Scott: Hunter S. Thompson and Mayor Torre’s opposition to Aspen airport expansion

The mayor of Aspen was right to remind Pitkin County Commissioners of the potential long-term risks of an airport runway expansion (“Aspen mayor concerned about rough landing for airport plan,” Sept. 21, 2023, Aspen Daily News).

The prevailing argument for the widening of the runway is that the FAA won’t contribute funds to a new airport terminal unless they get their expanded runway.  Expanding the runway comes with the perils that accompany larger planes’ ability to land at ASE. This is in terms of increased air traffic, human and car traffic, air and noise pollution, and an amplification of the dangers of the shale bluffs hazard that is conjoined with broader wingspans flying into our narrow valley.

But what if we don’t need a new terminal in Aspen?

Call me old-fashioned, and I was an Airport Service Agent at ASE working for Mountain Air Express in 1998/99, but please explain to me what exactly is wrong with our perfect little airport?

Look at the beautiful woodwork as you enter the departures terminal, high arches meeting at an apex like an upside-down ship or a sacred chapel of flight. The design is gorgeous, elegant, classic; the existing terminal is familiar to long-term travelers; and welcomes new visitors with fresh mountain air as you deplane into the elements – whether rain, snow, or shine, truly exhibiting something exceptional in the legendary and also very threatened Aspen brand. Make no mistake: A remodeled airport will lose much of what our current airport offers.

What’s missing? 

We are a small-town airport and have a well-stocked bar, a restaurant serving breakfast lunch and dinner, and a general store for travel essentials and various memorabilia for people who forgot Aspen-branded products as gifts for friends and family waiting at their destinations before they left downtown.  

I hope it is not nostalgic bias from 43 years of flying into and out of Aspen along with my first “real” job working there, but something really sticks in my craw when people talk about us needing a new airport terminal. Aspen may have run over the canary in the canary initiative a long time ago, but we like to at least pretend we are a green-leaning town. You know what is wasteful and emits a lot of carbon? Replacing a perfectly good airport terminal, that’s what.

Think about all that beautiful wood and stone built into our quaint and spectacular airport. Now imagine it all heading to the dump where no one can ever enjoy its beauty again. Think of the sacrifice of those no longer living trees that make up those gorgeous arched beams, under which we pass through security, perhaps in one of the most beautiful security check points at any airport in the nation, where our TSA officials toil in sight of natural light. Whoever is in charge of this push to change what is fine the way it is, what would they do with the Notre Dame Cathedral as the stone work is starting to show its age? Tear it down, and build a new one?  

Leave our airport alone, save all those carbon emissions that would go into replacing it. If the current terminal gets too crowded, schedule less flights on top of each other. I’ve already written about why, if Aspen wants to see itself as at the vanguard, it should ban private jets from flying into or out of ASE (“Aspen/Pitkin County Airport operations could be at the vanguard,” April 18, 2023, The Aspen Times). People who think they are too good or too special to fly commercial with the hoi polloi aren’t heroes. Have “captains” of industry, who’ve made their fortunes exploiting consumers and workers, really earned the privilege to pillage the atmosphere in such exclusive and rarified form? Except for the space cadets on the space station, we all live within one troposphere. If there is really a climate emergency and people are supposed to feel guilty about buying an SUV, then private jets should be banned or at least limited to national security matters.

Amsterdam Schiphol is already ahead of us in this respect.

But whether or not we keep the private jets coming and going all day long, when it comes to the current Aspen Airport terminal and runway size, we should implement the lyrics of a classic Beatles tune and “Let It Be.” It’s a beautiful little airport just the way it is. If the tarmac needs replacing, then replace it, but don’t open the door to 737s and so many more heads for which there are not beds. That battle was already fought and won in 1995 with a vote. Hunter S. Thompson and the Woody Creatures in the flight path said: “there is some $&it we won’t eat.” Now the county seems to be putting it back on the menu without bringing such an expensive and consequential decision to the voters in whose hands it should be.

Shout out to current Mayor Torre in this ancient LA Times article, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-10-19-mn-58801-story.html: “That is one reason that Torre (‘That’s my whole name. Want to see my voter registration card?’) showed up at the rally. With a black beret pushed low on his head, the 26-year-old San Francisco transplant, who teaches snowboarding, signed up to vote ‘because it was so easy.'”

Andrew Scott, of Snowmass, is the manager of KSNO radio and director of operations of the Open Mind Project.