SUMMER 2010
CRESTEDBUTTEMAGAZINE.COM j COMPLIMENTARY
If you’ve spent much time here, you know that Crested Butte is a unique and wonderful place. The brokers at Red Lady Realty have deep roots in the community, and the experience to assist you in finding the perfect home or property. They’re also eager to share their knowledge of the area, to help you learn the ins and outs of life in the Butte.
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in the Butte
Doug Kroft
Jackie Ingham
Joe Garcia
Molly Eldridge
BROKER GRI/OWNER 209-0373
BROKER ASSOCIATE 349-5007
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BROKER ASSOCIATE 596-6633
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BROKER ASSOCIATE 901-4251
Crested Butte’s Oldest Real Estate Company
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BROKER ASSOCIATE 275-2448
Kathy Hooge OFFICE MANAGER 349-5007
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REACH NEW HEIGHTS AT THE
ADVENTURE PARK
Photos: Tom Stillo
Located at the ski base area, it features bungee trampolines, rock climbing tower and a new mini golf course.
CRESTED BUTTE ADVENTURE PARK
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ridecb.com
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Get everything from single activity tickets to a variety of packages at the Adventure Center in the courtyard at Mountaineer Square. (970)349-2262 Private parties available, call for details. Open daily 9:30 – 5:30 weather permitting.
Inspire your passion.
TM
in e paradis
5 CrestedButteMagazine.com K B U T
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Forum
Long story short
8 LEGEND OF THE BLUE STONES
16 HEEDING THE CALL OF HAITI by Shelley Read
11 THE ADVENTURE OF HOME
13 THINKING LOCAL
by Sandy Fails
by Molly Murfee
by Shelley Read
18 MIKE EHREDT’S RUN OF COMPASSION 20 THERAPY IN THE SADDLE
by Dawne Belloise
by Erin English
23 LETTERBOXERS HIDE AND SEEK IN PARADISE
by Dawne Belloise
25 WORDS: WRITERS, READERS AND RIDERS CONNECT 27 SCARE THAT BEAR 29 SAD ASPENS
by Sandy Fails
by George Sibley
30 NEWS FOR THE CULINARY AND PERFORMING ARTS 32 MOUNTAIN BIKE HERITAGE: “GROWN-UPS ACTING LIKE KIDS” 34 STELLAR GLIMPSES AT GUNNISON’S OBSERVATORY 35 ENDORPHIN-FEST AT HARTMANS
by Luke Mehall
38 RICKY SANDOVAL, RENAISSANCE TEEN
by Laura Puckett
42 RAYNOR CZERWINSKI, PHOTO CONTEST WINNER photos this spread > 1,2, 3 > alex fenlon 4 > nathan bilow 5 > brooke warren 6 > xavier fane
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Features 43
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THE OTHER COVERS We just had to use these Cover Photo Contest finalists somewhere.
by Rachael Gardner | Emily Post needs a new category to encompass Crested Butte’s not-quite-by-the-book weddings.
49 “HOW COULD YOU TURN THEM AWAY?” by Rachael Gardner | New York immigrants Tim and Terry Bonney didn’t plan to share their home with horses, mules, llamas, sheep, dogs, cats and birds, but now they wouldn’t have it any other way.
52 CASTING THEIR FATE
by Erin English | To the valley’s fanatics,
fly-fishing is science, art, even religion.
60 RARE BIRDS
MOUNTAIN MATRIMONIALS
by Dawne Belloise | Hang-gliders and paragliders soar
with their winged brethren in the ever-changing skies around Crested Butte.
67 TALES OF A FORMER CAMP DOGGER
by Brooke Murphy | Campfire spoon music, homemade whiskey, buffalo meatloaf and calico bloomers turn a curiosity-seeker into a Rendezvous regular.
71 ONE STEP AT A TIME by Laura Puckett | Reshaping our culture may be a long haul; but dynamo Nordic ski coach and ultra-marathon runner Duncan Callahan specializes in long hauls.
81 A TRIBE AND ITS TOTEM by Sandra Cortner | How a motley, fun-loving crew created Crested Butte’s first interactive public arts installment 37 years ago.
87 BLUEGRASS IN PARADISE
by Shelley Read | The Crested Butte
Music Festival gets grassy.
91 A HOUSE OF MANY STORIES
by Sandra Cortner | With its energy innovations, reclaimed materials and design inspired by a miner’s tale, the Tipple House goes for character and ingenuity over ostentation.
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CALENDAR/PHOTO ALBUM
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LODGING GUIDE
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DINING GUIDE
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PHOTO FINISH
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Vol. XXXII, No. 1 Published semi-annually by Crested Butte Publishing
PUBLISHERS | Steve Mabry & Christopher Hanna EDITOR | Sandy Fails ADVERTISING DIRECTOR | MJ Vosburg GRAPHIC DESIGN Keitha Kostyk
WRITERS Dawne Belloise Sandra Cortner Erin English Sandy Fails Rachael Gardner
Luke Mehall Molly Murfee Brooke Murphy Laura Puckett Shelley Read George Sibley
PHOTOGRAPHERS
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Dawne Belloise Nathan Bilow Sandra Cortner Raynor Czerwinski Dusty Demerson Xavier Fané Alex Fenlon Paul Gallaher Kevin Krill Luke Mehall
Brooke Murphy Rob O’Dea Kosmon Parran James Ray Spahn Tom Stillo Mike Tittel Brooke Warren Rebecca Susan Weil
photo > xavier fane
COVER PHOTO | Raynor Czerwinski ONLINE | crestedbuttemagazine.com
Editor’s note
E-MAIL | editor@crestedbuttemagazine.com
Keeping in virtual touch
SUBSCRIPTIONS
plenty of that in this issue’s new “Forum” section. Instead, I’ll raise a quick toast
Crested Butte Publishing P.O. Box 1030, Crested Butte, CO 81224 970-349-7511 • $8/year for two issues
I typically indulge in a little philosophy and awe in the editor’s note, but you’ll find to the fascinating people and stories this town holds and then pass on some practical information.
ADVERTISING 970-349-6211 E-mail: advertising@crestedbuttemagazine.com
VISIT OUR WEBSITE. Whether you live here, visit here or wish you were here, you
Copyright 2010, Crested Butte Publishing. No reproduction of contents without authorization by Crested Butte Publishing.
find the current magazine, archived issues, photo galleries, dining and lodging
might enjoy wandering around www.crestedbuttemagazine.com. There you’ll information, staff bios and the editor’s blog. In the blog, I comment on life in Crested Butte, including updates to some of the stories you’ll see in these pages. I’d love to read your comments as well. SEE THE PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS. The vivid landscape by Raynor Czerwinski on the front of this issue was chosen from the Crested Butte Magazine Cover Photo Contest held this spring. You can view some of the finalists in the “Other Covers” photo spread. Our thanks to all who submitted their shots for the contest. What amazing photographers we have in this valley! May you enjoy these pages and the wonders of Crested Butte. — Sandy Fails, editor
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Forum
My son Owen first heard about the legend of the blue stones from his friend Kaia when they were both five years old. She had heard it from her friend Nori, who had heard it from Dylan, who had heard it from Eli, who had actually found one of the elusive turquoise-painted stones and showed it off at playgroup. photo > paul gallaher
Some kids believed the blue stones hidden all around the upper end of the valley brought good luck; others believed them to be endowed with magical powers so mighty as to be the envy of Dumbledore himself. They heard from their friends that the stones were dispersed by fairies or
If you want to know what is special about
stone after it is found, but Owen brings each
leprechauns or glitter-winged angels. Some
a place, ask the children. They know a
one home to be admired and exhibited.
said the stones came alive at night and slyly
lot that adults do not, prone as we are to
He can read their words of wisdom now—
hid themselves. Some believed they were
obliviousness. As we rush directly from point A to point B, our minds a tangle of past and
“cherish” and “celebrate” and “represent”—
fallen stars. One part of the legend they all agreed upon: the blue stones were meant for
plans and problems, any kid will tell you,
the children alone; adults were not to touch
we’re bypassing all the good stuff. I had
them, if they were able to see them at all.
lived two decades in Crested Butte without
Owen began his quest for a blue stone
noticing the blue stones or being privy to
with a Galahadian tenacity. He peered
the imaginative genius of their legend.
under Elk Avenue benches, crawled on his
Once my son and his friends taught me
hands and knees around the base of the
about the rocks, I began to more slowly and
cups one in his palm like a golden egg and
big pine by the post office, pawed through
patiently walk through town with them so
replies, “Because of the kindness of the guy
the pansies in the downtown planter boxes.
that they might search nooks and crannies.
or lady who paints the rocks and hides them.
One afternoon as he and Kaia leaped from
Even when not trailing a troop of kids, I
That person makes a lot of children happy.”
the swings in the Crested Butte South park
sometimes find myself strolling at that calm
So, although I am a grown-up and I
and raced to the top of the slide, I heard it:
pace and keeping an eye out for flashes of
fully get that it’s not really about me, I’d
the unabashed thrill of five-year-old victory.
turquoise. The blue stones silently lurking
nevertheless like to add a theory of my own
“Treasure!” he shouted, holding his fist
all about and the idea that a mysterious
triumphantly above his little blonde head,
citizen paints and hides them to add a touch
to the ever-evolving legend of the blue
tiny patches of turquoise glowing between
of magic to our children’s lives reminds me
his grubby fingers. Kaia squealed with
that small acts of kindness really do matter,
delight at his side as if he had just won
that it is often the most simple and heart-felt
Olympic gold. Owen shot down the slide
gestures that beautify the world. And it also
and into my arms. When he unfurled his
makes me love this town just a little bit more.
hand, the painted stone read “Believe,”
My son is seven years old now, and he has
written in perfectly penciled script. He
a collection of ten blue stones displayed
neither do the children, so I hope no one
beamed at me as I read the word for him,
artfully in a place of honor on his bedroom
will tell. But I do want to thank that angel for
absorbing the sentiment straight into his
shelves. Some of his friends believe the
this small act of kindness. What a gift it is to
precious sponge of a heart. Treasure, indeed.
legend requires them to re-hide a blue
know that in our town, treasure abounds.
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and can recall the exact location of each glorious discovery. He no longer imagines the stones were placed there by leprechauns or fairies but believes something far more magical about their origin. When asked why his blue rocks are so special to him, he
stones. I believe they are indeed placed here by an angel—more fleece-clad than glitter-winged is my guess— sent to make a great place to be a kid even better and to inspire the rest of us to do the same. I don’t want to know who he or she is, and
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Grand TasTinG Saturday, July 24 2:00 - 5:00 —at—
Adventure Park at Crested Butte Mountain Resort —for—
$70 advance / $80 day of event —as well as —
chef & restaurant events —for tickets, full schedule and lodging specials, call —
303.809.0404 —or click —
crestedbuttewine•com —or visit crested butte land trust office at —
308 3rd sT
crested butte
Proceeds from the Festival benefit the Crested Butte Land Trust, an organization whose mission is to protect unrivaled views, provide trails, and preserve wildlife habitat.
Forum
photo > xavier fane
walked out Peanut Lake Road in the slick grayness. It was cold and soggy, the weather giving a half-hearted attempt to rain and snow at the same time. The winter’s bounty still lay in heaps on the north side of hills and boulders. The rest of the earth was a swirling soup of mud and decaying plant matter from the vegetative oppression of nine months of snow. I desperately craved warmth, blue skies, sunshine on my skin, flip flops. Instead,
I wanted to experience standing on something so high, I looked down on the clouds. I was already a climber, so adding high-altitude mountaineering to my recreational resumé was only one step further. After training, then traveling to a land bisected by the equator, I fulfilled my wish. Not only did I place footsteps above the clouds; I watched the apex of that mammoth mountain, Chimborazo, stretch its pyramidal shadow through the light of sunrise to the edge of the horizon. From there, nothing but space. From over 20,000
hang my clothes so they weren’t rumpled in a backpack — me the gopher eternally sifting through my life crammed in the camper shell of my truck, a spray of long underwear, trail maps and crusty cookware flying out from behind me. Being a teacher and burgeoning writer, I craved a desk where my papers didn’t fly off in flocks with the wind. I moved to Crested Butte in the snowy solitude of a November, to a little attic on Whiterock. I pulled dishes out of storage boxes I’d forgotten I had and set up house. The inertia of traveling for so long was
feet I could see the curvature of the earth. Ecuador. Costa Rica. Nepal. Panama. Alaska. Thailand. I lived and worked in the borderlands of Mexico, the blue holes of the Bahamas, the Gaspe Peninsula of Canada. In the Everglades of Florida, through the slot canyons of Utah, over the knobby granite of Joshua Tree. The Smokies and Adirondacks, San Juans and Collegiates. It was one climactic experience after the other. For nine years I lived the life of the western gypsy - the outdoor vagabond. But I began to want a bed, a place to
strong. There, everything was a wide-eyed experience; going to the market was an expedition in itself. Here, I just went to the store, pulled out my ordinary green money, paid and left. There was no marveling with the clerk about our strangeness to each other, no laughing over mispronounced words. I had the constant feeling of missing out on something, that the world was passing me by and I wasn’t grabbing every last piece of it. “What have I done?” I worried. The first spring I didn’t join the migration of animals parading to somewhere else, I
it dumped wet, heavy snow on me until I thought I was going to crawl out of my own casing. So I set up the practice of trying to notice every little detail of spring – each new piece of melted-out ground, a bud on a willow branch, a new crack in the ice giving way to liquid – that demonstrated to me that summer would, eventually, arrive. I started a phenology calendar – recording the first blooming flower, the first birdsong of spring, the first time it rained instead of snowed. “April 4,” I wrote. “Sandhill cranes flew over going north a few days ago – three flocks of 50 or so calling. Theresa and I saw five great blue herons in holes on the ice as we were skiing out Pooches Paradise. A spider is crawling on the screen of my office. Snow still halfway up the windows. It’s doing that bluebird-snow-spring thing. Coyotes yelping up near Trappers.” “April 22: Geese and ducks are filling Peanut Lake. The Slate is melted out. The willows of the wetlands are starting to peek through. Beginning buds on aspen trees.” I took solace in treasure hunting for color and finding the first pasqueflowers up Cement Creek. Glacier lilies, spring beauties and bluebells on the Woods Walk in late April. By May, marsh marigolds and buttercups. The dive-bombing whirr of the first hummingbird as June approached. The exercise of noticing and recording CrestedButteMagazine.com
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helped to stave off the insanity of off season. It was also an exercise of faith, and hope. It became an investment. I had a reason to don my knee-high rubber boots and venture out into the muck instead of pacing around inside. Perhaps something had happened since yesterday – a blade of grass pushing through a matted hummock or the musky green taste of
star studded style r i g h t h e re i n t h e b u t t e
the air that comes from warmed cottonwood bark. It was, therefore, in the grim slate of April and May, when everyone else seemed to be frolicking on southern beaches, that I learned the most about living in my new home. In a place, this slow walk of intimacy goes
clothing
beyond a consciousness of mountains and their beauty. The process perhaps begins by
jewelry
learning the names of things – peaks, rivers,
lingerie
rying friends. Then real footsteps climbing
gifts
310 el k avenue crested butte 970 349 2107 w w w.milky wayboutique.com
valleys – from scouring over maps and queinto specific cirques, trundling over passes, splashing through the small creek drainages that carve the wrinkles in the earth’s flesh. No longer is the mountain an interesting silhouette on the horizon. Its physical subtleties become the home of memory and experience. To call on these places by name, with their creatures and plants, is a practice of enduring friendship. Life then becomes an intertwining of places and experiences, finding and creating the connective tissue that binds me here and to the other humans walking these same paths. Now I see the snowy peak where my friend’s ashes are scattered, pieces of bones and tears flowing in rivulets in the spring melt-off. That glorious, lazy conversation about men and mothers on the top of 401, as we lay for hours in the waist-high wildflowers. Savoring local elk, harvested from the woods of Kebler Pass, cooked outside over a fire at Irwin. The secret nook in the aspens created especially for rolling around in a shower and mat of golden coins, beneath a day so blue it poured itself over our bodies like effervescent water. The leaves that now reside in a glass jar on the kitchen table, a remembrance of passion, forgiveness and the fierce optimism in the legend that catching these gilded medallions mid-air made for good fortune. The knowing is a slow letting, like the trickle of spring, piece by piece—at times so tiny as to be imperceptible—until all
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at once you stand inside of brilliance.
Forum
I like the “Think Local First” campaign by the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce. It’s not “Thou shalt never set foot in a Wal-Mart” but simply “Consider local options first.” In the era of the Internet, it’s easy to priceshop online. But the Chamber reminds us to ponder a few facts. First, there’s local service. You might save a few bucks buying a bicycling computer online. But who’s going to install it, offer instruction or troubleshoot? Who online is
Buying locally supports your neighbors, who support other businesses. The money gets passed among us, not shipped out of town, and allows good people to continue living here. When you patronize unique local businesses, you help keep our town full of fascination and character. Then folks can continue to chat with the Hartigan brothers over lunch, or get Nan Lumb to help them choose just the right Holly’s Hat, or discuss a painting with the artist who created it. Target, Sports
going to tell you which roads are dry enough to pedal or invite you to ride some Friday afternoon? Then there’s local economy: Of every $100 spent in a locally owned store, $68 remains in the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. On average, locally owned businesses give three times greater support to area nonprofits than chain stores.
Authority and McDonalds have their place in the world, but it’s not on Elk Avenue. Local businesses are tuned in to local needs... like the nursery that sells plants and offers free advice tailored to our environment. At a brainstorming session for Think Local First, other ideas emerged: encouraging governments to hire locally for construc-
tion projects (and educating contractors in how to get those jobs); interconnecting our resources, such as helping restaurants find nearby sources for produce, meat and eggs; and “keeping Crested Butte funky” by strengthening our attributes rather than drifting toward generic blandness. I might occasionally wander into Wal-Mart or buy online. But I appreciate the chamber’s reminder to consider local options first. As a committee member commented, “It’s false economy to look only at the price tag.”
offering exclusive residential sted butte slopeside real estate in mt. cre
As
developers of Wildhorse At
prospect,
our intention from the very inception of this project was to create a place for memories. Your investment of bringing family together has long term value. You are providing a special place where generations will share the great outdoors, the splendor of the mountains and memories for many years to come.
Welcome
home.
call 1.970.349.1349 for real estate opportunities CrestedButteMagazine.com 13
Inspired Mountain Living
You want to feel at home in Crested Butte before you buy. You want regular communication and unparalleled service by sales professionals who live and work in the area that inspires you. That’s where Prudential Becky Hamlin Realty, Inc. comes in. Our sales professionals have the knowledge and skills to make your experience of home ownership a delight while treating you to a Crested Butte only locals know.
Downtown Crested Butte 970.349.6691 Slopeside in Mt. Crested Butte 970.349.6692 CBProperty.com Downtown Crested Butte 970.349.6691 – Slopeside in Mt. Crested Butte 970.349.6692 – CBProperty.com
© 2009. An independently owned and operated member of Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. “The Rock” is a registered service mark of the Prudential Insurance Company of America. Equal Housing Opportunity. If your property is currently listed with a real estate broker, please disregard. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Inspired Mountain Living Inspired Mountain Living
3 Black Diamond – Mt. Crested Butte This extraordinary new home is a mountain masterpiece, located slope-side in the exclusive Summit neighborhood of Mt. Crested Butte. This opulent ski-in/ ski-out residence offers priceless views from every window and sun-drenched balconies. $3,500,000. Call Karen at 970.209.2668 or Darci at 970.596.4958.
