Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily State Government and Politics reporter, Leo Wolfson.

Leo Wolfson For Cowboy State Daily

Outdoors

Looking up at Colorado's Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort, you'll see large, white tarps covering a mysterious mass two to three stories high. No, the circus isn't in town — it's a matter of snow security.

As unusually warm, long fall seasons become more frequent — like 

 — ski areas across the West and around the world are seeking new ways to guarantee they can open on time. 

One solution is pushing together snow left over from the previous winter, storing it in enormous piles, and reusing it the following season.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Harvesting the Snow"}]

Known as "snow harvesting" or "snow farming," the practice is now catching on at resorts across Idaho, Montana, Utah and Colorado. 

By securing snow piles under thermal mats, blankets, tarps or even hay bales, resorts keep their snow in a giant cooler of sorts, shielded from the heat, sun and rain. 

That means they no longer have to anxiously watch the thermometer for temperatures cold enough to make snow, or wait on natural flakes from the sky.

Antti Lauslahti, CEO of the snow-storage company Snow Secure, believes these efforts will follow the same path as snowmaking equipment did in the 1970s. Most mountains were impressed by the technology at the time, he said, but skeptical that anyone actually needed to make snow.

"Then they started to do it for just the early season, and little by little it just took off," he said.

Lauslahti said Big Sky Resort in Montana — a favorite of many northern Wyoming residents — is running a small-scale test of Snow Secure technology to use on its slopes next season. 

Snow Secure makes white polystyrene thermal mats that fold out like an accordion and can stretch as long as a football field while keeping snow insulated, much like the insulation in a house, at near freezing temperatures.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The New Snowmaking"}]

In recent years, warm weather has repeatedly kept ski areas from meeting their traditional opening dates, sometimes pushing openings past Christmas or forcing seasons to be canceled altogether. 

Early season skiing is one of the industry's most profitable stretches, when public enthusiasm runs highest — especially among casual skiers. The Christmas holidays alone can account for 20% of a mountain's annual revenue, Lauslahti said.

"The beginning of the season is becoming more unpredictable," he said. "A bad start means you lose season-pass sales. If there's at least a minimum amount open in the early season, people accept it better."

Bogus Basin in Idaho and Aspen Snowmass have both recently invested in Snow Secure's mats to guarantee a solid snow base for next season. 

In Aspen, the mats now cover piles on Buttermilk and Snowmass mountains — the equivalent of 3.5 million gallons of water, mostly man-made snow left over from the previous season. 

Beyond saving the snow itself, the practice preserves the money already spent making it and can cut the cost of snowmaking for the season ahead.

Having snow ready to go also gives mountains flexibility to time their snowmaking for the most efficient conditions. 

Snowmaking machines work better the colder it gets, so instead of blowing snow in marginal early-season conditions out of desperation, resorts can draw on their stored supply for a usable base. 

Others are preemptively making a deep base of snow during winter's coldest stretches, either to extend their seasons into May or to save it for the next one.

"It's economically really, really viable," Lauslahti said. "It's really fast, really cost efficient. You need snowmaking, you need groomers, but the point is, you have a new tool."

Lauslahti noted that Levi, a Finnish mountain that traditionally hosts the season's first FIS World Cup race each November, relied entirely on snow stored inside the Snow Secure mats to host the event this past season. 

The mountain itself opened a few years back on Oct. 6 thanks to their snow-storage efforts.

Chris Miller, senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen Snowmass, told the Aspen Times saving snow expands the resort's climate-resilient toolbox for navigating volatile weather.

Snowmass Mountain's relatively low base elevation of 7,870 feet leaves it especially vulnerable to warm, dry early-season spells. 

As host of the Winter X Games, Snowmass produces enormous amounts of snow each fall to build the massive terrain-park features the globally televised event requires. By piling up and covering the leftover snow for the following year, the mountain saves significant money.

Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Utah has joined the trend too, preserving a 15,000-square-foot mound under the Snow Secure mats. 

At just 5,600 feet of elevation, the venue is slated to host cross-country events for the 2034 Winter Olympics, though that may not happen naturally if Utah sees another winter as poor as this past one.

Luke Bodensteiner, Soldier Hollow's general manager, told NBC News he views the effort as a contingency plan, and hopes that snow farming plus new snowmakers could make Soldier Hollow the first Nordic venue in the country to open this coming fall.

"If we get the results that we think … in the summer of 2033, we'll probably have three to four of these piles going around the venue," he told NBC.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Resilient"}]

Back in Aspen when interviewed last month, Miller said temperatures beneath the Snow Secure blankets were registering at 32.6 degrees. 

