SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
A4
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EDITORIAL
The heroes
who show
up to help
The scenario sounds like a scene from a Hollywood
blockbuster that also features helicopter crashes
and the miraculous, last-second deft deployment of
a multitool or a cellphone to prevent a catastrophic
explosion.
But the situation in the Wallowa Mountains of
eastern Baker County was utterly real.
No scripts.
And the snow and the rain and the wind were real,
not contrived on a soundstage.
The weather that confronted members of the Baker
County Sheriff’s Offi ce Search and Rescue team on
Sunday, Oct. 24 were suffi ciently savage to impress
even Sheriff Travis Ash, an experienced outdoorsman
who has spent much time in the mountains during
winter.
Trying to reach Robert Borders, a 67-year-old Baker
City man who was stranded in the storm at an eleva-
tion of 7,400 in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, the team, all
of them volunteers except Ash, slogged through slushy,
knee-deep snow while rain, driven by gale-force winds,
defeated even high-quality rain gear. Gusts knocked
down trees.
“Those were the worst conditions I’ve ever faced in
the mountains,” Ash said.
Yet he and the other rescuers, when summoned, an-
swered the call to potentially save a life. That included
members of Union County’s Search and Rescue team,
and U.S. Forest Service employees.
Fortunately Borders, despite spending two nights
in the appalling conditions, didn’t need medical treat-
ment and was able to ride his horse back to safety on
Monday, Oct. 25, escorted by the rescuers.
The episode also illustrates the importance of back-
country travelers having the ability to communicate
even if, as was the case here, there’s no cell service.
Borders had a handheld satellite device that allowed
him to send text messages to friends, who then alerted
police about his predicament. Moreover, the unit pin-
pointed his location, so crews didn’t have to search for
Borders but could focus on rescuing him.
We’re fortunate to have places such as the Eagle
Cap Wilderness to visit. But we’re luckier still that
some of our neighbors will risk their own lives to come
to our aid if we get into trouble.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Anthony Lakes president
explains proposal withdrawal
By JOHN WILSON
As the president of the board of
directors and representing Anthony
Lakes Outdoor Recreation Association
(ALORA), we felt it would help clarify
confusion by addressing the withdraw-
al of our proposal for the Baker County
Visitor Services contract. Multiple
county residents have contacted us
over the past couple of weeks express-
ing their disappointment with our
decision to withdraw the application.
Our decision was based on the reality
that, even with our best laid plans for
Baker County visitors and businesses,
being awarded the Visitors Center
contract would require us to work
with certain elected offi cials from the
County and City governments who are
at great odds over many elements of
the contract and what a Visitors Center
purpose should be.
Over the past two years, the focus
of this discussion has never been on
the actual contents of the proposals
and the services contained within
each proposal, nor how they comple-
ment the Baker County Marketing
Strategic plan. Instead, the County
and City offi cials focused on turning a
simple proposal process and contract
award into a confusing combination
of procrastination, turf fi ghting and
political agendas. With a less than ideal
(and much delayed) RFP (Request For
Proposals) process, the County and
City have demonstrated lack of trust
in the people they’ve appointed to
perform the tasks at hand. As stated
above, there continued to be little to no
discussion on the actual plans in the
applications or the County’s strategic
tourism plan. These actions do not
align with ALORA’s mission, values,
or way of conducting business. As a
nonprofi t, all our enterprises (the ski
area, campgrounds, bike/ski shop, and
golf course management) strive to work
with the community and its businesses
with the end result of making a better
Baker County. We fi nally reached our
choke level with the infi ghting that is
taking place between certain County
and City elected offi cials more worried
about political turf than about the best
interest of businesses in Baker County.
While we would have enjoyed
working to expand the role ALORA
plays in this community, we don’t feel
like we need to continually defend our
mission and our business model. In the
past fi ve years, ALORA has grown the
number of full-time employees working
primarily in Baker County from one
person to 14. We’ve also grown from 30
part-time winter employees to 55 part-
time winter and 20 part-time summer
employees. ALORA’s payroll package
in Baker County last year was almost
$1.5 million. The total dollars in goods
and services ALORA spent last year
was $2.4 million with an estimated
75% of that being with local mer-
chants. Based on the County Factor for
Visitor Spending, out-of-town guests at
Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort spent
over $450,000 with local merchants
and out-of-town guests at Quail Ridge
Golf Course spent $175,000 with local
merchants. These fi gures do not include
monies spent by guests from the camp-
grounds we manage. After 10 years of
managing the ski hill, season ticket
prices are the same for local residents
as they were in 2011. Quail Ridge golf
passes have not been raised since we
began management and there is no
intention of needing to anytime soon.