27 Treasury – Mt. Crested Butte Beautiful mountain home located near the base area, and within walking distance of the ski lifts. Quality home with brand new kitchen, convenient location, tremendous views and a great value. $775,000. Call Bill at 970.209.5799. CB-RealEstate.com
Home Sites at Larkspur Crested Butte’s newest subdivision located less than two miles from downtown. Surrounded by majestic views of Whetstone, Mt. Crested Butte and Paradise Divide. Priced from $41,940. Call Meg at 970.209.1210.
63 Birdie Way – Skyland This home is in excellent condition. It has been well maintained by the original owners, decorated perfectly and comes furnished excluding some personal items. Quiet area with fantastic views of Whetstone Mountain. $649,000. Call Dalynn at 970.596.3397.
2 Silver Lane – Mt. Crested Butte Great corner location in Gold Link Subdivision. This 5 BD home is just a short walk to skiing. Two living areas, two wet bars for entertaining, fireplace, 2-car garage and views! $1,395,000. Call Joel or Charlie of the Mtn Office at 970.349.6692.
830 Sopris – Crested Butte Charming home in historic Crested Butte enjoys a prime, spacious corner location at 830 Sopris Avenue on the sunny side of town. It is near the school, the town park and Elk Avenue shops and restaurants. $1,395,000. Call Karen at 970.209.2668.
31 Gold Link – Mt. Crested Butte Prime “top corner” location in Gold Link subdivision. This setting offers the best views and direct ski-in/skiout access to the Homeowner’s trail and the Gold Link lift. $2,395,000. Call Joel or Charlie of the Mountain Office Team at 970.349.6692.
758 Journey’s End – Crested Butte This is a dream location on a 35 acre tract within a short walking distance to town. Very private and amazing views of Emmons, Mt. Crested Butte, Paradise Divide and the town of Crested Butte. $3,795,000. Call Joel or Charlie of the Mountain Office Team at 970.349.6692.
25 Walking Deer – Mt. Crested Butte This is the ultimate ski home in Mt. Crested Butte. Very easy ski-in/ski-out location adjoining Prospect lift. Amazing views of the East River Valley. Top-of-the-line finishes throughout this home. $4,950,000. Call Joel or Charlie of the Mountain Office Team at 970.349.6692.
188 Bethel Road – Smith Hill Ranches Enjoy 35 acres of privacy within 10 minutes of the ski area and the town of Crested Butte. Both house/guest house are constructed with 100 year old custom logs featured on the exterior and interior. $4,750,000. Call Joel or Charlie of the Mountain Office Team at 970.349.6692.
Site S141 Skyland Great elevated golf course lot in the Back Nine towards the end of Country Club Drive. Fantastic views of town, Whetstone, and Mt. Crested Butte. $260,000. Call Meg at 970.209.1210.
Downtown Crested Butte 970.349.6691 – Slopeside in Mt. Crested Butte 970.349.6692 – CBProperty.com
Worthy deeds
Heeding the call of Haiti
GREG WINSLOW RESPONDS WHEN HIS BELOVED HAITI NEEDS HIM THE MOST.
When the devastating 7.0 earthquake struck the tiny Caribbean island nation of Haiti on January 12, local business owner and EMT Greg Winslow immediately called his brother, Mark, a Denver physician. “When are we going?” Winslow asked. The brothers discussed the financial and practical obstacles that made traveling to Haiti impossible. “Yes, I know it’s not possible,” replied Winslow, “but when do we leave?” As was featured in the winter 2007-2008 Crested Butte Magazine’s “From Paradise to Haiti,” Winslow has dedicated significant time and resources over the past decade to providing medical care to the Haitian village of Petit-Bourg. The Haitians’ remarkable kindness, strength and generosity have enriched his understanding of his own life’s purpose. He says, “The people there are now part of my family, part of who I am as a person. I could not sit here knowing so many people were in distress, knowing I could be doing something. Really, there was no choice but to go.” Within 24 hours after the earthquake, Winslow, his partner Betsy Folkerth and brother Mark had organized seven doctors, nurses and EMTs from Denver’s Children’s Hospital willing to accompany them into the collapsed capital city of Port-au-Prince. The group solicited and organized donated medical supplies, and Winslow began figuring out a way into the country via his 16 CrestedButteMagazine.com
By Shelley Read
Haitian connections. Sister Mary of the still-standing Mathew 25 House missionary home in the heart of the city offered the group a place to set up a makeshift hospital. None of the Children’s Hospital volunteers other than Mark had been to the third world before. Winslow, buoyed by trust in the correctness of their mission, promised he’d get them there and back safely. “We got in when others couldn’t,” says
poor northern village of 85,000 that had swelled to more than 120,000 as a result of the quake. They were again met with overwhelming need. In response, the pair has at least four more trips to Haiti planned this year. “We went from ‘we can’t possibly afford to go’ to going six times,” says Winslow. “What else can we do?” As ever, Winslow is deeply moved by the resiliency and spirit of the Haitian people.
Winslow, “because we knew exactly what we needed and where we were going.” Six days post-earthquake, they arrived after a harrowing flight to find Sister Mary down to one bottle of Tylenol, a box of band-aids and 5,000 people in need of
In contrast to media reports of wide-spread post-quake violence and chaos, he cites the man he witnessed cradling his child with a broken femur yet insisting that a more critically injured neighbor be attended to first, or a six-year-old boy who sipped only a few drops from a hard-won bottle of water so he could share the precious liquid with all 30 children in his orphanage. Winslow aids the people of Haiti with similar humility. “I’m just an average person working in extraordinary circumstances,” he says. He asks only one thing in return: that the world not forget Haiti once it is out of the media spotlight, for rebuilding the nation will take several years and the love and dedication of many.
“WE CAME HOME
KNOWING
WE PROVIDED LIFE-SAVING MEASURES FOR SO MANY, YET THERE WAS SO MUCH MORE TO DO.”
To learn more or make a donation to Winslow’s Haiti Relief Fund, visit www.teammatthew25house.com.
medical care camping on her soccer field. Another 15,000 patients awaited help in a nearby tent village. Within an hour and a half, Winslow’s group was performing surgeries on Sister Mary’s kitchen table. Winslow describes as “brutal” the two major aftershocks and ten near sleepless days and nights that followed. He says with both pride and lament, “We came home knowing we provided life-saving measures for so many, yet there was so much more to do.” Thus, after little more than a month’s respite, Winslow and Folkerth returned Top > Aftermath of the earthquake to Haiti in early March to provide mediAbove > Greg Winslow (third from right) and fellow cal care for their beloved Petit-Bourg, a medics who flew in to help
Worthy deeds
Transcontinental compassion MIKE EHREDT IS RUNNING ACROSS AMERICA TO HONOR THOSE KILLED IN IRAQ. by Dawne Belloise He emphasized that Project America Run is not a political statement. “I honor and remember, that’s it. I don’t want to taint the purity of the project, of what I’m doing, to talk about politics.” Running has been part of Mike’s life for decades. He laughs that it all started 37 years ago at the impressionable age of 12, taking on a bet from a schoolmate that he couldn’t
It’s not about war or peace, right or wrong. It’s about compassion. Former Crested Butte resident and retired postal worker Mike Ehredt has set out across the country on a solo jaunt to honor those who have fallen in the Iraq war. Although he lives in Hope, Idaho, these days, Project America Run was born in Crested Butte. “It was in the break room at the post office. I would sit there, back in 2005, and read the obits in the Denver Post. Iraq was 18 CrestedButteMagazine.com
at its peak of fatalities,” Mike explained. As a veteran himself, he was so moved by the individual profiles that he wanted to do something personal to pay tribute. “I never served in a conflict, but it’s all connected whether you’re building bridges or on the front lines. There’s this bond when you serve in the military.” His tribute: a 4,300-mile run across the country, planting a flag every mile bearing the name of an American soldier lost in Iraq.
run five miles. But it really kicked in as a child attempting to get out of the house. “One of my earliest memories was when I got grounded by my stepdad, who said I couldn’t leave the yard. I measured the yard and figured out it would take me 57 laps to do a mile.” He chortled. “It drove my stepdad nuts to see the top of my head passing by the window every minute while he was trying to drink his beer. But,” he added, “I stayed in the yard!” Although he got hooked on running, Mike realized he needed to branch out. “I didn’t want to be one dimensional. I wanted to experience other things – ski, mountain bike, paddle, adventure race.” But he returned to running when he moved to Crested Butte, utilizing the extensive trail systems. He was then introduced to hundredmile races and decided the longer the better. Even coast to coast. “The concept came to me to place an American flag attached to a yellow ribbon with the name of each of the fallen service members every mile – one life, one flag, one mile,” Mike said. He hit on the idea while running in the bitter cold night in Idaho. The flags are being laid down in reverse chronological order; the first flag placed was
the most recent fatality. Carrying a GPS Mike is able to measure every mile, photograph and register the location of each flag on Google Earth from his iPhone. There are about 4,400 flags and 700 yards of hand-labeled yellow ribbon marked with each name, age, rank, home and fatality number. The flags were bundled, put into boxes of 300 and shipped to hosts along the route. Mike hopes to cover approximately 30 miles a day. He started his quest in May from Astoria, Oregon, at water’s edge. After touching the water with his own dog tags, he set out running, focusing on one mile at a time. He’ll finish sometime in October at Rockland,
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Maine, touching his tags to the water once again. The journey will take about five and a half months. in,” Mike said of the overwhelming support he’s found for Project America Run. “When we laid out the route we started calling organizations, chambers of commerce and law enforcement agencies and using word of mouth.” Many of those who responded had
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lost loved ones in Iraq. “They planned big dinners, breakfasts and potlucks where they want me to talk.” The run, he said, is linking those who are united by their losses. He’s also speaking to more than 30 high school cross-country and track teams, delivering an inspiring message to young hopefuls. “I’ll tell them: don’t doubt that you can accomplish your goals – you put it out and go for it.” Mike laughed about how the young people might perceive him. “When they see an old guy who’s pushing fifty and a baby stroller filled with flags, they might just think I have something I can share with them!” As he runs across the miles connecting towns and people, Mike holds his own image. “What I had envisioned in my head, from west coast to east coast, was a holding of hands of service members from one to the other stretching across the country in an unbroken band – and it represented the diversity of the country and of the people. If it motivates people to make a change in their life, to do something meaningful for someone else, then I’ve accomplished my message.” Follow Mike on Facebook or via projectamericarun.com. CrestedButteMagazine.com 19
Worthy deeds
Therapy in the saddle HORSES BECOME MUCH-LOVED TEACHERS IN THIS ADAPTIVE SPORTS CENTER PROGRAM. by Erin English ity, while inherently relaxing the muscles and increasing muscle tone and strength. Emotionally, the horses teach confidence, help build self-esteem and establish trust, with a unique bond between horse and human built on this trust,” Cara said. In addition to riding skills, participants get an introduction to ranch life. Mike’s Cochetopa Ranch in Gunnison is serene, with cottonwoods rustling by a small creek that winds behind the house, and dogs napping in the sun. Other times, it is a lively, playful place with chickens and ducks running amok and laughter ringing from a favorite lunch spot, the hay barn. “It is timeless. The equipment is different, but the lifestyle is much the same as it was 100 years ago,” Cara said. “It’s a working life. Many of us who visit don’t come from a world where what we do that day directly impacts what we eat for dinner at night.” Last summer Cara and Mike saw a mix of clients, including vacationers who wanted to maintain continuity with a therapeutic riding program back home, families, lo-
To witness Bill Meier riding horseback is
“Being able to care for something else
pure magic. His eyes earnest and bright,
is so good for him. He is a very nurturing
cal children and individuals with both
a gentle smile spread across his lips,
person by nature,” says Elise. “A lot of
physical and cognitive disabilities. The
he circles around the Cochetopa Ranch
people with disabilities don’t get the joy
integrated program is very social, with
horse arena atop Wayne, a 13-year-old
of this kind of experience. They are usu-
participants of all ages and backgrounds
quarter horse, with an air of content-
ally cared for, not caring for something.”
offering each other encouragement and
ment that calms even those who watch.
Now in its second summer, the ASC’s
At the age of 17, Bill experienced a
riding program has proven a hit for par-
sharing pleasures such as hand feeding
traumatic brain injury that profoundly
ticipants with and without disabilities. Run
impacted his short-term memory. In order
by long-time local Mike Fahrlander and
to later recall that he has gone horseback
ASC instructor Cara Bosco, with assistance
riding with the Adaptive Sports Center
from volunteers, the experience includes
(ASC), he must refer to his “picture book of
an introduction to basic riding (arena or
memories,” a photo album chronicling his
trail riding, depending on ability level),
edge and experience, Mike and Cara turn
many ASC outdoor adventures. Whether
grooming, and effective communication
the credit to the ranch’s six riding horses for
he retains the memories, his sister Elise
with a horse. Half-day and full-day activi-
making the fledgling program a success.
says the riding program offers her brother
ties are offered June through August.
“As long as we keep it safe, the horses
benefits different from his other summertime
“Physiologically, horses can teach stu-
do the rest of the work for us,” Cara said.
activities, such as biking, fishing or rafting.
dents balance, posture and trunk stabil-
For more information visit adaptivesports.org.
20 CrestedButteMagazine.com
carrots to the horses at the end of the day. This summer, the two plan to include arts and crafts, a wider range of skill-building games and a presence at Cattleman’s Days. Despite their combined wealth of knowl-
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Letters & words
Letterboxing : HIDE & SEEK IN PARADISE
by Dawn Belloise
ity with boxes planted worldwide, but it really took off in America after Smithsonian Magazine published an article about it in 1998. Traditionally hidden in the wilds, the letterbox is located by the “finder” after deciphering clues left by the “placer” of the box. Inside the waterproof box is a logbook, a hand-carved rubber stamp and sometimes trinkets pertinent to the story or placer. The finder, who carries his own original stamp, inkpad and journal, exchanges stamp markings in his journal and the placer’s logbook, perhaps leaving a little note about the discovery, then places the box and its contents back into the hiding place. Here in Colorado, as across America, anyone with a sense of adventure can easily get started with Remember the intrigue of childhood a few tools. As in any good mystery, treasure hunts – burying your sibling’s you’ll need to get clues, which range from favorite toy, making a map and challengcomplex and cryptic to simple directions. ing your friends to find the hidden booty? Some require a compass, map and navigaNow you can relive that intrigue almost tional skills, and the hiking distance can vary. anywhere around the world, starting with Some placers include clues to other boxes clues posted online through letterboxing within their box, but most clues and locations networks. A global amusement, letterboxing of boxes can be found on the websites at is a combination of treasure hunting, hide atlasquest.com and letterboxing.org. Both and seek, crafting, puzzle solving and hiking. sites give extensive historical and practical Letterboxes are plentiful in our region, information, such as how to make a personalwith about a dozen boxes placed throughized rubber stamp, which journals to use and out Gunnison County and more in Curewhere to get airtight containers to place. canti, Black Canyon, the West Elk Loop A more high-tech mode of treasure huntand east to Monarch Pass and beyond. ing which relies on GPS use is called geo Letterboxing has its roots in Dartmoor, caching. Instead of using stamps, finders exDevon, England, in 1854, when well-known change objects once the hidden treasure is guide James Perrott put a bottle at the reunearthed, then the experience is shared onmote Cranmere Pool for visitor cards. Hikers line. The GPS seekers are touted to be their caught on to the idea and started leaving let- own search engines and proclaim themselves ters and postcards addressed to themselves environmentally friendly, as do letterboxers. inside a box along the trail. Whoever discov- You can find them online at geocaching.com, ered the box would then collect the posts and yes, there are iPhone interactive apps and mail them. Hence the British name of let- to download for your odyssey. No iPhone? terbox, which we Americans call a mailbox. The site will direct you to other usable GPS The sport has become a popular curiosdevices. If you’re out cruising around Peanut
Lake just outside Crested Butte, you’ll find that the beloved Gronk sports a geocache. After you get the hang of reading clues and have your logbook plastered with stamps from boxes you’ve discovered, you might find yourself writing your own clues as a placer. Anyone can hide a box – from Tupperware-type plastic to ammunition containers. Just make a stamp specifically for the hidden box, draw up the clues, post them online and then wait for the finders to start recording their discovery of your treasure. Mandy Bennett of Carbondale has placed 123 boxes throughout Colorado. The West Elk Loop, she said, was by far the prettiest letterboxing trail she dotted with the hidden troves. Her placer name (a sort of alter ego) is Cameo. “Having a placer name is a lot more fun and interesting and it identifies you more as a letterboxer.” To make your box interesting, Mandy said, use hand-carved stamps, a cool logbook and creative clues, such as stories. “The first interesting one I found was at Doc Holliday’s grave in Glenwood Springs. The stamp was an image of Doc holding a gun. The logbook had a little castle hanging off it and little trinkets related to him like an ace of hearts for his gambling.” The clues in the box were in the form of a story about an old man hiking and searching for something. “You were copying the footsteps as though it was a real person. The details made it really fun.” Unfortunately, Doc’s box is gone, due to weather, construction or theft, to which many of the letterboxes succumb. CrestedButteMagazine.com 23
Some placers create limited-edition boxes which are out for only a specific time, which makes those stamps somewhat rare. Finders will often update the owner as to the condition of a box, whether it’s been ruined or taken. Some finders will even replace a damaged box or a filled logbook, sending the original back to the placer. With hundreds of boxes scattered in Colorado, you could make a summer quest of searching out the state’s treasures. Mandy describes the excitement of both the hunt and the trek itself: through wildflower meadows, conifer forests, rock formations and alpine vistas. “Some of the boxes we find take us to places we never knew existed. The finding is like the end of the rainbow.”
The latest locally grown zine is ready to read
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photo by james ray spahn
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on paper or computer screen. The Climbing Zine features local writers George Sibley, Greg Pettys, Morgan Fields, Lisa Galterio, Al Smith, Travis Kuester and Luke Mehall. The zine covers terrain ranging from Sibley’s mountaineering exploits in the Army in the sixties to Greg Pettys’ affinity for the art and culture of rock climbing. Galterio writes about a climbing friend that has recently died and Al Smith the Third makes comparisons between climbing and sex. Photos from Mehall accompany the stories. It’s the second locally produced zine, following Gunnison Valley as Basecamp, which was released in 2009. A zine, pronounced “zeen,” is a small-circulation publication, “with little emphasis on profit and a strong emphasis on high-quality, thought-provoking creative writing,” said organizer Mehall. Copies are available to purchase at the Firebrand in Gunnison or for free via e-mail. Contact Luke at lmehall@yahoo.com or Al Smith the Third at aldsmith3@ gmail.com to get a copy or contribute to future zines.
A virtual meeting of minds CRESTED BUTTE WRITERS LINKS LOVERS OF WORDS. By Sandra Cortner
The East River Valley teems with writers of everything from science fiction to history to children’s stories...you name it, they write it. Half a dozen groups critique each other’s work. For the last few years many of these writers have tapped into the Crested Butte Writers Conference (June 18-20 this year) and Readers in the Rockies (June 19), which bring authors and publishing professionals to the valley. Now there’s a new resource: the Crested Butte Writers, an organization of writers, readers and supporters of the literary arts. Its 30 members share a commitment to “an educational, open, supportive and creative writing community… bonded not by location, but by the love of mountains and the written word,” according to the website, crestedbuttewriters.org. Both writers and readers are welcome to join. “Many of our members are published authors living outside the valley. But they love the Crested Butte Writers Conference and want to be a part of our writing community,” says Theresa Rizzo, who helps organize the conference and the Crested Butte Writers along with founder Barbara Crawford. In addition to local authors, the Crested Butte Writers membership includes some past conference presenters and winners of the Sandy Writing Contest, which is held in conjunction with the conference. A $10 membership fee (until next January) gets you discounts on the Sandy Writing Contest and Crested Butte Writers Conference fees, a listing on the members’ page of the website with links to your (or your book’s) website, and admission to the Crested Butte Writers Loop. Annual renewals are $25. Through the Crested Butte Writers Loop, writers exchange tips on books, blogs and websites; send out links to news items about the publishing world; and share inspirational quotes or information about writing contests, gatherings or classes. This sharing is, for one member, the best benefit of Crested Butte Writers. “Since writing is generally a solitary affair, it’s nice to have a ‘virtual’ way to trade ideas and inspire each other—while we’re all sitting alone at our separate computers.”