Even when outdoor temperatures top 100 degrees, the insulated barriers keep the snow between 35 and 37, Lauslahti said, and can limit melting to about 20% of the original mass over an entire summer.

The mats were put to the test last summer at Bogus Basin, a mid-sized ski area outside Boise, where temperatures outside the piles hit 119 degrees. The snow held up fine, and despite recording its warmest November on record, the resort still managed to open that month.

Snow Secure isn't just for the biggest resorts with the biggest budgets. Lauslahti argues the tarps offer even more value at smaller areas with shorter runs, where every saved inch counts — pointing to a small Wisconsin resort that’s invested in the product. "The first chairlift isn't so long, so you don't need so much material," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Other Snow-Storage Efforts"}]

Copper Mountain in Colorado stores snow for its summertime private Woodward camps and public hike park. At each season's end, the mountain pushes 

thousands of cubic yards of leftover snow

 from its runs, terrain parks and superpipe into huge piles; months later, it spreads the snow back out into a short run with a roughly 25-foot base, letting the public ski all summer.

Trollhaugen in Wisconsin insulates its snow with 

hay bales and a large tarp weighed down by car tires

 for a terrain-park event it hosts each fall.

Snow farming Ruka 15 Snow Secure 7 5 26

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Save It For Later: 'Snow Farming' Is Keeping Ski Seasons Alive Across Rockies | Cowboy State Daily</title>

As temperatures soar in the summer, ski resorts in the Rocky Mountain West are "farming" snow, storing it under giant thermal mats as insurance for the upcoming season. Snow stays close to freezing in the summer even in triple-digit temperatures.

Save It For Later: 'Snow Farming' Is Keeping Ski Seasons Alive Across Rockies

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

CASPER — Thirteen years ago, James Pulver sat in a jail cell wondering whether his life was over.

At 24, he was facing federal kidnapping and domestic violence-related charges and staring at a $100,000 cash bond — an amount so far beyond his reach it may as well have been $1 million.

He remembers the clang of the steel doors, the uncertainty, and the crushing realization that he had no idea what happened next.

"You don't know anything," Pulver recalls "You don't know the process. You don't know the courts. You don't know what's coming."

Eventually, Pulver accepted a plea agreement, pleading no contest to misdemeanor domestic violence and misdemeanor theft after spending 367 days in the Fremont County Detention Center.

He still insists the most serious allegations against him weren't true, but says the experience permanently changed how he views people accused of crimes.

Today, when someone in Wyoming is arrested and their family doesn't know where to turn, there's a decent chance the phone rings on Pulver's desk.

[{"type":"text","text":"The irony isn't lost on him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Before I was a bail bondsman,\" he said, \"I was an inmate.\""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Bond"}]

Most people picture a bail bondsman as someone who signs paperwork, takes a fee and disappears.

Pulver, who lives in Casper, laughs at that; he said he believes his job is to guide defendants through one of the most frightening experiences of their lives.

[{"type":"text","text":"He said his sister calls him the \"bail bond doula.\""}]

His advice starts immediately. He tells his bondees: eat well, get sunlight, and stay sober. 

"You're already walking in there in shackles looking guilty," he said. "They're literally judging you."

Know your lawyer's phone number. Know your address before standing in front of a judge.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wear your nicest clothes."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Be clean-shaven."}]

Pulver tells clients they have an advantage once they're released on bond: they can prepare.

[{"type":"text","text":"Someone sitting in jail cannot."}]

"If you're out," he said, "you can do all these things that make you look better."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Freedom Business "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver's work exists because of one uniquely American business model."}]

When a judge sets bail, defendants who can't afford to post the full amount often hire a commercial bail bondsman.

Typically, the defendant pays a nonrefundable premium — about 10% of the total bond — while the bondsman guarantees the full amount to the court.

[{"type":"text","text":"For a $10,000 bond, that usually means paying around $1,000."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The fee is never returned, but the real risk belongs to the bondsman. "}]

If the defendant disappears and fails to appear in court, the bondsman is on the hook for the entire bond.

[{"type":"text","text":"That's why Pulver almost never accepts a bond without collateral."}]

[{"type":"text","text":" \"Cars. Land. I'll take your parents' house,\" he says. "}]

Pulver says the collateral often tells a bigger story than the crime itself. When parents, spouses or siblings are willing to put their own home on the line, he sees more than financial security—he sees a support system.

Some defendants, he said, don't have that luxury. Years of addiction, broken promises or repeated arrests have left them with no one left to call. That's often when he knows the odds of success are much lower.

"The family is what they need," Pulver said. "That's who's going to help them the most."

It's also why he bristles when people assume bounty hunters spend their days chasing criminals for fun.

"My job isn't to catch bad guys," he said. "My job is to get them to court."

