ColoradoSeen August 2010 by Andrew Piper

Colorado Seen

August 2010

MOUNT EVANS ODYSSEY

ALSO: WETMORE LIBRARY n DENVER ROLLER DOLLS

Colorado Seen August 2010

HigHway in tHe Sky Rising 3,500 feet through 15 miles of alpine tundra wilderness, the Mt. Evans Scenic Byway is a doorway to a world apart, a place where the landscape, the wildlife, even the air itself are different. 4 ‘Like a Community Living room’ The Wetmore Community Library in the foothils of the Wet Mountains is Colorado’s smallest public library as measured by population served. 22 Roll, Baby, Roll! Combine roller skating with a bicycle pursuit race and a train wreck — and you get the Roller Derby — Colorado-style. 32 Departments From the Editor 2 Out of our past 48 On the cover Under a full moon at dawn, a photographer climbs the trail from the Mt. Evans summit parking lot to the peak.

Young Rocky Mountain goats clamber over rocks in the clouds near the summit parking lot of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, highest paved road in North America.

Prints of ColoradoSeen images are available for purchase - just click this ad

From the Editor Welcome to the new format of ColoradoSeen! Why the switch to a .pdf presentation? Because layout is an important tool in telling stories visually. It allows pictures and words to work synergistically with more flexibility than the hard-and-fast formatting of cascading style sheets and <head1> tags. There are good reasons to keep a web page simple and consistent. But not all stories are best told in slide shows of separate, same-sized pictures, or with a sea of 12-point Times or Verdana headlines, or with identical black or white or gray backgrounds. Variety is good. Two pictures side-by-side can say more than either can alone. The contrast of large pictures against small details can add to the depth of a story. Browser-safe fonts are not always the best choice for capturing the mood and character of every subject. What works well for presenting a portfolio is not ideal for telling a tale. We are making sure to maintain the interactivity of the internet with the story packaging that this format provides — both within the magazine and to outside content. You’ll find some examples already at work in this issue. The best of both worlds.

Colorado Seen

Is a magazine published every month on the internet as a .pdf Editor & Publisher

Andrew Piper

We welcome comments and letters and will publish them in upcoming issues. Our email address is coloradoseen@comcast.net and you can find a contact link on our home page. for consideration, send an e-mail to: coloradoseen@comcast.net

To submit work or story ideas

If you would like to advertise in ColoradoSeen, send an e-mail to coloradoseen@comcast.net for information on rates and interactive links.

HIGHWAY TO THE SKY

Caution! Low shoulder! Taking a curve 13,500 feet high on the Mt. Evans Scenic Byway, this car is already above all but a handful of Rocky Mountain peaks. At the end of the road is a world of — literally — breathtaking scenery.

The north face of the summit begins as a sheer drop and ends more than1,400 feet below at Summit Lake.

sheep’s head appears in my side window, strange satanic eyes considering me, and, as quickly, vanishes. The road climbs.

Story & pictures by Andy Piper

start to notice the thin air about the time I pass 12,700 feet. A ball of cotton begins to form just above and behind my eyes. Small and insubstantial at first, it grows and thickens with the increasing altitude, fine threads spreading across the surface of my mind. I ease up on the gas and my car slows. I can feel that my judgment and reflexes are vanishing along with the oxygen. And this is no place to make a mistake. The highway shoulder on my right is unyielding rock wall. The shoulder on the left drops 600 feet to a tiny lake. My car crawls across the steep face of the mountain, pinned

A Rocky Mountain goat strikes a pose on boulders at the summit parking lot of Mt. Evans. Stone walls mark the remains of a tourist shop. to a narrow strip of pavement. I turn a corner to find a herd of bighorn

sheep blocking the road. They wander among the waiting cars, curious and looking for handouts. A

n all of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico there are just 46 mountain peaks that reach 14,264 feet. The cold and remote summits of 45 are reserved for those few lucky people with the time, the experience, the equipment and the stamina to climb there on foot. But almost anyone can reach the summit of the 46th, Colorado’s Mt. Evans, with a 90-minute drive from downtown Denver. For across Mt. Evans’ vast shoulders climbs the highest paved auto road in North America; Colorado Route 5, the Mt. Evans Scenic Byway. Rising 3,500 feet through 15 miles of

Bighorn sheep mob a car near the end of the Mt. Evans Scenic Byway at 14,000 feet elevation.

