Telluride Magazine Summer/Fall 2014 by Telluride Magazine

S U M M E R / FA L L 2 014 VOLUME 32 , NO. 1

Magazine

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CARRED • FITNESS GURUS • LET IT FLOW OVERNIGHT RIVER TRIPS • DO IT FOR THE LOVE

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here Lifestyle, Quality, & Value...

1 • Sundance Ranch, The Preserve Gorgeous 42.9 acre in-holding with a barn-style residence, ideal as a private getaway or guest home. $4,400,000

2 • See Forever Village, Mountain Village This elegant 3 bed 4 bath Penthouse with vaulted ceilings revels in dramatic views of Wilson Peak. $2,300,000

3 • Idarado Legacy Lot P13, Telluride Resting beneath Bridal Veil and Ingram Falls, Lot P-13 represents 1.12 acres of irreplaceable beauty. $1,895,000

4 • 538 Benchmark Drive, Mountain Village Idyllic 5.2 acre lot with effortless ski access bordering USNF with cozy 3 Bedroom home and 4 car garage. $3,400,000

5 • 101 Christina’s Way, Aldasoro Ranch Exquisite stone work and finish detail highlight this 4-bed residence with spacious decks, aspens & views. $3,225,000

6 • 133 Victoria Drive, Mountain Village Refined 7-bedroom home, luxurious interior, exquisite views, mature landscaping, private drive & ski access. $7,950,000

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ill Exceed Your Expectations.

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1 • Little Cone Ranch, Species Mesa 74 captivating acres adjacent to USNF with superb 270˚ views plus tranquil pond and driveway. $1,095,000

2 • 116 Lawson Pt., Mountain Village Located in Adams Ranch, with common tennis ct. this attractive 4-bed home affords unobstructed views. $1,575,000

3 • Lots 7 & 11A East Gregory Ave, Telluride Unique combination of lots with over 17,000 SF, commanding views from an exceptional vantage point. $1,950,000

4 • Plunge Landing, Telluride Award-winning architecture, contemporary styled 2 & 4 bedroom penthouse units, plus 2-level commercial. $4,375,000

5 • 128 Victoria Drive, Mountain Village This beautiful 4 Bed 7 Bath home includes elegant finish and exquisite decor on a private drive. $4,995,000

6 • 8121 Preserve Drive, The Preserve A significant 13-bedroom compound on 28 idyllic acres with elegant interiors plus grand mountain views. $17,900,000

SERVICE

CONVENIENCE

LUXURY

Exuding a distinguished level of finish and ski-in/out location that is u n m a t c h e d i n t h e To w n o f Te l l u r i d e , t h e A u b e r g e R e s i d e n c e s a t E l e m e n t 5 2 offer two to five bedroom residences within an intimate community setting. Distinctive luxuries and services include a private ski funicular, full service concierge, spa, heated outdoor soaking pools, private club room, and expansive mountain and town views. Simply the best. Prices starting at $1,450,000 Photos & Info: element52.aubergeresorts.com Schedule a Showing: 970.708.5367

Owners enjoy reciprocity with 4 fabulous home exchange programs: Auberge, Inspirato, Elite Alliance, and 3rd Home.

#1 Hotel Brand 2012

Don’t Wait

Every year you wait to buy a home in Telluride, is one less year you get to enjoy it.

1 • 101 Prudencio Lane - Lot 63, Aldasoro Ranch 2 • Townhomes on the Creek (Tristant), Mountain Village Slopeside, with high-end kitchens, walnut floors, & plasHuge views of the ski resort & Wilsons, open space next ter. Priced below replacement. Starting at $1,495,000 door & a private homesite on 3.21 acres. $745,000 3 • 101 Autumn Lane, Mountain Village 4 • Pandora Lot 5, Idarado Legacy - Telluride Beautifully appointed home directly slope side with draRiverfront estate parcel less than 1 mile from Telluride offering matic views. This 5,480 sqft home has 5 bedrooms, 5.5 the best in privacy and convenience. Enjoys exclusive box canbaths & is located on a private half acre lot. $4,195,000 yon views, tranquility and easy access to skiing. $1,100,000

Search all Telluride area properties from the convenience of your smartphone. Scan the QR code at the left. brian.searchtelluriderealestate.com

rom any perspective, it’s a beautiful investment...

1 • 560 Panorama Lane, Horsefly Mesa A small cabin on 20 sun-drenched acres with superb views, tree coverage & good access. Bank Owned $199,000

2 • Tract IV Big Valley Ranch Rd, Iron Springs Mesa 223 acres of rolling meadows & massive views. Sub-dividable. Productive 60 gpm well. Bank Owned $877,000

3 • The River Club - Deeded Fractional, Telluride 3-bed, 3-bath unit for 3 weeks/year, prime winter & summer weeks. Free skiing & golf while in residence. $99,500

4 • Bear Creek Lodge 306, Mountain Village Attractive & comfortable 1-bed unit. Amenities include heated pools, hot tubs, private ski funicular, shuttle service. Least expensive 1-bed unit in BCL. $350,000

Bear Creek Lodge 308, Mountain Village 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit, beautifully finished. Amazing amenities & management. Least expensive 2-bed unit in BCL. $379,000

ud Spons

5 • 20720 Hwy 145 “Steeprock”, Above Sawpit Master craftsman built home on 10 sun-drenched acres with cabin & blacksmith shop - all solar powered. A compelling property - Extraordinary! $540,000

Supporting Telluride’s Youth

elluride, It’s everything YOU want to be...

1 • 44 Spruce Way, Telluride Ski Ranches This antique timber-frame home has a fabulous level of finish, great views and a peaceful setting. $1,695,000

2 • 94 Meadowtail Lane - Lot 23, Hastings Mesa Estates Massive views characterize this 9.32-acre site with lots of sun & open meadows. Water well in place, power close. $149,000

3 • 31 Diamond Point Lane, Telluride Ski Ranches 5-Bedroom home on 1.17 acres, with significant sun, mature trees and wonderful mountain views. $1,795,000

4 • Sunny River Ranch - Ptarmigan 4 & 5, Ilium Valley Two adjacent 10+/- acre parcels on the San Miguel River’s North Fork. Beautiful home, caretaker unit & barn. Minutes to Telluride. Rare, unique & very compelling. $3,995,000

5 • 123 South Oak Street, Telluride Steps to town & skiing. Zoning allows for many uses, including single family residential, for which sketch plans exist. $3,450,000

ONE OF THE FINEST VALUES IN THE TELLURIDE REGION.

522 BENCHMARK DRIVE Welcome to the Trinity Residence. This beautifully built home was designed to maximize the three essential needs for every mountain home - spectacular views, ski access and privacy. A highly desired open floor plan was designed to entertain family and friends. Special features include a wellness center (Sauna/Steam/Massage/Oxygen), one of Mountain Villageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finest ski rooms, an 8-person bunkroom, wine cellar and game room. The antique beams and siding came from a Sears and Roebuck warehouse where craftsman kit homes were stored in the early 1900s. The planks were the subfloor of the warehouse and buried under a layer of sand. The timbers are reclaimed fir timbers from trestle bridges near the Great Salt Lake. The balance of the wood used throughout the residence consists of cypress, fir and knotty alder. The stone found throughout the residence is a mix of sandstones from Oklahoma and Arkansas. For those looking for one the best values for a high-end home, this property should be on your list. $7,600,00 - MLS #29834

KEVIN HOLBROOK PHONE: (970) 729.1601 EMAIL: kevin.holbrook@sothebysrealty.com

CUSTOM HOMES RESORTS MULTI-FAMILY HOTELS MIXED-USE ARTS & CULTURAL CENTERS

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SUMMER/FALL 2014

CONTENTS 38

DEPARTMENTS

WITHIN From the Editor

CALENDAR A look at this summer’s events

TELLURIDE TURNS Headlines and highlights from the local news

ENVIRONMENT Restoring Priest Lake

FEATURES

Carred

Inside the Minds, and Gyms, of Telluride Fitness Gurus

Let it Flow

It’s a good thing that the speed limit in Telluride is 15 mph—at least when you’re on a bike and you turn into oncoming traffic. BY ROB STORY

Telluride is the greatest outdoor playground fathomable—but some people still work out indoors. Here’s why. BY JESSE JAMES MCTIGUE

The Colorado River finally kissed the sea again after two decades. But will there be enough water for that to happen again? BY D. DION

Overnight River Trips—By Paddleboard

Now, even without a boat, you can escape for a few days on the river. BY MARTINIQUE DAVIS

History: What’s in a Name?

Do It For the Love

A Q&A with Michael Franti, musician and force behind the Do It For the Love foundation. BY CARA PALLONE S U M M E R / FA L L 2 014

ON THE COVER

Magazine

INSIDE ART The Ah Haa School gets a permanent parking spot

LOCAL FLAVOR The Telluride Bar

Telluride was once called “The City of Lights,” because it was the first city in the world to have electric streetlights, powered by the pioneering AC technology of Nikola Tesla and the hydropower plant in Ames. In this photo by Ryan Bonneau, you can see how the town’s lights are still dwarfed by the starry night skies that sprawl above.

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SUMMER/FALL 2014

ESSAY “Queen of Summer,” by Michelle Curry Wright

TELLURIDE FACES Meet Brett Schreckengost, Mike Doherty, and Ursula Cristol

Mount Wilson was not actually named for a president— but it was almost renamed for one. BY PAUL O’ROURKE

www.TellurideMagazine.com

ASK JOCK Athletic advice from our mountain guru

VOLUME 32 , NO. 1

MOUNTAIN HEALTH Oil pulling is back in style

A LAST LOOK Photographer Braden Gunem shows us the view from the Via Ferrata—at night

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S U M M E R / FA L L 2 014 VOLUME 32, NO. 1

Contributors

Magazine Jesse James McTigue is a freelance writer and teacher at the Telluride Mountain School who has the best ideas for her articles and classes while in motion, specifically on her bike, in her running shoes, or on her yoga mat. To ensure she stays healthy and strong enough to hang with her husband and fellow moms when she hits the trails, she frequents Telluride’s local gyms and studios for inspiration and cross-training (“Fitness Gurus,” pp. 38-40). It’s her fitness insurance so that on a spectacular summer day, when the kids are in camp and she has no classes or deadlines, she can ride or run as far as the trail will take her.

MARTINIQUE DAVIS A freelance writer, landscaper, ski patroller, wedding officiant, and mom, Martinique Davis sometimes imagines herself floating down a river into oblivion, with nothing but her daughters Elle and Emme, husband Craig, and a nice bottle of chardonnay to occupy her time. Testing out the paddleboards for her story in this issue (“Overnight River Trips,” pp. 46-48) helped that reverie come closer to reality: She has decided she’ll start saving up for a fleet of paddleboards for the family. In the spare moments when she isn’t in front of her computer, in the garden, or on the mountain, she’ll sneak in a good trail run with her tireless Australian Shepherd mix, Ike.

MELISSA PLANTZ Twenty-seven years ago, after earning a degree in engineering geophysics and working for just one year in the industry, Melissa Plantz gave it all up to live in a little house in a mountain town. Growing up in Washington, D.C., rock climbing and surfing the wakes of boats on the Potomac River on her kayak, she’d always dreamed of living in Colorado. Now, she’s living the dream with her husband, Mark, and her two sons, Jack and Will: skiing, kayaking, climbing, and playing in the mountains. After receiving a generous tip from a client after her first season here as a ski instructor, she bought a Nikon camera and two lenses and has been a photographer ever since (“Overnight River Trips,” pp. 46-48). www.TellurideMagazine.com