[{"type":"text","text":"\"All this chasing and kicking down doors — that's TV.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he smiles."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We're just trying to save our money.\""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Waiting ..."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver's first fugitive recovery began with a 16-hour drive to Texas."}]

A veteran bounty hunter named Craig Zibell had offered to teach him the business. Their first assignment was to find a Wyoming fugitive accused of stealing his father's pickup, driving it to Denver and boarding a plane south.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver had never tracked anyone previously."}]

By the time they reached Texas, he'd pieced together the man's whereabouts through Facebook posts and other online clues. The trail led them to an apartment complex.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then everything stopped."}]

For nearly three days, the pair sat in a truck watching a single apartment door.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"You don't move,\" Pulver said. \"You just sit there and stare.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Food stayed in the cab. Bathroom breaks were carefully timed."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Hours slipped into days."}]

Pulver learned then and there that being a bounty hunter requires a lot of patience. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The stakeout eventually paid off."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The fugitive walked outside and the arrest happened without much drama."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rolling Downhill"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Not every recovery ends quietly."}]

One fugitive had been repeatedly contacting a woman against orders.

Pulver and another recovery agent borrowed a vehicle and positioned themselves nearby, hoping the man would appear.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver sprinted toward him."}]

Instead of surrendering, the man — whom Pulver estimates weighed around 280 pounds — turned and threw a punch.

Within seconds, the two men were tumbling down a steep hillside in the dark.

"I grabbed him by the collar," Pulver recalled. "I made sure I landed 

[{"type":"text","text":"They rolled to the bottom still fighting."}]

Pulver eventually gained control long enough for his partner to help secure the arrest.

[{"type":"text","text":"The bruises lingered for weeks."}]

He still keeps photographs on his phone showing the deep purple marks stretching across his back.

[{"type":"text","text":"His wife later said, \"James, you've got to do things smarter.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He's Got a Gun!' "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"No bond is worth someone getting killed” Pulver says. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The most dangerous recovery he remembers wasn't one he finished himself."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It started with a runner who crossed state lines into rural Utah."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver followed leads until local authorities became involved."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then the operation exploded into helicopters circling overhead."}]

Drones launched, and a SWAT team appeared out of nowhere.  Armored vehicles rolled into position.

Pulver found himself standing at the command post listening to radio traffic alongside law enforcement officers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then came the transmission:"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He's got a gun! He's got a gun!\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"For several agonizing minutes, no one said anything."}]

Pulver remembers staring at the radios, wondering if someone had just been killed.

[{"type":"text","text":"Finally, another voice broke through."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We got him.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The suspects were taken into custody."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Half-Million-Dollar Gamble"}]

In 2020, Pulver agreed to post a $500,000 cash-or-surety bond for Danelle Moyte, a Cheyenne second-grade teacher charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of her boyfriend, Christopher Garcia.

Prosecutors alleged that Moyte shot Garcia inside their home after an argument. She maintained that she acted in self-defense and pleaded not guilty.

[{"type":"text","text":"Writing a half-million-dollar bond wasn't simply a business decision."}]

It was a financial gamble large enough to destroy his company if it went wrong.

Pulver said he only agreed after Moyte's family came forward with what he considers the two most important ingredients for any bond: support and accountability. 

A family member pledged a fully paid-off home as collateral. The family promised to help ensure Moyte complied with every court order.

Moyte remained free while awaiting trial under strict conditions, including GPS monitoring.

[{"type":"text","text":"She found work loading UPS trucks overnight."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"To Pulver, that mattered."}]

One of the first things he tells clients after bonding them out is to find employment, establish routine and show judges they're making productive use of their freedom.

When Moyte's case finally went to trial, a 12-person jury acquitted her of all charges.

James Pulver Screenshot 2026 07 05 at 9 14 48 AM 7 5 26

<title>Wyoming Bondsman Is Part Bounty Hunter, Part Counselor — And A Former Inmate | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper bail bondsman has an unorthodox job that requires him to be part bounty hunter and part life counselor. And he can empathize with his clients. "Before I was a bail bondsman, I was an inmate," he said.

Wyoming Bondsman Is Part Bounty Hunter, Part Counselor — And A Former Inmate

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

DUBOIS — When Marion Taylor talks about America, there’s a little catch in her voice that she just can’t help any more than she can help how her eyes start misting over.

That was doubly true Saturday on a flag-lined main street in a tiny Wyoming mountain town, where thousands gathered to celebrate America’s 250th birthday by watching one of the nation’s most unique parades. 

Each year, Dubois fields something few towns or cities of any size could manage — a parade of roughly two dozen military tanks and other vehicles, hand-picked by National Museum of Military Vehicles founder Dan Starks to tell a sweeping story of American freedom.