The peaks of the Continental Divide cut a ragged edge across the sunset as a couple with their dog explore the western ridge of the summit.

alpine tundra wilderness, this highway to the sky is a doorway to a world apart, a place where the landscape, the wildlife, even the air itself are different. And it is a doorway through which those of us who aren’t climbers can experience and understand the exhilaration of altitude that draws the true mountaineers to the high places of the world.

t 12,834 feet I pass Summit Lake, a luminous jigsaw puzzle of green water and bluewhite ice as it thaws in the summer sun. At 13,500 feet I am switchbacking up the 1,400-foot rock pyramid of the summit. There are no trees to block the view - they can’t grow in the thin air and permanent chill above 12,000 feet. The vistas are all to the south: distant Pikes Peak; the rolling valley of South Park; and far, far away, the Sangre de Cristo mountains, stretching into New Mexico. A small black silhouette by the side of

the road resolves into a golden marmot, curious about the passersby. A turn, and the rugged 14,060-foot tower of Mt. Bierstadt, Mt. Evans’ little brother, rises across an alpine canyon. Another turn, and a tiny dome juts almost overhead from the summit crags 600 feet above — the University of Denver’s astronomical observatory. And always, receding lower and lower, the ranks of the Rocky Mountains, now almost entirely beneath my wheels. Finally, at 14,130 feet, I pull into the parking area below the peak. Still giddy in the thinning air, I choose the parking space nearest to the summit path. It’s only a foot higher than the others. But it tickles me to know that, at least for an hour or so, my little sport utility will be the highest car on the continent.

he Mt. Evans road was started in 1915 as part of a peak-to-peak highway connecting Mt. Evans with the top of 14,255-foot Longs Peak,

Mt. Evans

14,264 ft above sea level Mt. Bierstadt 14,060 ft.

Summit Lake 12,834 ft.

The Mt. Evans Scenic Byway (Colorado Highway 5) climbs 3,500 feet in 15 miles through alpine tundra wilderness. Ending at 14,130 feet in a parking lot below the mountain summit, it is the highest paved highway in North America

Mt. Goliath 12,216 ft. Mt. Goliath Research Nature Area 11,540 ft.

Photographer Bob Walker frames a picture from an outcrop 1,300 feet above the frozen surface of Summit Lake. By the end of summer (left) the lake is ice-free, although snow still fills ravines on the shaded north face of the mountain peak. 11

“P

ikes Peak is 14,110 feet high. Our road ends at 14,130 feet. Even if you paved Pikes Peak all the way to the top, it would still be lower than our parking lot.” Forest Service Ranger Larry Knaff

50 miles to the north. But after ten years of work, the rest of the project was abandoned, leaving only the 15 miles on Mt. Evans as the ‘highest paved auto road in North America.’ But is there some higher, unpaved, nonauto road? “Actually, we’re pretty sure this is the highest road of any kind,” says Forest Service Ranger Larry Knaff. “We just can’t prove it. We know for certain it’s the highest paved road.” But what about that other road - the one on Pikes Peak, the one where they race cars? It’s only gravel, but it’s a lot more famous. Knaff laughs. “Pikes Peak is 14,110 feet high. Our road ends at 14,130 feet. Even if you paved Pikes Peak all the way to the top, it would still be lower than our parking lot. “Pikes Peak gets over a half-million visitors a year. We get about 150,000. We have better wilderness, better wildlife, better altitude, fewer people, and a heck of a lot better road.”

he parking lot lies in a saddle of the mountaintop, tucked between the true summit and the secondary peak that holds the observatory. The observatory is here for a simple reason - it can be reached by car, and it is above 40 percent of the world’s