SUMMER/FALL 2014

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DEB DION ~~~

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR JENNY PAGE ~~~

CREATIVE DIRECTOR KRISTAL RHODES ~~~

JESSE JAMES MCTIGUE

~~~

COPY EDITOR / PROOFREADER MIRA PERRIZO ~~~

WEB DIRECTOR SUSAN HAYSE ~~~

DISTRIBUTION TELLURIDE DELIVERS ~~~

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Thom Carnevale Kingston Cole Martinique Davis Deanna Drew Elizabeth Guest Katie Klingsporn Jesse James McTigue Cara Pallone Heather Sackett Emily Shoff Rob Story Lance Waring Michelle Curry Wright ~~~

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jeremy Baron Ryan Bonneau Braden Gunem Ben Knight Amy Levek Melissa Plantz Brett Schreckengost ~~~

WWW.TELLURIDEMAGAZINE.COM Telluride Publishing produces the San Juan Skyway Visitor Guide and Telluride Magazine. Current and past issues are available on our website.. For correspondence, subscriptions, and advertising email editor@telluridemagazine.com or call 970.728.4245. The annual subscription rate is $11.95. © 2014 Telluride Publishing is a division of Big Earth Publishing, Inc. Cover and contents are fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher. ~~~

COVER PHOTO Ryan Bonneau

WITHIN

Reconnecting Finding Our Way Back to Nature

Brett Schreckengost

few years ago, my in-laws told me the story of the most epic journey they’d ever taken in their lives. They rafted the entire length of the Colorado River, from the headwaters in Wyoming to the Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California. It was an odyssey they’d never forget, from the frigid alpine start, to the months of camping and dehydrated food, to the thrill of the Grand Canyon trip they’d done many times before, to the strange feeling of rowing a raft across Lake Powell, surrounded by huge houseboats and powerboats and the excesses of the modern world. But when they got to the delta in Mexico, the river had dried up. They got out of the raft and waded in the muck, and over the parched, cracked land, and hauled out their boat. The Colorado River was no longer connected to the ocean. The river didn’t make it to the sea, and they couldn’t either. At least not in their boat. It’s been at least twenty years since the Colorado River has swelled with enough water to reach the ocean. We have dammed it, diverted it, and drained it to the point that in times of drought it has run dry. We have squeezed the life out of it to power our homes, fill our faucets, and irrigate our farmlands (“Let it Flow,” pp. 42-45). But this spring, something miraculous occurred.

An amendment to the Colorado Water Compact between the United States in Mexico allowed for pulses of water to be released from the river’s lowest halting point, the Morelos Dam, and on May 12, 2014, the Colorado River finally reached the ocean again, amid much celebration. If only we could all reconnect like this. We seem to get so caught up in our daily lives, padded by comfortable homes, grinding away at our work, and swept up in the complacency of our virtual world of Facebook friends and iPhone photos, that we forget about the big, wild world that surrounds us. Michelle Curry Wright’s essay about August (“Queen of Summer,” p. 34) is a reminder of the way that the wet and rainy summer month, still blooming as it yields to autumn, is a marker. How many Augusts do we have? How many have we spent outside, letting the rain and sun wash over us? It’s not hard to escape into the wilderness here in Telluride. You don’t even need a raft— there are standup paddleboards that you can load your gear on for an overnight camping trip into a river canyon (“Overnight River Trips—By Paddleboard,” pp. 46-48). Public lands abound, from the top of Wilson Peak (Telluride Turns,

p. 24) to the alpine lakes and reservoirs below (Environment, p. 28). Even the Nobel Laureate scientist Arieh Warshel took refuge in the beauty here while attending summer Telluride Science Research Center conferences (Telluride Turns, p. 26). It was a refreshing and inspiring place to dream up the innovations that would pioneer the field of molecular chemistry. “I cannot think of a better setting,” says Warshel. It makes sense, if you think about it. We aren’t just a part of the natural world—we are nature. Of course being outside and surrounded by things we could never create ourselves, like mountains and rivers and the sky, rather than the artificial world we have constructed, is inspiring. We might know how to dam a river and generate hydropower, but we certainly couldn’t create a river or a planet from the molecules of an exploded star. The world is so much bigger than us, and we are just one of its wonders. It’s something we tend to forget. I asked my son the other night at bedtime what his favorite animal is. He looked up at me, and with all the innocence and wisdom of a 3-year-old, he replied: “People.” Deb Dion Editor, Telluride Magazine SUMMER/FALL 2014

www.TellurideMagazine.com

CALENDAR

Ryan Bonneau

EVENTS CALENDAR

SUMMER/FALL2014

08/1-3 MAY 2014 1

ONGOING EVENTS:

MAY

DROP-IN CLASSES AT THE AH HAA SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS The Ah Haa School offers open drop-in classes in addition to its year-round classes for adults and youth, workshops, art trips and retreats, lectures, exhibitions and special events. Join Robert Weatherford for Painting from Within on Wednesday mornings in June, Thursday evenings in July, and Monday and Wednesday mornings through August. The school’s open ceramics studio is held each week on Thursdays from 5–7:30 pm running June 26 to September 4. ahhaa.org. (970) 728-3886.

Brett Schreckengost

FILMS AT THE LIBRARY Wilkinson Public Library and the Telluride Film Festival host Cinematheque on the first Monday evening of each month. Festival-quality films are shown, and the evening features food, drink, and lively discussion about the films. Admission is free. 970.728.4519

6/6-8

FITNESS AND MEDITATION AT THE LIBRARY Get moving for free at the Wilkinson Public Library’s zumba classes Saturday mornings at 10 a.m., or yoga classes Friday at 8:30 a.m. and Wednesday at 12:15 p.m.; Pilates is Thursday at 8:30 a.m., and prenatal yoga is 9 a.m. on Tuesdays. There is also meditation program on Mondays at 12:15 p.m. and a dharma talk with meditation session at 5:30 p.m. on the last Wednesday of each month. 970.728.4519 KIDS & FAMILY PROGRAMS AT THE LIBRARY Kids can enjoy stories read aloud at Story Time at the Wilkinson Public Library at 11 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and at 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays. Thursday is bilingual Story Time, and stories are read in Spanish and English, and one Friday a month is Story Time Jam, featuring songs with banjos, maracas, and guitars. Alternating Currents is a children’s program at 3:30 on Wednesdays with ei-

www.TellurideMagazine.com

SUMMER/FALL 2014

GONDOLA OPENS FOR SUMMER/FALL SEASON

23–26

MOUNTAINFILM IN TELLURIDE The festival celebrates the outdoors, featuring films about adventure and ecology, symposiums, and lectures. This year’s theme is “wilderness.” mountainfilm.org

JUNE 3

THE BOOK OF MORON Comedian, actor, and writer Robert Dubac performs at the Palm Theatre. telluridepalm.com

SWINGIN’ AT THE SHERIDAN Telluride Historical Museum hosts a 1940s-style dance party with a live swing band and period attire, celebrating the opening of the new exhibit “Voices of Wartime: Telluride During WWII.” The event is held at the Sheridan Opera House. sheridanoperahouse.com

2–7

WILD WEST FEST Celebrate the culture of the West at this weeklong, family-oriented festival hosted by the Sheridan Arts Foundation. sheridanoperahouse.com

6–8

TELLURIDE BALLOON FESTIVAL Watch hot air balloons soar above the San Miguel Valley or stroll past them, tethered and aglow on main street during the early evening. Balloons launch at sunrise, weather permitting.

7–8

CHERYL BENTYNE OF MANHATTAN TRANSFER Vocalist Cheryl Bentyne, who won a Grammy for her work with Bobby McFerrin before joining Manhattan Transfer to add her voice to the four-part harmonies, hosts a workshop and a performance at the Palm Theatre. telluridepalm.com

MAGIC WITH ELI Enjoy this all-ages, free magic show performance at the Sheridan Opera House. sheridanoperahouse.com

18 FIRSTGRASS

Mountain Village kicks off bluegrass weekend with a free outdoor concert on the Sunset Stage at 5 p.m., featuring Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen and The Lone Bellow.

Expressions of Beauty

EVENTS CALENDAR

JUNE 2014

19–22

TELLURIDE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL This year marks the 41st annual festival, one of the country’s most renowned bluegrass music events, held during the weekend of the summer solstice. This year’s lineup includes Steve Winwood, Del McCoury, Jason Isbell, Nickel Creek, Béla Fleck, Brandi Carlisle and more. bluegrass.com/telluride

26–29

TELLURIDE WINE FESTIVAL The festival features four days of fine wines, seminars, tastings, winemakers’ luncheons, and cooking demonstrations. telluridewinefestival.com

PERFECT PINHEAD POTION This fundraising event for the Pinhead Institute takes an indepth, interactive look at the physics, chemistry, and biology of cocktails and spirits. pinheadinstitute.org

29–5

11TH ANNUAL TELLURIDE PLEIN AIR FESTIVAL Landscape artists from across the country come to paint the region’s vistas; plein air painting is done outdoors, and the art is exhibited and sold to benefit the event’s host, the Sheridan Arts Foundation. The “Quick Draw” competition is July 3 and the exhibit and sale are July 4–5. sheridanoperahouse.com

JULY 3

RED, WHITE & BLUES CONCERT Mountain Village kicks off the Fourth of July celebrations with a free outdoor concert on the Sunset Stage, from 2–7 p.m. townofmountainvillage.com

Brett Schreckengost

7/12-13 JULY 2014 1

ther a science or an art project. Noche de Familia is a family program at 5 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month, where Spanish and English speaking families bring a dish to share and mingle and practice language skills. 970.728.4519 MARKET ON THE PLAZA Mountain Village hosts a farm and craft market with food, art, and jewelry produced in Colorado. The market is held at the Heritage Plaza each Wednesday from 1–4 p.m. townofmountainvillage.com METROPOLITAN OPERA AT THE PALM The Palm Theatre presents opera performances on a large HD screen throughout the summer at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and SundaysThis winter’s schedule includes Metropolitan Opera performances of Rigoletto (Verdi), La Rondine (Puccini), La Fanciulla del West (Puccini), Otello, The Enchanted Island, and Romeo et Juliette. 970.369.5690 PALM KIDZ SUMMER SERIES AND FILMS Palm Theatre hosts musicians, acrobats, jugglers, storytellers and magicians at 4:30 p.m. on Fridays during June and July to engage young people in the creative process. The performances are interactive, sing-along, play-along and fun for kids of all ages. The Palm also hosts films on Thursday evenings. telluridepalm.com

www.TellurideMagazine.com

SUMMER/FALL 2014

RUNDOLA The Rundola is an annual foot race from the base of the gondola in Telluride to the top of the ridge adjacent to the gondola mid-station. The race is organized by the Telluride Foundation.

TELLURIDE 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION Telluride’s Independence Day features a parade, a community barbecue, games and activities for families in Town Park, and a grand fireworks display after dark.

12–13

THE RIDE FESTIVAL KOTO Community Radio hosts a two-day music concert in Town Park, featuring Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Spoon, JJ Grey & Mofro, Joan Osborne, and more. ridefestival.com

10–13

TELLURIDE YOGA FESTIVAL Yoga instructors from all over the world convene in Telluride to offer workshops in all types of yoga, meditation, and kirtan. tellurideyogafestival.com

11–13

HARDROCK HUNDRED The Hardrock Hundred is a grueling 100.5-mile ultramarathon through the San Juan Mountains, starting and finishing in Silverton, Colorado.

14–18

HANSEL AND GRETEL Sheridan Arts Foundation’s Young People’s Theater host the final performance of its Summer Spectacular program on July 18, at 1 p.m., and admission is free. This year’s performance is “Hansel and Gretel.” sheridanoperahouse.com

17–19

AMERICANA MUSIC SERIES Celebrate the roots of Americana and folk music with a threeday concert series at Sheridan Opera House. sheridanoperahouse.com

AH HAA ART AUCTION This madcap annual fundraiser for the local arts school features a live auction with entertainment and a silent auction for all types of artwork and prizes. This year’s theme is “Lights, Camera, Auction” and celebrates local film culture. ahhaa.org

PURE LANDSCAPE Walt Gonske, Telluride by Moonlight, 16” x 20” oil

PROUDLY REPRESENTING

WALT GONKSE and a handful of outstanding painters:

Ralph Oberg, Jay Moore, Shirley Novak, Kenn Backhaus, Shaun Horne, Stephen C Datz, Gregory Packard, Jim Wodark, Jill Carver, Don Sahli, Bill Gallen, Nicholas Reti, Dave Santillanes, Dawn Cohen, Stacey Peterson, Bryan Mark Taylor, Dan Schultz, Meredith Nemirov, Cheryl St. John, Susiehyer, Kelly Kotary, Chad Smith

est. 2007

selling original landscape paintings of the mountain west and Telluride

TELLURIDE:

333 West Colorado Avenue, Unit 1 Telluride, CO | 81435 (970)728-6868

CRESTED BUTTE:

409 Third Street Crested Butte, CO | 81224 (970)349-5936

www.ohbejoyfulgallery.com ohbejoyfulgallery@mac.com

EVENTS CALENDAR

TELLURIDE 100 The inaugural 100-mile mountain bike race starts and finishes in Telluride and participants gain approximately 18,000 feet in elevation on the grueling course. Riders must purchase a Colorado Search & Rescue card to race. 970.417.1751

19–26

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING The tradition of “Shakespeare in the Park” continues this summer with Telluride Theatre’s performance of the bard’s Much Ado About Nothing. This is the 23rd year of Shakespeare in the Park, with performances at the Town Park Stage. telluridetheatre.org

AUGUST 2014 1

19–20

ART + ARCHITECTURE WEEKEND Take a tour of the art installations, architectural demonstrations, and samples of design work and culinary arts at the Art + Architecture Weekend. Participants vote for their favorites at the closing party. telluridearts.org

23–2

Ryan Bonneau

SEPTEMBER 2014 1

PUNK SCIENCE The Pinhead Institute stages fun, interactive science experiments for kids on Tuesday evenings from 5:15–6 p.m. at Telluride High School July 1 through Aug. 5. pinheadinstitute.org RELIVING HISTORY Telluride Historical Museum hosts several programs periodically throughout the summer and fall, including historic walking tours every Thursday afternoon, the Telluride Unearthed lecture on June 11, After School at the Museum for kids on June 25 and July 23, and regional field trips. 970.728.3344 SUNDAY AT THE PALM Telluride Film Festival, Telluride Foundation, and Telluride’s R-1 School District present family-friendly films on the first Sunday of each month at 4 p.m. at the Palm Theatre. 970.708.4001 SUNSET CONCERT SERIES Mountain Village hosts free outdoor concerts on various Wednesday evenings throughout the summer, from 6-8 p.m. on the Sunset Plaza. townofmountainvillage.com TECH PROGRAM AT THE LIBRARY Every Thursday, the Wilkinson Public Library hosts TechAdvisor, a program that offers free technology consultations for your computers, smart phones, and other gadgets from 2–3 p.m. 970.728.4519 TELLURIDE ARTS On the first Thursday of each month, the Telluride Art Walk celebrates art at the local galleries from 5–8 p.m., with a self-guided tour of the exhibits in downtown Telluride. A dozen venues open their doors to showcase new exhibits and artists, and restaurants feature art walk specials. Maps are available from local businesses and Telluride Arts. telluridearts.org, 970.728.3930

www.TellurideMagazine.com

SUMMER/FALL 2014

BALLET COLLECTIVE The Palm Arts Dance program hosts a ballet company in residency, the Ballet Collective, a critically acclaimed troupe led by artistic director Troy Schumacher and comprised of many talented New York City ballet dancers. The Ballet Collective’s residency will offer a master class, open rehearsals and a public performance on Aug. 2 at the Palm Theatre. telluridepalm.com

20–27

TELLURIDE PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL The festival offers a laboratory setting for actors, playwrights, and directors to network and to nurture new work. playwrightsfestival.org

25–1

KOTO SUMMER ON-AIR FUNDRAISING Tune in as Telluride’s listener-supported community radio station features guest DJs, prizes, and fun live broadcasts as they take donations to raise money. koto.org

JIMMY CLIFF Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff performs at the Telluride Conference Center in a concert sponsored jointly by the Sheridan Arts Foundation and Telluride Ski & Golf Resort. sheridanoperahouse.com

AUGUST 1

KOTO DUCK RACE Sponsor a yellow rubber duck, and if it floats down the San Miguel River fast enough, you can win a variety of prizes including a 2014-15 ski pass. The event is a benefit for KOTO community radio. koto.org

1–3

TELLURIDE JAZZ CELEBRATION From international jazz legends to up-and-coming brass ensembles, the annual festival hosts the best of the genre at Town Park during the day and at the local venues in the evening. This year’s lineup features Dragon Smoke (Eric Lindell, Ivan Neville, Stanton Moore and Robert Mecurio), Lettuce, Snarky Puppy, Grupo Fantasma, and more. telluridejazz.org

7–17

TELLURIDE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL Classical music concerts are held outdoors, at the Sheridan Opera House, and in various venues around town. There is a free concert in Town Park at 6 p.m. on August 7 to kick off the week’s events. telluridechambermusic.org

LAKE STREET DIVE Catch the unique sound of the indie jazz and soul band that formed in 2004 in Boston, Lake Street Dive, at this performance at the Sheridan Opera House. sheridanoperahouse.org

16–19

TELLURIDE MUSHROOM FESTIVAL Symposiums, classes, forays, and a parade all celebrate fungi in this fun weekend event. This year’s theme is “mushroom science” and the keynote speakers include Taylor Lockwood, Langdon Cook, and John Holliday. telluridemushroomfest.org

b bu ur rg g ee r r b ba ar r

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17–22

EVENTS CALENDAR

BREAD & CIRCUS Telluride Theatre creates an original and much anticipated show each summer, devised and written in a five-week process and culminating with a series of performances. This year’s theme centers on the fall of civilization, the repetition of history, the power of pop culture, and processed food. telluridetheatre.org

29–1

TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL Telluride hosts an internationally acclaimed film festival with world premieres, movie stars, filmmakers, directors, and a free outdoor cinema. The lineup is always kept secret until the day before the festival, but in five of the last six years TFF premieres have gone on to win “Best Picture” Academy Awards. telluridefilmfestival.org

SEPTEMBER 6

IMOGENE PASS RUN Runners start in Ouray and cross over 13,114-foot Imogene Pass, a 17.1-mile course with more than 5,000 feet of elevation gain, finishing in Telluride. imogenerun.com

OCTOBER 2014

NOVEMBER 2014 1 2

6/26-29