Realize Your Dreams Photo by Rob Pennie / Picture taken from: The Smith Hill Ranches
Charlie & Joel
The word on flying wheels Many people know the Gunnison Valley holds some of the world’s best mountain biking but don’t realize one of the sport’s notable publications is based here as well. Mountain Flyer, a quarterly magazine, covers mountain bike and other bicycle racing, riding and equipment, particularly in the Rocky Mountains. “My gut feeling is that our readers are the people you see out there riding all the time, people who are pretty involved, not weekend warriors,” said editor Brian Riepe. Riepe, a professional mountain bike racer for five years, in 2004 pondered creating a newsletter to cover competitions in this region. Steve Mabry and Chris Hanna of Crested Butte Publishing encouraged him to up the ante and publish a magazine. With a “snapshooter”
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camera and his mom as the graphic designer, Riepe published his first issue in 2004. The publication found success and polish, becoming quarterly in 2008, when Hanna and Mabry joined him as partners. They now distribute 15,000 copies nationally, with a concentration in New Mexico, Arizona and the Rockies. “We cover racing in the Rockies but also do lifestyle and general cycling stories,” Riepe said. “We’re finding our voice in product reviews, keeping them in-depth and honest.” The next step is “growing the website, mountainflyer.com,” he said, so bikers can catch the latest results and news from mountain bike racing and riding.
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Wild things
Scare that bear THOSE CLEVER BRUINS STAY HEALTHIER IN THEIR OWN TERRITORY, NOT OURS. By Sandy Fails shals would come upon a street where up to half a dozen cars had their doors standing wide open... evidence of a bruin’s nocturnal scavenging. At least three times bears got trapped inside cars or vans, bad news for both bear and upholstery. Since no one was hurt by a bear in Crested Butte, the stories charmed and entertained the town. It was easy to forget that each bear-person interface carried the
Last summer folks strolling down Elk Avenue after breakfast were occasionally startled to have a bear lumber by, nonchalant as a fellow diner walking off his pancakes. Late-night partiers passed bears intent on their alley garbage hunts. One groggy man, awakened by his vehicle horn blaring at 5 a.m., stumbled outside and yanked open the car door to face a bear that had trapped itself inside and demolished the dashboard trying to claw its way out. Crested Butte Magazine writer Dawne Belloise was conducting a phone interview at her kitchen table one afternoon when a bear ambled in and headed toward the refrigerator like a hung-over housemate. In Crested Butte, 2009 was the Year of the Bear. “On a typical summer night there were one or two bears around, but on some nights we had four to six bears running around town,” said Crested Butte Chief Marshal Tommy Martin. The marshals got to know individual bears. Some bears moseyed through town browsing for easy pickings; the town’s new bearresistant trash containers and Dumpsters did their job, and the bruins headed back out to the wilds. But for the habituated bears, the town’s best efforts at deterring them just presented new and apparently interesting challenges. Before long, the civilization-sav-
viest bears had learned to turn the new trash receptacles sideways and jump on the lids to release the contents. Veteran town bears also grew bolder. “Three or four years ago we shot them with rubber balls,” Martin said. “The loud noise scared them; they’d run all the way out of town. Two years later they’d run 30 feet. Now they just look at you.” Connie and Michael Helland used to yell from their second-floor deck to chase away the bear that frequented their Teocalli Avenue yard. But after the bear discovered the tasty apple pie filling in the garage freezer during a late-night raid, it grew ever more complacent about their presence. It repeatedly broke through the side garage door, rifled around, and sometimes paused to nap in one of their trees. The better Crested Butte stashed its trash, the more ingenious the bears got. They discovered how to work doorknobs and handles, entering homes, sheds and garages, and learned that the big white box in the kitchen generally held the best goodies. At one home, a bear tore the garage door off its track to reach the fragrant edibles inside. Bears also figured out how to open car doors or break into windows, getting into more than 200 vehicles over the summer. Doing their early-morning rounds, the mar-
risk of human injury and sometimes a tragic end for the bear. Last summer six bears were trapped and euthanized in the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte area when they got too habituated and assertive. One of those was a “560-pound, beautiful male bear, seven to eight years old, that had essentially grown up in Crested Butte,” Martin said. “He wouldn’t leave town. He was in town every night and sometimes during the day.” Last year’s bear situation was “so severe partly because a late freeze burned the acorns” in the neighboring Aspen valley, said Chris Parmeter, district wildlife manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. Several of the bears hanging out around Crested Butte bore tags or radio collars identifying them as Aspen area residents. “Bear conflicts are weather dependent,” Parmeter said; a drought or untimely freeze that compromises the natural food crop drives more bears into civilization. “I’m looking forward to a decrease in conflicts this summer,” he said. Martin is less certain what the summer will bring. Once they’ve tasted leftovers from the Timberline Restaurant, the bruins are not always happy to return to berries and acorns. He also noted that last year some big boars (male bears) lingering in town probably kept sows and cubs away. Now that a couple of those big guys have been eliminated, the town might see more protective moms and playful cubs in town, a potentially volatile combination when mixed with curious humans eager for photo ops. “This isn’t a zoo with a barrier between you CrestedButteMagazine.com 27
and a 500-pound wild animal,” Martin said. Crested Butte’s bruins are officially black bears, though they come in many colors, from cinnamon to brown or black. Unlike grizzlies, these bears aren’t typically aggressive toward humans. “There’s bear habitat all around Crested Butte,” Parmeter said. “They’re all over the woods, but when you hike you generally don’t see them; they smell us and go away before we
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get near. They only become potentially dangerous when they get addicted to human food, when they move into our territory.” Bears are lured into civilization by food crop failures or human enticements, he said. “The number one threshold drug for bears is bird feeders; that’s what brings them to neighborhoods.” Notorious for their love of sweets, bears can smell the syrupy hummingbird food from far away. He quoted the common Division of Wildlife
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saying: “A fed bear is a dead bear.” A second saying is less known but equally important when bears venture into human territory: “If you care, scare a bear.” Humans need to make the bears “very uncomfortable” when they come into towns, neighborhoods and yards, Parmeter said. When people watch adoringly while a bear chows down on Fluffy’s cat food on the deck, the bear begins to lose its fear and its respect for our territory. Communities throughout the mountain West have tried various discouragements, such as devices that emit pepper spray when bears break into trashcans, but with little success. “No deterrents have been 100% effective,” Parmeter said. “The main thing is to prevent access to food.” He said the bears are known for their clever adaptations. “In Yosemite, the bears specialize in mini-vans. They know how to open mini-van locks and latches or break the windows.” In Crested Butte last summer, neighbors shared home remedies; the Hellands draped their doorknobs with kerosene-soaked rags. People learned not to leave edibles (including pet food) in their cars, tents or decks. Residents began locking their doors for the first time in years. “These bears are smart, and they’re creative,” Martin said. Perhaps more consistent human scare tactics will remind the bears to use those skills in the wild, not downtown.
28 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Wild things
SAD aspens WARMER, DRIER WEATHER MAY BE HARMING OUR TRADEMARK TREES. By George Sibley What is happening to the aspens? Roy Mask and Jim Worrall, pathologists for the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Region, based in Gunnison, have been working on that question since it was first observed circa 2004 – along with the challenge of the bark beetle pandemic, also part of their assignment. The most likely underlying answer is climate change. The severe drought of 2002, coming in the middle of nearly two decades of warmer, drier weather than the 20th-century norm, weakened the aspens (like the pines and spruce). That made them more vulnerable to the host of gnawing, boring, burrowing parasites and diseases that are always present in the forest but can usually be either flushed out or tolerated by healthy trees tapping into decent soil moisture. The Upper Gunnison valley has (knock
the largest living entities on earth, some
Warmer temperatures in the winter also fa-
on wood) so far been spared the massive
of them as large as several hundred acres.
vor the tree parasites, allowing more of their
infestation of bark beetles that are devastat-
A clone can often be distinguished by the
under-bark larvae to survive and mature.
ing the lodgepole pine and spruce forests
bark color, branchiness, height or straight-
Mask and Worrall say the problem is not
of the Rockies north from here up through
ness of its trees.
limited to mature trees, as are the pine
Canada. But our aspens have not been so
Sun-loving trees, aspens are mostly a
and spruce beetle attacks. “Roots in some
lucky; since around 2004, large swatches of
“transition forest” in the high country, com-
stands may be moribund, suggesting that
the Gunnison Basin’s favorite deciduous tree
ing in quickly after a spruce-fir or pine forest
clones as well as stems may be dying,” they
have been suffering a mysterious “Sudden
disturbance like fire or logging – thousands
write in a paper on the problem. SAD seems
Aspen Decline” (SAD).
of suckers springing up into the sun from
to be happening “at lower elevations and
Aspens are the signature tree of the
an existing clone’s root system that was
on flatter slopes” and tends “to occur on
Southern Rockies, the tree that marks our
perhaps being kept alive under the previ-
southern and western aspects at lower and
seasons, from the soft light green that floats
ous conifer forest by just a handful of trees.
middle elevations.”
like a haze through the budding trees in the
Gradually, over a century or so, shade-
Trees tend to be very sensitive to climate,
spring, to the psychedelic show in the fall
loving conifers will grow up under them and
which in the mountains means their range
as the green trees go to yellows. It’s easy,
gradually replace the aspen. There are good
moves up and down as ambient tempera-
among aspens, to feel that life, after all,
examples of this replacement in various
tures over time increase or decrease. Aspen
is pretty good. And now a lot of them are
stages happening on Snodgrass Hill above
clones that really took off in the very wet first
declining, dying; forest pathologists say the
the road to Gothic. There are places in the
quarter of the 20th century, and probably
toll is approaching 20 percent of our aspen
Gunnison Basin, however, where the aspen
spread down into lower altitudes, are now,
woods.
seem to have established themselves as
in their maturity, experiencing the change to
Aspens are an unusual tree; they grow
the long-term “climax” forest – new aspens
a hotter and drier extreme. That is probably
best as shoots from a common spreading
rather than conifers replacing old aspens.
in part caused by us, and the love of “Color
root system. Thus all the trees in a specific
The west side of Kebler Pass has some of
Week” that gets everyone in their cars to go
place essentially constitute a single living
the world’s most extensive and beautiful
see the trees, thereby contributing to their
organism called an aspen clone – probably
“climax” aspen.
demise.... SAD indeed. CrestedButteMagazine.com 29
Art scene
among the easels
Crested Butte Arts Festival fans are used to Elk Avenue turning into a visual feast, with 185 top-notch artists (juried this year from 690 applicants) displaying their wares, kids’ activities, food booths and live entertainment. The 38th Arts Festival, July 31-August 1, will add the culinary arts to that mix. “We want to draw in people with different interests,” said Arts Festival director Diana Ralston. “Now there’s truly something for everyone: children creating in Art Alley; art aficionados shopping and interacting with artists; music lovers enjoying live performances; aspiring artists learning techniques through art demonstrations; and foodies watching cooking demos and tasting samples.” Ralston hopes to involve local restaurants and the Farmers Market in the demonstrations. She has secured Oskar Blues Brewery as the beer sponsor, and Dale Katechis, founder and creator of Dale’s Pale Ale, will be on hand for seminars and tastings and to showcase his crafted beers. Underdog Wine Group will pair its award-winning wines with chef samples. This year will also bring an auction of art donated by festival artists. The inaugural auction last year raised $10,000, which funded arts programming at the Crested Butte Community School. Ralston hopes this year’s proceeds will help pay local artists to work with Crested Butte students. The Arts Festival also grants money to local arts organizations throughout the year. The Arts Festival is apparently as popular among its artists as it is among its shoppers. Artists ranked it 35th out of more than 1,200 festivals in the most recent Art Fair Source Book. For each festival, artists answer questions about such aspects as logistical ease, customer traffic, the treatment of artists and financial success. “It’s sort of the bible for exhibiting artists,” Ralston said. “I was thrilled.” For information, visit CrestedButteArtsFestival.com.
IN A TOWN KNOWN FOR EXCELLENT RESTAURANTS, THE WEEKEND WILL BRING EVEN MORE ATTRACTIONS FOR FOODIES: FREE ongoing demonstrations in an outdoor Viking kitchen $150 FIVE-COURSE KICK-OFF DINNER with paired wines at 9380 featuring the celebrated Denver FIVE™ (DenverFive.com) TWO AFTER-HOURS EVENTS IN MT. CRESTED BUTTE: “Barbeque, Bourbon and Beer” and “The Art of the Martini,” both $25. The first will highlight various tastes of barbeque paired with liquor and high-end beers. At the second, attendees will learn about and sample five different martinis and receive shakers and martini glasses. 30 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Performing arts center DANCES TO THE DRAWING BOARD
The Crested Butte Music Festival and several entities in Mt. Crested Butte are collaborating on a 500-seat performing arts center they hope to open as early as 2012. Music Festival organizers began talking with town officials from Mt. Crested Butte last year after an unsuccessful search for sites in the town of Crested Butte. “Away we went,” said Joe Fitzpatrick, Mt. Crested Butte town manager. The Downtown Development Authority, town government and Crested Butte Mountain Resort jumped at the performing arts center idea. The resort and town contributed land at the corner of Gothic and Treasury roads (the north end of the ski area parking lot), a low section of land that will accommodate the estimated 85-foot height of the building. “This is an economic development project for Mt. Crested Butte and really for the whole county,” Fitzpatrick said. “Our goal is to broaden and elevate the arts in our community and provide a great amenity. This will open the door for the Crested Butte Music Festival to grow. And it will anchor the development of Mt. Crested Butte.” The design, still in progress, calls for a 500-seat auditorium with a partitionable balcony, so the space can fit smaller events as well. The building will also house a postal annex, small coffee shop and other tenants “to keep the building alive,” Fitzpatrick said. A third-floor multipurpose room and scenic outdoor balcony will host meetings, receptions or dinners. The auditorium will be equipped with a fly to raise sets, allowing professional caliber opera and theater. It will also be acoustically tuneable for voice or amplified music. Designers hope for PUD approval by the end of this summer, followed by a major fund-raising campaign by the Music Festival. Officially called the Mt. Crested Butte Performing Arts Center (MCBPAC), the project has a board of directors made up of Music Fest and town appointees. Construction could start in 2011, but 2012 is more likely, Fitzpatrick said. Jenny Birnie, director of the Center for the Arts in Crested Butte, applauded the MCBPAC board for its open communication with Crested Butte’s Arts Alliance. “The Music Festival has worked in partnership with the Center to ensure that the new facility won’t duplicate service and functions,” she said. “The Center will continue to bring diverse arts experiences to the valley, offer subsidized rental for community presenters and use its gallery to showcase local artists.”
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Bike tracks
e
THE MOUNTAIN BIKE HALL OF FAME HONORS A FUN-SPIRITED SPORT. By Sandy Fails For viewers chuckling at the photos in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame exhibit, it’s easy to see what has changed about the sport... and what hasn’t. Photos from the 1970s show shaggy-haired guys in grubby cut-offs and sneakers pedaling their 40-pound klunkers around the town’s dirt streets. Meanwhile, outside the windows near the exhibit, modern-day riders fly down Fourth Street on feather-light, high-tech machines wearing spendy sport-specific clothing from helmets to cleats. What remains the same? “You look at those old photos and see a bunch of grownups acting like ten-year-olds,” said mountain bike pioneer Don Cook. “Mountain biking still has that effect on people.” Don and his wife, Kay Peterson Cook, have been part of the evolution of the sport since those early days and can still hold their own on Crested Butte’s gnarliest trails. The two also volunteer hundreds of hours a year as co-directors of the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, which has three components. , housed in the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum. “The photos tell a thousand stories,” Don said, following the path “from Crested Butte to Marin County, California, from klunkering to mountain biking to a world-wide sport.” The display holds profiles of Hall of Fame inductees, posters, press clippings, a classic klunker and some landmark bikes in the development of the sport. There’s a Joe Breeze bike from the era when Joe produced a run of seven bikes... enough to meet market demand for the year, Don said.
Don and Kay gather Hall of Fame nominations from within the industry, then send out more than 200 ballots to previous inductees 32 CrestedButteMagazine.com
and current Hall of Fame members. Three
sors, the anecdotes and memorabilia of the
to four people are inducted each year in a packed ceremony as part of Interbike in Las Vegas. “It’s quite an honor, but the ceremony is a roast... always funny,” Don said.
Mountain Bike Hall of Fame are good for some kicks. Newer riders, Don noted, seldom realize that the first multi-speed mountain bikes were hand built from junkyard frames and “whatever parts we could scab from motorcycles or beg, borrow and steal.” He added, “One of the funniest things I see now is people spending a thousand dollars or more to build up one-speeds. Back in the day we were spending hundreds of dollars to get rid of having one-speeds.”
mtnbikehalloffame.com. Like the sport, the website is all about fun and exploration. “You could spend days wandering around in there,” Don said. The site goes far beyond Crested Butte’s colorful biking history, back to August 1896, when the Buffalo Soldiers, black enlisted men, customized and rode bicycles from Missoula, Montana, to Yellowstone to test the bike for possible military use. The site covers the Velo Cross Club Parisien of the 1950s and the Marin County garage tinkerers in the 1970s. And, of course, there were the Crested Butte hippies piling their one-speed junkers in the back of their pickups, hauling them to the top of Paradise Divide and bombing back down. “You had to throw your rear wheels in the river to cool them down,” Don said. “Those guys weren’t out to create a new sport. They were just getting around town streets that were nothing but mud.” The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame idea grew from discussions in 1987 among Carol Bauer, Ted Romanik, Dave Lindsey and Don. As they were re-telling favorite stories, Carol commented, “All these people are going to be forgotten if we don’t do something to preserve this history.” Even for riders who would rather pound the trails than learn about their predeces-
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Down south Of Heaven & Earth COLORADO’S LARGEST PUBLIC TELESCOPE OFFERS GLIMPSES OF OTHER WORLDS. By Erin English
Arriving at the Gunnison Valley Observatory, remote and shrouded in darkness, can feel otherworldly in itself. After turning off Highway 50 and driving a few miles past Hartman Rocks, visitors park and walk down a dimly lit path to a small domed building sheltered by a lightreducing berm. The observatory houses Colorado’s largest public telescope, a 30-inch reflector telescope that serves as a looking glass into other worlds: celestial objects, galaxies, planets and star systems. Since opening in 2008, the observatory has developed a thriving lecture and viewing series. Every Friday and Saturday night in the summer, scientists, families, couples, students and visitors mingle for stargazing, starting around sunset. The all-volunteer staff welcomes visitors to peek into the telescope and get hands-on experience with
the on-site instruments. “We’ll stay as late as anyone wants to stay,” says board member Kevin McGruther. “Astronomy involves a considerable amount of patience for the sky to dim enough to see the deep-sky objects. If you come later, around 10 or 10:30, it really gets good.” Each event features a guest lecturer leading a presentation in the observatory’s small classroom. Topics range from historical to contemporary, such as an overview of sun and energy, a slide show about Saturn’s disappearing rings, or a look at the world’s first telescope. Often, lively discussions ensue. “I really go down there to get an idea of what other people are thinking. It’s such a far-out topic and there is so much we don’t know,” McGruther says. “I find it empowering and enlightening. You can look at a globular cluster through a telescope, but the theory behind it is what’s fascinating, because no one really knows.” The summer schedule includes other events as well, such as the world’s first astropoetry conference held last summer, attended by around a dozen people. “Members-only” events are sprinkled throughout the season, and private viewings may be scheduled in advance. As word spreads, the Observatory is becoming a community point of pride and a popular way to spend the evening, with up to 60 people stopping by in a night. The dome has a capacity of 15 people, necessitating multiple rotations for the telescope viewing and lectures. Beyond Gunnison County, the observatory is gaining attention from curious individuals and high-profile agencies through its Internet presence. “We pull in traffic from all over the world. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and intelligence agencies are pulling into the Gunnison Observatory website,” McGruther says. “It is putting Gunnison on the map.” For information, visit gunnisonobservatory.org.
abroad. This summer’s writing MFA session will coincide with the popular “Writing the Rockies” conference held annually on the WSC campus. Several other camps and conferences will bring guests to Western. One of the biggest, the 47th annual Rocky Mountain Wrestling
WESTERN’S CAMPS, CONFERENCES AND
Camp, led by conference championship coach Miles Van Hee, will
COURSES COVER WRITING TO WRESTLING.
ferences include the Search and Rescue Academy, the Law Enforce-
attract more than a thousand wrestlers this June. Other popular con-
By Luke Mehall
ment Explorer Conference, and the Colorado Columbine Girls State
School may be out for most, but thousands of guests will flock to
citizen leadership program.
the Western State College (WSC) campus this summer.
