BRECKENRIDGE – Local rainfall in August was about 35 percent above average, bringing the weather year’s precipitation to date within a hundredth of average, said Rick Bly, National Weather Service observer in downtown Breckenridge.
“We got the majority in the first 10 days of August,” he said.
The Labor Day weekend forecast is sunny skies and warm temperatures.
But it won’t be long before the snow starts to fall. Bly said September averages about 4 inches of snow.
The High Country’s monsoon season runs about July 15 to Aug. 15. Its above-average precipitation helped to make up for a dismal winter and bring the year-to-date amount to 18.86 inches – relative to the average of 18.87 inches.
The weather year runs from October to September. Other above-average months this year were October 2009 and April 2010.
Some of the lowest snowfall numbers in the past 40 years were recorded between November and January, Bly said earlier this year. H

BRECKENRIDGE – Thousands of little yellow ducks – of the rubber variety – will be floating down the Blue River today in the 23rd annual Labor Day weekend duck races.
The Summit Foundation’s charity event is to be bigger than ever as the nonprofit marks 25 years serving the community, according to a press release from the foundation.
The Great Rubber Duck Race will stretch from Maggie Pond at Main Street Station to the Riverwalk Center.
At 3 p.m. “we will drop as many as 12,000 little yellow swimmers,” with prizes awarded to the top 25 ducks to cross the finish line first, according to the press release.
Along the Blue River, the race route will have audio placement so none of the action and announcements will be missed.
Ducks may be “adopted” at the Riverwalk Center today before the race, according to www.summitfoundation.org.
About 9,000 people attended in the event in 2009, according to the press release.
The start of the Kid

SUMMIT COUNTY – You’re a conscientious recycler. You ride your bike and take the bus around town. You’ve changed out your incandescent light bulbs for compact flourescents.
But when you’re in party mode, there’s a sea of trash as far as the eye can see, and you’re not sure how to bring a sense of sustainability to your entertaining.
For green-minded hosts like you, High Country Conservation Center (HC3) has introduced the Zero Waste Party Pack – a set of tips, resources, advice and materials that can maximize fun while minimizing waste at any gathering.
“This is easier than most people think,” said Erin Makowsky, the organization’s waste-reduction coordinator. “We have all the supplies you need, and we do most of the work for you.”
A party organizer or event planner need only call the conservation center a few days ahead of time to reserve a party pack and arrange a time to pick it up. The packs, designed for

FRISCO – To improve Frisco tourism on Main Street, the Town created a pocket guide – “Main Street Mile: Explore a Mile of Adventure.”
With the Frisco Main Street walking map, visitors are now able to pinpoint town shops and attractions they want to visit ahead of time. And they even can take a free cell-phone walking tour of the area.
“So many tourists don’t want to walk if they don’t see something of value,” said town manager Michael Penny. “Now they know what’s there.”
Main Street’s shops, restaurants and historic sites are marked on the map with short descriptions – of course, businesses are always subject to change. It even gives information on local events, the town’s Peninsula Recreation Area Adventure Park, the marina and historic sites found off the beaten path.
According to Town spokeswoman Teresa Paul, Frisco’s walking map can be picked up at all businesses found on the walking map,

DENVER – How does a ski resort company incorporate state-of-the-art technology without disrupting a business that revolves around the natural world and environment?
They do it seamlessly, so the guests barely even notice.
Vail Resorts chief executive officer Rob Katz points to the company’s history, long before he took over, as a leader in implementing technology that skiers and snowboarders can use as easily as they ride a gondola.
Remember when Vail Resorts first linked credit cards to its season passes, so resort guests wouldn’t have to carry a wallet around the mountain all day? It’s been more than 20 years since that technology came into play, Katz said.
Fast-forward to the new millennium of Internet-obsessed technologies and the current social-media phenomenon, and Vail Resorts is doing it again.
The company announced its new EpicMix program Monday in New York, revealing a technology that skiers and snowboarders won’t even notice, Katz said.
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The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program is lending a high-tech hand to four species of endangered fish on the Western Slope.
At the Price-Stubb Diversion Dam on the Colorado River near Rifle, a new “passive integrated transponder” (PIT) tag system is now monitoring the movement of endangered fish that are PIT tagged. A PIT tag is similar to a small microchip placed in a dog or cat at a veterinary clinic for individual identification if lost.
The new PIT tag system, installed in early August, consists of four, 6-foot-by-5-foot antennas attached to the box culvert at the top of the fish passage. The system detects PIT tags to track whether fish are moving up or down the Price-Stubb Fish Passage. The system provides remote sensing and is built to withstand the flows and debris of the Colorado River.
“This type of research tool is a safe, cost-effective way to monitor fish movement in the fish passage,” said Recovery Program Research coordinator