TELLURIDE FARMERS MARKET Telluride hosts one of the few all-organic, pesticide-free farmers markets in the state each Friday on South Oak Street from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. from June 6 through October 10. TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS On the third Thursday of each month at the Nugget Theatre, catch one of the recently released films selected by the festival directors of the Telluride Film Festival. TSRC TOWN TALKS Telluride Science Research Center brings speakers on various science topics to hold discussions on Tuesday evenings from 6–8 p.m. July 1 through August 19 at the Telluride Conference Center. TWENTY(BY)TELLURIDE Presenters show twenty slides, for twenty seconds each, illuminating the story of their work. The events are hosted by Telluride Arts, on one Tuesday evening of each month, and each evening has a unique theme. telluridearts.org, 970.728.3930 UNIVERSITY CENTERS OF THE SAN MIGUEL UCSM offers a host of classes and seminars, some with college credit available. Check out the full schedule and register online at ucsanmiguel.org. WINE AND POETRY Join the Talking Gourds Poetry Club on the first Tuesday evening of each month at 6 p.m. at the Arroyo Fine Art Gallery & Wine Bar. The Talking Gourds Poetry Club is a joint venture between the Telluride Institute, Wilkinson Public Library, Between the Covers Bookstore and the newly formed Telluride Literary Arts organization. The event features a guest poet, and writers can share their own work based on the selected theme. 970.728.4519

www.TellurideMagazine.com

SUMMER/FALL 2014

11 Ryan Bonneau

1 5

SUNSET BLUES CONCERT Mountain Village kicks off the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival weekend with a free outdoor concert on the Sunset Stage at 5 p.m. townofmountainvillage.com

12–14

TELLURIDE BLUES & BREWS FESTIVAL This popular fall music festival features craft beers from all over the country and a beer tasting, as well as big name music acts in Town Park and at late night “Juke Joints” performances in local venues. This year’s lineup includes Violent Femmes, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, The Robert Cray Band, Anders Osborne, Dumpstaphunk, and more. tellurideblues.com

18–21

TELLURIDE WOW FESTIVAL A weekend festival celebrating fitness, wellness, and health with presentations and events. Tony Horton, creator of P90X, will be one of the top fitness instructors featured at the 2014 event. telluridewow.com

MOUNTAINS TO DESERT RIDE Cyclists race from Telluride to Gateway Canyons Resort in this annual fundraiser for the Just for Kids Foundation, which supports youth in the San Miguel watershed region. m2dbikeride.com

OCTOBER 10–12

TELLURIDE HORROR SHOW The newest film festival in Telluride, the Telluride Horror Show screens independent horror, fantasy, and sci-fi movies and hosts special programs, a pig roast, and industry guests. telluridehorrorshow.com

CARBON LEAF The five-piece band Carbon Leaf from Indiana plays a blend of alt-country, Celtic, and folk-infused indie rock at the Sheridan Opera House. sheridanoperahouse.com

GONDOLA CLOSES FOR OFF-SEASON

ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Telluride Theatre and the Palm Theatre present a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show featuring live theatrics by the local troupe, with full audience participation, costumes, and surprises. telluridetheatre.org

NOVEMBER 21

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TELLURIDE TURNS

Headlines & Highlights

Brett Schreckengost

FROM THE LOCAL NEWS

Bikers Apply Brakes to the Wilson Peak Land Exchange NAVIGATING THE TERRAIN BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LANDS

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Brett Schreckengost

waps are always a great deal, right? Quid pro quo? Maybe not this time: A land exchange proposed by the U.S. Forest Service near Telluride could solve one problem, but create another. The swap, meant to preserve public access to climb Wilson Peak, could sacrifice the popular bike trails emanating from the Prospect loop. The Forest Service (which makes land swaps based on value, not acreage) wants to acquire five parcels of private land comprising 681 acres in exchange for giving up four federal parcels comprising 303 acres. The goal of the Wilson Peak Land Exchange is to remove private in-holdings near 14,017-foot Wilson Peak that are surrounded by public lands, ensuring future public access to the peak. Wilson Peak is one of the most popular and iconic Fourteeners in Coloradoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;its image appears on the Coors label and it is one of the classic climbs in the state. If completed, the exchange would end nearly a decade of controversy and negotiations with landowners for access to the peak.

In 2004, landowner Rusty Nichols closed access on the Silverpick Trail where it crossed through his land. After Nichols threatened mining operations on his property, the Trust for Public Land bought the mining claims, with the intention of selling them to the Forest Service to preserve public access to the peak.

SUMMER/FALL 2014

But two of the federally owned parcels slated for the trade off of Highway 145 near Skyline Ranch and Alta Lakes Road have a network of singletrack trails running through them, and local mountain bikers worry that they might not remain open for public use once the parcels are in private hands. In January, the San Miguel Bike Alliance

urged bikers who enjoy riding the Prospect-Alta-T35 loop (almost every mountain biker in Telluride) to submit comments to the Forest Service about working with landowners to keep the trails open. Although the trails are long established and popular, they are user-created, and therefore considered unauthorized by the Forest Service. But the agency has indicated that they will consider working with private landowners to acquire easements and adopt some of the trails into the Forest Service network as long as local bikers commit to maintaining them. The Telluride Mountain Club supports the Wilson Peak Land Exchange, but strongly urged the Forest Service to ensure access easements so the public can continue to use the trails. The Forest Service plans on completing an inventory of the trails this summer. The land exchange proposal is currently under review, with an environmental analysis scheduled for this summer, followed by a public comment period this fall. \ â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Heather Sackett

FOR THE RECORD W E AT H E R H I G H L I G H T S By Thom Carnevale MAY 2013 High 77° (Record 90° in 2002, 2003) Low 19° (Record 3° in 1939) Precipitation: .97” (Avg. 1.8”) Snow: 4” (Avg. 7.2”; Max. 35” in 1930) JUNE 2013 High 93° (Record 94° in 2013) Low 27° (Record 15° in 1937) Precipitation: . 20 (Avg. 1.22”) Snow: 0

Amy Levek

JULY 2013 High 93° (96° in 1922, 2003) Low 41° (26° in 1941) Precipitation: 3.14” (Avg. 2.5”) Snow: 0

One to One Mentoring Celebrates Two Decades WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM BEING A MENTOR

et’s say you decide to become a mentor. erable to farting. And here I thought I was You make a year’s commitment to hang going to be the one teaching. out with a kid for two to six hours a It turns out that there are plenty of kids in week. You’re thinking: great, do a little good need of mentors. Or, as is truly the case, there for the community, help out a kid, dole out are plenty of kids ready to help out adults like some good life advice, maybe us. Kids waiting to do a little do some crayon coloring, the good for the community, spend It turns out kid grows up, thanks you spesome time with an adult, dole that there are cifically during the academy out some good life advice (i.e. award acceptance speech, and turtle sliding, or the reverse, plenty of you feel pretty darn good about penguin slides), and perhaps do yourself. That’s what I thought, some coloring. Even adults need kids in need too. I was wrong. a little color in their lives. I did of mentors. Did you know that the coloring thing and I’m betsixth-graders do algebra? I had ter off for it. Or, as is truly no idea. Did you know that I One to One started in 1994. the case, there forgot algebra the day after I Making this year, according to graduated high school? (Which my eleven-year-old math whiz of are plenty was less than six months after a mentee, the 20th anniversary learning algebra in the first for One to One Mentoring. For of kids ready place.) So instead of math twenty years now, One to One to help out adults has been matching the youth of homework, we ride bikes and eat candy and go skiing and do this community with the old. like us. kid stuff. I learned what a turtle Youth being someone of 5 to 18 slide is (sliding on your back down a ski hill years, and old being someone of 21 to 80-plus with your face pointed to the sky). I learned years. There are about a hundred young people that if you had the choice of putting 10 meth- that go through the program each year. Presently ane molecules or 100 carbon dioxide molecules there are about thirty-five active matches, and in the air, you should choose the 100 carbon thirty or so kids still on the waiting list. dioxide molecules. Apparently one fart is equal Perhaps you don’t have the time to be a core to twenty-three breaths, and breathing is pref- mentor. That’s okay. There are other ways you

AUGUST 2013 High 83° (Record 91° in 1939, 2011, 2012) Low 35° (Record 20° in 1931) Precipitation: 4.31” (Avg. 2.92”) 0 Snow: SEPTEMBER 2013 High 81° Low 20° Precipitation: 5.34” Snow: 0

(Record 88° in 1990) (Record 9° in 1931) (Avg. 2.07”) (Avg. 0.9”; Max. 23” in 1959)

OCTOBER 2013 High 71° Low 16° Precipitation: 2.46” Snow: 21.75”

(Record 85° in 1948) (Record 0° in 1956) (1.96”) (Avg. 9.7”; Max. 42” in 1984)

can help. You can take part in the study-buddy program or the apprenticeship program, or help out with the group mentoring. All have varying time commitments with the point being it’s easy to help out and it’s fun—and you might learn something. Still not your thing? Not ready to get in touch with your inner child? Well, on August 15 One to One holds its biggest grownup fundraiser, the Top Chef competition. Time to eat with silverware and drink with wine glasses, as opposed to eating with fingers and drinking out of dixie cups. One to One puts on an event each month of the year, mentor meetings, cardboard sled derbies, hiking and fishing, and the now-famous Date Night fundraiser. Some involve children, others do not, but all are fun community events. Whatever you choose to partake in you’ll be happy you did it. All the mentors I’ve met have said they regret not participating sooner, and I know how grateful I am for the experience. \ —Kingston Cole

SUMMER/FALL 2014

www.TellurideMagazine.com

TELLURIDE TURNS

Headlines & Highlights FROM THE LOCAL NEWS

Arieh Warshel

Michael Levitt

TSRC Scientists Snare Nobel Prize TELLURIDE SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER TURNS 30

e use computers for everything these days. But that wasn’t always the case. Chemists used to create models of molecules using balls and sticks, and conduct painstaking experiments. The work of Telluride Science Research Center guest scientists Arieh Warshel, Michael Levitt, and their colleague, Martin Karplus, changed all that—today chemists are able to use computers to model extremely complex chem-

ical reactions, simulations that can predict the outcomes of traditional experiments. And for this, the trio was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last fall. “Today, the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube,” wrote the Royal Academy of Sciences. The true genius of the computer modeling systems is that they’ve been able to marry two fundamentally different types of physics that don’t historically

play well together—quantum mechanics and Newton’s classical physics. Previously chemists used classical physics because of its simple equations that could model large molecules, but had to use quantum mechanics to simulate chemical reactions. But those quantum calculations could only be used on simple molecules because of the computation required. Now, chemists have the best of both worlds.

Telluride Science Research Center is a venue where innovative ideas like this can incubate. TSRC is the only independent molecular science center in the country, so it attracts elite scientists like Warshel and Levitt. The organization brought 1,200 scientists to town last year, and expects that number to increase this summer. TSRC is also hosting the American Conference on Theoretical Chemistry in July. \

The Price of Pot

COLORADO FINE-TUNES MARIJUANA LEGISLATION

ot shops across the state, and in Telluride, opened for business in January after Colorado became the first state to sanction the legal sale of recreational marijuana. Colorado and Washington voters approved ballot measures allowing recreational use of the drug last year, but Colorado was the first to enable its sale, and Telluride and other towns across the state have become the proving ground for the burgeoning industry. Banking has been a challenge for pot retailers. Since banks are federally insured, and federal legislation still prohibits the use and sale of marijuana, banks have been reluctant to do business with pot vendors. But the Colorado legislature voted this spring to create the 26

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nation’s first state-run cooperative financial institutions for marijuana businesses. The so-called “cannabis credit co-ops” are aiming to eliminate the difficulties of the cash-only

SUMMER/FALL 2014

business: the threat of burglary and the challenge of tracking, regulating, and taxing sales. In Telluride, the sales tax collection from medical and recre-

ational marijuana retailers during the first quarter of the year was modest. The town’s finance director, Lynn Beck, said the town collected less than $64,000, just 3-4% of the entire sales tax haul for the same period. Beck said that the amount of recreational and medical marijuana sales tax was greater than the amount collected from last year’s medical-only sales, but that the amount still represents just a small percentage of the town’s overall retail sales tax. Banking is not the only growing pain faced by the marijuana industry. Some users have reported problems with the edible segment of the marijuana industry—the cookies, candy, and other food products laced with Continued on page 27

Jeremy Baron

PASSINGS

Mark Buchsieb MARCH 12, 1946—MARCH 8, 2014

ince 2006, Mark Buchsieb had volunteered as a crossing guard in front of the elementary school in Telluride. He spent every school morning cheerily greeting students and parents, often wearing one of the goofy hats from his signature collection, ensuring that the kids made it safely across the busy street. This spring, Buchsieb made his own crossing, departing this world on March 8 after succumbing to a sudden illness. Buchsieb didn’t just wear a lot of hats as the crossing guard. He did the same in his life, which was filled with philanthropy, volunteerism, and civic work. Buchsieb served two terms as a member of Telluride’s town council, and even when he was not serving on the board, he was a regular at every council meeting. His mantra was that the three most important things were the “health, safety, and welfare” of the people, and he spoke those three words so often that the utterance was sometimes met with giggles and eye rolling—jocularity that he enjoyed. While he was seriously committed to public service, he was the rare public figure who never took himself seriously. He was the first to wink at a reporter during a tense moment, to heckle someone in a loud voice across main street, or to make kids laugh by wearing a silly hat in the early morning before school. In a small town where political debates grow heated, he could always be counted on for his broad smile, quirky charm, and the aside or comment that seemed to dissipate the intensity and lighten the mood for everyone in the room. He was born in Ohio, and worked for the prosecutor’s office in that state investigating welfare fraud. He also volunteered at the Columbus men’s shelter. He moved to Telluride in 1992, and championed all of the local nonprofits and

volunteered at many of the festivals, winning the Azadi Angel Award last January for his tireless support of various organizations. He even started his own nonprofit foundation, Together We Can, to aid other nonprofits and groups in Telluride. As a councilperson, he advocated for affordable housing—and walked his talk by living in one of the complexes in town at Shandoka. Buchsieb’s unique generosity was recognized by people from all walks of life in town, and when the news came of his passing, stories about him lit up the web. Reporters recalled his regular visits to the Daily Planet newsroom bearing gifts of brownies or chocolates. A woman remembered ordering food from La Cocina, and when she pulled out her wallet to pay, she was told that the gentleman in front of her in line had already paid for her lunch—that gentleman was Mark Buchsieb. He was a recovering substance abuser of 40 years, but every time he popped into one of the local establishments, he always bought a round for his friends at the bar. After Buchsieb’s beloved canine companion Maggie died, he took it upon himself to walk his friend’s dog almost daily. He spent his life paying it forward, giving gifts, donating his time, serving the community, walking dogs, and helping children cross the street safely. He passed away just before he was able to collect on that goodwill, by marking his 68th birthday, welcoming his first grandchild into the world, and celebrating his Angel Award at a party with the elementary students who were to honor him by wearing their own hats. No doubt the great karmic wheel is rewarding him with his own safe crossing—and his angelic work here has inspired the constituents, family, children, and friends who have been touched by his generous spirit. \

The Price of Pot Continued from page 26

the drug. Telluride Medical Center has reported a dramatic increase in the number of patients making emergency visits for marijuana-related illness. According to Dr. Dan Hehir, these visits are related to the use of edible marijuana products— because the effects of ingesting marijuana are delayed compared to the immediate high of smoking marijuana, some people are consuming too much. The symptoms include severe nausea and vomiting and elevated heart, respiratory, and blood pressure rates—the reaction resembles an anxiety attack, and some patients fear they are having a stroke or heart attack. They are treated with anti-anxiety and anti-nausea medications. “Not unlike alcohol, you can get widely differing effects from marijuana depending on how it’s used and the dosage,” says Hehir. “I’ve treated people in the emergency room who ate one cookie but didn’t feel anything, so they reached for a second and a third. When it all finally kicked in they were in trouble.” The current limit for edible marijuana products is 100 mg, which is roughly the equivalent of smoking 20 hits of the drug. The potency and the labeling of edibles has also been addressed by the state legislature, which passed bills this spring mandating a standard for labeling edible marijuana products to clearly indicate that they contain THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana, and further limiting the concentration of marijuana in the products. \ SUMMER/FALL 2014

