Aspen Die-off Sparks Concern Among Colorado Business Owners ASPEN, CO (KUNC) - Scenery is everything for Jen Stanaszek's business. Her Crystal Valley Manor Hotel is nestled deep in a canyon in the western Colorado hamlet of Redstone. You can see huge swaths of aspen forests from nearly every perch in the hotel.

"People come from all over for the change of the colors up here," says Stanaszek.

A cottage tourism industry has grown around the annual changing of the aspen. Each year, this rakes in millions for the state's economy.

"This valley is so sacred, that, to lose that would be heartbreaking," Stanaszek adds.

A lot have already been lost - about 500,000 acres in Colorado. It's a puzzling phenomenon dubbed SAD, for sudden aspen decline.

It's quite noticeable in Colorado because the state is home to the highest concentration of aspens in the West. Most are a product of the mining boom more than a century ago. The trees thrive after major disturbances to the land.

You can see this about an hour's drive up the valley from Redstone, in the town of Aspen. Mayor Mick Ireland is standing beneath tree-cloaked Aspen Mountain, which was once a silver mine, but is now the famous ski resort.

"It's really a sight when the leaves turn," says Ireland.

Ireland says fall foliage tourism has been down this year, partly due to the aspen die off, and also the poor economy.

"It's going to be a real blow," Ireland says, "if you looked out north of town at the south facing slopes and they were all barren, it would be a completely different vista and a completely different feel."

Aspens are dying at lower altitudes, particularly on those south facing slopes. Several have even died in longtime resident Craig Ward's backyard.

Ward is a former Olympic Nordic racer who now makes his living selling real estate out of the local Sotheby's office. He calls the aspen die off troubling, but he says it's a function of perspective.

"When I get up and show people, what I think is a lousy vista, they say, 'wow look at this!' and I'm going to myself, 'geez this isn't very nice,'" Ward says.

Some scientists say this is just Mother Nature sorting things out. Wayne Shepherd of Colorado State University says climate change related stresses like drought could be contributing to the die off across the West.

"It's happening all at once in some areas, it's happening at pretty large scale in some areas, and it's kind of shocking, even to me," says Shepherd.

But Shepherd doubts Colorado will lose all of its aspens. Still, Redstone's Jen Stanaszek says the die off is a tough thing to swallow as a hotel owner.

"It concerns me greatly for the future," she says.

"I've had a couple aspens in the front that have come down that have been here for twenty something years. And when you see what Vail looks like and over the passes with the beetle kill it's scary," Stanaszek adds.

Scary, because the bark beetle is already expected to kill practically all of Colorado's lodge pole pine trees in the next five years. That combined with the aspen decline will radically alter the scenery, and no doubt change what most people think of when they picture the Rocky Mountains.
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