New offerings this July include the Peaceful Warriors Rock Climb-
The return of graduate studies to Western is one highlight.
ing Camp with local coach Alec Solimeo and professional climber
Starting in July, studies will begin for the master of fine arts (MFA)
Chris Linder, as well as the Gunnison Ultra Running Experience (GUE)
in creative writing, with tracks in formal verse, screenwriting and
camp with WSC exercise and sports science professor Scott Drum.
mainstream/genre fiction. August will launch the master of arts in
The Extended Studies program will offer “Wednesdays at West-
education, with tracks in teacher leadership, reading leadership and
ern,” inexpensive day-trips for locals and visitors, including fly fish-
educational administrator leadership.
ing, a historical Taylor Park tour, a Black Canyon geology tour and an
Both programs are low-residency, meaning students will con-
astronomy class, all with college professors. Classes range from $25
vene for summer sessions then do the majority of coursework from
to free. Information: www.western.edu.
34 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Down south A TRIO OF RUNNING, BIKING AND CLIMBING EVENTS SPOTLIGHTS THE TRAILS AND BOULDERS OF HARTMAN ROCKS. By Luke Mehall Crested Butte may be the mecca for recreation in the Gunnison Valley, but Hartman Rocks has its own magic, as showcased by three running, biking and climbing events over Memorial Weekend. The 8,000 acres of rolling sage, five minutes south of Gunnison on Bureau of Land Management public land, features great singletrack for biking and trail-running and
granite boulders and cliffs for rock climbing. Lower in elevation than Crested Butte, Hartmans (as locals call it) can be dry in spring and fall when Crested Butte’s trails are buried in snow. For years Hartmans’ biking has been highlighted in competitions like the Rage in the Sage and the 24 Hours in the Sage mountain bike races. Recently the running and climbing communities have created events of their own, and Memorial Weekend brings perhaps the largest trio of events that Hartmans has seen: the Sage Burner running race, Gunnison Growler mountain bike race, and 24 Hours of Gunnison Glory endurance climbing competition.
The Sage Burner’s 25K and 50K events are organized through the exercise and sports science department at Western State College. Professor Scott Drum, the race director, said, “Our race showcases the amazing trail running at Hartmans. It’s also an opportunity to showcase the sports performance side of our curriculum.” Last year over 200 competitors flocked to Hartmans for the race. Out-of-towners found the course extremely challenging, he said. “The singletrack at Hartmans is very runable, but it tends to sucker-punch you with the unrelenting ups and downs.” The third annual Sage Burner will be Saturday, May 29. Also in its third year is the Growler. The 64-
mile race (or 32-mile Half-Growler) on Sunday, May 30, takes advantage of Hartman’s mountain biking “that just blows people away,” said mountain bike legend and race director Dave Wiens. The popular race, capped at 300 riders, sold out in one day in early January. The Growler raises funds for Gunnison Trails, an advocacy organization Wiens founded to protect Gunnison area trails. The third Memorial Weekend event, the 24 Hours of Gunnison Glory, starts Saturday morning and is the only 24-hour climbing event in the West. “The format is simple: complete as many climbs as you can in 12 or 24 hours,” said Alec Solimeo. “Last year was our first and we had a solid 40 climbers; this year we’re hoping for more.” Climbing presentations in Gunnison will precede the event. Entertainment during the competition will include acoustic music, yoga, and a nature awareness workshop for youth.
“THIS IS TURNING INTO A GREAT WEEKEND OF RECREATION FOR THE GUNNISON VALLEY,” SOLIMEO SAID.
More information about Hartman Rocks can be found at: www.gunnisoncrestedbutte.com/hartman-rocks.
CrestedButteMagazine.com 35
36 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Notable locals
Renaissance teen THE IVY LEAGUE BECKONS TO
LOCAL ARTIST, MUSICIAN, ATHLETE AND SCHOLAR RICKY SANDOVAL. By Laura Puckett Kids in Crested Butte face many choices: academics, athletics, skiing, volunteering, the arts — there are dozens of ways to spend their time, and it’s hard to be good at all of them. Unless you’re Ricky Sandoval. A gifted artist, musician, athlete and scholar, Ricky has found success in every arena. As the head high school track coach at the Crested Butte Community School, I’ve had the privilege of seeing Ricky in action. More than any particular talent, what impresses me most is Ricky’s bearing. He seems to navigate the frenzy of high school with grace and composure, excelling modestly, leading quietly and moving steadily in the direction of his dreams. Perhaps it comes from his varied upbringing, with Spanish, Apache, Navajo and Cajun roots. By the time Ricky graduated this spring he had attended eight schools and lived in fifteen houses. Spending time alternately with his mom and dad has meant frequent moves, but he appreciates the perspective it’s given him. “I’ve seen a lot of different situations,” he says, “the full spectrum, from private Catholic school in Louisiana to huge public schools in Houston to little farm-town schools in Center [Colorado].” When he moved to Crested Butte with his dad, Richard Sandoval, Sr., at the start of freshman year, he was resistant to the change, but now he’s happy to be here. In Crested Butte, “there’s not nearly as much drama as at a big school,” he says. “I’m friends with pretty much the whole high school.” The small school has also enabled Ricky to make significant contributions to sports. With characteristic modesty, Ricky sees himself as “good here, in Crested
Self portrait by Ricky Sandoval
Butte” where the competition isn’t as steep. Ricky may
38 CrestedButteMagazine.com
not be destined to be a national track champion, but he’s talented. Quick and agile, Ricky has surprised me over and over again with his sprinting and jumping. As for soccer, Ricky played for the first time his sophomore year and by his senior year was the lead defenseman. “Ricky doesn’t back down from anything,” says coach Than Acuff. “He’s got a subtle self-confidence that you don’t notice until you see him out there on the field. It doesn’t matter who he’s up against or what we’re up
against as a team; he gives it 100%, no holds barred. He’s uninhibited in a great way.” Than recalls the highlight of a dismal state play-off game two years ago: “Basalt was walloping us, something like 5-0. It was on some random play, in the middle of these big, physical Basalt defenders – the land of the giants. Ricky (not a big guy) came out of nowhere, leaped at least a head above everyone else and slammed this shot that crashed off the crossbar. Everyone else had given up. But Ricky didn’t care what the score was; he was out there playing soccer.” The cat-like Ricky also entertained his teammates, at their request, with his trademark “off-axis spin-jump,” Than said. Soccer practice sometimes started a couple of minutes
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late; “it was too cool to watch Ricky.” Though he’s not a talkative, showy or “rahrah kind of guy,” as Than notes, Ricky’s understated confidence, leadership and dedication
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difficult classes in a rigorous school. “He has a strong natural intelligence,” says science teacher Todd Wasinger. “He quickly understands complicated ideas and concepts; his score on the ACT subject test in physics was through the roof. But with all these amazing gifts, he’s unassuming, friendly and respectful of his teachers and his classmates. He’s really remarkable, a delightful person.” Gifted in almost every subject, Ricky earned particular distinction as an artist. His AP art teacher, Ben McLoughlin, describes Ricky as “focused, mature, and professional.” With technical mastery and an eye for detail, Ricky has spent the last two years creating an impressive portfolio of drawings in pencil and charcoal. This past January he won an unprecedented two gold keys in the Colorado Scholastic Art Award contest, in which students from Colorado send in work to be judged. There are thousands of entries, and only the top works are given gold, silver, honorable mention or portfolio awards. Ricky entered two pieces and received two gold keys. “He’s one of the most skilled students I’ve ever taught,” says Ben, “but he’s humble about it. His peers admire him, but it doesn’t go to his head. He keeps his cool.”
CrestedButteMagazine.com 39
Artwork by Ricky Sandoval
Many of Ricky’s drawings, such as his careful portraits of musicians at work or dreaming, are influenced by another of his passions: music. He started playing music at nine years old when his dad gave him a guitar. After learning a few chords from his father, Ricky was off and running, teaching himself by ear and experimentation. “I can’t tell you the name of a chord or string or note,” he says, but he writes his own songs and has a repertoire of music in just about all styles. He is inspired and encouraged by his dad, who played at one time but was held back by losing the tips of two fingers in a carpentry accident. Ricky enjoys the practice and gets antsy if he can’t play every day. So varied are Ricky’s skills that “his peers refer to him as a ninja,” Todd says, “because he stands out at everything he does.” As he looks toward college, the challenge is putting his interests together in a program of study. “I’ve always wanted to do something with art,” Ricky says, “but it’s so hard to find something concrete.” Architecture seemed like a match for his talents, so after being encouraged by his teachers to reach higher with his college search, Ricky applied to the top architecture programs in the country. Across the board, he was accepted, with some impressive scholarship offers. After visiting several colleges, he decided to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Ricky is so quiet about his accomplishments that I was surprised to hear he got accepted to an Ivy League school. But the surprise gave way quickly to a sense of rightness. The seamless way Ricky settled into Crested Butte and the success he’s found, in whatever he put his hand to, speak to an adaptability and self-assuredness that he’ll take wherever he goes. “I thought about his background,” says Than, “then coming to Crested Butte, and what it would be like for him to go to some hoity-toity northeast school. Then I thought about 40 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Ricky and I figured, it ain’t gonna be a problem.”
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17
SUMMER 2010 COVER PHOTO CONTEST WINNER IS
Raynor Czerwinski.
RAYNOR CZERWINSKI HAS BEEN A STUDENT OF COMPOSITION MOST OF HIS LIFE, though the medium has changed – from pounding a rock guitar and writing songs as part of Seattle’s grunge scene to seeking a fleeting beam of light on a mountaintop through his viewfinder. “It’s the same thing you’re trying to tap into, whether it’s painting, photography, cooking or music. It’s good composition,” he said. Czerwinski grew up in Tacoma, Washington, then Seattle, and spent the ‘90s playing with his rock band First Time Tomorrow. They released a few albums and played more than 200 shows. The band found success, but after ten years Czerwinski realized “that wasn’t my gig any more. But I was wanting to get back to the mountains.” Czerwinski’s soul-searching took him to Europe, where he rode his bike across 16 countries over almost eight months. Europe appealed to him partly because “it’s a collection of small towns,” he said. So he came back to the U.S. set on finding a fitting town for his new home. In 2003 he set out from Seattle by bike, pedaling through Jackson Hole (too busy for his tastes) to Crested Butte, intending to hit Telluride next. “I got to Crested Butte and went no farther; it was exactly what I was looking for,” he said. He met his future wife, Susan Marion, when he began cooking at Le Bosquet, where she also worked. The two now help run John Ingham’s art gallery, which gives Czerwinski a home for his 42 CrestedButteMagazine.com
By Sandy Fails
long-time fascination, photography. After a hobby of shooting rock and roll concerts in Seattle, Czerwinski switched his photographic focus in Crested Butte to studying the play of light on alpine landscapes. “I found it an easy transition from the audio arts to the visual arts,” he said. It helps to live in a place where he can photograph star trails from his mudroom window and columbines just outside his front door. Photography, he noted, “is a lifelong endeavor.“ Like a poem a photo becomes more powerful as it becomes
simpler. He watches for strong compositions with equally strong lighting: “that 30-second beam of light in the middle of a storm.” Still a music aficionado, Czerwinski also explores Crested Butte’s outdoor wonderland by mountain bike or foot. To capture that wonderland through photography, he is abandoning his modern digital equipment in favor of film cameras. He recently bought an old Nikon camera and lens so he can go back to using the supersaturated Velvia film, a traditional favorite of landscape photographers. Czerwinski’s images are displayed in the Ingham Gallery, Camp 4, the Brick Oven, Le Bosquet and his website, www.lucidlandscape.com.
the other covers
We just had to use these cover photo contest finalists somewhere
Alex Fenlon
CrestedButteMagazine.com 43
Nathan Bilow
44 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Dusty Demerson
CrestedButteMagazine.com 45
Nathan Bilow
46 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Alex Fenlon
CrestedButteMagazine.com 47
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How could you turn them away? New York immigrants TIM AND TERRY BONNEY DIDN’T PLAN TO SHARE THEIR HOME WITH HORSES, MULES, LLAMAS, SHEEP, DOGS, CATS AND BIRDS, BUT NOW THEY WOULDN’T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. Story by Rachael Gardner Photos by Dusty Demerson
Dr. Tim & Terry Bonney at their home turned rescue ranch. CrestedButteMagazine.com 49
AT FIRST INTRODUCTION, Dr. Tim Bonney, an obstetrician originally from New York, appears an unlikely resident for rural Gunnison County. In his role as doctor, he is efficient and direct, handy behavior for attending to pregnant women with wild hormones coursing through their veins. But take this doctor out of the hospital and you’ll find a chatty, soft-hearted soul quietly running a rescue ranch for some of the county’s hardest workers. Pack mules, dude horses and retired ranching stock can find safe haven for their golden years at the Bonney rescue ranch. This New York cowboy readily admits he initially had no skill set for this endeavor but is learning as he goes. One look around the ranch shows that he is a quick study. Tim Bonney is quick to confirm the saying, “Behind every good man is a good woman.” Every step of the way, and often a step in front, is Terry Bonney, learning new skills, conquering fears and making room for a new animal in need. A former Fulbright Scholar and accomplished concert pianist, Terry remains active in the Crested Butte Music Festival, but her passion has shifted partly from the piano to the stable. She comments that caring for the animals in recent years has taught her to slow down. Still, an artist’s intensity lies just below the surface, transforming into the energy that drives this rescue ranch forward. The air at the ranch is peaceful, but Tim Bonney’s calm out-of-office demeanor wasn’t automatic. He admits that he was wound tight on his arrival in Gunnison, and learning to relax has been a process. He recalls an early encounter that started his change in thinking: “I didn’t have cell service and couldn’t find a
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payphone. The woman running the register at Ace Hardware offered me the store phone. Then she just walked away with the register
The animals continually teach the Bonneys.
open. I thought she was crazy.” It was the second event that day that helped him understand his new home. “The stoplight had turned green and I was getting so angry because the driver wasn’t moving.“ Then he followed the driver’s gaze to the sky and noticed a bald eagle flying overhead. “That’s when it really clicked for me,” he said. Tim and Terry now credit the horses with their transformation from tense city-dwellers into more relaxed individuals taking time to appreciate their surroundings. With eight horses and two mules in the barn, they either needed plenty of help with that transformation or their care for the animals has become a bit of an addiction. And it doesn’t stop with the equines. Tim and Terry have also rescued seven sheep, two llamas, five dogs, four cats, two finches (that have reproduced to 48), two lovebirds, two cockatiels and a cockatoo. That doesn’t factor in the animals that have come and gone. Having no solid connection to the horse world, the Bonney’s first horse was a rescue of circumstance, a gelding that was healthy but homeless. Word traveled that this Gunnison couple was willing to take in horses on a temporary basis. The result was an equine homeless shelter of sorts, with animals coming and going at no charge. Terry said that, while the animals were beautiful, she and Tim were initially afraid to interact with the horses and just looked at them from the other side of the fence. “We called them dinosaurs.” The horse they consider their first true rescue and the animal that helped them overcome their fear is a palomino named Yellow. They passed him in a field and realized he was so lame he could not move. Against the warnings of friends, Tim and Terry borrowed a horse trailer and brought him home. The vet advised that there was only a 10% chance that Yellow would survive, but with almost constant care he made a full recovery and has been on the ranch for five years. Yellow will not be ridden again due to the extent of his injuries. Few of the Bonney’s horses can be ridden. Most were adopted because, for one reason or another, their working days have come to a close; in most cases the next stop was the sale barn. Terry even adopted the first horse she ever rode, Maggie the Mustang. When she heard Maggie had come up lame due to a bad rear hip, Terry
knew her days on a dude string were over. Maggie can no longer be ridden, but Terry remembers well how Maggie treated her on that first terrifying trail ride through hail and lightning on one of Crested Butte’s summer afternoons. “I thought we were going to die,” says Terry, but the storm passed, no one died and Maggie the Mustang didn’t spook once. The one animal on the ranch that was not rescued is Tim’s prize mule, Annabelle. At an auction with friends but with no trailer or any other means to transport livestock, Tim got caught up in the action and won a yearling mule. To say this animal was “green broke” was a monumental exaggeration, but the doctor didn’t know any better and the deal was done. The story has a happy ending, with Annabelle, now six years old, saddle broke and no longer tearing down fences every time her equine friends take a ride off the property. Although it has worked out well and Annabelle is clearly the apple of the doctor’s eye, Terry feels it was unfair to the mule to purchase her because they don’t have the skills to train her to full capability. Not all is romance at the ranch, I begin to see from her comment. Tim and Terry explain how each animal found them and brought amazing changes to their lives. These changes have allowed them to embrace other sides of their personalities and instilled a sense of responsibility to help animals that cannot help themselves. “If you have the space, the means and the time, how do you turn any animal away?” Tim offers as justification for their growing herd. As I tour this rescue ranch and listen to the animal anecdotes, it is obvious each one has a special place in the hearts of the Bonneys. I meet Otis and Elvis, the sibling llamas that could not bear to be separated when one could no longer work. The sheep Sophia and Francesca arrived for some rest and rehab but are now here to stay. Jesse and Ali, two Australian Shepherd littermates, were abandoned in an outdoor pen. The list goes on, and I wonder when the Bonneys will run out of space and how they will be able to turn any animal away. When I ask the question, it is clear that Tim and Terry, far from their big-city roots, will continually work to make room for their friends in need.
“We called them dinosaurs.”