www.TellurideMagazine.com

ENVIRONMENT

Restoring a Local Jewel Project Proposed to Rejuvenate Priest Lake By Deanna Drew

estled among aspen and spruce at the foot of towering Yellow Mountain and about eight miles south of Mountain Village, the peaceful Priest Lake recreation area has everything you need for a quiet camping experience. The only thing missing is the lake. Originally made up of three small natural ponds, in the 1950s a private landowner constructed a dirt embankment to expand the surface area of water into a single lake, approximately 11 acres in size. Then in 1976, the United States Forest Service took ownership and opened the site for public recreation including camping, hiking and biking, canoeing, kayaking, horseback riding, and fishing. But in 2004, after nearly 30 years of public enjoyment, the old levee began to show signs of deterioration. Fearing inundation of other public facilities downstream, the agency breached the dam, which resulted in loss of 110 acre-feet of water and the recreation opportunities that were enjoyed by local fly-fishing companies and children’s summer camps. Day use of the site has all but disappeared, and nowadays most campers use the developed Matterhorn Campground downstream instead of the intimate primitive campsites that once fringed the lake. Matthew Dare, project lead and forest fisheries biologist for 28

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the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forest (GMUG), says the Forest Service supports rebuilding the dam and bringing back public angling at the site. “The lake was a popular recreation area and fishing was the main attraction,” says Dare, who has been working closely with Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists to determine the best fish species for the lake once

million dollars, and the Forest Service says they don’t have the money. They are looking for community and government partners to help raise the funds needed to complete the project, a daunting task in these tough economic times. “The Forest Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife are strong proponents of the project, but securing that level of funding in the current economic

“The lake was a popular recreation area and fishing was the main attraction.” it is rebuilt. “The existing pond provides some recreational use but the fishery is very limited and visitation is currently quite low.” Priest Lake is part of a basin and large wetland complex that receives water from Minnie Gulch, a naturally-fed mountain spring that flows nearly 365 days a year. Dare says that ongoing environmental analysis points to this being a very good ecological project: Rebuilding the dam would expand the wetlands, but would not prevent fish movement or fragment fish habitat. “If you are going to build a [lake], this is a great place for it,” he says. But there is a major stumbling block to the project’s success: money. Rebuilding the 420-foot long, 14-foot tall earthen embankment is estimated to cost over one

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environmental is unlikely,” says Dare. “The agencies are looking for partners in this effort, especially a non-governmental entity to spearhead fundraising for the project.” Enter the local non-profit San Miguel Watershed Coalition, which in 2012 received over $150,000 in fines from a Sheep Mountain Alliance lawsuit against PacifiCorp, Inc. mining company. The mining company was fined for not complying with federal Clean Water Act water quality standards of the Silver Bell tailings site at the head of the Howards Fork near Ophir. SMA Executive Director and San Miguel Watershed Coalition board member Hilary Cooper says a requirement of the settlement agreement was that the seed money would be used for a resto-

ration effort within the San Miguel River watershed, and the Priest Lake project is a perfect fit. “In 2013 the Coalition reorganized and began advancing our mission of working with community partners to launch restoration projects up and down the watershed that will improve the health of the river and those communities it supports,” says Cooper. Previously, the Coalition worked with private property owners, the Bureau of Land Management, and Nature Conservancy to complete the removal of a diversion dam on Tabequache Creek where the tributary meets the San Miguel River near Uravan. The dam was abandoned, but remained in place and was blocking three sensitive species of fish (Roundtail chub, Flannelmouth sucker, and Bluehead sucker) from swimming upstream to reach their spawning grounds. Cooper says in addition to the conservation of natural resources, the Coalition also has a responsibility to enhance the recreational opportunities and social and economic vitality the watershed provides. “A restored Priest Lake will offer excellent watershed education opportunities as well as family fishing and primitive camping fun for the region. This project is our next priority.” For more information or to donate to the Priest Lake project visit www.sanmiguelwatershed.org. \

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MOUNTAIN HEALTH

Smile: Oil Pulling is Back in Style Ancient Ayurvedic Ritual Makes a Comeback By Heather Sackett

’m not into alternative medicine, home remedies, or anything with the word “homeopathy.” A longtime sufferer of chronic sinus infections, I tried a Neti Pot once. I hated it—give me Sudafed. Arnica doesn’t work on my sore muscles and I prefer to eat Advil like candy. I attack springtime allergies with Benedryl and Allegra. Chicken soup won’t cure my cold and chamomile tea won’t help me sleep. Antibiotics? Yes, please. I’ll take two. So to research this story I knew I would have to get the scoop from a believer. Jane Del Piero is a certified nutritionist, herbalist, massage therapist, and acupuncturist. Del Piero and her partner, Jay Holt, run LuvLight, a Telluride-based alternative health care center and pharmacy. Del Piero first got interested in alternative medicine as a disillusioned law school student and bartender. Lying for clients and pouring problem drinkers another round, she realized, wasn’t helping them or making the world a better place. When a commercial for the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies flashed across her TV screen one day, Del Piero knew that was her calling. Del Piero, who grew up in Telluride, recently began using a home remedy that’s growing in popularity: oil pulling. She was trying to get rid of a parasitic infection in her mouth that she picked up while in South America. After oral surgery and bad news from dentists that she would probably lose her teeth, Del Piero began researching natural therapies and discovered the ancient

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Indian Ayurvedic ritual. Oil pulling is known as “Kavala” or “Gandusha” in the Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita. Its promoters claim it works by pulling out toxins, which are known as ama in Ayurvedic medicine, and thereby reducing inflammation. “It’s an old, old medicine,” she says. “I’ve never been to India. It’s just a fluke that I found it. I would mention it to other friends of mine, and people said they’d do it after getting cavities or a broken tooth. I think a lot more people are realizing the benefits of oil pulling.” The oil pulling technique involves swishing oil (most people prefer organic coconut oil because of its natural antibacterial properties, but some use sesame oil) around in your mouth for about 20 minutes, then spitting it out, along with bacteria and germs. The practice is best done first thing in

SUMMER/FALL 2014

the morning and Del Piero says to brush your teeth afterward. The idea is that the oil will clean the mouth and “pull” out toxins from the body. Health claims run the gamut with oil pulling, which is said to whiten teeth and help skin conditions, arthritis, asthma, headaches, hormonal imbalances, inflammation, insomnia, and more. After seven months of daily oil pulling, Del Piero has seen an improvement in her skin and her mouth infection is long gone. In fact, it began improving within just two weeks of beginning the practice. “My gums have totally healed, they are actually growing back when dentists told me they wouldn’t,” she says. “I have no infection.” Del Piero says new converts can expect noticeable results from daily oil pulling in just a week. For any kind of tooth malady or mouth infection, she highly recommends starting the practice immediately, in addition to seeing a dentist. There are no clinical studies yet that demonstrate the benefits of this practice. Whether the many health claims of oil pulling can be definitively proven isn’t the point—it probably isn’t a cure-all. But the practice is gaining popularity because health-conscious people are realizing the benefits of taking responsibility for their own health, Del Piero says. Instead of giving up their power and expecting a doctor to fix them when they get sick, people are using alternative therapies as preventive medicine. And she expects to see a growing number of people rediscovering the power of

age-old natural remedies. “I think humans are realizing we have to take care of ourselves, and the more we do preventively the less money we will spend in the long run,” Del Piero says. “It’s whatever you can do to supplement your body, which is a temple, not an amusement park. There’s no cotton candy here, baby.” A few things I learned from trying oil pulling: Coconut oil is not delicious. I had been imagining the sweet, tropical taste of macaroons and the scent of Hawaiian Tropic tanning lotion. But this isn’t coconut milk. Coconut oil is bland and tastes like nothing. Sesame oil has a much stronger flavor. Coconut oil is solid at room temperature and turns to liquid at about 76 degrees. The first time I tried oil pulling, I heated it up in a pan to melt it before putting it in my mouth. This is a no-no since heating it chemically changes the oil (and turns it into a scalding, lava-like substance you don’t want anywhere near your tongue). Just put a spoonful of the solid oil in your mouth. It will begin to liquefy immediately. Use less oil than you think you need. Since you are going to be swishing for about 20 minutes, the drooling chipmunk cheeks are neither comfortable nor sustainable for that long. Don’t fill your mouth with it. About two teaspoonfuls is the right amount. Spit the oil out in the trashcan, not down the sink. Your local water and sewer department will thank you for not clogging the pipes with the oil, which returns to a solid state when it cools. \

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Foraging for Food Dear Jock, I’m planning a weeklong, ultra-light backpack trip in the Weminuche wilderness this August. Do you think I can forage for food and survive, or should I bring freeze-dried meals and a stove? —Light is Right Dear Light, For the last five years, a naturalist named Katrina Blair has walked through the mountains from her home in Durango to the Telluride Mushroom Festival. She fuels her hikes entirely by foraging. So yes, based on her example, a determined hiker with extensive knowledge of alpine botany can survive a weeklong walkabout in the Colorado high country in August. Blair describes her most recent pilgrimage in the 2014 winter edition of the regional magazine, Edible San Juan Mountains. During her seven-day trip, she browses on wild parsley and tarragon, osha root, and pine needles. Like a fawn, she nibbles wildflowers, savors mouthfuls of various berries, and revels in the earthy taste of king bolete mushrooms. Blair claims she is fueled by the activities she loves, including “breathing, laying on the earth, sunrises and sunsets, swimming in cold water, and gratitude.” She finds a sense of freedom in opening herself to “myriad other nutrient sources that give energy needed to traverse the mountains when food is minimal.” If you are like Blair and can gain energy from alternative “nutritional sources” such as cold water and gratitude, you’ll enjoy a weeklong foraging walkabout in the Weminuche. If you, like Jock, are less evolved, you should bring some traditional trail food and hope to bolster your diet by foraging. Bon appétit! — Jock

Ask Jock

ATHLETIC ADVICE FROM OUR LOCAL MOUNTAIN GURU

If the Shoe Fits Via Ferrata Gear Dear Jock, My friend promised to take me on Telluride’s Via Ferrata this summer. I’m not a climber, so I don’t know what gear to bring. Also, I’ve heard there are some narrow ledges. What is etiquette for passing other parties if you’re all clipped in to the same steel cable? —Via Ferrata Virgin Editor’s note: A via ferrata (Italian for “iron road”) is a series of cables and rungs anchored to a rock face. Telluride local Chuck Kroger built one at the back of the Telluride valley in 2006.

Dear Virgin, Along with sensible hiking shoes and a day pack with gear you’d bring on a hike in the mountains, you’ll need the following: a mountaineering helmet, rock climbing harness, and dual lanyard system to tether yourself to the via ferrata cable. A Swiss mountaineering company named Petzl makes the gold standard tethering system with retractable lanyards designed to absorb energy in case of a fall. You also can make your own lanyards by tying two arm-length sections of dynamic climbing rope to your harness with locking carabineers on the ends. By dynamic, I mean that if you opt for a homemade setup, your lanyards must be made of a material that stretches to absorb sudden shock. Static line and standard nylon webbing have no elasticity and could snap under a sudden load. Regarding the etiquette of passing other parties: There’s nothing codified, so you’ll have to rely on courtesy and common sense. Enjoy your first via ferrata, — Jock

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Dear Jock, I’m dating a new guy, and I want him to go hiking with me this summer. He doesn’t own any real outdoorsy shoes so I want him to buy a pair of waffle stompers. That way, he’ll look rugged on the trail and fashionable when we’re out cruising town. He says waffle stompers hurt his feet and he can hike anywhere in his Converse high tops. Don’t you think my baby needs new shoes? —Footwear Fashionista Dear Fashionista, Your boyfriend is correct. He can hike just about anywhere in his Chuck Taylors. You, on the other hand, are wrong to urge him to purchase anything based on the vagaries of urban fashion, so stop hounding him about trendy waffle stompers. True hiking footwear isn’t about trends; it’s about comfort and utility, which is a by-product of functionality. In other words, you should select shoes based on mountain terrain and conditions, not on what coastal hipsters are wearing this season. If your man decides to shop for new shoes after a few outings, Jock holds three basic tenets in regard to hiking footwear: 1. Wear just enough to get the job done. Light hikers are fine for most trails on most days. Heavy boots are made to protect your feet from the elements in full conditions in the high mountains. 2. If the shoe fits, wear it. You’ll know the first time you put it on. 3. High-quality socks are worth every penny. Wool trumps cotton. Frankly, the need for any specialized outdoor footwear is overblown, as evidenced by my forgetful buddy Lars who once climbed Wilson Peak wearing a pair of Birkenstock sandals. So go hiking and let your man worry about his own footwear. You can worry about more important things—like the view. Happy trails, — Jock

SUMMER/FALL 2014

ESSAY

August,

The Queen of Summer By Michelle Curry Wright

he August I arrive in Telluride, it rains for 45 days straight. Lush, green mountains are weeping water, their peaks shrouded in mystery by low-slung clouds. In the lobby of the youth hostel where I’m staying—the old Oak Street Inn—what appear to be Hobbits cook mushrooms every night. They’ve rigged up frying pans over the open flame, MacGyvered cutting boards for the garlic, and are liberal with their brandy splashes and thick pats of butter. They seem perfectly content with the monsoon rains, the smell of wood smoke, and the simple, satisfying dinners before them. I have not yet heard the word forage used in relation to contemporary human activity, but now the compare-and-contrast centers of my brain are engaged, busily pitting people in suits against people in parkas, bandanas, and boots. A scale is tipping. In a clean but dirt-cheap room with three empty bunks beside me, I go to sleep to the sound of dripping rain and wake up to a few hours of radiant, cloud-infused morning sunlight. Squarely framed out my second-story window is Ingram Falls, a silver ribbon of water funneling down, feeding the canyon, feeding the valley, feeding all of its base-camp denizens. I feel liberated by the natural world, like I did as a child running through fields, braids flying. It’s 1984, and I’m a dropout. Whatever visions of a New York career I might have had for myself, I have released, without much of a struggle at all, really. The parents don’t like it, but I am on the road, near the end of my search for a new town, $200 and a couple of suitcases to my name. My brother in Portland stores the odd pieces of furniture I can’t part with. Eventually, I ask him to sell it all. Eventually, too, all the words from my NYC journals—all the rumination and angst fed by cold 34

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“Horned Madonna,” watercolor, by Matt Twomey. maritime winds and hot humidity and tall buildings and taking it all so seriously—begin to fade. I am thinking about none of this as I pull into 81435 in the family relic, a 1966 rotten-cherry

dusty alleys, of block after block of ski-bum houses with rickety, wellused front porches and windows that rattle in their casings. The ’70s may have passed, but it still only takes a few minutes on the main

“I go to sleep to the sound of rain and wake up to a few hours of radiant, cloud-infused morning sunlight.” red V-8 Cutlass with a cream cloth top that hits 100 mph, easy, on the open road. These are still the days of diagonal parking on Colorado Avenue, of unpaved and

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street to feel both the peace and restlessness of the place, boom and bust deep in its rock, mortar, tin, and weathered wood. It also only takes a few minutes

to see that Telluride is a town full of men, men presumably lying in wait for the women dropouts of the world to arrive. Within 72 hours, I’ve had my first motorcycle ride, my first serenade on a guitar, and I’ve been led like a princess up to Bear Creek falls, blooms called out along the way. Resistance is futile. When offered a job at the inn, oblivious to any permanent pact I may be sealing with my fate, I snatch it. The left turn I’ve taken in life and onto Colorado 145 has deposited me way up high in the mountains, in a town whose name I have never seen or heard before. I become a reporter at the newspaper, take a restaurant job, get roommates, fall in love, ski every day, start writing a novel, double up on jobs, start painting, get married, have a child, watch her grow, hit hard times, become a widow, send my child off, sink lower, and then find love and marry again. And, 30 years later, as I wonder how it is we get where we are, it is still mystifying, bewildering, and beautiful. We all, at some point, find ourselves trying to connect the dots. We stand back, or move closer, or close our eyes, or put on glasses. We look up, read up, feel into, settle down. Sometimes, it’s two or three things at once and we grip the banister for support. We all have our markers. Mine is the month of August, which continues to cradle my delivery into this wonderful 8,750-foot world. August with her softer sunlight and nurturing rain, her rough raspberry brambles and her mushroom troves. Queen of Summer, August brings sunflowers to bloom even as the first of her yellow leaves hits the ground. From summer ripeness to icy flake of snow, the Queen decrees that things coexist in this world, and that our best bet is sometimes just to get wet—to welcome the rain, and then wait patiently, faithfully for the light and warmth of the sun. \

