Mountain Highs

This town was out of control all day. The fans met the Colorado Rockies at the airport. They called the team offices for playoff tickets. They did everything but throw a ticker-tape parade. The acquisition of two-time Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen had Denver believing the National League West race was already over. The Dodgers were regarded as little more than a nuisance.

For most people, the name Wrightwood probably conjures images of snow, understandable considering the town's proximity to Mountain High ski area and the fact that icy flakes flew as late as mid-April this year. But once the snow melts, Wrightwood is revealed in a different light--as a peaceful mountain getaway where urban dwellers can rise above the smog and sweltering temperatures of summer and revel in the town's blue skies at 6,000 feet.

Among the purposes of the first U.S. Comedy Arts Festival here is to provide "an invaluable opportunity for the meaningful exchange of ideas among peers and leaders of the theater, motion picture and television industries." Sure, it sounds good, and such a lofty aspiration is not to be sniffed at. But by Thursday, Day Two of the four-day festival, an even more impressive goal had been achieved: A mutual admiration society had been forged between Arianna Huffington and Hunter S. Thompson.

"This is the best day the Santa Monicas have had in a decade," said one Los Angeles city councilman Tuesday following the vote by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to release $29 million in voter-approved funds for acquisition and improvement of mountain parkland. His assessment indeed seems apt.

The lofty green ridges of Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park roll across the horizon in spectacularly scenic waves that lap gently at the soul. Plunging into this wild woodland expanse, with its misty peaks, hidden coves and tumbling streams, dazzles the eye and invigorates the spirit. But I had my doubts. More than 8 1/2 million travelers tour Great Smoky annually, making it America's most heavily visited national park.

Some areas of the country seem primed for a breakthrough as wine-growing regions but haven't made it yet. Colorado is one. The state's first winery--the now-defunct Ivancie Cellars--was founded in 1968. By 1984, the state still had only 23 acres of grapes and crushed just 11 tons of fruit--less than a half-ton per acre and equivalent to fewer than 1,000 cases of wine. (A typical California vineyard, for example, would yield four to five tons per acre.

Alex Cole and pitcher Willie Blair each drove in a career-high four runs, and the Colorado Rockies set a team record for runs in a game as they routed the San Diego Padres, 17-3, at Denver on Saturday night. The Rockies scored eight times in the third inning, capped by Charlie Hayes' three-run homer, to eclipse their previous best inning of six runs. Hayes' 422-foot homer was his 11th of the season and his third in as many games.

The Colorado Rockies had Ramon Martinez working out of jams all night, but the one that he couldn't get out of was in the seventh inning, when he threw at Charlie Hayes. The pitch set off a 10-minute bench-clearing brawl that was followed by another in the eighth inning.

The voluminous snowfalls that have helped end the drought in California and across the Southwest have been a windfall for mountain real estate markets from the High Sierra to the Rockies. After rough sledding through much of the 1980s, the second-home market has been slowly rebuilding for several years. But in the first two months of 1993, sales of mountain homes in particular have soared--especially in communities where blizzard conditions have not kept visitors away.