Aspen Co

Kobe who? That's what readers of the Aspen Daily News may well ask in the weeks and months to come. Fed up with the relentless, increasingly lurid media coverage of the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case playing out 75 miles away, the paper recently told the world -- or at least its 15,000 readers -- enough is enough. No more stories of sex over chairs, legal gamesmanship or alleged promiscuity.

It's been a good many years now, but Rick Davis can't shake the chill he gets when recalling that one particular descent into the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. It was past dusk, and Davis, having threaded through a forest of snowcapped peaks, was maneuvering his small plane down the curvy Roaring Fork Valley toward the runway. Suddenly, the darkness thickened, and Davis could not distinguish the mountains from the dancing shadows. "I got a distorted perception of the terrain," he remembered.

HUNTING FUROR: First there was the prairie dog shoot last July, and now there is the coyote shoot. Colorado House Minority Leader Ruth Wright would like to put a stop to it all. During this first week of the 1991 session, Wright plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit animal-killing contests. But the bill, which would still allow trophy contests during hunting season, could not take effect in time to block the coyote hunting contest planned for Saturday.

There's trouble in paradise. Funky Aspen has become glitzy Aspen, a celebrity-filled Hollywood East, where it's easy to get a Maine lobster dinner delivered to your million-dollar condo but tough to find a grilled cheese sandwich. "We're out of control," says one local, and many worried Aspenites tend to agree. The battle for the soul--and future--of Aspen is not unique.

It's Christmas, and the fur is flying here in more ways than one. For years, glitzy, ritzy Aspen, the star-studded town of the $100 tip, where the average home sells for $1 million and where celebrities from Prince and Don Johnson to Barbara Walters and Jack Nicholson live and play, has been a swell place to wear a fur coat. The temperatures plunge below freezing and expensive clothes are more the rule than the exception.

The roar of jet engines plowing through a snowstorm near the 12,000-foot granite peaks surrounding this ski resort's busy airport gives Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis the willies. "I'm in charge of mass casualty response," Braudis said, "and there's no doubt that a big jet calling a distress signal late at night in a driving snowstorm would eclipse our ability to respond."

They came from Los Angeles with Hollywood money and haute cuisine. But four months later, the celebrity proprietors of a glitzy Aspen, Colo., restaurant left in a rush, stiffing workers on their paychecks and leaving suppliers with thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, police say. "They have left owing money," confirmed Aspen police Sgt.

The bar at Little Annie's was as crowded as the ski lifts at Buttermilk Mountain. The customers were cheering a television basketball game, the snow from their boots melting onto the wood floors. It was business as usual. But manager John Hamwi was angry. Taking a deep breath and pushing back his baseball cap, Hamwi said he was "sick and tired" of confrontations with cigarette-smoking customers.

Hugh Burrows is, in many ways, a prototypic Aspenite. He rolled into this breathtaking ski resort 13 years ago in a '66 Volkswagen bug, which he lived in for a time. He scrounged a part-time job and, his career as a ski bum fully launched, commenced living in a tepee. Burrows got older, his jobs got better. He skied less and his housing improved.

Next time you're lucky enough to jet into Aspen for a little rest and relaxation, one of the recorded voices greeting you at the Pitkin County airport won't be John McCain's. Until last month, the dulcet tone of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was among those heard at the terminal, welcoming visitors and reciting various safety-related warnings. About 40 people have recorded the messages, a mix of celebrities (such as comic David Brenner and actress Jill St.