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Carred Tagged on My Townie By Rob Story

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Lee Cohen

“T

his is gonna hurt,” I thought. Still, I didn’t panic. In fact, I felt a calm serenity in the nanosecond before impact. Which made zero sense, given that I was on a bike and the looming impact came from a Subaru Outback whose front bumper was barreling fast toward my knees. Never before had a car tagged me while I bicycled. Oh, one time during college a Mustang in a parking lot pulled in front of the sidewalk I was pedaling on. But he was barely moving, and it was more a case of me hitting him than him hitting me. I now know, thanks to my recent collision on Willow Street, that the question of who t-boned who truly determines whether a cyclist has been “carred.” With the 20-20 hindsight that accompanies an accident, I realized I should never have initiated the left turn that put me in the Subaru’s trajectory. For this, I blame an SUV. Damn SUVs. See, I was following an SUV just before making the doomed left turn to the post office. It was one of those big hogs—Ford Excursion/ Nissan Armada-sized—and its bulk and tinted windows completely blocked my view of oncoming traffic. Since Telluride is a town of 2,400 people where only the laziest among us do errands by car, I assumed there was no oncoming traffic.

Since Telluride is a town of 2,400 people where only the laziest among us do errands by car, I assumed there was no oncoming traffic. Yet there was. Yet there was. My left turn had barely peeled around the elephantine ass of the SUV before the furtive little Subaru came charging into view. I don’t know why I didn’t panic. My body stayed loose and supple as the Subaru crashed into my old Jamis townie bike. Witnesses later said my right shin dented the car’s

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bumper. I didn’t see that. I just remember being plucked off my saddle. Slamming onto the Subaru’s hood. Rolling. Smashing the windshield with my back. Bouncing. Falling onto the pavement. Standing right up, very much awake. Consciousness, for me, usually requires several cups of coffee. But, lemme tell you, nothing clears the cobwebs like getting slammed by an automobile. Though this occurred in summer, it was a cold and rainy day, which might explain the driver’s decision to motor to the post office. The weather had also persuaded me to wear long pants and a GoreTex jacket—a decision that no doubt kept a lot of my skin intact during the crash. At first, the only blood I saw leaked from my right thumb. Pulling up my right pant leg, though, revealed a bloody pulp where a hairy shin normally stood. Veteran mountain bikers are used to contusions and gore, and I

wasn’t too alarmed by the bloody pulp. But the first town marshal to examine the case urged me to visit the ER, so I did. Later, when the insurance statements arrived, I regretted this. To the newly injured, though, emergency rooms are seductive. With their professional-grade wound suctions and bounty of clean white gauze, ERs make everything seem OK, even without painkillers (and I’m still bummed I didn’t ask for any of those). Bike-car collisions are not OK, however. My poor townie suffered $70 worth of damage and underwent an emergency fork transfusion. I discharged fluids like crazy the first couple days, and had to watch as my dog enthusiastically tried to lick my blood-soaked pants. Yuck. Still, I think the Subaru may have ended up with more permanent damage than I did. Things might have been different if I weren’t a mountain biker. After countless collisions with trees and rocks, my bones and tendons are quite accustomed to slamming into unyielding objects—a Subaru for them wasn’t such a hardship. If there’s anything positive to take away from being carred, it’s knowing I can take a hit. \

Inspired by Grandfather Frank; photographed here (left) in his blacksmith shop - Circa 1932

Inside the

MINDS GYMS and of

TELLURIDE FITNESS GURUS By Jesse James McTigue

Joanie Schwarz Portraiture

Even in Telluride, the greatest outdoor playground fathomable, residents go inside to work out.

of the town’s fitness scene as its trails and mountains. It is often because of them that we ride, run, ski, climb, paddle—and in light of recent research, even think—like we do.

TELLURIDE CROSSFIT:

Melissa Plantz

The Workhorse

Melissa Plantz

elluride isn’t like most other places. Instead of dress coats, mountain bikes are hung in office corners, and hikes, instead of martinis, are at the center of a working lunch. People don’t just own one bike, they own three, and they often attend to their morning run before their morning email. At dinner parties, they talk about the weather incessantly and speak in the vernacular, with words like summiting, twenty-niner, carbon, tread, singletrack, Eider, and the Highline. The town’s emphasis on exercise, the outdoors, and playing is easily—and often— made fun of. Visitors come to town and the question burning in their minds is evident in their gaze: When do you talk about the important things, such as current events, politics, and Hollywood gossip if you’re always hiking, biking, and skiing? Then, those same visitors spend a week here, hike to Silver Lake, ride Prospect Loop, SUP the San Miguel, and buy a second home. The gaze never returns. And, for the record, I’ve discussed the cover stories of the Atlantic while hiking the Wasatch, convinced a friend that she needed a pair of Seven designer jeans while skinning up Waterfall Canyon, and debated every facet of education, parenting, and marriage while on a bike ascending any one of the seemingly endless climbs rising out of the valley. But if one of Telluride’s faults is that residents exercise too much—we’ll own it. And why not, when the CDC reports that 34.9% of U.S. adults are obese, and the nation’s estimated annual medical cost of obesity is $190 billion. In the last few years, publications from scholarly scientific journals to the Huffington Post have reported about research indicating that exercise leads to increased memory and cognition, enhanced mood, and a host of other mental benefits. And even in Telluride, the greatest outdoor playground fathomable, residents go inside to workout. We put our coveted bodies in the hands, and gyms, of the town’s fitness gurus. When it comes to fitness, it seems the town boasts as many studios, trainers, and gyms as bars. Like the bars, each offers a slightly different environment and signature fitness cocktail, and I’ve tried them all. My go-to the nine months of the year when I’m on a traditional work schedule: Telluride CrossFit. My Saturday morning and occasional weeknight special when I want to stretch and strengthen (and be sure to hit my core): Studio E’s Weighted Yogi class. To switch it up, add intervals to my running workouts, and hit the full body (and work out with Becca Tudor, Telluride’s sweeter version of Jillian Michaels): FUEL. And when I need a thorough stretch, with a little introspection and balance: Telluride Yoga Center. Overkill? I haven’t even mentioned the town’s Pilates studios, or the gyms and trainers at The Peaks, 8750ALT, and Gravity Works. Telluride’s gyms and trainers are as much

The Workout: Telluride CrossFit owners and coaches, Andrew and Teresa Brachle, define CrossFit as acquiring “general prepared fitness” through “all functional movements.” What does that mean? Each CrossFit workout combines skills and exercises using the muscles and movements you use in everyday life—exercises like burpies, box jumps, jumping rope, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and Olympic lifts (squats, dead lifts, snatches). It’s old school. Remember the two-a-days you had in high school at the beginning of soccer season? It’s sort of like that. The Results: “CrossFit is popular because it works,” Brachle says, offering stories about CrossFit athletes hitting homeruns for the first time and skinning up the mountain and skiing down faster than ever before. As for his personal experience, Brachle offers “Angie.” Angie is a benchmark workout that requires an athlete to complete 100 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 squats. Brachle’s time in 2008: 47 minutes. His most recent Angie? Fifteen minutes and 31 seconds. The Scene: Think Kevin Bacon in Footloose running through the rundown factory, swinging on piping and vaulting over wooden beams. CrossFit is sort of like that, but with better music. It’s minimalist and low tech, and uses pull-up bars, weight racks, kettlebells, and medicine balls. CrossFitters are sometimes called a cult, but Brachle prefers “tribal.” “Before working out people are talking and shaking hands,” he said. “It’s addicting, so it can have that sort of cult-type attitude.” The Last Word: “Anyone can do CrossFit, but not everyone can do it well. You have to be willing to suffer a bit.”

FUEL TELLURIDE: The Muse

The Vision: Becca Tudor’s goal as a trainer and the owner of FUEL Telluride is simple: inspire and motivate others through her passion for fitness. She’s done this by training private clients in her FUEL studio on Main Street, and more recently at FUEL Station, a membership-based gym with an array of fitness classes and instructors at the base of Lift 7. But her vision doesn’t stop there. She wants FUEL to be Telluride’s health and fitness headquarters. “What I want to create with FUEL is a platform for other fitness professionals to come to display their work,” she said. The Festival: Tudor, in collaboration with her husband Narcis, has created the Telluride WOW (Work Out Weekend) Festival, a weekend dedicated to workshops, classes, and conversations with some of the

SUMMER/FALL 2014

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Joanie Schwarz Portraiture

OTHER PLACES TO GET YOUR FIX

STUDIO E: Located off main street (Colorado Joanie Schwarz Portraiture

industry’s most well-known trainers including Tony Horton, creator of P90X, and Todd Durkin, creator and director of Fitness Quest 10. WOW is not only for fitness professionals, but athletes and the general public. It’s like Lollapalooza—except that the headliners aren’t rock stars, they’re just ripped. The Experience: Whether it’s through her trademark full-body workout class, Leaded, or those of her instructors such as Barre, TRX, Burn Lab, or adventure running (free on Wednesday nights), Tudor wants people who come to FUEL to walk away invigorated. “I want to motivate and inspire people,” Tudor said. “I hope I’m doing it through the experience people get with my instructors and me.” The Gym: FUEL is modern, sleek, and clean, and offers a mixture of equipment and studio room to support any workout. An intentional natural and open flow exists between the “gym” and “studio” to encourage camaraderie between the members. “You don’t come in and swipe your card or punch in or punch out,” Tudor said. “I love all of the members. It feels like a family.” The Last Word: “FUEL in general is a lifestyle. It’s living life to the fullest and being happy,” Tudor said. “What fuels you?”

THE PEAKS: The Peaks Hotel and Spa in the

Mountain Village is a member-based gym that offers fitness classes, Life Fitness cardio machines, Cybex circuit weight equipment, a lap pool, a Pilates and yoga studio, and personal training. The Peaks also periodically offers punch cards for non-members.

The Sanctuary

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SUMMER/FALL 2014

Avenue) on the east end of town, Studio E, which is owned by Erin Gehrke, offers energetic and dynamic yoga and spinning classes including Power Vinyasa, 26 Hot Yoga, The Weighted Yogi, and flow yoga classes in a heated studio.

8750ALT: 8750ALT is a member-based gym with 24-hour access and personal training. Owner Nicole Stone-Lankes also offers small-group training pods outdoors during the summer, as well as triathlon training and master’s swim workouts at the Town Park Pool.

TELLURIDE YOGA CENTER:

GRAVITY WORKS: Gravity Fitness Center is

Melissa Plantz

The Soul: Kristin Taylor, co-owner and instructor at Telluride Yoga Center, understands the lives and habits of Telluride adrenaline junkies; she grew up here and was a nationally ranked freestyle skier. But when it comes to her yoga practice, it’s not about being rad, it’s about having soul. “We provide a sanctuary for spiritual practice, and respect all forms of yoga and meditation, but at the core of every class is the same teaching and

it’s geared toward the soul of that practice,” Taylor said. The Practice and The Pulse: Taylor uses the authentic roots of yoga to inspire creativity in her teaching. “I try and notice what’s happening in the environment and what type of energy is needed to balance that day,” she said. “On a Saturday, it might be energizing to get people feeling good about the weekend. Sometimes I play music; sometimes we practice in silence. I make changes according to what is appropriate in the moment.” The Studio: In addition to the teaching and practice, much of the studio’s soul radiates from the studio itself. Perched above Main Street in the historic Nugget building, the building has borne witness to the history of Telluride since the 1890s, absorbing the essence and character of the town. Since becoming a yoga studio over a decade ago, the building has an air of history and ceremony that pulses through its walls. Gleaming hardwood floors ground the space while arched windows give it lightness. “It holds a certain energy that is palpable and that people can feel,” Taylor said. “There is nothing else like it.” The Last Word: “Yoga, especially restorative yoga, is important in this town where everyone is going so fast. It helps people slow down and to restore their energy supply and heal on a deeper level, which is vital to our overall well-being and health.”

located in the upstairs section of Gravity Works Mountain Sports Center. It is a member-based gym offering an array of strength and cardio equipment as well as diverse membership options, including day and week passes. Don’t miss the climbing wall downstairs. \

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Let It Flow Dams, Diversion, Hydropower, and the Health of Rivers 42

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Ben Knight, DamNation

hat happened on May 12, 2014, was extraordinary. For the first time in decades, the Colorado River reached its ocean terminus, the Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California. The gravitas of the event did not escape the people who witnessed it: the elated children dancing in the San Luis Rio Colorado, the stunned farmers who watched the water run through the remote river channel behind their fields, and the standup paddleboarders who rode the flow to the tidal interface. The Colorado River has not run its natural course for a very long time, because of dams, diversion, and drought, but a series of releases from the Morelos Dam called “pulses” finally drenched the parched delta enough to allow the river’s passage. The pulses were meant to mimic the Colorado’s natural spring flows, but the impetus behind them had little to do with restoring nature. The releases were the outcome of a treaty amendment between Mexico and the United States called Minute 319. In 2010, an earthquake in the Mexicali area devastated the region’s water infrastructure and Mexico was unable to use its allocation from the Colorado River. The agreement allowed Mexico to store its allotment in reservoirs in the United States, and the pulse releases were a sort of withdrawal on the water they had deposited for safekeeping in this country. The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the West. It supplies water to most of Colorado’s five million people, and its basin supplies water to forty million people and irrigates six million acres of land in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Mexico. The combined metropolitan areas served by the Colorado River represent the world’s twelfth-largest economy. And because of drought and a supply/demand imbalance, the river is in peril. Its two major reservoirs— Lake Powell and Lake Mead—are both at critically low levels. Lake Powell’s Glen Canyon Dam—a dam that’s been vilified by environmentalists for its flooding of the Glen Canyon—generates hydroelectric power to supply nearly six million people. But Lake Powell is so low now that it is in danger of dropping beneath its minimum power pool, which would make it incapable of producing hydroelectric energy.

From Telluride With Love

In Telluride are the headwaters of the San Miguel River, the state’s second-longest free-flowing tributary of the Colorado River. (The Yampa is the longest.) At the east end of town, where Ingram Creek meets Bridal Veil Creek, the San Miguel River starts its mostly unimpeded progress toward the Colorado. The San Miguel is just one tiny tendril among all the various basins and rivers that feed the Colorado, and because the town is so remote and the population here is so minimal, it is one of the most pristine. But even the San Miguel River is beleaguered. The story is the same for every river—there just doesn’t seem to be enough water to go around, or enough to supply the consumptive, agricultural, recreation, or even snowmaking uses and still allow for the natural riparian and aquatic habitat needed to keep the river healthy. Before the water from the upper basins above even gets to the San Miguel River, some of it is diverted. The water from Blue Lake and Lewis Lake is used to run the hydropower plant perched atop Bridal Veil Falls and will supply drinking water to the town of Telluride in November. The old Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Power Plant is capable of producing 2,000 megawatt hours per year, about enough to power 2,000 average American homes. But the power plant has not run since last spring, shut down to let the drought stricken Blue Lake recover to healthy levels and to make repairs to the plant. The power plant is the second-oldest alternating current power plant in the U.S.—the oldest sits just a few miles away, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant that made history when it was commissioned by L.L. Nunn in 1891, using Nikola Tesla’s pioneering technology. That innovation changed the course of history, and the course of many rivers. The San Miguel was one of those rivers. In the early 1900s, when the Bridal Veil power plant was first built to power the milling operation, it sucked Bridal Veil Falls dry. It’s hard to imagine Telluride without its signature cascading white ribbon at the end of the valley, the tallest waterfall in the state. T.A. Rickard, a mining engineer chronicled the event in Across the San Juan Mountains: “The beauty of the waterfall is gone, a sacrifice >>