“This means something to me because I wasn’t a natural born U.S. citizen,” Taylor told Cowboy State Daily. “I immigrated from Canada as a child and we were so — I can almost cry, thinking about it.”

The memory that came flooding back was a much smaller, quieter parade when she was being sworn in as a U.S. citizen at 19 years old.

“I was living in Missouri back then, and we went to St. Louis to the big courthouse,” she said.

Taylor said she remembers Wold War veterans at the courthouse as a color guard for the ceremony.

Taylor’s eyes light up when she talks about how Dubois celebrates the Fourth of July. 

“Last year we had 3,000 people here winding the streets for the parade,” she said. “And this year, I think it’ll be the same, or maybe more. Everybody wants to come to the Dubois parade because we have the military vehicles. 

"It’s the most unique parade in America.”

That uniqueness doesn’t come without logistical headaches. Shutting down a state highway, even for a short time, takes serious coordination with the Wyoming Department of Transportation. 

“They give us a set amount of time to close the road and get the parade through,” she said. “But we still get it done.”

Last year, Mother Nature stepped in with her own deadline, splashing onlookers with a sudden storm that came blowing down the mountain. 

“The wind was blowing dirt in our eyes and taking people’s hats and chairs and everything,” she said. 

People came back anyway, she added with a proud smile. 

It’s the tanks, she acknowledges. They are just irresistible.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Rolling History Lesson "}]

For the crowd lining both sides of U.S. Highway 26 through Dubois, also known as Ramshorn Highway, the tank parade is pure spectacle — and they love it. 

The roar of the engines rumbling down the streets and echoing off the Wind River Mountains as they belch diesel smoke is what it’s all about.  

For Starks, though, the spectacle is actually a carefully chosen curation of American military history.  

“On the lineup of vehicles, the first thing I like to have is an array,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And each year I like to include vehicles that people haven’t seen before.”

Among this year’s standouts was an M110 self-propelled Howitzer, a hulking piece of bristling Cold War history to send rolling down the street.

“It’s the biggest howitzer, the largest diameter howitzer,” Starks said. “They’re firing the largest shell of any howitzer in the U.S. military inventory, and it was capable of firing a nuclear projectile.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"\"So, that’s pretty cool.”"}]

Not all the vehicles are about shock and awe. 

Starks wants the convoy to tell a coherent story, one that teases people and encourages them to want to learn more. 

This year’s biggest teaser was a World War II halftrack named Krystyna, with a special story pulled from the shadow world of espionage.

Krystyna was “a daring Polish aristocrat,” Starks said. 

“She was Winston Churchill’s favorite World War II spy,” he said. “This halftrack was restored over in Europe by a group that had particular connections with the Polish military and knew the story of this Polish spy … and decided to name this halftrack after her.”

Dubois has but one hour for its big military tank parade. It’s an hour that turns the pages of history, with vehicles normally only seen behind museum ropes. 

Bringing them out to an American main street in a small town like Dubois is something Starks believes happens nowhere else in the country. 

“It’s not that nobody else has a military vehicle in a parade,” he said. “I’m sure there are plenty of military vehicles here and there, but nothing like this.”

It’s the depth and breadth of those military vehicles, spanning 80 years of history, that’s unmatched. 

“I haven’t verified it, but I’ve been around a long time and I’ve worked with lots and lots of people,” he said. “And I consistently hear nobody else does this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Flag For Big Birthday"}]

The people who come to watch Dubois Fourth of July tank parade are just as varied as the military convoy itself. 

One family from Riverton, for example, stood out from the crowd for the unusual flag they were waving around. 

It was not just large, but also proclaimed America 250. 

Matt Burrell found the flag when he was searching around online for something special to mark the occasion. 

On America’s 250th, Dubois did something few towns in America can do — fielding a parade with more than two dozen military tanks and vehicles spanning 80 years of U.S. history. "It’s the most unique parade in America,” said one patriotic-feeling parade-goer.

CSD Staff

Latest from CSD Staff

Bonus Video 1: Wednesday, October 16, 2024

One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Today In Politics: Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Daily Cartoon 2: Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Your Wyoming Sunrise: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Daily Smile: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

One More For The Road: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Daily Cartoon 2: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Daily Cartoon 1: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Today In Sports: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Steve Inman: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Bonus Video 2: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Other Authors

Bonus Video 1: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

You Still Here? Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Daily Darwin: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Today In Sports: Monday, October 14, 2024

Your Wyoming Sunrise: Monday, October 14, 2024

Bonus Video 2: Monday, October 14, 2024

Steve Inman: Monday, October 14, 2024

Bonus Video 1: Monday, October 14, 2024

Daily Darwin: Monday, October 14, 2024