A golden marmot peers out from a crevice in the rock pile that forms the summit of Mt. Evans. At left, a mountain goat sheds his heavy winter coat. The sheer rock wall of neighboring Mt. Bierstadt forms the backdrop. star-obscuring air. And my body and brain really notice that missing 40 percent. That ball of cotton is still blurring my thinking. I stare at my familiar camera in confusion, wondering why the exposure counter seems to be stuck on ‘30’. It isn’t until the film jams at the end of the roll that I realize my oxygen-starved mind has been trying to count the remaining pictures by looking at the shutter speed display. Auto engines feel the effects of the thin air, too. 40 percent less oxygen means 40 percent

less horsepower. But most cars can still make the climb to the mountaintop. I’ve seen everything in the summit parking lot; a Porsche Boxster, a lowslung Ferrari, even a VW microbus from the ’60’s. I did notice, however, that the VW took quite a while to get started when its owners were ready to leave. Beside the parked cars rise three stark walls built of pink mountain granite. They look like ruins from an ancient pre-Columbian culture. But they are really just the remains of a snack shop destroyed

by fire in 1979. Rocky Mountain goats scramble through the ruins and over the summit boulders in their search for food. With brilliant white fleece and black shoe-button eyes, they are easy to distinguish from the gray-coated, yellow-eyed bighorn sheep. Sometimes the goats seem to be eating the mountain itself, pawing at the ground and licking the loosened earth. “That means they’ve found salt,” Knaff says. “One time I was clearing ice away from the shelter by Summit Lake — I put down a little salt to melt it, and before I could get back to my truck I was surrounded by 20 or 30 goats. They smelled that salt all the way up on the ridge.”

begin the 134-foot ascent to the summit. I’ve made this climb in late May or early June, when the switchback trail is buried under four feet of snow, using ski poles for balance on the uncertain surface, and gasping for air after every step. And on those days, wrapped in cold mist, the other climbers nothing but black dots against the white landscape, I’ve felt a hint, just the barest inkling, of what it must be like to struggle up that last ridgeline to the summit of Everest. But today the sun 13

Three mountain goats hang out together in the afternoon sun 13,800 feet up the south face of Mt. Evans.

has cleared the path, and after a short and breathless hike, I’m at the top. Here there are no limits to the vistas — everything is down. There is the road we’ve climbed, snaking across the ridgeline more than a thousand feet below. That little puddle is Summit Lake. Denver is a distant blur on the plains. A worn brass survey marker on the highest rock tallies the altitude — 14,264 feet. Another 250 feet, and I would be exactly half as high as 29,028-ft. Everest. I find a lone figure sitting beside the survey marker. Terry Hollis is catching his breath and watching the afternoon shadows spread across the face of the lake. “I was visiting friends near Vail, and they told me I just had to see this on my way back to Denver,” says Hollis. “This is truly amazing. I’ve been coming to Colorado to ski for years, and I never knew this road was here.” Hollis is from Dallas, Texas. On this August day his home town is sweltering through a second week of temperatures over 100, but here, where the summer sun competes with cold mountain winds, it is barely 60.

t. Evans has four seasons; June, July, August and winter. Snowplows begin opening the road in early May, but it takes most of the month to clear the 30-foot snowdrifts from the entire 15 miles. The road is usually open all the way to the summit by Memorial Day, although this varies with the weather and 16 the depth of the snow

Is it the view, or just the altitude? Something reinforces the romantic impulse for couples visiting the Mt. Evans summit. At right,Terry Hollis watchses shadows creep across Summit Lake from the very top of Mt. Evans. A brass survey marker by his knees tallies the altitude — 14,264 feet. Baby mountain goats skip and frolic across the rocks around the summit, exploring their new world, while their parents forage for food, their winter coats peeling like the ragged clothes of some Siberian vagabond.