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ecosystem health. We’re obligated to meet in-stream flows at various locations on the San Miguel to help keep the ecosystem healthy.” Hydroelectric power lit up the world in the 1900s, both literally and figuratively. It earned the nickname “white coal,” and it was mined with the same intensity as fossil fuels. Water seemed limitless, and dams were built to span rivers, flood canyons, and subvert water for power and other needs. But today there has been a paradigm shift—people care more about rivers, and there are minimum in-stream flows required by states like Colorado to ensure that river ecosystems remain intact. April Montgomery is the local representative on the Colorado Water Conservation Board that guides the policy on water issues for the state, like the delicate balance between water needs of all the stakeholders—including the fish and aquatic species that live in the river.

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Damnation— Are All Dams Bad?

When Montgomery drove out West decades ago to make her home in Colorado, she had a bumper sticker on her car that read “Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Want A Dam.” An avid river runner and a lover of the outdoors, Montgomery was a part of the generation that led that paradigm shift. There was an anti-dam movement engendered by Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, a change in values where people recognized that building massive infrastructure like the Hoover Dam and the Glen Canyon Dam was destroying the natural landscape of the West. However, today we are reliant on the water storage and even the hydropower that was created by those gargantuan projects in the last century. Now there are forty million people who are used to turning their faucets on, and having water come out. “I used to think all dams were bad,” says Montgomery. “But water storage is one of the key elements

Photos: (bottom left) Ryan Bonneau, (top and bottom right) Ben Knight, DamNation

to utilitarian engineering, which has taken the water to supply power to the Smuggler-Union mill.” The penstock at the crest of the falls was only briefly used to divert water, and is not operable right now—but it will be operable again this fall. Telluride is revamping the Falls Crest Diversion as it builds the new Pandora Water Treatment plant, which will also have a micro-hydropower generator running as it processes the water. The treatment plant will operate from the same Blue Lake water source that the Bridal Veil plant uses, but when that water is not available, they have the option of using the Falls Crest Diversion. But they won’t be shutting off Bridal Veil Falls, says Karen Guglielmone, the manager of the environmental and engineering division of public works for Telluride. “If the falls are flowing at one cubic foot per second or less, water diversion at Falls Crest won’t happen. Everyone values the falls. And we’re all interested in the

in meeting our future water needs. I think the days of on-stem dams that block and impound major rivers and streams are probably behind us. You’re not going to see another Hoover Dam with all the environmental laws we have now. Yes, I wish those dams had been built differently—in the past they didn’t understand the repercussions to the environment. But unfortunately we’re dependent on them. I hope that where it’s possible we will look to either retrofit, rebuild, mitigate, or figure out how to operate dams to better reflect the natural environment.” Ben Knight has a more radical idea: dam removal. Knight, one of the Telluride filmmakers from Felt Soul Media who worked for Patagonia to make the film DamNation released this spring, was perhaps the only eyewitness to the Condit Dam on White Salmon River in Washington being blown to pieces. Damnation is a film advocating for the removal of dams that are harming watersheds, and Knight said that “chunks of century-old concrete flying through the air” was integral to the cinematography. When the Condit Dam was scheduled to explode, officials secured the area, even flying a helicopter above to clear any would-be spectators. But they didn’t see Ben Knight, who had crawled up the hillside in camouflage with his video camera and ear protection. The explosion was spectacular, and dangerous. “I watched the Condit Dam explode with my own eyes, which in retrospect wasn’t the safest option, but I’m glad we got it on film,” says Knight. “I’ll never forget that moment … it felt like all the air left the canyon, and I could feel a pressure on my chest when that 800 pounds of dynamite was triggered. That was a pretty historic moment for river restoration in the United States.” Knight doesn’t know what effect the impassioned film will have on public opinion about dams. He didn’t know what effect Felt Soul’s previous film Red Gold would have, either, but it was a cornerstone in the fight against Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine, which was eventually halted out of concern for the salmon habitat. DamNation isn’t like Red Gold—it’s not a cautionary tale of “what if,” it’s more of a call to action. DamNation tells the poignant story of habitat and archaeology that has already been destroyed by dams, like

the treasures in Glen Canyon buried below Lake Powell, and Celilo Falls, the place Pacific Northwest Indian tribes used to harvest salmon, which was flooded so that grain barges could get up and down the Columbia River. These scenes were heartbreaking to Knight. “Dam proponents call hydropower a sustainable and renewable source of energy. They’re only half right. Yep, it’s renewable, but that’s it. The ‘green’ label on hydropower is false. You cannot call anything green that wrecks a fishery, degrades water quality, and blocks the natural flow of nutrients and sediment between the ocean and the land.” Even Knight’s hometown river, the San Miguel, touted for its natural, free-flowing condition, diverts much of its flow. The town, the ski resort, and regional agriculture rely on water diversion to supply their needs. There are many diversion points that flow from the San Miguel River to serve these uses, and while the diversions are not as imposing as bigger dams, some of them do inhibit the passage of boats or of fish. Montgomery says the CC Ditch was one such diversion that was recently reconstructed to allow for fish and boats to pass. The river is considered “undammed,” but it might be just a question of semantics. “If you asked the Flannelmouth sucker [a species of fish native to the Colorado River] whether there was a dam across the San Miguel River, they would definitely have said yes.”

Changing Tides

There’s a new term for dams that have become essentially obsolete: deadbeat dams. Some communities are removing dams like the Condit, where the cost of the structure outweighs its value, hoping to restore rivers, recover fish, and make watersheds more resilient to climate change. But,

says Montgomery, “all dams are not created equal.” Some dams not only allow for safe boat passage, she says, but are also the very reason there’s boating at all. Some have hydropower generation, and some are operated with the natural hydrology in mind. The CWCB is funding projects to replace diversions built decades ago that blocked fish migration. And water in the West is so scarce that dams and water storage are vital to the existing system on which the people, municipalities, agriculture, and industry rely. “I love natural free-flowing rivers and wish we didn’t need to rely on dams. But it’s hard to lump them all in one category. And storage in the West, where rivers don’t flow year-round, is a necessity. You can advocate to get rid of dams, but give me another alternative. You tell me how we’re going to provide electricity and have a functioning water system in the West,” says Montgomery. Finding an alternative is the work that still needs to be done. Today’s water watchdogs are yesterday’s bumper-sticker generation of Monkey Wrenchers and Patagonia environmentalists. And the tides have changed: The way we look at dams is different. From the pulse releases of the Morelos, to the “flushing” flows from the Hoover Dam to mimic spring runoff, to the protected in-stream flows, to the new micro-hydropower systems like the one Telluride is installing in the Pandora Treatment Plant to produce 250kW as the water rushes through the plant, there is more care being taken today with the way we use water. The incremental progress being made is slow, just like the pulses of the Colorado River that finally reached the sea. But with some effort maybe the West can also reconnect to nature. \

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OVERNIGHT RIVER TRIPS

BY PADDLEBOARD Inflatable SUPs That Carry Camping Gear and Fit Into a Backpack By Martinique Davis Photos by Melissa Plantz

“It’s pure excitement. Add the element of standing up on a board to going through rapids, and it’s pretty challenging. Your heart’s definitely racing.”

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y six-year-old daughter Elodie is not like most kids in Telluride. She doesn’t ride a bike. She would rather drink hot cocoa than ski. Her legs get tired when we go hiking. She’s not what you’d call a lover of sports, and is happier picking wildflowers or drawing rainbows. So I was surprised at the ease and excitement with which she took to standup paddleboarding, when Telluride-based SOL Paddleboards owner Johnny Lombino took us out to try his new fleet of standup paddleboards (or SUPs). Lombino, a longtime Telluride local known for his ready smile and vast halo of brown curls, seemed as excited as Elodie as she maneuvered the mellow stretch of sundrenched river. “That’s what’s really unique about this sport—anyone can get the hang of it, even on their first day,” Lombino says.

Venturing Out

Once you’re hooked, it’s just a matter of time before you want to start river running with paddleboards, hitting some rapids, taking some overnight trips. That’s what led to Lombino’s creation of the SOL Paddleboard company: He started SOL in 2011 because the standup paddleboards on the market weren’t fit for what he wanted to do with them. An avid kayaker who has spent most of his off-season breaks traveling the world, Lombino had paddled many rivers on multiple-day, self-supported kayak trips, and he wanted to do the same with a paddleboard. And so began Lombino’s journey to create a more ideal paddleboard for overnight river trips. When he wasn’t waiting tables at the Sheridan Chop House, Lombino was working on perfecting his own paddleboard design, a process that took more than two years from conception to realization. He worked with a total of three different raft manufacturers, ultimately settling on a design

and a manufacturer out of Hong Kong that created his ideal SUP—constructed of double-thick sidewalls that resist puncturing by rocks and river debris, and outfitted with extra handles as well as D-rings that allow for gear to be strapped to the board, Lombino had created the ultimate vessel for extended river adventures. So while standup paddleboarding couldn’t be considered a new invention (paddleboarding has Hawaiian heritage that dates back to the 1950s), Lombino has helped create a new application with his innovation. “I designed these with the idea that you should be able to do overnight trips with them, the benefit being that with a paddleboard—compared with a raft—you can load and go pretty easily,” he says. All three sizes (kids’, adult medium, and adult large) are fully inflatable, and when deflated, fit into their own backpack along with a breakdown paddle. A portable backpack, with no heavy metal frame like a raft, no kayak to haul around. “It’s pretty much a one-man show,” Lombino says of preparing for an extended paddleboard trip. Lombino and his girlfriend, Kristen Kull, began taking SOL Paddleboards’ first sample boards out for overnight test runs on regional rivers, like the Lower Dolores from Slickrock to Bedrock, the Colorado from the Dewey Bridge north of Moab to the takeout on Potash Road, Escalante to Whitewater on the Gunnison, and the Colorado’s Ruby Horse Thief Canyon (downstream from Fruita). On their excursions, Lombino and Kull discovered that not only did their paddleboards offer them a new method for river running, but that they could also camp pretty comfortably just with what they were able to strap onto their boards. The added bonus? You can slightly deflate the boards and use them as an air mattress at night. “You can fit everything you need, and can actually eat really well,” says Kull, who has become a master SUMMER/FALL 2014

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at efficiency when packing her dry bag for overnight paddleboard trips. “It’s not like you’re just eating beans and rice—you can bring a lot more food than you think,” Lombino adds, noting that with a payload of up to 300 lbs. on the adult large board, there is almost always space for not-so-essential essentials (like beer and whiskey). Loading the paddleboard with gear actually makes it more stable, making it easier to navigate rapids. And since paddleboards require very little water to float in, Lombino and Kull found that they were able to take trips on rivers in low water conditions that other boaters could no longer access. “Going on an overnight paddleboard trip is a truly special way to get away from it all,” Lombino says, adding that by carrying little more than a few changes of clothes, a sleeping bag, camp stove, water filter, and paddleboard repair kit, you can feel very self-sufficient floating some of the

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Getting on Board

area’s most beautiful and remote areas. Lombino says that Class 2 or Class 3 rapids on a paddleboard are just as exciting as Class 4 in a kayak. “It’s pure excitement. Add the element of standing up on a board to going through rapids, and it’s pretty challenging. Your heart’s definitely racing.”

Telluride’s river-running community has jumped on board with Lombino’s SOL Paddleboards. Two of the town’s gear outfitters, Jagged Edge and Bootdoctors, now carry the paddleboards in their rental and for-purchase fleet. The Telluride Academy, a local non-profit summer camp for kids, offers an SUP camp that exclusively uses SOL Paddleboards kids’ models. And throughout the summer, Jagged Edge, Matt Wilson of Four Corners Whitewater, and Lombino team up to offer an SUP club, with free paddleboard outings and instruction on Tuesday nights on the San Miguel River. For Lombino, sharing his new SOL SUPs with the community is merely an extension of his desire to share his passion for standup paddleboarding with the masses—and even little girls who didn’t know they liked sports. \

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Painting by Eugene Trentham, photographed by Margarita dePagter

HISTORY

WHAT’S IN A NAME? The Story Behind Mount Wilson by Paul O’Rourke

he Telluride Journal’s banner headline on July 2, 1937, couldn’t help but get folks excited: TELLURIDE

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Spectacular Celebration to Be Held on Western Slope … Painting of Mount Roosevelt is Started—Unveiling Ceremonies August 21 and 22.

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am salvage Painting by Eugene Trentham, photographed by Margarita dePagter

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“That which we call a rose— By any other name would smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare state senator from Aspen, because early in the 1937 session Sen. Warren H. Twining’s Joint Resolution No. 16 authorized the naming of Mount Franklin Roosevelt. The resolution didn’t, however, specify which peak was to be so designated, save that it be “of presidential grandeur, an imposing peak which will not … be less than 14,000 feet in elevation.” Colorado Gov. Teller Ammons, a Democrat, gushed, “It’s a swell idea.” And when told Twining’s committee was considering either Mount Wilson or Wilson Peak near Telluride as its choice, the governor said, “No use having two peaks named for the same man.” On May 14, 1937, Mount Wilson was chosen to become Mount Franklin Roosevelt, though Senator Twining conceded he “did not know just what the procedure was in renaming a peak, and that it would have to be worked out with the federal authorities.” First Peek at the Peak Mount Wilson and nearby Wilson Peak, as Governor Ammons suggested, were named for the same person: Allen D. Wilson, chief topographer in one of F.V. Hayden’s survey teams engaged in southwestern Colorado during the summer of 1874. It’s unlikely Wilson and his fellow surveyors—Frederick Endlich, a German-trained geologist, and Franklin Rhoda, assistant topographer and Wilson’s half brother—were aware their climb up (soon to be) Mount Wilson on Sept. 13 had been preceded earlier that summer, and that the leader of that expedition, Lt. William Marshall, working under the command of Lt. George M. Wheeler, had already named it Glacier Point. >>

Sports

Telluride was pulling out all the stops. A golf tournament was to be played on the local course, nationally known radio artists would be entertaining the locals as well as the throngs who were expected to come to town from all over the state, and the local baseball team would play their hated rivals from Silverton at Davis Par. The Opera House was to host an impressive fight card featuring Cactus Pete from Alamosa and local favorite, Chuck Thomas. The Happy Day Rides Carnival would be setting up its carousel and midway. And dancing on both nights would, according to the Journal, “be enjoyed by the younger set in one of the coolest and best ballrooms in the West.” But the main attraction for this late August weekend, taking place as it did in the depths of the Great Depression, was to be the unveiling of an oil painting of Mount Franklin D. Roosevelt—the Journal even hinted that either or both the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, among a host of dignitaries, would be in attendance. And with all the attention on the president and the mountain recently renamed for him, the weekend was sure to boost the town’s prestige, not to mention the local economy. Interestingly enough, the idea for renaming a mountain near Telluride to honor the current president of the United States was the brainchild of a Denver radio personality. Where or why Gene Martin of KLZ News Service (now 560-KLZ) came up with the idea is anyone’s guess. Martin may have felt FDR should have been selected as one of the four presidents to be featured on Mt. Rushmore, whose construction was then underway. In any event, Martin caught the ear of at least one

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HISTORY

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The Hayde

Endlich hoda, and

Since Marshall had been first to name it, how was it that Glacier Point ultimately came to be named for Wilson? A year after the surveys but before the “official” designation had been finalized, it was learned Marshall had achieved only a partial ascent of Glacier Point. Thus, Wilson and his team were credited with being the first to reach the mountain’s summit and may have, as a result, been given preference in its naming. While there was some slight bias given to the names that Hayden and his teams gave to the many peaks they surveyed in southwestern Colorado, Hayden’s 1877 atlas became the most widely recognized authority on western geography during its day. But there is no ready expla52