CrestedButteMagazine.com 51
photo > kosmon parran
TO THE VALLEY’S FANATICS, FLY-FISHING IS SCIENCE, ART, EVEN RELIGION. A light snow is falling, and the famed Taylor River catch-and-release area is desolate on this weekday in mid-winter, but for two hardy souls from Crested Butte, Greg Smith and Justin Howard. It’s high noon and a relatively warm and windless 28 degrees. The pair is decked out in camouflage, and Smith’s head and face are swathed in numerous layers of fabric, including a buff, ball cap and warm knit hat. Smith is five casts in when his rod bends sharply. He peers out over the water and spots his fish flopping around in the charcoal-colored waters below. A few small chunks of ice float by. “Oh yeah! Right in the mouth!” he exclaims. Smith lumbers down the four-foot-high snowbank where he’s been perched, hastily tosses his fingerless gloves aside into the snow, and reels in his fish: a gorgeous, 17-inch rainbow trout. Less than 30 seconds later, the fish is gently released from his net back into the water. Smith yells out the name of the winning fly triumphantly to Howard—who nods appreciatively— and then clambers back up out of the river, preparing to do it all over again. Smith and Howard are among the many individuals living in our valley who admit to a full-on obsession with fly-fishing. The weather conditions are clearly no deterrent for these two. Smith cheerfully admits to de-icing his line a handful of times already, and notes that while his reel isn’t frozen solid at this point, it probably should be. It’s all a part of the experience. 52 CrestedButteMagazine.com
THEIR By Erin English
With countless waters to fish in Gunnison County, our neck of the woods is a veritable fly-fishing paradise, especially in the summer, but virtually year-round. Those who fly fish 100 to 150 days or more a year, and there are many who do, wax poetic about their favorite sport in a way that is hard to understand by those who don’t. “The outdoors and the river, that’s where I go to church, and it’s where I find myself,” says John Bocchino, manager of Willowfly Anglers and certified fanatic. “I feel like I can recharge my batteries when I am doing it. It feeds my soul, I absolutely love it.” For Bocchino, it’s not actually catching a fish that draws him; it’s the process by which the fish is caught. It’s both a science and an art from start to finish, he says: reading the river, tying and selecting flies, casting, reeling in the fish and closing the deal. Fishing off a boat, with a worm dangling from a regular fishing pole, just wouldn’t evoke the same feelings. He’s a die-hard who “fishes his butt off” from November to March, and will carry gear out on snowshoes in the freezing cold to a prime spot without hesitation. “For me, fly-fishing feels like a direct connection to what is happening in nature. You are imitating nature [with your fly] and when you hook up on a fish, it’s like you are now part of everything that just happened in nature. I’ve never felt that way with anything else,” Bocchino says. Melissa Hobkirk doesn’t bat an eye when asked about her first foray into fly-fishing. She remembers not just the year, but the month and day: May 22, 2006. Previously from Denver, Hobkirk moved to Crested Butte in mid-November of last year, not for the ski season but for the fishing. Her obsession rivals that of any other fanatic in the area. CrestedButteMagazine.com 53
Highest Standards of Excellence
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Amy Beth Salley casts away on the Taylor River. photos > nathan bilow
“There were a few times I’d leave my night job at 3:30 a.m. and we would drive to a river and go fishing, and then sleep all day,” Hobkirk said. “Living in Denver, it was a treat to fish and something you had to plan for. Now that I am living here, it’s not that fishing is a treat; it’s a way
an end to how good you can become,” he says. “Every stretch
of life. Fishing is what I should be doing, and I’m doing it.”
of water, every pocket, every run…fish are there. You have to
She adds, “I spend a lot of time looking at bugs, with my head con-
think about where the fish live, you have to make casts that
stantly down, digging in the dirt. And I keep track of insects’ mating
deliver a bug that looks like the bugs that are there. It’s a total
seasons—that’s a little weird.”
puzzle.”
For Hobkirk, it’s not the number or the size of the fish that captures her
For anyone with the slightest interest in fly-fishing, Gun-
imagination; it’s the therapeutic benefits of being on the water. She is
nison County makes it easy, with many fly shops and guide
perfectly content fishing the smallest streams in the area, catching five-
services, spectacular waters (some of which are designated as
inch “brookies” and being in the moment. Her outings are recorded with
Gold Medal) and beautiful scenery, dozens of remote, pristine
painstaking detail in a well-worn fishing journal.
streams and mountain lakes. There is variety and solitude for
“Fly-fishing instills patience. You are being eaten alive by mosquitoes;
new and seasoned fishers.
you are up too early and out too late. It’s work, but it’s fun work. It’s an
Brook trout, cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, brown trout and
escape from the pressures of the things you have to do in daily life,” she
Kokanee salmon are in abundant supply here, with endless op-
says.
portunities to catch them.
Roark Kiklevich, who has spent 30+ years guiding in the area, offers his
“Some people think we look down our noses at other people
take on the sport’s allure. “It totally absorbs you, and there’s never really
who fish differently,” Bocchino says. “We go out there and CrestedButteMagazine.com 55
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freeze our butts off and put all the fish back. And then we go catch them again. A lot of people don’t understand why we do it.” The understanding seems to come only with participation, or from observing an individual who is completely enamored with the sport. There is pleasure written all over the faces of Smith and Howard, who say there is really nowhere else they’d rather be on this brisk winter day. “You have to catch one to know, and then it’s all over,” Smith says reverently. By the end of the day he will have caught – and released – four fish total, an afternoon well spent.
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he adds, gesturing to the Gold Medal waters below. And then he’s off, heading with intent down the bank of the Taylor River 20 yards or so from where he caught his last fish, his mind already wrapped around the puzzle of catching another one.
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Photo : Bob Brazell
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970.349.6114 • 318 Elk Avenue • Box 1081 • Crested Butte, Colorado 81224 12 CrestedButteMagazine.com
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This Gunnison property is 11,500 sq. ft. with 3 buildings and 2 sheds. Building 1 is a residential home/commercial 1,375 sq. ft. building. Building 2 is a 300 sq. ft. retail space. Building 3 is a detached 322 sq. ft. garage.CrestedButteMagazine.com
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photo > paul gallaher
HANG-GLIDERS AND PARAGLIDERS SOAR WITH THEIR WINGED BRETHREN IN THE EVER-CHANGING SKIES AROUND CRESTED BUTTE. by Dawne Belloise
60 CrestedButteMagazine.com
C
hildhood fantasies of flight begin from the time we run against the wind and feel the tug of the string as our first kite launches aloft into the day. Even as we grow older, we dream CrestedButteMagazine.com
3
n new loAcvaetnioue 207 Elk.349.0515 970 en.com h e icycl eav
bigalsb
l Advice iendly Loca S | MAPS & Fr
| ACCESSORIE E | APPAREL LES | SERVIC RENTALS | SA
Crested Butte in p o Sh e ic v r Se l l The Fu
of soaring above the earth, communing with birds and tickling the clouds... liberated from gravity and the mundane. Here in Crested Butte many of us are still pursuing our childhood pleasures with grownup toys. Starting in the late 1970s, self-proclaimed pilots began launching themselves from Crested Butte Mountain with the help of wings, called hang-gliders. The sport was relatively new throughout the U.S. and much more challenging in the ever-changing weather conditions of the mountains. Not to be confused with those hucksters of base-jumping who throw themselves off cliffs, opening tiny parachutes behind them, hanggliders, and more recently paragliders, now have to engage in strict certification through education. They must practically become micro-meteorologists. And since the ‘70s, their equipment has evolved for optimum flight through better technology and design. Hang-gliding utilizes a structured wing while paragliding uses a cellular canopy whose tubular pockets fill with air to transform it into a wing. Hang-gliders are suspended from the airframe in a harness, flying like Superman, head forward and bodies stretched prone behind. They shift their body weight to control the wing’s direction and head off searching for thermals – updrafts of heated air which will carry them to higher altitudes, allowing them to fly for hours. Paragliders fly suspended in a harness be62 CrestedButteMagazine.com
low their fabric wing, also known as a ram-air airfoil or parafoil, which is shaped by air pressure entering the tubular vents that form a row of cells in the front. Since the cells are only open in the leading edge, the incoming air keeps the wing inflated, maintaining its shape. While parachutes are designed for descending only, paragliders can also ascend. The birds you often see circling overhead are flying in thermals. Paraglider and hang-glider pilots often observe birds to know where the thermals are. Thermals are created when the sun warms up the ground and then warms up rock outcroppings even more, which sends warm air rising into the sky. Pilots, like birds, center themselves in the core of the thermals, circling to maximize lift and gliding from one thermal to the next. Thermals are also identified by cumulus clouds, which mark the top of a rising column of warm, humid air as it reaches dew point and condenses to form a cloud. Scott Yost is one of Crested Butte’s newest hang-gliding pilots and a recent member of the Crested Butte Soaring Society (CBSS), a club formed almost 35 years ago. He knows first hand that the weather here is unique. “Flying in the Rockies is the most exciting and the most difficult for soaring flight. At midday in a CB summer, it’s possible to catch thermals and ride up two thousand feet a minute. You just hang on! That’s really what you’re going for,” Scott says of the thrill. “It will mellow out as you get higher.” Always searching for thermals since they have no motorized power, hang-gliders need to rise 200 feet per minute just to maintain flight against the pull of gravity. Gliders can soar up to 18,000 feet by Federal Aviation law. Scott’s personal high was 16,500 feet. Up where birds rule, the feathered flyers have a curiosity about
the strange brethren hovering around their thermals. “They look at you, they come to you, they’re really curious about you.” Most pilots share stories similar to Scott’s. “I’ve flown with bald eagles, ravens, kestrels, and they are the ultimate in thermaling. I’ve gotten in thermals with birds five or ten feet below me and can see every feather and their talons.” He still sounds awed. “I’ll be doing my best to climb in the thermal and the birds will core through me!” (“Core” means to get into the center of the thermal.) The early days of hang-gliding defined it as a dangerous, daredevil sport; equipment design was in its experimental phase and training wasn’t as extensive. The accident rate has been dramatically decreased by training, well-designed modern wings and an emphasis on safety; pilots know more about the weather and when to come down or not go up at all. Ben Eaton, another CBSS member, pilots a paraglider and says he spent his first four years hiking the mountain and launching off. He’s also flown from Anthracite Mesa above Pittsburgh, the caves up Cement Creek, and Willow Creek, a soaring site overlooking Blue Mesa Reservoir. “Recently we’ve been allowed to fly off Mt. Crested Butte.” Ben expressed his appreciation of Crested Butte Mountain Resort for granting the club permission to use ski resort property. “We’ve gone from being in the dark to being very visible on an open ski area.” Ben has had his own rapturous experiences in the air. “There are a couple of falcons who live on Crested Butte peak and they come out and play with us. The two will play with one another and if we’re soaring above the peak they’ll start toying with us, definitely curious.” He laughs. “They’ll come close enough to touch their wingtips to ours,” he says of the sort of handshake, “more of an acknowledgement of your presence. They want to check you out. It’s pretty obvious who’s dominant in the sky... they are.” Ben recalls another moving moment from the air. “The coolest thing I’ve had happen was when I was flying with my wingman Bo Thomsen [pilots generally fly with a buddy for safety]. We were flying from Anthracite Mesa and we were having a really good thermic flight when the forest underneath us started moving.” He paints an image of a dark mass separating from the trees. “There were about 300 head of elk that you could only see from directly above. We followed them for about five miles towards Cloud City. They saw our shadows and that had spooked them.” He’s still enchanted with the memory. Tony Brown is one of the originals, flying hang-gliders since 1979. He first flew Crested Butte in ‘81. “We get really close to birds during migration. That’s a great force of nature that we’re tapping into that the world can’t see... feeling the pulsing of the atmosphere and pushing us upward,” Tony says. He also describes golden autumn days, warmly crisp and sunny. “In the fall, sometimes the aspen leaves get pulled up into thermals,” like a great sunlit spiral, thousands of dancing gold specks being sucked upwards into the bright blue heaven. On the warmest days of summer, pilots will be dressed as though they’re going skiing because it’s much colder at altitude. “Our CamCrestedButteMagazine.com 63
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elbaks usually freeze,” Tony adds, “but when you get up there at cloud base, you can skim the clouds.” His personal high was 24,000 feet at a Telluride Airmen’s Rendezvous, which had received special FAA permission to exceed the altitude limit. “Not only getting high but getting far is every pilot’s desire... to fly cross-country,” Tony said. “I’m always looking to take long flights. I think our potential has barely been tapped here.” His longest flight was 111 miles during a meet in California. He adds, “I’ve had three flights of almost one hundred miles from Crested Butte and once ended up at Green Mountain Reservoir, north of Dillon, crossing I-70,” where he was first witness to a forest fire. He’s flown east to Florissant and also to the Sand Dunes. Flying cross-country was first done from Crested Butte by Tommy Boylon, a.k.a. Captain Rainbow. In the late ‘80s he was the first to fly across the Continental Divide, landing a little below the Monarch ski area... almost not making it. Tony, who is known among his pilot peers as the local who can pull off cross-country excursions, explains, “Sometimes I fly out and zone out, and watch the birds (for thermal indicators). It feels like an instant entry into another reality, a type of wildness... everything changes. Even if it’s easy flying, it’s the kind of thing that always takes a lot of focus and keeps your mind off mundane things. Sometimes you can float around like you’re in a boat on a pond... but you always keep a little scan going. Other times it’s completely taxing to use all your faculties to keep in a thermal and stay out of your friends’ way. Sometimes you kind of get smacked around in the sky. Sometimes you can just drive your glider around the sky. The challenges are always unique and ever changing.” Scott Yost summarizes what most of us can only imagine: “It’s the boyhood dream of flying, and most people will agree that hang-gliding or paragliding is the purest form of human flight. There’s nothing closer to being a bird.” Dawne Belloise is a freelance writer, photographer, traveler and musician living with a large cat in a tiny cottage on an alley at the end of the road in Crested Butte’s paradise. Her writing, musings and photography are published in various mags and rags. Contact dbelloise@gmail.com, rubysroad.com.
Crested Butte Printing Evolves with Changing Times Crested Butte Printing, in business in Crested Butte since 1985, has merged with Grand Junction based Colorado Printing Company (CPC). The new entity will operate in Crested Butte under the name “Crested Butte/CPC Solutions.“ Steve Mabry and Chris Hanna, former owners of Crested Butte Printing, and Keitha Kostyk will continue to serve their customers. Mabry explained, “ By teaming up with Colorado Printing Co., we can give our customers the same personal service that they are used to, but with a greatly expanded menu of products and capabilities. Those capabilities include access to high-volume, four-color printing, and digitally driven, variable data products. In addition, we will introduce to our customers a whole new concept of integrating print with the internet.” According to Mike Antonucci, president of Colorado Printing, “Our goal is always to bring the most sophisticated marketing techniques to our customers. In today’s world that is not just print, but much more. Our services range from creative consultation, design, copy writing and email blasts. We try to combine all the technologies to get the most marketing bang for each customer. We are excited to be working with Steve, Chris and their customers.” Crested Butte Printing’s decision to partner with CPC comes after a long debate over purchasing a new press and finishing equipment. “Our equipment couldn’t handle our sales volume. There were times of the year where our sales volume far exceeded our capabilities, which forced us to out source a significant amount of work. Moving forward we had to make a decision, spend a tremendous amount
of money on a new press and finishing equipment or partner with CPC to utilize and offer the latest technologies in printing and marketing,” said Mabry. “It was a tough decision but clearly the best move for our company.” With the Crested Butte Printing side dissolved December 1, 2009, Crested Butte Publishing, still owned by Mabry and Hanna, will operate as it always has and remains unchanged with the merger. Hanna elaborated: “With our manufacturing off site, it has given us a breath of new energy to focus on the titles we have and to improve them.” Publications such as The Crested Butte Magazine, The In-Room Guide and The Map of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested are already getting more attention. “We have a fantastic new website for Crested Butte Magazine (crestedbuttemagazine.com) and we have just officially partnered with the chamber of commerce to make our map its official visitor’s map. There are good things going on here.” With today’s economy impacting companies nationwide, Mabry stressed, “We did not go out of business nor was this a decision based on the economy. In fact, we (Crested Butte/CPC Solutions) have never been stronger. Our pricing, the products we can offer and our turn time have all improved. We are really exited to progress as Crested Butte/ CPC Solutions. Of course none of this would be viable without our amazing client base. We are fortunate to have such great customers who have been patient and willing to grow with us through this transition and we look forward to seeing everyone at our new creek side location, on Elk Avenue behind Ryce Restaurant.”
CrestedButteMagazine.com 65
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TALES of a former
camp dogger
CAMPFIRE SPOON MUSIC, HOMEMADE WHISKEY, BUFFALO MEATLOAF AND CALICO BLOOMERS TURN A CURIOSITY-SEEKER INTO A RENDEZVOUS REGULAR. Story and above photo by Brooke Murphy
“FIRE IN THE HOLE” There is something to be said for waking up to black powder can-
he wakes up in a room with painted walls that don’t shift under the weight of wind. The shadows remind me of walks in the woods with my mother; holding my hand, she would let me close my eyes and
nons… especially when the BOOM is followed by the sound of
walk beneath the cracks of sunlight as they danced on my eyelids.
bagpipes. I open my eyes to see the shadows of a ponderosa pine
I have to pinch myself to remember that it was just one year
dancing on the walls of a canvas tent. Smoky, a long-time participant
earlier that I visited my first Mountain Man Rendezvous. It was a
of Mountain Man Rendezvous, says he is happier here than when
Saturday in August, and the sky was overcast and threatening to
rain when I left my house. Instead of browsing the booths at the Crested Butte Arts Festival, I found myself turning west off Highway 135 onto Washington Gulch Road. An inconspicuous wooden sign with yellow lettering leaned on the street sign, offering a tentative welcome to passersby.