Early morning sun illuminates a scenery pointer at the summit parking lot as the highway decends across the ridges in the background. pack. In early June most of the mountaintop is still locked in a wintry embrace. Summit Lake is invisible beneath a sheet of ice and snow, and the peak itself is at its most Himalayan, the rocks and

path buried under deep cornices of snow. In late June and July, the mountain spring begins. Delicate tundra plants form a green carpet patterned with tiny blossoms; purple, white, red and yellow.

ut even in July snow can fall on the summit, and occasionally close the road itself. “The reason the road closes if there’s a snowfall of any size is that we don’t use any chemicals to keep it clear — to protect the wilderness and the wildlife,” Knaff explains. “If it gets a little too slick for safety, we put up the ‘road closed’ signs and let it melt naturally.” In August, what passes for summer comes to the mountain. Snow lingers in the north-facing crevices, but sunlight and temperatures near 60 melt the rest. Groundhog-like golden marmots peer from sheltered niches beneath the summit boulders, or stand upright along the side

The twisted skeleton of a bristlecone pine catches dawn light just below the tree line at the Mt. Goliath Research Natural Area.

of the road, watching the cars pass. The shrill squeaks of pikas echo across the mountaintop. These small rodents, like baby rabbits with short mouse ears, are often visible guarding their territories from atop the rocks along the summit footpath. By late August summer is waning. Freezing nights paint the green ridges a rusty autumn brown, and the coats of the goats and sheep begin to grow long. The pikas are at their most active, hastening to fill their rocky burrows with an edible insulation of tundra grass before the nine-month winter descends. The road between Summit Lake and the mountaintop closes after the Labor Day weekend. The rest of the road closes with the first snowfall, sometime before the end of September.

bristlecones, and turns their tortured trunks into writhing flames that soar against the crystalblue western sky.

The University of Denver has an astronomical observatory acros the parking lot from Mt. Evansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; main peak. The thin air and remoteness from city lights make for prime viewing conditions.

lthough the peak of Mt. Evans is truly the peak of the whole mountain experience, there are other attractions along the 15 miles of road. A footpath follows the shoreline of Summit Lake over the tundra. It ends at a great notch carved in the mountainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s north ridge, which frames a spectacular view into the valley of the Chicago Lakes, rimmed by sheer thousand-foot rock walls. The Mt. Goliath Research Natural Area touches a curve in the road at the treeline, where the firs and spruce give up their struggle against the

A low sun turns the white coat of a mountain goat to gold as it stands amid the rocks that forms the final summit of Mt. Evans. fierce mountain environment. Amid a natural rock garden of pools and grasses and the first of the tundra flowers stand the last and hardiest trees, the bristlecone pines. Their shapes twisted and flagged by winter winds, the bristlecones

have survived the elements on this spot for ages. The oldest have been alive for more than 1,500 years. Facing east towards Denver and the Plains, Mt. Goliath is especially beautiful at dawn. The rosy alpenglow of the rising sun catches the

cold wind rushes across the summit as the sun sets. I hurry back to the car and start the drive down in the fading light. But the mountain has one last surprise to offer. Suddenly a snowstorm swirls over the road â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a snowstorm of moths. They bang against my windows and bounce across the car hood. In my headlights their wings leave flickering trails like silver Chinese dragons. I slow to a crawl as the road vanishes in a blizzard of fluttering insects, and along the shoulder scurrying mice appear to feed on the furry dead bodies that fall to the pavement. All through the 15-mile descent the mothstorm fades away and reappears, again and again. The moths seem to congregate in bands only at certain elevations, preferring one altitude over another for some mothy reason known to no one but themselves. Only when I reach the treeline do they finally disappear for the last time, unwilling (or unable) to leave the beautiful desolation of the mountain and follow me down, into the far more comfortable but far less intoxicating world of trees and people - and air. n 19

A couple share the sun’s last rays on Mt. Evans’ summit. Colorado’s paired “Fourteeners” Grays and Torrey’s Peaks form a double pyramid on the far horizon.

Colorado’s Smallest Libraries: Wetmore

‘LIKE A COMMUNITY LI

Josh Sturtevant, 6, looks through a book about sharks in the Community Library of Wetmore, Colorado as he selects reading to take on a family vacation. 22

IVING ROOM’

Story & pictures by Andy Piper

Library volunteer and library board chairman) Carolyn Schellenberger updates lists of library patrons.