Las Vegas – While Paris Hilton was getting hauled off to the big house for holding “someone else’s” narcotics on the Strip, the regular sweltering swirl of a late August in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Hotel proved to be an auspicious location for a quick preview of Scion’s newest offering.
The Hard Rock, as I noted, is sort of like a youth hostel for rich Southern Californians, and it’s those aspirational hipsters Scion has courted over the course of its existence as Toyota’s hard-to-peg, low-cost offshoot.
Admittedly, you don’t see a hell of a lot of Scions in Colorado (especially up in the High Country), but as the company continues its efforts to appeal to hyper-individualistic motorists, its new makeover of the tC is a step in the right direction.
The least outwardly bizarre of the three Scion models, the sort-of Celica-inspired tC sports coupe was introduced in 2004 and its 2011 edition is quite a comely and affordable machine.
Af

SUMMIT COUNTY – More travelers are expected in the mountains during Labor Day weekend this year than in 2009, and occupancy rates in Breckenridge are up 5 percent.
“We’re definitely seeing a pick-up from last year,” said Emily McCormack with the Breckenridge Resort Chamber.
At the current rate of bookings, the number of visitors staying in the town could be as much as 7 percent over last year, she said.
The town’s occupancy this weekend is expected to be about 60 percent – which is typical of summertime, when bigger weekends range from 60-80 percent occupancy, McCormack said.
AAA Colorado expects travelers in the mountain region this holiday weekend to increase 11 percent from 2009. About 2.68 million people are to vacation at least 50 miles from home across eight mountain states, according to a AAA press release.
Trips by automobile are expected to increase 10 percent from last year. The price of gasoline has been relatively steady this summer, averagi

SUMMIT COUNTY – A local man convicted of reckless endangerment after starting a wildfire in 2007 was court-ordered this week to pay $5,399 in restitution to Lake Dillon Fire-Rescue.
Mark Mathis, a county resident, is to pay the restitution as one of the conditions of his 12 months of unsupervised probation resulting from the conviction.
“We’re very pleased that (Summit County) Judge Olguin-Fresquez upheld the right for full restitution in this case,” LDFR chief Dave Parmley said in a press release. “This fire posed a risk not only to our firefighters and the residents of Sierra Bosque, but it also placed an unfair burden on the taxpayers of our district.”
At issue was whether the government agency met the legal definition of a victim eligible for restitution. Olguin-Fresquez determined that the fire district was “aggrieved” as a result of Mathis’ reckless behavior.
On Nov. 3, 2007, Mathis started an outdoor fire to burn material from a

FRISCO – Not surprisingly, health care, the economy and forest health topped the list of issues local voters wanted to discuss Thursday with Sen. Michael Bennet during the Democrat’s campaign stop in Frisco.
On those topics and others, Bennet said the country’s leaders will have to decide whether they want to find real solutions or allow partisan politics to thwart progress.
“I think there’s too much partisanship back there,” Bennet said of the nation’s capital. “I think once you put away the political stuff, people are much more interested in solving problems. And that’s what I hope to be able to do.”
Two attendees at the town hall meeting asked what Bennet would do to improve health care and ensure that Medicare payments will cover doctors’ costs.
“We have so much more we need to do to get control of cost in our health care system,” Bennet said.
Cost transparency and controlling costs in medical care are essential to reform, according to