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68 CrestedButteMagazine.com
I drove slowly, avoiding the cattle grazing placidly on both sides of the road. I could almost touch their noses. Clouds of dust followed my car, and I watched for the Rendezvous site around every corner of the dirt road until I saw the designated parking area. Adjacent to the road, a plastic port-a-john stood in contrast to the painted teepees and triangular canvas tents of the camp, where costumed men, women and children milled about. Drawn to the explosive sounds of black powder rifles, I ventured into the high grasses where the shooting competition was underway. An angular, long-mustached man knelt on one knee scrutinizing his competitors as they took turns on the targets. I sat cross-legged in the sharp grass, jotting notes and trying to ignore the questioning gazes of the riflemen. When I left that day, as the afternoon rain began to fall, I knew I would return to the Rendezvous. Smoky and Tuck enticed me with their fantastic stories of road-kill stew, homemade whiskey called apple pie, and “counting coups” on their Rendezvous neighbors. By the next summer, I had rounded up a few makeshift outfits and planned to attend five Rendezvous throughout Colorado. “Welcome home,” Tuck said every time he greeted me at the Rendezvous sites. Once, on the way to Rendezvous, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up last-
minute items, and I marveled at my reflection in the store window… dressed in colonial whites, cinched at the waist by a thick, braided leather belt, with shinhigh moccasins a size too wide and my hair in two long braids. I grabbed some matches and vegetables for Smoky’s Dutch oven buffalo meatloaf and blushed when the clerk smiled at my attire. Historically, Mountain Man Rendezvous were pre-planned gatherings of fur trappers who had survived another winter in the wilderness collecting beaver pelts. Men from fur-trading companies also arrived on horseback and were eager to obtain furs in exchange for supplies, booze and gifts for the fur trappers’ Indian brides. At camps with hundreds of tents, people spent their days socializing and remembering friends who never materialized again. Rendezvous was a time of great celebration and an opportunity for mountain men to take a short hiatus from the dangers they faced every day. The days and nights were lively for these men reveling in their reprieve from the threats of wild animals, hypothermia, starvation and the Indians, who were rightfully wary of the white man. Between 1800 and 1840, there were fewer than 40 Rendezvous in the territory that is now Colorado. These popular events disappeared with the mountain men when the beaver populations shrunk and silk hats from Europe became fashionable. During the 1970s when characters like Jeremiah Johnson and Grizzly Adams became popular figures in American culture, and when back-to-the-landers sought refuge in the wilderness, Rendezvous reappeared. Men and women began gathering at living history encampments wearing “period-appropriate” attire and creating campsites of teepees and military tents used during early exploration of the West. Here, people traded for goods that would have been available at Bent’s Old Fort or Fort Robidoux and competed in muzzleloading and bow and arrow contests and, occasionally, a good wrestling match. Typically, when we arrived at Rendezvous, dozens of cars, trucks, vans, and Airstream trailers were parked haphazardly in the grass. Out of the truck, I pulled teepee poles accompanied by large, heavy canvases and well-made wooden boxes that held clothes, food, domestic and recreational tools, as well as trading goods. Smoky and I unfolded and situated the canvas tent on the ground. We kicked old, dried cowpies from the perimeter of the tent, lined up the poles and unfolded woven ropes at each corner. As soon as the truck was empty, I reparked it in the parking lot; all vehicles were removed from the camp until the weekend was over. Today’s Rendezvous begins calmly after the morning cannons remind everyone where they are. Burly and bearded men arise and don their “capotes”— long, hooded coats fashioned out of genuine Hud-
son Bay Company or Whitney Point wool. Coffee, consisting of unfiltered grounds and water, is made on an open fire, and no one comments if I pluck coffee grounds from my teeth during breakfast. There is a considerable level of authenticity at these events. One’s years at Rendezvous are apparent in the quality of costume and camp. A common joke is that everyone must leave Rendezvous and go back to work so they can afford to come back to Rendezvous! Smoky adorns himself with his best beaded belts, bags and necklaces and remarks, “Where else does a guy get to decide what jewelry to wear today?” I learn the meaning of “camp dogging” for breakfast: showing up with a spoon, an empty wooden bowl and coffee mug, so the generous host fills my belly with a meal of eggs, vegetables, fruit, toast and strong black coffee. I watch a young boy throw a hatchet at a target while his parents socialize. Later that summer, I’ll witness the “naming ceremony” where he takes the moniker “Buffalo Chips,” having been successfully dared to put some of the dung in his mouth. Fortunately, I’ll make it through a summer of Rendezvous without acquiring a camp name, which is assigned according to “something stupid” the person has done (although I was threatened with the name “Long Winded”). Later in the morning, I walk with Tuck down Trader’s Row, stopping to visit with friends and peruse the displayed goods. I admire the strands and boxes of beads, handmade leather bath kits, New Mexican woven belts and cast iron pots and pans. I purchase calico-patterned bloomers, and Tuck treats me to a baby blue felt hat that is later adorned with a feather by another friend. In the evening, we gather around a grand campfire and listen to tall tales about adventurous, wise and wily mountain men. These are heroic stories of historical fur trappers and traders like Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, who explored the frontier before Native Americans were removed and before miners rushed to the West in search of gold, silver, coal and hard rock. Bottles of whiskey are passed as well-dressed mountain men and women pull harmonicas and spoons from their “possibles” bags and make music together. There are several balladeers on the Rendezvous circuit, and they inevitably perform a score of the most familiar songs and stories. I tap my palms on my knees and watch the people around me bow their heads, close their eyes and bounce with the rhythm of the instruments. When I leave the fire and walk back to the tent, the cool, dark air is highlighted by a stunning moon shining through high, splotchy clouds. Oil-lit lanterns light campsites; soft voices and laughs drift from every direction. So this is what Rendezvous feels like, I think. Living history events are often misunderstood. One imagines Civil War re-enactors dressed as Yankees or Rebels charging across CrestedButteMagazine.com 69
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fields with bayonets poised. It’s a common assumption that re-enactors are escaping reality. But I like to think that barefoot children chasing butterflies through camp are a legitimate part of my reality. In film, literature and truth, the mountain men of the fur trade era experienced North American soil as unspoiled and untouched. It was the land of Native Americans, who took only what they needed, gave praise for what was afforded them and roamed a great and varied landscape. The Indians taught the mountain men their traditions as well as the routes of their best guides. In the years to come, mountain men would show these routes to explorers and settlers as civilization expanded west. Every now and then, I try to channel those mountain men. I walk quietly through the wilderness wearing moccasins. I dance around the fire to ward away coyotes howling from the darkness. Rendezvous challenges me to understand a time when the land was freer and wilder. That time was less comfortable, but also less distracted. I feel this connection during manual labor, like gardening, shoveling snow and stacking firewood. I catch a glimpse of that era when hiking up Snodgrass or Gothic Mountain, dipping into spaces where pine trees cover the sky. I imagine what a mountain man felt when he rode horseback up Paradise Divide, surrounded by wilderness and healthy rivers full of profitable beavers. When I moved to Crested Butte five years ago, I didn’t fully understand this land. But thanks to Rendezvous, now I can see Paradise.
EAST RIVER FREE TRADERS RENDEZVOUS WASHINGTON GULCH Friday, July 30 through Sunday, August 1, 2010 Public welcome all day every day; after 6 p.m., guests are required to be dressed appropriately. 70 CrestedButteMagazine.com
RESHAPING OUR CULTURE MAY BE A LONG HAUL; BUT DYNAMO NORDIC SKI COACH AND ULTRA-MARATHON RUNNER DUNCAN CALLAHAN SPECIALIZES IN LONG HAULS. Story by Laura Puckett Photos by Rob O’Dea Photography A lanky runner from the Gunnison Valley doesn’t sound like a poster child for revolution, but that is, indeed, what Duncan Callahan is all about. As an accomplished ultra-marathon runner and head coach of the Crested Butte Junior Nordic Ski Team, Callahan is undertaking his revolution primarily through running and skiing, but his vision supersedes any one sport. It’s all about goals. “My personal mission statement is to set a goal, work toward it, tweak it, keep an eye on it, achieve it, and teach or inspire others to do the same thing. That’s why I’m here,” he says. So whether he’s winning the Leadville 100 trail run, as he did in 2008, or teaching a sixth grader how to skate ski, Callahan strives to fulfill this mission one mile, one kid, one goal at a time. It’s surprising to find this confidence and sense of purpose in someone 27 years old, but they are evident in Callahan’s every move and word. He walks into a room with his head high, his stride strong. He speaks clearly, his gaze unflinching. “I’ve seen so many people with all the resources in the world, or without any resources, across the board, sitting. Sitting. Being bored, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to move forward,” he says. “We’re humans; we’re supposed to do something bigger than sit around playing XBox.” Striving for goals, he believes, is the key to changing our culture that “as a whole has become too complacent, too tired, too lazy, too negative.” CrestedButteMagazine.com 13
Only in the last few months has he been able to state his mission so distinctly. Previously, he was driven more by his passion for pure sport. Growing up in Glens Falls, New York, he found success as a Nordic skier and wanted to continue on at the NCAA level, which brought him to Western State College. After graduating from Western in 2005, he continued to pursue skiing as the head coach in Crested Butte. He began to focus on running at a new level, too. “Running resonated with me right away,” he says. “I liked it. The rhythm of it, the excessiveness of it, the competition of it.” In high school he posted better results as a skier, but “I’ve always had a passion for volume,” he says. One dry December day while the Nordic coach taught the beginner skiers on a thin patch of snow, Callahan was told to go for a training run; 31.6 miles later he wrote in his training log, “I want to run an ultra.” With the encouragement of local runners Scott Drum and Jake Jones, Callahan attained this “ultra” (26 miles or more) goal in 2007 when he completed a 50-kilometer race in Moab. That same summer he ran a 50-mile race in Fruita and his first Leadville 100. A new phase of his life had begun. In 2008, Callahan earned his greatest title to date as the Leadville 100 champion, completing the arduous 72 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Duncan Callahan crosses the finish line as the 2008 Leadville 100 champion.
course in just over 18 hours. The summer of 2009 Callahan garnered sponsorships from companies like Vasque, Sport Hill and Vespa Amino Acid Supplement and stepped up his racing schedule, competing in nine races and finishing in the top ten every time (and in the top three all but twice). Running is clearly one way Callahan embodies his life mission. To complete one 100-mile running race, let alone a dozen, requires enormous dedication and determination. He wants people to understand it’s not instantaneous: he’s had to go through the process. “You can’t see what happened in my mind when I was on my four-hour run. But you can see ‘Duncan was seventh that year, he won this year. Duncan’s time was 21 hours that year, 18 hours this year.’” He hopes others will say, “I’m pretty inspired by that. I’m going to go do the same thing.” The second half of his mission, to inspire and teach others how to set goals, fits perfectly with ski coaching. His evolution from athlete into coach hasn’t been seamless, though. At age 23 he took charge of the Crested Butte Junior Nordic Program and two winters later decided to step away. He’s frank that during his first two years of coaching he was excited about skiing around with kids, but that the other aspects of the job— fundraising, relationships, administration—were more challenging. A year off changed his perspective, and when he was given a chance to come back for the 2008-2009 winter, he launched a new era. Callahan took his second shot at coaching to enact a lesson he learned from his father. “My dad has always said, ‘I don’t care who you are or what you do. I don’t care if you’re the trash guy, I don’t care if you’re a CEO. You have one little thing, and you become an expert, or you move towards becoming an expert, in it. In that process, you gain confidence. When you have confidence, you’ve got the ability to try other things or to accept criticism.’” Callahan’s Leadville victory helped bring him to a place of greater confidence. Returning to coaching, he could reflect on his strengths and weaknesses without feeling threatCrestedButteMagazine.com 73
ened. “I’ve been more open to and willing to accept dialogue from these other families, and they’ve poured out into me. There’s been a lot of giving of emotional energy, mental energy, logistical support, financial support, you name it. When you get that kind of support coming in from people, you’ve got no choice but to give back.” Giving back he’s done in force. “I think of my parents as the rocket that boosts the orbiter into space. They instilled vision, dreams, ideas and knowledge into me. Well, now that I’m in orbit, I’d better do something so that rocket-ship’s mission wasn’t in vain.” To launch his young athletes, Callahan meets with the Nordic team two mornings and six afternoons a week during the winter, and two to five days a week all summer. “It’s scary in some ways,” he says. “Their goals become your goals, their successes become your highs, their failures become your lows. A year ago I had a really good relationship with one kid and one family; now I have committed relationships with six, seven, eight kids and families.” While he’s thrilled with the increased dedication among the team members this year, he hopes to grow the program still more. Having twelve to fifteen junior athletes and six to eight college athletes would make the team self-sustaining, both financially and energetically, but would keep it small enough for quality control. It’s a long-term vision, but, true to character, he has set the goal and is working toward it. Callahan acknowledges that he may get a bit extreme with the “mission” theme at times. “I like things in excess,” he says. With more drive than most people can fathom, Callahan realizes it’s unique to “wake up at 4:15 in the morning, buzzing to go run. I come back from my run and write down all these notes and thoughts and ideas that I had.” These days most of his ideas are for his athletes or his training. With five ultra marathons, including three 100-milers, on Callahan’s docket for 2010, staying consistent, healthy and balanced will be as important as podium finishes. Wherever Callahan focuses his energy in the future, one thing’s a safe bet: he’ll approach it wholeheartedly and tirelessly, full of ideas and plans, buzzing.
it’s about the land Crested Butte Land Trust www.cblandtrust.org 970.349.1206
Photograph by: Rebecca Weil 74 CrestedButteMagazine.com
GET UP TO
Photo of mountain bike feature by Raynor Czerwinski. All other photos by Tom Stillo.
THE MOUNTAIN
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17
Mountain Matrimonials EMILY POST MIGHT NEED A NEW CATEGORY TO ENCOMPASS CRESTED BUTTE’S NOT-QUITE-BY-THEBOOK WEDDINGS. By Rachael Gardner Many of us who plan weddings for a living have read Emily Post’s Wedding Etiquette more times than we care to admit. According to Emily, all the weddings in the world fall into exactly three categories: formal, semi-formal and informal. The informal and semi-formal weddings should be given their due respect, but it is the formal wedding that holds special attraction for most ladies – even in Crested Butte, a decidedly informal town. We dance to the beat of a different drum here in the mountains, so I decided to revisit the rules of etiquette and determine if a formal Crested Butte wedding was even possible. Had I been misleading formally clad couples down an informal aisle all these years? Emily’s formal wedding designation is determined by four criteria: time of day, attire, size of the wedding party and location. Armed with this information, I reviewed past weddings to see if they met Ms. Post’s standards. Emily makes it clear that while an elegant wedding can take place at any time of day, a formal wedding takes place in the evening. As anyone in Crested Butte knows, evening is the most sensible time for a wedding. This is to avoid the afternoon rain showers that can wreak havoc on an outdoor ceremony. An evening wedding also enables the groom (or bride) to bike 401 and finish in plenty of time to shower and dress. Was the practicality of an evening wedding the true driving force or just a happy coincidence? At any rate, Emily’s time-of-day criterion was an easy one to meet. Second on the list of requirements is attire. Tuxedos, gowns, dark suits, cocktail dresses and other forms of finery are mentioned as acceptable dress code for a formal wedding. 76 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Many couples in Crested Butte don a tuxedo and traditional white dress to exchange vows. Just because they hike off into the woods to exchange those vows doesn’t make the dress any less formal. As for the guests, peel away layers of work clothes and athletic gear, and you’ll find that residents of Crested Butte not only know how to dress for a formal occasion; they relish the rare opportunity to wear something other than denim.
photo > dusty demerson
Then my mind settled on the dogs. A Buttian is seldom without his or her dog; to get married without one’s canine companion would be unthinkable. I could scarcely recall a Crested Butte wedding that didn’t have the family dog acting as ring bearer. If the humans dress in formal attire but the ring bearer goes unclothed and bare-pawed, does that still qualify as a formal wedding? I wasn’t sure what Emily would say, but I imagined you could put a tuxedo tie on the dog (floral wreath for the females) and present a fairly solid argument for a formal wedding designation. The third criterion states that the size of the formal wedding party should be between four and ten attendants each for the bride CrestedButteMagazine.com 77
and the groom; a couple needs at least eight people to participate in their wedding ceremony. Between traditional bridesmaids and groomsmen, readers, musicians, friends serving as amateur officiants, dogs (Emily did not specify that the attendants must be human), flower girls and ring bearers of the two-legged variety, eight was an easy number to reach. Sometimes, in fact, it takes a village to marry a couple, not just raise their children. Could a couple get extra credit in one category to be applied to another? I considered an evening wedding in which the white-gowned bride paused throughout the processional to greet specific friends and each time was handed a flower as that individual fell in step behind her. When the bride reached the minister, her wedding bouquet had been created from the flowers passed to her by friends. During the recessional, the newlyweds again paused every few feet, this time to collect a friend with a musical talent. When this wedding party reached the end of the aisle, the attendants turned and performed a song for the guests, written by the couple. Could the abundance of the wedding party make up for the random pair of not-quite-formal khakis that showed up in its midst? The criteria count was three formal, one semi-formal, but I wasn’t sure the rules of etiquette were subject to the democratic process. And moving on to the fourth criterion only muddied the waters.
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According to Emily, a formal wedding ceremony usually takes place in a house of worship, a large home or a garden. She says little about the reception, probably assuming that venue choice would complement the formal aspects of the ceremony. This is not a safe assumption in Crested Butte. I remembered a very formal and traditional Jewish wedding with a reception on the Brick Oven deck
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and a bride who could not wait to shed her designer wedding dress in favor of blue jeans and cowboy boots. I’d have to adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it came to Emily and Crested Butte’s wedding receptions. As for the ceremonies themselves, many Crested Butte weddings take place in gardens and churches, meeting the fourth criterion for a formal event. However, just as many take place in other outdoor locations sacred to the couples. My mind swam with ceremony spots – couples who exchanged vows in Coal Creek, on the Woods Walk, at a favorite fly-fishing spot on Cement Creek, at the top of Paradise Divide, amid wildflowers below Mt. Crested Butte; the list stretched on and on. Perhaps I could expand the definition of “house of worship” to include these areas that inspired personal and spiritual reflection. With a little leniency, I decided that all the weddings I had labeled as formal would hold up to the Emily Post standard, even with their dearth of mansions and ballrooms. But on a last stroll down memory lane, I started to remember the tiny details I’d glossed over. I thought of the formally dressed couple who stood alone at the evening altar but recognized their would-be wedding party by providing each with a townie bike and riding as a group from the ceremony to the reception. Is it still a wedding party if they pedal beside the couple instead of standing beside them? What about the beautiful wedding at which all were asked to go barefoot? Is a suit still considered formalwear in the absence of shoes? And what to do about the minister who wore white buckskins while the wedding party stood in tuxedos and long gowns? The incidents of Crested Butte style adorning otherwise traditional weddings could fill a book. Each quirky detail served as a significant factor in the couple’s wedding and couldn’t be overlooked, but they challenged Emily’s tidy nuptial demarcations. Then I realized that Emily Post, being the champion of etiquette, would want things to be pleasant and properly ordered. Most likely, were she to spend some time in our little town, she would simply add a new category:
Crested Butte Formal. 80 CrestedButteMagazine.com
A Tribe & Its Totem HOW A MOTLEY, FUN-LOVING CREW CREATED CRESTED BUTTE’S FIRST INTERACTIVE PUBLIC ARTS INSTALLMENT 37 YEARS AGO. Story and photos by Sandra Cortner Visitors wandering through mid-town Crested Butte might be puzzled to encounter a two-story wooden totem pole, more fitting for the tribal lands of the Northwest than a former coal-mining town in the Colorado Rockies. But to those who know Crested Butte, with its madcap characters and penchant for whimsy, the totem pole seems right at home. Especially for me, since I photographed and wrote about its creation 37 years ago. George Sibley, the 1973 director of the Festival of the Arts, wasn’t content with just artists’ booths on Elk Avenue; he planned to steer the festival toward interactive art, with demonstrations and workshops. Over beer, local woodcrafter Denny McNeill expanded the vision: “There oughta be a 50-foot spruce log with people carving on it all at once.” After more meetings over more beers, Sibley challenged McNeill to spearhead the project. He took $50 from the Art Festival’s meager budget to local sawmill owner Joe Rozman, who delivered a 30-footlong, three-foot-diameter spruce tree he felled near Lake Irwin. On August 6, the Monday of Art Festival week, I photographed McNeill and Barbara Kotz Sibley (then George’s wife) biting into the bark with whining chainsaws, roughing out their designs. Woodcrafters Bill Folger, Phil McKay and Jim Cazer joined them. Chips flew as their tools spit resin-scented sawdust into the rocky lot near Third Street and Maroon Avenue.
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TOP LEFT: Denny McNeill & Barb Sibley make their first cuts in the log soon to be a totem pole. BOTTOM LEFT: Jim Cazer & Denny McNeill chainsaw the bark off. TOP RIGHT: Bill Folger attaches branches (horns) to his buffalo head. BOTTOM RIGHT: George Sibley checking it all out. Do you see the resemblance?