Library visits and transactions are tallied by hand according to age. Tuesday was a busy day - five adults and 24 three teens came in.

t’s called Hardscrabble Creek — this small stream running northeast out of the Wet Mountains in a remote corner of Custer County. As it winds towards the Great Plains, it descends into a small valley. And there, under spreading cottonwoods amid a handful of dwellings, sits a true hardscrabble endeavor — an abandoned schoolhouse in the process of becoming the Wetmore Community Library. Low blackboards still line the walls of dark

empty classrooms — except in two, where the lights are on, and the walls are not covered by blank gray slate, but by colorful books. Carolyn Schellenberger, library volunteer and chairman of Wetmore’s Library Board, sits at a child-sized table in the fiction room, updating a list of library patrons. This day, it lists 391, “but some of them aren’t here any more, in body or spirit,” says Schellenberger. That’s what makes the Wetmore library the smallest public library in Colorado, measured by population served. “The community’s about 900, but it’s scattered. We’re rural, so

A glass jar for donations sits hopefully on the checkout desk.The library also receives support in the form of Colorado Lottery recreation funds distributed by Custer County, and most of the furnishings were donated or built by local families.

Director Davenport’s daughter Rachel, 16, kicks back in a foam seat, reading a C.S. Lewis novel with her feet in the air.

At right, a partons dog looks hopefully in at the library door and is eventually allowed to visit his master at the computer terminals. “We’re not trying to be like the bigtown libraries,” says Schellenberger

it is mostly farms and ranches,” says library director Nan Davenport, the sole paid employee.

chellenberger recounts how the library got its start. “They have a lovely library in Westcliffe, but we just felt we needed the services of a library down here, without people having to drive all the way through the mountains. “So we just went to the county commissioners and started begging.” ’There’s no way we can pass a library bond in this area - what can you

do for us?’ “After a couple of years, they started out giving us $1,000, and they have increased it gradually, but it’s not county budgeted funds — it comes from the Colorado Lottery’s recreational fund.” Across from Schellenberger beneath the windows, children’s books stand upright in bunk-bed-like rollaway shelves. “Those were built for us by one of our patrons,” says Schellenberger. Patrons drift in. Director Davenport’s daughter Rachel, 16, kicks back in a foam seat, reading a C.S. Lewis novel with her feet in the air.

“We know everyone that comes in - we know what kind of books they like,” says Schellenberger. “And the things that we feel like they are most needful of are the things that we concentrate on.”

As library director Nan Davenport holds a reading hour with Josh and Jessica Sturtevant. their mother Joanna (far right) checks out books to herself for a family summer road trip.

“This is basically the hub of Wetmore,” says Schellenberger of the library, where a lost and found note adorns the bulletin board Sandy Bohna surfs the web on one of the library’s two computers — her dog Marcus sits outside the library door looking soulful until he is allowed a visit indoors

he Sturtevant family, Joanna, with her children Jessica, 11, and Josh, 6, stop in to pick up a summer’s worth of reading for vacation — and a reading hour with Nan Davenport. The kid’s first stop is the non-fiction room, where they are drawn to books about sharks and dinosaurs. “When we spend 28 our book budget we

know everyone that comes in — we know what kind of books they like,” says Schellenberger. “We’re not trying to be like the big-town libraries — we’re here to serve the people of this community.” In a reversal of roles, Joanna Sturtevant checks out her own books — while librarian Davenport snuggles down to read to Josh and Jessica. Then, after a friendly discussion of the family’s travel plans, Davenport walks out to the car with the Sturtevants. “This is basically the hub of Wetmore,” says Schellenberger. To which Davenport adds, “Our dream is to have this like a community living room.” n

Holding her boxload of books, (below) Joanna Sturtevant discusses her familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vacation plans with Davenport while Jessica kicks her heels impatiently.

Library director Nan Davenport gives Jessica Sturtevant a hug at the library door as the Sturtevant family leaves with their box of vacation reading. 30

ROLL, BABY, ROLL!

