watched one-half of one percent of the county's on-mountain leadership jobs, in administration, ski patrol and lessons, be employed by people of Hispanic-descent.

For Moreno, this lack of exposure to the mountains among America's broadening multicultural base must be evened through outreach.

"Mountain communities need something to draw them together - a common experience," Moreno said. "Snow sports can be that thread."

Moreno, who has spoken before the National Ski Areas Association, serves on the ski operation curriculum committee for Colorado Mountain College and calls himself "the most visible Hispanic in the U.S. ski industry," is the president and founder of the Denver-based nonprofit Alpino Mountain Sports Foundation (www.alpino.org).

Moreno sat down with me on his way to meet with Rossignol executives in Salt Lake City last week.

His greatest worry is the sheer numbers - 90 to 95 percent of Denver's youth (regardless of color) and around 75 to 80 percent statewide, that never get to experience the mountains.

"It's unconscionable that in a state defined by the Rockies, kids sit at their footsteps and never participate," he said, concerned about a future electorate pool ambivalent to how our mountains are managed. "The greatest ally to the forest are the kids - they won't care about what they're not exposed to."

Moreno plans to open a multi-cultural outreach center this fall in downtown Denver's Bernard Valdez Hispanic Heritage Center and wants to create a presence in Steamboat with future programs.

Hopefully, as Steamboat booms, we can work with folks such as Moreno to even exposure to the resources that define the town - lest sports such as kayaking and skiing become further isolated enclaves of homogeneity, or as Moreno puts it, "something akin to polo."