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survey par

ty, 1874.

nation as to why Glacier Point became nothing more than a footnote in the history books, and Mount Wilson was, well, Mount Wilson. At least, that is, until 1937. The Presidential Painting The Telluride Junior Chamber of Commerce (the Jaycees) had decided—as soon as they’d found out Mount Wilson would be renamed Mount Franklin Roosevelt—an oil painting of the mountain was only appropriate, and delegated the job of commissioning the piece to Paul Shriver, director of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Denver. Shriver recommended a young landscape artist who’d gained a degree

of notoriety by way of one-man shows at the Denver Art Museum in 1934 and 1936. Eugene Trentham arrived in Telluride in late June 1937, and visited several vantage points approximate to Mount Franklin Roosevelt from which he made numerous sketches. Trentham assured his hosts the painting would be completed well in advance of the August celebration.

The Telluride Journal, from where seldom was heard a discouraging word, reported a fine time was had by one and all when it outlined the events staged in Telluride and in front of the San Miguel County Courthouse on August 21–22, 1937. Though neither Franklin nor Eleanor Roosevelt were in Telluride that weekend and “Governor Ammons was too busy with state affairs to leave his office,” the unveiling of Mr. Trentham’s painting was accomplished as planned and with a dramatic flair as might befit what everyone in attendance apparently agreed was “a most wonderful work of art.” The painting of Mount Franklin Roosevelt left Telluride sometime in September; its first stop was to be a month-long stay at the Denver Art Museum. It’s unclear, however, whether the artwork went on what was supposed to be a tour of the nation’s notable art museums before making its final stop at the White House. We do know that in April 1938 the Department of the Interior put a serious damper on what should have been a festive and triumphant trip across the country. The secretary of the interior and the Board on Geographic Names decided Mount Wilson would not and could not be renamed Mount Franklin Roosevelt. The rationale for which was the stipulation that no geographic feature on public lands could be named for someone still living. Apparently, FDR was in agreement with the verdict. Though Mount Wilson was still Mount Wilson as far as the secretary of the interior and the president were concerned, it was Mount Franklin Roosevelt for the good folks in Telluride. The printed program for the Telluride Fire Department’s 1941 Fourth of July celebration featured—as prominently as the peak itself—a photograph of Wilson Peak and “Mt. Roosevelt.”

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The Other Wilson President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, and an advisor to Republican Gov. John Vivian suggested he revisit the Colorado legislature’s 1937 resolution regarding the naming of a mountain for FDR. The Denver Post reported on April 30 that the Governor would “ask the United States board on geographic names to change the designation of Mount Wilson” to what The Post incorrectly called Franklin Roosevelt Peak. The Post reported two weeks later, “Governor Vivian has received dozens of letters from all over the United States protesting changing the name of Mount Wilson to Mt. Franklin Roosevelt.” Apparently the majority of the letter writers objected to the change due to their affection for Woodrow Wilson. The governor, thinking he’d edify the critics, was quoted as saying, “the impressive peak was really named for A.D. Wilson, a member of the Hayden survey in 1864 [sic].” He should have stopped there, but went on to say, “Wilson Peak in San Miguel County was named for Woodrow Wilson.” But heck, what’s in a name? That which we know as Mount Wilson by any other name would stand as tall. Postscript Whether Governor Vivian ever made his request or the Board on Geographic Names in Washington turned him down after he did is unclear. By the summer of 1947, however, The Telluride Tribune had gone back to referring to Mount Wilson as Mount Wilson, and the once grand notion to rename the majestic peak gradually faded from memory. The painting of Mount Franklin Roosevelt was, in all likelihood, returned to the artist after the interior secretary’s ruling in 1938. Trentham left Denver in 1940 and moved to Austin, where he joined the faculty at the University of Texas College of Fine Arts. Trentham died in 1973 and it’s possible the painting passed to family members. Most recently—and in what can only be viewed as wonderful serendipity—a Telluride historian acquired the painting from a Texas collector through an online auction site and returned it to its rightful home. Mount Franklin Roosevelt can now be viewed in the lobby of the Hotel Columbia. \

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TM: Try to recall in detail the first time music changed your life. Q&A

MF: When I was a teenager I won tickets to see this artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson, an incredible reggae poet who was coming to our town. He walked out on stage and read this poem called “Sonny’s Lettah.” I was really moved by this poem. And then the band kicked in behind him and he did the same poem on top of that rhythm. I remember this weight coming across me and my hair standing up on end and my palms sweating. I thought, I want to do that. I want to write songs that make people feel. TM: Was this when you realized that music and activism could be such a powerful marriage? MF: It was a time in my life when I transitioned from listening to just music on pop radio to searching for music myself. I was listening to lots of message-oriented music and was really inspired by it. Both my parents are Finnish Americans and they had three kids of their own, and adopted me and another African American son. I didn’t always feel like I fit in. For me, hearing music that spoke about acceptance and difference and human rights for all people really touched me and meant something to me. TM: You founded the Do It for the Love Foundation in 2013. How did it start and what is its mission?

Do It for the LOVE By Cara Pallone

usician, composer, and poet Michael Franti is a favorite among locals and a regular visitor to Telluride. While in town this past March, he played two sold-out shows at the Sheridan Opera House and performed at other engagements in the community to raise awareness about his wish-granting foundation, Do It for the Love. The organization brings people in advanced stages of life-threatening illnesses, children with severe challenges, and wounded veterans to live concerts. TM: You’ve been to Telluride almost a dozen times. What do you love about this community?

TM: You’re an inspiration to so many people. Who inspires you?

MF: I love the box canyon and the mountains and the visual aspect of it. But it’s also different than the other mountain towns—Telluride has a little more soul to it. When we first started as a band, we spent lots of time in all the mountain towns in Colorado and played at the different ski areas. That’s where we really cut our teeth musically. We’re grateful for the opportunity we had because it really helped us become the musicians we are today.

MF: I’m making a film called 11:59 about three difference-makers I’ve met who have inspired me. One is a midwife in Bali named Robin Lim. Another is a couple named Hope and Steve Dezember. Steve is battling Lou Gehrig’s disease and his wife, Hope, has been taking care of him every step of the way. And the other person is a man in Indonesia named Arief Rabik who is growing sustainable bamboo and compressing it so it can be used like wood. These are three people who really inspire me.

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MF: Last year, we met Steve and Hope Dezember. Steve has ALS [also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease] and only has a few more years to live. His wife contacted me through social media before I was scheduled to perform at the Wanee Festival in Florida. She said it might be the last concert her husband could attend and he wanted to meet me. I met Steve the next day and saw the love he and Hope have. When we invited them out on stage, Steve asked Hope to lift him up out of his wheelchair and they danced in front of 20,000 people. I realized I wanted to do this over and over again. TM: I love how you describe being a part of a person’s life passage through timeless music. What lasting impression do you hope your music leaves on people? MF: At the end of the day, I want people to go away from my music feeling that they can stand a little bit taller and laugh in the face of whatever stress they’re facing and be reminded that there is nothing more important than loving the people we are closest to. TM: What is your favorite question to answer? MF: “What’s for dinner?” My son is going to be coming home from school soon and he’s going to be demanding something quite hearty. Learn more about Do It for the Love Foundation at doitforthelove.org. \

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TELLURIDE FACES

Brenda Colwell

“There’s a lot of waiting around for things like light, but no excuse for waiting around for the camera guy ... you have to be able to move strong and quick or you end up missing shots.”

The Ghost Behind Ghost Media B

rett Schreckengost can be a difficult person to spot. As the man behind the camera, what we usually see first is what he’s seeing— whether it’s a photograph of Ajax Peak as it avalanches or footage of local Greg Hope skiing through fresh powder. This is exactly Brett’s intention: to be the man behind the camera instead 56

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of in front of it. “As a kid,” Brett admits, “I used to hate those family photo sessions at the mall. I still don’t like having my photo taken.” It wasn’t, in fact, until Brett moved to Telluride in 1992 that he really grew interested in photography. “I think I actually got a ‘C’ in my high school photography class,” he confessed. But photography was

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Brett Schreckengost By Emily Shoff what drew him to this box canyon and eventually became his career. “Seeing photos of people skiing in Telluride made me want to live here. I wanted to do the same: live here and capture life with my camera.” Schreckengost got a job at the one-hour photo shop, a now obsolete business that used to be a cornerstone on Telluride’s main

street. “I’d spend hours sorting through photos. I didn’t realize then that I was developing an eye for what works and doesn’t work.” As a fringe benefit for working at the shop, Schreckengost could develop his own photos. In those days, ski magazines wanted only slide film, something that was expensive to process.

His next job, taking photos for the Telluride Daily Planet, helped him to develop that eye and those photography skills even further. Every day, he took dozens of pictures of people skiing, biking, climbing, and living in Telluride. Before the newspaper went out, he had to squint at negatives at the same one-hour photo shop and select the best photos to print. “Sorting through my shots every day forced me to get better quickly.” Meanwhile, he was skiing, hunting, biking, hiking, and trail running in his spare time—skills that also served his career as he traipsed around the mountains, keeping up with the other mountaineers while lugging his heavy camera gear. “There’s a lot of waiting around for things like light, but no excuse for waiting around for the camera guy ... you have to be able to move strong and quick or you end up missing shots.” But Schreckengost always had an interest in film—he loved film’s ability to tell a story. He joined a film project in western Nepal in 1999, but the equipment was so expensive that he was turned off from the idea of making movies for several years. It wasn’t until the recent advent in technology that he’s returned to film. The development in DSLR technology, GoPro cameras, and aerial drone rigs has enabled him to easily and inexpensively capture what he’s wanted to for years: life in the mountains. Now Brett films everything from musicians gearing up for a gig at the Sheridan Opera House to Glider Bob soaring over Telluride. Often he employs his signature style of slow-motion filming, using high-frame-rate cinematography to slow down fast-moving things like snowflakes falling, water moving, or skiers pushing through powder. Going from still photography to video has also put his career in motion. Schreckengost’s video Bronco Super Bowl Spirit in Telluride garnered over 115,000 views on YouTube and won “Best Use of a Video from a Ski Resort in North America” honors. In GoPro’s coveted video/photo of the day contests, he has been selected several times, and GoPro licensed a large collection of his footage. And his two-minute short 64 MPH was selected by Mountainfilm in Telluride for its Adrenaline Program this year. Recently, Marlboro hired Schreckengost to scout for prime locations in Telluride for the company to photograph. While waiting for the official photographers to get their shots, he started filming the cowboys as they crossed the San Miguel River. Schreckengost stayed up most of the night editing the piece. When Marlboro saw the footage the following day, they hired him on the spot. Now he’s crisscrossing the West, doing on-location, behind-the-scene shoots for Marlboro. “I’m not the primary camera man, which is perfect. I get to film the cowboys when they’re not looking and to shoot a lot of the action in super slow motion, which looks amazing.” By playing with speed and light, Schreckengost allows the viewer to get a different look at the subject and taps into the heart of what makes documentary clips memorable. He is also a musician, a bass and ukulele player who studied music theory in high school and played in bands when he was in college. That knowledge helps him to score his videos, he says. “Despite playing for years, I’m not very good. But the one thing that my musical background has helped me with is video editing. The soundtrack is really important to me in my videos and I feel that having an ear for music is really valuable.” The editing—staying up late, piecing together footage—is a creative, grounding outlet for the peripatetic videographer, who is usually out shooting. When he’s not out chasing the perfect shot, or running a river in his 16-foot catamaran, he loves to cook. He’s often the chef at home, and enjoys getting creative with the elk he’s bagged, vegetables from the garden, or foraged mushrooms when cooking for his wife, Corinne. “She’s my muse and my inspiration. And she puts up with my manic work schedule.” And Schreckengost’s career is still rolling. His next goal is to make a feature-length film set in the mountains. “I’ve had an idea for a story for a long time,” he admits, but then in typical ghost style, doesn’t reveal what the story is. We’ll just have to wait and see what story emerges out of the shadows. Until then, we’ll have to get by with the fabulous photos and film shorts Schreckengost offers of life in Telluride. \

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Brenda Colwell

TELLURIDE FACES

Mike Doherty

Expands His Repertoire: Backcountry Outfitter, Coffee Shop Owner

elluride has always nurtured the enigmatic personalities, the creative souls, and the unpredictable people. The box canyon is a place where individuality reigns. Take Mike Doherty for example. He owns a four-season guide company, but mention his name around town and you’ll likely hear more about his intensely 58

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bright and playful allegoric paintings that have graced walls across town since the ’90s. Like many Telluriders, Doherty, a.k.a. “MD Famous Artist,” has multiple sides: He’s an entrepreneur, a painter, a family man, and a person who never takes himself too seriously. Doherty moved to Telluride in 1991 at age 21, armed with a futon,

SUMMER/FALL 2014

MD Famous Artist By Cara Pallone

a mountain bike, and dreams of an art-teacher/ski-bum lifestyle. He had been painting since he was in kindergarten, and when he got to town he immediately enrolled in classes at the Ah Haa School for the Arts. He showed up on time, helped pose models, set up lighting, and was facilitating the class before long. Meanwhile, he worked early

mornings cleaning restaurants. “That freed up my whole life to do laps on 9,” he says with a laugh. In 1993, Doherty had his first art show at the Steaming Bean, a popular coffee shop in the heart of town that keeps the idea of local art alive through monthly exhibits. Last year marked his 20th anniversary of shows at the shop. His work today

“The old joke comes to mind: How do you become a millionaire in Telluride? Start off as a billionaire. To make it here you need to be creative, persistent, and work incredibly hard. To be able to make the guide business work is very rewarding.” is more sophisticated in detail and mainly depicts Telluride scenes. “Prior to that, I was doing everything except Telluride, because I wasn’t really interested in replicating something you see every day.” He says that painting is the easiest way to express an intangible thought or idea. “While painting, I may have hours or days pass without paying any attention to time. I really enjoy color and symbols and I think my personality is found in my paintings: simple, intentional, and fun.” Like the evolution of his art, Doherty’s path to business ownership developed organically. In his 20s, he was persistent about getting a foot in the door with Telluride Snowmobile Adventures at Alta Lakes. After working as a guide, he convinced the owner he should manage the company. And several years ago, he bought the business. His wife Jody was pregnant with Will, their first son, and he says that the role of “provider and husband” really kicked in. “Business to me is a means to sustainability here in Telluride. I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but it is fairly expensive to live here,” he says, grinning. “The old joke comes to mind: How do you become a millionaire in Telluride? Start off as a billionaire. To make it here you need to be creative, persistent, and work incredibly hard. To be able to make the guide business work is very rewarding.” Since taking over the business, Doherty has added a number of activities to the slate, such as ATV, fly-fishing, rafting, and mountain biking tours. Today, it’s all under the umbrella of one name: Telluride Outfitters. “None of us came here to sit in an office, and a lot of people find themselves doing that so they can have their ski break,” Doherty says. “When you can make the outdoors your world, it’s awesome. The outdoors is why we all moved here. To get to call the San Juans around Telluride my stomping grounds is amazing. We live in a National Park that they just happened to build a town in.” These days, instead of laps on Lift 9, he spends more time on the mellow runs off Lift 10 and in the terrain park with his kids. Doherty met his wife, Jody, in 1998 at O’Bannon’s Irish Pub and they married in 2003. Their sons Will and Cole are now 5 and 3 years old, respectively. He says he is lucky to live in a place where he can pass on his love of the outdoor lifestyle to his children. They celebrated Will’s last birthday at the Alta Lakes Observatory, snowmobiling in three-dozen kids and adults to the remote backcountry site. “Where else do you get to do that?” Doherty’s life has come full circle in some ways. This spring, he purchased the coffee shop in Mountain Village Town Hall Plaza. It will serve a dual purpose as a guide shack for Telluride Outfitters and a place where people can enjoy a cup of Steaming Bean coffee. He may even hang his art on the walls. Looking back on his arrival to Telluride with only a few possessions, Doherty is grateful he didn’t know what his future would hold. “It’s more exciting to create it and seize opportunities,” he says. “Everyone comes here to realize what their idea of ‘the dream’ is.” Just as the ski town that has nurtured him the past two decades has seen growth and development, so has Doherty filled in the spaces of his own life. “I’ve grown a lot, too,” he says, and then adds with a laugh: “I’m lucky I’m not still sitting on a bench in front of the Floradora twnety years later.” Success for Doherty is about more than his art shows, his businesses, or playing in the mountains—it’s also about his family, and his friends and their families, the network of people here that make it all worthwhile. He said that after he and Jody settled down in Lawson Hill, they realized that they “were a part of something bigger. Being able to do what you want is awesome, but being able to share it with the ones you love is freedom. Telluride is not an easy place to do it, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way.” To see Doherty’s work, go to www.mdfamousartist.com \