Combine roller skating with a bicycle pursuit race and a train wreck — and you get the Denver Roller Dolls’ version of 21st-century Roller Derby

Story & pictures by Andy Piper

“One

Minute To Bout!,” intones the computerized announcer’s voice at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado. “One Minute To Bout!” Colored spotlights sweep the arena, and the tension builds as referees and scorekeepers roll into the center of the track and take up their positions. And then, with the crowd roaring and the arena walls refelcting the flashes from hundreds of cell-phone cameras, the teams of the Denver Roller Dolls roller derby league pour onto the floor, ready to start another Saturday night full of mayhem and hell — on wheels. This is roller derby. But it isn’t your mother’s — or your grandmother’s — roller derby.

ack in the 20th century, Roller Derby (note the capitals) began as a Depression-era live entertainment. Impresario Leo Seltzer first staged a “marathon” rollerskating race of male/ female pairs in 1935 on a banked track at the Chicago Coliseum. Taken on the road, the event began drawing crowds 34 of 10,000.

With the focus of a laser beam, jammer ‘Berlin Brawl’of the Shotgun Betties dodges a block by ‘Elle Yeah’ (#45) of the Green Barrettes during an intramural Roller Dolls bout.

A stint in the penalty box brings no sorrow to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Angela Death,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; one of the founding skaters of the Denver Roller Dolls.

The Roller Dolls ‘Crash Dance’ (#1982) moves to block a jammer for the Texas Rollergirls in an intercity bout. Roller Derby team logos — the Rollergirls’ blood-red chainsaw murderer or the Green Barrettes pink hand-grenade — make NFL mascots such as Denver’s Bronco look — well — tame. Supposedly, it was writer Damon Runyon (author of Guys and Dolls) who pointed out to Seltzer that the biggest “draws” of the event were the collisions and other accidental (and not-so-accidental) physical contact. So Seltzer reshaped the event into a pursuit race, with two teams of five skaters throwing elbows and hips to score points by passing one another. The spectator sport, still consisting of paid professionals on a banked track, drew crowds totalling five million in 1940, and debuted on TV in 1948. Viewership peaked at 15 million weekly in 1969 — but the oil crisis and other economic woes of the early 1970’s finally ended Seltzer’s and Roller Derby’s 35-year run.

ntil 2000, when yet another attempt at

Grrrls just wanna have fun At left, ‘Minimum Rage’s’ helmet apology seems a little insincere. Track nicknames express the ‘attitude’ of Derby skaters. A few more from the Roller Dolls’ lineup: Angela Death Bea Ware Elle Yeah Fonda Payne Bijou Blacnbleu Deadly Long Legs Primal Rage Crash Dance Wicked Sister Rock Scar Kendra Blood Boo Boo Radley Dharma Geddon Vinyl Trax Bria Fraid Eva Doom Lynnsane Kimmy Kimmy Bang Bang Honey Punches of Throats

Flat-Track Roller Derby: How it works Competitions between teams are called bouts. Each bout is two 30-minute periods made up of jams lasting up to two minutes, with 30 seconds between jams to line up for the next jam. Each team fields five skaters: a jammer — and a pack of three blockers and a pivot. The essence of the jam is a pursuit race. To start, the pack lines up on the pivot line. The jammers line up on the jammer line 30 feet behind. At the first whistle, the pack begins skating. When the entire pack has passed the pivot line, a second whistle starts the jammers in pursuit. Once both jammers have passed through the pack, they score points each time they again pass an opposing skater. The first jammer to pass the pack legally also gains the status of lead jammer for the duration of the jam, and can end the jam at any time by clapping her hands to her waist. Players can be sent to a penalty box for one major or four minor rule violations — illegal blocks, fighting, or gaining position by skating outof-bounds. When one team is short of skaters due to penalties, the opposing team benefits from a power jam.