Our point is that ALORA has been
and will continue to be committed
to Baker County and its citizens. We
have a strategic vision, the resources,
and the will to execute this vision. We
believe that we helped raise awareness
and raise the bar by which the Visitors
Center should be measured. We hope
that this process has alerted Baker
County and the TLTC to institute Key
Performance Indicators for the Visitors
Center contractor that are more rele-
vant to how visitors gather travel infor-
mation today. Over the past decade, a
lot has changed with how people travel,
and we hope that the County and City
will use this opportunity to capture,
educate and retain more visitor dollars
for Baker County businesses.
We have offered all the help we
have available to the Chamber and
are happy to assist in any way we can.
ALORA will continue to further our ef-
forts to promote Baker County, manage
tourism sustainably and create family
wage jobs for local residents. In the end,
we simply determined that we could be
far more effective by staying indepen-
dent from the local politics.
Laying bare the realities of splatters in the kitchen
An email that starts with the
word “nudists” is likely to stop my
right hand before it can click on
the delete icon.
An email that starts with the
word “nudists” and also includes,
in the same sentence, the phrase
“splatter-free meals” is certain to
do so.
I’m not much of a cook.
(Although I am something of a
maestro of the microwave.)
But that doesn’t mean I don’t
appreciate the absence of splat-
ters during the preparation of a
meal.
I’ve felt the brief but sharp
pains on one hand, rather like
being stung simultaneously by a
swarm of wasps, when I clum-
sily fl ipped a strip of bacon and
spawned a shower of hot fat.
Probably other parts of my
body were also pelted with the
scalding dollops.
But they, unlike my hand, were
clothed.
I shudder to imagine the ef-
fects of a similar greasy geyser
had I been preparing bacon in the
nude.
(I shudder even more to imag-
ine my family’s reaction to such
a scene. Traumatized is the word
that comes readily to mind. Also,
shuddering is one of the actions
that, when linked to nudity, sug-
gests unpleasant views involving
an abundance of, well, jiggling.)
Bacon is among the foods that
make chewing something like
ecstasy rather than toil.
But I’m not sure even the
rich and meaty euphoria that
a mouthful of bacon induces is
worth skin grafts.
Particularly if the grafting
happens in certain sensitive areas
which most of the time are pro-
tected by fabric.
The danger is of course quite
a lot more acute for people who
prepare their meals while naked.
Which, apparently, they do.
Actually, nudists seem to be
rather more clubby than I ex-
pected them to be.
The email I mentioned was
sent by the American Association
for Nude Recreation.
This is, lest you wonder, an ac-
tual organization. And a venerable
one, at 90 years old.
I checked its website. For
JAYSON
JACOBY
purely research purposes.
(There were pictures, although of
course I was interested only in the
text. I happened to notice, though, in
my cursory look, that all the photos
were taken with a wide angle lens
so the level of detail, as it were, was
lacking. Very wide angle.)
The email notes that “nudists,
like most of us, love to cook.”
I thought this sounded a trifl e
defensive.
Although I suppose I can under-
stand such an attitude.
Most Americans, after all, spend
most of their time at least margin-
ally clothed, which leaves nudists
out in the cold, fi guratively speaking
(and, potentially, literally).
But however far out of the
mainstream nudists might be given
their disdain for donning garments,
I doubt many people would assume
that nudists don’t have a normal
affi nity for cooking.
They have to eat, after all.
(And I suspect they would run
into trouble if they had to rely on
restaurants for most of their meals,
what with those pesky “no shoes,
shirt, service” policies. Especially the
shirt.)
As for the issue of splatters, the
email bore this headline: “Nudists’
Favorite Kitchen Aid: Slow Cooker.”
The email notes that “according
to the majority of the American
Association for Nude Recreation
(www.aanr.com) members, they
have a major incentive to avoid hot
splatters.”
Indeed.
The email contends that with
winter approaching, and hot meals
such as stews and soups more popu-
lar, slow cookers, being less prone
to splattering than, say, a frying
pan, are especially favored among
nudists.
The email doesn’t delve any
further into this topic.
In fact the message seemed to
me almost a non sequitur, intended
not so much to educate journalists
about the cooking preference of
nudists — a topic which, I’ll admit,
has never piqued my curiosity —
but rather to get the word out about
the American Association for Nude
Recreation.
(And obviously it worked.)
I did learn much about this
organization — most notably that it
actually exists.
Its purpose, according to the
email, is to protect “the freedoms
and rights of those who participate
in wholesome, family-style nude
recreation.”
The group also “supports 180
chartered clubs, resorts, and camp-
grounds” and sponsors an annual
event, “International Skinny Dip
Day.”
I consulted the maps on the
website — again, for completely
scholarly reasons — and I con-
fi rmed that I had never camped at
any of the places listed.
I’m pretty sure that, had it been
otherwise, I would have remem-
bered the experience.
Never mind splatters.
The sight of nude barbecuing, in
addition to posing a risk of perma-
nent scarring, is one likely to lodge
deeply in the fi ssures of memory.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.