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permittee

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Brenda Colwell

TELLURIDE FACES

The Biculturalist W hen Ursula Cristol moved to Telluride thirteen years ago from her lifelong home of Lima, Peru, it was kind of like stepping into a different universe. She went from being a successful professional at a multinational company in a coastal city of eight million people, to a new wife living on top of Hastings Mesa in the rugged and remote San Juan Mountains. Though she was highly educated and independent, she had never learned to drive, let alone on the windy mountain roads that led to her new home, and since she had 60

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always lived with her parents, as is common in Peru, she didn’t know how to cook. She had never had to walk on ice and had never experienced the harsh winters of high altitudes. “I went from heels and tight jeans to long underwear and boots,” she says. “It was a learning experience, like I was being reborn. It was a big change.” And while Cristol, who was 27 at the time, spoke English, she was so shy that she was terrified to talk to strangers. She remembers waiting in the car while her husband, Jeff, went skiing—too timid to get

SUMMER/FALL 2014

Ursula Cristol

out and have to interact with people she didn’t know, and too scared to use her academic English, which wasn’t strong on conversational nuances like slang and idioms. Today, it’s hard to imagine that version of Cristol, who has become a well-known liaison between the Spanish-speaking population and Telluride’s Anglos and a stable figure in local education scene—where she has done everything from teach Spanish classes to English speakers to work with special-needs students and help Hispanic families enroll their children in pre-school.

By Katie Klingsporn But those early days are not something Cristol has forgotten, especially when it comes to working with parents, families, and individuals who don’t speak English. “I could speak it, and it was hard emotionally, so I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to a person who didn’t speak the language.” Cristol, who has worked for organizations like the Wilkinson Public Library and Uncompahgre Board of Cooperative Services, is currently the Cultural Liaison for the Telluride R-1 School District, where she works with more 60

Spanish-speaking families as a resource and guide. (She prefers the term “family liaison,” she says, “because I want to serve all the families, not only Spanish-speaking families but English-speaking families.”) This year the school district is launching its inaugural bilingual kindergarten class, a new program where students in kindergarten through fifth grade will have the option to learn both languages simultaneously in elementary school. But her history of bridging cultures goes back to her childhood in Lima, where she attended a bilingual Chinese Catholic School. There, she studied Cantonese, English, and Spanish, learned a great deal about Chinese customs through her schoolmates, and began to gain the appreciation for other cultures that has become a big part of who she is. After school, she earned the Peruvian equivalent of a master’s degree in human resources at university and then worked in HR at a company for nine years. Then one day she met a gringo from Colorado named Jeff while she was at the airport on the way to visit her sister. They ended up hanging out in Lima, fell in love, and got married in Lima before moving to Telluride, where he taught her how to drive a stick shift and introduced her to the mountains. Soon after moving here, Cristol was hired as an educational specialist at the San Miguel Resource Center, and not long after that started working at the Wilkinson Public Library as the Spanish outreach program coordinator. She also taught computer classes in Spanish and taught Spanish to English speakers at the Ah Haa School and University Centers of the San Miguel. Eventually she started working with Uncompahgre Board of Cooperative Services as the cultural mediator. In that role, she traveled from Ouray to Ridgway, Telluride, Norwood, and the West End to support Spanish-speaking families in five school districts. She did that for 10 years before coming on at the school district here full time. Through all her various roles here, one thing has remained constant: She has served as an important liaison in the community. She has helped mothers fill out medical forms, facilitated interpretation for Social Services, and guided families in seeking out scholarships or financial aid. She helped organize community events like Papa Noel, worked with students struggling in school, and helped ensure that families with young children get them enrolled in pre-school or kindergarten. A lot of what she does, she said, is connect families to the resources they need. And it’s work that suits her. “I love so much my work, and I love so much to help the families,” she says. “I know that they know I’m here and they feel that they can come and talk to me. They trust me. My role is not to be their babysitter; I want them to be independent, to be self-sufficient.” And bridging cultures isn’t something that Cristol limits to her work. Cristol and her husband have two young boys, Bjorn and Vitaly, and she says they do their best to teach them the importance of learning about, appreciating, and understanding other cultures. The boys are dual citizens, and her older son, who is 5, has been to Peru several times. Cristol and her husband have traveled extensively, and plan to expose their sons to as much of the world that they can—they recently took them to Spain and Germany. The point, Cristol says, is to help them—and all the people she works with in the community—to become not only bilingual, but bicultural. Being bicultural takes more than just speaking two languages, she said. It’s about “being part of and understanding other cultures.” When she thinks back to her own path to biculturalism in Telluride, and to those early years when she was just finding her footing, she says she’s incredibly grateful. “I didn’t know how lucky I was to be able to end up in such an amazing town.” \

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INSIDE ART

Ah Haa Gets Permanent Parking Spot Arts School Pays Off Depot Building

very summer, before the school’s art auction rolls around, the staff selects a classic or vintage vehicle. Then they give it the ultimate makeover, an inspired new look that turns the car, trailer, or motorcycle into more than just a set of wheels—it becomes a collectible, functional, exclusive piece of art. The Art Car is the only auction piece that the winning bidder can ride home in, and each one is a genuine treasure. It’s the same concept that the school applies to its own space: take something historic and classic, and transform it into something functional, beautiful, and special. The Ah Haa School for the Arts was originally located in the historic Stronghouse building when it first opened its doors in 1991. The Stronghouse had been a restaurant, but was empty for a while before the school came in and renovated the space to accommodate classes and exhibits. Less than two years later, the Ah Haa purchased the historic Silver Bell Building and turned it into an arts school, and the Stone Building, which still houses Ah Haa’s prestigious bookbinding academy and some classes. But the Ah Haa School has blossomed over the last two decades, and needed more space to grow. So in 2007 they traded up for—you guessed it—another historic building: Telluride’s Rio Grande Southern Railroad Depot. And this year they made the 62

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train depot a permanent parking spot for the school, paying off the remainder of the $1.5 million loan. “I’m not sure what it is about historic buildings, but the Ah Haa has only operated out of historic buildings,” says Executive Director Judy Kohin. “There’s a special ambiance in these historic spaces, an incredible feeling and energy. So many things have happened in these old buildings … I feel like that energy is really conducive to creativity. Additionally, an historic building requires a lot of hands-on care, and that’s what art making is about.” The purchase was owner-financed by James Loo, who took the Silver Bell Building in trade and forgave a substantial portion of the principal and interest on the Depot loan. Grants from the Telluride Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Boettcher Foundation, as well as numerous other supporters and in-kind contributions helped the school to fulfill its debt two years early. “In true Telluride fashion, the community came together on many different levels to allow us to pay off this debt. It’s hard to fully express the gratitude we have for everyone’s help and support—we couldn’t have done this without you and we are thrilled,” says Kohin. The school has revamped the space, making it ADA accessible, removing the fireplace, creating the Daniel Tucker Gallery, and renovat-

ing the old kitchen into studios. The Depot has almost double the indoor space for classes and exhibits, and the school is also thrilled to finally have outdoor space—a beautiful riverside patio for painting classes, wine tastings, lunch breaks, sculpture classes, and inspiration. Ah Haa has always opened its space to community use, but now they have a much more ideal setting for everything from theatre rehearsals to weddings. “The community is able to use the building for much more than it was used for before,” says Kohin. Kohin says that the organization is focused on being a good caretaker of the historic building. “Historic buildings require an incredible amount of care. We’re going to do an analysis of the building to see what we need to do next, make it more energy efficient, take care of some of the deferred maintenance, create more suitable studio and class space. It’s still evolving.” As the Ah Haa continues to make its imprint on the Depot, just as it does with the Art Cars, it is adding new pages to the history already inherent in the building. Kohin muses that long ago, everyone who arrived in Telluride did so by train. The long journeys that people made to get to this valley inevitably stopped at this building. And now the Ah Haa School for the Arts has done the same—pulled up at the Depot, and settled in its new home. \

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LOCAL FLAVOR

Raising the Bar

Telluride has its own new eponymous treat By Elizabeth Guest

veryone loves a good bar. Not the glass-clinking, whiskey-pouring watering hole type of bar—though those are good, too—but the edible kind that comes out of your pocket at the 3-hour mark on the thirty-second switchback of the Wasatch Trail. Hunger and hiking make a bad combo, but a few bites of a bar gets you up and over the Wasatch saddle with a positive attitude and a satisfied belly. Forget those puce-colored, painfully chewy Power Bars of the 1990s. Today a variety of appetizing, nutritious bars, cute little rectangles in colorful wrapping, secure their own section of the grocery aisle. That’s where a curly-haired woman with reading glasses investigates the finely printed ingredients of one, then picks up another and squeezes its contents as if testing the doneness of a medium-rare ribeye. It’s all part of Chris Newman’s fieldwork. She checks out the competition (or lack thereof) as part of her mission to raise the bar at her WayBack Kitchen. Newman spe64

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“Everybody thinks that when you say something is gluten-free that it’s not going to taste good, but these bars are even better.” cializes in small-batch, gluten-free protein bars. The Telluride Bar is an all-natural snack that promises to boost energy, taste great, and travel intact on any adventure. Since she started selling her bars in 2011, the reviews have been unanimous. “Everybody loves the bars and I’ve never had a bad critique,” Newman admits. “The only complaint is that they’re so good that you always end up eating the whole thing.” Any Telluride connoisseur of bars—and this place has its share of athletes who’ve tried them all— will tell you that if you’re going to name yours after this town, it had better be the quintessential, perfect bar. And it is. Telluride Bar is all about quality, healthy ingredients. Mostly organic, the recipe relies on almonds, honey, peanuts, dates, and pumpkin seeds, as well as sur-

SUMMER/FALL 2014

prises like chocolate hemp protein, sweet and tart cherries, coconut oil, coconut flakes, and vanilla. The result is a moist, wholesome snack that fills you up and makes you feel good. No sugary energy spike and crash, just a slow-burning buzz to tickle your endorphins. For Newman, the bar business started when she switched to a gluten-free diet. She needed something portable and savory at the same time. “I love to cook, so I looked at a ton of recipes and then closed all the books and started experimenting,” she says. “Everybody thinks that when you say something is gluten-free that it’s not going to taste good, but these bars are even better.” There have been some challenges along the way—namely, the shelf life. How do you keep a

bar fresh without using chemical additives or preservatives? Coconut oil was the solution. Experimentation, trial, and error have been key in perfecting the Telluride Bar. “When I went skiing, I’d give someone a bar and see what they thought,” she says. Feedback helped the bars evolve. “I had to make custom molds, and I also had to switch to clear, plastic packaging to allow you to better see what you’re getting—and eating.” Newman, who has lived in Telluride for 32 years, wasn’t looking for a new career—just a better bar. A bookkeeper by trade, she knows the importance of being meticulous and detailed and she applied this to her new endeavor. She does her own quality control. And in the end, Newman is the most important ingredient of any Telluride Bar, because she hand-makes, hand-packages, and hand-delivers to the Coffee Cowboy, the Telluride Gift Baskets, the Dolores Market, and via her website www.proteinbartelluride. “Every bar counts,” she says. “You never know who’s going to pick one up and try one.” She gets some help from her family. Her husband of 28 years, Bob, is the chief taste tester and helps Newman, often while sipping wine, as an aprés ski activity. Daughter Lindsay, 24, manages the Telluride Bar Facebook account and her friends help with graphic design and marketing. Family is integral to Newman—she grew up with four brothers and four sisters in Maine, and her family was always really into cooking. They’ve written and published two cookbooks collectively. And they all seem to approach food the same way, the DIY, from scratch, all-natural method. Her 91-yearold dad still goes out to do his own lobstering, and he earned some unexpected press a couple years back when his boat sank and he rescued himself by swimming in the frozen water to the shore of a nearby island. Newman is hoping her new venture will have the same sort of pluck and success as her nonagenarian father, and be unsinkable. She doesn’t have a complex marketing strategy, and instead has faith that the product will catch on by virtue of how great it is. “Right now it’s all word of mouth for getting the bars out there,” says Newman. “I’m just getting ready for the next step and seeing what’s going to happen.” \

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A Last Look

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Town A climber clips into the “main event” section of the Via Ferrata at the east end of the Telluride valley, as dusk falls and the town lights up below. PHOTO BY BRADEN GUNEM

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WHATEVER YOUR PALATE MAY BE, our tailored menus will serve you. Select from one of three fine establishments and delight in some of the best cuisine in the West. Dine in style at our signature restaurant, the Chop House – world renowned for its dry aged USDA Black Angus. Chef Erich Owen creates our delicious fare using only organic free range fowl, non-threatened fish species and local ingredients. Pair a red or white from Telluride’s only nitrogen wine bar with a scrumptious meal for an unforgettable experience.

FAVORITES FROM BREAKFAST, LUNCH AND DINNER CLASSIC EGGS BENEDICT 14 English Muffin, Canadian Bacon, Poached Eggs & Hollandaise Sauce. Served with Roasted New Potatoes HOUSEMADE WAFFLES 10 Fresh Berries, Whipped Cream, Maple Syrup RUSSET POTATO SOUP 9 Buttermilk Espuma, Oyster Mushrooms PAN SEARED PISTACHIO ENCRUSTED TROUT SPINACH SALAD 15 Warm Bacon, Sherry & Mustard Vinaigrette, Grilled Bread & Poached Egg CAESAR SALAD 9 Parmigiano Reggiano, White Anchovy, Orange Zest & Crostini STEAK TARTARE 16 Smoked Oyster Aioli, Pickled Radishes, Farm Egg, Fresh Horseradish STEAMED PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND MUSSELS 16 Grilled Baguette, Coconut Milk, Lemon Grass, Ginger & Thai Chili

AHI TUNA BURGER 21 Ginger Soy Glaze, Pickled Ginger, Smoked Red Onion PULLED PORK SANDWICH 12 Hickory BBQ Sauce, Coleslaw, Red Onion, Toasted Fresh Baked Bun CHOP HOUSE BURGER 21 Toasted Fresh Baked Bun, Quick Pickles, Ancho Chili Ketchup, French Mustard & Cheese (Blue, Aged White Cheddar, Gruyère) LASAGNA 19 Butternut Squash, Wild Mushrooms, Fried Spinach ROCKY MOUNTAIN ELK SHORTLOIN 38 Sweet Potato Risotto, Pear Chutney, Sage, Apple Chip, Hard Cider Reduction ALASKAN HALIBUT 28 Crab Risotto, Sweet Corn, Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes, English Pea Nage 30 DAY DRY AGED BISON RIBEYE 48 14oz – Grass Fed “Prairie Harvest,” SD PRIME FILET MIGNON 48 10oz – Corn Fed “Stock Yards,” Chicago

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970.728.0808 I tellurideproperties.com 237 South Oak Street @ the Telluride Gondola