Lead jammer

Officials

Jammer line

30 feet

Jammers are the key offensive players for each

team, scoring all the team’s points. They are identified by stars on their helmets. There is one jammer per team per jam, but during the jam jammers can hand off their role to their pack’s pivot skater by swapping helmets. And jammers are substituted between each jam. Jammers have to be fast and sure-footed —but size is not a requirement. Big jammers can use size to force their way through the pack — but small jammers can duck and swerve through gaps in the defense.

Penalty box

Pivot line

The block is the pack’s essential defensive or offensive tool — using skating agility and body position to cut off skaters of the other team. But elbows can’t be used to block, or hook opposing skaters. Above, “Kimmy-Kimmy Bang-Bang” of the Roller Dolls blocks an opposing jammer with a little hip and skate work. The pack

skaters are scoring targets for opposing jammers — but they also contribute offensively and defensively by blocking to make openings in the pack for their own jammer and impeding the opposing jammer. The pack must remain together. A skater who gets separated by more than 20 feet cannot block until she rejoins the pack The pivot, with striped helmet cover, can take over the jammer’s role during the jam. At left, Bad Apples co-captain “Fonda Payne” (#90) gives last-minute instructions to her team’s pack before the start of a practice jam.

As a skater whips past in the spotlight, VIP fans on a trackside sofa cheer the start of a bout.

In a chilling sequence, ‘Disco’, jamming for the Green Barrettes, drops to the track writhing with pain after taking a helmet to the face. A fellow skater from the audience and a teammate rush to help as the other skaters — even the refs — drop to one knee as a sign of sympathy and respect. Fortunately, Disco was not seriously hurt and by the end of the match — ice pack in hand — was able to watch a replay of the incident on a fan’s cell phone.

reviving professionalized roller derby — there were several throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s — failed. The disappointed skaters decided not to give up, and formed their own all-female, non-profit league. By 2005, when the Denver Roller Dolls league was founded, there were 50 leagues nationwide, most skating 42 on flat tracks, which

require less investment and more flexibility in venues than banked tracks. Now, there are over 160.

ive teams comprise the Roller Dolls: three intramural teams, the Green Barrettes, The

Shotgun Betties, and the Bad Apples; and two all-star teams that skate against the best competition other cities can provide, Bruising Altitude and the Mile High Club. Fifty-two (more or less - rosters are always in flux) skaters with just two things in common — they are female, and they have attitude. “Our league is

definitely pretty diverse, says Julie ‘Angela Death’ Adams, one of the skaters who founded the Roller Dolls in 2005. “We’ve got a lot of different body types, different shapes and sizes. That’s one of the cool things about roller derby — you don’t have to be a giant amazon woman to excel.” Adams is proof of that. Barely topping 5

feet tall, she is one of the powerhouse “jammers” for the Barrettes and Mile High Club. She routinely racks up double-digit scores during two-minute jams by scooting low through the knees of the opposing pack and barreljumping over debris cluttering the track after collisions (read — fallen skaters). Roller derby today is

a new mix of spectator sport (the Dolls draw big crowds to the 1stBank Center) and non-professional fun. “We have all sorts of awesome women in our league, from teachers and executive assistants to piercers and wait staff,” says Adams. Also pilots, videographers, project managers and census workers. Anyone with a yen to

skate competitively. Oh, who won the bout? If you must know — the Barrettes beat the Shotgun Betties; the Betties ran over the Bad Apples; and the Apples slaughtered the Barrettes. But if you’re having fun skating and making mayhem — does it really matter?

Extras See a video

from a Denver Roller Dolls intramural bout

Practice makes perfect Go behind the scenes at a Roller Dolls practice session

Roller Dolls wannabees flaunt their skating ambitions from the stands. Below, ‘Crash Dance’ and ‘Wicked Sister’ of the Bad Apples intramural team go low and wide to maintain balance in a corner.

At the end of a bout, a Green Barrettes skater claps hands with trackside fans while taking a victory lap.

Out of our past: August 25, 2008

Handcuffed and videotaped, Rory Gravell of Salem, Oregon was detained at the corner of Champa St. and the 16th Street Mall after law enforcement officers broke up a verbal confrontation 48 among protesters during the Democratic National Convention. Photo by Andy Piper

Colorado Seen