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I ran the picture on page one of my Crested Butte Pilot newspaper and, because my office was just up the alley, often dropped by to photograph the noisy progress. Each carver worked a five-foot section of the trunk, with neither written plan nor detailed sketches — just an agreement to finish by Sunday. Six days hence, it would be, in McNeill’s words, “Something fun for everyone to look at.” Crested Butte’s first collaborative public art project was on its way. Today, the totem pole remains one of the most momentous events of Art Festival annals. Yet recollections of its creation vary, and my newspaper articles and photos only nicked the surface. Even the artists can’t agree. However, it is a touchstone of collective memories of the 1970s, from when we were certainly a tribe of our own. So, what really happened that summer, from top to bottom? Recently, via e-mail, McNeill described the head he created on the top of the totem that I’d always thought was a caricature of George Sibley. “It was originally supposed to be a face that was mostly nose and ears, resembling an elephant somewhat. But the vertical nature of the log segment made that idea unworkable.” The way McNeill tells it, a girl approached him during his handwork and asked if he was carving Sibley. Struggling with his figure, McNeill replied in frustration, “Yes, that’s George,” starting the persistent rumor. Recently, wanting to set the record straight, he wrote, “It was a caricature of someone from the movie ‘King of Hearts.’ Steve Glazer ran it every year at the Princess Theater. There was always a masquerade party at Frank and Gal’s afterwards. The thing under the chin is a bow tie.”
what REALLY happened that summer, from top to BOTTOM?
Barb Sibley still believes McNeill meant to caricaturize George, but admits that chainsaw carving was new to them all, so their designs evolved along the way. “We were all winging it. In fact it was, for me, a week’s seminar in how to keep a chainsaw running.” Barb, who carved the second and third figures, started her woodworking business, the Alphabet, in 1969. After mostly crafting plates, bowls and signs, she became enamored of trolls, creating them in all sizes — the largest one for the totem pole. Realizing the space was too long for just the troll, she added the eagle beak and wings design, wanting “to stretch in more ways than just filling allotted space.” She recalled, “Billy Folger carved the mushroom at the foot of my troll and about gave Denny apoplexy as he was cutting in narrower and narrower, in the very middle of the pole!” Folger, who ski patrolled in the winter and carved in the summer, depicted a buffalo head below the troll. The week after the Art Festival, he scaled a tall ladder, which was in place for staining, to secure the horns — three-foot tree branches. Through the years the horns were lost. Folger, now of Hotchkiss, has remained a perennial exhibitor at the Art Festival. Phil McKay, the only non-local totem artist, was visiting his friend Jim Cazer and carved a turtle going up one side and down the other. At least that’s what I’m told. I have since discovered I’m not the only one who has to squint to figure it out. Recently, I studied the pole anew, puzzled by the doubled-sided figure with paddle-like feet. Barb sounded less impressed by McKay’s turtle than by his skill in operating his chainsaw in a trouble-free manner. “When his saw ran out of gas, he sat on the tailgate of his truck and completely dismantled, thoroughly cleaned and gassed up his saw.” You would expect the top of the tree to be the top of the totem pole log. However, it’s reversed, explained McNeill. Semi-rotted wood comprised the slender treetop, which became the bottom of the totem. The misfortune wasn’t discovered until Jim Cazer began work near the ground level and ended up with the short, or in this case skinny, end of the stick. Judging from my photos, he appears to have successfully carved a face with a ski jump nose, big jowls and buggy eyes anchored by a row of five toes. At the time, he said it represented President Nixon. The local lore (reflecting the anti-war sentiment of the time) was that Cazer knew dogs would be lifting their legs on his effigy. Later, a tongue sticking out was added. A female friend claims it was a genital appendage and McNeill thinks it was the nose. Folger believes the figure was a dog. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too is meaning. Recently Cazer said, “I would have to say that my carving really didn’t represent any individual or animal except what I would call ‘Low Man (on the …)’ While that position has traditionally been looked at as the least desirable… I was actually quite proud to be selected for it. The Low Man is the one who supports the whole shebang, and when he finally gives out, all of the other higher beings hit the dirt.” As McNeill predicted, it was “fun art,” not fine art. Its creators figured the totem pole might remain upright for five years or so. CrestedButteMagazine.com 83
Raising the totem pole became another “interactive workshop,” as townspeople joined the woodcarvers on the final day of the festival, August 12, 1973. A local contractor dug an eight-foot hole with his backhoe. While a crowd watched and I photographed, the patrol leader for the ski resort, who loaned a crane in return for a six-pack of beer, maneuvered the boom to hoist the pole into place, its belly protected by old tires. A team of bare-chested, long-haired hippies, commanded by McNeill, steadied guide ropes as the pole entered its place of honor, facing Elk Avenue. McNeill swung from the crane in rope rigging and crowned the top with an eagle weather vane forged by metalsmith Jim Wallace. A painter donated the stain/oil and sprayed the whole log.
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The oiling was not enough to protect the pole during the ensuing years. It cracked and then, top heavy, became our “Leaning Tower of Totem.” On June 22, 2006, the Town’s Totem Pole Committee (as Cazer calls it) lifted it down with a crane, oiled it and then encircled it with four metal bands to stabilize the fissure wounding its right side. They cut off the decomposed bottom of the pole, along with the head of McKay’s turtle and Cazer’s rotting Low Man/Nixon. A metal housing was inserted into the log, screwed onto a rod in the ground, and encased in concrete. Now the totem faces slightly off the original center among picnic tables and benches in the manicured “vestpocket park” that people call Totem Pole Park. The original carvers have discussed reconvening in Crested Butte to create another totem pole together. Or to feed the original one to a ceremonial bonfire before passing the torch, literally, to the next crew of artists.
photo by JC Leacock
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“It might be time for a new generation of Buttians to carve their own totems,” Cazer said. Sandra Cortner authored “Crested Butte Stories…Through My Lens” and ran the Art Festival during its tamer, less imaginative phase. To add your recollection, e-mail scortner@crestedbutte.net.
38th annual
crested butte arts festival
high altitude
2010
visual · performing · culinary arts saturday
july 31
originality
sunday
august 1
new this year Tate Hamilton · Painting Larry Fielder · Mixed Media
Peter Karner · Ceramics
185 Juried Artists
The CBAF incorporates the culinary arts in 2010 with a variety of gastronomic indulgences. Join us for a very special kick-off dinner featuring
five of Colorado’s hottest chefs, FIVE™ (www.denverfive.com) and enjoy five courses and five phenomenal wines on Friday, July 30th. The culinary arts permeate the festival with unique seminars like “The Art of the Martini” and “BBQ, Bourbon & Beer” plus FREE chef demonstrations and tastings in our state of the art outdoor kitchen, complete with Viking appliances and equipment.
art alley
Culinary Demo Tent
festival - historic elk avenue
Art Demo Tent Festival Art Auction Childrens Art Alley Musical Entertainment After Hours Events
Dusty Demerson photo
community outreach
A non profit organization, the CBAF enhances community life with art education and outreach programs throughout the year and by providing artists and art organizations financial assistance through our annual grant cycle.
www.crestedbutteartsfestival.org
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photo by James Ray Spahn Photography
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THE CRESTED BUTTE MUSIC FESTIVAL GETS GRASSY. By Shelley Read Listen to the breeze on any Crested Butte summer’s eve, and you are apt to hear the distant lilt of bluegrass music mingling with bubbling rivers and birdsong. Picking-circle gatherings so beloved to Butte bluegrass devotees spill onto front porches, back yards, riversides and campfire rings. Anyone with a stringed instrument or melodic voice is welcomed to the circle; children and friends dance nearby in the dust; elders clap and tap along from their lawn chairs. Bluegrass plucks at the center of your joys and sorrows, or as bluegrass “founding father” Bill Monroe said, it’s music that is “played from my heart to your heart”-- and like all things bursting with such soul and sass, Buttians simply love it. So when organizers of the celebrated Crested Butte Music Festival pondered how to diversify their offerings for the 2010 summer season and incorporate a “festival within a festival” feel, CBMF artistic and managing director Alexander Scheirle sensed adding more bluegrass was the answer. To some, the addition of a major bluegrass festival to the CBMF may seem an unusual choice. Since its 1997 inception, the CBMF has been known more for its Italian operas, chamber orchestras, jazz quintets and symphonies than its spattering of bluegrass. However, Scheirle saw an opportunity for the CBMF to please locals and visitors alike by celebrating the musical genre with such a strong local fan base. “This town really thrives on bluegrass,” says Scheirle. “It’s more than an artistic style of music to people here; it’s a whole culture. I started bluegrass festival here?” Thus was born the first annual Bluegrass in Paradise, set to debut in Mt. Crested Butte this July 9 and 10.
CrestedButteMagazine.com
photo > kevin krill
wondering, why on earth has no one started a
3
Local musical legend Drew Emmitt will host the inaugural Bluegrass in Paradise in July.
A German native and former principal cellist of the Bavarian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Scheirle had never heard of this American roots music when he moved to the United States in 2001. “I grew up with no bluegrass, so when I came here and heard it for the first time, I thought, ‘well, that’s fun,’ but it wasn’t until I really started listening to it carefully that I came to appreciate it.” He now happily embraces the irony of a classically trained European musician going grassy and chuckles, “I may be the first and only German to be running a bluegrass festival.”
photos > paul gallaher
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88 CrestedButteMagazine.com
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With Scheirle’s limited knowledge of the genre, he looked to local bluegrass marvel Drew Emmitt for assistance designing Bluegrass in Paradise. “Of course I always knew about Drew Emmitt, that he lives here in Crested Butte and is one of the better known bluegrass musicians,” says Scheirle. “I hadn’t met him before, but I knew there was no way I would consider doing a big bluegrass festival without including him in some way.” Scheirle offered Emmitt “whatever role he desired to play,” which evolved into Emmitt becoming the main consultant and official “host” of the 2010 Bluegrass in Paradise, as well as one of the headline performers. “I am so excited and honored to be a part of this festival,” says Emmitt, who is best known as founding member and mandolin player of the widely acclaimed Left Over Salmon as well as for his popular solo ventures, the Drew Emmitt Band and the Emmitt-Nershi Band. “Bluegrass is the perfect addition to the Crested Butte Music Festival, and this beautiful and inspiring place is the perfect setting.” Emmitt and Scheirle put their heads together to create a festival that would reflect Crested Butte’s character. Scheirle desired the new festival to be “very personal and a good match for the town,” as is his goal with all CBMF events. Rather than competing with Aspen and Telluride, they agreed on “a more low-key and
down-to-earth feel” for Bluegrass in Paradise. “We want locals to proudly say, this is our bluegrass festival, our lifestyle,” says Scheirle. Once the vision was in place, the pair went to work creating the best mix of bands for the festival. Topping that line-up is the legendary Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. Affectionately known as “Dr. Ralph,” Stanley has been pickin’ his banjo and singing bluegrass tenor for 55 years, has played on over 170 albums and influenced countless young musicians, Drew Emmitt among them. Also welcomed to the stage will be Bill Nershi of The String Cheese Incident, playing alongside Emmitt and other musicians from the Emmitt-Nershi Band’s celebrated 2009 release New Country Blues. The weekend rounds out with Grammy nominee Blue Highway, Telluride Band Contest winners Bearfoot, singer/songwriter Shannon Whitworth and local favorite Spring Creek Bluegrass Band. The eclectic line-up reflects Emmitt’s love for the elasticity of the bluegrass genre. Known for his innovative styles of “newgrass,” Emmitt values the wide variety of ways traditional bluegrass music can be interpreted. “One reason I love bluegrass is because it’s wide open,” says Emmitt. He points out the importance of learning from the original greats like Monroe and Stanley, but believes “once an artist has that solid foundation, there are so many ways to approach bluegrass, from traditional to progressive.” Bluegrass in Paradise will offer a “nice cross section” of styles. Scheirle and Emmitt also knew that no true-Butte festival would be complete without two other local passions: kids and group camping.
CrestedButteMagazine.com 89
The Bearfoot Bluegrass Kid’s Camp, led by members of the Alaskan band Bearfoot, will run July 6-8 for all levels of stringed instrument musicians, ages 6-17. The camp culminates with a “Fiddlin’ Kids” performance on July 8 at the base area outdoor stage. Bearfoot has taught bluegrass and folk lessons integrated with games, square dance, vocals, art and youth jam sessions to thousands of kids worldwide, including a 2007 camp in Crested Butte. Scheirle is particularly pleased with Bearfoot’s return for the inaugural Bluegrass in Paradise. “Education is such an important part of the CBMF’s mission,” he says. “In fact, I wouldn’t be doing the festival at all if there wasn’t going to be a kid’s camp included.” Kids aged 12 and under will also be welcomed to all Bluegrass in Paradise concerts free of charge. Plenty of camping will be provided for festival attendees on 17 acres adjacent to the Mt. Crested Butte town park. Emmitt suggested the two-day festival be accompanied by three days of camping to immerse festival-goers in the upper valley’s rousing setting as much as possible. The camping experience, he noted, with its easy camaraderie and spontaneous picking circles, is an integral part of any successful bluegrass gathering. “No other musical genre really has the same phenomenon as bluegrass because of all the picking that goes on,” says Emmitt. “With bluegrass, musicians speak such a common language musically and culturally. They’ll sit around the campfire all night and play. Different musicians will come and go. The first time I experienced this, it blew me away. There’s nothing quite like it.” This summer, if you detect a jovial tempo in the wind or hear a long, lonesome twang, you’ll know a circle of friends has gathered somewhere to speak from their hearts through bluegrass music. No need to just sit back and wonder what it’s like to get grassy. If the Crested Butte Music Festival can do it, so can you. Grab your instrument and your lawn chair, sing along or kick off your shoes and dance. Bluegrass in Paradise invites everyone to the circle.
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WITH ITS ENERGY INNOVATIONS, RECLAIMED MATERIALS AND DESIGN INSPIRED BY A MINER’S TALE, THE TIPPLE HOUSE IS A SHOWCASE NOT OF OSTENTATION BUT OF CHARACTER AND INGENUITY.
photo > james ray spahn
This storybook house begins with a story. Imagine a mining claim high in the Rockies back in the gold rush days.
By Sandra Cortner
The prospector builds a cabin to live in, a shed for storage, and a tipple to dump the ore. A hundred-plus years later, three people with a shared passion for history create a home at Prospect, high on the north side of Crested Butte Mountain, based on the imaginary tale. They call it the Tipple House for its distinctive mining-tipple architectural feature, and they finish it partly with boards, metal roofing and even nails reclaimed from an old mine bunkhouse. But in its energy efficiency, the home is state of the art. It all started after contractor Corbin Marr and architect Jennifer Hartman collaborated with Diane and Tim Mueller on their barn remodel south of Crested Butte, turning it into an energy-efficient home. “We had so much fun working together, we decided to do another project,” said Diane. Corbin shared his dream of incorporating history into a green spec house using CrestedButteMagazine.com 91
antique materials. In March 2007, Corbin, Diane and Jennifer found a perfect location for the home, a treed meadow in the Muellers’ Prospect subdivision that boasted 300-degree views out to the Elk Mountains. Their goals for the home, Diane said, were honoring the valley’s past of mining, ranching and skiing, making it energy efficient, and embodying the distinctive character of Crested Butte. “We wanted to do something different with the architecture,” explained Corbin. “It’s all about the details—doing more with less. Diane was important in this vision: how to make a property speak to something beyond being a beautiful home. Jennifer was more than a designer; she had a perspective on what people would want in a home.” In creating the house, the team “started out with a story,” Jennifer said. “The property is a mining claim, the garage is a shed or root cellar and the tipple is part of the mine. We wanted a sense of authenticity.” While Jennifer designed, Corbin began seeking antique lumber and old recyclable buildings, a quest that generated its own stories. After looking at buildings locally, Corbin struck pay dirt in a casual conversation with his electrician, who said, “Hey, I think my neighbor up Gold Creek above Ohio City is looking to get rid of a building.” The structure turned out to be the bunkhouse of the Gold Links mine, which had been family owned since 1880. Gold mining ceased in 1942 as the miners left to become part of the war effort. The Federal Government wanted the stamps from the mill—the heavy iron used to crush the ore—to melt down and use for making war armaments. During the extraction, the surrounding buildings were dynamited, devastating the property owners. In the last few years, though, they’d realized that the remaining structures were deteriorating, so they were open to Corbin’s offer. However, just a check and a simple contract weren’t enough to convince them that Corbin wasn’t going to wreak more havoc. First he had to pass muster with the matriarch, 95-year-old Eudora, who still summered off the grid in the old mine office. “She looked me up and down, and they checked on my reputation and required references.” She knew the weathered bunkhouse was a dilapidated liability, yet hadn’t forgotten the horror of finding the dynamited mine ruins in 1943. The 30- by 70-foot bunkhouse had a hallway down the middle and rooms on either side. A nearby outhouse could “seat” about 50 miners, estimated Corbin. The bunkhouse was in excellent condition except for rot where the drip line met the log foundation -- and the 92 CrestedButteMagazine.com
architectural photos > james ray spahn
stink of the resident rodents. “My big concern was how to get rid of the smell,” he said. First, he had to get the building from Ohio City to Prospect, more than an hour away. Throughout September 2007, during a brilliant Indian summer, “We had a tent city up there with five or six guys who had hauled up equipment and a generator, so they could spend nights while they disassembled the building board by board, saving the nails,” said Corbin. A large truck ferried wood out and supplies in. Another crew gathered granite chunks from around the mine. Crews labeled and stored about 35,000 board-feet under a giant tarp at Riverbend. “We had a treasure map made by my ironworker Brent Strauss. We’d use the map when we had to hunt under the tarp to find what we needed,” Corbin said. The bunkhouse was an uninsulated balloon frame construction. On both sides of the frame, there were two layers of one-by boards covered with tarpaper. Builders “turned the bunkhouse inside out,” Corbin said, using wood from inside the old building as the exterior board and bat siding on the new Tipple House. The rough-sawn wood still has traces of black from the tarpaper. All of the wood detailing, interior doors and framework of the Tipple House came from the bunkhouse. Rusty roof tin became wainscoting, cabinet doors and ceilings. The fireplace, entry and some walls are made of granite from the mine. Corbin found other reclaimed wood and beams to match the look of the bunkhouse after searching through 8,000 board-feet in Idaho; some came from the old Weyerhaeuser logging mill in Coos Bay, Oregon. In the master suite, with its “miner’s cabin” feel, bunkhouse siding comprises the high ceiling with its fragile dark patina. The upper walls are covered with wood from the interior of the old balloon frame. Below is conventionally framed laminated veneer lumber sandwiched between layers of antique chinked-log slabs from a mine site in Idaho. The suite sits at the end of a low, narrow, rock-walled hallway, reminiscent of a mineshaft. The walls display gold-laced
rock that had been secreted inside the bunkhouse walls and a historical photo of the Ohio City mill under construction. A “living roof” covers the rock-walled garage, giving it the “root cellar” look the designer wanted. Corbin scattered wildflower seed on the dirt roof last fall and expects to plant more flowers this summer. The tipple, built on site, houses a stairway to a cozy, glassed sitting room on top, allowing views to the north side of Crested Butte Mountain, its granite peak a twin of the garage’s rock exterior. “We wanted to make the tipple read all the way to the ground, even the lower bathroom with its interior rock wall in the shower,” Jennifer explained. The intimate scale of the four bedrooms (plus an office) and accompanying bathrooms is both true to history and true to current trends. “Smaller spaces are becoming the newer standard,” Diane said. All the old wood is unsealed and unpainted. As Jennifer pointed out, “It’s lasted 100 years already without paint. The dryness helps to maintain the wood. Corbin was careful to use it where it won’t be too exposed and it’s protected by overhangs.” And the smell? A chance discovery in Wyoming of a handcrafted beeswax and turpentine wood-finishing product, using centuries-old techniques, did the trick. The hand-buffed wood is fragrance-free and “soft as a baby’s head,” said Diane. “In another hundred years, our hope for the Tipple House is that it looks like the bunkhouse did when it was a hundred years old,” said Corbin, “handsomely weathered with a place in the landscape.” CrestedButteMagazine.com 93
HONORING THE PAST,
THE ADAPTIVE SPORTS CENTER’S
BUT GREEN FOR THE FUTURE
IN ADDITION TO USING MATERIALS RECLAIMED FROM RELATIVELY NEARBY SITES, THE TIPPLE HOUSE INCORPORATES OTHER ENERGYSAVING FEATURES, WHICH ARE BECOMING THE NORM FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION AS FINANCES ALLOW. Some of the home’s green highlights....
