Aspen: Trouble In Paradise -- Colorado Town's Woes Strike Northwest Chord

"Whiteout: Lost in Aspen" by Ted Conover Random House, $20

No matter whether you prefer People, Newsweek, Outdoors or the New York Review of Books, the name "Aspen" conjures a distinct image: the scene of jet-set misadventures (remember Claudine Longet?) and home to a host of celebrities: actor Don Johnson, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, laid-back Caribbean crooner Jimmy Buffett, and the King Daddy of Famous Aspenites, John Denver.

The Colorado town's image is colored by money: world-class ski resort, playground of the privileged. But Aspen also is a "real" town with "real" citizens who have been there for generations. It has a long and colorful history, including stints as a mining camp and a pre-glitter utopian resort community.

And because it is a real town it has real problems. Explosive growth and an unprecedented housing shortage - millionaires building grotesque palaces while regular Aspenites are forced down valley - have created problems that are not so very different from those we face right here in our own Northwest version of paradise.

Ted Conover is a native of Colorado and a distinguished nonfiction writer: his previous books include "Rolling Nowhere," about riding the rails with hoboes, and "Coyotes," a study of illegal aliens. Early in this new book, "Whiteout: Lost in Aspen," Conover explains his love-hate relationship with the town and his decision - while a stalled novel was driving him crazy - to see if

he could get under Aspen's skin.

"Whiteout" resulted from the two years Conover spent roaming the high and low spots of the town, first as a cabbie for the appropriately named Mellow Yellow Taxi Company, then as a reporter for the weekly Aspen Times.

Conover starts slowly, and the cabbie section becomes tedious: anyone who's worked that job has a million stories, and Conover's taxi adventures aren't markedly more interesting than the norm.

Another problem, perhaps unavoidable, is the book's construction. There are so many aspects of Aspen to explore that some are left half-finished. Conover's touchy interview with a longtime Aspen miner - whose efforts at a decent living conflict with wilderness preservationists - is good, but we never get a satisfying conclusion to the conflict. Maybe no one ever does.

Yet "Whiteout" succeeds despite these shortcomings and is best when it reveals specific anecdotes. Conover recalls one hilarious episode involving a

mumbling, semiconscious, suspiciously runny-nosed Hunter Thompson, and another when he brazenly crashes a party given by Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Conover notices that the band is covering a lot of Jimmy Buffett tunes - then realizes it is Jimmy Buffett's band.

The account of the taping of a John Denver special is a hoot, too, yet there's more to Aspen than the lifestyles of the rich and famous. One of the finest sections of "Whiteout" is the chilling but oddly sweet episode in which a group of former drug dealers tell all to Conover. There also are fine snapshots of ordinary working folk, as well as Conover's colleagues on the newspaper; and the book's final set-piece, a long account of the search for skiers lost in an avalanche, is a terrific piece of reporting.

Conover bailed out of Aspen when he found himself seduced by the ease and glamor of the town's good life - indeed, the book's epigraph is from Homer's account of the Lotus Eaters in "The Odyssey." The final scene has Conover meeting an old friend at a familiar Denver hangout, which suddenly seems so . . . so uninteresting.

"What's happened to you?" asks the friend, visibly upset; Conover realize's its time for a change.

Conover's perspective on hot-potato issues such as land use, growth and environmental law is hardly dispassionate, but it does remain even-handed throughout the book. The Puget Sound region may never become the playspot of the rich and famous - not enough sun tans to go around - but it does face similar problems, and they're not going to go away.

"Whiteout" is a valuable and often fascinating look at how one community is handling - or not handling - some of these crucial issues.

Seattle author Adam Woog is author of the new book, "Sexless Oysters and Self-Tipping Hats: 100 Years of Invention in the Pacific Northwest."