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94 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Two heat-recovery ventilator systems. Insulation of two-pound closed-cell spray in the exterior envelope. The interior is recycled blue jeans denim. The insulation exceeds County requirements.
Laminated veneer engineered lumber.
Efficient heat. Each room’s temperature is regulated with natural gas, hydronic infloor heat. The home is wired and plumbed for future evacuated-tube, thermal solar panels.
Walls are finished with natural straw embedded American Clay and are naturally pigmented.
No paint, stain or VOC polyurethane is used.
Most work was done on-site and/or by local craftsmen.
Prospect regulations allow a home up to 8,000 square feet; this one is just under 5,000.
Reduction of on-site waste: everything is recycled. Employees burn the wood scrap for heat in their homes.
All wood windows are double paned, of managed European spruce forest.
LED lighting.
As builder Corbin Marr says, “It’s not the fancy home on a promontory that screams out, ‘I am king of the mountain.’ It’s built to last with low maintenance.”
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CrestedButteMagazine.com 95
ENJOY the extra service and expertise that comes from a locally owned business. SUPPORT your neighbors (who might also support you).
KEEP your dollars circulating around your own backyard, strengthening your local economy. HELP keep Crested Butte full of character by preserving shops and services that are unique to our town.
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P.O. Box 1815, 313 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte, CO. 81224 970-349-5352 store • 970-349-5395 fax interiorvisionscrestedbutte.com 96 CrestedButteMagazine.com
photo > dusty demerson
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE THINK LOCAL FIRST CAMPAIGN (CREATED BY THE CRESTED BUTTE/MT. CRESTED BUTTE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE), SEE CBTHINKLOCALFIRST.COM.
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135 N. Main, Gunnison, CO 970-641-7456 CrestedButteMagazine.com 97
Summer Highlights
JUNE 1-30
5
12
13,20,27
18-20
19
June in the Rockies, valley-wide events
National Trails Day: local trail work day with CB Mountain Bike Association
Summer Variety Show, Crested Butte Mountain Theatre
CB Farmers’ Market, Elk Avenue and First Street
Crested Butte Writers Conference, Elevation Hotel & Spa
Readers in the Rockies, Elevation Hotel & Spa
23-27
24
24-27,30 25-27
26,27
26
Crested Butte Fat Tire Bike Week
Art Walk Evening, galleries in Crested Butte
“Guys & Dolls,” Crested Butte Mountain Theatre
Bridges of the Butte (24-hour townie tour) for Adaptive Sports Ctr.
Bicycle Tour of Colorado ends in Gunnison
98 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Wildflower Rush cross country and downhill bike races, Mt. CB
27 Alpenglow free concert in Town Park, Center for the Arts
clockwise starting from top left > alex fenlon > nathan bilow > alex fenlon > nathan bilow > xavier fane > rebecca weil > nathan bilow > tom stillo
JULY 1,2,3
2
3-aug.5
4
4,11, 18,25
5,12, 19,26
“Guys & Dolls,” Crested Butte Mountain Theatre
CB Mountain Heritage Museum’s Black and White Ball
Crested Butte Music Festival concerts and events
Independence Day events in CB & Mt. CB
Farmers’ Market, Elk Avenue and First Street
Alpenglow free concerts in Town Park, Center for the Arts
7,14, 21,28
8,15, 22,29
10-18
12-18
15,16
Gunnison Cattlemen’s Days
Wildflower Festival, based at Crested Butte Nordic Center
CB Land Trust Caddis Cup Fly-Fishing Tournament
15,22, 29
Public Policy Forum of Crested Butte
Live! From Mt. CB free concerts on Red Lady Stage
17,18
22-25
22,24,25 29,30,31
29
31-aug.1
Rocky Mtn. Plein Air Painters National Show, Oh-Be-Joyful Gallery
Crested Butte Land Trust Wine and Food Festival
Art Walk Evening, galleries in Crested Butte
Crested Butte Arts Festival on Elk Avenue
“Charlie Cox Runs With Scissors,” Mtn. Theatre
PowerAde Pinnacle Race Series (mountain biking, Mt. CB
CrestedButteMagazine.com 99
Summer Highlights
AUGUST 1
1,2
1-5
Crested Butte Arts Festival on Elk Avenue
Crested Butte Open golf tournament/ dinner, for Adaptive Sports
Crested Butte Music Festival
5,12, 19,26
5,12
7
26
26-29
27-29
PowerAde Pinnacle Race Series (mountain biking), Mt CB
10th Summit Hike to benefit Living Journeys. Mt. CB
Art Walk Evening, galleries in Crested Butte
“The Robber Bridegroom,” CB Mountain Theatre
Aerial Weekend (hang-gliding, paragliding), CB Soaring Society
27-29
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Offroad Handcycling Championships, Mt. Crested Butte
5th Annual Butte Bouldering Bonanza, Skyland Boulders
Live! From Mt. CB free concerts, Red Lady Stage
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1,8,15, 22,29 Farmers’ Market, Elk Avenue and First Street
2,9 Alpenglow free concerts in Town Park, by Center for the Arts
4,11, 18,25 Public Policy Forum of Crested Butte
SEPTEMBER 1-30
2-5
4,5
September Splendor in the Rockies, valley-wide
“The Robber Bridegroom,” CB Mountain Theatre
The People’s Fair (arts, crafts & more) on Elk Avenue
12,13
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20-25
Wooden Nickel Fall Golf Classic, Club at Crested Butte
CB to Gunnison MountainAir Marathon & Half Marathon
Vinotok Fall Harvest Festival
5,12, 19,26 Farmers’ Market, Elk Avenue and First Street
23-26, 30 “Moon Over Buffalo,” CB Mountain Theatre
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11,12
Fall Festival of Beers & Chili Cook-Off, Mt. Crested Butte
33rd Annual Pearl Pass Mountain Bike Tour
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Taste of Caring Dinner for GV Health Foundation, Marchitelli’s
CB Fall Colors Classic (1/2 marathon) by GV Health Foundation
30 ArtWalk Evening, galleries in Crested Butte clockwise starting from left > dusty demerson > alex fenlon > rebecca weil > nathan bilow
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Reverse the signs of aging at Colorado Laser Spa The premier laser skin therapy in the Gunnison Valley
Conveniently located in the heart of downtown Gunnison, you’ll never have to leave the valley to get the skin care you desire.
• Microdermabrasion • Dermal Fillers • Botox Cosmetic® • Chemical Peels • Laser Skin Rejuvenation • Eliminink™ Tattoo Removal • Obagi® Skin Care Line Before
After
From creating younger looking skin by minimizing wrinkles and age spots to removing unwanted tattoos, CLS is the most sophisticated cosmetic medical practice in the state, providing a complete line of skin treatments using state-of-the-art technology to provide you with beautiful, younger looking and healthier skin at little to no downtime.
Let us help you look 5 to 15 years younger. For more information or to schedule a consultation, call us at 970-641-0149 8
CrestedButteMagazine.com
www.coloradolaserspa.com
photo > xavier fane
ESTABLISHMENT
DESCRIPTION
RESERVATIONS
AD PAGE
213 GOTHIC Rustic Log Home Crested Butte
Beautiful 7-bedroom, 8-bathroom home. An ideal vacation home and great location for the whole family. Sleeps 19.
1.970.209.6376 keithpayne@yahoo.com 213third.com
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ALPINE GETAWAYS Vacation Rentals 510 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Crested Butte’s premium vacation rentals. We work with each client to provide the perfect vacation -- arranging accommodations, activities, tours and more.
1.800.260.1935 alpinegetaways.com
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CB VACATIONS Lodging and Vacation Packages Mt. Crested Butte
One-stop shopping for all of your adventures. Crested Butte Vacations can book your lodging, airfare and services for the perfect mountain vacation. The Mountain concierge at the Adventure Center can book all of your valley-wide activities.
1.800.847.6877 970.349.2222 skicb.com
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CRISTIANA GUESTHAUS Bed & Breakfast Hotel 621 Maroon Ave, PO Box 427, Crested Butte
Cozy B&B inn with European ski lodge charm. Hearty homemade Continental breakfast served fireside. Hot tub with mountain views. Private baths. Near free shuttle; walk to shops & restaurants.
1.800.824.7899 cristianaguesthaus.com email: info@cristianaguesthaus.com
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ELK MOUNTAIN LODGE Bed & Breakfast Lodge 129 Gothic Avenue, Crested Butte
Historic inn located in a residential neighborhood of downtown Crested Butte. Just two blocks off the “main street.” 19 rooms individually decorated. Some with balconies.
1.800.374.6521 elkmountainlodge.net email: info@elkmountainlodge.net
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IRON HORSE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Rental Homes Box 168, Crested Butte
Specializing in highly personalized property management and vacation rentals. Expect more.
1.888.417.4766 ironhorsecb.com
THE NORDIC INN 14 Treasury Road, PO Box 939 Mt. Crested Butte
Allen (your host since 1969) and Judy Cox welcome you to this Scandinavian-style lodge. Rooms with two double beds & private baths. Within walking distance of the ski mountain.
1.800.542.7669 nordicinncb.com email: acox@nordicinncb.com
OLD TOWN INN Hotel & Family Inn 708 6th Street, Crested Butte
The warmth of a family inn; value, convenience & amenities of a hotel. 1.888.349.6184 Home-made afternoon snacks, yummy breakfast. Rooms with two oldtowninn.net queen beds. On shuttle route, stroll to shops, restaurants & trailheads. email: info@oldtowninn.net
PEAK PROPERTY MANAGEMENT & SALES Rental Homes PO Box 2023, Crested Butte
Specializing in one to four bedroom private vacation home rentals in historic downtown Crested Butte, Mt. CB & the Club at Crested Butte (country club).
1.888.909.7325 peakcb.com email: kat@peakcb.com
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PIONEER GUEST CABINS Rustic Cabins Cement Creek, South of CB
Established in 1939, situated inside National Forest, but only 12 minutes from town. 8 clean and cozy cabins, with Cement Creek running through the property. Cabins feature fully equipped kitchens, comfy beds, fireplaces and more. Dog friendly, open year round.
970.349.5517 pioneerguestcabins.com pioneerguestcabins@gmail.com
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PR PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Rental Homes 350 Country Club Dr., 110A, Crested Butte
Large variety of private, luxury rental homes in Crested Butte, Mt. Crested Butte, the Club at Crested Butte and Meridian Lake.
1.800.285.0459 prproperty.com
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THE RUBY OF CRESTED BUTTE Luxury Bed & Breakfast 624 Gothic Ave, PO Box 3801, Crested Butte
Luxury B&B with full breakfast, private baths and concierge in historic Crested Butte. Also pampers pets with in-room dog beds, crates, home-made treats and dog-sitting service.
1.800.390.1338 therubyofcrestedbutte.com
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Perfect Vacation Rental
Inside the National Forest but only 12 minutes from Crested Butte with Cement Creek winding through the property. 8 adorable cabins with fully equipped kitchens, comfy beds, fireplaces and more! Snowshoeing, xc skiing, fishing, mtn. biking and hiking trails right from your cabin door. View cabins inside and out at
pioneerguestcabins.com 970-349-5517
OPEN YEAR ROUND
Pooches Welcome 104 CrestedButteMagazine.com
* 7 Bedrooms, 8 Baths, Sleeps 22 * Complete Gourmet Kitchen * Steps to Free Shuttle to Crested Butte Mountain Lifts * Stunning Views, 1 Block to Center of Town of CB * Sunroom, Steam Room, Library, Internet & Wireless * Location is perfect for walking to Shops, Restaurants, and the Historic Center of Town
970-349-0445 www.213third.com E-mail: rita@213third.com
The Mountain Concierge in the Adventure Center can book valley-wide activities.
Photos: Tom Stillo
Let us help you find your next adventure.
CRESTED BUTTE VACAT I O N S
We do it all, from rafting trips, horse trailrides, fishing trips, golf, tennis, and spa services, to taking care of any travel needs like lodging, airfare, car rental, and ground transfers. Our local experts are ready to help you get the most out of your Crested Butte vacation.
(970)349-2222
ridecb.com
Inspire your passion.
TM
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photo > xavier fane
Ad Page
Take Out
Catering
Televisions/Sports
Outdoor Dining
Private Parties
Live Entertainment
Full Bar
Late Night 10pm >
Happy Hour Specials
PRICE COURSE
Children’s Menu
CUISINE
Reservations
ESTABLISHMENT 9380 PRIME • 251-3030 Elevation Hotel, Mt. Crested Butte
This slopeside restaurant features 2 dining venues: 9380, the casual choice, and Prime for fine dining. 9380 is your breakfast, lunch and apres-ski spot, with convenient firepit and outdoor bar. Prime opens at night for contemporary dining.
$7-39
BACCHANALE • 349-5257 209 Elk Ave. Downtown
Italian. Delicious, casual Italian cuisine with marvelous entrees such as veal parmigiana, fra diavolo, or cannelloni for your main dish. Many meatless selections. Extensive appetizer menus and kid’s menu. Happy hours with tapas.
$12-32 Dinner Bakery
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DJANGO’S • 349-7574 Courtyard of Mountaineer Square, Mt. Crested Butte
Now gaining national attention, this culinary adventure introduces guests to a seasonal menu of globally inspired small plates. With an extensive wine list, courtyard dining and weekly live music, you won’t want to miss it.
$6-19
Brunch Dinner
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DONITA’S CANTINA • 349-6674 4th & Elk in Crested Butte
Mexican. Down-to-earth eatery specializing in good food, ample portions, fun service. Fabulous fajitas, enchanting enchiladas, bueno burritos. Local favorite for over 30 years; casual atmosphere.
$4-24
Dinner
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EASTSIDE BISTRO • 349-9699 435 6th Street, Crested Butte
Fine Dining. Upscale casual neighborhood bistro. Our menu evolves seasonally & represents the eclectic, creative, sophisticated visions of our passion for food, using locally fresh
$10-35 Brunch Dinner
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Breakfast Lunch Dinner
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ingredients & prepared with innovative, contemporary style.
GINGER CAFE • 349-7291 425 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Using only the freshest local organic produce & natural meats to bring you the finest, tastiest Pan-Asian cuisine. Specialty cocktails include our mango-ginger mojito & fresh ginger martini with house infused vodka.
$7-20
Lunch Dinner
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LAST STEEP • 349-7007 208 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Sandwiches/soup/salads. Casual family dining, relaxing atmosphere. Affordable menu with Caribbean island flair; Cajun chicken pasta, curry shrimp & coconut salad, artichoke-cheddar soup in bread bowl.
$5-16
Lunch Dinner
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LIL’S • 349-5457 321 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Sushi bar & grill. Crested Butte’s original sushi bar serving great seafood, steaks and surf & turf entrees, as well as options for the little ones. In Historic Downtown.
$4-28
Dinner
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LOBAR • 349-0480 Downstairs at 3rd & Elk Crested Butte
Eclectic dining. people rave about our sushi, but we’ve introduced a new casual bistro menu, fish tacos to crack fries! Free kids’ meals 5-6 p.m. On weekends, the Lobar transforms into CB’s only nightclub with live music, karaoke, DJs & more.
$8-32
Dinner
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Italian. Offering generations of family recipes in a cozy, relaxed MARCHITELLI’S GOURMET atmosphere. The menu features unique pasta-sauce combos, NOODLE • 349-7401 traditional and regional Italian, seafood, veal and elk. 411 Third Street, Crested Butte Reservations recommended.
$6-30
Dinner
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MAXWELLS • 349-1221 226 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Fine Dining. CB’s newest steakhouse. HDTVs for watching the games. Hand-cut steaks, seafood, pastas, lamb, pork, burgers, salads, appetizers, kids’ menu. Extensive wines & beers.
$7-31
Dinner
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MCGILL’S • 349-5240 228 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Old-Fashioned soda fountain. With malts, shakes, sundaes, banana splits, libations; home-cooked breakfasts and lunches prepared to order. Historic locale, casual atmosphere.
$4-15
Breakfast Lunch
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RYCE ASIAN BISTRO • 349-9888 120 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese dishes along with premium vodka and sake concoctions in our full bar. Born from more than 40 combined years of restaurant experience, Ryce brings the best of the far East to the high country.
$5-20
Lunch Dinner
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Skillet-fried chicken and steak dinners served family-style. The SLOGAR • 349-5765 2nd & Whiterock, Crested Butte toughest part is deciding what tastes the best: mashed potatoes,
$16-26 Dinner
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WOODEN NICKEL • 349-6350 222 Elk Avenue, Crested Butte
$7-40
Dinner
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fresh biscuits, creamed corn, chutney, steak, chicken.
Steaks, prime rib, king crab. Known for the best steaks in town. USDA Prime cuts of beef, Alaska King crab, ribs, pork and lamb chops, grilled seafood, burgers, chicken fried steak and buffalo burgers.
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Dinner Nightly 349-7401 108 CrestedButteMagazine.com
Irresistibly Italian Downtown Crested Butte
9380 is the slopeside breakfast, lunch, and dinner dining destination. The sundeck is the perfect place for lunch or après hiking and biking.
Photo: Tom Stillo
SLOPESIDE – ELEVATION HOTEL & SPA
(970)251-3030
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Italian Dining
BEST outdoor patio, serving the FRESHEST food + most INNOVATIVE cocktails you can find in town. OPEN 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. EVERY DAY 425 ELK AVENUE 970 349 7291 reservations recommended
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Wild Pacific Salmon Local Organic Steaks Homemade Italian Specialties, Soups, Salads & Desserts Nightly Specials Progressive Wine List Large Groups Welcome To Go Menu & Take Away Dinner Parties Dinner Nightly Happy Hours 5-6 & 8-9pm with Tapas & Drink Specials Come check out our NEW bakery!
209 Elk Avenue Downtown Crested Butte 349-5257 www.bacchanale.net
Family Style Chicken & Steak Dinners Your Dinner Menu:
Assorted Relish Tray Fresh Baking Powder Biscuits Savory Sweet & Sour Cole Slaw Homemade Mashed Potatoes Whole Kernel Corn in Cream Sauce Hearty Chicken Gravy Honey Butter
DINNER NIGHTLY 5 PM TO 9 PM RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED (970) 349-5765 LOCATED AT 2ND & WHITEROCK
One-half Skillet Fried Chicken, Steak or Vegetarian Entree Home Style Ice Cream Coffee, Tea or Milk
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photo by > nathan bilow
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WHETSTONE WOODWORKS
Custom Residential & Commercial cabinetry | furniture | doors 970.349.9663
ranger ipa is brewed by new belgium brewing fort collins co
They protect. They pour. They partake. They are the many and the only New Belgium Beer Rangers. We salute their efforts in the field with the extra-hopinary Ranger IPA. Three pounds per barrel of Simcoe, Chinook and Cascade hops make this 70 IBU brew a thing of natural beauty. Seek out the Beer Ranger in your territory at newbelgium.com.